THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 t ; r. 
 
 q-V^
 
 THE OLD ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 AND OTHER ESSAYS. 
 
 Rev. F. a. GASQUET, D.D., O.S.B.
 
 THE 
 
 Bin €n9lt0f) mut 
 
 AND OTHER ESSAYS 
 
 Br 
 FRANCIS AIDAN GASQUET, D.D., O.S.B. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 "HENRY VIII. AND THE ENGLISH MONASTBRIKS " 
 
 LONDON 
 
 JOHN C. NIMMO 
 
 14 KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND 
 MDCCCXCVII
 
 K 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 ESSAY I. 
 
 PAGES 
 NOTES ON MEDIEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 
 
 Study equally with labour a monastic work — First begin- 
 nings of libraries — Special places set apart for books 
 — The creation of English libraries — Arrangement of 
 book-cases and making of catalogues — Chained books 
 — The librarian — Size of mediaeval collections . . . 1-40 
 
 ESSAY II. 
 
 THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM. 
 
 Book-making a peculiarly monastic occupation — Scriptoria 
 proper — The great English historiographers, Matthew 
 Paris, William of Malmesbury, &c. — The work of the 
 Scriptorium — Cloister writing schools — Cost of MS. 
 making — English writing schools in early times ... 41-62 
 
 ESSAY III. 
 
 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 
 
 Mediaeval sermons serve as useful side lights to history — 
 Bishop Brunton of Eochester in the fourteenth century 
 — His account of manners and morals at the end of 
 the reign of Edward III. and the beginning of that of 
 Eichard II. — New lights upon the period and work of 
 the Good Parliament — The orator's plain speaking... 63-101 
 
 4S2766
 
 vi. CONTENTS. 
 
 ESSAY IV. 
 
 PAGES 
 THE PEE-EEFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE (1). 
 
 The Wyclif origin of the old EngUsh version traditional 
 — No vernacular version supposed to be authorised — 
 Lollard persecution for the Scriptures — The evidence 
 connecting Wyclif and his immediate followers with 
 the version examined — The attitude of ecclesiastical 
 authorities to the version — Evidence for an authorised 
 vernacular version ... ... ... ... ... 102-155 
 
 ESSAY V. 
 
 THE PRE-BEFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE (2). 
 
 English historical review, criticism on the last Essay ex- 
 amined — Mr. Matthew and Mr. Kenyon, admissions 
 that the church permitted the use of the version now 
 known as Wyclifite — Their reasons for thinking that 
 Wyclif was the author of the version examined . . . 156-178 
 
 ESSAY VI. 
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND DURING THE 
 FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES. 
 
 English people better instructed in their faith than com- 
 monly supposed — Various injunctions on this point to 
 the clergy — Familiar character of the religious teach- 
 ing — Various books to assist priests in the discharge of 
 this duty — Character of mediaeval sermons — Sermon 
 aids in England — Some English preachers and their 
 work 179-225 
 
 ESSAY VII. 
 
 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Henry VI. at Bury St. Edmunds in 1433 — The reception 
 of the royal guest — Account of the religious services in 
 the abbey church — The King's amusements ... 226-259
 
 CONTENTS. vii. 
 
 ESSAY VIII. 
 
 PAGES 
 THE CANTBEBURY CLAUSTEAL SCHOOL IN THE FIFTEENTH 
 CENTUEY. 
 
 The cloister the monastic schoolroom — The inconveniences 
 and hardships of mediaeval education — The treatment 
 of books — A monastic school boy — His lesson book — 
 Teaching as to polite manners — His writing and Latin 
 lessons — Proverbs — Scribbles — Eeginald Pole . . . 260-285 
 
 ESSAY IX. 
 
 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTEE, A FIFTEENTH 
 CENTUEY ANTIQUAEY. 
 
 Interest and value of a properly kept note book — William 
 of Worcester — His birth and early life — His travels 
 and notes of places and people, and his description of 
 places, buildings, and knowledge of architecture — His 
 notes as to classical manuscripts — His friendship with 
 Prior Sellyng of Canterbury — The revival of Greek in 
 England 286-318 
 
 ESSAY X. 
 
 HAMPSHIEB EECUSANTS, A STOEY OP THEIE TEOUBLES IN 
 THE TIME OP QUEEN ELIZABETH. 
 
 Kecusant laws — Their purpose and origin — Their incidence 
 illustrated in regard to Hampshire people, rich and 
 poor, to the commencement of the reign of James I. 319-384
 
 I. 
 
 NOTES ON 
 MEDIEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES/ 
 
 IT is by no means uncommon for certain writers to 
 assume that the ideal monastic occupation was 
 agriculture. They appear to consider that it was 
 only in process of time that study, writing, and 
 other forms of intellectual work were allowed by 
 the monastic order to usurp the position of manual 
 labour. It is perhaps hardly necessary to say that 
 such a notion is, at the least, inaccurate and mis- 
 leading. St. Benedict from the first, as may be 
 seen in his legislation for the daily work of his 
 monks, contemplated a mixed occupation of hands 
 and head for such as entered " the school of divine 
 service" under his Rule. Times for "reading'* 
 entered largely into the disposition of his day, and 
 he treats it as quite exceptional " if the situation of 
 the place or their poverty require " his monks to 
 give up their intellectual pursuits " to labour in 
 
 ^ Reprinted, with additions, from the Downside Review^ vo\. x., p. 87 
 seqq. 
 1
 
 2 MEDIAEVAL MOXASTIC LIBRARIES. 
 
 reaping their corn." How it came to pass tliat iu 
 process of time the hibour of the hauds gave way 
 almost entirely to that of the head is a story alto- 
 gether foreign to my present purpose. And all 
 that I would insist on here is that according: to St. 
 Benedict's conception study or reading was to form a 
 part, and a large part, of each monk's '"' accustomed 
 task.-'"' 
 
 Xow reading implies the existence of books, and 
 so, as a necessary consequence of this provision in 
 the Eule, every properly constituted monastery 
 must from the first have looked to the formation of 
 such libraries as were then possible as a matter of 
 primary importance. That they did so in fact can 
 hardlv be doubted bv anv one takino- the trouble to 
 look at any series of monastic annals. It was many 
 centuries ago — somewhere in the 12th century, if I 
 mistake not — that an abbot, writing about the 
 establishment of a new abbey, said that " a monas- 
 tery without a library is like a castle without an 
 armoury" ; for '*' our library is our armoury." And 
 although he goes on to explain his meaning as 
 specially referring to books necessary to prosecute 
 those Biblical studies in which the monks would find 
 defence against the assaults of their enemy, there 
 can be no doubt from the beginning of his letter 
 
 ■ R'de r.f St. Benedict, Cap. 48. Of Daily Labour. "Idleness is 
 the enemy of the soul ; hence brethren ought, at certain seasons, to 
 occupy themselves with manual labour, and again, at certain hours, 
 with holy reading, &c."
 
 MEDIEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 3 
 
 that he had before his mind at the time, the prin- 
 ciple which St. Benedict lays down in his legislation 
 for the daily work of his monks, that " Idleness is 
 the enemy of the soul." And in this point of view 
 the library was the " armoury " against this foe. 
 
 Considering the importance attached to the collec- 
 tion of books in every monastic establishment, it 
 may not be without interest if a few pages are 
 devoted to an attempt to sketch in outline what 
 such a library must have been in any of " the great 
 solemn monasteries" of England. And first, as in 
 so many mediaeval matters, we must begin by 
 divestinof our minds of notions derived from this 
 nineteenth century of ours, when the art of printing 
 has so completely changed the conditions of book- 
 making that there can be little comparison between 
 a library of modern books and the small but pro- 
 portionately precious collection of manuscript. The 
 multitudinous rows of volumes, for instance, gaily 
 dressed out in their cloth bindings of every hue and 
 colour — those studies in cheap blue and silver, or 
 brown and gold — to which the eye is now accus- 
 tomed in every modern library, must be banished 
 from the imagination as a preliminary step to realiz- 
 ing the mediaeval prototype ; and the same may be 
 said of every, or almost every, characteristic detail 
 of a modern library. If any books at all were 
 visible in the manuscript collections of a medieval 
 monastery, they were probably sombre tomes 
 enough. Away then with all notions from this age
 
 4 MEDIiEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 
 
 of ours if we would understand what an ancient 
 library was like, liow it was worked, under whose 
 care it was, and what the conditions were, under 
 which the monk in those "dark ages" used the 
 manuscript treasures of his house. 
 
 And first it is well to understand that from the 
 earliest Christian times there was held to be a sacred 
 character about books. In fact there was ever a 
 close connection between them and the Church, and 
 the House of God itself was long considered the 
 most fitting place for the aumbry of manuscripts, 
 which men in those days of simple faith regarded 
 as among the most precious of God's gifts. If I 
 might hazard a guess why this should have been so, 
 it would be that these were partly, if not mostly, 
 made up of copies of the Holy Scriptures, or of 
 works of the Fathers of the Church commenting on 
 them ; and to the reverential spirit of the early 
 ages of the faith, no more fitting place could be 
 inuagined to preserve these sacred treasures than 
 the Church. The very Latin word now used for a 
 library {Bibliotheca) was used to signify the Holy 
 Bible itself. 
 
 Whatever the reason, the fact is certain that the 
 church was the common, if not the usual, place 
 where in early mediseval days the manuscript trea- 
 sures of a great church or monastery were to be 
 found. Thus, for example, when Pope Damasus, 
 towards the close of the 4th century, founded his 
 public library in Rome, he raised the hall, or basi-
 
 MEDIEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 5 
 
 lica church, dedicated to St. Laurence, from out 
 of which led the little rooms devoted to various 
 departments of his library, and in which were 
 stored the precious volumes. ^ 
 
 So, in later times, St. Louis of France, upon his 
 return from the crusades, had many volumes of the 
 sacred Scriptures and of the Fathers of the Church 
 copied by the most skilful scribes, and these he 
 placed in the Sainte Chapelle which he had built to 
 receive the relics of the Passion brought back from 
 the Holy Land.^ The same disposition of the manu- 
 script treasures of the great abbey of St. Alban's 
 appears even as late as the twelfth century. The 
 Geda Abbatum says of Symon the 19th abbot of St. 
 Alban's, who ruled the house wisely and well from 
 
 ' Lanciani, Ancient Rome, p. 187. The -writer also says : " The 
 finest libraries of the first three centuries of Christendom were of 
 coarse in Rome. They contained not only books and documents of 
 local interest, such as the Gesta Martyrum and matriculx pauperum 
 and so forth, but also copies of the official correspondence between 
 the See of Rome and the dioceses of the christian world. Such was 
 the importance attributed to books in those early days of our faith, 
 that in christian basilicas, or places of worship, they were kept in the 
 place of honour next to the episcopal chair. Many of the basilicas 
 which we discover from time to time, especially in the Campagna, 
 have the apse trichora — that is, subdivided into three smaller hemi- 
 cycles. The reason and meaning of this peculiar form of an apse was 
 long sought in vain ; but a recent discovery made at Hispalis (Seville) 
 proved that of the three hemicycles in those apses, the central one 
 contained the tribunal or episcopal chair, the one on the right the 
 sacred implements, the one on the left the sacred books." See also 
 the remarks of G. B. de Rossi, in Codices Palatini Latini Bibl. Vati- 
 caiiie, pp. xvi., xvii. 
 
 2 Tillemont, Vie de St. Louis, iv,, p. 48.
 
 6 MEDIEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 
 
 A.D. 1167 to 1183, that he did much to attract 
 learned and lettered men to the cloister. He col- 
 lected many books, chiefly Scriptural, and "their 
 number," writes the chronicler, "it would be too 
 long to name ; but those who desire to see them can 
 find them in the painted aumbry in the church, 
 placed (as he specially directed) against the tomb 
 of Roger the hermit."^ Abbot Sy men's book 
 collecting was not in vain, for to him may be traced 
 the origin of the school of St. Alban's chroniclers, 
 to whom we owe so much of our knowledge of 
 English history ; and although the first efforts in 
 that direction were, to say the least, crude, what 
 they subsequently accomplished during the course 
 of over three centuries deserves the grateful recog- 
 nition of posterity. There is no need to enlarge 
 further upon the fact of this close connection be- 
 tween the library and church in the middle ages. 
 The point could be largely illustrated from the 
 English monastic chronicles, but one late example 
 of the existence of a library in a church at the be- 
 ginning of the fifteenth century may perhaps be 
 given. The story is interesting in itself, and as 
 the books in question do not appear to have been 
 merely biblical or patristic volumes, as they may 
 perhaps be accounted in other instances, it will not 
 be out of place. 
 
 On Saturday, August 21st, 1406, at six o'clock in 
 the evening. King Henry lY. arrived at Bardney 
 
 ' Gesta Albatiim, ed. Rolls series i., p. 184.
 
 MEDIAEVAL M0:NASTIC LIBRARIES. 7 
 
 Abbey, Lincolnshire, witli a large retinue. " Tbe 
 abbot and convent," says the account we are quot- 
 ing, " came to the outer gates in procession to meet 
 him. The illustrious king on seeing the procession 
 dismounted, and kneeling humbly kissed the cross. 
 After he had been sprinkled with holy water and 
 censed, the cantor intoning (the hymn) of the 
 Trinity, Sit honor virtus, he was conducted with be- 
 coming honour by the abbot and his monks through 
 the church to the high altar. There when the 
 singing was over and the abbot had said the prayer, 
 (King Henry) kissed the sacred relics, and passing 
 through the cloister retired to the abbot's chamber 
 for the night." 
 
 The next day, "which was Sunday, the king 
 descended to the cloister about six o'clock in the 
 morning, and entered the chapel of Holy Mary in the 
 church near the ^vestibule,' which had been adorned 
 with carpets and hangings of red and other decora- 
 tions fitting for a king. Here he heard two masses, 
 and in the meantime the blessing of the water be- 
 fore the High Mass was begun ; and this over, the 
 procession went to the chapel of Holy Mary, as was 
 the custom each Sunday in the year. Then it went 
 round the cloister, and the most illustrious King 
 Henry and his nobles followed till it entered the 
 choir (again), when the king went back to the 
 chapel, where he remained till the High Mass was 
 finished." 
 
 " After the mass he passed through the cloister
 
 8 MEDIAEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 
 
 to his cliamber to dine." Then after transacting 
 some business of state, " the King again descended 
 through the cloister to the church, and there turned 
 over our Hbrary. He read in divers books accord- 
 ing to his will and good pleasure, and then, by the 
 same way he had come, he returned to his supper."^ 
 
 The love thus shown by Henry lY. for books 
 was transmitted to his sons — even to Henry V. 
 We have two curious instances of this latter 
 monarch's propensity for borrowing books and 
 forgetting to return them. They may be worth 
 recording, although not directly bearing upon the 
 present subject. The first example has reference 
 to a work of secular literature. In 1424 the 
 Countess of Westmoreland petitioned that great 
 book collector, the Duke of Gloucester, that a 
 volume called the " Chronicles of Jerusalem and the 
 viage de G-odfray Boylion " might be restored to 
 her. She said that the late King, Henry V., had 
 borrowed it from her, and had not returned it, 
 and that it was then in the possession of Robert 
 Rolleston, the keeper of the royal wardrobe. This 
 petition was granted, and the book returned. 
 
 The other instance is still more curious. In the 
 same year, and almost about the same time, the 
 Prior of Christchurch, Canterbury, requested that 
 the monks of the Sliene Charterhouse should be 
 
 ' Hearne, Appendix to Leland's Collectanea iii., pp. 300 — 1 (ed. 
 1715); taken from the fly leaf of a MS., formerly belonging to Bardney 
 Abbey.
 
 MEDI/EVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 9 
 
 directed to deliver up to Dom William Molash, 
 monk and almoner of Canterbury, a large volume 
 containing the works of St. Glregory the Grreat. The 
 King had, it is true, left it to the Carthusians by his 
 will, but the Prior stated that this same volume had 
 been bequeathed to Christchurch monastery by 
 Archbishop Arundel on his death ten years before. 
 The volume had been simply shown to Henry V. 
 by Sir Grilbert Umfreville, one of the executors of 
 the archbishop's will, and the King had simply kept 
 it during his life and left it to the Charterhouse 
 at his death. The petition of the Christchurch 
 monks was granted, and a letter was written to 
 the Prior of Shene to deliver up the book in 
 question.^ 
 
 But to return to our present subject. As time 
 went on, and books began to multiply in the 
 monasteries, places other than the church were 
 arranged, according to convenience, where they 
 were deposited. It was not till the later middle 
 ages, however, that the practice of gathering all 
 the manuscripts of a convent into one special place 
 became at all common, or that one special room, 
 called the library, was set apart for the purpose. 
 It must have struck all who have paid any atten- 
 tion to the ground-plans of our ancient English 
 abbeys that, as a rule, no place can with any cer- 
 tainty be assigned as the site of the library. The 
 fact is that although here and there some such 
 
 ' Rymer Feeder a x., pp. 317-8.
 
 10 MEDIEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 
 
 special building had often been erected to contain 
 the books of the establishment, more commonly 
 they were placed in presses erected in such parts 
 of the building, as practical utility might dictate. 
 Thus, for example, at Durham we find that the 
 manuscripts were distributed, according to con- 
 venience, in various parts of the large establish- 
 ment. Some were kept in the church, others 
 in the spendiment or treasury, and others again 
 in the refectory, and in more than one place in 
 the cloister. 
 
 In the spendiment there were apparently two 
 classes of books — one accessible to the monks 
 generally, the other kept in what we may consider 
 as the inner archivium, more securely preserved. 
 " Within the said treasury," says the author of the 
 Bites of Durham, " was a strong iron gate, set fast 
 in the groundwork, in the roof and in either wall, 
 the breadth of the house, so fast as not to be 
 broken ; and in the midst of the grate a door of 
 iron with a strong lock upon it, and two great sheets 
 of iron for the said door." 
 
 Other books were placed in an aumbry, or press 
 with folding^ doors, near the entrance to the in- 
 firmary. These were taken from the other book- 
 cases when needed, and were intended for the use 
 of the reader in the refectory.^ Another case of 
 
 ^ To the interesting library catalogue of the monastery of S. Justina 
 of Fadua made in 145o are prefixed lists ot books set apart for public 
 reading. List 1 gives those to be read in the Chapter, with a descrip-
 
 MEDIEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 11 
 
 books was set apart for the use of the novices in 
 the part of the cloister opposite the door of the 
 treasury, so that at any time they could have access 
 to them for their studies. The general store of 
 books belonging to Durham, at any rate at the end 
 of the 14th century, was kept in presses set in 
 various parts of the cloister/ " Opposite to the 
 carrels, against the church wall," writes the authority 
 before quoted, " stood certain great aumbries of 
 wainscot, full of books, as well the ancient written 
 Doctors of the church as other profane authors, 
 with divers other holy men's works ; so that every 
 one studied what doctor he pleased, having the 
 library at all times open to go and study in, besides 
 their carrels." This Library, however, was the 
 creation of Prior Wessington, some time before 
 1446, " in the south angle of the Lanthorne which 
 
 tion of the size and the binding of the volumes ; List 2 those intended 
 for reading at table in Latin ; List ii those of books in the vernacular 
 to be read in the refectory at the first or second table. This catalogue 
 has been printed (but not published), along with the Library catalogue 
 of S. Antonio's at Padua referred to below, in an 8vo volume by W. von 
 Gothe (?) about the year 1864 ; it is also printed by Mazzatinti as an 
 appeudix to the Catalogue of Italian manuscripts in the Bibliotheque 
 Rationale at Paris. Richard of Bury in his Philobiblion, speaks of the 
 care taken by the mendicant friars to form collections of books. 
 "Whenever," he writes, "we turned aside to the cities aud places 
 where the mendicants had their convents .... we found iieaped up 
 amidst the utmost poverty the utmost riches of wisdom. They are as 
 ants ever preparing their meat in the summer, and ingenious bees con- 
 tinually fabricating cells of honey. . . . They have added more in this 
 brief (eleventh) hour to the stock of the sacred books than all the 
 other vine dressers." 
 
 ' Catalogi Veteres, ed. Surtees Soc, p. 46.
 
 12 MEDI.T.VAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 
 
 is now above the clock, standing betwixt the 
 Chapter House and the Te Deum window, well 
 replenished with old written Doctors and other 
 Histories, and Ecclesiastical writers." 
 
 The picture which may be derived from this 
 account of the disposition of the Durham books will 
 be fairly correct in regard to other monastic houses. 
 Thus at Westminster we know that in the cloister 
 there were presses of books for the particular use 
 of the seniors and the novices, because there is a 
 special order as to a cresset light being set beyond 
 the aumbry of the master of novices, and a special 
 permission for a novice sufi&ciently instructed to 
 have books out of the presses set apart for the use 
 of the seniors.^ Many more examples of these 
 cloister libraries might be given from the chronicles 
 of other houses which all go to show that what we 
 know to have been the case at Durham and West- 
 minster was the common and general disposition 
 of the monastic manuscript volumes. 
 
 Towards the close of the 14th, or in the first half 
 of the 1 5th century as at Durham, it is not uncom- 
 mon to find special buildings, or at any rate rooms, 
 set apart for libraries. Thus, to take St. Alban's 
 as an example, Michael de Mentmore, who was 
 abbot from a.d. 1335 to 1349, besides enriching 
 the common presses of the monastery with many 
 manuscript treasures, collected together some of 
 the books into what is called his " study,"^ which 
 
 ' Cott. MS. Otho C. xi., f. 84 and f. 86. -' Gesta Abbatum, ii., p. 363.
 
 MEDIEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 13 
 
 apparently was a place set apart for those who 
 showed special aptitude for learning. His suc- 
 cessor, Thomas De la Mare, who ruled St. Alban's 
 for nearly fifty years, is said to have increased the 
 collection of books in this study — or " library," as 
 it is now called — with many precious volumes, by 
 the help of Thomas of Walsingham, who then held 
 the office of cantor and scriptorarius.^ De la Mare 
 was followed in 1396 by John de la Moote, and he, 
 although abbot only for something less than five 
 years, '* newly built two sides of the cloister, with 
 the studies, library and chapel of St. Nicholas ; and 
 over the vaulting of the cloister he designed to build 
 a library ; and over that of the chapel of St. 
 Nicholas a small chamber for the monastic muni- 
 ments. But this," says the Chronicle, " prevented 
 by death, he left to others."" It was apparently 
 not for another fifty years, or in the year 1452, 
 that Abbot Whethamstede finally completed the 
 work thus interrupted. He had long desired to see 
 it done, and before the resignation which closed 
 his first abbacy, " had collected much of the ma- 
 terials " requisite. Hie successor did nothing, and 
 so, " immediately after his installation " for the 
 second time, he set to work and finished the 
 entire building in the second year of his second 
 abbacy. " And upon the mere construction of this 
 building," says the chronicler, " not reckoning the 
 glazing, lighting, or the furnishing with desks, he 
 
 1 Gesta AUalum, iii., p. 389. ^ Ibid., p. 442.
 
 14 MEDIAEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 
 
 is said to liave expended more than one hundred 
 and fifty pounds."^ 
 
 Ahnost at this very time the library of 
 Christchurch, Canterbury, described as sufficiently 
 spacious (satis amplara), was finished at consider- 
 able cost by Prior Thomas Goldstone." Prior 
 William Sellyng, who held the office for twenty-two 
 years from a.d. 1472, added a special scholars' 
 library. He was a man " deeply versed in both 
 sacred and secular learning, knowing well both 
 Latin and G-reek. . . Next to the Prior's cham- 
 ber he built a tower called the Gloriet (afterwards 
 called the Prior's study). The Library over the 
 Prior's chapel he adorned with a beautiful ceiling, 
 and stored within it many books for the use of 
 those most given to letters, whom most anxiously 
 and kindly he assisted and encouraged. The 
 southern walk of the cloister also he caused to be 
 glazed for the use of the more studious brethren, 
 and there made some fine carrels."^ 
 
 So much for the place where the books of an old 
 English media3val monastery were deposited. The 
 reader's attention is now directed for a moment to 
 the cases in which the volumes were kept. As will 
 perhaps be sufficiently understood already, these 
 were aumbries or closed cupboards, and not the 
 open shelves to which we are now accustomed. 
 
 ^ Reg. J. Whetliamstede ahlatise seciindx (Rolls Series), i., p. 421. 
 ^ Wharton, Anglia Sacra, i., p. 145. 
 3 Ibid., p. 146.
 
 MEDIEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 15 
 
 From the earliest times Christian libraries followed 
 in this, as in many other respects, the pagan models. 
 Upon the doors of the cupboards were, not unfre- 
 quently, painted the heads of the chief writers or 
 other celebrated persons, as in the Vatican library 
 at the present day, where, when the presses are 
 closed no books are visible. ^ The volumes were 
 placed apparently in a horizontal position on 
 the shelves, and did not stand vertically as in 
 modern times. One description of an English 
 mediaeval book cupboard may be given here. 
 " The press in which the books are kept ought to 
 be lined inside with wood, that the damp of the 
 walls may not moisten or spoil the books. This 
 press should be divided vertically as well as hori- 
 zontally by sundry shelves, on which the books may 
 be ranged so as to be separated one from another, 
 for fear they be packed so close as to iujure each 
 other and delay those who want to use them." ~ 
 
 Perhaps the most complete account we have of 
 the appearance and disposition of an English 15th 
 century library is that of the White Canons of 
 Titchfield. " There are in the library of Titch- 
 field," says the preface to the old catalogue, " four 
 cases {columnoe) to put the books in. Thus on the 
 east face {i.e., opposite the door) there are two — 
 
 1 The Vaticau Library was fitted up, as we see it to-day, with presses, 
 vases and busts, by Pope Sixtus V., in 1688. It was, however, 
 arranged strictly on the ancient Roman plan. 
 
 2 Custumary of Barnwell (Harl. MS. 3061), translated in Saturday 
 Review, February 21st, 1891.
 
 16 MEDIAEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 
 
 viz., (case) one and (case) two. On the south side 
 is case three, and on the north, case four." 
 
 Each of these cases had eight shelves, marked 
 with a letter of the alphabet, which represented a 
 division of the library. Thus roughly in case 1 
 were placed the Bibles and the patristic glosses 
 upon it ; in case 2, was what might be termed the 
 theological portion of the library ; in case 3, the 
 sermons, legends, regulge with canon and civil law ; 
 whilst case 4 contained the books upon medical and 
 surgical science, upon grammar, logic and philo- 
 sophy, and the various unclassed volumes. The 
 letters of the alphabet afforded further divisions : 
 thus, B was fixed to seven shelves of case 1, and 
 contained the various glosses on Holy Scripture ; 
 and D, affixed to five shelves of case 2, was assigned 
 to the works of St. G-regory and St. Augustine. 
 Lastly, on the first folio of each volume was entered 
 the shelf letter, followed by a number naming its 
 position on the shelf. Thus the volume from which 
 these particulars are taken is called the " Bememora- 
 torium de Tychefelde,^' and has on its first page 
 the press mark " p.x." Turning to the catalogue 
 we find that the volume is entered as the tenth 
 book on shelf p.^ 
 
 ^ Harl. MS. 6603, f . 3 seqq. (extracts from a volume in the possession 
 of the Duke of Portland). This catalogue has now been printed by 
 the Hampshire Record Society. At the end of the 14th century the 
 Library of Lanthony Priory contained some 500 volumes arranged most 
 carefully in subjects. They were placed in five cupboards or aumbries, 
 each with many shelves. The catalogue (B. Mus., Harl. MS. 460, ff.
 
 MEDIiEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 17 
 
 One word may be said on the practice of 
 fastening books with a chain, although this had 
 to do with public libraries, and had no place in 
 monasteries. In churches the custom of having 
 a fastened breviary or Bible was very common. 
 " Bound with a chain like a common book " was 
 an expression of St. Bernard ; and St. Thomas 
 of Villanova, at the beginning of the 16th century, 
 speaks of " the breviaries in cathedral churches 
 left for public use and fastened with a chain.'* 
 From an inventory, taken in 1483, it appears that 
 the Sacristan of Saint-Oyan had amongst other 
 books a " Catholicum," or dictionary, with an 
 iron chain to it, probably for public use in the 
 sacristy.^ So, too, in the public library at Oxford, 
 each book had, within fifteen days of its being 
 acquired, to be chained to its proper place, and 
 the keys of the chains kept in the chest of five 
 keys. At St. Mary's Church, in a.d. 1414, the 
 
 3-11) gives the titles of the books ia each aumbry begiuaing vvith the 
 bottom shelf, which it calls the ^^ primus gradus.'^ The first aumbry 
 was reserved for Bibles and glosses on the Holy Scripture — the 
 glossed psalters alone filled the fourth and fifth shelf. In the second 
 and third aumbry were the works of the Fathers and theological 
 works. In the fourth, canon law occupied the three bottom shelves ; 
 the fourth, fifth and sixth shelves held the classics, grammarians, 
 philosophers and historians. The fifth and last shelf of the third 
 aumbry contained the works on medicine and the fifth aumbry was 
 reserved for future additions. (Cf. H. Omont, Ancieus Cataloguat de 
 Bibllothcqucs Angkmes, Leipsig, 181)2, p. 208 ; a separate print from 
 Hartwig's Centralblatt fur BibUotheksu-esen.) 
 
 ' La Bibliothcque de Saint-Claude du Jura in the Blbl. de I'Ecole des 
 Charles, vol. i., p. 319. 
 2
 
 18 MEDIiEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 
 
 work of de Lira on tlie Bible was chained in the 
 chancel for the use of the Oxford students. Many 
 donors expressly prescribe such chaining of their 
 books, even in the monastery cloister. Thus Peter 
 III., King of Aragon, in 1382, in presenting a 
 library to the great Cistercian Abbey of Poblet, 
 lays down in his deed of gift that the abbot is not 
 only to have made in the cloister " bels banclis," 
 but is to provide " moltes cadenes," to the end 
 that the books may be chained. Moreover, that 
 the memory of his gift be not lost, he adds that 
 the royal arms are to be emblazoned over the 
 aumbry, with this inscription " in good letters and 
 big: aquesta es la Ubreria del Bey En Pere III.,^^ to 
 distinguish him from other Kings of the name of 
 Peter. 1 
 
 I may now pass on to the librarian, or officer 
 having charge of the books. Strange as this may 
 seem to us now, the office was held almost in- 
 variably, at least in England, by the cantor or 
 precentor, the chief official director of the church 
 services. Calling to mind the fact of the close 
 connection between the library and the church, 
 to which attention has been directed, it is not 
 difficult to understand the origin of this union of 
 duties now apparently so distinct in one man. 
 Whatever be the explanation, the fact is clear, 
 that ordinarily the cantor was the official librarian. 
 " The library," says the customary of Abingdon, 
 
 ' J. Coroleu, Documents Histoiichs Catalans del slgle xiv., pp. 33-4.
 
 MEDIEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 19 
 
 " shall be in the keeping of the cantor. 
 When he is away, the succentor (or sub-cantor), 
 if he shall be fit for the office, shall keep the 
 library keys ; but should he be gidciy and light 
 minded, he shall give them to the prior or sub prior. 
 
 " If any shall go a long journey, he shall hand 
 over to the cantor, before starting, the library 
 books he may have . . . The keys of the 
 presses in which the libri annuales and singing 
 books are kept, shall be in the keeping of the 
 subcantor." ^ 
 
 Further, " the cantor shall examine the aumbries 
 belonging to the boys and youths, and the others 
 in which the books of the community are placed, 
 repair them when damaged, find material for the 
 library books, and mend any tears." ^ 
 
 It was the cantor's place also to see that the 
 monks were supplied with books, and that no book 
 was given out from the presses without a proper 
 entry on the parchment roll kept for the purpose. 
 He had also to see that the readers took proper 
 care of the books borrowed by them. Thus, at 
 Evesham it is ordered that : " whenever the com- 
 munity sat in the cloister (the cantor) shall walk 
 round when the bell has sounded, and put back 
 (into the presses) such books as by the careless- 
 ness of some may have been forgotton. Let him 
 take charge of all the books of the monastery, 
 
 1 Chronicon de Abingdon (Rolls series), ii., pp. 373-4. 
 - Ibid., p. 371.
 
 20 MEDIEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 
 
 and have them in his keeping, if his dihgence in 
 study and knowledge are such that they may be 
 entrusted to his charge. Let him not take back 
 a book from any one, unless it be entered on the 
 roll; neither let a book be given to anyone in 
 exchange without a proper and sufficient voucher, 
 and let this be entered on the roll." ^ 
 
 Even as late as a.d. 1511, Archbishop Warham, 
 in his Visitation of Christchurch, Canterbury, tes- 
 tifies to the continuance of the universal custom 
 by which the cantor had charge of the library. 
 " As to the 6th article," he says — " that is, as 
 to the proper distribution of books to each monk, 
 it is arranged that the precentor, to whom ex- 
 officio the distribution of books belongs, shall take 
 care to give to every one suitable books." ^ 
 
 The care taken of books in the middle ages, as 
 evidenced by the Evesham customs, may be illus- 
 trated by a similar direction to the librarian of the 
 public library at Oxford to see that " every night 
 open books, open windows and the door of the 
 
 ' Evesham Customs in Pemonrtham Priori/ (Chetham Soc), p. 105. 
 
 - Arund. MS. 68, f. 70. The following portions of the admonition 
 addressed to the Librarian prefixed to the catalogue of the monastic 
 library of Admont in 1370 are worth quoting. " The work of the 
 librarian, or, as we call him, Armarius, in a monastery is the library ; 
 so manage, therefore, that thou, who art made the armarius, mayest 
 have full knowledge of what is given to thy charge. . . The first 
 duty of a librarian is to strive in his time as far as possible to increase 
 the library committed to him." Then after quoting many exami^les of 
 those who had gathered togethtr large libraries, the Prologue con- 
 tinues : " Every armarius should, as far as his opportunities allow, 
 emulate the foregoing examples. He who is, however, negligent in
 
 MEDIiEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 21 
 
 library be shut without fail" {infalUhiliter) } It 
 would be impossible here to show fully how com- 
 pletely alive those in the " dark ages " were to the 
 value of such volumes as they possessed. They 
 knew, as well as we do, that every manuscript was 
 unique, that it possessed a history of its own and 
 existed in its perfect state only by the labours of 
 many skilful heads and many cunning hands. All 
 this, however, is a story connected with the work of 
 what is known as the scriptorium of the mediaeval 
 monastery, and well deserves to be considered 
 separately. It may be sufficient for the present 
 purpose to state broadly that, allowing for the 
 difference of money, a manuscript would cost in the 
 middle ages as much as, if not more than, such 
 hand work would fetch in these days. Moreover, it 
 is to be remembered that a single manuscript often 
 contained a number of separate treatises which, 
 if printed, would form as many volumes. 
 
 And this leads me to say a word about the size of 
 
 this, let him at least beware that the library does not diminish — that 
 is, that the books given to his charge do not in any way get lost or 
 perish. Let him know and have a care against fire and water, which 
 are most hurtful to books. Let him repair by binding, books destroyed 
 by age, let him put them in a sure and safe place that so he may warn 
 readers to treat them properly. What and where they are let him 
 remember, and know the names and their authors. If there are more 
 books than he remember the names of, let him make for himself a list 
 or book, in the beginning of which, if he wish, he can write this 
 Prologue." Wichner (J.), Zwei Bucherverzeichnisse d. l-i Juhrhunderts 
 in der Admonler Stiftshihliothek, p. 4 (a separate print from the Cen- 
 trcdblatt f. Bihliotlicksioeseii). 
 
 ^ Muuiinenta Academica (Rolls series) i., p. 267.
 
 22 MEDIiEVAL MOKASTIC LIBEARIES. 
 
 the English monastic libraries. Of course, as in 
 the present day, this varied considerably according 
 to the taste and requirements of the particular 
 house. According to Prior Eastry's catalogue, 
 there were at the beginning of tbe 14th century 
 some 3000 works in the library of Christcburch, 
 Canterbury. At Glastonbury the catalogue made in 
 1247, and printed by Hearne,^ shows, if it be a com- 
 plete list, that the monks of the great Somerset 
 monastery then had about 400 volumes, and must 
 therefore have been about the same size as that 
 of Canterbury ; and, to take but one more ex- 
 ample, the list of books belonging to Peterborough, 
 printed at length by Gunton, comprises some 1700 
 works in 268 volumes. Of some, even of the 
 greatest abbeys — as, for example, of St. Albans 
 — we have no means of estimating the extent, 
 so completely were the literary treasures swept 
 away at the dissolution by the Tudor officials. 
 A few years before the suppression of the house, 
 Leland visited Yerulam "to examine the ruins of 
 the old Eoman town. When I had done this," he 
 says, " I went to the sanctuary of St. Alban, nigh 
 to the fallen city wall. Here a scholarly monk, 
 called Kingsbery, a diligent investigator of antiqui- 
 ties, most courteously showed me the manuscript 
 treasures of this great monastery." It appears 
 clear, therefore, that up to its last days the library 
 — whatever happened afterwards — was sedulously 
 
 ^ Joannis Glastoniensis Chron., pp. 42o seqq.
 
 MEDI.T^VAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 23 
 
 cared for.^ Some of tlie books had evidently left 
 the St. Albans' shelves at an earlier date, for that 
 monastery, on account of its political proclivities, 
 seems to have been marked out for vengeance from 
 the very first days of the Tudor sovereignty. 
 
 The Reformation in England, from whatever side 
 it is approached, was indeed, to a degree which is 
 not now inadequately realized, heartbreaking work. 
 It would appear not improbable that the last days 
 of Leland were rendered a sorrowful agony by the 
 mere spectacle of the ruin wrought around him. 
 " Thus John Leland, aiitiquariits,'' says a singularly 
 well-iaformed writer, " had a side to his character 
 of which very Httle is known. He was an ardent 
 lover of poetry, had a great knowledge of classic 
 writers, and was himself a facile executant in the 
 classic vein. But those who chose to regard him 
 only as a picker-up of antiquities looked somewhat 
 askance on the production of his muse, and a cor- 
 respondent of Bale's, saying that " Maistre Ley- 
 lande " had "a poetycall wyte," quaintly adds, 
 " why die I lament, for I judge it to be one of the 
 chefest thynges that caused hym to fall besydes his 
 ryghte dyscernynges." And Bale's sweet curses — 
 
 ' Tanner, BibliotJieca Britannico-Hibernica, p. 613. The name Le- 
 land gives the monk is " o regia curia" which at first sight seems 
 likely to be " Kingscourt ; " but it was probably one " Thomas 
 Kyngesbery," who took his degree of B.D. at Oxford 4th March, 
 1511-12 (Boase, Register of the Uidversitg of Oxford I., p. 44:). The 
 name of *' Thomas Kyagsberd, prior," appears in the list of monks at 
 the dissolution of the abbey (Monasticou IL, p. 250).
 
 24 MEDIAEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 
 
 •'' God shorten tlieir unprofytable lyves, if they 
 cease not of that myschefe in tyme," and " cursed 
 be he for ever and ever, that shall, in spyglit of hys 
 nacyon, soke thereof the destruccyon " — are aimed 
 at those who were enemies of the historical works 
 of Leland. Others may prefer to the suggestion of 
 the Bishop's friend to believe that different causes 
 led to the antiquary's insanity. Is it not more 
 likely that when he had travelled through England, 
 had witnessed the yet untouched splendours of the 
 monastic houses, had pored over the things he most 
 cherished, their chartularies, computus books, and 
 chronicles, his mind gave way when he saw the 
 destruction that very nearly did away altogether 
 with the learned lore of lons^ and toilsome asres of 
 history."^ 
 
 This, however, relates specially to the larger 
 houses, and there is no doubt that many would 
 perhaps consider some of the poorer houses very 
 badly furnished indeed. Thus Deping possessed 
 only 23 volumes, and some, I suspect, were still less 
 well provided.^ It must, however, be borne in mind, 
 
 ' Saturday Review, Sept. 6th, 1885. 
 
 ^ The catalogue of the Burton-on-Trent House, drawn up about 
 1175, names some 78 volumes, and contains many items we would 
 gladly possess to-day. (See Omont, rihi supra.) There were several 
 Anglo - Saxon translations in the library, Gospels, Psalters, &c. 
 One of these, ApoUo)dus Anglice, suggests the possibility of this 
 volume being the same as the only copy of this work known to exist, 
 in C. C. Coll. Cambridge, MS. No. L^Ol, formerly S. 18. There are 
 indications which seem to connect this important manuscript with 
 Winchester, by a colony from which Burton-upon-Trent was founded 
 in 1004.
 
 MEDIAEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 25 
 
 that only the richer foundations could afford to pur- 
 chase the costly manuscript treasures at a time 
 when to present 129 books, as Humphrey Duke of 
 Grloucester did to Oxford, was considered a most 
 princely donation. Perhaps, as a general estimate 
 of the size of the monastic libraries in England, the 
 opinion of the antiquary Hearne may be quoted. 
 " No one," he writes, " that reads either Boston of 
 Bury, or Leland, or other authors who say anything 
 of their (i.e., the monks') writings, can justly sup- 
 pose them to have been illiterate men .... 
 We have accounts of the furniture of some of these 
 libraries ; and if we may judge of the rest by these, 
 'tis certain they had a large as well as a noble stock 
 of books'; and that many of their libraries might 
 vie for number with many of the best libraries since. 
 And even such libraries as had not so great a store, 
 exceeded divers of our present libraries by reason 
 they were all manuscripts ; and upon that score are 
 to be looked upon as a valuable and precious treasure. 
 In short, as the abbeys were very curious, fine and 
 magnificent piles of buiklings, richly endowed, and 
 continually found liberal benefactors, so I believe 
 their libraries in every respect answered the other 
 parts of the structures, and were all (notwithstand- 
 ing the reflexion made upon the Franciscan library 
 at Oxford, just upon the dissolution) adorned with 
 an extraordinary fine collection of books." ^ 
 
 Moreover, it must be remembered that gigantic 
 
 ' Hearne, Appendix to Leland's Collectanea ii., p. 86.
 
 26 MEDIAEVAL ]\IONASTIC LIBRARIES. 
 
 libraries, sucli as we find in these days, are quite a 
 modern growth. Even in the last century collec- 
 tions of ten or fifteen thousand volumes were con- 
 sidered large, and the vast libraries of these times 
 have been rendered possible only by the sacrifice 
 of many smaller ones, and by the doubtful policy 
 of gathering in a few large centres what had been 
 spread over the country. A comparison of the 
 public libraries in France and England will show 
 that whilst in almost every district of the former 
 there exist large collections of manuscripts and 
 printed books, in England all have gradually been 
 gathered together to three or four large centres. 
 This may be explained partly by the fact that in 
 England there has been time since the suppression 
 for the tendency to concentration to run a full 
 course, partly by the fact that on the suppression 
 of the French relisfious houses the old monastic 
 libraries were secured to the nearest town, whilst 
 in the 16th century in England the priceless manu- 
 script treasures were scattered to the winds as worth- 
 less rubbish, and the remnants that have been saved 
 from destruction we owe to the zeal of private 
 collectors. 
 
 But little need be said about the catalogues of 
 the libraries. Although but few specimens have 
 been preserved to us, there is every reason to 
 suppose that a system of cataloguing, more or less 
 elaborate, existed in every religious house. Some, 
 probably, would be mere lists, like that of Cluny
 
 MEDIiEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 27 
 
 wliicli Mabillon and Martene found there five or 
 six hundred years after it was written. The books 
 were entered on parchment stretched on two boards 
 three and a half feet long by one and a half broad ; 
 and much the same practical arrangement existed 
 apparently in the public library at Oxford, where 
 the librarian was directed to enter the names of the 
 volumes and their donors on a " large and conspicu- 
 ous board, to be suspended in the library." ^ In some 
 of the English monasteries, however, very full and 
 perfect catalogues existed — not mere lists of books, 
 but such as showed the works arranged in classes, 
 and often with such verbal indications as might serve 
 to identify a manuscript. Thus the Titchfield cata- 
 logue was so arranged, as the preface says, " that 
 when any book is wanted it may be found in the 
 library without difficulty, on the shelf marked with 
 the letter referred to " : and, to mention but one 
 more example, the Durham catalogues, published 
 by the Surtees Society, not only classify the books, 
 but enable a manuscript to be identified even now, 
 by quoting the first two words of the second folio 
 of each volume. ^ 
 
 1 Munimenta Academica (Rolls series) i., p. 267. 
 
 ^ The use of this I may be allowed perhaps to illustrate by the 
 following : — In the course of some investigations I was making of the 
 sermon literature of the 14th and 15th centuries, I came upon a volume 
 of sermous, " Magistri Roberti Rypon." From internal evidence I 
 concluded that they had been preached at Durham. I turned to the 
 Durham catalogues, and found, on p. 76, "Sermones Magistri Roberti 
 Rypon, Supprioris Dunelmensis, cum tabula, ii. fo. Vivendo de- 
 bent." These two words corresponded with the first words on folio 2
 
 28 MEDIiEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 
 
 It may perhaps appear somewliat unnecessary to 
 mention that the books of a monastic library were 
 freely used by the inmates for study and reading. 
 It has, however, been asserted more than once 
 lately that the unfortunate monk was allowed only 
 one book each year. This probably is a statement 
 founded on that of Sir Thomas Duff us Hardy,^ that 
 " in some monasteries it was the custom, at the 
 commencement of Lent, for the armarius to deliver 
 to each of the monks a book for his private reading, 
 allowing him one year for its perusal." That the 
 writer could not have meant to imply that this was 
 the only book allowed during the year is evident 
 from other parts of his preface, and no doubt he 
 referred to the practice, founded on the legislation 
 of St. Benedict's Rule, of assigning a special lenten 
 book to each monk. Sometimes it would appear 
 also that occasion was taken of this practice at the 
 beginning of the lenten fast to cause all volumes 
 then in use to be returned to the shelves of the 
 aumbry ; and in places, as at Barnwell Priory and 
 elsewdiere, the precentor at this time brought to 
 
 of the manuscript (Harl. MS. 4894) I had examined. I came to the con- 
 clusion, therefore, that this volume, now in the British Museum, was 
 probably the identical book formerly at Durham. This conclusion 
 was proved afterwards to be correct. On the first folio of the volume 
 some words had evidently been erased, and were quite illegible. By 
 the kindness of the authorities, however, acid was applied, and the 
 words so carefully scratched out reappeared. They were, " Librarie 
 Monachorum Dunelm." 
 
 1 Catalogue of the MSS. Materials relating to the History of Great 
 Britain and Ireland (Rolls series) iii., p. xiv.
 
 MEDIEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 29 
 
 the chapter those volumes which had been given 
 to the church and monastery, and a special com- 
 memoration was made of the souls of those who had 
 thus been benefactors, and of the souls of those of 
 the brethren who had laboured in the writing of 
 these books. 
 
 Care was taken that in the use of the volumes no 
 unnecessary damage was done by the readers. The 
 very mode of holding the manuscript was even 
 apparently prescribed, if not by law, at least by 
 general custom which subsequently passed into law. 
 The TracUfio Generalis Gajntuli of the Benedictine 
 monks of England, given in a volume formerly be- 
 longing to St. Augustine's, Canterbury, orders that 
 " when the religious are engaged in reading in 
 cloister or church, if it be possible, they shall hold 
 the books on their left hands, wrapped in the sleeve 
 of their tunics and resting on their knees. Their 
 right hands shall be uncovered with which to hold 
 and turn the leaves of their books." It was by the 
 constant exercise of care in the use of their precious 
 volumes that such books as St. Aldhelm's Psalter at 
 Malmesbury and St. Cuthbert's Gospels at Durham 
 were preserved till the dissolution of the monas- 
 teries,^ and that Leland could say in the 16th cen- 
 tury that he found in the library at Bath several 
 books given to the abbey by King Athelstan.^ 
 
 One circumstance connected with monastic libra- 
 ries is often forgotten. The great price of books 
 
 ' Leland, De Scriptorihus, p. 100. -Ibid., p. 160.
 
 30 MEDIAEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 
 
 made it almost impossible for poor clerics to get the 
 volumes necessary for tlieir studies, and tlieir need 
 was often supplied by the loan of a volume from 
 some conventual library. *' The services rendered 
 by the monastic houses in these circumstances," 
 writes M. Leopold Delisle, '' have not been suffi- 
 ciently recognised. The lending of books was then 
 considered as one of the most meritorious works of 
 charity." The same authority notes that although 
 the practice of placing books under anathema grew 
 common, it was condemned as contrary to due 
 Christian charity to the needy. Speaking specially 
 of certain notes of a librarian of St. Ouen in the 
 14th century, he declares that even bishops and 
 archbishops are found among the borrowers of 
 books. At this monastery the greatest care was 
 taken that no book should be lost. Before any 
 volume was lent it was registered, and a note made 
 in the catalo2:ue, with the name of the borrower. 
 At times, in the case of some special volume, it is 
 mentioned that the loan was made by order of the 
 abbot, and when it is sent far away the name of the 
 messengfer to whom it is entrusted is entered on the 
 register.^ 
 
 Some such system existed in every monastic 
 house. Thus Hunter has printed^ a list of some 
 twenty volumes lent by the Carthusian convent of 
 
 1 Documents sur les Livres et les Bibliotheqiies du Moyen Age in Bibl. de 
 VEcole des Chartes, 3e serie i., p. 225. 
 ^ English Monastic Libraries, pp. 16, 17.
 
 MEDIAEVAL MONASTIC LIBRAP.IES. 31 
 
 Hinton in Somerset to a neighbouring monastery in 
 A.D. 1343. The eno^ao^ement to restore these books 
 was formally drawn and sealed.^ The chronicle of 
 Ingulph, whether authentic or not, represents the 
 practice of Croyland in the later middle ages. " Our 
 books," tlie author says, " as well the smaller 
 unbound volumes as the larger ones which are 
 bound, we altogether forbid, and under anathema 
 prohibit, to be lent to any far distant schools, 
 without the leave of the Abbot, and a distinct 
 understanding as to the time when they shall be 
 returned. As to the lending of lesser books, how- 
 ever, such as Psalters, copies of Donatus, Cato and 
 the like poetical works, and the singing lesson- 
 books to children and the relations of the monks, 
 we strictly forbid the Cantor, or anyone who shall 
 act as librarian, under pain of disobedience, to 
 allow them to be lent for a longer time than one 
 day without leave of the Prior. "^ 
 
 Caution was necessary lest the practice of charity 
 to others should make havoc in the monastic library. 
 
 1 The followiag is an instance of this. In 1281 Archbishop John 
 de Peokham stayed at Itchel, and amongst other business transacted 
 at the time, gave a receipt, dated December 16, for a Biblia Glosata, 
 in two volumes, lent to him by the executors of Nicholas de Ely, late 
 Bishop of Winchester. The Bible in question seems to have been 
 much valued ou account of its annotations, and was bequeathed by the 
 Bishop to the Prior and Convent of Winchester Cathedral. It was 
 borrowed by Bishop John de Pontissara on April 26, 1299, who gave 
 a formal bond for its safe return, which is entered in his Episcopal 
 Register, fol. 139. (F. J. Baigent, Crondal Records, p. 408.) 
 
 - Ingulph, quoted in Maitland's Dark Ages, p. 265.
 
 32 MEDIEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 
 
 In a Constitution of Abbot Curteys, it is seen that 
 at Bury St. Edmund's in the 15th century, so many 
 books had been lent, sold, and lost to the house, 
 that special attention had to be paid to the matter. 
 Some of the books, the Abbot says, he has been 
 able to get back " by begging for them, some by 
 payment, some with great trouble only, and at great 
 expense, and sometimes even at the great indigna- 
 tion of those who held them." And not only was 
 all further lending, pledging or selling forbidden, 
 but all were ordered within fifteen days " to bring, 
 carry, and produce " (to the Abbot) " all and each 
 book belonging to our said monastery yet remain- 
 ing " in their custody.^ One instance of what must 
 be abundantly evident without it — namely, how 
 easily books so lent by a religious house might go 
 astray and be lost — may be here given. In the 
 middle of the 12th century, Nicholas Sandwich, 
 Prior of Christchurch, Canterbury, appointed two 
 of his monks to receive back from the convent of 
 Anglesey, Cambridge, a book which had been lent 
 
 ' Monasticon iii., pp. 114-5. At the end of the library catalogue of 
 the Convent of St. Anthony at Padua, in 1396 (ed. W. von Giithe (?), 
 p. 161 seqq. ; see note 1, p. 10, ante) is a careful list of those who 
 had borrowed books from the library. The list includes the name 
 of a Pope and many strangers, besides various friars. One of these 
 latter is "Friar David, Angliais.^^ The first list is supplemented 
 by one of books lent but not returned up to 1423. A note says that 
 most of the borrowers here named " are dead," though still marked as 
 having various volumes in their keeping. At the end there is a record 
 that ' ' a fine decretal " and other books were pledged to one Andrew, 
 a miller, on July 14, 1407, "to secure payment for flour supplied to 
 the community."
 
 MEDIAEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 33 
 
 Master Lawrence cle St. Nicliolas, Rector of 
 Terrington, wliicli book, on the death of Master 
 Lawrence, had remained in the possession of the 
 convent in Cambridgeshire.^ 
 
 The truth is that books in the middle aofes, in 
 spite of all the possible care of their owners, dis- 
 appeared, were lost and destroyed quite as easily 
 as in the present day. The fires which brought 
 disaster to so many monasteries, and the civil dis- 
 turbances which swept over England, were the 
 worst enemies to the monastic libraries. Hereward 
 and the Danes burnt the library of Peterborough ; 
 Owen Glendower that of the Franciscans of Cardiff, 
 which had been put into the castle for safety. The 
 books of the library of Norwich were either burnt 
 
 ' Notes and Queries, i., Ser. i. 20. The book was " Johannes Crisosto- 
 mus de laude Apostoli. In quo etiam volumine continentur Hystoria 
 vetus Britonum quae Brutus appellatur et tractatus Robert! Episcopi 
 Herfordie de compoto." The vohime is found, two centuries later, in 
 Prior H. Eastry's catalogue. In the Literai Cantuar lenses (Rolls Series 
 ii., pp. 146 — 152) is printed a list of books found to be absent from 
 the library shelves at Christchurch, Canterbury, on the feast of St. 
 Gregory (March 12th), 1337. Some are noted as having been regis- 
 tered to various brethren of the house, and they are called upon to 
 account for them. Others, some seventeen in number, are registered as 
 lent to seculars. In fact, to whatever country one turns, whether to 
 France, Italy, or England, the same quasi-public character of the 
 monastic library is found to exist, and scholars, even at considerable 
 distances from a monastic centre, were able to obtain the loan of a 
 volume required for their studies. It is worth recording that the last 
 volume entered in the list printed in the Literm Cantuarienscs is " liber 
 qui dicitur Johannes Crisostomns de laude ApostoU,^^ &^^2iveut\j the very 
 same volume which we find lent from the Canterbury library more than 
 a century before. 
 
 3
 
 34 MEDIAEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 
 
 in the fire which destroyed the church, or carried 
 off by the citizens in the consequent confusion. 
 
 A few words must now be said as to the presents 
 of books made to monastic libraries. Throughout 
 the monastic chronicles those who procured manu- 
 scripts for the house, or those who gave or made 
 them, are duly commemorated. At St. Augustine's, 
 Canterbury, as elsewhere, special prayers were 
 yearly offered for such as had been benefactors to 
 the library ; ^ and as the obit of each abbot and 
 monk whose zeal in this regard had been conspicu- 
 ous came round, a special memorial was made in 
 the chapter of his good deeds. It would be im- 
 possible, even if the reader's patience has not already 
 been exhausted, to do more than touch upon this 
 large subject. Two examples only may here be 
 mentioned. One is that of Adam Easton, a cardinal 
 of the holy Roman church. ^ He had been a monk 
 of Norwich, and it is pleasing to find that he did 
 not forget his old home when raised to his great 
 dignity. The library of his monastery, as we have 
 noted, had perished by fire, and hence Cardinal 
 Easton's collections made in Italy would have been 
 
 1 Thorne in Twysden's Decern Scriptores, col. 2008. 
 
 - Adam Easton had accompanied Simon de Langham, Cardinal 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, to Avignon, and was present at his death 
 there in 1375. The following year Easton writes to Nicholas Litlyng- 
 ton. Abbot of "Westminster, to say that the late Archbishop, formerly 
 Abbot of that house, had left a large number of books and vestments, 
 which he had collected as Cardinal, to his old monastery, and that they 
 were then on their way to Bruges.
 
 MEDIAEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 35 
 
 specially a benefaction, and we can imagine the joy 
 of the convent on the reception of " ten barrels 
 of books " from Rome, which in 1407 Henry IV. 
 allowed to pass toll free through the port of 
 London.^ 
 
 The second example I take from a period close 
 upon the dissolution of the monasteries, and it 
 shows the anxiety of Prior Moore of Worcester to 
 enrich the library of his convent in the last days 
 of its existence. The details are taken from that 
 excellent but little-known volume, " The Monastery 
 and Cathedral of Worcester,''^ by John Noake. In 
 A.D. 1518 Prior Moore made his first journey to 
 London after his election. On that occasion he 
 says : " E redeemed a lyttell portuos (breviary) 
 lying to pledge in Teames Street," 53s. 4d., which 
 would be some £25 of our money. Then follows a 
 list of books purchased, one of which, the Speculum 
 Spiritualium, is said to have been " delyvered to 
 ye cloister awmery " {i.e., aumbry) and the " hoole 
 work of Seynt Austen's in print delyvered to our 
 library," 50s. In the following year the names of 
 
 1 Rymer, Foedera viii., 501. Visitors to Rome may perhaps be 
 reminded of Cardinal Easton by the exquisite fragment of his tomb 
 which still remains in the Church of Santa Cecilia. It would be 
 interesting to know whether the sculptor was an Englishman or an 
 Italian. Not unfrequently benefactors would make over books to some 
 religious house with the proviso that they were to retain the use of 
 them during life. Thus a Bishop of Torcelli in 1496 by Charter secured 
 to the monastery of St. Justina of Padua his Pontifical and Book of 
 Preparation for Mass, iisum vera istorum duorum lihrarum sihi retinuit 
 in vita sua.
 
 36 MEDIAEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 
 
 some 20 books are given as added to the library, 
 one of which is " a hoole co'sse of sevyll (? course 
 of civil law) fyve volumes." In 1520 the Prior 
 " Bought ye hoole worke of Abbott, 22s. 8d.," and 
 " Paid for 3 books of Seynt Benett's rewle in 
 Bnglishe, 2s. 7d." In the following year he paid 
 for " a baggett of lether to bare my books in," lOd., 
 and so on till the year 1523, when the Prior pur- 
 chased " a great bucke of statutes of Ingland from 
 first yere of Edward 3rd till ye parlyment holden 
 after Crystmas, 25th Henry eygth, iOs. ; a great 
 boke of Councils, 8s. 4d. ; Natura Brev. and Magna 
 Charta, 2s. ; a book of the Passion, 2s. "^ 
 
 To procure books for new religious houses was 
 sometimes thought an occasion worthy of royal 
 letters to neighbouring monasteries. Thus Henry 
 III., in 1271, on the foundation of Dernhall, after- 
 wards Yale Royal, issued his letters patent to the 
 abbots and priors of England for this purpose. 
 
 • Among the other books bought are: St. Jerome's works, 5 vols., 
 40s. ; St. Gregory's, 1 vol., 8s. ; St. Ambrose, 3 vols., 13s. 4d. ; Hugh 
 of St. Victor, 3 vols., 15s. ; Richard of St. Victor, De Trinitate, 16d. ; 
 Opera Ruparti (of Deutz), 3 vols, 15s. ; Opera Bedae, 1 vol., 6s. 8d. ; 
 Opera Hilarii, 1 vol., 6s. ; Opera Basilii, 1 vol., Ss. 4d. ; Opera 
 Cypriani, 1 vol., Ss. ; Opera Fulgentii, 1 vol., 16d. ; Bedse de Natura 
 Rerum ; Angelomus (who figured very soon after in the great Eucha- 
 rist disputes), 2s. ; Opera Laurentii Justiniani, 1 vol., Gs. 8d. ; Opera 
 Senecpe, 1 vol., 5s. ; Philo Judteus, 2s. ; Ludolphus De Vita Xpi, 4s. ; 
 Legenda Sanctorum Anglise (evidently Capgrave), 16d. ; St. Ber- 
 nard's works ; Legenda Sanctorum in English ; English Cronacles, 
 2s. 8d. It is useless to continue the list, but it is evident that at this 
 time the English Benedictines were perfectly alive to all the produc- 
 tions of the foreign, no less than the English book market.
 
 MEDIAEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 37 
 
 Having recited how Lis son Edward liad intended to 
 establish this new Cistercian abbey, he l^egged them 
 to assist the monks of the place with " any theo- 
 logical books " they could spare, asking them to 
 inform one Thomas do Boulton what they could 
 do in the matter, and promising them his thanks 
 and those of his son for all they did in this way 
 to meet his wishes.^ 
 
 An account of the way in which the monastic 
 libraries were enriched by the presents of single 
 volumes and collections of books deserves separate 
 treatment ; but no notice of our monastic libraries 
 would be even fairly complete without some men- 
 tion of the subject. An example or two may be 
 given at random: — Abbot Benedict of Peter- 
 borough, who was chosen in 1177, was a great 
 lover of books, and enriched the library of his 
 house with some fifty-three volumes. He had been 
 
 1 Monasticon v., p. 709. An interesting example of the way books 
 were collected on the continent and forwarded to England may be 
 seen in the Register of Adam de Orlton, Bishop of Hereford. The 
 following letter dated at Avignon, November 4, 1319, is entered on 
 folio 33 of the Episcopal Register : Universis pateat per presentes 
 quod nos Adam permissioae Uivina Heref. Eps. recepimus a Laurentio 
 Bruton de Chepyn Nortoa Summaoi Fratris Thoma; de Aquino in 
 quatuor volutninibas. Item scriptum ejusdem Fratris Thomai super 
 quartum libram Sententiarum. Libruiu de Similitudinibus. Librum 
 Histori;\3 Sc-olasticre, Librum llethoricai Aristotilis. Librum Retho- 
 riCicTuUii. Librum Geometric;x3 cum Coinmento. Quos quiden libros 
 bona fide promittimus eidem Laurentio in Anglia restitucre vel justum 
 pretium eorundem prout placuerit Religioso viro Fratri Johanni Abbati 
 Moaasterii de lliyles, avuaculo dicti Liurentii et Laurentio 
 antedicto."
 
 38 MEDIEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 
 
 Prior of Ohristcliurch, Canterbury, and owing to tlie 
 difficulties in which he found Peterborough involved, 
 his health gave way, and for a time he retired to 
 his old home at Christchurch. There, during his 
 convalescence, he wrote a fine book (volumen egre- 
 gium) on the passion and miracles of St. Thomas, 
 and composed antiphons and music for his house. 
 Among the collection of books which he gave to his 
 abbey at Peterborough, were some twenty-one 
 Bibles, glossed and simple texts, some works on 
 Canon law, two arithmetics, a Seneca, a Martial 
 and a Terence.^ 
 
 Again, Abbot Marleberge of Evesham before 
 becoming a monk had taught canon and civil law at 
 Oxford. On entering the monastery he brought 
 his collection of law books with him, and also added 
 to the monastic library a Cicero, a Lucan, and a 
 Juvenal. Both as Prior and as Abbot his literary 
 tastes are shown in the many volumes he bought, 
 or caused to be written, for his house.^ 
 
 So, too, the various chronicles of monastic houses 
 show that monks very frequently procured special 
 books for their monasteries, or enriched the collec- 
 tions with volumes dealing with subjects in which 
 they were specially interested. Thus Herveus, the 
 sacrist of Bury St. Edmund's in the time of Abbot 
 Anselm, through his brother Thalebot the Prior, 
 gave " a great Bible written in two volumes for the 
 
 ^ Sparke, Historiai Anglicanse Scriptoresu., 98. 
 
 2 Chron. Ahh. de Evesham, ed. Macray (Rolls series), pp. 267 seqq.
 
 MEDIAEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 39 
 
 Refectory," and Stephen, the *' monk-doctor and 
 infirmarian " (medico monacho), obtained and 
 "gave to the convent three large and fine books on 
 medicine."^ In a word, it is impossible to examine 
 monastic records without feeling that the special 
 studies or tastes of individuals were very frequently 
 the means whereby the general collection of books 
 was increased." 
 
 With this I conclude these somewhat rambling 
 notes on mediaeval monastic libraries. It is a large 
 subject to which in England sufficient attention has 
 hitherto not been paid. The suppression of the 
 monasteries was accompanied by a ruthless destruc- 
 tion of priceless treasures in the shape of manu- 
 scripts. Of this it is not necessary to speak ; but 
 so completely were the hundreds of monastic 
 libraries scattered to the winds, that their very 
 memory has perished.^ Perhaps it would have 
 been as well had Bale's proposition been adopted, 
 
 • Copy of au Edmuadsbury MS. in the town library at Douai iu my 
 possession, pp. 67-8. 
 
 ^ This of course applies to others beside those who entered the 
 monastic state. Thus Richard de Haute, Rector of Westerham, in 1337 
 left by will to Christchurch, Canterbury, '■ ^ corpus juris civilis. Item, 
 Decretalia et decreta una cum glossa Hostiensis in duobus voluminibus . 
 Item, summa copiosa et speculum judiciale " (^Literie Cantuarienses, Rolls 
 Series, ii., p. 163). 
 
 ^ A pathetic instance of the endeavours of the monks to save some 
 of their literary treasures is afforded in the case of Monk Bretton. At 
 the dissolution of the house the prior and otber monks managed to 
 purchase the manuscripts. The Priory was granted by the King to 
 WiUiam Biithemaa who sold the buildings and church piecemeal to 
 the highest bidder. The monks apparently remained together in the
 
 40 MEDIEVAL MONASTIC LIBRARIES. 
 
 that there should be estahhshecl " in every shire 
 of England one solemn library for the preservation 
 of noble works and the preferment of good learn- 
 ing in our posterity." But this was not the genius 
 of the times, for as the author of the Essay on 
 Sepulchres says, the Reformation like the French 
 Revolution " was signally a period in which a plot 
 was laid to abolish the memory of the affairs which 
 had been, and to begin the affairs of the human 
 species afresh." 
 
 little village of Worsborough, a few miles from their old home, until 
 1558 ; at that date a list of books shows that the volumes of their former 
 library were distributed about in the various small chambers of their 
 refuge at Worsborough. (This catalogue has been printed by Hunter, 
 Monastic Libraries. 
 
 \
 
 41 
 
 IT. 
 THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM/ 
 
 BOOK-MAKING is commonly allowed to have 
 been a work par excellence of tlie mediaeval 
 monk. So far at least as the mechanical labour of 
 writing and embellishing the pages of a manuscript 
 with illumination goes, even those who have least 
 sympathy with monks and monasteries would per- 
 haps be not disinclined to concede that, in this 
 respect, they have deserved well of the world. 
 Indeed it is diSicult to see how less could be allowed, 
 seeing that well-nigh all our manuscript treasures 
 are, in one sense or another, the products of the 
 monastic workshops. Sweep away these works of 
 the cloister scribe, and destroy the printed volumes 
 already copied from them, and it is little indeed 
 that, even in this learned nineteenth century, we 
 should know of the past ages of the world. And 
 however much we may be inclined to agree with the 
 ancient dame who objected to " history " on the 
 
 ' Reprinted, with additions, from the Downside Review, vol. xi., 
 p. 4 seqq.
 
 42 THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM. 
 
 ground that "bye-gones should be bye-gones," there 
 are few who would not look upon total ignorance of 
 the men and events of times that have gone by as a 
 real misfortune. So it comes about that most 
 people are inclined to look even favourably upon 
 the labours of the mediaeval writers, by which so 
 much that is precious has been preserved to our age. 
 And even if they are not, they might perchance be 
 interested in some brief account of the process of 
 mediaeval book-making. 
 
 It may perhaps be thought, from much that has 
 been written about the Scriptoria of ancient religious 
 houses, that every well-regulated monastery had its 
 special place or room in which the writing of manu- 
 scripts was performed. This is hardly correct. No 
 doubt in some of the greater houses this was the 
 case ; but in most instances the work formed part 
 of the daily exercises conducted by the monks 
 chosen for the purpose, in the cloister of the monas- 
 tery, or at most in the little studies or carells, 
 partially screened off from the common walks of the 
 cloister, in the window recesses. Sometimes, too, 
 there would have been small writing places or cells 
 made to contain only one person, which, because the 
 general occupation of students in those ages was 
 writing, were Scriptoria. 
 
 One of these private studies, belonging to a secre- 
 tary of St. Bernard, who was afterwards an abbot, 
 is thus described for us by himself: — "Its door 
 opens into the apartment of the novices, where com-
 
 \ 
 
 THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM. 43 
 
 monly a great number of persons, disfcinguislied by 
 rank as well as by literature, put on the new man 
 in the newness of life. On the right runs the 
 cloister of the monks, in which the more advanced 
 part of the community walk. There, under the 
 strictest discipline, they individually open the books 
 of Divine eloquence. From the left projects the 
 infirmary and the place of exercise for the sick. 
 And do not sniDpose that my little tenement is to be 
 despised ; for it is a place to be desired and 
 pleasant to look upon, and comfortable for retire- 
 ment. It is filled with most choice and divine 
 books, at the delightful view of which I feel con- 
 tempt for the vanity of this world. This place is 
 assigned to me for reading and writing, and com- 
 posing, and meditating, and praying, and adoring 
 the Lord of Majesty."^ 
 
 Such private cells or Scriptoria as these, however, 
 were probably only assigned to the more learned 
 members of the community, or those whose special 
 work made it important that they should be more 
 free from distractions than they would be in the 
 common cloister. And it was very possibly in such 
 studies, as Sir Thomas Hardy has remarked, that 
 the old English monastic historiographers, William 
 of Malmesbury, Matthew Paris, and the rest, com- 
 piled their annals.- 
 
 Of the work of writing carried on in the cloister 
 
 1 Maitlaud, The Dark Ages, p, 404. 
 
 - Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue, iii., p. 21.
 
 U THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM. 
 
 there are numerous instances. Abbot Herimann, 
 speaking about Ralph, the Prior of his monastery of 
 St. Martin at Tournay, under his predecessor Abbot 
 Odo (circa a.d. 1093), says : — " Frequently he did 
 not go out of the monastery for a month together, 
 but, being devoted to reading, he took the utmost 
 pains to promote the writing of books. He used, in 
 fact, to exult in the number of writers which the 
 Lord had given him ; for if you had gone into the 
 cloister you would have generally seen a dozen 
 young monks sitting on chairs, writing at tables, 
 diligently, artistically, and in silence."^ 
 
 As to the Scriptorium proper, that is, a set place 
 for the work of writing,^ there is evidence, for ex- 
 ample, that such a room existed at an early date 
 at St. Alban's. Abbot Thomas de la Mare (1349-96) 
 not only himself formed " a study, or library," 
 but encouraged Dom Thomas, of "Walsingham, the 
 cantor and Scj'iptorarius, to construct a " domiis 
 Scriptorice,^^ which was completed at the Abbot's 
 expense.^ This, of course, refers to the place 
 merely ; for Avhen three hundred years before the 
 nephew of Archbishop Lanfranc, Abbot Paul 
 (1077-93). by the introduction of Lanfranc's Go7i- 
 siietudinary made St. Alban's a quasi-schola re- 
 
 • Herimaonus, De Restit. S. Martini Tornacensia, cap. 79, in D'Achery, 
 Spicikgium, ii., *J13. 
 
 - The assignment of a special place for writiog called the Scrip- 
 torium, seems to have been rather Cistercian as a general practice, 
 although there was one at the Monastery of St. Gall. 
 
 ■' Walsingham's Gcsta Abbatum, iii., 389.
 
 THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM. 45 
 
 ligionis, and established there the writing school 
 afterwards so famous/ he was perhaps doing no 
 more than restoring an older institution. 
 
 Wherever the scribes sat at work, whether in the 
 cloister, scriptorium, or private studies, there the 
 strictest silence was enjoined. Conversation or 
 noise of any kind, it was recognised, would probably 
 lead to slips of the pen ; and accurate copying was 
 the chief point at which the old monastic writers 
 were taught to aim. " Fixed places for this work " 
 (of writing), says one consuetudinary, " are to be 
 arranged apart from the community, but within the 
 cloister, where the writers may pursue their labours 
 without disturbance or noise. There sittino- at 
 
 o 
 
 work they ought to keep silence most carefully. 
 . . . . No one must go to them except the 
 Abbot, Prior, Sub-Prior, and Librarian."" To the 
 same necessity of silence and quiet for the work of 
 transcribing Alcuin refers in the lines : — 
 
 " Hie sedeant sacrae scribentes famina legis 
 
 Necnon Sanctorum dicta sacrata Patrum. 
 Hie interserere caveant sua frivola verbis 
 
 Frivola nee propter erret et ipsa manus. 
 Correctosque sibi quferant studiose libellos, 
 
 Tramite quo recto penna volantis eat 
 Est decus egregium sacrorum scribere libros 
 
 Nee mercede sua scriptor et ipse earet."^ 
 
 Besides being a place of silence for the purpose 
 of writing, the Scriptorium, where there was one, 
 
 1 Ibid., Walsingham's Gesta Ahhatum, i., 58. 
 
 - Libei' Ordinis S. Victoris Parisiensis, Ducange, s.v. Scriptores. 
 
 ^ Alcuin, Poem 12G et apud Canisium.
 
 46 THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM. 
 
 was used sometimes for other purposes, for which 
 quiet was equally necessary. Amongst these are 
 mentioned in one rule " reading, meditating, study- 
 ing, or hearing confessions."^ 
 
 Like the Library, the writing school of the mon- 
 astery was under the charge of the cantor. The 
 case of St. Albans has already been mentioned. 
 There Dom Thomas Walsingham, whose literary 
 labours are so well known to us through the Gesta 
 Abhatum and other works, held the office of "Cantor 
 and Scriptorarius," during which ofiSce he con- 
 structed, or rather rebuilt, the domus scrip torice of 
 the abbey. So at Abingdon it is ordered, that 
 " from the rents assigned to the cantor, the cantor 
 shall find parchment, ink, and everything necessary 
 for the production of the books of the community."^ 
 Instances of this could be easily multiplied ; but 
 perhaps the m.ost interesting, as it is the most par- 
 ticular instruction on this point, is to be found in 
 the Consuetudinary of the Canons Regular of St. 
 Victor's of Paris, from which a short extract has 
 just been given. As it is a very full account of the 
 cantor's ofiice so far as its literary aspect is con- 
 cerned, another and a longer quotation may perhaps 
 be allowed. " All writings which are in the church 
 either within or without pertain to his (i.e., the 
 cantor's) office, so that he shall provide parchment, 
 et cetera, needful for writing, and hire those who 
 
 1 Martene, Anecd. Col. iii., 1292. 
 
 - Chron. Mon. de Ahincjdon (Rolls series), ii., 371.
 
 THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM. 47 
 
 write for money. For the brethren of the cloister 
 who are scribes and on whom the duty of writing 
 has been imposed by the Abbot, let the Librarian 
 arrange what they shall write, and provide what- 
 ever is necessary for their work. Let none write 
 except as he is ordered, nor otherwise than at his 
 will and disposition. The Librarian shall not 
 appoint the brethren, who know how to write but 
 on whom the Abbot has not imposed the work, to 
 any such work, but if he has need of their assistance 
 he should first point it out to the Abbot, and so by 
 his leave and order do what has to be done. Let 
 no one presume to write anything except what has 
 been enjoined him. 
 
 " To all writers in the cloister, whether those 
 who are ordered or those who are permitted to 
 write, let the librarian furnish everything necessary, 
 so that no one chose at his pleasure this or that, 
 neither writing place, inkhorn, knife, nor parch- 
 ment, nor anything else, but let all take without 
 refusal or objection what he shall give as proper 
 for the work. 
 
