Was lying in bed in a semi awake haze. Two o’clock ish in the morning. Thought I heard a loud sound. A bit as if someone was dragging a table across an uncarpeted floor. I thought it was clear enough to get meself out of bed and go and investigate. No sign of anything in the house although I didn’t check the attic. Looked at the cameras outside. Nooothing. V odd. Maybe I imagined it. Maybe it was a car passing by on the road in front of the house. Just thought I’d share that with you.
This morning I am pushing the boat out regarding breakfast. THG has retrieved a sausage for me from a freezer in’t garej. I’ll be treating meself to that together with the last two bits of smoked bacon and a slice of sourdough toast. Maybe two slices. They aren’t particularly big.
No rush though. I don’t need the sausage to defrost as that is what microwaves are for. We are running low on brown sauce but are ok for today and THG has an expedition to LIDL planned for after tomorrow’s weight lifting classes at the gym to restock.
Rediscovered an interesting read last night. I’ve been rearranging my bookshelves and came across The Episcopal Registers of St Davids 1397 – 1518. The latin originals plus, very handily, a translation made for The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion in the year 1917. You’d have thought they would have better, more pressing things to do in 1917 but there you go. I’m glad they went to the effort.
I had already flicked through this tome as a curiosity but I wasn’t sure what I’d do with it. However last night in scanning through its pages I realised that many of the entries were made on behalf of the Bishop from his Inn at the Strand in London. Moreover they often involved giving permissions to clergy to absent themselves from their Welsh parish for a year. For example on 17th November 1398 Sir Henry Cottesmore, Rector of the parish church of DYNAS IN KEMMES was given the year off in order to attend the services of the noble lady of Audley, whoever she was. Could probs look her up.
The point is that not only was the Bishop of St Davids absent from his diocese but he was happy for his pals in the clergy to do the same whilst still taking the rents and tithes raised to fund the presence of a pastor in that church. The bish in this instance was a chap called Guy, fwiw. You can imagine that a pub in central London held far more attractions for him than some remote god forsaken, or at least bishop forsaken, diocese in the far west of Wales. These people would bung a local curate a tenner a year or less to sit in on their behalf.
The diocese of St Davids was typically used as a stepping stone to get “better placed” jobs in English cathedrals and it was rare for the bishop to spend much time there as it was not a wealthy living. They rarely spoke Welsh.
On the other hand, and I don’t know if it is the same bishop, I read later that he was going through the process of sacking some rectors for never having been seen in their parishes.
I have volume one of a three volume set so I’ve now ordered the other two. These books don’t have an index of names in the back so I’ll be working my way through each page looking for mentions of places that interest me. Keep me busy innit. I’d be knackered if I didn’t have the translations.
I’ll obvs keep you informed when I find other exciting tidbits. Stay tuned 🙂