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in the refpective churches: and therefore, if their complaints were true, he was forry the apoftolical judgment fhould be deceived, and the facred intention of the fee of Rome be fo perverfely difappointed: but far be it from them, obedient fons, for this caufe of appropriations and provifions, to revoke and take into their hands the right of patronage, beftowed on fuch religious houfes, fince they had no authority to difpofe of ecclefiaftical affairs, and muft not prefume to touch any facred thing. However, with the affiftance of the bishops, he would fo effectually labour to redrefs all abuses, as to leave no juft matter of complaint or fcandal."

The fame pope, in an epiftle, two years afterwards, complained, that the covetous defire of the religious, had by falfe pretences obtained from the fee of Rome, the appropriation of many parochial churches within the kingdom of England, and had by that poifon infected the whole nation: while, by these means, the worship of God was loft, hofpitality was intermitted, epifcopal rights were detained, the doors of charity were fhut against the poor, the encou ragement of ftudious fcholars was abated, with many other fcandals and offences."

This practice of convents procuring the appropriations of churches became fo fcandalous, that even the Monks were afhamed of it. Bishop Kennet in his Parochial Antiquities, mentions an instance, when Hugh de Le von, Abbot of Meaux, in Yorkfhire, would have beftowed the appropriation of the church of

Effington on that abbey: the Monks themselves obftructed his intention for the fpace of five years, protefting against the enor mous injuries which would arise, to be lamented by perfons yet unborn. Nor was the discontent on this fubject confined to the laity, but even the bishops fought to have the evil redreffed, and many canons were enacted in the fynods for that purpose, to which the Monks (refufed obedience, and much violence was used by them in oppofition to the canons; nor did they fubmit till they were reduced by force. The monafteries, poffeffed of churches, not only appropriated the rents to their own ufe, but frequently farmed them out; by which means the good intentions of the donors were fruftrated.

In the fynod affembled at Oxford by Archbishop [1222. Langton, the thirteenth canon forbids the vicarage of any church to be given to a vicar who fhall not ferve the church: the fourteenth obliges thofe who have benefice to refide: the fifteenth appoints a fufficient portion of the benefice to be allowed for the maintenance of the vicar: and the fortieth forbids the letting to farm, excepting it be done for fome cause, which shall be approved by the bishop.

[1237

Thefe canons were also ordained by the fynod convened at London, by Otho, the pope's legate; and again [1268. by another fynod held by Ottoboni, both of which require churches to be fupplied by a refident vicar.

A neglect in the obfervation of these canons,

[1307. occafioned

occafioned the bifhop to collate to those churches which fell to him by lapfe as fully appears by the register of William of Wykeham, who collated to the vicarage of Carifbrooke, void, as he exprefsly fays, through neglect of the conftitutions of Otho and Ottoboni. There had been great commotions in the ifland on this occafion, and to what a height they rofe at Godfhill, are feen in Bishop Woodlock's Regifter, wherein the Monks, with their friends, are recorded to have held the church by force. The bishop alfo ordered the dean of the island, to put the clerk, collated by him, in poffeffiou of the church of Godfhill, devolved to him, by virtue of the canon of the general council.

1308.] In the year following, the fame oppofition arofe at the church of Arreton, when the bishop directed the dean of the ifland to induct the clerk by him collated, contra omnes et fingu los contradiélorer et rebelles, "againft all oppofers." After which the bishop excommunicated nine perfons for obftructing his clerk, with all thofe officiating in the faid church, commanding the dean of the island to denounce this excommunication in all the churches of his deanery, at the time of high mafs, in which ceremony the cross was to be elevated, the bell rung, the candles first lighted and then extinguifhed, with every other circumstance that could give folemnity to the act. This was followed by a fequeftration of the churches of Freshwater and Godfhill, for contempt of the canons; and the bifhop excommunicated

thofe who had violated the fequeftration.

the

When King Edward the Third afferted his pretenfions to the crown of France, Carisbrooke, as an alien priory, was, with all its churches, feized by the crown, king then prefenting to them; and the priory was granted to the Abbey of Mont Grace, in Yorkfhire, founded by Thomas Holland, Duke of Surry: but Henry the Fourth, in the first year of his reign, probably to remove all caufes of difcontent between the courts of England and France, reftored it, with others which had alfo been feized.