 " All documents which are written in the clois- 
 ter, whether notices (breves) of the dead or other 
 public and common business, even (the document) 
 which is fastened to the paschal candle, belong to 
 his ofl&ce, and to write these, no one who knows 
 how to write and whom he has appointed, should 
 refuse, save that he who so writes cannot be absent 
 from the regular hours, nor be dispensed from
 
 48 THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM. 
 
 community observance without tlie leave of the 
 Abbot. AYhenever the work of scribe is enjoined 
 to anyone in the cloister, it should be imposed in 
 the common chapter. And there the Abbot will 
 settle for them the times they are to spend in 
 writing, and when he wishes them to return to the 
 community life, and they must observe afterwards 
 what is so settled for them. 
 
 *' When parchment has to be cut or scraped, or 
 books mended or bound, or anything of this kind, 
 which pertains to the office of librarian in which he 
 requires the aid of brethren, he shall take anyone 
 to do this if he is unoccupied. That is, if other 
 obedience does not hinder he must not excuse 
 himself."' 
 
 From the work of the Master of the Scriptorium, 
 who also held the important office of Librarian, or 
 armariuSi and Cantor, it is natural to pass on to 
 speak of the scribes. These were of course, 
 generally speaking, in monasteries the monks 
 themselves. In fact, it was held to be the special 
 and proper work of the monk that he should be 
 able to fulfil the office of a scribe. Among the 
 Carthusians it was enjoined as the best possible 
 way in which they could labour. " Diligently 
 labour at this work," writes Prior Guigo ; " this 
 ought to be the special work of enclosed Carthu- 
 sians. . . This work in a certain sense is an 
 
 ' Martene, De Antiq. Eccl Pdlihiis., iii., p. 253 seqq.
 
 THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM. 49 
 
 immortal work, if one may say it, not passing away, 
 but ever remaining ; a work, so to speak, that is 
 not a work ; a work wliicli above all others is 
 most proper for educated religious men."^ So, too, 
 the statuta of the Benedictines in England in the 
 13th and 14th centuries make it clear that this 
 was looked upon as no less a part of the English 
 monastic work. " By this constitution we order," 
 says the Chapter of 13-13, " that every monk not 
 otherwise reasonably prevented at the time and 
 place (appointed) be occupied in the study of 
 reading, or in writing, correcting, illuminating, 
 and likewise in binding books."'" The direction of 
 the Benedictine general Chapter of Canterbury in 
 A.D. 1277 was that: — "In place of manual labour 
 the Abbots shall appoint other occupations for 
 their claustral monks according to their capabilities 
 (namely) study, writing, correcting, illuminating, 
 and binding books. "^ Such work, however, was to 
 be done only by permission of their superior, and 
 for the use of their monastery. This is clear from 
 a direction of the Chapter of 1388, in which it is 
 directed that " no one shall write or illuminate a 
 book, either great or small, without the permission 
 of his prelate and except it may be turned to the 
 use of his monastery."* 
 
 ' Lib. de quaJripertito Exercitio Cellie, cap. 36 (ed. Migne, vol. cliii., 
 col. 883). 
 
 2 Reyner, Aposlolatus, iii., p. 160. The direction of the Chapter of 
 1444 (Ibid., p. 129) is the same. 
 
 3 MS. Twyne (Oxon) 8, p. 272. 
 
 ^ B. Mus. Cott. MS., Faust, D. II., f. 96.
 
 60 THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM. 
 
 Of course, as it was so important to secure 
 careful and accurate copying, only those who were 
 known and tried scribes were allowed to take their 
 part in the regular work of the Scriptorium. At 
 Westminster, for example, although the novice 
 master, when he considered his novices sufficiently 
 instructed, could allow them to sit apart from the 
 other students and read books from the aumbry of 
 the seniors, still they were " not yet to write or 
 have carrels, even if they were priests, unless the 
 master should find that their writing can be of 
 service to the church." 
 
 Nor was it the monk alone who worked at 
 copying in the cloister. Many an abbot found 
 time, in the midst of the heavy labours imposed by 
 the management of a large establishment, to take 
 his share in this special monastic employment. St. 
 David, it is said, had his own writing-place, and 
 with his own hands began the Gospel of St. John 
 in golden letters. Even so great and busy a man 
 as St. Dunstan did not consider it beneath his 
 dignity to practise the art of a scribe, and by 
 William of Malmesbury we are informed that the 
 skill of this great archbishop in writing and illumi- 
 nating was most remarkable. More than one Anglo- 
 Saxon charter is said to be in his own hand, and in 
 one work a picture, representing the Saint upon 
 his knees at the feet of the Saviour, is attributed 
 by some lines above it to him. Several of the 
 abbots of St. Alban's are supposed to have actually
 
 THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM. .51 
 
 taken part in the work of tlie renowned scriptorium 
 of that house ; and Abbot Marleberge of Evesham, 
 who, before becoming a monk, had taught canon 
 law at Oxford and Exeter, not only brought with 
 him to Worcestershire his collection of books, but 
 " found everything necessary for four noted anti- 
 phonals," which the brethren wrote under his 
 supervision.^ 
 
 One small point regarding the labours of 
 scribes and copyists deserves to be noted. The 
 work of the monastic copyist was looked upon as 
 the common work of the house, and the individual 
 was sunk in the work itself. If the hand of one 
 held the pen, that of another was occupied in some 
 other equally necessary, if perchance not so lasting, 
 a work for the common good of the establishment. 
 So althouofh now we would fain know the names 
 of some of those scribes whose manuscript work 
 in our days forms the most precious treasure of our 
 national libraries, it is seldom that our curiosity is 
 satisfied. However carefully we may examine the 
 folios, which have come from some great writing- 
 school, such as Corbie, or Tours, or St. Alban's, 
 we shall in vain look for any indication of the 
 names of those monks who have written them, 
 and indeed each manuscript was the joint work of 
 many hands and heads. When the first scribe had 
 done his part with the body of the work, the sheet 
 had to pass under the eye of the " corrector," to 
 
 ' Chron. Abb. de Evesham (Rolls Series), p. 267.
 
 52 THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM. 
 
 receive tlie finisliing touclies from some master 
 hand and to have its initials and titles written in 
 fair red-lettering by the " rubricator," or illumi- 
 nated by the monastic artist. 
 
 In speaking of those occupied in book-making it 
 is necessary to remember that besides the monks 
 engaged upon the work, there was a class — and in 
 later times a large class — of professional scribes. 
 In most of the larger monasteries provision was 
 made for the employment of one or more of these 
 to aid in the labours of the scriptorium. Among 
 the Augustinians, for example, at Barnwell Priory, 
 the cantor is directed "to provide the writers with 
 parchment, ink, and everything else necessary for 
 writing, and to hire those who write for money." 
 So at Abingdon : — " If there be an extern scribe 
 writing at the disposition of the abbot and cantor, 
 the abbot shall find his food, the cantor his wages."^ 
 Abbot Simon, of St. Alban's, too (1168-83), who in 
 the latter half of the 12th century did so much 
 for the resuscitation of this school of writing, so 
 endowed it that succeeding abbots could have one 
 scribe always kept at work. In some instances it 
 seems not unlikely that these professional writers 
 worked at home, whilst they were much employed 
 on non-monastic work by such ecclesiastical lovers 
 of books as Bishop Richard of Bury, and such 
 patrons of learning as Humphrey, Duke of Grlouces- 
 ter, and the Regent Duke of Bedford. Richard of 
 
 1 Chron. Man. de Abingdon (RoUs series), ii., 371.
 
 THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM. 53 
 
 Bnry says that in his " hall there was no small 
 number of antiqaarii, scribes, binders, correctors, 
 illuminators, and generally of all who could use- 
 fully work in the service of books. "^ Of course, 
 this learned cleric's library was not all made up 
 of copies made by his own writers. The story how 
 Abbot Richard II. of St. Alban's (1326-35) gave 
 him- a Terence, Virgil, and two other books from 
 the monastic library, and agreed to sell thirty-two 
 more volumes for £50, is well known. This gift 
 "Walsingham considered " altogether abominable," 
 since it deprived " the cloistered monks of their 
 best and only comfort." When made Bishop of 
 Durham in a.d. 1333, be it added, Richard of 
 Bury restored several of these precious volumes, 
 and tlie next abbot, Michael de Mentmore, pur- 
 chased others from his executors after his death. ^ 
 
 The great religious houses formed so many schools 
 of writing in mediaeval times, and the work of many 
 of these scriptoria can be distinctly recognised by 
 characteristic peculiarities initiated by some great 
 writer and continued by his disciples. To these 
 schools students repaired for instruction and in- 
 formation. Thus a monastery like St. Denis near 
 Paris was renowned for its classical volumes like 
 the Vatican Virgil, and the Carolingian Terence.^ 
 
 1 Philohiblion, cap. ix. Antlquarii, the author says in another place, 
 are " trauscriptores veterum." 
 
 - Walsingham, G'e.s-to Ahhatum (Rolls series), ii., 200. 
 
 ^ HuLiter {Munasdc Libraries, p. 23) considers that irom the " frequent 
 application of veins to the manuscripts of the classics " in the catalogues
 
 54 THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM. 
 
 The religious evidently knew and studied Grreek, 
 Armenian, and Runic. During the 13th, 14th, and 
 15th centuries they were the historians, and to them 
 all went for information on literary matters. In 
 the special work of the scriptorium, it is certain 
 that there existed at St. Denis an excellent school 
 of writing and painting.^ 
 
 There is evidence of the existence of monastic 
 writing schools in England from the earliest times. 
 St. Benet Biscop, who was a traveller and collector 
 of books from his youth, had not only enriched 
 the monasteries he founded with well-furnished 
 libraries, but in a.d. 678, on his return from his 
 fourth journey to Rome, he brought back with him 
 the Abbot John, the Roman Archcantor, to teach 
 them the annual order of singing and saying the 
 office as it was done in the Church of St. Peter in 
 Rome. Besides this there is little doubt that at 
 
 of the old English Monastery libraries, it may be suspected "that 
 most of the manuscripts of that class in England wer<j really of very 
 high antiquity ; " at Sc. Edmundsbury, for example, there was a Sallust 
 described as '' vetiistissimus." In another place (Monk Bretton Cata- 
 logue, p. 7.) the same authority notes that only one known Hebrew 
 codex of the Scriptures has been traced to any of the English monastic 
 libraries. He adds (p.H), " It is, peihaps, fortunate for Biblical litera- 
 ture that scarcely any manuscript of the Christian Scriptures in the 
 original tongue, the most important of all, had found their way to 
 England. But we cannot but regret that so many copies of the Latin 
 version perished ; some of which were of the highest antiquity, and had 
 an additional value from the circumstance of their connection with some 
 venerable name in the early history of Christianity in Britain. The 
 Red Book of Eye was the very copy of the Gospels which had belonged 
 to Felix." 
 
 ' Delisle, Cabinet cles Manuscritif, i., '204.
 
 THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM. 55 
 
 the same time he established teachers of writing 
 in his houses of Wearmouth and Jarrow. This 
 is something more than a mere conjecture, for 
 Venerable Bede tells us that amongst other matters 
 the Archcantor John was charged by the Pope to 
 find out and relate upon his return the belief of the 
 English on certain matters. He brought with him 
 the acts of a Synod held by Pope Martin, "and 
 gave them to be transcribed in the aforesaid 
 monastery of the most religious Abbot Benedict.'" 
 Ceolfrid, the successor of St. Benet Biscop, certainly 
 had three copies made of the Latin translation of 
 the Holy Scriptures, one of which, when going to 
 Rome as an old man, he took with him to present 
 to the Pope. In recent times this identical copy 
 made at Wearmoutb, and taken thence by Ceolfrid 
 in the 8th century, has been recognised in the cele- 
 brated Codex Amiatinus. 
 
 This codex is in handwriting like the 7th century 
 Durham Grospel of St. John, the Stonyhurst 
 St. John of the 6th or 7th century found in 
 the coffin of St. Cuthbert, and the Lindisfarne 
 gospels in the British Museum, which manuscript 
 most resembles the Codex Amiatinus. Further, two 
 fragments of manuscripts bound up with the 
 Utrecht Psalter are very similar to the writing of 
 Ceolfrid's Codex, and a fragment of the Gospel of 
 St. Luke in one of the Durham MSS. is said 
 to be identical in text and practically the same in 
 writing as this Codex Amiatinus. 
 
 ' Historia, Bk. iv., c. 18.
 
 66 THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM. 
 
 " There was then," says a recent writer, " a 
 large and flourishing school of caligraphy at Wear- 
 month or Jarrow in the 7th and 8th centuries, of 
 which till lately we had no knowledge at all. It 
 produced manuscripts such as the Codex Amiatimis, 
 which have never been equalled for grandeur, and 
 such as the Stonyhurst St. John, which have never 
 been equalled for delicacy and grace ; and we have 
 to thank the Commendatore de Rossi for fixing a 
 date and a place for one of the most important 
 Vulgate MSS., and for giving to England the 
 credit of a writing school which more than rivals 
 that of Tours." ' 
 
 One point as to the schools of writing it is of 
 interest to notice. It is by no means impossible to 
 recognise the work of a special school of writing by 
 means of some marked and characteristic hand- 
 writing, or some peculiarly shaped letter which, 
 once introduced into the scriptorium of a great 
 abbey, was continued through many generations 
 of scribes. The handwriting, for example, in the 
 St. Alban's school of writers is very characteristic. 
 The broken back h, for instance, which is a noted 
 feature of the works from the joen of Matthew 
 Paris, can be seen in much subsequent manuscript 
 work from the St. Alban's scriptorium. The same 
 scribe, possibly the great historian himself, must 
 have taught many to write and copy their master's 
 
 iH. J. White in the Siudia Bihlica, ii., p. 287. But Alcuin's 
 influence at Tours is not to be forgotten.
 
 THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM. 57 
 
 peculiarity so exactly that it is possible to say with 
 tolerable certainty that this or that manuscript 
 must have been made in that workshop.^ 
 
 With regard to the kind of books which were 
 copied, it may be said that they embraced works 
 of all sorts and subjects. Church books and copies 
 of the Holy Scripture and commentaries upon it 
 were the chief care of the monastic scribes, and 
 time, labour and all that was best in art and 
 design were ungrudgingly bestowed upon these 
 sacred volumes. There was no manifestation of 
 hurry, or desire to see the completion of a work 
 once commenced, in the workers in the mediaeval 
 writing schools. The labourer toiled at his task 
 for a day, or a year, or a life-time, knowing that 
 if when the pen dropped from his fingers the work 
 was not completed, there would be another hand 
 ready to carry it on to the desired end. In those 
 days men did not live for themselves or their age, 
 but they were and they regarded themselves as 
 parts of one great and lasting whole. So whether 
 they built churches, or tilled and cultivated the 
 soil, or worked in the monastic scriptorium, the 
 individual was lost in the community, and the 
 srrave was not the end of a work. 
 
 Besides the strictly ecclesiastical works there 
 
 ' The acute and patient investigation of M. Delisle (a very model of 
 such research) into the work of the Tours school is well known. The 
 existence also of a great and flourishing school at Rheims is now 
 becoming recognised.
 
 68 THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM. 
 
 was apparently in most of the monastic houses 
 some kind of historiographer whose duty it was 
 to take note of the chief events and digest them 
 into annals. Fordun in his Scotichronicoii says : — 
 " It is properly ordered in most countries, and as 
 I have heard in England, that every monastery of 
 royal foundation should have in that place an 
 appointed scribe or writer who might note all 
 remarkable matters which happened in the time 
 of each king as he believed it to be, with the dates. 
 At the next general assembly after a king's death, 
 all these chronicle writers were to assemble and 
 produce their writings." These were to be sub- 
 mitted to certain chosen judges in order that one 
 reliable chronicle should be formed, " which might 
 be placed in the monastic archives as authentic 
 chronicles to which credit might be given, lest 
 by lapse of time the memory of the acts of a reign 
 might perish."^ 
 
 However exaggerated this account may be as 
 regards England and English monasteries, it is 
 certainly true that the great abbeys were regarded 
 as the natural national archives, and were often 
 selected to preserve documents of importance to the 
 country. The charter of Liberties, for instance, 
 granted by Henry I. was sent to the principal 
 monasteries in each district ; and the great Magna 
 Charta, althoug-h not recorded in the Royal Chan- 
 eery, was freely copied into the records of numerous 
 
 ' Forrlun, Scotichronicoii, iv., p. 1343 (ed. Hearue.)
 
 THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM. 59 
 
 religious houses. Thus in a.d. 1207, documents 
 about the marriage of Louis Count of Los and 
 the daughter of Adelheid, Countess of Holland, 
 were placed for safe keeping in the Abbey of Read- 
 ing. In A.D. 1291, writs were directed to the 
 cathedrals and monasteries of England, command- 
 ing a search to be made in the chronicles to be 
 found in their libraries and in their other archives 
 for all matters relating to Scotland ; the informa- 
 tion obtained to be transmitted to the king, under 
 the common seal of the house, without delay. 
 From these returns, which may be found in Rymer, 
 several matters of interest may be gathered. That 
 of Bath is endorsed, " that it contains nothing to 
 the purpose." Contrary to what might be ex- 
 pected, Burton-on-Trent appears to have possessed 
 some channel through which a good number of 
 state documents came into its archives. Several 
 important papers about the revolutionary proceed- 
 ings in the reign of Henrj^ III. were to be found 
 there and nowhere else. Croyland sends no ex- 
 cerpts from Ingulph ; " a strong evidence," says 
 Palgrave, "that it did not exist" at that time.^ 
 Norwich — to efive but one more instance — excused 
 itself for the smallness of its return, because all 
 the chronicles containino- the memorials of ancient 
 
 o 
 
 times had been destroyed when the church was 
 burnt, or carried off by the citizens in the conse- 
 quent disorder. 
 
 ' Palgrave, Introduction to Documents, ^x., illustrating the Hist, of 
 England, page 102.
 
 00 THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM. 
 
 In the same way, under a.d. 1291, Walsingham 
 gives two letters in reference to tlie transactions 
 about the Scottish crown, and notes that " these 
 two letters the King of England sent to different 
 monasteries, to preserve the record of the fact."-^ 
 In the same way the record of the submission of 
 the Scotch competitors was sent to be enrolled in 
 the chronicles of monasteries " in perpetuam rei 
 memoriam." The orisfinals of the writs orderinsj' 
 them still remain in the Treasury addressed to 
 Lewes, Ely and York, whilst pursuant to these 
 writs the submissions were entered in a ledger 
 of Evesham, in the chronicles of Waverley, the 
 Register of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's 
 and elsewhere." To the above may be added the 
 instance recorded by Matthew Paris, one of our 
 most important writers in connection with English 
 history in the middle ages. This writer received 
 the Benedictine habit at St, Alban's on January 21, 
 1217. In 1236 he accompanied his prior, John of 
 Hertford, to London, to represent St. Alban's at 
 the nuptials of Henry III. with Queen Eleanor ; 
 and in October, 1247, he went with many others 
 to witness the celebration of the feast of Edward 
 the Confessor at Westminster. King Henry, 
 seeing the chronicler, commanded him to come 
 and sit " on the step midway between his throne 
 and the altar," and to take a particular account 
 
 ' Ypodigma Neiistriie, pp. 183 — 185. 
 ^ Palgrave, op. cit., ibid.
 
 THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM. 61 
 
 of the proceedings. Matthew Paris thus records 
 King Henry's commands : " I therefore beg you, 
 and in begging order you to write a special and 
 full account, and record all these proceedings in 
 fair writing indelibly in a book, that the memory 
 of them be not lost by any length of time." As 
 Matthew Paris' history had not then been seen 
 beyond the walls of St. Alban's, it is clear that 
 the King, in recognising the monk in the crowd at 
 Westminster, must have known that he was the 
 historiographer or Scriptorarius of the great Hert- 
 fordshire abbey. 
 
 Other incidents in the life of the monk, Matthew 
 Paris, show us that he was present on other public 
 occasions. For example, he was present at Win- 
 chester in July, 1251, at the royal court, and at 
 York for the marriage of the King of Scotland with 
 Henry's daughter. In the March of 1257 the king 
 himself visited the abbey of St. Alban's and re- 
 mained there a week, and during this time not 
 only did Matthew Paris converse with him and sit 
 at his table, but Henry communicated to him as 
 he relates, historical facts^ and details which had 
 come within his own royal experience. On reading 
 the history of Matthew Paris and what he calls his 
 Additamenta, or collection of documents, we find 
 that papers of the utmost importance and even 
 secret state documents relating to England were 
 known at St. Alban's. Moreover, to our surprise 
 
 ^ See the article in Encyclopsedia Britannica, Ed. 9th.
 
 62 THE MONASTIC SCRIPTORIUM. 
 
 we find also that the workers in the Scriptorium of 
 that abbey were acquainted with state documents 
 of equal importance relating to the Empire and 
 the East, some of which are known to us only 
 by this means. At a later date the St. Alban's 
 Chronicles had obtained a general fame, and the 
 monk of St. Benet Holme, Oxenedes, finishes his 
 account of a.d. 1250 with the words : " If any one 
 desire to further examine into these matters let 
 him look into the chronicle of Matthew Paris at 
 St. Alban's for the year 1250. At this date the 
 said monk, Matthew Paris, of St. Alban's, finished 
 his chronicle." On the following page, speaking of 
 the council held by Otto, the Pope's legate, he says: 
 " In this council he deprived of their benefices all 
 who had immediately succeeded their fathers. The 
 rest of what was settled in this council is written in 
 the Chronicles of St, Alban's." 
 
 Finally the same author, in relation to a document 
 as big " as a Psalter " called De Vita et Morihus 
 Tartar orum, speaks as if Matthew Paris' work was 
 open to inspection at St. Alban's to all who might 
 wish to inspect it. " If any one wishes to see it," 
 he says, " he can find it at St. Alban's in the book 
 of Additamenta.^^ ^ 
 
 ' Chron. Johannis de Oxenedes, ed. Sir 11. Ellis (Rolls series) preface, 
 pp. ix., X.
 
 63 
 
 III. 
 
 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 
 
 HOW very little, indeed, do we know about 
 Mediae val Preacliing in England ! Possibly 
 few would be disposed to regard this lack of infor- 
 mation, upon a subject in itself presumably dull and 
 likely to interest none but the dry-as-dust specialist, 
 as a matter of much regret. To most people, 
 probably, it is sufficient that the modern sermon 
 has at times to be endured as a necessary evil, 
 but the very notion of, say, a fourteenth-century 
 discourse, with its crude methods and quaint 
 expressions, with its endless divisions and sub- 
 divisions, its marshalling of texts of Scripture 
 and expressions from the Fathers, and even with 
 its lighter illustrations and stories, is sufficient to 
 conjure up in the imagination a vision of some- 
 thing inexpressibly dreary — a very Sahara of un- 
 mitigated dryness. There is, it must be confessed, 
 something to be said for this view ; and from a vague 
 dread of finding themselves overwhelmed by pon- 
 derous and wholly uninteresting masses of material.
 
 64 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 
 
 Enfflisli students have so far allowed the oratorical 
 efforts of mediaeval English preachers to remain 
 undisturbed under the dust of centuries. Indeed, 
 so far has this neglect gone that the very names 
 of those, who, in their days, must have stirred, 
 and often deeply stirred, the hearts of our English 
 ancestors by their exhortations, are now for the 
 most part forgotten. 
 
 There is, however, another point of view. History 
 now welcomes every side light, however dim, which 
 may help to illustrate the origin, course or issue of 
 events, and anything, however insignificant, which 
 may go to explain the causes of popular movements, 
 the growth of popular institutions, and the popular 
 characteristics of nations. In considerations of this 
 kind, it is obvious that pulpit literature may afford 
 considerable help to the historian. The preacher 
 in the middle ages, as well as in our own days, 
 had occasion sometimes to raise his voice against 
 the abuses, social and religious, which stood in 
 need of correction, or in defence of the usages and 
 institutions of Church and State ; and in these, and 
 similar utterances, it is not unlikely that from the 
 point of view of the historian, there may be found, 
 not mere chance references to passing events only, 
 but useful and even necessary illustrations of popu- 
 lar morals and time-honoured customs. To some 
 extent, indeed, this has been recognised in regard 
 to later preachers, and Latimer's Sermons of the 
 Plough, for example, have long been one of the
 
 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 6& 
 
 chief sources from which writers on the times of 
 Henry VIII. have drawn abundant illustrations of 
 sixteenth century manners. 
 
 It would, of course, be incorrect to suppose that 
 mediaeval discourses of this kind are very numerous. 
 In those days, as in our own, parochial sermons 
 were, for the most part, simple explanations of the 
 Creed, or moral exhortations founded upon some 
 Biblical passage, and prones upon the Scripture 
 lessons proper for the special Sundays upon which 
 they were preached. But an attentive examination 
 even of these would probably prove to be not un- 
 profitable to anyone interested in the history of the 
 English people. What has beeu done by French 
 scholars to illustrate the history of the French 
 pulpit in the later middle ages is amply sufficient 
 to show what a thorough examination of English 
 sources might do for the history of our own people. 
 The study of the methods and style of the French 
 preachers, the examination of the sources whence 
 they drew their material, and the consideration of 
 the effect produced on their hearers by their elo- 
 quence or even more by their homely instructions, 
 has contributed not a little to a better knowledge of 
 the domestic, no less than the literary, history of 
 France. In Grermany scholars have been not a 
 whit behindhand ; indeed they have if anything 
 been more active in this branch of literature. 
 
 But, leaving altogether out of consideration the 
 more simple prones and familiar instructions of our 
 6
 
 66 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 
 
 English mediaeval preacliers, tliere exist not a few 
 collections of set discourses which deserve to be 
 better known, both for their own merits and for the 
 light they throw upon the history of the times in 
 which they were delivered. Not to speak of the 
 sermons of so distinguished a man as Bishop Grosse- 
 teste, of Lincoln ; there are numerous fourteenth 
 century discourses by the learned Archbishop of 
 Armagh, Richard Fitz-Ralph, still lying unnoticed 
 among our literary treasures in tlie British Museum 
 and elsewhere. This great orator was born in 
 Ireland, passed his early life in the household of 
 that lover of books, Richard de Bury, Bishop of 
 Durham, and then became Dean of Lichfield. Here, 
 or at St. Paul's Cross, in London, or subsequently 
 in his Cathedral church of Armagh, most of his 
 best known sermons were delivered. He is chiefly 
 regarded as an uncompromising opponent of the 
 mendicant friars, and in the eight English sermons 
 he preached at the Cross in St. Paul's churchyard, 
 in 1356, at the request of the English Bishops, 
 he attacked their privileges in bold and vigorous 
 language. 
 
 Full of interest and learning as these sermons 
 of Archbishop Fitz-Ralph are, they cannot compare, 
 in my estimation, with those of another English 
 preacher who often occupied the pulpit at St. Paul's 
 a few years later, but whose name is now all but for- 
 gotten, and whose discourses apparently are entirely 
 unknown. This was Thomas Brunton, who filled
 
 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 67 
 
 the See of Rocliester from 1372 to 1389, and was 
 called upon under difficult circumstances, on several 
 occasions, to act as spokesman for the English 
 episcopate. In early life Brunton became a Bene- 
 dictine monk of Norwich, and is said to have 
 studied both at Oxford and Cambridge, becoming 
 a Bachelor of Theology and a Doctor of Canon 
 law. At Norwich he had for a contemporary 
 the monk, Adam Easton, who was afterwards 
 made Cardinal by Pope Urban Yl. When, in 
 1368, Archbishop Langham, who had previously 
 been abbot of Westminster, resigned the See of 
 Canterbury, and went to Eome to be created 
 Cardinal he took with him probably his two Benedic- 
 tine brethren from Norwich, Thomas Brunton and 
 Adam Easton. In the Eternal city the former for 
 a time held the office of papal Penitentiary, and 
 upon the death of the Bishop of Rochester, in 
 1372, Pope Gregory appointed him to the vacant 
 See, as the election of John Hertley, the Prior 
 of Rochester, had been put aside by the Pope, 
 for reasons which do not appear, 
 
 Thomas Brunton ruled the diocese of Rochester 
 for some seventeen years, during a disturbed and 
 critical period. When he came to his see, Edward 
 III. had already fallen partially under the influence 
 of the nobility hostile to the Church, and, enfeebled 
 by a premature old age, had commenced his dis- 
 graceful liaison with Alice Perrers. Edward the 
 Black Prince had returned to England with the
 
 (i8 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 
 
 seeds of tlie disease which a year or two later was 
 to send him to a premature grave, and was using 
 his faihng strength to check the unfortunate influ- 
 ence exercised by John of Gaunt on the affairs of 
 the nation. Ah^eady the popular voice proclaimed 
 the reverses experienced by the English arms 
 abroad a manifestation of God's wrath at the 
 shameless life which was being publicly lived by 
 some of the highest in the land, and this open 
 degradation of the upper classes was giving 
 strength and meaning to the socialistic move- 
 ments among the masses, which culminated in 
 the popular rising of 1381. 
 
 It was a time eminently suited to inspire the 
 utterances of a fearless ecclesiastic and an accom- 
 plished orator, such as the sermons of Thomas 
 Brunton prove him to have been. These dis- 
 courses, written in free and elegant Latin, were 
 for the most part preached in English, and they 
 contain many historical and topical allusions which 
 make them an interestino^ and valuable addition 
 to our knowledge of the period. It will be seen 
 from the extracts I purpose to give, that Bishop 
 Brunton did not hesitate at times to speak out, 
 and with a manly vigour to attack abuses, even in 
 the highest places of the land, with a boldness 
 that astonishes the reader as it must have done 
 the men who heard him. He spared no one when 
 he thought it his duty to reprove. All, from 
 the King to the peasant, come in for their share
 
 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 69 
 
 of condemnation, whilst he does not hesitate to 
 blame the silence and worldly motives of his 
 fellow bishops. To a great extent his sympathies 
 are engaged on the side of the people, as distin- 
 guished from that of the nobility, and he indidged 
 in some very plain speaking about the unchristian 
 way in which the territorial magnates treated their 
 poorer brethren. Still, though his utterances often 
 sound very democratic, it is clear enough that his pre- 
 ferences are really given to the lower classes because 
 he looks upon their betters as being very generally 
 a disofrace to the christian name. There can be no 
 doubt left in the mind of anj^one who may take the 
 trouble to read these sermons of the day, delivered 
 in London and elsewhere by Bishop Brunton 
 between the vears 1373 and 1389, that the reisfu 
 of Edward III. closed, and that of Richard II. 
 began, in very evil times indeed. Making all due 
 allowance for oratorical exaggeration, and for the 
 words of one feeling upon himself the responsibility 
 of the Episcopal office, it is impossible not to see that 
 the moral state of the upper classes at this time was 
 deplorable. This, indeed, is only what we may 
 gather from the account of Walsingham, and still 
 more clearly from the pages of the suppressed 
 Chronicle of St. Albans, which was discovered and 
 published in the Rolls series not very long ago, 
 by Sir E. Maunde Thompson. This latter is a 
 curious instance of the way in which, even before 
 Tudor times, history was toned down, and unpleas-
 
 70 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 
 
 ing" facts smoothed over, for fear of ofFeudino: the 
 ruHng powers, smce there seems little doubt that 
 it was the writer's strong condemDation of John of 
 Gaunt, on moral as well as religious grounds, that 
 led to its disappearance from the Chronicles of 
 St. Albans. It was no doubt considered unwise for 
 the abbey to court the displeasure of the Lan- 
 castrians by any display of animosity, however 
 justified, against the father of Henry TV. 
 
 It is, however, time to allow^ Bishop Brunton to 
 speak for himself, and I take the liberty of trans- 
 lating his words once more into the language in 
 which they were originally spoken. Speaking of the 
 state of England, we may suppose, sometime about 
 1375, he declares that the many misfortunes that 
 have fallen upon the country must not be attributed 
 to the stars fighting in their courses against the 
 land, nor to the influence of Saturn or the other 
 planets, but " altogether to our sins." Hence he 
 urges the need of public prayer to avert Grod's 
 wrath. To public prayer enjoined for the purpose, 
 he has no wish to compel people to come, "but," 
 he adds, " does it not seem to you a thing to be 
 deplored and condemned, that when a procession is 
 ordered in London to pray for the King, or for the 
 peace of the realm, or for any other possible need, 
 there can be found to follow it hardly a hundred 
 men ? It seems to me that in such processions, 
 the presence of the king, the princes and lords 
 would be both pleasing to God and honourable to
 
 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 71 
 
 tliemselves, even from a worldly point of view " (p. 
 
 It was probably about the same time — that is, 
 about the time of the meeting of "The Good Parlia- 
 ment" of 1376, to which he plainly refers — that 
 the Bishop passes a sweeping condemnation upon 
 those who bad the conduct of State affairs in 
 England at this period. He is again addressing a 
 London audience, and in the discharge of his duty 
 he does not hesitate to speak as follows : — 
 
 " Amongst other English institutions established 
 in the past, one practice, of great renown and most 
 excellent, is still in vogue : the Lords and Commons 
 are called together to Parliament to discuss and 
 legislate for the good estate of the country. Of 
 what use, however, is it to treat of affairs in Parlia- 
 ment, and publicly to denounce transgressors of the 
 law unless due correction follows upon such denun- 
 ciation? Laws are worthless except they be rightly 
 enforced. But is it not known, and almost every- 
 where publicly acknowledged, that it is not those 
 who incline to virtue, but they who lead vicious 
 and scandalous lives who long have had the chief 
 share in the government of this Kingdom. Against 
 the rule of such men, though, we universally 
 murmur and protest ; still, we have not the 
 courage to speak the truth as to the proper remedy." 
 
 " Saint Augustine states what is the real reason of 
 our silence in the following : — ' When the Egyptians 
 desired, in spite of considerable opposition, to deify
 
 72 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 
 
 Iris and Serapis, they, in the first place, ordered 
 that anyone who called them men, or discussed 
 their existence, should be put to death. And that 
 no one should be ignorant of this law, in every place 
 where the images of these gods were set up they 
 erected a statue with its finger to its mouth, so that 
 by this token of silence all who entered the temple 
 might know that the truth was to be concealed.' " 
 
 " In the same way, our modern rulers — those 
 overthrowers of truth and justice — wishing to 
 raise their lords to the altars, as they know how, 
 have proclaimed the coward a hero, the weak man 
 strong, the fool a wise man, the adulterer and the 
 pursuer of luxury a man chaste and holy. And in 
 order to turn all interests to their own advantage 
 they encourage their king in notorious crimes, 
 whilst, so as to be seen by all coming to court, 
 they set up the idol of worldly fear in order to 
 prevent anyone, of whatsoever rank and condition 
 he may be, from daring to stand up against, or 
 castigate, the evil doers." 
 
 " But whose duty is it to speak of these 
 matters? Most certainly an obligation lies upon 
 the Bishops, lords temporal, confessors, and even 
 on the preachers. As to the Bishops, why do 
 they, who like columns ought to support the 
 Church on their shoulders, and even lay down 
 their lives in defence of its liberties, remain silent 
 when they see Christ daily crucified in their pre- 
 sence ? Why are they silent when they see the
 
 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 73 
 
 innocent condemned as guilty, poor ecclesiastics 
 deprived of tlieir benefices, and tlieir rights so 
 outraged that to-day the Holy Church of Grod is 
 in greater slavery than it was under Pharaoh, who 
 knew not the divine law ? By such conduct they 
 prove themselves mere hirelings, and not shep- 
 herds, and the reason is that they are only seek- 
 ing for higher preferment and aspiring to be 
 translated to richer Sees." 
 
 " The lords temporal are silent because they 
 shrink in dread from offending their King ; 
 whereas in truth there is no place for fear, since 
 it may well be believed that if the truth were 
 once told him, he is so yielding and easily led 
 that he would by no means sufiPer such things 
 to go unchecked in the realm." 
 
 " Confessors hold their peace, because, whilst they 
 can easily have their own comforts, conveniences 
 and honours, they care not for souls. Therefore, 
 they ought to be called not confessors, but conf users ; 
 not teachers, but rather traitors — traitors firstly to 
 Our Lord, whose authority and commission they 
 notoriously abuse ; secondly, to their temporal 
 lords, to whom they ought not to hesitate to speak 
 the truth, that they may reclaim them from their 
 errors." 
 
 " Preachers hold their tongues, because many of 
 those who, before this time, at the Cross of St. 
 Paul's, have touched upon the vices of the lords, 
 have been at once arrested and taken before the
 
 74 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 
 
 king's Council as malefactors. There, after being 
 examined, they have been condemned and banished, 
 or suspended from further exercise of their office 
 of preaching." 
 
 " But some will say, leave the Commons, who, like 
 the foundations of the republic, effectually support 
 the king and the Parliament (to look to it). Not 
 so, Reverend sirs, lest our Parliament be compared 
 to the Parliament of rats and mice in the fable. 
 About this, we read that, in their assembly, they 
 had strictly ordained that every cat should have a 
 bell attached to its neck, so that, warned by the 
 sound, the mice might have sufficient time to escape 
 in safet}^ to their holes. An ancient rat, meeting 
 a certain mouse returning from the Parliament, 
 inquired what was the news. When the mouse had 
 explained to him the gist of the business, the rat 
 remarked : ' This law is most excellent, provided 
 someone is appointed by your Parliament to carry 
 it into executioQ.' Tlie mouse replied that no such 
 order had been made by Parliament ; and so the law 
 remained consequently useless and inoperative." 
 
 " For the love of Christ, and in defence of our 
 country brought to straits such as this, let us be not 
 merely talkers, but doers. Let us cast off the 
 works of darkness, and put on the armour of light, 
 so that our lives may be amended, and our king 
 directed in the way of justice."^ 
 
 This is plain speaking enough about the state to 
 
 1 Harl. MS. 3760, f. 186, seqq.
 
 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 75 
 
 whicli the country liacl been reduced by the influence 
 of those wlio ruled the kingdom, and encouraged 
 the king in the excesses to which he devoted the 
 closing years of his life. It is most probable, as I 
 have said, that the sermon was preached during the 
 time when the sitting of the " Grood Parliament " 
 had led men of honesty and uprightness to hope, 
 through the powerful support of the Black Prince, 
 for an improvement in the government, and to 
 insist on the removal of the king's evil counsellors, 
 and the wretched courtesan, Alice Perrers, who had 
 obtained supreme influence over him. It is even 
 possible that the discourse, spoken evidently to the 
 clergy, may have been delivered at the meeting of 
 Convocation, which at this time insisted that 
 William of Wykeham must be allowed to take his 
 place at their deliberations, although he had been 
 disgraced and deprived of the revenues of his See 
 of Winchester, through the influence and misrepre- 
 sentations of those who held the old king in their 
 power. 
 
 But to continue the Bishop's sermon : " It is 
 patent to all men," he says, " that the kingdom of 
 England, which of old abounded in riches, is now 
 poor and needy : which of old was radiant with 
 God's grace is now graceless and despicable : which 
 of old regulated all things according to justice, is 
 now without law of any sort." Then, after speaking 
 of the three sins of adultery, luxury and simony, 
 which polluted England at the time, he continues: —
 
 76 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 
 
 " Nor need we wonder, since, if one of the people 
 fall, he falls as if he were alone, but if a Prince or 
 Prelate fall, as many seem to fall as he rules over. 
 And indeed this sin (of luxury) has so scandalously 
 prevailed among the temporal lords, that I can 
 conclude what the Psalmist says, ' The earth is 
 contaminated by their works.' " 
 
 He then goes on to declare that England is 
 being punished for the sins of the upper classes. 
 " Greater," he says, " are the iniquities of the rich, 
 and the nobles than are those of the middle class 
 and the poor. For, whereas the latter commonly 
 live honestly on their own earnings, the former live, 
 for the most part, upon the goods of other people 
 — as, for example, by violent seizures, exactions, 
 extortions, and the rest. It is truly against all 
 rules of justice and equity that when processions 
 are ordered to avert common tribulations there 
 should be present at them ecclesiastics and re- 
 ligious only, and some few of the middle class, who, 
 in comparison, have but slightly offended God by 
 their sins, whilst the rich people and the nobility, 
 who are the main cause of these afflictions, neither 
 come, nor pray, nor do penance for their iniquities, 
 but lie in their beds and enjoy their other luxuries 
 to their heart's content." 
 
 He then proceeds to urge his ecclesiastical 
 brethren not to suffer the power of the kingdom to 
 remain in the hands of those who were using it 
 solely to advance their own interests. " Does it
 
 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 77 
 
 seem to you right," he says, " that the king and his 
 sons should be so led by their counsellors tliat they 
 are ever poor and needy in respect to their rank, 
 whilst their advisers are rolling in riches to such a 
 degree that they could buy up a fourth part of the 
 entire wealth, of the kingdom ? Moreover, though 
 the king ought to reward in a princely way those 
 who serve him, who should be nobles and the sons 
 of nobles, still this should be done with measure, so 
 that he pass not over his own children for the sake 
 of his servants. It is neither fitting nor just that 
 the servants become lords, and their lords remain in 
 poverty. Unless the king and his children are pro- 
 vided with plenty they will think it necessary to 
 spoil the Church and to devour the people. Does 
 it seem right that low-born and unworthy people 
 should have access to the king for furthering their 
 affairs when the nobles and prelates, who come to 
 the Court for necessary business, and for the needs 
 of their churches, are not allowed an audience ? Is 
 it right that they be forced to remain outside in the 
 courtyard among the poor, and after being cate- 
 chised by people not really sent to them by the 
 king, be compelled to go away without any proper 
 reply ? Alas ! that the king of France thrice each 
 week should grant audience to his people, and per- 
 sonally give full justice to all who ask it, whilst the 
 nobles of England cannot get their rights, though 
 they try their best. Moreover, should it be pos- 
 sible that when foreigners and above all the lords
 
 78 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 
 
 of Acquitaine, who in belialf of tlie riglits of Eng- 
 land have suffered the loss of property and birth- 
 right, come to this country, they be not received 
 with honour — that they be not consoled nor assisted 
 with presents ? Yea, hardly do they meet with even 
 a favourable reception, or a kindly word." 
 
 " Further, is it fitting that the king of France 
 should have for his Privy Council seventy men 
 chosen from every position of life, by whose advice 
 all difficult matters are settled, and that our 
 English king, though he has prudent and faithful 
 counsellors, should act in like difficulties by the 
 counsel of one only ? Upon us that saying of the 
 Holy Scripture has come, ' Operatus unus.' " 
 
 " Nor is it proper or safe that all the keys of the 
 kingdom should hang at the girdle of a woman. It 
 is well that Councillors should be men — not boys, 
 youths, and lewd people. Roboam, rejecting the 
 advice of the aged and following that of the young, 
 lost his kingdom. Neither is it well that they 
 should be women, shrewd in looking after their 
 own advantages ; but men of uprightness, experi- 
 ence, and holiness." 
 
 If Bishop Brunton could bring himself to use 
 such vigorous language with regard to those who 
 had obtained the mastery over the old king, and 
 manao^ed the affairs of State to further their own 
 advantage, he did not hesitate, when the occa- 
 sion demanded, even in public, to speak his mind 
 about the duties of the clergy and bishops. In a
 
 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 79 
 
 sermon preaclied in his Cathedral of Rochester at 
 the time of his visitation, for example, after 
 quoting Valerius to the effect that a certain king 
 of the Jews had set watch dogs in the city of 
 Jerusalem, he goes on to tell his clergy what 
 bishops should be and what they should do. 
 " They should be ever going about their dioceses," 
 he says, " visiting, preaching, making enquiries, 
 correcting, and, in a word, by every means pro- 
 tecting their sheepfolds from the wolves." In this 
 way, in the canons of the Church, bishops who do 
 not preach and instruct their people, he declares, 
 " are called * dumb dogs.' " 
 
 Again, preaching to his clergy on the feast of 
 St. Louis of France, he sketches for them the 
 qualities which should distinguish the christian 
 teacher, and laments the want of them in so many of 
 the Church's ministers at that time. " The Church 
 to-day," he says, " is aflB.icted with great interior 
 sadness. To the guardianship of the Temple are 
 appointed so many unfit and unworthy ministers, 
 that is, the blind, the dumb, the deaf, the halt, the 
 weak, and the sick. For they are blind who have 
 no knowledge ; they are dumb who have no elo- 
 quence ; deaf who have no pity ; halt who give no 
 alms ; weak and sickly, yea, even dead, who have 
 no conscience." 
 
 At another time, speaking specially about the 
 bishop's office, he says : — " In the Lord's vineyard 
 a bishop should labour above all others. He ought
 
 80 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 
 
 to receive the canonical summons to mount to the 
 prelate's office only on account of the merit of his 
 life, and his sufficient discipline. In these days, 
 however, I see bishops rise to it from other causes, 
 and so impudently intrude themselves into the 
 vineyard, that vs^ere it asked of them What are you 
 doing here ? (John vi.) ; or 'Who hath brought you 
 in hither ? ' they, for the most part, could only 
 reply, as it is written, Bij chance I came to the 
 onuuntain. For, just as, according to grammarians, 
 there are six cases ... so some have thrust 
 themselves into office in the nominative case of 
 pomp, like the proud and presumptuous ; others 
 in the genitive case of family, like those of noble 
 and gentle birth ; others with the desire of money, 
 like the simoniacal and ambitious ; others in the 
 accusative of calumny, like the envious and the 
 cunning ; others in the ablative of violence, like the 
 hard and impecunious ; few, or even, I might say, 
 none, in the vocative of divine or canonical elec- 
 tion, like those of fitting and virtuous lives, who 
 alone are lawfully called by the Lord to the honour 
 of the pastoral office." 
 
 Again Bishop Brunton speaks of the great need 
 that there was at the time of bishops who would 
 strive to walk in the footsteps and imitate the ex- 
 ample of those who had gone before. They should 
 be always at work " now praying, now visiting their 
 churches, now preaching, and in particular, after 
 their own dioceses, should they preach in London,
 
 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 81 
 
 the cliief city of England, according to the ex- 
 ample of Christ, who was daily teaching in the 
 Temple at Jerusalem ; and as in London there is 
 greater devotion and the people are more intelli- 
 gent, so greater fruit may be expected from their 
 preaching. Moreover, every bishop has in London 
 some of his subjects, and so when preaching there 
 he is instructing his own church as well as the 
 other churches of England." 
 
 " We prelates," he says in another place, " are 
 called by Christ the salt of the earth and the light 
 of the world. From the dignity of our office we 
 have the primacy of Abel, the patriarchate of 
 Abraham, the government of Noah, the orders of 
 Melchisedech, the dignity of Aaron, the authority 
 of Moses and the power of Peter. What, if when 
 we should be correctors of souls we be but mere 
 extortioners of money ; and when we should be 
 columns of strength we be in reality but reeds and 
 straws ?" 
 
 It is not very difficult to connect the foregoing 
 with the circumstances of the time. The author of 
 the suppressed Chronicle of St. Albans makes use 
 of very similar expressions with regard to the 
 general attitude of the episcopate towards the 
 scandalous liaison of Edward with Alice Ferrers. 
 The "Good Farliament" had insisted upon the 
 removal of this mistress of the dying king, who 
 had risen from mean birth to almost supreme 
 power, and who had abused her influence to the 
 6
 
 82 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 
 
 full. In her greed she had maintained false 
 causes, and, if we are to believe "Walsingham and 
 the anonymous chronicle, had by her presence 
 on the bench terrorised the judges into giving 
 wrongful judgments. At length, after long lament- 
 ing the king's infatuation, the Commons " deter- 
 mined to risk offending their king rather than 
 God," and insisted upon Alice Ferrers' removal 
 from Court, and bound her by oath never to return. 
 The arrangement did not, however, last long. 
 The " Good Parliament " after appointing a per- 
 manent council of twelve to advise the king, was 
 dissolved in 1376. Forthwith John of Gaunt came 
 again into full power, the provisions of the " Good 
 Farliament " were set aside, and Alice Ferrers again 
 appeared and took possession of the king. Loud 
 were the murmurs of the people, and they in vain 
 looked to the ecclesiastical authorities to take 
 action against her for this public violation of her 
 oath. " But," says the Chronicle, " the Archbishop 
 and his suffragans — became as dumb dogs, not 
 daring to bark ; and, to speak the truth, they were 
 in this not shepherds, but scatterers of the flock, 
 and hirelings, who for fear of the wolf, deserted 
 their sheep. I do not," the writer adds, " include 
 all, for the Lord left Himself some few, who did 
 not bow their knees to Baal. But those who had 
 received the sword of Feter to cut off such disease 
 elected to soothe rather than to probe the sores 
 of the sinner; and so, through the negligence of
 
 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. S3 
 
 the bishops the scars reappeared on the erring 
 sheep, and the said Ahce returned (like the dog) 
 to the vomit. "1 
 
 In more than one sermon our preacher refers to 
 the notorious maladministration of justice above 
 recorded from the contemporary but subsequently 
 suppressed Chronicle of St. Albans. "Our modern 
 judges and jurors who can be bought, condemn 
 to death the innocent if they be prosecuted by a 
 great or malicious person. As an example take 
 that of the youth hanged for the theft of a few 
 pears. And though judges and jurors of this kind 
 excuse themselves for shedding innocent blood 
 because they fear the power of the Lords, they 
 cannot thus be held guiltless of the crime, since 
 they ought rather to die than shed innocent blood. 
 . . . On the other hand, if there is brought 
 before them a murderer or a manifest robber, whose 
 blood justice demands, he is allowed to escape 
 without punishment, if a plentiful money bribe be 
 offered by him or his friends." 
 
 " False witnesses," he proceeds, " can be readily 
 procured, by whose testimony one man is deprived 
 of property, which is his by law and birthright, and 
 another unjustly gets it ; another man obtains a 
 benefice before the legal time because he makes 
 oath that he is of proper age ; another obtains a 
 benefice by a fictitious title, to which he has sworn, 
 when in reality he has no such title." 
 
 ' Chronicon (Rolls Series) p. 104-5.
 
 84 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 
 
 In the same sermon from wliicli this passage is 
 taken the Bishop raises the burning question in 
 ecclesiastical circles at the time, of the ^oowers of 
 the mendicant orders to act as confessors, &c., by 
 virtue of their special privileges. He points out 
 " that although by virtue of ordination every priest 
 has the keys of the church, they can be used ordi- 
 narily in three ways only. First, by the gift of 
 the cure of souls ; for all such, whether they hold 
 greater offices or lesser, are properly priests (having 
 the charge of those under them). Thus the Pope 
 and his Penitentiary, the Bishop and his Yicar, 
 the Archbishop at the time of the visitation of his 
 Province, the Eector and his Yicar, &c., &c., per- 
 manent or temporary, are properly priests, having 
 charge of souls. They are the ordinary, and 
 consequently necessary, judges in the domain of 
 conscience. From their hands, if they be negli- 
 gent in their office, the blood of their subjects will 
 be required." 
 
 " Secondly, the keys of the church are in the pos- 
 session of the mendicant friars by virtue of special 
 licence or by privilege. They are voluntary judges, 
 and when admitted they have the same power as 
 curates and parish priests unless more ample faculties 
 be given to them by the prelates." 
 
 " Thirdly, the keys are granted by licences be- 
 stowed by the (Roman) curia. Of this kind are the 
 iricenales, which I do not condemn, though I do 
 blame those who unjustly abuse the privileges. For,
 
 A FORGOTTE>f ENGLISH PREACHER. 85 
 
 in such licences people are warned as a duty to look 
 for proper confessors, and those only can be con- 
 sidered such who can discreetly judge between cause 
 and cause, &c. But what are they who are chosen 
 in these days ? I see that anyone wanting for the 
 sake of his bodily health to be blooded, calls to him- 
 self the most skilful, the most expert, and the 
 surgeon best known for his discretion ; but when he 
 wishes to purify his soul from the blood of sin he 
 does not make choice of him who is most instructed 
 in the science of the soul and most holy, but of him 
 who is the most run after ; not of him who is most 
 discreet and straightforward, but of him who is the 
 most easy; not of him who is the most expert and 
 has best knowledge of him, but of the stranger 
 and of him who is io-norant of his wants, &c." 
 
 " Confessors, too, can be unfaithful to their duty 
 if they do not tell the plain truth to their penitents, 
 and so turn them from their evil ways. How many 
 great men are there not now in this kingdom of 
 England living in infamy? Some of them are ex- 
 tortioners and destroyers of their tenants, retaining 
 for their own uses tithes and oblations, violating 
 the rights of the church, and ever acting most un- 
 gratefully against it ; still it is unheard of that such 
 "hj the advice of their confessors ever restore or 
 make good what they have wrongfully taken or kept 
 back." 
 
 " Others again are publicly defamed for adultery 
 and incest — so much so that there is not a nation
 
 8G A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 
 
 under heaven with such an evil reputation for adul- 
 tery as the English nation at this day." " Others 
 are scandalously defamed for simple fornication, 
 which can be seen in the case of so high a person 
 of such exalted dignity. . . . Tell me, for in- 
 stance, too, why in England so many robberies 
 remain unpunished when in other countries mur- 
 derers and thieves are commonly hanged ? . . In 
 England the land is inundated by homicides, so that 
 ' veloces sint 'pedes homhnim, ad effudendum san- 
 guinem,^ so that there is no conscience in killing a 
 man. For this I fear that the blood of the slain 
 cries to the Lord for vengeance." 
 
 To many people the most instructive and inter- 
 esting portions of the sermons of this fourteenth 
 century preacher will probably be those in which he 
 touches upon the great social movement which was 
 then in full progress in England. Up to the middle 
 of the century the ancient order of inequality passed 
 unquestioned as the divine law of the universe. 
 The verses of Piers Ploughman and The Ganterhury 
 Tales help us to realise the social chasm which still 
 divided, as it so long had done, the upper from the 
 lower classes — the small but powerful rich nobility 
 from the numerous but subject masses of the popu- 
 lation. The old principles of feudalism were no 
 longer able to assert their supremacy over the agri- 
 cultural classes, and the endeavour to re-assert 
 ancient rights and privileges by high-handed 
 measures provoked open and determined resistance.
 
 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 87 
 
 The gospel of equality preached m Loiigland's verses 
 and John Ball's sermons is eagerly welcomed as the 
 Gospel 01 justice and Christianity, and for the first 
 time in our history there appears " a fierce hatred 
 of nobles and gentlemen, and a startling assertion 
 of levelling principles and social equality as bold as 
 any which were taught four centuries " later in 
 France. With much of the legitimate aspirations of 
 the people in this social movement Bishop Brunton 
 evidently sympathised, and his pulpit utterances 
 echo the prevaihng demand for fair and considerate 
 treatment of the poorer population by the upper 
 classes. It is of interest to remember that many of 
 his sermons were preached in his own diocese of 
 Rochester at a time when the leader of the advanced 
 sociahstic party, John Ball, was addressing his 
 audiences of yeomen in the village churchyards of 
 the same county of Kent. 
 
 Preaching, for instance, on the text Simul in 
 unum dives et pauper, the Bishop takes up the 
 bitter cry of the poor in almost the same words 
 in which it is expressed by the " mad preacher," 
 as the courtly Froissart nicknames the Kentish 
 clerical leader, John Ball. All, both rich and poor. 
 Bishop Brunton reminds his audience, are de- 
 scended from the common parents of all, Adam 
 and Eve; and he emphasises the blessedness of 
 almsdeeds by referring to the story of St. Oswald 
 giving away the silver dish and St. Aidan's pro- 
 phecy that the hand that had given it should never
 
 88 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 
 
 corrupt. Poverty leads to begging and to theft. 
 We ought consequently, he declares, " to feed and 
 support the poor, and this for two reasons : Firstly, 
 because of the similarity of nature in all mankind. 
 Every animal loves its life, and so great a simi- 
 larity is there between rich and poor that imun est 
 introitus omnibus ad vitam (Sap. 7). For God in 
 the beginning of the world has not created a gold 
 man and a silver man to be the progenitors of the 
 rich and the gentlefolk, and another of clay, from 
 whom have descended the poor and the needy. 
 With a spade Adam cultivated the earth. ^ So, too, 
 in death all, both rich and poor, find the like end ; 
 as hired actors on a stage when their parts in the 
 play are over, all return to the position from which 
 they had been raised, and so Siinul hi unum dives et 
 pauper.'^ 
 
 " The princes of India collect from the rich where- 
 with to minister to the wants of the poor; but 
 Christian princes extort from the poor the money 
 necessary to maintain the rich in their proud posi- 
 tion. Among Christians no one ever hears of an 
 ecclesiastical tithe, or a tax on the people at large, 
 being levied in aid of the poor who are dying of 
 hunger ; but it is well nigh a daily occurrence that 
 both the church and the lay folk are asked to con- 
 tribute to the rich and to princes. The very 
 Saracens are scandalised that we treat the poor, 
 
 ' This forcibly reminds us of John Ball's well-known saying : 
 " When Adam delved and Eve span Who was then the gentleman."
 
 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 89 
 
 wliom we call the servants of Christ, so mercilessly 
 and inhumanly. This is evidenced in the life of 
 Charles the Great ; for, whilst fighting against the 
 Infidels there came to him one who had thoughts of 
 becoming a Christian. Seeing some people eating 
 their food on the ground he asked : ' Who are they 
 that clad in such poor garments eat upon the floor?' 
 To this the king answered, saying: 'They are our 
 serfs, whom we feed for the love of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ.' Upon which the Saracen Prince exclaimed: 
 * Your servants are splendidly clothed, they feed 
 and drink luxuriously, whilst the servants of your 
 Christ are left naked and hungry. I will join no sect 
 which loves its Lord so slightly.' " 
 
 In several passages in his sermons. Bishop 
 Brunton laments the great rift which was, seem- 
 ingly, only too patent in his day between those 
 "who had" and those "who liad not." "Nowa- 
 days," he says, for example, in one discourse, 
 " there is such a hopeless division between the 
 people and the burgesses that the rich take all 
 the advantasfes of their wealth, and if there be 
 any burden to be borne or loss to be endured, it 
 must all fall upon the poor." 
 
 Again he laments loudly that there was one law 
 for the rich and another for the poor ; that a man 
 of position was able to avoid the penalties of his 
 transgressions, whilst they fell heavily upon the 
 shoulders of a man of the lower class, and that 
 ecclesiastics were by no means blameless in making
 
 90 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 
 
 this unjust distinction. "If they find" he says 
 " that a poor man or a rustic has but slightly fallen 
 away from his duty, they at once cite him, excom- 
 municate him, and judge him in the most rigid 
 manner so that his punishment may be a warning 
 to the rest. But if they find a precious stone, that 
 is, a man that is rich or of position among the 
 nobility, no matter how vicious his life may be, 
 they treat him with all gentleness. They punish a 
 poor man accused of simple fornication more rigor- 
 ously than they do a rich man for adultery and 
 incest. This is not justice, my brethren : this is 
 not justice." 
 
 " Temporal lords," he says again in another 
 place, " hardly pay their servants their proper and 
 appointed wages. In this way the masters fre- 
 quently are false to God's law by keeping back 
 the just payment due to their servants, and the 
 servants are thieves by appropriating at will what 
 belongs to their masters." Again and again he 
 bids his hearers remember that all Christians are 
 members of one body, no matter what their state 
 and condition of life may be. "We, though many," 
 he says, " form but one body. Of this mystical 
 body indeed there are many members : for the 
 kings, princes and prelates are the head ; judges 
 and the wise and true counsellors are the eyes, 
 religious are the ears, good teachers the tongue, 
 soldiers ready to defend it from attack are its right 
 hand, its left being merchants and faithful artisans ;
 
 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 91 
 
 the citizens and burgesses, as the middle class, are 
 its heart, and, firmly supporting the whole body as 
 its feet, come the husbandmen and labourers." 
 
 If the sympathies of the Bishop are clearly 
 engaged on the side of the suffering poor, he does not, 
 on the other hand, hesitate to speak out plainly 
 about the duties of servants to their masters and to 
 blame with all the force of his powerful rhetoric 
 the popular risings which at that time led to much 
 destruction of life and property. In two of these 
 sermons we have his declaration against those who 
 took part in the events which in 1381 led to the 
 mob seizing Archbishop Sudbury and putting him 
 to death on Tower Hill. Preaching on the 4tli 
 Sunday in Lent he reminds his hearers that the 
 absolution of those who have maliciously set fire to 
 churches is reserved to the Pope, and the same in 
 the case of those who have made an insurrection 
 with the design of killing, or of destroying churches. 
 " The absolving, however, of such as have taken 
 part in the insurrection," he continues, " but who 
 have not had a hand in killing, or in the destruc- 
 tion of churches, is reserved to the bishops, since 
 they are traitors and in many things fall under the 
 ban of the Canons of the Church, and," he adds, 
 "let the friars take heed that they do not absolve 
 them." 
 
 " As to the Archbishop," he continues, " all who 
 have treated him infamously or who have struck or 
 killed him, or have ordered or ratified the deed, or
 
 92 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 
 
 were associated with those who did it, or counselled 
 or favoured it, or knowingly shall have protected 
 the doers of it, are excommunicated, and except 
 in the danger of death, can be absolved by the 
 Supreme Pontiff only. And even if they be ab- 
 solved in articulo mortis, should they recover they 
 are bound, under pain of incurring ipso facto the 
 excommunication again, to present themselves per- 
 sonally before the Roman Pontiff. And if the 
 blood of Abel slain by his brother in secret cry 
 from the earth to Grod for veno-eance, much more 
 loudly does the blood of such a prelate so cruelly 
 slain without cause call loudly for the punishment 
 of those concerned. The rest of those who, com- 
 pelled to take part in the insurrection, have not 
 been guilty of incendiarism and have not killed 
 anyone, but with the rest of the insurgents have 
 perchance in many ways hurt their neighbours and 
 their masters, can be absolved by those having cure 
 of their souls provided they shall have made due 
 satisfaction to those whom they have injured." 
 
 "But how are they to make satisfaction? I reply 
 that two thing^s render that insurrection most 
 abominable, and worthy of all condemnation. 
 First, on account of sin servitude was introduced, 
 and hence justice ever requires that masters should 
 rule their servants, and servants be in subjection to 
 their masters, Tiie apostle proclaims this law in 
 saying servl subdite, and 'Servants be subject to your 
 masters with all fear' (1 Peter ii.). Now, since those
 
 A FORGOTTKX ENGLISH PREACHER. 93 
 
 who have taken part in the insurrection, proposed 
 to lord it as masters, and to have put their masters 
 to death, their act is most worthy of condemnation, 
 and in no wise to be borne. Secondly, the servants 
 knew not, as their acts show, how to govern them- 
 selves, and hence they are bound to make resti- 
 tution, not alone for the injury done to property 
 and person, but to the rights and liberties of their 
 masters. The Scripture calls to us Beddite quce sunt 
 CcBsaris CcBsari — ' Render to Caesar the things 
 that are Caesar's.' " 
 
 Later in the same year, in a sermon preached on 
 the Sunday after the Feast of the Ascension, our 
 preacher again declaims against those who have 
 had any part in the murder of the Archbishop. He 
 says that " this horrible and abominable deed is 
 covered up, excused, and until this present time 
 has remained unpunished," and he prophesies 
 Grod's punishment upon the kingdom if " those 
 who are excommunicated are allowed publicly to 
 despise the power of the Church's keys." 
 
 In one sermon, preached at Cobham on the Feast 
 of St. Mary Magdalene about the year 1383, Bishop 
 Brunton laments the state of the country. " If 
 of old," he said, " anyone had preached and 
 prophesied the evils which have happened to 
 England, the evident vengeance of the Lord, in 
 the murders even of the highest, in the famines, 
 in the mortality, in the storms, in the internal 
 commotions and external wars, who would have
 
 94 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREA.CHER. 
 
 believed him ? Or, had they done so, who would 
 Dot have done penance with Nineveh ? " 
 
 " For myself, I say it with tears, I have preached 
 for ten years continuously against the sins rife in 
 my diocese, and still I cannot see that any one has 
 risen effectually from his evil life. For the most 
 part they are like to the dead man whom Simon 
 Magus pretended to have raised to life, but who, 
 by his incantations, only appeared to move his 
 head. For, when they hear good exhortations, 
 they move their heads, but do not cast off their 
 sins. For, tell me, where is the adulterer who has 
 got rid of his mistress and returned to his lawful 
 spouse ? Where is the usurer who has repaid what 
 he has wickedly acquired ? Where is the unjust 
 maintainer of causes ? Where the false swearer, who 
 restrains himself from his evil courses ? Where is 
 the man that by the use of false measures had 
 deceived his neighbours and poor strangers, who 
 now has broken and burnt them ? Where is he 
 who from his heart has renounced an old enmity, 
 and does not wait to avenge himself when he sees 
 his opportunity ? Yea, which of those accursed 
 insurgents, whose dangerous position I have so often 
 pointed out in my sermons, is contrite, or truly 
 confessed, or has in any point made satisfaction ? 
 and yet the sin is not forgiven unless what was 
 taken away is restored. For these reasons I fear 
 that in many things we to-day are worse than the 
 inhabitants of Nineveh. They humbled them-
 
 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 95 
 
 selves under God's chastisements, whilst we are 
 presumptuous and proud beyond all bounds. They 
 clothed themselves in sackcloth, but we deck 
 ourselves in precious stuffs, so much so that 
 there is to-day no difference between a knight 
 and a squire, a clerk and a priest, between the 
 wife of an earl and that of a citizen. They (the 
 inhabitants of Nineveh) fasted, whilst we violate 
 the appointed fasts, and indulge in our pleasures. 
 Their king and his magnates were filled with fear, 
 and through fear ceased to sin, whilst our nobles 
 and lords neither fear God nor reverence man. 
 Yea, those who ought to defend the Church and 
 its rights and privileges are foremost in attacking 
 them." 
 
 The Bishop then went on at some length to 
 warn the people against the false teachers who 
 were going about England at this time propagating 
 their erroneous doctrines. In these we have no 
 difficulty in recognising the followers of John 
 Wyclif, especially as he indicates the nature of the 
 Lollard teaching against which he protests. These 
 unauthorised preachers declare, he says, that when 
 a priest or bishop baptizes whilst in a state of sin 
 the sacrament is not conferred, that auricular con- 
 fession is superfluous for those who are contrite, 
 and that in the Mass the bread and wine are not 
 changed into our Lord's Body at the words of con- 
 secration. " To-day," he says in another place, 
 referring evidently to the alliance between the
 
 9G A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 
 
 "Wycliffite agents and the party of John of Gaunt — 
 " To-day the temporal lords seek to resist ec- 
 clesiastical censures, however just and reasonable, 
 and to escape from the orders and just counsels of 
 their ordinaries. They bring to their aid extraor- 
 dinary teachers skilled in tickling the ears of the 
 people, by whose means false doctrine and numer- 
 ous errors are instilled into the popular mind ; 
 so much so that if the laity make any attack 
 against the liberty of the Church, however grave 
 it may be, and however much condemned and 
 disapproved of by all, these new doctors against 
 conscience and justice accept, approve, and justify 
 tlie deed. Wherefore it happens that the Church 
 (which ought to be the mistress) is in these days 
 in England trodden under foot., a thousand rumours 
 are set on foot to the prejudice of the clergy; 
 the law, in itself just, is perverted ; reason is lulled 
 to sleep ; justice is oppressed and equity is buried." 
 In this fourteenth century, as in most other ages 
 of the world, as Bishop Brunton points out, a 
 preacher's audience liked to fit the cap upon every 
 head but their own ; and they were best pleased 
 when they could point the moral of a sermon by 
 making it apply to others. If this could be done 
 the stronger the language the orator used the 
 better satisfied were those wbo listened to his 
 words. *' It is nowadays a common failing " he 
 says, " that most people are better pleased to 
 hear preaching directed against the vices of others
 
 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 97 
 
 than against their own. Clerics, for example, 
 desire that sermons should be directed asfainst 
 laymen who neglect to pay their tithes : laymen 
 like to hear preaching directed against clerics 
 and ecclesiastics who set a bad example. Hus- 
 bands are quite satisfied when the words of the 
 preacher are directed against the ostentation and 
 dress of their wives ; wives when they condemn 
 the superfluous expenses of the husbands. Prelates 
 are pleased with sermons against the want of due 
 obedience on the part of their subjects ; subjects 
 with those against the vices and neglect of the pre- 
 lates. And so what one dislikes satisfies another." 
 
 On this principle the Bishop never hesitates to 
 speak openly and in the strongest language about 
 any abuses he desires to see corrected. He spares 
 — when his subject requires him to speak plainly — 
 neither king, nor prince, nor prelate; and whilst 
 clearly a man of the people, he is uncompromising 
 in his condemnation of what he holds to be wrong 
 in popular aspirations and methods. At the same 
 time his own order — the bishops and clergy — 
 receive perhaps the most plain-spoken measure of 
 admonition which is to be found in this volume of 
 sermons. 
 
 To pass to another subject of interest. On the 
 festival of the Holy Trinity, 1376, there died in 
 London, Edward the Black Prince. He was, as the 
 monk of St. Albans tells us, " a devout client of the 
 Holy Trinity, and his spirit, as amidst enemies and 
 7
 
 98 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 
 
 wars, remained unconquered by death. For he 
 bade farewell to the world rather than died ; he 
 passed as it were to his own country as if from 
 death to life, as if from a life of toil to glory. "^ He 
 was buried according to his own request in 
 Benedictine Canterbury, near to the shrine of the 
 martyred St. Thomas. Bishop Brunton presided 
 at the funeral service held for the repose of his 
 soul at his cathedral in Rochester. Amongst these 
 sermons we have the words which he spoke on the 
 occasion. As clerks, he says, coming from the 
 schools bring back with them letters of praise as 
 a testimony of their work ; " so this prince in the 
 school of this world laboured to merit the grade of 
 true princedom, and now by death, the finisher of 
 all things, has returned to the earth from which he 
 came. . . . Truly, the name of this prince is 
 worthy of all praise, and this for three reasons. It 
 is due first to his dignity ; secondly to his upright- 
 ness and honesty; and thirdly to his strict integ- 
 rity. As to the first, Cassiodorus in his Epistle 
 says, ' It is proper for a king or a prince to display 
 his honour in the cause of morality.' Every prince 
 should excel his subjects in power, in wisdom, and 
 in goodness, and thus present in himself a living 
 image of the Holy Trinity ; with his power he dis- 
 plays the attribute of the Father; with his wisdom 
 that of the Son ; and with his goodness that of the 
 Holy Spirit. Our Lord prince excelled in all these 
 
 • Chronicon Anglfe (Rolls edition, p. 88).
 
 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHEll. 99 
 
 three : his power appeared in his glorious victories, 
 for which we all so greatly praise him, as the 
 Scripture bids when it says : Laudemus vivos 
 potentes et gloriosos. 
 
 " In particular is this so in the victory of Poitiers, 
 in which, by the help of the God of justice, the 
 French army were scattered in a marvellous way 
 by the English power, and the French king taken 
 prisoner, although so great was the host of warriors 
 with the king of France, that ten Frenchmen, 
 fighting on their own soil, were opposed to every 
 Englishman. Thus, for this one deed alone, might 
 our Prince take to himself the saying of Malachy : 
 Magnum fuit nomen meum in gentihus — My name 
 was great among the nations." 
 
 " His wisdom has been manifested in the regula- 
 tion of his life, and in the prudence of his utter- 
 ances. He was no mere speaker of words, like the 
 lords of this time, but a doer of deeds, and he never 
 put his hand to any work that he did not finish it 
 in a praiseworthy manner. 
 
 " His goodness chiefly rests upon these three 
 points : where temporal lords commonly oppress 
 their tenants and disturb their dependents, this 
 prince ever assisted, and in numberless ways sus- 
 tained his followers. Where other lords are com- 
 monly so ungrateful to their servants, and others 
 who toil with them in the wars, that they take 
 from them or otherwise extort what they have 
 lawfully obtained, this prince was so liberal to all
 
 100 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 
 
 who worked with him or served him, that he en- 
 riched them and made himself correspondingly 
 poor. So, also, where the temporal lords are com- 
 monly so indevout that they hear Mass and divine 
 service only for form's sake, this prince was so 
 devoted to the Divine mysteries, that at the time 
 of their celebration he could be seen upon no busi- 
 ness. And because power without wisdom is like a 
 sword in the hands of a madman, and wisdom with- 
 out goodness should be counted as mere cunning, 
 this prince is worthy to be praised. He excelled 
 in power, in wisdom and in goodness so evidently 
 as to display in himself an image of the Holy 
 Trinity, whilst he loved the Holy Trinity above all 
 things. Born, as it is said, on the feast of the 
 Trinity, he paid the debt of nature on the same 
 holy festival, and chose as his burial place the 
 church of the Holy Trinity (at Canterbury), where 
 his memory and his praises shall be celebrated for 
 ever and ever." 
 
 The following year (1377), Bishop Brunton was 
 the spokesman of the clergy, at the coronation of 
 Richard II. The day following the ceremony, 
 July 17th, was appointed for a solemn procession 
 to pray for the king and the peace of the kingdom. 
 At this there were present all the prelates and 
 magnates who had been, at the ceremony the pre- 
 vious day. The historian, Walsingham, has left 
 us a brief account of the sermon which the bishop 
 of Rochester addressed to the populace of London
 
 A FORGOTTEN ENGLISH PREACHER. 101 
 
 on that occasion. In this short note we can recos:- 
 nise the same earnest speaker who appeals to us 
 even to-day so forcibly in the manuscript sermons 
 to which I have introduced the reader. He spoke 
 of the dissensions and discords which had so long 
 existed between the upper and lower classes, and 
 he showed, by many arguments, that such dis- 
 agreements must be displeasing to God, and hurtful 
 to the king^dom. " He exhorted the lords," the 
 chronicler tells us, "not in the future to levy such 
 unreasonable taxes on the people. He warned the 
 latter that when there was a reasonable cause in 
 which they ought to help their King and their 
 country in every way, they should do so patiently 
 and without murmuring, and that they should look 
 upon sedition as a matter of conscience." 
 
 It has been here possible to give merely examples 
 of the interesting and important sermons of this 
 eloquent fourteenth century preacher. In view of 
 the very many less important works, even from an 
 historical point of view, which have found their 
 way into the publications of our learned societies, 
 and even into the national historical series of the 
 Chronicles and Memorials^ published under the 
 direction of the Master of the Rolls, I may, 
 perhaps, be allowed to express a regret that these 
 discourses have not long ago been rescued from the 
 oblivion into which, apparently, they have fallen. 
 Bishop Brunton was an orator and an Englishman 
 who most certainly deserved to be better remem- 
 bered among his people than he has been.
 
 102 
 
 lY. 
 
 THE PRE -REFORMATION ENGLISH 
 BIBLE/ 
 
 TT^OE some years duty lias taken me almost daily 
 -■- through the King's Library at the British 
 Museum. There — reposing on cushions of purple 
 velvet, in a spacious shrine of polished oak, 
 marked " number 1 " — is a large and handsome 
 manuscript volume written in the fourteenth 
 century,^ which rightly attracts the attention of 
 many visitors. I have frequently stopped on my 
 way past this case to admire the well-written page 
 with its painted border, and again and again I have 
 read and re-read this legend, inscribed on a card 
 below : The English Bible, Wycliffe's translation. 
 Passing this interesting book, as I did often many 
 times a day, I conceived a desire to know something 
 more about it. One afternoon, therefore, taking 
 advantage of an hour free from other occupations, I 
 
 ' Reprinted from the Dublin Review, July, 1895. 
 2 Egerton MS., 617.
 
 THE FKE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 103 
 
 wrote a request for a personal interview in the 
 students' room, and a few minutes later had the 
 pleasure of finding the manuscript at my desk there. 
 The present paper is really the result of a train of 
 researches and considerations started at that inter- 
 view. 
 
