ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY vestments, relics, and books. The number of chalices mentioned varies from five to twelve, and the other plate is proportionate in amount. All had many suits of vestments, differing in colour and material — white, blue, yellow, red, green, and black ; cloth of gold, damask, velvet, silk and satin, often embroidered with gold. They were well provided with books — the poorest had over twenty and the richest over forty. These included in one case^" 'a book of laws called decretals,' in another^" a Legenda Aurea, a French Bible, and another ' book of holy writ ' in French — both chained. In connexion with these translations of Scripture may be noticed a manuscript, now at the British Museum,"' which belonged to a London chantry priest of this period, containing the Gospels and Epistles for all the feasts of the year in English. These inventories, like the Gild Certificates of 1388 and many of the London wills, show the unceasing generosity of the citizens towards their parish churches, with its object of making the services ' more worthy ' and providing for constant prayers for both living and dead. In those respects no diminution can be traced even in the worst days of the late 14th cen- tury. But in others the religious life of London must have suffered in consequence of the bad character of many of the clergy and the disorder which accompanied the Lollard movement. A study of contemporary records and documents leaves a distinct impression that about the reign of Henry V the Church in London revived after a period of decay. Hence- forward till towards the end of the 1 5th century there is less evil-doing to chronicle, and instances abound of intelligent, sincere, and generous devotion among men of all classes. There is more than conventional religious phraseology in the prayers which conclude the letters of the mayor and aldermen to Henry V : ' We lowly beseech the King of Heaven, whose body refused not for our salvation worldly pain guiltless to endure,' to preserve the king ' in all worship and honour evermore ' ; ' the King of peace whose grace exceedeth the merit of them that pray . . . your kingly majesty stablish in all virtue and evermore keep ... in all joy and prosperity to His pleasance.' "^ Perhaps these letters were composed by John Carpenter, the famous town clerk who caused to be painted round the north cloister of St. Paul's a representation of the ' Dance of Death,' with explanatory ' poesie ' translated by Lydgate from the French, that men of ' all estates ' might be reminded to prepare for the end of this brief life."' The civic authorities appear to have been quite willing at this period to co-operate with the ecclesiastical in enforcing obedi- ence to the rules of the Church. They granted a request of the archbishop in 141 3 to impose a fine upon barbers who kept their shops open on Sunday and would not be deterred by excommunication : ' so greatly' had ' the malice of men increased ' that ' that which touches the body or purse ' was more dreaded 'than that which kills the soul.'"* In 14 17 they ordered that only the coarser kinds of bread should be made during Lent, and in 1444 that no butchers' or fishmongers' shops should be kept open on Sunday, because both '" St. Mary at Hill. '" St. James Garlicidiithe. "" Harl. 1 710. '" Sharpe, Lond. and the Kingdom, iii, App. A. Cf. the other letters there printed. '" Stow, Surv. (ed. Kingsford), i, 109, 327 ; cf. ii, 346 ; Diet. Nat. Biog. ; Songs, Carols, Sec. (E.E.T.S.), 91. "' Riley, Mem. of Lond. 593 ; cf. Wilkins, Cone, iii, 352. The barbers continued disobedient ; ibid. 368. I 225 29