In the reign of Henry the Fifth it was again refumed, and given to the Monaftery of Shene, in Surry, founded by the king, where it continued till the time of its diffolution. In the reign of Henry the Eighth, that abbey leafed it, together with the tithes of Godfhill and Freshwater, to Sir James Worfley, at the annual rent of two hundred marks, which leafe was renewed by his fon Richard, whofe widow marrying Sir Francis Walfingham, Secretary of 'State to Queen Elizabeth, it came into his poffeffion. It was afterwards purchased by Sir Thomas Fleming, from whofe family it came to the prefent poffeffors; the vicarage remained in the crown, until Charles the Firft gave it to Queen's College, Oxford. To the church of Carisbrooke belongs the chapels of Northwood, Weft Cowes, and Newport. At the time of Cardinal Beaufort's taxation, this church was valued at twenty marks per annum, the vicarage at fixteen marks, and

the

the Procuracy of Lyra at forty marks. This priory, having been founded when there were not more than nine or ten churches in the ifland, the Monks enjoyed a larger jurisdiction than those of later institution, when most lords of great poffeffions, having built new churches, had appropriated the tithes of their lands to them.

Hiftory and Antiquities of the Oratory of Burton in the Isle of Wight. From the fame.

THE

Sir

THE Convent, or Oratory of Burton, or Barton, having been diffolved long before the general fuppreffion of monaftic foundations, efcaped the notice of Dugdale, Speed, Tanner, and other writers on religious houses, fo that its existence had nearly funk into total oblivion. John Oglander indeed mentions it in his manufcript Memoirs, but his information appears to have been merely traditional: its history is however preferved in the register of John de Pontiffera, Bishop of Winchester, wherein the ftatutes of the house are confirmed by an inftrument, in which the bishop affirms he had feen the charters of John de Infula, Rector of Shalfleet, and of Thomas de Winton, Rector of Godfhill, founders of the Oratory of the Holy Trinity of Burton, for the ordering and governing the faid Oratory made, and in full force, under the feals of

1282.]

the founders, as follows:

I. That there fhall be fix chaplaius and one clerk to officiate both

for the living and dead, under the rules of St. Auguftin.

II. That one of thefe fhall be prefented to the Bishop of Winchefter, to be the archpriest; to whom the reft fhall take an oath of obedience.

III. That the archpriest shall be chofen by the chaplains there. refiding, who fhall present him to the bishop within twenty days after any vacancy shall happen.

IV. They fhall be fubject to the immediate authority of the bishop.

V. When any chaplain fhall die, his goods fhall remain to the Oratory.

VI. They fhall have only one mefs, with a pittance, at a meal, excepting on the greater festivals, when they may have three meffes.

VII. They shall be diligent in reading and praying.

VIII. They fhall not go beyond the bounds of the Oratory, without licenfe from the archprieft.

IX. Their habit fhall be of one colour, either black or blue; they fhall be clothed pallio Hibernienfi, de nigra boneta cum pileo.

X. The archpriest shall fit at the head of the table, next to him those who have celebrated magnum missam; then the priest of St. Mary; next the priest of the Holy Trinity; and then the priest who fays mafs for the dead.

XI. The clerk fhall read fomething edifying to them while they dine.

XII. They fhall fleep in one

room.

XIII. They fhall use a special prayer for their benefactors, XIV. They fhall in all their ceremonies,

teremonies, and in tinkling the bell, follow the ufe of Sarum.

XV. The archprieft alone fhall have charge of the bufinefs of the houfe.

XVI. They hall, all of them, at their adimiffion into the houfe, fwear to the obfervance of these ftatutes.

Thomas de Winton, and John de Infula, clerks, grant to John Bishop of Winchester, and his fucceffors, the patronage of their Oratory at Burton, in the parish of Whippingham, that he might become a protector and a defender of them, the archpriest, and his fellow chaplains.

The bishop, at the inftance of John de Infula, the furviving founder, Thomas, being then dead, or that, after a year and a day from their entering into this Oratory, no one shall accept of any other benefice, or fhall depart the house. Actum et datum in dicto Oratorio de Burton. a. 1289, Jordano de King fton et aliis tefti

bus.

