THE PARISH CLERK.
The parish clerk seems to have existed about as long as the parish priest, if we are right in assuming that the man of sober life whom the parish priest was required by the “canons of King Edgar” to bring with him to the diocesan synods (see p. 67) was the prototype of that useful official. At least, from a very early time every parish had its clerk to attend upon the priest in his office, and to perform a number of useful services on behalf of the parishioners. An Injunction of Bishop Grostete says, “In every church which hath sufficient means there shall be a deacon and sub-deacon, but in the rest at least a fitting and honest clerk to serve the priest in a comely habit.”[305]A Canon of a Synod of Ely (1528) enjoins all parish clerks to serve their priests at high mass reverently and devoutly.
Coronation procession of Charles V. of France.(From MS. of Froissart’s Chronicle.)
The general custom was for the incumbent to chooseand appoint the clerk, and for the parishioners to pay him; but in some parishes the parishioners had a prescriptive right to choose; and there are indications that in some parishes it was the custom for the rector or vicar to pay him.[306]Having been duly chosen and appointed, the clerk was licensed by the Ordinary, and held his office as a freehold, being removable by the Ordinary, and by him only for misconduct. His duties were to attend on the parish priest, and assist in the services of the church; to ring the bell for services, prepare the altar, lead the people in the responses; precede the procession with holy water; precede the priest with bell and taper in going to visit the sick, and such-like things.
Parish Clerk sprinkling Holy Water.(Early 14th cent. MS. British Museum, Royal, 10 E. IV.)
One curious custom of his office was to go round the parish on Sundays and great festivals, and to enter the houses in order to asperse the people with holy water, sometimes, perhaps on some special festivals, it would be to cense them, for Absolon, the parish clerk in Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” (Miller’s Tale)—
Goth with a censer on the holy day,Censing the wives of the parish faste.
A MS. in the British Museum of early fourteenth century date (Royal, 10 E. IV.) contains a story which turns on the adventures of a parish priest, as he goes through the parish on this errand. Ourillustration, taken from f. 108verso, shows how, after going into the kitchen to sprinkle the cook, he then goes to the hall to sprinkle the lord and lady as they sit at dinner. In the Harl. MS., 2278, f. 76, is a picture of a parish clerk about to asperse the dead body of a child, the mother withdrawing the winding-sheet for the purpose.[307]It was from this duty that the parish clerk took the name of “Aquabajalus.”
His stipend was made up of customary fees, especially for his services at marriages and burials, which differed in various parishes, and voluntary donations. A custom of this kind is good (says Lyndwode), that every master of a family on every Lord’s day give the clerk bearing the holy water, somewhat according to the exigency of his condition; and that on Christmas Day he have of every house one loaf of bread, and a certain number of eggs at Easter, and in the autumn certain sheaves. Also that may be called a laudable custom where such clerk every quarter of the year receives something in certain money for his sustenance, which ought to be collected and levied in the whole parish.
A great number of the mediæval wills contain small bequests to the parish clerk, and to clerks attending the funeral of the testator.
A story told by Matthew Paris[308]makes us acquainted with the average income thus derived. “It happenedthat an agent of the pope met a jolly clerk of a village carrying water in a little vessel with a sprinkler, and some bits of bread given him for having sprinkled some holy water, and to him the deceitful Roman thus addressed himself: ‘How much does the profit yielded to you by this church amount to in a year?’ To which the clerk, ignorant of the Roman’s cunning, replied, ‘To twenty shillings, I think.’ Whereupon the agent demanded the percentage the pope had just demanded on all ecclesiastical benefices. And to pay that small sum the poor man was compelled to hold school for many days, and, by selling his books in the precincts, to drag on a half-starved life.”
Boniface, Archbishop of Canterbury, in his Constitutions of 1260, says—
We have often heard from our elders that the benefices of holy water were originally instituted from a motive of charity, in order that one of their proper poor clerks might have exhibitions to the schools, and so advance in learning, that they might be fit for higher preferment.
We have often heard from our elders that the benefices of holy water were originally instituted from a motive of charity, in order that one of their proper poor clerks might have exhibitions to the schools, and so advance in learning, that they might be fit for higher preferment.
