A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



weare the surplice.' In the same year the vicar of Cuckfield was accused of 

 not wearing the surplice and not using the sign of the cross in baptism, while 

 in 1 6 1 o Herbert Pelham alleged, but apparently untruly, that the minister at 

 Catsfield had said ' that hee had as leefe see a sowe weare a saddell as see a 

 minister weare a surplice.' At Rye the curate was presented in 1629 'for 

 that he doth in his collations impugn the ceremonies of the Church ; and 

 doth not constantly weare the vestments as injoyned by the book of common 

 prayer.' The laity also naturally took their part in the movement ; Elizabeth 

 Godman at Wivelsfield in 1634 pulled down 'the May boughes, in a rude 

 scornfull manner, which were brought into the church to adorn it ' ; Joseph 

 Benbricke of Rye refused to bow at the name of Jesus ; and one of the 

 churchwardens of St. Michael's, Lewes, in 1637 altered the communion table 

 from standing north and south to east and west. The view of the ecclesiastical 

 courts was wide, and they presented with equal impartiality Elizabeth Collins 

 of Chalvington for washing clothes upon Easter Day or Lambert Combert of 

 Slaugham 'for beating his wife on the 29 June last, being sabbath day, 

 in tyme of divine service ' ; Thomas Brett of Cuckfield because he ' usethe 

 commonly to slepe in the sermon tyme,' or William Barker of Bexhill for 

 being ' vehemently supposed to deale in sorcerye in helpinge the people to 

 thinges lost ' ; Bridget Barrett of Wivelsfield ' for thrusting of pinnes in the 

 wife of John Dumbrell in the church in tyme of divine service,' or Ann 

 Clarke of Sedlescombe ' for calling Gathole's daughter Beggar's Bratt in the 

 church, and for living contentiously and maliciously with her neighbours.' 



Some idea of the slovenly disregard for ceremonial decency at this time 

 existing in the churches of the diocese, which had its origin in reaction from 

 the semi-superstitious abuses of the ritualism of Rome, and which it was the 

 mission of the Laudian revival to combat, may be gathered from the question 

 in Bishop Montagu's visitation of his diocese : 3t1 ' whether the Communion 

 Table is profaned at any time by sitting on it, casting hats or cloaks upon it, 

 writing or casting up accounts or any other indecent usage.' This is borne 

 out by the questions addressed by his successor, the learned and pious Brian 

 Duppa, to the churchwardens in 1638 ; S48 one of these being 'Have there 

 been kept in the church, chapel or churchyard, any plays, feasts, suppers, 

 church ales, temporal courts, or Leet day juries, musters or meetings for rates 

 and taxations, especially at the Communion table ? ' Other questions con- 

 cerned the conduct of the ministers, their use of comely and decent apparel 

 long hair and deep ruffles being singled out for reprobation their zeal for 

 reclaiming recusants, either of the Church of Rome or those ' who having 

 perversely relinquished our Communion find nothing to adhere to but their 

 own private fancies,' their preaching in gown and cassock, not in riding or 

 ambulatory cloaks, and their use of the prescribed form of prayer before the 

 sermon ' to prevent the indiscreet flying out of some in their extemporary 

 prayers.' 



The Laudian revival, however, came too late, and was carried out with 

 too little tact to stem the tide of nonconformity, and by 1 640 Dr. Edward 

 Burton writing from Westham s " laments that the Puritan faction had grown 

 so strong among the justices of the peace upon the bench for the eastern part 



"' Stephens, See of Chlchester, 275. > Ibid. 278-80. 



149 Cal. S.P. Dom. Ckas. I, ccccxlii, 137. 



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