The book in question is by John Myrk, a canon regular of St. Austin, of Lilleshall, in Shropshire; the beautiful ruins of his monastery may still be seen in the grounds of the Duke of Sutherland’s shooting-box at Lilleshall. He tells us that he translated it from a Latin book called “Pars Oculi.” It is worthy of note that a former prior of Lilleshall, Johannes Miræus, had written a work on the same subject, called “Manuale Sacerdotis,” to which John Myrk’s bears much resemblance, both in subject and treatment. The editor’s sketch of the argument of the “Instructions to Parish Priests” will help us to give a sufficient idea of its contents for our present purpose.
The author begins by telling the parish priest what sort of man he himself should be. Not ignorant, because
“Whenne the blynde ledeth the blyndeInto the dyche they fallen both.”
He must himself be an example to his people:—
“What thee nedeth hem to techeAnd whyche thou muste thy self be,For lytel is worth thy prechyngeIf thou be of evyle lyvynge.”
He must be chaste, eschew lies and oaths, drunkenness, gluttony, pride, sloth, and envy. Must keep from taverns, trading, wrestling, and shooting, and the like manly sports; from hunting, hawking, and dancing. Must not wear cutted clothes or pyked shoes, or dagger, but wear becoming clothes, and shave his crown and beard. Must be given to hospitality, both to poor and rich, read his psalter, and remember doomsday; return good for evil, eschew jesting and ribaldry, despise the world, and follow after virtue.
The priest must not be content with knowing his own duties. He must be prepared to teach those under his charge all that Christian men and women should do and believe. We are told that when any one has done a sin he must not continue long with it on his conscience, but go straight to the priest and confess it, lest he should forget before the great shriving time at Eastertide. Pregnant women, especially, are to go to their shrift, and receive the Holy Communion at once. Our instructor is very strict on the duties of midwives—women they were really in those days, and properly licensed to their office by the ecclesiastical authorities. They are on no account to permit children to die unbaptized. If there be no priest at hand, they are to administer that sacrament themselves if they see danger of death. They must be especially careful to use the right form of words, such as our Lord taught; but it does not matter whether they say them in Latin or English, or whether the Latin be good or bad, so that the intention be to use the proper words. The water, and the vessel that contained it, are not to be again employed in domestic use, but to be burned or carried to the church and cast into the font. If no one else be at hand, the parents themselves may baptize their children. All infants are to be christened at Easter and Whitsuntide in the newly-blessed fonts, if there have not been necessity to administer the Sacrament before. Godparents are to be careful to teach their godchildren thePater Noster,Ave Maria, andCredo; and are not to be sponsors to their godchildren at their Confirmation, for they have already contracted a spiritualrelationship. Before weddings banns are to be asked on three holidays, and all persons who contract irregular marriages, and the priests, clerks, and others that help thereat, are cursed for the same. The real presence of the body and blood of our Saviour in the Sacrament of the Altar is to be fully held; but the people are to bear in mind that the wine and water given them after they have received Communion is not a part of the Sacrament. It is an important thing to behave reverently in church, for the church is God’s house, not a place for idle prattle. When people go there they are not to jest, or loll against the pillars and walls, but kneel down on the floor and pray to their Lord for mercy and grace. When the Gospel is read they are to stand up, and sign themselves with the cross; and when they hear the Sanctus bell ring, they are to kneel and worship their Maker in the Blessed Sacrament. All men are to show reverence when they see the priest carrying the Host to the sick. He is to teach them the “Our Father,” and “Hail, Mary,” and “I believe,” of which metrical versions are given, with a short exposition of the Creed.
The author gives some very interesting instructions about churchyards, which show that they were sometimes treated with shameful irreverence. It was not for want of good instructions that our ancestors, in the days of the Plantagenets, played at rustic games, and that the gentry held their manorial courts, over the sleeping-places of the dead.
Of witchcraft we hear surprisingly little. Myrk’s words are such that one might almost think he had some sceptical doubts on the subject. Not so with usury: the taking interest for money, or lending anything to get profit thereby, is, we are shown, “a synne full grevus.”
After these and several more general instructions of a similar character, the author gives a very good commentary on the Creed, the Sacraments, the Commandments, and the deadly sins. The little tract ends with a few words of instruction to priests as to the “manner of saying mass, and of giving Holy Communion to the sick.” On several subjects the author gives very detailed instructions and advice as to the best way of dealing with people, and his counsels are so right and sensible, that they might well be read now, not out of mere curiosity, but for profit. Here is his conclusion, as a specimen of the English and versification:—
“Hyt ys I-made hem[282]to schonneThat have no bokes of here[283]owne,And other that beth of mene loreThat wolde fayn conne[284]more,And those that here-in learnest most,Thonke yerne the Holy Gost,That geveth wyt to eche monTo do the gode that he con,And by hys travayle and hys dedeGeveth hym heven to hys mede;The mede and the joye of heven lyhtGod us graunte for hys myht. Amen.”
That these instructions were not thrown away upon the mediæval parish priests we may infer from Chaucer’s beautiful description of the poor parson of a town, who was one of his immortal band of Canterbury Pilgrims, which we here give as a fitting conclusion of this first part of our subject:—
“A good man there was of religioun,That was a poure persone of a toun;But riche he was of holy thought and werk.He was also a lerned man, a clerk,That Criste’s gospel trewely wolde preche,His parishens devoutly wolde he teche.Benigne he was and wonder diligent,And in adversite ful patient;And such he was yproved often sithes.Full loth were he to cursen for his tithes,But rather wolde he given out of doubteUnto his poure parishens about,Of his offering and eke of his substance.He could in litel thing have suffisance.Wide was his parish, and houses fer asunder,But he ne left nought for no rain ne thunder,In sikenesse and in mischief to visiteThe farthest in his parish much and lite,[285]Upon his fete, and in his hand a staff.This noble ensample to his sheep he gaf[286]That first he wrought, and afterward he taught.Out of the gospel he the wordes caught,And this figure he added yet thereto,That if gold rusté what should iren do?For if a priest be foul, on whom we trust,No wonder is a léwéd man to rust;Well ought a preest ensample for to give,By his clenenesse how his shepe shulde live.He sette not his benefice to hire,And lefte his sheep accumbered in the mire,And ran unto London, unto Seint Poules,To seeken him a chanterie for souls,Or with a brotherhede to be withold,But dwelt at home and kepté well his fold.He was a shepherd and no mercenare;And though he holy were and vertuous,He was to sinful men not despitous,[287]Ne of his speché dangerous ne digne,[288]But in his teaching discrete and benigne.To drawen folk to heaven with fairénesse,By good ensample was his businesse.But it were any persone obstinat,What so he were of highe or low estate,Him wolde he snibben[289]sharply for the nones,A better preest I trow that nowhere none is.He waited after no pomp ne reverence,Ne maked him no spiced[290]conscience,But Christés lore, and his apostles twelve,He taught, but first he followed it himselve.”
