Parish Priests and Their People in the Middle Ages in England Part 4

But, in fact, a considerable change gradually took place in the practical relations of the English Church to the Roman see. The Saxon Church had been isolated, the bishops and clergy had been eminently a national clergy, with practically no one above them and no one between them and their flocks. The appearance of two legates at the synod of Winchester (1070), which deprived Stigand the archbishop, and, by consequence, several bishops of his consecration, was the beginning of a series of very important interventions of the Pope for good and for evil, which, together with the multiplication of appeals to Rome, modified very much the previous practically autonomous condition of the English Church. Another important change was made by the separation of the civil and ecclesiastical Courts determined upon by William "in the common council, and by the advice of all the bishops and abbots, and all the princes of his kingdom." It abrogated the old Saxon custom set forth in the laws of Canute (1016-1035),[74] that the bishop should sit with the sheriff in the shire mote, and a.s.sist in the administration of justice and the determination of causes; and enacted that, for the future, civil causes should be determined by the secular judge; while, on the other hand, no lay judge should interfere in the laws which belong to the bishop, or in any causes which belong to the cure of souls. The results went further than perhaps William had foreseen. One result was the setting up of independent courts of ecclesiastical jurisdiction over all clerical persons, down to the lowest of the men in minor orders, and in all religious cases, including matrimonial and testamentary causes and questions of oaths. This made the whole body of the clergy a privileged cla.s.s under a law and judges of their own, and this privilege the Church maintained successfully against the endeavour of Henry II. to bring the clergy under the jurisdiction of the King's Courts, and continued down to the "submission of the clergy" in the reign of Henry VIII. With this brief general review of the const.i.tutional changes effected at the time of the Norman Conquest we proceed to our more humble task of noting the history of the parochial clergy and of their flocks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Durham Cathedral.]

The new men, military adventurers though they were, among whom the Norman conqueror had divided the lands of England, did not, like the Anglo-Saxon conquerors, trample out Christianity under their feet; nor, like the Danes in their turn, plunder the monasteries and churches; on the contrary, the Normans behaved like Christian men who, having come into power in a country which was in a backward religious condition, set themselves to effect religious improvements in their newly acquired possessions. Every bishop set to work to rebuild his cathedral church, or to build a new one in the place to which his see had been removed. This leads to the inference that the old Saxon cathedrals were comparatively small, in an inferior style of architecture, and perhaps out of repair. Many of the lords of manors seem to have rebuilt the parish churches, and to have built new churches in remote parts of their estates.[75] The bishops also made provision for the spiritual wants of the people more especially dependent upon them; Lanfranc, for example, built two churches and two hospitals in Canterbury, and erected several churches in the manors belonging to the archbishopric.

If we consider the way in which the landed property of the kingdom was resettled after the Conquest, each great tenant of the Crown subdividing his vast estates among the lesser lords who had fought under his banner, we shall see the likelihood that each of these new lords of manors, as soon as the country had settled down in tranquillity, would set himself to make the best of his new acquisitions; to add to their value by breaking up new waste land; to consult his dignity and comfort by improving upon the rude old hall of his Saxon predecessor, or building himself a new manor house. If his manor had only a chapel with imperfect privileges, he would not be content without obtaining for it the status of an independent parish; and the Norman taste for building would lead him to replace the rude timber chapel by a stone church in the improved style of architecture which had lately been introduced. In some cases the new lord built himself a manor house on a new site at a distance from the old one, and a church near to it, and adopted the new church as the parish church, leaving the old one to serve as a chapel to those who lived near it.[76] A great number of village churches in nearly all parts of England still remain, in whole or in part, whose architectural characteristics show that they are of about this period. Ordericus Vitalis, the historian of the conqueror's sons, says[77] that especially in the reign of Henry I.,[78]

by the fervent devotion of the faithful, the houses and temples built by Edgar and Edward, and other Christian kings, were taken down to be replaced with others of greater magnitude and more elegant workmanship, to the glory of the Creator.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Old Sh.o.r.eham Church, Suss.e.x.]

The life of Orderic himself supplies an example. His father was a priest, a man of some learning, who had come over at the Norman Conquest in the train of Roger of Montgomery, afterwards created Earl of Shrewsbury, and received from his lord lands on the Meole, three miles east of Shrewsbury.

