THE MEDIÆVAL TOWNS.
A typical mediæval town must have been wonderfully picturesque. As the
traveller came in sight of it at a little distance its grey embattled
walls, rising sheer out of the surrounding green meadows, were diversified
in elevation and sky-line by projecting wall towers; and numerous spires
and towers of churches appeared over the walls.[572]
As he rode nearer, the great gate tower, with its outwork the barbican,
formed a picturesque architectural group, and spoke of the strength of the
defences of the town and the security of its inhabitants. He entered over
sounding drawbridge, through the echoing vault of the gate; and so into
narrow streets of gabled timber houses, with overhanging upper stories,
interlacing beams, and quaint carvings and finials; past frequent
churches, hospitals, gild-halls; to the cross in the middle of the
market-place.
[Illustration: Micklegate Bar, York.]
The people he saw in the streets were in picturesque costumes of all
colours and fashions: a cavalcade of a knight, in flashing armour, with a
squire carrying his helm and spear and two or three yeomen in buff-coats
and helmets behind him; a monk in his flowing black benedictine robe; a
couple of Franciscan Friars in their grey gowns rope-girdled; a parish
priest or cantarist returning from his service; the citizens in dress
which indicated their quality--some in their burgess gowns, others in the
livery of their gild; the shopmen at their open booths at work at their
craft and soliciting the passers-by, “What d’ye lack? What d’ye lack? Buy,
buy, buy, buy!” In the central market-place the traveller found crowds of
the country-people grouped round the market cross with their panniers of
country produce, and the housekeepers of the town busily cheapening their
goods.
* * * * *
When we apply ourselves to the consideration of the ecclesiastical history
of the towns, we have to bear in mind their various origins. Nearly all
the towns which the Romans left when they evacuated the Province of
Britain were stormed and sacked by the Teutonic invaders, and left ruined
and empty. But as the Saxon settlers grew in numbers, wealth, and
civilization, the force of circumstances must have led to the reoccupation
of a number of these towns; for some were at the natural harbours, some at
convenient points on the lines of internal traffic; and so new towns of
timber houses arose within the old Roman walls. Other towns of later
origin grew up about the chief residence of a Saxon king, or, later still,
of a Norman noble; or about a cathedral or great monastery; later still,
at the convenient centre of the trade of a fertile district, or where
natural advantages encouraged the growth of a manufacture.
The parochial history of the towns is very obscure. The facts point to the
conclusion that the origin of parishes here was the same as in the
country. There the lord of an estate built a church and provided a
maintenance for a priest to minister to his family and dependents; and the
priest’s spiritual authority was conterminous with the area of his
patron’s civil jurisdiction; _i.e._ the estates were the parishes. The
ancient towns, it is found, were frequently divided between several
principal proprietors, who had rights of jurisdiction over their own land
and the people living on it. The facts seem to indicate that the lords of
these sokes, or peculiar jurisdictions, usually--like a country thane in
his manor--built a church, and provided a maintenance for a priest to
minister to his own family and people; and that these sokes became the
parishes of the town.
The great landowners of Saxon or Norman times very frequently had a
residence in the chief town of the county in which their principal estates
were situated; a custom which continued so long that it is not yet
forgotten how the great county families used to have their houses in their
county town. But the residence of a great Saxon or Norman lord was the
home of a numerous household, and the lord’s dignity required that he
should have a chapel and a priest of his own. This perhaps is the
explanation of the fact that there were numerous chapels in many of the
oldest towns.
In borough towns the community of burgesses, it is probable, usually made
provision for the religious wants of that part of the population which was
not in any of the peculiar jurisdictions above mentioned, or within the
walls of the residences of the nobles; and we find groups of burgesses,
and individual burgesses, possessing a church, in the sense of having the
rights and responsibilities of patrons. The result of this origin of town
parishes was that many of the older towns had a number of parish churches
which seems to us out of all proportion to the number of their population;
it was never a question of how many churches were needed for a town of
such-and-such a population; the question was how many lords there were who
felt bound, in their own opinion and that of the time, to provide for
Divine worship and pastoral care for their own people.[573]
A few actual examples will illustrate these general observations.
NORWICH, at the end of the Saxon period, was one of the greatest towns in
the kingdom, containing 1320 burgesses. The king, Archbishop Stigand in
private property, and Earl Harold were the principal lords. The king’s
burgesses had two churches in the burgh and one-sixth of a third church;
the earl’s tenants had the Church of All Saints; and Stigand had two
churches, St. Michael’s and St. Martin’s. The burgesses held fifteen
churches; and twelve burgesses held Holy Trinity Church (the Conqueror
afterwards gave it to the Bishop of the Diocese); the Abbot of St. Edmund
had a house and the mediety of the Church of St. Lawrence. The Church of
SS. Simon and Jude was held successively by Aylmer, the last Saxon bishop,
and by Herbert, the first Norman bishop, and by Bishop William, who came
after him, and must therefore have belonged to the see. The Domesday
Survey also enters forty-three chapels as belonging to the burgesses at
the time of the Survey, of the existence of which, in King Edward’s time,
there is no mention; and yet Norwich had suffered much in the political
changes of the time, the number of its burgesses being reduced to half
their number in the time of King Edward.
It seems clear that each owner of a separate jurisdiction or soke, king,
earl, Stigand, bishop, and abbot, had a church for his own people; that
the burgesses as a community had provided fifteen other churches in the
town, that another church was held by a group of twelve burgesses,
associated, perhaps, in a gild, and making provision for their own
spiritual needs. There were, thus, at least twenty-five churches in Saxon
times; in the Conqueror’s time Domesday Book enumerates fifty-four
churches and chapels; at the end of the thirteenth century, the “Taxatio”
records forty-five; and just before the Reformation, the “Valor” names the
cathedral, the collegiate church of St. Mary in the Fields, the two
hospitals of St. Giles, Tombland, the rectory of SS. Edward, Julian, and
Clement, thirty-seven vicarages, and one free chapel of St.