Thus, monk, and friar, and hermit, and recluse, and rector, and chantry priest, played their several parts in mediæval society, until the Reformation came and swept away the religious orders and their houses, the chantry priests and their superstitions, and the colleges of seculars, with all their good and evil, and left only the parish churches and the parish priests remaining, stripped of half their tithe, and insufficient in number, in learning, and in socialstatusto fulfil the office of the ministry of God among the people. Since then, for three centuries the people have multiplied, and the insufficiency of the ministry has been proportionately aggravated. It has been left to our day to complete the work of the Reformation by multiplying bishops and priests, and creating an order of deacons, re-distributing the ancient revenues and supplying what more is needed, and by effecting a general reorganization of the ecclesiastical establishment to adapt it to the actual spiritual needs of the people.
CLERICAL COSTUME.
We proceed to give some notes on the costume of the secular clergy; first the official costume which they wore when performing the public functions of their order, and next the ordinary costume in which they walked about their parishes and took part in the daily affairs of the mediæval society of which they formed so large and important a part. The first branch of this subject is one of considerable magnitude; it can hardly be altogether omitted in such a series of papers as this, but our limited space requires that we should deal with it as briefly as may be.
Representations of the pope occur not infrequently in ancient paintings. His costume is that of an archbishop, only that instead of the usual mitre he wears a conical tiara. In later times a cross with three crossbars has been used by artists as a symbol of the pope, with two crossbars of a patriarch, and with one crossbar of an archbishop; but Dr. Rock assures us that the pope never had a pastoral staff of this shape, but of one crossbar only; that patriarchs of the Eastern Church used the cross of two bars, but never those of the Western Church; and that the example of Thomas-à-Becket with a cross of two bars, in Queen Mary’s Psalter (Royal, 2 B. vii.) is a unique example (and possibly an error of the artist’s). A representation of Pope Leo III. from a contemporary picture is engraved in the “Annales Archæologique,” vol. viii. p. 257; another very complete and clear representation of the pontifical costume of the time of Innocent III. is engraved by Dr. Rock (“Church of our Fathers,” p. 467) from a fresco painting at Subiaco, near Rome. Another representation,of late thirteenth-century date, is given in the famous MS. called the “Psalter of Queen Mary,” in the British Museum (Royal, 2 B. vii.); there the pope is in nothing more than ordinary episcopal costume—alb, tunic, chasuble, without the pall—and holds his cross-staff of only one bar in his right hand, and his canonical tiara has one crown round the base. Beside him stands a bishop in the same costume, except that he wears the mitre and holds a crook. A good fourteenth-century representation of a pope and cardinals is in the MS. August. V. f. 459. We give a woodcut of the fifteenth century, from a MS. life of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, in the British Museum (Julius E. iv. f. 207); the subject is the presentation of the pilgrim earl to the pope, and it enables us to bring into one view the costumes of pope, cardinal, and bishop. A later pictureof considerable artistic merit may be found in Hans Burgmair’s “Der Weise König,” where the pope, officiating at a royal marriage, is habited in a chasuble, and has the three crowns on his tiara.
Pope, Cardinal, and Bishop.
The cardinalate is not an ecclesiastical “order.” Originally the name was applied to the priests of the chief churches of Rome, who formed the chapter of the Bishop of Rome. In later times they were the princes of the papal sovereignty, and the dignity was conferred not only upon the highest order of the hierarchy, but upon priests, deacons,[291]and even upon men who had only taken minor orders to qualify themselves for holding office in the papal kingdom. The red hat, which became their distinctive symbol, is said to have been given them first by Innocent VI. at the Council of Lyons in 1245; and De Curbio says they first wore it in 1246, at the interview between the pope and Louis IX. of France. A representation of it may be seen in the MS. Royal, 16 G. vi., which is engraved in the “Pictorial History of England,” vol. i. 869. Another very clear and good representation of the costume of a cardinal is in the plate in Hans Burgmair’s “Der Weise König,” already mentioned; a group of them is on the right side of the drawing, each with a fur-lined hood on his head, and his hat over the hood. It is not the hat which is peculiar to cardinals, but the colour of it, and the number of its tassels. Other ecclesiastics wore the hat of the same shape, but only a cardinal wears it of scarlet. Moreover, a priest wore only one tassel to each string, a bishop three, a cardinal seven. It was not the hat only which was scarlet. Wolsey, we read, was in the habit of dressing entirely in scarlet for his ordinary costume. In the Decretals of Pope Gregory, Royal, 10 E. iv. f. 3 v., are representations of cardinals in red gown and hood and hat. On the following page they are represented, inpontificalibus.
The archbishop wore the habit of a bishop, his differences being in the crosier and pall.[292]His crozier had a cross head instead of a curved headlike the bishop’s. Over the chasuble he wore the pall, which was a flat circular band, or collar, placed loosely round the shoulders, with long ends hanging down behind and before, made of lambs’ wool, and marked with a number of crosses. Dr. Rock has engraved[293]two remarkably interesting early representations of archbishops of Ravenna, in which a very early form of the pontifical garments is given, viz., the sandals, alb, stole, tunic, chasuble, pall, and tonsure. They are not represented with either mitre or staff. Other representations of archbishops may be found of the eleventh century in the Bayeux tapestry, and of the thirteenth in the Royal MS., 2 B. vii. In the Froissart MS., Harl. 4,380, at f. 170, is a fifteenth-century representation of the Archbishop of Canterbury in ordinary dress—a lavender-coloured gown and red liripipe.
