Endorsed "The penitent Hellen Lambe hathe two seuerall tymes viz. the vjth daye of Aprill and the xiijth daye of Aprill, beinge Sondayes, performed that part of penance inioyned unto her in the manner and forme above written. Witnesses hereof Tho[mas] Sale, Minister, Thomas Reynold, John Reade, churchwardens. She could not performe it upon the xxxth daye of March because it was the xxxith daye before I receaved your Billes from the apparitor."
Probably written, signed and addressed "To my lovinge frend the Vicar of Chattres giue these" in Cambridge, and endorsed in Chatteris.
With trace of a seal.
This document appears to be a citation announcing the sentence of the Consistory Court.--Cf. Hall, p. 264.
Part of a collection of 14 penances enjoined upon members of Protestant congregations in the diocese of Ely (MA 665-1-14); 5 maps of Cambridgeshire (MA 665.15-19); and 1 leaf on Ely from Philemon Holland's English translation of William Camden's Britain (MA 665.20). Items are cataloged individually in 20 records.
Requiring that on "the xxth daie of Marche next comminge" (20 March 1594/1595), the widow Hellen Lambe, clothed in a white sheet and holding a white wand, stand on the porch of the church in Chatteris from before morning prayer until the reading of the second lesson and ask the passing parishioners to forgive and pray for her. Stating that after the minister retrieves her from the porch (while the congregation sings the psalm Misere in English), she must kneel during the reading of the ten commandments and then confess "I have broken his Divine lawes and commaundementes in committinge the most shamefull and abhominable sin of adultrie or fornication." Stating that she must then stand before the congregation while the minister reads a homily against adultery and fornication. She is required to do this three Sundays or holy days in a row, and on the third day the minister will read a homily on repentance. Signed "Thomas Legge."