October 2008

Parish History Episode 90 - Church Furnishing & Refurnishing

Queen Mary, and her Lord Chancellor, Bishop Stephen Gardiner, had, we may recall from last month’s article, set themselves an ambitious programme : to “turn back the clock”, that is to reset the hands of the clock to where they had been before King Edward came to the Throne, or, if possible, as they had been at the accession of King Henry. The Papal Supremacy was to be acknowledged, the Latin Mass was to be brought back, the use of English in the Liturgy to be discontinued, the celibacy of the clergy to be enforced, and the ornamentation of the parish churches to be restored, as far as possible, so as to make them look much the same as they had been, before the acts of “desecration” to which they had recently been subjected. In addition, the “Religious Orders” (of monks, nuns and friars) were, if possible, to be brought back to England.

All the above changes, except the first and the last, were dependent on what happened in the thousands of parish churches scattered about England; and as this is primarily a history of Houghton Parish, not of the Kingdom of England, we would do well to find out what exactly was going on in our parish church during these turbulent times.

The obvious means of finding out this information is to consult parish records. Unfortunately, however, there are none available.

The patient reader may recall, from the “Signpost” of June, 2007, that Thomas Cromwell, who from 1532 to 1540 governed England as Lord Chancellor on behalf of King Henry VIII, had attempted to exercise greater control over the Realm of England, by building on the already existing structures of parishes and churchwardens, and requiring the churchwardens to keep written accounts of births, marriages and deaths, of transfers of landed property, of moneys raised by the parishes for such purposes as road improvements, poor relief and education, and of how the money was spent. Presumably the churchwardens of Houghton kept such records, and if such records were available to us now, we would have a very good idea of what was going on locally at this time.

But it would appear that, assuming Cromwell’s orders were obeyed, the churchwardens here, as in many other parishes around the country, assumed that any old scraps of paper would do for their accounts. At any rate, the oldest surviving church register for the Parish of Houghton-le-Spring seems to be one that was begun in the 1580’s, by Rector Emmanuel Barnes ( the immediate successor of Bernard Gilpin ) and his churchwardens. The initial entry is in fact for Gilpin’s funeral. However, as the first entries are all in the same hand-writing, it looks suspiciously as if Barnes, some time after his arrival in Houghton, decided to tidy up the church records, and purchased a ledger in which to record those more important matters which had occurred in his new parish since the death of his predecessor.

In fact, we have no written evidence of what was happening locally in Houghton-le-Spring, while the country was oscillating, as if uneasily balanced on a see-saw, between the rival claims of, on the one hand, a traditional obedience to the claims of the Roman Papacy, and on the other, of the adoption of a church order which some claimed to be closer to the spirit of the Gospels. However, at the time of writing this article (Summer, 2008), some hints have been uncovered which seem to indicate that the churchwardens had conscientiously carried out the orders which came from London in King Edward’s time, commanding that all wall paintings in churches be whitewashed over, and that all “objects of superstition, like to be abused” should be removed.

A re-ordering of the church is now taking place, with a view to adapting the building for the newer forms of worship which have come to be used, partly so as to make it easier to use more contemporary forms of service; and to make the building more comfortable, by, for instance, using under-floor heating in winter; and for greater outreach to people outside the church, by creating a “Heritage Centre”, in which people will be able to research the past history of the community, and of their own families. In the course of this re-ordering, the floor of the church has been temporarily lifted, revealing not only the graves of our ancestors, but also traces of earlier, pre-Norman churches, built on the same site; and traces also of pre- Christian buildings which stood on the same site, two thousand years and more ago.

Most of the rendering that has been placed on the interior walls of the church during the last nine hundred years has also been stripped away, and the interior is being plastered over anew. However, the consecration crosses placed, presumably by the Normans, underneath the windows in the chancel, when the church was rebuilt and reconsecrated, can now be seen.

Even more tantalising, it is claimed that traces have been found of one of the late mediaeval murals that would have been destroyed when, in obedience to directions issued by one of King Edward’s parliaments, all such wall paintings were covered up with whitewash. These traces of what might have been a mural painting destroyed by iconoclasts were found near the East end of the North wall of the nave, close to the memorial plaque erected, much later, in memory of Lady Maria Jane Bowes Barrington.

In my own opinion, the evidence is not absolutely conclusive. After the Reformation, it became common to write Biblical texts - also, sometimes, the words of the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments - on the bare, whitewashed walls of parish churches; and, in my view, these flecks of black paint could as well be the last traces of such written texts as the remains of paintings depicting Bible stories, dating from before the Reformation.

But if they are indeed of mediaeval origin, then there would appear to be evidence that the writ of King Edward’s parliament ran effectively as far North as Houghton-le-Spring. If that be the case, the churchwardens, as well as whitewashing the murals, would have presided also over such acts as removing the rood screen, with its images of Jesus, Mary and John, and burning it; of taking out the stone alter, and breaking it up to destroy it, and replacing it with a wooden communion table; and of removing any images, of metal, wood or plaster, depicting Jesus, Mary, or any patriarchs, prophets, martyrs, or saints. These images, if of silver or gold, could have been sold, either as works of devotion or as works of art, or melted down to retrieve the metal. If any of these were the case, it might be done in order to put some cash into the parish accounts, but it might also be done for the private gain of the churchwardens or others.

