Cirencester, Lady Chapel Register (original) (raw)
The Paisley Abbey Rentals c.1460-1550: an Initial Investigation
Scottish Business and Industrial History, 2019
This paper explores the potential uses of a neglected source for the history of Paisley abbey, the rental book from 1460-1550. It begins by exploring the importance of Paisley Abbey in medieval Scotland, its relations with the Cluniac order, and the wider context of accounting studies of Scotland's religious houses. The paper then examines the rental book itself, its key features, and its history from 1550 to its appearance in the Advocates Library in the early nineteenth century. Finally, the paper suggests a number of potential avenues to explore using the rentals.
Poulton, Cheshire: The investigation of a rural chapel in an evolving medieval landscape
Church Archaeology, 2023
This article presents the results of the radiocarbon dating programme and interpretation of a medieval chapel and graveyard in Poulton, Cheshire. The structure was associated with a lost Cistercian Abbey of 12th-13th-century date, which was relocated to Staffordshire after c. 60 years. Extensive excavation has revealed a minimum of 783 interments, interpreted as the remains of the farming community who worked the land after the monks' departure. The role of the chapel within the early Cistercian landscape has proved enigmatic, although archaeological investigation has enabled a detailed understanding of the development of this ecclesiastical structure. The radiocarbon dating programme has revealed the chronology of the graveyard. By combining this new evidence with the historical record and archaeological data, an interpretation of the changing role of the chapel within the evolving medieval landscape is presented.
Cirencester Abbey and Roger Basing
Abstract: these notes concern the plan and site of the Abbey, the passage of land tenure from the Church to the Chester Master family, and the first tenant Roger Basing
East Anglian Church Porches and their Medieval Context
2020
Architecture is a very special functional art; it confines space so we can dwell in it, creates the framework around our lives.1 56 east anglian church porches practice according to a medieval template, Wall's interests in porches were broad and inclusive, confidently stating the range of functions they served from the reign of King Solomon to the aftermath of the sixteenth-century English Reformation. Following an introductory discussion, Wall presents the 'Liturgical Purposes of the Porch': discipline, baptism, purification, marriage, burials, Palm Sunday, Holy Water and The New Fire.2 This section of his work has been particularly influential on subsequent understandings of what porches were used for, and has been accepted as an unquestioned authority, despite its inclusion of many unreferenced statements.3 J. C. Wall's approach to function was to distinguish between the 'Liturgical Purposes of the Porch' and the 'Other Uses of the Porch', which served to separate sacred (liturgical) purpose from secular use. In a culture defined by belief in an omnipotent creator God as ultimate judge and an intellectual universe in which scientific understanding was rooted in theological discourse, it is unclear how Wall's binary segregation of sacred and secular could be sustained. His distinction is particularly unhelpful if purpose implies events of greater importance than mere uses. In the intervening years, whether discussed as functions, uses or purposes, there has been insufficient consideration of the impact building a porch had on the events traditionally associated with the church door, or the ways in which anticipated functions affected their form and design. Work by British anthropologist Mary Douglas has freed the definition of ritual from special occasions with explicit religious context to the repeated performance of everyday social practices, for example the 10 am coffee break taken in a shared workplace, and coded social behaviours such as a greeting handshake, hug or kiss.4 The close structuring of communities in England during the Middle Ages pervaded all levels of society; the parish as a microcosm mirrored the national state in being ordered by tightly coded interactions, responsibilities and behaviours borne out in a human-made environment. The church building was central to the affirmation and continuation of shared rituals. The present study of church porches is highly receptive to such an expanded sense of ritual because of their ubiquity, visual prominence and participation in bodily transition from beyond the church to within, no matter what the occasion. Take, as an example, daily engagement with painted images of St Christopher. Inside many, perhaps the majority, of parish churches a largescale mural or stained-glass image of the saint was positioned to be visually
Torre Abbey: Locality, Community, and Society in Medieval Devon
Torre Abbey was a rural Premonstratensian monastery in south-east Devon. Although in many ways atypical of its order, not least in the quality and quantity of its surviving source material, Torre provides an excellent case study of how a medium-sized medieval monastery interacted with the world around it, and how the abbey itself was affected by that interaction. Divided into three broad sections, this thesis first examines the role of local landowners and others as patrons of the house in the most obvious sense, that of the bestowal of lands or other assets upon the house. Torre was relatively successful in this regard, and an examination of the architectural and archaeological record indicates a continuation of that relationship after the thirteenth century. The second section notes areas of conflict with the laity. Disputes could and did arise over both temporal and spiritual affairs, as well as through the involvement of a number of lay figures in the administration and patronage of the house. In both respects, notable incidents in the mid-fourteenth century highlight the complexities of the canons’ relationships with the secular world. These are further explored in an analysis of the abbey’s role during the Hundred Years’ War and the Wars of the Roses, two conflicts which greatly affected the locality, but required vastly differing approaches by the canons. Finally, the effect of society on the canons themselves is considered. It is possible to recover some picture of their origins, both social and geographic, as well as some idea of the size of the community in the fifteenth century, and discuss the repercussions for an understanding of monastic recruitment. Finally, the dynamic of the community over the entire history of the abbey is considered in terms of the scattered source material, utilising both architectural and documentary evidence
Norwich and the Medieval Parish Church c.900 -2017 The Making of a Fine City
Programme and abstracts for the 'Norwich and the Medieval Parish Church' conference 17 - 19 June 2017. This conference, sponsored by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and Purcell UK, is organised in conjunction with the Leverhulme Trust funded research project 'The Medieval Parish Churches of Norwich: city, community and architecture' at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England. www.norwichmedievalchurches.org/conference
The establishment of medieval chantries by the wealthy has long been recognized as both a common form of devotion and a pious attempt at creating a lasting memorial to existence. The vast majority of chantry provisions were temporary affairs, designed to last a few weeks, months, or years. Yet, in the case of the truly affluent, the chantry could become a permanent creation in the form of a dedicated chapel with provision for its staff and services. In many instances the creation of purpose-built chantry chapels receives only scant attention from scholars, largely only as a tangible symbol of personal devotion to a particular cult or building, and the physical methods by which such buildings came to be constructed has been largely overlooked. However, the detailed documentation associated with the establishment of the late fourteenth century chapel of St. Anne, within the Priory church at Walsingham, gives us an intriguing insight into the financial, legal and familial complexities associated with such acts of devotion.