an 



A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



d rapacity which he practised and the audacity of his demands. The 

 council at which he presided in St. Paul's however, in November, 1237, 

 marked an epoch in the history of the Church of England, and the constitu- 

 tions ac^reed to showed on their face a desire to cope with the evils which 

 required remedy. If the legate were to be judged by them only, he might 

 almost be regarded as one of the serious reformers of his age. Unhappily it 

 seems that these were Httle more than a dead letter. When Ottobon, twenty- 

 eight years later, called another council, this time again in St. PaulV the 

 canons enacted by Ottobon were re-enacted or confirmed, and some new ones 

 added. They give us a deplorable picture of the condition of religion in 

 Eno-land. Churches had been pulled down on pretence of repairing them ;" 

 others had been left unconsecrated for years ; parishes were in charge of 

 deacons or even acolytes, the people being compelled to resort to the itinerant 

 friars for absolution or the sacrament of the altar ; over-laxity prevailed in 

 admitting candidates for holy orders, and illegal fees were demanded for 

 services which should have been free to all. But the re-enactment of the 

 canons of Ottobon goes far to prove that the previous legislation had been 

 inoperative. The laws may have been excellent, but they were not put in 

 force. From this time things did tend somewhat to improve, though the 

 practice of robbing the country clergy of their incomes, and handing those 

 incomes over to religious houses, many of which were almost entirely useless 

 foundations, increased, and acted at least as much to the prejudice of the 

 people as to that of the clerical order. Bishop Roger's episcopate is memor- 

 able for the very serious conflict between the citizens of Norwich and the 

 monks of the priory in 1272. 



There had been bad blood for a long time between the citizens and the 

 monks of the Norwich priory, as had been the case at Bury St. Edmunds, 

 at Colchester, and elsewhere ; and the ill-feeling was increasing. The monks 

 had lost the confidence and respect of the trading classes, who had every- 

 where been transferring their allegiance to the friars. Things came to a 

 crisis in July, 1272, in consequence of a brawl and a free fight at a great 

 gathering on Tombland — the open space outside the precincts of the cathedral 

 close on the west — where a high wall separated the close from the liberties of 

 the citizens. The chief entrance to the close was through the great gates, 

 and the Great Wall ran apparently straight from this gate in a northerly 

 direction, as far as what is now Palace Street. 



On Sunday, 8 August, 1272, the prior, anticipating a serious outbreak 

 of violence, brought up from Yarmouth a band of mercenaries fully armed 

 and equipped. These ruffians that same night sallied out into the city, and 

 by their excesses drove the citizens wild. Next day a body of the citizens 

 made a furious attack upon the great gates of the monastery, and set them on 

 fire, and in the conflagration which ensued the whole range of buildings 

 abutting on the great western wall was consumed by the flames. Of course 

 there was some looting and robbing, much savage violence and sacrilege, and 

 thirteen of the defenders of the monastery were slain in the conflict. But it 

 seems that the monks, by the help of their Yarmouth men-at-arms, ended by 



' They are given at length by Matth. Paris, Chron. Majora (Rolls Ser.), iii, 420 et seq. 

 ' Two instances of this may be pointed to in Norfolk, viz. Linford and Buckenham Parva, which to this 

 day are churchless. Some little research might easily produce other examples. 



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