[154] A lawsuit gives us a glimpse of John of Bishopstone, the rector of Cliffe, at Hoo, going to church on the Sunday before Christmas, 1363, accompanied by his chaplains, clerks, and household, as if they all lived together (S.P.C.K., “Rochester,” p. 188).
[155] Newcourt’s “Repertorium,” ii. 97.
[156] Newcourt’s “Repertorium,” ii. 46.
[157] Ibid., ii. 309.
[158] A statute of 3 Ed. I., A.D. 1275, says, “Abbeys have been overcharged by the resort of great men and others; none shall come to eat or lodge in any house of religion of any others’ foundation than his own; this does not intend that the grace of hospitality be withdrawn from such as need.”
[159] See Matthew Paris under 1240 A.D., “to receive guests, rich and poor, and show hospitality to laity and clergy according to their means, as the custom of the place requires.”
[160] In the returns of a survey of the estates of the Dean and Chapter of Exeter in 1300 both the manor houses and the rectory houses are included, and their similarity is evident: “Culmstock Manor. There is a hall in the Manor, and a soler within the hall and a chamber, a kitchen without furnum and turella (stove and small turret for smoke and ventilation), and a dove house; there wants a granary. Utpottery. There is in the farmhouse a sufficient hall and chamber, a new grange, and other sufficient houses, 1330. Vicar of Colyton, Richard Brondiche, is a leper. Colyton Domus Sanctuarii (house in the churchyard). There is there a competent hall with a chamber and chimney, a competent kitchen, without turella, however; two granges; the other houses are sufficient; the gardens are eaten up with age and badly kept. Branscombe Manor. There is a hall with two chambers and garderobes good and sufficient; a new kitchen with a good turella; all the other houses in good condition” (“Register of Bishop Grandisson,” part i. p. 572).
[161] Clive, in the diocese of Worcester, was appropriated to Worcester Priory; formerly the rector lived in the Aula Personæ. In the middle of the thirteenth century the rectory house was let to a tenant. The vicar lived in one of several houses in the village which belonged to the benefice; there were two chaplains, one of whom lived in another of these houses, and the second in a soler (“Register of Worcester Priory” (Camden Society), p. lxxxi.).
[162] “Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages,” p. 133.
[163] “Essex Archæol. Transactions,” vol. vi. part iii.