The Eve of the Reformation

As an illustration of the religious spirit which pervades these documents, we may take the following preface to the will of one John Dalton of Hull, made in 1487. “In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. I, John Dalton of the Kingstown upon Hull – considering and remembering, think in my heart that the days of man in this mortal life are but short, that the hour of death is in the hand of Almighty God, and that He hath ordained the terms that no man may pass. I remember also that God hath ordained man to die, and that there is nothing more uncertain than the hour of death. I seeing princes and (men of) great estates die daily, and men of all ages end their days, and that death gives no certain respite to any living creature, but takes them suddenly. For these considerations, I, being in my right wit and mind, loved be God, whole not sick, beseech Almighty God that I may die the true son of Holy Church and of heart truly confessed, with contrition and repentance, of all my sins that ever I did since the first hour I was born of my mother into this sinful world, to the hour of my death. Of these offences I ask and beseech Almighty God pardon and forgiveness; and in this I beseech the Blessed Virgin Mary and her blessed Son Jesu, our Saviour, that suffered pain and passion for me and all sinful creatures, and all the holy company of Paradise to pray for me… For these causes aforesaid, I, being alive of whole mind and memory, loved be God, dispose and ordain such goods as God hath lent me movable and immovable by my testament, and ordain this my last will in the form and manner that followeth: First, I recommend in humble devotion, contrition, and true repentance of my faults and sins, praying and craving mercy of our Saviour Jesus Christ … my soul to our Lord Jesus Christ when it shall depart from my body, and to our Lady St. Mary, Saint Michael, St. John the Baptist, St. John the Evangelist, St. Katherine and St. Barbara, and to all the whole company and saints of heaven: and my body I will to the earth whereof it came.”

The testator then proceeds to direct that his executors shall give his wife a third of his property, and his children another third. The rest he wishes to be bestowed in charity as they may think best “to the pleasure of God and the health of my soul” … “as they shall answer before God at the dreadful day of doom. (Especially) I will them to pay my debts, charging them before God to discharge me and my soul; and in this let them do for me as they would I did for them, as I trust they will do.”350

Of much the same character is the briefer Latin preface to the will of a sub-dean of York in 1490. “I protest before God Almighty, the Blessed Mary, and all saints, and I expressly proclaim that, no matter what infirmity of mental weakness may happen to me in this or any other sickness, it is not my intention in anything to swerve from the Catholic faith. On the contrary I firmly and faithly believe all the articles of faith, all the sacraments of the Church; and that the Church with its sacraments is sufficient for the salvation of any one however guilty.”351

To take one more example of the same spirit, Thomas Dalton, merchant of Hull – probably son of the John Dalton whose will is quoted above – died in 1497. After charging his wife, whom he leaves his executrix, to pay all his debts, he adds: “And I will and give my mother forty shillings, beseeching her meekly to pray for me and to give me her daily blessing, and that she will forgive me all trespasses and faults done by me to her since I was born of her, as she will be forgiven before God at the great day of judgment.”352

Much the same spirit evidently dictated the following clause in the will of John Sothill of Dewsbury, 1502: “Also I pray Thomas my son, in my name and for the love of God, that he never strive with his mother, as he will have my blessing, for he will find her courteous to deal with.”353

Other examples of the catholicity of these mediæval wills may be here added as they are taken from the volume almost at haphazard. In 1487, a late mayor of the city of York leaves money to help in the repairs of many churches of the city and its neighbourhood. He charges his executors to provide for the maintenance of lamps and lights in several places, and specially names a gold ring with a diamond in it, which he desires may be hung round the neck of Our Lady’s statue in York Minster, and another with a turquoise “round our Lord’s neck that is in the arms of the said image of Our Lady.” After making provision for several series of masses to be said, as for example one of thirty in honour of the Holy Trinity, another in honour of the Holy Cross, a third in that of Our Lady, &c., the testator bequeaths a large sum of money to dower fifteen poor girls, and to find fifty complete sets of beds and bedding for the poor, as well as other extensive charities.354

