Testamenta cantiana : a series of extracts from fifteenth and sixteenth century wills relating to church building and topography.

Date:
1906-1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Testamenta cantiana : a series of extracts from fifteenth and sixteenth century wills relating to church building and topography. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/588 (page 14)
    found in considerable numbers—mass books^ graylls^ anti- phoners, processioners^ portoses, etc. At St. Nicholas, Rochester, is a bequest of an antiphoner, called a cowcher,’’ i.e., a large book to lie on a desk. There are also numerous gifts of plate, chalices, cruets, crosses, censers, pixes, etc. Some of the chalices were to be specially engraved as memorials, e.g., Richard Longeman of High Halstow in 1493 left chalices to that and neighbouring churches, ^An the which I will the name of me Richard Longeman and John At the Sole be imprynted in the fote.” Of the later Elizabethan cups there is an interesting gift in 1599 by Thomas Steven, yeoman, to Keston of a silver cup, which is, I believe, still in use. Organs are mentioned in seven parishes :— Brenchley, 1520. To a pair o£ organs xx^ and another be- quest of xi]*^ in the same year. Bromley, 1494. To the organs* iij® hij*^. Lewisham, 1521. Toward a pay re of organs.* Milton, 1528. To a payr of organs hj® iiij*^. Rochester, St. Nicholas, 1523. To the channging of the organes Sundridge, 1518. To the church my portatyf organes. Westerham, 1511. Renewyng and new castyng of the organnys that be now in the said churche to he made w^ iij stoppes aftir the new making. Peter Bolde, singingman of the College of Rochester in 1545, mentions his musical instruments and gives to Mistress Smythe his clarycords and Mistress Warner his lute, and his ‘^‘^gimie^with the great hornhebequeaths toCristoferthe clerk. The custom of bringing in a cup of wine at the' marriage service, for which provision was made in the Sarum rite, with a reference to the blessing of the water by Our Lord at Cana, led to gifts of vessels for the purpose. We have here three such bequests, viz.:— Birling, 1516. To the said church a maser to the entent to be occupied and dronke vppon at weddings and childe- wiffs and other ther suche necessaries. * Organs are mentioned in the Inventories of 1552.