Note 149a — Chapter IX · ARCHÆOLOGY—continued.

To show that I am not here speaking “without book,” I may cite the following:—Some years ago a bundle of papers were found among the Archives at Lincoln, stitched together, and much damaged by time. They proved to be “Letters of indulgence,” issued by Bishop Dalderby of Lincoln, in which he instructed the Deans to enjoin the clergy throughout their deaneries to make it known, on Sundays and other festivals, that money was needed to complete the central tower of the Cathedral, and that indulgences and other privileges would be granted (indulgencias multiplices, et alia Suffragia) to any who should contribute to this object (qui ad constructionem campanilis contulerint subsidia.) This mandate was dated Stowe-park vii. 1d. Marcii a.d. mcccvi. Among these papers was found a letter of indulgence from John, Bishop of Carlisle, dated Horncastle, May 12, 1305 (that Prelate then having a palace at Horncastle, on what are now the premises of Mr. Lunn, grocer), and a similar document from Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, dated Lincoln, Oct. 11, 1314; shewing that the practice was a universal one. The Indulgences were, in each case, for forty days. We may look with admiration at our Cathedral, “fabrica tam nobilis, et honorifica toti regno,” as the Bishop calls it; but surely it takes not a little gilt from the gingerbread, when we reflect that this grand edifice was not entirely the product of the piety of our forefathers, as we have too fondly supposed, but due largely to the episcopal sanction of what with all charity, can hardly be called a pious fraud; and that it was really paid for by “the wages of sin.” The individuals were granted their forty days’ “fling” of iniquity, with the episcopal pledge of exemption from its penalty, provided they responded to the episcopal call—a system of “Do ut des,” based on a “superstitio damnabilis,”—Bishop Dalderby’s Memorandums, 101 b. Quoted “Archit. Soc. Reports,” vol. iv., pt. ***., pp, 42, 43. The author of a book recently (1904) published on “French Cathedrals,” says that many of them were “built in expiation of wrong deeds.”