CVI. Observations on Fuller's Charge against an Abbey in Esse MR. URBAN, WHOEVER has attentively considered the history of the Reformation in England, cannot but be convinced that, however the hand of Providence may be conspicuously traced in its rise and progress, the instruments made use of to effect it were the ambition, lust, and avarice, of Hen. VIII. To gratify these reigning passions, which admitted no restraint or opposition, every measure that tended to shake off the authority of the see of Rome, whether sanctified by specious reasons or not, was eagerly adopted. To bring about the dissolution of monasteries, charges were alleged by visitors, and crimes extorted by forced confessions from the members of those societies, which posterity cannot read without horror, and which, in many instances, are but the too fatal consequences of celibacy ill understood, and absurdly enforced-crimes, for the commission of which the warmest advocates of such celibacy must tremble in every age. But, while these charges were brought, and crimes confessed in our own country, from the motives above-mentioned, can we give credit to such a bare-faced abomination as that which honest Fuller (Church Hist. b.VI. c. 31.) charges an abbey in a county adjacent to the capital? Your readers will perceive I mean the clause pretended to have been inserted in the leases, whereby the lessee was enjoined yearly to provide a young girl to gratify the abbot's desires. The charge is general; for, though the two paragraphs preceding that in which it is made, treat of the supposed intrigues between the monks of Waltham and the nuns of Cheshunt, by favour of supposed subterraneous vaults or sewers, common to every monastery, and in many applied, by vulgar fame, to a like use; we are not to fix the scandalous covenant on that particular house. "A reverend divine" (who in the margin is called Mr. Stephen Marshall) "hath informed me," says Fuller, "that he hath seen such a passage in the lease of the abbey of Essex, &c. &c." It is but an hearsay story after all; and Fuller himself treats it as "more improbable (though generally reported)", than the scandalous fancies about the souterains, and reasons against it with equal plausibility and charity. It is, as we have before seen, a general charge, not levelled against any specific abbey in this extensive county of Essex, which had another mitred abbey (St. John's at Colchester.) Wealth and power are temptations to vitious ease and indulgence, which fall not within the reach of an inferior foundation. But, leaving the objects of this charge, let us see whom our gossipping punster has given as his authority for it: Stephen Marshall-"B. D. minister of Finchingfield in Essex, and archflamen of the rebellious rout," as Wood calls him, Ath. Ox. II. 38; and in his Fasti, II. 31, "that most notovious independent." He had the nick-name of the Geneva Bull, and was one of those factious and rebellious divines that preached up the lawfulness of resistance in matters of religion; and his initials stood foremost in the composition of Smectymnuus, the most audacious blow against episcopacy that had been attempted. (Newcourt, Rep. II. 265.) How far this man's evidence is to be admitted, must be submitted to the judgment of the readers; as also, how far he might be qualified to read or understand the extraordinary tenures by which lands were formerly holden. The church, and a portion of the tythes of Finchingfield, whereof Marshall was vicar, were given to the prior and convent of St. Mary at Thetford by William Bigod, son of the founder of that house: a vicarage was endowed 1225, and the vicar was charged with 5 marks annuity to the poor vicars of St. Paul's, London. Another portion of tythes out of Ashfield manor, in Finchingfield, was given to Dunmow priory. This manor was held by service of sending a turnspit for the king at his coronation. The priory of Stoke by Clare had another portion of tythes here (Mon. Ang. I. 1096,) and the hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in London had land here. (Ib. II. 526, 543, 553.) It should seem, therefore, that this wicked clause, which made such an impression on the good reformer, is to be sought for in the writings or registers of one of these three priories; and if it be, as he said, an Essex abbey, the priory of Dunmow must clear itself of the reproach for that Waltham is not to bear the blame is clear, both from what has been before observed, and also from Fuller's not repeating it in his history of that town and abbey. The great probability that Marshall misread or misunderstood this tenure, will further appear from a similar mistake made by Dr. Plot (Staffordsh. c. VIII. § xxi. 278.) "The places where now Borow English obtains, were anciently liable to the same ungodly custom granted to the lords of manors in Scotland by king Evenus, or Eugenius, whereby they had the privilege of enjoying the first night's lodging with their tenants' brides. That this custom obtained in [Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew NewComen, William Spinstow, E.] England as well as in Scotland, we may rationally conclude, from the marcheta mulierum that was anciently paid here, as well as there, in lieu of it. Whereof I have seen a particular record of one Maynard of Berkshire, who held his lands by this tenure of the abbot of Abington, per servitium 18d. per annum, et dandi maritagium et marchetum pro filia et sorore sua ad voluntatem ipsius abbatis (Plac. de Banco in Die Pasch. 34, H. III. Rot. 20, Berksh.)" This record is cited by Spelman, Glossar. v. Marcheta; together with another for Suffolk, where the tenants paid, on the marriage of their daughters, duas horas, or 32d. both which plainly prove, that this marcheta was nothing more than a fine certain, or at the will of the lord, paid by the copyholders for licence to marry their daughters. Keysler, a German of much reading, has detailed much nonsense on the same mistake (Antiq. Septentr. 