This plain teaching as to the only meaning of reverence paid to images, namely, that it is relative and intended for that which the image represents, our author enforces by several examples. Just as a priest when saying mass with a book before him, bends down, holds up his hands, kneels, and performs other external signs of worship, not to the book, but to God, “so should the unlettered man use his book, that is images and paintings, not worshipping the thing, but God in heaven and the saints in their degree. All the worship which he doth before the thing, he doth, not to the thing, but to Him the thing represents.”
The image of the crucified Saviour on the altar is specially intended, our author says, to remind all that “Mass singing is a special mind-making of Christ’s passion.” For this reason, in the presence of the crucifix, the priest says “his mass, and offers up the highest prayer that Holy Church can devise for the salvation of the quick and the dead. He holds up his hands, he bows down, he kneels, and all the worship he can do, he does—more than all, he offers up the highest sacrifice and the best offering that any heart can devise—that is Christ, the Son of the God of heaven, under the form of bread and wine. All this worship the priest doth at mass before the thing—the crucifix; and I hope there is no man nor woman so ignorant that he will say that the priest singeth his mass, or maketh his prayer, or offers up the Son of God, Christ Himself, to the thing.… In the same way, unlettered men should worship before the thing, making prayer before the thing, and not to the thing.”
One of the special practices of the mediæval church to which the English reformers objected, and to which they gave the epithet “superstitious,” was the honour shown to the cross on Good Friday, generally known as “the creeping to the cross.” The advocates of change in insisting upon this time-honoured ceremony being swept away, claimed that in permitting it the Church had given occasion to wrong ideas of worship in the minds of the common people, and that the reverence shown to the symbol of our redemption on that occasion amounted practically to idolatry. In view of such assertions, it is not without interest to see how Pauper in this book of simple instructions treats this matter. “On Good Friday especially,” says Dives, “men creep to the cross and worship the cross.” “That is so,” replies the instructor, “but not in the way thou meanest. The cross that we creep to and worship so highly at that time is Christ Himself, who died on the cross on that day for our sin and our sake.… He is that cross, as all doctors say, to whom we pray and say, ‘Ave crux, spes unica,’ ‘Hail, thou cross, our only hope.’” But rejoins Dives, “On Palm Sunday, at the procession the priest draweth up the veil before the rood and falleth down to the ground with all the people, saying thrice thus, ‘Ave Rex noster,’ ‘Hail, be Thou our King.’ In this he worships the thing as King! Absit!” “God forbid!” replies Pauper, “he speaks not to the image that the carpenter hath made and the painter painted, unless the priest be a fool, for the stock and stone was never king. He speaketh to Him that died on the cross for us all—to Him that is King of all things.… For this reason are crosses placed by the wayside, to remind folk to think of Him who died on the cross, and to worship Him above all things. And for this same reason is the cross borne before a procession, that all who follow after it or meet it should worship Him who died upon a cross as their King, their Head, their Lord and their Leader to Heaven.”
Equally clear is the author of Dives et Pauper upon the distinction between the worship to be paid to God and the honour it is lawful to give to His saints. It is, of course, frequently asserted that the English pre-Reformation church did not recognise, or at least did not inculcate, this necessary difference, and consequently tolerated, even if it did not suggest, gross errors in this matter. No one who has examined the manuals of instruction which were in use on the eve of the Reformation can possibly maintain an opinion so opposed to the only evidence available. In particular, the real distinction between the supreme worship due to God alone, and the honour, however great, to be paid to His creatures is drawn out with great care and exactness in regard to the devotion paid to our Lord’s Blessed Mother. Thus, after most carefully explaining that there are two modes of “service and worship” which differ not merely in degree, but in kind and nature, and which were then, as now, known under the terms latria and dulia, our author proceeds, “Latria is a protestation and acknowledgment of the high majesty of God; the recognition that He is sovereign goodness, sovereign wisdom, sovereign might, sovereign truth, sovereign justice; that He is the Creator and Saviour of all creatures and the end of all things; that all we have we have of Him, and that without Him we have absolutely nothing; and that without Him we can neither have nor do anything, neither we nor any other creature. This acknowledgment and protestation is made in three ways: by the heart, and by word, and by deed. We make it by the heart when we love Him as sovereign goodness; when we love Him as sovereign wisdom and truth, that may not deceive nor be deceived; when we hope in Him and trust Him as sovereign might that can best help us in need; as sovereign greatness and Lord, who may best yield us our deserts; and as sovereign Saviour, most merciful and most ready to forgive us our misdeeds.… Also the acknowledgment is done in the prayer and praise of our mouths.… For we must pray to Him and praise Him as sovereign might, sovereign wisdom, sovereign goodness, sovereign truth; as all-just and merciful as the Maker and Saviour of all things, &c.
“And in this manner we are not to pray to or praise any creature. Therefore, they who make their prayers and their praises before images, and say their Paternoster and their Ave Maria and other prayers and praises commonly used by holy Church, or any such, if they do it to the image, and speak to the image, they do open idolatry. Also they are not excused even if they understand not what they say, for their lights, and their other wits, and their inner wit also, showeth them well that there ought that no such prayer, praise, or worship be offered to such images, for they can neither hear them, nor see them, nor help them in their needs.”
