ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



vertue is therby ? ' He declined to fast for anyone's pleasure but his own, 

 and said that priests were worse than Judas, for 'Judas sold Almyghtie God 

 for xxxd'., and prestes will sell God for half a penny,' Robinson denied the 

 divine origin of fasting, and said that ' God maide neucr prayers,' and that 

 St. Peter was neither pope of Rome nor priest ; he would not confess to a 

 priest, even if he were 'at the poynte and article of deith.' Robinson was 

 sentenced to do public penance in York Minster and at Hull. Johnson's 

 penance was to be performed at York, during the processions of Rogation- 

 tide and the octave of the Ascension. Johnson was to be beaten at the 

 four corners of York market-place by the Dean of York, Robinson at Hull, 

 by the curate of Holy Trinity." Under Archbishop Lee two cases of here- 

 tical 'Dutchmen' occur from the archdeaconry of Nottingham." In the 

 second of these a special offence was the introduction into England of the 

 German translation of the New Testament ; the accused undertook to abstain 

 from using or selling any books of Luther or his followers. Lee carefully 

 watched the conduct of preaching in his diocese. The Prior of Carmelites 

 at Doncaster and the Warden of the Franciscans abused their licences by 

 preaching against each other, a scandal which necessitated a commission of 

 inquiry (1534)." In 1535, Richard Browne, vicar of North Cave, recanted 

 the statements that the Sacrament of the altar was only a symbolic rite, and 

 that confession might be made to a layman."^ A woman, Denise Johnson, 

 in 1 540 abjured her denial that the Sacrament was the body of Christ.^' 



Another enemy with which the archbishops and their officers had to 

 contend was the power of superstition over the people. Resort to the help 

 of a wizard had been a charge preferred against Abbot Whalley of Selby 

 in the 13th century.^" A Rotherham wizard confessed to Archbishop 

 Rotherham at Scrooby (1481) that he had used charms to cure sick folks, 

 aid had dealings with a familiar spirit. ^^ In 1509 Bainbridge's vicar-general 

 examined an extraordinary case. Thomas Jameson, a merchant, sometime 

 Lord Mayor of York, went with a priest named James Richardson to consult 

 a wizard at Knaresborough about the recovery of a runaway servant. The 

 wizard inflamed their fancies with the story of a chest of gold, hidden at a 

 phce called Mixendale Head, in Halifax parish, ' and vpon the same chist a 

 SA^erd of mayntenaunce, and a booke covered with blakke ledder.' A canon 

 of Drax was called in to help with the magical preparations necessary, and 

 in the end, nine persons, including the canon and another priest, met to 

 perform incantations in a house at Bingley. Richardson and Jameson brought 

 two wafers which Richardson proposed to consecrate as a defence against 

 the familiar in time of conjuration, but the wizard said that this would 

 prevent the spirit from appearing. The details of this meeting give a 

 curious picture of the intermingling of superstition with traditional veneration 

 for religious objects."' 



" York Epis. Reg. Wolse/, fol. 131 d. 132, 132 d. " Ibid. Lee, fol. 82 d. 83 ; 89 d.-gi, 



" Ibid. fol. 91, 91 d. " Ibid. fol. 99 d. loo. 



"Ibid. fol. 141 d. As a result of the passing of the Six Articles (1539) Valentine Frees, son of 

 the first York printer, and his wife were burned on Knavesmire (Ornsby, Dioc. Hut. York, 283 : see Foxe, 

 Acts and Monuments (ed. Cattley), iv, 695). 



•^ York Reg. Wicktvane (Surt. Soc. cxiv), 24, 25. 



" York Epis. Reg. Rotherham, quoted without reference by Leigh Bennett, Archbishop Rotherham (1901), 

 no, III note. 



" York Epis. Reg. Bainbridge, fol. 68 seq. ; Arch. Joum. xvi. 



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