an A HISTORY OF NORFOLK d rapacity which he practised and the audacity of his demands. The council at which he presided in St. Paul's however, in November, 1237, marked an epoch in the history of the Church of England, and the constitu- tions ac^reed to showed on their face a desire to cope with the evils which required remedy. If the legate were to be judged by them only, he might almost be regarded as one of the serious reformers of his age. Unhappily it seems that these were Httle more than a dead letter. When Ottobon, twenty- eight years later, called another council, this time again in St. PaulV the canons enacted by Ottobon were re-enacted or confirmed, and some new ones added. They give us a deplorable picture of the condition of religion in Eno-land. Churches had been pulled down on pretence of repairing them ;" others had been left unconsecrated for years ; parishes were in charge of deacons or even acolytes, the people being compelled to resort to the itinerant friars for absolution or the sacrament of the altar ; over-laxity prevailed in admitting candidates for holy orders, and illegal fees were demanded for services which should have been free to all. But the re-enactment of the canons of Ottobon goes far to prove that the previous legislation had been inoperative. The laws may have been excellent, but they were not put in force. From this time things did tend somewhat to improve, though the practice of robbing the country clergy of their incomes, and handing those incomes over to religious houses, many of which were almost entirely useless foundations, increased, and acted at least as much to the prejudice of the people as to that of the clerical order. Bishop Roger's episcopate is memor- able for the very serious conflict between the citizens of Norwich and the monks of the priory in 1272. There had been bad blood for a long time between the citizens and the monks of the Norwich priory, as had been the case at Bury St. Edmunds, at Colchester, and elsewhere ; and the ill-feeling was increasing. The monks had lost the confidence and respect of the trading classes, who had every- where been transferring their allegiance to the friars. Things came to a crisis in July, 1272, in consequence of a brawl and a free fight at a great gathering on Tombland — the open space outside the precincts of the cathedral close on the west — where a high wall separated the close from the liberties of the citizens. The chief entrance to the close was through the great gates, and the Great Wall ran apparently straight from this gate in a northerly direction, as far as what is now Palace Street. On Sunday, 8 August, 1272, the prior, anticipating a serious outbreak of violence, brought up from Yarmouth a band of mercenaries fully armed and equipped. These ruffians that same night sallied out into the city, and by their excesses drove the citizens wild. Next day a body of the citizens made a furious attack upon the great gates of the monastery, and set them on fire, and in the conflagration which ensued the whole range of buildings abutting on the great western wall was consumed by the flames. Of course there was some looting and robbing, much savage violence and sacrilege, and thirteen of the defenders of the monastery were slain in the conflict. But it seems that the monks, by the help of their Yarmouth men-at-arms, ended by ' They are given at length by Matth. Paris, Chron. Majora (Rolls Ser.), iii, 420 et seq. ' Two instances of this may be pointed to in Norfolk, viz. Linford and Buckenham Parva, which to this day are churchless. Some little research might easily produce other examples. 232
