THE END.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
Footnotes:
[1]We gather from FitzHerbert “On Surveyinge,” chap. xl. (1470 to 1538,A.D.) that this condition of things continued general to the end of the sixteenth century.
[2]Grimm, Stallybras’s ed., i. 90.
[3]Thorpe, “Ancient Laws,” etc., 201.
[4]“Burnt Njal.”
[5]We know very little of the religion of these Teutonic tribes before their conversion, or of its usages. Mr. Kemble had “no hesitation in asserting” that their religion was the same as that of the Scandinavians; he thought that the Mark and system of land occupation which had existed long before in their native seats was introduced in its entirety into their new settlements, and that every Mark had itsfanum,delubrumorsacellum; and, further, that the priests attached to these heathen churches had lands—perhaps freewill offerings, too—for their support. Under these circumstances, he argues that nothing could be more natural than the establishment of a baptismal church in every Mark which adopted Christianity and the transference of the old endowments to the new priesthood (“The Saxons in England,” ii. 423).
[6]See a list of them atp. 63.
[7]27th of the Council of London, 1102A.D.
[8]Coifi asked,Quis aras et fana idolorum cum septis quibus erant circumdata primus profanare debet ... pergebat ad idola ... mox appropinquabat ad fanum....In King Alfred’s Anglo-Saxon version of Bede,arasis represented by wigbed,fanaby heargas,idolorumby deofolgild, aseptisin one place by hegum (hedges), and in the other by getymbro. Getymbro may mean a construction of any material, but probably here of timber (“Eccl. Hist.,” ii. c. 13).
[9]There is another notice of the existence of temples among the East Saxons, in the narrative of Bishop Jaruman’s work of reclaiming the half of those people under the rule of the sub-king Sighere, when they had relapsed to their old superstitions as the result of the great plague of 664A.D.Bede says that the people “began to restore the temples that had been abandoned, and to adore idols”; but Jaruman “restored them to the way of righteousness; so that, either forsaking or destroying the temples and altars which they had erected, they reopened the churches.” At first sight, the narrative gives the idea of a number of temples, and a number of churches scattered over the country; but, on consideration, we call to mind that the East Saxons had been converted by Cedd only ten or twelve years before (653), and that we do not read of his building more than two churches, one at Tilbury on the Thames, the other at Bradwell, at the mouth of the Blackwater, which was probably outside the district in question; and the temples spoken of may not have been more numerous than the churches mentioned in the same vague terms; or Bede may have had in mind the open-air places of worship of the old religion and the prayer stations at which the Christian missionaries used to assemble their converts (“Eccl. Hist.,” iii. c. 30).
[10]Professor Skeat, in letters to the present writer.
[11]Anglo-Saxon nom.hearh; dat.hearge; pl. nom.heargas. Many English words are formed on “dative” types.
[12]In Icelandic,hörgr= “a heathen place of worship, an altar of stone erected on a high place, or a sacrificial cairn built in the open air, and without images.”
[13]Whitaker’s “Craven,” p. 500.
[14]Saint Lewinna is said to have sufferedmartyrdomfor her faith at the hands of the heathen South Saxon, during the time of Archbishop Theodore. “Acta Sanct.,” July 24, p. 608, and “Sussex Archeol. Coll.,” vol. i. p. 45.
[15]Some stories of the introduction of Christianity among others of the rude northern peoples are well worth giving as an illustration, in likenesses, and in contrasts, of our own story, and especially because they give a quantity of details which will supply the paucity of such details in our own histories. They are later in time, but they belong to a similar phase of manners.
When Harold Klak, King of Jutland, who had received baptism on a visit to the Court of Louis le Debonaire (A.D.820), returned home and destroyed the native shrines, proscribed the sacrifices, and abolished the priesthood, his people resented it, and drove him into exile.
Hacon of Norway had been baptized at the Court of our King Athelstan. At first he sent for a bishop and priests from England; a few of his intimate companions received baptism, and two or three churches were built in the district more immediately subject to him. Then at the Froste Thing, the winter assembly of the whole people, the king proposed to them to accept baptism. One of the bonders replied, in the name of his fellow-chiefs, “The ancient faith which our fathers and forefathers held from the oldest times, though we are not so brave men as our ancestors, has served us to the present time. If you intend to take the matter up with a high hand, and try to force us, we bonders,” he said, “have resolved among ourselves to part with you, and take some other chief, under whom we may freely and safely enjoy the faith which suits our inclinations.” The following winter four of the bonders bound themselves by oath to force the king to sacrifice to the gods, and to root out Christianity from Norway. The churches were burnt, and the priests stoned, and when the king came to the Yule Thing, he consented to taste the horseflesh of the sacrifice, and drink to the gods.
