Parish Priests and Their People in the Middle Ages in England

by Edward Lewes Cutts

e have followed our parish priest through various phases of his life and work; there remains one more—before that last one through which all priests and people must pass—on which the records throw a considerable amount of light. Parish priests grow old—sometimes old and infirm and incapable of fulfilling the duties of their position. What to do with them, in fairness to them and in fairness to the parishioners, is a problem which perplexes us at this moment. Then, as now, if the income of the benefice, or the private income of the incumbent, enabled him to obtain the help of a competent chaplain, that was accepted as on the whole the best solution. It permitted the old pastor to end his days among his people, and still to be the friend and counsellor of those who cared to seek him. The difficulty then, as now, is in the case of a benefice which is too poor both to give a competent maintenance to the old incumbent and to engage the services of a competent locum tenens. We find from not infrequent records of such cases in the bishops’ registers that, to begin with, the bishop sequestrated the benefice, usually appointing a neighbouring clergyman as sequestrator. Then, in the arrangement of matters, it seems to have been thought right always to leave the old incumbent to end his days among his own people and in his own house, with a sufficient maintenance out of the income of the benefice. On the other hand, in justice to the parish, a chaplain was appointed who took independent charge of the parish. It would seem that this coadjutor usually lived in the parsonage house, or part of it, not as the guest of the old incumbent, but rather as his host, except where the premises were formally divided into two tenements for the independent accommodation of both. It will be borne in mind that the celibate condition of the clergy would make the arrangement of such cases much more easy in those times than in these.

The unwillingness of an infirm vicar to be disturbed was met in the way illustrated by this individual case: In 1322 the patron of the parish of Letton, Herefordshire, complained to the bishop that the rector, Milo by name, had, from old age and ill health, been absent from his church during many years without licence of non-residence, though often admonished to reside. The bishop issued a commission, consisting of neighbouring incumbents, to inquire. They replied that Milo had not resided for ten years, that the services had been very badly done by numerous chaplains, and the parishioners grossly neglected, and that the rectory house and buildings were falling into decay. A coadjutor was appointed by the bishop to assist him in the cure of his parish.[294]

Here are some illustrative cases of a more satisfactory kind. Philip de Harwodelme, Rector of Bigby—it is recorded in the Register of Bishop Quivil, of Exeter,[295] in 1286—being so cast down by disease and broken by old age as to feel himself entirely unequal to the care of the souls of the parishioners, had a retiring pension assigned to him of twenty marks, out of the great tithes of the parish. This is a very simple solution of the difficulty, since the pension, equal to £13, was an ample one, and, it is to be assumed, the benefice large enough to spare it.[296]

In 1309, William de Tres ... Vicar of Perran Zabulo, being very old and infirm, Bishop Stapledon grants a sequestration of the living to Sir Wm. de Mileborne, Rector of Lanhorne; and an arrangement is made by which Michael de Newroneck is appointed coadjutor to the old vicar, and is to pay him two shillings a-week for his sustenance; and out of the rest of the benefice is to live himself and maintain hospitality, and pay all charges on the living.

In 1316, the bishop appointed Thomas de Dylington, Rector of Cumbfflorie, as coadjutor to the Rector of Lidiard St. Lawrence, who is blind, old, and broken in health; the appointment is made subject to revocation at the bishop’s pleasure.

In appointing a coadjutor to Sir Wm., Vicar of St. Colan, on account of his great infirmity, it is stated in Bishop Stapledon’s Register that the coadjutor is to take charge of the goods, etc., of the vicarage. And so in the case of Sir Henry, Vicar of Constantine, a coadjutor is appointed by the same bishop, who is to take an inventory of the vicar’s goods, and to have the vicar and his goods in his care, and to provide honourably for the vicar and his family.

In the Registers of Lichfield Diocese, we find the incumbents of Stoke-on-Terne, Uttoxeter, St. Peter’s, Derby, etc., resigning on a pension secured by the oath of their successors; and chaplains assigned to the Vicar of Lapley, who is old and blind, and the Rector of Maxstoke, because he is infirm; and so in other dioceses.

The arrangement between the vicar and his successor does not always work quite smoothly. This seems to be the explanation of the action of Bishop Stapledon, of Exeter, who, in 1326, admonishes Barthol de More, Vicar of Kynstock by the resignation of John Mon, who is decrepit, to continual residence, and to take oath to maintain the said John as long as he lives. But soon after a more definite arrangement is made that “lest, in process of time, to the scandal of the clergy, the said John should be compelled miserably to beg, he shall receive a payment of six marks of silver, viz. 40s. at St. Michael, and 40s. at Easter.”

Cases difficult to deal with sometimes occurred. Considering the prevalence of leprosy from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, it is not wonderful to find the vicar of a parish among the victims of the dreadful disease. We have met with one case in the preceding chapter of a Vicar of Colyton, in Exeter diocese, in 1330. We are not told what steps the bishop took in that case; but in a similar case at St. Neot’s, in the same diocese, the vicar being struck with leprosy, Bishop Stapledon appointed Ralph de Roydene, chaplain, to be his coadjutor, and gave the vicar and the living into the custody of the coadjutor. The bishop orders that since the vicar cannot, without danger, have intercourse with the whole people as he has been accustomed, the vicar shall have the better chamber (meliorem cameram) with the houses adjoining it, except the hall, to live, and eat, and drink in; and that the entrance should be closed between the said chamber and the hall, and a new entrance made to the said chamber externally in a suitable place, by which the vicar, when need is, can have ingress and egress; and a cloaca, likewise, to the said chamber, in a fitting place. The said Sir Ralph shall pay to the said vicar every week for his maintenance in food, drink, and firing, and other small necessaries, 2s. sterling, and yearly on the feast of St. Michael, or thereabout, 20s. for his robe; also he shall keep in repair the houses of the said vicarage, both those which the vicar inhabits, and all the other buildings of the vicarage, and shall undertake and see after all other burdens belonging to the said vicarage.[297]

There is a case in the Chichester Register in which the master and brethren of the college of the Holy Trinity, Arundel, petition the bishop to give a pension to Wm. Rateford, resigning the Vicarage of Kurdford, lest he come to beggary, to the scandal of the clergy.