[295] Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 495. For the presenting of parish priests and clerics by the town juries see Cutts’ Colchester, 129. “And also the parish priest of St. Peter’s for over assessing of poor folks and men’s servants at Easter for their tythes and other duties.” (Nott. Rec. iii. 364.) In 1476, when the chaplain of Old Romney Church was arraigned for felony, “according to the custom of the Cinque Ports, for his acquittance it is assigned that he shall have 36 good and lawful men to be at the Hundred Court next to come at his peril.” Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 544. See ch. v. p. 175, note.
[296] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 272.
[297] For the rise of the new parish administration, Gneist i. 282-5; ii. 21.
[298] Hythe, Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 1, 432. Bridport, Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 495; Andover, Gross, ii. 345. In Lynn all houses leased for 20s. a year were bound to supply the blessed bread and wax for S. Margaret’s, and the most elaborate rules were drawn up to regulate the contributions which were to be paid by tenements lying together, or by various tenements under one roof. In case payment was refused the common sergeant, or any officer sent by the mayor, might levy a distress and carry off the tenant’s goods to the Guild Hall to be kept till he had made satisfaction or paid a fine of 20s. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 161.) Payments for the holy fire are frequent. (Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 432, v. 549.) Sometimes fines for breach of trade laws went to church uses. (Gross, ii. 331, 345.) In Rye, if any animal got into the churchyard the owner paid 3s. 4d. to fabric of church. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 489.)
[299] In Bridport the bequests for the church from 1450 to 1460 consist of such things as a brass crock, a ring, small sums of money, and more often one or two sheep or lambs. Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 494. Manorial Pleas (Selden Soc.), 150. Hist. MSS. Com. x. 4, 524, 529, 531. Gross, Gild Merchant, ii. 345.
[300] Hist. MSS. Com. iii. 345, 346. When Hythe set up its new steeple in 1480 the twelve jurats headed the list of subscriptions, the greatest sum given by them being 10s. Then came the commons giving from 20s. down to 1d., that is, a day’s subsistence. (Ibid. iv. 1, 433.)
[301] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 273. Money was collected for the church at Yaxley, in Suffolk, in 1485 and the following years, by a similar custom of the yearly “church ale,” the usual amount contributed from each householder for his bread and drink being about 4s. or 5s. (Ibid. x. 4, 465.)
[302] Boys’ Sandwich, 784.
[303] In 1327 a violent quarrel broke out between Sandwich and Canterbury. The convent was put to great inconvenience, and the prior wrote to “the mayor and bailiff of Sandwich” asking to be allowed to buy food and wax, as they had been put to great straits. The Sandwich men agreed on condition that the monks should in no manner relieve or give supplies to the Canterbury citizens. (Lit. Cantuar. i. 248-254.) There was great jealousy between Norwich and Yarmouth. Yarmouth was made a Staple town in 1369, in spite of all the efforts of Norwich. In 1390 Norwich paid large sums to have the wool staple at Norwich again. (Blomefield, iii. 96, 113.) In the fifteenth century Yarmouth set up a crane, which the Norwich men forced it to take down again.
[304] 1478. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 88.