SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: Reginald Peacock was consecrated as a bishop in a service conducted in the Archbishop’s palace in Croydon, but had to survive a show trial and ritual humiliation on the streets of Medieval London, as DAVID MORGAN writes
A tolerant man: Bishop Reginald Peacock was prosecuted for expressing his views
The Oxford English Dictionary gives the first known use of the phrase “by word of mouth” in writing as 1456. The person attributed with that first use was Reginald Peacock, a bishop, writer and theologian.
On the June 14, 1444, a consecration service was held in the chapel at the Archbishop’s Palace in Croydon. The Archbishop of Canterbury, John Stafford, was the officiant, assisted by Bishop John of Rochester, Bishop Thomas of Norwich, Bishop Thomas of Bath and Bishop Richard of Ross.
The clergyman who they were consecrating into a new job was Reginald Peacock. He was to be made Bishop of St Asaph’s, in North Wales.
Stafford was still relatively new to his post, having been appointed the summer before, succeeding Henry Chichele, the Archbishop who welcomed King Henry V and his soldiers back home after the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.
As Stafford and his bishops laid hands on Peacock to affirm his new role, they were confirming the title granted to him by Pope Eugene IV, which was how the English church worked pre-Reformation.
Peacock, aged almost 50, went back to North Wales to continue his ministry. Peacock (or sometimes spelled Pecock) was going back to his Welsh roots.
Born in 1390, Peacock did well with his learning. He proved to be a clever student and went off to study at Oxford in 1408. He became a Fellow of Oriel College after earning a Bachelor of Arts, a Master of Arts and a Bachelor of Theology degree there. He took holy orders in 1421. Three years later he was given his first benefice – a permanent, paid job in the church – at St Michael’s in Gloucester.
London landmark: Whittington College took its name from the most famous Lord Mayor
In 1431, he became headmaster of Whittington College in London, a post which was linked with him becoming Rector of St Michael Paternoster Royal, the adjacent parish church. Many of his parishioners would have had memories of Dick Whittington, probably the most famous Mayor of London, who was buried within the precincts of the church in 1423 (although that tomb is now lost).
It was Whittington who founded the college, first called St Spirit and St Mary, within the confines of the church situated in College Hill in the City of London.
While Peacock was in Whittington College, he began the theological writings which were to become significant. It was from his College Hill base that he came to the notice of members of Henry VI’s court and that helped to gain his nomination to the bishopric of St Asaph’s.
Peacock’s first brush with authority came in 1447, when he gave a sermon at St Paul’s Cross. Against the popular opinion of the day, he controversially upheld the rights of bishops to be absent from their dioceses for “necessary or useful purposes”.
Peacock was living during some of the most tempestuous times in English history – the ending of the Hundred Years’ War with the French, and civil war at home in the War of the Roses.
Peacock was associated with the House of Lancaster. He was friends with Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, but Gloucester died in prison in suspicious circumstances after being arrested for treason in 1447. Peacock was also connected to the Duke of Suffolk, William de la Pole, who was beheaded by a mob of sailors as he was trying to sail to exile in France.
Remembered: Peacock’s stained-glass window at Chichester Cathedral
Suffolk had, though, procured the post of Bishop of Chichester for Peacock. The vacancy existed because Peacock’s predecessor, Bishop Moleyns, had also been murdered by a mob of sailors, angry over unpaid wages and poor military leadership.
Peacock became Bishop of Chichester in 1450.
In the summer of 1453, King Henry VI collapsed after hearing about the fall of Gascony, an English territory for 300 years. Peacock, with a seat on the Privy Council, was one of those who signed the document appointing Richard, Duke of York, as protector during the king’s illness.
With the political landscape changing, those who had been seen to overtly support the Lancastrian cause were put under scrutiny. One of those was Peacock.
Peacock had continued his writing, being the first theologian to put pen to paper in English. In a time when theological debate was conducted in Latin and largely confined to the clergy, Peacock broke new ground by bringing his ideas into the common language.
