A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



of Chetwode also fell into disuse and decay after it was made a chapel 

 to the priory church at the appropriation in 1391.' 



A dispute in connexion with the church of Chesham in 1454 

 brings out an interesting point of mediaeval church custom. In days 

 when travelling and social intercourse between different parts of the 

 country were much less frequent than now, it would have been easy for 

 simple village folk to lose sight of the greater unity of the Catholic 

 Church, and the interdependence of its members ; and amongst the 

 various customs devised to meet this difficulty was the solemn procession 

 made every year to the mother church of the diocese somewhere about 

 the feast of Pentecost. Like many other good things, this custom had 

 its abuses : there were unseemly disputes for precedence between the 

 men of different parishes even when they were gathered with their 

 crosses and banners outside the cathedral ; and complaints were made 

 of the difficulties of the journey. By the fifteenth century it had 

 become usual for the parishioners of small parishes remote from the 

 cathedral to make their yearly procession to some larger church in their 

 own neighbourhood, more easy of access than the matrix ecclesia. So the 

 parishioners of Chesham had been accustomed for some time to go to 

 Amersham on the Monday in Whitsun week ; but even here there had 

 been difficulties, leading to armed encounters between the two parishes, in 

 which the men of Chesham had been worsted. They therefore sent in 

 a petition to the bishop to allow them to make their procession around 

 their own church in future, summoning the inhabitants of the hamlets 

 of Chesham Bois and Latimer to join them. The petition was granted, 1 

 on condition that they paid idd. annually for the fabric of Lincoln 

 Cathedral. 



It has been shown already that the teaching of the Lollards had 

 taken root in Buckinghamshire at the beginning of the fourteenth 

 century ; but it was not until the episcopate of Bishop Chedworth 

 (1452-1472) that its extent was seriously realized and steps taken to 

 prevent its further spread. It appears from the Episcopal Registers that 

 nearly all the cases of heresy which were tried before the bishop at this 

 time came from the county of Buckingham, with a few from Thame 

 and Henley and other places in the same district, that is to say, the 

 valley of the Lower Thames. As at a later date, the bishop's manor 

 house at Wooburn, and the parish church of High Wycombe, were 

 usually chosen for the holding of these trials. 3 The heretics of this 

 period are of much interest, as they form a connecting link between the 

 earlier Lollards and certain reformers of a later day. It seemed at first, 

 in the time of Wiclif, as if there were some prospect of the spread of 

 Lollard doctrines amongst the clergy and the upper classes ; but as the 

 fifteenth century wore on, those accused of heresy were found almost 

 exclusively in the lower classes, among weavers, coopers, smiths and 



1 Lines. Epis. Reg. Memo. Buckingham, 371. 

 3 Ibid. Memo. Chedworth, l8d. 

 3 Ibid. Memo. Chedworth, 57-63. 



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