J. Charles Cox

“ The pleadings of our several courts, with the judgments thereon, have been for many centuries entered on rolls. The greater part of these are termed Placita, or pleading Rolls. Their important bearing on manorial history is obvious. There is scarcely a manor in the kingdom that had not occasion, on an average of at least once a century, to put in an appearance in one or other of the courts on some matter involving litigation. ”

“ Benedict—which required a monastery to be, as far as possible, complete in itself, equipped with workmen of every requisite trade and industry, and independent of external supplies—was one of great wisdom. Prayer, labour, and study, with brief occasional pauses for recreation and rest, filled up the entire day. The Austin Canons were not bound to manual labour like the monks; but in every well-ordered house of regular canons the necessity for a full occupation of time was one of the very first principles of the religious life. ”

“ The reaction against over-restoration is now happily setting in, but a word of caution is also necessary lest that cry should be adopted as the cloak of a lazy indifferentism, or be used as an excuse for regarding the parish church as a local museum illustrative of byegone times, to be carefully dusted and nothing more. Where much new work, or any considerable extent of refitting, seem absolutely necessary, it is best to hasten slowly, and to do a little well rather than to aim at a speedy general effect. ”

“ To these reflections may be added the caution that ought to be obvious to everyone of intelligence, that the object of a visitation is to detect [90] laxity and possible evil, and not to record devoutness and good discipline. To judge of the bulk of the religious from a few given up to bad living, and who were heavily punished for their misdeeds, is as monstrous and childish as it would be to condemn the inhabitants of some given area by the actions of the minute minority who figure in the police-court records. ”

“ If there is a castle, or its relics, within the parish, the probability is considerable that it has already been well described by a county historian, or in one or other of the numerous journals of our Archæological societies. But it is equally probable that its history has not been thoroughly written, and special search should be made with that object at the P. R. O., beginning with the indexes to the printed calendars already enumerated. ”

“ The first two Archbishops of Canterbury who ruled in the earlier Norman days, Lanfranc and Anselm, men of great wealth and culture, the one of senatorial rank and the other of noble origin, made considerable temporal sacrifices to follow the Benedictine rule. Or once again, the founder of the remarkable Order of the Gilbertines—who did so good and pure a work right up to their dissolution, the only Order founded by an Englishman—was Gilbert of Sempringham, the eldest son of a wealthy Norman knight, who sacrificed his considerable estates to further his conception of the monastic ideal. ”

“ Every scrap of paper of past generations, showing the inner working of parochial life, possesses some interest of its own; and future generations will thank us for their preservation. Moreover, a careful arrangement of parish papers often meets with more immediate reward. We have ourselves found missing portions of 16th century registers, highly interesting deeds as early as the 14th century, royal proclamations and special forms of prayer, temp. Elizabeth and James I., in parochial litter put aside as valueless. ”

“ The general attachment and devotion of the religious to their own houses, wherein they found so deep-seated and genuine a joy, and so true a knowledge of the higher life in the midst of evils and turmoils that rent the world around them, is not infrequently expressed in terms of almost ecstatic delight by chroniclers who wrote from within the walls with no idea of publicity. ”

“ Every effort should be made to identify the old manor-house, or its site (often marked by a grass grown moat) , and this should of course be done with each manor, where, as is usually the case, the parish has contained more than one. Oral tradition, in this as in other particulars, will often be found a useful handmaid. Should the exterior of the reputed manor-house be altogether unpromising, that should not check further investigation. ”

“ At Abingdon monastery there was a daily maundy, when every morning, after the Gospel of the morrow or early Mass, the almoner went to the door of the abbey, and selected three from the poor waiting for an alms, whose feet were washed by the abbot, or by some monk deputed by him; the chosen almsmen were afterwards fed and given a small present of money. On the great maundy of Thursday in Holy Week it was the custom in most Benedictine houses to call in as many very poor men as there were monks. They were placed opposite each other in two rows, the poor men on one side, the monks on the other. ”

“ The time of the wakes or village feast is a good guide to the dedication, but one which, from the reason stated above, as well as from other causes, must not be implicitly relied upon.
Another point worth remembering with regard to dedications, is that re-consecration was not of unfrequent occurrence. Murder and some other crimes [83] within the church, as well as special violations of the altar, rendered re-consecration imperative; and it was also often resorted to when the fabric was altogether or considerably rebuilt, or even when a new chancel was added. ”

“ The heads of religious houses, and the chief obedientiaries or officials, had almost invariably some experience of manual labour as well as of agricultural farming, and could sympathise with the toil of the one and the anxiety of the other. Not infrequently in the [27] larger houses special lands were appropriated to the support of the burdens of a particular part of the monastic life, and where this was the case, the almoner, the sacrist, or the cellarer, as the case might be, gave his immediate attention to the cultivation and the produce of such small estates. ”