He therefore desires that in churches which are not distant more than ten miles from the cities and castles of the province of Canterbury, the rectors and vicars should endeavour to find such clerks, and appoint them to the office. And if the parishioners withhold the customary alms to them, let them be urgently admonished, and, if need be, compelled to give them.
We are not surprised to find that parish clerks of this kind often kept the village schools.
Peckham, Archbishop in 1280, ordered in the church of Bauquell and the chapels annexed to it, that there should beduos clericos scholasticos, carefully chosen by the parishioners, from whose alms they would have to live, who should carry holy water round in the parish and chapels on Lord’s days and festivals, and ministerin divinis officiis, and on week days should keep school.[309]Alexander, Bishop of Coventry, 1237, ordered parish clerks who should be schoolmasters in country villages.[310]
Peckham, Archbishop in 1280, ordered in the church of Bauquell and the chapels annexed to it, that there should beduos clericos scholasticos, carefully chosen by the parishioners, from whose alms they would have to live, who should carry holy water round in the parish and chapels on Lord’s days and festivals, and ministerin divinis officiis, and on week days should keep school.[309]Alexander, Bishop of Coventry, 1237, ordered parish clerks who should be schoolmasters in country villages.[310]
The custom of putting young scholars into the office of parish clerk to help them to proceed to holy orders, explains some kindly bequests which we meet with in wills:
Robert de Weston, Rector of Marum, 1389, leaves “to John Penne, my clerk, a missal of the new Use of Sarum, if he wishes to be a priest, otherwise I give him 20s.My servant Thomas Thornawe, 20s.The residue of my goods to be solde as quickly as possible,communi pretio, so that the purchasers may be bound to pray for my soul.”[311]Giles de Gadlesmere, in 1337, left to Wm. Ockam, clerk, Cs., unless he be promoted before my death.[312]
Robert de Weston, Rector of Marum, 1389, leaves “to John Penne, my clerk, a missal of the new Use of Sarum, if he wishes to be a priest, otherwise I give him 20s.My servant Thomas Thornawe, 20s.The residue of my goods to be solde as quickly as possible,communi pretio, so that the purchasers may be bound to pray for my soul.”[311]
Giles de Gadlesmere, in 1337, left to Wm. Ockam, clerk, Cs., unless he be promoted before my death.[312]
The parish clerks of a town or neighbourhood sometimes formed themselves into a gild, as in London, Lincoln, etc.,[313]and it would seem that these gilds in some places entertained their neighbours, and nodoubt augmented their own funds, by the exhibition of miracle plays. The parish clerks of London used to exhibit, on the anniversary of their gild, on the green in the parish of St. James, Clerkenwell. In 1391, Stow says that they performed before the king and queen and the whole court for three days successively, and that, in 1409, they performed a play of the “Creation of the World,” the representation of which occupied eight successive days.
Chaucer gives a portrait of a parish clerk in the Miller’s Tale of his “Canterbury Pilgrims”—
Now was there of that churche a parish clerkeThe which that was y-cleped Absolon.Crulle[314]was his here and as the gold it shon,And strouted[315]as a fanne large and brode;Ful streight and even lay his jolly shode.[316]His rode[317]was red, his eyen grey as goos,With Poules windowes carved on his shoos,In hosen red he went ful fetisly[318]Yclad he was ful smal and proprelyAll in a kirtle of a light wajet[319]Ful faire and thicke ben the pointès set.And therupon he had a gay surpliseAs white as is the blossome upon the rise.[320]A mery child he was so God me save,Well could he leten blod and clippe and shaveAnd make a charte of lond and a quitance.In twenty manner could he trip and daunce(After the schole of Oxenfordè tho)And playen songès on a smal ribible[321]Therto he sang, sometime a loud quinible[321]And as wel could he play on a giterne.[321]In all the town n’as brewhouse ne taverneThat he ne visited with his solas,Theras that any galliard tapstere was.This Absolon that jolly was and gayGoth with a censor on the holy dayCensing the wivès of the parish fasteAnd many a lovely loke he on hem caste.*******Sometime to shew his lightness and maistrieHe plaieth Herod on a skaffold hie.
CUSTOMS.
