The Elizabethan Parish in its Ecclesiastical and Financial Aspects

by Sedley Lynch Ware

As was mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the secular judges were given statutory authority to take cognizance of breaches of the order prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer, of the offence of not attending church, and other delinquencies against the legal settlement of religion. Hence in these matters they exercised what might be called a sort of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in aid of the ordinary and concurrently with him, though their mode of procedure, of course, was that of the common law, possessing nothing in common with the practice adopted in courts Christian. Men who were "hinderers" and "contemners" of religion; who refrained from going to church without lawful cause; who had mass-books or super-altars[193] in their possession;[194] who spoke in contempt of the Book of Common Prayer and its rites;[195] who caused their children to be baptized with forms other than those prescribed;[196] ministers who omitted the cross in baptism;[197] who left off the surplice;[198] who refused to church women;[199] who called purification "a Jewish ceremony," or who in their sermons preached seditious doctrine[200]—all these and other like offenders were indicted at quarter sessions or at the assizes.

CHAPTER II.

PARISH FINANCE.

Speaking generally of the average parish, Elizabethan churchwardens accounts and vestry minutes show that for the purposes of raising money amongst themselves to meet every-day parish expenditures,[201] the parishioners of the period did not commonly resort to rates, if by "rate" be understood a general assessment of all lands or all goods alike at a fixed percentage of their revenue or value above a minimum exempted.

It must not be supposed, however, that in the case of offerings or gatherings, or of levies to raise a certain sum where each man assessed himself, it was entirely optional for each to give or to refuse. What a man customarily gave, or what he had promised to give, or, again, what the parish thought he ought to give, that the ordinary might compel him to give.[202] From an offering or a voluntary assessment to a rate is often but a short step, and the two former shade off into the latter almost imperceptibly. The justices of the peace and the ecclesiastical authorities usually cast lump sums upon the parishes, leaving ways and means to the parishioners themselves. But it was, of course, optional with the justices to rate each individual separately when it seemed good to them, and for this they had the Queen's subsidy books to guide them. Here, however, we are chiefly concerned with the raising of money amongst the parishioners themselves. How manifold, how ingenious were the parochial devices for creating resources, it is the purpose of this chapter to set forth.

But before proceeding to the parish expedients, properly so called, for raising money, it will be well to say something of parish endowments, whether in lands, houses or funds. According as the revenue from these was available for general, or at least for various purposes, or, on the other hand, was impressed with a trust for some specific object, these endowments may be divided into general and special. Parishes well endowed might be able to dispense with some of the devices for money-getting which we shall have occasion to enumerate, but then, after all, endowments might come and they might go;[203] moreover, the financial policy of any one parish would, of course, differ according to the disposition or the ability of those who shaped it.

Of Loddon, Norfolk, we are told that "no complaint appears about Church Rates, for there were none, as the revenue of the Town Farm … rendered a tax of that description unnecessary."[204]

Of St. Petrock's, Exeter, we are informed that "the parish became so well endowed by donations of land and houses as to enable the wardens to dispense almost entirely with the quarterly collections entered in the earlier accounts."[205] The editor of the Thatcham, Berks, Accounts, writes: "In the early years of these churchwardens accounts the available funds were derived chiefly from the two oldest charities, one called 'Lowndye's Almshouses,' the first account of which is for the year … 1561 … to 1562; the other known as 'the Church Estate,' the first account of which begins in 1566."[206] Summoned by the Bodmin, Cornwall, justices in January, 159-4/5, to make a report as to the parish stock, the representatives of Stratton certify at sessions that their stock "am[oun]ts to the now some of Sixteene poundes, some yeares it is more & some yeares lesse…." And, they continue, "the vsinge of our sayde stocke is by the two wardens & the rest of the eight men w[hi]ch for the same stande sworne, And it is bestowed aboute her ma[jes]ties service, for buyenge of armor, settinge forth of souldiers wth powder & shott…. And likewise for the relievinge & mainetayning of the poore…." They thereupon give the names of the impotent and decrepit persons and orphan children "wholly relieved" by the parish, ten in number, and add that there are upwards of a hundred poor "w[h]ich are not able to liue of themselues, but haue reliefe dayly one thinge or another of the seide p[ar]ish."[207] The little parish of St. Michael's in Bedwardine, Worcestershire,[208] possessed lands and tenements in various parishes, and in 1599 invested £10 in buying two more tenements in Worcester city.[209] Its wardens accounts, we are told by their editor, disclose that there was never any lack of money for parish purposes "in spite of a rather lavish expenditure at times in the luxury of law[suits]."[210] Lapworth, Warwickshire, had many acres of parish land.[211] The churchwardens of St. John's, Glastonbury, Somerset, return in their accounts the rent of the parish lands in 1588 at £9 13s. 10d.,[212] and, as these accounts show, they occasionally received important sums for fines on changes of tenants. The various properties managed by the wardens of St. Michael's, Bath, numbered thirty-seven in 1527, yielding a revenue of £11 8s.;[213] and even in 1572 the rent amounted to £11 8s.[214]

Indeed, though parish lands and houses were generally vested as to title in trustees (often a numerous and cumbersome body),[215] the churchwardens themselves and sometimes other accountants,[216] who like the wardens were appointed from year to year, usually exercised the actual management. The feoffees existed chiefly for the purpose of making it difficult to alienate the parish properties, "and the larger the trust body the more difficult such alienation was supposed to be."[217]

Contenting ourselves with the above examples, which could easily be multiplied, we pass on under this same head of general endowments to an interesting form of personal property, viz., cattle, for not only did the wardens derive receipts from parish holdings of real estate, but also from Endowments of Cows or Sheep. The Pittington, Durham, Twelve Men, a sort of parish executive and administrative body, enact in 1584 "that everie iiij pounde rent[218] within this parrishe, as well of hamlets as townshippes, shall gras[219] winter and somer one shepe for the behoufe of this church;"[220] and we are told that these "Church Shepe," as they were called, were here one of the chief means of raising funds for parochial purposes.[221] It was the custom of pious donors, especially among the lowly, to leave one or more sheep or cows to their parish. In the year 1559 twelve sheep were thus given or bequeathed to Wootton Church, Hants, by ten donors.[222] These sheep, as well as the parish cows, were often hired out to parishioners, who gave security for their return. Sometimes they were given to poor men at a reduced rent, and thus they served to support the poor.[223]