Parish Priests and Their People in the Middle Ages in England Part 20

St. Eloy's (Elgius) light had 6 serges, maintained by the Gild of the Farriers.

St. Clement's light had 5 serges, maintained by the Gild of Bakers.

Our Lady's light contained 5 serges, maintained by the Shoemakers.

Before the Rood 5 serges were maintained by 5 several benefactors.

Before the Mary of Pity 5 serges were maintained by the wife of Ralph Mayre.

In the Lady Chapel before our Lady 3 serges, maintained by 3 several benefactors.

In the same chapel before the Image of St. John Baptist several serges maintained by one benefactor.

Before St. Christopher 5 serges by 5 individuals.

3 serges which Anc{r} Geyr found, one before our Lady, another before St. Catherine, and the third before the Trinity Altar.

Before St. Edmund 2 serges by the gathering of the Clerk on St.

Edmund's night, gathering as they do on St. Nicholas' night.[328]

Dr. c.o.x says that these lights were probably all lighted at high ma.s.s; but those of saints only on their saint days, and that only the altar-lamp was left alight all night.

At the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a temporary wooden chandelier, called a trindle, bearing many lights, was set up in church, and the attendants at the service brought tapers with them; the general illumination gave to the festival the name of Candle-Ma.s.s.

The popularity of these lights is shown in many ways--gilds maintained them, the public generally subscribed to them, and testators frequently left money to them.

A taper seems sometimes to have been symbolical of a person, as when the people who followed a procession carried them and presented them at the altar; when a nun to be professed and an anch.o.r.ess to be enclosed, thus carried and offered them; when a penitent carried them; and, when in excommunication, "by bell, book, and candle," the candle was extinguished.

Perhaps, in giving to the lights before the rood and the images of saints, there was some notion in the donors' minds that they were keeping themselves in the recollection of Christ and the saints.

Besides these ritual lights, it was customary at a funeral to set up a wooden herse in church around the coffin, and to place two or more large wax candles, often called torches, about the herse. People often made provision in their wills for such lights, not only on the day of the funeral, but on the week-day, month's-mind, and yearly obit, and sometimes at a perpetual obit. Perhaps what was intended to be symbolized was that, though their bodies were buried in darkness, their souls were in the land of light.

The dramatic representation of Scripture subjects--the Three Kings at Christmas, the Pa.s.sion of our Lord in Lent, and others at other times--was common in the cathedrals, monasteries, large towns, and perhaps villages.

Bishop Poor, in his "Ancren Riewle," suggests that female recluses, who sometimes lived in a cell beside the church, may have to mention among other subjects of confession, "I went to the play in the churchyard; I looked on at the wrestling, or other foolish sports." The Pa.s.sion play at Ober Ammergau has proved that such performances may be made dignified and devotional.

The custom of using the churchyard for purposes of business and pleasure was very common and very persistent. As early as the fourth century St.

Basil protested against the holding of markets in the precincts of churches, under pretext of making better provision for the festivals; but the custom held its own, and we have a catena of synodical declarations against holding secular pleas, markets and fairs, and indulging in sports, in church and churchyard, and a series of complaints by the synodsmen in their annual presentation to their bishops of the breach of the canons.

Cardinal Ottobon, at the Synod of London, 1268, made a const.i.tution prohibiting this kind of use of the sacred building and its enclosure; and strictly enjoining all bishops and other prelates to cause it to be inviolably observed on pain of ecclesiastical censure; and here are a few examples of the way in which it was disregarded down to so late a period as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries:

The parishioners of St. Michael le Belfry, York, in 1416, complain that a common market is held in their churchyard on Sundays and holidays.[329] In the explanation of the Second Commandment, c. xvi., in "Dives and Pauper," in allusion to the abuse, which adds a little to our information, "no markette sholde be holden by vytaylers or other chapmen on Sondaye in the churche or in the churchyarde or at the church gate ne in sentuary (churchyard) ne out." In another place (Sixth Commandment, c. i.) we learn that the chapmen and their families sometimes slept in the church or churchyard.

