Parish life in mediæval England

by Francis Aidan Gasquet

The churchwardens frequently had considerable responsibility in regard to their office, and if they did not get more frequently into serious financial difficulties than they apparently did, it was owing to the cordial way in which the parish generally supported their endeavours to serve them. In St. Peter Cheap, in London, the churchwardens held a good deal of property as trustees. They embarked on “making and finishing our vestry” in 1475, and the names of those contributing to the work cover a whole page. We find them repairing and decorating chantries; employing a priest to serve; making the priests’ chambers in Cock Alley, where, apparently, the parson and the chantry priests dwelt in common; engaging in organ making and paying for a player and for “the readers of the Passion” on Palm Sunday. The “Morrow Mass” priest, whose duty it was to say Mass every day at six o’clock, was paid for by the wardens on behalf of the parish, as well as a clerk to serve his Mass.

In some documents connected with Exeter diocese in the fifteenth century, some of the personal difficulties in which the wardens might be involved are set out. In one case, where a good deal of repair to the fabric of the church was necessary, the churchwardens excused themselves on the plea that the tenants of certain houses belonging to the parish, upon the rents of which they had relied, had not paid for some time; in a second case, the excuse made was that parishioners who had promised help had not given it; in a third, the parishioners had agreed to a rate to repair the church and bell-tower, and many had not paid according to their promises. In every case the bishop, whilst warning the people to keep their obligations, pointed out that the “guardians,” or churchwardens, were personally responsible.

Again, there are many examples, in the accounts of the various parishes, which show that the people considered the parochial goods held by the churchwardens, even when they were in the shape of vestments and plate, as their own property. They exchanged them, lent them, and sold them—always, of course, for the benefit of the church. In the wardens’ accounts of St. Mary the Great, Cambridge, there are several examples of this open dealing with church goods. One instance of this kind of dealing is worth recording. In the parish of Yatton, Somerset, on the eve of the Reformation—about 1520, say—a difficulty, to which reference has already been made, arose as to the repair of certain sluices to keep back the winter floods. To make a long story short—in the end, the parishioners were ordered to make good the defect. It meant money; and the wardens’ accounts show that they had been spending money generously on the church. It was consequently decided that to raise the necessary cash they should sell a piece of silver church plate, which had been purchased some years before by the common contributions of the faithful. The instance furnishes a supreme example of the way in which the people of a mediæval parish regarded the property of God’s house as their own.

Parish Clerk, or Holy-water Bearer (Aquæbajularius).—Second only in importance to the churchwardens was the parish clerk, or, as he was frequently called from one of his chief duties, the “water-bearer.” Originally, as the name “clerk” implies, he was a cleric, and his office was considered to be a regular ecclesiastical benefice. In the fourteenth century the clerk was married, but one such was fined for the offence in a visitation in that century in the Salisbury diocese. In process of time, however, owing to the scarcity of clerics, the office was often held by a married layman.

HOLY WATER CLERK

The English law as to this official was laid down in the Constitution of Archbishop Boniface of Savoy, in the thirteenth century. The benefice was, according to this, to be bestowed “upon poor clerks.” And as there had been many disputes about the bestowal of the office, the archbishop decreed that henceforward “the rectors and vicars (of parish churches), who know better than parishioners those that are fit for the office, shall institute such clerics in these benefices as they know in their hearts can and will properly serve in the Divine offices (of the church) and will obey their directions.” Upon which law Lyndwood remarks, that it is always the privilege of the Ecclesiastical Superior to appoint his inferiors in his own church, and that it is no part of the right of any patron; which, in this instance, may be taken to include the parishioners, who were supposed to find the salary. In the manuscript accounts of the wardens of St. Botulph’s, Aldersgate Street, a payment of £4 a year was made to the clerk, and this sum was specially collected for the purpose.

A note “of clerke wage owing” in the accounts of St. Michael’s in Bedwardine, Worcestershire, makes it appear that there, ordinarily, each householder paid 1d. a quarter for the clerk, although one person, to whom is prefixed the title of “Mr.”, evidently pointing to a man of “class,” paid a shilling each time. St. Mary-at-Hill, in London, paid its clerk at the rate of £6 13s. 4d. a year, and he also received certain offerings at obits, etc., kept in the church. The regular wage was specially, although apparently not very regularly, collected by the wardens.

BLESSING OF FOOD BY HOLY WATER CLERK