Equally definite and explicit is another writer, just on the eve of the Reformation. William Bond, the brother of Sion, in 1531 published his large volume of instructions called The Pilgrymage of Perfeccyon, to which his contemporary, Richard Whitford, refers his readers for the fullest teaching on sundry points of faith and practice. In setting forth the distinction between an image and an idol this authority says, “Many nowadays take the Scripture wrongly, and thereby fall into heresy as Wycliffe did with his followers, and now this abominable heretic, Luther, with his adherents.… And (as I suppose) the cause of their error is some of these following:—First, that they put no difference between an idol and an image; secondly, that they put no difference between the service or high adoration due to God, called in the Greek tongue latria, and the lower veneration or worship exhibited and done to the saints of God, called in Greek dulia.… The veneration or worship that is done to the images (as Damascene, Basil, and St. Thomas say) rest not in them, but redound unto the thing that is represented by such images: as for example, the great ambassador or messenger of a king shall have the same reverence that the king’s own person should have if he were present. This honour is not done to this man for himself, or for his own person, but for the king’s person in whose name he cometh, and all such honour and reverence so done redoundeth to the king and resteth in him.… So it is in the veneration or worshipping of the images of Christ and His saints. The honour rests not in the image, nor in the stock, nor in the stone, but in the thing that is represented thereby.” According to St. Thomas, he says the images in churches are intended to “be as books to the rude and unlearned people,” and to “stir simple souls to devotion.”[302]
Bond then draws out most carefully the distinction which the Church teaches as to the kinds of honour to be given to the saints. “Our lights, oblations, or Paternosters and creeds that we say before images of saints,” he says, “are as praisings of God, for His graces wrought in His saints, by whose merits we trust that our petitions shall be the sooner obtained of God.… We pray to them, not as to the granters of our petitions, but as means whereby we may the sooner obtain the same.”[303]
Speaking specially of the reverence shown to the crucifix, our author uses the teaching of St. Thomas to explain the exact meaning of this honour. “The Church in Lent, in the Passion time,” he continues, “worships it, singing, ‘O crux ave, spes unica,’ ‘Hail, holy cross, our only hope.’ That is to be understood as ‘Hail, blessed Lord crucified, Who art our only hope’—for all is one worship and act. Christ, our Maker and Redeemer, God and man in one person, is of duty worshipped with the high adoration only due to God, called latria. His image also, or his similitude, called the crucifix, is to be worshipped, just as the Blessed Sacrament is adored with the worship of latria.”[304]
To this testimony may be added that of another passage from Sir Thomas More. He was engaged in refuting the accusation made by Tyndale against the religious practices of pre-Reformation days, to which charges, unfortunately, people have given too much credence in later times. “Now of prayer, Tyndale says,” writes More, “that we think no man may pray but at church, and that (i.e. the praying before a crucifix or image) is nothing but the saying of a Paternoster to a post. (Further) that the observances and ceremonies of the Church are vain things of our own imagination, neither needful to the taming of the flesh, nor profitable to our neighbour, nor to the honour of God. These lies come in by lumps; lo! I dare say that he never heard in his life men nor women say that a man might pray only in church. Just as true is it also that men say their Paternosters to the post, by which name it pleases him of his reverent Christian mind to call the images of holy saints and our Blessed Lady, and the figure of Christ’s cross, the book of His bitter passion. Though we reverence these in honour of the things they represent, and in remembrance of Christ do creep to the cross and kiss it, and say Paternoster at it, yet we say not our Paternoster to it, but to God; and that Tyndale knows full well, but he likes to rail.”[305]
Finally a passage on the subject of pre-Reformation devotion to the saints and angels, from the tract Dives et Pauper, may fitly close this subject. “First,” says the author, “worship ye our Lady, mother and maid, above all, next after God, and then other saints both men and women, and then the holy angels, as God giveth the grace. Worship ye them not as God, but as our tutors, defenders and keepers, as our leaders and governors under God, as the means between us and God, who is the Father of all and most Sovereign Judge, to appease Him, and to pray for us, and to obtain us grace to do well, and for forgiveness of our misdeeds.… And, dear friend, pray ye heartily to your angel, as to him that is nearest to you and hath most care of you, and is, under God, most busy to save you. And follow his governance and trust in him in all goodness, and with reverence and purity pray ye to him faithfully, make your plaints to him, and speak to him homely to be your helper, since he is your tutor and keeper assigned to you by God. Say oft that holy prayer, Angele qui meus est, &c.”
This prayer to the Guardian Angel, so highly commended, was well known to pre-Reformation Catholics. Generations of English mothers taught it to their children; it is found frequently recommended in the sermons of the fifteenth century, and confessors are charged to advise their penitents to learn and make use of it. For the benefit of those of my readers who may not know the prayer, I here give it in an English form, from a Latin version in the tract Dextra Pars Oculi, which was intended to assist confessors in the discharge of their sacred ministry—
It is, of course, impossible here to do more than refer to the books of instruction, and those intended to furnish the priests on the eve of the Reformation with material for the familiar teaching they were bound to give their people. Such works as Walter Pagula’s Pars Oculi Sacerdotis, and the Pupilla Oculi of John de Burgo, both fourteenth-century productions, were in general use during the fifteenth century among the clergy. The frequent mention of these works in the inventories and wills of the period shows that they were in great demand, and were circulated from hand to hand, whilst an edition of the latter, printed in 1510 by Wolffgang, at the expense of an English merchant, William Bretton, attests its continued popularity. In a letter from the editor, Augustine Aggeus, to Bretton, printed on the back of the title-page, it is said that the Pupilla was printed solely with the desire that the rites and sacraments of the church might be better understood and appreciated, and to secure “that nowhere in the English Church” should there be any excuse of ignorance on those matters.[306]
The contents of the first-named tract, the Pars Oculi Sacerdotis, show how very useful a manual it must have been to assist the clergy in their ministrations. It consists of three parts: the first portion forms what would now be called the praxis confessarii, a manual for instructing priests in the science of dealing with souls, and giving examples of the kind of questions that should be asked of various people, for example, of religious, secular priests, merchants, soldiers, and the like. This is followed by a detailed examination of conscience, and pious practices are suggested for the priest to recommend for the use of the faithful. For example, in order that the lives of lay people might be associated in some way with the public prayer of the church, the Divine office, the priest is advised to get his penitents to make use of the Pater and Creed, seven times a day, to correspond with the canonical hours. Those having the cure of souls are reminded that it is their duty to see that all at least know the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Hail Mary by heart, and they are urged to do all in their power to inculcate devotions to our Lady, Patron Saints, and the Guardian Angels.