One of the canons of the Synod of Exeter, 1287, strictly enjoins on parish priests that they publicly proclaim in their churches that no one presume to carry on combats, dances, or other improper sports in the churchyards, especially on the even and feasts of saints, or stage plays or farces (_ludos theatrales et ludebriorum spectacula_).[330] Yet in 1472, at Sallay, in Yorkshire, it is found necessary to make an order that no one use improper and prohibited sports within the churchyard, as, for example, _pilopedali vel manuale_, tutts and handball, or wrestling.

A custom which is still more opposed to our sense of propriety was that of holding church ales in the sacred building. A church ale was the old form of parish tea. It was connected with works of piety or charity, or of Christian fellowship, and in the eyes of the people of those times perhaps partook of the nature of the primitive love-feasts. They made a collection for the poor of the parish at a Whitsun Ale, started a young couple with a little sum by a Bride Ale, or got a man out of difficulties by a Bid Ale (from _biddan_, to pray or beg). So persistent was the custom, that in our latest English canons of 1603 it is thought necessary to prohibit any holding of feasts, banquets, suppers, or church ale drinkings in church.[331]

CHAPTER XXII.

ABUSES.

Even a book like this, which professes to deal with the humbler details of parochial life, rather than with the greater matters of ecclesiastical history, would be defective if it failed to take some note of the administrative abuses against which all Europe complained for centuries, and tried in vain to get them amended in the three great Councils at Pisa, Constance, and Basle. We shall treat of them very briefly, and chiefly in their relation to our special subject.

It was soon found that the new relations of the Church of England to the patriarchal authority of the See of Rome, which had been a consequence of the Norman Conquest, had opened the door to a flood of evils which had not been foreseen. We can only enumerate them without going into their history.

The claim of the popes to present to all ecclesiastical benefices was opposed by the king with respect to the rights of the Crown to the nomination to bishoprics and abbacies, and on the part of the n.o.bles and gentry with respect to their patronage; but by partial encroachments the popes did in fact, from time to time, nominate to many bishoprics, and dignities, and to a considerable number of parochial benefices. Curiously enough, the most important of these invasions of the rights of others are the most capable of extenuation. The kings, as we shall presently have occasion to say, at length used their power of practical nomination to bishoprics, not to give the Church the best Churchmen as bishops, but to pay for the services of their ministers of State with the rank and revenues of bishoprics. Their nomination at all was an infringement of the const.i.tutional liberties of the Church, and their use of their power of practical nomination in this way was a grievous wrong. In the reigns of John and Henry III., when the popes took upon themselves to nominate to sees, they were careful to select Churchmen of learning and character, who contrasted favourably in the eyes of the nation with the king's nominees thus superseded. In the reign of Edward I., the king and the pope played into one another's hands, the king did not oppose the Papal nomination, but the pope readily nominated men whom the king recommended. Later kings successfully maintained their right of nomination against the popes, but the pious and feeble Henry VI. again yielded to papal encroachments.

The _intrusion_ by the pope _of foreigners_, chiefly Italians, into English benefices was a great practical grievance while it lasted, _i.e._ during part of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Bishop Grostete estimated that the revenues of the alien clerks, whom Innocent IV. had planted in England, equalled seventy thousand marks, while the king's revenue was not more than a third of that sum. This abuse was so unpopular that it provoked a serious resistance. About 1230, a secret a.s.sociation, countenanced, it was said, by men of position, wrote to bishops and chapters, warning them not to encourage these encroachments, and to the monks, who farmed the benefices of the aliens, not to pay them their rent.

The t.i.the barns of the alien rectors were plundered, and the contents sold or given to the poor, and some of the men themselves were seized and put to ransom. In the reign of Richard II. (1379), an Act of Parliament forbade any to farm the benefice of an alien, or to send money out of the realm for such farm, under the penalties of the Statute of Provisors. But the evil was checked by the Acts of Provisors (1350) and Premunire (1353), and these encroachments of the Roman See were extinguished by the end of the fourteenth century.