It remains to mention a great variety of observances and customs, some of them superstitious, some innocent enough, many of them picturesque and poetical and giving colour and variety to the popular religious life. It would need another volume as large as this to do justice to the subject which we find ourselves compelled to deal with in a single chapter.
The right of Sanctuary, the immunity from violence even of the criminal who had put himself under the protection of present Deity, which was provided for in the Levitical cities of refuge, which attached to the temples of the gods of Greece and Rome, was, when the empire became Christian, readily accorded to churches and their precincts. We have had occasion to mention its existence in Saxon times;[322]it seems desirable to say that it continued to be an important feature in the life of the times of which we are now speaking. There were specialsanctuaries—cities of refuge—with special privileges, as at Durham, Ripon, Hexham, Beverley, Battle, Beaulieu, Westminster, St. Martin’s le Grand, the Savoy, Whitefriars, and the Mint in London, and other places. Every church and every churchyard shared in the privilege, and it was no very unusual incident to find it made use of.
As an illustration of its efficacy, we may point to the story that after the battle of Tewkesbury, King Edward IV., with some of his knights, was about to enter the church, sword in hand, in pursuit of some of the defeated Lancastrians who had taken refuge there, when the priest met them at the door bearing the consecrated host, and refused them entrance till the king had promised pardon to several of the refugees. We frequently meet with examples of people in danger to life or liberty taking refuge in the nearest church.
The church was also a sanctuary for property. It was very usual to deposit money and valuables there for safe custody. We give some examples of it in a footnote.[323]Jews were not allowed to deposit their money and valuables in churches.
The churchyard also gave a certain protection.[324]Ordericus Vitalis relates that the villagers in time of war sometimes removed themselves and their goods thither, and built themselves huts within the precincts, and were left unmolested. From a canon of the Synod of Westminster, 1142, we learn that ploughs and other agricultural implements placed in the churchyard had certain immunities, probably freedom from seizure for debt. The canon decreed that the ploughs in the fields, with the husbandmen, should have the same immunity.[325]
A similar privilege attached to the persons of bishops; Bishop St. Hugh of Lincoln meeting the sheriff and his men taking a man to execution, claimed the criminal, and carried him off. The Abbot of Battle on one occasion claimed and exercised the same episcopal privilege.
Pilgrimage was a popular act of devotion from Saxon times downwards, and afforded a relief to the stay-at-home habits of the people. The pilgrimage to the Holy Land was the most highly esteemed, after that, to the thresholds of the apostles at Rome, and to Compostella, and great numbers went thither. The most famous native pilgrimages wereto St. Thomas of Canterbury and Our Lady of Walsingham, but every cathedral had its shrine, and many monasteries and many churches their relics. It would occupy pages even to give a list of the known places of pilgrimage in every county. Let it suffice to mention the shrines of St. Cuthbert at Durham, St. William at York, and little St. William at Norwich, St. Hugh at Lincoln, St. Edward Confessor at Westminster, St. Erkenwald at London, St. Wulstan at Worcester, St. Swithun at Winchester, St. Edmund at Bury, SS. Etheldreda and Withburga at Ely, St. Thomas at Hereford, St. Frideswide at Oxford, St. Werburgh at Chester, St. Wulfstan at Worcester, St. Wilfrid at Ripon, St. Richard at Chichester, St. Osmund at Salisbury, St. Paulinus at Rochester. There were famous roods, as that near the north door of St. Paul’s, London, and the roods of Chester and Bromholme; and statues, as that of Our Lady of Wilsden, and of Bexley, and of other places. There were scores of sacred wells; that of St. Winifred at Holywell, near Chester, with its exquisite architectural enclosure and canopy, is still almost perfect, and still resorted to for its supposed healing virtues.