Thomas Wood, a draper of Hull, was sheriff in 1479 and died in 1490. By will he left to his parish church a piece of worked tapestry, and the clause by which the bequest was conveyed shows that the church already possessed many costly hangings of this kind. It runs thus: “To the Trinity Church one of my best beds of Arras work, upon condition that after my decease the said bed shall yearly cover my grave at my Dirge and Mass, done in the said Trinity Church with note (in singing) for ever more. Also I will that the said bed be yearly hung in the said church on the feast of St. George the Martyr among other worshipful beds, and when the said bed be taken down and delivered, then I will that the same bed be re-delivered into the vestry and there to remain with my cope of gold.”355

The same kind of gift appears in the last testament of William Rowkshaw, Rector of Lowthorpe, in 1504. “I leave,” he says, “to the Church of Catton a bed-covering worked with great figures to lie in front of the High Altar on the chief feasts. And I leave also a bed-covering (worked) with the image of a lion (a blue lion was the family arms) to place in front of the altar in the parish church of Lowthorpe on the chief feasts.” Also in the will of William Graystoke of Wakefield, executed in 1508, there is made a gift to the parish church of “a cloth of arras work sometime hanging in the Hall.”356

Poor scholars at the universities were not forgotten in the wills of the period. Mr. Martin Collins, Treasurer of York, for instance, in 1508 charges his executors to pay for a scholar at either Oxford or Cambridge for seven years to study canon law, or the arts. The only condition is that they are to choose him from the “poor and very needy, and even from the poorest and most necessitous.”357 So, too, William Copley in 1489 leaves money to support two poor priests for the purpose of study at Cambridge. Archbishop Rotheram in his long and most Christian will, executed in June 1500, makes provision for the education of youth. He founds a college in the place of his birth – the College of Jesus at Rotheram – in thanksgiving for God’s providence in securing his own education. “For,” he says, “there came to Rotheram, I don’t know by what chance, but I believe by the special grace of God, a teacher of grammar, who taught me and other youths, and by whose means I and others with me rose in life. Wherefore desirous of returning thanks to our Saviour, and to proclaim the reason, and lest I might seem ungrateful and forgetful of God’s benefits and from whence I have come, I have determined first of all to establish there for ever a grammar master to teach all gratuitously. And because I have seen chantry priests boarding with lay people, one in one place one in another, to their own scandal and in some places ruin, I have desired, in the second place, to make them a common dwelling-house. For these reasons I have commenced to build the college of Jesus, where the head shall teach grammar and the others may board and sleep.” Moreover, as he has seen, he says, many unlettered and country folk from the hills (rudi et montam) attracted to church by the very beauty of ceremonial, he establishes at Rotheram a choir-master and six singing boys to add to the attraction of the services, and for such of these boys, who may not want to become priests, he endows a master to teach them the art of writing and arithmetic.358

A merchant of Holme, one John Barton, after leaving legacies to his parish church, charges his executors to pay the king’s taxes for all people of the town assessed at 4d. and under, for two years after his death. John Barton was a merchant of the staple, and had made his wealth by the wool trade. At Holme he built “a fair stone house and a fair chapel like a parish church,” and to remind his descendants of the source whence their means had come, and in humble acknowledgment of God’s goodness to him, he set in the windows of his home the following posie —

“I thank God, and ever shall,It is the sheep hath payed for all.”359

As an example of specific bequests for pious purposes, we may take the following: Sir Gervase Clifton in 1491 gives many sums of money to churches in Yorkshire and to various chantries in Southwell Minster. For the use of these latter also, he directs that “all the altar cloths of silk, a bed of gold bawdkyne and another bed of russet satin, which belonged to (Archbishop Boothe of York) be delivered to make vestments.”360 In 1493-4, John Vavasour, Justice of the Common Pleas, leaves £100 in money to the monastery of Ellerton, to which he says he had previously given all his vestments. He names the Priors of Ellerton and Thorneholme his executors, and tells them that the Prior of the Charterhouse of Axholme has £800 of his in his keeping, and also that a chest of his plate is in charge of the London Carthusians.361

