ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY celebrated at all seasons.^*" There were twelve cases of abjuration in 1499 ; in eight of them the culprits were branded on the left cheek and ordered to wear all their lives a gown embroidered with a faggot.^" Next year two heretics abjured and an old man was burnt.^*^ Some time during the next few years a mysterious ' Lady Young ' was burnt, who was said to be the daughter of Joan Bowghton,"*' and in 1509 Elizabeth Sampson abjured. Her tenets are given in full in the Episcopal Register/** She had spoken against pilgrimages and images, and had denied not only transubstantiation, but also the truth of the Ascension of Christ and the possibility of a general resurrec- tion. Joan Baker, who abjured soon after, had said, when a man was lying on his death-bed and should have had the crucifix brought and laid before him, according to the custom of the City, that the crucifix was a false god ; she had also asserted that she could hear a better sermon at home than any doctor or priest could make, and she did not believe in the pope's power to grant pardon.'*^ In October 151 1 two Essex men were burnt in Smithfield. A correspondent of Erasmus, writing from London in No- vember, refers in exaggerated terms to these executions — ' The heretics cause many holocausts, and yet their numbers grow. The brother of my servant Thomas, blockhead as he is {stirpes verius quam homo), has founded a sect, and has his followers.' °* In 15 14 occurred the famous case of Richard Hun, and in 15 18 two relapsed heretics, who had abjured years before in the dioceses of Salisbury and Lincoln, were burnt in Smithfield.^*^ More than twenty Londoners are mentioned in the records of a period of persecution for heresy under Bishop Longland of Lincoln, before whom at least four of them abjured. Two were goldsmiths, one of whom had the Epistle of St. James ' perfectly without book,' but the rest seem to have been of humble rank. Some of them possessed Enghsh translations of the Gospels, the Apocalypse, and other parts of the Bible ; a bricklayer or tiler named Stacy, who lived in Coleman Street, sold a copy of the whole Bible for zos. All the others whose dwelling-places are given lived in the same part of the City, chiefly in the streets running north from Cheapside. One was the morrow-mass priest of St. Mary Magdalen Milk Street. Little is recorded of their doctrines. John Hacker of Coleman Street had predicted in 1520 that all the priests would be destroyed because they held against the law of holy Church and made false gods, and that when they and their gods were put down 'they should know more, and then should be a merry world.' -*^ He and Stacy and several "" Chron. of Lond. (ed. Kingsford), 208, 211. Cf. Relation of Island of Engl (Camd. Soc), 23. The morrow-mass priest of St. Mildred Poultry was charged with the same sacramental heresy in 1496 ; Hale, A Series of Precedents, 54-5 ; cf. 38. "' Chron. ut sup. 226 ; Foxe (op. cit. iv, 123) gives a larger number and says some were from Kent. ^" Chron. ut sup. 232 ; Monum. Franc. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 183. In 1506 there stood at Paul's Cross the Prior of St. Osyth's and five other heretics ; Chron. ut sup. 261. These were, however, probably all Essex men ; and it is quite likely that many of the others mentioned by the chronicler were not Londoners. All those given from the records of the Bishop's Court and the Episcopal Register lived in the City parishes. '*' Lond. Epis. Reg. Fitzjames, fol. 25 ; Fabyan, Chron. (ed. Ellis), 685 ; cf. Monum. Franc. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 181 margin. "' Lond. Epis. Reg. Fitzjames, fol. 4. '" Ibid. fol. 25. Foxe (op. cit. iv, 174) gives a list of thirty-five others who also abjured during the next ten years, but docs not state how many of them were Londoners. He refers to the Fitzjames Register, but only the first two on his list are to be found in the existing Register. The second, Potier, was from Essex. •" Arnold, Customs cf London (ed. Douce), p. xlvi ; Foxe, op. cit. iv, 180-1, 214-16 ; Eras. Epist. (ed. Allen), i, 481. Cf L. and P. Hen. Fill, i, Pref p. Ixxx. "' Foxe, op. cit. iv, 207-14. See ibid. 206 for an incident said to have occurred in 1520. Ibid, iv, 221-44. Cf note in F.C.H. Bucks, i, 302. 235 248
