Parish life in mediæval England

by Francis Aidan Gasquet

CHAPTER III

THE PARISH CHURCH (continued)

ROOD SCREEN AND PULPIT. HABERTON CHURCH

In the previous chapter the attention of the reader was directed mainly to the relations of priest and people to their parish church. The division of obligation for the upkeep of chancel and nave by general law and custom between the parson and his parishioners has been stated and explained, and the devotion of the people to the work of maintaining and beautifying God’s house has been illustrated by various examples. In this chapter it is proposed to speak of the various parts of the church itself; and first of the chancel, which was that portion of the sacred edifice between the altar and the nave, so called because it was separated from the rest of the church by railings (cancelli). Frequently in England there was at this point a screen supporting a figure of our Lord upon the cross, with images of Mary and John on either side, and from this called the “Rood Screen.” The size of the chancel naturally varied according to the importance of the church, but it may be said to have generally included some stalls or seats for the assistant clergy and the parish clerks. When, as in cathedral and conventual churches, this portion was made larger, it was known as the choir (chorus), from the band of singers, who were originally accommodated in the space between the people in the nave and the clergy in the presbyterium, or were grouped round the altar, or perhaps more frequently in an apse behind it. In process of time this body of clergy migrated to more convenient positions in the choir. As already pointed out, the care of the chancel by law belonged to the rector or vicar, and a portion of the tithe received by him was supposed to be devoted to this purpose. The chancel was reserved entirely for the use of the clergy and for those who ministered at the altar or took part in the ecclesiastical chant. The prohibition against lay people sitting in that part of the church was not unfrequently a cause of difficulty. Simon Langham, of Ely, in his synodical decrees of 1364, prohibits the practice.

“Lay people,” he says, “are not to stand or sit amongst the clerks in the chancel during the celebration of divine service, unless it is done to show reverence (to some person), or for some other reasonable and obvious reason; but this is allowed for the patrons of the churches only.”

A letter on the subject, addressed to one of his clergy by the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, somewhere in the fourteenth century, shows that it was difficult sometimes to enforce this law.

“Not only the decrees of the holy fathers,” he says, “but the approved existing customs of the Church order that the place in which the clerks sing and serve God according to their offices be divided by screens from that in which the laity devoutly pray. In this way the nave of the church, which is called the Sancta Sanctorum, is alone to be open to lay people, in order that, in the time of divine service, clerics be not mixed up with lay people, and more especially with women, nor have communication with them, for in this way devotion may easily be diminished.

“Nevertheless,” the bishop continues in this letter, written to a rector, “in your church report says that some laymen have taken the seats of the clergy in your chancel and still obstinately refuse to give them up. If this be so, the names are to be published from the pulpit, and if after that they still persist, the delinquents are to be punished according to the statutes.”

ST. MARTIN’S MASS, SHOWING DISPOSITION OF ALTAR FURNITURE—FOURTEENTH CENTURY

The Altar.—The most prominent feature of the chancel, and indeed of the whole church, as being the very purpose for which the entire building was erected, and the centre round which all the services were performed, was the high altar (summum, or majus altare). “It is that,” says the gloss upon a constitution of Archbishop Winchelsea, “to honour which the church is dedicated,” and it is placed in the choir as in the most solemn part of the building. Originally, if we may judge from existing illuminations, the altar in English churches stood a little away from the eastern wall of the church, and had over it a canopy supported on pillars, between which curtains were suspended on rods, and drawn during the celebration of the sacred mysteries. Sometimes, as at West Grinstead, for example, behind the altar in the wall of the church was an ambry, or cupboard, to contain the consecrated vessels and the missal, etc., for Mass. Over the altar was generally suspended some covering or canopy as a manifestation of the reverence due to the place of Sacrifice, and the churchwardens’ accounts contain frequent mention of expenses to repair and renew this cælatura; for by custom, if not by law, this was done at the cost of the parish. Under this canopy was suspended a vessel of ivory or silver, covered by a cone-like tabernacle or by a silken veil, hanging frequently from a crown of metal, in which was the reserved Blessed Sacrament. To this ancient practice Becon, in The Displaying of the Popish Mass, alludes, when he says, “Ye go unto the midst of the altar, and looking up to the pyx, where ye think your God to be, and making solemn courtesy, like womanly Joan, ye say the Gloria in Excelsis.” And again, “Ye make solemn courtesy to your little idol that hangeth over the altar.” This was one of the practices which were done away by the changes under Edward VI., and which the insurgents in Devon, in their fourth article, demanded should be restored: “We will have the Sacrament hang over the altar, and there to be worshipped.”

