Page:VCH London 1.djvu/316

 A HISTORY OF LONDON Church in the City was that of the Spanish ambassador as Archdeacon of London in i502.^-' In 1506 the king requested that the mayor and alder- men and the crafts and fellowships of the City should attend a service yearly in his chapel in Westminster Abbey on the day that the mayor took his oath, and at least six of the companies agreed.^'" By Henry's will"^ 10,000 masses were to be said for his soul in the City and Westminster, and his funeral procession was joined by ' all the priests and clerks and religious men within the City and without.'*'^ A set of Visitation Articles has been preserved which almost certainly belongs to the episcopate of Richard Hill, who succeeded Kemp in 1489, or to that of his successor, Thomas Savage."^' The first article inquires as to the safe keeping of the ' Body of Christ,' and ten others are concerned with the condition of the fabric of the church, vestments, &c. Nineteen have reference to the parochial clergy ; their proper fulfilment of their duties ; their dress and general behaviour, whether they haunt taverns, bear weapons, are not properly shaved or ' nourish ' long hair ; their conduct with regard to women ; whether they dare not ask for their rightful dues ' for fear of any slander of their own guilt,' or refuse to solemnize matrimony without receiving a special gift, or solemnize it without banns asked, or between non-parishioners. Ten articles guard against fraud in connexion with Church property, and the last sixteen concern the conduct of the parishioners. The absence of any reference to heresy in these Articles is noteworthy when we consider the number of persons charged with it in the bishop's Com- missary Court and the many recorded cases of public abjuration at this period. One man did penance for speaking disrespectfully of God and the saints ; -^* another, who was said to hold that the Sacrament of the Altar was material bread, and had called the Blessed Virgin a ' false quene,' and St. Peter and St. Paul ' false murderers,' abjured and was dismissed.-^' Two offences which sometimes gave rise to suspicion were non-attendance at divine service'''* and speaking lightly of the clergy and their powers.^" Joan Bowghton, a very old woman, was burnt in 1494 ; no exhortation would turn her from the ' nine articles of heresy ' which she held.'^* In 1496, during the mayoralty of Sir Henry Colet, nine heretics abjured at Paul's Cross ; *'' one was a glover of Cheapside. The last four stood ' with the books of their lore hanging about them,' and the books were afterwards burnt with the faggots they carried. They had asserted that the Sacrament of the Altar was but material bread, and that it was lawful for marriages to be »* Letters, t^c, Rk. II and Hen. VII (Rolls Ser.), ii, 378. **> Rec. Corp. Repert. ii, fol. ob, 11. "' Printed 1775. Cf. i. and. P. Hen. Fill, i, App. 5725 ; and Parochial Records. "' Hall, Chron. I Hen. VIII. "^ Arnold, Customs ofLond. (ed. Douce), 273 et seq. They are given in the first edition of the Customs, 1503. Two episcopal visitations at Arnold's parish church of St. Magnus in 1495 and 1498 respectively are mentioned in the accounts of St. Mary at Hill ; Medieval Rec. of a City Ch. (Early Engl. Text Soc.), 214, 230. Another set of pre Reformation Visitation Articles is to be found in the Accounts of St. Michael Ccmhill (ed. Overall), 208 et seq. Triennial visitations appear to have been held regularly during the 15th century ; Lond. Epis. Reg. Bonner, fol. 63. '" Hale, A Series of Precedents, I. '" Ibid. 8-9. For other cases see 35-6. "* Ibid. 20, 64, 69. "' Ibid. 41, 67-8. cases were kept separately and are now lost ; vide A Series of Precedents, Introd. p. Ixi. "' The thirty heretics who are mentioned by the writer of this chronicle as having abjured at Paul's Cross between 1496 and 1506 are probably among those whose names are given by Foxe, op. cit. iv, 206. Both he and the chronicler name Myldenale, Sturdy, and the Prior of St. Osyth's ; Brewster and Sweeting may have been two of those who abjured in 1499 ; cf. Chron. of Lond. 226, and Foxe, op. cit. iv, 180— I, 214—16. 234
 * Chron. of Lond. (ed. Kingsford), 200. Archdeacon Hale suggested that the records of these more serious