The bishop wore the same habit as the priest, with the addition of sandals, gloves, a ring, the pastoral staff with a curved head, and the mitre. The chasuble was only worn when celebrating the Holy Communion; on any other ceremonial occasion the cope was worn,e.g., when in choir, as in the woodcut on p. 197: or when preaching, as in a picture in the Harl. MS. 1319, engraved in the “Pictorial History of England,” vol. i. 806; or when attending parliament. In illuminated MSS. bishops are very commonly represented dressed in alb and cope only, and this seems to have been their most usual habit. If the bishop were a monk or friar he wore the cope over the robe proper to his order. We might multiply indefinitely references to representations of bishops and other ecclesiastics in the illuminated MS. We will content ourselves with one reference to a beautifully drawn figure in the psalter of the close of the 14th century (Harl. 2,897, f. 380). In the early fourteenth-century MS. (Royal, 14 E. iii. at ff. 16 and 25), we find two representations of a bishop in what we may suppose was his ordinary unofficial costume; he wears a blue-grey robe and hood with empty falling sleeves, through which appear the blue sleeves of his under robe; it is the ordinary civil and clerical costume of the period, but he is marked out as a bishop by a white mitre. In the Pontifical of the middle of the fifteenth century, already referred to (Egerton,1067) at f. 186 in the representation of the ceremony of the feet-washing, the bishop in a long black sleeveless robe[294]over a white alb, and a biretta.
The earliest form of the mitre was that of a simple cap, like a skull-cap, of which there is a representation, giving in many respects a clear and elaborate picture of the episcopal robes, in a woodcut of St. Dunstan in the MS. Cotton, Claudius A. iii.[295]In this early shape it has already the infulæ—two narrow bands hanging down behind. In the twelfth century it is in the form of a large cap, with a depression in the middle, which produces two blunt horns at the sides. There is a good representation of this in the MS. Cotton, Nero C. iv. f. 34, which has been engraved by Strutt, Shaw, and Dr. Rock.
In the Harl. MS. 5,102, f. 17, is a picture of the entombment of an archbishop, in which is well shown the transition shape of the mitre from the twelfth century, already described, to the cleft and pointed shape which was used in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The depression is here deepened into a partial cleft, and the mitre is put on so that the horns come before and behind, instead of at the sides, but the horns are still blunt and rounded. The archbishop’s gloves in this picture are white, like the mitre, and in shape are like mittens,i.e., not divided into fingers.
The shape in the thirteenth and fourteenth century presented a stiff low triangle in front and behind, with a gap between them. It is well shown in a MS. of the close of the twelfth century, Harl. 2,800, f. 6, and, in a shape a little further developed, in the pictures in the Royal MS., 2 B. vii., already noticed. In the fifteenth century the mitre began to be made taller, and with curved sides, as seen in the beautiful woodcut of a bishop and his canons in choir given in our last chapter, p. 197. The latest example in the English Church is in the brass of Archbishop Harsnett, in Chigwell Church, in which also occur the latest examples of the alb, stole, dalmatic, and cope.
The pastoral staff also varied in shape at different times. The earliestexamples of it are in the representations of St. Mark and St. Luke,[296]in the “Gospels of MacDurnan,” in the Lambeth Library, a work of the middle of the ninth century. St. Luke’s staff is short, St. Mark’s longer than himself; in both cases the staff terminates with a plain, slightly reflexed curve of about three-fourths of a circle. Some actual examples of the metal heads of these Celtic pastoral staves remain; one is engraved in the “Archæologia Scotica,” vol. ii., another is in the British Museum; that of the abbots of Clonmacnoise, and that of the ancient bishops of Waterford, are in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire. They were all brought together in 1863 in the Loan Exhibition at South Kensington. One of the earliest English representations of the staff is in the picture of the consecration of a church, in a MS. of the ninth century, in the Rouen Library, engraved in the “Archæologia,” vol xxv. p. 17, in the “Pictorial History of England,” and by Dr. Rock, ii. p. 24. Here the staff is about the length of an ordinary walking-stick, and is terminated by a round knob.
Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, is represented on his great seal with a short staff, with a tau-cross or crutch head. An actually existing staff of this shape, which belonged to Gerard, Bishop of Limoges, who died in 1022, is engraved in the “Annales Archæologique,” vol. x. p. 176. The staves represented in illuminations of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries have usually a plain spiral curve of rather more than a circle;[297]in later times they were ornamented with foliage, and sometimes with statuettes, and were enamelled and jewelled. Numerous representations and actual examples exist; some may be seen in the South Kensington Museum. From early in the fourteenth century downward, a napkin of linen or silk is often found attached by one corner to the head of the staff, whose origin and meaning seem to be undetermined.
The official costume of the remaining orders, together with the symbols significant of their several offices, are well brought out in the degradation of W. Sawtre, already given at p. 214.
Some of the vestments there mentioned may need a few words of explanation.The alb was a kind of long coat with close fitting sleeves made of white[298]linen, and usually, at least during the celebration of divine service, ornamented with four to six square pieces of cloth of gold, or other rich stuff, or of goldsmith’s work, which were placed on the skirt before and behind, on the wrist of each sleeve, and on the back and breast. The dalmatic of the deacon was a kind of tunic, reaching generally a little below the knees, and slit some way up the sides, and with short, broad sleeves; it was usually ornamented with a broad hem, which passed round the side slits. The sub-deacon’s tunicle was like the dalmatic, but rather shorter, and less ornamented. The cope was a kind of cloak, usually of rich material, fastened across the chest by a large brooch; it was worn by priests in choir and in processions, and on other occasions of state and ceremony. The chasuble was the Eucharistic vestment; originally it was a circle of rich cloth with a slit in the middle, through which the head was passed, and then it fell in ample folds all round the figure. Gradually it was made oval in shape, continually decreasing in width, so as to leave less of the garment to encumber the arms. In its modern shape it consists of two stiff rectangular pieces of cloth, one piece falling before, the other behind, and fastened together at the shoulders of the wearer. The ancient inventories of cathedrals, abbeys, and churches show us that the cope and chasuble were made in every colour, of every rich material, and sometimes embroidered and jewelled. Indeed, all the official robes of the clergy were of the costliest material and most beautiful workmanship which could be obtained. England was celebrated for its skill in the arts employed in their production, and an anecdote of the time of Henry III. shows us that the English ecclesiastical vestments excited admiration and cupidity even at Rome. Their richness had nothing to do with personal pride or luxury on the part of the priests. They were not the property of the clergy, but were generally presented to the churches, to which they belonged in perpetuity; and they were made thus costly on the principle of honouring the divine worship. As men gave their costliest material andnoblest Art for the erection of the place in which it was offered, so also for the appliances used in its ministration, and the robes of the ministrants.