PYX, AND CANOPY, OPEN

In the wills of the fifteenth century we have instances of rich stuffs and silks being left for the covering of the Sacred Vessel, and of gold and jewels for the pix itself. In a will of Elizabeth Bigod, for instance, is the following item: “To the monastery of Croxton my chain of gold to make a pyx for the Sacrament of the altar, and there to be graven about the said pyx this: Abbot and convent of the same place, pray for the soul of Dame Elizabeth Bigod.” In 1496 “Mr. Doctor Hatclyff, parson,” of St. Mary-at-Hill in London, gave into the hands of the wardens “a pyx clothe for the high auter, of sipers frenged with gold, with knoppis of golde and sylke of Spaynesshe makyng.” And at the same time two other coverings were made for this pyx; one of “green sylk and red, with knoppis sylver and gylt with corners goyng, of Mistress Duklyng’s gyffte,” and the other “of red velvelt with three crowns of laton.” How carefully these presents were preserved may be judged by an entry of 2d. in the accounts of 1513—seventeen years later—“for mending the pyx cloth that Mistress Duklyng gave the High Altar.”

PYX CANOPY, CLOSED

The frontal of the altar made of silk or velvet, or in some instances of metal with jewels, was by law to be found by the parishioners; and numerous gifts are recorded of rich stuffs and velvets to vest the altar with becoming honour. The same in practice may be said of the other ornaments, which, although perhaps in strict law the parishioners were not bound to provide, they nevertheless did find very generally and very generously. The fee payable to the bishop for the consecration of an altar after rebuilding or reconstruction is found as an item of expense in the accounts of the parish wardens. So, too, are the more constant fees, for the blessing of altar cloths and other altar linen and the hallowing of vestments, paid to the parson by the parish, as well as the occasional payment to a bishop for the consecration of the parish chalice.

On the altar between the two big candlesticks stood the crucifix. The author of Dives and Pauper explains why this should be upon the table of every altar in the following dialogue:—

“When a priest sayeth his Mass at the altar, commonly there is an image before him, and commonly it is a crucifix, stone, or tree, or portrayed”—(that is, of course, in stone, wood, or painting).

“Dives.—Why more a crucifix than another thing?

“Pauper.—For every Mass saying is a special mind-making of Christ’s passion.

“Dives.—The skyle is good; say forth.

“Pauper.—Before the image the priest says his Mass and maketh the highest prayer that Holy Church can desire for salvation of the quick and the dead; he holds up his hands, he leneth (i.e. bows down), he kneels, and all the worship he can do, he does. Overmore, he offereth up the highest sacrifice and the best offering that any heart can devise; that is Christ, God’s Son from Heaven, under the form of bread and wine. All this worship doth the priest at Mass afore the thing, and I hope there is no man nor woman so lewd that he will say that the priest singeth his Mass nor maketh his prayer, nor offers up God’s Son, Christ Himself, to the thing.

“Dives.—God forbid.”

