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Expedient and Experiment: the Elizabethan Lay Reader
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
The origins of the most senior office in the Church of England open to a layman, that of lay reader, are obscure. Sir Robert Phillimore confined himself to the observation that the office was ‘one of the five inferior orders of the Roman church’, adding only that
in this kingdom, in churches or chapels where there is only a very small endowment, and no clergyman will take upon him the charge or cure thereof, it has been usual to admit readers, to the end that divine service in such places might not altogether be neglected.
But when and how did it become ‘usual? There are no references to readers in Edward VI’s Royal Injunctions of 1547, presumably because those holding inferior Roman orders were still legally entitled to exercise their functions. Although the Protestant advances of the next six years removed all such from office there is no sign that the Edwardian regime made any attempt to appoint readers as an emergency or auxiliary measure. Probably there was no immediate need to do so: with the abolition of the chantries in 1549 most chantry priests went on to serve as ‘stipendiaries’, effectively slipping into the ranks of the unbeneficed as ‘curates’. If anything there was a glut in the clerical market between 1549 and the restoration of Catholic orders in 1553.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Studies in Church History , Volume 35: Continuity and Change in Christian Worship , 1999 , pp. 185 - 198
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1999
References
1 Phillimore, Sir Robert, The Ecclesiastical Law of the Church of England, 2 vols, 2nd edn (London 1895), 1, p. 450 Google Scholar.
2 Cardwell, Edward, Documentary Annals of the Reformed Church of England, 2 vols (Oxford, 1844), 1, pp. 4–31 Google Scholar.
3 Strype, John, Annals of the Reformation, 4 vols in 7 (Oxford, 1824), 1/i, p. 267 Google Scholar.
4 The standard account of the process remains Gee, Henry, The Elizabethan Clergy and the Settlement of Religion 1558-1564 (Oxford, 1898 Google Scholar).
5 There is no evidence that any man below the rank of deacon was offered the Oath of Supremacy.
6 Henry Gee and Hardy, William John, Documents Illustrative of English Church History (London, 1896), p. 438 Google Scholar; Frere, W. H. and Kennedy, W. M., Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Period of the Reformation, 3 vols, Alcuin Club Collections, 14-16 (London, 1910), 3, p. 25 Google Scholar.
7 Printed in Gee, Elizabethan Clergy, pp. 65-70, and in Frere and Kennedy, Visitation Articles, 3, pp. 1-7.
8 Ibid., 3, p. 11.
9 Frerc, W. H., ed., Registrum Matthei Parker diocesis Cantuarensis, A. D. 1559-1575, 3 vols, Canterbury and York Society, 35-6, 39 (London, 1928-33), 2, p. 339 Google Scholar.
10 Strype, Annals, 1/i, pp. 265, 267.
11 O’Day, Rosemary, The English Clergy: the Emergence and Consolidation of a Profession, 1558-1642 (Leicester, 1979), pp. 130–1 Google Scholar.
12 The evidence is most conveniently summarized in Readers and Subdeacons. Report and Resolutions of the Joint Committee of the Convocation of Canterbury Appointed to Comider the Question of Restoring an Order of Readers or Sub-Deacons in the Church, ‘New Edition with Additions’ (Westminster, 1938), pp. 30-9.
13 Ibid., p. 32.
14 Possibly Grindal’s work, from the phraseology and the fact that when on 27 May 1560 Parker forbade his suffragan bishops to visit in their own names until he had conducted a metropolitical visitation, he emphasised that Grindal was not exempt from this ruling: John Bruce and Perowne, Thomas T., eds, The Correspondence of Matthew Parker, PS (Cambridge, 1853), pp. 115–17 Google Scholar.
15 Frerc and Kennedy, Visitation Articles, 3, pp. 87-93 (at no. 25). 100-3. Oddly, Parker’s Articles for his metropolitical visitation make no reference to readers: ibid., 3, pp. 81-4.
16 Ibid., 3, p. 95. My italics.
17 No articles, injunctions, or act book of office survive.
18 Call Book of Visitation: London, Guildhall Library [henceforth GL], MS 9537/2, fol. 2()T.
19 Ibid., fols 87V, 98r-100r. The return for the archdeaconry of St Albans is missing.
20 For full details of the Colchester clergy in this period see Brett Usher, ‘Colchester and Diocesan Administration 1539-1604’, unpublished study undertaken on behalf of the Victoria County History, Essex (1993): copies at the Essex Record Office (Chelmsford and Colchester) under reference T/Z 440/1.