 I suppose most of us have been taught to regard 
 with feelings of some awe, although hardly perhaps 
 with much reverence, the strange personality of 
 Wyclif. Whatever we may hold as Catholics as to 
 his unsound theological opinions, about which there 
 can be no doubt ; or as peace-loving citizens about 
 his wild and revolutionary social theories, on which 
 there can be, if possible, still less, few of us I fancy 
 would venture to grudge him the credit which 
 rightly attaches to what is known 'par excellence as 
 his work — the translation of the Bible into the 
 English language — or to deny him the title of 
 " Father of English prose " thereby so justly earned. 
 Why should he not have all his due, morning star 
 though he be of the glorious " Reformation " ? Is 
 it not written in all our school books and taught to 
 every child that the first vernacular translation of 
 God's Word was conceived and carried into execution 
 by this same John Wyclif in the fourteenth century ? 
 As an instance of what is believed on all hands upon 
 this matter, we may conveniently take the account 
 given by Mr. F. D. Matthew in his Preface to the 
 English Works of Wyclif, published by the Early 
 English Text Society :
 
 104 THE PRE-llEFOllMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 " Of Wyclif's other religious task, the translation of the Bible, 
 I need say little ; its consequences to English religion and to 
 the English tongue are generally recognised. We have but to 
 look at the long list of MSS., given at the beginning of Forshall 
 and Madden's great edition (170), and to remember that these 
 are but the gleanings, after time, neglect and the zeal of the 
 inquisitor have gathered in their harvests, and we see how 
 widely the translation was disseminated and how eagerly 
 men caught at the opportunity of reading the Bible in their 
 mother tongue."^ 
 
 Moreover, beyond the fact of Wyclif's connection 
 with this great work, as here stated, the actual 
 circumstances under which the task was in the end 
 accomplished are not unfrequentlj related with 
 considerable detail. Take, for example, the follow- 
 ing, given in a book on the Bible placed on the 
 shelves of the reference library in the Museum : 
 Wyclif's 
 
 " translation, which was finished in the year 1380, is sup- 
 posed to have occupied him amidst various interruptions for 
 many years. Some have imagined that this great work 
 employed the translator for ten years only, but Mr. Barber 
 with far greater probability has said : ' From an early period 
 
 'P. xvii. " As regards the general question of the supposed hos- 
 tility of the Church to the reading of Scripture, it may be useful to 
 quote the authority of Maitland : ' I have not found about it the arts 
 and engines of hostility, the blind hatred of half-barbarian kings, the 
 fanatical fury of their subjects, or the reckless antipathy of the Popes. 
 I do not recollect any instance in which it is recorded that the 
 Scriptures or any part of them were treated with indignity, or with 
 less thau profound respect. I know of no case in which they were 
 intentionally defaced or destroyed (except, as I have just stated, for 
 their rich covers), though 1 have met with and hope to produce 
 several instances in some of which they were the only, and in others 
 almost the only, books which were preserved through the revolutions 
 of the monasteries to which they belonged, and all the ravages of
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 105 
 
 of his life he had devoted his various learning and all the 
 powerful energies of his mind to effect this, and at length by 
 intense application on his own part, and with some assistance 
 from a few of the most learned of his followers, he had the 
 glory to complete a book, which alone would have been 
 sufficient (or at least ought) to have procured him the veneration 
 of his own age and the commendations of posterity.' " ^ 
 
 The same story is told by our masters in the 
 literature of this country : 
 
 *' We hear of it in the fourteenth century, this grand Word 
 of God (writes M. Taine). It quitted the learned schools, the 
 dead languages, the dusty shelves on which the clergy suffered 
 it to sleep, covered with a confusion of commentators and 
 fathers. Wyclif appeared and translated it like Luther and in 
 a spirit similar to Luther's.'"-^ 
 
 Nor is this implicit belief in the intimate connec- 
 tion between the pre-Reformation translation of 
 the Bible and Wyclif, the so-called " Reformer " of 
 the fourteenth century, confined to non-catholic 
 writers. Whatever may have been the case with 
 our earlier chroniclers and historians, in modern 
 days it is generally accepted. Lingard. for ex- 
 ample, in his History under the reign of Richard 
 II., states that : 
 
 fire, pillage, carelessness, or whatever else had swept away all the 
 others. I know (and in saying this I do not mean anything but to 
 profess my ignorance, for did i suppress such knowledge I might well 
 be charged with gross dishonesty) of nothing which would lead me to 
 suppose that any human craft or power was exercised to prevent the 
 reading, the multiplication, the diifusion of the Word of God'" 
 (Dark Ages, p. 252). 
 
 ' Christopher Anderson, Annals of the, English Bible, Introduction, 
 p. xxxvii. 
 
 -Taine, History of English Literature, i., p. 1G6.
 
 lOG THE PRE-REFURMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 Wy cliff made a new translation (of the sacred writings), 
 multiplied the copies with the aid of transcribers, and by his 
 poor priests recommended it to the perusal of their hearers. In 
 their hands it became an engine of wonderful power. 
 
 A similar statement will also be found in that useful 
 book, " The Catholic Dictionary." 
 
 We may take it then that the fact of Wyclif's 
 connection with the first translation of the Holy 
 Bible into English is generally, if not univer- 
 sally, accepted as true. I wonder how many out 
 of the hundreds that annually visit the old parish 
 church of Lutterworth, venture to criticise even 
 the evidence which is offered to them there ? At 
 the west end of Wyclif's old parish church may 
 still be seen a venerable oaken table, supported by 
 heraldic lions holding scrolls, which the credulous 
 visitor is told represent the Scriptures. At this 
 table sat Wyclif, when now more than five cen- 
 turies ago, he was engaged in the great work of 
 popularising the Word of God — at least, so said 
 the venerable verger, and I have little doubt that 
 on his testimony thousands of eyes have regarded 
 this relic with becoming awe and reverence. 
 
 Over and above this full and implicit belief in 
 Wyclif's connection with the English Bible, there 
 can be no doubt that most people are inclined to 
 think, with my friend the Lutterworth parish clerk, 
 that so determined were the English ecclesiastical 
 authorities to prevent the laity having the Scrip- 
 ture in the vernacular, that Wyclif's troubles were
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 107 
 
 entirely due to liis determination to furnish bis 
 countrymen with Grod's Word at all costs; and that 
 during the next century or more his Lollard followers 
 were hunted down and done to death chiefly, if not 
 altogether, for endeavouring to spread their master's 
 translated Scriptures. 
 
 Now, what are we to believe on the matter ? My 
 purpose in this paper is simply to examine into what 
 we really know on this question. To some the very 
 existence of the numerous manuscript copies of the 
 English Scriptures will be accounted sufficient 
 evidence of Wyclif's handiwork, just as the rocks 
 in the valley were to Herodotus proofs of the truth 
 of the legend that the Gods had hurled them from 
 the heights above. But " I know it to be true, for 
 I have seen the rocks," is evidence of a character 
 which, let us hope, is likely to satisfy few in these 
 days of scientific investigation. 
 
 The chief points for our consideration then may 
 be stated thus : 
 
 1. On what evidence is the first English trans- 
 lation of the Bible, or any part of it, ascribed to 
 Wyclif ? 
 
 2. What had Wyclif's immediate followers or 
 later adherents to say to the composition of the 
 work, or to its spread among the people generally P 
 
 3. What prohibitions, if any, existed against 
 the vernacular translations of the Sacred Scriptures 
 in England ? 
 
 4. Is there any evidence for thinking that an 
 orthodox catholic vernacular version ever existed ? 
 
 ^/
 
 108 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 At the outset of any inquiry into tlie connection 
 between Wyclii and the first English Bible, it is not 
 unimportant to recall the warning given by Professor 
 Shirley not too readily to credit the Reformer with 
 any English work of the period. " Half the 
 English religious tracts of the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries," he writes, in the Introduction 
 to the Fasciculus Zizaniorum, " have been assigned 
 to him in the absence of all external, and in 
 defiance of all internal evidence."^ That this is 
 really the case cannot for a moment be doubted by 
 any one who has made a personal examination of 
 the tracts written at this period. For a very long 
 time past it has been quite sufficient that a pious 
 tract of that age be in English, for it to be at once 
 and unhesitatingly ascribed to Wyclif or one of 
 his followers. It is perhaps hardly wonderful that 
 this should be the case when the position occupied 
 by Wyclif at this period in the history of England 
 be taken into account. His was perhaps the most 
 striking figure at a time when English began to be 
 the language of the nation. We are apt to forget 
 the fact that till past the middle of the fourteenth 
 century French was actually the tongue of the 
 Court and of the educated classes generally. Only 
 in 1363, for the first time, was the sitting of Parlia- 
 
 ' Introduction, p. xiii. Blunt, in his Plain Account of the English 
 Bible (p. 17), says: "The name of John Wycliffe has been used as a 
 peg to hang many a work upon with which the owner of the name had 
 nothing whatever to do."
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 109 
 
 ment opened by an English speecli, and in the 
 previous year only had it been enacted that the 
 pleadings in the courts of law might be in English 
 in place of the French which had hitherto been the 
 legal language ; but even then the record of the 
 proceedings was still to be in Latin. French, how- 
 ever, continued for almost a century longer to be 
 the language of the upper classes, and in it were 
 written the rolls of Parliament, and such wills 
 and deeds as were not in Latin. An explana- 
 tion of this retention of the French langfuasre is 
 of course to be found in the circumstances of the 
 time. Before the era of Wyclif consequently, the 
 reading public, that is to say, the higher classes or 
 the clergy, found in the Latin version of the Holy 
 Scriptures, or in such French versions as existed 
 in England, what they required. 
 
 Such, then, is the very simple explanation of the 
 non-existence of any English translation of the 
 entire Bible before the time when Wyclif came upon 
 the scene. In the first half of the fourteenth 
 century probably the only entire book of Scripture 
 which had appeared in English prose was the book 
 of Psalms translated by Richard E-olle, who died in 
 1349. This work he undertook at the request of 
 Dame Margaret Kirby, a recluse at Hampole. At 
 the same time, probably about 1320, another trans- 
 lation of the Psalms was made by William de 
 Schorham, a priest of Chart Sutton, near Leeds, in 
 the county of Kent.
 
 110 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 Besides these, however, there were the metrical 
 paraphrases of Genesis and Exodus, the Ormulum, 
 or poetical version of the Grospels and Acts of the 
 Apostles, the work of an Augustinian canon called 
 Orm, and more than one metrical translation of 
 the Psalms, approaching almost to a literal transla- 
 tion, all productions of the thirteenth century. It 
 is, moreover, of interest to remark that after the 
 Norman Conquest, whilst the wants of the educated 
 class were satisfied by the Norman-French transla- 
 tions, " the Anglo-Saxon version of the Gospels was 
 copied as late as the twelfth century."^ 
 
 Meagre as is the evidence, then, of vernacular 
 versions of the Sacred Scriptures in England, 
 previous to the close of the first half of the four- 
 teenth century, it is sufficient to show that the idea 
 did not originate with Wyclif, and was not the 
 outcome of his movement. The simple fact being 
 that it was not until his era that the need for 
 vernacular versions became pressing ; or, indeed, 
 that the undoubted establishment of the supre- 
 macy of English as the national language became 
 assured. The so-called Reformer of the four- 
 teenth century was fortunate in the time in which 
 he lived, so far as this is concerned ; and, if to 
 have ascribed to one much that does not of riofht 
 belong, is to be accounted as good fortune, then 
 Wyclif was indeed greatly blessed in being a great 
 personality in an age Avhen pens began to be busy 
 
 1 E. M. ThompsoQ, Wycliffe Exhibition (British Museum), p. xvii.
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. Ill 
 
 on English tracts and English translations, be- 
 cause on this account alone, as Sir E. Maunde 
 Thompson, the principal librarian of the British 
 Museum, well observes, " it is not surprising that 
 much has been ascribed to him which is due to 
 writers whose names have died." 
 
 It will perhaps be thought that this can hardly 
 with any possibility be the case in respect to so 
 important a matter as the translation of the Bible 
 into English. Yet what as a fact do we know about 
 it ? In the first place, the tendency to ascribe to 
 Wyclif what clearly is not his is directly illustrated 
 in regard to Biblical literature. The Commentary 
 on the Apocalypse, which probably dates from the 
 middle of the fourteenth century, and those on the 
 Gospels of SS. Matthew, Luke, and John, were all 
 believed to be the works of his pen, " although 
 recent criticism has rejected his claim to the author- 
 ship. "^ It is also, I believe, very questionable 
 whether the translation of Clement of Lanthony's 
 Harmony of the Gospels, known as One of Four, was 
 Wyclif's work at all, as is often asserted. The 
 version differs from the received Wyclifite text, 
 and the only reason apparently for ascribing it to 
 him is the existence in one copy of an Introduction, 
 in which the practice of reading the Scripture used 
 in the Church services in English after the Latin is 
 defended. The most that can be said is that loossihly 
 
 ^ Thompson, ut sup. p. xvii.
 
 112 THE PRE-REFORMATIOX ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 Wyclif may have been the translator, although 
 there exists no evidence that such was the case. 
 
 Passing now to the translation of the Bible itself, 
 it will probably be a surprise to many to learn 
 that only " the New Testament portion," as Sir E. 
 Maunde Thompson has pointed out, can be said 
 even " probably " to be due " to the hand of Wyclif 
 himself." The rest it is tolerably certain owes 
 nothing to his pen. Of the second, or revised 
 version of the whole Scriptures, the same high 
 authority says : " Wyclif himself, who above others 
 would be conscious of defects, may have commenced 
 the work of revision. He did not, however, live 
 to see it accomplished."^ So flir, then, as "Wyclif 
 personally is concerned, the New Testament portion 
 of the version, which goes under his name, is all that 
 can be said to be even probably his work. The part 
 taken by Wyclif's immediate followers will be 
 treated of later ; but first it is well to understand 
 precisely upon what evidence even the probability 
 of Wyclif's having had anything to do with the 
 translation of the New Testament is based. 
 
 The introduction to the edition of the Wyclifite 
 
 1 Thompson, ul sup. p. xix. Blunt, Plain Account nf the English Bible 
 (pp. 17-19) says : " There is scarcely any contemporary evidence, except 
 that of his bitterest opponent, that Wyclife was really the author of 
 this translation, but there can be no doubt that tradition is to be 
 believed when it associates his name with it. . . . The popular idea 
 of Wyclife sitting alone in his study at Lutterworth, and making a 
 complete new translation of the whole Bible with his own hands is one 
 of those many popular ideals which will not stand the test of historical 
 inquiry."
 
 THE PRE-REFOIIMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 113 
 
 Scriptures by Messrs. Forsliall and Madden may 
 be taken as gathering together every particle of 
 evidence on the matter. The learned editors, by 
 the way, hold, like Sir E. M. Thompson, that only 
 the Grospels can with any probability be assigned 
 to Wyclif himself. The evidence for this conclu- 
 sion is practically the following : 
 
 1. John Hus, writing in Bohemia against the 
 Carmelite John Stokes, about 1411, says: "It is 
 reported among the English that he (i.e., Wyclif) 
 translated the whole Bible from Latin into English."^ 
 It is now allowed by all that there is not even a 
 probability that he did anything of the kind. 
 
 2. Henry Knyghton, the Canon of Leicester, 
 complains that Wyclif had made the Gospel cheap 
 and common " by translating it from Latin into 
 English tongue." 
 
 3. In a letter addressed by Archbishop Arundel 
 and his suffragans of the Province of Canterbury to 
 Pope John XXIII. it is certainly implied that Wyclif 
 at least propagated his errors against the Christian 
 faith by the aid of a new translation of Holy Writ. 
 
 On the other hand, it is difficult to account for 
 the silence of Wyclif himself, who in none of his 
 undoubted writings, so far as I am aware, lays any 
 stress on, or, indeed, in any way advocates having 
 the Scriptures in the vernacular, except so far as 
 is implied in the claim that the Bible is the sole 
 guide in faith and practice for all This claim is 
 
 ' Hus, Historla et Monumenta, ed. 1558, p. cvii. 
 8
 
 114 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 advanced, it must be remembered, when copies 
 could not be multiplied by the printing press and 
 when the vast majority of the people would not 
 have been able to read them in any case. 
 
 Equally difficult is it to explain the silence of 
 contemporaries generally ; for with the exceptions 
 given, though many have written very fully about 
 "Wyclif and his errors, only one has noticed any 
 connection between him and any Scriptural trans- 
 lations. This is true even of his chief adversaries 
 who attack him so freely, and whose works against 
 him are so full, so complete, and so vohiminous. 
 jN'either Woodford, nor Walden, nor Whethamstede 
 so much as refer to Wyclif's translations, or to 
 any special desire upon his part to circulate God's 
 Word in English among the people. The ground, 
 I must confess, is not very firm or certain, and from 
 what we know of Wyclif's active, restless, and com- 
 bative disposition, and of his particularly specu- 
 lative turn of mind, we should hardly have been 
 disposed to assign to him so tedious a task as 
 that of mere translation. 
 
 We can now pass to the second point to be 
 considered in regard to this matter — namely. What 
 had Wyclif's immediate followers to say to the trans- 
 lation of the Bible ? We may conveniently again 
 take Sir E. Maunde Thompson's account as express- 
 ing what is known, or rather conjectured, on this 
 subject. It will be noticed how extremely vague 
 and uncertain the information at hand really is :
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 115 
 
 " In this {i.e., the translation of the Old Testament into 
 English), which was probably the work of Nicholas Hereford, 
 one of Wyclif's most ardent followers at Oxford, the Latin 
 was rendered too literally, to the disadvantage of the English 
 translation. Two MSS. of the old Testameat which are 
 preserved in the Bodleian Library are of the greatest value for 
 the history of the Wyclifite version. For one of these is the 
 original MS. of the translator ; and the other, which is trans- 
 cribed from it, has a note at the end assigning the work to 
 Hereford. It is remarkable that both MSS. break off abruptly 
 in Baruch iii. 20. Hence it may be inferred that the trans- 
 lator was interrupted in his work and never resumed it. When 
 we remember that Hereford was summoned before the Synod 
 in 1382, and that soon after he left England to appeal to Eome 
 we may fairly conjecture that it was at that date that he 
 suddenly ceased from his labours. The remaining portion of 
 the Old Testament may have been finished by Wyclif himself. 
 The whole of the Bible therefore (?) was probably completed 
 by the end of the year 1382." 
 
 This so far regards the earlier of the two trans- 
 lations which now go under the name of the 
 Wyclifite Scriptures. If the note ascribing the 
 version to JSTicholas Hereford is, as Forshall and 
 Madden testify, practically contemporary, it cer- 
 tainly furnishes us with strong evidence that 
 Hereford had a main hand in the translation of 
 the Old Testament. The English version of the 
 Psalms, it may be remarked, was certainly founded 
 on that of Hampole. It is of interest, con- 
 sequently, to know something more of this 
 Nicholas Hereford. He was a Doctor of Divinity 
 at Queen's College, Oxford, and with many other 
 members of the University, in the beginning of
 
 116 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 the Wyclifite movement, he took the side of the 
 Reformer, and was cited to appear before the 
 London Synod in 1382. Having been excommuni- 
 cated for holding dangerous opinions, he appealed 
 to the Pope ; but in 1391 he received letters of 
 protection from the King, and three years later his 
 character as a true son of the Church was so clearly 
 established that he received the office of Chancellor 
 of the diocese of Hereford, and subsequently also 
 became Treasurer. In 1417, however, he resigned 
 his dignities and became a Carthusian monk in the 
 Coventry Charterhouse, where he died. So far, 
 then, and no further does the evidence take us as 
 to the first translation. 
 
 Of the second or revised version, Sir E. M. 
 Thompson gives the following account: — 
 
 "A revised version was undertaken probably soon after. 
 The difference in style between the Old and New Testaments 
 was unsatisfactory, and Wyclif himself, who above others 
 would be conscious of defects, may have commenced the work 
 of revision. He did not, however, live to see it accomplished. 
 It was carried to a successful issue by John Purvey, his disciple 
 and the friend of his last days, and was given to the world 
 probably about the year 1388."^ 
 
 Now I believe that| practically the only direct 
 evidence to connect Purvey with this translation is 
 the fact that his name appears in a single copy of 
 the revision as a former owner. Like Hereford, 
 Purvey was an ardent follower of Wyclif, and lived 
 with him at Lutterworth during the later years of 
 
 ' Thompson, ut. sjip. p. xix.
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 117 
 
 his life.^ In 1400 Purvey made a public recantation 
 of liis opinions at St. Paul's, and he subsequently 
 seems to have held ecclesiastical preferment. He 
 was a man, apparently, of great ability, and 
 Walden, the chief English opponent of the 
 Wyclifites, speaks of him as " illustrious doctor 
 of great authority." 
 
 There is one circumstance about this second 
 translation which, according to the received idea, 
 was inspired by Wyclif, even if he did not actively 
 assist in the commencement of it, that requires 
 notice. In some few copies there exists a lengthy 
 prologue, which gives an account of the method 
 employed by the translator. Whatever the author 
 says of these methods is borne out in the actual 
 version ; and there is thus no room for doubting, 
 as Henry Wharton long ago observed, that the 
 prologues and the translation are by the same 
 hand. 
 
 ^ The position of Wyclif during his stay at Lutterworth has been 
 much misunderstood. Dean Hook says : " The modern biographers of 
 Wycliffe are diligent in attempting to prove that he was not guilty of 
 inconsistency, and that he did not recant. It is sufficient for us to 
 know that he certainly explained himself so as to render it possible for 
 the Archbishop and the other prelates, who did not like to deal harshly 
 with him, to permit him to depart in peace." (^Lwes of the Archbishops 
 of Cant., ii., p. 365.) 
 
 Collier {Eccl. Hist., ed. 1846, iii., p. 143) says that Wyclif must have 
 given "the Synod some sort of satisfaction. To mention some par- 
 ticulars of his apology, he owns himself willing to retract any error 
 that he may have been guilty of, and submit to the correction of Holy 
 Church."
 
 118 THE PRE-KEFORMATION ENGLISH BHiLE. 
 
 "For these reasons and othei" (wrote the author of the pre- 
 face), with common charity to save all men in our realm which 
 God will have saved/ a simple creature has translated the Bible 
 out of Latin into English. First, the simple creature had 
 much travail with divers fellows and helpers to gather many 
 old Bibles, and other doctors and common glosses, and to make 
 one Latin Bible some deal true ; and then to study it off the 
 new text with the gloss and other doctors as he might get, and 
 specially Lyra ^ on the Old Testament that helped him full 
 much in this work ; the third time to counsel with old gram- 
 marians and old divines of hard words and hard senses how 
 they might best be understood and translated; the fourth time 
 to translate as clearly as he could to the sense and to have 
 many good fellows and cunning at the correcting of the trans- 
 lation." 
 
 It would seem tolerably certain from the above 
 extract that the writer had no knowledge of any- 
 previous translation, and this is quite inconsistent 
 with the idea that it was the work of one so inti- 
 mately connected with Wyclif as Purvey was ; that 
 is, always supposing that Wyclif had any part in 
 the first version. It is hardly likely, moreover, 
 that the author of the second version, were he an 
 ardent follower of Wyclif, would have manifested 
 such scrupulous care to give the meaning of Holy 
 Writ according to the interjjretation of aj^proved 
 "doctors and common glosses." 
 
 We may now turn our attention to a brief 
 
 ' These words must of course be understood in the sense in which 
 they were used in those days, not according to the mind of the modern 
 Bible Society in these days of printing. 
 
 -At the top of fol. 1, Royal MSS., 1 C, ix., is the note "Here be- 
 ginneth ye bible playnly the text : and where that eny maner clause is 
 set in ye text and is not thereof Lire certifieth it plainly."
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE, 119 
 
 consideration of the attitude of the English eccle- 
 siastical authorities of the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 centuries towards a vernacular translation. It 
 might seem unnecessary, perhaps, in these en- 
 lightened days to say much upon this ; but the 
 same old stories are being repeated almost daily, 
 and writers of various kinds still indulge themselves 
 in the congenial task of embellishing cherished 
 traditions without caring to inquire too particularly, 
 or for that matter at all, into the grounds of their 
 belief. I have already referred to this attitude of 
 mind, and I may here take as an example the writer 
 of an article in the latest edition of the "Encyclo- 
 psedia Britannica " : 
 
 The work of translating the Holy Scriptures (he says) 
 assumed important dimensions mainly in connection with the 
 spirit of revolt against the Church of Eome, which rose in the 
 twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The study of the Bible in 
 the vulgar tongue was a characteristic of the Cathari and 
 Waldenses, and the whole weight of the Church's authority 
 was turned against the use of the Scriptures by the laity. The 
 prohibition of the Bible in the vulgar tongue, put forth at the 
 Council of Toulouse in a.d. 1229, was repeated by other 
 councils in various parts of the Church, but failed to quell 
 the rising interest in the Scriptures. In England and in 
 Bohemia the Bible was translated by the reforming parties of 
 Wyclif and Hus ; and the early presses of the fifteenth century 
 sent forth Bibles not only in Latin, but in French, Spanish, 
 Italian, German and Dutch. ^ 
 
 ' A writer h;is shown that in the collection of Bibles in the British 
 Museum, according to the Catalogue of 1892, there are eleven German 
 editions of the Bible, rangiog from 1466 to 1518 ; three Bohemian 
 editions between 1488 and 1506 ; one Dutch dated 1477 ; five French
 
 120 THK PRE-REFOllMATlUX ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 We are, of course, concerned chiefly with Eng- 
 land : but it may be useful to remark upon the 
 misleading tendency of this passage from the 
 *' Encyclopaedia." It has been shown beyond the 
 possibility of doubt that in Germany there existed 
 in the Middle Ages some seventy-two partial versions 
 of the vernacular Scriptures and fifty complete 
 translations, all emanating from Catholic sources. 
 The same numerous translations existed also in 
 France, with this difference, that, whilst most of the 
 French manuscripts are livi^es de luxe, in Germany 
 they appear to be small volumes, which point to 
 their use as aids to personal piety rather than as 
 books for mere library use. The same may also be 
 said of the printed editions. France, Spain, and 
 even Italy, each had editions of the vernacular 
 Scriptures in the fifteenth century, as some of the 
 earliest efforts of their national printing presses. 
 In Germany, indeed, no fewer than seventeen such 
 editions existed before the time of Luther, and still 
 people may yet be found who cling to the old fable 
 of the accidental finding of the Bible by the 
 German reformer ; ^ the truth being that there is 
 
 from 1510 to 1531 ; seven Italian between 1471 and 15o2. These, be 
 it remembered, are all Catholic in their origin and execution, and they 
 by no means represent all the editions published, but only such as the 
 English nation has secured for the British Museum collection (cf . 
 The Church and the Bible. Melbourne, 1896). 
 
 1 Luther's providential discovery of the Bible chained up to the 
 wall of his monastery is stUl, I fear, believed in very generally. 
 " There are no lies that die so hard as lies that have a controversial
 
 THE PRE-RP:F0RMATI0N ENGLISH BIBLE. 121 
 
 ample evidence to show that in making his transla- 
 tion of the Scriptures he had before him and was 
 actually using one of these Catholic versions/ 
 
 If England did not possess a pre-Reformation 
 printed Bible this was due to circumstances to which 
 I shall have to refer later. It should, moreover, be 
 borne in mind that its place was supplied by the 
 extremely popular " Golden Legend," which con- 
 tained nearly the whole of the Pentateuch and the 
 Gospel narrative in English, and which was issued 
 from the press by Caxton before the close of the 
 fifteenth century. 
 
 As to the attitude of the ecclesiastical authorities 
 in England towards the translated Scriptures, it is 
 believed on all hands, apparently, that it was un- 
 compromisingly hostile. To judge from our ordi- 
 nary history books we should certainly conclude 
 that what Mr. Mattliew calls " the zeal of the 
 inquisitor " prevented any large circulation of the 
 
 importance," says a writer in the Satiirdaij Revieiv (July 25, 1874). 
 And, he adds that ' ' the whole history of the Blessed Reformation, 
 from whatever side it is told, is a conspicuous illustration of this." 
 D'Aubigne, in his still popular History of the Reformation, boldly states 
 that Luther, after having studied two years in the University of 
 Erfurt, where " he had read the Philosophy of the Middle Ages in 
 the writing of Occam, Scotus, Bonaventura, and Thomas Aquinas," 
 had not known that there was such a book as the Bible in existence ! 
 Mr. Ward's so-called great historical (?) picture representing this 
 fable of Luther and the discovery of the Bible, has done much to 
 perpetuate the legend in this country. If report be correct, it was 
 purchased for some £3,000, and presented to the British and Foreign 
 Bible Society. 
 
 'Cf. Athenseim, December 22, 1883.
 
 122 THE PllE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 newly translated Word of (lod,^ Yet a strange 
 fact confronts us at the outset ; the number of 
 manuscript copies of English Bibles extant, hardly 
 falls short of that of the German and French 
 vernacular translations, which it is admitted were 
 allowed. It has, I believe, been hitherto taken for 
 granted without sufficient examination that the 
 authority of the Church in this country was directed 
 not merely to discourage the reading of the Bible 
 in English, but absolutely to forbid the making of 
 any translation whatever. But what, again, are 
 the facts ? As a proof of this distinct prohibition 
 of the Eno'lish Church, a constitution of the Council 
 of Oxford, in a.d. 1408, under Archbishop Arundel 
 is usually relied upon. This is what the Council 
 has to say upon the matter (Wilkins, iii., p. 317): 
 
 "It is dangerous, as Saint Jerome declares, to translate the 
 text of Holy Scripture out of one idiom into another, since 
 it is not easy in translations to preserve exactly the same 
 meaning in all things. . . We therefore command and ordain 
 that henceforth no one translate any text of Holy Scripture into 
 
 ^ A writer in the Academy (August 7, 1886), Mr. Karl Pearson, 
 remarks thus on the attitude of the Church towards the Vernacular 
 Bible : "The Catholic Church has quite enough to answer for . . . 
 but in the fifteenth century it certainly did not hold back the Bible 
 from the folk, and it gave them in the Vernacular a long series 
 of devotional works, which for language and religious sentiment 
 have never been surpassed. Indeed, we are inclined to think it 
 made a mistake in allowiog the masses such ready access to the 
 Bible. It ought to have recognised the Bible once for all as a work 
 absolutely unintelligible without a long course of historical study ; 
 and, so far as it was supposed to be inspired, very dangerous in the 
 hands of the ignorant."
 
 THE PRE-PtEFORMATIOX ENGLISH BIBLE. 12;5 
 
 English or any other language in a book {per viani lihri), 
 booklet or tract, and that no one read any book, booklet or 
 tract of this kind lately made in the time of the said John 
 Wyclif or since, or that hereafter may be made either in part 
 or wholly, either publicly or privately, under pain of excommu- 
 nication until such translation shall have been approved and 
 allowed by the diocesan of the place, or (if need be), by the Pro- 
 vincial Council. He who shall act otherwise let him be 
 punished as an abettor of heresy and error. "^ 
 
 Now it is obvious from the words of the decree 
 that in this there is no such absolute prohibition 
 as is generally represented. All that the fathers 
 of the Synod of Oxford forbade was unauthorised 
 translations. The fact that no mention is made of 
 any Wyclifite translation of the entire Bible is not 
 without its significance, and in view of the Lollard 
 errors then prevalent, and of the ease with wdiich 
 the text of Holy Scripture could be modified in the 
 translation in any and every MS., so as apparently 
 to be made to support those views, the ordinance 
 appears not only prudent and just, but necessary. 
 Even when the introduction of printing at last 
 rendered it possible to secure that all copies should 
 be identical, the version had still to be authorised. 
 
 ' Tlie headitig is VII. CONSTITUTIO, Ne quis tcxta S. Scrijituvfe trans- 
 feral in linyuam Aiiglicanam. In Ms. Lamh, it runs, Ne tcxtus aliqids 
 S. Scrip, in I'mguam A. de cetero transferatur per viain lihri ant tractatus. 
 Statuiuius igitur ct ordinamus, ut nemo deinceps aliqiiem ttxlum sacrse 
 ScripturiB auctoritate sua in linguam Anglicauam vel aliani transferat, 
 per viamlibri, libelli aut tractatus, nee legatur aliquis bujusmodi, liber 
 libellus aut tractatus jam noviter tempore dicti Jobaunis Wycliff, sive 
 citra compositus, sive in posterum componeudus in parte vel in toto, 
 publice vel occulte, sub, &c. (Wilkins, iii., p. ;)17.)
 
 V2i THE PRE-KEFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 Beyond this safeguarding of the text the words of 
 the decree seem to imply that proper authorisation 
 might be obtained, and even that an official ver- 
 nacular version of the Bible was seriously con- 
 templated. 
 
 In this sense, there can be no doubt, the Con- 
 stitution of Oxford was understood by those whom 
 at the time it concerned. The great canonist 
 Lyndewode in his gloss upon this passage says that 
 the prohibition does not extend to translations of 
 the Scripture made before the time of Wyclif, and 
 he assigns the following as a reason why more 
 recent translations must be approved, that : 
 
 " Although it be the plain text of Sacred Scripture that is so 
 translated, the translator may yet err in his translation, or if 
 he compose a book, booklet, or tract, he may, as in fact 
 frequently happens, intermingle false and erroneous teaching 
 with the truth." 
 
 Sir Thomas More takes the same view, and specially 
 denies that the church authorities in England had 
 ever prohibited the making of English translations 
 of the Bible or the reading of such when made. 
 
 " For as much (he writes) as it is dangerous to translate the 
 text of Scripture out of one tongue into another, as holy St. 
 [^ Jerome testifieth, for as much as in translation it is hard 
 always to keep the same sentence {i.e., sense) whole. It is, 
 I say, for these causes at a council holden at Oxenford 
 provided upon great pain, that no man should from thence- 
 forth translate into the English tongue, or any other language, 
 of his own authority, by way of book, libellus or treatise, nor no 
 man openly, or secretly, read any such book, &c., ncioly made 
 in the time of the said John Wyclif or since, &c., until such
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 125 
 
 should be approved. And this is a law that so many so long 
 have spoken of, and so few have in all this while sought to 
 seek (or find out) whether they say the truth or no. For I 
 trow that in this law you see nothing unreasonable. For it 
 neither forbiddeth the translations to be read that were already 
 well done of old before Wyclif's days, nor damneth his because 
 it was new, but because it was naught ; nor prohibiteth new 
 to be made, but provideth that they shall not be read if they 
 be made amiss, till they be by good examination amended." 
 
 In a subsequent place the same authority says 
 again that : 
 
 " When the clergy, in the Constitution Provincial before men- 
 tioned, agreed that the English Bibles should remain, which 
 were translated afore Wyclif's days, they consequently did 
 agree that to have the Bible in English was no hurt." ^ 
 
 Of course the further question arises as to the 
 action of the ecclesiastical authorities subsequent to 
 the Council of Oxford. On this matter one writer 
 says that : 
 
 "It a^Dpears by our Bishop's Eegisters, that by virtue of it {i.e., 
 the Constitution passed in the Council of Oxford) several men 
 and women were afterwards condemned to be burnt, and forced 
 to abjure, for the reading of the New Testament and learning 
 the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, &c., and teaching 
 
 1 Canon Dixon {Uist. of Church of England from die Abolition of die 
 lioinaii Jurisdiction, vol. i., p. 451) writes about the attitude of the 
 Ecclesiastical authorities to the vernacular Scriptures thus: "From 
 the earliest times the English Church or nation was possessed of the 
 sacred writings through the labours of monks and bishojis. . . At 
 length, hoAvever, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, the resolute 
 prelate Arundel passed, his famous Constitution to forbid any man 
 making new translations on his own account, or reading those that 
 had been made in or since the time of the lately deceased Wicliffe. 
 He thus proclaimed the war of authority against private versions. 
 
 y^
 
 126 THE PRE-REFOllMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 them to others, of Dr. "Wicklif's translation. This (the writer 
 adds) one of our Church historians (namely Fuller) called in 
 question the truth of, and argued against the facts, but, accord- 
 ing to our author, quite wrongly." 
 
 Yet wliat — as far as they can be ascertained — 
 are the facts ? In the first place let us confine 
 our attention to the manuscript versions of the 
 English Scriptures, before the question was com- 
 plicated by the attempted dissemination of the 
 printed copies of Tyndale's English Testament in 
 1526. 
 
 During the fifteenth century the examinations of 
 Lollards and those who were in any way suspected 
 of a leaning towards "VYyclifite doctrines were 
 numerous and were conducted upon well recognised 
 and well understood principles. The articles upon 
 which the suspected were to be questioned are well 
 known. In a copy to be seen among the Harleian 
 MSS.^ at the British Museum, the interrogatories 
 number thirty- four and embrace a great variety of 
 points of Christian faith and practice. The subject 
 
 though certainly he neither forbade the ancient versions to be used, 
 nor denied that an authorised version might be made." Dean Hook 
 had previously expressed the same opinion (Lives of the Arclihisliopn 
 of Canterhii)-)/, iii., p. 83). " It was not from hostility to a translated 
 Bible, considered abstractedly, that the conduct of Wicliff in trans- 
 lating it, was condemned. Long before his time there had been 
 translators of Holy Writ. There is no reason to suppose that any 
 objection would have been offered to the circulation of the Bible, if 
 the object of the translator had only been the edification and sanctifi- 
 cation of the reader. It was not till the designs of the Lollards 
 were discovered, that Wicliff's version was proscribed." 
 
 ' Harl. MS. 2179, fol. 157.
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 127 
 
 of the vernacular Scriptures is, however, not so 
 much as raised in any of thera. Further, in the 
 very large number of recorded examinations of 
 people charged with holding Lollard opinions, and 
 in the various abjurations made by all classes of 
 people condemned for their heretical opinions, which 
 I have been able personally to examine, 1 have met 
 with but one or at most two references to the Sacred 
 Scriptures in English. Take an example. En 1469 
 one John Turner of Sydney abjured, amongst other 
 errors of which he had been convicted, the follow- 
 ing : " that religious people from mere envy prevent 
 lay persons having the Holy Scripture translated 
 into the English language."^ As John Turner re- 
 tracted this opinion, we may take it that in some 
 sense or other the assertion was untrue. For the 
 rest, the many examinations, the records of which 
 exist, reveal the fact that the followers of Wyclif 
 could never have made any very special point of their 
 determination at all costs to have the Sacred Scrip- 
 tures in Euglish. Had they done so some evidence 
 would have been forthcoming in their examinations 
 before the ecclesiastical courts. This is, moreover, 
 exactly what we should expect, since in no well 
 recognised work of Wyclif is any stress laid upon 
 the Bible in the vernacular, beyond what some may 
 consider to be implied in his general claim to have 
 
 ' Foxe, "Acts and Monum eats " (ed. Townsend), iii., 539, records 
 an instance of Ralph Mungin, in 1416, being charged with having 
 " The Gospels of John Wyclif," whatever that may mean.
 
 128 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 the Scripture as his sole rule of faith, as I have 
 before pointed out. 
 
 It is frequently asserted that all copies of the 
 English Scriptures that fell into the hands of 
 the ecclesiastical authorities were destroyed. Sir 
 Thomas More says that " if this were done so, it 
 were not well done; but," he continues in reply to 
 one who had asserted this, " I believe that ye 
 mistake it." And taking up one case objected 
 against him in which the Bible of a Lollard prisoner 
 named Richard Hun, a London merchant, was said 
 to have been burnt in the Bishop of London's 
 prison, he says : 
 
 " This I remember well, that besides other things framed for 
 the favour of divers other heresies there were in the prologue of 
 that Bible such words touching the Blessed Sacrament as good 
 Christian men did abhor to hear and that gave the readers 
 undoubted occasion to think that the book was written after 
 Wyclif's copy and by him translated into our tongue, and that 
 this Bible was destroyed consequently not because it was in 
 English, but because it contained gross and manifest heresy." 
 
 This is borne out by the account given by Foxe, 
 who has printed from the Register of Fitzjames, 
 Bishop of London, thirteen articles extracted from 
 "the prologue" of Hun's " Great Book of the 
 Bible." These were read to the people from the 
 pulpit at Paul's Cross, and they were invited to 
 come and examine the Bible for themselves in order 
 to see that it contained these errors.^ If this list of 
 
 ^ Foxe, Acts and Monuments, iv. p. 186.
 
 THE PRE-RKFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 129 
 
 articles can be relied upon, and there is no reason to 
 distrust tlie account, it bears out Sir Thomas More's 
 contention that this " great Bible " must have been 
 a Lollard production, although we shall look in vain 
 in the edition of Wyclifite Scriptures published 
 by Forshall and Madden for any trace of these 
 errors. 
 
 Turning now from ecclesiastical to State records, 
 we find no mention whatever of the Bible, or indeed 
 of any part of the Scriptures, among the fairly 
 numerous entries regarding the works of Wyclif and 
 his Lollard followers recorded on the Patent and 
 Close Rolls. In the period from Richard 11. to 
 Henry VII. searches were frequently directed to be 
 made for the works of these reforming spirits, but 
 no mention whatever is made in the orders for such 
 quests of any translation of the Holy Scriptures. 
 The usual form is much as follows : The king 
 directs his sheriffs and other officers to search out 
 and seize " all books, booklets, cedulce and quaterni, 
 compiled either in English or Latin, containing con- 
 clusions or wicked opinions contrary to the teaching 
 of Holy Church." So careful were the authorities 
 to carry out these instructions, that on the first 
 intimation of any suspected centre of Lollard 
 opinions the house was to be thoroughly searched 
 to see " whether any English book, the reading of 
 which was forbidden, could be found." ^ 
 
 From the absolute silence of all records, both 
 
 • Harl. MS., 2179, f. 158.
 
 130 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 ecclesiastical and lay, as to any Wyclifite version of 
 the Bible, it may be fairly argued that the determi- 
 nation at all costs to spread the Scriptures in English 
 formed no part of the practical politics of the 
 Wyclifites. After this it need perhaps hardly be 
 added that the rigour with which they were treated 
 by Church and State authorities was in no sense 
 caused by this lofty aspiration to propagate the 
 gospel or any peculiar zeal manifested by them for 
 the written word of God. The misunderstanding — 
 to call it by its least objectionable name — is probably 
 caused by certain circumstances relating to the first 
 prints of the English Bible in the sixteenth century, 
 upon which it is well here to make some brief 
 remarks. 
 
 The difficulty first arose about 1526, when the 
 translation of the New Testament, which had been 
 made on the Continent by Tyndale, assisted by an 
 ex-friar, named William Roye, was first brought 
 into England. Their object, as described by the 
 learned Cochlasus, who professes to have first-hand 
 information, was that they " entertained hopes that 
 in a short time, through the New Testament, which 
 they had translated into English, all the people of 
 England would become Lutherans, whether the 
 king would or no." ^ "Whether this was the case 
 
 ' Green in his History (vol. ii., pp. 127-8), though by no means 
 unfriendly to Tyndale on this point, writes as follows: — "We can 
 only fairly judge their action by viewing it in the light of the time. 
 What Warham and More saw over the sea might well have turned
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 131 
 
 or not does not greatly matter, since it is allowed 
 on all hands that the version so printed was gravely, 
 if not grossly, corrupt. " In some editions of 
 Tyndale's New Testament" writes the Protestant 
 historian Blunt, " there is what must be regarded 
 as a wilful omission of the gravest possible 
 character, for it appears in several editions, and 
 has no shadow of justification in the G-reek or 
 Latin of the passage (1 Peter ii. 13, 14). Such an 
 error was quite enough " ^ to justify the suppression 
 of Tyndale's translation.^ That this infidelity was 
 in truth the real reason for its condemnation 
 clearly appears in the monition addressed by 
 
 them from a movement which seemed breaking down the very- 
 foundations of religion and society. Not only was the fabric of the 
 Church rent asunder, and the centre of Christian unity denounced as 
 ' Babylon, ' but the reform itself seemed passing into anarchy. Luther 
 was steadily moving onward from the denial of one Christian dogma 
 to that of another ; and what Luther still clung to, his followers were 
 ready to fling away. Meanwhile the religious excitement was kindling 
 wild dreams of social revolution, and men stood aghast at the horrors 
 of a peasant war which broke out in Germany. It was not, therefore, 
 as a mere translation of the Bible that Tyndale's work reached England. 
 It came as part of the Lutheran movement, and it bore the Lutheran 
 stamp in its version of ecclesiastical words. ' Church ' became 
 •congregation'; 'priest' was changed into 'elder.' We can hardly 
 wonder that More denounced the book as heretical, or that Warham 
 ordered it to be given up by all who possessed it." 
 
 'Blunt, History of the Reformation, p. 514. 
 
 2 The passage was " Submit yourselves unto all manner of ordinance 
 of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be unto rulers as unto them 
 that are sent of him," &c. The words " whether it be unto the 
 king as chief head " are left oat. (See ed. of 1531 and 1534, 
 Douce B., 226, 227, Bodl. Lib.)
 
 132 TIIE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 Tunstall, at that time Bishop of London, to the 
 archdeacons of his diocese: — 
 
 " Some sons of iniquity and ministers of the Lutlieran faction 
 (he writes) have craftily translated the Holy Gospels of God 
 into our vulgar English, and intermingled with their trans- 
 lation articles gravely heretical and opinions that are erroneous, 
 pernicious, pestilent, scandalous, and tending to seduce persons 
 of simple and unwary dispositions." 
 
 For this reason he orders that every copy of the 
 translation that could be found or detected should 
 be forthwith delivered up to his officers.^ 
 
 For some years after this ecclesiastical prohibition 
 of Tyndale's translation, demands were from time 
 to time made for an authorised printed version. It 
 is open to us in these days, perhaps, to regret that 
 no measure to satisfy this want was taken in due 
 time by the Catholic bishops ; but their reason 
 for delaying the production was the substantial 
 fear that it would only tend further to spread the 
 ever-increasing flood of erroneous opinions. As 
 the royal proclamation " against translating the 
 Bible in English, French, or Dutch," issued in 
 1530, says : — 
 
 " Having respect to the malignity of this present time, with 
 the inclination of the people to erroneous opinions, (it is 
 thought) that the translation of the New Testament and the 
 Old into the vulgar tongue of England would rather be the 
 occasion of continuance or increase of errors among the said 
 people than any benefit or commodity towards the weal of 
 
 Commission dated October 24th, 1526.
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 133 
 
 their souls, and that it shall l)e now more convenient that the 
 same people have the Holy Scriptm-es expounded to them 
 by preachers in their sermons as it hath been of old time 
 accustomed." 
 
 For these reasons all are ordered to deliver up 
 the copies of the printed Testament " corruptly 
 translated into the English tongue," the king 
 promising " to provide that the Holy Scripture shall 
 be, by great learned and Catholique persons, trans- 
 lated into the English tongue, if it shall then seem 
 to his Grace convenient to be." ^ 
 
 The postponement of this promised issue was not 
 decided upon without due consideration, and those 
 who lived at the time and may be considered as 
 likely best to understand the circumstances, 
 imputed no blame to Archbishop Warham and the 
 English ecclesiastical authorities generally for their 
 continued opposition to the scheme. Even Cranmer 
 himself says : "I can wel think them worthie 
 pardon, which at the comming abrode of the 
 
 ' Wilkins, Concilia, iii. 741. Canon Dixon says of this prohibi- 
 tion of Tyndale's Scriptures: "If the clergy had acted thus, simply 
 because they would have kept the people ignorant of the Word of 
 God, they would have been without excuse. But it was not so. 
 Every one of the little volumes containing portions of the Sacred Text 
 that was issued by Tyndale, contained also a prologue and notes, 
 written with such a hot fury of vituperation against the prelates and 
 clergy, the monks and friars, the rites and ceremonies of the Church 
 as . . . . was hardly likely to commend it to the favour of 
 tbose who were attacked. Moreover, the persons themselves were 
 held to be hostile to the Catholic Faith, as it was then understood, and 
 to convey the sense unskilfully or maliciously." — History of the Church 
 of England, i. pp. 451-2.
 
 134 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 Scripture doubted and drew backe." On this 
 point it has been well remarked, by the way, that 
 there was no such general desire to have a ver- 
 nacular Bible in England, as is commonly repre- 
 sented. Except among a small minority of inter- 
 ested persons, who saw in these translations a 
 possible means of spreading their " new doctrines," 
 England was certainly not a Bible-thirsty land/ 
 
 After this brief digression, which was necessary to 
 explain the attitude of the English bishops in the 
 early part of the sixteenth century towards the 
 printed vernacular Scriptures, we may return to 
 the question of the manuscript versions. We are 
 now in a position to consider the fourth point in 
 our inquiry, namely : What evidence, if any, is 
 there for the existence of a catholic and orthodox 
 version ? So far as I am aware, every one who 
 has dealt with the subject of the English Scriptures 
 has taken for granted that none existed. But in 
 the first place we are confronted with the distinct 
 assertion made by Sir Thomas More. Besides 
 expressly denying that there was any general 
 prohibition of the English Bible, he asserts that 
 there was an undoubted catholic edition well 
 known in his days. 
 
 " As for old translations, before Wyclif's time (he writes), 
 they remain lawful and be in some folks hands. Myself have 
 seen and can show you. Bibles, fair and old, in English 
 
 ' J. R. Dore, Old Bibles, p. 13.
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 135 
 
 which have been known and seen by the Bishop of the Diocese 
 and left in laymans hands and womens." 
 
 Again, in another place he says : — 
 
 " The whole Bible was long before his (i.e., Wyclif's) days by 
 virtuous and well learned men, translated into the English 
 tongue and by good and godly people with devotion, and 
 soberness, well and reverendly read." ' 
 
 It may, I think, be justly argued that, whether 
 Sir Thomas More may have been wrong or not in 
 assigning the manuscript copies of the version he 
 knew as the authorised catholic one, to a date prior 
 to the age of Wyclif, he cannot have been wrong 
 as to the fact of the existence in his days of well- 
 known and approved copies of the Bible in English. 
 
 This evidence is corroborated by Archbishop 
 Cranmer himself, who, in the prologue to the 
 second edition of the Great Bible, writes in defence 
 of the Scriptures in English thus : — 
 
 " If the matter should be tried by custom, we might also 
 allege custom for the reading of the Scripture in the vulgar 
 tongue, and prescribe the more ancient custom. For it is not 
 much above one hundred years ago, since Scripture hath not 
 been accustomed to be read in the vulgar tongue within this 
 realm, and many hundred years before that, it was trans- 
 lated and read in the Saxon's tongue, which at that time was 
 our mother tongue, and when this language waxed old and out 
 of common usage, because folk should not lack the fruit of 
 reading, it was again translated into the newer language 
 whereof yet also many copies remain and be daily found." 
 
 ^ Dyalogues (ed. 1630), p. 138.
 
 136 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 These copies, it is hardly necessary to remark, the 
 writer must have regarded as authorised trans- 
 lations, and it must have been one of these that he 
 took as the basis of his projected print of the Bible 
 in 1535, dividing it into nine or ten parts, which he 
 submitted to various bishops for their correction/ 
 
 The same testimony — so far, at least, as regards 
 the existence of vernacular versions of the Scrip- 
 tures independent of John "Wyclif's — is given by 
 Foxe, the martyrologist. In his dedication to 
 Archbishop Parker of his edition of the Saxon 
 Gospels he writes : 
 
 " If histories be well examiued we shall find both before the 
 Conquest and after, as well before Joha Wieklifi'e was born as 
 since, the whole body of the Scriptures was by sundry men 
 translated into our country tongue." 
 
 In the face, then, of so much distinct evidence, 
 it is extremely difficult not to admit the existence 
 in pre -Reformation days of some well-recognised 
 and perfectly orthodox version or versions of the 
 Holy Scriptures in English." 
 
 Now the question at once arises. What has 
 become of the catholic version known to Sir 
 Thomas More, Archbishop Cranmer, and John 
 Foxe ? If we are to accept the conclusions of those 
 
 ' Strype, Memorial of Archbishoj) Cranmer (ed. 1812), i., p. 42. 
 
 ' The writer of the article on the " Vernacular Bible " in the 
 Encyclopedia Britannica (9th ed.), viii., p. 381, seqq.^ suggests that 
 "the many copies spoken of by Cranmer disappeared in the destruc- 
 tion of the monastic libraries."
 
 THE PRE-REFOIIMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 137 
 
 wlio have hitherto written on the subject, we know 
 of but two English manuscript versions of the 
 entire Bible, those which are now called theLoll ard 
 Scriptures, and as such they are printed in Forsball 
 and Madclen's great edition. Of any other — that 
 is, any catholic version — we are asked to believe 
 that there is now no trace whatever. But, I would 
 ask, may it not be possible that under the influence 
 of a preconceived idea, people have gone off on a 
 wrong; scent altosf ether ? If we start with a 
 foregone conclusion, we can have little hope that 
 we shall read facts rightly, even though they be 
 as plain as the proverbial pikestaff, and in this 
 instance it appears to me that it has been assumed 
 altogether too hastily that the extant pre- 
 Keformation Scriptures could not have been 
 catholic, and must have been and were the 
 outcome of the Wyclifite movement. For myself, 
 I may say, that after much consideration, I have 
 been led to the belief that facts cannot be made to 
 square with this theory as to the origin of these 
 versions of the English Bible. Startling as the 
 assertion may seem to many, I have come to the 
 conclusion that the versions, now known as the 
 Wyclifite Scriptures, are, in reality, only authorised 
 catholic translations of the Bible. Every circum- 
 stance that can be gleaned regarding these manu- 
 scripts strengthens this belief. Whether Hereford, 
 or Purvey possibly (for at best we are, so far as 
 this is concerned, dealing with possibilities), may
 
 138 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 have liad any part in the translation does not, after 
 all, so much concern us. Our chief interest is not 
 with the translator, but with the work itself, and 
 with the question whether it may fairly be claimed 
 as the semi-official and certainly perfectly orthodox 
 translation of the English Church ; or whether, on 
 the other hand, it must be regarded as a version 
 secretly executed, clandestinely circulated, and still 
 more stealthily studied, by the Lollard followers of 
 Wyclif. This is the main point of interest. 
 
 Now, I hardly think it can be questioned that if 
 we were to rely upon the testimony of our writers 
 of history, and our so-called masters of English 
 literature, we must accept the latter alternative, 
 and reo^ard the Eno^lish Bible as the book which the 
 Lollard followers of Wyclif made, multiplied and 
 studied, and for which they died. Take the de- 
 scription in Taine's History of English Literature : 
 
 " Fancy (he writes) these brave spirits, simple and strong 
 souls, who began to read at night in their shops, by candle- 
 light, for they were shopkeepers, tailors, skinners and bakers, 
 who with some men of letters began to read and then to 
 believe, and finally got themselves burned." ^ 
 
 So far as I have been able to discover, however, 
 from an examination of the two texts, there is 
 nothing inconsistent with their having been the 
 work of perfectly orthodox sons of Holy Church. 
 In no place where (had the version been the work 
 of Lollard pens) we might have looked for texts 
 
 ' Taiue, History of English Literature, i. p. 167.
 
 THE PIIE-KEFORMATION ENGLISH BIIiLE. 139 
 
 strained or glossed to suit their well-known conclu- 
 sions, do any such appear. Sir Thomas More 
 indeed, as we have already seen, speaks of a Bible 
 that was destroyed because it contained " such 
 words touching the Blessed Sacrament " that people 
 took it for a Lollard Bible. This is quite what we 
 should have expected, seeing that some verses, 
 written about the reign of Henry YI., are inserted 
 into a copy of Hampole's Psalter, charging the 
 Lollards with having interpolated their special 
 teaching into this work so as to claim for it the 
 authority of the holy hermit. Apparently all such 
 garbled Scriptures must have fallen into the hands 
 of those officials, who rigorously sought for any 
 scrap of Wyclifite writing, since such Bibles are 
 not now known to exist. 
 
 I cannot but think that an unbiassed mind which 
 will reflect upon the matter must see how impossible 
 it was for a poor persecuted sect like the Lollards, 
 for the writings of which frequent and rigid searches 
 were made, to produce the Bibles now ascribed to 
 them. Many of these copies, as we may see for 
 ourselves, are written with great care and exactness, 
 and illuminated with coloured borders executed by 
 skilful artists. These must surely have been the 
 productions of freer hands than the followers of 
 Wyclif ever were allowed to have in England. The 
 learned editors of the so-called Wyclifite Scriptures, 
 Messrs. Forshall and Madden, apparently hardly ap- 
 preciated the force of this when they wrote :
 
 140 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 " The new copies passed into the hands of all classes of the 
 people. Even the Sovereign himself and the princes of the blood 
 royal did not disdain to possess them. The volumes were in 
 many instances executed in a costly manner, and were usually 
 written upon vellum by experienced scribes. This implies not 
 merely the value which was set upon the Word of God, but also 
 that the scribes found a reward for their labours among the 
 wealthier part of the community."^ 
 
 This is undoubtedly the case, and it is to be ex- 
 plained only on the supposition that the English 
 Bible thus widely circulated was in truth the 
 authorised catholic version, and was in the pos- 
 session of its various owners with the thorough 
 approval of the ecclesiastical authorities. Is it 
 likely that men of position, of unquestioned ortho- 
 doxy and of undoubted hostility to Lollard aims and 
 opinions, would have cherished the possession of 
 copies of a Wyclifite Bible ? When we find, for 
 example, that a finely-executed vellum folio copy of 
 the Scriptures, with illuminated borders, was not only 
 the property of King Henry VI. — a monarch, by 
 the way, of saintly life and " enthusiastic in the 
 cause of religion " — but that he bestowed it upon 
 the monks of the London Charterhouse, we cannot 
 but acknowledg^e that this must have been known 
 as the perfectly orthodox translation of the English 
 Church. 
 
 The same version is found to have had a place in 
 the royal library of Henry VIL In this copy not 
 
 ' Introduction, p. xxxii.
 
 THE PRE-REFOKMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 141 
 
 only is tlie excellent character of the workmanship 
 altogether inconsistent with the notion that it is 
 from the pen of some poor hunted adherent of 
 Wyclif, but a leaf supplied at the beginning, in a 
 late fifteenth century hand, is illuminated with the 
 royal arms, the portcullis and red and white Tudor 
 roses. Moreover, curiously enough, this border 
 surrounds the prologue, " Five and Twenty Books '* 
 so freely attributed to Wyclif. 
 
 A third copy of the English Scriptures — the very 
 manuscript now displayed in the British Museum 
 as Wyclif's translation, to which I referred at the 
 commencement of this paper — formerly belonged to 
 Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, the firm 
 friend and ally of that uncompromising opponent 
 of Lollard opinions, Archbishop Arundel. Indeed, 
 the inventory of the Duke of Grloucester's goods, 
 now in the Record Office, shows that, besides " the 
 Bible in English in two big volumes bound in red 
 leather," he possessed in his by no means extensive 
 library an English Psalter and two books of the 
 Gospels in English.^ Another copy of this version 
 of the New Testament was the property, and has 
 
 ' K. O. Exch. Q. R. Escheator's Accts. 7 7_ Xhe celebrated bibli- 
 cal scholar, Dr. Adam Clarke, who formerly possessed this manuscript, 
 considered that it was certainly not Wyclifite in origin. The Thomas 
 of Woodstock for whom the book was illuminated was the youngest son 
 of Edward III., and was murdered at Calais in 1397. " How long 
 before 1397 this work was written is uncertain," writes Dr. Clarke, 
 " but it must have been in the very nature of things several years 
 before this time." (Townley, Biblical Literature, ii., p. 44.)
 
 142 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 the autograph, of Humphrey — " the good Duke 
 Humphrey " — of Gloucester, the generous benefactor 
 of St. Albans, and the constant friend of its abbot, 
 "Whethamstede, whose hostility to Lollard doctrines 
 is well known. 
 
 Another point whicli must not be overlooked is 
 the good catholic company in whicli this version of 
 the Scriptures, or parts of it, are occasionally found. 
 Thus, in a volume in the Museum collection we find 
 not only the lessons from the Old Testament read in 
 the Mass book, together with the table of Epistles 
 and Gospels, but a tract by Richard RoUe, " of 
 amendinge of mannes life, or ' the rule of lifing,' " 
 and another on contemplative life and love of God.^ 
 Another copy of TJie Boole of Tohit, in the later 
 version, which is followed by the translated Magni- 
 ficat and Benedichis, has also in the volume some 
 tracts or meditations, and what is called the " Pistle 
 of the Holy Sussanne." With this is bound, possibly 
 at a later date, Richard Rolle of Hampole's Craft 
 of Deying. The catholic origin of this volume is 
 borne out fully by the fact that it belonged to the 
 abbey of Barking in Essex. Indeed, it appears 
 to liave been written by one of the nuns named 
 Matilda Hayle, as the note Iste liber constat Matilde 
 Hayle de Berldnge is in the same hand as the body 
 of the book, which, by the way, subsequently be- 
 longed to another nun named Mary Hastynges.^ 
 
 A copy of the English Bible, now at Lambeth, 
 
 ' Lansdowne MS., 455. ^ Add. MS., 10,596.
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 143 
 
 formerly belonged to Bishop Bonner, that Malleus 
 hereticorum, and another, now at Cambridge, to 
 William Weston, the Prior of St. John's, Clerken- 
 well. 
 
 In like manner a copy of the English translation 
 of the New Testament, now attributed to Wyclif, 
 among the manuscripts of the Duke of Northumber- 
 land at Alnwick, was originally, and probably not 
 long after the volume was written, the property of 
 another religious house. On the last page is the 
 name of Katerina Methwold, Monacha, Katherine 
 Methwold, the nun. 
 
 There are, moreover, instances of the English 
 Bible — the production, the secret production, of the 
 Lollard scribes — that perilous piece of property to 
 possess, as we are asked to believe — there are 
 instances of this being bequeathed by wills publicly 
 proved in the public courts of the Bishop. Others, 
 not less publicly, are bestowed upon churches or 
 given to religious houses. It is, of course, obvious 
 that this could never have been done had the volume 
 so left been the work of Wyclif or of his followers, 
 for it would then indeed have been, as a modern 
 writer describes the Wyclifite books, " a perilous 
 piece of property." Thus, before the close of the 
 fourteenth century, namely, in 1394, a copy of the 
 Gospels in English was bequeathed to the chantry 
 of St. Nicholas, in the Church of Holy Trinity, 
 York, by John Hopton, Chaplain there. ^ Fancy 
 
 ^ Testamenta Ebor, Surtees Soc, i., 196.
 
 144 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 what this means on the theory that the English 
 Scriptures were the work of Wyclifite hands ! It 
 means nothing less than that a catholic priest 
 publicly bequeaths, in a will proved in his Bishop's 
 court, to a catholic church, for the use of catholic 
 people, the proscribed work of some member of an 
 heretical sect. 
 
 Again, in 1404, Philip Baunt, a Bristol merchant, 
 leaves by will a copy of the Gospels in English to 
 a priest named John Canterbury, attached to St. 
 Mary Redcliffe's Church. And — not to mention 
 many cases in wills of the period, where it is pro- 
 bable that the Bible left was an English copy — 
 there is an instance of a bequest of such a Bible in 
 the will of a priest, William Re veto ur, of York, in 
 1446. The most interesting gift of an English New 
 Testament, as a precious and pious donation to the 
 Church, is that of the copy now in the possession of 
 Lord Ashburnham,^ which in 1517 was given to the 
 Convent of our Lady of Syon by Lady Danvers. 
 On the last page is the following dedication : — 
 
 "Good. . . . Mr. Confessor of Sion with his brethren. Dame 
 Anne Danvers widowe, sometyme wyffe to Sir Wilham Danvers, 
 knyght (whose soul God assoyle) hathe gevj^n this present 
 Booke unto Mastre Confessor and his Brethren enclosed in 
 Syon, entendyng therby not oonly the honor laude and preyse 
 to Almighty God but also that she the moore tenderly may be 
 committed unto the mercy of God. 
 
 ' Ashburnhain MS., Appendix xix. (Xo. 15G in Forshall and Madden). 
 The text of this MS. was printed for Mr. Lea Wilson by Pickering, in 
 
 1848.
 
 THE niE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 145 
 
 The aforseid Dame Anne Danvers bathe delyvered this booke 
 by the hands of her son Thomas Danvers on Mydde Lent 
 Sunday in the 8th yere of our lord King Henry VIII. and in 
 the yere of our Lord God a M. fyve hundred and seventeene. 
 Deo gracias." 
 
 To all who know what Syon was : how for a 
 century past it had represented the very pink of 
 pious orthodoxy and was the centre of the devotional 
 life of the period ; how the practical piety of its 
 sisters was fostered by the highest ascetical teaching 
 of Richard Whj^ford and others ; to all who under- 
 stand this it must appear as nothing less than the 
 height of absurdity to suppose that any lady would 
 insult its inmates by offering for their acceptance an 
 heretical version of the English Bible. 
 
 And, whilst on the subject of Syon, attention 
 must be called to another very important piece of 
 evidence for the existence of a Catholic version of 
 the Scriptures. It is contained in a devotional book, 
 written probably not later than the year 1450 for 
 the use of these sisters of Syon, and printed " at the 
 desyre and instaunce of the worshypfull and devoute 
 lady abbesse ^ of the worshypf ul Monastery of Syon 
 and the revendre fadre in God ^ general confessowre 
 of the same" about the year 1530. It is called 
 The Myrroure of our Lady very necessary for religious 
 persons, and it is practically a translation of their 
 Church services into English to enable the nuns the 
 
 ' Dame Agnes Jordan, the last abbess. 
 ^ John Fewterer, who also survived the Dissolution. 
 10
 
 146 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 better to understand their daily ecclesiastical duties. 
 The point to which attention is directed is the 
 following paragraph in the " first prologue," written, 
 remember, not later than the middle of the fifteenth 
 century: " Of psalms I have drawn (i.e., translated) 
 but fewe," says the author, " for ye may have them 
 of Richard Hampoules drawinge, and out of Englysshe 
 bibles if ye have lysence thereto." ^ It is not very 
 likely th.at these pious sisters would have been able 
 to get their psalms from Wyclifite versions. 
 
 It is clear that the compiler of this book of 
 devotions did in fact obtain them on imprimatur of 
 authority for the translations of various quotations 
 from Scripture in the volume. He writes : — 
 
 " And for as much as it is forbidden under pain of cursing 
 that any man shoukl have or translate any text of Holy 
 Scripture into English without licence of the Bishop diocesan ; 
 and in diverse places of your service are such texts of Holy 
 Scripture. Therefore I asked and have licence of our Bishop 
 to translate such things into English to your ghostly comfort 
 and profit, so both our conscience in translating and yours in 
 the having may be more sure and clear in our Lord's worship, 
 which may it keep us in His grace and bring us to His bliss." 
 Amen.^ 
 
 1 "TheMyrroure of oure Ladye" (ed. J. H. Blunt), E. Eng. Text 
 Soc, p. 3. 
 
 - Ibid., p. 71. The editor of The Myrroure upon this passage notes : 
 " This reference to English Bibles seems to imply that they were very 
 common in the middle of the fifteenth century. These may have been 
 the copies of the Wyclifite version, but it seems unlikely that the 
 Sisters would have received 'licence 'to read these, especially as 'de 
 quibus cavendum est ' is written against some works of Wyclif in the 
 Library Catalogue preserved at C.C. Coll. Cambridge." After quoting
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 117 
 
 To pass to another point — it has been remarked 
 npon as somewhat strange that in Wyclif 's sermons, 
 which seem to have been written at the close of his 
 hfe, the Scripture quotations are in no case made 
 from the version now declared to be his. A 
 preacher, of course, may have turned the Latin into 
 English at the moment, but in his case this is hardly- 
 likely, if, as we are given to understand, the 
 popularising of his reputed version was the great 
 object of his life. Moreover, what may well have 
 been the case in spoken discourses would scarcely 
 have been adhered to in written and formal sermons. 
 Beyond this the same is true of every work reputed 
 to be Wyclif s. In no instance does he quote his 
 own supposed version. On the other hand it is at 
 least most remarkable that the Commentary upon 
 the Apocalypse, formerly attributed to Wyclif, but 
 which is now acknowledged not to be from his pen, 
 has the ordinary version for its text. 
 
 Further, it is not without significance that Bishop 
 Pecock in his " Repressor," a work written osten- 
 sibly against the position of the Lollards, and their 
 claim to make the Sacred Scripture their sole and 
 sufficient guide in all things, not only uses what is 
 now called the Wyclifite version of the Bible in all 
 his quotations, but throughout his work evidently 
 
 the Oxford Constitution of 1408, and Lyndewood's Gloss, Mr. Blunt 
 adds : " As his words were written about the same time as those to which 
 the note refers, they seem to corroborate the evidence given in the 
 Mirror, that in the earlier half of the fifteenth century English Bibles 
 were freely used by the people." (Notes on The Myrroure, p. 310).
 
 148 THE PRE-REFOPtMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 takes for granted that the lay-folk generally had 
 the Scriptures with authority, and nowhere blames 
 the fact. Moreover, he is careful to explain that he 
 only speaks of the Lollards as " Bibleraen," because 
 of their wish to found every law of faith and morals 
 on the Written Word. 
 
 " This what I have now said (he concludes) of and to Bible 
 men I have not said under this intent and meaning that I 
 should feel to be unlawful (for) laymen for to read in the Bible 
 and for to study and learn therein, with help and counsel of 
 wise and well learned clerks and with licence of their governor 
 and bishop." ^ 
 
 And here we may note that this authorisation of 
 the Scriptures, to which several references have 
 been made, was in fact sometimes at least given. 
 The Council of Oxford had laid down the law that 
 the version must be " approved and allowed " by 
 those in authority. Bishop Pecock, in the passage 
 above quoted, speaks of this "licence of their 
 governor and bishop," and Sir Thomas More 
 declares that such approbation might be obtained 
 without difficulty. When the Hours B. Y. M., 
 which were printed before a.d. 1 500, were first 
 translated about thirty years previously, the trans- 
 lator informs us that for his version of the Psalms 
 he " asked and obtained the necessary permission 
 from his bishop."" Another example of what ap- 
 parently is an approbation is to be seen in one of 
 
 1 R. Pecock, The Repressor of over much, Blaming of the Clergy (ed. 
 Rolls Series), i. ]}. 37. 
 '■^ " Speculum B. Virginis," in Wharton, Auctarium, p. 448.
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 149 
 
 Lord Asbburnliam's manuscript copies of the New 
 Testament. The writing I refer to is unfortunately 
 hardly legible. It is, however, certainly to be 
 dated in the fifteenth century, and probably is 
 hardly much later than the writing in the main part 
 of the book. What can be read runs as follows : 
 " A lytel boke of — £8. 6s. 8d., and it (was written by) 
 a holy man (and) was overseyne and read by Dr. 
 Thomas Ebb-all and Dr. Ryve .... ray modir 
 bought it." We have here then a mere chance 
 record of the fact that this particular copy of the 
 New Testament had been " overseen and read " by 
 two learned doctors, deputed, it is hardly too much 
 to conclude, by rightful authority for the pur- 
 pose. This, by the way, is of course a copy of 
 the later of the two versions now known as 
 Wyclifite Scriptures. 
 
 To this instance we may add that the historian 
 Strype records of Archbishop Arundel that he " was 
 for the translation of the Scriptures into the vulgar 
 tongue, and for the laity's use thereof." This he de- 
 duces from the testimony of an old manuscript 
 written apparently at the time of the death of Anne 
 of Bohemia, the consort of King Richard the II. in 
 1392. 
 
 " xllso the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas of Arundel, 
 that now is (runs the record), preached a sermon at Westmin- 
 ster, whereat there were many hundred people, at the burying of 
 Queen Anne (on whose soul God have mercy), and in his com- 
 mendation of her he said that it was more joy of her than of 
 any woman that he knew. For notwithstanding that she was
 
 150 THE PRE-KEFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 an alien born she had in English all the four Gospels, with the 
 doctors upon them. And he said that she sent them unto him, 
 and he said that they were good and true and commended her, 
 in that she was so great a Lady and also an alien and would 
 study such holy, such virtuous books." ^ 
 
 There is one curious piece of evidence whicli 
 seems to point to the conclusion that the archbishops 
 and clergy of England at one time actually proposed 
 that Parliament should sanction an approved ver- 
 nacular translation. The point in question is re- 
 ferred to in a strange old contemporary tract 
 printed by John Foxe. The writer there says : — 
 
 " Also it is known to many men that into a Parliament, in the 
 time of King Kichard II., there was put a Bible, by the assent 
 of the archbishops and of the clergy, to annul the Bible at that 
 time translated into English with other English books of the 
 exposition of the Gospel." 
 
 Apparently this project was opposed by John of 
 Graunt, and it came to nothing. I am, of course, 
 aware that Foxe and subsequent writers have spoken 
 of this as a Bill introduced by Archbishop Arundel 
 to put down the newly-translated English Bible, but 
 the tract clearly says it was a " Bible " proposed by 
 the clergy to take the place of some unauthorised 
 version, and the whole argument of the writer of 
 the tract requires that this should be his meaning.^ 
 
 Another not unimportant point in the evidence 
 which goes to show that the vernacular versions, 
 
 ^ Strype, Memorials of Cranvier (ed. 1812), i. p 3. 
 
 2 Foxe, Acts and Monuments (ed. Townsend), iv. p. 674,
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 151 
 
 now known as Wyclifite, are in reality perfectly 
 orthodox and authorised, is the fact that most of the 
 copies now extant are intended for use in the 
 church. 
 
 Lewis long ago noticed^ that the Anglo-Saxon 
 translation was divided into sections over which 
 was placed a rubric directing that it should be 
 read. For instance, Matthew i. 18 is prefaced by 
 the following in Anglo-Saxon : " This Grospel is 
 to be read on Midwinter's mass eve." This, that 
 writer says, " I think a good proof that at this time 
 the Holy Scriptures were read in the public service 
 of the Church in a language which the people under- 
 stood." He failed, however, to remark that the 
 same may be said of the English version. Most of 
 the extant copies will be found marked for the 
 Lessons, Epistles and Gospels, and a good many 
 are prefaced by a table " or rule that telleth " in 
 which chapters of the Bible " ye maye fynde the 
 lessons, &c., that ben read in the chirche all the 
 yeer aftir the use of Salisbirie.""" Some of the 
 manuscripts are in fact merely books of the Epistles 
 and Gospels from the new Testament in this English 
 version to which, that there might be no doubt 
 about their use in connection with church purposes, 
 there are added the portions of the Old Testament 
 read at times in the mass. To some copies of the 
 
 ' History of the English Translations of the Bible, p. 10. 
 2 Harl. MS., 4890, f. 1.
 
 152 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 entire New Testament these portions of the Old 
 have been added. One copy of the older version 
 (Harl. MS., 1710) is an excellent example of a 
 fourteenth-century Gospel book, giving the parts of 
 Scripture " as they ben red in the messe booke after 
 ye use of Salisberi." Its actual connection with 
 the Church services is further shown by its giving, 
 on folio 15, "Ye Grospel at Matynes on twelfth 
 day," and, on folio 9, a long rubric as to the 
 chaunting of a portion of the office : ' Ye first 
 verse and ye last by two togidere, but all ye myddel 
 verse one syngeth only." This book belonged, by 
 the way, to " Sir Roger Lyne, chantry prest of 
 Saynt Swythyn's at London Stone." And this, 
 says the maker of the Harleian Catalogue, " is a 
 sort of proof that in times of Popery, the reading 
 of God's Word in our mother tongue was not 
 denied by authority." 
 
 I am aware that it is not generally considered 
 probable that the Epistles and Gospels were read in 
 the vernacular as well as in Latin at the mass. But 
 I cannot myself doubt that this was done, frequently 
 if not ordinarily. Such a course so obviously ad- 
 vantageous, was, as we know, advised by Bishop 
 Grosseteste, not to mention others, and was at least 
 sometimes done, as we know from specific instances. 
 The existence of prones on the Gospels of Sundays 
 and Feast days — some of them very early — in 
 which the whole of the Gospel is translated and 
 afterwards explained, is well known, and to me
 
 THE FRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 153 
 
 these marked copies of the English Scriptures and 
 EngHsh Epistle and Gospel books are additional 
 proof that the practice was more common than 
 some writers are inclined to allow. 
 
