Humbleton is a village remotely situate, having a fine church. Fitling and Flinton are townships in the parish. This certificate shows how the fines were disposed of.

Humbleton.

270

Thes ar to certifie you that we the churchwardens and sworne men have receyved the forfeiture of ffrancis Shireson & Barberey which was iiiis. for thre sundayes according to your warrant & have distributed iiis. viiid. to x of the needfullest people & iiiid. [we] have for your clerke.

We p'sent the saide ffrancis for thre Sundayes together absent being excommunicate.

We p'sent Barberey his wife for the same thre Sundayes a recusant and also excommunicate.

We p'sent Willya Meadley of flynton yon'ger for beinge from churche the 2 daye of June.

Willya. Whelpdayle of flynton for the lyke the

Absent in the
afternoone Six of june.

We p'sent Robt. Monday for the lyke the 2 daye of June. allowed.

Churchwardens of Humbleton, Cristopher Iveson,
Robt. Nettleton, James Hudson for fytlynge,
Willyam parkynge for flynton.

Elstronwick is a chapelry in the parish of Humbleton. The absentees seem to have been in a similar proportion.

1616. Ellstronweke.

Churchwardens for this yeare—

Jur. Robeart Nettleton and Raphe Constablle.

272

The names of all those which hathe bene absent from our churche thes dayes ffollowinge.

Absent at the afterprayer. -Absent the lyke.

Absent in the forenoone.

We p'sent John Mayre for beinge from churche the xxvith daye of Maye.

We p'sent John Mainpas for beinge from churche the seconde daye of June.

We p'sent Robert Hoggard for beinge from churche the ixth daye of June.

We p'sent George White for beinge from churche the xxvith daye of Maye.

We p'sent Rychard Emerson for beinge from churche the ixth day of June. Allowed.

We p'sent Rychard Torye for beinge from churche the second daye of June.

Wineton, now called Wyton, is a township in the parish of Swine, and within a few miles of Hull. In the seventeenth century the manor was held by the old family of Brigham, now said to be extinct. Ralph Brigham, who lived there at the date of these documents, is said in the pedigree printed in Poulson's History of Holderness to have been a recusant, and as such to have compounded for his lands for the sum of thirty-five pounds. He duly appears with his wife and servant in these two certificates. His was a much more serious matter than the case of a recusant who was merely negligent, or who disliked to attend the services.

Wyneton or Wyton.

The names of thes that wer absent from the cherch those daies here under writen.

ffirst upon the xxxth of March we p'sent Mary Brigham wife to Mr. Raiph Brigham, gent.

Upon the sixt of aprill we p'sent Mary Brigham wife to Mr. Raiph Brigham gen.

Upon the thirtenth of Aprill

Wyneton.

by me Ffrancis Nicholson

Churchwarden.

xxvith day of May

The names of thes that wer absent from the church.

All Raiph Brigham and Mary his wife.

All Will'm ffarthing his servant.

These old documents give a good idea of the way in which the inhabitants of these parishes were looked after Sunday by Sunday and no doubt on feast days also. Holy Communion was celebrated three times in the year, and every adult was expected to partake of it. If any

one was idling about when he ought to be in church the constable would make him attend, and, when there, the dog-whipper would see that he kept awake. No doubt sermons were long, but there is evidence enough that they were appreciated at least by the graver and better sort of the people. Such charities as were founded were usually accompanied with the condition that the recipients should go to church to hear divine service "and sermon".

THE HISTORY AND ARCHITECTURE OF THE

CHARTERHOUSE.

BY GEO. PATRICK, ESQ., A.R.I.B.A.

Read at the London Congress, September 21st, 1896.

HE history of the great institution known. as the Charterhouse presents itself to the inquirer under three aspects: firstly, the Monastic; secondly, the Domestic; and, lastly, the Collegiate or Scholastic aspect. At the outset of our inquiries into the history of the establishment of the Charterhouse on this site, we are carried back to that period in our national history when King Edward III had succeeded in raising the power and majesty of England to an eminence previously unknown. Victorious over all his foes both at home and abroad, with Scotland, France, and Bavaria at his feet, the King had entered his capital in triumph in October of the year 1347. There was, however, one foe whose deadly ravages the victorious monarch was powerless to frustrate; this was the mysterious, malignant, and terrible pest, which, from being unlike to any previously known disease, and in ignorance of its cause or origin, was called by the dreaded name of the "Black Death". All through the spring and summer of the year 1348 this terrible visitation had been devastating Europe, and late in the autumn of that year it appears to have reached England and attacked the western counties: Devonshire, Dorsetshire, Gloucestershire, and Somersetshire all suffered severely from its ravages; it at length reached London, and thence spread onward over the eastern counties, where the mortality was even greater than in the west. The pestilence appears to have reached Westminster at the very commencement of the year 1349, for on that New Year's Day

the King informed the Bishop of Winchester that, on account of a sudden visitation of deadly pestilence which had broken out in Westminster and the neighbourhood, and was daily increasing, Parliament, which was to have assembled on July 19th, was prorogued to the 27th of April; but the disease meanwhile increased with such alarming rapidity that, in consequence, the King on March 10th again prorogued Parliament sine die. Terrible indeed must have been the visitation, for old John Stowe says: "it so wasted the people that scarce a tenth person of all sorts was left alive, and churchyards were not sufficient to receive the dead, but men were forced to choose out certain fields for burials", and there · the victims of this malignant contagion were buried in common grave-pits or large deep ditches, holding hundreds of bodies, row upon row, with only a little earth between and covering them. Hallowed ground being insufficient, owing to the multitudes that perished, it came about that the bodies were of necessity interred in the most hasty and irreverent manner without any religious service for, though it is recorded that the clergy nobly stayed at their posts and fulfilled their duties, they themselves fell victims to the prevailing malady.

At that time the site of Charterhouse was open fields, some distance beyond the city walls. The Bishop of London at that time was Ralph Stratford, and he, being much concerned and grieved to see that so many of his people were being interred without the offices of the church and in unconsecrated ground, took steps to acquire by purchase some three acres of waste ground known as no man's land", lying close to the land of the Abbey of Westminster and the Priory of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem; and having enclosed it with a wall he built a chapel upon a portion of the ground, in which masses were said daily for the repose and pardon of the souls of the dead who were buried close by. From this circumstance the spot became known as Pardon Chapel and graveyard. It was situated on the other side of the Clerkenwell Road, formerly known as Wilderness Row, and directly facing the spot where, afterwards, was the kitchen garden of the Charterhouse monastery.