A History of a Church in a Village

An illustrated and referenced version of A History of a Church in a Village written by Fr Roger Arguile can be purchased from us for £3.50 (including UK postage).  Send your name and full address by e-mail to treasurer@southcreake.org.  To make your payment use our PayPal payment facility or alternatively send a cheque made payable to South Creake PCC General Fund to the PCC Treasurer at the address shown here.

‘[He] maintained that the City of God was really a collection of villages’  Basil Mitchell on Austin Farrer.

‘What is common in community is not shared values or common understanding so much as the fact that members of a community are engaged in the same argument…, the same discourse, in which alternative strategies, misunderstandings, conflicting goals and values are threshed out.’  David Sabean

The English parish church is often thought of as a still point of permanence in a fast changing world, a place of peace and tranquillity where prayer is the counterbalance to all that is uncertain. In fact, the parish church has often been a focus of conflict and change: changes in the balance of power and in approved or acceptable opinions and practices; and a reflection of the wars and enmities of the last thousand years of English history. The stones of St. Mary’s, in their present beauty and prayerfulness, bear, like all churches, the marks and scars of that history;  and what has left no marks they have invisibly witnessed.

Most Christians take church buildings for granted; yet they are not primary or even essential to the faith. The Church, as clergy sometimes like to remind congregations, is a body of people.  The earliest church buildings post date the first Pentecost by two centuries and were adapted houses.  That communities devoted so much attention over centuries to the elaboration and beautification of buildings says something about the form of our belief in God, about the holiness of particular places, about the visible forms by which an invisible God can be represented. That individuals gave of their substance (and sometimes of their small change) to the church may say something about their priorities or about their fears and desire to obtain favour, even about their guilt.

Sometimes the church was the glue that held communities together; sometimes it was the source of division or sometimes its emblem. Individual conscience and a community identity apply contrary pressures. These different experiences are reflected in the pages that follow.

However, the interaction between faith and daily living over time is difficult to pin down. Some histories of village life are written as if the inhabitants believed nothing or were actuated purely by economic motives.  Some describe what happened to and in church buildings without reference to how people earned their bread or conducted their working lives. It seems very unlikely that either of these descriptions would be recognisable to the villagers. On the other hand it is very difficult to achieve any understanding of what people thought and how it affected their lives unless they recorded both. This rarely happened. Written records are most often about money, about what is supposed to happen and about things going wrong.  It is less often about what normally happened and what people thought.

In what follows, the story is partly about the village; partly about its context. It may seem that South Creake is only a peg on which to hang the larger story. On the contrary, generalities depend on particular places and for most of our period most people lived in villages, on which the few but increasing numbers of towns depended for both food and clothing and for their populations. Until the eighteenth century the capacity of cities like Norwich to consume human lives would have left them desolate without its being continually fed with people from the countryside. Villages were the vital resource. Moreover, it is remarkable how much the mutual influence of town and country upon each other can be identified even in this one place.

Finally, human life is about belonging as well as striving and a village can be seen as a laboratory in which the capacity of human beings to belong and their failure to do so can be tested.

St. Mary’s, South Creake is a parish of within the diocese of Norwich, close to the north Norfolk coast, now part of a benefice of five churches. The parochial system, which we take for granted, (though it is increasingly under threat from the shortage of clergy) evolved only gradually. A considerable impetus to its development, however, was the Norman invasion, which therefore seems a good place to start.  

The arrival of Christianity in these parts pre-dates the Conquest. East Anglia had been part of the diocese of Elmham since the seventh century. The Saxon church functioned through a series of large missionary churches, or minsters, around which were a series of satellite churches, but the coverage that this provided was less than complete and alongside the system private chapels or oratories developed, possibly as a response to the ninth century Viking invasions which had considerably weakened the older institutions . These proprietary chapels owed no allegiance to the minsters and initially little to bishops, but the effect of their appearance was to place a priest in every village. The payment of tithe, the biblical tenth, long recognised, was made compulsory in the reign of King Edgar (959-75) thus putting them on a more secure footing. Thus, it is thought that there was a church in the village, probably of wood, on the present site. The manor house which lay between the church and the river may have been Saxon in origin too .

The arrival of the Norman was a shock not only because of the innovations they made but because of the manner of their governance. Duke William claimed legitimacy as the lawful successor of Edward; he also asserted his ownership of all land in England and his subjects as his tenants, from the highest baron to the lowliest serf, thus dispossessing the Saxon landowners to a man. From the very beginning, there was resistance all over the country, including, of course, the fens, which lasted for years after the conquest. The local people were often treated with disdain sometimes with savagery – it has been said that the Normans ruled by terror . The invaders, in turn, met with revolt after revolt. William’s thoroughness and brilliance as a campaigner finally routed the opposition of earls on the one hand and the irregular silvatici – guerrillas in our language – on the other. The old English elites were almost completely destroyed ; local landowners, like Bondi were either killed or exiled; in either case they were dispossessed. All of which makes the reconciliation and assimilation of the two peoples so remarkable.