Katharine.[574]
Of the parochial history of LONDON very little is known. At the end of the
Saxon period the Church of St. Paul seems to have been surrounded by a few
chapels under the jurisdiction of the Cathedral body, and served by
Chaplains. St. Peter, Cornhill, seems to have been the church of the
bishop’s soke. A number of churches seem to have been built in the twelfth
century by owners of property, of whom several were priests:--“There can
be little doubt that St. Martin Orgars, and St. Botolph, Bishopsgate,
were built by Orgar, a wealthy alderman; and that St. John Zachary,
St. Andrew Hubbard, St. Katharine Colman, St. Benet Fink, St. Lawrence
Pountney, and other names affixed to churches, commemorate founders,
builders, or restorers, chiefly of the early part of the twelfth century.
In the time of Henry I., the chapter assigned a parish to the Church of
St. Mary Magdalene, Milk Street, of which one Geoffrey, a priest, was the
owner, and his son Bartholomew his successor.”
[Illustration: NORWICH, FROM G. BRAUN’S URBIUM PRAECIPUARUM TOTIUS MUNDI,
LIB. III, pl. 1. A.D. 1573.]
[Illustration: Environs of London, reproduced from a fragmentary tapestry
map executed at Weston, Warwickshire, circ. 1570.]
“Many of those parish churches were of very modest dimensions, some of
them only chapels to the great house by whose lord they were built. The
steeple and chancel of All Hallows the Less stood over the gateway of Cold
Harbour, the parish being, in fact, the estate of the Pountney family, and
divided by them from All Hallows the Great. St. Mary Cole Church was over
the gateway of the hospital of St. Thomas of Acon in Cheap. St. Mildred
Poultry, and St. John, were both built on arches over the Wallbrook.”[575]
Of several other churches the founders are known: the canons of St. Martin
built St. Leonard and St. Vedast; the Grey Friars of Newgate Street built
St. Ewen and St. Nicholas; Robert the son of Ralph the son of Herluin
built St. Michael le Querne; Alfune, the friend of Rahere, founder of St.
Bartholomew’s, built St. Giles, and Aelmund the priest, with his son Hugh,
gave it to St. Paul’s.
There are indications of the subdivision of parishes, probably as a
consequence of the subdivision of properties by inheritance or sale. Thus
St. Mary Aldermary seems to have been the original church of a parish
which was afterwards subdivided, the original dedication being retained in
the new churches, but with some distinctive affix, as St. Mary le Bow, St.
Mary Abchurch, St. Mary Woolnoth, St. Mary Woolchurch, St. Mary Bothaw,
St. Mary Colechurch, St. Mary Aldermanbury, and St. Mary Staining; All
Hallows the Great and the Less already mentioned; St. Nicholas Olave, and
St. Nicholas Cole Abbey; St. Katharine Colman, and St. Katharine Cree.
There is a church dedicated to St. Botolph at each of four of the city
gates: Aldersgate, Bishopsgate, Aldgate, and Billingsgate.
Wm. FitzStephen, in his biography of Becket, states that, in his time,
London possessed 13 conventual, and 126 parish churches.
Fabyan’s “Chronicle,” A.D. 1516, gives the sum of the parish churches
within London as 113; houses of religion and others being not parish
churches, 27; in Westminster and other places around the city, including
Southwark, without the walls, 28; the sum of all the Divine houses within
the city and without, 168.
Lastly, we get valuable suggestions as to the source of the incomes of the
town clergy. In London, the parochial clergy had no tithe and glebe land;
their incomes were derived from customary payments, called donations,
which had been paid time out of mind from the houses and shops in
proportion to their rent. In consequence of some disputes, they were
inquired into and confirmed by Bishop Roger, about A.D. 1230, and amounted
to about 3_s._ 6_d._ in the pound of the rent. The clergy received,
besides, fees for services on many occasions; what these were we learn
from some proceedings in the Star Chamber in 1534--
For _Weddings_: Laid on the book, 8_d._; three tapers, 3_d._; and the
whole offering at mass. If married before high mass, 20_d._, or
40_d._, or 60_d._, or more. For a certificate when the man dwelt in
another parish, 12_d._, or 20_d._, or 40_d._, according to ability.
For _Burials_: 12_d._ or more, and every priest in the church, 8_d._
or more, or they do not sing him to his burial. At every month’s mind,
year’s mind, or obit, the curate has 8_d._ or 12_d._, all the wax
tapers and wax branches used at the funeral; for privy tithes, 20_d._,
or 40_d._, or 5_s._, or 20_s._, or 40_s._, or more. To the high altar
as much for personal tithe. If buried out of his parish, the corpse
must first be presented in his own church with dirge and mass. For
burial in the chancel or high quire, 10_s._ to 40_s._, or more.
For _Churchings_: For every Sunday when the woman lieth in for saying
a gospel, 1_d._ or 2_d._; at purification the taper, 1_d._, with the
chrisome, and the whole offering by all the women at mass, 2_d._
_Beadroll_: If any will have his friends prayed for in the beadroll,
the curate hath by year 4_d._, or 8_d._, or more.
_At Easter_: Of men’s wives, children, and apprentices, for their
communion at Easter, for every head, 2_d._
_Tithes of Servants’ Wages_: The tenth part and for their housel at
Easter, 1_d._ At all principal feasts divers offer, some wax, some
money, which comes to the parson’s use.
Where a Saint’s image stands without the quire to which a Brotherhood
belongeth, the wardens of the brotherhood compound some for 3_s._
4_d._, 5_s._, 6_s._ 8_d._, or more, per annum, to have the Brotherhood
kept in the Church (see p. 482).
The lords reduced the tithes on houses to 2_s._ 9_d._ in the pound,
but confirmed the above customary fees and payments.[576]
The ancient city of EXETER became the see of the Devonshire Bishopric in
1049-50, when Bishop Leofric moved thither from Crediton; and seems at the
time of the Norman Conquest to have had its cathedral church and a number
of chapels. A religious foundation of Gytha was granted by the Conqueror
to Battle Abbey; it received additional endowments, and grew into a
considerable priory, still receiving its priors from the parent house, and
paying a pension to it. A second small alien Priory of St. James was
founded without the walls. The Castle Chapel was a detached building with
nave and aisle, and was served by three prebends with no dean or head, and
the patronage was attached to the Barony of Okehampton. The bishops had an
almshouse perhaps from the days of Leofric; in 1170 a citizen founded a
hospital of St. Alexius; and the two were in 1225 merged in the hospital
of St. John by the East Gate. A leper hospital was founded outside the
South Gate, and its inmates were forbidden to enter the city. A convent of
Franciscans was founded between 1220 and 1240, and a convent of Dominicans
about the same time.