When Olaf Tryggveson gained the throne of Norway, having been baptized in England, he began by destroying the temples in his own territory, and declared that he would make all Norway Christian or die. The crisis came at the Midsummer Althing, held at Mære, where was an ancient temple; and thither all the great chiefs and bonders, and the whole strength of the heathen party, assembled. At a preliminary meeting of the bonders, Olaf proposed to them to adopt the Christian religion; they demanded, on the other hand, that he should offer sacrifice to the gods. He consented to go with them to the temple, and entered it with a great number of his own adherents; and when the sacrifice began the king suddenly struck down the image of Thor with his gold inlaid axe so that it rolled down at his feet; at this signal his men struck down the rest of the images from their seats, and then came forth and again demanded that the people should abandon their belief in gods who were so powerless. The people surrendered, and “took baptism.” Subsequently, Olaf Haraldson (1015), learning that the old sacrifices were still secretly offered at Mære, and other places, surprised a party at Mære, who were engaged in the forbidden worship, put their leader to death, and confiscated the property of the rest. Then Olaf went to the uplands, and summoned a Thing. Gudbrand, a powerful chief of the district, sent a message-token summoning the peasants far and wide to come to the Thing, and resist the king’s demand to abandon their ancient faith. Gudbrand had a temple on his own land, in which was an image of Thor, made up of wood, of great size, hollow within, covered without with ornaments of gold and silver. At the first meeting, Sigurd the Bishop, arrayed in his robes, with his mitre on his head, and his staff in his hand, preached to the assembly about the true faith and the wonderful works of God. When he had finished, one of the bonders said: “Many things are told us by this horned man, with a staff in his hand, crooked at the top like a ram’s horn; since your God, you say, is so powerful, tell him to make it clear sunshine to-morrow, and we will meet you here again, and do one of two things—either agree with you about this matter, or fight you.” Accordingly, on the morrow, before sunrise, the assembly came together again to the Thing-field, Olaf and his followers on one side, and Gudbrand and his men bringing with them into the field the great image of Thor, glittering with gold and silver, to which the heathen party did obeisance. Olaf had given instructions beforehand to one of his chiefs, Kolbein the Strong, who usually carried besides his sword a great club. “Dale Gudbrand,” said the king, “thinks to frighten us with his god, who cannot even move without being carried. You say that our God is invisible, turn your eyes to the east, and behold his splendour,” (for the sun was just rising above the horizon). And when they all turned to look, Kolbein the Strong acted upon his instructions; he struck the idol with his war-club with such force that it broke in pieces, and a number of mice ran out of it among the crowd. Olaf taunted them with the helplessness of such a god; and Gudbrand admitted the force of the argument. “Our god will not help us, so we will believe on the God thou believest in.” He and all present were baptized, and received the teachers whom King Olaf and Bishop Sigurd set over them, and Gudbrand himself built a church in the valley.
There was a great temple at Upsala, with idols of Thor, Woden, and Frigga, which was afterwards converted into a church (see Snorre Sturlusun’s “Heimskringla,” translated by S. Lang, with notes by R. B. Anderson, vol. i. pp. 103-105, 110, and vol. iv. p. 40).
Temples and sacrifices seem to imply the existence of priests; but it is remarkable that, in the collisions between Hakon and the Olafs and the heathenism of Norway, there is no mention of a single priest.
[16]Bede, “Eccles. Hist.,” ii. 14.
[17]Ibid., ii. 16.
[18]Bede, iii. 3.
[19]Ibid., iii. 5.
[20]Ibid., iii. 14.
[21]Ibid., v. 6. There are other indications that travellers sometimes took tents on their journeys through the thinly inhabited country.
[22]Pertz, ii. 334.
[23]Bede, iii. 26.
[24]Bede, iv. 27.
[25]In the life of St. Willibald, we read that “it was the ancient custom of the Saxon nation, on the estates of some of their nobles and great men, to erect not a church, but the sign of the Holy Cross, dedicated to God, beautifully and honourably adorned, and exalted on high for the common use of daily prayer” (Acta SS. Ord. Benedict, sect. iii., part 2). So it was a custom with “St. Kentigern to erect a cross in any place where he had converted the people, and where he had been staying for a time” (“Vita Kentigerni,” by Joscelin, the Monk of Furness). Adalbert, a Gallic bishop, in the time of St. Boniface, preached in fields and at wells, and set up little crosses and oratories in various places.
[26]The church at Bradfield-on-Avon, recently discovered, unaltered and uninjured, was probably the church of one of these monasteries.
[27]Of the early monasteries of the East Saxons, the East Anglians, the South Saxons, and of the Dioceses of Rochester and Hereford, little is known.
[28]“Historical Church Atlas,” E. McClure.
