Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Order of Brothelyngham/archive1

TFA blurb
[image, if any, goes here] The Order of Brothelyngham was a gang of men who, in mid-14th-century England, formed themselves into a fake religious order in the city of Exeter, Devon. They may well have been satirising the church, which was commonly perceived as corrupt. The group's name was probably meant as an allusion to the Order of Sempringham, which was infamous at the time for enclosing both monks and nuns on the same premises. The Order of Brothelyngham dressed as monks and supposedly elected a madman to rule them as their abbot, possibly from a theatrical stage or throne. Bearing their ruler aloft before them in a mockery of a bishop's throne, and styling themselves as theatrical players, they terrorised, kidnapped and extorted the locals. As one of the few such gangs known to modern historians, the order is considered significant for what it suggests of anticlerical activities and attitudes in England during the period.

Edits and comments are welcome. - Dank (push to talk) 03:13, 12 February 2024 (UTC)