The Eve of the Reformation

Beyond this, the parish, as a corporate body generally, if not invariably, possessed property in land and houses, which was administered by the people’s wardens for the public good. The annual proceeds lightened the common burdens, as indeed it was intended that they should. A further source of occasional income was found in the parish plays which were managed for the common profit. Very frequently the production was entrusted to some local guild, and the expenses of mounting were advanced by the parochial authorities, who not infrequently had amongst the church treasures the dress and other stage properties necessary for the proper productions. At Tintinhull, in Somerset, for instance, in 1451, five parishioners got up a Christmas play for the benefit of the fund required for the erection of the new rood loft. At Morebath there was an Easter play representing the Resurrection of our Lord, to defray the expenses incurred by the parish on some extensive repairs.324

With this general notion of the working of pre-Reformation parochial accounts, we are now in a position to turn by way of a particular example to those of Leverton. The village is situated about six miles from Boston. The church, until the neglect of the past three hundred years had disfigured it, must have been very beautiful when decked with the furniture and ornaments which the loving care of the people of the neighbourhood had collected within its walls. When first the accounts open in 1492, the parish was beginning to be interested, as indeed, by the way, so many parishes were at this period, in the setting up of a new peal of bells. The people had evidently made a great effort to get these, and they contributed most generously. The rector promised ten shillings and sixpence – which sum, by the way, some one paid for him – but the whole arrangement for the purchase and hanging of the bells was in the hands of the churchwardens. The bell chamber was mended and timber was bought to strengthen the framework. When this was ready, the great bell was brought over from the neighbouring town, and money is disbursed for the carriage and the team of horses, not forgetting a penny for the toll in crossing a bridge. One William Wright of Benington came over professionally to superintend the hanging and “trossyng” of this great service bell. We may judge, however, that it was not altogether satisfactory, for in 1498 the two wardens made a “move” to “the gathering of the township of Leverton in the kirk,” in which they collected £4, 13s. 0d., and they forthwith commenced again the building of a steeple for another set of bells. The stone was given to them, but they had to see to the work of quarrying it, and to all the business of collecting material and of building. Trees in a neighbouring wood were bought, were cut and carried, and sawn into beams and boards, and poles were selected for scaffolding. Lime was burnt and sand was dug for the mortar, and tubs were purchased to mix it in, whilst Wreth, the carpenter, was retained to look after the building in general, and the timberwork of the new belfry in particular.

This seems to have exhausted the parish exchequer for a year or two, but in 1503 the two wardens attended at Boston to see their bell “shot,” and to provide for its transport to Leverton. Here Richard Messur, the local blacksmith, had prepared the necessary bolts and locks to fasten it to the swinging beam, and he was in attendance professionally to see the bell hung, with John Red, the bellmaker of Boston, who, moreover, remained for a time to teach the parish men how to ring a peal upon their new bells.

As the sixteenth century progressed, a great deal of building and repairs was undertaken by the parish authorities. In 1503, a new font was ordered, and a deputation went to Frieston, about three miles from Leverton, to inspect and pass the work. The lead for the lining was procured, and it was cast on the spot. In 1517, repairs on the north side of the church were undertaken, and these must have been extensive, judging from the cost of the timber employed to shore up the walls during the progress of the work. Two years later, on the completion of these extensive building operations, which had been going on for some time, the church and churchyard were consecrated at a cost to the public purse of £3. In 1526, the rood loft was decorated, and the niches intended for images of the saints, but which had hitherto been vacant, were filled. One of the parishioners, William Frankish, in that year left a legacy of 46s. 8d. for the purpose. The wardens hired a man, called sometimes “the alabaster man,” and sometimes “Robert Brook the carver,” and in earnest for the seventeen images of alabaster of the rood loft they gave him a shilling. At the same time a collection was made for the support of the artist during his stay; some of the parishioners gave money, but most of them apparently contributed “cheese” for his use.

So much with regard to the serious building operations which were continued up to the very eve of the Reformation. They by no means occupied all the energies of the parish officials. If the books required binding, a travelling workman was engaged on the job, and leather, thread, wax, and other necessary materials were purchased for the work; the binder’s wife was paid extra for stitching, and he was apparently lodged by one of the townspeople as a contribution to the common work. Then there were vestments to be procured, and surplices and other church linen to be made, washed, and marked; the very marks, by the way, being given in the accounts. So entirely was the whole regarded as the work of the people, that just as we have seen how the parish paid for the consecration of their parish church and graveyard, so did they pay a fee to their own vicar for blessing the altar linen and the new vestments, and entering the names of benefactors on the parish bede-roll.325

Details such as these, which might be multiplied to any extent, make it abundantly clear that the church was the centre and soul of village life in pre-Reformation times, and that up to the very eve of the religious revolution it had not lost its place in the hearts of the people. In this connection it is useful to bear in mind, though somewhat difficult to realise, inasmuch as it is now too foreign to our modern experience, that in the period about which we are concerned the “parish” meant the whole community of a well-defined area “organised for church purposes and subject to church authority.” In such a district, writes Bishop Hobhouse, “every resident was a parishioner, and, as such, owed his duty of confession and submission to the official guidance of a stated pastor. There was no choice allowed. The community was completely organised with a constitution which recognised the rights of the whole and of every adult member to a voice of self-government when assembled for consultation under” their parish priest.326 In this way the church was the centre of all parish life, in a way now almost inconceivable. “From the font to the grave,” says an authority on village life at this time, “the greater number of the people lived within the sound of its bells. It provided them with all the consolations of religion, and linked itself with such amusements as it did not directly supply.”327

