Parish life in mediæval England

by Francis Aidan Gasquet

In the same way the churchwardens appear to have let out the bier and lights to be used at funerals for the payment of a fee. The parish lights especially are very frequently named in the accounts of the churchwardens; although not infrequently the torches were furnished by the various guilds, the members of which had sometimes the right of hiring them for the burials of friends. In this way, to take but one example, the wardens of the parish of Ashburton in 1523-24 let out “the best cross and parish tapers” to a neighbouring parish, and received 21s. 8d. for the transaction; a very notable addition to the parochial income. Parishioners also paid for the use of the parish cross and candlesticks at funerals in their own church. In the same way, the vestments and plate and hangings were lent for a payment to other parishes for a great funeral or festival. In the accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, for instance, 4s. 8d. were paid by “the churchwardens of All Hallows in Lombard Street for hyryng of the church stuffe.”

A further source of income was found towards the beginning of the sixteenth century when the letting of pews or seats in the church became a custom. The revenue from this was always successfully claimed by the wardens in behalf of the parishioners, on the ground, no doubt, that the nave of the church where these seats had been erected was their property, and that the fee for the exclusive right of any special portion belonged to them, on the same principle as the money for the sale of any particular part for a grave. This practice of letting pews for the use of individuals has already been sufficiently illustrated by examples.

The practice of leaving sums of money by will to the wardens for definite purposes was almost universal in the last half of the fifteenth century and at the beginning of the sixteenth. In the accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, in London, are to be found such entries as: “Received of William Blase, Barbowrez (i.e. the barber’s) wife, for painting of an image of Our Lady within the Church—20d.,” and many other examples have previously been given of sums left by deceased parishioners for special work in their parish churches, such as the erection or adornment of the rood or its loft. Bishop Hobhouse has noticed in the Somerset churchwardens’ accounts that there was hardly any conceivable kind of property that was not handed over to the wardens for church purposes, either to produce income by being leased out, or to be sold for the benefit of the common exchequer. Live stock of every sort is represented—cows, oxen for ploughing, rams, sheep, lambs, bees, cocks and hens, geese, and even pigs are named. At Morebath almost every altar had its endowment of sheep, and at St. Mary’s, in the city of Bath, there was a little flock managed by the wardens. In the former small parish there were no fewer than eight different accounts kept, and “a supernumerary body” of from three to nine parishioners were added to the wardens “as controllers of the parish stock.” At Bromley, Margaret White, widow, who died in June, 1538, by her will gave to the church one hive of bees to support the light of All Hallows, one hive to support the light of the Sepulchre, and a third to the light of St. Anthony. Also to the keeping of her obit she gave two kine, and directed that the obit should be kept “out of the increase of the said kine,” and her name placed on the bede-roll, and that Mass be said and bread and cheese and drink given to four poor people.

In other places gifts in kind appropriate to the locality, such as malt, barley, wheat, etc., appear on the roll of accounts. At Walberswick, in Suffolk, in 1451, one Thomas Comber handed over to the people’s wardens 2500 herrings; another gave a set of fishing-nets. At Wigtoft, a village near Boston, “a long-ladder” was given to the church; whilst in the same place a parishioner, named Peter Saltweller, paid a yearly rent of 1s. 4d. for a “salt pan,” or pit for making salt, which had been given to the church.

Many of the gifts in kind were, of course, sold. Thus, for the Walberswick herrings the wardens obtained 1s., and the set of fishing-nets brought in no less than 8s. 6d. In the same parish, in 1500, one John Almyngham left by will, dated October 7, a sum, large in those days, of £20 to his parish church. Ten pounds were to be expended by the wardens in purchasing “a peyer of organys.” “Item with the residue,” he says, “I will a canopy over the High Auter well done with Our Lady and four angels, and the Holy Ghost (probably a dove to contain the Blessed Sacrament) going up and down with a chain.”

