ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



' geven ayde, consell, help and favour unto oon Thomas Curteys to thentent 

 that he exercised and used nigromancy and heresy. Wherefore,' he went on, 

 ' I abiure and forswer alle maner of heresies and errors and promyt that I 

 shal never in tyme to come gef ayde help favour nor socour nor counsell to 

 any that holdeth heresies or useth nigromancy in tyme to come.' *^ Although 

 almost equal stress is here laid on magic and on heresy," it is probable that 

 HuUe and Curteys were wizards rather than Lollards, their sin lying in 

 practice rather than opinion. How distorted the doctrines of the Lollards 

 might become in the rural mind may be judged from the views of a butcher 

 and a labourer of Standon who in 1452 were indicted for heresy.** Accord- 

 ing to their neighbours, John Gable and John Curteys on 20 July of that year 

 voiced opinions against the Catholic faith and Holy Church. There was 

 no god, they maintained, but the sun and the moon ; the child born of 

 human parents had no need of baptism, nor should any Christian pay honour 

 to any image in a church." The fate of these men is not known, but no 

 intimation has been found of their failure to render obedience to the bishop 

 of the diocese. Although the heretics might abjure when brought before 

 the courts, there must have been many cases of unorthodoxy that passed 

 unnoticed. Nor can the records be complete, for no cases are found as 

 having come before William Albone, William Wallingford and John 

 Werdale, whom Wheathampstead in August 1464 appointed commissioners 

 for the examination of heretics within the jurisdiction of the abbey of 

 St. Albans." In March 1476—7 Wallingford, as abbot, himself appointed 

 the prior, the archdeacon, the cellarer and two other officials to examine 

 heretics, and especially Henry Dyer of St. Albans.*^ 



The only other instance of heresy found in the western half of the county 

 was that of William Barou of Walden in the diocese of London. He was 

 accused of heresy, confessed, abjured and then again fell into error. Bishop 

 Kemp thereupon declared him a relapsed heretic, and in July 1467 notified 

 the Crown to this effect, calling on the civil power to execute judgement ** ; 

 Barou must have been burnt. Such, also, must have been the fate of three 

 men ten years later ; John Hoddesdon of Amwell, William Browne of Ware 

 and Peter Boore, who had moved from Ware to Brentford, were declared to 

 be relapsed heretics and as such worthy of death in July 1477.*' It would 

 seem from the form of the notification that they were associated in their 

 heresy, but no further mention of them has been found, though they, too, 

 doubtless paid the full penalty for their error. 



Fragmentary as is the evidence, it seems to point to the conclusion that 

 Lollardy never became widespread in Hertfordshire. At St. Albans, the 

 most favourable centre, civil and ecclesiastical authority were united in the 

 hands of the abbot, who had every interest in its suppression and was loyally 

 served by his officials. From over the Buckinghamshire border, where 

 heresy was strong, infection was bound to spread, but the cases were 



^2 Line. Epis. Reg. Chedworth, Memo. fol. 14.. ^' cf. ibid. Alnwick, Memo. fol. 76. 



^'^ Anct. Indictments, K.B. 9, file 40, m. 4. 



<5 Ibid. *« 'Whethamstedes Reg.' Reg. of St. Albans (Rolls Ser.), ii, 22. 



*' Ibid, ii, 164. No further details concerning Dyer have been found. His name does not occur 

 among the Chancery Significations of Excommunication. 



^^ Chan. Significations of Excommunication, file 125. This and the following instance have been 

 kindly communicated by Miss E. J. B. Reid. *' Ibid. 



