Life in a Mediaeval City, Illustrated by York in the XVth Century — 05 - Chapter IV: Religious Life

[Illustration: ADMINISTERING HOLY COMMUNION WITH THE HOUSEL CLOTH.

_From a Fourteenth-Century Manuscript.

_] Insistence can hardly be too great on the tremendous and wide-spread influence of the Church in the Middle Ages.

The greatness of the Church continued during the fifteenth century; it derived from the traditions of an age when absolute power prevailed, from the undisputed usage of centuries, from a logical system of dogmas, and from international sanctions.

The ornate services, allegiance to the distant Pope, the immense hold of the priests on the laity, the large territorial possessions of ecclesiastical bodies, impressed the people with the power of the Church.

These things came to the fifteenth century as established facts.

The spirit of revolt indeed had appeared with Wiclif and his followers in the fourteenth century, but Lollardy met with severe repressive opposition.

It was not till Tudor times that the new spirit, stimulated by the Revival of Learning, the Reformation, the invention of printing from type, geographical discovery, the suppression of long years of internecine warfare, and the establishment of a strong government, had accumulated enough energy to burst the bonds of mediævalism.

The fifteenth century was at the end of an age.

It is interesting to note that Wiclif (_d.

_ 1384), one of England's greatest men, was ordained in York.

He stands out as a "daring and inspired pioneer" who strove to provide the land with priests who were true and earnest shepherds.

He attempted the superhuman task of reviving true religion among a people that had become to a certain extent dull, irreverent, ignorant, and thoroughly superstitious.

By the fifteenth century the Church was suffering from those ills which needed and later gained drastic treatment.

The Church had done almost miraculous work in the first few centuries of its existence, if we think only of the success with which it substituted its system of morality for that of pagan Rome.

The fifteenth century followed those centuries when the Church of England, under the direction of great and earnest men, was doing its work with conspicuous success.

Yet, the very forces that enabled the Church to make itself a living power in the Dark Ages, the early centuries embracing the Fall of Rome, the Empire of Charlemagne, and the kingship of Alfred the Great, became harmful to its continued activity beneficially in many directions.

The inadequacy of its work in these centuries appears in the lack of spiritual activity and in the predominance of the material side of religion.

The mediæval Church suffered badly from excessive conservatism, which led towards sloth and a complacent inactivity.

The morbid element showed itself during the fifteenth century mainly in lack of real earnestness, in the enjoyment of luxurious laziness, and in the steady neglect of the age to revise its Christianity.

The Church moreover, with its complete segregation from other estates of the realm had become unpopular socially, while in its political and temporal aspects it had become an immense corporation with strong vested interests.

Kings found it necessary to fight it; religious reformers had to rise up and overcome every form of repression used against them.

The decadence is exemplified incidentally in the increasing poverty in material and expression of the monastic chronicles, which practically died out by 1485. The period of turmoil and change was yet to come.

Such was the general state of affairs.

Nevertheless the forms and practices of the Church continued.

The granting of indulgences and pardons, the inexhaustible demand for Peter's pence, went on vigorously.

A recognised means of publicly raising funds was employed in February 1455-6, when the Archbishop proclaimed an indulgence of forty days to those who would help the Friars Preachers, whose cloister and buildings including 34 cells together with their books, vestments, jewels, and sacred vessels, had been destroyed by fire.

The faith of the ordinary citizen was, however, intact.

The Church came into the people's life daily.

The citizen could not walk away from his home without seeing a church, and meeting a priest or a friar.

He attended the Church services and fulfilled his religious duties.

Baptism, marriage, death, illness, public rejoicing, soldiering, dramatic entertainments, the language of daily life--all these bore the stamp of the Church.

The very days of relief from work were holy-days, feast days in the Church's calendar.

Taking part in the public processions on Corpus Christi Day, a great annual holiday, was a religious exercise; at the same time this day was devoted especially to entertainment.

Wills of the century show that the citizens lived as religiously as formerly.

This spirit is seen perhaps most characteristically in the numbers of candles that wealthy citizens bequeathed for use in church, and in the sums of money they left to specified clergy and other "religious" for the provision of masses for the souls of themselves, their wives and families, and for those for whom they ought to pray.

Masses were thus provided for by hundreds, and in some cases by thousands.

The following extracts from the will[5] of a rich citizen and merchant of York, who had been sheriff and mayor of the city, show admirably the spirit of a member of the middle class in the fifteenth century:-- "In the name of God Amen.

