WEA COLCHESTER 2008-9 CLASS 8 Nov. 28
MINSTERS AND PARISH CHURCHES
CHURCHES
Types (from C10-C11 (Laws of Ethelred)
i. headminster (bishop – cathedral/diocese - or abbot) grithbryce £5 OHPs Dioceses
ii. medium minster (old minster, mother church) “ £2 OHP Sundial
iii. lesser church with graveyard (thegns – C10-C11) “ £1
iv. field church without graveyard (chapel) “ 10s.
EVIDENCE
i. documentary - charters, wills
- payments of tithe etc (landowners founding churches could only keep 1/3 tithe –
rest to headminster: all churchscot to “old minster” – first sign of the 1-priest
church{Laws of Edgar}) Blair DB p98
- Domesday Book BUT Essex only 17 Blair DB p100
Cambs. “ 3
Norfolk, Suffolk in 100’s (but still far more known)
ii. Placenames – “minster” eg. Southminster (charter 995 {estate for shipscot – but
south of what? Bradwell?)
- “church” eg. Hornchurch (“church with horned gables”)
- “kirk”, “kirby” eg. Kirby-le-Soken (“village with a church”)
- “priest” eg. Preston (“with” or “belonging to a priest”)
iii. Archaeological/structural - whole, such as towers eg. Holy Trinity. Colchester
- partial, such as windows, stonework eg. Inworth
- excavation eg. St. John’s, Colchester OHP St. John’s
Boom in building of small churches 1050-1150 – hence many “overlap” churches
OHPs 2 Rivenhall
Raunds
5 N. Elmham
FOUNDERS
Larger churches – by kings, archbishops/bishops, noblemen
Smaller “ - by minsters (particularly after C10 reform)
- by thegns – church/hall complex (church their “property”)
Blair p98
- by groups of freemen eg. Fordley (26 freemen in DB – second
church, now demolished, in Middleton churchyard: an example of -
- 2 churches in one churchyard eg. Willingales, Gt. Dunham (2
manors, or population expansion – mainly East Anglia)
- by landholders in towns OHP Norwich
DESIGN
Early churches – porticus (for burials, priests, offerings)
- only one altar (so churches in a line)
- crypts (for relics)
Later churches – towers (tower-naves, showing relics, belfry {some bell-pits found})
west towers in east, some round
- westworks (rooms, chapels)
- transepts (cruciform, more altars)
- wide chancel arch
- square, narrower chancels
All periods – fonts
- porches (for penitents, almsgiving etc. – may develop into towers)
- tall, narrow naves with north and south doors opposite (processions)
- NOT aisled
PRIESTS
i. Origins - noble families (Laws of Ethelred – priest had wergild of a thegn)
- able boys (even from poor families could become priests through
education – but not illegitimate)
- had to be 30 (lower orders of deacons, sub-deacons)
BUT village priest might be unlearned, glebe same as a peasant
ii. Functions - Wulfstan’s “Institutes of Polity” (archbishop to Ethelred and Cnut) set
out rules re church/state relationship: unmarried priests
BUT many of the clergy were in fact married
- Northumbrian Priests’ Laws c. 1020 condone marriage
iii. Use of church - description by foreign monk Lantfred c.970 of Winchester (but
mainly about translation of relics of St. Swithun)
PARISHES
Boundaries
Early minsters had parochiae (later hundreds?)
C10-C11 – period of great church building – probably those on borders of parochiae
were first to break away.
Break-up of estates (with minster at head tun), so component estates/landholders built
churches.
Northern England – several vills per parish - sparse population) OHP Townships and
Eastern “ - one “ “ “ - denser “ Parishes
Parish formation completed by Domesday in settled agricultural areas? (Blair
disagrees – no overall parochial system until after Conquest)
Tithe – increasingly going to parish churches, though not churchscot, burial dues
Functions
Social – community replacing kin-group
- centre for baptism, marriage, burial
- festivity, trading, alms
Administrative – once established, boundaries fixed
- tithe and tax collection
- basic unit of local government (though this developed later)
Church and parish remained THE social, economic, and administrative unit for
centuries, more important than the manor (manor = firm, employer, landlord)
OHP Anglo-Saxon Churches in Essex