PAROCHIAL CHAPELS.
At a rather early period, so the evidence leads us to conclude, all the
great Saxon landowners had founded a religious house or a rectory on their
estates, and these had, first by custom and then by legal recognition of
the custom, obtained certain rights; on one hand, the sole right of
spiritual ministration and pastoral jurisdiction among the people on those
estates; and, on the other hand, to certain payments from them. Many of
these estates were very large in area, embracing what at first were tracts
of uninhabited and uncultivated country. But as population increased, and
new lands were brought under cultivation, the spiritual needs of the new
halls and new hamlets which came into being were supplied by chapels;
these were built sometimes by the munificence of the lord of the whole
estate, sometimes by the pious zeal of the rector who felt himself
responsible for these new parishioners; sometimes by the mesne lord to
whom the land of the new clearing had been granted; sometimes by the
group of farmers whose labour had cleared the forest or broken up the
waste.
The old Saxon parish priests frequently had one or more chaplains and
clerks living with them and assisting them in their duties;[100] and this
continued to be the case down to the Reformation, the bishops taking such
steps as they could to perpetuate the maintenance of these chaplains.
When these _chapels_ were erected, care was taken of the rights of the
mother church. Constitutions of Egbert, Archbishop of York in 750, decree
that the mother church shall not be deprived of tithes or other rights by
allotment of them to new chapels. The same is ordered in a council under
King Ethelred, by the advice of his two archbishops, Alfege and Wulfstan.
Clun, Shropshire, is an example of the great Saxon parishes. In the time
of Richard I., Isabel de Saye gave the church and its chapels to Wenlock
Priory for the safety of her soul and the souls of her husband and son,
her father and mother, and all her ancestors and successors. The chapels
enumerated are at the vill of St. Thomas de Waterdene, de Clumbire, de
Cluntune, de Oppetune, and the chapels de Eggedune and Sebbidune, and all
other chapels and belongings. The donor, however, reserves her free
chapels, viz. the chapel of her castle, and any others.[101]
Shawbury was a Saxon foundation mentioned in Domesday. A certificate of
Bishop Roger de Clinton (1130-1148) shows that there were then four
villes, viz. of Aston Reynald, Moreton Corbet, Grenvill, and Great
Withyford, and that the bishop consecrated chapels in three of them, there
being one already existing. The bishop decided that such lands and
endowment as the lords of the fees had offered when he consecrated the new
cemeteries were offered to the mother church. The church, with its
chapels, was appropriated to Haughmond Abbey; the canons of Haughmond
being required to present fit chaplains to the Church and assign them a
proper sustenance, the residue they might appropriate to their own uses
and the entertainment of guests.[102]
[Illustration: Clun Church, Shropshire.]
At length the multiplication of chapels was regulated by legislation. The
synod of Westminster (1102), under Anselm, decreed that no more should be
erected without the bishop’s leave.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the endowment of many of these
chapels, the concession to them of the right of baptism, marriage, and
burial, the assignment of a district within which the priest had pastoral
jurisdiction, and the concession to the mesne lord of the patronage of the
chapel which he had built and endowed, amounted to the practical elevation
of such chapels to the status of parish churches. The natural tendency of
things was in this direction. A landholder who had built a church for
himself and his people would naturally desire that it should possess the
dignity of a parish church, and was thus induced to provide a sufficient
endowment for it. The people would naturally desire the convenience of
having all the means of grace at their own church instead of having to
carry their children to a distance for baptism and their dead for burial,
and in some cases the more well-to-do freeholders would be willing to
contribute to the cost of it. The quotation of some actual examples will
be the most interesting way of illustrating the general history of this
development.[103]
Domesday speaks of one church in the Hundred of Alnodestreu and County
of Salop, viz. that of St. Gregory. When Bishop Robert de Betun (about
1138) granted this church to the Abbey of Shrewsbury, St. Gregory’s
became the priory church of Momerfeuld, or Morville, and it had three
dependent chapels, which were also appropriated to the priory, viz. at
Billingsley which had as its endowment half the corn tithes of the
said ville and paid 6_s._ 8_d._ to the mother church, at Olbury which
paid 5_s._ and at Tasley which paid 6_s._ 8_d._[104]
Within a year or two Robert Fitz Aer[105] founded another chapel at
Aston Aer, endowing it with sixty acres and a house and all tithes of
the domain. Within ten years two other such chapels were built, viz.
