[609] Ibid., ii. p. 54.
[610] Matthew Paris (under 1250 A.D.) relates a case in which Bishop Grostete deprived a clerk accused of incontinency; the clerk refused to give up his benefice; the bishop excommunicated him; at the end of forty days of grace, the clerk still refusing to submit, the bishop sent word to the sheriff to take and imprison him as contumacious; the sheriff, being a great friend of the clerk and no friend of the bishop, delayed or refused; the bishop thereupon excommunicated the sheriff; he complained to the king; the king applied to the pope, and obtained an order restraining the bishop (M. Paris, v. 109).
[611] “Greenfield’s Register,” quoted in Church Times, March 11, 1898.
[612] “Grostete’s Letters,” Rolls Series, p. 48.
[613] S.P.C.K., “Lichfield,” p. 178.
[614] “Durham Ecclesiastical Proceedings,” p. 47.
[615] There is a picture of the confession of clerics in the MS. 6 E. VII. f. 506 verso.
[616] S.P.C.K., “Rochester,” p. 224.
[617] Matthew Paris, v. 223.
[618] S.P.C.K., “Hereford,” p. 87.