pension of forty shillings until a prebend should fall vacant. When the bishop was dead and the revenues of the see were diverted to the public purse, a prebend did fall vacant; but the king conferred it on Thomas his clerk, to whom he afterwards gave another prebend as well, with the archdeaconry to which it is attached, though no one is permitted to hold two prebends in one and the same church. Thereupon Thomas, relying on the royal authority, presumed to confer on Stephen his brother the fruits of the former prebend. Since therefore it belongs to us to correct ecclesiastical abuses of this kind, we require you at once to assign to Master E. that prebend with its fruits which Thomas after obtaining the archdeaconry is said to have conferred on his brother Stephen: for that is held to be not given, which is given by one who has not the right to give it.'[1]
We cannot with certainty identify Master E., nor tell whether the pope's interference enabled him to get a prebend. But it seems unlikely that Thomas the archdeacon modified the comfortable arrangement which with the king's consent he had made with his brother Stephen. A charter of about 1190 shews us the two brothers acting conjointly in regard to the prebend of Whitchurch (in Binegar). It is an agreement between Thomas archdeacon of Wells and Stephen de Tornaco canon of the prebend of Whitchurch and Roger de Palton, whereby the said Thomas and Stephen his brother grant to the said Roger a watercourse, &c, in exchange for land in Wells.[2] Stephen de Tornaco presents to the parsonage of Binegar a few years later, apparently in the vacancy of the see after Bishop Reginald's death:[3] and we find him as a canon at the election of Bishop Jocelin in 1206. It looks as though Thomas kept his hold on the prebend in conjunction with Stephen de Tornaco, who may have retained it in his own right at a later date.[4]
We now look again at the Pipe Rolls. In the year from Mich. 1170 to Mich. 1171 arrears are entered against Thomas archdeacon of Wells, viz. £7 for that year and £7 for the year before. It appears
- ↑ Jaffé-Watt. ii. 397. The letter is printed in Mansi's Concilia, xxi. 1090, but with serious mistakes, from Antonii Augustini archiep. Tarracon. opera, iv. 205 a.
- ↑ R. iii. 370.
- ↑ R. i. 101 b.
- ↑ Thomas the archdeacon of Wells is never called Thomas de Tornaco: but there is a Thomas de Tornaco who frequently attests with Stephen de Tornaco, sometimes before but generally after him. This Thomas de Tornaco becomes succentor and then precentor (c. 1209-16). Hugh de Turnay, of whom we have spoken above, may have been of the same family; as no doubt was William de Tornaco, who had at one time the parsonage of Binegar (R. i. 101 b), then became archdeacon of Stowe and afterwards of Lincoln, then dean of Lincoln (1223): suspended in 1239, he became a monk at South Park. He was one of several Somerset men who followed Bishop Hugh de Welles to Lincoln.