In full sacerdotal habit the priests wore the apparelled alb, and stole, and over that the dalmatic, and either the cope or the chasuble over all, with the amys thrown back like a hood over the cope or chasuble. Representations of priestsin pontificalibusabound in illuminated MSS., and in their monumental effigies, to such an extent that we need hardly quote any particular examples. Representations of the inferior orders are comparatively rare. Examples of deacons may be found engraved in Dr. Rock’s “Church of our Fathers,” i. 376, 378, 379, 443, and 444. Two others of early fourteenth-century date may be found in the Add. MS. 10,294, f. 72, one wearing a dalmatic of cloth of gold, the other of scarlet, over the alb. Two others of the latter part of the fourteenth century are seen in King Richard II.’s Book of Hours (Dom. A. xvii. f. 176), one in blue dalmatic embroidered with gold, the other red embroidered with gold. A monumental effigy of a deacon under a mural arch at Avon Dassett, Warwickshire, was referred to by Mr. M. H. Bloxam, in a recent lecture at the Architectural Museum, South Kensington. The effigy, which is of the thirteenth century, is in alb, stole, and dalmatic. We are indebted to Mr. Bloxam for a note of another mutilated effigy of a deacon of the fourteenth century among the ruins of Furness Abbey; he is habited in the alb only, with a girdle round the middle, whose tasselled knobs hang down in front. The stole is passed across the body from the left shoulder, and is fastened together at the right hip.
Dr. Rock, vol. i. p. 384, engraves a very good representation of a ninth-century sub-deacon in his tunicle, holding a pitcher in one hand and an empty chalice in the other; and in vol. ii. p. 89, an acolyte, in what seems to be a surplice, with a scarlet hood—part of his ordinary costume—over it, the date of the drawing beingcir.1395A.D.We have already noted the costume of an ostiary at p. 215. In the illuminations we frequently find an inferior minister attending upon a priest when engaged in his office, but in many cases it is difficult to determine whether he is deacon, sub-deacon, or acolyte,e.g.—in the early fourteenth-century MS., Add. 10,294, at f. 72, is a priest officiating at a funeral, attended by aminister, who is habited in a pink under robe—his ordinary dress—and over it a short white garment with wide loose sleeves, which may be either a deacon’s dalmatic, or a sub-deacon’s tunic, or an acolyte’s surplice. In the Add. MS. 10,293, at f. 154, is a representation of a priest celebrating mass in a hermitage, with a minister kneeling behind him, habited in a white alb only, holding a lighted taper. Again, in the MS. Royal, 14 E. iii. f. 86, is a picture of a prior dressed like some of the canons in our woodcut from Richard II.’s Book of Hours, in a blue under robe, white surplice, and red stole crossed over the breast, and his furred hood on his head; he is baptizing a heathen king, and an attendant minister, who is dressed in the ordinary secular habit of the time, stands beside, holding the chrismatory. In the same history of Richard Earl of Warwick which we have already quoted, there is at f. 213 v., a boy in a short surplice with a censer. In the early fourteenth-century MS., Royal, 14 E. iii. at f. 84 v., is a picture of a bishop anointing a king; anattendant minister, who carries a holy water vessel and aspersoir, is dressed in a surplice over a pink tunic. The surplice is found in almost as many and as different shapes in the Middle Ages as now; sometimes with narrow sleeves and tight up to the neck; sometimes with shorter and wider sleeves and falling low at the neck; sometimes longer and sometimes shorter in the skirt; never, however, so long as altogether to hide the cassock beneath. In addition to the references already given, it may be sufficient to name as further authorities for ecclesiastical costumes generally:—for Saxon times, the Benedictional of St. Ethelwold, engraved in the Archæologia; for the thirteenth century, Queen Mary’s Psalter, Royal, 2 B. vii.; for the fourteenth, Royal, 20, c. vii.; for the fifteenth century, Lydgate’s “Life of St. Edmund;” for the sixteenth century, Hans Burgmaier’s “Der Weise König,” and the various works on sepulchral monuments and monumental brasses.
Coronation Procession of Charles V. of France.
The accompanying woodcut from Col. Johnes’s Froissart, vol. i. p. 635, representing the coronation procession of Charles V. of France, will help us to exhibit some of the orders of the clergy with their proper costume and symbols. First goes the aquabajalus, in alb, sprinkling holy water; then a cross-bearer in cassock and surplice; then two priests, in cassock, surplice, and cope; then follows a canon in his cap (biretta), with his furred amys over his arm.[299]
But the clergy wore these robes only when actually engaged in some official act. What was their ordinary costume is generally little known, and it is a part of the subject in which we are especially interested in these papers. From the earliest times of the English Church downwards it was considered by the rulers of the Church that clergymen ought to be distinguished from laymen not only by the tonsure, but also by their dress. We do not find that any uniform habit was prescribed to them, such as distinguished the regular orders of monks and friars from the laity, and from one another; but we gather from the canons of synods, and the injunctions of bishops, that the clergy were expected to wear their clothesnot too gay in colour, and not too fashionably cut; that they were to abstain from wearing ornaments or carrying arms; and that their horse furniture was to be in the same severe style. We also gather from the frequent repetition of canons on the subject, and the growing earnestness of their tone, that these injunctions were very generally disregarded. We need not take the reader through the whole series of authorities which may be found in the various collections of councils; a single quotation from the injunctions of John (Stratford) Archbishop of Canterbury,A.D.1342, will suffice to give us a comprehensive sketch of the general contents of the whole series.
“The external costume often shows the internal character and condition of persons; and though the behaviour of clerks ought to be an example and pattern of the laity, yet the abuse of clerks, which has gained ground more than usually in these days in tonsures, in garments, in horse trappings, and other things, has now generated an abominable scandal among the people, while persons holding ecclesiastical dignities, rectories, honourable prebends, and benefices with cure of souls, even when ordained to holy orders, scorn to wear the crown (which is the token of the heavenly kingdom and of perfection), and, using the distinction of hair extended almost to the shoulders like effeminate persons, walk about clothed in a military rather than a clerical outer habit, viz., short, or notably scant, and with excessively wide sleeves, which do not cover the elbows, but hang down, lined, or, as they say, turned up with fur or silk, and hoods with tippets of wonderful length, and with long beards; and rashly dare, contrary to the canonical sanctions, to use rings indifferently on their fingers; and to be girt with zones, studded with precious stones of wonderful size, with purses engraved with various figures, enamelled and gilt, and attached to them (i.e.to the girdle), with knives, hanging after the fashion of swords, also with buskins red and even checked, green shoes and peaked and cut[300]in many ways, with cruppers (croperiis) to their saddles, and horns hanging to their necks, capes and cloaks furred openly at the edges to such an extent, that little or no distinction appears of clerks from laymen, wherebythey render themselves, through their demerits, unworthy of the privilege of their order and profession.