The second part of the Dextra Pars Oculi deals minutely and carefully with the instructions which a priest should give his people in their religion, and this includes not only points of necessary belief and Christian practice, but such matters as the proper decorum and behaviour in Church, and the cemetery, &c. The materials for these familiar instructions are arranged under thirty-one headings, and following on these are the explanations of Christian faith and practice to be made in the simple sermons the clergy were bound to give to their people quarterly. The third part, called the Sinistra Pars Oculi, is an equally careful treatise on the sacraments. The instructions on the Blessed Eucharist are excellent, and in the course of them many matters of English religious practice are touched upon and the ceremonies of the Mass are fully explained.[307]
It is obvious that much of the real religious instruction in pre-Reformation days, as indeed in all ages, had to be given at home by parents to their children. The daily practices by which the home life is regulated and sanctified are more efficacious in the formation of early habits of solid piety and the fear of God in the young than any religious instructions given at school or at Church. This was fully understood and insisted upon in pre-Reformation books of instruction. Such, for example, is the very purpose of Richard Whitford’s book, called A werke for Housholders, or for them that have the guyding or governance of any company, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1534, and again by Robert Redman in 1537. After reminding his readers that life is short, and that it is impossible for any man to know when he shall be called upon to give an account of his stewardship, he turns to the consideration of the Christian’s daily life. Begin the day well, he says; on first awakening, turn your thoughts and heart to God, “and then use by continual custom to make a cross with your thumb upon your forehead or front, whilst saying these words, In nomine Patris; and another cross upon your mouth, with these words, Et filii; and then a third cross upon your breast, saying, Et spiritus Sancti.” After suggesting a form of morning and evening prayer, and urging a daily examination of conscience, he continues: Some may object that all this is very well for religious, or people secluded from the world, “but we lie two or three sometimes together, and even in one chamber divers beds, and so many in company, that if we should use these things in the presence of our fellows some would laugh us to scorn and mock at us.” But to this objection Whitford in effect replies that at most it would be a nine days’ wonder, and people would quickly be induced to follow an example of such a good Christian practice if set with courage and firmness.[308]
Speaking of the duty of instructing others, “the wretch of Syon,” as Whitford constantly calls himself, urges those who can read to use their gifts for the benefit of others not so fortunate. They should get their neighbours together on holidays, he says, especially the young, and teach them the daily exercise, and in particular the “things they are bound to know or can say: that is the Paternoster, the Ave, and the Creed.” Begin early to teach those that are young, for “our English proverb saith that the young cock croweth as he doth hear and learn of the old.” Parents, above all things, he urges to look well after their children and to take care of the company they keep. Teach them to say their grace at meals. “At every meal, dinner or supper, I have advised, and do now counsel, that one person should with loud voice say thus, ‘Paternoster,’ with every petition paraphrased and explained, and the Hail Mary and Creed likewise. This manner of the Paternoster, Ave, and Creed,” he says, “I would have used and read from the book at every meal, or at least once a day with a loud voice that all the persons present may hear it.” People are bound to see that all in their house know these prayers and say them.[309]
Very strongly indeed does Whitford in this volume write against belief in charms and giving way to superstitions. There is no question about his strong condemnation of anything, however slight, which might savour of reliance on these external things, and as an instance of what he means, he declares that the application of a piece of bread, with a cross marked upon it, to a tooth to cure its aching, savours of superstition, as showing too great a reliance on the material cross. In the same place our author urges parents to correct their children early for any use of oaths and strong expressions. “Teach your children,” he says, “to make their additions under this form: ‘yea, father,’ ‘nay, father,’ ‘yea, mother,’ ‘nay, mother,’ and ever to avoid such things as ‘by cock and pye,’ and ‘by my hood of green,’ and such other.”[310]
Finally, to take but one more example of the advice given in this interesting volume to parents and others having the charge of the young, Whitford says: “Teach your children to ask a blessing every night, kneeling, before they go to rest, under this form: ‘Father, I beseech you a blessing for charity.’” If the child is too stubborn to do this, he says let it “be well whisked.” If too old to be corrected in this way, let it be set out in the middle of the dining-room and made to feed by itself, and let it be treated as one would treat one who did not deserve to consort with its fellows. Also teach the young “to ask a blessing from every bishop, abbot, and priest, and of their godfathers and godmothers also.”[311]
In taking a general survey of the books issued by the English presses upon the introduction of the art of printing, the inquirer can hardly fail to be struck with the number of religious, or quasi-religious, works which formed the bulk of the early printed books. This fact alone is sufficient evidence that the invention which at this period worked a veritable revolution in the intellectual life of the world, was welcomed by the ecclesiastical authorities as a valuable auxiliary in the work of instruction. In England the first presses were set up under the patronage of churchmen, and a very large proportion of the early books were actually works of instruction or volumes furnishing materials to the clergy for the familiar and simple discourses which they were accustomed to give four times a year to their people. Besides the large number of what may be regarded as professional books chiefly intended for use by the ecclesiastical body, such as missals, manuals, breviaries, and horæ, and the prymers and other prayer-books used by the laity, there was an ample supply of religious literature published in the early part of the sixteenth century. In fact, the bulk of the early printed English books were of a religious character, and as the publication of such volumes was evidently a matter of business on the part of the first English printers, it is obvious that this class of literature commanded a ready sale, and that the circulation of such books was fostered by those in authority at this period. Volumes of sermons, works of Instruction on the Creed and the Commandments, lives of the saints, and popular expositions of Scripture history, were not only produced but passed through several editions in a short space of time. The evidence, consequently, of the productions of the first English printing-presses goes to show not only that religious books were in great demand, but also that so far from discouraging the use of such works of instruction, the ecclesiastical authorities actively helped in their diffusion.
In considering the religious education of the people in the time previous to the great upheaval of the sixteenth century, some account must be taken of the village mystery plays which obviously formed no inconsiderable part in popular instruction in the great truths of religion. The inventories of parish churches and the churchwardens’ accounts which have survived show how very common a feature these religious plays formed in the parish life of the fifteenth century, and the words of the various dramas, of which we still possess copies, show how powerful a medium of teaching they would have been among the simple and unlettered villagers of Catholic England, and even to the crowds which at times thronged great cities like Coventry and Chester, to be present at the more elaborate plays acted in these traditional centres of the religious drama.
As to their popularity there can be no question. Dramatic representations of the chief events in the life of our Lord, &c., were commonly so associated with the religious purposes for which they were originally produced, that they were played on Sundays and feast days, and not infrequently in churches, church porches, and churchyards. “Spectacles, plays, and dances that are used on great feasts,” says the author of Dives et Pauper, quoted above, “as they are done principally for devotion and honest mirth, and to teach men to love God the more, are lawful if the people be not thereby hindered from God’s service, nor from hearing God’s word, and provided that in such spectacles and plays there is mingled no error against the faith of Holy Church and good living. All other plays are prohibited, both on holidays and work days (according to the law), upon which the gloss saith that the representation in plays at Christmas of Herod and the Three Kings, and other pieces of the Gospel, both then and at Easter and other times, is lawful and commendable.”
A few examples of the kind of teaching imparted in these plays will give a better idea of the purpose they served in pre-Reformation days than any description. There can be no reasonable doubt that such dramatic representations of the chief mysteries of religion and of scenes in the life of our Lord or of His saints served to impress these truths and events upon the imaginations of the audiences who witnessed them, and to make them vivid realities in a way which we, who are not living in the same religious atmosphere, find it difficult now to understand. The religious drama was the handmaid of the Church, and was intended to assist in instructing the people at large in the truths and duties of religion, just as the paintings upon the walls of the sacred buildings were designed to tell their own tale of the Bible history, and form “a book” ever open to the eyes of the unlettered children of the Church, easy to be understood, graphically setting forth events in the story of God’s dealings with men, and illustrating truths which often formed the groundwork for oral instruction in the Sunday sermon.
