News Template

December 2004

Parish History Episode 44

The Great Windows

In the last two issues of “Signpost”, the Parish History, dealing with the Black Death and its aftermath, has made pretty grim reading. We can now, in this December issue, turn to more cheerful matters, and tell of a great enterprise on which the people of Houghton parish embarked, in (probably) the 1350’s, perhaps as a thanks-offering for their own survival, at a time when so many of their countrymen had died of the Plague. It seems to have been during this decade that the Great Windows, which stand in our church at the four cardinal points of the compass, were inserted: the one at the East end, now depicting Christ in Glory; that at the West end, now depicting Bernard Gilpin; and those to the North and South, at the end of both transepts.

The glass in all these windows is relatively modern (that in the Gilpin Window was inserted as recently as 1983, the four hundredth anniversary of Bernard’s death), but the stone tracery is of styles, called “Decorated”, that were used in the Fourteenth Century, and architectural historians agree in dating the style of our windows to “about 1350”. There were originally six such windows in our church, the other two being on either side of the chancel. One was removed to be replaced by the lancet windows on the South side of the choir, and the other to make way for the organ housing.

Windows in “Decorated” style are not common in County Durham. The wars with Scotland, and the continual need for military preparations - the building of castles and the training of militias - were a perpetual drag on the local economy, and there was little church building taking place here during the Fourteenth Century. A magnificent “Decorated” window was placed in Durham Cathedral at this time, at the West end of the nave, a “Tree of Jesse” design showing the ancestors of Jesus (the glass in the modern window repeats the design that Prior Fossor commissioned in the 1350’s, also as a thanksgiving for his survival of the Plague). Finchale Abbey also possessed such windows, though of course only the stone tracery survives in that ruin.

There were however only four parish churches in Durham which attempted this style of window. Here, at Houghton-le-Spring, and also at Sedgefield, expenditure was lavish, and the people of those communities were obviously determined that their church would have the best tracery, and (presumably) the best stained glass, that money could buy. Easington and Brancepeth, however, were obviously unable to raise the money necessary to attempt to match the installations at Durham and Finchale, and their windows were much less ambitious than ours.

Each of the great windows in our church was built to a different design, and probably they were installed one at a time, as the money came in, and the tracery on each one of them may have been designed by a different mason. The Gilpin Window, at the West end of the church, has a regular reticulated pattern of tracery, but the other surviving windows have more flowing forms, very satisfactory in themselves, but presenting more of a problem to the glaziers who would have been commissioned to insert stained glass into the design. The flow of the stone leaves left-over spaces, some so small that there is nothing to be done with them except inserting coloured glass, while larger gaps form awkward frames for a human figure. By carefully arranging an angel’s wings, however, one of such creatures can be inserted into almost any space, and what more appropriate figures to have in a church dedicated to Michael and All Archangels than a few winged angels (even if their wings had to be crushed to fit them into odd corners?) In the present windows, the angels fit particularly well into the small corners of the East and North windows, and it is possible that the masons designed the tracery with this object in mind.

Having described something of the work of the stonemasons and glaziers, it is important to remember also the part played by the fund-raisers, who were obviously more successful here, at Houghton, and also at Sedgefield, than were their equivalents at Easington and Brancepeth. We must, for the first time in this history, which has so far mentioned mostly churchmen, knights and peasants, introduce the phenomenon of those strata of society known as “middle class” - reasonably affluent laymen, but with no social pretensions.

Church buildings had, up to now, been financed largely by the payment of tithes (as mentioned in the “Signpost” of July, 2002, one third of the tithe - that is, one thirtieth of the agricultural and mineral product of the parish - was meant to be set aside for maintaining the structure of the church) and by gifts: particularly gifts from the local aristocracy and landed gentry, which in Houghton’s case meant the Bellasis family. However, the tithes were now being raided by absentee clergy, such as Rector Dalton, who remained Rector of Houghton until his death in about 1365; and the local gentry tended to be more interested in family memorials within the church (the effigy of Sir Roland, now in the South transept, in the case of the Bellasis family). It was fortunate that layfolk were now emerging, who were willing to take on much of the expense of maintaining the churches. This new class of men would, in this area, include sheep-farmers and coal-pit owners, while in Durham they might be shopkeepers, and in Newcastle rich merchants engaged in the wool or coal trades. Whoever they were, such people looked with pride on “their” churches, and were determined that their parish church should be no meaner than any other in their neighbourhood. In East Anglia, they built the magnificent “wool churches”, and here in Houghton we have another such wool church (or is it a coal church?).

But it was necessary for such benefactors to assume some corporate identity, if their work was to consist of more than occasional donations. In consequence the office of a churchwarden began to develop during mediaeval times. Such officials first appear, as early as the Twelfth Century, in the larger towns, such as London, Bristol and Norwich, and slightly later at Newcastle, cities where there were many churches, in effect competing against each other. Members of the city guilds began to raise funds for local churches, and took over financial (but not of course spiritual) responsibility for running them. They were at first referred to as oeconomi, “economists”, and were probably self-appointed. But they soon found that it was worth-while to record their benefactions, and to keep accounts, and to submit the accounts to public scrutiny by the whole body of the parish, and themselves to periodical re-election as “wardens” of their particular church. If all were consulted, all were more likely to contribute towards the cost of the churchwardens’ ideas. “All” at this time included both men and women, and the churchwardens might be guildsmen, or the wives or widows of guildsmen (later the office became restricted to the male sex, until, apparently, the Twentieth Century: in 1985 Muriel Blackbird became, to the best of my knowledge, our first female churchwarden).

