personas aut alias quarum sit honestas et devocio satis nota, in stallo vel alibi in choro inter ministros ecclesiae stare vel sedere dum divina celebrantur officia permittimus."[[58]] The story told about Sir Thomas More shews that while he himself sat in the chancel, Lady More sat in the nave. "During his high Chancellorship one of his gentlemen, when service at the church was done, ordinarily used to come to my Lady his wife's pew-door and say unto her 'Madame, my Lord is gone.' But the next holy day after the surrender of his office of Lord Chancellor, and the departure of his gentlemen from him, he came unto my Lady his wife's pew himself, and, making a low courtesy, said unto her, 'Madam, my Lord is gone.' But she, thinking this at first to be but one of his jokes, was little moved, till he told her sadly he had given up the Great Seal." And many other good Churchmen at all times have retained the ancient usage of the exclusion of women from the stalls in the chancel. At Great Burstead, in Essex, in 1661, an applicant was authorised to build a pew at the entrance to the chancel for the use of himself and sons and companions and friends of the male sex; but to build another in the nave for his wife and her daughters and companions and friends of the female sex. King Charles I. in 1625 wrote, "For mine own particular opinion I do not think ... that Women should be allowed to sit in the chancel, which was instituted for Clerks"; and in 1633, when he visited Durham cathedral, the choir was cleared of all the seats occupied by the Mayor and Corporation and the wives of the Dean and Prebendaries and other "women of quality," and his Majesty gave orders that they should never again be erected, "that so the Quire may ever remain in its ancient beauty." Even to this day in some cathedrals it is the usage to allow women to sit only in the lower desks of the choir and not in the stalls above. Nevertheless in plenty of instances the pertinacity of women prevailed; and where the husband sat in the chancel, there the wife insisted on sitting beside him. Thus in a suit instituted by Lady Wyche in 1468, the lady put it on record that she had a seat in the chancel: "jeo aye un lieu de seer en le chauncel." In 1468 two ladies had seats in the chancel of Rotherham church; for the master of the grammar school willed that he be buried in south chancel[[59]] near the stall in which the wife of the Bailiff of Rotherham and the testator's wife sit. In 1553 a new pew was made for Sir Arthur D'Arcy and his wife at St Botolph, Aldgate: "Paid to Mattram, carpenter, for three elm
boards for the two new pews in the quire where Sir Arthur Darsey and his wife are set ... ijs. viijd." The same parish in 1587 gave Master Dove permission to "build a pew for himself, another for his wife to sit in, being in the chancel." Therefore we come to the conclusion that at any rate from the thirteenth century onward more and more seats were provided in the chancel for lay folk. Where, as in the parish church of Boston, the stalls are very numerous—at Boston there are sixty-four—it is likely that a considerable number of them were appropriated to various important gilds connected with the church.
But there is another purpose which parochial stalls subserved, and that is the most important of all: viz., to accommodate a surpliced choir. The introduction of surpliced choirs into chancels in modern days was an innovation at first deeply resented, and seems to have been usually made in ignorance of the existence of mediæval precedent. Precedent there is, however, in abundance. England was a merry, tuneful land before the Reformation, and nowhere more than in the churches. The musical part of the service grew more and more ornate, especially in the last years immediately preceding the Dissolution; the parishes—village and town parishes alike—delighted in "the cheerful noise of organs and fiddles and anthems," and spent on music a very large part of the church income. The early years of the sixteenth century were a glorious time for church music; the parishioners loved it and would have it, and were willing to pay for it; it was not forced on them from above; it was the people and the people's churchwardens who would have it. What a joyful sound we should hear from the church doors if we could enter once more an English church of the sixteenth century and hear the surpliced men and boys a singing in the choir, accompanied by organs and citterns and fiddles and crowdes and dulcimers and all instruments of music in the rood loft, with perhaps an anthem or a solo on high festival days from distinguished vocalists of the neighbouring villages; those were happy times. Take the churchwardens' accounts of St Mary at Hill, London.[[60]] In this church in 1523 there was "paid 15d. for 6 round mats of wicker for the clerks." If we assume six more for the boys, we get a regular choir of six men and six boys. But besides these an extra choir of choirmen and boys was engaged for special days. In 1527 there was "paid 9d. at the Sun tavern for the drinking of Mr Colmas and others of the King's chapel
that had sung in the church of St Mary at Hill." In 1553 there was "paid 16d. to the gentlemen of the Queen's chapel for singing a mass at St Mary at Hill." Again, in 1527 there was "paid 7s. for bread, ale and wine for the quire, and for strangers at divers feasts in the year past"; these "strangers" would probably be singers hired from other churches. The above entry shews that the choir was paid in kind as well as in money. The choirmen received quite handsome salaries. In 1524 Morres, the bass, was receiving from the parish 20 nobles a year. John Hobbes was the most expensive member of the choir. In 1556 there was paid to John Hobbes 56s. 8d., being one quarter's wages, for his services in the choir. This choirman therefore had a salary of £11. 6s. 8d. per annum, which would be equivalent to about £113 of our money. Sir John Parkyns, a bass, received a quarterly salary of 15s. 8d. "for the help the quire when Hobbes was dead, and to have 8d. a day every holy day and Sunday." On the other hand there was "paid 12s. to Mr Hilton, priest, for three quarters of a year, for keeping daily service in the quire in 1528"; this was at the rate of 16s. per annum; this compares remarkably with John Hobbes' salary of £11. 