Parish Priests and Their People in the Middle Ages in England Part 7

PARSONAGE HOUSES.

There is no reason to suppose that the houses of the parochial clergy differed from those of lay people of corresponding income and social position, except in the one circ.u.mstance that they sometimes had to provide for the hospitality to travellers to which we will give special consideration hereafter.

The house of a rector, from Saxon times downwards, would be very like that of a lay lord of a small estate, but it is very difficult for us, with our ideas of absolutely necessary domestic accommodation, to realize how rude and simple were then the houses of people of comparative wealth and social position. The house consisted mainly of one room. This room, the hall, was oblong in plan, constructed, except in districts where timber was scarce and stone easily obtained, of timber framework, filled in with wattle and clay, with a lofty unceiled roof. The windows were few and high up in the side walls, not glazed until comparatively modern times, but closed on occasion with shutters; a stone hearth stood in the middle of the hall, with iron fire-dogs on which the burning logs rested. In the better cla.s.s of houses there was a raised das at the end furthest from the door, with a long rude oak table on it, and a single chair for the master of the house behind it; there were other tables of boards and trestles put up when needed, and taken away again when done with, and a couple of rude benches and a few stools; there was a cupboard near the "dormant table,"

as Chaucer calls it, on which were displayed the pewter dishes, and horn drinking-vessels, and in better houses, perhaps, a silver salt-holder, and a couple of silver drinking-cups. When there was some pretension to refinement, the roof-timbers would be moulded, the lower part of the walls hung with tapestry, and rushes strewn on the floor by way of carpet; a low screen of wood across the lower end of the hall at the same time made a pa.s.sage ("the screens") through the house by which people might pa.s.s to the back premises without disturbing the company in the hall, and warded off the draught from the ever-open door. Any one of the hundreds of old halls which remain in all parts of the country may serve as an ill.u.s.tration of this general plan.

A separate building attached at right angles to the lower end of the hall, and opening into the screens just mentioned, contained the cellar, b.u.t.tery, and kitchen, and might be prolonged to contain other offices, as a brew-house, etc. Another separate building was attached at right angles to the upper end of the hall, usually of two stories, with its gable to the front; the lower story was often a storehouse, sometimes a "parlour,"

the upper story "the great chamber"--the special apartment of the lady of the house, and the one retiring room from the promiscuous company in the hall. This room had perhaps a bay window in its gable, and would be furnished with tapestry, and a few stools, a spinning-wheel, a couple of carved oak chests, and cus.h.i.+ons in the window-seats.

As time went on, at the end of the thirteenth century, and in the succeeding centuries, a greater refinement of domestic customs was introduced, and other apartments were added.[144] In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the walls of the hall were built a little higher, and an upper floor put in so as to convert the roof into a sleeping loft, lighted by a couple of dormer windows; and this plan of a central hall with a loft over, its longer side to the front, flanked by a two-story building at one end with its gable to the front flush with the hall, and another building at the other end of the hall containing the offices, was the general plan of the houses of the middle cla.s.ses of the people.

Thousands of them, more or less disguised by later additions, still remain all over the country.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plan of Rectory House, West Dean, Suss.e.x.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Rectory House, West Dean.]

Few of the old rectory houses are left in their original condition. There is a good example of the hall at Weston Turville, Bucks.[145] The parsonage house at West Dean, Suss.e.x, of the thirteenth century, is described and figured in Turner's "Domestic Architecture." It is built of stone; in plan a hall with a story over it, and the soler at the upper end, approached by a stone newel stair built in a projecting b.u.t.tress on the north side. The windows of the story over the hall are lancets, those of the hall have a curious kind of tracery. The upper chamber or soler has a good fireplace and chimney-piece of stone, with deeply splayed windows.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pre-reformation Clergy House, Alfriston. (By kind permission of the publishers of the _Builder_.)]

There is a parsonage house at Alfriston, within three miles of Dean, Suss.e.x, of the fourteenth century, so unchanged and well preserved that it has been made over to the National Trust for Preserving Places of Historic Interest. It has the usual hall, constructed of oak framing, the interstices being filled with "wattle and dab," open to the roof with large cambered tie-beams and moulded king-posts. At the upper end of the hall is the soler, of two stories.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pre-reformation Clergy House, Alfriston. (By kind permission of the publishers of the _Builder_.)]

There are others of stone at Congresbury (Somerset), King's Stanley (Gloucester), Wonstone (Hants.), Notgrove (Gloucester); of timber at Helmsley (Yorks.h.i.+re); and many others. And, just as many farmhouses which were once small manor houses still retain their ancient mediaeval features disguised by modern alterations, so there are many parsonage houses in which the original house of the fourteenth or fifteenth century still remains, and may be traced by a skilful eye amidst the subsequent additions.

We derive our fullest information about the old parsonage houses, however, from literary sources, from the settlements of vicarages which describe the old rectory house, or dictate how the new vicarage house shall be built; from the old terriers which describe the then existing houses, and from the inventories of wills which go from room to room, naming the rooms, and detailing the furniture in them.