Whatever we may be inclined to think of these simple plays as literary works, or however we may be inclined now to smile at some of the characters and “situations,” as to the pious spirit which dictated their composition and presided over their production there can be no doubt. “In great devotion and discretion,” says the monk and chronicler, “Higden published the story of the Bible, that the simple in their own language might understand.”[312]
This was the motive of all these mediæval religious plays. As a popular writer upon the English drama says: “There is abundant evidence that the Romish ecclesiastics in the mystery plays, especially that part of them relating to the birth, passion, and resurrection of Christ, had the perfectly serious intention of strengthening the faith of the multitude in the fundamental doctrines of the Church, and it seems the less extraordinary that they should have resorted to this expedient when we reflect that, before the invention of printing, books had no existence for the people at large.”[313]
The subjects treated of in these plays were very varied, although those which were performed at the great feasts of Christmas and Easter generally had some relation to the mystery then celebrated. In fact, the mystery plays of the sacred seasons were only looked upon as helping to make men realise more deeply the great drama of the Redemption, the memory of which was perpetuated in the sequence of the great festivals of the Christian year. In such a collection as that known as the Towneley Mysteries, and published by the Surtees Society, we have examples of the subjects treated in the religious plays of the period. The collection makes no pretence to be complete, but it comprises some three and thirty plays, including such subjects as the Creation, the death of Abel, the story of Noah, the sacrifice of Isaac and other Old Testament histories, and a great number of scenes from the New Testament, such as the Annunciation, the Visitation, Cæsar Augustus, scenes from the Nativity, the Shepherds and the Magi, the Flight into Egypt, various scenes from the Passion and Crucifixion, the parable of the Talents, the story of Lazarus, &c.
Any one who will take the trouble to read these plays as they are printed in this volume cannot fail to be impressed not only with the vivid picture of the special scene in the Old or New Testament that is presented to the imagination, but by the extensive knowledge of the Bible which the production of these plays must have imparted to those who listened to them, and by the way in which, incidentally, the most important religious truths are conveyed in the crude and rugged verse. Again and again, for instance, the entire dependence of all created things upon the Providence of Almighty God is declared and illustrated. Thus, the confession of God’s Omnipotence, put into the mouth of Noah at the beginning of the play of “Noah and his Sons,” contains a profession of belief in the Holy Trinity and in the work of the three Persons: it describes the creation of the world, the fall of Lucifer, the sin of our first parents, and their expulsion from Paradise. In the story of Abraham, too, the prayer of the patriarch with which it begins:
gives a complete résumé of the Bible history before the days of Abraham, with the purpose of showing that all things are in the hands of God, and that complete obedience is due to Him by all creatures whom He has made.
The same teaching as to the entire dependence of the Christian for all things upon God’s Providence appears in the address of the soul to its Maker in the “morality” of Mary Magdalene, printed by Mr. Sharpe from the Digby Manuscript collection of religious plays:—
The more these old plays which delighted our forefathers are examined, the more clear it becomes that, although undoubtedly unlearned and unread, the people in pre-Reformation days, with instruction such as is conveyed in these pious dramas, must have had a deeper insight into the Gospel narrative, and a more thorough knowledge of Bible history generally, not to speak of a comprehension of the great truths of religion, than the majority of men possess now in these days of boasted enlightenment. Some of the plays, as for example that representing St. Peter’s fall, exhibit a depth of genuine feeling, of humble sorrow, for instance, on the part of St. Peter, and of loving-kindness on the part of our Lord, which must have come home to the hearts as well as to the minds of the beholders. At the same time, the lesson deduced by our Saviour from the apostle’s fall, namely, the need of all learning by their own shortcomings to be merciful to the trespasses of others, must have impressed itself upon them with a force which would not easily have been forgotten.
In that most popular of all representations—that of Doomsday—“people learnt that before God there is no distinction of persons, and that each individual soul will be judged on its own merits, quite apart from any fictitious human distinctions of rank, wealth, or power.” Thus, as types, appear a saved pope, emperor, king and queen, and amongst the damned we also find a pope, emperor, king and queen, justiciar and merchant. And the words of thankfulness uttered by the Pope that has obtained his crown betrays “no self-satisfaction at the attainment of salvation; on the contrary, the true ring of Christian humility betokens a due appreciation of God’s unutterable holiness, and our unworthiness to stand before His face till the uttermost blemish left by sin has been wiped away” by the healing fires of Purgatory. No less clearly is the full doctrine of responsibility taught in the lament of the Pope, who is represented as having lost his soul by an evil life, and as being condemned to eternal punishment. The mere fact of a pope being so represented was in itself, when the Office was held in the highest regard, a lesson of the highest importance in the teaching of the true principles of holiness. In a word, these mystery plays provided a most useful means of impressing upon the minds of all the facts of Bible history, the great truths of religion, and the chief Christian virtues. The people taught in such a school and the people who delighted in such representations, as our forefathers in pre-Reformation days unquestionably did, cannot, even from this point of view alone, be regarded as ignorant of scriptural or moral teaching.
To understand the attitude of men’s minds to the ecclesiastical system on the eve of the great religious changes of the sixteenth century, some knowledge of the parochial life of Catholic England is necessary. Under present conditions, when unity has given place to diversity, and three centuries of continuous wrangling “over secret truths which most profoundly affect the heart and mind” have done much to coarsen and deaden our spiritual sense; when the religious mind of England manifests every shade of belief and unbelief without conscious reflection on the logical absurdity of the position, it is by no means easy to realise the influence of a state of affairs when all men, from the highest to the lowest, in every village and hamlet throughout the length and breadth of the land, had but one creed, worshipped their Maker in but one way, and were bound together with what most certainly were to them the real and practical ties of the Christian brotherhood. It is hardly possible to overestimate the effect of surroundings upon individual opinion, or the influence of a congenial atmosphere both on the growth and development of a spirit of religion and on the preservation of Christian morals and religious practices generally. When all, so far as religious faith is concerned, thought the same, and when all, so far as religious observance is concerned, did the same, the very atmosphere of unity was productive of that spirit of common brotherhood, which appears so plainly in the records of the period preceding the religious revolt of the sixteenth century. Those who will read below the surface and will examine for themselves into the social life of that time must admit, however much they feel bound to condemn the existing religious system, that it certainly maintained up to the very time of its overthrow a hold over the minds and hearts of the people at large, which nothing since has gained. Religion overflowed, as it were, into popular life, and helped to sanctify human interests, whilst the affection of the people was manifested in a thousand ways in regard to what we might now be inclined to consider the ecclesiastical domain. Whether for good or evil, religion in its highest and truest sense, at least as it was then understood, was to the English people as the bloom upon the choicest fruit. Whatever view may be taken as to advantage or disadvantage which came to the body politic, or to individuals, by the Reformation, it must be admitted that at least part of the price paid for the change was the destruction of the sense of corporate unity and common brotherhood, which was fostered by the religious unanimity of belief and practice in every village in the country, and which, as in the main-spring of its life, and the very central point of its being, centred in the Church with its rites and ceremonies.
