Fig. 48. Morris dancers, from 14th century MS. in the Bodleian Library (Strutt).
play, a glance at certain customs, either pagan or semi-pagan in their origin, may help to dispel all suspicion of unfairness. The old morris-dances ([Fig. 48]), which were associated with the church, were occasionally, as at Whitsuntide, performed within the nave. The wardens were not infrequently entrusted with the “properties” necessary for the performance of the dances. The earlier churchwardens’ accounts contain abundant references to the costumes of the dancers and mummers. The accounts of St Mary’s, Reading, contain entries of this kind so late as A.D. 1556-7[434]. We may perhaps find the immediate exemplars of some of these dances in the fandango of the Moors, especially if, as philologists tell us, the word “morris” is connected with the name of this race[435]. The ultimate origin of the custom, however, lies deeper, and goes back to the turn-over from heathenism. Some of the dances are as essentially British as any legacies which antiquity has bequeathed to us. One example, known as “Bean-setting,” is conjectured to be derived from a primitive ceremonial dance which was once performed in the springtime, when the crops were sown. In fact, dancing, and the revels with which it was accompanied, gave great trouble to the Early Fathers, who had much difficulty in safeguarding the precincts of the church from such intrusions[436]. So recently as the seventeenth century, a writer quoted by Mr Chambers could assert that, in his lifetime, he had seen clergy and singing boys dancing at Easter in the churches of Paris. Here, surely, was a vestige of paganism. And, although one cannot produce apposite parallels from Britain, there are astounding modern survivals of this kind reported from Continental churches, for example, at Seville, and at Echternach, in Luxembourg[437]. The Whit-Tuesday dancing procession at Echternach still takes place annually and attracts a huge crowd of pilgrims. The dancing is a kind of rhythmical leap, and is performed on the way from the Abbey church to the grave of St Willibrord, and then back again. Dancing in churches at Christmas—a different matter from dancing at Easter—was not unknown in England itself in the seventeenth century. John Aubrey says that, in his day, Yorkshire folk danced in the churches at Christmas-tide, singing or crying, “Yole, Yole, Yole[438]!” Philip Stubbes, in 1583, had denounced bitterly the “Devil’s dances” in church. Mention should not be omitted also of the horn dancers of Abbots Bromley, Staffordshire, whose reindeer antlers, dresses, and other properties are preserved in the parish church. There are records of horn-dancing from other places, but the Abbots Bromley performance, which is still continued annually, is most instructive, because it was carefully investigated by Dr J. C. Cox about a dozen years ago. Dr Cox then found persons living who could recollect the accompanying music being played in the church porch, while the dancers executed their steps in the churchyard. Moreover, this authority credits the tradition that, in former times, the dance, which was a preliminary to making the round of the parish, was performed in the church[439].
Having considered the use of the nave for purposes of trade and amusement, we must now notice what really seems to have been an unusual occurrence—the confinement of animals within the church. The custom was uncommon, because it never seems to have been actually sanctioned. And little wonder; decency alone demanded some limitation of such ignoble uses. In permitting the building to be employed for secular purposes, there was always a danger of licence, yet it must be said that notorious laxity seems to have usually brought a reprimand. But the practice alluded to, like a troublesome weed, refused to be extirpated. Von Hefele relates that, at the Quinsext, or Trullan Synod, held in the Imperial Palace at Constantinople in A.D. 692, the following decree was passed: “No cattle may be driven into the church, except in the greatest need, if a stranger has no shelter and his animals would otherwise perish[440].” One wonders whether a certain Essex vicar, who, in A.D. 1550, was reported for allowing sheep to be folded in the church, had ever heard of this decree. At all events, he pleaded that his action was taken “for grete and extreme necessitie sake, and not in anie contempt.” He was able to prove that there had been a heavy and unexpected fall of snow, and that the animals were placed in the church to save their lives. After the storm had abated, the sheep had been removed, and the church cleaned. The offender did not altogether escape punishment, even