On the altar, besides the two big candlesticks and the crucifix, were, as we learn from some inventories, three smaller candlesticks for low Mass—two to hold the tapers lighted during the whole service, and one for that which was ordered to be burning during the Canon, or more solemn part of the Mass. Most frequently hangings were suspended at the back and sides of the altar, and this was a favourite form of gift left to the churches in the wills of ladies in the fifteenth century. In some accounts and inventories mention is made of an “altar beam,” evidently used for the purpose of placing candles upon it, and possibly also images and relics. Whether it was behind the altar, or supported by columns in front, or serving to bear up the canopy, is not certain. Canon Scott Robertson, writing about mediæval Folkestone, suggests that it was at the back of the altar, and that it was somewhat similar to what Gervase described at Canterbury in the twelfth century.

“At the eastern horns of the altar were two wooden columns, highly ornamented with gold and silver, which supported a great beam, the ends of which beam rested upon the capitals of the two pillars. The beam placed across the church and decorated with gold supported the Majesty of the Lord, the images of St. Dunstan and St. Elphege, also seven shrines, decorated with gold and silver and filled with the relics of many saints. Between the columns stood a cross, gilt, in the centre of which were sixty transparent crystals in a circle.”

Two other features very general in the south side of every chancel must be noted—the sedilia, or seats for the ministers at the altar, and the piscina, or place where the vessels or cruets of wine and water were placed for use at Mass, and which was furnished with a basin, from which the water used to wash the priest’s hands, etc., could drain away into the earth of the consecrated cemetery. Originally the word piscina meant, of course, a “fish-pond,” but came to mean, even in classical writers of the silver age, a basin or bath.

SHAFT PISCINA, TREBOROUGH

DOUBLE PISCINA, COWLINGE, SUFFOLK

In the north wall of English churches, not unfrequently there was a niche for the lamp, which was always kept burning when the Blessed Sacrament was reserved on the altar. A good example of such a niche was discovered some years ago during the restoration of the parish church of West Grinstead. The smoke from the burning lamp in this instance had been allowed to escape by means of some loose stones leading to the eaves of the chancel wall, and when discovered the black of the smoke was still upon the upper stones of the niche.

Lastly, in recalling the chief features of a pre-Reformation chancel, what is called in the Constitution of Archbishop Winchelsea “the principal image” must not be forgotten. This image was that of the saint or saints, to whom the church was dedicated, and it was one of the ornaments which the parish was specially called upon to provide. From the wording of the law it might have a place anywhere in the chancel, but probably it would have stood in a niche on one side of the altar; or, in the case of there being two patrons, the statues would have been placed on either side.

Frequent mention is made in wills of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries of the desire of testators to beautify the chancels of the churches in which during life they had worshipped. Thus William Graystoke, of Wakefield, left to the church there in 1508 “a cloth of Arras work, sometime hanging in his hall”: £10 “to the stalling of the said church: two pairs of censers, and £20 for new choir books.” Another testator, Thomas Wood, of Hull, who had been a draper and sheriff and mayor of his city, on his death bequeathed to Trinity Church

“one of my best beds of Arreys work, upon condition that after my decease I will that the said bed shall yearly cover my grave at my Dirge and Masse, done in the said Trinity Church with note for evermore; and also I will that the same bed be hung yearly in the said church at the feast of St. George the Martyr, among the other worshipfulle beds; and when the said beds be taken down and delivered, then I will that the same bed be re-delivered into the vestry and there to remain with my cope of gold.”

Another testator, in 1504, this time a priest, and the rector of Lowthorpe in Yorkshire, leaves to the church of Catton a bed-cover with big figures on it, to lie before the high altar on the chief feasts; and another bed-cover with the figure of a lion, to lie before the high altar of Lowthorpe, on all the great festivals.

