Part 1 (1/2)
The Elizabethan Parish in its Ecclesiastical and Financial Aspects.
by Sedley Lynch Ware.
PREFACE
These chapters are but part of a larger work on the Elizabethan parish designed to cover all the aspects of parish government. There is need of a comprehensive study of the parish inst.i.tutions of this period, owing to the fact that no modern work exists that in any thorough way pretends to discuss the subject. The work of Toulmin Smith was written to defend a theory, while the recent history of Mr. and Mrs. Webb deals in the main with the parish subsequent to the year 1688. The material already in print for such a study is very voluminous, the acc.u.mulation of texts having progressed more rapidly than the use of them by scholars.
My subject was suggested to me by Professor Vincent, to whom as well as to Professor Andrews I am indebted for advice and a.s.sistance throughout this work. In England I have to thank Messrs. Sidney Webb, Hubert Hall and George Unwin, of the London School of Economics, for reading ma.n.u.script and suggesting improvements. For similar help and for reference to new material my acknowledgments are due to Mr. C.H.
Firth, Regius Professor of Modern History, Oxford, and to Mr. C.R.L.
Fletcher, of Magdalen College. At the British Museum I found the officials most courteous, while the librarians of the Peabody Inst.i.tute, Baltimore, have given me every aid in their power.
CHAPTER I.
THE ECCLESIASTICAL GOVERNMENT OF THE PARISH.
The ecclesiastical administration of the English parish from the period of the Reformation down to the outbreak of the great Civil War is a subject which has been much neglected by historians of local inst.i.tutions. Yet during the reign of Elizabeth, at least, the church courts took as large a share in parish government as did the justices of the peace. Not only were there many obligations enforced by the ordinaries which today would be purely civil in character, but to contemporaries the maintenance of the church fabric and furniture appeared every whit as important as the repairing of roads and bridges; while the obligation to attend church and receive communion was on a par with that to attend musters, but with this difference, that the former requirement affected all alike, while the latter applied to comparatively few of the paris.h.i.+oners.
In the theory of the times, indeed, every member of the commonwealth was also a member of the Church of England, and conversely. Allegiance to both was, according to the simile of the Elizabethan divine, in its nature as indistinguishable as are the sides of a triangle, of which any line indifferently may form a side or a base according to the angle of approach of the observer[1]. The Queen was head of the commonwealth ecclesiastical as well as of the commonwealth civil, and as well apprized of her spiritual as of her temporal judges[2]. For both sets of judges equally Parliament legislated, or sanctioned legislation. Sometimes, in fact, it became a mere matter of expediency whether a court Christian or a common law tribunal should be charged with the enforcement of legislation on parochial matters. Thus the provisions of the Rubric of the Book of Common Prayer were enforced by the justices as well as by the ordinaries. Again, secular and ecclesiastical judges had concurrent jurisdiction over church attendance, and--at any rate between 1572 and 1597[3]--over the care of the parish poor. Finally, it must not be supposed that the men who actually sat as judges in the archdeacon's or the bishop's court were necessarily in orders. In point of fact a large proportion, perhaps a large majority of them, were laymen, since the act of Henry VIII in 1545 permitted married civilians to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction.[4]
In the treatment of our subject the plan we shall follow is, first, to make some preliminary observations as to the times, places and modes of holding the church courts; second, with the aid of ill.u.s.trations drawn from the act-books of these courts, to show how their judicial administration was exercised over the parish, either through the medium of the parish officers or directly upon the paris.h.i.+oners themselves; third, to a.n.a.lyze the means at the command of the ecclesiastical judges to enforce their decrees; and, finally, to point out that from its very nature the exercise of spiritual jurisdiction was liable to abuses, and must at all times have proved unpopular.
