The temporalities[388]of the bishop were valued at £462 4s.6¾d.The dean and chapter had estates, appropriate rectories, portions, pensions, etc., which brought in a clear income of £310 14s.6½d.The dignities of the cathedral are given as follows:—The deanery with a prebend, £53 6s.8d.The chantry, £53 6s.8d.The chancellor with the Rectory of Chiddingly, £53 6s.8d.The treasurer,per se£46 13s.4d.Then came twenty-eight other prebends, ranging from £4 13s.4d.to £40, making up the total income of the dignitaries and prebendaries to £706 13s.4d.
The temporalities[388]of the bishop were valued at £462 4s.6¾d.
The dean and chapter had estates, appropriate rectories, portions, pensions, etc., which brought in a clear income of £310 14s.6½d.
The dignities of the cathedral are given as follows:—
The deanery with a prebend, £53 6s.8d.
The chantry, £53 6s.8d.
The chancellor with the Rectory of Chiddingly, £53 6s.8d.
The treasurer,per se£46 13s.4d.
Then came twenty-eight other prebends, ranging from £4 13s.4d.to £40, making up the total income of the dignitaries and prebendaries to £706 13s.4d.
When we turn to the “Valor” (vol. i. p. 293), we find fuller details of the condition of things at the end of the fifteenth century. “The annual value of all and singular, the houses, castles, domains, manors, lands, and tenements, and other temporal possessions whatsoever, and also of the tithes, oblations, pensions, portions, and other spiritual profits whatsoever, of the Reverend Father in Christ, Robert, Bishop of Chichester,” amounted to spiritualities, £138 17s.9d.; temporalities,[389]£589 10s.2d.; or, after certain allowed deductions, to a clear total of £677 1s.3d.
The income of the dean and chapter has grown to £310 14s.6½d.; we have no note of the way in which it was disposed of.
The income of the dean, William Fleshmonger, was £58 9s.4d.We have no reason to doubt that he was identical with the William Fleshmonger who was Rector of Selsey,[390]worth £11 3s.4d.; with the Dr. William Fleshmonger who was Rector of Storyngton,[391]£18; and with the William Fleshmonger who was Rector of Hertfield,[392]£7. No doubt it was the dean who was the tenant by indenture for a term of years from Battle Abbey, at a rent of £15 6s.8d., of the Manor of Apultram[393]near Chichester, and in all probability he is identical with the William Fleshmonger who held the Prebend of Carlton cum Dalby[394]of the Church of Lincoln.The Dignity of the Precentory had endowment to the amount of £35 0s.5½d., and Charles William Horsey seems to have had no other preferment in Chichester Diocese. But among the Prebendaries of Lincoln there is also a William Horsey, Prebendary of Scamelsby,[395]who may very possibly have been identical with our Precentor.The Dignity of Chancellor was endowed with a clear £27 7s., and we find that Mr. George Croft was also Prebendary of Middleton,[396]worth £2 3s.4d.There was also a George Croft, Rector of Wynford,[397]£21 12s.10d., in the diocese of Bath and Wells, who may have been our chancellor.The treasurer, Hugho Rolfe, after paying two servants and other dues, had a clear £62 6s.8d.from the dignity, andheld besides the Prebend of Braklesham,[398]£11 17s.3½d., and apparently the vicarage of Henfield,[399]£16 9s.9½d.The dignity of the Archdeaconry of Chichester was worth £38 3s.4d., and the Archdeacon John Worthial also held the Prebend of Huve Town,[400]£10; he seems also to have held the benefice of Sutton, £15 0s.6d.;[401]but we hesitate to identify the venerable archdeacon with the William Worthiall who held the two Chantries of Eastangmering and Fyrring,[402]though no doubt his friends would often jestingly assure him that if he had half a dozen more sinecures he would still have been “worthy all.” The Archdeaconry of Lewes was worth £39 14s.10d., and Archdeacon More was also Prebendary of Coleworth,[403]£18 13s.4d., and is probably identical with the Edward More who was Vicar of Bexhill,[404]worth £23 10s.2d.There were altogether thirty-one prebends ranging in value from £10 to £20; four of these were added by Bishop Sherborne a little before the Reformation, restricted to men of Winchester and New Colleges, who were required to serve in their own persons without deputies.
