Inward Purity and Outward Splendour: Death and Remembrance in the Deanery of Dunwich, Suffolk, 1370-1547 (Studies in the History of Medieval Religion)

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Studies in the History of Medieval Religion VOLUME XVII

INWARD PURITY AND OUTWARD SPLENDOUR Death and Remembrance in the Deanery of Dunwich, Suffolk, 1370±1547


Studies in the History of Medieval Religion ISSN 0955±2480 General Editor Christopher Harper-Bill

Previously published volumes in the series are listed at the back of this volume


INWARD PURITY AND OUTWARD SPLENDOUR Death and Remembrance in the Deanery of Dunwich, Suffolk, 1370 ±1547

JUDITH MIDDLETON-STEWART

THE BOYDELL PRESS THE CENTRE OF EAST ANGLIAN STUDIES


# Judith Middleton-Stewart 2001 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner First published 2001 Published by The Boydell Press, Woodbridge in association with The Centre of East Anglian Studies University of East Anglia, Norwich ISBN 0 85115 820 X

The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. PO Box 41026, Rochester, NY 14604±4126, USA website: http://www.boydell.co.uk A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Middleton-Stewart, Judith, 1934± Inward purity and outward splendour: death and remembrance in the deanery of Dunwich, Suffolk, 1370±1547 / Judith Middleton-Stewart. p. cm. ± (Studies in the history of medieval religion, ISSN 0955±2480; v. 17) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0±85115±820±X (alk. paper) 1. Suffolk (England) ± Church history. 2. Charitable bequests ± England ± Suffolk ± History. 3. Dunwich Region (England) ± Church History. 4. Charitable bequests ± England ± Dunwich Region ± History. I. Title: Inward purity and outward splendor. II. Title. III. Series. BR763.S8 M53 2001 274.2'64605±dc21 00±067487

This publication is printed on acid-free paper Typeset by Joshua Associates Ltd, Oxford Printed in Great Britain by St Edmundsbury Press Ltd, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk


Contents List of Illustrations

vi

Acknowledgements

ix

Abbreviations

xii

Introduction Part One: The Realm of the Living

1 11

1

Domus Dei

13

2

Testaments and Wills

41

3

The Testators

61

4

The Living Church

87

Part Two: The Kingdom of the Dead

111

5

Preparing the Ground

113

6

Singing for Souls

137

Part Three: Tributes and Gifts

157

7

Holy Chant and Psalm

159

8

Gilding the Liturgy

179

9

The Riches of Apparel

197

Part Four: The Glorious Company

213

10

The Sacred Messengers

215

11

Divine Lights

234

12

Entrances and Exits

252

Conclusion: Dimming the Lights

275

Appendix: Testators in the 1524 Subsidy

291

Bibliography

294

Index

309


Published in conjunction with the Centre of East Anglian Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich with the aid of a grant from Miss Ann Ashard Webb's Bequest for the history of Suffolk


Illustrations Colour Plates between pages 114 and 115

I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII.

Covehithe: St Andrew's church Wenhaston Doom: The resurrected Christ Westhall screen: The trans®guration panels Southwold screen: the orders of angels Wissett church: John the Baptist Blythburgh church: Bishop Alsin Westhall font Heveningham Church

Black and White Plates 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

Rumburgh: the priory church of St Michael Sibton church: the north aisle Southwold church: the west window Blythburgh nave from the west Halesworth: John Everard's brass Leiston church: three ®fteenth-century inscriptions Wenhaston Doom: weighing the souls Halesworth church: the vestry doorway Halesworth tower Walberswick tower Wrentham church: the tower frieze Chediston font: south-east panel Bram®eld: the Good Rood Blythburgh church: the Hopton tomb Crat®eld church: the Clock Bell Reydon church: a tabernacle Blythburgh glass: St Bartholomew Blythburgh chancel: a prophet

23 24 28 36 63 76 80 103 106 107 123 132 134 145 153 220 243 244


viii 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Blythburgh church: the Bowet arms Darsham font Hunting®eld font: the Ufford arms Walberswick church: Robert Ashwell's gravestone Spexhall church: the Banyard arms Wrentham church: Ele Bowet's brass

245 255 256 264 269 270

Maps and Plans Map I. East Anglia: major centres mentioned in the text Map II. The late medieval deanery of Dunwich Map III. Religious houses and appropriated parishes

xiii 14 30

Plan Plan Plan Plan Plan

70 97 98 99 100

I. II. III. IV. V.

Burial site requests: Holy Trinity, Blythburgh A developed church: St Mary's, Halesworth c. 1200 A developed church: St Mary's, Halesworth c. 1420 A developed church: St Mary's, Halesworth c. 1547 A planned church: St Andrew's, Walberswick c. 1530


Acknowledgements A book which takes such a long time to produce involves much help from many people, and it is dif®cult, almost impossible, to remember all those who have proffered the advice, the informed comment and the necessary criticism which has been shed on these pages. My thoughts turn ®rst to Andrew Martindale and Roger Virgoe who laid the foundations of this work in 1989 as supervisors of my PhD thesis. The combination of their two disparate disciplines moulded the form and widened the subject of the work. The ®nal draft was ready for Andrew to read when he returned from Venice in 1995, but he was never to see it for he died the following month. Roger Virgoe died the following year. I remember them both with appreciation and affection. My thesis was one of the last to be registered in the Centre of East Anglian Studies at the University of East Anglia, before the Centre was absorbed by the School of History. For much of my time there, the Centre's director was Hassell Smith, always ready with encouragement, scholarship and friendship. Later, Carole Rawcliffe, too, gave valuable help and support, although I watched with alarm while her pencil scored through my text. Mavis Wesley transferred footnotes from one computer programme to another with her usual skill, and Philip Judge, with great patience, drew the maps and the plans. Working at UEA has been made easier by the friendly ef®ciency of the library staff, particularly in the Inter-Library Loan department, and, outside the campus, the staff at the Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex Record Of®ces, Cambridge University Library, the PRO and the British Library deserve warm praise. I am grateful to the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History for permission to reproduce work in Chapter 7 previously published in the Institute's Proceedings. The Parish Meeting in London, organized by Clive Burgess, always made the journey from East Anglia worthwhile, and through that association I talked with many students with similar interests. Information has been sought from and has been freely given by John Blatchly, Jim Bolton, Richard Davies, Robert Dinn, Nesta Evans, Mary Fewster, John Mitchell, David O'Connor, Tony Sims, Robert Skelton, Roger Scho®eld, Sebastian Sutcliffe, Diana Wood and Francis Woodman; and Joan Corder has been more than generous to a heraldic novice. Chapters have been read and enhanced by the expertise of Nigel Bumphrey, David King, Peter Northeast, Patricia Nugee, Colin Richmond and Robert Swanson. Nearer home, my husband has accompanied me in weather fair and foul, and to him I owe a great debt. Incumbents have let us into churches, churchwardens have locked up after


x

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

us; and caretakers and cleaners have waited while I took notes and photographs. I thank them all, and regret that I have not found adequate space in the text or among the illustrations for all their churches; and I thank the Suffolk Record Of®ce in Ipswich for allowing me to photograph plates 17 and 19 from original works in its possession. To Richard Tilbrook, my thanks for his photograph of Westhall Screen. It is fortunate for me that Christopher Harper-Bill, the present director of CEAS, suggested that this book should be published, and my thanks are due to him for that and for his patient eradication of mistakes in my text. I claim any that remain. Ann Ashard Webb's bequest was fortuitous, too, and it is strange to re¯ect that this book, which explores testamentary bequests and remembering the dead in late-medieval Suffolk, should be published through her benevolence post mortem. I will remember her with gratitude; and I commemorate those pre-Reformation Suffolk parishioners who were insuf®ciently af¯uent to make a will, and who, therefore, are not remembered, by dedicating this book to them. Spexhall, St Bee's day, 2000


Abbreviations BL C&S CEAS COED CODCC CPR CUL EETS EHR EHS ERO GEC HOP JBAA JEH LPFD NCC NRO NRS OCCAA ODCC PCC PRO PSA PSIA PSIAH RHS SLHC SRO

British Library Department of Manuscripts F. M. Powicke and C. R. Cheney, eds, Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church, A.D. 1205±1313, 2 vols (Oxford 1964) Centre of East Anglian Studies Compact Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edn 1991) E. A. Livingstone, ed., The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (1977) Calendar of Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Of®ce, 48 vols (London 1901±1973) Cambridge University Library Early English Text Society English Historical Review Ecclesiastical History Society Essex Record Of®ce V. Gibbs, et al., eds, The Complete Peerage, 13 vols (London, 1913) History of Parliament Journal of the British Archaeological Association Journal of Ecclesiastical History J. S. Brewer, et al., eds, Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII, 1509±1547, 21 volumes and 2 vols addenda (London 1864±1932) Norwich Consistory Court Norfolk Record Of®ce Norfolk Record Society P. and L. Murray, Oxford Companion to Christian Art and Architecture (1996) F. L. Cross, ed., Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (1957) Prerogative Court of Canterbury Public Record Of®ce Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology (up to and including 1976) Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History (from 1977) Royal Historical Society Suffolk Local History Council Suffolk Record Of®ce I=Ipswich B=Bury L=Lowestoft


xii SRS TLS UEA VCH

ABBREVIATIONS

Suffolk Record Society Times Literary Supplement University of East Anglia Victoria County History


Map I. East Anglia: major centres mentioned in the text


For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in anything that is done under the sun. Ecclesiastes 9: 5±6

c:/3mid-stewart/intro.3d ± 11/4/1 ± 10:40 ± B&B/mp

Introduction On 7 February 1500, John Smyth, the elder, made his will at Crat®eld in northeast Suffolk.1 He asked that the Hawe Wood should stand three years after his decease and then it was to be sold. The money raised was to purchase a silver censer `to be geven to the church of Crat®eld for a Remembraunce for me and my friends'. To men like John Smyth, bound as he was to the established religion of the time, his last wishes implied more than a personal gift to his parish church. To be remembered in the prayers of family and friends, priest and parishioner, the rich and particularly the poor, was vital in the late Middle Ages because it was believed that prayers would expedite the souls of the faithful departed through the trials of Purgatory.2 Smyth's gift of a censer was a spur to remembrance; and the more prayers that were said, the more frequently repeated, the more people who prayed, the more the censer was used, the swifter would be the passage of Smyth's soul, on and up to Paradise. In today's society, death and remembrance have become distanced, for death is regarded as ®nal. A grave and its stone appear to be the most obvious, perhaps the only, type of remembrance in common use. Parishioners are now discouraged from exhibiting individuality in the churchyard. Funerary sculpture is banned, kerb-stones prohibited and the type of stone to be used is advised by a committee. Within the church, faculties for wall tablets are almost impossible to obtain, and countless men and women will never be held in the community's memory, remembrance being erased at source. In many instances even the grave is discounted as more people ®nd cremation an acceptable alternative. Memorial slabs are reduced to small tiles, ¯esh and bones to ashes rather than dust, both set in impersonal gardens of remembrance commemorating those who lived and worked in areas far removed from the urban crematoria. In the late Middle Ages, this was not so. Death was perceived as the next stage of the soul's journey, and remembrance, which was closely interwoven in the whole ethos of living and dying, was possible for men such as John Smyth to ensure, and for those left behind to initiate.3 Believing that intercessory prayers would accelerate the soul's passage through Purgatory reinforced the sense of continuation and negated the sense of bereavement, 1 2

3

SROI, IC/AA2/4/28, John Smyth, the elder, Crat®eld 1500. C. Burgess, ` `À Fond Thing Vainly Invented'': an Essay on Purgatory and Pious Motive in Later Medieval England', Parish, Church and People: Local Studies in Lay Religion, 1350±1730, ed. S. J. Wright (London 1988), 56±84; J. Le Goff, The Birth of Purgatory, trans. A. Goldhammer (Chicago 1984). C. Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual in Early Modern England (London 1984), 19±38.


2

INTRODUCTION

which made the marking of a grave only one of many ways in which remembrance was secured in late medieval society. The wills of that society reveal a world in which remembrance has a new interpretation, for here memorials are hardly mentioned, although this does not mean that they did not exist. By the addition of aisles and side chapels, ground-plans and elevations of parish churches were distorted to accommodate spiritual commemoration. Material commemoration, such as John Smyth's silver censer, or the wherewithal for the purchase of furniture and ®ttings, enriched chantry chapels, gild chapels, aisles and low altars. In some cases, the whole church bene®ted from such bequests. Testamentary gifts earned parishioners inclusion on bede-rolls and church inventories, `that they schall nat be forgoteyn, but be had yn Remembranns and be prayed for of all this parysche'.4 Remembrance of the dead was frequently undertaken by the poor, and it was towards this section of the community that the more fortunate members made provision: for food, clothing, alms and housing. Charitable deeds such as these ful®lled the Seven Corporal Acts of Mercy, which were the duty of all Christians, and the prayers of the poor ± a valuable counter-balance ± were especially sought in this reciprocal society. Robert Hawe put the Christian ethic into practice when he made his will, instructing his executors, Ì will that all my debts [owing to him] be given in alms and deeds of charity, and they that be poor, show them favour and forgive them . . . .'5 This was practical Christianity, a deathbed awareness of Hawe's duty towards his less prosperous neighbours, the old, the sick, the hungry, the thirsty. His concern is replicated in scores of wills written in the late medieval period, and this attitude is vitally different from the stance of a seventeenth-century observer, John Weever, who commented on death-bed requests, `For my part I am very sparing in my praises of posthumous charity. There can surely be but little merit in giving away to others, what we can no longer keep ourselves.'6 For all Weever's acerbic tongue, his remarks re¯ect a common sense that many would leave unsaid. Parish archives, inventories and bede-rolls tend to have perished, and it is now the testaments, copied into of®cial registers, which reveal the generous intentions of the dying. Intention, however, is not the same as implementation, and there is seldom proof that these last wishes were ful®lled. Nevertheless, the wills from the Suffolk deanery of Dunwich, written between 1370 and 1547, are the personal records of three thousand people who wished to be remembered by their bequests, the `Dead Men's Tributes and Gifts' which featured in Bishop Latimer's sermon to Convocation in 1536. These parishioners are otherwise unrecorded and mostly forgotten, and their 4

5 6

E. G. C. F. Atchley, ed., `Some More Bristol Inventories', Transactions of the St. Paul's Ecclesiological Society ix (1922±28), 1±50, at 3±4. NRO, NCC Hyll 106, Robert Hawe, Wenhaston 1535. J. Weever, Ancient Funerall Monuments (London 1631).


INTRODUCTION

3

wills are more static than dramatic. There is no sense of the background against which they were written, surely one of the most turbulent periods in the history of the Church in England ± a medieval chancel with vacant niches and whitewashed walls tells us more than the wills are prepared to say. Testamentary archives do not necessarily provide vivid or exciting reading, but they are capable of casting a thin shaft of light on a subject, or an object, which might previously have seemed obscure. The light tends to be less frequent than the obscurity, and to increase the number of wills would probably not alter the ratio of one to the other. Yet by tabulating wills parish by parish, ecclesiastical court by ecclesiastical court, decade by decade, peaks, troughs and trends can be identi®ed within the area. To compare the Deanery ®ndings to similar patterns outside this discrete area, however, is to enter the realm of historical interpretation where there is no common method of enumeration or de®nition and where both author and reader are at the mercy of other commentators' preferences. In the deanery of Dunwich, parish records are mostly lacking and churchwardens' accounts barely survive. Those which do, from Walberswick, Hunting®eld and Crat®eld, make the general loss of such vital records the more regrettable.7 Crat®eld's papers contain a few pages of accounts for the gild of St Thomas which was celebrated here, in the parish church of St Mary. The Chantry certi®cates for Suffolk have survived and were edited by Vincent Redstone in 1906.8 In south Suffolk, the history of Melford church and its despoliation is a microcosm of the English parish church in the middle years of the sixteenth century. The Spoil of Melford Church, edited by David Dymond and Clive Paine, which uses transcriptions of sixteenthcentury accounts and inventories to describe Melford's pre-Reformation state, gives a far better impression of what meticulous documentation can reveal than anything extant within Dunwich deanery.9 Two volumes from Norfolk are particularly important in order to make comparisons between, ®rstly, one parish and another and, secondly, between an urban and a rural area. In 1368, the Norfolk inventories taken for Norwich archdeaconry covered 358 parishes.10 When these inventories were tran7

8

9

10

R. W. M. Lewis, ed., Walberswick Churchwardens' Accounts, A.D.1450±1499 (privately published 1947); SROI, FC 57/A1/1, Hunting®eld Churchwardens' Accounts; FC 62/ E1/1±3; FC 62/E4/1±3, see also J. J. Raven, ed. Crat®eld ± a Transcript of the Accounts of the Parish from AD 1490 to AD 1642 with notes by the Rev. William Holland (London 1895). This work is not always reliable and the early accounts are too fragile to be inspected. The transcription refers to many loose, undated sheets among the accounts, some of which appear not to have survived. Where necessary, Raven's published edition has been used. V. B. Redstone, ed., `Chapels, Chantries and Gilds in Suffolk', PSIA xii (1904±1906), 1± 87; This is another antiquarian who is sometimes unreliable. David Dymond's corrected version of the original manuscript in the PRO has been used throughout this text. D. Dymond and C. Paine, The Spoil of Melford Church: Reformation in a Suffolk Parish (Ipswich 1989). A. Watkin, ed., Archdeaconry of Norwich: Inventory of Church Goods temp. Edward III, 2 vols, NRS xix (1948).


4

INTRODUCTION

scribed by Aelred Watkin in 1947, a hundred of the churches were already in ruins and he remarked of the remainder, `very many are falling into decay'. His detailed descriptions of the items enumerated in the inventories make a unique contribution to the understanding of late medieval bequests, enlivened by thumbnail sketches of some of the donors. The second book, Norman Tanner's study of late medieval Norwich, re¯ects on a grander scale and at an earlier date many of the liturgical innovations and developments experienced within the diocese's deanery of Dunwich.11 At a national level, the last twenty-®ve years has seen a great expansion of scholarly research into the day-to-day running of organizational, liturgical and social matters within a parochial context. For those fortunate enough to be able to afford individual prayers, perpetual and service chantries could be tailor-made to their speci®c requirements, and these were considered by Alan Kreider on their `road to dissolution'.12 The institutions considered by Kreider were all capable of supporting at least one bene®ced or stipendiary priest, the criteria laid down for their inclusion in the Chantry certi®cates of 1547/8. He used the counties of Essex, Warwickshire, Wiltshire and Yorkshire as his prime examples, but the `ground rules' for the dissolution were common throughout the land. Chantries in the throes of being set up and those already in their prime are dealt with in a series of articles dealing with chantry foundations and testamentary practice by Clive Burgess.13 Wills, like so many other documents, have multiple shortcomings in that they tell only a fraction of the whole, and Burgess's articles are particularly valuable to anyone who has experienced the frustration of testamentary inconsistencies. A taciturn will does not mean a lack of spiritual provision, and listening to what wills do not say is as important as paying heed to what they do. They were written, after all, as personal documents, not as beacons to enlighten a later readership on the religious practices of the late Middle Ages. The medieval gilds and fraternities, the friendly societies of the day, presented the corporate face of the individual's quest for prayer. J. J. Scarisbrick focused on the importance of these in the second chapter of The Reformation and the English People, in which his revisionist arguments were put forward as an alternative to those of A. G. Dickens in The English Reformation, the ¯agship of the Reformist viewpoint.14 In Scarisbrick's opening chapter, `Layfolk and the Pre-Reformation Church', with reference to testamentary evidence, he lays out his stall and suggests that the English people were `pouring money and gifts' into the traditional medieval 11 12 13

14

N. P. Tanner, The Church in Late-medieval Norwich, 1370±1532 (Toronto 1984). A. Kreider, English Chantries: the Road to Dissolution (Cambridge, Mass. 1979). C. Burgess, ` ``By Quick and by Dead'': Wills and Pious Provision in Late Medieval Bristol', EHR cii (1987), 837±58; C. Burgess, `Late Medieval Wills and Pious Convention: Testamentary Evidence Reconsidered', Pro®t, Piety and the Professions in Late Medieval England, ed. M. A. Hicks (Gloucester 1990), 14±43. J. J. Scarisbrick, The Reformation and the English People (Oxford 1984); A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation (Glasgow 1967).


INTRODUCTION

5

institutions until the very moment that these were swept away. Here, Scarisbrick's documentary sources were quite unlike the state documents, which have been used to propound the opposite view. Christopher Haigh would say that the Whig version of the Reformation has been founded on criticisms made by the Protestants and laws passed by parliaments;15 and for an alternative view of religious life in the parishes, he refers to the work based on the study since 1960 of visitation reports, wills and churchwardens' accounts, these being records òf what happened in churches, not the claims of those who thought parish religion so much nonsense'. During the 1990s, two books were published which made essential contributions to the understanding of late medieval religion and liturgy. In Corpus Christi, Miri Rubin traced the Mass from its evolution until it arrived at the centre of the Christian liturgy in the late Middle Ages, for part of the recasting of religious discipline was to make the Mass the supreme sacrament.16 Item by item and step by step, the maturing Mass unfolds, and in its train come the accessories: the plate: the books: the imagery, which play such a large part in this present work. The second book vividly describes the ritual and the minutiae of religious observance in the English Church prior to the Reformation. Eamon Duffy's The Stripping of the Altars is of particular interest to those who know the deanery of Dunwich, as are the remnants of visual culture which he so lucidly describes.17 Older literature, although not quite antiquarian, has been essential for explaining testamentary evidence. The writings of Daniel Rock, Charles Cox, Christopher Wordsworth and Henry Littlehales contain nuggets of information which illuminate the liturgical void.18 Antiquarian collections have revealed heraldry, although the recorders' ®ndings are not always compatible. Imagery, furnishings and ®ttings occur in the painstaking Suffolk collection of the remarkable David Elisha Davy in the British Library. `Heraldical Books' and collections of documents `relating to Dunwich' or `relating to Blythburgh' are also deposited there, the Iveagh collection is in the Suffolk Record Of®ce, and the Hengrave papers in Cambridge University Library. From the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries respectively, Thomas Gardner's history of Dunwich and the Reverend Suckling's Suffolk both include fruitful details on parishes within the Deanery.19 15

16 17 18

19

C. Haigh, English Reformations: Religion, Politics and Society under the Tudors (Oxford 1993), 17; C. Haigh, ed., The English Reformation Revised (Cambridge 1987), is a collection of articles where local research has been employed. M. Rubin, Corpus Christi: the Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge 1991). E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars (Yale 1992). D. Rock, Church of our Fathers, ed. G. W. Hart and W. H. Frere, 4 vols (London 1849; repr. 1905); J. C. C. Cox, Churchwardens' Accounts from the Fourteenth to the Close of the Seventeenth Century (London 1913); C. Wordsworth and H. Littlehales, The Old Service-books of the English Church (London 1904). T. Gardner, An Historical Account of Dunwich (London 1754); A. H. Suckling, History and Antiquities of the County of Suffolk, 2 vols (Ipswich 1846±48).


6

INTRODUCTION

For those who wish to know the late medieval Deanery better, there is no substitute for Colin Richmond's John Hopton.20 This ®fteenth-century Suffolk gentleman, resident at Walberswick and lord of Blythburgh during most of the ®fteenth-century rebuilding of the sumptuous parish church, left an extensive archive of accounts relating to his various holdings in the area. His son, John, was Master of the Domus Dei at Dunwich, and later became vicar of Reydon, parochial chaplain of Southwold, and vicar of Easton Bavents. Neither Johns leave wills, but both are well documented from alternative sources. The architectural features of Blythburgh and Southwold churches, among others, can be tied in with documentary sources, the task simpli®ed by Birkin Haward's book on Suffolk arcades, which is a work probably unrivalled elsewhere in England.21 Personal commemoration in the form of ef®gies, brasses, ledger slabs and gravestones appear in parish churches throughout the country in varying quantity and condition. In the deanery of Dunwich, where the preferred form of memorial was engraved brasses on a stone slab, few have survived in an identi®able state because the insets have been ripped out or the stones smashed. One weary life-sized wooden ef®gy remains, having lost its tomb. Little commemorative glass lights the windows in the churches, and donor inscriptions on two of the Deanery's rood-screens are illegible, one scored out, the other faded. On the fonts, saints are defaced and sacraments savaged. Nevertheless, there is a surprising amount of commemorative material left in the Deanery churches. In dealing with furnishings and ®ttings, a general rule of thumb has been that if an item appears in a will, or if it bears, or bore, a donor's inscription, then it has been included in the text. Blythburgh possesses ®fteenth-century pews with a few surviving carvings of the Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven Corporal Works of Mercy, but there is no testamentary evidence of provision from individual or corporate bequests. The iconography may be used as an example of the place occupied by the Seven Corporal Acts of Mercy in the teachings of the late medieval Church, but the carvings are not, and cannot be, considered as material evidence in situ. In the same way, there is no testamentary evidence for Wenhaston's Doom nor for the ®gures on the Rood-screen at Bram®eld, but there is for Bram®eld's Good Rood. Throughout the period covered by the Deanery wills, there was confrontation between the defenders of images and their critics, but this dispute was not unprecedented. There had always been controversy in the Church over the use of imagery, which caused such a division that it cut across the Christian body of believers. The second commandment states that no graven image should be made of God, and iconoclasm, the physical manifestation of ideological criticism, was at its most disruptive in the Eastern empire 20 21

C. Richmond, John Hopton: a Fifteenth-century Suffolk Gentleman (Cambridge 1981). B. Haward, Suffolk Medieval Church Arcades, 1150±1550 (Ipswich 1993).


INTRODUCTION

7

between the years 726 and 787 and from 814 to 843.22 Despite criticism, however, Western imagery and ornamentation continued apace, although the Cistercian order, founded on the Benedictine rule in 1098, eschewed decoration and elaboration of any kind and strove to return to rigid, unadorned monasticism. The Cistercians, à religious order traditionally hostile to artistic endeavour', have been termed the missionaries of Gothic for, as they pushed forward the frontiers of Christianity, they disseminated the Gothic style throughout Europe and, during the thirteenth century, their buildings, at least, became more ornate.23 Religious art blossomed and the cult of saints spread rapidly throughout Europe in the thirteenth century, encouraged by the writing of Jacobus de Voragine and promoted by the preaching of the Franciscan and Dominican orders. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), who entered the Dominican order in 1244, was a defender of images, employing the argument previously put forward at the Council of Nicaea in 787.24 This distinguished between the reverence shown to an image because of the image itself ± and that shown to an image because of what or who it represented. Aquinas taught that the mind was made aware of the reality of God through signs perceived by the senses, and that honour should be transferred via an image to that which the image represented. Latria, the honour due to Christ, should be greater than dulia, the honour paid to an image. Aquinas saw imagery as having a threefold use: it was didactic, substituting visual representations for books in a largely illiterate world, imagery being `the books of the poor' and therefore being understood easily and learnt quickly: it was an aide-meÂmoire in that it impressed on the memory a picture of the Incarnation of Christ and the saints as models of the Christian life: it aroused feelings of devotion, although there was a fear that such devotion might become more important than the books themselves, for which the imagery was but a visual substitute. In the late fourteenth century, John Wyclif acknowledged that images had educational merit, but he argued that the danger of worshipping the image for its own sake and of investing it with some divine power was idolatrous, positing the difference between the Old Testament, when the people were not as `learned in faith as Christians' and prone to idolatry, and the New Testament, which revealed God incarnate in the body of Christ, after which the Church had sanctioned images.25 What was not defensible in the eyes of some was the decoration and gilding of images, the money spent on their 22

23

24

25

R. Cormack, Writing in Gold: Byzantine Society and its Icons (London 1985), 96±140; C. Mango, `The Cult of Icons', From Byzantium to El Greco: Greek Frescoes and Icons, ed. M. Acheimastou-Potamianou, trans. D. A. Hardy (Athens 1987), 35±6. L. Grodecki, Gothic Architecture (London 1986), 18; C. Wilson, `The Cistercians as ``Missionaries of Gothic'' in Northern England', Cistercian Art and Architecture in the British Isles, ed. C. Norton and D. Park (Cambridge 1986), 86±116, at 116. J. Phillips, The Reformation of Images: Destruction of Art in England, 1535±1660 (Berkeley, Calif. 1973), 15±16. M. Aston, Lollards and Reformers: Images and Literacy in Late Medieval Religion (London 1984), 137±9.


8

INTRODUCTION

ornamentation, the superstition surrounding them, and the possibility of idolatry. The Lollards consistently opposed images, arguing that it was their òutward sensuous appeal' that attracted, the images not truly representing what was commemorated. . . . that Crist was naylid on the crosse with thus myche gold and silver and precious clothis, as a breeche of gold endentid with perry, and schoon of silver and a croune frettid ful of precious iewelis . . . that Jon Baptist was clothid with a mantil of gold . . . as thoghe thei hadde lyved in welthe of this world and lustus of their ¯eysche as large as ever dide erthely man . . . .26

In the diocese of Norwich, the heresy trials of 1428 examined sixty people termed Lollards, people who mostly came from the Waveney valley lying immediately to the north of the Dunwich deanery. It was òn the doorstep'. Lollardy was put down, but the survival of Deanery wills from this period are thinly spread and give away no secrets. Over the ensuing years, there is no doubt that having cast off the Lollard threat, or sent it underground, imagery and its adjuncts increased. The intention here is to record late medieval commemoration, not Reformation, but from whatever standpoint such subject matter is viewed, the Reformation, for better or worse, hangs like a funeral pall over the destruction of images, books, vestments and plate and the dislocation of communities and their societies. It casts its shadow across our consciousness, although there is hardly a ripple in the later wills which re¯ects local reaction to what was occurring. The withdrawal of `superstitious' practices and artefacts in the Deanery makes no sound, for wills are not suitable agents for recording such details. In Eye parish in north Suffolk, on the other hand, where the records of the parish priest at that time have survived, bitter divisions deeply wounded the community.27 From Dunwich deanery there is no such record, and its testaments do not re¯ect the problems of the period against which they are set. The ®rst signs of heresy, the rise of the Lollards in the Waveney Valley, one of the accused in the Norwich heresy trials coming from within the Deanery, these do not colour the wills in the slightest.28 Again, the teachings of Erasmus, the preaching of John Colet (his family originally from East Anglia), the ®rst stirrings of the Reformation, are not re¯ected in the wills except that testators are aware that uncertainty lies ahead, that laws might be changed. The imposition of Henry VIII as head of the Church is acknowledged brie¯y, the dissolution of the monasteries implied by the cessation of countless gifts, not to the monks, but to the friars. Images are no longer mentioned, lights are extinguished, requests for prayers cease, bequests to fabrics stop, gifts to gilds disappear and the wills of the 26

27 28

G. R. Owst, Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England (repr. Oxford 1961), 144. The quotation is taken from BL, MS Add. 24202/ 26 et seq. SROI, EE2/E/3. N. P. Tanner, Heresy Trials in the Diocese of Norwich, 1428±31, Camden Society, 4th series xx (1977).


INTRODUCTION

9

1540s are arid and like a desert. And yet there is no feeling of rejecting the old faith and precious little evidence of embracing the new, only a silent attrition. This is predominantly a rural study which seeks to ®ll a gap in research which has focused almost exclusively on urban areas, producing works such as Tanner's study of Norwich or Burgess's work on Bristol and his subsequent seminal articles. The make-up of the Deanery, the division of the area into pro®table farming and essential ®shing and trading interests, interspersed with those too poor to leave a will or have a voice, cannot be unique. It must be similar to other coastal areas in this island nation, although the Deanery may be regarded as more fortunate than many. The Deanery wills are treated to a broad interpretation, taking into account all forms of material as well as spiritual remembrance, painting a picture as full as is possible of those hoping for commemoration. It reveals that these parishioners were not backward, nor were they resistant to change. Their primary considerations were to arrange adequate ®nancial care for the spouses and children left behind, care which was often dependent on an obligation to pray. In addition, they ensured that remembrance through prayer was honoured after their death, the health of their soul nurtured on account of their bequests, many of which were channelled towards the poor.


c:/3mid-stewart/ch1.3d ± 11/4/1 ± 10:38 ± B&B/mp

Part One The Realm of the Living



1 Domus Dei Theophilus twice uses the word `paradise'; and he is describing what he sees as a visionary experience in which anyone who goes into a church is lifted up to a clearer perception of the truths of the Christian faith. The fabric of the building and its embellishments become the metaphors for the institution and what it stands for; the building of the church becomes also a glimpse of heaven. Andrew Martindale from `Patrons and Minders: The Intrusion of the Secular into Sacred Spaces in the Late Middle Ages'

In 1524, Suffolk and Essex ranked on a par as the fourth richest counties in the realm: only Kent, Devon and Norfolk were richer.1 Suffolk had always been well populated too. As early as 1086, it had been the most densely settled county in England, revealing even then an unusual landscape of small, individual freeholdings: it had 7,460 freemen, half the total for whole the kingdom. Nearly ®ve centuries later, the number of taxpayers in the 1524/5 subsidy shows that Norfolk and Suffolk had some of the highest densities of population in the country, with many low-level taxpayers, the distribution of which hints at a population denser and perhaps wealthier (per capita) than usual.2 Suffolk's parishes, of which there were many, were relatively modest in size. Most of these were mentioned in the Domesday survey complete with a church or churches, some parishes being credited with two or more. The deanery of Dunwich, which was part of the diocese of Norwich and which lay within the Archdeaconry of Suffolk, was the largest deanery in pre-Reformation Suffolk (Map II). In parochial make-up, the Deanery was identical to the civil administrative area of Blything Hundred except that the Deanery contained, in addition, the parishes of Kelsale and Carlton, both situated in the adjacent civil administrative area of the Hundred of Hoxne. The inclusion of Kelsale in the deanery of Dunwich gave the Deanery an important Domesday market within its boundaries. Later, 1 2

N. Scarfe, The Making of the Suffolk Landscape (London 1972), 150±1. J. Patten, `Population Distribution in Norfolk and Suffolk during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers lxv (1975), 45±65.


14

THE REALM OF THE LIVING

DOMUS DEI

Map II. The Parishes of the Late Medieval Deanery of Dunwich


15


16


Kelsale's gild dedicated to St John the Baptist was a centre of communal religious focus. When the deanery of Dunwich is considered in the light of the area's Anglo-Saxon past, it appears as a later religious administrative unit superimposed on a distinct and identi®able area of historic importance and great antiquity. It is possible that Blything Hundred had been an ancient shire, a pre-Danish administrative unit which had survived from the sixth or seventh century and which continued through the Middle Ages and beyond.3 At the centre stood the township of Blythburgh, at the head of the river Blyth. In Domesday, Blythburgh, with its market and money changer, was described as a royal vill or regio, a hereditary possession formerly of the late king, Edward the Confessor, and now of the present king, William the Conqueror.4 In the following century it was a centre of pilgrimage, which it probably had been since the death of the early East Anglian Christian king, Anna, at the battle of Bulcamp in 654.5 The Deanery comprised ®fty-two parishes and occupied the middle third of Suffolk's coastal region. It stretched from Benacre in the north, where its boundary was the Hundred river, to Aldringham in the south, where the southern Hundred river separated it from its neighbour, the deanery of Orford. Dunwich deanery extended some twenty miles inland to Crat®eld. From these upper reaches the river Blyth ¯owed eastwards. Suffolk's early seventeenth-century chorographer described it thus: Àt Wissett springeth the river Blythe and runneth to Halesworth where it is augmented by the receipt of a little river springing at Ubbeston. From Halesworth it runneth to Wenhawesto [Wenhaston] and Blythburgh & dischargeth it self into the sea at Walberswick.'6 Along the Suffolk coast, large parishes such as Reydon on the river Blyth within the Deanery, or Sudborne on the river Ore in the neighbouring deanery of Orford, frequently supported not only their parish churches, but also coastal chapels which, in late medieval architectural style and space, overshadowed their mother-churches. It is dif®cult to say how typical the Deanery was of a largely rural community in the late medieval period, or how it compared with its immediate neighbours. It does not seem to have bene®ted from the clothtrade which had created the boom towns in the south of the county; but neither does it give the impression of being a poor relation. It was probably regarded as reasonably well favoured, having the best of both worlds: agricultural wealth and maritime trade. Inland, on the sticky Suffolk clay, lay the wood-pasture where dairy farming was the main occupation, the countryside here a mixture of plateaux and gently rolling farmland. This 3

4 5

6

P. Warner, The Origins of Suffolk (Manchester 1996), 147, 160±5; Scarfe, Suffolk Landscape, 94±5. Warner, Origins of Suffolk, 172±3. Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, trans. L. Sherley-Price (rev. edn Harmondsworth 1990), 171±2. D. MacCulloch, ed., The Chorography of Suffolk, SRS xviv (1976), 21±2.


DOMUS DEI

17

heavy soil to the west of the Deanery lay within what was known as High Suffolk which, in Diarmaid MacCulloch's words, `was the backbone of its [Suffolk's] prosperity'.7 The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had seen the establishment of markets in sixteen centres in the Deanery, and by the early sixteenth century commercial farming in the wood-pasture area was well developed.8 To the east, between the wood-pasture and the North Sea, lay the Sandlings. Here, ìn that part of the country that is near unto the sea [there] is nothing so fruitful neither so commodious for cattle as the other, but more ®t for sheep and corn'.9 The 1524 subsidy reveals that the area lying behind the coastal strip, from north of the river Waveney in Norfolk to the mouth of the river Orwell in south Suffolk, supported a relatively low population;10 and Blything Hundred, that is to say the Deanery less the population of Kelsale and Carlton, contained a high proportion (43 per cent) of `twenty-shilling men', people recorded as worth only 20s in the 1524 subsidy, as compared with the richer area of Colneis Hundred, lying between the rivers Deben and Orwell, where only 14.5 per cent were worth as little.11 Nevertheless, the importance of this coastal area had traditionally lain in ®shing and in maritime trade rather than in agriculture. Dunwich, an endangered port since the great tempests of the late thirteenth century, still dispatched its quota of raw wool, the best of which went to Calais. It is evident that there was trade between Deanery ports and the Continent. The names of certain Deanery testators, Antony Cornelynson and Cornelius Petersen, may suggest one-way traf®c only; but, in 1519, Walter Caws's request to be buried in St Nicholas church, Calais, to which he left 3s 4d towards the steeple, contradicts this.12 For ®nancial and administrative purposes the Deanery ports were included with the custom port of Great Yarmouth and, in the returns made to an enquiry concerning ships there on 16 January 1513, the Deanery ports were termed creeks.13 Those creeks capable of holding ships of ten tons or more were Covehithe, Sizewell and Thorpe, while Southwold, Easton Bavents, Walberswick and Dunwich could accommodate far larger vessels of sixty tons or more. Although the creeks 7

8 9 10 11

12

13

D. MacCulloch, Suffolk and The Tudors: Politics and Religion in an English County, 1500±1600 (Oxford 1986), 13±19. Scarfe, Suffolk Landscape, 165±71. MacCulloch, Chorography, 20. Patten, `Population in Norfolk and Suffolk', 51 (®g. 1), 53. J. C. K. Cornwall, Wealth and Society in Early Sixteenth-century England (London 1988), 37±9. SROI, IC/AA2/8/73, Walter Caws, Southwold 1519; see also PRO, PCC Bennett 18, William Godell, Southwold 1509; for Dunwich town trade, see M. Bailey, The Bailiff 's Minute Book of Dunwich, 1404±1430, SRS xxxiv (1992), 21±2. D. Burwash, English Merchant Shipping (Toronto 1947; repub. Newton Abbott 1969), 154, 185. The tabulated returns are from PRO, Exchequer, KR, Customs Accounts, E 122/195/10. The ®gures in Table E on p. 185 are from PRO, SP Henry VIII, 1/229/ 197±202, supplemented by Customs Accounts, E 122/195/10.


18


were of a signi®cant size, their townships were small on the whole, Dunwich borough being the only settlement of over one thousand souls.14 The borough, however, had suffered severe and repeated coastal erosion in the storms of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, and by the early sixteenth century Dunwich was a town in decay.15 Southwold's population, on the other hand, was increasing, and was roughly half that of Dunwich in 1524. Some of the poorer inland parishes had fewer than ten households; and Buxlow, Knodishall, Sotherton, Spexhall, Stoven, Thorington and Ubbeston were the least wealthy parishes and the most sparsely populated in the early ®fteenth century, and, even today, have a low population in comparison with their neighbours.16

The Houses of God Throughout the period from 1370 to 1547 the Deanery had a full complement of parish churches, most of which have little, if any, surviving documentary history. Their past has to be reconstructed from architectural evidence, parochial testaments and churchwardens' accounts, in an area which showed, and still shows, the enormous investment of its parishioners in church buildings, furnishings and ®ttings in the closing years of the late Middle Ages. Towards the end of the fourteenth century, when the earliest surviving wills were written, the Deanery's ®fty-two parishes contained fortynine parish churches. Rumburgh, with a priory inside its parochial boundaries, boasted a conventual church.17 Southwold and Walberswick were of®cially chapelries, but both chapels enjoyed parochial status and, during the ®fteenth century, were rebuilt with appropriate proportions.18 There were chapels of ease in the parishes of Leiston and Aldringham, and smaller chapels at Easton Bavents and Mells. Today the parishes within the same area have retained thirty-eight parish churches and two memorable ruins. 14

15 16

17

18

S. H. A. Hervey, Suffolk in 1524 Being the Return for a Subsidy Granted in 1523, Suffolk Green Books X (Woodbridge 1910), 66±9, 71±3, 91±2, 114±19; E. A. Wrigley and R. S. Scho®eld, The Population History of England, 1541±1871: a Reconstruction (Cambridge 1986), 567; T. Arkell, `Multiplying Factors for Estimating Population Totals from the Hearth Tax', Local Population Studies xxviii (Spring 1982); The ®gures above have been calculated on 10% of the population evading or being ineligible for taxation and a multiplier of 4.5, advised by Roger Scho®eld. Bailey, Minute Book of Dunwich, 1±2. D. Dymond and R. Virgoe, `The Reduced Population and Wealth of Early Fifteenthcentury Suffolk', PSIAH xxxvi, pt ii, (1986), 73±100. Rumburgh testators sometimes referred to St Michael's as a conventual church. There is no evidence that Rumburgh priory had its own chapel. Testators from Blythburgh and Wangford called their respective churches the parish church, and their priories had chapels within the conventual buildings. C. Harper-Bill, ed. Blythburgh Priory Cartulary, Suffolk Charters II±III, SRS (1980), 238±9.


DOMUS DEI

19

Archival evidence, sadly lacking for most of the churches, comes into its own when the religious houses are considered, for although little remains to be seen except ¯int and rubble ruins, cartularies, accounts, inventories, visitation reports and court rolls do survive. The Cistercians were located at Sibton abbey and the Premonstratensians at Leiston. The Benedictines settled at Rumburgh in 1062, the Austin canons were situated at Blythburgh and the Cluniacs at Wangford. Each of these orders established a network of land ownership and patronage across the Deanery. There were, too, friaries for both Blackfriars and Greyfriars at Dunwich, as well as three hospitals in the same town. To put these houses into context, each has been given a short pro®le below. The churches Natural causes have taken their toll of churches and parishes throughout East Anglia. Social and economic conditions have contributed to depopulation and the area which was once the most heavily populated in England and one of the most prosperous is now relatively sparsely inhabited. Its former prosperity could be forgotten except for the exceptionally sturdy vernacular buildings, sometimes concealing medieval timber-frames under new plaster and fresh paint, and the churches which hint at a glorious past. In some cases, the churches' glory was already over by 1370, the date at which will registers pertaining to the Deanery begin or, at least, the date from which they have survived. In Dunwich borough, for example, perhaps a quarter of the town had been washed away by 1326.19 Heedless of Christian teaching that one should build one's house on a rock, Dunwich, an historic East Anglian coastal town, was built on a sandy cliff. The coastal strip has always been at the mercy of the `vyalence of the see' and, by 1500, the great sea-port of the twelfth century, had been reduced to little more than a hamlet by the incessant erosion of land by water.20 During the fourteenth century, Dunwich lost three parish churches to the sea; and two more also perished, undermined by the relentless waves crashing against the sandy foundation.21 The parish church of St John, its central tower dominating the Great Market Place, was pulled down before the sea devoured it in the mid-sixteenth century, despite the efforts of the parishioners to build a pier and to strengthen sea defences. The side-aisles, frequently mentioned as burial sites in surviving wills, disappeared for ever. Further inland and standing to the west, St Peter's church withstood the 19

20 21

M. Bailey, ` ``Per impetum maris'': Natural Disaster and Economic Decline in Eastern England, 1275±1350', Before the Black Death: Studies in the `Crisis' of the Early Fourteenth Century, ed. B. M. S. Campbell (Manchester 1991), 184±208, at 195±8. NRO, NCC Spyltymber 303±4, Robert Barker, Hunting®eld 1510. J. M. Blatchly and P. Northeast, `The Lost and Ruined Parish Churches of Suffolk', supplement to H. Munro Cautley, Suffolk Churches and their Treasures (4th rev. edn Woodbridge 1982), 431±7, at 435.


20


onslaught of the waves for a further 150 years, losing its east end in 1688 and half the steeple in 1697. The church was `curiously glazed with painted glass quite thro[ugh] and [had] many grave stones with inscriptions upon brass'.22 All Saints, the last medieval church in Dunwich, survived as a place of worship until 1755. It slid over the cliff early in the twentieth century. So much for the durability of remembrance. To the north, the church at Easton Bavents was lost in the seventeenth century, but the coastline was fragmenting long before this. The ultimate fate of the parish could have been foretold in 1475/6 when part of John Wiseman's tenement fell into the sea.23 Yet, in 1538, James Sponer, a wealthy merchant, still left instructions for the south windows from vestry to porch to be re-made.24 In 1754, Thomas Gardner remarked that Easton Bavents had been `the eastermost Promontory in the Kingdom; but now Lowestoff is', and today it comprises probably no more than a couple of hundred acres.25 Inland, there were other reasons for the loss of churches. Buxlow, an impoverished parish lying in the south of the Deanery, was subsequently absorbed by the neighbouring parish of Knodishall; and Fordley was assimilated by Middleton in about 1620. John Kirby, the Suffolk topographer and author of The Suffolk Traveller, writing in 1764, explained its disappearance: The Church hath long been in Ruins; it stood in the same Yard with Middleton Church and so near it, that Complaint was made to the Bishop of Norwich in Feb. 1620 that when Service did not begin and end at both Churches exactly at the same time, the Bells and People of the one Church disturbed those of the other; and an Order was made thereupon, that the same Minister should serve them both, and of®ciate in Fordley Church one week and in Middleton the other; and this, perhaps, might occasion the letting down of Fordley Church, which was but small.26

A change of religious belief contributed to the piecemeal destruction of St Andrew's church at Covehithe (also known as Northales in some of the earlier documents), one of the Deanery's greatest coastal churches (Plate I). It was dismantled in 1673, the building being too large for a population now partly non-conformist and not so keen on eating ®sh as would have been the case when the church was ®rst envisaged and when the Roman Catholic religion ruled. An inscription on Covehithe's south wall records the `putting out' of the contract for its despoliation. Walberswick church, too, constitutionally a chapel, was partially demolished in the late seventeenth century, although the building had been completed barely one hundred years earlier. 22 23 24 25 26

BL, Add. MS 34561. Richmond, John Hopton, 83. PRO, PCC Cromwell 8, James Sponer, Easton Bavents 1537. Gardner, Dunwich, 257. Blatchly and Northeast, `Ruined Parish Churches', 433±4.


DOMUS DEI

21

As at Covehithe, the industry of the once busy port had decreased, the ®shing was reduced, and the parishioners of Walberswick had to make do with a portion of their church. The latest church to be demolished, St Peter's, Linstead Magna, lay to the west of the Deanery. Here the Everard family had built an aisle ìn which are their arms', quartered and impaled.27 The Everards' church was a victim of depopulation and, having been ruinous since the nineteenth century, was ®nally dismantled in 1924. Its near relative, the tiny church at Linstead Parva, was possibly ®rst built as a chapel of ease, but is still in use. Ubbeston church stands, but has been converted to a house within the last twenty years. Despite the depredations of wind and water, religious differences and depopulation, the overall result of the parishioners' efforts between 1370 and 1547 was that many Deanery churches were renovated and improved. This fact is supported by the evidence of surviving wills and visible remains, although there is little indication from wills that any major building projects were undertaken in the late fourteenth century. At this time, wills are scarce and record only minor bequests, such as those for a window at Benacre church in 1383 or for paving and tiling within a church building after a burial.28 Wills are least informative between 1370 and 1440, but thereafter they become more detailed. The period during which testamentary evidence is fuller is, however, brief and covers only one hundred years at the most, for, by 1530, bequests for church building were affected by the changing religious climate. In the 1540s, building activity, which had ¯ourished through successive centuries and during which each period had brought its own style, development and re®nement, ®nally ceased. The Reformation had put an end to church building. In a paper on Premonstratensian architecture, in which he made particular reference to Leiston abbey, A. W. Clapham said: . . . the study of medieval monastic architecture and arrangement can be better studied in this country than anywhere on the continent of Europe for several suf®cient reasons. In England the Reformation, and with it the suppression of the monasteries, coincided in date with the general abandonment of Gothic architecture and the dawn of the English Renaissance . . . any surviving remains of a monastic house in this country . . . are of a period when monachism was a living force, and before its vitality had been sapped . . . .29

It is precisely because building ceased and, in most cases, was never resumed that the parish churches which remain constitute an accurate gauge, not just of parochial architecture and arrangement, but also of relative prosperity in the area during the ®fteenth and sixteenth centuries. Development and 27 28 29

SROI, GC 17:755, iii, 50; BL, Add. MSS 19081/204. NRO, NCC Heydon 218, Edmund Calthorpe, rector, Benacre 1383. A.W. Clapham, `The Architecture of the Premonstratensians, with Special Reference to their Buildings in England', Archaeologia lxxiii (1924), 117±46, at 117.


22


re®nement destroy earlier evidence and, while a wealthy church in a prosperous parish such as Southwold is resplendent in Perpendicular style showing no previous work, smaller churches lying in poorer parishes still display Romanesque sculpture and architectural forms of great accomplishment and no little expense. The twelfth century was the great age of church building for these small, subsequently undeveloped, churches. Their early patronage is not known and they were either patched up or passed over in the ®fteenth and sixteenth centuries, and do not re¯ect the great rebuilding that was taking place among their wealthy neighbours. Today, they are reminiscent of the local twelfth-century parish church which comprised an apsidal chancel, a narrow nave and the famous East Anglian `round tower'.30 None of these Deanery churches have retained their apse, although north of the river Waveney one or two twelfth-century apses have survived. Seven Deanery churches have round towers and these occur in the belt which runs roughly nine or ten miles in from the coast. Ten churches have heavily carved Romanesque doorways and although these churches are scattered more widely than the towers, they do not belong to the richer uplands, but are on the fringes of the Suffolk clay and spread out towards the Sandlings. This distribution mirrors the conclusions drawn from the 1524 census that Blything Hundred indeed had a high proportion of 20s men. Where an early doorway has been replaced, as at Frostenden, the fabric can still be distinguished as Romanesque by the existence of a round tower. Where round towers have been supplanted by square towers, a Romanesque church can still be recognized by the thickness of its walls, as in the north nave wall at Hunting®eld, or by the batter of its walls, as at Spexhall. Most of these features predate documentation yet attest to the dedicated investment and patronage of unknown parishioners. At Stoven only one Romanesque doorway survived the Victorian restoration; and at Aldringham, where ®ve great bells were housed in the tower before the Reformation, there is now no tower but à small belfry added at the west'.31 Davy wrote in 1808: `This church is almost wholly in ruins; some time since the tower fell, and crushed about one half of the body of the edi®ce.'32 He also noticed the remains of the painted Rood-screen. Rumburgh's thirteenth-century tower underwent restoration in 1465, but it still stands (Plate 1).33 The early fourteenth30

31

32 33

J. Middleton-Stewart, `Patronage, Personal Commemoration and Progress: St Andrew's Church, Westhall, c.1140±1548', PSIAH xxxvii, pt iv, (1992), 297±315, at 300. A. Riches, `Victorian Church Building and Restoration in Suffolk', supplement to H. Munro Cautley's Suffolk Churches and their Treasures (4th rev. edn Woodbridge 1982), 375±430, at 384; C. H. E. White, ed., The East Anglian: or Notes and Queries on Subjects Relating to the Counties of Suffolk, Cambridge, Essex and Norfolk, NS iii (Ipswich 1885±1910), 130. BL, Add. MSS 19080/4/46±7. SROI, IC/AA2/2/142, Robert Tye, Rumburgh 1465; IC/AA2/2/142, Isabella Tye, Rumburgh 1465.


DOMUS DEI

Plate 1. Rumburgh: the priory church of St Michael. The thirteenthcentury tower received bequests to its repair in the ®fteenth century, and parishioners requested burial in the conventual churchyard here.

23


24


Plate 2. Sibton church: the north aisle. The arcade piers may have been removed from the Cistercian abbey at Sibton after its voluntary dissolution in 1536.


DOMUS DEI

25

century chancel at Westhall left the parish with a ®ne building, yet its twelfth-century predecessor had to be sacri®ced to make room for it. Subsequent building destroys earlier evidence. Dating ancient fabric can be hazardous and the piecing together of architectural evidence is made easier if documents are to hand, but these can also be misleading. The circular piers of the north arcade in Sibton church, for instance, may well have come from the Cistercian abbey at Sibton after its dissolution in 1536, but it is unlikely that this was a direct result of Robert Duckett's will, as is commonly thought (Plate 2). Duckett was the bailiff of Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, and it is true that he left instructions in his will of 1534 for constructing a north aisle, but the money to fund the building was only to come from the sale of lands if his sons did not survive.34 As at least one son reached maturity, it was probably not Duckett's money that funded the building at all. On the other hand, although Nikolaus Pevsner suggested a fourteenth-century date for the arcade at Wangford church, the will of Sir William Brandon, Knight, Charles Brandon's grandfather, in 1475, indicates that the arcade was later; and the mouldings at Wangford are similar to those of ®fteenth-century Blythburgh, Southwold and Walberswick.35 Whole sections of earlier fabric in Deanery churches may have survived, but the replacement of windows, the removal of walls, doorways blocked up or restored beyond recognition leave little that can be identi®ed. New building does indeed destroy previous evidence. The chapels The coastal parishes supported four free chapels or chapels of ease. The chapels of Sizewell, Thorpe, Southwold and Walberswick lay within the coastal parishes of Leiston, Aldringham, Reydon and Blythburgh respectively, and originally they must have been founded to serve the growing population at the water's edge.36 Their parish churches were sited a couple of miles up-river. The coastal parishes were large in comparison with those inland. Blythburgh with Walberswick stretched to nearly 6,000 acres and Leiston parish covered approximately 5,000 acres and also had a foreshore several miles long. Away from the coast, Deanery parishes were seldom over 2,000 acres and occasionally less than 1,000. Sizewell and Thorpe were harbourless villages, the men ®shing for inshore herrings and sprats from the foreshore.37 Originally the chapels would have 34

35

36 37

SROI, IC/AA2/11/91, Robert Duckett, Sibton 1534; S. J. Gunn, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk c. 1484±1545 (Oxford 1988), 83 N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Suffolk (Harmondsworth 1961; 2nd edn 1974) 475; PRO, PCC Milles 16, William Brandon, knight, Wangford 1475; Haward, Suffolk Arcades, 367. For Walberswick, see Chapter Four, `The Living Church'. M. Bailey, `Coastal Fishing off South East Suffolk in the Century after the Black Death', PSIAH xxxvii, pt ii (1990), 102±14, at 102±5.


26


been founded to serve the ®shing communities; and, as both chapels were used for burials, they must have had quasi-parochial status. Few parishioners omitted the chapels in their wills, many giving bequests of equal value to both parish church and chapel; but the chapel-goers would be expected to offer the usual oblations owed to the parish church as well as any expenses due to the chapel. The customary obligations of parishioners towards the upkeep of their parish church would also be necessary for the chapel. Despite such attendant costs, the chapels played a vital role in the life of their communities, a fact now easily forgotten for even their sites have disappeared, Thorpe chapel being described in 1819, for example, as `now even with the ground'.38 Our Lady's Chapel in Thorpe was a chapelry of Snape priory, a Benedictine house, and had its own priest.39 St Nicholas's chapel, Sizewell, probably had its own chaplain who would be appointed by the abbot of Leiston. St Nicholas's, described as having been founded `for the ease of the parishioners of Leiston', stood with its endowment of one rood of ground on the sea banks `where the inhabitants are always ready to keep watch and ward for the defence and safety of the town and country thereabouts'.40 This was a just claim, similar arguments being advanced by other seaside communities elsewhere. Liverpudlians, for example, defended their right to retain their chapel of ease on account of `the great concourse of strangers both by land and sea' coming to their `haven town'; and at Weymouth the parishioners attested that the harbour lay open to attack by foreigners if they were all worshipping inland at the parish church at Wyke.41 In the north of the Deanery lay Easton Bavents, where there was a chapel dedicated to St Margaret, a site of local pilgrimage. The chapel survived the Reformation, but could have been converted or demolished before the ground was washed away by the sea in about 1650.42 There are references to St Margaret's chapel in one or two wills from Easton Bavents, but apparently no further documentation. Gardner refers to a chapel dedicated to St Margaret de Rissmere at Reydon, although maybe the church, also dedicated to St Margaret, was meant in this instance. The chapel of St Margaret at Mells went out of use in 1465. No Deanery will mentions either of these buildings, but the popularity of St Margaret, the patron saint of childbirth, as a dedicatee is an interesting phenomenon. The cult of Margaret of Antioch, or Marina as she was called in the Eastern empire, was spread by the translation of her relics to the west in the twelfth century. Her popularity was therefore relatively late 38

39

40 41

42

From the collection of Joan Corder, FSA, A Catalogue of the East Anglian Manuscripts No. 51, 3. 241. This manuscript, c. 1819, is a collection of heraldic monumental remains executed by Mrs Ann Mills of Sutton. SROI, IC/AA2/7/183, Matthew Rowlond, Sizewell 1516; R. Taylor, Index Monasticus (London 1821), 85. Redstone, `Chapels, Chantries and Gilds', 33. C. Kitching, `Church and Chapelry in Sixteenth-century England', Studies in Church History xvi, EHS (1979), 279±90, at 280. Blatchly and Northeast, `Ruined Parish Churches', 437.


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and perhaps explains the dedications of these chapels of ease of late foundation in the large, coastal parishes. Southwold's chapel of ease originated to serve parishioners on the coastal stretches of Reydon parish. According to Gardner, the chapel was built c. 1202 by the prior and monks of Thetford and their dependants, the monks at Wangford, for the daily celebration of divine service, but at ®rst it had no parochial rights, in order `that the church of Rissmere [Reydon] might not be a sufferer by this chapel'.43 The chapel was destroyed by ®re in 1430, but had, by the late fourteenth century, acquired parochial rights although it was not promoted to parochial status until 1751/2. The ®fteenth-century building which replaced the chapel was longer than the church at Blythburgh (43.7m compared with 39m) and in design was similar to the churches of Blythburgh, Walberswick and Woodbridge.44 Its decorative detail is still exceptionally rich, and the knapped-¯int ¯ushwork around the great west window spells out the parishioners' prayer, in which they exhort St Edmund, their patron saint, to pray for them (Plate 3). As a port, Southwold was waxing as swiftly as Dunwich was waning, and the new St Edmund's became the focus of civic pride for the buoyant mercantile and ®shing community which sent boats to ®sh for cod in Iceland, to carry pilgrims to Compostela, and to transport wool to be sold at the staple in Calais. In Southwold wills, as in those from Covehithe, there were no bequests for speci®c ecclesiastical building works, but the chapel was suf®ciently advanced by 1459 for a bequest to be left towards making the Rood-screen.45 Southwold received borough status in 1488, its government resting with two bailiffs and the commonalty; and, by the date of the 1524 subsidy, the community ranked as the second largest in the Deanery.46

The Religious Houses and their Patronage The Deanery was well provided with houses from ®ve distinct religious orders: Benedictine, Cistercian, Cluniac, Augustinian and Premonstratensian (Map III). In the borough of Dunwich there were Franciscan and Dominican friaries. Rumburgh priory This was dedicated to St Michael, and, as happens so often with dedications to this particular saint, the priory stood on high ground, between the valleys of the Blyth and the Waveney. It was a daughter house of the wealthy 43 44 45 46

Gardner, Dunwich, 199±202. Haward, Suffolk Arcades, 337±8. SROI, IC/AA2/2/30, John Colcorn, Southwold 1459; Gardner, Dunwich, 201±9. W. Serjeant, `The Chartered Boroughs of Suffolk', The Suffolk Review v, no. 3 (SLHC 1982), 121±34, at 128±9.


Plate 3. Southwold church: the west window. Flushwork was a decorative form peculiar to East Anglia. It was produced by juxtaposing stone, which was not indigenous and was expensive, and ¯int, which was local and cheap. Here, above the window, the people of Southwold invoked the prayers of St Edmund, their patron, ora pro nobis.


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Benedictine abbey of St Benet-at-Hulme in Norfolk, and was founded circa 1060; and was therefore one of two pre-Conquest monastic houses in Suffolk, the other being the abbey at Bury St Edmunds. In 1086, Rumburgh housed twelve monks; but early in the next century was given with its endowments to the abbey of St Mary, York, by Stephen, earl of Richmond.47 The abbot subsequently appointed the prior, and the surnames of some Rumburgh priors have a decidedly Yorkshire ¯avour: Selby, Ampulforth, Easingwold and Helmesley. The livings held by Rumburgh priory lay in the dioceses of Norwich, Lincoln and Ely; and within the Deanery, its advowsons included the vicarages of Wissett and Holton and the rectory of Spexhall. This made a neat grouping in the north-west of the Deanery, but the priory also appointed to the rectory of South Cove, which lay alone, further to the east and nearer the coast. Although little can be proved to show that a loyal, local memory in Rumburgh stretched back into the distant Anglo-Saxon past, Andrew Brown has shown that several parishes in the late medieval diocese of Salisbury still continued ancient devotional practices which stretched back to before the Conquest.48 He makes the point that these traditions were found where old monasteries were dominant, and there is reason to believe that similar claims can be made for Blythburgh (see Chapter Eleven). As far as the Benedictine brothers in Rumburgh were concerned, Leland suggested that they had developed a special affection for St Bee, the daughter of a seventh-century Irish king.49 She dwelt in a cell on the Cumbrian coast, hence St Bee's Head, and was ordained by St Aidan at Lindisfarne. In two of Rumburgh's ®fteenth-century inventories, a silver light was recorded which hung before her image. She owned two black velvet tunics and had also acquired some jet beads which probably came from Whitby (although jet has been found washed down the east coast as far as Dunwich).50 Her cult was instigated and in¯uenced by the brethren from the north of England `where there are now so many monks of St Mary's, York, commonly called Sainct Beges'; but although her own patronal day was 31 October, at Rumburgh she was presented with gifts of cheese and money at Michaelmas.51 Despite the continuation of this apparently popular cult, under the patronage of St Mary's, York, Rumburgh became no more than a remote and fairly insigni®cant cell. Its decline was steady. In 1258 there were four monks and only two in 1286. The inventory of 1482 showed the prior's apartment to be full of assorted bedding, suggesting a dormitory or even a linen cupboard rather than a private chamber. In the same room, there was a 47

48

49 50 51

D. Knowles and R. N. Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: England and Wales (2nd edn London 1971), 75; Taylor, Index Monasticus, 85. A. D. Brown, Popular Piety in Late Medieval England: the Diocese of Salisbury, 1250± 1550 (Oxford 1995), 7±8. J. Wilson, ed., VCH: Cumberland II (London 1901±05), 178±3. SROI, HD 1538/335/57, 32. These are dated 1448 and 1482 respectively. L. B. Cane, Rumburgh Priory Church (privately printed).


30



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Map III. Religious Houses and Appropriated parishes in the deanery of Dunwich


32


clock called origlogium and a couple of irons for cooking the singing bread, the priest's bread at Mass.52 By the early sixteenth century, Rumburgh priory was only worth £30, a vulnerable foundation which was ripe for suppression as Cardinal Wolsey sought the dissolution of ®ve small Suffolk houses in order to ®nance his new colleges at Ipswich and at Oxford. On 11 September, 1525, Dr Stephen Gardiner, in the presence of Thomas Cromwell, but under the orders of Wolsey and under Wolsey's seal, arrived at Rumburgh, `. . . and there, in the convent declared to the prior and monks . . . the suppression of the house, assigned the goods both movable and immovable to Wolsey's college at Ipswich, and ordered that the religious should enter other monasteries of the same order'.53 The abbot of St Mary's wrote to the cardinal begging that the priory be allowed to remain part of their monastery as it had been for three hundred years. He offered to give three hundred marks (£200) towards Wolsey's new college rather than see Rumburgh suppressed, but its dissolution went ahead, the property reverting to the crown on Wolsey's downfall.54 Today, only the church remains (Plate 1). Sibton abbey Although there was a Cistercian nunnery at Marham, Norfolk, Sibton abbey was the only Cistercian monastery in East Anglia, founded in 1150 by William de Chesney. It was endowed with the vicarages of Sibton with Peasenhall and Westleton within the Deanery, Rendham within the Archdeaconry of Suffolk and Tunstall in Norfolk.55 The Sibton community initially consisted of at least thirteen monks, including the abbot. In 1381 eleven monks were recorded;56 but by 1536 there were only eight, although the property was valued at a healthy £250 15s 7d. Abbot Flatbury had been appointed to Sibton through the duke of Norfolk's in¯uence `with the connivance of Cromwell on purpose to bring about a speedy surrender', and the abbot and ®ve monks asked for a commission from the vicar-general and a licence from the chancellor to resign, change their habits and take bene®ces with cures; but the prior, Robert Sabyn, alias Bongay, and one other monk, John Fawkon, applied for a dispensation for their obediences without changing their habits.57 Sibton abbey and its extensive possessions was granted to the duke of Norfolk, along with Antony Rous, esquire, and Nicholas Hare, gentleman, as feoffees to the use of the duke and his heirs. Norfolk's acquisition was supported by an oral licence from Henry VIII and 52 53 54 55

56 57

SROI, HD 1538/335/32; Dymond and Paine, The Spoil of Melford, 6, n. 27. W. Page, ed., VCH: Suffolk II (London 1907), 78. LPFD iv, pt ii, no. 4762. P. Brown, ed., Sibton Abbey Cartularies and Charters, Suffolk Charters VII±X, SRS vii (1985), i, 16±17; Harper-Bill, Blythburgh, i, 7; VCH: Suffolk II, 90. Knowles and Hadcock, Religious Houses, 115. LPFD x, no. 1247, 520; VCH: Suffolk II, 89±91.


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corroborated `by a proviso attached to the general statutory con®rmation of the King's title to monastic lands in 1539'.58 The Cistercian hospital at the abbey gate was dedicated to St John the Baptist. By the fourteenth century, it was catering for paupers and for lay corrodians, who obtained board and lodging for a down-payment. The vicar of Sibton, whose church lay a mile away, was entitled to a corrody at the abbey for himself and his chaplain, a custom which continued until the house was suppressed, and at least one testator from Crat®eld, John Fyn, was granted a corrody for himself and his wife (and his horse!) in the ®fteenth century.59 The ruins of the abbey are not very extensive, although the refectory's north wall and part of the south wall give a good impression of the austere style of the Cistercians. Wangford priory The priory was founded by the Cluniac monks at Thetford sometime before 1159, and it was an alien priory subordinate to Cluny. Although alien priories were seized during the Hundred Years' War, letters of denization, a medieval form of naturalization, could be acquired from the Crown for a sum of money, and in return, the house became independent of its foreign parent and was thereafter regarded as English. Wangford was made denizen in 1393 on payment of one hundred marks (£66 13s 4d) and was then directly subordinate to Thetford, which had become denizen in 1376 with a payment of £100.60 Wangford priory was endowed with the vicarages of Wangford, Covehithe and Stoven and the rectories of Easton Bavents and Reydon, the latter with its chapel of Southwold. The number of brethren around 1405 stood at four or ®ve, and choral mass was celebrated twice daily. In 1531, according to the vicar of Covehithe, only the prior and `his two brethren' were left.61 On 24 March 1537, the duke of Norfolk wrote to Thomas Cromwell to tell him that Wangford had `gone to ruin'. Although Cromwell would have preferred to lease the priory to Richard Freston, the duke of Suffolk's servant and one of his own circle, Norfolk said that it had already been promised to his treasurer.62 Both Wangford and Thetford priories ®nally surrendered three years later, the two sites promptly being occupied by the duke himself.63 The priory buildings have disappeared, although some 58 59

60

61 62

63

P. Brown, Sibton i, 1; MacCulloch, Suffolk and the Tudors, 66. VCH: Suffolk II, 15; NRO, NCC Brosyard 258, John Fyn, Crat®eld 1461; SROI, HD 1538/345/1/10. This contract drawn up by the abbot was dated 24 May 1458. See Chapter Three, n. 44. D. Dymond, ed., The Register of Thetford Priory i, NRS lix (1994), 1±2; CPR, 1391±96, 330; Knowles and Hadcock, Religious Houses, 100. NRO, NCC Atmere 170±5, John Beteson, vicar, Northales (Covehithe) 1531. MacCulloch, Suffolk and the Tudors, 66; LPFD xii, pt i, no. 711; xii, pt i, no. 836; Dymond, Thetford Priory, i. 55, n. 165. VCH: Suffolk II, 88±9; LPFD xv, no. 211.


34


tell-tale signs remain in the masonry of the church's south wall; and rebuilding, undertaken by the countess of Stradbroke in the nineteenth century, removed a portion of a twelfth-century blank arcading on the east wall. Blythburgh priory Henry I granted the church at Blythburgh to the Augustinian house at St Osyth, Essex, and, by 1147, black canons, probably three in number, had settled there in what had possibly been a pre-Conquest minster.64 The endowment of the house was never substantial, perhaps because it had been founded by the canons of St Osyth's rather than by an af¯uent family with local interests like the Chesneys who, although granted Blythburgh manor by King Stephen, subsequently established Sibton abbey some ten miles away.65 Blythburgh priory was never wealthy and faced tough competition as later and richer twelfth-century houses were established, absorbing land available for endowment.66 The patronage of the priory included the church of Blythburgh and the chapel of Walberswick, both served by secular chaplains appointed by the prior, and the vicarages of Bram®eld, Wenhaston, Thorington and Blyford. In 1407 there were seven canons; but by 1499, only the prior, John Brandon, and two canons, William Hutton and John Gerard, were recorded.67 Austin canons enjoyed all the ecclesiastical privileges of appropriation, which meant that any tithes and endowments intended for parochial use could be annexed to the monastic house in perpetuity. The canons, with episcopal permission, were also allowed to appoint their own personnel to livings. The small numbers within a house, however, often meant that these privileges could not be taken up directly by members of the community. In cases like these, secular clerics, removable at will, were appointed as parish chaplains, and in 1499, for example, Blythburgh's parish chaplain was the rector of Uggeshall, Master John Ovy, with Robert Folklyn, John Hervy and George Hawys as stipendiaries (Hawys was also chaplain to the Hopton chantry in Blythburgh parish church).68 By 1526, although ®ve canons were in residence, Robert Fraunces reported that they no longer sang Mass, the house was in debt and the chapter house had decayed.69 The priory was 64 65 66 67

68

69

Harper-Bill, Blythburgh i, 1±2; Knowles and Hadcock, Religious Houses, 128. P. Brown, Sibton I, 7±24. Harper-Bill, Blythburgh, i, 6. C. Harper-Bill, ed., The Register of John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1486±1500, III, Norwich Sede Vacante, 1499 (Woodbridge 2000), 166. Harper-Bill, Morton's Register, 178; Robert Folklyn as rector of Theberton appears in a Theberton will in 1523, see SROI, IC/AA2/8/323, John Kyllam, Theberton 1523; NRO, NCC Spyltymbre 14±15 for George Hawys, clerk, Blythburgh 1506. A. Jessop, ed., Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich, 1492±1532, Camden Society, NS xliii (1888), 216; VCH: Suffolk II, 92±3.


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threatened with suppression in 1528, but escaped, survived for its canons to take the Oath of Supremacy in 1534, and ®nally succumbed on 12 February 1537. The priory buildings are now reduced to a lump or two of masonry, but the importance of the site and the splendour of the ®fteenth-century parish church recalls an ancient past (Plate 4).70 Leiston abbey The Premonstratensian abbey was founded by Henry II's Justiciar, Ranulph de Glanville, to whom Henry had given the manor of Leiston. In 1171, de Glanville, considering the Benedictines were too fond of their stomachs and the Cistercians too grasping and ambitious, founded Butley priory for the Augustinian canons, and, in 1182, he settled the Premonstratensians near Minsmere Haven within Leiston parish. The low level of the marshland site meant that the buildings were inclined to ¯ood, and, after the Black Death had reduced the numbers of the convent, Robert Ufford, earl of Suffolk, the abbey's patron, moved the abbey to its present site where it was soon destroyed by ®re and then rebuilt. The abbey remained in the patronage of the subsequent earls and dukes of Suffolk, the de la Poles, at least until 1478. At the time of its dissolution in 1537 there were still fourteen or ®fteen canons.71 The abbot of Leiston had the right to wreck of sea from the Minsmere river to the southern boundary of the Deanery, and he was entitled to liberty of gallows, assize of bread and ale, and a market in Sizewell `where he took custom and toll to the damage of the King and the city of Dunwich, to the amount of one hundred shillings annually'.72 In 1451, in the aftermath of the murder of William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, William Jenney of Knodishall, the King's serjeant-at-law, described as à man of great power, made by the law', became involved in litigation against the abbot, whom de la Pole had effectively protected.73 Jenney's argument with the abbot illustrates how religious houses were drawn into politically charged disputes with landowners when arguments arose over property and franchises.74 The abbey's spiritualities in the Deanery included the vicarages of Leiston, Aldringham and Middleton and the rectory of Theberton. The incumbent of Leiston church, which stood just over a mile from the abbey, was always the abbot of Leiston. Canons served the appropriated churches of Aldringham, Middleton and the rectory of Theberton, where the canon came under the 70 71 72

73

74

See Chapter Four, ns 13 and 14, and Chapter Eleven. Knowles and Hadcock, Religious Houses, 167. Bailey, `Fishing off South East Suffolk', 102±3; D. E. Davy, A Short Account of Leiston Abbey with Descriptive and Illustrative Verses (London 1832). J. C. Wedgwood, History of Parliament: Biographies of the Members of the Commons House (HMSO 1936), 500. PRO, KB 27/757: Plea Roll Rot. 13 dorse; CP 40/759, rot. 330. I have the late Dr Roger Virgoe to thank for this reference.


Plate 4. Blythburgh nave from the west. This planned church of one build has an uninterrupted roof line, but the division between nave and chancel is marked by a change in the arcade piers. Originally the roof was heavily decorated with shields bearing heraldic devices, many of which were recorded by antiquarians.


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jurisdiction of the bishop of Norwich.75 Bishop Redman, commissary-general to the abbot of PremontreÂ, considered that the liturgy at Leiston in 1488 was carried out with greater solemnity and care than any other Premontratensian foundation in the country, and, later, the abbey was to be described as `the greatest of all our houses of our order in England'.76 The abbey was none the less suppressed in 1537, since it was one of the lesser monastic foundations, and passed into the hands of Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk. It was later used as a farm, the convent converted for agricultural use when a timberframe farmhouse was erected in the south-west corner of the nave. Although much fabric remains, the gutting of the buildings for agricultural purposes has made dating dangerous and an architectural±historical perspective dif®cult. The Friaries These were both situated in Dunwich town, and the houses and their friars, often named, featured frequently in Deanery wills. Although bequests to Dominicans and Franciscans were nearly equal in both the amounts bequeathed and in the number of bequests made, for each request made for interment in the Dominican church there were two for burial in the Franciscan church.77 It is dif®cult to say why there should have been an inclination towards the Greyfriars, but this common trend was not exclusively East Anglian. The Dominican house lay in the parish of St John, but, if the Dominican buildings actually survived the Dissolution, the site must have been swept away shortly afterwards along with the parish church. The Dominicans' `limitation', that is the area within which they operated, spread northwards as far as the Norfolk and Suffolk border. That, in the year one thousand two hundred and ®fty-nine, the fourth of the ides of January, the friars of Norwich and of Dunwich met together at Herring¯eet, in the house of the canons of St Olave . . . to settle the limits between the foresaid convents . . . namely that the river which divides Norfolk from Suffolk should divide the limitation of the Norwich Friars from the limitation of the Dunwich Friars . . . but that nevertheless, the Friars of Dunwich should have the parishes of Mendham and of Ressewrde, as well in Norfolk as in Suffolk, both in spirituals and temporals.78

In 1290 the burgesses granted land adjoining the King's Dyke to the Franciscans friars to enable them to move further from the sea; and in 1328 the Greyfriars were licensed to enclose the plot they had vacated 75 76

77 78

H. M. Colvin, The White Canons in England (Oxford 1951), 286±7. D. Knowles, The Religious Orders in England, III (Cambridge 1961), 49; Colvin, The White Canons, 118±25. See Chapter Three under the section `Burial within Walls'. J. Kirkpatrick, History of the Religious Orders and Communities, and of the Hospitals and Castle, Norwich (London and Norwich 1845), 7±8.


38


because ìt would be indecent to convert it to secular use'.79 The new sevenacre site secured from the borough still lies within a walled enclosure on the cliff. Although mendicants were not permitted to own property, they could bene®t from land which had been put in trust for their use. Robert Vincent, bailiff of Dunwich in the 1460s, and òne of the foremost tenants at Yoxford', left rents and pro®ts from his lands and tenements there to John Lacy, warden of the Franciscans, to be divided between the friars and the nunnery at Bruisyard after Lacy's death, or else the properties were to be sold and the pro®ts used for the convents concerned.80 In 1517 and 1519, money was left to rebuild the church of the Friars Minor;81 but barely twenty years later both Dunwich friaries were suppressed by the former prior of the Dominican house. As the new suffragan bishop of Dover, he wrote to inform Cromwell in November 1538 that the lead from the friary roofs lay near the water and therefore could easily be transported to London or elsewhere.82 The Hospitals The three hospitals in Dunwich were well supported by testators throughout the Deanery, but particularly by those who came from Dunwich itself. The Temple This was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist, and had belonged to the Knights Templars, the military order which took its name from accommodation provided for its knights near Solomon's temple after the capture of Jerusalem in 1118.83 Its in¯uence was on the wane by the late thirteenth century, and Philip the Fair of France, tempted by the Templars' wealth, accused the order of immorality, heresy and superstition. After the suppression of the order in 1312, the Temple in Dunwich was granted to the rival Knights Hospitaller. The Temple church held the indulgence of Scala Coeli (discussed in Chapter Five), and it was a place of `much resort', a ®ne building with a vaulted nave and aisles standing near Middlegate Street, with Duck street to the north and Covent Garden to the south.84 The Hospitallers kept this church for the use of their own tenants `whose houses all bore crosses, the badges of the Knights'; and the Temple Manor was endowed with tenements and land within Dunwich, Middleton and Westleton, the rents from which were received annually at the Dunwich Temple court on All Souls' day.85 79 80

81

82 83 84 85

Gardner, Dunwich, 59; CPR, 1408±13, 26. Richmond, John Hopton, 211±12; BL, Add. MSS 34653/47. This indenture dated 30 November 1487 records John Lacy's death. SROI, IC/AA2/7/149, Batie Read, Dunwich 1517; PRO, PCC Ayloffe 19, Clement Shelle, Dunwich 1519. LPFD xiii, pt ii, no. 1023. ODCC (London 1957), 1327±8. Gardner, Dunwich, 54±9. VCH: Suffolk, II, 120; Gardner, Dunwich, 54; Taylor, Index Monasticus, 101, n. a.


DOMUS DEI

39

The Holy Trinity hospital More commonly known as a Domus Dei (house of God) or Maison Dieu (Masyn Dew or Doo in the vernacular and spelt thus in wills), it was endowed with tenements, houses and rents in Ellough, Blyford and Dunwich. Richard Taylor described it as a place of great privilege with à very little proper house, and a proper lodging for the masters of the same, for the time being, to dwell in'.86 A church, for the use of the hospital community, which consisted of a master and six brethren, adjoined the hospital. The Maison Dieu catered for both sexes, as is evident from the will of Sibilla Fraunceys, who, in 1455, left her ùtensils' to be divided between the sisters of the `Masyn deu' and 3s 4d to the fabric of the hospital church.87 Robert Thompson, in 1522, gave to the brethren and sisters of the same house ìndifferent dividing among them 3s 4d'.88 John Hopton, son of the lord of Blythburgh manor, was master there in the late ®fteenth century; and William Bakke, `master of the spital', set up working-day Masses at the hospital for a term of ninety-nine years at the start of the sixteenth century; and one of his successors, John Proctor, recounted in a deposition made before Edward VI's commissioners that he had taught children there as part of his duties.89 It was in the hospital churchyard that Thomas Gedney asked to be buried in 1484, and it is his will which indicates that intercessory prayers were to be celebrated in the hospital church, his bequest for this purpose being one comb of malt.90 According to Index Monasticus, the old hospital was still an almshouse in 1821, and in a sketch made by Hamlet Watling later that century, the hospital is shown as a timber-framed and jettied building. The Leper Hospital of St James, the Apostle This was also known as the `Stepill Hows'. Of `simple form', 38 yards long and 20 feet wide, it stood outside the town gates where its eastern apse, `worthy of the inspection of the curious', can still be seen.91 The building originally consisted of apse, chancel and nave, each part distinguished from the other by a spacious arch and, as early as the reign of Richard I (1189±99), the hospital had housed a master and several leprous brothers and sisters.92 The hospital was substantially endowed, owning properties in Heveningham, Brandeston, Carlton Colville and Dunwich, as well as possessing a repository for relics; and there was a multitude of bequests made to St James's hospital and also requests for burial in the hospital churchyard.93 Although he was dwelling in Dunwich in the hospital of St James, 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93

Taylor, Index Monasticus, 114, n. b. BL, Add. Ch. 10392. PRO, PCC Bodfelde 4, Robert Thompson, Westleton 1522. PRO, E 315/218/82±3. NRO, NCC A.Caston 313, Thomas Gedney, Dunwich 1484. Taylor, Index Monasticus, 114±15. Gardner, Dunwich, 62±5; PRO, E 315/218/82±3. SROI, IC/AA2/1/140, John Aleyn, Dunwich 1454.


40


Thomas Walsh of Crat®eld stated in his will of 1467 that he wished to be buried in the Franciscan church just up the road. To warrant burial within the friary church meant that Walsh's social status was above average and he had every expectation that his wishes would be met. His pocket must have been well-lined, too. In modern terms, he was an in-patient in what was now virtually an old people's home, certainly no longer a leper house nor even a poor house. Walsh left the friars a pightle of oats (to be ground at their own cost) and a further 13s 4d.94 To St James's church he bequeathed 6s 8d to cover any residual debts. His contemporary, John Reve, came from Brampton but, when making his will in the hospital in the following year, requested burial within the chapel and oratory of St James.95 Reve left money towards paving the chapel and ®ve marks (£3 6s 8d) to friar John Hulverwode of the Franciscan order, to celebrate in St James's for his soul for a year. Reve's executor was John Wolriche, `my fellow brother [confrater] within the hospital aforesaid'. In 1536, John Burne, of the hospital of St James, asked to be buried in the churchyard at the south-west part of the church, but the site of his grave is now beneath the highway tarmac rather than under the churchyard grass.96

94 95 96

SROI, IC/AA2/2/223, Thomas Walsh, Crat®eld 1467. SROI, IC/AA2/2/189, John Reve, Brampton 1468. SROI, IC/AA2/12/248, John Burne, Dunwich 1536.


2 Testaments and Wills Death:

Everyman: Death:

Everyman:

On thee thou must take a long journey; Therefore thy book of count with thee thou bring, For turn again thou cannot by no way. And look thou be sure of thy reckoning, For before God thou shalt answer, and show Thy many bad deeds, and good but few; How thou hast spent thy life, and in what wise, Before the chief Lord of paradise . . . . Full unready I am such reckoning to give. I know thee not. What messenger art thou? I am Death, that no man dreadeth, For every man I rest, and no man spareth; For it is God's commandment That all to me should be obedient. O Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind! In thy power it lieth me to save; Yet of my goods will I give thee, if thou will be kind ± Yea, a thousand pound shalt thou have ± And defer this matter to another day. from Everyman

On the Sunday before the feast of St Martin in 1408, Richard Mickle®eld of Blyford made his testament which, being an ecclesiastical document, was written in Latin.1 In this, he left instructions for the disposition of his body and the distribution of provisions for his soul. The remainder of his movable goods he left to his wife, Katherine. His last will, written nearly a fortnight later, was dated the Saturday next before the feast of St Catherine, the Virgin. It was written in French, the vernacular of the ùpper' classes at that time, and it provided for his daughters' marriage portions from his immovable goods or real estate. One hundred years later, on 6 August 1509, Richard Love of Westhall left a single document written in English catering for bequests of both movable and immovable property under the title `last will'.2 Mickle®eld's will shows the customary form of testament and last will in use at the beginning of the 1

2

NRO, DN/Reg.4, liber 7 [1407±15], 70±1, Richard Mickle®eld, Blyford; Tanner, Norwich, 113, n. 1. NRO, NCC Johnson 244, Richard Love, Westhall 1509.


42


®fteenth century, as well as the language and the dating common at that time. Richard Love's will lies at the other end of a period during which the testament and last will were fused into one, with English being the preferred language. During this period, wills underwent modi®cation, while being used increasingly by a society experiencing both social and religious change.3 The formulation of wills evolved over a long period. In early Christian England, there had been no testamentary freedom, due to Germanic family custom in which all property devolved solely to the family. In the Mediterranean region, which was under Roman law, testamentary freedom was already established. If the English were to make provision for alms bequeathed for charitable purposes which, as Christians, was expected of them and which as Christians they wished to do, a method of reserving a portion of the deceased's property for pious provision had to be devised. The testament, a modi®cation of Germanic custom by Roman law, ful®lled this need, ensuring that while the bulk of a testator's movable property was reserved for the family, a certain part was set aside for pious purposes.4 There was, however, a difference between movable and immovable property. It was technically impossible to bequeath immovable property due to feudal tenurial constraints, unless the property lay within a borough, such as Dunwich;5 and although medieval common law allowed a man to alienate his land, he was not able to devise it by will.6 It was to circumvent restrictions on land bequests that enfeoffment `to use' became so popular, and, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as instructions to feoffees became more complicated, testators wrote instructions concerning their immovable property in the last will.7 Although of no concern to an ecclesiastical court, it was convenient to include the will with the testament, and the testament and the last will were united during the ®fteenth century. Even in this contracted guise, the order of provisions and bequests tended to re¯ect the old format of both elements as separate entities, so that the movable assets, set aside for religious purposes and representing the testament, took precedence over personal bequests. Personal bequests took precedence over details of land and property, the immovables, and these, which tended to come at the end of the document, represented the contents of the last will. A ®fteenth-century will might be written in Latin or English. In the Deanery, an English will in the 1460s was early whereas a Latin will written 3 4 5

6

7

R. Virgoe, ed., `The Will of Hugh atte Fenne 1476', NRS lvi (1991), 31±57, at 34. M. M. Sheehan, The Will in Mediaeval England (Toronto 1963), 303±6. Bailey, Dunwich Bailiffs, 4; NRO, NCC Awbrey 105, William Shipman, Dunwich 1486. Shipman leaves his movables and immovables to his wife, Margery; A. W. B. Simpson, A History of Land Law (Oxford 1986), 14. Virgoe, `Hugh atte Fenne', 34±5; R. Houlbrooke, The English Family, 1400±1700 (London 1984), 230; J. H. Baker and S. F. C. Milsom, Sources of English Legal History: Private Law to 1750 (London 1986), 115±18; R. Houlbrooke, Church Courts and the People during the English Reformation, 1520±1570 (Oxford 1979), 90; J. M. W. Bean, The Decline of English Feudalism, 1215±1540 (Manchester 1968), 149±51.


TESTAMENTS AND WILLS

43

after 1500 might seem rather late; and so an early English will, such as Harry Alysaunder's written in 1459, appears alien among a host of Latin wills and, similarly, a late Latin will, like that of Agnes Barnack's, written in 1504, suddenly catches the reader unawares.8 The watershed occurred somewhere between the two, but the language and type of last wills and testaments is very variable. In whichever language the will was written, however, it began with the words In nomine Dei Amen, In the name of God, Amen. The date was sometimes written according to the festal season but, further into the ®fteenth century, it was more usual to write the day, date and the year in full. Richard Mickle®eld, for example, used the old-fashioned dating in his testament and last will of 1408, but his son, William, writing thirty years later, dated his Latin testament 20 September 1439, and, on 7 November, wrote his last will in English which, by this time, had become the norm.9 After the introductory phrase, the identi®cation of the testator, the date and the name of the parish in which they lived followed, with the testator describing his or her bodily and mental state, frequently acknowledging that death was imminent, but nevertheless certain that they were in full possession of their faculties. After the commendation of their soul to almighty God, the Blessed Virgin, the heavenly company of saints and, sometimes, the patronal dedication of the church or their own personal àdvoye', they speci®ed where they wished to be buried. This may have been in or outside the church and, sometimes, precise details were given such as `before the font', òutside the porch', `next to my wife' or, more casually, `where it please God'. A bequest to the high altar followed, which was a payment made in lieu of tithes forgotten (see Chapter Three). The customary gift to the church fabric accompanied the bequest to the high altar (see Chapter Four). A mortuary gift was seldom mentioned in the Deanery wills, and in wills from other parts of Suffolk too appeared infrequently. The testators' public duty to their parish and church ended at this point and they next enumerated personal preferences for pious provision. Many bequests for the good of the soul came from movable property which fell into two parts, personal and real. These included domestic goods, cash, jewels, plate, stock, crops and cut wood (as opposed to green woods or forests), rents and leases. Prayers to be said for the testators themselves, their close family, friends and more distant relations are also mentioned. Bequests to gilds probably identify the testators as gild members, although death-bed enrolment was not unknown. Immovable property was not devisable by will, but could be sold to provide substantial sums for pious provisions. Towards the end of the document, husbands left houses to wives, often with conditions attached. Richard Wellett left neither tenement `nor nothing thereof ' to his wife Joan 8

9

SROI, IC/AA2/2/40, Harry Alysaunder, Benacre 1459; NRO, NCC Popy 494, Agnes Barnack, Wissett 1504. BL, Cotton Ch. IV, 34; NRO, NCC Doke 145±6, William Mickle®eld, 1439.


44


if she married John Dawson, and she was only to act as executor as long as she was widow.10 If testators doubted that their wishes would be met, they were quick to indicate from where they expected the default to arise. The parson and the churchwardens were to distrain land if money bequeathed for prayers and alms by John Hill were still unpaid a month after the anniversary of his death, and Margaret, his wife, would then forfeit all the lands which Hill had bought from Jermy of Benacre.11 Fathers were careful to leave property to their sons, so that they might get a good start in adult life, although this bequest was sometimes conditional on intercessory arrangements being made by the bene®ciaries. Education was frequently mentioned, for a son should be able to write a man's name and read it, and daughters were left marriage portions. One male testator even remembered his mother-in-law, leaving her 6s 8d. Mothers thought about sons, daughters, grandchildren, servants and poor female relations. It is unusual to ®nd husband and wife making a joint will, but Robert Smith and Margery, his wife, made theirs in 1500.12 Robert left a tenement to John, their son, and then, `. . . we bothe will that our place called Adamys be sold', the money raised to be spent on intercessory prayers and settling debts, and the residue to be shared between their three daughters. The household goods were to be divided between their four children. By the time family interests were being addressed, family tensions or otherwise become apparent, wives being admonished, sons warned to obey their mothers, brothers being scolded, one sister being left less than another. There was an ever-present fear of children dying or the family name petering out, and a subsequent lack of successors meant complicated testamentary alternatives were arranged to cover all eventualities. Worse still was when a single parent was also the testator attempting to make provision for the future care of his or her children, sometimes having to foster them in different households.13 In the case of a single parent who had remarried and was then dying, the spectre of wicked stepfathers and stepmothers must have clouded the last days. Maryon, the widow of William Tropenell, left her house to her second husband, Robert Goos in 1503, on condition that he would be kind to her children, the six little Tropenells.14 The residue was usually given to charitable works `to please God and to pro®t my soul', executors and supervisors being entrusted to carry out the wishes of the dying. They and the ever-present witnesses at the bedside expand a rather constricted family circle and leave a marked impression of the wider world that the testator knew so well and was about to leave behind. Bequests of all kinds are dealt with under separate headings in subsequent chapters, but now it is important to examine the wills themselves. 10 11 12 13 14

SROI, IC/AA2/4/45, Richard Wellett, Covehithe 1501. NRO, NCC Grundisburgh 172, John Hill, Henstead 1526. NRO, NCC Popy 60, Robert and Margery Smith, Kelsale 1500. NRO, NCC Multon 126, Beatrice Bekker, Covehithe 1501. SROI, IC/AA2/4/116, Maryon Goos, Kelsale 1503.



