Parish life in mediæval England

by Francis Aidan Gasquet

The Schoolmaster, or, at any rate, one who occupied the place of a teacher of the young, is more frequently named in connection with the parish than many people would be inclined to believe. An examination of the records of parish life contained in the invaluable Valor Ecclesiasticus will reveal the fact of the existence of both grammar and song schools in many places in the sixteenth century. At Preston, in Amounderness, for instance, a chantry priest was bound to keep a “free grammar school” for the parish, and at the suppression of the chantry, the lands left to support this were seized by the Crown. The official returns by the Commissioners for suppressing the chantries afford many examples of these schools taught by priests and by clerks. These generally, no doubt, existed by reason of special foundations made by generous benefactors for the purpose; but in one case at least, at Lavenham, “the alderman of St. Peter’s Guild” finds a priest who “teaches the children of the said town and acts as secondary to the curate, who, without help of another priest, is not able to serve the cure there.”

The Bell-ringer was an important official in every parish. His first duty was to ring for the services in the church, and to toll the bell for deaths, funerals, obits, or anniversary services. If his wages were paid by the parish, his labours were in most places one of the sources of income by which the parish chest was replenished, as the fees charged brought in more than the amount paid to him. In some places, besides his duty in regard to the bells, he was appointed to look after various lamps or lights. Thus at Swaffham, in Norfolk, one Simon Blake appoints “a lamp to burn by his grave on all holidays and Lord’s days, from Matins to Compline, and the bellman of the town of Swaffham to take care of it.”

At times, too, the bellman was employed in making collections for some church purpose. Thus at Sutherton, in 1485, the bellman, named Saunder, was engaged in soliciting money for keeping two lights at the High Altar, and he was paid by the churchwardens for going to Lincoln “to bring home the waxe,” for the making of candles for the consecration of the church. At St. Nicholas’s Church, Great Yarmouth, in 1511, the bellman was paid for covering the images in Lent-time. But, so far as the parish was concerned, the most important function of this official was his proclamation of deaths and anniversaries. In one of the York wills there is a bequest of 6d. to the bellman for announcing the funeral of the testator. Sir Adam Outlaw, priest, bequeaths a tenement to the West Lynn town bellman on condition of his “going with his bell about the town” on his “year-day” to ask the people to “pray for the souls of Thomas of Acre and Muriel his wife, his (Sir Adam’s) soul, and the souls of his benefactors.”

In like manner, the Guild of St. Botulph’s Church at Boston employed the bellman to announce the anniversaries of its brethren. Thus, in January the Sacrist was to remember to send him round about the city to proclaim the obit day of Richard Chapman, and proclaim each year his will. At each street he was to ring his bell and say: “For the sowles of Richard Chapeman and Alys his wyf, brother and syster of Corpus Christi Gylde to-morne (i.e. to-morrow) shall be theyre yere day,” for which service he was to receive a penny. This crier was constantly being sent round on similar errands for other guilds, and from these same records the names of some eight such societies, besides the Corpus Christi Guild, are known: that is, St. Mary’s Guild, that of the Trinity, and those of St. George, St. Peter, the “Felichyp of Heven,” Seven Martyrs, St. Katherine, and the Apostles. The object of these constant proclamations was, of course, to call the various members of fraternities and societies to attend at funerals and anniversary masses and pray for the souls of the brethren and sisters who had gone before them to that future life, which in those days of simple faith was hardly less a reality to all Christian folk than the present world which their senses told them about.

The bells used by the bellmen seem, from some inventories, to have been the property of the parish. They are called “Rogation bells,” from their use in calling people to the church, and they were rung in the funeral procession from the house of the deceased parishioner to the church. In 1463, John Baret, of Bury St. Edmunds, directs that the two bellmen, who go about the town on his death announcing his funeral, are to have gowns given them. And at “my yeer-day,” he adds, they are to have each 4d. for going about the town to call on the inhabitants “to pray for my soul, and for my faderis and modrys,” and the same for ringing on the “month’s mind.”

Another remarkable custom, which seems to have been no novelty in the middle of the fifteenth century, was the use of a chime barrel set with the tune of the Requiem æternam, the Introit of the Mass for the dead. This, as it only ranged over five notes, was easily managed, and the instrument was wheeled throughout the town, grinding out this lament for some departed inhabitant. The John Baret named above makes special arrangements for this to be done at Bury on his decease, for thirty days after, and during the following Lent-time.

Of people employed at various times and for diverse purposes by the parish, there were a great many about whom very little need be said. Over and above masons and carpenters and women to wash surplices and albs and repair vestments, who may be called regular employees, the accounts of the churchwardens show that many others were, from time to time, paid by the parish funds. One of the most regular, naturally, when lights were so much used, was the Candlemaker, who apparently travelled about from place to place exercising his art. At Cowfield, in Sussex, for instance, in the years 1471-85, the churchwardens’ payments for candlemaking were at regular intervals, and besides finding the wax and the wages, the wardens supplied also the board and lodging for the master workman. At Great St. Mary’s, Cambridge, the wardens, in 1537, bought 35 lbs. of wax, at 7d. a pound, “for the Sepulchre and Roode lyghtes;” they paid 5s. for making it up, and 2s. 3½d. “for a dinner at the making.” At St. Mary-at-Hill, London, “Roger Middelton, wax channdeler,” was paid “for makyng of the said ryeve loen (92 lbs.) and olde wax, made in tapris for the Bemelight and other tapris, prickettes, and tenebre candilles, for every lb. a half-penny—11 shilling 9d.”

In the same way parishes employed travelling bookmakers, that is, scribes and bookbinders and illuminators. Thus, as an instance, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, the wardens of St. Augustine’s Church, at Hedon, in the East Riding, paid 10s. 8d. for parchment to make a book; to Adam Skelton, a scribe, for writing it, 4d.; to “John Payntor for a picture, 10s.,” and 6d. for the breakfasts of the scribes. There is evidence that sometimes the curate of a parish acted as a scribe, and received a fee for so doing; sometimes clerics at other places were employed, as a clerk at the Almonry at Canterbury, who wrote a book for the church of St. Dunstan in that city.

The same applies also to the Bookbinder, who used to ply his trade from place to place, repairing the old and making new bindings for new and old manuscript service and music books. So too the same evidence of the accounts of churchwardens shows the Painter, the Carver, the Silversmith, the Gilder, and the Tinker constantly at work in various places, according to the needs and means and enterprise of the English parochial authorities.

In all cases it was the work of the people. Through their wardens they arranged, superintended, and finally settled the accounts of these various travelling workmen and artists. How they raised the money required for all the work that was carried out during the last half of the fifteenth century must always remain a mystery. Some account of their ways of collecting funds for parochial purposes will appear in the next chapter; but when all is said, the mystery remains.