The Medieval English Landscape, 1000-1540 (35 page)

Figure 31: St Helen’s Church, Colchester (Essex)
. Incorporating re-used Roman brick, set within Colchester’s Roman walls and with a dedication to the Emperor Constantine’s mother, the church almost certainly has a pre-Conquest origin, although the present building – an example of a small rectangular one-cell church, never enlarged – is of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

A tendency from hereon to enlarge and elaborate may seem entirely predictable but it possibly represents a change of approach from that of earlier centuries, when one response to expanding demand – often for mausolea – had been to build separate structures within the ecclesiastical precincts: the association of the late eighth- or ninth-century St Peter’s Church, Heysham (Lancashire) with the broadly contemporary St Patrick’s Chapel 50 metres to its west is a surviving example of a phenomenon encountered over much of France and the British Isles at least into the eleventh century.
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It was the decision to bring all activities under the same roof – to build what became in effect a ‘multi-purpose’ local church – which led to ever-greater complexity in ecclesiastical planning. At the most basic level was the three-cell plan, with an extra – often square – cell between chancel and nave. The church at Kilpeck (Herefordshire), which dates to the second quarter of the twelfth century, has an apsidal east end, a square bay and a nave, while St Mary’s, Iffley (Oxfordshire), apparently of about 1180, has the same three components, though here a tower rises from the central cell and the chancel is not the original structure. Both these churches appear to have been built to the three-cell plan from the outset, but where a west tower accompanies a two-cell church – already a widespread feature by 1200 – it is not always easy to tell whether it was an original component. Hales (Norfolk) has a fine twelfth-century church consisting of apsidal east end, nave and west tower; the latter – the type of round tower popular within this county – was probably added but may be part of the initial building. St Andrew’s, Weaverthorpe (Yorkshire) has rectangular chancel, nave and west tower, which may all have been built together as part of a project known to have been financed by the lord of the manor, Herbert of Winchester, chamberlain to Henry I, between about 1110 and 1130. On the other hand, excavation at Wharram Percy has identified the west tower as a Norman addition to a pre-Conquest two-cell church.
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More elaborate churches of the twelfth century, with transepts forming a cruciform plan, are likely to have originated as minsters: a point which can be demonstrated beyond doubt, for example, at Hadstock (Essex), Bishop’s Cleeve (Gloucestershire), Wimborne Minster (Dorset) and Hemel Hempstead (Hertfordshire). The last two also had aisles along both sides of the nave, and the provision of these lateral features became widespread from the twelfth century onwards, both in newly built churches such as Ickleton (Cambridgeshire) by 1100, Bakewell (Derbyshire) and New Shoreham (Sussex) by 1150, and through additions to existing structures. Where the provision of aisles can be dated to before 1200, their insertion on the north side of the nave – as at Bibury (Gloucestershire) and Hemingford Grey (Huntingdonshire) – is far more common than on the south side; of 13 churches in Worcestershire which had a single aisle added before 1200, nine
were on the north side, while in Hampshire the proportion was four out of six. No single explanation can be offered for this imbalance, although a reluctance to disturb the south door to the nave – commonly used for agreeing marriage and other contracts – or to encroach upon burials close to this door, alongside liturgical associations of the north side with Christ’s death and resurrection, may have been relevant factors. Equally, the ‘copycat’ effect of custom and practice elsewhere may have come into play.

There is some scepticism among scholars over attributing the addition of aisles to the demands of a growing population, since the practice continued well beyond the Black Death. Aisles may have been built partly to accommodate extra altars needed so that prayers could be said for the souls of benefactors; a wish to improve circulation around the nave, possibly for processional purposes, and the basic urge to enhance the appearance and prestige of the local church, are alternative explanations. But rising population had to be accommodated somehow and – besides the building of new parish churches as mentioned above – initiatives such as the provision of outlying chapels without parochial status and the addition of extra bays in order to lengthen naves were certainly attributable to this factor.
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Whatever the reasons, local churches went on being enlarged and enhanced through the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries all over England and the contrasting styles which have resulted – ranging from the Norman Romanesque of surviving early features to the Early English and Decorated of later alterations – can be read as evidence of what must have seemed at the time to be a perpetual cycle of building. Most people who survived into their sixties between 1100 and 1340 (admittedly a small minority) would have experienced a building campaign at their local church at some stage in their lives.