While the office of churchwarden was originally only known in urban parishes, by the Fourteenth Century such lay leaders were beginning to emerge in many rural parishes, at any rate those in which the local patrons were not willing to cover the whole cost of paying for the upkeep of the church: and, though there is no certain record, Houghton probably did have a pair of churchwardens. After all, though the Bellasis family might have liked to be seen as patrons of our church, legally they were not patrons - the Bishop of Durham was. No doubt they would feel that the whole community should share with them the cost of keeping the church going.

These (hypothetical) churchwardens of Houghton-le-Spring would see themselves primarily as fund-raisers, not as administrators. They would hope that the third part of the tithe would still be sufficient to maintain the fabric of the chancel, but they were willing to take responsibility for the rest of the church. They were not only willing to maintain it, but they wanted to improve it. They wanted Houghton church to stand out as the best and most modern church for miles around. Hence their efforts, and the efforts of the Sedgefield churchwardens, to install “Decorated” windows of the most modern design; hence also, the less successful efforts of the Easington and Brancepeth churchwardens.

They probably met the masons and the glaziers, and discussed with them the plans for the great new windows which were to be installed to demonstrate that Houghton-le-Spring, despite severe loss of life, had survived the Black Death, and still had faith in God. And then they began the serious fund-raising, in an effort to pay for the windows that they hoped to see in Houghton church. Some of the tithe might be used, benefactors from the Bellasis and other families would be contacted, fines and fees of various sorts would be appropriated to help reach the target. But the main fund-raising device would probably be the “church-ale”, a common feature at that time of all churches which were unable to rely upon a wealthy patron. This would be a feast held regularly, every year, probably upon the date of the patronal festival, but possibly, if major building projects were going on, it might be held several times a year. J.H.Bettey, in his book “Church and Parish”, describes it as “a parish gathering at which food and drink were supplied by the churchwardens, and which was accompanied by sports, dancing, drama, and other festivities.”

This sounds very much like the origin of Houghton Feast. Obviously the Feast of Saint Michael festival had been celebrated in some form since the time of the church’s dedication. But it may be that it was the need to pay for these great new windows which led to Houghton Feast having a much higher profile than the patronal festivals of other neighbouring parishes.

Most of the villagers would have seen the Feast as a time for enjoying themselves. But they would also have been aware that it was a time when they had to fork out cash to support their church. The fund-raising aspect of the Feast would have arisen primarily because it would have been the custom of the churchwardens to buy in ale at as cheap a price as possible, and then to sell it to the villagers at a profit: so different to the standards of our modern church socials!

But perhaps many of the villagers were happy to pay a premium price for their church ale. They enjoyed themselves at the Feast, and they could see the masons and glaziers working on the church, and they hoped that they or their children would be able to see the new great windows in all their glory.

The reader of this article might have noticed a lack of firm dates in what I have written, and ask what evidence I have for any of this. Well, experts in church architecture are agreed that our Great Windows are of a style which would suggest “about 1350”. That was the year after the Black Death struck the North of England. But there is no evidence that they were installed by way of thanksgiving that some people had survived the Plague (though that seems to have been a motive for Prior Fossor’s contemporary installation in Durham Cathedral). And though the phrase “about 1350” could as well refer to the 1340’s as to the 1350’s, it seems unlikely that parishes in Durham Diocese would have been in advance of the fashion - more probably we lagged behind the great “wool churches” of East Anglia. But the way that Houghton and Sedgefield “met the target” and produced something that would not look out of place in richest Suffolk, while Easington and Brancepeth apparently failed to reach their targets, suggests that funding the updating of these churches was dependent on the success of church-ales.

A final point to note is that every one of the great windows is slightly different in design to every other one. This suggests that they were not all built at once, but that they were installed one by one, as the money came in, and that on each occasion the churchwardens awarded the contract to a different stonemason. The installation work may well have continued throughout the 1350’s and 1360’s.

Perhaps at one time, even more work was envisaged. It may be that the work finally came to an end when Rector Dalton died, and he was succeeded in 1365 by Rector Burstall. Dalton had been, for most of his incumbency (since 1347) an ab-sentee rector, and had perhaps left his churchwardens to get on with running the parish, and finding the money to pay for it (and there would have been a curate who would have said Mass daily).

I know nothing about William Burstall. He may have been an absentee, but equally he may have been resident in Houghton throughout all or most of his incumbency (until 1377). Perhaps, if he resided here, he took responsibility for seeing to everything which needed doing, and the churchwardens faded away into the background. And the work on the windows stopped. It might be that Burstall didn’t want any unnecessary disturbances to the liturgical life of the church.