The following memorandum of interments is on a stone, which covers the family vault of the Maws. INTERMENTS. MARGT. THE WIFE OF J. H. MAW, ESQ. DIED 1795, AGED 5 YEARS AND 5 MONTHS, On the south-west corner of the Church Yard, inclosed by a neat iron railing, is a gothic tombstone, with the following inscription and epitaph. SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF RICHARD AND MARY PULLAN, 24TH DAY OF MARCH, 1836, ALSO OF MARY ELIZABETH PULLAN, WHO DIED 10TH DAY OF JUNE, 1836, IN SWEET COMPANIONSHIP THEY SLEEP, On This Church has an estate in land, which is vested in the Churchwardens. The original donors are unknown, nor are we acquainted with any particu lars concerning the time when the endowment was made. I should infer from the land being dispersed in all parts of the parish, and consisting, in some instances, of very small portions, that it has been the gift of several pious individuals at different periods of time, prior to the reign of Henry the Eighth. It is as follows. A Schedule of Lands within the parish of Epworth, vested in the Churchwardens for the time being, for the use of the Church. One House and Homestead, near the Market Place, in In the occupation of Mr. Robt. Heaton, two swathes in the Ings Meadow, inclosed as a back road to his Office, By Mr. G. H. Capes, adjoining the Poor-house yard, Inclosed in the late Thos. Chessman's Home Croft, now in the occupation of Thos. Clough, Sundry parcels of land lying dispersedly in the A. R. P. 10 1 1 3 5 3 2 2 1 38 2 2 29 306 0 238 0 0 12 0 120 open fields. The Rectory formed part of the original endowment of the Priory of Newburgh; but the tythes were never appropriated nor a vicarage endowed. The Prior and Convent presented whom they thought proper, from the time of their foundation until the year 1500; and that person had the enjoyment of the full tythe, subject, however, to the payment of a Pension of sixty shillings to the hospital of St. John at Jerusalem*. After the year 1500 three * Nothing was more common, when an endowment was made, than to charge it with a pension or out-payment to some other religious establishment. Thus the Rectory of Epworth, as above stated, had to pay 60s. yearly to the Hc pital of St. John at Jerusalem; the pensions, &c. payable out of the rents belonging to the Carthusian Monastery at Low Melwood amounted to upwards of £52; and grants of land were frequently made subject to similar obligations. On the suppression of the monasteries, all the possessions of the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem were given to King Henry the Eighth, consequently the pension from the Rectory of Epworth was afterwards paid to the Crown. Some account of this celebrated foundation of the Knights' Hospitallers of St. John, may not be unacceptable to the reader. In the eleventh century, when the apprehension of the approaching end of the world, and the appearance of Christ to judge mankind, had once more fanned the flame of pious pilgrims, and men were hastening to the land where they expected to meet their Saviour and their judge, there was built within the walls of Jerusalem a hospital for the reception of Catholic pilgrims. The hospital stood within a short distance of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and by the favour of the Egyptian Caliph, a church dedicated to the Virgin was erected close to it. There an Abbot and several Monks, who followed the rule of St. Benedict, received and entertained the pilgrims which arrived each year from the west, and furnished such of them as were poor, or had been plundered by the Bedouins, with the means of paying the tax exacted by the unbelievers. Decorum not permitting the reception of female pilgrims, the brethren established without their walls a convent dedicated to Mary Magdalene, where a pious sisterhood entertained their own sex. The number of the pilgrims still continuing to increase, the Abbot and his Monks erected a new Hospitium, near their Church, which they placed under the patronage of St. John, the Patriarch of Alexandria, named Eleemon or the Compassionate. This last hospital had no independent revenues, but derived its income from the bounty of the Abbot of the Monastery of the Holy Virgin and the alms of the pious. When Jerusalem was invested by the Crusaders, in the year 1099, Gerhard, a native of Provence, presided over the hospital of St. John, a man of exemplary piety, and of mild and universal benevolence rarely to be found in that age: for while the city was pressed by the arms of the faithful, not only the orthodox Catholic, but the schismatic Greek and the unbelieving Moslem, shared without distinction the alms of the good director of the hospital of St. John. When the city was taken, the sick and wounded of the crusaders received all due care and attention from Gerhard and his monks. The favour which they now enjoyed with Godfrey, the leader of the crusaders, enboldened them to separate themselves from the Monastery of St. Mary de Latina: and in order to pursue the |