ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY Vedast's.^"' Bylney, Arthur, and a London layman named Foster were brought before Wolsey in November, but after their first examination the cardinal left the bishops to proceed as his commissioners against them and other heretics, — Tunstall, however, protesting that he wished to deal with delinquents in his own diocese by his ordinary jurisdiction. Bylney and Arthur were with some difficulty persuaded to abjure, and were condemned to do penance at Paul's Cross ; Foster, who was probably a Lollard, since he had said that a priest could not consecrate the body of Christ, also abjured. ^°^ During March 1528, when Tunstall was engaged in a visitation of the City, he was asked by Wolsey to investigate charges against several Lon- doners of being concerned with the spreading of heretical opinions in the University of Oxford. Since last Easter a large number of books, mostly by foreign reformers but including WyclifFe's works and the English New Testament, had been sold to students by Thomas Garret, formerly curate of Allhallows Honey Lane. A London stationer named Gough, Dr. Forman, rector of Allhallows, and his servant John Goodale were also said to be involved. Tunstall reported that he could find no evidence against Gough or Goodale, nor anything amiss in the sermons of Forman, who, however, confessed that he had Lutheran books, but only in order the more readily to impugn their doctrine. He was forbidden to celebrate mass or to preach for retaining those books after their condemnation.^*"^ Garret recanted ; he had held the same opinions as Bylney, and had denied the value of pardons (indulgences), and called bishops ' pharisees.' ^"^ Geoffrey Lome and Richard Bayfield, who also recanted about this time, held similar opinions. Lome was usher of St. Anthony's school, and also, apparently, servant to Dr. Forman ; he had sold New Testaments and forbidden books in the City, the universities, and elsewhere, and translated part of Luther's works into English.'"' The examination of another heretic, Robert Necton, is valuable as showing the large numbers of forbidden books then being imported into England, one ' Dutchman ' having offered him two or three hundred New Testaments for sale. Among the purchasers were two London merchants as well as ' divers persons of the City.' " Necton was connected with a group of heretics who were undoubtedly Lollards. Several of these had been accused before the Bishop of Lincoln in 1521,"' and they still lived in Cole- man Street and about Cheapside. Stacey now kept a man in his house ' to write the Apocalypse in English,' John Sercot, a grocer, bearing the expense. Their chief teacher, ' old Father Hacker,' had learnt his heresies from the father-in-law of a man burnt about 1514. The head quarters of the 'sect' were in Essex, the London members being comparatively few."^ Another ™ Foxe, op. cit. iv, 681 ; v, 43-4. '°* Lond. Epis. Reg. Tunstall, fol. 130^ et seq. (printed in Foxe, op. cit. iv, App.) ; Strype, Mem. i (i), 108 ; cf. Hall, Chron. 19 Hen. VIII ; Foxe, op. cit. iv, 621-32. "" Foxe, op. cit. V, App. vi ; L. and P. Hen. VIII, iv (2), 4175. It is probable that the Bishop of Lincoln's information was correct ; cf. Strype, Mem. i (ii), 64. "" Foxe, loc. cit. "" Foxe, op. cit. iv, 682, v, App. i, and p. 41 ; Strype, Mem. i (ii), 64. "" Strype, Mem. i (ii), 63-5 ; cf Foxe, op. cit. v, 27,42, and Tunstall's letter to Wolsey in the Appen- dix. Apparently the wholesale price was ()d. and the retail from is. ?>d. to zs. %d. each. "' Vide supra, p. 235. '" Harl. MS. 421 ; parts printed by Strype, Mem. i (ii), 50 et seq. and summarized in i (i), chaps, vii and viii, and in L. and P. Hen. Fill, iv, 4029, Sec. There is also an elaborate set of articles against an unnamed parish priest 'of the City in L. and P. Hen. Fill, iv, 4444.
