to free himself and his successors from a heavy
burden. The complete record of the act is missing; in 1278 the
Archbishop was created Cardinal Bishop of Porto and it is alleged that
he carried away to Rome the registers of the Archbishops which were
never recovered.1 The chapter of the
cathedral monastery of Canterbury consented to Archbishop Kilwardby's
arrangement which provided that the Keeper of the leper hospital at
Harbledown should pay a hundred marks (£66 13s. 4.) to the hospital of
Northgate, Canterbury, and retain a hundred and forty marks (£93 6s.
8d.) for the lepers under his care.
The assessment of Reculver in the Taxation of Pope Nicholas in
1291 is interesting; the rector's portion was assessed at 170 marks
(£113 6s. 8d.), the vicar's share at twenty-five marks; these figures
represented approximately two-thirds of the estimated average income in
Archbishop Kilwardby's gift to the Hospitals; the obligation of two
hundred and forty marks was covered in the assessment of a hundred and
seventy marks which would give a margin of ten marks for the cost of
collection and yearly variations.
By this appropriation to the hospitals the spiritual
provision for the parishioners of Reculver was reduced to approximately
one-eighth of the former amount; the vicar who took the place of the
wealthy rector was nevertheless bound to maintain chaplains for the
services of the chapels and to contribute to the repair of those
buildings. By an unusual provision the parishioners were responsible for
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repair of the chancel as well as the nave of the
mother church of Reculver.
The consequences of Archbishop Kilwardby's action were
disastrous. The parishioners were so resentful of their subjection to
lepers that they withheld payment of their tithes, and the hospitals
suffered a serious loss of revenue. The vicar of Reculver neglected his
obligation to send a chaplain to celebrate mass daily in the chapels of
All Saints in Thanet and of St. Nicholas, and their parishioners
complained to Archbishop Peckham, the Franciscan friar who succeeded
Kilwardby. He held an inquiry, and on April 27th, 1284, he decreed that
the vicar should provide a chaplain to serve the two chapels and
insisted that the inhabitants and the vicar alike were bound to
contribute to the repair of the buildings.2
In 1296 liability to contribute to the restoration of the fabric of All
Saints' chapel was disputed. On June 12th, parishioners came to Bourne
near Canterbury bringing documents to exhibit to Archbishop Winchelsey's
commissaries; it was settled that the street called North Street from
the house of the late John de Aula as far as the house of Richard le
Rydere on either side of the said street lay within the bounds of the
chapel of All Saints, and therefore all the inhabitants of the street,
and those who had lands adjoining it, were
1 R. C. Jenkins, Diocesan
History of Canterbury, pp. 156, 157.
2 Register of Archbishop Peckham, ff.
206v, 207. I am indebted to Dr. Irene Churchill for this reference. |