Notes and Queries for Worcestershire

Dissenting Chapels and Meeting Houses.

In the first year of William and Mary an act was passed "For exempting Protestant Dissenters from penalties of certain laws, on condition only that meeting-houses should be certified to the Bishop or Archdeacon or Justices at Quarter Sessions." In 1693 (the first year of the Sessions order book) "The wallhouse in the parish of Hanbury, and in the possession of Dame Ann Rouse," was certified to be "a meeting-house according to ye new Act of Parliament." Also "a house adjoining the foldyard of Mr. Blick, at Bromsgrove." 1695. The house of Henry Hanson, of Grafton Flyford, a place for religious worship. 1696. The house of John Emes, Bishampton, a meeting-house for dissenting Protestants. 1697. The house of John Scott, of Stourbridge, and the house of William Dugard, of Dodderhill. 1700. The house of Humfrey Potter, of Bromsgrove. 1702. Samuel Windle (place of residence not stated) "upon petition is allowed to have ye word of God preached in his house;" and a house at Dudley licensed on the petition of John Stokes. 1703. Ordered that "The house of Peter Payton, at Tenbury, be set apart for the worship of God for dissenters from ye church, according to the prayer of a petition for ye p'pose." 1704. The house of Mary Greene, widow, in Little Witley, called the New-house; and the house of John Sparry, at Belbroughton. 1705. Dwelling-houses of Henry Hunt, Cradley; James Thompson and William Tilt, Bromsgrove; Thomas Taylor, Hartlebury; and John Taylor, Chaddesley. 1715. House of Samuel Cater, Stourbridge; and of Jos. Harrison, Thomas Reynolds, John Reynolds, Mary Payton, and Arthur Radnall, of Bewdley; also that of John Carpenter, jun., Bromsgrove. 1720. The house of Richard Windle, Inkberrow. 1723. The house of Ann Thomas, of Pershore, "licensed for Anabaptists." 1733. House of John Harris, of Birlingham; and "a newly-erected house at Upton mentioned in the certificate of R. Baskerville and Thomas Skey;" also "the house at Bewdley wherein Thomas Watson and William Carter now dwell." 1735. Ordered, "That the barn and court-yard thereto belonging, now in the occupation of John Williams, at Tenbury, be licensed for Quakers." 1744. The house of Thomas Baker, at Himbleton, licensed for Baptists; and that of William Sadler, at Halesowen, for ditto. 1757. House of Joshua Kettleby, Church Street, Kidderminster, for Anabaptists; and in 1760, that of James Hill Baker, Black Star Street, Kidderminster, for Presbyterians. 1773. A tenement at Bartley Green, Northfield, licensed for dissenters; and a building in the occupation of G. Parsons, Mill Street, Stourbridge; also "a chapel lately erected in the hamlet of Westencot, Bredon, certified as a place of religious worship for Baptists." 1787. The house of John Harwood, of Moseley, licensed for Baptists; and one at Birmingham occupied by Benjamin Bedford, for Protestant dissenters; also the house of William Purser, at Welland; a Baptist meeting-house in New Street, Dudley; and a building in Mill Street, Evesham. In the year 1791, Robert Berkeley of Spetchley, T. Hornyold the younger of Blackmore Park, John Baynham of Purshall Hall, clerk, Thomas Parker of Heath Green, Beoley, and Mary Williams, of Little Malvern, subscribed certificates that they had set apart rooms in their respective houses for Roman Catholic worship. 1792. A building in Gilson's Lane, Blockley, certified for dissenters. 1796. Andrew Robinson, clerk, of Grafton Manor, set apart a room for Roman Catholic worship; and Richard Cornthwaite, clerk, of Harvington Hall, Chaddesley, ditto ditto.

The Civil Wars.

The year 1643, so distressing to the city of Worcester, when a great portion of the heavy levies on the citizens, for defence against the Parliament army, could not be raised, was nearly to the same extent a cause of pecuniary embarrassment to the county at large. At the April Sessions of 1643 the grand jury ordered "that the £3000 ordered last Sessions to be paid monthly towards the payment of his majesty's forces sent and raised for the defence of this county be continued till next Sessions, and paid over by John Baker, gen. collector to Sir William Russell, High Sheriff of the county and Governor of the city." But considerable difficulty appears to have been experienced in the collection. Here follows a picture of those critical times, worth preserving:

"Articles" were "exhibited" (that is, an information was laid) in the year 1655, against Walter Moyle, of Ombersley, yeoman, for being a profane man, and for that "one day he publicly drank the health of the devil, and fell down as one dead, to ye amazement and terrour of ye beholders; and that in the time of the late war he did threaten his neighbours, when the king's forces were in rendevouze at Oddingley Heath, with plunder unlesse they would repaire in armes to that randezvooze."

