heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

CLARE. 229
many shields, not only of the Clare family itself, but of the royal family
and other families with which they were closely associated or related at
this time ;
and this fact, combined with the certainty that Bogo
de Clare
filled the office of the treasurer, gives, at least, a very strong presumption
for this view of the matter.
As regards the vastness of his wealth, Canon Raine has shewn his
greed to have been almost insatiable. On the strength of a dispensation
which he had received from Martin IV., who had made him one of his
chaplains, he accumulated an almost incredible amount of preferment, viz.
Calham in Ireland ;
Leverington, diocese of Ely Cheveley and Simondburne
;
; and to make up the sum of 400 marks in annual rent, Higham,
diocese of Salisbury, worth 30 marks per annum ;
St. Peter's, Oxford, the
same ;
Kilkhampton, diocese of Exeter ; Eynesford, diocese of Cambridge,
worth 20 marks ; Swanscombe, diocese of Rochester, worth 20 marks ;
moiety of the church of Dorking, worth 20 marks ; Dunmow, diocese of
London, worth 40 marks ; Polstead, worth 30 marks ;
and Saham, diocese
of Norwich, worth 30 marks ; Rotherfield, diocese of Chichester, ditto ;
a
moiety of the church of Doncaster, worth 25
marks; Llanderon, diocese of
Llandaff, worth 10 marks; Fordingbridge, diocese of Winchester, worth 40
marks; Acaster, diocese of York, worth 10 marks.
In 1290 Archbishop Romanus makes the following return to Archbishop
Peckham of the preferment
which Clare held in the northern
province: Treasurership of York, worth 600 marks per annum; prebend
of Masham, in the same church, worth 300 marks ;
church of Hemingborough,
worth 250 marks; Settrington, worth 100 marks; Pickall, Richmondshire,
worth 60 marks.
In 1283 he was also holding the deanery of Stafford, a pension of 50
marks from the prior and convent of Durham, the rectory of St. Andrew,
Walpole, Norfolk. His total annual income is estimated by Canon Raine
at not less than ^50,000 per annum, according to the present
value of
money. He was, of course, an absentee as well as a pluralist, and kept
" an army of bailiffs and receivers to enforce and collect his dues "
; and
equally, of course, the goods of the Church nominally
under his care
suffered through his neglect.
"The officers of York Minster told with horror how De Clare's
" creatures allowed the sacred vestments in the treasury to be taken out
" and used by women in childbed. The Lanercost Chronicle relates that
" the only reredos at the church of Simondsburne was made of wattles
" besmeared with cow-dung."
A curious document, throwing some light upon the character of
Bogo de Clare and the domestic history of his times, has been discovered
in the MSS. under the custody of the Master of the Rolls, and
F 2