Parish life in mediæval England

by Francis Aidan Gasquet

1531-2. Kyng ale on White Sunday, 10s. 9d.—at soppar, 20s. 7d.
On Monday at dinner, 2s.—at suppar, 10s. 7d.
On Tuesday at dinner, 6s. 9d.
On the said Tuesday of the parish of Pamber, 4s.
On the said Tuesday of the parish of Strathfieldsay, 9s.
On the said Tuesday at supper, 10s. 6d.
On the Wednesday at dinner, 13s. 6d.
Received for calf and sheep skin, 21d.
At supper on Trinity Sunday, 12s. 6d.
For tapping money, 7s. 6d.

The payments made by the wardens for the above series of entertainments are—

Towards the Kyng ale to Alys Carter 6 bushells whete, 6s. 4d.
To Mr. Vycar for 3 bushells whete, 3s.
8 barrells of bere, 13s. 8d.
To John Redyng for 2 calves, 6s. 8d.
To Richard Tyrry for 1 calf, 2s. 8d.
To William Littlework for 2 wethers, 5s. 5d.
To Henry Whyte for a barren ewe and 3 lambs, 7s.
For geese and pyg with hare, 17d.
To Hugh Carter’s wife for chekyns, 6d.
Anne Acre for butter and eggs, 6d.
For woode, 21d.
For mynstrell, 20d.
For rushes and making clene the barn, 3d.
For spices, 4d.
To Symon Redyng and his wife (and his moder above), 12d.

Hock-days.—In many parishes there was a feast celebrated, according to some, in memory of the massacre of the Danes in A.D. 1002. It was called Hock-day and Hock-tyde, and seems to have been specially the women’s feast in the parish. The second Monday and Tuesday after Easter were the Hock-tyde days, on which, with some sportive traditional customs, money was collected for parish purposes. According to an early custom, women seized and bound men and then demanded a small payment for their release. This seems to have been prohibited, and then recourse was had to stopping roadways and bridges with ropes, and demanding a toll from all men who desired to pass. For example, at Shire in Surrey in 1536, 8s. are entered in the accounts, as coming “from the collection of pennies by the married women on Hokmonday.” In the accounts of St. Mary the Great, Cambridge, in 1518, there are two entries of receipt for Hockday money: “Item Receyved of Mistres Sabyn, Mistress Butt, Mistres Halbed and other wyfys of money gathered by them on Hockmonday—20 shillings ... and Memorandum that there remayneth in the hands of Kateryn Hawes in halfpenys of the gatheryng on Hockmonday—2s. 4d.” So also in the accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, London, for 1511-12, there is this item: “Received of the Gadryng of hok monday by the wemen 20s.: Rec. of the Gadryng on Tewysday 4s.” In the parish of SS. Edmund and Thomas, Salisbury, the women paid a composition to escape “binding” on the Tuesday of Hocktide. In the year 1499-1500, for example, there is the following entry in the accounts: “Received of divers wives and maidens to save them from binding in Hok Tuesday in all the year, 5 shillings.” In another account we learn that the “maidens” kept a bridge over which all had to pass on this Hock Monday, and that they gathered much in the way of fees for passengers. It may be here remarked that in the way of raising money for parish work, or, in particular, for the beautifying of their churches, the women-folk were in no ways behind the men. There are constant notices of gifts, etc., in the parish accounts; and such entries as one at Walberswick in Suffolk, in 1496: “By a gaderyng of the wyves in the towne for a glass wyndow, 9 shillings,” are common features in the mediæval accounts.

The women-folk also had their feast at the Church house on certain days when the parish came together for the purpose of dancing. In 1538, at Salisbury, there is a receipt from the “wyves daunce.” At St. Ewen’s, Bristol, there was special “dancing money,” and at Croscombe in Somerset an item of receipt of 6s. in 1483 is said to be collected “of the wives’ dancing.” Another form of collection by women in some places was called “Robin Hood penny.”

In some parishes the supplying of the ale, etc., for the parish entertainments no doubt led to the churchwardens becoming purveyors of ale, etc., at other times, the profits obtained by this trading going to swell the parish receipts. Bishop Hobhouse remarks upon this in the case of Tintinhull, a Somerset parish. The church house was the focus of the social life in this neighbourhood. There was, at first, a small place for making the sacred wafer and the “blessed bread.” It grew by degrees into a bakery to supply all. Then brewing was added, and the sale of ale to those who wanted it. Apparently the bakery and the brewing utensils were let out to those who wanted to make their own bread and beer; but in the reign of Henry VII. a proper house was procured by the parish, and a woman, “Agnes Cook,” was placed in it to manage the increasing business.

At Bishop Stortford and elsewhere, also, there is evidence in the accounts of brewing being carried on for the benefit of the parish. In some cases, the purchases of malt are considerable, and suggests that the production of ale was for sale generally to any in the parish.

Probably no single book gives such a vivid picture of the social side of mediæval parochial life as the Durham Halmote Rolls, published by the “Surtees Society.”

“It is hardly a figure of speech,” writes Mr. Booth, in the preface to this volume, “to say we have in (these rolls) village life photographed. The dry record of tenures is peopled by men and women who occupied them, whose acquaintance we make in these records under the various phases of village life. We see them in their tofts surrounded by their crofts, with their gardens of pot-herbs. We see how they ordered the affairs of the village, when summoned by the bailiff to the vill to consider matters which affected the common weal of the community. We hear of their trespasses and wrongdoings, and how they were remedied or punished; of their strifes and contentions, and how they were repressed; of their attempts, not always ineffective, to grasp the principle of co-operation as shown by their by-laws; of their relations with the Prior, who represented the convent, and alone stood in relation of lord. He appears always to have dealt with his tenants, either in person or through his officers, with much consideration; and in the imposition of fines we find them invariably tempering justice with mercy.”

In fact, as the picture of mediæval village life among the tenants of the Durham monastery is displayed in the pages of this interesting volume, it would seem almost as if one was reading of some Utopia of dreamland. Many of the things that in these days advanced politicians would desire to see introduced into the village communities of modern England, to relieve the deadly dulness of country life, were seen in Durham and Cumberland in full working order in pre-Reformation days. Local provisions for public health and general convenience are evidenced by the watchful vigilance of the village officials over the water supplies, the care taken to prevent the fouling of useful streams, and stringent by-laws as to the common place for clothes-washing, and the times for emptying and cleansing ponds and mill-dams. Labour was lightened and the burdens of life eased by co-operation on an extensive scale. A common mill ground the corn, and the flour was baked into bread at a common oven. A common smith worked at a common forge, and common shepherds and herdsmen watched the sheep and cattle of various tenants, which were pastured on the fields common to the whole village community. The pages of the volume contain numerous instances of the kindly consideration for their tenants which characterized the monastic proprietors, and the relation between them was rather that of rentchargers than of men claiming absolute ownership. In fact, as the editor of the volume says—