be "patroni et magistri" of the chantry and stipendiary priests is unusual. Possibly it has special reference to the stipendiary priest, who only received annual salaries and could be dismissed at will, the word patroni would hardly cover this second class.1

2

The names of the priests officiating at the chantries in S. Helen's, Stonegate, S. Sampson's, S. Mary the Elder, S. Mary at the gate of the Castle, S. Martin in Coney Street, S. Saviour's in Marisco, and the chapel on Ousebridge are given in the document as if they were a committee chosen to represent the forty city chaplains. When the rector of the church was non-resident and his duties performed by the vicar, his resident deputy, the chantry priest who helped him, still held his altar, his stipend, his house as freehold. Although all chantry priests in York were nominally under the ægis of the city council, the chantry priest, who officiated in St. William's chapel on Ousebridge, was regarded as attached to the council by even closer ties. The allusions to him in the Memorandum Book are both numerous and interesting. In 1413 the mayor and citizens "communitas " gave a license to Johannes de Hamerton, chaplain of S. William's chapel, to build a certain room or dwelling suitable for himself, at his own expense, at the north side of the chapel. If the said John agreed to endow a suitable chaplain, who would say mass in the aforesaid chapel, then the mayor and commons, in case they were appointed trustees, offered that the newley erected dwelling should be a perpetual possession of the chaplain and his successors. The license was sealed with the seal of the city not of the mayor.3 In May, 1416, Thomas Howran was presented by Willelmus Selby to the mayor for admission to a chantry founded in memory of Hugo Selby, in S. William's chapel; the following January

3

Willelmu

a chantr for twer

1. Mr. Hamilton gives succinctly but comprehensively the distinction between chantry and stipendiary service. The emoluments of the first were held by the chantry priests in mortmain; the chantry was his benefice, to which institution was necessary. The revenues of the stipendiary service were the property of feoffees, who paid an annual sum to a priest or conduct' for his services, but had the disposal of the money and could use it for other purposes, if necessary."

pretendent

fore

Cuthber

of S. Wi Palyser, mitted b

2. The sentence "communitas rectorum consuevit as in the text would gain by an emendation suggested by Mr. Hudson" pretendit fore consuetudinem." Mem. Bk., p. 18.

"

3. Mem. Bk., pp. 39, 40. Cf. W. Hudson, op. cit., pp. 227, 261, 263. 4. Ibid., pp. 51, 52.

Willelmus Selby, the patron of this perpetual chantry, confirmed a chantry by which the chaplain granted a yearly rent of 13s. 4d. for twenty years to Thomas del Gare.1 On July 13th, 1447, Cuthbertus Cotes, chaplain, resigned his chantry in the chapel of S. William, and by the third of August, his successor, Johannes Palyser, was presented by Willelmus Bulmer, knight, and admitted by the mayor; apparently the celerity of business habits permeated even the city chantries.2

The undated custumal of the city claims by ancient custom "that constables, sergeants and other people and officers of the city have the right to take to the Kidcote and imprison breakers of the peace going about the city by night and other men and women, chaplains, and men and women of religion found in suspicious places with any woman, and carry them before the ordinary, to be punished according to the law of holy church."3 The ordinary means, of course, the ordinary judge, who in such cases was generally the Bishop, but might be someone else.*

When it is remembered that there were thirty-nine churches in York, about sixty abbeys, priories, monasteries, hospitals, maisons dieu, and chapels the rarity of the allusions to those who held office or dwelt in them is remarkable; it shows how essentially the Memorandum Book is a specialized history of civic York.

An interesting insight into the working of two characteristic medieval institutions, the one economic, the other ecclesiastical is given in a letter from the King addressed to the mayor and constables of the staple.5 The great statute of the staple was planned on similar lines to the statute merchant. The staple was originally the town, appointed by the government, to which all English merchants were obliged by law to take their wool or

1. Ibid., p. 53.

2. Mem. Bk., p. 273.

3. Mem. Bk., p. 254, vol. I., p. 203. Cf. G. G. Coulton, Priests and People before the Reformation, Medieval Studies, No. 8, p. 17. A. Hamilton Thompson, Visitations of Religious Houses (1420–1436), pp. xii, xiii.

"Priests

4. E. Gibson, Codex Juris Eccl., 1, p. 436, 1 Henry VII., c. 4. and religious men being incontinent the ordinaries may commit them to prison, without charge of false imprisonment."

5. Mem. Bk., pp. 27, 28.

any other staple goods for sale. It was settled to facilitate the
collection of custom duties, but became a useful weapon in the
hands of diplomatists.1 Calais, Bruges2 and Antwerp were
successively staple towns. In 1353, however, it was decided to
try the plan of holding the staple in England, and Newcastle,
York, Lincoln, Norwich, Westminster, Canterbury, Chichester,
Winchester, Exeter and Bristol were appointed as staple towns.3
Each staple town had a mayor of the staple, before whom debtors
were required to execute a bond, which was signed in the presence
of the mayor.
In Bristol " the old mayor delivered unto the new
mayor the king's sword, and his hat, and the casket with the seal
of office, the seal of the statute of the staple, the seal of the
statute merchant, with other authentic seals included in the same."
In Norwich the seal of the statute merchant and statute staple
were the same.5 In the December of 1391 the letter from the
king arrived; it tells clearly and briefly that Johannes de
Lyndesay had incurred a debt, according to staple law, of sixty-
six pounds to Johannes Burdon and Willelmus Sherman. Unable
to discharge his obligations he had fled to the monastery precints
"ad domum et ecclesiam" of the friars preachers: an unfor-
tunate man, Ricardus Kyng, who had been his surety, was seized
and put in prison. The king, therefore, ordered the mayor and
constables of the staple together with the mayor of the city and

1. W. Cunningham, op. cit., pp. 315, 316, 415, 493. W. J. Ashley, Economic History, pt. II., pp. 21, 22. W. E. Lingelbach, The Merchant Adventurers of England, pp. xxv, xxvi. [Translations and Reprints from the original sources of European History.]