In the early part of the thirteenth century there seems to have been some
arrangement of the parochial organization of the city. For in the reign
of King John, we learn from the will of Peter de Paterna and Isabel his
wife, who bequeathed 1_d._ to each of them, that there were twenty-eight
chapels in the city of Exeter. In the year 1222 there was a settlement of
the parish churches which were fixed at the number of 19.[577] The names
of all these parish churches are found in the list of chapels previously
existing, and some of the chapels are not included among the parish
churches.[578]
[Illustration: EXETER, FROM G. BRAUN’S URBIUM PRAECIPUARUM MUNDI THEATRUM,
LIB. 5, pl. 1. A.D. 1573.]
BRISTOL affords us an example of a town whose ecclesiastical organization
grew with the gradual increase of the town, in a way which can be more or
less clearly made out. Bristol was a member of the Royal Manor of Barton.
At an early date, probably in Heptarchic times, a town grew up on the
peninsula between the river Avon and its tributary the Frome; the
existence of silver pennies of Ethelred the Unready, which were coined
here, shows that it was at that time a burgh with the usual privilege of a
mint. The reader will remember that it was the principal seaport of the
western coast, and the principal emporium of the slave-trade in Saxon men,
women, and children until Bishop Wulstan succeeded with difficulty in
suppressing the nefarious traffic.
The Church of St. Peter is said by tradition to have been the earliest
church in Bristol; and there are reasons for thinking that it actually was
the church provided by the Crown as lord of the manor for the use of its
tenants there. The dedication of St. Werburg indicates that this church
was also of Saxon date. The burgh was divided by two main streets,
crossing at right angles in the middle of the town; the churches of St.
Ewan, All Saints, and Holy Trinity (or Christ Church), stand in the angles
made by the Carfax, and their parishes meet at this point, as though there
had been a considerable addition to the population of the burgh, and the
cross roads had been made, the parishes marked out, and the three churches
built simultaneously.
The Conquest was followed by an age of church-building in Bristol; the
Bishop of Coutances built a castle with a chapel, outside the town on the
east; new Norman lords rebuilt some of the parish churches. The new church
of St. Mary le Port was built by William, Earl of Gloucester, before 1176.
Robert, Earl of Gloucester, founded a Benedictine Priory outside the town,
on the north. A little later Robert Fitz-Harding founded a Convent of
Augustinian Canons on the other side of the River Frome, west of the town.
A small nunnery was founded in 1173 by Eva, wife of W. Fitz-Harding, who
became the first abbess. The first part of the thirteenth century was a
time of great religious activity, and now and henceforth the work was done
not by royal and noble founders, but by the zeal of the people themselves.
A Dominican Friary[579] was founded in 1230, just outside the suburb east
of the castle; the Carmelites were planted in “the fairest of the houses
of the friars” (Leland), where Colston’s Hall now stands; the Franciscans
in the suburb beyond the Frome on the north-west; and there was a hospital
of Bonhommes, now the mayor’s chapel.
[Illustration: BRISTOL, FROM G. BRAUN’S URBIUM PRAECIPUARUM TOTIUS MUNDI,
LIB. III, pl. 2. A.D. 1573.]
In course of time some of these foundations attracted groups of people
about them, whose houses grew into suburbs of the town. One suburb grew up
around the castle on the south-east, and the spiritual wants of its people
were supplied by the building among them of the new church of SS.
Philip and James.[580] Another group of people settled about the priory,
on the north, and attended service in the nave of the priory church, until
at length the monks separated off the nave from the choir, and abandoned
it to the people as their parish church, which still exists. The Austin
Canons attracted still another group who formed a suburb on the
south-west; and after a while the canons built the Church of St. Augustine
the Less for their tenants.[581]
In the reign of Henry III. the townspeople enlarged their limits by
enclosing a tract on the south within a new wall. The new space was
gradually filled with streets of houses, and St. Stephen’s Church seems to
have been built for the use of this new quarter.
[Illustration: Bristol Cathedral.]
Bristol grew not only by the enlargement of its own borders, but by the
annexation of adjoining districts, which already had their own civil
jurisdictions and ecclesiastical organizations. On the other side of the
Avon were two districts which had been growing in population and
commercial importance. One of these was the estate which Robert, Earl of
Gloucester, had given in 1145 to the Knights of the Temple; its parish
church was dedicated to the Holy Cross; and there was a house of Austin
Friars within the parish. Adjoining the Temple Fee lay the Manor of
Redcliff, in Bedminster, belonging to the Fitz-Hardings, with its chapel
of St. Thomas, first mentioned in 1232. By the end of the twelfth century
Bristol had, after a sort, spread itself over both Temple and Redcliffe,
and a charter of 1188 included them in the privileges granted to Bristol.
In 1240 a stone bridge was built which connected the two sides of the
river; and a new wall and ditch from one angle of the river to the other
(see the plan) enclosed the two districts on the southern side, and bound
them by a series of fortifications, continuous with those of the northern
side, into one great town. The necessary legal measures incorporated the
groups into one borough.
The Bristol merchants were wealthy and magnificent. The great merchant
Canynges rebuilt the greater part of the noble Church of St. Mary
Redcliffe; others adorned the town, and added to its religious
opportunities by founding chapels for special services; others built
hospitals and almshouses; others founded chantries in various churches.
Thus the vill of the Saxon kings, with its one church, grew at last into
the great city which at the time of the Reformation possessed the list of
ecclesiastical foundations named below with references to the plan.[582]
YORK may well be taken as a typical cathedral town. The high altar of the
great Minster Church stood directly over the well in which Edwin the first
Christian King of the Northumbrians and his thanes were baptized. The
first Norman archbishop rebuilt the church and reorganized its chapter
with a dean, precentor, chancellor, and treasurer, 36 prebendaries, and 36
vicars choral. By the end of the fifteenth century the chantries numbered
about 60; and 36 chantry priests were incorporated into a community, and
lived in St. William’s College, which was originally the prebendal house
of the Prior of Hexham.
The Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary was founded near the cathedral between
1080 and 1090, and there were two other Benedictine foundations in the
city early in the twelfth century, the Priory of Holy Trinity in
Micklegate, and the little nunnery of Clementhorpe, and also the
Premonstratensian House of St. Andrew.
[Illustration: York Minster--south-west view.]
St. Leonard’s Hospital was a grand foundation by Athelstan, after his
great northern victory in 936, to enable the cathedral clergy to relieve
the needy and maintain hospitality. In 1280 it had an income of nearly
£11,000 (perhaps equal to £200,000 of modern money), and had in its
infirmary 229 men and women, and in its orphanage 23 boys. In 1293 it gave
away every week at the gate 232 loaves and 256 herrings; it distributed
every Sunday 33 dinners and 14 gallons of beer, and 8 dinners for lepers,
and to every prisoner in the castle (at that time 310) a small loaf. It
maintained 26 obits in commemoration of benefactors.
Another hospital, St. Mary Magdalene, was founded by the Dean of York,
1330, for a master, two chaplains, and six infirm or aged priests. There
was a hospital for lepers at St. Nicholas, on the Hull Road. All the
guilds had small almshouses attached. At the gate of every religious house
a daily distribution of gifts to the poor was made. There were many
beggars, who were put under charge of four headmen.
It was the principal and most populous city of the north, and in 1377 its
population was about 11,000. In the reign of Henry V. there were forty-one
parish churches, none of any considerable size, and a large number of
chapels. The number of its clergy, regular and secular, was not less than
500.[583]
At the end of the mediæval period we learn from the “Valor” that few of
the incumbents of the parishes of the city of York had any income besides
personal tithes (_i.e._ the Easter dues), and the oblations of the “three
days” then customary, and casual oblations; out of which some of them had
to pay pensions to the Convent of St. Mary.
_E.g._ the Rector of St. Michael by Ouse Bridge had personal tithe
£10, and casual oblations 20_s._ = £11; out of which he had to pay a
pension to St. Mary’s Abbey of 36_s._, for synodals to the archbishop
5_s._ 4_d._, to the archdeacon for procuration 6_s._ 8_d._, leaving
him net £8 12_s._ The Rector of St. Cross, Fossgate, had personal
tithe in Lent time £7 8_s._, casual oblations 6_s._ 8_d._, oblations
on the two days customary there, 22_s._--total £8 16_s._ 8_d._, out of
which he had to pay 20_s._ to St. Mary’s Abbey, 3_s._ 6_d._ synodals,
and 6_s._ 8_d._ procuration, leaving clear income of £7 6_s._ 6_d._
IPSWICH in King Edward’s time had 538 burgesses; the Church of Holy
Trinity, two dedicated to St. Mary, and the Churches of St. Michael, St.
Botolph, St. Lawrence, St. Peter, and St. Stephen are mentioned in
Domesday; three of these belonged to priests, and others were in lay
patronage; Culling, a burgess, had one of the St. Maries; Lefflet, a
freewoman, had St. Lawrence; Roger de Ramis held a church dedicated to St.
George, with four burgesses and six wasted mansions; Aluric, the son of
Rolf, a burgess (and also a vavasor, holding lands in Suffolk), had the
Church of St. Julian; five burgesses belonged to the Church of St. Peter;
Walter the Deacon held five houses and three waste mansions.[584]
In the “Taxatio” the following is the value of the
benefices:--Caldwell, £4 13_s._ 4_d._; St. Clement, £6 13_s._ 4_d._;
St. Margaret, £4 13_s._ 4_d._; St. Mary at the Tower, £3 6_s._ 8_d._;
St. Lawrence, £3 6_s._ 8_d._; St. Mary Hulme, £1; St. Nichl.
(Michael?), £1 10_s._; St. Peter, £4; Stoke, £10. The Priory had at
the Reformation an income of £88 6_s._ 9_d._; St. Ellen was worth £8
13_s._ 7_d._; St. Stephen, £4 12_s._ 8_d._; Stoke, £12; St. Matthew,
£5; the Daundy chantry[585] in St. Lawrence worth £6 10_s._ 8_d._
In 1177 a convent of Austin Canons was founded in the Church of Holy
Trinity, and shortly afterwards another convent of the same order in the
Church of St. Peter; and in course of time all the parishes of the town,
except Stoke, which was on the other side of the river, were appropriated
to one or other of these two convents. Only one new parish church of St.
Matthew sprang up between the Conquest and the Reformation. A Convent of
Dominican Friars was founded here in 1270, and gained so much acceptance
among the better classes that most of the great people of the town were
buried in its cemetery. The Franciscan Friars were established here in
1297.[586] There were also three leper hospitals in the town, and an
almshouse, and one chantry in the Church of St. Lawrence.[587]
* * * * *
In not a few cases a great abbey was the origin of the existence of a
town. Peterborough, St. Edmund’s Bury, and St. Alban’s, carry the fact in
their names; and there are many others, as Burton, Wenlock, etc., etc. The
abbey employed labourers and artificers, who settled in a convenient site
under its shadow. If near a high-road, there was a frequent coming and
going of travellers of various ranks, who halted for the night, and
perhaps remained for a day or two. The abbey would be sure to obtain for
its rising town the grant of a weekly market and annual fair. The abbey
was the landlord of the ground on which the town was gradually growing;
and a wise abbot would encourage the settlement of people in his burgh,
build houses, make roads, maintain bridges, build churches, and provide
schools.
Then there came a time when the citizens of the towns of England sought to
obtain release from feudal claims and jurisdictions, and the right of
self-government; the kings encouraged the rising municipalities, seeing in
them allies for the Crown against the nobles, and gave them charters
freely; and the citizens in many cases bought out the manorial rights of
private owners. But bishops and monasteries, while not unwilling to give
their tenants the right of association into gilds for the regulation of
their trades, were unwilling to resign the rights and jurisdiction which
they had exercised from the beginning in their lordship. We add two or
three illustrations of the ecclesiastical life of towns founded by bishops
and abbots.
