§ 8. As so many churches belonged to monasteries, it is constantly assumed that the monasteries, especially during Norman times, provided parish churches at their own expense. Thus the splendid series of churches in south Lincolnshire, on the road from Sutton Bridge to Spalding, is said, without historical foundation, to have been produced by rivalry in church-building between Croyland abbey and other monasteries. It is true that, as at Spalding in 1284, the religious house would probably contribute a certain amount to the building or rebuilding of an appropriated church, but that amount would be limited, and the parishioners would be left to provide the rest according to their means. When vicarages were ordained, the repair of the chancel, the rector's peculiar property, was usually left to the monastery as rector; but we often find that a special stipulation was made by which part of the repairs even of this portion of the church devolved upon the vicar, and that sometimes his stipend was so arranged as to free the monastery of this obligation altogether. A monastery naturally regarded the fruits of a church as an addition to its own income. The most that could be expected of it would be that it would employ a reasonable part of the profits in keeping the fabric in order. If the monastery owned the manor as well as the advowson, it probably, and here and there unmistakably, did more for the fabric of the parish church. But these fabrics were in most cases existing when the monasteries took seisin of the advowsons of the churches in question. When appropriation followed, the enrichment of the monastery, not the enlargement of the building, was the end in view; and the plea made by the monastery in dealing with the bishop over appropriations, was invariably one of poverty. When a church, then, was rebuilt or enlarged, the money came for the most part from parishioners, the monastery supplying its proportion, not without a view to strict economy.