In 1455, he completed his best-known work, The Repressor of Over Much Blaming of the Clergy, and a year later published his book Faith.
As well as the political upheavals and wars, this was also a period of religious change, too. England, in common with much of Europe, was still a Catholic country, taking its leadership from the Pope in Rome.
But since the mid-14th Century, there was movement called the Lollards (a derogatory term meaning mutterer), following the teachings of priest John Wycliffe, who was critical of the Catholic Church’s corruption, wealth and hierarchy, and emphasised the authority of scripture. The movement was viewed as heretical and its followers faced persecution, even execution.
English lessons: Bishop Peacock chose to write in his native tongue, rather than the Church’s preferred Latin
Much of Bishop Peacock’s writing was an attempt to convince the Lollards about the errors in their beliefs.
On November 11, 1457, Peacock had to appear before the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Bouchier to account for his writing, having been ejected from the Council of Westminster in October as the Lords Temporal objected to his presence in the debate they were holding.
In trying to prove points to the Lollards, Peacock had fallen foul of some zealous interpretation of his arguments. Towards the end of the month, after nine of his books had been theologically dissected, he was found guilty of heresy and he was sentenced to death by burning.
An alternative to that sentence was to complete a public abjuration, a ritual humiliation to be conducted in front of hundreds of people, stating that all the writings which were found to be heretical were retracted.
Reginald Peacock had become the first bishop in the history of the English church to be convicted of heresy.
Peacock had no desire to be burned at the stake, and so he chose to adjure.
He also appealed to the Pope, Calixtus III, who sent various letters to Archbishop Bouchier stating that he thought that Peacock’s “crimes” had not been dealt with appropriately. Bouchier ignored the replies which supported the bishop.
Papal support: Calixtus III ruled that Peacock should not be executed
The pope died during the delay in the Vatican correspondence reaching Bouchier in London. The new pope, Pius II, asked for a new trial but, if that wasn’t possible, then he wanted Peacock’s death sentence to be commuted.
As Peacock had already confessed that his writings were wrong, he was removed from his office as Bishop of Chichester and sent, in a form of exile, to the Benedictine monastery at Thorney Abbey in Cambridgeshire.
His public abjuration was held at St Paul’s Cross, the open-air pulpit in the churchyard of the old cathedral in the City of London, the most important public pulpit in Medieval England. Peacock’s humiliation was conducted in front of a crowd of 20,000 people.
Three folios and eleven quartos of his own compositions were passed to the executioner, who threw them into the flames. It was said by one commentator that if Peacock had gone anywhere near the fire, then the huge crowd would have probably thrown him in with his books as well.
Nothing more was heard from Peacock after his move to the Fens. His date of death is uncertain, either 1460 or 1461, as is his exact place of burial.
The only details known of his time there were the instructions from Bouchier. Peacock was to be given a monk’s cell in which he was to be confined and from where he could have sight of an altar to hear mass.
He was to be given meat or fish daily and have a servant who would tend to the fire in his room as well as bringing his meals. He was to have no writing material but was allowed a Bible, a psalter, a mass book and a breviary (a prayer book). The Archbishop also provided £40 – worth more than £40,000 today – to the abbey to look after Peacock.
History has been kinder to Peacock than the small number of bishops who were out to get him. Four things, it appears, helped to seal Peacock’s fate.
First, he publicly shredded the authority of the clergy with his arguments during his trial. Second, he showed too much candour and moderation towards the Lollards. Third, he wrote in English for the public, thus showing them much respect for their opinions. And fourth, he was too contemptuous about the church’s position on the relics of saints.
Bishop Peacock, consecrated in the chapel of Croydon’s Old Palace, was a tolerant man in an age of intolerance.
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- Armistice Day: when Croydon was ‘beflagged’ with good cause
- Wandle Park postcard begins trace of a Pitlake family’s history
- The Croydon schoolboy who was among Ypres’ first casualties
- The church fire that consumed a thousand years of history
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