ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY had always stood somewhat aloof from the general religious life of the City.^-* Bonner's episcopate was not, like the two preceding, one long struggle against innovations in religion. The injunctions of i 542 show that attempts were made to reform practical abuses, though the bishop had little sympathy with those who desired changes in doctrine. This was probably the attitude of many of the citizens, and there is some evidence in the years 1 541—2 of a revival of devotion, or at least of certain of its outward manifestations. A great drought was followed by pestilence in 1540, and the mayor and the bishop ' caused general procession to be once in the week through the City.' '"° The citizens still made much use of images to aid their devotions ; this practice was encouraged by both Gardiner and Bonner, and ' although by the virtue of the king's injunctions divers idols be taken away,' yet Bonner 'shamed not ... to set up other in their places.' '^^ But in accor- dance with the king's orders issued in October i 541,'" the shrine of St. ' Art- nolle ' (probably Earconwald) and the gallery where the rood of the north door had stood were taken down in St. Paul's, and in Westminster the yet more famous shrine of St. Edward the Confessor.'^^ Alderman Wilford was accused by another man of being a ' maintainer ' of the Bishop of Rome's arms in the window of his parish church, and at the same time the Lord Chancellor was consulted about ' the picture of the Bishop of Rome standing upon the Cross in Cheap.' *^' Much light is thrown upon the state of religion in I 542 by Brinklow's tract called The Lamentation of a Christian agai?ist the City of hondonl^^^ It appears that ' the great part of these inordinate rich stiffnecked citizens ' would not have the English Bible in their houses nor allow their servants to read it. They not only held processions ' once or twice in the week, crying and calling to creatures and not the Creator,' but bestowed ' great substance ' upon chantries and obits,'" though innumerable poor were forced to go from door to door, and to sit in the streets begging. Brinklow declares that many things were done in London contrary to the royal Injunctions ; Bonner's Injunctions issued in this year'^^ begin by commanding the clergy to keep those of the king, and to provide them- selves with copies both of them and of The Institution of a Christian Man. Each parson, vicar, and curate was to study every week a chapter of the Bible, with the help of some approved commentary. Non-residence was per- mitted only on the king's dispensation and the provision of an approved curate, and no one under the degree of a bishop was to preach in another man's cure without special licence. Preachers were not to rehearse sermons of '" See the article on ' Religious Houses.' '-' Wriothesley, op. cit. i, 123 ; cf. Lond. Epis. Reg. Bonner, fol. 2b. "« Brinklow, Complaint (Early Engl. Text See), 61 ; cf. 87. "' Foxe, op. cit. V, 463 ; L. and P. Hen. Fill, xvi, 1258 (from Foxe ; the letter is in the Epis. Reg. fol. 32). "' Lond. Chron. 16 in Camd. Misc. iv ; cf. MaiilLic, Corresp. 29 Oct. The image of 'Our Lady in the Pew ' at Westminster was taken down in Oct. i 54.5 ; Jets of P. C. i, 261. "' Rec. Corp. Repert. x, fol. 236^. "" Reprinted by the Early Engl. Text Soc. '" Cf. the eleven wills made between 1539 and 1546 in Sharpe, Cat. of Wills, ii, 645-8, 650, 655, 660, 662, five of which provide for prayers for the soul of the testator, one contains a legacy to the rector of St Peter Cornhill, another one for lights at Allhallows Staining, while four have no religious bequests. The Chantry Certificates (Roll 34, no. 29, 93, 94) mention four wills of this period providing for chantries or obits to be maintained for a limited time. ^' W'ilkins, Concilia, iii, 864. I 281 36
