In 1548 a remarkable measure
was enacted with this object, not so much, it is to be feared, out of
any genuine concern for religion as for the benefit of the fishing
community, whose interests had been injuriously affected by recent
ecclesiastical changes.
"Albeit," it recites, "the King's subjects now having a more perfect and
clear light of the Gospel and true word of God, through the infinite
cleansing and mercy of Almighty God, by the hand of the King's Majesty
and his most noble father of famous memory, promulgate, shewed, declared
and opened, and thereby perceiving that one day or one kind of meat of
itself is not more holy, more pure, or more clean than another, for that
all days and all meats be of their nature of one equal purity,
cleanness, and holiness, and that all men should by them live to the
glory of God, and at all times and for all meats give thanks unto Him,
of which meats none can defile Christian men or make them unclean at any
time, to whom all meats be lawful and pure, so that they be not used in
disobedience or vice; yet forasmuch as divers of the King's subjects
turning their knowledge therein to satisfy their sensuality, when they
should thereby increase in virtue, have in late time more than in times
past, broken and contemned such abstinence which hath been used in the
Realm upon the Fridays _and Saturdays_, the Embering days, and other
days commonly called Vigils, and in the time commonly called Lent and
other accustomed times: the King's Majesty, considering that due and
godly abstinence is a means to virtue, and to subdue men's bodies to
their soul and spirit, and considering also especially that Fishers, and
men using the trade of living by fishing in the sea, may thereby the
rather be set on work, and that by eating of fish much flesh shall be
saved and increased, and also for divers other considerations and
commodities of this realm, doth ordain 'that all statutes and
constitutions regarding fasting be repealed, but that all persons
neglecting to observe the ordinary fast days--Fridays, _Saturdays_,
Ember days, and Lent--be subject to a fine of ten shillings and ten
days' imprisonment for the first offence.
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