45

The Ecclesiastical Courts and the Testators The opportunity of making a will was encouraged and open to all, yet there were many who died intestate. Many wills, too, were not proven, and it is dif®cult to estimate what proportion of society is represented by the wills which are extant. Tanner suggests that the majority of Norwich testators came from the upper ranks of urban society.15 Peter Northeast, who has worked extensively on the pre-Reformation wills of Suffolk, estimates that, after 1450, one-third of the male population is represented by surviving testamentary evidence, but that the proportion before 1450 is less, due to the lack of Archdeaconry testaments.16 It is unwise, however, to assume that testators represent one-third of the population of a particular parish, a point to remember when the parochial distribution of wills is considered below. The Deanery wills reveal the testators as coming from a prosperous community, the wealthier members relying on ®shing, agricultural and mercantile interests, and the Deanery testators were undoubtedly fortunate members of that community. For the most part, their less-favoured counterparts remain anonymous. Wills from the Deanery were proved and registered at the ecclesiastical court appropriate to the substance of the testator, and administration was granted on the production of inventories, although these have rarely survived. The appropriate courts of probate for the Deanery were the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, the Norwich Consistory Court, and the Archdeaconry of Suffolk Court. A fee was paid before the will could be registered. In certain circumstances, executors must have found it dif®cult to pay registration fees, which may account for the incomplete testamentary registration, and a similar reluctance may mean that some wills were proved at a lower court than the estate warranted. Executors could be tardy or negligent in settling an estate, too, and the responsibility could be irksome, long-winded and expensive. Testators, on the other hand, could be over-optimistic in the assessment of their worth.17 The ordinances of John Stratford, archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1348), set out the fees for probate, and these were certainly adhered to in the archdeaconry court of Sandwich in Kent between 1520 and 1523.18 Here, on goods valued up to £1 10s, no fees were paid.

15 16 17

18

Tanner, Norwich, 115. Verbal communication from Peter Northeast. Houlbrooke, Church Courts, 103; P. Heath, Ùrban Piety in the Later Middle Ages: the Evidence of Hull Wills', The Church, Politics and Patronage in the Fifteenth Century, ed. R. B. Dobson (Gloucester 1984), 209±29, at 212±13. M. Bowker, `Some Archdeacons' Court Books and the Commons' Supplication against the Ordinaries of 1532', The Study of Medieval Records: Essays in Honour of Kathleen Major, ed. D. A. Bullough and R. L. Storey (Oxford 1971), 282±316, at 297.


46


From From From From From

£1 10s £5 £20 £40 £100

to to to to to

£5, the fee was 1s £20 3s £40 5s £100 10s £150 £1

The clerk normally received 6d for writing the register, but where `duties were unduly onerous', he may have been paid a little more. Fees were usually paid in rounded ®gures and the 3s 4d charged on an estate worth more than £7 in Archbishop Morton's register of 1499 may have included the clerk's payment; but the evidence shows that Norwich Consistory Court conformed to the accepted scale of fees, 5s being paid on an estate worth over £22, and 7s on an estate worth £30.19 In 1498, the estate of Robert Sudburn of Halesworth, which was worth £42 9s, paid a fee of 10s.20 Morton's list includes many testators and ®nes due, but only a few testators have the value of goods, based on an inventory, entered. Goods amounting to approximately £204 were charged £2 3s 4d; and an estate worth more than £250 was ®ned £2 13s 4d. On average, fees were roughly 1.25 per cent the value of the estate. In 1529, the fees for probate and administration were readjusted.21 The judge now received nothing on estates worth less than £5, but 6d still went to the registrar. Estates worth more than £5 and less than £40 paid the judge 2s 6d, 1s going to the registrar. For estates worth more than £40, the judge and the registrar both took 2s 6d or registrars could take one penny per ten lines of the will, which they presumably did when the will was lengthy. The Suffolk Archdeaconry Court charged probate fees between 1s 10d and 2s 6d, and administration fees of between 1s 6d and 2s 6d, although occasionally these might be as high as 5s. There was also a fee of 3s for most commissions. In the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, the average fee was 5s. The Prerogative court of Canterbury Wills of testators owning goods worth £5 or more in two or more dioceses were registered at the Prerogative court of Canterbury. These registers commence in 1384 (Rous, 1384±1452). In a sample of 2,824 Deanery wills, written between the years 1370 and 1547, seventy-two were proved at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, representing 3 per cent of the total number of wills. The earliest Deanery will to be registered at the Prerogative court was that of Mawde de Norwiche of Yoxford in 1418.22 Husbands and 19 20

21

22

Harper-Bill, Morton's Register, III, 143±6. Harper-Bill, Morton's Register, III, 79±80, 145, Robert Sudburn (Sudbourne), yeoman, Halesworth 1499. R. A. Marchant, The Church under the Law (Cambridge 1969), 23±5. Marchant based this work on ecclesiastical courts operating between 1560 and 1640, but the fees charged were based on the 1529 ruling, 21 Henry VIII c.5. PRO, PCC Marche 42, Mawde de Norwich, 1418.



47

wives were not necessarily registered in the same court, and the will of her husband, John, was proved at Norwich Consistory Court in 1428.23 Their memorial brasses, however, are together in Yoxford church. During the period 1370 to 1439, only four Deanery testators were registered at the Prerogative court. Three were from that social stratum where wealth and breeding were based on land holdings. The fourth was a cleric. Throughout the ensuing period from 1440 to 1547, the social mix of testators was leavened with a sprinkling of merchants, mariners and yeomen, an indication of how wealth was gradually redistributed within the Deanery. Although 3 per cent of all Deanery wills were registered at the Prerogative court of Canterbury, Dunwich borough had 8 per cent of its wills registered there, Easton Bavents had 6 per cent, and Southwold and Walberswick had 5 per cent apiece. At Heveningham, three wills proved at the Prerogative court between 1370 and 1547 represented 12 per cent of all wills from that parish. This high percentage was due to members of the Heveningham family, testators of more than parochial importance. The Norwich Consistory court The wills of testators holding goods worth £5 or more in one or more archdeaconries were registered at the Norwich Consistory Court. Deanery wills registered here numbered 792, accounting for 28 per cent of wills proved between 1370 and 1547. Six early Deanery wills were included in the registers of the bishop of Norwich.24 The Norwich Consistory Court registers commence in 1370 with the register Heydon. One of the earliest wills from the Deanery was made in 1375 by Richard Freman, rector of Uggeshall, in which he asked to be buried in Uggeshall chancel.25 Gentry having goods valued at less than £5 were still expected to register in the Consistory court rather than in the lower Archdeaconry court.26 Clergy, too, were supposed to register in the Consistory or Bishop's court, where they were exempt from paying fees, and yet the executors of William Salman, a chantry priest from Hunting®eld, were charged 13s 4d on his estate in 1499.27 23 24

25 26

27

NRO, NCC Sur¯ete 29±30, John de Norwich, 1428. These are: Walter Duk, Brampton 1399 NRO, Roll 16m.3d. Richard Mickle®eld, Blyford 1408 NRO, DN/Reg.4, Liber 7/70±1 John Bolton, Cookley 1418 NRO, DN/Reg.4, Liber 8/131 Robert Drax, priest, Reydon 1418 NRO, DN/Reg.4, Liber 8/141 Robert Gerard, priest, Sibton with the chapel of Peasenhall 1418 NRO, DN/Reg.4, Liber 8/142 Thomas Craven, Wangford 1419 NRO, DN/Reg.4, Liber 8/145±6 NRO, NCC Heydon 90, Richard Freman, rector, Uggeshall 1375. M. A. Farrow, ed., Index of Wills Proved in the Consistory Court of Norwich, NRS xvi (1943), pt i, ix. Harper-Bill, Morton's Register, III, 88, 145, William Salman, chantry priest, Hunting®eld 1499.


48


Salman's will shows that he was not short of money, but the value of his estate, on which 13s 4d was paid, was not entered in the register. During the period 1370 to 1439, nearly half the Deanery wills proved at Norwich (47 per cent) were from clerics. Between 1370 and 1456, the small parishes of Knodishall and Buxlow had, respectively, one and ®ve wills written by clerics. Easton Bavents, a much larger parish, returned three clerical wills out of the seven written between 1370 and 1439. In the same period, Tanner found that 37 per cent of all Norwich wills were clerical, a slightly lower percentage than found in the Deanery, but indicative of the imbalance between clerical and lay testaments in the earlier period.28 By the last two decades of the ®fteenth century, this balance was reversed, and only 3 per cent of Deanery testators were clerics. Between 1530 and 1547 0.5 per cent of Deanery testators were clerics, including one clerical will proved, unusually, at the Archdeaconry court. Where testators described their station or occupation, however seldom, a list can be drawn up, comprising knights, esquires, gentlemen, their respective ladies, clerics, chaplains, a Norwich alderman, farmers, yeomen, merchants, mariners, mercers, masons, bakers and countless widows. The Archdeaconry court of Suffolk The lowest level of probate for Deanery testators was the Suffolk Archdeaconry Court where a sample of 1,960 registered wills, dating from 1436 to 1547, provides valuable evidence. To register here, all the testator's goods had to be held within the Archdeaconry of Suffolk, Archdeaconry testators accounting for roughly 69 per cent of all Deanery testators. One out of ®ve testators was a woman, a ratio which remained remarkably constant throughout the period. The registers commence in the late 1430s, the earliest will from the Deanery being that of Baldwin Scott of Blythburgh, dated 13 October 1436, his wife, Emma, dying the following year.29 A survey of the Deanery taken without the inclusion of the Archdeaconry testators would be inaccurate and unrepresentative of the area. They were the most proli®c of testators and often as generous as their richer counterparts, and some appear to have been as wealthy as those registered in a higher court. The will of William Bishop of Southwold was proved at both Norwich and the Archdeaconry courts in 1526, an unusual but not unique example; and in the middle years of the ®fteenth century, many wealthy inhabitants left wills proved in the Archdeaconry of Suffolk Court ± John Moress, member of parliament and bailiff for Dunwich, to name just one.30 To describe Archdeaconry testators as the poorest leaves an erroneous 28 29

30

Tanner, Norwich, 224±5, app. 13. SROI, IC/AA2/1/2, Baldwin Scott, Blythburgh 1436; IC/AA2/1/2, Emma Scott, Blythburgh 1437. NRO, NCC Grundisburgh 193, William Bishop, Southwold, 23 July 1526; SROI, IC/ AA2/6/113, William Bishop, Southwold, 23 July 1526; IC/AA2/1/168, John Moress, Dunwich 1450.



49

impression and cannot be justi®ed when many of the bequests to the high altar from Archdeaconry testators are compared with those of Norwich court testators.31 Evidence of probate at the end of Archdeaconry wills indicates that many wills were proved in the smaller parishes, Sotherton and Darsham appearing alongside the centres of Dunwich, Blythburgh and Halesworth. Many wills which would have quali®ed for registration at the Norwich Consistory Court may have been proved more conveniently at the local Archdeaconry court, and it follows that Norwich too, being nearer than Canterbury, may have registered wills at the Consistory court which would otherwise have been proved at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. This may not have been what the testators would have expected, but was what the executors found expedient. If wills were registered for convenience rather than substance, it is unwise, when assessing wealth, to consider the court where they were proved except on a very broad basis. Nevertheless, there were many Archdeaconry testators who, it would seem, had only just enough movable property to make a will, although from the niggardly contents of some wills, this observation may be applied equally to both the higher courts as well. The Archdeaconry testators included among their number yeomen, husbandmen, merchants, coopers, millers, wheelwrights, thatchers, ®shermen, tailors, shoemakers, carpenters and a brothel-keeper who, while not describing her activities in her will, was nevertheless ®ned 6s 8d in the local manor court on account of her occupation.32 One Archdeaconry will, made by a cleric in 1547, is memorable for being less a testament than a confession of faith in its overt Protestantism.33 Female testators The sample of 455 wills made by women accounts for 16 per cent of all Deanery wills. Female testators rarely made wills during the lifetime of their husband, from whom permission had to be sought. Catherine of Hoo from Wissett, making her will in 1439, stated it was `with plain grant, licence and power of mine husband given and had'; and Katherine Snobeshyll, the widow of Richard Mickle®eld, making her will in 1421 `within my manor of Blyford' requested a priest to pray for her by licence and consent of her [second] husband.34 Widows as testators, however, could exercise their freedom. They gave 31

32

33 34

R. B. Dinn, `Popular Religion in Late Medieval Bury St Edmunds' (unpublished PhD, University of Manchester 1990), 46, 84. SROI, IC/AA2/3/171, Alice Stapleton, Blythburgh 1494; Richmond, John Hopton, 180. SROI, IC/AA2/15/426, John Danyell, Walberswick 1547. NRO, NCC Doke 96, Catherine of Hoo, Wissett 1439; NCC Hyrnyng 80, Katherine Snobeshyll, Blyford 1421.


50


remarkably good accounts of goods and chattels, and were able to bequeath freely what was left in their possession.35 Their habitation had usually been provided by their late husband, at least until the children came of age, but provisions made by male testators varied widely, and reveal the uncertainty and unenviable position experienced by women with their security dependent on their remaining `sole' or unattached. Where wills were made both by a male testator and his widow, such as Thomas and Joan Crofts of Westhall or Thomas and Elizabeth Sampson of Wissett, the husbands' wills deal almost exclusively with the disposition of their real estate.36 Their widows leave personal bequests of household trinkets and clothing to family, friends and neighbours, giving the lie to what medieval widowhood should have been. Also hit falleth to wedowes for to use symple and comune clothinge of mene colour and nought gay ne starynge, ne of queynte and sotil schap, and take ensample of the holy wedowe Judith . . . to kepe hir wedowhode in chastite and clennes, ffor sche used grete penaunce of fastynge and wered the heyre next hir body. Right so schulde wedowes lyve . . . .37

Widows' wills reveal rami®cations not always apparent in those of their male counterparts. In 1533, Julyan Wyston, a Dunwich widow, said: Ì geve to John Elsyng, to whom I am trowth plyght and as his wyff, saving mariage, my house.'38 Elsyng, as her `ffaythfull love', acted as her executor. Widows' wills can be valuable when showing the time span occurring between their husbands' deaths and their own. Avelyne Skutte, formerly Sproute, of Chediston, was such a widow, outliving her ®rst husband by thirty-seven years and her second husband by ten (see Chapter Three, note 23). Her ®rst husband's will stipulated that his bequest of a cope for Chediston church was not to be implemented until after Avelyne's death. In cases such as this, bequests made by the husband of a much younger, or healthier, wife, could be delayed for an unacceptable time. Where a widow's livelihood can be identi®ed, particularly along the coast where ships, nets, salt and ®sh appear in the will, she has often continued the trade of her late husband. In 1450, Matilda Moress of Dunwich inherited a shop from her husband, John; and Elizabeth Peyrs, of Easton Bavents, refers to half a shop in her will of 1508, and her ®sh to be sold.39 Agnes Amys, a mariner's widow from Easton Bavents, inherited half a boat in 1540, a vessel which her husband had shared with John Cardye.40 In 1528, at Easton 35 36

37 38 39

40

Sheehan, Mediaeval Wills, 263. NRO, NCC Hubert 62, Thomas Croftys, Westhall 1474; NCC Gelour 164, Joan Croftys, Westhall 1477; SROI, IC/AA2/13/257, Thomas Sampson, Wissett 1540; IC/ AA2/14/27, Elizabeth Sampson, Wissett 1540. Owst, Literature and Pulpit, 119. SROI, IC/AA2/11/162, Julyan Wyston, Dunwich 1533. SROI, IC/AA2/1/168, Matilda Moress, Dunwich 1450; PRO, PCC Bennett 4, Elizabeth Peyrs, Easton Bavents 1508. SROI, IC/AA2/13/322, Robert Amys, Easton Bavents 1540.



51

Bavents, Joan Thomas, `whom I should take to wife if God send me life', was left the ship The Blythe by the immigrant, Downy Bek.41 At Walberswick, the churchwardens' accounts show that widows frequently took over their husbands' ®shing boats. These are identi®able in the ®shing dole, the women either hiring masters to sail the vessels or sharing the pro®ts with a son: Alison Byrd sharing The Mary Byrd with her son Thomas, and Margaret Boty sharing The Margaret with her son Robert, as speci®ed in her husband's will.42 Well-to-do widows of a re¯ective turn of mind, such as Dame Margery Baxter, might take a vow of chastity and become a vowess, and, although this meant that the widow took the veil, she could live in her own home, as Dame Margery did at Heveningham in 1533.43 Other widows went even further, and entered a religious house. Alice Stapleton, at the other end of the chastity scale, kept the Blythburgh bawdy-house.44 Wills of unmarried women are rare. It is unusual to ®nd a will such as Rose Howard's of Westhall, dated 1461, which made no mention of husband, children or her state; and although few females did indicate their state, many, such as Margaret Barker of Halesworth who appeared to have no husband, did not describe herself as a widow yet left bequests to her daughters in 1500.45 Can the Deanery be compared with a similar grouping of parishes? Are the varying probate levels of Deanery wills comparable to others elsewhere? Were the female testators more numerous in the east of the county than they were in the west? Robert Dinn, in his research on popular religion in late medieval Bury St Edmunds, compared urban Bury with the agricultural deanery of Blackbourne and it is these ®ndings from Blackbourne that are interesting. Blackbourne deanery lay to the north of Bury, and it was chosen by Dinn because its villages were not in a rural industrial area, such as Lavenham and Melford which lay south of Bury. Blackbourne included within its territory Ixworth priory, the only regular monastic house in west Suffolk apart from the abbey at Bury, and the village of Bardwell where there had been a pre-Reformation parish gild, the gild accounts of which have survived. Three separate decades were used to compare Blackbourne's wills with 41 42

43

44 45

SROI, IC/AA2/10/41, Downy Bek, Easton Bavents 1528. Lewis, Walberswick, 146: Alison, widow of Nicholas Byrd (SROI, IC/AA2/2/202) and Margaret, widow of Harry Poty or Boty (SROI, IC/AA2/2/256) appear as owners and payers; for ®shing families at Walberswick, see J. Middleton-Stewart, ` ``Down to the Sea in Ships'': Decline and Fall on the Suffolk Coast', Counties and Communities: Essays on East Anglian History Presented to Hassell Smith, ed. C. Rawcliffe, R. Virgoe and R. Wilson (CEAS, UEA 1996), 69±83. SROI, IC/AA2/12/169, Dame Margery Baxter, Heveningham 1533; M. Oliva, The Convent and the Community in Late Medieval England: Female Monasteries in the Diocese of Norwich, 1350±1540 (Woodbridge 1998), 47±8. SROI, IC/AA2/3/171, Alice Stapleton, Blythburgh 1494. NRO, NCC Brosyard 246, Rose Howard, Westhall, 1461; SROI, IC/AA2/4/55, Margaret Barker, Halesworth 1500.


52


those from Bury. As Blackbourne had no PCC testators, only wills from the Norwich Consistory Court and the Archdeacon of Sudbury's Court could be used. The total number of wills from Blackbourne deanery was 213: from Dunwich deanery it was 688.

1449±1458 1491±1500 1521±1530

Blackbourne deanery NCC AS 34% 66% 38% 62% 11% 89%

Dunwich deanery NCC AS 35% 64% 32% 64% 16% 80%

PCC 1% 4% 4%

The table above, using Dinn's information from Blackbourne deanery, and adding the relevant percentages from the deanery of Dunwich, show how closely they compare.46 The difference between the percentages of testators from the corresponding court of either deanery in any decade varied between 1 and 9 per cent and averaged 4 per cent. The overall percentage of Norwich Consistory Court wills from Blackbourne was 27.6 per cent compared to Dunwich deanery's 28 per cent. In Dunwich deanery between 1370 and 1547, the percentage of female wills never rose above 21 per cent in any decade, and a steady return of between 14 and 21 per cent was established after 1440. Sixteen per cent was the overall ®gure. These percentages closely re¯ect those from urban Bury St Edmunds (19 per cent) and the rural deanery of Blackbourne (18 per cent) during approximately the same period, and in Norwich, between 1370 and 1532, male lay testators exceeded female testators by slightly more than three to one.47

Parochial Distribution The parochial distribution of wills in the Deanery of Dunwich is very uneven. If several parishes are scrutinized, the haphazard survival of wills shows that they cannot be used as a guide to population. The distribution of wills written between 1370 and 1439 is bizarre, the surviving wills likely to be remnants of wider testamentary practice rather than the number actually written. From this early period, 102 wills survive: 94 from the Consistory court and four each from Prerogative court and the Archdeaconry court. Frostenden is represented by nine wills, Benacre and Blythburgh by eight apiece, Halesworth by seven, Westhall six, Walpole ®ve and Covehithe four. Dunwich also has four although it had three parishes and a population of a thousand people. Other Deanery parishes have three wills or less. Several had none. In Norwich, Tanner found a similar situation during the same period.48 46 47 48

Dinn, `Bury St Edmunds', 85, table 2:13. Dinn, `Bury St Edmunds', 51, table 2:2; 86, table 2:14; Tanner, Norwich, 115. Tanner, Norwich, 224±5, appendix 13: Seventeen wills were registered on the back of



53

In the mid-®fteenth century, wills proliferate, yet some of the parishes from the earlier period appear less frequently. Covehithe is not one of these, and, between 1370 and 1547, it has more surviving wills than any other Deanery township. Between 1440 and 1480, Covehithe has 122 wills. The `peaking' of Covehithe wills in certain years coincides with an omission of the formalities written at the beginning of many wills, as though the registrar had more wills to copy than he could manage. This could suggest a high mortality rate due to outbreaks of the virulent illnesses which were so common during the ®fteenth century;49 and, if the profusion of Covehithe wills can be explained by disease of epidemic proportions, then Dunwich could be expected to have three times as many wills than it has. Plague was rife in 1471, Sir John Paston describing it as `the most universal death that ever I knew in England'.50 In Covehithe that year, there were twelve Archdeaconry wills and one from the Consistory court. In 1473, during the dysentery epidemic, described as the `bloody ¯ux', there were ®fteen Norwich wills but only two from the Suffolk archdeaconry. Was dysentery so selective? Covehithe parish had the highest number of wills, and Dunwich borough the largest population, yet, during the `pox' of 1475, there was only one Archdeaconry will from either township. The great plague of 1479 produced one Norwich Consistory Court will from Covehithe, and two from Dunwich: the `sweat' of 1485 produced one will for Covehithe at the Archdeaconry court.51 It is hard to explain these anomalies, but such disparate ®gures cannot represent epidemic conditions, and must be due to imperfect testamentary recording or to the loss of whole registers. By 1524 the population of Suffolk was around 90,000, and the Deanery's population can be estimated at 9,460 from the 1524 subsidy returns.52 In 1547, Covehithe's population was 320 houseling people (those over fourteen years and receiving Eucharist at Easter), a reasonable comparison with the estimated population of 297 in 1524.53 Dunwich would have had a population of around 1,188 (240 tax-payers appear in the 1524 subsidy list). Deanery wills written over a thirty-year period from 1500 to 1530 give an average of one will to twelve parishioners. In certain parishes where many wills have survived, it is possible to ®nd one will to four parishioners, or ®ve

49

50 51

52 53

the Dean and Chapter rolls, and were more equivalent to Archdeaconry rather than Consistory court wills (verbal communication from Paul Routledge, formerly deputy county archivist, Norfolk Record Of®ce). A. B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Cambridge to 1500 (Cambridge 1963), 665; Heath, `Hull Wills', 211; R. Virgoe, Illustrated Letters of the Paston Family (London 1989), 269. Virgoe, Illustrated Paston Letters, 269. R. Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family in England, 1480±1750 (Oxford 1998), 11±12. Patten, `Population Distribution in Norfolk and Suffolk', 48, table 1. Redstone, `Chapels, Chantries and Gilds', 34; Hervey, Suffolk, 1524, 91±2; Arkell, `Multiplying Factors'.


54


or six parishioners. There are parishes, however, where there may be one will to twenty or more parishioners. There are also parishes with testamentary voids in certain periods. Frostenden, which had the greatest number of Norwich Consistory Court wills between 1370 and 1439, had none between 1487 and 1540, and Kelsale, the third largest township with a population of four hundred, had none from 1519 to 1545. The executors of Consistory court testators may have removed their favours to the Archdeaconry court, but there were voids here too. Between 1500 and 1530, many parishes appear to have no wills for some time and then suddenly produce a good crop. How could a town the size of Dunwich have no Prerogative court wills between 1370 and 1506 yet from 1532 produce eleven, seven of which came from the 1540s? Similarly, Southwold had one Norwich testator between 1480 and 1489, and ten between 1490 and 1499, twenty Suffolk Archdeaconry wills between 1480 and 1489, and only eight between 1490 and 1499. This is not peculiar to Norwich diocese. In the probate registers of the Exchequer court of the Archbishopric of York, there are no wills for any part of the diocese from October 1408 to March 1417, and from January 1418 to May 1426. Peter Heath believed that ¯uctuations in the number of registers and known wills might be attributed to alternately energetic or feckless registrars, deans or receivers.54 Administrations are more frequent for some parishes rather than others, and are noted in the ®fteenth-century Norwich probate registers.55 Overall, Easton Bavents had twenty-®ve administrations to ninety wills, Walberswick twenty-seven administrations to thirty-®ve wills, yet Peasenhall only one to thirty. In some registers, administrations are scattered. At the beginning of others, separate, foliated sections of administrations appear. If quires of wills, similarly foliated, were collected from various areas in the diocese, this could account for the incomprehensible bunching of wills from particular parishes in some registers, in the same way as the loss of such quires could account for inexplicable voids in others. Voids probably represent poor registration, loss and general negligence. Harsyk, the second register of Norwich Consistory Court wills, is badly stained, and although the index of names is recorded, many of the contents are illegible. Another register is missing c. 1409. The register Gilberd, which 54 55

Heath, `Hull Wills', 211. Index of Administrations 1371±1502 in the Consistory Court of Norwich Preserved in the Norfolk Record Of®ce, compiled by T. L. M. Hawes in 1988. This index is held in the Norfolk Record Of®ce. Approximately ®ve thousand administrations and several hundred notices of intestacy occur from register Heydon onwards. No administration act books have survived for 1370±1516. No grants of administration exist for 1387± 1415, 1445±47, 1489±91 and 1501. A second volume covers the years 1516±1603. Records survive for 1516±1533 and from 1548 onwards: When testators did not name their executors, they were declared intestate. Letters of àdministration' had then to be granted so that the estate could be wound up.



55

runs from 1472 to 1477, has written inside the cover, `Found among the old decayed writings discovered in opening the old stone staircase in 1796 ± St Ethelbert's gateway'. At Suffolk Archdeaconry level, the probate registers are void in the years 1452±58, 1477±81 and 1498±1501.56 Peaking and troughing, on the other hand, may indicate plague or similar conditions, although Covehithe's evidence reveals inconsistencies. Notwithstanding the puzzling distribution, frustrating illogicalities and suspected destruction, those wills which survive supply the basis for study. It is fortunate that so many are still extant in Suffolk.

Divided Loyalties The great age of monastic foundation was the twelfth century. Early gifts to the Church, such as free alms or frankalmoign donated for the founding of a monastery, were made with `no strings attached', but were presented freely in the hope of salvation. There were no explicit contractual obligations between the donor of this gift-exchange and the recipients. Yet expectations altered, as Benjamin Thompson explains. Gift-exchange, by which high medieval donors had made grants to God and the saints in the hope of heavenly reward, was no longer an acceptable mode of giving to an age increasingly imbued with the commercial mentality. It was preferable to make enforceable contracts with living parties on this earth to buy spiritual services which, under the developed doctrine of purgatory, quanti®ably counted towards the penances which the bene®ciaries must suffer and thereby reduced their days of purgation.57

Expectations had indeed changed greatly since the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The advent of the friars in the thirteenth century had brought a freer, unshackled, religion into the lay arena. The mendicants, `men versed in all the learning of their time, constantly preaching to the people in the vulgar tongue, in every part of the country', were left countless bequests for intercessions in contrast to the `socially dead' monks.58 The doctrine of Purgatory, de®ned at the council of Lyon in 1274, taught that good works during one's life and prayers said by the living on behalf of the dead expiated sins and cleared the way, eventually, to Paradise. As Paul Binski has argued, À religion whose view of the Last Things had been based upon the principle 56

57

58

Farrow, Norwich Wills Index, xi. The void between 1498 and 1501 may partially be explained by the two vacancies of the see of Norwich within this time. B. Thompson, `From `Àlms'' to ``Spiritual Services'': the Function and Status of Monastic Property in Medieval England', Monastic Studies, ii, ed. J. Loades (Bangor 1991), 227±61; R. N. Swanson, Church and Society in Late Medieval England (Oxford 1989), 144. Owst, Literature and Pulpit, 3±4; P. Binski, Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation (London 1996), 58.


56


of uncertainty was transformed into one founded upon absolutely certain calculation.'59 The monasteries were side-stepped as Masses were celebrated by secular clergy chosen by the individual, and what had once been giftexchanges became more like commercial transactions, for now donors began to dictate the duties they wished secular priests to perform rather than being content to bene®t from whatever monks had previously offered. Donors speci®ed the individual souls to be remembered, the prayers to be said, the chaplains to celebrate, and calculated with great precision how much their endowments needed to be worth in order to obtain the maximum bene®ts. The rigidity, or even the spiritual poverty, of the monastic rule could be avoided by transferring one's patronage elsewhere (see Chapters Five and Six). The watershed of these new developments had been the Black Death. Economically, the plague of 1349, in which at least one-third, and more probably almost a half, of the population died, resulted in a reduced population with more land and more money, although this boom period was not to last.60 In the cathedral city of Norwich, 40±50 per cent of the lay population died, and in Bury St Edmunds, 50 per cent of the population perished although this rose to 60 per cent in some of the villages.61 Socially, the enhanced expectations of the great mass of the peasantry were ful®lled as their mobility and af¯uence increased due to land lying uncultivated and labour being at a premium. With more money in their pockets, they sought to better themselves. In the aftermath of the plague, the gentry, a class with incomes of between £5 and £40 per annum, also underwent further strati®cation as the `gentlemen' joined the knights and esquires.62 John Hatcher puts it in simple terms when he writes `. . . the survivors inherited the property of those who had perished and when presented with a sudden increase in wealth at a time of recurrent plague and considerable uncertainty, it is not surprising that they chose to spend on a greater scale than their predecessors'.63 These new aspirations, triggered by wealth and set against the doctrinal background of Purgatory in the stark days after the Black Death, resulted in a surge of individualistic prayer, not in the monastic church, but in the friary church or the church of the parishioner. So it was that, during the ®fteenth and sixteenth centuries, monasteries were increasingly overlooked by a new type of patron who sought intercessors to offer 59 60

61

62

63

Binski, Medieval Death, 24±7. J. Hatcher, Plague, Population and the English Economy, 1348±1530 (Basingstoke 1977), 31±5. J. L. Bolton, ` ``The World Upside Down'': Plague as an Agent of Economic and Social Change', The Black Death in England, ed. W. M. Ormrod and P. G. Lindley (Stamford 1996), 17±78, at 23. J. A. F. Thomson, The Transformation of Medieval England, 1370±1529 (London 1983), 111±12; M. H. Keen, English Society in the Later Middle Ages, 1348±1500 (Harmondsworth 1990), 11±13; Bolton, `The World Upside Down', 60. Hatcher, Plague and Population, 33.



57

commemorative prayers which, originally the prerogative of monastic houses, eventually became the treasured endowments of parish churches.64 A sample of Norwich wills, proved between 1370 and 1532, shows that 47 per cent of lay bequests went to the city's friaries compared with 35 per cent to the cathedral church and priory.65 In Suffolk, Diarmaid MacCulloch found that wills drawn up by thirty-eight members of the county magistracy from 1485 to 1539 contained no fewer than twenty-six bequests to friaries compared with seventeen to the monasteries; and lower down the social scale, his contemporaneous sample from the wills of Ipswich bailiffs records eighteen bequests to the Ipswich friaries and a mere nine to monasteries.66 This imbalance of bequests between the older orders and the friars was widespread, a pattern repeated by testators throughout England.67 Testators far more representative of their local community than those from the Suffolk magistracy or the Ipswich burgesses noted above were now for the ®rst time actively engaged in writing wills and leaving bequests. These `new' families were open to the attractions of the worldly friars, visible and accessible, who drew support away from the monks, detached, cloistered and separated from the community among which they lived. Many of the ancient, noble families, too, who had been actively and bene®cially supportive of the older foundations by custom through ancestral ties, were now seeking burial within friary churches, whereas a monastic house would have previously provided a resting place. A number of substantial endowments found their way to existing parish churches, or into re-building parish churches anew, perhaps as collegiate churches for two or three priests. Although neither the duke nor the duchess of Suffolk were from ancient families, their foundation at Ewelme in Oxfordshire comprised an almshouse with a new school and church adjacent, the church building being very similar to that which they had left behind them at Wing®eld in Suffolk. Within the deanery of Dunwich, it is noticeable that, in parishes containing religious establishments, these houses aroused little interest among local testators (see Map III). Although the generosity of living parishioners to monasteries can never be known, the wills of parishioners contain meagre proof of bequests for either prayers or maintenance. Testators from parishes bound by appropriation or patronage to a religious foundation seemed scarcely aware of its presence, yet the Dominican and Franciscan friaries within the Deanery, and the Austins of Gorleston and Orford and the Carmelites of Ipswich outside the Deanery, made striking inroads into the money available for intercessions and reparations. In wills, single friaries were seldom mentioned in isolation, and the Dominican and Franciscan houses in Dunwich were invariably paired together by testators, 64

65 66 67

C. Harper-Bill, The Pre-Reformation Church in England, 1400±1530 (London 1989), 40±1. Tanner, Norwich, 222±3. MacCulloch, Suffolk and the Tudors, 135. Swanson, Church and Society, 298.


58


each receiving an equivalent bequest. The friaries at Dunwich were remembered ®rst, and then testators from the north of the Deanery tended to mention the Gorleston Augustinians and even the Norwich Carmelites. Further south, the Augustinians at Orford and the Carmelites of Ipswich were often bracketed together. Norwich friaries on the whole were not well represented. As might be expected, testators living in the borough of Dunwich were signi®cantly supportive of the friaries there to the detriment of monastic houses elsewhere, such as the prior and convent of Eye, patrons of the three parish churches in Dunwich, and the cathedral church of the Holy Trinity, Norwich. Only one parish church in the Deanery came within the patronage of the prior and convent of Holy Trinity, Norwich. This was St Andrew's, Westhall, and here it might be expected that there would be an increase in bequests to the convent or the cathedral church, but this was not the case. Surviving Westhall wills, which run from 1370 to 1540, were drawn up by six clerical and thirty-four lay testators. There were only ®ve bequests to the cathedral church, two of which were from Westhall incumbents and two, both made in 1532, were witnessed by Humfrey Cantrell, the vicar, who had a vested interest in gifts to his patrons.68 Elsewhere in the Deanery, the cathedral church, referred to variously as Holy Trinity, Christchurch, or simply the mother church, received few bequests of scant worth. These sometimes appeared in a run of wills from a particular parish suggesting that the gifts were prompted by a scribe or witness with a particular af®nity towards the cathedral. William Yarmouth was vicar at Covehithe for nearly ®fty years in the second half of the ®fteenth century, and the length of his tenure and his ®rm grip on the parish may account for the number of wills registered during his incumbency; but they may also explain the lack of monetary gifts to Norwich, a condition reversed by his successor, Master William Ewyn, vicar from 1496 to 1513. Ewyn may have prompted his parishioners to remember Christchurch, Norwich, but from his meagre biographical details it is not possible to say why, yet, between 1501 and 1503, nine Archdeaconry wills and ®ve Consistory court wills contained bequests for the cathedral church varying from a few pence to 4s.69 Halesworth bequests were similar, but again were small and tended to come in clutches in Archdeaconry wills between 1512 and 1523. When these bequests were made, they were made to the cathedral church as the `mother' church rather than to the Benedictine prior and convent as a monastic community. 68

69

NRO, NCC A. Caston 263±4, Thomas Goche, clerk, Westhall 1482; NCC Atmere 97, William Feldhouse, vicar, Westhall 1529; NCC Johnson 244, Richard Love, Westhall 1509; NCC Punting 23±4, Simon Farman, Westhall 1532; NCC Godsalve 182, Robert Feltham 1532; an early will records the payment of 40s to the high altar of the cathedral church, Norwich, see NRO, NCC Harsyk 211, Thomas Pecke, vicar, Westhall 1396. Emden, Register of the University of Cambridge, 217; NRO, NCC Popy 279, Joan Williamson, Covehithe 1503.



59

The neighbouring churches of Ubbeston and Crat®eld in the west of the Deanery were both appropriated to St Neots Priory in Huntingdonshire. This patronage was acknowledged in 1529 by one Ubbeston testator, Thomas Cowell, the vicar, but his legacy was conditional on the prior neither vexing nor troubling his executors, otherwise it was to be cancelled.70 His contemporary, William Williamson, the vicar of Crat®eld, left a will disposing of a wealthy estate, garnered from the three parishes which he held in plurality, and goods not bequeathed were settled upon `my patron, the prior of St Neots whom I make and ordain my executor'.71 The patronage of the priory made no impact on lay testators in either Ubbeston or Crat®eld. On the other hand, there were some distant religious institutions chosen by clerical testators which may cast light upon their place of origin. In the 1530s, John and Thomas Beteson were two brothers in holy orders in Covehithe and Wrentham respectively, with both a mother and a brother, Percy, resident in Wrentham.72 This would suggest that the Betesons were a family of local stock. John, however, left bequests to òur mother church' in Lincoln and to the church of St Dionysius of Sleaford, while the executor of Thomas's will was to be another brother, Robert Beteson, of Willoughby, Lincolnshire. Some members of the laity, too, demonstrated an attachment for some of the more unusual foundations. Bequests to nunneries were scarce, for none lay within the Deanery, and as a result nunneries tended to be remembered sporadically.73 There were a few bequests from testators in Peasenhall to Bruisyard nunnery, which lay immediately to the south in the next deanery. Similarly, nunneries beyond the Deanery's north boundary were remembered by people living in Halesworth. Walpole church was appropriated to Redling®eld nunnery, but Walpole's lay testators showed no interest in the house and even clerical testators ignored it in their bequests. It might be supposed that Rumburgh parishioners would show an awareness of the prior and convent within the parochial boundary. As death approached, when drawing up their wills, twice the number of Rumburgh parishioners gave to friaries as gave to the priory, and there was little generosity displayed in wills from af®liated parishes. How did 70

71 72

73

NRO, NCC Atmere 48±9, Thomas Cowell, Ubbeston 1529: this will is reminiscent of another, that of Thomas Goche, vicar of Westhall, who left 20s to the cathedral church of the Holy Trinity, Norwich, on condition `that they will be good masters of my incumbency and at their next appointment to my church will not worry my executors with dilapidations in the church or bene®ce of Westhall for that incumbency, in the future'; see NRO, NCC A. Caston 263, Thomas Goche, 1482. PRO, PCC Hogan 2, William Williamson, vicar, Crat®eld 1532. NRO, NCC Atmere 170±5, John Beteson, Covehithe 1531; NCC Mingaye 155±6, Thomas Beteson, Wrentham 1539. Oliva, Female Monasteries; R. Gilchrist and M. Oliva, Religious Women in Medieval East Anglia: History and Achaeology, c.1100±1540, Studies in East Anglian History i (CEAS, UEA 1993), 16, ®g. 2. Both show the distribution of nunneries in Suffolk, none of which were within the Deanery of Dunwich.


60


Leiston abbey fare, given that the incumbent of Leiston parish church was also the abbot of Leiston? From Leiston with Sizewell, there were only two bequests to the abbey between 1390 and 1536. At Wangford priory the situation was similar. Bequests to Blythburgh priory, on the other hand, show that it had a degree of local support, despite the rebuilding of the parish church which occupied the minds and the pockets of the people throughout the ®fteenth century. Speci®c bequests to the prior, the canons and to Blythburgh priory itself were not infrequent but, nevertheless, only the parishioners of Sibton ensured that their abbey was better patronized than any friary. Wills in Dunwich Deanery do not furnish the minutiae of detail which could be hoped for, nor were they ever intended to do so. It is a case of listening not to what they say but to what they do not say. Yet, despite all their de®ciencies, wills open up a long-forgotten world. Their advantages, in the long run, outweigh their shortcomings for they present a picture, however shadowy, of the society of which the testator had been a member.74 Wills are the most common and personal documents existing for individuals and the society in which they lived. Churchwardens' accounts are a bonus, adding details of how a community functioned, and, at the very end of the period covered here, church registers help towards the reconstruction of families between the years 1538 and 1547. Yet neither of these reproduce the face of the individual. It is the wills which leave a personal impression, and spread before us a variety of vital, living networks. Families, groups of friends, trade associations, parish communities, fraternities, patronage networks and a whole host of clerics, form a background against which the individual testator's desire for personal commemoration may be considered. The period from 1370 to 1547 admirably demonstrates the growth of lay testamentary practice, the percentages of clerics and laity changing polarity during the period. The percentage of female testators, on the other hand, is remarkably consistent, their wills detailed and interesting. Parochial distribution, at its most atypical between 1370 and 1439, indicates loss and destruction rather than intestacy. This also applies to later voids in the period of the 1524 subsidy. The increase in wills in the 1470s and 1500s is probably attributable to disease. Monasteries were neglected by the majority of testators, but friars and friaries were frequently remembered. Nevertheless, far greater than support for any religious house was the steady ¯ow of money to the parish churches. This will be examined in a subsequent chapter where bequests for church building and reparations are considered, leaving no doubt that, as far as testators were concerned, the parish church, whether as a building or as a spiritual refuge, was the focus of their faith. 74

M. L. Zell, `Fifteenth and Sixteenth-century Wills as Historical Sources', Archives xiv, no. 62 (1979), 67±74.


3 The Testators But at the laste commythe age; and then schrynkethe hys ¯essche, then fadyth his colowre. Hys bonys ben sore; hys lymmys wexythe febyll; his bake begynnethe for to croke downwarde to the erthe that he came of. And then his feyre ¯owris declynethe and fallyth a-wey to the grownde. And so man hathe no sure abydyng here. Quoted in G. R. Owst's Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England

If the purpose of writing a will was to implement a part of what the testators thought necessary or possible after death, it becomes apparent that provisions made at the hour of death might be incomparable with what had already been made during a lifetime.1 It pays to be cautious when trying to slot testators into ®nancial pigeon-holes determined by the apparent generosity or paucity of their bequests, for a will which contains little information about provisions for remembrance post mortem may be an example from someone who has planned well, making all necessary arrangements beforehand.2 If we had ®rst met Henry Everard socially, as a member of the armigerous Everard family from Linstead, we would have found him living as a country esquire on his Crat®eld estate on the edge of the Waveney Valley. Knowing his standing in the community, we would have expected his will to have brimmed over with largesse. It didn't. As it is, we meet him as just another testator making his will in 1465, a will no different from hundreds of others being brief and to the point.3 The total sum of money to be paid out after his death amounted to £1 7s 8d, and he asked to be buried in Crat®eld churchyard, both of which requests might easily have put him fairly low in our ®nancial appraisal. Why does his will suggest otherwise, that Henry was well prepared for death rather than short of money? He came from a family which held lands in Suffolk and Norfolk and, although it is possible that he was `poor' gentry, the will suggests this was not so. It was proved at the Norwich Consistory Court, which ought to mean that he had goods worth at least £5 in more than one archdeaconry. So, although he did not ask for a church burial, such a request would have been socially appropriate. He left 6s 8d to Crat®eld church, and 3s 4d to Met®eld 1 2 3

Burgess, C., `Pious Convention', 16, 20±1. Swanson, Church and Society, 267; Burgess, C., `Pious Convention', 15±16. NRO, NCC Jekkys 3, Henry Everard, Crat®eld 1465.


62


church. To the high altars of Crat®eld and Met®eld he left 3s 4d, and 12d to Sancroft (St Cross South Elmham). These sums were not over generous, but they indicate that he had landed interests in these three parishes. He left 3s 4d to Mendham priory, presumably for prayers, although these are not stipulated, and bequests of 3s 4d to his family church at Linstead, and also to Withersdale church, adjacent to Mendham. The residue of his goods was left to the disposition of his executors, named as Alice, his wife, and his brother, John (Plate 5).4 The third executor was his son John, who, in his own will of 1488, requested prayers to be said for himself for ®fteen years costing 8 marks annually ± the chaplain to be John Rusale. John Everard also left £2 13s 4d yearly, to be paid to Rusale for prayers, the money coming from the pro®ts of land at Crat®eld, Met®eld, Linstead and Withersdale, the parishes mentioned in his father's will.5 This suggests that, before Henry Everard made his will, an agreement was reached in which his son, John, was to inherit Henry's land under an obligation to pay a priest to pray for his father's soul, but one cannot be sure.

Assessment of Wealth and Social Position As Henry Everard has shown us, there really is no hard-and-fast rule for estimating the wealth or the social position of a testator. Occupations, bequests to the high altar, tax assessments and burial places may all be considered, but only a combination of these factors gives any indication of a testator's standing and, even then, it is not certain. An estate's true value cannot be estimated without a full survey of goods, chattels and land. In the Deanery, scarcely any valuations were put on immovable goods, houses for the most part accompanied by land, the extent of which was not mentioned, nor the value known. Many bequests were to be furnished from the sale of such property, the expected price not revealed. `Residue', so frequently referred to and so seldom described, encompassed a large part of the testator's wealth, but to what purpose it was applied is hardly mentioned. Bearing these various obstacles in mind, the following sections examine ways that might be used to assess wealth and social position. Occupations Descriptions of occupations, trade and rank are seldom entered in Deanery wills, unlike the urban areas of Norwich, Bury St Edmunds or Hull. Tanner identi®ed sixty crafts and trades in Norwich: at Bury, between 1439 and 1530, 54 per cent of male testators stated their trade, and a further 5 per cent SROI, IC/AA2/2/337, John Everard, Halesworth 1476. This is Henry Everard's brother. He was buried in Halesworth church and his memorial brass is on the tower arch. The distribution of his `loose change' came to over £6. 5 NRO, NCC Woolman 34, John Everard, Crat®eld 1488. This is Henry Everard's son.

4


THE TESTATORS

63

Plate 5. Halesworth: John Everard's brass, 1476. He was a member of the extensive Everard family from Linstead. The demi-®gure is rare and is 20.5cm long.

gave their social rank such as armiger or yeoman: at Hull, the wills were made by merchants, traders, craftsmen and mariners, a social and economic eÂlite.6 Deanery testators rarely referred to their occupation. Classifying them according to the goods they bequeathed is unsatisfactory, for there were many ®shermen with farming interests disclosed in their wills, and many merchants with shares in ships. Scarisbrick described as ìmprecise' the terms labourer, husbandman and yeoman, and rejected a relationship between socio-economic condition and religious bequests, èven if there were one to be discerned'.7 When the Deanery wills are read and a testator's livelihood is revealed, the court at which the will was proved is often surprising. A chantry priest might be thought insuf®ciently wealthy to warrant registration at the Prerogative 6

7

Dinn, `Bury St Edmunds', 59±60; Heath, `Hull Wills', 212; Tanner, Norwich, 115±16. Norwich wills came from the upper ranks of urban society. Scarisbrick, Reformation and the English People, 10.


64


Court of Canterbury, yet one was; a ®shmonger and a ®shermen interpreted in today's terms might not be expected to have wills proved at the highest level of probate, yet they did.8 Fathers with wills proved at a higher court were not necessarily succeeded by sons with wills similarly registered, nor wives by husbands.9 Trades, rank or status in the Deanery may be interesting from a sociological viewpoint, but, by and large, few are a reliable indication of wealth when compared with the level of probate registration. Bequests to the high altar Tithes worth 10 per cent of the value of the produce or manufacture of a parish were payable to the rector of that parish, and tithe payments were mandatory. On the other hand, bequests `to the high altar', representing a token payment towards tithes which remained unpaid at the time of death, were given to the man on the spot who served the cure, whether he was incumbent or chaplain.10 These payments were obligatory but were seldom omitted. In Norwich, Tanner believed that bequests to the high altar and bequests to the upkeep of the church were similar in substance, but differed in the phrasing.11 In the Deanery this was not so. The majority of testators left bequests to both, but bequests to the high altar differed considerably from bequests left for the church. Until 1530, 90 per cent of testators in the Deanery made bequests to the high altar. Between 1530 and 1547, when non-payment of tithes was widespread, this was re¯ected in a slackening of voluntary gifts to the high altar, and only 67 per cent of Deanery testators left them. In Rumburgh, however, where the priory had been suppressed in 1528, all eight testators between 1528 and 1548 paid their high altar dues; but perhaps this was because old habits died hard ± and slowly ± for Sir William of Wissett, the parish priest, on the command of Bishop Nix of Norwich, was still receiving tithes four years after the suppression of the priory.12 Thomas Steel, the impropriator, wrote to Cromwell to beg him to `. . . send a process against the priest whose name is Sir William of Wissett. . . . I am informed that the priest thrashes out the corn and intends to go into another country.'13 8

9

10

11 12

13

PRO, PCC Vox 23, William Hulverdale, clerk, Southwold 1494; PCC Spert 1, Hugh Jeames, ®shmonger, Dunwich 1541; PCC Pyrnyng 15, Robert Girdler, ®sherman, Dunwich 1544. PRO, PCC Bennett 18, William Godell, Southwold 1509; SROI, IC/AA2/15/109, Robert Goddyll, Southwold 1544; PRO, PCC Marche 42, Mawde, de Norwiche, Yoxford 1418; NRO, NCC Sur¯ete 29±30, John de Norwich, Yoxford 1428. PRO, PCC Bennett 31: `to the farmer of the vicarage of Southwold for this year 2s 4d'; SROB, Baldwyne 105: `to the high altar, for tithes and offerings underpaid 40d to the rector and, for tithes underpaid 8d to those who have the rectory in farm'; Baldwyne 269: `to Master William Starlyng, former vicar of Mendlesham, for tithes forgotten 20d'. I have Peter Northeast to thank for the last two references. Tanner, Norwich, 127; see NRO, NCC Multon 34, John King, Dunwich. See MacCulloch, Suffolk and the Tudors, 66, 229; LPFD v, no. 769: Non-graduate priests were generally accorded the title of `Sir'. LPFD v, no. 1263.


THE TESTATORS

65

Why should high altar bequests be considered unsuitable criteria for establishing wealth or status? Firstly, there were many testators involved in farming enterprises who left bequests to more than one high altar because they owed tithes in more than one parish. In 1521, an Archdeaconry testator, William Bakeler, left 6s 8d to Fordley, his home parish, and a further 6s 8d to both Middleton and Theberton, the adjacent parishes: in Brampton, a member of the parish gentry, Alice Duke, a Norwich Consistory Court testator, left separate bequests of 12d to the high altars of the adjacent parishes of Brampton, Shading®eld and Redisham in 1437.14 This would give her, a Norwich testator, a total of 3s 4d in high altar bequests and William Bakeler, whose will was proved at the lowest court, high altar bequests totalling 20s. Secondly, there were the multiple bequests found in the urban parishes of Dunwich. These were shown in Thomas Rolff 's will of 1474.15 He left a sixpenny bequest to the high altar of St Peter's parish church in Dunwich, and 13s 4d to the fabric. He then left to the fabric of St John's and All Saints' parish churches 3s 4d each. The Friars Minor were to have 3s 4d, the Friars Preacher 1s 8d, and there were further bequests of 1s 8d to the reparation of Temple Chapel and to the hospital churches of St James and Holy Trinity, as well as 10s to Dallinghoo church and 6s 8d to Chars®eld church. Can he be judged on his 6d bequest to St Peter's high altar? Dunwich was the only settlement within the Deanery to have more than one parish, but its testators regularly left multiple bequests such as Rolff 's. Wealth cannot be assessed from high altar bequests unless these re¯ect the ®nancial position of the testators Status cannot be classi®ed from high altar bequests as the amount bequeathed was arbitrary, not mandatory. In Norwich, bequests were usually worth between 1s and 3s 4d, rarely more than £1; and at Bury St Edmunds, nearly half the gentlemen and esquires made bequests of less than 6s 8d, two making bequests of less than 2s.16 In the Deanery, William Brandon of Henham, knight, only left 3s 4d in 1475;17 and just under twothirds of Deanery testators (62 per cent), including those who gave nothing at all, gave less than 3s 4d. Mortuaries feature infrequently in wills and then only in certain parishes. They appear to have been more of a heriot, as Robert Swanson has suggested, and, in Hunting®eld, Edward Barfoote's mortuary payment in 1503 was one horse and the bequest to the high altar 2s.18

14

15 16 17 18

SROI, IC/AA2/8/160, William Bakeler, Fordley 1521; NRO, NCC Doke 20, Alice Duke, Brampton 1437. SROI, IC/AA2/2/266, Thomas Rolff, Dunwich 1474. Tanner, Norwich, 127, 115; Dinn, `Bury St Edmunds', 49±50, 64±6. PRO, PCC Milles 16, William Brandon, knight, Wangford 1475. Swanson, Church and Society, 216; SROI, IC/AA2/4/127, Edward Barfoote, Hunting®eld 1503.


66


Tax assessments Tax assessments were of®cial and presumed to be accurate, although it has been observed that, whereas compilers of subsidy lists would have been careful about those of superior rank, they may have been careless about returns of the common people.19 The poll tax of 1381 lacks suf®cient local details for the Deanery, and only the 1524 subsidy can be used for comparative purposes. The subsidy of 1524 was levied either on goods or on land, whichever produced the most revenue, and it presents a graduated index of tax-payers; yet, when the subsidy list of 1524 is used in comparison with wills, its value is thrown into doubt.20 Attempting to estimate the worth of a testator is not easy. Margaret Bowker, working with part of the 1524 Buckinghamshire subsidy roll and the 1522 muster roll, wrote that `this apparent gold-mine of information proves to be at once tantalizing and unhelpful'.21 One problem was being able to identify the correct individual, and another was not knowing whether the value of goods stayed the same over a period of time. In Buckinghamshire in 1520 Thomas Awdley died and his worth could be assessed anywhere between £5 and £20 from the probate fee of 2s 8d, but in the 1524 subsidy, Katherine, his wife, was assessed on only £2 of goods. This raised various points. Was the full value of Katherine's goods really £2? Had there been tax evasion? How much had Thomas's goods really been worth? Had some goods been taken by his offspring? Similar issues are equally troublesome in the Dunwich deanery, for it is not always possible to identify an individual correctly. In Westhall, Richard Gyle called both his sons John; and, at Yoxford, John Styward had three sons, John ®lio meo seniori, John ®lio secundo and John tercio ®lio meo, while, in Halesworth, Margaret Barker's daughters were called Agnes Senior and Agnes Junior.22 We cannot be certain, either, that the value of goods did remain the same, and the period around 1524 is not a particularly fruitful time for Deanery wills. Nevertheless, forty-three wills, written within a maximum of ®ve years after the 1524 subsidy, are available for comparison. The forty-three testators are listed according to their tax assessment, which is then set against high altar bequests, the court at which probate was granted (but not the fees paid), the preferred burial place and the estimated total spent on their religious bequests, although this last item is often unknown. The list appears to be straightforward, but the names of Avelyne Skutte and Downy Bek, names which are the least likely to be duplicated, 19

20

21 22

J. C. K. Cornwall, `The Early Tudor Gentry', English Historical Review, Series 2, xvii (1964±65), 456±75, at 457. E. Powell, The Rising in East Anglia in 1381 (Cambridge 1896), 115±17; Hervey, 1524 Subsidy, 65±119, 194±6. Bowker, `Some Archdeacons' Court Books', 298±302. SROI, IC/AA2/1/173, Richard Gyle, Westhall 1452; NRO, NCC Betyns 94, John Styward, Yoxford 1464; SROI, IC/AA2/4/55, Margaret Barker, Halesworth 1500.


THE TESTATORS

67

have been chosen as examples. Their lands, the extent of which is unknown, would have been worth less than the valuation of £2 put on their goods in the assessment (see Appendix). Avelyne's ®rst husband, William Sproute, died in 1491 and left her his tenement Caberds, to be sold after her death.23 Avelyne remarried. Robert Skutte, her second husband, died in 1518, leaving her tenements in Chediston and Cookley and all his movable and immovable goods. In 1524, she was assessed at £2 worth of goods. In 1528, she left 12d to the high altar, but her gross outgoings to the church were £11 7s 8d. She had received £24 13s 4d from her daughter, who had bought her dwelling house for 22 marks (£14 13s 4d), and Avelyne also refers to Caybyrds which Ì sold to my daughter Joan for £10.' On this evidence, it would be dif®cult to trust her tax assessment. Downy Bek was a mariner and made his will in 1528.24 He was taxed on £2 of goods in the 1524 subsidy. He asked to be buried in the church, and left 3s 4d to the high altar. From the sale of his boat, the Mary and John, £22 was to be paid to the church within two years to make a cross of silver-gilt with Mary and John. He left bequests totalling £12 6s 8d to be found from the sale of a house in Southwold. He continued, `To my nephew my great boat . . . to Joan Thomas whom I should take to wife if God send me life, my boat called the Blythe . . .'. The poor of Easton Bavents were to received 6s 8d annually for seven years. These provisions cast doubt on his tax assessment of £2. If those 1524 subsidy assessments of the Deanery testators, making their wills between 1500 and 1530, are compared with Julian Cornwall's status guide in Wealth and Society, only just over 4 per cent of them were worth more than £20 in goods annually.25 This places them in the bracket of knights, leading gentry and merchants in overseas trade: it leaves the Deanery, however, with a will-making society composed largely of peasant farmers, craftsmen, smallholders, arti®cers, labourers and servants. A broad guide to status based on personal wealth £100 + £40±£99 £20±£39 £10±£19 £3±£9 £2 £1 and less 23

24 25

Knights, leading gentry, merchants in overseas trade Gentry, higher yeomen, provincial merchants Minor gentry, yeomen, lesser merchants Larger peasant farmers, highly skilled craftsmen Peasant farmers, less-skilled craftsmen Smallholders, village craftsmen, senior servants Arti®cers, labourers, servants

SROI, IC/AA2/3/130, William Sproute, Chediston 1491; IC/AA2/8/49, Robert Skutte, Chediston 1518; IC/AA2/10/17, Avelyne Skutte, Chediston 1528. SROI, IC/AA2/10/41, Downy Bek, Easton Bavents 1528. Cornwall, Wealth and Society, 29±30; J. F. Pound, The Military Survey for 1522 for Babergh Hundred, SRS xxviii (1985). The muster rolls of 1522, precursor of the 1524 subsidy, supply valuable evidence of occupations; in Suffolk, only the rolls for Babergh Hundred are extant.


68


Reference to an of®cial list such as the 1524 subsidy produces deviations. But it is necessary to bear in mind Cornwall's guide to wealth and status when considering the range of commemorative practices and the ®nancial commitment of the Deanery parishioners. Burial within the walls ± churches and chapels Burials within a church or chapel were the prerogative of the most important parishioners. Status permitted burial within the church although those of suitable standing could choose whether they wished to be buried there or not. Burials in churchyards, on the other hand, were open to all, although there was the same jockeying for advantageous position out in the cemetery as there was in the nave. Burial within the church usually cost the testator 6s 8d. Incumbents expected to be buried within the church, but their personal preferences dictated the ®nal resting place, and, in the late fourteenth century, the rectors of Benacre and Heveningham elected to be buried inside, in Benacre's Lady Chapel, and outside, in Heveningham's churchyard, respectively.26 The gentry also exercised choice. In 1499, Sir John Heveningham requested burial ìn the chapel that late I did make', and, in 1383, Sir John Argentein had left the choice to God.27 Argentein's status merited church burial, and, the following year, his widow, Margery, indicated interment in Halesworth church.28 Widows specifying a particular site usually reveal the ®nal resting place of their husbands. John Poty's burial instructions of 1514 were indeterminate, but those of his widow, Margaret, written the following year, were not. She asked to lie on the north side of Walberswick church beside him.29 The Potys were both Archdeaconry testators, but it was their status in the parochial hierarchy of Walberswick which enabled them to be buried in church. Most Archdeaconry testators, however, who opted for a churchyard burial, were quite aware that their status denied them anything better. The testator's standing in life was suggested by his position within the church after death, proximity to the chancel being paramount.30 Husbands lay by wives, mothers with daughters, and for those with neither spouse nor children, burial was requested next to parents or siblings. In 1500, Robert Bondes, possibly the last of the resident Henstead gentry, chose to lie in Henstead chancel next to his father's tomb: two years later, the Halesworth 26

27

28 29

30

NRO, NCC Heydon 155, John Martyn, rector, Benacre 1378; NCC Heydon 216, Henry, rector, Heveningham 1383. PRO, PCC Moone 9, John Hevenyngham, knight, Heveningham 1499; NRO, NCC Heydon 206, John Argentein, knight, Halesworth 1382. NRO, NCC Heydon 219, Dame Margery Argentein, Halesworth 1383. SROI, IC/AA2/7/49, John Poty, Walberswick 1514; IC/AA2/7/121, Margaret Boty, Walberswick 1515. P. ArieÁs, The Hour of our Death, trans. H. Weaver (Harmondsworth 1983), 79, 92; F. Burgess, English Churchyard Memorials (London 1963), 20.


THE TESTATORS

69

priest, John Everard, wanted to be interred next to his sister in Wrentham church, she being buried inside on account of her own, or perhaps her husband's, social standing.31 In 1504, John Ovy, rector of Uggeshall and parochial chaplain of Blythburgh, requested burial in Blythburgh churchyard next to his mother, apparently having chosen to join her where she lay.32 In his will of 1539, Thomas Beteson, rector of Wrentham, asked for a churchyard burial near his mother, but stipulated a position by the chancel door, a suitable site for a priest whose next-of-kin was obliged to remain outside; and the same situation applied to Thomas Clerk, vicar of Reydon, who, in 1540, asked to be buried by his mother in Reydon churchyard.33 The presence of resident gentry discouraged parishioners from requesting church interment. At Wangford, where the Cravens, Mickle®elds and Brandons lived during the ®fteenth century, only they and the local clergy requested burial within the church. Every other parishioner opted for the churchyard. Nevertheless, the pattern of gentry ownership and patronage had greatly changed in the early sixteenth century, by which time only one Suffolk parish in four had resident gentry.34 In parishes without gentry, Archdeaconry testators might now have a justi®able right to be buried in the parish church accorded by their position in local society. The Hoptons were the principal family in Blythburgh throughout the ®fteenth century; and although a few testators requested burial in the church during that time, the number of Archdeaconry testators requesting burial inside increased after the Hoptons had moved their principal residence to Yoxford (Plan I). Southwold and Walberswick, with stupendous new churches but no resident gentry, supported buoyant groups of mercantile status who rightly expected to be buried within the buildings which they had lately ®nanced. Dunwich had its own gentry of local families such as the Moresses, the Barbours and the Leuks, for example, and a remarkably high percentage of Archdeaconry testators requesting church burial. Throughout the period 1370 to 1547, 55 per cent of Archdeaconry testators requested burial within St Peter's church; and 30 per cent of Archdeaconry testators and more than 50 per cent of Consistory court testators requested burial in the three churches of Dunwich, representing an urban upper crust similar to the merchants, mariners, traders and craftsmen of Hull. In Hull there were two churches, two friaries and the Charterhouse. Sixty-four testators requested burial inside St Mary Lowgate, and more than two hundred testators asked to be interred in Holy Trinity church so that Holy Trinity, in particular, `must have seemed like a council chamber of deceased civic of®cers'.35 In Bury St Edmunds between 31

32 33

34 35

NRO, NCC Cage 206, Robert Bondes, Henstead 1500; NCC Popy 138, John Everard, priest, Halesworth 1502. NRO, NCC Ryxe, John Ovy, rector, Uggeshall 1504. NRO, NCC Mingaye 155±6, Thomas Beteson, rector, Wrentham 1539; NCC Hyll 140±1, Thomas Clerk, vicar, Reydon 1540. Cornwall, Èarly Tudor Gentry', 459. Heath, `Hull Wills', 211.


70


Plan I. Blythburgh, Holy Trinity church: Burial Sites


THE TESTATORS

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72


1439 and 1539, where testators have been graded according to their high altar bequests, 66 per cent of the highest grade, 23 per cent of the middling grade, and 11 per cent of the lowest grade asked for burial in church.36 These urban percentages are far higher than those for rural parishes. Did towns have a smaller percentage of wills than rural areas? In the 1520s, the populations of Norwich and the deanery of Dunwich, both based on the 1524 subsidy, were 10,000 and 9,500 respectively. Wills written between 1518 and 1530, both in Norwich and in the Deanery (including Dunwich borough), represent 3 per cent of the respective populations. Town churches, however, invariably had smaller graveyards than rural churches, and the death rate, too, was higher in towns than in the rural areas.37 The former factor probably encouraged requests for burial inside. Any evidence from Dunwich has vanished, but St Peter Mancroft, the great market church of Norwich, has a snug curtilage, processional arches in the tower and a processional way below the chancel denoting a scarcity of space. Why? Because the present ®fteenth-century building sprawls across territory originally assigned, centuries before, as a churchyard for a much smaller building. Southwold's situation was similar, the ®fteenth-century rebuilding replacing an earlier chapel. The prior of Wangford granted to the hamlet of Southwold two pieces of land on the south and west `for the enlargement of the churchyard which from the foundation of the new chapel [the present church] lately erected was too little. They rendering annually . . . one rose ¯ower for all services'.38 Inadequate churchyards in urban situations might well encourage the more fortunate members of society to seek interment within. Burial within walls ± religious houses Almost one in ten lay testators from the city of Norwich chose to be buried in friaries, which led the city's parochial clergy to claim that friars attracted the well-to-do.39 In the Deanery, burials within friaries were not as common as this, but were certainly more frequent than burials in monasteries. Twenty testators from the three courts of probate wanted to be buried in Greyfriars church, Dunwich; two wished to be buried in Blackfriars. Burials in monasteries were scarce. In 1419, Thomas Craven of Henham wished to be buried alongside his parents in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin in Wangford priory, but, in 1475, Sir William Brandon chose to be buried in Wangford parish church, as did his son, Sir Robert, in 1523.40 Presumably, 36 37 38 39 40

Dinn, `Bury St Edmunds', 596±7. Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and Family, 332. Gardner, Dunwich, 209. Tanner, Norwich, 12. NRO, DN/Reg. 4, Liber 8, 145±6, Thomas Cravene, esquire, Wangford 1419; PRO, PCC Milles, William Brandon, knight, Wangford 1475; PCC Bodfelde 28, Robert Brandon, knight, Wangford 1523.


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Sir William was attempting to establish a new burial site for his family, rather than having to lie beside his predecessors, the Cravens. Only two testators, one a priest, requested burial within Blythburgh priory in 1518 and 1520.41 Rumburgh priory was not chosen by any member of the laity, nor did Leiston abbey appeal to its parishioners, but in 1390 the rector of Theberton, originally a canon at Leiston, requested burial within Leiston abbey.42 A corrody in a religious house could furnish clothing, food, shelter and `pocket money' and it promised burial within monastic walls.43 An indenture, drawn up in 1458 by the abbot of Sibton, survives for a corrody for John and Alice Fyn from Crat®eld.44 Many details are missing from the document, the most important being the price the Fyns had to pay to ensure their future, although a down-payment was usually worked out on the institutional cost for a ten-year period and was paid in a lump sum.45 On the other hand, as Alice was left a life interest in the manor of Uffords which, at her death, was to be released to the abbot and convent of Sibton, this may have been their ®nancial settlement.46 In the Fyns' case, theirs was not a full corrody. They must have lived at Sibton as corrodians for some three years before John made his will, requesting burial in the abbey, the funeral obsequies to be carried out by the Cistercian brothers; and John's will suggests that even if they had continued to live at Crat®eld, their status would have warranted burial within the church there. At Sibton, they were to have a room within the monastery and half the house called Applehouse. There was a garden outside and access to the pond, Tylowspont, as well as fresh fruit from the `great' garden. They could take one horse with them, and the abbey would provide two hundredweight of faggots and kindling ìn any year' and twelve pounds of candles. Their lives were to be more independent than those of the Lynn corrodians, Alan and Alice Smith, who entered the Carmelite friary in 1368, where they built their own apartments from their own materials.47 In 1401, their apartments were granted to Robert and Alice Smith, probably their son and daughter-in-law, but now a proviso was added: the corrody became void if either of the corrodians re-married on the death of their spouse. Perhaps the senior Smiths eventually had become unwanted boarders `who disobligingly refused to die'.48 41

42 43 44 45

46 47

48

SROI, IC/AA2/8/14, John Arpyngham, Blythburgh 1518; NRO, NCC Heyward 119, John Drake, parish priest, Blythburgh 1520. NRO, NCC Harsyk 172, Brother Robert of Darsham, rector, Theberton 1390. Dymond, Thetford, i, 28±30. SROI, HD 1538/345/1/10; NRO, NCC Brosyard 258, John Fyn, Crat®eld 1461. C. Rawcliffe, Medicine for the Soul: the Life, Death and Resurrection of an English Medieval Hospital. St Giles's, Norwich, c. 1249±1550 (Stroud 1999), 172; Dymond, Thetford, 28±30. SROI, HD 1538/345/1/32. A. G. Little, `Corrodies at the Carmelite Friary of Lynn' (ed. E. Stone), ed. C. W. Dugmore, JEH ix (1958), 8±29, at 11±12. Rawcliffe, Medicine for the Soul, 172±3.


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The Sibton corrody was extended to whichever spouse survived, and this was Alice, who outlived John by many years.49 The Fyns had no children and John bequeathed his tenement, Benselyns, and its appurtenances to Crat®eld church where the property appears in the churchwardens' accounts. John's executor, a nephew, John Smith, was granted free entry to the Sibton apartment for forty days after the Fyns' deaths to administer their goods.50 This clause may have been insisted upon by Fyn himself in the light of precautions sometimes taken to protect a wealthy corrodian's property post mortem. No other corrodies are known in the Deanery which can be compared to that at Sibton, although inhabitants of the Dunwich hospitals, such as Thomas Walsh, another well-heeled testator from Crat®eld, and Robert Markawnt, late of Lax®eld, may have made similar arrangements.51 Burials within the churchyard In the churchyard, some wished to be close to the church itself, but quali®cation to be placed near the building may have been entirely dependent upon how much they were prepared to pay for this privilege. Nevertheless, there are no fees charged or mentioned for churchyard burial in the Deanery's wills or churchwardens' accounts, and this omission is general in Suffolk. The position of the grave was of great signi®cance to many testators. To be buried in front of the main door was important if you wished to be remembered in the prayers of churchgoers passing into the body of the church.52 Burial anywhere near the entrance to the church was considered signi®cantly better than interment on the periphery of the churchyard. Why, then, should William Dryver, a chaplain of Halesworth in 1541, request burial ìn the churchyard upon the bank by the east gate on the south side of the path'? 53 This left him at the furthest point from the church, but the parishioners living immediately east of the church would enter by the east gate and pass by his grave, praying for his soul. His preference for this particular spot might be because Le Chaunterhouse, the accommodation for the chantry priests, stood near the east gate. Burial in the porch was the nearest one could get to be being buried inside the church while remaining outside.54 In 1496, Robert Serle wanted to rest in the south porch of Covehithe church by the holy water stoup, and, the following year, Margaret Cok asked to be buried in Covehithe's north porch.55 49

50 51

52 53 54 55

Raven, Crat®eld, 23. In 1494, this legacy is entered, Ìtem per legationem Alic' ffyn . . . per manus Willi Aleys et Willi Rows 20s'. Little, `Corrodies at Lynn', 10. SROI, IC/AA2/2/223, Thomas Walsh, Dunwich 1467; IC/AA2/5/137, Robert Markawnt, Dunwich 1510. SROI, IC/AA2/8/160, William Bakeler, Fordley 1521. NRO, NCC Mingaye 250, William Dryver, chaplain, Halesworth 1541. NRO, NCC Spyltimbre 215, Joan Fuller, Reydon 1508. NRO, NCC Multon 145±46, Robert Serle, Covehithe 1496; NCC Multon 10, Margaret Cok, Covehithe 1497.


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Porch burials tended to be expensive, as paving had to be removed and then relaid, but interment inside or immediately outside the porch was commonly requested. The south side was preferable to the north, but this depended on the locality. William Fishe, a priest from Halesworth, chose to be buried `between the wall of the chapel of St Anne and the path next thereby' in 1528.56 This may have put him on the north side of the church ± but in Halesworth, the main door was on the north side, overlooking the market place and the hustle and bustle of the town, and Fishe chose a prime position. Burial groupings tended to be familial in the churchyard, many placements being poignant reminders of the multiple marriages that were common. Robert Dolfynby of Walberswick was to be buried `by my wife and my children' in 1489, and, in 1500, William Porter of Peasenhall asked to be buried between both his wives; John Baret was to go `by my other wife and children' in Halesworth in 1519, Robert Sepens `by my other wife' in Spexhall in 1533, and Edward Horyon was buried on the south side of Sibton churchyard `by my last wife' in 1541.57 Three oblong stones, engraved with pro animabus inscriptions, but heavy with whitewash, survive inside Leiston's late medieval tower. The topmost stone commemorates Henry and Isabel Loof, that in the middle Edmund and Margerie Moose, that at the bottom Thomas and Alice Clerk (Plate 6). When Thomas Clerk made his will in 1464 and when Isabel Loof made hers in 1490, they both wished to be buried in Leiston churchyard, she asking to lie beside her late husband Henry.58 Yet the inscriptions would not have survived if the stones had been outside, and they prompt the question, were these testators, after their death, considered to be of suf®cient status to be granted interment within the building? Clerk's will does not reveal him as a generous patron of the church, but Isabel's does. In it, she leaves four acres of land, with details of abuttals, to the use and pro®ts of Leiston church and St Nicholas chapel, Sizewell. The Mooses' wills have not survived at all, but from Davy's early nineteenth-century collection comes a description of the medieval nave, demolished by the mid-nineteenth century, with the following note: Òn E. side of window on S opposite the pulpit, on a small piece of stone let into the wall, Orate pro animabus Edmund Moose et Margerie consortis suis'.59 If one of the three stones was in situ in the old church in the early nineteenth century, perhaps all three had been there since the ®fteenth century, safely hidden beneath their coating of whitewash.

56 57

58

59

NRO, NCC Attmere 27±8, William Fishe, priest, Halesworth 1528. SROI, IC/AA2/3/82, Robert Dolfynby, Walberswick 1489; NRO, NCC Cage 127, 196, William Porter, Peasenhall 1500; NCC Robinson 55, John Baret Halesworth, 1519; SROI, IC/AA2/11/108, Robert Sepens, Spexhall 1533; IC/AA2/14/175, Edward Horyon, Sibton 1541. SROI, IC/AA2/2/116, Isabel Loof, Leiston 1490; IC/AA2/3/112, Thomas Clerk, Leiston 1464. BL, Add. MS 19080/4/192.


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Plate 6. Leiston church: three ®fteenth-century inscriptions. They record three married couples, the Loofs, the Mooses and the Clerks. The wills of Isabel Loof (d. 1490) and Thomas Clerk (d. 1464) have survived.

Burials `. . . Where it please God' Some wills left the place of burial unspeci®ed, with the choice left wide open in the words `. . . where it please God'. This phrase was used throughout the Deanery by any testator, irrespective of wealth or status. There is nothing to suggest that this was a new element in burial provisions, as has been suggested in a survey of the Kentish gentry.60 Neither was this phrasing used more frequently by mariners and ®shermen, whose itinerant lives made burial in their home parish less likely, although the wording shows that they were 60

P. W. Fleming, `Charity, Faith and the Gentry of Kent, 1422±1529', Property and Politics: Essays in Later Medieval English History, ed. A. Pollard (Gloucester 1984), 36± 58, at 51±2.


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aware of the options: `. . . And my body to be buried in the churchyard of St Andrew in Walberswick if it please God that I may have my life `til I come home or else my body to be buried where it please God to send it to land.'61 On the other hand, wills written at sea did not need to mention the place of burial: this must have been all too obvious. Robert Pylgryme and Richard Gravener of Covehithe made their wills from their berths while ®shing for cod in northern waters, Gravener `being upon the sea in Yselond ffare'. Both wills, written during the summer of 1516, had probate granted in November at the end of the Iceland ®shing season when the boats returned.62 Status could not be assumed, neither could burial in church, because this depended on the testators' `standing' as viewed by their peers. Border-line cases required collective decisions before church burial was sanctioned. The churchwardens were consulted as representatives of the parish, the permission of the priest was required and, in certain cases, the patron's consent. John Goodwyn's bequest of 1520 suggests that the money which changed hands swayed the decision: `. . . that if it please the town [Thorpehithe] that I shall be buried in the church, I give to the said church 6s 8d and, if not, I give to the said church 3s 4d to the reparation': or William Bacheler, who suggested ìf it pleased the parishioners', that he should be buried in Kelsale church in 1515.63 In these circumstances, priests, wardens and parishioners sat in judgement. There was no easy way to a church burial.

The Limitations of Wills as Evidence Testamentary evidence lacking detail may be due to `conventions so well established that neither prescription nor explanation were necessary'.64 Wills were written for a society accustomed to oral tradition, and, although some bequests suggest the testator was a miser, a non-believer or destitute, many of the testators' wishes did not need to be written down. Complicated arrangements could be made ante-mortem and, although not included in a will, would have been faithfully undertaken post mortem by spouses, clerics, executors and members of the community. The names of clerics loom large among the executors, supervisors and witnesses, revealing the abundance of clerical personnel within the locality.65 They may also have been the scribes, although Scarisbrick argued that it was the testators' voice heard in wills.66 The later the will, the more likely 61 62

63

64 65 66

SROI, IC/AA2/5/209, Nicholas Maryot, Walberswick 1510. SROI, IC/AA2/7/161, Robert Pylgryme; IC/AA2/7/161, Richard Gravener, both of Covehithe 1516. SROI, IC/AA2/9/42, John Goodwyn, Aldringham 1520; IC/AA2/7/122, William Bacheler, Kelsale 1515. Burgess, `Pious Convention', 16, 20±1. Houlbrooke, Church Courts, 101; Tanner, Norwich, 117. Scarisbrick, Reformation and the English People, 11.


78


that the scribe would have been an educated parishioner.67 In the Deanery, there are scarcely a dozen Protestant prologues.68 These appear for the ®rst time in the 1530s, and whatever the prologues infer, they cannot be used in isolation to diagnose religious sympathies ± for they need the support of additional evidence within the will itself or alternative external evidence.69 The wording of two prologues written in 1541 in Yoxford, where the testators' souls were bequeathed to `my saviour and redeemer Jesus Christ', is a case in point.70 Although the prologue in itself might not arouse too much suspicion, the external evidence is that Yoxford had a Reformist vicar, Thomas Wylley, who later lost the living under Mary Tudor. In 1537, Wylley had written to Thomas Cromwell: The Lord make you the instrument of my help, Lord Cromwell, that I may have free liberty to preach the Truth . . . the most part of the priests of Suffolk will not receive me unto their churches to preach, but have disdained me ever since I made a play against the Pope's counselers, Error, Colle Clogger of conscience, and Incredulity, that and the Act of Parliament had not followed after, I had been counted a great liar. . . . Aid me, for Christ's sake, that I may preach Christ. Thomas Wylley of Yoxforthe, fatherless and forsaken.71

When a run of wills is available, it is possible to see a change in attitudes, however slight. In 1532 John Cary, the rector of Cookley, died.72 His will was traditional, leaving money for the new candlebeam at Cookley and for a two-year service to be sung in Cookley church by Sir Andrew Smith, chaplain, one of his witnesses. Then Cary said: Ànd if it fortune that the person that succeed will bind the said Sir Andrew to any inconvenience, that then the said Sir Andrew to sing out the said service at Ubbeston church'. Cookley's patron was Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, who presented the new incumbent, Richard Burton [Burbur], on Cary's death. It is said that Brandon's beliefs remained òn the conservative side of ambiguity', his interest in Reformist ideas developing after his fourth marriage in 1534; and although Burton's religious preferences are not known, he was deprived of the living under Mary Tudor.73 67

68

69

70

71 72 73

M. Spufford, Contrasting Communities: English Villagers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Cambridge 1974), 182±3. M. Zell, `Wills as Historical Sources', 67±74; for earlier, unorthodox terminology, see K. B. McFarlane, Lancastrian Kings and Lollard Knights (Oxford 1972), 207±20; Swanson, Church and Society, 266±7; Spufford, Contrasting Communities, 320±34; Dickens, The English Reformation, 266. G. J. Mayhew, `The Progress of the Reformation in East Sussex, 1530±1559', Southern History v (1983), 38±67. NRO, NCC Whytefoot 70, Anne Sampson, Yoxford 1541; NCC Whytefoot 126, Richard Swan, Yoxford 1542. LPFD xii, pt i, no. 529. NRO, NCC Alpe 25±7, John Cary, rector, Cookley 1532. Suckling, Suffolk, II, 207. Burbur is the name given by Suckling; G. Baskerville, `Married Clergy and Pensioned Religious in Norwich Diocese, 1555', EHR xlviii


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Four wills from Cookley indicate both change and confusion. The ®rst testator, in 1538, bequeathed his soul to almighty God, his maker and redeemer; the second, in 1541, had Protestant overtones in the phrase `the unstabylnes of this wretchyd worlde' but speci®ed traditional payments on his burial including a request for dirige for twenty years; in 1542, the third used the traditional preamble and left money to buy an alb ànd other things most needful to be had to maintain and uphold the service of God'; and the fourth in 1545 bequeathed his soul to God, Jesus Christ, the intercession of the Virgin, mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the associate joy of the blessed company of heaven, but left no pious provisions in 1545.74 In Cookley, with hindsight, there is a hint of changing sympathies in the parishioners' wills, but it is John Cary who sets the alarm bells ringing.

Charity Begins at Home The concerns of testators were wide ranging, and almost all efforts towards improving the comfort of neighbours in the community were considered to be charity Some legacies furnished very practical bodily needs, such as clothing, heating, food and drink: necessities which were provided by ful®lling the seven corporal acts of mercy and which bene®ted mostly the poor, the sick, the old, the widowed and the orphaned. The implementation of these acts was implicit in the doctrine of salvation; and the care and concern shown to less fortunate members of society weighed in the balance at the Last Judgement, the imagery of which ®lled the spandrels of chancel arches or the arches themselves. The fate of social deviants, too, was made explicit in the Doom painting set before the people of Wenhaston (Plate 7). For those who knew their Latin, the message was unequivocal, For in what is de®cient, make [up] thou for it. Be thou good.75 There were bequests, however, which ful®lled charitable ideals by providing money or goods in kind for secular needs or, as Alexander Peers put it in 1504, `to charitable works as in churches and highways'.76 An unusual coupling, maybe, but bequests to highways were regarded as a high priority where charity was concerned. Secular concerns were assuaged by bequests facilitating transport and communications through provision of better roads and maintenance of bridges and jetties. Social problems were eased by providing almshouses for the aged. All these were cases of charity

74

75

76

(1933), 43±64, gives the name as Burton; MacCulloch, Suffolk and the Tudors, 158±9; Gunn, Charles Brandon, 104, 198±201. Cookley wills: NRO, NCC Godsalve 258, John Nicholl; SROI, IC/AA2/14/1, Robert Spatchyt; NRO, NCC Mingaye 262±3, Thomas Lambe; NCC Whytefoot 5±6, Henry Moore. K. Whale, `The Wenhaston Doom: a Biography of a Sixteenth-century Panel Painting', PSIAH xxxix, pt iii (1999), 299±316, at 304. NRO, NCC Ryxe 155, Alexander Peers, Holton 1504.


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Plate 7. Wenhaston Doom: weighing the souls. Two tiny imps are weighed against a single soul, but their pan which is going up carries less weight in worth than the pan carrying the soul on the way down.


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beginning at home, and matters needing attention, and of importance to the Deanery community for both physical and social survival, can be seen at a glance from the wills made by local people. Today's traveller takes for granted the ease of modern travel. Yesterday's absolute necessity for a good network of roads and bridges is brought into focus by Robert Reynes' aide-meÂmoire c. 1470, in which he counted the miles from Acle to Canterbury by measuring from bridge to bridge thus: `10 mile to Beccles, 7 mile to Blythburgh, 4 mile to East Bridge, 5 mile to Snape, 7 mile to Woodbridge, 5 mile to Ipswich . . .'.77 The well-watered lands of east Suffolk provided ease of transport and communication if this was water-borne, but it was another matter if the journey was being undertaken on foot.78 In Southwold, early bequests were made to bridges in the town, but, by the 1470s, bequests were made to the great bridge (magno ponti), a new construction across Buss Creek where Mights bridge is now situated.79 Potter bridge and Wevylsee bridge, both of immense importance to the trade of Reydon and Southwold, were situated further inland and money was left for their repair, particularly in the mid-®fteenth century. Potter bridge spanned the river known as Easton or Frostenden river (Frostenden had been an inland port in 1086) at the junction of South Cove, Easton Bavents and Reydon parishes, and it forged a vital link for overland transport travelling north along the coast road towards Yarmouth. Wevylsee bridge, known today as Wolsey bridge, lay across the river Wang between Reydon and Bulcamp and was crossed by any traf®c passing from the coast to Blythburgh and beyond to the hinterland.80 The lane to Middleton bridge and the causeway leading to Middleton church were both remembered in the 1530s; and Aldringham bridge, straddling the Hundred river on the southern boundary of the Deanery, received 40d in 1520.81 Roads and causeways presented constant problems, manifest in names such as Torsslough, Kevyngs slowe and Kirtenesse slough, which was also known as Christmas Lane, the notorious main road from Harleston to Halesworth, `that famous lane so much spoken of for myre & dirt'.82 Stones 77

78

79

80

81

82

C. Louis, ed., The Commonplace Book of Robert Reynes of Acle: an edition of Tanner MS 407 (New York 1980), 256. NRO, NCC Brosyard 69, Henry Barbour, priest, Blythburgh 1457; NCC Neve 64, Elena Jalcy, Theberton 1456; SROI, IC/AA2/2/115, William Andrew, Theberton 1464; NRO, NCC Gelour 22, John Wood, Blythburgh 1471; SROI, IC/AA2/4/122, William Collett, Blythburgh 1503. SROI, IC/AA2/2/206, Robert Banke, Southwold 1470; IC/AA2/2/219, Thomas Peion, Southwold 1471. SROI, IC/AA2/1/112, Thomas Childeros, South Cove 1444; IC/AA2/2/128,133, Katherine Notyngham, Easton Bavents 1456; NRO, NCC Betyns 136, John Wayn¯eet, Southwold 1459; BL, Cotton Ch. IV, 34, William Mickle®eld, Blyford 1439. SROI, IC/AA2/10/151, Robert Love, Middleton 1530; IC/AA2/12/201, William Wyllett, the elder, miller, 1536; IC/AA2/9/42, John Goodwyn, Thorpe 1520. NRO, NCC Sur¯ete 89, Thomas Bangot, Walberswick 1431; SROI, IC/AA2/2/326, Henry Moor, Frostenden 1476; IC/AA2/1/7, Thomas Bret, Halesworth 1440; MacCulloch, Chorography, 55±6.


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were to be gathered for its repair in 1528.83 Tumbrels were occasionally offered on loan in order to carry a speci®c number of loads of stones or to work for a certain number of days; but further off the beaten track conditions can have never been very good, causing the chantry priest of Hunting®eld to leave 20s to `the foul ways in Hunting®eld' in 1499.84 Approach roads to market towns were kept clear for commercial traf®c, the highway between the Park and the Deer Wood in Halesworth receiving a bequest in 1496, a gift almost as essential as that left for the upkeep of paths leading to (or from) rural churches.85 Travel by land necessitated the upkeep of roads, and travel by sea demanded the maintenance of piers and jetties. The plight of St John's church in Dunwich and the building of its pier are evident in several testaments, one of which was made in 1510 by Baty Gosmere: Ì wyll that John Brown of Dersham have my maser payinge therfor 40s the wyche 40s I geve toward the byldyng of the pere a geyn seynt John in Donwych'; and despite the arrangements made by William Godell in 1509 for his chantry endowment to revert in time to Southwold town for the upkeep of its piers and jetties, the sea was still `beating dayly to the greate ruyne and destruction of the said towne' forty years later.86 In 1538, repair work took place on Southwold haven, to which James Sponer added a further 20s for a new pier on the north side and, across the Blyth estuary, the Walberswick parishioners had built the new quay. Some testators made contributions to more than one road or more than one bridge, and, similar to the high altar bequests which are described in Chapter Four, multiple bequests may indicate various routes used by a testator as he journeyed to landholdings lying in several parishes. From the general tenor of wills and testaments which include legacies to roads and bridges, these testators appear prosperous and their bequests are assigned from residual estate without apparent dif®culty. Many of them were the mercantile gentry and the yeomen of the area and their concerns were not entirely altruistic, for it was essential to have a smooth access for their goods, either to markets inland or across the North Sea to those abroad and, without trade and successful communications, there would have been little surplus cash for poor relief. Grander charitable gestures needed greater resources. Property from wealthy townsfolk featured in bequests, and Robert Genne, in his will of 1502, gave his tenement to his wife, Katheryne, for her lifetime, after which 83 84

85 86

NRO, NCC Attmere 27±8, William Fishe, Halesworth 1528. NRO, NCC Aleyn 192, John Warin, Reydon 1454; SROI, IC/AA2/2/16, Thomas Schownes, Wrentham 1459; Harper-Bill, Morton's Register, III, 88, William Salman, chantry priest, Hunting®eld, 1499. SROI, IC/AA2/3/204, Margery Vervyn, Halesworth 1496. NRO, NCC Spyltimbre 303, Robert Barker, priest, Hunting®eld 1510; SROI, IC/ AA2/5/218, Baty Gosmere, Dunwich 1510; IC/AA2/14/405, Edmund Chever, Dunwich 1543; Redstone, `Chapels, Chantries and Gilds', 34.


