Sacred People, Sacred Spaces: Evidence of Parish Respect and Contempt toward the Pre-Reformation Clergy (original) (raw)

Performing Anti-clericalism: Rioting in Church and against Clergymen in Late Medieval England

Legal History Miscellany, 2021

When William Beufo, vicar of (Winterborne) Whitechurch, a parish church in the county of Dorset, turned to the chancellor sometime in the period 1473-75 seeking assistance, his petition adopted a tone of utter desperation. As he tells the story, Beufo did nothing to provoke the violence against him. He was minding his own business, "in God's peace and the king's," occupied with conducting the mass in his church on the Saturday before the feast of the Apostles Simon and Jude when one of his parishioners, a man by the name of John Tanner, barged into the church leading a crowd of armed men. As Beufo writes, one hundred men, all "evilly disposed" and "arrayed in manner and form of war," that is wearing jakkes (quilted defensive tunics) and salettes (light bowl-shaped helmets), carrying bows, arrows, bills, glaives and other "horrible weapons," entered the church precisely because they knew that Beufo would be there, and they intended to slay him. Moreover, Beufo tells us that that is exactly what they would have done, had he not had foreknowledge of their coming and fled the church to hide in his vicarage just moments before their grand entrance.

Disputing legal privilege: civic relations with the Church in late medieval England

Journal of Medieval History, 2009

This article explores how provincial town governments sought to bolster civic authority in the period from c.1350 to c.1500. It focuses on royal boroughs, such as York, Chester and Norwich, which had a strong sense of lay civic identity and political pride. In these places, the king was the direct overlord, but the power of civic government was nonetheless frequently challenged by the franchises of local abbeys and convents, cathedral chapters, bishops' palaces, areas of sanctuary and the estates of local nobles. The main case study is urban relations with the Church, in particular disputes with local religious houses and rivalry between the Church and borough courts. How town leaders sought to deal with rival authorities provides an insight into the creation and assertion of lay urban identity in the late medieval period, and illuminates broader themes of how power was legitimised and enforced in post-Black Death society.

"The Parish Church as Borderland: Re-conceptualizing the Performance of Religious Identity and the Contestation of Sacred Space in Tudor England"

Sixteenth Century Society & Conference, 2017

Today I'm going to advocate for the value of applying borderlands theory to the study of the English Reformation, with my dissertation project as an example of how aspects of borderlands theory may be fruitfully applied to the subject. Drawing on the work of historians working outside the field of early modern England, this paper asks that we reconsider the physical and mental geography of the early Tudor reformations, seeing the parish church as a newly created "borderland" over which different interest groups, none with the power to impose its authority completely, fought for control. Churches became the material vessels upon which each inscribed their own religious identities.

Clergy and Commoners: Interactions between medieval clergy and laity in a regional context

2009

This thesis examines the interactions between medieval clergy and laity, which were complex, and its findings trouble dominant models for understanding the relationships between official and popular religions. In the context of an examination of these interactions in the Humber Region Lowlands during the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, this thesis illustrates the roles that laity had in the construction of official and popular cultures of medieval religion. Laity and clergy often interacted with each other and each other"s culture, with the result that both groups contributed to the construction of medieval cultures of religion. After considering general trends through an examination of pastoral texts and devotional practices, the thesis moves on to case studies of interactions at local levels as recorded in ecclesiastical administrative documents, most notably bishops" registers. The discussion here, among other things, includes the interactions and negotiations surrounding hermits and anchorites, the complaints of the laity, and lay roles in constructing the religious identity of nuns. The Conclusion briefly examines the implications of the complex relationships between clergy and laity highlighted in this thesis. It questions divisions between cultures of official and popular religion and ends with a short case study illustrating how clergy and laity had the potential to shape the practices and structures of both official and popular medieval religion.

Churchwardens in early Tudor England: On the Edge of Sacred and Secular

2016

The office of churchwarden traditionally stood between the concerns of the local parish community and the ecclesiastical and political elite. As such, churchwardens performed a valuable mediating function in early Tudor society. However, the religious changes introduced during the latter half of Henry VIII's reign (1530-1547) put churchwardens under increasing strain. With the introduction of new policies on religious images, church fabric, and increasingly evangelical worship forms, churchwardens found themselves at odds with either their neighbours or church authorities, depending on the circumstances. This article examines late-Henrician churchwardens' accounts from several East Anglian parishes to trace this change in relationship between local officials and the Henrician state. I argue that late-Henrician religious changes pressured churchwardens to choose between serving their communities and serving the crown. Churchwardens' precarious situation shows that rather than establishing religious uniformity, the Henrician Reformation sowed seeds of discord and disunity in many English parishes.