And Forest the friar,
That obstinate liar,
That wilfully shall be dead;
In his contumacy
Of the Gospel, doth deny
The King to be Supreme Head.
[148] See the facts in Hall, Stow, and Godwin, abridged in the popular History quoted above.
[149] Warton, Monastic Influence on Poetry and the Fine Arts.
[150] Brit. Monach., Manners and Customs of Monks and Nuns.
[151] Opus citat. Brit. Monach.
[152] Fosbroke, in quotation of various ancient authors, p. 259.
[153] Gregory had a whip with which he threatened the young clerks and singing boys, when they were out, or failed in the notes; they also fasted the day before they were to chant, and constantly ate beans.—Hawkins’s Music. Fosbroke, p. 273.
[154] Knighton, a canon of St. Mary-le-Prè, has, to his own disgrace, recorded his bitter condemnation of the translation made by his contemporary Wickliffe:—“Christ intrusted his gospel,” says that ecclesiastic, “to the clergy and doctors of the church, to minister it to the laity and weaker sort, according to their exigencies and several occasions; but this Master John Wickliffe, by translating it, has made it vulgar, and has laid it more open to the laity, and even to women who can read, than it used to be to the most learned of the clergy, and those of the best understanding; and thus the gospel jewel, the evangelical feast, is thrown about and trodden under feet of swine.”—Decem Script. Col. 2644.
Such language, as an ingenious and learned divine has justly observed, was looked upon as good reasoning by the clergy of that day, who saw not with what satire it was edged against themselves.—Nichols’s Append. to the Hist. of Leicester, vol. i. p. 108. Fosbroke, p. 253.
[155] Fosbroke, p. 252.