Again Agnes Hildyard of Beverley, in 1497-8, leaves “an old gold noble to hang round the neck of the image of Our Lady in the church of Beverley,” some money to purchase a mantle for the statue of the Blessed Virgin at Fisholme, and another gold piece for the statue at Molescroft.362 About the same time Lady Scrope of Harling left “to the Rood of Northdor my heart of gold with a diamond in the midst. To Our Lady of Walsingham, ten of my great gold beads joined with silk of crimson and gold, with a button of gold, tasselled with the same… To Our Lady of Pew ten of the same beads; to St. Edmund of Bury ten of the same; to St. Thomas of Canterbury, ten of the same; to my Lord Cardinal, ten aves with two Paternosters of the same beads; to Thomas Fynchman ten aves and two Paternosters of the same beads.”363 Again, in 1502, Elizabeth Swinburne bequeathed to the Carmelites of Newcastle a piece of silver to make a crown for the image of Our Lady at her altar “where my mother is buried,” and to Mount Grace a rosary, “fifty beads of gold, a hundred of corall, with all the gaudys of gold,” on condition that she and her mother might be considered consorores of the house, and that thirteen poor people might be fed on the day of her burial.364 So, too, a chain of gold is left to make a cup for the Blessed Sacrament, velvet and silk dresses to make vestments,365 plate to make a new chrismatory, crystal beads to adorn the monstrance used on Corpus feast day.366

William Sheffield, Dean of York, whose will is dated 1496, after some few bequests to friends, leaves the residue to the poor, and he thus explains the reason: “Also I will that the residue of my goods be distributed among the poor parishioners in each of the benefices I have held, according to the discretion of my executors, so that they may be bestowed more or less in proportion to the time of my living and keeping hospitality in them; for the goods of the church are the riches of the poor, and so the distribution of church goods is a serious matter of conscience, and on those badly disposing of them Jesus have mercy.”367

The Vicar of Wighill, William Burton, in 1498-9, left a sum of money to remain in the hands of his successors for ever “to ease poor folk of the parish, for to pay their farms with, so that the said people set not their goods at wainworth (i. e. cartloads – what they would fetch), and that they have a reasonable day to pay the said silver again duly and truly to the Vicar for the time being, and the said Vicar to ask and keep eyes (aye) to the same intent, as he will answer for it at the dreadful day of judgment betwixt God and the devil; and he shall not lend the foresaid money for any tax or tallage, nor for any common purpose of the town, but only to the said poor men.” With kindly thought for the young among his old flock, the Vicar adds a bequest of 4d. “to every house poor and rich among the children.”368

The above is not by any means an isolated instance of a sum, or sums, of money being left to assist the poorer members of the Christian brotherhood, represented by the parish, with temporary loans. One document sets out the working of such a common parish chest under the supervision of the priest. The original chest and the necessary funds for starting this work of benevolence were furnished by one of the parishioners. In order to maintain “this most pious object,” as it is called, the rector undertakes to read out the name of the original donor at the “bedes-bidding” on principal feasts, together with those of all who may subsequently add to the capital sum by alms or legacies, in order that people might be reminded of their duty to offer up prayers for the eternal welfare of their benefactors. The chest was to have three locks, the keys being kept by the rector and the two wardens. Those who might need to borrow temporarily from the common stock to meet their rent, purchase of seed or stock, or for any other purpose, were to bring pledges to the full value of the loan, or else to find known sureties for the amount. No single person was to be surety for more than six shillings and eightpence, and for wise and obvious reasons the parish priest was not to be allowed to stand security under any circumstances. The loan was for a year, and if at the end of that time the pledge was not redeemed, it was to be sold, but all that it might fetch over and above the amount of the original loan was to be returned to the borrower.369