A Venetian traveller at the beginning of the sixteenth century bears witness to the influence of religion upon the English people of that time. His opinion is all the more valuable, inasmuch as he appeals to the experience of his master, who was also the companion of his travels, to confirm his own impressions, and as he was fully alive to the weak points in the English character, of which he thus records his opinion: “The English are great lovers of themselves and of everything belonging to them; they think that there are no other men but themselves and no other world but England. Whenever they see a handsome foreigner they say that ‘he looks like an Englishman,’ or that ‘it is a great pity that he should not be an Englishman,’ and when they partake of any delicacy with a foreigner they ask him whether such a thing is made in his country.”[314] In regard to the religious practices of the people, this intelligent foreigner says, “They all attend mass every day, and say many Paternosters in public. The women carry long rosaries in their hands, and any who can read take the Office of Our Lady with them, and with some companion recite it in Church verse by verse, in a low voice, after the manner of churchmen. On Sundays they always hear Mass in their parish church and give liberal alms, because they may not offer less than a piece of money of which fourteen are equivalent to a golden ducat. Neither do they omit any form incumbent on good Christians.”[315]
In these days perhaps the suggestion that the English people commonly in the early sixteenth century were present daily at morning Mass is likely to be received with caution, and classed among the strange tales proverbially told by travellers, then as now. It is, however, confirmed by another Venetian who visited England some few years later, and who asserts that every morning “at daybreak he went to Mass arm-in-arm with some English nobleman or other.”[316] And, indeed, the same desire of the people to be present daily at the Sacrifice of the Mass is attested by Archbishop Cranmer when, after the change had come, he holds up to ridicule the traditional observances previously in vogue. What he specially objected to was the common practice of those who run, as he says, “from altar to altar, and from sacring, as they call it, to sacring, peeping, tooting, and gazing at that thing which the priest held up in his hands … and saying, ‘this day have I seen my Maker,’ and ‘I cannot be quiet except I see my Maker once a day.’”[317]
If there were no other evidence of the affection of the English people on the eve of the Reformation for their religion, that of the stone walls of the churches would be sufficient to prove the sincerity of their love. In the whole history of English architecture nothing is more remarkable than the activity in church building manifested during the later half of the fifteenth and the early part of the sixteenth centuries. From one end of England to the other in the church walls are to be seen the evidences of thought and skill, labour and wealth, spent freely upon the sacred buildings during a period when it might not unnaturally have been thought that the civil dissensions of the Wars of the Roses, and the consequent destruction of life and property, would have been fatal to enterprise in the field of church building and church decoration and enrichment. It is not in any way an exaggeration to say that well-nigh every village church in England can show signs of this marvellous activity, whilst in many cases there is unmistakable evidence of personal care and thought in the smallest details.
No less remarkable than the extent of this movement is the source from which the money necessary for all the work upon the cathedrals and parish churches of the country came. In previous centuries, to a great extent churches and monastic buildings owed their existence and embellishment mainly to the individual enterprise of the powerful nobles or rich ecclesiastics; but from the middle of the fifteenth century the numerous, and, in many cases, even vast operations, undertaken in regard to ecclesiastical buildings and ornamentation, were the work of the people at large, and were mainly directed by their chosen representatives. At the close of the fifteenth century, church work was in every sense of the word a popular work, and the wills, inventories, and churchwardens’ accounts prove beyond question that the people generally contributed generously according to their means, and that theirs was the initiative, and theirs the energetic administration by which the whole was accomplished.[318] Gifts of money and valuables, bequests of all kinds, systematic collections by parish officials, or by directors of guilds, often extending over considerable periods, and the proceeds of parish plays and parish feasts, were the ordinary means by which the sums necessary to carry out these works of building and embellishment were provided. Those who had no money to give brought articles of jewellery, such as rings, brooches, buckles, and the like, or articles of dress or of domestic utility, to be converted into vestments, banners, and altar hangings to adorn the images and shrines, to make the sacred vessels of God’s house, or to be sold for like purposes. For the same end, and to secure the perpetuity of lamps before the Blessed Sacrament, or lights before the altars of saints, people gave houses and lands into the care of the parish officials, or made over to them cattle and sheep to be held in trust, which, when let out at a rent, formed a permanent endowment for the furtherance of these sacred purposes.
Undoubtedly the period with which we are concerned was not merely an age of building, but an age of decoration, and of decoration which may almost be described as “lavish.” The very architecture of the time is proof of the wealth of ornament with which men sought to give expression to their enthusiastic love of the Houses of God, which they had come to regard as the centre of their social no less than of their religious life. Flowing lines in tracery and arch moulding gave place to straight lines, groined roofs were enriched by extra ribs, and panels of elaborate work covered the plain surfaces of former times; the very key-stones of the vaulting became pendants, and the springers branched out like palm trees, forming that rich and entirely English variety of groin called “fan-tracery,” such as we see at Sherborne, Eton, King’s College, Cambridge, and Henry VII.’s Chapel at Westminster. “In other respects,” says a modern writer, “the architects of the fifteenth century were very successful. Few things can be seen more beautiful than the steeples of Gloucester Cathedral and St. Mary’s, Taunton. The open roofs, as for example that of St. Peter Mancroft, Norwich, are superb, and finally they have left us a large number of enormous parish churches all over the country, full of interesting furniture and decoration.”
The fact is, that this was the last expression of Gothic as a living art. The builders and beautifiers of the English churches on the eve of the religious changes spoke still a living language, and their works still tell us of the fulness of the hearts which planned and executed such works. It is somewhat difficult for us to understand this, when living in an age of imitation, and at a time when architecture has no longer a language of its own. “Imitation,” writes Mr. Ferguson, “is in fact all we aim at in the architectural art of the present day. We entrust its exercise to a specially educated class, most learned in the details of the style they are called upon to work in, and they produce buildings which delight the scholars and archæologists of the day, but which the less educated classes neither understand nor appreciate, and which will lose their significance the moment the fashion which produced them has passed away.
