Tithes of Servants’ Wages: The tenth part and for their housel at Easter, 1d. At all principal feasts divers offer, some wax, some money, which comes to the parson’s use.

Where a Saint’s image stands without the quire to which a Brotherhood belongeth, the wardens of the brotherhood compound some for 3s. 4d., 5s., 6s. 8d., or more, per annum, to have the Brotherhood kept in the Church (see p. 482).

The lords reduced the tithes on houses to 2s. 9d. in the pound, but confirmed the above customary fees and payments.[576]

The ancient city of Exeter became the see of the Devonshire Bishopric in 1049-50, when Bishop Leofric moved thither from Crediton; and seems at the time of the Norman Conquest to have had its cathedral church and a number of chapels. A religious foundation of Gytha was granted by the Conqueror to Battle Abbey; it received additional endowments, and grew into a considerable priory, still receiving its priors from the parent house, and paying a pension to it. A second small alien Priory of St. James was founded without the walls. The Castle Chapel was a detached building with nave and aisle, and was served by three prebends with no dean or head, and the patronage was attached to the Barony of Okehampton. The bishops had an almshouse perhaps from the days of Leofric; in 1170 a citizen founded a hospital of St. Alexius; and the two were in 1225 merged in the hospital of St. John by the East Gate. A leper hospital was founded outside the South Gate, and its inmates were forbidden to enter the city. A convent of Franciscans was founded between 1220 and 1240, and a convent of Dominicans about the same time.

In the early part of the thirteenth century there seems to have been some arrangement of the parochial organization of the city. For in the reign of King John, we learn from the will of Peter de Paterna and Isabel his wife, who bequeathed 1d. to each of them, that there were twenty-eight chapels in the city of Exeter. In the year 1222 there was a settlement of the parish churches which were fixed at the number of 19.[577] The names of all these parish churches are found in the list of chapels previously existing, and some of the chapels are not included among the parish churches.[578]

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EXETER, FROM G. BRAUN’S URBIUM PRAECIPUARUM
MUNDI THEATRUM, LIB. 5, pl. 1. A.D. 1573.

Bristol affords us an example of a town whose ecclesiastical organization grew with the gradual increase of the town, in a way which can be more or less clearly made out. Bristol was a member of the Royal Manor of Barton. At an early date, probably in Heptarchic times, a town grew up on the peninsula between the river Avon and its tributary the Frome; the existence of silver pennies of Ethelred the Unready, which were coined here, shows that it was at that time a burgh with the usual privilege of a mint. The reader will remember that it was the principal seaport of the western coast, and the principal emporium of the slave-trade in Saxon men, women, and children until Bishop Wulstan succeeded with difficulty in suppressing the nefarious traffic.

The Church of St. Peter is said by tradition to have been the earliest church in Bristol; and there are reasons for thinking that it actually was the church provided by the Crown as lord of the manor for the use of its tenants there. The dedication of St. Werburg indicates that this church was also of Saxon date. The burgh was divided by two main streets, crossing at right angles in the middle of the town; the churches of St. Ewan, All Saints, and Holy Trinity (or Christ Church), stand in the angles made by the Carfax, and their parishes meet at this point, as though there had been a considerable addition to the population of the burgh, and the cross roads had been made, the parishes marked out, and the three churches built simultaneously.