Appendix C - Extracts from Episcopal Records

Summary

• 1. The ‘Notitia’ of William Wake (Bishop of Lincoln 1705-16), in Christ Church Library, Oxford, is too early for much information about Rogers’ incumbencies. It does, however, give about the parishes to which he afterwards ministered some details additional to those found in the later ‘Speculum’ of Bishop Gibson.

• Of Stagsden, Wake says that “it is a very scatter’d parish lying in 5 endships, every one near a mile asunder. There is no school but of small children, kept by one Thomas Smith, a Dissenter; no lecture, almshouse.or hospital. No person of quality or gentleman of estate lives here. No Papists nor reputed Papists have any concern in this parish.” He also says that “the vicarage tithes will not pay for a due collection.” At his 1712 visitation he enters under Stagsden that there is “divine service once every Lord’s Day,” and of communion he notes that “but 4 received at Easter last.” Of Dissenters he says that “they assemble once in a month or six weeks, 50 or 60 at a time.” (Wake MS. 324, p. 190.)

• Of Carlton cum Chellington he notes that there is “no lecture, school, almeshouse nor hospital in either parish. No person of quality or gentleman of estate lives or has a seat in either.” At the 1706 visitation he found “one poor family” reputed Papists, and in 1709 he enters “two reputed Papists.” Of the Dissenters in 1709 he says that their teacher is Robert Church, lacemaker, and they meet “every Sunday twice, near 200 in number.” At the same visitation he reports of communicants that “many seldom or never receive at all”; and in 1712 he gives 20 communicants for Carlton, 12 for Chellington. (Wake MS. 324, p. 180.)

• 2. The ‘Speculum Dioceseos Lincolniensis,’ compiled by Edmund Gibson (Bishop of Lincoln 1716-23), and preserved among the diocesan records, covers the end of Rogers’ incumbency at Stagsden and the beginning of that at Carlton. It is unfortunate that the Stagsden entries are not very clearly arranged, nor are they always clear in themselves. Rogers’ predecessor at Stagsden had also held Stevington; and apparently the Bishop’s volume had been prepared to receive one set of entries for the two parishes. The entries extracted and translated below are those which appear to relate to Stagsden; those relating only to Stevington being omitted.