In the year 1275 two questions respecting church property in the county of Worcester came under the decision of trial by combat: one on June 25th, in Hardwick Meadow, for the church of Tenbury, which was adjusted, after all, without duel, in favour of the Abbot of Lyra; a second, on July 9th, was for the bailiwick of Hembury (Hanbury?) and here the Bishop of Worcester's champion vanquished the champion of Philip de Stok. The Bishop of Hereford likewise kept a champion in his suite, who received regular wages; and when Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, laid claim to the chase on the western slopes of the Malvern range, the Bishop's representative was prepared to do battle in the lists if need were; but a jury, composed of men drawn from the counties of Worcester and Hereford, decided in favour of the church, and a trench of separation between the two possessions was made by the disappointed Earl along the ridge of the hill, where it remains a memorial of the contest to the present day.
Foresters were in general an impudent and abandoned race. Those of Feckenham, where the king had a palace or hunting seat, incurred his particular displeasure by their depredations. He dealt summarily with them in the spring of 1289-90, when he progressed there, by committing some of them to prison, and some he fined. On April 2nd he admitted all the latter to bail to appear at Woodstock by the 5th of that month, in Easter week, and there he fixed their fines. In the following autumn they insulted the Prior of Worcester, near Herforton (Harvington?) as he was travelling along the road, robbed his servants of their bows and arrows, and sounded their horns on all sides against him. But the monk of Worcester who narrates this circumstance does not tell us what may be learned elsewhere, and was perhaps one cause of the insult, that his own Prior had been a trespasser in the said forest, and was fined for it. The Bishop of Worcester also was a trespasser, and paid 500 while the Prior paid 200 marks. (See further account of this in vol. iii, p. 149, of the "Rambler in Worcestershire.") In case of trespass by hunting or border hostility the foresters and others used to shout and blow their horns, to bring in the country to their aid. Hence the northern border tenure of cornage.
On occasion of episcopal visitations, the clergy visited were, except in special cases, bound to provide food, &c., for the Bishop and his attendants, but sometimes the suite was so numerous as to lead to great inconvenience. In 1290, Godfrey, Bishop of Worcester, in spite of canonical prohibition, being at variance with the Prior and Convent of Worcester, came to visit them with 140 horses and a multitude of attendants, and continued with them three days; but this was not done without an appeal on the part of the Prior. The Bishop turned the Prior out of the chamber; and it seems like an aggressive act that need not have been committed, if then, as since, the Bishop had a palace hard by the Cathedral. For remedy of such encroachments the Lateran Council, under Pope Alexander III, had specially defined the limits of bishops' and archdeacons' trains. Bishop Godfrey Giffard frequently preached at visitations, and some of the texts of his discourses addressed to religious houses are extant in his register; an instance of which is as follows: "Procurationes Episcopi. Item, die Jovis in crastino beati Michaelis, dominus Episcopus visitavit apud Sanctum Augustinum Bristolliæ, et prædicavit ibi, præsentibus priore et monachis Sancti Jacobi de Bristollia, et magistro ac suis fratribus Sancti Martii de ordin', cujus thema fuit: 'Videam voluptatem Domini et visitem templum ejus.' (Psalm xxvi, 4.) Et procuratus fuit eodem die sumptibus domus."
In the course of a visitation tour, Bishop Swinfield came to Tenbury, in the archdeaconry of Salop and deanery of Burford. The Norman abbey of Lyra held the great tithes; the vicarial amounted to just one half of them, £6. 13s. 4d. The associate of the dominus proctor, who helped to manage the revenues of the convent, was ready with his procuration for the party. After visiting Burford, they came to Lindridge, and visited the church, which had been both a rectory and vicarage; these, however, upon the recent death of the late vicar, Walter, in 1288, had been united under the present rector, John de Buterlee (Bitterley), and were valued jointly at £13. 6s. 8d. per annum. The reason for this proceeding, illustrative of the state of affairs in the church, is expressly set forth in the instrument framed for that purpose; that whereas it had been canonically provided that ecclesiastical benefices should not be divided; and that such as for certain causes had been divided, upon cessation of such causes should on the first opportunity be restored to their integrity, so that it should be one church, one rector; and that no rector of a parish church should employ a vicar, but be bound to serve it himself, as the cure thereof requires; unless a dignity or prebend be annexed to the said church, when the institution or creation of a vicar might be allowed. And whereas he (John de Bitterley) professed himself ready to reside personally on his church of Lindridge as the law required, there being no reasonable cause why there should be a vicar in the said church, the vicarage and rectory were perpetually united with all rights and appurtenances, emolument, burden, and cure. It may however be added, that this integrity came again, within a few years, to be more permanently violated by the appropriation of the great tithes to the Prior and Convent of Worcester, by special grant of the King, with consent of the Bishop of Hereford. Edward wrote a letter to his chancellor in French, directing that it might be translated into Latin, and sent by a clerk of the chancery to the chapter of Hereford; another instance of the employment of the French language in this reign. The rector of Lindridge discharged his duty of procuration; and on the following day (April 15) they moved forward in the direction of Bewdley to Aka (Rock). The parishes to which the visitor was directing his attention in this quarter lay within a small compass. Master William Brun was rector in 1276, and no subsequent incumbent has been detected up to this year of visitation. The value of the benefice was the same as that of Lindridge. Out of many of these benefices payments were made in other quarters; as in this instance: the Prior of Ware was paid £2. 13s. 4d. and the Prior of Conches £2. Out of Lindridge the Prior of Worcester received £6. 13s. 4d. Procuration was duly furnished here; and this is the fifth day since any expense on the part of the Bishop was incurred. On arriving at Kinlet, the visiting party were obliged to have recourse to Kidderminster for supplies. Robert the carter was the purveyor; he had a guide to attend him, probably through the intervening forest of Wyre, and paid for passing the Severn on his way to and from the town.
