VILLAGE CHURCHES.
We find very few monasteries founded after the twelfth century; the great majority, which rose through the kingdom "like exhalations," were founded between the eleventh and twelfth centuries; and in all county histories and authentic records, we scarce find a parish church, with the name of its resident rector recorded, before the twelfth century. The first notice of any village church occurs in the Saxon Chronicle, after the death of the conqueror, A.D. 1087. They are called, there, "upland churches." "Then the king did as his father bade him ere he was dead; he then distributed treasures for his father's soul to each monastery that was in England; to some ten marks of gold, to some six; to each upland church sixty pence."—Ingram's Saxon Chronicle. Gibson's note on the passage is, "unicuique ecclesiae rurali." These rare rural churches, after the want of them was felt, and after the lords of manors built, endowed, and presented to them, spread so rapidly, that in 1200 in almost every remote parish there was an "upland church," if not a resident minister, as at this day.
The convents, however, still remained in their pristine magnificence, though declining in purity of morals and in public estimation. In place of new foundations of this august description, the—
"Village parson's modest mansion rose,"
gracefully shewing its unostentatious front, and, at length, humbly adorning almost all the scattered villages of the land.—Bowles's History of Bremhill.
It was pleasantly observed by a sentimental jockey, who lost by a considerable length the first race he ever rode, "I'll never ride another race as long as I live. The riders are the most selfish, narrow minded creatures on the face of the earth. They kept riding and galloping as fast as they could, and never had once the kindness or civility to stop for me."—Penelope.