[29]Secular monasteries are alluded to in the fifth canon of Clovesho (A.D.747), and eighth canon of Calchythe (816). A canon of Clovesho (803) forbad laymen to be abbots.
[30]Bishop of Oxford, “Const. Hist.,” i. 251.
[31]The Bishop of Oxford, however, says, “Occasional traces of Ecclesiastical assemblies of single kingdoms occur, but they are scarcely distinguishable from the separate Witenagemots” (“Const. Hist.,” i. 264).
[32]The 123rd of the novels.
[33]Labbe and Cossart Councils, 9. 119.
[34]Letters of Gregory the Great, lib. xii. ep. xi. (Migne 77, p. 1226).
[35]Another capitulary, dated 832, ordained that if there were an unendowed church it should be endowed with a manse and two villani by the freemen who frequented it, and if they refuse it shall be pulled down.
[36]When Willibrord, a Northumbrian educated at Ripon, was evangelizing Frankish Frisia, 692, etc., Alcuin records that he founded not only monasteries but encouraged the foundation of parish churches. Alcuin, “Opera II.,” tom. 101, p. 834. Migne.
[37]Bede, iii. 17.
[38]Ibid., v. 4, 5.
[39]At the same time, to encourage commerce, a merchant who had made three voyages in his own ship was entitled to the rank of Thane.
[40]The Bishop of Oxford and earlier authorities are of opinion that the “burg geat settl” means the right of jurisdiction over tenants. Sharon Turner conjectures that the place in the king’s hall means a seat in the Witenagemot.
[41]Thorpe, “Ancient Laws,” i. 367.
[42]S.P.C.K., “Roch. Dioc. Hist.,” p. 25.
[43]Ellis’s “Introduction to Domesday Book.”
[44]Parishes with two rectors continued not infrequently throughout the Middle Ages; there are some even to the present day. The way in which the parochial duties were divided is indicated by two examples given in Whitaker’s “Craven” (p. 504). Linton has two rectors, who take the service in alternate weeks; they have their stalls on either side of the choir, and parsonage houses nearly adjoining one another. So at Bonsal each rector has his own stall and pulpit.
Sometimes each mediety had its own church. The churches of Willingale Spain and Willingale Doe, in Essex, are in the same churchyard. At Pakefield, Suffolk, there is a double church, each with its choir and nave and altar, divided only by an open arcade.
[45]Bôt = compensation.
[46]This is the earliest notice (in England at least) of the ancient custom of having a confirmation god-parent, different from the baptismal sponsors. There are other notices of it in the canons of Edgar (seep. 69) and the twenty-second of the laws of Canute; and in many canons of English Mediæval Diocesan Councils. Queen Elizabeth and Edward VI. were each baptized and confirmed at the same time, and, according to primitive custom, each had three baptismal sponsors and one confirmation god-parent. It is still enjoined by the third rubric at the end of the Church Catechism and by the twenty-ninth of the canons of 1603.
[47]i.e.be scourged.
[48]So it is usually stated, but the date and place of the council are very questionable.
[49]Zachary’s letters to the English inhabitants of Britain were in Latin and English. The documents are not on record, but we are told that they were read at the Council; in them he “familiariter admonebat et veraciter conveniebat et postremo amabiliter exorabat,” and to those who despise these modes of address he “anathematis sententiam procul dubio properandam insinuabat.”
[50]This prayer is as follows: “O Lord, we beseech Thee, of Thy great mercy, grant that the soul of (such a person) may be secured in a state of peace and repose, and that he may be admitted with the rest of Thy saints into the region of light and happiness.”
[51]Among the “Canons of Edgar,” the following occurs:—“A powerful man may satisfy a sentence of seven years’ fasting in three days. Let him lay aside his weapons and ornaments, and go barefoot and live hard, etc., and take to him twelve men to fast three days on bread, water, and green herbs, and get wherever he can 7 times 120 men, who shall fast for him three days, then will be fasted as many fasts as there are days in seven years.”
[52]Thorpe, i. 227.
[53]It is not known by whose authority the ecclesiastical regulations which are entitled the canons of Edgar were drawn up, but they appear to be of this date.
[54]That it might be seen that they were complete and in good order, just as the laity came to the Hundred mote or Wapentake with their weapons. For list of them see Ælfric’s Pastoral, 44.
[55]To keep a copy of the constitutions made at the synod.
[56]The time was subsequently shortened to seven days.
[57]Probably spots of ground accounted sacred.
[58]In the “vulgar tongue.”
[59]The priests had a small consecrated slab of stone which they used on missionary journeys and at other times.
[60]The Legatine Council of Cealchythe (787, 5 c.) explains this by saying he must not celebrate with naked thighs. (See Exodus xxviii. 42.)
[61]For hours of service see Thorpe, “Ancient Laws,” etc., ii. 359.
