ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



number of the fabrics. As to charity, almost his first act as bishop was 

 the excusing of his poorer manorial tenants of their customary payments 

 to the amount of 500, while open house was kept for the poor through- 

 out his long episcopate. His will was characteristic of his large-hearted- 

 ness, for by it great minsters and humble village churches, collegiate 

 foundations and mendicant orders, noble friends and household retainers, 

 high-placed officials and poor prisoners alike profited. 



At the end of Wykeham's episcopate, when his strength was failing, 

 Bishop Merks, who was deprived of the see of Carlisle in 1400, acted as 

 suffragan. He died in 1409. From 1407 to 1417 William, Bishop of 

 Selymbria, was suffragan of Winchester, during most of which period 

 he also acted as suffragan of Sarum. John, Bishop of Cyrene, was sub- 

 sequently for a time responsible for Beaufort's episcopal duties. 1 



At the beginning of the fifteenth century the next to Archbishop 

 Arundel in influence in the government of the country was Henry 

 Beaufort, a child of John of Gaunt, born of his adultery with Catherine 

 Swinford. The famed Lord Cardinal of Winchester became in rapid 

 succession Dean of Wells (1397), Bishop of Lincoln (1398), Chancellor 

 of England (1403), and, upon the death of Wykeham, Bishop of Win- 

 chester, though not yet thirty years of age. The kingdom saw far more 

 of him than the diocese, and his long episcopate (1404-47), a most 

 sad contrast to that of Wykeham, requires here but brief notice. Con- 

 secrations and ordinations were for the most part discharged by suffragan 

 bishops. 



In 1407 Archbishop Arundel summoned a provincial council to 

 meet at Oxford for the purpose of stemming the tide of Lollardism. 

 Under that word were now comprehended not only a setting forth of 

 strange doctrine, but a spirit of rampant revolution. This council met 

 on 28 November, in the priory church of St. Frideswide, and agreed to 

 a series of thirteen injunctions which were to be binding on all clerks 

 within the province of Canterbury. These became at once known as 

 the Constitutions of Arundel. It was thereby ordered, amongst other pro- 

 hibitions, that no one was to preach in church or churchyard without 

 the bishop's license ; that no speculations on the subject of the sacra- 

 ments or articles of faith were to be allowed ; that no tract or treatise 

 written by Wycliffe was to circulate in schools, halls or elsewhere, unless 

 sanctioned by twelve doctors and masters appointed by each of the 

 universities ; and that the scriptures were not to be translated into 

 English until an authorized version had been put forth by a provincial 

 council. Oxford was at this time so permeated with freedom of thought 

 that neither the time nor place were considered suitable for setting forth 

 these decisions. Eventually they were promulgated in Convocation, 

 when it met at St. Paul's on 14 January, 1409. Copies were forwarded 

 to the bishops to be made known throughout their dioceses in the fol- 

 lowing April. These Constitutions of Arundel are transcribed in full in 

 Beaufort's register. 2 



1 Stubbs' Registr. Sacr. AngRc. * Winton. Epis. Reg., Beaufort, pp. 1 8-20. 



45 