at Aldenham and Underdon with separate endowments. By the
appropriation deed, which gives St. Gregory and its chapels to the
convent, it is ordained that these chapels shall be subject to the
mother church of Morville, so that on great festivals the people shall
attend there, and the priest of Morville shall, if he pleases, have
the dead carried thither for burial. Again, the same bishop
consecrated a new chapel at Astley Abbots, endowed by the Abbot of
Salop himself with thirty acres, a house, and a parcel of land worth
4_s._ per ann.
These seven chapels in one parish, nearly all consecrated by one bishop,
seem to mark a time of active extension. It is curious that, whereas
Orderic Vitalis says that there was much building of monasteries and
churches in the reign of Henry I., because the country had settled down,
after the troubles of the Conquest, into peace and security,[106] Bishop
de Betun says that he has consented to consecrate so many chapels as a
protection for the poor, and out of regard to the warlike troubles of the
time--for it was during the stormy reign of Stephen.[107]
In many cases the owners of the estates on which the chapels were
situated, or the tenants, or both together, made an agreement with the
rector to augment the stipend of a chaplain so that he might give
additional services and pastoral care in their ville. Thus, when
Gilbert Norman (1130?) gave the church of Kingston-on-Thames to Merton
Priory, the parish had already four chapelries, Thames Ditton, East
Moulsey, Petersham, and Shene (now Richmond). In 1211 the inhabitants
of Petersham complained of the paucity of services in their chapel,
and the matter came before the Ecclesiastical Courts. It would appear
that lack of funds was at the bottom of the deficiency of service. The
prior and convent, “of their great piety, and for the good of the
souls of their parishioners,” granted to the vicar and his successors
two quarters of corn, one of barley, and one of oats; and the Abbot
and Convent of Chertsey, who were considerable landowners there, also
of their good will granted a quarter of corn from their lands there,
for the sustentation of a chaplain who should celebrate in the chapel
thrice a week, viz. on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday.[108] A like
complaint was made again in 1266, when the appropriators increased
their grant to four quarters of wheat, one of barley, and one of oats;
and seventeen of the parishioners for themselves and heirs granted a
payment of one bushel of wheat for every ten acres of their land,
making twenty-four and a half bushels. Other cases in which the people
themselves contributed to the support of their priest will be found in
the chapter on Chantries.