“The difference between this artificial state of things and the practice of a true style will not be difficult to understand. When, for instance, Gothic was a living art in England, men expressed themselves in it as in any other part of the vernacular. Whatever was done was a part of the usual, ordinary every-day life, and men had no more difficulty in understanding what others were doing than in comprehending what they were saying. A mason did not require to be a learned man to chisel what he had carved ever since he was a boy, and what alone he had seen being done during his lifetime, and he adapted new forms just in the same manner and as naturally as men adapt new modes of expression in language as they happen to be introduced, without even remarking it. At that time any educated man could design in Gothic Art, just as any man who can read and write can now compose and give utterance to any poetry or prose that may be in him.
“Where art is a true art, it is naturally practised and as easily understood, as a vernacular literature of which, indeed, it is an essential and most expressive part, and so it was in Greece and Rome, and so, too, in the Middle Ages. But with us it is little more than a dead corpse, galvanised into spasmodic life by a few selected practitioners for the amusement and delight of a small section of the specially educated classes. It expresses truthfully neither our wants nor our feelings, and we ought not to be surprised how very unsatisfactory every modern building really is, even when executed by the most talented architects as compared with the productions of our village mason or parish priest at an age when men sought only to express clearly what they felt strongly, and sought to do it only in their natural mother tongue, untrammelled by the fetters of a dead or familiar foreign form of speech.”[319]
To any one who will examine the churchwardens’ accounts of the period previous to the religious changes, the truth of the above quotation will clearly appear. Then, if ever, ecclesiastical art and architecture was the living expression of popular feeling and popular love of religion, and the wholesale destruction of ancient architectural monuments throughout the land, the pulling down of rood and screen and image, the casting down of monuments sacred to the memory of the best and holiest and most venerated names in the long roll of English men of honour, the breaking up of stone-work and metal-work upon which the marks of the chisel of the mason and graver were yet fresh, the whitewash daubed over paintings which had helped to make the parish churches objects of beauty and interest to the people, the ruthless smashing of the pictured window lights, and the pillage of the sacred vessels and vestments and hangings, which the people and their fathers had loved to provide for God’s service—all this and much more of the same kind, the perhaps inevitable accompaniments of the religious change, was nothing less to the people than proscription by authority of the national language of art and architecture, such as they had hitherto understood it. And never probably had the language been more truly the language of the people at large. For reasons just assigned, the work of church building and church decoration, and the provision of vestments and plate, the care of the fabric and the very details of things necessary for the church services, were in the hands of the people. The period in question had given rise to the great middle class, and here, as in Germany, the burgher folk, the merchants and traders, began literally to lavish their gifts in adornment of their parish churches, and to vie one with another in the profusion of their generosity.
It is somewhat difficult for us, as we look upon the generally bare and unfurnished churches that have been left to us as monuments of the past about which we are concerned, to realise what they must have been before what a modern writer has fitly called “the great pillage” commenced. All, from the great minsters and cathedral churches down to the poorest little village sanctuary, were in those days simply overflowing with wealth and objects of beauty which loving hands had gathered together to adorn God’s house, and to make it the best and brightest spot in their little world, and so far as their means would allow the very pride of their hearts. This is no fancy picture. The inventories of English churches in this period when compared, say, with those of Italy, reveal the fact that the former were in every way incomparably better furnished than the latter. The Venetian traveller in England in 1500 was impressed by this very thing during his journeyings throughout the country. He notes and comments upon the great sums of money regularly given to the church as a matter of course by Englishmen of all sorts. Then after speaking of the important wealth of the country as evidenced by the silver plate possessed by all but the poorest in the land, he continues: “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 crucifixes, candlesticks, censers, patens and cups of silver, nor is there a convent of mendicant friars so poor as not to have all these same articles in silver, besides many other ornaments worthy of a cathedral church in the same metal. Your magnificence may therefore imagine what the decorations of those enormously rich Benedictine, Carthusian, and Cistercian monasteries must be.… I have been informed that amongst other things many of these monasteries possess unicorns’ horns of an extraordinary size. I have also been told that they have some splendid tombs of English saints, such as St. Oswald, St. Edmund, and St. Edward, all kings and martyrs. I saw, one day being with your magnificence, at Westminster, a place out of London, the tomb of that saint, King Edward the Confessor, in the church of the foresaid place, Westminster; and indeed, neither St. Martin of Tours, a church in France, which I have heard is one of the richest in existence, nor anything else that I have ever seen, can be put into comparison with it. The magnificence of the tomb of St. Thomas the Martyr, Archbishop of Canterbury, surpasses all belief.”
Our present concern, however, is not with the greater churches of the kingdom, but with the parish churches which were scattered in such profusion all over the country. An examination of such parochial accounts as are still preserved affords an insight into the working of the parish, and evidences the care taken by the people to maintain and increase the treasures of their churches. What is most remarkable about the accounts that remain, which are, of course, but the scanty survivals from the wreck, is their consistent tenor. They one and all tell the same story of general and intelligent interest taken by the people as a whole in the beautifying and supporting of their parish churches. In a very real sense, that seems strange to us now, it was their church; their life centred in it, and they were intimately concerned in its working and management. The articles of furniture and plate, the vestments and hangings had a well-known history, and were regarded as—what in truth they were—the common property of every soul in the particular village or district. Such accounts as we are referring to prove that specific gifts and contributions continued to flow in an ample stream to the churches from men and women of every sort and condition up to the very eve of the great religious changes.
From these and similar records we may learn a good deal about parochial life and interests in the closing period of the old ecclesiastical system. The church was the common care and business. Its welfare was the concern of the people at large, and took its natural place in their daily lives. Was there any building to be done, a new peal of bells to be procured, the organs to be mended, new plate to be bought, or the like, it was the parish as a corporate body that decided the matter, arranged the details, and provided for the payment. At times, say for example when a new vestment was in question, the whole parish would be called to sit in council in the church house upon this matter of common interest, and discuss the cost, and stuff, and make.