The income of the dean, William Fleshmonger, was £58 9s.4d.We have no reason to doubt that he was identical with the William Fleshmonger who was Rector of Selsey,[390]worth £11 3s.4d.; with the Dr. William Fleshmonger who was Rector of Storyngton,[391]£18; and with the William Fleshmonger who was Rector of Hertfield,[392]£7. No doubt it was the dean who was the tenant by indenture for a term of years from Battle Abbey, at a rent of £15 6s.8d., of the Manor of Apultram[393]near Chichester, and in all probability he is identical with the William Fleshmonger who held the Prebend of Carlton cum Dalby[394]of the Church of Lincoln.
The Dignity of the Precentory had endowment to the amount of £35 0s.5½d., and Charles William Horsey seems to have had no other preferment in Chichester Diocese. But among the Prebendaries of Lincoln there is also a William Horsey, Prebendary of Scamelsby,[395]who may very possibly have been identical with our Precentor.
The Dignity of Chancellor was endowed with a clear £27 7s., and we find that Mr. George Croft was also Prebendary of Middleton,[396]worth £2 3s.4d.There was also a George Croft, Rector of Wynford,[397]£21 12s.10d., in the diocese of Bath and Wells, who may have been our chancellor.
The treasurer, Hugho Rolfe, after paying two servants and other dues, had a clear £62 6s.8d.from the dignity, andheld besides the Prebend of Braklesham,[398]£11 17s.3½d., and apparently the vicarage of Henfield,[399]£16 9s.9½d.
The dignity of the Archdeaconry of Chichester was worth £38 3s.4d., and the Archdeacon John Worthial also held the Prebend of Huve Town,[400]£10; he seems also to have held the benefice of Sutton, £15 0s.6d.;[401]but we hesitate to identify the venerable archdeacon with the William Worthiall who held the two Chantries of Eastangmering and Fyrring,[402]though no doubt his friends would often jestingly assure him that if he had half a dozen more sinecures he would still have been “worthy all.” The Archdeaconry of Lewes was worth £39 14s.10d., and Archdeacon More was also Prebendary of Coleworth,[403]£18 13s.4d., and is probably identical with the Edward More who was Vicar of Bexhill,[404]worth £23 10s.2d.There were altogether thirty-one prebends ranging in value from £10 to £20; four of these were added by Bishop Sherborne a little before the Reformation, restricted to men of Winchester and New Colleges, who were required to serve in their own persons without deputies.
Residentiaries on first appointment to office were bound to attend every service without a single omission for a year, and in case of an omission to recommence their course.
There were twelve vicars choral who received £2 12s.8d.each, and fourteen chantries which were served by the vicars choral, the profits of each ranging between £3 and £13. There were also eight choristers and four thuribulers.[405]
There were twelve vicars choral who received £2 12s.8d.each, and fourteen chantries which were served by the vicars choral, the profits of each ranging between £3 and £13. There were also eight choristers and four thuribulers.[405]
“Bishop Sherborne, just before the Reformation, having ruled magnificently, laid down his staff and mitre weary with the weight of ninety years and more, and left his statutes chained to his throne; begging the kindly thoughts of all sorts and conditions of men; with a bequest of crown soleil, and bread and good wine to be offered to the bishop at his ‘jocund coming’ on a visitation; ypocras and choice fruits for the crowned king and primate; wine to be drunk round the city cross for the young; ample doles for the aged; marriage portions out of the annual residue for poor girls; egg flip with milk and sugar, coloured with saffron, for the choristers; and a dinner to the chapter on his anniversary.”[406]
There are some examples in England of that annexation of temporal rule to certain episcopal sees, of which the independent prince bishops of Germany are instances still more illustrious, and the Bishop of Rome the most remarkable. TheBishops of Durhamwere the temporal rulers of the district of country between the Tees and the Tyne, and almost independent of the king; while the men of “the bishopric,” as it was called in a special sense, were the servants of St. Cuthbert, and subject to none but Cuthbert’s successor. This privilege arose from a gift of the district to St.Cuthbert and his successors by King Guthred in the year 883. TheBishops of Winchesterwere anciently reputed to be Earls of Southampton, and possessed a certain temporal authority, the origin of which is not known to the writer. TheBishop of Elywas in ancient times supreme in the Isle, which was, if not a county palatine, at least a royal franchise, with courts and exclusive jurisdiction of its own; of which traces remain in the existing arrangements, in that it has no Lord-Lieutenant, and is in every way distinct from the rest of the county in which it is situated. It is reasonable to suppose that the bishop (created in 1108) derived this authority as the successor of the abbots, who received it as the representatives of Queen Etheldreda, the founder, in continuance of privileges conferred on the queen when King Tondbert gave the Isle to her in dower.