He found on this estate of Atcham, a chapel built of timber dedicated to S. Eata, and replaced it by one of stone. He had his son Orderic baptized by the Saxon priest of the parish, who also stood as his sponsor, and gave his own name (sometimes spelt Ulricus) to the child. At the age of five years, he entrusted the child to the care of a priest named Siward, to be taught the first rudiments of learning; and five years afterwards, on the death of his n.o.ble patron, he devoted both himself and his son to the monastic life in the monastery at Shrewsbury, which the earl had lately founded.[79]

The greatest ecclesiastical work of the Normans was, however, the revival of the monastic system, and the filling of the country with n.o.ble and wealthy monasteries. The ascetic spirit had been revived in Italy and France by Odo of Clugny, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and others, who had founded new orders of the Benedictine and Augustinian rules. The Norman n.o.bles brought this new enthusiasm with them; and just as in the early Saxon period every thane thought it inc.u.mbent upon him to build a parish church on his estate, so now it became almost a fashion for every great n.o.ble to found a monastery upon his lordship. The n.o.bles, while thinking first of the glory of G.o.d, and the spiritual advantages of the prayers of a holy community for the founder, his family and descendants, were conscious also of the dignity which a monastery reflected upon the family which founded and patronized it, and not insensible to the temporal advantages of the establishment of a centre of civilization and religion in the midst of their dependents.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Norman bishops and abbots. (From the twelfth century MS.)]

William led the way by his foundation of a great Benedictine abbey on the field of his victory at Hastings, to which was given the name of Battle Abbey. William of Warrenne built a priory at Lewes (1077), into which he introduced the new Cluniac Order. The canons regular of St. Augustine were introduced into England at Colchester c. 1100; the Cistercians at Waverley in Surrey, in 1128; the Carthusians at Witham in Somerset in 1180; and by the end of the twelfth century religious houses of various orders had been founded in every part of the country. We have seen that at the end of the Saxon period there were only about fifty religious houses in England; under William and his two successors upwards of 300 new ones were founded.

The religious fervour of the monks, who abandoned the world and practised self-denial as a means to spiritual perfection and closer communion with G.o.d, naturally excited awed admiration; the picturesque surroundings of their profession, the frock and hood, the shaven head and mortified countenance, the hard life of the cloister and the manifold services in the church, impressed the imagination; and consequently the popularity of the monks threw the secular clergy into the shade. The great churches of the monasteries rivalled the cathedrals in magnitude and splendour; the great abbots--relieved by the pope from the jurisdiction of their bishops, exercising themselves jurisdiction over their own estates, summoned to parliament, wealthy and learned--were the rivals of the bishops; and the "lord monks" held a higher rank in public estimation than the parish rectors. The importance of the political part they played in the life of the Middle Ages was hardly, perhaps, commensurate with the s.p.a.ce they occupied in it. The Benedictines cultivated learning, and the Cistercians were enterprising agriculturists; the Augustinian orders were useful as preachers in the towns, and managers of hospitals; the nunneries of various orders were schools for the daughters of the gentry; they were all citadels of religion and learning over the length and breadth of the land; but from the point of view of public utility, abbots and monks seldom took any important part in the political events which made history, or were employed in the administration of the government, or made their mark as men of learning, as the bishops and secular clergy did in every generation.

The princ.i.p.al relation between the monasteries and the parish priests is a sinister one; when the popularity of the monks waned, and the secular clergy in the thirteenth century regained the confidence of the people, the mischief was already done which has never been undone. Nearly half the parishes of England had been stripped of the best part of their endowments, in order to found and enrich the monasteries; but a small portion was rescued from their hands by the bishops on the reaction of the thirteenth century; the rest the monks retained till the Reformation of the sixteenth century; and then it was swallowed up by the king and his new n.o.bility. But the history of the impropriation of benefices, and the subsequent foundation of perpetual vicarages, requires a chapter to itself.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ORDINATION OF A PRIEST. FROM THE LATE XII. CENT. DRAWING, HARL. ROLL, Y 6.]

CHAPTER VII.

THE FOUNDATION OF VICARAGES.

