[16] An account of the Writers of the History of Westminster Abbey, p. 4.
[17] Vide Park’s History of Hampstead.
[18a] “But beyond the above written limits the Vills of Knightsbridge, Westbourn, Paddington with its Chapel, and their appurtenances, belong to the parish of St. Margaret aforesaid.” To secure the privileges contained in this decree the Abbot had to give the Bishop of London the manor of Sunbury, and the Church to the Chapter of St. Paul’s, besides those places surrendered by the arrangement in the decree. The monks of Westminster did not at all relish this arrangement; and one more outspoken than the rest openly declared that “Peter had been robbed to pay Paul.”
[18b] This author gives, as his authority, a MS. in the King’s Remembrancer’s Office Exchequer, f. 26b. Lysons says the church and chapel were valued together at thirty marks; and gives the Harlean MS., No. 60, as his authority. In this calculation the “Vicaria” is not mentioned.
[19] “A manor, manerium, a manendo, because the usual residence of the owner.” This learned expounder of our laws further explains “that it seems to have been a district of ground held by lords or great personages.” Book ii, p. 90.
[20a] Mr. Park says that the Shuttup Hill Estate “affords one among many instances of the freedom with which religious corporations were in the habit of elevating their lands and farms into manors.”—Topography of Hampstead. p. 194.
[20b] Priests, who formerly were permitted to practice in the Law Courts, were, a little before this time, for very good reasons no doubt, prevented from doing so. But they did not quietly submit to this loss of their influence in the worldly concerns of the people; and they adopted all kinds of contrivances to keep up their former power. Amongst others, equally honorable, we find they adopted the wig to hide that which would have otherwise betrayed their holy calling.—Vide Sir H. Spelman’s Conjectures on the Introduction of the Coif; Glossar, p. 335, and Blackstone, vol. I. p. 24.
[21a] The statute passed in the eighteenth year of Edward’s reign, which put an end to the further increase of manors, must have been fresh in this Abbot’s memory; and it was this law, perhaps, which induced him to place Paddington and Westbourn under the maternal wing of Westminster.
[21b] Tenement is a word of still greater extent than land, for though in its vulgar acceptation it only applied to houses and other buildings, yet in its original, proper, and legal sense it signifies every thing that may be holden, provided it be of a permanent nature; whether it be of a substantial and sensible, or of an unsubstantial ideal kind.”—Blackstone, vol. ii, p. 17.
[21c] Placita de Quo Warranto, Edward first Rot. 39, p. 479 of the work published by the Record Commission.