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to any point which they would have had offer'd before their Lordships, and that they would examine the Charges they had put him to, by not performing their Agreement, amounting to above 3000l. and pay the same as their Lordships Order'd: And he then proposed likewise to bring the 7400 Acres again into Obedience to their Decrees, and thereby preserve the Level once more, which otherwise would be totally lost. But they rejected all.

Mr. Reading however procured a Writ of assistance out of the Exchequer for quieting the Possession of the said 7400 Acres, and at great Charges hath effected the same, and offered to put each Participant into the quiet Possession of their respective proportion thereof: But notwithstanding all, the said Sir John Boynton not regarding the Oaths he is under, nor their Lordships Orders, pursues him with all Severities of Oppression, and Reproaches him for what he hath suffered through the Perjuries of Oates and Bedloe, and for the having discovered to His Majesty the quantities of Arms which the Lord Gray of Wark had in his House, and encouraged the pulling down of Mr. Readings house over his, and his Wife and children's heads.

Mr. Reading in all humility beseecheth their Lordships to assert their own Orders, and to grant him such further Relief, as to their great Justice and Prudence seems fit.

SOME ELIZABETHAN VISITATIONS OF THE

CHURCHES BELONGING TO

THE PECULIAR OF THE DEAN OF YORK.

By T. M. FALLOW, M.A., F.S.A.

THERE is preserved among the Register books of the parish of Pickering, an unbound book of 77 leaves of pot-sized paper, on 108 pages of which are entered contemporary Elizabethan records of the visitations of the churches and chapels formerly subject to the jurisdiction of the Peculiar of the Dean of York. The visitations thus recorded are those of the years 1568, 1570, and again 1590 to 1602. The latter, omitting 1597, are consecutive, and include both the years named. The entries of the visitations are not, however, continuously entered in the book. Some of the intervening pages are blank, and others contain rough memoranda concerning judgments of the Spiritual Court of the Peculiar for the years 1623 to 1626 inclusive.

A list of the different visitations, with the dates and places when and where held, may be conveniently given here. The order is that in the manuscript.

1568 (10 July) Pocklington, (4 Aug.) Pickering, (16 Aug.) Kilham. 1570 (6 Aug.) Pickering, (27 Aug.) Pocklington, (ult. Aug.) Kilham. [A break of twenty years.]

1590 (18 Dec.) Pickering, (20 Jan.) Pocklington.

1591 (6 Sept.) Pickering, (blank) Pocklington.

1592 (20 June) Pickering, (12 Jan.) Kilham, (4 Jan.) Pocklington. 1593 (8 Oct.) Pickering.

1594 (15 May) Pocklington, (24 Feb.) Kilham, (4 Nov.) Pickering. 1595 (blank) Pocklington, (25 Aug.) Pickering.

1596 (16 Aug.) Pocklington, (15 Aug.) Pickering.

1597 [No visitations recorded.]

1598 (23 April) Pocklington, (20 April) Pickering, (7 Sept.) Kilham. 1599 (24 Aug.) Pocklington, (20 Aug.) Pickering, (22 Aug.) Kilham. 1600 (5 Sept.) Pocklington, (1 Sept.) Pickering), (3 Sept.) Kilham. 1601 (26 Aug.) Pocklington, (ult. Aug.) Pickering, (2 Sept.) Kilham. 1602 (14 Aug.) Pocklington, (10 Aug.) Pickering, (14 Aug.) Kilham.

It will be seen that in 1590, 1591, 1593, 1595, and 1596 no visitation of Kilham is recorded. In 1593 the only visitation is that of Pickering. In 1602 both Pocklington and Kilham were apparently visited on the same day, but probably this is a clerical error.

The writing of the visitation entries is for the most part clear and easy to read, but occasionally difficulties are met with, especially in the unusual forms of contractions which are used when Latin is employed, and in one or two cases it has been impossible to feel quite certain what word is meant. I am indebted to the Rev. E. W. Drage, vicar of Pickering, for the loan of the book in order to transcribe it, and to Mr. W. Brown and Canon Fowler, of Durham, for kindly helping in the difficulties that were met with, and for revising the transcript.

A few preliminary remarks seem needed. The jurisdiction of the Dean of York over the churches, the visitations of which are included in the Pickering book, dated from the reign of Henry I, by whom it would appear that the churches of Pocklington, Pickering, and Kilham, with their chapels, were given to the deanery of York as part of its corps, on the petition of Gerard, Archbishop of York (1100-1108).'

In volume xxxvi of the publications of the Surtees Society, Chancellor Raine has printed in full the ordination made by Archbishop Walter Gray of the vicarages of the three churches of Pocklington, Pickering, and Kilham, and the chapels dependent on them. From this document we understand how certain churches were visited at Pocklington and others at Pickering, and none, except Kilham, at Kilham. The churches and chapels visited at Pocklington were originally chapels in that parish, and owed allegiance to it as their mother church. The same was the case with those visited at Pickering. Kilham, having no subordinate chapels within its parochial bounds, was visited by itself. It seems unnecessary to enter into all the details of Archbishop Gray's arrangement respecting these three churches and their chapels, and the provision made for the sustenance of the clergy who were to serve them, as the ordination he made can be so readily consulted in the published volume of the archbishop's Register. Briefly, however, it may be intimated that the vicars of Pocklington, Pickering, and Kilham were each to maintain a chaplain with them, and that they, and the vicars of the chapels subject to them, were

1 Lawton's Collections relating to the Dioceses of York

and Ripon, p. 360, etc.

