The Eve of the Reformation

“To maintain God’s service” is perhaps the most common reason assigned to King Edward’s commission for the existence of a chantry, or chantries, in connection with a parish church. Thus at Edwinstowe, in Nottinghamshire, there was a chantry chapel a mile from the parish church known as Clipston Chantry. The priest was John Thompson, and he had £5 a year, and “hath no mansion but a parlour under the chapel.”373 At Harworth in the same county there was the hospital of St. Mary’s of Bawtree, founded by Robert Morton to serve the people two miles from the parish church. The priest had a mansion and close, “and had to say Mass every morning before sunrise, for such as be travellers by the way and to maintain God’s service there, which towne is also a thoroughfare towne.”374 At Hayton, still in the same county, also two miles from the parish church, was the chantry of Tilne, founded for a priest to serve the villages of North and South Tilne “to celebrate mass and minister the sacraments to the inhabitants adjoining, for that they for the greatness of the waters cannot divers times in the year repair to the parish church.” For “the water doth abound so much within the said hamlets that the inhabitants thereof can by no means resort into their parish church of Hayton, being two miles distant from the said chapel, neither for christening, burying, nor other rights.”375

The purposes which these chantry priests were intended to serve is seen to be the same all over England. To take Suffolk for example: at Redgrave, near Eye, or rather at Botesdale, a hamlet about a mile and a half from Redgrave, there was a chapel of “ancient standing for the ease of the inhabitants of the said street, which was first built at their cost, whereunto do belong no other than the chapel yard.” The “street” consisted of forty-six householders, and by estimation a hundred and sixty houselings. It was “a common thoroughfare and hath a liberty of market.” These matters “the poor inhabitants” submitted to the King; it is unnecessary to say without success.376 At Levenham the alderman of St. Peter’s Guild held certain lands to find a priest who was to teach the children of the town, and was to be “secondary to the curate, who without help of another priest is not able to serve the cure there,” as there were two thousand souls in the district.377 So, too, at Mildenhall there was a chantry established, as the parish was long and populous, “having a great number of houseling people and sundry hamlets, divers of them having chapels distant from the parish church one mile or two miles, where the said priest did sing Mass sundry festival days and other holy days, and also help the curate to minister the Sacraments, who without help were not able to discharge his cure.”378 At Southwold were four cottages left by one John Perce for an “obit.” The property produced twenty shillings a year, and of this sum ten shillings were to be distributed to the poor; eight shillings to maintain the town and pay the taxes of the poor, and two shillings to be paid to the parson and his clerk for their services in church. There was also in the same town a tenement called Skilman’s, intended to supply a stipendiary priest for sixteen years to the parish, and after that to go to the town. The sixteen years were up when the royal commissioners visited the town, and the whole sum was then being spent on the town. In vain the people pleaded that “it was to be considered that the said town of Southwold is a very poor town, whereupon the sea lies beating daily, to the great ruin and destruction of the said town, if that the power and violence of the same were not broken by the maintenance of jetties and piers there, and that the maintenance of the haven and bridge of the same town is likewise very chargeable.” The marsh belonging to the said tenement, called Skilman’s, is let to the poor inhabitants of the same town, every man paying for his cowgate by the year 20d. only “to the great relief of the poor.”379

So, too, the Aldermen of the Guild of the Holy Ghost in Beccles held lands to supply a priest to assist in the parish for ninety-nine years, to find money to pay the tenths, fifteenths, and other taxes, and for other charitable purposes. The property brought in £10, 9s. 4d., and each year the poor received forty shillings; thirty shillings went to pay for the taxes, and the rest – some £6 – to the priest. In order to induce the king to leave this fund untouched, the commissioners of 1547 are asked to note “that Beccles is a great and populous town,” there being eight hundred houselings, “and the said priest is aiding unto the curate there, who without help is not able to discharge the said cure.”380

