Parish Priests and Their People in the Middle Ages in England

The subject of the religious condition of the parish priests and their people in the Middle Ages--their belief and life--brings us into a polemical atmosphere. There are some ad...

A typical mediæval town must have been wonderfully picturesque. As the traveller came in sight of it at a little distance its grey embattled walls, rising sheer out of the surro...

The characteristic feature of the Church work of the seventh century was the conversion of the Teutonic heathen people who had conquered the eastern half of England, and the fou...

In order to give a complete view of the position and work of the parochial clergy in town and country, it is necessary to indicate, however briefly, both their connection with t...

[194] T. Belson and J. Fowler, c. 1570, were sentenced to do penance in church for working on a Sunday (“Ecclesiastical Proceedings of the Courts of Durham” (Surtees Society), p...

The sources from which we obtain the fullest details of the religious life of the Saxon priests and people are the laws of their kings and the canons of their synods; and perhap...

The Byzantine emperors first set up a private chapel in their houses; kings followed their example, and the nobles followed the example of their kings; and there was a danger of...

The Earl and Lady were brother and sister of St. Christopher Gilde Yorke, and pd. 6_s._ 8_d._ each yearly; and when the Master of the Gild brought my lord and my lady for their...

There was a continual fight going on all through the Middle Ages between the rulers of the Church and the rest of their brethren on the subject of the ordinary costume of the cl...

The early Saxon bishops were very often men of royal and noble families. The religious houses, which were the centres of evangelization in the early missionary phase of the hist...

The enforcement of celibacy upon the clergy was an important feature in the plan of the Hildebrandine reformers of the eleventh century. The idea which inspired the enthusiasm o...

There is a chain of evidences that the rulers of the Church not only enjoined the diligent teaching of the people by their parish priests in sermon[208] and otherwise, but also...

The English Conversion forms a remarkable chapter in the general history of Christian missions; the piety, simplicity, zeal, and unselfishness of the missionaries are beyond pra...

At a rather early period, so the evidence leads us to conclude, all the great Saxon landowners had founded a religious house or a rectory on their estates, and these had, first...

The average Englishman of the present day has hardly an idea of what is meant by ecclesiastical discipline, and is quite ignorant of the large part which it played in the practi...

Even a book like this, which professes to deal with the humbler details of parochial life, rather than with the greater matters of ecclesiastical history, would be defective if...

When Crown, Parliament, and Church, in the sixteenth century, determined to throw off the patriarchal supremacy of Rome, for which its monstrous pecuniary exactions in one shape...

In Saxon times, the Creed, Lord’s Prayer, and Ten Commandments were taught to the people in their own tongue, sometimes in metrical paraphrases, that they might the more easily...

The Norman founders of monasteries not only gave to them lands and moneys, but also the parish churches, of which they had the advowson. It can hardly be said that in so doing t...

The public services on Sunday in a parish church were Matins, Mass, and Evensong. We do not propose more than to take an outside view of them; the reader who cares to do so may...

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 circumstan...

First of all, the monasteries kept before the minds both of parish priests and of their people the ideal of an unambitious, self-denying, studious, meditative, religious life. N...

It is not necessary to describe the churches of mediæval England, for happily they still exist of all periods and styles, from the rude Saxon church built of split oak or chestn...

The voluntary societies or fraternities called “gilds,” which were numerous all over Christian Europe in the Middle Ages, were established for mutual help and comfort in the var...

It remains to mention a great variety of observances and customs, some of them superstitious, some innocent enough, many of them picturesque and poetical and giving colour and v...

When we have the pleasure of taking our Colonial visitors on railway journeys across the length and breadth of England, and they see cornfields, meadows, pastures, copses, succe...

The visitation of the parishes by the Ordinary--the ecclesiastical person who exercised spiritual jurisdiction over them[278]--was an important feature of ecclesiastical adminis...

In the thirteenth century the popes assumed the right, as feudal lords over the Church, to demand from every church benefice a fine of its first year’s income from every new inc...

