Yorkshire Almanac 2026

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

On 17 May 1321 Archbishop Melton wrote to the Prioress and convent of Handale, that he was sending to them Isabella Dayvill, nun of the house of Rosedale, vestri ordinis, who, contrary to the honesty of religion, had apostatized. She was to undergo her appointed penance in their house, was to be last in the convent, was to talk to no one, secular or religious, and not to go out of the precincts of the monastery. Every Friday she was to fast on bread and water, and every Wednesday to abstain from fish, and on each of those days was to receive a discipline in chapter from the hands of the president.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

Comment

“Apostate” probably means “runaway” – see also Joan of Leeds – WP and what purports to be her version.

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Tags

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• Apostasy (1) W/G ·
• Catholic Church (57) W/G ·
• Cistercian nuns (1) W/G ·
• Cistercians (6) W/G ·
• 📌Handale Priory (1) W/G ·
• 📌Handale (1) W/G ·
• Joan of Leeds (1) W/G ·
• Melton, William (died 1340) (3), 43rd Archbishop of York (1317-1340), completed the nave of York Minster, fought the Scots, persecuted rebellious nuns W/G ·
• North Riding of Yorkshire (51) W/G ·
• Rosedale Abbey (1) W/G ·
• Ryedale (7) W/G ·

All tags.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

Comment

“Apostate” probably means “runaway” – see also Joan of Leeds – WP and what purports to be her version.

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Similar

7 January 1397: On the longest of the 42 days of his carnivalesque reign, boy-bishop John de Cave of York goes on a 200-mile begging spree

20 September 1319: During the Anglo-Scottish wars, seasoned raiders encounter an improvised Yorkshire home guard of clergy, peasants and officials at Myton-on-Swale

2 February 1609: A crowd-pleasing morality play at Candlemas at Gouthwaite Hall in Catholic Nidderdale lands the cordwainer-players and their patron before the Star Chamber

20 January 1536: Thomas Cromwell’s dissolvers of monasteries, Richard Layton and Thomas Legh, report allegations of whoring and theft by William Thirsk, Abbot of Fountains

24 April 1688: At Pontefract, the new Catholic and Dissenting members of the judiciary send James II, a Catholic, thanks for allowing freedom of religion, leading him to believe he has popular support

21 September 1549: Egalitarian, republican and Catholic, the leaders of the Seamer Rebellion against the Edwardian Reformation are hanged at York

21 June 1891: A sonnet by Charles Forshaw about a sermon about light preached at Bulmer (Castle Howard) by the Rev. James Gabb this summer solstice evening

27 December 1745: A correspondent from Stokesley (Hambleton) recounts the destruction of their Catholic chapel by a youthful mob during the Jacobite invasion of England

12 August 1772: Writing to George Selwyn, Horace Walpole contemplates a living death at Castle Howard

26 December 1570: Edmund Grindal, Puritan archbishop of York, orders the removal of rood-lofts (and their superstitious images), and the erection of pulpits

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

Comment

At some stage in 1571, either on the eve of or during a metropolitan visitation to his wayward flock, Grindal issued yet more injunctions:

By the heeding of which injunctions one may observe, how old Popish customs still prevailed in these northern quarters, and therefore what need there was of this general visitation; as the frequent use and veneration of crosses, months minds, obits and anniversaries, the chief intent whereof was praying for the dead; the superstitions used in going the bounds of the parishes; morris dancers and minstrels coming into the church in service-time, to the disturbance of God’s worship, putting the consecrated bread into the receiver’s mouth, as among the Papists the Priest did the wafer; crossing and breathing upon the elements in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, and elevation; oil, tapers, and spittle in the other sacrament of Baptism; pauses and intermissions in reading the services of the Church; praying Ave-Maries and Pater-nosters upon beads; setting up candles in the churches to the Virgin Mary on Candlemas-day, and the like.

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