Fig. 43. Fourteenth century barn, Barton Farm, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire. From the South-West. The barn exhibits numerous Gothic features of the period; angle buttresses, transept-like porches, gable crosses, &c. The windows, of which those at the ends are cruciform, are narrow slits, with wide splays internally. The Glastonbury barn is one of the finest in the country; the parochial tithe-barn was a much smaller building.
was a public-hall, a theatre, a warehouse, a market, a court of justice, and a place of worship; but the chancel was rigidly reserved for the mysteries and sublime offices of priestly service[404].” Already we have glanced at the judicial and legislative aspects of the question; we may now consider the remaining features. Serving the purpose of a warehouse, the thirteenth century church was sometimes used for the storage of corn and wool, a small fee being paid to the clergy for the accommodation[405]. The practice may not have been usual, but it does not seem to have been rare. For the reception of the grain and fodder which was paid to the church in kind, there was, as we know, the spacious tithe-barn (Figs. [43], [44]). But other persons besides
Fig. 44. Interior of barn, Bradford-on-Avon. The windows, which, viewed from the outside ([Fig. 43]), were narrow slits, are here seen to have a wide internal splay. The timber roof is remarkably fine. Internal measurements 85 ft × 25¾ ft.
abbot or priest were often anxious to store goods temporarily—perhaps against the time of the village fair or feast—and hence the nave of the church became, for the time, a granary or barn. Bread was stored in churches so recently as A.D. 1665[406]. The English village possessed few buildings, other than the church, which were both capacious and weather-proof. Previous to the Reformation, it must be observed, fixed pews were not often found in churches; at the most, the worshippers were supplied only with movable benches. These benches could be cleared away in times of emergency, and the nave was thus admirably fitted to receive merchandise, such as sacks of wheat, wool-packs, and boxes of treasure. Comparatively large quantities of produce could be packed in the space thus set free.
The evidence that the nave was extensively used as a market-hall is not abundant. In view of the repeated attempts to enforce the Scriptural principle respecting the House of Prayer, we have some difficulty in distinguishing between what was considered lawful and what profane. Manifestly, it would have puzzled the bishop or priest to justify the use of the nave as a mart or bazaar, save on special or urgent occasions. Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln (d. A.D. 1253), expressly forbade markets to be held in sacred places (ne in locis sacris habeantur mercata)[407]. Frequently, the habit, after having been denounced, crept in again unawares. In one village, pleading necessity or stress of weather, and, in another, advancing no plea whatever, hucksters coming to the parish wake or the annual fair would boldly set up their stalls for the sale of victuals within the church[408]. And what was done without let or hindrance in the village was contrived craftily in the city. In old St Paul’s, and other cathedrals, stands were erected for special occasions, and were afterwards allowed to remain as centres of bargaining[409]. When driven out of the nave, the dealers could still find a harbour in the porch. The York Fabric Rolls record the fact that pedlars sold their wares in the porch of Riccal church (A.D. 1510)[410]. Even the Reformation did not bring these customs to an end. Barnabe Googe’s Popish Kingdome (1570)—a translation, or adaptation, of the Latin work of Thomas Naogeorgus (Kirchmayer), contains, among other complaints, a bitter lament over the sale of “carpes and pykes and mullets fat,” in the church on St Ulrick’s Day (July 4th). Both Googe and Naogeorgus wrote as strong Protestants, hence there is a possibility that their pictures are too highly coloured. But it is more likely that they branded as irreligious what was an acknowledged custom. Whether they exaggerated the evil or not, their statements are supported by another Protestant, William Harrison, who wrote only a few years later (A.D. 1577). Harrison’s doleful story runs thus: “But as the number of churches increased, so the repair of the faithful unto the cathedrals did diminish, whereby they now become, especially in their nether parts, rather markets and shops for merchandise than solemn places of prayer, whereunto they were first erected[411].” In Norwich, he tells us, the church was turned into a barn, while the people, himself among them, heard service further off, on a green. There, a bell was suspended from an oak, for want of a steeple. “But now,” says he, “I understand that the oke likewise is gone[412].” Like Googe, Harrison was such a strenuous Reformer, that he ignored the antiquity of some of the customs which he condemned. Had he been able to take a detached view, he would have seen that the excesses which he witnessed had not sprung up in his day, but that they were extravagances arising from the abuse of a once recognized practice. The Mediaeval citizen, who sauntered into the church to cross himself and to utter a momentary prayer, might often be tempted to stay a full hour to converse with his fellows. The church was a hall for social intercourse, a comfortable shelter for the poor. It was a museum of sculpture and painting, an academy of music. But, running through all these arrangements, there was a current of salutary religious influence. To judge the Mediaeval condition of affairs by the standard of the eighteenth, or the early nineteenth century, as one might be hastily led to do, would be a grievous error. The broken windows, once “richly dight,” the defaced carvings, the bare, whitewashed walls and the concealed fresco, the demolished rood-loft, the font out of position, the memorial brass at the back of the kitchen fireplace, the registers torn up by the village shopkeeper—these are features which do not belong to the period when the nave, perchance, was used as a storehouse and a market. Such treatment was left to a generation of which eye-witnesses can still speak. We must discriminate between the theoretical principle that all secular matters are bound up in religion, and the lukewarmness which engenders sheer indifference to desecration. If we learn to make this distinction, we shall put a different construction on such queer survivals as the distribution of doles and charities in church, or the scrambling for loaves in the churchyard. They are not acts of wanton irreverence; commendable or not, they are genuine relics of the older legitimate tradition.