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the house was to `remain freely to Southwold church and never to be sold from the church with all the necessaries and stuff that lyves in the house after hir dicease'.87 In return, `the churchwardens [are] to be attorneys and once a year they to speak for us both and friends a dirige and a misse of requiem'. This arrangement bene®ted the church in two ways, for the house could be let and, from the rent, the prayers would be paid for with plenty of change left over.88 This is a late, but not unusual, example of local charity. The arrangements which underlay the provision of almshouses were very similar. Almshouses appeared in the late fourteenth century and increased considerably throughout the ®fteenth and sixteenth centuries.89 In the immediate aftermath of the Black Death, population and poverty were relatively low, the population in 1377 only half that at the end of the thirteenth century, and although there was little improvement before 1460 when the population of England stood at around two million, it made a gradual recovery towards the end of the ®fteenth century and then rose sharply.90 From 1460 to 1530, the problems of the poor were exacerbated as the population rose. Poverty was on the increase and, by the 1520s, the price of food had risen, wages had fallen and competition for land was ®erce. If the rise in population is considered across the country, it becomes all too apparent that there was an increasing need on the part of the poor and the ageing, rather than just a social awareness on the part of the wealthy. Almshouses catered for the poor, but not for the beggarly types in the street or the unworthy poor who could work, but preferred not to do so. These almshouses were envisaged as shelter for the impotent, the deserving or the shame-faced poor who, through no fault of their own, were not self-suf®cient. This large section of society comprised, for example, single-parent families, the old and those enduring what Marjorie McIntosh describes as `life-cycle poverty'.91 Their unmerited poverty might occur for brief periods due to illness, accident or lack of employment, but it was not the unremitting poverty experienced by the elderly. Poverty could be relieved by voluntary gifts made by members of the community, although its distribution was fairly haphazard and it might, or might not, have been topped up by contributions from the parish. It could be 87

88

89

90

91

NRO, NCC Popy 163, Robert Genne, Southwold 1502. An identical will for Robert Sonde is in NCC Cage 126, one of the vagaries of will registration. Brown, The Diocese of Salisbury, 105±6. Brown reckoned that at Seend chapel, expenditure on obits was never more than 1s. At Wimborne Minster, where obits were combined to make an annual general obit, the pro®ts to the church were good. Swanson, Church and Society, 306±7; M. K. McIntosh, `Local Responses to the Poor in Late Medieval and Tudor England', Community and Change iii (1988), 209±45, at 220. Bolton, `The World Upside Down', 27; J. Guy, Tudor England (Oxford 1988), 32±3; Hatcher, Plague and Population, 63±73. C. Dyer, Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages: Social Change in England, c. 1200± 1520 (Cambridge rev. edn 1998), 234±46; McIntosh, `Local Responses', 210±13.


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ameliorated by the intervention of religious gilds, but this, too, was not wholly dependable. It should have been greatly reduced by monastic alms, but only 2 per cent of monastic income was expended on poor relief `which came a long way down the monastic list of priorities'; and, as Carole Rawcliffe points out, although Norwich cathedral priory gave 3 per cent of its annual expenditure on almsgiving in 1534, few monasteries at that time achieved the disbursement of 10 per cent of their disposable income as they should.92 Almshouses, then, were a response to the deserving and respectable poor rather than to the undeserving.93 They were founded by the laity in order to care for relatives, friends or perhaps servants who could no longer cope alone. They were often administered by churchwardens or trustees, and this the widow Christian Umby had already arranged when she made her will on the feast of St Matthew the Apostle in 1495.94 Her house stood next to All Saints' church, Dunwich, and she had entrusted it to her feoffees `to the intent that Agnes Pye and Agnes Nethyrby may have their dwelling in the same'. They were to live in the house until they died when `[an]other two poor folks [are] to have their dwelling in the same . . . that they keep reparation . . . also to pay in rent Robert Christon or to his assignes'. Fundamentally, as the accommodation was not free, this seems more like council housing rather than an embryonic almshouse, for there was rent to pay and repairs to be made. Wills only signify the testators' intentions and not the implementation of their wishes. There is seldom proof that their requests were actually carried out, but, in the following example, an almshouse was established. In 1519, Clement Shelle bequeathed one of his tenements for the repair of St Peter's Church in Dunwich: the other tenement named Boliaunts he left to his wife and, after her death, he willed `that the same tenement oone parte thereof viz the ende with the chymney to remayne for an almes housse to comfort the poore people'. No rent was to be paid in this case.95 Over twenty years later, when Clement's son, Peter, made his will, he speci®ed that `the est ende of my house callyd Bolyantte shall remayn to an almesse house for poore people to dwell in as long as it may stonde and indure, they to pray for my soul and for the souls of all my ffrynds'.96 Houses had often been divided to provide accommodation for widows, and now they were being offered to dependent relatives. At Blythburgh in 1522, William Odyorn's tenement Bodmans went to his heirs `to kepe yt yn an Almes hows and to sett ynto yt ii pore folkys of my kenryd wych they woll, and so kepe yt yn my kenrede as ney as they can'.97 Covehithe was 92 93 94 95 96 97

Dyer, Standards of Living, 240±1; Rawcliffe, Medicine for the Soul, 195. McIntosh, `Local Responses', 220±1. NRO, NCC Woolman 248±9, Christian Umby, Dunwich 1495. PRO, PCC Ayloffe 19, Clement Shelle, Dunwich 1519. SROI, IC/AA2/13/51, Peter Shelley, Dunwich 1537. SROI, IC/AA2/8/220, William Odyorn, Walberswick 1522.


THE TESTATORS

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provided with a tenement in the Long Row in 1531, for an almshouse `that a poor man single or married shall have it dwelling in it, he ®nding suf®cient reparation and paying yearly 6d annually to the vicar, the clerk and an offering 1d, and a penny rent to the lord [of the manor]'.98 Similar arrangements may have been made in some of the larger Deanery parishes, such as Halesworth, Southwold and Walberswick, but scant provision is recorded in Deanery wills. Dunwich testators, however, living in what was by far the largest borough, certainly did their best to provide accommodation for their poor. Wills have conventionally been thought to show the total sum of charitable and pious bequests. If references to money already given or gifts already bestowed were more frequently written in wills, this misapprehension could be redressed. Occasional references set the record straight, such as the £40 ànd little odd money' received òf the frank and devout hearts of the people' for building the church tower at Eye in the neighbouring deanery: or the ten shillings gathered by the wives of Walberswick for a glass window.99 The painfully slow building of Uggeshall tower supplies unique evidence from the Deanery in the will of Robert Bayker in 1535, in which he said `to the building of the steeple of Uggeshall 13s 4d over and above that 6s 8d I have laid out thereto before'.100 Wills divided into probate levels give a very broad indication of the wealth and status of the testator. The most interesting wills are those of the Archdeaconry testators which add immeasurably to knowledge of the commemorative practices of the area. There is no reliable method of assessing testators' wealth within the Deanery except in very general terms. The ®ve indicators of wealth and status used here are the level of probate, occupations, the bequests to the high altar, the tax assessment and the place of burial. These seldom tally, reinforcing the opinion that one or even two of these criteria observed from an objective, historical standpoint cannot provide an infallible answer. The most accurate assessment of status, nevertheless, is the burial place. J. A. F. Thomson noted that in London gifts to roads and bridges declined at the end of the ®fteenth century, but in Norwich Norman Tanner found similar bequests increasing around 1500.101 In the Deanery, bequests towards the upkeep of roads and bridges were more generous in the ®fteenth than in the early sixteenth century. Although the direction of charitable giving may have shifted as almshouses became more common, there was continuity in the giving, the ever-present poor providing the continuum. The establishment of almshouses was attributable to social and economic pressures, and 98 99 100 101

NRO, NCC Atmere 170±5, John Beteson, vicar, Covehithe 1531. MacCulloch, Suffolk and the Tudors, 140; Lewis, Walberswick, 256. SROI, IC, AA2/12/51, Robert Bayker, Uggeshall 1535. Thomson, `Piety and Charity in Late Medieval London', JEH xvi (1965), 187±8; Tanner, Norwich, 137.


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the late and frequent bequests to the poor were an indication of the poverty brought about by rising population and shortage of land. From the earliest wills, parochial concerns are apparent, and the gifts bestowed in so many different ways were, and always had been, part and parcel of a Christian's duty.


4 The Living Church Thanne y munte me forth the minster to knowen, And a-waytede a woon wonderlie well y-beld With arches on everiche half & belliche y-corven, With crochetes on corners with knottes of gold, Wyde wyndowes y-wrought y-written full thikke, Schynen with schapen scheldes to schewen aboute, With merkes of marchaunts y-medled bytwene, Mo than twenty and two twyes y-noumbred. Ther is none heraud that hath halt swich a rolle . . . from Pierce the Ploughman's Crede

[Then I went up to see the church, and beheld it immediately wonderfully well-built with arches on every half and beautifully carved, with crocketts on corners and knots of gold, wide windows fashioned and inscribed with many names, shining with coats of arms painted in the glass, with merchants' marks placed in between, more than twice twenty two in number. There is no herald that holds such a roll . . .]

The most direct and least complicated introduction to the rural will-writing community of the late fourteenth and ®fteenth centuries is through the gentry, the lesser land-owning class which consisted of knights, esquires and gentlemen. In the Deanery, many gentry names become familiar quickly and easily, for their wills are among the earliest to have survived, and, in the parish churches, visual and identi®able evidence of their investment in remembrance often remains. Despite the intervening Black Death, at the end of the fourteenth century there were still many families owning land or living in the Deanery parishes which had appeared in the Nomina Villarum, a document certifying how many hundreds there were, how many boroughs, cities, counties, and who the lords were in 1316; and, during the 1380s, the gentry class expanded to embrace those with the new appellation of `gentleman'.1 During the ®fteenth century, it becomes apparent that some families were steadily diluted as heiresses married and moved away from the 1

For Nomina Villarum, see F. Palgrave, The Parliamentary Writs and Writs of Military Summons, II, pt iii (London 1834), 317±18. The transcripts used by Palgrave are from BL, Harl. 6281; C. Given-Wilson, The English Nobility in the Later Middle Ages: the Fourteenth-century Political Community (London 1987), 70.


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area, taking their land holdings to be melded into larger units elsewhere.2 Deanery families whose names are lost to us in this period include the Cravens of Henham, the Mickle®elds of Blyford, the Argenteins of Halesworth, the Norwiches from Yoxford and the Banyards of Spexhall, all well known names; but just as wills and general documentation became more proli®c around 1450, these families petered out. If P. W. Fleming's broad de®nitions of the county and the parish gentry in Kent are employed, the differences between the two are more easily understood; for an esquire might easily ®t into the social bracket above or below him, a move which depended on his descent and his landed wealth.3 County gentry tended to be knights or esquires owning land both inside and outside the county. They were involved in county and central government, their families having been long established within the region, and they were worth at least £40 of annual landed income, usually far more. Parliamentary knights of the shire required an income of more than £40 a year: a Justice of the Peace was expected to be worth a minimum of £20 annually, but, again, the income was usually in excess of this.4 In Deanery terms, county gentry would be the Argenteins, the Heveninghams and the Jenneys. Parish gentry tended to be men holding perhaps a couple of manors and with only local in¯uence. They were worth no more than £20 of annual landed income, and sometimes less. Christopher Given-Wilson describes a parish gentry of `poorer esquires, the gentlemen, the lawyers and merchants who had invested in land and acquired ``country seats'' and some of the richer yeomen', and a mix such as this would represent the upper crust of parochial society, fashioning much of the building and embellishment with which we are concerned here.5 The signatories to the Walberswick contract might be good examples of parish gentry (see note 33). In will registers, parish gentry become familiar because their surnames occur repeatedly over a long period. Sometimes they are found in just one parish or perhaps in a cluster of contiguous parishes, but they are also to be discovered spreading right across the Deanery, a close-knit but widespread district. The wills of the Peers family, with its rami®cations of marriage, trade, friendships and relationships, demonstrate that it need not take long to recognize the gentry across an area such as a deanery, which is a smaller, more discrete unit than a county or a diocese. Nevertheless, by the early 1500s, Julian Cornwall believes that four out of ®ve Suffolk parishes were without resident gentry, and Diarmaid MacCulloch suggests that, in 1524, 67 per cent of Suffolk communities apart from Bury and Ipswich were without a resident gentleman or an in¯uential monastic house.6 2

3 4 5 6

K. B. McFarlane, The Nobility of Later Medieval England (London 1973), 78±9, 146±7; Bolton, `The World Upside Down', 61. Fleming, `Charity, Faith and the Gentry of Kent', 37±8. J. A. F. Thomson, Transformation of Medieval England, 110±11, 114±15. Given-Wilson, The English Nobility, 71±2. Cornwall, `The Early Tudor Gentry', 459; MacCulloch, Suffolk and the Tudors, 286.


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The Peers (Pearce) family, however, with branches in Easton Bavents, Southwold, Holton, Dunwich and Kelsale, is a good example of how dif®cult it is to classify the gentry or, indeed, members of any large and reasonably prosperous family. They were not wholly typical of parish gentry and some members would have been regarded as county gentry. They had important connections with the maritime trade, which presumably was the source of their wealth. Their standing in the community was enhanced by various members who had branched out into other interests and occupations. The Dunwich line was represented in borough records as early as 1342 when Richard Perse was bailiff, and again in 1452±53 when Thomas Peers was MP for Dunwich, two members having been returned to Parliament from the borough since 1295.7 The family was still living in Dunwich in the last years of the seventeenth century. Below this shallow layer of prosperity came a deeper layer which contained the remainder of the population likely to make wills. Their lives were not so comfortable and they had less money to spare, but some yeomen, husbandmen, lesser merchants, peasant farmers, craftsmen and artisans were the donors of the pennies and the shillings which came unceasingly into the churchwardens' coffers. Their gifts were bequeathed not to execute some particular work of art but simply to join the small change in the general funds out of which everyday and rather mundane church expenses were paid. The will-making population represented roughly the top one-third of society and below that the bulk of the population existed, with the poorest at the bottom of the pile. It was towards those at the bottom that much of the charity of the upper one-third was directed. The Church taught that the pains of Purgatory would be endured in inverse proportion to the amount of good works performed during life or vicariously after death. Acts of charity and piety could accrue to be set against the debt of one's own sins or could be utilized on behalf of the souls of others. It was preferable that works of mercy should be practised while one was alive, but, in most instances, there is no documentary evidence of what or how much an individual contributed during a lifetime. What testamentary bequests show is the wherewithal that was left for others to bestow post mortem, either in pious works or as charitable acts and offerings, to ensure that in their prayers the living would remember the posthumous generosity of the dead. Considering piety and charity in late medieval London, J. A. F. Thomson has argued that there is no method of analysis that can distinguish between pious and charitable giving, the testator probably not separating these in his or her mind, leaving any demarcation between such gifts to the executors.8 Most bequests, in fact, would not have been ascribed either pious or charitable motives, for they would have been made primarily to ensure 7

8

Gardner, Dunwich, 76, 89; W. White, ed., History, Gazetteer and Directory of Suffolk (Shef®eld 1844), 365. Thomson, `Piety and Charity', 178±95.


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remembrance in the prayers of those left behind. Some four hundred years earlier, free alms or Benjamin Thompson's gift exchange would have procured remembrance for fewer benefactors, most of whom were giving very generous endowments.9 By the late Middle Ages, however, bequests were business-like exchanges, calculated to purchase speci®c requirements for a much larger section of the population, many of whom spent only a little, but all of whom sought remembrance. This self-interest in no way belittles the quality of late medieval bequests, but rather explains the generosity of the testators. Personal possessions, whether in cash or in kind, were now used to buy commemoration which came in a variety of guises. What was of importance to the late medieval testator, as it had been to the earlier benefactor when founding a religious house, was that he or she should be remembered after death. Some gifts were made in a genuinely pious spirit, but now even those charitable bequests left for practical purposes such as repairing roads, building alms-houses or providing poor relief, ultimately carried the obligation for prayers to be said by those who bene®ted. Some gifts were made less charitably and more crudely, almost as a commercial transaction and, irrespective of the pious phrases and charitable clicheÂs accompanying such gifts, there were also extravagant displays of conspicuous expenditure calculated to assert social superiority: heraldic devices, coats of arms, monograms and merchants' marks spread in profusion across ¯oors, over walls, in windows, on roofs, all built and paid for by those who could best afford it. Such expenditure was designed to impress, the rich making use of their wealth `to buy their way out of being punished for its possession'.10 It was not so much `keeping up with the Joneses', but, on occasion, actually overtaking them. Wherever possible, the dead needed to be remembered by the living, and, in the absence of coats of arms or merchants' marks, the names of the dead were carved, engraved or painted on stone and embroidered on silks, beseeching the remembrance and prayers of the beholder. Books, plate and vestments bequeathed to the churches were similarly marked with the donors' names or devices, gifts which encouraged prayer, but which, in a more practical way, helped to ful®l the requirements of the constitution issued by Robert Winchelsey, Archbishop of Canterbury (1295±1313), which itemized the essential, and considerable, list of furniture, ®ttings and church maintenance for which the parishioners were responsible.11 9 10

11

See Chapter Two, note 57. C. Carpenter, `The Religion of the Gentry of Fifteenth-century England', England in the Fifteenth Century, ed. D. Williams (Woodbridge 1987), 53±74, at 59. Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church, II, A.D. 1205± 1313, ed. F. M. Powicke and C. R. Cheney, ii (Oxford 1964), 1385±8; but also referred to in E. Peacock. ed., English Church Furniture, Ornaments and Decorations at the Period of the Reformation: as Exhibited in a List of Goods Destroyed in Certain Lincolnshire Churches, AD 1566 (London 1866), 178±9. A translation made by Spelman, the antiquarian, of De Ornamentis Ecclesiae quae Pertinent Rectoribus et quae Parochianis in Provincia Cantuar from BL, Cotton MS Cleop. D.iii.191, believed to be the earliest


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While it is impossible to divine a speci®c motive behind gift-giving, much was given solely for the bene®ts which commemorative prayers might bring. Prayers could be prompted if the gift was inscribed with phrases exhorting remembrance and jogging the memory took many forms. The words Orate pro animabus, no longer to be seen engraved on plate and embroidered on vestments, can still be found carved in stone over the vestry doorway at Halesworth, the vestry being the gift of Thomas and Margaret Clement to their parish church (Plate 8). It is only because this inscription has survived that the Clements are remembered today. Remembrance through prayer on the part of those that were left was essential in the religious climate of the time, and it was remembrance which, spanning the present, linked the past to the future.

Souls and Quethewords Between 1370 and 1547, roughly two-thirds of nearly 3,000 Deanery testators left a bequest to their parish church. This was described as for the `reparation', èmendation' or `fabrication' of the building, but, in translating poorly written and badly preserved wills, it is often dif®cult to decide whether money was left to the existing building or where new construction was taking place. The remaining one-third of testators left money towards speci®c projects such as the erection of a new aisle or for the purchase or repair of plate, books and vestments. All these contributions were the drip-feed which provided much of the ®nance, not only for the fabric and its maintenance, but also for replenishing the coffers into which the churchwardens dipped so frequently to cover day-to-day expenses. These bequests can be seen as offerings to the laity, for it was one's fellowparishioners who were responsible for the maintenance of the nave and the provision of artefacts required for divine service.12 Such gifts were counterbalanced by the usual donation to the high altar, the payment made to the priest in lieu of tithes forgotten, discussed in Chapter Three. Isolated bequests may seem arbitrary, but a good run of wills can show that testators channelled money towards the most important work being undertaken by the parish at the time. This can be clearly seen at Blythburgh when gifts to the rebuilding of the church are placed in chronological order over a period of sixty years. Blythburgh's case was unusual in that the construction of the chancel, which would normally have been the responsibility of the patron, was partially paid for by the parishioners. Their involvement can be

12

complete list of the necessary furniture of an English parish church; Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, xviii. N. J. G. Pounds, A History of the English Parish: the Culture of Religion from Augustine to Victoria (Cambridge 2000), 182±6; C. Drew, Early Parochial Organisation in England: the Origins of the Of®ce of Churchwarden, St Anthony's Hall Publications no. vii (Borthwick Institute of Historical Research 1954), 8±9.


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explained by reference to Andrew Brown's work on Salisbury diocese in which he describes how, even in the late Middle Ages, the Anglo-Saxon past could still be relived.13 In 1429 the parishioners of Littleton Drew reroofed their church and one of its chapels `said to commemorate the victory of King Athelstan' against the Danes in 936. The Anglo-Saxon past was kept alive at Blythburgh, certainly as late as the twelfth century, for here lay the relics of the Christian king, Anna of the East Angles, although for how much longer after the twelfth century is not known.14 Monasteries where relics of local saints were retained could exert a powerful in¯uence, and although Holy Trinity, Blythburgh, was a parish and not a monastic church, the retrospective importance of the site may explain the parishioners' efforts towards the rebuilding. Whatever the reason, the construction of the chancel remained a priority between 1442 and 1475 during which period sixteen testators left money towards the project. While building was in progress, the wishes of two testators were that two windows should be glazed, and there was one gift `towards a bell'. When the building of the chancel ceased in 1475, money was left for imagery, plate and vestments. Every bequest would have procured remembrance, but whether the widow's mite was commemorated in the same way as the merchant's lavish gift is not known, and the building of Blythburgh's chancel was supported by both widows and merchants. A similar pattern can be seen at Walberswick, where a gild hall and the parish church were being constructed simultaneously. Here there were four bequests to the building of the `gild house' of St John the Baptist between 1450 and 1454 and a further twelve to the new north aisle from 1473 to 1512. Between 1450 and 1512, when money was needed to complete these building projects, only three wills mentioned images and there were two gifts of jewellery.15 In the vital period between 1528 and 1539, therefore, it should be possible to detect a gradual decline in bequests for the decoration or purchase of imagery, for the prohibitions of the Crown bit as the injunctions of 1538 followed those of 1536, forbidding offerings to images and banning candles, tapers or images of wax to set before them. The only wills which show that new building was being undertaken anywhere in the Deanery during this time are those from the Dunwich parish of All Saints. Here the parishioners were engaged in constructing a new aisle, and their labours bene®ted from money left for paving, roo®ng, leading and to the making of the new window. By the time the building was complete and gifts of imagery could have been bequeathed, however, all such decoration had been prohibited by the Crown. Two sets of pre-Reformation churchwardens' accounts which survive from 13 14 15

Brown, Salisbury Diocese, 7±8, 55. E. O. Blake, ed., Liber Eliensis, Camden Society, 3rd Series xcii (1962), 18. E. Duffy, ` ``Holy Maydens, Holy Wyfes'': the Cult of Women Saints in Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century England', Studies in Church History xxvii, EHS, ed. W. H. Sheils and D. Wood (1990), 175±96, at 177.


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the Deanery show entries which can be linked to speci®c wills. The ®rst comes from Blythburgh's coastal hamlet of Walberswick, which has excellent accounts, those from 1450 to 1499 having been transcribed by a former incumbent.16 They give a good insight into the ®nancial affairs of a ®shing port, where the ®shermen's dole or tithe of ®sh, representing a quarter of the catch, contributed to the church funds and was entered annually in the churchwardens' accounts.17 The second set of accounts comes from Crat®eld, the most inland parish in the Deanery, and it starts in 1494 and continues through the Reformation and beyond.18 These accounts are less detailed and are not continuous chronologically, but are valuable for understanding the concerns of a purely agricultural community. Both sets of accounts show that bequests had been received from executors, although the wills of the testators make no mention of any such gift. On the other hand, there were testators who bequeathed money to the church which is not itemized in the accounts. This suggests that additional accounts, since lost, were kept by some churchwardens. In the words of Clive Burgess and Beat KuÈmin, with reference to the discrepancies between parish accounts and testamentary bequests, `the absence of any item from parish accounts is no guarantee that it did not exist: silence . . . means precious little'.19 This may be because many gifts were arranged verbally rather than by written instruction, and, in 1537, the will of Isabell Smythe from Covehithe, in which she left her goods to the vicar to `discharge all such things as my mind is further known between him and me', shows that private arrangements might account for the disparity in the entries described above.20 Many bequests, too, were not honoured until long after the testator's death. There are, however, a few bequests to general church purposes which can be traced. In 1456, William Bird made his will in which he left 13s 4d to the reparation of Walberswick church. This is recorded in the churchwardens' accounts as `. . . for the soul of William Bird 13s 4d'.21 The next year, the will of Henry Barbour, chaplain, included a gift of 6s 8d to the fabric of Walberswick church, and it appears in the accounts as: Ìtem received for the soul of Sir Harry Barbour 6s 8d'.22 In 1459, at Benacre, Harry Alysaundyr's `last wyll and my quethword' was written in English.23 From 16 17

18

19

20 21 22

23

Lewis, Walberswick. Middleton-Stewart, `Down to the Sea in Ships', 69±83; Harper-Bill, Blythburgh Cartulary, ii, 239±40; P. Millican, `Christ's Dole', Norfolk Archaeology xxxv (1970± 72), 154±7. SROI, FC 62/E1/1 (1490±1502), FC 62/E1/2 (1507±15), FC 62/E1/3 (1533±1709), FC 62/E4/1 (1528 inventory), Crat®eld Parish papers; Raven, Crat®eld. C. Burgess and B. KuÈmin, `Penitential Bequests and Parish Regimes in Late Medieval England', JEH xliv (1993), 610±30, at 619±20. NRO, NCC Underwoode 31±2, Isabel Smythe, widow, Covehithe, 1537. SROI, IC/AA2/1/122, William Bird, Walberswick 1456; Lewis, Walberswick, 96. NRO, NCC Brosyard 69, Henry Barbour, chaplain, Blythburgh 1457; Lewis, Walberswick, 99. SROI, IC/AA2/2/ 40, Harry Alysaunder, Benacre 1459.


94


1466, the phrase `for the soul of ' tends to be replaced by `quetheword', and R. W. M. Lewis, when transcribing the Walberswick accounts, explained `quetheword' as the announcement of the death of a parishioner. In the light of present research, the quetheword could be described as the customary bequest made to the parish church and thus, indirectly, to the laity, who paid for the upkeep. In 1474, John Stevenson left 40s to the making of a new aisle in Walberswick, entered in the churchwardens' accounts as `for John Stevenson for his quetheword 40s'; and at Crat®eld, a quetheword of 10s from Hubert Clerk is entered in the 1493 accounts, but here the will has not survived.24 Bequests of 40s willed by Harry Frauncesse for church repair and 6s 8d bequeathed by Robert Smyth both appear in the 1509 Crat®eld accounts.25 It was quite usual for parishioners to leave goods in kind rather than cash, and coastal parishioners frequently gave an item of ®shing tackle instead of money. In 1472, Nicholas Gerard left to St Andrew's church, Walberswick, one manfare of twelvescore [a net of twelvescore was about twenty foot deep], three sperling nets [spratt nets], four ¯ews [a ¯ew was a drift net]; and John Adam, whose will was proved in 1492, left to St Andrew's a manfare of herring nets, two sperling nets and two ¯ews.26 The accounts for 1453 show that the churchwardens had received two deep-sea nets worth 12s for the soul of Alys Walter; and later, gifts of beads left for the use of the church by Joan Howlett and Pernell Henby, who washed the church linen for many years, were acknowledged.27 Tackle, which could be hired out, was also bequeathed, as were gifts of livestock, which produced revenue for the churchwardens, and items such as the beads were sold if not utilized. There was, then, a constant supply of money and goods passing through the churchwardens' hands. Not every testator was fortunate enough to have suf®cient goods to make grand bequests to the parish church, but a drip-feed economy was the vital sustenance needed for the maintenance and upkeep of the church. How it was administered and used by the churchwardens is considered later in this chapter, with special reference to the upkeep of bells. Dunwich was the only town in the Deanery which contained more than one parish and a variety of religious establishments. Well over 60 per cent of the town's testators left money for general repairs or speci®c building projects. Around 13 per cent of the town's inhabitants left bequests to every institution, and Roger Osbern's will of 1461 was typical.28 He gave to the sustentation of St John's 6s 8d; to the emendation of St Peter's and All Saints 2s each; to both friaries 3s 4d for prayers; and to the emendation of St 24

25 26

27 28

NRO, NCC Hubert 43, John Stevenson, Walberswick 1474; Lewis, Walberswick, 155; Raven, Crat®eld, 21. SROI, IC/AA2/5/50; IC/AA2/5/31, Robert Smyth, Crat®eld 1508; SRO, FC 62/E1/2. See Middleton-Stewart, `Down to the Sea in Ships'; SROI, IC/AA2/2/305, Nicholas Gerard, Walberswick 1472; IC/AA2/3/151, John Adam, Walberswick 1492. Lewis, Walberswick, 88, 249, 261. SROI, IC/AA2/2/114, Roger Osberne, Dunwich, 1461.


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James hospital, Domus Dei and the Temple he gave 12d each. Generosity such as this did not necessarily mean the exclusion of other religious foundations further a®eld, as can be appreciated from the will of Henry Genne from Kelsale in 1468.29 He bequeathed money to ®ve churches and Walpole church inherited his cow. He then remembered the Temple at Dunwich, the Domus Dei, the two orders of Dunwich friars and the Augustinians at Orford, bequeathing a total of £5 14s 8d. His was a generous will, but there are many instances of such generosity. Where there was not suf®cient money to leave bequests for large repairs and grand projects or plate, books or vestments, the acquisition of smaller items could be made possible or, at the least, some money could be contributed towards their purchase. These legacies are discussed in subsequent chapters.

Creating Space Colin Richmond has written of the privatization of prayer, describing the introduction of seating in the nave and the endowment of private chapels in ®fteenth-century England.30 This `privatization' can still be seen in the internal arrangement of many late-medieval parish churches where personal space and the spiritual needs of the individual occupied the minds and pockets of the wealthier parishioners from the late fourteenth- to the earlysixteenth centuries. If a parishioner had suf®cient money available to pay for intercessions, the permission of the incumbent and patron and status in the community, it was a simple matter to enclose an area for private prayer. On the other hand, a corporate entity, such as a religious gild, could erect parclose screens and thus create a separate liturgical space for a gild chapel. A nineteenth-century etching from Westhall provides a good example of the ease with which private space could be achieved without involving extensive building or even much expense. At Westhall, Henry Davy's illustration of the west door in 1818 shows in the distance the slender framework of a parclose screen, described the following year as àn enclosed chapel, the woodwork of which is sadly covered with whitewash'.31 In the ®fteenth century, this had been the private chapel of Thomas Croftys, lord of Empoles manor, who was buried in the chapel before a stained glass window which displayed his arms (see Chapter Eleven, notes 15 and 16).32 Whether adapting the old or creating anew, `private' investment in¯uenced liturgical space. Two prime but totally different examples of building 29 30

31

32

SROI, IC/AA2/2/177, Henry Genne, Kelsale 1468. C. Richmond, `Religion and the Fifteenth-century Gentleman', The Church, Politics and Patronage in the Fifteenth Century, ed. R. B. Dobson (Gloucester 1984), 193±208, at 197±9. H. Davy, Architectural Antiquities of Suffolk (1827); Corder, The East Anglian Manuscripts, III, 379; Middleton-Stewart, `Westhall', 311±12. MacCulloch, Chorography, 81.


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which took place in the period covered by the Deanery wills are to be found at the churches of Halesworth, a developed church with a resident patron and lord of the manor for much of the time; and Walberswick, a planned chapel under the patronage of the prior and convent of Blythburgh and whose lord was lord of the manor at Blythburgh. In addition, Walberswick had its own wealthy, resident patrons in the parish elders of the busy ®shing port, men such as Thomas Bangot, Thomas Wolfard, William Ambryngale and Thomas Pelling, signatories of the contract for the church tower who, for lack of anyone better, would have regarded themselves as the parish gentry.33 Halesworth was an expanding market town, the most successful inland settlement in the Deanery. It was strategically placed, ®rstly on the river Blyth and secondly, among a network of roads. In 1227, the lord of the manor, Richard d'Argentein, had been granted market rights.34 The church sat within a small churchyard, adjacent to the manor house and the market place. The foundations of Halesworth's round tower were discovered when the font was moved in the nineteenth century, suggesting that the early ground plan comprised an apse, a nave and the tower similar to the typical small twelfth-century round-tower churches referred to in Chapter One (Plan II).35 This original plan was distorted by the addition of north and south aisles in the early fourteenth-century (Plan III); but the extended east facËade that resulted from these extensions immediately provided additional sites for side altars in the chancel chapels: the tracery of the south chancel chapel's east window suggests an early fourteenth-century date, contemporary with the aisles.36 The nave aisles would have provided space for processions or, where there were relics or images of especial reverence, pilgrimage. Although Halesworth was no site of pilgrimage it may have owned a relic or two: it certainly had a reliquary. It is likely that many features were begun, if not ®nished, during the lifetime of Sir William Argentein.37 Between 1383 and 1419 when he died, the church underwent a thorough overhaul, probably prompted by his good fortune in inheriting the lordship of Halesworth, despite his illegitimacy and the powerful opposition from his half-sisters. His father, Sir John Argentein, had been left fatherless at the age of six months, and Agnes Bereford, John's 33 34

35

36

37

BL, Add. Ch. 17634, the covenant for building Walberswick tower. G. Dyke, `The Market Towns of Suffolk', The Suffolk Review v, no. 3 (SLHC 1982), 101±4, at 102±3. For a report on the architectural history of Halesworth church, see Èxcursions 1995', ed. C. Paine, PSIAH xxxviii, pt iv (1996), 489±90. BL, Add. MS 6753/299±305. The Rev. Thomas Kerrich, d. 1828, keeper of Cambridge University Library, made sketches prior to the Victorian restoration which show reticulated tracery in the east window of the south-east chancel chapel; reticulated tracery dated between 1316 and 1341 is in situ at Westhall, see Middleton-Stewart, `Westhall'. J. S. Roskell, L. Clark and C. Rawcliffe, eds, The History of Parliament: the House of Commons, 1386±1421, II (Stroud 1992), 50±2.


Plan II. A Developed Church: St Mary's, Halesworth c. 1200

THE LIVING CHURCH

97



Plan III. A Developed Church: St Mary's, Halesworth c. 1420

98


99

Plan IV. A Developed Church: St Mary's, Halesworth c. 1547

THE LIVING CHURCH



Plan V. A Planned Church: St Andrew's, Walberswick c. 1530

100


THE LIVING CHURCH

101

mother, had married twice again, dying in 1375. Only then, after a sixty-year wait, did Sir John Argentein come into the full share of his inheritance.38 His lawful heirs were his three daughters, Maud, Joan and Elizabeth.39 Had they inherited Sir John's estates, these would have been divided permanently into three, there being no primogeniture for females. To avoid this contingency, the illegitimate William was made heir and subsequently was summoned to Parliament and served as sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk. His wife, Isabel Kerdiston, was the daughter of another illegitimate knight who had been left estates by his father, again to prevent partition between heiresses.40 Entering their inheritance in the 1380s, William and Isabel would surely have set about demonstrating their arrival and establishing their position. They must also have sought to overcome any lingering stigma of illegitimacy. Where better to do this than in Halesworth church?41 What better way to reveal their presence than a new tower?42 The existing tower was rebuilt and must have been completed by 1426 when Walberswick's contract for building its church tower was drawn up (see note 55 and Plates 9 and 10). The Argenteins thought there was no need to decorate the battlements of the tower with their arms (as the Jenneys were to do later at Knodishall), for Halesworth's west doorway bears many shields. These, however, were never carved in stone and now, devoid of decoration, are anonymous appendages, similar in shape to shields on the north and south chancel arches and the priests' door. Fifteenth-century additions after the death of William Argentein included the vestry, which also served as a chantry chapel. The transeptal chapel, two piers of which are all that now remain of the original fabric, was probably dedicated to St Anne, but there is no ®rm evidence for this.43 By the end of the ®fteenth century, the ground plan of St Mary's, Halesworth, revealed the 38 39 40 41

42 43

McFarlane, The Nobility, 137±8 Suckling, Suffolk, II, 328±9. GEC, VII, 196, 199; HOP, II, 50. Miles Stapleton II, whose brother-in-law was the nephew of William Argentein's mother-in-law, was associated with Argentein in many matters of Norfolk patronage, see Blome®eld's Essay towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk (1805± 10), VI, 248; VIII, 245; X, 95; XI, 227; T. J. Pestell, Òf Founders and Faith: the establishment of the Trinitarian Priory at Ingham, Norfolk (England)' eds G. de Boe and F. Verhaeghe (Zellick 1997), `Religion and Belief in Medieval Europe' ± Papers of the Medieval Europe Brugge 1997 Conference, iv, 65±78, especially 73±6. Stapleton's father, Sir Miles I, from Yorkshire and of relatively modest ancestry, married well into the family of Ingham. Here he founded the Trinitarian priory, a building project on a grand scale. Pestell makes the point that, by founding a collegiate community, Sir Miles I was to be seen as a founder rather than simply a benefactor. It seems that, not unlike William Argentein, Sir Miles wished to make his mark on the East Anglian landscape to show that he had àrrived'. His construction was more costly than that at Halesworth, but must have been erected with similar intent. Carpenter, `Religion of the Gentry', 65±6; Brown, Diocese of Salisbury, 128±9. The remaining piers show a local relationship to pier mouldings at Wrentham and Blythburgh and to the chancel arch at Crat®eld; Haward, Suffolk Arcades, 124±5, 128.


102


`privatization' of space very clearly (Plan IV). The sculpture on the north-east elevation, worn by weather and damaged by iconoclasts, displays `the manifestation of interiorization of religion, a corollary of its personalization'.44 The ®nal pre-Reformation re®nements, which can be identi®ed from a handful of isolated testamentary bequests, were purely cosmetic. Halesworth's Victorian restoration was extensive and many of the boundaries of the private space created in the late Middle Ages were destroyed; but evidence of the north chapel's prime function, that of a chantry chapel, was not obliterated by the alterations.145 This evidence comprises a late medieval V-shaped buttress with ®gures and heraldic devices, which the Victorian restorers moved from the corner of the north chapel to the corner of their new extension. The north-easterly wing of the buttress still bears the traces of ®gures which, when David Elisha Davy visited Halesworth church in the nineteenth century, he described as `®gures, cut in stone, of a man and woman with the ®g[ure] of a child immediately below them, and beneath them the following arms, under the man, Argentein, under the woman on a fesse, two roses?'246 Davy later thought the arms below the female were a rose and a crescent, but they are now too weathered to decipher. In the topmost niche of the westerly wing stands a ®gure, probably the Virgin, while below, divided between two panels, the sculpture has been defaced. Inside the church, the arch which divides the chancel from the north chapel is the only original chapel structure, the rest having been demolished in the Victorian restoration. The arch on its north face is decorated with shields bearing saints' attributes and a female and a male bust, the former below the Argentein arms, the latter below arms which present problems of identi®cation. These unknown arms may be connected with the Clement family, a seal similar in design, dating from 1280, having been identi®ed as belonging to Seman Clement and Alice, his wife, of Ipswich.47 This would be more than a happy coincidence because, although neither ®gure can be identi®ed with any particular member of the Argentein or any other family, the adjoining vestry was the gift of Thomas Clement. The vestry, within which intercessory prayers were said, was added after 1438, and although Thomas Clement, its patron, left no bequest towards its construction in his will, he ensured commemoration by means of an inscription above the door, Orate pro animabus Thome Clement et Margarete consortis sue qui istud vestiarium ®eri fecerunt (Plate 8).48 The vestry buttress was also carved, but now only the suspicion of an ogee arch can still be seen. 44 45 46 47 48

Richmond, `Religion and the Fifteenth-century English Gentleman', 199. Riches, Victorian Restoration, 413. BL, Add. MS 19080/4/409. PSIA xxi (1933), 52, seal no. 61. NRO, NCC Doke 66, Thomas Clement; BL, Egerton Rolls 2111, 1 July, 6 Hy VI. Thomas Clement possessed a house and land in Halesworth between 1392 and 1400, and was con®rmed in the manor of Cookley in 1428.


THE LIVING CHURCH

Plate 8. Halesworth church: the vestry doorway, inscribed with Thomas and Margaret Clement's plea for prayers.

103


104


Although these af¯uent testators built for commemoration, they left no trace of this in their wills, while humbler testators, leaving smaller amounts to costly corporate undertakings, often indicated their intentions. In many ways, these small legacies are as interesting and as important as the grander gestures. In 1483, a `new chapel' in Halesworth is mentioned although this may have meant a new dedication rather than a new building; St Anne's chapel, wherever it was situated, received 13s 4d towards its repair in 1496; the gift of 5 marks to the ceiling of the church gives a related date for the building of the clerestory, the original level of the chancel roof identi®ed externally by a portion trapped by chancel clerestory; a bequest of 40s provided marble ¯ooring in 1522; the bequest to the new high altar the same year and subsequent gifts to its gilding in 1530 suggest the completion of major rebuilding in the chancel, ®nanced by parishioners concerned for the care of their church and the health of their souls.49 Walberswick was a hamlet of Blythburgh, a relationship similar to that of Southwold and Reydon. In 1279, Sir Robert FitzRoger reached an agreement with Blythburgh that the priory and convent would ®nd a chaplain to serve Walberswick chapel.50 By the ®fteenth century, Walberswick was a small ®shing town, buoyant and bustling. Walberswick's fortunes, and those of its neighbour, Southwold, were in the ascendant and both ports bene®ted from the coastal changes which, having brought the mouth of the river Blyth nearer to Walberswick than Dunwich, had contributed to the latter's decline.51 The early chapel was certainly not large enough to serve the growing population, and Gardner wrote, Òn the South of the Town, near the Marshes, is Ground called the Church-Land, whereon stood the old Church, which was thatched. AD 1473 This Church was taken down.'52 The old church was replaced by one of the ®nest churches on the Suffolk coast. The new St Andrew's, Walberswick, was a planned church on a grand scale (now ruinous) on a fresh site, the construction being a corporate undertaking.53 A licence to alienate in mortmain was granted by the Crown to Sir Roger Swillington on 15 February 1413, in order that he could grant to the prior of Blythburgh an acre of land in Walberswick for a cemetery and a new chapel.54 The work at Walberswick resulted in a church in its ®nal late medieval form (Plan V). In other words, Walberswick provided the same liturgical space as Halesworth, but whereas Halesworth's structure had taken 49

50 51

52 53

54

For Halesworth wills, see NRO, NCC Caston 172±3, William Chapelle, 1483; SROI, IC/AA2/3/204, Margery Vervyn, 1496; NRO, NCC Briggs 195, John Dryver, 1522; SROI, IC/AA2/9/158, William Smyth, 1522; IC/AA2/10/173, John Kennett, 1530; IC/AA2/10/177, John Fyske, mercer, 1530. Harper-Bill, Blythburgh, ii, 238±9. Bailey, Minute Book of Dunwich, 11±13; F. Grace, À Historical Survey of Suffolk Towns', The Suffolk Review v, no. 3 (SLHC 1982), 105±12, at 110±11. Gardner, Dunwich, 152. Lewis, Walberswick, iii±iv; Richmond, John Hopton, 173±5; Haward, Suffolk Arcades, 364±5. CPR, 1408±1413, 472.


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105

centuries to evolve as the liturgy developed, Walberswick's `chapel', with its aisles, chapels, vestry and tower with a processional door, was planned and built within a hundred years. Bequests for Walberswick's building are plentiful and the churchwardens' accounts from 1450 to 1499 give additional information about the costs involved in the rebuilding which St Mary's, Halesworth, lacks. Walberswick church is now one of the most famous ruins on the Suffolk coast The building of the tower was begun on Sir Roger Swillington's gift of land sometime after 1426, when the contract was drawn up between the parish elders and the masons, Richard Russell of Dunwich and Adam Powle of Blythburgh.55 William Argentein was already dead by this time, but the Walberswick elders chose features from Halesworth tower, Argentein's beacon of legitimate lordship, and improved them (Plates 9 and 10). In this subtle way, they announced their own elevated positions. While the walling and panelling were to be constructed àfter the steeple of Dunstal' (Tunstall, near Orford), the west door with a window of four lights above was to be as good as the west door in Halesworth, which had only three lights above. Where there were single lights in Halesworth, Walberswick was to have two lights, and where Halesworth had two lights, Walberswick was to have four windows of three lights. The parish was to supply the freestone, lime, ¯int, water and sand, ropes, shovels and staging; and the masons were to work between the feasts of the Annunciation (25 March) and Michaelmas (29 September). They would be provided with a masons' lodge adjacent to the church and were to receive 40s, one barrel of herrings a year and one gown of livery. The tower was underway by 1432, when Thomas Bangot left 20s towards its building, and it must have been ®nished by 1450 when eight gilded vanes were ®tted to the steeple.56 Nevertheless, the churchwardens' accounts do not chart the building of the church. Instead, from 1456, they show that the parishioners were busy building St John's gild hall, which is also mentioned in testamentary bequests.57 This occupied them until at least 1466, but whether the building of the church was concurrent is not known. In 1472, the accounts show that freestone cost £16 14s, with a further 18s 5d for carrying and weighing the stone and for saw and ®le to cut it and cart and hand barrow to transport it. There was one bequest for the building of the nave in 1470 and no bequests at all for the porch, built in 1483 and painted and glazed in 1486.58 It was the building of the north aisle that was best recorded from 1473 55 56

57

58

BL, Add. Ch. 17634, the covenant for building Walberswick tower. NRO, NCC Sur¯ete 32, Thomas Bangot (a signatory to the covenant in 1426), 1432; Lewis, Walberswick, 1. Lewis, Walberswick, 4; for Walberswick wills, see SROI, IC/AA2/1/161, John Manning, 1450; IC/AA2/1/123, Thomas Baret, 1450; IC/AA2/1/157, Walter Almyngame, 1450; IC/AA2/1/113, Margery Fuller, 1454. Lewis, Walberswick, 33, 51, 56; SROI, IC/AA2/2/202, Nicholas Byrd, Walberswick 1470.


106


Plate 9. Halesworth tower: completed before 1426.


THE LIVING CHURCH

Plate 10. Walberswick tower: begun after 1426. The masons, Richard Russell and Adam Powle, followed the wishes of the Walberswick elders carefully and, in comparison with Halesworth, achieved a more elegant and costly appearance.

107


108


until 1512. In 1473 the mason in charge of the building, Harry Pays, was paid 12s for travelling to Boston, perhaps to chose stone transported there from the Northamptonshire quarries, perhaps to buy timber imported from Hamburg by the Steel Yard.59 The shipmaster bringing home freestone was paid 30s 8d. The prior of Blythburgh rented his cart to the Walberswick parishioners for 2s 6d and Bartholomew Scott of Henham hired out his for 3s. The `wrights' went into the country, to Chediston, to Crat®eld and to Halesworth to buy timber. Lime came from Norwich, stone came from the port of Kessingland and ¯ints came from Dunwich. Aisles, which provided space for processions, also gave access to shrines and relics. The churchwardens' accounts record 24s gathered on `relyke' Sunday in 1458. Gardner quotes from Walter Burghwarde's will of 1525, in which he left `twelve Pence yearly to the Shrines of Walberswick, to be carried every Lady-Day to Blythurgh, and there to offer eleven pence, and receive twelve Pence'; but the surviving version of the will makes no mention of shrines.60 By 1512, the testators had begun to channel their bequests towards the chancel.

Good Housekeeping There were many demands on church funds. Money and goods in kind bequeathed for the purchase, reparation, emendation or fabrication of liturgical necessities were thrown into the general melting pot of church ®nances. Little would be known about the acquisition and maintenance of church bells, for instance, if it were not for the surviving churchwardens' accounts. Bells are a good example for closer scrutiny, for, although not part of the building fabric, their provision and maintenance was part of the parishioners' obligations as laid down by Archbishop Winchelsey. Bequests for bells are considered in Chapter Eight, but the expenses recorded in the Walberswick accounts would have been similar to those incurred by most churches, although this can only be veri®ed where accounts have survived. Michel Mollat has suggested that the use of bells to regulate the course of the working day became more common in the fourteenth century (Crat®eld had a clock-bell by the end of the ®fteenth century).61 This encouraged the use of bells, and many new towers were under construction in the Deanery during the ®fteenth century because larger, and louder, bells were now being cast which needed a stronger tower structure to take the new bell frames.62 59 60

61

62

Lewis, Walberswick, 34±9. Lewis, Walberswick, 99; Gardner, Dunwich, 127; PRO, PCC Bodfelde 36, Walter Burghwarde, Walberswick 1525 . M. Mollat, The Poor in the Middle Ages: an Essay in Social History, trans. A. Goldhammer (Yale 1986), 208; for Crat®eld's clock-bell, see Chapter Six under the section `Parish Gilds'. Verbal communication from Peter Northeast, 30 April 1990. Testamentary evidence of church building projects shows that forty-seven towers were being built in Suffolk


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109

Walberswick's new tower must have been ®nished by 1450, but the ®rst expenses were of minor importance and not until 1463 do the entries in the churchwardens' accounts reveal the ®nancial commitment of Walberswick parish. That year, three bells were paid for and it seems that the great bell was one of them.63 Almost immediately, part-payment was made for another bell which was delivered home for 3s 4d. In 1466, a new bell was hung and more payments for bells were made to the smith and the carpenter in 1490. There were perhaps four bells by 1470 and probably a couple more added c. 1490. Apart from the great bell, the bells are dif®cult to identify. References to the `little' bell and the `least' bell may mean that these were separate items, although it is hard to be certain. How much easier if they had been referred to by familiar names, such as the great bell called Jesus at Lich®eld cathedral, the great bell called Harry at St Lawrence's, Reading, or the Mary Baret of Halesworth for which Geoffrey Baret left a bequest of 10 marks in 1486.64 In 1469, Walberswick's bells were hallowed. This cost 25s 8d. The Walberswick churchwardens had already received gifts of £3 7s 4d towards the cost of the bells from parishioners; and, in 1470, two speci®c bequests for the hallowing amounted to 13s 4d; but although ®ve bells may have been hung, by the Reformation there were only two.65 There is no particular information about the hallowing, which was a dedication ceremony similar to baptism. Salzman tells of the hallowing of Harry, the great bell of St Lawrence's, Reading, which cost the parishioners 6s 4d, and `. . . over that Sir William Symys Richard Clich and Mistress Smyth being Godfather and Godmother at the consecration of the same bell and bearing all the costs to the Suffragan'.66 So much for the baptism, but there are no references to the birthplace of the Walberswick bells. Payments of 3s 4d and 3s 8d were made to bring the bells home.67 They could have been cast in London or Lynn and then transported by water. They may have come from Richard Chirche, the bellfounder at Bury St Edmunds, or have been cast by the Norwich bell-founder, Richard Brasier. Wherever they came from, they required constant upkeep once they were delivered. A skin for the baudrick cost 10d in 1490, and knepylls, clappers, frames, bell wheels and ropes appeared frequently in the accounts. Even when these items managed to stay the course for a year or more, there were other payments like the 4d assigned to the sexton `for

63

64

65 66 67

between 1450 and 1475, and forty-®ve projects involving bells were underway: Brown, Diocese of Salisbury, 129. T. H. R. Oakes, `Blythburgh Church: Walberswick Church', PSIA viii (1894±96), 416±22, at 420. L. F. Salzman, English Industries of the Middle Ages (Oxford 1923), 150±4; NRO, NCC Caston 169±70, Geoffrey Baret, Halesworth 1486. Lewis, Walberswick, iv, 26, 129, 139; The East Anglian NS iii, 131. Salzman, English Industries, 150. Lewis, Walberswick, 21, 24.


110


locking to the bells' or, from 1490 onwards, the 3s 4d paid annually for ringing the curfew. The parishioner's usual bequest to the parish church, entered in the Walberswick and Crat®eld churchwardens' accounts as quetheword, cannot always be traced in the complementary will, one of the anomalies and disappointments found in local documentation. Nevertheless, whether evidence of the bequests is present or not, the constant supply of cash and kind was the bed-rock on which the churches' ®nances were built. Walberswick was fortunate in that it received the ®sherman's dole, an added bonus, and in certain years this must have been a spur to further building. The churches of Halesworth and Walberswick are dissimilar examples of parish churches, but both demonstrate common problems relating to buildings and written evidence. Walberswick church received many bequests from the parishioners, several of which may have been identi®ed by names or merchants' marks engraved or painted on the fabric, but architectural evidence is too devastated to allow for any survivals. Halesworth has fewer wills and, again, much architectural evidence has gone. There are, nevertheless, heraldic devices remaining, but precise dating is uncertain. The Argenteins were resident lords of the manor at Halesworth, at least until 1423 when the male line came to an end, so that certain areas can be related to their family if not to speci®c individuals. It is the bequests from parishioners which, although not substantial, indicate phases of building and alteration which would otherwise be unknown. The cost of general church maintenance can be appreciated from Walberswick churchwardens' accounts. These remind us that not all bequests were used for individual commemoration but were often employed for rather mundane but essential purposes.


Part Two The Kingdom of the Dead



5 Preparing the Ground Ay, but to die, and go we know not where, To lie in cold obstruction and to rot; This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit To bathe in ®ery ¯oods or to reside In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice, To be imprisoned in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendent world; or to be worse than worst Of those that lawless and incertain thoughts Imagine howling: 'tis too horrible! The weariest and most loathed wordly life That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment Can lay on nature is a paradise To what we fear of death. from Measure for Measure, Act 3, scene 1 William Shakespeare

From the vantage point of Protestant England in the early seventeenth century, when the doctrine of Purgatory would have been still fresh in the national memory, Shakespeare commented on death and the hereafter, which he presented as a place to be feared. The cornices of purgation, described by Dante in his Divine Comedy and illustrated in 1465 by Domenico di Michelino's fresco Dante e il suo Poema in Florence cathedral, recount vividly the trials of those trapped on Mount Purgatory; but although Purgatory, as an artistic subject, never achieved the same prominence as the Last Judgement, it was nevertheless interpreted by Shakespeare in Measure for Measure as physical discomforts stacked one above another, each torment to be endured and overcome before Paradise was reached. There is no doubt that the going would be tough and the use of the word Purgatory today is still synonymous with terror, bodily ordeals and indescribable discomfort. Yet there is reason to believe that the doctrine of Purgatory was, in reality, one of hope rather than fear.1 Purgatory was a belief which took the ablest minds in the Church many 1

Burgess, À Fond Thing', 56±84; Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, 34±6.


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THE KINGDOM OF THE DEAD

centuries to develop and re®ne, a doctrine which offered hope, not terror, after death. Its gestation and slow maturation has been described by Jacques Le Goff.2 It was originally a notion which emanated from two Greek theologians in the third century after Christ and it evolved slowly, acquiring a proud pedigree through the writings of St Augustine, Gregory the Great and St Bernard of Clairvaux. By the late twelfth century, the Cistercian Nicholas of Clairvaux, the Benedictine Nicholas of St Albans, and Peter Comestor, a secular master from NoÃtre Dame in Paris, were using the noun purgatorium to describe a via media, a middle place situated somewhere between Heaven and Hell. The acceptance of Purgatory as a doctrine came at the close of a period which had seen a radical overhaul of the Christian Church.3 The of®cial teaching on Purgatory was de®ned in 1274 at the Council of Lyons, but was not formally promulgated as an article of faith until the Council of Florence in 1439.4 Christians were liberated by its concept rather than intimidated by it, for Purgatory offered a chance, an alternative to Heaven or Hell, and although Purgatory, the third place, may have been conceived as the intermediate station between the other two, being in Purgatory meant that the only way out was up ± to Paradise. As Chateaubriand remarked centuries later, `Le purgatoire surpasse en poeÂsie le ciel et l'enfer, en ce qu'il presente un avenir qui manque aux deux premiers' [purgatory surpasses heaven and hell . . . in that it offers a future which the other two lack]'.5 The soul was received in Purgatory free from guilt, yet it still had to be purged of sin. This could be achieved by prayers and good works, implemented by the living on behalf of the soul in Purgatory. It was all very well, however, being offered Purgatory as an alternative, but there was still much that was unknown about the after-life. Time spent in Purgatory was ill-de®ned, and this ignorance did little to relieve the anxiety of the dying. Worldly time, which they knew well and which they could bend to their own desires, became of utmost importance and concern as they faced death and whatever followed. It was believed that release from Purgatory could be accelerated by prayer and pious works, and testators often pressed prayer into service without delay. In 1488, at Crat®eld, John Everard wanted a priest to go to Rome `to sing for my soul as sober and hastywise as it can be best provided by my executors'.6 The seasons of the year, punctuated by a continuum of religious festivals, 2

3

4

5 6

Le Goff, The Birth of Purgatory; ODCC, 1125±6; see also R. W. Southern's review of Le Goff 's book in `Between Heaven and Hell', TLS 18 June 1982. Rubin, Corpus Christi, 12±82, `Designing the Eucharist: New Ideas and Procedures for the Mass from c.1000'; Harper-Bill, The Pre-Reformation Church, 64±5. Hamilton, Religion in the Medieval West (London 1986), 46±7; ODCC, 1125±6; a comprehensive explanation of the doctrine will be found in D. L. Sayers, `Purgatory: the Doctrine', in Dante's The Divine Comedy 2: Purgatory (Harmondsworth 1955). F. de Chateaubriand, GenieÂ de Christianisme, I (new edn Paris 1966), 349. NRO, NCC Woolman 34, John Everard, Crat®eld 1488.


PREPARING THE GROUND

115

had been fundamental to the testators' way of life, and therefore they timed their prayers according to the earthly calendar or the liturgical year, sometimes even to the hour, for this was the measure of time which they understood. At Wrentham in 1495, Thomas Serle asked for intercessions to be said for him for three days at the three festivals of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost; and down the coast at Walberswick in 1500, John Almyngham wished a priest to say Mass daily between ®ve and six in the summertime and between six and seven during the winter.7 The immediacy, frequency and intensity of prayers, coupled with the ®nancial resources of the testator, had to be balanced, and at the core of all commemorative intercessions was the Mass, the re-enactment of the death, passion and resurrection of Christ. Death was not ®nal in the theology of the pre-Reformation Church but was rather the starting point of the next stage, and this feeling of on-going rather than cessation perpetuated close ritual ties between the living and the dead, the living shouldering the intercessory responsibility for those who had died.8 The prayers of the faithful poor were particularly sought, the goods of the wealthy being disposed for the bene®t of those less fortunate in the belief that one's obligation towards the poor was thus satisfactorily ful®lled. The good of®ces of relatives and friends on earth, coupled with the prayers of the faithful departed, who also had an inde®nable and inaudible part to play in this, ensured that all had been done to accelerate the passage through Purgatory. Intercessions invoked by the late medieval testator were astonishing in their variety, and they can be divided into short-term and long-term prayers. Short-term prayers, which included the funeral rites, the seven- and thirtyday celebrations, certeyns or sangredes, trentals and indulgenced or votive masses, were celebrated for less than a year. Pilgrimage undertaken by priests, friends and professional pilgrims fall into the short-term category for, although the bene®ts of pilgrimage might be long-term, the journey itself should be completed within twelve months.

Funerals and Farewells Masses of intercession could begin before death, and, in the Deanery, pyxes and bells for carrying to the sick and the dying are found among testamentary bequests. A small cruci®x, or the head of the processional cross, was held before the dying parishioner and, before he or she received the Host, the cool chrism was applied to the temple, the breast and the wrists by the priest (see Chapter Eight). The last communion, called viaticum (from the Latin meaning `provisions for a journey'), was administered to 7

8

NRO, NCC Woolman 247, Thomas Serle, Wrentham 1495; SROI, IC/AA2/4/68, John Almyngham, Walberswick 1500. Gittings, Death and the Individual, 20±3.


116


imbue the dying with grace for the journey about to be undertaken, although if the patient recovered, any penance left unful®lled still had to be completed.9 The funeral liturgy began with Placebo (I will please), the vespers of the Of®ce of the Dead, celebrated on the eve of the burial. The next morning, Dirige (Direct, O Lord), the matins of the Of®ce of the Dead, was said or sung. If the testator had wished it, the Commendatio animarum (the commendation) was included. These rites were followed by the Mass for the Dead, the Requiem (Eternal rest give unto them, O Lord), and ®nally, the interment.10 Some Deanery testators asked for additional masses to be included: in 1540, Margaret Doke wanted the Mass of the Five Wounds at Henstead, `the priests that shall sing to have every of them 8d': and Robert Nollothe, in 1525, requested a trental, or thirty masses, at Heveningham.11 When wills contain funeral details, the elaborate and costly processions of mourners and of®cers, the hall-marks of the deaths and funerals of the wellto-do, are revealed. William Mickle®eld of Henham left £20 in 1439 to cover expenses incurred àbout my testament, burying, minde days and other'.12 In 1461, Walter Martyn, the vicar of Westhall, gave 3s 4d `for the making of a sermon on my burial day'.13 William Norton asked for £3 to be distributed at his executors' discretion to priests, clerks and the poor of Halesworth and surrounding vills at his funeral in 1542; but the instructions of other testators were often more de®nite and less extravagant, clerics, singers, bell-ringers and poor being left ®xed sums for attending the service.14 The going-rate for clerics attending funerals was 4d a head, and other personnel were paid pro rata. William Horne, rector of Kelsale in 1446, gave 6d to each literate layman present at his obsequies, both men and boys; and at Blythburgh in 1508, Richard Tovy, a baxter, instructed his executors to send for the children of twelve years and under, every child to receive a penny, before John Akent, John Pesenhale, John Hawen and John Johnson carried Tovy to the church, each bearer receiving 4d.15 No woman's will contains such instructions, but it is no surprise that John Weever's sharp 9

10

11

12 13 14

15

ArieÁs, Hour of Death, 173; C. W. Dugmore, The Mass and the English Reformers (London 1958), 67; T. Erbe, ed. Mirk's Festial: a Collection of Homilies by Johannes Mirkus, EETS, Extra Series xcvi, pt i (1905), 170. Burgess, `By Quick and by Dead', 840; Gittings, Death and the Individual, 31; see also R. C. Finucane, `Sacred Corpses, Profane Carrion: Social Ideals and Death Rituals in the Later Middle Ages', Mirrors of Mortality: Studies in the Social History of Death, ed. J. Whaley (London 1981), 40±60, for a detailed account of death rites. NRO, NCC Cooke 99±100, Margaret Doke, Henstead 1540; NCC Godsalve 42±3, Robert Nollothe, Heveningham 1525. BL, Cotton Ch. IV, 34, William Mickle®eld, Blyford 1439. PRO, PCC Stockton 23, Walter Martyn, priest, Westhall 1461. PRO, PCC Spert 11, William Norton Halesworth, 1542; SROI IC/AA2/10/192, John Sancroft, Crat®eld 1530. NRO, NCC Wylbey, William Horne, rector, Kelsale 1446; SROI, IC/AA2/5/44, Richard Tovy, Blythburgh 1508.



117

tongue should comment in the seventeenth century that `Man was borne upon men's shoulders to signify his dignity and superiority over his wife; and woman at the arm's end, to signify, that being inferior to man, in her life time, she should not be equalled with him at her death'.16 Geoffrey Weston of Thorington was a man of substance, perhaps coming from the Weston family, formerly lords of a local manor.17 He died in 1459 or 1460. His will has not survived and Geoffrey is known only through the account book of Henry Chestyn, who was probably churchwarden of Thorington and possibly Geoffrey's executor.18 His funeral expenses came to 15s 7d and, out of this sum, the cost of funeral incidentals came to 3s 7d. The payments made to Christine Waryn (4d), Catarine Wodekok (8d) and Margaret Bocher (for washing 4d) may represent the cost of laying out the body, washing it and embalming it. William Fuller was paid 10d for making the grave and ringing the bell. The heftiest expense, however, was 9s 2d for the meat, beer and bread consumed at the wake, which could explain the modest residue of 8d which was paid to the paupers in alms. They had obviously eaten their ®ll at the funeral. Over and above these expenses, the prior of Blythburgh was paid 6s 8d for dirige and Mass, and four canons in attendance each received 1s. The funeral day alone, irrespective of the expenses involved in the writing and proving of the will, cost Geoffrey Weston's estate £1 6s 3d. To perform the seven corporal works of mercy was the acknowledged duty of a Christian, and three of these could be satis®ed during funeral rites: these were feeding the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty, more than adequate at Thorington, and clothing the naked. The abundance of alms re¯ected the wealth of the deceased, and the inclusion of paupers in the funeral rites signi®ed the testator's ®nal charitable act in this world, but was also an inducement to prayer. The dole was paid at roughly 1d per pauper. A lump sum was given for the poor of Sotherton totalling 26s 8d in 1518, but, at Sizewell in 1540, Thomas Sampson's executors provided ìii combe wheate ffyve Barells of Bere V shepe to be bakyn in pastys that the poore peoplee may be refresshyd therwyth'.19 Alms might be spread over a de®nite period or disbursed at stated intervals and, on the coast in the sixteenth century, alms included salt, coal and kindling and, by selling his ship called The James which was òut at her adventure', Walter Burghwarde hoped his executors would have suf®cient money for almsgiving.20 16 17

18 19

20

Weever, Funerall Monuments, 11. W. A. Copinger, The Manors of Suffolk: Notes on their History and Devolution, II (London 1905±11), 163±4; Harper-Bill, Blythburgh, ii, 230, note 452. ECRO, D/DL E55, The Account Book of Henry Chestyn 1457±64. SROI, IC/AA2/8/233, Robert Goodwyn, Sotherton 1518; IC/AA2/13/333, Thomas Sampson, Sizewell 1540. PRO, PCC Bennett 4, Elizabeth Peyrs, Easton Bavents 1508; PCC Popplewell 5, Geoffrey Block, Walberswick 1547; PCC Bodfelde 36, Walter Burghwarde, Walberswick 1525.


118


A good send-off was important, and the deceased's social position could be assessed by the quantity of mourners, albeit some of them were of questionable quality; for although many might enhance the charitable status of the deceased, some were present only for what they could get. Robert Oldring left 6s to the poor in Blythburgh, Wangford, Reydon and Southwold to recompense them for the time lost in attending his funeral `to that intent that they shall not labour out of their town upon my burial day' in 1539.21 The same year William Claxton's dole was to be bestowed at the houses of paupers within Halesworth, Chediston, Cookley, Wissett, Spexhall, Holton, Bram®eld and Walpole; but more unusual and certainly more speci®c were Bram®eld's eleven poor householders, each of whom received a sheet from the bequest of Robert Owers in 1537 who identi®ed them all by name.22

Intercessory Masses Liturgically, architecturally and ®nancially, the late medieval Church was enhanced by the obligation of friends and relatives to offer Masses to procure the deliverance of souls in Purgatory, for its teaching was that intense and frequent prayer shortened the duration of stay. The Council of Lambeth of 1281 decreed: `. . . far be it from any Catholic to think that one Mass devoutly celebrated for a thousand persons would bene®t them as much as if a thousand Masses were sung for them with similar devotion . . .'.23 If the bene®ts varied in proportion to the input, then it was an expensive exercise for the executors of Geoffrey Mollyner from Halesworth in 1451, because Geoffrey asked for one hundred masses to be sung in one day within the friaries of Norwich and Dunwich.24 Thomasine Hopton asked for one thousand masses to be sung for her in 1497.25 The time spent in Purgatory was thought to be reduced by engaging more than one priest, but was one priest praying for two years more or less effective than two priests praying for one? Baldwin Scott left this decision to his executors in 1436, but set 20 marks aside to cover either eventuality.26 Few bequests were straightforward and many `gifts' were conditional on prayers being said by the recipients. In 1532, the will of Thomas Brown was succinct, but a proviso was implied when he said, `to my wife my great copper kettle for the term of her life and after the decease of the said Joan, I will that some of the kindred have the said 21 22

23 24 25 26

SROI, IC/AA2/13/197, Robert Oldring, Wangford 1539. NRO, NCC Mingaye 200, William Claxton, Halesworth 1539; SROI, IC/AA2/13/ 127, Robert Owers, Bram®eld 1537. C & S, II, ii, 896. SRO1, IC/AA2/1/181, Geoffrey Mollyner, Halesworth 1451. PRO, PCC Horne 11, Thomasine Hopton, Yoxford 1497. SROI, IC/AA2/1/ 2, Baldwin Scott, Blythburgh 1436.



119

kettle whom it shall please her to give it unto, to pray for us'.27 The presence of the kettle prompted prayer. Intoning the deceased's name during Mass was a sharp reminder to the living of what their obligations were. In 1504, Walter Pers of Easton Bavents left instructions for a priest to say De profundis after daily Mass for his soul and then to `caste holy watyr upon my grave'.28 The inclusion of a benefactor's name on the bede-roll perpetuated the memory of the dead in the prayers of the living who had bene®ted in any way. In 1531, Margaret Borhede paid the curate 12d to keep her name on the roll at Henstead for `the next eight years', her name repeated at Christmas, Michaelmas and every Sunday.29 Outside the county, at Barking, Essex, the abbess and convent decided to discontinue masses for anyone who had died more than one hundred years previously, and at Swaffham, Norfolk, where a bederoll has survived, there is nothing to indicate for how long a soul might be remembered.30 It has been well said that the rites after death showed a wide range of observance resting on a limited range of practice.31 Intercessory services, which closely re¯ected the funeral liturgy, were requested on the seventh day after death and at thirty days or `the month's mind'. The nature of both services was virtually a re-run of the funeral service, the implied corpse covered by a pall thrown across the hearse. Torches were burnt, speci®c sums of money were paid to each priest, clerk and poor man attending the dirge, and the latter received gowns of blanket, all important tokens in this act of on-going commemoration.32 Those who could paid; those who couldn't, prayed. The range of intercessions catered for parishioners at every ®nancial and social level except the lowest. The choice of intercessions, sponsored and developed by the laity and encouraged by the clergy, was an opportunity open to all but the poorest who, in their turn, were paid to pray. Although chantries occupied the top position on the intercessory scale, less af¯uent members of society chose intercessions as they wished and as their pockets allowed. The souls of their kith and kin stipulated in wills and foundation deeds were also embraced in the commemorative rites for they, too, had offered similar intercessions in their turn and in their time. John Bossy sees the `friends' referred to in many wills as being kin-based in a formal, mutual relationship and he refers to this group as being horizontally 27 28

29 30

31 32

SROI, IC/AA2/11/46±48, Thomas Brown, 1532. NRO, NCC Ryxe 140, Walter Pers, Easton Bavents 1504; see SROI, FB 106/D1/1, the foundation charter of Edmund Daundy's Ipswich chantry for fuller details of intercessory practice. SROI, IC/AA2/11/120; Cox, Churchwardens' Accounts, 61, 159. K. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (London 1971; repr. 1991), 720; J. F. Williams, `The Black Book of Swaffham', Norfolk Archaeology xxxiii (1965), 243±53. Burgess, `By Quick and by Dead', 841. SROI, IC/AA2/2/192, William Brabson, South Cove 1469; NRO, NCC Gelour, Joan Croftys, Westhall 1477.


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connected. Although this may be true of colleagues and companions, parents frequently and grandparents, sometimes, add verticality to the range, but there is no discernible network of siblings, uncles, aunts or, more pertinently, children.33 Anonymous `benefactors' were often mentioned in intercessions for, in a world where patronage and inheritance oiled the wheels of society, benefactors loomed large in the annals of commemoration. Nevertheless, it was the testators who made the positive choice of shriving the soul, the choice of intercession to expedite the soul on its journey, and sometimes the intercessor, too, who might be a family member or a particular friend in secular or regular orders. Friar Thomas Yermond, a Franciscan from Dunwich, and Thomas Sibton, `monk in the foresaid monastery [of Sibton]', were selected to sing trentals, as was Friar John Eye, employed twice in 1508 to sing in Crat®eld church. Seldom were the names of souls for whom inclusive prayers were offered speci®cally cited, John Baret of Halesworth simply asking for prayers for his soul and for his friends' souls `that I have fared the better for'.34 The cheaper prayers served the poorer element of the testamentary scale particularly well. Blythburgh's parish priest was left 8d in order than he might `daylie sey the XV ooys [of St Bridget, a passion devotion on the last words of Jesus] with XV pater noster, XV mes and iii credes with De profundis' for one year.35 The ®fteen O's, at a cost of 8d, were not expensive and any one of the constituents could be said less frequently and for a shorter period at a fraction of the cost. Some prayers will never be identi®ed, such as those mentioned in William Gymyngham's will: Ì bequeath to a church in Ipswich, in the which old Blowgate dwelt in, 20s praying for William Gymyngham and Blowgate.'36 An intercessory short-hand can be used to identify prayers. An Agnus Dei (O, Lamb of God) cost 4d. Money left for a certeyn or a `sangrede', a word from Suffolk dialect meaning a service chanted for the souls of the departed or, literally, `sing-read', ensured that the testators' names would be included on the bede-roll and would be said in the pulpit.37 ArieÁs recalled the nomina or Prayers from the Pulpit, when `the lists were long, and the priest recited them at top speed, swallowing half the words'.38 In west Suffolk, 4s 4d seems to have been the going-rate for a certeyn, but in the Deanery it was 3s 4d, Alice Sampson leaving `by the space of 6 yerys payeng to the vicar of the church of Covehithe for the kepyng thereof 3s 4d'.39 Other examples are a certeyn purchased for 2s in the early sixteenth century and a lump sum of £3 33

34 35 36 37 38 39

J. Bossy, `The Mass as a Social Institution, 1200±1700', Past and Present c (1983), 29± 61, at 38±9. NRO, NCC Robinson 55, John Baret, Halesworth 1519. SROI, I/AA2/7/193, John Swan, Blythburgh 1515; Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 218. SROI, IC/AA2/10/9, William Gymyngham, Walberswick 1527. Dinn, `Bury St Edmunds', 558. ArieÁs, Hour of Death, 156. SROI, IC/AA2/11/106, Alice Sampson, widow, Covehithe.



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to be paid out at the rate of 2s a year.40 Willaim Garrould left a close called Horshalle to Linstead Parva church so that a certeyn would be kept every Friday throughout the year and his name remembered every Friday by the priest at High Mass.41 A trental can be identi®ed by a fee of 10s. Trentals consisted of thirty requiem Masses, to be said on a single or on successive days. Sub-divided, it was termed a half-trental and cost 5s. The trental of St Gregory, particularly popular in the middle of the ®fteenth century, arose from the story that St Gregory, at prayer one day, was confronted by a `monstrous, smelly apparition', which turned out to be his mother in torment for the murder of her children.42 He eased her suffering by offering thirty masses, three at each of the principal feasts of the year. Later a lovely vision, which he took to be the Virgin Mary, but was in fact mother, appeared praising the power of the trental. Deanery testators required St Gregory's trental at a cost of 10s, but, at Blyford in 1421, Katherine Snobeshyll, Richard Mickle®eld's widow, left 26s towards the celebration which must have bought her almost instant relief from Purgatory.43 St Gregory's trental was particularly favoured in the earlier Deanery wills, but its popularity faltered towards the end of the ®fteenth century as testamentary requests were channelled towards the new feasts, then at their most popular, and Thomas Anderson's request in 1535 for `twenty trentals of twenty songs' de®es identi®cation.44 The Scala Coeli (or Celi as it was spelt in Deanery wills) was a chapel in the Tre Fontane outside the walls of Rome. Here, St Bernard had seen a vision of souls ascending from Purgatory to Heaven and a celebration in the chapel would free souls in Purgatory extremely speedily, if not immediately. The indulgence became available in England in 1476 in the lower chapel of the Chapel Royal, Westminster, called St Mary-in-the-Vaults, which now lies directly below St Stephen's hall in the present Houses of Parliament.45 Sometime after 1504, an indulgence of Scala Coeli was granted to Westminster Abbey. Not only did Richard Love request remembrance in the abbey at Westminster in 1509, but Deanery wills show that the Temple at Dunwich was another chapel where the Mass of Scala Coeli was celebrated, as well as the Augustinian friaries of Gorleston and Orford. 40

41 42

43 44 45

SRO, IC/AA2/5/51, Ann Alard, Peasenhall 1508; NRO, NCC Mingaye 136±7, Thomas Bollionte, Covehithe 1538; SROI, IC/AA2/3/166, John Loveys, Kelsale 1494; IC/AA2/3/23, William Gymbald, Kelsale 1483. SROI, IC/AA2/10/141, William Garrould, Linstead Parva 1530. R. Pfaff, `The English Devotion of St Gregory's Trental', Speculum xlix (1984), 75±90. The cost of a full trental, called `le grete trental', should have been 12 marks (£8) or 5s 4d per Mass, celebrated on the feasts of the Nativity. Epiphany, Puri®cation, Annunciation, Easter, Pentecost, Trinity, Assumption and Nativity of the Virgin Mary, repeated three times within the ten octaves. NRO, NCC Hyrnyng, 80, Katherine Snobeshyll, Blyford 1421. SROI, IC/AA2/12/133, Thomas Anderson, Easton Bavents 1535. N. Morgan, `The Scala Coeli Indulgence and the Royal Chapels', The Reign of Henry VII: Harlaxton Symposium 1993, ed. B. Thompson (Stamford 1995), 82±103.


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New Feasts, New Festivals The increasing concentration on the Mass had highlighted God's incarnation on earth, and the doctrine of transubstantiation taught that the actual body and blood of Christ were consumed at the celebration of the Eucharist: Christ's humanity was consequently re¯ected in the popular consciousness in two ways. The ®rst was an awareness of His bodily sufferings and His Passion: the second was an interest in the Holy Family, any account of which was based on minimal fact and therefore largely ®ctitious (see the opening paragraph of Chapter Ten). Christ's Passion and death became the focus of attention in the late medieval period, and one of the popular artistic representations was the Man of Sorrows, which showed a wounded and weary Christ: or the Pieta, known as the Virgin of Pity, depicting a grieving Mary holding her scourged and bleeding son in her lap (the Virgin of Pity in Melford's glass is an excellent example of this within the county); and carvings and paintings of the arma Christi, the arms of Christ, originally represented by the weapons with which he gained victory over death (the cross, the crown of thorns, the nails and the lance), but later including the scourge, the spear, His hands, His feet and the Sacred Heart (Plate 11). Some of these can be found in the Deanery carved on font panels, in spandrels of doorways, in friezes and on the capitals of a timber-framed house on the road to Halesworth. The late medieval period saw the introduction and celebration of new religious feasts and festivals which showed a marked interest in Christ incarnate. Direct mention of these new feasts is not always apparent in Deanery wills but there is evidence of current trends in oblique testamentary references which are, in turn, re¯ected by the fresh wounds on the body of Christ in the Wenhaston Doom (Plate II); or even by the remnants of the Good Rood of Bram®eld. The most important feast to emerge in the late Middle Ages was that of Corpus Christi (the body of Christ), of late inception but wide popularity. Although formally instituted in 1264, its impact on English religious practices was slow at ®rst, for it was not observed at Salisbury until 1319 and probably reached East Anglia even later.46 Nevertheless, having arrived, it swiftly became popular. Corpus Christi was a particularly widespread dedication for urban gilds, and in Suffolk, where probably only Ipswich and Bury St Edmunds and possibly Beccles had civic gilds, the gild at Ipswich was dedicated to Corpus Christi.47 Kelsale's parishioners participated in the feast of Corpus Christi although the village's gild, one of the largest in the Deanery and serving many of the small coastal parishes, was actually dedicated to St John the Baptist. A cloth was 46 47

Rubin, Corpus Christi, 164±81; Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, xxxix. Northeast, `Parish Gilds', An Historical Atlas of Suffolk, ed. D. Dymond and E. Martin (3rd edn rev. Ipswich 1999), 74±5.


Plate 11. Wrentham church: an empty niche on the west face of the ®fteenth-century tower. The ¯ushwork frieze is decorated with alternating stone shields and lozenges, carved with the sacred heart within the crown of thorns, but the ¯ints which produced the typical black-and-white ¯ushwork effect are now missing.


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bequeathed at Kelsale in 1522 to bear over the Sacrament on Corpus Christi day, the cloth perhaps embroidered with the donor's name, making it similar to the canopy cloth from Bassingbourne, Cambridgeshire.48 The cloth at Bassingbourne was described as à clothe of velewet of purpur Colour for the Canopy to be borne over the blyssid Sacrament with the ymage of the Crucige broydr'd in the myddes of the seid cloth and the namys of the gifferes in the iiii Corneres'. The votive Mass of the Holy Name of Jesus, commonly called the Jesus Mass, was introduced in the early ®fteenth century, although the cult of the Holy Name had gained in popularity a century earlier.49 The Mass was linked to some generous indulgences which must have boosted its popularity for there are many references to the Jesus Mass, not only within the Deanery but also throughout the region and across the country. An early ®fteenthcentury missal from Norwich contained an indulgence which promised that those who obtained celebration of the Mass beginning within thirty days of their death would be transported to eternal joy.501A thirty thousand year indulgence was granted to each Mass. At Norwich cathedral, the chapel of Jesus was dedicated to the Holy Name and the mass of Jesus was said daily: it was celebrated weekly at an altar under the Rood loft.51 In the Deanery, money was left to the Jesus Mass at Southwold; to Halesworth church where the Mass was celebrated each Friday; to the Jesus gild at Dunwich; and to St Andrew's, Walberswick, to provide a red vestment with `Jesus Marcye in divers places boridered theron'.52 Pardons were rarely mentioned in Deanery wills and indulgences seldom, so that Robert Goodwyn's offering of 12d `to the pardon of the Name of Jesus' in 1518 is precious evidence towards identifying sites and practices.53 This may have referred to the Guild of Jesus in St Paul's cathedral, and Goodwyn revealed other places from which he expected to receive similar bene®ts: the Trinitarian house at Ingham and at Our Lady in the Sea in Newton chapel in Cambridgeshire. He left a further 12d to `the pardon of St Thomas of Canterbury' and 6d to Our Lady of Rounceval at Charing Cross, where a printer was engaged in the early sixteenth century to produce hundreds of indulgences and other publicity.54 Goodwyn had probably 48

49

50 51 52

53 54

SROI, IC/AA2/8/246, John Ede, Kelsale 1522; Rubin, Corpus Christi, 254; Cox, Churchwardens' Accounts, 130. R. Pfaff, New Liturgical Feasts in Later Medieval England (Oxford 1970), 62; E. G. C. F. Atchely, `Jesus Mass and Anthem', Transactions of the St Paul's Ecclesiological Society v (1905), 163±9. Pfaff, Feasts, 78, 63, 80, in which he quotes from Bodleian MS. Hatton 1/219. Atchely, `Jesus Mass', 166. SROI, IC/AA2/2/14, John Talyowrer, Southwold 1459; IC/AA2/2/44, John Lokles, Southwold 1459; NRO, NCC Bryggs 46, William Fyn, Halesworth 1481; SROI, IC/ AA2/8/68, Cornelius Petersen, Dunwich 1519; IC/AA2/12/234, Richard Manning, freemason, Walberswick 1537. SROI, IC/AA2/8/ 233, Robert Goodwyn, Sotherton 1518. R. N. Swanson, `Letters of Confraternity and Indulgence in Late Medieval England',



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purchased letters of confraternity from a pardoner, which, when returned to the house of issue at his death, would instigate commemorative prayers for his soul. In 1533, the recipients of Robert Duckett's small bequests were to be the houses of Burton Lazar, the Boston pardon, pardons of St Christopher and St George in York, St Thomas of Acres (Acon) in London, and the Trinity of Ingham; and Thomas Frawnces left 2s to the indulgence of St Trinity.55 Thomas Nonne's 20d bequest to the Trinitarians at Thelsford in Worcester diocese in 1465 may well have been left for a similar purpose, but the ®ve shillings left to St Thomas's hospital at Rome by John Swan was probably a straightforward bequest.56 Devotions to the Five Wounds were known in England as early as the twelfth century, but the Mass of the Five Wounds made its appearance here in the ®rst half of the ®fteenth century. It occurs in Deanery wills in the early sixteenth century and soon it was replacing the St Gregory trental in popularity. When the Mass was celebrated ®ve times, a seventh part of all sins were pardoned. At Norwich, the Five Wounds were in `some demand' after 1490; and in fourteenth-century Great Yarmouth, a gild met in honour of the Wounds of Our Lord every Friday after vespers.57 The Mass featured texts from the Passion and was always celebrated on a Friday. One of the bene®ts of the Mass was the release of souls from Purgatory, and it was therefore a celebration especially appropriate for intercessory commemoration. The weekly Friday Mass at Cookley, at which ®ve poor folk were paid 2d each to pray, may have been the Mass of the Five Wounds; and the recipients of a bakehouse in Covehithe market place were to have ®ve masses of the Five Wounds sung for their benefactor's soul in 1511.58 There was no feast attached to this Mass. The Feast of the Trans®guration, promulgated as a universal double feast in 1457, is not referred to by name, but oblique references give an insight into the religious preferences within the Deanery. The gift of a painted linen cloth in honour of the Trans®guration of Christ to Halesworth high altar in 1501 and the painting of the Trans®guration on the rood-screen panels at Westhall c. 1512 must show that active input and vital interest were part and parcel of this novel liturgical celebration (Plate III).59

55

56

57

58

59

Archives xxv, no. 102 (2000), 40±57. Thanks are due to him for explaining these references to pardons. SROI, IC/AA2/11/191, Robert Duckett, Sibton 1533; IC/AA2/2/303, Thomas Frawnces, Southwold 1475. SROI, IC/AA2/2/160, Thomas Nonne, 1465; IC/AA2/7/193, John Swan, Blythburgh 1515. Tanner, Norwich, 103; G. Rosser, `Communities of Parish and Guild in the Late Middle Ages', Parish, Church and People: Local Studies in Lay Religion, ed. S. J. Wright (London 1988), 29±55, at 43. NRO, NCC Alpe 25±7, John Cary, parson, Cookley 1532; SROI, IC/AA2/5/222, Robert Fylby, Covehithe 1511. SROI, IC/AA2/4/54, Agnes Barker, Halesworth 1501; NRO, NCC Johnson 244, Richard Love, Westhall 1509.


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The liturgy of the Mass had been responsible for the growing interest in Christ's humanity, and certain passages contained in the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles and the ®rst book of Corinthians roused curiosity and prompted questions. Although reference to Christ's `brothers' had been misinterpreted, much of the romance of the `Holy Family' developed from this misconstruction, encouraged by writings such as Legenda Aurea, the Golden Legend, written in the thirteenth century by Jacobus de Voragine. This collection of saints' lives, based on the Apocryphal Gospels and then ®lled out with dubious detail, became a best-seller in the late Middle Ages. At the head of this Holy family stood St Anne, the mother of the Virgin, her familial relationship with her daughter mirrored by that of the Virgin and Christ. St Anne, on the death of her ®rst husband, Joachim, acquired two more: Cleophas followed by Salomas. By each, she bore two further daughters: Mary Cleophas, mother of James the Less, Simon, Jude and Joseph the Just; and Mary Salome, mother of John the Evangelist and James the Great. St Anne's various grandsons were now accommodated within the `brotherhood', and ®ve became disciples. Thus the grandmotherly ®gure of St Anne gave depth and roots to an otherwise sparse family background. Her cult in the West developed late, although she had been venerated for centuries in the Eastern empire. She featured in English calendars before 1340, and her veneration had begun even earlier, but her feast was introduced in 1382/3 to celebrate the marriage of Richard II and Anne of Bohemia.60 Deanery testators do not mention the feast, yet her growing popularity can be traced in the `history' of St Anne listed in Rumburgh's ®fteenth-century inventory; by numerous lights; by images at Dunwich, Sibton and Yoxford; by altars in Southwold and Blythburgh; and by the chapel in Halesworth church. Dedications to her proliferated, and, elsewhere in Suffolk, she was commemorated in Osbern Bokenham's Legends of Holy Women.61 Bokenham, an Augustinian friar from Clare in south Suffolk, wrote verses to order for the local gentry. In his poem dedicated to St Katherine, he addressed Katherine Howard and Katherine Denston, the wives of John Howard and John Denston.62 Bokenham was an admirer of John Lidgate, a Benedictine monk from the abbey at Bury, whose verses later decorated the chantry chapel roof of Katherine Denston's halfbrother, John Clopton, at Melford. Is it possible that around or above Katherine and John Denston, who lie together in their collegiate church at 60

61

62

Pfaff, Feasts, 2; G. McM. Gibson, `Saint Anne and the Religion of Childbed: some East Anglian Texts and Talismans', Interpreting Cultural Symbols: Saint Anne in Late Medieval Society, ed. K. Ashley and P. Sheingorn (London 1990), 95±110, at 98; J. Bossy, Christianity in the West, 1400±1700 (Oxford 1985), 8±11. O. Bokenham, Legendes of Hooly Wummen, ed. M. S. Serjeantson, EETS, OS ccvi (repr. 1971), 38±58. The quotation below is to be found on pages 57±8. Bokenham, Hooly Wummen, 172±201: John Howard, the ®rst Howard duke of Norfolk, was killed at the battle of Bosworth in 1485, ®ghting for Richard III. He and John Broughton, the Denston's son-in-law, set up the college chantry at Denston in 1474 to commemorate John and Katherine Denston.



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Denston, verses from Bokenham's poem dedicated to St Katherine were inscribed ± or around the tomb of their daughter, Anne Broughton, formerly Denston, verses from his poem dedicated to her patronal saint, St Anne, would have been written? . . . As they a dowghter hav, yung & fayre of face, Wyche is Anne clepyde in worshyp, lady, of thee, & aftyr to blysse eterne convey hem alle thre. A.M.E.N. lorde for charyte.

The popularity of the Holy Family can be attributed to the blessing and solace they brought to family life in the harsh world of the late Middle Ages, and perhaps Bokenham's poem was of an apotropaic character which pleased this newly arrived saint of hearth and home.63 St Anne, however, as a latecomer, was not generally regarded as the saint of motherhood or childbirth, for there were already saints of older provenance and greater popularity. These were her own daughter, the Virgin Mary, and St Margaret of Antioch. Across the river Waveney at St Helen's, Ranworth, where Mary Cleophas, Mary the Virgin, and Mary Salome are shown with their offspring on the south screen, it is not St Anne depicted in the fourth panel. Here it is St Margaret, long regarded as the saint and protectress of women in childbirth, and, within East Anglia, the patroness of countless chapels and parish churches of earlier foundation, and a familiar ®gure found on many ®fteenth-century Rood-screens.

Shrines and Pilgrimages By the late Middle Ages, pilgrimage was under attack by reformers such as the Lollards and writers such as Langland. Their objections were that pilgrimage eased the conscience of a sinner without improving the moral quality of his life, because privations previously endured by pilgrims were now interchangeable for cash payments. As Jonathan Sumption observed, `Pilgrimage, like almsgiving, had begun as an accessory to the moral teaching of the Church, and ended up as an alternative.'64 It is not known whether any Deanery testator had undertaken pilgrimage during life, and only a few wills reveal testators were contemplating it. William Mickle®eld's last will, written at Henham on 7 November 1439, proposed a visit to the Holy Land.65 As probate was not granted for a further eighteen months, it is possible that he may have made the journey quite safely. To others in peril of death, pilgrimage appeared as an attractive 63 64 65

Duffy, `Holy Maydens, Holy Wyfes', 191±4; Gibson, `Saint Anne', 107. J. Sumption, Pilgrimage ± an Image of Medieval Religion (London 1975), 289. BL, Cotton Ch. IV, 34, William Mickle®eld, Blyford, 1439; SROI, IC/AA2/1/160, Richard Cooper, Southwold 1450.


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journey which they knew they would never undertake, and vicarious pilgrimage must have ful®lled many a longing for foreign parts; but requests for vicarious pilgrims came from few testators as the cost of providing such a transitory form of commemoration was as great and sometimes greater than requesting prayers of a more substantial nature. The Deanery was well-placed for overseas travel, and Europe easily accessible. Richard Skilman, commemorated today in Skilman's Hill in Southwold, was licensed to carry thirty pilgrims travelling to Santiago de Compostela in The Mary in 1456, the passengers disembarking gratefully at Corunna and continuing happily on foot.66 Robert Norfolk carried sixty pilgrims in The Christopher of Southwold in 1473; and The Edmund, The James and The Trinity all sailed the Santiago route in 1484.67 Nevertheless, this was not a journey to be undertaken lightly, as described below.68 A sak of straw were there ryght good Ffor some must lyg theym in theyr hood; I had as lefe be in the wood, Without mete or drynk; For when that we shall go to bedde, The pumpe was nygh oure beddes hede, A man were as good to be dede As smell therof the stynk.69

It was not always necessary to hire one's own vicarious pilgrim. Katherine Snobeshyll left 6s 8d to anyone travelling to Rome to pray for her soul and `to walk the circle' in 1421.70 The circle referred to the stations of Rome, of which there were almost four hundred, although not all were visited at one time; they included churches, altars and shrines on the pilgrimage route, which had indulgences attached. Alice Berth gave Agnes Edmunds a generous 13s 4d towards her pilgrimage to St James (Santiago de Compostela) in 1527, although this pales by comparison with the 26s 8d given to Margery Kempe by the bishop of Lincoln, another vicarious pilgrim, to `buy her clothes with and to pray for him in Palestine'.71 The 4 marks (£2 13s 4d) left for vicarious pilgrimage in 1451 by Richard Almot was a sizeable contribution both towards another's journey and his own commemoration.72 Richard Cotyngham was prepared to spend as much silver as it would take to 66 67

68 69

70

71 72

PRO, Treasury Receipts, C 76/133 m.11. C. M. Storrs, Jacobean Pilgrims from England to St James of Compostella from the early Twelfth to the Late Fifteenth Century (Confraternity of St James, London 1993) 173±82. J. J. Raven, History of Suffolk (London 1895), 127. `The Pilgrim's Sea-voyage and Sea-sickness', ed. F. J. Furnivall, The Stacions of Rome, EETS, OS xxv (1867), 37±40. NRO, NCC Hyrnyng 80, Katherine Snobyshyll; W. M. Rosetti, `Notes on the Stacyons of Rome', Political, Religious and Love Poems, ed. F. J. Furnivall, EETS, OS xv (1866; re-ed. 1903), xxi±xxii. SROI, IC/AA2/10/8, Alice Berth, Walberswick 1527; Sumption, Pilgrimage, 299. SROI, IC/AA2/1/180, Richard Almot, South Cove 1451.



