A precept of the Archbishop of Canterbury forbidding barbers to carry on their trade on Sundays / by D'Arcy Power.

  • Power, D'Arcy, Sir, 1855-1941.
Date:
[1909]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A precept of the Archbishop of Canterbury forbidding barbers to carry on their trade on Sundays / by D'Arcy Power. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    letters patent containing the tenor of these presents, or that one of you who shall execute our mandate shall so certify. Given at our manor of Lambeth on the nineteenth day of April in the year of our Lord one thousand four hundred and forty-five, and in the second year of our translation. John, Archbishop of Canterbury, was John Stafford, who succeeded in 1443 Archbishop Chichele, the founder of All Souls’ College, Oxford. He was the son of Sir Humphrey Stafford, called “of the silver hand,” sheriff of Somerset and Dorset, and was educated at Oxford, where he was D.C.L. before 1413. In 1419 he became Dean of the Court of Arches ; in 1422 Dean of St. Martin’s, London, where is now the General Post Office ; in 1423, Dean of Wells ; and in 1425 Bishop of Bath and Wells. In 1421 Stafford was made Keeper of the Privy Seal; in 1425 he was one of the Lords of Council during the minority of the king and he accompanied the young king to France in 1430. After his return to England he was made Chancellor in March, 1432, and he is the first who is known to have been called “Lord Chancellor.” The novelty of the title is interestingly brought out in the precept, where he is content to describe himself simply as “judex.” Stafford was a mem- ber of the commission appointed to try the offenders in Jack Cade’s rebellion. He died at Maidstone on May 25th, 1452, and was buried in the “martyrdom” at Canterbury Cathedral. He was a cautious and experienced official who did no harm if he did but little good. In 1444 he decreed that in future no fairs or markets should he held in churches or churchyards on the Lord’s day or holy days except in the four weeks of harvest. The Abbot of Westminster, to whom the precept is also addressed, was Edmund Kerton, who became a monk of West- minster in 1403 and graduated B.D. from Gloucester Hall (Worcester College), Oxford, where he was prior of the Benedictine scholars in 1423. He visited Rome and preached before Pope Martin V. (1417-1431) and in 1437 he attended the council of Basel where he was cited to appear before Pope Eugenius IV. on a charge of heresy. Kerton, whose real name seems to have been Cobbledike, was elected Abbot of Westminster in 1440. He resigned on account of ill health in 1462 and died in 1466. His tomb in St. Andrew's Chapel, Westminster Abbey, formed part of a screen which he had himself designed. It has long since disappeared. Pope Eugenius IV. was Gabriel Condulmier, a Venetian. His father died young and after distributing his fortune of 20,000 ducats to the poor in a tit of religious enthusiasm Gabriel entered the monastery of S. Giorgio d’Alga in Venice with his cousin Antonio Correr. Antonio’s uncle was unex- pectedly elected Pope Gregory XII., when Condulmier was made Bishop of Siena and Antonio Bishop of Bologna ;