The case of Bury St. Edmunds is particularly distressing. Amongst other charities, lands had been left by will or given by various benefactors to find priests to serve St. Mary’s, to sing “the Jesus Mass,” and to act as chaplain at the Lady altar. Property also was given in charge of St. Nicholas Guild of the annual value of 25s. 4d., of which sum 22s. was to be distributed to the poor of the town, and the rest was to go to the annual anniversary services for members of the guild. More property, too, had been left by one Margaret Oldham for a priest to say Mass in the church of St. James on the week days, and in the jail on the Sundays, and to find the poor prisoners in wood for a fire during winter months. There were several other similar benefactions of the same kind, and the parishioners of St. James’s church “gathered weekly of their devotion” the stipend of a priest paid to say “the morrow Mass” – that is, the Mass at daybreak intended for those who had to go early to their daily work. When the royal commissioners came on behalf of the said Edward VI. to gather in these spoils at Bury, they were asked to forward to the authorities in London the following plea for pity: “It is to be considered that the said town of Bury is a great and populous town, having in it two parish churches, and in the parishes of the same above the number of 3000 houseling persons, and a great number of youth. And the king’s majesty hath all the tithes and all the profits yearly coming and growing within the same parishes,381 finding two parish priests there. And the said two parish priests are not able to serve and discharge the said cures without aid and help of other priests. And further, there is no school, nor other like foundation, within the said town, nor within twenty miles of it, for the virtuous education and bringing up of youth, nor any hospital or other like foundation for the comfort and relief of the poor, of which there is an exceeding great number within the said town other than what are before mentioned, of which the said incumbents do now take the whole382 yearly revenues and profits, and distribute no part thereof to the aid and comfort or relief of the said poor people.

“In consideration whereof it may please the king’s majesty of his most charitable benignity, moved with pity in that behalf, to convert the revenues and profits of the sum of the said promotions into some godly foundation, whereby the said poor inhabitants, daily there multiplying, may be relieved, and the youth instructed and brought up virtuously, or otherwise, according to his most godly and discreet wisdom, and the inhabitants shall daily pray to God for the prosperous preservation of his most excellent majesty, long to endure.”383

It is hardly necessary to say that the petition had no effect. At Bury, as indeed all over England, the claims of the sick and poor were disregarded and the money passed into the possession of the crown. The hospitals that mediæval charity had erected and supported were destroyed; the youth remained untaught; the poor were deprived of the charity which had been, as it was supposed, secured to them for ever by the wills of generations of Catholic benefactors; the poor prisoners in the jail at Bury had to go without their Sunday Mass and their winter fire; whilst the money that had hitherto supported chaplains and chantry priests to assist the parish priests in the care of their districts was taken by the crown.

For Yorkshire the certificates of the commissioners have been published by the Surtees Society. The same impression as to the utility and purpose of the chantry and other assisting priests may be gathered from almost every page. For example, the chantry of St. Katherine in the parish church of Selby: “The necessity thereof is to do divine service, and help the parish priest in time of necessity to minister sacraments and sacramentals and other divine services.”… For “the said parish of Selby is a great parish, having but one curate, and in the same parish is a thousand houseling people; and the said curate has no help in time of necessity but only the said chauntry priest.”384

Again: “Two chantries of our Lady in the parish church of Leeds, ‘founded by the parishioners there to serve in the choir and to minister sacraments and other divine service, as shall be appointed by the vicar and other honest parishioners there, which they do… The necessity thereof is to do divine service, to help the curate, and minister the Sacraments, having 3000 houseling people.’”385

In the same parish church, the chantry of St. Mary Magdalene was “founded by William Evers, late vicar of Leeds, to pray for the soul of the founder and all Christian souls, to minister at the altar of St. Mary Magdalene, to keep one yearly obit, with seven shillings to be distributed, and to serve in the choir at divine service all holy days and festival days, as appears by the foundation deed thereof, dated A.D. 1524.”386

One more example may be taken out of the hundreds in these volumes: “The chantry, or donative, within the chapel of Holbecke in the parish of Leeds, ‘the incumbent is used to say daily mass there and is taken for a stipendiary priest paying tithes. And there is a great river between the said parish church and the chapel, whereby they can by no means often pass to the said church… The said chantry is distant from the said parish church one mile. The necessity thereof is to do divine service according to the foundation.’”387