In 1483-4 the parishioners of St. Edmund’s and St. Thomas’s, Salisbury, contributed all kinds of articles to be the common goods of the parish, or else to be sold for what they would fetch. From the wife of a barber in the city there is recorded the present of “a brass dish and a plate.” At another time, “for writing the names in the book,” or bede-roll, one William Dyngyn gave to the wardens “a red girdle” ornamented “with silver and gold.” One of the favourite gifts at this time for people to make to their churches was “a set of beads,” or, to call it by the modern name, “a rosary.” Again and again this kind of gift is recorded, and so also is the sale of the same for the benefit of the common purse. For example, in the accounts of St. Mary the Great, Cambridge, may be seen numerous instances of this. In 1540, for example, there is entered the following—“memorandum: that at the feast of St. John the Baptist ... a pair of silver beads and two other pair of corall, gauded with silver, were sold by the churchwardens to James, goldsmith of Saint Benet’s parish ... by the consent of most part of the parishioners.” “Item the collar of baudryk of gold, having 9 links enamelled of gold, with the ouche of St. Nicholas and little monstre or Relic of St. Nicholas’ oil, is taken from the custody of the churchwardens to be sold at Stourbridge fair by agreement and consent also of the parishioners.” At Walberswick, to turn again to that parish for an example, in 1498 the wardens acknowledge the receipt of 4s. 4d. for “a pair of beads that were Margaret Middleton’s.” So, too, at Pilton, in Somerset, in 1515, one of the parishioners paid the churchwardens 10d. for a set of beads, which had been given them to dispose of; and at Yatton another pair “of amber” were sold for 7d., which was credited to the common stock.

It is well to note, however, that gifts made for some special purpose, for a particular altar, or statue, etc., were not disposed of in the way described above, but were preserved, and the names of the donors were kept alive by means of the bede-rolls, which will be subsequently spoken about. What apparently the parishioners held that they had a right to sell for the common good of the parish, were gifts made with the donor’s expressed or implied intention that this should be done; and goods, plate, or vestments, which had been previously purchased by the parish, and which, as was held in those days, certainly could be sold to purchase other goods or ornaments, or to carry out some necessary parochial work.

Goods of all kinds, given for a special purpose and held by the churchwardens as trustees, were protected by ecclesiastical legislation. The Synod of Exeter, for example, in 1287, orders the wardens to keep all such presents in careful custody, to produce them when called upon by authority, and not to turn them to any other use than that for which they were originally given. This applies, the Constitution declares, to the revenues of chantries and altars, and even to the lights provided for them, and this property may never be alienated, except in case of some great necessity, when the leave of the archdeacon, or at any rate of the rector, must be first obtained.

The names of some few other parish collections may here be usefully recorded. Dowelling, or dwelling-house money, was a tax or rate levied for parochial purposes on each household—a church rate, in fact. This assessment was sometimes known as smoke-money, or smoke-farthing, meaning the contribution made from each family hearth or house. Sometimes this was evidently known as Pentecostal, and it then referred to the offerings made by the parishioners at Whitsuntide to the parish priest. “Pentecostal oblations,” varying in amount from 1s. to 1s. 4d., are entered for many years in the churchwardens’ accounts of Aldworth, Berks. “Smoke-money,” or “smoke-silver,” is said also to have been a money payment made to the parson in lieu of a tithe of wood; but the name certainly appears in some churchwardens’ accounts as a contribution to the parish, and not to the priest. For instance, at Bromley, in 1527-8, “smoke-farthings” produced 14s. for the common parochial purse, and “dowelling-money” 9s. 3d. At Laverton, in Lincolnshire, each householder apparently gave 1½d. as his share of “smoke-money;” and at St. Edmund’s and St. Thomas’s, Salisbury, the tax was known as “smoke-silver,” or “smoke-farthings.”

At Easter time the churchwardens had to collect “Peter’s pence,” “Rome fardynges,” “Rome’s scot,” or “Peter farthings,” the contribution from each household to the Pope. It is well to remark, however, that it is obvious, from the accounts of this contribution to be found, that not more than 50 per cent. of the amount collected ever found its way into the papal coffers. The wardens collected the money and paid it to the archdeacon at the time of visitation. At St. Mary the Great, Cambridge, for example, they paid “at ye visytacion, for Rome Fardynges 22½d.” Great care was taken to secure the punctual payment of these dues to the Holy See, and warnings were issued when the parish was in arrears. For continual neglect to pay it was punished with interdict.