Parish Priests and Their People in the Middle Ages in England

by Edward Lewes Cutts

e have seen how the bishops who introduced the Christian Faith into the heptarchic kingdoms established themselves and their clergy as religious communities, on the lands, and with the means which the kings gave them, built their churches and schools, and made them the centres of their evangelizing work. The next stage in the work was the multiplication of similar centres. The princes and ealdormen who were in subordinate authority over subdivisions of a kingdom would have two motives for desiring to have such establishments beside them. First they had very likely in some cases been the patrons of a temple or an idol, and a priest, near their principal residence, and would desire to maintain their influence over their dependents and neighbours by keeping up a similar place of religious worship for them. Secondly, as enlightened men and zealous converts, they would be glad to have near them some of these new teachers of religion and civilization, and to establish one of these centres of light and leading to the neighbouring country. The bishops also obtained grants of land from the king in suitable places, in order to found on them new centres of evangelization.

Thus in Kent, Ethelbert founded the monastery of SS. Peter and Paul, which is better known to us as St. Augustine’s (A.D. 603), and his son Eadbald founded an offshoot from it at Dover (630). In 633 the latter king founded a nunnery at Folkestone as a provision for his daughter Eanswitha, who became its first abbess. And when, in the same year, his sister Ethelburga arrived as a refugee from Northumbria, he made provision for her by the gift of an estate at Lyminge, where the widowed queen founded a monastery. On the death of Earconbert, 664, Sexburga, his widow, built for herself a nunnery in the Isle of Sheppy. Sexburga was succeeded at Sheppy by her daughter Eormenhilda, and she by her daughter Werburga. Eormenburga, granddaughter of King Eadbald, built a nunnery, of which she was the first abbess, in the Isle of Thanet; and was succeeded by her daughter St. Mildred. Lastly, King Egbert, in 669, gave Reculver to his mass-priest, Bass, that he might build a minster thereon.

In Northumbria, King Edwin built a church at York. Oswald gave Aidan the Isle of Lindisfarne as the site of a religious house to be a centre of missionary work in Northumbria. Aidan encouraged Hieu, the first nun of the Northumbrian race, to organize a small nunnery on the north bank of the Wear, and to remove thence to Hartlepool; there she was succeeded by Hilda, the grand-niece of King Edwin, who subsequently removed to Whitby. Besides organizing that famous double house, Hilda founded Hackness and several other cells on estates of the abbey. The nunnery at Coldingham was founded by Ebba, sister of King Oswald, who was herself the first abbess. King Oswy, on the eve of battle with Penda (655), vowed, in case of victory, to dedicate his infant daughter Elfleda to God, and to give twelve estates to build monasteries. In fulfilment of his vow, he gave Elfleda into the charge of Hilda, at Hartlepool (655), and gave six estates in Bernicia and six in Deira, each of ten families (= hides of land), of which probably Whitby was one, and perhaps Ripon and Hexham were others. Benedict Biscop, a man of noble if not royal descent, received grants of land from King Egfrid to found his famous monastery at Wearmouth in 674, and eleven years later (685) at Jarrow. King Oswy built a monastery at Gilling to atone for the crime of the slaughter of his brother there (642), that prayer might be daily offered up for the souls of both the slain and the slayer. King Ethelwald, son of Oswald and sub-king of Deira, gave Bishop Cedd of the East Saxons a site for a monastery at Lastingham, Yorkshire, that he might himself sometimes resort to it for prayer, and might be buried there. Cedd left the monastery, on his death, to his brother Chadd, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield. Wulfhere, King of Mercia, gave Chadd fifty hides of land for the endowment of his abbey at Barton-on-Humber.

In the fen country of the Girvii, between Mercia and East Anglia, the two kings, Peada of Mercia, and Oswy of the East Angles, concurred in the foundation of a monastery at Medeshamsted (Peterborough, 655), and this was followed by the foundation of Croyland (716) and Thorney (682). When Etheldreda, the daughter of Anna, King of the East Angles, and virgin wife of Egfrid of Northumbria, at length obtained her husband’s leave to enter upon the religious life, she built herself a double monastery on her own estate in the Isle of Ely (673). On her death, she was succeeded as abbess by her sisters Sexburga, Eormenhilda and Werburga, each of whom had previously been abbesses at Sheppy.

Among the West Saxons, a small community of Irish monks, at Malmesbury (675), was enlarged by Aldhelm, a man of royal extraction, into a great centre of religion and learning; and he and Bishop Daniel founded a number of small monasteries, as Nutcelle (700) and Bradfield, up and down that kingdom.[26]

Saxon Church at Bradford-on-Avon.
(Probably one of Bishop Aldhelm’s churches.)

The four priests whom Peada, the son of Penda, on his conversion, took back with him from Northumbria to his Princedom of the Middle Angles, lived together in community for some years, till, by the death of Penda, his son attained the Kingship of Mercia, and then Diuma was consecrated Bishop of the Mercians, and established his see at Lichfield. Earconwald (who was afterwards Bishop of London, 674), a man of noble birth, built a monastery for himself at Chertsey in Surrey, and a nunnery at Barking in Essex, for his sister Ethelberga. “The vales of Worcestershire and Gloucestershire were famous for the multitude and grandeur of their monastic institutions.” A monastic cell is said to have been founded at Tewkesbury in 675, and one at Deerhurst, by Ethelmund the ealdorman, at a still earlier date. Osric, the Prince of Wiccii, was probably the founder of St. Peter’s Nunnery, Gloucester, and of Bath Abbey. Apparently his brother Oswald founded Pershore Abbey; and their sister Cyneburga was the first Abbess of Gloucester. Saxulph, Bishop of Lichfield, founded a little religious house of St. Peter, at Worcester, which became the see of the first Bishop of Worcester, when that diocese was founded by Archbishop Theodore (680). Egwine, Bishop of Worcester, founded a monastery at Evesham (702), and laying down his bishopric, retired thither to spend the remainder of his life as its abbot.[27]