A few words enforcing the lesson to be learned from these extracts taken from the preface to the second part of these interesting Yorkshire records may be here given. Mr. Page, the editor, says: “Up to the time of the Reformation nearly all education was maintained by the church, and when the chantries were dissolved practically the whole of the secondary education of the country would have been swept away, had not some provision for the instruction of the middle and lower classes been made by continuing, under new ordinances, some of the educational endowments which pious founders had previously provided.”388

“The next most important class of foundations, some of which were continued under the commission … consisted of the chapels of ease, which were much required in extensive parishes with a scattered population, and had been generally founded by the parishioners for their own convenience. It seems, therefore, that the dissolution of these chapels was a peculiar hardship. As early as 1233, the Pope granted licence to the archbishop of York to build oratories or chapels and to appoint to them priests, in places so distant from the parish churches that the people could with difficulty attend divine service, and the sick died before the priest could get to them to administer the last sacraments. The necessity for these chapels of ease was especially felt in Yorkshire, where the inhabitants of so many outlying hamlets were cut off from their parish churches in winter time by impassable roads and flooded rivers, which is the reason time after time assigned by the commissioners, for the necessity of the existence of such chapels; and yet comparatively few of them were recommended for continuance by Sir Walter Mildmay and Robert Kelway in the returns to the commission. Possibly, it was the loss of the endowments of Ayton chapel which occasioned the insurrection at Leamer … which chapel the inhabitants so piously kept up afterwards at their own expense.”389

“In most cases, the chantry priest seems to have acted in much the same capacity in a parish as that now occupied by the curate; he assisted the parish priest in performing mass, hearing confessions and visiting the sick, and also helped in the ordinary services of the church; the few only were licensed to preach, like the schoolmaster at Giggleswick. In the Cathedral Church at York, besides praying for the soul of his founder and all Christian souls, each chantry priest had to be present in the choir in his habit of a parson on all principal and double feast days, Sundays, and nine lections, at Matins, Mass, Evensong, and processions, when he had to read lessons, begin anthems, and to minister at the high altar as should be appointed to him by the officers of the choir. Besides these purely ecclesiastical duties, very many of the chantry priests were bound to teach a certain number of the children of the neighbourhood, which was the origin of most of our Grammar schools.”390

CHAPTER XIII

PILGRIMAGES AND RELICS

Pilgrimages and the honour shown to relics are frequently pointed out as, with Indulgences, among the most objectionable features of the pre-Reformation ecclesiastical system. It is assumed that on the eve of the religious changes the abuses in these matters were so patent, that no voice was, or indeed could have been, raised in their defence, and it is asserted that they were swept away without regret or protest as one of the most obvious and necessary items in the general purification of the mediæval church initiated in the reign of Henry VIII. That they had indeed been tolerated at all even up to the time of their final overthrow was in part, if not entirely, due to the clergy, and in particular to the monks who, as they derived much pecuniary benefit from encouraging such practices, did not scruple to inculcate by every means in their power the spiritual advantages to be derived from them. That the objectionable features of these so-called works of piety had long been recognised, is taken for granted, and the examinations of people suspected of entertaining Wycliffite opinions are pointed to as proof that earnest men were alive to these abuses for more than a century before religion was purified from them. As conclusive evidence of this, the names, too, of Chaucer for early times, and of Erasmus for the Reform period, are given as those whose condemnation and even scornful rejection of such practices cannot be doubted. It becomes important, then, for a right understanding of the mental attitude of the people generally to the existing ecclesiastical system at the time of its overthrow, to see how far the outcry against pilgrimages and the devotion to relics was really popular, and what were the precise objections taken to them by the innovators.