Speaking generally (for the jurisdictions called ”peculiars” formed exceptions), England was divided for the purposes of local ecclesiastical administration and discipline into archdeaconries, each comprising a varying number of parishes. Twice a year as a rule the archdeacon, or his official in his place, held a visitation or kept a general court (the two terms being synonymous) in the church of some market town--not always the same--of the archdeaconry. The usual times for these visitations were Easter and Michaelmas. The bishops also commonly held visitations in person, or by vicars-general or chancellors, once every third year throughout their dioceses. Yet at the semiannual visitations of the archdeacon as well as at the triennial visitations of the bishop, the mode of procedure, the cla.s.s of offences, the parish officers summoned, the discipline exercised--all were the same, the bishop's court being simply subst.i.tuted for the time being for that of the archdeacon.
There were other visitations: those of the Queen's High Commissioners, and those of the Metropolitan. There were a very great number of other courts, but for the purposes of the every-day ecclesiastical governance of the parish the two cla.s.ses of courts or visitations above mentioned are all that need concern us. It is, however, important to state, that while churchwardens and sidemen were _compelled_ to attend the two general courts of the archdeacon (and of course the bishop's court) and to write out on each occasion formal lists of offenders and offences (”presentments” or ”detections”) these parish officers might also at any time make _voluntary_ presentments to the archdeacons. Those functionaries, in fact, seem to have held sittings for the transaction of current business, or of matters which could not be terminated at the visitation, every month, or even every three weeks. Others may have sat (as we should say of a common-law judge) in chambers.[5] Before each general visitation an apparitor or summoner of the court went about and gave warning to the churchwardens of some half-dozen parishes, more or less, to be in attendance with other parish officers on a day fixed in some church centrally located in respect of the parishes selected for that day's visitation.
The church of each parish was, indeed, not only its place for wors.h.i.+p, but also the seat and centre for the transaction of all business concerning the parish. In it, according to law, the minister had to read aloud from time to time articles of inquiry founded on the Queen's or the diocesan's injunctions, and to admonish wardens and sidemen to present offences under these articles at the next visitation.[6] In it also he gave monition for the annual choice of collectors for the poor;[7] warning for the yearly perambulation of the parish bounds;[8] and public announcement of the six certain days on which each year every paris.h.i.+oner had to attend in person or send wain and men for the repair of highways.[9] In the parish church also proclamation had to be made of estrays before the beasts could be legally seized and impounded.[10] Here, too, school-masters often taught their pupils[11]--unless, indeed, the parish possessed a separate school-house. Here, in the vestry, the parish armor was frequently kept, and sometimes the parish powder barrels were deposited;[12] here too, occasionally, country parsons stored their wool or grain.[13]
Finally, in the parish church a.s.sembled vestries for the holding of accounts, the making of rates and the election of officers. Overseers of the poor held their monthly meetings here. Occasionally the neighboring justices of the peace met here to take the overseers'
accounts or to transact other business;[14] and in the church also might be held coroners' inquests over dead bodies.[15] Last, but not least in importance, in the churches of the market towns the archdeacon made his visitations and held his court; and on these occasions the sacred edifice rang with the unseemly squabbles of the proctors, the accusations of the wardens and sidemen or of the apparitor, and the recriminations of the accused--in short, the church was turned for the time being into a moral police court, where all the parish scandal was carefully gone over and ventilated.[16]
The ecclesiastical courts carried on their judicial administration of the parish largely, of course, through the medium of the officers of the parish. These were the churchwardens, the sidemen and the inc.u.mbent, whether rector, vicar or curate.[17]
First in importance were the churchwardens. Though legislation throughout the time of Elizabeth was ever adding to their functions duties purely civil in their nature, and though they themselves were more and more subjected to the control of the justices of the peace, nevertheless it is true to say that to the end of the reign the office of churchwarden is one mainly appertaining to the jurisdiction and supervision of the courts Christian.