The Benedictine Abbey of Burton was founded by Ulfric Spot, Earl of
Mercia, about 1002, and endowed with so many manors that it was as great
as a barony. Abbot Bernard (1160-1175) built a church for the use of the
people who had settled outside the abbey. Abbot Nicholas, who died in
1187, founded BURTON BURGH, and built the first street there. Abbot
Melburne, who died in 1210, enlarged the town from the great bridge of
Burton (over the Trent), to the new bridge (over the Dove) towards
Horninglowe, and gave the citizens a charter, and established a fair and
market. Abbot Lawrence (1228-1260), in a time of fire and flood, took no
rent from the people. Abbot John, of Stafford, who died 1280, made the
Burgh from Bradwaie to Berele Crosse, built the Monks’ Bridge over the
Dove, and made (_seldas in foro_) shops in the market-place. Abbot Bernard
built the great bridge of thirty-six arches over the Trent, with a chapel
at one end of it. It was one of the longest bridges in England--five
hundred and fifteen yards long.[588] And during a great famine in 1286,
Abbot Thomas Pakington found the people employment and wages in building a
new quarter from Cattestrete through the middle of Siwarmore to
Hikanelstrete; and built a Chapel of St. Modwen adjoining the abbey,
which, after the Reformation, became the parish church. In the time of
Abbot William Matthew, who died 1430, the high town was paved with a
gutter in the middle, and the _novus vicus_ in front of the abbey gates.
The provision which the abbey made for the tenants of its burgh were the
parish church and the Chapel of St. Modwen; and these seem to have been
always served from the monastery; for, in the “Valor” there seems to be no
Vicar of Burton, but the convent received from the parish church, in
tithes and oblations, £32[589] a year, and from offerings at the Chapel of
St. Modwenne, 40_s._
The “Valor” speaks of a suburb appropriated to the serfs of the abbey,
“Vicus Nativorum.”
[Illustration: Abbey Gateway, Bury St Edmund’s.]
* * * * *
The church and religious house which King Sigebert of the East Angles
built at Bedericsworth was of little importance till the royal martyr, St.
Edmund, was buried there; and a great monastery was built by Canute on the
spot in honour of the royal saint of East Anglia. In its most flourishing
time the monastery is said to have had 80 Benedictine monks, 15 chaplains
of the abbot and chief officials, 111 servants, and 40 priests of chapels,
chantries, and monastic appendages in the town. The town which gradually
grew up beside the abbey came to be known as the BURY OF ST. EDMUND. Its
principal streets are straight and at right angles with one another like a
town planned and built by the proprietor of the whole site. The abbey
buildings had swallowed up the original Saxon church, and the people
attended service in the nave of the abbey church, till Abbot Anselm,
wishing, it is said, to be rid of the townspeople out of the abbey church,
built the Church of St. James for them in 1125. Soon after a second Church
of St. Mary was built by the sacrist at the south-west corner of the abbey
cemetery. The abbey appointed the parish priests, and built a college for
the parochial clergy. It derived from its rectorial rights at the time of
the Reformation, as given in the “Valor,” from St. Mary’s £16 10_s._
9½_d._, and from St. James’s £18.
As the monastery had created the town, so it ruled it without opposition
till the desire for civil liberties which stirred the minds of the people
led some of the younger townsmen to unite themselves under colour of a
gild, the Gild of Bachelors, or young men, to endeavour to obtain
municipal rights for the town. In 1264 they closed the town gates against
an official of the abbey, and engaged in riotous proceedings, when the
abbot appealed to the Crown. The more prudent burghers got frightened, and
suppressed the Bachelors’ Gild. They kept up, however, a chronic quarrel,
which culminated in open rebellion; in 1327 the townspeople broke into the
abbey, and compelled the abbot to concede the liberties they sought. But
the king strengthened the armed force at the command of the abbot, and the
townsmen were obliged five years after to renounce their claim, and sue
for pardon.
It will be observed that where a great monastery was the lord of the town
there was no possibility of a rival monastery, and the monks did not
welcome the friars into their neighbourhood.[590] The abbot supplied
hospitals and such-like things as they were needed; here, at St. Edmund’s,
there were four hospitals at its four gates, founded by different abbots,
for the entertainment of poor pilgrims. During a vacancy in the abbacy
here some Franciscans took the opportunity to establish themselves in a
house in the north part of the town; but the new abbot got rid of them in
the peremptory way in which a landlord gets rid of a contumacious
tenant--he pulled the house down over their heads. The friars appealed to
Rome; the pope directed the archbishop, and the archbishop sent his
commissaries, to conduct them into a new habitation in the west quarter of
the town; but the monks drove out both the Episcopal Commissaries and
their clients. The king sent down the chief justice to give them
possession of a new site, but the monks did not submit to the chief
justice, and made good their opposition. At length a compromise was
arrived at, and the friars were allowed to settle “outside the Four
Crosses,” which marked the Liberties of St. Edmund for a mile in every
direction.[591]
* * * * *
Offa, the great King of the Mercians, in the eighth century, is said to
have “discovered” the relics of St. Alban, the Proto-Martyr of Britain,
and built a monastery to contain them on the site of the martyrdom. A
population gathered around the monastery. The founding of ST. ALBAN’S TOWN
is ascribed to Usinus, the sixth abbot, in the tenth century. He is said
to have built three parish churches for the people: St. Michael’s, St.
Peter’s, and St. Stephen’s, on the north, south, and west sides of the
abbey, and established a market for them. From Domesday it appears that
the town was then part of the possessions of the abbey, and was held by
the abbey in demesne.
[Illustration: St. Albans.]
Early in the fourteenth century, the inhabitants tried to relieve
themselves from this hereditary jurisdiction, and wrested from Abbot
Eversden (1308-1326) the right to elect two of their number to represent
them in Parliament; but a little later Abbot Richard of Wallingford
(1326-1334) successfully disputed his predecessor’s concessions.