The 4th day of September in the year of our Lord 1436, I Thomas Bracebrig, Citizen and merchant, York, sound of mind and having health of body, establish and dispose my Will in this manner.

First, I command and bequeath my soul to God Almighty, to the blessed Mary, Mother of God and ever Virgin, and to All Saints, and my body to be buried in the parish church of St. Saviour in York, before the image of the Crucifix of our Lord Jesus Christ, next to the bodies of my wives and children lately buried there, for having which burial in that place I bequeath to the fabric of the same parish church 20s.

Also I bequeath for my mortuary my best garment with hood appropriate for my body.

Also I bequeath to Master John Amall, Rector of the said parish church for my tithes and oblations forgotten, and that he may more specially pray for my soul, 20s.

Also I bequeath for two candles to burn at my exequies 30 lbs.

of wax.

Also 10 torches to burn around my body on the said day of my burial, and that each torch shall contain in itself 14 lbs.

of pure wax....

Also I bequeath to 10 men carrying or holding the said 10 Torches in my exequies 10 Gowns, so that each of the said 10 poor men shall have in his gown and hood 3-1/2 ells of russet or black cloth, and that the aforesaid gowns shall be lined with white woollen cloth.

And I will that my Executors shall pay for the making of the same gowns with hoods....

Also I will and ordain that two fit and proper chaplains shall be found to celebrate for my soul, and the souls of my parents, wives, children, benefactors, and for the souls of those for whom I am bound or am debtor, as God shall know in that respect, and for the souls of all the faithful departed, for one whole year, immediately after my decease, in my parish church...."

The will is a very long one.

Altogether 470 lbs.

of wax, to last 15 years, would be necessary to satisfy the requirements of the will.

765 masses are specially arranged for; besides, provision was made for masses to be said by more than 21 chaplains, the religious of 5 priories for women, and by every friar and priest of the four orders of friars in York.

There were also bequests to 2 anchoresses, 1 anchorite, and 1 hermit, to pray for the soul of the testator and the souls aforesaid.

Bequests were made to the poor of St. Saviour's; to lepers "in the 4 houses for lepers in the suburbs," to the poor in maisons-dieu; to the prisoners in the Castle, in the Archbishop's prison, and in the Kidcote.

The testator ordered gifts of coal, wood, and shoes, and 1000 white loaves of bread, to be made among the poor and needy.

The bequests to relatives and directions to the Executors occupy a large part of the Will, which is that of a particularly wealthy and important citizen.

Charity, however, was a marked characteristic of these men who had become rich through trade.

With a generous spirit they put into practice the teachings about giving to the poor and to prisoners.

The amount of money spent in founding chantries, in paying priests for masses for the departed, testifies to their faith.

It was part of the policy of the Church to keep the instruction of the people, young and old, in its own control.

Practically all the educational work in York during the century was the work of the Church.

Through the monasteries and hospitals the Church did valuable work in feeding the poor, helping the needy, and in educating the poorer citizens' boys.

The royal Hospital of St. Leonard did such work.

It was a peculiar institution, being under the authority of the King, and containing a sisterhood as well as a brotherhood.

It included a grammar school and a song-school.

As an institution it was self-supporting; food was made on the premises, and the carpenters' and similar work was done by brethren in the Hospital's own workshops.

The large number of priests were variously employed.

There were priests who officiated in the monastic churches, in the parish churches (as rectors and chaplains, of whom there were 300 in York in 1436), in the cathedral where the number of chantry-chapels was very great and where services were held simultaneously as well as frequently.

Some priests were vicars, that is, while the living or "cure" of souls was held by the rector, the vicar was the actual priest in charge, for the rector probably held more than one benefice and could not serve personally in more than one.

Generally it was a corporate body, like the Dean and Chapter, or a monastery, that was the rector of a number of livings at the same time.

Of the many clergy serving the Minster the Dean, who was the incumbent, ranked first.

Much of the revenue of the Dean and Chapter, the Governing Body, came from landed possessions in York and various parts of the surrounding country.

These possessions, divided into prebends, provided livings for the thirty-six prebendaries or canons, who collectively formed the Chapter.

Each canon served at the Minster during a specified portion of the year, when he lived at his residence at York.

The residences of the prebendaries were mostly round the Minster Close.

While his own parish was served vicariously while he was at York, each canon had a minor-canon or vicar-choral to act as his deputy at York when he was absent.