The first voices we hear are not local, but they may well have been reflected in what some people hereabouts thought. Theirs was a very old question: why did God allow the success of the invasion. It is a modern question also; in their case, they were not asking it in terms only of personal tragedy, but political change. One answer to the question as to why God had allowed the Conquest to succeed was that the English and not only King Harold had done something wrong so as to deserve divine punishment.   This was a view shared between both Norman and English writers, such as Henry of Huntingdon and even the monk Aelred of Rievaulx.  It made the task of re-asserting the integrity and dignity of the natives a harder task; in addressing it the role of the pious king Edward the Confessor, who had died just before the conquest, became important; he had, according to his first biographer, claimed that God’s anger would end only when the two thrones, English and Norman were united, as they were in the reign of Henry I (1100-1135) .  More than this would be required.

The Normans needed the English. They claimed to be the rightful inheritors of the land. South Creake was already a village with an organised agriculture, its field system divided into strips,  surrounded by heath and woodland above the little river valley in which it was set. The newcomers may not have been welcome; their new administration did not so much make systematic plans as record what was there: most of the arable and pasture were to the north and west of the village where the land was better. The south of the village was heath and rough pasture. Three manors – three landowners – were awarded the land of the village, the de Beaufoes, the de Montforts, and the de Roseys, but their holdings were not distinct: each owned strips all around the village , just as their predecessors had before. Moreover, the Domesday survey of 1086, whose purpose was the recording of everything of value for taxation purposes was by no means a complete record of what lay on the ground  even in England:  for instance, it shows the existence of churches at nearby Waterden, Sculthorpe and Barmer but not at South Creake, but that, as we have seen, is not conclusive. 

The first definite reference to a church is to what was more of a private chapel belonging to the new land owners, the Beaufoe (or Bello Fago) family of Pont l’Evêque, whose family had been at the battle of Hastings and whose English holdings were extensive. Ralph de Beaufoe was granted the land by the Crown under the new dispensation, the manor in South Creake being given to him by Henry. The local church, to the north of the present village, probably became his private chapel; the manor house being between the church and the river. Such institutions were in competition with the old Saxon Minster system. They owed no allegiance to the minsters and initially little to bishops, but the effect of their arrival was to place a priest in every village. The invaders brought their clergy with them; but from an early date many parish priests were English; perhaps the Saxon priest was left in place. For whereas it was politic to appoint Normans to bishoprics and abbacies, where English talents could be employed without serious risk, natives were appointed: one reason was there were not enough French clergy to go round, but the theory that they were of the same church (and William the rightful inheritor of the throne) was also matched by practice and at a number of levels attempts were made to break down barriers.

Then Ralph, son of the first Ralph of Beaufoe, gave the rectory with its tithes, lands and homages to Castle Acre Priory ‘for the soul’s health of King Henry I who had brought him up and that of his Lord King Henry II, his grandson’ . It is the first local voice we hear, albeit formally written, probably by a clerk on his behalf, an act of gratitude directed not to his benefactor but to the God who had made this happen and whose mercy he now sought for the soul of the late King.  Thomas, his brother confirmed the gift in 1180.

Castle Acre thus became the fourth manor, acquiring other manorial rights by various gifts from such as the Candos family from 1192 onwards. It had been founded from the French monastery at Cluny between 1087 and 1089 at the invitation of the Earl Warenne ; the French connection was typical. Yet what began as the expression of colonialism, over time weakened and changed its character. There were many factors at work in bringing about the assimilation: practically, there was the downward mobility of the younger sons of the Normans and the upward mobility particularly of the very lowest among the English; and the usefulness of English officials to the invaders. In addition, English propaganda in defence of their historical pedigree  was influential; as was the contracting of strategic marriages, not least that of Henry I to an English princess, to which Edward’s prophecy was held to refer, but another was that the Normans and Saxons were of the same religion using a common language.  Cluny was, of course, the centre of an important and well-organised reformed system of Benedictine houses based in France and visitors from Cluny came routinely to inspect its houses; but the Englishness of the Cluniac houses became apparent early on. This did not, of course, prevent English houses such as Castle Acre being subject to interference by the king and to deprivation during the Hundred Years’ War (1339-1453). Only in 1373 was Castle Acre ‘denizened’, declared to be an English house, thus ending the disputes over who should appoint the clergy and what should become of its income.