* * * * *
Lastly, we have the case of the towns which grew up from small towns to
great ones, in the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In
this case the town often was, and continued to be, a manor, the lord
exercising the old feudal jurisdiction and maintaining his manorial
rights; the affairs of the people being regulated by the manorial courts.
In these cases there was usually only one parish church, and we have to
see the way in which, as the town grew, additional provision was made for
the increasing population. One method was by the conversion of the parish
church into a collegiate foundation with a staff of three or four
clergymen, and choir men and boys, for the maintenance of a dignified
service--this was usually done by some one pious benefactor, as at
Manchester, Wingham, and Wye.[592] Another method was for the parishioners
to provide the vicar with a staff of chaplains, and to endow special
services, as at Sheffield and Newark. Each of these methods may be
illustrated by a brief history of the examples named.
Domesday Survey records the existence of two churches in MANCHESTER of
which it is probable that one, St. Mary’s, was the parish church of the
town; and the other, St. Michael’s, a dependent church at
Ashton-under-Lyne. In the fourteenth century it was one of the most
wealthy and populous towns in the county of Lancaster; and since the
priest of the place is sometimes called the Dean of Manchester, it was
perhaps the head of an extensive deanery. Its church was of timber, as
that of Marston, in Cheshire, is to this day.
[Illustration: Manchester Cathedral.]
Thomas la Ware, second son of Roger Lord la Ware, was rector in 1398, when
by the death of his elder brother he succeeded to the Barony of la Ware,
which included the manor. Desiring to make better provision for the
inhabitants of the town, he obtained a licence from King Henry V., in
1421, to convert the parish church into a collegiate church, with a warden
and so many fellows as should seem good to the body of feoffees who held
the advowson and to the founder. All the powers ecclesiastical and civil
having given their consent, the churchwardens and parishioners, including
various influential knights, esquires, and gentlemen, were called together
by the tolling of the church bell, and then and there expressed their full
consent by petition to the bishop. The staff was composed of a warden,
eight fellows, four clerks, and six choristers; the bishop gave them a
body of statutes which occupy a large space in his extant register; and
Lord la Ware built a college for their residence adjoining the church. The
first warden, John Huntingdon, began the erection of a new and larger
church.
The college was confiscated by Edward VI. and turned into a vicarage, but
re-established by Queen Mary. Queen Elizabeth renewed the charter of
foundation for a warden and four fellows, two chaplains, four laymen, and
four children skilled in music. Charles I. again renewed it. In 1847, the
diocese of Manchester was created, and the collegiate foundation afforded
a suitable cathedral church with a dean and four canons already endowed.
* * * * *
As another example of the way in which a single benefactor sometimes made
extra provision for the spiritual wants of a town, we take the case of the
little town of ROTHERHAM, in Yorkshire. It had a church at the time of the
Conquest. In subsequent times, two great families, the Vescis and Tillis,
shared the manor and the church between them.
At the time of the “Taxatio” (1291) the rectory had been divided into
moieties; one moiety had been appropriated to the Abbot of Clairvaux, who
received £16 13_s._ 4_d._ from it, besides a stipend of £5, which he paid
to the vicar of that moiety; Sir Roger was the rector of the other moiety,
who received £21 13_s._ 4_d._, and he also was represented by a vicar;
moreover, the prior of Lewes had a pension of £1 6_s._ 8_d._ out of the
rectory.[593] The earlier church gave place, in the reign of Edward IV.,
to a more spacious and handsome building, but its clerical staff still
consisted of two vicars and several chantry priests.
The Archbishop of York, for the last twenty years of the fifteenth
century, was known by the name of Thomas of Rotherham. His family name was
Scott, but having been born at Rotherham, he took the name of his native
place, as we have seen was the custom of Churchmen in the Middle Ages.
Before his death, he adopted another good custom of the time, by raising
for himself a memorial in his native place, and conferring a benefit upon
it in the shape of a perpetual foundation. His will is still in existence,
and the following particulars are chiefly taken from it. He was, he says,
born of people of the yeoman class in the town of Rotherham, and baptized
in the parish church, “in the sacred fountain flowing from the side of
Jesus. O that I loved this Name as I ought and would!” So, lest he should
seem ungratefully forgetful of these things, he founded a perpetual
college in the Name of Jesus in the said town. This was to take the place
of an earlier foundation of the twenty-second year of Edward IV., in which
he had received his own education under a teacher of grammar so skilful
that other of his scholars as well as he had been enabled to rise to
higher fortunes. His first purpose was to establish a learned teacher of
grammar there for all time, who should teach gratis all who came to him.
Then, having seen how the chantry priests of the town lived, some in one
place, some in another, with the laity, to the scandal of one and the ruin
of the others,[594] he determined to erect a college where the first
should teach grammar, and the others might live and lodge. Thirdly, since
he had observed that there are many parishioners attending the church, and
that many rustic people of the neighbourhood flock to it that they may the
better love the Christian religion, he establishes a second perpetual
fellow to teach singing gratis, and to have for his food and clothing £6
13_s._ 4_d._; and six chorister boys, that they may celebrate the Divine
office there more honourably, and each of them to have 40_s._ a year for
food and clothing. Fourthly, since there are many very intelligent youths
who do not all wish to attain the clerical dignity, but are adapted for
mechanical arts and other occupations, he provides a third Socius, who
shall teach the arts of writing and reckoning gratis. But since the arts
of writing, music, and grammar are subordinate, and servants of the Divine
law and the gospel, he ordains that there shall be a theologian placed
above the three fellows in the rule and government of the house, with the
name of provost, who shall be a B.D. at least, and shall be required to
preach the word of God through the whole of the founder’s province of
York; he is to have for food and clothing £13 6_s._ 8_d._ “Thus I have
incorporated in my college one provost, three fellows, and six choristers,
that where I have offended God in His ten commandments, these ten may pray
for me.” As to the chantry priests, he gave them their chambers in the
college; they were to dine at the college-table, paying for their food,
but having the services of the cook, washerwoman, and barber gratis. The
provost and fellows were to attend Divine service on festivals in the
parish church in their surplices; at other times in the college chapel;
and to celebrate his obit. There were five chantry priests living in the
college at the time when the foundation, by which good Thomas of Rotherham
made a monument for himself, and conferred a great benefit on his native
town, was dissolved and swept away at the Reformation.