MONKS AND FRIARS.
We have only to deal here with the relations of the religious houses with the clergy, and their influence upon the general religious life of clergy and people.
First of all, the monasteries kept before the minds both of parish priests and of their people the ideal of an unambitious, self-denying, studious, meditative, religious life. No doubt many of the monks and nuns fell short of their own ideal, and there were occasional scandals; we find notices in the registers of the bishops of their intervention in such cases. But the lives of the majority were sufficiently respectable to maintain the credit of the institution, and there were always some whose lives were exemplary. We may produce an evidence of the general feeling on the subject from the report of the commissioners of Henry VIII., who were sent to inquire into the state of the smaller monasteries, with a view to their suppression. The report stated thatthere were all sorts of abuses and scandals in the smaller houses, and recommended that they should be suppressed, and that their inhabitants should be transferred to “the great solemn monasteries of this realm, wherein—thanks be to God—religion is right well kept and observed.” As to their report against the smaller houses; they had been employed on purpose to make out a case against them, and the world has long since come to the conclusion that their adverse testimony is not to be believed.
If we are right in these enlightened days in thinking that fine public buildings for the housing of parliaments, municipal corporations, and the like civil institutions of the nation tend to give dignity to the national life; and that galleries of sculpture and painting, and museums of art, exercise an elevating influence on the popular mind; it can hardly be denied that the religious houses, with their stately groups of buildings, their sublime churches, and the numerous beautiful works of sculpture, painting, embroidery, and goldsmiths’ work which they contained, must have had a similar influence upon the religious sentiment and the æsthetic education of the people. A mediæval town was greatly the richer, religiously and intellectually, for having a great monastery in its suburb. The half-dozen religious houses—great and small—in a rural county had a religious, civilizing, elevating influence over the whole country-side. Even their empty ruins have not lost all their influence. The stately relics of the Yorkshire abbeys give added interest and dignity to thegreat northern county. What would the Isle of Ely be without the solemn grandeur of its cathedral church?
There is not enough left of any one of our own monasteries to enable the visitor to its mournful ruins to realize how each was a little town, protected by its walls and gate towers; with the roofs and chimneys of its numerous domestic buildings, and the trees of its gardens and orchards appearing over the walls; and the towers of its great church forming the centre of the architectural group, as it was the centre of the life of the inhabitants. We have, therefore, borrowed an illustration from Clugny, the parent and prototype of the houses of the Reformed Benedictine Orders.
The “Religious” and the upper classes of society were more in touch than at first sight appears. The great families kept up friendly relations[407]with the houses which their ancestors had founded, of which they were still the patrons, and from time to time benefactors. People of the upperclasses, in travelling, usually sought hospitality at the religious houses, and were entertained by the abbot, while their people were cared for in the guest house. The monks and nuns were largely taken from these classes.
Abbey of Cluny, as it was.
Throughout the Middle Ages the monks—especially the Benedictines—continued to cultivate learning, both secular and religious. The chroniclers of the greater monasteries were the only historians of the time, and their collections of books were the libraries of the nation. Some of the great monasteries served the purpose of the great public schools of modern times, and the nunneries especially were—as they are still in Continental countries—the schools of the daughters of the gentry.
Long after they had ceased to be the pioneers leading the way in reducing the waste lands under cultivation, the monks continued to set an example to the lay gentry and landowners in enterprising scientific agriculture and horticulture; and in the refinement of domestic economy they were ages ahead of the rest of the community; they utilized streams for water power, for irrigation, and for sanitation; they sought out pure water for domestic use, and brought it long distances by conduits. The Church, regular and secular, was a liberal landlord. Not a few of its tenants, seated generation after generation on its manors, grew into knightly and noble families.
The monasteries exercised a most important direct influence upon the parochial clergy and their people owing to the fact that they were the patrons of alarge proportion of the parishes; and nominated the vicars who were to teach and minister to the people of those parishes. In many cases where a monastery adjoined a town, the convent had the patronage of all the vicarages in the town in its hands; and their bias would lead them to appoint men of a “religious” tone of character.
That the monks were not unpopular is proved by two facts. First, that the House of Commons only passed the first Act of Suppression of the smaller houses under the coercion of the king’s personal threats; and, secondly, that the suppression was so resented by the people that in several parts of the country the people rose in armed rebellion against it.
