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SELSEY-CHICHESTER.
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DIOCESAN HISTORIES.
SELSEY-CHICH ESTER.
W. R. W.^TEPHENS,
PREBENDARY OF CHICHESTER AND RECTOR OF WOOLBEDING. AUTHOR OF
'life and LETTERS OF DEAN HOOK," "CHRISTIANITY AND ISL/ "life of S. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM," ETC.
WITH MAP AND PLAN.
PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTEE.
LONDON :
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, S.W. ; 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, B.C. ; 48, PICCADILLY, \V. ; AND 135, NORTH STRBET, BRIGHTON.
NEW YORK : E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO. i88x.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
A.D. 681-1075.
The conversion of the South Saxons by Wilfrith — Foun- dation of the See of Selsey and gradual formation of the diocese — Architectural remains .... Page
CHAPTER II.
A.D. 1075-1288.
Removal of the See from Selsey to Chichester— Effects of the Norman Conquest upon the diocese — The Bishops and the Cathedral Church— Saint Richard of Wych Pagt 3
CHAPTER III.
Monastic and collegiate foundations in the diocese, A.D. 1075-1288— Architecture, A.D. 1075-1250 . . Page
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CHICHESTER.
CHAPTER IV.
A.D. I288-I362.
Value of Church property and number of clergy in the diocese — Suppression of the Knights Templars — The Bishops and the Cathedral Page 1 12
CHAPTER V.
A.D. I362-I497.
Causes of corruption in the Church — Prosecution of the Lollards — State of the monasteries and of the Cathedral —Episcopal visitations — Architecture, A.D. 1 250-1 500
CHAPTER VI.
A.D. I497-1536.
The approach of the Reformation — The episcopate of Bishop Sherburne — The dissolution of the monasteries
Page 158
CHAPTER VII.
A.D. I 536-1 604.
Progress of the Reformation — Demolition of the shrine of St. Richard — Imprisonments of Bishops Sampson and Daye — State of the diocese during the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth Page 177
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VIII.
A.D. 1604-1660.
State of the diocese during the reigns of James I. and Charles I.— The Siege of Chichester and Sack of the Cathedral— The Commonwealth . . . Page 207
CHAPTER IX.
A.D. 1660-1800.
State of diocese after the Restoration— The Noncon- formists—The Duke of Monmouth at Chichester — The Revolution— The Non-jurors— State of diocese in the eighteenth century — Extracts from diaries illustrative of the period— Wesley's work in Sussex . . . Page 230
CHAPTER X. The diocese in the present century
Page 261
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SELSEY-CHICHESTER.
CHAPTER I.
A.D. 6S1-IO75.
THE CONVERSION OF THE SOUTH SAXONS AND THE FORMATION OF THE DIOCESE.
The history of the existing Church in our island dates from the year a.d. 597, when St. Augustine founded the metropolitan see of Canterbury. There is no continuity between the life of the British Church and the life of the English Church. The Teutonic invasion of Saxons, Jutes, and Angles, was a wave of barbarism and heathenism which swept away alike the civilization and the religion which had been planted in Britain while it was a Roman province. British Christianity was driven with the Britons into the remote western parts of the country ; elsewhere it survived, if at all, only in small patches, and, so to speak, in holes and corners.
In other parts of the Roman empire the incursions of the northern races had not been so destructive in their effects. The Ostrogoths and Lombards in
B
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Italy, the Visigoths in Spain, the Franks in Gaul, gradually adopted more or less the Roman language, religion, and laws. Latin, with the infusion of a Teutonic element, was the groundwork of the tongues, called the Romance languages, spoken in these coun- tries. In England, on the contrary, the language had a Teutonic basis, with only a small infusion of Celtic, and a large infusion of French after the Norman Conquest.
The reason of this difference between the effects of the Teutonic invasion in Britain, and in other parts of the empire, was twofold.
First, the hold of the Romans upon this distant province was less vigorous than upon the provinces nearer home. The empire was old and decadent in the fifth century of our era, and, as in the human body, so in the body politic, in old age the life blood circulated more feebly in the extremities than in the more central regions, nearer to the heart.
Secondly, the tribes who invaded Britain had not already come into contact, like the Goths and Franks, with Roman power or civilization ; they had not learned to respect the one or to emulate the other.
In no part of the island did the invaders accomplish the work of destruction and extirpation more ruth- lessly than in the region which was taken by the South Saxons, and which bears the impress of their name to the present day.
Twenty-eight years after the Jutes had settled themselves in Kent, that is to say, in a.d. 477, " came .^lle to Britain, and his three sons, Cymen, AMencing, and Cissa, with three ships, at the place which is
THE CONVERSION OF THE SOUTH SAXONS. 3
named Cymenesora,i and there slew many Welsh,^ and drove some into the forest, which is named Andre- deslea." Such is the brief record, in the chronicle, of the landing of our South Saxon forefathers.
Eight years later, a.d. 485, we read that ^Ue fought a battle with the Welsh, near the bank of Markredesburne (possibly Seaford).
Five years after this came the crushing blow. The Saxons gradually fought their way eastwards from the point at which they had landed, and at last the British were brought to bay. The visitor to Pevensey may see the remains of massive walls and towers of Roman workmanship. They are the vestiges of the fortress known in British times by the name of Andre- desceaster, one of a chain of fortresses built by the Romans to protect the southern coast from the attacks of piratical adventurers. Behind these walls, then, the British made their final stand for freedom. Later chroniclers describe the conflict between besiegers and besieged as long and obstinate. But the Saxon chronicle contents itself with stating the result — the total overthrow of the place ; the pitiless massacre of all its inhabitants.
" In this year, a.d. 490, ^lle and Cissa besieged Andredesceaster, and slew all that dwelt therein, so that not even one Briton was there left. A record, observes Gibbon, " more dreadful in its simplicity than all the vague and tedious lamentations of the
' Near Wittering, at the mouth of the estuary now called Chichester Harbour.
^ i.t., of course_ British. "Wealas" is merely the old English word for " strangers."
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British Jeremiah. After inflicting this crushing de- feat the South Saxons were left complete masters of the long strip of country extending from Hastings, at the eastern extremity, to Chichester, at the western. Cissa, the youngest son of ^lle, repaired the fortifica- tions of the old Roman city, Regnum, which came to be called, in consequence, after his name, Cissanceaster, or Cissa's Camp, and in time Chichester. This narrow tract between the South Downs and the sea supplied excellent pasturage for cattle and tillage for com. Northwards it was shut in by the great weald or forest of Anderida, which stretched for 120 miles, from the borders of Kent as far as Privet, in Hampshire, and was 30 miles in breadth. A few British may have lurked in the recesses of the forest belt after the capture of Andredesceaster, but only as scattered remnants. The conquering race gradually penetrated the weald, and made settlements for themselves in those spots, of which the names testify alike to their Saxon origin and the sylvan character of the country.^ The waifs and strays of the British population which may have been lingering there, were either destroyed or expelled ; possibly in some instances, but more rarely, absorbed into the Teutonic stock. And with the Britons were swept away all the Christianity and civilization which had existed in that part of the country, of which the heathen and barbarous invader now took possession.
' i.e., Gildas. Gibbon, vi. 372. Milman's edit.
= The termination "hurst," and "lye" or " ley," "field " or "fold," are of perpetual occurrence in the local nomenclature of the Weald of Sussex.
THE CONVERSION OF THE SOUTH SAXONS. 5
If he disdained to preserve the villas, the mosaics, and the pottery, of which such beautiful specimens have been dug up in our own day in the fields at Bignor,i we may be sure that he did not treat the Christian churches with more respect. Representing, as they did, the religion of a people whom he despised, the probability is that many were destroyed, while many more gradually crumbled to decay from desertion and neglect.
For two hundred years the kingdom of the South Saxons remained in this benighted condition. "Dark- ness covered the land, and gross darkness the people." Of all the tribes which took part in the conquest of Britain, they had the reputation of being the most ignorant and savage, and they were the last to be converted to the Christian faith. This latter fact, how- ever, was due more to the force of circumstances than to the character of the people. The men of Kent had accepted the gospel in the year 597, and it might have been expected that the South Saxons would have been among the first to learn the truth from their neighbours. But such was not the case. The stream of missionary enterprise was drawn in a different direction. It did not follow the course naturally indicated by the relative geographical position of the several kingdoms, but that which was shaped for it by their political or social relations. Rochester was the second see founded in England, because Rochester was probably the capital of a small king- dom of the West Kentings, subordinate to ^thelberht, the first Christian king. London became the third ' Near Arundel.
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see, because Sigeberht, King of the East Saxons, was ^thelberht's nephew, and wished to adopt for himself and his subjects the religion which his uncle had em- braced. York became the fourth see, because the Northumbrian king, Eadwine, married .^thelberht's daughter, who was a Christian, and took a mission- ary -with her to her northern home in the person of Paulinus, her chaplain, one of the Italian companions of St. Augustine.
No political or matrimonial ties of this kind con- nected the South Saxon kingdom with its immediate neighbours, Kent on the one side, and Wessex on the other. St Augustine and his fellow missionaries were not endowed with that indomitable spirit of enterprise and martyrdom, which urges men into un- known and perilous regions. Wessex was converted by Birinus in 635, who was sent direct from Rome, but his missionary labours, and the labours of his immediate successors, the Bishops of Winchester and Sherborne, naturally followed the course of West Saxon conquest, which was being continually pushed westwards and northwards, and consequently, further and further from South Saxon territory.
So the South Saxons remained, in the middle of the seventh century, wrapped in an ignorance of Christian light and civilization, as deep and dense as their own forest of Anderida, which was, indeed, a formidable barrier to the approach either of friends or foes.
There was, however, one tiny spot in Sussex where, in the middle of the seventh century, the light of Christ- ian faith was burning, but it was a mere taper, too feeble to illuminate the surrounding waste of Paganism.
THE CONVERSION OF THE SOUTH SAXONS. ^
At the head of a branch of that same estuary, near the mouth of which ^Ue and Cissa first set foot on British soil, one of their followers, Boso or Bosa, made his settlement, which came to be called after him, Bosenham or Bosham. And here, too, a Christian, named Dicul, of Irish descent, had planted a small monastery, where, in the words of Bede,i " surrounded by woods and water, lived five or six brethren, serving the Lord in humility and poverty." How they came there neither Bede nor any other historian informs us. Possibly they were an offshoot of the great monastery which St. Columba had founded in Ireland, in the sixth century, and of the missionary spirit which he engendered there. Anyhow, Dicul and his com- panions had not succeeded in making any impres- sion, if they had ever attempted it, on their pagan neighbours. "No one," says Bede, "cared to emulate their life, or to listen to their teaching."
The Apostle of Sussex came from a distant quarter whence no one could have foreseen or expected his arrival. Wilfrith, Archbishop of York, was one of those characters who are impelled by their fiery and restless energy beyond the bounds which seem natur- ally prescribed for their sphere of work. They are here and there and everywhere, and have a hand in everything which is within the possible reach of their activity. Wilfrith's connexion with Sussex is only one of many episodes in his chequered and tangled career, the unravelment of which would far exceed the limits of this history. It must suffice to mention
' iv., c. 13.
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here, that in the year 680, in consequence of an appeal which he had made to Rome against a new division of the Northumbrian diocese, he was banished from his see by the decree of the Northumbrian king, Ecgfrith, and his Witan. He could not find a secure refuge in Mercia or Wessex, because the royal families in these kingdoms were connected by marriage with the Northumbrian king. And so he continued his jour- ney southwards, until at last he entered the territory of ^thelwealh, King of the South Saxons. He was probably the first Englishman of learning and culture who had pierced the mighty forest belt of Anderida, and his arrival was destined to be the introduction into Sussex of Christianity and civilization. King yEthelwealh had married a Christian vnfe, of Huic- cian birth, and had himself become a Christian through the influence of Wulfhere, a Christian king of Mercia, who had entered into alliance with him against the growing power of the West Saxon king- dom, ^thelwealh had either lacked energy or knowledge to propagate among his people the faith which he had himself embraced. But he was glad to welcome the powerful and learned prelate, one of the most renowned men of his age, who, by a strange turn of events, was now brought to his doors in the guise of a homeless exile. AVilfrith, then, was cour- teously and hospitably received at the royal dwelling. This was not at Chichester. The early English kings and nobles, true to the habits and tastes of the Teutonic race, as described by Tacitus,' had no liking
' " Mores Germanoram," ch. 16.
THE CONVERSION OF THE SOUTH SAXONS. 9
for towns, and commonly resided at a distance from them, ^thelwealh's abode at this time was on the shore of the flat, dreary, but fertile peninsula of Selsey, which projects into the sea about ten miles due south of Chichester. Here the wandering prelate found a refuge. Strangely enough, it was not the first time that he had set foot on South Saxon soil. About twenty years before, when returning from Gaul, where he had gone to receive consecration at the hands of his friend Agilberht, Bishop of Paris, he had been driven by a tempest on the Sussex coast. The natives were barbarous and merciless wreckers. Led on by one of their priests, they made a ferocious attack upon the stranded vessel. The bishop's crew and retinue, numbering 120, offered a brave resistance, whilst the bishop himself and his clergy knelt down and prayed for their success. At last one of the episcopal party, " like another David," says the bio- grapher,! smote the heathen priest a deadly blow in the forehead with a pebble. The enraged barbarians only renewed the assault more furiously ; thrice they advanced, but thrice they were repelled. They were collecting larger forces for a fourth attack, when the grounded vessel floated with the rising tide ; the bishop and his party got out to sea, and landed in safety at Sandwich, on the shores of Christian Kent. And now, as an honoured guest at the court of -(^^thelwealh, he took a noble revenge for the ill- treatment which he had formerly experienced at the hands of his barbarous people. It was a season of
Eddius, a chaplain of Wilfrith's.
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severe distress in that part of Sussex. Owing to a long-continued drought many of the crops had failed, and the people were so stupid, or so timid, that they had not learned how to catch fish in the open sea, but only took the eels which they found in the muddy inlets and estuaries at low tide.^ They were, indeed, reduced to such extremities of famine, that many of them would cast themselves into the sea, to put an end to their miserable existence. Wilfrith and his companions made some nets, and had the good for- tune, on their first experiment, to capture a large draught of fishes. One of the surest roads to people's hearts, it has been said, is dowTi their throats, and the grateful natives were now mlling to listen to instruc- tion from their northern visitors upon deeper matters than the art of catching fish. For several months Wilfrid went about the country preaching with inde- fatigable zeal and great success. At last a great multitude were baptized in one day. " And on that day," says Bede, '•' the rain, so long withheld, revisited the thirsty land." Fresh vegetation and the new faith burst into life together. The grateful ^thelwealh made a grant of lands in Selsey to Wilfrith. They contained a population of 87 families, among which were 250 slaves of both sexes. Wilfrith immediately baptised and enfranchised them, thus emancipating them, as Bede remarks, from the yoke of spiritual and temporal bondage at the same moment.
Thus the peninsula of Selsey, now little known to any except a few resident clerg}', farmers, and peasants,
' Beda, iv., c. 13.
THE CONVERSION OF THE SOUTH SAXONS. II
was the original source and centre of Christianity and civilization in Sussex. Here the king had his royal dwelling : here Wilfrith built the church in which stood his Episcopal cathedra or throne : " stool " or " settle " as it is called in old English : the first cathedral church in Sussex, which he dedicated to St. Peter, mindful, doubtless, of his own greater cathedral church of St. Peter at York. The church of Wilfrith at Selsey has long been swept away by the encroach- ments of the envious sea : no vestiges or traditions of its character survive. Wilfrith, however, was a man who always did with his might what his hand found to do : and we may be sure that he who restored the church of York, and built the churches of Ripon and Hexham on a magnificent scale, made the best of such resources as he could command in building the church of Selsey. Hard by the church was the home of Wilfrith and his followers who were sent forth by him, or accompanied him on expeditions to preach, teach, and baptize in the surrounding country. These missionary excursions from the mother church were gradually followed by the foundation of parish churches, or of private chapels on the estates of land- owners who had become converted to the faith.i The parishes most likely to be first provided with churches and resident priests were those situated on the land originally given to the bishop. The original charters of yEthelwealh and his successor, Ceadwalla, granting estates to Wilfrith have been lost ; and the copies of
' The parochial boundaries coincided very commonly with the limits of the estate ; hence the peculiar and inconvenient shape of many of our parishes, especially in Western Sussex.
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the charter of Ceadwalla contained in the cathedral archives are probably not earlier than the latter part of the Fourteenth Century. Yet there is little reason to doubt that the places there indicated, most of which may still be identified, such as Wightring, Ichenor, Bosham, Birdham, Sidlesham, Aldingbourne, Mund- ham, Amberley, and Houghton were nearly, if not quite, the earliest in which parish churches and parish priests were planted. It is not at all improbable that in many places the adaptation of existing heathen temples to Christian worship obviated the necessity of building churches. ^
About three years after the settlement of Wilfrith at Selsey, a revolution occurred which swept away the Kingdom of Sussex. Ceadwalla was a member of the house of Cerdic — the royal race of Wessex — but he had been banished by the King Kentwine as a danger- ous aspirant to the throne. He had led a hard life as an outlaw for some years in the forests of Chiltern and Anderida. On the death of Kentwine in 685 he began " to strive for the kingdom." ^ In the follow- ing year he ravaged Kent, Sussex, and the Isle of Wight, ^thelwealh fell in battle against the invader, and after a short resistance by two South Saxon ealdor- men, Sussex fell completely under the sway of Cead- walla, who had established himself on the throne of Wessex. Ceadwalla, however, had been befriended by Wilfrith in the days of his exile, and he now requited his kindness. He was converted to the
' See Mr. Kemble's remarks on this point. "Saxons in England," vol. ii., p. 424. ^ Sax. Chron.
THE CONVERSION OF THE SOUTH SAXONS. 1 3
Christian faith, he confirmed the possession of the lands which had aheady been granted to the See by ^thehvealh, and when he conquered the Isle of Wight, he committed the conversion of the inhabitants to Wil- frith. He is a remarkable illustration of the intensely real way in which Christianity, when once embraced, came home to the rough, simple, but earnest, natures of men in those days. The wild outlaw, the fierce con- queror became a devotee. After two years he aban- doned his kingdom to make a pilgrimage to Rome and be baptized by the Pope. He was baptized by Pope Sergius in 689, died a few days afterwards, and was buried in St. Peter's.
About the same time the connexion of Wilfrith with Sussex came to an end. Ecgfrith, the Northum- brian king who had driven him into exile, fell in battle in 685, and soon after this event Wilfrith was restored to his See at York.
Among the converts to Christianity made during the sojourn of Wilfrith in Sussex none are known to us by name except one. This is Saint Lewinna. All we learn about her^ is that she was a lady who suffered martyrdom on account of her faith, at the hands of a heathen Saxon, during the primacy of Archbishop Theodore, who died in 690, and that her body was buried, and her remains held in great honour, in a monastery dedicated to St. Andrew, not far from the sea. Three hundred and fifty years later, in 1058, her reputation was still so high that a monk from the monastery of Bergue, in Flanders, was
' " Acta Sanctorum," July, xxiv., p. 608. See also "Sussex Archseol. Coll." vol i., p. 48.
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immensely gratified when he succeeded in stealing her relics and conveyed them in triumph to his house, where the abbot and brethren heartily congratulated him and themselves on the acquisition of so valuable a prize. A long and curious account of this theft has been related by a contemporary monk, Drogo, and his description of the coast where Balgerus, the hero of the exploit, landed, seems to indicate that it was in the neighbourhood of Seaford. The history, there- fore, of Lewinna, meagre as it is, proves two things, first, that South Saxon paganism did not give way to Christianity without a struggle, and, secondly, that even during the episcopate of Wilfrith the faith had extended from Selsey to the eastern portion of the South Saxon kingdom.
After the departure of Wilfrith from Selsey the Bishopric of Sussex lay vacant for several years. The Kingdom after the overthrow of ^thelwealh became an appanage of Wessex, and as in temporal matters, Sussex was subject to the West Saxon kings, so in ecclesiastical matters it was subject to the bishops of Winchester. This state of things lasted for about twenty years. At length, in 705, King Ine, the suc- cessor of Ceadwalla, resolved with his witan to divide the diocese, which had grovm to an unwieldy size, owing to the great extension of the West Saxon Kingdom. Accordingly, a new see was erected at Sherborne, and four years afterwards the See of Selsey was revived. The clergy whom Wilfrith had gathered jround him at Selsey — the original chapter, in fact, of the cathedral church — had remained after his departure — some possibly living as parish priests on
THE CONVERSION OF THE SOUTH SAXONS. 15
the lands which had been given to the see, others residing in houses adjoining the cathedral, except when they went out on missionary excursions ; the church and its dependent buildings forming together what was called the monasterium, or minster; whether the community consisted of monks or of secular priests. 1 Wilfrith, of course, had been the head of the community; on his departure he probably nominated a president, and any subsequent vacancy would be filled up by election. Eadberht was the president of the brotherhood in 709, and on the revival of the see in that year he was consecrated Bishop of Selsey.