OUTSIDE ENTRANCE TO ROOD-LOFT, ST. JOHN’S, WINCHESTER

In some instances legacies are left to beautify the existing altar, to have paintings made for it, or images carved upon it. In one case a man leaves a notable sum for those days to have two paintings executed abroad to adorn the chancel. A very curious bequest was made to the church of Holy Trinity, Hull, in 1502, by Thomas Golsman, an alderman of the city. “I leave,” he says, “£10 in honour of the Sacrament, to make at the high altar angels to descend and ascend to the roof of the church at the Elevation of the Body and Blood of Christ, as they have at Lynne;” that is, the angels descend until the end of the singing of the Ne nos inducas in tentationem of the Pater noster, when they ascend. The chancel was very frequently, if not generally in England, divided from the nave by the rood with its screen. The rood, meaning a gallows, or cross or crucifix, probably consisted originally of the crucifix, which stood over the entrance into the choir, while the screen was the developed low walls which shut in the chancel, in or on which on either side were the pulpits or ambos, from which the Epistle and Gospel were chanted in solemn masses. The “rood-beam,” or “rood-screen,” or “rood-loft,” was probably the introduction of the twelfth century. In its simplest form of a “beam,” the rood supported a great crucifix, which was often in the wills of the fifteenth century and other documents called the Summus Crucifix; and generally the two figures of the Blessed Virgin and St. John were represented as standing at the foot of the cross, in reference to John xix. 26. Besides this, lights were frequently placed upon the beam, and Ducange, under the word Trabes, gives an example of a mediæval writer who mentions fifty candles as placed on the “rood-beam.” In the form of its highest development the rood took the shape of “the Screen” as seen in many of our English cathedrals, or in French churches under the name of Jubé. In parish churches in England it was usually called a “rood-loft,” and took the shape of a light screen, generally of wood, supporting a wooden gallery, on which was the great crucifix, etc., and to which access was obtained by a flight of steps, often in one of the piers of the chancel arch and entered by a door generally from within the church, but certainly sometimes from without.

SCREEN. WITHYCOMBE. SOMERSET

The work of carving and ornamenting the rood-lofts in the parish churches was constant up to the very eve of the Reformation, and bequests are very frequently met with in the wills of that period for this end, and to keep up the rood-lights. At St. Mary-at-Hill, for instance, in 1496-7 there are a set of accounts headed “costes paid for the pyntyng of the Roode, with karvyng and odir costes also”; and amongst the items is “to the karvare for makyng of 3 dyadems—and for mendyng the Roode, the cross, the Mary and John, the crowne of thorn, with all other fawtes, Summa 10 shillings”; and yet another item was for the painting and gilding. Towards these and other expenses of “setlyng up of the Roode” the parishioners contributed in a special collection. The legacy for beautifying and completing the rood at Leverton has already been noticed. To the “Rood” in one parish church a lady in her will leaves “my heart of gold with a diamond in the midst.” In 1510, at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, £10 was left “towards making a new rood-loft”; and the work was still apparently going on in 1516, when another donor left £38 for the same object. Lastly, in the churchwardens’ accounts of St. Edmund’s, Salisbury, there are entered expenses for the light kept burning before the rood; at which place, for example, in 1480 the candlemaker was specially employed in making “the rood-light.” A curious entry in the accounts of the parish church of St. Petrock’s, Exeter, shows how this light at the rood was kept up: “Ordinans made by the eight men for gathering to the wax silver for the light kept before the high cross, which says, that every man and his wife to the wax shall pay yerely one peny, and every hired servant that takes wages a half peny, and every other persons at Easter, taking no wages, a farthing.” In some places, as, for example, Cratfield, there was a “rowell,” or wheel or corona of candles, kept burning on feast-days before the rood.

The special destruction of the roods of the English churches in the early stages of the Reformation under Edward VI., and again under Elizabeth, causes many to think that the reverence shown to this representation of our Crucified Lord, probably the most prominent object visible in the churches, was not only excessive, but mistaken in its kind. If that were so, it must at least be allowed that the Church’s teaching on the matter was clear and definite. The author of Dives and Pauper, for example, says that the representations of the Crucified Christ—

“ben ordeyned to steryn men’s mynds to thinke on Crist’s Incarnation and on hys passyon and on his levyng ... for oft man is more sterryed be syght than be heryng or redyng—also thei ben ordeyned to ben a tokne and a boke to the lewyd people that thei mon redyn in ymagery and peyntour that clerkes redyn in boke.”