2. R. Häpke, Brügges Entwicklung zum Mittelalterlichen Weltmarkt, passim.

3. 27 Edw. III., m. II. (Ordinances of the Staple).

4.

the keer

seize hi

liberatio

to the f

rence d

parliam

Ricart's Calendar, quoted by Professor Ashley. Sir Richard York was twice mayor of York and also mayor of the staple. The late perpendicular window in S. Helen's commemorates these facts. Possibly, too, the large light representing "Our Father in pity exhibiting His crucified Son," refers to his connexion with the merchants' company whose seal represents the same subject; G. Benson, Churches of York, pp. 117, 118. Association Hand Book. Freeman of York, op. cit., p. 188, 203.

5. W. Hudson, op. cit., p. 269.

British

Ad domum et ecclesiam is really tautological, often in the middle ages "ecclesia" is used for monastery.

6.

RIGHTS OF SANCTUARY

3

lxix

the keepers of the crown pleas1 to go within the monastic precints," seize him and force him to pay the debt, thus obtaining the liberation of his surety. This could be done by law and according to the form of the said statute. Twelve years before this occurrence debtors had abused sanctuary rights so frequently that parliament had been forced into action. The statute proclaimed that after five successive weekly summonses at the gates of the sanctuary, where the debtor was, if he failed to appear before the king's justices, his goods and lands were forfeited. All churches and churchyards were sanctuaries for felony; the sanctuary knocker of All Saints, Pavement, is a modern myth. There are references to sixteen sanctuaries in York during the thirteenth century. According to the coroners' rolls of the city between 1349 and 1359 there were eleven fugitives, who took sanctuary at All Saints, Pavement, S. Crux, S. Lawrence, S. Martin Coney Street, S. Martin Micklegate, S. Saviour, Holy Trinity, S. William's chapel, and the church of the Carmelites. But the fame of Beverley sanctuary overshadowed all others; the refuge extended a mile and a half in every direction; the privilege, however, intensified as the high altar and frith stool were approached. The register from 1478 to 1539 is still extant, 495 names are entered, the largest number 208 came for debt. These sanctuary men were allowed to be members of trades gilds in Beverley, though there is no trace of any regulation of the kind in York.5

4

A quarrel between a priest and the craft of tixtwriters, lumers, noters, turners and flurrisshers was submitted to arbitration by the command of "the right reverent fadre in God, the

1. The coroners, 4 Edw. I., "De Officio Coronatoris does not give any explicit rules with regard to this part of a coroner's duty; the legal tracts of the reign, Bracton, Britton and Fleta, treat the subject fully. J. C. Cox, Sanctuary and Sanctuary Seekers, pp. 12, 13.

2. Evidently here as at Westminster, St. Martin's le Grand, Whitefriars, there were houses within the monastic precincts to which felons and (by abuse) debtors resorted. The Rolls of Parliament, III., 504, give a graphic picture of the lawlessness of the district of St. Martin's le Grand in 1379. 2 Rich. II., st. ii., c. 3. Quoted by Dr. Cox. Dr. Cox, op. cit., 295.

3.

4.

5. MSS. Harl. 4292. Surtees Soc., Registers of the Sanctuaries of Durham and Beverley, vol. 5. I am indebted to the Rev. A. A. R. Gill for information on this point. Cf. A Réville, L'Abjuratio Regni, Revue Historique, vol. 50, p. 1.

archbishop of York." The award is not dated but from intrinsic evidence it must belong to the end of the fifteenth century. The arbiters are two merchants, a goldsmith and a grocer. The subject of dispute was as to whether the priests had the right to take apprentices and to sell books. The judgment is clear and uncompromising.

“Wee deme and award that the said Sir William and all other prestes within this citie, suburbes and fraunchiesse of the same frome hensforth take noon apprentice ne hiredman to set on wark in the said occupacion upon the payn of xls., as oft tymes as thai or any of thaime ar founden defective whereof, the oon halff to be imploid to the common well of this citie and the other halve to thoccupacion of tixtwriters abovesaid, provided alway that the said Sir William Inceclyff and all other prestez that haith any wark or bukes in wrytyng at the tyme of makyng of this award have respect to finych all such bookes afore the feist of purification of our lady next ensewing after the date of this award. Also we awarde and deme that it be leffull to the said Sir William Inceclyff and all other preistes within this [citie], suburbes and fraunchiessez of the same to write and make bookes to there awn proper use or to giffe in almose and charitie at ther pleasour, so that the same bukes or any of thame by the same Sir William or any of the said preistes or any other in his or ther namez colerable be not put to any sale under the payn to forsaid."1

Over one section of the industrial life of York the church held undisputed sway. The men employed in building the minster seem to have been a class apart. In 1407, after the collapse of the belfrey, William Colchester, mason, had to be protected by a special mandate from the King, " for him and his deputies and the workmen and labourers and their goods."2 An entry in the patent rolls of the following year prove the

B
Y

1. York Municipal Records, f. 39, b.

2.

Pat. Rolls, 9 Hen. IV., pt. 1, m. 21, Dec. 14, 1407.