[62]By laws of Alfred and Guthrum, if a priest misdirect people about a festival or fast he shall pay 30s.
[63]Meaning obscure.
[64]The chief distinction between nuns and mynchens appears to have consisted in the superior age and strictness of life of the former (Thorpe, “Ancient Laws”).
[65]The laws of Canute say ½d.worth of wax for every hide on Easter Eve, All Saints, and Purification.
[66]Allusions to the Danish incursions.
[67]Fifth law of Ine.
[68]Law 16.
[69]Law 17.
[70]Mr. Kemble, as we have seen, is of opinion that the people in those days of heathendom had a temple in every township, and that the priesthood were endowed with lands as well as offerings, but we do not find sufficient evidence of this.
[71]The monks of Jumieges, in the seventh century, fitted out vessels and sailed great distances to redeem slaves. St. Eligius spent large sums in redeeming them—20, 50, 100 at a time. Christian missionaries bought slaves, and trained them as Christians.
[72]“Diplomatarium Anglicanum.”
[73]“Collier,” i. 241. The Cathedral Churches of the Continent were universally served by Canons.
[74]Bishop of Oxford’s “Select Charters,” p. 73.
[75]Robert d’Oyley, a powerful Norman noble, repaired the ruinous parochial churches in and out of Oxford in the reign of William I. (Brewer, “Endowment, etc., of the Church of England,” p. 74). Corsuen built a number of houses and two churches on a piece of land granted to him in the suburb of Lincoln. (? St. Mary le Wigford, and St. Peter at Gowts.)
[76]Eyton’s “Shropshire” mentions several cases in that county.
[77]Bohn’s edition of “Eccl. Hist, of Ordericus Vitalis,” i. 10.
[78]Nearly all the village churches of the Craven district of Yorkshire were built in the time of Henry I., and many of them enlarged in the time of Henry VIII. (Whitaker’s “Craven”).
[79]Orderic, iv. xxiv.
[80]It was stopped by Innocent III. in a decretal letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, c. 1200.
[81]See Sir H. Ellis’s “Introduction to Domesday,” i. 324, 325.
[82]The Church of Gisburn, Yorkshire, was given to the Nunnery of Stainfield, Lincolnshire, by a Percy. For fifty years the nuns simply presented to the rectory like any other patron; then in 1226 Archbishop Walter Gray assigned themad proprios usus, half a carucate of the glebe land, and the tithe of corn in various places named, but without endowing a vicarage, and the convent presented six more rectors under those conditions; it was not until 1341 that a vicarage was ordained. (Whitaker’s “Craven,” p. 45).
[83]This Council also forbade a vicar to hold more than one parish.
[84]Where the religious house was situated in or near the parish church, special arrangements were not infrequently made. At Tortington, near Arundel, Sussex, was a small house of Austin canons which existed before the time of King John. The vicar of the parish had a corrody in the house, consisting of a right to board and lodging for himself and a serving boy. At Sybeton, Suffolk, the vicar and curate had their lodging and food in the religious house (“Valor,” iii. 442). At Taunton, in 1308, the Priory supplied the vicar with allowances of bread and ale, and hay and corn, and two shillings a year for the shoeing of his horse (“Bath and Wells,” p. 121, S.P.C.K.). See also Lenton, p. 404.
[85]One of the constitutions of Archbishop Stratford (1333) requires religious appropriators of churches to give a benefaction to the poor yearly, according to the judgment of the bishop, on pain of sequestration.
[86]Newcourt’s “Repertorium,” ii. 310. Upon making an appropriation an annual pension was usually reserved to the bishop and his successors, payable by the body benefited, for a recompense of the profits which the bishops would otherwise have received (Sir R. Phillimore, “Ecclesiastical Law”).
[87]i.e., which had obtained from the Court of Rome exemption from the Bishop’s ordinary jurisdiction.
[88]According to Matthew Paris, “the bishops of England at that time designed to recover from the monasteries all the appropriated churches. Grostete of Lincoln took steps to carry out the design in his diocese, but the monks appealed to Rome and defeated the bishop” (Matthew Paris, Bohn’s ed., ii. pp. 325, 326, 401, 420).
[89]Gray’s “Register,” p. 113. Surtees Society.
[90]Ibid., p. 112.
[91]Gray’s “Register,” p. 113. Surtees Society.
[92]Extracts from Lincoln Registers. Harl. MS. 6950, p. 1250.
[93]Bronscombe’s “Register,” p. 253.
[94]Ibid., p. 330.
[95]Ibid., p. 334.
[96]“Bath and Wells,” p. 122, S.P.C.K.
[97]Long Preston, in Craven, is mentioned in “Domesday.” In the reign of Stephen it was granted by Wm. de Amundeville to the church and canons of Embsay. In 1303, Archbishop Corbridge ordained that the church should be served by a fit vicar and his ministers. In 1307 there was another “taxation,” a third in 1322, and a fourth in 1455 (Whitaker, “Craven,” p. 145).
