ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY altar or the ministers of a church, or for tithes forgotten, became less common after 1401.'" The persecution of Lollards in 1400-2 appears to have been due to Arundel's influence with Henry IV, and Braybrook is hardly mentioned in connexion with it. In May 1400 a royal proclamation was made against unauthorized preachers, the king having been informed that some priests were teaching heresies and novelties in the City.^" On the visit of the Emperor Manuel it was observed that soldiers as well as priests joined in the services of the Greek Church, which were chanted in their native tongue and Henry IV caused the Master of the King's Hall at Cambridge to preach at Paul's Cross on 23 January 1401, and declare that the common people of the Eastern Empire did not understand the Greek of Scripture. Nevertheless many heretics petitioned the king in Parliament that they might have the law of God in their mother tongue. ^°^ It was this Parlia- ment which passed the statute ' De Heretico Comburendo,' but Arundel had already taken measures to terrify the Lollards into submission. In February 1401 a Convocation at St. Paul's condemned as a heretic William Sawtre, the parish priest of St. Syth's (St. Benet Sherehog),^"^ whose opinion with regard to the Eucharist was that after the consecration the body of Christ is present, but the substance of bread remains. After being solemnly degraded from his orders at St. Paul's he was burnt in Smithfield on 2 March.*"* Next Sunday another priest, John Purvey, a well-known follower of Wycliffe, abjured his errors at Paul's Cross."' The rector of St. Antholin's in confessing incontinency before Convocation also abjured errors and heresies, and was condemned to perpetual imprisonment.*"" In October 1402 three London Lollards were brought before Convocation. One was a priest who persisted in maintaining that the Jewish law of the Sabbath was binding on Christians, and was sent back to the bishop's prison. The other two swore to avoid all heretical opinions and ' conventicles ' in future, and were released.*"^ Braybrook's successors during the 15th century do not seem to have been very active as diocesans, though several of them are historically impor- tant in other respects.*"' Richard Clifford (1407-21) was associated with Archbishop Arundel in further attempts (1408-9) to suppress the Lollard preachers,*"' and assisted at the trial (1410) of John Badby, a tailor of the diocese of Worcester, who was burnt in Smithfield. *°°^ ■^ Sharpe, Cal. of If 'ills, n, passim. "" Sharpe, Cal. Letter Bk. I, 7. "" Lond. Epis. Reg. Tunstall, fol. 45, from a book ' in the Library of the Friars Preachers ' ; Chron. Adae de Usk (ed. Thompson), 56-7. '" He cannot have been long in London, for he had recanted at Lynn in 1399. "" Wilkins, Cone, iii, 254 et seq. ; Fmc. Zix. (Rolls Ser.), 408-1 1 ; Pari. R. (Rec. Com.), iii, 459 ; Ckron. oj Lond. (ed. Kingsford), 63 ; Chron. of Lond. (cd. Nicolas), 87 ; Hiit. Coll. of a Lond. Citizen (Camden Soc), 103 ; Walsingham, Wi//. Jngl. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 247 ; Capgrave, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), 277 ; Annales Hen. IV, in Trokelowe's Chron. &c. (Rolls Ser.), 335-6 ; Eulogium Hist. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 388 ; Chron. Adae de Usk (ed. Thompson), 58 ; Foxe, op. cit. iii, 221-9. Sawtre was not the first heretic burnt in London ; vide supra, p. 185. ■"* Wilkins, Cone, iii, 260 ; Fasc. Z(Z. 400-7 ; Foxe, op. cit. iii, 248, 285 et seq. '"' Wilkins, Cone, iii, 262 ; Lond. Epis. Reg. Tunstall, fol. 45 ; Chron. Adae de Usk, 57. '" Wilkins, Cone, iii, 271 ; cf 248. "' See the lives of Roger Walden, Richard Clifford, John Kemp, Robert Fitzhugh, in Diet. Nat. Biog. There are some interesting grants to Clifford in Cal. of Papal Letters, vii, 79, 81, 82, 85, the last of which indi- cates that the income of the see in 1418 was insufficient for the upkeep of the manor houses on its estates. "' Cal. Pat. 1405-8, p. 476 ; Wilkins, Cone, iii, 314, 320, 324. ""' Wilkins, Cone, iii, 325-8 ; Hist. Coll. of a Lond. Citizen (Camden Soc), 105-6 ; Chron. of Lond. (ed. Nicolas), 92; Chron. of Lond. (ed. Kingsford), 68 ; other references given by Wylie, Hist, of Engl iii, 436-41. 219
