Welsh Journals

MONTGOMERY CHURCH. By the Rev. W. EDWYN JONES, M.A. This was originally a chapel, an affiliation of the great Parish Church of Chirbury (St. Michael).1 The Parson of Montgomery, of whom I am the first to speak, was probably a presentee of the Prior of Chirbury, the said Prior being Rector, or at least Patron, of the Mother Church of Chirbury. In 1233 King Henry III had added a chapel to the New Castle of Montgomery. By a writ of November 23 in that year he desires Hubert Huse and Godescell de Maghelines to permit any proper chaplain appointed by the Parson of Montgomery to minister and receive obventions in the said chapel till such time as the king should determine whether the aforesaid Parson ought to leave the chantry (i.e., the ministration) of the said chapel or not." On March 28th, 1224, the king orders that the Parson of the Mother Church of Montgomery shall have all obventions of the Castle chapel and all corn tithes of the newly cultivated lands pertaining to the Castle whereof he had been used to receive the small tithes." The term Mother Church here applied to Montgomery is only relative. It indicates the connection between the church of Montgomery and the Castle chapel. The Com- position of 1227 proves that the church of New Montgomery, as it is called, was itself a recent foundation, struggling for independ- ence against the Prior of Chirbury. This independence was estab- lished in all particulars except that a pension of 30/- and half the principale legatum of Montgomery were to be paid to the Priory. Thus Montgomery became a Rectory in the patronage of the Crown. The Taxation of 1291 (p. 166), placing Montgomery in the Deanery of Pontesbury and Diocese of Hereford, values it at 1 For the early history see Eyton (R. W.), "Antiquities of Shropshire," I. 576­90.