[98]In the Episcopal Register of Lincoln, under date 25th April, 1511, William, Abbot of Oseney, was admitted to the Vicarage of St. Mary Magdalen, Oxford, on the presentation of the Abbot and Convent of the same.
[99]“Lichfield,” p. 138, S.P.C.K.
[100]It was this which made a rectory so much like a small monastery in its constitution, that rectories were often called minsters, and monasteries often merged into rectories.
[101]Hopesay and Hopton, originally probably chapels parochial of Clun, were of the nature of free chapels,i.e.not at the disposal of the baroness or of the rector, but only of the lord of the fee (Eyton’s “Shropshire,” ix. 258).
[102]Eyton’s “Shropshire,” viii. 149.
[103]The two chapels of Rilston and Coniston—(Coniston chapel is very early Norman, or still earlier, with triangular windows)—in the parish of Burnsal, co. York, as late as the beginning of this century had had no chaplains or separate endowment, but were still served in the primitive mode by the Rector of Burnsal; both have cylindrical fonts of high antiquity, and therefore must always have had the sacramentalia. Chapels with these rights were always presentable, and served by chaplains who took an oath of obedience to the rector, and were not removable at pleasure; whereas mere chapels-of-ease were served by stipendiaries removable, or by the parish priest himself (Whitaker’s “Craven,” p. 528).
[104]The probable explanation is that the lord of the ville of Billingley had made some arrangement with the mother church for the payment of half his tithe to his own chapel; the small payments from the other chapels were acknowledgments of subjection.
[105]The original deed is in possession of Mr. G. Morris, of Shrewsbury. “Know all men, both now and hereafter, on the day of the dedication of the cemetery of Eston that I, Robert, son of Aher, gave to God and to the chapel of the same vill of Eston one virgate of land, containing sixty acres, and all tithe of my demesne of the same vill, and one mansion, for the health of my soul and of all my predecessors and successors. And that my gift may be free and quit of all reclaim by me or my heirs and may ever remain firm and stable I have fortified it with this present writing, and with the impression of my seal.—There being witnesses Robert, Bishop of Hereford, Reinald, Prior of Wenlock, Peter the archdeacon, and many others” (Eyton’s “Shropshire,” i. p. 207).
[106]Seep. 90.
[107]There were more monasteries founded in the reign of Stephen than in any other period of similar duration.
[108]A. Heales, “History of Kingston-upon-Thames.”
[109]Archbishop Gray’s “Register,” p. 168.
[110]Ibid., p. 211.
[111]Archbishop Gray’s “Register,” p. 45.
[112]Ibid.
[113]Eyton’s “Shropshire,” v. 28.
[114]Whitaker’s “History of Whalley,” p. 223.
[115]Whitaker’s “History of Whalley,” pp. 223-225.
[116]The great Law-book of the Mediæval Church.
[117]The king is supposed to visit his own chapels and hospitals by the Lord High Chancellor.
[118]Sir R. Phillimore.
[119]In the college at Tonge, any one of the five chaplains bringing a guest to dinner was to pay for him 3d.if at the high table, and ¼d.if at the low (S.P.C.K., “Lichfield,” p. 161).
[120]A. Heales, “History of the Free Chapel of St. Mary Magdalen, Kingston-on-Thames.”
[121]Pages 20 and 82.
[122]Page 68.
[123]When Winfrid, afterwards St. Boniface, showed a strong precocious vocation for the religious life, his father, who seems to have been the principal person of his town, forthwith sent him—at six or seven years of age—to a religious house at Exeter, to be educated for the Church.
[124]Men who had any serious personal blemish, or any defect in respect to birth, learning, or morals, were excluded by canon from ordination (Constitutions of Otho, 1237). Illegitimacy and servile origin were both defects of birth.
[125]Thorold Rogers, “Agriculture and Prices in England,” vol. ii. pp. 613, 615, 616.
[126]“Eccl. Proceedings of Courts of Durham,” Surtees Society, p. 5.
[127]John Knox said, “Every scholar is something added to the riches of the Commonwealth.”
[128]See the quotation in its entirety onp. 278.
[129]Cobbler.
[130]“The Babees Book,” Early English Text Society, p. 401.
