Virtual Refectory: The Pardoner's Tale

A gift for you, my lovely Ecclesiasticals. Enjoy…

It was the Feast of St Matthias the Apostle, 24 February 1538. A crowd gathered beside the most influential public venue in all of England. St Paul’s Cross, situated in the shadow of the looming cathedral of the nation’s capital, London, had been the site of fiery sermons and controversial public proclamations for centuries—and today was to be no different. Many likeminded folks, who had gathered for this particular event—one in a series organised by King Henry VIII’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell—eagerly awaited the preacher, John Hilsey, Bishop of Rochester (d. 1539). What was about to occur would be one of the greatest undressings in history—but not of any man or woman. This was to be an injurious exposé of a machine ‘much sought after by visitors…from all parts of the realm’.^[i]‘Englishmen before the [Protestant] Reformation were not the idiots that some would seem to suppose’, opined Victorian priest and historian Thomas Edward Bridgett. As Bishop Hilsey stepped out before the crowd that day, the mood swiftly twisted from awe to anger—for the English people had been fooled.^[ii]