Aspects of Kentish Local History

and the offerings counted in the presence of the vicar and some of the parishioners, the amount written down, two parishioners chosen to spend it and render an account.¹
   The vicar and parishioners were also at variance about legacies and offerings for the lights of the church and the provision of seven candles in the chancel. The Archbishop decreed that two parishioners should be elected to receive offerings for lights in the presence of the vicar, maintain the lights and render an account once a year. The vicar was under an obligation to provide six candles in the chancel and two processional candles at his own expense.
    Parishioners elected by the community were bound to renew their oaths of faithful administration every year in the presence either of the rector's commissary or of the vicar and of some of the parishioners.
   The rector to whom the Archbishop referred in this award was not the Crown nominee and powerful chancellor, John de Langton. He was only in subdeacon's orders and had as yet no papal dispensation to hold Reculver with his other benefices. Archbishop Winchelsey had the courage to regard the rectory as vacant, and in 1295 he presented Thomas of Chartham who was duly inducted but to little purpose save vexation.² Year by year, as the Archbishop recalled in 1299, John de Langton seized the rector's tithes. On June 11th in that year the chancellor landed at Dover after

an absence of nearly four months. He had been at the papal court in Rome with letters from Edward I in support of his election to the see of Ely. He was unsuccessful but as a compensation for his disappointment Boniface VIII had given him, on April 21st, a license to retain the treasureship of the cathedral church of Wells, canonries and prebends in seven cathedral churches and one collegiate church, six parish churches in as many different dioceses with leave to acquire two more benefices up to a total value of £1000 a year.³ One of the parish churches which he could retain was Reculver.³
   Soon after Langton's return to England he sent a large band of armed men and servants to break into the rectory and buildings of Reculver and of the chapels. They occupied the buildings in daylight in the presence of the parishioners with the intention of seizing the rector's tithes.⁴  Their arrival was reported to the Archbishop by the rightful rector, Thomas of Chartham. On July 18th and 24th, Winchelsey issued mandates to his commissary, Master Martin, to warn the offenders to withdraw and make restitution under penalty of excommunication, and also to see that proclamation was made during mass on Sundays
   ¹ Winchelsey, I, pp. 87-9.
    ²  Ibid., I, p. 350.
    ³  C. P. L., I, p. 581.
    ⁴ Winchelsey, I, pp. 350-8.