 There is not even a shadow of probability in the 
 suggestion that Wyclifite Scriptures would be marked 
 for the Church Service for the use of his " poor 
 priests." The truth is that these same "poor 
 priests " had in fact little claim to any sacerdotal 
 character. They are described by Professor Shirley 
 as mere lay preachers, both "coarse and ignorant."^ 
 The few priests who were attracted at the begin- 
 ning of the " Reformer's " career by his bold and 
 withal brilliant attacks upon the ecclesiastical order, 
 quickly returned to the bosom of the Church. " In 
 this, therefore," writes the same author, " the most 
 essential point of his whole system (independence 
 of authority) he was unable to count on retaining 
 the support of any but a few presumptuous fanatics, 
 the ' fools who rushed in where ansfels fear to 
 tread.' " ^ The assumption, then, that these copies 
 of the vernacular Bible were marked with the 
 passages of Holy Scripture used in the Sarum 
 Missal, to assist the Lollard preachers is, in view 
 of these laymen having no connection whatever 
 with the Church or its services, of their having no 
 special veneration, to put it mildly, for the mass in 
 general, or " the use of Salisbury " m particular, 
 
 ' Fasciculus Zizaniorum, Introduction, p. xl. 
 ^ Ihid., p. Ixvii.
 
 154 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 without the slightest foundation in fact. Lechler, 
 in his life of Wyclif, allows that the ' Reformer's ' 
 references to "Apostolic men," or " Evangehcal 
 men," in his later sermons is a proof that the term 
 " priest " was no longer applicable to all the " itine- 
 rant preachers."^ 
 
 Let me now sum up very briefly. I have no inten- 
 tion to deny that Wyclif viay have had something to 
 do witli Biblical translations which we do not now 
 possess. My concern is with the actual versions of 
 the translated Scriptures now known to us. Two, 
 and only two, such pre-Reformation vernacular ver- 
 sions are in existence. These have hitherto been 
 ascribed unhesitatingly to Wyclif or his followers, 
 and are known to all under the title of the Wyclifite 
 Scriptures, as printed by Messrs. Forshall and 
 Madden. It will be observed that the ascription 
 of these translations to Wyclif is not based on 
 positive testimony ; but, when the case is looked 
 into it really depends on the tacit assumption that 
 there was no Catholic version at all. I desire, 
 rather, to insist on this point, because to many it 
 may seem more than strange that after the 
 immense amount of labour that has been spent 
 upon these manuscripts I should come forward 
 with a theory that runs absolutely counter to the 
 conclusions of many most learned and estimable 
 men. But, if I mistake not, these same con- 
 
 1 Life of Wycliffe, Eng, translation, vol, i., p. 309.
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 155 
 
 elusions have been formed without any considera- 
 tion of an alternative. Accordingly, no practical 
 need has been felt by writers who have dealt with 
 the subject to consider a number of facts, which in 
 themselves constitute grave difficulties against the 
 theory of the Wyclifite origin of these versions, and 
 they have, in the circumstances naturally, perhaps, 
 been allowed to He dormant. But, as I have 
 pointed out, there seems no possibility of denying 
 the existence in pre-Reformation times of a 
 Catholic and allowed version of the English Bible. 
 At once, therefore, all these difficulties rise into life, 
 and must be faced honestly if the truth is to be 
 reached. For my own part, having looked into the 
 matter with some care, I do not see how it is 
 possible to come to any other conclusion than this : 
 that the versions orf the Sacred Scriptures, edited 
 by Messrs. Forshall and Madden, and commonly 
 known as Wyclifite, are in reality the Catholic ver- 
 sions of our pre-Reformation forefathers.
 
 156 
 
 V. 
 
 THE PRE -REFORMATION ENGLISH 
 BIBLE. 
 
 II. 
 
 TN the Dublin Review for July, 1894, the article 
 -*- on The Pre-Reformation English Bible, now 
 reprinted, appeared. In this I endeavoured briefly 
 to examine four points connected with the history 
 of the Early English translation of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, commonly known as Wyclijite. The four 
 points were as follows : — 
 
 1. On what evidence is the English translation of 
 the Bible, or any part of it, ascribed to Wyclif 
 himself ? 
 
 2. What had Wyclif s immediate followers, or 
 later adherents, to say to the composition of the 
 work, or to its spread among the people generally ? 
 
 3. What prohibitions, if any, existed against the 
 vernacular translations of the Sacred Scriptures in 
 the Church of England ? and 
 
 4. Is there any evidence for thinking that an
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 157 
 
 orthodox Catholic vernacular version of the Bible 
 ever existed ? 
 
 It is necessary to recall to the mind of the reader 
 the previous position of the question. I believe 
 that I am not overstating it in saying that it has 
 been commonly, if not universally, held that all the 
 known English versions of the Scriptures were 
 directly or indirectly Wyclifite in origin ; that the 
 copies of this translated Scripture were multiplied 
 and spread abroad by the followers of Wyclif, and 
 by them alone ; that the Church absolutely inter- -^^ 
 dieted the translation of the Bible into English, and 
 the ecclesiastical authorities exerted all their great 
 power, and even invoked the secular arm of the 
 State in their anxiety to prevent the spread of 
 these Lollard versions among the people. More- 
 over, it is assumed that, as a consequence of this 
 attitude of the ecclesiastical authorities, for a 
 century and a half the adherents of Wyclif were 
 persecuted and done to death for their noble deter- 
 mination to popularise the Word of God at all costs. 
 Moreover, the common and concurrent teaching 
 of writers of all classes certainly does not suggest 
 that the Church in any way encouraged or, indeed, 
 permitted, the use of the Bible in English among 
 her children. The popular idea certainly was, and, 
 I fear, still is, that it was the greatest glory of the 
 Reformation to have first given the open Bible to 
 the people of England, which up to that time had 
 been denied to them, in spite of the noble efforts of
 
 158 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 the forerunner of the English Reformation — 
 Wyclif, and his handful of earnest followers. 
 
 After a brief statement of the evidence upon 
 which tradition has assigned the work of trans- 
 lating the Scriptures to Wyclif, or Wyclifite hands, 
 I wrote in the previous essay : " My concern is with 
 the actual versions of the translated Scriptures now 
 known to us," and chiefly in the two versions 
 printed in the great edition of Messrs. Forshall and 
 Madden. These two versions must be held, I 
 submit, upon evidence it is quite impossible to 
 gainsay, to have been in general and public use by 
 orthodox members of the Church, and in certain 
 specific instances to have received ecclesiastical 
 approbation. The real question at issue, conse- 
 quently, is not whether Wyclif, or his adherents, 
 had or had not anything to do with some vernacular 
 translations, but whether the versions which have 
 come down to us, and which are printed in this 
 edition of Messrs. Forshall and Madden, are 
 Wyclifite or orthodox in their origin. 
 
 In the English Historical Review of January, 1895, 
 Mr. F. D. Matthew, an author well known for his 
 studies in Wyclifite literature, criticised my con- 
 clusions. To this I had hoped to reply in the 
 following number of the Review, but was told by 
 the editor that he could only allow me space for 
 a brief letter, if I wished to point out any error 
 of fact into which Mr. Matthew had fallen. This 
 rendered my reply, which of its nature must de-
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 159 
 
 pend as mucli upon arguments deduced from facts 
 and documents as upon the facts and documents 
 themselves, impossible ; subsequently other business 
 necessitated two long absences from England, and 
 prevented my again turning my attention to the 
 subject. The delay, however, has so far proved 
 fortunate, since it has given time for the appearance 
 of a serious and courteous criticism of my conclu- 
 sions as to the origin of the known pre-Reformation 
 English version of the Scriptures by Mr. F. Gr. 
 Kenyon, in his book, Oti7' Bible and the Ancient 
 Manuscripts. I now propose to consider together 
 the points of objection raised by him, and those 
 previously stated by Mr. Matthew. 
 
 The question of the origin of the Early English 
 versions of the Scriptures has been hitherto compli- 
 cated and its discussion prejudiced by what I may 
 call the theological or controversial aspect of the 
 matter. The assertion, so freely made and so 
 generally believed, that there was no vernacular 
 Bible in use among pre-Reformation Orthodox 
 Catholics; moreover, the declaration that the 
 English Scriptures were, in fact, prohibited by the 
 highest ecclesiastical authority, and that men were 
 punished with the gravest penalties for even the 
 possession of an English Bible, not unnaturally 
 imported into the consideration of the question a 
 certain amount of the odium theologicum which, as 
 in so many other cases, interfered with any calm 
 and judicial consideration of the subject on its
 
 160 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 own merits. I may, I think, justly congratulate 
 myself on at least eliminating this factor from the 
 discussion. I understand both from Mr. Matthew's 
 paper and from Mr. Kenyon's pages that they now 
 agree with me in this : that the English Scriptures 
 were certainly in the authorised possession of 
 orthodox sons of the Church. " One is glad," 
 writes Mr. Kenyon, "... that the leaders of the 
 English Church should not have been hostile to an 
 Enoflish Bible . . . nor need even those who most 
 strongly opposed the socialistic and heretical 
 opinions of Wycliffe have therefore refused to 
 possess copies of his translation of the Scriptures, if 
 the existence of such a translation formed no part of 
 the cause of their hostility to him." ^ Mr. Matthew 
 also allows as much. " That such (that is 'dutiful 
 churchmen ') did use an English version there is no 
 doubt;" ^ and again : " No doubt Protestant writers 
 have often exaggerated the hostility of the clergy to 
 the vernacular Bible. There was no objection on 
 their part to the devotional use of the Bible in 
 English any more than in Latin." ^ Did Mr. 
 Matthew, when he wrote this, forget that, speaking 
 of these very copies of the English Scriptures, he 
 
 1 Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, p. 206. There is con- 
 siderable ambiguity here: "those most strongly opposed," &c., cer- 
 tainly need not have refused to possess copies of Wyclif's translation 
 if it had been approved by the authorities, but if it were disapproved 
 the case would be the very opposite. 
 
 - Authorship of the Wycliffite Bible. EDglish Hist. Rev., reprint, p. 4. 
 
 ••' Ibid., p. 6.
 
 THE PRE-RKFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 161 
 
 had previously described tliem as " but the gleanings 
 after time, neglect and the zeal of the Inquisition 
 have gathered in their harvests " ? ^ I prefer to 
 think that on consideration of the facts he has 
 honourably changed his opinion, and now classes 
 himself with " the Protestant writers who have 
 often exaggerated the hostility of the clergy to 
 the vernacular Bible." 
 
 Be this as it may, the main point of my previous 
 paper was to establish the very fact now admitted, 
 namely : that Catholics in pre-Reformation days 
 had in England, as elsewhere, a recognised ver- 
 nacular version of the Scriptures, and that these 
 translations, now published under the name of 
 " Wyclifite," were in pre-Eeformation days uni- 
 formly regarded as perfectly orthodox by undoubt- 
 edly loyal sons of Mother Church. I am well 
 pleased that in the opinion of my two chief critics 
 I have made good this contention. Indeed, so 
 certain does this part of my thesis seem to Mr. 
 Kenyon, that he appears to doubt whether anyone 
 has ever seriously questioned it. He dismisses the 
 old pictures of poor Lollard followers of Wyclif 
 persecuted for the possession and use of the English 
 Bible as mere flourishes of rhetoric.^ I need only, 
 
 ' The English Works of Wyclif (Early Eng. Text Soc), preface, 
 p. xviii. 
 
 - I can only read this with amazement. As far as my studies go the 
 consent of writers, both serious and popular, is practically unanimous 
 that the Church suppressed the vernacular Bible altogether, and re- 
 fused to recognise the existence of any authorised Catholic version. 
 11
 
 162 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 on this matter, appeal to the recollection of my 
 readers as to the opinion they had themselves 
 formed by books read as sober history in their 
 youth and since. It is not so long ago that the 
 late Mr. Froude, with characteristic exaggeration, 
 described in his Erasmus the ignorance of the sacred 
 writings which prevailed among clergy and laity 
 alike at the time of the publication of his hero's 
 Grreek Testament. " Of the Gospels and Epistles," 
 he writes, " so much only was known by the laity 
 as was read in the Church services, and that in- 
 toned, as if to be purposely unintelligible to the 
 understanding. Of the rest of the Bible nothing was 
 hnown at all, because nothing was supposed to be 
 necessary." 
 
 The position of the question has thus, to my 
 
 As regards the particular versions edited by Messrs. Forshall and 
 Madden — men who, from their eminent position and studies, were not 
 given to rhetorical flourishes — this is what they say about the matter 
 in question. After stating that 150 MSS. of Purvey's Bible had been 
 examined for their edition, they continue : " Others are known to have 
 existed within the last century, and more, there can be no doubt, have 
 escaped inquiry ; how many have perished it is impossible to calculate. 
 But, when it is remembered that, from the first, the most active and 
 powerful measures were taken to suppress the version — that strict 
 inquisition was made for the writings and translations of Wyclif, Here- 
 ford, Ashton, and Purvey — that they were burnt and destroyed as most 
 noxious and pernicious productions of hereticcil depravity — and that 
 all who were known to possess them were exposed to severe perse- 
 cution — and then if there be taken into account the number of MSS. 
 which, in the course of four or five centuries, have been destroyed 
 through accident or negligence, it is not too much to suppose that we 
 have now but a small portion of those which were originaliy written." 
 (The Holy Bible, made from the Latin Vulgate by John Wyclif and his 
 followers, i., preface, p. xxxiii.)
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 163 
 
 mind, been greatly simplified by tlie ready admis- 
 sion now made that Catholics not only possessed 
 the Bible in English, but that the only extant pre- 
 E-eformation English Scriptures have come down 
 to us from Catholic sources. The further point of 
 origin, of course, still remains to be settled, or at 
 least discussed. Oq the face of the question it is 
 difficult to believe that at a time when the writings 
 of Wyclif and his followers were prohibited by civil 
 and ecclesiastical law, and their possession punished, 
 as unquestionably was the case, the Bible, which he 
 or his immediate adherents had translated and 
 circulated, should have been not only tolerated, but 
 approved for the possession of English Church- 
 men. Mr. Kenyon, it is true, sees no difficulty in 
 this. " The fact would seem to be," he writes, 
 " that the Lollards were persecuted, but not their 
 Bible. Such hostility as was shown to this was only 
 temporary, and was confined to a few persons, such 
 as Archbishop Arundel. G-enerally the translation 
 was tolerated, and this is perfectly comprehensible, 
 since the extant copies, which we have seen to be 
 connected with Hereford and Purvey, show no 
 traces of partisanship or of heretical doctrine. It is 
 a plain translation of the Latin text of the Scriptures 
 then current without bias to either side ; and what- 
 ever Arundel might do, other Bishops, such as 
 William of Wykeham (who was, moreover, a sup- 
 porter of John of Gaunt), would not be likely to 
 condemn it." ^ 
 
 ip. 207.
 
 164 THE PRE-REFOPtlNIATION ENGLISH lilliLE. 
 
 I confess that to me this explanation is not satis- 
 I factory. I could accept it only on the supposition 
 that the fifteenth century possessors and users of 
 the version were altogether without suspicion of its 
 I j I doubtful and heretical origin. Even as late as the 
 time of Sir Thomas More it is evident from the 
 description of the Bible, destroyed by order of 
 Bishop Fitz- James, which belonged to Richard Hun, 
 the London Lollard, that the Wyclifite Bible was 
 not then considered the same as this version, which 
 was reputed to be Catholic. For whilst Sir Thomas 
 More strenuously maintains that the Englisli Scrip- 
 tures as such had not "been destroyed ruthlessly 
 by the ecclesiastical authorities, as was asserted, 
 and that he could himself testify to the existence 
 of what was regarded as an orthodox vernacular 
 version, he declares that Hun's great Bible " gave 
 the readers undoubted occasion to think that the 
 book was written after Wyclif's copy, and by him 
 translated into our tongue," and that this Bible was 
 destroyed consequently, not because it was in 
 English, but because it contained gross and manifest 
 heresy. Sir Thomas More consequently, with the 
 people of his day, believed that the translations 
 of Wyclif were not the same as the vernacular 
 Scriptures which they were authorised to read by 
 their ecclesiastical authorities. These latter were 
 the English Scriptures now commonly known as 
 "Wyclifite. 
 
 Mr. Kenyon, of course, holds that Sir Thomas 
 
 ^
 
 THE PKE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 165 
 
 More was mistaken. He thinks that the version 
 More, and we must suppose the rest of his con- 
 temporaries, held to be Catholic was in reality the 
 work of Wychf, or at any rate of his immediate 
 followers. He indeed sees " no reason to doubt the 
 personal responsibility of Wyclif " for tlie trans- 
 lation, ^ and declares that "his (i.e., Wyclif's) 
 championship of the common people led him to 
 undertake a work which entitles him to honourable 
 mention by men of all parties and all opinions, the 
 preparation of an English Bible again." " After 
 Hereford's departure the translation of the Old 
 Testament was continued by Wyclif himself or 
 his assistants." . . . "A marked difference in 
 style distinguishes Hereford's work from that of 
 Wyclif and his other assistants, if such they were. 
 Wyclif's style is free and colloquial. There can be 
 little doubt that he had in his mind the common 
 people, for whom his version was specially intended."'*^ 
 Again, " we know that Wyclif and his adherents 
 prepared a translation ; we know that two of his 
 most prominent supporters, Hereford and Purvey, 
 had at least some connection with the translations 
 which actually exist, and we can see no ground for 
 refusing to take the further step and say that the 
 Wyclif version and the existing translations are one 
 and the same thing." ^ 
 
 With all due deference to my critic, I question 
 
 ' Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, p. 198. 
 2 Ibid., p. 201. ^ Ibid., p. 208.
 
 166 THE PllE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 whether anyone seriously reviewing the evidence 
 will agree that " we know Wyclif and his ad- 
 herents " did prepare any translation. To me it 
 appears that it is exactly what we do not know, 
 and my contention is that the evidence usually 
 adduced does not bear out the assertion of Wyclif s 
 own part in the work. Mr. Kenyon holds that 
 I " seem to ignore the strength of the evidence 
 which connects Wyclif and his supporters, not 
 merely with a translation of the Bible, but with 
 these translations." ^ 
 
 " That they were responsible for a translation," 
 he continues, " is proved by the contemporary 
 evidence of Archbishop Arundel, Knyghton, and a 
 decree of the Council of Oxford, in 1408 — all wit- 
 nesses hostile to the Wyclifites." Do these wit- 
 nesses on a careful examination prove anything of 
 the kind ? Let us take them one by one. 
 
 1. ArcJihisJiop Arundel is cited as an authority 
 for the fact of Wyclif's translation on the strength 
 of the letter which, conjointly with the English 
 bishops, he wrote to Pope John XXIII. In 1412, 
 in forwarding the list of grave errors which a Com- 
 mission of twelve Oxford theologians had detected 
 in the works of Wyclif, the Archbishop makes use 
 of the passage relied upon. The errors referred 
 to are stated in a series of 267 propositions^ ex- 
 tracted from the various known works of the 
 
 ' Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, p. 205. 
 2 Wilkins' Concilia, m., pij. 339-349.
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 167 
 
 " Reformer," and it is at least remarkable that in 
 the whole of this long list there is no mention 
 whatever of the supposed translation. The passage 
 upon which Mr. Kenyon relies to prove that Wyclif 
 made a translation is as follows ; after saying 
 that Wyclif endeavoured to defame the ecclesias- 
 tical dignity, and to lower the good opinion of the 
 sacred ministry in every way, Archbishop Arundel 
 continues : " He even tried, by every means in his 
 power, to undermine the very faith and teaching of 
 Holy Church, filling up the measure of his malice 
 by devising the expedient of a new translation of 
 Scripture in the mother-tongue." Mr. Matthew, 
 by the way, renders the passage into English, thus : 
 " devising a plan of translation of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures into the mother-tongue." It does not appear 
 why, in his translation, he should have omitted to 
 to give any English equivalent of the Latin word 
 novas, — 7ieiv} The letter, as it stands, certainly 
 does not prove that Archbishop Arundel was " hos- 
 tile " to any translation of the Scriptures into the 
 vernacular, as writers have too hastily assumed.^ 
 
 ' Wilkins, iii., p. 350. The Latin is : " Novae ad suEe maliti;i3 com- 
 plementutQ IScripturarum in linguam maternam translationis practica 
 adinventa." 
 
 '' Mr. Kenyon (p. 207) says : " Such hostility as was shown to this 
 (i.e., the Lollard's Bible) was only temporary, and was confined to a few 
 persons such as Archbishop Arundel. Generally the translation was 
 tolerated . . . and whatever Arundel might do, other Bishops, such 
 as William of Wykeham, who was moreover a supporter of John of 
 Gaunt, would not be likely to condemn it, nor would the tendency to 
 toleration be less as time went on, and when John of Gaunt's son had
 
 168 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 It, however, on tlie face of it, indicates tliat the 
 Archbishop knew of some recognised translation, 
 which Wyclif, in order " to undermine the faith 
 and teaching of Holy Church," tried to supersede 
 by his own rendering — by suiting his translations 
 to his heresies. 
 
 The ordinary and obvious meaning of the Arch- 
 bishop's words is that the new translation of 
 Wyclif was disfigured by the heretical colouring 
 given to the text by the Reformer, its very purpose 
 being to support his errors. It may be taken for 
 granted, I think, that these readings do not exist in 
 the versions now known as Wyclifite, and which were 
 evidently an approved translation, as the manu- 
 scripts show, and common sense will, consequently, 
 point to them as the recognised translations, im- 
 plicitly referred to by Archbishop Arundel when 
 he speaks of Wyclif 's rendering as a "new trans- 
 lation." 
 
 Moreover, I do not myself believe that by this 
 " new translation" is meant anything more than the 
 vernacular rendering of passages of Holy Scripture, 
 be they long or short. ^ The words must be inter- 
 succeeded to the throne." The very documents relied on as evidence 
 of Archbishop Arundel's " hostility " proceed not from him alone but 
 from all the bishops of the province of Canterbury. As to what Mr. 
 Kenyon says about William of Wykeham, I neither understand his 
 chronology nor his facts. 
 
 ' It must be carefully noted that, even were I mistaken in this 
 contention, Archbishop Arundel's letter does not bear out Mr. Kenyon's 
 thesis. On the contrary, in my opinion it is fatal to it.
 
 THE PRE-REFOKMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 169 
 
 preted by other documents, and, as far as I can see, 
 the provision of the Council of Oxford, which Mr. 
 Kenyon also cites as a witness that Wyclif was 
 responsible for a translation, makes it clear that 
 this is the true meaning of Archbishop Arundel's 
 letter. To this I now pass. 
 
 2. The Council held at Oxford in 1408 is 
 generally adduced as distinct evidence that the 
 ecclesiastical authorities forbade the use of the 
 English Scriptures, and specifically condemned 
 the version of John Wyclif. Did it do so? The 
 passage in question is Article VII. of the Consti- 
 tutions of the Provincial Synod of Oxford, and the 
 material portion runs as follows : — 
 
 " We therefore command and ordain that henceforth no one 
 of his own authority translate any passage (ahquem textum) 
 of Holy Scripture into English in a book, booklet, or tract, 
 and that no one read, wholly or in part, publicly or secretly, 
 any such book, booklet, or tract lately written in the time of 
 the said John Wyclif or since, or that may hereafter be made, 
 under pain of excommunication until such translation has been 
 approved and allowed by the diocesan of the place, or (if need 
 be) by the Provincial Council.^ 
 
 I cannot understand how this passage can be 
 made to prove that Wyclif was the author of, or, 
 at any rate responsible for, "a translation of the 
 Bible " in the sense of a complete, or fairly com- 
 plete, version. The expression is aliquem textum, 
 which can only mean " any passage." This sense 
 is borne out by the context, which states that the 
 
 ' Wilkins, iii., p. ol7.
 
 170 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 translation may be " in a book, booklet, or tract." 
 The title of this seventh constitution also shows 
 conclusively, I think, that the Council referred 
 merely to passages and not to any complete trans- 
 lation, for it uses the word in the plural; Ne quis 
 texta 8. Scripturoe transferat in lingiiam Anglicanam 
 can only be translated : " That no one translate 
 into English passages of Holy Scripture." ^ Or as 
 the Lambeth Manuscript has it : " That no text 
 of Holy Scripture be for the future translated 
 into English." Moreover, the gloss of the great 
 fifteenth century canonist Lyndewood accepts this 
 sense as the correct one, where he says : " Al- 
 though it be the plain text of Sacred Scripture 
 that is translated, the translator may yet err in his 
 translation, or, if he compose a book, booklet, or 
 tract, he may, as, in fact, frequently happens, inter- 
 mingle false and erroneous teaching with the truth." 
 It seems, consequently, certain that not only does 
 this provision of the Council of Oxford in no 
 wise prove that Wyclif was the author, direct or 
 indirect, of a vernacular version of the Bible, but 
 it explains the meaning of Archbishop Arundel's 
 letter when, a few years later, and as a distinct 
 consequence of the Synod, he writes to the Pope 
 that in order to undermine the very faith and 
 teaching of the Church, Wyclif had " devised the 
 expedient of a new translation of Scripture in the 
 mother tongue." 
 
 » Wilkins, iii., p. 317.
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 171 
 
 So far, then, the witnesses relied upon by Mr. 
 Kenyon to prove that WycHf was responsible for a 
 translation of the Bible, in my opinion entirely fail 
 to do so. We have, however, still to consider the 
 statement of the chronicle of Knyghton. 
 
 3. Knygliion was practically a contemporary 
 writer, and his authority consequently is very 
 weighty. Some scholars have expressed a doubt 
 as to whether this portion of the chronicle is really 
 to be attributed to Knyghton ; but even on the 
 supposition that the passage named is not really from 
 the pen of the Canon of Leicester ^ it yet deserves 
 the best attention; but it is necessary to under- 
 stand clearly what it says. It runs as follows : 
 '* This Master John Wyclif translated from Latin 
 into English the Gospel which Christ gave to 
 clerks and teachers of the Church, so that they 
 might sweetly minister to the lay folk and infirm, 
 &c. In this way he made it vulgar and more 
 open to lay men and women who know how to 
 read than it is wont to be to learned and well 
 instructed clerics. In this way the pearl of the 
 
 ' The passage occurs iu Book V. (Twysden, Decern Scriptores, col. 
 2644 seqq.). Dr. Shirley says that this book is not Knyghton's at 
 all, but comes from a partisan of the Duke of Lancaster (Fasciculus 
 Zizaniorum, p. 524 7iote). It should be noted that Book IV. ends ten 
 years before Book V. begins. Mr. T. Arnold, Woi-L's of WijcUf, iii., 
 pp. 525-6, argues that the 5th book is the work of Knyghton. But 
 the latest editor, Professor Lumby {Rolls Series, ii., p. 96), agrees 
 with the contention of Professor Shirley. It is worth noting as a 
 matter needing elucidation that whilst the author of the 5th book is 
 full of admiration for John of Gaunt, this passage as to Wyclif goes 
 directly against a cardinal point of John of Gaunt's policy.
 
 172 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 Grospel is scattered broadcast and trodden under foot 
 by swine. And thus, what is wont to be esteemed 
 by clerks and laity as precious is now become as 
 it were the common joke of both; the jewel of 
 clerics is turned to the sport of the lay people : 
 so that what had before been the heavenly talent 
 for clerks and teachers of the Church is now the 
 commune mternum for the laity." Then, after quot- 
 ing long passages from William de Saint Amour 
 about the evils of that time when the Gospel should 
 be made too cheap and common : when " some 
 would labour to turn the Gospel of Christ into 
 another Gospel, which they say is more perfect 
 and better and more worthy, which they call the 
 eternal Gospel or the Gospel of the Holy Spirit" — 
 that is into what was known so well as the " evan- 
 gelium aiternum'^ — the author proceeds: "These 
 things are most appropriate to the new Lollard 
 folk, who have changed the Gospel of Christ into 
 the evangelium seternum, that is the vulgar tongue, 
 and communem maternam and so seternam since it is 
 looked on by the laity as better and more worthy 
 than the Latin lauguage." ^ 
 
 Mr. Matthew (p. 2) holds that " it seems hard to 
 imagine anything more clear and decisive than this 
 contemporary evidence " that Wyclif was regarded 
 as the person responsible for the English Bible." I 
 fear that I cannot agree with him that it is either 
 
 ' Knyghton (ed. Lumby), ii., p. 152-155.
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 173 
 
 " clear " or " decisive," and I am confident that 
 the reader who will take the trouble to go 
 through the whole of" this section of the chronicle 
 will agree with me. But what does the chronicler 
 really mean? It seems natural to understand 
 his language as referring not to the Scriptures in 
 general or to the Gospels in particular ; but to 
 the Christian teaching and ministry so often then 
 as now spoken of as " the Grospel." Writing in 
 Leicestershire, where Lollardry was rife, the writer 
 would have known more than enough of the un- 
 authorised and vernacular teaching of Wyclifite lay 
 ministers. That this is no fanciful explanation of 
 the expressions used is sufficiently clear by the 
 author's calling the result of Wyclif's work, the 
 introduction of the " xtei-num evangeliiim.'' 
 
 Mr. Matthew, in quoting the passage in which 
 the chronicle says that the Lollards *' have changed 
 the Grospel of Christ into the seternum evangelium," 
 does not appear to have any suspicion of the 
 meaning which the last words would convey to a 
 contemporary of the writer. Even the long cita- 
 tions made in this connection by the author from 
 the work of William de Saint Amour do not seem 
 to have aroused in his mind any idea that the 
 expression might mean something entirely different 
 from the vernacular version of the Bible to which 
 he supposes it to apply. One asks oneself whether 
 he could have known that the seternum evangelium, 
 so well understood by mediaeval writers, had become
 
 174 THE P RE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 a byeword for the reduction of religion to what 
 was vile and unclean. 
 
 My belief is that anyone properly informed on 
 the subject of the xternum evangelium on carefully 
 reading the writer's own words in the entire passage 
 (pp. 151-156) will come to the conclusion that by 
 evangelium he means Grospel in the broader significa- 
 tion of Christian teaching. If this view is correct 
 then on examination three of the witnesses upon 
 whom Mr. Kenyon has relied to prove the per- 
 sonal connection of the Reformer with " a trans- 
 lation of the Bible," will have failed him. Neither 
 Archbishop Arundel, nor the Bishops of the Council 
 of Oxford, nor yet, in my opinion, the chronicler 
 directly say, or even indirectly imply, anything of 
 the kind. As far as I have been able to see, after 
 much trouble, there is no proof of the personal 
 connection of Wyclif with a translation except the 
 rather vague and obviously incorrect statement of 
 John Huss that "it is reported among the English 
 that he (Wyclif) translated the whole Bible from 
 Latin into English." 
 
 So much for the evidence upon which the con- 
 nection of Wyclif personally with any vernacular 
 translation of the Bible has been maintained. To 
 me it appears that the tradition, for such it has now 
 become, has been built up on a foundation of mis- 
 translation and misunderstanding of Latin docu- 
 ments and misinterpretation of certain somewhat 
 ambiguous expressions. Mr. Kenyon, it is true,
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 175 
 
 goes further in the "Wyclifite direction, and con- 
 siders that the concluding words of the Pro- 
 logue to what is called the revised or later text, 
 " show that the author did not know how his 
 work might be received by those in power, and 
 looked forward to the possibihtj'' of being called 
 upon to endure persecution for it." The words 
 he quotes to substantiate this are : " God graunte 
 to us alle grace to kunne well and kepe wel 
 holi writ and suffer joiefully some peyne for it at 
 the laste." I cannot accept Mr. Kenyon's gloss 
 upon this passage, for the context makes it clear, I 
 think, that the words " suffer joiefully some peyne 
 for it," do not refer to possible persecution. After 
 describing the minute care required by a translator 
 to get the exact equivalent in English for a Latin 
 word, the author of the Prologue writes : " By this 
 manner, with good living and great travail, men 
 moun come to true and clear translating and true 
 understanding of Holy Writ seem it never so hard 
 at the beginning. God graunt to us all grace 
 to kunne well and keep well Holy Writ and 
 suffer joyfully some pain for it at the last (to 
 the pleasure and will of God, as one manuscript 
 has it). Amen." I fancy that read with their 
 context the words relied upon by Mr. Kenyon to 
 show the Lollard fear of persecution and conse- 
 quent Lollard origin, simply refer to the trouble 
 which is necessary to fully understand the mean- 
 ing of the Word of God and to keep it. More-
 
 176 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 over, I can only repeat that it is hardly possible to 
 read the Prologue referred to without seeing that 
 the author of this translation had a filial reverence 
 for the teaching of the approved doctors of the 
 Church and was most scrupulous in his endeavour 
 to translate the words exactly in accordance with 
 the prevailing authoritative teaching. This is not 
 what we should expect from a follower of Wyclif, 
 whose renderings were expressly designed, as we 
 are told on the contemporary authority of Arch- 
 bishop Arundel " and the suffragans of the Pro- 
 vince of Canterbury," " to undermine the faith and 
 teaching of Holy Church." 
 
 To sum up the position of the question as far as 
 I understand it : the ecclesiastical authorities in 
 England so far from prohibiting the English Scrip- 
 tures, most certainly approved of various copies of 
 the actual versions now known as Wyclifite. This 
 official, or quasi-official, approval of the version was 
 given, be it remembered, at a time when there was 
 a distinct prohibition, by ecclesiastical authority 
 enforced vigorously by the civil power, of all 
 Wyclifite literature. Moreover, these copies have 
 in fact in many instances come down to us from 
 Catholic sources, whilst in no single case, so far 
 as I can discover, has any copy been traced to a 
 possessor of distinct Lollard opinions. In the face 
 of the evidence the fact that the known versions 
 were regarded as orthodox by pre-B,eformation 
 Catholics, ecclesiastic and lay, cannot be questioned.
 
 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 177 
 
 This we have also on the testimony of Sir Thomas 
 More, and to his word as to the circulation of 
 the vernacular Scriptures in pre-Reformation 
 times, we may add that of Archbishop Cranmer 
 himself. The whole force of the Archbishop's 
 argument in favour of allowing the Bible in English 
 rests on the well-known custom of the Church, and 
 the fact that copies were in daily use.^ Moreover, 
 when the great Bible known as Cranmer's was in 
 course of preparation, the Archbishop, as Morrice, 
 his secretary, informs us, took an old English 
 translation and, dividing it into nine or ten parts, 
 sent it " to the best learned Bishops and others to 
 the intent that they should make a perfect correction 
 thereof."^ This, when it appeared in 1541, "was 
 overseen and perused at the command of the King's 
 Highness, by the right reverend Father in God, 
 Cuthbert (Tunstall), Bishop of Durham, and 
 Nicholas (Heath), Bishop of Rochester." To those 
 who know the character of the Bishops at this period 
 it will be unnecessary to point out that Cranmer 
 must have sent them for revision the recognised 
 Catholic English version. To any Wyclifite version 
 they would have been as opposed as to Tyndal's 
 translation, which they considered as " tending to 
 seduce persons of simple and unwary disposition," 
 since with the rendering were intermingled " articles 
 gravely heretical, and opinions that are erroneous, 
 
 • Preface to the Bible. 
 
 * Nichols, Narratives of the Reformation (Camden Soc), p. 277. 
 12
 
 178 THE PRE-REFORMATION ENGLISH BIBLE. 
 
 pernicious, pestilent, scandalous." The passage of 
 Arclibisbop Arundel adduced as evidence that 
 Wyclif made a translation of the Bible is also, on 
 the same ground, evidence that one previously 
 existed. It would be interesting if Mr. Kenyon 
 could explain how it came about that the version 
 which was not objected to disappeared, and its 
 place was taken by a version which not Arch- 
 bishop Arundel alone, but all the Bishops of the 
 province of Canterbury, told the Pope was made in 
 order to undermine, or rather attack, the faith and 
 teaching of holy Church ! Further how it comes 
 about that there are no traces of this intention 
 in the extant " Wyclifite " versions. Taking the 
 documents and the facts as documents and facts, 
 they tell an intelligible story, but a story that runs 
 counter to the thesis that the extant versions of 
 the English Scriptures are Wyclif s. To maintain 
 this seems to me to involve necessarily falling into 
 inextricable contradictions and difficulties. I do 
 not think that either Mr. Kenyon or Mr. Matthew 
 has realised how completely the whole situation 
 has been changed by the recognition that the 
 Bible edited by Messrs. Forshall and Madden was 
 actually authorised by the Church and so allowed 
 free circulation.
 
 179 
 
 YL 
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND 
 
 DURING THE FOURTEENTH AND 
 
 FIFTEENTH CENTURIES/ 
 
 ^I^HE history of tlie pre-Eeformation Churcli in 
 -*- England lias yet to be written. To many this 
 may perhaps seem a somewhat startling statement 
 in view of all that has hitherto appeared in print 
 bearing on the ecclesiastical history of this country. 
 Let me explain my precise meaning. For the most 
 part, until quite recent times, the story of this 
 England of ours has been made to consist mainly of 
 a series of biographies of its rulers, intermingled 
 with more or less detailed accounts of the wars and 
 battles by which they mounted to power or rendered 
 their names illustrious. Of the nation itself, as apart 
 from the monarch, who honoured it by ruling over 
 it, the historian in the past troubled his readers as 
 little as possible ; and thus, whilst he might learn to 
 know the dates of many battles and the genealogies 
 
 ' Reprinted from The Dublin Review, July, 1894.
 
 180 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 of many royal houses, the inquirer remained practi- 
 cally ignorant of the English people. In the same 
 way our Church annalists have not often thought it 
 their duty to record much beyond the doings of 
 illustrious English Churchmen, and the most con- 
 spicuous results which have flowed from their 
 actions and their ecclesiastical policy. 
 
 Now, however, many are anxious to learn some- 
 thing more about the people who composed the 
 nation, of the conditions under which they lived and 
 acted, of their desires and aspirations, and of their 
 struggles against difficulties external and internal. 
 And in the same way the thoughts of all inquirers 
 are turning more and more to a consideration of the 
 religious side of our national life, an inquiry which 
 promises to enlighten us at last as to the real history 
 of the religion of the English people in the later 
 Middle Ages and the century of the Reformation. 
 What, for example, did our forefathers definitely 
 believe ? How were they affected by the religious 
 system under which they lived ? How were the 
 services carried on in the churches, and what were 
 the popular devotions of the time ? Were the 
 religious offices well frequented, and what was the 
 general character of the behaviour of the people 
 whilst present at them ? How did the priests 
 instruct their flocks, and what profit did they seem- 
 ingly derive from their ministrations ? What did 
 the Church do for the great cause of education, and 
 for the social and material welfare of the people at
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 181 
 
 large ? These and a huDclred kindred questions are 
 daily being proposed, but who is capable of giving 
 any satisfactory reply to them ? In order to 
 form any judgment on these matters we should 
 require to have placed fairly and dispassionately 
 before us evidence still buried in our national 
 archives beneath the dust of many centuries. For 
 myself, I may perhaps be permitted to say that a 
 familiarity of some years with original and much- 
 neglected sources has taught me as a first lesson 
 and condition of knowledge, that I know little — or 
 what, when compared to all that yet remains to be 
 done, is practically very little — about the social con- 
 dition, the influence and the inner life of the Church 
 of England previous to the sixteenth century. In 
 spite of this, however, I venture here to propose for 
 consideration an important question regarding the 
 Church in this country during, say, the fourteenth 
 and fifteenth centuries. It is a very simple point, 
 but one, I think, which has not hitherto been 
 sufficiently considered, and one the answer to which 
 must seriously affect our judgment as to the char- 
 acter of the ecclesiastical system swept away by 
 the so-called Reformation. 
 
 The first duty of the Church, after the ministra- 
 tion of the sacraments, is obviously to teach and 
 direct its members in all matters of faith and 
 practice, and to watch over the eternal interests of 
 the Christian people. Was the pre-Reformation 
 Church in England mindful of this obligation, or did
 
 182 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 it neglect so plain and essential a duty imposed 
 upon all its ministers by its Divine Founder? This, 
 then, is the plain question — Was there in Catholic 
 days in England any systematic religious instruc- 
 tion ? and if so, what was done in this important 
 matter ? 
 
 At the outset it must be admitted that the general 
 opinion of Protestant writers has been, perhaps not 
 unnaturally, that in Catholic England the people 
 were allowed to grow up in profound religious 
 ignorance, and that there was no systematic instruc- 
 tion whatever on points of belief and observance 
 given by the clergy. I cannot, moreover, shut my 
 eyes to the fact that in this verdict many Catholic 
 writers have concurred. Conversation likewise with 
 Catholics, as well ecclesiastics as laymen, has led 
 me to conclude that at the present day the general 
 opinion is, that this sad and very black view of the 
 way in which the Catholic Church of this country 
 neglected its obvious duty of instructing the. people 
 in religion cannot be gainsaid. 
 
 It should, however, in all fairness be borne in 
 mind that up to the present time, so far as I am 
 aware, no evidence whatever has been forthcoming, 
 except the somewhat fervid declamations of those 
 engaged in the destruction of the ancient faith, in 
 support of this verdict ; and one cannot but re- 
 member that barely ten years ago the English public 
 generally implicitly believed in the traditional pic- 
 ture, drawn by non-Catholics in past centuries.
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 183 
 
 of the appalling immoralities of monks and nuns, 
 and the wholesale corruption of the clergy of 
 England at the time of the suppression of the 
 religious houses. We have lived to see a mar- 
 vellous change follow upon the production of 
 evidence. That unjust judgment after holding for 
 many generations has now practically been reversed, 
 and the unworthy stories originally " founded on 
 ignorance and believed in only through the pre- 
 judice of subsequent generations have now," as the 
 highest Protestant authority on the history of this 
 period has declared, " gone for ever." This may 
 well encourage a hope that an examination of 
 evidence may lead to a similar rectification of what 
 I firmly beUeve to be an equally false judgment 
 passed upon the secular clergy of England in 
 Catholic days, in regard to their neglect of the duty 
 of instructing the people committed to their care. 
 
 I cannot help thinking that Chaucer's typical 
 priest was not a mere creation of his poetical imagi- 
 nation, but that the picture must have had its 
 counterpart in numberless parishes in England in 
 the fourteenth century. This is how the poet's 
 priest is described : 
 
 A good man was tlier of religioun, 
 
 And was a poure parsoun of a town ; 
 
 But riche he was of holy thought and werk. 
 
 He was also a lerned man, a clerk, 
 
 That Christe's Gospel trewcly wolde preche, 
 
 His parischens devoutly wolde he teche. 
 
 ^: * ■-;: * 
 
 But Christe's love and His Apostles twelve 
 He taughte, but first he folwede it himselve.
 
 184 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 It is well to remember, too, that the story Chaucer 
 makes his priest contribute to the Ganterhury Tales 
 is nothing but an excellent and complete tract, 
 almost certainly a translation of a Latin theological 
 treatise, upon the Sacrament of Penance. 
 
 As a sample, however, of what is popularly be- 
 lieved on this subject at the present day, I will 
 take the opinion of by no means an extreme party 
 writer. Bishop Hobhouse. "Preaching," he says, 
 " was not a regular part of the Sunday observances 
 as now. It was rare, but we must not conclude 
 from the silence of our MSS. {i.e., churchwardens' 
 accounts) that it was never practised." In another 
 place he states upon what he thinks sufficient evi- 
 dence, " that there was a total absence of any 
 system of clerical training, and that the cultivation 
 of the conscience as the directing power of man's 
 soul and the implanting of holy affections in the 
 heart, seem to have been no part of the Church's 
 system of guidance." 
 
 Further, in proof that this view as to the teaching 
 
 of the English Church in the later Middle Ages is 
 
 held even by Catholics, I need only quote the words 
 
 of a well-known writer, to be found in the Dublht 
 
 Review for July, 1891 : 
 
 At the end of the fifteenth century (writes Mr. W. S. Lilly) 
 the Church in England, as in the greatest part of Europe, 
 was in a lamentable condition. There is a mass of evidence 
 that multitudes of Christians lived in almost total ignorance 
 of the doctrine, and in almost complete neglect of the duties 
 of their faith. The Pater noster and Ave Maria formed the
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 185 
 
 sum of the knowledge of their religion possessed by many, 
 and not a few passed through the world without receiving 
 any sacrament save that of Baptism. 
 
 It isj of course, impossible for us to pass any 
 opinion on the " mass of evidence " to which. Mr. 
 Lilly appeals in proof of the soundness of his 
 sweeping condemnation of the Church, not in 
 England merely, but " in the greater part of 
 Europe," since he has only given us the result, 
 without furnishing us with the grounds of his 
 judgment. For my own part, I think that such 
 general judgments must be untrustworthy, and 
 that it is necessary — so different were the circum- 
 stances of each — to take each country into con- 
 sideration by itself. For Germany, the labours of 
 the late Professor Janssen, even after the largest 
 deductions have been made for a possible en- 
 thusiasm, or idealizing, have conclusively proved 
 the existence of abundant reliofious teachinsf duringf 
 the century which preceded the coming of Luther. 
 As to England, about which we are at present con- 
 cerned, we can only suppose that Mr. Lilly has been 
 engaged in researches of which, as yet, the world 
 knows nothing. For many years having been 
 occupied in collecting information upon this very 
 point, I may at once say, that so far from my 
 studies tending to confirm Mr. Lilly's verdict as 
 to the " almost total ignorance of the doctrines," 
 and almost " complete neglect of the duties of 
 the faith " in which Catholics were allowed to live
 
 186 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 and die, they liave led me to tlie opposite conclusion 
 — namely, that in pre-Reformation days the people 
 were well instructed in their faith by priests, who 
 faithfully discharged their plain duty in this regard. 
 Let me state the grounds of this opinion. For 
 practical purposes we may divide the religious 
 teaching given by the clergy into the two classes 
 of sermons and instructions. The distinction is 
 obvious : by the first are meant those set dis- 
 courses to prove some definite theme or expound 
 some definite passage of Holy Scripture, or deduce 
 the lessons to be learnt from the life of some saint. 
 In other words, putting aside the controversial 
 aspect, which, of course, was rare in those days, a 
 sermon in mediaeval times was much what a sermon 
 is to-day. There was this difference, however, that 
 in pre-Reformation days the sermon was not so 
 fre(|uent as in these modern times. Now, whatever 
 instruction is given to the people at large is con- 
 veyed to them almost entirely in the form of set 
 sermons, which, however admirable in themselves, 
 seldom convey to their hearers consecutive and 
 systematic dogmatic and moral teaching. Mediaeval 
 methods of imparting religious knowledge were 
 different. For the most part the priest fulfilled the 
 duty of instructing his flock by plain, unadorned, 
 and familiar instructions upon matters of faith and 
 practice. These must have much more resembled 
 our present catechetical instructions than our 
 modern pulpit discourses. To the subject of set
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 187 
 
 sermons I shall have occasion to return presently, 
 but as vastly more important, at any rate, in the 
 opinion of our Catholic forefathers, let us first 
 consider the question of familiar instructions. For 
 the sake of clearness we will confine our attention 
 to the two centuries (the fourteenth and fifteenth) 
 previous to the great religious revolution under 
 Henry VIII. 
 
 Before the close of the thirteenth century — 
 namely, in a.d. 1281 — -Archbishop Peckham issued 
 the celebrated Constitutions of the Synod of Oxford 
 which are called by his name. There we find the 
 instruction of the people legislated for minutely : — 
 
 We order (runs the Constitution) that every priest having the 
 charge of a flock do, four times in each year (that is, once each 
 quarter), on one or more solemn feast-days, either himself or 
 by some one else, instruct the people in the vulgar language 
 simply and without any fantastical admixture of subtle dis- 
 tinctions, in the articles of the Creed, the Ten Command- 
 ments, the Evangelical Precepts, the seven works of mercy, 
 the seven deadly sins with their offshoots, and the Seven 
 Sacraments. 
 
 The Synod then proceeded to set out in con- 
 siderable detail each of the points upon which the 
 people must be instructed. Now, it is obvious that 
 if four times a year this law was complied, with in 
 the spirit in which it was given, the people were 
 very thoroughly instructed indeed in their faith. 
 But, was this law faithfully carried out by the 
 clergy, and rigorously enforced by the bishops 
 in the succeeding: centuries ? That is the real
 
 188 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 (question, and I think that there is ample evidence 
 that it was. In the first place, the Constitutions 
 of Peckham are referred to constantly in the four- 
 teenth and fifteenth centuries as the foundation of 
 the existing practices in the English Church. 
 Thus, to take a few specific instances in the middle 
 of the fourteenth century, the decrees of a diocesan 
 Synod order : — 
 
 That all rectors, vicars, or chaplains holding ecclesiastical 
 offices shall expound clearly and plainly to their people, on all 
 Sundays and feast-days the Word of God and the Catholic 
 faith of the Apostles ; and that they shall diligently instruct 
 their subjects in the articles of faith, and teach them in their 
 native language the Apostles' Creed, and urge them to expound 
 and teach the same faith to their children.^ 
 
 ' Wilkins, iii. 11. I'wo curious instances of the care taken by the 
 Bishops to see that Priests were able to instruct their people may be 
 quoted. After the great plague of 1319, as is notorious, many were 
 admitted to Holy Orders in order to fill the decimated ranks of the 
 clergy, without sufficient learning and preparation. On June 24, 1385, 
 the illustrious William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, caused 
 Sir Roger Dene, Rector of the Church of St. Michael, in Jewry Street, 
 Winchester, to swear upon the Holy Gospels that he would learn 
 within twelve months the articles of faith, the cases reserved to the 
 Bishop, the Ten Commandments, the seven works of mercy, the seven 
 mortal sins, the Sacraments of the Church, and the form of adminis- 
 tering and conferring them, and also the form of baptizing, &c., as 
 contained in the Constitutions of Archbishop Peckham. The same 
 year — on July 2 — the Bishop exacted from John Corbet, who had been 
 instituted on June 2 previously to the Rectory of Bradley, in Hants, 
 a similar obligation to learn the same before the Feast of St. ]\lichael 
 then next ensuing. In the former case Roger Dene had been Rector 
 of Ryston, in Norfolk, and had only been instituted to his living at 
 Winchester, by the Bishop of Norwich, three days before William of 
 Wykeham required him to enter into the above obligation.
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 180 
 
 Again, in a.d. 1357, Archbishop Thoresby, of 
 York, anxious for the better instruction of his 
 people, commissioned a monk of St. Mary's, York, 
 named Gotryke, to draw out in English an exposi- 
 tion of the Creed, the Commandments, the seven 
 deadly sins, &c. This tract the Archbishop, as he 
 says in his Preface, " through the counsel of his 
 clergy, sent to all his priests " : — 
 
 So that each and every one, who under him had the charge 
 of souls, do openly, in English, upon Sundays teach and 
 preach them, that they have cure of the law and the way to 
 know God Almighty. And he commands and bids, in all that 
 he may, that all who have keeping or cure under him, enjoin 
 their parishioners and their subjects, that they hear and learn 
 all these things, and oft either rehearse them till they know 
 them, and so teach them to their children, if they any have, 
 when they are old enough to learn them ; and if parsons and 
 vicars and all parish priests inquire diligently of their subjects 
 at Lent time, when they come to shrift, whether they know 
 these things, and if it be found that they know them not, that 
 they enjoin them upon his behalf, and on pain of penance, to 
 know them. And so there be none to excuse themselves 
 through ignorance of them, our Father the Archbishop of his 
 goodness has ordained and bidden that they be showed openly 
 in English amongst the flock. 
 
 To take another example : the Acts of the Synod 
 held by Simon Langham at Ely in a.d. 1364, order 
 that every parish priest frequently preach and 
 expound the Ten Commandments, &c., in English 
 (in idiomate communi), and all priests are urged 
 to devote themselves to the study of the Sacred 
 Scripture, so as to be ready " to give an account of 
 the hope and faith " that is in them. Further, they
 
 190 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 are to see that the cliildren are taught their prayers ; 
 and even adults, when coming to confession, are to 
 be examined as to their religious knowledge.^ 
 
 Even when the rise of the Lollard heretics 
 rendered it important that some check should be 
 given to general and unauthorised preaching, this 
 did not interfere with the ordinary work of instruc- 
 tion. The orders of Archbishop Arundel in a.d. 
 1408, forbidding all preaching without an episcopal 
 licence, set forth in distinct terms that this pro- 
 hibition did not apply " to the parish priests," &c., 
 who by the Constitutions of Archbishop Peckham, 
 were bound to instruct their people, in simple 
 language, on all matters concerning their faith and 
 observance. And further, in order to check the 
 practice of treating people to such formal and set 
 discourses, these simple and practical instructions 
 were ordered to be adopted without delay in all 
 parish churches. 
 
 To this testimony of the English Church as to the 
 value attached to popular instruction, I may add 
 the authority of the Provincial Council of York, 
 held in a.d. 1466 by Archbishop Nevill. By its 
 decrees, not only is the order as to the systematic 
 quarterly and simple instructions reiterated, but the 
 points of the teaching are again set out, in great 
 detail, by the Synod. 
 
 There is, moreover, I believe, ample evidence to 
 
 ' Wilkins, iii., 59.
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 191 
 
 convince any one who may desire to study the 
 subject, that this duty of giving plain iDstructions 
 to the people was not neglected up to the era of 
 the Reformation itself. During the fifteenth cen- 
 tury, manuals to assist the clergy in the perform- 
 ance of this obligation were multiplied in con- 
 siderable numbers, which would not have been the 
 case had the practice of frequently giving these 
 familiar expositions fallen into abeyance. Of some 
 of these manuals I shall speak presently, and here I 
 would note specially that one of the earliest books 
 ever issued from an English press by Caxton, pro- 
 bably at the same time (a.d. 1483) as the Liber 
 Festivalis (or Book of Sermons for Sundays and 
 Feast-days), was a set of four lengthy discourses 
 published, as they expressly declare, to enable 
 priests to fulfil the obligation imposed on them by 
 the Constitutions of Peckham.^ As these were in- 
 tended to take at least four Sundays, and as the 
 whole set of instructions had to be given four times 
 each year, it follows that at least sixteen Sundays, 
 or a quarter of the year, were devoted to this simple 
 and straightforward teaching, to every soul in the 
 parish, what every Christian was bound to believe 
 and to do." 
 
 ' Probably there were many similar works issued by the first 
 English printers. In Lansd. MS. o79, there is a black letter tract, 
 printed by W. de Worde, to enable priests to comply with the com- 
 mand of the Synod. 
 
 ^ The work upon which Caxton's Liher Festivalis was founded is a 
 volume written in the early part of the fourteenth century by Johu
 
 192 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Looking at the cliaracter of these instructions, 
 we need not be surprised that priests should not 
 often have thought it necessary to commit them to 
 writing. They were given as a matter of course, as 
 a necessary part of the round of their priestly duty, 
 and there is naturally very little record of what 
 must have been part of the routine of common 
 clerical life. Let me take what is a parallel in- 
 stance. Do we expect that some centuries hence 
 there will be any evidence forthcoming to show 
 that the clergy of the great city of London, in this 
 year 1893, have been doing their duty in instruct- 
 ing the children of their schools in religious know- 
 ledge? Or, to put it another way: what explicit 
 evidence is there likely to be, say, a couple of 
 hundred years hence (even if meantime there be 
 no such wholesale destruction of documents as took 
 
 Myrk. Of this see later. Here we may note that in several copies of 
 the MSS. Festivale there may be found other matters useful for the 
 priest in the work of instructing others. For example, "Ue magna 
 sentencia pronuncianda, hoc modo ;" the days on which no servile 
 work might be done, according to Archbishop Arundel's Constitutions, 
 notes on various Papal Conbtitutions, &c. In oue MS. (Harl. MS. 
 2403), following upon the Festivale, is a short explanation of the Creed, 
 Pater noster, &c. This latter instruction is introduced by the form, 
 " Good men and women, ye shall know well yt each curate is 
 bownden by the law of Holy Church to expound the Pater nosier to 
 his parischonys twyes in the yere." The substance of these instructions 
 is used in many copies of the sermons of the period. In the copy 
 (MS. Reg. 18 B. xxv.), the people are addressed as " Worschipful 
 frendys," or "Worschipful and reverent frendys." The discourses 
 for the time about Easter appear to have been prepared to be preached 
 before the Court, as they commence with the words, " Worschypul 
 sufferanc and frendys."
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 193 
 
 place in the sixteenth century), that, say, the Sacra- 
 ment of Extreme Unction is regularly administered 
 by our Catholic clergy to-day ? For the same 
 reason it would be asking more than we have any 
 right to expect, to demand formal documentary 
 evidence of the performance of this plain and well- 
 recognised duty of religious instruction. 
 
 We have, however, I expect, sufficient material 
 to satisfy most people. The Episcopal, or Chapter, 
 Registers fortunately, in some few cases contain 
 documents recording the results of the regular 
 visitation of parishes. It is almost by chance, of 
 course, that papers of this kind have been pre- 
 served. Most of them would have been destroyed 
 as possessing little importance in the eyes of those 
 who ransacked the archives at the time of the 
 change of religion. The testimony of these visi- 
 tation papers as to the performance of this duty 
 of instruction on the part of the clergy is most 
 valuable. Hardly less important is the proof they 
 afford of the intelligent interest taken in the work 
 by the layfolk of the parish, and of their capa- 
 bility of rationally and religiously appreciating 
 the instructions given them by their clergy. The 
 process of these visitations must be understood. 
 First of all, certain of the parishioners were chosen 
 and examined upon oath as to the state of the 
 parish, and as to the way in which the pastor per- 
 formed his duties. As samples of these sworn depo- 
 sitions we may take what are to be found in a 
 13
 
 194 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 " Visitation of Capitular Manors and Estates of the 
 Exeter Diocese," extracts from which have recently 
 been printed by Prebendary Hingeston Randolph, in 
 the Register of Bishop Stapeldon. The record of 
 of the Visitations comprises the first fifteen years of 
 the fourteenth century. At one place, Colaton, we 
 find the jurati depose that their parson preaches in 
 his own way, and on the Sundays expounds the 
 Gospels as well as he can (quatenus novit) ! He 
 does not give them much instruction (non r^iuUum 
 eos informat), they think, in " the articles of faith, 
 the Ten Commandments, and the deadly sins." 
 At another place, the priest, one Robert Blond, 
 ** preaches, but," as appears to the witnesses, " not 
 sufficiently clearly ; " but they add, as if conscious 
 of some hypercriticism, that they had long been 
 accustomed to pastors who instructed them most 
 carefully in all that pertained to the salvation of 
 their souls. But these are the least satisfactory 
 cases. In most instances the priest is said to 
 instruct his people "well" (bene) and "excellently" 
 (optime), and the truth of the testimony appears 
 more clearly in places where, in other things, 
 the parish-folk do not consider their priest quite 
 perfection ; as for instance at Culmstock, where the 
 vicar, Walter, is said to be too long over the Matins 
 and Mass on feasts : or still more at St. Mary 
 Church, where the people think that in looking after 
 his worldly interests, their priest is somewhat too 
 hard on them in matters of tithe.
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IX ENGLAND. 195 
 
 The Reoj'ister from which these details are taken 
 is a mere accidental survival, but the point which 
 it is of importance to remember is this : that during 
 Catholic times in the course of every few years the 
 clergy were thus personally reported upon, so to say, 
 to the chief pastor or his delegates, and the oath of 
 the witnesses is a proof how gravely this duty was 
 regarded. And here I may note in passing, a fact 
 little realised or even understood, viz., that one of 
 the great differences between ecclesiastical life 
 in the middle ages and in modern times lies in the 
 fact that then people had no chance of going to sleep. 
 There was a regular system of periodical visitations, 
 and everything was brought to the test of inquiry 
 of a most elaborate and searching kind, in which 
 every corner was swept out. 
 
 In this special instance, before passing on, I 
 would call attention to the manifest intellig-ence, in 
 spiritual things, shown by these jurors — peasants 
 and farmers — in out-of-the-way parishes of clod- 
 hopping Devon, in the early years of the fourteenth 
 century. I have a doubt whether, notwithstanding 
 the Board Schools, any of our own country parish- 
 folk could do better at the present day. 
 
 To assist parish priests in the preparation of these 
 famihar discourses, various manuals were drawn up 
 during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It is 
 possible now to refer to only one or two of the best 
 known, but as a fact a large number of such works 
 may be found in our national manuscript coUec-
 
 196 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 tions. I will first name the volume called Pars Oculi 
 Sacerdotis, which was probably composed either by 
 a certain William Pagula, or Walter Parker, about 
 the middle of the fourteenth century. It was very 
 popular and much sought after. It is named 
 frequently in inventories and wills, and has thus 
 sometimes been an evident puzzle to editors. No 
 less than five complete copies, as well as several 
 fragments, are among the MSS. in the British 
 Museum. It well deserved its popularity among 
 the pre-Reformation clergy, for it not only furnishes 
 most useful matter for the usual parish instructions, 
 but is really a very complete manual of teaching on 
 almost every detail of clerical life. One portion of 
 the tract is devoted to the subject of the parochial 
 discourses, which the author declares have to be 
 given by all priests once in each quarter. In 
 delivering these the priest is urged to be as simple 
 as possible in his language, and to suit himself in 
 every way to his audience.^ 
 
 In another treatise closely resembling this Pars 
 
 1 Some further account of this important tract may be given with 
 advantage. The tract begins by instructing the priest on the praxis 
 confessarii : the kind of questions it is well to ask from various people 
 — e.g., religious, secular priests, merchants, soldiers, &c. Then comes 
 a method of examination of conscience in detail, &c. The priest is 
 advised to urge his penitents to say seven times daily the Pater and 
 Creed to correspond to the seven canonical hours. Should any one be 
 found not to know these he is to be enjoined to learn them, together 
 with the Ave Maria, at once. The confessor is to inculcate upon those 
 who come to him a devotion to the Guardian Angels, and teach them 
 some little verses to say in order to beg the protection of these guardian
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 197 
 
 OcuU Sacerdotis— SO closely, indeed, that it has 
 sometimes been mistaken for a portion of it — is the 
 better known Pupilla Oculi of John de Burgo, or 
 Borough, rector of Collingham, in a.d. 1385. It 
 was only to a certain extent original, for, as the 
 author states in his Preface, he has called it Pupilla 
 Oculi, " because it is to a large extent drawn from 
 another work entitled Oculuf^ Sacerdotis." This 
 
 spirits. The verse given in the Dextra Pars Oculi may be Englished 
 thus : 
 
 O angel who my guardian art, 
 Thro' God's paternal love ; 
 Defend and shield and rule the charge, 
 Assigned thee from above. 
 
 From vice's stain preserve my soul, 
 
 O gentle angel bright ; 
 In all my life be thou my stay, 
 
 To all my steps the light. 
 
 Then follow the various modes of absolving from excommunication, 
 &c., and in this connection, copies of the reserved cases, with the 
 Magna Carta and the Carta de Foresta, the keeping of which was 
 enforced in a.d. 1254 by ecclesiastical censures. 
 
 The second part of the Dextra Pars Oculi deals minutely aud 
 carefully with the instructions which a priest should give his peojile, 
 not only as to matters of belief, but as to decorum and behaviour in 
 church, cemetery, &c. These materials for instructions are arranged 
 under some thirty-oue headings. Following on this are the explana- 
 tions of the familiar instructions which priests were bound to give to 
 their people four times a year, aud sei'mons on various subjects, chiefly 
 on temptations. 
 
 The third part of the volume, entitled the Sinistra Pars Oculi, is in 
 fact a careful treatise on the Sacraments. The instructions upon the 
 Blessed Eucharist are especially good, and in the course of them 
 many matters of English practice are touched upon and explanation 
 is given of the ceremonies of the Mass.
 
 198 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 manual also was evidently much in demand by the 
 clergy. Numerous manuscript copies of it are in 
 existence, and it has been printed several times.; 
 One edition, that of a.d. 1510, was issued from the 
 press by the printer Wolffgang, at the expense of 
 an English merchant of London, named William 
 Bretton, and was sold, as the title-page sets forth, 
 at Pepwell's bookshop in St. Paul's Churchyard.^ 
 Both the Pars Ocidi and the Oculus SacerdoHs bear 
 a close resemblance to another tract called Regimen 
 Animarum^ which was apparently compiled as early 
 as A.D. 1343. 
 
 Another sample of these priests' manuals, chiefly 
 intended to furnish material for popular instruction, 
 is a fourteenth-century tract called the Speculum 
 Christiani. It was composed by one John Watton 
 with the distinct purpose, as the Preface informs 
 
 1 Its full title is Pupilla oculi omnibus presbyteris precipue Anylicanis 
 necessaria. On the back of the title-page of the 1510 edition is a 
 letter from Augustine Aggeus to W. Bretton. After saying that 
 societies exist to propagate books, the author declares that Bretton 
 has been induced to print the Pupilla by a desire that the rites and 
 sacraments of the Church should be better known, and to secure 
 " that nowhere in the English Church " these rites should be badly 
 observed or understood. It is clear from the letter that W. Bretton 
 had already had other works printed in the same way, and it is known 
 that amongst those works were copies of Lyndwode's Provinciale 
 (1505), Pmllerinm et Hymni (1506), Horse, &c. (1506), Speculum 
 Spiriluuliuyn, and Hampole, De Emendatione Vitx (1510). (of. Ames, 
 ed. Herbert, iii. p. IG). Pepwell, the publisher, at the sign of the 
 Holy Trinity, was the same who published many books printed abroad, 
 and had dealings with Bishops Stokesley and Tunstall. 
 
 2 The prologue to the Pcyimeu Animarum (Harl. MS. 2272, fol. 2) 
 says the work is compiled chiefly from the Summa Summariim Ray-
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 199 
 
 US, of aiding the clergy in giving the teaching 
 
 commanded by tlie Constitutions of Archbishop 
 
 Peckham. In many ways the Speculum Christiani 
 
 is the most useful and important of this class of 
 
 manuals. A considerable portion is given in 
 
 English, each division, for example, being prefaced 
 
 by simple rhymes in the vernacular, giving the chief 
 
 points to be borne in mind. In fifteenth-century 
 
 sermons I have frequently met with these rude 
 
 rhymes, introduced into the text of a discourse, as 
 
 if they were perfectly well known to the audience. 
 
 At haphazard I take a couple of examples. The 
 
 First Commandment is summed up thus : 
 
 Thou shalt love thy God with heart entire, 
 With all thy soul and all thy might, 
 And other God in no manner 
 Thou shalt not have by day nor night. 
 
 And the precept of keeping holy certain days is 
 prefaced by the following : 
 
 mundi, Summa Confessorum, Veritales Theologie, Pars oculi Sacerdotis, 
 &c. The work is divided into three parts : (1) De Morihus et scientia 
 presbyteroriim et aliorum cltricorum ; (2^ De exhortationibus et doctrinis 
 bonis erga subditos suos faciendis ; (8) De septem Sacramentis. 
 
 lu the second part the priest is urged to instruct his people con- 
 stantly in English, aud no one who will examine this portion can faU to 
 be struck at the minute character of these instructions. It may be 
 noted that at fol. 9lb the priest is urged to teach his people to bow at 
 the Sacred Name, and to add the name Jesus to the end of the Ave 
 Maria, and to explain to them the Indulgences granted to such as do 
 so by Popes John XXII. and Urban IV. 
 
 The third part begins, in this copy, at fol. 132, and treats of the 
 sacraments most fully. In speaking of Conjirmation, the necessity of 
 consecrated oil is insisted upon. The volume closes with a description 
 and explanation of the Canon of the Holy Mass.
 
 200 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Thy holy days keep well also, 
 From worldly works take thou thy rest ; 
 All thy household the same shall do, 
 Both wife and child, servant and beast. 
 
 The number of copies of the Speculum Ghristiani 
 to be found in the Museum collection of MSS. is 
 some ten or twelve, and this may be taken as evi- 
 dence of its popularity in the fourteenth and fif- 
 teenth centuries. It was translated into English 
 by one John Byrd in the latter century, and was 
 one of the earliest books ever put into type in 
 England. An edition was printed in London by 
 William of Machlin, at the expense of a London 
 merchant, about a.d. 1480, and in the first decade 
 of the sixteenth century it was reprinted, but with- 
 out the English verses, at least three times. ^ I 
 cannot pass from a brief notice of this excellent 
 manual of instructions without pointing out that 
 in it may be found some beautiful prayers to the 
 Blessed Sacrament and our Lady, which were for- 
 merly used by our Catholic ancestors. The English 
 verses beginning : 
 
 Mary Mother, wel thou bee, 
 Mary Mother, think on me. 
 
 ' The Museum has four printed copies : (1) the supposed print of 
 1480 ; (2) a copy of 1500, printed at Paris ; (3) another of 1502 ; and 
 (4) one printed by Thomas Rees, a.d. 1513, in London. The later 
 copies have no English verses ; but that they were iutended for English 
 use seems clear from the fact that the prologue to the volume, in which 
 the author says that it is intended to furnish priests with material for 
 the instructions they are bound to give by the Constitutions of Peckham, 
 is reprinted.
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 201 
 
 I should like to see reprinted, and, indeed, the 
 entire manual deserves to be better known than it is 
 amongst us to-day.^ 
 
 Space obliges me to pass rapidly on to the second 
 point for our consideration — that of preaching 
 proper in the two centuries before the Reformation 
 era. I would, however, ask you to believe that the 
 question of popular instruction has only been 
 touched upon. I could give many other examples 
 of manuals such as I have here introduced to notice, 
 and I have said nothing whatever of what may be 
 called formal theological text-books, all of which 
 were, of course, calculated to aid the clergy, in 
 what the great Grosseteste calls, " as much a part 
 of the cura 'padoralis as the administration of the 
 sacraments." I must, however, give one word of 
 warning. When writers talk of people being taught 
 
 ' Besides the volumes named in the text there are a considerable 
 nmnber of works of much the same kind. One such is the Flos Floi-um, 
 a copy of which is among the Burney MSS. (No. 36G) in the British 
 Museum. It is divided into five-and-twenty books, the first being 
 occupied with an explanation of the Lord's Prayer ; the second with a 
 tract on the virtues and vices ; the third with an account of the priest's 
 personal duties ; the fifth with notes on the teaching which parish 
 priests are bound to give to their people. Another book is called 
 Cilium Oculi Sacerdotis, and is divided into two parts. The first treats 
 about clerical duties, and especially of the duties of a confessor ; the 
 second part is a tract upon the Ten Commandments. Here, as in so 
 many similar works, some interesting points of practice in Catholic 
 England are touched upon. For example, we read that every rector 
 of a parish should have a cleric to assist him at the public Mass, and 
 to read the Epistle. This cleric may be vested in an alb, and besides 
 Church duty should teach the children their creed, " z'rf e.s7, their faith," 
 and their " letters," besides "teaching the singing." (Harl. MS. 4968.)
 
 202 KELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 tlieir Pater, something very different is meant from 
 the mere repetition of the words. A large number 
 of systematic instructions during the middle ages 
 were based upon the explanation of the Our Father. 
 Anyone who may care to pursue this subject cannot 
 but be amazed at the ingenious way the petitions 
 of the Lord's Prayer are made the pegs on which 
 to hang a definite course of teaching on the whole 
 of Christian doctrine.^ 
 
 It is impossible to consider the subject of that 
 systematic religious instruction which was con- 
 stantly being repeated in mediaeval times, without 
 wondering whether it had its proper effect upon 
 the minds of the people. The proof of the wisdom 
 of our forefathers is, I think, sufiiciently evidenced 
 bj the history of the change of religion throughout 
 Europe in the sixteenth century. In other words 
 (confining our attention to England), the way 
 in which the Catholic faith had to be uprooted 
 from the minds of the people is surely a proof that 
 they had been well grounded in it. Now that the 
 real facts are becoming known it is beginning to 
 be suspected in several quarters that the change of 
 
 ' Harl. MS. 1048, for example, is an instance of a book of instiuc- 
 lions in Christian doctrine founded upon the petitions of the Lord's 
 Prayer. It is arranged in tabular form, and is most ingeniously devised 
 to convey a great amount of solid instruction. The key to the arrange- 
 ment is on fol. 1 h, where it is said, " Per istas septem peiitiones 
 impetrantur septem dona Spiritus Sancti, que extrahunt a corde septem 
 peccata mortalia et plantant in corde septem virtutes j)rincipales que 
 nos perducunt ad septem beatitudines et ad earum menta.''
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 203 
 
 religion was brought about, not by the spontaneous 
 acceptance by the people of Protestantism in place 
 of the Catholic faith, but by a process of systematic 
 and deliberate religious starvation. And taking a 
 comprehensive survey, the Reformation in Europe, 
 as a whole, was by no means a popular movement ; 
 but, for the most part, the new faith was only, 
 after many a struggle, imposed upon the nations 
 by force and the will of the Prince. 
 
 But let us turn to the question of sermons in the 
 later middle ages. The work of instruction may be 
 said roughly to have been the special office of the 
 secular clergy. In the same general way preach- 
 ing may be regarded as coming within the special 
 province of the Religious Orders. Of course, in 
 such general statements the limit must be taken as 
 understood; and as a fact, at the outset, it is neces- 
 sary to guard ourselves against the impression that, 
 because the friars gave a great impulse to popular 
 preaching, it began with them ; just as it is useful 
 to guard against the notion that it was Wyclif who 
 introduced the preaching of vernacular sermons. 
 Indeed, unless the accounts of the preaching of the 
 friars in the thirteenth century are mere myths, of 
 this latter there can be no question whatever. The 
 Dominicans and Franciscans were essentially popular 
 preachers in the truest sense of the word. They 
 went from village to village speaking to the people 
 wherever they could, in public places as well as in the 
 churches. They gathered their audiences together
 
 204 KELIGIOUS J^rSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 on the great roadways as readily as in consecrated 
 spots. For the most part tliey had to do with the 
 masses, and plain, unadorned speaking was their 
 forte. As a rule, they made no attempt at set and 
 polished discourses, refraining from elaborate argu- 
 ment or the discussion of abstract questions. They 
 extemporised their teaching, suiting it to the needs 
 of the moment, and pointing their moral with anec- 
 dotes, fables and examples. Hence their triumph. 
 The people followed them in crowds, hung upon 
 their words, were carried away by their earnest — 
 albeit perhaps rough — eloquence, and made their 
 conquest easy. But even the friars (a century and 
 a half be it noted before Wyclif's " poor priests ") 
 by no means commenced, though they certainly 
 gave an impetus to, the practice of vernacular 
 preaching. From the earliest times the people 
 were spoken to in the language they could under- 
 stand. St. Bede, for example, describes the crowds 
 of Saxons who flocked to their churches to hear 
 the words of the Christian missionaries. What has 
 misled so many writers, apparently, is the fact that 
 the sermons which have been preserved to us from 
 the middle ages are for the most part in Latin. 
 This is true ; but it is no less a fact that the 
 preachers of those days used to compose discourses 
 in Latin which they afterwards delivered in English, 
 a practice which I fear might seem strange, or even 
 intolerable, to the immense majority of the Anglican 
 country clergymen, who in these more cultured days
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 205 
 
 have received the best education the national Univer- 
 sities can afford. 
 
 In the same way as the work of instruction 
 proper took a fixed form, so that of preaching was 
 fashioned on a well-understood and well-recognised 
 model. A short exordium, following upon the 
 chosen text of Scripture, led almost invariably to a 
 prayer for Divine guidance and assistance, which 
 concluded with the Pater and Ave, and only then 
 did the preacher address himself to the develop- 
 ment of his subject. For the most part, until 
 comparatively recent times, wdiich have introduced 
 somewhat strange themes into the sacred pulpit, the 
 sermon was based almost entirely upon the Bible, 
 and generally upon the Gospel, or other Scripture, 
 proper for the day. This practice, whilst it imbued 
 the minds of those who listened with a thorough 
 knowledge of the sacred writings, gives the sermons 
 as we read them now so great a similarity that we 
 are apt to regard them as generally dull and un- 
 interesting. With rare exceptions it is clear that, 
 in England at least, brilliant, startling, and sensa- 
 tional sermonising was not regarded with favour, 
 but, on the contrary, was looked on with suspicion, 
 as savouring of the " treatise," or method of the 
 schools, and founded on the practice of heretics. 
 
