Parish Priests and Their People in the Middle Ages in England Part 46

[47] _i.e._ be scourged.

[48] So it is usually stated, but the date and place of the council are very questionable.

[49] Zachary's letters to the English inhabitants of Britain were in Latin and English. The doc.u.ments are not on record, but we are told that they were read at the Council; in them he "familiariter admonebat et veraciter conveniebat et postremo amabiliter exorabat," and to those who despise these modes of address he "anathematis sententiam procul dubio properandam insinuabat."

[50] This prayer is as follows: "O Lord, we beseech Thee, of Thy great mercy, grant that the soul of (such a person) may be secured in a state of peace and repose, and that he may be admitted with the rest of Thy saints into the region of light and happiness."

[51] Among the "Canons of Edgar," the following occurs:--"A powerful man may satisfy a sentence of seven years' fasting in three days. Let him lay aside his weapons and ornaments, and go barefoot and live hard, etc., and take to him twelve men to fast three days on bread, water, and green herbs, and get wherever he can 7 times 120 men, who shall fast for him three days, then will be fasted as many fasts as there are days in seven years."

[52] Thorpe, i. 227.

[53] It is not known by whose authority the ecclesiastical regulations which are ent.i.tled the canons of Edgar were drawn up, but they appear to be of this date.

[54] That it might be seen that they were complete and in good order, just as the laity came to the Hundred mote or Wapentake with their weapons. For list of them see aelfric's Pastoral, 44.

[55] To keep a copy of the const.i.tutions made at the synod.

[56] The time was subsequently shortened to seven days.

[57] Probably spots of ground accounted sacred.

[58] In the "vulgar tongue."

[59] The priests had a small consecrated slab of stone which they used on missionary journeys and at other times.

[60] The Legatine Council of Cealchythe (787, 5 c.) explains this by saying he must not celebrate with naked thighs. (See Exodus xxviii. 42.)

[61] For hours of service see Thorpe, "Ancient Laws," etc., ii. 359.

[62] By laws of Alfred and Guthrum, if a priest misdirect people about a festival or fast he shall pay 30_s._

[63] Meaning obscure.

[64] The chief distinction between nuns and mynchens appears to have consisted in the superior age and strictness of life of the former (Thorpe, "Ancient Laws").

[65] The laws of Canute say _d._ worth of wax for every hide on Easter Eve, All Saints, and Purification.

[66] Allusions to the Danish incursions.

[67] Fifth law of Ine.

[68] Law 16.

[69] Law 17.

[70] Mr. Kemble, as we have seen, is of opinion that the people in those days of heathendom had a temple in every towns.h.i.+p, and that the priesthood were endowed with lands as well as offerings, but we do not find sufficient evidence of this.

[71] The monks of Jumieges, in the seventh century, fitted out vessels and sailed great distances to redeem slaves. St. Eligius spent large sums in redeeming them--20, 50, 100 at a time. Christian missionaries bought slaves, and trained them as Christians.

[72] "Diplomatarium Anglicanum."

[73] "Collier," i. 241. The Cathedral Churches of the Continent were universally served by Canons.

[74] Bishop of Oxford's "Select Charters," p. 73.

[75] Robert d'Oyley, a powerful Norman n.o.ble, repaired the ruinous parochial churches in and out of Oxford in the reign of William I.

(Brewer, "Endowment, etc., of the Church of England," p. 74). Corsuen built a number of houses and two churches on a piece of land granted to him in the suburb of Lincoln. (? St. Mary le Wigford, and St. Peter at Gowts.)

[76] Eyton's "Shrops.h.i.+re" mentions several cases in that county.

[77] Bohn's edition of "Eccl. Hist, of Ordericus Vitalis," i. 10.

[78] Nearly all the village churches of the Craven district of Yorks.h.i.+re were built in the time of Henry I., and many of them enlarged in the time of Henry VIII. (Whitaker's "Craven").

[79] Orderic, iv. xxiv.

[80] It was stopped by Innocent III. in a decretal letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, c. 1200.

[81] See Sir H. Ellis's "Introduction to Domesday," i. 324, 325.

[82] The Church of Gisburn, Yorks.h.i.+re, was given to the Nunnery of Stainfield, Lincolns.h.i.+re, by a Percy. For fifty years the nuns simply presented to the rectory like any other patron; then in 1226 Archbishop Walter Gray a.s.signed them _ad proprios usus_, half a carucate of the glebe land, and the t.i.the of corn in various places named, but without endowing a vicarage, and the convent presented six more rectors under those conditions; it was not until 1341 that a vicarage was ordained.

(Whitaker's "Craven," p. 45).

[83] This Council also forbade a vicar to hold more than one parish.

[84] Where the religious house was situated in or near the parish church, special arrangements were not infrequently made. At Tortington, near Arundel, Suss.e.x, was a small house of Austin canons which existed before the time of King John. The vicar of the parish had a corrody in the house, consisting of a right to board and lodging for himself and a serving boy.

At Sybeton, Suffolk, the vicar and curate had their lodging and food in the religious house ("Valor," iii. 442). At Taunton, in 1308, the Priory supplied the vicar with allowances of bread and ale, and hay and corn, and two s.h.i.+llings a year for the shoeing of his horse ("Bath and Wells," p.

121, S.P.C.K.). See also Lenton, p. 404.

[85] One of the const.i.tutions of Archbishop Stratford (1333) requires religious appropriators of churches to give a benefaction to the poor yearly, according to the judgment of the bishop, on pain of sequestration.

[86] Newcourt's "Repertorium," ii. 310. Upon making an appropriation an annual pension was usually reserved to the bishop and his successors, payable by the body benefited, for a recompense of the profits which the bishops would otherwise have received (Sir R. Phillimore, "Ecclesiastical Law").

[87] _i.e._, which had obtained from the Court of Rome exemption from the Bishop's ordinary jurisdiction.

[88] According to Matthew Paris, "the bishops of England at that time designed to recover from the monasteries all the appropriated churches.

Grostete of Lincoln took steps to carry out the design in his diocese, but the monks appealed to Rome and defeated the bishop" (Matthew Paris, Bohn's ed., ii. pp. 325, 326, 401, 420).

[89] Gray's "Register," p. 113. Surtees Society.

[90] Ibid., p. 112.

[91] Gray's "Register," p. 113. Surtees Society.

[92] Extracts from Lincoln Registers. Harl. MS. 6950, p. 1250.

[93] Brons...o...b..'s "Register," p. 253.

[94] Ibid., p. 330.