of the day, including compline, early in the morning to suit his own convenience, so that the parishioners could not attend. At Worming- hall, appropriate to the monastery of St. Frideswide, the chancel and vicarage house were ruinous ; the vicar was accused of immorality, of not celebrating the divine offices at the accustomed times, of deliberately pasturing his own cattle in the churchyard, of allowing the sacred vest- ments of the church to be damaged, and of carrying off for his own use the candles offered by the parishioners before the images in the church.[1]
It is a doleful catalogue ; but the visitation is of great interest, showing not only how much reform was needed, but what real efforts after reform were actually being made within the church quite early in the sixteenth century. It is also a point of interest that these particular efforts were by no means without effect. Some bad cases were dealt with at once ; it is noted even in the course of the report that the chaplain of Hawridge was suspended by the bishop, and the rector ordered to reside ; and in a similar visitation of Bishop Longland's by far the greater number of those churches which had been in an unsatis- factory state in 1519 were returned in 1530 ' Omnia bene.'[2]
Bishop Longland has a most unenviable reputation as a persecutor of the righteous ; but it has only been lately realized that his dealings with heretics formed only a part of the general energetic work of reform which he carried out through the diocese of Lincoln. Of his personal character, of the use he made of his great opportunity as confessor to the king, nothing need be said here ; but there is abundance of testi- mony, both from his letters among the State Papers and his own episcopal records, that he was really diligent in the supervision of his vast diocese, and that often under the pressure of ill-health as well as affairs of state. He plainly realized that if a permanent reform was to be effected it was not enough to extirpate heresy : the whole level of church life must be raised, beginning with the clergy and the religious.
On 20 October, 1521, a proclamation was issued by King Henry VIII. requiring mayors, sheriffs and other officials to assist the new bishop of Lincoln in dealing with the large numbers of heretics known to exist in his diocese [3] ; and it was again found that special attention must be directed to the county of Buckingham. Inquiry would naturally be made concerning those who had recanted in 1506 ; and it was found indeed that some of them had relapsed or grown lax in performing penances'then imposed upon them. There was another 'great abjura- tion,' the numbers of those who recanted amounting to about fifty ; the penances imposed being much the same as those commonly assigned
- ↑ Some of the complaints, though not so grave, are of interest for their allusion to the customs of the time : e.g. at Wendover ' the vicar ought to provide his parishioners with an annual dinner at Easter and has not done so for two years ' ; at Great Missenden the vicar failed to provide a parish clerk to lead the singing, so that the divine service, instead of being sung, had to be said submissa voce.
- ↑ This report is contained in the same portfolio as Atwater's. The same points are brought forward non-residence of rectors, chancels and churches out of repair, cemeteries not enclosed ; but in very few cases.
- ↑ Wilkins,Concilia, iii. 698.
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