The Norman founders of monasteries not only gave to them lands and moneys, but also the parish churches, of which they had the advowson. It can hardly be said that in so doing they gave what was not theirs to give, for the idea was still prominent in men's minds that the church which a landlord or his antecessor had built for himself and his people was, in a sense, his church, and that he was at liberty (as he is to this day) to give his rights in it to some one else; moreover, the ancient custom of a.s.signing the t.i.the of his lands to various religious uses, at the owner's discretion, was still not obsolete,[80] so that the a.s.signment of part of the t.i.the away from the parish in which it was raised to a religious community at a distance shocked no one's conscience. Already before the Conquest, in France, the admirers of the new monastic orders had largely adopted the practice of endowing the new religious houses which they founded with the parochial benefices in their patronage; and the practice had found some imitators in England.[81] The Norman lords, between their thank offerings of English benefices to their monasteries at home, in Normandy and elsewhere, and their zeal in founding monasteries on their new English estates and endowing them with their parish churches, in a very short time bestowed a great number of parochial benefices upon the religious houses.

Sometimes a manor was given to a monastery with the appendant advowson of the rectory, which merely put the religious house in the position of any other patron; but in such cases the community usually, either at once or before very long, obtained some share of the income of the benefice, and ultimately, in most cases, its absolute appropriation.[82]

But in the more usual case the benefice was given to the religious house in such a way that the community became the "rector" of the parish, with, on one hand, all the responsibility of the cure of souls and the maintenance of the charities and hospitalities of the parish, and, on the other hand, with possession of all the endowments, fees, rights, and privileges of the rector. It is only charitable to suppose that the lords of manors, who thus gave over their advowsons, thought that they were doing two good things: first, putting the spiritual interests of the parishioners into the hands of men of superior unworldliness and spirituality, who would do better for them than the old squire-rectors and their hired chaplains; and secondly, devoting the surplus revenues of the benefices to the maintenance of religious organizations, which would use them to the glory of G.o.d and the spiritual profit of the people in many ways. These benefices were called appropriate benefices, from the customary phrase used in their conveyance, _ad proprios usus_ of the abbot and the community.

The spiritual duties of the parish were sometimes served by one of the community in holy orders, or by a cleric attached to the house; sometimes by a stipendiary priest who was paid according to private agreement, and dismissed at pleasure.

A short experience showed that the monks told off to take charge of these appropriate parishes did not generally make very efficient parish priests--how, indeed, should they? The pastoral work of a parish requires other qualities, ideas, sympathies, than those which are proper to the cloister. And, on the other hand, it was soon found that where clerks were employed to fulfil the parochial duties, the parishes were under the disadvantages--with which some of us are well acquainted in these days--of one supplied during a vacancy by temporary help; the clerk had no status in the parish, and no permanent interest in it. In both cases it was found that the duties were often perfunctorily performed, and that the spiritual life of the parish languished.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Abbot presenting clerk for ordination. (Harl. MS., 1527.)]

At the great national synod of Westminster, held by Anselm in 1102, which was attended by some of the lay n.o.bles, an attempt was made to mitigate the evil. It was decreed (canon 21) that monks should not possess themselves of parish churches without the sanction of the bishop, and that they should not take so much of the profits of appropriate parishes as to impoverish the priests officiating therein. But the evil continued and increased until the Court of Rome took up the question and lent its authority to the movement. A decree of the Lateran Council in 1179 forbade the religious to receive t.i.thes from the laity without the consent of the bishops, and empowered the bishops to make proper provision for the spiritual work of the appropriate parishes. The English bishops, strengthened by the Papal authority, set themselves to provide a remedy.

This took the form of the foundation of Perpetual Vicarages in the appropriated parishes. The bishop required that the convent, instead of serving the parochial cure by one of the brethren, or by a clerk living in the monastery, or by a chaplain resident in the parish on such a stipend as the convent chose to give, and removable at pleasure, should nominate a competent parish priest, to the satisfaction of the bishop, who was to inst.i.tute him as perpetual vicar. His t.i.tle of "Vicarius" implied that he was the representative of the rector; his tenure was permanent and independent; he was answerable to the bishop, and to him only, for the proper fulfilment of his duties; and the bishop required that out of the revenues of the parish a house and such a portion should be a.s.signed for a perpetual endowment as would enable the vicar of the parish to maintain his position in decent comfort.[83]

The pecuniary arrangement usually made was that the small t.i.thes--"_i.e._ the t.i.thes of every kind except of corn--and the customary offerings and fees, were a.s.signed to the vicar; while the religious house took the 'great t.i.thes,' _i.e._ the t.i.the of corn." Sometimes the vicar took the whole revenue of the parish of all kinds, and paid a fixed yearly sum of money to the appropriators. Sometimes the community took the revenue, and gave the vicar a fixed sum.[84] There was an appeal open to both sides if it turned out that the original agreement seemed, on experience of its working, to be inequitable; and there are many cases in which vicars did appeal, and obtained an augmentation of their incomes.

