ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



William de la Zouch who had been Dean of York since 1336, and who 

 was constantly employed by Edward III in various capacities, became Melton's 

 successor in the episcopate in 1342, ruHng the see of York until his death 

 just ten years later. That terrible event, the Black Death of 1348-9, over- 

 shadowed his rule. 



He issued a pastoral in July 1 348, of a most devout and earnest character, 

 urging that earnest prayer should be offered to turn away the scourge, with 

 special litanies and processions on Wednesdays and Fridays.*' Archbishop 

 Zouch seems to have been the first English prelate to foresee the coming 

 catastrophe ; the plague had been gradually sweeping over Europe from the 

 south during the earlier months of 1348, and on 7 July the first death in 

 England occurred at the port of Melcombe Regis or Weymouth. It did not 

 reach Nottinghamshire until February 1348-9. 



The attack fell with dreadful severity on the religious houses of this county. 

 The superiors, with their more commodious rooms and better food, suffered 

 as heavily as any class-. Among those who died in this fatal period were two 

 priors of Thurgarton and two of Shelford, the Abbot of Welbeck, the priors 

 of Blyth, Newstead and Felley, the warden of Sibthorpe and the master of St. 

 Leonard's, Newark. More than half of the beneficed clergy perished ; out of 

 126 benefices, sixty-five were emptied.*^ 



Among certain of the survivors of this awful calamity there was an out- 

 break of reckless debauchery ; but almost every county yields evidence that 

 one of the results was an awakening of religious earnestness, which not infre- 

 quently manifested itself — in accordance with the spirit of the times — in the 

 founding of chantries whose priests were to offer masses for the souls of those 

 who had so suddenly perished, and also to assist the parochial clergy in sacra- 

 ments and sacramentals for the living. Nottinghamshire affords instances 

 of this in the founding in 1 349 of two chantries in the great church of Newark, 

 and of a triple chantry at Clifton, near Nottingham. 



On the death of Zouch in 1352, John Thoresby, a man of learning, 

 piety and munificence, was translated from Worcester to the see of York, 

 which he held till his death in 1373.*' On 18 April 1364, Thoresby issued 

 a general mandate forbidding (as had often been done before) the holding of 

 markets, wrestling matches, archery, &c., in churchyards.^' In September of 

 the following year he issued an order to the parishioners of Worksop to desist 

 from wresthng, archery, dancing, and singing in their churchyard.'" The 

 chief care, however, of this excellent prelate was to endeavour, through the 

 spiritual agencies of the church, to dispel ignorance and to provide due intel- 

 ligible instruction for the people in the principles and articles of the Christian 

 faith. But his mandates in this respect, issued to all his archdeacons alike, 

 refer more appropriately to the county of York. 



Alexander Nevill, Archbishop of York from 1374 to 1388, when he 

 was deposed as a devoted adherent to the cause of Richard II, made no par- 

 ticular impression on any part of his diocese ; and the same may be said of 

 Thomas Arundel, who was translated to the primacy of Canterbury in 1397. 



^'^Hist. Papers from Northern Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 395- ^' Gasquet, Black Death (ed. z), 173. 



^ There are many of Archbishop Thoresby's letters in Cott. MS. Galba E. x, but none of them have 

 particular reference to Nottinghamshire. 



"York Epis. Reg. Thoresby, fol. 144. '"Raine, Hist, of Archbps. oj York, 463. 



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