Parish life in mediæval England

by Francis Aidan Gasquet

In regard to the care of the fabric the case of appropriated churches was somewhat peculiar. The corporation to which the living was impropriated held the position of rector, the cure being administered by a vicar appointed by it and licensed by the bishop, just as in the case of a nomination to any benefice by a patron. As a rule the religious house, college, or official holding the impropriated tithes, got rid of the rectorial obligation of seeing to the maintenance of the chancel, by arranging with the bishop that the vicar should have sufficient regular income to cover all the expenses of dilapidations. In this case the usual practice was that, upon first becoming lawfully possessed of the appropriated tithe, the corporation was bound by the bishop, as one condition of his assent, to place the chancel in thorough repair and to see that everything, which the rector had been bound by custom to provide, was in good order. After this had been done, it was calculated, and indeed arranged, that out of the income of the vicar these could be maintained in good order. The arrangement, however, was subject to revision by the bishop, and although in practice the original agreement was usually upheld, there are to be found examples of the holders of impropriated tithes being compelled by the ecclesiastical authority to contribute to the repairs of chancels, etc., and even to undertake the entire work, where the means of the vicars were obviously inadequate to do what was necessary.

Some examples of this will illustrate the matter more completely than any statement of the practice. In 1296, Bishop Thomas de Bytton, of Exeter, was called upon to adjudicate upon this question in regard to the vicarage of Morwenstowe, the greater tithes of which had been previously appropriated to the Hospital of St. John at Bridgewater by Bishop Peter Quevil, with the consent of his canons. The grant had been made with the provision that fitting support should be allowed for the vicarage, the amount to be determined and arranged by the bishop and his successors. This, Bishop de Bytton did, in fact, determine by the document referred to. The vicar, according to this settlement, by reason of his vicarage, was to take certain tithes, which, amongst others, were to include that of all the hay and the mills in the whole parish, as well as the rent of certain crofts, etc. The brethren of the Hospital were to find or renew all the ornaments and books not provided by the parishioners, and it was agreed that these, once being set right, must afterwards be maintained by the vicar. He was also to see to all ordinary repairs, and even extraordinary repairs up to the amount of the fourth part of the tithe received by him. But “any other extraordinary expense, together with the upkeep, repair, or rebuilding of the chancel of the church, was to be met by the said religious brethren” of the Hospital of Bridgewater.

That this settlement was not at all exceptional could be proved by many documents; one must suffice. When Bodmin church was rebuilt between the years 1469 and 1472 the patrons, the Monastery of St. Petrock, defrayed the entire expenses connected with the chancel. On the other hand, to illustrate the usual practice, the case of the vicarage of Launcells in Devonshire may be cited. The Abbot and Monastery of Hartland held the appropriated tithes, and in 1382, the chancel standing in need of great repairs, apparently amounting almost to rebuilding, the vicar refused to carry out the injunctions of the archdeacon forthwith to undertake the work, on the plea that this was the duty of the Abbey of Hartland. The convent denied their obligation, but submitted themselves in the matter to the judgment of the bishop of the diocese. After holding an inquiry, Bishop Thomas Brantyngham declared that the vicar received tithes for the purpose of carrying out all repairs to the chancel, and that consequently the monks were free from the obligation.

What the material church was to the parishioners of a mediæval parish is well described in the synodical Constitutions of Bishop Woodlock, of Winchester, at the beginning of the fourteenth century.

“If the Israelites,” he says, “living in the shadow of the law, required specially dedicated places in which to worship the Lord, with how much more reason are Christians, to whom the loving-kindness and the humanity of the Saviour has appeared, bound by all the means at their disposal to obtain consecrated churches, in which day by day the Son of God is offered in Sacrifice.”

Then after saying that churches that have not been consecrated are to be solemnly dedicated as soon as possible, he continues—

“The anniversaries of the dedications of parish churches are to be kept by the parishioners, and those attending chapels in the neighbourhood not themselves dedicated. The day and the year of the consecration, with the name of the consecrating prelates, are to be entered in the calendar and other books belonging to the church.”

The dedication of the church to God was the essential condition of its endowment. According to Bracton, the dower made to the church with church lands at its dedication, was a possession of “pure and free alms,” in distinction “from a lay feud,” seeing that it “is with more propriety called free, since it is dedicated as it were to God.”

“If,” says the Constitution of Cardinal Otho for the English Church—“if under the Old Testament the Temple was dedicated to God for the offering of dead animals, with how much more reason should the churches of the New Law be specially consecrated to Him when on the altars is daily offered for us by the hands of the priest the living and true Victim, that is, Christ, the only-begotten Son of God.”

The reverence due to churches, and things once dedicated to the service of churches, was universal in the Middle Ages. Cloths, used as chrism cloths at Baptism or Confirmation, were to be devoted to ecclesiastical purposes or destroyed, and those who turned anything thus once offered to God to any secular use were considered gravely blameworthy. The gloss upon a Constitution of St. Edmund of Canterbury to this effect extends this prohibition of desecration to everything connected at any time with a church. Even the woodwork of a building, once dedicated, was to be destroyed, unless it was capable of being used for another ecclesiastical purpose. So too the “cloths used on the altar, the seats, candlesticks, veils, and sacred vestments too old to use,” were to be burnt and the ashes buried.