Significantly, though rebuilding might take place at either end of a church, the position of the chancel arch nearly always remained constant. During the thirteenth century – earlier in places – it became established that the lay parishioners were responsible for the maintenance, and if necessary the rebuilding, of the main body of the church, while the recipient of tithe (the rector) was responsible for the east end or chancel, from where the mass was conducted. Indeed, the use of some naves outside service times as a combination of village hall, barn and byre (though less common practice once pews began to appear in the thirteenth century) made it particularly appropriate that this part of the church should be a community responsibility: sometime around the year 1000, the homilist Aelfric had been bemoaning the fact that people ‘behave foolishly … drink madly … and play disgracefully’ within their local church, comments which suggest that they were already being seen as public buildings partly for secular use.
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Accordingly, this division of responsibility for different parts of the church meant that the demarcation line between the two was normally respected in any rebuilding scheme – as
can be clearly seen, for example, through the many phases identified by excavation at Asheldham, Wharram Percy and St Pancras, Winchester.
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From the middle of the fourteenth century, churches developed in different ways. In some cases, contraction of population led to contraction in the size of the church, as parts which became ruinous were dismantled and not rebuilt. This process is apparent, for example, at Wharram Percy, where the aisles did not survive the sixteenth century; at Ovingdean (Sussex), where blocked arcades show that a south aisle and a chapel on the south side of the chancel have been removed; and at Hadstock (Essex), where the nave was shortened at the west end. In more extreme cases, of course, churches were abandoned as the settlements they served were depopulated, or – in an urban context – there was a downturn in the fortunes of their towns. Norfolk is thought to have lost nine parish churches during the course of the fourteenth century, a further 20 in the fifteenth century and – partly as ‘delayed reaction’ to the late-medieval depopulation – nearly 90 during the sixteenth century. Wallingford (Berkshire) had 11 churches before 1300 but only four by 1439. For John Leland as he travelled through the country in Henry VIII’s reign, the ruined church became a familiar sight, telling evidence of urban decline.
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More relevant to a church’s survival than size of population were financial resources, although the two were obviously linked and a petition to the bishop of Lincoln in 1437 for the closure of the church of Dunsthorpe (Lincolnshire) neatly embraced them both. The church was said to be

so decreased on account of the lack of parishioners … that it is hardly sufficient for the eighth part of the salary of a stipendiary chaplain, much less of a rector who has to bear the necessary charges; and … there is no likelihood of its sufficing in the future since the world is going from bad to worse.
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But the converse was that, if funds were forthcoming, local churches could counter the demographic trend. Many examples can in fact be found of churches which continued to be enlarged, had components enhanced or replaced, or – to revert to the point with which this section of the chapter began – were entirely rebuilt in the Perpendicular style of the later medieval period: so much so that between a third and a half of all parish churches in England conventionally regarded as of architectural or historical importance are largely or wholly Perpendicular in style.
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A clue to the thinking behind much of this building activity is to be found in the Lady Chapel at Long Melford (Suffolk), where an inscription of 1496 records that the cloth merchant John Clopton, who had financed this addition to his parish church, had ‘not exhibited these things in order that I may win
praise, but in order that the Spirit may be remembered’.
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In the context of a well-understood doctrine of purgatory, the place of suffering after death to prepare for entry to heaven, there was a widespread desire to ensure that masses were celebrated for one’s own soul, and those of one’s family, in order to shorten the time to be spent there. Some could afford, as individuals, to finance chantry chapels, where the family would be buried and priests would pray specifically for their souls, and these often involved structural additions to the church rather than the setting aside of an existing space within it. Those of lesser means could join in a collective effort, either as members of a gild or through voluntary contributions to particular projects. The spire at Bridgwater (Somerset) was paid for by parish collections and a series of individual benefactions and small gifts in 1366–67, when the Black Death was both a recent memory and a recurrent threat. Similarly, the building of several chapels flanking the naves and chancels of the churches of Our Lady and All Saints, Chesterfield (‘the church with the crooked spire’ in Derbyshire) and Holy Trinity and St Michael, Coventry, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was mostly financed by the various gilds of the towns. Where details survive of the express purposes of the foundation of a gild, church fabric and fittings are often mentioned, as at Pampisford (Cambridgeshire) where the Assumption Gild was committed to raising funds ‘for the use and repair of the church which is in poor condition’. Concern to ensure prayers for one’s soul was of course nothing new – the doctrine of purgatory had been refined in the twelfth century – but whereas the donations which sprang from all this had traditionally gone to religious houses, with their monks, nuns and canons supposedly praying for their benefactors, the focus had shifted by 1400 towards the local church, where the endowment of chantry masses, and of facilities to hear them, might also be of spiritual benefit to any parishioners who attended. And given the significant rise in the living standards of peasants, labourers and craft workers, and the healthy profits to be made in some regions especially from the cloth industry, it is no surprise that late-medieval ecclesiastical building prospered wherever these funding sources could be tapped.