Before a man went on any of the greater pilgrimages, he obtained a licence from his parish priest, and first went to church and received the Church’s blessing on his pious enterprise, and her prayers for his good success and safe return, and was formally invested with his staff, scrip, and bottle (water-bottle). The office for blessing pilgrims may be found inthe old service books. While he was away he was mentioned every Sunday, as we have seen, in the Bidding Prayer, in his parish church. On the road, and at the end of his journey, he found hospitals founded by pious people on purpose to entertain pilgrims, and on the exhibition of his formal licence he received kindly hospitality. At every great place of pilgrimage “signs” were sold to the pilgrims, the palm at Jerusalem, scallop shells at St. James of Compostella, and the like. In many places water, in which had been dipped one of the relics, was sold, to be used in case of sickness, enclosed in a leaden ampul, and was worn suspended by a cord from the neck. Fragments of the pilgrim roads may still be traced in narrow deep overgrown lanes on the hillsides between Guildford and Reigate, between Westerham and Seven Oaks, leading towards Canterbury, and in green lanes through Norfolk leading towards Walsingham. On his return the pilgrim went to church to return thanks, and hung up his signs over his bed as treasured mementoes of his adventurous journey. Sometimes the palmer’s staff, or the scallop shells, were, on his death, hung on the church wall, as the knight’s gauntlets, sword, and helmet were.[326]
The whole body of the people had an opportunity of a short pilgrimage on the occasion of the annual procession of the parishes to the cathedral church, or if that were too far, to some other central churchwith special attractions, with banners waving and most likely music playing, there to meet the processions from other parishes, as has been already described at p. 121.
Very frequently at the great Festivals there was some picturesque addition to the services in church; as the grotto and cradle at Christmas, the sprinkling of ashes on Ash Wednesday, the veiling of the rood during Lent, the procession bearing palms round the churchyard on Palm Sunday, the creeping to the cross on Good Friday, the Easter sepulchre, on Whitsunday the white dresses of the baptizands, the blessing of the fields on Rogation days, the festival of the Dedication of the parish church which was held on its saint’s day, and was a great day of social feasting. Every Sunday the procession (Litany) round the church, sometimes preceded by a miserable figure in white, bearing a taper, doing penance. At funerals there was a great display of mournful pageantry; and month’s-minds, and obits, frequently occurring, added a feature to the service in which everybody took a personal interest; for the good people then, when the banns of a marriage were published, kindly responded with a “God speed them well”; and when the names of the departed were proclaimed, prayed “God rest their souls.”
In the Middle Ages, all the services of the church, attended by the people, were celebrated by daylight, except, perhaps, the first evensong on the eves of saintdays, and very early celebrations, and then the attendants probably brought a taper or a coil of wax-light for themselves, so that there was no need of provision for the lighting up of the whole interior of churches, such as is customary in these days; but lights in churches were a conspicuous part of their furniture, and the provision of them was a source of general interest to the people.
First there were the altar lights. A law of Edmund directs that the priest shall not celebrate without a light; not for use, but as a symbol. At low mass one candle on the gospel side of the altar was sufficient,e.g.one was habitually used in Lincoln Cathedral at low mass. In poor churches, sometimes only one was used. Myrc, in his “Instructions to Parish Priests,” says—
Look that thy candle of wax it be,And set it so that thou it see,On the left half of thine altere,And look always that it burn clere.
In pictures of the celebration of the Eucharist in illuminated MSS., we sometimes find only one candle on the altar,e.g.in Nero E. II. (fourteenth cent.)passim. More usually in later times two wax candles were placed on the altar, which were understood to symbolize the presence in the sacrament of Christ the Light of the World, and their number to allude to the two natures in our Lord.
It was required that an oil-lamp should hang before the high altar, always alight, in honour of the reserved sacrament in its Pyx. It was an ancientcustom to have a great ornamented wax-light at Easter, called the Paschal Candle, in honour of the Resurrection of our Lord. Lights were placed on the rood-loft, and tapers were burned in front of the images of the saints, here and there in the church and its chapels. “The lighting of candles is not to dispel darkness, but to show that the saints are lightened by the light of heaven from God, as when they were alive, and the light of Faith, Grace, and Doctrine shone in them in this life.” “The Church Light before the rood, the relics, or images of saints burneth to the honour of God.”[327]
The number of these lights before saints was sometimes considerable. For example, the churchwardens’ accounts of All Saints’, Derby, for 1466-67, give entries with respect to the lights in that church, which tell us the number of images of saints, the number of tapers before each image, and the way in which they were provided:—
St. Catherine’s lights contained 20 serges, maintained by the collection of the Candle lighter.St. Nicholas’ light contained 12 serges, maintained by the gathering of the Parish Clerk on St. Nicholas’ night.Four other serges were burnt before St. Nicholas, which were provided by the Schoolmaster’s gathering from his scholars, St. Nicholas being the patron saint of School boys.St. Eloy’s (Elgius) light had 6 serges, maintained by the Gild of the Farriers.St. Clement’s light had 5 serges, maintained by the Gild of Bakers.Our Lady’s light contained 5 serges, maintained by the Shoemakers.Before the Rood 5 serges were maintained by 5 several benefactors.Before the Mary of Pity 5 serges were maintained by the wife of Ralph Mayre.In the Lady Chapel before our Lady 3 serges, maintained by 3 several benefactors.In the same chapel before the Image of St. John Baptist several serges maintained by one benefactor.Before St. Christopher 5 serges by 5 individuals.3 serges which AncrGeyr found, one before our Lady, another before St. Catherine, and the third before the Trinity Altar.Before St. Edmund 2 serges by the gathering of the Clerk on St. Edmund’s night, gathering as they do on St. Nicholas’ night.[328]
St. Catherine’s lights contained 20 serges, maintained by the collection of the Candle lighter.