A great grievance inflicted by the Crown upon the Church was _the use of Church patronage_ for the payment of the political, diplomatic, judicial, and other officers of the civil administration. The result was that a large number of the greatest offices of the Church were served by deputy; the details of diocesan work were done by suffragans, archdeacons performed their duties by officials, rectors by parish chaplains. It was inevitable that the work should be imperfectly done; rank and wealth are attached to Church benefices in order to enhance the dignity and influence of the holders and their power of fulfilling the duties of their office, and a _loc.u.m tenens_, though he were intrinsically as able a man, can never fulfil the place or do the work of the real holder of the office.

It was Henry II. who adopted it as a normal practice, and not without protest. When this king asked Bishop St. Hugh of Lincoln for a prebend for one of his courtiers, the bishop replied: "Ecclesiastical benefices are not for courtiers, but for ecclesiastics. Those who hold them must serve not the palace or the treasury, but the altar. The king has wherewithal to compensate those who work for him and fight his battles. Let him allow those who serve the King of kings to enjoy their fitting remuneration, and not to be deprived of it." When King Richard, through the Archbishop of Canterbury, desired Bishop Hugh to send him a list of twelve of his canons to be employed in his affairs, Hugh replied that "he had often prohibited his clerks from intermeddling in secular affairs, and he certainly was not going to encourage such a thing now. It was quite enough to have archbishops forgetting their sacred calling." All the canons had not the courage of their bishop, or were ambitious of court appointments, for some of them went off to the king at Fontevrault without the bishop's leave; but all were relieved from their difficulty by the king's death.[332]

A kindred evil was that of _pluralities_, since the holder of several benefices must needs put a _loc.u.m tenens_ into all of them save one, with the disadvantages just mentioned. John Mansel, Henry III.'s chancellor, is said by Matthew Paris to have held the revenues of seven hundred benefices, amounting to four thousand marks.

The popes in the thirteenth century exerted their authority to put an end to the abuse, but met with a strenuous resistance. At the Council of London, 1237, under Otho, when the Canon against pluralists of the recent Lateran Council was proposed to be adopted, Walter de Cantilupe, Bishop of Worcester, warned the Legate that the attempt to impose it on the English clergy would be resisted by force by the young men who were bold and daring, and not without the approbation of some of their elders;[333] and the question was postponed. But the popes exercised pressure by refusing to confirm the elections to bishoprics of men who were pluralists, and the Archbishops[334] gave their authority to the cause of reform. In time the evil was lessened; there were fewer benefices held in plurality, and those who held them were required to obtain a dispensation, and to provide in the benefices on which they did not reside proper subst.i.tutes with a sufficient provision for themselves, and for the hospitalities and charities of the benefices.

We have had occasion to make several allusions to the _farming of benefices_; this was another abuse which may require a few words of explanation. The inc.u.mbent for a definite annual payment put the emoluments of his benefice into the hands of another to make what he could out of it. The monks at one time were great farmers of benefices. The evil of it was that the farmer, having no responsibility towards or interest in the people, was tempted to be strict in exacting his dues, and deaf to claims of charity. For example, in 1532 the Convent of Merton granted a lease of the rectory of Kingston-on-Thames with all the profits and the presentation to the vicarage for twenty-one years.[335]

A danger connected with this farming of benefices for a long term of years, which is not apparent at first sight, is indicated in the following instance. In 1267, Bishop Richard of Gravesend made Dunstable Priory give up the Church of Lidlington; they had farmed it from an absentee rector, and on his death they seem to have a.s.sumed the rectorial rights.[336]

Among the greatest and most widespread abuses, was that of admitting to benefices men who were not qualified to fulfil the duties of the office.

This was the case more or less with ecclesiastical benefices from bishoprics downwards; but it was specially the case with rectories.