Then, after describing what thoughts the sight of the crucifix should bring to the mind of the beholder, Pauper goes on—

“In this manner I pray thee read thy boke and fall down to the ground and thank thy God that would do so much for thee, and worship him above all things—not the stock, stone nor tree, but him that died on the tree for thy sin and thy sake: so that thou kneel if thou wilt afore the image, not to the image; do thy worship afore the image, afore the thing, not to the thing; make thy prayer afore the thing, not to the thing, for it seeth thee not, heareth thee not, understandeth thee not. Make thy offering if thou wilt afore the thing, but not to the thing; make thy pilgrimage not to the thing nor for the thing, for it may not help thee, but to him and for him that the thing representeth. For if thou do it for the thing or to the thing thou doest idolatry.”

We now pass from the chancel to the body of the church. The nave and aisles—if there were any—were in a special way under the care of the wardens chosen by the people. There seems to be little doubt that very generally, although perhaps not universally, the walls of the parish churches were painted with subjects illustrating Bible history, the lives of the saints, or the teaching of the sacramental doctrine of the Church. In the same way, although of course in a lesser degree, the windows were often filled with glass stained with pictures conveying the same lessons to the young and the unlettered. These were, as they were called, “the books of the poor and the illiterate,” who, by looking at these representations, could learn the story of God’s dealings with mankind, and could draw encouragement to strive manfully in God’s service, from the example of the deeds of God’s chosen servants.

The work of beautifying the parish churches by wall decorations and painted windows was the delight of the parishioners themselves, for it all helped to make their churches objects both of beauty and interest. To take but one example: the church of St. Neots possesses many stained-glass windows, placed in their present positions between 1480 and 1530. The inscriptions inserted below the lights testify that most of them were paid for by individual members of the parish, but in the case of three it appears that groups of people joined together to beautify their church. Thus, a Latin label below one says that “the youths of the parish of St. Neots” erected the window in 1528; a second says that, the following year, the young maidens emulated the example of their brothers; and the “mothers” of the parish finished the third window in 1530.

Besides the high altar in the chancel, there were, from early times, few churches that did not have one or more, and sometimes many smaller or side altars. These were dedicated to various saints, and from the fifteenth century, and even earlier, they were used as chantries or guild chapels. The priests serving them were supported by the annuity left by some deceased benefactor to the parish church, or by a stipend paid by the guild to the priest who acted as its chaplain, or again by the private generosity of some benefactor. These chapels were frequently richly decorated, furnished with hangings, and supplied with their own vestments and altar furniture by their founders or by the guilds that supported them. To take an example: In 1471 an indenture or agreement was made between Mr. William Vowelle, master of the town of Wells, and the two wardens of our Lady’s altar in St. Cuthbert’s Church, and John Stowell, freemason, for making the front of the Jesse at the said altar. The work was to cost £40 (probably more than £500 of our money), and the mason was to be paid 40s. a week, with £5 to be kept in hand till the completion of the work. To take another example: at Heydon, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, the south aisle was dedicated to St. Catherine, and there is an item of expense in the churchwardens’ accounts showing the existence of a painted altar, an image of the saint, and a kneeling-desk in front of it.

In the accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, where there were many such side chapels, there is an order of the wardens, made in 1518, “that every priest shall sing with his founder’s vestments, and that their chest is to be at the altar’s end, next where they sing.” In some of these small chapels there were statues, before which lights were kept burning by the devotion of various members, or groups of members, of a parish. Thus at Henley-on-Thames there were seven chapels and two altars in the nave, besides the high altar in the chancel. Lights were kept burning before the rood, the altar of Jesus, and the altar of the Holy Trinity. In 1482 the warden and the commonalty ordained that the chaplain in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary say Mass every day at six o’clock, and the chantry priest of St. Katherine’s chapel at eight o’clock. In these accounts are entered the receipts and expenses of the Guild of the Holy Name, and amongst the rest is an entry “for painting the image of Jesus and gilding it.” The most curious entry, however, in this book of accounts is that of a gift to secure the perpetual maintenance of “our Lady’s light.” This was a set of jewels, given to the churchwardens in 1518 by Lady Jones. They were apparently very fine, and were to be let out by the wardens for the use of brides at weddings. The sum charged for the hire was to be 3s. 4d. for anyone outside the town, and 20d. for any burgess of Henley. Portions of what is called “the Bridegeer” were let at lower figures; but in one year the wardens received as much as 46s. 6d. from this source of income. At the Reformation the jewels were sold for £10 6s. 8d.