Of Archbishops of Canterbury, the parentage of William of Corbeuil is not known; the inference is that it was humble. Thomas Becket was the son of a London citizen; Richard, of humble parents; Baldwin, of humble parents at Exeter; Richard Grant, parentage unknown; Edmund Rich, son of a merchant at Abingdon; Richard Kilwardby, a Dominican friar of unknown parentage; Robert Winchelsey, probably of humble birth; Walter Reynolds, the son of a baker at Windsor; Chichele, a shepherd-boy, picked up and educated by William of Wykham; Cranmer’s people were small squires in Notts. And so in other sees. Ralph Flambard, Bishop of Durham, the great Justiciar of Henry I., was the son of a poor Norman priest; Thomas of Rotherham, Archbishop of York, was of obscure parentage; Richard of Wych, the saintly Bishop of Chichester, was the son of a decayed farmer at Droitwich, and for several years worked on the land like a labourer; the famous Grostete was of a poor family at Stradbroke, Suffolk; Thomas of Beckington, Bishop of Bath and Wells, is said to have been the son of a weaver; John of Sheppey was taken up and educated by Hamo, Bishop of Rochester, and succeeded his benefactor in the see.
[131]By 9 Ed. II. c. 8, clerks in the king’s service were declared not bound to residence on their benefice.
[132]The custom might sometimes be misleading. Thus, a priest in the diocese of Bath and Wells with the high-sounding name of Richard de Burgh, was a villein of the bishop who had given him freedom and holy orders.
[133]See notice of the college founded by Archbishop Thomas of Rotherham,p. 517.
[134]The universal ignorance of the Greek language at that time made the great works of the Eastern Church a sealed book to the scholars of the West.
[135]At the Council of Trent, nearly three hundred years after his death, the “Summa” was placed on the secretary’s desk beside the Holy Scriptures, as containing the orthodox solution of all theological questions.
[136]Wesley published an edition of it.
[137]Peter Lombard’s “Text-book.”
[138]“Norfolk Archæology,” vol. iv. p. 342.
[139]“Lincoln,” p. 194. S.P.C.K.
[140]“The York Pontifical,” p. 370. Surtees Society.
[141]In the Diocese of York, in 1344-5, there were ordained—
In 1510-11, there were—
In the first year of the episcopate of Bishop Stapledon of Exeter, viz. from December 21, 1308, to September 20, 1309, there were ordained 539 to the first tonsure, 438 acolytes, 104 sub-deacons, 177 deacons, 169 priests.
In the year from March 22, 1314, to December 20, 1315, there were ordained 75 to the first tonsure, 71 acolytes, 44 sub-deacons, 50 deacons, 66 priests.
[142]“In 1281 the Pope dispensed an acolyte, whose left little finger had been shortened while a child by an unskilful surgeon, to hold a benefice notwithstanding the defect” (“Calendar of Papal Registers,” 1491). “Jacob Lowe and Sampson Meverall, base born, and Godfrey Ely, blind of one eye, were dispensed by the Pope for ordination” (“Register of Smyth, Bishop of Lichfield,” p. 175).
[143]“Lichfield,” p. 129. S.P.C.K. See additional examples in the chapter on Abuses.
[144]
Now hath each rich a ruleTo eaten by themselve,In a privy parlourFor poor man sake,Or in a chamber with a chimney;And leave the chief hall,That was made for mealsMen to eaten in.The “Vision of Piers Ploughman.”
[145]Of which there is a description and drawing in the Records of the Archæological Society of that county, vol. ii. p. 251.
[146]In those days the rooms of a house were not massed compactly together under one roof; the hall was the primitive house, and additions to it were effected by annexing distinct buildings, each of which was called a house.
[147]Newcourt’s “Repertorium,” ii. p. 350.
[148]“Transactions of the Essex Archæological Society,” vol. ii. part ii. (New Series), p. 141.
[149]Alfred Heales, “Kingston-on-Thames,” p. 17.
[150]Newcourt’s “Repertorium,” ii. p. 103.
[151]Newcourt’s “Repertorium,” ii. 281.
[152]Ibid., ii. 284.
[153]“Hist. of England,” i. p. 41.
[154]A lawsuit gives us a glimpse of John of Bishopstone, the rector of Cliffe, at Hoo, going to church on the Sunday before Christmas, 1363, accompanied by his chaplains, clerks, and household, as if they all lived together (S.P.C.K., “Rochester,” p. 188).
[155]Newcourt’s “Repertorium,” ii. 97.
[156]Newcourt’s “Repertorium,” ii. 46.
[157]Ibid., ii. 309.
[158]A statute of 3 Ed. I.,A.D.1275, says, “Abbeys have been overcharged by the resort of great men and others; none shall come to eat or lodge in any house of religion of any others’ foundation than his own; this does not intend that the grace of hospitality be withdrawn from such as need.”
[159]See Matthew Paris under 1240A.D., “to receive guests, rich and poor, and show hospitality to laity and clergy according to their means, as the custom of the place requires.”