These vicars-choral formed a corporate body and lived collegiately in the Bedern.

The numerous chantries in the Minster were served by priests who also lived collegiately but at St. William's College.

The College, at the head of which was a Provost, was founded about the middle of the century.

Previously these priests had lived in private houses.

The parish priest was occupied in performing the services in his church, in hearing confessions, in teaching the children, in visiting, interrogating, consoling, and ministering the Sacraments to the sick and dying, and in guiding and sharing the life of his parish generally.

Each parish church had a number of clergy besides the parish priest attached to it: the number varied from one to ten or more according to the number of chantries at the church.

Each priest was helped a great deal in parochial affairs by the parish clerk.

The latter was the chief lay official for business in connection with the parish church.

His duties required him to be a man of some education.

The Archbishop was both bishop of the diocese of York, and head of all the dioceses which together formed the Northern Province of the two provinces into which England was divided for the purpose of Church rule.

His diocese formerly extended so far south as to include Nottingham and Southwell.

The Archbishop was a Primate and occupied a high position in the State.

Besides being supreme head of the Church in the northern province, he was a great landowner.

He possessed, besides his palace near the Minster, a number of seats (like Cawood Castle) in the country.

When he was in London he resided at his fine official palace, York House.

The Archbishops were great lords of the realm in every way.

Archbishop Neville, brother of Warwick "the king-maker," celebrated his installation in 1465 with a very famous feast.

The huge amount and delicacy of the dishes prepared, the number of retainers employed, the splendour of the scene, which was honoured by the presence of the Duke of Gloucester and members of some of the most noble families in the kingdom, all the details of this sumptuous feast, were intended to impress King Edward IV.

with the might of the Nevilles.

Ecclesiastical preferment was often a reward for services in other branches of the service of the State.

Sometimes great offices in the Church and the State were held simultaneously.

Thus, Archbishop Rotherham was also Chancellor of England for a time.

Both Richard Scrope and William Booth, archbishops of the century, had been lawyers.

The appointment of George Neville, who had been nominated when only twenty-three to the see of Exeter, was a purely political one, the bestowing of a high and lucrative office on a member of a noble family that was enjoying the full sunshine of popularity and power.

The King could also benefit from Church positions otherwise than by presenting them to partisans.

During the two and a half years that the see of York was kept vacant between the time of the execution of Archbishop Scrope and the appointment of Henry Bowett (in 1407), the revenues went, in accordance with the established practice, to the royal purse.

There were also "clerks," educated men, but not priests, who were in "minor orders."

Many a man, asserting that he was a clerk, made application for trial by an ecclesiastical court, so as to get the benefit of the less stringent judgment of the Church courts, to which belonged the right of dealing with ecclesiastical offenders.

One abuse within the Church was pluralism, that is, the holding of more than one office at the same time with the result that the holder was drawing revenue for work he could not himself do.

William Sever, for instance, while Abbot of St. Mary's, York, became Bishop of Carlisle.

These two high offices, one monastic and the other secular, he held simultaneously from 1495 to 1502. The religious orders were of two kinds, viz.

monks (and nuns) who lived in seclusion in monasteries, abbeys, or convents, and friars, who lived under a rule but came out into the world to preach and work.

Both kinds took the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience to the rule (_e.

g. _, Cistercian or Benedictine, Franciscan or Dominican).

Some, but not all, monks and friars were priests.

There were four well-known orders of mendicant friars, viz.

Franciscan (Grey friars, friars minor), Dominican (Black friars, friars preachers), Carmelite (White friars), Augustinian (Austin canons).

Monks and friars wore sandals, and long, loose gowns with hoods or cowls which they could pull over their heads to serve as hats.

The alternative titles of some of the orders of friars came from the colour of their friars' gowns.

The Carmelites used undyed cloth, which was white in comparison with the black of the Dominicans.

The Benedictine monks of St. Mary's Abbey wore black garments.

Their heads were shaved on the crown, the technical term for which was the tonsure.

[Illustration: SEMI-CHOIR OF FRANCISCANS.

_From a Fifteenth-Century Manuscript.

_] Monks spent their time in attending the frequent services in the monastery church, which they entered at the night and early morning services directly from the dormitories; in copying manuscripts, which occupied a large part of their day; in contemplation and in study; in manual work; in recreation.

The cloister where work was carried on and the church were the essential buildings of the monastery.

Monastic life centred in these two places.

Its arrangements were dictated by the purpose of making a religious atmosphere pervade everything; thus a religious book was read at meals.