“We therefore, wishing henceforward to prevent such errors, &c., command and ordain, that whoever obtain ecclesiastical benefices in our province, especially if ordained to holy orders, wear clerical garments and tonsure suitable to their status; but if any clerks of our province go publicly in an outer garment short, or notably scant, or in one with long or excessively wide sleeves, not touching the elbow round about, but hanging, with untonsured hair and long beard, or publicly wear their rings on their fingers, &c., if, on admonition, they do not reform within six months, they shall be suspended, and shall only be absolved by their diocesan, and then only on condition that they pay one-fifth of a year’s income to the poor of the place through the diocesan,” &c., &c.
The authorities tried to get these canons observed. Grostête sent back a curate who came to him for ordination “dressed in rings and scarlet like a courtier.”[301]Some of the vicars of York Cathedral[302]were presented in 1362A.D.for being in the habit of going through the city in short tunics, ornamentally trimmed, with knives and baselards[303]hanging at their girdles. But the evidence before us seems to prove that it was not only the acolyte-rectors, and worldly-minded clerics, who indulged in such fashions, but that the secular clergy generally resisted these endeavours to impose upon them anything approaching to a regular habit like those worn by the monks and friars, and persisted in refusing to wear sad colours, or to cut their coats differently from other people, or to abstain from wearing a gold ring or an ornamented girdle. In the drawings of the secular clergy in the illuminated MSS., we constantly find them in the ordinary civil costume. Even in representations of the different orders and ranks of the secular clergy drawn by friendly hands, and intended to represent themcomme il faut, we find them dressed in violation of the canons.
We have already had occasion to notice a bishop in a blue-grey gown and hood, over a blue under-robe; and a prior performing a royal baptism, and canons performing service under the presidency of their bishop, with the blue and red robes of every-day life under their ritual surplices. The MSS. furnish us with an abundance of other examples,e.g.—In the early fourteenth-century MS., Add. 10,293, at f. 131 v., is a picture showing “how the priests read before the barony the letter which the false queen sent to Arthur.” One of the persons thus described as priests has a blue gown and hood and black shoes, the other a claret-coloured gown and hood and red shoes.
Dns. Ricardus de Threton, Sacerdos.
But our best examples are those in the book (Cott. Nero D. vii.) before quoted, in which the grateful monks of St. Alban’s have recorded the names and good deeds of those who had presented gifts or done services to the convent. In many cases the scribe has given us a portrait of the benefactor in the margin of the record; and these portraits supply us with an authentic gallery of typical portraits of the various orders of society of the time at which they were executed. From these we have taken the three examples we here present to the reader. On f. 100 v. is a portrait of one Lawrence, a clerk, who is dressed in a brown robe; another clerk, William by name, is in a scarlet robe and hood; on f. 93 v., Leofric, a deacon, is in a blue robe and hood. The accompanying woodcut, from folio 105, is Dns. Ricardus de Threton, sacerdos,—Sir Richard de Threton, priest,—who was executor of Sir Robert de Thorp, knight, formerly chancellor of the king, and who gave twenty marks to the convent. Our woodcut gives only the outlines of the full-length portrait. In the original the robe and hood are of full bright blue, lined with white; the under sleeves,which appear at the wrists, are of the same colour; and the shoes are red. At f. 106 v. is Dns. Bartholomeus de Wendone, rector of the church of Thakreston, and the character of the face leads us to think that it may have been intended for a portrait. His robe and hood and sleeves are scarlet, with black shoes. Another rector, Dns. Johannes Rodland (at f. 105), rector of the church of Todyngton, has a green robe and scarlet hood. Still another rector, of the church of Little Waltham, is represented half-length in pink gown and purple hood. On f. 108 v. is the full-length portrait which is here represented. It is of Dns. Rogerus, chaplain of the chapel of the Earl of Warwick, at Flamsted. Over a scarlet gown, of the same fashion as those in the preceding pictures, is a pink cloak lined with blue; the hood is scarlet, of the same suit as the gown; the buttons at the shoulder of the cloak are white, the shoes red. It will be seen also that all three of these clergymen wear the moustache and beard.
Dns. Barth. de Wendone, Rector.Dns. Rogerus, Capellanus.
Dominus Robertus de Walsham, precentor of Sarum (f. 100 v.), is in his choir habit, a white surplice, and over it a fur amys fastened at the throat with a brooch. Dns. Robertus de Hereforde, Dean of Sarum(f. 101), has a lilac robe and hood fastened by a gold brooch. There is another dean, Magister Johnnes Appleby, Dean of St. Paul’s, at f. 105, whose costume is not very distinctly drawn. It may be necessary to assure some of our readers, that the colours here described were not given at the caprice of a limner wishing to make his page look gay. The portraits were perhaps imaginary, but the personages are habited in the costume proper to their rank and order. The series of Benedictine abbots and monks in the same book are in black robes; other monks introduced are in the proper habit of their order; a king in his royal robes; a knight sometimes in armour, sometimes in the civil costume of his rank, with a sword by his side, and a chaplet round his flowing hair; a lady in the fashionable dress of the time; a burgher in his proper habit, with his hair cut short. And so the clergy are represented in the dress which they usually wore; and, for our purpose, the pictures are more valuable than if they were actual portraits of individual peculiarities of costume, because we are the more sure that they give us the usual and recognised costume of the several characters. Indeed, it is a rule, which has very rareexceptions, that the mediæval illuminators represented contemporary subjects with scrupulous accuracy. We give another representation from the picture of John Ball, the priest who was concerned in Wat Tyler’s rebellion, taken from a MS. of Froissart’s Chronicle, in the Bibliothèque Impériale at Paris. The whole picture is interesting; the background is a church, in whose churchyard are three tall crosses. Ball is preaching from the pulpit of his saddle to the crowd of insurgents who occupy the left side of the picture. In the Froissart MS. Harl. 4,380, at f. 20, is a picture ofun vaillant homme et clerque nommé Maistre Johan Warennes, preaching against Pope Boniface; he is in a pulpit panelled in green and gold, with a pall hung over the front, and the people sit on benches before him; he is habited in a blue robe and hood lined with white.
John Ball, Priest.
The author of Piers Ploughman, carping at the clergy in the latter half of the fourteenth century, says it would be better
“If many a priest bare for their baselards and their brooches,A pair of beads in their hand, and a book under their arm.Sire[304]John and Sire Geffrey hath a girdle of silver,A baselard and a knife, with botons overgilt.”
A little later, he speaks of proud priests habited in patlocks,—a short jacket worn by laymen,—with peaked shoes and large knives or daggers. And in the poems of John Audelay, in the fifteenth century, a parish priest is described in
“His girdle harnesched with silver, his baselard hangs by.”
