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asking the hospitality of the monks of Derley for some of the brethren. A period of prosperity followed and many benefactions flowed in, including the gift of various churches by the king. It was after twenty-six years of quarrelling that the Pope, in 1224, had appointed to the bishopric Walter de Stavenby, an able and learned man. During his episcopacy the friars made their appearance in England, and by him the Franciscans were introduced at Lichfield, while at Coventry Ranulph, Earl of Chester, gave them land in Cheylesmore on which to build their oratory and house.

      They were not generally welcomed by the monks. A Benedictine laments their first appearance thus "Oh shame! oh worse than shame! oh barbarous pestilence! the Minor Brethren are come into England!" and at Bury they were obliged to build outside a mile radius from the Abbey. The parish priests also soon found out that they were undersold in the exercise of their spiritual offices and although no doubt many badly needed awakening they were not, on that account, the more likely to welcome the intruders.

      Another innovation, affecting the fortunes of the parish priest, had its beginning under the rule of Bishop Stavenby though its greatest development occurred in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This was the foundation of Chantries designed primarily for the maintenance of a priest or priests to say mass daily or otherwise for the soul's health of the founder, his family and forbears. The earliest we hear of are one at Lincoln, and one at Hatherton in Coventry Archdeaconry while the Bishop himself endowed one in Lichfield Cathedral. Many were perpetual endowments (£5 per annum being the average stipend), others were temporary, according to the means of those who paid for the masses—for a term of years or for a fixed number of masses. Although chantry priests were often required to give regular help in the church services or taught such scholars as came to them or served outlying chapelries, the system permitted a great number to live on occasional engagements and was doubtless productive of abuses. Chaucer tells us that his poor parson was not such an one as

      … left his sheep encumbered in the mire,

       And ran unto London, unto Saint Poul's,

       To seekë him a chantery for souls.

      The number of chantries in the different cathedrals varied very greatly, Lichfield had eighty-seven, St. Paul's thirty-seven, York only three. Monks' churches had few or none while in town churches they were numerous, London having one hundred and eighty, York forty-two, Coventry at least fifteen besides the twelve gild priests of the chapel of Babelake. Most were founded in connection with an existing altar, some had a special altar, at Winchester, Tewkesbury and elsewhere they were enclosed in screens between the pillars of the nave, or a special chapel was added to the church.

      It was in the thirteenth century also (1267) that the monastery obtained the grant of a Merchants' Gild; with all the privileges thereto belonging, the earliest of those which contributed so much to the renown of Coventry. These were Benefit Societies, insuring help to the "Brethren and sistren" in old age, sickness or poverty, securing to them the services of the church after death and in all cases established on a strictly religious basis and placed under the protection of a Saint, or of the Holy Trinity. The regulation and protection of trade interests, generally aiming at monopoly and the exclusion of outsiders, were later developments. But without doubt they were public-spirited bodies according to their lights, maintaining schools (as at Stratford-on-Avon) hospitals and almshouses, and giving freely on all occasions of public importance. By pageants too, they contributed to the happiness and amusement of the people as well as by the presentation of Mysteries and Moralities, to their instruction and edification. But in the eyes of the Reformers, or of grasping courtiers, all this went for nothing when weighed against the heinous offence of supporting chaplains to pray for deceased members and so (6 Edward VI) they were suppressed along with the chantries, and their property confiscated, "the very meanest and most inexcusable of the plunderings which threw discredit on the Reformation."

      Here, the city bought back everything which had belonged to the Trinity and Corpus Christi Gilds, with various almshouses and the possessions of the majority of the Chantries; while previously at the Dissolution it had bought the abbey-orchard, and mill, and the house and church of the Grey Friars.