The writer of the above words was specially interested in the accounts of the parish of St. Dunstan in the city of Canterbury, and some few notes on those accounts founded upon his preface may usefully be added to what has already been said. The parochial authorities evidently were possessed of considerable power either by custom or consent over the inhabitants. In St. Dunstan’s, for example, somewhere about 1485, there was some disagreement between a man named Baker and the parish, and an item of 2½d. appears in the accounts as spent on the arbitration that settled it. Later on, two families fell out, and the vicar and a jury of four parishioners met in council to put an end to what was considered a scandal. A parish so managed had necessarily some place in which the inhabitants of the district could meet, and this in St. Dunstan’s is called the church house, and sometimes the parish house. It is frequently mentioned in the matters of repairs, &c., and two dozen trenchers and spoons, the property of the parish, were placed there for use at the common feasts, and for preparation of food distributed to the poor. The annual dinner is named in the accounts, and there is no doubt the young people too had dancing, bowling, and other games, while “the ancients sat gravely by.”

The money needed for the repairs of the fabric and for parish work generally was here collected by the various brotherhoods connected with the church. Some wore “scutchons” or badges to show that they were authorised to beg. These brotherhoods were possessed of more than money; malt, wheat, barley, besides parish sheep and parish cows let out to the highest bidder, are mentioned in the accounts as belonging to them. One Nicholas Reugge, for example, left four cows to the people of the parish to free them for ever from the cost of supplying the “paschal,” or great Easter candle. These four cows were valued by the churchwardens at 10s. apiece, and were each let at a rent of 2s. a year. In 1521, one John Richardson rented five-and-twenty of the parish sheep, and the wardens received rent of lambs, wool, &c. The chief of the brotherhoods connected with St. Dunstan’s was that named the “Schaft,” and it had the principal voice in the ultimate management of parochial affairs. Besides this, however, there were many other associations, such as that of St. Anne for women and that of St. John for youths, and various wardens were appointed to collect the money necessary to keep the various lights, such as St. Anne’s light, St. John’s light, St. Katherine’s light, and the light of the Holy Rood. “These things,” writes the editor of these interesting accounts, “all go to show what life and activity there was in this little parish, which never wanted willing men to devote their time and influence to the management of their own affairs.”

The parish was small, numbering perhaps hardly more than 400 souls. “But if small,” says the same authority, “it was thoroughly efficient, and the religious and intellectual work was as actively carried on as the social.” At the close of the reign of Henry VIII. the church possessed a library of some fifty volumes. Of these about a dozen were religious plays, part, no doubt, of the Corpus Christi mystery plays, which were carried out at St. Dunstan’s with undiminished splendour till the advent of the new ideas in the reign of Edward VI.

These parish accounts prove that many cases of disagreement and misunderstanding, which in modern times would most likely lead to long and protracted cases in the Law Courts, were not infrequently settled by arbitration, or by means of a parish meeting or a jury of neighbours. Sometimes, undoubtedly, the law had to be invoked in defence of parochial rights. A case in point is afforded in the accounts of St. Dunstan’s, Canterbury. Nicholas Reugge, as we have said above, had left money to purchase four cows as an endowment for the Paschal candle and the Font taper. Things went well, apparently, till 1486, when William Belser, who rented the stock, died, and his executors either could not or would not, or, at any rate, did not pay. To recover the common property, the churchwardens, as trustees for the parish, had to commence a suit at law. Chief-Justice Fineux and Mr. Attorney-General John Roper were two of the parishioners, and the parish had their advice, it may be presumed gratuitously. The case, however, seems to have dragged on for five years, as it was finally settled only in 1491, when the parish scored a pyrrhic victory, for although they recovered 30s., the value of three of the cows, their costs had mounted up to 35s. 2d., and as they never could get more than a third of that amount from the defendants, on the whole they were out of pocket by their adventure with the law.

For the most part, however, the parish settled its own difficulties in its own way. Documents preserved almost by chance clearly show that a vast number of small cases – police cases we should call them – were in pre-Reformation days arranged by the ecclesiastical authority. Disputes, brawls, libels, minor immoralities, and the like, which nowadays would have to be dealt with by the local justices of the peace or by the magistrates at quarter sessions, or even by the judges at assizes, were disposed of by the parson and the parish. It may not have been an ideal system, but it was patriarchal and expeditious. The Sunday pulpit was used not only for religious instruction, properly so called, and for the “bedes-bidding,” but for the publication of an endless variety of notices of common interest. The church was, as we have said, the centre of popular life, and it was under these circumstances the natural place for the proclamation of the commencement of some inquiry into a local suit, or one in which local people were concerned. It was here, in the house of God, and at the Sunday service at which all were bound to be present, that witnesses were cited and accused persons warned of proceedings against them. Here was made the declaration of the probate of wills of deceased persons, and warning given to claimants against the estate to come forward and substantiate their demands. Here, too, were issued proclamations against such as did not pay their just debts or detained the goods of others; here those who had been guilty of defamation of character were ordered to restore the good name of those they had calumniated; and those who, having been joined in wedlock, had separated without just and approved cause, were warned of the obligations of Christian marriage. The transactions of business of this kind in the parish church by the parish officials made God’s house a practical reality and God’s law a practical code in the ordinary affairs of life, and gave religion a living importance in the daily lives of every member of every parish throughout the country.