Clearly the thing to be desired was to get resident chaplains appointed to
all the villes with a considerable population, and to that end to get
endowments for them, and much was done in this direction in the thirteenth
century. We shall find ample illustrations of various features of the work
in the forty years’ episcopate of Archbishop Walter Gray. The archbishop
wrote to the Pope, Gregory IX., on the subject, desiring, no doubt, to get
the support of the Papal sanction for the measures which he desired to
take. We gather from the pope’s reply that the archbishop had represented
to him that “many parishes in his diocese were so widely spread that the
parishioners were at a great distance from their church, and were not
able, without much inconvenience, to come to the Divine services; and that
it often happened, when the priest was summoned by the sick, that before
he could arrive they had died without confession and the viaticum;” and
no doubt the archbishop had suggested what he desired to do; whereupon the
pope grants to him leave that, after due consideration of the distance of
places, the difficulties of the roads, and the number of the increasing
population, in parishes of this sort, he should build oratories and
institute priests in them.[109]
The way in which the archbishop set to work (1233) to strengthen the
existing machinery is admirably illustrated in the ordinance which he drew
up with the concurrence of the dean for the vicarages with their chapels
belonging to the deanery. There were three vicarages, Pocklington,
Pickering, and Kellum. Pocklington had six chapels, Pickering four, and it
does not appear that Kellum had any. First he strengthened the mother
churches by the requirement that each of the vicars should, “besides all
other necessary ministers,” have a chaplain--an assistant priest--always
with him. Then he consolidated the six chapels of Pocklington and the four
of Pickering, two and two, into five vicarages, _i.e._ two neighbouring
chapels were formed into a vicarage, the incumbent of which was to have
_in nomine vicaragiæ_ certain endowments, and the vicar was to find the
necessary ministers for both chapels; but the dignity of the mother
churches was reserved by the provision that the new vicars were to pay a
small annual sum to their mother churches _nomine subjectionis_.[110]
Another illustration of the way in which the improved condition of things
was brought about is in the case of Roundelay. Sir John de Roundelay and
his heirs and the men of that ville had licence (A.D. 1231) to establish a
perpetual chantry in their chapel every day in the year save Christmas,
Purification, Easter (“Parasceues”), and All Saints, and if they had
service on Palm Sunday, it was to be without procession and the blessing
of the Palms; neither were they to have the celebration of baptism,
marriage, or churching; on all these occasions they were to repair to the
mother church, and the chaplain and people were to swear obedience to the
mother church and its rectors. Sir John provided an endowment for the new
incumbent, and the vicar of the mother church was to give him half a mark
a year (6_s._ 8_d._), in consideration, no doubt, that it had hitherto
been a charge upon him to that extent or more to make provision for the
partial services at the chapel.[111]
Again, Berneston Chapel, Notts, had been accustomed to have only three
services a week. The people had the archbishop’s licence to give an
endowment to provide for having full services in their chapel _pro habendo
plenario servitio_ by a chaplain and clerk residing there.[112]
There are many other examples in the Archbishop’s Register of similar
extensions of the usefulness of the existing ecclesiastical machinery, but
these are enough to show the way in which it was done. There can be no
doubt that the work was done in the same way where it was needed in the
other dioceses of the kingdom.
There is a curious instance at Stokesay, in Shropshire. Before the
Conquest, the parish church of that estate had been at Aldon, which is
mentioned in Domesday. After the Conquest, the status of parish church had
been given to a new church at Stokesay, on the same estate, and Aldon
Church had been left in the status of a chapel. In 1367, the chief
parishioners of Aldon took proceedings against the vicar, Walter of
Greneburg, for neglecting them, and he was required by the bishop to find
a chaplain to celebrate three days a week--Sunday, Wednesday, and
Friday--except on great festivals.[113]
The following seems to be an instance of the transition of dependent
chapels into independent parish churches, and an illustration of the way
in which sometimes it came about. At Newnham, Gloucestershire, in 1260, an
inquisition _post mortem_ found that the Rector of Westbury held the
chapels of Newnham and Munstreworth as pertaining to the Church of
Westbury. In 1309, in the Pleas before the King, the jurors declared on
oath that the churches of Newnham and Munstreworth were mother churches
with cure of souls before the time of King Henry III., and in the
presentation of the king.
Here is an example at Whalley of the way in which great landed proprietors
brought new tracts of their forest and waste under cultivation, and
created new manors.
In a suit in the reign of Edward III., the jurors found that in the
time of King John there was not in the aforesaid place of Brandwode
any manor or manses, but it was waste, neither built upon nor
cultivated, and was parcel of the aforesaid forest of Penhul [Pendle],
and it is said that in the time of Henry, the ancestor [proavus] of
the present king, the then abbot [of Whalley] built houses on the
aforesaid waste of Brandwode, and caused a great part of the waste to
be enclosed, which is now called the Manor of Brandwode.[114]
And here is a late example of the people reclaiming waste, and building a
chapel for themselves:--
In the end of the fifteenth century the forest of Rossendale was
inhabited only, or chiefly, by foresters and the keepers of the deer.