St. Nicholas’ light contained 12 serges, maintained by the gathering of the Parish Clerk on St. Nicholas’ night.
Four other serges were burnt before St. Nicholas, which were provided by the Schoolmaster’s gathering from his scholars, St. Nicholas being the patron saint of School boys.
St. Eloy’s (Elgius) light had 6 serges, maintained by the Gild of the Farriers.
St. Clement’s light had 5 serges, maintained by the Gild of Bakers.
Our Lady’s light contained 5 serges, maintained by the Shoemakers.
Before the Rood 5 serges were maintained by 5 several benefactors.
Before the Mary of Pity 5 serges were maintained by the wife of Ralph Mayre.
In the Lady Chapel before our Lady 3 serges, maintained by 3 several benefactors.
In the same chapel before the Image of St. John Baptist several serges maintained by one benefactor.
Before St. Christopher 5 serges by 5 individuals.
3 serges which AncrGeyr found, one before our Lady, another before St. Catherine, and the third before the Trinity Altar.
Before St. Edmund 2 serges by the gathering of the Clerk on St. Edmund’s night, gathering as they do on St. Nicholas’ night.[328]
Dr. Cox says that these lights were probably all lighted at high mass; but those of saints only on their saint days, and that only the altar-lamp was left alight all night.
At the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a temporary wooden chandelier, called a trindle, bearing many lights, was set up in church, and the attendants at the service brought tapers with them; the general illumination gave to the festival the name of Candle-Mass.
The popularity of these lights is shown in many ways—gilds maintained them, the public generally subscribed to them, and testators frequently left money to them.
A taper seems sometimes to have been symbolical of a person, as when the people who followed a procession carried them and presented them at the altar; when a nun to be professed and an anchoress to be enclosed, thus carried and offered them; when a penitent carried them; and, when in excommunication, “by bell, book, and candle,” the candle was extinguished. Perhaps, in giving to the lights before the rood and the images of saints, there was some notion in the donors’ minds that they were keeping themselves in the recollection of Christ and the saints.
Besides these ritual lights, it was customary at a funeral to set up a wooden herse in church around the coffin, and to place two or more large wax candles, often called torches, about the herse. People often made provision in their wills for such lights, not only on the day of the funeral, but on the week-day, month’s-mind, and yearly obit, and sometimes at a perpetual obit. Perhaps what was intended to be symbolized was that, though their bodies were buried in darkness, their souls were in the land of light.
The dramatic representation of Scripture subjects—the Three Kings at Christmas, the Passion of our Lord in Lent, and others at other times—was common in the cathedrals, monasteries, large towns, and perhaps villages. Bishop Poor, in his “Ancren Riewle,” suggests that female recluses, who sometimes lived in a cell beside the church, may haveto mention among other subjects of confession, “I went to the play in the churchyard; I looked on at the wrestling, or other foolish sports.” The Passion play at Ober Ammergau has proved that such performances may be made dignified and devotional.
The custom of using the churchyard for purposes of business and pleasure was very common and very persistent. As early as the fourth century St. Basil protested against the holding of markets in the precincts of churches, under pretext of making better provision for the festivals; but the custom held its own, and we have a catena of synodical declarations against holding secular pleas, markets and fairs, and indulging in sports, in church and churchyard, and a series of complaints by the synodsmen in their annual presentation to their bishops of the breach of the canons.