But we must be content to indicate thus briefly that the monastic institution in many ways exercised a powerful influence upon the national life and religion.
The Mendicant Orders require a more lengthened consideration, for they were founded as an auxiliary to the ancient diocesan and parochial institution, in direct pastoral ministrations to the people, and played an important part in the religious life of the nation.
In the thirteenth century—as again in our day—the increasing population had grown too great for the agricultural needs of the country, and the surplus population had flocked into the towns. The result then, as now, was overcrowding, the building of unhealthy houses in the suburbs, poverty, dirt, anddisease; and, as a consequence, ignorance and irreligion. Leprosy, brought probably from the East by the returning Crusaders, had become permanent and widely spread among all ranks and classes.[408]At the same time a wave of wild opinions, political and religious, was sweeping across Europe which reached this island almost a century later under the name of Lollardism, and created disaffection in Church and State.
The intellectual disorder excited the zeal of the Spanish canon, Dominic, who organized an order of preaching friars, to go about teaching the truth and contending against dangerous error. About the same time the heart of Francis, a citizen of Amalfi, was fired with compassion for the misery of the poor and sick, and he organized an order of brothers, whose duty it was to minister to suffering humanity. Both orders speedily became very popular, and spread over Europe. The Dominicans introduced themselves into England at Oxford, in 1221, and were patronized by Archbishop Stephen Langton. The first Franciscans came three years afterwards to Canterbury; and both orders spread as rapidly here as in the other countries of Europe.
A Semi-choir of Franciscan Friars.(Fourteenth century MS. in British Museum. Domitian, A. 17.)
The organization of both orders ran on the same lines. Each was an ecclesiastical army. Each had a general of the order residing in Rome, under the special protection and correction of one of the cardinals. Under the general was a provincial in each countryinto which the order extended. The houses of the order in each country were gathered into groups, called by the Dominicans, “Visitations,” and by the Franciscans, “Custodies.” The English province of the Franciscans was divided into seven custodies or wardenships, each including eight or nine convents,[409]and comprising most of the great towns. The Dominicans had fifty-eight convents here; the Franciscans 75. The officers were all elected at a chapter,were required to resign at the ensuing chapter, and might be removed at any time for insufficiency or misconduct.
The Carmelite Friars had their origin in the East, and were introduced into England by Sir John de Vesey, on his return from the Crusade in the early part of the thirteenth century. It had ultimately about five houses in England. The Austin Friars, founded about the middle of the century, had about forty-five houses here. These make up the four orders, Black, Grey, White, and Austin. All smaller foundations were suppressed or included in the Austins, by the Council of Lyons, in 1370.
The great difference between the monks and the friars was that the ideal of the monastic life was seclusion from the world for prayer and meditation with a view to the cultivation of one’s own soul; that of the friar’s life was devotion to active work. The great economical difference was that the monks were individually vowed to poverty, but as communities they were wealthy, while the friars were vowed to have no property individually or collectively, and to live of the alms of the people.
At first the friars were very successful in England, as elsewhere. Bishops like Stephen Langton and Grostete patronized them. Before long members of the mendicant orders became themselves bishops and archbishops. They sent their young men to the universities, and cultivated learning so successfully that they soon became the most famous teachers in the universities of Europe. Among the peoplegenerally they effected a great revival of religion, which Sir J. Stephen compares with the revival in more modern times effected by the preaching of Wesley and Whitefield.
The friaries were always founded in, or in the suburbs of, the larger towns, for their mission was to the masses of the people. But they had a system of itineration, which seems to have divided the country into districts, and sent the friars two and two, visiting not only the villages but the houses of the gentry and farmers. This brought the friars into rivalry with the parish priests. In the towns the Dominicans often built a large church, planned so as to form an auditorium, and attracted large congregations by their popular preaching. The friars laid themselves out also for special services, which would attract the sluggish and popularize religion, such as miracle plays and the observance of special festivals. In the villages the itinerant friar preached in the church or churchyard, and heard the confessions of those who chose to come to him; and there were many who preferred to confess their misdoings to a comparative stranger, who did not live among them, rather than to their parish priest.
So says Chaucer—
He had power of confession,As said himself, more than a curate,For of his order he was licentiate.Full sweetly heard he confession,And pleasant was his absolution.He was an easy man to give penanceThere as he wist to have a good pittance,For unto a poor order for to giveIs sign that a man is well yshrive.“Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.”
