ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



open penance in the cathedral of Norwich. Most of the Norfolk heretics 

 were of the working classes, but the number of unbeneficed clergy brought 

 up also is considerable. 



Bishop Alnwick was translated in 1436 to the richer see of Lincoln as a 

 mark of royal favour. 



Thomas Brown, bishop of Rochester, and previously bishop of 

 Chichester, was then translated by Pope Eugenius to Norwich, his services at 

 the Council of Basle having brought him into favourable notice, but it was 

 only after declining to stand upon the pope's bull, and making his submission 

 to the crown, that the temporalities were allowed to pass into his hands.^ 

 The choice of the bishops had gradually become a matter of arrangement 

 between the king and the pope, and since the Statute of Provisors, the papal 

 choice, which had been the ruling factor in the fourteenth century, had now 

 given place to the will of the crown ; but the opportunity for re-assertion 

 afforded by the king's youth was not likely to be passed over by the pope. 



During Bishop Brown's episcopacy the disputes between the prior and 

 the city of Norwich broke out again. A composition which was made in 

 1429'' was extremely distasteful to the citizens, and the prior, William 

 Worsted, who at one time treated the bishop with extreme disrespect, and 

 refused to carry the crucifix before him in the cathedral, seems to have been 

 a fomenter of disturbance. 



Bishop Lyhart was preferred by papal bull of 24 January, 1446, and was 

 consecrated at Lambeth 27 February. By his intervention, Pope Felix was 

 persuaded to resign, and thus the schism in the papacy caused by the rival 

 claims of Felix V and Nicholas V was healed.' He himself had superseded 

 John Stanbury, first provost of Eton College, appointed to the bishopric by 

 King Henry VI, to whom he had been confessor. His administration of his 

 diocese showed much sympathy with the secular clergy, who had suffered 

 during the preceding two centuries by the frequent appropriation of their 

 tithes for the benefit of the religious houses. He had been first fellow and 

 then provost of Oriel, and incurred much danger and some persecution by his 

 friendship with Bishop Pecock, also a fellow of Oriel. His munificence as a 

 builder was unbounded. He died at Hoxne, 24 May 1472. During his episco- 

 pacy John Moreton, archdeacon of Norwich, was attainted of high treason.* 



The habits of the age show a curious medley of irreverence and violence 

 on one hand, honour and love on the other, in the attitude of the people 

 with respect to their churches. Not only did gifts of money, plate, and 

 embroideries flow freely into the parish churches, but the famous shrines of 

 which Norfolk possessed so many, with Walsingham, only second in popu- 

 larity to Canterbury, at their head, accumulated vast stores of treasure. 

 Gilds for industrial and commercial purposes, which acted also as provi- 

 dent societies, and relieved the sick and needy among their members, had 

 long been in existence, and the returns as to the ordinances, properties, &c., 



' Rymer, Foedera ; Syll. ofRymer's Foed. 666. 



' Blomefield, iii, 143. The prior had all his exempt liberty for himself and his tenants in Spitellond, 

 Holmstrete and Ratonrowe confirmed. 



^ Wharton, Angl. Sar. i, 418. The king sent the bishop to Pope Felix to persuade him to this course 

 in 1449. 



* Pat. 7 Edw. IV, pt. ii, m. 15, July 17, 1467. Grant to Lionel Wideville, clerk, brother of the queen, 

 of all issues of the archdeaconry of Norwich belonging to the king by reason of the attaint of John Moreton, 

 archdeacon of Norwich, by authority of Parliament at Westminster 4 Nov. I Edw. IV. 



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