Catalogue description Chancery Files, Rolls Chapel Series, Lenten Certificates

The immediate authority for the certificates in this series was the proclamation of 17 February 1561, repeated in the week before Lent in succeeding years, which ordered total abstinence from flesh between Shrove Tuesday and the Tuesday after Palm Sunday, imposing severe penalties for offenders.

In London, to which these documents relate, the aldermen of each ward were to ensure that twelve honest and substantial citizens should tour their wards twice in each Lent and report on any who had killed, dressed or eaten meat without licence, or sold unlicensed drink. Their signed and sealed findings were to be returned to Chancery by the first day of the Easter term.

Few of the returns report any significant breach of the proclamation.