amount was now raised, and it was paid wholly in money. The Bishop had thirteen pence, the Dean and other dignitaries twelve pence, each simple Canon sixpence, each Vicar a penny, for each day of residence. At the end of the year the overplus was to be divided among those Canons who had kept the prescribed residence, which is thus defined: "Residentes autem interpretamur quoad participationem residui in fine anni omnes illos Canonicos qui _per medium annum_, sive continue sive interpolatim, fecerint in villam [sic] residentiam, præter Decanum, Præcentorem, Cancellarium, et Thesaurarium, quos interpretamur residentes si _per duas partes anni_ fecerint residentiam sive continue sive interpolatim." Each Canon had thus three available sources of income, his own prebend, the daily distribution, and the distribution at the end of the year. The first was irrespective of residence, the latter two depended on residence. [47] I have to thank Mr. Serel for a manuscript extract containing some details of this strange practice, as it stood at Wells. In the fourteenth century the custom was that each Canon, at the beginning of his residence, should feast the Bishop, Dean, Canons, Vicars, and all other officers of the church ("quoscumque alios dictæ ecclesiæ ministros"), at a cost which often reached two hundred marks (133_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._), or even a hundred and fifty pounds; sums which, at the then value of money, must have been enormous, and which contrast strikingly with the pence and loaves of the older daily distribution. In a bull of Pope Boniface the Ninth, in the year 1400, this custom is condemned; it is pronounced to be "consuetudo quæ corruptela potius est dicenda," and he speaks of the cost as "inutiles sumptus ac expensæ." Instead of this waste upon eating and drinking, each simple Canon, on his admission to residence, is to pay a hundred marks, and each dignitary a hundred and fifty, to the maintenance of the fabric, and the support of the other burthens of the church ("in subsidium sustentationis fabricæ et relevamen supportationis aliorum onerum"). This was a very heavy tax, and might hinder many from residing; still, at least, the money went to a good end. This was presently so interpreted that the Dean and Residentiaries gave out of each sum so paid ten marks to the fabric, ten to the Vicars, and divided the rest among themselves. This practice was confirmed by a second bull of Pope Nicolas the Fifth, in 1433; and these regulations were confirmed by Henry the Eighth in 1539, at the advice of Lord Cromwell, who, it is not to be forgotten, would, as Dean (see p. 148), receive a share of the spoil.