after this plea, for he was ordered to do penance and to distribute alms to the poor of the parish[441]. The vicar might have found a still wider loophole provided by an injunction belonging to the reign of the English king Edgar. This injunction not only specifically forbids eating, drinking, and indecorous behaviour within the church, but bans the entrance of dogs, or of more pigs than could be kept under control. The position is most remarkable, though, indeed, the expression used seems equivocal, “Neque intra ecclesiae sepem canis aliquis veniat, neque porcorum plures quam quis regere possit[442].” If we assume that all churchyards were actually enclosed at this period, and if we allow the wider interpretation of “ecclesiae sepem,” as meaning the whole enclosure of church and churchyard, the decree still appears inferentially to permit a considerable latitude of custom. That, in periods of general looseness of discipline, animals were allowed to graze in the churchyard, is well known to most readers. In the same year that the Essex clergyman was summoned for folding sheep in the church, complaint was made, concerning a churchyard in the Archdeaconry of Colchester, that “hogges do wrote up graves, and besse (= cattle) lie in the porch”; while a parish priest was “sworn to penance” for putting his horse in the churchyard[443]. But the practice could not be stopped. Essex had an unenviable reputation in this respect, for Peter Kalm, in 1748, notes that in this county and in the part of Kent around Gravesend and Rochester, grazing the churchyard was customary. Horses, pigs, and donkeys, but especially horses, were pastured among the graves. The churchyard was also kept as a meadow for hay. Let the acts be reprobated to the uttermost, they could not be entirely brought to an end. During a tithe dispute between a Derbyshire prior and the parochial clergy, lambs and wool were placed in a church, and a free fight ensued[444]. This was before the Reformation, but if we turn to such a work as Mackarness’s edition of Prideaux’s Churchwarden’s Guide (1895), we find a curious hesitancy in pronouncing definitely on a somewhat kindred matter. Should the parson “merely turn a horse or a few sheep into the churchyard to pasture therein,” the churchwardens may not feel called upon to interfere. But if he lets loose animals which turn up the soil, and profane the graves, or if, again, he converts the church-porch into a stable for his horse, he may rightly be censured[445]. The mounting-blocks already mentioned ([p. 157] supra) show that these maxims must, in former times, have been indifferently followed in some parishes.
Throughout the Middle Ages, there was prevalent another custom which is repugnant to modern ideas. This was the keeping of doves in or near churches. Most frequently, it is true, a separate structure seems to have been built to accommodate the birds, as at Garway, Herefordshire. The Garway dovecot, a fourteenth century building, would house 600 birds. Sometimes, as we have seen at Gumfreston ([p. 115] supra), a portion of the tower was utilized as a pigeon loft, while again, as at Elkstone, Gloucestershire, a chamber was built over the chancel[446]. Incidentally, we may notice that the privilege of building a columbarium, or culver-house, as it was called, was confined to the lord of the manor, the rector, the heads of monastic houses, and freeholders. The existence of a culver-house is usually deemed a sign of Norman influence. The dovecot of Berwick, Sussex, shown in the illustration ([Fig. 49]), is doubtless several centuries old. A few Sussex culver-houses probably go back to the twelfth or thirteenth century, but such examples are generally in ruins. The Berwick dovecot can be traced back at least to the year 1622, when it was rented from the parson for five pounds a year.
Most persons are familiar with the old box pew, in which the territorial family used to sit during service. Frequently these apartments—for they really deserved this name—contained a fireplace. Pre-Reformation fireplaces are rare in churches, but in the Norbury chapel, or chantry, at Stoke D’Abernon, Surrey, there is a specimen dating c. A.D. 1490. During the worst days of the large private pews, which were often partially screened from the body of the church, a special compartment
Fig. 49. Ancient dovecot, Berwick Court, Sussex. These buildings are usually attached to the territorial-house of the village. Sussex has many examples; some are much older than the specimen figured, but they are usually not so well preserved. The whole of the interior of the Berwick dovecot is fitted up for the birds. (See description in Sussex Archaeol. Coll. VI. pp. 232-3.)