CORONA OF LIGHTS, ST. MARTIN DE TROYES—FIFTEENTH CENTURY

The floors of our churches, until late in the fifteenth century, were not generally so encumbered with pews or sittings, as they became later on, but were open spaces covered with rushes. The church accounts show regular expenses for straw, rushes, or, on certain festivals, box and other green stuff wherewith to cover the pavement. This carpet was renewed two or three times a year, and one almost shudders to think of the state of unpleasant dirt revealed on those periodical cleanings. Some accounts show regular payments made to “the Raker” on these occasions, whilst the purchase, in 1469, of “three rat-traps” for the church of St. Michael’s, Cornhill, suggests that the rush covering must have been a happy hunting-ground for rats, mice, and suchlike vermin. In some places, however, mats were provided by the wardens, as at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, where, in 1538, 4s. 4d. was paid to provide “matts for the parishioners to kneel on when they reverenced their Maker.” So too, at St. Mary-at-Hill, London, there was a mat in the confession pew, and others were provided for the choristers, whilst we read of the expenditure of 4d. “for three mats of wikirs, boght for prestis and clerkis.”

The provision of fixed seats in parish churches, for the use of the people generally, was a late introduction. The practice of allowing seats to be appropriated to individuals was in early days distinctly discouraged. In 1287, for instance, Bishop Quevil, of Exeter, in his synodical Constitutions, condemns the practice altogether.

“We have heard,” he says, “that many quarrels have arisen amongst members of the same parish, two or three of whom have laid claim to one seat. For the future, no one is to claim any sitting in the church as his own, with the exception of noble people and the patrons of churches. Whoever first comes to church to pray, let him take what place he wishes in which to pray.”

This, of course, refers to a few seats or benches, and not to regular sittings or pews, which were begun to be set up in the English churches only in the middle of the fifteenth century, and in some not till late in the sixteenth. At Bramley church, for example, the wardens did not begin “to seat” the nave before 1538; at Folkestone some pews were in existence as early as in 1489; in 1477-8 the wardens of St. Edmund’s parish church, Salisbury, assigned certain seats to individuals at a yearly rent of 6d.; and even before that time, in 1455, seats were rented at St. Ewen’s church, Bristol. Apparently, once introduced, the churchwardens soon found out the advantages of being able to derive income from the pew or seat rents, especially as from some of the accounts it is evident that the seats were first made with money obtained at special collections for the purpose, as at St. Mary’s the Great, Cambridge, in 1518. In the first instance, apparently, the seats were assigned only to the women-folk, but the great convenience was, no doubt, quickly realised by all, and the use became general after a very short time.

BACKLESS BENCHES, CAWSTON, NORFOLK

FONT, ST. MICHAEL’S, SUTTON BONNINGTON, NOTTS

One of the most conspicuous objects in every parish church was its Font. This stood at the west end of the church, and frequently in a place set apart as a baptistery. From the thirteenth century it was ordered, in the Constitutions of St. Edmund of Canterbury, that every font must be made of stone or some other durable material, and that it was to be covered and locked, so as to keep the baptismal water pure, and prevent any one except the priest from meddling with what had been consecrated on Easter Eve with Holy Oils and with solemn ceremony. Great care was enjoined on the clergy to keep the Blessed Sacrament, the Holy Oils, and the baptismal water safe under lock and key. For, says the gloss on this ordinance in Lyndwood, keys exist so that things may be kept securely; and he that is negligent about the keys would appear to be negligent about what the keys are supposed to guard. By the ordinary law of the Church a font could only be set up in a parish church; and in the case of chapels of ease, and other places in a parochial district, where it was lawful to satisfy other ecclesiastical obligations, for baptism the child had generally to be brought to the mother church. The instances in which permission was granted for the erection of any font in a chapel are very rare, and leave was never given without the consent of the rector of the parish church. Thus a grant was made in the fourteenth century to Lord Beauchamp to erect a font for baptisms in his chapel at Beauchamp, provided that the rector agreed that it would not harm his parochial rights.

