William Sylk - Rector of Chilfrome - 1441

[Daniel Silk]

www.opcdorset.org/ChilfromeFiles/ChilfromeRectors.htm

1441 - William SYLK

[Daniel Silk]

Note the family of these estates had connections with Chilfrome

knightsdebryan.freeservers.com/effigy.htm

Although Ormonde can have had little personal touch with the manor of Kingsdon, his influence was felt there in the appointment of William silk to the living 1451 (S.R.S., XLIX, 175). Silk took an active part in the affairs of the diocese as well as of his parish. He is presumed to have persuaded Ormonde as patron of the living to agree to bishop Beckington being approached about a transfer of the feast of the dedication of the church. The preliminary negotiations for this momentous alteration in the village calendar must have been begun in 1460 or early 1461. Ormonde was actively engaged for Henry VI at this time, and before Beckington’s response to the petition was received, he had been captured by the Yorkists after the battle of Towton. He was beheaded at Newcastle on 1 May, 1461, and, not doubt, the village said that "that’s what became of trying to alter the date of the feast" – and the steward, if he was superstitiously inclined, may have murmured of the breaking of entails. Beckington’s dictum about the feast reads:


Notification to Master William Sylk, rector of the church of Kingsdon, and all the parishioners thereof, that the bishop in response to their petition shewing that the feast of the dedication of their church, which has hitherto been celebrated on 4 September in every year, cannot be observed with due solemnity and devotion on that day because the parishioners are continuously occupied at the time gathering crops, and for other reasons, and praying the bishop to change the feast of dedication form that day to the Sunday next after the feast of the Decollation of St. John the Baptist – has thought fit to change the said feast accordingly; and, in order to excite the minds of the faithful to greater devotion at the feast so changed, hereby grants forty days indulgence to all contrite and confessed persons who shall be present at divine service in the said church on the first celebration of the said feast, and during the following five years, and devoutly say the Lord’s Prayer with the Angelic Salutation. Wiveliscombe, 8 June, 1461.
"The feast of dedication" is thought to have been in the case, on the traditional day of the dedication when the church was built, rather than on the patronal festival: the church already seems to have been known as "the Church of the All Hallows".

[Daniel Silk]

findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6408/is_n1_v67/ai_n28708128/

The surname `Sylk' in the second inscription has been written over but does not completely obscure the surname of the person who actually purchased the volume from Brownyng: `Elyote.' Bishop Edmund Lacy's Register of Institutions records the institution of Sir William Elyote, chaplain, as rector of Berrynarbor on 6 March 1454/5, on the death of the previous rector.(7) The same register also indicates that `Master William Brownynge' became rector of Berrynarbor in 1430 and remained so until his death in 1454/5, a fact confirmed by Brownyng's will, in which he refers to himself as `Willelmus Brownyng canonicus ecclesie cathedralis beati Petri Exon' ac ecclesiarum parochialium de Uggeburgh et Byrynerberd Exon' diocesis rector licet indignus.'(8) If William Elyote was chaplain to Brownyng before succeeding him as rector of Berrynarbor, then he must have attained that position after 14 February 1449/50, when William Castell is recorded as chaplain of `Byry Nerber'.(9) Since the volume that is now MS Harley 3300 is not among the three books mentioned in Brownyng's will, Elyote must have acquired it from him before 15 August 1454.(10)

The William Sylk who subsequently acquired the volume, perhaps from Elyote himself, is probably the Oxford lawyer who became canon and prebendary of Exeter in 1479 and subsequently was archdeacon of Cornwall, precentor of Exeter, and vicar general of the bishop of Exeter before his death in 1508.(11) He is first recorded as a scholar of canon law in 1463, and might well have acquired the volume as a reference work for his study of that subject. His professional interests and his Exeter connections make him a better candidate for the volume's owner than his contemporary and namesake William Silk, MA, who was chaplain rector of Chilfrome, Dorset (1442-52), and rector of Kingsdown, Somerset (from 1451; still in 1468).(12) All evidence suggests that the volume remained in the possession of Exeter clerks, if not physically in Exeter, until its purchase for Harley's library, in 1715.(13)