The Chapelry of Alvaston
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S. Matthew's day, 1262. The judgment was to the effect that the priory (subject to a penalty of ten marks) was to have the tithes, but on condition of paying annually l2d. to the abbey on the feast of S. Michael.*
The following agreement was entered into in 1279, between the abbey of Darley and the parishioners of the chapelry of Alvaston, relative to the re-building or repair of the chancel, and the finding of books and ornaments for the chancel altar, and also concerning a meadow, called Prestesmedue (priest's meadow), which the parishioners asserted had been given to the chapel for keeping a lamp burning. The case having been argued before John Peckham, Archbishop of Canterbury, it was decided that half of the cost of the repairs or re-building that might be requisite from time to time in the fabric, as well as of providing books, a chalice, and proper vestments for the altar of the chancel, should be borne by the abbey, and half by the parishioners—that the priest's meadow, then in possession of the abbey, should remain with them but only on the condition that the abbot should pay yearly for the lamps of the chapel, two shillings on the feast of S. Michael and that, with respect to the five marks and a half already handed over by the abbey to the parishioners for the repair of the chancel, whatever has not been thus spent should be returned to the abbot, and the parish were to expend a like sum whenever repairs were necessary, before calling on the abbey for any further money.†
The monks of Darley in 1440 petitioned William Heyworth, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, to unite the chapelry of Alvaston to the parish church, on the grounds that the inhabitants of Alvaston were not so numerous as to require two priests, that the distance to the mother church was not inconveniently great, and that S. Michael's was so poor that the profits were not sufficient for the due support of a vicar. A commission was accordingly issued, on September 16th, to Gregory Newporte, rector of Hanbury, to inquire into and settle the matter as the Bishop's commissary. His decision was to the effect that the inhabitants of Alvaston should thenceforth attend divine service at S. Michael's, and receive the Sacraments at the hands of the vicar, and that the abbey and vicar should be exonerated from finding a chaplain or chaplains to serve at the chapel of Alvaston. This sentence was published in the church of S. Peter, Derby, on December 16th, 1440, in the
* Darley Chartulary, Cott. MSS., Titus, C. ix., f. 80.
† Ibid., f. 91.
12 March, 2004