Читать книгу History of Madeley including Ironbridge, Coalbrookdale, and Coalport онлайн

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The faithful portraits Chaucer drew of the Sumptner and Pardoner, agents of ecclesiastical courts—one to hunt out delinquents who were wealthy, the other to make them pay well for their sins—are familiar to most. The prior of the Madeley manor carried this so far that he drew down upon him one bright day in April, 1243, before he was aware of it, a king’s writ for exacting “toll,” “on beer, seizing the third of widows’ goods who died within the vill of any deceased tenant, before his debts were paid, and otherwise oppressing those within the limits of the priory.” As the author of the “Antiquities of Shropshire” has said,

“The prior ground down the vicar, the vicar in turn impoverished his subordinates, and they (the chaplains) either starved their flocks or were themselves paupers. The bishops moreover, doubtless for certain considerations, connived at, nay, prominently aided the whole system of extortion.”

This had been carried so far as to require the presence of Bishop Swinfield, who held the See, in 1285, to rectify misappropriations of tithe in sheep and corn, and to arrange disputes respecting them within the boundaries of the Priory. In April, 1290, the bishop paid another visit, being by invitation the guest of the Prior; we do not get the expenses of the feast, but he is known to have been a joval soul, well to do, with two palaces in the country, and three in London, constantly moving about, taking care to carry about with him his brass pots, earthen jugs, and other domestic utensils for his retainers, who were littered down in the great halls of the manors, at each stage of the journey. He had numerous manor houses of his own, a farm at each, stables for many horses, kennels for his hounds, and mews for his hawks. His kitchens reeked with every kind of food; his cellars were filled with wine, and his spiceries with foreign luxuries. Take a glance at the bishop’s feast after a fast at his residence on the Teme. On Sunday, October the second, at the bishop’s generous board, the consumption was, three quarters of beef, three sheep, half a pig, eight geese, ten fowls, twelve pigeons, nine partridges, and larks too numerous to mention, the whole accompanied with a due proportion of wine.