Parish life in mediæval England

by Francis Aidan Gasquet

RECTORY, WEST DEAN, SUSSEX

A curious example of a poor rector being received as a boarder into a religious house is recorded in the register of Bishop Stapledon. The parish of Charles, in Devonshire, was, in 1317, found to be burdened with great debt, and its state evidently almost bankrupt. With the consent of the bishop, the rector, Walter de Wolfe, called upon the Prior of Pilton to help him out of his difficulties. It was consequently agreed that the best way was for the rector to come and live in the priory, and for the prior to farm the revenues of the parish for five years, during which time he should serve it, and with the savings pay off the debts of the rector.

The Vicar in many ways had the same work and responsibility as a rector in regard to all parochial duties. He was legally, however, as the word implies, one who took the place, or was the deputy of the rector. Although a rector, actually in possession of a parish and engaged in working it, could with permission and for adequate reasons appoint a vicar as locum tenens, in England almost universally by a “vicar” was meant the priest appointed to work a parish in the case of an impropriated living. The nature of these benefices has already been explained, and it is unnecessary here to do more than recall the fact, that although the greater tithes went to the monastery, college, or dignity to which the living had been impropriated, the appointed vicar had his portion of tithe, the oblations made to the church he served, and a pension settled by the episcopal authority. These, at any rate, with the rest of the income, afforded adequate support, with, in addition, sufficient to enable him to do the repairs of the chancel, which, in the case of the rectorial benefice, were incumbent on the parson.

This position of vicars only requires to be illustrated here very briefly. In 1322, Bishop Rigaud de Asserio, of Winchester, settled the means of support and the duties of the Vicar of Romsey, as between him and the abbess and convent. Every day the vicar was to have from the abbey two corrodies equal to what two nuns had. He was to take the tithes on flax, on hemp, and on fifteen other products of the soil; he was to have all funeral dues, and all legacies of dead people, except those specifically left for the repair, etc., of chancel; he was also to have certain lands to work for his own purposes, and to take all oblations made in the church. On the other hand, besides his ordinary duties, he was to pay all ecclesiastical dues and taxes; to find all books and ornaments of the church, and to repair and maintain them, as well also as to keep up and repair the entire chancel of the church. To take another case: the monks of Glastonbury, the impropriators of the parish of Doulting, in Somerset, received £18 a year in the sixteenth century from their portion of the impropriated tithe. Their vicar at the same time, with the duty of looking after the annexed chapels, took £43.

The mode of institution for a vicar was very much that of a rector. He was appointed by the impropriator of the living, acting as patron, and he had to receive the assent of the bishop of the diocese. By a statute of Cardinal Otho, confirming the practice of the English Church, “no one could be appointed to a vicarage unless he were a priest, or a deacon ready to be ordained a priest at the next Quatuor temporum ordination.” On his appointment, he had to surrender every other ecclesiastical benefice, and to take an oath that he would reside continually in his vicarage, so that any absence beyond the space of three weeks was unlawful.

The above legislation, of course, regarded only what were known as perpetual vicars—those, namely, that were appointed to impropriated livings with a tenure of office similar to that of rectors. The author of the gloss on the Constitution of Otho notes that in England there were really four kinds of vicars, or four classes of priests who were accounted or known as vicars: (1) those who for a stipend took the cures of rectors, or of perpetual vicars, temporarily, and at the will of those who engaged them—these did not require the licence of the bishop, unless under special diocesan law; (2) those sent by the Pope, etc., to certain parts of the world were called vicars; (3) vicars appointed by the bishops, and known as vicars-general; and (4) the perpetual vicars of churches, instituted to the cure of souls by the bishop, and by his licence installed—these were most properly called vicars.

It is evident, from what is set out in the Valor Ecclesiasticus, that the vicar proper, if he found it necessary, had to provide help in the way of a curate. In this there was no distinction between a rector and a vicar; and it is obvious that, where this was required, provision for it had been made in the arrangement which had been come to in the first instance between the impropriators and the bishop; or that arrangement had subsequently been modified to enable the vicar to meet the expense of extra help.

Curates.—Next in importance among the parochial clergy come the assistant priests, known as Curates (curati), or those entrusted with the cure of souls. They are called in canon law vice curati, or capellani, who “administer the sacraments, not in their own name, but in the name of another”—that is, in the name of the rector or perpetual vicar. They were also, as previously pointed out, in England occasionally called vicars, in the sense of taking the place of the rector, etc.

Every curate by law was to receive from the rector or vicar who employed him a fixed and sufficient salary, and all manner of bargains as to payment or contracting out of obligations were prohibited. Thus in the acts of the Synod of Ely, in 1364, Bishop Simon Langham says, “We strictly prohibit any rector from making a bargain with his (assistant) priest of this kind: that besides his fixed stipend he may take offerings for anniversary Masses, etc., since such a bargain is a clear indication that the fixed stipend is too small”—and to make it up, these fees are looked for, and the parish Masses may be neglected. In fact, by the Constitution of Archbishop Courtney, in 1391, the curates were to receive none of the oblations, fees, or offerings made in a parish, for services for which they received a sufficient payment from those who employed them.