of Chetwode also fell into disuse and decay after it was made a chapel to the priory church at the appropriation in 1391.[1]
A dispute in connexion with the church of Chesham in 1454 brings out an interesting point of mediaeval church custom. In days when travelling and social intercourse between different parts of the country were much less frequent than now, it would have been easy for simple village folk to lose sight of the greater unity of the Catholic Church, and the interdependence of its members ; and amongst the various customs devised to meet this difficulty was the solemn procession made every year to the mother church of the diocese somewhere about the feast of Pentecost. Like many other good things, this custom had its abuses : there were unseemly disputes for precedence between the men of different parishes even when they were gathered with their crosses and banners outside the cathedral ; and complaints were made of the difficulties of the journey. By the fifteenth century it had become usual for the parishioners of small parishes remote from the cathedral to make their yearly procession to some larger church in their own neighbourhood, more easy of access than the matrix ecclesia. So the parishioners of Chesham had been accustomed for some time to go to Amersham on the Monday in Whitsun week ; but even here there had been difficulties, leading to armed encounters between the two parishes, in which the men of Chesham had been worsted. They therefore sent in a petition to the bishop to allow them to make their procession around their own church in future, summoning the inhabitants of the hamlets of Chesham Bois and Latimer to join them. The petition was granted,[2] on condition that they paid 16d. annually for the fabric of Lincoln Cathedral.
It has been shown already that the teaching of the Lollards had taken root in Buckinghamshire at the beginning of the fourteenth century ; but it was not until the episcopate of Bishop Chedworth (1452-1472) that its extent was seriously realized and steps taken to prevent its further spread. It appears from the Episcopal Registers that nearly all the cases of heresy which were tried before the bishop at this time came from the county of Buckingham, with a few from Thame and Henley and other places in the same district, that is to say, the valley of the Lower Thames. As at a later date, the bishop's manor house at Wooburn, and the parish church of High Wycombe, were usually chosen for the holding of these trials. [3] The heretics of this period are of much interest, as they form a connecting link between the earlier Lollards and certain reformers of a later day. It seemed at first, in the time of Wiclif, as if there were some prospect of the spread of Lollard doctrines amongst the clergy and the upper classes ; but as the fifteenth century wore on, those accused of heresy were found almost exclusively in the lower classes, among weavers, coopers, smiths and
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