from St. John's House, to the behoof of Joan, daughter of John Rolfe.*

Hasted says that this priory was a cell to the foreign Abbey of Pontiniac, or Pontigny; but this I cannot affirm. He adds, that it was seized by Henry V, together with the goods of every other alien priory, in 1410-11, and that it was given by Henry VI to All Souls' College in 1439, together with the advowson of the church of St. Nicholas, or practically of New Romney.† These statements I can neither confirm nor deny. In the following page, Hasted speaks of St. John's House, for the use of the poor in St. Laurence parish, as an institution distinct from the Priory; and says that it had been dissolved, and had become the property of John Mores, of St. Nicholas Romney, before the 4th year of Edward IV (1463-4), when Mores made his will. That will, however, I cannot find in the Probate Court at Canterbury. Hasted must have intended to write 4 Edward VI, not 4 Edward IV. Entries in the Book of Notte, shew that the widow of John Mores held St. John's House, in 1557; and that Christopher Coucheman had it in 1560.

دو

There are two sites to which the name of "St. John's still clings. One in New Romney, called St. John's churchyard, is probably the site of that respecting which we have been treating. It contains 1 acre, 3 roods, and 25 perches, according to the tithe map, number 49.

Another site, called part of St. John's glebe field, lies near Old Romney Church. It contains 3 roods and 21 perches, according to the tithe map, number 344. It probably was part of the land belonging to St. John's Hospital.

SPITAL CHURCH.

The fifth sacred edifice in New Romney must have been the chapel of the Lepers' Hospital, dedicated to the two Martyr-Saints, Stephen and Thomas. It was founded between 1184 and 1190 by Adam de Cherryng, when Baldwin was Archbishop of Canterbury. It contained Lepers in A.D. 1255, when Robert, a leper, the husband of a certain woman

*Hist. MSS. Commission, Fifth Report, 539.

† viii., 457.

named Amicia, was one of its inmates. This fact is recorded upon the Plea Roll of the Kingdom.*

In 1363, after it had become ruinous, it was founded anew upon a fresh basis, by John (the son of Robert) Fraunceys. No longer required as a home for lepers, it was to be henceforth a perpetual chantry, having a master or warden and likewise a chaplain, who should say daily service for the souls of the founder and his kin.

Sir Reginald de Cobham, and Agnes his sister, were "patrons" of this hospital in the fourteenth century. To John de Holdesdon, chaplain, they let a chamber in the close of the hospital, beyond the gate, and also a grange in the barton in the same close, together with the following lands: seventeen acres, and all the hemp ground [cannabare] with its appurtenances, of which eight acres lie in St. Clements at Old Romney, near the mill of Aghene called Spitellis; other three acres, called Holwest, lie in Dimchurch; another acre, called Spitelacre, lies in Romney near Spitelberghe; other two acres are situate below the close of the hospital, and the hemp ground lies beyond the same.†

The new founder, John Fraunceys, had been farmer, or lessee, of the parsonage of St. Nicholas, Romney, for three years, 1370-3, before he refounded the hospital. He left two daughters, between whose husbands disputes arose respecting the right of patronage. Margaret Fraunceys, as the elder, first exercised that right, when her husband John Badmynton presented Robert Haddelsay to the post of master.§ When Haddelsay resigned, the second daughter Joanna Fraunceys exercised the right of patronage, and her husband Thomas Houlyng presented Thomas Morton in 1419, June 9. Meanwhile, Margaret having lost her first husband (Badmynton), had married William Clyderow, and had become a widow for the second time. In her second widowhood, she presented Thomas Slodyer to the mastership of this hospital,

*Plac. Rot. ad annum, memb. 28. Furley's Weald of Kent, ii. 64.

† Folio 96a of an old Register Book of New Romney, temp. Ed. 111 and Ric. II, now at St. Catherine's College, Cambridge. Hist. MSS. Commission, Fourth Report, pp. 427, 428.

Hist. MSS. Commission, Fifth Report, 427.
Archbishop Chichele's Register, i. 116.

|| Ibid., 116b.

on the 4th of December, 1421.* After the deaths of these ladies, trustees seem to have exercised the patronage; for in 1458, November 13, Richard Berne was appointed master, being presented by William, Bishop of Winchester, Simon Godmanston, clerk, and Hugh Pakenham, gentleman.† Tanner, quoted by Dugdale (vi. 640), says, that in 1481 this hospital was annexed to the College of St. Mary Magdalen, Oxford.

