FOOTNOTES:

[366] Cf. T. Amyot, Population of English Cities, temp. Ed. III. (Archæologia, Vol. xx, pp. 524–531).

[367] England before and after the Black Death (Fortnightly Review, Vol. viii, p. 191).

[368] W. Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, p. 304.

[369] Fortnightly Review, viii, p. 192. This is, of course, true, but without qualification might give the reader a false impression as to the condition of the English peasant in the middle ages. Most of what Mr. Thorold Rogers says is applicable to all classes of society. Dr. Cunningham (Growth of English Industry and Commerce, p. 275) takes a truer view: "Life is more than meat, and though badly housed the ordinary villager was better fed and amused."

[370] B. Mus. Cott. MS., Faust, B. v, fol. 99b.

[371] R. O., Originalia Roll, 26 Ed. III., m. 27.

[372] Ibid., 27 Ed. III., m. 19.

[373] Ibid., 26 Ed. III., m. 25.

[374] Ed. Twysden, col. 2699.

[375] B. Mus. Cott. MS., Faust, B. v, fol. 98b.

[376] R. O., Q. R. Mins. Accts., Bundle 801, No. 1.

[377] Introduction, p. ix.

[378] Of course, several of these would be ordained for other dioceses, but in the same way Winchester priests would be ordained by letters dimissory elsewhere, so that taking the whole of England we may assume a practical equalisation. In the diocese of London, as already stated (p. 175 ante), the proportion of non-beneficed to beneficed clergy ordained during 12 years, from 1362 to 1374, was nearly six to one.

[379] Pope, Essay on Man, lines 107–8.

[380] Mr. Thorold Rogers' supposition that the population in 1348 was only about 2,500,000 would, on the assumption that the two sexes were about equal in number, lead to the conclusion that one man in every 25 was a priest; a suggestion which seems to bear, on the face of it, its own refutation.

[381] Amyot (Archæologia, xx, p. 531) notes that even soldiers appear to have been better paid than the clergy. A foot soldier had 3d. a day, or 7 marks a year; a horse soldier 10d. or 12d. a day. Chaucer's good parson, who was only "rich of holy thought and werk," might not be remarkable.

[382] Ed. Twysden, col. 2699.

[383] Mr. Baigent's MS. extracts from the Episcopal Registers. It is of interest to note that in normal times very few were ordained after their appointment as incumbents. Thus, to take the churches in the city of Winchester, besides this period and 1361, when again the mortality among the clergy was very great, only some 8 or 9 were so ordained between 1349 and 1361, as the following table will show:—

1346 1348 1349 1350 1351 1352
1 1 19 8 4 1
 
1354 1359 1361 1362 1363
2 1 5 1 1

[384] Harl. MS., 6965, fol. 145 (7 Id. Julii, 1349).

[385] Ibid., fol. 146b.

[386] B. Mus. Cole MS., 5824, fol. 23b.

[387] For the real meaning to be attached to learning the Pater noster, etc., see my article on Religious Instruction in England in the 14th and 15th Centuries, in Dublin Review, Oct., 1893, p. 900.

[388] Mr. Baigent's MS. collections.

[389] From 1400 to 1418 the average was 17, from 1447 to 1467 only 18.

[390] Reg. Trileck, fol. 180 seqq.

[391] Reg. Trileck, fol. 163.

[392] Archbishop Islip founded Canterbury College at Oxford to supply the failing ranks of the clergy and to increase the facilities of learning (Wilkins, iii., p. 52), and William of Wykeham likewise established his schools and colleges with the same object.

[393] In the diocese of London, in the twelve years, from 1362 to 1374, Bishop Sudbury ordained 1,046 seculars and 456 regulars, the proportion consequently being about 2·3 to 1. In the last twenty years of the century, namely, from 1381 to 1401, Bishop Braybroke ordained to the priesthood only 584 seculars, whilst the regulars were 425 during the same period. In other words, during the first period, the average annual number of ordinations to the ranks of the secular clergy in the diocese of London was over 87; during the last twenty years of the century it was only 29·2. The averages of the regulars in the corresponding periods were 35 and 21·2. Similar results appear from the York registers.

[394] Archbp. Islip at this time (1350) says: "Dum ad memoriam reducimus admirandam pestilentiam que nuper partes istas subito sic invasit, ut nobis multo meliores et digniores subtraxerat."

[395] Annales Minorum, viii, p. 22.

[396] Growth of English Industry and Commerce, p. 275.

[397] The Annali della fabbrica, published by the Cathedral administration, show in the minutest detail the organisation by which the necessary funds were raised, and enable us to see how it was popular enterprise by which so noble an undertaking was achieved. We can now realise the weekly collections made by willing citizens from door to door, the collections in the churches, the monthly sales of offerings in kind of the most varied nature, jewels, dresses, linen, pots and pans, divers articles of dress and domestic use. Every one, rich and poor alike, felt impelled to join in some way in the work which, as the words of the originators express it, "was begun by Divine inspiration to the honour of Jesus Christ and His most Spotless Mother." Cf. an article by Mr. Edmund Bishop on the subject in the Downside Review, July, 1893.

THE END.

INDEX.