A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



allowed in the dormitory or any part of the 

 monastery on any account whatever : if the 

 prior were to infringe this rule he was to be 

 put on bread and water. For the rest, it 

 seemed best to report the whole case to the 

 bishop, and Longland was not the man to 

 treat it lightly. 1 In June 1531 he visited the 

 house in person. More searching inquiries 

 elicited from the abbot himself a more com- 

 plete confession. He was evidently a man of 

 feeble character, not a hardened sinner, but 

 incapable of standing against any strong temp- 

 tation. His sister was living in the monas- 

 tery as brasiatrix, and he had dismissed her 

 daughter from the house because of her evil 

 conversation ; yet his own life had not been 

 wholly pure. He owned also that he had 

 squandered the goods of the monastery. 

 Roger Palmer, the refectorar, who had piously 

 complained of the want of lectures in Holy 

 Scripture at the last visitation, was a very 

 different character : not the victim of temp- 

 tation, but one who deliberately broke his 

 vows. He had been seen more than once at 

 midnight coming out of a house in the village a 

 in doublet and jerkin, with a sword by his 

 side, and this he confessed to be true. 



i Just because the crimes here alluded to have 

 been charged indiscriminately against the monas- 

 teries of the sixteenth century on such evidence as 

 that of the well-known ' Comperta,' it has been 

 thought best to give the whole results of these 

 visitations, and to keep nothing back at all. No 

 excuse whatever is offered for this particular mon- 

 astery, but the report nevertheless serves to show 

 that bishops like Atwater and Longland really did 

 take pains to find out the state of the houses they 

 visited, and that when such grievous offences came 

 to light they were not palliated but called by their 

 proper names : it is therefore significant if recorded 

 reports such as this one are remarkably few. Long- 

 land's impression in this case is shown by the 

 prompt punishments inflicted, and by the fact that 

 he came again the following year in person to visit 

 the house, and was determined to find out the 

 whole extent of the mischief. In respect of this 

 abbey, considered by itself, it should be noticed 

 (l) That only one canon was found guilty of the 

 greater offence, and two of the lesser ; (2) that the 

 sin of John Slythurst was regarded with horror and 

 aversion by his brethren, who denounced him 

 openly on the first opportunity ; (3) that the boy 

 whom he had led astray had been already con- 

 victed and punished before the visitation ; 

 (4) that the offender was treated by the bishop's 

 commissarv as one who was unfit to be amongst the 

 rest of the brethren. All these things convey an 

 impression that the case was uncommon. 



1 It was the house of a married woman, the same 

 who had once been to the abbot, John Fox, an 

 occasion of falling. 



The bishop ordered that the abbot should 



be suspended from his office until further 



notice, and the charge of the monastery was 



committed to John Otwell, afterwards abbot. 



Roger Palmer was to be kept under lock and 



key. The injunctions finally delivered to the 



whole convent were written in ' vulgar Eng- 



lish,' that the canons might have no excuse, 



and might not say they could not understand 



what was desired of them. The injunctions 



are of the usual nature and relate to the due 



observance of the rule of the order, particu- 



larly that a learned man in grammar should be 



appointed to teach the canons and young 



priests ; that the doors from the church into 



the quire and cloister and the door of the 



Lady Chapel be kept locked ; that no canon 



should have a key of the cloister door leading 



into the fields, and that the door only be 



opened at such times ' as the covent shalbe 



licensed to goo into the feldes to sport to- 



gydre ' ; that the buildings, especially the 



belfry, be repaired ; that they be more 



sparing in their board till the house be in a 



better state, and that the abbot should no 



more suffer his kinsfolk ' to hang upon the 



monasteryes charge as they have done ' ; 



whereas it was found at the late visitation that 



John Compton ' ruleth thabbot ' and ' cutteth 



down trees,' that he meddle not further till 



' he doth use himself uprightly ' ; that the 



brethren are not to wear ' garded or welted 



hose or stuffed codpese or jerkyn or any other 



shorte or courtely fashioned garment,' and 



that Dom John Slithwise be committed to 



prison till ' ye knowe our further mynde.' 3 



John Fox died some time between 1535 and 

 1538, and Otwell became abbot de jure as 

 well as de facto, but he had little opportunity 

 of reforming the house before its dissolution. 1 

 He lived till 1552, and was married some time 

 before that date ; so was Thomas Bernard, 

 the kitchener, who had the vicarage of Little 

 Missenden assigned to him by way of pension. 

 Three other canons living in 1552 remained 

 unmarried : Roger Palmer was one of them. 5 

 It may perhaps be considered a point of 

 generosity in the king and his agents, that 

 pensions were dealt out so impartially to 

 guilty and innocent alike ; but it was a 

 strangely undiscriminating zeal for reform 

 which set John Slythurst free from penitential 



3 Line. Epis. Reg. Memo. Longland, i9 

 and Arch, xlvii. 60-64. 



4 L. and P. Henry Fill. xiii. (2), 1252. Long- 

 land seems to have thought Otwell a worthy man, 

 as he recommended him in this letter to Cromwell 

 for the vacant post. 



Exch Mins. Accts., Bdle. 76, no. 26. 



374 



