A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



subsequent preaching in Norwich diocese, and his alleged marriage. To most 

 of these articles he confessed. The twelfth article, which he denied, asserted 

 that on the last Easter Day he had, within his house at Bergholt, inducted a 

 lay disciple named John Scutte to discharge the office of a priest ; and that 

 Scutte broke bread, gave thanks and distributed to White and his concubine 

 and to three others, directing them to receive and partake of it in memory 

 of Christ's Passion. It was testified inter alia that White had said ' that such 

 as wear cords or be anointed or shorn are the lance knights and soldiers of 

 Lucifer ; and that they all, because their lamps are not burning, shall be shut 

 out when the Lord Christ shall come.' 



White was convicted on thirty articles, and sentenced to be burned as a 

 lapsed heretic who had preached in Norwich diocese the doctrines which he 

 had on oath renounced. Between 1428 and 1 43 1 Foxe, who seems to have 

 had access to Exeter's register of the heresy courts, mentions that 120 were 

 brought before the bishop or his chancellor on charges of Lollardy or heresy. 

 Among those whose residence is given, six were from Beccles, two from 

 Aldeburgh, one from Bungay, one from Eye, and one from Shipmeadow. 

 The offenders were mostly of the working classes, but one was a beneficed 

 clerk, John Cappes, vicar of Tunstead. They were charged with such 

 offences as holding heretical views as to the mass, baptism, marriage, and the 

 payment of tithes, and with saying that the pope was anti-Christ, and that 

 every true man was a priest. In the great majority of cases these poor people 

 not unnaturally shrank from the terrible consequences of contumacy, and 

 made submission, formally abjuring their views after a most solemn fashion. 

 They all seem to have suffered a certain period of imprisonment, for on arrest 

 they were committed to prison, usually at either the castle of Framlingham 

 or the castle of Norwich, until the ecclesiastical court was held. In what 

 were considered bad cases a period of imprisonment was ordered after 

 confession and abjuration. The one severe case cited by Foxe is that of 

 John Skilley, miller of Flixton, who was brought before the bishop on 

 14 March, 1428-9. He was condemned to seven years' imprisonment in 

 the Premonstratensian abbey of Langley, fasting on bread and water on the 

 Fridays, and at the end of that time he was to put in four appearances at the 

 cathedral church with the other penitentiaries, namely on the two ensuing Ash 

 Wednesdays and the two Maundy Thursdays. But no one save that lapsed 

 heretic, the ex-priest White, was condemned to the stake. 1 



Public declaration of their recanting, accompanied by whippings in the 

 church and market-place, were the usual fate of the penitents. Thus 

 Norman Pie and John Mendham of Aldburgh were condemned to make 

 their abjuration openly and to do penance in their own parish church on six 

 several Sundays, being whipped on each occasion before the solemn procession ; 

 they were also to have three whippings on three several market-days in the 

 market-place of Harleston. The penitents on these occasions were to have 

 bare necks, heads, legs, and feet, and to be clad only in shirts and breeches ; 

 they were also to carry a half-pound wax taper in their hands, and to present 

 the tapers on the last Sunday at high mass unto the high altar. 



The provocative and grossly irreverent action of some of the Lollards, 

 in going out of their way to insult the religion of others, naturally provoked 



1 Foxe interprets some sentences of branding as being ' put to death and burned.' 



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