HOLY WATER STOUP, WOOTTON COURTNEY, SOMERSET

Leading into the church very generally there was a covered approach, greater or less in size, called the porch, from the Latin porta, “a door or gate.” This was usually at the south side of the church, and sometimes it was built in two stories, the upper one being used as a priest’s chamber, with a window looking into the church. In some cases this chamber was used as a safe repository for the parish property and muniments. In the lower porch, at the side of the church door, was the stoup, usually in a stone niche, with a basin to contain the Holy Water. With this people were taught to cross themselves before entering God’s house, the water being a symbol of the purity of soul with which they ought to approach the place where His Majesty dwelt. The mutilated remains of those niches, destroyed when the practice was forbidden in the sixteenth century, may still frequently be seen in the porches of pre-Reformation churches. Sometimes it would seem that there was attached to the water stoup a sprinkler to be used for the Blessed Water—as, for example, at Wigtoft, a village church near Boston, in Lincolnshire, where the churchwardens purchased “a chain of iron with a Holy Water stick at the south door.”

The land round about the church was also in the custody of the people’s wardens. It was called the Cemetery, from the word cœmeterium, “a dormitory,” it being in the Christian sense the sleeping-place of the dead who had died in the Lord. It was likewise spoken of as the “church-yard,” or under the still more happy appellation of “God’s acre.” From an early period attempts were made from time to time to put a stop to the practice of holding fairs in the cemetery, or to prevent anything being sold in the porches of churches or in the precincts. Bishops prohibited the practice by Constitutions, and imposed all manner of spiritual penalties for disobedience. By the Synod of Exeter, in 1267, Bishop Quevil ordered that all the cemeteries in his diocese should be enclosed securely, and that no animal was to be allowed pasturage on the grass that grew in them, and even the clergy were warned of the impropriety of permitting their cattle to graze in “the holy places, which both civil and canon law ordered to be respected.” For this reason, the bishop continues, “all church cemeteries must be guarded from all defilement, both because they are holy (in themselves) and because they are made holy by the relics of the Saints.”

The reason for this belief in the holy character of cemeteries is set out clearly in a letter of Bishop Edyndon, in 1348, where he says that

“the Catholic Church spread over the world believes in the resurrection of the bodies of the dead. These have been sanctified by the reception of the Sacraments, and are consequently buried, not in profane places, but in specially enclosed and consecrated cemeteries, or in churches, where with due reverence they are kept, like the relics of the Saints, till the day of the resurrection.”

The trees that grew within the precincts of the cemetery were at times a fertile cause of dispute between the priest and his people. Were they the property of the parson or of the parish? And could they be cut down at the will of either? In the thirteenth century, when the charge of looking after the churchyards was regarded as weighing chiefly on the clergy, it was considered that to repair the church—either chancel or nave—the trees growing in them might be cut. Otherwise, as they had been planted for the purpose of protecting the churches from damage by gales, they were to be left to grow and carry out the end for which they had been placed there. Archbishop Peckham had previously laid down the law that, although the duty of keeping the enclosure of the cemetery rested upon the parishioners, what grew upon holy ground being holy, the clergy had the right to regard the grass and trees and all that grew in the cemetery as rightly belonging to them. In cutting anything, however, the archbishop warned the clergy to remember that these things were intended to ornament and protect God’s house, and that nothing should be cut without reason. However the question of the ownership of the trees growing in churchyards may have been regarded by the parishioners, there are evidences to show that they did not hesitate to adorn their burial-places with trees and shrubs when needed. At St. Mary’s, Stutterton, for instance, in 1487, the churchwardens purchased seven score of plants from one John Folle, of Kyrton, and paid for “expenses of settyng of ye plants, 16d.”