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hire four men to go to St James, but, despite an almost door-to-door service, Compostela was not patronized as frequently as Rome, and no ®nancial details for the journey to Spain were given.73 On the other hand, Katherine Randolf expected to pay a priest £10 for a round trip to Rome from Halesworth, and John Bland named John Lacy as his `pilgrim in 1474.74 Lacy was to celebrate at Rome and in Theberton church for one year and Bland was prepared to pay him 20 marks inclusive (£15 6s 8d).2 From beyond the grave, the testators expected full value for their money. Clerical pilgrims were usually allowed a ®xed time, sixteen weeks for Rome or Santiago, twelve months for Jerusalem. The independent laity did it more quickly. Margery Kempe waited six weeks in Bristol for a ship to sail to Spain, but, once underway, took only seven days to get to Santiago and, having spent a fortnight there, took another ®ve days to return.75 Nearer home, pilgrims travelled to established shrines such as Canterbury, Hailes and also to Scotland. Deanery wills kept abreast of current trends mentioning images of more than local interest: the Maid of Manston in Dorset; the putative originator of the Jack-in-the-Box, Dr John Schorne, from Marston, Buckinghamshire, whose body was translated to Windsor in 1478; and `King Herry of Windsor' (Henry VI, d. 1471), who attracted two testators from Walberswick, indicating something of a local cult for, in Walberswick church, there was also `King Harry's table', a board containing prayers and devotions in his name.76 Testators remembered Our Lady of Woolpit in the Sudbury Archdeaconry, renamed `the Lefdy of Foulpette' by the Lollards, and Our Lady of Grace at Ipswich in the Suffolk Archdeaconry.77 The most illustrious Marian shrine in England was at Walsingham, within the diocese, dubbed `the Lefdy of Falsyngham' by Lollards. She was described by Erasmus as `the beyond-sea she-saint', to whom he promised to make another visit, her name being `very famous all over England. . .'.78 From Crat®eld, the journey might have fairly short but nevertheless quite arduous. 73 74

75 76

77

78

SROI, IC/AA2/2/309, Richard Cotyngham, Aldringham 1473. NRO, NCC Neve 19, Katherine Randolf, Halesworth 1456; NCC Hubert 65, John Bland, Theberton 1474; see also Geoffrey Baret of Crat®eld, SR01, IC/AA2/3/117, 1489. B. A. Windeatt, ed., The Book of Margery Kempe (Harmondsworth 1985), 144±8. NRO, NCC A. Caston 210, John Tizard, Crat®eld 1484; SROI, IC/AA2/3/152, Thomas White, Walberswick 1492; IC/AA2/5/80, Margaret Pynne, Walberswick 1509; W. W. Williamson, `Saints on Norfolk Rood-screens and Pulpits', Norfolk Archaeology xxxi, pt iii (1956), 299±346, at 308±9; Henri VI Angliae regis Miraculae Postuma: ex codice Musei Britannici Regio 13 c.VIII, ed. P. Grosjean (Brussels 1935), 127, 246. The Suffolk miracles attributed to Henry VI were miracle 49 at Byllesdon (Bildeston) and miracle 134 at Albourne (Alnesbourne) in 1491. C. Paine, `The Chapel and Well of Our Lady of Woolpit', PSIAH xxxviii, pt i (1993), 8±11; MacCulloch, Suffolk and the Tudors, 143±6; Tanner, Heresy, 14. G. C. Coulton, ed., Social Life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation (Cambridge 1918), 251±2.


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Five folks be hired to go on a pilgrimage unto Our Lady of Walsingham bare footed and bare legged in the worship of the Five Joys of Our Lady, they to have daily for their labour 4d apiece and more if need be and their costs born, they to say each of them there and by the way ®ve times Our Lady's Psalter, viz. to which I bequeath 20s.79

In the geographical catchment area which had drawn twelfth-century pilgrims to William of Norwich, more than half the pilgrims recorded lived less than ten miles from William's shrine. There was a sharp fall in pilgrims coming from beyond a ten-mile radius.80 At a distance of ®fty miles, few undertook the journey. During the same period, at Canterbury, more than half of all recorded British pilgrims came from the south-east of England, a quarter of all those recorded coming from Kent or the city itself. It follows that St Margaret's chapel at Easton Bavents, the Deanery's own pilgrimage site, would hardly have been a high spot on the pilgrims' national itinerary.81 Between 1370 and 1547, it received only three bequests but locally it probably had substantial support. There were over twenty shrines in East Anglia, some as insigni®cant as Easton Bavents, and many would have relied on purely local trade. From the Deanery, there were no requests for Bury St Edmunds, St William of Norwich or the Holy Rood at Bromholm.82 Even the Holy Rood of Beccles in the neighbouring deanery was not mentioned, while travel to Italy or Spain appears to have been popular yet involved substantial investment. Why? The amount of money required for overseas travel warranted written record, as did distant travel in one's native country. Journeys planned within the region, on the other hand, were more easily remembered and implemented. Therefore the absence of requests for pilgrimages to local shrines at Bury St Edmunds, Norwich, Bromholm or Beccles does not mean that they were not made. Many would have already been visited during life and, if not, the money necessary for the journey could be honoured from estate residue `for the good of my soul'. This might be achieved for a few shillings, hardly worth a testamentary mention when word of mouth, even the last breath, might do.

The Cult of the Holy Rood The great sensibility and poignant awareness of the suffering of Christ, of His passion and His death upon the Cross, led to new developments in art, 79 80

81

82

SROI, IC/AA2/5/ 68, Nicholas Stobard, Crat®eld 1508. R. C. Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England (London 1977), 161±4. Suckling, Suffolk, II, 312; Blatchly and Northeast, `Ruined Parish Churches', 437; SROI, IC/AA2/5/80, Margaret Pynne Walberswick, 1509; NRO, NCC Woolman 79, William Wellys, Easton Barents 1491. Tanner, Norwich, 85±90.



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creating a devotional imagery on which the faithful could re¯ect.83 The Man of Sorrows, for instance, was born not in the ®rst century, but in the late Middle Ages, a devotional image recalling the prophecy, `He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief . . . . Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows . . . .'84 The vernicle, although retained in Rome since the eighth century, became a popular icon of the Passion under the auspices of the Franciscans, the name coming from vera, true, icon, image; and St Veronica's action on Good Friday was hailed as the sixth Station of the Cross on the via Dolorosa, although she, like St Anne, had no Gospel pedigree.85 Later, the scourging, the instruments of the Passion and the wounds were demonstrated precisely and in detail, hammer, nails and whip carved in the spandrels over church doorways and on fonts (Plate 12). Margery Kempe's contemporary description puts the sensibilities of that era into vivid and moving words. She straightway saw them take up the cross with our Lord's body hanging on it, and make a great noise and cry; and they lifted it up from the earth a certain distance, and then let the cross fall down into the mortise. And then our Lord's body shook and shuddered, and all the joints of that blissful body burst and broke apart, and his precious wounds ran down with rivers of blood on every side . . . .86

The contemporary interest in the family of Jesus was part of the same sentiment, an attempt to make Christ more, not less, human. The increased devotion to St Anne has been mentioned; and there was, too, a `remarkable rehabilitation of this dismal ®gure', Joseph, the carpenter.87 Christ's friends during his life and the loyalty of those who suffered in His name after His death were commemorated. All these accentuated the worldly life of Christ while the Cruci®x pointed to the mode of His death, taking centre stage in the religious sensibility as it took centre stage on the rood-beam, commemorating his sacri®ce. Roods were cult ®gures, objects of particular veneration, and there is evidence within the Deanery and from without that some roods were sites of local pilgrimage. There was the Good Rood at Beccles, and the Good Rood at Gislingham and Kirton, both within the Archdeaconry, `good' having the same interpretation as Holy.88 A bequest was made for the Good Rood at 83

84 85

86 87 88

E. Duffy, `Devotion to the Cruci®x and Related Images in England on the Eve of the Reformation', Bilder und Bildersturm im SpaÈtmittelalter und in der fruÈhen Neuzeit (Wiesbaden 1990), 21±36. Isaiah 53: 3±5. J. C. J. Metford, Dictionary of Christian Lore and Legend (London 1983), 166, 252±3; J. Hall, A Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art (London 1974), 197, 321, 142±3. Windeatt, Margery Kempe, 233. Bossy, Christianity in the West, 10±11. SROI, IC/AA2/5/11, Nicholas Wade, Kenton 1507; SROB, Reg. Harvye 442, John Moore, 1493; SROI, IC/AA2/9/124, William Bennis Stonham Aspal, 1524.


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Plate 12. Chediston font: the instruments of the Passion on the south-east panel. Here are the cross, the crown of thorns, the nails, lance, spear and two scourges.



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Easton Bavents to be painted in 1518, and in 1511 a spruce `cownter' was bequeathed to the Good Rood at Blythburgh Bridge; but also there were Good Roods at Theberton and at Leiston while the Good Rood on the north side of Southwold Church was left 40s to `make him a new cote'.89 The wording leads to the misapprehension that there was a rood over the north chapel entrance at Southwold, but it is unlikely that more than one rood would have stood on the rood-beam, even though the Southwold beam spanned the width of the church. Yet it is this reference to the Good Rood òn the north side' at Southwold that suggests there may have been more than one rood in some churches. In 1470, Master Roger Scolys, the vicar of Reydon and, in today's terminology, priest-in-charge of Southwold, left 22s to St Cruci®x in Southwold Church.90 There was no difference between a rood and a cruci®x except in name, rood being the Old English for cross or cruci®x (a word derived from Latin, in general use at a later date). At Stoven in 1512, St Cross, before which William Codenham wished to be interred, was not a saint, but Sancta Crux, the Holy Cross.91 In Bram®eld church, the coved tracery on screen's vault forms a series of crosses. These lie directly below the rood loft and could have drawn attention to the Holy Rood standing in the centre of the rood beam. Yet there was another cross in Bram®eld Church to which they would have probably referred. This was a wall-mounted cruci®x, the outline of which remains in the recess on the north wall of the nave (Plate 13). Discovered in 1860 under whitewash, it was described as à cross UrdeÂe, probably arising from a Calvary of three steps now destroyed'.92 The recess was painted vermilion and against this the shape of the cross appeared in whitewash, the rood having been removed. Above the cross-bar were two angels bearing chalices, and two scrolls with the words qui tollis peccata mundi and miserere nobis: below the cross-bar, a further two angels with chalices and scrolls bearing the words gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam: and the suggestion of yet another two angels on either side of the Calvary. One will gives a general date for the refurbishment of the church, including a new roof, but it also points to a rood cult in Bram®eld. In 1507, Edmond Clerke of Walberswick left `to the reparacion of Bram®eld church 4 pecs tymber ther beyng and 33s 4d in money unto the seelyng of the said church . . . to the emending of the good Rode and his aungells in Bram®eld church 10s'.93 It was to St Cross within the recess that Edmond Clerke referred in his will. The presence of the rood was not con®ned to churches and chapels. 89

90 91 92

93

SROI, IC/AA2/8/34, Richard Marche, Southwold 1518; IC/AA2/5/233, Alex Rycherdson, Walberswick 1511; IC/AA2/7/ 170, Trianer Dalton, Theberton 1516; IC/AA2/11/ 91, John Brown, Southwold 1532. NRO, NCC Betyns 89, Master Roger Scolys, Reydon 1470. NRO, NCC Johnson 188, William Coddenham, Stoven 1512. C. E. Keyser, A List of Buildings in Great Britain and Ireland having Mural and Other Painted Decorations, of dates prior to the latter part of the Sixteenth Century (London 1883), 36. NRO, NCC Spyltimbre 7, Edmund Clerke, Walberswick 1507.


Plate 13. Bram®eld: the Good Rood. The outline of the Good Rood, the angels' wings and the inscribed scrolls are still clearly seen. The lower plaster has perished. Hamlet Watling's watercolour of c. 1860 showed a vermilion background and the angels and their scrolls in detail.



135

Wayside crosses, similar to the Calvary crosses on the Continent, were bequeathed for use between Thorington and Darsham, and one was to be set up in Bulcamp street. A timber cross was to be erected in Southwold churchyard in 1459, but a second bequest followed eleven years later, suggesting that parishioners were dragging their feet. These crosses were not necessarily simple in design or cheap in construction. In 1502, Joan Brame, a well-heeled widow from Buxlow, left instructions in her will for her executors to make a cross of the Trinity, `to be sett in the hey wey withowt [outside] the falgate of the manor . . .', to the value of 26s 8d in accordance with her late husband's will, but as Sir Edmund Jenney was one of the executors, it is possible that the bequest was never implemented, he being tardy in such matters.94 The last word on wayside crosses comes from Wissett and Rumburgh, and was probably recorded by Nathaniel Fairfax c. 1680: The greater part of Wisset, especially the Street, and to Halesworthward is a mixed soil, & gravelly, the outskirts more clayey. In the street at the turning up towards Chediston is a place called Wisset Cross, where as they say, of olden time, stood a Cross, though there be no remarkable Crossway (but a Trivium). The foundation of which, being stonework, I remember to have seen when a boy, at the north foot of the Cart bridge there, but I think since pulled down. It seems the Papists set up Crosses elsewhere than at Cross ways (as some market crosses are). So a dirty place at Rumburgh coming out of the street unto the green at a 3 way leet near the Butts is called Green Cross Slough, perhaps from some cross there set up.95

Today it is dif®cult to appreciate the wide choice open to testators for their commemoration post mortem and the care taken by them to make adequate preparation for their salvation. Testators who chose to do so took full advantage of the number, duration and above all the timing of prayers. The funeral rites, spread out over several hours but observed in discrete acts of worship, were a prologue to life hereafter rather than an epilogue to life already gone. Earthly time was used to great effect to punctuate the seemingly timeless drift of Purgatory. The intermittent celebration of prayers and the re-enactment of funeral rites on weekly and monthly anniversaries perpetuated the bonds between the living and the dead. It is not vital in the context of this chapter to re¯ect on how many requests for prayers or bequests to the poor were or were not implemented, nor is it necessary to know who was sitting at the end of the bed, writing the will, in¯uencing the testator. What is important is to be aware of the wide choice available post mortem and the care taken by testators to make provision for the health of their souls as far as their goods allowed. The survey of funerary and intercessory practices demonstrates quite clearly the choice available to testators. What is not so clear is the choice available to 94 95

NRO NCC Popy 210, Joan Brame, Buxlow 1502. CUL, Hengrave MSS, 37/3/180.


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the less prosperous, to the poor, to the widows, the old and the sick. While their inclusion in the prayers of others and their obligation to offer prayers themselves in return for physical bene®ts gave their soul safekeeping, their material circumstances gave them little or no choice. They did make the ®nal decision, however, which was to choose whether to offer the soul to God. The late Middle Ages witnessed an intense interest in the earthly existence of Christ and his family. This resulted in the `humanization' of the Christian story and an easier, more intimate relationship between the son of God and the parishioner than had previously been the case. This was seen in the introduction of the new masses and feasts, all Christocentric in focus. The same in¯uence was noticeable in new centres of pilgrimage from the fourteenth century to the Reformation. The evidence from the Deanery illustrates that these recent developments had found a welcome reception, both in the liturgical and the artistic ®elds. Deanery wills show a broad investment in all aspects of intercession. The Deanery was not slow in adopting and implementing new feasts, but slightly later than in the cathedral city, as would be expected. In the Deanery and in Norwich the most requested celebrations were the Mass of [the Holy Name of] Jesus, the Trental of St Gregory, the Five Wounds, the Mass at Scala Celi and the Mass of Mary; in Bury St Edmunds the Holy Name of Jesus was more popular than the Five Wounds, but in Blackbourn deanery there were only two testamentary requests for the Five Wounds and one for the Holy Name.96

96

Tanner, Norwich, 221; Dinn, `Bury St Edmunds', 194±5.


6 Singing for Souls And think also of your end: how painful it will be, groaning, and gnawing, and gnashing of teeth, and smelling horrible to those who sit around. When you are dead, you shall be deftly dug and wasted by worms, be you never so worthy! Anonymous late fourteenth- or early ®fteenth-century quotation from Robert Swanson's Catholic England

Obits Obits occupied the middle ground between short-term prayers and chantries. They were the forerunners of chantries, and originated in monasteries where commemoration was effected with a mass, a bequest to the house, and a dole to the poor.1 Otherwise known as twelvemonth days, year-days, yeremyndes or anniversaries, obits were usually celebrated on the anniversary of the testator's death.2 They might be celebrated for a few years at minimal cost or, for increased expenditure, could continue for years. They were re-enactments of burial rites, the testator's cadaver suggested by a pall-draped hearse encircled by burning candles. The Of®ce of the Dead was observed on the eve, the requiem mass celebrated on the day of the anniversary.3 Residue from the bequest was speci®cally assigned for the celebration; thus, in 1498, Walter Pers's tenement was left to the use of Southwold church on condition that 10s were taken from the pro®ts to pay for his obit.4 Pers's instructions included two shillings to six priests; twelve pence to six clerks; fourpence to the ringers às the custom is'; for making the hearse and to the poor, the residue of the 10s. The cost of the obit itself was little more than 3s 4d. Tapers and lights would be supplied from Pers's bequest (2d or 4d for tapers and 8d for a one-pound candle had been the 1

2

3 4

K. Wood-Legh, Perpetual Chantries in Britain (Cambridge 1965), 3±4; A. H. Thompson, The English Clergy and their Organization in the Late Middle Ages (Oxford 1947), 132±60. C. Burgess, À Service for the Dead: the Form and Function of the Anniversary in Late Medieval Bristol', Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucester Archaeological Society cv (1987), 183±211, at 194±7. Burgess, `By Quick and by Dead', 847. NRO, NCC Wight 12, Walter Pers, Kelsale 1498.


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price at Thorington in the 1460s).5 The hearse was part and parcel of parish equipment, as was the pall. Christian Caas left to St Nicholas's chapel, Sizewell, `. . . the best covering that [be]longeth to my bed for a hearse cloth or a bier cloth'.6 At Crat®eld, the 1528 inventory included a black worsted hearse cloth. At Hunting®eld, three hearse towels were listed. Obit expenses at 3s 4d were modest, although not as low as the shilling spent on anniversary celebrations in Seend chapel in Salisbury diocese;7 but Southwold, nevertheless, was 6s 8d in pocket, a generous addition for church coffers. As far as Pers's bequest of the tenement was concerned, after repairs were completed, the residue was to be used to discharge the task (the taxes) of the town. In his will of 1522, Sir Edmund Jenney of Knodishall, sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk between 1502 and 1504, and a frequent supervisor of local wills, expected his heirs to keep the anniversary of his death `by the space of an hundred year and longer'.8 Any foundation needed a watertight investment to survive, especially for a hundred years, and feoffees (trustees) were chosen to administer the property or endowment during the testator's lifetime and after his death, if necessary. This was different to an executor whose responsibilities, in dealing with the goods and chattels of the dead, commenced with a testator's death. Making her will in 1523, Kathryn Croxton had already appointed twenty-four feoffees to administer a fen called Kessel in Dunwich. The rents and dues from the fen would pay for a ninety-nine year obit to be celebrated on 13 October (probably the date of her husband's death) at the Franciscan friary for the souls of Kathryn and her late husband.9 As it was, the obit probably lasted no longer than twenty-®ve years for, being a `superstitious practice', it would have been suppressed in 1547. The Deanery's only ancillary documentation is Henry Chestyn's account book of an obit at Thorington, but one year's accounts do not necessarily tally with the next.10 Geoffrey Weston's ®rst anniversary at Thorington, probably in 1460, cost approximately 13s 7d, slightly less than his funeral expenses at 15s 7d, but as none of these accounts are dated precisely, the only way to put a date to Weston's various anniversaries is to work forwards, year by year, from the back of the account book (which is said to have ended in 1464).11 Of the ®rst anniversary's expenditure, only 2s 4d was spent on the obit (priests and clerks cost 12d, ringers 3d, tapers and lights 11d). The poor received 2d, but the bulk of the expenditure, of which they were the main bene®ciaries, was for refreshment. Bread cost 2s 2d, cheese 2s 4d, meat 3s, and 1d was paid for pepper and saffron. Malt and faggots were 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

ECRO, D/DL E55, the account book of Henry Chestyn of Thorington, c. 1457±64, 14. SROI, IC/AA2/6/124, Christian Caas, Sizewell 1526, Brown, Diocese of Salisbury, 105±6; Burgess and KuÈmin, `Penitential Bequests', 614±15. NRO, NCC Bryggs 108±16, Edmund Jenney, knight, Knodishall 1522. SROI, IC/AA2/9/149, Kathryn Croxton, Dunwich 1523. ECRO, D/DL E55, the Account Book of Henry Chestyn, c. 1457±64. ECRO, D/DL E 55/11.


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purchased, and there was a charge for brewing. Richard Wegele was paid 2d for administration. In 1461, 10s was entered in the accounts. In 1462, the anniversary commemorated Geoffrey and his wife, Alice, and was charged at 7s 5d. The clerical personnel thinned out annually. Tapers cost 3d, and the refreshment included two geese and a small pig, which took care of the balance.12 The menu remained much the same for the fourth anniversary in 1463, but the expenditure was less because no mutton was served. The ®nal anniversary recorded by Henry Chestyn in 1464 cost 6s 7d. In the absence of Geoffrey Weston's will, one cannot know what he intended for his obit, how many years it was to run, and whether its cost was to come from the residue of his estate. But, with its diminishing returns, Henry Chestyn's account book may re¯ect an obit not suf®ciently healthy to last even seven years. John Walter, chantry priest of Halesworth, left instructions for a chantry/ obit, one of those commemorative celebrations with blurred edges, tailored by founders to their individual requirements.13 Other references give possible dates for the foundation of the chantry between 1483 and 1491, but St Anne's chapel, in which chantry and obit were celebrated, was possibly built much earlier.14 The chantry survived until 1547. John Walter, together with the founders of the chapel, also established a corporate obit, perhaps on St Anne's day (26 July): Also I will that the obit of the founders of the chapel of St Anne be kept yearly solemnly in the said chapel that is for to say for the soul of John Walter chaplain John Pigott and for all their friends souls and also for the soul of Margaret Banyard Agnes Sexton15 John Barbor and for all their friends souls . . . this said obit to be kept with the ferme that yearly shall come of the tenement the which was Margaret Banyards.16

Walter leaves full instructions for payment, including `. . . vi Chyldrin that have Rochettes and canne syng vid be the eleccion of the Chauntry preest . . .'. This obit and Pigott's Chantry appear in the Chantry Certi®cates of 1547/8, but by this time, there was no priest.17 The value is given as £9 1s 8d annually, which may not include the obit. The Certi®cates show that land in Wheatacre, Norfolk, provided wine and wax for the ninety-eight year obit, and accommodation for the priest had been provided in Le Chaunterhouse on 12 13

14

15 16 17

ECRO, D/DL E55/13. NRO, NCC Ryxe 218, John Walter, chantry priest, Halesworth 1503; Redstone, `Chapels, Chantries and Gilds', 33. NCC A. Caston 172±3, William Chapelle, Halesworth 1483; SROI, IC/AA2/3/128, John Bruche, Halesworth 1491; Haward, Suffolk Arcades, 148, 385±6; the pier mouldings are identical to those of Crat®eld's chancel arch, undated, which is a hybrid of Wrentham's fourteenth-century piers and the ®fteenth-century masonry of Richard Russell and Adam Powle at Blythburgh. SROI, IC/AA2/4/227, Agnes Sexteyn, Halesworth 1495. Margaret Banyard was the daughter and heiress of Robert Banyard of Spexhall. Redstone, `Chapels, Chantries and Gilds', 33.


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the south-east corner of the churchyard.18 This may seem paltry evidence for an undertaking of such size and expenditure, but it is as good as there is in Deanery wills. When John Weybred of Dunwich died in 1499, he left bequests to every religious foundation in the borough.19 Land had been acquired to pay for an obit for him and his wife to be celebrated in the chantry college at Mettingham castle, above the Waveney valley. It is the deed of feoffment, not Weybred's will, which ®lls in the details.20 Sir Richard Weybred, John's son, was a chantry priest, later master, at Mettingham castle, and the enfeoffed land, which lay in Ellough, outside Beccles, was suf®cient to ®nance three obits to be celebrated in the college. These were for Katherine Gardener, John Arcent, a former vicar of Mettingham, and Weybred himself, and were perhaps a combined obit, a general service for the dead, as celebrated in the parishes of St Giles and St Lawrence in Reading.21 The date of Weybred's obit is not recorded, but the Master received 12d for the commemoration, each brother took 6d, each priest 4d, and every pauper 1d annually in alms. Master Richard died about 1516, when the College received £40 from his goods `which the same Master Richard Weybred . . . willed and gave to the same college' to pray for the health of his soul, his parents' souls and his benefactors.22 The continuity of prayer achieved for the Weybred family, and the accrual of their goods and land to the College, left their souls well catered for. William Dallyng's arrangements in 1523 highlight the duties undertaken by priest and churchwardens in ful®lling testators' last wishes. Dallyng told his executors to deliver to the curate and Holton churchwardens forty shillings in money and two cows, twenty shillings and a cow to go to each of two poor men.23 At the end of the year, `the said poor men to bring in the said forty shillings . . . and two kine and for ferme of the said two kine for the same year 3s 4d'. Another two poor men were then to receive endowment ìn like manner . . . for to continue as long as the world endureth'. The rent was to pay for Dallyng's obit, and 8d was to go to Holton church, a cheap, but truly altruistic, arrangement.

Perpetual Chantries and Service Chantries The chantry (from the Latin cantaria) was an arrangement by the founder for intercessions to be said or `sung' by a chantry chaplain or chaplains, in return for endowment. The duties of the chaplain were not simply to repeat an endless string of masses but, depending on arrangements made with the incumbent, the chantry chaplain's time could be employed assisting in the 18 19 20 21 22 23

CPR Ed VI, V. 161 SROI, IC/AA2/4/36, John Weybred, Dunwich 1499. BL, Stowe MS 934/174b, the Register of the College of St Mary, Mettingham. Brown, Diocese of Salisbury, 96. BL, Add. Ch. 37445, Mettingham college charter. SROI, IC/AA2/8/245, William Dallyng, Kelsale 1523.


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cure of souls or, as emerges from the Chantry Certi®cates, teaching in the parish. Just as the endowment of an obit could be over-generous, leaving a residue for the parochial coffers, so establishing a chantry could provide an extra chaplain with time to spare for parochial duties. Hundreds of chantries were established in this way, and although many a testator merely asked that a priest should `sing for my soul', the hidden agenda included parish work.24 Chantries, therefore, were similar to the obits from which they had originally developed, were equally adaptable, and could be made-to-measure to the founder's requirements. There were two distinct forms of chantry, the perpetual chantry and the service chantry. The perpetual chantry required extensive endowment and, from the mid-fourteenth century, it is unlikely that this endowment would have been worth less than £200.25 The perpetual chantry was an ecclesiastical bene®ce in its own right, and the rent or income from its capital endowment, which might include several manors or substantial land holdings, went directly to the chantry priest. In accordance with mortmain legislation of 1279, these chantries required a licence from the Crown before land could be given to the mort main or `dead hand' of the Church, because, once given, it would be unavailable for future circulation, and thus lost as a source of revenue to both Crown and mesne lord.26 The granting of a licence was often slow and its price arbitrary. A service chantry, at its briefest, might last only a year or less, being a `merely temporary form', and, in the Deanery, many service chantries ran for half a year or even three months.27 Although appearing identical to a perpetual chantry, it could be set up at will and established by ènfeoffment to use', a method employed to circumvent mortmain legislation.28 Putting land in feoffment required forward planning by the founder. In practice, land could be granted by the founder to the feoffees or trustees to `the use' of a third party. The third party could be the founder during his or her lifetime, or a chaplain, after the founder's death. Either way, `the use' implied that the lands and pro®ts were used by the `third party', and the legal owners were now the feoffees or trustees to whom the land had been granted. The royal inquest of 1388 was instigated to enquire into gilds and fraternities which had employed `the use' almost exclusively to set up their institutions. This was followed by the statute of 1391, which forbade the practice `whereby uses had been employed to evade mortmain'.29 Initially, 24

25 26

27

28 29

R. E. Ward, `The Foundation and Function of Perpetual Chantries in the Diocese of Norwich, c. 1250±1547' (unpublished PhD, University of Cambridge 1999). Wood-Legh, Perpetual Chantries, 46. S. Raban, Mortmain Legislation and the English Church, 1279±1500 (Cambridge 1982), 10, 60, 70. A. H. Thompson, The English Clergy, 32; Redstone, `Chapels, Chantries and Gilds', 30±41; Wood-Legh, Perpetual Chantries, 20. For this section on enfeoffment to use, see Bean, Decline of Feudalism, 105, 131, 126. 15 Ric II, c.5, known as the second mortmain statute.


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there was an increase in the number of chantry applications for mortmain licences, but, as chantries had not been implicated in the statute of 1391, these diminished and chantry enfeoffments began again.30 In Suffolk, however, mortmain licences peaked around 1400, but then dropped drastically, and, if enfeoffments did proliferate, it was not for a very long time. The situation was similar in Bristol, too, where there were no new chantry foundations between 1410 and 1440.31 In 1435, the Suffolk Chantry certi®cates show the earliest recorded enfeoffment. This was Alice de Bryene's foundation at Acton.32 After a slow start, enfeoffments became the common form of chantry foundation in Suffolk, and the Chantry Certi®cates show twenty-seven out of Suffolk's sixty-six foundations were established in this manner, a further four being founded `by will'.33 Service chantries could be founded in perpetuity, but, in the Deanery, foundations tended to be set up for one or two years, the sale of a house or a unit of land being suf®cient to provide a priest's annual stipend of approximately £6. Services were seldom requested for longer, ®ve, ten or twenty years being a rare occurrence. In Norwich, they usually ran from one to four years while the majority in Bristol lasted for one or two years, occasionally for ®ve or ten years.34 As a service chantry was not a freehold bene®ce, the priest's stipend was paid by the feoffees, who also hired and ®red him. Feoffees were chosen carefully and often included a cleric in their number; and, within the Deanery, clerics, members of the parish hierarchy and family members were also favoured. Occasionally a corporation, such as the Bailiffs and Commonalty of Southwold, would act as feoffees, but because this situation was only found in an urban context, it was unlikely to occur in the majority of Deanery parishes.35 Chantries in the Deanery of Dunwich Lack of documentation is the curse of the Deanery chantries. It is impossible to comprehend the religious sensibility of the time or the area from a licence in the Calendar of Patent Rolls; nor do casual testamentary references to foundations already planned, particulars never revealed, or buildings which no longer exist, allow any assessment of the individual's need for remembrance. Without these details, the individual and absolute choice exercised by chantry founders for the prayers, vestments and plate for their interces30 31

32 33 34 35

Kreider, English Chantries, 78. C. Burgess, `Strategies for Eternity: Perpetual Chantry Foundations in Late Medieval Bristol', Religious Belief and Ecclesiastical Careers in Late Medieval England, ed. C. HarperBill (Woodbridge 1991), 1±32, at 9±14. Redstone, `Chapels, Chantries and Gilds', 33. Redstone, `Chapels, Chantries and Gilds', 30±69. Tanner, Norwich, 101; Burgess, C., `Strategies for Eternity', 3. Burgess, C., `Strategies for Eternity', 6±7; PRO, PCC Bennett 18, William Godell, Southwold, 1509.


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sions, for provision of accommodation or for the regulation of the conduct of their intercessors cannot be appreciated. Sadly for the deanery of Dunwich, only by reference to surviving documents from other parts of Suffolk can the essence of late medieval chantries be understood. It is bizarre, but a fact, that the most comprehensive information, although lacking the characteristic detail, comes from the Chantry Certi®cates, drawn up as the chantries were brought down. At the time of suppression, the total number of chantries and free chapels in England and Wales was 2,374; hospitals numbered 110; non-university colleges 96.36 In Suffolk, the total number of greater institutions capable of supporting one or more intercessory priests was sixty-three, an average of 0.15 per parish, with roughly 11 per cent of parishes having such a foundation. However much our present knowledge relies on the Chantry Certi®cates, they can only tell part of the story, being drawn up after many chantries had already disappeared with the dissolution of monastic houses. There was further dismantling and premature suppression as the Reformation took hold.37 Perpetual chantries were as rare in the Deanery as they were in other parts of Suffolk. Of the forty-four chantry foundations within the county, only thirteen were perpetual foundations.38 By 1370, four of these had been established by licence in the Deanery. At Blythburgh church, the chantry priest prayed weekly for the soul of Henry de Harnull, his father, his mother and his ancestors.39 At Brampton, Robert de Sefeld had set up the chantry of St Bartholomew c. 1311±12.40 Carlton-next-Kelsale housed a chantry which John de Framlingham, clerk, had founded, having been granted a licence at the request of Queen Philippa for three priests to pray for the soul of Alice, wife of Thomas de Brotherton, Earl of Norfolk (son of Edward I by his second wife), and which survived until 1544.41 A slab, formerly decorated with a ¯oriated cross, remains in the south chancel there, the border retaining the words `. . . qui fundavit cantariam tibi', John de Framlingham's personal investment in remembrance. The fourth chantry was founded by Adam de Watton at Sibton Abbey.42 In 1452, Blythburgh church was chosen as the site of a perpetual chantry called the Hopton chantry. This was dedicated to St Margaret in memory of Margaret, John Hopton's wife, and was celebrated in the north chancel chapel of St Anne.43 Prayers were offered for Hopton's parents, friends and benefactors at Easton Bavents between 1464 and 1478, and at Westleton in 36

37 38 39 40 41

42 43

Kreider, English Chantries, 9±19. These ®gures originally derived from William Camden's Britannia. Kreider, English Chantries, 155±7. Redstone, `Chapels, Chantries and Gilds', 30±41. CPR, 1343±45, 559. CPR, 1307±13, 375; R. Parker, Men of Dunwich (London 1978), 97, 206. CPR, 1330±1334, 266; Redstone, `Chapels, Chantries and Gilds', 38; H. M. Cautley, Suffolk Churches and their Treasures (4th edn Ipswich 1975), 251. CPR, 1364±67, 342. CPR, 1446±52, 567.


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1477 and 1478.44 John Hopton died in 1478, and wished to be interred under a tomb of marble set in an arch of the chancel on the north side (Plate 14); and in 1497, Thomasine, his second wife, asked, if she died at Blythburgh, to be buried beside him. By 1479, the Hopton chantry personnel had increased to two priests. These were John West and Robert Pilgrim, who were paid £6 each annually, and, by 1490, George Hawes had replaced John West.45 Hawes's will, dated 1506, survives, in which he asked to be buried in the east end of the churchyard àgainst the end there I sing at', meaning the east wall of St Anne's chapel.46 The chantry did not survive long enough to appear in either the Valor Ecclesiasticus or the Chantry Certi®cates, and nothing more is known about John Hopton's hopes for remembrance in the great church which he helped to build. Scant as this documentary evidence may be, Blythburgh church today has to be regarded as the prime example of both individual and corporate commemoration in visual form within the Deanery. There were ®ve chantries from the Deanery, however, which survived long enough to be mentioned in the Chantry Certi®cates of 1547/8. They were substantial foundations, capable of supporting at least one priest, and were at Carlton, Halesworth, known as Pigott's chantry, of which John Walter was the chantry priest, Hunting®eld, Covehithe and Southwold. The date of foundation at Hunting®eld is unknown, but the chantry can be identi®ed in ®fteenth-century manuscripts.47 In the Valor of 1535, it was described as `feoffment of Robert Wyvell', worth £4 17s 9d, and was served by a priest called Master William Sperkeman.48 His predecessors were Robert Stabyll, its chaplain in 1473, whose will reveals that there was a chapel dedicated to St Katherine in Hunting®eld church; and William Salman, described as `chantry priest'.49 Despite a few sheets of churchwardens' accounts, telling of chantry lands supplying timber for the butts and repairs to the church house, Hunting®eld chantry lacks essential detail.50 At Covehithe, in 1497, William Yarmouth, the vicar for almost ®fty years, and schoolmaster to the sons of local gentry, asked to be buried in the choir 44 45 46 47

48

49

50

Richmond, John Hopton, 156. Richmond, John Hopton, 62, 155. NRO, NCC Spyltimbre 14, George Hawes (Hawys), priest, Blythburgh 1506. Redstone, `Chapels, Chantries and Gilds', 37; BL Harl. 370/ 2. Feoda Militum pertinencia maneria de Huntyng®eld. This manuscript is dated c.31 Henry VIII in the index by a later hand. The references to the feoffees of the chantry holding lands, however, give a terminus post quem and ante quem: `lately . . . Geoffrey Wilbeigh called tenement Harvyes' (Wilbeigh's will is dated 1462, NRO, NCC Betyns 99) ànd Geoffrey Baret holding land in Linstead' (Baret's will was written 1489, SROI, IC/ AA2/3/117). J. Caley and J. Hunter, eds, Valor Ecclesisticus III (1810±34), 440; BL Lansdowne MSS 360.90. In this seventeenth-century transcript of an account taken in 1573, the Wyville arms were in the north aisle of the church. NRO, NCC A.Caston 326, Robert Stabyll, priest, Hunting®eld 1473; Harper-Bill, Morton's Register, III, 88, William Salman, Hunting®eld, 1499. SROI, FC57/A1/4, 11.


SINGING FOR SOULS

Plate 14. Blythburgh church: the Hopton tomb. This was placed in the chancel wall between the sanctuary and the Hopton chantry chapel in the north aisle. Its table top would have been used as the Easter sepulchre during Holy Week.

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of St Andrew, Covehithe, before the image of St Peter. There is no mention of a chantry in his will, and it is left to the Chantry Certi®cates to name Yarmouth as the founder.51 North Hales, alias Covehithe, . . . a poor and populous town. Lands and tenements in Little and Great Worlingham and in North Cove, put in feoffment by the executors of the will of William Yarmouth, to ®nd a mass priest for 9 years. Now no priest, the incumbent celebrates. Yearly value £6 13s. To incumbent £5 18s 11d. Population 16 score houseling people. There is a vicarage not worth 8 marks yearly. The parsonage is appropriate.

Brief mention of the town's poverty contained in the Certi®cates may explain the total decline of the township, and the `putting out' of the church in the next century.52 At Southwold, William Godell set out his wishes for the disposition of his endowment after the expiry of his chantry, but he, too, omitted to mention the details which characterize a well-documented foundation. His will was dated 1509.53 And I will, that after the decease of Margaret my Wife, the said Place called Skylman's, with all the Premises before rehearsed, be in the hands of the Bayliffs and Commonalty of Southwolde aforesaid, by the space and Term of sixteen years then next following . . . and after the space and term of sixteen years, I will, that the said place called Skylman's, with all the premises above rehearsed, wholly remain to the said town of Southwold for ever to give and sell.

In 1548, Southwold was described as a poor town, `. . . where upon the sea lieth beating daily to the great ruin and destruction of the said town'. Margaret Godell had died and, from the chantry's annual value of £6 13s 4d, the piers and jetties were receiving 13s 4d, and the remaining £6, formerly the priest's stipend, was `now converted to the maintenance of the town in Southwold'.54 There were indications of other foundations, but often the details are too sparse to be signi®cant. Nevertheless, the wishes of William Odyorn, to be buried in Walberswick chancel, are intriguing. Referring to his heirs, he required . . . that they schall do make a chapell yn Walpoll cherche yerde over my ffathers grave lyke to the chapell in Rendham cherche yerde to be made wythin the space of iii yerys next aftyr ther entrans and then I wyll that they scahll fynde a pryst perpetuall to synge yn that chapell for me and my fryndys ever perpetually.55

Chantries of a couple of years duration were most popular, after which the endowment might revert to the family. Some testators chose to have a 51

52 53 54 55

NRO, NCC Woolman 212, William Yarmouth, vicar, Covehithe 1497; Redstone, `Chapels, Chantries and Gilds', 34. Cautley, Suffolk Churches, 257. PRO, PCC Bennett 18, William Godell, Southwold 1509. Redstone, `Chapels, Chantries and Gilds', 34. SROI, IC/AA2/8/220, William Odyorn, Walberswick 1522.


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service chantry celebrated for six months at the going rate of £2 13s 4d, or three months for £1 6s 8d. This represented a hefty investment for many, and dues were often paid in kind. John Love left the prior of Wangford ten `mother sheep' with seven lambs to pray for his soul.56 With sheep costing 2s each at top price in 1473, this could have bought Love a service chantry in Wangford priory for three months or three trentals, but perhaps his life warranted a concentration of prayer rather than a broader spread. Sometimes money rather than time had to be considered. Reynold Gooding asked that a priest should sing at Our Lady's chapel in Thorpe as long as the revenue from his money lasted, but his request was dated 1542 and, though the money might have been adequate, a change in religious attitudes might have brought the prayers to a premature halt.57 Many services were ®nanced by the sale of property only after the deaths of wives. Sales of goods, residue of goods, obligations by sons and daughters, old debts, new money, all were used to buy service chantries, and, as testators were among the most af¯uent of parishioners, it is not surprising that many possessed several tenements which could be sold to raise ready cash. Individual choice may have been the most important factor, yet it was always tempered by the estate's ability to cover the cost. Chantries described in the Certi®cates were greater institutions, well endowed, each capable of supporting one or more intercessory priests; but of the twenty counties chosen by Kreider to demonstrate the frequency of chantry foundations, including London and Middlesex, Suffolk returns showed the lowest number of greater institutions per parish, perhaps because there were so many parishes. Oxfordshire, in second place, was àlmost as lightly institutionalized' as Suffolk.58 In Kreider's geographical distribution of intercessory institutions, however, Suffolk had far more obits, lamps, lights and short-term prayers than any other county, perhaps due to the high level of population in Suffolk, which may have provided the vital after-care service for the bereaved not so readily available in more isolated regions. Suffolk's dense population of low earners, too, may well have encouraged the provision of cheaper intercessions, lamps and lights.

Parish Gilds The inquest of 1388 was set up to examine the foundation, function and property owned by gilds and fraternities. The enquiry was intended to reveal the incidence of evasion of the Statute of Mortmain, which was of primary interest to the Crown. The returns were received by 1389, the statute followed in 1391, and the outcome was that enfeoffment to use was forbidden in the subsequent foundation of gilds. The 1389 returns which 56 57 58

SROI, IC/AA2/2/273. John Love, Wangford 1473. NRO, NCC Cooke 103±5, Reynold Gooding, Aldringham 1542. Kreider, English Chantries, 16±18.


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survive show a predominance of parish gilds in the east of the country, with Norfolk (164), Lincolnshire (123), Cambridgeshire (60), and Suffolk (39) leading the ®eld.59 The concentration was particularly dense around the Wash, the town of Lynn alone having ®fty-one gilds. The majority of the thirty-nine Suffolk gilds were massed in north-west Suffolk, survivors of a much larger, but subsequently lost, whole. The loss of the 1389 returns for coastal Suffolk is regrettable when survivals from similar areas are read. At Holbeach, on the marshes bordering the Wash, the Shepherds' gild had been founded by `. . . shepherds and herdsmen believing their ¯ocks would be better cared for if they themselves made some devotion to the holy Virgin Mary, especially as they were very often obliged by their duties to absent themselves from mass . . .'; and Lincolnshire pilgrims on their way home from Santiago de Compostela, trusting that their intercessions to St James had been the cause of their surviving a great storm at sea, founded an altar dedicated to him in the church of St Peter at Burgh.60 On the banks of the Great Ouse in Norfolk, one of the duties of the Holy Ghost gild at Wiggenhall was to make a threeday search for men who had died at sea, in order that they might be given a Christian burial. Within the same township, the gild of St Peter buried men who had perished `by land or water within three miles' of the town.61 In the less hazardous territory of inland Suffolk, members of the Holy Cross gild at Icklingham òut of devotion to the Holy Cross gathered from their corn to provide a chaplain to celebrate once a week'; and once a year they met to eat bread and cheese and drink ale together.62 Despite the lack of of®cial evidence, over ®ve hundred gilds have been identi®ed throughout Suffolk.63 Thirty-®ve of these, none of which appear in the 1389 returns, are found in Deanery wills written between 1370 and 1547, but few are recorded in detail. Nevertheless, these gilds provided, as their prime function, intercessory prayers. They were also entirely voluntary, and, to become a member, a fee had to be paid, an oath taken and a code of practice obeyed. In other words, a gild was `the sum of [the] conscious decisions of its participants', provided that one had the means to join.64 Parish gilds differed from the craft or the trade gilds in the larger centres of Ipswich, Bury, Norwich and Lynn which, although having a religious core, were much concerned with economic interests. Parish gild documents seldom survived the suppression of 1548, for, as Scarisbrick remarked, they were neither ®sh nor fowl, being too contentious to be kept in secular hands, and too secular to pass into religious possession.65 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

H. F. Westlake, The Parish Gilds of Mediaeval England (London 1919), 38. Westlake, Parish Gilds, 164, no. 120; 159, no. 91. Westlake, Parish Gilds, 217, nos. 363 and 362. Westlake, Parish Gilds, 229, no. 426. Northeast, `Parish Gilds', 74±5. Rosser, `Parish and Gild', 35. Scarisbrick, Reformation and the English People, 29.


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As archives representing `superstitious' practices, their chances of survival during the Reformation were few. Wills, too, are not particularly informative about gilds, because, while they supply rich evidence for individual remembrance, they lose their edge in the corporate sphere. Testators, as gild members, left less detail about the gild than if, as individuals, they had sought commemoration for themselves; at Bury St Edmunds, William Baret, Thomas Clerk, Robert Hedge, Thomas Chirche and Herry Daunce were all members of the Puri®cation gild, but not one mentioned it in their will.66 Therefore, the relatively small numbers of gild bequests occurring in wills are not representative of the number of gilds or members. Individual wills cannot show true membership ®gures, nor the popularity or longevity of a gild as an institution. Virginia Bainbridge found that, out of 350 gilds identi®ed by her in Cambridgeshire, only 160 (46 per cent) were active at one speci®c date.67 If a group of wills consecutively referred to a particular gild, then a gild pro®le could be established. Within the Deanery, a single reference to St Barbara's gild at Walberswick in 1450 might make it appear as no more than an ephemeral foundation, but it is the payment of 9s 2d to the same gild in the 1459 churchwardens' accounts which suggests that the gild ran for nine years at the least.68 This is a particularly slender gild pro®le, but it is another example of churchwardens' accounts transforming negative evidence into something rather more positive. Within the Deanery, 9 per cent of all testators made bequests to parish gilds, but, as testators tended to come from the privileged sectors of society, the social make-up of gilds is dif®cult to assess. Sir Robert Brandon of Henham and his near neighbour Owen Hopton, lord of the manor of Blythburgh, were both aldermen (or stockholders) of their respective gilds, Sir Robert still holding gild stock at Wangford, £3 6s `remaining in my hands', at the time of his death in 1524; and Sir John Heveningham, known to both of them, left bequests to four gilds at Halesworth and to gilds at Framlingham, Lax®eld and Kelsale in 1499.69 At the lower end of this small and unrepresentative section of society are lesser gifts, such as the twelvepence bequeathed by John Greyne to the gild of John the Baptist at Wrentham: and twenty pence left by Alice Farman of Easton Bavents to St Loye's gild at Woodbridge.70 In Wangford deanery to the north, Beccles had a Halfpenny gild, suggesting a fraternity supported by poorer members of society, who paid a halfpenny to belong; and in Norwich the confraternity of the Poor Men of St Augustine's parish is self-explanatory. There was no bar to membership, but 66 67

68 69

70

Dinn, `Bury St Edmunds', 325. V. Bainbridge, Gilds in the Medieval Countryside: Social and Religious Change in Cambridgeshire, c. 1350±1558 (Woodbridge 1996), 37±9. SROI, IC/AA2/1/123, Thomas Barat, Walberswick 1450; Lewis, Walberswick, 102. PRO, PCC Bodfelde 28, Sir Robert Brandon, Wangford 1524; PRO, E179, Blythburgh; PCC Moone 9, John Heveningham, knight, Heveningham 1499. SROI, IC/AA2/8/42, Alice Farman, Easton Bavents; NRO, NCC Hubert 29, John Greyne, Wrentham.


150


some gilds must have been exclusive, the gild at Heacham in Norfolk excluding villeins, the Corpus Christi gild at St Michael-on-the-Hill, Lincoln, barring mayors and bailiffs from the fraternity, unless òf humble, good and honest conversation'.71 On the whole, however, gilds catered for clergy and laity, rich or poor, men or women, living and dead, but it was preferred that clerics should not hold of®ce in the gild hierarchy. Testamentary references to gilds, then, are sparse and, occasionally, oblique. Holy Trinity gild, Westhall, has three references, two from Westhall testators and one from outside the parish. The sole reference to Wissett's gild comes from its neighbouring parish, Spexhall, with no gild of its own. Kelsale, on the southern boundary of the Deanery, was a central focus for the parishes lying immediately to its east: Aldringham, Knodishall, Theberton, Middleton and Dunwich, although Middleton and Dunwich had at least one gild in their respective parishes. There were more gilds in the north-east of the county than in the south-east, but major gilds were situated at Framlingham, Woodbridge and Kelsale.72 Peasenhall, with no gild, was equidistant from gilds at Kelsale and Lax®eld, and testators patronized both. Our Lady's gild at Lax®eld, in the neighbouring deanery of Hoxne, received bequests from Hunting®eld, Ubbeston, Heveningham and Crat®eld, the last two also having gilds of their own. Parish boundaries were no obstacle to testators who left bequests to gilds outside their own parish, for communities were mobile within, across and outside the parochial boundaries73 This was one of the great strengths of parish gilds, because they embraced the wider community, bringing bene®ts of social cohesion, co-operation and an enriched personal and corporate spirituality over a wide area. Gild priests gave clerical help to the clergy in their cures, in much the same way as chantry or stipendiary priests enhanced the quality of religious life wherever they worked, serving in effect as assistant curates. Gilds straddled parochial boundaries: lay members of gilds ordered their own devotions: they engaged and paid a priest to celebrate for them. Did this independence or privatization pose a threat to the rule of the Church?74 Was there, in fact, a feeling of antipathy between gild and parish? In the Deanery, it is illuminating that the few pages of gild records from Crat®eld's gild of St Thomas, written between 1534 and 1542, show quite clearly that `gild', `parish' and `town', as the scribe records, worked closely together, the inhabitants of the one being members of the other, the three terms interchangeable at times.75 Church money was kept in the town box: gild money was kept in the church box. A chest with iron bands, inscribed Rogeer Walsche gaf thys cheist Praye for hys sowle to Jhesu Creist, stands in the northeast chapel, a gift from Walshe circa 1476 when it probably served as the 71 72 73 74 75

Rosser, `Parish and Guild', 36. Northeast, `Parish Gilds', 74±5. Rosser, `Parish and Guild', 32. Tanner, Norwich, 68. See also F. E. Warren, `Gild of St Peter in Bardwell', PSIA xi (1901±03), 81±145.


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communal chest.76 Crat®eld's records relate ®nancial transactions, but leave no information about gild membership, administration or interaction between gild, church and vicar. Personal concern for individual and corporate salvation seems to have overcome any sense of competition. Gild Functions Membership of a gild provided, at the least, a funeral, and all gild members were expected to attend. In 1537, William Haggs of Reydon was a member of Wangford gild in the next village, but doubting that his fellow-members would turn up, he left a proviso, `. . . to the church of Wangford 3s 4d . . . with this condition that if the gild brethren there will come and do their duty at my burial day as belongeth to a brother of St Peter's gild, or else I will that they shall have nothing of this my bequest'.77 Gild members were also expected to keep a light burning before their patron saint in the church. The Virgin was patroness of one of Henstead's gilds and also of the church, so the ®nal destination of lights can never be known, but Henstead wills contain more bequests to lights burning before the Virgin Mary than any other Deanery parish of comparable size. In Crat®eld, the gild paid for the common light before the Rood, and Kelsale's common light was kept by the `young men', to whom John Lynne left a comb of malt, his brew pot going to the gild.78 At Kelsale, too, there was a bequest towards buying a new tabula `standing at the altar' ± in this case probably an altar piece or panel telling the life of John the Baptist.79 Members held an annual service when they paid their mass-pennies, the money left for a gild brother or sister at their funeral, but no description of gild celebrations has survived from the Deanery. The following report comes from Oxborough in Norfolk: . . . This is the ordinance of the gild, that the aldermen, and the beadle, and the brethren and sisters of the gild shall come at the second bell of evensong on St Peter's Day [29 June], and shall carry before them a burning torch, consisting of six pounds of wax, and that every gild brother and sister be at the evensong and Mass of St Peter, and at the second evensong, under the penalty of a pound of wax for the light of St Peter, or if he ®ve miles distant, of half a pound; and on their gild-day every man is to offer a farthing at Mass, and another for alms. And also, at the death of a brother, each couple shall pay threepence, and the alderman and the beadle shall, with the consent of all the brethren, collect it. And if any brother or sister fall into trouble he shall have four yearly. And if any brother or sister betray the secrets of the gild, they shall pay a pound of wax for the light of St Peter.80 76 77 78 79 80

SROI, IC/AA2/2/293, Roger Walshe, Crat®eld 1476. NRO, NCC Mingaye 130, William Haggs, Reydon 1537. SROI, IC/AA2/3/206, John Lynne, Kelsale 1497. NRO, NCC Brosyard 71, Joanna Bertram, Kelsale 1457. F. E. Warren, À Pre-Reformation Village Gild', PSIA xi (1903), 134±47, at 147. This extract is taken from Toulmin-Smith.


152


After the religious celebration came the annual meeting with the usual round of elections, reports, reading of statutes and any other business.81 The feasting which followed is amply suggested by the amount of wheat, barley and malt bequeathed in Deanery wills, and the many and varied vessels, kettles, brew pots, culinary equipment, brass basins, salt cellers and silver spoons, all of which found their way into the gild halls. In the west of the county at Bardwell, a parish with a population of around 300, the gild membership comprised thirty couples, as well as thirty men, eighteen women and six widows, and employed a cook and a minstrel, both of whom were paid 1s 4d annually; the minstrel also receiving one pound of cheese.82 The gild possessions amounted to 135 dishes, thirty-nine plates, twenty-four saucers, three iron spits and three banners of St Peter and torches. In the late ®fteenth century, Walberswick wills show that six silver spoons were given to St Andrew's gild; St Andrew's image and that of St John the Baptist received 3s 4d each; and the gild of the Blessed Virgin was bequeathed a cooking pot and a brass jar; and, at Halesworth in 1464, the rector left money to both the Halesworth gilds and `two great spits' to their pro®t.83 Finally, gilds provided alms for poor members, an integral part of the life of the Christian community and, where gilds provided for the obit of a deceased member, inevitably here would be found poor relief. Wealthier gilds engaged their own gild priests and testators contributed towards the stipend with land, tenements or livestock. At Crat®eld in 1535, John Stannard, the gild priest, was paid £6 annually, the payment made every six weeks. On the feast of the Annunciation the same year, John Smith, his successor, entered the gild's service, with a payment of 20s towards the repair of the priest's house ìn wright craft, dawbing, thatching and all other reparations . . . to new re-edify the chimney of 3 ®res at the[ir] proper costs'.84 The chaplain `kept' the clock until the feast of the Puri®cation, worth an extra 16d to him, and the mechanism of the clock and its bell remain, the bell a gift from William Alys, churchwarden in 1490 (Plate 15). Nicholas Stobard promised the gild a couple of cows if the town would help to make a dairy for the `®nding' of the gild priest, an arrangement similar to Bardwell's gild which rented out cows for 19d. In 1453, Peter Payne of Halesworth left 6s 8d annually to the gild chaplain or his successor for his perpetual use: at Easton Bavents, Walter Pers gave 10s a year for four years towards supporting the gild priest.85 Larger parishes supported more than one gild, but it is dif®cult to say how long these loose, transitory societies lasted. St Margaret's church, Reydon, supported gilds dedicated to St Margaret, Blessed Mary and St Peter. In 81 82 83 84 85

Scarisbrick, Reformation and the English People, 20. Warren, `Gild of St Peter in Bardwell', 81±145. SROI, IC/AA2/3/129; IC/AA2/3/12; IC/AA2/2/326; NRO, NCC Betyns 96. SROI, FC 62/E1/3, 47. SROI, IC/AA2/1/103, Peter Payne, Halesworth 1453; NRO, NCC Ryxe 140, Walter Pers, Easton Bavents 1504.


SINGING FOR SOULS

Plate 15. Crat®eld: the clock bell. This was a gift from William Aleys, churchwarden in 1490, and is inscribed `Prey for the sowle of William Aleys.' The bell was originally part of the Crat®eld clock, the mechanism of which still exists.

153


154


Halesworth, St Antony with St Eligius, or St Loy as they said at the time (not St Louis as the parishioners later incorrectly called him), proved a popular gild in addition to that dedicated to John the Baptist, both being celebrated in the parish church and possibly sharing the gild hall. Walberswick's churchwardens' accounts show gilds dedicated to St Andrew, John the Baptist, the Virgin Mary and St Barbara, and contain building expenses for St John's House (gild hall). St Barbara was the patron saint of ®remen, artillerymen, architects (because of her attribute, a tower), military engineers and miners.86 The accounts for 1469/70 record payments for gunpowder, gun stones and the making of bulwarks, a reminder of the town's coastal position in the front line for attack, expenditure considered crucial, for across the Channel Margaret of Anjou bided her time and landed the following year, but not in Suffolk. Many Deanery gilds engaged their own priests, but there is no architectural evidence in the churches that gild chapels were specially built. St John the Baptist's gild, the largest and most in¯uential gild in the Deanery, celebrated in the south aisle of Kelsale Church. In 1469, Elizabeth Morrell asked to be buried in the chapel of John the Baptist at Halesworth, not a purpose-built chapel, but an area enclosed by a parclose screen.87 Many gild altars must have been set apart in similar fashion. Crat®eld's gild is thought to have celebrated in the north-east chapel, now the vestry, but there is no proof of this, and, architecturally, the vestry doorway with its ¯euron decoration c. 1440 is similar to the entrance of Halesworth vestry c. 1438 which was used as a chantry chapel with a priest's chamber over.88 Crat®eld's `vestry' was originally high enough to include a priest's chamber above, but it is unlikely to have been inhabited by the gild priest, for whom a house was already provided. The `vestry' was probably built as a chantry chapel for which no records have survived. Suckling, writing in the nineteenth century, described it as a north chantry, `. . . the situation of its altar is distinctly traced and an aumbry near the east window remains unclosed, though the piscina has disappeared'.89 These features could have served admirably for a gild, but the east end of the north aisle, where a piscina with carved spandrels is situated, would have been more suitable and more spacious for the members. Likewise, Bram®eld's gild of St Thomas may have patronized a side altar on the north side of their sumptuous rood screen, the unpainted area of which was originally covered by a side altar. Gild property and stock Particulars of property occur at any time in the most unexpected places, and in a variety of documents. Scarisbrick believed that most gilds, particularly those 86

87 88 89

The Book of Saints, compiled by the brothers of St Augustine's Abbey, Ramsgate (London 1989), 74±5. SROI, IC/AA2/2/191, Elizabeth Morrell, Halesworth 1469. F. C. Lambert, Records of Halesworth (Halesworth 1934), 8. Suckling, Suffolk, II, 214.


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155

in rural areas, had no permanent landed endowment, and were not of®cially recorded.90 Nesta Evans, however, has suggested that many parishes retained part of the gild endowment at the Reformation, and that property rescued from the Crown was later known as town land or the town house; and Rosemary Knox, too, has shown how gild property could be retained under a different title.91 Stock appears in gild accounts, although few accounts survive. In wills, references to loans illustrate one way in which stock could be used for the members' bene®t. Joan Robynson, for example, borrowed 13s 4d from the gild of St Andrew at Walberswick, and this she repaid in her will of 1490.92 Crat®eld gild was supported mainly by its landed endowments. Rose Larkke from Crat®eld died c. 1498, and, by 1503, property bearing her name was rented out to John Everard, Robert Coke and others.93 The gild accounts of the 1530s show that Rose Larks produced a rent of £3 6s which, together with other gild lands, returned total annual rents of £6 10s; and the house which John Caryell, the gild chaplain, had left for the use of successive priests in 1466 was `descending from priest to priest', as he had wished.94 A fraternity was recorded at Chediston in 1447, and Chediston Town Estate, enfeoffed since the reign of Henry VII, supported church repairs well into the nineteenth century, as did the Town House at Westhall; the Town House at Wangford provided housing for the poor.95 Simon Bekeswell's testament suggests that Covehithe was considering a communal gild hall in 1485: Ìf the Northales wardens with the agreement of their next successors are willing to build a common house to be kept for the gilds and other common ales for the use of the church, I bequeath 20s to it.'96 At Wenhaston, Kelsale, Halesworth and Wrentham, gild halls have survived, that at Wrentham described in 1482 as `the house lately built . . . called the Gildhouse'.97 At Crat®eld, the site of the Town house, or gild hall, has survived, the original house bequeathed by Sir John Rusale, priest, `the seyde towne [of Crat®eld] have the parte of my howse soo that they provide for land with the mony of the gyld or by the help of other goode mene or ellys I wull it be sold be my executours . . .'.98 In wills, endowments emerge, although their extent cannot be gauged. Robert Rouse of Lax®eld left £7 to Crat®eld's gild on condition that land or 90 91

92 93

94

95

96 97 98

Scarisbrick, Reformation and the English People, 29±31. N. Evans, `The Holy Ghost Gild and the Beccles Town Lands Feoffees in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries', PSIAH xxxvii, pt i (1989), 31±44 at 31; R. Knox, `The Origins and Development of the Nayland Feoffees', PSIAH xxxvii, pt iii (1991), 225±37. SROI, IC/AA2/3/121, Joan Robynson, Walberswick 1490. SROI, FC 62/L1/3. Copy of a court roll, manor of Crat®eld Roos, 1503. This document states `quod Rosa Larke obiit circa xii annos'. Crat®eld Town Book, FC 62/E1/3/ 93; NRO, NCC Gelour 169, John Caryell, priest, Crat®eld 1466. The Report of the Commissioners Concerning the Charities in the County of Suffolk 1819± 1837 (London 1839), 497; White, Suffolk 1844, 361, 404, 401. SROI, IC/AA2/3/34, Simon Bekeswell, Covehithe 1485. SROI, IC/AA2/3/8, John Robinson, Wrentham 1482. NRO, NCC Popy 113, John Rusale, priest, Crat®eld 1495; see also K. Farnhill, `The Gild of St Thomas in Crat®eld', PSIAH xxxviii, pt iii (1995), 261±7.


156


tenements were bought `to the yearly value of seven shillings' so that annual prayers should be said.99 In 1452, Richard Russell's tenement in Ubbeston was to go to Lax®eld after the death of his wife, because Lax®eld was considering founding a gild; and at Middleton, another parishioner bequeathed his lands and tenement, after his wife's death, to Kelsale's gild of John the Baptist.100 At Yoxford in 1499, William Drane left lands and tenements in Thorington, `. . .lately purchased of John Melle . . .', to provide a salary and wages for a priest to sing yearly for eighty years `®ve masses of the blessed wounds of Our Lord Jesus about the feast of Easter', and to sing other divine services in Yoxford church.101 Drane's endowment provided another foundation with blurred edges, but this time, rather than a chantry-cum-obit as in Halesworth, this was a chantry-cum-gild. The priest was to pray for Drane and Margaret, his wife, as well as the gild of St Peter at Yoxford, and the residue of Drane's goods and chattels were left to the pro®t of the gild. Inconsiderable though some of these endowments may have been, they were the basis of the successful functioning of these small, rural fraternities. Once again, the impression here is the ¯exibility and choice available to those testators wishing to bequeath money or goods to obtain commemoration. Before death, the soul was prepared for its journey, a journey supported throughout by intercessions. Short-term prayers were used immediately after death in vast numbers, and catered for the whole range of testators. Those unable to afford prayers on their own account were remembered by those who could. Long-term prayers were more expensive and were requested by the wealthier testators. Obits did not appear as frequently as might have been supposed, but, when they did, they could involve hefty endowment, for they might be celebrated for a considerable time. Chantries for ten years or more were rare, needing substantial investment of land and property, and few details of such chantry foundations survive. Service chantries lasting for a year or two were particularly favoured. From 1510 to 1519, for example, 42 per cent of Norwich Consistory Court and 17 per cent of Archdeaconry of Suffolk testators requested long-term services. All these observances required the services of a priest, and the laity were thus responsible for employing many chaplains who, although serving the parishes in a minor capacity, are mentioned frequently in the parishioners' wills. Little information is available for gilds within the Deanery, yet Crat®eld gild shows that, where documentation has survived, the vitality and importance of gilds in the spiritual and the communal sense, cannot be doubted. Crat®eld's churchwardens' accounts, gild accounts and extracts from the Crat®eld Roos court rolls as well as the parishioners' wills combine to give the only detailed account, such as it is, of a pre-Reformation gild in the Deanery. 99 100

101

SROI, IC/AA2/9/134, Robert Rouse, Lax®eld 1525. SROI, IC/AA2/1/165, Richard Russell, Ubbeston 1452; IC/AA2/2/148, John Case, Middleton 1465. Harper-Bill, Morton's Register, III, 109±10, William Drane, Yoxford 1499.


Part Three Tributes and Gifts



7 Holy Chant and Psalm

For in us the natural use is changed to that which is against nature, while we who are the light of faithful souls everywhere fall a prey to painters knowing nought of letters, and are entrusted to goldsmiths to become, as though we were not sacred vessels of wisdom, repositories of gold leaf. from The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury

Between 1295 and 1313, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Winchelsey, issued his constitution which required certain service-books to be provided by the parishioners for all parish churches within the province of Canterbury `. . . quod parochiani teneantur invenire infrascripta, videlicet, legendam, antiphonarium, gradale, psalterium, missale, troparium, ordinale, manuale . . .';1 and that they should also be responsible for the repair or replacement of these service-books, which were the lesson-book, antiphoner, gradual, psalter, missal, troper, ordinal and manual. Winchelsey's constitution did not stop at books. Vestments, Mass plate, altar plate, bells, images, fonts, glazing and anything pertaining to the nave and beyond, even to the churchyard walls, became the responsibility of the churchwardens and, through them, the parishioners.2 The chancel remained in the care of the rector. It is impossible to say how the parishioners within the deanery of Dunwich reacted to Winchelsey's constitution, but, from the surviving inventories of 1368 made by order of the archdeacon of Norwich, it appears that within the 358 churches in his archdeaconry, most of the obligatory accoutrements, including the service-books, were present.3 There is no reason to think that the archdeaconry of Suffolk would have shown visitation returns deviating greatly from those of the archdeaconry of Norwich, and although later evidence from the Deanery wills may be sparse, it is possible to show that the responsibilities of the parish were undertaken by many testators. 1

2 3

Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, xviii; C. L. Feltoe and E. H. Minns, ed. Vetus Liber Archdiaconi Eliensis (Cambridge 1917), 50; Wordsworth and Littlehales, Old Service-books, 26, 30. Drew, Early Parochial Organisation, 8±11. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, xxv±xxxiv, ci. The eight service books were possessed by over 94 per cent of the churches in the archdeaconry; Tanner, Norwich, 5.


160

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

The eight essential books speci®ed by Archbishop Winchelsey encompassed both liturgical and musical requirements for church services, and any book considered necessary, over and above these, should be provided by the incumbent. Clerical wills show that there was appreciable responsibility on the part of the priests to ensure that their bene®ce, and frequently those of neighbouring rectors and vicars, possessed not only the books that were required under Winchelsey's constitution, but also texts which were additional to it. Nearly a quarter of all clerical wills in the Deanery contained book bequests. They were tools of the clerical `trade', and books bequeathed by clerics were comparable to the hundreds of bequests of cattle, sheep, horses and crops willed by husbandmen and yeomen to maintain and enrich the churches in the Deanery; or the bequests of ropes, nets, boats and frequently the catch left to provide similar ornamentation by the men and women actively engaged in the ®shing industry along the coastal strip of the Deanery. Sums of money not immediately available were left to enhance and maintain God's service with pro®ts from the land at some later date.4 From a purely practical point of view, books as personal possessions of priests were often bequeathed to ®ll a gap in a church's library. Books would be left to a particular church where there was a known lack of necessary literature; in 1505, the Peasenhall cleric, John Hynchecleff, hoped to satisfy this need by leaving `my printed mass book . . . to the church of Blakenham upon the Water if they have none lately bought or else I will some other church have it as most need is'.5 In 1470, the vicar of Reydon, Roger Scolys, left books to Southwold town `for instructing priests here following'.6 Clerical books such as these were the essential key to education at local level, and, at a time when the written word was both scarce and expensive, Pupilla Occuli, a book of instruction for priests, was to be fastened to the priest's stall in Uggeshall church with à chain of yron to the use and information of them that shall succeed me'.7 Books would occasionally be left to young male legatees if they joined the priesthood.8 On a more personal level, liturgical books were bequeathed to fellow clerics in return for soul masses and obits, celebrated either in the testators' parish church or by clerical acquaintances in their own churches.9 In 1495, when John Rusale, the Crat®eld chaplain, left his dirige book to a priest of good conversation to remember him, his friends and all Christian 4

5 6 7

8 9

SROI, IC/AA2/3/44, Richard Hunt, South Cove 1487. He bequeathed 5 marks for a new missal, 33s to be paid at the next Michaelmas, the balance to be paid the Michaelmas after. NRO, NCC Ryxe 336, John Hyncheclyffe, priest, Peasenhall 1505. NRO, NCC Betyns 83, Master Roger Scolys, vicar, Reydon 1470. NRO, NCC Ryxe 2, John Ovy, priest, Uggeshall 1504; Wordsworth, Old Service-books, 65±6. PRO, PCC Stockton 23, Walter Martyn, chaplain, Westhall 1461. NRO, NCC Woolman 9, John Herbert, priest, Theberton 1487.


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161

souls, he was directly rewarding the priest for conducting the intercessory prayers.10 Books had their own purchasing power, too, and in 1504 William Hawe, Kelsale's incumbent, requested that his book should be sold to obtain commemorative prayers ìf the law will suffer it to be done'.11 The intrinsic value of books could also at times be put to good use. At Mundham in the neighbouring county of Norfolk, the breviary `that was laid to pledge to ffranceis of Norwiche' was to be restored to the parish church.12 Many of the books mentioned in Deanery wills may have been of great beauty and artistic merit, but the details are unknown. They would have borne heraldic arms and devices as marks of personal patronage, but these cannot be identi®ed, and, to a largely illiterate congregation, books must have represented much of the magic and mysticism of the Church. Members of the laity also left book bequests. When John Weybred made his will in 1499, he gave to his parish church of St John's, Dunwich, the gift of à grayle that is with me'.13 This was to procure prayers, and his gift, which was a treasured personal possession, was as signi®cant a bequest as the rosary given to adorn an image or the bed cover willed to the high altar. Books such as Weybred's grail were bequeathed for a variety of reasons, remembrance through intercessory prayer being not the least of these. At Bram®eld, in 1503, William Walpole willed a vestment, a pair of chalices, a Mass book, a pax, cruets and a sacring bell `with the which said ornaments I will have an honest secular priest to syng . . . . . . the space of oon hoole yere', gifts less personal than Weybred's grail, but of inestimable value to Bram®eld church where they would remain after the year was up.14 Sometimes a book had been left un®nished for want of money or, perhaps, because the scribe or illuminator had died. The latter probably explains Walter Gymyngham's bequest of 25s `to the making of a book that Robert Ganer began' (see note 62).15 Bequests for book repairs may appear less worthy than the actual gift of a book, because repairs are generally unspeci®ed and lack the detail that adds colour to the recorded range of literature. When John Mell died in 1460, the 4 marks left for the repair of books in the church were to come from the sale of his land in Wenhaston.16 Mell's was not a particularly exciting bequest, but repair and replenishment were required by the Church and similar gifts would have earned commemoration ± and gratitude.

10 11

12 13 14 15 16

NRO, NCC Popy 113, John Rusale, chaplain, Crat®eld 1495. NRO, NCC Popy 514, William Hawe, Kelsale, 1504. Hawe's reference to the law may allude to the statute concerning Feoffments by Cestuy que Use (1484) 1 Ric. III, c.1, see Baker and Milsom, Private Law to 1750, 101. PRO, PCC Horne 26, John Appleyard, Brakon, Norfolk 1498. SROI, IC/AA2/4/36, John Weybred, Dunwich 1499. SROI, IC/AA2/4/98, William Walpole, Bram®eld 1503. SROI, IC/AA2/10/9, Walter Gymyngham, Walberswick 1527. NRO, NCC Brosyard 216, John Mell, Thorington 1460.


162

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

Books in Inventories Two late inventories have survived within the deanery of Dunwich, one from St Mary's, Crat®eld, dated about 1528, and the other from St Mary's, Hunting®eld, dated about 1534.17 Both inventories were compiled more than 150 years after those of Norwich archdeaconry. This late compilation accounts for the absence of some of the books required by Archbishop Winchelsey because, over the years, smaller books were frequently bound in with larger volumes. This meant that although the number of obligatory books tended to diminish, the overall number of books increased as extra liturgical copy was bought or bequeathed. Crat®eld's inventory shows this clearly, for although it records no psalter, it lists ®ve grails. Fortunately, three ®fteenth-century inventories survive for the priory of Rumburgh, where the convent church of St Michael was also the parish church. These are dated about 1439, 1448 and 1482 and were drawn up on the retirement of one prior and the accession of the next.18 They were closer in time to the Norwich inventories and represent an ailing religious foundation where a full range of service-books was likely to be found and where a small library of other matter might also be expected. The inventory made at Leiston abbey at its dissolution in 1536 dismissed the liturgical books in the choir as `divers old books for the service nothing worth', a foretaste of what was to come. No value was entered in the margin. Crat®eld's inventory of 1528 listed a total of twenty-six books. Only one book, a missal, was òf paper printed'; twenty-two were òf vellum written': and three were not described. The Mass book or missal contained everything necessary for the priest singing Mass. Of the service-books required by Winchelsey, Crat®eld inventory listed four missals, although only one was of®cially required, but special altars often had their own missals and these may have been bequeathed for gild or chantry altars.19 There were also ®ve grails which contained the music for the Mass, but two were usually suf®cient, one on either side of the choir.20 Two antiphoners and three shortened antiphoners were listed.21 Antiphoners contained music which accompanied the divine of®ce and were often in two parts, antiphonale 17

18 19

20 21

SROI, FC 62/E4/1; FC 57/A1/1/41±4, Hunting®eld Parish Papers, presented to a meeting of Society of Antiquaries by W. Holland and B. B. Woodward, and published in PSA, 2nd series, i (1859±60), 116±93. SROI, HD 1538/52,57,32. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, xxx±xxxi, and see SROI, IC/AA2/7/193. John Swan, Blythburgh 1515. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, xxxiii. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, xxvi±xxvii. In the Norwich archdeaconry inventories, there were on average two or three antiphoners in every church. They could be of a considerable size, when they were referred to as a `great' antiphoners. A `greet' antiphoner appears in the Hunting®eld inventory and a `great' ®fteenth-century antiphoner can be seen at Ranworth church, Norfolk.



163

sanctorum for the immovable feasts of the saints, and antiphonale temporalis for the moveable liturgical feasts. There was a lesson-book, which contained lessons read at matins, Bible readings, homilies and sermons, and was often in two volumes, which accounts for a half-legend entered in Hunting®eld's inventory.22 There was a manual, portable and small (hence the name manuale) and containing occasional of®ces such as baptism, marriage, visitation of the sick, and suchlike.23 No psalters, tropers or ordinals were noted, but psalters were often bound in with antiphoners, tropers with grails and ordinals with other books for convenience and economy.24 Crat®eld possessed six processionaries which contained music for anthems and responses sung in procession before Mass, at Rogationtide, and on feast days, but these were not obligatory.25 The inventory also listed a coucher, which referred to the size, and not the type, of book, the word coming from the French coucher, to lie down. This was described in the sixteenth century thus: À whole boke is commenly called indifferentlye a volume, a boke, a coucher, but a volume is lesse than a boke, and a boke lesse than a coucher.'26 Quires were additional folios which could be added to an existing book to bring it up to date; they were frequently used for new feasts, which could then be inserted or bound in; at Crat®eld there was a quire of the Visitation of Our Lady, a feast promulgated in three stages in 1389, 1441 and 1475, the last date being when of®cial observance began in England.27 There were also two books of tracts, the ®rst described as containing the `harde wordes' of the psalter and the `harde words' of services for a whole year. This `tract' sounds very similar to the book bequeathed to Southwold by Master Roger Scolys in 1470, described as a book interpreting dif®cult words and other words frequently used in church.28 The second was for following the sacrament of baptism ànd all other', which may have been the missing manual. Crat®eld boasted a ®ne collection of books, yet only one testator from Crat®eld bequeathed a book to the parish church. This was the processionary left by Sir John Rusale, the chaplain, to `the town of Crat®eld', probably one of the six processionaries in the Crat®eld inventory.29 Sir John also left his house to the town of Crat®eld, which, if sold, was to help `to the making of a burial book for the holy days in the choir of Crat®eld on the side that I was wont to be on'. Hunting®eld's inventory of about 1534 is less detailed, nevertheless the 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, xxviii±xxix. Wordsworth and Littlehales, Old Service-books, 213±14. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, xxv±xxix. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, xxxii. Wordsworth and Littlehales, Old Service-books, 64. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, xlii; Lewis, Walberswick, 70; Pfaff, Feasts, 46±7. NRO, NCC Betyns 83, Master Roger Scolys, vicar, Reydon 1470. NRO, NCC Popy 113, John Rusale, priest, Crat®eld 1495; in Crat®eld, the words town, church and gild were interchangeable, see p. 150±1; NRO, NCC Woolman 34, John Everard, Crat®eld 1488. Rusale was named as one of John Everard's executors.


164

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

church possessed a `greet' antiphoner, two old antiphoners, a grail, two missals, three processionaries and a manual. There was also the half-legend mentioned above, and an old psalter, perhaps a liturgical psalter, with psalms arranged in order for the weekly of®ce and anthems before and after each psalm or each group of psalms.30 Hunting®eld kept a quire for Jesus Mass and a quire with the sentence.31 This would have been the Great Sentence, the form of excommunication used four times a year on the ®rst Sundays of Advent and Lent, the Sunday after Whit and the Sunday after the Assumption of Our Lady. It took many forms, but included a list of sins, and a very comprehensive curse on sinners `sleeping and waking, going, sitting and standing, speaking and riding, eating, drinking, in wood, in water, in ®eld, in town . . .'. The inventories from Crat®eld and Hunting®eld give a good indication of the range of books which could have been found in the parish churches in the Deanery between 1370 and 1547. The inventories from Rumburgh priory may represent books for a monastic cell, but they were, too, the books of the parish church. They cannot be apportioned uniquely to priory or to church except that, in 1448 and 1480, two portiforia were entered, òne at the church of St Michael and one for secular use'.32 After the psalter and the primer [book of hours], the portiforium or breviary was the volume most likely to be found in lay possession, because it contained all the servicebooks needed for the canonical of®ces in one volume. It could be described as notatum, containing music, or sine nota, with words only, and was sometimes in two volumes. The inventories also listed two tropers and a martyrology. The troper or sequence book was used by the choir for singing the Mass, and was often included in the grail; and the martyrology contained brief accounts of the lives and sufferings of saints and martyrs, which were read on the appropriate day.33 The Bible in the 1448 inventory was a gift from the retiring prior, Thomas Goldsburgh;34 in the same inventory it was noted that one processionary had been bought by the inhabitants of Rumburgh.35 The of®ce of the Virgin 30

31

32

33

34 35

Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, xxix±xxx; NRO, NCC Betyns 83, Roger Scolys, vicar of Reydon, bequeathed his glossed psalter to Southwold in 1470. For Jesus Mass, see p. 124; Wordsworth and Littlehales, Old Service-books, see 270±2 for the Great Sentence; M. Aston, Ìconoclasm in England', in Iconoclasm vs. Art and Drama, ed. C. Davidson and A. E. Nichols (Kalamazoo 1989), 47±91, at 61; the Great Sentence appears in the Book of Common Prayer as the service of Commination. SROI, HD 1538/335/1/57,32; Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, xxvii±xxviii; Wordsworth and Littlehales, Old Service-books, 69±100. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii xxxiv, xxxii. Wordsworth and Littlehales, Old Service-books, 146±7. The martyrology was read in monastic chapters after the service of Prime; its presence could be expected in Rumburgh priory although not in Chediston church to which William Sproute left a martyrology in 1491, SROI, IC/AA2/3/130. SROI, HD 1538/339/1,57. This reference is not corroborated in any testament. The only bequest for books was Elianor Payne's gift in 1529 of 3s 4d towards buying a missal, see SROI, IC/AA2/10/ 114.



165

Mary was entered in 1439 and 1448 but not in 1480. Watkin, when transcribing the Archdeaconry of Norwich inventories, noted that according to the Use of Salisbury, the of®ce and Mass of the Blessed Virgin were sung daily, but that this was possible only in the greater churches.36 A quire containing the `story' of St Anne was present at Rumburgh, but this was more likely to have been a service-book rather than a `story' book, perhaps similar to the Lincoln's Inn quire in which polyphony, plainsong and readings were included.37 The priory was not over-endowed with servicebooks although they were more varied than Hunting®eld or Crat®eld. Rumburgh may have compared badly with similar monastic establishments, but it was never a house of any size, and there is nothing to suggest that its numbers had increased between the end of the thirteenth and the middle of the ®fteenth century. The gradual reduction in service-books over the fortyyear period covered by the inventories supports this assumption. The ®rst English Bible in print was Miles Coverdale's translation from German and Latin, although, for the New Testament, he relied extensively on William Tyndale's Greek translation which had been printed on the Continent two years earlier in 1535.38 This was followed in 1537 by the Matthew Bible, edited by John Rogers, Tyndale's assistant, and published under the pseudonym, Thomas Matthews. In 1538, in the injunctions addressed to all parish clergy, a vernacular Bible òf the largest volume' was ordered by Thomas Cromwell, ànd the same set up in some convenient place within the said church that you have cure of . . . the charge of which book shall be ratably borne . . . the one half by you and the other half by them (the parishioners)'.39 Either Coverdale's or Matthews' Bibles would have satis®ed the injunctions, but Cromwell envisaged a new Bible to be produced under his control, edited by Coverdale and published with Cranmer's approval. This was the Great Bible, ®nally published in 1539. Many parishes throughout the kingdom were tardy in acquiring the new Bible. Their reluctance to comply with the injunctions immediately was possibly due to the connection between the Bible in English and heretical beliefs associated with the Lollards. Since 1408, any translation of the Bible into English needed the bishops' sanction, whereas in Germany, there were translations into German from 1466 and 1522, and several in France from 1477, but only in 1526 did Tyndale break the deadlock with his translation 36

37

38

39

Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, xxxix±xl. In the Norwich archdeaconry inventory, these greater churches were St Peter Mancroft, Norwich and St Mary's, Thetford. A. Wathey, `The Production of Books of Liturgical Polyphony', Book Production and Publishing in Britain, 1375±1475, ed. J. Grif®ths and D. Pearsall (London 1989), 143± 61; Bossy, Christianity in the West, 10. Referring to St Anne, Bossy says `. . . the intensity with which her sanctity was cultivated in the ®fteenth century testi®ed that Christ had not come a foundling into the world. By 1500 there was a well-established mass for the veneration of St Anne . . .'. Dickens, The English Reformation, 106±7, 187±8. Tyndale's New Testament of 1525 had been secretly printed in Cologne and copies were in England by March 1526. C. H. Williams, ed., English Historical Documents, 1485±1558 (London 1967), 811.


166

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

of the New Testament.40 There may have also been a query about the price, set at 13s 4d, although Cromwell would have preferred a price of 10s.41 Either way, this cost was to be borne half by the priest, and half by the parishioners, none of whom, judging from the inventories, had been slow to spend money on service-books in the past. A cost of 6s 8d would certainly not have been a barrier to procuring the Great Bible if the parishioners had wanted to do so, and this reluctance was not restricted to east Suffolk, for in south-west England it seems probable that there was `. . . an extensive reluctance to invest' and that the local enthusiasm for the vernacular Bible was not great.42 This inactivity prompted a further order in 1541 to all parishes to buy a Bible within six months or pay a £2 ®ne.43 There were still parishes, however, who complied only when they were faced by Edward VI's commissioners in 1547. Crat®eld was one of these.44 Crat®eld churchwardens noted a payment made to `Mr Vicar' of 6s 2d for the purchase of two bibles in 1540/1 but did this really mean two bibles?45 The accounts at Tintinhull in Somerset record 6s 5d paid `For the half price of the Bible this year [1541/2] bought'.46 If Crat®eld did purchase two bibles, they apparently did not ful®ll the stipulation of the injunctions, because the churchwardens eventually bought the Great Bible in 1547 at a cost of 13s 4d.47 Hunting®eld purchased a Bible for 4s 8d in 1541, the balance being found, presumably, by the incumbent.48 A lectern was in use there around 1532 when, according to the churchwardens, `the making of the lectern and the bringing home of it' cost them 4s.49 By 1547, Frostenden had paid 6s 8d for a Bible òf the greatest volume', and the parishioners of Chediston had paid 12d for the lectern on which their new Bible was to lie.50

40

41

42

43 44 45

46

47 48 49 50

Dickens, The English Reformation, 23±4; P. Northeast, ed., Boxford Churchwardens' Accounts, 1530±1561, SRS xxiii (1982), 37. Boxford parishioners received their Bible, with chain, from London in 1541. Haigh, Ìntroduction', Reformation Revised, 1±17 at 13; Dickens, The English Reformation, 190±1. R. Hutton, `The Local Impact of the Tudor Reformations', The English Reformation Revised, ed. C. Haigh (repr. Cambridge 1990), 114±38, at 116, note 8; R. Whiting, The Blind Devotion of the People (Cambridge 1989), 190±1. Haigh, Reformation Revised, 13. Hutton, Ìmpact of Tudor Reformations', 118 . Raven, Crat®eld, 58. The page is described in the transcription as `the ®rst of the dated loose sheets'. There are also undated loose sheets. It is not possible to identify some of the descriptions. Bishop Hobhouse, ed. Churchwardens' Accounts of Croscombe, Pilton, Yatton, Tintenhull, Morebath and St Michael's, Bath, Ranging from AD 1349 to 1560, Somerset Record Society iv (1890), 205. Raven, Crat®eld, 73. SROI, FC 57/A1/1.16, see Hunting®eld Churchwardens' Accounts. SROI, FC 57/A1/1.30. White, East Anglian, NS i, 251, 160.



167

The Cost of Supplying Books The loss of churchwardens' accounts and church inventories is keenly felt in the study of book production, and the books themselves, produced to lie on the lecterns and choir desks of parish churches, have been destroyed. What has become clear from the fragmentary churchwardens' accounts which do exist, however, is that in Crat®eld and Walberswick there was constant replenishing and refurbishing of the service books necessary for the preReformation liturgy, yet entries in the accounts are never explicit enough to allow an assessment of the overall cost of a book. This lack of detail makes it dif®cult to compare costs between the two parishes. Hunting®eld's churchwardens paid 9s to the bookbinders for making or repairing books in 1528; but while the variety or type of service-book owned by the two parishes of Crat®eld and Hunting®eld can be compared, the quality is unknown, there being no authorized size, no standard covering and a wide variation in script and decoration. Payments were made piecemeal for book production in the Walberswick and Crat®eld churchwardens' accounts. A sheepskin cost 3d at Crat®eld and 5d at Walberswick.51 The presence of the vast ¯ocks grazing the coastal heath at Walberswick would suggest that sheepskin should have cost less here than inland, but, whatever their provenance, all skins would have been expertly prepared, and not necessarily locally. So these prices, while giving a rough idea of one item at basic cost, cannot indicate the total cost to the testator because the size, number and quality of folios are unrecorded and, in most cases, the accounts do not specify the type of book. Crat®eld's accounts between 1493 and 1498 give little information, but are nevertheless useful for several details which do not appear in the Walberswick accounts.52 In 1493, the churchwardens paid 3s 4d for vellum. Vellum of the ®nest quality, calf-, lamb- or kid-skin, would have been used for the leaves and was possibly ready prepared for writing. The Crat®eld churchwardens distinguished between vellum and parchment, but the quantities bought were not recorded. Parchment, which came from sheep or goat, was also used for leaves, but was of a coarser grain and was purchased in 1494 for 5d. The churchwardens also spent 12d on four sheepskins, 8d on two calf skins, and 1d for paper. Two buckskins cost 3s in 1495, expensive items at 1s 6d each, and these were probably made into covers. William Bocher received 6s for supplying the leather for the clasps. Joseph of Lax®eld was paid 5d for a calfskin. This preparatory work was concluded by John Swette, the scrivener, who was paid 6s 8d, and, in 1498, 51 52

Raven, Crat®eld, 24; Lewis, Walberswick, 74. See Raven, Crat®eld, 21, 24±5, 27, for bookmaking expenses; Wordsworth, Old Servicebooks, 44. At St Laurence Church, Reading, ®fteen vellum skins cost 10s in 1531/2, and a dozen parchment skins cost 2s 2d: three buck-skins cost 2s: boards cost 20d: and the binder was paid 24s for an unknown quantity of books.


168

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

6d was spent on the silk `chappetrys' of the books. The paper purchased may have been used for drawing up the accounts, rather than to make books, because Crat®eld's inventory only itemizes one book with paper leaves. Walberswick's accounts offer a wider variety of entries, but they lack speci®c detail, and so suffer from the same constraints as Crat®eld. The varied range of production costs was not limited to this particular locality, and, even when references are made to the same type of book, they show that disparate payments are found further a®eld. For example, it is dif®cult to give an average price for a manual. In 1452, 8s 8d was paid to Sir Edmund by the Walberswick churchwardens for making a manual;53 while making a manual for St Michael's, Bath, in 1439 had cost 16s 8d. The churchwardens there had to pay a further 1s 6d for two men to go on horseback to fetch it. In Somerset again, the churchwardens of Yatton paid £1 3s 4d for a manual in 1495.54 Bearing these costs in mind, the Walberswick payment may have been a stage payment made at a certain point in the book's production, Sir Edmund only being responsible for the script. Additional expenses for binding, covers and clasps may have accrued elsewhere, but there are no headings in the accounts, and no obvious order in the entries. Yet manuals could not have varied so much in size, and the disparity in the cost of the three manuals mentioned could be due to either a piecemeal payment made to Sir Edmund by Walberswick, or to other qualities in the two more expensive books which are not described. The superiority of the writing surface, the excellence of the script or even the cost of one gold initial letter would alter the price considerably ± upwards. Between 1458 and 1459, an antiphoner was being repaired at Walberswick. These service-books were often very large, such as the contemporary Ranworth antiphoner from Norfolk which measures 52.7 39.4 cm. and contains 285 folios.55 The Walberswick antiphoner was described as `grete'. Skins were recorded costing 12d, and 7s 10d was paid `for binding new of the great Antiphoner and for other gear writing to Sir Laurens'.56 Testamentary evidence from the Deanery shows that most bequests towards antiphoners were a portion of the total cost, and indeed Margaret Palmer's bequest in 1491 of 6s 8d for a new antiphoner for Fordley church was a smaller amount 53

54 55

56

Lewis, Walberswick, 3; Sir Edmund may have been Dom. Edmund Scherms, described as a chaplain at Blythburgh in the will of Robert Pynne of Blythburgh in 1458, see SROI, IC/AA2/2/14. As several priests are named in the Walberswick accounts and are traceable in Blythburgh wills, it is probable that the priory of Blythburgh undertook local book production. Wordsworth and Littlehales, Old Service-books, 44. P. Lasko and N. J. Morgan, eds, Medieval Art in East Anglia, 1300±1520 (Norwich 1973), 46±7. Lewis, Walberswick, 8±9; Sir Laurence appears in two wills from Blythburgh, ®rst in that of John Alann (SROI, IC/AA2/2/62) in which he is described as stipendiary, and secondly in the will of Robert Watford (NCC Brosyard 349) where his name is given as Sir Laurence Hullynghedge.