Both in town and country they offered the fraternity of their convent to benefactors, with its prayers for their good estate while living, and sought to have masses for the dead entrusted to them on the ground that a convent of friars would pray them out of purgatory ten times as soon as a single parish priest.
“Thomas, Thomas, so might I ride or go,And by that lord that cleped is St. Ive,N’ere[410]thou our brother shouldest thou not thrive.In our chapter pray we day and nightTo Christ that he here send hele and might[411]Thy body for to welden hastilee.”
The rustic roughly answers—
“God wot, quoth he, I nothing thereof feel,So help me Christ as I in fewe yearsHave spended upon divers manner freresFull many a pound, yet fare I never the bet.”“Ye sayn me thus how that I am your brother.Ye, certes, quod the friar, trusteth wee,I took our dame the letter under our sel.”[412]Chaucer, “The Sompnour’s Tale.”
So “Piers Plowman” says—
“I am Wrath, quod he, I was sum tyme a frereAnd the convent’s gardyner for to graff impesOn limitours and lesyngs I impedTill they bere leaves of low speech lordes to please,And sithen they blossomed abrode in bower to hear shrifts.And now is fallen thereof a fruite, that folk have well lieverShewen ther shriftes to hem than shryve them to their parsons.And now parsons have percyved that freres part with them,These possessioners preache and deprave freres,And freres find them in default, as folk beareth witness.”
Bonaventure, when General of the Franciscans, in a letter to one of his provincials, expresses great dissatisfaction with those of the brethren who, contrary to the rule of Francis, assault the clergy in their sermons before the laity, and only sow scandal, strife, and hatred, and with those who injure the parish priests by monopolizing to themselves the burial of the dead and the drawing up of wills, thereby making the whole Order detested by the clergy. But he complains of the injustice done by accusing the whole of what was the fault only of a few—“the scum floats on the surface, and is noticed by every one.”[413]It was rather hard, perhaps, on the parish priest, that he should not only be obliged to submit to the intrusion of the friar, but should be expected to offer hospitality to the intruder, and make much of him, as a constitution of Archbishop Peckham desires him to do.[414]
It is the popular belief that the friars, after having in the first burst of their enthusiasm effected a greatrevival of religion, very soon departed from the principles of their founders, became useless, if not mischievous, and fell into universal disfavour. There is no denying that the splendid enthusiasm of their first institution cooled down, and the wonderful revival of popular religion which it brought about seemed to die out; it is the inevitable course of all such revivals; but it left good perennial results behind.
The burgesses of the towns in which the friaries were situated seem to have regarded them as useful workers among the poor. In many of the towns the civic authorities consented to hold the site and buildings of the friaries in trust, in order to evade the rule which forbade the orders themselves to hold property. The friars continued to live, and their continuance depended upon the daily voluntary alms of the townspeople. The churches of the friars were favourite places for civic functions and miracle plays; the people sought burial in their precincts; and down to the very eve of their dissolution a great number of wills, both of clergy and laity, contain small bequests to the friars. Perhaps the most striking evidence in their favour at the very end of their existence in England is that Edward IV. was a great patron of the Observants (the strictest section of the Franciscans); Henry VII. founded six convents of them; and Henry VIII. took one of them as his confessor. It is a fact which tells in their favour that they had not grown wealthy. When the dissolution came,the jackals of Henry VIII. found nothing but the houses and their precincts, usually in a poor neighbourhood, and their churches. Their income is commonly returned at 20s.to 40s., and the total value of the property, when the prior’s house and the garden and orchard and the whole convent was let out on rent, was seldom over £10 a year.[415]
The truth seems to be that the friars continued to be the most popular preachers, and to carry on a steady work among the poor of the towns. But, strongly papal in sentiment, their constitution made them an organized propaganda of any ideas which the cardinal protectors and generals of the orders residing in Rome suggested to the provincials in the several nations, they to the wardens of the districts, they to the priors of the houses, they to their individual friars, and they through the streets of the city and the length and breadth of the land. It was, perhaps, their political opposition to Henry VIII. more than any other cause of offence or dereliction of duty, which provoked their overthrow.
The two chief faults of the system were the principle of mendicancy and the exemption from episcopal control. It is worth while to study the institution carefully, for something of the same kind—brotherhoods of educated and trained men, who are content to abandonthe world’s ambitions, to live among the poor, to preach the gospel in a popular way, and to minister to the temporal sufferings of the people—is exactly what is wanted to produce a new revival among the masses of the people; and we need to ascertain the secrets of the friars’ strength and of their weakness.