 Numerous tracts on the art of preaching, drawn 
 up for the use on our English preachers during 
 the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, are still to 
 be seen in our public libraries. I shall here only
 
 206 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 refer to one, written somewhere in the middle of 
 the fourteenth century by the celebrated Dominican, 
 Thomas Waleys, in order to teach the mode and 
 form of pulpit oratory, in what he then describes as 
 the "modern style." The whole tract is instruc- 
 tive, but I will here give only a brief epitome of the 
 first chapter, wliich treats of " the preacher." He 
 should, the master declares, undertake the duty, not 
 from vanity or love of notoriety, but from pure love 
 of Grod's truth; and prayer and study should go 
 before his work. As to his gestures, he should 
 endeavour not to stand like a statue, nor to throw 
 himself about regardless of decorum. He is to 
 refrain from shouting, and not to speak so low that 
 his audience have to strain to catch his words. He 
 is not to speak too rapidly, not to hesitate *' like a 
 boy who repeats lessons he does not quite under- 
 stand." The theme should be spoken with great 
 distinctness, so that all may understand the subject, 
 and, if necessary, it should be repeated. Before his 
 discourse the preacher should retire to some private 
 place and thoroughly practise the sermon he is 
 about to deliver, with the method of declamation, 
 the gestures, and even the expressions of counten- 
 ance suitable to its various parts. Finally, the 
 author urges the advisability of having some candid 
 and reliable friend to listen to the discourse, who 
 will correct the faults of pronunciation, &c., when 
 it is over. This is not such bad advice to preachers,
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 207 
 
 given at a time when we are asked to believe that 
 sermons were ahnost unknown.^ 
 
 Turning to the material aids to the intending 
 preacher, we can describe them — even in the 
 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries — as really vast. 
 Confining our attention, of course, to England only, 
 we may, in the first place, note some collections of 
 sermons for Sundays and Feast-days very popular 
 in the fifteenth century. The first course of such 
 sermons I will mention is that drawn up by John 
 Felton, the Vicar of St. Mary Magdalen and Fellow 
 of Magdalen College, Oxford. His discourses won 
 for him the name of homiliarius, or concionator, and 
 his course of Sunday sermons — some fifty-eight in 
 number, and of which there are many copies among 
 the Museum manuscripts — were much used by sub- 
 sequent preachers. In his Preface our author states, 
 that on account of the poverty of those who are 
 students in moral and dogmatic theology, and con- 
 
 ' Friar AValeys, in other places in this tract — De Arte Predlcandi — 
 gives much excellent advice from which we may cull one or two points. 
 Speaking of the subject of a sermon, he says that it is the custom 
 (^consuetudo apud modernos) always to have some text upon which to 
 found a discourse. This should be a real theme, taken from Holy 
 Scripture, and always from the Lesson, Epistle, or Gospel of the day, 
 except on great feasts, such as Easter. Generally it should be a 
 sentence, but sometimes it is best to take the whole Epistle or Gospel 
 and explain its meaning, for " this kind of preaching is easy and very 
 often greatly profitable to ordinary people." The author warns the 
 preacher that he is not to think sermons are merely arguments ; a 
 discourse should not only convince the mind, but lead it to good 
 affections and implant in it devout thoughts. He urges priests never 
 to finish a sermon without some mention of our Lady, Christ's Passion, 
 or eternal happiness.
 
 208 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 sequently by reason of the few books they are able 
 to obtain to help them, lie lias been induced by the 
 importunity of friends to draw up, for the use of any 
 priest having the cure of souls, a course of sermons 
 founded on the Gospels of the Sundays. " They 
 are," he adds, " merely the crumbs I have collected 
 as they have fallen from the tables of my masters, 
 whose names I have given in the margin." A note 
 in one of the copies among the Harleian MSS. says 
 that the sermons were published in the year 1431.^ 
 They are, I fancy, for our modern taste too much 
 divided and subdivided, and I have little doubt they 
 would be to-day voted " dry." Various authorities 
 are cited in the margin, as for example Waleys, the 
 Vitas Patrum, &c., and stories are frequently intro- 
 duced to drive home a point, or fix the attention on 
 a moral. Although the series is complete, I fancy 
 
 1 In one copy of these Sermones Dominicales (Harl. MS. 861, fol. 2) 
 is the following note : "In nomine Dni nri Ihu Xpi cui sit honor et 
 gloria in secula seculorum. Amen. Hoc opus completum fuit a 
 venerabili viro Domino, Johe Feltou, vicario perpetuo ecclesise paroch. 
 Beate Marie Magdalene, Oxon. Lincoln, dioec. in anno Dni: Mccccxxxi." 
 Leland says of John Felton : " He was an eager student of philosophy 
 and theology ; (yet) the mark towards which he earnestly pressed witb 
 eye and mind was none other than that by his continual exhortations 
 he might lead the dwellers on the Isis from the filth of their vices to 
 the purity of virtue." Besides the Sermones Dominicales, in some 
 copies (e.g., Harl. MS. 5396, fols. 143 — 209) there is another collection 
 of fifty sermons of a more miscellaneous nature. In his illustrative 
 stories he uses Pliny, Seneca, &c., freely, and as a rule the sermon is 
 shorter than the more formal discourse for the Sunday. Besides set 
 sermons, Felton drew up for the use of preachers and other teachers 
 an Alphabetum Theologicum, from the works of Bishop Grosseteste.
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IX ENGLAND. 20& 
 
 the discourses were really intended rather as a help 
 to the priest in the preparation of his Sunday sermon 
 than as a collection of sermons to be preached exactly 
 as they are set down. The stories, for example, are 
 often mere indications of what were then doubtless 
 well-known anecdotes, but the memory of which has 
 long since perished. Especially is this the case 
 where English and local examples are referred to, 
 as : " Note about the man in Bristol ; " or, " About 
 the woman in London, to whom our Lord showed 
 His Heart." At the end of every copy of these 
 Sunday discourses I have examined, there is a careful 
 and copious subject-index ; and many indications 
 are given, by subsequent sermon-writers, of the 
 influence of this collection upon the preaching of 
 the age. 
 
 Another set of sermons, evidently much in use in 
 the fifteenth century, and many copies of which are 
 still in existence, is that known as the Liber Festivalis 
 of John Myrk, a Canon Regular of Lilleshull. This 
 author is perhaps best known by his tract entitled 
 Instructions for Parish Priests, which was published 
 some years ago by the Early English Text Society. 
 He lived much about the same time as Felton, 
 namely, about the middle of the fifteenth century, 
 and his sermons were intended for use on the higher 
 festivals of the Christian year. I should like to 
 quote a few words of his Preface, putting it, 
 however, into modern English. 
 
 U
 
 210 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 God, maker of all things (he says), be at our beginning, and 
 give us all His blessing, and bring us all to a good ending, 
 Amen. By my own feeble lecture I feel how it fareth with 
 others that are in the same degree (as I am), who having 
 charge of souls are obliged to teach their parishioners on all 
 the principal feasts of the year. But many have as excuse, 
 the want of books and the difficulty of reading, and therefore 
 to help such mean clerks, as I am myself, I have drawn this 
 treatise. 
 
 The sermons themselves are short, and frequently 
 afford interesting information as to Catholic practices 
 in those days. There is always one anecdote, and 
 often there are two or more, and whilst many of 
 these may perhaps appear to us somewhat grotesque 
 and absurd, a study of the whole series of sermons 
 cannot but impress us with a belief that the priest 
 who could use them must have been upon terms of 
 most familiar intercourse with his people, and unless 
 religious instruction had been constantly and regu- 
 larly given, he never could have talked to them as 
 he is made to do in these sermons.^ 
 
 ' A few extracts from some of these popular iastructions on the 
 feasts of the Church may be given. The following words, as the rubric 
 directs, at the Tenebne, or Office of Matins, on the last days of Holy 
 Week, after the Hours were finished, and "before the discipline is 
 given to the people," were to be addressed to the people ; "good men 
 and women, as you see, these three days, the service is said at eventide 
 in darkness. Wherefore it is called among you tenahuUes, but Holy 
 Church calleth it tenehras, that is to say, 'darkness,' and why this 
 service is performed in darkness the holy Fathers assign three reasons," 
 &c. The people are then urged to be present at these services, and to 
 obey the common practice of coming to them in sUence and thinking 
 upon Christ's Passion. 
 
 In the instruction on Maundy Thursday, after explaining that the
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 211 
 
 The Liber FestivaUs, printed by Caxton in a.d, 
 1483, although by no means identical with John 
 Myrk's, is practically founded upon it. It has 
 sermons for nineteen Sundays and ferias, com- 
 mencing with the first Sunday of Advent and 
 ending with Corpus Christi day. These are fol- 
 lowed by discourses for forty-three of the chief 
 holidays and saints' days of the year, and one 
 sermon, suited for the anniversary of the dedi- 
 cation of a parish church. Then come some- 
 what detailed explanations of the Lord's Prayer, 
 Creed, and Commandments, &c. At the close of 
 the fifteenth century the general popularity of the 
 Liber Festivalis may be gauged by the fact that it 
 was printed twice by Caxton, twice by Wynkyn de 
 Worde, twice by Pynson, once by an English printer 
 whose name is unknown, in a.d. 1486, and thrice 
 abroad before the close of the century. 
 
 The foregoing are samples of the many collections 
 of sermons — chiefly for the Sundays of the year — 
 
 Church calls it " Our Lord's Supper day," the author continues : "It 
 is also in Englis tong schere thursday, for in owr olde fadur days men 
 wolden yt day makon sheron hem honest, and dode here hedes and 
 clyppon here berdes and so makon hem honest agen astur day ; for ye 
 morowe yei woldon done here body non ese, but suffur penaunce, in 
 mynde of Hym yt suff urd so harte for hem. On Saturday thai myghte 
 nowte whyle, what for long service, what for othur occupacionthat thai 
 haddon for the weke comynge," &c. In the sermons there are many 
 indications of Catholic practice, as for example, that procession was 
 made to the font of the church for the seven days after its blessing on 
 Holy Saturday. In the short instruction on the Assumption, the author 
 introduces a hymn to our Blessed Lady, which he urges his audience to 
 learn by heart and constantly repeat.
 
 212 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 which were clearly used by the English preachers^ 
 in discharge of their duty of teaching, in the later 
 middle ages. But besides these collected sermons, 
 which might be either used to draw material from, or 
 preached just as they stood, there were many books 
 intended for the purpose of helping priests in the 
 preparation of their discourses. As an example of 
 these aids to preachers, we may take the well-known 
 Summa Predicantmm, drawn up by the English 
 Dominican, John Bromyard, about the beginning 
 of the fifteenth century. There is a good copy 
 in the King's Library at the British Museum, 
 which formerly belonged to the Rochester monastic 
 library. The book — a very large thick folio volume 
 — is drawn up alphabetically, and information can 
 thus be obtained with the greatest facility on most 
 matters upon which a preacher is likely to need 
 instruction. An examination of its contents will 
 prove to any one who doubts, that it must have 
 been a mine of wealth to a priest engaged in the 
 work of preaching. Bromyard's work was printed 
 abroad, twice in the fifteenth century and again 
 in the middle of the sixteenth.^ 
 
 ' The theological common-place hooks which still exist in MS. prove 
 that the clergy often took great pains to adapt their studies to the 
 work of teaching. To take an example : Harl. MS. 2.344, is a theological 
 note-book certainly used, and possibly drawn up in the fifteenth century 
 by one John Chapman, " Rector of Honey Lane," Loudon. Chapman 
 was a doctor in theology, and, from 1493 to 1505, appears to have 
 sometunes occupied the pulpit at St. Paul's Cross, since he gives, on 
 the first leaf of his note-book, a list of his sermons delivered in that 
 celebrated London pulpit. The interest of the small volume lies in
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 213 
 
 Another work, similar to the Siimma Predicantmm, 
 was drawn up by Alan of Lynn, a Carmelite, who 
 wrote much in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. 
 The mere list of his works fills the best part of a 
 closely-printed page of Tanner, and a large portion 
 of his labours was directed to lighten the work of 
 preachers in the preparation of their sermons. Of 
 course the writers of the period drew much, 
 especially on all matters concerning natural history, 
 from the work of Bartholomew the Englishman — 
 sometimes called Glanville — a minorite friar who 
 taugbt in France during the thirteentli century. 
 His book, De P roprietatihus Uerum, alongside of that 
 of Vincent of Beauvais, was the Encyclopaedia of 
 the middle ages, and all his facts were arranged 
 with a moral and religious object. It was translated 
 into English by Trevisa in a.d. 1398, and had been 
 printed in fourteen or fifteen editions before the 
 year 1500.' 
 
 the fact that it is a collection of notes on a great variety of theological 
 matters. They are in a form which would probably be considered most 
 useful for referring to. In the margin a number is set against each 
 
 distinction, thus, 
 
 71 
 
 and at the end is an alphabetical index- 
 
 es., De Pilati et Herodis concordia mistice intellecta 
 
 71 
 
 ' The work of another Dominican, Robert Holcot, called Pro 
 Christi verbum Evamjelizantihus, deserves to be mentioned as much 
 used in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Wood states that 
 Holcot was " first a lawyer, and afterwards a Friar Preacher." He 
 studied at Oxford, and was the friend of Richard de Bury, Bishop of 
 Durham. He was a great lecturer on Holy Scripture, and is said,
 
 214 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 . In sermons of the period about wliicli we are 
 engaged, I have met with many references to a work 
 evidently very similar to Bromyard's Summa, called 
 the Alphahetum Predicantium. The work also of 
 another English Dominican, Nicholas Gorham — 
 Thema et distiiictiones — furnished not only the skele- 
 ton for a sermon, but material wherewith to clothe 
 it, arranged alphabetically and with a good index 
 of words. The influence of Gorham can be traced 
 in the preachers whose works have come down to 
 us (although, by the way, his name is not even 
 mentioned in the great Dictionary of National 
 Biography)} One northern priest, Robert Ripon, 
 who was a monk of Durham,^ for example, is con- 
 stantly quoting him as his authority. The volume 
 of sermons by this Durham monk may be noted in 
 passing. It is not a complete course, but a some- 
 what miscellaneous collection. The Sundays of 
 
 with some probability, to have been the real author of the Philohiblon, 
 now claimed for Richard de Bury. His work in aid of preachers was 
 printed in Paris in 1510 and 1513. Besides this, a small work, which 
 may be described as skeleton sermons for the Themata Dominicalia, 
 was drawn up by him, and is known as the Dieta Salutis. Seven or 
 eight copies of this work are among the British Museum MSS. Holcot 
 died in the fatal year of the great plague, 1319. 
 
 ' Gorham was certainly an Englishman (see Tanner). He was 
 apparently first a fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and subsequently 
 became a Dominican, and, going abroad, was confessor to Philip the 
 Fair of France. He died in a.d. 1298. The Sunday sermons in 
 Harl. MS. 755, fols. 1 — 148, were attributed by Wanley to Gorham, at 
 least in part. His book of Dominical sermons was printed at Paris in 
 1509, under the title of the Golden Foundation. 
 
 * See p. 27 ante, note 2.
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 215 
 
 Lent, for example, and those of the spring quarter, 
 have often as many as eight sermons for a single 
 day, and there are some six or eight discourses 
 preached at various Synods at Durham. In one of 
 these the preacher strongly urges upon all who have 
 the care of souls a diligent study of the Bible, 
 for, he says, " Curates are bound to have a know- 
 ledge of Scripture, for preaching the Word of God 
 to their people. Running through all the sermons 
 de iSijnodu, moreover, is the same plain demand for 
 learning and piety of life on the part of the priest, 
 and the same insistence upon the obligations they 
 were under to preach constantly to their people. 
 
 The study of Scripture urged by this northern 
 preacher must certainly have been practised through- 
 out the whole period of the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 centuries. We have remarked before that the 
 sermons were, as a rule. Scriptural expositions, 
 illustrated chiefly from the Holy Writ, and it is im- 
 possible to read them without rising from the study 
 with a profound belief in the detailed knowledge of 
 the Bible possessed alike by priest and people. The 
 clergy from early times had vast storehouses, both 
 of Biblical and Patristic knowledge in the great 
 gloased texts, which, together with, the words of 
 Scripture, presented the interpretations given by 
 the chief Fathers of the Church. Before the close 
 of the fourteenth century, moreover, the great 
 value of an index for the purposes of study had 
 been recognised in England, and many earnest
 
 216 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 workers had devoted their energies mainly to 
 throwing open, by means of their tabulse, or in- 
 dexes, what had hitherto been un worked and closed 
 mines of buried knowledge. The value of this all- 
 important labour has not been sufficiently recognised 
 in the past ; but, amongst those conspicuous in this 
 work, we may name Alan, the Carmelite, of Lynn, 
 and later than him. Abbot Whethamsted, of St. 
 Albans. A glance at the works of the former will 
 show all that he did in this matter. Concordances 
 and sub-indexes to the Bible, specially for the use 
 of preachers, were multiplied in the early part of 
 the fifteenth century; and the works of the Fathers, 
 Chronicles, and even the sermons of such a com- 
 paratively recent preacher as Bishop Grosseteste, had 
 copious and well-arranged indexes made to them. 
 
 Whilst upon this subject I cannot refrain from 
 calling attention to the great catalogue of monastic 
 and collegiate libraries of England, drawn up in 
 the fourteenth century by a monk of Edmundsbury, 
 " for the use and profit," as he says, " of students 
 and preachers." For this reason it was called by 
 him a Promptuarium. The list is arranged so that 
 by the help of numbers attached to each monastery 
 it might at once be seen where any given work 
 could be found in the English fourteenth century 
 libraries. Thus, for example, suppose a student or 
 preacher wished to consult the sermons of St. Anselm, 
 a glance at Boston of Bury's list would show him the 
 numbers 89, 43, 19, 116, 166, and 65 placed against
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 217 
 
 the title of this work. Turning next to the key 
 Ust of monastic libraries he would at once be 
 able to tell that complete copies were to be seen 
 in the libraries of Bermondsey, Woburn, St, Paul's 
 (London), Shrewsbury, Hexham and Ramsey. The 
 use made of this catalogue for preaching purposes 
 is evidenced by the way in which the Fran- 
 ciscans subsequently arranged the list of libraries 
 for their own members, to correspond with the 
 seven " Custodies," or divisions, into which the 
 Franciscan Province of England was apportioned. 
 But, although no account of the preaching in the 
 two centuries before the change of religion would 
 have been complete without some mention of this 
 gigantic work of Boston of Bury, I have been 
 able, of course, merely to refer to it. To do justice 
 to it, the subject would require an article to itself. 
 
 Before passing away from the question of material 
 aids to preachers in the later mediaeval period, it is 
 proper to advert briefly to the various collections 
 of stories intended to adorn and lighten the dulness 
 of ordinary discourses. Tales, examples, and even 
 fables with moral applications were apparently 
 introduced into the pulpit in very early times. From 
 the days of St. Gregory the Great the practice of 
 pointing a moral by the relation of an anecdote is 
 clearly evidenced, but its ordinary use may be said 
 to date from the rise of the Dominicans in the 
 thirteenth century. Very shortly afterwards collec- 
 tions of " histories," suitable for the purpose, began
 
 218 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 to appear. In a.d. 1294, for example, a Dominican, 
 Etienne de Besanpon, composed his Alphahetum 
 exemplorum, believing, as he says, in his Preface, 
 that " an example is more efl&cacious than the most 
 subtle preachiog." From the first the authorities 
 were urgent as to the need of caution in the use of 
 these embellishments, but the practice once intro- 
 duced soon became general. Even before the close 
 of the thirteenth century Dante refers, with some 
 regret, to the growing habit of making people laugh 
 in sermons. But Chaucer's pardoner knew well the 
 taste of lay people for pulpit stories when he says : 
 
 For lewed {i.e., unlearned) people loven tales olde. 
 
 The well-known Gesta Bomanorum, probably of 
 English origin, the Vitae Patrum and the lives of the 
 saints generally, furnished the mediaeval preacher 
 with ample material for his anecdotes, and many 
 collections of appropriate stories, arranged under 
 useful moral headings, were at hand to assist him. 
 Local colouring is often met with, and several 
 volumes of historietteti for English preachers, drawn 
 up in the fourteenth century, are known. Quite 
 recently one such work, by a hitherto unknown 
 English Franciscan writer, Nicholas Bozon, has 
 been published in France ; and the evident common 
 origin of stories found in sermons of the fifteenth 
 century shows, as we should have expected, that 
 there was no lack of material of this kind. 
 
 I have pointed out that for the most part parochial
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 219 
 
 sermons were founded upon Scripture — chiefly upon 
 the Scripture proper for the Sunday upon which 
 they were preached. There are, however, of course, 
 many examples of set discourses at this period upon 
 other, and, as some may think, more entertaining 
 themes. The subject is so vast that I can give but 
 few examples of such sermons. The first collec- 
 tion of English set discourses I recall to mind, 
 not to speak of the great Grosseteste, is that of the 
 sermons of the celebrated Richard FitzRalph, Arch- 
 bishop of Armagh — a learned man, best known, 
 perhaps, as the uncompromising opponent of the 
 privileges claimed by the mendicant friars.^ Al- 
 
 1 Fitz Ralph was born at Dundalk, co. Louth. Some of his early 
 hfe was spent in the household of that learned lover of books, Richard 
 de Bury, Bishop of Durham. Amongst his companions here were 
 Thomas Bradwardine, afterwards Archbishop, Walter Burley, and 
 Robert Holcot, afterwards the celebrated Dominican preacher. When, 
 as Archbishop of Armagh, Fitz Ralph was asked to preach at St. Paul's 
 upon the great question of the friars' privileges, Richard Kilmington, 
 also an old friend of his, was Dean. In hi3 work, Defensio Curatorum, 
 the Archbishop says that having come to London on business connected 
 with his See, he found great disputes going on between the secular 
 clergy and the Mendicant Orders ; after much pressiig he consented 
 to preach on the subject at the Cross, in vulgar i, some eight sermons. 
 His propositions gave great offence to the Minorites, and he was 
 summoned to Rome to answer their accusations. His chief contention 
 appears to be that people ought to confess to their parish priest in their 
 parish church at least once a year, just as they were bound to make 
 their offerings in their own parish church twice or three times yearly. 
 He complains that the friars use their faculties to entice children to 
 join them, and that once they entered their ranks not even parents 
 were allowed to see their sons except in the presence of professed 
 friars. He adds that, for fear of the influence exerted by members 
 of the Mendicant Orders, parents were beginning to hesitate about 
 sendiner their children to Oxford.
 
 220 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 though written in Latin, the discourses were, as 
 they expressly state, preached in English. Many 
 were delivered in the choir of Lichfield Cathedral 
 during the time FitzRalph was Dean ; others were 
 preached in the cemetery of the hospital, in the 
 Chapel of St. Nicholas, and elsewhere in the city 
 and neighbourhood ; whilst others again were de- 
 livered at St. Paul's Cross, London, and at various 
 other places in England and Ireland. It may seem 
 somewhat strange, perhaps, that the sermons of so 
 well-known a man as FitzRalph have never been 
 printed, but such is the case. I note that on more 
 than one occasion FitzRalph, preaching about the 
 year 1340, is said to have commenced his sermon 
 by reading the whole Grospel in English — ao in- 
 teresting and significant fact. The most celebrated 
 of these discourses were preached in a.d. 1356, at 
 St. Paul's Cross, and in them he fiercely attacked 
 the friars' privileges. They are certainly bold and 
 vigorous enough in their language, and we cannot 
 but be astonished at the way the Archbishop, 
 speaking on behalf of the Bishops of England, 
 could possibly have addressed himself to so burning 
 a question in the public pulpit at St. Paul's. We 
 judge, however, that he was not entirely free from 
 interruption, for he tells us himself that in reply to 
 an objection raised by a friend of the friars in 
 one of these celebrated sermons, he replied : " If 
 you will prove that our Lord ever really begged His 
 bread, I will give you this Bible I hold in my 
 hand."
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 221 
 
 St. Paul's Cross, be it remarked by the way, at 
 that time and for many years before, " of which, 
 there is no memory," says Stowe, was the most 
 celebrated pulpit in England. Some of tlie sermons 
 preached there help us to realise a scene now long- 
 passed away, and to fix a spot upon which, in ages 
 past, so many London audiences have gathered to 
 listen to the voice of the most renowned preachers 
 of the time. The very memory of the spot has 
 almost faded away. It stood — a raised platform 
 beneath a great timber cross — in the open air, and 
 in the midst of the chief burial-ground of the 
 metropolis. There, except m bad weather, when 
 the covered space, called " the shrowds," was used, 
 the great English sermons of the day were preached ; 
 and the site often suggested a moral to the speaker. 
 " The audience of the dead bodies under your feet," 
 one is reported to have said, " is as great and greater^ 
 as good and better, than you." 
 
 Learned and greatly interesting as are the sermons 
 of Archbishop FitzRalph, they cannot, in my estima- 
 tion, compare with those of another English preacher, 
 whose name I need not give, who lived but a few 
 years later, and who often occupied the pulpit at 
 St. Paul's Cross, and must have deeply stirred the 
 hearts of his audience by his exceptional eloquence. 
 His sermons are, I fancy, but little known, but there 
 are more than two hundred and fifty of them in 
 existence. Though preached in English, they were 
 written in free or even elegant Latin, and, if only by
 
 222 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 reason of the many historical and topical allusions 
 to be found in tliem, tliey fully deserve a place 
 among the monuments of our national literature. I 
 only wish that time would permit me to quote a few 
 samples, not only of this preacher's eloquence, but 
 of the manly vigour with which he pubHcly attacked 
 abuses, even in the highest places in the land. 
 
 The foregoing are imperfect, and, I admit most 
 fully, but detached specimens of the information 
 which lies ready at hand, but which, I fear, is little 
 attended to either by the popular writer or the 
 learned historian. In fact, the difficulty is quite to 
 realise how best to bring the truth home to people 
 in matters such as these. We have been so long 
 accustomed to round assertions, evidently -based upon 
 fancy rather than on fact, that in treating a matter 
 such as this, I myself feel as if I were exaggerating, 
 and so hardly know how to deal with, or even justly 
 to appreciate, the facts which crowd themselves upon 
 the mind of any one who will take the trouble — the 
 patient trouble — to inquire. Thus, in this supposed 
 era of " no preaching," I find that, taking only those 
 who have left evidence in the shape of collections of 
 sermons, the names of at least two hundred English 
 sermon-writers are known to us as having lived and 
 written in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. 
 Most of these, moreover, be it remarked, are 
 Carmelites, the least numerous of the four jMendicant 
 Orders. Are we to suppose that this phenomenon 
 is due to the fact that the Carmelites had in Bale
 
 RELIGIOUS IXSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 223 
 
 a capable bibliographer, or rather that, whilst the 
 members of the Order of Mount Carmel preached, 
 the other mendicants were all the time " dumb 
 dogs " ? On Mr. Lilly's hypothesis this latter is the 
 more probable alternative. For my own part, I am 
 inclined to think that the record of a vast mass of 
 sermon literature of the two centuries previous to 
 the Reformation has perished, simply because the 
 Franciscans and Dominicans, not to mention the 
 other great Orders, possessed no Bale to register 
 their sermon- writers. Still less fortunate, of course, 
 would be the secular clergy, who did not form a 
 corporate body with corporate interests. Hence I 
 would conclude that the list of preachers and 
 sermon-writers during the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 centuries (given in, say, Pitts or Tanner) only 
 contains a proportion — in fact, I may say a small 
 portion — of those who actually lived in that period. 
 Yet even this list contains a very respectable 
 number of names. 
 
 It must be long before even a fair sketch of the 
 history of preaching and instruction in England 
 during the later middle ages can be drawn. Even 
 in the British Museum alone it is necessary to 
 examine and weigh the contents of some hundreds 
 of manuscript volumes. It is a case of which we 
 may truly say labor est ante nos. But already one 
 or two points of importance stand out clearly from 
 a background of much that is yet vague. First 
 and foremost, it is certainly untrue that religious
 
 224 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 instructioD, in the highest sense of the word, was 
 neglected in pre-E-eformation England. Next to 
 this is the prominence given to familiar instruction, 
 as distinct from preaching, and the importance 
 which in Catholic days was attached to the constant 
 — the perpetual reiteration of the same lessons of 
 faith and practice. It may be said that this must 
 have produced a certain sense of sameness, and that 
 education has altered matters in our own times. In 
 point of fact, however, no amount of education 
 really affects these truths, still less does it advance 
 them. The only question is, how best the truths of 
 religion are impressed upon the mind. I must own 
 to a belief that at the present day our Catholic 
 people have not that clear understanding nor that 
 firm grasp of the great simple truths of their 
 religion which they ought to have. Nor need 
 we be astonished if this be the case ; for is there 
 much exaggeration in the statement that after 
 leaving school Catholics now seldom receive regular 
 and systematic instruction upon the elements of 
 faith and practice during the rest of their lives? 
 Here we are, living in the midst of Protestants, and 
 I would ask if, when the whole nation was Catholic 
 and had been so for generations, when the very 
 atmosphere which Englishmen breathed was im- 
 pregnated with Catholicity, it was considered neces- 
 sary never to cease repeating instructions of what, 
 for lack of a better expression, I may call " the 
 Penny Catechism type," it can be safe in these days
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND. 225^ 
 
 of vagueness and latitudinarianism to rely — I may- 
 say exclusively — for the teaching of our people on 
 the formality of set sermons ? 
 
 Of course I must not be understood as wishing 
 unduly to obtrude these considerations ; but in in- 
 vestigating the history of religion among the English 
 people many doubts such as these force themselves 
 on the attention of the inquirer, and many a prac- 
 tical question is raised in his mind of which at tho 
 outset he had no suspicion. 
 
 15
 
 226 
 
 VII. 
 
 A HOYAL CHUISTMAS IN THE 
 FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Being an Account op how King Henry VI. spent 
 
 THE ChEISTMAS-TIDE OF A.D. 1433-4 WITH THE MONKS 
 
 OF Edmundsbuey.^ 
 
 I. — Inteoduction. 
 
 rpHE Christmas of 1433 Henry VI. spent at 
 -*- Edmundsbury. Although events were tak- 
 ing place which already threatened the overthrow 
 of English rule in France, as yet the heritage left 
 to his infant son by Henry V. was intact, and the 
 English people greeted their young sovereign with 
 every confidence as the monarch of the two great 
 realms of England and of France. A child of but 
 
 ' This narrative was compiled for the Tablet, Christmas, 1892, in 
 conjunction with Mr. Edmund Bishop. There exists a contemporary 
 account of the king's visit printed iu Dugdale's Monasticon, but this 
 has been worked into a mosaic of minute details gathered from the 
 various registers and liturgical remains of the abbey of Edmunds- 
 bury, of which a large collection has been accumulating in our hands 
 for many years past.
 
 A TIOYAL CHRISTMAS. 227 
 
 12 years, lie bad, at tlie time of wliich we speak, 
 been recently crowned in Paris, whither he had 
 proceeded amidst every sign, fallacious though 
 it might have been, of popular rejoicing; "at- 
 tended by the chief of the English nobility and 
 3,000 horse, he left Pontoise and was met by 
 the clergy, the Parliament, the magistrates, and 
 the citizens of the capital. Triumphal arches 
 had been erected, mysteries were performed, and 
 devices were exhibited to honour and entertain the 
 young king." The ceremony of coronation " was 
 performed by an English prelate, the Cardinal of 
 Winchester, and the high offices of state were 
 filled by Englishmen, or by natives of inferior 
 rank." Herein lay the weakness which time was 
 to disclose ; but as yet the Maid of Orleans had not 
 appeared on the scene, and there was no indication 
 that the fugitive Charles YII. would ever enter into 
 the full possession of the kingdom which had been 
 ruled by his fathers. On Henry's return to Eng- 
 land, therefore, the people of this country could 
 welcome their twice crowned Sovereig^n with un- 
 restrained exultation and joy — feelings heightened 
 by the ingenuous and noble character of the child, 
 and by the bright hopes of the future to which the 
 thought that he was the son of a hero gave birth. 
 
 II. — The Preparation for the Visit to Bort. 
 
 On All Saints' Day, in 1433, presiding at the 
 meeting of Parliament at Westminster, the king
 
 228 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 
 
 publicly announced that, in accordance with the 
 custom of his royal house, he, by the advice of his 
 Council, intended to spend the season from Christ- 
 mas to St. George's day at the abbey of Bury 
 St. Edmunds. The unwonted news reached abbot 
 Curteys whilst he was staying at his manor of 
 Elmswel], some six miles distant from the abbey. 
 At first he seemed hardly able to understand this 
 novel proposal. At St. Albans, on the high road 
 to the north, the monks had been accustomed for 
 two or three centuries to frequent visits of king 
 and court, but, said the abbot, when the message 
 was brought him, nowhere in the chronicles can we 
 find that the king of England, at least for such a 
 time, ever fixed his stay with us, by the expression 
 of his royal will. 
 
 The burden, be it understood, was no light one. 
 A king, a court, and all the numerous attendants, 
 from the lords and knights to the lowest valet — to 
 house and board all these in a fitting manner would 
 put the resources of even such a house as Edmunds- 
 bury to the test. However, the abbot quickly de- 
 termined to do his best to maintain the honour 
 of St. Edmund's church and monastery, and a few 
 days later found him returned to Bury in order 
 himself to superintend the needful preparations. His 
 house, or "palace," as the record calls it, was in an 
 indifferent state of repair, and eighty workmen were 
 at once engaged, not merely to set it all in order, 
 but to decorate and beautify it, as so loyal a subject 
 as abbot Curteys would best wish to do.
 
 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 229 
 
 Before proceeding further, it is well to understand 
 something of the position of the abbot and convent 
 of Bury in the county. Like St. Cuthbert in the 
 north, St. Edmund in the east held the most 
 extensive franchises. Quasi-regal is the way the 
 local writers speak of them, and as the charter of 
 the Confessor granting the liberty of the eight 
 hundreds and a half to St. Edmund's monastery, 
 says : They are bestowed as fully as his mother 
 Emma held them, and as they were after in the 
 king's own hands. 
 
 But whilst the abbot held such temporal rule 
 (albeit with certain restrictions) over the famous 
 eifflit hundreds and a half, nothinij could be done in 
 taxing the borough without the will of the convent, 
 for the town belongs chiefly to St. Edmund and his 
 altar, and all the profits pertain of right to the 
 convent, unless they be voluntarily granted to the 
 abbot, or perhaps to some one else. Accordingly 
 the horn, which is called the Mote Horn, and the keys 
 of the town are every year on St. Michael's day 
 delivered in the chapter house to the sacrist by the 
 town bailiffs: and the sacrist delivers them to the 
 prior, who in the same way through the sacrist 
 returns them to the town authorities. And this 
 observance is annual, so that it may be known that 
 the town altogether belongs to the convent, and that 
 during the vacancy of the abbacy the king does not 
 take it into his hands. 
 
 Still, although such care was taken to guard
 
 230 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 
 
 vested rights, no less watcli was kept tlaat the 
 abbot's dignity shoidd, in no sense, suffer. With 
 such ample jurisdiction it will be readily understood 
 that abbot Ourteys found no difficulty in securing 
 among his own dependents a sufficient suite to wait 
 upon a king. He appointed, says the record, one 
 hundred officers of every rank to attend on Henry 
 during his stay. Even the most minute points were 
 not overlooked in his desire to do honour to his royal 
 master. He summoned the aldermen and the chief 
 townspeople of Bury to discuss with him how they 
 might best receive their prince, and in what dress. 
 Everyone will easily understand that this last was 
 no light matter, for even in small country towns in 
 the fifteenth century, no less than in the present day, 
 there were evidently many ticklish matters of pre- 
 cedence to settle, and, what is even more difficult 
 to agree upon, the exterior marks which manifest 
 these differences. After much discussion, therefore, 
 says the account, and a great variety of opinions 
 expressed, it was agreed, under the moderating 
 counsels of the abbot, that the aldermen and bur- 
 gesses should be content with the fine material 
 known as scarlet, and their inferiors with red cloth 
 gowns with hoods of blood-colour. 
 
 III. — The Reception. 
 
 At length all was ready for the day of the king's 
 arrival. The convent among themselves had already 
 for three days past sounded the note of the coming
 
 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 231 
 
 feast of Christmas by the antiphon Orieticr sicut sol. 
 For at St. Edmimdsburj, at least, it was the custom 
 to watch for the coming festival from the third day 
 before Christmas, and the 23rd of December stood 
 in their calendar as the vigil of the vigil of our 
 Lord's Birthday, from the first vespers of which 
 day, out of reverence for the coming feast, the 
 whole divine services were performed with special 
 solemnity. 
 
 Christmas Eve was the day fixed for the royal 
 arrival. At daybreak the town was all astir, and 
 the aldermen and burgesses and other townfolk, 
 five hundred in number, in their scarlet robes and 
 red cloth gowns with blood-colour hoods, set out on 
 horseback, in open ranks, stretching a mile along 
 the road, to meet the king at the Newmarket 
 Heath and bring him into Bury. Henry was accom- 
 panied by a stately train, and with this brilliant 
 addition to his retinue, he rode on to the monastic 
 enclosure. 
 
 The bell tower over the great gateway was then 
 in ruins, and so, to avoid all possible danger, Henry 
 and his gay cavalcade entered the precincts by a 
 safer if a lesser entrance. But this can in no way 
 have detracted from the splendour of his reception. 
 The burgesses, who, on the part of Bury, had taken 
 so prominent a part in the proceedings, had only 
 come to introduce the king to the reception pre- 
 pared for him. 
 
 It is no difficult task for the imagination to
 
 232 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 
 
 picture the vast court of Bury abbey, crowded 
 with the inhabitants of the town and the villages 
 of the franchise of St. Edmund, eager to catch a 
 first glimpse of their sovereign. Meantime, the 
 hosts themselves had done their part to arrange a 
 ceremonial of reception worthy of a king. As rumour 
 heralded his near approach, the great western doors 
 of the abbey church — works of beaten bronze, 
 cunningly chiselled by the skilful hands of Master 
 Hugh, and inspired possibly by what abbot Anselm, 
 the nephew of the sainted archbishop, had himself 
 seen at Monte Cassino — were thrown open. Forth 
 issued the community, some sixty or seventy in 
 number, all vested in precious copes, headed by 
 cross and candles, and preceding their abbot in full 
 pontificals, with whom walked an honoured guest, 
 bishop Alnwick of Norwich, whom on this occasion 
 they associated wdth themselves in the part of host. 
 The ranks of the vested monks opened on either 
 side, and through them the bishop and abbot 
 advanced to meet their boy king. Then the Earl 
 of Warwick, quickly alighting from his horse, ran 
 forward, and, receiving the king in his arms, 
 assisted him to dismount. Henry now advanced 
 towards the procession, and kneeling on the silken 
 cloth spread out on the ground, was sprinkled with 
 holy water by the abbot, who also presented the 
 crucifix for adoration, which was reverently kissed 
 by the king. 
 
 The procession here turned to re-enter the stately
 
 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 233 
 
 chiircli, and was followed by the whole crowd. The 
 building was large enough to accommodate even 
 such a multitude as was then assembled. The 
 western front from end to end stretched for nearly 
 250 feet; and within, an unbroken length of over 
 500 feet met the eye. The massive Norman archi- 
 tecture was relieved by the painted vaulting — that 
 of the choir by the monk " Dom John Wodecroft, 
 the king's painter," in the days of abbot John I. de 
 Norwold (1279-1301), that of the nave to match- 
 executed in the taste of the fourteenth century at 
 the expense of the sacrist, John Laveuham {circa 
 A.D. 1370), who during his term of office had spent 
 something like £50,000 of our money on beauti- 
 fying the church. The new lantern tower above 
 the choir was his work, as well as the clerestory 
 windows round the sanctuary ; and the painted 
 s'lass in the southern side of the minster had been 
 
 o 
 
 the o-ift of kino; Edward III. to St. Edmund. 
 
 As the procession passed up the stately nave the 
 organ burst forth in jubilant strains of music, and 
 the vaulting of the vast basilica rang with the 
 anthem of the martyred King, chanted in harmony 
 by the whole body of monks as they led their 
 sovereign to the altar. And these were the words 
 they sang : 
 
 Ave Eex geutis Anglorum, 
 
 Miles Eegis Angelorum, 
 
 O Edmuude flos martyrum, 
 
 Velut rosa, velut lilium ; 
 
 Funde preces ad Domiuum 
 
 Pro salute fidelium.
 
 234 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 
 
 TVhicli may be turned into English thus : 
 
 Monarch of our English race, 
 
 Soldier of the Angels' King, 
 Edmund, Flower of Martyr s grace, 
 
 Eose and Uly round thee spring : 
 Let thy prayers ascend on high 
 For thy clients' sanctity. 
 
 The procession finished, and Henry having prayed 
 before the Blessed Sacrament, he passed out of the 
 sight of his people by one of the side doors in the 
 altar screen, which had been adorned Tvith paintings 
 by the care of abbot Edmund Brundish, into the 
 feretory beyond, to pay his devotions at the shrine 
 of the Saint. This priceless work of art rested on 
 a base of gothic stonework, and was itself covered 
 with plates of solid gold enriched with every kind 
 of jewel. The monks loved to recall how king- 
 John had every year of his reign bestowed ten 
 marks on the work of beautifying the shrine, and 
 how among the stones which sparkled on it a great 
 and precious sapphire and a ruby of great price 
 had been his special gifts. On the right side, too, 
 wa3 the o-olden cross set with manv lewels sur- 
 mounting a flaming carbuncle, the rich gifts of 
 Henry Lacy, the last Earl of Lincoln of that name, 
 whilst a second golden cross weighing 66 shillings, 
 from the same generous benefactor, formed the apex 
 of the shrine. 
 
 On the east side, at the head of the saint, two 
 small columns supported a smaller shrine containing
 
 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 235 
 
 the relics of Leofstan, the second abbot, and others; 
 whilst on the western side, at the feet of the saint, 
 was placed the altar of the Holy Cross. Above the 
 whole stretched a canopy, which prior Lavenham 
 had adorned with painted pictures, and at the four 
 corners were the great waxen torches, which burned 
 day and night, and were paid for by the rent of 
 a Norfolk manor left for the purpose by king 
 Richard I. 
 
 Having ended his devotions, king Henry turned 
 to the abbot and thanked him for the reception 
 given him, and then, accompanied by the members 
 of his suite, he passed into the abbot's palace, 
 where all expressed their pleasure at the prepara- 
 tions which had been made for them. 
 
 IV". — The Vestry of the Aisbey. 
 
 The reader, it is hoped, will be patient of an 
 account, even in some detail, of the religious ser- 
 vices of this Christmas season as they were actually 
 observed at Bury St. Edmunds at the time of this 
 royal visit. The destruction of records, especially 
 of such as deal with ritual, has been immense, but 
 in the fragments which survive more has really been 
 preserved than is commonly understood, and here 
 advantage will be taken of such Edmundsbury 
 records as we possess. 
 
 But first, before the immediate preparation for 
 the service begins, and whilst the king is dining in
 
 236 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 
 
 the ball, let us take a survey of the vestry of this 
 great abbey and peep into the presses and strong 
 chests for vestments, jewels, and objects of gold 
 and silver. Unfortunately, we have no inventory of 
 the goods of Bury such as exists for St. Albans, but 
 a little anecdote of one of the guardians of this 
 church, Walter de Diss, which has come down to 
 us, is sufficient to show that the care of the valuables 
 in this vestrv was no lio-ht charg-e to an anxious- 
 minded monk. Walter was appointed sacrist by the 
 well-known abbot Samson ; but after four days' 
 experience in the office, he came and asked to be 
 relieved of it, saying that since his appointment he 
 had never closed his eyes, and could neither rest 
 nor sleep. 
 
 Doubtless, like St. Albans, Bury possessed large 
 " sets " of vestments, including ten, thirty, or even 
 sixty copes ; for one example at least will meet us 
 in our survey. The fragmentary notices which 
 remain, afford, at all events, some idea of that of 
 which all exact record is now lost. Here, for 
 example, is the cope woven with gold, and the 
 precious chasuble given by abbot Samson himself; 
 here the chasuble adorned with gold and precious 
 stones, and a cope of the like set given to the house 
 by abbot Hugh II., afterwards bishop of Ely. 
 Then in this press are kept the precious copes and 
 silken hangings and other most noble ornaments 
 provided by abbot Richard I. (a.d. 1229-1234) ; in 
 this other the set of fifty copes and other things
 
 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 237 
 
 thereto belonging (that is, doubtless, albs, apparels, 
 &c.) which prior John Gosforcl had done so much 
 to acquire. Then, to mention one or two more 
 instances, there were the vestments obtained at 
 a cost of over £200 by John Lavenham ; the vest- 
 ment hloden cum botterflies de satijn given by Dom 
 Edmund Bokenham, chaplain to king Edward III. ; 
 the embroidered cope of prior William de Rokeland : 
 the precious cope bought for over £40 b}'' prior 
 Edmund de Brundish ; the sumptuous embroidered 
 cope given by Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln. 
 
 Of the plate, the most precious was doubtless the 
 great chalice of gold, weighing nearly fourteen 
 marks, the gift of Eleanor, queen of Henry II. 
 This had a history, for it had been given up by the 
 convent as its contribution towards the ransom of 
 king E/ichard. Queen Eleanor, the King's mother, 
 however, had herself paid its value, and subsequently 
 returned it to the monastery on condition, as she 
 says in her charter, that it is never alienated, and 
 is preserved as a perpetual memorial of her son, 
 kino^ Richard. 
 
 Then, to proceed on our inspection, here we have 
 the chalice of fine gold weighing five marks, pro- 
 cured by the sacrist Hugh ; here the cross of gold 
 given by the abbot Samson ; here the third golden 
 cross, which had been among the presents of Henry 
 Lacy, which was set with precious stones, and con- 
 tained a relic of the Holy Cross. The same 
 generous benefactor had presented the convent with
 
 238 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 
 
 a cup more prized still. It was a bowl of silver 
 gilt, of the most wonderful workmansliip, wliicli he 
 asserted had belonged to St. Edmund himself, and 
 which on great feast days his chaplain, wearing a 
 surplice, had been wont to offer to the most dignified 
 guests keeping holiday with him. The last acquisi- 
 tion would doubtless be regarded with particular 
 pleasure, and it would probably be specially pointed 
 out to the visitor among the precious things in 
 the treasure chests of Bury. 
 
 As abbot Curteys was himself the donor, and as he 
 was about to use his gift in the pontifical functions of 
 the feast, we may delay a moment over a more detailed 
 description of a work of art — a pastoral staff — which 
 must have done honour to the English workman 
 who had made it. For it had been made by one 
 John Horwell, goldsmith of London. It was ordered 
 by abbot Curteys in January, 1430, and it was to 
 be ready for the feast of All Saints in that year. In 
 the crook itself are figured two scenes — on the one 
 side the Assumption of our Blessed Lady, on the 
 other the Annunciation ; below the springing of the 
 curve is a richly ornamented niche enshrining the 
 figure of St. Edmund, whilst below this again and 
 forminof the summit of the staff are twelve such 
 canopies each containing a figure of one of the 
 Apostles. The weight of this precious pastoral 
 staff is ] 21bs. O^ozs, and the abbot, we are told, 
 paid £40 to the London goldsmith for it. 
 
 This mere glance at the vestry of a single
 
 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 239 
 
 monastery may afford some idea of the devastation 
 whicli took place some century later. Of the treasures 
 gathered together at St. Edmundsbury nothing 
 whatever remains ; the destruction was complete. 
 No wonder the eighth Henry's Royal Commissioners 
 could write of Bury : " we found a riche shryne 
 which was very comberous to deface," and that, 
 although they had " taken in the said monastery in 
 gold and silver 5,000 marks and above, over and 
 besides a rich cross with emeralds, as also divers 
 and sundry stones of great value, they had yet left 
 the house well furnished ; " and no wonder too, 
 that Camden, in lamenting over the ruin of the 
 house, could write : " Greater loss than this, so far 
 as the works of man go, England never suffered." 
 
 V. — The Beginning of the Feast. 
 
 At Bury, as at Glastonbury, at Evesham, 
 Coventry, and elsewhere, the parish churches, 
 although standing in the very enclosure of the abbey, 
 were noble structures. And though they could not 
 vie in splendour with the great monastic church 
 hard by, we have in extant records the best warrant 
 for believing that the divine service was performed 
 in them with a dignity and a fulness which were 
 inspired by their great neighbour. 
 
 To-day, however, at Bury, there can hardly be a 
 doubt that the two parochial churches in the minster 
 precincts were fairly deserted. All who possibly
 
 240 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 
 
 could must have thronged into the great church for 
 the first vespers of the Christmas feast. In great 
 houses like these, everything connected with the place 
 had its history, which was affectionately remembered 
 by the inhabitants, even the very bells. It was 
 borne in mind how prior John Gosf ord had provided 
 the peal for the choir, and how one big bell added 
 to it was called the Newport, after prior Newport, 
 who had procured it; also how the sacrist, John 
 Lavenham, at a cost equal to £3,000 of our money, 
 had bought the biggest bell, and Reginald of 
 Denham had obtained the four bells for the clock 
 chime with one of wonderful size. 
 
 Even the ringing, like everything else in an 
 orderly house, was subject to rule, and the inhabi- 
 tants of Bury knew perfectly well from the character 
 of the peals the quality of the feast. Christmas 
 Day was rung in by four successive changes ; first 
 came the tones of the two Londons — the greater 
 and the Holy-water bell ; the second and the third 
 peals were sounded on the bells in the cemetery, 
 and amongst them Gabriel, the bell rung in 
 thunderstorms, and its companion, Galiena. The 
 beginning of the third peal was the signal for the 
 cantors and all the rest of the vested ministers to 
 enter the choir for vespers, whereupon the younger 
 monks began ringing the bells in the great lantern 
 tower, and then all the bells of the monastery took 
 up the music, and above them all was heard the well- 
 known tongue of Haiit et cler ; and thus, all sounding
 
 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 241 
 
 together, there rang out what the townspeople knew 
 as le glas, which was the signal for the beginning of 
 the office. 
 
 With the first peal the monks prepared for ves- 
 pers. Coming from the dormitory they repaired to 
 the lavatory and washed their hands. Then those 
 who were not to be vested in copes put on albs 
 which lay ready set out for them in the choir, whilst 
 the abbot, prior, and others prepared for the func- 
 tions in the vestry. The abbot, and to-day, of 
 course, the Bishop of Norwich, would be in full 
 pontificals. Meantime the torches and candles were 
 being lighted throughout the church. Besides the 
 four great wax candles mentioned as ever kept 
 burning at the four corners of the shrine of St. 
 Edmund, twenty-four, each of a pound weight, were 
 lighted on the walls surrounding the feretory, and 
 seventeen more of the same weight were placed in 
 the seventeen windows round the presbytery. In 
 the choir, the great candle, five large torches 
 standing before the high altar, each weighing four 
 pounds, and seven of the same size in the great 
 gilded seven-branch candlestick, were lighted. These 
 last were reflected in the plates of gold which 
 adorned this great candelabrum, and, together with 
 one torch before the high altar, were kept burning 
 until the close of the second vespers of the feast. 
 Then twelve more great torches were ablaze in the 
 choir and rood, and a second dozen in the lantern 
 tower, whilst twenty-six in either transept, one 
 16
 
 242 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 
 
 before eacli of twenty-four altars of the church, one 
 great candle set under each arch of the nave, and 
 twelve more huge waxen torches, each of eight 
 pounds, before the altar of the Blessed Virgin in 
 the chapel — a church itself in size — on the north 
 side of the choir, completed the illumination of the 
 vast church. 
 
 This evening it must have been a goodly proces- 
 sion that passed into the choir to the vespers, for 
 besides the prelates, the coped cantors and the 
 attendant ministers, the king himself took part in 
 the sacred pageant. After the psalms and their 
 antiphons, the responsory Juda was sung in 
 triple harmony. As soon as the anthem before the 
 Magnificat had been begun, the prior, who had been 
 waiting either in the vestry or before the altar of 
 St. Sabas, entered the choir, and, with the abbot, 
 sub-prior, sacrist, the abbot's chaplains, and the 
 vestiar, preceded by two acolytes and two thurifers, 
 went to the incensing. The abbot putting the 
 incense into both thuribles, took one, the prior 
 taking the other, and then both together censed the 
 Blessed Sacrament hanging over the altar in the 
 cup of pure gold which king Henry III. had given 
 for the purpose, and then the altar. This over, 
 they passed through the doors of the altar screen, 
 the abbot by the south door preceded by the two 
 acolytes, the prior by the north, each accompanied 
 by his side of the procession, the sub-prior always 
 carrying the abbot's thurible ; and so went to
 
 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 243 
 
 incense the slirine of St. Edmund and tlie other 
 relics, and lastly the altar of SS. Botulph, Thomas 
 and Jurmin, situated at the extreme end of the 
 church. This done, the whole procession returned 
 to the choir, censing on the way the shrine of abbot 
 Baldwin and the little altar of the choir in front of 
 it. Arrived at their places, the king, the bishop, 
 the abbot, cantors, and finally the convent are 
 censed. Then once more the prior and his proces- 
 sion proceed to cense the altar of the Holy Cross at 
 the foot of St. Edmund's shrine, and lastly the altar 
 in the Lady chapel. 
 
 Eor so lengthy a ceremonial it was necessary that 
 the Magnificat, should be sung with solemnity, and 
 its antiphon was repeated as well before as after the 
 Gloria Patri. The vespers finished by the solemn 
 Benedlcamus called Flo.'^ Fllius, sung in triple har- 
 mony by many monks standing in the middle of 
 the choir. Then the brilliant procession passed out 
 of the church and through the throng. The multi- 
 tudes dispersed to their homes to talk over the 
 doings of an eventful day and prepare for the 
 further festivities of the morrow. 
 
 VI. — The Matins and Masses of the Feast. 
 
 Between nine and ten o'clock the bells rang out 
 once more for matins and the midnio^ht Mass. The 
 manner of life in the fifteenth century was more 
 hardy than ours, and, what is more, religion was
 
 244 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 
 
 interwoven with all tlie thouglits and habits of the 
 English people. There is little doubt, therefore, 
 that the building was once more filled with 
 an expectant multitude. The proportions of the 
 spacious church would have been magnified to the 
 imagination by the solemn shadows of the Christ- 
 mas night. The altar and feretory was a perfect 
 blaze of light, which only threw the nave into 
 deeper darkness. For it is evident that in the 
 disposition of the lights there was a settled purpose. 
 Whilst the vast nave was left in comparative shade, 
 the great crossing was brilliantly lit up, and from 
 the lantern a strong light was cast down upon the 
 Rood with the attendant figures of Our Lady and 
 St. John, an incomparable production of the same 
 master Hugh, who had made the great brazen 
 doors of the church. The intermediate choir was 
 again but moderately lighted up, contrasting with 
 the brilliant illuminations of the altar and the place 
 of the shrine beyond. 
 
 The long matins were yet more magnificent in 
 their ceremonial than had been the vespers. The 
 closing responsory of each succeeding nocturn was 
 sung by an increasing number of coped cantors 
 standing around the great antiphonal of prior 
 Brundish, whilst the magnum mysteiHum, though 
 sung by only two, had a thrilling effect. For these 
 two were the picked voices of the community, 
 chosen because their clear and resonant tones would 
 make the vaulting ring, and would penetrate to 
 every corner of the vast basilica.
 
 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 245 
 
 The close of eacli nocturn was marked by the 
 same elaborate ceremonial of censing as at vespers, 
 and by the time the Te Deum was reached the whole 
 church was filled with fragrant incense. During 
 the singing of the hymn of jDraise the abbot and 
 his numerous ministers went to vest for Mass, and 
 at the close of matins the Holy Sacrifice began with 
 the Introibo, the Confiteor, and so on, as usual. 
 
 The Introit was sung by the precentor, the suc- 
 centor, and four companions in copes, and, accord- 
 ing to the practice at St. Edmundsbury, into the 
 Kyrie was inserted the Bex clemens, one of the 
 two farsurse allowed by the old use of the house. 
 The Gloria in excelsisj as was then the custom on all 
 principal feasts, was sung by the whole convent 
 in a body ; and glorious indeed was the chant of 
 such a number of trained voices, re-echoed by the 
 vaulting of that mighty roof. 
 
 The Prophecy was sung by two with well- 
 according voices, and the Mass was followed by 
 lauds, and only after this the community retired, 
 if not to sleep, at least to rest, awaiting the sound 
 of the big bell of the great tower, which it is the 
 duty of the sacrist's servants to ring on this 
 mornins" at the first streak of dawn. At this 
 sound all went once more into the church to the 
 Aurora Mass. 
 
 The third Mass was preceded by procession, for 
 which, while tierce was being sung, preparations 
 were made. First walked the servers, carrying the
 
 246 A ROYAL CURISTMAS. 
 
 Holy water and two thuribles ; next, two cross- 
 bearers in copes with two torch-bearers on either 
 side; then the shrine with the Gamisia of St. 
 Edmund, borne by two secular chaplains in albs and 
 copes ; then three sub-deacons followed, of whom 
 the middle one — the epistolar of the Mass — rever- 
 ently bore the great Gospel Book, the sumptuous 
 gift of abbot Samson, and the other two other 
 " texts " of lesser price. Then walked three deacons 
 carrying relics, the middle one — the gospeller — 
 having the reliquary with Ave on the top. Last, in 
 this first part of the great procession, walked a 
 priest, a grave and ancient senior, carrying the arm 
 of St. Edmund, and after him, two and two, in open 
 ranks, followed the whole convent, whilst in their 
 midst walked the precentor and the succentor 
 ruling the chant, the former with the seniors, the 
 latter with the juniors. On this day the procession 
 was closed, after the two prelates in full pontificals, 
 by the king clad in regal dress, followed by his 
 court, and doubtless by some, if not all, of the scarlet- 
 clothed burgesses of the town of Bury. 
 
 In this wise they passed along the cloister, by the 
 marble effigy of Anselm, the first mitred abbot of 
 the house, whose memory after three centuries was 
 still fresh, and so by three sides of the cloister to 
 the crypt, the entrance of which was from the 
 eastern alley. This crypt, over a hundred feet 
 long by almost as many broad, supported on 
 twenty-four columns, and dedicated like that at
 
 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 247 
 
 Canterbury to the Blessed Virgin, extended under 
 that part of the eastern limb of the church occupied 
 by the shrine of St. Edmund. The procession 
 entered it singing the responsory Descendit ; the 
 relics were placed on the altar, the ministers ranging 
 themselves within the presbytery. When all had 
 entered and had taken their places, the prior and 
 sub-prior censed the altar and the dignitaries, and 
 the thurifers the community. After a prose sung by 
 six voices, and the prayer of the Station, the pro- 
 cession returned through the cloister to the church, 
 and there, singing the Sancta et Immaculata they 
 entered the nave. A supreme moment this for the 
 Bury people. Our imagination can well picture the 
 eagerness with which they crowded round to look 
 at the splendid pageant and to get a glimpse of 
 their youthful monarch ; and the delay, necessitated 
 by a second statio before the great cross in the 
 rood loft, gave them time to satisfy their curiosity. 
 Here the abbot intoned the anthem Eodie Ghristus, 
 singing which the procession passed into the choir, 
 where, to-day, as on all greater feasts, the relics were 
 venerated by the convent. Then followed the Mass, 
 one part only of which need delay us here. To 
 heighten the jubilant character of the sequence 
 before the gospel, as was the practice on all 
 principal feasts, it was prefaced by a peal from the 
 great tower ; and so soon as the Mass was over the 
 joy bells rang out again, whilst the king left the 
 church.
 
 248 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 
 
 VII. — The Christmastide. 
 
 After the religious celebration of the day, Henry 
 returned to the palace and there held high festival 
 such as Bury had never seen before. On Christmas 
 Day, as on two or three other of the greater 
 festivals of the year, it was the practice of the 
 house to invite all the dependents of the monastery 
 of every grade to dinner. This crowd of guests 
 was distributed in accordance with their rank or 
 character. Thus, all those who were connected 
 directly with the service or the custody of the 
 church itself and all that pertained to the church, 
 dined with the community in the great refectory. 
 The chief officers, the abbot's gentlemen and yeo- 
 men, with other persons of credit and position, 
 would dine with the abbot in his hall ; while, again, 
 the chief officials of the obedientiaries of the monas- 
 tery, forty-eight in number, were accommodated in 
 the guest-hall ; and so on with others of lesser 
 degree down to the turnbroach and the disher. In 
 this way, all connected with the abbey were ever 
 reminded that they formed, with the monks them- 
 selves, one great family — the family of St. Edmund 
 — bound together by ties of interest and affection. 
 
 But to-day there must naturally be some displace- 
 ment when the king took the place of abbot and a 
 kingly court had to be provided for. But Bury 
 abbey was big enough, and its hospitality ample 
 enough for all — the new guests and the old friends
 
 A ROYAL CHRISTINIAS. 249 
 
 also. The stores of plate wMcli had accumulated 
 were sufficient to supply the table even of a king, 
 although abbot Curtejs had already sold much as 
 superfluous. Abbot Thomas, for example, had 
 alone given to the house 18 large silver dishes, 18 
 salts, 25 silver cups — of which 8 were gilt^ — 4 water 
 pots, 3 bowls, and other pieces of plate, weighing in 
 all over 105 pounds. 
 
 Moreover, the establishment as a whole, in the 
 number of persons who were engaged on some duty 
 or other, was on such a scale as in these days it is 
 difficult to realise. Every jDart of the complicated 
 service was accurately mapped out, and for every 
 piece of work there was a special servant or officer, 
 whose duty and responsibility was clearly defined. 
 Moreover, the housekeeping of a great abbey was 
 continuous from year's end to year's end, and the 
 house was always open and the family on the spot. 
 Nothing strikes one more, in looking through the 
 records of a complicated administration like this, 
 than the way in which all needs were foreseen. 
 Nothing is too small to escape attention, or too 
 minute to be left to the chance of accident, and 
 nothing was left to be counted as anybody's busi- 
 ness ; thus, on the one hand all knew for what 
 they had to answer; on the other if there were 
 defaults the failure could be visited on the defaulter 
 personally. 
 
 Unfortunately, in this case we have not, as in so 
 many others, the actual menu of the dinner, but on
 
 260 A KOYAL CHRISTMAS. 
 
 the evidence of similar records it may be safely 
 asserted that each man was expected to do justice to 
 the ample hospitality in a way alarming to us with 
 our modern appetites. Fortunately, the hours were 
 early, and all had time to prepare themselves for 
 further functions, for in those days in matters of 
 religious observance everyone was called upon to 
 do his duty manfully. 
 
 During the first portion of the king's stay, that is, 
 up to the Epiphany, he seems to have devoted him- 
 self mainly to the solemn services of the seaso^, and 
 to have surrendered himself to the life of the place 
 in which he was stopping. Westminster was after 
 all but a suburb of the capital, and life there was 
 full of the interests and distractions of a town ; but at 
 Edmuudsbury there was no life but that of the 
 Abbey and the country. The stay must accordingly 
 have been in this sense a novelty to the young 
 Sovereign. We will not weary our readers with 
 more details of the church services, although they 
 were marked in those days by an ever-studied 
 variety ; one or two points, however, may be 
 permitted as of interest in the present day. 
 
 Thus, after the second vespers of Christmas the 
 commemoration of St. Stephen was made with a 
 degree of solemnity which is no longer observed. 
 One of the deacons among the community, whose 
 Yoice was most suitable, immediately after the 
 Benedicamus of the vespers, assumed the precentor's 
 cope, and with all the other deacons of the house
 
 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 251 
 
 vested in copes sang the antiplion of St. Stephen, 
 which was again followed by the whole Magnificat 
 when the high altar, the relics and the altar in the 
 choir were a second time censed by the prior and 
 sub-prior. To the deacon-precentor was entrusted 
 the ordering of all the office for St. Stephen's 
 feast, and he had the satisfaction of inscribing the 
 name of abbot, prior, sub-prior, and all the seniors 
 of the house on the tabula to take the part he 
 assigned to them in the services. Further, as an 
 additional mark of honour, to the deacons were 
 assigned the most precious copes and albs that the 
 vestry could provide, and the deacon-precentor 
 placed his companions in the highest places of the 
 choir according to his discretion, and his assign- 
 ment was law. 
 
 The same ceremonial in all its fulness was observed 
 after the vespers of St, Stephen and St. John the 
 Evangelist; but on St. John's day the whole office 
 was taken by the elders among the priests. It is 
 not too much to suppose that in the observances of 
 the feast of Holy Innocents the little king would 
 take a special interest. After St. John's vespers 
 were over, for the commemoration of the Innocents, 
 a boy assumed the succentor's cope, and with his 
 youthful companions, also vested, began the anti- 
 phon, which was followed by Magnificat. 
 
 The boy precentor and his companions ruled the 
 feast to-day, as the deacons had done on St. 
 Stephen's. They were not, however, left without
 
 262 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 
 
 guidance, for the precentor always accompanied 
 them, although leaving to them the precedence ; 
 and there was this further difference, which tells a 
 tale of the lessons taught in Bury school. To the 
 precentor-deacon it fell to intone, in place of the 
 abbot, the antiphon at Benedictus and Magnificat, 
 but for the boy on Holy Innocents' it was prescribed 
 that he should offer these antiphons to the abbot, 
 who, if it so pleased him, should sign to the youth 
 his permission to intone. Advantage was taken of 
 this day to introduce into the music the pleasing 
 alteration of the treble of the boys, singing either 
 alone or together, with the full chorus of the deeper 
 voices of the monks. 
 
 In this season too occurred the notable anniver- 
 saries of abbot Baldwin and abbot Samson. The 
 character of these is sufficiently indicated by the 
 well known verse current among the juniors in the 
 Edmundsbury vestry — verses which the critic may 
 possibly think halting and somewhat too familiar 
 when applied to a person so remarkable in his day 
 as abbot Baldwin : — 
 
 Bald cum thure cappas et Samson postulat abbas, 
 
 Which in English is 
 
 Bald and Samson both require 
 Copes, with incense set afire. 
 
 The Epiphany was marked by many compliments 
 and, what is more solid, valuable presents made 
 by the abbot and convent to king and courtiers. 
 For the latter purpose the community had taxed
 
 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 253 
 
 itself to the extent o£ £100, promising the abbot a 
 proportion of such further expense as he should 
 find it necessary to incur; and so, with twelfth 
 night rejoicing was closed the celebration of this 
 memorable Ohristmas-tide at Bury. 
 
 VIII. — Royal Recreation. 
 
 " Changing and loving change is ever human 
 nature," so moralizes the monastic annalist. In 
 plain words, the king had evidently had enough 
 of church services, and the monks were not such as 
 not fully to understand the feeling ; and were quite 
 ready to provide even on the spot a pleasant change. 
 
 Of course they would not have been happy until 
 they had taken him to every nook and corner of their 
 house and told him the story attached in their fond 
 recollections to every building and adornment. It 
 would not be difficult even at the present day to 
 take a similar survey and to repeat much that the 
 king must have heard ; but we will spare the 
 reader what perhaps the king himself found a little 
 tedious. The interest displayed by these guides in 
 their home affairs, however, had this advantage, that 
 before long Henry knew the place well, and by the 
 time Christmas was over he was quite at home 
 at Edmundsbury. 
 
 After the Epiphany celebrations he at once dis- 
 pensed with the more ceremonious observances of 
 the abbot's palace, and moved into the prior's house.
 
 254 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 
 
 This, altliougli a less splendid dwelling, had the 
 advantage of a most pleasant site. One part of 
 it, the work of prior John Gosford, was thrown 
 across the running stream which passed through 
 the monastic enclosure. In front stretched that 
 which was the pride of the house — the vineyard, 
 which had been bought by abbot Samson for the 
 recreation of the community, and on the beautifying 
 of which successive generations had bestowed all 
 their care. Fresh and sweet-smelling^ was the air 
 which was wafted over it, says the chronicler of 
 the house. Dom Thomas Rudliam, a contemporary 
 of prior John Grosford, had taken advantage of the 
 running water of the river to fashion in this 
 pleasant vineyard two lakes. And here the king, 
 as a step to further sport, could have the rather 
 tame fun of watching the larderer and his men 
 employ their "dragnet" and ''trameyll," their 
 " flewes " and " bowenettes " to provide fish from 
 the stews for the consumption of the convent, 
 and seeing them choose the eels from the great 
 perforated iron barrels where they were kept, just 
 below the outshoot at Teynene. 
 
 The great and sumptuous wall of Dom Thomas did 
 not prevent a viewof the far-stretching woods beyond, 
 whilst the gates of the vineyard gave the hunting 
 parties direct access to them. So, very soon the 
 king and his court were all engrossed in the 
 healthy pastime of the chase, and great and note- 
 worthy in the annals of Edmundsbury was the havoc
 
 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 255 
 
 made among the wolves and foxes by the royal 
 party. 
 
 As a relief from these exciting pleasures, Henry 
 would very probably have had many a talk with the 
 now aged Dom John Lydgate, at the time prior 
 of Hatfield Broadoak, but whose heart was ever 
 at Bury. Lydgate was the poet of his day, and 
 now without a rival in England. His journeyings 
 through France and Italy, his acquaintance with 
 the literature of the latter country especially, his 
 love for youth, to whose education the best years 
 of his life had been dedicated, the store of tales he 
 had gathered alike in travel and in reading, his 
 extraordinary mastery over his native tongue, all 
 would combine to draw towards the aged monk the 
 fresh and open mind of Henry. 
 
 After a fortnight's stay in the prior's house, 
 the king moved to the abbot's establishment at 
 Elmswell, six miles off. This manor-place is 
 situated in an exceedingly pleasant part of Suffolk 
 on high ground. The air is fine and wholesome, 
 the prospect beautiful and extensive. The house 
 at this time was in excellent repair, the neighbour- 
 hood thickly wooded, and abundant water near. 
 Here was a change of sport, and the king and his 
 companions varied their amusements between sedate 
 attempts to catch the fish in the streams and the 
 more lively recreation of hawking. All this, says 
 the contemporary writer, they found most delightful. 
 And meanwhile the . abbot had care to provide
 
 256 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 
 
 Henry and his courtiers, from tlie wide-spreading 
 domains of the abbey, with swans and pheasants 
 and partridges and other game, and with pike and 
 toothed eels and every sort of fish in abundance. 
 
 On the vigil of the Purification, Henry returned 
 to the palace at Bury to keep the festival. That over, 
 he went back to Elmswell until Ash Wednesday 
 ushered in the solemn season of Lent, when he came 
 again to Bury to pass the holy time in the prior's 
 house; whilst the great feast of Easter, with its 
 rejoicing, no less secular than religious, was kept 
 like Christmas at the palace. 
 
 On Easter Tuesday two of the court accompanying 
 the king, the Earl of Warwick and his countess, 
 were received into the fraternity of the house of 
 St. Edmund. For those who do not understand the 
 ancient and present Benedictine system of admission 
 to such fraternity, it may be well to give a few 
 words of explanation. Such admissions to fraternity, 
 which date from almost the earliest days, difi'er from 
 the Third Orders, which had their rise in the thirteenth 
 century, mainly in this, that the bond of union 
 was not to the order, but to the particular house to 
 which the individual admitted henceforth stood in a 
 distinct and personal relation. On the one hand he 
 received a share in the prayers and good works of 
 the monastery, and on the other he made its 
 interests his own. In a word he became to a certain 
 extent one with the actual members of the monastic 
 family in which he was admitted to fraternity.
 
 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 257 
 
 The example of the Earl of Warwick was soon 
 followed by others of the king's followers, and as 
 the time of Henry's departure drew near it came 
 to the minds of many that they could not leave 
 Edmundsbury and the friends there made without 
 the special tie implied by enrolment in the family of 
 St. Edmund. Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, the 
 king's uncle, who was already a confrater of the 
 St. Alban's monks, made his petition and others 
 with him. This was granted, and they all received 
 the fraternity of St. Edmundsbury. But Henry 
 himself would not be left behind, and determined to 
 sne for the like privilege. First he prostrated him- 
 self before the shrine of the Saint, and then, 
 followed by the Duke of Gloucester and the other 
 nobles, he went into the chapter house and sent to 
 inform the abbot of his desire. Abbot Curteys and 
 the whole convent at once came to chapter and 
 granted the pious petition of the young king ; he 
 was admitted with all the solemnity usual on such 
 occasions, and he and all the new confratres received 
 the kiss of peace. 
 
 Then the Duke of Gloucester, kneeling, begged 
 the king to thank the abbot for all his kindness, 
 and Henry, taking the prelate by the hand glee- 
 fully and gladly thanked him again and again, 
 and bidding farewell to all the community there 
 assembled, he affectionately commended himself 
 and all his to God, St. Edmund, and to the fervent 
 prayers of the abbot and his brethren. 
 17
 
 258 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 
 
 Once more the king and all his train passed out 
 of the abbey precincts amidst, we cannot doubt, the 
 acclamations of the crowd assembled. Once more 
 to do honour to him the five hundred good and true 
 men of Bury would have donned their scarlet robes 
 and their red cloth gowns with blood-coloured 
 hoods and conducted him the first stage on his way 
 to London to take up again the business of a life, 
 which as the years passed on was to be one of grow- 
 ing anxiety and trouble, until in bitterness of soul, 
 once more at Bury, he should exclaim : 
 
 For in the shade of death I shall find joy ; 
 In life, but double death now Gloster's dead. 
 
 The visit of Henry YI. to St. Edmundsbury for 
 the Christmas-tide of 1433-4, which we have at- 
 tempted to describe, seems more like a journey to 
 dreamland, so changed is all the world. Of 
 Edmundsbury itself and all its glories scarcely one 
 stone remains upon another. But of this visit one 
 special memorial is left. It is a book often shown as 
 one of the treasures of the national library at the 
 Museum, and is the copy of the poet Lydgate's life 
 of St. Edmund, which was not only written as a 
 memento of this royal visit, but is the identical 
 volume presented by the author to king Henry. 
 The illustrations from this precious manuscript have 
 become familiar to others besides the antiquary. 
 How many are there, we wonder, of those who have 
 examined this volume, and turned over its pages.
 
 A ROYAL CHRISTMAS. 269 
 
 who have ever realised the circumstances in which 
 it had its origin ? But it remains a witness of the 
 life that indeed is past and gone, but which was 
 once as real and as absorbing as our own.
 
 260 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE CANTERBURY CLAUSTRAL 
 SCHOOL IN THE EIFTEENTH CENTURY/ 
 
 1\/r BDI^ VAL education is a subject about which 
 jJA. niuch has been written, but about which, it 
 must be confessed, we remain very much in the 
 dark. Those who have not made the attempt would 
 hardly believe how difficult it is to obtain any reli- 
 able information as to pre- Reformation schools in 
 England. Still more impossible is it to find the 
 book which gives any account of what may be 
 called scholastic " manners and customs," whether in 
 cathedral, monastic or grammar schools. There are 
 many works, it is true, which deal professedly with 
 this matter of ancient education ; but, for the most 
 part, they quickly land the unwary reader in some 
 abstruse and interminable discussion concerning the 
 trivimn and quadrivium. To some, I know, it may 
 appear a matter of considerable importance to deter- 
 mine whether grammar, rhetoric and logic formed 
 
 ' Reprinted from the Downside Review, vol. x., p. 31, seqq.
 
 THE CANTERBURY CLAUSTRAL SCHOOL. 261 
 
 the basis of the education bestowed upon our 
 Enghsh youth some centuries ago, or whether this 
 apparently somewhat eccentric elementary course 
 was supplemented by the more enlightened and 
 equally curious higher course of the quadrivium, 
 consisting of arithmetic, music, geometry, and 
 astronomy. To me — I confess it with a feeling that 
 I may be lowering myself in the estimation of my 
 learned readers — the whole subject, when thus con- 
 fined to this narrow horizon, has the most depress- 
 ing effect. It results in no mental picture whatsoever 
 of the educational methods pursued by our national 
 forefathers. What I should like to know, and what 
 I never can find any writer to tell me, is something 
 about the conditions under which our mediaeval 
 ancestors learnt and their masters taught ; and it is 
 in the hope that others besides myself are more 
 interested in trying to realise the actual working of 
 the old school, in picturing the student at his task 
 and the pedagogue in the act of teaching, than in 
 exploring this trivium and quadriviiim desert, that 
 I here put on paper some thoughts suggested by 
 the examination of a monastic lesson book of the 
 fifteenth century. 
 