This abuse, of course, arose from the fact that in the majority of cases the patronage of the rectory was in the hands of the lord of the manor, the descendant, or at least the representative, of the original donor of the benefice, and was usually regarded as a natural provision for one of the younger sons of the family. It was, perhaps, not in theory so bad an arrangement as some people think it. In those feudal times the lord of the manor was the petty king of all the people, and if one of his sons had the personal qualifications, perhaps no other priest could fulfil the duties of rector of the parish with equal advantages. The relations of squire and parson in a country village are a little difficult, and a son of the ruling family could exercise an influence in the parish which a stranger could not; he could mediate between the lord and the people with greater influence on both sides than a stranger; and the people would generally pay a loyal regard to him which they would not to any other priest.

The great abuse was that so many of these rectors remained in minor orders, exercising perhaps a good influence, fulfilling the hospitalities and charities of their office, but leaving its spiritual duties to be performed by a parish chaplain. This did not seem so objectionable to them as it does to us, because they were under the influence of the feudal ideas, which tended to make all offices hereditary, and to consider that the holders of office did all that was required of them if they provided that the duties of the office were satisfactorily performed by subordinates.

The law made a man who had received the lowest of the minor orders capable of holding a benefice;[337] the bishops, therefore, could not refuse the patron's nomination in such cases, and the bishops' registers contain records of the inst.i.tution of young men, who were sometimes only acolytes, or even clerks; they had to do the best they could for the well-being of both the young rectors and their parishes, with some consideration for the rights of patrons and the opinion of the age. In very many cases the newly inst.i.tuted rector received at once a licence of non-residence for a year, that he might study, generally, or in Oxford or Paris specifically. The leave of non-residence is sometimes extended to two or three years, or renewed from time to time. Sometimes it is stipulated that the rector shall take orders as sub-deacon within the year, or that he shall pa.s.s through all the orders up to priest's within the time of non-residence allowed. There is frequently further licence given to put the benefice to farm, with a stipulation for a donation to the poor of the parish, or the fabric of the church, or the like.[338]

William, the son of Gilbert FitzStephen, presented to the parish of Kentisbury, was refused by Bishop Stapledon on the ground that he was too illiterate for such a charge. The influence of powerful friends was brought to bear upon the bishop, and he conceded thus far--that the young man should go to school (_scolas grammaticales_), and if, after awhile, he could admit him with a good conscience, he would do so, and would not, in the mean time, take advantage of the law which made the nomination lapse to himself at the end of six months. But it does not appear in the Register that William FitzStephen was ever inst.i.tuted; and the inst.i.tution of John de Wyke, priest, in the following year, by the patron, indicates that the illiterate young man abandoned the idea of becoming Rector of Kentisbury, and perhaps did service, such as he was qualified to perform satisfactorily, under his father's banner in the field. Sometimes the bishop dealt with a case more peremptorily. Bishop Grostete refused a presentee whom he described as "a boy still in his Ovid." The same bishop refused to admit to a benefice a man presented by the Chancellor of York, on the ground that he was almost illiterate; and sends the young man's examination papers that the chancellor may judge for himself. He refused to inst.i.tute W. de Grana on the presentation of W. Raleigh, the treasurer of Exeter, because of his youth and ignorance; but that Raleigh may not think him ungrateful, he promises to give his nominee a pension of ten marks a year till he gets a better benefice. In answer to a request of the Legate Otho to inst.i.tute Thomas, a son of Earl Ferrers, to a benefice, he begs to be excused; but if the matter is pressed, he begs that a vicar may be appointed to the parish, and that Thomas may have some provision out of the living without cure of souls.[339] In 1530, Bishop Holbeach of Lincoln rejected a Canon of Ronton nominated to the Vicarage of Seighford as _indoctus et indignus_. Richard Swinfield, Bishop of Hereford (1283-1316), refused to inst.i.tute a boy of sixteen, of the name of Baskerville, to the Vicarage of Weobley, on the presentation of the Prior and Canons of Llanthony, though pressed by a powerful relative of the boy.