From this time, with occasional intervals of suspen- sion, the See of Selsey was regularly occupied by a succession of twenty-two bishops, covering a space of nearly 370 years, at the end of which the bishopric was transplanted to Chichester. During this period our materials for the history of the diocese are ex- ceedingly meagre. Of the bishops themselves for the
' The distinction betweeen secular and regular clergy is so commonly misunderstood, that it may be as well to remind the reader that the seculars were either parish priests living on their benefices, and in early English times very commonly married men, or they were canons of cathedral or collegiate churches. They were called seculars from their living " iti srrculo " in the world, as distinguished from the regulars or monks who lived under vows of obedience to a regula, or rule, in one building with a common dormitory, common refectory, common property. The latter were, of course, never married ; some were laymen, others in holy orders. The common error is in imagining that all clergy were monks, and all monks clergy. The word "monas- terium" was often used to signify any large church.
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most part we know little more than the names, which we learn from their signatures to charters. These charters, however, are the best remaining indications of the progress which Christianity was making in Sussex, being the legal documents by which grants of land were made either to the See of Selsey, or to private individuals for the purpose of erecting churches and monasteries.
The pious preambles to these charters, and the terrific imprecations invoked upon those who should dare to injure the gift or defraud the persons for whom it was intended are sometimes entertaining, and always instructive. They exhibit an almost touching simplicity of faith that the donor will be rewarded for his meritorious deed, and that the spoiler will be visited with the most severe pains and penalties, pro- bably in this world, but certainly in the world to come. Very often sentences and phrases are heaped together in the most grandiloquent style which the com- poser of the document could invent. A few extracts translated from some of the principal charters relating to gifts of land for church purposes in Sussex will sufBce to mark their character, and to illustrate the way in which Christianity gradually crept into all parts of the diocese.
In 692, Nothelm, King of the South Saxons, for the benefit of his soul, and knowing that whatever he gives of his own property to members of Christ Avill profit him in the future, willingly grants to his sister, Nothgitha, a portion of land for building a monastery and a church which may minister to the glor}'ofGod, and the honour of the saints. The gift consists of
THE CONVERSION OF THE SOUTH SAXONS. 1 7
thirty-eight hides of land at Lidsey, Aldingboume, Genstedegate, and Mundham. " If any one dares to diminish aught, be it much or little, from this gift, let him know that he will suffer the penalty of his presumption at the strict judgment of Almighty God." 1
In 714 and 725, Nunna, King of the South Saxons, grants lands at Herotunum, Brakelesham, Sidlesham, Lavington,2 and other places, to tlie monastery of Selsey, where he wishes his body to repose.
The same Nunna, in an undated charter, grants four hides of land at Pipering to a servant of God, named Bertfrith, on condition that prayers are offered there night and day on behalf of the donor. The same document records that Bertfrith being aged and desirous to release himself from all wordly affairs and to serve God only, has surrendered his property together with himself to Eolla, Bishop of Selsey. In other words, probably he became a monk in the house established on the land granted by Nunna and then surrendered the house to the Bishop of Selsey. Eolla accepts the gift with the consent of the brethren {i.e., the chapter at Selsy) and of the King Nunna.^
In 765, Osmund, who does not in this charter more distinctly describe himself, but in another five years later styles himself as King, grants twelve hides of land at Ferring at the request of his Earl V/alhere, for the building of a monastery thereon.''
' Kemble's " Cod. Dipl." 995.
' " Cod. Dipl.," 999, 1000, " Ilcrotunum ' i.^ harJ (0 identify — possibly it was Harting. * "Cod. Dipl.," looi. ■* "Cod. Dipl.,' 1008.
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In 770, Osmund at the prayer of "my Count Warbald and his wife Tidburh," grants fifteen hides of land for the endowment of the Church of the Blessed Apostle Peter at Hanefield. The preamble of this charter is a good specimen.
" In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We brought nothing into this world, neither can we carry anything out : and, therefore, eternal rewards are to be purchased with things earthly and fleeting. 'Where- fore I," etc.i
About 774, ^thelberht, described as King of the South Saxons, gives eighteen hides of land " for the benefit of his soul to a venerable man named Diozsan, for the erection of a monastery ^ at Wystringes (Wittering) with all things thereto pertaining — meadows, woods, and fish stream." ^
The signatures to these charters are instructive as illustrating the relations of Sussex ecclesiastically and politically to the rest of the country. During the latter part of the Seventh Century, and the first half of the Eighth, when Sussex was under the dominion of Wessex, the witnesses who attest the charters in addition to the BishoiDS of Selsey are the Kings of Wessex and the Bishops of Winchester. But during the^atter half of the eighth century, when the might of Offa had made Mercia the dominant kingdom, our Sussex charters are commonly signed by the Mercian
• "Cod. Dipl.," 1009.
' It must be borne in mind that "monastery" in these charters, as in many writings of the same period, often signified merely a church and its adjuncts.
' "Cod. Dipl.," loio.
THE CONVERSION OF THE SOUTH SAXONS. 1 9
kings, and by the bishops of Mercian sees — Dorches- ter, Worcester, and Lichfield.
In 825, at the great Council of Clovesho held under Beornvfulph, King of Mercia, a dispute of long stand- ing between the Kings of Mercia and the Bishops of Selsey concerning land at Denton, which the king claimed for the monastery of Beddingham, was finally setded in favour of the see. This marks the transi- tion from the supremacy of Mercia to that of Wessex. Ecgberht had given a fatal blow to Mercia in the great battle of EUendune in 825, and from this time the names of Mercian kings disappear from all documents relating to South Saxon affairs.
One of the earliest (if not the earliest of all) ecclesi- astical foundations in East Sussex was at Old Mailing. Here, on the banks of the Ouse, about half a mile north of Lewes, a church was planted and dedicated to S. Michael the Archangel, by Ealdulf, one of the ealdor- men who strove for a short time, but in vain, to maintain the independence of the South Saxon kingdom, after the death of Athelwealh, against the might of Cead- walla. Whether it became a collegiate church before the time of Archbishop Theobald, who is said to have endowed it, is uncertain. Cead walla himself is in some documents called the founder of the college, and very probably after his conversion to Christianity he became a benefactor to the Church, but in the list of those founders and benefactors for whose souls the members of the college were directed by their statutes to offer daily prayers, precedence before all is given to " The most serene highness, Ealdulf, formerly Duke of Southsax, and first founder of this college." c 2
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The process by which the manor of Old Mailing became annexed to the See of Canterbury supplies an interesting illustration of the constitutional history of this country. It was originally granted by Baldred, King of Kent.i But at the time he made the grant, in the year 823, Baldred had been driven out of his kingdom by the advancing power of Ecgberht, the great West Saxon king, whose son, yEthelwulf, had invaded Kent. The gift of Baldred, therefore, was held to be invalid, because it was made without the knowledge and consent of the Witanagemote. Conse- quently, in 838, a gemote was held by Ecgberht, at Kingston-on-Thames, at which the grant was formally renewed. 2 The manor in question was a narrow belt of land from twenty-five to thirty miles long, ex- tending in a north-easterly direction from the town of Lewes to the borders of Kent. The parishes which then existed, or were afterwards formed within the boundaries of the manor, were all under the peculiar jurisdiction of the Archbishops of Canterbury, and so remained until the recent abolition of peculiars. One of them was JNIayfield, and St. Dunstan built a wooden church there. The manor-house at Mayfield became a favourite resort of the Archbishops of Canterbury in the mediceval times, and the remains of it are well worth a visit at the present day.
The record of the foundation of the church at Steyning, by St. Cuthman, although so much mixed
' This seems clearly to indicate that after the extinction of the South Saxon Kingdom, the Kentish kings had endeavoured to wrest the eastern parts of Sussex from the West Saxon sub- jection. ' Haddan and Stubb's "Conciha," vol. iii.
THE CONVERSION OF THE SOUTH SAXONS. 21
up with legendary matter, that it is hard to disentangle truth from fiction, rests, no doubt, upon some solid basis of fact.i Cuthman was a West Saxon youth, distinguished for his piety. Like David, he kept his father's sheep. On his father's death he and his mother were reduced to great poverty. He resolved to seek a new abode, taking his mother with him, for whom, being aged and infirm, he constructed a kind of moveable couch, which, from the description of it, must have been very like a large wheelbarrow. They set out journeying eastwards. Cuthman had hard work to propel the barrow with his mother. Once the cord which passed over his shoulders broke ; but he replaced it with pliant twigs of elder. Some hay- makers in a field where this occurred jeered at the contrivance : they were punished by a heavy shower, which was said to fall ever afterwards annn.ally in the samemeadow when the grass was beingcul. Cuthman's elder twigs held out well for some time, but at last they broke. This occurred at Steyning, v. liich is accu- rately described as situated at the foot of a lofty hill {i.e., the South Downs), and enclosed by t ,, o streams. Cuthman regarded the second break-down of his barrow as a divine intimation that here he was to rest from his wanderings. He set about building a hut to shelter himself and his mother. The country was densely covered with thicket, and the inhabitants were few and ignorant. Cuthman was filled with a desire to improve their condition. After much toil and many impediments, but supported by divers
* "Acta Sanctorum," vol. ii., p. 197. " Suss. Arch.," vol. v.
22
SELSEY.
Strange and miraculous aids, he succeeded in building a church. At his death he was buried in the church which he had toiled to build, and his reputation for sanctity had become so great that pilgrims came from afar to worship at his shrine, and thus the Church of Cuthman became the nucleus of the little town of Steyning. It is a specimen of the way in which, all over the country, towns or villages grew up around churches or monastic houses, which thus became the starting-points and centres of Christianity and civiliza- tion. Steyning will have to be noticed again in the course of our history. For the present it is sufficient to mention that, according to Asser, the secretarj' of King Alfred, ^Ethelwulf, the father of Alfred, was buried at Steyning,^ and that Alfred himself had an estate here, which he bequeaths in his will to his nephew Athelwold.
Sussex, of course, shared the general depression of learning and religion which the whole country suf- fered during the greater part of the 9th centur)% owing mainly to internal revolutions and the inroads of the Danes. The days in which Wilfrith came to Sussex were the brightest period in the life of the early English Church. It was the age of Baeda and of Theodore ; the age when monastic learning and
' The Chronicle, and Florence of Worcester, say that he was buried at Winchester. At the time of his death, however, Wessex was possessed by his son /Ethelbald, to whom ^thel- ■wulf had given up that kingdom in order to avoid a civil war. It is quite probable, therefore, that he was buried in the first instance at Steyning, and after the death of his unnatural son, was moved to Winchester.
THE CONVERSION OF THE SOUTH SAXONS. 23
piety, ecclesiastical discipline and organization reached their highest level. But when Alfred came to the throne in 871, he laments that there were few monks who could read the works with which their shelves had been stored by the learned labours of their predecessors.
From the death of Ecgberht, a.d. 839, till the great victory of Alfred at Ethandun, and the peace of Wedmore in 878, after which the Danes were confined to the country north of Watling Street, almost all public business except fighting was at a standstill. The extreme paucity of charters signed by Bishops of Selsey during this period indicates the check to the progress of the Church in their diocese.
There is no record, however, of any special depreda- tions committed by the Danes at Selsey or any other ecclesiastical foundation in Sussex. In Alfred's final struggle with the Danes we read, that in 895, a Danish force, which had been repulsed from Exeter, "harried on the South Saxons," near Chichester, but was put to flight by the inhabitants, and many of the Danish ships were taken. The establishment at Selsey may have owed its safety partly to its smallness and poverty, which would not allure the spoiler ; partly to its situation on the point of a peninsula, with an open shore in front, and a marshy, woody country behind. The Danes, as a rule, crept up rivers and creeks where they could leave their vessels in secu- rity while they pillaged the surrounding country. Such an inlet was the winding channel which opens from the sea nearly opposite the east end of the Isle of Wight, and parts into two branches, one of which
24
SELSEY.
ends near Bosham, the other near Chichester. Up this channel, no doubt, the Danes worked their way when they attacked Chichester in 895, but were driven off.
In the prosperous days of Alfred's grandson, the "glorious y^lthelstan," the "magnificent Eadward," and his great grandson, the "peaceful Eadgar," the Church recovered from her prostrate condition. Under Archbishops Odo and Dunstan, and ^Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, the monasteries were rigorously reformed, and in many places the secular clergy were displaced for regulars. .^Ethelgar, Bishop of Selsey in 980, was one of the many prelates eminent for learning and strict enforcement of monastic discipline who had been trained at Glastonburj'. ^thelgar, however, did not displace the secular canons at Seise)'. We may either suppose that the condition of the chapter was satisfactory, and, perhaps, nearly assimilated in manner of life to a monastic body, or that .^thelgar had been shocked by the harshness with which ^f^thehvold had turned out the seculars from the neighbouring Cathedral Church of Win- chester. After occupying the See of Selsey for eight years, ^thelgar was translated to Canterbury, as suc- cessor to the great Archbishop Dunstan.
The Episcopates of ^thelgar, and of his two suc- cessors in the See of Selsey, Ordberht and ^Imer, nearly coincide with the disastrous reign of the un- happy and "unready,"^ .^thelred, a.d. 976-1016, when the Danesrenewed their incursions in overwhelm- ing numbers, and aimed not only at pillage, but at con-
' i.e, lacking "rede" or counsel; "the ill-judging."
THE CONVERSION OF THE SOUTH SAXONS. 25
quest. The Chapter of Selsey must have trembled, especially after the murder of Archbishop AiUheah, at Canterbury, when they saw the " heathen men " cross year by year from their winter quarters in the Isle of Wight to the shores of Sussex on their way to the inner parts of the country ; and the lands belonging to the See must have suffered from their depredations on their passage to and fro. The miseries of the Danish invasions were brought to an end by the election of Cnut the Dane to the English throne. During his reign, loi 7-1035, the Church once more revived, and they must have been prosperous days for it in Sussex, for Godwine, the mighty Earl of Wessex and friend of the king, had a residence at Bosham, and ^thelric, the Bishop of Selsey, was the intimate friend of the Archbishop "^thelnoth, the Good," who had baptized Cnut, and advised and encouraged him in all his good works for the Church.
Three more bishops occupied the See of Selsey during the reigns of Edward the Confessor and Harold, and then the See was transplanted from Selsey to Chichester. As at Dunwich, in Suffolk, so at Selsey, the site of the old cathedral and its surrounding buildings has long been overwhelmed by the sea. Yet a few vestiges of them remain in the local nomenclature. A part of the water where the little fleet of the Selsey fishermen now rides at anchor is called the Bishop's Park ; and a strip of the shore washed by the waves of the Bishop's Park is called the Bishop's Coppice. North-east of the Bishop's Coppice, on a gentle eminence, stands the little chancel of the parish church, a forlorn, weather-
26
SELSEY.
beaten fragment, built in the simplest early English style. The neighbourhood of the churchyard is full of stonework beneath the soil, but whether these are the remains of the episcopal buildings, or of the old town, cannot be decided without further excavations than have hitherto been made. The present village is two miles distant from this spot, and the nave of the parish church was therefore taken down some years ago, and rebuilt stone for stone in the village. The old deserted chancel, however, is still used for burials and baptisms, and the very ancient font may perhaps be coeval with the removal of the See to Chichester, and so may have stood in the Cathe- dral of Selsey. Relics and treasures were, no doubt, removed to Chichester when the Bishop's throne was transferred, but these have all perished. Some rude and quaint, but forcible bits of stone sculp- ture, representing the raising of Lazarus, which now stand in the South Choir Aisle, were found behind the Stalls in 1829. Not improbably they had been placed there during the siege of Chichester, in 1643, to conceal them from the parliamentary soldiers who made havoc of the cathedral monuments. It has been supposed that this carved work may have been brought from Selsey, but, though doubtless of great antiquity, it probably belongs to a century later than the date of the removal of the See.
Here, then, end the annals of the South Saxon diocese prior to the Norman Conquest. In this, as in so many periods of history for which the materials are scanty, it is difficult to imagine the space of time which has been traversed. It needs an effort of mind
THE CONVERSION OF THE SOUTH SAXONS. 2^
to grasp the idea that there were twenty-two bishops of the South Saxons who had their cathedral church on the storm-beaten shore of Selsey for 350 years, as long a period as that which parts the reign of Henry VIII. from the reign of Queen Victoria.
The early annals of our diocese, however, brief and fragmentary though they are, are full of instruc- tion. They illustrate, in fact, some of the main principles on which the constitution of our national Church was originally based, and the differences which marked off its character from that of other Churches in other parts of the world.
(i.) Christianity in the Roman Empire had origi- nally worked upwards from the lowliest and poorest classes to the highest, but in England the process was reversed. In England the Church started from the courts and households of kings, and worked outwards until it embraced all ranks. As with Wilfrith in Sussex, so elsewhere in England, the first bishop commonly planted his Church and the home of his missionary staff near one of the royal dwellings. There was from the first the closest possible alliance between Church and State. The bishop had a place in the Witanage- mote ; he sat side by side with the ealdorman in the Scirgemote. The lines of the diocese followed the lines of the kingdom. The king was the directing spirit of the people in temporal affairs, the bishop in spiritual matters within the same boundaries. In like manner, as Christianity advanced, on every manor or estate there was a church and a priest ; the owner of the estate was the temporal, the priest the spiritual father of the people within the lines of the property.
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SELSEV.
Church and State were in fact throughout only two sides of the same thing.
(2.) When Christianity was introduced into Italy, Gaul, and Spain, Roman institutions, habits, and modes of government prevailed in those countries, and, in the Roman system, the city was the centre of all national life. Naturally, therefore, the Episcopal Sees were fixed in the chief cities, and the limits of the bishop's spiritual authority commonly corresponded with the limits of the temporal jurisdiction of which the city was the centre. In England it was quite otherwise, English ideas, habits, tastes, forms of government, were not derived from Roman models. The English were lovers of the country rather than of the town. The king often dwelt, like ^^ithelwealh at Selsey, at a considerable distance from any large town. He moved about for the purposes of business or of sport from one royal dwelling to another within his dominions. In like manner, the bishop moved from one episcopal manor house to another within his diocese. Kings and bishops were alike regarded rather as fathers of their people, than as rulers of so much territory. Hence, we never read of Kings of Sussex or Bishops of Selsey, but always of Kings and Bishops of the South Saxons. The tribal designation is the rule in all cases, but in Sussex, prior to the Norman Conquest, it is the invariable rule. Sussex is a t\'pical specimen of the general principle. The lines of the diocese commonly corresponded with the lines of the kingdom. Larger kingdoms, such as Wessex, often contained small dependent kingdoms, and then fresh dioceses were formed coinciding with these sub-kingdoms.
THE CONVERSION OF THE SOUTH SAXONS. 29
Sussex itself was at first a small independent kingdom ; it then became, as we have seen, a dependency of Wessex. But Wessex gradually absorbed all the other kingdoms. England was no longer many kingdoms, but one, made up of counties or shires, as divisions for administrative purposes. Thus Sussex became a county, and the boundaries of the South Saxon diocese have exactly coincided with the boundaries of a region which was firs ta kingdom, then a sub- kingdom, and finally a county.
This chapter must be closed with a few words on the Church architecture of the period through which we have been travelling. Examples of buildings prior to the Norman Conquest are not very plentiful in Sussex, though there are more in this diocese than in many others. It must be borne in mind, also, that such buildings or fragments of buildings are in most cases not older than the first half of the eleventh century. That is to say, they date from the reigns of Cnut and Edward the Confessor ; from the time when the ravages of the Danes had come to an end, and men could repair and reconstruct old fabrics, or build new ones in security and peace. The build- ings of that age, however, were constructed in the same style as earlier ones, of which we have undoubted relics in such churches as Monkwearmouth and Jarrow in the north of England, and Bradford-on-Avon in the south. This style, of which the examples in our coun- try are commonly called Anglo-Saxon, was in truth no invention of our English forefathers. It was merely the adaptation in England of that primitive Roman- esque style which prevailed throughout the whole of
30
SELSEY.
Western Christendom, down to the middle of the eleventh century, i The conversion of the English to Christianity brought them into sympathy with the rest of Christendom in architectural ideas and tastes as in so many other things. There is a passage in Bseda^ which illustrates this truth, and is in fact a key to the explanation of the whole matter. He says that when Benedict Biscop, in 675, determined to build a minster by the Wear, he crossed the sea to Gaul to get masons who could construct a stone church according to the Romafi fashion which he loved, and that he obtained the masons and brought them over with him.
No doubt also the remains of Roman basilicas, which must have been still standing in some places, often served as guides for the main principles of con- struction, and were som.etimes (as was the case at Canterbury) repaired and adapted for Christian worship.
