york00orns

214 YORK.
the greater festivals, no canon is present. No order
is taken to repress the tumultuous gathering together
of noisy and mischievous boys within the walls of
the church even during the celebration of mass. The
succentor canonicorum and three others are alleged
to have concubines. The inferior ministers of the
church, deacons and thurifers, are reported as chattering
and talking in the choir, paying no heed to whatever
divine office was going on. Certain vicars, who are
named, pay no attention when the Bible is read in
their common hall, but sit gossiping over the fire all
the time the reading is going on.
There is a melancholy list of defedus ac mince patentes
in a very large number of parish churches. The
architectural revival of the fifteenth century did
not penetrate into every parish. Page after page tells
of neglect, decay, and desolation. Sometimes the
chancel, sometimes the nave, or the windows, or the
tower, the lead on the roof or its timbers, or the
furniture of the church are presented as ruinous,
defective, and insufficient. In one church we are
told that the churchwardens scarcely make provision
more than once in the year for the washing of the albs,
surplices, and altar-linen. Jangling and talking in
service-time is reported in the same church, and
complaint is made that when sermons are preached,
although notice is duly given to the parishioners,
"the most part of them cummeth not at all." In
another place we find the parishioners complaining
that they have had no parish priest for three quarters
of a year. The inhabitants of another parish desire to
have their belief expounded to them three times in the