In 1327, Walter, Vicar of Yatton, Somerset, one of the prebends of the Cathedral of Bath and Wells, complained to Bishop Drokensford that he had not enough for the maintenance of himself and two chaplains. The prebend was worth a hundred marks and the vicarage ten. The bishop accordingly assigned to the vicarage a portion of the tithe.[96] Other bishops’ registers, no doubt all of them, contain similar cases.[97]
In 1439, Archbishop Chichele remarks on the poverty of some vicarages, and the difficulty the vicars have in obtaining an augmentation of them from the rectors and proprietors of churches, and orders ordinaries to allow such vicars to sue in formâ pauperis, and to take care that they have not less than twelve marks a year, if the whole value of the living will extend to so much.
On the other hand, there were sometimes appeals from the appropriators to the bishop to diminish the sum assigned to the vicar. For example, the Rectory of Kettlewell, co. York, was given to Covenham Abbey, and a vicarage ordained in 1344, on the unusual condition of the assignment to the vicar of the rectory house, and an annual payment of seven marks; in 1359 a new “taxation” of the vicarage was made, and the money payment reduced to five marks. The Rectory of Whalley was given to the Abbey of Stanlaw in 1284, and a vicarage ordained at the same time; in 1340, on the representation that the endowment of the vicarage was excessive, and that the religious community were involved in the costly work of building their new house and church at Whalley, the Bishop of Lichfield considerably reduced the endowment.
The monasteries did not always fulfil their obligations. Sometimes they seem, when a vacancy occurred in the vicarage, to have left it vacant, and served the parish by one of their own members, or in some cheaper way. To this abuse a constitution of Othobon was directed, in 1268, which orders that the religious should present a vicar with competent endowment within six months, and, if not, the bishop should fill up the vacancy. The monks of Whalley transgressed in this way from the year c. 1356 onwards by serving the parish church by one of their number. The abuse, however, continued, and at length provoked the interference of the Legislature. In 4 Henry IV. the Commons petitioned the king that curates non-resident, should incur the penalties of præmunire (Rot. Parl.). In the same year a statute was made providing, inter alia, “that henceforth in every church appropried a secular person be ordained vicar, and that no religious be in any wise made vicar in any church so appropried.” But, unfortunately, no penalty was attached to a neglect of the law, and therefore it had little or no effect. Again, in the 10th Henry VI., a bill was proposed by the two Houses of Parliament requiring that “in every church appropried a secular person be ordained perpetual vicar, and that if any religious henceforth suffer a vicarage to be for six months without a resident vicar, the said church shall be disappropried and disamortized for ever;” but, unhappily, the king refused his assent to it, and the evil continued.[98]
The institution of vicarages, like everything else, was liable to abuses. One of the abuses was where a rector instituted a vicarage in his own rectory, thus reserving the greater part of the income of the benefice to himself as a sinecure, and devolving the labour and responsibility upon another who received the lesser share. Thus, in the Lichfield Register, in 1328, the Rector of Walton was allowed to have a curate (vicar) on condition of setting aside for him a house in the parish, the oblations at the altar and at marriages and churchings, the tithes of a hamlet, and herbage of church and chapel yards; the curate was to find chaplains for the chapels, and a deacon at 20s. a year for the church.[99]
Another abuse, forbidden by the Synod of Oxford, in 1223, was for the parson of a parish to change himself into a vicar, and dispose of the rectory to another. This synod also ordained that vicars should serve the cure in person, should be in priests’ orders or proceed to them immediately, and that every presentee should make oath that he had not given or promised anything or entered into any agreement on account of his presentation.