A canon of Otho, 1237, required that a man inst.i.tuted into a vicarage should be a deacon at least, and proceed to take priest's orders in the course of his first year.

The details of a few special cases will ill.u.s.trate these general statements, and will help to admit us into the inner life of the mediaeval parishes from a new point of view, and so increase the knowledge we are seeking of the day-by-day religious life of the parish priests and their people.

Thurstan, son of Wini, in the time of King Edward the Confessor, gave the Manor of Harlow to the great monastery of St. Edmund, recently restored by Canute; with the manor the church appendant to it; the convent nominated to the rectory as any other patron would do, until Pope Boniface IX.--for the monastery claimed exemption from episcopal jurisdiction, and regarded no one but the Pope himself as its superior--gave the abbot licence to appropriate the church, and to provide for the cure of the parish either by one of the monks or by a secular priest as the abbot should think fit.

In 1398 the abbot, in obedience to the canons, was willing to have a vicarage appointed for the well-being of the parishioners; the vicar was to have the _mansum_ of the rectory for his residence, and the t.i.the of all sorts of things, except the t.i.the of corn. It is worth while to give the list of the t.i.thes allotted to the vicar, as an example once for all of what was included under the comprehensive name of small t.i.thes, viz. of wool, lambs, calves, pigs, and geese; pears, apples, and other fruits of trees and orchards; flax, hemp, fallen wood, wax, honey and cheese; besides the t.i.thes of a mill and a pigeon-house, and a money payment of 4_s._ 8_d._ a year, which probably was an existing composition for payment in kind or some small endowment for lights or what not. Then come some further stipulations. Seeing that the subst.i.tution of a poor vicar for a wealthy rector might affect the customary charities, the abbot was to pay 10_s._ a year to the parishioners to be distributed to the poor,[85] in compensation for any damage to them by means of the appropriation. Also the vicar was to pay a marc (13_s._ 4_d._) to the Bishop of London in lieu of certain profits which the see would lose by the new arrangement.[86]

St. Hugh of Lincoln is said to have settled the vicarage of Swynford, Lincolnshire, in 1200, an early example. His successor, William of Blois (1203-1209), as one of the earliest acts of his episcopate, required the Canons of Dunstable to endow a vicarage for their church of Pullokeshull with the altar dues, ten acres of land, and a third of the t.i.thes. From the register of his successor, Hugh of Wells (1209-1235), it appears that three hundred vicarages were ordained in his long episcopate. In 1220 he made a visitation of Dunstable Priory, and made the monks settle vicarages in five of their churches. The Pope gave his successor, Bishop Grostete (1235-1254), authority to visit the exempt[87] orders, and to make them endow vicarages for their churches.

And what the Bishops of Lincoln were doing in their vast diocese, other bishops were also doing all up and down the country; the episcopal registers abound in records of these "taxations," as they were called.[88]

We take two or three examples from the register of Walter de Gray, Archbishop of York, 1215-1256.

The name of Kirkby Malamdale shows that it was an ancient parish. A charter of King John confirmed the gift of it by Adam Fitz Adam to the canons of West Dereham in Norfolk, _quod suos in usus convertant proprios, salva tamen decenti et honorifica administratione ejus ecclesiae_. The abbot and canons appear, however, to have failed to fulfil the provisions stipulated for in the charter, for Archbishop Walter de Gray, in 1250, peremptorily summoned them "to appear before him on the morrow of the Lord's Day on which is sung _Laetare Jerusalem_ (fourth in Lent), wherever in his diocese he should happen to be, to show how the vicarage was endowed and under what authority, taking notice that whether they were present or not, if it should appear to be insufficient, he should proceed to augment it both by the apostolic authority (_i.e._ of the Apostolic See) and by his own."[89]

