A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



religious. Its leaders expressed the popular discontent at the suppression. 

 Aske gave voice to the general indignation. One of the notable beauties of 

 the land, he said, had been destroyed ; property which had been employed in 

 almsgiving and entertainment of travellers was engrossed by the king and 

 the farmers of abbey lands. The abbeys of western Yorkshire had supplied 

 spiritual refreshment to the untaught dalesmen ; they had given hospitality to 

 traders who went up and down the passes between Yorkshire and Lancashire.*^ 

 The insurgents re-peopled Sawley Abbey with its abbot and monks.*' But 

 the disastrous end of the rebellion only made the dissolution of the greater 

 houses inevitable. The Abbot of Sawley was hanged at Lancaster ; the Abbot 

 of Whallcy suffered in sight of his own abbey ; the Abbots of Jervaulx and 

 Fountains were hanged at Tyburn." Jervaulx Abbey was dismantled, and the 

 lead stripped from the roofs ; Sir Arthur Darcy suggested to Cromwell that 

 the abbey would be a suitable stable for the royal stud of mares.'" The 

 quire of Bridlington Priory and the shrine of St. John Thweng were pulled 

 down in May 1537 ; the Duke of Norfolk took away the valuables of the 

 monastery in plate, vestments, and kind." Vengeance for the rebellion thus 

 anticipated, in several of the greater Yorkshire monasteries, the final act 

 of suppression. 



In spite of general orthodoxy, heretics seem to have appeared in the 

 diocese during the later part of the 14th century. '*' Archbishop Bowet 

 reported to Henry V (142 1) the case of one John Taillor or Bilton, con- 

 demned as obstinate and impenitent, who was now handed over to the secular 

 arm. Taillor denied transubstantiation of the elements in the Eucharist, 

 and the necessity of confession to a priest. He argued that, 'sithen seint 

 Peter was slayne,' no priest had power to shrive, and that Holy Church 

 with his death had ceased to be. The Trinity consisted of Father, 

 Mother, and Holy Ghost : Jesus Christ was the child of Mary, but not 

 the Son of God : the Son of God was not yet come." These assertions 

 were little more than random utterances of a foolish talker. In 151 1, 

 Roger Gargrave, a parishioner of Wakefield, confessed before the Chan- 

 cellor of York that he had blasphemed the Sacrament of the altar, ' openly 

 saying, that if a calfF were vpon the alter I wold rather worship that then 

 the said holy sacrament ; allcgying scripture for me in fourme folowing. 

 Tunc imponent super altare tuum vitulos ; and furthermore shewing and openly 

 affirmyng that the date was past that God determyned hyme to be in fourme 

 of brede.' Gargrave abjured his heresies, which he was said to have imbibed 

 from a priest at Lincoln, and was sentenced to do public penance in York 

 Minster." In 1528 Gilbert Johnson, a 'Dutch' carver, resident in York, 

 and Robert Robinson, of Hull, abjured their heresy. Johnson had denied 

 necessity of confession to a priest, the power of the clergy to excommunicate, 

 and the efficacy of prayers for the dead. ' Holie brede,' he said, ' is good 

 and vertuouse for a man or woman that is hungrie, and the holie water for 

 a man or woman whan they er hott, to cast opon them to cole them 

 therwith.' He refused to carry his candle on Candlemas day, saying 'what 



*^ Gasquet, op. cit. ii, 94, 95. « jj^jj ,q^ 



H Ju'j' '^^ ' ^'■°"'^^' °P- "t- '"' 34- " Gasquet, op. cit. ii, 173, 174. 



« xj , V' '^^' +^7 "°'^- " S" note 51 above, p. 40. 



Harl. MS. 421, fol. 135, 136. " Yoric Epis. Reg. Bainbridse, fol. 75. 



48 



