XVIII Royal Articles of Edward VI. I547. THE general visitation of 1547 was the project of Somerset, the Protector. The kingdom was divided into six sections, among thirty clerical and lay visitors. The clergy numbered only ten, including six licensed preachers, who seem to have had orders to preach against many customs not mentioned in the Injunctions. The laymen were lawyers and non-resident in the place visited. As in Henry's visitations, the ordinary power of the bishops, archdeacons, and other ordinaries was suspended. The visitors had the power of administering articles and injunctions of their own, and most likely of acting by deputy. Burnet and Aubrey Moore agree in saying that this Royal Visitation owes its authority to 31 Henry VIII, c. 8, "the most unconstitutional statute of Henry's reign which made a proclamation equivalent to an Act of Parliament" (Moore, Hist. of Refm. p. 171). Two bishops stood out against the Visitation, Gardiner and Bonner, as contrary to the constitution. Both were committed to the Fleet. For a full account of the Visitation see Dixon. [Transc. The Bonner Register, f. 273ˇ.] Articles for Bishops, Archdeacons, Ecclesiastical Officers. 1. First, Whether that the bishop, archdeacons and other, having jurisdiction ecclesiastical, have caused only to be said or sung the English procession in their cathedral church, and other churches of their diocese. 2. Item, Whether your bishop, chancellor, commissary, archdeacon or official be propense and light in excommunicating of men for a little lucre. 3. Item, Whether they or any of them for one man's trespass have taken away from the people and the whole parishioners their Divine Service, as for violating and suspending the churchyards, and such like. Articles' to be enquired of in the King's Majesty's Visitation. 4. Item, Whether they do take excessive sums of money for consecrating again either of the churchyards or of any other ornaments for the use of altars, or of bells, where is no need of consecration, but is superstitious and lucrative. 5. Item, Whether that they or any of them take any great exactions for institutions, inductions, assignations of pensions, or for any other matter ecclesiastical. 6. Item, Whether they do lightly call any persons before them ex officio, and put them to their purgation, without urgent suspicion or infamy proved. 7. Item, Whether the bishop have not preached without dissimulation against the usurped power of the bishop of Rome, and set forth the King's Majesty's jurisdiction to be the only supreme power in all his realms and dominions. 8. Item, Whether the bishop have personally preached in of your churches, or anywhere within this diocese, and how oft in the year. any 9. Item, Whether he and his officers have diligently executed for their part our late King's Injunctions, and his letters missives, for a due order in the religion of Christ, and caused the said Injunctions and letters to be diligently put cution through his diocese. 10. Item, Whether he hath learned and discreet officers under him, that do without any respect of persons punish such crimes as appertaineth to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. 11. Item, Whether he or any of his officers do take any money or other gift to hide and cloak adultery or any other notorious vice, that ought by them to be punished. 12. Item, If any commutation of penance have been made to any pecuniary man, to what purpose the same hath been converted, and what good deeds hath been done with the same, and specify the said deeds. 13. Item, Whether the bishop hath such chaplains about 'In the Register this appears in Latin on the margin-“Articuli Inquirendi in Visitatione Regia." There are no numbers and no headings in the Register except the last. 2 These articles, 9-13, are at the end in the Register, under the heading, "More for the Bishop." him, as be able to preach the word of God, and do the same purely and sincerely, and how oft in the year, how many they be, and what be their names. Articles for parsons, vicars, curates. 14. Item, Whether parsons, vicars, curates, and every of No. 1. First them, have justly and truly, without dissimulation, preached Ryl Injcts against the usurped power and pretensed authority and jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome. (1536). 15. Item, Whether they have preached and declared that Ibid. the King's Majesty's power, authority and pre-eminence is, within this realm and the dominions of the same, the most supreme and highest under God. 16. Item, Whether any person hath by writing, cyphering, printing, preaching or teaching, deed or act, obstinately holden and stand with, to extol, set forth, maintain or defend the authority, jurisdiction or power of the bishop of Rome or of his see, heretofore claimed and usurped: or by any pretence obstinately or maliciously invented anything for the extolling of the same or any part thereof. 17. Item, Whether they have declared to their parishioners No. 3. ibid the articles concerning the abrogation of certain superfluous and note. holy-days, and done their endeavour to persuade their said parishioners to keep and observe the same articles inviolably: and whether any of these abrogated days hath since the said abrogation been kept as holy-days, contrary to the said articles, and by whose occasion' they were so kept. 18. Item, Whether there do remain not taken down in your No. 7. churches, chapels, or elsewhere, any misused images, with Second Ry pilgrimages, clothes, stones, shoes, offerings, kissings, candle- Injcts(1538 sticks, trindles of wax, and such other like: and whether there do remain not delayed and destroyed any shrines, covering of shrines, or any other monument of idolatry, superstition and hypocrisy. 