I cannot conclude my notice of this interesting Manuscript without strongly recommending my readers to possess themselves of a copy of Mr. Webb's admirable publication.
BISHOP SKINNER.
"Memoirs of Dr. Robert Skinner, Bishop of Worcester, who died 1670." Several manuscript volumes, in the handwriting of the Right Rev. Dr. White Kennett, Bishop of Peterborough, are to be found in the British Museum (MS. Lansdown, 986, fol. 135), containing biographies of distinguished ecclesiastics, one of whom was Bishop Skinner of Worcester. This prelate was elected to the see of Bristol in 1636, translated to that of Oxford in 1641, and to Worcester in 1663. While he lived in the times of usurpation, being deprived of his see, he remained in his diocese comforting his clergy, and ordaining those who were willing to enter the church, and was supposed to be the sole bishop that during that time conferred holy orders. Immediately after his Majesty's return an hundred and three persons did at once take holy orders from him in the Abbey Church at Westminster. At his death it was computed that he had sent more labourers into the vineyard than all his brethren he then left behind him had done. His biographer observes that, in the see of Worcester, he became by his many tenants more esteemed than family or friends because of his goodness as a landlord. He died an octogenarian, and was buried in a chapel at the east end of the choir of the Cathedral Church at Worcester; over his grave was soon after laid a flat stone, at the head of which are engraved the arms of his family, impaled with those of the see, surmounted by a mitre, and underneath is a long Latin inscription.
In the Bodleian Manuscript, Tanner 45, fol. 19, is a letter to Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury, interesting, though trivial, as applicable to the affairs of Worcester Cathedral.
"May it please your Grace,—Tandem aliquando I present your grace with all the papers that make (and as with humble submission, I conceive) are requisite in Mr. Deane of Worcester's defence against Mr. Hathaway's pretences and allegations about the choire organ made and fixt, and the great organ to be made, but now bargained for. And the reason I sent these papers up no sooner was my longing hope and endeavour to have made Mr. George Dallow's testimonie more pregnant and evident touching the promise of Hathaway and Dr. Gibbons to help him to this organ-worke at Worcester, but, to my satisfaction, there is more than probabilitie there had been monie enough to have satisfied Gibbons and Hathaway and Talbott, had it been in the Deane's power to have made a bargain, they well knew Mr. Deane's (Dr. Warmstrey) utter ignorance in re musica. They knew he was, as it is in the Greek proverbe, [Greek: onos pros lyran] ονος προς λυραν, had no more skill in an organ than a beast that hath no understanding, and 'tis very considerable that Hathaway should dare to addresse a complaint at Council Board, when for above a whole yeare, Mr. Deane having forbidden him to proceede to the worke of the great organ, he never applied himselfe neither to Mr. Deane nor to the Chapter, nor to the Visitor, continuing his visitacion for nine months at least, no complaint all this while ever heard of, and for ye materials provided it signifies nothing, unlesse it did appeare they were provided for this organ, when soone after he had made the choire organ he was forbidden to proceed any farther. With Mr. Harrison (who was old Dallow's servant and married his daughter) I twice conferred about his testimonie, and he told me he would make good all he said upon oath, and make it good to all the organists in England, and if your grace shall secretly object, old Hesiod's testimonie in ye case, [Greek: kai kêramius kêramei phthoneuei] και κηραμιυς κηραμει φθονευει, an artist malignes his brother artist. I rely very much on Mr. Tomkin's skill, bred in his cradle and all his life among organs, who is an excellent organist, and has ever maintained an organ in his house, his letter will show what his judgment was before this difference was started. Little reason have I had to interpose in the least in Mr. Deane's case, but I cannot forbear to stand up for innocence, though joyned with much follie. I have returned a certificate to his Majestie's instructions about hospitalls, and by the grace of God shall returne a full answer to your grace's instructions about church affaires in ye due time. The Lorde in the meane time preserve your grace in health and safetie and ye comforts of his blessed spirit.
"May it please your grace, I am your grace's most obliged and most obedient humble servant,