On the 5th of October, 1685, John Bartlam, of Whitbourne, laid an information that "in hay harvest last (before this neighbourhood heard that Monmouth was routed), this informant, riding upon the road near Knightsford bridge, there met a man that tould him that Monmouth was then the head man in England, and that it was in every man's mouth in Worcester, and that any man might speak it, and that he would proclaim it at Knightsford bridge (as he had at Broadheath, Martley, and other places, as he came along), although it was so near Captain Clent's; and that if any one questioned it he would be at Knightsford bridge to answer it; that his name was Kent, and he lived in Powick's Lane, Worcester." In 1687, Thomas Knight, of Castlemorton, was summoned to appear at the Sessions, and to give evidence against Charles Jakeman for drinking the Duke of Monmouth's health.

A Traveller's Passport.

The following document, included among the rolls, is dated 1680, from Whitehall:

If the above refers to the celebrated Lady Mary Yate (a daughter of the house of Pakington) who is commemorated on a monument in Chaddesley Church as having died in 1696, at the age of 86, she must have been 70 years old when these precautions were taken by the Government against the poor old lady attempting to invade the country or to comfort the Pope with her presence and support. Dame Mary Yate was no doubt a Roman Catholic, and the permission above referred to was granted under the 7th section of the statute 3rd James I, chap. 5, which was virtually repealed by the statute 43rd George III, chap. 30, which exempted Roman Catholics from all the penalties and restrictions mentioned and enjoined in the older acts, if in one of the Courts at Westminster or at the Quarter Sessions they made a declaration which to them was unobjectionable.

Bridges and Highways.

Upton bridge seems to have been a nuisance to the county ever since the time of the Civil Wars, when one of its arches was destroyed for purposes of defence. Frequent complaint was made of its dilapidations, and in 1757 the Sessions ordered that a frigate should be bought "for carrying workmen, stone, and other purposes, about the said repairs." Mr. Sheward was appointed superintendent of the said bridge in 1775, at the salary of one guinea a year.

A presentment was made in 1661, that "the causeways and horse bridges leading from the city of Worcester to London, and towards the city of Gloucester, which ought, as wee humbly conceave, to be mayntayned and repaired by the Dean and Chapter, are very defective and out of repaire." About five years later the capitular body were again presented "for not repairing a certain causeway leading from a certain messuage called or known by the name of ye Three Crowns, St. Peter's, to a place called Red Hill Cross, in the said parish, and soe from thence to a place called Whitton Pound, thence to a place called Staple Cross in the parish of Norton, being the London road, and likewise one other causeway leading from the newly-erected inn called ye White House, through the parish of St. Peter's, at a place called Clarken Lipp, in the parish of Kempsey, being the road leading to Bristol." And for the third time, in 1689, the Dean and Chapter were presented "for not repairing their causeways from outside Sidbury gate to the further end of Clarkenlip, upon ye Gloster road." In the Townsend Manuscript (elsewhere alluded to) it is recorded that "by virtue of a commission dated March, 1652, out of Chancery for charitable uses, the Commissioners sat on the 12th January, 1653, and by the oaths of 12 men on the inquiry, did order and decree that the several manors and lands of the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral Church of Worcester were charged by way of repriz. for the payment of £40 yearly towards the repayres of the several highways therein expressed, and should so continue for ever. The like for £106. 13s. 4d. for 40 poor schollers of the grammar school at the Colledg unto every of them four marks per annum, the high master 40 marks, the under master 10 marks, £52. 10s. per ann. towards ye releefe of ten poore old men, and £40 yerely to the poore of Worcester and St. Michael's, by 7s. 3d. in money and 7s. 8d. in bread to be distributed weekly; and it was ordered, 3 June, 10 Car., for the Clerk of the Peace to see the £40 for the Dean and Chapter to be imployed for the use of the causeys, one from Worcester to Redhill Cross, and the other towards Kempsey, and he to pay the same to the surveyors." The Dean and Chapter were liable to repair these roads ratione tenuræ, that is by reason of their being the owners of certain lands. These roads are now repaired by the turnpike tolls; but if the tolls became inadequate, and the Dean and Chapter were before liable to the repair, they would still continue to to be so now.

The Plague.