Cardinal Ottobon, at the Synod of London, 1268, made a constitution prohibiting this kind of use of the sacred building and its enclosure; and strictly enjoining all bishops and other prelates to cause it to be inviolably observed on pain of ecclesiastical censure; and here are a few examples of the way in which it was disregarded down to so late a period as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries:
The parishioners of St. Michael le Belfry, York, in 1416, complain that a common market is held in their churchyard on Sundays and holidays.[329]In theexplanation of the Second Commandment, c. xvi., in “Dives and Pauper,” in allusion to the abuse, which adds a little to our information, “no markette sholde be holden by vytaylers or other chapmen on Sondaye in the churche or in the churchyarde or at the church gate ne in sentuary (churchyard) ne out.” In another place (Sixth Commandment, c. i.) we learn that the chapmen and their families sometimes slept in the church or churchyard.
One of the canons of the Synod of Exeter, 1287, strictly enjoins on parish priests that they publicly proclaim in their churches that no one presume to carry on combats, dances, or other improper sports in the churchyards, especially on the even and feasts of saints, or stage plays or farces (ludos theatrales et ludebriorum spectacula).[330]Yet in 1472, at Sallay, in Yorkshire, it is found necessary to make an order that no one use improper and prohibited sports within the churchyard, as, for example,pilopedali vel manuale, tutts and handball, or wrestling.
A custom which is still more opposed to our sense of propriety was that of holding church ales in the sacred building. A church ale was the old form of parish tea. It was connected with works of piety or charity, or of Christian fellowship, and in the eyes of the people of those times perhaps partook of the nature of the primitive love-feasts. They made a collection for the poor of the parish at a Whitsun Ale, started a young couple with a little sum by aBride Ale, or got a man out of difficulties by a Bid Ale (frombiddan, to pray or beg). So persistent was the custom, that in our latest English canons of 1603 it is thought necessary to prohibit any holding of feasts, banquets, suppers, or church ale drinkings in church.[331]
ABUSES.
Even a book like this, which professes to deal with the humbler details of parochial life, rather than with the greater matters of ecclesiastical history, would be defective if it failed to take some note of the administrative abuses against which all Europe complained for centuries, and tried in vain to get them amended in the three great Councils at Pisa, Constance, and Basle. We shall treat of them very briefly, and chiefly in their relation to our special subject.
It was soon found that the new relations of the Church of England to the patriarchal authority of the See of Rome, which had been a consequence of the Norman Conquest, had opened the door to a flood of evils which had not been foreseen. We can only enumerate them without going into their history.
The claim of the popes to present to all ecclesiastical benefices was opposed by the king with respectto the rights of the Crown to the nomination to bishoprics and abbacies, and on the part of the nobles and gentry with respect to their patronage; but by partial encroachments the popes did in fact, from time to time, nominate to many bishoprics, and dignities, and to a considerable number of parochial benefices. Curiously enough, the most important of these invasions of the rights of others are the most capable of extenuation. The kings, as we shall presently have occasion to say, at length used their power of practical nomination to bishoprics, not to give the Church the best Churchmen as bishops, but to pay for the services of their ministers of State with the rank and revenues of bishoprics. Their nomination at all was an infringement of the constitutional liberties of the Church, and their use of their power of practical nomination in this way was a grievous wrong. In the reigns of John and Henry III., when the popes took upon themselves to nominate to sees, they were careful to select Churchmen of learning and character, who contrasted favourably in the eyes of the nation with the king’s nominees thus superseded. In the reign of Edward I., the king and the pope played into one another’s hands, the king did not oppose the Papal nomination, but the pope readily nominated men whom the king recommended. Later kings successfully maintained their right of nomination against the popes, but the pious and feeble Henry VI. again yielded to papal encroachments.