19. Item, Whether they have not diligently taught upon 1 For a similar request compare Cranmer, Remains, p. 347. 266 “Shoes” and “Kissings" were condemned by The Homily of Good Works (1547). The reference to "shrines" and "covering of shrines" is rather superfluous, as few, if any, survived Henry's iconoclasm. No. 4. ibid. the Sundays and holy-days their parishioners, and specially the youth, their Pater Noster, the Articles of our Faith, and the Ten Commandments in English; and whether they have expounded and declared the understanding of the same. No. 6. First 20. Item, Whether they have diligently, duly and reverently Ryl Injcts ministered the sacraments in their cures. (1538). 21. Item, Whether such beneficed men as be lawfully absent from their benefices do leave their cure to a rude and unlearned person, and not to an honest, well-learned and expert curate. No. 5. Lee's 22. Item, Whether they have provided and laid in some Injcts for convenient place in the church, where they have cure, a Bible York (1538). of the largest volume in English. No. 8. First 23. Item, Whether parsons, vicars, curates, chantry-priests Ryl Injcts and other stipendiaries be common haunters and resorters to (1536) taverns and alehouses, giving themselves to excessive drinking, rioting and playing at unlawful games, and apply not themselves chiefly to the study of Scripture, teaching of youth, or some other honest and godly exercise. No. 6. ibid. 24. Item, Whether they be resident upon their benefices and note. and keep hospitality or no; and if they be absent or keep No. 9. ibid. no hospitality, whether they do make due distribution amongst the poor parishioners or not. No. 10. ibid. No. 11. ibid. No.5.Second 25. Item, Whether they, having yearly to dispend in spiritual promotions an hundred pound, do not find competently one scholar in any university, or at some grammar-school; and for as many hundred pounds as every of them may dispend, so many scholars likewise be found by them, and what be their names that they so find. 26. Item, Whether they keep their chancels, rectories, vicarages, and all other houses appertaining to them, in due reparations. 27. Item, Whether they have every Lent required their Ryl Injts parishioners in their confession to recite their Pater Noster, (1538). the Articles of our Faith, and the Ten Commandments in English. 28. Item, Whether they have counselled or moved their parishioners rather to pray in a tongue not known than in English; or to put their trust in any prescribed number of prayers, as in saying over a number of beads, or other No. 6. ibid. like. 29. Item, Whether they have preached or caused to be preached purely and sincerely the Word of God and the faith of Christ in every of their cures every quarter of the year once at the least; exhorting their parishioners to the works. commanded by Scripture, and not to works devised by man's fantasies. 30. Item, Whether in their sermons they have exhorted the No. 5. First fathers and mothers, masters and governors of youth, to bring Ryl Injets them up in some virtuous study or occupation. (1536). 31. Item, Whether they have exhorted the people to obe- No. 1. ibid. dience to the King's Majesty and his officers, and to charity and love one to another. No. 8. Bon ner's Injcts for London (1542). 32. Item, whether they have moved the people to read and hear the Scripture in English, and have not discouraged them from reading and hearing of the same, such as be not prohi- Ryl Injcts bited so to do. No. 7. First (1538). Ryl Injcts (1536) and 33. Item, Whether they have declared to their parishioners No.3.Second that they ought to know and understand the Pater Noster, the Ryl Injcts Articles of our Faith and the Ten Commandments in English, before they should receive the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. No.5.Second 34. Item, Whether they have taught the people the true use (1538). of images; which is only to put them in remembrance of the godly and virtuous lives of them that they do represent: and have taught that if the said people use the images for any other purpose, they commit idolatry to the great danger of their souls. 1 35. Item, Whether they have declared and to their wits and power have persuaded the people, that the manner and 1 Early in 1542 Henry VIII, in consequence of the dearth of fish, issued a proclamation, declaring abstinence from milk, butter, eggs, cheese, and other white meats to be a mere positive law of the Church and used by a custom within this realm, and therefore dispensable for good reasons by kings and princes. Temporary dispensations were granted (Church Times, March 24, 1899). Attacks were made on fasting in Lent in 1547. Stowe records (Flores, p. 1,001, that in April, 1547," Dr Glasier preached at Paul's Cross, and affirmed that the Lent was not ordained of God to be fasted, neither the eating of flesh to be forborne, but that the same was a politic ordinance of men, and might No. 7. ibid. |