A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



Finchale, and the Lincolnshire abbeys of Bardney and Thornton.'* The 

 Nottinghamshire houses of Welbeck, RufFord, and Lenton held one church 

 each," Other appropriations have been noticed in their place. To these 

 should be added Kirkleatham, appropriated to Staindrop College (141 2) ; 

 Welton, to the Lancaster chantry in Lincoln Minster (1439) ; and Slaidburn, 

 to St. Katherine's chantry in Eccles Church (1456).'° In 1387 the monks of 

 Durham appropriated the churches of Bossall and Fishlake to their college in 

 Oxford ; '^ and Rudby, at a much later date, was annexed to Wolsey's Oxford 

 college.'^ 



Most of the appropriated churches were served by regularly appointed 

 vicars. The churches in Cleveland belonging to Guisborough and Whitby 

 were served by temporary curates, provided by the impropriating house." 

 This arrangement in so large and hilly a district must have led to much 

 neglect. The want of a learned clergy, capable of giving instruction, was 

 felt by those who most dreaded religious change. The Augustinian Canons 

 held their general chapter at Leicester in 15 18. The Prior of Guisborough 

 presided and the Prior of Bridlington preached. A letter was read from 

 Wolsey emphasizing the necessity of learning as the greatest bulwark of the 

 Catholic faith, and commenting on the lukewarm studiousness of the order." 

 Lack of scholarship was even more noticeable among the secular clergy. In 

 1535 Archbishop Lee, an unwilling spectator of change, wrote to Cromwell : 

 ' we have very few preachers, as the benefices are so small that no learned 

 man will take them.'" In 1537 he asked Cromwell to remember his request 

 for preachers and the appointment of resident clergy in the church of York. 

 He had ordered the archdeacons to present reports of clergy able to preach ; 

 he found ' in the archdeaconry of Nottingham not one ; in the others very 

 few.' ^' The sum of clergy able and willing to preach, in fact, amounted to 

 twelve." 



By the time that Lee, who had succeeded Wolsey in 1531, was writing 

 these letters, many changes had come about. In 1534 the king became 

 supreme head of the Church of England ; and in 1536 the lesser monasteries 

 were suppressed. Lee himself was a timorous participant in the Pilgrimage 

 of Grace, but took the oath of allegiance at the surrender of Pontefract Castle. 

 The greater monasteries were dissolved in 1539, and in 1545, the year follow- 

 ing Lee's death, the first Act for dissolving the chantries was passed. Lee 

 took the middle course, which was best for the true friends of the old order. 

 In 1534, amid the controversies following the declaration of the royal supre- 

 macy, he wrote that he had discharged a friar who preached purgatory, ' in 

 the avoidance of controversy.''* He visited convents, especially nunneries, 

 with the paternal care of Wickwane or Romanus. But careful visitation 

 could not save the monasteries. Their possessions were a fatal attraction to 

 the would-be spoiler, while the aims of those who saw in scholarship an 

 ornament and preservative of orthodoxy had been pursued at the expense of 



•^ Valor Ecd. (Rec. Com.), v, 300, 303 ; iv, 81, 73. " Ibid, v, 171, 173, 147. 



Lawton, op. cit. 489, 371, 269. " Ibid. 424, 193. 



'' Valor Ecd. (Rec. Com.), v, 89. 



Ibid. 91 : 'non ha bent vicarios in eisdem sed curates conductivos.' 

 " L. and P. Hen. Fill, ii, App. 48 (16 June i 5 1 8). « Ibid, ix, 704. 



Ibid, xu, 1093. " Gasquet, Hm. Fill and the Engl. Mon. (1888), i, 23. 



'- L. and P. Hm. Fill, ix, 704. ^ ' ^ 



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