allowed in the dormitory or any part of the monastery on any account whatever : if the prior were to infringe this rule he was to be put on bread and water. For the rest, it seemed best to report the whole case to the bishop, and Longland was not the man to treat it lightly. [1] In June 1531 he visited the house in person. More searching inquiries elicited from the abbot himself a more com- plete confession. He was evidently a man of feeble character, not a hardened sinner, but incapable of standing against any strong temp- tation. His sister was living in the monas- tery as brasiatrix, and he had dismissed her daughter from the house because of her evil conversation ; yet his own life had not been wholly pure. He owned also that he had squandered the goods of the monastery. Roger Palmer, the refectorar, who had piously complained of the want of lectures in Holy Scripture at the last visitation, was a very different character : not the victim of temp- tation, but one who deliberately broke his vows. He had been seen more than once at midnight coming out of a house in the village[2] a in doublet and jerkin, with a sword by his side, and this he confessed to be true.
The bishop ordered that the abbot should be suspended from his office until further notice, and the charge of the monastery was committed to John Otwell, afterwards abbot. Roger Palmer was to be kept under lock and key. The injunctions finally delivered to the whole convent were written in ' vulgar Eng- lish,' that the canons might have no excuse, and might not say they could not understand what was desired of them. The injunctions are of the usual nature and relate to the due observance of the rule of the order, particu- larly that a learned man in grammar should be appointed to teach the canons and young priests ; that the doors from the church into the quire and cloister and the door of the Lady Chapel be kept locked ; that no canon should have a key of the cloister door leading into the fields, and that the door only be opened at such times ' as the covent shalbe licensed to goo into the feldes to sport to- gydre ' ; that the buildings, especially the belfry, be repaired ; that they be more sparing in their board till the house be in a better state, and that the abbot should no more suffer his kinsfolk ' to hang upon the monasteryes charge as they have done ' ; whereas it was found at the late visitation that John Compton ' ruleth thabbot ' and ' cutteth down trees,' that he meddle not further till ' he doth use himself uprightly ' ; that the brethren are not to wear ' garded or welted hose or stuffed codpese or jerkyn or any other shorte or courtely fashioned garment,' and that Dom John Slithwise be committed to prison till ' ye knowe our further mynde.'[3]
John Fox died some time between 1535 and 1538, and Otwell became abbot de jure as well as de facto, but he had little opportunity of reforming the house before its dissolution.[4] He lived till 1552, and was married some time before that date ; so was Thomas Bernard, the kitchener, who had the vicarage of Little Missenden assigned to him by way of pension. Three other canons living in 1552 remained unmarried : Roger Palmer was one of them. [5]
It may perhaps be considered a point of generosity in the king and his agents, that pensions were dealt out so impartially to guilty and innocent alike ; but it was a strangely undiscriminating zeal for reform which set John Slythurst free from penitential
- ↑ Just because the crimes here alluded to have been charged indiscriminately against the monas- teries of the sixteenth century on such evidence as that of the well-known ' Comperta,' it has been thought best to give the whole results of these visitations, and to keep nothing back at all. No excuse whatever is offered for this particular mon- astery, but the report nevertheless serves to show that bishops like Atwater and Longland really did take pains to find out the state of the houses they visited, and that when such grievous offences came to light they were not palliated but called by their proper names : it is therefore significant if recorded reports such as this one are remarkably few. Long- land's impression in this case is shown by the prompt punishments inflicted, and by the fact that he came again the following year in person to visit the house, and was determined to find out the whole extent of the mischief. In respect of this abbey, considered by itself, it should be noticed (l) That only one canon was found guilty of the greater offence, and two of the lesser ; (2) that the sin of John Slythurst was regarded with horror and aversion by his brethren, who denounced him openly on the first opportunity ; (3) that the boy whom he had led astray had been already con- victed and punished before the visitation ; (4) that the offender was treated by the bishop's commissarv as one who was unfit to be amongst the rest of the brethren. All these things convey an impression that the case was uncommon.
- ↑ It was the house of a married woman, the same who had once been to the abbot, John Fox, an occasion of falling.
- ↑ Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Longland, i9 and Arch. xlvii. 60-64.
- ↑ L. and P. Henry VIII. xiii. (2), 1252. Longland seems to have thought Otwell a worthy man, as he recommended him in this letter to Cromwell for the vacant post.
- ↑ Exch Mins. Accts., Bdle. 76, no. 26.
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