In close connection with the subject of wills in pre-Reformation times is that of chantries and obits. Both these two institutions of the later mediæval church in England have been commonly much misunderstood and misrepresented. Most writers regard them only in the light of the doctrine of Purgatory, and as illustrating the extent to which the necessity of praying for the dead was impressed upon the people by the ecclesiastical authorities, and that with a view to their own profit. It has come, therefore, to be believed that a “chantry” only meant a place (chapel or other locality) connected with the parish church, where masses were offered for the repose of the soul of the donor, and other specified benefactors. No doubt there were such chantries existing, but to imagine that all followed this rule is wholly to mistake the purpose of such foundations. Speaking broadly, the chantry priests were the assistant priests or, as we should nowadays say, the curates of the parish, who were supported by the foundation funds which benefactors had left or given for that purpose, and even not infrequently by the contributions of the inhabitants. To speak the language of our own time the system held the place of the “additional curates” or “pastoral aid” societies. For the most part the raison d’être of these chantry priests was to look after the poor of the parish, to visit the sick, and to assist in the functions of the parish church. By universal custom, and even by statute law of the English Church, every chaplain and chantry priest, besides the fulfilment of the functions of his own special benefice, was bound to be at the disposition of the parish priest in the common services of the parish church. His presence was required in the choir, vested in a surplice or other ecclesiastical dress proper to his station, or as one of the sacred ministers of the altar, should his services be so required. In this way the existence of guild chaplains, chantry priests, and others, added to the dignity of the ecclesiastical offices and the splendour of the ceremonial in most parish churches throughout the country, and afforded material and often necessary assistance in the working of the parish.

It will give, perhaps, a better idea of the functions of a chantry priest on the eve of the Reformation than can be obtained by any description, to take an example of the foundation made for a chantry at the altar of Saint Anne in the church of Badsworth. It was founded in 1510 to pray for the soul of Isabella, wife of William Vavasour, and daughter of Robert Urswick. The charter deed ordains that the chaplain shall be a secular priest, without other benefice, and that he should say a Requiem each week with Placebo and Dirige. At the first lavatory of the Mass he is to turn to the people and exhort them to pray for the soul of the founder, saying De Profundis and the prayer Inclina Domine. Once every year there is to be an anniversary service on Tuesday in Easter week, when ten shillings and eightpence is to be distributed to the poor under the direction of the rector. The chaplain is to be learned in grammar and plain song, and should be present in the choir of the parish church at Matins, Mass, Vespers, and Compline, with other divine services on Sundays and feasts, when he is to take what part the rector shall ordain. He is not to be absent for more than a month, and then only with leave of the rector, by whom, for certain specified offences, he may be deprived of his office.370

In these chantries were established services for the dead commonly called “obits.” These were not, as we have been asked to believe, mere money payments to the priest for anniversary services, but were, for the most part, bequests left quite as much for annual alms to the poor as for the celebration of those services. A few examples will illustrate this better than any explanation. In the town of Nottingham there were two chantries connected with the parish church of St. Mary, that of our Lady and that called Amyas Chantry. The former, according to the record, was founded “to maintain the services and to be an aid to the Vicar and partly to succour the poor;” the latter, to assist in “God’s service,” and to pray for William Amyas the founder. When the commissioners, in the first year of Edward VI., came to inquire into the possession of these chantries, they were asked to note that in this parish there were “1400 houseling people, and that the vicar there had no other priests to help but the above two chantry priests.” They were not, of course, spared on this account, for within two years the property, upon which these two priests were supported, had been sold to two speculators in such parcels of land – John Howe and John Broxholme.

Then again, in the parish of St. Nicholas, in the same town, we find from the returns that the members of the Guild of the Virgin contributed to the support of a priest. In that parish there were more than 200 houseling people, and as the living was very poor, there was absolutely no other priest to look after them but this one, John Chester, who was paid by the guild. The king’s officials, however, did not hesitate on this account to confiscate the property. It is needless to adduce other instances of this kind, some scores of which might be given in the county of Nottingham alone. As an example of “obits” and the purposes for which they were intended, the following instances may be given, which it must be remembered could be multiplied to any extent. From the returns of the commissioners in Nottinghamshire we find that in the parish of South Wheatley there were parish lands let out to farm which produced eighteenpence a year, say from eighteen shillings to a pound of our money. Of this sum, one shilling was for the poor, and sixpence for church lights; that is two-thirds, or, say, 16s. of our money, was for the relief of the distressed. So in the parish of Tuxford, the church “obit” lands produced £1, 5s. 4d., or about £16 a year; of which 16s. 4d. was for the poor and 9s. for the church services.

