Byways in British Archaeology

by Walter Johnson

Fig. 37. Stone porch, Wotton church, Surrey. The inner doorway dates from c. A.D. 1200, but the porch itself belongs to the 13th or 14th century. Internal measurements, 14 ft × 11 ft approx. The outer doorway and the inside arcade are modern restorations. The barge board is of the Decorated period.

Hope and Tideswell, the former existence of the porch-school rests on tradition alone. But John Evelyn, referring to the year 1624, says definitely that “one Frier taught us at the church porch at Wotton,” in Surrey[366]. The Surrey historian, William Bray, writing in A.D. 1818, asserts that the village schoolmaster of Wotton taught over the porch, and considers it “not altogether incurious to observe” that the son of a man of very considerable fortune should receive his first rudiments of learning in such a school. There was another school during the sixteenth century over the porch of St Sepulchre’s, London. A few more instances may be given where porch-schools existed. St Michael’s Loft, in the Priory Church, Christchurch, Hants; the parish church, Cheltenham; Selby Abbey (in a room over a chapel); Berkeley, Gloucestershire (until 1870); and Malmesbury (until 1879, or later). An interesting expression, of which little note has been made, occurs in Twelfth Night, Act III. Sc. 2. Maria, referring to Malvolio, says, “He’s in yellow stockings.” “And cross-gartered?” queries Sir Toby Belch. “Most villainously; like a pedant that keeps a school in the church,” runs the disdainful reply. Schools held in the body of the church have also been known in our own time, for they usually survived the porch-schools proper.

It is suggested that the stone seats often found in the porch were used as benches for the children who came to be taught or catechized. Setting aside the fact that wooden seats are also met with, it is not inherently improbable that stone ledges should have been used, particularly when we remember the chilly, comfortless fittings so familiar in monastic cloisters and chapter houses. These benches, too, may have been covered with straw or rushes. But it is more likely that the schools were held in those rooms which are constantly seen built over the porch. Here, in some parishes, the ostiarius (from ostium=door), who was to develop into the “usher” of the public school, probably taught his little flock of pupils[367]. The ostiarius, it may be recollected, belonged at first to one of the minor orders of the church. Occasionally a chantry priest had this duty of teaching allotted to him. It will be remembered that Roman schools were held in a verandah partly open to the street. Some of the upper chambers of porches are fitted with fireplaces. When provided with a squint, the room may have been intended to lodge a priest, whose duty it was to keep alight the sacred fire on the altar, or to house a watchman who had to guard the treasure. Often the porch-chambers have degenerated into lumber rooms. At times, as we shall see later, armour was stored in them. In many porch-chambers libraries existed[368], and, in others, documents were preserved. When employed for teaching purposes, the chamber was proportionately large[369]. In place of the overhead chamber, a gallery of oak or stone is sometimes found around the inside of the porch. Galleries of this kind, to which access is obtained by staircases, either in, or passing up the wall, are to be seen at Bildeston, Suffolk, Weston-in-Gordano, Somerset, and several other places. These “eminences” are usually believed to have accommodated the singers at weddings and festivals, and, more especially, on Palm Sunday[370]. In passing, we are obliged to notice the term “parvis” or “parvise” which is commonly used to describe the room above the porch. The usage, though fixed, is erroneous, for a parvise is strictly the enclosed space before the door of a church or cathedral. The application of the word to a porch-chamber has no precedent earlier than the nineteenth century[371].

That much informal business was carried on in the porch has been previously noted ([p. 143] supra). Under this sheltering pent-house the layman met his fellows to arrange slight matters of public interest. In Saxon days, the finder of a stray beast would bring it to the porch, and there, in the presence of the priest and the reeve of the tun, would exhibit the animal to all possible claimants[372]. The church porch has, in fact, always been a favourite resort for the performance of certain business. In 1610, we hear of mortgages being paid off in the South porch of Ecclesfield church, near Sheffield. Welsh instances prove that rent for lands was sometimes brought to the church porch. Mrs C. King Warry, who has made a careful study of the folk-customs of the Isle of Portland, describes a practice which helps us to realize the business methods of our ancestors. The practice, which exists to-day, is a survival of the old pre-feudal mode of conveyance by “church-gift.” A father, wishing to bequeath his paddock (i.e. a small enclosure of land, with the freedom of quarrying stone therein) to his four daughters, let us suppose, proceeds in the following manner. He divides the property by means of partition walls into the requisite number of shares. Then, after the church service on Sunday evening, he conveys the property by word of mouth in the church porch. An old manuscript describes the ceremony: “The churchwardens, and some of the best inhabitants” assemble in the porch, when the testator thus expresses himself: “I, A——, desire you, my neighbours, to take notice that I give to each of my daughters an equal share of my Paddock, called——, and bounded——, as it now lys divided into four parts.” “Wherefore,” continues the manuscript, “the assembly rises and blesses (by name) the daughters[373].” It is necessary only to add that the Portland custom can be paralleled from other parts of the country.

Students of English literature will have noticed that marriages in the church porch were once common. Chaucer makes the “Wife of Bath” speak thus: “Housbondes at chirche-dore I have had fyve[374].” The allusion to the church-door is not mere rhetorical licence. According to the Sarum service, the marriage ceremony was performed in the porch (ante ostium ecclesiae), the nuptial benediction being pronounced at the altar afterwards. It was only when the first Prayer Book of Edward VI. was issued that the rubric was thus settled: “The persons to be married shall come into the body of the Church,” and this version has been retained to the present time[375].