The history of the conversion of our heathen forefathers has happily been told so often in recent times that it is not necessary to repeat it here. It is sufficient for our purp...

One immediate result of the Norman conquest was that Archbishop Stigand and several other bishops and abbots were ejected, and foreign ecclesiastics put in their place. It is no...

We have seen how the bishops who introduced the Christian Faith into the heptarchic kingdoms established themselves and their clergy as religious communities, on the lands, and...

We have followed our parish priest through various phases of his life and work; there remains one more--before that last one through which all priests and people must pass--on w...

A flood of light is thrown upon the subject of a priest’s duties in his parish by the handbooks which seem to have been as common in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as t...

The illustration taken from a French MS. of the middle of the fifteenth century [Egerton 2019, f. 142, British Museum] will reward a careful study. Begin with the two pictures i...

The parish clerk seems to have existed about as long as the parish priest, if we are right in assuming that the man of sober life whom the parish priest was required by the “can...

Characteristic work of the centuries, 438--Definition of a chantry, 438--“Brotherhood” of the religious houses, 439--A chantry a kind of monument, 441--Began in thirteenth centu...

Served by secular canons, 334--Organization of its clerical staff, 334--The dignitaries, 335--The dean and chapter, 335--Monastic cathedral, 336--Archdeacons, 337--Synods and vi...

Analysis of a book of that title by John Myrk, 232--The personal character and conduct which befit a priest, 233--A parish priest’s duties, 234--Non-communicating attendance at...

Education more common than is supposed, 241--Books for the laity in French and English, 242--Creed and Vision of “Piers Plowman,” the tracts of Richard of Hampole and Wiclif, 24...

Laws of the heptarchic kingdoms: of Ethelbert, 57; of Ine, 57; of Wihtred, 57--Council of Clovesho (747), 60--Laws of Alfred, 65; of Athelstan, 66--Canons of Edgar, 66--Laws of...

Saxon clergy largely taken from the higher classes, 127--The career opened up by the Church to all classes, 129; even to serfs, 130--Education of the clergy, 131--The Universiti...

Character of the new converts, 38--Coming of Archbishop Theodore, 40--Union of the Heptarchic Churches, 41--Subdivision of dioceses, 41--Introduction of the parochial system, 43...

Object of the obligation, 258--Opposition to it, 259--Introduced late in the Saxon period, 260--Endeavour to enforce it in Norman and later times, 261--Evasion of the canons, 26...

Multiplication of monasteries, 28: in Kent, 29; Northumbria, 29; East Anglia, 31; Wessex, 31; Mercia, 31--List of other Saxon monasteries, 33--Constitution of the religious hous...

Grandeur of the churches compared with domestic buildings, 184--Furniture of churches, 187, 190--List of necessary things, 189--Clerical vestments: pallium, chasuble, 191; stole...

Description of, 486--Parochial history of the towns, 489--Peculiar jurisdictions, the origin of town parishes, 490--Norwich, 490--London, 492--Exeter, 497--Bristol, 499--York, 5...

Papal invasions of the rights of patronage, 319--The intrusion of foreigners into benefices, 320--Abuse of patronage by the Crown, 321--Pluralities, 323--Farming of benefices, 3...

Like lay houses, 149--Examples at West Dean and Alfriston, Sussex, 152--Descriptions of: at Kelvedon, 154; Kingston-on-Thames, Bulmer, Ingrave, 155; Ingatestone, 156; Little Bro...

Assistant chaplain, 290--Coadjutor assigned, 291--A leprous vicar, 294--Retirement on a pension, 295--A retiring vicar builds for himself a “reclusorium” in the churchyard, 295-...

Character of the monks, 365--Place of the monasteries in social life, 366--Influence upon the parishes, 369--Friars, their origin; organization, 370--Work, 373--Rivalry with par...

Definition, 473--Trade gilds, 475--Religious gilds, 476--For the augmentation of Divine service, 478--For the maintenance of bridges, roads, chantries, 478--Services, 479--Socia...