THE PRELUDE TO THE REFORMATION RICH_-\RD FOX, BISHOP OF \VINCHES:fEI<. STUDIES IN CHURCH HISTORY THE PRELUDE TO THE REFORMATION A STUDY OF ENGLISH CHURCH LIFE FROM THE AGE OF WYCLIFFE TO THE BREACH WITH ROME BY R. 'S. ARROWSMITH, M.A. R!:.CTO.R OF SEALE, SURREY WITH TWO PORTRAITS LONDON SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE N.&:W YORK AND TORONTO: THlt MACMILLAN CO .. Printed in Gnat Britain. PREFACE N the following pages an attempt is made to give, from I reliable contemporary documents~ some account of English Church life in the century and a half which preceded the breach with Rome. My treatment of the period lays no claim to being in any way adequate or exhaustive. Exigencies of space have precluded any treatment of the Friars, or of the survival and influence of Lollardy, or of the relation between the Renaissance and the Reformation. Each of these subjects demands (and deserves) a separate monograph. The present work is simply a sketch of certain aspects of Church life, and in no sense a formal history. What is termed the Reformation was no sudden Movement forced upon the Church by an obscure student in Germany, or by an autocratic sovereign in England, but was the result of causes which had long been at work, and which made reformation, in some form or another and sooner or later, inevitable. The Movement can, therefore, only be · understood by reference to the events which long preceded it, and to the life, work and general conditions-intellectual, social, political and religious-of the Church in the 15th and first quarter of the 16th centuries. During the last few years much new light has been thrown upon Church life during this period by the publication of a number of episcopal registers, more particularly the splendid series of those of the Bishops of Hereford, edited by Canon Bannister ; and by the recent publication of the very full , and illuminating episcopal Visitations of certain religious houses in the diocese of Lincoln in the first half of the 15th century. These Visitations, edited by Mr. Hamilton vi PREFACE Thompson, form the most valuable material yet discovered for giving us a knowledge of the internal life of the houses to which they relate. Similar visitations are not known to have survived, so that it is not likely that much further light of a similar nature can in future be thrown upon the internal conditions of the religious houses. It may, perhaps, be objected that in the following pages the less attractive side of Church life has been emphasised at the expense of the brighter and happier. The criticism is just. There are, however, several books (easily accessible), such as the writings of Cardinal Gasquet, which deal with this latter aspect of Church life ; and it would have been superfluous to repeat what has been so well done by abler writers. It must also be remembered that the period dealt with is a period of decline, when the Church was suffering from spiritual apathy, ecclesiastical abuses, and the depres­ sing atmosphere of a difficult time. As.. Bishop Stubbs says in the chapter which closes his great work: "The most enthusiastic admirer of medieval life must grant that. all that was good and great in it was languishing even to death. The sun of the Plantagenets went down in clouds and thick darkness ; the coming of the Tudors gave as yet no promise of light." "The attenuated life of the later Middle Age is in thorough discrepancy with the grand conceptions of the earlier times." "Literature has reached the lowest depths of dulness : religion, so far as its chief results are traceable, has sunk, on the one hand into a dogma fenced about with walls which its defenders cannot pass either inward or out­ ward, on the other hand into a mere war-cry of the cause of destruction."1 We cannot expect to find the Church at its best in an age like that. Nor do we ; and the evidence must be fairly faced. Yet in forming conclusions it must not be forgotten that institutions (like individuals) may legitimately claim to be judged at their best rather than at their worst, by 1 Connit. Hiat., Ill, pp. 632, 634. PREFACE vii their virtues quite as much as by their faults, by their Positive achievements more than_ ~y their defi~iencie~ and . failures. The history of the Christian Church, 1s a history of vicissitudes and a strange and perplexing blend of ages of spiritual languor and decadence with ages of faith and revival. •The 15th century is only an episode in Church history, which must be surveyed as a whole ; for there is always the danger, in dealing with a period of decline, of placing undue emphasis upon the dark side. The object of the following pages is certainly not to bring a general indictment against the later medieval Church, its clergy and institutions, but rather to show from reliable contemporary evidence