In the wills of the clergy they themselves describe their “togas” of gay colours, trimmed with various furs, and their ornamented girdles and purses, and make no secret of the objectionable knives and baselards. In the Bury St. Edmunds Wills, Adam de Stanton, a chaplain,A.D.1370, bequeaths one girdle, with purse and knife, valued at 5s.—a rather large sum of money in those days. In the York wills, John Wynd-hill, Rector of Arnecliffe,A.D.1431, bequeaths a pair of amber beads, such as Piers Ploughman says a priest ought “to bear in his hand, and a book under his arm;” and, curiously enough, in the next sentence he leaves “an English book of Piers Ploughman;” but he does not seem to have been much influenced by the popular poet’s invectives, for he goes on to bequeath two green gowns and one of murrey and one of sanguine colour, besides two of black, all trimmed with various furs; also, one girdle of sanguine silk, ornamented with silver, and gilded, and another zone of green and white, ornamented with silver and gilded; and he also leaves behind him—proh pudor—his best silver girdle, and a baselard with ivory and silver handle. John Gilby, Rector of Knesale, 1434-5, leaves a red toga, furred with byce, a black zone of silk with gilt bars, and a zone ornamented with silver. J. Bagule, Rector of All Saints, York,A.D.1438, leaves a little baselard, with a zone harnessed with silver, to Sir T. Astell, a chaplain. W. Duffield, a chantry priest at York,A.D.1443, leaves a black zone silvered, a purse called a “gypsire,” and a white purse of “Burdeux.” W. Siverd, chaplain, leaves to H. Hobshot a hawk-bag; and to W. Day, parochial chaplain of Calton, a pair of hawk-bag rings; and to J. Sarle, chaplain, “my ruby zone, silvered, and my toga, furred with ‘bevers;’” and to the wife of J. Bridlington, “a ruby purse of satin.” R. Rolleston, provost of the church of Beverley,A.D.1450, leaves a “toga lunata” with a red hood, a toga and hood of violet, a long toga and hood of black, trimmed with martrons, and a toga and hood of violet. J. Clyft, chaplain,A.D.1455, leaves a zone of silk, ornamented with silver. J. Tidman, chaplain,A.D.1458, a toga of violet and one of meld. C. Lassels, chaplain,A.D.1461, a green toga and a white zone, silvered. T. Horneby, rector of Stokesley,A.D.1464, a red toga and hood; and, among the Richmondshire Wills, we find that of Sir Henry Halled, Lady-priest of the parish of Kirby-in-Kendal, in 1542A.D.(four years before the suppression of the chantries), who leaves a short gown and a long gown, whose colour is not specified, but was probably black, which seems by this time to have been the most usual clerical wear.
The accompanying woodcut will admirably illustrate the ornamented girdle, purse, and knife, of which we have been reading. It is from a MS. of Chaucer’s poem of the Romaunt of the Rose (Harl. 4,425, f. 143), and represents a priest confessing a lady in a church. The characters in the scene are, like the poem, allegorical; the priest is Genius, and the lady is Dame Nature; but it is not the less an accurate picture of a confessional scene of the latter part of the fourteenth century. The priest is habited in a robe of purple, with a black cap and a black liripipe attached to it, brought over the shoulder to the front, and falling over the arm. The tab, peeping from beneath the cap above the ear, is red; the girdle, purse, and knife, are, in the original illumination, very clearly represented. In another picture of the same person, at f. 106, the black girdle is represented as ornamented with little circles of gold.
A Priest Confessing a Lady.
Many of these clergymen had one black toga with hooden suite—not for constant use in divine service, for, as we have already seen, they are generally represented in the illuminations with coloured “togas” under their surplices,—but perhaps, for wear on mourning occasions. Thus, in the presentations of York Cathedral,A.D.1519, “We thynke it wereconvenient that whene we fetche a corse to the churche, that we shulde be in our blak abbettes [habits] mornyngly, wtour hodes of the same of our hedes, as is used in many other places.”[305]
At the time of the Reformation, when the English clergy abandoned the mediæval official robes, they also desisted from wearing the tonsure, which had for many centuries been the distinguishing mark of a cleric, and they seem generally to have adopted the academical dress, for the model both of their official and their ordinary dress. The Puritan clergy adopted a costume which differed little, if at all, from that of the laity of the same school. But it is curious that this question of clerical dress continued to be one of complaint on one side, and resistance on the other, down to the end of our ecclesiastical legislation. The 74th canon of 1603 is as rhetorical in form, and as querulous in tone, and as minute in its description of the way in which ecclesiastical persons should, and the way in which they should not, dress, as is the Injunction of 1342, which we have already quoted. “The true, ancient, and flourishing churches of Christ, being ever desirous that their prelacy and clergy might be had as well in outward reverence, as otherwise regarded for the worthiness of their ministry, did think it fit, by a prescript form of decent and comely apparel, to have them known to the people, and thereby to receive the honour and estimation due to the special messengers and ministers of Almighty God: we, therefore, following their grave judgment and the ancient custom of the Church of England, and hoping that in time new fangleness of apparel in some factious persons will die of itself, do constitute and appoint, that the archbishops and bishops shall not intermit to use the accustomed apparel of their degree. Likewise, all deans, masters of colleges, archdeacons, and prebendaries, in cathedrals and collegiate churches (being priests or deacons), doctors in divinity, law, and physic, bachelors in divinity, masters of arts, and bachelors of law, having any ecclesiastical living, shall wear gowns with standing collars, and sleeves straight at the hands, or wide sleeves, as is used in the universities, with hoods or tippets of silk or sarcenet, and square caps; and that allother ministers admitted, or to be admitted, into that function, shall also usually wear the like apparel as is aforesaid, except tippets only. We do further in like manner ordain, that all the said ecclesiastical persons above mentioned shall usually wear on their journeys cloaks with sleeves, commonly called Priests’ Cloaks, without guards, welts, long buttons, or cuts. And no ecclesiastical person shall wear any coif, or wrought night-cap, but only plain night caps of black silk, satin, or velvet. In all which particulars concerning the apparel here prescribed, our meaning is not to attribute any holiness or special worthiness to the said garments, but for decency, gravity, and order, as is before specified. In private houses and in their studies the said persons ecclesiastical may use any comely and scholarlike apparel, provided that it be not cut or pinkt; and that in public they go not in their doublet and hose without coats or cassocks; and that they wear not any light-coloured stockings. Likewise, poor beneficed men and curates (not being able to provide themselves long gowns) may go in short gowns of the fashion aforesaid.”