Thus the main architectural features of churches erected prior to the middle of the eleventh cen- tury, are pretty much the same in Italy, Western Germany, Gaul, and England. After that date, this common style begins to be supplanted by distinct national styles, just as the Latin or Roman language, as it might be called, once common to all Romanized countries, gradually broke up into distinct national tongues. In England, as we shall see, the Romanesque
' See on this whole subject, Mr. Freeman's " Norman Con- quest," vol. v., ch. 26. » "Vita S. Benedict," c. 5.
THE CONVERSION OF THE SOUTH SAXONS. 3 1
Style of architecture gradually gave way to what is now called Norman.
All that can be attempted within the compass of this work, is to indicate the saUent features of this primitive Romanesque, and to annex the names of churches in Sussex where some of these features may be traced. It must be borne in mind, that the feeling and flavour, so to say, of this primitive style may often be discovered in buildings erected after the date when the style as a whole had ceased to prevail. As in other developments of the human mind, so in archi- tecture; it is not possible to draw a hard line and say, all the buildings on one side of a given date belong to this style, and all on the other side to that.
Chief characteristics of the primitive Romanesque. The names of the churches in Sussex where they may be traced are added in brackets.
(i.) Thick walls, composed mainly of rubble, some- times with tiles or stones here and there laid aslant in the fashion called herring-boning [Bosham], walls rough cast outside without buttresses, but divided at intervals by narrow strips of square stones like shallow pilasters [Worth and Woolbeding],
(2.) Quoins formed of massive stones placed alter- nately upright and flat, commonly called long and short work [Worth and Woolbeding].
(3.) Low, round-headed arches of coarse workman- ship, and sometimes of Roman materials (St. Olave's, Chichester), sometimes resting on semi-detached columns with cushioned capitals, generally plain, but occasionally [Selham] enriched with quaint carving. (4.) Towers, embuttressed and rather narrow in
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SELSEY.
proportion to their height, sometimes diminishing towards the top by stages [Bishopstone], ornamented externally by vertical stone strips like the church walls, and ending in gables on the four sides, with a pyramidal roof like many of the early German churches [Sompting, which is one of the most perfect specimens in all England, and bears some resemblance to the towers of St. Castor, at Coblenz].
(5.) Small openings in the belfry, sometimes with pointed heads like an arrow head, formed of two straight stones set on end [Bosham], sometimes round- headed, splayed outside as well as inside, and divided by small mid-wall shafts like balusters, encircled with bands of simple moulding [Bishopstone, Bunvash, and Jevington].
At Worth the base of the walls is of stonework in two stages, the upper receding. It bears some re- semblance to the graduated plinths of classical archi- tecture, some specimen of which may have suggested it. There is a similar resemblance to classicalwork in the bases of the chancel arch of Bosham, which has led to the supposition that the church may stand on the site of a Roman basilica.
REMOVAL OF THE SEE TO CHICHESTER.
33
CHAPTER II.
A.D. 1075 — 1288.
Removal of the See to Chichester — Effects of the Norman Con- quest upon the Diocese— The Bishops and the Cathedral Church.
The history of every diocese in England during the two centuries which extend from the coming of William the Norman to the reign of Edward the First, should be studied with close attention. For during that period, the framework of our constitution in Church and State was being formed, and the bishops and clergy had no mean share in forming it.
Among the Bishops of Chichester, we are supplied with good specimens of the three main types into which the prelates of that age may be divided. We see the pure ecclesiastic in Bishop Hilary, the states- man and ecclesiastic blended in Bishop Ralph Neville, and the pure saint in Bishop Richard of Wych.
Directly or indirectly also the history of our diocese will help us to trace the main features in the growth of the Church during this period, the division made by the Conqueror between the secular and spiritual courts of justice ; the relation of the bishops to the king, partly as feudal lords, partly as state officials ; the prominence of the clergy as the defenders of national liberty against the tyranny alike of kings and popes ; the rise and progress of the monastic and mendicant orders,
D
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CHICHESTER.
and their struggles for independence ; the increasing tendency to refer all disputes to the arbitration of the Pope, the gradual advance of Papal exactions, the grow- ing splendour of church architecture and ceremonial.
The first event which calls for our attention after the Norman Conquest, is of course the removal of the see from Selsey to Chichester. This fact is of itself no small indication of the change wrought in the administration of the realm after the Norman conquest. A love of the country was eminently characteristic of the purely English people. Not the city but the country regulated their habits of life, and the character of all their institutions. After the English occupation of Britain, many of the Roman- British cities fell into decay. As we have seen, the kings were regarded less as lords of the soil than as leaders of the people, and the bishops, in like manner, more as the spiritual fathers of their flocks than as the ecclesiastical rulers of a particular city and its surrounding district.
After the Conquest all this was changed. The age of building set in ; the fortification of towns, the erection of castles, and of churches as solid and massive as fortresses in their construction. Norman fabrics, as well as Norman institutions, betoken the heavy hand of conquerors who had to hold down and overawe the people whom they had subjugated. The government of the country is worked from a number of small centres, all subordinate to the sovereign as the centre of the whole. The Conqueror was the ruler of the land rather than the father or leader of his people. King of England rather than King of the
REMOVAL OF THE SEE TO CHICHESTER. 35
English. 1 The bishops were appointed by him in his great courts ; they were barons of the realm, subject to feudal obligations. As long as they had been EngUshmen appointed by the king and the witan for the spiritual supervision of a certain region, it mattered litde where, within the limits of that region, they fixed their see ; but when they came to be foreigners, nominees of a foreign king, and feudal barons of the realm, it was natural, almost necessary, that they should reside no longer in the secluded village or remote manor-houses, but in one of the chief towns of the diocese. Henceforth, too, the tribal desig- nation disappears, and is supplanted by the urban. We hear no more of Bishops of the West Saxons or of the South Saxons, only of Bishops of Winchester and Bishops of Chichester.
One of the great complaints of the patriotic party against Edward the Confessor, was that he thrust foreigners into English bishoprics, so that when William came to the throne, he found many of the sees already in the hands of the Norman prelates. He only made three direct depositions. Stigand, the primate, was removed to make way for Lanfranc ; and his brother /Ethelmar, Bishop of Elmham, in Norfolk, shared his fate. The third was ^thelric, Bishop of Selsey. Stigand had received his pall from the usurping Pope, Benedict the X., and ^thelric, who had been a monk at Canterbury,
' That is, in fact. William himself was usually styled " Rex Anglorum," but " Rex AngliK " is the title generally adopted by his successors, and by the time of John it was thoroughly established. See Freeman's "Norman Conquest," i., 586. D 2
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CHICHESTER.
having been consecrated by Stigand, may have been regarded as involved in his schismatical position. He was deposed with the other two in 1070, and placed in confinement at Marlborough. Another Stigand, one of the Conqueror's chaplains, was put into the see. ^thelric, however, re-appears soon after in an honourable position, and on an occasion too memorable to be passed by without notice.
When William paid his visit to Normandy after the invasion of England, he left his half-brother, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and William Fitz Osbern joint regents of the kingdom. On his return he found the people exasperated by the tyranny and rapacity of these two men. Churches had been ransacked, and church lands seized. Lanfranc demanded redress. William declared that justice should be done in con- formity with old English law. He summoned a scirgemot for Kent to meet on Penenden Heath, and expressed a desire that it should be attended by those English who were best acquainted with the laws and customs of their country, ^thelric, the deposed Bishop of Selsey, was recommended as a man profoundly versed in ecclesiastical law. He was now in extreme old_age, and by the king's order he was conveyed to Canterbury in a kind of wagon drawn by four horses. After a three days' trial on Penenden Heath, Odo was forced to make restitution of the property ; and, through the aid of JEthelric's learning, the rights of the See of Canterbury over those lands were clearly defined, the king's right of interference being restricted to cases of crime committed on such parts of his highways as ran through the land in question.
REMOVAL OF THE SEE TO CHICHESTER. 37
Five years after Stigand's elevation to the See of Selsey, 1075, a great ecclesiastical council was held in St. Paul's, London. Lanfranc presided; 14 bishops and 21 abbots were present. The decrees of that council embrace a wide range of subjects. The only one which concerns us here is that which was passed for the removal of episcopal sees from villages to towns. As an immediate consequence of this decree the see of Sherborne was transplanted to old Sarum, Lichfield (for a time) to Chester, and Selsey to Chichester. These were the only changes effected during the lifetime of the Conqueror, but several other sees were shifted after his death.
It may seem rather strange that when the see was removed from Selsey it was not fixed in a more central town than Chichester. Lewes, where William of Warren and his wife Gundrada soon afterwards founded the great priory of St. Pancras, might suggest itself as a more convenient site. Yet the advantages of Chichester were neither few nor small. Like Bath, Exeter, and Chester, it was an old Roman city ; the remains of the old Roman walls could readily be turned to account for purposes of fortification, the Roman road called Stane Street was a direct line of communication with London, and the winding estuary, of which one branch ended near Bosham and another near Chichester, was for the small craft of that period a convenient harbour.^ Here the Bishops of Chichester and other travellers to or from Normandy
' The first picture in the Bayeux Tapestry represents Harold going to say his prayers in Bosham Church ; tlie second repre- sents him embarking from Bosham for Normandy.
38
CHICHESTER.
could embark or land, and up this channel the stone required for the new Cathedral, and perhaps for the castle, could easily be conveyed from the quarries of Normandy or of the Isle of Wight.
There is no documentary evidence that any part of the present Cathedral belongs to the episcopate of Stigand. A monastery of nuns, with a church dedi- cated to St. Peter, existed in Chichester at the time of the removal of the see, and the language of the chronicler would seem to imply that just as at Exeter, when Bishop Leofric moved his see therefrom Crediton, the nuns were dislodged, and their church became the germ or nucleus of the new Cathedral.^ The memory of this monastery survives in the parish of St. Peter, the largest in the city, and the nearest to the cathedral precincts. Up to the 1 5th century, at least, part of the cathedral nave was used as the Parish Church of St. Peter ; - at a later period, probably after the reign of Henry VIII., the north transept was adapted to the same purpose, and continued to be so used until 1853, when the present church in West Street was built.
Nothing would be more interesting, if it were possible, than to discover the condition of the parish churches and of the parochial clergy as affected by the Norman Conquest. But in the absence of evi- dence, we are left very much to conjecture. It is certain, however, that there was not any part of the country, except, perhaps, Kent, where the effects of the conquest were more severely felt in every respect than Sussex. The country had been most extensively
^ Will. Malmesb., "Gest. Pont.," 205, ubi antiquitus et sancti Petri Monasterium et congregatio sancti monialium. ^ See Bishop Rede's Visitation in 1403, in his Register.
PARISHES AND PARISH CHURCHES. 39
ravaged by William's army in the neighbourhood of Hastings before the battle. The houses of the people had in many instances been burned, and their posses- sions plundered. They fled, we are told, everywhere for shelter — to the churches and churchyards ; and it is probable that, alike from policy and religious senti- ment, of which he v n;; not destitute, William respected these a ylums. The large tracts, however, in this part of the country marked " waste," in the Sussex Domesday 20 years later, prove too plainly what com- plete devastation the invading army had wrought. If the churches remained intact, and the pastors were not driven from their homes, the flocks to whom they ministered must have been woefully thinned. The chief men of Sussex, as of Kent, were present in the great battle in which Harold lost and William won his throne. Large numbers of them fell in that noble struggle for English freedom, but whether they died or whether they survived, their lands were alike confis- cated by William, who, assuming that the crown of England belonged to him by right, treated all who resisted him as rebels, regarded their land as forfeit to the crown, and granted it out afresh. In Sussex, as in Kent, it appears from Domesday that not a single Englishman was allowed to keep his lands on their old tenure. In the Domesday for Sussex we find only one distinctly English name among the private tenants in Capite,i and he did not hold the
' Aldred, or Eldred, who held Iping. He is joined in the entry with Odo (" terra Odonis et Eldred"). Odo held land in the adjoining parish of Woolbeding, and it is possible that he too was an Englishman, Odo being equivalent to Odda. In the index to the Survey, he is styled Odo of Winchester.
4°
CHICHESTER.
land in the time of King Edward. The other grantees of land in Sussex were either Normans or under direct Norman influence. They were the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Chichester, the Abbey of Westminster, the Abbey of Fecamps; Osbern, Bishop of Exeter; the Abbey of Winchester, and the Abbey of Battle ; William, Count of Eu, Earl Roger of Montgomery (who commanded the French mercenaries at the battle of Senlac), Robert, Count of Mortain (the Conqueror's brother), William of AVarren, and William of Braose. These four great men held by far the largest portion of South Saxon territor)-, including all the chief towns and strongholds. Chichester and Arundel fell to the share of Roger, Bramber to William of Braose, Lewes to William of Warren, and Pevensey, the first fruits of the conquest, to Robert of Mortain. Among their tenants we find only a few decidedly English names. Among the tenants of the Bishop of Chichester we find a group of three " Clerks," Robert, Hugh, and ^Ifweard, of whom the last must clearly have been an Englishman. He held one hide in the manor of Aldingbourne. And another "Clerk," Ealdred, whose name no less clearly marks him as English, held three hides in the manor of Amberley. The probability would seem to be that in Sussex, as elsewhere, English priests were allowed to remain for a time to minister to the common people, who only understood their native tongue. But, as the king took care to place Norman bishops in the sees, and Norman abbots in the monasteries, so we cannot doubt that the Norman earls to whom he granted land in S.issex would aim at putting their own country-
PARISHES AND PARISH CHURCHES. 4I
men, wherever they could, in charge of the churches of which they had the advowson. And the monastic houses would, of course, be inclined to do the like in those churches which came into their patronage. In no part of the country can the Church have been more completely Normanised than in Sussex; and for a time, until Normans and English became fused, nowhere can the gap which divided the chief pastors of the Church from the mass of the people and the native priests (where they remained) have been more keenly felt. Domesday book affords some clue to the relative number of churches in different parts of the diocese, but it does not contain by any means a com- plete catalogue of them. The main purpose of that celebrated survey was a fiscal one, and, as a rule, those churches only are mentioned which were endowed with land, liable to taxation. Hence it happens that there is no record of any churches in some of the principal towns, such as Chichester and Lewes, where we know that they must have existed ; and of very few on lands belonging to ecclesiastical bodies, their churches being served by vicars supplied and paid (often very scantily) by the monastic house.
Bearing this in mind, it may be mentioned that the total number of churches set down in the Domesday of Sussex is ninety-two, of which seven are described as ecclesiolce (little churches), probably equivalent to the "feld cirice," or field church of the laws of Cnut — mere chapels, as distinct from parish churches, with- out any burial grounds attached to them.
By far the largest number of churches mentioned in Domesday belong to the western and central divi-
42
CHICHESTER.
sions of the diocese. In the rapes of Chichester and Arundel, which were the possessions of Earl Roger, saving only two places which were held by the king in demesne, and a few scattered manors of the Arch- bishop, the Bishop of Chichester, and some monastic houses, forty-eight churches are mentioned. In the rape of Bramber, the territory of William of Braose, there are thirteen.
In the rape of Lewes, the territory of William of Warren, with possession here and there of the see of Canterbury, there are sixteen.
On the Count of Mortain's territory, which included most of the rape of Pevensey, there are but two churches mentioned, a melancholy evidence of the desolation caused in that part of the country by the ravages of the Conqueror's army on its march to the great battle which won him his crown. It must be borne in mind, however, that the Abbey of Battle owned a good deal of territory in the same rape, and the churches on these lands would not be recorded.
In the rape of Hastings, where the Count of Eu had most of his possessions, the number mentioned is thirteen.
Making allowance for the churches which are not set down in the survey, we may roughly estimate the number in Sussex in the first twenty years after the Norman Conquest, as about 150.
The history of the diocese during the period com- prised in the present chapter may be most con- veniently traced through notices (i.) of the bishops and the cathedral church, (ii.)of the monastic houses, and (iii.) of architectural remains.
THE BISHOPS AND THE CATHEDRAL. 43
(i.) The Bishops and tlic Cathedral Church. Bishop Stigand (a.d., 1070-1087) had the misfortune to incur the displeasure of the two greatest personages in the realm, William the king and Lanfranc the primate.
William brought a monk named Gausbert from the Abbey of Marmoutier, by the Loire, to be the second abbot of his great house, built in fulfilment of his vow on the heights of Senlac, where he had won his crown. Stigand refused to consecrate the abbot elect unless he went to Chichester for the purpose. William was incensed at his disobedience. Stigand was compelled to go to the abbey and consecrate Gausbert before the altar of St. Martin. As a further humiliation and evidence of the abbey's complete independence, the bishop and his retinue were not allowed to lodge or board within the abbey walls. It was to be as free as the king's own chapel. The precedent thus established was not forgotten by Abbot Gausbert's successors.
The dispute with Lanfranc turned upon the eccle- siastical jurisdiction which the primate claimed the right of exercising over his possessions in Sussex, which were numerous, including the parishes of Pagham; Tangmere; All Saints', Chichester; and East Lavant, in the western division of the diocese ; and in the eastern. South Mailing, Ringmer, Horsted, Framfield, Uckfield, Buxted, Mayfield, and Wad- hurst. Lanfranc considered that his rights had in some way been invaded by Stigand. He wrote a sharp letter of reproof to the bishop, warning him not to meddle in the future with these parishes in his
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CHICHESTER.
diocese which belonged to the see of Canterbury, and declaring the clergy in these parishes exempt from attendance at the diocesan synods of Stigand or his successors, and from responsibility to them or their officials for their conduct.
They were permitted, however, to receive the chrism from Stigand, and to pay him certain custom- ary fees. And thus the primate's right over his peculiars, as they were called, was fully established, and lasted down to the abolition of all peculiars, which took place in our own day.
Stigand's death in 1087 nearly coincided with that of the great king who had raised him to the see. Of his successor, Godfrey, the solitary record is an in- scription cut upon a leaden cross which was found in his stone coffin when it was opened in 1829. It is the copy of a papal absolution, conferred upon the bishop for some offence of which we have no record. God- frey was bishop for one year only, and after his death in 1088 the see lay vacant for three years. Canterbury was vacant about the same period, and rather longer. The cause of the vacancy was the same in both cases, the grasping avarice of the Red King, who loved to en- rich his treasury with the temporalities of vacant sees.
Godfrey's successor, 1091, Ralph Luffa, or Ralph I., was consecrated by Thomas, Archbishop of York, Canterbury being still vacant. Ralph was the real founder of the cathedral, and considerable portions of his work may be traced at the present day. What- ever Stigand may have erected was, if not wholly removed, so completely recast, that Ralph is said to have rebuilt the church. His first structure, how-
THE BISHOPS AND THE CATHEDRAL; 45
ever, which was consecrated in 1108, suffered severely from a fire in 1115, which did much damage to the whole city, but aided, it is said, by the liberality of the king, Henry I., the cathedral was quickly repaired.
By a careful examination of the present church the main plan of Bishop Ralph's structure can be almost completely recovered. It was a cross church, with a low central tower, and two towers at the west end. The whole fabric was massive in construction, and plain almost to sternness. No chevron or billet moulding relieved the heavy round-headed arches of choir and nave. No carved foliage or figures adorned the cushion capitals of their columns. The arches remain as they were in Ralph's time, the columns only peep out from the later work which has encased them. The openings to the triforium, consisting of two thick round arches, enclosed within a bigger one, survive unaltered. The nave and choir had aisles which were broken through in a later age to add side chapels, but some of the aisle windows now blocked up, and parts of the string course, may still be traced. The transepts have no aisles, but the eastern wall of each is pierced by a great round arch, which originally opened into an apsidal chapel, the common appendage of Norman transepts. By a careful and skilful examination of the masonry in the triforium of the presbytery it has been proved that the church ended eastwards in three radiating chapels, and that from the central one of these three a fourth projected, parts of which survive in the walls and buttresses at the western end of the present Ladye Chapel. The four western bays of the nave are slightly later in
46
CHICHESTER.
Style than the four eastern. The most probable explanation of this difference is that the choir, as in most other Norman minsters, stretched down west- wards of the central tower, and the choir would naturally be built first after the fire, in order that the services might begin again with as little delay as possible.
But Bishop Ralph did not confine his energies to architecture. He was in all respects an energetic prelate. Thrice a year he was wont to make a circuit in some part of his diocese, preaching in the parish churches, organizing work, and reforming abuses. " He was distinguished," says William of Malmesburj', " alike for height of stature and vigour of intellect." "He was robust and high-spirited," says the local mediaeval chronicler, whose brief notices of the bishops have been preserved in our cathedral archives. He courageously supported Anselm in his struggle with William Rufus for the privileges of the Church, and when the tyrannical king, in a personal interview, menaced Ralph with punishment, the bishop offered him his pastoral staff and ring, saying that he was ready to resign his see, but that he would not abandon his primate.
In the reign of Henry I., he stoutly resisted the king's attempts to make money by extorting fines from the clergy, maintaining that his poor diocese, of which the cathedral had just been burned, deserved to be enriched by gifts, not impoverished by fines. According to WiUiam of Malmesbur)', he tried a strange plan for moving the royal mind to mercy. He shut up the churches throughout his diocese.
