2''i S. VII. Jan. 29. '59.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



91 



the meaning of the term, and is it peculiar to the 

 Eastern Counties ? W. J. D. 



Ashen. Essex. 



[Pitle, or Picle, piccolo, Ital. little. A small piece of in- 

 closed ground ; a croft. Used in Norfolk and the northern 

 counties. — Holloway's Provincialisms. ] 



CONSECRATION OP BISHOP BARLOW. 



(•2"'i S. vi. 626. ; vii. 48.) 



As this important question has been introduced 

 into " N. & Q.," I must beg permission to com- 

 ment very briefly upon the replies already given 

 to Mr. Massingberd. A. B. R. has advanced 

 nothing to warrant his assumption that the ques- 

 tion of Barlow's consecration is " conclusively dis- 

 posed of." He adduces Barlow's signature to two 

 letters of March 31 and April 5, 1536, subscribed 

 " W. Menevbn," and rests upon the supposed im- 

 probability of his subscribing himself " Bishop of 

 St. David's" in letters addressed to the jealous 

 Henry's Secretary of State, if he had not a legal 

 and canonical right to the title. He could not 

 have been consecrated, as Godwin pretends, on the 

 22nd of February, for he was only confirmed on 

 the 23rd. But Rawlins of St. David's died Feb. 

 18, 1536, and Barlow was not translated to that 

 see till April 21st. How could he then have 

 signed himself "Meneven" on the 5th of April? 

 When he went to Scotland in Feb. he was only 

 electAynt he returned about May, and styled him- 

 self Bishop of St. David's. It is well known that 

 he thought very lightly of consecration ; his ab- 

 sence in Scotland afforded a good opportunity of 

 evading it ; and when it is borne in mind that the 

 avoiding consecration was in reality an acknow- 

 ledgment of the "jealous Henry's" supremacy in 

 its_ fullest sense, and that Cranmer held the same 

 principles, there is no outrage on probability in 

 concluding that Barlow managed to evade conse- 

 cration altogether. 



The second correspondent, Alfred T. Lee, ad- 

 mits that we need not look for any record of Bar- 

 low's_ consecration to the see of St. Asaph, and 

 that in the commission to consecrate Warton his 

 successor, Barlow is designated as " ultimi Epis- 

 copi ibidem electi" only. Nevertheless, on his 

 introduction to St. David's, he is described as 

 having been full Bishop of St. Asaph's. Does 

 not this strengthen the presumption that he boldly 

 pretended to have been already consecrated, and 

 was acknowledged as such accordingly without 

 farther inquiry? I have already shown that he 

 could not have been consecrated Feb. 22, since 

 from Alfred T. Lee's own authorities it is evi- 

 dent that he was not confirmed in his appoint- 

 ment till Feb. 23. The above writer admits that 

 still there is no record of Barlow's consecration ; 



but asks, " What of that ? " There is, he says, no 

 register of Gardiner's consecration, or of Latimer's 

 or Hilsey's; but these have never been denied, 

 and why was Barlow's ? I answer, first, that there 

 was never any reason to doubt in the other cases, 

 and therefore no search was made for theirs; 

 whereas every possible search has been made for 

 Barlow's without success. Secondly, that a re- 

 cord of Gardiner's consecration has been found 

 among the archives of Canterbury Cathedral, as 

 appears by this note in Richardson's Godwin, p. 

 236.: — 



" Consecratus Nov. 27, 1531, ita in MS. Lowth e Re- 

 gist. Cant. Dies vero Dominica non fuit." 



Alfred T. Lee contends that in every other 

 way the proof of Barlow's consecration is com- 

 plete, and he attempts to show this : first, from 

 his having sat in the House of Peers as a bishop 

 in June, 1536, so that he must have been conse- 

 crated before that month. But in Henry VHI.'s 

 reign it was not necessary even to be a bishop, 

 but sufficient to be the representative of a diocese, 

 to be summoned to parliament. If a see were 

 vacant, or the bishop abroad, the Custos Spiritua- 

 litatis of the see was summoned. Thus consecra- 

 tion could not have been indispensably requisite 

 for Barlow, a bishop elect, to sit in parliament ; and 

 having once taken his seat, no one would afterwards 

 dispute his right to his place in parliament. Al- 

 fred T. Lee contends, secondly, that Barlow was 

 consecrated, because his name is signed to a list 

 of Articles in the Convocation of 1536, before 

 that of the bishop who succeeded him at St. 

 Asaph's : but how came Queen Elizabeth then to 

 place him after Kitchen of Llandaff" in her Letters 

 Patent for Parker's consecration, Kitchen himself 

 having been consecrated only in 1545 ? 



Alfred T. Lee states that Barlow was mar- 

 ried to the woman by whom he had a numerous 

 family : but Burnet, in his History of the Reform- 

 ation, tells us that he was never married. Finally, 

 he refers Mr. Massingberd to Courayer ; but 

 Courayer has been solidly refuted, and it would 

 be only fair to refer him to some of the authors 

 who have refuted him, such as S. Rene, Justifica- 

 tion de VEglise Romaine sur la Reordination des An- 

 glais Episcopaux. But no one who seriously desires 

 to come to the truth on this vital question should 

 omit to read attentively the series of powerful 

 Letters on the Anglican Orders, thirteen of which 

 have appeared in the Weekly Register from the 

 pen of the Rev. Canon Williams, of Arno's Court, 

 near Bristol. Much use has been made of these 

 masterly disquisitions in this communication ; but 

 on every other point of the controversy they are 

 most valuable. F. C. H. 



Your correspondents have overlooked a valu- 

 able historical note by the learned editor of Arch- 

 bishop Bramhall's treatise on The Consecration 