The luxury and laxity that obtained in monastic life were not confined to the fifteenth century.

The Archbishop had frequent occasion in the fourteenth century to complain, for instance, of the use by monks and nuns of ornaments, and of clothes of finer material than the traditional rule permitted.

He condemned the wearing of clothes cut to a worldly pattern.

The religious had to be admonished from time to time not to admit strangers within the cloister, and to conform in all respects strictly to their rule.

During the century St. Mary's Abbey contained about sixty monks, including the Abbot, the supreme head, and the Prior, who held the second highest office; besides, there was a very large number of lay-brethren, servants and officers, for in addition to the internal work at the abbey, there was the management of the abbey estates and business.

Abbots and monks were always keen traders.

Altogether the personnel of St. Mary's might have numbered about two hundred.

The influence of such a monastery as St. Mary's was very far from being restricted to affairs within the abbey walls.

Through its Abbot it had a spokesman in the House of Lords.

There were cells dependant on the abbey and often at a distance.

The Abbot had a number of residences in the country and one in London.

The abbey itself had numerous possessions of land and manors in many parts of the country.

This was a principal source of revenue.

St. Mary's Abbey also had jurisdiction over many churches, not only in York and Yorkshire, but in other counties as well.

The other monastic institutions and the Minster and some of the hospitals, for example St. Leonard's, had similar rights of jurisdiction and the ownership of land, property, and churches.

In some of the churchyards there lived anchorites, anchoresses, and hermits.

These were individuals who chose to live a solitary life spent in prayer and religious work.

Anchorites led a life of strict seclusion, for they were literally shut in their cells, from the world.

They did not, however, eschew all intercourse with others, for their solitary lives of devotion, and in some cases of study, gave them a reputation for wisdom that led people to seek them for their advice.

Permission was given by the Church authorities to those who took up this mode of life, the assumption of which formed part of a special service.

The Pontifical of Archbishop Bainbridge, who held the see from 1508 to 1514, contains an office for the Enclosing of an Anchorite.

Hermits lived in less strict seclusion.

Their aims were similar, but they went about in the world doing good works.

One of the worst features of the religious decadence of the Middle Ages was the craftiness of such spurious types of men as those whom Chaucer painted in the Pardoner and the Somonour, and Charles Reade depicted in the peripatetic "cripples" of "The Cloister and the Hearth."

Chaucer wrote in the true spirit of comedy _mores corrigere ridendo_, but Langland, his contemporary, who described similar types of men of State as well as of Church, did so from the point of view of a moral reformer whose satire is a trenchant weapon.

There were many other types of religious men, but it must suffice to refer to Pardoners, who by virtue of papal bulls gave pardons, expecting, exacting if necessary, a reward in return, and to mention only palmers and pilgrims, who were seen in York when they came to visit the shrine of St. William in the Minster.

The palmers were pilgrims who had visited the Holy Land.

They liked to wear a scallop-shell in their broad-brimmed hats as a sign of their extensive travels.

Journeying from shrine to shrine was a favourite occupation, a professional one, of those pilgrims who loved a wandering and easy life, seeing the sights and living at the expense of the monastic hospitality.

Some pilgrimages were done by proxy, through the employment of professional pilgrims.

A pilgrimage to a shrine celebrated for miraculous cures or the efficacy of the spiritual benefit derived from worshipping at it and invoking the help of the saint, was for many an exercise of deep religious devotion.

There is no doubt, moreover, that at the shrines of the saints the Church proved itself a great healer.

It was in fact the popular physician.

Apart from surgery, the medical practice of the twentieth century is in some ways the successor of that of the Church of the fifteenth.

When very popular religious men died, or when, if they were already dead as in the case of William, Archbishop of York (who died in 1153 and was canonised in 1227), popularity sprang up, it was quite usual for it to be discovered that miracles were being wrought at their tombs.

The case of the popular Archbishop Scrape who was executed is a typical one.

In this way the calendar of saints was enlarged, the devout had a new interest, the Church maintained its position in the popular eye and mind, and its funds increased.

The mediæval Church, however, appeared perhaps at its best in its Church services, which drew their effect from the sanctity of the magnificent building (whether cathedral or parish church), the awe inspired by the Church politic, the use of Latin and the learned atmosphere, the religious teaching, and, not least, the imposing ceremonies, and the ornate ritual performed amid a profusion of lighted wax candles by priests and dignitaries in resplendent vestments.