NORMAN PARISH PRIESTS

Jan. 16, 1248-9. Deanery of Bures. The priest of Pomerevalle is in evil repute and still ill-famed of tavern-haunting; he confesseth not to the Penitentiary, and is drunken. Item, William, priest of Mesnières, is ill-famed of trading, and keepeth farms to which he goeth oftentimes, so that divine service is diminished in his church. Item, the priest of Lortiey weareth his cassock (1) but seldom, and confesseth not to the Penitentiary, and is drunken. Item, the priest of Aulayge is grievously ill-noted of drunkenness and tavern-haunting. Item, we found that a certain chaplain of Meulers sang a certain mass for hire on Christmas Eve.

Jan. 18. Deanery of Aumale. The priest of Morville is illfamed of drunkenness and haunteth taverns, item of exacting money for the marriage-benediction. Item, Peter, priest of St Valery, hireth land to sow. Robert de Poys, priest, is ill-famed of trading; he hath promised us to desist.

Jan. 19. Deanery of Foucarmont. We found the priest of Neuilly ill-famed of trading, and ill-treating his father who is the patron of his benefice; and he fought bodily with drawn sword against a certain knight, with hue and cry and the help of his kinsfolk and friends. Item, the priest of Bazinval haunteth taverns. Item, the priest of Vieux-Rouen goeth about with a sword at his side and in unhonest garb. Item, the priest of Bouafles weareth no cassock and selleth his corn at a dearer price on account of a certain day (2). Item, the priest of Hamies is a leper, as it is thought. Item, the priest of Ecouis is a dicer and a player of quoits (3); he refused to take the pledged faith of espousal from a man, because he had not restored a legacy of his father; he haunteth taverns. Item, the priest of Petra hath celebrated mass, though suspended from his functions (4). Item, the priest of St Remy is ill-famed of drunkenness, weareth no cassock, playeth at dice, haunteth the tavern and is there oftentimes beaten (5). Item, the priest of Gilemerville dwelleth not in his parish, as he should, nor weareth the cassock, and sometimes he loseth his garments in taverns (6). Item, Robert, priest of Campneuseville, hath no cassock. Item, the priest of St Martin du Bois is litigious and a wanderer (vagabundus). Item, the priest of Pierrepont is drunken, and playeth at dice and quoits. Item, Master Walter, priest of Grandcourt, is ill-famed of overmuch drinking. Item, from Robert, priest of St Mary's church at Mortemer, (whom we found grievously ill-famed of misbehaviour, litigiousness, and tavern-haunting,) we have the letters here below (7). Item, the priest of Realcamp, corrected by the Archdeacon, had promised that in case of relapse he would hold his benefice as resigned ipso facto, and hath since relapsed, even as he sometimes also loseth his garments in taverns. We have denounced the aforesaid priest as ipso facto deprived of the aforesaid church. Item, we found that the priest of Mesnil-David, oftentimes corrected by the Archdeacon, hath relapsed, and it is said that he hath celebrated in spite of suspension, wherefore we have bidden him purge himself in form of law from these accusations, or we would proceed to an inquisition against him (8). To which he answered that he would take counsel hereupon: we therefore have assigned him a day to answer these things.

Jan. 20. Deanery of Neufchâtel. Adam, priest of Neuilly, hath been corrected for drunkenness by the Archdeacon. Item, the priest of Sommery resideth not in his parish as he should, and rideth abroad like a vagabond. Item, Thomas, priest of Mesnil-Mauger, is said to buy and sell horses and to trade in other ways. Item, the priest of Fosse cometh not to [ruridecanal] chapters, nor to the synod. Item, Master Robert de Houssaye, parson of Conteville, is ill-famed of drunkenness and dilapidation [of church property]; he vexeth folk and dwelleth not in his parish. Item, the priest of Malacopula frequenteth assizes and lay courts. Item, the priest of Lucy exacteth from each woman 13 pence; even though the child die before the churching, he will not church the mother until she pay 13 pence. Item, the priest of Haucourt buyeth and holdeth land on farm from the abbess of Buieval. The priest of Nogent hath no cassock. The priest of Louvechamp keepeth hunting hounds. Item, the priests of Salicosa Mara and Beaubec have no cassocks.

Jan. 22. Deanery of Eu. We found the priest of Panliu ill-famed of drunkenness; he selleth his wine and maketh his parishioners drunken. The priest of Auberville resideth not in his parish as he should. The [rural] Dean is ill-famed of exacting money, and it is said that he had forty shillings from the priest of Essigny for dealing gently with him in his incontinence. The prior of Criel is ill-famed of trading: he selleth rams. The priest of St Aignan is unhonestly dressed; item, the priest of Berneval is a trader in cider, corn, and salt. Item, the priest of Bouville selleth wine, as it is said.