[160]In the returns of a survey of the estates of the Dean and Chapter of Exeter in 1300 both the manor houses and the rectory houses are included, and their similarity is evident: “Culmstock Manor. There is a hall in the Manor, and a soler within the hall and a chamber, a kitchen withoutfurnum and turella(stove and small turret for smoke and ventilation), and a dove house; there wants a granary. Utpottery. There is in the farmhouse a sufficient hall and chamber, a new grange, and other sufficient houses, 1330. Vicar of Colyton, Richard Brondiche, is a leper. ColytonDomus Sanctuarii(house in the churchyard). There is there a competent hall with a chamber and chimney, a competent kitchen, withoutturella, however; two granges; the other houses are sufficient; the gardens are eaten up with age and badly kept. Branscombe Manor. There is a hall with two chambers and garderobes good and sufficient; a new kitchen with a goodturella; all the other houses in good condition” (“Register of Bishop Grandisson,” part i. p. 572).
[161]Clive, in the diocese of Worcester, was appropriated to Worcester Priory; formerly the rector lived in theAula Personæ. In the middle of the thirteenth century the rectory house was let to a tenant. The vicar lived in one of several houses in the village which belonged to the benefice; there were two chaplains, one of whom lived in another of these houses, and the second in a soler (“Register of Worcester Priory” (Camden Society), p. lxxxi.).
[162]“Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages,” p. 133.
[163]“Essex Archæol. Transactions,” vol. vi. part iii.
[164]Hingeston-Randolph’s “Register of Bishop Grandisson,” pp. 349, 356.
[165]Lyndewode, “Provinciale.” Compare the 74th of the Canons of 1603.
[166]“Grostete’s Letters” (Rolls Series), p. 49.
[167]“York Fabric Rolls” (Surtees Society), p. 243.
[168]For picture of the basilard and purse see Royal MS., 6 Ed. VI., f. 478, p. 492, etc.
[169]Catalogus omnium qui admissi pet’runt in fraternitatis beneficium Monasterii Sti. Albani, cum picturis eorum et compendiosis narrationibus. (British Mus., Nero D., vii.)
[170]These, with the descriptions, are taken from “Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages,” by the present writer.
[171]A. Gibbons, “Early Lincoln Wills,” p. 57.
[172]Ibid., p. 130.
[173]The record of a suit in the Ecclesiastical Court of Durham gives us a curious little illustrative anecdote of a quarrel in the Rectory of Walsingham, in the year 1370. The bishop, the archdeacon, and their attendants were passing the night there, probably after a Visitation. The record tells us in full detail how, after the Bishop had gone out of the hall of the rectory into the chamber, the family remaining in the hall, Nicholas de Skelton uttered threats against John of Auckland, the servant of the archdeacon, viz. that he would break his head. One of the archdeacon’s people intervened, when the angry Nicholas threatened to break his head also. The archdeacon seems to have then interfered, when a servant of Nicholas, offering to strike the archdeacon with a hawking staff, the archdeacon drew hiscultellum; the servant broke it in two with his staff; the archdeacon hurled the half which he held, and it killed another of the company who happened to interpose. The archdeacon was summoned before the Court to answer for the homicide.
[174]Quoted from “Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages,” p. 248, by the present writer.
[175]Cushion for the back and seat of the bench.
[176]“Wills and Inventories” (Surtees Society), p. 54.
[177]“Testamenta Ebor.,” i. p. 371.
[178]“Testamenta Ebor.,” i. p. 385.
[179]“Testamenta Ebor.,” i. p. 82.
[180]York: “Wills and Inventories,” p. 117.
[181]“Essex Archæol. Transactions,” vol. vi. part ii. (New Series), p. 123.
[182]Holinshed’s “Description of Britain,” p. 233.
[183]Johnson’s “Canons,” etc., ii. 365.
[184]Stapledon’s “Register,” p. 182.
[185]H. Randolph, p. 378.
[186]Lyndewode, “Provinciale,” p. 35.
[187]Archbishop Gray’s “Register,” p. 217.
[188]Laid on tombs, or hung on the walls as ornaments. See Matthew Paris, under 1256 (v. 574, Rolls ed.).
[189]See woodcut,p. 165.
[190]“Antiquary,” 1897, pp. 279, 298.
[191]For explanation of the meaning of the vestments in the “Book of Ceremonies,” 1539, see Mackenzie Walcott, “Parish Churches before the Reformation.”
[192]It is to be regretted that in the revived use of copes, as seen, for example, on the steps at the west end of St. Paul’s, on the day of the Queen’s Jubilee procession, the designers have taken the unwieldy and ungraceful fifteenth and sixteenth century garment as their pattern; it is shaped like a cone, it does not fit the shoulders, it imprisons the arms, its corners overlap in front, while its hood sticks up at the back of the head.
[193]Humbert de Romain, General of the Dominicans in the thirteenth century, says that “the great and the poor seldom visited the churches.” Neander’s “Church History,” vii. 439 (Bohn). The great, as we shall see inChapter XXVII., had their domestic chapels.
