A HISTORY OF LONDON By this time they were on good terms again with the City, since in 1350 the mayor and commonalty petitioned the pope^* to empower brother John de Worthyn alone to grant ab- solution there, and in case of his death to allow the prior of London, with the counsel and consent of the mayor, to appoint a brother of the same order, and although they may have been induced to act thus from a mistaken idea of Worthyn's influence with the pope, there can have been no motive of self-interest in their letters to the pope, 24 November, 1364, in favour of the English provincial, Robert Pynk.^" The general esteem in which the friars were held is also shown by the number of citizens who, during the next two centuries, chose their church and churchyard as a place of burial.'*^ One of the numerous fraternities founded in the fourteenth century, viz. the brotherhood of the Assumption of our Lady, was established at the Friars Preachers in 1375." The journeymen cordwainers who in 1387 tried to constitute themselves a gild, held their meeting at the Black Friars, and William Barton, one of the convent, promised to get them papal sanction.^' Probably the precinct was chosen by the cordwainers owing to its special immunity. The Dominicans, as might be expected, played a prominent part in the discussion over the Wycliffite heresy, the London house especially, owing to the school of early foundation there ** and its important position. The council of 1382 was held at the Black Friars, London, and the prior, William Syward, and two others of the convent*^ were chosen to take part in the proceedings. The examination of Sir John Oldcastle for heresy in 1413 also took place there.*^ The champions of orthodoxy, however, with the other mendicant orders, laid themselves open to the charge of heresy in 1465, and the friar preacher who in his sermon had maintained the doctrines of the London Carmelite reflecting on the beneficed clergy was examined before the bishop of London and made to revoke them as publicly as he had preached them before.*' " Riley, Memorials of Land. 257. Sharpe, Cal. of Letters from Mayor and Corporation, i, 15. *" Ibid, i, 241.
- ' Rev. C. F. R. Palmer, ' Burials at the Priories of
the Blackfriars,' Antiq. xxiii, 122, and xxiv, 28, 76, 117, 265. " Gild Cert. No. 188. " Riley, Memorials of Lond. 495. " Rev. C. F. R. Palmer, ' Prelates of the Black Friars of England,' Antiq. xxvi. Fr. Thos. de Jartz (born c. 1 230) taught in Paris, London, and Oxford. See too Cal. Pap. Letters, v, 323. Berengarius, master- general, ordained in the chapter held at London, 1 3 14, that the friars of Ireland should have two students at Oxford, two at London, &c. " Wilkins, Condi, iii, 157.
- « Coll. of a Lond. Cit. (Camd. Soc), 107.
"Ibid. 230. The convent had learned by experience the wisdom of abstaining from political affairs, and although Richard II had been their patron, granting them in 1394** perpetual exemption from all tenths, fifteenths, subsidies, and tallages, they did not involve themselves in the movements which followed his fall. Their prosperity accord- ingly remained unbroken by the rise of the Lan- castrian dynasty, and when Henry IV before the end of his reign reverted to the fashion of his predecessors of choosing a Dominican as confessor he appointed to this office one of their number, Friar John Tylle or Tilley.*' The ambassadors of the duke of Brittany in 1413'" and the French ambassadors in 1445°^ stayed at the friary, and it was there that the Parliament of 1449 met." Neither the size nor the convenient situation of their buildings would alone account for this use of them. Sir John Cornewaill, Lord Fanhope, who was connected with the Lancas- trian family by marriage, established a chantry in 1436^' in the chapel which he had built in honour of the Virgin in the churchyard of the Black Friars and endowed it with an annual income of 40 marks, for the payment of which the Fishmongers' Company was responsible. Yet the Friars Preachers of London could not have been partisans, for John Tiptoft earl of Worcester," or some members of his family," founded the chapel in the nave of their church in which he was buried after his execution in 1470. Moreover the annual grant of £%o which the London convent, instead of the general chapter,'* had received from the crown " since the beginning of the French wars of Edward III was continued both by Yorkist ^ and Tudor " kings, while the house continued to be a favourite spot for the transaction of state business.*"
- ' Cal. of Pat. 1391-6, p. 379.
" Rev. C. F. R. Palmer, « The King's Confessors,' Antiq. xxiii, 26 ; Cal. of Pat. 1422-9, p. 22, Inspex. and Confirm, of letters pat. 26 June, i Hen. V, inspecting and confirming letters pat. 4 Jan. 14 Hen. IV of 40 marks a year for life to John Tylle, friar preacher, the king's confessor. " Devon, Issues of the Exch. 3 19. " L. and P. illustrating wars of Engl, in France (Rolls Ser.), i, 128. " Pari. R. (Rec. Com.), v, 171J. '^ Pari. R. (Rec. Com.), iv, 497 a; Pat. 15 Hen. VI, m. 18 ; Pat. 16 Hen. VI, pt. 2, m. 28. " Fabyan, Chron. (ed. Ellis), 659. " Diet. Nat. Biog. Cal. of Pat. I 343-5, p. 464. " Pat. 35 Hen. Vl, pt. I, m. 8, says that they had received j^20 yearly from Hen. Ill, Edw. I, Edw. II, Edw. Ill, Ric. II, Hen. IV, and Hen. V. ^ Pari. R. (Rec. Com.), v, 597 3 ; vi, 90 <j. " L. and P. Hen. VllI, i, 264 ; ii, 2736 ; iii, 999, &c.
- Ibid, i, 5 3 5 1 , for a record of the reign of Edw. IV.
Parliaments were held at Blackfriars I5l4and 1523. Ibid, i, 4848 ; iii, 2956 ; iv, 6043 ; see Stow, Zurvi of Lond. iii, 177. 500
