Robert Hyndmer, Rector of Sedgefield’s will, 1558, is accompanied by a very full inventory of the house furniture and belongings of a well-to-do man. He leaves, among other things, a ring of gold with a dark ruby in it, and another gold ring with a red seal of an image; 180 ounces of plate at 5s. the ounce, and in money and gold, £116.
John Honynghym, Rector of Waldegrave, 1417, leaves 100s. for the making of a vestment for use at the high altar of the church of St. Peter, in Walgraf, London. He leaves his “best bible,” which begins In So filio dei in actibus [sic], also his portiforium of the Use of York. He leaves to William Bryht, Rector of S. Michael’s, Cornhill, a gilt zone, which is in his hospitium in London, as recompense for having kept a book of his called “Gorham Copwood”; and leaves his sword to Nicholas Dixon. He leaves a book called “Speculum Curatorum,” a book of sermons which the late Prior of Bartholomew’s composed, Gorham super Mattheum, Bartholomeus de Casibus, his great missal, and great new portiforium.
Robert Newby, Rector of Whyttchurche, and official of the Archdeacon of Oxford, 1412, leaves to his brother his sword, etc., and to his daughter his scarlet gown.
Thomas de la Mare, Canon of York, A.D. 1258, bequeaths 2 falcons to his brother and cousin. He mentions his falconer among his servants, and leaves him a “laner” and 20s. He had several horses, the names of some being given; one was “Turnebull,” another, “Bayard de Wirethorp,” and a third, “Morell de Welwick.”
Says the author of “Dives and Pauper,” “These men of holy church that buckle their shoes of silver and use great silver harness in their girdles and knives, and men of religion—monks and canons and such like—that use great ouches of silver and gold on their capes to fasten their hoods against the wind, and ride on high horses with saddles harnessed with gold and silver more pompously than lords, are strong thieves and do great sacrilege, so spending the goods of holy church on vanity and pride, in lust of the flesh, by which things the poor should live.”
Some of these clergymen, it will be noticed, had one black toga, not for usual wear in Divine service, for we shall see elsewhere that the clergy wore their albes over the red and blue gowns of ordinary use, but perhaps for mourning occasions. Thus, in the presentations of York Cathedral, in 1519, “we thynke it were convenient that whene we fetche a corse to the churche, that we shulde be in our blak abbettes mornyngly (habits mourningly) wt our hodes of the same of our hedes, as is used in many other places.”
The use by the clergy of clothes of a dark colour was probably coming in in the latter part of the fifteenth century. Holinshed, the chronicler of Elizabeth, attributes this change to the influence of the universities:
Before the universities bound their graduates to a stable attire, afterwards usurped also even by the blind Sir Johns, “the clergy wore garments of a light hue, as yellow, red, green, etc., with their shoes piked, their hair crisped, their girdles armed with silver, their shoes, spurs, bridles, etc., buckled with like metal, their apparel (for the most part) of silk, and richly furred, their caps laced and buttoned with gold.”[182]
