Welsh Journals

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In 1290, the king ordered an enquiry into a disputed lease to Anian of 36 acres at Henley, Salop, for 16 years, the result of which, however, we do not know. There is one last reference to the bishop in the rolls in 1290,2 before the impenetrable curtain falls, affording us a brief and vivid glimpse of rural conditions in far off times As there was still no road between Rhuddlan and St. Asaph, though Edward had intended to lay one down to meet the new needs of the growing district, the traffic was wont to pass over the cornland of the bishop and his tenants, the horses and carts doing much damage to the crops. The king then, in response to the bishop's complaint, ordered the justiciar of Chester to make the highway forth- with. through suitable places in the bishop's lands "to be used for ever." Anian died in 1293, according to the register of Canterbury on February 5th. The royal cong6 d'élire for his successor was issued February 23rd, 1292-3. His death occasioned a dispute over the custody of the temporalities in the vacancy of the see. They were claimed by the Earl of Surrey, a marcher lord, but as English influence in the Welsh church continued to grow. the king ultimately secured them, an earlier precedent having been set in a similar case in the bishopric of Llandaff a few years previously. Anian was no doubt a personality of mark. ­a man to be reckoned with, and he was certainly excep- tionally combative and tenacious. If not overscrupulous for church privilege in the abstract, he was at least devoted to the interests of his see. And it is proof on the whole 1 Cal. Pat. 10 Ed I p. 877. 8 Cal.Cl. 18 Ed.I, p.106.