Nevertheless, by as early as the late twelfth century, church and kingdom were seen as two expressions of the patria, the nation. French and English monks shared the same life, and because they were expected to exercise moral leadership in medieval society, the bonds of friendship between them were strongly influential. This ran from the top: Anselm, archbishop and Benedictine monk, expressed by his words and the conduct of his friendships across the divide, his belief in the superiority of Christian love in breaking down barriers: his biographer, Eadmer, was an Englishman. The monasteries owed their position to the nobility and in turn administered land on which villages stood; they bridged what was a great divide. Castle Acre Priory received lands from men like Ulph with Saxon names as well as from Normans.  Gradually, the Normans became English.

The relationship between parishes and monasteries was complex. Monastic houses relied upon the income from the parish churches which they owned in order to survive. St. Mary’s was one of twenty six churches belonging to Castle Acre. Since Saxon times, the biblical tenth had been due, in kind, whether as hay or wheat, milk, cheese, poultry, eggs;  iron ore and stone; the products of fisheries; even the value of goods made.  This comprehensive means of taxation went mostly to the patron, in this case Castle Acre; a small portion of it, that often most difficult to collect, was paid to the local priest.

On the other hand, there were perceived advantages to the arrangement: some spiritual; some material. The twelfth century was a time of great monastic reform and of religious enthusiasm. The cult of the Blessed Virgin and the saints had become popular. The churches of the benefice, North and South Creake, Syderstone, Sculthorpe and Waterden are typical in that four of them are dedicated to the Virgin and one to All Saints and one to both. The prayers of monks were held to be of more value than that of mere secular clergy and the life of prayer, whether practised by monks or hermits, hugely appreciated.

A second advantage was more visible. Castle Acre was instrumental in replacing wooden churches with stone as, for instance, in Sutton in Lincolnshire when they took over ownership; it may have been they who set about the rebuilding of South Creake church. The twelfth century church, (of which almost nothing remains) was most probably a simple affair, heavy and dark, as Norman architecture then was. (A few feet of the lower part of the chancel arch is said to date from early Plantagenet times, 1180-1200 together with the jambs of a window on the south side to the east of the priest’s door). It would have consisted of one or at most two ‘rooms’: one for the congregation and one for the altar and the clergy, the liturgical space.  Modest, though it may have been by later standards, it was nevertheless the most significant building in the parish, matched if at all by the manor house and the mill.

As for what went on inside, we know this in part from the instructions of Bishop Quinel of Exeter of 1287 which set out the minimal requirements. They included a small chalice of silver or silver gilt, and a ciborium to hold the sacramental bread and for the visitation of the sick. The church will have had a silver chrismatory for the holy oils, a censer and an incense boat; with a pax brede (for the kiss of peace) with three cruets and a holy water vessel; it must have had a pyx ( a little box of ivory or silver for the reserved sacrament) and another for the unconsecrated bread  There would be one altar of stone, fixed and immoveable with its cloths, canopy and frontal; there would have been a fixed font of stone (securely locked to prevent misuse of the baptismal water); and there were to be two images, one of the patron saint of the church and the other of the Virgin Mary – in our case they were the same. For special services and for processions, the candlesticks and crosses should include a multiple candleholder for the Holy Week services, known as a tenbrae, with a paschal candlestick, again for Easter, two processional tapers and two great crosses, one of which had to be portable. Other items would be needed for weddings, and funerals, vestments for festivals and ordinary Sundays and a considerable number of books. Regular inspections – visitations, as they were called - took place to ensure that things were in order, and often they were not. St. Mary’s church may have been one of many which relied on cast-off monastic books or old ones cheaply bought.

It was a very visual religion, centring on the two great sacraments of Baptism and Mass, both administered only by the duly ordained priest, both also having become hugely elaborated from the practice of washing and eating together from which they partly derived to express Christ’s atoning sacrifice: the first allowing entry into the community of those saved by baptism into his death, expressed by the total immersion of the infant; the second the participation in his life by sharing in his sacramental body and blood. Because the latter was surrounded by symbols of purity, holiness and awe, it came more regularly to be seen rather than ingested.

Only a minority of people could read; it was one of the marks of the clergy that they were able to. The expensive books which a parish must buy included the instructions, both liturgical and catechetical, which a priest must follow. Archbishop Pecham’s instructions of 1281 were a much copied model. Apart from telling the priest what must be done in church, particularly in Holy Week, he was to teach (to be memorised by the people) the Fourteen Articles of Faith, Ten Commandments of the law (and the two of the gospel), the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven virtues and the seven sacraments. Confessions were to be made at least annually a development which resulted in the proliferation of manuals to guide the clergy in instructing their people. The language of the church was Latin, that of educated folk and of the manorial courts, French (until the mid fourteenth century) whereas common folk spoke English, in which tongue increasingly they were taught.