Theintrusionby the popeof foreigners, chieflyItalians, into English benefices was a great practical grievance while it lasted,i.e.during part of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Bishop Grostete estimated that the revenues of the alien clerks, whom Innocent IV. had planted in England, equalled seventy thousand marks, while the king’s revenue was not more than a third of that sum. This abuse was so unpopular that it provoked a serious resistance. About 1230, a secret association, countenanced, it was said, by men of position, wrote to bishops and chapters, warning them not to encourage these encroachments, and to the monks, who farmed the benefices of the aliens, not to pay them their rent. The tithe barns of the alien rectors were plundered, and the contents sold or given to the poor, and some of the men themselves were seized and put to ransom. In the reign of Richard II. (1379), an Act of Parliament forbade any to farm the benefice of an alien, or to send money out of the realm for such farm, under the penalties of the Statute of Provisors. But the evil was checked by the Acts of Provisors (1350) and Premunire (1353), and these encroachments of the Roman See were extinguished by the end of the fourteenth century.
A great grievance inflicted by the Crown upon the Church wasthe use of Church patronagefor the payment of the political, diplomatic, judicial, and other officers of the civil administration. The result was that a large number of the greatest offices of the Church were served by deputy; the details ofdiocesan work were done by suffragans, archdeacons performed their duties by officials, rectors by parish chaplains. It was inevitable that the work should be imperfectly done; rank and wealth are attached to Church benefices in order to enhance the dignity and influence of the holders and their power of fulfilling the duties of their office, and alocum tenens, though he were intrinsically as able a man, can never fulfil the place or do the work of the real holder of the office.
It was Henry II. who adopted it as a normal practice, and not without protest. When this king asked Bishop St. Hugh of Lincoln for a prebend for one of his courtiers, the bishop replied: “Ecclesiastical benefices are not for courtiers, but for ecclesiastics. Those who hold them must serve not the palace or the treasury, but the altar. The king has wherewithal to compensate those who work for him and fight his battles. Let him allow those who serve the King of kings to enjoy their fitting remuneration, and not to be deprived of it.” When King Richard, through the Archbishop of Canterbury, desired Bishop Hugh to send him a list of twelve of his canons to be employed in his affairs, Hugh replied that “he had often prohibited his clerks from intermeddling in secular affairs, and he certainly was not going to encourage such a thing now. It was quite enough to have archbishops forgetting their sacred calling.” All the canons had not the courage of their bishop, or were ambitious of court appointments, for some of them went off to the king at Fontevrault without thebishop’s leave; but all were relieved from their difficulty by the king’s death.[332]
A kindred evil was that ofpluralities, since the holder of several benefices must needs put alocum tenensinto all of them save one, with the disadvantages just mentioned. John Mansel, Henry III.’s chancellor, is said by Matthew Paris to have held the revenues of seven hundred benefices, amounting to four thousand marks.
The popes in the thirteenth century exerted their authority to put an end to the abuse, but met with a strenuous resistance. At the Council of London, 1237, under Otho, when the Canon against pluralists of the recent Lateran Council was proposed to be adopted, Walter de Cantilupe, Bishop of Worcester, warned the Legate that the attempt to impose it on the English clergy would be resisted by force by the young men who were bold and daring, and not without the approbation of some of their elders;[333]and the question was postponed. But the popes exercised pressure by refusing to confirm the elections to bishoprics of men who were pluralists, and the Archbishops[334]gave their authority to the cause of reform. In time the evil was lessened; there were fewer benefices held in plurality, and those who held them were required to obtain a dispensation, and to provide in the benefices on which they did not resideproper substitutes with a sufficient provision for themselves, and for the hospitalities and charities of the benefices.
We have had occasion to make several allusions to thefarming of benefices; this was another abuse which may require a few words of explanation. The incumbent for a definite annual payment put the emoluments of his benefice into the hands of another to make what he could out of it. The monks at one time were great farmers of benefices. The evil of it was that the farmer, having no responsibility towards or interest in the people, was tempted to be strict in exacting his dues, and deaf to claims of charity. For example, in 1532 the Convent of Merton granted a lease of the rectory of Kingston-on-Thames with all the profits and the presentation to the vicarage for twenty-one years.[335]
A danger connected with this farming of benefices for a long term of years, which is not apparent at first sight, is indicated in the following instance. In 1267, Bishop Richard of Gravesend made Dunstable Priory give up the Church of Lidlington; they had farmed it from an absentee rector, and on his death they seem to have assumed the rectorial rights.[336]
Among the greatest and most widespread abuses, was that of admitting to benefices men who were not qualified to fulfil the duties of the office. This was the case more or less with ecclesiastical beneficesfrom bishoprics downwards; but it was specially the case with rectories.
