heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

228 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
Clarentia meant the territory of which he was feudal chief, and which
comprised not merely the castle in Suffolk and its dependants, but a
large portion of the fairest lands south of the Trent. In addition to
his fiefs in Wilts, Devon, Cambridge, and Kent, the founder of the family
had thirty-eight lordships in Surrey, thirty-five in Essex, and ninety-five
in Suffolk (Bury and West Suffolk Archceological Association, 1853, vol. i.).
His grandson added to this the earldom of Hereford and extensive
possessions in Wales. Indeed, when Gilbert the Red married Joane Plantagenet,
there was scarcely a county in the breadth of England, south of
the Trent, which did not own the influence of the great Clarensis.
Those who owed obeisance or fealty to the mighty lord seneschal of
Clare were called Clarencels ;
and the extent and dignity of these vast
possessions may be estimated from the fact that, there being two principal
heralds Norroy King of Arms, i.e. of the north men, and Surroys King
of Arms, i.e. of the south men the latter was changed to Clarencieux, or
King of Arms of the Clarencels, probably at the time when the dukedom
was granted and those vast possessions became absorbed into the personnel
of the Crown.
One member of this distinguished family was a member of our
Minster, viz. Bogo de Clare, younger son of Richard de Clare, and brother
of Gilbert de Clare, who married Joane of Acre. He was instituted Treasurer
of the Minster September 28th, 1287, and died in 1294, during which time
the building of the chapter-house was probably commenced, if not completed
and I cannot help thinking that he was instrumental therein, if not
;
to be regarded as the actual founder thereof.
According to our modern ideas, the records which are extant about
him do not indicate a man of very high spirituality, and are rather inconsistent
with our conception of a mediaeval ecclesiastic ;
but it was a rough,
if ready time, lacking generally the refinements which in our days seem
inseparable from real religion, and when men, who were not absolutely
absorbed in the cloisters, discharged many secular duties, not only political,
but military.
The chapter-house, too, seems identified
with the secular rather than
spiritual side of the great institution of York, and therefore likely to be
the work of a man whose reputation
is more closely connected with the
former than the latter. And even if, as Canon Raine " says, he left an
" evil name behind him," for that very reason he might have been anxious
to do something in the way of benefiting the Church, which would be
recognised as some sort of atonement for his excesses or shortcomings :
or he may have bequeathed some part of the wealth which he had amassed,
and which he could scarcely have exhausted on his own pleasures, for this
purpose. At any rate, the chapter-house
and vestibule windows contain