The doctrine of the courts that churchwardens were merely civil officers belongs to a later period.[18]
After a churchwarden had been chosen or elected, he took the oath of office before the archdeacon. In this he swore to observe the Queen's and the bishop's injunctions, and to cause others to observe them; to present violators of the same to the sworn men (or sidemen), or to the ordinary's chancellor or official, or to the Queen's high commissioners; finally, he swore to yield up a faithful accounting to the parish of all sums that had pa.s.sed through his hands during his term of office.[19]
Before each visitation day, as has been said, the archdeacon's or the bishop's summoner went to each parish and gave warning that a court would be held in such and such a church on such and such a day.
Pending that day wardens and sidemen drew up their bills of presentment. These bills were definite answers to a series of articles of inquiry founded on the diocesan's injunctions, themselves based on the Queen's Injunctions of 1559 and on the Canons.[20] Failure to present offences was promptly punished by the judge.[21] Failure to attend court when duly warned was no less promptly followed by excommunication, and then it was an expensive matter for the wardens to get out of the official's book again.[22] But of fees and fines more hereafter.
Among the churchwardens' princ.i.p.al obligations, as laid down in the injunctions and articles they were sworn to observe, was the keeping in repair of the church fabric and its appurtenances, as well as the procuring and the maintaining in good condition of the church ”furniture,” a term which in the language of the time included all the necessaries for wors.h.i.+p and the celebration of the sacraments: church linen, surplices, the communion cup, the elements themselves, bibles, prayer books, the writings of authorized commentators on the Scriptures, or the works of apologists for the Anglican Church; tables of consanguinity and other official doc.u.ments enjoined to be kept in every parish by the diocesan.[23]
The visitation act-books of the period abundantly show the processes employed by the ecclesiastical authorities in enforcing these and other duties (which will be detailed in their turn), and prove that the courts Christian were emphatically administrative as well as judicial bodies. To show these courts at work it will be necessary to give a number of ill.u.s.trative examples taken from the visitation entries. Thus the wardens of Childwall, having been presented at the visitation of the bishop of Chester, 9th October, 1592, because their church ”wanteth reparac[i]on,” are excommunicated for not appearing.
On a subsequent day John Whittle, who represents the wardens, informs the court that the repairs have been executed. Thereupon the wardens are absolved and the registrar erases the word ”excommunicated” from the act-book.[24] At the same visitation the wardens of Aughton are presented because ”there bible is not sufficient, they want the first tome of the homilies, Mr. Juells Replie and Apologie[25] [etc.]....”
The two wardens are enjoined by the judge to buy a sufficient bible and to certify to him that they have done so.
But--so careful is the supervision over parish affairs--mere certification by vicar or wardens that a certain article has been procured in obedience to a court order will not always suffice. If the thing can be produced in court the judge often orders it to be brought before him for personal inspection. Accordingly, when at the visitation of the chancellor of the bishop of Durham, the 13th March, 1578/1579, the wardens of Coniscliffe are found to ”lacke 2 Salter bookes [and] one booke of the Homelies,” they are admonished to certify ”that they have the books detected 4th April and to bringe their boks. .h.i.ther.”[26] Thus, too, the wardens of St. Michael's, Bishop Stortford, record in 1585 that they have paid 8d. ”when we brought in to the court the byble and comunion booke to shewe before the comysary.”[27] There is a curious entry in the same accounts some years earlier, viz.: ”pd for showing [shoeing] of an horse when mr Jardfield went to london to se wether it was our byble that was lost or no and for his charges....”[28]
At the visitation held at Romford Chapel, Ess.e.x Archdeaconry, 5th September, 1578, the wardens of Dengie ”broughte in theire surplice, which surplice is torne & verie indecent & uncomly, as appereth; whereupon the judge, for that theie neglected their othes, [ordered them to confess their fault and prepare] a newe surplice of holland cloth of v s. thele [the ell], conteyninge viii elles, _citra festum animarum prox_.” Remembering that money was then worth ten to twelve times what it is today, this was probably considered too great a burden by the paris.h.i.+oners of Dengie. A pet.i.tion must have been presented to be allowed to procure a cheaper surplice, for on the 6th October following the wardens were permitted to prepare a surplice containing six ells only at the reduced price of 2s. 8d. per ell.[29]