It was this mixture of motives – insurance for one’s own soul but also a community-minded concern for the parish as a whole – which led many benefactors to go beyond the endowment of a new chapel alone. At Cullompton (Devon), a full aisle was added to the church at the expense of local worsted clothier John Lane (died 1528), who had the structure adorned with ships, shears and other emblems of his business and put an inscription along the outer wall calling on God’s mercy for the souls of his family. Sir John Leigh, who died in 1523, provided both a new chancel and a chantry chapel for Godshill parish church on the Isle of Wight and had himself buried in the chancel. Such was the opulence of some of the new chapel structures that
they outshone the rest of the church. This was certainly the case with the mid-fourteenth-century south aisle chapel built onto Gaddesby Parish Church (Leicestershire) and with the Beauchamp chapels added to the churches at Bromham and Devizes (Wiltshire) during the 1480s, all highly decorated and of considerable size. In an extreme case, in the early 1520s at Layer Marney (Essex), the Marney family’s concern to secure a setting for their chantry chapel appropriate to their wealth and status (newly enhanced through service at the royal court) led to the reconstruction in brick of the entire church, complete with fireplace to warm the bedesmen who were to attend the masses: one of the last complete church rebuildings in England before the Reformation drastically curtailed such activity. All this effort redounded to the credit of the founders but also greatly enhanced the appearance of these churches and in some cases substantially increased the space available for worship.
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But while there was clearly still money to spare for ecclesiastical endowments in the late middle ages, those primarily reliant on income from landed estates were liable to suffer, as wages rose and rents and prices fell. This often had an adverse effect upon the chancel of a late-medieval parish church: if the rector was an individual, his income from tithe and other offerings fell with the drop in population within the parish, if the rector was a religious house the problem was compounded by reduced income from the landed endowment as a whole. Methwold (Norfolk) and Yatton (Somerset) are examples of churches largely rebuilt on a grand scale at the expense of the parishioners during the course of the fifteenth century, leaving an earlier chancel which now appears mean and diminutive: Yatton, for instance, where reconstruction of the nave was mostly funded by the local Newton family, has a chancel which is small and dark inside compared to the lightness and airiness of the rest of the church. Analysis of bishops’ visitations of parishes in Kent in 1511–12 shows that 32% of churches allegedly had problems with the condition of their chancels, compared to only 7% where there were complaints about the nave and 4% where the tower was faulty. In a similar visitation dating to 1518 of Garthorpe (Leicestershire), where the church had been appropriated to the Augustinian priory of Kirkby Bellars in the same county, the chancel was described simply as ‘not built’.
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But this is not, of course, the whole story. At Swaffham (Norfolk), a wealthy rector, John Botright, who was also a royal chaplain, financed the rebuilding of the chancel – apparently complete by 1454 – on a scale and in a style which matched the parishioners’ efforts in the rest of the church. And at Cirencester (Gloucestershire), what has been described as ‘the greatest of the Cotswold “wool” churches’ was very largely rebuilt between 1400 and 1530 as a combined effort between the merchants and others of the town, on the one hand, and the local Augustinian abbey on the other: this ensured that while
magnificent structures such as the west tower and nave were provided at the expense of the laity, the chancel was also enhanced by the addition of a clerestory and some remodelling of its arches.
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