The Appropriation of Appleton-le-Street to St Albans: Law and Practice in a Yorkshire Parish

Appropriations of parishes were common in the Middle Ages but could be protracted and difficult. This paper traces St Albans’ acquisition of Appleton-le-Street in Ryedale in 1358, thirty years after its first attempt. Grants from John XXII in 1328 and 1331, to alleviate the abbey’s debts, attracted legal challenges from the diocese of York and foundered because the incumbent rector, Walter Fleming, served until 1358. A third bull from Clement VI, to enable the abbey to support students at Oxford, was then executed. But this led to a lawsuit in the papal curia after the abbey rejected a summons to a diocesan synod. The case centred on the extent of diocesan jurisdiction over an exempt appropriator: the abbey pushed its claims to exemption, while the diocese attempted to restrain them with a canon from the Council of Vienne. The parties settled, unsurprisingly given the complexity of the arguments and the prudent temperaments of Abbot de la Mare and Archbishop Thoresby. The vicar, not the abbot, would attend synods, but the abbey pledged pensions to the archbishop and the chapter and devolved many of the rectoral tithes to the vicar along with maintenance of the chancel. The arrangement survived a challenge from the erratic Archbishop Neville in 1379, though other legal headaches continued. The abbey probably gained less than it hoped. But the benefice seems to have maintained its value, and the parishioners might not have noticed much difference from the chronic absentee Fleming.