To take some examples: the inventory of Cranbrook parish church for 1509 shows that all benefactors were regularly noted down on a roll of honour, that their gifts might be known and remembered. The presents, of course, vary greatly in value: thus, there was a monstrance of silver and gilt of the “value of £20, of Sir Robert Egelonby’s gift; which Sir Robert was John Roberts’ priest thirty years, and he never had other service nor benefice; and the said John Roberts was father to Walter Roberts, Esquire.” And the foresaid Sir Robert gave also to the common treasury of the parish “two candlesticks of silver and twenty marks of old nobles.” Again John Hendely “gave three copes of purple velvet, whereof one was of velvet upon velvet with images broidered,” and, adds the inventory, “for a perpetual memory of this deed of goodness to the common purposes of the parish church, his name is to be read out to the people on festival days.” “He is grandfather of Gervase Hendely of Cushorn, and of Thomas of Cranbrook Street.” Or once more, it is recorded that “old mother Hopper” gave the “two long candlesticks before Our Lady’s altar, fronted with lions, and a towel on the rood of Our Lady’s chancel.”
So, too, the inventory of the church goods of St. Dunstan’s, Canterbury, includes a wonderful list of furniture, plate, and vestments to which the names of the donors are attached. Thus, the best chalice was the gift of one “Harry Bole”; the two great candlesticks of laten of John Philpot; and “a kercher for Our Lady and a chapplet and a powdryd cap for her Son,” the gift of Margery Roper.
The memory of these gifts was kept alive among the people by the “bede-roll” or list of those for whom the parish was bound to pray in return for their benefactions to the public good. Thus to take an example: at Leverton, in the county of Lincoln, the parson, Sir John Wright, presented the church with a suit of red purple vestments, “for the which,” says the note in the churchwardens’ accounts, “you shall all specially pray for the souls of William Wright and Elizabeth his wife (father and mother of the donor), and for the soul of Sir William Wright, their son, and for the soul of Sir John, sometime parson of this place, and for the souls of Richard Wright and Isabel his wife, John Trowting and Helen his wife, and for all benefactors, as well them that be alive as them that be departed to the mercy of God, for whose lives and souls are given here (these vestments) to the honour of God, His most blessed Mother, Our Lady Saint Mary, and all His Saints in Heaven, and the blessed matron St. Helen his patron, to be used at such principal feasts and times as it shall please the curates as long as they shall last. For all these souls and all Christian souls you shall say one Paternoster.”[320]
In this way the memory of benefactors and their good deeds was ever kept alive in the minds of those who benefited by their gifts. The parish treasury was not to them so much stock, the accumulation of years, without definite history or purpose; but every article, vestment, banner, hanging, and chalice, and the rest called for the affectionate memories of both the living and the dead. On high day and festival, when the church was decked with all that was best and richest in the parochial treasury, the display of the parish ornaments recalled to the mind of the people assembled within its walls the memory of good deeds done by neighbours for the common good. “The immense treasures in the churches,” writes Dr. Jessop, “were the joy and boast of every man and woman and child in England, who day by day and week by week assembled to worship in the old houses of God which they and their fathers had built, and whose every vestment and chalice and candlestick and banner, organs and bells and picture and image and altar and shrine, they looked upon as their own and part of their birthright.”[321]
What seems so strange about the facts revealed to us in these church accounts of bygone times is that, where now we might naturally be inclined to look for poverty and meanness, there is evidence of the contrary, so far as the parish church is concerned. Even when the lives of the parishioners were spent in daily labours to secure the bare necessities of life, and the village was situated in the most out-of-the-way part of the country, the sordid surroundings of a hard life find no counterpart in the parish accounts so far as the church is concerned, but even under such unfavourable circumstances there is evidence of a taste for things of art and beauty, and of both the will and power to procure them. To take some examples: Morebath was a small uplandish parish of no importance lying within the borders of Devon, among the hills near the sources of the river Exe. The population was scanty, and worldly riches evidently not abundant. Morebath may, consequently, be taken as a fair sample of an obscure and poor village community. For this hamlet we possess fairly full accounts for the close of the period under consideration, namely, from the year 1530. At this time, in this poor place, there were no less than eight separate accounts kept of money intended for the support of different altars, or for carrying out definite decorations, such as, for example, the chapels of St. George and Our Lady, and the guilds of the young men and maidens of the parish. To the credit of these various accounts, or “stores,” as they are called, are entered numerous gifts of money, or articles of value, and even of kind, like cows and swarms of bees. Most of them are possessed of cattle and sheep, the proceeds from the rent of which form a considerable portion of their endowment. The accounts as a whole furnish abundant evidence of active and intelligent interest in the support and adornment of the parish church on the part of the people at large. Voluntary rates to clear off obligations contracted for the benefit of the community, such as the purchase of bells, the repair of the fabric, or even the making of roads and bridges, were raised. Collections for Peter’s pence, for the support of the parish clerk, and for various other church purposes, are recorded, and the spirit of self-help is evidenced in every line of these records. In 1528 the vicar gave up his rights to certain wool tithes in order to purchase a complete set of black vestments, which were only finished and paid for, at the cost of £6, 5s. 0d., in 1547. In the year 1538, the parish made a voluntary rate to purchase a new cope, and the collection for the purpose secured £3, 6s. 8d. When in 1534 the silver chalice was stolen, “ye yong men and maydens of ye parysshe dru themselffe together, and at ther gyfts and provysyon they bought in another chalice without any charge of the parysshe.” Sums of money big and small, specific gifts in kind, the stuff or ornaments needed for vestments, were apparently always forthcoming when occasion required. Thus at one time a new cope is suggested, and Anne Tymwell of Hayne gave the churchwardens her “gown and ring,” Joan Tymwell a cloak and girdle, and Richard Norman “seven sheep and three shillings and four pence in money,” towards the expenses. At another time it is a set of black vestments; at another a chalice; at another a censer; but whatever it was, the people were evidently ready and desirous of taking their share in the common work of the parish. In 1529 the wardens state that Elinor Nicoll gave to the store of St. Sydwell her wedding-ring—“the which ring,” they add, “did help to make Saint Sydwell’s shoes.” Then she gave to “the store of Jesus” a little silver cross, parcel gilt, of the value of 4d. In 1537 there is one item which deserves to be noted, as it records the arrival of a piece of spoil from Barlinch Abbey Church, which was dissolved by the king’s orders the previous year. “Memorandum,” runs the entry, “Hugh Poulett gave to the church one of the glass windows of the Barlinch, with the iron and stone and all the price” for setting it up.[322]
