THE LOLLARD’S TOWER, LAMBETH PALACE
Engraved by J. Greig, from a drawing by J. Whichelo.
Again, of bequests to the various Orders, between 1356 and 1412, there are 110, between 1412 and 1544 there are only 7. The contemplation of these figures, the amazing falling-off of such bequests in the beginning of the fifteenth century, when Lollardy was rife, the failure of the Friars to recover their old position of reverence, goes far to show why in London the suppression of the Religious Houses was effected with so little opposition. The people had ceased to believe in the holiness of the Friars; as for that of the monks, it was perhaps different, as we shall see in another place.
Since we have spoken of the decay of belief in the Friars, let us also speak of the respect actually paid to them when their popularity was at its height.
Shortly after the Black Death, a letter was sent by the Mayor and Aldermen to the Pope, asking that a certain John de Werthyn, a Dominican Friar, might be appointed Penitentiarius to the City. The office itself was important. In Confession there were continually occurring certain cases not provided for in the instructions of the ordinary priest. In such a case the priest could only grant conditional absolution. He referred it to his Bishop, who either decided it himself, or, if it was one of an unusual and difficult kind, passed it on to the Penitentiarius. If he, too, found the case too grave for his decision, he referred it to the College or Court of Penitentiaries at Rome, on whose official report the Pope generally acted. The Mayor and Aldermen, after a preamble to the effect that their City had been of late grievously afflicted by a dreadful mortality, so that the merchants were not able to wait in person upon his Holiness, proceeded to petition the Pope that he would “grant unto the venerable and religious man, Brother John de Werthyn, his chaplain, a man of honour, of approved life and manners, and also of learning, sprung from the high blood of the realm, who alone of all others strengthens us with the word of Christ, that he and he only, within the City may be able to absolve the people being penitent.” They go on to ask that the office, at his death, may be continued in the Order of the Dominican Friars.
The satires against the Religious Orders began within the very century of their foundation in England. One, for example, given in Thomas Wright’s Political Poems, belongs to the reign of Edward the First. It is the poem called “The Order of Fair Ease.” The Order of Fair Ease takes a point from every Order, of course it takes the weak point in every case. To begin with, the Order is entirely confined to gentlefolk—one wonders whether Rabelais had read this satire, and whether any part of it suggested the Abbey of Thelema.
“Quar en l’Ordre est meint prodhoume,
E meinte bele e bone dame.
En cel ordre sunt sanz blame,
Esquiers, vadletz, e serjauntz;
Mès à ribaldz e à pesauntz