Since the Reformation, and inclosures aforesaid, these parts have swarmed with poor people. The parish of Cain pays to the poor (1663) L500 per annum; and the parish of Chippenham little less, as appears by the poor's books there. Inclosures are for the private, not for the public, good. For a shepherd and his dog, or a milk-maid, can manage meadow-land, that upon arable, employed the hands of several scores of labourers.
In those times (besides the jollities already mentioned) they had their pilgrimages to Walsingham, Canterbury, &c. to several shrines, as chiefly hereabouts, to St. Joseph's of Arimathea, at his chapel in Glastonbury Abbey. In the roads thither were several houses of entertainment, built purposely for them; among others, was the house called "The Chapel of Playster" near Box; and a great house called ……. without Lafford's Gate, near Bristol.
Then the Crusado's to the Holy War were most magnificent and glorious, and the rise, I believe, of the adventures of knights errant and romances. The solemnities , of processions in and about the churches, and the perambulations in the fields, besides their convenience, were fine pleasing diversions: the priests went before in their formalities, singing the Latin service, and the people came after, making their good-meaning responses. The reverence given to holy men was very great. Then were the churches open all day long, men and women going daily in and out hourly, to and from their devotions. Then were the consciences of the people kept in so great awe by confession, that just dealing and virtue was habitual. Sir Edwyn Sandys observed, in his travels in the Catholic countries, so great use of confession as aforesaid, that though a severe enemy to the Church of Rome, he doth heartily wish it had never been left out by the Church of England, perceiving the great good it does beyond sea. Lent was a dismal time, strictly observed by fasting, prayer, and confessing against Easter. During the forty days, the Fryars preached every day.
This country was very full of religious houses; a man could not have travelled but he must have met monks, fryars, bonnehommes, &c. in their several habits, black, white, grey, &c. And the tingle tangle of their convent bells, I fancy, made very pretty musick, like the college bells at Oxford.
Then were there no free-schools; the boys were educated at the monasteries; the young maids, not at Hackney schools, &c. to learn pride and wantonness, but at the nunneries, where they had examples of piety, humility, modesty, and obedience, &c. to imitate and practise. Here they learned needle-work, and the art of confectionary, surgery, physick, writing, drawing, &c.
Old Jaques (who lived where Charles Hadnam did) could see from his house the nuns of the priory of St. Mary's (juxta Kington) come forth into the nymph-hay with their rocks and wheels to spin, and with their sewing work. He would say that he hath told threescore and ten; though of nuns there were not so many, but in all, with lay-sisters, as widows, old maids, and young girls, there might be such a number. This was a fine way of breeding up young women, who are led more by example than precept; and a good retirement for widows and grave single women, to a civil, virtuous, and holy life.
Plato says, that the foundation of government is, the education of youth; by this means it is most probable that that was a golden age. I have heard Judge Jenkins, Mr. John Latch, and other lawyers, say, that before the Reformation, one shall hardly in a year find an action on the case, as for slander, &c. which was the result of a good government.
It is a sarcasm, more malicious than true, commonly thrown at the church-men, that they had too much land; for their constitution being in truth considered, they were rather administrators of those great revenues to pious and publick uses, than usufructuaries. As for themselves, they had only their habit and competent diet, every order according to their prescribed rule; from which they were not to vary. Then for their tenants, their leases were almost as good to them as fee simple, and perchance might longer last in their families. Sir William Button (the father) hath often told me, that Alton farm had been held by his ancestors from the Abbey of Winchester, about four hundred years. The powers of Stanton Quintin held that farm of the Abbey of Cirencester in lease 300 years: and my ancestors, the Danvers, held West Tokenham for many generations, of the Abbey of Broadstock, where one of them was a prior. Memorandum, that in the abbies were several corrodies granted for poor old shiftless men, which Fitzherbert speaks of amongst his writs. In France, to every parish church is more than one priest, (because of the several masses to be said) which fashion, Mr. Dugdale tells me, was used here, and at some churches in London, in near half a dozen.
In many chancels are to be seen three seats with niches in the wall (most commonly on the south side) rising by degrees, and sometimes only three seats, the first being for the bishop, the second for the priest, and the third for the deacon. Anciently the bishops visited their churches in person. This I had from Mr. Dugdale; as also that in many churches where stalls are, as at cathedrals, (which I mistook for chauntries) and in collegiate churches. This searching after antiquities is a wearisome task. I wish I had gone through all the church-monuments. The Records at London I can search gratis. Though of all studies, I take the least delight in this, yet methinks I am carried on with a kind of oestrum; for nobody else hereabout hardly cares for it, but rather makes a scorn of it. But methinks it shows a kind of gratitude and good nature, to revive the memories and memorials of the pious and charitable benefactors long since dead and gone.
Eston Pierse, April 28, 1670.