Redditch is stated as having been visited with this scourge in 1625, when the poor people being thrown out of work, it was ordered, under the statute of 1st James I, that Bromsgrove pay 12s. per week, Belbroughton 6s., Cofton Hackett 1s., Northfield 4s., Kingsnorton 9s., Alvechurch 5s., Beoley 6s., Feckenham 7s., Inkberrow 5s., Stoke Prior 4s., Upton Warren and Cookesey 3s. towards the relief of the said poor.

Theatres.

Were somewhat numerous in the county towards the close of the last century. It is recorded in 1789, that, "upon the application of John Boles Watson, of Cheltenham, comedian, ordered that a licence be granted for the performance of such tragedies, comedies, interludes, operas, plays, or farces, as now are or hereafter shall be acted, performed, or represented at either of the patent or licenced theatres in the city of Westminster, or shall have been submitted to the inspection of the Lord Chamberlain of the King's household for the time being, in the town of Stourbridge for the space of sixty days." William Meill, of Worcester, comedian, who in 1794 held the theatres of Worcester, Wolverhampton, Ludlow, Shrewsbury, and Stourbridge, obtained similar licences for Bromsgrove and Malvern.

Compositions to the King's Household.

On the 20th of November, 1613, a certificate was sent down from Whitehall to "our very loving friends, the Justices of the Peace and compounders for the county of Worcester," which, after the usual "heartey commendations," &c., set forth that "Thomas Gunner, his Majesty's servant, under-tacker for the countie of Worcester, hath delivered for the service of his Majestie and his most hon. house, for the compost of the 11th yere of his Highnes raigne, 20 fatt oxen, 20 fatt muttons, 20 stirks, and 40 lambs, all good and serviceable, and soe wee bid you heartily farewell." There were two certificates in the year 1640—the one "that Thomas Hill, your undertaker for the composition of lambes, hath, on behalfe of the country, delivered into the office of his Majesty's Poultry at the Court, the full number of 150 lambes," due for the year ending the last day of September; and the other, for 20 fat oxen, 200 fat muttons, and 20 stirks, due for the year ending the last day of December. Nash states that the purveyance for this county in 1660 was—20 oxen, or a composition of £4 a head, to be paid June 16th; 200 muttons, or 6s. 8d. a head, paid July 10th; 150 lambs, or 1s. a head, August 15th; and 20 stirks, or 10s. a head, October 8th.

These compositions arose out of the prerogative of purveyance. Mr. John Bruce, F.S.A., in his "Verney Papers," published by the Camden Society (p. 86), says:

The powers of purveyance having been suspended during the time of the Commonwealth, Charles II at his Restoration consented to resign entirely these branches of his revenue and power, and they were abolished by the statute 12th Charles II, chap. 24, Parliament granting him in lieu an excise duty on beer and ale of 15d. a barrel and a proportionate sum for other liquors. But temporary acts were subsequently passed suspending this statute in favour of the King's royal progresses, and in favour of the navy and ordnance.

Worcestershire Manuscripts.

THE DINELEY MANUSCRIPTS.

Among the valuable manuscripts in existence relating to this county are the Dineley, Jeffries, and Townsend, besides those of Dr. Prattenton, now in possession of the Society of Antiquaries. To preserve these, with a view to publication, should be an object of solicitude to all literary men of the county. The Dineley Manuscripts (now in the possession of Sir T. E. Winnington, Bart., M.P.) consist of three volumes, written between 1670 and 1680 by Thomas Dineley, Esq., a member of one of the oldest Worcestershire families. One of the volumes contains accounts of his visits to many churches in this county as also to adjacent towns and about a dozen cathedrals; pen and ink sketches of monuments, coats of arms, dresses, &c., many of them exquisitely done; copies of inscriptions, both quaint and curious; tracings of pedigrees, &c.; showing the compiler to have been a gentleman well versed in ecclesiastical antiquities, a classical scholar, acquainted with heraldry, and an accurate draughtsman. The second volume is entitled "Observations in a Voyage in the Kingdom of France, being a collection of several monuments, inscriptions, draughts of towns, &c."—date 1675; and the latter part of this volume is devoted to a similar description of Ireland, with a curious dissertation on the manners and customs of the Irish. The filthy habits of that people in the seventeenth century are treated of in rather broad language, not adapted for the present day. The third volume has the following title: "The Jovrnall of my Traveils through the Low-Countreys, Anno D'ni 1674." It appears that in December, 1671, Mr. Dineley went in the suite of "Sir G. Downing, Knt. and Bart., Ambassador from his most sacred Ma'tie to ye States Generall of the United Provinces." His journal is written in a minute but beautiful caligraphy, and denotes habits of judicious observation. In his notice of the town of Dort, in Holland, he alludes to the great abundance of salmon, and mentions a custom which I had long thought was by no means confined to our own city of Worcester: he observes, "It is sayd that prentices and maid servants, before they enter into service, indent not to be oblig'd to eat salmon above twice a week;" and in his account of the Irish (chapter on Limerick) Mr. Dineley alludes to a "salmon weire, out of town, having a castle without timber or nayle, in the middle of the river," where the custom was "to grant tickets for salmon gratis to all strangers who will eat them upon the place; this the corpora'con is obliged to, though they set it for £200 per ann." In some commonplace notes at the end of the volume is the following entry:

There is another of Mr. Dineley's volumes in the collection of the Duke of Beaufort, at Badminton; it describes a tour through Wales with the President of the Marches, an ancestor of the Duke's. It is mentioned in Blakeway's History of Shrewsbury.

THE JEFFRIES MANUSCRIPTS.

Henry Jeffries (who died in 1709), the last heir male and proprietor of the manor of Clifton-on-Teme, was a man of some learning, and left a manuscript memorandum book in which he had jotted down his own observations de omnibus rebus, and generally in so easy and familiar a way as to render them agreeable as well as instructive. This relic likewise belongs to Sir Thomas Winnington, one of whose ancestors married the heiress of the Jeffries family about a century and a half ago. Specimens of its multifarious contents are given in vol. ii of "The Rambler in Worcestershire," from which they appear to be invested with great local interest to the neighbourhood of Clifton, Stanford, and Shelsey, as also to the general antiquary.

DIARY OF MISTRESS JOYCE JEFFRIES.

There is also a Manuscript Diary of Miss Joyce Jeffries in the possession of Sir T. Winnington. The diary contains an account of the state of domestic life among the upper classes, during the reign of Charles I, in the counties of Worcester and Hereford, and relates to Ham Castle, in the parish of Clifton-on-Teme, where this lady resided, and the siege of the city of Hereford, where she also possessed a residence, during the calamities of civil war. It is hoped that the Manuscript will be published, and no one can be found more able for the task of editor than the Rev. J. Webb, of Tretire, near Ross, who has already published a most valuable work, of local as well as general interest, on the Household Roll of Bishop Swinfield of Hereford, of which I have given an abstract further on.

