The Church, in the Yorkist days, had deteriorated. The devil's compact between Archbishop Arundel and Henry of Bolingbroke, by which Bishops were to be allowed to burn heretics on condition that the usurpation was upheld by the Church, had alienated the people. The Act De heretico comburendo was not a dead letter. There were many innocent sufferers. Henry of Monmouth was a fanatic. He argued with heretics and would gladly pardon on recantation, but if his victim did not recant he was actually present at executions and witnessed the cruel tortures. Caxton, some years after Henry's death (1439), saw with horror the burning on Tower Hill of the good Vicar of Deptford, whose love and charity had endeared him to the poor. Such scenes would not endear the Bishops to the people. The prelates were self-seeking politicians for the most part, and occasionally the people made short work of them. When Bishop de Moleyns, then Lord Privy Seal, came down to Portsmouth to pay the sailors and kept back some of their dues, he was seized by the mob and hanged in front of God's House. Bishop Ayscough of Salisbury met a similar fate. Mr. Thorold Rogers formed a very bad opinion of the clergy of the fifteenth century. He says 'the Bishops were on the whole bad men, parochial clergy not much better, monks worst of all. People deserted them for the secret but stirring exhortations of the Bible men.' But there were exceptions. Dr. Russell of Lincoln, King Richard's Chancellor, was a prelate and statesman of the highest integrity, so were Stillington of Bath and Wells, Alcock of Worcester, and Langton of St. David's.
The great monasteries still stood, in all their glorious architectural beauty, among the woodlands and by the trout streams; and charity was dispensed by their inmates. Religious foundations like Middleham College by King Richard, and Acaster College by Bishop Stillington, attest the piety of the age; and religious buildings proceeded apace. The beautiful chapel of St. George at Windsor was approaching completion in King Richard's time, and many fine church towers, especially in Suffolk, date from this period.
There were superstitious pilgrimages to shrines such as those of St. Thomas at Canterbury and of Our Lady at Walsingham, while obits and saints' days were scrupulously observed. Letters were almost always referred to saints' days, scarcely ever to the days of the month. In the 'Paston Letters' we have 'Monday next after St. Edmund the King,' 'the day next after St. Kateryn,' 'St. Pernall,' 'St. Leonard's Eve,' 'St. Erkenwald's,' and so on: even, in one instance, the date is fixed by the collect of the preceding Sunday. 'Wednesday next after Deus qui errantibus.' This seems to show that religion, or at least its rites and ceremonies, was really part of the actual life of the people. Miracle plays, such as those performed by the Corpus Christi guild at York, served to keep alive an interest in religion. There were also allegorical plays, and it seems that 'Every Man,' which has interested so many in these modern times, may have been acted before, and have impressed audiences in the days of the Yorkist kings.
The Church and the law
The law was presided over by conscientious and learned judges. Old Fuller says of Markham and Fortescue that they were the 'Chief Justices of the Chief Justices.' Markham boldly resisted any attempt to intimidate him, and by his firm stand against King Edward established an important maxim in constitutional law. He did not confine his judgments to the bench, but upbraided evil-doers when he met them in the street. John Heydon, Recorder of Norwich, was stopped by the judge and brought to book in public, for putting away his wife and living with another; and also for his unjust conduct towards John Paston, in enforcing the doubtful claim of Lord Moleyns.
Condition of the people
But the country was in a lawless state. Upright judgments were pronounced, but they could not always be enforced. Noblemen, like Lord Moleyns, occasionally acted in defiance of the law, and often there was no redress. We hear of 'a great multitude of misruled people at the house of Robert Ledeham who issue at their pleasure, sometimes thirty and more, armed in steel caps and jackets, with bows and bills, overriding the country, oppressing the people, and doing many horrible and abominable deeds.' There is a letter from Paston's wife reporting that 'they have made bars to bar the doors crossways, and wickets at every corner of the house to shoot out at, both with bows and hand guns.' This sounds like an expected siege. For she adds—'My worshipful husband, I pray you to get some cross bows and wyndacs with quarrels, for your holes have been made so low that my men cannot shoot out with a long bow, though we had ever so much need. Also get two or three short pole axes to keep the doors.' Then we are told of Robert Letham killing John Wilson's bullocks for arrears of rent, eating them, and then beating Wilson himself in Plumstead churchyard until he was in doubt of his life, besides beating John Coke's mother. When Sir Philip Wentford wants to settle a dispute, instead of going to law, he rides to Colchester with a hundred armed men. These were not altogether peaceful times. They were exciting, full of adventure, and there was much fun to be got out of them. Different, more eventful, perhaps less safe, than our days of policemen and penitentiaries, but far from unendurable.
These were trifles, and on the whole the country gentry of the fifteenth century lived in comfort on their manors. These manors included the lord's domain cultivated by his bailiff, the small estates of freeholders paying quit rents, the tenements and lands of the labourers held for services, and the waste or common on which all tenants had right of pasture. The manor house was usually built of stone, though brick was beginning to come into use. The house was generally divided into three principal rooms: the hall, the dormitories, and the solar or parlour with a southern aspect. In the hall the family and household dined. It was also used for the manor courts, for levying fines, and passing judicial sentences. The table was on trestles, there were a few stools and benches, and some chests for linen. Here would also be seen a pot of brass, several dishes, platters, and trenchers, iron or lateen candlesticks, a brass ewer and basin, and a box of salt. The walls were hung with mattocks, scythes, reaping hooks, buckets and corn measures. In the dairy were the pails, pans, churn, and cheese press. In the grange were the sacks of corn.
The manor land was ploughed twice, but half the arable remained fallow. When harvest was over pigs and geese were turned into the stubble. The means of supporting the stock in winter depended upon the supply of hay, for there were no root crops. The rest of the stock had to be killed down for salting on St. Martin's day (November 11). In the garden and orchard were apples and pears, damsons, cherries, currants, strawberries, kitchen herbs, onions and leeks, mustard, peas and beans, and cabbage. Crab apples were collected to make verjuice.