The portraits prefixed to the folio works of the great divines of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have made us familiar with the fact, that at the time of the Reformation the clergy wore the beard and moustache. They continued to wear the cassock and gown as their ordinary out-door costume until as late as the time of George II.; but in the fashion of doublet and hose, hats, shoes, and hair, they followed the custom of other gentlemen. Mr. Fairholt, in his “Costume in England,” p. 327, gives us a woodcut from a print of 1680A.D., which admirably illustrates the ordinary out-door dress of a clergyman of the time of William and Mary.
PARSONAGE HOUSES.
When, in our endeavour to realise the life of these secular clergymen of the Middle Ages, we come to inquire, What sort of houses did they live in? how were these furnished? what sort of life did their occupants lead? what kind of men were they? it is curious how little seems to be generally known on the subject, compared with what we know about the houses and life and character of the regular orders. Instead of gathering together what others have said, we find ourselves engaged in an original investigation of a new and obscure subject. The case of the cathedral and collegiate clergy, and that of the isolated parochial clergy, form two distinct branches of the subject. The limited space at our disposal will not permit us to do justice to both; the latter branch of the subject is less known, and perhaps the more generally interesting, and we shall therefore devote the bulk of our space to it. We will only premise a few words on the former branch.
The bishop of a cathedral of secular canons had his house near his cathedral, in which he maintained a household equal in numbers and expense to that of the secular barons among whom he took rank; the chief difference being, that the spiritual lord’s family consisted rather of chaplains and clerks than of squires and men-at-arms. The bishop’s palace at Wells is a very interesting example in an unusually perfect condition. Britton gives an engraving of it as it appeared before the reign of Edward VI. The bishop besides had other residences on his manors, some of which were castles like those of the other nobility. Farnham, the present residence of the see of Winchester, is a noble example, which stillserves its original purpose. Of the cathedral closes many still remain sufficiently unchanged to enable us to understand their original condition. Take Lincoln for example. On the north side of the church, in the angle between the nave and transept, was the cloister, with the polygonal chapter-house on the east side. The lofty wall which enclosed the precincts yet remains, with its main entrance in the middle of the west wall, opposite the great doors of the cathedral. This gate, called the Exchequer Gate, has chambers over it, devoted probably to the official business of the diocese. There are two other smaller gates at the north-east and south-east corners of the close, and there is a postern on the south side. The bishop’s palace, whose beautiful and interesting ruins and charming grounds still remain, occupied the slope of the southern hill outside the close. The vicar’s court is in the corner of the close near the gateway to the palace grounds. A fourteenth-century house, which was the official residence of the chaplain of one of the endowed chantries, still remains on the south side of the close, nearly opposite the choir door. On the east side of the close the fifteenth-century houses of several of the canons still remain, and are interesting examples of the domestic architecture of the time. It is not difficult from these data to picture to ourselves the original condition of this noble establishment when the cathedral, with its cloister and chapter-house, stood isolated in the middle of the green sward, and the houses of the canons and chaplains formed a great irregular quadrangle round it, and the close walls shut them all in from the outer world, and the halls and towers of the bishop’s palace were still perfect amidst its hanging gardens enclosed within their own walls, the quadrangle of houses which had been built for the cathedral vicars occupying a corner cut out of the bishop’s grounds beside his gateway. And we can repeople the restored close. Let it be on the morning of one of the great festivals; let the great bells be ringing out their summons to high mass; and we shall see the dignified canons in amice and cap crossing the green singly on their way from their houses to their stalls in the choir; the vicars conversing in a little group as they come across from their court; the surpliced chorister boys under the charge of their schoolmaster; a band of minstrels with flutes, and hautboys, and viols, and harps, and organs, coming infrom the city, to use their instruments in the rood-loft to aid the voices of the choir; scattered clerks and country clergy, and townspeople, are all converging to the great south door; and last of all the lord bishop, in cope and mitre, emerges from his gateway, preceded by his cross-bearer, attended by noble or royal guests, and followed by a suite of officials and clerks; while over all the great bells ring out their joyous peal to summon the people to the solemn worship of God in the mother church of the vast diocese.
But we must turn to our researches into the humbler life of the country rectors and vicars. And first, what sort of houses did they live in? We have not been able to find one of the parsonage houses of an earlier date than the Reformation still remaining in a condition sufficiently unaltered to enable us to understand what they originally were. There is an ancient rectory house of the fourteenth century at West Deane, Sussex,[306]of which we give a ground-plan and north-east view on the following page; but the rectory belonged to the prior and convent of Benedictine Monks of Wilmington, and this house was probably their grange, or cell, and may have been inhabited by two of their monks, or by their tenant, and not by the parish priest. Again, there is a very picturesque rectory house, of the fifteenth century, at Little Chesterton, near Cambridge,[307]but this again is believed to have been a grange, or cell, of a monastic house.
In the absence of actual examples, we are driven to glean what information we can from other sources. There remain to us a good many of the deeds of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, by which, on the impropriation of the benefices, provision was made for the permanent endowment of vicarages in them. In the majority of cases the old rectory house was assigned as the future vicarage house, and no detailed description of it was necessary; but in the deed by which the rectories of Sawbridgeworth, in Herts, and Kelvedon, in Essex, were appropriated to the convent of Westminster, we are so fortunate as to find descriptions of the fourteenth-century parsonage houses, one of which is so detailed as to enable any one who is acquainted with the domestic architecture of thetime to form a very definite picture of the whole building. In the case of Sawbridgeworth, the old rectory house was assigned as the vicarage house, and is thus described—“All the messuage which is called the priest’s messuage, with the houses thereon built, that is to say, one hall with two chambers, with a buttery, cellar, kitchen, stable, and other fitting and decent houses, with all the garden as it is enclosed with walls to the saidmessuage belonging.” The description of the parsonage house at Kelvedon is much more definite and intelligible. For this the deed tells us the convent assigned—“One hall situate in the manor of the said abbot and convent near the said church, with a chamber and soler at one end of the hall and with a buttery and cellar at the other. Also one other house in three parts, that is to say, for a kitchen with a convenient chamber in the end of the said house for guests, and a bakehouse. Also one other house in two parts, next the gate at the entrance of the manor, for a stable and cowhouse. He (the vicar) shall also have a convenient grange, to be built within a year at the expense of the prior and convent. He shall also have the curtilage with the garden adjoining to the hall on the north side, as it is enclosed with hedges and ditches.” The date of the deed is 1356A.D., and it speaks of these houses as already existing. Now the common arrangement of a small house at that date, and for near a century before and after, was this, “a hall in the centre, with a soler at one end and offices at the other.”[308]A description which exactly agrees with the account of the Kelvedon house, and enables us to say with great probability that in the Sawbridgeworth “priest’s messuage” also, the two chambers were at one end of the hall, and the buttery, cellar, and kitchen at the other, the stable and other fitting and decent houses being detached from and not forming any portion of the dwelling house.