      In 1340 Edward III granted Licence to the Coventry men to form a Merchants' Gild with leave "to make chantries, bestow alms, do other works of piety and constitute ordinances touching the same." This was St. Mary's Gild. Two years later that of St. John Baptist was formed and a year later that of St. Katherine, the three being united into the Trinity Gild before 1359. Of the chapel (now St. John's church) begun in 1344 by the St. John's Gild and the "fair and stately structure for their feasts and meetings called St. Mary Hall" built in 1394 by the united Gilds more will be said later (p. 81 and p. 97). The end of the fourteenth century and the fifteenth brought to Coventry a full share in the events and movements of the time. In 1396 the duel between Hereford and Norfolk was to have taken place on Gosford Green (adjoining the city) and Richard II made the fatal mistake of banishing both combatants. At the Priory in 1404 Henry IV held his Parliament known, from the fact that no lawyers were summoned to it, as the "Parliamentum Indoctorum." Setting itself in opposition to ecclesiastics, it proposed to supply the King's needs by taxing church-property. As in the matter of the city walls, the church contrived to avoid bearing its share of the public burdens and the chronicler ends thus: "Much ado there was; but to conclude, the worthy Archbishop (viz. Tho. Arundell) standing stoutly for the good of the Church, preserved it at that time from the storm impending." One branch of his argument is noteworthy, that as the confiscation of the alien priories had not enriched the King by half a mark (courtiers having extorted or begged them out of his hands), so it would be were he to confiscate the temporalities of the monasteries. Henry VIII had reason to acknowledge the fulfilment of the prophecy.

      Soon after this, in 1423, Coventry showed its sympathy for Lollardry when John Grace an anchorite friar came out of his cell and preached for five days in the "lyttell parke." He was opposed by the prior of St. Mary's and by a Grey Friar who however were attacked and nearly killed by the mob.

      The royal visits which earned for Coventry the title which it still bears as its motto 'Camera principis' were frequent in this century. In 1436 we hear of Henry VI being there, and in 1450 he was the guest of the monastery and after hearing mass at St. Michael's Church presented to it for an altar-hanging the robe of gold tissue he was wearing. The record in the Corporation Leet book is interesting enough to quote:

      The King, then abydeng stille in the seide Priory, upon Mich'as even sent the clerke of his closet to the Churche of Sent Michel to make redy ther hys clossette, seying that the Kynge on Mich'as day wolde go on p'cession and also her ther hygh masse. The Meyre and his counsell, remembreng him in this mater, specially avysed hem to pray the Byshoppe of Wynchester to say hygh masse afore the Kynge. The Byshoppe so to do agreed withe alle hys herte; and, agayne the Kynges comeng to Sent Michel Churche, the Meyre and his Peres, cladde in skarlet gowns, wenton unto the Kynges Chambar durre, ther abydeng the Kynges comeng. The Meyre then and his peres, doeng to the Kyng due obeysaunse … toke his mase and bere it afore the Kynge all his said bredurn goeng afore the Meyre til he com to Sent Michels and brought the Kynge to his closette. Then the seyde Byshoppe, in his pontificals arayde, with all the prestes and clerkes of the seyde Churche and of Bablake, withe copes apareld, wenton in p'cession abowte the churchyarde; the Kynge devowtely, with many odur lordes, followed the seyd p'cession bare-hedded, cladde in a gowne of gold tissu, furred with a furre of marturn sabull; the Meyre bereng the mase afore the Kynge as he didde afore, tille he com agayne to his closette. Att the whyche masse when the Kyng had offered and his lordes also, he sende the lorde Bemond, his chamburlen, to the Meyre, seying to him, "hit is the Kynges wille that ye and your bredurn com and offer;" and so they didde; and when masse was don, the Meyre and his peres brought on the Kynge to his chambur in lyke wyse as they fet hym, save only that the Meyre with his mase went afore the Kynge till he com withe in his chambur, his seyd bredurn abydeng atte the chambur durre till the Meyre cam ageyne. And at evensong tyme the same day, the Kyng, … sende the seyde gowne and furre that he were when he went in p'cession, and gaf hit frely to God and to Sent Michell, insomuch that non of the that broughte the gowne wolde take no reward in no wyse.

      In 1451 he made the city with the villages and hamlets within its liberties into a county "distinct and altogether separate from the county of Warwick for ever," and in 1453 the King and Queen again visited

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