169

than even the repair at Walberswick.57 A more realistic bequest for a new antiphoner would have been the 5 marks for the purchase of the Chediston antiphoner in 1444, the twenty shillings left for making an antiphoner for Yoxford church in 1473, or the bequest of £10 given by Thomas Craven in 1418, for making two new antiphoners for Wangford priory.58 Music copies were always a necessity, and the noting of a prick-song book cost 2s at Walberswick in 1482. In the following year, the clerk was paid 8d for noting and writing the service of Our Lady.59 This would almost certainly have been a quire (quayyer) or quaterna, probably similar to the quire for the writing of which John Swette was paid 6s 8d by the Crat®eld wardens; while in 1480/1, at St Edmund's, Salisbury, 6s was paid for eight quires of vellum purchased for writing the Visitation of Our Lady and the story of St Osmond, an additional 5s being paid to Sir John Odland `for writing of the same ingrosse'.60 In 1496 at Walberswick, Sir John Wylkynson was paid 2s for a book called a pye (a later name for an ordinal), but the pye had been in print since William Caxton's edition of 1477±78, and there is nothing to denote whether the Walberswick pye was in print or manuscript.61 The only reference to what may have been illuminated letters occurs in 1498, and this was possibly designed and executed at Blythburgh: `to Robard Gardener for turning and ¯ourishing of the letters of the new feasts and for his labour for helping to bind the book 6s 8d', possibly the same man who left Walberswick's book un®nished (see note 15).62

Local Bequests Books bequeathed to the deanery parishes demonstrate sustained input in both ®nancial and spiritual terms. Less than a quarter of the Deanery parishes were unrepresented, either as a parish church receiving the gift of books, or by a member of the parish bequeathing books. On the other hand, it is impossible to show how many books were bequeathed to the churches by testators from outside the Deanery. An occasional reference may be picked up from another source, such as the bequest of Sir Raff Bokenham, gentleman, who, on 26 November 1476, left his processional and noted hymner, and à sawter noted and the anthems throughout the year, to Easton Bavent upon the sea side'.63 57 58

59 60 61 62 63

SROI, IC/AA2/3/126, Margaret Palmer, Middleton 1491. SROI, IC/AA2/1/31, John Moot, Chediston 1444; IC/AA2/2/267, Richard Cook, Yoxford 1473; NRO, Norwich City Court Books, Liber 8/145±6, Thomas Craven, Wangford 1418. Lewis, Walberswick, 50±1. Pfaff, Feasts, 48 Lewis, Walberswick 76; Wordsworth and Littlehales, Old Service-books, 242. Lewis, Walberswick, 70. Suckling, Suffolk, II, 310.


170

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

In the Deanery between 1370 and 1542, 2 per cent of lay testators made book bequests. In the south-west of England, too, parishes were busy acquiring service-books similar to those in the deanery of Dunwich: new books for the new feasts of the Name of Jesus and Our Lady were recorded at Ashburton and Exeter St Mary Major; two processionals and a manual were purchased at Chagford; and a missal was bequeathed to Highbray.64 The missal was the most popular book to be bequeathed at all probate levels in the Deanery by both clerics and the laity, for by this period the Mass was the centre of the liturgical life of the Church. It was the main feature in the thousands of commemorative services requested in wills and testaments clerical and lay. Missals were often bequeathed, although not always as generously as those provided by John Sharp, the priest from Benacre, who, in 1513, left instructions for twenty missals to be bought and given to twenty named parishes in Suffolk and Norfolk.65 For a printed book, the cost could be as little as 4s or as much as the 10 marks sterling bequeathed by Thomas Cook, vicar of Chediston in 1477.66 The last bequest for a missal was made by Margaret Fale of Blythburgh in 1542, when she left `to the church 6s 8d to buy a print mass book for the high altar'.67 Lay testators seem keen to have provided the grail and the antiphoner, both obligatory service-books required by Archbishop Winchelsey for parish worship. Bequests for grails were never less than 10s. From Westleton, John Cotenham's will, dated 1506, reads `Peter Hamond to have a close with the parcel [of land] for the which lands the said Peter shall deliver a complete grail by the feast of Pentecost next coming and then the said Peter to have entrance in the said lands and to pay, or to do be payed, to attorneys 6 marks, every year to pay 13s 4d at the feast of the Puri®cation of Our Lady till the said 6 marks be collected'.68 Antiphoners were bequeathed more often than grails, but do not involve such large sums, and the division of the antiphoner into two parts in 1494 made it easier for the testator to bequeath either. Manuals were only bequeathed by four clerics, but there were nine bequests of portiforia. These books would have been personal possessions, Henry Shank, a chaplain from Blythburgh in 1421, leaving his portiforium to be placed on a bookstand to serve those coming to say matins and vespers.69 In 1505, Sir John Hynchecleff, from Peasenhall, made a distinction between his written portues (breviary) and his printed processionary, both of which were for private clerical use.70 64 65 66 67 68 69

70

Whiting, Blind Devotion of the People, 22. NRO, NCC Johnson 168, John Sharp, Benacre 1513. NRO, NCC Gelour 194, Thomas Cook, vicar, Chediston 1477. NRO, NCC Cooke 175±6, Margaret Fale, Blythburgh 1542. NRO, NCC Garnon 100, John Cotenham, Westleton 1506. NRO, NCC Hyrnyng 92, Henry Shank, Blythburgh 1421. `. . . et volo ut ponatur ad columpnam . . . ad serviendum venientibus dicere matutinas et vesperas', wrote Shank in his will; The Blythburgh bookstand is of ®fteenth-century date, and it is tempting to think that this was part of the Shank bequest. NRO, NCC Ryxe 336, John Hyncheclyffe, priest, Peasenhall 1505.



171

There were few bequests of primers in the Deanery, although primers must have been owned by a percentage of the testators. In Norwich, ®fteen primers were mentioned in lay wills, which may re¯ect the wealth of Norwich citizens in contrast to the relative poverty of parishioners in the Deanery, and seven were bequeathed in clerical wills.71 The primer was the prayer-book of the literate laity, and contained the hours of the Blessed Virgin, the seven penitential psalms, the ®fteen gradual psalms, the litany, the of®ce for the dead and the commendations. In addition, the primer included private intercessions, family notes and references, and was truly a personal possession. Psalters ful®lled the same purpose as a primer for the English laity and were possibly more popular. Thomasine Hopton bequeathed her psalter to her son, Nicholas Sidney.72 Thomasine's psalter probably contained a private collection of prayers and personal additions to the calendar, such as family birthdays or obits. The other ®ve bequests of psalters were made to parishes, four of them given by priests. One was accompanied by a Book of Commemorations, and two of the psalters were described as `with common gloss' and `noted'.73 Books other than service-books belonged almost exclusively to the clergy, although the eight lay bequests of anonymous books might well have reversed this position if their titles were known. Tanner, discussing books mentioned in Norwich wills, refers to the one surviving inventory of books, that of John Baker, rector, who wrote his will in 1518.74 Baker's will survives, but none of the twenty-six books referred to in the inventory are mentioned in the will. Tanner therefore makes the point that books mentioned in the wills of other secular clergy doubtless represent a fraction of the books which they actually owned. At the same time Watkin, summing up the inventories of the Norwich Archdeaconry of 1368, remarked that the list of [ornaments and] books were merely the endowment of the church.75 No privately owned books of incumbents or other individuals were included, yet the number of service books remaining in college libraries, private collections, etc., showed that private ownership must have been considerable. Books of instruction for parish priests also occurred in the Deanery. At the time of the 1368 Norwich inventory, Oculus Sacerdotis was probably no more than ®fty years old, and Pupilla Oculi, `perhaps the best work of its kind by an Englishman in the late Middle Ages', had not yet been written.76 Both were 71 72 73

74

75 76

SROI, IC/AA2/2/191, Elizabeth Morrell, Halesworth 1469; Tanner, Norwich, 194. PRO, PCC Horne 18, Thomasine Hopton, Yoxford 1497. NRO, NCC Bettyns 94, John Styward, Yoxford 1464; NCC Bettyns 83, Master Roger Scolys, Reydon 1470; Harper-Bill, Morton's Register, III, 88, William Salman, chantry priest, Hunting®eld 1499. Tanner, Norwich, 35±7, 237±40; NRO, NCC Gylys 181±3, John Baker, rector of St John's Maddermarket, Norwich 1518. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, ci±ciii. W. A. Pantin, The English Church in the Fourteenth-century (new edn Toronto 1980), 197, 213±14. Oculus Sacerdotis was divided into three parts, Pars oculi, Dextra pars and Sinistra pars: Tanner, Norwich, 39.


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TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

invaluable aids for clergy in their cures. They were included in Rumburgh's inventory, and Pupilla Oculi occurred four times within the Deanery and Oculus Sacerdotis twice. The Pupilla Oculi volumes bequeathed to Sibton and Uggeshall were to be chained, the ®rst in the chancel, the second in the parson's stall, and, where a book had been chained, a prayer was usually asked for the soul of the donor from all those who used the book.77 Dieta Salutis, a treatise on vice and virtue usually ascribed to St Bonaventure, was given to Southwold Church by Master Roger Scolys.78 Huguconem was left to Spexhall church;79 a Doctrinale, the grammar book of the period, was left to a clerical colleague in Covehithe.80 Three copies of the Golden Legend were bequeathed, one by a lay testator, the other two by clerics.81 Gesta Romanorum, a collection of romantic `moralized' stories originally compiled in the thirteenth century, was bequeathed by Robert Rome, chaplain of Covehithe, in 1467, only ®ve years before it ®rst appeared in print. Rome also bequeathed his best portiforium to the vicar of Covehithe, William Yarmouth, for a mortuary payment.82 The `book of ffesyk' left to John of Hoo, accompanied by a gift of coral beads, remains a mystery.83 Nicholas Sidney inherited his mother's Òcliff ', but the actual work by Thomas Hoccleve, poet, pupil and friend of Chaucer, clerk of the Privy Seal and professional scribe, was not named.84 Too little is known of the education on offer in rural parishes, but the groups of unidenti®able books contained in clerical bequests, described only as `Latin' or `grammar' books, indicate that certain clerics were not as illeducated as was so often stated until recently. Books there certainly were, and they were willed where the appreciation or the need was the greatest. Walter Dyke, the vicar of Bram®eld, left à book' to Halesworth church and three more bequests of ànother book' to the chaplain of Walpole, the vicar of Westleton and a chaplain named Sir Henry Sciliard; Henry Heyward, who was probably a parish chaplain himself, bequeathed `Johannes Nydar super Precepta' to his neighbouring priest at Knodishall, the correct title 77

78 79

80 81

82 83 84

NRO, NCC Spyltimbre 178, John Andrew, priest, Sibton 1507; NCC Ryxe 2, John Ovy, priest, Uggeshall 1504; Rock, Church of our Fathers, III, 42±4. Tanner, Norwich, 40; NRO, NCC Betyns 83, Master Roger Scolys, Reydon 1470. NRO, NCC Heydon 193, John Brown, priest, Cookley 1381; Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, xlv. The 1368 inventory shows one liber Hugucionis, `possibly the gloss on the Decreta by Hugh of Pisa': xlv, n.5. Hugh of Pisa was also credited with Etymologicum, a dictionary; Wordsworth and Littlehales, Old Service-books, 134. In 1472, St Edmund's, Salisbury, owned `Hugucion y chaynyd in our lady Chappell'. NRO, NCC Woolman 212, William Yarmouth, vicar, Covehithe 1494. This was the famous Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, d. 1298, see Chapter Ten, note 1. NRO, NCC Jekkys 94. Robert Rome, chaplain, Covehithe 1467. SROI, IC/AA2/2/247, John Glaswyke, Blythburgh 1471. PRO, PCC Horne 18, Thomasine Hopton, Yoxford 1497; F. J. Furnivall and I. Gollancz, eds, Hoccleve's Works: The Minor Poems, EETS lxi (rev. repr. Oxford 1970); for a page from Hoccleve's work, see Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagent England, 1200±1400, ed. J. J. Alexander and P. Binski (London 1987), 522±3.



173

being Expositio decalogi sive preceptorium divine legis by the German Dominican, John Nider (c. 1380±1438), known as liber Precepto; Sir John Andrew of Sibton bequeathed to William Andrew, his brother, all his English books, and his Latin books were to be given to priests.85 His `grete Booke of persevale' was to go to Master Goldengham of Belstead Hall. Master Roger Scolys, the vicar of Reydon, left his astronomy books and his astrolabe to Clare Hall, Cambridge.86 His bequest is the closest approximation to a book inventory in a Deanery will, but unfortunately only runs to seven named books: a psalter with a common gloss, a noted portiforium, Legenda Aurea, Dieta Salutis, Pupilla Oculi, an assortment of `small books', an anonymous dictionary and astronomy books. In the library of Clare College, Cambridge, the Master's Old Book, a late medieval memorandum book, records Scolys' undated gift of books to Clare Hall library, but these were probably destroyed in the ®re of 1521. One of Scolys' executors, William Yarmouth, vicar of Covehithe and also a graduate of Cambridge, was certainly teaching the sons of local gentry between 1463 and 1470, one of his pupils being the aforementioned Nicholas Sidney. Other youngsters had been taught by Robert Iverich, the vicar of Brampton;87 his predecessor at Brampton, Richard Pethawghe, had left service books to Brampton church in 1435.88 At Uggeshall, John Ovy, yet another graduate from Cambridge, left his nephew all his grammar books òf what name so ever they be'. Ovy was probably another cleric who taught the local, but gentle, youth, an educated man who had gained his Master's degree from Cambridge in 1481.89 In 1493±94, he was brie¯y vicar of St Stephen's, Coleman Street, London, after which he became rector of Uggeshall; he died here c. 1504, but asked to be buried beside his mother at Blythburgh where he had been parochial chaplain. Owyn Duckett's academic future was revealed in his father's will, his mother `to ®nd my son Owyn to school till he say his perfect grammar and after he is so learned she will put him to learn the temporal law with some learned man [so he] shall then use the law in London'.90 Little is known about the schooling available for the lesser members of Deanery society, but an education was expected by a Crat®eld testator, John Warn, who, in 1538, left instructions to his widow to send William and John, his sons, to school in Crat®eld or elsewhere until they had been taught to write and read às their capacity may it take . . .'.91 They were then to be bound apprentices to `some occupation, mastery or craft'. That education 85

86

87 88 89 90 91

Tanner, Norwich, 36; NRO, NCC Gelour 192, Walter Dyke; NCC Whytefoote 92±3, Henry Heyward; NCC Spyltimbre 178, John Andrew. NRO, NCC Betyns 83, Master Roger Scolys, vicar, Reydon 1470. Clare College Library, Cambridge (Safe C:1/7), the Master's Old Book. Richmond, John Hopton, 133±4. NRO, NCC Sur¯ete 183±4, Richard Pethawghe, vicar, Brampton 1435. Emden, Cambridge University Register, 439; NRO, NCC Ryxe 2. SROI, IC/AA2/11/191, Robert Duckett, Sibton 1534. SROI, IC/AA2/13/83, John Warn, Crat®eld 1538.


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TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

was available in Crat®eld is borne out by the mention of the `schoolhouse' in the churchwardens accounts of around 1538.92 Jo-Ann Moran made use of testamentary evidence to pinpoint education available in the diocese of York, and she reasoned that children `singing in choirs or reading in the parish church must have received some training, however informal'.93 A valuable appendix contains the various types of schools she found and their locations. If her criteria were applied to the Deanery, many more examples of schools would be found than those which have been described above. The `vi Childryn that have Rochettes and canne syng' at John Walter's obit, for example, would be an indication that, at the least, there would have been a song school at Halesworth.94

Making Music In the library of St John's College, Cambridge, there is a book of Music for Masses, one of a set of ®ve part-books. When the book was catalogued by M. R. James in 1913, he attributed the faded arms on the cover to the Hastings family, interpreting the inscription `Lancelot Prior' as the Christian and surname of the one time owner.95 The owner, however, was probably Lancelot Wharton, the penultimate prior of both Rumburgh and Horsham St Faith, whose coat of arms bore a close resemblance to those of Hastings, and whose family claimed to be descended from them.96 Wharton sang bass, but where is not certain. Rumburgh priory was so reduced in brethren that it is unlikely the book was used there, unless the parishioners of Rumburgh were particularly musical. It has been suggested that because the lining of the cover is a bailiff 's account of 1392/3 from Benacre manor, the book may have been produced for the household chapel of Thomas Fiennes, Lord Dacre.97 From the point of view of convenience and availability, it seems more likely that, when resident at Rumburgh, Wharton would have sung at 92 93

94 95

96

97

Raven, Crat®eld, 57. J.-A. H. Moran, The Growth of English Schooling, 1340±1548: Learning, Literacy and Laicization in Pre-Reformation York Diocese (Princeton 1985), 237±79. See Chapter Six, note 13. M. R. James, St John's College Library (Cambridge 1913), no. 234, Music for Masses, K31; R. D. Bowers, Ùniversity Library, MS Dd.xiii.27 and St John's College, MS K31 Partbooks', in Cambridge Music Manuscripts, 900±1700, ed. I. Fenlon (Cambridge 1982), 129±31. This is the bass partbook containing music by early sixteenth-century composers such as Thomas Ashwell, Robert Fairfax, John Taverner and Stephen Prowet. The countertenor partbook is in Cambridge University Library, Dd.XIII.27. The other parts are missing. VCH: Suffolk, II, 79: VCH: Norfolk, II, 348; J. W. Papworth, Ordinary of British Armorials (London 1874), 978; GEC, XII, ii, 594±5, note g; Joan Corder, A Dictionary of Suffolk Arms, SRS vii (1965), 404. Miss Corder describes Lancelot Wharton's arms as recorded in a window at Rumburgh Àbbey' by Fairfax. Bowers, `St John's College Partbooks', 129, 131.



175

Mettingham College, barely half an hour away on horseback. Ten years after Wharton's departure, Mettingham was still staffed by a master and eleven chaplains, in addition to fourteen boys who received education, board, lodging and clothes at an annual charge of £8. Suckling, writing in 1846, said, `Some of the music that was formerly used in the collegiate chapel was, at no very distant period, in the possession of a person living within a few miles of Harleston, in Norfolk. Application and interest have been employed to obtain a sight of it, but hitherto without effect.'98 Nevertheless, however attractive the idea of the prior riding out to choir practice at Mettingham may be, the music manuscript probably dates from his last years at Horsham St Faith. Here he could be found with six monks when Bishop Nix made his visitation in 1532. There would have been more chance of Wharton enjoying ambitious and intricate music-making within the vicinity of Norwich rather than in the farmlands of north-east Suffolk, particularly as music contained in the manuscript is attributed to Dom. Stephen Prowett, active at St Peter Mancroft in the city between 1520 and 1560.99 There is no reference to an organ in the inventories of St Peter Mancroft, but it is unlikely that the great city church would have been without one.100 It is Mancroft's inventory of books, drawn up in the early years of the sixteenth century, which lists a book `for the orgons . . . whose fourth leaf beginneth Ecce dies veniunt', evidence that there was indeed an organ there.101 The book was clasped with latten, and lay on the over-shelf in the high vestry. On the same shelf lay a pricksong book, also with a latten clasp, in which the anthem Salve festa dies appeared. In the Norwich archdeaconry inventories of 1368, later entries show the sumptuous church of St Andrew, which lay a little to the north of Peter Mancroft, as possessing an organ c. 1400, and at the church of St Agnes, Cawston, Norfolk, in the patronage of the Uffords, earls of Suffolk, an organ had been presented by the earls' clerical companion and executor, John de Pissale, in 1373.102 St Peter Mancroft, St Andrew's and St Agnes at Cawston were all, and still are, exceptional churches, but how common would organs have been in the coastal churches of Dunwich deanery? Did the small rural 98

99 100

101 102

Suckling, Suffolk, I, 168±83, at 168, note 26 (referring to Gillingwater's MS), and 176±7; at the suppression of the chantries and colleges, the manor of Mettingham and the castle passed ®rst to Sir Anthony Denny and then, in 5 Elizabeth, there was a licence of alienation to the great Nicholas Bacon, a Suffolk man. The Bacon family retained possession until 1675. A wide variety of Mettingham College documents, as part of the Redgrave papers, are now in Chicago. Some are in the British Library. Bowers, `St John's College Partbooks', 131. W. St J. Hope, Ìnventories of the Parish Church of St Peter Mancroft, Norwich', Norfolk Archaeology xiv (1901), 153±239, at 189. These inventories are transcribed from BL, Stowe MS 871. Ecce dies veniunt was the responsory for vespers in Advent. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, xcviii, 174±5; for de Pissale (de Pyeshale), see P. Northeast, `The Chantry at Brundish', PSIAH xxxviii, pt ii (1994), 138±48, at 138±41, and Redstone, ` Chapels, Chantries and Gilds', 36.


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parishes not only boast such instruments, but, having acquired them, did they also have someone who could play them? Churchwardens' accounts from Walberswick, Crat®eld and Hunting®eld all contain entries towards organ expenses.103 The entries from Walberswick are the most informative. The organ pipes were scoured in 1480, the instrument mended in 1481, and, in 1488, William Chelter was paid 15s for organ making.104 He was mending the organ in 1490 and 1492, when he was paid 6s 8d, but by 1496 he had been replaced by Robert Bortryn who came from Stowmarket to mend and to dress `the orgonys'; Edmund Wryte, Walberswick's odd-job man, was paid 20d for setting them up.105 Bortryn was probably the best man around at the time, having previously been hired by the duke of Norfolk to repair his grace's organs (presumably at Framlingham), but he was expensive, costing the Walberswick churchwardens £3 3s 4d.106 This organ could not have been suf®cient for Walberswick's needs because, in 1500, there were two bequests, one worth £10, made towards à peyer of orgons', the word `pair' often used in late medieval archives and documents in the same way as a chalice and paten is called a pair of chalices.107 The inventory taken at the dissolution of Leiston priory in 1536 shows that there was an organ, `standing in the choir at the high altar'; and, at Wangford priory church, there was a much earlier bequest to amend the organs there in 1470.108 It is unlikely that Sibton abbey was without an organ, and even Rumburgh's impoverished cell may have had an instrument in the conventual church shared by the brothers and the parishioners. In the choir of Blythburgh parish church, an organ maker was paid 20d for `his coming and seying, and little mending' of the organ in 1543.109 Long before that, in 1471, John Glaswyke bequeathed to Richard Gardyn, the parish 103

104 105 106

107

108

109

For Walberswick, see below notes 110±12; Raven, Crat®eld, 28, 30; for Hunting®eld, see SROI, FC57/A1/1, 1±4, or PSA, 2nd series, i (1860), 119. Lewis, Walberswick, 47, 49, 60, Lewis, Walberswick, 64, 65, 77. A. Crawford, ed., The Household Books of John Howard, Duke of Norfolk 1462±1471, 1481±1483, ii (Stroud 1992), 170; Lewis, Walberswick, 77. SROI, IC/AA2/4/68, John Almyngham, Walberswick 1500; NRO, NCC Cage 151±2, John Baret, Walberswick 1500; Northeast, Boxford Accounts, 100; S. Bicknell, The History of the English Organ (Cambridge 1996), 22±3. In the sixteenth century, the weight of pipe metal can be calculated from its purchase price. A sum of £20±£30 would represent a positive organ rather than a larger instrument. F. Haslewood, Ìnventories of Monasteries Suppressed in 1536', PSIA viii (1894), 83± 116, 102±4; SROI, IC/AA2/ 2/211, Matilda Wodecok, Covehithe 1470. Suckling, Suffolk, II, 156: this reference is to Blythburgh church, not Walberswick as mentioned in T. Easton and S. Bicknell, `Two Pre-Reformation Organ Soundboards: Towards an Understanding of the Form of Early Organs and their Position in some Suffolk Churches', PSIAH xxxviii, pt iii (1995), 268±95, at 280, note 16. For corroboration, see SROI, FC/198/A2/1, correspondence addressed to the Revd A. O. Thompson, dated 21 March 1932, containing a copy of Blythburgh churchwardens' accounts 35 Henry VIII.



177

clerk of Blythburgh, all his working tools and one pair of `clavycords'.110 Glaswyke's occupation is unknown, but his various bequests suggest he may have been a parochial chaplain. Organs in Halesworth church and the chapel of St Katherine, Dunwich, both bene®ted from testators' gifts.111 Robert Nolloth, a yeoman, came from a large, prosperous family in Heveningham. The supervisor of his will, written in 1525, was to be Sir John Heveningham, `he to have for his labour and pain my grey horse that is in horse in keeping with Michaells of Walcote'. Nolloth's will gives an indication of who was likely to be the organist at Heveningham church in the future.112 I will my son Geoffrey be found to school to learn for to sing plainsong by my executors and to playing at the organs in the parish church of Heveningham when he conveniently may and after that I will he be found to Grammar school that he may learn to understand and make a common deed and a common obligation if he may live thereto.

There were, of course, other ways for an organ player to be found and funded. To the south of the Deanery, William Bradwey from Brockford left a bequest for a pair of organs in Wetheringsett church in 1496.113 Within the decade, his own son Geoffrey had made his will in which he left suf®cient land to bring in a yearly rent of 13s 4d.114 This was to go to paying the stipend of the parish clerk, whose duties would include organ playing at Wetheringsett. These instruments in parish churches would not have been large and would either have been portative or positive organs.115 In the latter, the keyboard, played by the organist, and the bellows, operated by the bellowsblower, were separated widthways by the rank of pipes. The arrangement is shown very clearly in the Peterborough psalter, c. 1299±1318, or, in the more secular Èast Anglian' style in which the performers are a hare and an ape, in the Gorleston psalter, c. 1310.116 This type of organ would have been placed either in the chancel, as in Leiston abbey, or in the rood-loft. Sockets in the ruined chancel wall at Walberswick make it seem likely that the organ there may have been situated in an organ loft or gallery;117 at St Andrew's, Covehithe, the remains of a staircase lie adjacent to the ruined north chancel wall punctured with sockets similar to those at Walberswick. Both churches are stripped down to the bare fabric and it cannot be coincidence 110 111

112 113

114 115 116

117

SROI, IC/AA2/2/247, John Glaswyke, Blythburgh 1471. NRO, NCC Spyltimbre 275, Robert Fraunceys, 1510; NCC Mingaye 250, John Dryver, Halesworth 1541; SROI, IC/AA2/9/23, John Ston, Dunwich 1523. NRO, NCC Godsalve 42±3. NRO, NCC Typpes 150; Easton and Bicknell, `Two Pre-Reformation Organs', 268± 95. PRO, PCC Holgrave 9, Geoffrey Bradwey, Brockford 1504. Bicknell, The English Organ, 30±4 BibliotheÁque Royale, Albert Ier, Brussels, MS 9961±62, f. 66, The Peterborough psalter, Psalm 97, Cantate Deo; BL, Add. MS 49622, the Gorleston psalter. Easton and Bicknell, `Two Pre-Reformation Organs', 278±85.


178

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

that their chancel walls both show cavities which could have received members of a framework. How many more churches exist with similar recesses lying beneath neatly rendered walls where organ lofts once stood? It can be seen that material commemoration was tempered very much by the needs of the parish church, but commemoration was also dictated by the pockets of the individuals, channelled towards the demands of their religion. From the scant evidence gleaned from the inventories, the parish churches appear to have been fully furnished with books. The more abundant testamentary records show that the intention of the parishioners was to provide or refurbish the obligatory service-books. The local clerics were also instrumental in this, and, in addition, widened the knowledge of both clergy and laity by bequests of alternative literature. The Deanery's showing compared with that of Norwich is good. The supply of books was a major investment for testator and parish alike and there is no reason to believe that this duty was shirked. The reluctance of parishes to purchase the obligatory Bibles after 1538 has already been discussed. It seems out of character and was probably not attributable to the expense involved. Books may have been produced at Blythburgh, possibly in the priory there. The details appear in the Walberswick churchwardens' accounts but the absence of similar documentation for the majority of parishes makes it impossible to establish whether other religious houses in the Deanery were responsible for local book production. Musical instruments or money left towards their purchase are seldom found in Deanery wills, but there is suf®cient evidence to suggest that organs were more common than might be supposed.


8 Gilding the Liturgy To me, I confess, one thing has always seemed pre-eminently ®tting: that every costlier and costliest thing should serve, ®rst and foremost, for the administration of the Holy Eucharist . . . the detractors also object that a saintly mind, a pure heart, a faithful intention ought to suf®ce for this sacred function: and we too explicitly and especially af®rm that it is these that principally matter. But we must profess that we must do homage also through outward ornaments with all inner purity and with all outward splendour. Abbot Suger, abbot of St Denis, c. 1130

In comparison with many Deanery wills in which bequests for plate were made, the last will of Herry Frauncesse positively brims over with detail, and yet he leaves much unsaid. Frauncesse asked that his bequest of candlesticks should stand on Crat®eld's candlebeam, to be like those which àre there aforne of latyn', and the middle candlestick was to look like the middle candlestick at Lax®eld.1 This tells us something about the placing of candlesticks on Lax®eld's rood-beam, but, in the absence of any surviving examples, the appearance of both Lax®eld's and Crat®eld's candlesticks remains obscure because Frauncesse's bequest, in common with others in the Deanery, lacks any details of embellishment and decoration. He must have believed that irrelevant testamentary detail was unnecessary because he would already have shared his preferences with Agnes, his wife, and his executors, Thomas Smyth and Herry Kebill. Materials such as silver, gilt, copper and latten were usually, but not necessarily, speci®ed in bequests; and while those Deanery inventories which have survived lay great emphasis on the materials, they, too, lack decorative details. Churchwardens' accounts are almost mute on the subject of paxes and pyxes, though they contain much information about bells (and their appurtenances), which account for over one-third of all bequests considered in this chapter. Archives from the Deanery are certainly not comparable with those from the parish of Melford, in the south of the county, with the account of the state of the church before the Reformation, written by Roger Martin c. 1580, and the excellent inventory of church 1

SROI, IC/AA2/5/50, Herry (Harry) Frauncesse, Crat®eld 1509.


180

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

goods taken in 1529.2 In conjunction, these documents give a rare impression of the furnishings and the aura of a parish church in late medieval England. Nevertheless, a description of engraving and decoration of plate is not entered even at Melford, although the material is described and, in the case of silver or gilt, the weight noted. Melford's latten articles are given a section of their own, but here the weight is not entered. If there is little evidence of the abundance of plate in pre-Reformation churchwardens' accounts, it is the durability of the plate itself, rather than the cost of acquiring it, that must account for this. Repairs to plate, entered by the churchwardens, are negligible compared with the innumerable references to books and vestments, and at Walberswick there are no more than half a dozen entries for repairs to plate in ®fty years of churchwardens' accounts between 1450 and 1499. If books and vestments were subject to damp, decay and damage through persistent use, and clappers and baudricks of bells broke or wore out through incessant ringing, metal objects, once acquired, were almost indestructible until, of course, the Reformation. It is therefore most unlikely that the few entries referring to plate in churchwardens' accounts have anything to do with it being in short supply. As far as cost was concerned, if an inventory from a goldsmith's workshop in 1490 showed a tin chrismatory worth 2d, a jet rosary worth 2d and a silver spoon without a knop worth 12d, then the price of liturgical plate at the cheaper end of the scale could be afforded by most testators.3 If these costs, quoted by Marion Campbell, represent the true amount commonly charged for smaller items, then 8d paid for a pair of cruets at Walberswick in 1455 would be unlikely to deter all but the meanest testator.4 Parishioners were obliged to provide a chalice and paten, a censer, a pyx and a pax, a chrismatory and a Paschal candlestick, a small bell for sick visiting, a processional cross, and a cross for the dead. Bells with ropes, a lantern and the Holy water bucket with its sprinkler were also required. Testators' efforts to subscribe to Archbishop Winchelsey's requirements are clear from the evidence which has survived but, in addition, they also embellished the liturgy with extra items, such as pairs of candlesticks which made their way into the life of the Church. The testamentary bequests from the Deanery can be compared to evidence from the Rumburgh, Crat®eld and Hunting®eld inventories and the fragmentary inventory of St Andrew's, Walberswick. Two inventories taken at the religious houses of Blythburgh and Leiston before suppression in 1537 have also survived. For a more accurate retrospective assessment of the wealth of the Deanery parishes, the inventories of 1547, 1549 and 1552, taken during the Reformation, must be mentioned, although they are discussed more fully in Chapter Thirteen. 2 3

4

Dymond and Paine, Spoil of Melford, 1±10, 20±1. M. Campbell, `Gold, Silver and Precious Stones', in English Medieval Industries, ed. J. Blair and N. Ramsay (London 1991), 107±66, at 122. Lewis, Walberswick, 5.


GILDING THE LITURGY

181

These inventories, which record the sale of plate considered by the Crown as surplus to requirements during the last few years of the old religion and the ®rst six years of the new, are witness to the absolute elimination of the bulk of Church treasure associated with the old Catholic past.5

Obligations and Inventories Plate for the Mass At the core of the Christian liturgy was the celebration of the Mass. This was celebrated daily by the priest, but the laity probably did not make their communion more than once a year, Easter Day being the time when the majority of parishioners, having made their confession and done penance during Holy Week, received the Eucharist, à communal rather than an individualistic action'.6 The laity received the Eucharist solely in the form of the Host which was taken by all communicants, whether clerical or lay. Wine, preferably red, fresh and not too diluted, was for clerical consumption only, which had been the case since the laity were proscribed from drinking from the cup at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215.7 It was the Host too, rather than the cup of wine, which engaged the imagination and attention of the parishioners at the moment of consecration, that point in the Mass when the small wheaten disc became the ¯esh of Christ, the transformation into which was marked by its elevation. The consecration of the wine was not as signi®cant and was regarded by some as a moment of imminent danger, those celebrants `weighed down by age or in®rmity' debarred from such activity in case they dropped the chalice.8 The chalice and paten, the former for Christ's blood, the latter for His body, were essential possessions of every church. The chalice invariably heads the list of plate in Deanery inventories, and the paten, which also served as a lid for the chalice, was regarded as an integral part of it. The paten's presence, therefore, is rarely mentioned and when a `pair' of chalices is recorded in a will or inventory a chalice with its paten is meant, for, although they differed in function, they were used in conjunction for a single purpose, the two elements together making a pair.9 In the late Middle Ages, chalices offered little choice of metal for a prospective donor. Gold or silver were obligatory by this time, whereas in the early Middle Ages chalices of 5

6

7 8 9

Selected transcripts from the 1547 inventories for the parishes are found in C. H. E. White, The East Anglian, NS i±iii (1885±1910). Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 93±4. One exception was Margery Kempe, from the north of Norwich diocese, who communicated weekly. Another was Lady Margaret Beaufort who communicated monthly. Rubin, Corpus Christi, 48±9, 70±2. Rubin, Corpus Christi, 55±6. Rubin quotes from the St Albans Chronicle, 1. 40. Lewis, Walberswick, 199; Northeast, Boxford Churchwardens' Accounts, 100; Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, lxxx; COED, 1257; see Chapter Six for a pair of organs.


182

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

pewter had been an acceptable alternative, being preferable to wood, stone, horn or copper. At the Council of Westminster in 1175, however, bishops were forbidden to consecrate pewter vessels, and the choice narrowed to gold or silver, and by the late thirteenth century, the economic climate had improved suf®ciently for even the comparatively poor parish churches of Devon and Cornwall to record silver chalices in visitation returns.10 In the inventory from the archdeaconry of Norwich of 1368, 344 out of 358 churches possessed silver chalices, of which seventy-®ve were gilded and a further nine churches had gilded chalices of unspeci®ed material.11 Of these churches, 250 also owned pewter chalices which were possibly used for taking communion to the sick or perhaps for the faithful who, after receiving the Host, sometimes drank diluted, unconsecrated, wine to wash down the crumbs.12 Any crumbs which fell from the communicants' mouths were caught in a houseling cloth held below the chin, and the carved panel depicting the Eucharist on the seven-sacrament font at Great Glemham church, south of the Deanery, shows very clearly how a houseling cloth was used. Around 1500, a foreign visitor wrote about England and the English, `But above all are their riches displayed in the church treasures; for there is not a parish church in the kingdom so mean as not to possess cruci®xes, candlesticks, censers, patens and cups of silver.'13 How will this description ®t the Deanery inventories which have survived? The earliest Rumburgh inventory, dated about 1439 listed three chalices of which two were gilded.14 Walberswick's inventory from the last quarter of the ®fteenth century shows the church there possessed a pair of silver chalices, or, in modern terminology, one chalice with its paten.15 Crat®eld's inventory of 1528 was headed by a pair of silver gilt chalices, followed by four pairs of silver parcel-gilt chalices, the distinction here being that the former were gilded overall, achieving an appearance of gold, whereas the parcel-gilt chalices would be gilded on the inner side of the bowl.16 Goldsmiths were forbidden to gild base metals except in the making of church plate when metal could be gilded, but it was not to be set with real stones, nor was gold to be set with false ones. Hunting®eld's inventory in 1534 included one pair of chalices, possibly the result of the parish effort of 1529 when 6s 7d was raised àbout the town' to purchase them: and they were subsequently hallowed for 8d and 10 11 12 13

14 15 16

J. Hatcher and T. C. Barker, A History of British Pewter (London 1974), 25±6. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, lxxx. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, lxxx±lxxxi; Hatcher and Barker, British Pewter, 26±7. C. A. Sneyd, trans., A Relation, or Rather a True Account, of the Island of England, about the Year 1500, Camden Society, OS xxxvii (1847), 29. SROI, HD 1538/335/52,57,32. Lewis, Walberswick, 199. SROI, FC 62/E4/1; COED, 1273; M. Campbell, `Metalwork in England, c.1200±1400', Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England, 1200±1400, ed. J. J. Alexander and P. Binski (London 1987), 162±8, at 165.


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encased for 6d.17 The inventory from Blythburgh priory dated 20 August 1536, made before its suppression, contains essential information as to the material and weight of metal, including a chalice with a `patent' of silver and parcel-gilt weighing ®ve ounces.18 A second silver chalice with a `patent' weighed seven ounces. Silver fetched around 3s 4d or 4s per ounce at this time and the ®rst chalice would have been valued at 16s 8d, the second at around 23s 4d. Leiston abbey's inventory, taken the day after that of Blythburgh priory, shows that there were three `pairs' of silver chalices, two of parcel gilt and one of gilt, weighing in total ®fteen ounces, valued at £2 10s.19 No ciborium appears in any Deanery will or inventory. This was a lidded, chalice-shaped container or a covered pot in which the Host was reserved. It was gilded on the inside, so that the Host would only come into contact with the precious metal.20 In the Deanery, the unconsecrated host was reserved in a pyx (literally a box), although the word `pyx' had other meanings such as a box for relics, a money box or a box used to carry the consecrated Host to the sick.21 The pyx stood on the altar or was suspended above it, sometimes being placed within a hanging ciborium, which, in England, was the most usual way of reserving it. It could also be kept in a locked aumbry, a cupboard usually in the north wall of the chancel. Rumburgh's silver pyx in the 1439 inventory hung above the altar `holding the body of Christ': Crat®eld's pyx was silver parcel-gilt and Hunting®eld's was of silver and gilt. The Norfolk inventories of 1368, which listed pyxes of brass, latten, wood and pewter, must have been referring to the outer shells, within which the locked pyx formed a separate, detachable, smaller compartment containing the Host.22 This explains an entry in the 1487 Walberswick churchwardens' accounts which reads, `to the tinkers for mending of the pyx and other gear 19d', the use of the word `tinker' (itinerant craftsman) suggesting that the outer covering of Walberswick's pyx was made of a baser metal than its inner lining.23 Gold, silver, ivory or copper gilt lined the inner compartment so that only precious material would come into contact with the body of Christ, and, on the outside, enamelling might add a touch of luxury. The preparation of the Host was carefully planned and executed. It was made of wheaten grain and was baked in the ®re within a vessel which was coated with wax, so that the bread would not discolour, for it had to retain its purity of hue. It emerged as a thin, white, round disc which invariably 17 18

19 20

21 22 23

SROI, FC 57/A1/1. 41±4; 1. 2±3. Haslewood, `1536 Inventories', 99±100. This would have been troy weight at twelve ounces to the pound. Haslewood, `1536 Inventories', 102±4. Leiston's inventory was dated 21 August 1536. J. Gilchrist, Anglican Church Plate (London 1967), 26, 32, and pl. I; ODCC, 291; OCCAA, 108. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, lxxxi±lxxxiii. Rock, Church of our Fathers, IV, 235±8. Lewis, Walberswick, 58; COED, 2067.


184

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

bore a cross, the letters IHS, the agnus Dei or the cruci®xion. The larger altar bread was called singing bread, the smaller consecrated bread for the people was known as houseling bread.24 At Rumburgh priory, the singing bread was baked in the prior's parlour, and the various stages of making the bread, as was usual in religious houses, would have been accompanied by the chanting of psalms while the grain was gathered, washed and dried, ground, mixed and ®nally cooked on a ®re that didn't make too much noise.25 It then had to be kept safe from misuse, contempt, loss, cracking, splitting or rotting. The high point of the Mass was the elevation of the Host, the only time when the laity could see what was happening on the other side of the chancel screen. The sacring bell was rung at this moment to alert the congregation to the ceremony taking place at the altar. Rubin describes some of the excitement and fervour of the moment `. . . when all senses were called into play. Bells pealed, incense was burnt, candles were lit, hands were clasped, supplications were mouthed'.26 Crat®eld's inventory noted two sacring bells (commonly made of silver or silver-gilt).27 Crat®eld also had two great and two small latten candlesticks, and Hunting®eld two candlesticks for the high altar to lighten and brighten the Host at its elevation, so that worshippers could focus their gaze on the ritual before them. Other than at this moment in the Mass (which brought spiritual and material bene®ts), those who were illiterate and unable to use the primer were for the most part inattentive and irreverent. The paxbrede or pax, provided by the parishioners, was small and portable and took its name from the words pax vobiscum, said as the image was passed from one worshipper to the next.28 Made of wood, ivory or precious metal, it bore a painted or engraved image which usually showed the Cruci®x or Christ cruci®ed and it was kissed during the Peace by all communicants. Paxes became objects of great beauty, value and reverence, so much so that part of the public penance for sinners at parish Mass was the withholding not only of the Host, but also of the pax.29 There was no pax in the Rumburgh inventories yet there were two of silver gilt and one of `lede gylte' (sic) at Crat®eld and one of silver gilt at Hunting®eld. The cruets for wine and water were covered and paired. Silver mounted crystal cruets can be found in late medieval inventories, and Norfolk archdeaconry inventories of 1368 show that cruets were often fashioned in silver.30 Yet cruets were the most numerous pewter items in medieval churches, and Hatcher believes they were rarely made in any other 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Rock, Church of our Fathers, I, 157. Rubin, Corpus Christi, 37±43; SROI, HD 1538/335/32. Rubin, Corpus Christi, 58. C. Oman, English Church Plate, 597±1830 (Oxford 1957), 100±1. Oman, English Plate, 76, note 7. Rock, Church of our Fathers, IV, 189. Oman, English Plate, 60±2; Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, lxxxiv.


GILDING THE LITURGY

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metal.31 Candlesticks, basins, pyxes (outer covers), chrismatories, censers, boats, spoons, water vats, font bowls and small bells were all made from pewter, but by the sixteenth century inventories show that pewter was in decline and silver, latten, bronze, brass and copper were more popular metals. Indeed, of the ®ve pairs of cruets bequeathed in the Deanery, four were to be made of silver; and the ®fth was unspeci®ed. Rumburgh had pewter phials to hold the wine and water in 1439 and two `small' pewter phials for the same purpose in 1448; in 1482 seven phials were listed. Perhaps the word phials was here interchangeable with cruets, which were much the same shape. In the absence of a chrismatory, too, phials may have been used for the three Holy oils. At Southwold, an unusual arrangement remains whereby two niches above the piscina were originally used for the towel or manutergium and for the cruets.32 At Westhall, where Cecily Gyle bequeathed two silver cruets, there are still two shelves in the width of the piscina arch, one for a towel, the other for cruets.33 Censers and their incense ships (or navykylls as they were called in the Deanery), in which the incense was stored, were obligatory. They were of silver, pewter or latten and were used at High Mass, Lauds and Evensong, for processional use and at the burial of the dead. An inventory from St Peter Mancroft, Norwich, records a silver gilt censer with six round turrets and six leopards' (or lions') heads through which the smoke poured.34 A pair of censers and a ship were at Rumburgh: Crat®eld possessed a censer and ship of silver and parcel gilt and two pairs of copper censers and a ship: those at Hunting®eld were silver. Mending censers appears three times in Walberswick churchwardens' accounts, the incidence of repair likely to have been due to the function of the vessel as described by Charles Oman.35 He refers to the rapid turnover of censers which, when suspended from the ceiling, would crash against the church walls if inexpertly handled. For the sick and the dying, who could not attend Mass, canon law recommended that the Eucharist should be taken to the bedside every eight to ®fteen days;36 and for the dying, confession and restitution were vital ìn the passage of the Christian towards unsullied membership of the community of believers'.37 A candle lit the procession of priest and attendant as they carried the viaticum to the sick, and a little bell, often the sanctus bell, was rung and incense burnt to accompany the viaticum on its journey.38 At its approach, bystanders were encouraged to kneel in prayer.

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

Hatcher and Barker, British Pewter, 25±9. F. Bond, The Chancel of English Churches (London 1916), 174±5. SROI, IC/AA2/8/258, Cecily Gyle, Westhall 1522. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, lxxxix±xci; Lewis, Walberswick, 4, 17, 48. Oman, English Plate, 88±91. Rubin, Corpus Christi, 82, note 410. Bossy, Christianity in the West, 46. SROI, IC/AA2/3/23, William Leverich, Dunwich 1483.


186

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

Altar plate and accessories Parishioners were only expected to supply a candlestick for the Paschal candle, all other candlesticks being supplied by the rector or vicar; Daniel Rock describes a seven-branched candlestick, the seventh, middle, branch made taller than the others to hold the Judas candle.39 The Judas was a wooden candle-holder, painted to look like a candle, which gave added height to the Paschal candle itself so that it reached almost to the vaulting of the roof. No Paschal candlesticks were entered in the Deanery inventories. Even in the excellent archdeaconry of Norwich inventories of 1368, only two Paschal candlesticks or stocks were entered.40 `Standards', on the other hand, which were elaborate stands to hold the Paschal candle, were at Hunting®eld, entered as two `stand-ers' for the high altar.41 Rumburgh owned a pair of brazen and enamelled candelabra in 1439 and 1448 (none in 1482), and eight candles with `stands' for shafts in 1439. Blythburgh priory's inventory included a pair of latten candlesticks valued at 16d. All these items were in pairs and none are likely to have been a solitary Paschal candlestick. Nevertheless, it is extraordinary that Paschal candlesticks were absent from both the Deanery inventories and those of the extensive 1368 Norwich survey, and their presence was perhaps disguised under another name. Crosses were obligatory. Those for the dead were small and were laid on the pall covering the body.42 Processional crosses were carried every Sunday and at all festivals from the Ascension to the second Sunday in Lent, on festivals during Lent and at Rogation processions; and a wooden cross painted red was used for all Sundays in Lent except the ®rst.43 The processional cross was detachable from its shaft, and the provision of a separate foot enabled it to stand on the altar, but James Gilchrist makes the point that the cross and candlesticks were not `primary features' of the altar until the sixteenth century.44 In Crat®eld there was a cross of copper gilt with the foot, and, as a distinct item, a cross staff of copper gilt; Hunting®eld had a gilt cross and another with a copper-gilt staff. Blythburgh's cross of copper gilt was valued at 20d. In 1482 Rumburgh had a small gilt cross and two portable crosses, one of silver and one of gilded brass, both belonging to the parish. The latter was given by Lawrence and Richard Ayllbe, and entered in the inventory of 1448.45 The chrismatory held the three Holy oils consecrated by the bishop: the chrism, a mixture of olive oil and balsam which was used for anointing at the 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, lxxxv; Rock, Church of our Fathers, IV, 283±4. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, xcix. Dymond and Paine, Spoil of Melford, 83. Oman, English Plate, 71; Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, lxxxvii. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, lxxxvi±lxxxvii; Rock, Church of our Fathers, IV, 263 Gilchrist, Anglican Church Plate, 39. SROI, HD 1538/335/57.


GILDING THE LITURGY

187

sacraments of baptism, con®rmation and ordination; the oil for the sick, with no balsam added; and the oil of exorcism. These were kept locked away for their protection.46 A chrismatory was often shaped like a house with gableends and a fretwork ridge; the panels depicting Ordination on the sevensacrament fonts in the Deanery at Crat®eld and Westhall are badly damaged. At Great Glemham, however, south of the Deanery, the three divisions of the chrismatory are clearly shown on the seven-sacrament font in the panel depicting Holy Unction. A chrismatory was listed at Crat®eld, and in 1535 the sum of 2s 4d was paid to Hewe Bathcomb for making a chrismatory clasp, probably the same Hewe of Woodbridge who appears in the 1524 subsidy, owning goods to the value of £2.47 Portable altars were kept in Rumburgh vestry, and were noted in the inventories of 1448 and 1482. They were used when consecrated altars were lacking. By the ®fteenth century this must have been rare except, as Watkin pointed out, where unconsecrated side altars existed.48 They may have been used by the brethren either to celebrate mass at a side altar, or, in exceptional circumstances, on a tomb or in a private house. Bells with ropes and the bell for carrying to the sick were also to be provided by parishioners. Bells with ropes were not enumerated in the inventories, but bequests towards their purchase were almost as common as the churchwardens' entries which itemized their repair. Winchelsey's constitutions also required a lantern, present in Crat®eld's inventory; a vat for holy water, not always present, and sometimes replaced by the holy water stoup at the main entrance to the church, outside as at Blythburgh, inside as at Spexhall; a bier for the dead; a font under lock and key; and the principle image in the church and other images. From the documents that have survived it seems that the plate in the local churches was more than adequate, Suffolk churches being described as `quite exceptionally well supplied with church goods, more especially plate'.49 It was of good quality material, Crat®eld being particularly well provided or, perhaps, particularly well recorded, yet a single inventory from a parish gives no opportunity for comparison and leaves many opportunities for mistakes. Rumburgh's three inventories, on the other hand, provide an overview of church goods covering a ®fty-year period, and, although the later inventories were obviously copied from their predecessor, additions and deletions did occur.

46 47

48 49

Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, lxxxiii; ODCC, 274. SROI, FC 62/E1/3; Hervey, Suffolk 1524, 231; NRO, NCC Beales 40, Thomas Bathcomb, goldsmith, Woodbridge, 1555. Thomas may have been the son of `Hewe'. Thanks to Mary Fewster for this reference. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, xcv; see also Rock, Church of our Fathers, I, 194±210. VCH: Suffolk, II, 34.


188

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

Bequests and the Cost of Plate Plate for the Mass Throughout the fourteenth century, the three essential parts of a chalice, the cup, the foot and the stem with a knop (or knot), on either side of which the index and middle ®nger were placed so as to hold the stem more securely, were retained, although both the cup and the foot altered shape.50 This came about because it was now obligatory to lie the chalice on its side after communion. The cup became more conical so that any wine could drain on to the paten, and the circular foot assumed a hexagonal shape with incurved feet, which prevented the chalice from rolling off the altar and crashing to the ¯oor. These mullett-footed chalices (referring to the mullett, a sixpointed heraldic charge), remained popular until the sixteenth century when the feet became six-lobed. The Beding®eld chalice from Norfolk, for example, which is the only East Anglian pre-Reformation chalice to have survived, is dated c. 1518 and has a circular six-lobed foot.51 From the midfourteenth century, whether the foot was hexagonal or lobed, it provided an excellent ®eld for decoration, and chalices frequently bore coats of arms, names of donors or religious texts to decorate their highly polished surfaces. From the beginning of the 1500s, `possessory, dedicatory and donative' inscriptions appeared around the bowls.52 An intriguing description from Melford's very extensive inventory of 1529 reads, `. . . a chalice, the gift of Mr. John Clopton, double gilt, with his arms upon the foot of the backside, 22 ozs. . . .', but in the Deanery there is no evidence that any chalice bore marks of patronage.53 Patens were seldom left without engraving. Saints, as patrons of the churches or chapels, were frequently represented on patens; the Vernicle, too, was popular.54 The gild of St Thomas at Crat®eld, which was to receive a bequest of 20s `to having a new silver chalice', could well have had a chalice and paten engraved with St Thomas in much the same way as ÌHC in ye foytt' commemorated the Name of Jesus on a chalice foot at York Minster.55 Patens were also engraved with manus Dei, the hand of God which, as it was supposed to appear from the clouds of heaven, should always be seen pointing downwards, in reference to Psalm 144: 7, `Send down thine hand from above'; or the sacred monogram, IHS, which, having been removed from the pre-Reformation paten at Chattisham, south of Ipswich, was then 50 51

52 53 54 55

Gilchrist, Anglican Church Plate, 17±23. Lasko and Morgan, Medieval Art in East Anglia, 65±6, pl. 106. The chalice stands 153 mm high. The paten measures 139 mm wide. Oman, English Plate, 54±8. Dymond and Paine, Spoil of Melford, 10. Oman, English Plate, 50±4; Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, lxxx, note 14. NRO, NCC Gelour 215, John Gowyn, Crat®eld 1478. Oman, English Plate, 49.


GILDING THE LITURGY

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incorporated into the base of the post-Reformation paten there.56 The paten which accompanies the Beding®eld chalice, mentioned above, has images of Christ in the spandels of the sexfoil depression engraved on the plate. The Vernicle ®lls the central space and, on the reverse, IHS is engraved.57 In the Deanery, clerical bequests included four chalices, none of which appear to have been a private possession, a very different state of affairs to bequests by clergy of books, so many of which had been in their personal ownership. Henry, the rector of Heveningham, bequeathed one chalice to his church in 1383, and the same church received a pair of chalices from Agnes Nolloth 150 years later, costing her executors 50s.58 A pair of chalices at a price of 5 marks was bequeathed to Redwell in Yorkshire to speed the souls of Sir John Hynchecleff and his parents, an indication of his northern origins, and several pairs of chalices were willed by the laity.59 When silver chalices were speci®ed, they were to cost 20s at Walberswick and £5 at St John's, Dunwich. Theberton church was to receive a pair of chalices if there was suf®cient money to pay for them, and 26s 8d was left towards gilding a pair of chalices in 1523.60 There is also no doubt that secular wine cups and goblets were given to act as ancillary plate. There were also testators who bequeathed silver with the resale or conversion value of the metal in mind, rather than the use of the object itself, for it was the intrinsic worth which was so desirable. Personal items of silver were speci®cally bequeathed for this purpose, and a similar re-use was seen in the case of gold currency which, when beaten to the correct thickness, could be applied as gold leaf.61 Robert Randolf left his belt with the silver decoration to make a pax; and by the time John Cary, the parson of Cookley, had made his will, he had already given his goblet to Richard Hylton, a witness, in order that Hylton might make a pax for Cookley church.62 Cary's pax would have been an oblong panel of silver, slightly smaller than a man's hand, and bearing an engraving of the cruci®xion or agnus Dei (lamb of God), similar in size though perhaps not as stylish in execution as the pax from New College, Oxford, made about ten years before 56 57 58

59

60

61 62

Gilchrist, Anglican Church Plate, 27±8. Lasko and Morgan, Medieval Art in East Anglia, 65±6, pl. 106. NRO, NCC Heydon 216, Henry of Heveningham, 1383; SROI, IC/AA2/9/28, Agnes Nolloth, Heveningham 1524. NRO, NCC Ryxe 336, Sir John Hynchecleff, Peasenhall 1505; SROI, IC/AA2/4/98, William Walpole, Bram®eld 1503; SROI, IC/AA2/7/36, William Brabson, South Cove 1510; SROI, IC/AA2/5/199, Herry Rede, Dunwich All Saints 1510; PRO, PCC Adeane 5, John Peyrs, Easton Bavents 1505; PCC Bennett 4, Elizabeth Peyrs, Easton Bavents 1508. SROI, IC/AA2/3/212, Katherine Genyngham, Walberswick 1497; SROI, IC/AA2/5/ 218, Baty Gosmere, Dunwich St John 1510.SROI, IC/AA2/ 8/340, Richard Kelam, Theberton 1523. Campbell, `Gold and Silver', 108, 131. NRO, NCC Jekkys 128, Robert Randolf, Halesworth 1466; NCC Alpe 25±5, John Cary, parson, Cookley 1532.


190

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

Cary's death.63 Randolf 's belt and Cary's goblet could have been taken to Ipswich, Woodbridge, Beccles, Harleston or Norwich to be refashioned, or they might even have been made in Halesworth, although there is no evidence of a goldsmith there. Norwich was the nearest assay town, set up in 1423, but its silver bore no assay marks before 1565.64 A silver pax would have cost a Deanery testator anything from 13s 4d to 30s, yet among the bequests there are no instructions for engraving, chasing, stamping or embossing. In 1522 Mary Joye, of Southwold, enjoined her executors to redeem à pax of silver lying at Richard Cawses' for 30s, to be delivered to Halesworth church and `there to remain for ever'.65 The Joye family had been generous benefactors to the church at Southwold, leaving substantial sums towards the acquisition of banner cloths and copes, but no-one had been more generous than John Joye, who left £12 towards making a chrismatory.66 In the last years of the ®fteenth century, Henry Joy, at one time bailiff of Southwold, and Richard Joy, his fellowexecutor, negotiated this purchase through their vicar, John Hopton.67 Hopton promised `that none should be like unto it in Suffolk'. These were prophetic words for none came. The Joys, having sent Hopton £8 13s 4d on trust, were appealing in Chancery a year later because, although they had often asked Hopton either to deliver the chrismatory or to refund the money, he had refused to do either. In 1478, St Edmund's Church at Southwold was to receive a bequest of a monstrance.68 This could have been a portable shrine or a ciborium in which to bear the sacrament in procession; a reliquary monstrance to hold a relic of St Edmund, resembling a covered chalice with a small window through which the relic could be seen; or perhaps an image monstrance depicting Christ of the Resurrection, similar to the image monstrance weighing 53 ounces which belonged to St Peter Mancroft, Norwich, recorded in a sixteenth-century inventory.69 Margaret Rowlond asked that a pyx should go to St Peter's Church, Dunwich, `to bear in the blessed sacrament there', and at Wissett instructions were left to buy a pyx for 12d, `to carry the sacrament to the common people in extremis'.70 The cost of a pyx is dif®cult to estimate, and the sum of 12d may have procured a simple wooden or pewter box within which a separate lining would have been placed, whereas 63 64

65 66

67 68

69 70

Oman, English Plate, 76±8, and pl. 40b. Campbell, `Gold and Silver', 141±3; G. Barrett, Norwich Silver and its Marks, 1565± 1702: the Goldsmiths of Norwich, 1141±1750 (Norwich 1981), 14. SROI, IC/AA2/9/45, Mary Joye, Southwold 1522. C. Trice Martin, Èarly Chancery Proceedings', Archaeologia lx, pt ii (1907), 353±78, at 370; unfortunately, John Joye's will has not survived. For details of John, the vicar, see Richmond, John Hopton, 140±1. SROI, IC/AA2/2/351, Margarita Lawnd, Southwold 1478; Dymond and Paine, Spoil of Melford, 26, 80. Oman, English Plate, 83. SROI, IC/AA2/5/200, Margaret Rowlond, Dunwich St Peter 1510; SROI, IC/AA2/1/ 53, John Bungey, Wissett 1448.


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191

the 5 marks bequeathed towards the purchase of a pyx by Phelip Charnell of Westleton in 1524 would have obtained a ®ner piece, possibly made of silver.71 Hunting®eld churchwardens' accounts of 1533 show 10s 8d paid for the pyx, but the inventory the following year recounted that a silver and gilt pyx had been sold.72 Altar plate and accessories Margaret Rowlond's bequest to St Peter's, Dunwich, included one candlestick of latten with a pricket, perhaps to hold the Paschal candle.73 Candlesticks of latten were popular, for the metal shone like gold and was of such importance and so widely used that, in the Melford inventory, latten was afforded its own sub-section.74 Candlesticks, however, were not obligatory articles for the parishioners to supply, but are examples of particular items which had caught the imagination of testators. They were a popular addition to church plate, not only for their general utility, but also for the very vital and critical function of illuminating the elevated Host. Latten candelabra, to stand before Halesworth's high altar, were bequeathed at a cost of 40s and were `standers' rather than `hangers'.75 Silver candelabra for Halesworth had already been bequeathed at a cost of 5 marks, but this was a tri¯ing sum compared to the £30 bequeathed for silver candlesticks at Blythburgh in 1510, barely some thirty-®ve years before they were appropriated by the Crown.76 Many testators left candles rather than candlesticks, stipulating when they should be lit. Alice Curteys of Peasenhall wanted a light to burn `before St Michael daily at every Mass said at the high altar . . . I will that it be lit at the Sanctus of the Mass and burn until the post communion,' and her tenement Curteys was bequeathed to the church to underwrite the cost of the light.77 Raw materials for producing the lights could also be bequeathed. At Wenhaston, the widow, Alice Bakon, left two of her bee-skeps, with the bees and the wax to provide lights before the image of the Our Lady and St Peter, to whom the church was dedicated. To the neighbouring parish of 71 72 73

74 75 76

77

SROI, IC/AA2/9/40, Phelip Charnell, Westleton 1524. SROI, FC57/A1/1.8. C. Blair and J. Blair, `Copper Alloys', in English Medieval Industries, ed. J. Blair and N. Ramsay (London 1991), 82. Latten was a copper alloy and `best latten', speci®ed in the contract for the Beauchamp ef®gy in St Mary's Collegiate Church, Warwick, is analysed as 84% copper, 9% zinc, 3% tin, 1% lead with the remainder made up of nickel, iron, antimony, arsenic and silver. The Blairs continue, Ìn other words, it is intermediate between bronze and brass, using the terms in the modern sense, but nearer the latter than the former'. Dymond and Paine, Spoil of Melford, 20±1. SROI, IC/AA2/2/337, John Everard, Halesworth 1476. NRO, NCC Jekkys 128, Robert Randolf, Halesworth 1466; SROI, IC/AA2/7/2, John Baret, Blythburgh 1510. NRO, NCC Garnon 16, Alice Curteys, Peasenhall 1504.


192

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

Thorington, also dedicated to St Peter, she left another two skeps with their bees, `the one to St Peter and the other to the Good Rood'.78 The burning of incense also accompanied the Mass. Smyth's `senser of sylver' was to be bought from the money coming from the sale of Hawe Wood in Crat®eld; and Harry Fleccher, `going with the king's grace and my master this new voyage into France', left six bullocks and a `grizzle' horse to buy a pair of silver censers for St Andrew's, Wissett.79 Sir John Heveningham's gift of a pair of silver censers (a censer with its boat) would undoubtedly have been engraved with the Heveningham arms, but the details which would raise this bequest from the ordinary to the particular are lacking. Crosses of varying sizes and materials gave testators enormous freedom of choice. John Bokyll left 10 marks for a silver cross at Darsham. Halesworth was to receive a silver cross `the value of Kelsale's cross if my goods are suf®cient to the value of 10 marks'; neighbouring Yoxford was to have a silver gilt cross `with Mary and John' for 20 marks; and twenty years later, Thomas Tebolle left 12d for the foot of, possibly, the same cross.80 At Carlton 3s 4d was left for the repair of the `whyte' (silver) cross, and Alice Rede was perhaps bequeathing Lenten crosses, which were always painted red, when she willed to the church at Blythburgh à pair of crosses the making and painting therof 6s 8d'.81 Bells featured frequently, being bequeathed in one of the earliest Deanery wills and through to almost the last.82 Bells are, nevertheless, dif®cult to differentiate, for they often defy classi®cation; yet William Walpole's sacring bell, bequeathed with the rest of the requirements for his temporary chantry in Bram®eld church, and a silver bell bequeathed by William Leveriche, for carrying with the sacrament to the sick in Dunwich, tell their own story.83 The bequest of 10 marks towards the `Mary Baret' of Halesworth identi®es the bell which, although recast, hangs there in the tower today.84 The value 78 79

80

81

82

83

84

NRO, NCC Spyltimbre 325, Alice Bakon, Wenhaston 1510. SROI, IC/AA2/4/28, John Smith, the elder, Crat®eld 1500; SROI, IC/AA2/8/9, Henry Fleccher, Wissett 1513; grizzle was a grey or roan colour. NRO, NCC Attmere 40, John Bokyll, Darsham 1528; NCC Jekkys 128, Robert Randolf, Halesworth 1467; SROI, IC/AA2/5/246, John Scothawgh, Yoxford 1512; see Victoria and Albert Museum exhibit M98±1914: 2039±1855, 1205±1905 being the foot, cross, stem and branches of a cast and gilt bronze altar cross, England, c. 1530. It is supported on a stem with branches bearing ®gures of the Virgin and John the Evangelist, rising from a latten foot; IC/AA2/11/38, Thomas Tebolle, Yoxford 1530. SROI, IC/AA2/5/126, Marion Underhall, Carlton 1510; IC/AA2/13/273, Alice Rede, Blythburgh 1540. NRO, NCC Heydon 2, John Norton, priest, Benacre 1370; NCC Cooke 99±100, Margaret Dowse, Henstead 1540. She left two ploughshares to make a handbell. SROI, IC/AA2/4/98, William Walpole, Bram®eld 1503. Among Walpole's bequests is a sacring bell which would have been rung three times at the consecration at his intercessory Mass; IC/AA2/3/23, William Leveriche, Dunwich 1483. NRO, NCC A. Caston 169±70, Geoffrey Baret, Halesworth 1483; The Mary Baret was recast by William and John Brend in 1624. She bears the words, `New repaired by Roger Woods and Erasmus Moss churchwardens Jafrey Baret gave me WIB 1624'.


GILDING THE LITURGY

193

of bequests to bells, however, varying from 20 marks to 4d, does not help to identify a bell's ®nal destination, whether standing on the altar or hanging in the belfry. Different types of bell ranged from `the great bell' of Spexhall, which may be the late medieval bell of Michael, now the only survivor in its twentieth-century tower, down to the Henstead handbells, but bequests also went to the `great' bells of Benacre (1535), Blythburgh (1470) and Brampton (1537).85 Peasenhall was to receive 40d for its great bell, on condition the parish would allow William Cuttyng's attorneys to have certain wood from the town close, and Thomas Hwys left 10s to be paid to Wissett's bell `such time as the parish goeth about to buy it'.86 Eight years before, William Kechyn had promised six marks for Wissett's proposed bell, the money to be paid after the death of his wife, Rose, if there was suf®cient.87 Whether Hwys' benefaction encouraged the people of Wissett to make a decision is not known, but, at the Reformation, Wissett tower did have four great bells hanging there.88 South Cove's bells required attention in the 1470s, and the church received two bequests for their èmendation'. John Denyell and John Harman both left money to what was a communal concern in this tiny parish and, further up the coast, money was left for the repair of the bells at Easton Bavents.89 In the Deanery of Dunwich, there was a marginal predominance in bequests for plate and accessories over those for books or vestments, but more than one-third of the former were made for bells, not for plate as such: 4.6 per cent of all Deanery testators gave for the provision of plate or bells; 5 per cent of clerics within the Deanery left similar bequests compared with the 23 per cent who left books. Apart from the multitude of bequests for bells, their purchase, repair and upkeep, how did Deanery bequests to plate stand in contrast to other areas of England? Comparison may conveniently be made with the Kentish towns of Bethersden, Wye, Folkstone and Sandwich, which have been studied by Judy Ann Ford.90 She has shown that there were twenty-one donations to items of plate from these towns: two chrismatories, two paxes, one candlestick, one tabernacle, one thurible 85

86

87 88 89

90

NRO, NCC Typpes 11, John Thurton, Spexhall 1488; NCC Cooke 99±100, Margaret Dowse, Henstead 1540. SROI, IC/AA2/5/154, William Cuttyng 1510; NRO, NCC Ryxe 125, Thomas Hwys, Wissett 1504. SROI, IC/AA2/3/195, William Kechyn, Wissett 1496. East Anglian, NS iii, 131. NRO, NCC Hubert 15±16, John Denyell, South Cove 1473; NCC Gilberd 29, John Harman, South Cove 1473; SROI, IC/AA2/2/161, Symon Cook, Easton Bavents 1465. J. A. Ford, Àrt and Identity in the Parish Communities of Late Medieval Kent', Studies in Church History xxviii, EHS (1992), 225±37 at 228±30. These towns were chosen for the diversity of their communities, and for their early churchwardens' accounts. Thirteen wills were proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. The rest came from the Archdeaconry Court of Canterbury. Clerical wills are not listed separately.


194

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

(censer), one chalice and thirteen crosses.91 This means that roughly 3 per cent of testators from these four Kentish towns left money for, or bequeathed items of, plate. In the Deanery, 5 per cent of testators did likewise, the speci®c items being generally very similar. Ford suggested, ®rstly, that the infrequency of acquisition appearing in churchwardens' accounts probably re¯ected the limited number of plate items in the parish churches. This cannot be true. The Deanery churchwardens' accounts also show purchase of plate to be rare, and there are few entries relating to repair, but neither fact indicates that plate was limited. Purchases may have been made by executors after consultation with the churchwardens, in which case they would not be entered in the accounts. These, and donations made during a parishioner's lifetime, must have been largely responsible for obtaining many items; and once acquired, a chalice, a chrismatory or a pax would have given many years service, for the very nature of the material ensured a long life. From churchwardens' accounts, it seems that only censers, subjected to heat, and bell frames, clappers and baudricks, which underwent the constant stress of impact, were in need of frequent replacement or repair. Ford commented, secondly, that the inventories of 1552 showed only a few large parish churches possessing substantial amounts of plate.92 The inventories of 1552, however, cannot be taken as a true record of the plate that had originally been possessed by any of the parish churches, for they were drawn up at the end of a period of destruction when much had already gone, when the horse had already bolted. By 1552 St Peter Mancroft in Norwich had sold plate weighing 857 ounces for £199 19s 4d, and between 1547 and 1573 the cathedral plate, already depleted, was reduced further from 593 ounces to 19.93 Peacock, considering the ®nal devastation in Lincolnshire in 1566, remarked that the objects enumerated then were `few and poor', in comparison to what had been there before the Reformation changes.94 `Few and poor' may be too sweeping a statement to describe what was left to the parish churches in 1552, but it can be said with absolute certainty that there had already been a disbursement before that date, and that the substance of the parishes had already been drastically reduced. There was, therefore, in retrospect, a generous provision of plate throughout the Deanery and, one suspects, elsewhere. In the 1547 inventory from Crat®eld, Symond Smyth and John Bateman, the churchwardens, stated that they had sold `four years past' a pair of chalices, presumably one of the ®ve pairs in the 1528 inventory.95 They had also sold a pair of censers and a cross. They had received £20 for the items, with which the tower was battlemented 91

92 93 94 95

Ford, Àrt and Identity', 236, note 32. A total of eighty-two bequests for objects of art were given by sixty-nine testators. Ford, Àrt and Identity', 230, note 17. Barrett, Norwich Silver, 12±13. Peacock, English Church Furniture, 21. East Anglian, NS i, 186.


GILDING THE LITURGY

195

and leaded. In the Crat®eld accounts for 1549, the churchwardens had additionally sold a cross, a chalice, a pair of censers, a ship, a pax, and a pair of cruets for a further £35 15s 1d. There was still plate left at the time of the 1552 inventory. These details show that Crat®eld was more than amply stocked with plate during the late medieval period. The very fact that the churches were well stocked made it possible for them to sell plate to raise money, sales prompted by the actions of the Crown. Crat®eld's policy was far from unique, and it is short-sighted to describe it as a `Reformed parish' where ìts reformation [was] early' on account of its sale of plate in 1544.96 Crat®eld had seen its patron, the prior and convent of St Neots, suppressed and destroyed together with the religious houses in the Deanery and the entire monastic heritage of the kingdom, which resulted in a haul of nearly 289,769 ounces of plate and jewels for the Crown.97 Crat®eld church, in common with hundreds of other parish churches countrywide, which had previously been under the patronage of a religious house, had more reason than most to dispose of its surplus assets before it was too late. By doing so, it maintained its fabric through legal expenditure and, by selling off more surplus stock in 1547, was able to adhere to the strictures of the Reformed church by purchasing white glass to replace coloured, whitewash to obliterate murals, and wooden tables to supplant stone altars. Crat®eld's tardy purchase of the Great Bible of 1538, which it did not acquire for another nine years, was hardly the action of an early Reformed parish.98 Sparse testamentary references to bequests of plate do not indicate that parishes lacked goods, and infrequent plate repair in churchwardens accounts, as opposed to frequent repair of books and vestments, does not mean that the plate was not there. This negative evidence only emphasizes the robustness of metal. Similarly, lack of testamentary instructions for style, embossing, engraving and heraldic emblems does not mean that the plate in the Deanery was left plain and undecorated, for it is unlikely that censers left by Sir John Heveningham, for example, or plate bequeathed by the armigerous families of the Deanery, would have been presented anonymously. The chalice from St Anne's chapel, Halesworth, would surely have borne a mark of patronage. Many instructions would have been verbal, and, where a particular type or style was required, executors would have had examples to inspect (and the churchwardens to approve), such as the middle candlestick at Lax®eld. Unfortunately, it is not possible to attribute the manufacture of any particular piece of plate to a particular arti®cer or town. The rigour of government policy during the reign of Edward VI made it unlikely that much plate would survive. Some was concealed, Norfolk, for 96

97 98

A. E. Nichols, `Broken up or Restored away: Iconoclasm in a Suffolk Parish', Iconoclasm vs. Art and Drama, ed. C. Davidson and A. E. Nichols (Kalamazoo 1988), 164±96, at 168. Campbell, `Metalwork in England', 162. SROI, FC 62/E1/3; Hutton, `Local Impact of Reformation', 116, note 8.


196

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

example, still possessing forty-eight pre-Reformation patens, more than any other county in England.99 The Beding®eld chalice, also from Norfolk, is the only true pre-Reformation chalice to survive in East Anglia, the Thornage chalice of earlier manufacture being refashioned in 1563.100 Some of Suffolk's plate that escaped the sack of the churches may have been retrieved by the donors' family, by feoffees or by friends, as had already happened at the dissolution of the chantries. Some was pilfered. The late Neil Turner estimated that two large crosses, a funerary chalice, a chalice case, a chrismatory, two pyxes, three paxes and two patens are about all that remain from the pre-Reformation county of Suffolk.101 As far as one can tell, only a few bells have survived in the Deanery.

99 100 101

N. Pevsner, North-west and South Norfolk (Harmondsworth 1962), 47. Lasko and Morgan, Medieval Art in East Anglia, 65±6. N. H. Turner, `Church Plate', Selig Suffolk: a Catalogue of Religious Art, ed. N. H. Turner and D. L. Jones (Ipswich Borough Council no date), 30±5, at 30.


9 The Riches of Apparel His hair was all in golden curls and shone; Just like a fan it jutted outwards, starting To left and right from an accomplished parting. Ruddy his face, his eyes as grey as goose, His shoes cut out in tracery, as in use In old St Paul's. The hose upon his feet Showed scarlet through, and all his clothes were neat And proper. In a jacket of light blue, Flounced at the waist and tagged with laces too, He went, and wore a surplice just as gay And white as any blossom on the spray. The parish clerk from `The Miller's Tale',

Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

Sumptuous materials, vibrant colours and gold-encrusted decoration could not have played much part in the lives of ordinary men and women. The exorbitant expense of desirable fabrics, scarlet cloth costing 15s a yard and silk cloth 1s an ounce, was beyond the reach of most. Moreover, the recurrent sumptuary laws, although probably never enforced, set a clear division between the social classes. Indeed, the very materials from which vestments were created, cloth of gold, velvet, crimson cloth and velvet motley, were speci®ed by the Commons in 1402 when they petitioned that no-one below the rank of banneret should wear such raiment. The Sumptuary Act of 1463 forbade damask or satin to be worn by the rank of esquire and gentlemen or lower, and for those of incomes of less than 40s a year, fustian and bustian were banned; fur, too, was prohibited unless it was black or white lamb.1 Twenty years later, no man under the estate of a lord was to wear a gown which did not cover his body below the hips, nor wear any woollen cloth made outside the kingdom, which included Calais at this time; but although many fabrics were denied to the majority of society, they were chosen by testators, clerics, churchwardens and parishioners for use within the Church, believing that only the most expensive, the most luxuriant, the most precious and the least attainable for men were ®t for God. 1

F. E. Baldwin, Sumptuary Legislation and Personal Regulation in England (Baltimore 1926), 67, note 165, 79±80, 103±5; Virgoe, Illustrated Paston Letters, 42±3.


198

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

Colour, on the other hand, did not depend on the whim of the donor or parish preference. Liturgical colours were probably ®rst de®ned by Pope Innocent III (1198±1216) and fell into four groups.2 Red was most popular and varied from crimson±purple to pink and was used at Pentecost and the feasts of apostles and male martyrs. White with gold was worn at Christmas, Epiphany and Easter, and white alone at the feasts of the Virgin Mary and virgin saints. Green, in use primarily during the season of Trinity, included shades of yellow, tawny and orange as well as glaucus, a blue±grey tone. Black and silver were reserved for Good Friday, plain black for Requiem Mass; violet during Lent, Advent and on Rogation days, and this range also included burnet, russet, grey and ashen white. Blue, a shade occurring in Norwich Archdeaconry inventories and those from Dunwich deanery, had no liturgical signi®cance, but was popular in the late Middle Ages.3 The great age of English embroidery stretched from the late Anglo-Saxon period, c. 850, through to the Reformation, and is traceable in Europe earlier than any other national needlework, but Opus Anglicanum, the most prized embroidery in Europe and at its peak during the reigns of Edward II and Edward III, declined after the Black Death.4 This was due to a combination of factors. The war with France probably contributed to its demise, and, as Donald King observed, social and economic stresses resulting from the war would also have played a part. Nevertheless, it was possibly the new developments in the foreign textile industry which proved the unkindest cut of all. Firstly, European textile design changed decisively. During the fourteenth century, the great silk manufacturing centres were Lucca, Venice, Genoa and Florence, advantageously situated in Italy to act as the market place for northern Europe, for the Byzantine empire to the east, and for Islam and the Orient which lay beyond. The dominant pattern on Italian silks circa 1300 had been series of roundels or circles inhabited by static lions, grif®ns and birds, but, throughout the fourteenth century, Eastern in¯uence broke down these repetitive, geometric, patterns into distorted and irregular designs with vibrant animal ®gures in realistic attitudes, which were moderated by Italian tradition. Secondly, new weaving techniques produced Lampas, a silk material patterned in relief above the background, its gold and silver wefts brocading the novel fabric; and it was not restricted to one or two colours, as had been the custom, but now sported three dyes or more.5 The increasing variety in materials was a good enough reason for embroidery to be less essential. 2

3 4

5

C. Mayer-Thurman, Raiment for the Lord's Service: a Thousand Years of Western Vestments (Chicago 1975), 48; J. Mayo, A History of Ecclesiastical Dress (London 1984), 52±3; W. St J. Hope and E. G. C. F. Atchley, English Liturgical Colours (London 1918). Mayo, Ecclesiastical Dress, 52±3, 145±6. M. Schuette and S. Muller-Christensen, The Art of Embroidery, trans. D. King (London 1964), xv; D. King, Opus Anglicanum: English Medieval Embroidery (London 1963), 5±8. M. King and D. King, European Textiles in the Keir Collection, 400 BC to 1800 AD (London 1990), 43±5.


THE RICHES OF APPAREL

199

Nevertheless, the third development posed the greatest threat. This was the introduction of velvet into Europe, probably through Lucca, the greatest textile city in the west.6 Samite, a woven silk, was the most luxurious material at the time, but velvet quickly supplanted it. The very possession of velvet hinted at riches and power, and the sumptuary laws governed the uses to which it could be put ± and by whom. The plushy surface of this most opulent fabric was particularly dif®cult to embroider and, in any case, its rich surface made stitchery unnecessary. Previously, where a less expensive linen had been used as a ground, it had been customary to cover it with underside couching, a painstaking and labour-intensive embroidery demanding great expertise; but as woven, patterned velvet became popular, whether `®gured', striped, chequered, multi-coloured or motley, workers took short-cuts and their mass-produced embroideries ultimately devalued their own creations.7 The split-stitches which had been worked in silk thread, giving a distinctive subtlety to the folds of drapery and modelling to the features, were gradually superseded by long, straight, stitches. Stem stitch continued to outline the motifs, but facial features were now delineated in black where they had been shaded before. Laid-work or surface couching was practised with coarse, untwisted, silk instead of the traditional, underside couching, which ®nally went out of use in the ®rst half of the ®fteenth century.8 The Flemish embroidery workshop-style became paramount throughout Western Europe during the late ®fteenth and the early sixteenth century. Thus the development of the textile industry had a major part to play in the demise of Opus Anglicanum, because the exquisite velvets, brocades and damasks used for making vestments now provided decoration previously supplied by stitchery. Despite the change in embroidery techniques and the advance in textile design, the quality and colour of cloth, combined with assured execution of intricate, delicate workshop stitchery, continued to produce vestments and cloths of a high standard, but with a different style of decoration. Small motifs such as birds, ¯eurs-de-lys, ¯owers and branches, emblems, heraldic designs and `ymagery' were worked in silks and gold on linen, couched, cut out and stitched down on to the fabric with gold thread. This appliqueÂ was quick to work and easy to apply and was `powdered' onto the fabric, a technique described as pulverizatur in an inventory from St Peter Mancroft, Norwich. Here, at the great market church in the cathedral city, a late preReformation inventory gives a good impression of the variety of vestments found in a wealthy church where a full inventory had been kept. A blue velvet vestment, `powdered with gold angels', heads one list. White ¯owers and gold leopards, gold lions and unicorns, stars, squirrels and eagles all in gold, peacocks, bucks, pheasants, dogs, apostles, virgins, `divers martyrs', and 6

7 8

R. O. Landini, `The Triumph of Velvet: Italian Production of Velvet in the Renaissance', Velvet: History, Techniques, Fashions, ed. F. de' Marinis (Milan 1993; London edn 1994), 21±49. K. Staniland, Medieval Craftsmen: Embroiderers (London 1991), 33±48. King, Opus Anglicanum, 7.


200

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

archangels were among the images depicted on backgrounds of blue chamlet, red silk, white bawdkyn with stripes of cloth of gold of Lucca, and dun velvet.9 Workshops produced thousands of similar images embroidered on linen cloth, ready to be af®xed to the ecclesiastical vestments, and, in the Deanery, Hunting®eld's inventory is good evidence of this. Meanwhile, minor embellishments such as sun-rays could be added nearer home. The Deanery inventories, though not as detailed as many, leave no doubt that the fabrics and their ornamentation found in the smaller parish churches followed a variation on a great English tradition.

The Embellishment of the Liturgy Archbishop Winchelsey's requirements, essential to each parish church, were a chief or principle vestment, a cope, three surplices, a rochet, a frontal for the high altar with three altar cloths, a Lenten veil and banners for Rogationtide processions.10 These provisions may not appear onerous for a parish, but a chief vestment, consisting of three complete out®ts for priest, deacon and subdeacon, constituted a major outlay for any church, let alone an individual parishioner. Testators often speci®ed the material and decoration to be supplied, but their executors might `cut the coat according to their cloth' in more ways than one. At High Mass, the of®ciating priest was attended by a deacon and a subdeacon. The `vestment' worn at this celebration included a chasuble for the priest (the word derived from the Latin casula, a little house),11 a dalmatic for the deacon, and a tunicle for the subdeacon.12 These outer garments, reaching from neck to knee, were fashioned from the same quality of material, often at great cost, although the quantity of cloth and its embellishment varied. Orphreys were elaborately embroidered borders of cloth applied to chasuble, dalmatic and cope; the word came from auriphrygium, derived from the classical Latin phrygius, a gold embroiderer (the Phrygians were thought to be skilled in embroidery).13 A subdeacon's tunicle received scantier adornment. Orphreys at this period bore the bulk of the embroidery, and the fashion of the time was to have an orphrey on the chasuble front, running from top to bottom. At the back, orphreys formed a cross, which provided a good ground for detailed, descriptive, embroidery, such as the cruci®xion or the lives of saints. A Y-shaped cross, also in fashion, could accommodate even more imagery.14 Below the chasuble, a 9 10 11

12 13 14

Hope, Ìnventories of St Peter Mancroft, Norwich', 160±2, 234. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, xviii; Peacock, English Church Furniture, 178. S. Hogarth, Ècclesiastical Vestments and Vestment Makers in York, 1300±1600', York Historian vii (1986) 2±11, at 2. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, l±liii. Hogarth, Ècclesiastical Vestments', 4. See Mayer-Thurman, Vestments, 47, 84,150.



201

full-length linen alb was worn. Apparels or parures decorated the alb's cuffs and hem, and these pieces of material often displayed secular motifs, butter¯ies, peacocks and goats' heads appearing in some Norwich inventories. They were applied to the linen hood or amice, but were removed during Lent.15 Each man wore a girdle and a maniple, a length of coloured material matching the main garment and worn over the left arm. The priest and deacon both wore stoles, the subdeacon did not. These garments constituted a `suit of vestments'. In the Deanery, entries appear in wills and inventories for à suit of vestments', à vestment with albs and appurtenances', and plain `vestments'. If a whole suit was meant by the word `vestment', then the Deanery churches were extremely well equipped; but the bequest of Henry, rector of Heveningham in 1383, provides a clue. He left to the church one entire vestment with all appurtenances and `two vestments per se', suggesting that the two vestments should be interpreted as chasubles.16 Likewise, Edward Clobberd implied that his bequest for St Nicholas's chapel in Sizewell in 1500 would complete a suit of vestments, when he left à dekyn and a coope like to the color of the blewe vestment that is in the chapell of St Nicholas'.17 Copes were worn on ceremonial occasions, while reading the biddingprayer or during processions, for example, and, as vestments not used speci®cally at Mass, were not rejected at the Reformation.18 The fabric of the cope frequently matched that of the chasuble. Orphreys ran down the front edges of the cope, which was fastened at the neck by the morse, a clasp customarily made of precious metal and often embellished with enamels, gems or ivory.19 Cope hoods were heavily embroidered and were interchangeable so that the priest could choose the hood which bore imagery relating to the festival being celebrated.20 The surplice took its name from superpelliceum, originally an alb worn over a furred undergarment made necessary by the cold climate of Northern Europe, but the alb had to be altered to accommodate the fur underwear, hence the wide-sleeved and amply gathered surplice. A surplice was worn under the alb at Mass, but was also worn by clergy in the choir and by acolytes.21 Similar in style to the surplice today, the late medieval type was made of linen, but was more generously gathered on the yoke and was full length. A rochet was an unsleeved surplice and was used with ease during baptisms.22 Altar coverings also had to be provided. The high altar frontal had a 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22

Rock, Church of our Fathers, I, 367 and note 90; Mayo, Ecclesiastical Dress, 58 NRO, NCC Heydon 216, Henry, rector, Heveningham 1383. SROI, IC/AA2/4/13, Edmund Clobberd, Sizewell 1500. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, lx; Hogarth, Ècclesiastical Vestments', 2. Mayer-Thurman, Vestments, 134, pl. 47. The cope, measuring 143 cm 292 cm, has been used to estimate the amount of material needed at Hunting®eld to make a cope. Rock, Church of our Fathers, II, 27. Rock, Church of our Fathers, II, 2±3. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, lxiii.


202

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

frontlet, which hung below the altar top like the pelmet still seen on altars today.23 The dossal was similar to a reredos, but was made of cloth and hung from the riddel post. Above was a canopy. Several altar cloths were used at a time, the topmost being the corporal placed beneath the Host during the Mass, and suf®ciently large to enfold both the Host and chalice to veil them.24 Because of this intimate contact with the Body and Blood of Christ, the corporal, or corporas as it was called in Deanery wills, and its case or bursa were regarded as special bequests. The obligatory Lenten veil was hung across the chancel between the high altar and the nave from the vigil of the ®rst Sunday in Lent until Wednesday in Holy Week, except during the reading of the Gospel at Mass.25 Banners were carried in processions and were much favoured by gilds. Few banners are mentioned in the inventories from the Deanery, but they make their appearance as testamentary gifts and, in the churches of Blyford and South Cove, banner stave lockers of immense height have survived.

Inventories from the Deanery of Dunwich Inventories give a clear picture of the possessions of the late medieval church. They enumerate and sometimes explain articles which no longer have relevance to a Reformed religion and are, therefore, essential for understanding testamentary bequests. The few Deanery inventories which have survived, however, lack the names of donors, and when compared with their contemporaries from elsewhere within the region, the information seems scanty. Melford's inventory of 1529, for example, lists over twenty vestments and the names of nine donors of vestments and copes.26 Four out of ®ve entries for frontals, too, include the donor's names and even some of Melford's humbler cloths have attributions. In a fourteenth-century inventory from St Peter Mancroft, Norwich, the donor's name, Isabel Wynde, and a description of her gift of a whole vestment, a cope of blue with gold leopards ± and two red silk copes, makes it possible to trace them through to an early sixteenth-century inventory.27 A good range of churchwardens' accounts, covering the years 1349 to 1560, comes from Somerset, and, where the inventories have survived, many donors can be identi®ed. Out of eleven vestments contained in the inventory for Pilton in Somerset, seven were 23 24

25

26 27

Rock, Church of our Fathers, I, 184, note 58. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, lxxi±lxxii; Rock, Church of our Fathers, I, 212; NRO, NCC Spyltimbre 14, George Hawes (Hawys), Blythburgh 1506. Hawes, a chantry chaplain, bequeathed a corporas case of green silk to Blythburgh church. A corporas case or bursa from Hessett in Suffolk, now in the British Museum, is made of painted linen (20.5 cm 20.5 cm), see Lasko and Morgan, Medieval Art in East Anglia, 40, no. 58. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, lxxvii; Dymond and Paine, Spoil of Melford, 84; Bond, English Chancels, 101±3. Dymond and Paine, Spoil of Melford, 14±15. Hope, Ìnventories of St Peter Mancroft, Norwich', 195±6, 200, 231.



203

named bequests.28 The naming of donors in inventories was common practice, an act of remembrance similar to the bede-roll, a practice discontinued in Edwardian inventories.29 The Deanery has no surviving bede-rolls, but in Somerset, Morebath's bede-roll c. 1530 gives exactly the type of information which the Deanery lacks: `Thomas Tymewell at Come to help to buy the suit of white vestments he gave 26s 8d.'30 The range of Eucharistic vestments and linen cloths described in the Deanery inventories, the materials used, the colours required, the decoration applied, suggest testators at every ®nancial level. From kerchiefs to copes, veils to vestments, there were items which most testators could bequeath from the household, such as the bed covering of Christian Caas, Thomas Cowell's green, red and yellow coverlet or the black velvet gown of Sir John Heveningham, which was to be refashioned as a cope and vestment.31 Bequests such as these resulted in church furnishings decorated with motifs of no religious signi®cance whatsoever.32 Among the obligatory accoutrements were other items, such as pillows, which were not required in Winchelsey's list of necessities.33 Their inclusion reveals furnishings which, while not liturgically compulsory, show a desire on the part of the congregation to enhance and beautify the church to the glory of God with whatever they thought would be useful ± and acceptable. Nine inventories listing vestments and cloths in six Deanery parishes have survived, the earliest being those from Rumburgh Priory, dated 1439, 1448 and 1482.34 The 1482 inventory shows that the priory-cum-parish church had eight chasubles and two tunics, six albs with apparels, stoles and maniples, one white vestment with two tunics, one vestment of motley, four copes, and one red vestment bought by Thomas Goldsburgh, the former prior; but as the margins of all three inventories are damaged, some information has been lost. The inventory of 1482 included a green vestment from Thomas Goche, vicar of Westhall, who, within two months, was to make his will, leaving a further 3s 4d to Rumburgh's high altar and 6s 8d for the church fabric.35 Blythburgh priory's surviving inventory, compiled on 20 August 1536 for the commissioners of Henry VIII, is alive with colourful description of fabrics and motifs.36 The priory possessed two vestments and two copes of 28 29 30

31

32 33 34 35 36

Hobhouse, Somerset Accounts, 51±2. The date for Pilton's inventory is probably 1544. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 495±6; Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, 149±218 and ci. Hobhouse, Somerset Accounts, 214. Tymewell also gave 6s 8d towards his grave `for he lyeth in the Almatory', an area of the church coveted for burial. SROI, IC/AA2/6/124, Christian Caas, Sizewell 1526; NRO, NCC Attmere 48, Thomas Cowell, priest, Ubbeston 1529; PRO, PCC Hogen 39, Sir John Heveningham, Heveningham 1531. Mayo, Ecclasiastical Dress, 51. SROI, FC 62/E4/1. SROI, HD 1538/339/1/32. NRO, NCC A. Caston 263, Thomas Goche, vicar, Westhall 1482. Haslewood, `1536 Inventories', 99.