THE BISHOPS AND THE CATHEDRAL. 47
barring the doorways with thorns. The laity were thus excluded from public worship, and the celebra- tion of divine offices ceased except in the monastic churches. The king relented, released the diocese from the tax, whatever it was, aided the bishop, as already stated, in repairing the cathedral, and, in addition, granted him and his successors the right of free warren in their manors of Aldingbourne, Amberley, and Houghton, and the whole of the Manwode,^ as well as a right to all customs levied during an eight-day fair held yearly in the city of Chichester.
Of Ralph's successor, Seffrid Pelochin, or d'Es- cures (1125-1147), there are but scanty records. He had been Abbot of Glastonbury, and was brother of the primate Ralph d'Escures, perhaps an elder brother, as he bore the name of his father, Seffrid, Lord of Escures, near Seez, in Normandy. Henry I. granted him and his successors the customs of a three days' fair, to be held in Selsey every year, beginning on the eve of St. Lawrence the Martyr. All merchants and traders attending it were by royal order to be free from all let or hindrance in going and returning. Bishop Seffrid, however, lost the cause which his predecessor had so manfully won in opposition to the king. He was present in 1129,2 with the two arch-
' An extensive district of fertile land between Chichester and the sea.
^ It is remarkable that in the list given in " Roger of I love- den's Chronicle," Seffrid is designated by the old tribal title, Suthsexensis, the latest instance so far as I have noticed of its occurrence.
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CHICHESTER.
bishops and thirteen other prelates at the Council of London, summoned to take measures for enforcing the celibacy of the clergy. The secular clergy were still very commonly married, although their wives were not recognised as lawful, and were called by opprobrious names. The Council was held at the instance of the Primate William of Corbeuil, who had been made papal legate. He was a weak man, and allowed himself and his suffragans to be outwitted by the king. They conceded the decision to the king, who ordained that married clergy might purchase indulgence by the payment of a large sum of money. Thus the royal treasury was enriched, the clergy impoverished, and in the eyes of strict ecclesiastics disgraced.
In 1 145 Seffrid was deposed, and retired to his old home at Glastonbury ; but of the nature of his offence, whether against the Church or the Cro\vn, there is no record. Most probably, however, he had joined the party opposed to Stephen, who had alienated a great body of bishops and clerg}' from his cause by his harsh treatment of Bishop Roger, of Salisbury, and his nephew. At any rate one recommendation of his successor, Hilary, is said to have been his devotion to the side of Stephen.
Hilary (1147-1169) played a part conspicuous, though not altogether for wisdom, in the transactions of his time. He had a reputation for eloquence and knowledge of canon law j qualities which procured for him the favourable notice of King Stephen's brother, Henry of Blois, the great Bishop of Win-
THE BISHOPS AND THE CATHEDRAL. 49
Chester, and the office of advocate of the king's cause at the papal court. Stephen also bestowed on him and his successors the office of Confessor to the Queen, and annexed to it in perpetuity the chaplaincy of the royal castle of Pevensey.
Hilary placed the Church of Chichester under the protection of the Papal See, and founded and endowed the offices of treasurer and chancellor in the cathedral. The precentorship was probably founded about the same time, and the office of dean is said to have been instituted by Ralph Luffa, so that the four dignities which existed in all cathedrals of the Old Foundation were now established.
Copies of the letters of Pope Eugenius and Alex- ander III., promising the protection of the Papal See, and confirming the Church of Chichester in all its possessions are preserved in our cathedral archives. These possessions included in Chichester itself a fourth part of the whole city, from Southgate to West- gate, being the quarter in which the cathedral, the bishop's palace, and houses of the canons, were situated. A free grant of this quarter had been made by William d'Albini, Earl of Arundel, in 1147, who married Adeliza, widow of Henry I. He states in his charter that he makes the grant " for the welfare of King Stephen, the souls of my ancestors, the remis- sion of my sins, and compensation of the damages which I once did to the same Church, the most noble queen Adeliza, and my heir, William, confirming my act." He also states in another charter, that in peni- tence for wrongs done to several churches and their lands in the diocese, he bestows on all such churcheii
E
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CHICHESTER.
the free right of digging gravel, stone, and chalk on his estates.
The episcopate of Hilary is chiefly remarkable for his protracted strife with the Abbey of Battle, and for his opposition to Becket throughout the primate's struggle with the king.
He was bent on subjugating the abbey to his juris- diction, demanded the attendance of the abbot at his diocesan synods, and payment of episcopal dues ; and further, that the abbots elect should in future go to Chichester cathedral for consecration, and profess obedience to the bishop. The contest was carried on for several years wdth much bitterness, and the history of it may be read at great length in the " Chronicle " of Battle Abbey. It was terminated at last, chiefly through the influence of the King and the primate, Theobald, in favour of the abbey, which was declared completely free from all episcopal jurisdiction.
It does not fall within the scope of this work to dwell upon the great struggle between the king and Becket. The part which Hilary played in it exhibits him as a man of eager, bustling activity, not unmixed with vanity, rather than a man of any solid ability. The main supporters of Becket were the common people ; the lay lords took the side of their sovereign, and the bishops, as a body, endeavoured to mediate between the combatants. Hilary, of Chichester, was forward, though not particularly skilful, in this praiseworthy attempt, but, like Ffoliott,. Bishop of London, his personal sympathies were wholly on the side of the king. When Becket had fled to France, Hilary was one of the envoys sent to plead the cause of Henry
THE BISHOPS AND THE CATHEDRAL. -5 1
before the King of France and the Pope Alexander III. at Sens. In their audience with the pope the envoys all spoke in turn. London was the first, Chichester the second speaker. But Hilary cut a poor figure on this occasion. In his haste and warmth he blundered at the end of a sentence into bad Latin, — "Nec oportuit, nec aliquando oportiiebat." The pope and cardinals laughed, and one of them exclaimed, You have got badly into port at last, my lord, "Male in portum tandem venisti." Poor Hilary brought his speech to an abrupt conclusion, and left his colleagues to carry on the argument. He was not included in the celebrated excommunications launched by the primate from Vezelay, but the horror caused by the discharge of this fearful weapon was so great that even Hilary wavered in his devotion to the king's side. It was indeed a distracting time. The excom- munications were followed up by a command to all the bishops in the province of Canterbury to lay the kingdom, so far as their dioceses extended, under an interdict ; and special injunctions to obey this order were sent to the Bishops of Chichester, Lincoln, and Bath. On the other hand, a royal proclamation was issued to the effect that any one, from a bishop to a layman, who complied with the interdict should be punished with banishment and confiscation of all his goods. Thus were the bishops, to borrow an expres- sion used by Hilary in another crisis of the struggle, " between the hammer and the anvil." They must disobey either the king or the primate. Many of them sought an escape from the dilemma by living in concealment. What course Hilary adopted we have E 2
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CHICHESTER.
no means of knowing; but he was soon extricated from this and all other troubles by death. Henry's edict had been issued early in 1169, and Hilary died in July of the same year, about twelve months before the tragical end of the primate convulsed Christendom with horror.
The See of Chichester, in common with several others, lay vacant for four years after the murder of Becket. The king was in his Continental dominions during the greater part of this period, and his son Henry, who was at the head of an adverse faction, opposed his father in ecclesiastical as well as civil affairs. In November, 11 73, the king nominated to six sees, in spite of the prohibition of his son, after an appeal to the pope. One of the opposed nominees was John, Dean of Chichester, whom the king recommen- ded to the see. In 1174, after they had done penance for the murder before the tomb of Becket, John and three others were consecrated bishops at Canterbury.
Beyond his presence at one or two important councils, there is no evidence that Bishop John^ took any part in political affairs, and of his character as a diocesan we are equally ignorant.
Passing over the six years of his episcopate we come to Seffrid II., 1180-1204, the most im- portant epoch in the early history of the cathedral.
Seven years after the accession of Seffrid, Bishop Ralph's church, which had now been standing for sixty years, narrowly escaped total destruction by fire.
' This bishop has been commonly called John Greenford, but the surname is omitted in MSS. A and B of Roger of Hove- den's Chronicle, and has been supplied by Sawle, but on what authority is unknown.
THE BISHOPS AND THE CATHEDRAL. 53
Bishop Seffrid devoted all the resources at his com- mand to setting up the ruined pile, and the restora- tion executed in his time is an admirable specimen of that masterly skill in grafting new work on to old, with which mediaeval builders were so eminently gifted.
The ordinary effects of fire upon a Norman church have been pointed out by Professor Willis with his customary acuteness. Roofs of early Norman churches were commonly wooden; when these caught fire from the carelessness of plumbers in repairing the lead work, the upper parts of the inside walls got scorched and damaged by the burning timbers hang- ing against them. When the beams and rafters dropped on to the floor, and remained blazing there, the lower parts of the columns would be injured in like manner. The intermediate portions suffered little, if at all, beyond the chipping of the string- molds here and there by the fall of the timbers. The greatest mischief would be done in the choir, where the stalls and other wooden furniture supplied so much fuel for the fire. The structural changes made in the cathedral by Bishop Seffrid exactly illus- trate this theory. The triforium, being little damaged, was left unaltered, but the clerestory, being nearer the roof, had to be reconstructed. It consists of a triple arcade, supported on single shafts of Purbeck marble : the central arch enclosing the window is round; but the two blind arches are pointed — the abacus of each corner shaft is square, while the abacus of the central shafts is round — variations which prove that this work belongs to the period of transition between Norman and first Pointed, com- monly called Early English. The string-molds also
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CHICHESTER.
were renewed and the lower parts of the piers faced with Caen stone. Stone vaulting was substituted for the old wooden roofs of nave and aisles, and buttresses were built outside to resist the thrust of the vaulting.
So far reparation only was needed, and it was done with admirable completeness and economy. This last was an important consideration, for the work was going on during the reign of Richard I., when heavy calls were made upon the clergy — first to support the king's foreign wars, and then to ransom him from captivity. And there was as yet no rich shrine at Chichester into which devotees poured their offerings with prodigal enthusiasm. Twenty days' relaxation of penance was offered by Bishop Seffrid to all persons who visited the church and aided it with their alms during the octave of Trinity ; but this can scarcely have brought in very much.
The eastern part of the church being far more damaged, had to be extensively altered. The apsidal chapels of Bishop Ralph's time were removed, and made way for a presbytery of two bays, the arches round-headed, but more deeply moulded than the Norman, resting on piers consisting of a central cylin- drical column with four detached shafts of Purbeck marble. These were surmounted by a new triforium of two pointed arches enclosed within a round one with sculptured tympana, and resting on clustered shafts of Purbeck marble. Above the triforium again is a clerestory of three arches, all pointed, and much loftier than in the choir and nave, resting on single shafts of Purbeck, and combining, as in the former instance, the round and square abacus.
THE BISHOPS AND THE CATHEDRAL. 55
The alterations of this period were completed by the erection of the beautiful chapels which still exist against the eastern sides of the transepts, in the place of the apsidal chapels already mentioned as parts of Bishop Ralph's work. Plain pointed single-light windows also were inserted in the side aisles of nave and choir, instead of the old round-headed and billeted Norman windows ; and north and south porches were added to the nave. Thus the beautiful and loveable church as we now see it, in its delightful blending and contrast of severe massive Norman with the pure and graceful beginnings of Early English, is mainly what Bishop Seffrid and his immediate suc- cessor, Simon of Wells, made it. As Fuller says in his own quaint way, " Bishop Seffrid bestowed the cloth and making on the church, while Bishop Sherborne gave the trimming and best lace thereto in the reign of Henry VII."
The renovated church was reopened and dedicated to the Holy Trinity in September, 1199, six bishops assisting at the ceremony. Bishop Seffrid lived five years more to complete yet further the details of the work. How far the buildings were short of com- pletion at the time of Seffrid's death we cannot tell ; but we do know that work was going on during the episcopate of his successor,
Simon Fitz Robert, or Simon of Wells, a.d. 1204 -1207, for there are two entries in the patent rolls of King John — one in 1205, another in 1206 — licensing the free carriage of Purbeck marble from the sea- ports of Dorsetshire to Chichester, for the repair of the cathedral; and the port-reeves are warned to
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CHICHESTER.
take security of the bishop's carriers that none of the marble be disposed of on the way for any other purpose.
Simon of Wells held some office in the Exchequer, and was Archdeacon of Wells, Provost of Beverley, and Guardian of the Fleet Prison, when he was raised to the see of Chichester. He seems to have kept on good terms with King John to the end of his life, in consequence of which John became a bene- factor to the church at Chichester, while to the country at large he was a curse. Soon after the election of Bishop Simon, the king granted a charter by which he and his successors in the see, and the dean and chapter, were to hold their property under the immediate protection of the king, free from every kind of impost. They were to be exempted from attendance at the shire and hundred courts, and from all suits in the same, from aids and fines payable to sheriffs and their bailiffs, and from all manner of local customs and tolls. They were to have free jurisdiction within the limits of their own property, and the view of Frank Pledge was to be held in the bishop's court in the presence of a royal official summoned for the purpose.
Permission also was given by the king to the chapter to build houses twelve feet into the highway beyond the burial ground on the north side of the cathedral. This strip continued to be occupied by buildings down to recent times. The last remaining houses were pulled down about twenty-five years ago ; their site is now covered by a pleasant row of shady limes, and the whole northern side of the cathedral
The ground plan on the other side, besides illustrating the description of the cathedral given in the text, exhibits the curious irregularities which mark the construction of the build- ing. The principal deviation will be apparent to any one who follows the dotted line A B as a standard of direction. The inclination of the walls of the nave southwards has been con- cealed externally by an ingenious contrivance. On the north side a corbel table was made, which overhangs considerably the middle of the wall, which is the most concave part, but is thinned away gradually towards the west end, and finally dies off completely at B in the plan. The hollow part of the wall being thus filled, a second corbel table was placed above the other, and projecting beyond it, resting upon it where the wall is hollow, but resting upon the wall itself where this returns to the right line. Thus the parapet runs straight, although the wall is crooked, and the eye is not offended. On the south side, where the wall is convex, a sloping set-off is introduced under the parapet. The convexity of the wall is remedied by varying the inclination of this sloping part here and there as it is required. These skilful contrivances are good instances of that fertility of resource which seems never to have been at fault in the days of architectural genius, and enabled the builders to surmount all difficulties with the most masterly ease.
The letters c, D, E mark the termination of the original Norman choir mentioned on page 45, and the letter E marks the apsidal chapel which originally projected east of the north chapel.
THE BISHOPS AND THE CATHEDRAL. 57
has, after so many centuries, become once more visible to the dwellers and passers-by in West Street.
Bishop Simon died in 1207, the year in which Langton was consecrated to Canterbury by the Pope Innocent III. in defiance of the king. The enraged John expelled the monks from the cathedral at Can- terbury because they preferred the pope's nominee to his own. Then followed the Interdict, which lay for six years like a dreary blight upon the land. The churches were closed, the bells silenced, all religious offices suspended, whilst the mean and selfish king, for whose offences the innocent country was cursed, replenished his exchequer with the property of the clergy who obeyed the interdict, and of the vacant sees, of which Chichester was one.
The king was absolved, and the interdict taken off in 1 2 14, and in the following year Richard PooRE, dean of Old Sarum, was consecrated to Chichester. He occupied the see two years only, when he was translated to Sarum, where he aban- doned the old cathedral upon its arid hill, and erected the present glorious fabric in the well- watered plain of Meresfield.
His successor, Ranulph of WARHAAr, a.d. 1217, enriched the see by a bequest of house property outside Newgate, London, by the erection of a wind- mill at Bishopstone, an episcopal manor in the east end of the diocese, and by getting together a great stock of cattle, to support which his successor, Ralph Neville, obtained the grant of a large tract of undu- lating pasture ground stretching north-west of Chi- chester. It was called at that time the king's, and
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CHICHESTER.
afterwards the bishop's Bruillum, a word signifying rough coppice or thicket. The name survives, in its English form of Broyle, to the present day. The bishops were to have free leave to clear the wood [assartare] and to cultivate and enclose the ground, which was to be free from forest law.
Ralph Neville, a.d. i 224-1244, was not only a local but a public benefactor. Of all the bishops who occupied our see from the Conquest to the close of the thirteenth century, he was eminently the states- man-bishop, as Hilary was the most ecclesiastical, and Richard of Wych the most saintly. Two years after his consecration he became chancellor of the realm, which high office he held for sixteen years, proving himself, says Matthew Paris, "faithful in many perils, and a singular pillar of truth in the affairs of the kingdom." Just about the time that he became bishop, the great primate Stephen Langton retired to spend the remainder of his days on his beautiful manor of Slindon, between Chichester and Arundel. The aged primate and his suffragan of Chichester became neighbours as well as friends, and may often have paced together the sunny, breezy, grassy slopes of Slindon, or sat beneath the shade of its stately beech trees, discussing the affairs of Church and State. Bishop Ralph, like Langton, was the firm upholder of the rights of the English Church against the exactions and encroachments of the pope, and King Henry HI. The consequence was that the king endeavoured to remove him from the office of chan- cellor, and for a short time succeeded in doing so.
Owing to his duties as a high officer of the slate,
THE BISHOPS AND THE CATHEDRAL. 59
Bishop Ralph does not seem to have been very much in his diocese, and there is little to record concerning his administration. He obtained for the clergy tithes of hay and of mill produce on the royal demesnes, hitherto exempt from such payments. He rebuilt the chancel of the church at Amberley, one of the episcopal manors, and the chapel of St. Michael, outside the Eastgate of Chichester. To the poor of Chichester he bequeathed a fund for an annual dis- tribution among them of twelve quarters of wheat, commuted in modern times for bread money.
A series of letters, discovered in 1841, written by Bishop Ralph's steward in Sussex to his master, bring before us in a very vivid way many of the details of country life in the middle of the thirteenth century, and show how the possession of large landed property by the bishops involved them in a great deal of secular business. Mingled with a little information about vacancies in livings, there is a great deal about the steward's farming operations and other transac- tions, the clearance of woods, the working of marl, the building of windmills, bargains for the purchase of timber and land, houses and horses; requests for more seed, more hounds to keep down the foxes, and so on.
The upper part of the original central tower of the cathedral, from the crown of the four great Norman arches to the corbel table just below the battlements, was probably constructed during the episcopate of Bishop Ralph. The " Annals of Dunstable " inform us that two towers fell at Chichester in 12 10. Whether they belonged to the cathedral is not stated.
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but in all probability they did, and the probability is strengthened by three memoranda preserved in the cathedral records : first, that Ralph released from twenty days' penance all persons who visited the church and contributed to the fabric ; second, that he spent 130 marks on repairs, and lastly, that his executors paid over 140 marks in 1247 to the dean and chapter for finishing a stone tower, which had been long almost despaired of, but was now near completion. This tower may well have been the great central tower, and if we suppose that the other tower which fell in 12 10 belonged to the cathedral, the probability is that it was the north-western tower. This tower fell in a.d. 1630, and when Sir Christopher Wren was consulted, fifty years later, about its recon- struction, he said that it had not been built at the same time, nor in the same style as the south-western tower. Now, that tower is Early Norman ; hence we may conclude that the north-western tower was built later, very probably after having fallen in 12 10. To Ralph's time also belong most of the side chapels added to the nave. They were chantry chapels, and were originally divided by walls, each being complete, with altar, piscina and credence, traces of which are in some instances still to be seen. After the suppres- sion of chantries, the partitions were removed, and the two lines of chapels on either side being thrown open, present the appearance of additional aisles to the nave. The whole width of the nave is therefore unusually great, ninety-one feet, though each division taken by itself, especially the central one, is more than commonly narrow. The multiphcation of inter-
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secting lines and broken spaces, caused by this peculiarity of construction, is especially pleasing to the eye when taking a diagonal view of the nave. With the exception of spire, bell tower, and Ladye Chapel, the cathedral had become by the end of Bishop Ralph's time what we see it now. Bishop Ralph died in 1244, in the magnificent house which he had built in London, in a street which came to be called after him, " Chancellor's Lane," and in time, "Chancery Lane." The house afterwards became the hospital or inn of the Earl of Lincoln. The ground on which it stood is still designated by the name of its old proprietor, and that part of the estate which alone remains to the see is still called " The Chichester Rents."
As Bishop Ralph is a good example of the me- diaeval bishop in whom statesman and ecclesiastic were combined, so his successor,
Richard of Wych, 1245-1253, an ascetic devotee, an upholder of ecclesiastical power against a tyran- nical king, a prodigal almsgiver during life, a worker of miracles after death, is a good representative of the mediaeval saint.
