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 A HISTORY OF LONDON sums of money from the already impoverished Church. The bishops were aghast, and took, counsel many days ; then at last the Bishop of London de- clared, 'Before I will give consent to such injury and intolerable oppression of the Church I will be beheaded.' Encouraged by this the other prelates refused Rustand's demands and appealed to the pope, whereupon Rustand in great anger went to the king and complained that the Bishop of London had caused the other prelates to contravene the papal and royal will. Henry angrily declared that neither the bishop nor any other of his blood loved him, and that he should be punished by the intervention of the pope, to which Fulk replied, ' You may take away my bishopric (which nevertheless neither pope nor king can lawfully do), for you are stronger than I. But if the mitre is gone, the helmet will remain.' "' But Fulk was compelled later to give Rustand a prebend in St. Paul's, and on Rustand's death in 1 260 another Roman was collated to the position by the pope. The king had already nominated his treasurer, in ignorance of the pope's action, and an appeal was made to the archbishop, who gave judgement in favour of the papal nominee. But when the unfortunate Roman went to obtain possession of the house attached to the prebend he was forcibly repelled, and on their way back through the crowded streets he and his companion were killed. The archbishop made an attempt to discover the murderers, but no one was arrested, and there appears to have been general sympathy with those who thus protected England against the intrusion of the foreigner."" Besides this, however, and a few other provisions in St. Paul's,"^ there is no sign in the latter part of the 13th century of any great interference of the pope with the Church in London."^ Throughout the agitation there is no record of a provision to any London parish church. Most churches were too poor to be coveted, as may be seen from a list compiled in the first half of the 13th century."* With the exception of the thirteen peculiars of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the churches of St. Thomas and St. Botolph Bishopsgate, the list includes all the London City churches as well as St. Mary Aylward, which has not been identified, and St. Olave Broad Street, which was soon afterwards destroyed. Thirty-two churches are entered as worth nihil, non sufficit sibi, or vix sufficit sibi. Twenty-one were worth 3 marks or under; twenty-seven between 3 and 10 marks; one 16 and two 20; the value of nine churches is not given. It is not stated whether these values are gross, or minus the pensions paid to religious houses. All the churches but twelve out of the sixty-seven in the patronage of religious houses, and two out of the twenty-five presented to by private persons, paid pensions varying from is. to 9 marks. Six churches are said to be appropriated to religious houses, and in two of these a vicar's portion is mentioned. In eight churches not said to be appropriated a special portion was assigned to the vicar or parson ; '■' Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. (Rolls Ser.), v, 524-6. '*" Tlores Hist. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 444 ; Chron. Edtv. I and Edtv. II (Rolls Ser.), i, 54, places the occurrence in 1259, and the Lambeth MS. (ibid, i, p. cxxvii) in 1258. '*' See account of St. Paul's in ' Religious Houses.' '*' In 1263 a m.mdate was sent to the Bishop of London saying the collation to the church of St. Peter Cornhill had devolved by long voidance to the pope, and he was to remove any unlawful detainer of the same and appoint to it John de Cabanicio, whose fitness had been ascertained by examination ; Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 416. "^ D. and C. St. Paul's, W.D. 9, fol. 48^. The list is said to be copied from the Register of Fulk Bassett, but must from internal evidence have been at least partly compiled between 12 18 and 1237. 190