This and many other instances may serve to show the persecuting spirit of a church which had arrogated to itself a dominion over the consciences of men, and dared to propagate a religion of fear as the religion of Christ. After the Reformation, which had now begun, the same persecuting spirit was manifested by the Church of England; and many suffered here for their nonconformity to the Establishment. Several other martyrs were burnt in Norwich during the same reign, and in 1539, one William Leyton, a monk of Eye, in Suffolk, was burnt here, for speaking against a certain idol which used to be carried about in procession at Eye; and for asserting that the sacrament ought to be administered in both kinds. In the same year peace and amity were settled between the church and the city on a much more stable foundation than had been previously effected, by an arrangement as to jurisdictions of the authorities. * * * * * In 1534 an act was passed for rebuilding those parts of the city which were laid waste by the late fires; by which it was enacted that if the owners of such void grounds should, by the space of two years after proclamation made by the mayor for all persons to rebuild or enclose their grounds, neglect to rebuild on such ground, or sufficiently enclose the same with mortar and stone, then it should be lawful for the mayor, etc., to enter on such vacant grounds, and hold and retain them to their own use and their successors’ use for ever, discharged of all rents and outgoings whatsoever, provided that, within two years after such entry made, they either rebuild or enclose them as aforesaid. DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. If, in giving an account of the state of society in the middle ages, we were to omit from our enumeration of causes the vast influence of the clergy of the church of Rome, we should present a very imperfect view of the subject. The priests dominated over the minds of men for many centuries, and their influence either for good or evil pervaded all classes of society. This influence caused the erection of monasteries, nunneries, priories, and friaries, nineteen in number, in Norwich before the 16th century. Monastic institutions were originally beneficial to society. In the dark ages, they preserved learning to some extent, and were houses of refuge for the destitute. No doubt there were many good self-denying men and women amongst the monks and nuns, who did some service to the poor who then abounded in the land. But in time the monasteries sunk for the most part into dissolute confraternities; stupid and sleepy, where not vicious; and banded together against the liberties of the nation; and there were constant broils between the monks and the citizens in Norwich.