These arrangements were (as has been said) universally subject to future modification. For example, in settling the Vicarage of Gerneby (Granby), which was in the presentation of the Prior and Convent of Thurgarton, Notts, the archbishop describes what the vicar is to have, and concludes that the Prior and Convent are to have the residue, "unless it should appear that an augmentation is needed."[90] Appeals from vicars for an augmentation are not infrequent; for example, "Magister Orlandus, the perpetual vicar of Cunigbur (Conisborough), having urged against the prior and Convent of Lewes that his vicarage be taxed (= surveyed and valued and dealt with), we do so. The corn t.i.the, demesne lands and meadow of the church, and the tenants' rents to belong to the prior and convent; the lesser t.i.thes, etc., with two tofts, which we have a.s.signed for a manse, to belong to the vicar."[91]

In the ordination of the churches of Dalton, Urswick, Millum and Kirkby Ireleth belonging to Furness Abbey, the archbishop orders that Dalton shall be a vicarage of 15 marks, Urswick shall continue as it is, the mediety of Millum the abbot and convent shall retain _ad proprios usus_, and the other mediety of Millum and Kirkby and its chapels shall be at his own disposition; and that each mediety of Millum shall have a vicarage of 15 marks.

In the ordination of the churches belonging to the prior and canons of St.

Oswald of Nostell, he says, that in consideration of the poverty and religious and honourable life of the prior and canons, he gives, grants, and confirms to them in pure and perpetual alms a pension of 20 marks of silver a year from the church of South Kirkby, which is in their advowson; and a pension of 15 marks from Tikhill, which is in their advowson. A little later, making a new ordination of the churches of Tikhill, South Kirkby, Rowell (Rothwell), Bouelton (Bolton), Wyverthorpe, and the mediety of Mekesburgh (Mexborough), he orders, that in the chapel of Slayneton (in the parish of Tikhill), since it has a baptistery and a cemetery on account of its distance from the mother church, there shall be a perpetual vicar, who for the maintenance of himself and of the lights and other necessaries of the chapel, shall have the whole altarage of Slayneton, with the lands belonging to the said chapel. The Vicar of South Kirkby shall have with him a fellow-priest (_socium sacerdotum_). The Vicar of Rothwell, for the maintenance of himself and a fellow-priest, shall have all the altarage with a competent manse. He a.s.signs to the Church of York for ever the Church of Wyverthorpe (with the reservation of competent vicars), and both the mother church and the chapel of Helperthorpe; and he appoints that in the mother church of Wyverthorpe there shall be a perpetual resident priest vicar, with 24 marks a year, and in the chapel of Helperthorpe, on account of its distance from the mother church, there shall be a resident priest vicar, who for his sustenance and that of his clerks, that he may the more fully and honourably serve the said chapel, shall have 10 marks yearly.

In the ordination of the churches of Sherburn, Fenton, and St. Maurice, in York, which were appropriate to one of the prebendaries of York, he decrees that each shall have a perpetual vicar with cure of souls, who shall sustain the burden of their churches and their chapels; the Vicar of Sherburn to have the altarage of the church and its chapels, and pay to the canon 35 marks sterling a year; the Vicar of Fenton shall have all the altarage, paying 6 marks to the canon; and the Vicar of St. Maurice in Monkgate, York, shall pay 4 marks.

In the register of Bishop Brons...o...b.. of Exeter (1258-1280) there are frequent records of the a.s.signment of vicarages; in the majority of cases, the vicar is given a house and the small t.i.thes, and is required to sustain all due and customary charges.

The ordination of a vicarage in a parish in which a.s.sistant-chaplains had been used to be employed, often stipulated for their continued employment and maintenance by the vicar, and often made other conditions as to the efficient service of the church and parish. For example, in settling the vicarage of the prebendal church of Sutton, Lincolnshire, 1276, it was ordained that the vicar should be a.s.sisted in the service of the church by a deacon and a clerk; and that he should maintain six candles and a lamp in the chancel at his own cost.[92]

In ordaining a vicarage in St. Mary's Church in 1269, Bishop Brons...o...b.., of Exeter, requires that the vicar shall keep with him, at his own cost, two chaplains who shall serve the chapels in the parish.[93] Again, in 1283, in const.i.tuting a vicarage at Glasney, the same bishop requires that the vicar, by himself and by two chaplains maintained at his own cost, shall serve the mother church and its chapels as has been accustomed to be done.[94] In the following year the same bishop calls upon the Vicar of Harpford to maintain a chaplain to serve the Chapel of Fenotery.[95] Bishop Quivil, in 1283, requires the Vicar of St. Crantoch and St. Columb Minor to maintain a chaplain for the chapel at his own cost (Quivil's "Register," p. 371).

