ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



of a reading-desk in the nave for morning and evening prayer.^ On 1 6 July 

 1 57 1 Grindal reported the end of his visitation to the Earl of Leicester. 

 He complained of the ignorance of the clergy and the smallness of stipends. 

 'Oftentymes vi^her ther are a thowsand or fyftcne hundrethe people in a 

 parishe, there is neyther parson nor vicare, but onlie a stipende of seaven or 

 eight pounds for a curate.' No incumbents could be found to take such 

 livings, which were often served by the curate of the next parish.^ These 

 evils were touched by John Best, Bishop of Carlisle, in a letter to Parker written 

 in 1567. Best begs to be permitted, hke his predecessor, to hold Romaldkirk 

 Church in commendam; in renewing which grant 'Your grace shall both stay 

 the covetous gripe that hath the advowson for his prey, the unlearned ass 

 from the cure where I have now a learned preacher, and bind me as I am 

 otherwise most bound to serve and pray for your grace's long continuance 

 in honour and godliness.'' Strype gives an amusing instance of ignorance in 

 the case of a presentee to Harthill (1574). At his examination he translated 

 the words vestri humiles et obedientes in his presentation form, by ' your 

 humbleness and obedience.' Asked ' Who brought the children of Israel out 

 of Egypt ? ' he answered, ' King Saul.' The question ' Who was first 

 circumcised ? ' was beyond him, and he was rejected.* It is noteworthy that 

 Grindal does not accuse Yorkshire of the dissolute living which his com- 

 missary found in Lancashire and Cheshire,' but the records of Halifax, at a 

 somewhat later date, give no favourable picture of the morality of one remote 

 Yorkshire district. 



Grindal's articles of visitation, and the injunctions issued (1572) to the 

 Dean and chapter of York, manifest his uncompromising temper.* Strype 

 remarks on his severity to Papists.'' The disturbed state of the North gave 

 such severity its excuse, and even when we find royal officers taxing the 

 scanty pensions of the religious and chantry priests who were still alive, to 

 provide a subsidy,* we may admit that the taxation provided a means of 

 controlling funds which might have been employed by agents of rebellion. 

 Grindal attacked not only adherents of the old faith, but the moderate 

 interpretation of reformed doctrine, expressing more definitely what Holgate 

 already had implied, and Young, who, like Grindal himself, had been a 

 refugee in Germany, had held. Puritanism now placed itself in antithesis to 

 the old beliefs in a district which hitherto had heard little of subversion of 

 dogma. The way for further disruption was prepared, and the rift between 

 the two Anglican parties soon began to show itself Grindal was translated to 

 Canterbury in 1576, and Edwin Sandys, Bishop of London, was preferred 

 to York.' Sandys had been a royal commissioner in Yorkshire in 1559." 



' Strype, Life of Grindal (ed. 1 831), 247 seq. A large number of rood-lofts were left, and were not 

 destroyed till the l8th century. Probably it was considered necessary to destroy the beam and figures alone 

 without touching the loft. ' Add. MSS. 32091, fol. 242. 



' Letters printed in Whitaker, Richmondshire, i, 137, 138. 



* Strype, op. cit. 274. ' See note 2 above. 



* See Ornsby, Dkc. Hist. York, 350, 351. Grindal held a visitation of the dean and chapter in Apr. 

 IS7S (Strype, op. cit. 279). 



' Strype, op. cit. 273. 



» T. M. Fallow, 'Names of Yorkshire Ex-religious, 1573,' Yorks. Arch. Journ. xix, 100 seq. (from Subs. 

 R. bdle. 65, no. 349). 



' Drake, op. cit. 454. Grind.il was translated 15 Feb. ; Sandys was enthroned 13 Mar. 1575-0- 

 '" Report in S.P. Dom. Eliz. x, i (in Gee, op. cit. 90). 



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