[10] 12 Richard II. c. 3 and c. 7.
[11] Riley's Memorials of London, pp. 304, 390.
[12] 11 Hen. VII. c. 2, 19 Hen. VII. c. 12.
[13] The following incident in the reign of Edward II. shows us the bishop interfering in order to enforce the distribution to the poor of part of the revenue of a church. Richard, Bishop of Durham, in the course of the visitation of his diocese, came to the parish of Wessington. The people there complained that hospitality was not shown by the Church and that alms were not given to the poor. The bishop therefore ordered that a portion of the revenue should be given to the poor, and especially set aside the tithes of the new assarts of Sir Walter de Wessington for this purpose. Hist. Man. Com., MSS. of J. R. Ormsby, Esq., 1020 B. The statutes of Richard II. and Henry IV. seem to have aimed at doing exactly what the Bishop did at Wessington, whenever a living was impropriated by a monastery.
[14] 15 Rich. II. c.
[15] 4 Hen. IV. c. 12.
[16] The Complaynt of Roderyck Mors, E. E. T. S., p. 33.
[17] C. Gross, The Gild Merchant, vol. II. pp. 159-161.
[18] Boy's History of Sandwich, pp. 3 and 127. The references to this and several of the following examples of municipal action are quoted by Mrs Green, Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, vol. I. p. 41, note 2.
[19] In Hereford also, St Giles' and the Sick Man's hospital were governed by the Corporation from the time of Rich. II. (Reports of Char. Com.), and in Exeter, the town rulers at one time exercised rights over St Mary Magdalen's hospital, and afterwards exchanged these for power over St John's hospital for lepers. Freeman's Exeter, pp. 68, 174, etc.