A brief outline of his career is all which can be attempted within the limits of this work. Richard of Wych, as he was called, from Droitwich his native place in Worcestershire, was the son of a farmer who had been prosperous, if not wealthy, but after the father's death the family fell into poverty through the mismanagement of their property by guardians. Richard, the younger son, laboured for several years like a farm servant upon the land ; until, through his
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industry and skilful management, it yielded a comfor- table income. Then he left his elder brother to enjoy it, and betook himself to Oxford to gratify his passion for learning. That University was in the full meridian of its mediaeval renown. Thousands of students thronged to the lectures of the saintly Ed- mund Rich, afterwards primate, the learned Grostete, Nicholas de Lyra, and many more. Many of them, like Richard of Wych, were rich in nothing but in their zeal for learning : they depended for food very much on the hospitality of rich families, or of the great Abbeys of Oseney, Eynsham, and Abingdon. Fire was often an unknown luxury, and manuscripts and pens had sometimes to be cast aside while the poor scholar ran about to warm himself. Richard and t^vo companions had but one warm tunic and one hooded gown between them, in which they attended lectures by turns. Their usual fare consisted of vegetables and bread with a very Httle wine : fish and flesh they could not afford, except on high festivals or when guests were entertained.
From Oxford Richard went to Paris, and from Paris to Boulogne, where he gained a high reputation for knowledge of canon law, the great subject of study in that university. In 1235 he returned to England. The fame of his piety and learning had preceded him. He was made Chancellor of Oxford, and his former teachers, Edmund, now primate, and Grostete, now Bishop of Lincoln, contended for the honour and advantage of securing him as chancellor for their respective dioceses. Grostete gave way to the primate, and Richard became Chancellor of the
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See of Canterbury, and the faithful friend and com- panion of Edmund, ahke in the day of prosperity and adversity. When the primate, despairing of success in his contest with the king and the pope on behalf of the privileges of the national Church, retreated like Becket to Pontigny, Richard went with him, and Richard was by his side at Soissy in his mortal illness as he lay on the bare ground, the only bed on which the ascetic prelate would consent to die. After the death of his patron, Richard went to Orleans and studied theology in a Dominican House. Here also he was ordained priest, after which he returned to England, and in the quiet vicarage of Deal enjoyed for a time that learned and pious leisure which was most congenial to his taste. He was not permitted to enjoy it long. Boniface of Savoy, the successor, A.D. 1245, of St. Edmund in the primacy, though not in his virtues and learning, had yet the good sense to value a man like Richard of Wych, who was both virtuous and learned ; and he compelled him, much against his will, to resume the office of Chancellor of the Diocese.
On the death of Bishop Ralph the canons of Chi- chester had elected Robert Passelew, one of their own body and a staunch partisan of the king. The primate, in a provincial synod, cancelled the appoint- ment of Passelew, on account, as was alleged, of insuffi- cient learning and unsatisfactory character. Richard the chancellor was recommended to the chapter, which readily assented to the recommendation. The king, Henry HI., was enraged, and refused to give up the temporalities of the See. Richard had an
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interview with him, but in vain. He submitted his wrongs to the pope, Innocent IV., who confirmed his appointment and consecrated him at Lyons. On his return to England he found the property of the See being disgracefully wasted by the royal sequestrators. Again he strove to move the king's conscience to a sense of mercy and justice, but again Henry was inexorable. Richard became a homeless wanderer in his own diocese : he lived on the hospitality of his clergy, but he repaid them by the assiduity with which he discharged the duties of a chief pastor, travelling from parish to parish across the woods and downs of Sussex on foot after the manner of a primi- tive apostle. His chief abode was with a poor priest of Tarring, Simon by name, where, in the intervals of his journeys, he would recur to the occupation of planting, pruning and grafting, in which he had ex- celled in the days of his youth spent amongst the orchards of Worcestershire.
Pope Innocent did not abandon his cause, and after two years the king was induced by threats of excommunication to restore the temporalities of the see. Prosperity did not blunt, but rather quickened, the saintly virtues of the bishop. He preached in all parts of his diocese, visited and sometimes nursed the sick, and assisted with his own hands in preparing the dead for burial. He relieved the poor with such reckless bounty as to provoke the remonstrances of his brother, who had become his steward. "Your alms," he said, " exceed your income." " Then sell my plate and horse," was the prompt reply. In his private life he observed the most rigid temperance
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and frugality, keeping to the vegetable fare of his old Oxford days. He rose at earliest dawn to say his office, and, if the birds had already begun their matin chant, "Shame on me," he would cry, "that these irrational creatures should be before me in singing praise to God."
The severity with which he enforced ecclesiastical discipline was as great as his tenderness towards the suffering and needy. A body of statutes, which he compiled with the aid of his Chapter, throws con- siderable light upon the condition and character of the clergy at this period.
Many of them were still secretly married, though such alliances were not recognised by canon law, and the honourable name of wife was not granted to their domestic partners. Bishop Richard set his face against the practice with relentless austerity. By his statutes married clergy were to be deprived of their benefices ; their concubines were to be denied the privileges of the Church during life and after death ; they were pronounced incapable of inheriting any property from their husbands, and any such bequests were to be applied to the fabric of the cathedral. A vow of chastity was to be required of all candidates for ordination.
Rectors were enjoined to reside in their benefices, and to exercise hospitality and charity. Tithes were to be paid on all annual crops. Detainers of tithes after three monitions were to be anathematised, and not even to be admitted to penance until satisfaction had been made.
Vicars were to be in priests' orders, to hold one cure only and to reside in it. They are warned not
F
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to evade this statute by taking another cure under a feigned name. Deacons were not to receive confes- sions, or to enjoin penances, or to baptise, except in the absence of a priest. Children were to be con- firmed within a year after baptism. The Creed and the Lord's Prayer were to be learned in the vulgar tongue. Priests were to celebrate mass in clean vestments, thoroughly clean corporals, and at least two consecrated palls were to be placed on the altar ; the cross was to be set up in front of the celebrant ; the bread to be of the purest whcaten flour, the wine mixed with water. The elements were not to be reserved more than seven days ; to be enclosed in a pyx when carried to a sick person, and the priest to be preceded by a cross, a candle, holy water, and a bell.
Sortilegy {i.e., the custom of opening the Bible at hazard and pretending to divine the future from the words on which the eye first lighted) at baptisms and marriages is strictly forbidden.
Archdeacons were to administer justice for their proper fees, not demanding more either for the expe- dition or delay of business. They were to visit the churches regularly to see that the services were duly celebrated, the vessels and vestments in proper order, the canon of the mass correctly followed and dis- tinctly read. Priests who clipped or slurred the words from over-haste were to be suspended.
The clergy are admonished to wear their proper garb, and not to imitate the dress of la}Tiien ; they are forbidden to have long hair, or to indulge in the pleasures of the chase. Names of excommunicated
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persons were to be read out in the parish churches four times a year. Such were false informers, incen- diaries, usurers, sacrilegious, and obstructors to the execution of wills.
A copy of these statutes was to be kept by every priest in the diocese, and exhibited by him at the episcopal synod.
The bishop maintained the privileges of the Church with the same vigour as he upheld disciphne. A thief had been torn from one of the churches in Lewes, to which he had fled for sanctuary, and executed. The bishop compelled the violators of the asylum to take the corpse down from the gibbet, and carry it to burial within the church from which the culprit had been dragged.
Incumbents of parish churches were to see that such members of their flock as were able should repair to the cathedral on Easter Day or Whitsun Day and make their offering in the mother church of the diocese. Those who lived too far off to visit Chichester might worship at Lewes or Hastings, pro- vided their offerings were forwarded to the cathedral. Their annual contributions to the fabric were long known as " St. Richard's Pence." He also induced the Primate and the Bishops of London, Winchester, Exeter, Bath and Wells, Norwich, Sarum, and Carlisle to recommend visits and off"erings to Chichester, for the repair and completion of the Cathedral, to be rewarded by relaxation from penance varying from twenty to forty days.
In 1253 he undertook, at the request of the Pope, to preach on behalf of a crusade. The flame of F 2
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enthusiasm for the recover)' of the Holy Land was dying out in Europe. St. Louis of France, after long waiting in vain for promised aid from Henry of Eng- land, had been compelled to leave the Kingdom of Jerusalem tottering to its fall.
Bishop Richard preached the crusade with fervour in place after place along the south coast ; but as he drew near Dover, where he was to consecrate a church to be dedicated to his former patron, the now canonised Primate, St. Edmund, he was seized by ill- ness. He lodged in the Maison Dieu that night, and at early mass in the chapel next morning he fell ; the clergy carried him out and laid him on a bed, from which he did not rise again. He grew rapidly worse, received the viaticum, repeatedly kissed the sacred wounds on the crucifi.x, and, often ejaculating ' Saviour, into Thy hands I commend my spirit; Mary, Mother of Grace, receive my soul," he tran- quilly breathed his last. When the body was stripped the clergy gazed with admiration and awe on the horse-hair shirt which enveloped it, clasped with iron bands to increase the friction and make it gall. His remains (except the entrails, which were buried in the Church of St. Edmund at Dover) were conveyed to Chichester, and there interred according to the direc- tions in his will: " I commend my soul to the Most High Trinity and the Blessed Mary, and my body to be buried in the great Church of Chichester, in the nave of the said church, near the altar of the blessed Edmund the Confessor, hard by the column."
The will of Bishop Richard is an interesting docu- ment, and throws light on the history of the testator
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and of the times. Forty pounds were bequeathed for the fabric of the cathedral, and a great many legacies in money were left to religious houses, relations, friends, and domestics, proving that he had not parted with his possessions to the extent which biographers would lead us to suppose, unless, indeed, most of the bequests were contingent on the king's repayment of the emoluments which he had kept back from the See. Directions, also, are given concerning the dis- posal of many articles of value, such as rings, seals, and goblets. Manuscript copies of several books of Holy Scripture with commentaries are bequeathed to the Dominicans and Franciscans settled in Chichester, Lewes, Winchelsea, Arundel, Canterbury, Winchester, and London, an illustration of the wide diffusion of these two orders since their entrance into England about thirty years before.
His executors are instructed to demand from " my Lord the King, for the fulfilment of the foregoing bequests, the emoluments of the See which he, during two years, most unjustly reaped, and which of right belong to me, whereof I will require payment even in the presence of the Most High, unless the king shall satisfy my executors as herein desired." Henry had promised before Parliament, in 1248, to compensate the bishop in money for all rights withheld or wrongs inflicted. The promise, however, had not been made good, nor was the claim, made in the will, discharged until the canonisation of the bishop and the transla- tion of his remains in 1276, when Edward I. declares, in the deed then drawn up, " that the debt of £200, which had been lent by the bishop (so the transaction
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is delicately described) to King Henr>', had been fully paid to the executors of the bishop for the un- burdening of the soul of my said father, as was right to do."
During the episcopate of John of Clymping, 1253 -1262, Bishop Richard's successor, reports began to prevail that his work had not ceased at his death. Stories of wonderful cures wrought at his tomb grew common. In a short time crowds of sick folk re- sorted to it, and the healing wonders were multipHed. Men began to say, too, that miracles had been per- formed in his lifetime. He had satisfied the hunger of 3,000 poor people, during a famine, on beans sufficient for but a third of so vast a multitude ; he had cured a man of the gout by giving him boots taken from his own holy feet. And so the ball of marvellous tales rolled easily along, gathering ever new material in its progress. At length, in 1262, the first year of Bishop John's successor, Stephen of Burghsted, a deputa- tion was sent to Rome to urge upon Pope Urban IV. the claims of Richard to canonisation. The petition was backed up by a letter from the Lord Edward (after- wards Edward I.), who had paid a visit to the wonder- working tomb. Urban assented, and at Viterbo, on St. Vincent's Day, in the church of the Cordeliers, on January 22nd, 1262, he made the hearts of the deputies glad by declaring Richard to be fonnally enrolled in the catalogue.
The expenses of the deputation amounted to 1,000 marks, but that mattered little when the cause was gained. Happy was the cathedral which could boast of containing the remains of a canonised saint, for the
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glory conferred upon the church was matched by the wealth derived from the offerings of pilgrims to the shrine.
Bishop Stephen, of Burghsted, took part with the barons in the civil war, and after the battle of Lewes, in 1264, was made by Parliament one of the three electors who were to nominate the Council of Nine, under whose direction the king was to act. For this he was excommunicated by the Papal Legate Ottobuone, in 1266, but he went to Rome and succeeded in getting the excommunication taken off. When Edward came to the throne, in 1272, ho seized the temporalities of Stephen's See, A complete reconciliation, however, must have taken place, when, on June 16, 1276, the translation of St. Richard's relics from his lowly tomb to an elevated shrine at the back of the high altar, was celebrated by the Primate Kilwardby, assisted by Stephen and several other bishops, in the presence of the king and a vast rejoicing multitude.
King Edward was a liberal contributor, and, on several occasions, a visitor to the shrine, which con- tinued to be a favourite resort of pilgrims until the demolition of all shrines in the reign of Henry VIIL The greatest concourse of pilgrims naturally occurred on the Saint's day, and in 1478 Bishop Storey found it necessary to draw up some rules respecting the order in which the people from the surrounding parishes should move up to the shrine. The pilgrims had been accustomed to carry long painted wands, and in their struggles for precedence had freely used these wands on each other's heads and shoulders.
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Bishop Storey therefore directed that the pilgrims should carry banners and crosses instead of wands, and that members of the several parishes should march up reverently from the west door in a pre- scribed order, of which notice was to be given by the incumbents in their churches on the Sunday pre- ceding the festival.
St. Richard's Day, April 3rd, still retains its place in the calendar prefixed to our Prayer-books, together with the festivals of Archbishops Dunstan and Alphege (^If heah), St. Chad of Lichfield, St. Swithin of Winchester, and St. Hugh of Lincoln.
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CHAPTER III.
The Monastic and Collegiate Foundations, a.d. 1075-1288 — Architecture, A.D. 1075-1250.
I PROCEED to give some account of the foundation and character of the monastic houses during the first two centuries after the Norman conquest. Foremost alike in point of importance and of time stands, of course, the great abbey planted by the Conqueror himself as a monument of his victory on the very spot where it had been won. It was on the hill of Telham where William first beheld the English ranks closely drawn up round Harold's standard on the opposite heights of Senlac, that he vowed if God should grant him the victory he would build a mighty minster to his honour on the spot where that standard was then fixed. A certain monk, William, surnamed Faber, or the smith, from his skill in forging arrows, had followed the invading army from his quiet cell in the Abbey of Marmoutier, by the Loire. He overheard the vow : he stepped forward and besought the great Duke that if God suffered him to execute it, the minster might be dedicated to St. Martin, the renowned apostle of the Gauls. The request was granted : the victory was won : but for four years, at least, the execution of the vow was delayed. According to the chronicle of the Abbey
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it was one of the many things which William intended to do more speedily, but was prevented by the many pressing affairs connected with the subjugation of the kingdom. At length, however, probably about 1070, when the last struggle for independence had been crushed in the north of England with merciless severity, and William might fairly consider himself master of the country from the Channel to the Tyne, the order was given to his monkish namesake to set about the work. William the Faber went over to Marmoutier, and brought back four inmates of his old home to form the nucleus of the new brother- hood on the hill of Senlac. The king had deter- mined that the abbey church should crown the ridge where the final struggle had raged round the English standard, and that the high altar should be set up on the very spot where that standard had been pitched, and had fallen on that memorable day. But the site was little pleasing to the foreign monks. It was bleak : it was arid : it was far from supplies of good stone for building. They begged for a more con- venient site. But William was inflexible. His abbey should not be built on any spot but that which he had chosen ; and no other spot would he choose, but that where, by the Grace of God, his kingdom had been won. He made light of their difficulties. As for the want of water, wine should flow more plenti- fully in his abbey than did water in any other house in England ; and as for the lack of stone his ships should bring it in abundance from the quarries near to Calais. And so the house began to rise, and the monks made themselves as comfortable as they might
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in temporary dwellings. But the work lagged. The king, hampered by manifold affairs, was unable to speed it on by personal visits. The workmen were dishonest, though skilful ; the foreign monks were not so zealous as they ought to have been. The first abbot, on his return from a voyage to Normandy, was drowned. Altogether, things went badly at the outset with the new abbey. Under the second abbot the number of the monks was increased, and the building made more progress ; but still it was not rapid, and William did not live to see it completed. Not till 1094, or twenty-eight years after the great battle, twenty years after the laying of the foundation, and seven after the death of the founder, was the church ready for consecration, and the other buildings suffi- ciently advanced to admit about fifty monks, or little more than one-third of the number originally con- templated. But still it was a great abbey, alike in dignity and interest, in its privileges and possessions. It was an abiding and a stately monument of William's great victory ; it was a house of prayer, from which, day by day, according to the founder's desire, peti- tions were offered up for the welfare alike of the English and Normans who had fallen in that mighty contest.
King William bythoute him eke of the vole that was verlore,
And aslawe eke thoru hym in batayle byvore,
There as the batayle was an Abbey he let rere
Of Seyn Martyn vor ther soules, that ther aslawe were.
And the monckes wel y now feffede wythoute fayle
That ys y duped in Engelond, Abbey of the Batayle."
Robert of Gloucester, II. 3, 68. As indicated in these lines, the abbey was called
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not only after the saint to whom it was dedicated, but, like the town which grew up around it, after the great event which it commemorated. Its full title was the Abbey of St. Martin of the Place of Battle, ealesia Sancti Martini de Bello, but in Domesday it is com- monly called, ecclesia de Labatailge. Of the orginal Norman buildings but few vestiges remain save the foundations of the eastern apse and the bases of mas- sive columns. The spot where Harold's standard fell, and which for centuries was covered by the high altar, is now as bare and open to the winds of heaven as it was on the day when that standard, long so stubbornly defended, at last went down in the hurly burly of the battle. The vaults still remaining on the southern slope of the hill are alike a monument of the resolute character of the Conqueror, and of the ingenuity which distinguished the wise master builders of old time. The church being situated on the crest of the hill, in obedience to William's decision, the great dormitory had to be built on the slope, and was sup- ported on underlying vaults, increasing in height with the depth of the descent.
The contest of the abbey with the bishops of Chichester has been noticed in the previous chapter. It furnishes one of the earliest and most notable in- stances, in England, of that struggle for independence on the part of all corporate bodies, ecclesiastical and civil, which is so marked a feature of mediaeval life. The successful efforts of so important a house as Battle Abbey must have been a great encouragement to others to follow in the same course. But besides exemption from episcopal jurisdiction the Abbots of
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Battle enjoyed many remarkable privileges. Within a circuit of about three miles from the abbey, which constituted what was called the Leuga, the Abbot was supreme. No one within this limit could follow any business, or hunt, or implead, without his permission. The abbot and monks had free warren on all the lands of all their manors; they and their tenants were exempted from tolls in any market they might attend in the kingdom ; and they had the right of holding a market at Battle every Sunday, for which they were declared responsible to God alone. They had the right of free passage, when travelling, on all roads passing through the king's lands ; of taking venison for the use of the abbey from any of his lands in the rape of Hastings ; and, generally, when passing through any royal forest, of capturing any animals. they might meet, without let or hindrance from the king's officers. From the territory of the Count of Eu, which lay in the neighbourhood of the abbey, they had the right of taking fire-wood, and timber for the repairs of the house. The abbey church, in common with others, had the privilege of sanctuary, but the abbots had further the most extraordinary privi- lege of pardoning any condemned criminal whom they might meet on his way to execution in any part of the kingdom. An instance is recorded in which this curious prerogative was exercised in 1364. The Abbot, on his journey to London, met a felon con- demned to the gallows, within the Liberty of the King's Marshalsea, and absolved him from the penalty of death. The king, Edward IIL, disputed the Abbot's right; the case was tried, the charter granting the
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privilege was produced, and the right was con- firmed.
Nearly simultaneous with the building of the Con- queror's Abbey, " at the Place of Battle," was the foundation of the great Cluniac Priory of St. Pancras, at Lewes. William of Warren, to whom Lewes, with many other possessions, had been granted, was the husband of Gundrada, the daughter of Matilda by her marriage with Gerbod, of Flanders, before she became the wife of the Conqueror.i William and Gundrada are good examples of the piety of the age. Below the castle stood a wooden church, dedicated to St. Pancras. This, after the Norman fashion, William and his wife removed and replaced by a church of stone. But their religious zeal was not content. They desired to found a religious house, and Lan- franc, the Primate, encouraged their pious inclination. In this frame of mind they started on a pilgrimage to Rome, but the war between the Pope (Hildebrand) and the Emperor was going on, and the roads to Italy were dangerous for travellers ; so they halted at the great monastery of reformed Benedictines, at Clugny, in Burgundy. Clugny was considered a pattern of monastic houses ; the abbot, Hugh, was eminent for piety and learning. William and Gundrada resolved to make their religious house at Lewes an offshoot of Clugny, and they prayed the abbot to send three or
' An attempt has recently been made ("Suss. Archaol. CoUec," vol xxviii. p. 114) to upset this theon-, but a perusal of Sir G. Duckett's paper has only confirmed me in the proba- bility of the theory which he tries to confute. The documents on which he mainly relies seem to tell precisely the other way.