The sacred character of consecrated cemeteries was recognized by the law. Bracton says that “they are free and absolute from all subjection, as a sacred thing, which is only amongst the goods of God—whatever is dedicated and consecrated to God with rites and by the pontiffs, never to return afterward to any private uses.” And amongst these he names “cemeteries dedicated, whether the dead are buried therein or not, because if those places have once been dedicated and consecrated to God, they ought not to be converted again to human uses.” Indeed, “even if the dead are buried there without the place having been dedicated or consecrated, it will still be a sacred place.”

The ceremony by which the mediæval churchyard was consecrated was performed by the bishop of the diocese, or some other bishop, by his authority and in his name. The fees were to be paid by the parish; and the parochial accounts give examples of this expense having been borne by the wardens. Thus at Yatton, in 1486, the churchyard was greatly enlarged, and, when the new wall had been constructed, the bishop came over and consecrated the ground. The parish entertained him and his ministers at dinner, and paid the episcopal fee, which was 33s. 4d. One of the expenses of this ceremony, noted down by the churchwardens, was, “We paid the old friar that was come to sing for the parish, 8d.”

In the churchyards thus dedicated to God were set up stone crosses or crucifixes, as a testimony to the faith and the hope in the merits of Christ’s death, of those who lay there waiting for the resurrection. The utmost reverence for these sacred places was ever enjoined upon all. Children, according to Myrc, were to be well instructed on this point—

“Also wyth-ynn chyrche and seyntwary

Do rygt thus as I the say.

Songe and cry and such fare

For to stynt thou schalt not spare;

Castynge of axtre and eke of ston

Sofere hem there to use non;

Bal and bares and such play

Out of chyrcheyorde put away.”

And the penitent soul was to inquire of itself whether it had done its duty in ever offering a prayer for the dead when passing through a cemetery—

“Hast thou I-come by chyrcheyorde

And for ye dead I-prayed no worde?”

In concluding this brief survey of the material parts of pre-Reformation churches, it is impossible not mentally to contrast the picture of these sacred places, as revealed in the warden’s accounts, the church inventories and other documents, with the bare and unfurnished buildings they became after what Dr. Jessopp has called “the great pillage.” Even the poorest and most secluded village sanctuary was in the early times overflowing with wealth and objects of beauty, which loving hands had gathered to adorn God’s house, and to make it, as far as their means would allow, the brightest spot in their little world, and beyond doubt the pride of all their simple, true hearts. This is no picture of our imagination, but sober reality, for the details can be all pieced together from the records which survive. Just as a shattered stained-glass window may with care be put together again, and may help us to understand something of what it must have been in the glory of its completeness, so the fragments of the story of the past, which can be gathered together after the destruction and decay of the past centuries, are capable of giving some true, though perhaps poor, idea of the town and village parish churches in pre-Reformation days. “There is not a parish church in the Kingdom,” writes a Venetian traveller of England in 1500,—“there is not a parish church in the Kingdom so mean as not to possess crucifixes, candlesticks, censers, patens, and cups of silver.” What is most remarkable about the documents that have come down to us, and which are mere chance survivals amid the general wreck, is the consistent story they tell of the universal and intelligent interest taken by the people of every parish as a whole in beautifying and supporting their churches. In a real and true sense, which may be perhaps strange to us in these later times, the parish church was their church. Their life, as will be seen in subsequent chapters, really centred round it, and they one and all were intimately connected with its management. The building was their care and their pride; the articles of furniture and plate, the vestments and banners and hangings, all had their own well-remembered story, and were regarded, as in truth they were, as the property of every man, woman, and child of the particular village or district.