It is difficult to exaggerate the importance attached to pilgrimages by our pre-Reformation forefathers. From very early times the practice was followed with eagerness, not to say with devotion, and included not merely visits to the shrines situated within the country itself, but long and often perilous journeys into foreign lands – to Compostella, Rome, and to the Holy Land itself. These foreign pilgrimages of course could be undertaken only by the rich, or by those for whom the requisite money was found by some one unable to undertake the journey in person. Not infrequently the early English wills contain injunctions upon the executors to defray the cost of some poor pilgrim to Spain, to Rome, or to some of the noted shrines on the Continent. The English love for these works of piety in nowise showed any sign of decadence even right up to the period of change. Books furnishing intending pilgrims with necessary information, and vocabularies, even in Greek, were prepared to assist them in their voyages. The itineraries of William Wey, printed by the Roxburghe Club, give a very good idea of what these great religious pilgrimages must have been like at the close of the fifteenth century. In 1462 Wey was in the Holy Land, and describes how joyfully the pilgrims on landing at Jaffa sang the “Urbs beata Jerusalem in faburthyn.” In 1456 he took part in a large English pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella, leaving Plymouth with a shipload of English fellow-pilgrims on May 17. William Wey’s ship was named the Mary White, and in company with them six other English ships brought pilgrims from Portsmouth, Bristol, Weymouth, Lymington, and a second from Plymouth. They reached Corunna on May 21st, and Compostella for the great celebration of Trinity Day. Wey was evidently much honoured by being pointed out to the church officials as the chief Englishman of note present, and he was given the post of first bearer of the canopy in the procession of the Blessed Sacrament. Four out of the six poles were carried by his countrymen, whom he names as Austill, Gale, and Fulford.

On their return the pilgrims spent three days at Corunna. They were not allowed to be idle, but religious festivities must have occupied most of their time. On Wednesday, the eve of Corpus Christi day, there was a procession of English pilgrims throughout the city and a mass in honour of the Blessed Virgin. On Corpus Christi itself their procession was in the Franciscan church, and a sermon was preached in English by an English Bachelor in Theology on the theme, Ecce ego; vocasti me. “No other nation,” says William Wey, somewhat proudly, “had these special services but the English.” In the first port there were ships belonging to English, Welsh, Irish, Norman, French, and Breton, and the English alone had two and thirty.

Such journeys were not, of course, in those days devoid of danger, especially from sickness brought on, or developed in the course of the travels. Erasmus, in his Colloquy on Rash Vows, speaks of losing three in a company. “One dying on the way commissioned us to salute Peter (in Rome) and James (at Compostella) in his name. Another we lost at Rome, and he desired that we should greet his wife and children for him. The third we left behind at Florence, his recovery entirely despaired of, and I imagine he is now in heaven.” That this account of the mortality among pilgrims is not exaggerated is shown in the diary of Sir Richard Torkington, Rector of Mulbarton, in Norfolk. In 1517 he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and records on “the 25th of August, that was Saynt Bertolmew’s day, deceased Robert Crosse of London, and was buried in the churchyard of Salyus (in the island of Cyprus); and the 27th day of August deceased Sir Thomas Tappe, a priest of the West country, and was cast over the board; as were many more whose souls God assoyl; and then there remained in the ship four English priests more.”391

If Englishmen went abroad to the celebrated shrines, foreigners in turn found their way to the no less renowned places of pilgrimage in England. Pilgrims’ inns and places of rest were scattered over the great roads leading to Glastonbury, Walsingham, and Canterbury, and other “holy spots” in this island, and at times these places were thronged with those who came to pay their devotion. At one time we are told that more than a hundred thousand pilgrims were together in the city of Canterbury to celebrate one of the Jubilee celebrations of the martyr St. Thomas; whilst the road to Walsingham was so much frequented, that in the common mind the very “milk way” had been set by Providence in the heaven to point the path to Our Lady’s shrine.

With the very question of pilgrimages, Sir Thomas More actually deals in the first portion of his Dyalogue, and it would be difficult to find any authority who should carry greater weight. He first deals with the outcry raised by the followers of Luther against the riches which had been lavished upon the churches, and in particular upon the shrines containing the relics of saints.

Those who so loudly condemn this devotion shown by the church to the saints should know, he says “that the church worships not the saints as God, but as God’s servants, and therefore the honour that is done to them redoundeth principally to the honour of their Master; just as by common custom of people we sometimes, for their master’s sake, reverence and make great cheer for people to whom perhaps except for this we would not have said ‘good morrow.’