21 GL, MS 9537/2, fols 39r-96v, passim.
22 Bruce and Perowne, Correspondence of Matthew Parker, p. 148.
23 Court Book of the Archdeaconry of London, 1562-3: GL, MS 9055, fol. 221.
24 London, Inner Temple Library, Petyt MS 538, 38 and 47; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 106, pp. 423-6.
25 Printed in Strype, Annals, i/i, pp. 318-24, 514-15. Fully edited, with an introduction, by W. M. Kennedy, The ‘Interpretations’ of the Bishops & their Influence on Elizabethan Episcopal Policy, Alcuin Club Tracts, 8 (London, 1908); reprinted in Frere and Kennedy, Visitation Articles, 3, pp. 59-73. Further discussed by Brook, V.J. K., A Life of Archbishop Parker (Oxford, 1962), pp. 101–8 Google Scholar. Brook makes heavy weather of the simple fact that the bishops were thrashing around to find a modus vivendi with the 1559 Injunctions and eventually did so.
26 Kennedy, ‘Interpretations’ of the Bishops, pp. 31-2, 41.
27 Ibid., pp. 32, 41.
28 Ibid., p. 33.
29 BL, MS Add. 19398, fols 59r-v, printed in Strype, Annals, i/i, pp. 514-15; Cardwell, , Documentary Annals, 1, pp. 302–4 Google Scholar. Kennedy remained content with the draft/fair copy version in the Petyt MSS, though he must have recognized that Strypc and Cardwell (who quotes no source) had transcribed an original document unknown to him: ‘Interpretations’ of the Bishops, pp. 36-7. In reprinting the Injunctions two years later he merely noted that ‘another copy’ was to be found in Cardwell ‘of later date’ than 19 April 1562: Frere and Kennedy, Visitation Articles, 3, p. 67n
30 Ibid., 3, pp. 179-80. They are now described as ‘Protestations’.
31 Readers and Sub-deacons, p. 33; Frere and Kennedy, Visitation Articles, 3, p. 335.
32 GL, MSS 9537/3, fol. 84v, 9537/4, fol. 31r; London, Metropolitan Archives [henceforth LMA], DL/C/333, fol. 96v.
33 GL, MSS 9537/3, fol. 84v, 9537/4, fol. 31r; LMA, DL/C/333, fol. 102v.
34 GL, MSS 9537/3, fol. 85v, 9537/4, fols 32r, 93v; 9537/5, fol. 58r.
35 Reginald Metcalf, Wix, ordered to cease officiating; farmer of benefice ordered to Seeure a perpetual curate for Aylmer’s approval; Bartholomew Church, White Colne, ordered to account for his sequestration of the perpetual curacy, John Crane, Little Braxted (worth only £3 6s. 8d. in the Valor), inhibited: GL, MS 9537/3, fols 78V, 83r, 87r. Crane was in breach of the Injunctions since the benefice had since 1569 had a resident incumbent
36 William Anderson, Brentford; Richard Strange, Tcddington; Richard Carpenter, Littleton (name struck through); John Carpenter, Houslow (‘Carpenter’ struck through and ‘Corbctt’ substituted): GL, MS 9537/3, fols 32r, 32V, 33r, 35r.
37 Brownsmith of St Runwald, Watson of Berechurch and Bongiar, now ‘sequestrator’ of St Martin, had been joined by one Bonde at Greenstead and John Middleton at St Mary Magdalen: GL, MS 9537/4, fols 31r, 32r.
38 Strange at Tcddington and Church at White Colne: GL, MS 9537/4, fols 9r, 34r.
39 William Gyctt, Brentford; John Pembcrton, Bclchamp Walter; Christopher El kin (first appointed in 1561 but not found in 1574), Little Maplestcad; Clement Lucocke, Little Holland; Thomas Freeman, Little Burstead; Thomas West, Doddinghurst: GL, MS 9537/4, fols 9v, 26v, 28r, 35v, 48v, 49r.