Rectory House, West Deane, Sussex.
Confining ourselves, however, to the Kelvedon house, a little study will enable us to reconstruct it conjecturally with a very high probability of being minutely accurate in our conjectures. First of all, a house of this character in the county of Essex would, beyond question, be a timber house. To make our description clearer we have given a rough diagram of our conjectural arrangement. Its principal feature was, of course, the “one hall” (A). We know at once what the hall of a timber house of this period of architecture would be. It would be a rather spacious and lofty apartment, with an open timber roof; the principal door of the house would open into the “screens” (D), at the lower end of the hall, and the back door of the house would be at the other end of the screens. At theupper end of the hall would be the raised dais (B), at which the master of the house sat with his family. The fireplace would either be an open hearth in the middle of the hall, like that which still exists in the fourteenth-century hall at Penshurst Place, Kent, or it would be an open fireplace, under a projecting chimney, at the further side of the hall, such as is frequently seen in MS. illuminations of the small houses of the period. There was next “a chamber and soler at one end of the hall.” The soler of a mediæval house was the chief apartment after the hall, it answered to the “great chamber” of the sixteenth century, and to the parlour or drawing-room of more modern times. It was usually adjacent to the upper end of the hall, and built on transversely to it, with a window at each end. It was usually raised on an undercroft, which was used as a storeroom or cellar, so that it was reached by a stair from the upper end of the hall. Sometimes, instead of a mere undercroft, there was a chamber under the soler, which was the case here, so that we have added these features to our plan (C). Next there was “a buttery and cellar at the other” end of the hall. In the buttery in those days were kept wine and beer, table linen, cups, pots, &c.: and in the cellar the stores of eatables which, it must be remembered, were not bought in weekly from the village shop, or the next market town, but were partly the produce of the glebe and tithe, and partlywere laid in yearly or half-yearly at some neighbouring fair. The buttery and cellar—they who are familiar with old houses, or with our colleges, will remember—are always at the lower end of the hall, and open upon the screens, with two whole or half doors side by side; we may therefore add them thus upon our plan (H,I).
Conjectural Plan of Rectory-House at Kelvedon, Essex.
The deed adds, “Also one other house in three parts.” In those days the rooms of a house were not massed compactly together under one roof, but were built in separate buildings more or less detached, and each building was called a house; “One other house in three parts, that is to say, a kitchen with a convenient chamber at one end of the said house for guests, and a bakehouse.” “The kitchen,” says Mr. Parker, in his “Domestic Architecture,” “was frequently a detached building, often connected with the hall by a passage or alley leading from the screens;” and it was often of greater relative size and importance than modern usage would lead us to suppose; the kitchens of old monasteries, mansion houses, and colleges often have almost the size and architectural character of a second hall. In the case before us it was a section of the “other house,” and probably occupied its whole height, with an open timber roof (G). In the disposition of the bakehouse and convenient chamber for guests which were also in this other house, we meet with our first difficulty; the “chamber” might possibly be over the bakehouse, which took the usual form of an undercroft beneath the guest chamber; but the definition that the house was divided “in three parts” suggests that it was divided from top to bottom into three distinct sections. Inclining to the latter opinion, we have so disposed these apartments in our plan (F,E).
The elevation of the house may be conjectured with as much probability as its plan. Standing in front of it we should have the side of the hall towards us, with the arched door at its lower end, and perhaps two windows in the side with carved wood tracery[309]in their heads. To the right would be the gable end of the chamber with soler over it; the soler would probably have a rather large arched and traceried window in the end, the chamber a smaller and perhaps square-headed light. On the left would bethe building, perhaps a lean-to, containing the buttery and cellar, with only a small square-headed light in front. The accompanying wood-cut of a fourteenth-century house, from the Add. MSS. 10,292, will help to illustrate our conjectural elevation of Kelvedon Rectory. It has the hall with its great door and arched traceried window, and at the one end a chamber and soler over it. It only wants the offices at the other end to make the resemblance complete.[310]
A Fourteenth Century House.
Of later date probably and greater size, resembling a moated manor house, was the rectory of Great Bromley, Essex, which is thus described in the terrier of 1610A.D.: “A large parsonage house compass’d with a Mote, a Gate-house, with a large chamber, and a substantial bridge of timber adjoining to it, a little yard, an orchard, and a little garden, all within the Mote, which, together with the Circuit of the House, contains about half an Acre of Ground; and without the Mote there is a Yard, in which there is another Gate-house and a stable, and a hay house adjoining; also a barn of 25 yards long and 9 yards wide, and about 79 Acres and a-half of glebeland.”[311]The outbuildings were perhaps arranged as a courtyard outside the moat to which the gate-house formed an entrance, so that the visitor would pass through this outer gate, through the court of offices, over the bridge, and through the second gate-house into the base court of the house. This is the arrangement at Ightham Mote, Kent.
The parish chaplains seem to have had houses of residence provided for them. The parish of St. Michael-le-Belfry, York, complained in its visitation presentment, in the year 1409, that there was no house assigned for the parish chaplain or for the parish clerk. That they were small houses we gather from the fact that in some of the settlements of vicarages it is required that a competent house shall be built for the vicar where the parish chaplain has been used to live;e.g.at Great Bentley, Essex, it was ordered in 1323, that the vicars “shall have one competent dwelling-house with a sufficient curtilage, where the parish chaplain did use to abide, to be prepared at the cost of the said prior and convent.”[312]And at the settlement of the vicarage of St. Peter’s, Colchester,A.D.1319, it was required that “the convent of St. Botolph’s, the impropriators, should prepare a competent house for the vicar in the ground of the churchyard where a house was built for the parish chaplain of the said church.” At Radwinter, Essex, we find by the terrier of 1610A.D., that there were two mansions belonging to the benefice, “on the south side of the church, towards the west end, one called the great vicarage, and in ancient time the Domus Capellanorum, and the other the less vicarage,” which latter “formerlyserved for the ease of the Parson, and, as appears by evidence, first given to the end that if any of the parish were sick, the party might be sure to find the Parson or his curate near the church ready to go and visit him.” At the south-west corner of the churchyard of Doddinghurst, Essex, there still exists a little house of fifteenth-century date, which may have been such a curate’s house.