Thus a deed of 1356 describes the rectory house of Kelvedon, in Ess.e.x, existing at that date--and how long before that date we do not know--which the Abbot and Convent of Westminster, in the settlement of a vicarage there, a.s.signed to the vicar as his residence. The deed describes it as--

One hall situate in the manor of the said abbot and convent near the said church, with a soler and chamber at one end of the hall, and with a b.u.t.tery and cellar at the other. Also one other house[146] in three parts, namely, a kitchen with a convenient chamber in the end of the said house for guests, and a bakehouse. Also one other house in two parts next the gate at the entrance of the manor for a stable and cow-house. He (the vicar) shall also have a convenient grange, to be built within a year at the expense of the prior and convent. He shall also have the curtilage with the garden adjoining the hall on the north side enclosed as it is with hedges and ditches.[147]

The present vicarage house occupies the old site, and its offices, gardens, and surroundings help to ill.u.s.trate this description.

In a deed of Richard of Thornely, Chaplain of Wa.s.seford, it is stated that when he was presented by the Prior and Convent of Hatfield to the vicarage of Silverley, he bound himself by his own free will to build a house there, with a hall, a chamber, and a kitchen.[148]

In 1352, the Bishop of Winchester decreed that the Prior and Convent of Merton, the impropriators of the benefice of Kingston-on-Thames, should provide

a competent manse for the vicar, viz. a hall with two rooms, one at one end of the hall, and the other at the other end, with a drain to each, and a suitable kitchen with fireplace and oven, and a stable for six horses, all covered with tiles, and completed within one year, such place to remain to the use of the said vicar and his successors.[149]

The deed of settlement of the vicarage of Bulmer, Ess.e.x, in 1425, describes the vicarage house as consisting of--

one hall with two chambers annexed, bakehouse, kitchen, and larder-house, one chamber for the vicar's servant, and a hay-soller (soler = loft), with a competent garden.[150]

Ingrave Rectory house is described in the terrier of 1610 as--

a house containing a hall, a parlour, a b.u.t.tery, two lofts, and a study, also a kitchen, a milk-house, and a house for poultry, a barn, a stable, and a hay-house.[151]

Ingatestone Rectory house, in the terrier of 1610, is described as--

a dwelling house with a hall, a parlour, and a chamber within it; a study newly built by the then parson; a chamber over the parlour, and another within that with a closet; without the dwelling-house a kitchen, and two little rooms adjoining it, and a chamber over them; two little b.u.t.teries over against the hall, and next them a chamber, and one other chamber over the same; without the kitchen there is a dove-house, and another house built by the then parson; a barn and a stable very ruinous.[152]

Here we have an old house with hall in the middle, parlour and chamber at one end, and b.u.t.teries and kitchen at the other, in the middle of later additions.

Mr. Froude gives an inventory, dated 1534, of the goods of the Rector of Allington, Kent, from which we take only the incidental description of the house which contained them.[153]

It consisted of hall, parlour, and chamber over the parlour, stairs-head beside the parson's bed-chamber, parson's lodging-chamber, study, chamber behind the chimney, chamber next adjoining westward, b.u.t.tery, priest's chamber [perhaps for the rector's chaplain[154]], servants' chamber, kitchen, mill-house, boulting house, larder, entries, women's chamber; gate-house, still beside the gate; barn next the gate; cartlage, barn next the church, garden-house, court.

Here, again, we recognize the hall in the middle, the parlour and chamber over it at one end, with an adjoining study on the ground floor, and a chamber over it, as at Ingatestone, and at the other end the b.u.t.tery, kitchen, larder, mill, boulting houses, with a priest's chamber, and a servants' chamber over it, women's chamber over the kitchen, etc.; and we observe that the additional chambers for the master of the house and his family are grouped about the parlour and great chamber, while the chambers for guests and servants are added to the kitchen and offices at the lower end of the hall. These two projections backward would partially enclose a courtyard at the back of the hall.

The rectory at Little Bromley, Ess.e.x, is described (1610) as--

a large parsonage house compa.s.s'd with a mote, a gate-house, with a large chamber, and a substantial bridge of timber adjoining it; a little yard, an orchard and a little garden all within the mote, which, together with the circuit of the house, contains about half an acre of ground; and without the mote there is a yard in which there is another gate-house, and a stable, and a hay-house adjoining, also a barn of twenty-five yards long, and nine yards wide, and about seventy-nine and a half acres of glebe land.[155]

North Benfleet Rectory is described as consisting of--

a hall with a loft over it, two cross ends, with lofts and chambers, a kitchen with a hen-house, a barn and a little stable at the end of it, built in ancient time, a garden made, an orchard planned, a milk-house and a dove-house.[156]