204

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

baudekin, a silk material patterned with gold thread, originally from Baghdad; and a blue vestment of satin, material formerly from Zaitun in China, but by this time produced in all Asian and southern European silkweaving areas.37 Orphreys were embroidered on damask, an oriental patterned silk which took its name from Damascus, and vestments were made of say, a ®ne milled woollen cloth which was popular for everyday vestments, and of Worsted, which came from within the diocese.38 Birds, ¯owers and imagery added a touch of opulence to the fabrics. No suits of vestments were named here, but the vestment of black worsted with deacon and subdeacon was a complete out®t for three men. Leiston abbey's inventory was taken the following day. There were fourteen copes of white silk, red silk, blue silk and blue velvet, with at least four complete suits of vestments and a couple of single vestments of satin of `brydgys', a glossy weave of silk and thread, originally imported from Bruges.39 The abbey also owned an altar cloth of `dornyx', a wool fabric from Doornick (Tournai) in Flanders, four altar cloths, a table cloth and a bed-covering of `bungey work', which seems to have been locally embroidered work from Bungay, just to the north of the Deanery.40 An inventory survives from each of the parish churches of Walberswick, c. 1482;41 Crat®eld, dated 1528, which also possesses an inventory taken in the reign of Mary Tudor and another in the reign of Victoria;42 Hunting®eld 1534;43 and Blythburgh, dated 1547, by then bereft of its priory.44 Each church was well endowed with the obligatory garments except for Lenten veils, noted only in Hunting®eld, but all were rich in vestments and copes. Walberswick had four vestments (one of which was certainly a suit), two albs and six copes. Hunting®eld possessed eleven vestments and four copes. Blythburgh's return showed four suits and nine vestments (all with albs), one stole and ®fteen copes. One cope òf blew silk for a child' would have been the apparel used for the ceremonial of the `boy-bishop', a ceremony prohibited six years before, but previously approved by the old religion because it represented God incarnate living on earth both as man and boy.45 37

38 39 40 41

42 43 44 45

D. King, Èmbroidery and Textiles', Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England, 1200± 1400, ed. J. J. Alexander and P. Binski (London 1987), 157±61. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, lvi±lvii. Haslewood, `1536 Inventories', 102±4; Dymond and Paine, Spoil of Melford, 82 Dymond and Paine, Spoil of Melford, 79. Gardner, Dunwich, 158±9. Gardner dated this inventory 1492. In the original accounts it is written on one leaf only and lies between receipts of 1482 and 1484, together with leaf of receipts dated 1461. It is therefore almost impossible to date and appears to be the second leaf of an inventory, the ®rst leaf of which has been lost. SROI, FC 62/E4/1, 2. SROI, FC 57/A1/1/1±3. Suckling, Suffolk, II, 156±7. I. Luxton, `The Reformation and Popular Culture', Church and Society in England: Henry VIII to James I, ed. F. Heal and R. O'Day (London 1977), 55±77, at 61; Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 430±1; Mayo, Ecclesiastical Dress, 58±9.



205

Crat®eld had seven vestments, two copes and four hoods (for copes), the latter entered separately and described as semeÂ. This was alternative wording to pulverizatur, which meant that the hoods were powdered with embroidery, bearing out Watkin's observation that hoods became merely the ground for decorative needlework, and were interchangeable depending on the seasonal and liturgical requirements. These hoods were entered in the inventory immediately before the copes and vestments, and there is no reason to believe that they were for the statue of the Virgin Mary, or for any other statue in the church, as suggested by Anne Eljenholm Nichols.46 Surplices and rochets were present in Crat®eld and Hunting®eld, and Walberswick owned fourteen surplices, but none was noted at Blythburgh. Frontals were not always enumerated by name and were included under the heading of altar cloths, as indeed they were in Melford's 1529 inventory.47 Two altar cloths at Walberswick were `painted', and, at Blythburgh, a green silk altar cloth with a fringe bore the image of the Trinity, the dedication of the parish church. The low (side) altars in Blythburgh had cloths of blue buckram, a ®ne cotton cloth.48 Hunting®eld listed a total of twelve altar cloths, but Crat®eld possessed twenty-four, all hallowed. Banners dedicated to St Stephen and St Andrew were recorded at Crat®eld and Hunting®eld respectively, and at Hunting®eld St Andrew had a purple velvet coat. Walberswick and Crat®eld mentioned both pyx and houseling cloths, the former to shroud the pyx above the high altar. A pyx cloth from Hessett, Suffolk, is made of linen drawn-thread work, approximately 71 cm square, with a rose and yellow silk fringe with gilded wooden balls and silk tassels at the corners to weigh it down; and the pyx at Walberswick was covered with silk lace for which the churchwardens paid 12d in 1453.49 The houseling cloth, which was held below the mouths of communicants during the administration, gathered any crumbs that might fall.50 This is a detail which can still be seen on the eucharistic panel of East Anglian seven-sacrament fonts, that at Great Glemham, outside the Deanery, being only a few miles away from Kelsale. Crat®eld also owned an embroidered silk box in which the corporas was carried to the sick. Comparisons of the provisions for Crat®eld, Walberswick and Hunting®eld churches with Holy Trinity, Melford, for example, would be inequable, for Melford was among the wealthiest parishes in the county. Only Blythburgh, with its four suits, nine vestments and ®fteen copes, offers any comparison to Melford's seven suits, ®ve vestments and sixteen copes, though Melford also owned fourteen chasubles. If, however, the surviving 46 47 48 49 50

Nichols, Ìconoclasm in a Suffolk Parish', 167. Dymond and Paine, Spoil of Melford, 15, 19, 22±3. King, Èmbroidery and Textiles', 157. Cautley, Suffolk Churches, 198, 295; Lewis, Walberswick, 4. Bond, English Chancels, 141; Oxford, Bodl. Lib., MS Douce 112/ 21. This ®fteenthcentury manuscript illustration shows two clerics holding the houseling towel during the administration.


206

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

Deanery inventories were representative of furnishings in humbler, local churches, then the Deanery was well supplied; for the inventories reveal a wide variety of vestments and cloths, some of which were soon to disappear from the English religious scene for ever. The cost of local bequests What sort of ®nancial outlay was required for a vestment or a cope? Deanery evidence is piecemeal, but a rough idea can be gained from documentation which has survived elsewhere. The churchwardens of Acle in Norfolk, for example, purchased a whole suit of red velvet, powdered with gold ¯owers, consisting of a cope, a chasuble, two tunics with albs, amices, stoles and apparels, for £23 in 1474; and seven years later, a suit of vestments and a cope purchased at Bristol cost the Yatton churchwardens £26.51 Within the Deanery, Walberswick churchwardens spent a considerable amount of money on the purchase of vestments from Robert Sewale in 1465.52 He was paid 30s for a vestment, 8s for two albs, two amices, the parures (apparels) and two surplices. A subsequent entry shows that he was paid 30s for a new cope. The hallowing of these vestments at Southwold cost another 12d. Altogether, the cost to the churchwardens was more than half the annual stipend of a parish chaplain, but still considerably cheaper than the outlay at Acle. In 1528, Hunting®eld's churchwardens purchased materials for adorning a vestment and for making two copes, one damask, the other velvet, and lining them with blue buckram (at a cost of 8s). The cost of the damask and velvet was not speci®ed.53 If a cope took 8 yards of 26 inch cloth, the damask fabric would have cost about £3 1s 4d. A further £1 16s 6d was spent on the decorated orphreys, and sixteen splayed eagles ready to `powder' the cope were obtained at 13s 4d. Silks, ribbon, crewel wool for embroidery, sewing silk, gold and thread and other necessities cost the wardens 15s 6d for the three garments. To make the cope cost 6s 8d. The total cost for the damask cope must have been not less than £6 5s 8d, of which 6s 8d for labour was but a fraction of the cost of materials. The velvet cope cost roughly £6 13s 6d, which included the cost of orphreys (£2 10s) and an additional 2s 8d paid to a parishioner called Avys for fetching them from the maker, which suggests that high-quality embroidery skills could not be found within the parish. The embroidery on the velvet vestment depicted a cruci®x costing 3s 4d, six ¯eurs-de-lys (4s) and twenty-four splayed eagles (£1 8s). These three garments appear in the 1534 inventory as the black velvet vestment and cope and the double damask cope. 51 52

53

Louis, Commonplace Book, 174±5, 390; Hobhouse, Somerset Accounts, 113. Lewis, Walberswick, 17, 21. Robert Sewale was probably one of the Sewale family from Southwold, a member of whom provided a white vestment for Southwold church in 1494. Baldwin, Sumptuary Legislation, 142, n. 58. In 1528, velvet sold at 8s 4d per yard, much less than it had been in the preceding period. Damask (white) was 7s 8d a yard.



207

Lighter garments, such as surplices and napery, were made within the parishes. In Walberswick, barely a year passed without an entry in churchwardens' accounts for their making or repair. In some instances, linen was bought in bulk, twenty-one yards being purchased from Robert Crackthorpe for 7s in 1450.54 At Walberswick, linen rose in price between 1450 and 1499 from 4d to approximately 6d per yard, and the cost of making a surplice was 8d in 1463, but fell to 2s for four in 1473. This means that Richard Nunne's bequest of 6s 8d for a sleeved surplice to Sotherton church in 1543 was probably too generous, and it may have cost the executors as little as 3s 4d.55 A favourite material frequently mentioned in Deanery wills was diaper, a cloth patterned by the interweaving of the threads. It was used extensively for altar cloths, and, in 1498, was priced at 8d per yard when the Walberswick churchwardens purchased a length for 16s. Alice Farman's bequest for cloths of diaper for the two low altars in Easton Bavents church, for example, would have cost her at least 4s in 1518.56 This was in addition to her gift of 20d to the high altar, her mortuary payment of a cow, 20d to a taper before the sepulchre, 20d to the tabernacle of Our Lady of Pity, 16d to the tabernacle of St Anthony, 12d to the gild of St Loy in Woodbridge and 3s 4d for a mass at Scala Celi. The bequest of a linen cloth in 1501, `painted' in honour of the Trans®guration of Christ for the high altar of Halesworth, must have been a frontal, and is a reminder, in the absence of the survival of similar cloths, that vestments, cloths and clothing were employed in spreading the Christian story in much the same way as a stained glass window or a wall painting.57 The bequests of linen cloths to the high altar and to the altar of John the Baptist in the same church were probably altar-top coverings, but, here again, the gift to the latter may have been embroidered or painted to recount the story of the Baptist which, on the gild altar, would have been close enough for gild members to appreciate the imagery.58 Many other cloths were bequeathed unadorned in the form of sheets.59 Cloths were certainly abundant. No churchwardens' accounts show the making of banners, yet banners and banner cloths were bequeathed: to the Holy Trinity and Our Lady of Pity at Blythburgh, to St Margaret at Reydon, to Our Lady, St Anne and the Trinity at Southwold, to St Peter and to the Assumption of Our Lady at Wangford; and a banner costing £1 6s 8d was bequeathed to 54

55 56 57 58 59

Lewis, Walberswick, 1; Hobhouse, Somerset Accounts, 121; Rock, Church of our Fathers, I, 285; Hogarth, Ècclesiastical Vestments', 6. Fifty-eight ells of white linen costing 25s 2d were allowed to make seven albs. Emma Semster, the seamstress, was paid 3s 6d. SROI, IC/AA2/14/363, Richard Nunne. SROI, IC/AA2/8/42, Alice Farman, Easton Bavents 1518. SROI. IC/AA2/4/54, Agnes Barker, Halesworth 1501. SROI, IC/AA2/2/191, Elizabeth Morrell, Halesworth 1469. SROI, IC/AA2/3/206, John Lynne, Kelsale 1497.


208

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

Walberswick.60 Banner cloths costing 3s 4d and 6s 8d apiece may have been painted rather than embroidered.61 Descriptions were often ambiguous, and a testator could cloud the issue, Alice Peers, for example, bequeathing a silk banner `to hang upon the cross in Covehithe' in 1514.62 Certain bequests reveal the ultimate aim of the testator. In 1513, John Sharp's bequest for furnishing the side altar of St Saviour in Benacre, before which he was to be buried, consisted of a red or white vestment of sarsnet to the value of 40s (this ®ne quality silk cost 4s 6d per yard at this time), a cloth of red sarsnet to hang before St Saviour's image and a stained (painted) cloth to hang before the altar.63 As he also requested a service for half a year, he was, in fact, embellishing the altar for his temporary chantry. He made further bequests of sarsnet vestments to Sibsey church in Lincolnshire, where he was born. Fifteen per cent of clerical wills contained gifts for garments or fabric compared with 22 per cent of clerical bequests for books, but the clergy of the Deanery were not innovative in their bequests to their parish churches, their legacies almost entirely comprising the requisites de®ned by Winchelsey, some of them being personal possessions. Henry Shank, chaplain of Blythburgh church in 1421, willed two surplices and `my vestment, to wit amice, alb and chasuble with maniple and stole' to Blythburgh Church; and, in 1499, Robert Clarke, vicar of Sibton, left to the abbey there `my cotydyall [every day] vestments, value 4 marks' (£2 13s 4d).64 In 1450, Theberton church received interesting personal articles of dress from the rector, Sir William Hart, who had originally been a canon at Leiston abbey. His bequest included a gown furred with beaver, another of musterdevillers (a mixed grey woollen cloth originally from Montivilliers in Normandy), which was furred with marten, a gown of scarlet furred with grey, and two surplices with an almuce of grey.65 The grey almuce was originally a fur hood, but had become part of ordinary clerical dress, and there was a second type of almuce, carried over the left arm of canons regular and secular as a symbol of of®ce. 60

61

62

63

64

65

SROI, IC/AA2/4/226, John Wulsy, Blythburgh 1506; NRO, NCC Multon 71, Katherine Slathe, Reydon 1497; SROI, IC/AA2/3/49, Thomas Pope, Southwold 1487; IC/AA2/9/45, Mary Joye, Southwold 1522; NRO, NCC A. Caston 252, Alice Ruddock, Wangford 1485; SROI, IC/AA2/2/326, Margaret Stephenson, Walberswick 1475. SROI, IC/AA2/12/137, Robert Hermere, Leiston 1536; IC/AA2/11/128, Thomas Payn, Hunting®eld 1533. SROI, IC/AA2/7/75; SROI, FC 57/A1/1/1±3. In 1534, Hunting®eld's churchwardens distinguished between the cross cloth of silk or Our Lady, a gilded cross with a `cloth of St Margaret' and a banner cloth of St Andrew. There were also two old banner cloths. NRO, NCC Johnson 168, John Sharp, Benacre 1513; Baldwin, Sumptuary Legislation, 142. NRO, NCC Hyrnyng 92, Henry Shank, chaplain, Blythburgh 1421; NCC Cage 72±3, Robert Clarke, vicar, Sibton 1499. NRO, NCC Aleyn 59; Mayo, Ecclesiastical Dress, 62; COED, 1138



209

Personal bequests to clerical brothers make interesting reading. William Wyatt, the parish priest of Wissett, bequeathed his `testor' with the image of the Trinity and another of St Mary at its head, to his parish chaplain, William Hawl, who also inherited the feather bed and bedding for the tester; and in Hawl's will of 1523, the feather bed `with all that belongs' was left to his brother.66 In the inventory from Rumburgh priory, the prior's bedhangings were green with unspeci®ed imagery. In 1531, the vicar of Covehithe, John Beteson, bequeathed to his brother Thomas, vicar of the adjacent parish of Wrentham, `my gown lined with St Thomas Worstede'.67 In the Deanery, those clergy bequeathing a range of clothing to their bene®ciaries belie the belief that all clerics were impoverished, and, while it might be supposed that such elaborate garments were out of the ordinary, the sartorial taste of regular and secular priests from elsewhere is preserved in colourful descriptions. Some sported a variety of clothing, from gowns of violet cloth to the red silk bows on the footwear of the prior of Butley, and even to dancing boots for òn one occasion [he] did not blush to lift his frock and display his elegant footwear'; and the last abbot of St Mary's, York, was taken to task by his archbishop for sporting silken girdles ornamented with gold and silver and for wearing gold and silver rings.68 The laity, not surprisingly, left a slightly higher percentage of bequests (4.5 per cent) for vestments and napery than for books. This not only re¯ects the wide range of costs, cloths in particular being relatively cheap to provide, but also re¯ects the gifts of household fabrics and personal clothing which were bequeathed at all levels. A new garment could be cheap, an amice costing 4d for the material, another 4d to make, and a further 4d for buckram, possibly for a lining.69 Lay testaments show that vestments of red were bequeathed to Southwold and Walberswick, white to Westleton, Covehithe, and Walberswick, black to Wangford, and cloth of gold to Heveningham. Materials included velvet, damask, satin and silk. Rychard Mannyng gave to Walberswick church a red vestment for Jesus Mass and requested `Jesus Marcye ± in divers places boridered theron'.70 A white vestment was to be bought for Wangford, `to the honour of Our Blessed Lady willing that my name and my wife's name be set upon the back thereof ', perhaps a sharper reminder for commemoration than many a heraldic emblem.71 Another white vestment costing 20s was to go to the altar of St Osyth's Head at St Osyth's priory, the mother church of Blythburgh 66

67 68 69 70

71

NRO, NCC Spyltimber 129, William Wyatt, priest, Wissett 1508; NCC Palgrave 175, William Hawl, priest, Wissett 1523. NRO, NCC Attmere 170±5, John Beteson, vicar, Coveithe 1531. Mayo, Ecclesiastical Dress, 65. Lewis, Walberswick, 23. SROI, IC/AA2/5/309, Reynold Reynshof, Southwold 1510; IC/AA2/12/234, Rychard Mannyng, Walberswick 1537; NCC Cage 65/6, John Harman, Westleton 1500; SROI, IC/AA2/5/310, Robert Aleyn, Covehithe 1512; IC/AA2/12/33, Thomas Barker, Wangford 1532; NRO, NCC Wylbey 47, John Heveningham, knight, 1425. SROI, IC/AA2/12/33, Thomas Barker, Wangford 1532.


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TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

priory.72 St Osyth had been beheaded by the Danes, and presumably her head was kept at Chich as a relic. Her arm was in St Paul's. Copes of red, white and black, of damask, silk and velvet were bequeathed to Blythburgh, Chediston, Holton, Kelsale, Rumburgh, Easton Bavents, Darsham, Uggeshall, Frostenden, Leiston and Southwold.73 Thomas Hopton, lord of Easton Bavents, asked that his executors should purchase a cope with his arms, and those of his wife, Margaret Scargill, upon it.74 The ophreys may have depicted saints for whom Thomas and Margaret had a special reverence, or scenes from Christ's Passion, but these were likely to have been stock patterns whereas the Hopton arms would have been specially commissioned.75 William Sproute's bequest of £3 to help buy a new cope for Chediston was made in 1491, to be supplied from the sale of his tenement Caberds after the death of his wife. She did not die until 1528. True to her late spouse, her will read, `My husband William Sproute bequeathed in his will £3 to have a cope and I give other £3 to have a cope of black velvet . . . to be had of my land called Caykbrydys'.76 For every detail such as this, there are dozens of wills containing bald statements of bequests, and the Walberswick churchwardens' accounts are more concerned with the amount of money expended on the maintenance of vestments rather than on their purchase, suggesting Swanson's `cyclical pattern' of old materials wearing out and new donors offering new gifts.77 Comparison with similar bequests from elsewhere can be dif®cult to establish, perhaps impossible, for the terminology used was a personal, perhaps a regional, choice. Nevertheless, it is interesting to attempt a comparison between Deanery bequests and those of the Kentish parishes of Bethersden, Wye, Folkestone and the three parishes of Sandwich.78 In a testamentary survey of the Kentish towns between the years 1459 and 1530, Judy Ann Ford found that out of 674 wills, the majority of bequests of objects of art were associated with the Eucharist. Twelve per cent of such bequests were for cloths, chalices, crosses and rood-lofts, and exactly half that 72 73

74 75

76

77

78

SROI, IC/AA2/4/226, John Wulsy, Blythburgh 1506. SROI, IC/AA2/4/226, John Wulsy, Blythburgh 1506; IC/AA2/3/130, William Sproute, Chediston 1491; NRO, NCC Ryxe 155, Alexander Peers, Holton 1504; SROI, IC/AA2/3/166, John Loveys, Kelsale 1498; IC/AA2/5/11, Margerye Laurens, Rumburgh 1504; NRO, NCC Ryxe 140, Walter Pers, Easton Bavents 1504; NCC Spyrlyng 74, John Reve Darsham, 1502; SROI, IC/AA2/3/82, Robert Barker, Uggeshall 1489; IC/AA2/10/34, William More, Frostenden 1530; NRO, NCC Copynger 36, Thomas Wells, Leiston 1520; PRO, PCC Bennett 33, Robert Joye, Southwold 1510. Richmond, John Hopton, 140. D. King, À Relic of Noble Erpingham', Victoria and Albert Museum Bulletin, iv (1968), 59±64. SROI, IC/AA2/3/130, William Sprunte, Chediston, 1491, and IC/AA2/10/17, Avelyne Scutt, Chediston, 1528. R. N. Swanson, `Medieval Liturgy as Theatre: the Props', Studies in Church History xxviii, EHS (1992), 252±3. Ford, Àrt and Identity', 225±37.



211

number, or 6 per cent, were made to cloths such as altar cloths, banner cloths, cross cloths, canopy cloths and houseling cloths. No vestments were included in the survey. In the deanery of Dunwich from 1459 to 1530, 5 per cent of bequests were made to cloths and vestments, while between 1531 and 1547, an era not only of continuous suppression, but also of anxiety for the religious future, a surprising 13 per cent of all Deanery bequests were made to vestments and cloths, possibly because the testators thought that these would escape prohibition. To make the comparison between Kent and the Deanery more meaningful, only the ®ve categories of cloths speci®ed in the survey from Kent can also be used from the Deanery. Bequests of cloths 1459±1530

Kent Suffolk

Altar Cloth 73% 56%

Canopy Cloth 9% 4%

Houseling Cloth 4% 0%

Banner Cloth 7% 24%

Cross Cloth 7% 16%

It can be seen from these ®gures that although Deanery testators were not so generous in the gifts of altar cloths, canopy cloths and houseling cloths, they more than made up for this with their interest in banners and cross cloths. Watkin had noticed that cross cloths were also frequently mentioned in the Norwich archdeaconry inventories.79 If Deanery bequests are to tally with those of Kent, many cloths mentioned in Deanery wills cannot be included, such as coverlets for the high altar on great days, cloths for the sepulchre, the rood and the font, hearse cloths, lectern cloths and curtains, hangings before, below and over images at side altars, and the garments bequeathed to the images themselves.80 The fragmentary churchwardens' accounts do not always cover the years when bequests were made yet, when they do, bequests can seldom be traced in the accounts. This suggests that many legacies were dependent on the lengthy settlement of the estate or the death of a spouse, as seen in the case of William Sproute from Chediston, where the parish church had to wait for more than thirty years for his bequest of a cope. Another explanation may be that the purchase of cloths and vestments was left to the discretion of the executors after consultation with the priest, churchwardens and parishioners. An example of this occurred in Wissett, a parish for which no contemporary churchwardens' accounts survive. Here, in 1503, Alice Seman left £4 to the church to purchase a cope às two or three of the most honest persons of the same parish shall think best'.81 Within the Deanery between 79

80 81

Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, lxxviii. In the Norwich Archdeaconry inventory of 1368, 256 churches had banners, on average from one to three per church; for cross cloths, see Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, lxxviii, note 11; In the Deanery, cloths frequently occur in inventories. Bond, English Chancels, 104; Rock, Church of our Fathers, IV, 261±2. SROI, IC/AA2/10/36, Alice Seman, Wissett 1503.


212

TRIBUTES AND GIFTS

1531 and 1547, testamentary provision was made for eight vestments, including an entire suit, and six copes. Despite damp churches and inadequate storage, most of these could have been expected to survive a considerable time. Acle's red velvet suit, for instance, although purchased in 1474 was still featuring in their inventory of 1553.82 In the Deanery accounts there are expenses for the washing of the church cloths, a cost that was borne as part of church maintenance; whereas in Tintinhull, in the West Country, the `washing wives' would not take wages for washing the linen.83 In Walberswick in 1450, 3s was paid for washing. In 1459 costs had risen by 2d and the laundereress was paid on the Monday fortnight after Easter. Pernell Henby, ®rst mentioned in 1457, was paid 3s 6d in 1463 for washing the `church gear', and, by 1466, received 4s 4d and the title `launderer to the church'. When she retired in 1482, she was receiving 5s. She died ten years later, bequeathing her rosary to St Andrew's. She was succeeded by Isabel Pye, who laundered for 6s 8d, the going rate until 1497. Payment was made to the clerk for washing in 1496 but this was quickly amended, or regretted, as it was closely followed by a payment to John Edmunds, `for washing church gear onwards for three quarters 2s 5d.' No purchase of soap is mentioned, unlike the entry `for white soap 1d' entered in the Crat®eld accounts, and, at Walberswick, the incidental costs must have been borne by the laundereress herself, cleanliness apparently being next to Godliness in the township.84 It does not appear from the foregoing evidence gleaned from the churchwardens' accounts, inventories and the testaments that Deanery churches were de®cient in raiment or fabric goods. The slight increase in percentages of lay bequests for fabrics as opposed to book bequests could be attributable to the wide variety of fabrics and goods at comparatively reasonable prices, and to the availability of household goods and personal clothing suitable for church use. The percentage of clerical bequests for furnishings and fabrics was twice that of the laity. The more expensive fabrics and their decoration must have delighted the eye of the parishioner and to those who could afford the bequest of a vestment or cope, there was abundant choice, seen in the quantity of costly garments bequeathed. These have to be considered together with what was thought needful for the parish church at any one time. The adornment of the church with textiles over and above those thought liturgically necessary showed a very active interest on the part of the testators. Much of this liturgical adornment was tactile and visible, unlike the liturgical books, for there were many furnishings in the nave and aisles of the people's church rather than in the chancel, the clerics' sanctuary.

82 83 84

Louis, Commonplace Book, 390. Hobhouse, Somerset Accounts, xix±xx. Lewis, Walberswick, 1, 9, 6, 13, 24, 50, 261, 56, 71, 76, 77; Raven, Crat®eld, 22.


Part Four The Glorious Company



10 The Sacred Messengers . . . And give me a companion, O King, a partner, a sacred messenger of sacred power, a messenger of prayer illumined by the divine light, a friend, a dispenser of noble gifts, a guard of my soul, a guard of my life, a guard over prayers, a guard over deeds . . . Hymn 4 from The Essays and Hymns of Synesius of Cyrene

Some time between 1255 and 1266, Jacobus de Voragine, bishop of Genoa, compiled Legenda Aurea, the Golden Legend, a manual consisting of a host of saints' lives, a lectionary for laymen arranged in order of the seasons of the year.1 His writings had a profound in¯uence on the cult of saints and the imagery which they inspired, and Emile MaÃle considered the Golden Legend to be one of ten books from which an idea of medieval thought and knowledge might be formed.2 Where Jacobus had found hagiographical details to be meagre, there he embroidered them, where absent, there he supplied them.3 Incidents from the Virgin Mary's life were contained in the Syriac Book of James, Protevangelium, a second-century apocryphal gospel, and it was these episodes which pre®gured the story of her life written eleven centuries later by Jacobus.4 Using these in combination with the sparse facts regarding the Virgin contained within the New Testament, Jacobus revealed an almost complete biography, ®lling out the lateral rami®cations of her family tree. Mary, the human Mother of God, the Queen of Heaven, was not only the most popular saint, but also the most in¯uential of intercessors, a close friend, an intimate guide, an earthly companion, a sacred messenger with heavenly power. The Book of Hours, named after her Of®ce, was a later manifestation of the supreme position she held in the Christian West, the hours illustrated with miniatures from her life and that of her son. Another close member of her family, John the Baptist, was second only to the Virgin in intercessory powers, venerated for his humanity, petitioned for his prayers and frequently a subject of imagery. Every church, the focal point in any parish, was dedicated to a particular 1 2

3 4

W. G. Ryan, trans., Legenda Aurea (Princeton 1993), v±viii. E. MaÃle, Religious Art in France: the Thirteenth Century, trans. M. Mathews (Princeton 1984). For the cult of saints, see Hamilton, Religion in the Medieval West, 124±6. E. A. Livingstone, CODCC (Oxford 1977; repr. 1987), 267±8.


216

THE GLORIOUS COMPANY

saint, of whom even the most apathetic parishioners could not be unaware.5 In the liturgical calendar, saints were commemorated chronologically and their festivals had long been used for dating documents. By the thirteenth century, this became normal practice for manuscripts in general.6 Markets and fairs, so much part of the way of life, were also known by the saints' days on which they were held; and rents were paid and courts were convened on saints' days. Seasons, too, were named after saints, and Michaelmas, Martinmas and St Luke's tide were particular terms of the agricultural year. Life revolved both spiritually and socially around saints and their festivals, which regulated people's lives from Advent to harvest. Within the church building, the saint's image had a didactic purpose, a tangible yet Holy object to which parishioners were attracted by the representation, the colour and the decoration. Emblems, like hagiological armorials, were carved, painted and glazed for all to see in order that they could be recognized. Saints' attributes, equally well known, were mostly modelled on their ghastly deaths. Although St Peter, the doorkeeper to the kingdom of heaven, was known by his keys, these were often depicted upside down to remind the faithful of Peter's cruci®xion, feet uppermost. A ¯aying knife recalled St Bartholomew, ¯ayed alive and sometimes depicted with his skin folded carefully over his forearm. Pauper explained simply and exactly the importance of religious images when he said that they had been òrdeynyd to steryn mannys affeccioun and his herte to devocioun, for often man is more steryd by syghte than by herynge', and, for those of little or no learning, images were à tokene and a book to the lewyd peple, that they moun redyn in ymagerye and peynture that clerkys redyn in boke. . .'.7 In such a world, where literacy was sparse, imagery had to catch and hold the imagination at a glance. Apostles, evangelists and the Fathers of the Church were saints of proven dependability and humanity and were universally revered; but there were also home-grown saints who gave a national or regional ¯avour to the medieval calendar and are now invaluable as a means of identi®cation in the provenance of liturgical manuscripts. Throughout England, Thomas of Canterbury was the most famous post-Conquest saint, and was also greatly honoured throughout Europe. In London, St Erkenwald was of particular signi®cance; in East Anglia, the royal Anglo-Saxon saints, especially Etheldreda and Edmund, were of regional importance; and very locally there were the saints known to only a few like St Walstan who, although claimed by Bawburgh in Norfolk, was traditionally born in Blythburgh to the king of Southwold and his wife, Blida, perhaps a corruption of Blythburgh.8 5 6

7 8

N. Orme, English Church Dedications (Exeter 1996), 11±41. C. R. Cheney, ed., Handbook of Dates for Students of English History, RHS (repr. London 1981), 40±1. P. H. Barnum, ed., Dives And Pauper, EETS cclxxv (1976±80), pt ii, 82. Williamson, `Norfolk Rood-screens', 309; M. R. James, `The Lives of St Walstan', Norfolk Archaeology xix (1917), 238±67.


THE SACRED MESSENGERS

217

Walstan relinquished his royal position, and, disposing of his regal garb to poor men, worked as a reaper in the ®elds. He is seen on Norfolk roodscreens wearing a crown and carrying his emblem, a scythe, and is sometimes portrayed with the oxen that bore his body to Bawburgh Church: In Blyborow town ys child [Walstan] borne was; his father Benet, his mother Blythe by name, their blessing received, he went apace as he was monished & followed ye same, To forsake both father, kingdome, and dame Christ's disciple if he would be, and follow Christ in wilfull pov(e)rtie.9

There were also the `late saints', whose inclusion in religious imagery helps to date it: late-comers from abroad like the thirteenth-century housemaid, St Sitha (Zita) of Lucca, who provided a new dimension in lay spirituality and became a popular image on rood-screens;10 popular English saints such as the conjuring doctor, John Schorne, active in the ®rst half of the fourteenth century; St Roche, the fourteenth-century plague saint from Montpellier. Saints such as these can provide a terminus ante quem in much the same way as St Anne, her popularity dormant until the late fourteenth century (see Chapter Five). Parishioners turned to these saints who, having been mortal, had withstood human temptations and had triumphed for God during their life on earth. Each saint was unique, identi®able, a reality to those who sought their help, each and every saint an invisible friend.

The Messengers of Prayer There is nothing more natural than a desire to feast the eyes on an object of devotion and it is not surprising that, despite the strictures of the second commandment, imagery became associated with the Christian religion early in its history.11 The words of Gregory the Great to Serenus, the bishop of Marseilles, accepting the need for imagery in an illiterate society, walked a tight-rope between what was acceptable in the dissemination of Christianity to an illiterate people and the breaking of the second commandment, which forbade imagery. The quotation became the most important defence against 9

10

11

Lambeth Palace Library, MS. 935, art.8. The life of St Walstan: This verse is from a poem of Walstan's life transcribed in 1658 from the original, then in the possession of Clark, a recusant of Bowthorp, Norfolk. M. R. James suggested that these verses were probably based on the verse-legends of John Lidgate. S. Sutcliffe, `The Cult of St Sitha in England: an Introduction', Nottingham Medieval Studies xxxvii (1993), 83±9. J. Denton, Ìmage and History', Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England, 1200±1400, ed. J. J. Alexander and P. Binski (London 1987), 20±5; Owst, Literature and Pulpit, 137±40.


218


the critics of images and the cult of saints. Here it is worked into a sermon delivered from a late medieval pulpit: Therfore techeth Seynt Gregorye in a lettre that he wrot to a Byschop and seyth thus: `Leve brother, late it was y-schewed to ous that thou seynge some folke worschepynge ymages wherfore thou breke the ymages and casteth hem out of church. The whiche zele or love that thou haddest that thate, that was y-maked with mannes hondes, scholde nought be worscheped, we preyseth. Bot that thou scholdest nought have y-broke hem, we demeth'. For Gregorie seyth here ± `fore peynture ys marked in churche that they namelyche that cunneth no letterure scholde read in walles thate that they mowe nought in bokes. And so if a clerk schal worschepe his boke, thenne may another man worschepe an image.'12

Initially, saints' relics had been the focal point of worship, but gradually saintly features, fashioned in wood, on plaster or in glass, were disseminated throughout the Latin Christian world for which, lacking an abundance of the saints' personal relics, images of saints came to perform a comparable role. The proliferation of images went hand in hand with the growth of `popular' religion, epitomized by chantry foundations and gilds, so much so that these innocent objects of religious devotion were eventually decried as objects of idolatry and became targets for criticism, scorn and ®nally destruction. Three-dimensional images were the embodiment of stories told elsewhere in stained glass and mural decoration. They were the `visible' friends in a tangible and rounded form with whom a relaxed, though one-sided relationship, could be established. They built a bridge between this world and the next to which their sacri®ce and martyrdom led to eternal rest. As intercessors, standing images received, and wore, gifts of coats, tunics and shoes, rings, beads, girdles and ornaments of semi-precious stones, many of which had been the valued and singular possessions of the testators, now bequeathed for past favours or future mediation. In place of personal bequests, money was left for gilding or painting a favourite image, and, if the preferred saint was not present, an image was bequeathed. At the least, a candle could be lit to their memory. The provision of the principle image and any other image in the church had been the responsibility of the parishioners since Archbishop Winchelsey's constitution, but images are seldom entered in inventories. In the Archdeaconry of Norwich inventories of 1368, images are not recorded, probably because they were regarded as permanent, immovable ®xtures.13 St Bee's image at Rumburgh was not mentioned in the priory inventories, although the inclusion of her ornaments, tunics and the silver light hanging before her reveal that she was there. Similar references are sometimes the only evidence of imagery previously standing in a church. 12 13

Owst, Literature and Pulpit, 142, quoting from BL, MS Harl. 2398/ 81±2. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, xcviii.



219

Bequests to lights and lamps burning before named saints are common, but what form did these saints take? Were they statues or paintings and, if the latter, were they painted on wood, glass or plaster? Did murals have the same magnetism as statues? Do we know if the mural, Abraham frightening the birds from the Sacri®ce, at Wissett, was more didactic, but less affective, than the imagery of St Christopher on the north wall at Westhall?14 Now it is impossible to say. In wills, images are described as having tabernacles, but this need not represent a free-standing image. At Kelsale, William Bacheler's request for a tabernacle `for the image of St Antony . . . in the side of the window there' could have been an ogee niche like those still to be seen at Reydon (Plate 16). Tabernacles are thought of as gilded sentry-boxes within which free-standing images could be placed with safety, but they may have resembled Westhall's crocketed tabernacle, painted on a south window embrasure, which would have contained a mural of the Virgin Mary. Additional and sometimes unusual saints can be identi®ed when testators ask for burial before a particular image. Benacre had two early testators in 1370 and 1383, one requesting burial before St Michael, the other before the Virgin Mary; and then a later will of 1513 named a third image, St Saviour, before which John Sharp wished to be laid.15 At Covehithe, the image of St Erasmus was only mentioned in reference to a burial place, above or by the side of which he would have been depicted with his entrails wrapped round a windlass, the method of his martyrdom; and similarly the images of Mary Magdalen in All Saints' church at Dunwich, St James the Apostle in St Mary's, Halesworth, the Trinity in St Peter's, Holton, and the window of St Cecilia in Greyfriars' church, Dunwich, next to which Cecilia Lacy asked to be interred, are only known because they pinpointed burial sites in the church.16 The presence of imagery can be identi®ed in many different ways. Hunting®eld's inventory of 1534 notes a cross cloth of silk of Our Lady, and, for the cross cloth to be present, there must have been a Marian image there.17 Similarly, St Andrew had a coat of purple velvet, a banner cloth and two stained cloths, and his image, which is never mentioned, may have been positioned at one of the two `low' altars. The reference to a gilt cross with a cloth of St Margaret points to her image being in the church. The chapel dedicated to St Catherine, mentioned in the will of Robert Stabyll, a Hunting®eld chaplain, presupposes an image and a chantry, of which 14 15

16

17

C. E. Keyser, Buildings Having Mural and Painted Decorations, 286. NRO, NCC Heydon 218, Edmund Calthorpe, rector, Benacre 1383; NCC Heydon 2, John Norton, rector, Benacre 1370; NCC Johnson 168, John Sharp, priest, Benacre 1513. SROI, IC/AA2/2/160, Thomas Nunne, Covehithe 1465; SROI, HD 1538/59/6, John Hervy, Dunwich 1487; SROI, IC/AA2/2/333, William Cros al. Barbor, Halesworth 1476; IC/AA2/3/193, Richard Baret, Holton 1496; IC/AA2/2/228, Cecilia Lacy, Dunwich 1472. SROI, FC 57/A1/1/1±4.


Plate 16. Reydon church: a tabernacle in the embrasure of the north chancel window. Henry Totwey left 12d to the building of the window in 1457. The tabernacle has traces of original colour, the glass is Victorian. Testators leaving money for tabernacles in which to house saints may have had a niche similar to this in mind; but tabernacles could also be free standing, like sentry-boxes, or could be painted on the wall as in Westhall's south window embrasure.



221

Stabyll was the priest.18 Robert Barker, the parson of Hunting®eld, had already made arrangements with John Wade to paint two tabernacles and other images in Hunting®eld church before he made his will in 1510, to be paid for by the parishioners in return for the corn and grain in the priest's barns.19 Barker's will was written at the end of August, and he probably had a good idea of the glebe's yield that year, and would be able to estimate the number of images his èstate' could afford to paint. Hunting®eld's inventory, with the help of supporting wills, shows that a pre-Reformation church could contain more images than might be supposed, and the case-history of this particular parish illustrates the value of the survival of even a single inventory. The fragmentary inventory from Walberswick sheds no light on images, but the churchwardens' accounts do. Alkocke, the carpenter from Blythburgh, was paid 3s 4d for cleaning Walberswick's images in 1463, and received 5 nobles for St John's tabernacle in 1472; later, he constructed the candlebeam in Thorington church.20 Our Lady at Walberswick was painted for 5s, painting the base of her foot cost 8d, her tabernacle another 6s 10d, and then, in 1497, she received two rings of silver and gilt.21 A new St John the Evangelist was to be made to match John the Baptist, who was already in position, and, later, Our Lady's tabernacle in the north aisle was a copy of John the Baptist's tabernacle on the south.22 There were images of St George and St Thomas (presumably of Canterbury); and Henry VI, uncanonized but greatly revered after his death in 1471, had a `table', meaning a panel or a retable (from Latin tabula), and a vicarious pilgrimage was to be made to his tomb at Windsor, which implies a minor cult of Henry VI at Walberswick.23 St James was to be painted and gilded, an altar was dedicated to St Nicholas, and a gild to St Barbara.24 Cecilia Bukke requested burial before St Trinity, but, by 1500, St Andrew was still without a tabernacle as John Almyngham's will reveals ± yet his description illustrates the ultimate in imagery, giving a rich and unusual picture of the canopy over the high altar.25 18 19 20 21

22

23

24

25

NRO, NCC A. Caston 326, Robert Stabyll, priest, Hunting®eld 1486. NRO, NCC Spyltimbre 303, Robert Barker, Hunting®eld 1510. Lewis, Walberswick, 15, 33; ERO, D/DL E55/2. Lewis, Walberswick, 22; SROI, IC/AA2/3/212, Katherine Genyngham, Walberswick 1497. SROI, IC/AA2/8/46, William Ruste, Walberswick 1518; IC/AA2/3/82, Robert Dolfynby, Walberswick 1489. Lewis, Walberswick, 79; SROI, IC/AA2/3/152, Thomas White, Walberswick 1492; for alabaster `tables', see F. W. Cheetham, Medieval English Alabaster Carvings in the Castle Museum, Nottingham (rev. edn Nottingham 1973), 5; Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims, 195. SROI, IC/AA2/8/88, William Terry, Walberswick 1507; IC/AA2/1/161, John Mannyng, Walberswick 1450; IC/AA2/1/123, Thomas Barat, Walberswick 1450. SROI, IC/AA2/3/12, Cecilia Bukke, Walberswick 1482; IC/AA2/4/68, John Almyngham, Walberswick 1500.


222


With the residue of the said sum I will have made a canopy over the high altar well done with Our Lady and four angels and the Holy Ghost going up and down with a chain and if there be no space that the said canopy may not be made then I will that Saint Andrew have a tabernacle with the same money.

This object is not easily imagined, and Almyngham's lack of punctuation complicates the issue. Perhaps only the Holy Ghost went up and down ± at Pentecost? This device sounds similar to one at King's Lynn, described by Thomas Goisman, a visitor from Hull, `. . . [a machine] which will rise and descend at the high altar, as angels go up and down, between the elevation of Christ's body and blood, and the end of the chant Ne nos inducas in temptacionem . . .'.26 Perhaps these were devices peculiar to the East of England. Thomas Bollre, Crat®eld's local painter in the 1490s, charged £2 13s 4d for painting Our Lady's image, £7 for her tabernacle, and £8 6s 8d for painting St Edmund and his tabernacle. The cost of the workmanship in this instance was high and must have involved gilding and perhaps lapis lazuli; and the images were made outside the village, for Jamys Drye was paid 2s for `bearing' three of them.27 Tabernacles for St Margaret, John the Baptist and Saint Antony ± which St Antony was not speci®ed ± were all included in Crat®eld bequests. The saints from these three East Anglian parishes do not show great variety or originality. How would they compare with, say, a sample from the south-west of England? From Ashburton in Devon, it is known that between 1517 and 1530 the image of Our Lady was painted, a new foot was purchased for St Erasmus, Henry VI was mended, St Roche painted and St John's tabernacle was painted for £8. St George and St Thomas Becket were put up and St Andrew acquired a new tunic. St Nectan of Hartland, a Celtic saint, was also present. At Morebath, between 1529 and 1531, another Celtic saint, St Sidwell, was beauti®ed with a wedding ring and a pair of shoes. The community paid 22s for gilding Our Lady, and, for a gilded image of the nativity of Our Lady with a tabernacle, the parishioners paid another £9, nine bequests and various donations defraying some of the expense. A new St George and à new horse to our dragon' with a tabernacle cost £10.28 Apart from the two Celtic saints, the choice of West Country saints did not differ greatly from their East Anglian counterparts. A list of surviving images, compiled in 1883 when the destruction of the nineteenth century had already taken its toll, shows that seven representations of St Sidwell still remained in the west of England, compared with six of St Walstan in the east.29 Incidental costs were also comparable between east and west, although Morebath had only acquired its statue of St Sidwell in 1520, supplied by the priest, Sir Christopher Trychay, who was particularly active 26 27 28 29

Rubin, Corpus Christi, 62. Raven, Crat®eld, 20, 22, 23. Whiting, Blind Devotion of the People, 49±51; see also Hobhouse, Somerset Records. Keyser, Buildings Having Mural and Painted Decorations, 397, 401.



223

in encouraging her cult.30 Overall, there was little to differentiate between the east and west of the country. Between 1420 and 1520, the average proportion of Deanery testators making bequests for images and their lights was roughly 8 per cent, rising to 10 per cent during the decade 1510 to 1520. A sharp fall to 4 per cent followed between 1520 to 1530. Some might argue the decrease in bequests re¯ected a disaffection with imagery, brought about by the teaching and writing of Erasmus, for example; or it might be supposed that the preaching of his friend John Colet, the humanist Dean of St Paul's and the rector of nearby Dennington, was heeded. There is no local evidence to support this supposition and little documentation has survived. Even when considering testaments written between 1520 to 1530, it is impossible to tell which way the local wind was blowing. The apparent lack of interest in imagery may have simply been because there were more than enough images in the churches ± yet, as they lost their appeal for whatever reason, less controversial bequests were on the increase. Given that there was a certain amount of money available to each testator for distribution towards `the health of his soul', the dramatic fall in bequests for imagery between 1520 and 1530 should be compared with the increase in the bequests directed towards the secular needs of the community, such as repairs to roads and bridges, also and always considered as charitable works, but now with a renewed popular appeal in local testaments. While the chancel was undergoing construction at Blythburgh in the ®fteenth century, the usual ¯ow of bequests for images and their maintenance ceased, but when the building work ended, gifts to furnishings and ®ttings resumed. Churches in which no major building work is discernible through the evidence of wills follow a different pattern and show numerous and continuous bequests to images and their lights. Covehithe, for example, had lights dedicated to Our Lady and John the Baptist, St Peter and St Clare, as well as images to its patron, Saint Andrew, and to Our Lady and St Petronilla.31 Southwold received bequests for `torches' honouring St George, John the Baptist, Our Lady, St Peter, St Andrew and St Saviour.32 Saint Edmund, its patron, was not mentioned at all. By the time the high altar was ®nished, £4 4s 4d had been received towards its cost; and Margaret Wilkinson presented a cover of tapestry work to spread before it on `good days', days observed as Holy by the Church.33 30 31

32

33

Hobhouse, Somerset Records, 212; Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 168. SROI, IC/AA2/2/60, Clemencia Thalis, Covehithe 1461; IC/AA2/2/180, John Clerk, Covehithe 1468; IC/AA2/5/174, Robert Stokys, Covehithe 1510; IC/AA2/9/108, John Holme, Covehithe 1525; IC/AA2/4/138, Margery Clerk, Covehithe 1504; IC/ AA2/2/275, William Roper, Covehithe 1473. SROI, IC/AA2/2/4, Thomas Jolle, Southwold 1458; IC/AA2/2/30, John Colcorn, Southwold 1459; IC/AA2/2/14, John Talyower, Southwold 1459; IC/AA2/3/19, Henry Rickman als. Glover, Southwold 1483; IC/AA2/10/64, Thomas Jacson, Southwold 1529. NRO, NCC Robinson 55, Margaret Wilkinson, Southwold 1520.


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When an image was seen elsewhere and admired, it was copied. A replica of St George's image, seen at Harwich, was at Sizewell chapel, and, at Walberswick, Our Lady of Pity was to be painted like a similar image in Southwold.34 Wrentham housed St Catherine, St Sitha's image was to be stand above the altar dedicated to St Nicholas at Ubbeston, and Kelsale had acquired St Antony.35 A new image of St Agnes was bequeathed to Halesworth and the high altar was replaced and gilded between 1522 and 1530 at a total cost of £1 10s.36 St Barbara was St Margaret's neighbour at Easton Bavents, and the patron, St Nicholas, was to be painted from Richard Thomson's gift.37 Our Lady of Arneburgh in Yarmouth, outside the Deanery yet within the diocese, received bequests, her image at Ardenbourg in the Low Countries having been visited by Edward III after the Battle of Sluys, in which many men from Yarmouth fought under his command; and John Wyllyamson left 6s 8d to St Adryan `beyond the see', probably Adrian of Canterbury (d. 710), who accompanied Theodore, the new incumbent of the Canterbury archbishopric, to England in 668.38 East Anglia was rich in wood, and images were probably made in oak and then painted. Smaller images of alabaster, carved in Nottingham and painted there or in the Deanery, were popular too. Carved alabaster panels, often ®ve or seven in number, were framed in wood and set up as altarpieces.39 Alabaster `tables' or retables were at Reydon and Southwold, the latter a gift from Master Scolys to the town of Southwold, to which he also bequeathed much of his movable estate.40 Southwold's patron, St Edmund, would have made a ®ne subject for narrative panels behind the high altar.41 Alabaster work was frequently related to the dedication of the church, and St Margaret's church, Reydon, was left 6s 8d `to the new alabaster table of the story of St Margaret'.42 Alabaster tables were also bequeathed to the gild altar of John the Baptist at 34

35

36

37

38

39 40 41

42

NRO, NCC Copinger 36, Thomas Wells, Sizewell Heath 1520; SROI, IC/AA2/2/308, Margaret Boty, Walpole 1474; IC/AA2/2/256, Hery Boty, Walberswick 1470. NRO, NCC Woolman 247, Thomas Serle, Wrentham 1495; SROI, IC/AA2/2/179, William Noyse, Ubbeston 1468; IC/AA2/7/122, William Bacheler, Kelsale 1515. NRO, NCC A. Caston 172±3, William Chapelle, Halesworth 1483; IC/AA2/9/158, William Smyth, 1522; IC/AA2/10/177, John Fyske, mercer, Halesworth 1530; IC/ AA2/10/173, John Kenett, Halesworth 1530. NRO, NCC Cage 185, John Chylderhows, Easton Bavents 1500; NCC Awbrey 93, Margaret Butt, Easton Bavents 1485; NCC Awbrey 93±4, Peter Westwynd, Easton Bavents 1486; NCC Awbrey 67, Richard Thomson, Easton Bavents 1487. SROI, IC/AA2/7/193, John Swan, Blythburgh 1515; A. W. Morant, `Notices of the Church of St Nicholas, Great Yarmouth', Norfolk Archaeology vii (1872), 223; SROI, IC/AA2/7/25, John Wyllyamson, òtherwise called John Cowper', Walberswick 1513. Cheetham, Medieval English Alabaster Carvings, 59. NRO, NCC Betyns 83, Master Roger Scolys, Reydon 1470. Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters (Oxford 1984), 96±8; Victoria and Albert Museum A120±1946, A120A±1946, A120B±1946. NRO, NCC Brosyard 79, Henry Totweye, Reydon-next-the-Sea 1457; a panel carved with the ®gure of St Margaret with her long-staffed cross and dragon is in the Victoria and Albert Museum A191±1946, see Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 128.



225

Kelsale and to the high altar of St Nicholas at Wrentham.43 None of this carved imagery has survived, but in Melford church in west Suffolk there is a solitary alabaster panel depicting the Adoration of the Magi, and at St Bartholomew's, Orford, a carved fragment, found in the village, would have been part of a larger work.44 Alabaster in the form of St John's Head, a small painted alabaster plaque representing the beheaded Baptist, was bequeathed by Agnes Nolloth to her son-in-law.45 This was a common form of domestic religious imagery, produced in the Midlands for private devotions, but eventually prohibited by the injunctions of 1547.

Saints Alive Despite the tradition of radical Protestantism in East Anglia since the late sixteenth century and the pursuance of low-church doctrine and liturgy thereafter, the painted rood-screens of the area can stand comparison with any in the British Isles. It is a constant wonder that there is still so much to be seen. The west of England and Wales, particularly, boast superbly carved rood-screens, but their very composition, heavy in structure and deeply cut, denies the need for painting.46 Their glory is in their fabrication and patterned decoration. The rood-screens of East Anglia, on the other hand, are lightly assembled and carved with deft ®ligree so that they appear tall, elegant and open. They can take the paint, the gold leaf, the gesso and the panels of saints that troop along the wainscot. The saintly images are the remnants of those which suffused the late medieval church, and their survival is due, in some cases, to coats of whitewash, the very medium which was meant to obliterate them and so dim the memory of the faithful. Occasionally a document will be found which shows the intention of the parishioners to erect a screen or a rood-beam (candlebeam). Henry Chestyn's accounts reveal that there was to be a new candlebeam at Thorington. This is the agreement made between Henry Chestan of Thorington and William Alcock of Blythburgh. Memorandum. It is agreed that the said William Alcock will place a beam as a candlebeam in the parish church of Thorington under the price of £3 when he has received the money from Henry Chestan. Imprimis 3s 4d. Item 1 comb of wheat 3s 4d. 43

44

45

46

NRO, NCC Brosyard 7, Joanne Bertram, Kelsale 1457; SROI, IC/AA2/2/267, Symon Wylde, Wrentham 1472. For an illustration, see Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 18, or Dymond and Paine, The Spoil of Melford, pl. 4. SROI, IC/AA2/9/28, Agnes Nolloth, Heveningham 1524; see also Archaeologia, lii (1890), 669±708; Rubin, Corpus Christi, 315. A. Vallance, English Church Screens being Great Roods, Screenwork and Rood-lofts of Parish Churches in England and Wales (London 1936), 48±56.


226 Item Item Item Item Item Item


1 quarter of malt 4s 8d. 1 quarter of faggots price 6s. at the feast of St Michael the archangel 3s 4d. at another time to the said William 2s. 2 cheeses price 10d. Item for half a comb of wheat 1s. for one tree of poplar 1s 4d.47

William Alkocke appears in the Walberswick churchwardens' accounts several times, but particularly during 1472 when he was making St John's tabernacle. He was obviously the craftsman responsible for much of the woodwork in the local churches, although his rood-beam at Thorington has not survived. At Covehithe in 1501, Beatrice Bekker left money `to the paynting of Marye and John by the crucifyxe ovyr the candilbeme', a word commonly used for the rood-beam in Suffolk.48 At Wissett, the rood-beam has been retained. The Deanery still contains three ®ne painted screens at Westhall, Southwold and Bram®eld, the survivors of East Anglian artistic endeavour. Westhall's screen bears the donors' inscription and includes a late medieval feast in its iconography. Southwold screen seems to have been conceived as a complete iconographic programme based on the Te Deum. The decorative interpretation of the canticle extended upwards to include the celure over the Rood and today is an important survival and evidence of corporate patronage, artistic achievement and religious conviction. Bram®eld is probably the most complete screen in Suffolk, but no bequest towards its erection survives, its intricacy making it unlikely to have been the product of a single bequest. All three show communal input was needed for such undertakings, and although it is not known why particular saints were chosen, each screen proclaims the beliefs of late medieval parishioners. Seldom can the precise development of a parish church be traced as accurately as it can be at St Andrew's, Westhall.49 It was altered c. 1316 by its new patrons, the prior and convent of Holy Trinity, Norwich, to accommodate the requirements of the late medieval liturgy, and documentary and archaeological evidence here coincide.50 In the fourteenth century, the new patrons re-sited, rebuilt and enlarged the chancel, resulting in a building almost as long as the new nave and a chancel arch of grand proportions. A permanent structure was necessary to demarcate the church on earth (the nave) from the heavenly kingdom beyond (the chancel), and the prior and convent separated their kingdom from that of the parish by building a stone screen, the moulded remains of which can be seen on either side of the chancel arch. Only the lower part of the present timber rood47 48 49 50

ECRO, D/DL E55/2 NRO, NCC Multon 126, Beatrice Bekker, Covehithe 1501. See Middleton-Stewart, `St Andrew's, Westhall'. P. Draper, Àrchitecture and Liturgy', Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England, 1200±1400, ed. J. J. Alexander and P. Binski (London 1987), 83±91, at 83, 88.



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screen is intact, and the north screen bears the names of the donors.51 The worn black letter inscription is translated below. The names of two pairs of donors are painted along the top sill above the four painted panels thus: Margaret his wife

Pray for the soul of Thomas Feltom

St James the Great, St Leonard, Michael the Archangel, St Clement Pray for the soul of Richard Love & for the good estate of Margaret Alen, widow who made this Moses, Salvator Mundi, Elijah, St Antony Abbot

The true interest lies in the choice of imagery. Margaret and Thomas Feltham may have chosen the saints immediately below their names, and Richard Love and Margaret Alen, whoever she may have been, may have done the same, but it is not certain why. St Thomas and St Margaret, representing Thomas and Margaret Feltham, and St Andrew, the patron saint of the church, are not depicted on the north side, unlike some surviving screen panels where the saints have a titular relationship with the donor; and the female saints on the south side do not represent the names of the ladies of Westhall.52 Occasionally a gild patron may appear on a rood-screens, but there is no Holy Trinity at Westhall and there was no St Edmund's gild at Southwold. The Felthams' choice of saints were St James the Great, a pilgrim en route to his own shrine at Santiago de Compostela, and St Leonard, the patron saint of prisoners, holding fetters and a bishop's crook.53 St Michael the Archangel is depicted in armour, a warrior-saint, waging war on the dragon, representing the devil. Michael's shield is charged with rays, which identi®es this as Michael and not St George, whose shield would have borne a cross.54 There is a suspicion of wings, too, on the left hand side, but the deciding factor is the head-dress, a type of tiara worn by angels in the stained glass at Blythburgh, indicating that this ®gure is angelic and saintly. Lastly, St Clement, the ®rst of the Apostolic Fathers, carries the anchor to which he was lashed before being thrown overboard. Richard Love and Margaret Alen were the donors of the Trans®guration, identi®ed by the ®gures of Moses, horned and carrying his tablets, Christ, saviour of the world, and Elijah (the Feast of the Trans®guration was made a 51

52

53

54

NRO, NCC Hubert 15, John Feltham, Westhall 1469: he was the father of Thomas Feltham; NRO, NCC Johnson 244, Richard Love, Westhall 1509. Williamson, `Norfolk Rood-screens', 299; see also Duffy, `Holy Maydens, Holy Wyfes', 175±96. Williamson, `Norfolk Rood-screens', 315; D. Attwater, The Penguin Dictionary of Saints (Harmondsworth 1883), 212. C. Woodforde, `The Fifteenth-century Glass in Blythburgh Church', PSIA xxi (1931± 33), 234; Hall, Subjects and Symbols in Art, 136±7, 208; S. Crewe, Stained Glass in England, c.1180±1540 (London 1987), 45, pl. 28; 59, pl. 44; 62, pl. 46±7.


228


feast of the universal church in 1456 and was adopted in England at the end of the ®fteenth century.)55 The fourth and last ®gure was Anthony Abbot, accompanied by his pig, its bell at its throat. Richard Love was a wealthy parishioner, whose will was not proved until 19 February 1512. There is no mention of his bequest, which must have been supplied by his widow, Alice, and his only child, Margaret. Alice was still alive at the time of the 1524 subsidy in which she appears as a tax-payer. Margaret married William Baret of Blythburgh, related to the Baret family of Crat®eld and Bury St Edmunds. Alice, Margaret and William all appear in Love's will. There is no further reference to Margaret Alen and she cannot be identi®ed. As the donor inscription infers that Richard Love is already dead, the date of the north screen cannot be before 1512, when probate was granted. The inclusion of the Trans®guration on the screen is an unusual survival, possibly unique in England; and the imagery of this recently introduced feast would possibly have been considered avant garde in 1512 and may have well been Richard's personal choice. In his rather pious will, he also requested the mass of the Five Wounds to be sung in the chapel of Scala Coeli at Westminster (see Chapter Five). Westhall is a rare survival, but the ®gure painting is not of high quality, the saints being placed uncomfortably in their panels, their halos and mitres clipped by the transverse member of the screen frame. The panels retain good colour, but the saintly ®gures are squat, the drapery square and Germanic, unlike the elegant international Gothic drapery cloaking the ®gures on the screen at nearby Southwold. On the south screen there is no donor inscription. The colour is bad, the condition worse and the tracery has vanished, but St Etheldreda, St Sitha, St Agnes, St Bridget, St Catherine, St Dorothy, St Margaret of Antioch and St Apollonia, virgins all, Duffy's `privileged intercessors in extremity', form a stylistically cohesive group and are more re®ned than their male companions to the north.56 Re®ned, too, were they in their inviolate state of purity, and, however attractive they may appear in comparison to their coarser male companions, they also sit uncomfortably within their panels, being too big for the rectangular space in which they are set. These ladies are by another hand and differ so markedly in all respects from their male counterparts that it could be suggested that they are not in their original position and may have come from an adjacent chapel, or even from another church. Developed churches such as Halesworth used parclose screens to mark the division between the aisles of nave and chancel. Covehithe, Walberswick, Blythburgh and Southwold, however, great ®fteenth-century churches of one build with a continuous nave and chancel roof, screened the span of nave and side aisles with vast muntins and horizontal rails, panels below and lofts above, which provided privacy for consecration at the side altars as well 55 56

Metford, Christian Lore and Legend, 245; Hall, Subjects and Symbols in Art, 306±7. Duffy, `Holy Maydens, Holy Wyfes', 180±5, 191.



229

as at the high altar. Blythburgh retains both its aisle screens and part of the central screen, all bereft of decoration and colour, although there was some painting in the lower panels partly covered by whitewash at the end of the nineteenth century.57 Only Southwold boasts an entire painted and gilded screen, almost 60 feet across from north to south, as much a corporate effort as the north screen at Westhall, but of far superior quality. Bequests came from Southwold testators between 1459 to 1481 towards its making, decoration and painting, and Thomas Sewall's bequest in 1474 was for painting the tympanum behind the Rood.58 These gifts, however generous, can only have provided a fraction of the money needed to underwrite such a project. The length of time taken to complete a screen of such a size is evident from the staggered dates of the bequests. The programme chosen for Southwold's screen was extensive and was painted by different hands at different times. The twelve apostles occupy the central panels, six on either side of the entrance to the chancel, and they follow the style of the Ranworth `family' of screen paintings.59 The similarity of Southwold's central ®gures to those at Ranworth, and the resemblance of individual saints to those at Hunstanton, Filby, North Elmham and North Walsham, suggests a painting shop, possibly in Norwich. There is nothing unusual in the way the apostles are represented; they hold their attributes, and stand stif¯y elegant, paired and turned towards each other across an intermediate buttress, their broadly splayed feet standing on a tiled ¯oor that makes no concession to perspective. It is how they are represented in their surroundings that makes Southwold screen memorable. Each ®gure wears a thickly patterned robe of weighty gold damask with a cope thereover. Their haloes are similarly patterned and substantial. The defaced ®gures are set against gesso and gilt backgrounds patterned with vines, ¯owers and trellis. As borders of stamped gesso run behind the apostles' heads, and painted and gilded gesso continues along and across the moulded frame and over the tracery heads of the panels, this decoration must have been applied in situ. The main buttresses of costly and very individual workmanship have gesso panels, with minute panels of goldleaf, and ®gurative painting picked out in ®ne black brushwork. Of greater interest and unique composition are the Nine Orders of Angels or the Heavenly Hierarchy on the north choir screen. The Orders of Angels are not commonly found, although they are also on the screen at Barton Turf, a rare example of supreme workmanship within the region dated about 1440, but unlike Southwold in style.60 At Southwold, the ®rst panel carries 57 58

59 60

Keyser, Buildings Having Mural and Painted Decorations, 31. SROI, IC/AA2/2/30, John Colcorn, 1459; IC/AA2/2/14, John Talyowrer, 1459; IC/ AA2/2/67, William Grantham, 1461; NRO, NCC Betyns, Master Roger Scolys, 1470; IC/AA2/3/2, Henry Burgess, 1481; NRO, NCC Gilberd 28, Thomas Sewell, Southwold, 1474. NRO, NCC Awbrey 13, Robert Iryng, Ranworth 1479. Lasko and Morgan, Medieval Art in East Anglia, 48±9; Keyser, Buildings Having Mural


230


the donor inscription, Òrate pro animabus Johanne . . .', but the donors' surname and his wife's Christian name have been removed, although a merchant's mark appears at the foot of each panel. Each angel is an individual and is singularly attired, for there is no stereotyped pattern here. They are set against ¯owered landscapes of blue, and the traceried heads of the panels show alternate red and green backgrounds. The angels wear gold, the details picked out in black, and, although defaced, the details of their hair, hands and feet are skilfully worked. Dionysius the Areopagite, according to legend, had recorded St Paul's vision of the third heaven, and, from this, the angels were classi®ed in nine choirs of three hierarchies, each with its own attributes and functions, each order responsible for an order of humanity.61 Of the three hierarchies, the ®rst were counsellors who perpetually glori®ed God: Cherubim, Seraphim and Thrones (Plate IV). They are six-winged and Seraphim's ¯esh is painted scarlet. He holds a scroll inscribed, `Holy, Holy, Holy' (panel 7). Cherubim, the symbol of eternity, is dressed in the feathery body-stocking associated with angels in medieval drama, bells dangling from a hip-girdle like a late medieval Papageno (panel 6). Thrones carries a tower-like monstrance and is walking downhill (panel 8). The second hierarchy, the governors of the stars and the elements, were Dominions, Virtues and Powers. Dominions wears a chasuble with a cope over; he stands on a church holding chalice and orb (panel 5). Virtues wears clerical dress and carries a crown and ¯aming chalice (panel 10); and Powers, in armour, holds a scourge and leads a chained dragon, the conquered devil (panel 4). The third hierarchy were messengers: Principalities, Archangels and Angels. Principalities, carrying a sceptre, hovers over a miniature walled town with fanciful elevations and a timber-framed building at its centre (panel 9). God's messenger, the archangel Gabriel, wears an ermine tippett and Michael, the feathered archangel, holds the sword of war and scales for weighing souls (panels 2 and 3). An angel bears souls in a cloth to be weighed in judgement (panel 11), and the ®rst and last panel are ®lled with angelic supporters holding the shield of the Trinity and the chalice and host. In the south aisle there are a further twelve panels, six on either side of the entrance to the south choir aisle, each containing a prophet. These are by a different hand, being less elegant and not so stylish, but the treatment, too, is very restrained with no gesso, and `barber-pole' paintwork decorates the frame. The ®gures have not worn well and look more like prophets of doom rather than foretellers of good tidings, but there is no mistaking the tall, aesthetic form of the international Gothic style. Baruch, Hosea, Nahum,

61

and Painted Decorations, 362. Three screens displaying the Orders of Angels were listed in 1883, the third being at Tavistock, Devon. Irstead, Norfolk, had a mural of the Orders (now gone), and Madron, Cornwall, and the Beauchamp chantry at Warwick had painted ®gures; the Orders were in glass at Salle, Norfolk, and are in All Saints' Church, North Street, York. Metford, Christian Lore and Legend, 26.



231

Jeremiah, Elias, Moses, King David, Isaiah, Jonah and Ezekiel have survived: Amos and one other is missing. The rood-screen panels illustrate many components from the canticle Te Deum laudamus. On the north screen, the ®rst panel depicts the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost; in subsequent panels stand the cherubim, seraphim, and àll the Powers therein': and angels chanting Holy, Holy Holy. The central panels of the screen are dedicated to `the glorious company of the Apostles', and the `goodly fellowship of the Prophets' occupying the south screen. Only the noble army of Martyrs is missing, but the building itself is dedicated to the East Anglian martyr, King Edmund. Above the rood-screen, the painted celure of twenty painted panels carries symbols of the Passion, and angels bearing scrolls inscribed with phrases from Te Deum laudamus, which reinforce, in words, the imagery on the screen below.62 Southwold's screen and celure is one great paean of praise, a visual representation of the canticle, the introductory words of which are painted on the lower edges of the north celure. Opposite are the word Te Deum con®temur. A description of the celure before its restoration in the nineteenth century, accompanied by a drawing, was forwarded to the British Archaeological Association by the ubiquitous Hamlet Watling in 1869, in which he considered that it was painted about 1500.63 The Southwold rood-screen programme is a product of corporate patronage and the consequence of corporate consent, the iconography and execution a result of planning rather than a happy coincidence. It was positioned below the new roof in a contemporary building, which rivalled the best that East Anglia had to offer, and took over twenty-one years to complete, an undertaking planned and ®nanced by a growing and thriving mercantile community. There was every reason for the new Corporation to praise God in Te Deum laudamus.64 No bequests survive for Bram®eld's rood-screen, but its extravagant nature suggests it needed more than one person's money. In 1896, Hamlet Watling wrote that the ®gures on the screen were boarded up `till I opened it in 1842 which no doubt saved them from being mutilated'.65 The Evangelists and Mary Magdalene survive from the original eight ®gures, the missing three described as èffaced' in 1883.66 There is a familial likeness between the these saints and those at Martham in Norfolk, but at Bram®eld they are set amidst a network of carved and painted screenwork, with upper lights and coved vaulting below the vestiges of the rood-loft. 62

63 64 65 66

Cautley, Suffolk Churches, 348. The celure was repainted in the nineteenth century, but the iconography and the original colouring was followed exactly. Words from Benedictus are inscribed on the scrolls held by angels; Vallance, English Screens, 14. JBAA xxv (1869), 282; see also PSIA ii (1849), 170±1. Southwold was promoted to borough status in 1488/9. SROI, HD 475/1/21. Keyser, Buildings Having Mural and Painted Decorations, 36.


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There was a Lady chapel in the church and a gild dedicated to St Thomas, both mentioned in 1478 by Walter Dyke, the vicar.67 Their locations are unknown, but, either end of the wainscot panelling, there are four blank panels where side altars once stood. The tracery lights above would have provided a reredos for a side altar, as at Ranworth, but now the lights are void of imagery. The vaulting on the south of the screen has tiny angels painted on the blue webs, referring to Regina Angelorum, the queen of Heaven or the Queen of Angels, a name used for the Virgin from the early Middle Ages. These small angels indicate her altar was on the south side, as much as the gilly-¯owers, painted on the rails, also personify the Virgin. The decoration on the south screen is fuller, the gesso thicker, than on the north. If the Lady chapel was on the south, the gild altar of St Thomas was probably on the north. The webbing of the coved vault is intricate, forming a series of crosses which, as described in the section `the Cult of the Holy Rood' in Chapter Five, were probably designed to highlight the Good Rood of Bram®eld on the north wall.

Patterns of Bequests Across the Deanery, the spread of bequests show that rood-screens were being built, were about to be painted, were being repaired or were receiving gifts of rood-cloths or rood-lights; and over half the Deanery churches received money `to the candlebeam', the generic term for the rood-beam in Suffolk. Bequests for candlebeams peaked around 1500, fell in 1510, fell further still in 1520, and then virtually disappeared, but bequests for images and their lights started to decrease after 1510. The pattern of bequests is similar to the county of Suffolk as a whole, and no unusual peaks and troughs can be singled out. The appearance of images in the Deanery churches can only be surmised, for there is no indication of whether they were free-standing, painted on walls or glazed in windows. The materials from which they were made is unknown, neither is there any suggestion of their height or width, nor allusion to the tints or shades applied to their form. The shape of some, however, made them suitable recipients of cloths, clothing, jewellery and trinkets which were personal possessions of the testators. The ®nancial outlay for painting and gilding was considerable, the materials being far more expensive than the labour. The recording of lights and siting of burial places reveals the presence of images which are otherwise unrecorded, and images, although dif®cult to quantify, were far more common than might be supposed. They were the visible, tangible evidence of the sacred messengers, the invisible friends in a 67

NRO, NCC Gelour 192, Walter Dyke, vicar, Bram®eld 1478.



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world where the whole of life itself, and the aftermath of death, was moulded by the belief in the ef®cacy of intercession. In the Deanery, bequests for images and lights fell after 1510, earlier than expected, for bequests could have continued undiminished until the prohibitions of the Crown made such bequests impossible some twenty®ve years later. As religious freedom was curtailed, however, charitable acts implied by bequests for social improvements, such as roads, bridges, piers, jetties and almshouses, comforted the soul as much as the lighting of a taper, and, as the lights gutted and dimmed, testators employed the acceptable, and lawful, alternative to former `superstitious practices'. The Deanery contains three ®ne painted screens at Southwold, Westhall and Bram®eld, remnants of artistic endeavour which perhaps stemmed from Norwich, for some ®gures are related to surviving Norwich work. None of them is the product of a single bequest and they highlight the communal input required to furnish more expensive necessities. Southwold screen was conceived as a programme in relation to the celure above the rood, an important example of corporate patronage, artistic achievement and religious conviction. Westhall is valuable because it includes a late medieval feast in its iconography, and Bram®eld is probably the most complete screen in Suffolk with its vaulted cove and painting. It is not known why particular saints were chosen for the Deanery screens, there being no obvious associations with donors or parishioners. Many fragmented screens and panels remain elsewhere in Deanery churches.


11 Divine Lights Than cam ther a confessour coped as a frere. . . . `We have a wyndow in werchynge, wole stonden us ful hye; Woldestow glaze that gable and grave therinne thy name, Sykir sholde thi soule b hevene to have . . . .' `Have mercy,' quod Mede, . . . Ànd I shal covere youre kirk, youre cloistre do maken, Wowes do whiten and wyndowes glazen, Do peynten and portraye [who paied] for the makynge That every segge shall see I am suster of youre house.' from The Vision of Piers Plowman, Passus III

[Then there came a confessor coped as a friar. . . . `We have a window being worked on that will cost us a lot; if you would glaze that gable and engrave your name there, your soul will be certain to have Heaven . . . .' `Have mercy,' said Mede, ànd I will ®nd funds for your church roof, provide you with a cloister, have your walls white-washed and your windows glazed, and have painted and portrayed who paid for the work, so that every soul shall see I am a sister of your house.']

The very nature of glass makes its survival remarkable. Throughout England, thousands of church windows retain small, friable fragments of late medieval glass which are now preserved in tracery lights or òtherwise turned up, their heels into the place where their heads used to be ®xed'.1 Yet it is not only the fragility of glass that has made its survival unlikely. Apart from Acts of God, such as tempests, hailstones and other natural catastrophes, the cause of destruction has been man, and glass has suffered both at the hands of men and small boys.2 Late medieval glass was attacked in the assault on images in the sixteenth century at the time of the Reformation and in the seventeenth century during the Commonwealth; and neglect in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, when glass disappeared at an alarming rate, did more damage than Protestant vandalism.3 The space available on walls and windows allowed for grand illustration. 1 2

3

Weever, Funerall Monuments, 50. P. A. Newton, The County of Oxford: A Catalogue of Medieval Stained Glass, Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi Great Britain, I, British Academy (1979), 89. W. L. E. Parsons, Salle (Norwich 1937), 61±3.


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Walls lacked the compartmental nature of mullioned windows, but mural composition was still governed by and adapted to the architectural form of the building. Paintings of The Last Judgement in the spandrels of a chancel arch, such as Bacton in Suffolk, show how wall surfaces could be utilized. A tympanum, inserted in the arch itself above the rood-beam as at Wenhaston, was frequently used to depict the same dire future. The expanse of glass in windows subdivided by mullions, transoms and tracery was used to good effect to produce a serial exposition of religious belief and teaching, such as the Corporal Works of Mercy or the history of a saint. A discrete area could be set apart for the painting of individuals, either in isolation or grouped in series, and the ®gures were often placed beneath a glazed canopy of architectural intricacy speci®cally designed to ®ll the awkward space formed by the masonry above. Panels of varying sizes were invaluable for the donor portrait, the most popular form of glazed commemoration. These were often bordered by animals or foliage, while the traceried lights at the top, formed by the intersecting ribwork into roundels, quatrefoils and lunettes, were ®lled with angels' heads, coats of arms, crests, and the ¯owers, the birds and the beasts so beloved of the East Anglian manuscript painters and so frequently appearing in the margins of psalters and books of hours. Tracery lights often remain intact because they were too high for iconoclasts to reach and the smaller areas of glass were less easily damaged by storms. Narrative windows were well liked in the ®fteenth and sixteenth centuries by a largely illiterate population who were accustomed to learning their faith by looking at pictorial representations, or by listening to moral preaching, overlaid with more than a little àrtistic licence' by men who painted delightful descriptions with words and told easily digestible tales which caught the popular imagination. The people were instructed by plays and pageants of well-loved, well-selected, didactic stories, acted by troupes of local players, and, when a little rough humour spiced these vernacular performances, so much the better. If art, literature and drama were the teachers, looking, listening and watching provided the learning skills of the illiterate. The Harrowing of Hell, while providing a spectacular scene in many of the plays, was a pageant in its own right, performed by the cooks and innkeepers of Chester, but, because of its vivid portrayal, the Harrowing was also a favourite subject depicted in stained glass and wall paintings with great effect.4 It is the indispensable Walberswick churchwardens' accounts which supply the evidence of players arriving in the parish from Blythburgh, Wenhaston and Bram®eld to perform the `blybur may', `Wenyston game' and `brownfeld game', dramatic performance perhaps, rather than village football.5 In the Wenhaston Doom, the central devil, black and brooding, 4 5

A. C. Cawley, ed., Everyman and Medieval Miracle Plays (repr. London 1997), 149. Lewis, Walberswick, 65, 69, 73, 81: 68: 71: 245, 253; `. . . blybur may', found in some


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bears a likeness to Titivillus, the arch demon from the play Mankind;6 and the angels' feathery apparel shaped like modern `body-stockings', spied in the glass remnants at Blythburgh and Wissett and on the rood-stair door at South Cove, re¯ect the garb worn in dramatic productions.

Testamentary Evidence In the Deanery, testamentary bequests and churchwardens' expenditure for glass are scarce, and it is almost possible to believe that the vast Perpendicular windows in the Deanery's churches were seldom glazed. Inventories, too, are silent on glazing, although fenestrae vitreae were to be kept under repair as required by Winchelsey's constitutions;7 and when `windows' are mentioned in wills, often the masonry cannot be distinguished from the glass. An early bequest was made by Edmund Calthorpe, rector of Benacre in 1383, for a window of three lights on the north side of Benacre chancel.8 Whether this included glazing he did not say, but, as the church was rebuilt from the sills up and `completely re-edi®ed' by the Gooch family in 1769, there is now no late fourteenth-century window, if, in fact, it were ever made.9 A new window was to be built on the north of Reydon chancel in 1457 to which Henry Totweye left 12d, hardly a sum worth mentioning except as part of a corporate effort, and Henry's bequest may have purchased a quarry or two. When William Garrould left a bequest for making à glass window on the north side' of Linstead Parva's nave in 1530, his intention must have been to supply both masonry and glazing;10 but at Uggeshall, nothing is known about the Jewles' involvement in the glazing of the church except that, below the west window, their plea for remembrance, orate pro animabus, was carved into the stone and is now barely legible. Seven Deanery wills specify glazing, of which only three indicate the subject chosen. The ®rst of these three is found in a will of 1534. Robert Duckett, one of the duke of Suffolk's bailiffs, charged his executors to sell lands in Wiltshire and Suffolk and, from the pro®ts, to put £100 toward his references, may refer to the Blythburgh players' presence at a May churchale, see Northeast, Boxford Churchwardens' Accounts, 80, `Notes on Introduction', note 13, where he quotes from Mildenhall's churchwardens' accounts `for the pleyers at the May all (ale)'; D. Dymond, À Lost Social Institution: the Camping Close', Rural History i, pt ii (1990), 165±92, at 187: `. . . words like ``play'' and ``game'' were used ambiguously from medieval times to the seventeenth century, and could, in the absence of further information, refer to sport or drama or both'. 6 Whale, `The Wenhaston Doom', 311. 7 Hobhouse, Somerset Records, 244. 8 NRO, NCC Heydon 218. 9 Verbal communication from the late Captain Sir John Gooch, former owner of the now redundant Benacre church; Suckling, Suffolk, II, 127. 10 NRO, NNC Brosyard 79, Henry Totweye, Reydon 1457; SROI, IC/AA2/10/141, William Garrould, Linstead 1530.


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bequest.11 This included building a north aisle and Lady chapel in Sibton church, leading the roof, pammenting the ¯oor, and furnishing and screening the chapel. The image of Our Lady was to stand at one end of the chapel altar and St Anne at the other. Duckett also envisaged a stained glass window of some detail: . . . And in the glass of the highest side window w(i)t(h)in the said chapel I will shall be pictured the Image of the Trinity and in the side pane of the same window on the one side the Image of Saint Joachim And in the other side Saint Elizabeth And I will some token shall be made whereby the souls of me and my wife may be the better remembered and prayed for w(i)t(h) all our children 6 sons and 8 daughters. Whereof one son to lie along for he was quick in his mother(s) womb and all her time yet dead born this remembrance to be made in some of glass windows w(i)t(h)in the said chapell . . . .

The chapel and its window commemorated the family as a social entity and the inclusion of Duckett's stillborn son particularly was an acknowledgement of this; but his wishes endorsed a salutation to the Holy family, too, interest in which had blossomed in the late medieval period. Whether the window was ever commissioned or any imagery completed is not known, the date of the will being perilously close to the Reformation, which did not allow for any tardiness on the part of the executors after various conditions and eventualities had been met. Duckett's will is generous in detail and exciting to read, even though the bequests may never have been implemented, but James Sponer's will is disappointing. The grand scheme that he was prepared to ®nance at Easton Bavents in 1537, although of new construction, was merely replacing what had fallen into disrepair and there was no need for him to describe it further: And I will that all the windows of the south side of the said church extending from the vestry to the porch of the same church that be in disrepair shall be now made and glazed after and like the same proportion and scantling that they be at this present time of and with mine own proper goods by the advice and discretion of mine executors as it may be conveniently be born and taken of my said goods.12

Here there is barely a glimpse of Easton Bavents church, long since perished and of which no other details are known. The glazing goes unrecorded, and, as the bequest was to be supplied from Sponer's goods, no speci®c sum was allowed for expenditure. The second will that gave details of glazing was made by Sir Edmund Jenney. He was a popular executor although lax in implementing bequests, making reference in his own will to several testators whose wishes he had 11

12

SROI, IC/AA2/11/191; see Chapter One, note 34, and also Gunn, Charles Brandon, 52, 83. PRO, PCC Crumwell 8, James Sponer, Easton Bavents 1537.


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not yet realized.13 One of these testators was John Peyrs, of the wealthy maritime family, who had nominated Jenney as his supervisor in 1505, leaving him 40s for his labour.14 In Jenney's will, dated 1522, instructions were left for a glass window to be made on the south side of Knodishall church near the door, `with the image of Saint George and an other image of Saint Paul, with an orate in the nether end of that window'. The orate was for the soul of `John Perse of Eston', from whose goods Jenney and his wife, Katherine, would have the window made, and, from the same goods, would have a vestment and alb of damask given to the church of Knodishall. If the window was ever made, there certainly is no trace of it now. Jenney had also been executor to Thomas Croftys of Westhall in 1474.15 Croftys's will did not mention the foundation of Blessed Mary's chapel in Westhall in which he was to be buried; but it is the description of heraldic glass in this chapel window, not referred to in Crofty's will, but contained in the Chorography, which enables the heraldry on the roof bosses of Westhall's south aisle to be identi®ed as those of Croftys and his wife.16 The compartmental structure of the roof above delineates the chapel area below. The third and ®nal will with a detailed bequest for glazing came from Blythburgh. Here, a glazed ®gure survives which may be part of Robert Pynne's bequest of 1458, in which he asked for glass showing the life of St Anthony (although which St Anthony he did not say) to stand in the north part of Blythburgh next to John the Baptist.17 No speci®c costs for glazing in the Deanery are known, but evidence comes from elsewhere. A payment of £10 was made to Thomas Bumpstede to glaze the east window of the north transept in St Peter Mancroft, Norwich, in 1445.18 In the same year, white glass at Sheen Palace cost 7d a foot, and ®gural glass at Eton College 8d±12d a foot. The rate for vitri historiales (scenic, not ®gural, glass) at Eton was 1s 2d. By 1526, the cost of historiated windows at King's College chapel, Cambridge, had increased by 2d. White glass cost 4d per square foot at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1513, but within a few years the price had dropped to 2d.19 These costs may not have been applicable in the Deanery but, even so, Henry Totweye's bequest of 12d at Reydon would not have gone very far. Commemorative windows could only have been afforded by wealthy testators, and coloured glazing 13

14 15 16 17 18

19

R. Virgoe, `Hugh atte Fenne and Books at Cambridge', Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society x (1991), 92±8 at 95±6; NRO, NCC Bryggs 108±16, Edmund Jenney, Knight, Knodishall 1532. PRO, PCC Adeane 5, John Peyrs, Easton Bavents 1505. NRO, NCC Hubert 62, Thomas Croftys, Westhall 1474. Middleton-Stewart, `Westhall', 311±12; MacCulloch, Chorography, 81. SROI, IC/AA2/2/14, Robert Pynne, Blythburgh 1458. C. Woodforde, The Norwich School of Glass Painting in the Fifteenth Century (Oxford 1950), 16. R. Marks, `Window Glass', English Medieval Industries, ed. J. Blair and N. Ramsay (London 1991), 265±94, at 290±1.


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must have been achieved in small parish churches by corporate patronage, such as the collection made at Walberswick by the wives of the town towards a glass window.20

Visual Evidence Glass is one of the few remaining materials from the old Deanery which bears marks of personal commemoration, but this glass came from a privileged and therefore very small section of late medieval society, few being able to afford the considerable expense involved. This partly accounts for the scarcity of bequests, but, in addition, windows may have been glazed to order while the patron was alive, in much the same way as some testators ordered their ef®gies prior to their death, rendering a written bequest unnecessary.21 There is little late medieval glass left in the area at all, but a small quantity of heraldic glass exists in a few churches, making it possible to identify the family represented there.22 In Hunting®eld church, in the east window of the south aisle, there are the arms of the de la Poles quartered with the Wing®elds, now set within a fragmentary border decorated with rabbits, shells and dogs with bells on their collars.23 In Halesworth chancel are the arms of the Argenteins and the Allingtons; in Spexhall, the Banyards, Bacons, Willoughbys and possibly the Bumsteads; and at Yoxford, the arms of John de Norwich, whose childless marriage to Maud meant that their wealth was channelled into the rebuilding of Yoxford church in about 1430.24 Only a handful of families, landowners and benefactors can be identi®ed, and these are totally unrepresentative of the bulk of Deanery testators. So, while it may be possible to identify heraldic emblems within the Deanery, little can be said about the subject matter which ®lled the main 20 21

22

23

24

Lewis, Walberswick, 256. SROB, Archdeaconry of Suffolk Will Register Hawlee f. 95, John Baret, Bury St Edmunds 1467. R. Marks, `Stained Glass, c.1200±1400', Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England, 1200±1400, ed. J. J. Alexander and P. Binski (London 1987), 137±47, at 139. Donors were commemorated by inscriptions, shield of arms or by a donor portrait. Two, sometimes all three, of these elements occur together. SROI, HD 1538/106/xxix. Hervey's visitation of 1561 records the arms of Stayncourt, Grey of Wilton, Hunting®eld, Tatersall, Peche, Beauchamp, and Wynvyle: BL, Lansdowne MS. 360±90. This description of Hunting®eld church, c. 1573, contains the arms of Hunting®eld, de la Pole, Grey of Wilton, Warwick, Ufford, Amone Wynnevill, Multon, Brandon and Tyllyard. The arms may have been painted or glazed; the Ufford, de la Pole and Brandon arms commemorated successive earls and dukes of Suffolk, patrons of Hunting®eld church. The other families were connected with the patrons through marriage. According to the entry for Hunting®eld in Valor Ecclesiasticus, III, ed. J. Caley and J. Hunter (1810±34), 440, Robert Wyvell founded a chantry at Hunting®eld. See Excursions Report, PSIAH xxxvi, pt ii (1986), 59.


240


lights. Isolated ®gures remain and it cannot be said in which context they originally appeared. They are pitifully scarce and in Wrentham, only the patronal saint, Nicholas, has survived in poor condition. At Wissett, the ®gure of John the Baptist, with a scroll inscribed Baptista, stands alone in a ®eld of white glass, his nearest companions being a half-®gure of the crowned Virgin and the limbs of several feathery angels (Plate V). The commemorative panel to St Peter, the patron of Wangford church, is known only from a watercolour by Watling, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The Cost of Maintenance Walberswick churchwardens' accounts show the extent to which glass was utilized and the considerable expenditure laid out for its repair and maintenance, but, as the accounts cover the years during which the old church was steadily abandoned and the new church completed, they are unrepresentative of the usual run of churchwardens' accounts. At Walberswick, during the last ®fty years of the ®fteenth century, only nineteen years have no expenditure to glasswrights and glazing as distinct from masons and window masonry. Some of these glasswrights came from Norwich, then the pre-eminent centre for painted glass in East Anglia,25 but a workman called Levyll of Dunwich, possibly a glazier, was also engaged in mending windows.26 Not all Walberswick's expenses were incurred by the new building, however, and for a clear picture of the inevitable costs involved in keeping windows in repair, the churchwardens' accounts from Tilney All Saints in Norfolk cannot be bettered.27 There were, however, extraordinary expenses for moving Walberswick's existing windows from the old church to their permanent positions in the new: 15s was paid to unidenti®ed glasswrights for `board and hire and all other things for storing of the windows' in readiness for transportation and installation in the new church in 1470. These details resemble those royal accounts from the fourteenth century when glass panels, packed in hay and straw in cases made from boards, were made ready for carriage from Westminster to Windsor.28 At Walberswick, 21s 8d was paid in 1476 for workmanship, glass, solder and board. The next year, the Nowich glasswright received 6s 8d and another 6s 8d for dressing up the windows. In 1478, iron cost 6s 8d, glass 13s 4d, and the Norwich glasswright was paid 2s. Three ®gured windows were entered in the accounts: Our Lady, for which Thomas Nunne received 27d for making the ironwork in 1463; St Christopher, 25

26 27

28

Marks, `Window Glass', 275: Woodforde, Norwich Glass Painting, see chapter 2, `The Norwich Glass-Painters'. Lewis, Walberswick, 33. A. D. Stallard, The Transcript of the Churchwardens' Accounts of the Parish of Tilney All Saints, Norfolk 1443 to 1589 (London 1922); Woodforde, Norwich Glass Painting, 14. Marks, `Window Glass', 293.


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mended by the glasswright in 1487 for 8s 4d; and St Walstan, reputedly born at Blythburgh, his glass mended in 1492 for 9d.29 Churchwardens' accounts from Hunting®eld and Crat®eld are hardly comparable to those from Walberswick, but Hunting®eld's glazier in the 1530s came from Halesworth, and four years later, Hunt, a glazier, was paid 14d for glazing.30 Crat®eld spent 12s on windows in 1495, which included the glazier's wage, board, lodging and materials.