Mistress Joyce Jeffries was the half-sister of Humphrey Coningsby, Esq., of Neen Sollers, a gentleman remarkable for his chivalrous enterprise as a traveller in the reign of James I. This autograph account book embraces a period of nine years, and embodies many curious particulars bearing upon the events, persons, and manners of the age, also setting forth the writer as the representative of a class now only to be seen in family pictures of the time. She lived unmarried, had an income of more than £500 per annum, in the expenditure of which she was very generous. Her dress was costly; she employed false curls and curling irons, wore many rings, used spectacles, and carried a whistle suspended at her girdle by a yard of loop black lace—probably for a little dog. A Cypress cat was given her by the Lady Dansey of Brinsop, and she kept a throstle in a twiggen cage. She had many god-children, to one of whom (Mistress Eliza Acton) she gave £800 as a marriage portion. Madam Jeffries kept several servants, and went abroad in a coach drawn by two mares. She was very observant of the festivals and ceremonies of the church, and contributed to the wassell of the hinds when they lighted their twelve fires, and made the fields resound with their revelry; and on Valentine's Day gave Tom Aston, Dick Gravell, or any other male, a present in money for coming to be her Valentine. She sent the mayor a present of ten shillings on his law-day, and on one occasion dined with him, when the waits were in attendance, to whom she gave money; and she was generous to travelling minstrels and showmen, as "to a boy that did sing like a blackbird," "to Cherlickcombe and his jackanapes," and "to a man that had the dancing horse at the Hereford Midsummer fair." As to what befell her in the troubled time of the Civil War, the book passes from the year 1638 to the end of 1647, during which England toiled and suffered under intestine strife. No county was more loyal to the royal cause than that of Hereford. In 1638, Mrs. Jeffries pays ship-money and another impost called "the king's provision," and finds a soldier for her property in Hereford and elsewhere. In 1641 she purchases pamphlets and news-books and takes an interest in passing political events. In September, 1642, when the Earl of Essex entered Worcester, and sent the Earl of Stamford to occupy Hereford, she quitted her town house and went to Garnons, the residence of Mr. Geers, a few miles distant, thinking she would be there in security; but in the plundering which took place by the Earl of Stamford's soldiers, immediately upon their arrival, the house of Mr. Geers was visited and pilfered by Captain Hammond, who carried off much goods, including her two bay coach mares. At the same time she had other property secreted and saved in other places. The Parliamentarians having left the city in December, it was reoccupied by the Royalists, and her friend and cousin, Fitzwilliam Coningsby, was made Governor; when, besides her regular assessment, she sent him a present of £50 to pay his soldiers, and a bullock worth £6. In the spring of 1643 he marched with the rest of the commissioners of the county and the Herefordshire levies to join the little army of Lord Herbert of Raglan, at Highnam near Gloucester, where they were all captured by Sir William Waller. Hereford continued unmolested till the month of April, and Mistress Jeffries returned for a few days to her house, but the report of the Parliamentarians coming once more to assail the city under the command of that general drove her once more to her retreat. Her house at Widemarsh Gate suffered during his attack on the city, but she remained in quiet at Garnons until April, 1644. As the county was now seriously disturbed by the contending parties she suddenly took flight again, visiting Hereford for the last time, and carrying off her trunks and chests and servants to Ham Castle, the seat of her cousin Jeffries, on the banks of the Teme, on the edge of the county of Worcester. Soldiers were still quartered in her house at Hereford, and she pays for work done in making bulwarks to defend the city. At length, in 1645, when the whole of the suburbs were laid bare up to the walls by order of the governor, Colonel Barnabas Scudamore, her new house and several others her property without Widemarsh Gate were pulled down. She takes this as a matter of course, without comment upon the hardship of the proceeding, and upon all occasions shows a cheerful and contented mind. In many other respects she felt the effects of the war, and symptoms of them frequently appear in her accounts. She contributed to the lecturers introduced into the churches; her cousin's child was "baptised after the new directory;" and the committee men laid their hands on her property and straitened her means, though she still persevered in the unwearied exercise of humanity and in bestowing her charity on others. As she advances in years her accounts exhibit a trait or two of her approaching infirmities: she loses various small articles of value—spectacles and rings, which her servants find and bring to her, and are rewarded accordingly; and the recurrence of this excites some suspicion of their knavery. The death of her cousin Herbert Jeffries, at Ham Castle, in consequence of his breaking his leg, disturbed her tranquillity, and is described with melancholy minuteness. Age seems to have neither abated her generous feeling nor the ardour of her domestic affections. She was always interested in those events which usually bring joy to families and occasional entries in our parochial registers. The union of Miss Acton, her goddaughter, with Mr. Francis Geers, and a christening that took place at Ham Castle a very short time before her death (the child receiving her own Christian name), was to her a source of infinite pleasure. She went on, "giving" to some and "forgiving" others, to the close of her beneficent career. She died in April, 1648, and was buried in the chancel of the parish church of Clifton-on-Teme, where her memory is still revered by those to whom her existence and character are known.

THE TOWNSEND MANUSCRIPTS.

One of the Townsend Manuscripts is in the possession of Mr. G. E. Roberts, of Kidderminster. It is an interleaved copy of "The Compleat Justice. London, 1661," in octavo; and consists of 420 pages letterpress, and 470 in manuscript. It is well bound in calf, with initials of the Knight ("H. T.") impressed on sides, and autograph on fly-leaf. Sir Henry's aim may have been to render it a book of legal reference, as upon one of the first leaves he gives a key to a great part of the Manuscript in a list of authorities quoted. But amongst them exists much matter of a more interesting nature. The following list of the more valuable mems. will afford an idea of their character.

The original Diary of Mr. Henry Townsend, of Elmley Court, Worcestershire, for 1640-2, 1656-61, is in the possession of Sir T. Phillipps, Bart., and has been recommended to the Camden Society to be edited by Mrs. Mary Ann Everett Green, whose intention, I believe, it is to do so this year (1856).

VACARIUS' ROMAN LAW.

