RELIGIOUS HOUSES long neglected his duty of lecturing in theology; and here only Colet seems to have secured the co- operation of the bishop. An ordinance of Fitz James provides that, except during certain defi- nite seasons, the chancellor shall read a lecture in the cathedral twice or three times a week, according to the amount of leisure allowed by feast days.^^^ A preacher of the reformed religion has alluded to the sloth and the irreligion by which Colet was met. In Paul's abbeys at their midnight prayers were none commonly but a few brawling priests, young quiristers and novices, who understand not what they said ; the elder sort kept their bed or were worse occupied. . . . For their continual massing afore noon . . . these shorn shaveling priests would neither receive together one of them with another, nor yet the people have any part with them.*" Of the Protestant measures ^ of general ap- plication the dissolution of gilds*" and chantries largely affected St. Paul's. Not only did it work a great change in the persons of the ministers and in the service, but further, the revenue of chantries had been, in spite of the poverty of chantry priests, a considerable source of wealth to the cathedral. In the fourteenth century the gross annual income of sixty-four chantries was £,'2-<^1 13J. 8^.; and the annual stipends of priests varied from 6;. to ^^6 13J. 4^."" In 1547 the
- " Reg. S. Fault (ed. W. S. Simpson), 143.
"' Works of Pilkington (ed. G. Scholefield), 48 1 et seq. "'In I 55 1 the communion table was removed to the south end of the church. In 1552 Cranmer for- bade the organ to be played, and, on All Saints' Day, ' the book of the new service of bread and wine ' was first used {Chron. of Grey friars [Camden Soc], 71-6).
- The mystery of the armourers of London formed
a Gild of St. George ; and the brothers and sisters maintained certain lights and divine services in a chapel of St. Paul's. They received a charter of incorpora- tion in 145 1-2, when Henry VI took the title of their founder (Pat. 31 Hen. VI, pt. 2, m. 12). The most important of the gilds which centred in the cathedral was the Brotherhood of Jesus, which met in Jesus Chapel in the crypt, and of which the dean was perpetual rector. It acquired a charter of incorporation in 1457-8. It had two secular war- dens, sometimes persons of high rank, and was licensed to acquire lands to the yearly value of ^^40. It held services in the chapel at certain times for which the brothers and sisters made fixed payments to the min- isters of the church. On the vigil of the feast of the Name of Jesus, they burnt a bonfire at the door of the crypt in the churchyard {Reg. S. Pauli [ed. W. S. Simpson], bk. v). The Gild of the King's Minstrels received a charter of incorporation in 1469, and was thereby bound to pray for the king and his consort, for his soul after death, and those of his ancestors, and for all faithful departed, in the Chapel of the Virgin of St. Paul's (Rymer, Foed. xi, 642). "" Arch, lii, 158 et'seq. annual value was £()^() (>s., of which ^^244 1 8^ . id. was paid to the chaplains, each of whom received from twenty to eighty-five per cent, of the in- come of his chantry."^ Another loss was suffered by the cessation of the practice of celebrating obits, which, however, had become less frequent than in the middle ages. Dean Colet recom- mended that these services should be held often, in order that the dead might be succoured by a multitude of suffrages ; he ordered the chapter to examine what obits ought to be observed.*^ Yet in 1547 the number of those regularly kept had sunk to fifty-four. At the same time the annual income for the maintenance of obits had been reduced from £^1^^ i8i. 3^^/. in the four- teenth century to £iO/. is. 2d.^*^ During a period of some three hundred years from the middle of the sixteenth century, the only important innovations in the internal history of St. Paul's concerned the organization and endowment of preaching. The significance of a visitation by Grindal, in 156 1, consists in a calendar which he made to indicate the order in which resident and non-resident canons were compelled to preach on feast days.^" Alexander Ratcliff bequeathed ;^400 to the dean and chapter in 1615, half of which he destined for 'gentle- man scholars ' of Oxford and Cambridge who should preach at St. Paul's cross. This duty fell to prebendaries after the cross had been re- moved."^ In 1623 Dr. Thomas White left an annual sum of £^o for the maintenance of three weekly lectures on divinity ; and directed that a pulpit should be erected in the cathedral, to be used when the weather prevented resort to the churchyard.**^ There occurred also some significant interpre- tations and illustrations of the constitution of the cathedral. Thus, before Cromwell's visitation of religious houses in the province of Canterbury, Cranmer suspended, temporarily, episcopal and all minor ecclesiastical jurisdictions ; and in his mandate to the bishop of London he used the title 'legate of the apostolic see.' **' which he had abandoned in the convocation of 1533."* In consequence the bishop and chapter, at the visi- tation in St. Paul's, made a formal protest, which the archbishop's registrar refused to enter. It was sent to the king as an appeal, and appears to have "' Ibid. 172. '" Reg. S. Pauli (ed. W. S. Simpson), 236.
- " For calendar of obits see Doc. Ulus. Hist, of St.
PauPs (ed. W. S. Simpson), 74-106. "' Add. MS. 34298, fol. 6. In 1882 by a minute of the chapter the order in which sermons were ap- pointed to be preached on festivals and in Lent, by dignitaries ani prebends, was set forth in an amended calendar. Suppl. to Reg. 5. Pauli (ed. W. S. Simpson), 18 and 19.
- " Suppl. to Reg. S. Pauli (ed. W. S. Simpson), 126.
""Ibid. 134.
- " L. and P. Hen. Fill, vii, 1683.
"' Wilkins, Cone, iii, 769. 429