In 1327, Walter, Vicar of Yatton, Somerset, one of the prebends of the Cathedral of Bath and Wells, complained to Bishop Drokensford that he had not enough for the maintenance of himself and two chaplains. The prebend was worth a hundred marks and the vicarage ten. The bishop accordingly a.s.signed to the vicarage a portion of the t.i.the.[96] Other bishops'

registers, no doubt all of them, contain similar cases.[97]

In 1439, Archbishop Chichele remarks on the poverty of some vicarages, and the difficulty the vicars have in obtaining an augmentation of them from the rectors and proprietors of churches, and orders ordinaries to allow such vicars to sue _in forma pauperis_, and to take care that they have not less than twelve marks a year, if the whole value of the living will extend to so much.

On the other hand, there were sometimes appeals from the appropriators to the bishop to diminish the sum a.s.signed to the vicar. For example, the Rectory of Kettlewell, co. York, was given to Covenham Abbey, and a vicarage ordained in 1344, on the unusual condition of the a.s.signment to the vicar of the rectory house, and an annual payment of seven marks; in 1359 a new "taxation" of the vicarage was made, and the money payment reduced to five marks. The Rectory of Whalley was given to the Abbey of Stanlaw in 1284, and a vicarage ordained at the same time; in 1340, on the representation that the endowment of the vicarage was excessive, and that the religious community were involved in the costly work of building their new house and church at Whalley, the Bishop of Lichfield considerably reduced the endowment.

The monasteries did not always fulfil their obligations. Sometimes they seem, when a vacancy occurred in the vicarage, to have left it vacant, and served the parish by one of their own members, or in some cheaper way. To this abuse a const.i.tution of Othobon was directed, in 1268, which orders that the religious should present a vicar with competent endowment within six months, and, if not, the bishop should fill up the vacancy. The monks of Whalley transgressed in this way from the year c. 1356 onwards by serving the parish church by one of their number. The abuse, however, continued, and at length provoked the interference of the Legislature. In 4 Henry IV. the Commons pet.i.tioned the king that curates non-resident, should incur the penalties of praemunire (Rot. Parl.). In the same year a statute was made providing, _inter alia_, "that henceforth in every church appropried a secular person be ordained vicar, and that no religious be in any wise made vicar in any church so appropried." But, unfortunately, no penalty was attached to a neglect of the law, and therefore it had little or no effect. Again, in the 10th Henry VI., a bill was proposed by the two Houses of Parliament requiring that "in every church appropried a secular person be ordained perpetual vicar, and that if any religious henceforth suffer a vicarage to be for six months without a resident vicar, the said church shall be disappropried and disamortized for ever;" but, unhappily, the king refused his a.s.sent to it, and the evil continued.[98]

The inst.i.tution of vicarages, like everything else, was liable to abuses.

One of the abuses was where a rector inst.i.tuted a vicarage in his own rectory, thus reserving the greater part of the income of the benefice to himself as a sinecure, and devolving the labour and responsibility upon another who received the lesser share. Thus, in the Lichfield Register, in 1328, the Rector of Walton was allowed to have a curate (vicar) on condition of setting aside for him a house in the parish, the oblations at the altar and at marriages and churchings, the t.i.thes of a hamlet, and herbage of church and chapel yards; the curate was to find chaplains for the chapels, and a deacon at 20_s._ a year for the church.[99]

Another abuse, forbidden by the Synod of Oxford, in 1223, was for the parson of a parish to change himself into a vicar, and dispose of the rectory to another. This synod also ordained that vicars should serve the cure in person, should be in priests' orders or proceed to them immediately, and that every presentee should make oath that he had not given or promised anything or entered into any agreement on account of his presentation.