During the twelfth and early part of the thirteenth centuries, disputes of a very unseemly nature frequently took place between the Abbots of Westminster and the Bishops of London, relative to the jurisdiction of the latter over the Abbey, and otherwise as to their respective privileges and districts. Another pretty good proof, as Widmore justly remarks, that the ancient charters, so much spoken of, were mere forgeries. These disputes were at length referred to Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of Winchester and Salisbury, and the Priors of Merton and Dunstaple; and in their decree, which is published at length in Wharton’s Historia de Espiscopis et Decanis Londinensibus, after giving the Bishop a considerable slice of the territory which the monks had claimed in the region of the Fleete, and fixing the boundary westward, as in Edgar’s Charter, by the Tybourn, the following passage occurs:—“Extra veró suprá scriptas metas villæ de Knygtebrigge, Westburne, Padyngtoun cum Capellâ, et cum earum pertinentiis, pertinent ad Parochiam S. Margaretæ memoratum.” [18a] So that even the Ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Paddington had not been legally given to the Abbey before the thirteenth century; for this document is dated 1222.
If we can rely on the authenticity of the passage just quoted, a chapel must have been built here previous to that date; and now this chapel, as the author of the Ecclesiastical Topography correctly remarks became a Chapel of Ease to St. Margaret’s, Westminster. This writer makes the value of the church and chapel, in 1291, only thirty marks and a half; [18b] but in the Taxatio Ecclesiastica, printed by the Record Commission, the following entries are to be found at page 17:—
| “Ecclia Sce Margarete cu Capella de Padinton | £20. |
| Vicaria Ejusdem | 8.” |
No inconsiderable difference in times when the land in Paddington paid only four-pence per acre, per annum, rent.
Whatever doubts may arise in the mind as to the accuracy of John Flete’s story, or as to the capability of the land in Paddington to furnish the annual feast we have described as having been appointed in 1191; it appears from this taxation, that in 1291, a chapel was built and endowed here; and the sum we have already mentioned given in charity.
The temporal entry in the Taxatio Ecclesiastica is as follows:
| “Bona Obedienc’ Westm’ in Westmon’ Elemosinar’ be redd’ | £1 | 12 | 3 |
| Item idem in Padinton de terr’ redd’ cons’ et fet’ animaliu’ | 8 | 16 | 4” |
This “rent of land” was derived from those lands which had been purchased by Walter; those which the Walter, who makes this return, had himself obtained; and all those over which the Convent had acquired manorial rights. And I presume any other small tithe was included in this elemosinary item with “the young of animals.” The great tithe and the rent of the glebe land being accounted for in the spiritual part of the valuation.
CHAPTER II.
THE MANORS
OF
WESTBOURN AND PADDINGTON.
If we accept the definition of the word manor given by the learned Judge Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, [19] or look upon a manor to be “the subinfeudation of a particular district made by A to B,” I think we must come to the conclusion, that neither Westbourn nor Paddington, in ancient times, were manors in either of these senses, unless indeed we consider Westbourn and Tybourn synonymous terms, for we find no account of any lordly residence in either of these places till many centuries after the Conqueror’s survey; neither is there any account, which can be relied on, to establish the fact of any King having granted these districts to the Abbot and Monks of Westminster; or of the Abbot’s subinfeudation of them. And if we do not consider these places a portion of the Tybourn manor, it is pretty certain that the cottagers who cultivated the land in this neighbourhood were not only freemen, but freeholders, even at the time of the Conquest. They could have owned no other lord but the King, and the suit and service they would have rendered him differed but little from that exacted of the most powerful lord in the land. Each paid his tax according to his circumstances. But many new manors were created after the conquest, and an Act of Parliament, the 18th of Edward I, 1290, was passed to put a stop to this practice.