THE “TAXATIO” OF POPE NICHOLAS IV.
In the thirteenth century the popes assumed the right, as feudal lords over the Church, to demand from every church benefice a fine of its first year’s income from every new incumbent, and an annual tax of one-tenth of its income. The Saxon kings had made the Church lands exempt from state imposts;[416]but now kings very naturally began to think that the necessities of the State had as good a claim as those of the pope; and there ensued a certain amount of friction. The popes, with very astute policy, reconciled the kings to the tax by sometimes ceding the proceeds of it to them. Thus in 1253, Pope Innocent IV. gave the tenths to King Henry III. for three years, which occasioned a taxation or valuation to be made in the following year, sometimes called the Norwich Taxation, sometimes Pope Innocent’s Valor.
Again, in 1288, Pope Nicholas IV. gave the tenths to King Edward I. for six years, towards an expedition to the Holy Land; that they might be fully collected a new taxation was made by the king’s precept, which was begun in that year and finished in the province of Canterbury in 1291, and in the province of York in 1292.[417]This taxation continued to be the basis of all assessments upon the Church down to the time of the Reformation.
The survey takes each diocese by itself, each archdeaconry of the diocese, each rural deanery, and, finally, each benefice. Here is a specimen, selected because it is a deanery of which the writer has some personal knowledge.
Spiritualia Archidiaconatus Essexiæ. Decanatus de Berdestaple.
From the list oftemporaliain the same deanery we find that the following—the Abbots of Coggeshall, Stratford, St. Osyth, Colchester, Battle, Westminster, Byleigh, the Abbess of Barking, the Priors of Thoby, Prittlewell, Okeburn, Bermondsey, Leigh, Buttele,[418]Kereseye, the Chapter of St. Paul’s, and the Chapter of St. Martin’s, London, had income in land, rent, marsh, young of animals, mills, fallen wood, from the following places: Langedon, Thorndon magna, Bursted parva, Ging Rudulphi, Thorndon, Thorndon parva, Tillebery parva, Duddyngeherst, Stornyngdon, Donton, Doneham, Westlee, Horton, Wykford, Bournstead (Bursted) magna, Bulewephen, Fanga (Vange), Leydon, Mocrkyngge, Bowers, Benifleth parva, Chaldwell, Shenefeud, Piches [in a footnote Picheseye = Pitsey], Raumesden Cray, Rammesden Belhous, Felbingge, Thurrock parva, Thonderle, Bemfleth magna.
Every “Ecclesia” in the list gives the name of a parish, and where the word occurs it implies that the parish was a rectory. Where it is followed byVicaria ejusdem—the vicarage of the same—it implies that the rectory had been appropriated to some religious house, which had founded a vicarage therein; in this particular deanery there is only one vicarage; but it is very possible, for anything which appears, that some of the Ecclesiæ may have been appropriated to a religious house, which was technically the rector possessing all spiritual and temporal rights in the church and parish, and serving the cure by one of its own members, or by a stipendiary priest.
Even where the benefice had not been appropriated to a religious house, it often happened that some “portion” of the profits of the benefice—e.g.of the tithe or of some part of the land—had been appropriated; or that a definite annual payment,“pension,” had been assigned out of the benefice. Thus, under “Ecclesia de Oresith,” the rectory of Orsett, appears quite a list of “portions,” viz. of the Chancellor of St. Paul’s, of Mr. John of St. Clair, of the Prior of Prittlewell, of the Abbot of Westminster, of the Dean of St. Martin, London; the Abbot of Bileigh had a “pension” out of the rectory of Stanford, the Prior of Oakburn out of Dunton, the Abbot of Battle out of Hutton. There are two ways of explaining this. One is the way of the enemy of the religious houses, whose cynical explanation is that the monks had their spoon in everybody’s porridge—the Rector of Orsett had half a dozen spoons clattering together in his dish. The other explanation is that of the friend of the religious houses: that they were held in such general admiration, that lords of manors and patrons of parochial benefices who could not do more, at least made small appropriations to them out of their patronage, in token of good will, and in order to secure a permanent interest in the friendship and prayers of the Religious. With these explanations of the list of benefices of the deanery of Barstaple, we leave it for the present, proposing to make it the text of further exposition hereafter.[419]
In studying this mediæval clergy-list, the first thought which occurs to every one is to count the parishes and ascertain the total. Allowing for difficulties which tend to a few omissions, orthe counting of a few names over again, it may be depended upon that the number of parishes was about 8085; that out of those which had been appropriated to religious bodies vicarages had been endowed in about 1487, the 457 chapels had probably some endowment, besides the chapels-of-ease, dependent on the incumbent of the parish. Adding the parish churches and chapels together, we get a total of 8542 endowed places of public worship and centres of pastoral care.[420]
The next question which naturally excites interest is the incomes of the benefices, by which the services of the mediæval parish clergy were remunerated. The general idea is that the mediæval clergy were richly endowed. The truth which is revealed by the figures of this official document is that, when we take away the livings assigned by their patrons as the prebends of cathedrals, and those appropriated to religious houses, the benefices of the “working clergy,” the rectors and vicars, were mostly of small value.
