[75] Evidence of the existence of relics of St. Wulfran here is given by a churchwarden’s minute in 1565: “Item, a sylver and copper shryne called seint Wulfrane shryne was sold, and bought with the pryce thereof a silver pott full gilt and an ewer of sylver for the mystification of the holye and most sacred supper of owre lorde Jhesus Christ, called the holy comunyon” (Peacock, Monuments of Superstition, p. 88, quoted in Bishop Trollope’s account, u.s.).
[76] Colonel Welby suggests that the niches, of which traces remain in the east wall of the outer part of the north porch, were intended for a holy-water stoup and almsbox at the foot of the stair. They have also been supposed to indicate the presence of an altar in this part of the porch; but this is less probable.
[77] The foundation-wall of the screen was discovered in the nineteenth century across the entrance to the chancel. No similar walls existed across the aisles. This points to the probability that the screen was built after the cessation of work in the south aisle of the nave, and before the building of the south chapel of the chancel (i.e. between 1320 and 1360). No screen could thus be continued across the south aisle, as the wall came in the way; and a light wooden screen would be sufficient for the single bay of the north aisle east of the nave. At the same time the evidence of the wide eastern bay of the nave points to some enlargement or rebuilding of the screen, or at any rate to a desire to free the rood and its beam of the eastern wall of the nave, against which they had not improbably been placed up to this time. The dislike of chancel arches in districts where elaborate screens are common will be remembered.
[78] A paper by Precentor Venables (Assoc. Arch. Soc. Reports, vol. xiii. pp. 46 sqq.) summarises the history of the controversy, and explains the part which Bishop Williams took in it more satisfactorily than other accounts within the writer’s knowledge.
[79] This, in 1662, was filled with armorial glass, as we learn from Gervase Holles’ notes on the heraldry of Grantham Church, in the Harleian MSS.
[80] A memorandum relating to the erection of the organ and position of the altar in 1640, containing a copy of a petition to Parliament from the Corporation against Puritan objections, is printed from the Corporation Records at the end of Precentor Venables’ article (see [note 1, above]).
[81] There is an interesting account of the history and contents of the library, by the late Canon Hector Nelson, in the Lincoln Diocesan Magazine for December 1893 and March and April 1894. Canon Nelson is responsible for the catalogue of the library.
[82] Particularly to the Rev. S. C. Tickell, author of a Guide to Old Stamford (1907), and Henry Walker, author of Stamford with its Surroundings (Homeland Handbooks), 1908.
[83] Having been granted as a barony to the Abbot of Peterborough.
[84] The conjectural identification, which appears in several accounts, of Causennæ or Gausennæ with Great Casterton (a village two miles north of Stamford and the site of a Roman camp) will not bear the test of comparison with the distances given in the Fifth Antonine Itinerary.