A Manuscript was recently discovered in the Worcester Chapter library, which is believed to be unique in this country—at least there is no record of any similar one having ever been found here—it is Vacarius's Epitome of the Roman law. A description of this valuable manuscript was recently published in the "Legal Examiner" by Mr. Hastings, barrister-at-law, of Worcester. Vacarius was a celebrated Italian doctor of law, a native of Lombardy, who it is supposed was brought to this country by Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, and became professor of law at Oxford, in the reign of Stephen. There he introduced the study of the Roman law, just then reviving throughout Europe, after the discovery of the Pandects at Amalfi; there also he wrote his famous work, comprising an epitome of the whole Roman law, for the use of his very numerous pupils. At length, either through jealousy or Papal influence, he was forbidden to lecture, was banished from the University, and his books ordered to be destroyed. It is supposed that he himself took holy orders and retired to a monastery. Although his numerous pupils, on leaving Oxford, had each, no doubt, for the most part secured a copy for themselves, no record exists of one having ever been found in England during the seven centuries which succeeded, so effectual was the royal mandate for their destruction. The only instance in which Vacarius is known to be mentioned by any of our legal writers is by Blackstone, who merely states the fact of the introduction of the civil law into England by such a personage, and for a long time Vacarius was thought to be nothing more than a mythological embodiment of the introduction of Roman law into this country. On the continent the only four copies of his work known to be in existence are deposited in the libraries of Konigsberg, Prague, and Bruges, and one in the possession of the Emperor of Russia. Great search has been made in our public libraries, and those of the cathedrals especially, as it was thought that had any copies survived the order for their destruction, they would have been stored in the monasteries, and from thence been transferred to our cathedrals at the Reformation; but the inquiry was entirely unsuccessful until a few months ago, when a copy was found in the Worcester Chapter library, concealed under the name of the "Code of Justinian." Every reasonable proof of its identity has been given, although the title is missing. It is otherwise in good preservation, and beautifully written and illuminated. It need not be added how valuable the manuscript is as a monument of the first introduction of the Roman law into England after the Norman Conquest. The manuscript should be preserved, newly bound, and the missing portions supplied by copying from one of the other existing manuscripts. Then some enterprising publisher should give it to the world in English (as Mr. Bohn has done for the Norman and Saxon Chronicles).

ABINGTON'S MANUSCRIPT.

Mr. Cadby, bookseller, of 83, New Street, Birmingham, recently advertised for sale "Some Memoirs relating to the Church and City of Worcester, collected by one of the Ancient Family of the Abingtons, which came to the hands of Robert Dobyns, late of Easbath, and now of the City of Hereford, Esq., who, out of the Love he bears to the said Church and City where he was Born and Baptised, transmitted this Copy to the Library at Worcester, there to be kept, supposing the original to be lost in the late Civill Warrs; small folio, old vellum, neatly written in contracted German characters, about the period of Elizabeth and James I, 143 pp., 20 Guineas. The original could not be found when the above was bequeathed, nor has it been heard of since; consequently this is the only one in existence, and must now take the place of the original." I have not myself seen this Manuscript, but a friend informs me that it wears the appearance of genuineness. After referring to Worcester in connection with Roman times, its possession by the Wiccian Kings is spoken of, and then the foundation of the bishopric in A.D. 680. Year by year it records the events in the history of the bishopric up to 1486, which is the last date. Some reference is also made to the city, but the bishopric and its various prelates occupy most of the book. The chief towns and villages in the county are also referred to.

BISHOP SWINFIELD'S ROLL.

"A roll of the household expenses of Richard de Swinfield, Bishop of Hereford, during part of the years 1289 and 1290." This valuable Manuscript was discovered about forty years ago by Dr. Prattinton, of Bewdley, among the muniments at Stanford Court, the seat of Sir T. E. Winnington, Bart. Dr. Prattinton made an abstract of it, which he presented, with his other Worcestershire papers, to the Society of Antiquaries; but it was not till the year 1853 that the roll was edited and published, when the Rev. John Webb, of Tretire, undertook the task, and by his extensive research in mediæval history has succeeded in converting the meagre materials of the roll—presenting as it does nearly the earliest picture of English life in existence—into a most interesting detail of the character and events, the manners and customs of the thirteenth century, so as to attract considerable notice among antiquaries. The work was printed in two volumes, in 1853 and 1854, for the Camden Society; and as some portions of the Bishop's itinerary through his diocese is connected with Worcestershire I shall make a few extracts and comments thereon:—

Salt was purchased by the Bishop's household (when at Colwall) from Worcester, and supplied from the pits at Droitwich. His lordship's cook also made purchases at Worcester, (having been sent from Colwall for the purpose), and a large supply of ware in cups, plates, and dishes, was laid in against the Paschal entertainment at Colwall; so that this city, it would seem, was famous even six centuries ago for the manufacture of table ware, though composed of a different material from that which has rendered its products celebrated in the present day. Here also the prelate sent for a new bridle and saddle, on which Mr. Webb remarks—"Worcester might then have been, what it certainly in after times has been, more advanced than Hereford in the arts of life." The Bishop had some land in this county and a house in the city of Worcester.

