Note 129 — HISTORY OF THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF WELLS. (continued 2)

This most important statute is printed in the Monasticon, ii. pp. 291, 292. Its date is 1242, the thirty-seventh year of Jocelin's episcopate. He records what he had done for the fabric of the church, which he found dangerous by reason of age ("periculum ruinæ patiebatur pro suâ vetustate." See above, p. 67). He had built, enlarged, and consecrated it ("ædificare cœpimus et ampliare, in quâ ... adeo profecimus, quod ipsam ... consecravimus"). Then he goes on to say that the common ("communa") revenues of the ministers of the church had hitherto been scanty ("tenuis et insufficiens"), and that he had done much to enlarge it. It would seem then that the greater part of the estates of the church had been cut up into separate prebends, and that, before Jocelin's gift, the Chapter as a body kept but little. He then recites the consent of the Dean and Chapter to his ordinance in words which mark a very different relation between the Bishop and his Chapter from what had been in the days of Gisa and John of Tours. The change is made "consensu Johannis Sarraceni, Decani, et Capituli nostri Wellensis, qui pure et simpliciter et absolute, de merâ et spontaneâ voluntate suâ, nostræ super hoc se supposuerunt ordinationi et statuto." Then come the rules by which the Bishop, the Dean and the other dignitaries, the other Canons, and the Vicars, were on each day of residence to receive certain sums of money. They had hitherto received their daily portion, partly in money, partly in bread. The amount was now raised, and it was paid wholly in money. The Bishop had thirteen pence, the Dean and other dignitaries twelve pence, each simple Canon sixpence, each Vicar a penny, for each day of residence. At the end of the year the overplus was to be divided among those Canons who had kept the prescribed residence, which is thus defined: "Residentes autem interpretamur quoad participationem residui in fine anni omnes illos Canonicos qui per medium annum, sive continue sive interpolatim, fecerint in villam [sic] residentiam, præter Decanum, Præcentorem, Cancellarium, et Thesaurarium, quos interpretamur residentes si per duas partes anni fecerint residentiam sive continue sive interpolatim."

Each Canon had thus three available sources of income, his own prebend, the daily distribution, and the distribution at the end of the year. The first was irrespective of residence, the latter two depended on residence.