West Hanningfield is described as--

one dwelling-house tiled, having in it a hall with a loft over it for corn, a closet in the hall, two b.u.t.teries, with a loft over them for servants' lodging, an entry, a large parlour, with two lodging chambers over it for servants, a study new built, also a kitchen tiled, with a corn-loft over it, a boulting-house with a cheese-loft over it, a brew-house newly set up, with a fair corn-lift over it, and a garret over that, and a hen-house tiled at the end of it, a barn newly built, and a porch thatched, a hay-house at the end of it, a hogs'-coat boarded, a stable, a quern-house, two small cotes to fat fowl in, a cow-house newly built, with a cart-house at the end of it; another cart-house newly built with a room over it to hold hay; one large hay-house with a cart-house at the end of it; another cart-house newly built; a gate-house, wherein is a milk-house, with a loft over it for cheese and fish; the site of the house and yards with two gardens contains two roods.[157]

We easily recognize the normal plan of the house; the large accommodation outside--some of it new--for carts and hay, and for the storing of corn inside the house, indicates that the rector was farming on rather a large scale.

We have seen in the foregoing description of the vicarage house at Kelvedon, Ess.e.x, that a special chamber was provided for the entertainment of guests, and at Kingston-on-Thames a stable for six horses was attached to the vicarage house. This was no doubt needed because the one was on the high-road from London into Ess.e.x, and the other on the high-road from London into Surrey, and so westward, and the accommodation was needed for travellers. In those times there were no inns at convenient distances along the main roads of the country, nor even in the towns, except in some of the largest. Few people travelled except on business, so that hospitality was little liable to abuse; and travellers sought entertainment for man and horse at the monasteries and the parsonage houses.

It was regarded as a duty of the clergy to "entertain strangers," and to be "given to hospitality;" and the duty was fulfilled ungrudgingly, without fee or reward, and entailed a heavy charge upon the income of the clergy. One of the common reasons which a monastery[158] alleges for asking the bishop to allow them to impropriate an additional benefice is that their expenditure on the entertainment of travellers is beyond their means; the country rectors, also, in their remonstrance against the exactions of the popes, complain that they will be left without means to fulfil their duty of hospitality;[159] and the matter is very frequently alluded to and ill.u.s.trated by examples in mediaeval history. Off the great roads, the rector would put an extra pewter platter and horn drinking-cup on the board for an accidental pa.s.senger who claimed hospitality--he brought his own knife, and there were no forks--and gave him a liberal "shakedown" of clean straw, or at best a flock mattress, in a corner of the hall. But, just as in the monasteries it was necessary to have a special guest-house for travellers, so that they should not interfere with the seclusion of the religious, so it would seem at the rectories along the great roads it was necessary that there should be special provision made for the frequent influx of guests. This is the explanation of the chamber for guests at Kelvedon, and for the vicar's six-stall stable at Kingston.

It is clear that some of the rectory houses thus described were like some of the smaller manor houses, enclosed by moat or wall, and the entrance protected by a gate-house, and that the house contained all the accommodation needed by a small squire.[160] But there were smaller houses more suited to the means of a poor vicar or a parish chaplain.[161]

Thus, on the settlement of the Vicarage of Great Bentley, Ess.e.x, in 1323, it was required that a competent house should be built for the vicar, with a sufficient curtilage, where the parish chaplain has been used to abide.

At the settlement of the Vicarage of St. Peter's, Colchester, the impropriators, the Convent of St. Botolph, were required to prepare a competent house for the vicar in the ground of the churchyard, where a house was built for the parish chaplain. At Radwinter, Ess.e.x, in 1610, there were two houses attached to the benefice, on the south side of the church towards the west end, one called "the Great Vicarage, and in ancient time the _Domus Capellanorum_, and the other the Less Vicarage,"

which latter "formerly served for the ease of the parson; and, as appears by evidence, first given to the end that if any of the parish were sick, the party might be sure to find the parson or his curate near the church, ready to go and visit him." There are little houses in some churchyards which may have been houses for the parish chaplain. At Laindon, Ess.e.x, a small timber-house is built on to the west end of the church.[162] The Chapel of our Lady at Great Horkesley, Ess.e.x, has the west end walled off and divided into two stories for a priest's residence.[163]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Laindon Church, Ess.e.x.]

The question of dilapidations of the parsonage house and its dependent buildings is not a matter of much general interest, but it was then, as it is now, of much practical importance to the beneficed clergy, and it is worth while to say a few words about it. We find examples in the episcopal registers which we a.s.sume represent the universal practice.

In the register of John de Grandisson, Bishop of Exeter, June 21, 1328, a commission was issued to inquire into the defects in the church and its furniture and the manse of the Rectory of Lydeford, by the carelessness and neglect of Stephen Waleys, late deceased. The commissioners were laudably prompt in action, for, on the 4th July, they made their return of defects, etc., to the amount of 42_s._; and the bishop at once issued his mandate that the amount should be paid out of the goods of the defunct rector.[164] There was a similar process in the same year at Didesham.