Before we go into a detailed examination of them, it is desirable to make two preliminary remarks. The first is as to the value of money at that period. The question will be more fully considered in the next chapter in connection with the new valuation which was made in the time of Henry VIII., but it will be convenient to anticipate here the estimate thereaccepted that the purchasing power of money at the end of the thirteenth century was about twenty-four times as great as now, so that a pound was then equivalent to about £24 now. The other remark is in reply to the question which will naturally arise in every reader’s mind: were not the benefices much undervalued? On the contrary, it was the object of pope and king to estimate them as highly as possible, so as to increase the amount of the tenth to be demanded from them. Every source of income was taken into the account; and the general complaint at the time was that they were overestimated.
Turning now to a little study of the value of the ordinary parochial benefices, the writer has shrunk from the laborious task of anything like a complete analysis; for a few general facts are sufficient for the present purpose. First of all, many of the benefices were so small that both pope and king[421]were ashamed to demand a tenth of their poor income; a limit of ten marks (= £6 13s.4d.) was fixed, and all livings not over that sum were exempted. No wonder, when we reckon that the present value of a benefice of ten marks would be about £160 a year. But there were 2711 rectories and 1129 vicarages, making a total of 3840, nearly half the number of parochial benefices under the limit of ten marks.
Looking at the better-endowed benefices: Canterburywas an exceptionally rich diocese; out of its 279 benefices, there are 82 of ten marks and under, only 80 above £20, and the richest living, a rare exception, is £133. In Rochester, with 139 benefices, 46 are less than ten marks, only 34 of £20 and upwards, and there are two “golden livings” of £60 each. In Exeter diocese, out of 668 benefices, there are 189 of ten marks and under, 15 of £20 and over, only one so large as £50. In Bath and Wells, out of 304 parishes, there are 124 under ten marks; three of £50 and over, and the highest is one of £60. In Carlisle, out of 24 parishes, there are 18 of ten marks and under; 42 of £20 and over; one of £90, and one of £120. The usual income of a vicarage was £5, a little more or less; there are very few of greater value, up to £8 and £10.
The conclusion is forced upon us by these official figures, that the mediæval parish clergy were scantily endowed; one would wonder how, in many cases, with such endowments, they could live, and maintain hospitality to travellers, and help their poor, if one did not call to mind that the majority of the clergy had not a wife and family to maintain; that the rectors were mostly of the families of the gentry, and many of the vicars probably of the middle class, and that—then, as now—the majority of the beneficed clergy probably had some resources of their own, and perhaps—then, as now—brought as much into the church of their own as they took out of it in their annual profits.
A contemporary copy of the taxation of the Dioceseof Exeter gives on the end page a summary of the tenths for the whole kingdom—
The Bishop of Oxford, “as the result of a painful calculation from the ‘Taxatio,’” arrives at the following conclusion:—
Spirituals, £135,665; temporals, £74,978; total, £210,644; and the temporals of the bishops included in the total amount of temporals was £16,826.
Of the number of the clergy nearly a century later we have an exact official return. In the year 1377 a poll-tax was levied on the whole body of the clergy of England and Wales, excepting those of the counties Palatine of Durham and Chester, of twelve-pence on “every beneficed ecclesiastic, exempt and not exempt, privileged and not privileged, and all abbots, priors, abbesses, prioresses, monks, canons, canonesses, and other regulars of whatever order, sex, and condition, the four orders of mendicants alone excepted;” and fourpence on “every priest, deacon, sub-deacon, accolite, and those obtaining the first tonsure exceeding the age of fourteen years.”