The clergy, or at least some of them, were recruited locally, indicating the existence of some form of schooling hereabouts, possibly monastic. Most schooling had ordination in view and its importance was stressed by the Third and Fourth Lateran councils (1179 & 1215).  Their final training may have taken place at Castle Acre. On the other hand Rudham, eight miles away, had a grammar school run by its Augustinian canons. Walsingham, another Augustinian house, was closer, and had a monastic school from which latterly scholars were sent to the university. The Augustinians were noted for their interest in education. The children of villeins – serfs - were effectively excluded from education; free tenants were not. Parish clerks, assistants to the clergy, some but not all of whom became clergy themselves, often became teachers of small children; some were taught at home by their mothers. Literacy, as a means of advancement, was desired by some and feared by others.

Parochial clergy were much a part of their communities. A good number of clergy though they held benefices were absentees, being administrators or scholars, leaving behind lowly paid curates; parish priests were often the less intellectual but they were not thereby less pastorally adept; in any case they lived by the tithes they received and the land they farmed. The tithe was always likely to be a matter of dispute which, according to contemporary advice had to be dealt with ‘cautiously and discreetly’ so as to prevent discord between priest and parishioners. Vicarages, built by the patron monastic house, go back at least to the thirteenth century. Celibacy was imposed on clergy from the eleventh century but it was slow to take hold; housekeepers were often something more and a few incumbencies were de facto hereditary until the practice was either brought to an end or driven underground. Among clerical tasks was that of moderating between the ‘likely tyrannies of both manorial lord and over-wealthy villein’; it was not only those outside the church who were critical of abuses, whether clerical or lay. Thus, a confessor’s manual of the day advises penance on lords who exact more than is their due; confessions, which were to be made at least annually, allowed the priest not merely to hear but to interrogate a penitent. All of this indicates the development of a caste of clergy, answerable to bishops more than merely to their manorial lord.

Another function of literacy was that from the early thirteenth century the courts of the four manors which possessed land in the village recorded their proceedings in writing. Records came to be kept of the transactions of the courts: reports of agricultural yields, payments made, the settlement of disputes, and even peasant land transfers. This was partly an accounting process but was also a means of ensuring good order within the community. Every six weeks or so every householder was required by the lord to attend and to assist in the judgement of the cases of the various suitors. Most people were tied to the land by their feudal allegiance to their lord via the manorial courts and by the vagrancy laws which prevented people from leaving their village without permission. Three fifths of the population in the late thirteenth century was of unfree status. The lord relied upon the villagers as much as they on him; he needed them to farm his demesne; it was important that they believed that justice was being done. The difference between free and unfree tenants was that the former knew the extent of their obligations to the lord whereas the latter did not; from seasonal work such as ploughing or reaping, to the weekly obligations, to carting dung, weeding, threshing, scouring ditches, trimming hedges and mending fences – ‘whatever the lord wills’. ‘Boon works’, extra demands of the lord sometimes took them from their own small plots. Only sickness, Sundays and the holy days of the church freed them from the cycle of toil and even the latter were not always observed, even by monastic landlords. Fortunately, a day’s work was usually defined by the tasks to be performed, which often meant only half a day. The village was prosperous compared with many; Norfolk was the bread basket of the nation. Wheat and barley were grown; sheep provided both wool and milk and fertilised the arable; pigs inhabited the woods.  Those who fell on hard times, widows and orphans, even the aged and infirm might hope for some support from the almonry of Creake abbey, a mile or so to the north.Thomas, abbot from 1303 to 1334 came from the village.

Creake Abbey owned one of the four manors which held land in the village. It was granted the land by William de Bodham, who in turn had obtained it from Hugh de Montfort on the death of the latter in 1260. The others were the Beaufoes manor, the principal manor of the village and Castle Acre manor, as already described. Finally, there was Roses Manor, so-called because it was held by Lambert de Rosee under Earl Warenne, as tenant in chief. Earl Warenne had dispossessed the Saxon Lord Toki at the Conquest.  Because of the division of the land between the manors in the village (and the growth of the number of free tenants) some negotiation between them would have been necessary.

If the manorial courts regulated matters relating to the land, the bishop’s and archdeacon’s court regulated ecclesiastic and personal matters. The latter met in the nearest convenient church. Actions ranged from neglect of the church fabric to adultery, slander or marriage within the proscribed limits; and less contentiously the proving of wills. The penalties imposed were the performance of a public penance for minor infringements, excommunication for more serious offences. In 1317, two girls of the village, Alice Herlle and Alice Gutermound, were sentenced by the rural dean ‘to a penance of seven whippings around the church’ on pain of excommunication should they refuse for unnamed offences which they had confessed. Religion was mediated through the whole community of South Creake, in which family, friends, clergy and the saints in heaven were all a part.

It was a time of prosperity: population was rising, harvests were good, epidemics were rare and markets everywhere were proliferating. When times were less good, the problems which monastic ownership produced would become more acute; inevitably the taking of money from the parish was likely to produce abuses and reforming bishops had an interest in limiting the power of monasteries.