Formerly, when there were many good and mature rectors of churches resident there, the quarrels and dissensions which arose within a parish or between parishioners, were generally settled by the good handling and advice of such rectors, and there were few pleas and actions through lawyers.... But now, by the lack of such good rectors, strifes, quarrels, dissensions, actions and pleas are multiplied and prolonged, and thus the money, which might have gone to good works, owing to the number of the quarrels goes to the lawyers, advocates, and counsel; whence by the multiplication of such dissensions and actions, the number of these lawyers, jurists, advocates and defenders of evil (who defend evil for love or for fear of evil) is far greater than it need be. And yet many times the cause which has been pleaded long and at great expense is settled and concluded by the interference of the great.
THE TRIAL AND RECANTATION OF BISHOP PECOCK (1457).
Source.—An English Chronicle, edited by Davies, pp. 75-77. (Camden Society, 1856.)
And this same year, and the year of our Lord 1457, master Reginald Pecock, bishop of Chichester, a secular doctor of divinity that had laboured for many years for to translate Holy Scripture into English; passing the bonds of divinity and of Christian belief, was accused of certain articles of heresy, of the which he was convicted before the archbishop of Canterbury and other bishops and clerks, and utterly abjured, revoked and renounced the said articles openly at [St.] Paul's Cross in his mother tongue, as followeth hereafter: "In the name of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I, Reginald Pecock, bishop of Chichester unworthy, of my own power and will, without any manner of coercion or dread, confess and acknowledge that I here before this time, presuming of my natural wit, and preferring my judgement and natural reason before the New and the Old Testament, and the authority and determination of our Mother, Holy Church, have held, written and taught otherwise than the holy Roman and universal church teacheth, preacheth or observeth... and specially these heresies and errors following, that is to say:
'In primis, quod non est de necessitate fidei credere quod Dominus noster Ihesus Christus post mortem descendit ad inferos.
'Item, quod non est de necessitate salutis, credere in sanctorum communione.
'Item, quod ecclesia universalis potest errare in illis quæ sunt fidei.
'Item, quod non est de necessitate salutis credere et tenere illud quod consilium generale et universalis ecclesia statuit, approbat, seu determinat in favorem fidei et ad salutem animarum, est ab universis Christi fidelibus approbandum, credendum et tenendum.'[17]
[17] "First, that it is not necessary to faith to believe that our Lord Jesus Christ, after His death, descended into hell.
Item, that it is not necessary to salvation to believe in the communion of saints.