INCONTINENCY 247
(Gedding) during the reign of Edward II. The chief pledges
report that
John Monk still continues his lechery with Sarah Hewen, wife of
Simon Hewen, and is constantly attending divers chapter courts where
frequently he loses the Lord's goods by reason of his adultery with
Sarah, as has often been presented before now; nor will he be chastened.
Therefore let him be put in the stocks. And afterwards he made fine
with one mark.1
Attendance at archidiaconal or ruridecanal courts and the fear
of being summoned thither was always present in the wrong-
doer's mind. Sometimes, of course, a rascally summoner, such
as Chaucer depicts, would allow him a year's wantoning with his
concubine for a quart of ale,2 and even higher officials were
capable of accepting bribes. "Purs is the erchdecknes helle*', is
more than a disreputable flourish: Gower only says what pro-
fessed moralists were saying, when he cries out against the
ecclesiastical courts, and declares "in all countries men may
nowadays buy off their sins of the flesh... without repentance__
thus our Dean covets sin rather than honesty; for he finds the
prostitute more profitable than the nun'*.3 Nevertheless, not all
were able to avoid an actual appearance, as we may see from the
records of the ruridecanal courts of Wych in the diocese of
Worcester. These present an interesting account of the actual
proceedings which were held in different parish churches of the
deanery at three-weekly intervals.4 Not only fines, but actual
corporal punishment was inflicted, and the disgraced culprit was
forced to do public penance.
At one court, for example, we read that Thomas of Bradley
confessed his misbehaviour with Agnes, daughter of Gilbert the
smith. Thomas was flogged, while Agnes was suspended for
contumacy and then excommunicated. This frightened her, and
she afterwards was reconciled, confessed and was flogged.
Another couple, Henry of Frankley and Matilda Honderwode,
1 Ibid. II, 98. z C.T. Prologue, 649.
3 Miroitr de VOmme, v, 20,089 ff. Cf. Gascoigne, Loci e Libro Ventatum>
123 ff.
4 Wore. Hist. Soc. Collectanea (1912). The medieval deanery of Wych
included the two modern deaneries of Droitwich and Bromsgrove. Four
sessions of the court are recorded, which dealt with ao, 22, 10 and 3 cases
respectively.