Jan. 27. Deanery of Envermeu. Renier, priest of Jonquières, is ill-famed of drunkenness; so also William and Ralph, priests of Bailly, who have been corrected by the Archdeacon. Item, Robert, priest of Derchigny, of trading and taking farms. Item, the priest of St Sulpice is drunken; item, the priest of Sauchay-in-the-Forest celebrates though suspended; item, in that parish are wakes every Saturday; we enjoined that the church should be closed at nightfall, and no man should hold wakes there (9). Item, the priest of Sauchay by the Sea is drunken; so also is the priest of St Mary at Envermeu. Item, the priest of St Martin-en-Campagne, of selling hemp; item, the priest of Belleville hath ships on the sea, and haunteth taverns. Item, Vinquenel, chaplain of Bracquemont, is drunken. Item, the priest of Martin-Eglise is drunken; he hath twice been corrected and hath sworn to the Archdeacon that, if he relapsed, he would take his benefice as resigned. Item, the chaplain of Douvrend is ill-famed of drunkenness, and the priest of St Laurent-le-Petit of selling his sacraments. Item, the priest of Etrun, of trading. Item, the priest of Bailleul singeth not his vespers in the church.

(1) Church synods attempted constantly but vainly to compel the clergy to wear decent attire - i.e. a capa clausa, or closed cassock, reaching at least below the knees, of neither red nor green, which were specially worldly colours. Some ten years before this date, the Council of Rouen fulminated afresh against clerics who neglected their tonsure, and who went about in tabards of jackets: the offending garments were to be confiscated and given to leper-houses. Odo, strict disciplinarian as he was, shows no sign of having carried this rule into practice: the Rouen synods of 1279 and 1313 were compelled to deal again with the same matter.

(2) I.e. makes usurious bargains out of other men's necessities, which rendered him ipso facto excommunicate: see Busch. in vol.II.

(3) Many most respectable games enjoyed an evil reputation in the Middle Ages on account of the gambling and quarrels which accompanied them. With regard to dicing, Odo's friend St Louis discouraged it even among the laity: in this same year 1248 Joinville tells us (§ 405), "One day he asked what the Count of Anjou was doings and they told him he was playing at tables with my Lord Walter of Nemours. And he went thither tottering, for he was weak by reason of sickness; and he took the dice and the tables, and threw them into the sea; and he was very wroth with his brother because he had so soon taken to playing at dice. But my Lord Walter came off best, for he threw all the moneys on the table into his own lap - and they were very many - and carried them away."

(4) This again entailed excommunication ipso facto.

(5) Et ibi multitociens verberatur. It is very probable that this a Gallicism meaning simply that he often fights there.

(6) I.e. at dice. Cf. Caes. Heist. Dial, vol. iv, p. 44, and the two parodies of Church Services in Carmina Burana, nos. 189, 196; and again the songs 193, 195: ‘’When a man hath drunk his tunic. Let him dice away his shirt!" This is illustrated in the sketch-book of Villard de Honnecourt, from which the accompanying illustration is facsimiled: another similar picture may be found in Wright's Homes of Other Days, p.230.

(7) From the worst sinners - for these priests of Mortemer and Realcamp were habitually unchaste also - Odo exacted letters promissory that they would resign their benefices in case of relapse.

(8) The allusion is here to the process called compurgation. A clerk accused in the bishop's court could clear himself by bringing a certain number of fellow-clergy (or sometimes, of neighbours) to swear with him to their belief in his innocence. This procedure was notoriously a great temptation to perjury: see Rashdall, Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, vol. II, pp. 410, 417, and From St Francis to Dante (second edition), p.430.

(9) There were repeated attempts to put down these wakes in England, from at least as early as 1240 to the verge of the Reformation: see Wilkins, Concilia, vol. I, p. 675; vol.II, p. 706; vol. III, pp. 68, 845; Grosseteste, Epistolae, p. 74. Abp. Thoresby of York, for instance, ordained "since it often cometh to pass that folk assemble in the churches on the eves of holidays, who ought there to busy themselves in divine worship, or in praying for souls at the obsequies of the dead, yet who, turning to a reprobate mind, are intent upon noxious games and vanities, and sometimes worse still, grievously offending God and His saints whom they feign to honour, and making the house of mourning and funeral-prayer into a house of laughter and excess, to the most grievous peril of their own souls; therefore we strictly forbid that any who come to these wakes or obsequies, especially within the aforesaid churches, should make or in any way practise wrestlines or foul sports [turpitudines], or anything else tending to error or sin’’.

(Coulton I, p.79-84)