To understand the working of the pre-Reformation parish, it is necessary to enter in detail into some one of the accounts that are still preserved to us. We may conveniently take those of Leverton in Lincolnshire, printed in the Archæologia, which commence in the year 1492. It is well to note, however, that the same story of self-help and the same evidence of a spirit of affection for the parish church and its services, is manifested in every account of this kind we possess. It must be remembered that it was popular government in a true sense that then regulated all parochial matters. Every adult of both sexes had a voice in this system of self-government, and what cannot fail to strike the student of these records is that, in the management of the fabric, in the arrangements for the services, and all things necessary for the due performance of these, diocesan authorities evidently left to the parish itself a wise discretion. No doubt the higher ecclesiastical officials could interfere in theory, but in practice such interference was rare. If the means necessary to carry out repairs and keep the church in an efficient state, both as to fabric and ornaments, were apparently never wanting, it must be borne in mind that it was then regarded as a solemn duty binding on the conscience of each parishioner to maintain the House of God and the parochial services. Bishop Hobhouse, from an examination of the churchwardens’ accounts for some parishes in Somerset, is able to describe the various ways in which the parochial exchequer was replenished. First, there were the voluntary rates, called “setts,” and these, though voluntary in the sense that their imposition depended on the will of the people at large, when once the parish had declared for the rate, all were bound to pay. Then the mediæval church authorities cultivated various methods of eliciting the goodwill of the people, and after prohibiting work on Sundays and certain festivals, busied themselves with the finding of amusements. Amongst these were the parish feasts and church ales, at which collections for various public purposes were made, which, together with the profits made from such entertainments by those who managed them for the benefit of the public purse, formed one of the chief sources of parochial income. Beyond this, the principle of association was thoroughly understood and carried out in practice in the village and town communities. People banded themselves together in religious guilds and societies, the raison d’être of which was the maintenance of special decorations at special altars, the support of lamps and lights, or the keeping of obits and festivals. These societies, moreover, became the centres of organisation of any needed special collections, and from their funds, or “stores” as they were called, they contributed to the general expenses of maintaining the fabric and the services. Popular bounty was, moreover, elicited by means of the “bede-roll,” or list of public benefactors, for whom the prayers of the parishioners were asked in the church on great festivals. On this list of honour, all—even the poorest—were anxious that their names should appear, and that their memory be kept and their souls prayed for in the House of God which they had loved in life. Even more than money, which in those days, especially in out-of-the-way places, was not over plentiful, the churchwardens’ accounts show that specific gifts of all kinds, either to be sold for the profit of the purpose for which they were bestowed, or to form a permanent part of the church treasury, were common in pre-Reformation times.
Added to these sources of income were the profits of trade carried on in the “church house.” Besides the church itself, the wardens’ accounts testify to the existence of a church house, if not as a universal feature in mediæval parish life, at least as a very common one. It was the parish club-house—the centre of parochial life and local self-government; the place where the community would assemble for business and pleasure. It was thus the focus of all the social life of the parish, and the system was extending in influence and utility up to the eve of the great religious changes which put an end to the popular side of parochial life. At Tintinhull, a small village in Somerset, for example, the accounts help us to trace the growth of this parish club-house. Beginning as a place for making the altar bread, it developed into a bakery for the supply of the community. It then took up the brewing of beer to supply the people and the church ales and similar parish festivals. This soon grew into the brewing of beer to supply those who required a supply, and at the same time the oven and brewing utensils were let out to hire to private persons. In the reign of Henry VII. a house was bought by the wardens for parish purposes, and one Agnes Cook was placed in it to manage it for the common benefit. In 1533 it was in full swing as a parish club-house, used for business and pleasure.[323] The “ale”—the forerunner of the wardens’ “charity dinner”—was the ordinary way of raising money to meet extraordinary expenses; and as an incidental accompaniment came invitations to other parishes in the neighbourhood, and we find items charged for the expenses of churchwardens attending at other parochial feasts, and the sums they there put into the collection plate.
Beyond this, the parish, as a corporate body generally, if not invariably, possessed property in land and houses, which was administered by the people’s wardens for the public good. The annual proceeds lightened the common burdens, as indeed it was intended that they should. A further source of occasional income was found in the parish plays which were managed for the common profit. Very frequently the production was entrusted to some local guild, and the expenses of mounting were advanced by the parochial authorities, who not infrequently had amongst the church treasures the dress and other stage properties necessary for the proper productions. At Tintinhull, in Somerset, for instance, in 1451, five parishioners got up a Christmas play for the benefit of the fund required for the erection of the new rood loft. At Morebath there was an Easter play representing the Resurrection of our Lord, to defray the expenses incurred by the parish on some extensive repairs.[324]
With this general notion of the working of pre-Reformation parochial accounts, we are now in a position to turn by way of a particular example to those of Leverton. The village is situated about six miles from Boston. The church, until the neglect of the past three hundred years had disfigured it, must have been very beautiful when decked with the furniture and ornaments which the loving care of the people of the neighbourhood had collected within its walls. When first the accounts open in 1492, the parish was beginning to be interested, as indeed, by the way, so many parishes were at this period, in the setting up of a new peal of bells. The people had evidently made a great effort to get these, and they contributed most generously. The rector promised ten shillings and sixpence—which sum, by the way, some one paid for him—but the whole arrangement for the purchase and hanging of the bells was in the hands of the churchwardens. The bell chamber was mended and timber was bought to strengthen the framework. When this was ready, the great bell was brought over from the neighbouring town, and money is disbursed for the carriage and the team of horses, not forgetting a penny for the toll in crossing a bridge. One William Wright of Benington came over professionally to superintend the hanging and “trossyng” of this great service bell. We may judge, however, that it was not altogether satisfactory, for in 1498 the two wardens made a “move” to “the gathering of the township of Leverton in the kirk,” in which they collected £4, 13s. 0d., and they forthwith commenced again the building of a steeple for another set of bells. The stone was given to them, but they had to see to the work of quarrying it, and to all the business of collecting material and of building. Trees in a neighbouring wood were bought, were cut and carried, and sawn into beams and boards, and poles were selected for scaffolding. Lime was burnt and sand was dug for the mortar, and tubs were purchased to mix it in, whilst Wreth, the carpenter, was retained to look after the building in general, and the timberwork of the new belfry in particular.
This seems to have exhausted the parish exchequer for a year or two, but in 1503 the two wardens attended at Boston to see their bell “shot,” and to provide for its transport to Leverton. Here Richard Messur, the local blacksmith, had prepared the necessary bolts and locks to fasten it to the swinging beam, and he was in attendance professionally to see the bell hung, with John Red, the bellmaker of Boston, who, moreover, remained for a time to teach the parish men how to ring a peal upon their new bells.