A HISTORY OF LONDON Courtenay's successor, Robert Braybrook (1382— 1404), was one of the most active of all the Bishops of London. In 1385 he had to forbid his people to confess to a Dominican, calling himself a bishop, who had presumed to give absolution in cases reserved to the Bishop of London and to confirm children, obtaining large sums of money from both clergy and laity." The same year he made the first recorded of the series of attempts to prevent the Londoners from using St. Paul's Cathedral as a place of business or amuse- ment which henceforth recur at intervals down to the 17th century.™ The feasts of St. Paul and St. Earconwald were no longer duly observed in London, and Braybrook commanded his clergy to keep them and see that their people did so.^' He also endeavoured to prevent the London shoemakers from working on Sundays and holy days." In 1393 the clergy refused to pay their share of a fine imposed by the king on the City, declaring that they were free from all taxes except those which they granted in Convocation. But they appealed to Parliament in vain, and at length the bishop and archbishop arranged that three-quarters of the sum demanded should be levied on con- dition that it should not be made a precedent, but should be called a free and voluntary aid." Braybrook's policy of founding colleges and uniting chantries has already been noticed,'* with its object of regulating the lives of the priests. The character of the London clergy at this period seems to have been such as to justify the lamentations and satire of preachers and writers." There is a good deal of evidence of immorality," and they were infected in other respects with the general lawlessness of the age. Between 1378 and 1403 three received pardons for murder or manslaughter, and others were guilty of various acts of violence, of clipping coin, and of robbery." In 1382 a priest bequeathed a book of prayers for the use of clerks and priests impri- soned in Newgate." They were frequently concerned in lawsuits," and did not always submit peacefully to verdicts against them.*" But perhaps ^ Lond. Epis. Reg. Braybrook, fol. 329. In 1 391 he gave to twenty-three London curates power to absolve in cises usually reserved to the bishop ; ibid. 341 ; cf. Ca/. of Papal Letters, v, 255, 371 ; vii, 224. '" Wilkins, Cone, iii, 194 ; see account of St. Paul's in 'Religious Houses.' " Wilkins, Cone, iii, 196 ; cf. Hiit. MSS. Com. Rep. ix, App. i, 53. " Wilkins, Cone, iii, 218. " Pari. R. (Rec. Com.), iii, 325 ; Lond. Epis. Reg. Braybrook, fol. 353. 'A certain imposition . . . of a mulct' ; cf Sharpe, Lond. and the Kingdom, i, 243 and note ; Cal. Letter Bk. H, Introd. p. liv. For another dispute regarding schools, see Pari. R. (Rec. Com.), iii, 324. The archbishop and bishop headed a petition from the City to the king in 1 398 ; Hist. Coll. of a Lond. Citizen (Camd. See), 98 ; Chron. of Lond. (ed. Nicolas), 83, I 55 " Supra, p. 206, and account of St. Paul's. To the references there given may be added Cal. of Papal Letters, v, 394, 529 " See Piers the Plowman and the works of Chaucer and Gower, passim ; Pol. Poems (Rolls Scr.); Courtenay's constitution quoted below ; and a sermon preached at Paul's Cross in I 388, printed in Foxe, Acts and Mon. iii, 292. The edition of Foxe used is that of Pratt (1877), in the Appendices of which some important documents are printed ; but that of Townsend (1846) contains most of these, and its pagination is practically the same. " In addition to the references given in note 68, see Riley, Mem. 566 ; Sharpe, Cal. Letter Bk. H, 115, 3i'> 339- Cal. Letter Bk. H, 89; Cal. Pat. 1377-81, p. 282; 1381-5, p. 533; 1391-6, pp. 228, 325; 1401-5, p. 221 ; Lond. F.pis. Reg. Braybrook, fol. 385. " Cal. Letter Bk. H, 185. " Ibid. 1 1 2-1 5 ; Foedera (Ke.c. Com.), Ill {z),()2l ; Seleet Cases in Ckaneery (Seldcn Soc), z, 81— 2 ; and references given below. A long dispute (c i 380-1406) about the advowson of St. Mary Magdalen Milk Street, in which the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's were concerned, led to an infringement of the Statute of Pr.iemunire ; MSS. D. and C. A. box 70, no. 1776 ; box 32, no. 663 ; Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. ix, App. i, I 8 ; Cal. Pat. 1381-5, p. 68 ; Lond. Epis. Reg. Walden, fol. 7. For other examples of the working of this statute connected w!th Bishop Braybrook, see Pari. R. (Rec. Com.), iii, 327, 405.
- " D. and C. St. Paul's, A. box 77, no. 2064 ; Pari. R. (Rec. Com.), iii, izSa.
216