Upon representation to King Henry VII., and afterwards to Henry VIII.,
that if the deer were taken away, the forest was likely to come to
some good purpose, it was disafforested, and let forth in divers
sorts, some for a term of years, some by copy of Court Roll; so that
where there was nothing else but deer and other savage and wild
beasts, by the industry of the inhabitants, there is since grown to be
very fertile ground well replenished with people. And inasmuch as the
Castle Church of Clitheroe, being their parish church, was distant
twelve miles, and the ways very foul, painful, and perilous, and the
country in the winter season so extremely and vehemently cold, that
infants borne to the church are in great peril of their lives, and the
aged and impotent people and women great with child not able to travel
so far to hear the Word of God, and the dead corpses like to remain
unburied till such time as great annoyance to grow thereby, the
inhabitants about 1512, at their proper costs, made a chapel-of-ease
in the said forest; since the disafforesting of the said forest from
eighty persons there are grown to be a thousand young and old. At the
same time, one Lettice Jackson, a widow, vested in feoffees certain
lands for the use of the new church of our Saviour in Rossendale. The
population seems to have continued to increase, for, thirty years
afterwards, the people founded and edified a chapel in Morell Height
in honour of God, our Blessed Lady and All Saints.[115]
We have seen that the law carefully safeguarded the rights of the mother
churches, as against the new chapels which sprang up. The Church also was
careful to maintain their dignity in a way which calls for some remark.
The curate of a chapel, on his institution, made a vow of reverence and
obedience to his rector. Very generally some small payment was required
from the chapelry to the rector _in nomine subjectionis_, as an
acknowledgment of dependence. The people of the chapelries were required
on several of the great festivals of the Church to communicate at the
mother church, and on one or more of these festivals to visit the mother
church in procession with flags flying.
There was another custom, very like this, on a larger scale, viz. the
custom for the parishioners of all the parishes of a diocese to visit the
cathedral church in procession on a given day in the year. This seems to
have been a very old custom, for which Sir R. Phillimore quotes the
Council of Agde and the Decretum of Gratian,[116] and suggests that it
was probably introduced into England at the Norman Conquest. We find it
enjoined in the canons of several Diocesan Councils; and it is tolerably
certain that it was a general custom.
We suggest that the idea at the back of these customs was not merely that
the offerings of the people of the chapelries should not be lost to the
rector of the mother church on the three great days of offering; and that
the cathedral should receive a yearly tribute from every subject of the
bishop. We suggest that the purpose of the custom was to maintain the idea
of the unity of the Church. The chapels had received their Christianity
from the mother church, and all the “houseling people” in recognition of
it worshipped there three times a year. The mother churches received their
Christianity from the bishop’s see, and were his spiritual subjects, and
once a year went up in procession to worship at the cathedral as an act of
homage. And these reunions would, in fact, promote the idea of brotherly
communion and Christian unity, as the attendance of the Israelites on the
three great festivals at their one temple in Jerusalem tended to maintain
the national unity of the people as the people of God.
Nothing is free from abuse. We learn from the Register of Bishop Storey,
of Chichester, that in 1478 the people who came yearly to visit the shrine
of St. Richard on his commemoration day (April 3), had been accustomed to
carry long painted wands, and in struggles for precedence had used these
wands upon one another’s heads and shoulders; wherefore the bishop
directs that in future they shall, instead of wands, carry banners and
crosses, that the several parishes shall march up reverently from the west
door of the cathedral in a prescribed order, of which notice should be
given by the incumbents in their churches on the Sunday preceding the
festival.
