Spiritual Patrimony

I found this in Peter Ackroyd's biography of Thomas More:

On the Feast of the Innocents a "boy-bishop" was ritually enthroned in the principal churches of London; this was only tangentially an occasion of "misrule" of a late medieval kind, and was pre-eminently a solemn church ceremony with processions as well as enthronement. As one of the statutes of the Sarum puts it, "no man whatsoever, under the pain of Anathema, should interrupt or press upon these Children at the Procession." The child bishop, fully apparelled in ecclesiastical robes with mitre and crozier, delivered a sermon (which often touched upon the misdemeanours of the adult clergy) before walking through the streets of his district, blessing the people and collecting money for his churchwardens. This was one of the many popular festivals destroyed at the time of the Tudor Reformation.

I assume there was nothing peculiarly English about this practice, and it could probably be found throughout Christendom. I'm certainly moving toward the opinion that our present bishops might more profitably work toward restoring the Christendom to which Ven Fulton Sheen often refers, rather than trying to establish a faux Anglican Precious Spiritual Patrimony.