ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



seem to imply frequent if not weekly preaching. The subjects were to be 

 the value of the sacraments, the meaning of the service and prayers, and, on 

 feast days, the teaching of the particular festival. The preacher was to 

 expound the gospel or epistle of the day, affirming nothing for which he 

 could not show authority in some ancient writer and avoiding rehearsals of 

 any opinion not allowed for the intent to reprove the same ; especially was 

 he warned against preaching sermons made by other men during the last 

 200 or 300 years. The injunctions finished with a list of prohibited books, 

 for the civil and ecclesiastical authorities were striving busily to prevent the 

 spread of reformed doctrines of the Continental type. A proclamation of 

 May I 541 had required all churchwardens to supply themselves with a Bible 

 of the largest and greatest volume to be had in every church by All Saints' 

 Day." For every month's delay after that feast the penalty was to be 40J., 

 divided equally between the Crown and the informer.^' At least one 

 prosecution for neglect was started, for William Snowe of Aspenden laid 

 information that Percival Lago, the rector, and Thomas Bele, the church- 

 warden of that place, had, for the period of one whole month, failed to have 

 in the church any Bible in English written or printed. The defendants 

 maintained that the prosecution was vexatious and seem to have established 

 their case." Although there is nothing in the pleading to indicate that 

 Snowe was of reforming tendencies it is possible that Lago was of the older 

 school of thought, for he was rector of Aspenden in 1526.^' 



Parties were evidently forming even in country parishes by 1543, but 

 there is nothing in the Lincoln visitation of that date to show that the 

 reformers were in favour. At Stevenage a Richard Lawton was presented 

 for not attending service on Sundays and festivals, but only one other case 

 can be put down to what may be called the ecclesiastical politics of the day. 

 On Thursday in Whitsun week Christopher Falconer (Fokener) was cele- 

 brating mass in his church of Little Munden. For some reason there was a 

 great disturbance, talking and tumult among the congregation at the most 

 solemn moment of the service, and such was the uproar that his attention 

 was distracted and he failed to elevate the sacrament above his head for the 

 devotion of the people. At the visitation he was charged with this and sub- 

 mitted himself to correction. His public penance was fixed for the following 

 Sunday ; after the procession or litany he was to carry in his hand a candle 

 I lb. in weight, and then at the time of mass to place it upon the candlestick 

 on the high altar before the elements." 



Such monitions show how the old forms of service were still retained 

 in 1543. In June of the next year Henry VIII began his imposition of a 

 new liturgy and ' set forthe certayne godly prayers and suffrages in our 

 natyve Englishe tonge ' to be used as a litany." In 1 545 an Act was 

 passed dissolving the chantries," and in January 1546—7 Henry died. The 

 churchwardens' accounts of Bishop's Stortford throw some light upon the 

 happenings of the next few months. At Easter the usual ceremonies seem 



" Wilkins, Concilia, iii, 856. 



73 Ibid. ''* Memo. R. (Q.R.), Mich. 36 Hen. VIII, m. 21 d. " Salter, op. cit. 178. 



'* Visit, of Archd. of Huntingdon, 1543 (Line. Epis. Reg.). " Wilkins, Concilia, iii, 870. 



7* The clergy list appended to the Visitation of the Archd. of Huntingdon for 1543 gives the names of 

 all chantry priests in the Hertfordshire parishes of the Lincoln diocese. 



4 313 40 



