Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-5lx2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-30T13:35:27.421Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Church and Chapelry in Sixteenth-Century England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Christopher Kitching
Christopher Kitching*
Affiliation:
Public Record Office
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The church has always experienced great difficulty in ministering to those dwelling in the remotest parts of its parishes. In this paper I shall look briefly at how the sixteenth century church coped with the problem, and attempt to answer two questions: what facilities for worship were available in outlying districts, and what was the impact of the reformation changes upon them?

Chapels abounded in England on the eve of the reformation. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that wherever he lived a parishioner could, without an unreasonably arduous journey, reach a place where mass was sung or said. Quite apart from matters of spiritual and moral discipline, it was important for very practical reasons that he should be able to get quickly to church. Disaster could take hold in villages and townships if the entire population had set off on a long hike to a remote parish church and was unlikely to return for some hours. Moreover, the length of the hike determined the extent of the diversion of labour from other pursuits, notably in the fields at harvest time: indeed, this was to influence government rulings on the number of saints’ days to be observed by the laity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 16: The Church in Town and Countryside , 1979 , pp. 279 - 290
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1979

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Lincoln Diocese Documents 1450-1544, ed Clark, A., EETS 149 (1914) pp 217-18Google Scholar.

2 For examples of consecrations see [Registrum Ricardi Mayew, ed Bannister, A.T], CYS 27 (1921) p 232 Google Scholar: Yellintre, , and [Registra Caroli Bothe, Edwardi Foxe et Edmundi Bonner,] CYS 28 (1921) p 100 Google Scholar: Norbury. See also Haigh, [C.], [Reformation and Society in Tudor Lancashire] (Cambridge 1975) pp 31, 66Google Scholar.

3 ‘The Chantry Certificates for Lincoln and Lincolnshire’, ed Foster, C. W. and Thompson, A. Hamilton, AASRP 37 (1950) pp 33-4Google Scholar.

4 [A History of the Chantries within the County Palatine of Lancaster, ed Raines, F. R.], Chetham Society 59 (1862) p 83 Google Scholar.

5 PRO Augmentation Office, Particulars for Grant E 318/1420.

6 Tracts ascribed to Richard Bancroft, ed Peel, A. (Cambridge 1953) pp 92-3Google Scholar.

7 For a study of the origins of chapelries in Lincolnshire see Owen, Dorothy M., Church and Society in Medieval Lincolnshire (Lincoln 1971) cap 1Google Scholar.

8 This was strongly contested. See Denton, J. H., English Royal Free Chapels 1100-1300 (Manchester 1970) pp 8-9Google Scholar.

9 As at Carleton in Husthwaite: Heath, P., English Parish Clergy (London 1969) p 5 Google Scholar.

10 The Registers of Oliver King ... and Hadrian de Castello, ed Maxwell-Lyte, H., S[omerset] R[ecord] S[ociety] 54 (Taunton 1939) p 106: Batheaston; CYS 27 p 211: ShrawardineGoogle Scholar.

11 Hartridge, [R. A. R.], [A History of Vicarages in the Middle Ages] (Cambridge 1930)Google Scholar.

12 [Moore, A. P., ‘Proceedings of the Ecclesiastical Courts in the Archdeaconry of Leicester, 1516-35’], AASRP 28 (1905-6) p 123: Quarndon etcGoogle Scholar.

13 As in Whalley : [J. E. W.] Wallis, [A History of the Church in Blackburnshire] (1932) p 99.

14 As at Newton in Prestbury: [PRO Court of Augmentations Decrees and Orders,] E 315/105 fol 145.

15 As at Denton in Manchester : Booker, J., A History of the Ancient Chapel of Denton, Chetham Society 37 (1855) p 51 Google Scholar.

16 Hartridge p 54: Aylesbury; p 58: Helperthorpe in Weaverthorpe.

17 CYS 27 pp 154-5.

18 AASRP 28 pp 123-4; but in 1516-17 the vicar had contributed 5 marks to the stipend: ibid p 131.

19 Booker, J., A History of the Ancient Chapels of Didsbury and Chorlton, Chetham Society 42 (1857) p 13 Google Scholar; compare Samlesbury in Walton: Wallis p 85.