But in some villages, the churchwardens simply took the images back to their own homes, and hid them away. In most such cases, the images would be restored to the church in Queen Mary’s time. But in a few cases, they became lost (if, for instance, the man hiding them away had died, and they could not be found). Sometimes such statuettes were rediscovered centuries later, when an old house was being demolished. So, during King Edward’s years (1547-1553), our church, and most other parish churches, were stripped of their ornamentation. Most of it was done conscientiously, but often reluctantly, by minor officials, endeavouring to carry out orders from the government.

Some of it, however, was done by thieves, jumping at a golden opportunity to enrich themselves, while pretending to be motivated by zeal for the Reformation. And in yet other cases, there was true zeal. Men influenced by old Lollard ideas were joined by men who could read the English-language Bibles which now stood in every church, and who had read the words of some of the Hebrew prophets, and of the discourses spoken by Jesus. Such men had come to feel that the true focus of religion should not be towards little plaster saints, or mural pictures, or the figure of the Crucified Christ upon the rood screen, attended by His grieving mother, Mary, and His belovèd disciple, John; but that Faith should arise by reading and understanding the words of the Saviour, and by carrying out His precepts.

Such men looked round the parish church with the zeal of a prophet of old - a prophet like Amos or Isaiah or Jeremiah - and were repelled by what they saw. Somehow they felt that if the statuettes were removed, and the paintings were destroyed, and the draperies were torn down, then they would at last feel themselves to be in the Presence of the True God.

In a rural parish like ours, far from London, such men and women would be in a small minority. Many more of the parishioners would have felt a sense of outrage when they saw the paintings whitewashed, the rood-screen taken down and burned, the stone alter broken up, and the beautiful images of the saints taken away, to be melted down or sold. They would be delighted when they learned that everything was to be put back again, that the church would be restored to what it had been before.

But their zeal for the Counter-Reformation would diminish when they realised that they would have to pay for it. The churchwardens would levy a rate on every household in the parish, so that all would share the cost of restoration. The colliers and peasants began to hesitate and draw back. Selfishly they argued, “I earned this money. The lass and the bairns need it. God doesn’t.”

Such arguments are being heard again today, in 2008. The churchwardens and others are engaged in a major fund-raising campaign, to raise the cash to pay for the re-ordering of the church. It is causing them a lot of work and a lot of worry. Perhaps in 1553 and 1554 the churchwardens felt even more embattled and wearied then their successors do to-day.

Thus, though, a few years before, when the parishioners saw the treasures of the church being taken out, and cast onto bonfires, or otherwise destroyed, or sold for a pittance, they had, for the most part, felt a sense of outrage; but now they were not so sure that they wanted the treasures back again. But this rather ignoble and mercenary attitude towards the problems of restoring Catholicism was often augmented by a feeling of outrage at the way that the village priest was being treated.

Priests had been allowed to marry since 1548, and by 1553 it would seem that the great majority of parish priests were married. Now orders came that all priests were either to put away their wives, or to resign, and accept laicisation. As I have mentioned before, William Franklin was still nominally Rector of Houghton, and of many other parishes, and he would have paid a curate to look after this parish for him. We do not know the man’s name, nor whether he was married, but by this time the majority of priests had taken a wife, and we will assume that he had done the same.

There were three options open to Franklin’s curate. He could either “put away” his wife; or, if his wife had formally been his house-keeper, as often was the case, they could agree that she could revert to that status, and they could continue living together; or he could resign his orders, and walk away from the parish. If he adopted the second option, things would go on much the same as before, and nobody would be very hurt. But in the other two cases, the parishioners would feel that a grave injustice had been done to one or other partner in the marriage.

If the priest were to dismiss his wife, to send her away with nothing but the clothes on her back, and perhaps a few coins in her purse, what was the poor woman to do ? If her parents were still alive, she could go back to mother, but she would not necessarily be welcome there. Otherwise, she would have to find another man - and that is not always easy.

When the convents had been closed, during King Henry’s time, the nuns had always been given, out of convent funds, a dowry, a sum of money to help them set themselves up as laywomen, and to encourage some man to marry them. But no similar provision was now made for priests’ wives.

Similarly when King Henry’s commissioners closed the monasteries, pensions were always paid to the monks turned adrift - and a few elderly ex-monks were still alive and drawing these stipends at the beginning of the Seventeenth Century. But no such provision was now made for the married priests who walked away from their parishes arm-in-arm with their wives.

For the most part, such men had no real trade. Some might find employment as schoolmasters, others as private chaplains to noblemen of Protestant sympathies : but most such noblemen would soon be fleeing the country, when the persecutions began. Other priests and priests’ wives might be lucky enough to secure odd jobs in all sorts of trades.

But, as they travelled around seeking employment, they often became deeply involved in religious conventicles where they met with other men and women dissenting from Queen Mary’s Counter-Reformation. Such disaffected persons would probably, sooner or later, come to the attention of the authorities, and be arrested, and accused of heresy. Quite a few of these priests and priests’ wives would become martyrs, and die at the stake.

Of course, it was only a minority who would be martyred. But every one of these man and women who was cast adrift from the security of life in the parsonage house did become an object of sympathy to the people of their original parish, a symbol of resistance to tyranny, and a hero or heroine to some who had known them in the past, and now idealised them.

Dick Toy

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