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 A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE in i 32 1 ;* another in the same year to Sir John de Grey; 2 and a third, to be kept in the chapel of St. Leonard's Hospital 3 for Sir John Spark, clerk, of Caldecote, in 1328. The canons of Newnham granted a chantry in 1303 4 to Roger Brown of Rowell, and another in 1 379 5 to Henry of Bedford, in the conventual church. The list of chantries founded at this period has a special interest in connection with the history of the county families, and with the spiritual life of the county as a whole. It will be noticed that the founders were nearly all descended from the men who built and endowed the religious houses, and many of their names occur again in the lists of benefactors to St. Alban's, Dunstable, Elstow, etc.; so that it would seem that these foundations sprang from the same impulse as that which produced the monasteries — the desire to be remembered in some way that should be for the glory of God and the advancement of the Church. Very few chapels seem to have been built with the primary inten- tion of perpetuating chantries ; there are only three in Bedfordshire — those which once stood in the churchyards of Flitwick, 8 Elstow 7 and Wilshampstead 8 — which seem to be clear instances. All the rest, whether they lasted on till the suppression or fell into decay before, were in the first instance parochial or domestic, and the chantries were merely ap- pended to them. 9 The position of the parish churches with relation to the religious houses was little altered during the fourteenth century. Two more were appropriated — Biddenham to the Nuns Minoresses of Waterbeach 10 (after- wards of Denny), and both moieties of Elstow to the monastery which already held the advowson. u The churches of Felmersham 12 and Potton 13 were taken for a time into the hands of the king, but only to be granted away again soon after." Four more vicarages were ordained : at 1 Line. Epis. Reg., Inst. Burghersh, 292. 2 Ibid. 294c!. 3 Ibid. Inst. Dalderby, 302. * Ibid. 260. 6 Ibid. Inst. Buckingham, 182. 8 Line. Epis. Reg., Inst. Gynwell, 29 Edw. III. Ordination of a chantry in honour of B.V.M. and St. George by Edmund de Bulstrode in the chapel newly built by him in the churchyard. 7 Ibid. Memo. Burghersh (1334), 2 73- Indulgence for the chapel of St. Helen in the church- yard of Elstow, and for the soul of . . . Ivota, foundress. 8 Ibid. Memo. Burghersh, lo8d, 1323. 'For the fabric of the chapel of St. John Baptist in the churchyard of Wilshampstead.' To these should perhaps be added the chapel of Wyboston in Eaton Socon parish (Chant. Cert. Nos. 1, 4), but its original purpose is uncertain. 9 The chantries granted to James de Caus ' in his chapel of Sharpenhoe ' (1234) {Ann. Man. [Rolls Series], iii. 141), and to Bartholomew Young 'in the chapel which he erected at Humbershoe ' (1273), which are only once mentioned, are described in similar terms to that of William de Ekesdon at Barwythe, which is distinctly stated to have been a parochial chapel (Harl. MSS. 1885, f. 52b), and also disappears from this time forward. 10 After a long suit with William de Kirkeby (Line. Epis. Reg., Memo. Sutton, 98, and Inst, of Dalderby, 259) there was an appeal to the pope for appropriation {Cal. of Pap. Letters, ii. 413). " Line. Epis. Reg., Inst, of Bp. Bek, 102 (1345). 12 Pat. 1 1 Edw. I. m. 4. 13 From 1 330-141 3, when it was granted to the Nuns Minoresses near Aldgate (Line. Epis. Reg., Inst. Repingdon, 301). 14 Felmersham to King's Hall, Cambridge ; vicarage ordained at the same time, 1365 (Line. Epis. Reg., Memo. Gynwell, 48). 326