1386.] The archpriet being fufpended by the bishop, the dean of the ifland was ordered to take charge of his Oratory in the house at Burton: foon after, 1390.] the archprieft being a captive in France, and the houfe of Burton in a ruinous condition, the bishop gave orders for the houfe to be repaired, and other neceffary things to be done. The Oratory was, in

1439] the eighteenth year of Henry the Sixth, furrendered into the hands of the bishop, and, together with its lands, by the procurement of bishop Wainfleet, granted to the College of Win

chefter: it was endowed with the manor of Whippingham, the demefne lands of Burton, or Barton, and fome lands at Chale. The fite and demefines of the Oratory are still held under a lease from the Warden and Fellows of Winchefter College; and part of the old building is yet standing.

Punic Infcriptions in the Weftern Boundaries of Canada; from the Gentleman's Magazine for Auguft 1781.

N the Journal Encyclop. 1781,

Juin, p. 555, is the following article: " Un Profeffeur des Langues Orientales à Cambridge en Amerique vient d'envoyer à M. de Gebelin, auteur du Monde Primitif,' trois Infcriptions Puniques, qu'on a trouvées gravées fur des rochers, à l'embouchure d'une riviere qui eft à 50 milles du fud de Bofton. Elles furent gravées par les Carthaginois qui aborderent fur cette plage meconnue.

Elles ont pour objet leur arrivée, & les traités qu'ils firent avec les habitans du pays. M. de Gebelin va donner un memoir fur cette importante decouverte." If this intimation does not come from M. G. himself, then one must fuppofe that there is some one in America that can make out a Punic infcription, which is more than we knew before. I know a

perfon of high rank and underftanding, who is perfuaded, that the common Irish is Punic, and that many of them have long known as much. If fo, they have little more to do than to learn the

Punic letters, and they all inftantly become profeffors in this moft ancient and radical language, which is fo little known to the moft accomplished linguifts. For Infcriptions on Rocks, fee Gent Mag vol. xxxv. p. 374. 401. and Phil. Tranf. vol. lvi. art. viii.

"In later times there have been found a few mark, of antiquity, from which it may be conjectured that N. America was formerly inhabited by a nation more verfed in fcience and more civilised than that which the Europeans fourd on their arrival there, or that a great military expedition was undertaken to this continent from these known parts of the world. This is confirmed by an account which I received from M. de Veraudrier, who commanded the expedition to the fouthward in perfon. I have heard it repeated by others, who have been eye-witneffes of all that happened on that occafion. Some years before I came into Canada, the then Governor-general Chev. de Beauchaniois gave M. de Veraudrier an order to go from Canada with a number of people on an expedition across N. America to the S. Sea, in order to examine how far those two places are diftant from each other, and to find out what advantages might accrue to Canada or Louisiana from a communication with that ocean. They fet out on horseback from Montreal, and went as far due W. as they could on account of the lakes, rivers, and mountains, in their way. As they came far into the country beyond many nations, they fometimes met with large tracts of land free from wood, but co

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vered with a kind of very tall grafs for the space of fome days' jour ney. Many of these fields were every where covered with furrows, as if they had been ploughed and fowed frequently. It is to be obs ferved, that the nations who now inhabit N America could not cultivate the land in this manner, because they never made use of horfes, oxen, ploughs, or any inftrumems of husbandry, nor had they ever seen a plough before the Eur peans came to them In two or three places, at a confiderable diftance from each other, our tra vellers met with impreffions of the feet of grown people and children in a reck; but this feems to have been no more than a Lujus Natura. When they came far to the Weft, where to the best of their knowledge no Frenchman or European had ever been, they found in one place in the woods, and again on a large plain, great pillars of stone leaning upon each other. The pillars confifted of one single stone each, and the French could not but fuppofe that they had bee erected by human hands. Sometimes they have found fuch stones laid upon one another, and as it were formed into a wall. In fome of thofe places where they found fuch ftones, they could not find any other fort of ftones. They were not able to discover any characters or writings upon ay of thefe ftones, though they made a very careful fearch after them. At last they met with a large stone like a pillar, and in it a smaller ftone was fixed, which was covered on both fides with unknown characters. This stone, which was about a foot of French measure

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