Imagery at Blythburgh Of all the Deanery churches, only Blythburgh has been extensively recorded by antiquarians. Little visual evidence of the glazing programme has survived, but documentary references, the earliest from Robert Pynne's will of 1458 and the latest from the nineteenth century, give a good impression of what has been lost. Watling, Suckling, Davy, Kerrich and Gardner, antiquarians writing in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, all left notes, some copious, some contradicting themselves, some contradicting the others. Illustrations by Watling and Kerrich, made in the nineteenth century before the remaining glass was blown out or fell out of its own accord, supplement the written records. The value of such labours is incontrovertible, since to them is owed most of the present knowledge of the lost imagery. The latest antiquarian to contribute to the present knowledge was Hamlet Watling (1818±1908), Suffolk schoolmaster and artist. Shortly after 1894, he compiled a manuscript booklet entitled Blythburgh Church, also Painted Glass in Windows and other Antiquities.31 Here he listed the glazing present in Blythburgh in the 1840s when he had made water-colours of the glass.32 At that time, there were eleven bishops of Dunwich in the glazing of the Hopton chantry chapel, although Watling seems to have painted only eight of them. By the time he wrote his booklet, Bishops Felix, Boniface, Alsin and Etta were still in place, demi-®gures placed in the upper tracery identi®ed by inscriptions (Plate VI). Nearby were two more demi-®gures 29 30 31

32

Lewis, Walberswick, 11, 58, 66. SROI, FC 57/A1/1. 19, 45. This booklet was sent to the Revd H. R. Edwards, formerly priest-in-charge of Blythburgh Church: Woodforde, `Blythburgh Glass', 232±9. Woodforde referred to a second booklet by Hamlet Watling, then at Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich. A third booklet remains called The Antiquities of Suffolk and their Expositions, see SROI, HD 475/1: SROI, S058, 428. Watling's paintings, when compared to what little glass is left, are accurate. SROI, Sq 9, a Grangerized version of Suckling's The History and Antiquities of Suffolk. In volume II, pts i and ii, there are nearly thirty of Watling's water-colours. Watling's paintings of Blythburgh's glass are also in the Victoria and Albert Museum (D289/92± 89), and pencil sketches and cartoons are in Christchurch Museum, Ipswich (1933 082 0A0037±8, R1934 161 000034±7).


242


whom Watling identi®ed as Antony Abbot with cross-tau, perhaps part of Robert Pynne's 1458 bequest. To their west was John the Baptist, and further west again were St Fursey, St Bartholomew and St Andrew.33 King Offa was in the north nave wall with crown, sceptre and ermine tippet. By the time Watling had reached the south aisle of Blythburgh church, he no longer recorded whether he was working from the east or west.34 St Michael, St Jude, and St Blaise were all present as well as the Virgin Mary, St Helen, St Etheldreda, St Pancras35 and St Mary of Egypt. According to legend, the Creed had been written by the twelve apostles, each contributing a line or two. In glazing programmes, the twelve apostles were often paired with twelve prophets, each prophet bearing a prophesy which corresponded to a clause in the Creed. This arrangement can be seen in the fourteenth-century glass in York Minster's presbytery clerestory windows. From a west window at Blythburgh, Watling copied a second ®gure of St Bartholomew in a scarlet gown and bordered stole carrying the ¯aying knife and also a scroll on which were written lines attributed to his authorship, Credo in Spiritum Sanctum (I believe in the Holy Ghost) (Plate 17).36 In 1840, Bartholomew must have been the only apostle surviving from the original twelve The prophet Joel was Bartholomew's usual companion. Joel's scroll would have been inscribed with the words, Effundam de spiritu meo super omnem carnem (I will pour out my spirit upon all ¯esh, Joel 2: 28). There is no evidence of glazed prophets now, but, according to Christopher Woodforde, a ®gure, since destroyed, was present wearing a prophet's cap, as well as other prophets and two sets of apostles, one of which held emblems and scrolls.37 Among the reassembled wooden ®gures on the front of the choir-stalls, one wears a prophet's cap (Plate 18). It is more than likely that the glazing originally showed both apostles and prophets, twenty-four ®gures in all, each bearing a scroll. As for the wooden ®gures on the front of the choirstalls, Cautley thought it probable that they had formed the front of the original rood-screen.38 The lone prophet suggests that his eleven prophetic companions would have been there too, but in wood, re¯ecting the glazing programme of the Creed. Woodforde thought that the glass originally came from King's Lynn where there was a school of glass-painting, but there is little to suggest the provenance and precious little left as evidence. The glass was unlikely to have come from Norwich, but may have been 33 34

35

36

37 38

St Fursey was a ®gure of 36 inches high and St Bartholomew was 23 inches high. In the MS copy kept in the SROI, The Antiquities of Suffolk and their Exposition, he does. St Etheldreda, through her second marriage, became the daughter-in-law of King Oswy of Northumbria. In 665, Pope Vitalian had sent relics of St Pancras to King Oswy. Watling's notes and Woodforde's article do not agree on the position of St Bartholomew; see Woodforde, `Blythburgh Glass', 233. Woodforde, Norwich Glass Painting, 180. Cautley, Suffolk Churches, 226.


Plate 17. Blythburgh glass: St Bartholomew, from a watercolour by Hamlet Watling (SROI, Sq 9, pt i, between pages 160±1). The scroll bears the words Credo in Spiritum Sanctum. By the mid-nineteenth century, this was the only glazed apostle with a scroll which had survived. Now it has gone.


Plate 18. Blythburgh chancel: the prophet. The carved wooden ®gures fronting the choir stalls may have originally formed part of the rood loft. There is now a mixed assortment of what must have been a much wider range of apostles, prophets, priests, deacons and members of the Holy family.


DIVINE LIGHTS

Plate 19. Blythburgh church: the Bowet arms (SROI, HD 1538/106/ xxviii v.). William Hervey recorded these on his Visitation in 1561. Similar arms would have appeared on Ele Bowet's tomb at Wrentham, but have been removed (see Plate 24).

245


246


made in Bury St Edmunds or Ipswich where little is known of the work which these centres produced.39 Towards the end of his life, when Watling was writing his little booklets and copying his paintings for sale, he had this to say about Blythburgh: This ®ne old fabric has suffered more than any of the Churches in East Anglia, especially in its painted glass and monuments and during the last 50 years most of it has disappeared. Out of the 11 Bishops of Dunwich which once occupied a space in a window of the Hopton Chantry only fragments of some are now left and in a wretched condition.

Today, the Blythburgh glass shows Bishop Alsin set in the north-east window of the Hopton chantry chapel, adjacent to Antony Abbot, the Father of Monasticism (Plate VI). There is a second ®gure, too, in monk's habit. There are fragments of inscriptions and several heads of angels. Two small armorial shields remain. Anything else that can be identi®ed is dependent on a knowledge of Watling's water-colours. There had been heraldic glass of local interest in the vast windows of the church, donated by the families it represented. Much of this glass had disappeared by the time Watling and Davy were recording the antiquities in the nineteenth century, but Watling copied one window of armorial glass, that of the Cravens of Henham, holders of land across the river Blyth.40 David Elisha Davy visited Blythburgh in 1806 and recorded an array of armorial glass from the east window, the north and south aisles, and, among the angels in the clerestory, he recorded the glazed arms of Swillington, Hopton, Barrington and Scrope, all members of the extended Hopton family, and the Cravens from Henham.41 At the lower level, Watling found only one shield remaining, that of the Cravens supported by angels, and the shields of Swillington and Scrope without their supporters.42 Thomas Kerrich, in 1808, sketched a kneeling knight bearing the Swillington arms on his tabard.43 Suckling, writing in 1848, relied on the eighteenth-century evidence from Gardner's Historical Account of Dunwich for information.44 Gardner had devoted a substantial section of his Dunwich history to Blythburgh, and, while not describing the glazed images, referred to `the many coats of arms' in the windows and he, too, identi®ed several. He commented, Ànd upon the Roof nearly 30 Coats painted upon Boards, which are cut into the shape of Escutcheons, but these do not appear to have been very long standing, nor yet to be done very correctly.'45 These painted arms were also recorded by 39 40

41 42 43 44 45

Verbal communication from David King. See Chapter 2, note 24, and Chapter 3, note 40, for Thomas Craven, and n. 47 below for the Craven arms. BL, Add. MS 19080/106±7, 97±8. Watling, MS `Blythburgh Church', 10±11. BL, Add. MS 6754. Suckling, Suffolk, II, 155±60. Gardner, Dunwich, 122.


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Watling and Davy, but they do not necessarily correspond. They had already been noted `by one Mr. Henry Sampson, Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, who visited this church about 16 years after the great Puritan havoc' in the seventeenth century'.46 The earliest reference came from William Hervey who sketched ®fteen coats of arms, including that of the Bowet family, found in the church during his visitation of 1561, but he omitted to say whether they were painted on boards or on glass (Plate 19).47

Interpreting the Past Blythburgh's image of St Bartholomew, bearing his text from the Creed, indicates a glazing programme of at least all the apostles and perhaps, a goodly fellowship of the prophets too. Some of the individual characters that survived long enough for Watling's brush to catch their features show a more local connection. It is these paintings which suggest a second programme illustrating the foundation and early history of Christianity in East Anglia. This would have been similar to a scheme which can still be seen at York Minster, installed during the ®fteenth-century episcopate of Henry Bowet, whose family's arms were recorded on Blythburgh's roof by Hervey in 1561. The salient images at Blythburgh were to be found in the north aisle. Here was St Felix, the Burgundian, the ®rst bishop of Dunwich, his see established around 634. Seven of his successors were also painted by Watkin, although he recalled seeing in 1840 a total of eleven glazed bishops.48 The seven were Thomas the Deacon, Boniface, Bosa, who divided the extensive bishopric and established a second see at North Elmham, Etta, Cuthwyn, Eglaf and Alsin.49 St Fursey, the Irish monk, who founded a monastery at Cnobheresburg (Burgh Castle) during the reign of Sigbert, was also portrayed: During Sigbert's reign there came from Ireland a holy man named Fursey . . . [who] set himself with all speed to build a monastery on a site given him by King Sigbert . . . this monastery was pleasantly situated in some woods close to the sea, within an area of forti®cation that the English call Cnobheresburg . . . subsequently King Anna, king of the province, and his nobles endowed the house with ®ner buildings and gifts . . .50

King Offa of East Anglia was also present in Blythburgh's glazing.51 His story is told in De Infantia Sancti Edmundi, written in 1155 at the request of the prior of 46 47

48 49 50 51

J. J. Raven, `Blythburgh', PSIA iv (1864), 225±43, at 235. SROI, HD 1538/106/xxviii. Ten of the shields contain the Swillington arms. The remaining ®ve are named as the arms of Bacon, Bowet, Ulverstone, Cayly of Norfolk and Olmey, although the last named arms are identical to Craven of Henham. Bede, Ecclesiastical History, 133. BL, Add. MS 19080/4/279; White, Suffolk, 1844, 27±8. Bede, Ecclesiastical History, 172±3. Bede, Ecclesiastical History, 299±300. Apart from Offa of Mercia, there was a third Offa, king of the East Saxons.


248


Bury St Edmunds.52 Offa, while travelling through Saxony, met Edmund, the king's son. Having no heir, he nominated Edmund, who then travelled to England. Offa's ®gure may have been part of a tripartite group, a series representing popes, archbishops or bishops, and kings, for the names of four popes could still be identi®ed in the north aisle windows early in the twentieth century.53 If Offa was commemorated in the windows of Blythburgh, then St Edmund would have been present too, as well as Sigbert, the ®rst Christian king of the region who laid the foundations of Christianity here, and his cousin, King Anna, who continued to build on those foundations. On the south side, Watling recorded St Etheldreda (630±79), one of King Anna's daughters.54 Etheldreda's three sisters, Sexburga, Ethelburga and Withburga (still commemorated annually at Dereham in Norfolk), all took the veil and undoubtedly would have been represented here, as well as their brother, Firminius, who died ®ghting the pagan Mercians at the battle of Bulcamp. Lastly, Robert Pynne's bequest towards glazing a window of the life of St Anthony on the north side emphasizes the fact that Anthony, too, was a founder, known as the Father of Monasticism.55 Watling's few watercolours suggest a great retrospective glazing programme of the foundation of East Anglian Christianity at Blythburgh. It has been argued that the preference for national and warrior saints during the reign of Henry V was a deliberate attempt to fan the nationalistic ¯ame, the young Henry representing miles Christi.56 This may have been the case at York, where the nationalistic glazing in the clerestory was installed during his reign, but, as far as Blythburgh was concerned, the glazing was possibly in¯uenced by family connections and patronage, being installed in the reign of Henry's son, Henry VI.57 It can be compared to almost contemporary glazing at Salle, Norfolk, now mostly destroyed, which David King believes was almost certainly inspired by glass at York Minster, where the history of Christianity in the North has survived in situ.58 The nave roof of Blythburgh contains a series of heraldic shields, originally painted when the nave was completed c. 1440.59 John de Clavering, Lord of Blythburgh, died in 1322, leaving a widow, Hawise Tiptoft (d. 1345). The Tiptoft arms were recorded in Blythburgh's roof by Watling and 52 53 54 55

56

57

58

59

S. J. Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge 1988), 73. M. R. James, Suffolk and Norfolk (London 1930), 105. Bede, Ecclesiastical History, 236. SROI, IC/AA2/2/14, Robert Pynne, Blythburgh, 1458; Attwater, Dictionary of Saints, 47. J. Catto, `Religious Change under Henry V', Henry V: the Practice of Kingship, ed. G. L. Harriss (Oxford 1985), 97±115 at 107±8. Haward, Suffolk Arcades, 170±3. The nave was probably built between 1420 and 1440, and the chancel between 1440 and 1460. D. J. King, `Salle Church ± the Glazing', Archaeological Journal cxxxvii (1980), 334±5: Parsons, Salle; N. Pevsner and P. Metcalfe, The Cathedrals of England: Midland, Eastern and Northern England (Harmondsworth 1985), 361. Haward, Suffolk Arcades, 171.


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Suckling.60 The Claverings left a daughter, Eve, as sole heiress.61 The arms of two families connected with Eve Clavering through marriage or kinship, the Uffords and the Roos, were recorded by Watling and Suckling, and a third family connection, the Bowets, had been illustrated by William Hervey in 1561.62 Two of Eve's great-granddaughters were the Ufford sisters, Ele and Joan, who married the brothers Richard and William Bowet. After Ele's death in 1400, Joan and William Bowet presented to Benacre in 1409 and 1418 and to Blythburgh rectory in 1418 and 1420, which would account for their arms in the roof.63 Ele Brewes, whose mother had been an Ufford, was the ®rst cousin of Ele and Joan. She was patroness of Salle church in 1440/1, her patronage contemporary with Salle's glazing which illustrated the spread of Christianity in southern England.64 The Bowets' near relation, Henry Bowet, was archbishop of York from 1407 until his death in 1423.65 Archbishop Bowet's glazed interpretation of the development of Christianity in the north of England is represented by thirty-eight ®gures, including popes, bishops and kings, in the clerestory of York Minster's western choir.66 His arms, three reindeer heads, appear several times in the glass, in one instance impaling Ufford. The clerestory glass of the eastern choir represents apostles and prophets with scrolls inscribed with phrases from the Creed, another similarity between York and Blythburgh. By the mid-®fteenth century, when Blythburgh's nave was being roofed, these old families had died out and the lordship of Blythburgh had changed hands.67 Nevertheless, their retrospective arms were present in the roof, alongside Kerdiston, Mickle®eld, Argentein, Ulverstone, Heveningham, Bacon and Craven of Henham, local families mostly contemporary with the re-building.68 There were arms, too, for the Perts, Scropes, Savills, 60 61

62 63

64 65

66

67

68

Watling, MS. `Blythburgh Church', 12: Suckling, Suffolk, II, 154. B. Burke, A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire (London 1883; repr. 1962), 104: SROI, GC 17/755: BL, Add. MS 6032/ 95. IPM Hawisa Clavering, 19 Ed. III, for Eve de Audelegh, daughter and heiress of John de Clavering, the which Eva ®rst married Thomas de Audelegh, then Robert de Benhall. SROI, HD 1538/106/ xxviii. R. E. C. Waters, The Chesters of Chicheley (London 1878), 339±40; Suckling, Suffolk, II, 130. King, Salle Church, 335; Waters, Chesters of Chicheley, 339. T. H. Jenkins, Èle Bowet: a Fourteenth Century Lady and her Sepulchral Brass', The Coat of Arms, vi, no. 48 (1961), 350±5. F. Harrison, The Painted Glass of York: an Account of the Medieval Glass of the Minster and the Parish Churches (London 1927), 95, 222. Burke, Dormant Peerages, 42, 543. The Roos family were formerly lords of the manor of Wissett which, by the late fourteenth century, was in the hands of the Swillingtons of Blythburgh. Roger de Claxton granted the advowson of Claxton church to the priory in the twelfth century. His daughter married Roger de Kerdiston. Edmund de Mikylfeld granted land to the priory in 1302, see Harper-Bill, Blythburgh Cartulary, 10±11, 87.


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Wentworths, Cleres and Jermyns, families which had married into the Swillingtons or with the Hoptons in the ®fteenth century. This commemoration of past families and former glories was a local roll of arms which, unlike the heraldic arms in the glass, did not represent the benefactors of the rebuilding programme at Blythburgh, but earlier patrons gone before.69 The later names of Wentworth, Jermyn and Clere especially, representing John Hopton's daughter-in-law, son-in-law and grandson-in-law, bear out the suggestion that, by the ®fteenth and sixteenth centuries, rolls of arms emphasized family descents and alliances.70 At the same time, parallels can be drawn between the glazing and the retrospective arms in Blythburgh's roof and the glazing and the roll of arms at Dorchester abbey. Here, the early foundation and subsequent growth of Christianity under bishop Birinus was recalled in the abbey's fourteenthcentury glazing, demonstrating an interest in recording local history and Anglo-Saxon saints which pre-dated the reign of Henry V. The bond which existed between the leaders of East Anglia and Wessex was an old one.71 Coenwalh, driven out of Wessex by Penda of Mercia in the seventh century, had sought refuge with King Anna in East Anglia and here became a Christian. In 654, Anna was killed by Penda. Blithborrow memorable for that Anna, king of the East Angles, together with his eldest sonne and heire apparent Firminius, were here buried, bothe slaine in a bloudie ®erce battaile, by Penda the Mercian King, a Pagan of which my old manuscript. `Penda anone his hoste with hym he led; And on Anna came fyrst with mykle pryde Kynge of Este Englonde, whos dowter Egfryde wed, And slew him.'72

The shrine of Birinus was reconstructed around 1320 in Dorchester abbey, which had been rebuilt at the turn of the thirteenth century.73 The glass at Dorchester is mostly late thirteenth/early fourteenth century, but some surviving mid-thirteenth-century glass shows Birinus receiving a cross-staff and preaching before Coenwalh's father.74 Among the glazed fragments, a head of the East Anglian saint, Edmund, can be seen, but kings, queens, bishops, prophets and youths are also represented. Although little has 69

70 71 72

73

74

A. R. Wagner, A Catalogue of English Medieval Rolls of Arms, Society of Antiquaries (1950), xv; Newton, Oxford Glass, 3±4. Newton, Oxford Glass, 3±4. Bede, Ecclesiastical History, 153±4. Weever, Funerall Monuments, 760±1; see also Scarfe, The Suffolk Landscape, 94; Ridyard, Royal Saints, 177, note 7; Bede, Ecclesiastical History, 172. Penda was also the slayer of Sigbert; James, Suffolk and Norfolk, 11±12. F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (3rd edn Oxford 1971), 116±18; Attwater, Dictionary of Saints, 66: Newton, Oxford Glass, 77. Newton, Oxford Glass, 77±88.


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survived, it is enough to suggest a glazing programme similar to the three already described. A further link between Blythbugh and Dorchester is provided by the series of twenty-three heraldic shields in the roof at Dochester.75 Glass was infrequently bequeathed in Deanery wills, an omission which was in all probability on account of its exorbitant price. Nevertheless, glass was needed for the comfort of the body in draughty churches as well as for comfort of the soul, and was probably supplied through corporate patronage more often than by individual bequest. It was an extremely suitable vehicle for heraldic devices, more glass remaining in Deanery windows commemorating the social eÂlite than any other painted glazing, re¯ecting the fact that heraldic glass was theologically less objectionable than religious imagery. The jottings of William Dowsing, referred to in Chapter Twelve, redress the scarcity of evidence in wills, testaments and churchwardens' accounts. In his record of iconoclastic progress through the Deanery, Dowsing provided more information about the quantity of extant glass by his destruction of it than is found anywhere else in England. His Journal shows that the Deanery was amply glazed. Blythburgh has been used as a case for special consideration because documentation of a detailed and calculated scheme of glazing exists, although most of the glass has now been destroyed. In the north windows, it appears that the foundation of Christian East Anglia was commemorated. In a west window a former composition of the Creed could be identi®ed only by the solitary St Bartholomew. Deliberate and lengthy planning would have been essential for such a vast, artistic project, but there is little left today to compare to the contemporary programme of celure and screen at Southwold, planned with equal care. Artistic records and antiquarian writings point to a glazed gallery of commemoration in Blythburgh, similar to the glass at York Minster and at the important Norfolk church of Salle, with both of which there were close family connections. At the abbey of Dorchester and at Holy Trinity, Blythburgh, the historical associations are of a different sort, but personal commemoration was achieved in both places by armorial glass, while commemoration of earlier benefactors was effected by the roll of arms in the roof.

75

Newton, Oxford Glass, 3±4. Although it has been thought that the arms might represent benefactors of the abbey, this may have been a local roll of arms. Blood and feudal ties were not the only prerequisites for such a display in the fourteenth century, and often ties of friendship were enough to warrant inclusion.


12 Entrances and Exits In the pursuit of the whole, salutation was the beginning, salvation the end. John Bossy, Christianity in the West, 1400±1700

Baptism and Eucharist, those two great sacraments of èqual authority and obligation', were administered to Christians at either end of their earthly journey, the ®nal Eucharist received before extreme unction.1 Their reception at the beginning and at the close of life was re¯ected in the church building itself, baptism performed at the west of the nave, Eucharist celebrated at the east in the chancel. Baptism promoted friendship, kinship, the family of the Church and the family within the community and was seen as a salutation and a welcoming. The Eucharist, which represented a sacri®ce made for the salvation of man, was a departure and a farewell.2

Fonts Infant baptism admitted the child into the family of God. Outside the immediate family circle into which the child had been born were kith and kin to whom there were powerful and emotional ties. These were strengthened by a spiritual bond which arose from the rites of baptism and, later, con®rmation. Godparents and sponsors may have represented af®liations which were already present but, as spiritual kindred, were now bound even more tightly to the inner family as the newer, more tenuous, connections of godparenthood were underpinned and reinforced, so much so that godparents regarded godchildren as part of their own kin.3 Godparents represented the communal rather than the natural family, and, through them, the child was linked to the wider world outside the family circle. During the baptism, it was the godparents who made promises on the child's behalf when it was released from original sin, the child being too young to do so; 1 2 3

F. Bond, Fonts and Font Covers (Oxford 1908; repr. London 1985), 1. Bossy, Christianity in the West, 14±19, 26±34. J. Bossy, `Blood and Baptism: Kinship, Community and Christianity in Western Europe from the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Centuries', Studies in Church History x, EHS (1973), 129±43; Hamilton, Religion in the Medieval West, 112±13.


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and it was to the godparents at the end of the baptismal ceremony that the child was returned by the priest, rather than to the parents. By the late Middle Ages, the rite of infant baptism was bestowed on children by affusion, and smaller, higher, fonts were in use rather than watertanks and tubs.4 The water was hallowed twice a year, once on the eve of Easter and once on the eve of Whitsun, and, although changed after each christening, it could still lie in the font for a considerable time.5 There was a fear that the water would be taken for `magical' purposes, and, in 1236, Edmund Rich, archbishop of Canterbury, ordered that the fonts should be kept covered and locked; later, Archbishop Winchelsey included fonts with their locks in the list of church goods to be supplied by the parishioners.6 There is little mention of fonts in any local documentation other than the wills. Fonts hardly feature in churchwardens' accounts, for they managed to avoid damage and they seldom needed repair. At Walberswick there was mention of a font in the accounts of 1463 and in 1468, when 3s 9d was paid `for gear that went to the font', which may have been a font cover with a lock.7 During the period covered by the Walberswick accounts, the furnishings and ®ttings from the old Walberswick church were being moved up to the new building. It was not normal practice to enter the rearing (raising) of a font in churchwardens' accounts, but, if it had been, then the Walberswick accounts surely would have reported this, but they do not. Fonts appear infrequently in churchwardens' accounts, and this brings to mind Crat®eld's seven-sacrament font which has been dated pre-1490 by Ann E. Nichols, but for the wrong reason.8 The fact that the Crat®eld churchwardens' accounts, which start in 1490, do not mention the font does not mean that the font must pre-date the accounts; fonts are rarely mentioned. There are several fonts of an early date in the Deanery, but there is no evidence to prove their provenance, and, apart from having a rough date attributed to them, nothing more is known of their history. This is in contrast to the six fonts which received testamentary bequests. Two more fonts bear inscriptions and there may well have been more, but today only these two remain. Darsham font carries an ora pro anima inscription on the dais for Geoffrey Symond, a native of Darsham parish, who subsequently became rector of Bradwell in 1404 (Plate 20).9 At Blythburgh, the lettering on the font's dais is almost worn away, but was deciphered by Gardner and Davy, who gave differing readings. Fonts were also mentioned in wills when they were used as a focal point for burial sites. When John Swan requested burial between the font and the south door of 4 5 6 7 8

9

Bond, Fonts, 5±17. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, lxxxiv, note 6. Bond, Fonts, 281. Lewis, Walberswick, 15, 27. A. E. Nichols, Seeable Signs: the Iconography of the Seven Sacraments, 1350±1544 (Woodbridge 1994), 77. Cautley, Suffolk Churches, 259±60; Suckling, Suffolk, II, 225.


254


Blythburgh church, he knew that he had chosen the area of most traf®c with the expectation of prayers being said by those who walked by; and for Robert Leeke, to lie `before the font' meant that he would be lying directly before the rood at the west end of the central aisle, although at a distance.10 By the late fourteenth and ®fteenth centuries, East Anglia favoured two types of font, both octagonal in shape. The ®rst was Munro Cautley's `traditional East Anglian font', the base supported by lions or evangelists alternating with woodwoses, hairy wild men brandishing clubs.11 The Darsham font follows this pattern. The evangelists or their emblems frequently decorate the bowl or stem, sometimes accompanied by the Fathers of the Church. The panels of the bowl may be decorated with emblems of the Trinity, the Passion, with ¯owers or with shields. It is not usual to ®nd the heraldic arms carved into the stone shields, for this would imply expensive manufacture beyond the range of most pockets, but at Hunting®eld, the carved shields proclaim the patronage of the ®rst earls of Suffolk, the Uffords, and that of their successors, the de la Poles (Plate 21). The font is in good repair and dates from the late fourteenth century.12 Heraldic arms painted onto stone shields would have been common, but the shields which remain have now lost their decoration. Yet a careful look at the angles and corners of font panels often reveal tiny patches of whitewash or primer applied to the stone in preparation for the paint and gilt. At Wissett, the font received two bequests, the ®rst for priming, the second for painting, in the last decade of the ®fteenth century.13 Wills also show that Sibton font was new in 1536, receiving a bequest towards its cover and 13s 4d towards its gilding.14 At Kelsale in 1518 the font was being painted, and at Easton Bavents in 1527 a font was being made.15 There would be little more to say about fonts except that the second type of East Anglian font was the seven-sacrament font. In Handlyng Synne, nearly two thousand lines are devoted to the exposition of the seven sacraments, and later, in Robert Reynes's commonplace book, a short aidemeÂmoire recites the number of sacraments and which they were, questions and answers to be learnt and repeated by the laity.16 To teach the seven 10

11

12 13

14 15

16

SROI, IC/AA2/7/193, John Swan, Blythburgh 1515; IC/AA2/7/233, Robert Leeke, Blythburgh 1517. Cautley, Suffolk Churches, 67; in Ludham church, Norfolk, there is a lady woodwose holding a club. Michael de la Pole, who married Catherine Wing®eld, died in 1389. SROI, IC/AA2/3/125, Alice Pottere, Wissett 1491; IC/AA2/3/153, Robert Stalk, Wissett 1492. SROI, IC/AA2/13/161, John Awcoke the elder, Sibton 1536. SROI, IC/AA2/10/16, Robert Hawkyn, Easton Bavents 1527; NRO, NCC Bryggs 68, Sir William Churche, priest, Kelsale 1518. Robert de Brunne, Handlyng Synne, ed. F. J. Furnivall, EETS OS cxix (1901), lines 9493±11302; Reynes, Commonplace Book, 180±1.


Plate 20. Darsham font: an early ®fteenth-century gift from the rector of Bradwell, Geoffrey Symond, a native of Darsham. In the panels of the bowl are winged lions alternating with the instruments of the Passion, the arms of Edward the Confessor, the three crowns of East Anglia, and the emblem of the Trinity. The gift is commemorated by the donor inscription around the base.


Plate 21. Hunting®eld font: the arms of the Uffords, earls of Suffolk and patrons of Hunting®eld church prior to the de la Poles, impaling Beauchamp. Hunting®eld was later granted to Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, by Henry VIII.


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sacraments was part of the catechetical duty of the clergy, and John Mirck's Instructions for Parish Priests introduces them to the clerics with the following lines: You must also not weary of preaching The seven sacraments of the Holy Church. That is baptism that expiates sin, And con®rmation afterwards, as we must remember; The sacrament of God's body, And also true penance; Priestly ordination, and marriage, And without fail extreme unction. Look here are the seven and no more, Make sure you preach them often.17

Seven-sacrament fonts had eight-panelled bowls, one sacrament carved on each of the panels: the eighth panel usually showing the cruci®xion or the baptism of Christ. The seven sacraments derived their virtue from the blood of Christ, an idea graphically displayed and more easily understood from a mural painting such as that at Kirton-in-Lindsey church in Lincolnshire. This was reproduced as the frontispiece to Peacock's English Church Furniture in Certain Lincolnshire Churches A.D. 1566, where the blood of Christ ¯ows from his wounds to each of the sacraments.18 Seven-sacrament iconography became popular in the ®fteenth century, and the imagery was found in glazing, on canvas, on vellum, on silk, satin and stone. There were thirty-nine seven-sacrament fonts in East Anglia, of which ®ve were within the Deanery: Blythburgh, Crat®eld, Southwold, Westhall and Wenhaston, the iconography of Wenhaston's font destroyed as late as 1806 when 12s 6d was paid for `cutting out the ornaments'.19 The òrnaments' at Southwold and Blythburgh have also been removed. Blythburgh font, next to which John Swan and Robert Leeke asked to lie, is thought to have been erected in 1449 and is credited with being the oldest seven-sacrament font in East Anglia.20 The inscription around the base remembered either John Masin and his wife, the same couple who were commemorated on the roof boss of the south porch, or John Scott and his wife, depending on which antiquarian you favour. If the date of the font is correct then, surprisingly, Blythburgh's porch would have been built before the chancel, an unusual procedure. Only the fonts at Crat®eld and Westhall retain recognizable carvings, the former meticulously and gracefully carved, 17

18 19

20

G. M. Bryant and V. M. Hunter, eds, `How Thow schalt Thy Paresche Preche': John Myrc's Instructions for Parish Priests (Barton-on-Humber 1999), 63. Peacock, English Church Furniture, Frontispiece, pl. 1. C. E. Keyser, Òn a Panel Painting of the Doom Discovered in 1892, in Wenhaston Church, Suffolk', Archaeologia lix (1894), 119±30, at 120. Cautley, Suffolk Churches, 226; J. Becker, Blythburgh (Halesworth 1935); Nichols, Seeable Signs, 76.


258


but badly damaged, the latter with original paint and gesso adding inestimable detail to coarse, chunky work (Plate VII). The emergence and development of the iconography of seven-sacrament fonts have been researched exhaustively and recounted at length in Ann E. Nichols' Seeable Signs. She suggests that seven-sacrament fonts in East Anglia were raised from the mid-1450s onwards, ìn part a response to Lollard repudiation of the sacramental system'.21 Lollardy was particularly critical of sacramental beliefs and rejection of baptism; confession, Eucharist, con®rmation and matrimony were all cited in the charges raised in the Norwich heresy trials between 1428 and 1431.22 Baptism, for example, was regarded as worthless because Christ's people were suf®ciently baptized in His blood or in His passion and it was, according to Hawise Mone of Loddon, `but a tru¯e'.23 In the Norwich trials, the majority of the accused came from the Waveney Valley, immediately north of the Deanery of Dunwich, and from east Norfolk, apart from a Colchester defendant, apprehended at Ipswich, and a couple of men from Stoke by Nayland and Needham, probably Needham Market, but possibly Needham in the Waveney Valley.24 An exception was one lone defendant from within the Deanery, a shipman called Thomas Ploman from Sizewell, accused of not paying tithes for seven years.25 The fact that the Deanery was barely represented at the heresy trials certainly does not mean that the area was impervious to heresy, but there is no further evidence to prove that Lollardy was rife in the Deanery. Professor Nichols thinks differently. In Monks Soham church, within east Suffolk, but outside the Deanery, there is a seven-sacrament font which suggests to her that there was à possible pocket of Lollard activity' to the east of that parish around Sizewell and Tunstall, both of which lay in the coastal belt. Her argument appears to be supported by Foxe who, in Acts and Monuments, cites two heretics from Àldeborough'.26 These heretics suffered `disciplinings about the market place of Harlstone'. Foxe, however, was quoting from the diocesan bishop's letter which was `directed to the dean of Rhodenhall [known today as Redenhall] of our diocese, and to the parish priest of the church of Aldeborough of the same diocese'. Redenhall stands adjacent to the market town of Harleston in the Waveney Valley, and is in Norfolk. It was from this Harleston that the heretical Thomas Pye and John Mendham came (Mendham a Waveney Valley name if ever there was one, from the parish of that name). Harleston in Suffolk was hardly more than a hamlet of barely 600 acres and is not likely to have had a market let alone a market place;27 and the Tunstall to which Nichols refers was surely Tunstall in 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Nichols, Seeable Signs, 91, 99±105. Tanner, Heresy, 10. Tanner, Heresy, 140±1. Tanner, Heresy, 27, 80. Tanner, Heresy, 16, 102±3. S. R. Cattley, ed., The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, III (London 1837), 592. W. Goult, A Survey of Suffolk Parish History: East Suffolk, I (Ipswich 1990), Harleston.


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Norfolk, adjacent to Martham, an area of proven Lollard activity. There is also confusion between the town of Aldeburgh in Suffolk and the parish of Alburgh in Norfolk which lies equidistant between Harleston and Earsham, a parish where there were ten known Lollards.28 The argument in this respect is contrived and geographically inaccurate. Of the thirty-nine seven-sacrament fonts, only six were in East Anglian parishes where there had been known Lollards. These were all in Norfolk and were at Earsham (1480), Loddon (1487), Martham (1470), Norwich St Peter Mancroft (1463), South Creake (1460) and West Lynn (1470). If the dates in the brackets are correct, these fonts and those elsewhere were erected a considerable time after the heresy trials, when the danger of Lollardy had passed or had gone underground;29 and there is perhaps a simpler answer to the presence of seven-sacrament fonts, an answer suggested by Haward's Suffolk Medieval Church Arcades. He shows convincingly that the churches of Blythburgh, Southwold and Woodbridge, all of which had seven-sacrament fonts and all of which were re-built in the mid1400s, were related to each other by a similarity in pier design.30 Here there was a `masonic' link between stone-masons and workshops producing work which covered a wide area. Artisans were very aware of styles and decoration favoured within other parts of the diocese and if they could not produce the work themselves, they knew someone who would. The churches of Wenhaston, Crat®eld and Westhall, on the other hand, have no obvious masonic links, being buildings which developed piecemeal over a long period. They had other links, however, which could connect the iconography of their fonts across the county, a parochial awareness engendered by leading ®gures in the area. While little may be known about the movement of stonemasons, much is known about the transference of style, which is frequently effected by patronage.31 Consider the ties that bind the glazing at York, Salle and Blythburgh together, described in the last chapter. The haphazard scattering of fonts in East Anglian parishes which had once harboured heretics surely had more to do with masons, patrons and family networks rather than with Lollards. Denston, in south-west Suffolk, and Loddon, in south-east Norfolk, both have seven-sacrament fonts. It can be no coincidence that parish gentry, represented in this instance by the Barrat (Baret) family, lived in Crat®eld and Blythburgh contemporaneously and, at a slightly later date, in Westhall; and that John Baret of Bury St Edmunds, uncle to the Barrets of 28 29 30 31

Nichols, Seeable Signs, 106, note 53. Nichols, Seeable Signs, 105±8. Haward, Suffolk Arcades, 124±8. See Èxcursions, 1998', PSIAH xxxix (pt iii) (1999), 399±400, for paths along which style and decoration can travel. In the 1520s, familial patronage and personal taste linked work at Layer Marney, Essex, Oxborough, Norfolk, and Barham, Henley, Barking and Shrubland Old Hall, Suffolk, with lasting results. Some of the subject matter originated in Lancashire in 1368 with an earlier member of the family.


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Crat®eld, was also uncle by marriage to Katherine, wife of John Denston; or that an Everard from Linstead, Crat®eld's neighbour, married the Denston heiress. Denston church lies south of Bury St Edmunds and was rebuilt around 1474 when John Denston founded a chantry college there.32 Of the few Norfolk arcades considered by Haward in his book, Loddon is one, dated about 1490, with pier arcades very similar to those at Denston, a church thought to have been built by Simon Clerk, the mason at Bury.33 Haward remarks: `whether a Bury mason was engaged at Loddon is an interesting question'. Local patrons were indeed powerful disseminators. Although fonts were required to be supplied in the parish church by the parishioners, there are few documentary references. Just as fonts rarely appear in churchwardens' accounts, they also do not appear in inventories, likewise because they were seldom in need of repair; and unless a font was being replaced or repainted, they were unlikely to be mentioned in wills. Occasionally, there was a request for burial near the font. The sevensacrament fonts of East Anglia have recently been the subject of intensive research which has suggested that they were raised in response to the Lollard criticism of the sacramental system. It is an interesting hypothesis, but iconography and style travel for many reasons, and, in the absence of positive evidence, the distribution of the seven-sacrament fonts has probably less to do with heresy than with patronage, parochial taste and expertise with a chisel.

Memorials and Remembrance It was usuall in ancient times, and so it is in these our dayes, for persons of especiall ranke and qualitie to make their owne Tombes and Monuments in their life-time; partly for that they might have a certaine house to put their head in (as the old saying is) whensoever they should bee taken away by death, out of this their Tenement, the world; and partly to please themselves, in beholding of their dead countenance in Marble. But most especially because thereby they thought to preserve their memories from oblivion. John Weever, Ancient Funerall Monuments

Late medieval society placed enormous emphasis on the preparation for death and the manner of `dying', using life as a period of forward-planning in which to put the house in order for the future. This attitude was encouraged by literature, such as Ars Moriendi, and artistic imagery, like the Three Living and the Three Dead, which, with the contemporary interest in the 32

33

CPR, 1467±1477, 484; see also the section `New Feasts, New Festivals' in Chapter Five above. Haward, Suffolk Arcades, 414.


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earthly sufferings of Christ, the emblems of His Passion and the instruments of His torture, left little chance for death to be put to one side.34 The Dance of Death, for example, `. . . the picture of death leading all estates . . .' had a particular association with Suffolk. It had ®rst been portrayed at St Innocents in Paris, where it was seen by John Lidgate (c. 1370±1451), the versifying monk from the abbey at Bury St Edmunds.35 He later translated its verses from the French, explaining that the Dance in Paris showed that the world was `but a pilgrimage'. Subsequently the Dance of Death was painted on the north cloister of St Paul's cathedral. Testators invariably said where they wished to be buried, with hardly a mention of a gravestone or even a simple cross. Henry Everard of Crat®eld was no different from the majority of testators in this. He said where he was to be buried ± in Crat®eld churchyard, so why didn't he say what sort of memorial he wanted? The memorial, surely, was the crux of commemoration and remembrance. One answer must be that Henry, like most people, would have discussed this matter with his family and his executors. They would be in no doubt as to what form his memorial should take, and, if John Weever had the correct answer, then there were sites with gravestones already prepared, ready and waiting to receive a corpse. Other sites were occupied by spouses who had predeceased their partners, but which were available to take husbands, wives and children when the time came. Gravestones . . . after all this scrutinie, ®nding so few [gravestones], or none at all in many churches (time, the malignitie of wicked people, and our English profane tenacitie, having quite taken them away for lucre sake) I was altogether discouraged to procede any further in this my laborious and expenceful exercise . . . . John Weever, Ancient Funerall Monuments

There were many ways in which remembrance could be achieved in the late Middle Ages. The most personal way of perpetuating the memory was through the imagery of death. During the obit celebrations which marked the anniversary of a death, it was the suggested natural body of the deceased which supplied the focus, a reminder far more potent than intercessions. Inanimate gravestones, brasses and ef®gies, standing or lying in the churches and graveyards, jogged the memory and kept remembrance green. The ef®cacy of memorials in this respect can be compared to the use of Christian 34

35

N. Llewellyn, The Art of Death: Visual Culture in the English Death Ritual, c.1500± c.1800 (London 1991), 19; L. Stone, Sculpture in Britain: the Middle Ages (Harmondsworth 1955), 213±16. L. Kurtz, The Dance of Death and the Macabre Spirit in European Literature (Geneva 1975), 139±46; Dymond and Paine, Spoil of Melford, 23, n.78; Keyser, Buildings having Mural and Painted Decorations, 296.


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imagery in the teaching and the spreading of Christianity through the medieval world. If seeing was believing, seeing was also remembrance. Nevertheless, imagery and funeral art were only tokens of remembrance, for the workmanship seldom attained individual portraiture, but it was enough that they provided the spur. In late medieval funerary imagery it was the type that was represented, whether knight, lady, priest, widow or civilian, for the `type' called to mind a key ®gure no longer present in the community.36 Only a very limited section of the population could afford such self-aggrandizement. Lavish expenditure on a memorial, irredeemable for the good of the soul, was seen by some to be unjusti®ed, and Robert of Brunne's Handlyng Synne made a speci®c point about grandiose tombs. . . . But his soul had pain the more For the pomp and pride that he was laid there. Lords are busy about to have Proud stones lying on high on their grave; Though that pride they mowe be lore, Though they had no sin before.37

Grave sites were mentioned in almost every will, for there were few testators who were not engrossed in the choice of their ®nal resting-place, and yet, like Henry Everard, the request for permanent memorials in the guise of tombs, gravestones and brasses troubled them very little. The lack of testamentary requests for memorials, however, is contradicted by the great number of stone gravestones which have survived in the churches, albeit broken, re-positioned and reaved of brasses. Outside in the graveyards, of course, nothing has survived that can be identi®ed, and it was here that most of the parishioners would eventually lie. The majority, whose state disallowed such luxuries as stones and brasses, sought alternative commemoration through prayers, by small bequests to church fabric or by providing for liturgical needs. East Anglia lacked natural bed-rock, and memorial brasses, being cheap and readily available, were preferable to incised gravestones.38 Ornate and decorative brasses could be set in inferior stone, could be inlaid on tombs or could be ®xed to walls, and many gravestones have survived. Not so the brasses because the metal, unfortunately for those who purchased remembrance, had an intrinsic value for the purpose of recycling. This, together with the ease of removal and portability, resulted in destruction at the Reformation and later during the Commonwealth. It is estimated that the memorial brasses remaining in the Midlands and East Anglia are only a fortieth of the total production, making the marriage of visual and testamentary evidence almost impossible.39 In other parts, where stone was 36 37 38 39

J. Evans, English Art, 1307±1461 (Oxford 1949), 139±40; Llewellyn, Art of Death, 111. Brunne, Handlyng Synne, lines 8777±82. Burgess, Churchyard Memorials, 62±3, 102±3. Suckling, Suffolk, II, 159; Gardner, Dunwich, 125; Burgess, Churchyard Memorials, 103.


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easily quarried, many incised gravestones remain today, still bearing the name of the deceased and the date of death.40 Ef®gies were planned and executed for the patrons before death `to please themselves, in beholding of their dead countenance in Marble'.41 Why not gravestones? Once a stone had been designed which gave pleasure to other members of the family or the community, it could be copied with no need to mention it in a will; and it follows that a family plot, with a series of stones of uniform size and composition, would deny a testator personal choice. A collection of antiquarian writings and sketches made by James Strangeman in the seventeenth century shows the uniformity achieved on four stones commemorating the Argentein family, although there was no indication where they were to be found.42 At a lower social level, the three gravestones positioned in Leiston tower are interchangeable in style and general design (Plate 6). The Argenteins' gravestones, where even the inscriptions were similar, would have made testamentary requests unnecessary.43 Carved between 1292 and 1318, each stone had a central cross, an engraved border and evangelists' symbols in top left- and right-hand corners. One, commemorating Sir Reginald d'Argentein (d. 1307), lies in Baldock church, not far from Little Wymondley where he added a priory to an existing hospital of Argentein foundation. The remaining three stones in Strangeman's illustration are those of Argentein's wife, Lora de Vere (d. 1292), his son's ®rst wife, Joan Bryan, and his son, John Argentein (d. 1318). They may be in Little Wymondley crypt, moved there after the priory's suppression.44 The stone of John's illegitimate grandson, Sir William, lies alone in Halesworth church, and, being one hundred years later, is totally different in design. In Walberswick church, three gravestones have survived from a later period and from a different class of parishioner. They are well preserved stones of identical proportions, dedicated to Robert [As]Hwell (d. 1532, see Plate 22), Thomas Elderton, mariner (d. 1534), and a second Robert [As]Hwell (d. 1535).45 The inscription around the edge of the ®rst stone 40

41

42

43 44

45

F. A. Greenhill, Monumental Incised Slabs in the County of Lincoln (Newport Pagnell 1986), xxiii±xxv. Weever, Funerall Monuments, 18; SROB, Will Register Hawlee 95, John Baret, Bury St Edmunds 1463. BL, Sloane 1301/144±147. Genealogical Collection from Original Records and Evidences of James Strangeman. GEC, I, 196±7. Lincolnshire Archives Of®ce, Ep. Reg. 3/43:14k. April 1301±2; 399: 3n. November 1318; Reginald founded Wymondley priory after Lora's death and her body may have been moved from Whitefriars, Norwich, to the `conventual church' at Wymondley by April 1301/2. At the dissolution, the gravestones were moved to Little Wymondley church, which has since undergone extensive restoration. Lewis, Walberswick, 267; Robert Ashwell acted as executor to John Poty in 1514, see SROI, IC/AA2/7/49; BL, Add. MS 39807.U. A stone rubbing c. 1891 gives the name on the 1532 slab as Robert Auliwell.


Plate 22. Walberswick church: the gravestone of Robert Ashwell, 1532. The slab bears Ashwell's merchant's mark with an inscription bordering the edge and the four evangelists' symbols in the four corners.


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reads Òf your Charyte pray for the Sowle of Robert [As]hwell which desesed in the year of our Lord God, Ano [1532] in the Raygn of King harry the 8th, on whose sowll Jesus hav Mercy. Amen.' All stones have similar wording and bear merchants' marks with evangelist symbols in the four corners. One mariner had presumably set a style that the others found attractive, in which case written instructions would be unnecessary, especially if the same local mason was employed.46 Out of thirty requests for gravestones, twenty-®ve were to be placed in the church, of which three occur in wills proved at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, nine in Norwich Consistory Court and thirteen in the Archdeaconry .47 Many requested church burial without mentioning gravestones, but 6s 8d was the going rate for breaking the ground and for making good the surrounds or, as they said in the vernacular, às much tile as will pave it through'. Most church burials would have entailed digging a hole and then restoring the ¯oor tiles, but there were many testators who made no ®nancial provision towards the cost in their wills. In some cases, details of interment, like details of gravestones, must have been left to the discretion of executors and churchwardens. The cost of stones varied considerably in price, and lack of detail makes it impossible to offer a meaningful comparison between stones requested in different wills: so while the cheapest price quoted for a gravestone within the Deanery was 20d and the most expensive £3 6s 8d, the ornamentation, decoration and the type of stone is never mentioned.48 Further down the social scale, shortage of money would have prevented a testator from requesting a grave-marker. Emma Rycherdson and William Rooke wanted their gravestones to be of `clean marble' and to lie on top of the grave.49 What were called gravestones yesterday would be grave slabs today; upright gravestones in use today were possibly only very small headstones yesterday. Gravestones were described mostly as stone, infrequently as marble. William Bacheler, who chose to be buried in Fordley churchyard, asked that his executors should cover him with a gravestone às hastily as they may conveniently after my decease'.50 William Collett, a merchant, was to be buried in Blythburgh church next to Agnes, his ®rst wife, and said, Ì will have a gravestone to be laid upon me somwhat larger than the stone that lieth upon Agnes my wife.'51 His 46 47

48

49

50 51

MacCulloch, Suffolk and the Tudors, 158, note 3. Of the ®ve requests for memorials in the churchyard, only one came from a Norwich court testator, the rest were from the Archdeaconry court. NRO, NCC Awbrey 105, John Wolward, Walberswick 1487. He asked to be buried within the church at Walberswick; Attmere 170±5, John Beteson, priest, Covehithe 1531. He asked to be buried in the chancel of St Andrew's church, Covehithe, in front of his desk. SROI, IC/AA2/7/212, Emma Rycherdson, Walberswick 1516; PRO, PCC Crumwell 16, William Rooke, Walberswick 1534. SROI, IC/AA2/8/160, William Bakeler, Fordley 1521. SROI, IC/AA2/4/122, William Collett, Blythburgh 1503; Richmond, John Hopton, 179±80.


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memorial was one of those recorded in situ by Weever in 1631, although, by 1754, Gardner could not identify it among the memorials.52 There is little information about gravestones in churchyards, but at Bury St Edmunds, they had a second-hand value. In the ®rst half of the ®fteenth century, the abbey's sacrist was reprimanded for removing gravestones covering tombs in the abbey's cemeteries. He had sold the gravestones, `thus setting a bad and pernicious example for all faithful Christians who wish, for the remedy of their souls, to place such stones over the tombs of their predecessors, kinsmen and benefactors'.53 From the Deanery, there are three memorable requests, unusual for their unexpected detail. From the mass of wills specifying burial in Covehithe's churchyard, only Robert Dobson described his memorial as well: Ì will have one porch of stone and covered with lead over my grave . . . .'54 At Walberswick in 1512, Thomas Kerych gave precise instructions as to the position of his tomb in the churchyard, which was to be `. . . 4 feet on the east part from the holy water stoup in the highway . . .', and here his executors were to make a gravestone over him of lime and stone 2 feet high, which would make him a tomb-chest or, at the least, a coped stone.55 The last word, however, must go to William Haggs of Reydon, who chose to be buried before the porch door on the west side of Reydon churchyard.56 He ordered a gravestone costing 20d and then he described it, `. . . I will that my grave shall be heaved above the ground with masons craft three quarters of a yard and pinned up with stone.' This would have made a structure 27 inches high (69±70 cm) which, with the gravestone on top, was probably a tomb-chest. The majority of testators were happy to chose small crosses made of wood, distinguished by name, merchant's mark, device or whatever.57 John Coote of Bury St Edmunds, for example, left a request which read, àfter my decease to have two crosses goodly of timber one at my head the other at my feet with my arms thereupon and also the writing to pray the people of their charity to pray for my soul'.58 This would not have been long-term remembrance but it was remembrance of a sort. At Kelsale, William Dallyng wanted a gravestone `with images of brass there upon of me and my two wives, that is to say Joan and Margaret' (see Chapter Six on obits): William Richardson's instructions were for a double gravestone `for my sepulture graved in brass with my name and my wife and 52 53

54 55 56 57

58

Weever, Funerall Monuments, 76l Gardner, Dunwich, 125. Dinn, `Bury St Edmunds', 598. He quotes from J. W. Elston's `William Curteys, Abbot of Bury St Edmunds, 1429±1446' (Berkeley University PhD 1979), 106. SROI, IC/AA2/3/27, Robert Dobson, Covehithe 1483. SROI, IC/AA2/9/55, Thomas Kerych, Walberswick 1512. NRO, NCC Mingaye 130, William Haggs, Reydon 1537. Burgess, Churchyard Memorials, 147, note 41, John Skarpe of Felsham, Suffolk, left 8s for stone crosses. SROB, Will Register Pye f.123, John Coote, Bury St Edmunds 1502.


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children', and yet requests for brasses are so rare that if it were not for The Chorography of Suffolk, it would be easy to imagine that this form of memorial had long been abandoned.59 The Chorography is the earliest collection to record memorials in the county. It dates from c. 1602, and, although not complete, was reassembled from fragments lodged in archive collections throughout England.60 The collection is interesting because it shows that numerous Deanery brasses survived the Reformation, complete with stones, but subsequently perished. The Chorography leaves the impression that the type of person likely to be commemorated by a memorial brass would have borne arms, at the least, and the description of church monuments in the Deanery starts with William Banyard's brass in Spexhall church, dated 1417. The only survivor is an escutcheon, now ®xed to the tower wall (Plate 23). The brass of Sir William Argentein of Halesworth, ìn complete Armour treading upon a lion about his neck a collar of SS', was inscribed to show that he had died on 15 February 1418;61 and there was a stone dedicated to William Claxton, gentleman, who died 17 October 1539.62 Although it is estimated that 95 per cent of the original text is represented in The Chorography, less than a quarter of the parishes in the Deanery are entered in the chorographical description, including the Deanery's southernmost parishes. The Chorography reveals that Holton and its neighbour, Blyford, had already lost brasses by 1602, but, on the other hand, the chorographer failed to include two brasses which were in Halesworth church at the time of his visit and which are still there: those of William Fyske, about whom nothing is known, and John Everard of Linstead, the brother of Henry of the well-planned, but uninformative, will.63 John is shown as a demi-®gure, a rarity among the brasses of ®fteenth-century civilians (Plate 5).64 In Wissett, the chorographer recorded the brass of Agnes Colvyle, probably related to Richard Colvyll, the Wissett bailiff (d. 1524);65 and Emanie Hoo, for whom no date can be found, also had a brass there and was probably a member of that family who held land in Wissett, Blythburgh, Henstead and elsewhere. 59

60 61

62

63

64

65

SROI, IC/AA2/8/425, William Dallyng, Kelsale 1523; PRO, PCC Adeane 6, William Richardson, yeoman, Dunwich 1505. MacCulloch, Chorography, 1±16. PCC Marche 44, William Argentein, knight, Halesworth 1417; BL Add. MS 19080/4/ 409. NRO, NCC Mingaye 200, William Claxton, Halesworth. He wrote his will on 1 September 1539, in which he made no mention of a memorial. SROI, IC/AA2/2/337, John Everard, Halesworth 1476; IC/AA2/5/321, William Fyske, Halesworth, 1512; neither will contained instructions for memorials. John Everard made his will six weeks before he died, William Fyske made his the night before he died. E. R. Suf¯ing, English Church Brasses from the Thirteenth to the Seventeenth Century (London 1910), 183. SROI, IC/AA2/9/42, Richard Colvyll, Blythburgh 1524. He asked to be buried in Blythburgh church before the holy martyr St Erasmus.


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The Chorography does not include Wrentham, but here is Ele Bowet's brass, the oldest female brass to have survived in Suffolk (Plate 24). Born an Ufford, she died in 1400 and was the great-granddaughter of Eve Clavering, whose families were commemorated in Blythburgh's roof. Ele's relation by marriage, the archbishop of York, links the stained glass in York Minster clerestory and Blythburgh church. At Yoxford, the shrouded daughters and grandchildren of Thomasine Hopton, all members of the county gentry, display the contemporary interest in shrouded corpses, but succeed in looking like mermaids. Sir John Jenney (d. 1460) adorns the wall of Knodishall church. The chorographer tells us that Sir William Jenney, his son, was commemorated in brass at Theberton. Figurative memorial brasses in the Deanery during the ®fteenth and early sixteenth centuries belonged to those with suitable means, either self-made or inherited. Everything and anything else has perished. Tombs Towards the end of the Middle Ages, funeral monuments became far more widely used, and, in the very highest circles, the ®rst attempts at realistic funerary portraiture were realized in the ef®gy of Philippa of Hainault at Westminster Abbey c. 1367.66 This was in¯uenced by the developments at the court of Charles V of France, and, thirty years later, Richard II asked for his ef®gy `conterfait le corps'.67 Given the social composition of the Deanery of Dunwich, it is unlikely that there would have been much realism displayed in its funerary monuments, but, generally speaking, those who generated the increasing number of wills in late medieval England were from the same section of society which was responsible for the increased output of memorials. These were the parish gentry and, more particularly, merchants, wealthy artisans and yeomen, some of whom were prominent in the regional life of the time, many of whom dictated the Deanery wills. The value of memorials as symbols of social status for the new middle classes encouraged masons and marblers to explore ways of copying the more expensive memorials for their humbler patrons. Nevertheless, the Deanery's surviving examples are all from the established gentry. In Heveningham Church, one wooden ef®gy remains as an unusual survival with no de®nite identi®cation. It is one of six such ef®gies in Suffolk and is nearest in style to those of Michael and Katherine de la Pole, earl and countess of Suffolk, c. 1415, who lie in Wing®eld church in the neighbouring deanery. Wooden ef®gies were carved in oak and hollowed out so that they could be ®lled with charcoal, which absorbed moisture and prevented the wood from splitting, and then the ®gures were decorated with gesso, painted and gilded; but Heveningham's ef®gy is now in such a poor 66 67

A. R. M. Martindale, Gothic Art (repr. London 1985), 245, pl. 187. Gittings, Death and the Individual, 34; Stone, Sculpture in Britain, 192±3.


Plate 23. Spexhall church: the Banyard arms. After living in Spexhall for several hundred years, the last Banyard died without a male heir in the late ®fteenth century and the Spexhall estates were dispersed.


Plate 24. Wrentham church: Ele Bowet's brass, 1400. Ele died childless. Her brass is the oldest surviving female brass in the county, and the inscription reads `May she live eternally travelling above the stars.'


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state that no trace of decoration is visible.68 The Chorography reported the presence of wooden ef®gies in Heveningham Church c. 1602: `. . . against the same wall [in the north chapel] stand erected in wood the portraitures of 2 knights armed & a Lady' (see cover plate).69 By 1737, the three ®gures were set at the lower end of the church; in 1847 the lady had gone for ®rewood, and today one knight, bereft of tomb, lies in the south aisle on a bier.70 The jupon which he wears was out of fashion by 1410 so he must be before that date.71 He could possibly be Sir John Heveningham (d. 1379), but is probably not the next Sir John, for whom probate was not granted until 1444, far too late for the jupon.72 And so, unless Sir John's forward-planning was so in-hand that his ef®gy was ready thirty years before his death, it is unlikely that he is commemorated here. There is an illustration by Miss Collett, showing two wooden ef®gies lying on a sculptured tomb, the third ®gure having been destroyed by this time.73 An account written in 1737 describes a tomb made of wood, covered with a marble slab.74 Around the edge of the slab, brass was inlaid and inscribed. It read (in translation), `Here lies Sir John Heveningham and Lady Margaret, his wife, who have made this chapel.' There was a brass of a knight in `compleat' armour and a lady at his left side. A similar description of the tomb, on it a knight and his lady by him, appears in The Chorography; but, because the 1737 manuscript includes a sketch of the tomb, it is apparent that this was the tomb of John Heveningham (d. 1499), who, in his will, asked to be buried in the chapel `that late I did make'. His ef®gy and that of Lady Margaret were inlaid in brass, as were the four devices inlaid on the top of the slab. The brasses must have been removed after 1737 and, by the time Mrs Ann Mills arrived at Heveningham in 1819 to paint the scene, the two remaining wooden ef®gies had been placed on the top of the tomb to which they did not belong (Plate VIII). When Suckling visited Heveningham in the late 1840s, he reported that the chapel had been demolished, the inscription and most of the escutcheons reaved. Today even the tomb has vanished. Only the unknown wooden knight remains. So much for commemoration. In Blythburgh church, to the north of the chancel but just below the 68 69 70

71

72

73 74

Cautley, Suffolk Churches, 188±9. MacCulloch, Chorography, 87. MacCulloch, Chorography, 87; Suckling, Suffolk, 396; CUL, Hengrave MS 3, Blything Hundred, 82. A. C. Fryer, `Wooden Monumental Ef®gies in England and Wales', Archaeologia lxi, pt ii (1909), 487±552, at 549. NRO, NCC Wylbey 47±8, Sir John Heveningham, Heveningham 1425; The History of Parliament gives the date of probate as 1440. BL, Add. MS 19176/75 circa 1810. From D. E. Davy's collection of drawings. CUL, Hengrave MS 3. Blything Hundred, 82. The Cambridge manuscript gives the precise heraldic devices of Heveningham and Gissing at the head, at the foot Heveningham and Redisham, with three more devices on shields on the side of the tomb commemorating, among others, Heveningham and Saville.


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sanctuary, is the tomb of John Hopton, lord of Blythburgh manor, who died in 1478 (see Plate 14). He wished to be interred `. . . on the north side of the chancel of Blythburgh under a tomb of marble set in an arch of the chancel of the parish church on the north side by him lately edi®ed and built'.75 The tomb occupies the premier position between the Hopton chantry chapel to the north and the chancel to the south, and would have served as the Easter Sepulchre, where before the Reformation the consecrated Host and the cross were kept from Good Friday until Easter morning.76 It is decorated on either side with shields. There are six shields on the chest itself, set in quatrefoils and recently repainted with family arms: six more decorate the canopy, which has intricate detail on the underside and rich cresting above. There were originally three memorial brasses inlaid on the top of the tomb which commemorated Hopton and his two wives, Margaret (d. 1452) and Thomasine (d. 1497), who asked to be buried in Blythburgh `. . . where as my husband John Hopton esquire hath or else if it behove me to decease in Essex therein to be buried at Rayleigh Church'.77 Some thirteen years after Thomasine Hopton was interred with her third husband, John Hopton, in the tomb at Blythburgh, Nicholas Sidney, her son by her second husband, wrote his will and requested to be buried in the chancel at Yoxford `by my sister'.78 He left no instructions for a tomb, but an early sixteenth-century canopied stone altar tomb, believed to have been his, was later moved from the chancel; by 1961, it lay `dissembled under the tower'.79 The back panel had been reaved of the brasses which would have commemorated Nicholas and his wife Anne Brandon, aunt of Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, described by the sharp-tongued Weever as `that martial and pompous gentleman'.80 The heraldic shields had gone and part of the canopy was broken. Sir Edmund Jenney was a prevaricator, and, on several occasions when acting as executor, took years to complete the administration of wills. Hopefully, Jenney's own executors discharged his will more swiftly, for there were barely twenty years between his death and the Reformation, but in Jenney's terms a time span such as this was neither here nor there. The instructions left by him in his will of 1522 are worth recalling as an example of interpretation, listening not to what a will says but to what it does not say. He asked, 75

76 77 78

79

80

R. T. L. Parr, Yoxford Yesterday, I, 235. This quotation comes from MS notes of John Ingham, attorney, supervising the Blois affairs in 1753. Hopton's will, dated 10 February 1477, has not survived. Dymond and Paine, Spoil of Melford, 4, note 15, and pl. 2, opposite x. PRO, PCC Horne 18, Thomasine Hopton, Yoxford 1497. PRO, PCC Fetiplace 10, Nicholas Sidney, Yoxford 1513; Richmond, John Hopton, 128±32. Nicholas Sidney's sister was Thomasine, who married William Tendering. She appears as a shrouded brass in Yoxford church accompanied by her children. BL, Add. MS 19176/203: an illustration of the tomb. Its destruction is described on a notice on the west nave wall of the church. Weever, Funerall Monuments, 726.


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. . . to be buried in the church of Knodishall under or by the wall dividing the chancel and the vestry, that in that wall may be made an arch and a little tomb covered with a marble stone or some other stone under the arch that through that arch may be a sight of the altar out of the said arch for they that will be in the said vestry to lean upon the said tomb looking to the alter . . .81

Jenney's request would have placed his tomb in the position of an Easter Sepulchre, the same as Hopton's in Blythburgh and Sidney's in Yoxford. Perhaps he envisaged the vestry on the north of the chancel as a chantry chapel, for Jenney had instructed his executors to ®nd a priest to say prayers for a hundred years, the executors to pay for ten of them. Jenney's heir was to pay for the rest. The lack of requests for memorials must be due to forward planning on the part of the testators. The few requests which were recorded belong almost exclusively to burials within the church, but the most interesting requests are for the three churchyard tombs. Presumably prohibitive expense, instructions left prior to death and the tendency to follow a familial style all played a part in this lack of testamentary requests, a lack not re¯ected in the incidence of stones in Deanery churches, albeit that most are bereft of brasses. The Chorography lists commemorative brasses which are exclusively armigerous. The brasses which remain today come from that same section of society, but too few are left to make a de®nitive statement on the social class commemorated by such memorials. Nevertheless, taking all the existing scraps of evidence, it seems that ®gural brasses were the prerogative of the gentry. If the will-making population was the upper one-third of society, the class represented by ®gural brass would be barely 10 per cent of that one-third. As it is, for every stone bearing a ®gural indentation in the churches, there are many more with indents for small brass plaques only, perhaps commissioned by gentlemen and merchants. Not enough is known about wooden memorials to comment on them, and John Coote's request for a wooden memorial cross inscribed with his arms shows that there were people of a recognized social standing who were content with an impermanent material rather than stone or brass. The only ef®gies or tombs recorded by antiquarians were again from the highest level of local society, presumably because these `persons of especiall ranke and qualitie' were from that stratum where such expenditure and display would be de rigueur. Yet there are few tombs recorded by antiquarians compared with the number of persons in the area who might have asked for the same. The de®ciency of quality tombs cannot be blamed on the dissolution of the monasteries in this instance, for few religious houses were chosen as sites of interment, and, even taking the testators of Dunwich town into account, those requesting friary burials probably opted for brass 81

NRO, NCC Brigges 108±16, Edmund Jenney, knight, Knodishall 1522.


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memorials. If stone ef®gies did exist, some may have been destroyed during bursts of iconoclasm, some may have disintegrated gradually during longer periods of negligence. But in the absence of any evidence to show that this was the case, the majority of gentry memorials within the Deanery churches must be supposed to have been memorial gravestones with brass. Nevertheless, why were there so few monuments of quality?

c:/3mid-stewart/concl.3d ± 11/4/1 ± 10:40 ± B&B/mp

Conclusion: Dimming the Lights Put out the light, and then put out the light: If I quench thee, thou ¯aming minister, I can again thy former light restore, Should I repent me; but once put out thy light, Thy cunning'st pattern of excelling nature, I know not where is that Promethean heat That can thy light relume. from William Shakespeare, Othello, Act 5, scene 2

If the Reformation is not part of this story, then neither is a conclusion which is mainly concerned with events occurring after 1547. Yet it is not possible to become so intimately involved and acquainted with the Deanery testators without considering the destruction of the artefacts which, through their efforts, had embellished the parish churches. Nothing is known of the immediate fate of the books, plate and vestments which their pennies and shillings had provided. The destruction of the glazing, the murals and the memorials in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries makes terrible reading. The sheer neglect of the eighteenth century appals, as does the omnipotence of nineteenth-century vicars, a reminder that material commemoration does not endure and that the testators are remembered today through their wills. Imagery enjoyed a reprieve during the ®fteenth and early sixteenth centuries, although criticism of it was not sti¯ed, and during this period parish churches accepted an extraordinary variety of bequests. The imagery which the orthodox revered and the unorthodox attacked were statues standing within their tabernacles, statues in niches over doorways, in window embrasures, on the Holy Rood, on stalls, pews and fonts, carved on porches or decorating corner buttresses. Images were found illumined in books and stitched on vestments and banners, engraved on plate; they were painted on glass, stained on plaster, worked and wrought on all furnishings within the church, and carved on much of the fabric without. Images brought Christian teaching within the visual sphere of the common man or woman. They were, after all, the medium through which the illiterate approached their Saviour and the company of Heaven. Contemporary churchwardens' accounts and inventories leave an impression of saturation having been reached by the 1530s; and it was then that the debate on images was staged between Thomas More and William Tyndale, establishing the fundamental positions of the protagonists.1 More defended visual aids as an appropriate language to re¯ect spiritual truth: 1

Phillips, Reformation of Images, 44±8; D. Daniell, Let There Be Light: William Tyndale and the Making of the English Bible (London 1994), 21±7.


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CONCLUSION: DIMMING THE LIGHTS

In good faith to say the truth these heretics rather tri¯e than reason in this matter. For where they say that images be but lay men's books they can not yet say nay but that they be necessary if they were but so. Howbeit me thinketh that they be good books both for lay men and for the learned to. For as I somewhat said unto you before all the words that be either written or spoken be but images representing the things that the writer or speaker conceiveth in his mind: likewise as the ®gure of the thing framed with imagination and so conceived in the mind is but an image representyng the very thing it self that a man thinketh on.2

And Tyndale's lengthy answer referred, in part, to `sacraments, ceremonies, images, relics and so forth': And to kneel before the cross unto the word of God, which the cross preacheth, is not evil. Neither to kneel before an image, in a man's meditations, to call the living of the saint to mind, for to desire God of like grace to follow the ensample is not an evil. But the abuse of the thing is evil, and to have a false faith: as to bear a piece of the cross about a man, thinking that so long as that is about him spirits shall not come at him, his enemies shall do him no bodily harm, all causes shall go on his side, even for bearing it about him; and to think, if any misfortune chance, that it came for leaving it off, or because this or that ceremony was left undone, and not rather because we have broken God's commandments or that God tempteth us to prove our patience; this is plain idolatry: and here a man is captive, bond and servant unto a false faith, and a false imagination that is neither God nor His word.3

Both men suffered death for their wider beliefs, More in 1535, Tyndale the following year. In 1536 damaging criticism came from Hugh Latimer in his sermon to Convocation in which he struck out at the cult of images and of saints, and lights, intercessions, pilgrimage and Purgatory:4 It was a pleasant ®ction, and from the beginning so pro®table to the feigners of it, that almost, I dare boldly say, there hath been no emperor that hath gotten more by taxes and tallages of them that were alive, than these, the very and right begotten sons of the world, got by dead men's tributes and gifts.

The Ten Articles, drawn up by Convocation, then sanctioned images while explicitly warning worshippers against idolatry, but patronage of the saints came under attack and prohibition followed.5 Certain saints' days were abrogated: St Swithun, St Margaret, and Mary Magdalene; St Anne, her popularity of recent ¯owering; the Feast of the Trans®guration, established 2

3 4

5

T. M. C. Lawler, G. Marc'hadour and R. C. Marius, eds, A Dialogue Concerning Heresies, VI, pt I (1981), of The Yale Edition of the Complete Works of St Thomas More, 15 vols (Yale 1963±97), 46; the text here has been transcribed into modern English by Judith Middleton-Stewart. Williams, English Historical Documents, 687±8, Tyndale's answer to More. G. E. Corrie, ed., Sermons by Hugh Latimer, sometime Bishop of Worcester, Martyr 1555 (Cambridge 1844), 41±58. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 392±4; Phillips, Reformation of Images, 53±5.



277

barely ®fty years previously; and St Alban, St Etheldreda, St Dunstan, St Edmund and Edward the Confessor, a host of particularly English saints whose patronal festivals fell within the Westminster law terms, the period speci®ed for abolition.6

Lights, Lamps and Images In 1537, saints were assailed again when the Bishops' Book forbade worshippers to bow before or to worship images; and in the Injunctions of 1538, lights before images were to be extinguished and images removed if they provided a focus for pilgrimage or for any particular àbuse'. While the Act of Supremacy or the dissolution of the monasteries made little impact upon the man or woman in the pew, the prohibition of lights before images struck at the core of parish worship, and their quenching meant that the only lights permitted were to be placed on the altar, before the rood or in front of the Easter sepulchre.7 Lights were extinguished, some more slowly than others, for in 1541 the prohibition had to be repeated. Nevertheless, the clinical dissection had begun, and now other aspects of the orthodox Church were under threat. This was the beginning of the end of parish worship as it had been practised, and the start of a inde®nite period of agonizing doubt and fear for the future.8 It was not only lights before images which were snuffed out. The plough light, burning at the back of the church and bringing God's blessing on the land, was ®nanced by a parish collection, made on the Monday after the feast of the Epiphany, for `. . . ledyng of the plow abowtyn the fer as for good begynnyng of the yer that they schulde fare the bettere al the yer folwynge'.9 The plough `gathering' or collection in Crat®eld in 1535 brought in 10s 6d; at Hunting®eld, in 1542, it produced 7d on Plowland Monday. Plough lights were included in the prohibitions. Crat®eld was one of the parishes which continued to make a collection, although now the money went into the general church fund, and in Cambridgeshire some parishes kept gild ploughs in the church until the end of the seventeenth century.10 The dimming of lights such as these, which were woven into the every-day existence of the agricultural community, was the beginning of the estrangement between local folk tradition and formal religion. Lands which had been given for the upkeep of lights and lamps in the county's parish churches were entered in the Suffolk Chantry certi®cates of 1547. Some lands survived the Reformation, emerging in the late sixteenth 6 7 8 9

10

Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 394±5. Hutton, Ìmpact of the Tudor Reformations', 116±17. M. Aston, England's Iconoclasts (Oxford 1988), 222. NRO, NCC Sur¯ete 135, Roger Thyrkeby, chaplain, Leiston 1433; Barnum, Dives and Pauper, 157. Thomas, Decline of Magic, 81±2; Hutton, Ìmpact of Tudor Reformations', 117, note 11.


278


and seventeenth centuries as parish property, similar to gild lands which continued under another name and in a different guise. Lampland marsh in Walberswick, held `from time immemorial for the reparation of the church', may have come from John Poty's bequest of 1514, in which he gave to Margaret, his wife, `the grene land', on condition she supplied oil for Poty's lamp in Walberswick Church.11 After her death, the land was to go to the church under the same terms. In Peasenhall, the donor of land given `for superstitious purposes' is more certain.12 Here, in 1490, Edmund Kempe bequeathed a stretch of land lying on the Peasenhall±Sibton boundary, originally left for the supply of wax tapers to burn before the Easter sepulchre, the high altar, and the image of Our Lady in Peasenhall church.13 This was piecemeal progression, but every stage entailed irreversible destruction of artefacts, whatever Henry VIII's personal religious beliefs and irrespective of subsequent reinstatement under his religiously orthodox daughter, Mary Tudor. Within six months of Henry's death, the 1547/8 injunctions demanded the destruction of relics, images and pictures, including the glazed imagery in windows; all candles, save the altar candles, were to be put out; the telling of the beads was denounced, and domestic religious imagery was to be destroyed, the priest being ordered to exhort the parishioners so to do. This would have included painted bed-hangings, embroidered cloths, and alabaster images of John the Baptist's head, all part of the furnishings in private houses which were to be eliminated.

Gild and Chantry Endowments Within the Deanery, there is no proof that the gilds were losing popularity or that their members considered their observances outmoded. The gilds' decline and abrupt disappearance were due to fear of prohibition and loss of endowment rather than disenchantment. Dating the voluntary dissolution of gilds is far from easy, but gild members were apparently anxious about the future nearly a decade before the ®nal suppression by the Crown. In 1539, John Heylocke, a cooper from Kelsale, the township having the Deanery's largest gild, left 3s 4d to the gild of St John the Baptist ìf it be up holdyn and kept'.14 The suppression of the smaller monasteries had already been effected: Rumburgh in 1528, Blythburgh and Leiston in 1537. The Cistercians at Sibton, a greater house, went into voluntary dissolution in 1536. Wangford 11

12 13

14

White, Suffolk, 1844, 399±400; NRO, NCC Multon 122, John Poty, Walberswick 1514. The Charities in the County of Suffolk, 506. SROI/ IC/AA2/3/167, Edmund Kempe, Peasenhall 1490; see also SROI, FC 67, Peasenhall parish records. SROI, IC/AA2/13/44, John Heylocke, Kelsale 1539; Westlake, Parish Gilds, 132±3; Evans, `The Holy Ghost Gild', 32±3.



279

was to follow in 1540 with its mother house at Thetford. The patron of Crat®eld church was the prior and convent of St Neots in Huntingdonshire, and this house was suppressed in 1539. Small wonder that Crat®eld's parishioners took precautions to preserve their property as religious houses crashed about them. Parishioners took steps to ensure the survival of gild and church lands, a fact revealed in the churchwardens' accounts, gild accounts and court rolls, whereas the disposal of chantry lands in Hunting®eld, Halesworth and Covehithe lack similar documentation, being individual rather than a corporate, parish enterprises.15 In 1537, the Crat®eld gild hall was `given' to John Thurketyll, a village elder, and con®scation by the Crown was avoided.16 Within three months of the accession of Mary Tudor in 1553, a group of village elders was admitted to the tenement called Le Guildehalle comprising one acre and one rood. Today, a building known as the Town House lies to the south of Crat®eld church in its holding of approximately one acre and one rood, but as the Crat®eld accounts of 1563 refer to the pulling down of the old house and building anew, it is the site rather than the present structure which belonged to John Rusale.17 Crat®eld's case is not unique. Virginia Bainbridge has shown how the gild hall at Whittlesford, Cambridgeshire, became part of the town stock, and was successfully retained until the hunt for concealed lands had ceased.18 In Nayland in south Suffolk, Rosemary Knox has demonstrated how feoffees retained gild property in a different form and using a different name.19 In Crat®eld, certain copyhold lands were surrendered in 1540, to be held for the use of the Gild of Thomas the Martyr.20 The ®nal payment had been made to the gild chaplain and he had moved on.21 St Thomas's gild was disbanded shortly after, the immovable assets effectively going underground. In 1566, Symon Smith, by bargain and sale, granted to the parishioners the tenement Bencelyns, John Fyn's bequest of 1461;22 the town or gild hall with one acre, one rood; the tenement Caryells with an orchard;23 Tong's meadow of two acres; Molland of half an acre; Warkeland of eight acres, representing Rose Larkes; and fee farm land of four and a half acres called Baxter's Crofte, a transaction which cost the parishioners a total of £70.24 Elsewhere in the Deanery, other post-Reformation holdings must have previously been gild or church endowments, but the picture is not always 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23 24

Redstone, `Chapels, Chantries and Gilds', 33, 34, 37. SROI, FC 62/L1/7, 15. Raven, Crat®eld, 96. Bainbridge, Cambridgeshire Gilds, 40 Knox, `The Nayland Feoffees', 225±37. SROI, FC 62/L1/11. SROI, FC 62/E1/3. NRO, NCC Brosyard 258, John Fyn, Crat®eld 1461; S. H. A. Hervey, Suffolk in 1327, being a Subsidy Return, Suffolk Green Books IX (Woodbridge 1906), 62. William Benselyn appears as a tax payer in 1327, paying 12d. NRO, NCC Gelour 169, John Caryell, priest, Crat®eld 1466. SROI, FC 62/L1/15; FC 62/L1/18.


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clear. The gild of St John the Baptist, Chediston, and the Holy Trinity gild, Westhall, appear in the Chantry Certi®cates of 1547/8, but, according to information provided by the parish, they had already been dissolved.25 Chediston gild had not been kept for `sixteen years', which puts its demise around 1532, but Westhall's gild, said to have perished about 1534, was remembered in a Westhall will written as late as 1538, which suggests that parishioners' evidence to the commissioners in 1547 was not always accurate ± or truthful.26 At Halesworth, a messuage called `formerly Baxters', but in fact the gild hall of John the Baptist, was held by the Halesworth inhabitants in the 1577 survey of the town.27 At present, one of its tenants is an insurance broker, a suitable replacement for the late medieval gild brethren, interested as they were in investing for the future. If the gild halls came through the Reformation and reverted to the towns, it is likely that gild lands survived, too, under a different appellation. This reinforces a suspicion that some charity land, documented in parish papers from the seventeenth century onwards, was originally bequeathed before the Reformation; but Edmund Kempe's bequest for lights before Our Lady at Peasenhall is the best corroborative evidence of this, the only land acknowledged as having been left, prior to the Reformation, for `superstitious purposes'.

The Plate In August 1536 the inventories made by the commissioners for the religious houses at Blythburgh and Leiston are derisory in their assessment of the value of the goods.28 The adjective most frequently used to describe Leiston's effects is òld' or, occasionally, `very old': altar cloths, cushions, organs, copes, vestments, carpets, òld boks for the service nothyng worth'; even the plough was `very aged'. Alabaster tables (altarpieces) were worth 20d, or, on the altar of the Cruci®x, two were worth 8d. The plate, of course, showed its true worth. This was the ultimate prize of dissolution. Item iii payer of Chalesses of sylver, ii parcell gilte the other gilte per ounce xv oz at iijs iiid the ounce price 50s Item v spones sylver per oz ij oz price vjs viijd

The value of Leiston's goods came to £42 16s 3d, the inventory to be `left in the kepyng of the Abbott ther to the Kyngs use as heraft' folowyth'. The abbot at the suppression was George Carleton, later accused by Thomas 25 26 27

28

Redstone, `Chapels, Chantries and Gilds', 41, 51. SROI, IC/AA2/13/282, Thomas Holbecke, Westhall 1538. J. Ridgard, ed., Halesworth ± Towards a Local History, Halesworth WEA (Bungay 1979), 26; White, Suffolk 1844, 372±3; M. Gooch and S. Gooch, The People of a Suffolk Town: Halesworth, 1100±1900 (Halesworth 1999), 96, map. Haslewood, Ìnventories', 102±4.



281

Wilde and Thomas Sherington of `craftily and privily of his own covetous mind' purloining plate and jewels from the abbey worth £100 and more.29 The chapel of St Nicholas at Sizewell, despite the legacies bestowed upon it, was described in the Chantry Certi®cates of 1547 as having no goods and a value of 2s. If anyone had remained unshaken by the destruction of the religious houses, then the Henrican Chantries Act of 1545 alerted parishioners to the fate of their own parish treasures.30 The proposed suppression of perpetual and service chantries was likely to involve con®scation similar to that experienced by monasteries, albeit on a reduced scale. It was only a question of time. But the sale of parish plate started well in advance of 1545. This is shown in the 1547 inventories in which the disposal of plate is enumerated, followed by the pro®ts and the use to which they had been put. The details reveal the stark reality of church ®nances. At Dunwich, St John's churchwardens reported that, in 1535, a silver pyx had been sold, the £5 pro®t bestowed òn pulling down the pinnacle' of the threatened church. In 1542, they reported `so much plate as cometh to the sum of twenty-one [no symbol] bestowed on making our pier for the defence of the church and the whole town'. By 1544, plate worth a further £17 had been sold to make the pier. These sales were prompted by the coastal erosion which imperilled the great market church of St John's, abandoned shortly afterwards. But not only St John's was at risk. St Peter's had sold plate worth £18 in 1544 to be spent on the haven. The parish of All Saints, in 1544, sold a silver cross and a pax worth £6 to enclose a marsh between the town and the sea, which cost £35.31 Dunwich may have been unusual, but it was not unique. Covehithe sold £40 of plate in 1545. The dissolution of Covehithe's patron, the priory of Wangford in 1540, may have encouraged Covehithe church to sell its plate, and additional plate worth £30 had gone by 1547. £20 was spent `for the making of our quay', £16 on church repairs and on guns, beacons and redeeming prisoners in Scotland.32 The amount raised reveals ®rstly the relative wealth of Covehithe's community, unknown and seemingly never considered, for Covehithe's history has not been recorded; and yet, within the Deanery, its tax at the time of the earlier 1327 subsidy was second only to Dunwich, and its wills are more numerous than any other Deanery township. Secondly, the expenditure on the quay shows what a hopeless undertaking it was to attempt to staunch the ultimate fate of this coastal town. Blythburgh church, its priory dissolved, sold a silver gilt cross weighing 10 lb for £27 in 1545, and invested the money in common marsh and fen for the town and the poor.33 The parishioners of Yoxford had witnessed the 29 30 31 32 33

PRO, E 321/12/72. 37 Henry VIII, c.4; Oman, English Plate, 120±1. East Anglian NS i, 188. East Anglian NS ii, 104. East Anglian NS i, 102.


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premature sale of Sibton abbey to the Duke of Norfolk in 1536, and they sold plate worth £10 in 1544 to a London goldsmith, expending 30s from their pro®ts on à poor child' and £5 on the road. A further sale of plate to the Hoptons raised £15 in 1547 and, from this, they spent £5 on obeying the injunctions of Protector Somerset.34 Why had they sold so much and spent so little if it was not that they were fearful for the future and for their possessions? Halesworth and Hunting®eld had sold plate before 1545, too; Halesworth's amounting to £49, Hunting®eld's to £3 3s 4d. In January 1547 Henry VIII died and the Act of 1545 lapsed with his death. In December 1547 the Edwardian Chantries Act was passed, the chantries, hospitals and gilds to be disposed of as the young king saw ®t.35 Commissioners toured the countryside visiting chantries and drawing up inventories while other commissioners, in pursuance of the Injunctions issued in July of the same year, toured the same countryside, visiting parish churches and inspecting inventories to ensure that `. . . there remain no memory of the same [imagery] in walls, glasses, windows, or elsewhere within their churches or houses . . .'.36 The demand for two inventories, the one drawn up for the total abolition of chantries, the other vetting the possessions of the parish churches, raised the alarm. Duffy describes the disposal of plate in 1547±48 as a panic-stricken stampede to prevent theft by the Crown;37 yet by selling their surplus plate, churches raised money for the additional expenditure brought about by the reforms which concurrently severed the source of parish wealth. The 1547 inventories showed Aldringham shedding censers and a silver ship, Middleton selling two pairs of censers, two pairs of chalices and two paxes. Reydon lost a chrismatory, a cross and a pair of censers, the silver selling at 4s 5d per ounce, while Chediston's silver made only 4s per ounce. Southwold's silver made less at 3s 4d per ounce, yet the church sold plate worth £70.38 From such sales, churchwardens recorded purchasing chalders of lime for church repairs, whiting church walls to blot out imagery and replace it with scriptural texts, mending glass windows, mending bridges, widening lanes, improving sea defences. All this was legal expenditure and some of it repaired damage which was the result of reform, but all was carefully entered and noted against an uncertain future. Inevitably, throughout England, items of plate, vestments, candlesticks and bells disappeared, and Peter Heylyn, in the earliest attempt at a Reformation history published in 1661, described the loss:39 34 35 36

37 38 39

East Anglian NS ii, 367. 1 Edward c.14; Kreider, English Chantries, 189±92. D. Loades, Revolution in Religion: the English Reformation, 1530±1570 (Cardiff 1992), 81. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 484±6. East Anglian NS i, 50; NS ii, 70, 123; NS i, 160. Oman, English Plate, 124±5; P. Heylyn, Ecclesia Restaurata, or The History of the Reformation of the Church of England, I, ed. J. C. Robertson (Cambridge 1849), 286.



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Some things being utterly embezzled by persons not responsible . . . : but more concealed by persons not detectable, who had so cunningly carried the stealth that there was no tracing of their footsteps. And some there were, who being known to have such goods in their possession, conceived themselves too great to be called in question; connived at willingly by those who were but their equals, and either were, or meant to be, offenders in the very same kind.

The churchwardens of St John's, Dunwich, reported `there is a silver pax alienated being in the hands of William Glampe of the same town'.40 John Amable and Nicholas Ryve, the churchwardens of Bram®eld, noted in their 1547 inventory that church plate had been entrusted to their vicar for safekeeping, but `certain rash persons' had attempted to lay hands on it for their own use without the consent of the churchwardens. The churchwardens subsequently sold 51 ounces of plate for 4s 4d an ounce to Robert Norton of Halesworth, supplier of Suffolk cheese and butter to the English garrisons in France from 1546 to 1553. Norton paid £11 12d, of which Bram®eld spent £5 6s 8d on church repairs and coffers for the church and vestry.41 Norton's will, dated 1561, reveals his love of plate, enumerating among other items three silver salts, twenty-four silver spoons, a parcel-gilt goblet and a ¯at piece of silver parcel gilt. Might the last two items be a chalice and a pax? A second inventory was ordered in February 1549, and the commissioners prohibited the sale or embezzlement of property, leaving the inventories to be lodged with the custos rotulorum in each county. When the ®nal sweep came in 1552, commissioners were re-appointed, the 1549 inventories were released, new inventories were made and the two were compared.42 Now the new liturgy could dispense with the old plate which was to be taken for the king's use.43 In the commissioners' certi®cates for Suffolk, taken on 3 March 1553, it was stated that 4,161 ounces of plate had been received from the county `for His Majesty's use', besides £413 8s for goods sold by churchwardens, and a further £496 8s 4d was still to come; and the commissioners directed that one, at the most two, chalices were to remain in each parish àccording to the multitude of the people'.44 Within the Deanery, only Covehithe was permitted to retain two chalices, and it is not dif®cult to imagine the antipathy that parishioners felt towards strangers who came into their churches to remove precious items òn the king's business'. Robert Bery, collector of pensions and portions for the suppressed house of Eye, arrived at St John's, Dunwich, and removed a chalice from the altar ànd 40 41

42 43

44

East Anglian NS i, 188. East Anglian NS ii, 114; Gooch and Gooch, People of a Suffolk Town ± Halesworth, 14±15. Oman, English Plate, 121±2. Loades, Revolution in Religion, 109, an extract from `Robert Parkyn's Narrative of the Reformation'. H. C. Casley, Àn Ipswich Worker of Elizabethan Church Plate', PSIA xii (1904±06), 158±83, at 160±1, 158; Oman, English Plate, 125.


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carried it away out of the church peaceably'. The bailiff, George Copping, `vyllanlye took the said collector by the bosome and bade him deliver the said chalice or else he would make him' which, with the help of ®ve or six others, Copping did, pushing Bery up against the altar boards and forcibly removing the chalice from his grasp.45 The 1547 inventories show that, between 1535 to 1547, twenty-one Deanery parish churches, less than half the total number, had already sold plate worth £432. Small parishes like Sotherton sold a chalice, a couple of old vestments, a veil cloth and a broken hand-bell; or were these all they wished to sell in 1547?46 The quantity and the values shown above reveal that the majority of the Deanery parish churches had been well endowed. Many were still adequately stocked with plate in 1552, and some must have been set aside in the hope of better times. When that plate was ®nally revealed, its survival was brief, its ultimate fate the melting-pot. But who knows how many lives a silver spoon had before it assumed its ®nal form?

The Vestments Vestments, which had an intrinsic value as secular hangings, were retrieved or stolen in the aftermath of the dissolution of monasteries in the same way as plate was recovered or purloined.47 In the 1547 returns few parishes mentioned vestments, for no ban had been put on wearing them or on `decking' the altar. Nevertheless, the Wangford churchwardens, John Colyn and Nicholas Dux reported, `. . . there is taken out of the church one cope of velvet, one vestment of velvet and one vestment of satin and in whose hands they remain, the churchwardens know not . . .'.48 The priory had been suppressed seven years before and the satin vestment, bequeathed by Thomas Barker to Wangford church, was barely ®fteen years old.49 The dissolution of Wangford priory alerted parishioners to the inevitable fate of church possessions: Many private men's Parlors were hung with Altar Cloths, their Tables and Beds covered with Copes instead of Carpets and Coverlids . . . . It was a sorry House, and not worth the naming, which had not somewhat of this Furniture in it, though it were only a fair large cushion made of a Cope or Altar Cloth, to adorn their Windows, or make their Chairs appear to have somewhat in them of a Chair of state.50 45 46 47 48 49 50

PRO, E 321/1/67. East Anglian NS ii, 136. Dymond and Paine, Spoil of Melford, 46, notes 115, 47. East Anglian NS ii, 205. SROI, IC/AA2/12/33, Thomas Barker, Wangford 1532. J. E. Cussans, ed., Inventory of Furniture and Ornaments remaining in all the Parish Churches of Hertfordshire in the last Year of the Reign of King Edward the Sixth (London 1873), 1±2, 4±6.



