How to write the history of a parish

by J. Charles Cox

It is necessary to enter a warm protest against the notion that any honour can be paid to God, or respect to the memory of those that He created in His own image, by burying inscribed gravestones beneath many inches of concrete in order to stick therein the glossy tiles of recent manufacture. The effacing or removal (wherever it can be avoided) of the memorials of the dead should in all cases be strongly resisted, no matter what be the eminence of the architect that recommends it. There are not many unrestored churches left in the country, but there are some of much value and interest for whose fate we tremble. When a “restoration” (the term is a necessity for the lack of a better) is contemplated, let it be recollected that all work—beyond the removal of galleries, and modern fittings, the opening out of flat plaster ceilings, above which good timber roofs often lie concealed, the scraping off the accumulated layers of whitewash and paint, the letting in of light through blocked-up windows, the allowing of feet to pass through doorways closed in recent days by the mason or bricklayer, and the making strong of really perishing parts—all work beyond this is in great danger of destroying the traces of the historic continuity of our Church, and of doing a damage that can never be repaired. And in preserving this historic continuity, let it not be thought that any service is being rendered to history or religion by sweeping clean out of the church all fittings of a post-Reformation date. The sturdy Elizabethan benches, the well-carved Jacobean pulpit, or the altar rails of beaten iron of last century, should all be preserved as memorials of their respective periods; in short, everything that our forefathers gave to God’s service that was costly and good, should be by us preserved, provided that it does not mar the devout ritual ordered by the Common Prayer, or in other respects interfere with the Church’s due proclaiming of her Divine mission to the nineteenth century. The reaction against over-restoration is now happily setting in, but a word of caution is also necessary lest that cry should be adopted as the cloak of a lazy indifferentism, or be used as an excuse for regarding the parish church as a local museum illustrative of byegone times, to be carefully dusted and nothing more. Where much new work, or any considerable extent of refitting, seem absolutely necessary, it is best to hasten slowly, and to do a little well rather than to aim at a speedy general effect. Thus, if one of our old grey churches requires fresh seating, how much better to fill a single aisle or one bay of the nave with sound and effectively carved oak, and only repair the remainder, rather than to accomplish the whole in sticky pine. The best material and the best art should surely be used in God’s service, and not reserved to feed our pride or minister to our comfort in private dwellings. It has often been noticed how far better the work of redeeming the interior of our churches from that state of dirt and neglect that had degraded some at least below the level of the very barns upon the glebe, has been carried out where money has come in slowly, and at intervals, rather than where some munificent patron has readily found the funds to enter upon a big contract.

Religious Houses.

If the parish includes within its boundaries the remains or the site of any abbey, priory, hospital, monastic cell, or other religious building otherwise than the parish church, the history and description of such places must of course be separately undertaken. And let not the local historian consider it is needless for him to explore into a subject that has probably been treated of with greater or less detail in the original edition of Dugdale’s “Monasticon,” or with more precision in the expanded English edition. The English abbeys or priories, whose history can be said to have been exhaustively written, could certainly be counted on the fingers of both hands.

Should any one desire to thoroughly search into the history of a religious house, it will be best in the first place to ascertain whether there is any chartulary or chartularies extant (to printed lists of which we have previously referred) for Dugdale and subsequent writers have often only quoted some two or three out of a hundred charters, or ignored them altogether. Secondly, the numerous references to national records, all now to be found at the P. R. O., which are given in Tanner’s “Notitia,” or in the big Dugdale, should be referred to seriatim. Thirdly, the indexes and calendars to the various Rolls, etc., at the P. R. O., which have been mentioned under the manorial history, should be looked through for those more or less frequent references that are almost certain to have been omitted by Tanner. Fourthly, the Augmentation Books, and other likely documents of the time of the Suppression of the Monasteries, should be overhauled. Fifthly, special MSS. dealing with the order to which the house pertains, should be sought after; e.g., if of the Premonstratensian order, a store of unpublished matter is almost certain to be found in the Peck MSS. of the B. M., and in the Visitation Book of the B., numbered Ashmole MSS. 1519. Sixthly, search should also be made through the indexes of the various Blue Book Reports of the Historical Manuscript Commission, and inquiries set on foot as to local private libraries. Seventhly, and though last, this suggestion will often be found to be of great value, questions should be asked through the pages of that invaluable medium between literary men—Notes and Queries.

It may also be found of use to study the precise statutes and regulations of the particular order. They will be found in full in the bulky folios of Holstein’s “Codex Regularum Monasticarum et Canonicarum,” 1759. Dugdale only gives an abstract of the majority of them.

General Topics.

Under this head we may classify the more general and modern subjects that should not be left out of any complete parochial history, but which it is sufficient just to indicate without further comment, only premising that the annalist should keep constantly before him that it is the history of a parish, and not of a county or country, on which he is engaged, and that the more sparing he is of general disquisitions the more likely he is to please his readers.

The value of a thorough study of the field-names, of which we spoke in the first section of this manual, will now also become apparent. Some names will tell of a change of physical features, of swamps and islands, where all is now dry and far removed from water, or of forests and underwood, where the blade of corn is now the highest vegetation; whilst others will point to the previous existence of the vast common fields, and their peculiar cultivation (concerning which Maine’s “Village Communities” should be read). Some will indicate the foolish ways in which special crops were attempted to be forced by law upon the people, for it is few parishes that have not a “Flax Piece” as a witness to the futile legislation of 24 Henry VIII.; whilst others tell of trades now extinct, or metals long since worked out. Some speak of those early days when the wolf or the bear roamed the woods and fields, the beaver dammed up the streams, or the eagle swooped down upon its prey; whilst others tell of the weapons whereby these fauna were rendered extinct, for scarcely a township can be found where some field is not termed “the Butts,” names that certainly date back as far as Edward IV., when it was enacted that every Englishman should have a bow of his own height, and that butts for the practice of archery should be erected near every village, where the inhabitants were obliged to shoot up and down on every feast day under penalty of being mulcted a halfpenny.