Service in the chapel was provided for, in the deed of refoundation, by Fraunceys. The master was bound to appoint a chaplain, to whom he was to pay 40s. per annum, in addition to giving him board and lodging. If the master failed to appoint a chaplain, he was bound to distribute £4 13s. 4d. per annum among the poor of Romney, or 23s. 4d. each quarter of a year, during the vacancy.‡

Hasted's mention of a church dedicated to St. Michael seems to be an error. I cannot find any mention of such a church in the wills of Romney people, nor in the records of the archbishop, nor in the archives of the town. But the method in which the name of St. Nicholas is abbreviated so nearly resembles the abbreviated form of St. Michael, that I think Hasted may easily have misread the name.

There is, near Old Romney Church, a piece of glebe land belonging to New Romney vicarage, containing two acres and thirty-seven perches, to which the name of St. Michaels has become attached. It is numbered 402 on the tithe map, and is described as part of glebe field, St. Michaels. Why, or by whom, it was so described, no one seems able to discover. It may, in early times, have been the property of the Norman Abbey of St. Michael. Among the Saxon Charters, printed by Kemble, in his Codex Diplomaticus, one numbered 914 is called "Charta Antiqua Sancti Michaelis in Normannia" (vol. vi., p. xxii). By it, "Eadweard, Anglorum rex," granted to the Brethren serving God in St. Michael'snext-the-sea, the Port which is called Ruminella, with all its mills, fisheries, and lands.

W. A. ScoTT ROBERTSON.

Archbishop Chichele's Register, i., 128b. † Archbishop Bourchier's Register.

Dugdale's Monasticon, vi., p. 641.

LYDD RECORDS.

BY HENRY STRINGER (TOWN CLERK).

LYDD is well known as a limb of the Cinque Port of Romney, and seems to have been associated therewith in its very earliest records. The town of Lydd, as the charters shew, existed before the Conquest; the privileges which its "barons" enjoyed, in the time of King Edward the Confessor, being mentioned and confirmed by subsequent kings of England. In the reign of Henry VI, it was incorporated, and has ever since been governed by a bailiff, jurats, and commonalty. It appears, originally, to have comprised three boroughs, named Lydd, Dengemarsh, and Ingemarsh or Orwaldstone.

The borough of Dengemarsh was situated on the south, and south-west, sides of the present town.

The borough of Ingemarsh (on the west side of the river Rother) was divided into three parts, Westbroke, Orwaldstone, and Midley (Middel ea or Middle Island), held under different lords. Belgar was in Orwaldstone, and belonged to the prior of Bilsington.

The Archbishop of Canterbury was the chief lord of the town of Lydd, and the bailiff, jurats, and commonalty were called "the archbishop's men."

William the Conqueror, it is stated in the records, having founded an abbey at Battel, gave to its abbot the manor of Dengemarsh; including a manor house and certain demesnes. Some of the lands within the borough, however, did not belong to the said manor, but to divers men of Lydd and Dengemarsh.

The Court Hall is a very modern building, which serves both for the assemblies of the corporation, and for the sessions of the justices. Until the last century, there appear

to have been two separate edifices; one, built about the time of Henry VII, called the Court House, adjoined the churchstile, and beneath it was the market place, with the pump. The other, called the Commons' House, or place for the assemblies of the corporation, stood by the south side of the churchyard, and was erected in the year 1429. The remains of this wooden house can still be seen; it is the residence of Mr. Burkitt.

The muniments of the town extend back over several centuries, and are tolerably well preserved. They consist of several charters, assembly or court books, and books of the town accounts.

The earliest charter, of which we have any trace, is that of King Edward I, which probably does not now exist. It granted that the barons of Lydd and Ingemarsh should have the same liberties, and free customs, as the barons of Romenhale, and the other barons of the Cinque Ports; finding one ship, and taking part in the king's expeditions.

This charter was confirmed by King Edward II.

The earliest charter in our possession is that of 12 July, 1364 (38 Edward III), confirming the previous charters. It is in Latin, and has a seal and a painting of the arms of the corporation.

Our other charters were granted by Richard II (1390), Henry IV (1400), Henry V (1413 and 1415), and Edward IV (1464), confirming the previous charters, and reciting the rights and privileges of the Cinque Ports in the time of Edward the Confessor and William the Conqueror.

There is among the town archives a curious old box, stated to contain "an inquest on the death of a man;" but it now contains a parchment agreement, dated 1386, made between the prior of Bilsington and the town of Lydd, as to carrying off some cattle.

The court books commence with the fifteenth century, and are regularly brought down to the present period. Their contents are very amusing, but they throw little light on the early history of the town.

The books of the town accounts, however, which begin about the year 1425, contain entries of the most interesting