[194]T. Belson and J. Fowler, c. 1570, were sentenced to do penance in church for working on a Sunday (“Ecclesiastical Proceedings of the Courts of Durham” (Surtees Society), p. 105). Again, c. 1450, several persons accused of working on Sundays and saints’ days were sentenced to precede the procession as penitents, to receive two “fustigations,” and to abstain from so offending in future under a penalty of 6s.8d.(pp. 28-30). In 1451, Isabella Hunter and Katherine Pykering were sentenced, for washing linen on the festival of St. Mary Magdalene, to receive two fustigationscum manipulo lini(p. 30).
Francis Gray was admonished to come to church on Sunday under penalty of 4d., and on the festivals under penalty of 2d., to be applied to the fabric of the church of Durham (p. 27).
The same year Thomas Kirkham and Thomas Hunter, accused of mowing a certain meadow on the festival of St. Oswald and receiving payment for it, were sentenced to precede the procession, carrying in hand a bottle of hay, to receive four fustigations, and not to offend again under penalty of 10s.(p. 32).
[195]Lyndwode says, “It maybe gathered that mass was always preceded by matins or primes” (iii. 23).
[196]This was the normal hour in the time of Gregory of Tours and of Gregory the Great.
[197]Bishop Poore, in his “Rule for Anchoresses,” advises them not to be communicated oftener than twelve times a year. The Lateran Council of 1215 ordered that every one should communicate at least once a year at Easter, and should confess at least once a year before Easter.
[198]Common.
[199]From Whitaker’s text of “Piers Ploughman’s Vision,” part ii. p. 529.
[200]Ibid. i. 104.
[201]Early English Text Society.
[202]In the presentation of the churchwardens of Ricall, Yorkshire, in 1519, they complain that “pedlars come into the church porch on feast days, and there sell their goods.”
In 1416 the wardens and questmen of St. Michael-le-Belfry, York, presented that “a common market of vendibles is held in the churchyard on Sundays and holy days, and divers things, and goods, and rushes, are exposed for sale” (“York Fabric Rolls”).
[203]Cardwell.
[204]Procter, “Hist. of the Book of Common Prayer,” p. 227.
[205]Peckham’s “Constitutions,” 1281, bid every priest to celebrate at least once a week.
[206]“The York Manual,” by Rev. J. Raine (Surtees Society), p. 123.
[207]Seepp. 460,461,496, andp. 472.
[208]The canons of Edgar required the clergy to preach every Sunday.
[209]It was early in the twelfth century that seven was adopted as the number of the Sacraments, vices, virtues, etc. The seven Sacraments are first mentioned by Otto, Bishop of Bamberg, in 1124 (Neander, “Church History,” vii. 465).
[210]See second footnote,p. 214.
[211]See second footnote,p. 214.
[212]Not infrequently a great preacher was sent by a bishop round his diocese, and people were invited by the offer of indulgences to all who would go to hear him.
[213]From a very early time what we reckon as the first and second commandments were taken together as the first; and what we reckon as the tenth was divided into two. So King Alfred gives them in the beginning of his Code of Law.
[214]Cum superstitionibus characterum.
[215]“Indolence, carnal security.”
[216]His writings are chiefly translations or adaptations of the works of St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, and Hugh and Richard of St. Victor. They are marked by tenderness of feeling, vigour, and eloquence in his prose style, and grace and beauty in his verse. See “Yorkshire Writers”—“Richard of Hampole and his Followers,” by C. Horstman, 1895. Here is a short example from “The Book made by Richard Hampole, Hermit, for an Anchoress” (Early Eng. Text Society). “Wit thou well that a bodily turning to God without thine heart following, is but a figure and likeness of virtue and of no soothfastness. Therefore a wretched man or woman is that who neglecteth all the inward keepings of himself, and maketh himself outwardly a form only and likeness of holiness in habit or clothing, in speech and in bodily works, beholding other men’s deeds and judging their faults, thinking himself to be something when he is nothing, and so neglecteth himself. Do thou not so, but turn thine heart with thy body principally to God, and shape thee within in His likeness, by meekness and charity and other spiritual virtues, and then art thou truly turned to Him.”
[217]See “The Parson’s Tale,” in Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales.”
[218]Also in the Stowe MS. 89, 2, there are a series of trees representing virtues and vices.
[219]Together.
[220]Other sponsors were required at the Confirmation (seep. 59).
[221]Archbishop Simon of Sudbury, 1378, made a Constitution that all should confess and communicate thrice a year, viz. Easter, Pentecost, and Christmas, on pain of excommunication and refusal of burial (Johnson’s “Laws and Canons,” ii. 444).
[222]Death.