History of the Cathedral Church of Wells / As Illustrating the History of the Cathedral Churches of the Old Foundation

by Edward A. Freeman

[183] Saint George's Chapel at Windsor was not suppressed; otherwise the few collegiate churches which still survive, including those of Ripon and Manchester, which have become cathedral, were refounded under Elizabeth and James the First. It was now that Beverley and several other great churches, as well as some smaller ones, like Stoke-sub-Hamdon in our own county, ceased to be collegiate.

[184] The deed of pretended exchange is printed in the Monasticon, ii. 294. See also Godwin, p. 311; and Collinson's Somersetshire, iii. 395.

[185] It was now that the Palace at Wells was restored to the Bishoprick. After the execution of Somerset it had passed to Sir John Gates, the destroyer of Stillington's Lady chapel, who was beheaded along with John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, in 1553. He is the knight of the court, of whom Godwin speaks in his account of Bishop Burnell.

[186] On the history of the so-called Priory, see the Monasticon, vii. 664.

[187] See note 44.

[188] See above, p. 50.

[189] See Godwin, p. 311.

[190] This strange document, dated in 1592, has, as far as I know, never been printed, and I have only seen an English translation. It first recites the doubts as to the legal position of the Chapter, arising out of the surrender made by Dean FitzWilliams in the time of Edward the Sixth, and the consequent establishment of a new Deanery by Act of Parliament. The Queen then founds the cathedral church anew, with all its dignities and prebends as they existed before. She then goes on to found "certain other dignities or offices," namely those of the Canons Residentiary. The names of the existing Residentiaries are recited, and the Dean and Canons Residentiary are constituted a corporation, by the title of the "Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral Church of Wells." To this newly-founded corporation the Queen grants the cathedral church, its appurtenances and movable goods, the Chapter-house and other lands and property, namely such as had been the common property of the Chapter. She then grants to them power to make, under certain conditions, statutes "for the good rule, government, and ordering of the Canons Residentiary and other Prebendaries in the said Cathedral Church." She then prescribes the number of Residentiaries, who are not to be fewer than six nor more than eight, and the manner of their election. They are to be chosen from the Prebendaries, a strong preference being given to the Dignitaries, including the Archdeacons, and the Dean having a right to a Residentiary's place if he chooses to claim it. The term of residence is fixed at four months at least yearly for a Dignitary being a Residentiary, and at three months at least for a Residentiary not being a Dignitary. These, it will be remembered, are exactly half the terms of residence fixed by Jocelin; see above, p. 90. The document then goes on to regulate the visitatorial powers of the Bishop, which are taken for granted. Then follow grants to the different Dignitaries and Prebendaries of their several corpses, and provision is made for the payment of certain customary sums to the fabric, the Vicars, and other purposes. Then come the names of the existing Prebendaries; and it is ordered that the Prebendaries "shall for ever be joined and combined with the aforesaid Dean and Chapter and their successors, to the ends, intents, and purposes following only, that is to say, the Prebendaries aforesaid, every of them and their successors, and the successors of every of them, shall have a stall in the choir of the Cathedral Church aforesaid, and that they and every of them shall have a place and voice in the Chapter of the said Cathedral Church only to elect a Bishop to the Episcopal See of Bath and Wells aforesaid, whenever it shall be needful." The Bishop's right of appointing to dignities and prebends is then renewed, saving only that the right of appointing to the Deanery is reserved to the Crown. The remaining provisions are merely formal.

The evident object of this document is to legalize a certain state of things which had gradually grown up by abuse. It had probably become customary for the non-resident Canons to be summoned to meetings of the Chapter only when a Bishop was to be elected. They were now formally deprived of their right to vote at other times. The Dean and Residentiaries, who had hitherto been simply certain of the Canons or Prebendaries selected for a certain purpose, were now themselves made the corporation, and the corporate style of Dean and Chapter was transferred to them. From this some grotesque results follow. The Chapter is first of all defined as a body of which the non-residentiary Canons are not members, and then the non-residentiary Canons are defined to be members of that body for one particular purpose; and the old formula, according to which each Canon had "vocem in capitulo et stallum in choro," is preserved, with the restriction that the voice is to be used only at the election of a Bishop. Then the practice by which the consent of the existing Residentiaries was needful for any Canon to keep valid residence is stiffened into an actual election by the existing Residentiaries. Lastly, the custom by which the Chapter always elected a nominee of the Crown to the Deanery is changed into an actual nomination of the Dean by the Crown. In all these cases the object is to legalize by royal authority an existing vicious practice.

It is curious to mark how, in the teeth of all this, some ancient customs are still retained as matters of form. The Canon, on his first appointment to his prebend, is solemnly installed in choir and chapter-house, but no such ceremony follows on his election to a residentiaryship, when he is simply put in possession of a house. This is of course because, under the older state of things, the Residentiaries were not a distinct body, but simply those among the Canons on whom the duty of residence fell on behalf of the whole. When a Canon began to reside, he was not invested with any new office; he therefore needed no new installation. By the Elizabethan Charter the Residentiaries were changed into holders of distinct dignities or offices, but no form of installation was prescribed, or could be prescribed, because the Residentiary retained the stall which he held before, and had no special stall as Residentiary. With the careless modern practice of Residentiaries or other Canons occupying stalls which belong to others of their brethren neither ancient order nor the Elizabethan Charter has anything to do.