The editor notices the prolific vines that cover the cottages in the counties of Worcester, Gloucester, and Hereford. Bishop Swinfield's vineyard at Ledbury yielded seven pipes of white wine and nearly one of verjuice in the autumn of 1289. Bristol was the great mart for foreign wine, and the custom was to send a "squire" to make the purchase there and accompany the cargo up the Severn home, to prevent the malpractices of boatmen, who it seems were as much inclined to "suck the monkey" in those days as at present. The wine was usually landed at Upton and thence conveyed by land carriage to Bosbury, where was the Bishop's favourite residence. No mention is made of Herefordshire cider in that century, nor is the date of its introduction known.

John de Kemesye, the Bishop's steward and treasurer (and the writer of this roll), belonged to a good family who took their name from the village of Kempsey, four miles south of Worcester. Walter of that name was instituted to the vicarage of Lindridge in July, 1277, and presented, in November, 1292, by the convent of Worcester, to the church of St. Martin, in the same city. Thomas de Kemesye was the abbot of Tewkesbury who received the benediction from Godfrey Giffard, Bishop of Worcester, on Trinity Sunday, 1282. The Bishops of Worcester had a palace at Kempsey, at which Henry II held his Court, and Simon de Montfort, with his royal prisoner, Henry III, lodged previously to the battle of Evesham. The writer of this roll was long remembered in the church of Kempsey, where he founded a chantry well endowed for masses at the altar of the blessed Virgin, for his welfare in life, his own soul, those of his parents and benefactors, and of all the faithful departed. He left rents for a taper to burn before her altar, and in his grants for these purposes took special heed to secure the respectability of such as should officiate at these services, by regulations drawn up with the minutest care.

In the year 1275 two questions respecting church property in the county of Worcester came under the decision of trial by combat: one on June 25th, in Hardwick Meadow, for the church of Tenbury, which was adjusted, after all, without duel, in favour of the Abbot of Lyra; a second, on July 9th, was for the bailiwick of Hembury (Hanbury?) and here the Bishop of Worcester's champion vanquished the champion of Philip de Stok. The Bishop of Hereford likewise kept a champion in his suite, who received regular wages; and when Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, laid claim to the chase on the western slopes of the Malvern range, the Bishop's representative was prepared to do battle in the lists if need were; but a jury, composed of men drawn from the counties of Worcester and Hereford, decided in favour of the church, and a trench of separation between the two possessions was made by the disappointed Earl along the ridge of the hill, where it remains a memorial of the contest to the present day.

Foresters were in general an impudent and abandoned race. Those of Feckenham, where the king had a palace or hunting seat, incurred his particular displeasure by their depredations. He dealt summarily with them in the spring of 1289-90, when he progressed there, by committing some of them to prison, and some he fined. On April 2nd he admitted all the latter to bail to appear at Woodstock by the 5th of that month, in Easter week, and there he fixed their fines. In the following autumn they insulted the Prior of Worcester, near Herforton (Harvington?) as he was travelling along the road, robbed his servants of their bows and arrows, and sounded their horns on all sides against him. But the monk of Worcester who narrates this circumstance does not tell us what may be learned elsewhere, and was perhaps one cause of the insult, that his own Prior had been a trespasser in the said forest, and was fined for it. The Bishop of Worcester also was a trespasser, and paid 500 while the Prior paid 200 marks. (See further account of this in vol. iii, p. 149, of the "Rambler in Worcestershire.") In case of trespass by hunting or border hostility the foresters and others used to shout and blow their horns, to bring in the country to their aid. Hence the northern border tenure of cornage.

On occasion of episcopal visitations, the clergy visited were, except in special cases, bound to provide food, &c., for the Bishop and his attendants, but sometimes the suite was so numerous as to lead to great inconvenience. In 1290, Godfrey, Bishop of Worcester, in spite of canonical prohibition, being at variance with the Prior and Convent of Worcester, came to visit them with 140 horses and a multitude of attendants, and continued with them three days; but this was not done without an appeal on the part of the Prior. The Bishop turned the Prior out of the chamber; and it seems like an aggressive act that need not have been committed, if then, as since, the Bishop had a palace hard by the Cathedral. For remedy of such encroachments the Lateran Council, under Pope Alexander III, had specially defined the limits of bishops' and archdeacons' trains. Bishop Godfrey Giffard frequently preached at visitations, and some of the texts of his discourses addressed to religious houses are extant in his register; an instance of which is as follows: "Procurationes Episcopi. Item, die Jovis in crastino beati Michaelis, dominus Episcopus visitavit apud Sanctum Augustinum Bristolliæ, et prædicavit ibi, præsentibus priore et monachis Sancti Jacobi de Bristollia, et magistro ac suis fratribus Sancti Martii de ordin', cujus thema fuit: 'Videam voluptatem Domini et visitem templum ejus.' (Psalm xxvi, 4.) Et procuratus fuit eodem die sumptibus domus."