484-489,) which his countryman Wachter first detected (Gloss. Germ. v. Reitschof, 1279,) without, however, ascertaining the meaning of the word. Marchetum implies both a fine paid to the lord by the tenant as a penalty for suffering his daughter to be debauched, and also a fine for a licence to give her in marriage. Instances of both may be seen in Spelman, ubi supra, and in Lord Hailes's judicious dissertation on this subject at the end of the first volume of his "Annals of Scotland," (p. 312-329,) where the very probable origin of the custom is assigned. Though we cannot possibly tell how the clause in the Essex lease is to be read; is it not therefore more than likely that it was capable of no other construction than that reserved by the abbot of Abington? and, whatever might be the inclinations of either lord, they derived no other power of doing wrong from this service, than the good cardinal of Piedmont did by his privilege, however his fancy prompted him to destroy the grant. As little probability is there in the account given by Dr. Layton of the prior of Maiden Bradley : "Ye shall also receive a bag of relicks, where ye shall see strange things, as God's coat, our Lady's smock, part of God's supper, in caná Domini pars petræ super quam natus erat Jesus in Bethlehem, belike Bethlehem affords plenty of stone. These are all of Maiden Bradley, whereof a holy father is prior, who hath but six children, and but one daughter married yet, of the goods of the monastery, but trusting shortly to marry the rest: his sons, tall men, waiting upon him. He thanks God he never meddled with married women, but all with maidens, fairest that could be gotten, and always married them right well; the Pope, considering his fragilitie, gave him his licence to keep a w-e, and he had good writing, sub plumbo, to discharge his conscience, and to choose Mr. Underhill to be his ghostly father, and to give him plenam remissionem." 1787, May. D. A. D. CVII. Remarkable Particulars in our ancient Parochial Churches. MR. URBAN, HAVING frequent opportunities of travelling into Kent, and receiving much pleasure from antiquarian contemplation, I beg leave to submit to yourself and numerous correspondents, an humble attempt for the purpose of explaining the uses in which some of the most remarkable particulars yet remaining about our ancient parochial churches were employed, as well from observation, as the assistance of undoubted authority; and which I flatter myself, may not be wholly unacceptable. INDAGATOR. The first thing I shall mention as deserving notice is the vestibulum ecclesiæ, or porch, in which is generally found a bench on each side, extending its whole length; and, in many places yet remaining, the fragments of a stone bason, situated on the right-hand of the entrance to the church at the height of about three feet from the ground; this was the receptacle for holy water, used by every one about to enter the sacred edifice. The porch was, without doubt, a very ancient appendage to the church; for Sexburga, who founded the nunnery at Minster, in the isle of Sheppy, is said to have expired in the church porch at Milton in Kent, anno 680; and Ġervase, the monk of Canterbury, in his account of the burning of Christ-church, 1174, says, "accensus est ignis ante portam ecclesiæ extra muros atrii." However the porch may have been passed over as a matter of mere ornament, it had its especial uses, which I will endeavour immédiately to explain. In that part of the will of the pious Henry VI. relative to the foundation of his college at Eton, is this article: "Item, in the south side of the body of the church a fair large door with a porch, and the same for christening of children and weddings*.” Somner relates, that in 1299 Royal Wills, p. 279, · Edward I. was married at Canterbury to Margaret, sister to the King of France, by Archbishop Winchelsea, "in ostio ecclesiæ versus claustrum*.' The following rubric occurs in a missal, printed at Paris in 1515, secundum usum Sarum: " statuantur vir et mulier ante ostium ecclesiæ, sive in faciem ecclesiæ coram Deo, et sacerdote et populo;" &c. which points out the use of the porch in the performance of this rite. By the rituals. under the article, " de benedictione mulieris post partum," i. e. churching women, it appears, that the priest goes to the door of the church, where the woman is to receive ecclesiastical benediction, kneeling down; the 23d psalm is said, with some responses, after which she is led into the church, the conclusion being made before the altar. But the most particular use of the porch was in adminis tering the sacrament of baptism. "Stans igitur in ecclesiæ limine sacerdos, interrogat catechizandum stantem ad fores ecclesiæt." Here the necessary questions being asked, and prayers being said, "ducat eum vel eam in ecclesiam dicendo, Ingredere in sanctam ecclesiam Dei ut accipias benedictionem cœlestem a Domino Jesu Christo." Nothing can be more apparent, than that the performance of these rites would have been many times impracticable, not to say dangerous to the health of persons so tender as women generally are at the time of churching, and particularly infants when baptized, had it not been for the kind invention of the porch, which effectually secured them against the inclemency of the seasons, and by which every necessity for delaying these duties was removed. Entering the body of the church, or "aula ecclesiæ," the font is discovered usually placed near the doors at the west end. They are to be met with of very ancient forms; many, as may be conjectured from their decorations, seeming to have remained since the Norman, and even the Saxon times; nor has due attention been wanting to these venerable remains of sacred antiquity, though the reason for their vast capacity is as yet, in some measure, to be freed from doubt. Respecting the font itself, it should, by a constitution of Archbishop Edmund, be placed in every church where baptism might be performed; also the font, or "baptisterium," must be "lapideum, vel aliud competens, scil. quod baptizandus possit in eo mergit," according to Lynwood, which may be assigned as one sufficient cause of its largeness: it Hist. Canterbury, 167. Missale Rom. secundum Usum Romanæ Ecclesiæ, Lugduni, 1528. |