 Before, however, entering on this, I would ask 
 my readers to understand the material conditions 
 under which this book was really used. The 
 monastic school-room was the cloister of the monas- 
 tery, or rather one portion of it. " On coming out 
 from the morning chapter," says the custumary of
 
 262 THE CANTERBURY CLAUSTRAL SCHOOL. 
 
 St. Mary's, York, " let the brethren sit in the 
 cloister. . . In one part, where the Abbot is, or 
 he who takes his place, those come whose business 
 it is to speak to him." The others were to attend 
 to their tasks and reading, whilst the officials and 
 seniors were discussing with their abbot the neces- 
 sary business of the house. In the western walk of 
 the cloister, the junior brethren, who had finished 
 their studies, had spiritual conference with at least 
 one of the superiors. Directly opposite, in the 
 eastern part of the quadrangle, the novices and the 
 junior monks who were still students, or, as the 
 Rule says, were " adhuc in oustodia," sat at their 
 books and were taught the observances of regular 
 life — " the disciples asking their masters about 
 things they did not know ; the masters instructing 
 their pupils, and above all teaching them to master 
 the rule of St. Benedict." 
 
 At Westminster, the abbot, " as his dignity de- 
 mands," says the custumary of Westminster, sat 
 at the top of the eastern part of the cloister. The 
 prior took the first place on the north, next to 
 the door of the church, and the rest of the monks 
 sat according to their seniority after him. The 
 western walk was sacred to the novices, whose 
 master took the first place, with the youngest 
 nearest to him. Their method of sitting was 
 peculiar : they were placed one behind the other, 
 so that the face of one looked on the back of 
 his neighbour. And this was always the case.
 
 THE CANTERBURY CLAUSTRAL SCHOOL. 263 
 
 except when there was general conversation in 
 the cloister. The only fixed seats were those of 
 the abbot, prior and master of novices ; the rest 
 were placed according to the disposition of the 
 prior, sub-prior, or novice master, to whom the care 
 and due order of the cloister were specially com- 
 mitted. There, in the morning after the chapter, 
 and at other intervals during the day, the novices 
 attended to their tasks and one by one took their 
 books to their master, who either heard their read- 
 ing himself or sent them to some other senior for 
 help or instruction. Such was the practice at St. 
 Peter's abbey. 
 
 We who see the cold, deserted and damp-stained 
 cloisters of Westminster at the present time may 
 well feel a difficulty in bringing to mind a picture of 
 the busy scene which was enacted there, day after 
 day, for centuries. The four cloisters, there as in 
 every other abbey in Catholic England, formed the 
 work-room of the inmates. There the chief business 
 of the house was transacted, and the estates by which 
 it was supported were managed by the superior 
 and his officials. There the older monks laboured 
 at the tasks appointed to them, or discussed ques- 
 tions relatinsr to ecclesiastical learninof and reofular 
 observance ; and there the younger members toiled 
 under the eye of their master and his assistants at 
 their daily lessons. Cold and uncomfortable enough 
 must that cloister life have been there in the dull 
 days of our northern winter before hot-water 2:>ipes
 
 264 THE CANTERBURY CLAUSTRAL SCHOOL. 
 
 and suclilike luxuries of modern life were invented, 
 in spite of the skin-lined almuces, and notwith- 
 standing the thick carpet of hay, which the sacrist 
 had thrice a year to find for the cloisters and the 
 churcli of Westminster, from the farm at Kilburn. 
 How the hand could have held the pen and written 
 so neatly and so regularly, or have used the pencil 
 and brush so cleverly ; or how the somewhat thick 
 wits of our ancestors could continue to work at 
 their daily lesson through the long winter months, 
 quite passes our comprehension. But this we 
 know, that somehow or other they did manage to do 
 so ; and although the rush of modern life was little 
 dreamt of in the cloisters of media3val England, 
 still daily progress was made in spite of all those 
 drawbacks, which would simply paralyse the efforts 
 of the modern monk, and the pampered nineteenth 
 century school-boy. In some places, it is true, as 
 in northern Durham, screen-work divisions appear 
 to have been devised to somewhat shelter the student 
 and the scribe from the sharper draughts which 
 wandered round the vaulted cloisters. For does 
 not the ever-delightful *' Rites of Durham " say 
 that in the " cloister there were carrels fynely 
 wainscotted and verie close, all but the forepart, 
 which had carved worke to give light in at their 
 carrel doores, and on every carrel was a deske to 
 lye their bookes on, and the carrel was no greater 
 than from one stanchell (central bar) of the window 
 to another." And for the use of the younger
 
 THE CANTERBURY CLAUSTRAL SCHOOL. 265 
 
 monks and novices the same writer tells us that 
 "over against the said treasury door was a fair state 
 of wainscott where the novices were taught, and the 
 master of the novices had a pretty seat of wainscott 
 adjoining to the south side of the treasury door 
 over against the state where the novices sate, and 
 there he taught the novices both forenoon and after- 
 noon. No strangers or other persons were suffered 
 to molest or trouble the said novices or monks in 
 their carrels while they were at their books within 
 the cloister. For to that purpose there was a porter 
 appointed to keep the cloister door." But at 
 southern Westminster (according to Abbot Ware's 
 Constitutions), and we may suspect in most of our 
 monastic houses, there were only very few of these 
 sheltered carrels, designed for those who had special 
 and constant business to transact within the cloister.^ 
 So much for the schoolhouse where lessons of all 
 sorts were learnt — a very important matter to bear 
 in mind when estimating the results obtained. One 
 
 ' The earlier and purer form of the Westminster Customs, written 
 out with adaptations for St. Augustine's, Canterbury, contained in 
 Cotton MS. Faustina, c. xii., thus speaks of these carrels: " De 
 karulis in claustro habendis hanc considerationem habere debent 
 quibus comoiittitur claustri tutela, ut videlicet celerarius seu alii 
 fratres qui raro in claustro resident suas karulas in claustro non 
 habeant ; sed neque aliqui fratres nisi in scribendo vel illurainando, 
 aut tantum notando coiumunitati aut etiam sibimet ipsis proficere 
 sciant." (MS. Cott. Faust, c. xii., f. 96.) What is called abbot 
 Ware's Consuetudinary of Westminster (also a Cotton MS., Otho c. 
 xi.) is a rifaccimenlo of this earlier compilation — a compilation, be it 
 said, by no means representative of English monasticism ; its origin 
 can be not obscurely discerned.
 
 266 THE CANTERBURY CLAUSTRAL SCHOOL. 
 
 mediaeval aid to learning should not be overlooked. 
 Altliougli we in this more enlightened age have 
 learnt to scout the notion that wits are stimulated 
 by whippings, the rod was ever held in mediaeval 
 philosophy to be the readiest and surest method of 
 imparting wisdom. The ideal pedagogue is always 
 represented with birch and cane ready to help his 
 stumbling scholar over a difficulty with a well-timed 
 castigation. By master — and, be it added, by his 
 pupil too— the discipline of the rod appears to have 
 been accepted as the inevitable, if somewhat painful, 
 accompaniment of scholastic exercises. In all 
 places of learning, from the grammar school to the 
 monastic cloister, every scholar, from the plough- 
 boy to the tonsured monk, accepted the inevitable, 
 administered either coram jmblico, as an encourage- 
 ment to the others, or in the somewhat more sacred 
 seclusion of the daily chapter. So true is this that 
 the very term bacularius (now the proud title of a 
 finished student at the University) is said to be 
 derived from the dignity of deputy-beater, or 
 wielder of the stick, conferred only on those who 
 had passed through their course, and who were thus 
 considered sufficiently advanced to stimulate the 
 younger generation, under the eye of the master, 
 with healthful stripes.^ 
 
 ' We should hardly perhaps be inclined to count the sound whipping 
 of boys among the works of piety. It was however sometimes so 
 accounted in the mediaeval days. Thus, in a book relating the miracles 
 of St. Erconwald, there maybe found the story of a boy from St. Paul's 
 school flying for protection to the Saint's shrine in the London
 
 THE CANTERBURY CLAUSTRAL SCHOOL. 267 
 
 One other matter of great importance must be 
 named in this connection. We, who have known 
 the paths of learning since tiiey have been made 
 plain and smooth by every variety of printed manual 
 and carefully-planned table, can hardly realise the 
 time when these things were not. In the days when 
 schemes for the easy learning of cases and of 
 genders were undreamt of, and before Thomas 
 Kerchever Arnold had set Balbus to build his 
 wall through every mood and tense, so that in 
 following his actions the youth of England might 
 acquire the rudiments of the Latin tongue, the 
 royal road was broken with many pitfalls for 
 the unwary. Books were few and precious, and 
 the student's grammar and dictionary, instead 
 of being acquired by the expenditure of a few 
 parental shillings, had to be laboriously tran- 
 scribed from the dictation of a master. Such a 
 thing as a whole treatise of grammar, even as the 
 common property of a school, seems to have been 
 rare enough. Thus in the fourteenth century it is 
 recorded as a matter of note that at the grammar 
 school supported by the funds of the almoner of St. 
 Albans, an old tome was discovered in a box. It 
 turned out to be a copy of Priscian's De arte 
 grammatica, and with great ceremony and under the 
 
 cathedral. The anecdote begins thus : " Fuit itaque in Doctoris 
 Gentium familia Londonia; (St. Paul's school) didascalus quidaui 
 nomine Elwinus, moribus bonis insignis et artibus, qui inter cetera 
 pietatis opa-a puerorum disciplinis vigilantissiuiam impendere curam 
 solitus fuit." (Hearne, Ldaud's Collectanea, i., 21.)
 
 268 THE CANTERBURY CLAUSTRAL SCHOOL. 
 
 safeguard of stringent precautions (the schoolmaster 
 being bound to find security for its safe custody), 
 it was handed over to him for the boys to examine 
 when they hked. How precious these books, even 
 such as were in the hands of students, were esteemed 
 in those days may be learnt from the treatise on 
 books composed by Richard of Bury, bishop of 
 Durham, in the fourteenth century. The seven- 
 teenth chapter of the Philohiblon is so very much 
 to the point that I quote freely from it. 
 
 It is entitled, " Of handling books in a cleanly 
 manner and keeping them in order." " We hold," 
 he says, " that it is expedient to exhort students 
 upon various negligencies which can be avoided, but 
 which are wonderfully injurious to books. 
 
 " In the first place, then, let there be a mature 
 decorum in opening and closing of volumes, that 
 they may neither be unclasped with precipitous 
 haste, nor thrown aside after inspection without 
 being duly closed, for it is necessary that a book 
 should be much more carefully preserved than a 
 shoe. But school folks are in general perversely 
 educated, and if not restrained by the rule of their 
 superiors, are puffed up with infinite absurdities ; 
 they act with petulance, swell with presumption, 
 judge of everything with certainty, and are unex- 
 perienced in anything. 
 
 "You will perhaps see a stiff necked youth lounging 
 sluggishly in his study, while the frost pinches him 
 in the winter time. For such a one I would sub-
 
 THE CAXTERBUllY CLAUSTRAL SCHOOL. 269 
 
 stitute a cobbler's apron in the place of his book. 
 
 He has a nail like a giant's, with which he points out 
 
 the place of any pleasant subject. He distributes 
 
 innumerable straws in various places, with the ends 
 
 in sight, that he may recall by the mark what his 
 
 memory cannot retain. These straws, which the 
 
 stomach of the book never digests, and which 
 
 nobody takes out, at first distend the book from its 
 
 accustomed closure, and being carelessly left to 
 
 oblivion, at last become putrid. He is not ashamed 
 
 to eat fruit and cheese over an open book, and to 
 
 transfer his empty cup from side to side upon it ; 
 
 and because he has not his alms-bag at liand lie 
 
 leaves the rest of the fragments in his books. 
 
 What is worse, he next reclines with, his elbows on 
 
 the book, and by a short study invites a long nap ; 
 
 and by way of repairing the wrinkles he twists back 
 
 the margins of the leaves, to the no small detriment 
 
 of the volume. He goes out in the rain and returns ; 
 
 and now flowers make their appearance upon our 
 
 soil. Then the scholar we are describing, the 
 
 neglecter rather than the inspector of books, stuffs 
 
 his volume with firstling violets, roses, and quadri- 
 
 foils. He will next apply his wet hands to turning 
 
 over the volumes, then beat the white parchment all 
 
 over with his dusty gloves, or hunt over the pages, 
 
 line by line, with his fore finger covered with dusty 
 
 leather. 
 
 " But impudent boys are to be specially restrained 
 from meddling with books, who, when thev are
 
 270 THE CANTERBURY CLAUSTRAL SCHOOL. 
 
 learning to draw the forms of letters, if the copies 
 of the most beautiful books are allowed them, begin 
 to become incongruous annotators, and wherever 
 they perceive the broadest margin about the text 
 they furnish it with a hideous alphabet, or their 
 unchastened pen immediately presumes to draw any 
 other frivolous thing whatever that occurs to their 
 imagination. There the latinist, there the sophist, 
 there every sort of unlearned scribe tries the good- 
 ness of his pen. 
 
 " Our Saviour, by His own example, precludes 
 all unseemly negligence in the treatment of the 
 books, as we read in Luke iv., for when He had 
 read over the Scriptural prophecy written about 
 Himself in a book delivered to Him, He did not 
 return it to the minister till He had first closed it 
 with His most holy hands ; by which act students 
 are most clearly taught that they ought not in the 
 smallest degree whatever be negligent about the 
 custody of books." 
 
 So much about the general conditions of school 
 life in the middle ages. I now ask leave to intro- 
 duce to the reader a monastic schoolboy dwelling 
 in the cloisters at Christ Church, Canterbury, in the 
 latter half of the fifteenth century, His name is 
 William Ingramm, as in defiance of good Richard of 
 Bury's advice, he has scribbled it on many a page 
 of his lesson book. I may be permitted to remark 
 that it is a fortunate thing that there were some 
 boys who would " try their pens " and " draw their
 
 THE CANTERBURY CLAUSTRAL SCHOOL. 271 
 
 monstrous alphabets " on the margin of their l)ooks, 
 for all the bishop could say. It is by these boyish 
 tricks that we have learnt much of what we know 
 about these old world students. And so far as this 
 class of book goes, it is the student, not his manu- 
 script, that we prefer to know about. 
 
 My acquaintance with my Benedictine ancestor at 
 Canterbury is entirely due to the delightful way he 
 has of illustrating his course of studies. By this I 
 mean " illustration " in its literary rather than its 
 pictorial sense. Of pictures, if they may be digni- 
 fied by such a name, there are but two. One 
 represents an animal with two legs and a very curly 
 tail, which, according to some interpreters of 
 raedigeval drawings, should be taken as an accurate 
 likeness of a Canterbury dog of that period ; the 
 other I have little hesitation in pronouncing to be 
 a rude drawing, in both senses, of the monastic 
 teacher. 
 
 Below these rougli sketches are five lines telling 
 how the book belonged to Dom William Ingram, 
 monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, as " Reginald 
 Goldstone, monk of the said Church of Canterbury 
 and his senior testifies." Of the former, William 
 Ingram, I am sorry to say that all I know, except 
 what this book tells us, is that his name is inscribed 
 in another Canterbury book — a most wonderful 
 psalter — as its possessor, and that the name of 
 " Willmus Ingram, frater no-^ter,'' is entered in the 
 Canterbury obit book (Arund. MS. 68, f. 38), on th'e
 
 272 THE CANTERBURY CLAUSTRAL SCHOOL. 
 
 Ides of August, and in a hand which, judged by 
 other entries, was written about the beginning of 
 the sixteenth century. This and the fact that he is 
 not described as being either in priest's or deacon's 
 orders would lead us to suppose that his name was 
 added to the great roll of the majority when he was 
 but a young man. " Those whom the gods love die 
 young," we are told, and William Ingram informs us 
 several times in his lesson book that : " Ego sum 
 puer bonus quern Deus amat." Reginald Goldstone 
 was probably a relation of a prior of that name 
 who ruled over the Canterbury priory at that time, 
 and the same who in 1480 signs himself in a letter 
 to the prior as " your chaplayn " (Litt. Cant. III., 
 pp. 304-6). 
 
 The lesson-book I am now to describe is a stout 
 quarto of about 220 folios of paper. The first 
 portion consists of what we should call a dictionary, 
 or what was then known as a 7iominale. There is 
 nothing remarkable about this, except that it is 
 different from any printed in Wright's volume of 
 mediaeval vocabularies. Following on this, and 
 filling about 30 folios, is the elementary grammar. 
 The ground-work, of course, of all school learning 
 was the knowledge of the Latin language, and 
 the first tasks set to beginners were easy lessons 
 in grammar, the learning of words and their 
 declensions and the practice of turning sentences of 
 English into Latin for the purpose of Latin con- 
 versations. Fundamentally all these first grammars
 
 A Sea. 
 
 THE CANTERBURY CLAUSTRAL SCHOOL. 273 
 
 were the same and generally known as tlie Donat, 
 from Donatus a celebrated grammarian, who lived 
 in Rome in a.d. 354, and was the preceptor of St. 
 Jerome. A traditional peculiarity of this grammar 
 is the collection of all the words of one significa- 
 tion together : thus we have 
 
 Hoc Mare is. \ 
 
 Hoc Equor is. 
 
 Hie Pelagus gi. 
 
 Hoc Salum i. 
 
 Hoc Amphitritus is. 
 
 Hie Pons tis. 
 
 This portion of the book is closed with one of 
 those pious rhyming prayers that so clearly reveal 
 the influence of religious thought and practice over 
 even the ordinary actions and labours of life : a fact 
 which is patent in every book, or we might almost 
 say in every document, of those ages. The lines 
 run: — 
 
 " Presens huic operi sit gratia neumatis almi 
 Mando lecto \ . /Xpum roget ore fide \^. 
 Ut det scriptor / \ post mortem gaudia ce / 
 
 Deo gratias," 
 which in English is : — 
 
 *' May the grace of the loving Spirit of Grod be 
 present to the work. 
 
 " I beg the reader with faithful prayer to ask of 
 Christ that He would grant the writer after death 
 the joys of heaven. To God be thankfulness." 
 18
 
 274 THE CANTERBURY CLAUSTRAL SCHOOL. 
 
 One might illustrate this beautiful practice of 
 jotting down little ejaculatory prayers in copybooks 
 of this sort to almost any extent. Thus in the 
 Museum we find a lesson book of about the same 
 date as this Canterbury one, which belonged to a 
 certain " John Jones." On the top of many leaves 
 is the prayer, " Jesus mercy, Ladi helpe." In the 
 same book, before a series of questions and answers 
 on the verb sitm, we find, " Oh Ladi, helpe me in 
 ye beginning." This prayer for a blessing at the 
 commencement of a work is very common. 
 
 At the risk of wearying my readers I cannot 
 refrain from quoting one petition of the kind some- 
 what more lengthy, printed by Caxton. The book 
 in which this is found is a translation of Bartholo- 
 meus, de Froprietatihus reriim, and on the back of 
 the title are the following verses : — 
 
 "In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. 
 Amen. Adsit principio Sancta Maria meo." 
 
 " Cross was made all of red 
 In the beginning of my boke 
 That is called God me sped 
 In the first lesson that I toke. 
 Then I lerned a and b, 
 And other letters by her names ; 
 But alwaye God spede me 
 Thought me nedefull in all games. 
 If I played in felde other medes, 
 Stylle other wythe noys ; 
 I prayed helpe in all my dedes 
 Of him that deyed upon the croys.
 
 THE CANTERBURY CLAUSTRAL SCHOOL. 276 
 
 Now divers playes in his name 
 
 I shall lette passe forth and fare, 
 
 And aventure to play oo long game. 
 
 Also I shall spare 
 
 Wodes, medes and feldes, 
 
 Places that I have played inne, 
 
 And in his name that all things weldes 
 
 This game I shall begynne. 
 
 And pray help, counseyle, and rede 
 
 To me, that he wolde sende, 
 
 And this game rule and lede 
 
 And bring it to a good ende." 
 
 Even the lessons very often are conceived in the 
 same spirit. Thus, John Jones is asked to translate 
 and parse such sentences as this : " Ego sum 
 creatura Dei creatoris mei." And even the boyish 
 relaxations of our friend John are indications of the 
 same. 
 
 He writes, for example, in one place : — 
 
 " Qui scripsit scripta sua dextra sit benedicta 
 
 Qui scripsit scrape mvay non possum scribere all daye 
 
 Qui scripsit certe Johannes vocatur aperte 
 
 Qui legit emendat scriptorem non reprehendat." 
 
 To return, however, to our young Canterbury 
 monk. The elementary Latin grammar is followed 
 by some apparently miscellaneous notes on religious 
 subjects. The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are 
 explained, and Scriptural authorities are quoted for 
 the due observance of the Sabbath day. One piece 
 of information on a liturgical point may be recorded, 
 not as possessing much authority, but as a curiosity.
 
 276 THE CANTERBURY CLAUSTRAL SCHOOL. 
 
 Our student answers the question, " WI13' is the pax 
 not given in Mass for tlie dead ? " by stating tliat 
 this is because we are in doubt whether the departed 
 are in the peace of eternity or not. 
 
 Our scholastic, after devoting two leaves of his 
 copy book to these notes, resumes his studies of the 
 Latin language, and turns his attention to a series 
 of words, the meaning of which, together with the 
 gender of each, is expressed in some rhyming 
 sentences. The following examples are taken at 
 random : — 
 
 " Hec tibea for a leg 
 Hoc ovum for a nege 
 Hec Margareta for Meg." 
 
 or :- 
 
 or again 
 
 " Canto-Cantas for to sing 
 Pulso-Pulsas for to ryng 
 Hie rex for a king." 
 
 " Hie urcius for a pote 
 Hec alapa for a knoch 
 Hec cachinatio for a mok." 
 
 After treating of adverbs and prepositions, and 
 giving, in the catechetical form, some short ex- 
 planations of Holy Scripture, followed directly by 
 rules for the use of the verb sum^ our student 
 devotes some 30 folios to his Latin exercises. These 
 mostly consist of simple sentences or of proverbs and 
 such like old saws in English, followed by the trans- 
 lation of them into Latin. Some of the proverbs 
 we recognise as old friends in still older dresses ;
 
 THE CANTERBURY CLAUSTIIAL SCHOOL. 277 
 
 others strike me as being new, or, I sliould rather 
 say, very old wise sayings, so old that they have 
 not survived to our days. As instances of the sen- 
 tences, we may take : " John, y® lerning of grammar 
 long lyeing in bed little shall profit" — "My father 
 for to be beatyn woe is me beholding his bloody 
 body " — " Pilgryms are gone to Canturbery to 
 worship y*' Shrine of Seynt Thomas " — " I and 
 thou Eobert shall gather grapes in the yerd" — 
 "" A sodear fighting at Pomfret was rewarded in 
 Prance for his doghty dedys." 
 
 The proverbs are of more interest, but I merely 
 note the following : — " He that wyl not when he 
 may, he shall not when he would " — " When the 
 gam is beat it is tyme to rest" — " Ther is no man so 
 shrewd as a be^'ocar made a lord" — "Better is a 
 bird in hand than four out " — " It is evil to tech an 
 old doGfe curtesi " — " It is a hard batel where no 
 man skapis " — " The blynde eateth many a flye " — 
 *' A piper laketh much that laketh his over lip " — 
 *' When the foot warmeth ye sho harmeth " — 
 " It is better late than nevyre " — " The brent 
 hound dreadeth the fyre." 
 
 We come now to an interesting part of this very 
 instructive study book. It is a set of lines, some 
 150 in number, designed to teach the young monk 
 the manners and behaviour fitting in one who wears 
 the habit of St. Benedict. It is evidently of the 
 same character as the lines known as Starts puer ad 
 mensam, or those attributed to Lydgate, the monk
 
 278 THE CANTERBURY CL AUSTRAL SCHOOL. 
 
 of Bury, known in their Englisli dress as '"the 
 Book of Curtesie," both of which are printed in the 
 " Babees Book " of the Early English Text Society. 
 It would be expecting too much from anyone to 
 ask him to read this tract on mediasval manners, 
 or even an English translation which I had at- 
 tempted ; but a few indications of the teaching 
 given may perhaps be permitted. The young monk 
 is to kneel when answering the abbot, not to take 
 a seat unasked, not to loll against the wall, nor 
 fidget with things within reach of his fingers. He 
 is not to scratch himself — probably a more difficult 
 matter of self-restraint than it may appear, in the 
 days of woollen clothing and hay carpets — nor must 
 he cross his legs like a tailor. He is to give place 
 to his seniors, remembering that honour paid to 
 others is honour given to God. He is not to inter- 
 rupt conversation nor to laugh or shout aloud, ever 
 remembering that a man without manners is rightly 
 called a clown. Criticism and mockery of others 
 are to be avoided as a habit wrong in itself and 
 leading to a foolish manner of looking down on all 
 but self. Thanks are to be given for every act of 
 kindness or word of praise. 
 
 After these general rules for good manners the 
 tract goes on to speak specially of the daily life. 
 The youthful monk is bidden to wash his hands 
 before his meals, to keep his knife sharp and clean, 
 and say his grace. H talking is permitted in the 
 hostel, he must speak in Latin, not in English,
 
 THE CANTERBURY CLAUSTRAL SCHOOL. 279 
 
 must avoid idle tales, and when the Bible or other 
 book is being read he must attend. He is not to 
 seize upon the vegetables ; not to use his own spoon 
 in the common dish ; not to lean upon the table ; 
 not to cut or dirty the table cloth ; not to pick his 
 teeth in public, as it is not gentlemanly to let his 
 jaws be seen. Further, he is not to use his knife to 
 carry the gravy to his mouth, but to help others, as 
 only the ill-mannered and clowns take everything 
 for themselves. He is to wipe his knife before he 
 cuts the common cheese, and not to taste first 
 whether it be good enough for him. Finally, his 
 meal ended, he is to clean his knife and cover it 
 with his napkin. Special care is enjoined of all 
 the lights, in view of fire, and he is admonished of 
 the necessity for seeing them properly extinguished. 
 The tract then goes on to direct that in school 
 time English is never to be spoken, and that the 
 student do diligently write in his book what has 
 been taught him. If anyone come to call him 
 whilst lessons are going on, he is never to leave 
 without his master's permission, no matter who it 
 is that bids him come, and while being taught he 
 is to be quiet, and not to fidget or sniff so as to 
 disturb the class. 
 
 About sixty folios of our young monk's book are 
 now devoted to the grammatical treatise of " Ebrard 
 the Grecian," whose syntax was so very generally 
 used in the middle ages, and who apparently was an 
 inhabitant of Bethune, in Artois, about the close of
 
 280 THE CANTERBURY CL AUSTRAL SCHOOL. 
 
 tlie twelfth century. Finally, the last portion is 
 occupied with William Ingram's copy book proper, 
 and is a revelation of the methods by which caligraphy 
 was taught to young aspirants to a place in the 
 monastic scriptorium. There are pages devoted to the 
 letters small and capital, to a series of proper names, 
 days of the week, and to the titles of the months. 
 The copies proper are verses or sentences, generally 
 consisting of four lines, beginning witli tlie various 
 letters of the alphabet, which have been written out 
 in the hand of the master. The initial letter is 
 generally quite a study in the art of flourishing.^ 
 Below tliis come the various attempts of the 
 student to imitate the master's copy. Here and 
 there one may see marks set underneath a word 
 which has been badly written, and then the special 
 word is practised in the margin. For example, in 
 the first copy the word chaos had to be written. In 
 the first attempt this is badly done ; it is underscored 
 and we find it practised five or six times in the 
 margin. In those days, as in ours, the copies 
 chosen were apparently of a decidedly bombastic 
 
 ' This art was much esteemed in the middle ages. A curious and 
 interesting example of this may be here given. In 1489, a monk of 
 Westminster, named Edward Botiller, obtained permission of his 
 abbot, John Estney, to be transferred from Westminster to the 
 Cluniac Priory of Wenlock. On 9th April the abbot gives him his 
 " dismission under scale, "and a letter of recommendation to Wenlock. 
 In the course of his letter he says: "The same Edward hath com- 
 petent lerning and understandyng, and can syng both playn song and 
 prikked song, and also a faire writer, a florisher and maker of Capital 
 letters." (Hearne, Adam de Domerham, I., Ivii.)
 
 THE CANTERBURY CLAUSTRAL SCHOOL. 281 
 
 and priggish character. Somehow I suppose this 
 " Honesty-is-the-best-policy " kind of copy has been 
 found by generations of writing masters to be the 
 best. I will take one example of a copy set to 
 William Ingram: — 
 
 " Est melior probitas quam nullo sanguine claret 
 Quam sit nobilitas que probitate caret. 
 Nobilitas morum plus ornat quam genitorum ; 
 Non eget exterius qui moribus intus habundat." 
 
 One could easily imagine a nineteenth century 
 writing master setting his pupils its English counter- 
 part : — 
 
 Uprightness of life with ignoble blood is to be esteemed 
 
 before nobility without honour. 
 A nobility of morals is a greater glory than a nobility of 
 
 forefathers. 
 He whose life is right does not need the external glory of 
 
 noble blood. 
 
 The jottings on the margin of this portion of the 
 instructive study book may be noted in passing. 
 William Ingram, of course, tries his name in many 
 places, both in his native tongue and in the Latin 
 version. On one page we can recognise that his 
 native tongue has been exercised over a blot or two 
 in the approved boy fashion. A curious note finds 
 a place on folio 210'^ : — 
 
 " Memorandum that William Ingram oeth the 
 Mastir for ij pennes knyvys and papir," 
 and at another folio, like a bad workman, our
 
 282 THE CANTERBURY CLAUSTRAL SCHOOL. 
 
 youthful monk complains of bis tools, in the follow- 
 
 [ing rhyme : — 
 
 "Est mala scriptura quia penna non fuit dura " 
 (The writing is bad for a soft pen I had) ; 
 
 over against which complaint a wag has written : 
 
 " Penna non valet dixit ille qui scribere nescit " 
 ('Tis surely the pen, say all ill-writing men). 
 
 I may perhaps be allowed here to make a slight 
 digression, in order to give a sample of a draft-letter 
 written by a young monk of Canterbury about 1530, 
 almost on the very eve of the dissolution. It is 
 taken from a bundle of such drafts in the library of 
 Christ Church, Canterbury, and is one of three 
 transcripts I owe to the kindness of Dr. Sheppard. 
 The mother of the young writer had apparently just 
 died, and he drafts the following to his father : — 
 " (God rest) her sowl and send her sowle good 
 religion, and I send you knowlegg of the great 
 benefyte that my mother hatlie by the relygion of 
 this place. Sche ys nowe suster of our chapter and 
 her name schall (be read out) and her sowle to be 
 prayed for yerely as long as ower church doothe 
 stand (and her) name schall be sent to every 
 relygyous place monastic, as to monks and nonnes 
 and her name shall be read and sche shall be prayed 
 for." 
 
 " An other cawse of my wrytyng it ys of the 
 joyfull tydyngs of my brother's marryage ; the 
 which ys a thynge that dothe please me ryght (well).
 
 THE CANTERBURY CLAUSTRAL SCHOOL. 283 
 
 He batlie an honest young woman of her and I trust 
 they wyll do well. (I pray Almygty God to send 
 them joye of it.) 
 
 *' An other cawse of my wrytyng ys to bring to 
 youre knowledge of syngyng of my first masse yf it 
 do please Almyghty God. ... I beseech you 
 to be good father unto me at that season and help 
 me. It will be a grete koste unto me for I must pay 
 
 for bread for dry that doth belong to yt. And yf 
 
 yt do please God that I may live it shall be a great 
 gladness and a great comfortte to you, to me and to 
 everyone of my brethren. Then I, which am but a 
 wretche and a synner and unworthye, shall have 
 autoryte and full power with my vyle liondys to 
 handle the verray (flesh) of Jesu Crist, also yt ys 
 soche an hye offyce that yt must be done with 
 moche reverence, grate perfection and with great 
 cleanness. Therefore yt behoves me to do some 
 kost upon raiment, also that I'maye do that same 
 hye ofiyce with reverence and cleanness in honesty 
 as (far) as I can do y* yt may be to (the honour of 
 God) and to the salvacyon of my soul. And God 
 knoweth y* I have (great need to do) as I thynke 
 that I shall do and therefore I beseech you to help 
 me at that tyme so that you do not hurte yourself. 
 For if yt (was) to your hurte suerly you mj^ghte 
 saye that I were an unkind son, the which you shall 
 never fynde in me as longe as I do live. 
 
 " Also I desyre you to have me commendyd to my 
 ij brethren and to my new suster and to all other.
 
 284 thp: canterbury claustral school. 
 
 So no more to you at tliys tyme ; but I wish you 
 hartely (farewell, begging) you also of your dayly 
 blessyng, and so I betake you to God wlio (watches 
 over us all)." 
 
 In conclusion, I would note that obviously books 
 such as the one I have tried to describe must have 
 been rare, and would probably have been handed on 
 from one generation of schoolboys to another. It 
 is often possible to trace the descent by the names 
 of the various owners found inscribed in the pages. 
 Of course when William Ingram was drawing up 
 his study book the art of printing was already well 
 established, and we cannot expect to find many 
 possessors subsequent to the first owner. There is, 
 however, one name "written at folio 208, and it makes 
 us ask ourselves, " Gould he have been a boy at 
 Canterbury in his early days ? " It would be 
 interesting to know, for the name is none other than 
 that of " Reynoldus Poulus."^ 
 
 ' It seems by no means unlikely that Cardinal Pole received his 
 early education at the claustral school of Canterbury. His love for 
 the Benedictine order is well known, and it was to the monastery of 
 Polirone, near Mantua, then so gloriously restored by his friend 
 Cortesi, that he retired to spend the happiest years of his life. The 
 following letter, dated May 28, 1557, shows not merely the intimacy 
 in which he had for many years lived with the Cassinese Congregation, 
 but, what is more to the present purpose, his intention to have restored 
 the Benedictines to Canterbury had he lived : — 
 
 Cardinal Pole to the Abbot of St. PauVs at Rome. 
 
 Very Reverend in Christ as a brother, — I received from my Henry 
 
 (Penning) your Reverend Paternity's letter, and thereby learnt the 
 
 diligence used by you in sending to the fathers-visitor resident in 
 
 Spain the licence to come hither, as in truth I should have been very
 
 THE CANTERBURY CLAUSTRAL SCHOOL. 285 
 
 glad to see them for the purpose which induced me to ask for them. 
 Your Paternity will perhaps have heard that the affairs of St. Peter's 
 Monastery (Westminster Abbey) go on well, and thus, by God's grace, 
 they still continue proceeding from good to better, and I am not indeed 
 without hope that one of the two monasteries at my church at Canter- 
 bury may soon be restored. I am certain that 1 do not, and never 
 shall, lack the constant aid of the devout orisons of your Paternity and 
 of the whole congregation, to whose members I greatly recommend 
 myself, and pray our Lord God ever to assist and comfort you all in 
 His holy service, and to free you of the troubles you of necessity 
 endure on account of these wars, by speedily granting Christendom 
 that peace and quiet of which there is so much need in every quarter. 
 I salute with all affection our father Dom Sylvester. 
 Croydon, 28th May, 1557. 
 
 — "Calendar of State Papers Venetian, vol. vi., No. 904.'*
 
 286 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE NOTE BOOKS OE WILLIAM 
 WORCESTER, 
 
 A FIFTEENTH CENTURY ANTIQUARY.^ 
 
 npROBABLY to many people the idea of a " note- 
 -■- book " will suggest something too utterly dry 
 and unentertaining. Visions of miscellaneous notes 
 and statistics concerning places, peoples, and things 
 — a very Sahara of dry-as-dust lore — rise up in the 
 mind on the very mention of the word. I quite 
 believe that a volume of disjointed jottings de 
 omnibus rebus et qmbusdam aliis is hardly the most 
 cheerful form of reading, or calculated to rouse un- 
 bounded enthusiasm in those who have not served 
 an apprenticeship in the art and craft of literary 
 *' cinder- sifting." For myself, I will confess to a 
 partiality for note -books in general, and for old, 
 time-worn, paper-stained note-books in particular. 
 It gives me pleasure to turn over the pages of even 
 a modern note-book — that is, of course, the note- 
 
 ^ Reprinted from the Downside Review, vol. xiii., p. 235 seqq.
 
 THE NOTP: books of WILLIAM WORCESTER. 287 
 
 book of one who knows what to note, and how to 
 note it. It is possible to learn a great deal from 
 markins^ different methods of work and seeinsf what 
 has been of interest to others. But above all there 
 is much pleasurable excitement to be got out of an 
 old note-book. There is something of the nature of 
 a "lucky bag" about it. You may thrust your 
 hand in and bring to light very little worth the 
 trouble, but it may come out with some item of 
 precious information which will repay with interest 
 the time spent in turning over its pages. If you 
 get nothing else for your pains you will at least 
 have got some insight into the period covered by 
 the note-book, and into the manners and customs 
 of the people living when the original owner made 
 his jottings. To get this, however, out of the book 
 requires patience and a good portion of persever- 
 ance. No scribble must be accounted too insisfni- 
 ficant to be read, no scrap of paper too small to be 
 regarded. It is wonderful how much a miserable 
 little scratchy scribble may tell one ; and how great 
 a tendency precious letters and memoranda have to 
 hide themselves away in the leaves of note-books, 
 and sulk away there until someone has proved him- 
 self to possess patience enough to seek them. 
 
 In this brief paper on two fifteenth century note- 
 books I hope to illustrate some of these remarks, 
 and to prove that something of interest may be ex- 
 tracted from what at first sight would appear to be 
 a rather unpromising source. Let me first of all
 
 288 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 
 
 introduce the person wlio, now four hundred and 
 thirty years ago, made what are certainly rather 
 unconnected jottings in these vohimes. The name 
 of William Worcester, or William Botoner, as he 
 calls himself indiscriminately, is not unknown, 
 although perhaps it deserves a wider fame than it 
 has yet attained to. All who are acquainted with 
 the Paston Letters will need no introduction to one 
 who occupies so prominent a place in those delight- 
 ful volumes. They will remember that Worcester, 
 or Botoner — which you like — was the faithful friend 
 and secretary of Sir John Fastolf. He was one of 
 the executors of the will of this knight-Crcesus on 
 his death in 1459, and expected, not without good 
 reason, to have inherited some of his patron's 
 great wealth. That he did not was not his fault, 
 and the reason for his disappointed hopes appears 
 in those old Paston letters clearly enough. But 
 that, as the saying goes, is another story, which, 
 although full of interest, has not much to do with 
 the matter in hand. 
 
 To those who are not read in the Paston family 
 archives William Worcester perhaps requires a few 
 lines of formal introduction. According to Bale he 
 was born about the year 1415, and the little that 
 we know about his family he tells us himself. The 
 place of his birth was Bristol, where in the early 
 years of the fifteenth century his father had rented 
 the house of one John Sutton, " Super-le-back," in 
 the parish of St. James. His mother's name was
 
 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 289 
 
 Elizabeth Bofconer, and she was the daughter of 
 Thomas and Matilda, who at the close of the four- 
 teenth century were apparently traders in Bristol. 
 Another Botoner, Adam/ the brother of Thomas, 
 and consequently great-uncle to William Worcester, 
 was settled at Coventry; upon his death of the 
 plague in 1386, his only child Agnes was sent on to 
 her relations in Bristol, and subsequently married 
 there a man named John Randolf, whose family 
 were related to the Tychmershes, or Tidmarshes, of 
 Pershore, near Worcester.^ 
 
 In 1402 Matilda Botoner, William's grandmother, 
 died at Bristol, where William Worcester, the father, 
 was then living. He was already married to Elizabeth 
 old Mrs. Botoner's daughter, since she leaves her 
 son Thomas and her son-in-law William executors 
 of her will. From this note of time and the fact 
 that our William was seemingly the eldest sou, 
 having as far as appears only one sister, Joan, it is 
 not unlikely that his birth may be put rather earlier 
 in the fifteenth century than the date usually 
 assigned to it. Of his early education we know 
 nothing ; but Wood tells us that he spent some 
 years at Oxford at the expense of Sir John Fastolf, 
 and applied himself much to books ; especially to 
 
 • This Adam and his brother William, together with their two sisters, 
 Anne and Mary, defrayed the entire cost of the beautiful tower and 
 spire as well as the nave and chancel of St. Michael's, Coventry, as we 
 see it to-day. 
 
 ^ A descendant of this same family and born in the same place, is 
 now the senior member of the monastery of St Gregory's, Downside. 
 19
 
 290 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 
 
 astronomy, in which science he was helped by a 
 doctor of the University, one friar John Hobby. 
 That he really was an exceptionally good student 
 and knew the real value of learning, the note books 
 that have survived to our times bear ample testimony. 
 
 William Worcester did not take to the church at 
 the end of his Oxford career, as in those days so 
 many of the learned University men did ; but as a 
 layman went to Caistor and became the secretary 
 and general factotum of Sir John Fastolf, his patron. 
 With him he remained till the old knight died in 
 1459, during which time he seems to have married 
 into a family of Norfolk. Fastolf's death was the 
 greatest misfortune to the faithful client. It looks 
 as if he regarded that event as an epoch in the 
 world's story, since in one part of the diary of his 
 journeyings, when he found himself again in Norfolk, 
 he begins in the most odd way to note events 
 according to time reckoned from the "obitus Johannis 
 Fastolf.^' For example, some event at St. Benet's 
 Hulme is described as taking place seventeen years 
 after his patron's death, and the foundation of the 
 various churches of Yarmouth so many years before. 
 Thus the church of the friars minor we learn was 
 dedicated in the year a.d. 1200, or 259 years before 
 Fastolf passed away at the age of seventy-nine. 
 
 His benefactor's death released Worcester from 
 the ties which kept him in Norfolk, and the year 
 1460 finds him already commencing his wanderings 
 through England, which only came to an end
 
 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 291 
 
 apparently at the very close of his life in the l-ast 
 decade of the fifteenth century. The two literdry 
 works by which he is chiefly known are the Annales 
 or short chronicle, from the year 1324, printed by 
 Hearne from a MS. in the College of Arms, and the 
 Itinerarium, published by James Nasmith from a 
 Corpus Christi College MS., at Cambridge, in 1 778. 
 Of the first of these works nothing need be said 
 here ; the second deserves a somewhat extended 
 notice. 
 
 The itinerary of Worcester is in many respects 
 the most important book of its kind that exists, so 
 far as Eugland goes. It is, of course, not absolutely 
 the first account of any travels in the country ; but 
 it is certainly the first to furnish any detailed 
 descriptions of places and buildings. The fame of 
 another and later traveller, Leland, and the account 
 the latter gives of his journeyings in the well-known 
 Itinerary, has somewhat eclipsed the work and fame 
 of the earlier antiquarian rambler. Yet, in some 
 respects at least, Worcester's Itinerary is more 
 valuable than that of Leland, in spite of the very 
 exceptional advantages possessed by the latter in 
 travelling over the country in the capacity of Henry 
 the Eighth's "own antiquary." In the eagerness 
 of his search after the treasures of the monastic 
 libraries Leland frequently forgets to note details 
 of the monastic churches and conventual buildings, 
 for which we should now be only too grateful. The 
 fact is that he had no eye for mere architectural
 
 292 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 
 
 beauty, and can in no sense be regarded as an 
 architectural student. He was before all things a 
 bookworm, and other things are subordinated to his 
 love of antiquity as it appealed to him from the 
 dusty shelves of the old libraries of monastery and 
 cathedral. This was his first care, the rest came 
 as it might ; and, although, after ten years' roaming 
 over England and Wales, he could write that there 
 remained "almost no cape, nor bay, nor haven, 
 creek or pier, river or confluence of rivers, breeches, 
 washes, lakes, meres, fenny waters, mountains, 
 valleys, moors, heaths, forests, chases, woods, cities, 
 burghs, castles, principal manor places, monasteries 
 and colleges, but I have seen them," still the 
 natural features of the country through which he 
 passed were evidently considered chiefly in relation 
 to the store-houses of ancient manuscripts he had 
 already explored or expected to discover. I believe 
 that it is true to say, that in regard to architectural 
 detail he never once makes use of a technical term 
 in the whole of his Itinerary, whilst we may look in 
 vain for any evident appreciation of the glorious 
 churches and majestic buildings he certainly 
 inspected. To take an example : Leland visited 
 Glastonbury before its overthrow, and must have 
 been conducted, probably by abbot Whiting himself, 
 over the vast church adorned with its countless 
 treasures, for he speaks of the crucifix before the 
 choir. But, though he " observed six goodly 
 windows in the top of each side of the east part of
 
 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 293 
 
 the churcli," and notes that abbot Bere " made a 
 vault to the steeple, which he supported by two 
 arches like St. Andrew's cross, else it had fallen," 
 he yet makes no attempt to describe as a whole what 
 must have been one of the most majestic minsters 
 of Christendom. 
 
 William Worcester, on the other hand, half a 
 century before, with eyes hardly less keen for 
 literary treasures than Leland's, did not neglect to 
 note dimensions and mark peculiarities of construc- 
 tion. Although not to the exclusion of other things, 
 he was devoted to architecture, and may be said to 
 have been the first to furnish us with a glossary of 
 terms of the Gothic style. He was evidently in 
 many respects an ideal traveller. Note-book in 
 hand he went forth on his tours, always ready to 
 pick up information from chance acquaintances upon 
 any subject of interest. The pages of his Itinerary 
 reveal him almost in the character of a modern 
 interviewer, eager to put down whatever the person 
 he has captured can tell him about places or people. 
 To take some examples : He meets a Dominican 
 friar, one John Burges, at Exeter, aud finds that he 
 knows a good deal about the saints of the district. 
 Out comes the note-book, and down go the details : 
 " Ex informatione Fratris Johannis Burges.''^ At 
 Tavistock the information of Thomas Peperell, a 
 notary public, extends not only to the relics to be 
 found in the district, but apropos of Mount St. 
 Michael's, Cornwall, to the various apparitions of the
 
 294 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 
 
 archangel he has read of. These notes are relieved 
 by descriptions of the Cornish water-courses, about 
 which Mr. Thomas Peperell seems inclined to brag 
 somewhat much. Worcester, however, on this latter 
 point is further instructed by a relation living at 
 Fowey who also seems to know all about the Cornish 
 saints. Other information he gets from a priest 
 at St. Mary's Ottery " loquendo et potando "; from 
 a ferryman, and from the keeper of a prison at 
 Bristol, and from a workman to a " plump-maker " 
 in the same place, from whom he had inquired 
 about a tree growing in the streets. A Scotchman 
 tells him all about Scotland and the Isle of Skye, 
 so called — at least so he says — because its moun- 
 tains are so high. A merchant from the Isle of 
 Man speaks about that island, and also about 
 Ireland, of which latter country Worcester learns 
 more from a native he falls in with riding from 
 Walsingham. A wayside hermit is found to have 
 lived — at least according to his own account — for 
 eleven years in Denmark, and so can tell our 
 traveller a great deal about that land which he 
 eagerly jots down in his note-book. At times — or, 
 at any rate, once — there is perhaps a spice of sar- 
 casm in his remarks. Coming from Norfolk, and 
 having been a retainer of so important a man as 
 Sir John Fastolf, he doubtless knew the Bishop of 
 Norwich, Walter le Hart,^ well. On one of his 
 
 ^ Walter le Hart was Bishop of Norwich from 1446 to 1472.
 
 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 295 
 
 journeyings to St. Michael's Mount he rested with 
 a relation at Fowey, and there discovered, in con- 
 versation, that this good bishop was a native of the 
 place. Down goes a note :" Memorandum. Walter, 
 the Bishop of Norwich, was born in this place, and 
 he is the son of a miller, and Saint Wileon was 
 martyred quite close to the house where the bishop 
 was born." 
 
 Nor does Worcester neglect such sources of 
 information about saints and others as the calen- 
 dars and raartyrologies of the religious houses and 
 churches afforded him. For instance, besides giving 
 the measurement of the church and monastic build- 
 ings at Tintern, he notes the chief obits entered in 
 "an ancient calendar" there ; at Newenham abbey, 
 near Axminster, he takes extracts from the Martyr- 
 ology, and in the church of the canons at Bodmin 
 he finds various entries, " written in a good hand," 
 in the general calendar prefixed to the chief anti- 
 phonarium. At St. Michael's Mount, in Cornwall, 
 where, by the way, he had, as he says, devoutly 
 heard mass, he discovers and copies the legendary 
 life of St. Nectan, the eldest son of a family of four 
 and twenty children of Brokan and Grladewysa, " all, 
 both sons and daughters, saints, martyrs and con- 
 fessors in Devon and Cornwall." 
 
 Passing through London in 1478, our antiquary 
 finds, in the hands of a scribe whom he calls a 
 " text wryter," an old book, which he forthwith 
 borrows to copy some extracts from the calendar.
 
 296 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 
 
 Another time he speaks of making excerpts from a 
 " French book of the Chronicles of Brittain," which 
 afterwards he gave to a lawyer of Bodmin, named 
 Benedict, together with another paper book, written 
 in French, called " Aristotle to Alexander." An- 
 other time he copies largely from Giraldus Cam- 
 brensis, and later on he puts into his note-book a list 
 of all the works of Bishop Grrosseteste. At Oxford, 
 in the Merton College library, he chances upon 
 what he calls " the most ancient book in the Uni- 
 versity," which proves to be a copy of Grildas, and 
 from which copious extracts are made ; and at the 
 Dominican Friary at Thetford he jots down some 
 information as to English saints which he discovers 
 in a volume of their lives, written in a small hand 
 in the English tongue; and, to take a last instance, 
 he extracts from the fraternity lists of St. Benet's 
 Hulme, in Norfolk, the names which appear to him 
 to be of most general interest. 
 
 Of course, among the notes of a traveller like 
 WilUam Worcester, with such a keen eye to literary 
 antiquities, as well as such a correct sense of im- 
 portant details, there are many things of more than 
 ordinary interest. I pass over his Bristol memor- 
 anda, including the account of Cannyng — the cele- 
 brated Cannyng — and what he had done for the 
 port of Bristol, with names of the ships he built 
 there, as well as the very detailed notes on the great 
 church of St. Mary, Redcliff, manifesting as they do 
 a mastery, strange in those days, of architectural
 
 THE NOTE DOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 297 
 
 technicalities. To those interested in Somerset- 
 shire, the description of the wonders of " Wookey 
 Hole," with its fantastic images of men, and its roof 
 of hanging stalactites, which Worcester was shown 
 by the light of burning " shevys of reede segge," 
 will repay an examination ; as also his account of 
 the stream which runs out of the cavern. In this, 
 he tells us, all the people of Wells and the 
 neiofhbourhood were wont to fish at their sweet 
 wills, and to catch " troute, colys called Miller's- 
 thumbs, loches, flokes, pickerel, pyemis, prides like 
 lampreys, craveys, and dewdow," whatever all these 
 may be ; and, wonderful to relate, he continues, 
 no matter how much fish was taken out one year, 
 the next it was always plentifully stocked. Travel- 
 lers proverbially tell strange tales, or, as they might 
 prefer to have this fact stated, gather them on their 
 way, and Worcester has his marvel to relate about 
 the stream flowing out of Wookey Hole, by which 
 — at least, according to the story of the country- 
 side — Providence plainly vindicated to the public 
 the common right to fish. Bishop Beckington 
 thought to stop the general fishing, and reserved 
 whatever was taken in the stream for his own 
 table. Forthwith — so runs the tale — the fish de- 
 parted from their usual watery haunts, even the 
 most likely pool remained deserted, and the poor 
 greedy bishop got no " prides like lampreys," nor 
 any favourite fry of miller's-thumbs, for the epis- 
 copal table. Two years passed in this way, and at
 
 298 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 
 
 last the bishop gave way and proclaimed the public 
 rio^ht of fishinof ag^ain, when, ecce ! the fish at once 
 swarmed into their stream, only too ready to make 
 sport and furnish savoury suppers for the people 
 of Wells and the neighbourhood. Snake stories 
 were not invented in the days of William Wor- 
 cester ; but this fish story may perhaps be con- 
 sidered by modern sceptics as somewhat of a 
 similar nature. 
 
 I will take but one more example of the inter- 
 esting items of information to be found in this book, 
 before passing on to Worcester's second note book, 
 less known even than his Itinerary. Our traveller 
 is speaking of the Charterhouse at Shene, and in the 
 church there he describes what appear to be cards 
 of various prayers and devotions which we are 
 accustomed to see in our modern churches and 
 chapels. I had better give the entire note on the 
 subject. " Memorandum," it runs, " that on both 
 walls of the nave of the church there hang some 
 four-and-thirty tabula with various devotions and 
 practices proper for exciting devotions for the souls 
 of all Christians, both high and low. These tables 
 are written in a good text hand, in bastard letters 
 (whatever they may mean), and I have never come 
 across," continues our antiquary, " any church of 
 any monastery with so many or indeed even the 
 twentieth part of the number of these tabulas.^' 
 
 So far these chance notes have been taken from 
 William Worcester's record of his journeys in the
 
 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 299 
 
 edition of his Itinerarium printed a hundred and 
 twenty years back. I hope I have quoted sufficient 
 to prove that these jottings contain much that is of 
 considerable interest, and that the book deserves to 
 be better known. In fact, William Worcester is so 
 far forgotten that his name is not even mentioned 
 in the last edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in 
 which others of far less national importance find a 
 place. It is about time that a new edition of the 
 Itinerary should be given to the public, or, at least, 
 included in the publications of some one of our many 
 antiquarian societies. It is, perhaps, a more impor- 
 tant work, from an historical point of view, than we 
 might at first be inclined to suspect. I could men- 
 tion a case in which a lawsuit about a right of way 
 was finally determined in favour of the public 
 through evidence furnished by Worcester's pages, 
 and in the light of his description of a pilgrim track 
 to a holy well and long-forgotten shrine in the 
 neighbourhood of Bristol. 
 
 The second note book of our fifteenth century 
 antiquary is to be found among the Cotton manu- 
 scripts in the British Museum. So far as I am 
 aware the volume in question — Julius F. YII — has 
 hitherto remained unnoticed, and consequently its 
 material has been altogether unused, although 
 Nasmith, in his preface to the print of Worcester's 
 Itinerary, speaks of the book. I should hardly,, 
 perhaps, like to claim that it possesses the same 
 general interest as the printed notes of Worcester's
 
 tJOO THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 
 
 journeyings ; but T believe that it throws consider- 
 able light upon his serious studies of classical liter- 
 ature, as to which no evidence — or what practically 
 amounts to none — is forthcoming in the pages of 
 the Itinerary ; and, indirectly, as I hope to show, it 
 illustrates that highly-important and much-debated 
 subject, the renaissance of letters in England. 
 
 The volume in question is a long, narrow and 
 stout book, with paper leaves, covered all over with 
 writings of various sizes and degrees of excellence. 
 It is a mere note book in every sense of the word ; 
 the papers which compose it form a heterogeneous 
 collection of scraps, by no means all of a size, but 
 the bulk of them inclining to the long and narrow 
 shape, which gives its form to the volume. Amongst 
 its leaves, as may be gathered from a direction, 
 " To William Worcester, dwelling in Norwich," still 
 visible, are blank sheets of old letters, used to jot 
 down notes of matters interesting or important to 
 remember ; and, looking at the book as it exists 
 now, one can well believe that as an old bundle of 
 handy paper, it has done much travelling in Worces- 
 ter's saddle-bags four centuries and more ago. 
 
 So much for the volume itself : its chief interest 
 does not lie in its outward appearance, or, indeed, 
 in the fact that it is a mere relic of an eager and 
 well-equipped English antiquary. Although at first 
 sight there would appear to be little order and 
 method in the miscellaneous collection of jottings, 
 on examination it seems that both as to matter there
 
 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 301 
 
 is a well-marked unity of subjects touched on, and 
 as to time a definite chronological arrangement of 
 materials. Without being in any sense an Itinerary, 
 or record of travels as such, it affords evidence of 
 Worcester's journeyings in various parts of Eng- 
 land, and his occupations at a time which imme- 
 diately followed the death of his patron. Sir John 
 Fastolf, and almost immediately preceded the years 
 occupied by the journeys described formally in the 
 pages of the Itinerarium. Fastolf, as we have seen, 
 died in 1459, and towards the close of that year, 
 namely, on November 5th. Within a few months, 
 Worcester was thrown on his own resources, and 
 the period covered by this note-book is roughly 
 the ten years from 1461 ; the published Itinerary 
 would appear to relate to a time subsequent to 
 1470. 
 
 Whilst the notes of travels are chiefly, as we have 
 said, descriptions of buildings and places, relieved 
 by local colouring of legends of the saints, this 
 manuscript note-book is entirely — or at least in the 
 main — filled with literary jottings on both sides 
 of its 208 folios. Perhaps the best way will be to 
 take a rapid and general survey of its contents 
 before pointing out wherein it would appear to be 
 chiefly of interest and importance. The first pages 
 of the volume manifest an intimate knowledge of 
 the works of Virgil and Ovid. The heading of the 
 chief chapters, or divisions, of the Greorgics and 
 the ^neid are followed by a table, extending over
 
 302 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 
 
 fourteen pages, giving the substance of the Meta- 
 morphoses of Ovid. This, it is true, is taken not 
 from the original, but from a translation into French 
 by " Ipien le Groways de Seyntmore, vers Troys, de 
 I'ordre de Freres Minoures," as Worcester tells us, 
 adding that it was a big volume of 422 folios written 
 in double columns. His notes are made excep- 
 tionally interesting by his sketches of the illumina- 
 tions which adorned the volume, and which he has 
 here drawn in outline in a very remarkably good 
 style, with here and there some notes indicating the 
 colours of the original. 
 
 After this come catalogues of writers collected 
 from the works of St. Isidore, Grennadius, Ivo of 
 Chartres, and other ancient authorities, to which 
 Worcester adds the names of illustrious Enghsh- 
 men, collected by a " Master William Clyff." He 
 extracts various notes upon Terence from a gram- 
 mar by Querinus, called " The flower garden,^' gives 
 a list of the works of Cicero, which he writes upon 
 the back of a letter sent to him whilst at Norwich, 
 and jots down a number of proverbs from an old 
 book lent him by one John Hall, a Doctor in 
 Theology. 
 
 Many of the notes show our patient antiquary at 
 work in the libraries of Cambridge. From one he 
 takes down the names of the chief English cities in 
 Welsh ; from another — Peterhouse — he copies out 
 of a " very old psalter " the Hebrew alphabet and 
 the proper pronunciation of the same ; from Caius
 
 THE ^^OTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 303 
 
 College library he borrows a book to make various 
 excerpts, literary and philosophical. In the same 
 University city he critically examines a martyrology 
 he was shown in the choir of the Austin Friars' 
 church. From the evidence of its calendar he 
 concludes that it probably belonged originally to 
 Peterborough, and certainly to some Lincolnshire 
 religious community. Then at other times and 
 places he copies epitaphs and inscriptions, such as 
 that of the poet Glower and that of St. Ethelbert, 
 as it appeared on his tomb in the crypt of St. 
 Augustine's, Canterbury, In 1471 the Bishop of 
 Wirjchester at Esher lent him a copy of St. Thomas' 
 works, and he enters on his notes — " The definition 
 of the soul according to Thomas of Aquin, the 
 Doctor of Paris, in the second book of the ' De 
 Veritatibus Theologie.' " About the same time he 
 writes on " The seven kinds or colours of music," 
 as he found them described in a book of great 
 antiquity borrowed from a Master William Bale. 
 I will take one more item only from the mass of 
 these notes before passing on to speak of the chief 
 point of interest. At folio 169 begins a tract of 
 Worcester's own composition, or to speak more 
 strictly, compilation ; he calls it " Of the various 
 orders of Christian religions, both as to name and 
 liabit, drawn up by William Wyrcester, a native of 
 Bristol, in the diocese of Worcester, from divers 
 chroniclers in the City of London, with the approval 
 of Dom Nicholaus Average, Prior of St. Leonard's,
 
 304 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 
 
 near the City of Norwich, in the County of Norfolk, 
 about the year 1465." 
 
 I have already pointed out the interest manifested 
 by Worcester in the classics. His knowledge of 
 them is clearly proved by these notes. It must be 
 borne in mind that the times were then ill-suited 
 for such studies in England. The active period of 
 his life fell in very turbulent days indeed, and his 
 researches and travels had to be undertaken during 
 the civil commotions and the wars in the struggle 
 between " The Roses." The very period covered 
 by this manuscript note book commenced with the 
 rise of King Edward lY., and terminated with the 
 death of Warwick in the battle of Barnet. London, 
 Norwich, Bristol, and Coventry were distinctly 
 Yorkist in their feelings, and as these were above all 
 others the cities of William Worcester, he was, in 
 all probability, a Yorkist at heart. We are not, 
 however, concerned with his political opinions, and 
 only note the strife between the Houses of York 
 and Lancaster for the purpose of pointing out the 
 external difficulties under which he continued to 
 prosecute his studies and conduct his researches. 
 But perhaps then, in England, as a writer has lately 
 remarked about Paris during the Prussian siege 
 and under the Commune, in the midst of war and 
 constant danger the ordinary avocations of daily 
 life could still be carried on by the student 
 and scholar as if jDrofound peace reigned in the 
 land.
 
 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 305 
 
 Of Cicero's works we have more than one notice 
 in the papers of this note book. I have alread}" 
 referred to a list of his works whicli Worcester had 
 given. In another place we have evidence that he 
 himself had translated the De Senectute into English, 
 for he notes that he presented the book in 1473 to 
 the Bishop of Winchester, William Waynfleet, and 
 adds, " sed nullum regardum recepi de Episcopo " 
 — " I got nothing in return from the Bishop." 
 Poor fellow ! it was rather hard upon him after all 
 his trouble with Cicero's Latin, but perhaps the 
 Bishop thought De Senectute hardly appropriate to 
 himself. 
 
 Perhaps the most interesting thing in the whole 
 of the note book is an orio-jual letter reo-arding^ the 
 books of Livy. It is written by a monk of Christ 
 Church, Canterbury, Dom William Sellyng — a man 
 famous, it is true, but not so famous as he deserves 
 to be. I cannot resist translating the whole of 
 this letter. 
 
 " The bearer of these presents," he writes, " is well 
 known to a venerable man who is my dearest friend. 
 He is very desirous to see the Decades of Titus 
 Livius, which he has learnt from me is in your 
 possession ; and since we are united by a special 
 bond of affection I could not refuse to write to you 
 at his request. I consequently ask you, in your 
 kindness to me, and your special courtesy to all, to 
 allow him to look at your copy of Livy's Decades, 
 
 20
 
 306 THE NOTE HOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 
 
 and hope tliat it may be of profit to you slioiild he 
 wish to purchase the said work. 
 Vale feliciter. 
 
 Canterbur}^ 15th August. Thine, 
 
 W. Sbllyng. 
 Monk of Christ Church, Canterbury. 
 
 To the Venerable Umfrido Gentyll of Luca, at 
 London, in the parish of 8t. Bartholomew 
 named ' TJie Little,' my special friend." 
 
 Is it possible that the missing books of Livy 
 were actually existing in this England of ours in 
 the second half of the fifteenth century P 
 
 The mention of the name of William Sellyng in 
 connection with that of Worcester, and especially 
 in regard to classical literature, raises a most inter- 
 esting question. It has become the fashion with a 
 certain school of writers to take for granted that, in 
 England at least, the renaissance of letters sprang 
 from secular humanist scholars altogether outside, 
 if not distinctly at variance with, and antagonistic 
 to, the religious orders, and even to the spirit of 
 religion itself. The accounts of the revival of Greek 
 studies may be taken as an example of this tendency. 
 Professor Montagu Burrows, in an otherwise excel- 
 lent memoir of Grocyn, published by the Oxford 
 Historical Society, takes for granted that wherever 
 this celebrated man acquired the rudiments of the 
 Greek tongue, it must have been from teachers 
 hostile to the monastic orders. "It is scarcely 
 necessary to remark," he says, " that wherever
 
 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 307 
 
 G-rocyn was educated for college life, the mere 
 circumstance of his obtaining a place on Wykeham's 
 foundation determined his career as distinct from 
 that of a member of the religious orders of the day ; 
 or to remind the reader that it was from amongst 
 the colleges founded by those statesmen and bishops 
 whose statutes excluded the religious orders, that 
 the precursors of the Reformation came forth, as 
 Wyclif and his friends, still earlier precursors, came 
 forth before " (p. 336). 
 
 Can any good come out of Nazareth ? we feel 
 inclined to ask on reading this passage. And, 
 indeed, Professor Burrows is so overpowered by his 
 thesis that although he is obliged by his subject to 
 refer to Sellyng he speaks of him merely as " the 
 learned man who had been his {i.e., Linacre's) tutor 
 at Canterbury, Henry YII.'s ambassador." Certainly 
 no one would gather from this that Sellyng was a 
 monJc of Canterbury, who subsequently was prior of 
 his house, and that it is to this learned Benedictine 
 of Christ Church, Canterbury, that England owes 
 the first beginnings of the revival of Greek in 
 the country. Dates are important things when it 
 becomes a (|uestion of who has, or has not, the right 
 to be considered the first in such a matter as this. 
 Grocyn was admitted as a Winchester scholar in 1463, 
 and was at Oxford in 1467. In 1488 lie left Eng- 
 land to study Greek in Italy ; but he apparent!}- 
 had already some acquaintance with the language. 
 Erasmus (Ep. ccclxiii.) says of him, "Did not Grocyn
 
 308 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 
 
 himself learn the rudiments of the Grreek tongue in 
 England ? Afterwards when he visited Italy, he 
 attended the lectures of the chief scholars of the 
 day, but in the meantime it was an advantage to 
 him to have learnt the rudiments from whoever 
 were his teachers." 
 
 Now I fancy that there is some evidence to show 
 that the revival of Greek studies came from Can- 
 terbury — from the monastery and monks of Canter- 
 bury — and that in William Sellyng, the friend of 
 Wilham Worcester, we have the man who was the 
 pioneer of the movement in this extreme western 
 world. He was born probably somewhere about 
 1430, and becoming a professed monk in 1448, pro- 
 ceeded in due course to Oxford. He has been de- 
 scribed as "greedy for work," and the mass of papers 
 in his handwriting which survives even to our day 
 is the best monument to his industry and evidence 
 of his capacity. In 1464 he obtained permission 
 from Prior Chillenden and the chapter of his house 
 at Canterbury to go abroad for three years to study 
 in any university, and he proceeded with another 
 monk to Italy, where, after having visited Venice, 
 he settled down at Bologna, and there obtained his 
 degree as doctor. 
 
 Thus whilst Grocyn was but beginning his career 
 as a boy at Winchester, William Sellyng, a man of 
 thirty-four, a trained Oxford scholar, with the 
 highest aspirations to profit by every opportunity, 
 was drinking at the fountain head in the cup of the
 
 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 309 
 
 new learning. The story of the revival of Greek 
 studies reads almost like a romance. So far as the 
 part taken by Sellyng in this renaissance is con- 
 cerned, the account given in the Encyclopsedia will 
 be sufficient for my purpose. " Gradually," says 
 the writer, " the contagion of the learned frenzy 
 which created a hundred, academies and. literary 
 societies in the Italian cities spread itself across the 
 Alps. England was but very little, if at all, behind 
 France, as without lingering over the names of 
 Gray, Phrea, and Vitelli, by each of whom some- 
 thing was done towards promoting Greek study at 
 Oxford, we will begin with Linacre's master, William 
 Sellyng. An Oxonian and a monk of Christ Church, 
 Canterbury, Sellyng conceived a fervent desire to 
 partake of the intellectual banquet provided in the 
 schools of Florence, where the great Lorenzo Avas 
 then ruling the republic. About the year of Sii* 
 Thomas More's birth, 1480, he went to Italy, and 
 attended the lectures of that prodigy of learn- 
 ing and talent, Angelo Politiano." Here I may 
 remark that the writer is, of course, wrong in his 
 dates. Sellyng went to study in Italy sixteen years 
 before 1480, namely, in 1464. After his three 
 years' study he seemingly returned to Canterbury, 
 for we find him setting out for Rome on business 
 of his monastery on October 3, 1469 ; this time in 
 the company of another monk, Reynold Goldstone, 
 also an Oxford student, who had been previously 
 warden of Canterbury College.
 
 810 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 
 
 In Italy Sellyng learnt to read and speak Greek, 
 and collected Greek manuscripts, which he brought 
 back to England ; but these were unluckily burnt 
 seventy years later, as we shall see. As Sellyng 
 became prior of his house in 1472, the letter I have 
 given above, written as an introduction to William 
 "Worcester, must be placed before that date, and 
 looking at the few indications of time which are 
 afforded us in the note book, it seems probable that 
 Worcester visited Canterbury and obtained his letter 
 fi'om Sellyng between the time of his return from 
 Italy, somewhere iu 1468, and his second journey 
 thither at the end of 1469. In view of the evident 
 interest in classical literature taken by Worcester, 
 it seems hardly far-fetched to suggest that his chief 
 if not onl}^ object in visiting Canterbury was to 
 confer with one more fitted than anyone else in 
 England to give him every information on these 
 matters. 
 
 There is evidence that upon his return Sellyng 
 was occupied in establishing a school of Greek at 
 Canterbury, and his long priorship would have 
 enabled him to watch over his special creation. At 
 this Canterbury school Thomas Linacre, a Derby- 
 shire boy, was foi'tunate enough to have Sellyng as 
 his master, and when in 1486 the latter w^as sent 
 over to Italy as ambassador by King Henry VII., he 
 took his former pupil Linacre wdth him and left him 
 at Bologna to pursue his studies of Greek under 
 Politiano. Here two years later he was joined by
 
 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 311 
 
 a somcwliat older man who is mentioned as a 
 >fodalLi, and who was apparently attracted to this 
 literary paradise by the enthusiasm of Linacre. 
 This was Grocyn, of whom we have before spoken, 
 and who, some time between 1491 and 1500, was 
 the first to lecture publicly at Oxford on the Greek 
 language. In this he was followed by Linacre, 
 from wliom Sir Thomas More learnt between 149() 
 and 1498. 
 
 It is, of course, impossible here to pursue the 
 subject of the revival of Greek studies beyond this 
 mention of a few salient points. Up to the middle 
 of the fourteenth century the knowledge of the 
 classical Greek authors was confined to Calabria, a 
 small corner of Southern Italy, and Petrarch and 
 Boccacio were the first to understand and be in- 
 fluenced by the educating power of the classics of 
 ancient Greece. Whilst the first made but little 
 progress himself in the tongue, the second not only 
 obtained a stipend for a Greek professor in the 
 schools of Florence in 1360, but from his explana- 
 tions prepared a literal translation of Homer's Iliad 
 and Odyssey. It was not, however, till forty years 
 later that, at the beginning of the 15th century, " a 
 new and perpetual flame," as Gibbon calls it, was 
 enkindled in Italy. The gradual decay of the 
 Imperial rule on the shores of the Bosphorus, and 
 the ever-encroaching power of the Turks, forced 
 the emperors to look to the Christian nations of 
 the West for aid in their necessities. Three emperors
 
 312 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 
 
 in succession made a pilgrimage from Constantinople 
 to the courts of the Western world to petition for 
 assistance against the infidel, and although small 
 success attended their efforts to save the imperial 
 city, it is in these journeys in Europe that the 
 historian sees the instrument destined to bring 
 about the renaissance of letters. " The travels of 
 the three emperors," writes Gibbon, " were un- 
 availing for their temporal, or perhaps their spiritual, 
 salvation, but they were productive of a beneficial 
 consequence, the revival of the Greek learning in 
 Italy, from whence it was propagated to the last 
 nations of the West and North." 
 
 j\Iay we not perhaps add that what is true of 
 Italy is perhaps true also of other nations. Manuel, 
 the second pilgrim emperor, the son and successor 
 of Palseologus, was not contented to rest his hopes 
 of assistance on Italian influence merely. He 
 crossed the Alps, and after a lengthened stay in 
 Paris determined to cross over to England. In 
 December, 1400, he landed at Dover, and was 
 entertained, together with his imperial retinue of 
 Greeks, in the monastery at Canterbury. Is it 
 by chance that here at Canterbury, and among the 
 monks of Canterbury, some half century later, we 
 find the first glimmering of the dawning light of a 
 revival of Grecian studies ? Striking events, such 
 as the presence of the Emperor of Constantinople 
 and his suite in the monastery, would long be re- 
 membered and discussed at Canterbury, and it is
 
 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 313 
 
 perhaps hardly too iiiiich to fancy that the tradition 
 of this imperial visit may have fired the eager 
 mind of the young monk, William Sellyng, with a 
 desire to learn the language, and dive deep into the 
 literature of the East. 
 
 To return to our note book, from which the men- 
 tion of William Sellyng's letter has taken, us some- 
 what far away : The fact of Worcester's connection 
 with tlie monk of Canterbury, and the evidence 
 afforded by his notes that he was greatly interested 
 in classical literature, confirms the belief that among 
 the monks at Canterbury we must look for the hrst 
 beginnings of the new learning in England. As to 
 Greek in particular, one item among the notes of 
 William Worcester casts some light upon Sellyng's 
 connection with the revival of a study of that lan- 
 guage. It is a very slight indication, but in this 
 matter all indications are only of the very slightest 
 kind. I should date the entry about the time of 
 the letter from Sellyng : that is, somewhere about 
 the year 14(38 or 1469. The notes are, as Worcester 
 says, "about certain terminations in Greek grammar 
 explained (declaratis) by Doctor Sellyng, of Christ 
 Church, Canterbury." Thus once more we are 
 brought back by the evidence of Worcester's note 
 book to Canterbury and to the monk Sellyng 
 teaching Greek grammar. With this we may take 
 leave of the note books of our fifteeuth century 
 antiquary. 
 
 But it will be well to add a few more words on
 
 ;U4 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 
 
 the interesting subject of the revival of learning 
 in England. It has been mentioned that Sellyng 
 brought back Greek manuscripts from Italy ; and 
 not Greek manuscripts merely, for Leland tells us 
 that he also returned with a copy of Cicero's De 
 Uepublica, afterwards a long-lost work which was, 
 at length, discovered in a palimpsest of the Ambro- 
 siana, by Cardinal Mai, and edited by Niebuhr. 
 From the suggestion, coming from a collector like 
 Sellyng, that Worcester might be willing to pur- 
 chase of Gentyll his copy of Livy, makes it appear 
 not improbable that a manuscript was also to be 
 found at Canterbury. 
 
 There was a moment in the reign of Henry 
 YIII. when it appeared not impossible that Eng- 
 lish scholars might, north of the Alps, lead the 
 van in the restoration of the new learning. The 
 attention of Germany had been drawn off by 
 Luther into quite other paths. As we see from 
 indications among the great churchmen Warham 
 and Fisher and Sfcokesley and Colet, there were 
 Englishmen fully alive to the opportunities of tlie 
 movement. King Henry, too, was within an ace 
 of gathering into our libraries those treasures of 
 Greek manuscript which Francis I. secured and 
 placed at Fontainebleau. But already the great 
 measure of the " divorce " clouded over every hope 
 in that direction. The chief concern of scholars 
 according to Henry's own heart was to discover 
 passages of the Greek Fathers which would help
 
 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 315 
 
 to support the royal arguments in favour of the 
 divorce from Catherine. 
 
