openly noised of incontinent living in their bodies, contrary to their order, be it enacted, ordained, and established, that it be lawful to all archbishops and bishops, and other ordinaries having episcopal jurisdiction, to punish and chastise such religious men, being within the bounds of their jurisdiction, as shall be convict before them, by lawful proof, of adultery, fornication, incest, or other fleshly incontinency, by committing them to ward and prison, there to remain for such time as shall be thought convenient for the quality of their trespasses.'[1]
Previous to the passing of this Act, therefore, the bishops, who had power to arrest laymen on suspicion of heresy, and detain them in prison untried,[2] had no power to imprison priests, even though convicted of adultery or incest. The legislature were supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Cardinal Morton procured authority from the Pope to visit the religious houses, the abominations of which had become notorious;[3] and in a provincial synod held on the 24th of February, 1486, he laid the condition of the secular clergy before the assembled prelates. Many priests, it was stated, spent their time in hawking or hunting, in lounging at taverns, in the dissolute enjoyment of the
- ↑ 1 Hen. VII. cap. 4. Among the miscellaneous publications of the Record Commission, there is a complaint presented during this reign, by the gentlemen and the farmers of Carnarvonshire, accusing the clergy of systematic seduction of their wives and daughters; and see a Petition of the Clergy of the Diocese of Bangor, in a subsequent volume of this work.
- ↑ 2 Hen. IV. cap. 15.
- ↑ Morton's Register, MS. Lambeth. See vol. ii. cap.
