(d) Appeals authorized by the Church, as Briefs, Indulgences, etc.—Bishops likewise issued briefs, or letters of recommendation, on behalf of institutions in their own dioceses or beyond. The infirm of Holy Innocents’, Lincoln, received from their diocesan a mandate (1294), ordering the parochial clergy to allow their agent to solicit alms after mass on three Sundays or festivals each year; later, the stipulation was added, that the Cathedral p188 fabric fund should not suffer thereby. A typical document is found in the Winchester Register in favour of St. Leonard’s, Bedford (1321). The mandate was addressed to the archdeacons, deans, rectors, vicars and chaplains, commanding them to receive accredited messengers of that needy hospital, to cause their business to be expounded by the priest during mass, after which the collection should be delivered without deduction. The brief was in force for two years and the clergy were bidden to help effectually by word and example at least once a year.
Episcopal Registers include many such documents, some being granted on special occasions, to make good losses by murrain, to enlarge premises, or to rebuild after fire, flood or invasion. Some briefs were not unlike modern appeals, with their lists of presidents and patrons; for that on behalf of Romney hospital (1380) was signed by both archbishops and eleven bishops. It was a recognized source of raising funds. John de Plumptre in making arrangements for his almshouse at Nottingham (1414), provided that the widows, for the bettering of their sustenance, should “have and hold an episcopal bull and indulgence . . . procured from the archbishops and bishops of England, Wales and Ireland.”[112]
It is curious to watch the increase of the privileges offered. The earlier bishops remitted penance for seven or thirteen days, those of a later period, for forty days. Roman indulgences knew no such limits. The form of a papal brief (1392) was as follows:—
“Relaxation of seven years and seven quadragene to penitents who on the principal feasts of the year and those of p189 St. James in the month of July and the dedication, the usual octaves and six days; and of a hundred days to those who during the said octaves and days visit and give alms for the sustentation and recreation of the chapel of St. James’ poor hospital without the walls, London.”
William, Lord Berkeley directed the executors of his will (1492):—
“to purchase a pardon from the court of Rome, as large as may be had, for this Chapple [Longbridge], from evensonge to evensonge, in the feast of Trinity for ever, for pleyne remission to them that will be confessed and contrite.”
Offerings stimulated by such pardons were in money or in kind. A deed belonging to the Bridport Corporation sets forth that the writer has seen letters from famous ecclesiastics—including St. Thomas and St. Edmund of Canterbury—in favour of Allington leper-house, one being an indulgence of Alexander IV:—
“Item, to alle thos that gevyn broche, rynge, boke, belle, candell, vestimente, bordclothe, towelle, pygge, lambe, wolle, peny, or penyworthe, be whiche the sayde hows and hospitale is amended and mentaynde, the sayd Pope grauntethe the remission of the vijth parte of penance injunct[ed].”
Thus the questionable trade of the pardoner[113] was often carried on by the hospital proctor; moreover, spurious bulls were circulated. The abuses to which the practice gave rise were recognized by Bishop Grandisson, who announced that questors collecting alms in the diocese of Exeter were forbidden to preach, or to sell fictitious privileges, or unauthorized pardons. A papal exhortation p190 on behalf of St. Anne’s, Colchester (1402), forbids these presents to be sent by pardoners (questuarii). Those who bought a pardon from the proctor of St. John’s, Canterbury, were informed that the benefit of 30,000 Paternosters and Ave Marias was freely imparted to them. But although indulgences were liable to abuse, it must be remembered that authorized pardons extended to penitents only—to those who, being contrite, had already confessed and received absolution and penance. Upon the indulgenced feast of St. Michael, so many people flocked to St. Mary’s, Leicester, that a special staff of confessors became necessary.