Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/631

 1922 SHORT NOTICES 623 Mr. Hudson quotes the services due from a typical tenant in villeinage at Martham. They are heavy, but they do not include regular week- work. It would seem that at Martham an ancient economy in which the tenant paid rent in money or in kind has been replaced by an economy based on agricultural service. Mr. Hudson's results will have to be taken into account by all who wish to understand the medieval social history of East Anglia. F. M. S. Mr. Henry T. Lilley and Mr. Alfred T. Everitt, the compilers of an attractively printed and illustrated book on Portsmouth Parish Church (Portsmouth : Charpentier, 1921), have evidently enjoyed a task to which they came as intelligent amateurs, and their account of the history of an interesting church and parish is lively and readable. Their work has involved some research, and they have profited by competent help. It may be questioned whether their digressions into general history, which are frequent and diffuse, are always necessary. Although foot-notes may be overdone, the absence of any but the most casual reference to original sources is a serious fault. There is not even a brief bibliography of works consulted. The chapel of St. Thomas at Portsmouth was the result of a gift of land in 1180 by John of Gisors to the prior and canons of South- wick. It appears to have been recognized as virtually independent of the parish church of Portsea from a period not long, at any rate, after its foundation. The writers think that it was served by two canons of South- wick, who lived in the rectory house with the parish chaplain and a clerk. Full grounds for this conjecture are not given ; and, although it is not unlikely that the chapel started life as a small cell of Southwick, the parish chaplain, whom we find about 1230, probably succeeded to, and did not share, the responsibilities of the canons. There is no formal ordination of a vicarage ; but there was a vicar in 1248, and in 1260 the prior and convent of Southwick surrendered the whole of the tithes to the vicar in consideration of an annual payment of a hundred shillings. The upkeep of the fabric of the chancel was thrown upon the vicar, and a dispute which arose upon this subject was settled in 1454 by the abandonment of the convent's claim to the pension. Apart from this, the one event of interest in the pre-Eeformation history of the church is the penance enjoined upon the parishioners of Portsmouth for the murder of Adam Moleyns, bishop of Chichester. The writers extract some rather forced amusement from it, and elsewhere their imperfect acquaintance with medieval thought and customs betrays them into an artificial raciness of style which argues defective humour. For the names and dates of vicars and their institutions, which appear in the course of their chronicle, they were able to rely upon a trustworthy printed list. We may note, however, that Kichard of Walton, instituted in 1295, is called Kichard of Watton in the printed edition of Pontoise's register. There is a small error on p. 28, where it is stated that Simon le Straunge was inducted on 19 April 1349 : he was instituted on 29 April. Thomas Skendelby did not exchange the vicarage in 1388 for the church of Fishbourne, near Chichester, as is implied, but for the chantry founded in the collegiate church of Bosham by William of Fishbourne, who held the prebend of Funtington from 1339 to 1342.