Mr. Thorold Rogers, speaking of the endowments left by generations of Englishmen for the support of chantries, obits, &c., says: “The ancient tenements which are still the property of the London companies were originally burdened with masses for donors. In the country, the parochial clergy undertook the services of these chantries … and the establishment of a mass or chantry priest at a fixed stipend in a church with which he had no other relation, was a common form of endowment. The residue, if any, of the revenue derivable from these tenements was made the common property of the guild, and as the continuity of the service was the great object of its establishment, the donor, like the modern trustee of a life income, took care that there should be a surplus from the foundation. The land or house was let, and the guild consented to find the ministration which formed the motive of the grant.”371

This is very true, but it is questionable whether Mr. Thorold Rogers appreciated the extent to which these chantry funds were intended to be devoted to purposes other than the performance of the specified religious services. A couple of examples have been given in Nottinghamshire, and to these may be added one in the south of England. In connection with the parish church of Alton, in Hampshire, there were, on the eve of the Reformation, six foundations for obits. The following is the account of these taken from the chantry certificates made by the king’s commissioners in the first year of the reign of Edward VI.: (1) “Issues of land for an obit for John Pigott, growing and coming out of certain houses and lands in Alton for to maintain for ever a yearly obit there, in the tenure of Thomas Mathew, of the yearly value of 23s. 4d.; whereof to the poor 15s. 4d., to the parish priest and his clerk 8s. (2) The same for an obit for William Reding, of the annual value of 15s., of which the poor were to have 10s. and the priest and his clerk 5s. (3) The same for Alice Hacker, of the yearly value of 10s., of which the poor were to get 7s. 8d. and the priest 2s. 4d. (4) Another of the value of 4s., the poor to get 2s. 10d. and the priest 1s. 2d. (5) Another for the soul of Nicholas Bailey, worth annually 11s., and of this 7s. 8d. was intended for the poor and 3s. 4d. for the clergy. (6) Another for Nicholas Crushelon, worth annually 4s. 4d., the poor to have 3s. 1d. and the priest 1s. 3d.” In this parish of Alton, therefore, these six foundations for “obits” or anniversaries produced a total of 77s. 8d., but so far from the whole sum being spent upon priests’ stipends, lights, and singing men, we find that considerably more than half, namely 46s. 7d., was bestowed upon the relief of the poor of the parish. Or if we take the value of money in those days as only twelve times that of our present money, out of a total of £36, 12s. some £27, 19s. went to the support of the poor.

It is obvious that the general advantages derived by a parish from the foundation of these chantries and obits have been commonly overlooked, and the notion that they were intended for no other purpose than procuring prayers for the dead, and that in fact they served no other end, is altogether misleading and erroneous. Without the assistance of the clergy, so supported by the generosity of those who left money for these foundations, the religious services in many of the parish churches of England in pre-Reformation times could not have been so fittingly or even adequately provided for. Wherever information is available this view is borne out, and it is altogether to mistake the true bearing of facts to suppose that in suppressing the chantries and appropriating the endowment of obits the officials of Edward VI. merely put an end to superstitious prayers for the souls in Purgatory. In reality they deprived the poor of much property left by deceased persons for their relief, and took away from every parish in England the assistance of the unbeneficed clergy who had hitherto helped to support the dignity of God’s worship and look after the souls of the people in the larger districts.

One instance may be given to illustrate how far the chantry clergy actually took part in the work of the parish. At Henley on Thames, on the eve of the Reformation, there were seven chapels or chantries – namely, those of Our Lady, St. Katherine, St. Clement, St. Nicholas, St. Ann, St. John, and St. Leonard. These were all supported by various bequests, and the four priests who served them all resided in a common house situated in the churchyard known as “the chapel-house,” or “the four priest chambers.” The disposition of the services of these chaplains was apparently in the hands of the “Warden and the commonalty” of the township, and for the convenience of the people they arrange, for example, that the chaplain of the Lady altar shall say his mass there every day at six in the morning, and that the priest in charge of St. Katherine’s shall always begin his at eight.372