40 Bongiar and Watson have been joined by Anthony Harrison at St Peter and ‘Mr Middleton’ at Little Horkesley: GL, MS 9537/4, fols 92V, 93r, 93V, 90r.
41 Thomas True, reader and schoolmaster of Wimbish; John Pembcrton (formerly of Belchamp Walter) of Finchingfield, inhibited from officiating; John Moore of Lammarsh; and John Lingwood of Inworth, also inhibited: GL, MS 9537/5, fols 49V, 52r, 54r, 64V. In every case the parish had an instituted rector or vicar. Pcmbcrton had acquired a teaching licence in September 1577: LMA, DL/C/333, fol. 88r. Thus the office of reader, where it continued to exist, seems inereasingly associated with the function of village schoolmaster it was perhaps an elision designed to circumvent the provision that no reader should serve where the parish had a resident incumbent.
42 Strype, Annals, i/i, p. 267.
43 Newcourt, Richard, Repertorium Ecclesiasticum Parochiale Londinense, 2 vols (London, 1708-10), 2, pp. 100–2 Google Scholar.
44 See will of Elizabeth Wood: Emmison, F. G., ed., Essex Wills (England) Vol. 1, 1558-1565 (Washington, DC, 1982), no. 885 Google Scholar.
45 LMA, DL/C/332, fol. 122r.
46 Dasent, J. R., ed., Acts of the Privy Council of England, 32 vols (London, 1890-1907), 1545-47. p. 485 Google Scholar; 1552-54, p. 304; GL, MS 9537/2, fols 63v, 64v.
47 Strype, Annals, 1/i, pp. 267-8.
48 Garrett, C. H., The Marian Exiles (Cambridge, 1938 Google Scholar), p. 181; GL, MSS 9537/2, fol. 6sr, 9531/13, fol. 145v.
49 GL, MS 9531/1, fols 102v, 105r, 106r, 107r, 107v, 108v.
50 Rosemary O’Day and Joel Berlatsky, eds, The Letter Book of Thomas Bentham, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield’, in Camden Miscellany, XXVII, Camden Society Publications, 4th ser., 22 (London, 1979), p. 179.
51 Bruce and Perowne, Correspondence of Matthew Parker, pp. 120-1.
52 Arber, Edward, ed., A Brief Discourse of the Troubles begun at Frankfort (1575) (London, 1908), p. 230 Google Scholar.
53 Calfhill, James, An Answer to John Martial’s Treatise of the Cross, ed. Richard Gibbings, PS (Cambridge, 1846), p. 52 Google Scholar.
54 Collinson, Patrick, Archbishop Grindal 1519-1583 (London, 1979), p. 113 Google Scholar.
55 For the development of an educated Protestant ministry after 1558 see O’Day, English Clergy, pp. 126-43. ‘u London diocese that development was more rapid than O’Day’s account implies. Between January 1579 and December 1580 Aylmcr instituted or collated to forty-eight vacant livings. Whilst twenty-three men were described only as clericus, seven were B. A. and sixteen M. A.; the latter were outranked by one bachelor and one doctor of civil law: GL, MS 9531/13, fols 195r-200r. Other factors, however, need to be weighed on both sides. Many ordinands by this time are described as presently or ‘lately’ (nuper) members of Oxbridge colleges: thus numerous clerics had some form of university training, even if they had not graduated; while others can be shown to have graduated later. On the other hand, many instituted men with higher degrees did not eschew (indeed, eagerly espoused) pluralism, and therefore left these ‘new, improved’ benefices in the hands of poor curates. That there was an inexorable - if, nationwide, only gradual - improvement in recruitment to the rural parishes is not to be denied. Its parameters, however, have been discussed in rather simplistic terms.
56 GL, MS 9535/1, fol. 126V.
57 Hennessy, George, Novum Repertorium Ecclesiastkum Parochiak Londinense (London, 1908), pp. 79, 249 Google Scholar.
58 DNB, s.v.; P. S. Seaver, The Puritan Lectureships (Stanford, CT, 1970), pp. 80, 162, 209- 10; Chambers, E. K., The Elizabethan Stage, 4 vols (Oxford, 1923), 3, pp. 503–5 Google Scholar.