This abuse, of course, arose from the fact that in the majority of cases the patronage of the rectory was in the hands of the lord of the manor, the descendant, or at least the representative, of the original donor of the benefice, and was usually regarded as a natural provision for one of the younger sons of the family. It was, perhaps, not in theory so bad an arrangement as some people think it. In those feudal times the lord of the manor was the petty king of all the people, and if one of his sons had the personal qualifications, perhaps no other priest could fulfil the duties of rector of the parish with equal advantages. The relations of squire and parson in a country village are a little difficult, and a son of the ruling family could exercise an influence in the parish which a stranger could not; he could mediate between the lord and the people with greater influence on both sides than a stranger; and the people would generally pay a loyal regard to him which they would not to any other priest.
The great abuse was that so many of these rectors remained in minor orders, exercising perhaps a good influence, fulfilling the hospitalities and charities of their office, but leaving its spiritual duties to be performed by a parish chaplain. This did not seem so objectionable to them as it does to us, because they were under the influence of the feudal ideas, which tended to make all offices hereditary, and toconsider that the holders of office did all that was required of them if they provided that the duties of the office were satisfactorily performed by subordinates.
The law made a man who had received the lowest of the minor orders capable of holding a benefice;[337]the bishops, therefore, could not refuse the patron’s nomination in such cases, and the bishops’ registers contain records of the institution of young men, who were sometimes only acolytes, or even clerks; they had to do the best they could for the well-being of both the young rectors and their parishes, with some consideration for the rights of patrons and the opinion of the age. In very many cases the newly instituted rector received at once a licence of non-residence for a year, that he might study, generally, or in Oxford or Paris specifically. The leave of non-residence is sometimes extended to two or three years, or renewed from time to time. Sometimes it is stipulated that the rector shall take orders as sub-deacon within the year, or that he shall pass through all the orders up to priest’s within the time of non-residence allowed. There is frequently further licence given to put the benefice to farm, with a stipulation for a donation to the poor of the parish, or the fabric of the church, or the like.[338]
William, the son of Gilbert FitzStephen, presented to the parish of Kentisbury, was refused by Bishop Stapledon on the ground that he was too illiterate for such a charge. The influence of powerful friends was brought to bear upon the bishop, and he conceded thus far—that the young man should go to school (scolas grammaticales), and if, after awhile, he could admit him with a good conscience, he would do so, and would not, in the mean time, take advantage of the law which made the nomination lapse to himself at the end of six months. But it does not appear in the Register that William FitzStephen was ever instituted; and the institution of John de Wyke, priest, in the following year, by the patron, indicates that the illiterate young man abandoned the idea of becoming Rector of Kentisbury, and perhaps did service, such as he was qualified to perform satisfactorily, under his father’s banner in the field. Sometimes the bishop dealt with a case more peremptorily. Bishop Grostete refused apresentee whom he described as “a boy still in his Ovid.” The same bishop refused to admit to a benefice a man presented by the Chancellor of York, on the ground that he was almost illiterate; and sends the young man’s examination papers that the chancellor may judge for himself. He refused to institute W. de Grana on the presentation of W. Raleigh, the treasurer of Exeter, because of his youth and ignorance; but that Raleigh may not think him ungrateful, he promises to give his nominee a pension of ten marks a year till he gets a better benefice. In answer to a request of the Legate Otho to institute Thomas, a son of Earl Ferrers, to a benefice, he begs to be excused; but if the matter is pressed, he begs that a vicar may be appointed to the parish, and that Thomas may have some provision out of the living without cure of souls.[339]In 1530, Bishop Holbeach of Lincoln rejected a Canon of Ronton nominated to the Vicarage of Seighford asindoctus et indignus. Richard Swinfield, Bishop of Hereford (1283-1316), refused to institute a boy of sixteen, of the name of Baskerville, to the Vicarage of Weobley, on the presentation of the Prior and Canons of Llanthony, though pressed by a powerful relative of the boy.