* * * * *
The neighbouring town of SHEFFIELD will afford an example of the way in
which the inhabitants of a town sometimes made extra spiritual provision
for themselves. At the Conquest, all this part of Yorkshire was a wild and
thinly-peopled region. The Countess Judith, niece of the Conqueror, and
wife of Waltheof, placed a colony of monks from Fontenelle near Havre, at
Ecclesfield near Sheffield. The whole district of Hallamshire descended
from the countess to William de Lovelot, who had his principal castle at
Sheffield, and no doubt was the founder of the church here. Subsequently
he founded a Priory of Austin Canons at Worksop, and among other property
gave to them the church and one-third of the tithe of Sheffield.[595]
The canons always presented to the vicarage of Sheffield one of their
number, who was not thereby cut off from the convent; for one of them,
Upton, was recalled from Sheffield to be the prior of the house at
Worksop.
In the latter part of the fifteenth century we learn that there were
endowments for a Light or Gild of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and for a
Chantry or Service of St. Catherine, in the church.
In 1498, William Hine left certain tenements in trust for the four church
greves or church masters to receive the rents, and thereof “to pay yearly
to the priest of St. Catherine singing mass in the said church, 7_s._ at
Whitsuntide for the better support and augmentation of the service thereof
called St. Catherine’s Service, the church maisters to have 12_d._ for
attending at his obit.” If the conditions of the will were not fulfilled,
the feoffees were to pay the profits to the burgesses for the repair of
bridges, causeways, and highways within a mile of the town. The history of
the matter is a little obscure, but it appears that the inhabitants of the
town had by voluntary contributions supplied the vicar with stipends for
three chaplains to assist him in ministering to the town and the scattered
hamlets; that about fourteen years before the Statute of Chantries, _i.e._
in the year 1533, the Guardians of the endowed chantry began to
contribute £17 a year towards the maintenance of these three chaplains in
sums of £7, £5, and £5. The Commissioners of Chantries returned it as “a
service or perpetual stipend of three priests in the church there,” and it
was confiscated with other chantries. On the accession of Queen Mary, at
the petition of the men of Sheffield, the charity was refounded and put
into the hands of twelve church burgesses to hold the property of the
ancient endowment and devote it to the support of three chaplains to
assist the vicar as well in the visitation of the people as in Divine
service and the other sacraments in church, and to apply the surplus to
the repair of bridges and ways.[596]
We find, then, that in a town which was all one parish with one great
church, though the person in charge of the souls of the people was only a
solitary vicar with a small income, there were often really a considerable
number of clergy grouped around him, and that the services of the Church
were better maintained than we should perhaps have expected. On a Sunday
morning there would be several celebrations of Holy Communion at different
hours in the chantry chapels, and some, if not all the priests of the
chantries and special services were bound to be in choir at matins, high
mass, and evensong, and take part in the service. Nearly every such town
would have its grammar school, taught by a Clerk in Holy Orders; and we
may be tolerably sure that the school would furnish choristers for choral
matins and evensong. We have learnt that the lay people were solicitous
for the honour of Divine service in their parish church, and may be sure
that the vicar had little difficulty in obtaining funds for the purchase
of “a pair of organs” and the stipend of an organist, and for all other
expenses of Divine worship. On week-days the vicar would provide at least
daily mass, matins and evensong, and the chantries and special services
would supply other masses.
In the pastoral care of the people, too, the vicar of a great parish was
not left single-handed. Probably (as has been already said) each chantry
priest, and, still more, each priest of a gild or service had a group of
persons--the relatives of their founder, or brothers and sisters of their
fraternity--who looked to them for spiritual ministrations; but besides
these, the vicar sometimes had chaplains who were assistant-curates. The
calendar of chantries, etc., refers to a number of endowments for
“stipendiaries,” of which some are named in conjunction with chantries and
gilds as if they were cantarists, but others in conjunction with parishes
as if they were simply parish chaplains.
Let us take NEWARK as our last example.
Leofric, the great Earl of Mercia, and Godiva his wife, gave this manor to
the monastery of Stow. Remigius, the first Norman Bishop of Lincoln, held
it in demesne; and then, according to Domesday, it had ten churches and
eight priests; the churches and priests were probably in the place itself
and in the sixteen sokes under its jurisdiction, the names of which we
recognize in the names of the neighbouring villages for some miles round
on the left bank of the Trent. Alexander, the next bishop, built a
castle[597] here on the bank of the Trent; and the town seems to have
grown up into importance, owing partly to its situation on the Fossway and
the Trent, and partly to the protection and fostering care of the
bishops. When Henry II. founded the Priory (of Sempringham nuns) of St.
Katherine, near Lincoln, he endowed it, among other properties, with the
Church of Newark. A convent of Austin Friars was planted here and another
of Observants (Franciscans), and the Knights of the Temple had a
preceptory here.
[Illustration: Newark Church, Nottinghamshire.]
The town, as one of the halting-places of the funeral progress of Queen
Eleanor, was ornamented with one of the crosses with which the king marked
every step of that great pageant.
To come to more recent times, and to the particulars with which we are
most concerned, the borough was one parish[598] under the care of a vicar;
and its parish church,[599] rebuilt in the reign of Henry VI., is a very
large and noble structure, with its chancel screen and carved stalls, and
some fine carving, still remaining uninjured. We have already had occasion
to give the particulars of the income of the vicar,[600] which amounted at
the time of the “Valor” to £21, and of the outgoings, which included a
stipend of £5 for a chaplain,[601] we have to add here the services and
priests which helped to complete the religious arrangements of the town.
The Calendar of Chantries, etc., so often quoted, gives the following list
of them--
St. Nicholas’ Chantry, a chantry at the altar of St. James;
Sawcendine’s Chantry; “Morrow Mass” Chantry; St. Catherine’s Chantry;
Corpus Christi Chantry, founded by Fleming;[602] Corpus Christi
Chantry, founded by Isabell Caldwell; Newark Chantry; Trinity Chantry;
All Saints’ Chantry; Foster’s Chantry; Trinity Gild[603] Chantry;
Trinity Chantry, founded by John Leeke.