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four of his monks to make a beginning. But they did not easily obtain so many. Abbot Hugh was unwilHng to part with any of his best men. At length he was persuaded to send one able and pious monk, named Lanzo, as prior, accompanied by three others. They arrived at Lewes in 1077; but soon after this Abbot Hugh recalled Lanzo, and detained him a whole year at Clugny, to the great vexation of William and Gundrada. The fact is, the rule of Clugny was what might be termed the fashionable rule of the day, and the Cluniac monks were in great demand. King William himself was a rival suitor for them with William of Warren, and offered high preferment and rich stipends to the monks if Abbot Hugh would send him over half a dozen ; but the abbot turned a deaf ear to his offers. The English were considered a barbarous people, and the foreign monks were shy of settling amongst them ; but, on the other hand, the Normans were all the more anxious to introduce the civilizing influence of monks from foreign houses most renowned for discipline and learning. William and Gundrada, therefore, were considered fortunate to have secured a colony of Cluniac monks for their house at Lewes. And hence the remarkable boast inscribed on Gundrada's tomb, that she introduced the balm of good manners to the English churches.
" Intulit ecclesiis Anglorum balsama morum,"
The great Castle of Lewes, with its twin keeps, upon the double-crested hill which overhangs the town, and the great Cluniac priory in the plain below, were, indeed, a vivid illustration of the two forces
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which the Normans brought to bear on the people whom they had conquered ; the strong arm by which they were overawed, the foreign learning and civiliza- tion by which they were educated and moulded, until they became fused into one body with their con- querors, and fitted to take their place among the other great nations of Western Christendom.
All vestiges of the Priory Church at Lewes have been swept away, and of the conventual buildings only a few fragments remain, so that it is impossible to describe with any completeness the plan of the original priory. William and Gundrada did not prepare at the outset for more than twelve monks ; and the first church, which was, probably, of moderate size, was consecrated about 1094. Gundrada had died in 1085. Her husband, in his will, directed that his bones and the bones of his descendants should be laid beside hers in the Church of the Priory, and expressed a hope that the growth of the monaster)- would keep pace with the growth of his own faniil)-. " Sicut ego cresco crescant et res monachorum." His heirs did not neglect these injunctions, for such large additions were made to the priory and church after his death that in 1147 a second dedication took place. On this occasion the Bishop of Winchester cut off the hair of the Earl of Warren and his brother Ralph before the altar as a form of giving seizin. It was probably at this time that the bodies of the founders were taken up, and the remains, being dimin- ished by decay, were transferred to small leaden cists. These cists were discovered in 1845, when a railway cutting was being made which passed right
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through the site of the Priory Church, and they now rest in a little chapel built on purpose to contain them attached to the Church of Southover, hard by the ruins of the priory. The names William and Gundrada are plainly legible upon the lids. The tombstone which originally covered the grave of Gundrada was taken away after the dissolution of the Priory. It bears the inscription to which reference has been made, and having, after strange vicissitudes, found its way to Southover Church in 1775, now lies in the centre of the chapel where the cists are placed; so that by a curious coincidence the tombstone and the relics which it covered, after being separated for more than 300 years, have been brought together again not far from, the spot where they originally lay. The Priory of Lewes, as it was the first, so it became the largest and richest Cluniac establishment in England. " And none," says William of Malmesbury, excelled it in the piety of its monks, in its hospitality to strangers, and in charity towards all." It was exempt from episcopal jurisdiction, and completely dependent on the parent house of Clugny, whose abbots had the right of appointing the prior, admitting new monks, and holding visitations. Novices who desired to take the full vows had to wait for the visits of the abbot, which were necessarily rather rare and uncertain. This inconvenience became a cause of general com- plaint among the Cluniac houses in England, and in 1330 a petition was presented to Parliament on the subject. In this petition it was stated that Parliament had decreed, but seemingly without effect, that the
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Prior of Lewes should become an abbot, so far as to make professed monks within his own house. The petition, however, seems to have been barren of results. The rules imposed on novices in Cluniac houses were so severe, a strict and constant sOence being one of them, that it is net surprising they were anxious to pass out of the probationary state as speedily as possible. The whole brotherhood, however, was subjected to severe discipline and to an unpleasant system of spying. In the Chronicle of Lewes the death is recorded, in 1297, of an official called the "circuitor." His duty was to ramble about the monastery '■ in so religious and stately a manner as to inspire terror into the beholders," and whilst main- taining a profound silence to take note of any misconduct. He was to observe and report any instances of indolence, laughter, or gossip, and was diligently to explore what the monks were about by applying his ear to each cell as he went his rounds. During the night offices in church he was to go round the choir with a lanthorn in his hand, and if he detected any brother dozing he was to hold the lanthorn so as to shine full in his face and startle him from his nap, whereupon the offender had to beg pardon on his knees, and then to take the lanthorn and continue the search himself for other offenders.
The record of the death of the first prior Lanzo, in 1 107, is such a charming picture of the pure childlike obedience and piety of a monastic saint that it may be introduced here as a close to this brief sketch of the early days of the prior}'. " While preparing for mass on Holy Thursday he was taken so suddenly ill in the
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vestry as he was putting on the chasuble that he left it as it fell from him, not folded up, and after retiring from the chapel he was unable to sleep for two days. When pressed by his friends to speak to them at night he refused, explaining that since he first took the monastic vow he had never uttered after the hour of compline until prime next day. On Saturday after kissing all the brethren, which in his zealous love he would do standing, in spite of his feebleness, he was at daybreak led into the chapter-house, and from his seat there he gave his paternal benediction to all the brethren, begging their prayers in return, and teaching them what to do if he should die. On Monday, perceiving symptoms of imminent death, he went with his hands washed and his hair combed to hear mass, and then returned to his bed. After again blessing every member of the house he clasped a cross, and, with his head and body bent reverently down, was carried by the monks into the choir, and placed before the altar of St. Pancras, and there after a little while, with a glowing countenance, about to be released for ever from all evil, his pure soul took its journey to Christ."
It seemed proper to record at some length the foundation and early history of the two chief monastic houses in Sussex.
A large number of smaller houses must be much more briefly noticed.
One consequence of Sussex being so completely handed over to Norman proprietors was the establish- ment of many small priories dependent upon monastic houses in Normandy. The amount of dependence of
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these " alien priories," as they were called, on the mother house, varied in different cases. Some of them became so far independent as to elect their own priors and to manage their own estates, only remitting a certain fixed sum annually to the parent house. Others continued wholly dependent, the/oreign house appointing and removing the priors at will, and receiving the entire revenues, out of which they pro- vided for the maintenance of the priory in England. From a secular point of view we might say that the inmates of such alien priories were only stewards to look after the English possessions of foreign houses.
The earliest of this latter class founded in Sussex was at Wilmington, a few miles north-west of Beachey Head. Wilmington was one of the 54 manors granted in Sussex to Robert, Count of Mortain, half-brother of the Conqueror, and was by him granted to the Abbey of Grestein, near Honfleur, in the diocese of Lisieux. This abbey had been founded in 1056 by Herluin of Conteville, who married Herleva or Harlotta, the mother (before wedlock) of the Conqueror, and by her became the father of Odo, afterivards Bishop of Bayeux, and Robert, Count of Mortain, who were thus half-brothers to the Conquerer. Robert was such a bountiful benefactor to his father's abbey that by William of Jumieges he is called its founder. Out of his Sussex estates he granted, together with Wilmington, six hides of land in Firle, a house in Pevensey, and in his forest of Pevense}', pannage, herbage, and wood for fuel and building. His wife Matilda gave the church in Beddingham with two hides of land, and their son William several detached
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parcels of land, beside the churches of East Dean, West Dean, and West Firle, with all their appurten- ances. The parish church of Wilmington is on the site of that which the Abbey of Grestein built for their priory, and the narrow round-headed window of Caen stone on the north side of the chancel, and the string course below, with its zig-zag moulding, may be regarded as relics of the original structure.
William of Braose, whose possessions included the fortress hill of Bramber and forty-one manors, nearly co- extensive with the rape of Bramber, had planted a cell to the Abbey of St. Florentius of Saumur, at Briouz, in Normandy, the place from which he took his name. To the same abbey he gave, in 1075, ^'^^^ churches on his Sussex territory — St. Peter at Sele, near Bramber ; St. Nicholas, at Old Shoreham ; St. Nicholas, at Bramber ; and St. Peter de Veteri Ponte. The abbey, in return, was to found a priory at Sele, near his castle of Bramber. From a document amongst the cathedral records we learn that these grants were confirmed in 1151 by Hilary, Bishop of Chichester, and Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury ; and in addition to the four churches already mentioned, St. Mary of the Port is included in the grant. This is one of the earliest notices of the Church of New Shore- ham, the seaport town which grew up at the mouth of the river Adur, as the sea gradually receded, and left Old Shoreham high and dry inland.
The Domesday Survey mentions two churches at Sele which were probably the Priory Church and St. Peter de Veteri Ponte. ' The parishioners of Sele
' Remains of an old medioeval bridge, from which this church
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worshipped in the same church as the monks, though not of course in the same part of it This arrange- ment was a very common one. A dispute arose in the thirteenth century between the monks and parishioners about their respective obligations for repairs. The case was referred to arbitrators, who decided that the parishioners were to be answerable under a penalty of forty shiUings for the immediate repair, when needed, of the nave, the belfry, the bells, the bell ropes, and the clock ; the monks of course were sole owners of the chancel, and were alone responsible for keeping it in repair.
One of the earliest and most important alien priories was at Boxgrove, near the foot of the Downs, about four miles north-east from Chichester. It was founded about 1 1 20 by Robert de Haia, who is called in one document a kinsman of the king. All that we know for certain about the de la Haies is that they were a Norman family, of which one branch settled near Battle, and another, early in the twelfth century, became possessed of the manor of Halnaker, near Boxgrove. Robert de Haia made his priory at Boxgrove a cell to the Abbey of L'Essaie, in Normandy, of which he was patron. Three monks only were brought over at first. Robert's grandson, William St. John, raised the number to thirteen, and William's brother, Robert, added three more.
Several churches in the neighbourhood, with various
probably took its name, were discovered near Beeding (or Sele) in 1839, and of the chapel of St. Marj-, situated on the bridge. The Priory was probably o\vner of the bridge, and took toll from the passengers.
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portions of land, were given by the founder and his grandsons to the priory — Boxgrove, West Hampnett, Walberton, Birdham, Barnham, and Ichenor. John Bishop of Chichester, ii 74-11 80, confirms the ap- propriation of these churches to the priory, but re- serves the right of visitation, and stipulates that the monks should not appoint any vicar to these churches who did not undertake to officiate in them in person. The founder also attached certain conditions to his grants. When a vacancy occurred in the priory the monks were to fill it up within three months, other- wise the appointment lapsed to the Lord of Halnaker. He also reserved the right of choosing one monk to officiate in his chapel at Halnaker when he and his family were residing there, engaging during that time to give him the same board which he would have received in the priory. He also secured to the abbot and monks of L'Essaie the right of removing to their house from Boxgrove any monk they might choose to have except the sub-prior and cellarer. On the other hand, by an annual payment of three marks to L'Essaie, the monks of Boxgrove obtained the privi- lege of electing their own prior.
The Cistercian order, although so numerous in many parts of the kingdom after the middle of the twelfth century, had only one house in Sussex. This was founded in 11 76, at Robertsbridge, in the parish of Salehurst, at the eastern end of the diocese, by Robert de St. Martin. One of the earliest and principal benefactors was Alicia, daughter of Adeliza, widow of Henry L, by her second husband, William Earl of Arundel. Alicia was married first to John Count of
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Eu, in Normandy, and secondly to Alured de St. Martin, who is sometimes called the founder of the abbey as Alicia herself is called the foundress, on account of their great benefactions. The lands bestowed by Alicia are said in the deed of gift to be granted for the soul's health of her father and mother, her first husband, brothers, and sisters. The number of monks does not appear ever to have been large, probably not more than eight or twelve at the most, and there is a curious proof that in 1327 the very existence of the house was unkno\TO to a Bishop of Exeter. In the Bodleian Library is a MS. volume bearing the inscription : " This book belongs to St. Mary of Robertsbridge : whoever shall steal it or sell it, or in any way alienate it from this house or mutilate it, let him be anathema-maranatha." The Bishop of Exeter, who had become possessed of it, deprecates the consequences of this terrible curse by inserting — " I, John, Bishop of Exeter, know not where the afore- said house is, nor did I steal this book, but acquired it in a lawful way." In the twelfth and thirteenth cen- turies, however, the Abbey of Robertsbridge must have been well known, for the abbots were several times employed in public business of importance. When it was reported that King Richard I. had been made a prisoner on his return from the Holy Land, the abbots of Robertsbridge and Boxley were sent to Germany to discover the place of his detention. The same two went to Rome on behalf of Archbishop Hubert to solicit the Pope's settlement of the dispute between him and the monks of Canterbury. The Abbot of Robertsbridge also was twice employed on the king's
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business in the reign of Henry III., in 1222, when he was sent to Poitou, and in 1224, when he was despatched to the Papal Court.
The curious and partly legendary tale of the intro- duction of Christianity to Steyning, and of the founda- tion of the first Church there, has been related in a former chapter. The subsequent ecclesiastical history of the place, also, is too remarkable to be passed by without notice.
Edward the Confessor granted the Lordship of Steyning to the monks of Fecamp, in Normandy ; but before the grant could take effect. Earl Godwine, the head of the patriotic party in England, had recovered his influence, and the Normans were expelled from the kingdom.
At the time of the Conquest the Lordship of Steyn- ing was in the hands of Harold ; but William, con- firmed the grant of Edward to the Abbey of Fecamp. According to the usual method the abbey proceeded to establish a priory upon its foreign possession. To superintend both the secular and spiritual interests of the property, six monks were sent over from the parent house, and early in the twelfth century a church had been erected, of which the nave, a most stately fragment of rich Romanesque, still survives. Of the remainder of the church, and of the conventual build- ings, there are no traces above ground ; but in digging graves parts of the foundations have often been laid bare. The present vicarage is traditionally believed to stand on the site of the prior's house, and traces of the priory fish-ponds were discovered in making foundations for a wall in the vicarage gardens in
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1848. "Domesday Book " mentions two churches in Steyning : one of these was probably the original Church of St. Cuthman, and the other the new priory church, of which the choir, no longer in existence, was probably completed at that time.
The Abbot of Fecamp had the right of holding a market at Steyning two days in the week, and a fair twice in the year. Ralph Neville, Bishop of Chichester, had a protracted dispute with the abbey touching the reverence and obedience due to him from their monks at Steyning. It was at last decided that the priory should be free from all episcopal jurisdiction.
There were two houses for Augustinian canons of the new order of Premonstre, at opposite extremities of the diocese — Dureford at the west end, and Bayham at the east. Dureford was founded early in the reign of Henry II., by Henry of Hoese, or, as he came to be called, Henry Hussey, Lord of the Manor of Hastings, within which the monastery was situated. It was pleasantly placed on elevated ground, sloping gently to a small stream which flows into the Western Arun, or Little Rother, near the market town of Peters- field. There was a mill near at hand, and gardens and fish-ponds within the precincts of the house. Nine Premonstratensian houses had already been built in England before Henry Hussey planted his small house at Dureford. Of these, Welbeck, in Nottinghamshire, was one of the earliest, and had become the head of the order in this country. The building and estab- lishment of his house at Dureford was given by Henry Hussey to Berenger, Abbot of Welbeck, who very probably came from Le Hoese Berenger, near le
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Hoese in Normandy, the possession from which Henry Hussey (Henry de Hoese, as he is called in several documents) derived his name.
The Premonstratensian Abbey of Bayham was on the borders of Kent, as the Abbey of Dureford was on the borders of Hampshire. It was founded about 1200, by Sir Robert of Turnham, Lord of the Manor of Bayham, who had served with distinction in the wars of Richard the First, and had for some time been Governor of Cyprus. Bayham was a union of two small houses of Augustinian canons at Brockley and Otteham in Kent, which had fallen into decay from poverty. Sir Robert richly endowed his abbey with lands, which he gave " for the soul of the good King Richard, the salvation also of my Lord King John and his children, for my own salvation, and for the souls of all my predecessors and successors." Dureford Abbey and its surrounding buildings have totally perished. The remains of Bayham, on the other hand, are considerable, and some notice will be taken of them in the remarks on the architecture of this period, at the close of the chapter.
For Augustinian canons, not of the Premonstraten- sian order, there were several houses in the diocese, but none of them large. The most important of them was Michelham, near Hailsham, founded about 1225, by Gilbert of I'Aigle. The family had obtained the lord- ship of the manor of Pevensey when the possessions of William, Count of Mortain, were escheated on account of his rebellion. Gilbert was third of his name, and the last of his race who was Lord of Pevensey, his lands and honours being forfeited in 1235 upon
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his going to Normandy without the king's license. Gilbert conveyed to the canons all his lordship of Michelham, and his park of Pevensey, with the men, rents, escheats, and other appurtenances, besides parcels of land on other parts of his property, timber for constructing and repairing their church and other buildings, wood for fuel and fences, and bushes to make their hedges. He also granted the advowsons of the churches of Hailsham and Laughton ; and afterwards, by a separate deed, the manor of Chintinges, in the parish of Seaford. By another charter he granted to the canons for their manors of Michelham and Chintinges freedom from shires and hundreds, suits of shires and hundreds, and from sheriffs' aid ; and exempted the house from all claims for cor- rodies.^
The other houses for Austin canons were quite small. They were : —
(i.) Pynham, or de Calceto, near Arundel, founded by Adeliza, widow of Henry the First, and wife of WiUiam of Albini, first Earl of Arundel, for two canons who were to pray for the soul of her late husband, and officiate in the Chapel of St. Martin, in the keep of Arundel Castle. The number was afterwards increased to six, and to them was committed the custody of Arundel Bridge and the causeway (pro- bably of chalk, whence the name calcetum), which was the means of communication across the river Arun and the low meadows — at that time flooded
■ Corrodies were the rights of founders or benefactors to board and lodging for themselves or their families in the monastery.
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at every tide — which divide the lofty hill of Arundel from the high ground rising eastwards.
(ii.) At Tortiiigton, about a mile and a-half south of Arundel, there was another small house for four or five canons. There is evidence that it existed before the time of King John ; but the name of the founder and the exact date of foundation are uncertain. The Vicar of Tortington had a corrody in the house, con- sisting of a right to board and lodging for himself and a servant boy.
(iii.) At Hardham, near Pulborough, there was a small house of uncertain foundation ; but probably established by some member of the Norman family of Dawtrey, which had large property in the neigh- bourhood.
(iv.) At Shulbrede, a secluded valley in the parish of Lynchmere, about six miles north of Midhnrst, there was a house of obscure origin, for four or five canons.
(v.) At Hastings, the Priory of Holy Trinity, founded in the reign of Richard the First, afterwards transplanted to Warbleton, and called the New Priory of Hastings.
There were three Benedictine nunneries in Sussex : —
(i.) Ly minster y about one mile south-east of Arundel. Some kind of religious house existed here before the Norman Conquest, but had fallen to decay. It was rebuilt by Roger of Montgomery, and made a cell to the Abbey of Almanesches in Normandy, which sent over three or four nuns. By the reign of Henry II. the number had risen to twenty-six, who were, most
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of them ladies of rank, and paid 200 marcs for the privilege of admission. Six lay sisters were kept to do all the menial work of the house ; but the rule was austere, no fires being allowed in the cells, and no meat for meals.
(ii.) Rusper, near Horsham, of uncertain origin, but probably founded by some member of the De Braose family, which had large property in the neigh- bourhood. It was in existence before the end of the twelfth century, as Bishop Seffrid the Second confirmed the nuns in the possession of the churches of Rusper, Warham, Ifield, Selham, and other bits of propert)'. In 1 23 1 the Church of Horsham was bestowed on the priory by John de Braose. According to the terms of the gift, the priory was to receive all the tithes of corn, reserving small tithes and offerings at the altar for the vicar.
(iii.) EseSorne, near Midhurst, probably founded about the middle of the thirteenth centur)' by John de Bohun, who had the lordship of Midhurst ; it was a small house for five or six nuns, mostly of gentle birth.
Besides these monastic houses, there were several collegiate churches : —
(i.) South Malli?!g, near Lewes : a peculiar of the Archbishops of Canterburj'. Archbishop Theobald, in 1150, rebuilt the church and conferred large privi- leges on the college, which consisted of a dean, three prebendaries, three priest vicars, a penitentiary, and a sacrist. The manor of South Mailing was a large one, and all the churches upon it were under the peculiar jurisdiction of the primate. The deanery of
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South Mailing included the churches of Buxted, with the chapel of Uckfield, Mailing, with the chapels of Cliffe and Southeham, Lewes, Edburton, Framfield, Glynde, Isfield, Mayfield, Ringmere, Stanmere, and Wadhurst. It was the business of the dean to visit these churches once a year, to see that they were kept in good order, and to punish any irregularities in the incumbents or their parishioners.
