Wells.[1] We search in vain to discover the reason of this interest in Evesham Abbey. Dean Richard appears once as attesting an Evesham charter;[2] but no abbot or monk of Evesham appears in the Wells documents of the period.
We have noted already that not long after Dean Richard's entry upon his office the long-drawn controversy with the nephews of the precentor found its close and the threatened estates of the dean and chapter were finally secured. This was in March 1165. Some eighteen months later the good Bishop Robert, the founder of the new regime, passed away on the last day of August 1166. The bishopric remained vacant owing to the quarrel between Becket and the king: the new bishop Reginald, appointed in May 1173, was consecrated abroad on 23 June 1174 and enthroned at Bath on 24 November.
Thus for spiritual purposes the bishopric was vacant for eight years. To this period belongs an undated letter of Alexander III to the dean, precentor, and chapter of Wells, in which he requires them to assign a prebend wrongfully usurped by Thomas the arch deacon and his brother Stephen to Master E., a canon appointed by the late bishop with promise of a prebend when a vacancy should occur.[3] The prebend in question would seem to have been Whitchurch (in Binegar), and if so it is clear that the pope's order was not carried out (cf. R. iii. 370): as Archdeacon Thomas was high in the king's favour, it is likely that nothing happened to disturb him or his brother. Master E. is possibly to be identified with Master Eustace, who attests Bishop Robert's charter concerning fairs at Wells, and some others which belong to the years 1163-6. The incident is of interest as showing that a canon might have to wait some time before he could become a prebendary. And the pope's letter to Dean Richard became famous for the obiter dictum that no one could hold two prebends in the same church: it was added to the Decretals and became part of the Canon Law.
- ↑ Chron. Evesh. (Rolls Ser.), pp. 101 f. 'Claustrum etiam, quod Mauritius et Reginaldus abbates pro parte fecerant, et navis ecclesiae cum adjutorio decani de Welles maxime et aliorum bonorum virorum ejus [sc. Adami] tempore perfecta sunt. … Ejus tamen tempore fuit Rieardus decanus de Welles, qui acquisivit redditum quindecim marcarum de ecclesia de Ambresleia [v. l. Ombresleye] ad opera ecclesiae istius, et optimas confirmationes earundem, et qui fecit aulam quae nunc est abbatis. Iste enim decanus pensionem ecclesiae de Baddebi et quosdam alios redditus acquisivit; unde cereus ante magnum altare et corpora sanctorum perenniter ardens appositus est. Cujus etiam maxime auxilio et ecclesia et ornamenta et omnia predicta perfecta sunt.'
- ↑ Monasticon, ii. 19.
- ↑ Jaffé-Wattenbach, ii. 397. See below, p. 80.