6s. 8d. per annum; even allowing for the fact that Mr Hilton had other sources of revenue, we cannot but infer that priests were cheap and good singers dear in the sixteenth century. The parishes were quite willing to pay for good music. At Braunton, Devon, c. 1580, i.e., after the Reformation, the churchwardens were still paying four or five expensive choirmen, as well as singing boys; the highest salary for a choirman was 26s. 8d.; say £13. 6s. 8d. per annum; the choir in this village church could not have cost the parish less than £100 per annum of our money. In all the choirs there seem to have been "singing boys" as well as men. We hear in 1477 of four choristers being brought over to St Mary at Hill for a special service, for which they received the modest sum of 1d. each. At this church it was finally arranged to have a permanent choir, and what we should call a choir school was established, with John Norfolk, the organist, at the head of it to train the boys: for there "was paid for making clean of a chamber in the Abbot's Inn to be a school for Norfolk's children." The same year "Mr parson gave the boys a playing week to make merry," and the churchwardens kindly presented the boys and choirmen with 3s. 4d. to spend on their holiday. Next year there was again a payment of 3s. 4d. "in the playing week after Christmas to disport them." Both the boys and the men wore surplices, bought at the expense of the parish. In 1496 there were at St Mary at Hill "8 surplices for the quire, of which
2 have no sleeves; and 7 rochets for children, and 6 albs for children." In 1499 there was "paid 12d. for the making of 6 rochets for children that were in the quire." At St Nicholas', Bristol, in 1521 there was paid "1d. for making a child's surplice belonging to the quire"; and in 1542 iiis. viid. for material "to make 2 lads' surplices." An inventory of Huntingfield church, Suffolk, shews that the church possessed "vii rochettys ffor men and vii for chyldern," and that the material of the rochets cost 6d. each; it would seem that this Suffolk village had seven men and seven boys in the church choir. At St Mary at Hill there was paid in 1523 "for making 12 surplices for men at 6d. each, 6s.; and for 12 surplices for children at 5d. each, 5s."; this was a rich city parish, and could afford to have a pair for each choir man and boy, one to be in use, the other at the wash. Then music had to be paid for. In the same church in 1523 there was paid "for 4 hymnals and a processioner, noted, for the clerks in the quire, 6s. 8d."; in the same year there was paid "for two quires of paper to prick songs in, 8d." In 1555 at St Mary the Great, Cambridge, there was "paid 3s. 4d. for the copy of the service in English set out by note; and 1s. 4d. for writing and noting part of it to sing on both sides of the quire"; i.e., they sang antiphonally. There are numerous entries as to the cost of the organ and of the constant repairs which it required. Lastly, there was the organist's salary, which if it was anything like the sum received by John Hobbes, would be a heavy item. An eminent organist like John Norfolk, who was in charge of a choir school, would expect and no doubt get a large salary. In village churches, however, the boys would be trained, sometimes by a chantry priest if he was under statutory obligation to do so, more often by the parish clerk. The latter was a permanent official with a freehold, as he is still, and a person of much importance and dignity. Before the Reformation, in addition to serving at the daily Mass in a village church, carrying holy water and "blessed bread" round the parish, and many other functions, he was more especially in charge of the musical part of the services. He was expected to sing or chant himself, especially the psalms; he had to read the epistles; and, at any rate in the sixteenth century, he had to train the choir boys. It was ordered at Faversham in 1506 that "the clerks, or one of them, so much as in them is, shall endeavour themselves to teach children to read and sing in the quire." And at St Giles', Reading, in 1544 there was a payment of 12s. "to Whitborne the clerk towards his wages, and he to be bound to teach 2 children for the quire."
Hambleton
Beside the professional choirmen and the parish clerks there were sometimes amateurs also giving help. Sir Thomas More used to sing in Chelsea church like any parish clerk. "God's body," said the Duke of Norfolk, coming on a time to Chelsea and finding him in Chelsea church, singing at Mass in the choir, "God's body, my Lord Chancellor, what turned parish clerk?" Put these items together—the wages of choirmen and boys, and now and then of extra help, the making, mending and washing of surplices, the cost of music, the salaries of the organist and parish clerk and the cost of the choir school, and it will be seen that the services of a large town church must have been, musically, on quite a grand scale; it is equally plain that the love of church music and the willingness to pay for it were equally great in the villages. It is not possible here to go further into this matter of the church music. It may be said briefly, however, that the plain chant of the Divine Office and of the Mass would be sung in the chancel, and that for this the permanent village choir of men and boys would suffice. Every parish that could afford it seems to have had a rood loft and an organ in it. But the organ would not be used to accompany the plain song, but for what we call "voluntaries" in the various intervals of the Mass and other services. The
organ again would be employed when there was singing of "motets," i.e., anthems, whether the singers were in the choir or the rood loft. On great days when minstrels playing all manner of instruments were got together to help out the organ, they would no doubt be placed in the rood loft, with any extra vocalists for whom place could not be found in the choir below.