“ Domestic architecture should always be described by the century, and not by the “periods” into which ecclesiastical architecture is usually divided. The only book worth purchasing on the subject, is the somewhat costly but admirable four volume edition of Parker’s “Mediæval Domestic Architecture.” For [48] the general “History of Architecture,” both civil and religious, of all ages and countries, nothing can surpass Fergusson’s last edition in four volumes, published by Murray in 1874.
Personal History.
The pedigrees and brief particulars of the Nobility can be readily found. ”

“ The Devil, naturally enough, was ever ready specially to tempt the monk, vowed to a limited dietary, to gluttony and drunkenness, and to do his work on insidious and gradual lines. Now and again, in some very rare cases, he succeeded; and [50] occasionally a corrupt superior infected for a time his flock until sharply pulled up by a visitation. Such cases, though severely punished, could seldom be kept secret, and the worldling, whose own conduct was rebuked by the generally high level of the religious life, took an evil pleasure in retailing and exaggerating the news. ”

“ Guilds and Fraternities of a more or less religious character, and usually directly connected with a special altar at the parish church, will naturally come under the history of the Church, provided any can be detected in connection with the particular parish. It used to be supposed that these guilds were only found in cities or boroughs, but later researches show that they also occasionally existed in quite small villages. ”

“ The continuous round of work with head or hand, blended with the frequently recurring services of prayer and praise by night as well as by day, regularly practised by those who were leading well-ordered, disciplined, and chaste lives, served to produce not a few of the finest characters that the world has ever known. Such as these were brought into prominence by some adventitious circumstances, and were but samples of thousands of others of equally pious life and conversation, but unknown outside their own precincts or the area to which their relief of the poor extended. ”

“ Benet, Holme, in the swamps of the Norfolk Broads, had boys under education, apart from the novices, who were probably the more promising children of the humbler tenants. Here, too, as at Durham, such boys formed part of the almoner’s charge. It would indeed be passing strange if no such records of schoolwork existed, for Benedictine and other custumals were not compiled for amusement or to satisfy hypothetical conditions. Such documents were practical directions for the times when they were drawn up. ”

“ Dedication. The dedication of the church should never be taken for granted from county gazetteers or directories. Dedications to All Saints, and to the Blessed Virgin, should be viewed with some suspicion until firmly established, for in the time of Henry VIII. the dedication festivals, or “wakes,” were often transferred to All Saints’ Day, or Lady Day, in order to avoid a multiplicity of holidays, and hence by degrees the real dedication became forgotten. ”

“ We do not take the rest of our history from scurrilous writers of either prose or verse; the student who attempted to do this would be laughed out of court; it is merely the innate and perpetual hatred of the world for Christ that has made many an historian, or writer of historical sketches, so ready to turn aside from any patient study of the lives of those who tried specially to deny themselves for the Master’s sake, and to accept cynical sneers in the place of sober facts. ”

“ Wherever the records or rolls of one of the greater monasteries are extant in any abundance, references to schools and schooling are almost certain to be found. The accounts, for instance, of the great priory of Durham show that the monastic funds were used to further schooling, altogether apart from the instruction or training of their novices. The boys who attended it were called the Children of the Almery; they were taught by one of the priory chaplains, who received a stipend, and they were also fed at the priory’s charge, but seem to have returned home to sleep. ”

“ One or two remarks are necessary for the due understanding of Benedictine diet-rolls, of which several are extant besides those of Winchester. Although there were a variety of dishes, it was usual, save on feast days, for the monk to partake of only one dish, though the old as well as those in the infirmary were often allowed a pittance, or something extra. The general method of serving was for two dishes to be handed to or placed in reach of each; “if anyone cannot eat of one dish let him eat of the other, if of neither they shall bring him something else so long as it is not a delicacy.” ”

“ The main excuse for this step in the general suppression was the report of Cromwell’s visitors [95] as to the condition of the monasteries. This was the infamous Comperta, a pestiferous document of unrivalled mendacity and malignity, which for three-and-a-half centuries surrounded the memory of the latter days of England’s religious with a miasma of noxious effluvia. If any unscrupulous or hasty controversialist desires to think evil of monks and nuns, he will herein find a surfeit of garbage. ”

“ Pious Gilbert of Sempringham, in his minute regulations, could scarcely imagine a grosser or more awkward piece of carelessness on the part of the canons who supplied the temporal needs of the nuns than a failure in beer. In that portion of the Gilbertine rule that concerns itself with the provision of beer it is laid down that: “For the avoiding of scandal, if the nuns, having no beer, are obliged to drink water, it is only just that the masters of the house who provide the supplies shall share in their deprivation. ”