the conditions which prevailed in the English Church in a difficult and depressing period, as well as to indicate the pressing need of radical reform in so many departments of Church life. It might not have been difficult, by undue emphasis on darker aspects, to frame an indictment, more particularly from the. Visitation docu­ ments (to which readers are referred in order that they may form their own conclusions) relating to certain religious houses. But I have had no wish either to frame an indict­ ment or to compose a panegyric, but rather to write of things as they are, remembering the warning:- Nothing extenuate Nor set down aught in malice. I can only trust that the evidence has been fairly given, and that no prejudiced or unjustifiable conclusions have been drawn. That I have succeeded in this aim, I am not (I hope) so foolish as to suppose. · Though I neither wish nor ask for a more lenient judg­ ment on that account, yet it is obvious that a country pal'Son, living far from books and libraries, distracted (too) from study by parochial duties, has neither the opportunity . nor_the leisure to deal so thoroughly or so accurately with 'a _difficult subject as professional students who live in the midst of public libraries and intellectual life. This will viii PREFACE account for (though not excuse) many defects in the following pages. In conclusion, I should like to express my sincere thanks to Mr. G. G. Coulton of Cambridge for his kindness in lending me books and referring me to authorities; and to Mr. Hamilton Thompson for allowing me to quote from his Introduction to the Lincoln Visitations, and for the trouble which he so readily and kindly took in reading the proofs of Chapter VII, as well as for his invaluable advice. Neither of these scholars is responsible for any of the opinions expressed or for any of the conclusions drawn in the book. To the late Canon Vaughan (a personal friend), whose recent death is so great a loss to the diocese of Winchester, I am indebted for invaluable help with the unpublished register of Bishop Fox. R. S. A. November, 1922. CONTENTS CB..lPTBR PAGE I. THB LATER MEDIEVAL BISHOP • I II. THE LATER MEDIEVAL CATHEDRAL AND COLLEGIATE CLERGY 16 III. SOME TYPES OF THE LATER MEDIEVAL PARISH CLERGY • 30 IV. GROWING TENSION WITH ROME • 72 V. POWERS AND PRIVILEGES OF THE LATER MEDIEVAL CHURCH 92 VI. COLET AND THE NEW MOVEMENT FOR EDUCATIONAL REFORM . , 113 VII. SIDELIGHTS, MAINLY FROM THE VISITATION DOCUMENTS, UPON CERTAIN OF THE ENGLISH RELIGIOUS HOUSES AFTER THE BLACK DEATH 142 VIII. CONCLUSION 202 APPENDIX. EPISCOPAL INCOMES FROM THE " VALOR ECCLESIASTICUS '' 215 INDEX 217 ILLUSTRATIONS RICHARD Fox, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER • Frontispiece F'rom a Portrait in Farnham Castle. b11 permission of lhe Bishop of Winchester. JOHN COLET, DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S Facing page 112 ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE No·:fEs Arch. Archreologia. Coll. Collectanea Anglo-Premonstrotensia; 3 vols. (Camden Soc.), ed. by Cardinal Gasquet. [Visitations by Bishop Redman of the Premonstratensian Ho1.1£1es in England, in the last quarter of the 15th century.] Concilia.. Ooncilia Magnre Britannire et Hiberniai, 446-1717, 4 vols., ed. David Wilkins, 1737. Coulton, Soeial Life. Social Life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation, by G. G. Coulton. D.N.B. Dictionary -0/ National Biography. Deanesley. The Lollard Bible, by Miss Deanesley. Dugdale. Monaeticon, 3 vols., 1655-73, by David Dugdale. E.E.T.S. Early English Text Society. Educ. Charters. Edu~ational Charters, ed. by A. F. Leach. Gascoigne. The Dictionary of Thrology, by Dr. Thomas Gascoigne, ed. Thorold Rogera. Gasquet, Monasteries. Henry VIII and the English Monasteries, by Cardinal Gasquet. Gee and Hardy. Documents Illustrative of English Church History, ed. by Gee and Hardy. Italian Relation. A Relation of the Island of England, c. 1600, by an Italian (Camden Soc.). L.V. Visitations of Religious Houses in the Diocese of Lincoln, from the Registers of Plemyng, Gray and Alnwick, ed. by A. Hamilton Thompson. xi xii ABBREVIATIONS Lee.dam, Select Cases. Sekct Oases before the Star Ohamber, 1477- 1509, ed. I. S. Leadam. L. and P. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII, ed. Brewer. (Rolls Series.) Liber Albus. The Liber Albus of Worcester Cathedral Priory, ed. Canon Wilson. Lupton. Life of Dean Oolet, by J. H. Lupton. N.V. Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich, 1492- 1532, ed. Jessopp. P.L. Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner. Rashdall. Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, by H. Rashdall. Reg. Register. Savine. English Monasteries on the Eve of the Reformation ( Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History), by Prof.