* * * * *
Royal chapels were, on no sound ecclesiastical principle, but by an
exercise of the royal prerogative, from an early period held to be outside
any episcopal jurisdiction.[117] For example, a series of churches along
the old Mercian border, Stone, Stafford, and Gnosall, Penkridge and
Wolverhampton, Tettenhall, as having been built by King Wulfhere, or by
Elfleda, the Lady of Mercia, claimed exemption from all control. Clinton
Bishop of Lichfield (1129-48) tried to bring them under his rule by
purchasing them of the king, and annexing them bodily to the possessions
of his see but that did not hinder them from still claiming their ancient
privileges.
The lawyers[118] say that the king may by charter license a subject to
build a free chapel similarly free from the jurisdiction of the ordinary,
but they are not able to quote any instances of it. Some barons, however,
did claim freedom from jurisdiction for the chapels of certain castles;
perhaps on the ground that the castles were royal castles, and that they
held or had received them from the crown with all their privileges and
exemptions. For example, the chapel of St. Mary, in the castle at
Hastings, enlarged, if not founded, soon after the Conquest, by the Count
of Eu, for a dean and ten prebendaries, was claimed by successive lords of
the castle to be a free chapel; and in spite of repeated attempts by the
bishops of Chichester to assert their rights, the privilege was
successfully maintained till the fifteenth century.
A number of chapels were called free chapels, apparently because they were
free from subjection to the mother church of the parish. We have already
seen that the free chapels, built for the convenience of outlying groups
of population, were at first served by chaplains from the mother church;
then the chaplains nominated by the rector resided at the chapelries; and
when the chapels were endowed and assigned districts, and obtained the
rights of baptism, marriage, and burial, still the patronage to the
chapelries was in the rector, and the sentiment of subjection to the
mother church was carefully kept up by the payment of a pension from the
one to the other, and the custom of a procession to the service of the
mother church on one or more great occasions. But in some cases a chapel
became freed from this subjection by the action of the neighbouring
squire, who, by purchase or agreement, obtained special rights over it; or
some private patron built and endowed a new chapel with the stipulation
for certain rights. We have seen that, when Isabel de Saye gave the
parish of Clun and all its chapels to Wenlock Priory, the donor reserved
her free chapels.
Here is an instance of a chapel which is called a free chapel, but was
technically a chantry, and clearly intended to serve also as a
chapel-of-ease to the town in which it was situated.
In 1309, Edward Lovekyn, of Kingston-on-Thames, had leave to build a
chapel there, and endow it with lands and rent. Robert Lovekyn, his
brother and successor, withheld some of the income, and was compelled
to restore it by threat of excommunication with bell and candle. In
1352, John Lovekyn rebuilt the chapel and increased the endowment for
the sustentation of one or more additional chaplains, one to be warden
(it does not appear that there ever were more than the warden and one
brother), who had a manse. The rules and ordinances are given at
length in the book from which we quote. They were to live together in
the manse, with separate sleeping rooms, and a common table. The
warden was to provide suitable provision, and give to each brother a
gown of the same kind which he wore, and forty silver shillings a year
for his other necessaries. The warden was also to provide a clerk to
serve mass and wait upon the chaplains in their rooms; and to provide
honest surplices and amyces furred with black fur to wear in chapel.
The warden to be always in residence, and not to take any other cure;
not to give or sell any corrody; the warden might have guests at
table; if any other had a guest, he was to pay 3_d._ for his dinner
and 2_d._ for any other meal.[119] Masses to be said for the founder
and his family, and also to grace after dinner was to be added, “May
the souls of John Edward and Robert Lovekyn, our founders, and of the
Lord William, Bishop of Winchester, and all faithful deceased, rest in
peace through the mercy of God.” On the four principal feasts the
chaplains were to attend the parish church and make their offerings
like other parishioners. In consideration that John Lovekyn gave a
manse to the vicarage, his chapel was to have all oblations which came
to it.[120]
The calendar of the chapels, chantries, etc., at the time of the
Reformation, mentions 432 chapels, of which 198 are called “free
chapels.”