 The new spirit which gained the upper hand is 
 fitly expressed in Layton's description of the fire at 
 Canterbury, which consumed the treasures so care- 
 fully brought together by Prior Sellyng, including 
 the precious Cicero, De Bepuhlica. Although it has 
 often been in print it deserves repetition here in a 
 new connection. " This Saturda}^ at night, I came 
 to Canterbury, to Christ Church," he writes. " At 
 one of the clock after midnight, one of my servants 
 called me up suddenly, or else I had been burnt 
 in my bed. The great dining chamber called the 
 king's lodging, where we supped, &c., was sud- 
 denly fired by some fire-brand or snuff of some 
 candle, that first set the rushes on fire. My 
 servants lying nigh the said lodging were almost 
 choked in their beds, and so called me. And 
 anon, after I found a back door out, called up the 
 house and sent into the town for help, and before 
 ladders and water could be got that great lodging 
 was past recovery, and so was the chamber where 
 I lay .... As soon as I had set men to 
 squench and to labour, I went into the church and 
 there tarried continually, and set four monks with 
 bandogs to keep the shrine, and put the sexton in 
 the re-vestry, there to keep the jewels, and walked 
 continually in the church above, and set monks in 
 every quarter of the church with candles, and sent 
 for the Abbot of Saint Augustine's to be there with
 
 .no THE NOTE r.OOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 
 
 me in readiness to have taken down the shrine, and 
 to have sent all the jewels into St. Augastine's." ^ 
 
 Fortunately, Leland has preserved some other 
 details of the destruction wrought at this fire, in 
 which perished Prior Sellyng's manuscripts. From 
 the time the great " divorce " question began 
 to engross men's minds, however, the hopes of 
 learning in England were over, and Sir Thomas 
 Pope, in refounding Durham College, under the 
 name of Trinity, emphasises the need of special 
 attention to the study of Greek, which, he says, has 
 greatly fallen since his young days." In fact, from 
 the time of the change of religion in this country 
 all energies were devoted to polemics until the day 
 when Casaubon came hither and found his dis- 
 appointment, and until Laud, profiting by the 
 destruction wrought by Grustavus Adolphus, in the 
 "' Thirty-years War," opened out a new prospect for 
 English scholarship. 
 
 The whole question of the revival of Grreek 
 
 ' Calendar of Papers, Henry VI II., ix., No. 669. 
 
 - He submitted the statutes of his proposed college to Cardinal Pole 
 for revision, and received some valuable suggestions about the studies. 
 In a letter to the first President of the College he says : " My Lord 
 Cardinal's grace has had the overseeing of my statutes. He much 
 lykfcs well that I have therein ordered the Latin tonge to be redde to 
 my schollars. But he advyses me to order the Greeke to be more 
 taught there than I have provyded. This purpose I well lyke ; but I 
 fear the tymes will not bear it now. I remember when 1 was a yong 
 schoUar at Eton, the Greeke tongue was growing apace ; the studie of 
 which is now alate much decaid." (A. Chalmers, History of the Colleges, 
 ^•c, of Oxford, ii., p. 351.)
 
 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. .'517 
 
 studies in England, tliougli miicli laboured at, 
 seems to have been greatly obscured. A recent 
 and careful writer, speaking about More's education 
 at Oxford, states tliat we are " unfortunately un- 
 able to ascertain at what college he was educated." ^ 
 The writer seems not to know the testimony of 
 Cresacre More, namely, that on going to Oxford 
 the future Chancellor went to Canterbury College. 
 This is just what we should have expected ; for 
 what is more likely than that Cardinal Morton 
 should have sent his proUg^ to the house which 
 was specially under his patronage, and which was 
 directly under the rule of Prior Sellyng ? In no 
 circumstance could the young aspirant after learn- 
 ing be brought into closer contact with the new 
 humanism than at Christ Church, Canterbury, and 
 Canterbury College, Oxford. 
 
 The monasteries have been labelled as corrupt, 
 and, as a necessary consequence, the monks as 
 ignorant and indifferent to learning." It is time 
 to look facts in the face, and it seems a pity that 
 writers who have dealt with the question of the 
 revival of letters should so frequently content them- 
 
 ' J. H. Lupton, The Utopia of Sir Thomaa More, p. xix. 
 
 ^ I may here, perhaps, recall the fact that Erasmus submitted his 
 translation of the sacred Scriptures from the Greek, to Abbot Bere, of 
 Glastonbury, whose opinion he acknowledged as most weighty in these 
 matters. (Ep. lib. xviii., 4(5 ; Warner, Glastoibiiri/, p. 213). From 
 Leonard Cox's The Art ur Craft of Hheioric, which was printed at Read- 
 ing, it may be gathered that Cox had been a jtrott'ije of Abbot Cook, who 
 had bestowed much care in advancing the interest of promising youths, 
 and that Greek was taught as well as Latin in " your grammar scholl,
 
 :n8 THE NOTE BOOKS OF WILLIAM WORCESTER. 
 
 selves with deductions fi'om pre-conceived notions, 
 rather than labour at the sorting out of the evidence 
 which exists, to see what story it tells. The mere 
 clue to be gleaned from William of Worcester's 
 note book shows how much there is to be done in 
 this direction. 
 
 founded by, your antecessours in your towne of Redynge." It may 
 be worth while to mention that in the years 1499 and 1500 a Greek, 
 one John Serbopoulos, of Constantinople, was copying Greek MSS. 
 in Reading. Two of these thick folios written on vellum now form 
 ^ISS. 23 and 24 in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. 
 They were among Grocyn's books, and came to the College through the 
 instrumentality of John Claymond, who was known and patronised by 
 Abbot Bere, of Glastonbury, and himself a collector of Greek manu- 
 scripts.
 
 ;]19 
 
 X. 
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS IX THE 
 TIME OF QUEEN ELIZABETH/ 
 
 XTTHEN Elizabeth succeeded to the crown in 1558, 
 ' many problems of practical import at once 
 presented themselves for solution. Not the least 
 in importance was the great religious question, 
 which, during the previous five-and -twenty years, 
 had exercised the mind of the nation by the frequent 
 and violent changes of policy of successive sovereigns 
 and their advisers. The queen herself, now in her 
 twenty-fifth year, was in reality the creature of 
 strife, and had been cradled amid the turmoil of the 
 religious dissensions in England, which had their 
 beginning, if not their origin, in the circumstances 
 attending her birth. In her earliest recollection, 
 practically, although not of course theoretically, 
 England had ceased to be one in matters of religion, 
 and the experiences of the quarter of a century 
 during which she had lived before she was herself 
 
 ' A paper read at the Petersfield Literary and Debating Societ
 
 320 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 called upon to grasp the reins of power must have 
 taught her how deep and bitter were the feelings 
 engendered by theological dissensions. Her own 
 personal religious opinions are somewhat difficult to 
 fathom ; but probably the popular historian of the 
 English people, Mr. J. R. Green, is not far wrong 
 in saying of her : " No woman ever lived who was 
 so totally destitute of the sentiment of religion."^ 
 Theology was to her apparently but a branch of 
 statecraft, and differences of creed were to be 
 regarded, at least by the ruler, " in a purely political 
 light." 
 
 It is, of course, not my purpose in any way to 
 discuss the Elizabethan policy from a religious point 
 of view. For the purposes of this paper I am quite 
 prepared to assume that in her attempt to coerce 
 the nation into following her lead, she had ample 
 justification in the circumstances of the time, and 
 ample precedents in the example of her immediate 
 predecessors. Circumstances, which are too well 
 known to need mention here, determined her to 
 make choice of the Protestant, or Reforming party, 
 upon which to build up the system which Mr. 
 Gladstone has well called *' the Elizabethan Settle- 
 ment of Religion." And to do Elizabeth justice, it 
 could hardly have entered her mind to suppose that 
 the English people, or any considerable section of 
 them, would finally question the royal right to settle 
 
 ' Short Hi.slory, p. 369.
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 321 
 
 the legal basis of the national creed. The Tudor 
 principle cujus regio ejus religio, which may be 
 Englished, " he who rules a nation determines its 
 creed," had practically been acquiesced in, or at least 
 acted upon, in the various religious changes England 
 had seen in the quarter of a century which had 
 intervened between Henry the Eighth's rejection of 
 Roman Supremacy and the accession of EHzabeth. 
 We who live in these days of religious liberty, and 
 of a recognised diversity of religious opinion, can 
 with difficulty appreciate the attitude of mind in 
 which men in the middle of the sixteenth century 
 must have regarded the possibility of national 
 divisions and differences in matters of reliofion. 
 Such a state of things must have appeared to them 
 a peril to the ship of State not to be admitted on 
 any principle of government, and strenuously to be 
 resisted by the strong arm of the law. 
 
 The notion of being able " to agree to differ " in 
 matters which touched the conscience, and yet of 
 beino- united in other matters of national, foreiofn 
 and domestic policy, had yet to be born of 
 experience in the course of the coming centuries. 
 Whatever we may think about the measures 
 subsequently adopted by Elizabeth to coerce the 
 consciences of her subjects, or at least to secure the 
 external observance of those who remained attached 
 to the older forms of religion, we should in fairness 
 recognise this side of the burning question, and 
 understand that the fundamental idea of unity in 
 21
 
 322 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 reliofion was still the dominant belief of the nation 
 when Elizabeth came to the throne. The Queen's 
 personal motives, her individual preferences, are of 
 no present concern to us. I have already given Mr. 
 Green's opinion (and I need not say he is not biassed 
 in favour of the Catholic side) that with her it was 
 a matter not of religion but of State ; and that is 
 as deep as we need here go into the question. 
 
 I am of course aware that there was an attempt 
 made by the Queen's all-powerful minister, Lord 
 Burleigh, to claim for the recusant laws the higher 
 sanction of duty — a duty which made it incumbent 
 on those who held the reins of power to extirpate 
 the erroneous doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Mass 
 from the hearts of the people. "It is not to be 
 doubted," he writes, " but the usage of the present 
 Popish. Mass, wherein the use of the Sacrament is 
 turned into a sacrifice for sins, and intercession is 
 made to saints with other things derogatory to the 
 first institution of Christ, is to be rooted out of the 
 church as a great evil."^ 
 
 As far as my present purpose, however, is 
 concerned, any one who pleases may consider that 
 in all Queen Elizabeth did to secure uniformity of 
 religion she was actuated by high and holy motives; 
 nay, more, that the measures she adopted to secure 
 her settlement of the religious diSiculties, although 
 
 ' State Papers Dom. Eliz. (undated) 1590. No. 445 D. The paper 
 ■was copied before the documents were arranged in volumes, and it is 
 now impossible to say where it has been placed.
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 323 
 
 perchance to our more humane and tender hearts 
 somewhat harsh and excessive, were justified by 
 the circumstances of the time. I have no wish to 
 disturb any conviction of this nature ; for all I 
 propose to do is to examine historically into the 
 operation of the religious laws passed in the reign 
 of Elizabeth, and to illustrate their action in regard 
 to Hampshire in general, and to the neighbourhood 
 of Petersfield in particular. 
 
 I do not think such an examination as I propose 
 to make in any way unnecessary. To many people 
 the very notion of coercion by the State, in matters 
 of religion, is at the present day highly repugnant. 
 What is unpleasant or distasteful is naturally 
 ignored and passed over, if not designedly hidden 
 away, till we are in danger of forgetting its very 
 existence. I gather from several recent books that 
 this is the case in regard to this portion of our 
 national history ; and more than once lately have I 
 been gravely informed by people, who might have 
 been supposed to know better, that Queen Mary 
 Tudor was the only Eaglish sovereign who disgraced 
 the annals of English history by interference between 
 man and his conscience. Now, while I to a certain 
 degree sympathise with the old lady of the story, 
 who steadily refused to read any history of the past, 
 on the high moral principle " that bygones should 
 be bygones," I do not think it possible to form any 
 rio'ht estimate of the latter half of the sixteenth 
 century and even of the seventeenth and eighteenth
 
 324 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 centuries, without submitting tlie religious laws in 
 force during that period to some examination. Let 
 me take one example of what I mean. Most people 
 have probably seen, or at any rate heard of, a work 
 on Social England, which is being published by the 
 well known firm of Messrs. Oassell. It purports to 
 be an attempt to do for the general history of 
 England what the introductory chapter of 
 Macaulay's History did for the Stuart period. Such 
 a book could only have been produced by the 
 collaboration of many writers, and on the whole 
 the result is excellent. There are, however, to my 
 mind serious defects in the third volume, which 
 deals with what is known as the Reformation period. 
 I do not desire to be too sweeping in my condemna- 
 tion, for I was myself a contributor to a small 
 portion of the volume, but the book serves to 
 illustrate the danger of leaving out unpleasant 
 portions of our history. When I knew that I should 
 have the pleasure of reading this paper I thought I 
 would have a look to see what new lights the writer 
 on the Elizabethan religious history in this volume 
 had to give me about " Recusants.'" Knowing that 
 the author was a Fellow of one of the Oxford 
 colleges and I believe also an examiner in the 
 Modern History schools, I expected to get some 
 information, and perhaps even to be able to ask you 
 to accept his account of the religious legislation and 
 its effects during this period as likely possibly to be 
 more satisfactory to you than any I might give. I
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 325 
 
 am sorry to say that at the outset my hopes were 
 disappointed. The index of the volume does not so 
 much as contain the word recusant or anything of a 
 kindred nature, and the word penal law is equally 
 conspicuous by its absence. I do not profess to 
 have read every word of the book itself ; but I have 
 certainly read sufficient to be able to say with 
 confidence that the subject of " recusancy " is not 
 merely inadequately treated, but is barely touched 
 upon at all in the otherwise full account of 
 Elizabeth's reign. How a fair idea of the social 
 condition of England at this time can possibly be 
 obtained without a proper treatment of this subject 
 I do not profess to be able to understand, and I hope 
 before I have finished my paper you may be induced 
 to agree with me. 
 
 Before passing to speak of matters of special local 
 interest in connection with the subject of the 
 recusant laws, it is necessary that I should recall 
 briefly a few facts as to the general history of our 
 country immediately subsequent to the accession of 
 Elizabeth, and place before you some account of 
 the laws as to religion by which, as I have said, the 
 Queen sought to vindicate the right, claimed by the 
 later Tudor monarchs, to give the form of religion 
 to the country over which they ruled. It is necessary 
 to describe these laws at some considerable length, 
 since, as I have just pointed out, there is a real 
 danger of their very existence being ignored. 
 
 I am not going to ask you to take my account
 
 326 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 of this history, or of the measures to secure a 
 uniformity in reHgion, known as the penal laws ; 
 the first we may conveniently take from Glreen's 
 History of the English People ; the second from 
 Hallam's standard work, The Constitutional History 
 of England. Neither author can be accused of 
 having any bias towards the Catholic side ; and for 
 this reason, and because their works are easily 
 within the reach of all, I have selected them. My 
 part will be confined chiefly to an endeavour to 
 illustrate the incidence of the laws against Re- 
 cusants by reference to persons and places in this 
 neighbourhood of Petersfield. 
 
 I may perhaps premise one word as to the mean- 
 ing of the word Recusant. It does not mean, as is 
 so often supposed, and not infrequently stated, one 
 who had refused the oath of allegiance to the 
 sovereign ; or even the oath of supremacy. A 
 recusant was simply one who refused to be present 
 at the public services in the parish churches. This 
 is the only meaning which the word has in the 
 official documents of the period. Let us now, under 
 the guidance of Mr. J. R. Green, take a glimpse at 
 the general history of the times when Elizabeth 
 came to the throne. 
 
 " The first interest in Elizabeth's mind," writes 
 this historian, " was the interest of public order, and 
 she never could understand how it could fail to be 
 first in everyone's mind. Her ingenuity set itself to 
 construct a system in which ecclesiastical unity
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 327 
 
 should not jar against the rights of conscience ; 
 a compromise which merely required outer ' con- 
 formity ' to the established worship, while, as she 
 was never weary of repeating, it 'left opinion free.' 
 . The first work of her Parliament was to 
 undo the work of Mary, to repeal the Statutes of 
 Heresy, to dissolve the refounded monasteries, and 
 to restore the Royal Supremacy. . . . Further 
 she had no personal wish to go. A third of the 
 Council and two-thirds of the people were as 
 opposed to any radical changes in religion as the 
 Queen. Among the gentry the older and wealthier 
 were on the conservative side, and only the younger 
 and meaner on the other. But it was soon neces- 
 sary to go further. If the Protestants were the less 
 numerous, they were the abler and the more 
 vigorous party, and the exiles who returned from 
 Geneva brought with them a fierce hatred of 
 Catholicism." 
 
 " The whole machinery of public religion had 
 been thrown out of gear by the rapid and radical 
 changes of the past two reigns. In some dioceses a 
 third of the parishes were without clergymen. The 
 churches themselves were falling into ruin. The 
 majority of the parish priests were still Catholic 
 at heart ; in the north, indeed, they made little 
 disguise of their reactionary tendencies.^ On the 
 
 1 There is a very general idea that, with the exception of a very 
 small number, the entire body of the English clergy took the required 
 oath of supremacy on the accession of Queen Elizabeth. This idea is
 
 328 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 other hand, the Protestant minority among the 
 clergy were ah^eady disgusting the people by 
 their violence and greed. Chapters had begun 
 to plunder their own estates by leases and fines, and 
 by felling timber. The marriages of the clergy 
 
 based upon an entire misconception of the facts. Mr. R. Simpson 
 {Life of Edmund Campion, p. 196-7, new ed.) has put these most clearly. 
 Before the end of 1659 all the Bishops had been deprived of their Sees. 
 On May 23, 1559, a royal commission, partly lay, partly clerical, was 
 appointed to tender the oath to the clergy generally. They were 
 directed to proceed with caution, but in October it was found that 
 they had been too zealous, and several laymen were appointed to 
 supersede the clerical members. But even then the inquisition had 
 such serious effects, that in December the Queen had to write to the 
 commissioners to suspend their proceedings. The general result of 
 the proceedings was, that of the multitude of clergymen who refused to 
 subscribe only a few were at once deprived, some had three years 
 given for consideration, and others seem to have been connived at. 
 The province of York was visited in August and September, 1559, 
 with the following result : out of 90 clergymen summoned, 21 came 
 and took the required oath, 36 came and refused to swear, 17 were 
 absent without proctors, 16 were absent with proctors. In the 
 province of Canterbury, the dean and canons of Winchester 
 Cathedral, the warden and fellows of the College, and the master of 
 St. Cross, all refused the oath. The visitors for the whole province 
 returned 49 recusants and 786 conformists, significantly omitting the 
 absentees. Out of 8,911 parishes and 9,400 beneficed clergymen, 
 only 806 took the oath, whilst all the bishops and 85 others expressly 
 refused to subscribe, and the rest absented themselves. The assertion 
 of Camden that only 189 clergymen were deprived in this visitation 
 proves nothing, even if it were true. At the end of State Papers, 
 Domestic Elizabeth, vol. x., is an abstract of the number of rectors, 
 vicars and curates who refused to attend when summoned in the four 
 dioceses of York, Chester, Durham, and Carlisle. The total is 314. 
 There is no abstract of the number who attended but refused to take 
 the oath, but the book proves that in this province 370 clergymen 
 refused to swear, or would have refused had they been pressed. 
 Probably the real number, had we the means of knowing, would be 
 found to be double that figure.
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 329 
 
 were a perpetual scandal — a scandal which was in- 
 creased when the gorgeous vestments of the old 
 worship were cut up into gowns and bodices for the 
 priests' wives. The new services became scenes of 
 utter disorder, where the clergy wore what dress 
 they pleased, and the communicant stood or sat as 
 he liked ; while the old altars were broken down 
 and the communion table was often a bare board 
 upon trestles. The people, naturally enough, were 
 found to be ' utterly devoid of religion,' and came 
 to church 'as to a May game ' " (p. 371). " The 
 Marian bishops, with a single exception, discerned 
 the Protestant drift of the Queen's changes, and bore 
 imprisonment and deprivation rather than accept 
 them" (p. 370). Under Archbishop Parker "The 
 vacant sees were filled for the most part with 
 learned and able men ; the plunder of the Church 
 by the nobles was checked, and England was 
 settling quietly down again in religious peace, when 
 a prohibition from Rome forbade the presence of 
 Catholics at the new worship. The order was 
 widely obeyed, and the obedience was accepted by 
 Elizabeth as a direct act of defiance. Heavy ' fines 
 for recusancy,' levied on all who absented them- 
 selves from church, became a constant source of 
 supply to the Royal Exchequer." 
 
 So much for Grreen's account of the fjeneral 
 history. I pass on now to give, from Hallam's 
 Constitutional History of England, some account of 
 the laws by which Elizabeth and her advisers hoped
 
 330 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 to secure general adherence to her " settlement of 
 religion " in England. The Parliament which met 
 about two months after Elizabeth's succession re- 
 established the Anglican Liturgy, and restored the 
 royal supremacy, as we have seen. " These two 
 statutes, commonly denominated the Acts of Su- 
 premacy and Uniformity," writes the historian, 
 **' form the basis of that restrictive code of laws, 
 deemed by some one of the fundamental bulwarks, 
 by others the reproach of our constitution, which 
 pressed so heavily for more than two centuries 
 upon the adherents to the Romish Church. By the 
 former all beneficed ecclesiastics, and all laymen 
 holdinof office under the crown, were oblis^ed to take 
 the oath of supremacy, renouncing the spiritual as 
 well as temporal jurisdiction of every foreign prince 
 or prelate, on pain of forfeiting their office or 
 benefice ; and it was rendered highl}^ penal, and for 
 the third ofience treasonable, to maintain such 
 supremacy by writing or advised speaking. The 
 latter statute trenched more on the natural rights of 
 conscience ; prohibiting, under pain of forfeiting 
 goods and chattels for the first offence, of a year's 
 imprisonment for the second, and of imprisonment 
 during life for the third, the use by a minister, 
 whether beneficed or not, of any but the established 
 Liturgy ; and imposed a fine of one shilling on all 
 who should ■ absent themselves from church on 
 Sundays and holidays." 
 
 " This Act," continues Hallam, "operated as an
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 331 
 
 absolute interdiction of the Catholic rites, however 
 privately celebrated. It has frequently been 
 asserted that the Government connived at the 
 domestic exercise of that religion during these first 
 years of Elizabeth's reign. This may possibly have 
 been the case with respect to some persons of very 
 high rank, whom it was inexpedient to irritate. But 
 we find instances of severity towards Catholics, 
 even in that early period ; and it is evident that 
 their solemn rites were only performed by stealth, 
 and at much hazard. Thus Sir Edward Walde- 
 grave and his lady were sent to the Tower in 1561, 
 for hearing Mass and having a priest in their house. 
 Many others about the same time were punished for 
 a like offence. Two bishops, one of whom, I regret 
 to say, was Grindal, write to the Council in 1 562, 
 concerning a priest apprehended in a lady's house, 
 that neither he nor the servants would be sworn to 
 answer to articles, saying they would not accuse 
 themselves ; and after a wise remark on this, that 
 * papistry is like to end in anabaptistry,' proceed to 
 hint that ' some think that if this priest might be 
 put to some kind of torment and so driven to 
 confess what he knoweth, he might gain the Queen's 
 Majesty a good mass of money by the masses that 
 he hath said ; but we refer to your lordships' 
 wisdom.' This commencement of persecution 
 induced many Catholics to fly beyond the sea, and 
 gave rise to those re-unions of disaffected exiles, 
 which never ceased to endanger the throne of 
 Elizabeth.
 
 332 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 " It cannot, as far as appears, be truly alleged 
 that any greater provocation had as yet been given 
 by the Catholics than that of pertinaciously con- 
 tinuing to believe and worship as their fathers had 
 done before. I request [adds Hallam] those who 
 may hesitate about this, to pay some attention to 
 the order of time before they form their opinions." 
 
 I here interrupt Hallam' s account of the penal 
 laws to briefly corroborate what he tells us as to 
 the early dates at which the celebration of Catholic 
 rites was prevented by the strong measure of 
 imprisonment. The Sir Edward Waldegrave he 
 mentions as having been sent to the Tower in 1561 
 had been previously confined in the same prison 
 during' the reig-n of Edward VI. for refusinof to force 
 the Protestant service upon Queen Mary. The 
 notice given of this imprisonment in the valuable 
 contemporary diary of a resident in London, known 
 as Machyns Diary (p. 256), is " The xxii. day of 
 Aprell was had to the Towre ser Edward Walgraff 
 and my lade his wyff, as good almes-foke as be in 
 thes day, and odur caried thethur." The cause of 
 this imprisonment is given in many State papers, 
 and also by Machyn when, on September i of the 
 same year, 1561, he records the death of " the good 
 and gentle knight whyle in the Towre, the whyche 
 he was put for berrying of masse and kepyng a 
 prest in ys howse that dyd say masse." In this and 
 the following year, 1562, according to an official 
 paper now preserved among the Harleian MSS. at
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 333 
 
 the British Museum/ there were some sixteen or 
 seventeen ladies and gentlemen prisoners in the 
 Fleet prison for " matters of religion," and in almost 
 every case it is stated that the offence was " for 
 hearing mass." In the Marshalsea there was a 
 gentleman and a priest, in the King's Bench a 
 gentleman and two priests,^ whilst in the Tower, 
 besides Sir Edward and Lady Waldegrave, there 
 was a goodly company, including Sir Thomas 
 and Lady Wharton, and their priest, William Joly. 
 " Their faults be well in remembrance " is noted 
 against them as bracketed together with the Walde- 
 graves and others ; and we are not left in any 
 doubt what those faults were, as they all ajDpear in 
 another paper, dated June 3, 1561, and endorsed 
 '* prisoners for mass." This last paper, annotated 
 in the writing of Cecil himself, contains some forty 
 names of persons — gentry and priests, who were in- 
 dicted at the general assizes at Brentwood, in Essex, 
 for offences agaiust the religious laws.^ But all this, 
 as Mr. Rudyard Kipling is so fond of saying, " is 
 another story," and I return to the guidance of 
 Mr. Hallam. 
 
 " I have not found," he writes, " that Pius lY., 
 more moderate than most other Pontiffs of the 
 sixteenth century, took any measures hostile to the 
 temporal government of this realm ; but the de- 
 
 1 Harl. MS., 360 f. 34. 
 
 - State Papers, Dom. Eliz., vol. xvi., No. 65, No. 35 ; vol. xvii., No. 13. 
 
 * Ibid., vol. xvii., No. 18.
 
 334 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 prived ecclesiastics were not unfairly anxious to 
 keep alive the faith of their former hearers ; and to 
 prevent them from sliding into conformity through 
 indifference and disuse of their ancient rites (p. 115), 
 questions of conscience were circulated, with answers 
 all tending to show the unlawfulness of conformity. 
 There was nothing more in this than the Catholic 
 clergy were bound in consistency with their 
 principle to do, though it seemed very atrocious to 
 bigots. . . . Partly through political circum- 
 stances, but far more from the hard usage they 
 experienced for professing their religion, there seems 
 to have been an increased restlessness among the 
 Catholics about 1562, which was met with new 
 rigour by the Parliament of that year." 
 
 " The Act entitled ' for the assurance of the 
 Queen's royal power over all estates and subjects 
 within her dominions ' enacts with an iniquitous 
 and sanguinary retrospect, that all persons who had 
 ever taken holy orders, or any degree in the uni- 
 versities, or had been admitted to the practice of 
 the laws, or held any office in their execution, 
 should be bound to take the oath of supremacy, 
 when tendered to them by a bishop, or by com- 
 missioners appointed under the great seal. The 
 penalty for the first refusal of this oath was that of 
 a praemunire, but any person who, after the space 
 of three months from the first tender, should again 
 refuse it when in like manner tendered, incurred 
 the pains of high treason. The oath of supremacy
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 336 
 
 was imposed by statute on every member of the 
 House of Commons, but could not be tendered to a 
 peer, the Queen declaring her full confidence in 
 those hereditary councillors. Several peers of great 
 weight and dignity were still Catholics " (p. 116). 
 
 "I am never very willing," continues our authority 
 " to admit as an apology for unjust or cruel enact- 
 ments, that they are not designed to be generally 
 executed ; a pretext often insidious, always insecure, 
 and tending to mask the approaches of arbitrary 
 government. But it is certain that Elizabeth did 
 not wish this act to be enforced in its full severity." 
 (p. 117.) 
 
 In reply to the application of the Emperor 
 Ferdinand that Catholics might be reasonably 
 allowed the use of one church in each city, the 
 Queen declared that she could " not grant churches 
 to those who disagree from her religion, being 
 against the laws of her Parliament, and highly dan- 
 gerous to the state of her kingdom, as it would sow 
 various opinions in the nation to distract the minds 
 of honest men, and would cherish parties and 
 factions that might disturb the present tranquillity 
 of the commonwealth " (p. 120). 
 
 " Camden and many others have asserted that by 
 systematic connivance the Roman Catholics enjoyed 
 a pretty free use of their religion for the first 
 fourteen years of Elizabeth's reign. We find abun- 
 dance of persons harassed for recusancy, that is, for 
 not attending the Protestant Church, and driven to
 
 836 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 insincere promises of conformity. Others were 
 dragged before ecclesiastical commissioners for 
 harbouring priests, or for sending money to those 
 who had fled beyond sea. Students of the inns of 
 court, where popery had a strong hold at this time, 
 were examined in the star-chamber as to their re- 
 ligion, and on not giving satisfactory answers were 
 committed to the Fleet. The Catholic party were 
 not always scrupulous about the usual artifices of an 
 oppressed people, meeting force by fraud and con- 
 cealing their heart-felt wishes under the mask of 
 ready submission, or even of zealous attachment. 
 A great majority both of clergy and laity yielded to 
 the times ; and of these temporising conformists it 
 cannot be doubted that many lost by degrees all 
 thought of returning to the ancient fold. But 
 others, while they complied with exterior ceremonies, 
 retained in their private devotions their accustomed 
 mode of worship. It is an admitted fact that the 
 Catholics generally attended the Church, till it came 
 to be reckoned a distinctive sign of their having re- 
 nounced their own religion. They persuaded them- 
 selves (and the English priests, uninstructed and 
 accustomed to a temporising conduct, did not dis- 
 courage the notion) that the private observance of 
 their own rites would excuse a formal obedience to 
 the civil power " (p. 120). " There is nothing 
 . . . which serves to countenance the very unfair 
 misrepresentations lately {i.e., 1845) given, as if the 
 Roman Catholics generally had acquiesced in the
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 337 
 
 Anglican worship, believing it to be substantially 
 the same as their own. They frequented our 
 churches, because the law compelled them by 
 penalties so to do, not out of a notion that very 
 little change had been made by the Reformation. It 
 is true of course that many became real Protestants, 
 by habitual attendance on our rites and by disuse of 
 their own. But these were not the recusants of a 
 later period " (p. 121, note). 
 
 " The Romish scheme of worship, though it 
 attaches more importance to ceremonial rites, has 
 one remarkable difference from the Protestant, that 
 is far less social ; and consequently the prevention 
 of its open exercise has far less tendency to weaken 
 men's religious associations so long as their individual 
 intercourse with a priest, its essential requisite, can 
 be preserved. Priests therefore travelled the country 
 in various disguises, to keep alive a flame which the 
 practice of outward conformity was calculated to 
 extinguish. There was not a county throughout 
 England, says a Catholic historian, where several of 
 Mary's clergy did not reside, commonly called the 
 old priests. They served as chaplains in private 
 families. By stealth, at the dead of night, in private 
 chambers, in the secret lurking-places of an ill- 
 peopled country, with all the mystery that subdues 
 the imagination, with all the mutual trust that 
 invigorates constancy, these proscribed ecclesiastics 
 celebrated their solemn rites, more impressive in 
 
 22
 
 838 HAMPSHIRE RECUSAKTS. 
 
 such concealment than if surrounded by all their 
 former splendour. . . . 
 
 "It is my thorough conviction that the persecu- 
 tion, for it can obtain no better name, carried on 
 against the English Catholics, however it might 
 serve to delude the Government by producing an 
 apparent conformity, could not but excite a spirit of 
 disloyalty in many adherents to that faith" (p. 122). 
 
 As a consequence of the northern insurrection of 
 1570, and the celebrated Bull of Pope Pius V., new 
 and more stringent laws were passed against the 
 Catholics by the Parliament in 1571 (13 Eliz. c. 2). 
 This enacted '* that all persons publishing any bull 
 from Rome, or absolving and reconciling any one to 
 the Romish Church, or being so reconciled, should 
 incur the penalties of high treason ; and such as 
 brought into the realm any crosses, pictures, or 
 superstitious things consecrated by the Pope or 
 under his authority, should be liable to prgemunire. 
 Those who should conceal or connive at the offen- 
 ders were to be held guilty of misprision of trea- 
 son. This statute exposed the Catholic priesthood, 
 and in a great measure the laity, to the continual 
 risk of martyrdom ; for so many had fallen away 
 from their faith through a pliant spirit of conformity 
 with the times, that the regular discipline would 
 exact their absolution and reconciliation before they 
 could be reinstated in the Church's communion " 
 (p. 138). . . " We cannot wonder to read that 
 these new statutes increased the dissatisfaction of
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 339 
 
 the Roman Catholics, who perceived a systematic 
 determination to extirpate their religion. 
 Many retired to foreign countries, and, receiving 
 for their maintenance pensions from the Court of 
 Spaiu, became unhappy instruments of its ambitious 
 enterprises. Those who remained at home could 
 hardly think their oppression much mitigated by the 
 precarious indulgences which Elizabeth's caprice, 
 or rather the fluctuation of different parties in her 
 councils, sometimes extended to them" (p. 140). 
 
 " This indulgence, however, shown by Elizabeth, 
 the topic of reproach in those times, and sometimes 
 of boast in our own, never extended to any positive 
 toleration, nor even to any general connivance at 
 the Romish worship in its most private exercise. 
 She published a declaration in 1570, that she did 
 not intend to sift men's consciences, provided they 
 observed her laws by coming to church, which, as 
 she well knew, the strict Catholics deemed incon- 
 sistent with their integrity. Nor did the G-overnment 
 always abstain from an inquisition into men's private 
 thoughts. The inns of court were more than once 
 purified of popery by examining their members on 
 articles of faith. Gentlemen of good families in the 
 country were harassed in the same manner " (p. 140). 
 
 " It will not surprise those who have observed the 
 effect of all persecution for matters of opinion upon 
 the human mind, that during this period the 
 Romish party continued such in numbers and in 
 zeal as to give the most lively alarm to Elizabeth's
 
 840 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 administration. One cause of this was, beyond 
 doubt, the connivance of justices of the peace, a 
 great many of whom were secretly attached to the 
 same interest, though it was not easy to exclude 
 them from the commission, on account of their 
 wealth and respectability. The facility with which 
 Catholic rites can be performed in secret, as before 
 observed, was a still more important circumstance." 
 In this way another ten years of Elizabeth's reign 
 passed away. The Parliament which met in 1581 
 was " discontented with the severities used against 
 the Puritans, but ready to go beyond any measures 
 that the court might propose to subdue and extir- 
 pate popery. Here an Act was passed, which, after 
 repeating the former provision that had made it 
 high treason to reconcile any of her Majesty's sub- 
 jects, or to be reconciled, to the Church of Rome, 
 imposes a penalty of £20 a month on all persons 
 absenting themselves from church, unless they shall 
 hear the English service at home. Such as could 
 not pay the same within three months after judg- 
 ment, were to be imprisoned until they should con- 
 form. The Queen, by a subsequent Act, had the 
 power of seizing two-thirds of the party's land and 
 all his goods for default of payment. These grievous 
 penalties on recusancy, as the wilful absence of 
 Catholics from church came now to be denominated, 
 were doubtless founded on the extreme difficulty of 
 proving an actual celebration of their own rites. 
 But they established a persecution which fell not at
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 341 
 
 all sliort in principle of that for whicli the inquisi- 
 tion had become so odious. Nor were the statutes 
 merely designed for terror's sake — to keep a check 
 over the disaffected, as some would pretend. They 
 were executed in the most sweeping and indis- 
 criminating manner, unless perhaps a few families 
 of high rank might enjoy a connivance " (p. 145). 
 
 " The public executions, numerous as they were, 
 scarcely form the most odious part of this persecu- 
 tion. The common law of England has always 
 abhorred the accursed mysteries of a prison-house, 
 and neither admits of torture to extort confession, 
 nor of any penal infliction not warranted by a 
 judicial sentence. But this law, though still sacred 
 in the courts of justice, was set aside by the Privy 
 Council under the Tudor line. The rack seldom 
 stood idle in the Tower, for all the latter part of 
 Ehzabeth's reign " (p. 148). " Such excessive 
 severities, under the pretext of treason, but sus- 
 tained by very little evidence of any other offence 
 than the exercise of the Catholic ministry, excited 
 indignation throughout a great part of Europe " 
 (Ibid.). 
 
 " In 1584 a lawwas enacted, enjoining all Jesuits, 
 seminary priests and other priests, whether ordained 
 within or without the kingdom, to depart from it 
 within forty days, on pain of being adjudged 
 traitors. The penalty of fine and imprisonment at 
 the Queen's pleasure was inflicted on such as, know- 
 ing any priest to be within the realm, should not
 
 342 HAINIPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 discover it to a magistrate. This seemed to fill up 
 the measure of persecution, and to render tlie 
 longer preservation of this obnoxious religion abso- 
 lutely impracticable " (p. 153). 
 
 After testifying to the loyalty with which 
 Catholics in every part of England united with their 
 fellow-countrymen in preparing to resist the Spanish 
 Armada (p. 62), the historian Hallam continues : 
 " It would have been a sign of gratitude if the laws 
 depriving them of the free exercise of their religion 
 had been, if not repealed, yet suffered to sleep, after 
 these proofs of loyalty. But the execution of priests 
 and of other Catholics became, on the contrary, more 
 frequent, and the fines for recusancy were exacted 
 as rigorously as before. A statute was enacted, re- 
 straining Popish recusants — a distinctive name now 
 first imposed by law — to particular places of resi- 
 dence, and subjecting them to other vexatious pro- 
 visions. All persons were forbidden by proclama- 
 tion to harbour any of whose conformity they were 
 not assured" (p. 163). 
 
 With this I will finish my quotations from the 
 pages of Hallam' s History, only remarking, as an 
 apology for their length, that there are many other 
 passages which deserve to be cited, which I hope 
 you may be induced to read for yourselves. I now 
 pass on to illustrate the incidence of the recusancy 
 laws in Hampshire, and especially in this neigh- 
 bourhood of Petersfield. 
 
 The most important sources of information upon
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 343 
 
 this subject (and sources wliich have hitherto been 
 little regarded), are the Becusant Bolls in the Public 
 Record Office. Unfortunately these systematic 
 accounts of fines levied upon those who refused to 
 attend the service in their parish churches, and of 
 the rents received from property belonging to such 
 recusants which, as the the record says, " by reason 
 of recusancy " was held altogether or in part by the 
 crown, are very far from being complete ; that is to 
 say, they do not begin until late in Elizabeth's 
 reign, although from that time the series runs 
 without a break for sixty-three years. There is, of 
 course, a record of the fines paid under the recusant 
 laws in the years previous to the thirty- third of 
 Elizabeth, a.d. 1590 ; but this is to be found on the 
 general receipt rolls of the Exchequer, known as 
 Pipe Eolls. It would take a very long time to 
 thoroughly examine these rolls, and pick out from 
 the mass of payments of every kind the special sums 
 received by the royal officials in the way of recusant 
 fines. The special recusant rolls are sufficiently 
 difficult to deal with, and we must be content to 
 confine our attention chiefly to this source of infor- 
 mation. Por the benefit of those who have no 
 acquaintance with the original records of our 
 country, 1 may perhaps say one word in description 
 of the recusant rolls. When rolled up these records 
 look more like a good size drain-pipe than anything 
 else ; they are about two feet in height and eighteen 
 inches or two feet in diameter. The roll consists of
 
 344 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 a Dumber of skins of parchment, each from six to 
 eight feet long, and two feet or so broad, stitched 
 together at one end ; at the extreme end of each 
 skin is written the name of the county to which it 
 refers ; for the receipts on these rolls, like the 
 general Pipe Rolls, are divided out into their special 
 counties. For our present purposes we have only 
 to turn to the skins labelled Southamjoton, or Hamp- 
 shire, to see w'hat special information the}' can give 
 us. 
 
 The first year, as I have said, is 1590 a.d., after 
 Elizabeth had been on the throne some two-and- 
 thirty years. The Hampshire record for this year 
 is contained on one skin of parchment, such as I 
 have described, w'ritten on both sides. The usual 
 method followed is first to account for the estates 
 wholly or partially in the hands of the queen, " by 
 reason of the recusancy " of their owners, and then 
 to record the names of those who during the year 
 in question had been fined for not going to service 
 in their parish church. Thus we find recorded 
 under the first heading that the tenants of various 
 properties belonging to the gentry of the county 
 had paid two-thirds of the value of their holdings 
 to the royal officials because their owners were 
 recusants, and their properties — or rather the 
 rents — had been seized in payment of fines. In 
 one or two cases the ]jro'pertij itself had already 
 been granted for a term of years to a tenant to 
 farm for the queen's benefit. One gentleman.
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 345 
 
 Richard Warnforcl, is entered upon tlie roll as 
 being Leliindhand in his fines to the amount of 
 £1,540, and so his property was taken over under 
 the Act of Parliament, about which Hallam has told 
 us, which enabled the crown to take possession of 
 two-thirds of the property of all who would not, 
 or more probably could not, pay their fines for not 
 going to the service in their parish churches. The 
 present record shows that many of the gentry had 
 already been reduced to this strait ; amongst them 
 we find the names of Grilbert Wells, of Brambridge, 
 near Twyford, whose property had been granted out 
 to a farmer by the crown in the thirteenth year of 
 the queen's reign ; of Thomas Poundes, of 
 Beamond, or Beaumont, in the parish of Far- 
 Hngton — a very noted recusant, about whom I shall 
 speak presently ; of Anthony Udall, or Uvedale, of 
 Woodcote, near Alresford, who had other property 
 at Hambledon. To come nearer to this neighbour- 
 hood of Peters field, we find the receipt of the sum 
 of £72 4s. 4d. for two-thirds of the manor of West- 
 bury, described as " situate on the road from 
 Eastmeon," the property of " William Fawkenor, 
 recusant." On the other side of the hills we have 
 Humphrey Milles, or Clarke, paying over two- thirds 
 of the value of the manors of Idsworth and Ban- 
 nisters Court, the property of Edward Bannyster, 
 " recusant ; " and, to take one more example, the 
 same fine of two-thirds is exacted on the property 
 of one Stephen Vachell, " gentleman and recusant,"
 
 846 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 who is described as of " Heath House, in Borryton, 
 near Petersfield." 
 
 With these few examples I pass on to the second 
 division of the record, which gives the names of 
 those fined at the rate of £20 a month, and thirteen 
 months in the year, " for not going to church, 
 chapel, or other place of common prayer." First 
 comes the name of George Cotton, of Warblington, 
 near Havant, who pays £260 on this score. Then 
 there is given a long list of all sorts and conditions 
 of men and women called on to pay at the same 
 rate for the same legal offence. Husbands are re- 
 quested to pay for their wives — for the women 
 clearly make what I may perhaps call a " manful " 
 stand for the rights of conscience. To take a few 
 examples in the Petersfield neighbourhood : 
 amongst those who have been found absent from 
 their churches for seven months, and who are con- 
 sequently requested to pay down £140, are Ehza- 
 beth, wife of Griles Turner, gentleman, of Steep; 
 Richard Strange of Barnes, of Buriton, gentleman ; 
 William Edmonds or Holloway, of Eastmeon, 
 yeoman ; Margery Vachell, of Catherington, 
 spinster ; Humphrey Milles or Clarke, of Idsworth, 
 yeoman (you remember he was the tenant of 
 Edward Bannister, the owner of Idsworth) ; and, not 
 to mention others, Thomas Neave, of Petersfield, 
 yeoman. Amongst those who had been convicted 
 of having absented themselves from the common 
 place of worship for four months, and were con-
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 347 
 
 sequently asked only for £80, there is the following 
 list of Buriton people: — Thomas Kent, yeoman; 
 Thomas Crowcher, yeoman ; Arthur Richman, 
 ^'^eoman; Mary Blackman, wife of Henry Black- 
 man ; Emma Okelie, widow ; Elizabeth Geale, 
 Avidow; Ralph Geale (her son, probably), yeoman. 
 
 I give this as merely a sample of the information 
 which may be obtained by an examination of the 
 Recusant liolU. Year after year the same story is 
 disclosed; not that the fines in money are levied 
 constantly or regularly ; at times there are long 
 lists ; at times the names are fewer, but the first 
 part of the record — that which gives the rental of 
 lands seized by the crown in payment of the 
 recusant fines — practically changes only in two 
 ways ; fresh names are added from time to time, 
 and here and there we have noticed the sales of 
 timber, &c., upon the various estates, and the leases 
 and other grants made by the crown from the lands 
 of " obstinate recusants." Thus, for example, at 
 Hinton, on two farms called Wetham's and Cook's, 
 the property of Thomas and Benjamin Stockwith, 
 " by reason of their recusancy," the goods and 
 chattels were seized and sold to meet the deficiency 
 of rent to pay their fines. At Newlands, in the 
 parish of Southwick, the property of Anthony 
 Uvedale, of Woodcote, near Alresford, the oak and 
 beech woods were cut down, as well as his beech 
 woods at Hambledon, to pay fines due to the crown. 
 As time goes on, more property is discovered and
 
 :348 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 noted as Laving to pay two-thirds of the rental to 
 the royal receiver. Thus in the fortieth year of 
 Elizabeth's reign a considerable addition appears to 
 the rents received from the property of Stephen 
 Vachell, of Heath House : thirteen acres of land, for 
 example, at Charlton, lands in Catherington, Havant 
 and Hayling, and Weston farm near Buriton, with 
 house, garden, orchard, and some 200 acres of land, 
 are made chargeable at two-thirds of their value. 
 This same farm, on the 30tli of September, 1600, 
 was granted for twenty-one years to one Arthur 
 West, by Sir Thomas West, and other royal com- 
 missioners. The tenants of tw^o brothers, Robert 
 and Anthony Joy, of Rothercombe, in the parish of 
 Eastmeon, are ordered to pay their rents to the 
 crown for various meadows named " long croft, cops 
 close, square meadow, great combfield of 20 acres, 
 green close, &c.," in the parish of Eastmeon. And 
 to take but one more example, Henry Knight, the 
 tenant of Anthony Norton of Blendworth, has to 
 pay to the crown the rent of a house and 60 acres 
 of land at Punsall (or Punsholt) in the parish of 
 Eastmeon. 
 
 As to the money fines, the obvious question 
 at once arises, how could they have been paid? 
 We must bear in mind that money in the days of 
 Elizabeth was at least ten or twelve times the value 
 of money at the present time. Probably we shall 
 be under the mark if we take a penny at the end of 
 the sixteenth century to be equal to our shilling, and
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 349 
 
 at that rate £20 a month would be the same as £240 
 of our coinage. It is obviously impossible that such 
 a sum, or anything like it, could have been found by 
 the class of people who were condemned to pay 
 these fines for not going to church. For example, 
 the Recusant Uoll for the second year of James I. 
 contains extraordinary lists of men and women of 
 every kind and degree, each fined £120 for not 
 appearing at church for six months. The Hampshire 
 portion of the Eoll alone gives the names of some 
 five hundred people thus fined, and the list includes 
 the names of millers, tailors, milliners, husbandmen, 
 yeomen, shoemakers, labourers, blacksmiths, fisher- 
 men, &c., not to name numerous widows, spinsters, 
 and other lone women who had no husbands to pay 
 for them. For example, at Petersfield we have 
 Stephen Neve, tailor, and his wife, together with 
 Thomas Neve, each fined £140 for not going to 
 church for the previous six months ; also John 
 Harris and his wife ; Richard Dyling and his wife, 
 and Richard Allen and his wife, all of Petersfield, 
 for the same. At Hambledon there are given the 
 names of some twenty, and at Warblington some 
 six-and-twenty, men and women, all of the labouring 
 classes, who were thus fined. At Buriton we have 
 the names of Agnes Orowcher, and her husband 
 Thomas Crowcher, labourer ; of Arthur Rudesbye, 
 haulier, and Elizabeth his wife ; of Elizabeth 
 Okelie, widow ; of Mary Blackman, wife of Henry 
 Blackman ; of Joan Crowcher, widow, and of Ann
 
 350 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 Crowclier, wife of Ralph Crowclier, labourer. Down 
 by the coast recusancy is evidently rife. At 
 Wymering the list is a long one, and at Westburant, 
 near Havant, occurs the name of " Elizabeth 
 Bulbeck, spinster " — a Catholic name still known in 
 the same place. It is of course obvious that these 
 people, and hundreds like them in the country, 
 could never have found the money to pay. Still 
 the mere fact of their being, as they were called, 
 " convicted recusants," placed them within the 
 power of the law, and the next step taken with 
 them was to value, and, in the crown's behalf, lay 
 claim to the goods and chattels of all indebted, for 
 the amount of their fines. There are records of 
 cows and cattle of all sorts, furniture — poor sticks 
 of furniture enough, for the most part they seem to 
 be — farming implements, hayricks, &c., &c., being 
 declared of such and such a value, and the property 
 of the crown. In some instances this embargo 
 appears to have been bought off at the royal official 
 valuation ; but almost always these poor unfortunate 
 creatures had to remain under the crushing sense 
 that all their worldly goods were known to be the 
 property of the crown, and held solely at the mercy 
 of some official in the district. Instances are not 
 wanting of the actual sales of every bit of furniture, 
 and even of the home itself, over the heads of a 
 family noted for its recusancy. 
 
 A series of EoUs little consulted for any purpose 
 affords us some particulars about these debts owed
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 351 
 
 by various recusants. Tliey are called Exannual 
 Bolls, and upon them are entered such debts to the 
 crown as are never likely to be paid — debts for 
 which it would be hopeless to prosecute. From the 
 twenty-fifth year of Queen Elizabeth's reign these 
 rolls contain long lists of had debts owing by 
 recusants who have nothing wherewith to pay. In 
 some instances, at a later period, there is a record 
 that payment, or part payment, of this or that debt 
 has been obtained ; as for example, when the lands 
 of Stephen Vachell, of Heath House and Buriton, 
 and Anthony Uvedale, of Hambledon, are taken 
 possession of ; but generally the debt is entered as 
 hopeless. 
 
 There are some instances, however, on the Recusant 
 Rolls in which, year after year, a recusant, somehow 
 or other, managed to scrape together sufficient to 
 pay the full penalty for refusing to attend his parish 
 church. Thus, Mr. George Cotton, of Warblington, 
 actually paid £260 each year for many years. I 
 have followed the receipts for twenty years, from 
 1587 to 1607. Imagine what such payments mean; 
 actually in hard cash this gentleman — a man of 
 considerable property about Havant — in these 
 twenty years paid in fines some £5,200 in money of 
 those days, or something over £60,000 of our money. 
 I did not myself for some time believe that this 
 could have been the case, and supposed that although 
 he was nominally fined that amount, the money w^as 
 not actually paid. I have, however, satisfied myself
 
 862 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 that tLo cash was in fact handed into the royal 
 treasury. There exist at the Record Office what 
 are called the Pelh Receipt Boohs, and day by day 
 in these were entered the sums of money which were 
 paid into the exchequer, and the source whence they 
 came. I have followed out in these Pells receipts 
 the sums of money obtained from Hampshire as 
 noted on the Recusant Rolls. There, for example, 
 duly noted as received will be found the rents of 
 Stephen Yachell's property in Petersfield and 
 Buriton, the rents of Heath House and Weston 
 Farm ; there are the payments of two-thirds of the 
 rents of the Idsworth and of the Westbury property, 
 and the rest ; and there each six months is recorded 
 the receipt of a moiety of the £260 which Mr. 
 George Cotton is stated on the Recusant Roll to 
 have paid for not attending the church service. He 
 begins in 1586 by a small payment of £15 6s. 8d. 
 In 1587, on May 29th, he pays £140, and the other 
 moiety of the £260, namely £120, on November 
 24th ; on this day he also pays £199 6s. 8d., said 
 to be "in part payment of the sum of £1,199 6s. 8d.,'* 
 arrears of fines for not going to his parish church. 
 From 1587 till his name disappears from the treasury 
 account books in 1607, Mr. George Cotton pays his 
 £260 a year regularly. More than this ; by degrees 
 he is forced to pay off the arrears of which I have 
 just spoken. Thus on November 28tli, 1588, 
 besides his usual six-monthly moiety of the £260,
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 353 
 
 he pays into tlie queen's purse £433 6s. 8d./ and a 
 like sum at two subsequent dates. 
 
 I may add that the Pells Receipt BooJc^ besides 
 being a day book, gives what may be called a 
 ledger account at the end of each volume. Here 
 the various sums paid into the royal treasury are 
 gathered together under their various headings. 
 Thus there are the customs dues on wine, &c., the 
 fines inflicted in the Star Chamber, the payment for 
 renewal of crown leases, &c. One of the headings 
 given is " Fines de recusantibus accedere ad ecdesiam 
 ubi communis oratio utitur " — that is, " Fines from 
 those refusing to come to church where the Common 
 Prayer is used," and the totals show, when com- 
 pared with other receipts, that the recusant fines 
 were a yqyj considerable source of revenue. There 
 are, indeed, only one or two other sources that 
 furnish more money to the exchequer of the 
 country than what was obtained from Catholics 
 refusing to be present at service in their several 
 parishes. One example of the amount actually 
 received under this head may be of interest. In 
 the first half of the year 1601 the Treasury ac- 
 knowledges the receipt of X4,856 15s. Qi-d. from 
 recusancy fines ; in the second half £4,370 3s. 62 d., 
 making a grand total of £9,226 19s. 4d. for the 
 year, or, to put it into modern figures for com- 
 parison, some £110,719 8s. of our money. 
 
 ' Pells Receipt Books, No. 51. 
 23
 
 854 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 I will here give a balance-sheet showing the 
 actual sums of money received by the exchequer 
 each six months during the last twenty years of the 
 reign of Queen Elizabeth, from Catholics who re- 
 fused to come to their parish churches for service. 
 It must be borne in mind, however, that the re- 
 ceipts of the exchequer were but a trifle compared 
 to the losses sustained by the Catholics by the 
 methods employed to collect the fines, and the con- 
 sequent waste and wanton destruction of their goods, 
 and, as has been pointed out, " of the vast sums 
 which found their way into the hands of courtiers, 
 parasites, and favourites to whom recusants were 
 given to farm, and pursuivants and informers, who 
 made Catholics pay for their forbearance." Even 
 so, the total sum of money extracted from the recu- 
 sants in the course of the last twenty years of the 
 sixteenth century is sufficiently appalling, and as 
 the details are taken from the Royal receipt books, 
 there can be no question about the money not 
 having been really paid. The average yearly pay- 
 ment, it will be seen, was, in round numbers, £6,000, 
 whilst in each of the last three years it exceeded 
 £8,000. In 1601, when the receipts from recusant 
 fines amounted, as we have said, to £9,226 19s. 4d., 
 the total revenue of the crown averaged £400,000\ 
 so that these fines were about a fiftieth part of the 
 total exchequer receipts. 
 
 ' J. C. Vincent, Lancashire Lay Subsidies, Introduction, p. xxix.
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 355 
 
 Cash received by the Exchequer for the Fines op 
 Catholics refusing to be present at Protestant 
 Service. 
 
 1583 
 
 Easter term 
 
 £ s. 
 ... 285 
 
 d. 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 1584 
 
 Michaelmas 
 Easter term 
 
 ... 2077 2 
 ... 1005 19 
 
 8 
 11 
 
 2362 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 
 Michaelmas 
 Easter term 
 
 ... 440 4 
 
 2 
 
 1446 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 1585 
 
 ... 1476 
 
 4 
 
 J. 
 
 
 Michaelmas 
 Easter term 
 
 ... 1046 13 
 
 4 
 
 2522 
 
 13 
 
 8 
 
 1586 
 
 ... 535 19 
 
 4 
 
 
 Michaelmas 
 Easter term 
 
 ... 982 4 
 
 5 
 
 1518 
 
 3 
 
 q 
 
 1587 
 
 ... 2325 16 
 
 11 
 
 */ 
 
 1588 
 
 Michaelmas 
 Easter term 
 
 ... 3419 5 
 ... 2698 19 
 
 3 
 6 
 
 5745 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 1589 
 
 Michaelmas 
 Easter term 
 
 ... 6645 15 
 ... 1908 6 
 
 9| 
 
 8344 
 
 15 
 
 31 
 
 1590 
 
 Michaelmas 
 Easter term 
 
 ... 5438 15 
 ... 3112 10 
 
 4 
 2 
 
 7342 
 
 1 
 
 lOi 
 
 
 Michaelmas 
 Easter term 
 
 ... 3500 10 
 
 n 
 
 0613 
 
 
 
 9i 
 
 1591 
 
 ... 2954 16 
 
 10| 
 
 1592 
 
 Michaelmas 
 Easter term 
 
 ... 2955 
 ... 3546 6 
 
 4 
 4i 
 
 5909 
 
 17 
 
 2i 
 
 ^2 
 
 1593 
 
 Michaelmas 
 Easter term 
 
 ... 3000 
 ... 3422 9 
 
 o' 
 
 ^ 
 
 6546 
 
 6 
 
 4* 
 
 1594 
 
 Michaelmas 
 Easter term 
 
 ... 2587 10 
 ... 3134 8 
 
 3 
 
 0009 
 
 19 
 
 lU 
 
 
 Michaelmas 
 
 ... 3425 1 
 
 10 
 
 0559 
 
 10 
 
 1
 
 856 
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 1595 
 
 Easter term 
 
 
 Michaelmas 
 
 1596 
 
 Easter term 
 
 
 Michaelmas 
 
 1597 
 
 Easter term 
 
 
 Michaelmas 
 
 1598 
 
 Easter term 
 
 
 Michaelmas 
 
 1599 
 
 Easter term 
 
 
 Michaelmas 
 
 1600 
 
 Easter term 
 
 
 Michaelmas 
 
 1601 
 
 Easter term 
 
 
 Michaelmas 
 
 1602 
 
 Easter term 
 
 
 Michaelmas 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 3326 4 1 
 
 2987 12 2 
 
 3185 
 
 15 
 
 41 
 
 3458 
 
 13 
 
 8 
 
 3189 
 
 9 
 
 8 
 
 3449 
 
 17 
 
 2 
 
 3148 
 
 8 
 
 0| 
 
 3539 
 
 5 
 
 8| 
 
 3505 
 
 3 
 
 1* 
 
 3998 
 
 14 
 
 6 
 
 3689 
 
 15 
 
 01 
 
 4788 
 
 4 
 
 H 
 
 4389 
 
 
 
 2,1 
 
 4443 
 
 18 
 
 10 
 
 4110 
 
 6 
 
 51 
 
 4176 
 
 13 
 
 6| 
 
 6313 16 3 
 
 6644 9 Oh 
 
 6639 6 10 
 
 6687 13 9 
 
 7503 17 Ih 
 
 8477 19 2 
 
 8832 19 Oi 
 
 8287 
 
 Grand Total £120,306 19 74 
 I must not, however, delay longer over these 
 accounts, for we have many other sources of infor- 
 mation. My note-books of collections from the 
 State papers of this period contain many notes and 
 copies of documents relating to Hampshire and 
 Hampshire recusants. For the purpose of this 
 paper I have turned over the pages and marked 
 several which were copied out years ago. There is, 
 of course, not the least possibility of giving in a 
 
 From Lansd. :\IS., f. 190.
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 857 
 
 mere paper any adequate notion of tlie story as it 
 comes out from these records of the past. All I 
 can do is to note some one or two points, which 
 are, I fancy, most likely to be of interest. I begin 
 with a list to be found in the Domestic State Papers 
 of Elizabeth's reign.^ It is headed : " The names 
 of the recusants within the county of Southampton 
 who refuse to come unto their several parish 
 churches unto the divine service there said, whereof 
 many of them were presented in the inquisition made 
 through that shire in (April), 1583, and many of 
 them hath been both then and in former inquisitions 
 presented." The list contains the names of some 
 240 of the Hampshire gentry and their wives. It 
 is impossible, of course, to give the details, and I 
 only take as a sample the names entered as at 
 Buriton : Henry Shelley, Marie his wife, Marie his 
 daughter, Lawrence Young and two others, servants 
 to Mr. Shelley ; Stephen Vachell, gent, Marie his 
 wife, Margery Vachell his sister, and a servant 
 named Wilham. To this list is appended another 
 of names left out either by accident or design, and at 
 the end are noted " those recusants who are 
 committed and do remain in prison." In the gaol 
 at Winchester there are some eight and twenty, 
 including two priests and two nuns. In this 
 company are Nicholas Tichborne, Gilbert Wells, of 
 Twyford, William Beconshaw, Simon Cuffold of 
 
 ' Vol. clx. ; No. 2G.
 
 858 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 Basing, Edward Bannister of Idsworth, John 
 Ludlowe of Fareliam, and, to name but one more, 
 our old friend of Heath House and Weston Farm, 
 Stephen VachelL At the same time four Hamp- 
 shire gentlemen are in prison for recusancy in 
 London, namely : John Beconshaw, Peter Tichborne, 
 George Cotton of Warblington, about whom we 
 have already heard so much, and Henry Shelley, of 
 Buriton.^ In the " house of correction " at Win- 
 chester there is Mrs. Edborow Bullacre, widow, 
 of Warblington, Mr. Thomas Groter, of Timsbury, 
 Mr. Bobert Joy of Eastmeon, and Nicholas Collyns 
 of Meon stoke. 
 
 The circumstances which led to Mrs. Bullacre 
 finding herself in the House of Correction are 
 the following. In August, 1582, John Chapman, 
 formerly rector of Langton Herring, in Dorsetshire, 
 and now " a seminary and massing priest," as he is 
 officially described, was discovered in the house of 
 Mrs. Bullacre in Warblington, where he had been 
 residing for some time. He was carried off to 
 
 ' Mr. Hecry Shelley, of ^lapledurbam House, was descended from 
 the Slielleys of ^lichelgrove, Sussex. The last Abbess of St. Mary's, 
 Winchester, was born at Mapledurham, aud the family furuished many 
 priests and religious in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The 
 house of ^lapledurham was a large gabled building approached by au 
 avenue of elms. Like ^Nlichelgrove, the family mansion of the Shelleya 
 in Sussex, and one of the finest houses in the county, ^Mapledurham 
 was destroyed only in this century, when the present farmhouse was 
 built on the site. This Mapledurham is not to be confounded with 
 another mansion of the same name situated on the Thames, about 
 three mUes from Reading.
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 359 
 
 Wincliester together with the lady for harbouring 
 him. After he had been examined before the 
 Bishop of Winchester (Dr. John Watson), and two 
 magistrates, the Bishop wrote to the Privy Council 
 for further instructions, whether he should be sent 
 up to London, or left to be dealt with by the judges 
 at the forthcomiuo; assizes. " He is in the 
 meantime," writes the Bishop, " committed to a safe 
 place in the correction house. The gaol hath so 
 many backward people, that we thought not good 
 to commit neither the priest nor the widow, Mrs. 
 Bullacre, thither." 
 
 The four Hampshire gentlemen in the prison in 
 London had probably been there for more than a 
 couple of years, as their names appear in a list of 
 recusant prisoners in the White Lion prison, South- 
 wark, in December, 1581,^ and two of them, John 
 Beconshaw and Peter Tichborne in another " cata- 
 logue of papists imprisoned in 1579";^ whilst in the 
 same list are given the names of four widows in 
 prison at Winchester, and against them is noted : 
 " their husbands have died in prison." 
 
 I should be glad, had it been possible within the 
 limits of this paper, to have followed the fortunes of 
 a few more Hampshire recusants in the prison lists 
 of which I have a great number. I must content 
 myself with merely noting the name of "Benjamin 
 
 ' State Papers Dom. Eliz., 1581, No. 240 A. 
 2 Lansd. MS., 28, fol. 9G.
 
 360 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 Stockwitli, gent." We have already referred to him 
 as joint owner with his brother of some property 
 at Hinton. In 1586 he is certified as being in the 
 CUnk prison, and the entry states that he was 
 " sometime student in ye Inns of Court, imprisoned 
 on March 24th : since arraigned at Newgate for 
 hearing Mass, and then committed prisoner hither 
 again." ^ 
 
 In turning over the parchment records of the 
 Recusant Rolls the searcher is struck with the way 
 in which the name of the husband of any female 
 recusant is set down. It was done, of course, with 
 the distinct policy of bringing the pressure of the 
 husband's authority to put an end to the wife's re- 
 cusancy, as the following paper, addressed by the 
 Bishop of Winchester in 1580 to the Privy Council, 
 shows : — " Touching the last letter we received 
 from your honours containing an order how such 
 women are to be dealt with as are relapsed in this 
 diocese, whose husbands come to church and hear 
 sermons and do according to her Majesty's laws in 
 these points : we have called before us many of the 
 husbands and mean to deal with the rest towards 
 the latter end of this week, and hope we shall do 
 some good therein. But at the beginning they 
 thought it something strange that they shall be 
 punished for their wives' faults. But . . . we 
 have taken bonds ... of them to keep their 
 
 ' state Papers Dom. Eliz., vol. 190, No. 26 (June 12).
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 361 
 
 wives from conference, all manner of ways, with 
 sucli as are backward in matters of religion, and 
 also have imposed a mulct upon every of them 
 weekly, till their wives shall come to church."^ 
 
 In the year 1586 the Catholics were evidently 
 given some hope that they might perhaps purchase 
 toleration by the payment of a yearly sum to the 
 Queen. Indeed, a commission was appointed on 
 April 13th of that year to examine the recusants of 
 Hampshire as to their ability to pay, and a list was 
 sent for the use of the officials. The Lord la Warre and 
 his fellow-commissioners certified after examination 
 that they find only few who are able to pay any- 
 thing. Many of the Catholic gentry are noted as 
 being then in Wisbeach Castle for matters of re- 
 ligion, or otherwise confined to prison in Winchester. 
 They forward certain letters, however, in which 
 some of the Catholics state what they can pay, and 
 were willing to pay if they Avere only left to follow 
 their consciences. Thus Stephen Vachell, of Heath 
 House, promises to pay £5 a year for the Queen's 
 permission to follow his religion. Nicholas Tich- 
 borne declares that he has left out of his property 
 only an annuity of £3, which the Queen may take. 
 George Cotton, in his letter, says that he had re- 
 ceived intimation from his brother, Sir Richard 
 Cotton, " of her Majesty's most gracious favour, 
 bent to the ease and relief of her subjects, recu- 
 
 ' State Papers, Dom. Eliz., vol. 144, No. 36.
 
 362 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 sants." He will pay to the utmost of his power, 
 which, however, is " but weak of itself, and hath 
 been of late not a little diminished, as well by ordi- 
 nary charges of children and servants necessarily 
 depending on (him), as by manifold losses sustained, 
 partly by long imprisonment, partly by the evicting 
 of a great part of (his) living." He adds that he has 
 lately married three daughters, and has seven chil- 
 dren more depending on him. Still he concludes, 
 " besides the great sums which I have paid for the 
 statute of Recusancy," I offer £30 a year. This 
 sum is changed into £49 by his son, Richard Cotton, 
 with his authority. 
 
 One or two of the other answers are pathetically 
 interesting. For example : Mrs. Katherine Henslow 
 "protests before Grod" that she has only £20 to 
 support herself and her servant, and offers the 
 Queen 20s. " as a poor widow's mite," to be allowed 
 to practise her religion. A friend, one Anthony 
 Fortescue, subsequently promises to make this up to 
 40s. for her. Edward Bannister, of Ids worth, says 
 he has already been called upon to pay in Surrey, 
 where he is residing, for" I am," he writes, "still 
 bound to remain with my cousin Bellingham of 
 Putney, and I may not go any farther than I am 
 licensed, or first have leave of the Council upon pay- 
 ment of my bond." Lastly, Mrs. Elizabeth Tich- 
 borne, of West Tisted, says upon being called upon 
 to make a " personal appearance " before the Com- 
 missioners, " I hope you will by reason of my long
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 363 
 
 infirmity hold me excused, the state of my body 
 being such, I thank God for it, that this many year 
 I have not been out of my chamber — -nay, not in 
 many months together out of my bed." She wouhl 
 wilhngly pay the Queen what she is able, but has 
 twelve children " left in trust by my husband," and 
 to them by his will " all my goods and stocks belong 
 when it shall please Grod to call me." Still, with 
 the aid of friends there is offered m her behalf 
 £13 4s. 8d. a year.^ But this slight hope of some 
 better treatment, and of the possibility of the 
 Catholics being allowed to purchase toleration was 
 quickly disappointed, and the same, if not increased, 
 rigour, was displayed towards them in the closing 
 years of Elizabeth's reign. 
 
 It is evident from the nature of things that 
 only a portion, and that probably by no means 
 the greater portion, of the fines paid by Catholics 
 under the recusant laws really passed into the State 
 coffers. One of the worst results of penal laws was 
 the creation of a body of informers, who traded 
 upon the necessities of their fellow-countrymen, and 
 either by rewards for discovering and detecting per- 
 sons subject to the laws, but hitherto unknown, 
 or by hush-money extracted from the unfortunate 
 subjects, enriched themselves. Further than this, 
 all during the later part of Elizabeth's reign and 
 in the early years of her successor, it was the 
 practice of the Crown to reward favourites and 
 
 1 State Papers, Dom., Eliz. vol. 183, No. 16.
 
 364 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 officials by what was called " the value of the re- 
 cusancy " of this or that Catholic. In 1610, to take 
 one example, Sir John Saville offered to pay to the 
 King no less a sum than £8,000 a year for permis- 
 sion to farm the recusant fines in Yorkshire, and at 
 the same time Sir George Manners and Sir Thomas 
 Grantham asked for a grant of the fines for the 
 county of Lincoln, promising to pay £2,000 a year 
 more than the King had hitherto received from his 
 Catholic subjects in that county who refused to go 
 to their parish churches to service.^ The extent to 
 which this was done was much greater than may be 
 supposed. " A memorial of things grievous and 
 offensive to the Commonwealth which may be re- 
 formed by the King or by Parliament," drawn up 
 ill May, 1603, the first year of King James I., says : 
 " The penal tie of Recusants (is) £20 a month by 
 Act of Parliament for not comyng to church — a 
 punishment no waie fittinge nor proportionable to 
 that offence." There is a great " defrauding of the 
 Prince of that penaltie due unto him . . . for 
 whereas the penalties amount yearlie to the somme 
 of £13,595, as appeareth by the accompt of the 
 officer that is appointed for that purpose, there is 
 paid into the Exchequer for the Prince's use but 
 £3,900 or thereabouts. The rest goes to certain 
 courtiers who have begged those penalties, and 
 compounded with them, and by that means become 
 
 ' State Papers, Dom., James T., vol. .54, Xo. 78.
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 365 
 
 Patrons and Protectors of Recusants, wherebie 
 Poperie is maintaynecl and increased in the realm." ^ 
 
 With the coming of James I. the Catholics hoped 
 for better treatment and liberty. They were, 
 however, soon undeceived, and quite a volume 
 might be made of the various suggestions proffered 
 by hungry officials setting out how more might be 
 made for the Royal Exchequer out of the recusants' 
 lands. One paper sets forth particulars by which 
 property leased at £2,210 4s. 3d. a year might be 
 made to produce £5,779 8s. 9d. Tn Hampshire, 
 for example, he desires to make Anthony Uvedale, 
 of Woodcote, pay £40 instead of £13 6s. 8d., and 
 our old friend Stephen Vachell, of Petersfield, £50 
 in place of £11.^ 
 
 The amounts, as stated to have been forfeited in 
 this latter reign, became so enormous that one 
 almost hesitates to believe them. I give one entry 
 exactly as it stands. It is endorsed " Recusants, 
 10 July, 1612," and is to the following effect: 
 " The forfeiture of Recusants which have escheated 
 into this court from the beginning of Michaelmas 
 term in the 9th year of the King's Majesty's reign, to 
 the end of Trinity term in the 10th year of his said 
 Majesty's reign, do in the whole amount to, as by 
 the estreats thereof, remaining in the custody of 
 the clerk of the estreats of this court and by him 
 cast up, particularly appeareth, £371,060." There 
 would appear to be no reasonable doubt about this 
 
 ' State Papers, Dom., 1 James I., vol. i., art., 68. 
 ^Lansd. MS. 153, f. 178.
 
 866 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 record ; but the effect of it is to show that, in this 
 one year, property of Catholic recusants was con- 
 fiscated to the crown to the amount, in modern 
 figures, of £4,452,720. 
 
 Hallam lias told us how priests came over from 
 abroad with their lives in their hands, and passed 
 from one Catholic house to another, administering 
 the rites of religion, and exhorting those whom 
 they met with to suffer the extreme penalties of the 
 law rather than abandon the Catholic religion. The 
 coasts of Hampshire and Sussex were naturally the 
 parts of England where these priests were landed, 
 just as it was the part from which, in those days, 
 many a Catholic youth departed, by stealth, to 
 seek in the colleges established in France and 
 Belofium the education denied to him here. Thus, 
 in December, 1581, an informer, writing to Wal- 
 singham about one Mr. White, probably Mr. Thomas 
 White, of Titchfield, near Fareham, says : " He 
 imparted to me this day, although in Portsmouth he 
 durst not enter into conference with me, that he 
 was in France at Christmas last, from whence he 
 conveyed over to England one Adams, a priest . 
 He conveyed over into this realm of late one 
 Chapman, a priest, and landed him at Stokes Bay, 
 by Portsmouth, and gave directions what course 
 he should take." ^ The houses of the Catholic 
 families in Hampshire were always open to shelter 
 the priest on his landing. ]\Ir. George Cotton's 
 
 ' state Papers, Dom. Eliz., 1581, No. 231.
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 367 
 
 house, at Warblington, was conveniently situated 
 near the coast, and in many State papers of the 
 period it is noted as one of their chief places 
 of abode, and in 1609 the Lord Treasurer was 
 informed that " In the house of Mr. Cotton, of 
 Hampshire, there is harboured a Jesuit who names 
 himself Thomas Singleton. He teaches the grand- 
 children of the said Cotton." ^ 
 
 It is more than probable that priests landing at 
 Portsmouth would pass along the London road 
 through Petersfield. Be this as it may, it is certain 
 that there was always a shelter for them at Buriton, 
 and Mr. Shelley's large manor house at Maple- 
 durham stood invitingly on the Loudon road, a few 
 hours' journey from the coast. There, and at the 
 neighbouring farm of Weston, priests were always 
 sure to find a welcome, a place to say their Mass, 
 and, if necessary, a secure hiding place. A letter 
 describing the state of the case in 1586 is of such 
 local interest that I will give it entire : — " 16th of 
 June, 1586. The declaration of Edward Jones, the 
 Recusant. In primis Rt. Hon. ... it hap- 
 pened that serving my master Tichebourne," being 
 his footboy, the young man being very desirous to 
 travel, as fortune fell out, there came on a time 
 unto his master's house a merchant named Ilopton, 
 being unto my knowledge but of small acquaintance, 
 but they knew one another, his father being then 
 
 ' Winwood'd Memorials, iii., p. 4'i). 
 
 - This was Mr. Chideock Tichborne, of Porchester.
 
 868 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 in prison ^ unacquainted with this matter. The 
 place is named Porchester. There thej agreed 
 between them that they would travel into France, 
 so staying there, departed, going towards London 
 wherein press of time met with was a week or 
 thereabout, so briefly concluded that the next week 
 they would take their journey towards Rye, where 
 they were shipped privily and passed by sea to 
 Dieppe, where they arrived safely, myself being then 
 in London placed by my mother with one Mr. John 
 Shelley, waiting on the Lord Montague and being 
 in the house not passing a four days, but one of the 
 Lord's sons named Mr. George Brown was very 
 desirous to have me and in the end getting my 
 mistress's good will and him I served a 3 weeks 
 in his father's house. At leng^th old Mr. Titch- 
 borne being then prisoner in the White Lion in 
 Southwark, hearing of my being with him sent for 
 me and placed me with this Shelley's brother ^ being 
 prisoner too, where I waited on him and his wife 
 and was reconciled there in my mistress's chamber 
 by one Wrenche who died in London two years 
 agone ; but being alive went down to my mistress 
 (Mrs. Henry Shelley) unto her house named Maple- 
 durham, near unto Petersfield where he did say 
 mass every day once ; whither resorted certain 
 priests more, named as followeth : Jasper Hay wood, 
 Jesuit, Shelborne, Chepnam, Adames, Warblington, 
 
 • Mr. Peter Tichborne, in the White Lion prison, 1583. 
 - Henry Shelley, of Buriton.
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 369 
 
 Farmer, Eskene, Stone. There I daily consociate 
 withal and heard mass every day, thus passing the 
 time a three quarters of the year hi London at mj 
 Mrs. lodging and I came unto the prison and 
 heard mass every morning there. My old master 
 Mr. Tichborne's father, he being always timorous 
 of the law, would never any these persons to have 
 entertainment in the house by reason of the law." 
 
