Page:A Supplication for the Beggars.djvu/30

4 pigges, gese, and chikens. Ouer and bisides the tenth part of euery seruauntes wages the tenth part of the wolle, milke, hony, waxe, chese, and butter. Ye[a] and they loke so narowly vppon theyre proufittes that the poore wyues must be countable to theym of euery tenth eg or elles she gettith not her ryghtes at ester shalbe taken as an heretike. hereto haue they theire foure offering daies. whate money pull they yn by probates of testamentes, priuy tithes, and by mennes offeringes to theyre pilgremages, and at theyre first masses? Euery man and childe that is buried must pay sumwhat for masses and diriges to be song for him or elles they will accuse the de[a]des frendes and executours of heresie. whate money get they by mortuaries, by hearing of confessions (and yet they wil kepe therof no counceyle) by halowing of churches altares superaltares chapelles and belles, by cursing of men and absoluing theim agein for money? what a multitude of money gather the pardoners in a yere? Howe moche money get the Somners by extorcion yn a yere, by assityng the people to the commissaries court and afterward releasing th[e]apparaunce for money? Finally, the infinite nombre of begging freres whate get they yn a yere? Here if it please your grace to marke ye shall se a thing farre out of ioynt. There are withyn youre realme of Englond. lij. thousand parisshe churches. And this stonding that there be but tenne houshouldes yn euery parisshe yet are there fiue hundreth thousand and twenty thousand houshouldes. And of euery of these houshouldes hath euery of the fiue ordres of freres a peny a quarter for euery ordre, that is for all the fiue ordres fiue pens a quarter for every house. That is for all the fiue ordres. xx.d, a yere of euery house. Summa fiue hundreth thousand and twenty thousand quarters of angels.

That is. cclx. thousand half angels. Summa. cxxx. thousand angels. Summa totalis. xliij. thousand poundes and. cccxxxiij. li. vi.s. viij.d. sterling, wherof not foure hundreth yeres passed they had not one peny. Oh greuous and peynfull exactions thus yerely to be paied. from the whiche the people of your nobill predecessours the kinges of the auncient Britons euer stode fre And this wil they haue or els they wil procure him that will not giue it theim to be taken as an heretike. whate tiraunt euer oppressed the people like this cruell and vengeable generacion? whate subiectes shall be