(ii.) Bos/iam, near Chichester. Warlewaste, Bishop of Exeter, in the reign of Henry I., dissolved a monastery at Plympton in Devonshire, on account of the irregular lives of the inmates, and with the pro- ceeds of the property established a college for a dean and five prebendaries at Bosham. There were con- siderable disputes on several occasions between the bishops of Chichester and Exeter, as to their respec- tive rights over this college, which were finally settled in the fourteenth century, when it was decided that the patronage should be vested in the bishops of Exeter, but that the bishops of Chichester should have the right of visitation, and exercise the same authority over the parochial prebendary as over any other incumbent in his diocese.
(iii.) St. Mary in the Castle, at Hastings, enlarged, if not founded, soon after the Conquest, by the Count of Eu, for a dean and ten prebendaries. It was made a free chapel, and in spite of repeated attempts by the bishops of Chichester to assert their rights, its claim to exemption from all episcopal jurisdiction was fully established until the fifteenth century.
(iv.) Arundel. During the period comprised by the present chapter, Arundel was a priory church ;
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but it became collegiate in the following century. Roger of Montgomery founded a priory in Arundel, affiliated to the Abbey of St. Martin at Seez, of which he was the restorer and benefactor. In 1178, the rectory of the parish church of St. Nicholas being vacant, William of Albini, second Earl of Arundel, gave the church to the priory. The parochial and conventual church thus became united, the former priory church being abandoned, and the rectorial dwelling, hard by the church, being enlarged into a residence for the prior and his monks. This state of things continued for two centuries : the church, as in so many other cases, being partly parochial, partly conventual — that is to say, the monks had their services in the choir ; the parishioners worshipped in the nave. At length, after some of the varieties of good and ill fortune, which alien priories generally experienced, Richard, Earl of Arundel, in 1380, obtained license ftom the king, with the consent of the Abbey of Seez, to dissolve the Priory of St. Nicholas and to found a collegiate church for a master and twelve fellows or chaplains, to whom all the property of the monks should be transferred. The | present church was then erected. The eastern limb, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, was the chapel of the college ; the nave and aisles, of which the south aisle served as chancel, formed the parish church, which retained the old dedication to St. Nicholas. The central tower was common to the college and the parish, and the cost of repairing it was divided be- tween them. Otherwise, each was responsible for I the repairs of its own property — the college for the
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eastern limb and the parochial chancel, the parish for the nave and north aisle.
It would far exceed the limits of the present work to give a particular account of all the hospitals founded in the diocese during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They were an outcome of religious life as characteristic of the period as the foundation of monastic houses. A large number of them were intended for the reception of persons afflicted with leprosy, a disease which was probably brought into Western Europe from the East by the Crusaders. Before the close of the thirteenth century, there had been established in Sussex two hospitals at Chichester, St. Mary and St. James ; two at Lewes, St. James and St. Nicholas ; one at Hastings, one at Bramber, at Buxted, at Pevensey, at Pleyden, at Seaford, at Shoreham, and at Rye ; and probably there were many more of which no memorial has been preserved.
The bare enumeration of the monastic houses in our diocese is no small indication of their power and influence. The cultivation of the soil, and the cure of souls, were to a large extent in their hands. And this was not without its advantages. The monks were continually resident ; they were not, like the lay proprietors or the bishops, perpetually being called away on public affairs, and so hindered from looking after the interests of the people entrusted to their charge. In a county like Sussex, where the towns were few and small, the monastic houses, planted at intervals of no great distance from each other, mijst have been inestimable boons. There the weary traveller could get food and shelter, and the needy
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obtain relief. The condition of the people in many of the secluded villages and hamlets of Sussex would probably have been barbarous and wretched in the extreme but for the neighbourhood, of some monastic house which had the means of encouraging and rewarding skilled labour and of relieving distress. And although there were disadvantages in the appro- priation of parish churches to the monasteries, their vicars being often underpaid, and only occasional visitors of the parish instead of constant residents in it, yet, on the other hand, the parish priest, living in soli- tude on a remote country cure, was more apt to sink into a state of ignorance, indolence, if not vice, than the member of a brotherhood who was responsible to the community for his conduct, and occasionally refreshed his mind by a visit to the parent house. The worst evil was the appropriation of parish churches to a monastic house, in order to prop up its revenue when it had fallen into povert}'. We find the bishops of Chichester, in confirming such appropriations, usually stipulating that a sufficient stipend should be allowed for a resident vicar, and a certain annual sum set apart for the relief of the poor. But the records of disputes between the vicars and their monasteries about the proportion of tithes and ofterings which they were to receive, prove that, in spite of these precautions, the churches were often irregularly served by ill-paid vicars, and the interests of the parishioners must have suffered in proportion.
Even a slight study of the annals of the monastic houses in Sussex helps to throw light upon the religious thought and sentiment of the age. The highest form
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of Christianity was supposed to be a life of ascetic re- tirement and devotion, and the most meritorious action on the part of those who could not lead this life them- selves was to provide for those that could. The founder or benefactor of a monastery not only enjoyed the pleasant sense of performing an act to the honour and glory of God, but believed that he was providing for the spiritual welfare of himself, his family, and his friends — past, present, and to come. The founding of a monastic house was no mere sentimental act ; it was a piece of solid, serious business. The idea being firmly held that gifts to religious houses meant so much security to the giver and his family in the world to come, it is easy to understand why men and women should have lavished so much of this world's goods upon them. A spiritual advantage was always expected in return for the gift, whatever it was, and generally in some proportion to it. Thus, when Sir Robert Turnham endows the abbey of Bayham with a considerable property in land, he states that he does it " for the soul of good King Richard, the salvation also of my Lord King John and his children, for my own salvation, and for the souls of all my predecessors and successors." So large a gift might command large results : it could look backwards and forwards, and extend its benefits to a large circle in the past and the future. On the other hand, Emma de Falere gives one hide of her land in Hastings to the Priory at Boxgrove for the supply of one candle to be kept continually before the altar ; William de Wildbrugge gives the same priory two acres for the supply of two wax candles to be kept always burning
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at the mass of St. Mary ; William Bernehuse, of Coke- ham, grants a right to all inmates of the priory of Lewes to cross the passage of Shoreham beyond the harbour toll-free, on condition that an anniversary is observed for his benefit at the priory for ever. Geoffrey of Cotes gives the church of Cotes to the same priory, " for which donation," he says, " they have received me and my heirs to all the advantages of the prayers which they shall offer in the said church for ever." Thus there was always a quid pro quo ; some earthly possession was parted with, and a spiritual benefit given in exchange ; the donor was so much poorer in this world, so much richer in the world to come. And so, as the men and women, both gentle and simple, mingled in the strife, or violence or licentiousness of those fierce, rugged, turbulent times, they thought with comfort, often, perhaps, too complacently, of their pious gifts, whether it were the broad lands which endowed a whole religious house, or whether it were the single candle burning before some particular altar : — each gift pro- cured so much prayer on their behalf, each one was in its measure an anchor of hope cast forward upon the shore of the world beyond the grave.
The object of a donor was sometimes partly a spiritual, partly a secular benefit. Thus, John of Arun- del, in A.D. 1 2 20, for the love of God and the salvation of his soul, gives some houses and gardens in East Street, Chichester, to the priory and monks of Box- grove, for which J:hey agree to pay him eight marcs of silver towards the e.xpenses of his journey to Jerusalem.
Other bargains, however, are of a purely secular
MONASTIC AND COLLEGIATE FOUNDATIONS. 10 1
character, and afford a curious insight into the con- dition of the monasteries, and their relations to the outside world. Richard, the Parson of EUstede, gives the abbey of Dureford tithes of some land on condition that the house presents annually to his church half a pound of incense ; Richard of Pevensey grants to the priory of Lewes a free passage through his marsh to their priory mill at Langeney for an annual rent of twelvepence, and states that at the time of making the grant " the prior gave me one mark in silver and three marcs of gold to my wife, and the privilege that whenever my corn was taken to the mill it should be ground immediately after that which may be in the mill at the time."
Margaret, daughter and heir of Solomon de Hoth- legh, and widow of Robert de Glj-ndele, gives up all her dower to the priory of Lewes, on condition that the house finds her in food, clothing, and lodging for the rest of her life. " Every day a loaf of currant bread, and a loaf of Knight's bread, and a gallon of the best beer, and one dish from the guests' kitchen ; and every year, on the feast of St. Pancras, the said prior and convent shall give me half a marc for my clothing ; and ever>' second year one fur dress ; and they shall provide me with a sufficient house in Southover (the quarter of Lewes nearest to the priory) for the rest of my life."
John Cook, of Hewkley, makes a very similar con- tract with the abbey of Dureford. In fact, under the head of corrodies were included many varieties of singular rights and privileges claimed by the founders or benefactors of a religious house. The
102
CHICHESTER.
following is a very curious instance of the surrender of a corrody for a pecuniary compensation. A law- suit had arisen in the thirteenth century respecting the customs and services due from the priory of Lewes to the manor of Langeney. The lord of the manor, William of Echingham, in agreeing to a compromise, enumerates his former claims : " The priory was bound to receive me, with my wife and all family and horses, four times a year, to be blooded, and to dwell there at the expense of the priory each time for three days (and on the fourth day to the hearing and singing of the mass), either in the halls of the convent or in other competent houses, and to supply with food and drink, and all other things necessary, at my stay and arrival. And, moreover, they were bound to keep at their expense in the said priory one charger or one palfrey, and one youth through the whole year; and that the said youth should receive all necessaries, and a robe of the same fashion as the prior's youths ; and they w^ere also to support one youth in the kitchen of the prior in order to learn the business of the cook for the hall ; he was to have his allowance, robe, and shoes with the men in the service of the prior. Further, they were bound to keep two puppy greyhounds, or beagles, until they were a year old, and I was entitled to remove, whenever I pleased, the horse, the youths, and the puppies, and to substitute others in their stead." All these claims he now surrenders for the sum of £100.
The very frequent allusions to corrodies, or to con- tracts of that nature, in the monastic annals of Sussex, prove that in this diocese, as elsewhere, the religious
MONASTIC AND COLLEGIATE FOUNDATIONS. 103
houses were, to a great extent, not only inns for the reception of travellers, but the great bakeries, brew- houses, kitchens, and surgeries of the neighbour- hood ; places of general education, and schools of training for various crafts. It is easy to see that in all these ways they must for a time have been great blessings to the countrj'. They were centres of civilization and humanity as well as of religion, in the midst of barbarism and ferocity. On the other hand, the amount of secular business in which they were involved by the management of their landed property, a.id by the transactions of which specimens have just been given, undoubtedly tended to lower their religious tone, and so to bring about that moral corruption which in the end proved their ruin.
It was the low, ignorant condition of the parochial clergy', and the ever-increasing secularity of the monasteries, which caused the arrival of the friars in England to be everywhere hailed with enthusiasm by the people. By the middle of the thirteenth century the Dominicans and Franciscans had spread them- selves over the whole country. Their houses were in the towns, whence they went forth as itinerant preachers, or devoted themselves to the care of the sick, either in the lazar-houses or the miserable hovels of the poor in the large towns, which were hotbeds of fever and disease in those days when the conditions of health were unknown or neglected. From the will of St. Richard of Wych, in 1245, who made bequests to both orders, we learn that there were Franciscans in Chichester, in Lewes, and Winchelsea, and Dominicans in Arundel. From other sources we
I04 CHICHESTER.
learn that there were settlements of Dominicans also in Chichester, Lewes, and Winchelsea.
In the same will bequests of small sums, about half a marc, are made by St. Richard to Friar Humphr)-, the recluse at Pagham ; to the female recluse at Houghton ; to the female recluse at Stopham ; and to the recluse at Hardham. These recluses are de- signated in the Latin as " inclusi," included, or closed up ; such solitar}' ascetics being, in fact, locked up, and very commonly walled up in their cell for hfe, the only opening being a small window, sometimes higher than the head, just sufficient for the admission of air, light, and food. It was the strangest and most fanatical extreme to which monastic life was carried ; yet the practice was not uncommon in all parts of Christendom, from the sixth century, if not earlier, down to the fifteenth. This self-dedication, however, to a kind of living death was not permitted without the special license of the bishop of the diocese, who, after the performance of a religious ceremony, which included extreme unction, and a commendatory prayer for the soul of the devotee, placed him in his cell, and put his seal upon it. An instance of this form of fanaticism in our diocese is recorded so late as 1402, when Thomas Bolle, Rector of Aldrington, having resigned his living, applied to the Bishop of Chichester, Robert Rede, for leave to build a cell against the wall of the church, in which he might be shut up for the rest of his life. The license was granted. The cell of Thomas Bolle, however, was an apartment of very comfortable size, twenty-four feet in width, and twenty-nine in length, with free
ARCHITECTURE.
ingress to the chapel of the Blessed Virgin, on the north side of the church.
Even this strange form of ascetism, which might be called, itself, an abuse of the monastic system, seems to have been liable to abuses. From some ordinances framed by Bishop Richard of Wych, on the subject, it would appear that the recluses were not always quite true to their vows of seclusion ; for he enjoins them not to receive or entertain any person in their anchorages, and to have the windows of their cells as narrow as possible, that no intercourse may take place through them. He further warns them not to hold communication with suspicious characters, and directs that the custody of church vestments is not to be en- trusted to female recluses, except in cases of necessity. Becon,! witing in the sixteenth century, speaks of them with disgust and contempt, and implies that most of them at that period had become mere surly and sordid beggars. " Who knoweth not," he says, " that our recluses have grates of yron in their spel- unches and dennes, out of which they looke as owles out of an yvye todde when they will vouchsafe to speake with any man, at whose hand they hope for advantage?"
Architecture, a.d. 1075-1250. Sussex is rich in churches built during these two centuries. Three styles succeeded each other within this period, (i.) The Norman, which gradually superseded the primitive Romanesque, and lasted down to about 1145. (ii.) The Transitional, which ranges from 1145 to about 1190,
' " Reliques of Rome." Becon became chaplain to Arch- bishop Cranmer.
CHICHESTER.
and partakes partly of the character of Norman, partly of the third style, into which it ultimately developed, commonly called (iii.) The First Pointed, or Early English, which lasted down to about 1250. The great majority of ecclesiastical buildings in Sussex belong wholly or mainly to the period during which these three styles prevailed.
One of the purest bits of simple, Early Norman, is the east end of Newhaven Church, consisting of a low, thick tower, capped with pyramidal spire and a small apse, to serve as the chancel, protruding from the eastern side of the tower. This construction may often be seen in Normandy, and a very close parallel to Newhaven exists in the Church of Yainville. But in this country Newhaven is a rare specimen, though it is probably only the last survivor of many framed on the same model. Sussex having passed so com- pletely into the hands of Norman owners, we may be pretty sure that there was a close resemblance between many churches which they built here and those which they left behind them in the land of their birth.
The cathedra], as has been already pointed out, is an interesting example, in its main features, of plain, severe Norman, with transitional work of a very pure type. But by far the finest specimens in the diocese of these first two styles are to be seen in the churches of Broadwater and Old Shoreham, and the noble fragments of churches at Steyning and New Shoreham.
Broadwater and Old Shoreham are both cross churches ; the former on a much larger scale than the latter, with central towers resting on low arches,
ARCHITECTURE.
107
richly ornamented with zigzag and other Norman mouldings.
At New Shoreham only the choir and central tower and transepts remain complete ; but there are traces of the nave and aisles to the west end, and fragments of the massive round columns which sup- ported them. Originally it was a grand cross church, with a low, massive, central tower. Traces of apsidal chapels, annexed to the eastern walls of the two tran- septs, still remain, and the original choir was probably apsidal, and afterwards made way for the present building, which is a superb specimen, in its lower portions, of late Norman or early Transitional work. The five arches on either side are pointed, and have deep and rich mouldings. On the north side they rest on single columns, alternately round and octa- gonal. On the south they rest on compound piers of large, semi-detached shafts, with a square abacus. In the arcading, which runs round the walls inside, the arches are round-headed, with a very large and pe- culiar chevron moulding, and rest on single shafts, with a foliated capital and a square abacus. By the time the builders had finished the ground story the first pointed or Early English was established, and the triforium, clerestory, and vaulting are finished in that style ; the openings are lancet-headed, and the abacus of the shafts is no longer square but round. The size and grandeur of this church would certainly suggest that it was originally a conventual church. Yet there is no evidence, documentary or otherwise, that it ever actually was anything more than a parish church. It is mentioned for the first time in a deed of 1103, by
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which Philip de Braose bestows it upon the Abbey of St. Florentius, at Saumur, while confirming his father's gift to the same house of two churches at Sale, of S. Nicolas at Bramber, and S. Nicolas at Old Shoreham. The Abbey of Saumur established a cell at Sele or Seeding. In the Taxatio of Pope Nicholas IV. the Church of New Shoreham is mentioned among the possessions of the priory at Beeding. In the Inquisitio Nonarum, and in the episcopal registers, there are re- ferences to the parish church and the vicars of New Shoreham. In the reign of Edward III. a house of Carmelite friars was established at Shoreham ; but there is no evidence that they had anything to do with the church, nor are there any vestiges of conven- tual buildings in its precincts. It must therefore be regarded as having been one of the most splendid parish churches in the kingdom, worthy of Shoreham in the days when it was an opulent seaport, and could furnish more ships of war for the public service than London itself. The town and the church, we may presume, fell into decay together.
As the nave has disappeared at New Shoreham, so the original choir is lacking at StejTiing. Here we have pure Norman work of two periods. The earlier is in the eastern portion, where the four plain, lofty arches, supported by massive piers, seem intended to bear a heavy central power. The eastern arch of these four resembles the chancel arch of Graville in Normandy, which, like Steyning, was built by the monks of Fdcamp. The arches of the nave are round-headed, and enriched with Norman mouldings and sculpture of the most varied and beautiful cha-
ARCHITECTURE. IO9
racter. The clerestory, also, which is uncommonly lofty, exhibits rich Norman work of rather a later period.
The condition of Boxgrove Church is somewhat analogous to that of New Shoreham. Nearly the whole of the nave is gone. The oldest work is to be seen in the eastern arches of the transepts, which are of the simplest, round-headed kind, without mouldings, the spring of the arch only being marked by a plain and heavy string. A small bit of the nave, imme- diately west of the central tower, remains ; and here the pier arches are round, but have a slight chamfer ; and in one of them the chevron ornament has been begun but abandoned. The arch rests upon a large and plain column or pier with a round abacus, the neck ornamented, as at New Shoreham, with a series of inverted cones. The demolished nave was pro- bably, as at Arundel and so many other places, the parish church, and there are some indications that the western wall of the present building once served as the eastern wall of a church.
As at New Shoreham, so, probably, at Boxgrove, the earliest Norman choir was removed for the larger building, which still remains, a beautiful example of Early English of a very pure type, with just a lingering flavour of the Transitional type, such as we see in the choir and presbytery of Chichester, to which in parts it bears a very close resemblance. The abacus of the capitals, however, at Boxgrove is never square, whereas at Chichester there is a mixture of the round and square ; consequently Boxgrove is, probably, a little later than the presbytery at Chichester and may have been suggested by it.
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CHICHESTER.
Of the monastic churches belonging to this period, and now in ruins, almost the only one of which any extensive remains exist is that of Bayham Abbey. Standing in the midst of meadows of the richest green, beside a rushing stream, in a wide but winding valley, bounded by woodclad hills, it is a perfect picture of monastic seclusion and repose. The church is a good specimen of the plan on which the churches of Augustinian canons were usually constructed. It consists of a long, narrow nave, without aisles ; very short transepts, and an apsidal choir. The eastern limb is so short that there can be little doubt that the canons' choir extended westwards of the cross. The whole church, judging from the present remains, ap- pears to have been built at one time, and in its main features it belongs unquestionably to the Early English style, though many of the details are peculiar. Some of the mouldings are shallow flutings, almost hke those which mark the perpendicular style; the dog tooth ornament is very sparsely employed, and the palm leaf is introduced as it is at NeAV Shoreliam and Broadwater ; but this, as well as the other foliated carving, is much rougher and coarser in execution than it is in those churches.
It would far exceed the scope of this work to enter into a detailed description of the smaller churches throughout the diocese, and it is in the details that their interest and charm mainly consist. It must suffice to say that scarcely any county in England is richer than Sussex in examples of small village churches of the purest, simplest, most graceful Early English type. No one can ramble far through the county
ARCHITECTURE.