The total number of men given in the returns is 15,238 beneficed, and 13,943 unbeneficed. If we suppose the number in the excepted counties of Durham and Chester to have been in the same proportion, we should have a total for the whole of England (Wales is not included in the return) of about 15,800 beneficed, and 14,000 unbeneficed, and a total of about 29,800. From the same return we gather that the whole population of the country at that time was about 2,065,000.[422]
THE “VALOR ECCLESIASTICUS” OF HENRY VIII.
It is convenient to take into consideration here another survey of the Church which was taken about two centuries later.
When Crown, Parliament, and Church, in the sixteenth century, determined to throw off the patriarchal supremacy of Rome, for which its monstrous pecuniary exactions in one shape and another was one prominent motive, the clergy no doubt fondly expected that they would get rid for ever of the burden of first-fruits and tenths, but found themselves grievously disappointed. One of the political motives of the king in the complex series of events which we sum up under the general name of the Reformation, was the diminution of the power and wealth of the Church. The property of the monasteries, which he confiscated, the manors of the sees, which he compelled the bishops to surrender, did not suffice him. A subservient Parliament, passing one Act in 1532 and another in 1534, put thefirst-fruits and tenths into his hands. It was a considerable addition to the royal revenue, and the king took measures to secure the full advantage of it. A commission was appointed to make a new survey of the income of the Church. The commissioners by themselves and their agents went carefully through every diocese, archdeaconry, rural deanery and parish, and required every person to state on oath what was the income which he derived from his benefice from every source. The returns were sent in by 1534.
The result, so far as it concerns us here, was a return of the condition of the Church at the close of the mediæval period of great historical value. The returns are not given with the same fulness from every diocese, but where they are given fully they give not only the general return of the value of each benefice, but also the names of the clergy and in several dioceses a schedule of the sources of their income.[423]
The first thing to which attention is naturally directed is the number of parishes, and a comparison with the number in the “Taxatio” two centuries before. The enumeration is not free from difficulties, but the figures given may be taken as approximately correct.
We make out that the totals are as follows:—Total number of parishes, 8838; of vicarages, 3307; of chapels, 536; of chantries, 1733.[424]
Comparing these figures with those of the “Taxatio,” it will be seen that the total number of parishes had increased very little in the interval, though the population of the country had increased from about 2,200,000 to about 4,350,000 souls.
This may be accounted for partly by the fact that the growth of population had caused the creation of few new centres of population, but only the increase of the populations of the existing centres. There were very few, if any, new towns or new parishes in the towns, but the old towns had grown larger; there were few new rural parishes, but the villages had a larger population; so that there was little increase in the number of parish priests, but each priest ministered to a larger flock; where new centres of population had sprung up, their wants were supplied by a chapel and its chaplain. The increase in the means of supplying the spiritual wants of the increased population had taken the form of the employment of Domestic Chaplains and Gild Chaplains, and the foundation of Chantries, which we shall have to deal with in subsequent chapters.
The next question to which we turn is the income of the Church as a whole, and of the parochial benefices in particular, and a comparison in this respect also between the “Taxatio” and the “Valor.”
The ostentation of minute accuracy on the part of the taxers is almost ludicrous, the princely income of the Bishop of Lincoln is returned at £1962 17s.4½d.In dividing a sum of money amongthe minor canons of that cathedral, the accountant points out that a farthing remained over, which was indivisible; and in dividing the gross income of the benefices by ten, it was constantly recorded that there was a remainder of so much, which was “undecimable.”
Very few new religious houses were founded after the thirteenth century; the cause was not so much that the Statute of Mortmain interposed a check to the free action of pious munificence, as that there was a general recognition that enough had been done in this direction. The two thousand chantries which had been founded in the two centuries probably did not average £5 a year income, and did not swell the general income by so much as £10,000 a year. The parochial benefices are seen, by actual comparison of the figures, to have increased in nominal amount of income, but the purchasing value of money had decreased, so that the real value of the benefices was probably somewhat less. The produce of the annual tenths would seem to indicate that the income of the Church had largely diminished, for whereas we have seen that by the “Taxatio” of 1291 it amounted to £20,000, we learn, from a letter of Henry VII., to the Bishop of Chichester, that it had fallen by that time to £10,000; the Bishop of Oxford[425]attributes this to the multiplication of exemptions, especially of livings under ten marks.
One valuable feature of the “Valor” is the schedules of incomings and outgoings of the livings, and theincidental notices contained in them, which give glimpses of the economy of the parishes.
We give first one example, which is expressed in English, at full length, as a clue to the meaning of the more abbreviated form in which some others are given.
From the “Valor Ecclesiasticus,” vol. vi. p. 2:—