ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY Hubbard payments were made for ' making clean the churchyard ' before- hand/'^ and for ' a frame and workmanship on the church door for Palm Sunday.' *'* St. Margaret's Southwark possessed 'a stained cloth of Jerusalem ' which was used on that occasion only.'^^ At St. Stephen's Walbrook and St. Mary at Hill,'* the accounts preserve the cost of the hair, beards, and hair-pins for the 'prophets,' with many other details. Two or more
- pulpits ' were erected and a frame supporting a ' cloth of arras,' ^" and a sermon
was preached on the occasion. At St. Alphage London Wall in 1546 an entry occurs in the churchwardens' accounts of payments ' to Hale for his labour about the prophets, for bread and wine for the choir,' and ' to the children that were prophets.^' There is an earlier notice of a sermon at St. Alphage on Palm Sunday.'^' The morrow mass and chantry priests were expected to take part in singing the ordinary services. Sometimes the duties of the various priests and clerks were defined by regulations made by the vestry.*"" In other respects the London parishes were strictly organized by the end of the 15th century ; not only were all parishioners expected to attend their own church and con- fess to their curate, but they must pay the amounts at which they were assessed by a committee of the vestry for the clerk's wages,*"^ the rood and other lights, &c., on pain of being cited by the churchwardens before the bishop's Commissary Court.*°^ Part III — From 1521 to 1547 There is little material^ on which to base an estimate of the extent to which London was prepared about 1521 to welcome the religious changes of the next forty years. Some evidence exists with regard to the character of the clergy and the attitude of the citizens towards them. In 1522 out of fifty-two priests holding City livings six were ' doctors ' and thirty-three magistri, while out of ninety-five other priests sixteen were magistri^ From this it may be inferred that a large proportion of the London beneficed clergy and some of their numerous assistants possessed the amount of learning required at that period for a university degree. Grocyn had been vicar of St. Laurence Jewry ; John Yonge, another learned friend of Colet and Erasmus, held three City rectories in succession. But both were pluralists, like many of the London clergy at this period. Yonge was Master of the Rolls and frequently an ambassador, while another City rector, John Taylor, was Clerk »" Accts. 1468. '" Accts. 1485. '" Inventory, 1485. "* St. Stephen Walb. Accts. 1519-31 ; Rcc. of St. Mary at Hi// (Eiily Engl. Text Soc), 327, 354, &c. '" Possibly like the one at St. Margaret's. '" Accts. 1545-6. ^^ Accts. 1536-7. "^ St. Christopher le Stocks (f^est. Min. ed. Freshfield, 70) ; St. Margaret Lothbury (Christie, Parisi Clerks, 21-2) ; St. Michael CornhlW {Chwdm'. Accts. ed. Overall, 208) ; St. Stephen Coleman Street {Arch. 1, 49> 5'» 53)- Sometimes there were rules affecting the churchwardens and the wardens of the fraternity ; Overall, op. cit. 200 et seq. ; Arch. 1, 48, 54. '"' The assessments for these were sometimes the pew rents (St. Christopher le Stocks, Vest. Min. 71, 77), sometimes reckoned on house rents ; Christie, op. cit. 20 ; St. Margaret Southwark Accts. 1525-6, &c.
- "' Hale, A Series of Precedents, passim.
' Valid conclusions can hardly be drawn from the works of Hall and others who wrote after the revolution had begun. 'Harl. MS. 133." 245