“And sure if any benefit or alms, done to one of Christ’s poor folk for his sake, be reputed and accepted by His high goodness, as done unto Himself: and if whosoever receiveth one of His apostles or disciples receives Himself, every wise man may well think that in like manner he who honours His holy saints for His sake, honours Himself, except these heretics think that God were as envious as they are themselves, and that He would be wroth to have any honour done to any other, though it thereby redoundeth unto Himself. In this matter our Saviour Christ clearly declares the contrary, for He shows Himself so well content that His holy saints shall be partakers of His honour that He promises His apostles that at the dreadful doom (when He shall come in His high majesty) they shall have their honourable seats and sit with Himself upon the judgment of the world. Christ also promised that Saint Mary Magdalene should be worshipped through the world and have here an honourable remembrance because she bestowed that precious ointment upon His holy head. When I consider this thing it makes me marvel at the madness of these heretics that bark against the old ancient customs of Christ’s church, mocking at the setting up of candles, and with foolish facetiousness (fallacies) and blasphemous mockery demand whether God and His saints lack light, or whether it be night with them that they cannot see without a candle. They might as well ask what good did that ointment do to Christ’s head? But the heretics grudge the cost now as their brother Judas did then, and say it were better spent on alms upon a poor folk, and thus say many of them who can neither find in their heart to spend on the one nor the other. And some spend sometimes on the one for no other intent, but the more boldly to rebuke against and rail against the other.”

After pointing out how riches were lavished on the temple by God’s special ordinance, Sir Thomas More continues: “If men will say that the money were better spent among poor folk by whom He (i. e. God) setteth more store as the living temples of the Holy Ghost made by His own hand than by the temples of stone made by the hand of men, this would perhaps be true if there were so little to do it with that we should be driven by necessity to leave the one undone. But God gives enough for both, and gives divers men divers kinds of devotion, and all to His pleasure. Luther, in a sermon of his, wished that he had in his hand all the pieces of the holy cross, and said if he had he would throw them where the sun should never shine on them. And for what worshipful reason would the wretch do such villainy to the cross of Christ? Because, as he says, there is so much gold now bestowed on the garnishing of the pieces of the cross that there is none left for poor folks. Is not this a high reason? As though all the gold that is now bestowed about the pieces of the holy cross would not have failed to be given to poor men if they had not been bestowed on the garnishing of the cross; and as though there was nothing lost except what is bestowed about Christ’s cross. Take all the gold that is spent about all the pieces of Christ’s cross through Christendom (albeit many a good Christian prince and other godly people have honourably garnished many pieces of it), yet if all the gold were gathered together it would appear a poor portion in comparison with the gold that is bestowed upon cups – what do we speak of cups for? in which the gold, though it is not given to poor men, is saved, and may be given in alms when men will, which they never will; how small a portion, ween we, were the gold about all the pieces of Christ’s cross, if it were compared with the gold that is quite cast away about the gilding of knives, swords, &c.”

Our author then goes on to put in the mouth of the “objector” the chief reasons those who were then the advocates of the religious changes were urging against pilgrimages to the shrines of saints and to special places of devotion to our Blessed Lady. Protesting that he had, of course, no desire to see the images of the saints treated in any way disrespectfully, the objector declares that “yet to go in pilgrimages to them, or to pray to them, not only seemed vain, considering that (if they can do anything) they can do no more for us among them all than Christ can Himself alone who can do all things, nor are they so ready to hear (if they hear us at all) as Christ that is everywhere.”… Moreover, to go a pilgrimage to one place rather than to another “seems to smell of idolatry,” as implying that God was not so powerful in one place as He is in another, and, as it were, making God and His saints “bound to a post, and that post cut out and carved into images. For when we reckon we are better heard by our Lord in Kent than at Cambridge, at the north door of Paul’s than at the south door, at one image of our Lady than at another,” is it not made plain that we “put our trust and confidence in the image itself, and not in God and our Lady,” and think of the image and not of what the image represents.