Inventories of Christ Church, Canterbury. Transcribed and edited by J.
Wickham Legg and W. 11. St. John Hope, M.A. (A. Constable and Co. 21s. net.)—These inventories cover a period of about five centuries. The earliest, however (1294), concerns only the belongings of the Archbishop,—i.e., the various articles which he carried about with him on visitations, &c. ; the latest (1761) is a dreary catalogue of things which wculd probably have been dear at £100. There is a scanty service of Communion Plate ; the rest is made up of pulpit and other cushions, vergers' rods, buckets, and pipes. The most interesting inventories are those dated 1540 and 1503; of the shrine of St. Thomas, destroyed
in 1538, no record survives. two :— Here is a tabulated account of the
1540. 15e3.
Copes 237 66
ChB, ub' es
40 8 Albs 136 59 To enumerate other articles would take us too long, besides in- troducing some thorny questions of ritual. One inventory of 1584 records a further diminution, brought about by poverty, it would seem, rather than religious reasons. In November, 1570, the Chapter resolves that "the vestments and other vestry° stuffe remaynyng in the vestrye shall be reviewed and solde, re- servyng some of the Coves." The money was to be spent on buying armour, for which a requisition had been made. Then private peculation had been going on. In the same year the Archbishop directed that the Dean and Prebendaries "do restore to the church such goods and ornaments as they have of thoir private authority taken away from the said church." In 1573 Thomas Willoughby, senior Prebendary, was suspended for this offence. It is a melancholy record, but a valuable contribution to Church history, and we are obliged to Messrs. Legg and Hope for the trouble they have taken in making it accessible to the ordinary reader.
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