ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



Bishop Barnes was not backward in bringing gentle pressure upon 

 those who were halting in their allegiance between England and Rome 

 in order that the national movement might be accelerated in his diocese. 

 With the High Commission at his back he was armed with coercive 

 power sufficient to meet all his requirements. Archbishop Grindal's 

 visitation of the northern province marked a new era in the history of 

 conformity. His injunctions, drastic in substance and detail, 1 were 

 fraught with consequences of great ecclesiastical interest. The bishop 

 of Carlisle adapted them to the needs of his own diocese. The visitation 

 of 1571 appears to have worked a change of considerable magnitude in 

 the ritual of divine service. At the conclusion of his visitation Bishop 

 Barnes issued a mandate to the eighteen men and churchwardens of 

 Crosthwaite, with the authority of the Queen's Commission in the 

 province of York, that the old accessories of the church service, with 

 which the people had been familiar, but which Archbishop Grindal had 

 stigmatized as ' relics and monuments of superstition and idolatry,' 

 should be utterly defaced, broken and destroyed. The mandate was 

 given at Rose Castle under the Bishop's seal on 31 October 1571, and 

 ran in the names Richard, bishop of Carlisle, Henry, lord Scrope of 

 Bolton, lord warden of the Western Marches, Symon Musgrave, knight, 

 Richard Dudley, esq., Gregory Scott and Thomas Tookye, prebendaries 

 of Carlisle, members of the High Commission. As portions of the 

 document are of considerable interest in describing the ritual changes at 

 this period, we do not hesitate to appropriate them. 



-' We command and decree,' so the mandate recites, ' that the said eighteen men 

 and churchwardens doe buy and provide for the said church of Crosthwait and use 

 of the parishioners before Christmas next two fayre large Communion Cups of silver 

 with covers, one fyne diaper napkin for the Communion and Sacramental Bread, and 

 two fayre potts or flaggons of tynne for the wyne, which they shall buy with such 

 moneye as they shall receyve for the chalices, pixes, paxes, crosses, candlesticks, and 

 other church goods which they have to sell, yf the some taken for the same will suffice 

 to pay for the said cuppes, table napkin, pewter potts or flagons ; yf not, a levye or 

 taxe to be cesste through the said parish for the provideing and buying of the premisses. 

 And we furthermore enjoyne that the eighteen men and churchwardens do forthwith 

 sell, alienate and put away to the most and greatest commoditye of the said church all 

 and everye such popish reliques and monuments of superstition and idolatrye as pre- 

 sently remaine in the said parish, of the church or parish goodes, converting the prices 

 thereof receyved to the parish use wholly ; and, namely, two pixes of silver, one silver 

 paxe, one cross of cloth of gold which was on a vestment, one copper crosse, two chalices 

 of silver, two corporase cases, three hand-bells, the scon whereon the Paschall stood, 

 one pair of censures, one shippe, one head of a paire of censures, xxix brasen or latyne 

 candlesticks of six quarters longe, one holy waiter tankard of brasse, the canopies which 



i These injunctions will be found in full in the Remains of Abp. Grindal, Parker Soc., pp. 121-144, 

 and in summary in Strype's Life of Ab-p. Grindal, edition 1710, pp. 167-170. There can be no doubt, 

 as Strype says, that the Archbishop showed a great zeal for the discipline and good government of the 

 church, but it is questionable whether all the ritual practices which he condemned could be described 

 as ' old popish customs.' There is a strong presumption that both Grindal and Parker, the two arch- 

 bishops, exceeded their powers as metropolitans in the wholesale destruction of church furniture made 

 in the visitations of 1571. The same remark would apply to the visitation of Bishop Barnes, except in so 

 far as he sheltered himself under the autocratic power of the High Commission. The correspondence 

 between the archbishops on this subject may be read in Remains of Grindal, pp. 326-8, or in Strype's 

 Grindal, pp. 165-6. 



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