2 Except Kildwick Percy, which had

been given to the deanery of York rather

earlier, and was no doubt visited at Pocklington as a matter of convenience.

to provide the ministers needed for the services of the church in each case. This would refer to the parish clerk and the other clerks in minor orders employed in the services of the mediæval church. The archbishop directed that there was to be one vicar for the chapels of Milington and Geveldale,' and that those chapels were to pay annually two shillings to the mother church of Pocklington, in equal portions at Pentecost and St. Martin in winter, "nomine subjectionis matrici ecclesiae suae de Poklington." In like manner, there was to be one vicar in the chapels of Thornton and Alverthorp, and those chapels were to pay annually to Pocklington 12d. The chapels of Hayton and Beleby were to have one vicar, and were to pay annually 45. to Pocklington, and in the chapels of Fankefosse and Barneby there was to be one vicar, and those chapels were to pay 25. annually to Pocklington.

As regards Pickering and its subordinate chapels, no provision was made for Goathland other than that the vicar of Pickering was to receive the tithe, and Goathland remained a curacy dependent on Pickering till recent times. In the chapels of Ellerburn and Wilton Archbishop Gray ordered that there was to be one vicar, and that those chapels were to pay to Pickering annually 25. In the chapels of Ebreston and Alverstan there was, in like manner, to be one vicar, and those chapels were to pay 12d. yearly to Pickering.

Kilham having no subordinate chapels, was dealt with by itself. Finally, jurisdiction over both persons and things within the entire deanery was wholly vested in the dean. Archbishop Gray's ordination is dated 7th of the ides of November, 1252. The authority of the Dean of York over these churches and chapels of the Peculiar was only terminated by virtue of the changes made, some sixty years ago, by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. It was one of those anomalies which grew up in the middle ages, the evils of which were unforeseen at the beginning. Lawton states that the dean exercised over his Peculiar full episcopal jurisdiction, saving only the conferring of confirmation and holy orders," which pertained alone to one who was a bishop. In 1592-3 Dr. John Thornburgh, Dean of York, was promoted to the bishopric of Limerick, and was allowed to hold the deanery in commendam. The result was, that except perhaps for the payment of certain dues on ordination to the archbishop and not to himself, the Bishop of Limerick could, as

1 This provision for one vicar in two churches, or "chapels," as Gray's ordination still described them, was unusual. It seems to have attracted the attention of his successor in the seventeenth century, Archbishop Sharp, who observed

that "Millington is as much a parish church as Givendale, though they have but one vicar." (Lawton's Collections, etc., p. 339.)

2 Collections, etc., p. 4.

Dean of York, for all practical purposes treat these Yorkshire churches of his Peculiar as a detached part of his Irish diocese, the archbishop being ousted completely from the pastoral oversight of what was properly a portion of his own charge. It is true that the archbishop retained authority over the dean, as dean, and this was taken advantage of by Archbishop Harcourt in the case of Dean Cockburn, when the charges of simony were brought against the dean in respect to some of these churches, but so far as the Peculiar itself was internally concerned the dean's jurisdiction was practically paramount.

An illustration of the evils of the system may be seen from the repetition at the visitations, time after time without redress, of the dean's neglect to do his duty. This culminated in an appeal to the Lords of the Council by the parishioners of Pickering in 1615. Instead of being in a position to complain to the archbishop of the conduct of the dean as impropriator, the parishioners had to adopt the cumbrous and circuitous process of laying their complaint before the Privy Council. Although it deals with a time slightly subsequent to the visitation records, the account of what took place, copied from an entry of the Minutes of the Privy Council at the end of one of the older Register Books at Pickering, is so instructive that it ought to find a place here. It would seem that Edward Mylls (whose name appears as vicar of Pickering in the last visitation entry, and concerning whom some curious presentments were then made) was either incompetent or unwilling to preach in his church, and thus, owing to the dean's neglect to provide the quarter sermons, for a long period no sermon had been preached in the church. It was obviously no use to continue to complain of the dean to the dean, and as the Archbishop of York had no jurisdiction over Pickering, the parishioners' only course seems to have been to go with their grievance to the Lords of the Council, and this they did, as we learn from the following minute of the Privy Council in the Parish Register:

"At the Court at Greenewich on Sunday the 21 of May 1615 in the afternoone: present L. Archbishop of Canterburie [Abbot], L. Chancelor, L. Knolls, L. Treasurer, Mr Secretarie Winwood, D. of Linnox, Mr Chanceler of the Excheq., E. of Worcester, L. Chiefe Justice, E. of Pembrooke, M' of ye Rolles, L. Souch, Sir Thomas Lake.

Complaint having bin made vnto the boarde by the Inhabitants of the towne and parish of Pickering in the Countie of Yorke, That

1 The entry is thumbed in places, and words lost or made doubtful;
the sense, however, is not affected.

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