ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY bells for a banner were given in 1445, and in 1456 a suit of vestments costing J^iiJ ; the parish had a closet made for keeping this with other ornaments and jewels of special value. An inventory of 1485 mentions among other gifts a suit worth ^30 (that given forty years before was now valued at jTiio), ' cloths,' and seven out of the twenty books then owned by the church, one of the seven worth ^^20 and another £10. The accounts of St. Botolph's Aldersgate record from their beginning in 1466 a number of donations and bequests 'of devotion.' In 1482—3 'divers parishioners ' gave ^3 ' for making of a presbytery ' ; between 1485 and 1496 there were collections to buy two suits of vestments, one cloth of gold (it cost >C32, and ^37 3J-. lo^d. was collected), the other white damask (^23 ijs. 3^.), and to make two new windows in the Lady Chapel (jTi i is. 4</.). In 1489-90 a new 'double cross with Mary and John ' cost >r20 is. Sd., of which ^5 14/. 2id. was raised by selling the old cross, and £6 i^s. d. was subscribed by the fraternity attached to the church. The wills enrolled in the Court of Husting between 1440 and 1490"^ almost all contain bequests for religious purposes,'" mostly to the parish churches and religious fraternities.'^' Probably the custom of adding the names of benefactors to the ' bede-roll ' of a parish or fraternity encouraged the citizens to leave gifts for such purposes ; sometimes such a commemora- tion is specially mentioned."' It has been suggested that the testators imagined they were making quite sure of an early release from purgatory, and the occasional instances of a rich man founding a chantry for a certain period of years only ■" perhaps support this view. On the other hand, the few surviving epitaphs of the period are strangely pathetic in their humility ; one quotes from a contemporary poem on Death : — ... In this passage the best song that I can Is requiem aeternam, now Jesu grant it me : When I have ended all mine adversitie, Grant me in Paradise to have a mansion, That shedst Thy Blood for my redemption. ^^ Many consist of nothing more than : ' Cujus animae propitietur Deus ' — ' on whose soul may God have mercy.' The religion of the Londoners of the 15th century had its darker side of fear. The City chroniclers clearly believed in the witchcraft imputed to Eleanor Cobham and her associates, one of whom was the rector of St. Stephen Walbrook ; he ' died in the Tower for sorrow.' '"'- Two years later a man was put on the pillory for traffic with a wicked spirit, ' which was called Oberycom ' ; ^"^ and one chronicle concludes with a half-told story of another "* Sharpe, Cal. of Wills, ii, 490-592. ™ For disputes about such wills see Early Chan. Proc. bdle. 16, no. 325 ; bdle. 18, no. 186 ; bdle. 47, no. 277 ; Hale, A Series of Precedents, 4 ; Price, Hist, of the Guildhall, 121. * Between 1440 and 1449 there are (not counting those for chantries or for the poor) twenty-one to churches and only ten to religious houses, and from 1 480 to 1485 the numbers are eleven and three respectively ; Sharpe, Cal. ii, 490-5 1 8, 578-87. Two out of these three happen to be to the orders of friars ; but there are not many bequests to these at this period. On the whole St. Thomas of Aeon seems to have been the favourite religious house, and next to it (not counting the Charterhouse, which was just outside London) St. Bartholo- mew's Smithfield. "' Ibid. 592 ; cf 508, 529, 551. """ Ibid. 496, 544, 546. "" Stow, Surv. (ed. Kingsford), i, 222 (cf. Songs, Carols, &c. [Early Engl. Text Soc], 88 ; Lansd. MS. 762, fol. 19^) ; cf those given in Munday's edition (l6l8) in huxXxi, passim. "' For details of this well-known story see Hist. Coll. of a Lond. Citizen, 183-4; -^^ ^'"Sf- Chron. 57-60 (both Camd. Soc.) ; Chron. of Lond. (ed. Kingsford), 148-9. '»' Hist. Coll. ut sup. 185.