There are thirteen chantries in all. One we note was for a “Morrow Mass,”
_i.e._ a very early celebration of Holy Communion; the rest would be
arranged at various hours. The Trinity Gild was the great gild of the
town, which here, as in many other towns, supplied, to some extent, the
place of a municipal corporation.
Some solidarity was given to this group of cantarists by the fact that
they lived together in a mansion which a benefactor had provided for them.
The internal economy of the mansion would require some regulation which
would not improbably be borrowed from the rules which were customary in a
college of priest-vicars, or chantry house of several priests. The rules
for the chantry priests lodging in Archbishop Rotherham’s College,[604]
and those for the chapel at Kingston-on-Thames,[605] will indicate their
general character.
Thomas Magnus, Archdeacon of the East Riding of York, a native of the town
just before the Reformation (1532), founded at the north-west point of the
churchyard a free school for a priest sufficiently learned to teach
grammar, who was to be paid £10; together with a song school for a
priest[606] sufficiently learned to teach plain song and play the organ,
who was to have £8; and six children to be taught music, and to play upon
the organs, who were to have 26_s._ 8_d._ each. The founder also founded
an obit of 40_s._, and 40_s._ to be given to the alderman [of the Holy
Trinity Gild] for the time being.
The cathedral-like choir of the church would then be well filled on
Sundays and holy days by the vicar and his chaplain and the thirteen
cantarists and the children of the song school, and the Divine service
honourably rendered, and the long nave would doubtless be filled with the
devout people. The whole clerical staff of the town consisted of the
vicar, his chaplain and clerk, the brethren of the two friaries, perhaps a
dozen in each, the thirteen cantarists in their chantry house: nearly
forty men, besides the military monks in the preceptory.
* * * * *
Besides monks and friars, rectors and vicars, cantarists, and chaplains of
various kinds, there was still another kind of religious persons to be
found in many towns, viz. Recluses. The first recluses were enclosed in
the Egyptian deserts in a narrow cell; but in process of time a churchyard
was taken to be a sufficiently solitary place, and the cell sometimes
consisted of two or more fairly comfortable rooms built against the
chancel wall of the church. There lived an old hermit or priest, or a
religious woman, supported partly by an endowment, partly by the offerings
and bequests of the people. Their picturesque asceticism attracted the
interest and veneration of impressible people, who would consult them in
the affairs of their souls, and no doubt in their social difficulties
also, and receive more or less good council according to the character of
the recluse.[607]
BRIDGE-CHAPELS.
There is still another feature wanting to complete (in many cases) this
survey of the ecclesiastical aspect of a mediæval town. A good hard road
through a wild boggy tract, or a raised causeway across the often flooded
valley in which the town was situated, or a stone bridge in place of a
dangerous ford or inconvenient ferry, conferred a very real benefit upon
the whole community, from the king in his royal progresses through the
country to the peasantry who brought their produce to the weekly market.
Men wisely included road-making and bridge-building among meritorious acts
of charity, and the calendar of chantries, etc., contains a number of
endowments which were given or bequeathed for these purposes. Very
frequently the pious builder of a bridge added a religious foundation to
it in the shape of a little chapel; sometimes the chapel was built at one
end of the bridge; more commonly, perhaps, the central pier on one side of
the bridge was enlarged, and the chapel picturesquely erected upon it. The
chapel was endowed with a stipend for a perpetual chantry priest to say
prayers there for the family of the bridge-builder, and for all Christian
people; and no doubt the founder hoped for himself the prayers of all the
Christian people who used his bridge. Those of us who, lounging about the
churches of other countries as sight-seers, have seen the market women
come in, set down their baskets on the floor, and kneel down for a few
moments for silent prayer, will easily understand the practical religious
uses of these bridge-chapels.
[Illustration: Bridge and Chapel, Wakefield.]
Perhaps the chapel built on the new stone London Bridge of 1176 was one of
the earliest and the most important of them. It was built over a crypt on
the central pier on the eastern side of the bridge, and dedicated to St.
Thomas the Martyr, who had been canonized three years before. It had a
master and fraternity, and several chantries were founded in it. Bideford
Bridge, one of the longest at that time in the kingdom, was built in 1350,
on the initiative of the parish priest, Sir R. Gurney, who had a vision of
an angel showing him where to build. The lord of the manor, Sir Theodore
Granville, Knight, gave the undertaking his countenance and aid;
Grandisson, the Bishop of Exeter, gave his licence to collect money backed
by the promise of indulgences, and the bridge was made with its 23 arches,
177 yards long. In later times, the estates of the Bridge Gild were under
the management of a warden and brethren, who not only kept the bridge in
repair, but also built a hall for their meetings and a school beside it,
founded charities, gave dinners, and kept to that end--Charles Kingsley in
“Westward Ho!” is our authority for saying it--the best stocked cellar in
all Devon. There is a good example of a bridge-chapel still remaining on
the centre pier of Rotherham bridge, and another at Wakefield, served by
two chaplains. We have remains or notes of others: two at Nottingham, one,
_super altem pontem_, dedicated to St. James, the other, _ad finem
pontis_, dedicated to St. Mary; at Newcastle, dedicated to St. Thomas; at
Camelford, dedicated to St. Thomas, built by the burgesses of the town; at
Exeter, founded by the mayor and bailiffs of the city; at Stamford,
dedicated to St. Thomas; at Elvet, dedicated to St. James; two at York,
St. Anne’s on Fossbridge and St. William’s on Ouse bridge; Burton, at one
end of the long bridge over the Trent; at Doncaster, where the bridge had
a stone gateway with a chapel of “Our Lady” beside it at one end, and a
stone cross beside the entrance to the bridge at the other end; and at
many other places, as Durham, Manchester, Rochester, Bidenham, Totton,
Gronethe, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary; at Sheffield, Darfield,
etc. Sometimes a hospital for the entertainment of poor travellers was
built at the end of a bridge, as at Burton and at Nottingham;[608] at
Brandford there was a chapel-house and hospital _juxta pontem_.[609]