Several minor details might be noted to illustrate the secular uses of the porch. Frequently the parson used the porch as a temporary stable for his horse, and, although such action is now held to call for interference on the part of the churchwardens[376], we may confidently say that public opinion has not always discountenanced the practice. Occasionally, one meets with old “stirrup stones” or “jossing blocks,” placed in such positions as to show that no prohibition could have been effectively in force against the horseman who brought his steed to church. One of these stoops still remains at the gate of Duddington churchyard, near Edinburgh, while at Edlington, Lincolnshire, the mounting block is actually fixed on the North side of the porch[377]. Doubtless, a careful search would show that many more examples remain.

Only when we have fully recognized the vitality of ancient superstitions and customs, shall we appreciate certain lingering practices connected with the porch. John Aubrey saw, in the porch of a Suffolk church, a horseshoe fixed on the wall to keep away the witches. The numerous authenticated cases of portions of human skin having been found nailed to church doors also bear on the point. Such instances carry us back, not simply to the period when the secular and the religious were combined in one mode of thought and action, but to a still earlier time when the Christian teachers could not, or would not, repress the savagery of paganism. The fragments of skin served to warn sacrilegious robbers that they, too, ran the risk of being flayed alive.

It was casually mentioned, in a preceding paragraph, that armour was sometimes stored in the porch-chamber. The subject will repay a little further examination, because it has not yet received the attention which it merits. Nor, even now, have we sufficient material available to give very positive decisions. From the time of Edward I. onwards, every parish was bound to keep in readiness an amount of armour in proportion to its population. By the time of Henry VIII., as already stated (p. 142 supra), this obligation was vested primarily in the churchwardens. The churchwardens were evidently the deputies of the constables, and these, in turn, were the representatives of the sheriff, who was ultimately responsible, both for the parish arms and for the training of the soldiers. Yet, before this period, the clergy, as well as the laity, were assessed for arms. Whoever was answerable for the observance of the law is a question which does not greatly concern us for the present. The most interesting part of the problem touches the storage of the armour. The subject was discussed in a valuable article by Miss Ethel Lega-Weekes in Notes and Queries for 1909[378]. Was either the nave or the porch used as an armoury? or were the weapons housed elsewhere? These are questions to which one would fain get an answer.

The writer of the article which has just been cited considers it an open question whether the expression “church armour,” occurring in old documents, means the same as “town armour,” or “parish armour.” With respect to storage, it is admitted that arms may have been deposited in the church, though there has not been discovered any law or regulation enforcing this practice. It is argued that the church would be damp and unsuited for the keeping of armour: arms may have been deposited in churches, but it was such as had fallen into disuse or become obsolete. At once we may grant that iron weapons and body-coverings needed to be carefully treasured. Professor Vinogradoff pertinently observes that, in the eleventh century, well-forged helmets and swords were scarce and expensive[379]. Yet one imagines that, down to the end of the Wars of the Roses, at any rate, there was little chance for either arms or armour to rust away. The monumental armour which is found in churches is rusty and half-perished, but how many times has it been taken down since it was first suspended over the tomb? It is said that the churches of the fighting period possessed no snug, weather-proof vestries, where arms could be safely protected. But there existed chantry chapels, as well as porch-chambers, both of which might have served. Again, is it so certain that the church was markedly damp—less dry, shall we say, than the outbuildings of a feudal castle, where doubtless considerable quantities of armour were once preserved? We shall shortly see that the church was not deemed unfit for the storage of goods. If any building were kept in a weather-tight condition, surely the church was that building. In villages where no “church house” or tithe barn existed, one is inclined to think, for several reasons, that some of the armour, when not in use, was placed in the church. The clues which lead to this opinion will be gathered together in the next few lines.

We may leave out of the discussion the mouldering helmets and crumbling swords which hang derelict over many an altar tomb, and which were oftentimes specially made for purposes of commemoration. These arms, “undertakers’ properties,” as someone has well called them, are irrelevant to the general question, and are apt to prejudice an examination. Fortunately, we possess a little definite evidence as to the housing of the “town’s armour” in churches. A large equipment of such armour, of which Dr J. C. Cox gives a detailed inventory, was kept in a room over the South porch of Repton church, Derbyshire, down to the year 1840[380]. This collection comprised “corsletts,” “pickes,” “calevers,” halberds, swords, a flask and touch-box, with many other requisites. The parish books distinctly speak of the store as the “Townes Armore.” In the steeple of the parish church of Darley, also in Derbyshire, “harness and weapons” were, during the first year of Elizabeth, kept in readiness for one bill-man and one archer[381]. The poverty of this store excites a little surprise, and the explanation is not immediately forthcoming. But doubtless the population of Darley was then small, and the assessment would be proportionately low. A hoard of old armour was lighted upon accidently at Baldock, Hertfordshire—again in a chamber above the porch, which had been closed for many years. The available space was nearly choked up with armour and helmets, as well as with pikes and other weapons. Although the local historian considers that the chamber was merely the lumber room for arms removed from tombs, Dr Cox, with more reason, perhaps, considers that the relics were representative of the old store of the town’s armour.