A contemporary narrative of the proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler, prosecuted for sorcery in 1324, by Richard de Ledrede, bishop of Ossory / edited by Thomas Wright.
- Date:
- 1843
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A contemporary narrative of the proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler, prosecuted for sorcery in 1324, by Richard de Ledrede, bishop of Ossory / edited by Thomas Wright. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![Pope, and informed him that the bishop had declined an inquiry into his conduct: because he was conscious of his guilt. Upon his flight in 1329 the King seised his temporalities ; but upon the mediation and earnest inter- cession of one of the cardinals, a writ* issued for his restitution in the tenth of May, 1331 ; on condition, nevertheless, that the bishop should submit himself in person to the King, and answer at home any charge objected to him. How long he stayed abroad, or when he returned, I have not found : but it appears that in 1339 he had made some sort of a peace with the King. For there issued a writ dated that year[ to Sir Thomas Charlton, Bishop of Hereford, then Justice and Chancellor of Ireland, reciting, that upon the information of Alexander archbishop of Dublin, by letters patent made in the Chancery of Ireland, Richard bishop of Ossory, was ve- hemently suspected notoriously to favour heresy, and had been cited to appear before the said archbishop to answer ; but that he had contumaciously absented himself: upon which several of the sheriffs and others the King's ministers had been commanded to arrest him without delay, and to deliver him to the archbishop to be canonically punished, notwithstanding his episcopal dignity. 'The King therefore revoked and superseded the said orders, in regard the same had been surreptitiously and erroneously ob- tained out of the Chancery ; for that it was not lawful according to the canons to arrest a prelate; the rather as the bishop had directly appealed to the apostolic see from the grievances laid on him by the arcehbishop, and had diligently prosecuted his appeal, as appeared by public instruments and other evidences exhibited before the council of England. Afterwards, in f 1947, or 1348, having lived nine years in banishment, * he obtained (says ClynS) an exemption in the court of ltome from the jurisdiction and superiority of the Archbishop of Dublin. But I think he had no great advantage by it. ['This exemption was grounded upon his complaint to the Pope of the hard usage he had met with from the arch- bishop, wherein it is alledged, that he had been seized by the hereticks, and kept seventeen days in prison, and that when he was released, the archbishop, who was mnotoriously known to favour the hereticks, had stopped up all the ports to hinder him from repairing to Rome, to appeal from his grievances, and used all his endeavours to take him prisoner. But after the death of Archbishop Dicknor, and the promotion of John de 5t. Paul to the see of Dublin, Pope Clement VI. on the 21st of July, 1351, upon the petition of the new archbishop issued a Dull|| for the restoration of the see of Dublin to the jurisdietion and superiority which the arch- bishops had formerly held over the see of Ossory]. In 1349 his tem- * Ibid. p. 488. T Rym. tom. v. p. 112. Wilk. Concil. tom. ii. p. 652. 1i Annal Min. tom. iii. ad An. 1347, Clyn ad. eund. an. $ Ibid, || Regist. Pontif. in Wad, An. tom, iv. p. 16.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33096831_0096.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