20 The Registers of Thomas Wolsey . . . John Clerke . . . William Knyght . . . and Gilbert Bourne, ed Maxwell-Lyte, H., SRS 55 (1940) p 74 Google Scholar.

21 [Visitations in the Diocese of Lincoln, 1517-31, ed Thompson, A.Hamilton], LRS 33 (1940) p xliv Google Scholar.

22 PRO Exchequer KR Ecclesiastical Documents, E 135/5/18: Sevenhampton in High-worth.

23 CYS 27 pp 154-5; compare Priorsdean in Registra Stephani Gardiner et johannis Poynet , ed Chitty, H., CYS 37 (1930) p 52 Google Scholar.

24 LRS 33 P 56.

25 Raines pp 148, 143.

26 [The Survey and Rentat of the Chantries ... in the County of Somerset, ed Green, E.,] SRS 2 (1888) p 57 Google Scholar.

27 [Documents towards a History of the Reformation in Cornwall, ed Snell, L. S.] (Exeter 1953) P 48 Google Scholar. Compare Middleton in Ditton: CYS 28 p 248.

28 For example the chapel of Saint Andrew in Saint Albans: E 315/105 fol 142.

29 PRO, SC6 and LR2.

30 Snell p 12: Botreaux Castle; SRS 2 p 88: Yatton.

31 37 Henry VIII cap 1.

32 I Edward VI cap 14.

33 E 315/105.

34 [PRO Star Chamber Proceedings,] STAC 4/7/2 : Saint James chapel in Sutton, Lincs; STAC 4/6/2 and 4/6/34: Catcott chapel in Moorlynch; STAC 4/3/8: chapelries in Sleaford.

35 E 315/105 fol I77v: Stainburn; fol 184v: Egleston; fol I93v: Catcott.

36 Ibid fol 231; Richardson, W. C., A History of the Court of Augmentations (Baton Rouge 1961) p 293 Google Scholar.

37 [Humberside Record Office, Beverley], DDCC 139/65.

38 Haigh p 149; compare Oxley, J. E., The Reformation in Essex (Manchester 1965) pp 159-60Google Scholar.

39 See note 34.

40 Haigh p 148.

41 Dickens, [A. G.], ‘Some popular reactions to the Edwardian Reformation in Yorkshire’, YAJ 34 (1939) P 151 Google Scholar.

42 Dickens, , The English Reformation (London 1964) p 213 Google Scholar.

43 The Chantry Certificates [for Oxfordshire], ed Rose, Graham, Oxfordshire Record Society 1 (1919) p xvi Google Scholar.

44 For fragments of the story see DDCC 139/65; APC 1354-6 pp 271-2, 276 and sources in note 45.

45 APC 1556-7 pp 49, 62 and PRO Exchequer KR Church Goods, E 117/14/118(1).

46 STAC 4/9/10 and 4/10/11.

47 PRO Auditors of Land Revenue, an auditor’s notebook: LR 9/27.

48 Bishop Redman’s Visitation, 1597, ed Williams, J. F., Norfolk Record Society 18 (Norwich 1946) pp 107, 124Google Scholar.

49 Collinson, [P.], [The Elizabethan Puritan Movement] (London 1967) pp 374, 376Google Scholar.

50 Crofton, H. T., A History of the Ancient Chapel of Stretford, 1, Chetham Society, ns 42 (1899) p 60 Google Scholar.

51 See, for example, a survey of all churches and chapels in the diocese of Exeter in the 1570s: PRO E 135/11/4.

52 Sheils, [W. J.], [‘Religion in Provincial Towns: Innovation and Tradition]’, Church and Society in England, Henry VIII to James I, ed Felicity, Heal and Rosemary, O’Day (London 1977) p 161 Google Scholar; Collinson p 168.

53 Sheils pp 161, 172; James, M., Family, Lineage and Civil Society (Oxford 1974) pp 133-5Google Scholar.