285

Blythburgh priory had gone by 1547, but Blythburgh's church inventory lists the vestments held at that time.51 In 1549, the churchwardens' accounts reveals their subsequent fate. Two copes of blue worsted and a suit of yellow had been sold to Lazarus Drave for 10s. Thomas Motte paid 12s 4d for the child's blue silk cope and Bishop's coat. The cope and matching vestment of red damask with ¯owers of gold was sold to Master Hopton of the manor for an undisclosed sum, and yet he is not shown as the purchaser of his father's vestment of white with the arms of Hopton upon it. Perhaps he had already repossessed it. The gift of William Colett in 1503 had been `. . . a red cope lyke for the cope that was bought of Simon Goodyng'.52 Two copes of red damask were sold together, with a suit of green baudekin, for 34s 8d in 1549. Two velvet copes and a white suit fetched 53s.53 The abolition of images had made decorated cloths super¯uous, and the suppression of services and chantries rendered side altars with their accoutrements redundant. The hacking down of the roods dispensed with rood cloths, and the defacement of sepulchres removed the need for coverings. By 1552 the Book of Common Prayer instructed `that Ministers at the time of the communion, and at all other times of his ministration, shall use neither Alb, Vestment or Cope . . . being a Priest or Deacon, he shall have and wear a surplice only'.54 Much of the Roman vesture was destroyed, but that which survived was revealed the following year on the accession of Mary Tudor. The second wave of destruction after the accession of Elizabeth is recorded by Peacock for the county of Lincolnshire, where copes became bed-hangings, veils made sheets for the parson, and canopies served as testers.55 If vestments could be utilized for cushion coverings and banner cloths for curtains, as cloaks had previously become chasubles and bedspreads had provided carpets before the altars, then some of the costlier fabrics, at least, must have lived several lives.

The Books The intrinsic value of gold and silver plate was to be realized in the melting pot. Vestments were found new employment as domestic articles: bed hangings, bed linen, chair coverings, clothing, scouring cloths and dusters. Books, however, could not be re-cycled, and, because of the dangerous, subversive and superstitious contents between their covers, were reused as bindings, end-papers or linings, or else they were utterly destroyed. The 51 52 53 54

55

Suckling, Suffolk, II, 156±7. SROI, IC/AA2/4/122, William Colett, Blythburgh, 1503. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 490±1. D. L. Gar®eld, `Vestments in the Anglican Tradition', Raiment for the Lord's Service: a Thousand Years of Western Vestments, ed. C. Mayer-Thurman (Chicago 1975), 17±20, at 17. Peacock, English Church Furniture, 94, 98.


286


reformers undertook their task thoroughly, and few books survived the iconoclasts' ®re. John Bale, a native of Covehithe and a former Carmelite brother, was by the 1530s an active and ardent reformer, but was an energetic saviour of books as well as a propagator of the reformed faith. Referring to the loss of books at the dissolution of the monasteries he wrote, to destroye all without consyderacyon, is and wyll be unto Englande for ever, a moste horryble infamy amonge the grave senyours of other nacyons. A great nombre of them whych purchased those superstycyouse mansyons, reserved of those lybrarye bokes, some to serve theyr iakes, some to scoure theyr candelstyckes, & some to rubbe their bootes. Some they solde to the grossers and sope sellers, & some they sent over see to ye bokebynders, not in small nombre, but at tymes whole shyppes full, to the wonderynge of the foren nacyons.56

What happened to the additional manuscript books at Rumburgh priory is not known. The priory, suppressed in 1528, probably lost its limited nonliturgical library to interested parties, or books might have survived for a few more years in the parish church. What happened to the manuscripts from Blythburgh and Wangford priories and Leiston and Sibton abbeys? Few books can be traced back to the Deanery, and none are directly attributable to testators. In 1876 a missal of pre-Reformation date was discovered buried in sand during the Victorian restoration of St Peter's church, Spexhall, but efforts to locate it have proved fruitless.57 A book of hours which may well have belonged to a Deanery parishioner is now in Cambridge University Library.58 It contains two obits added in a later hand than the original. The entry on 4 March reads Òbitus domine Margerie Carbonell uxoris John Carbonell 1426'; and that on 2 September, Òbitus Margarete Hevenyngham AD 1432'.59 The Carbonells lived at Badingham, the adjacent parish to Heveningham, in Hoxne deanery, Sir John predeceasing his wife, Margerie, by two years. There is no trace of Thomasine Hopton's missal, her psalter or the Hoccleve volume. Her grandson, William, was the ®rst Sidney to live at Penshurst, but here there is now no trace, the bulk of Penshurst's library having been sold by the seventh earl of Leicester in the eighteenth century.60 There is, however, a volume of Hoccleve in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, which bears the arms of William Hopton, her stepson, but nothing suggests that he bequeathed the book to Thomasine when he predeceased her in 1484.61 56

57 58 59

60

61

This passage from Bale's The laboryouse Journey & serche of Johan Leylande for Englandes Antiquitees is quoted in Margaret Aston's `The Dissolution and the Sense of the Past', in Lollards and Reformers, 327. W. White, ed., Hisory, Gazetteer and Directory of Suffolk (Shef®eld 1885), 571. CUL, Ii.VI.2. Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, 172; Copinger, Manors of Suffolk, IV, 6; Manors of Suffolk, II, 92±7. Lord De L'Isle commented in a personal communication, `. . . if the books were at Penshurst they would almost certainly have been sold'. Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Digby 185.



287

About 4,000 books were recorded in the Norwich Archdeaconry in 1368. The inventory listed an additional 1,600 books not required by Winchelsey's constitution. In 1947 Watkin said not a single volume could be proved to exist, and `the books had apparently disappeared' as early as 1552 when the Edwardian inventories were taken.62 Earlier injunctions in 1549 had ordered that àll books . . . used for the service of the church . . . shall be . . . clearly and utterly abolished, extinguished, and forbidden for ever . . .'.63 Unlike the tardy compliance in purchasing the Great Bible, it seems that the injunctions were now obeyed if the frequent expenditure on Catholic servicebooks during Mary's reign is interpreted correctly.64 All references to the Pope and St Thomas of Canterbury had already been expunged from servicebooks and allied manuscripts after Henry VIII's quarrel with Rome.65 Although declining in popularity, St Thomas was particularly dear to the English laity, but his name had been scored out of the calendars contained in lay primers (gone, too, was his visage from illuminations, screens and windows). There is no of®cial or unof®cial record of the fate of service-books in the Deanery, but from Lincolnshire, their destruction is described in Inventarium Monumentorum Superstitionis, edited by Edward Peacock in 1866.66 Although these Lincolnshire inventories were taken in 1566, Peacock stressed that the objects enumerated were unrepresentative of the great volume of church treasures which had existed before the Reformation began. The books `serving for Idolatrie' in Ednam, for example, had been defaced and burnt before Mary came to the throne. All the missals and books of papistry from Aswardby had been torn into pieces ànd sold to pedlers to lap spice in' after the queen's death. The majority of entries from the 150 Lincolnshire parishes reported the books had been burnt by the churchwardens, but some went missing. Somerby churchwardens reported the missal had gone in the ®rst year of Elizabeth when Richard Thirlil was curate, who ìn the said yeare departed into Leicestershire where he dyed and what became of the said mass book wee knowe not but the moste of the parishe suspecteth he had it'.67 With examples like these from Lincolnshire, it is not surprising that little late medieval liturgical literature has survived. The catalogue of destruction from another county, however, goes a long way to illustrate the fervour with which the reformers addressed their task. Books tell their own story: And hence it is that we have to mourn for the homes of which we have been unjustly robbed; and as to our coverings, not that they have not been given to 62 63 64 65 66 67

Watkin, Inventory, pt ii, cii. Williams, English Historical Documents, 853. Whiting, Blind Devotion of the People, 39. Wordsworth and Littlehales, Old Service-books, 67. Peacock, English Church Furniture, 21, 33. Peacock, English Church Furniture, 75, 33, 140.


288


us, but that the coverings anciently given to us have been torn by violent hands, insomuch that our soul is bowed down to the dust, our belly cleaveth unto the earth.68

The provision of books must have been made to the parish churches by the wealthier and literate members of Deanery society. The distress of these people as the destruction of books went ahead would have been more keen than that of their unlettered fellow parishioners who, in their turn, were to see their own instructive `books' of stained glass, images and murals shattered, burnt and whitewashed. Although the devastation of books quoted by Peacock came from Lincoln diocese, it was a common story throughout the land, and also a sad fact that the increase of literacy and the ability to read in the mother tongue contributed greatly to the destruction of liturgical texts and religious literature in England. Books bequeathed as a special remembrance were no safer than any other under the new regime, and their destruction was a reminder that commemoration was a fragile thing and that all means of material commemoration were destructible.

The Glass The lights, too, were irretrievably dimmed at a later date. The history of Blythburgh's glass is typical of late-medieval stained glass in England: undervalued, underrated, uncared for. Negligence, indifference, apathy and iconoclasm contributed to its disappearance. In seventeenth-century Suffolk, the arch iconoclast was William Dowsing from Lax®eld. The havoc he had wreaked in the Cambridge colleges and in the churches of that county was repeated throughout Suffolk.69 . . . his ignorant and mad zeal led him not only to deface all the painted glass he met with, to the great dis®gurement of the windows, but also to reave and destroy all those inscriptions on brass or stone . . . so that he is traced very exactly through most of the churches in these parts by the spoil and havoc he made wherever it was his mischance to arrive. He was so well satis®ed with what he was about, that he kept a journal of the reformation he made in each church . . .70

On 9 April, 1644, Dowsing arrived at Blythburgh Church; the day before he had visited Walberswick, Southwold, South Cove, Reydon and Frostenden; the previous week he had been to Benacre and Covehithe. He left 68

69 70

The Love of Books. The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury, trans. E. C. Thomas (London 1902), 28±9. T. Cooper, ed., The Journal of William Dowsing (Woodbridge 2001), 155±91, 191±211. R. Masters, Masters' History of the College of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary in the University of Cambridge: with Additional Matter and a Continuation to the Present by John Lamb (Cambridge 1831), 37.



289

Blythburgh to travel to Dunwich, which by this date had only two churches standing; and at Wenhaston, the churchwardens' had `layde out to the men which came to breake downe the pictures in the glass windows 5s'.71 In August, Dowsing was to visit Holton, Wangford and Wrentham. He was responding to commissions from the Earl of Manchester to deface and demolish all imagery in chapels and churches; and Peter Newton estimated that Dowsing and his deputies destroyed thousands of superstitious pictures in the form of glazed images and paintings on walls and Rood-screens in Suffolk in nine months.72 It is unfortunate for him that his record of destruction exists. It is fortunate for us that it does. At Blythburgh, he found twenty superstitious pictures.73 On the outside of the church there were two crosses. Twenty cherubims were in the nave and chancel. He broke down three pro animabus inscriptions himself. Over two hundred pictures were left (one light generally representing one picture) which he gave orders to take these down within eight days. He listed just over one third of ®ve hundred Suffolk parishes, but it is likely that almost every church in the county was visited by Dowsing or one of his deputies, of which there were at least ten in Suffolk and south Norfolk. The Suffolk churches with the most imagery were Clare, Bramford, Bures, and Haverhill. Then came Blythburgh, Halesworth and Covehithe.74 At Covehithe, there were inscriptions of JESUS on the church roof, cherubims with crosses on their breasts, a cross in the chancel, and pictures in the windows, all of which the despoilers could not reach. The parishioners refused to help in the raising of the ladders but were given a fortnight to complete the task. The same day, Dowsing visited Benacre, the most northerly coastal parish in the Deanery. Here were six superstitious pictures. There were two of St Catherine, one of the cruci®x, one with the Virgin Mary and Christ and another of her with Christ in the manger, and ®nally one of the three kings. The roof was adorned with JESUS written eighteen times, which Dowsing ordered `to do out'. But Dowsing was not the ®nal enemy. The restoration of this church [Blythburgh] has done much mischief as all the old painted glass was removed and much of it was so decayed in the leading that it could not be replaced and more than all that the pieces got mixed together and so they still remain not returned to the window. Again in 1820 the windows suffered much from being blown out and the glass not returned.75 71

72

73 74 75

Cooper, William Dowsing, 285±300, 379; J. B. Clare, Wenhaston and Bulcamp, Suffolk: Curious Parish Records (Halesworth 1903), 9. Cooper, William Dowsing, appendix 5, 337±44 and appendix 7, 349±50: Newton, Oxford Glass, 2. Woodforde, `Blythburgh Glass', 232; Cooper, William Dowsing, 299±300. Cooper, William Dowsing, 290, 293. Becker, Blythburgh, 43.


290


The loose glass that had been gathered up was kept in a box under a seat at the east end of the south aisle, and some of it was stolen by visitors.76 Hamlet Watling, writing in his little manuscript book, commented Neglect too has done its work through the entire fabric the glass not being properly fastened has blown out and broken. The late restoration has hastened its destruction as was plainly visible on a visit to the Church in 1894.77

The dimming of the lights was almost complete.

76 77

Woodforde, Blythburgh Glass, 233, in footnote. Watling, MS, `Blythburgh Church'.

c:/3mid-stewart/app.3d ± 11/4/1 ± 10:38 ± B&B/mp

Appendix

APPENDIX

Testators Graduated by Worth in the 1524 Subsidy

Year

Parish

Testator

1524 Subsidy

High Altar

Court of Probate

Burial Place

Pious Bequests

1523 1528 1526 1525 1529 1529 1528

Dunwich Darsham Henstead Southwold Kelsale Chediston Frostenden

Thos. Croxton Jn Buckle, gent. Jn Hylle Robt Barker Jn Hamond Wm Poole Wm Moore

£30 £30 £30 £26+ £20 £20 £20

£1 8s 3s 4d 3s 4d 6s 8d 3s 4d Nil

PCC NCC NCC PCC NCC AS AS

Church Church Yard Yard Yard Church Church

£6 10s & 2yrs £48 6s 8d £6+ 2 yrs 1 yr £1 6s 8d Cope

1526 1525 1529 1525 1528 1528 1528 1529

Blythburgh Yoxford Walpole Uggeshall Sibton Kelsale Yoxford Leiston

Robt Drane Thos Broun Wm Odyerne Richard Bele Jn Fuller Jn Love Robt Bloke Edmd Firmage

£16+ £12 £12 £10 £10 £10 £10 £10

12d 3s 4d 1s 8d 3s 4d 3s 4d 3s 4d Nil Nil

NCC AS AS AS AS AS AS NCC

Yard Yard Yard Yard Yard Yard Yard Church

yr £l+ £3 Nil 1 yr 1 yr 10s Nil

1528 1529

Crat®eld Yoxford

Jn Cooke Agnes Skottaugh

£9 £8

Nil 12d

PCC AS

Unspeci®ed Church

Nil £3 6s


292

Appendix

£6+ £6 £6 £6 £6 £6 £6 £6 £5 £5 £5

12d 3s 4d 2s 6d 12d Nil 2s Nil 3s 4d 3s 4d 1s 8d

AS AS AS AS NCC AS AS NCC AS NCC AS

Yard Yard Yard Yard Yard Unspeci®ed Yard Yard Unspeci®ed Yard Yard

Nil £4 16s 10d 10s Nil £7 16s 8d Nil 10s 10s £2 & 1 yr £1 6s 8d 18s 8d

1525 1527 1528 1524 1526 1526 1526 1528 1529

Crat®eld Easton Bavents Yoxford Sotherton Crat®eld Leiston Blythburgh Yoxford Covehithe

Thos Clamp Robt Hacon Jn Laurence Margt Goodwyn Jn Thurketell Robt Pecher Richard Loggen Jn Chambre Thos Bee

£4 £4 £4 £3 £3 £3 £3 £3 £3

3s 4d 3s 4d 1s 4d 12d 1s 8d 12d 3s 4d 2s 12d

NCC AS AS AS NCC NCC NCC AS AS

Yard Yard Yard Yard Yard Yard Yard Yard Yard

£7 & prayers £8 6s 8d A Mass 10s+ Nil 6s 8d Nil Nil 1 yr

1524 1526 1526 1526 1528 1528

Wrentham Bram®eld Peasenhall Middleton Easton Bavents Chediston

Jn Potter Wm Fella Jn Barn Margt Pynnowe Downy Bek Avelyne Skutte

£2 £2 £2 £1 land £2 £2

12d 6d 6d 12d 3s 4d 12d

AS NCC NCC NCC AS AS

Yard Yard Yard Yard Church Yard

1 yr Nil Nil £3 13 4d £22 £7 3s 4d


Jn Combe Philip Charnell Jn Dawson Robt Shaugh Jn Mace Nicholas Wellys Jn Bresyngham Jn Ferthyng Robt Malows Wm Greye Jn Spark

293

Reydon Westleton Easton Bavents Peasenhall Dunwich Easton B. Henstead Wissett Sibton Dunwich Cookley

APPENDIX

1525 1524 1524 1525 1525 1528 1528 1529 1528 1529 1529

c:/3mid-stewart/bib.3d ± 11/4/1 ± 10:38 ± B&B/mp

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308


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c:/3mid-stewart/ind.3d ± 11/4/1 ± 10:40 ± B&B/mp

Index Abbeys outside the Deanery of Dunwich see Monastic houses Abbeys within the Deanery of Dunwich see under Leiston or Sibton Acle, Norfolk 81, 206, 212 Acton, Suffolk 142 Agnus Dei see Prayers Aldeburgh, Suffolk 259 Aldringham, St Andrew's church 22 a vicarage of Leiston abbey 35 disposal of plate 282 gild members at Kelsale 150 Thorpe a chapelry of 18, 25±6 testators Cotyngham, Richard 128±9 Gooding, Reynold 147 Goodwyn, John 77 topography 16, 81 Alburgh, Norfolk 259 Alkocke, William, carpenter, Blythbugh 221, 225±6 Almhouses 79, 83±6 Almsgiving 84 at Thorington 117, 138±9 in coastal parishes 117 in rural parishes 118 Alys, William, churchwarden, donor of Crat®eld's bell 152 Anglo-Saxon England 16, 92 Anna, king of East Anglia 16, 92, 248, 250 Athelstan, king of Wessex and Mercia 92 Birinus, bishop of Dorchester 250 bishops of Dunwich 247 Coenwalh of Wessex 250 early Christianity in East Anglia 247±9, 250±1 early Christianity in Northern England 248±9, 251 Edmund, king of East Anglia 250 Felix, bishop of Dunwich 247 Anna, king of East Anglia 16, 92, 248, 250 Anne of Bohemia, wife if Richard II 126 Anniversaries see Prayers Aquinas, St Thomas, Dominican theologian 7 Archdeaconry of Norwich, inventories of 1368 3±4, 159, 162, 171, 218 books in 287 plate in 182±4, 186 vestments in 198, 211 of Suffolk 13, 159, Map II at 14±15 wills see under Wills

Argentein family of Halesworth and Little Wymondley (Hertfordshire) 88, 101, 263 Argentein, Agnes (formerly Bereford) 96±7 Argentein, Sir John 68, 96±101 Argentein, Dame Margery 68 Argentein, Isabel (formerly Kerdiston) 101, 249 Argentein, Richard d' 96 Argentein, Sir William 96±105, 263, 267 gravestones of Reginald, John, Joan and Lora Argentein 263 heraldic devices of 239, 249 Ashburton, Devon 170, 222 Baldock, Hertfordshire 263 Bale, John, reformer and bibliophile, on the destruction of books 286 Banyard family of Spexhall 88, 269 Banyard, Margaret 139 Banyard, William 267 heraldic devices of 239, 267 Baret (Barat) family, originally from Crat®eld Baret, Geoffrey of Crat®eld 129, 114 n. 47 Baret, Geoffrey of Halesworth 109, 192 n. 84 Baret, John of Blythburgh 191 n. 76 Baret, John of Halesworth 75, 120 Baret, John of Walberswick 176 n. 107 Baret, John of Bury St Edmunds 239 n. 21 Baret, Richard of Holton 219 Barat, Thomas of Walberswick 104 n. 57, 149 n. 68, 221 n. 24 Baret, William of Bury St Edmunds 149 Baret, William of Westhall 228 Bardwell, Suffolk, St Peter's gild 51, 152 Bassingbourne, Cambridgeshire, Corpus Christi cloth at 124 Bath, Somerset, St Michael's church 168 Bathcomb, Hewe, metalworker 187 Bathcomb, Thomas, goldsmith of Woodbridge 187 n. 47 Beccles, Suffolk 81, 190 civic gilds of 122 Halfpenny gild of 149 Holy Rood of 130±1 Bede, the Venerable 16 n. 5, 248 n. 54 on Coenwalh of Wessex and Penda of Mercia 250 ns 71±2 on St Fursey 247 Bede-roll 119±21, 203 at Barking abbey, Essex 119 Beding®eld chalice 188±9, 196 Bees, bee-skeps and wax 137±8, 191±2


310

INDEX

Bells see under Plate Benacre, St Michael's church 21 early wills from 52 great bell of 193 imagery destroyed at 288 testators from Alysaunder, Harry 43, 93 Calthorpe, Edmund, rector 21 n. 28, 219 n. 15, 236 Martyn, John, rector 68 n. 26 Norton, John, rector 219 n. 15 Sharp, John, priest 170, 208, 219 Manor ± bailiff 's accounts 174 most northerly Deanery parish 16 Bequests quethewords 91±5 for bees, bee-skeps and wax 191±2 cost of candles 137±8 for books 159±78 for church fabric and running costs 91±5 for glazing 234±51 to the high altar 64±5, 91 for imagery 218 for plate, ornaments and jewellery 179±96 for vestments, cloths and clothing 197±212 Beteson, Robert of Willoughby, Lincolnshire 59 Beteson, Percy of Wrentham 59 Bethersden, Kent 193, 210 Blackbourne deanery 51±2 Black Death 56±7, 83, 87, 198 Blackfriars see Friaries Blyford, All Saints' church a vicarage of Blythburgh priory 34 banner stave locker in 202 testators Mickle®eld, Richard 41±2, 47 Snobeshyll, Katherine 49, 121, 128 Blyth river 16, 96, valley 27 Blythburgh, Holy Trinity church 187, 207, 36, 145, 243, 244, 245 architectural style of 25, 27 masonic links with Southwold and Woodbridge 259 bequests to 207 bequests to rebuilding chancel 91±2 burials in, see Plan I chantries in of de Harnull 143 of Hopton (St Margaret) 143±4 chantry or stipendiary priests of 34, 144 glazing in 241±51, VI great bell of 193 heraldic devices in 246, 248±50, 272, 245 inventory of 1547 204 organ in 176 memorials 265±6, 271±2 as Easter Sepulchre 272, 145

parish chaplain of Ovy, John, rector of Uggeshall 34 premature sale of plate 281 vestments disposed of 285 seven-sacrament font in 253 William Dowsing at 288±9 testators Allan, John 168 n. 56 Arpyngham, John 73 n. 41 Baret, John 191 n. 76 Drake, John 73 n. 41 Fale, Margaret 170 Collett, William 81 n. 78, 265±6, 285 Colvyll, Richard 267 Glaswyke, John 172 n. 82, 176±7 Hawys, George, priest 34, 144, 202 n. 24 Leeke, Robert 254, 257 Pynne, Robert 238, 241±2, 248 Rede, Alice 192 Scott, Baldwin 48, 118 Scott, Emma 48, Shank, Henry, chaplain 170, 208 Stapleton, Alice 49 n. 32, 51 Swan, John 120 n. 35, 224, 253±4, 257 Tovy, Richard, baxter 116 Watford, Robert 168 n. 56 Wood, John 81 n. 78 Wulsy, John 208 n. 60, 210 ns 72±3 Walberswick a chapelry of Blythburgh 25, 96 Blythburgh parish 16, 25, 49, 223, 228, 235 almshouse 84 bridge 81 Good Rood at 133 Bulcamp 16, 81 early wills from 52, 60 lordship of 104, 248±9 Blythburgh priory (Augustinian) 19, 34±5 bequests to 96 decay and suppression of 34 inventory of 1536 180, 183, 186, 203±4, endowment of, see Map III Blything Hundred 13, 22 Bokenham, Osbern, Augustinian friar and poet 126±7 Bollre, Thomas, painter, Crat®eld 222 Books 159±78 bequests of liturgical and secular books 90, 159±78 antiphoner 162±3, 168±9 breviary 161 grail (gradual) 161 missal 160, 170 primer 171 a book of `fesyk' 172 Expositio decalogi sive preceptorium divine legis (liber Precepto) 172±3 Gesta Romanorum 172 Great Book of `Persevale' 173 Dieta Salutis 172


INDEX Hugoconem 172 Legenda Aurea 126, 172, 215 Occlif (Hoccleve) 172 Oculus Sacerdotis 171±2 Protevangelium 215 Pupilla Oculi 171±2 the Bible 164±6 reluctance to purchase the Great Bible 166 clerical bequests for 208 cost of 161, 163, 167, 168 ns 53 and 56 destruction of 286 in Lincolnshire 287 in inventories 162±6 inventory of Sir John, Baker, rector, St John's Maddermarket, Norwich 171 song-books 169 Bortryn, Robert, organ builder of Stowmarket 176 Boston, Lincolnshire 108 pardon of 125 Bowet family 245 Bowet, Henry, archbishop of York 247, 249, 268 Bowet, Ele (formerly Ufford) of Wrentham 268, 24 Bowet, Joan (formerly Ufford) 249 Bowet, Richard 249 Bowet, William 249 Bradwey family of Brockford, Suffolk 177 Bram®eld, St Andrew's church 134 a vicarage of Blythburgh priory 34 alms at 118 gild of St Thomas in 154, 232 Good Rood of 6, 122, 133, 232, 134 `brownfeld' players 235, 235 n. 5 Rood-screen at 6, 231±2 sale of plate at 283 testators Dyke, Walter, vicar 172, 232 Walpole, William 161, 192 Owers, Robert 118 Brampton, St Peter's church education at 173 chantry of St Bartholomew at 143 great bell of 193 testators Duk, Walter 47 n. 24 Duke, Alice 65 Pethawghe, Richard, rector 173 Reve, John 40 Brandon family of Wangford and Henham 69 Brandon, Charles, duke of Suffolk 25, 78, 272 Brandon, Sir William 25 Brasses see Memorials Brazier, Richard, bellounder, of Norwich 109 Brewes, Ele, patroness of Salle church, Norfolk 249

311

Bristol, Somerset embarkation port for Santiago 129 duration of chantry foundations 142 Brockford, Suffolk, organ at 177 Bromholm priory (Cluniac), Norfolk pilgrimage to Holy Rood of 130 Broughton, Anne (formerly Denston) of Denston, Suffolk 127 Bruisyard nunnery (Poor Clares), Suffolk 38, 59 Bryene, Alice de, chantry at Acton, Suffolk 142 Buckinghamshire subsidy roll of 1524 66 Bungay (Bungey) work 204 Burials 68±77 at sea 76±7 in Bury St Edmunds 69, 72 in church 68±72, Plan I at 70±1 in the church porch 74±5 in Hull 69 in religious houses 72±4 in churchyards 74±5 `where it please God' 76±7 with the family 75 Burton Lazars hospital, Leicestershire 125 Burton (Burtor), Richard, rector of Cookley 78±9 Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk 56, 62±3, 69±70, 88 abbey (Benedictine) at 29, 266 gilds civic gilds 122 gild of the Puri®cation 149 pilgrimage to 130 Butcher, Margaret, death-bed attendant, at Thorington 117 Butley priory (Augustinian), Suffolk 35 prior of Butley 209 Buxlow, St Peter's church early wills from 48 poor parish 18, 20 bequest to wayside cross 135 testators Brame, Joan 135 Calais, trade with 17, 27, Cambridgeshire gilds 148, 279 Candlebeam see Rood-screens Canterbury, Kent 81 pardon of St Thomas of 124 pilgrims to 130 Cantrell, Humphrey, vicar of Westhall 58 Carbonell family of Badingham, Suffolk 286 Cardye, John, Easton Bavents 50 Carlton church `next-Kelsale' chantry of John de Framlingham at 143±4 testator Underhall, Marion 192 n. 81 Cawston, Norfolk, St Agnes church 175 Certeyns and sangredes see Prayers


312

INDEX

Chagford, Devon 170 Chantries, perpetual and service see Prayers Chantries act of 1545 281 Chantries act of 1547 282 Chantry certi®cates 4 for Cambridgeshire 148 for Essex 4 for London and Middlesex 147 for Oxfordshire 147 for Suffolk 3, 141±3, 147 for Warwickshire 4 for Wiltshire 4 for Yorkshire 4 Charity and piety 89±90 Chattisham, Suffolk 188 Chediston St Mary's church 132 disposal of plate 282 dole 118 lectern for Great Bible 166 gild of John the Baptist at 155, 280 testators Cook, Thomas, vicar 170 Moot, John 169 n. 58 Skutte, Avelyne 50, 66±7, 210 and appendix 1 Skutte, Robert 67 Sproute, William 67, 210±11 Town estate of 155 Chelter, William, organ maker at Walberswick 176 Chesney, William de 32 Chestyn, Henry of Thorington 117, 138, 225±6 Chirche, Richard, bellfounder of Bury St Edmunds 109 Christon, Robert of Dunwich 84 Churchwardens' accounts 3 Blythburgh 176 n. 109 Crat®eld 93 Hunting®eld 162 n. 17, 166, Melford, Suffolk 188, 202 Tilney All Saints, Norfolk 240 Walberswick 93 Chorography of Suffolk 16, 238, 267±8, 271, 273 Clare college, Cambridge, Master's Old Book 173 Clarke, Robert, vicar of Sibton and Peasenhall 208 Clavering family, lords of Blythburgh Clavering, Eve (later Ufford) 268 Clavering, John 248 Clement family of Halesworth and Ipswich 91, 102 Clerk, Simon, mason, of Bury St Edmunds 260 Clopton, John, of Melford, Suffolk 126, 188 Cluny abbey (Cluniac), Burgundy 33 Colet, John, dean of St Paul's 8, 223 Colvyle, Richard, bailiff, of Blythburgh 267

Commemoration see Remembrance Confraternity 125 confrater 40 Cookley, St Michael's church dole in 118 Friday Mass at 125 pax bequeathed to 189 testators from Bolton, John 47 n. 24 Brown, John, priest 172 n. 79 Cary, John, rector 78±9, 125 n. 58, 189±90 Lambe, Thomas 79 n. 74 Moore, Henry 79 n. 74 Nicholl, John 79 n. 74 Spatchyt, Robert 79 n. 74 Coote, John of Bury St Edmunds 266 Corporal Acts (Works) of Mercy 2, 6, 79, 117 Corpus Christi see Feasts and Festivals Cornwall, improved provision in local churches 182 Corunna, Galicia 128 Corrodies see Sibton Abbey and also Friaries (Lynn Whitefriars) Councils of the Church council of Florence (1439) 114 council of Lambeth (1281) 118 4th Lateran council (1215) 181 council of Lyons (1274) 114 council of Westminster (1175) 182 Covehithe, St Andrew's church I a vicarage of Wangford priory 33 almshouse 84±5 architectural style 228 early wills from 52±3, 55, 58 chantry at St Peter's altar 144±6 destruction of 20, 146 of imagery 288±9 lights for images at 223 Mass of the Five Wounds at 125 organ in chancel at 177±8 premature sale of plate 281 population of 146 testators Aleyn, Robert 209 n. 70 Bekeswell, Simon 155 Bekker, Beatrice 44, 226 Beteson, John, vicar 59, 85 n. 98, 209, 265 n. 48 Bollionte, Thomas 121 n. 40 Clerk, John 223 Clerk, Margery 223 Cok, Margaret 74 Dobson, Robert 266 Fylby, Robert 125 n. 58 Gravener, Richard, ®sherman 77 Holme, John 223 Nunne, Thomas 219 n. 16 Peers, Alice 208 Pylgryme, Robert, ®sherman 77


INDEX Rome, Robert, chaplain, 172 Roper, William 223 Sampson, Alice 120 Serle, Robert 74 Smythe, Isabell 93 Stokys, Robert 223 Thalis, Clemencia 223 Wellett, Richard 43±4 Wodecok, Matilda 176 n. 108 Yarmouth, William, vicar 58, 144, 146, 172 trade and industry 17 Coverdale, Miles, translator of the Bible 165 Crat®eld, St Mary's church 153 a vicarage of St Neots priory 59 bequests as a remembrance 1 churchwardens' accounts 3, 212, 241 clock-bell of 108 gift of William Alys 152, 153 early sale of church plate 194 Deanery, western boundary 16 education in Crat®eld 173±4 friar John Eye of®ciates at 120 gild of St Thomas at 3, 150, 152, 155±6 gild hall 155, 279 chaplains of Smith, John 152, Stannard, John 152 See also testators listed below property of 155 late purchase of the Great Bible 166, 195 inventory of 1528 162, 164 plate 180, 182±7 vestments 138, 204±5 quethewords in 94 seven-sacrament font 257, 259 testators Caryell, John, gild chaplain 155, 279 Everard, John 62, 114 Everard, Henry 61, 261 Frauncesse, Harry 94, 179 Fyn, John 33, 279 Gowyn, John 188 n. 55 Rusale, Sir John, chaplain 62, 155, 160±1, 163, 279 Sancroft, John 116 n. 14 Smyth, John the elder 1±2, 192 Smyth, Robert 94 Stobard, Nicholas 130 n. 79, 152 Tizard, John 129 n. 76 Walsh, Thomas 40 Walshe, Roger 151 Williamson, William, vicar 59 Craven family of Wangford and Henham 69, 88, 246, 249 Craven, Thomas 72, 169 Cromwell, Thomas, Lord Great Chamberlain of England 32±3, 38, 64, 78, 165±6 Crosses and Calvaries 135 Dance of Death, the 261 Darsham, All Saints' church 255

313

inscribed octagonal font in 253±4 testator Bokyll, John 192 Reve, John 210 n. 73 Denization of alien priories 33 Deaneries in Suffolk see under Blackbourne, Dunwich, Hoxne, Orford, Wangford Death and dying, preparation for 260±1 Denston, Katharine (formerly Clopton), wife of John Denston 126, 260 Denston, Suffolk, chantry college at 127, 260 architectural style of 260 seven-sacrament font in 259 Devon, improved provision in local churches 182 Diocese of Ely 29 of Lincoln 29 of Norwich 29 of Salisbury 29, 92 Seend chapel in 138 Dominican friars (Blackfriars) see Friaries Dorchester abbey, Oxfordshire 250±1 Dover, bishop of 38 Dowsing, William, Suffolk iconoclast 251, 288±9 Duckett, Owen of Sibton 173 Dunwich, bishops of (glazed) 241, 246 Dunwich, borough of 17±19, 27, 35 bailiffs of 38, 48, 89 borough of 18 Kessel fen 138 Parliamentary representation of 48, 89 Dunwich, religious foundations in Blackfriars 19, 37, 72 Suppression in 1538 38 Greyfriars 19, 37±8, 72, 138 Burials within 40 Suppression in 1538 38 Hospitals in Domus Dei (also known as Maison Dieu and Holy Trinity hospital) 39 Masters of Hopton, John, 6 Bakke, William 39 Proctor, John 39 The Temple 38 Mass of Scala Coeli at 121 St James' the Apostle (Steeple House) 39 Dunwich parish churches All Saints' 20, 84, 92 St John's 19, 82 St Peter's 20, 84 Gilds Jesus gild 124, 150 organs in St Katharine's chapel 177 plate in 281, 283±4 William Dowsing at 288±9 wills 49, 52±4


314

INDEX

Dunwich parish churches (cont.) testators Aleyn, John 39 n. 93 Burne, John 40 Chever, Edmund 82 n. 86 Croxton, Kathryn 138 Fraunces, Sibylla 39 Gedney, Thomas 39 Girdler, Robert, ®sherman 64 n. 8 Gosmere, Baty 82, 189 Hervey, John 219 n. 16 Jeames, Hugh, ®shmonger 64 King, John 64 n. 11 Lacy, Cecilia 219 Leverich, William 185 n. 38, 192 Markawnt, Robert of Lax®eld 74 Moress, Dame Matilda, widow 50 Moress, John 48 Osberne, Roger 94 Petersen, Cornelius 124 n. 52 Read, Batie 38 n. 81 Rede, Herry 189 n. 59 Reve, John of Brampton 40 Richardson, William, yeoman 266±7 Rolff, Thomas 65 Rowlond, Margaret 190±1 Shelle, Clement 38, 84 Shelley, Peter 84 Shipman, William 42 n. 5 Ston, John 107 n. 111 Thompson, Robert 39 Umby, Christian 84 Walsh, Thomas of Crat®eld 40, 74 Weybred, John 140, 161 Wyston, Julian, widow 50 population of 17±18 trade and industry of 17 Dunwich deanery 13±18 almshouses in 79, 83±6 bequests for bells in 192±3 bequests of books in 160±1, 170 bequests of plate compared with Kentish towns 193±4 bequests of cloths compared with Kentish towns 210±11 bequests for lights 233 bequests for imagery 223, 232 bequests for roads, bridges etc 79±82 bridges in 81 education in 172±4 gilds in 147±56 high altar bequests in 64±5 immigrants resident in 17, 51, 66±7 inventories from 162, 198, 200, 203 markets in Blythburgh 16 Halesworth 96 Kelsale 13 organs in parish churches 176±8

plays and players in 235±6 population of 17, 53, 72 rivers in Blyth 16 Easton or Frostenden 81 Hundred 16 Southern Hundred river 16, 81 Wang 81 seven-sacrament fonts in 257 trade and industry in 16±18 wills from 2, 66 East Bridge 81 Easter sepulchres 272±3 Easton Bavents, St Nicholas' church 20 early wills from 48, 54 bequests 81 of books for 169 Good Rood of 131±3 imagery at 224 prayers at 143 St Margaret's chapel 18, 26, 130 testators Amys, Robert 50 n. 40 Anderson, Thomas 121 Bek, Downy 50±1, 66±7 and appendix 1 Butt, Margaret 224 n. 37 Chylderhows, John 224 n. 37 Farman, Alice 149, 207 n. 57 Hawkyn, Robert 254 n. 15 Notyngham, Katherine 81 n. 80 Peyrs, John 189 n. 59, 238 Peyrs, Elizabeth 50, 117 n. 20, 189 n. 59 Pers, Walter 119, 152, 210 n. 73 Sponer, James 20, 82, 237 Thomson, Richard 224 n. 37 Wellys, William 130 n. 81 Westwynd, Peter 224 n. 37 trade and industry of 17 vicarage of Wangford priory 33 wills from 54 Education 172±4 Edward III of England 224 Edward VI of England 195 Ef®gies see Memorials Elevation of the Host see Sacraments Ellough, Suffolk 140 Elsyng, John 50 Enfeoffment `to use' 42, 141 Erasmus, Desiderius, humanist and writer 129, 223 Essex 4, 13 Exeter, Devon, church of St Mary Major 170 Everard family from Linstead, Crat®eld and Halesworth 21, 260 Everard, Alice of Crat®eld 62 Everard, Henry of Crat®eld 61±2 Everard, John of Crat®eld 62, 114, 155, 163 n. 29


INDEX Everard, John of Halesworth 62, 267, 63 Everard, John, priest, of Halesworth 68±9 Ewelme, Oxfordshire 57 Ewyn, Master William, vicar of Covehithe 58 Excommunication, the Great Sentence 164 Eye, Suffolk 8, 85 Eye priory (Benedictine), Suffolk 58 Fairfax, Nathaniel, topographer 135 Feasts and Festivals movable and immovable 162±3 Ascension 186 Christmas 115, 119 Corpus Christi 5, 122, 124 celebration at Kelsale of 122 Easter 115, 181 Five Wounds 125, 136, 156 Holy name of Jesus or Jesus Mass 124, 136, 164, 170 Michaelmas 119 Pentecost 115, 170 Puri®cation of the Virgin 170 St Katharine 41 St Martin 41 St Matthew the apostle 84 Trans®guration 125, 227±8 Whitsun 115 liturgical colours for 198 Feoffees 138, 142; see Enfeoffment Fiennes, Thomas, lord Dacre 174 Fifteen O's, the see Prayers Fitzroger, Sir Robert 104 Flemish workshop embroidery 199 Florence, Italy, textile centre 198 Folkstone, Kent 193, 210 Fonts 252±60 focal points for church burial 253±4 locked and covered 253 arms and imagery on 254, 258, 132, 255, 256 seven sacrament fonts Crat®eld 187 Denston 259 Great Glemham, Suffolk 182, 187 Loddon 259 Westhall 187, VII Fordley, Holy Trinity church 20 testators Bakeler, William 65, 74 n. 52, 265 Palmer, Margaret 168±9 Framlingham, Suffolk, gilds of 149±50 Franciscan friars (Greyfriars) 131; see Friaries Frankalmoign (free alms) 55, 90 Freston, Richard, servant of the duke of Suffolk 33 Friaries 56±60 Austin friary, Gorleston 57±8, 121 Austin friary, Orford 57±8, 121 Carmelite friary (Whitefriars), Ipswich 57 Carmelite friary (Whitefriars), Lynn 73

315

Carmelite friary (Whitefriars), Norwich 58, 118 Dominican friary (Blackfriars), Dunwich 19, 72, 118 Franciscan friary (Greyfriars), Dunwich 19, 72, 118 Frostenden, All Saints church architectural style of 22 early wills from 52, 54 Great Bible of 166 William Dowing at 288 testator Moor, Henry 81 n. 82 More, William 210 n. 73 Fuller, William, gravedigger and bellringer, Thorington 117 Funerals 115±18 alms at 117 dole at 117 n. 19 of gild members 151 liturgy of 116, 118, 138 commendatio, dirige, placebo 116 requiem 116, 137 Gardener (Ganer), Robert, illuminator, Walberswick 161, 169 Gardiner, Stephen, bishop of Winchester 32 Gardyn, Richard, parish clerk of Blythburgh 176±7 Genoa, Italy, textile centre 198 Gentry 87±88, 96 of Kent 76, 88 Gilds 147±56, 278 Cambridgeshire gilds 148±9, 279 guild of Jesus, St Paul's, London 124 Jesus gild 124 priests of 150, 152 property of 155 survival of 279±80 rural gilds Bardwell, Suffolk 51, 152 Chediston 155, 280 Crat®eld 3, 150, 152, 155±6, 188, 279 Halesworth gild hall 154±5, 280 Westhall 280 urban gilds 122 Great Yarmouth 125 Gislingham, Suffolk, Good Rood of 131 Glanville, Ranulph de, founder of Leiston abbey 35 Glass and glazing 234±51 cost of 238±9 maintenance 240±1 destruction of 234, 288±90 heraldic devices in 238±9, 246±51 Godell, Margaret, widow of William of Southwold 146 Golden Legend see Legenda Aurea


316

INDEX

Goldengham, Master of Belstead Hall, Suffolk 173 Goldsburgh, Thomas, prior of Rumburgh 164, 203 Graves see Memorials Great Glemham, Suffolk seven sacrament font at 182, 187, 205 Great Sentence 164 Great Yarmouth, Norfolk custom port of 17 Our lady of Arneburgh 224 road leading to 81 Gregory the Great 114, 121 his defence of imagery 217 Greyfriars see Friaries Hailes abbey (Cistercian), Gloucestershire, pilgrimage to 129 Halesworth, St Mary's church, see Plans II, III, IV, 63, 103, 106 architectural development of 96±105, 228 bequests to Norwich cathedral church 58 dole to poor 118 Le Chaunterhouse in 139±40 gilds of John the Baptist and St Antony & St Eligius in 149, 152±4 gild hall 154±5, 280 heraldic devices at 239 imagery at 224 Jesus Mass 124 memorials in 267 organ in 177 plate the bell The Mary Baret 109, 192 pax 190 premature sale of 282 Pigott's chantry in 139 St Anne's chapel in 75, 126, 139 Thomas Clement's vestry in 91, 102 William Dowsing at 289 testators Argentein, Sir John 68 Argentein, Dame Margery 68 Baret, Geoffrey 109, 192 n. 84 Baret, John 75, 120 Barker, Agnes 125, 207 n. 57 Barker, Margaret 51, 66 Bret, Thomas 81 n. 82 Bruche, John 139 n. 14 Chapelle, William 104 n. 49, 139 n. 14, 224 Claxton, William 118, 267 Clement, Thomas 102, 103 Cros, William alias Barbor 219 n. 16 Dryver, John 104 n. 49, 177 n. 111 Dryver, William, chaplain 74 Everard, John 191 n. 75, 267, 63 Everard, John, priest 68±9 Fishe, William, priest 75, 82

Fraunceys, Robert 177 n. 111 Fyn, William 124 n. 52 Fyske, John, mercer 224 n. 36 Kennett, John 104 n. 49, 224 n. 36 Mollyner, Geoffrey 118 Morrell, Elizabeth 154, 171, 207 n. 58 Norton, William 116 Payne, Peter 152 Randolf, Katharine 129 Randolf, Robert 189±91 n. 76, 192 n. 80 Sexteyn, Agnes 139 Smyth, William 104 n. 49, 224 n. 36 Vervyn, Margery 82 n. 85, 104 n. 49 Walter, John, chantry priest 139 Trans®guration, cloth depicting the 125 Halesworth parish 16, 49, 108, 135 early wills from 58±9 market of 96 Park and Deer Wood of 81 Hamond, Peter of Westleton 170 Harleston, Norfolk 81, 175, 190, 258 Harleston, Suffolk 258 Harwich, Essex 224 Hastings family and its heraldic device 174 Hawe Wood, Crat®eld 1, 192 Hawe, Robert of Wenhaston 2 Hallowing of bells 109 of vestments 206 Heacham, Norfolk, gild of 150 Henby, Pernell, `launderer' to Walberswick church 94, 212 Henham see Wangford Henry I of England 34 Henry V and national saints 248, 250 Henry VI 248 commemoration of 129, 221 Henstead, St Mary's church gild of Our Lady 151 handbells at 193 testators Bondes, Robert 68 Borhede, Margaret 119 Doke, Margaret 116 Dowse, Margaret 193 n. 85 Hill, John 44 Heriot 65 Hessett, Suffolk 205 Heveningham, St Margaret's church bequest of censer to 192 gild members at Lax®eld 150 organ in 177 wooden ef®gy in 268, 271, VIII testators Baxter, Dame Margery, vowess 51 Heveningham, Henry of, rector 68 n. 26, 189, 201 Heveningham, Sir John 149, 203, 209 n. 70, 271


INDEX Nolloth, Agnes 189, 225 Nolloth, Robert 116, 177 Heveningham family of Heveningham, Suffolk 47, 249 memorials to 271 High Altar bequests see Bequests Highbray, Devon 170 Holbeach, Lincolnshire, the Shepherds' gild 148 Holton, St Peter's church 140 a vicarage of Rumburgh priory 29 William Dowsing at 289 dole 118 testators Baret, Richard 219 n. 16 Peers, Alexander 79, 210 n. 73 Holy Family 122, 126±7, 131, 237 Holy Land, pilgrimage to 127 Holy Name of Jesus or Jesus Mass see under Feasts and Festivals Holy Trinity hospital, Dunwich see Dunwich, Domus Dei Hopton family of Blythburgh, Walberswick and Yoxford 69 heraldic devices of 246, 249±50, 286 Hopton, John, lord of Blythburgh manor 6, 143±4 Hopton, John, vicar of Reydon, master of Domus Dei 6, 190 Hopton, Owen 149 Hopton, Thomas, lord of Easton Bavents 210 Hopton, Thomasine 118, 144, 171±2, 272, 286 Horsham St Faith priory (Benedictine), Norwich 174 Hospitallers see Dunwich Temple Howard, John, 1st duke of Norfolk 176 Howard, Katharine, wife of John Howard 126 Howard, Thomas, 3rd duke of Norfolk 32 Howlett, Joan of Walberswick 94 Hoxne deanery 150 Hoxne Hundred 13 Hull, Yorkshire 63, 69 Hulverwode, John, Franciscan friar 40 Humanity of Christ 126, 131 Hunting®eld, St Mary's church 256 architectural style of 22 provision of books at 167 chantry in 144 churchwardens' accounts of 3, 176, 241 heraldic devices at 239, 239 n. 23, 256 inventory of c.1534 166, 200, 219, 221 plate listed in 180, 183±6 premature sale of 282 vestments listed in 204 organ in 176 testator Barker, Robert, rector 221 Barfoote, Edward 65

317

Payn, Thomas 208 n. 61 Salman William, chantry priest 47±8, 82 n. 84, 144, 171 n. 73 Stabyll, Robert, chantry priest 144, 219, 221 Icelandic ®shing 27, 77 Iconoclasm see under Imagery, destruction of in the Eastern church 6±7 Imagery 215±33 alabaster 224±5 as books of the poor 216, 218, 235±6, 275±6 bequests within the Deanery to 223 destruction of 6±7, 218, 275±8 embroidered images 199±200, 209 Flemish workshop embroidery 199 funerary imagery 261±2 lights before 223, 277±8 popular late medieval imagery apostles 229 as authors of the Creed 242, 249, 251 arma Christi 122, 131, 255, 132 evangelists or their symbols 254 Harrowing of Hell 235 Holy family 127, 237 Last Judgement 79, 113, 235 Man of Sorrows 122, 131 manus Dei 188 Nine Orders of Angels 229 Our Lady of Pity 122 Sacred Heart 122, 11 St John's head 225 seven-sacraments 257 prophets 230±1 Te Deum laudamus 231 three living and the three dead 260 Trans®guration, Moses, Elijah and Christ 125, 227±8, III Trinity 255 vernicle 131, 188±9 Wounds of Christ 122, 131 prohibition of 92 Immigrant testators 17, 51, 66±7 Indulgences see Prayers Ingham priory (Trinitarian), Norfolk 101 n. 41, 124±5 Intercessions see Prayers Intercessors by name 120 Inventories 203 of the archdeaconry of Norwich 3±4 of books at St John's, Maddermarket 171 Crown inventories of 1547, 1549 and 1552 180±1, 282 in Dunwich deanery 162, 198, 200, 203 at Melford, Suffolk 3 Ipswich, Suffolk 81, 88, 120, 148, 190 burgesses of 57 Corpus Christi gild of 122 Our Lady of Grace at 129 Iverich, Robert, rector of Brampton 173


318

INDEX

Jack-in-the-Box 129 Jenney family of Knodishall 101 Jenney, Sir Edmund 135, 138, 237, 272±3 Jenney, John 268 Jenney, Sir William 35, 268 Jesus Mass or Holy Name of Jesus see under Feasts and festivals Joachim, father of the Virgin Mary 126; see Holy Family Joseph, the Just 126; see Holy Family Joseph, the carpenter 131; see Holy Family Joye, Henry, John and Richard of Southwold 190 Kebill, Herry of Crat®eld 179 Kelsale, St Mary's church Corpus Christi celebrated at 122 gild of St John the Baptist of 122, 149, 151, 154, 156, 224±5, 278 gild hall 155 market 13 testators Bacheler, William 77, 219, 224 n. 35 Bertram, Joanne 225 Churche, Sir William, priest 254 n. 15 Dallyng, William 140, 267 Ede, John 124 n. 48 Genne, Henry 95 Goos, Maryon 44 Gymbald, William 121 n. 40 Hawe, William, rector 161 Heylocke, John 278 Horner, William, rector 116 Lynne, John 151, 207 n. 59 Loveys, John 121 n. 40, 210 n. 73 Pers, Walter 137±8 Smith, Margery and Robert 44 wills from 54 Kempe, Margery 131 en route for Santiago 128±9 Kent, the gentry of 76, 88 Kessingland, Suffolk 108 King Herry (Henry VI) of Windsor 129, 248 Kirton, Suffolk, Good Rood of 131 Kith, kin and friends 119±20, 252±3 Knodishall, St Nicholas church a poor parish 18 Buxlow absorbed by 20 clerical wills 48 gild members of Kelsale 150 memorials in 268, 273 as Easter Sepulchre 273 testator Jenney, Sir Edmund 135, 138, 237, 272±3 wills from 48 Lacy, John, vicarious pilgrim 129 Lacy, John, warden of Dunwich Greyfriars 38 Langland, William, poet 127

Larkke, Rose of Crat®eld 155 Latimer, Hugh, bishop of Worcester 2, 276 Latten see under Plate Lavenham, Suffolk 51 Laws changes regarding enfeoffment 161 n. 11 Roman and the English testament 42 sumptuary 197, 199 Lax®eld, Suffolk Our Lady's gild 149±50, 156 church candlesticks in 179 Legenda Aurea 126, 172, 215; see also under Books Legendes of Hooly Wummen 126 Leiston abbey (Premonstratensian) 19 architecture of 21 endowments of 35, Map III inventory of 1536 162, 180, 183, 204, 280 value of goods 280±1 organ 176 Leiston, St Margaret's church, 76 Good Rood of 133 late-medieval gravemarkers in 75, 263 Sizewell a chapelry of 25±6 testators Clerk, Thomas 75, 76 Loof, Isabel 75, 76 Hermere, Robert 208 n. 61 Heyward, Henry, priest 172±3 Wells, Thomas 210 n. 73 wills from 60 Lich®eld, Staffordshire, Jesus, the bell, of 109 Lidgate, John, monk and poet of Bury St Edmunds 126 translator of The Dance of Death 261 Lincolnshire gilds in 1389 148 gild of St Michael on the Hill 150 inventories of 1566 194, 287 Lindisfarne, Northumberland 29 Linstead magna, St Peter's church 21, 61±2 Linstead parva, St Margaret of Antioch's church 21 testator Garrould, William 121, 236 Liturgical colours see Vestments Littleton Drew, Wiltshire 92 Liverpool, Lancashire, as coastal port 26 Loddon, Norfolk, Holy Trinity church architectural style of 260 seven sacrament font at 259 Lollards and Lollardy 8, 127, 129, 165, 258±9 Norwich heresy trials 1428 8, 258 Mone, Hawise of Loddon 258 London, St Thomas of Acon 125 Our Lady of Rounceval at Charing Cross 124 St Paul's cathedral, Guild of Jesus 124 St Paul's cloister, the Dance of Death 261


INDEX Lucca, Italy, centre of Italian textile industry 198±9 Lynn, Norfolk 222 corrodians at Whitefriars in 73 parish gilds 148 Manston, Dorset, the Maid of 129 Margaret of Anjou, queen of Henry VI 154 Marham nunnery (Cistercian), Norfolk 32 Marston, Buckinghamshire Dr John Schorne of 129 Martin, Roger, recusant, of Melford, Suffolk 179±180 Mary Cleophas 126±7; see Holy Family Mary Salome 126±7; see Holy Family Mary Tudor 78 Masin, John of Blythbugh 257 Melford, Suffolk 51 Clopton, John of 126, 188 Holy Trinity church alabaster panel in 225 documentation of 3, 179±80, 188, 202, 205 glazing in 122 Mells, St Margaret's chapel 18, 26 Memorials 260±74 brasses 262, 266, 272 n. 78 Halesworth 267 Spexhall 267 Yoxford 47, 272 n. 78 cost and description of 265±6 crosses 266 grave sites 262 gravestones 261±8 for Argentein family 263 at Walberswick 263±4 tombs 268, 271±4 wooden ef®gies 268, 271, VIII Mendham, John, a lollard 258 Mendham, Suffolk 62, 258 Met®eld, Suffolk 62 Mettingham Castle chantry college, Suffolk 140, 174±5 education and music at 175 Michelino, Domenico di 113 Mickle®eld family of Blyford and Henham 69, 88, 249 Middleton, Holy Trinity church a vicarage of Leiston abbey 35 Middleton absorbs Fordley parish 20 bridge 81 disposal of church plate 282 testator Case, John 156 n. 100 Love, Richard 81 n. 81 Palmer, Margaret 168±9 Wyllett, William the elder 81 n. 81 Minsmere haven 35 Monastic houses dissolution of 278±9

319

Essex, Barking abbey 119 Gloucestershire, Hailes abbey 129 Huntingdonshire, St Neots priory 59, 279 Norfolk, Bromholm priory 130 Norfolk, Horsham St Faith priory 174±5 Norfolk, Ingham priory 101 n. 41, 124±5 Norfolk, Norwich cathedral priory 84 Norfolk, St Benet at Holme abbey 27, 29 Norfolk, Thetford priory 33, 279 Oxfordshire, Dorchester abbey 250 Suffolk, Bury St Edmunds abbey 29, 266 Suffolk, Butley priory 35 Suffolk, Eye priory 58, 283±4 Suffolk, Ixworth priory 51 Suffolk, Snape priory 26 Worcestershire, Thelsford priory 125 Yorkshire, St Mary's abbey, York 29 lack of bequests to 55±6 Monk Soham, Suffolk seven-sacrament font at 258 Moose, Edward and Margerie of Leiston 75 More, Sir Thomas, Lord Chancellor, in defence of images 275±6 Morebath, Somerset 203 imagery at 222 Mortmain 147 alienation in 141±2 Walberswick's licence 104 Morton, Archbishop, the Register of 46±7 Mortuary payments 172 Mundham, Norfolk 161 Music making 175±8 clavichords 176±7 organ at Brockford, Suffolk 177 organs in Deanery churches 176±8 at Blythburgh, Covehithe, Crat®eld Dunwich, Halesworth, Heveningham Hunting®eld and Walberswick organs in Norwich churches 175 song schools 174 Music books see Books Nayland, Suffolk, survival of gild property 279 Nethyrby, Agnes of Dunwich 84 New Testament, translation of 165±6 Newton Chapel, Cambridgeshire Our Lady in the Sea 124 Nix, Richard, bishop of Norwich 64, 175 Nomina Villarum 87 Norfolk see also Norwich gilds in 1389 148 pre-Reformation church plate 195±6 Norfolk, dukes and duchesses of 32, 126, 176 Norfolk, Robert, mariner, of Southwold 128 North Cove, Suffolk 146 Norton, Robert of Halesworth 283 Norwich Consistory Court (NCC) wills see Wills


320

INDEX

Norwich, Norfolk 56, 72, 125, 161, 190; see also Norfolk prior and convent of 58, 84 cathedral church of 58 Jesus chapel in 124 sale of plate from 194 bishop of 36±7 parish gilds in 149 population of 72 St Andrew's church in 175 St John's Maddermarket in 171 St Peter Mancroft church in 72 inventory for 175, 185, 190 Isabel Wynde's bequest to 202 sale of plate from 194 St William of 130 service chantries in 142 wills from 57 high altar bequests in 64 Norwiche family of Yoxford 88 heraldic device of 239 Northales see Covehithe Nottinghamshire alabaster see Imagery Nunneries Bruisyard, Suffolk 38, 59 Marham, Norfolk 32 Redling®eld, Suffolk 59 Obits (twelvemonth days, yeardays, yeremynds or anniversaries) see Prayers Occupations see under Status and occupations Orford deanery 16 Orford church, St Bartholomew's 225 Organs in Deanery churches 176±8 at Blythburgh, Covehithe, Crat®eld, Dunwich, Halesworth, Heveningham, Hunting®eld and Walberswick in Norwich churches 175 organ builder, Robert Bortryn, Stowmarket 176 organ maker, William Chelter, at Walberswick 176 Our Lady 124, 126±7, 219, 221±2, 237±8, 240, 242, 279 Our Lady's chapel at Bram®eld 232 at Westhall 238 Queen of Heaven 232 of Arneburgh 224 of Pity 122, 224 of Walsingham 129 of Woolpit 129 of®ce of the Virgin Mary 170 Our Lady's service noted 169 Visitation of 163 Ovy, John, rector of Uggeshall, chaplain of Blythburgh 34, 173 Oxborough, Norfolk, gild ordinance 151

Pardons and Indulgences see Prayers Parish churches distortion of plans 2 plans of Halesworth, a developed church 96±104, Plans II, III and IV Walberswick, a planned church 104±8, Plan V endowments of land 277 tabernacles in 219 Passion of Christ 122 Pays, Harry, mason, of Walberswick 108 Peasenhall, St Michael's church, a chapel of Sibton abbey 32 testators from Alard, Ann 121 n. 40 Curteys, Alice 191 Cuttyng, William 193 Kempe Edmund 278, 280 Hyncheclyffe, Sir John, priest 160, 170, 189 Porter, William 75 wills from 54, 59 Peers (Pers, Perse or Peyrs) family of Covehithe, Dunwich, Easton Bavents, Holton and Kelsale 88±9 Peers, Alexander of Holton 79, 210 n. 73 Peers, Alice of Covehithe 208 Peyrs, Elizabeth of Easton Bavents 50, 117 n. 20, 189 n. 59 Peyrs, John of Easton Bavents 189 n. 59 Perse, Richard of Dunwich 89 Peers, Thomas of Dunwich 89 Pers, Walter of Easter Bavents 119, 152, 210 n. 73 Pers, Walter of Kelsale 137 Pigott's chantry, Halesworth 139, 144 Pilgrimage 127±30 to Canterbury 129±30 to Dr John Schorne 129 to Hailes abbey 129 to Holy Land 127±8 to Manston, Dorset 129 to Rome 114, 129 to Santiago di Compostela 128±9, 148 to Scotland 129 to St William of Norwich 130 under attack 127 vicarious pilgrimage 114±15, 127±30 Pilton, Somerset 202±3 Pissale, John de, cleric, 175 Plate, Ornament and Jewellery bequests 90, 179±96, 280±4 altar plate 186±7 candlesticks 186, 191 censer 1±2, 192 chrismatory 186±7, 190 cross 67, 115, 186, 192 beads (jet) 29, beads (coral) 172 n. 83


INDEX bells 108±10, 115, 187, 192±3 hallowing of 109 reparations to 109±10 Mass plate 181±5, 188±91 chalice and paten 181±3, 188±9, 196 ciborium 183 cruets 184±5 pax 179, 184 pyx 115, 179, 183, 190±1 of latten 179±80, 191 n. 73 of pewter 184±5 premature sale of 281±2 Pole, de la, earls and dukes of Suffolk 239 heraldic device of 254 Michael and Katherine, earl and countess of Suffolk 268 William de la, duke of 35, 57 Population see area or parish increase in 83 Powle, Adam, mason, of Blythburgh 105 Prayers 89±91, 119, 124±5, 156 bede-roll 119±21, 203 frequency and intensity of 115, 118 from the pulpit 120 of the poor 115 short-term prayers and intercessions 115±36 agnus Dei 120 certeyns and sangredes 120±1 at Linstead parva 121 Fifteen O's 120 pardons and indulgences 124±5 of Boston 123 for Jesus Mass 124 of the Name of Jesus 124 of Our Lady in the Sea 124 of Our Lady of Rounceval 124 of St Thomas of Canterbury 124 Scala coeli 38, 121, 228 trental of St Gregory 121, 136 long-term prayers chantries in Suffolk 139±47 Clopton's chantry, Melford 126 duration of 146±7, 156 perpetual chantries 141, 143 service chantries 141±2 bequests for requisites for 161, 208 priests' duties of 140±1 gilds see under main heading Gilds obits or anniversaries 137±40, 156, 261 costs of 138±40 Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC) wills see under Wills Priories outside the Deanery of Dunwich see Monastic houses Priories within the Deanery of Dunwich see under Blythburgh, Rumburgh and Wangford Problems of the poor 83±5 Property 42±4, 67

321

immovable in Southwold 82±3 movable 94 Prowett, Dom Stephen of St Peter Mancroft, Norwich 175 Purgatory Dante e il suo Poema 113 The Divine Comedy: Purgatory 113 the doctrine of and belief in 1, 55±6, 89, 113±14 as a doctrine of hope 114 post-Reformation view of 113 release from 125 trials of 1, 113, 118 Pye, Agnes of Dunwich 84 Pye, Isabel, laundress of Walberswick 212 Quethewords see Bequests Ranworth, Norfolk, the Great Antiphoner 168 Reading, Berkshire, SS Giles and Lawrence 140 Harry, the bell of 109 Redling®eld nunnery (Benedictine), Suffolk 59 Redman, bishop, commissary general 37 Redwell, Yorkshire 189 Reformation, Protestant 8, 143 Remembrance 1±2, 89±91, 160±1, 261±2 Material commemoration 2 Spiritual commemoration 2 Redenhall, Norfolk 258 Rendham, Suffolk 32, 146 Reydon, St Margaret's church, vicarage of Wangford priory 33, 220 bridges, Potter bridge 81, Wevylsee (Wolsey) bridge 16, 81 alabaster table at 224 alms 118 disposal of plate 282 gilds of Blessed Mary, St Margaret and St Peter 152 banners at 207 William Dowsing at 288 St Margaret Rissmere 26±7 Southwold a chapelry of Reydon 25 testators Clerk, Thomas, vicar 69 Drax, Robert, priest 47 n. 24 Fuller, Joan 74 n. 54 Haggs, William 151, 266 Scolys, Master Roger, vicar 133, 160, 163±4 n. 30, 171±3, 229 n. 58 Slathe, Katharine 208 n. 60 Warin, John 82 n. 84 Totweye, Henry 236, 220 Rich, Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury 253 Richard II of England 126, 268 Richmond, Stephen, earl of 29


322

INDEX

Robert of Darsham, rector of Theberton 73 Rome 128±9 St Thomas' hospital 125 stations of 128 Tre fontane 121 vernicle in 131 Rood 133 Good Roods 131 within the Deanery 132±3 Rood-screens, candlebeams and parclose screens 95, 154, 217, 225±33 in Norfolk St Michael's, Barton Turf 229 St Helen's, Ranworth 127, 229 in the Deanery of Dunwich Aldringham 22 Bram®eld 6, 231±2 Southwold 226, 228±31, IV Thorington 21, 225±6 Westhall 95, 226±8, III Rumburgh 135, 23 priory (Benedictine) of 18±19, 27, 29, 32, 209 priors Thomas Goldsburgh 164 Wharton, Lancelot 174 singing bread 32, 184 inventories from books in 126, 165 plate in 180, 182±7 vestments in 203 St Bee 29, 218 Yorkshire priors 29 conventual church tower of 22, 23 high altar bequests 64 testator Laurens, Margerye 210 n. 73 Payne, Elianor 164 n. 35 Tye, Isabella and Robert 22 n. 33 wills from 59 Russell, Richard, mason, of Dunwich 105 Saints 215±17 attributes of 216 evidence of saints, biblical characters, bishops and kings in Deanery wills, churches etc. Abraham 219 Apostles, the Twelve 229 Evangelists, the Four 231 Holy Family, the 237 Prophets, the 230±1 Our Lady 219, 221, 222±4, 237±8, 240, 242, 278 St Adrian beyond the see 224 St Agnes 228 St Alsin 241, 246±7, VI St Andrew 219, 221, 223, 242 St Anne 75, 101, 104, 126±7, 131, 143, 217, 237

St Anthony Abbot 219, 222, 228, 238, 242, 246, 248 St Apollonia 228 St Barbara 149, 154, 221, 224 St Bartholomew 143, 216, 242 St Bee 29, 218 St Blaise 242 St Boniface 241, 247 St Bosa 247 St Bridget 228 St Catherine 219, 224, 228 St Cecilia 219 St Christopher 219, 241 St Clare 223 St Clement 227 St Cross (St Cruci®x, St Crux, sancta crux) 62, 133 St Dorothy 228 St Edmund 27, 216, 222, 248 St Eglaf 247 St Elizabeth 237 St Erasmus 219, 267 n. 65 St Etheldreda 228, 242, 248 St Etta 241, 247 St Felix 241, 247 St Fursey 242 St George 221, 224, 238 St Helen 242 St James the Great 219, 221, 227 St James the Less 229 Joachim 237 St John the Baptist 221±2, 238, 242 St John the Evangelist 221 St Jude 242 St Katharine 144, 219, 224, 228 St Leonard 227 St Margaret (Marina) 26, 143, 219, 222, 228 St Mary of Egypt 242 St Mary Magdalen 219, 231 St Michael 219, 227 St Nicholas 221, 224 King Offa 242, 247±8 St Pancras 242 St Paul 238 St Peter 216 St Petronilla 223 St Saviour 219, 223 St Simon 126 St Sitha 224, 228 St Thomas of Canterbury 221, 287 Thomas the Deacon 247 St Trinity 219, 221 St Walstan 241 Trans®guration 227 saints' days abolished 276±7 saints occurring in the text St Augustine 114 St Bernard of Clairvaux 114, 121


INDEX St Bridget 120 St Catherine 41, 126±7 St Christopher 125 St Erkenwald 216 St Etheldreda 216 St George 215 St Gregory 125 St John the Baptist 215 St Osmond 169 St Osyth 32, 209±10 St Sitha 217 Sacraments Baptism 252±3 fonts 253±60, VII godparents at 252±3 Con®rmation 187, 253 Mass 115, 181±5, 252 for the dying 185 Host 115, 181±4, 202 houseling cloth 182, houseling bread 184 de profundis 119 requiem 137 sanctus 191 Ordination 187 Penance 115±16, 184 Extreme Unction 252 chrism 115 Salomas 126; see Holy Family Salle, Norfolk 259 glazing at SS Peter and Paul church 248, 251 Sandwich, Kent 45, 193, 210 Santiago de Compostela, Galicia 27, 128±9, 148 Scala coeli see Prayers Sciliard, Sir Henry, priest 172 Scotland, pilgrimage to 129 Scott, Bartholomew of Henham 108 Scott, John of Blythburgh 257 Seend chapel, Wiltshire 138 Seven sacrament fonts 254, 257±60 incidence in East Anglia 257±9 Sewale, Robert, purveyor of ®ne vestments 206 Shipping 17±18 The Blythe 67, The Christopher 128, The Edmund 128, The James 117, 128, The Mary 128, The Mary and John 67, The Trinity 128 Sibsey, Lincolnshire 208 Sibton abbey (Cistercian) 19, 73±4 abbot Flatbury 32 chantry of Adam de Watton 143 Fyn, John and Alice, corrodians at 33, 73±4 hospital of John the Baptist in 33 early wills from 60 Sibton, St Peter's church 25, 172, 237, 24 a vicarage of Sibton abbey 32 testators Andrew, Sir John, vicar 172 n. 77 Awcocke, John the elder 254 n. 14 Clarke, Robert, vicar 208

323

Duckett, Robert 25, 125, 236±7 Gerard, Robert, priest 47 n. 24 Horyon, Edward 75 Singing bread 32, 184 Sizewell St Nicholas chapel 18, 25±6 alms at 117 early wills from 60 imagery in 224 value of chapel in 1547 281 Thomas Plowman, parishoner, a Lollard 258 testators Cass, Christian 138, 203 Clobberd, Edward 201 Rowlond, Matthew 26 n. 39 Sampson, Thomas 117 Wells, Thomas 224 n. 34 trade and industry 17 Skilman, Richard, mariner, of Southwold 128 Sleaford, Lincolnshire, St Dionysius church 59 Smith, Alan and Alice, corrodians at Lynn 73 Smith, Sir Andrew, chaplain 78 Smith, John of Crat®eld 74 Smith, Robert and Alice of Lynn 73 Smith, Thomas of Crat®eld 179 Snape priory (Benedictine), Suffolk 26 Snobeshyll, Katherine of Blyford 42 Sotherton, St Andrew's church a poor parish 18 dole 117 plate at 284 testators Goodwyn, Robert 117 n. 19, 124 Nunne, Richard 207 Souls of kith and kin 119±20 South Cove, St Lawrence church 202 Potter bridge 81 bells 193 rectory 29 William Dowsing at 288 testators Almot, Richard 128 Brabson, William 119 n. 32, 189 n. 59 Childeros (Childerhouse), Thomas 81 n. 80 Denyell, John 193 Harman, John 193 Hunt, Richard 160 n. 4 Southwold borough 27, 69, 142, 185, 207 great bridge (magno ponti) 81 population of 18, 27 poverty of 146 Skylman's 146 Southwold, St Edmund's chapel or church 18, 25, 72, 28 alabaster table at 224 architectural style of 22, 25, 27 masonic links with Blythburgh and Woodbridge 259 bequest of a monstrance 190 n. 68


324

INDEX

Southwold, St Edmund's chapel or church (cont.) chantry of William Godell 82 churchyard cross 135 disposal of plate 282 dole 118 Good Rood of 133 Jesus Mass 124 Rood-screen at 27, 226, 228±31, IV William Dowsing at 288 testators Banke, Robert 81 n. 79 Bishop, William 48 Brown, John 133 n. 89 Brown, Thomas 118±19 Burgess, Henry 229 n. 58 Caws, Walter 17 Colcorn, John 27, 223 n. 32 Cooper, Richard 127 n. 65 Frawnces, Thomas 125 Genne, Robert 82±3 Goddyll, Robert 64 n. 9 Godell, William 64 n. 9, 82, 146 Goodwyn, Robert 124 Grantham, William 229 n. 58 Hulverdale, William, clerk 64 n. 8 Jacson, Thomas 223 n. 32 Jolle, Thomas 223 n. 32 Joye, Mary 190, 208 n. 60 Joye, Robert 210 n. 73 Lawnd, Margarita 190 n. 68 Lokles, John 124 n. 52 Marche, Richard 133 n. 89 Peion, Thomas 81 n. 79 Pope, Thomas 208 n. 60 Reynshof, Reynold 209 n. 70 Rickman, Henry alias Glover 223 n. 32 Sewell, Thomas 229 Talyowrer, John 124 n. 52, 223 n. 32, 229 n. 58 Wayn¯eet 81 n. 80 Wilkinson, Margaret 223 trade and industry of 17±18 wills from 54 Sperkeman, Master William, chantry priest of Hunting®eld 144 Spexhall, St Peter's church 269 a poor parish 18 architectural style and features of 22, 187 Banyard brass 267, 23 bell 193, 286 bequests to 172 dole 118 gild members of Wissett 150 rectory 29 testators Sepens, Robert 75 Thurton, John 193 n. 85 Stapleton family of Ingham, Norfolk 101 n. 41

Stations of the Cross 131 Stations of Rome 128 Status and occupations 45, 47±9, 62±77, 167±8 signs of 90 Statute of 1381 (inquest of 1388, returns of 1389) 141±2, 147±8 Steel, Thomas, impropriator, of Rumburgh 64 Stephen, king of England 34 Stratford, John, archbishop of Canterbury 45 Stoven 18 St Margaret's church, a vicarage of Wangford priory 33 architectural style of 22 testator Coddenham, William 133 Stowmarket, Suffolk 176 Subsidy roll of 1524 in Buckinghamshire 66 in Suffolk 17, 66±8 Sudborne, Suffolk 16 Sudburn, Robert, yeoman, Halesworth, estate of 46 Suffolk Anglo-Saxons in 16 gilds in 1389 148 population and wealth of 13, 53 1524 subsidy of 17, 66±8 pre-Reformation church plate in 195±6 Hundreds mentioned in text Blything hundred 13 Hoxne hundred 13 wills from 57 Suffolk, dukes and earls of 25, 35, 57, 78, 272, 175, 239, 268 Swaffham, Norfolk 119 Swillington, Sir Roger of Blythburgh 104 Sydney, Nicholas of Yoxford 171 Symond, Geoffrey, rector of Bradwell, Norfolk (formerly Suffolk) 253 Tax assessments 66±8 Templars see Dunwich Temple The Temple see Dunwich Temple Testamentary fees 45±6 Testaments see Wills Theberton, St Peter's church gild members of Kelsale 150 Good Rood of 133 memorial to Sir William Jenney at 268 rectory of 35, 37 testators Andrew, William 81 n. 78 Bland, John 129 Dalton, Trianer 133 n. 89 Hart, Sir William, priest 208 Herbert, John, priest 160 n. 9 Jalcy, Elena 81 n. 78 Kyllam, John 34 n. 68 Kelam, Richard 189 n. 60


INDEX Thelsford, Worcestershire, priory (Augustinian) 125 Thetford, Norfolk, priory (Cluniac) 33 Thomas, Joan, betrothed to Downy Bek 50±1 Thorington, St Peter's church a vicarage of Blythburgh priory 34 a poor parish 18 Geoffrey Weston's funeral expenses 117, his obit expenses 138±9 land bequeathed for prayers at Yoxford 156 testator Mell, John 161 Thornage chalice 196 Thorpehithe (heath) chapelry of Our Lady 18, 25±6, 147 testators Goodwyn, John 81 n. 81 trade and industry in 17 Time 114, 118 seasons of the Christian year 114±15 Lent 186 Rogationtide 163, 186 seven- and thirty-day prayers 115, 119 Tintinhull, Somerset, church accounts of 166, 212 Tithes 64 Trade and Industry agriculture 92±4 ®shing 17±18, 77, 92±4 payment in herrings 105 Transport and communications 79, 81, 223 piers and jetties in Southwold 82 poor condition of roads 81±2 to London and to Norwich 85 Transubstantiation, doctrine of 122 Tunstall, Norfolk appropriated to Sibton abbey 32, 259 Tunstall, Suffolk 105, 258 Tymewell, Thomas of Combe, Somerset 203 Tyndale, William, reformer and translator 165±6, 275±6 Ubbeston, St Peter's church 78 a poor parish 18 a source of river Blythe 16 a vicarage of St Neots priory 59 bequests to Lax®eld gild 150 imagery at 224 testators Cowell, Thomas, vicar 59, 203 Noyse, William 224 Russell, Richard 156 Ufford family, earls of Suffolk 175, 249, 21, 256 heraldic device 254 Ufford, Ele, married to Richard Bowet 249, 268, 24 Ufford, Eve (formerly Clavering) 249, 268 Ufford, Joan, married to William Bowet 249 Ufford, Robert, earl of Suffolk 35, 175

325

Uggeshall, St Mary's church 236 building the tower of 85 testators Barker, Robert 210 n. 73 Bayker, Robert 85 Freman, Richard, rector 47 Ovy, John, rector 160 n. 7, 172 n. 77 Valor Ecclesiasticus 144 Venice, Italy, textile centre 198 Vernicle 131, 188 Vestments, cloths and clothing 197±212 bequests of clerical bequests 208 lay bequests 209 chief vestment or suit 124, 200±1 cloths 124, 138, 182, 201±2, 205 cost of 197, 206±8 disposal of 284±5 fabrics and design 197, 199, 208 Flemish workshop embroidery 199 hallowing of 206 liturgical colours 198, 208±10 opus Anglicanum 198±9 St Thomas Worsted 209 Viaticum, the 115±16, 185 Vincent, Robert, bailiff of Dunwich 38 Virgin Mary see Our Lady Voragine, Jacobus de, bishop of Genoa 126, 215 Wade, John, painter of images, Hunting®eld 221 Walberswick, St Andrew's church or chapel 25, 107, 264 bells of 108±10 Blythe estuary at 16 book repairs and renewals in 167 building of north aisle at 92, 105, 108 burials in church 69 churchwardens' accounts of 3, 93±4, 207, 212, 235, 239, 253 organ expenses in 176 plate in 179, 183, 185 glazing at 85, 239±40 gravestones at 263, 265 Robert Ashwell, Robert Ashwell and Thomas Elderton 263 n. 45, 264 destruction of new church in 17th century 20±21 destruction of old church in 1473 104 gilds of 149, 152, 154 gild house of John the Baptist of 92, 105 King Herry's (Henry VI) table in 129, 221 imagery at 221 inventory 182, inventory c.1482 204 planned church 96, 104±8, 228 and Plan V tower of 88, 109, 107 William Dowsing at 288 increasing population of 104 quay 82


326

INDEX

Walberswick, St Andrew's church or chapel (cont.) testators Adam, John 94 Almyngham, John 115, 176 n. 107, 221±2 Almyngame, Walter 57 n. 57 Bangot, Thomas 81 n. 82, 105 Barat, Thomas 104 n. 57, 149 n. 68, 221 n. 24 Baret, John 176 n. 107 Barbour, Henry, chaplain 93 Berth, Agnes 128 Bird, William 93 Block, Geoffrey 117 n. 20 Boty (Poty), Harry 51 n. 42, 224 n. 34 Boty, Margaret 224 n. 34 Bukke, Cecilia 221 Burghwarde, Walter 108, 117 n. 20 Byrd, Nicholas 51 n. 42, 105 n. 58 Clerke, Edmund 133 Danyell, John, priest 49 n. 33 Dolfynby, Robert 75, 221 n. 22 Fuller, Margery 105 n. 57 Gerard, Nicholas 94 Genyngham, Katharine 189 n. 60 Gymyngham, William 120, 161 Kerych, Thomas 266 Maryot, Nicholas 77 n. 61 Mannyng, John 105 n. 57, 221 Manning, Richard, freemason 124, 209 n. 70 Nunne, Richard 207 n. 55 Odyorn, William 84, 146 Poty, John 68, 278 Poty, Margaret 68, 278 Pynne, Margaret 129 n. 76, 130 Robynson, Joan 155 Rooke, William 265 Ruste, William 221 n. 22 Rycherdson, Alex 133 n. 89 Rycherdson, Emma 265 Stevenson, John 94 Stephenson, Margaret 208 n. 60 Terry, William 221 n. 24 White, Thomas 129 n. 76, 221 n. 23 Wolward John 265 n. 48 Wylkynson, Sir John, priest 169 Wyllyamson, John 224 trade and industry in 17 wills from 54 Walpole, St Mary's church chapel in churchyard 146 dole 118 wills from 52, 59 Walsingham, Our Lady of 129 Walter, Alice of Walberswick 94 Walter, John, chantry priest, of Halesworth 144

Wangford priory (formerly Cluniac, now denizen) 33 alms 118 architectural style of 25 bequests for banners 207±8 burial in priory church 69 dissolution of priory (1540) 281 gild of St Peter at 151 glazing in 240 organ expenses 176 prior of 72, 147 vestments 284 William Dowsing at 289 testators Barker, Thomas 209 ns 70±1, 284 Brandon, Sir Robert of Henham 72, 149 Brandon, Sir William of Henham 65, 72±3 Craven, Thomas of Henham 47 n. 24, 72±3, 169 Love, John 147 Mickle®eld, William of Henham 43, 116, 127 Oldring, Robert 118 Ruddock, Alice 208 n. 60 town house (gild hall) 155 wills from 60 Wangford deanery 149 Waryn, Christine, death-bed attendant, Thorington 117 Watling, Hamlet, artist and schoolmaster 39, 231, 241±2, 246±8, 289±90 Waveney river 127 Waveney Valley 8, 27 Lollard activity in 258 parishes in Alburgh 259 Harleston 258±9 Mendham 258 Needham 258 Redenhall 258 Weever, John, antiquarian 2, 116±17, 261 Wenhaston, St Peter's church 80 a vicarage of Blythburgh priory 34 Doom in 6, 79, 122, II gild hall of 155 river Blythe at 16 William Dowsing at 289 testators Hawe, Robert 2 Bakon, Alice 191±2 wenyston game 235 Westhall, St Andrew's church a vicarage of Norwich Cathedral priory 58 architectural style and features 22, 25, 185 Holy Trinity gild 150, 280 imagery at 219 Our Lady's chapel in 95, 238 Rood-screen at 125, 226±8, III seven sacrament font 257±9, VII testators Croftys, Thomas 50, 95, 238


INDEX Croftys, Joan 50, 119 n. 32 Feldhouse, William 58 n. 68 Farman, Simon 58 n. 68 Feltham, Robert 58 n. 68 Goche, Thomas, vicar 58 n. 68, 59 n. 70, 203 Gyle, Cecily 185 Gyle, Richard 66 Holbecke, Thomas 280 n. 26 Howard, Rose 51 Love, Richard 41±2, 58, 121, 125 Martyn, Walter, vicar 116, 160 n. 8 Pecke, Thomas 58 n. 68 Town house (gild hall) 155 wills from 52, 58 Westleton, St Peter's church bequest of a pyx to 190±1 prayers at 143±4 testators Charnell, Philip 191 Cotenham, John 170 Harman, John 209 n. 70 Thompson, Robert 39 Westminster abbey 121 realistic portraiture at 268 palace of St Mary-in-the-Vaults 121 Weston, Geoffrey of Thorington, funeral and obit expenses 117, 138±9 Weybred, Richard, master of Mettingham college 140 Weymouth, Dorset, a chapelry 26 Wharton, Lancelot, prior of Rumburgh 174±5 Wheatacre, Norfolk, chantry lands at 139 Wiggenhall, Norfolk gild of the Holy Ghost 148 St Peter's gild 148 William, Sir, vicar of Wissett 64 Willoughby, Lincolnshire 59 Wills 41±3, 45, 77, 85±6 damage to and loss of 54±5 Deanery of Dunwich wills 45±52 Ecclesiastical courts Archdeaconry court of Suffolk (AS) 48±9 fees in 45±6 Norwich Consistory court (NCC) 47±8 Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC) 45±7 Registers of bishop of Norwich testators from 47 n. 24 damage to 54±5 executors of 138, 179, 195, 211 female testators 49±52 funeral details and expenses 116±18 parochial distribution of 52±5 reformist wills 78±9 Suffolk wills 45 supervisors of 177

327

Winchelsey, Robert, archbishop of Canterbury 90 constitution of c.1305 159±60, 162, 170, 180, 187, 200, 203, 218, 236 Wing®eld, Suffolk 57 ef®gies of Michael and Katherine de la Pole, earl and countess of Suffolk 268 Wiseman, John, tenement at Easton Bavents lost to sea 20 Wissett St Andrew's church, a vicarage of Rumburgh priory 29 bequests 190, 192 dole 118 gild of 150 great bells of 193 imagery at 219 John the Baptist 240, V memorials 267 source of river Blythe 16 Wissett Cross 135 testators Barnack, Agnes 43 Bungey, John 190 n. 70 Fleccher, Harry 192 Hawl, William, vicar 209 Hoo, Catherine of 49 Hwys, Thomas 193 Kechyn, William 193 Pottere, Alice n. 13 Sampson, Elizabeth and Thomas 50 Seman Alice 211 Stalk, Robert 254 n. 13 Wyatt, William, vicar 209 Wodekok, Catarine, death-bed attendant, Thorington 117 Wolsey, Cardinal Thomas 32 Woodbridge, Suffolk 81, 190 church of St Mary the Virgin, architectural style of 27 masonic links with Blythburgh and Southwold 259 gild of St Loye (Eligius) 149±50 Woolpit, Our Lady of 129 Worlingham, Great and Little, Suffolk 146 Wrentham, St Nicholas church 123, 270 alabaster table at 224±5 gild of John the Baptist 149, gild hall 155 glazing in 240 memorial to Ele Bowet 268, 270 William Dowsing at 289 testators Beteson, Thomas, rector 59, 69, 209 Greyne, John 149 Robinson, John 155 n. 97 Serle, Thomas 115, 224 n. 35 Schownes, Thomas 82 n. 84 Wylde, Simon 225 Wryte, Edmund, general factotum of Walberswick 176


328

INDEX

Wye, Kent 193, 210 Wyclif, John, reformer 7 Wylley, Thomas, reformist vicar of Yoxford 78 Wyke, Dorset 26 Yatton, Somerset 168, 206 York abbot of 209 archbishop Bowet of 247, 249 Minster glazing in 248±9, 251, 259 plate of 188 pardon of SS Christopher and George of 125 Yoxford, St Peter's church gild at 156 bequest for prayers 156 memorials in 47, 272

as Easter Sepulchre 273 brasses 272 n. 78 plate, premature sale of 281±2 testators Cook, Richard 169 n. 58 Drane, William 156 Hopton, Thomasine 118, 144, 171±2, 272, 286 Norwiche, John of 47, 64 n. 9 Norwiche, Maude of 46, 64 n. 9 Sampson, Anne 78 n. 70 Scothawghe, John 192 n. 80 Sidney, Nicholas 272 Styward, John 66, 171 n. 73 Swan, Richard 78 n. 70 Tebolle, Thomas 192 n. 80

TRADES AND OCCUPATIONS IN THE AREA Alkocke, William, carpenter, Blythbugh 221, 225±6 Alys, William, churchwarden, Crat®eld 152 Avys, a carrier from Hunting®eld 206 Bathcomb, Hewe, metalworker, probably of Woodbridge 187 Bathcomb, Thomas, goldsmith, Woodbridge 187 n. 47 Baxter, Dame Margery, vowess, Heveningham 51 Bollre, Thomas, painter, Crat®eld 222 Bortryn, Robert, organ builder from Stowmarket 176 Butcher, Margaret, death-bed attendant, Thorington 117 Chelter, William, organ maker at Walberswick 176 Colvyll, Richard, bailiff of Wissett, 267 Copping, George, bailiff, Dunwich, 284 Edmunds, Agnes, a vicarious pilgrim 128 Fuller, William, gravedigger, Thorington 117 Fyske, John, mercer, Halesworth 224 Gardener (Ganer), Robert, illuminator, Walberswick 161 Gardyn, Richard, parish clerk, Blythburgh 177 Girdler, Robert, ®sherman 64 Gravener, Richard, ®sherman, Covehithe 77 Hawen, John, corpse-bearer, Blythburgh 116 Henby, Pernell, laundress, Walberswick 94, 212 Heylocke, John, cooper, Kelsale 278 Hullynghedge, Sir Laurens, priest and bookbinder, Walberswick 168 Hulverwode, John, Franciscan friar 40 Hunt, a glazier at Hunting®eld 241

Jeames, Hugh, ®shmonger, Dunwich 64 Johnson, John, corpse-bearer, Blythburgh 116 Lacy, John, vicarious pilgrim 129 Levyll, a glazier of Dunwich 240 Manning, Richard, freemason, Walberswick 124, 209 n. 70 Moress, John, bailiff and MP for Dunwich 24 Norfolk, Robert, mariner, Southwold 128 Pays, Harry, mason, Walberswick 108 Pesenhale, John, corpse-bearer, Blythburgh 116 Powle, Adam, mason, Blythburgh 105 Pye, Isabel, laundress, Walberswick 212 Pylgryme, Robert, ®sherman, Covehithe 77 Russell, Richard, mason, Dunwich 105 Scherms, Sir Edmund, priest and maker of books, Walberswick 168 Sewale, Robert, vestment-maker, Walberswick 206 Skilman, Richard, mariner, Southwold 128 Stapleton, Alice, brothel-keeper, Blythburgh 49 n. 32, 51 Sudburn, Robert, yeoman, Halesworth 46 Tovy, Richard, baxter, Blythburgh 116 Vincent, Robert, bailiff, Yoxford 38 Wade, John, painter, Hunting®eld 221 Waryn, Christine, death-bed attendant, Thorington 117 Wodekok, Catarine, death-bed attendant, Thorington 117 Wryte, Edmund, general factotum, Walberswick 176 Wyllett, William the elder, miller, Middleton, 81 n. 81

c:/3mid-stewart/vol-list.3d ± 11/4/1 ± 10:40 ± B&B/mp

Other Volumes in Studies in the History of Medieval Religion I Dedications of Monastic Houses in England and Wales 1066±1216 Alison Binns II The Early Charters of the Augustinian Canons of Waltham Abbey, Essex, 1062±1230 Edited by Rosalind Ransford III Religious Belief and Ecclesiastical Careers in Late Medieval England Edited by Christopher Harper-Bill IV The Rule of the Templars: the French text of the Rule of the Order of the Knights Templar Translated and introduced by J. M. Upton-Ward V The Collegiate Church of Wimborne Minster Patricia H. Coulstock VI William Wayn¯ete: Bishop and Educationalist Virginia Davis VII Medieval Ecclesiastical Studies in honour of Dorothy M. Owen Edited by M. J. Franklin and Christopher Harper-Bill VIII A Brotherhood of Canons Serving God: English Secular Cathedrals in the Later Middle Ages David Lepine IX Westminster Abbey and its People c.1050±c.1216 Emma Mason X Gilds in the Medieval Countryside: Social and Religious Change in Cambridgeshire c.1350±1558 Virginia R. Bainbridge

c:/3mid-stewart/vol-list.3d ± 11/4/1 ± 10:40 ± B&B/mp

XI Monastic Revival and Regional Identity in Early Normandy Cassandra Potts XII The Convent and the Community in Late Medieval England: Female Monasteries in the Diocese of Norwich 1350±1540 Marilyn Oliva XIII Pilgrimage to Rome in the Middle Ages: Continuity and Change Debra J. Birch XIV St Cuthbert and the Normans: the Church of Durham 1071±1153 William M. Aird XV The Last Generation of English Catholic Clergy: Parish Priests in the Diocese of Coventry and Lich®eld in the Early Sixteenth Century Tim Cooper XVI The Premonstratensian Order in Late Medieval England Joseph A. Gribbin

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