 On the back of this letter is noted : — " Maple- 
 durham. Mr. Stephen Yachill and his wife. Marten 
 Croucher and his wife, Mr. John Shelley and his 
 wife. AVhite Lion in Southwark, Mr. John Shelley, 
 Mr. Chideock Tichebourne." 
 
 The endorsement is of some interest from the 
 absence of the name of Henry Shelley, of Maple- 
 durham. The fact is, however, that before October 
 23rd, 1585, he had already died in his prison at the 
 White Lion, Southwark.^ In the year 1587, in a 
 small list of notable recusants, written in Lord 
 Burghley's own hand, appear two Hampshire names 
 I have already spoken a great deal about, George 
 Cotton, of Warbhngton, and Gilbert Wells, of 
 Twyford, about both of whom I shall have a word 
 to say later. ^ 
 
 A glimpse — and perhaps the most interesting 
 glimpse — of the life of the recusants in these parts 
 at this period, is afforded by the information of an 
 informer in 1594. He was a young Hampshire 
 
 • Harl. MS. 3G0, f. 22. 
 
 2 State Papers, Dom., Eliz., vol. 183, No. 45 (6). 
 
 24
 
 370 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 gentleman, signing himself *' Ben. Beard," con- 
 nected with the Tichborne family, and who, upon 
 finding the Fleet prison in London too much for 
 him, endeavoured to purchase his liberty by volun- 
 teering information about the doings of his Catholic 
 relations and friends. He had seen such and such 
 priests at bis grandmother's house, and if the Privy 
 Council would set him at liberty he would be able 
 to find them. He had heard mass said at such and 
 such a house, and the searchers could find the chapel 
 hidden away by following his directions, and so on. 
 Of course his chief information is about Hampshire, 
 and a good deal is about the neighbourhood of 
 Petersfield. For instance, he says: " If these parties 
 (i.e., two priests) be missed at Mr. Wells' house (at 
 Brambridge) it is not unlikely but they will be found 
 at Mapledurham, at Mr. Thomas Shelley's house in 
 that county, where I think one Mr. Strange doth 
 dwell. -^ Strange and AVells are great friends, and 
 shift such persons between each other. At Maple- 
 durham there is a hollow place in the parlour by 
 the livery cupboard where two men may well lie 
 together, which has many times deceived the 
 searchers. 
 
 " Jerom Heath, who is not a recusant, he dwell- 
 ing at Winchester, who, not being suspected for 
 religion, was wont in time of any disturbance to 
 harbour such persons, as when my grandmother 
 
 ' Ilichard Strange alias Baraes of I^>uriton, gent., appears among the 
 list of Hampshire recusauts (Recusant Roll, I., a.d. 1690).
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 371 
 
 Mrs. Tichbourne lived, there were continually in her 
 house one Fennell and Richards, priests, who upon 
 any search did lightly fly thither for a three or four 
 days together. 
 
 " If I were at liberty I could go but to the Castle 
 at Winchester where presently my uncle, Gilbert 
 Tichborne, and divers other my friends and kindred 
 remain for their consciences, of whom I could 
 understand anything, and no doubt do very good 
 service." ^ 
 
 In a paper containing further information Ben. 
 Beard says : Two Jesuits landed in Cornwall and 
 were harboured there for three weeks " by a 
 minister, and afterwards conducted by the same 
 party to Hampshire to a place called Pitt Farm, 
 where one Mr. Yate and his wife did abide. . . , 
 have seen with my own eyes one John Shelley, 
 who was with the old Lord Montague, carry Fennell 
 and Richards (the two priests about whom he had 
 spoken as having been sheltered by his grand- 
 mother, Mrs. Tichborne) about the country with 
 him in my Lord Montague's livery, with chains 
 about their necks. Whilst old Mr. Tichborne lived, 
 this Simon Fennell abode with the other priest 
 Richards at Mapledurham in Hampshire, where 
 then one Strange did dwell." ^ 
 
 Upon this information Beard was apparently 
 examined by the Lord Keeper Puckering, and we 
 
 ' State Papers, Dom., Eliz., vol. 248 (March 15th, 1594), No. 30. 
 2 Ibid., No. 105.
 
 872 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 have tlie following notes by liis lordship : " Hamp- 
 shire. John Shelley lieth at Barnes Farm (or 
 Bailes Farm), as it were in an old park, paled 
 and locked that none can come in without a key. 
 
 " His consort is Strange (that was with my Lord 
 Montague) and kept a college of priests (as it were) 
 at Mapledurham. 
 
 " Robert Knight, of Lydshot, hard by Bramshot, 
 where Mr. Marvyn dwelleth. This Mapledurham is 
 Thomas Shelley's house. He was going over the 
 sea to be a priest, and was taken, and now Strange 
 farmeth it. . . . 
 
 " These houses are common receptacles for priests, 
 and have great shift for the hiding of them : as 
 in Mapledurham house, under a little table is a 
 vault, with a grate of iron for a light into the gar- 
 den, as if it were the window of a cellar, and 
 against the grate groweth rosemary." ^ 
 
 In another examination, held in 1596, of one 
 John Harrison, then prisoner in Bridewell, some 
 slight information is afforded about Mapledurham, 
 Petersfield. Harrison confessed that " he was 
 married to his wife in Newgate by an old priest 
 then in prison, himself nor his wife being no pri- 
 soner." He " served Eobert Barnes by the space 
 of eighteen years, and was with him at his house at 
 Mapledurham, Hants, and was there when Mrs. 
 Barnes died, which was about eight years past, and 
 she was buried at the parish church at Buriton. 
 
 1 state Papers, Dom., Eliz., vol. ;^48, No. 116.
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 873 
 
 lie attended on his master, Barnes, at Bellamy's 
 house, but his master was at Mapledurham when 
 Babington resorted to Bellamy's house. He con- 
 fesseth himself to be a Catholic of the Pope's re- 
 ligion, and so hath been before and since he came to 
 Barnes' service," but he denied that he had ever 
 seen any he knew to be priests in his master's house 
 at Mapledurham/ 
 
 It was, of course, as Hallam has told us, highly 
 dangerous to property, and even to life, to be known 
 to shelter a priest ; and curious devices were prac- 
 tised to be able to escape the penalty. Thus, in one 
 case, a priest declares that to his knowledge the 
 Catholic gentleman stood " behind the door to hear 
 the masses, and not to be seen of his servants," as 
 though he had not known the gentleman staying in 
 his house to have been a priest at all. It is curious 
 to find that, through the sympathy and contrivance 
 of the gaolers. Catholics in prison for their recusancy 
 were able to obtain many of the consolations of re- 
 ligion. We have already heard that people outside 
 the walls of such a prison as the White Lion at 
 Southwark, could often come and hear mass said by 
 some priest confined there ; and that marriage and 
 other sacraments were administered within prison 
 walls. This was the case even within the Tower, 
 where, in 1588, it was discovered not only that at 
 times, by means of keys, the prisoners had access to 
 
 ' State Papers, Dom., Eliz. 1596 (March 3), No. 47.
 
 374 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 each other's rooms ; but even, for a certain period, 
 had been able to have daily mass said " by all the 
 priests that have been there those many years." ^ At 
 Winchester gaol the compassion of the gaolers miti- 
 gated the strictness of the confinement of some of 
 the recusant prisoners ; but this was soon discovered, 
 and a long enquiry led to the dismissal of the official, 
 and the appointment of another who could be relied 
 on " to correct " those under his care. 
 
 In 1583 " certain poor Catholics, who were unable 
 to pay the heavy fine imposed upon them for ne- 
 glecting to attend public service were publicly 
 whipped through the streets of Winchester,"^ and on 
 Bishop Cooper succeeding to the See in 1584, he 
 wrote to the Privy Council suggesting the following 
 admirable mode of getting rid of the recusants from 
 Hampshire, which he describes as over-run with 
 them. His plan is " that a hundred or two of the 
 obstinate recusants, lusty men, well able to labour, 
 might by some convenient commission be taken up 
 and sent to Flanders as pioneers and labourers, 
 whereby the country would be disburdened of a 
 company of dangerous people, and the rest that 
 remained be put in some fear." '^ 
 
 It would appear that at this time, 1584, the 
 number of recusants in Hampshire was very con- 
 siderable; the Clerk of the Peace for the county 
 
 1 State Papers, Dom., Eliz., 1588 (Oct. 26), No. 760. 
 
 - Milner, Winchester, p. 380. 
 
 ^ Cassan, Lives of the Bishops of Winchester, ii., p. 47.
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 875 
 
 states that, " at every sessions the indictments 
 against them are in number seven score at the 
 least." He adds, after suggesting some change in 
 his duties : " The number of recusants which at 
 every sessions are to be indicted is so great, that 
 the Clerk of the Peace is driven to spend, not only 
 by himself, or his deputy and a servant or two, a 
 great deal of time before and after the sessions 
 itself, in drawing and engrossing the indictments, 
 judgments and processes, and the Justices most 
 occupied about them, whereby the sessions are con- 
 tinued more days than heretofore, and almost all 
 other causes and grievances of the shire omitted 
 altogether." ^ 
 
 One other point only will 1 refer to here : the 
 difficulty experienced by recusants in burying their 
 dead; for, as a rule, the bodies were refused a rest- 
 ing place in the parish churchyards. I have men- 
 tioned already the name of the family of Wells, of 
 Brambridge, near Twyford. One member of that 
 family was Swithun Wells, whose house in Hamp- 
 shire was the refuge of numerous priests, and in 
 it were frequently celebrated two, and even three 
 masses a day. In the last stage of his life lie had 
 taken a house at London, in Holborn, near Gray's 
 Inn Fields. Here Topclift'e, the celebrated priest- 
 catcher, broke in whilst Father Edmund Genings 
 was saying mass, and carried off the priest and the 
 
 ' State Papers, Dom., Eliz., vol. 183, No. 83.
 
 376 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 whole congregation to Newgate. Mr. Wells was 
 not present at the time, but was afterwards appre- 
 hended and condemned to death for harbouring a 
 priest and having mass in his house. He, together 
 with Mr. Genings, was actually hanged before his own 
 door on December 10, 1598. The Twyford register 
 of burials discloses the fact that in the century from 
 1663 (before which date such entries do not appear 
 to have been set down) to 1767 some seventeen 
 members of the Wells family were buried " as re- 
 cusants, clandestinely, by night." During the same 
 period some fifteen or sixteen other recusants were 
 similarly buried. 
 
 The Cotton family were lords of the manors of 
 Warblington and Bedhampton, and we have already 
 seen what large sums Mr. George Cotton had paid 
 to the crown in fines for not attending his parish 
 church. He had likewise lost great estates in 
 Cheshire, which, having been granted to his father, 
 Sir Richard Cotton, and having come to him as part 
 of his inheritance, passed again to their original 
 owners.^ A letter, written in 1614, records his end, 
 " George Cotton," the writer says, " was despoiled 
 of all his goods and consigned to a dungeon to the 
 end of his days, which was hastened by hardships, 
 filth, misery, and a chronic malady. The ministers, 
 as if he were unworthy of Christian burial, would 
 not allow his corpse to be buried in their church- 
 
 ' Foley, Collectanea, part 2, p. 1040.
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 377 
 
 yards, hence his remains are deposited in an open 
 field." ' 
 
 Mr. Thomas Ponnde, of Bearaond or Belmont, 
 near Farlington, spent nearly thirty years of his life 
 in various prisons in England. His life presents a 
 series of almost incredible sufferings for the rights 
 of conscience, and most of his property passed to 
 the crown in fines for obstinately refusing to attend 
 the parish church. The register of Farlington re- 
 cords his burial thus: "1613 (1 March) Thomas 
 Pounde, Esq., was buried by night the first of 
 March." 
 
 In the year 1589 Nicholas Tichborne of Hartley 
 Maudit, three miles from Alton, died. He had been 
 in the gaol of Winchester for nine years a prisoner, 
 as he says himself in his petition for relief " for not 
 repairing unto my parish church," or as the sheriff 
 puts it, "in execution for a great sum of money due 
 unto Her Majesty by reason of his recusancy." We 
 have a glimpse of his sad condition in a letter 
 written by him in 1585. In October of that year 
 orders were sent down to the officials in the various 
 counties to demand from each recusant gentleman 
 or woman one " light horse " for the Queen's service, 
 or £25 in money. George Cotton, apparently, was 
 the only one in this part of the country who was 
 " contented " to furnish the horse. Poor Nicholas 
 Tichborne pleaded " non-ability " to do what was 
 required. " I and such other recusants," he writes, 
 
 ' Karl. MS., 208:^, fol. Vll .
 
 878 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 
 
 " have reported ourselves, notwithstanding our 
 recusancy, to be as good subjects as any other Her 
 Majesty's subjects, which before Grod I do acknow- 
 ledge and profess. And hereupon. Her Majesty 
 having present service for certain light horsemen 
 to be sent into Flanders, Her Majesty's will and 
 pleasure is to require of me to have a light horse in 
 readiness, with all the furniture thereunto belong- 
 ing, by the 26th day of the month of October, or 
 else £25." 
 
 " I," he continues, " am a younger brother and 
 son of a younger brother," and had only one little 
 farm, " for the maintenance of myself, my poor 
 wife, and eight young children." The "lease whereof 
 with all such goods as I had upon the same was 
 sold by Robert White, Esq., late sheriff of the said 
 county, and the money for the same was paid into 
 the receipt of Her Majesty's Exchequer, to Her 
 Majesty's use in the Michaelmas term, in the 25th 
 year of Her Majesty's reign." I may mention that 
 in the Pells Receipt Book is entered on November 
 13th, 1584, the sum of £40 paid by Nicholas Tich- 
 borne in part payment. Whilst on the Exannual 
 Roll of the following year this £40 is deducted 
 from the £360 he is said to owe the Queen, but one 
 sum of £260, and two of £120, are added to the 
 debt at the same time. 
 
 To return to the letter of excuse. Tichborne de- 
 clares that since he has been in prison and all his 
 little property taken away, his family has lived upon
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 379 
 
 the alms of the charitable. He is sorry he is unable 
 to do anything in the way of finding the horse to 
 show " his loyalty and true obedience to Her 
 Majesty, who," he adds, " with all my heart I do 
 acknowledge for my most dread sovereign lady and 
 queen." He begs they will give him his liberty 
 so that he may work for the support of his family, 
 and promises, if possible, when free, to collect the 
 money necessary to buy a horse from his friends.^ 
 
 The sheriff himself testifies as to the miserable 
 condition of poor Nicholas Tichborne, for on No- 
 vember 11th (1585) he writes that he " is utterly 
 unable of himself to maintain his wife and children 
 since the confiscation of his goods to Her Majesty 
 for his contemptuous recusancy." ^ 
 
 He was left, consequently, in the Winchester gaol 
 till he died, as I have said, in 1589. The Bishop of 
 the diocese. Dr. Cooper, refused to allow his body 
 to be buried in any church or cemetery, declaring 
 that his conscience would not permit liitn to suffer 
 a Papist to be buried in any of his churches or 
 cemeteries. By the advice of an old Catholic the 
 body was carried to the summit of a hill about a 
 mile from the city and interred in the old disused 
 cemetery of St. James, now known in Winchester 
 as the Catholic Cemetery. 
 
 To these instances I must add that of the burial 
 of Fr. Sigebert Buckley, the last of the old West- 
 
 ' State Papers, Dom., Elizabeth, vol. 183, No. -ib. 
 2 Ibid., vol. 184, No. 17.
 
 380 lIAMrSllUlK RECUSANTS. 
 
 minster monks. For some time before his death he 
 was living in the house belonging to Mr. Anthony 
 Norton, called Puusholt, in the parish of Eastmeon, 
 to which we have referred before. As they refused 
 him burial in any churchyard, his friends carried his 
 body and deposited it in the ruins of an old chapel, 
 in the hopes, as the record says, that in happier 
 times it might be removed to a more honourable 
 sepulchre. 
 
 With this I must close my lengthy paper. I will 
 ask you to believe that I have touched only the 
 fringe of a large subject, and that the mass of 
 material at hand to illustrate this page of English 
 history is little short of appalling. One thing I 
 hope I have made clear, and that is, that if we want 
 to know the history of these times we cannot afford 
 to ignore the penal laws or to underrate the amount 
 of domestic misery of which they were the cause. 
 
 In these days people talk easily of liberty of con- 
 science, but they are commonly ignorant of the 
 means by which, and of the men by whom the 
 liberty, now so highly prized, was really won. In 
 a vague way it is imagined that the world was con- 
 vinced of this by the philosophers ; that Locke, for 
 example, was the apostle of this liberty. The work, 
 however, was not done by men who wrote at ease in 
 their armchairs ; but by the men, whatever their 
 belief, who bore and suffered all things rather than 
 be false to what appeared to them to be the leading 
 light of conscience. In Elizabethan days, to do so
 
 HAMPSHIRE RECUSANTS. 381 
 
 was in some respects most difficult ; for the im- 
 mense majority of Catholics had no quarrel with the 
 Queen's succession, and were quite ready to accept 
 her as their legitimate sovereign. The politicians 
 in this party, if potent, were few. On the other 
 hand, Elizabeth was open in her declaration that all 
 she required was external compliance with State 
 regulations in matters of religion for the purposes 
 of policy ; yet, fortunately for true " liberty of con- 
 science," she demanded conformity with externals, 
 which, as anyone acquainted with the actual state 
 of the Church of England in her reign knows, were 
 quite incompatible with any continued belief in the 
 Catholic religion. 
 
 There can be no question as to the fact that most 
 of those who suffered under the penal laws, outside 
 the ranks of those who actually sacrificed their lives 
 for religion, were simple-minded Englishmen and 
 Englishwomen, skilled neither in argument nor con- 
 troversy ; but from truthfulness and sincerity of 
 conscience easily open to conviction from the logic of 
 visible facts. They saw through the plea for mere 
 external compliance, as the early Christian mart^a's 
 of old recognised the renunciation implied by the 
 mere dropping of a few grains of incense before the 
 statue of their Emperor. 
 
 The lives of the Kecusants fell in days of that 
 confusion and entanglement of ideas which must 
 exist in an age of transition. Whilst, at whatever 
 sacrifice, they refused to abandon what they felt to
 
 382 IIAMPSimiE RECUSANTS. 
 
 be good and lioly coming to tliem from the past, 
 they were unwitting instruments in preparing the 
 only conditions possible for the public weal in days 
 to come, when it should be seen that unity of reli- 
 gious faith in England had been broken, perhaps for 
 ever. 
 
 One word more in conclusion. There is an idea 
 abroad that it is in great measure to the Puritans 
 that we owe liberty of conscience. It is true that 
 in the issue they, or their descendants at all events, 
 were one of the elements which contributed to this 
 result. But liberty of conscience was in no degree 
 the Puritan ideal. In fact, it directly ran counter 
 to their ideal. According to their principles a 
 church order and discipline existed by Divine 
 right. To them only one form of religious belief 
 was to be permitted in England; and not merely 
 one form of belief, but one form only of church 
 order, and that belief, and order theirs and theirs 
 alone. Those who would not accept it must be made 
 to do so, or suffer for their refusal.
 
 Note on p. 161, 
 
 Mr. Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts (p. ^06), has 
 said that " it is only in rhetorical passages that the picture " of the 
 Lollards persecuted for the making and use of the English Scriptures 
 has been drawn. A friend has pointed out to me that the extract I 
 have given from Taine in regard to this is, indeed, rhetorical, and 
 may therefore suggest to those who do not possess special knowledge 
 of the subject, that the observation is just. I add here, therefore, the 
 remarks of two Euglish writers, who speak in a sober and straight- 
 forward way. The first is taken from the First Sketch of Encjlish 
 Literature, by Mr. Henry ]Morley, a work that has had the widest 
 circulation, and which, by the year 1887, had passed through seven 
 editions. The same statements, with a few verbal variations, are 
 reproduced in Mr. Morley's English Writers, vol. vi. (London : Cassell, 
 1890), p. 1J39. I have made no attempt to find where the (juotation 
 of the law against the Lollards given by Mr. Morley in old l^nglish 
 comes from. Possibly Foxe, the martyrologist, vcaxy be the authority. 
 The original act was, of course, in Norman French. 
 
 jNIr. Morley writes: "In the second year of Henry V., in 1414, a 
 new law passed against the Lollards, which ordained that they should 
 forfeit all the lands they had in fee simple, and all their goods and 
 chattels to the king. The same act decreed that whatsoever they 
 were that should read the Scriptures in their mother tongue, they should 
 forfeit ' land, catel, lif, and godes from their heyres for ever, and so 
 be condempned for heretykes to God, enemies to the crowne, and most 
 errant traitors to the lande.' " ^ 
 
 1 The act referred to is to be found in the Statutes (Record Commission ed.) 
 ii., 181-184. In this there is not a sj'Uablc about the Holy Scriptures from 
 beginning to end. The chief passage is as follows : " And also that all persons 
 convict of heresy of what estate or degi'ee that they be, by the said ordinaries 
 or other commissaries left to the secular power, according to the laws of holy 
 church, shall lose and foi-feit all their lands and tenements, which they have 
 in fee simple" (p. 182). The justices are given power to inquire concerning 
 "the common writers of such books, as well as of the sermons, as of their 
 schools, conventicles, congi-egations and confederacies."
 
 384 
 
 The second writer whom 1 will quote is the present Bishop of 
 Durham, to whose General View of the History of the English Bible most 
 persons desiring to have a critical and reliable statement about the 
 subject in question will naturally turn. This is what Dr. Westcott 
 says about it: "As might be expected the revised text (by Purvey) 
 displaced the original version (by Wyclif and Hereford), and in spite 
 of its stern proscription in a convocation in 1408, under the influence 
 of Archbishop Arundel, it was widely circulated through all classes, till 
 it was at last superseded by the printed versions of the 16th century." 
 Then in a note the Bishop adds : " It is scarcely necessary to add that Sir 
 T. More's statement that the holy Bible was translated (into English) 
 long before Wycliffe's days, is not supported by the least independent 
 evidence. He may have seen a MS. of Wycliffe's version and (like 
 Lambert) have miscalculated the date" (p. 15). Again, " In a convo- 
 cation of the province of Canterbury, held at Oxford under Arch- 
 bishop Arundel, several constitutions were enacted against the party 
 of the Reformation. The one on the use of the vernacular Scriptures 
 is important, both in form and substance." Then, after quoting the 
 well known provision of the Synod, the writer continues : " Four years 
 after came the insurrection and death of Sir John Oldcastle ; a new and 
 more stringent act was passed against heresy (2 Henry V.), and the 
 Lollards, as a party, were destroyed. But the English Bible survived 
 their destruction. The terms of the condemnation under Archbishop 
 Arundel were explicit, but it was practically ineffectual. No such 
 approbation as was required, so far as we know, was ever granted, but 
 the work was still transcribed for private use, and the MSS. are them- 
 selves the best records of its history."
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abbeys, the national archives, 58 
 Ai:iNGDON Abbey, books at, 19; pro- 
 fessed scribes at, 62 ; materials for 
 
 scriptorium work at, 46 
 A}5USES, Catholic clergy speak against, 
 
 97 
 Adames, 368 
 Additamenta, The, a collection of 
 
 state papers, 61 ; the public records 
 
 in, 62 
 Admont, Monastery of, 20, note 2 
 Alan of Lynn, his Summa prcdi- 
 
 cantium, 213, 216 
 Allen, Richard, 349 
 Alnwick, Bp. of Norwich, 232 
 Alnwick, English testament at, 143 
 Alphabetum exemplorum, 218 
 Alphabetum predicantium, 214 
 Alresford, 345, 347 
 Amiatinus Codex, history of, 55 
 Anecdotes in sermons, use of, 209 
 Angel Guardians, devotion to, 197, 
 
 note 
 Anglesey Priory, Cambridge, books 
 
 lent to, 32 
 Anglo-Saxon Gospels, copies of, 151. 
 Anne of Bohemia, her love for 
 
 vernacular Scriptures, 149 
 Anselm, Abbot of Bury, 232 ; liis tomb, 
 
 246 
 Antiquaeii employed by Richard of 
 
 Bury, 53 
 Apocalypse, The early translation of, 
 
 not Wyclif's, 147 
 25 
 
 Apollonius, Anglo-Saxon translation 
 of, 24 
 
 Aquinas, St. Thomas, his works brought 
 to England, 37 
 
 Aeagon, King Peter III. of, his library. 
 18 
 
 Archcantor, John the Roman, 55 
 
 Archives of monasteries searched for 
 state documents, 59 
 
 Aristotle to Alexander, Book called, 
 296 
 
 Armagh, sermons preached by Fitz- 
 Ralph at, 66 
 
 Armarius, Directions for the office of, 
 20, 7iote 2, 48 
 
 Arundel, Archbishop, his gift of book.s 
 to Cauterbui-y, 9 : orders instruction 
 of people by clergy, 190 ; supposed 
 hostility to English Bible, 163 ; on 
 Wyclif's English Scriptures, 113 ; his 
 Constitution on English Scriptures, 
 122 scqq. ; Canon Dixon on his atti- 
 tude to vernacular Bible, 125, note : 
 his approval of some translation, 
 149, 178 ; proposal to Parliament, 
 150 ; examination of documents re- 
 garding, 166 
 
 Athelstan, King, his presents to Bath, 
 29 
 
 Augustinians, employment of profes- 
 sional scribes by, 52 
 
 Aurora INIass, The, 245 
 
 Authorisation of vernacular Scrip- 
 
 I
 
 ?)86 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 turos, 148, 149, 155 ; admitted now, 
 159 ; evidence for, 134, 
 
 Babees book, The, 278 
 Bacularius, The, 266 
 Baldwin, Abb. of Bury, 252 
 Bale, John, on the Carmelites, 223 ; 
 on Leland, 23 ; his proposal for a 
 library in every county, 39 
 Ball, John, the preacher, 87 
 Bannister, Edward, 345, 346, 358, 362 
 Bardney Abbey, Henry IV. at, 7 
 Barnes, Robert, 372, 373 
 Barnwell Priory, Book presses at, 
 15 ; employment of professional 
 scribes at, 52 ; Lenten distribution 
 of books at, 28 
 Bartholomeus, De proprietatibus 
 
 rerum, 274 
 Basilicas, Libraries attached to, 5. 
 Basing, 351 
 
 Bath, Books given to, 29 
 Beard, Ben, an informer, 370 
 Beconshaw, William, 357 
 
 John, 358, 359 
 Bedford, The Regent duke of, 52 
 Behaviour, Tracts on, 278 
 Bellamy, 372 
 
 Benedict, St., his rule, 1, 2 
 Ben.edictine monks of England, their 
 use of books, 36 ; Cardinal Pole's 
 love for, 284, note 
 Benet Biscop, St., his library, 54 
 Bere, Abbot of Glastonbury, his part 
 
 in the revival of letters, 317 seqq. 
 Bernard, St., describes monastic writ- 
 ing schools, 43 ; on chained books, 17 
 Besanqon, Etienne de, his stories for 
 
 sermons, 218 
 Bible, Hebrew MSS. in England, 54, 
 note ; Bohemian version of, 119, note 
 Bible, The English, 102 ; common 
 in Middle ages, 146, note 2 ; in 16th 
 century, 143 ; is given publicly in 
 wills, 143 
 
 Biblical literature attributed wrongly 
 
 to Wyclif, 111 
 Biblical studies of monks, 2, 16 
 Bibliotheca, meaning of the word, 4 
 Bishops, The, their attitude towards 
 
 evil, 73 ; character of Christian, 81 
 Black Prince, The, 67 ; character of, 
 99 ; the hope of the nation, 75 ; death 
 of, 97 ; sermon on, 98 
 Blackman, Mary, 349 
 Blessed Virgin, Devotion to, 274. 
 Bohemian Bible, versions of, 119, 
 
 note 
 BoKENHAM, Dom Edmuud, chaplain 
 
 to Ed. in. , 237 
 Bologna, Greek studies at, 310 
 Bonner, Bp. , owns a supposed Wyclif 
 
 Bible, 143 
 
 Bookcases, 14, 15, 16 
 
 Books, making of, a monastic work, 
 
 41 ; need of, in monasteries, 17 ; 
 
 monastic care of, 20, note 2 ; price 
 
 of, 29 ; bequeathed on death, 35, 
 
 note ; mediseval borrowing of, 8, 30 ; 
 
 claiming of stray, 17 ; sold from St. 
 
 Albans library, 53; presents of, 34; 
 
 kept in the cloister at Durham, 11 ; 
 
 chaining of, 17 ; destruction of, at 
 
 Reformation, 23 ; care of, 268 
 
 Borough, sec Burgo 
 
 Boston op Bury, his great index, 25, 
 
 216 
 BoTiLLER, Ed., monk of Westminster, 
 
 280, note 
 BoTONER, family of, 289 ; William, see 
 
 W. of Worcester ; Adam, 289, note 
 BouLTON, Thomas de, gets books for 
 
 Vale Royal, 37 
 BoYLiON, Godfray de, The Viage of, 8 
 BozoN, Nicholas, his stories for ser- 
 mons, 218 
 Beambridge, 245, 370 
 Bramshot, 372 
 
 Bretton, The printer, 198, note 
 Breves, The, 47
 
 INDEX. 
 
 387 
 
 Bristol, St. Mary's, 296 ; Bible at, 
 
 144 ; the family of Botouer at, 288 
 Bromyaed, John, his aids to preachers, 
 
 212 
 Browxb, George, 368 
 Brundish, Abb. Edmund, 234, 237 ; 
 
 his great autiphonal, 244 
 Brunton, Bp. Thomas, of Rochester, 
 06 seqq. ; his sermons, 221 ; his social 
 teachings, 87 ; his character as an 
 orator, 101 
 Buckley, Dom Sigebert, 379 
 BuLBECK, Elizabeth, 350 
 IJULLACRE, Mrs. Edborow, 358 
 BuRGO, or Borough, John de, 197 
 Burial denied to Catholics, 379 
 BURITON, 346, 347, 349, 358 
 Burleigh, Lord, on the Mass, 322 
 Burton-on-Trent, library at, 24, note 
 
 2 ; state papers in archives of, 59 
 UuEY, Richard of, Bp. of Durham, 11, 
 note 6 ; 213, note ; employs scribes, 
 52 ; buys books from St. Albans, 53 ; 
 his antiquarii, 53 
 Bury St. Edmunds, books given to, 
 38 ; books lent from, 38 ; ancient 
 classic in library of, 54, note ; Henry 
 VI. at, 226; character of, 229; 
 bronze gates of, 232 ; choir paintings 
 at, 233 ; chalice given for ransom of 
 liichard I. from, 237 ; ruin of, 239 ; 
 the bells of, 240 ; boy school at, 251 
 
 Cambridge, William of Worcester 
 visits the College libraries at, 302 
 
 Camden on the destruction of Bury, 
 237 ; his assertion as to Catholic 
 religion being connived at, 335 
 
 Canterbury, Christ Church, law 
 books given to, 39, note 2 ; size of the 
 library at, 22 ; books lent from, 9, 
 32, 33, 7iotc ; building of library at, 
 14 ; the prior's " gloriet " at, 14 ; li- 
 brarian at, 20 ; burial of B. Prince at, 
 
 98, scqq. ; school at, 270 ; letter from, 
 282 ; Card. Pole on return of Bene- 
 dictines to, 284, note ; Greek school 
 at, 308, seg^. ; visit of Greek Emperor 
 to, 312 ; fire at, 315; classical MSS. 
 at, 314 
 
 Canterbury, St. Augustine's, W. of 
 Worcester at, 303 ; prayers for bene- 
 factors, at, 34 
 
 Canterbury Tales, The, 86 ; the cha- 
 racter of the priest in, 181 ; on 
 popular love of tales, 219 
 
 CANTOR,The, his charge of the monastic 
 books, 18, 31 
 
 Cardiff, Franciscan library burnt at, 
 33 
 
 Carthusian Rule on book making, 48 
 
 Catalogues in monastic libraries, 21, 
 note, 26 ; at Durham, 27 
 
 Catherington, 346, 348 
 
 Catholic Dictionary, The, on Wyclif, 
 106 
 
 Catholic Rites prohibited by Eliza- 
 beth, 333, 337 
 
 Catholics, possessed of supposed 
 Wyclif Scriptures, 143, 152 ; forced 
 to attend church under Elizabeth, 
 335 ; retired abroad for the exercise 
 of their religion, 339, 366 
 
 Caxton, his prints of the Liber Festi- 
 valis, 211 
 
 Ceolfrid, St., and the Codex Amiati- 
 nus, 55 
 
 Chapman, John, priest, 358, 366 
 
 Charlton, 348 
 
 Charterhouse at Shene, 9 
 
 Chaucer, his typical priest, 183 
 
 Chepnan, 268 
 
 Christian Doctrine, Instructions on, 
 202 
 
 Chronicle of St. Albans, The sup- 
 pressed, 69, 82 
 
 Chronicles, Writing of, 6 
 
 Church, state of, in 14th century in 
 England, 96 ; attitude to the verna-
 
 388 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 cular Scriptures, 104, 133, note, 160 ; 
 teachiDg of, iu Middle Ages, 180 
 
 Cicero, De Sencctute, W. of Worcester 
 translates, 305 ; De Republica, a 
 copy at Canterbury in 16th Century, 
 314, seqq. 
 
 CiLiuM OcuLi Saceedotis, The, 201, 
 note 
 
 Clarke, Humphrey, 345 
 
 Classes, The, in 14th century, 76 ; 
 division between, 88 
 
 Claymond, John, 318, note 
 
 Clergy, The duties of, 79 
 
 Cloister, The monastic ; books in, 10, 
 12 ; writing done in, 44, 47 ; the 
 usual library, 12 ; glazed sometimes, 
 14 ; carrels for study in, 10, 14 ; 
 schools in, 261 ; the workshop of the 
 house, 263 
 
 Cluny, Monastic library catalogue at, 
 27 
 
 CoBHAM, Sermon of Bishop Bruntou 
 at, 93 
 
 Codex Amiatinus, its history, 55 
 
 Colet, Dean, and the new learning, 
 814 
 
 CoLLYNS, Nicholas, 358 
 
 Commandments, Instructions on the, 
 199, 201, note 
 
 Commonplace Books of preachers, 
 212, note 
 
 Concordances of Scripture in 14th 
 century, 216 
 
 Confessors, Bishop Brunton on duties 
 of, 73, 84, 85 ; their duty to instruct 
 penitents, 201 
 
 Conformity to State religion impos- 
 sible to Catholics, 334 
 
 Conscience, Liberty of, won by Catho- 
 lic suffering, 381 seqq. 
 
 Cook, Hugh, Abbot of Heading, his 
 patronage of Greek studies, 317, note 
 
 Cooper, Bp. of Winchester, his advice 
 as to Catholics, 374 ; refuses to per- 
 mit Catholic burials, 379 
 
 Corbie, writing school at, 51 
 Cornwall, W. of Worcester on, 293 
 Corrector, The, of manuscripts, 51 
 Cotton, George, 346, 351, 352, 358. 
 
 361, 366, 369, 376 
 Cotton, Richard, 361 
 Coventry, Founders of St. Michael's 
 
 at, 289, note 
 Cox, Leonard, and instruction in Greek 
 
 at Reading, 317 
 Cranmer, Archbishop, on vernacular 
 
 Scriptures, 34 ; his copy of English 
 
 Bible, 177; implies existence of au 
 
 authorised translation, 135 
 Ceowcher, Agnes and Thomas, 349 
 Ralph, 350 
 Martin, 369 
 Croyland, Books lent from, 31 
 CuPFOLD, Simon, 357 
 CuRTEY's, Abbot of Bury, 32 
 
 Damasus, Pope St., forms Roman 
 library, 4 
 
 Danvers, Thomas and Anne, 144, 145 
 
 De arte predicandi, by Walleys, 207, 
 note 
 
 De Lira on the Bible, put for com- 
 mon use at Oxford, 18 
 
 Delisle, M., on Medireval book lend- 
 ing, 30 ; on Tours' school of writing, 
 57, note 
 
 Denham, Reginald de, gives bells to 
 Bury, 240 
 
 Denmark, W. of Worcester's notes 
 upon, 224 
 
 Deping, Library at, 24 
 
 Dernhall, or Vale Koyal, gift of books 
 to, 37 
 
 Destruction of books, &c., at the Re- 
 formation, 23, 39, 54, note 
 
 Dextra pars Oculi, Instructions 
 named, 197 
 
 Dis, Walter de, 236 
 
 Durham, Rites of, 10; MSS. kept in 
 various places at, 10 ; the library at
 
 INDEX. 
 
 389 
 
 12 ; the school at, 2G4 ; catalogues 
 of library at, 27 ; Robert Rypon, 
 Sub-prior of, 27, iwte ; St. Cuthbert's, 
 Gospel at, 29; MS. Gospel of St. 
 Luke at, 55 
 
 Dutch versions of Scripture, 119 
 710 te 
 
 ny]jNG, Richard, 349 
 
 Eastmeon, 346, 358 
 
 Easton, Cardinal Adam, 67 ; his gifts 
 to Norwich, 34 ; his tomb in Rome, 
 35, note 
 
 Eastry, Prior of Canterbury, his cata- 
 logue, 22, 33, note 
 
 Ebbabd the Grecian, 279 
 
 Ecclesiastical authorities, supposed 
 hostility of, to vernacular Scriptures, 
 109, 119, 157, 161 ; on what assump- 
 tion based, 159; real attitude of, 119, 
 122, note, 125, note 
 
 Edmdnd, St., Hymn to, 233 
 
 Eddcation in middle ages, 260 
 
 Edward the Confessor, his charters to 
 Bury, 229 
 
 Edward III., state of England at the 
 close of the reign of, 67 ; evil influ- 
 ence over, 71 
 
 Eleanor, Queen of Henry II., gifts to 
 Bury from, 237 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, religious difficulties 
 on Accession of, 319; had no reli- 
 gious preferences, 322; penal laws 
 of, 327 ; had no wish for severity, 335 
 
 Elmswell, The Bury manor at, 255 
 
 England, state of, in 14th century, 
 70, 75, 85, 86; state of the Church 
 in, 96 ; services in churches of, 145 ; 
 sermons in, 222 ; Abbeys of, libraries 
 not common in, 9 ; MSS. of classics 
 iu, 54, note ; early writing schools in, 
 54; Benedictines of, chapter orders 
 as to books, 27, 49 ; book-buying in 
 IGth century, 36, note 
 
 English Bible, Wyclifite tradition as 
 to, 102-3 ; methods of transla- 
 tors, 118 ; supposed destruction by 
 church authority, 104, 161, 383 ; Mait- 
 land as to, 104, note, 162, note ; com- 
 mon use of, 146, note 2 
 
 English Language, first beginnings 
 of, 109 
 
 English Tracts of 14tli and 15th 
 century, commonly attributed to 
 Wyclif, 108 
 
 Episcopal Registers, evidence of in- 
 struction to people in, 193 
 
 Epistles and Gospels, to be read iu 
 vernacular, 151 
 
 Ebasmus submits his translation to 
 Abbot Bere, 317, note 
 
 Etienne de Bcsan(;on, his sermon aids, 
 219 
 
 EvANGELiUM iETERNUM, meaning of, 
 172 
 
 Evesham Abbey, The cantor's office at, 
 19 ; Abbot Marleberge gives canon- 
 law books to, 38 ; writing schools 
 established at, 61 
 
 Exeter Registers on religious in- 
 struction, 194 
 
 ExANNUAL Rolls, The, 351 
 
 Familiar instructions as opposed to 
 
 set sermons, 224 
 Pastolf, Sir John, 287, 289, 301 
 Pawkenor, William, 345 
 Pelton, John, his sermons, 207, 208, 
 
 note 
 Fennel, a priest, 371 
 Pestivale, The, MS. copies of, 192, 
 
 note 
 Festivals, collections of sermons for, 
 
 210 
 Fines for recusancy, 349, 352, seqq. 
 Fires, danger of mediaeval, 33, 34, 59 
 Fisher, Bishop, and the new learning, 
 
 314
 
 390 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Fish-stews at Bury, 254 
 Fitz-Jamks, Bp., destroys T fun's 
 
 English Bible, 164 
 Fitz-Ralpii, Archbp., 66, 219 
 Five and twenty books, the prologues 
 
 called, 141 
 Flos Filius, the Bury Bcncdicaniiis 
 
 called, 243 
 Flos Florum, the book named, 201 
 FoRSHALL AND Madden, their evi- 
 dences as to Wyclif's Bible, 113, 154, 
 
 158 ; on hostility of church to Bible, 
 
 162, note 
 FoxE, John, on proposed authorised 
 
 version, 150 ; his testimony as to 
 
 authorised version, 136 
 Franciscan library at Oxford, 25 
 
 „ at Cardiff burnt, 33 
 Fraternity O.S.B. recex^tious at Bury, 
 
 256 
 French Bibles, numbers of versions, 
 
 120 and note 
 French King, audiences granted by 
 
 the, 78 
 French Language, late continuance 
 
 in England of, 109 
 Froude, ]\Ir., on Catholic ignorance of 
 
 Scripture, 162 
 
 Gatryke, his instruction book, 189 
 Gaunt, John of, evil influence of, 68, 
 82 ; supports the Lollards, 96 ; op- 
 posed English Bible in Parliament, 
 150 
 Gennings, Fr. Edmund, 375 
 Gentyll, Umfrido — a bookseller, 306 
 German vernacular Scriptures, 119, 
 
 note, 120 
 Gesta Romanorum, The, 218 
 Gildas, copy of, at Oxford, 296 
 Glanville, Bartholomew, 213 
 Glastonbury, Leland at, 292 ; size of 
 library at, 22 ; Erasmus and Greek 
 learning at, 317, 7iote 
 
 Glokiet, a building at Canterbury 
 called, 14 
 
 Gloucester, Duke Humphrey of, 8 ; 
 einploys professional scribes, 52 
 presents books to Oxford, 25 ; his 
 English Bible, 142 ; a confrater of 
 St. Albans and Bury, 256 
 
 Golden Foundation, The, by Gorham, 
 214, note 
 
 Golden Legend — a Bible history, 
 121 
 
 GoLDSTONE, Prior Reynold of Canter- 
 bury, 14, 271 ; revives Greek studies 
 in Canterbury, 309 
 
 Good Parliament, Meeting of, 71, 75, 
 81 
 
 Gorham, Nicholas, 214 
 
 GosFORD, John, prior of Bury, 237; 
 his bells, 240 ; his buildings, 254 
 
 Gospel, The, a common word for 
 preaching, 172 
 
 Gospels, The, in English, in possession 
 of Queen Anne of Bohemia, 150 
 
 Goter, Thomas, 358 
 
 Gothe, W. von, 11 
 
 GowER, the poet, tomb of, 303 
 
 Greek MSS., secured for France at 
 Reformation, 314 ; burnt at Canter- 
 bury, 315 
 
 Greek Studies, revival of, 306 ; Pro- 
 fessor Burrows on, 307 ; beginnings 
 at Canterbury, 308-9 ; influence of 
 visitof Greek Emperor to Canterbury, 
 312 ; put an end to by Reformation, 
 316 ; Cardinal Pole on need for, 316, 
 note 
 
 Green, Mr. J. R., on Elizabeth's re- 
 cusancy laws, 326 seqq. 
 
 Grindal advises torture for a priest, 
 331 
 
 Grocyn, 306-7 ; goes to Italy to study, 
 311 ; his books, 318, note 
 
 Grosseteste, Bp. , 6G ; his works, 296 ; 
 on popular instructions, 201 ; his un- 
 published sermons, 219
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ;}'ji 
 
 GuiGO, Prior of Carthusians, bis legis- 
 lation for the order, 48 
 
 Hallam on the Elizabethan recusancy 
 laws, 326 seqq. 
 
 Hambledon, 345, 347, 349, 351 
 
 Hampole, Richard Rolle of. bis trans- 
 lation of the Psalms, 109, 115 ; his 
 English Psalms used, 14G; and inter- 
 polated by Lollards, 139 
 
 Harris, John, 349 
 
 Hart, Walter le, Bp. of Norwich, 294 
 
 Hartwig, 17, note 
 
 Havant, 34G, 348, 350 
 
 Hayles Abbey, Books brought from 
 Avignon for, 37, note 
 
 Haywood, Jasper, 368 
 
 Hayling, 348 
 
 Hearne on monastic libraries, 25 
 
 Heath, Jerome, 370 
 
 Heath, Nicholas, is connected with 
 translation of Bible, 177 
 
 Hebrew Alphabet, W. of Worcester 
 on, 302 
 
 Henry III. begs books for Dernhall, 
 36; his gifts to Bury, 242; and 
 Matthew Paris, 61 
 
 Henry IV. at Bardney, 7 ; a borrower 
 of books, 8 
 
 Henry V. , 8 
 
 Henry VI. possessor of vernacular 
 Scriptures, 140 ; his Christmas at 
 Bury, 226 ; his coronation, 227 ; his 
 reception as confrater, O.S.B. , 257 
 
 Henry VII. possessor of vernacular 
 Bible, 151 
 
 Henslow, Mrs. Katherine, 362 
 
 Hereford, Adam de Orlton, Bp. of, 
 brings books from Avignon, 37, note 
 
 Hereford, Nicholas, his work of trans- 
 lating Scripture, 115 ; his career, 
 116-137 
 
 Herimann, Abbot of Tournay, on 
 
 studies in his monastery, 44 
 Heetley, John, prior of Rochester, 67 
 
 Hinton Charterhouse, Books lent from, 
 31 
 
 Hinton, Hampshire, 347 
 
 HisTORiETTES in Sermons, 209, 218 
 
 History and the people, 180 
 
 Hobby, Friar, 290 
 
 HoBHOUSE, Bp. , on medircval instruc- 
 tions, 184 
 
 HoLCOT, Robert, 213, note 
 
 Holy Innocents Day at Bury, 251 
 
 Holy- Water-Bell, The, 240 
 
 Holy Week, Instructions for, 210, 7iote 
 
 HoRWELL, John, a London Goldsmith, 
 238 
 
 Hospitality in monasteries, 248 
 
 Hugh II. , abbot of Bury, his vest- 
 ments, 236 
 
 Hugh, the sacrist, at Bury, 237 ; his 
 great rood, 244 
 
 Humphrey, D. of Gloucester, a con- 
 frater, O.S.B. , 257 
 
 Hun, the London Lollard, Bible of, 
 128, 129, 164 
 
 Hus, John, or Wyclifite origin of the 
 English Bible, 113; sole authority 
 for the tradition, 174 
 
 Idleness, St. Benedict's legislatiou 
 against, 3 
 
 Idsworth, 349, 352, 358, 362 
 
 Illumination of MSS., St. Dunstaii 
 works at, 50, a monastic work, 49 
 
 Indexes, the great work of making, 
 216 
 
 Ingram, William, ]Mouk of Canterbury, 
 270 
 
 Ingulph, Chronicle of, 31 ; evidence 
 of late date of, 59 
 
 Inquisition, The supposed, as to En- 
 glish Bible, 161 
 
 Instruction in religion, a duty of the 
 Church, 182 ; ordered by Synod of 
 Oxford, 187 ; how carried out, 188 ; 
 character of, 192 ; manuals to aid 
 clcrgj' in, 195 seqq., 214 ; need of 
 popular and familiar, 224
 
 392 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Insurrection of 1381, 91 seqq. 
 Intellectual work, monastic, 1 
 Italian Vernacular Scriptures, 120 
 
 Jarrow, Writing school at, 56 
 Jerusalem, Tlie Chronicles of, 8 
 JOLY, William, a priest in the Tower, 
 
 333 
 Jones, Edward, an informer, 367 
 Jones, John, lesson book of, 275 
 Joy, Anthony, 348 
 Jot, Robert, 358 
 Judges in the l-ith Century, 83 
 
 Kenyon, Mr., on Wyclif's Bible tradi- 
 tion, 159, 161, 383 
 
 KiNGSBERY, Dom Thoiiias, of St. 
 Albans, and Leland, 22 
 
 Knight, Henry, 348 
 
 Knight, Robert, 372 
 
 Knyghton, Henry, on Wyclif and the 
 English Bible, 113 ; his authority 
 examined, 171 
 
 Labour of hands only a partial pur- 
 suit of monks, 1 
 
 Lacy, Heurj', E. of Lincoln, his gifts 
 to Bury, 234, 237 
 
 Lambeth MS. of Council at Oxford, 
 notes from, 170 
 
 Lanciani on ancient Roman libraries, 
 5 
 
 Lanfranc, his Consuetudinary, 44 
 
 Langham, Archbishop, 67 ; on instruc- 
 tions, 189 
 
 Langton Herring, 358 
 
 Lanthony Priory, Library at, 16, twtc 
 
 Latimer's sermons, value of, 64 
 
 Latin, general knowledge of, in Middle 
 Ages, 109, 272 
 
 Lavenham, Dom John, of Bury, 233, 
 235, 237, 240 
 
 Law, administration of unjust, in re- 
 gard to poor, 89 
 
 Lawrence, St., Library in Church of, 
 at Rome, 5 
 
 Layton, Dr. , at Canterbury, 315 
 
 Leland, his visit to Bath, 29 ; to St. 
 Albans, 22 ; on the destruction of 
 books at Reformation, 23 ; on fire at 
 Canterbury, 316 
 
 Lending Books, 19 ; services done by 
 this in monasteries, 8, 30, 33, note 
 
 Lenten Reading in monasteries, 28 
 
 Leofstan, Abb. of Bury, 235 
 
 Lesson Book, a mediaeval example of 
 274 
 
 Liber Festivalis, 191, 209 
 
 Librarian, The mediaeval office of, 18 
 
 Libraries, need of, in monasteries, 2 
 freely used by monks, 28 ; large col 
 lections and modern growth, 26 
 connected with churches, 5, 6, 8 
 formation in distinct places, 9, 12 
 at Durham, 11 ; presents to, 39 
 catalogues of, 15, 16, note, 26 
 
 Lilly, Mr., on mediaeval religious in- 
 struction, 189 
 
 LiNACRE and the revival of Greek, 307 ; 
 at the Canterbury school, 310 ; taken 
 to Italy, 310 ; teacher of Sir Thomas 
 More, 311 
 
 Lingard, Dr., on the Wyclif transla- 
 tion of Scripture, 106 
 
 Livy, the Decades of, 305 
 
 Lollards, The, preaching of, 173, 
 190 ; search for writings of, 129, 
 139, 161 ; interpolation of Catholic 
 books by, 139 ; not persecuted for 
 the Bible, 104, 161, 163 ; their doc- 
 trines denounced by Bp. Brunton, 
 95 ; their preachers mostly laymen, 
 153; why called " Bible-men," 148 ; 
 no evidence of persecution for Eng- 
 lish Bible, 126 
 
 London, need of preaching in, 80 
 
 Louis, St., and the library of the 
 Sainte Chapelle, 5 
 
 LucA, a bookseller in London from, 
 306
 
 INDEX. 
 
 393 
 
 Ludlow, John, 358 
 
 Luther and the Bible, myth as to, 
 
 120 and nok 
 LuTTEiiwouTH, Tradition as to Wyclif, 
 
 106, 112 ; Purvey at, IIG 
 Lydgate, Dom John, 255, 278 
 Lyndkwode on the Council of Oxford, 
 
 124, 147, note 
 
 Machlln, William, the printer, 200 
 
 Magna Charta, Copies placed in Reli- 
 gious houses, 59 
 
 Maitland on the Wyclif tradition, 
 104 
 
 Malmesbury Abbey, St. Aldhelm's 
 Psalter at, 29 
 
 Malmesbury, William of, 43 ; on St. 
 Dunstan's work, 50 
 
 Manners, Tracts on, 277 
 
 Manuals for popular instruction, 195 
 
 Manuel, The Greek Emperor, at 
 Canterbury, 312 
 
 JIanuscripts, The making of, 42, 51 ; 
 each one unique, 21; cost of, 21 ; 
 care taken of, 29 ; Mare, Abbot de la, 
 of St. Albans, 13. 
 
 M.\PLEDURHAM, 358, 368, 369, 372 
 
 Marvyn, Mr., 372 
 
 Mass, The, Questions as to, 276; 
 instructions on, 199, note ; Lord 
 Burleigh on, 322 ; people in prison 
 for hearing, 331 ; Scripture to be 
 read in, 151 ; offered by stealth 
 under Elizabeth, 337 
 
 JNIasses and Classes, Bp. Bruntou on, 
 89 
 
 Matins at Bury, description of, 243 
 
 Matthew, Mr. F. D., on Wyclif 
 tradition, 103, 158 ; on hostility of 
 English Church to the Bible, 121 
 
 Maunday Thursday, Instructions on, 
 210, Twte 
 
 Medieval Sermons, character of, 65 
 
 I\Iedical Works given to Bury, 39 
 
 Mendicant Orders, Libraries of, 11 ; 
 popular teaching of, 203; Archbp. 
 
 Fitz-Ealph on, 219, note ; powers of, 
 84 ; attacks on, 66 
 
 Mentmore, Abbot Michael of St. 
 Albans, 12 
 
 Meonstoke, 358 
 
 Merton College, Oxford, copy of 
 Gildas at, 296 
 
 Metuwold, Kathcrine, a nun, 143 
 
 Metrical Translations of Scripture, 
 110 
 
 Michelgkove, 358 
 
 Milles, Humphrey, 345 
 
 MoLASH, Dom. William of, 9 
 
 Monastic Libraries, the National 
 Archives, 58 ; size of, 3, 22 ; for most 
 part in the Cloister, 4, 6 ; Scribes to, 
 372 ; be set apart for work, 47 
 
 Monastic Orders, work of, 1 ; parish 
 churches served by, 239 ; work com- 
 mon to all, 51 ; character of work, 
 57 
 
 Monk Bretton, monastic library of, 
 39, note 3 
 
 Monks, regulations for the reading of, 
 28 
 
 Montague, Lord, 368 
 
 MooRK, Prior of Worcester, his book 
 buying, 35 
 
 MooTE, John de la. Abbot of St. 
 Albans, 13 
 
 More, Sir Thomas, his attachment to 
 the new learning, 309 ; his teachers 
 at Oxford, 311 ; his college at Oxford, 
 317 ; on authorised vernacular ver- 
 sion of Scripture, 124, 136, 148, 164 ; 
 on destruction of Hun's Bible, 128 
 
 Morley, Mr. H., on Wyclif, 383 
 
 Morrice, Craumer's Secretary, on pre- 
 paration for the printed Bible, 177 
 
 Mount St. Michael, Cornwall, W. of 
 Worcester at, 293, 295 
 
 Music, The mediaeval notion of 
 "colours of," 303 
 
 Myrk, John, his sermons, 191,;u)<c, 209 
 
 Myrroure of Our Lady, The, 145
 
 394 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Neave, Thomas, 346, 349 
 
 Neave, Stephens, 349 
 
 Nevill, Archbp., orders religious 
 instruction, 190 
 
 New Learning, 308 seqq. ; destroyed 
 at Reformation, 310 
 
 New Testament, Wyclif's connection 
 with the translation, 112 
 
 Newenham Abbey, 295 
 
 Newlands, 347 
 
 Newport, Prior of Bury, his bell, 240 
 
 Northern Insurrection for religion, 
 338 
 
 Norton, Anthony, 348, 380 
 
 Norwich, Cardinal Easton's gifts to, 
 34 ; fire at, 33, 59 ; archives 
 destroyed, 39 ; Bp. Brunton at, 67 
 
 Note Books, Information to be ob- 
 tained from, 236 
 
 Novices at Westminster, Book set 
 apart for, 12 
 
 Nuns in possession of supposed 
 Wyclifite Scriptures, 142 
 
 OcuLus Sacerdotis, The book named, 
 197 
 
 Okelie, Widow, 349 
 
 Omont, M. H., 17, 7wte 
 
 Rex CLEMENS, The Eyrie named, 245 
 
 Ordination, Letter of a Canterbury 
 monk on his, 282 
 
 Orlton, Bp. of Hereford, 37, note 
 
 Ormulum, The, a metrical translation 
 of Scripture, 110 
 
 Orthodox possessors of English Bible, 
 140 
 
 Ouen, St., Librarian's notes at, 30 
 
 Ovid, Mediajval knowledge of, 301 ; 
 French translation of, 302 
 
 Owen Glendower, Franciscan library 
 at Cardiff destroyed by, 33 
 
 Oxford, Council of, on Vernacular 
 Bible, 122, 123, 148; meaning ex- 
 plained by Lyndewode, &c., 124 ; 
 the provision examined, 109 
 
 Oxford University, catalogue of 
 library at, 27 ; direction as to use of 
 books at, 21 ; Duke Humphrey's 
 present of books to, 25 ; chained 
 books at, 17 
 
 St. Mary's, de Lira's works in, 17 
 Franciscan library at, 25 
 Trinity College, foundation of, 316 
 Canterbury College and Greek 
 studies, 317 
 
 Padua, St. Justind's library catalogue, 
 10, note ; St. Antonio library cata- 
 logue, 11, note ; books lent from, 32, 
 note 
 
 Pagula, William, 196 
 
 Paris, Coronation of Henry VI. in, 
 227 ; St. Victor's, cantor to find 
 material for books at, 47 ; St. Denis 
 renowned for MSS. making, 53 
 
 Paris, Matthew, 43 ; his character, 
 56 ; his career, 60 ; is State archivist, 
 61 ; at marriage of Henry III., 60 
 
 Parker, Archbishop, on versions before 
 Wyclif, 186 
 
 Parker, Walter, 196 
 
 Parliament, The Good, 70, 75 ; praises 
 of the institution of, 71 
 
 Pars Oculi Sacerdotis, Instructions 
 called, 196, 199, note 
 
 Paston Family, The, 288 
 
 Pater Noster, meaning of instruc- 
 tions on, 202 
 
 Peasant rising of 1381, 91 
 
 Peckham Archbp., loan of books to, 
 31 ; orders instructions, 187 
 
 Pecock, Bp. Reginald, 147 ; on Bible 
 reading, 148 
 
 Pell's Receipt Book, 352 
 
 Penal laws under Elizabeth, 332 seqq. 
 
 Pepwell, The printer, 198, note 
 
 Perrers, Alice, 67, 75, 78, 81 
 
 Persecution of Lollards for English 
 Bible, 104, note, 138
 
 INDEX. 
 
 395 
 
 Peterborough, size of library at, 22 : 
 burnt by Danes, 33 ; Abbot Poter 
 collects books for, 37 
 
 Peterhouse, Cambridge, 302 
 
 Peteesfield, 345, 346, 349, 352, 3G8. 
 
 Philobiblon, The, 11, note 
 
 Piers Ploughman, 86 
 
 Pius V., Pope, Bull of, 338 
 
 PoBLET, Cistercian abbey at, 18 
 
 Poitiers, The Victory of, 99 
 
 Pole, Cardinal, his education at Can- 
 terbury, 284, mote 
 
 PoNTissABA, John de, Bp. of Win- 
 chester, 31, note 
 
 Poor, The, Bp. Brunton on, 88 
 
 " Poor Priests," Wyclif's, 153 
 
 Pope, Sir Thomas, founds Trinity 
 Coll., Oxford, 310 
 
 Popular instructions, 204 
 
 Porchester, 367 
 
 Poundes, Thomas, 345, 377 
 
 Prayers, Beauty of old Catholic, 200 
 
 Preaching, Mediieval, 63 ; instruc- 
 tions on the art of, 206 ; Bp. Brun- 
 ton on, 73 ; Wyclifite, 153 ; helps 
 for, 211, 212, note, 213 
 
 Prelates, character of true Christian, 
 81 
 
 Pre-Reformation English Church 
 History, still unknown, 179 
 
 Priest, Chaucer describes a pre-Re- 
 formation, 183 ; difficult position 
 under Elizabeth, 337 ; laws against, 
 343 
 
 Printed Vernacular Bibles, attitude 
 of church to, 133 
 
 Processions at Bury abbey, 246 ; at 
 Bardney, 7 ; public, ordered in 14th 
 century, 70, 100 
 
 Prologues to English Scriptures, 117, 
 141, 175 
 
 Protestant translation of Bible, 
 errors in, 131, note 
 
 Psalms, Early translation of, 109 ; in 
 use, 146 
 
 Punsholt, 348, 389 
 
 PupiLLA OcuLi, Instruction book 
 
 named, 197, 198, note 
 PuRVi'.Y, his connection with English 
 
 Bible, 116, 137, 162 
 Pynson prints tlie Liber Festival^, 
 
 211 
 
 Rack, use of, on Catiiolics in Eliza- 
 beth's reign, 341 
 
 Reading Abbey, State documents in 
 Archives of, 59 ; Greek studies at, 317, 
 note 
 
 Recusants, laws as to, 324 ; chief 
 points in, 325 seqq. ; meaning of 
 term, 326 ; goods sold to pay fines, 
 351 ; rolls of, 352 ; fines from, farmed 
 364; money levied upon, 365; hard- 
 ships of, 374 ; numbers in diocese 
 of Winchester, 374 ; burial in churcli- 
 yards denied to, 379 
 
 Red Book of Eye, 54, note 
 
 Refectory, reading books for, 11 ; 
 Bible for, 38 ; the Bury, 248 
 
 Reformation designed to blot out the 
 past, 40 ; put an end to learning, 
 316 
 
 Regimen Animarum, The, 198, note 
 
 Religion, laws as to, 324 ; liberty as 
 to, unknown in Tudor times, 321 
 
 Religious Influences in Middle 
 Ages, 273 
 
 Religious Orders, supposed hostility 
 to learning, 307 
 
 Rei'ukssor, The, by Bp. Pecock, 
 147 
 
 Rhkims, Writing school at, 57, note 
 
 Rich and Poor, Bishop Brunton on, 
 89 
 
 Richard I., Bury chalice given for 
 ransom, 237 
 
 Richard II., coronation of, 100 ; Qucou 
 of, and the Bible, 149 
 
 Richards, a priest, 371
 
 y9G 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 EiPON, Dora Robert of Durham, 27, 
 214 
 
 Rochester, election of Bishop to, 67 
 
 RoKELAND, William de, Prior of Bury, 
 237 
 
 RoLLE, Richard of Hampole, his trans- 
 lation of Psalms, 109 
 
 RoLLESTON, Robert, 8 
 
 Rome, public libraries in, 4 
 
 Roses, The wars of the, 304 
 
 Rossi de, Remarks on libraries, 5 : on 
 Godex Amiatinus, 56 
 
 RoYE, William, 180 
 
 RuBRicATOB, The, 52 
 
 RuDESBT, Arthur, 349 
 
 RuDHAM, Dom Thomas, 254 
 
 Rule of St. Benedict, 1 ; English 
 copies in 16th century, 36 ; on Lenten 
 reading, 28 
 
 Sacraments, mediasval instruction on 
 
 the, 198, note 
 St. Albans, formation of library at, 
 5 ; historical school of, 6 ; building 
 of library, 13; scriptorium of, 44 ; Ab- 
 bots— F&\x\, 44; Simon, 5; Ment- 
 more, 12; de la Mare, 13; de la 
 Mooto, 13; Whethamstede, 113; Lan- 
 frauc's Consuetudinary introduced, 
 44 ; books sold to Richard of Bury, 
 53 ; character of the writing peculiar, 
 56 ; foreign State, events known to, 
 62 ; suppressed chronicle of, 69 ; op- 
 posed to Lancastrians, 70, 82 ; great 
 writing school at, 46, 51; Leland 
 visits, 22; marked out for Tudor 
 vengeance, 23; Humphrey, D. of 
 Gloucester, a con/rater of, 257 ; 
 grammar school at, 267 ; frequent 
 stay of Court at, 228 
 St. Aldiielm, Psalter of, 29 
 St. Amour, William de, 172 
 St. Augustine, Works of, 16, 35 
 St. Benet Biscop, his writing school, 
 54 
 
 St. Botulph, altar to, at Bury, 243 
 
 St. Benet Hulme, 62, 290, 296 
 
 St. Claude de Jura, library of, 17, 
 note 
 
 St. Cuthbert, his Gospel book at 
 Durham, 29 
 
 St. David writes out St. John's Gospel, 
 50 
 
 St. Dunstan, a scribe and illuminator, 
 50 
 
 St. Edmund, Hymn to, 233 ; shrine of, 
 234, 243 
 
 St. Ethelbert, his epitaph at Canter- 
 bury, 303 
 
 St. Gall, Scriptorium at, 44, note 2 
 
 St. Gregory, Works of, 9, 16 
 
 St. Mary's Ottery, 294 
 
 St. Nectan, 295 
 
 St. Oyan, chained dictionary at, 17 
 
 St. Paul's Cross, preaching at, 212 
 note, 220, 221 
 
 St. Paul's School, incident at, 266 
 note 
 
 St. Sabas, altar to, in Bury, 242 
 
 St. Thomas, of Aquin, Works of, 303 
 
 St. Thomas of Villanova, on chained 
 books, 17 
 
 Sampson, Abbot of Bury, his chasuble, 
 236 : his cross, 237 ; his anniversary, 
 252 ; his vineyard, 254 
 
 Sandwich, Nicholas, Prior of Canter- 
 bury, 32 
 
 St. Cecilia, Rome, Cardinal Easton's 
 tomb in, 35, note 
 
 Sarum Use, English Bible arranged 
 for Mass according to, 151 
 
 School, discipline of, 266 ; of writing 
 in M. Ages, 53, 56 
 
 Schoram, William de, translates 
 psalms, 107 
 
 Scribes, instruments for, 47 ; work in 
 monasteries, 48 ; employment of pro- 
 fessional, 52 
 
 Scriptoria, true meaning of the word, 
 42 ; set places for, 44 ; silence kept
 
 INDEX. 
 
 897 
 
 in, 45 ; Cistercian, 44, note 2 ; indivi- 
 dual peculiarities in, 56 
 Scriptures, Early English translations 
 
 of, 109 ; study of, urged, 215 
 Searches for Lollard literature, 129, 
 
 139 
 Sellyng, Prior W. of Canterbury, 305 ; 
 
 his influence on learning, 306, 309 ; 
 
 his career, 308-10 ; his tract on Greek, 
 
 313 ; his MBS. burnt, 314 
 Serbopoulos, John, a Greek copyist at 
 
 Reading, 318 note 
 Sermons, Early printed, 191, 211 ; their 
 
 form in M. Ages, 205 ; for Sundays, 
 
 208, note; different from instructions, 
 
 225 ; historical importance of, 65 ; 
 
 how delivered, 68 ; little eSect of, 94 
 Shelborne, the Jesuit, 368; John, 368, 
 
 369, 372 ; Thomas, 370 
 Shelley, Henry, 357, 358, 369 ; his 
 
 family, 357, 368, 358, note 
 Skene, Charterhouse, 9, 298 
 Shirley, Professor, on Wyclif litera- 
 ture, 108 
 Sinistra Pars oculi, a book named, 
 
 198, note 
 SiXTUS v., Pope, 15, note 
 Social Disturbance, 1381, 86 
 SouTHWARK Prison, 359 
 Spanish Vernacular Bible, 120 
 Speculum Christiani, The, 198, 200 
 Speculum Spiritualium, The, 35 
 Spendiment or treasury Durham, 10 
 Stans Puer ad Mensam, The tract, 277 
 Stapeldon, Bp., his enquiries about 
 
 religious instruction, 194 
 Star Chamber fines, 353 
 State Documents sent to monasteries, 
 
 58, 00 
 Stews for fish at Bury, 254 
 Stockwith, Benjamin, 347, 360 
 Stokesley, Bp., and the new learning, 
 
 314 
 Stonyhurst, The St. John's Gospel 
 
 at, 56 
 
 Story of the English Bible, The, 157 
 Stories in mediaeval sermons, 209, 217 
 Strange, R., 346, 370 
 southwick, 347 
 
 Sudbury, Archbp., his murder, 91 
 Summa Conpessorum, 199, note 
 SuMMA Summarum Raymundi, 198, 
 
 note 
 Supremacy, The oath of, number of 
 clergy refusing, 328, note ; the pur- 
 pose of, 334 
 Syon Convent, orthodoxy of, 145 ; 
 English Bible at, 144 
 
 Tabula of devotion in English 
 
 mediseval churches, 298 
 Taine, M., on Wyclif's Bible, 105 ; on 
 
 Lollard persecution, 138 
 Tenebr/E, Instructions for, 210, note 
 Terence, mediaeval knowledge of, 302 ; 
 
 copies of, 53 
 Terrington, 33 
 Thema, The, of Gorham, 214 
 Thetford, Dominican house at, 296 
 Thomas, Abbot of Bury, 249 
 Thompson, Sir E. Maundc, on Wyclif, 
 
 115 
 Thoresby, Archbp., his directions as 
 
 to instruction, 189 
 Tidmarsh, family of, 287 
 Timsbury, 358 
 
 Tintern, W. of Worcester at, 295 
 Tichborne, Nicholas, 357, 361, 377, 378 
 Peter, 358, 359, 361 
 Elizabeth, 362, 371 
 Chideock, 367, 369 
 Gilbert, 371 
 Titchfield, library at, 15 
 TOURNAY, St. ]\Iartin's Abbey, 44 
 Tours, writing school at, 51, 57, note 
 Translations of Scripture authorised 
 
 by Church, 146, 164 
 Treasury or Spendiment, The, at 
 
 Durham, 10
 
 398 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Trinity, The Holy, The Black Prince 
 and devotion to, 100 
 
 TuDOKS, The, and conscience, 323 
 
 TuNSTAL, Bp., his condemnation of 
 Tyndale's Testament, 132 ; his con- 
 nection with Cranmer's translation, 
 177 
 
 Turner, Giles, 346 
 
 TwYFORD, 845, 369 
 
 Tyndale, his N. Testament, 130 ; 
 character of, 130, note ; false trans- 
 lations in, 131, 133 
 
 Udall, alias Uvedale, Anthony, 345, 
 347, 351, 365 
 
 Uniformity, the act of, 330 ; its ob- 
 ject, 331 
 
 Utrecht Psalter, The, 55 
 
 Vachell, Stephen, 345, 348, 351, 
 352, 357, 358, 361, 365, 369 
 
 Vachell, Margaret, 346 
 
 Vale Royal, or Dernhall, 37 
 
 Vatican Library, Book-cases in, 15 ; 
 Virgil in, 53 
 
 Veritates Theologic^, The book 
 called, 199 
 
 Vernacular Scriptures, evidence as 
 to early, 110 ; tendency to spread 
 error by, 132 ; numbers of, 119, 
 note; attitude of church to, 109, 
 119, 122 and note, 125, note, 145; 
 unauthorised alone forbidden, 123 
 
 Vespers at Bury, 241 
 
 ViLLANOVA, St. Thomas of, on chained 
 books, 17 
 
 Vincent op Beauvais, 213 
 
 Virgil, mediaeval knowledge of, 301 ; 
 copies of, 53 
 
 ViT.E Patrum, The, 218 
 
 Wages, Bp. Brunton on, 90 
 Walden, on Wyclif, 114, 117 
 Waldegr.ave, Sir Edward, in Tower, 
 331-2 
 
 Waleys, Friar, on preaching, 207, note, 
 208 
 
 Walsingham, Dom Thomas of, 13 ; 
 forms the St. Albans scriptorium, 
 44 ; establishes the historical school, 
 46 
 
 Walter de Dis, 236 
 
 Warblington, 346, 351, 358 ; priest's 
 shelter at, 367 
 
 Warham, Archbp., visitation of, 20 ; 
 assists revival of letters, 314 
 
 Warnford, Richard, 345 
 
 Warwick, E. of, 232, 256 
 
 Watson, Bp. of Winchester, 359 ; his 
 dealing with Catholics, 360 
 
 Watton, John, 198 
 
 Waynfleet, Bp., 305 
 
 Wearmouth, writing school at, 55 
 
 Wells, Gilbert, 245, 357, 369, 370, 375 
 
 Wells, Swithun, 375 
 
 Westburant, 350 
 
 Westbury, 352 
 
 West Tisted, 362 
 
 Wenlock priory, 280, note 
 
 Westminster, Archbp. Langham at, 
 67 ; book presses at, 12 ; directions 
 as to writing at, 50 ; writing carrels 
 at, 50 ; clois jer school at, 262 ; the 
 customs of, 265 ; Abbot Ware's cus- 
 tomary, 265, 7iote ; Cardinal Pole on 
 restoration of, 284 
 
 Wessington, Prior of Durham, 11 
 
 West, Sir Thomas, 348. 
 
 Westcott, Bp., on Wyclif, 384 
 
 Westmoreland, The Countess of, 8 
 
 Weston farm, Buriton, 348, 352, 367 
 
 Weston, William, 143 
 
 Wharton, Lady, in the Tower for re- 
 ligion, 383 
 
 Whethamstede, Abb. of St. Alban's, 
 13 ; the friend of Duke Humphrey, 
 142 ; silent about Wyclif's Bible, 114 
 
 White Lion Prison, Catholics in, 359, 
 368 
 
 White, Thomas, 366
 
 INDEX. 
 
 399 
 
 WiiYTFORD, Richard, 145 
 Winchester, MS. of Apollonius at, 
 
 24, note 2 ; Bible left to, 31 ; Matthew 
 
 Paris at, 61 
 Winchester, Catholics in gaol of, 357; 
 
 hardships in, 374. 
 AViNCHESTER, St. Jamcs' Cemetery, 379 
 Witnesses, Bp. Brunton on, 83 
 WODECRAFT, Dom John, the Bury 
 
 artist, 233 
 Woodford, silent as to Wyclif and 
 
 the Bible, 114 
 Woodstock, Thomas, 141 
 WooKEY Hole, Somerset, 297 
 Worcester library, books bought for, 
 
 in 16th cent., 36 
 Worcester, William of, his note 
 
 books, 285 seqq. ; his birthplace, 288 ; 
 
 his itinerary, 291 ; his tract on the 
 
 religious orders, 303 ; his translation 
 
 of Cicero, 305 ; visits Canterbury, 
 
 319. 
 WoRSBOROUGH, Religious from Monk 
 
 Bretton at, 39, note 
 Writing, The art of, 280 
 Writing places, St. Bernard describes, 
 
 42 
 Wyclif, Bp. Brunton on teaching of, 
 
 95; works wrongly ascribed to, 108, 
 
 111, 112 ; tradition as to English 
 Scriptures, 102, 159 ; assertion as to 
 translation, 105, 137 ; searcli for his 
 writings, 129 ; his great personality, 
 108 ; his active mind, 114 ; propa- 
 gates errors through vernacular 
 translation of Scripture, 113 ; his 
 position at Lutterworth misunder- 
 stood, 117, note ; his retractation, 
 117, note 
 
 Wyclifite Scriptures generally 
 assumed as certain, 106, 157 ; evi- 
 dence for, 112, 114; portions only 
 Wyclif's, 112 ; questions as to, 109, 
 129, 156, 176; owned by Catholics, 
 140 seqq., 163, 164 ; tradition as to 
 origin based on false premises, 174 
 
 Wykeham, William of, Bp., 75, 102, 
 188, note 
 
 Wymering, 350 
 
 Yate, Mr., 371 
 
 Young, Laurence, 357 
 
 York, Synod of, orders religious instruc- 
 tion, 190; marriage of a king of Scot- 
 land at, 61 
 
 York, St. Mary's, 189, 2G2
 
 I
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 • Box 951388 
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. 
 
 ^ i/-\ I If t) c. 
 
 ■J^- . > > 
 
 THb 
 
 UNIVERSi i I 
 
 O/ CALlJeORNl^ 
 
 LOS /viNGELES
 
 / /// jjfflf I 
 
 ^768 
 
 J 
 
 AA 000 995 56
 
 ! { f 
 
 
 m 
 
 1 
 
 lii 
 
 I 
 
 
 =11 
 
 iili 
 
 "' \'i";t] 
 
 IS' I 
 ■lii