In the course of a visitation tour, Bishop Swinfield came to Tenbury, in the archdeaconry of Salop and deanery of Burford. The Norman abbey of Lyra held the great tithes; the vicarial amounted to just one half of them, £6. 13s. 4d. The associate of the dominus proctor, who helped to manage the revenues of the convent, was ready with his procuration for the party. After visiting Burford, they came to Lindridge, and visited the church, which had been both a rectory and vicarage; these, however, upon the recent death of the late vicar, Walter, in 1288, had been united under the present rector, John de Buterlee (Bitterley), and were valued jointly at £13. 6s. 8d. per annum. The reason for this proceeding, illustrative of the state of affairs in the church, is expressly set forth in the instrument framed for that purpose; that whereas it had been canonically provided that ecclesiastical benefices should not be divided; and that such as for certain causes had been divided, upon cessation of such causes should on the first opportunity be restored to their integrity, so that it should be one church, one rector; and that no rector of a parish church should employ a vicar, but be bound to serve it himself, as the cure thereof requires; unless a dignity or prebend be annexed to the said church, when the institution or creation of a vicar might be allowed. And whereas he (John de Bitterley) professed himself ready to reside personally on his church of Lindridge as the law required, there being no reasonable cause why there should be a vicar in the said church, the vicarage and rectory were perpetually united with all rights and appurtenances, emolument, burden, and cure. It may however be added, that this integrity came again, within a few years, to be more permanently violated by the appropriation of the great tithes to the Prior and Convent of Worcester, by special grant of the King, with consent of the Bishop of Hereford. Edward wrote a letter to his chancellor in French, directing that it might be translated into Latin, and sent by a clerk of the chancery to the chapter of Hereford; another instance of the employment of the French language in this reign. The rector of Lindridge discharged his duty of procuration; and on the following day (April 15) they moved forward in the direction of Bewdley to Aka (Rock). The parishes to which the visitor was directing his attention in this quarter lay within a small compass. Master William Brun was rector in 1276, and no subsequent incumbent has been detected up to this year of visitation. The value of the benefice was the same as that of Lindridge. Out of many of these benefices payments were made in other quarters; as in this instance: the Prior of Ware was paid £2. 13s. 4d. and the Prior of Conches £2. Out of Lindridge the Prior of Worcester received £6. 13s. 4d. Procuration was duly furnished here; and this is the fifth day since any expense on the part of the Bishop was incurred. On arriving at Kinlet, the visiting party were obliged to have recourse to Kidderminster for supplies. Robert the carter was the purveyor; he had a guide to attend him, probably through the intervening forest of Wyre, and paid for passing the Severn on his way to and from the town.

I cannot conclude my notice of this interesting Manuscript without strongly recommending my readers to possess themselves of a copy of Mr. Webb's admirable publication.

BISHOP SKINNER.

"Memoirs of Dr. Robert Skinner, Bishop of Worcester, who died 1670." Several manuscript volumes, in the handwriting of the Right Rev. Dr. White Kennett, Bishop of Peterborough, are to be found in the British Museum (MS. Lansdown, 986, fol. 135), containing biographies of distinguished ecclesiastics, one of whom was Bishop Skinner of Worcester. This prelate was elected to the see of Bristol in 1636, translated to that of Oxford in 1641, and to Worcester in 1663. While he lived in the times of usurpation, being deprived of his see, he remained in his diocese comforting his clergy, and ordaining those who were willing to enter the church, and was supposed to be the sole bishop that during that time conferred holy orders. Immediately after his Majesty's return an hundred and three persons did at once take holy orders from him in the Abbey Church at Westminster. At his death it was computed that he had sent more labourers into the vineyard than all his brethren he then left behind him had done. His biographer observes that, in the see of Worcester, he became by his many tenants more esteemed than family or friends because of his goodness as a landlord. He died an octogenarian, and was buried in a chapel at the east end of the choir of the Cathedral Church at Worcester; over his grave was soon after laid a flat stone, at the head of which are engraved the arms of his family, impaled with those of the see, surmounted by a mitre, and underneath is a long Latin inscription.

In the Bodleian Manuscript, Tanner 45, fol. 19, is a letter to Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury, interesting, though trivial, as applicable to the affairs of Worcester Cathedral.