Ill
without noticing the prevailing characteristics of these churches, from the larger kind, such as Bosham, down to the very smallest churches of the little parishes, which nestle in the hollows of the Downs, — the shingle spire, single lancet windows, steeply pitched roofs, coved inside, with massive, rugged oaken tie beams, bespeaking rustic workmanship, and abund- ance of material in the neighbouring or surrounding forest. We may observe that, as a rule, the spires are most numerous in the weald or forest district, as if to mark the position of the church by catching the eye above the tree tops. Out of a crowd of churches, all belonging, more or less, to the type just described, we may select, as the most perfect whole specimens, Climping, Appledram, Wisborough Green, and West Tarring ; and in parts, Bosham, Fletching, and Ditch- ling, South Harting, and Rogate. The ruined chapel of the Franciscans, in Chichester, has five beautiful lancet lights of the purest Early English type at the east end.
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CHICHESTER.
CHAPTER IV.
A.D. 1288-1362.
Value of Church Property in the Diocese — Suppression of the Knights Templars — The Bishops and the Cathedral.
The present chapter and the next cover a period during which the Church appeared outwardly to reach the highest point of prosperity and power. The clergy became possessed of great wealth : they had large privileges and immunities, a majority in the House of Lords, two provincial convocations for pur poses of taxation and legislation, and a power of in- quisition, through their spiritual courts, into almost every department and relation of human life. But beneath this fair surface the seeds of corruption were at work.
The proportion of taxation borne by the clergy was, of course, very large.
In 1380, when the national exchequer was at a low ebb, and a subsidy of ^160,000 was asked from Par- liament, the Commons asserted that the clergy pos- sessed one-third of the land, and that, consequently, they must raise a third of the sum. The clergy assented on this occasion, and, generally speaking, during the period now under consideration, we should not be far i\Tong in estimating their share of direct taxation as equal to nearly a third of the whole direc taxation of the country.
VALUE OF CHURCH PROPERTY. II3
It will be interesting to note the amount raised on several occasions from the diocese of Chichester, which was far from being one of the richest.
In i29r, Pope Nicholas IV. made a grant to Edward I., in aid of a crusade for six years, of the tenths of the spiritualities and temporalities of eccle- siastical property which were usually paid to Rome. A careful valuation was made of such property throughout the kingdom and remained the basis of all later valuations down to the reign of Henry VIII.
Benefices not exceeding ten marks in annual value and held by persons not otherwise beneficed were exempted from the tax.
The subjoined table exhibits a condensed summary of the valuation for the Diocese of Chichester.
Archdeaconry of Chichester.^ Spiritualities. Deanery of Slorriiis:lon. Deanoy of Boxgrove.
£. s. d. £. s. d.
27 parishes 478 6 8 38 parishes 478 o o
Less 14 par. under 19 under 10 marks 102 13 4
10 marks 80 6 8
^398 o o Dcanc7y of Midhttrst.
£. s. d.
29 parishes 317 16 8
13 ,, under
10 marks 72 o o
£^A^ 16 8
£zn 6 8 Deanery of Arimdcl.
£. s. d.
34 parishes 337 6 8
18 ,, under
10 marks 1 03 6 8
;^234 o o
' In the original, the Deaneries of Storrington, Midhurst, and Boxgrove, which stand first, are not marked as included in any archdeaconiy. The Abbey of Dureford near Halting is.
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CHICHESTER.
Archdeaconry of Lewes.
Dea7iay of Lewes. Deanery of Hastings,
£. s. d. £. s. d.
62 parishes 754 6816 parishes 140 o o
25 ,, under 9 ,, under
10 marks 135 6 8 10 marks 48 o o
£61') O o £^2 o o
Deanery of Pevensey. Deanery of Dallington.
£. s. d. £. s. d.
44 parishes 469 6 8 38 parishes 397 13 4
20 ,, under 18 ,, under
10 marks 114 13 4 10 marks 92 13 4
;C354 13 4 ;^305 o o
Spiritualities of
The Cathedral Chapter, consisting of the Dean, Precentor, Chancellor, Treasurer, and 28 prebendaries, £706. 13s. 4d., or less one prebend under 10 marks, £700.
Four Churches within the borough of Chichester — Fishbome, St. Peter the Great, St. Pancras, and Wyke — were under ten marks, and were therefore exempted.
The Archuishop of Canterbury's Peculiars.
I. Deanery of South Mallyng. 2. Deanery of Pagham.
£. s. d. £. s. d.
Collegiate Church 6 parishes 184 6 8
of Soutli ]Mal- 3 ,, under
lyng and 12 pa- 10 marks 14 6 S
rishes 364 o O
4 parishes under
10 marks 10 o o
;^354 o o £170 O o
however (see above), placed in the Archdeaconry of Lewes, which would indicate that the Deanery of Midhurst was in that archdeaconry ; a strange arrangement.
VALUE OF CHURCH PROPERTY. 1 15
Temporalities.
1. Episcopal Manors. — Bcxiey, Bishopstone, Preston, Henfield,
Ferring, Amberley, Aldingbourne, Siddlesham, Selsey, Cakeham. Profits from the town and court of Chichester, and from the manor of the Broyle and garden in Chiches- ter, ;f462. 4S. 7|d.
2. Monastic Houses and other Proprietors ' in Archdeaconry of
Chichester.
£. s. d.
Normandy j Abbey of Fecamp 201 14 iij
^ ( ,, Seez 63 18 4
,, Westminster 50 o o
,, Tewkesbury 25 15 4
£. s. d. £. s. d.
Priory of Boxgrove 23 16 5 Abbey of Hyde ... 69 2 o
„ Shulbrede 10 15 o Bishop of Exeter 26 O 4
,, Arundel . 14 10 6 Arclibisliopof Can-
,, Eseborne. 41 00 terbury 150 o o
,, Torting-
ton 26 8 o
Archdeaconry of Lewes.
£. s. d. £. s. d.
Abbey of Battle... 200 7 o Priory of Lewes .. . 183 3 8
,, Bayham 37 2 4 ,, Michel-
,, Grestein 24 15 o ham 80 o o
(Normandy) Priory of Rusper . 13 I I
„ Roberts- ,, Mortain 20 o O
bridge 80 13 4 (Normandy)
,, Dureford 23 16 lo Archbishopof Can-
terbui7 203 n o
£. s. d.
Total value of spiritualities in the diocese 2,131 4 i\
Total value of temporalities in the diocese 4,70816 8
£(>Mo o 9i
have only spaceTor the principal names under this head. I 2
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CHICHESTER.
Various small parcels of land and sums of money payable to the monastic houses brought up the total to /^6,930. os. g^d., of ivhich the tenth was £693. os. id.
In the year 1340, the fourteenth of Edward III., the prelates, barons, and knights of shires, granted a subsidy consisting of the ninth lamb, the ninth sheaf, and the ninth fleece, the towns granted a ninth of goods, and a fifteenth was to be levied on the goods of all traders who did not live in cities or boroughs.
Commissioners were appointed to assess this tax in every county. The principle adopted was to con- sider the ninth of corn, wool, and lambs in 1340 as equivalent to the tenths of all tytheable commodities in the year 1291, and the course pursued by the com- missioners was this : — they held their sittings at certain centres ; representatives from every parish appeared before them and stated on oath the true value of the ninth of corn, wool, and lambs ; this was compared with the valuation of the tenth made in 1291, and if the ninth fell below that valuation the causes were assigned by the parishioners, whether arising from a decrease in the value of land and cattle, or from the fact that other articles besides corn, wool, and lambs, such as glebe, tithe of hay, etc., had been included in the valuation of 1291.
Four assessors, of whom Henry Hussey was chief, were appointed for Sussex. Henry Garland, Dean of Chichester, was receiver of the subsidy until August 8, when the Abbot of Battle was appointed in his place.
There were very few instances in which the ninth did not fall below the tenth of Pope Nicholas's valua- tion. The chief reasons assigned for the deficiency
VALUE OF CHURCH PROPERTY.
"7
are (i.) the injury or destruction of land by irruptions of the sea. The total quantity of land thus destroyed was 5,500 acres, of which the largest portion was at Pagham, where 2,700 acres had been laid waste.
(ii.) The poverty of the cultivators and their in- ability to get seed. This applied to a large number of parishes, especially in the neighbourhood of Brighton, Lewes, and Shoreham. (iii.) A murrain amongst cattle, and severity of weather injuring the corn, (iv.) Destruction of crops by rabbits, (v.) Ravages of the French — this last complaint comes from Friston, East Dean, Seaford, and Patcham.
Only five parishes return their value in 1341 as exceeding the valuation of 1291 — .South Mallyng, Framfield, Stanmere, Patching, and Isfield, and in these the increase is but trifling.
In 1377, a poll tax of one shilling was levied on every beneficed priest and every regular, except the mendicant orders, and fourpence on every unbene- ficed priest, subdeacon, acolyte, or other tonsured person above the age of fourteen. In Sussex this tax produced ;^26. 7s. 6d., collected from 473 persons of the former class, and 168 of the latter.
In 1380, when the clergy were required to raise one- third of the sum of ^160,000 demanded of Par- liament, the tax of a tenth was levied on spirituali- ties and temporalities, and a poll tax of two shillings on every unbeneficed priest. The return for Sussex is very complete, in the Archdeaconry of Chichester ; in the Archdeaconry of Lewes the return of the poll tax only has been preserved. This, however, is the more interesting of the two since the valuation of the
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tenth corresponds very nearly with the taxation of Pope Nicholas in 1291, whereas the return for the poll tax shows us the number of unbeneficed priests in the diocese. They formed a very large class during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, consisting of sti- pendiary chaplains, or chantry priests, who were paid small salaries for'officiating in private chapels, or say- ing masses for the dead. Of these, there were in Chichester alone, according to the return of 1380, twenty-six ; in the rest of the Archdeaconry, forty-two; and in the Archdeaconry of Lewes, fifty-one. The reason why poll taxes on the stipendiary clergy were levied seems to have been the gradual diminution in the amount produced by the ecclesiastical tenth. From many causes, varying in different places, but some of them common to all — the ravages of war, of pestilence, of floods, the suppression of the alien priories, and the growing corruption of the other monastic houses, -leading to wasteful and unskilful administration of their property — the value of eccle- siastical property appears to have steadily declined during the fifteenth century. The number of livings exempted from payment of the tenth as being under the annual value of ten marks continually increases. When a tenth was voted by Convocation in 1440, exemptions were allowed under three heads. (i.) Livings vacant owing to failure of income. Of these there were ten in the Archdeaconrj- of Chichester, and three in the Archdeaconry of Lewes, (ii.) Parishes injured by flood or fire. Of such there was one in the Archdeaconry of Chichester, and seven in the Archdeaconry of Lewes, (iii.) Livings under twelve
VALUE OF CHURCH PROPERTY. 1 19
marks in annual value. Of such there were nearly a hundred in the Archdeaconry of Chichester, and seventy in the Archdeaconry of Lewes. A complaint had been made by the Universities to Convocation that few graduates were appointed by patrons to bene- fices. The bishops were requested by Convocation to make an exact return of all graduate incumbents. The Bishop of Chichester [Praty] in sending his list, appends the remark that in his diocese the chief reason why graduates were not appointed was, that owing to the extreme poverty of many of the livings graduates did not care to accept them. ■
Finally, from a letter addressed by Henry VII., in 1497, to Storey, Bishop of Chichester, chiding him for slackness in collecting from his diocese for a subsidy of ;^4o,ooo voted by Convocation, we learn that the product of an ecclesiastical tenth at that time was no more than 10,000, or little more than half what it was under the valuation of a.d. 1291.
A careful attention to these records of the financial condition of the Church is a great help to forming a just estimate of the position and influence of the clergy politically, socially, and morally in the country. To take the case of our own diocese, we find the great bulk of ecclesiastical wealth in the hands (i.) of two powerful personages, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of the Diocese, and (ii.) of corporate bodies, of which the principal were the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral Church, and the two great monastic houses at Battle and Lewes. ^luch of this wealth was well expended upon the building or adorn- ment of churches, monasteries, and hospitals, rarely
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surpassed for beauty of design, and skilfulness of execution ; much also was spent in almsgiving and employment of labour in crafts, in the cultivation of the soil, and, possibly, in the working of iron, though I have failed to find any evidence that the monasteries did much to promote this manufacture for which Sussex became famous. On the other hand, the paro- chial clergy were for the most part very poor j the rectories were so ill endowed that, as we have seen, few graduates would accept them ; the consequence was that incumbents became pluralists, or non-resi- dents seeking secular employment ; the vicars put in by them and by the monastic houses were scantily paid and frequently irregular residents. Below these was the large body already noticed of unbeneficed stipendiary chaplains and chantry priests.^
It is easy to see how detrimental such a condition of things was to the moral and spiritual influence of the clerical order. In the Episcopal ranks were men of conspicuous ability, who held office in the State as well as the Church. Such among our own bishops were John Langton and Robert Stratford, who became Chancellors of the realm. A few, like Bishop Gilbert de Sancto Leofardo, were energetic administrators of their diocese. Others, such as Bishop William Rede, were skilled in architecture and learned in the science
' The records of ordinations in the bishop's registers prove what a large number of clergy there were in the mediaeval times in proportion to the population, e.g., in a.d. 1407 Bishop Rede ordained 45, and in a.d. 1444 Bishop Praty ordained 53. These were of all orders from acolites to priests, some monastic, some secular.
VALUE OF CHURCH PROPERTV.
of the day. But the instances are rare indeed of bishops whose time and energies were concentrated on episcopal work. It was the fault of the age, not of the men. Preferments in the church were heaped upon men of ability, to enable them to discharge the duties of high official positions in the State, or about the Court. Thus they were chancellors, councillors, treasurers, architects, large landed proprietors, as well as bishops, and often rather than bishops.
The tendency of the monks was to degenerate into easy-going country gentlemen — of the friars, into indolent, sturdy beggars. In our diocese, the letter of Bishop Praty, mentioned above, proves that the parochial clergy were not drawn from a high class, and it is easy to conceive that though there may have been saints among them here and there, and a fair number of respectable, conscientious men, yet a large proportion of them, living under a rule of celibacy in secluded places, and possessed of little wealth and less learning, must have lapsed into low habits and exercised little, if any, elevating influence on their flocks. Stipendiary chaplains, again, whose duty was confined to saying masses for the dead, formed a class, often very numerous in towns, of idlers, whose presence was far from conducive to the edification of the people.
A series of ordinances for the regulation of the clergy, published at a Diocesan Synod, held under Bishop Gilbert, in the cathedral, in 1289, indicates very clearly some of the evils which beset the Church at that time.
The clergy are enjoined to be diligent in pra)-er
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and study, peaceable, humble, and modest. They are forbidden to frequent tournaments or any public spectacle where bloodshed is likely to occur ; to keep concubines, or to hold intercourse with such as kept them ; and rectors who entrusted their parishes to such priests were to be liable to a penalty of sixty shillings, to be expended on the fabric of the cathedral. They are admonished to be careful in selecting as vicars men who had been properly ordained and were of honest conversation, active, and eloquent ; and they were to take care that they secured the services of able men by providing sufficient stipends for them, which were never to be less than five marks a year {£z 6s. 8d.), and more in rich parishes. They were not to appoint any one who had not been presented to the Archdeacons and approved by them after examination ; and were to be diligent in searching out offenders and bringing them before the proper tribunal.
The clergy are forbidden to wear cloaks with sleeves or any other kind of dress which savoured of luxury and worldly vanit)'. Parish priests were admonished to be diligent in performing the divine offices at the appointed hours : to read slowly, distinctly, and reverently, so as to quicken the minds of the con- gregation to devotion. They were to visit the sick on Sundays and festivals, and to be ready to minister to them at whatever hour they might be summoned. They are warned against counterfeit friars, who had crept into several parts of the diocese, and were making a traffic of preaching and hearing confessions.
Persons convicted of disturbing the public peace or
VALUE OF CHURCH PROPERTY. 1 23
infringing the liberties of the Church, especially the Church in Chichester, intruders into benefices, incen- diaries, church breakers, witches, and sorcerers, were to be excommunicated, and their excommunication was to be published four times a year in the vulgar tongue by the parish priests in the churches of the parishes to which they belonged.
Bishop Gilbert was the last Bishop of Chichester during the medieval period, whose undivided atten- tion seems to have been given to his diocese, and who reflected some of that pastoral energy and simple personal piety of which Richard of Wych was an ideal model. He is described in the rather rapturous language of a chronicler as " the father of orphans, the comforter of mourning widows, the generous reliever of the poor, the pious and humble visitor of the sick who lay in coarse beds in mean hovels."
There is one passage in his life which to modern minds might seem inconsistent with the mild and spiritual disposition for which he is said to have been remarkable. But no difficulty will be felt by those who can throw themselves back into the spirit of the age when Bishop Gilbert lived.
In the summer of 1292, Richard Fitz Alan, Earl of Arundel, was twice detected hunting within the boundaries of the bishop's chase at Houghton. On hearing of the trespass the bishop sent a deputation, the treasurer and three canons of Chichester, with two other clerics, to remonstrate with the earl at Arundel. The earl replied that it was quite true that he had hunted in that chase, and there he would hunt again. The bishop pronounced the greater ex-
1-24
CHICHESTER.
communication on the earl, but the punishment was disregarded. He then placed the whole of the earl's estate under an interdict. This blow was effectual. The earl was keeping Christmas in his manor of East Dean ; he sent to the bishop, who was staying at Amberley, and signified his earnest desire to be par- doned. The bishop willingly assented, and at the request of the earl's messenger, his seneschal, Lucas de la Garc, the bishop met the earl in the chapel of Houghton on Christmas eve, and there gave him absolution, which he humbly and thankfully accepted, promising to do three days' penance, and to make a pilgrimage to the shrine of S. Richard, at Chichester, on the first possible opportunity.
John Langton (a.d. 1305-1337), the successor of Bishop Gilbert, belonged to that class of prelates who were statesmen rather than diocesans. He had been chancellor before he was made bishop, and, after a temporary resignation of the office, resumed it, though only for a few years. Two incidents, only, in his dio- cesan administration are recorded, but these two prove him to have been a man of vigour and determination. He excommunicated Earl Warren for an adulterous connexion : the earl came to Chichester and endea- voured to seize the bishop, but Langton and his servants not only repelled the attack but captured the earl and his retinue, and put them all in prison. The other incident had an important bearing upon the relations of the bishop to the chapter. The dean and chapter made some statutes, affecting more especially the priest vicars of the cathedral, without consulting or obtaining the approval of the bishop. Two of the
SUPPRESSION OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS. 1 25
vicars appealed to the bishop against the statutes : the dean and chapter suspended the vicars. The bishop peremptorily commanded the dean to absolve and restore the vicars, declared the statutes null and void, as having been framed without his consent, and en- joined the dean, by virtue of his canonical obedience to publish this declaration in the cathedral church and in all the city churches.
Bishop Langton was concerned in one transaction which convulsed not only all England, but all Christen- dom with amazement and horror; — the suppression of the celebrated order of the Knights Templars ; and as there were some branches of the order in Sussex, the subject cannot be passed by without some notice in these pages.
The great order of the Knights Templars, half military, half monastic, had existed for nearly 200 years. It was wealthy, powerful, independent. Sud- denly, in 1307, the French King, Philip the Fair, and the French Pope, Clement V., issued a mandate for the arrest of all members of the order to be brought to trial on charges of the most horrible and revolting nature. Philip informed his son-in-law, Edward II. of England, of the suspected guilt of the Templars, and desired him to take steps for their apprehension. Edward and his barons were amazed and incredulous. They tried at first to form an alliance with the Kings of Portugal, Castille, and Arragon for the protection of the Templars. But the message of Philip was followed by a peremptory bull from the Pope com- manding Edward to arrest the Templars throughout liis dominions, and to sequestrate their property.
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The weak king was either convinced or overawed. Orders were issued to the sheriffs in December 1307 for the arrest of the Templars in England, Wales, Scot- land, and Ireland, and the order was simultaneously executed on Wednesday after Epiphany, in January 1308.
The Bishop of Chichester was one of the inquisitors appointed to try the prisoners. He and the Bishop of London held their court at St. Martin's, Ludgate. The trials in England were on the whole conducted much more fairly and less severely than in France and the Papal States, where horrible tortures were employed to wring confessions from the accused, and the flimsiest and wildest tales were accepted as evidence of guilt. By the express desire of the Pope, however, recourse was sometimes had to torture in England, when other means failed to elicit confessions of the idolatry and foul vices of which the unhappy Templars were accused.
There were two Preceptories, as they were called,^ of Knights Templars in Sussex ; one at Sadelescombe, near Brighton, the other at Shipley, in the rape of Bramber. Both were considerable manors, which were held, like all the property of the Templars, free of taxes and claims of every kind, ecclesiastical and civil. The manor of Sadelescombe was given to the Templars about 1225, by Geoffrey de Say, who held it under the Earl of Warren. The privileges claimed by the Templars on this estate were so extensive, that,
' Because the letters of the grand masters to the stewards of these country estates began with the word "precipimus," the steward was called preceptor.
SUPPRESSION OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS. I27
in 1279, an assize held in Chichester, a jury of knights was sworn to determine on.their claims. The verdict of the jury, was that, with some few specified exceptions, the Templars were entitled to their privi- leges, but they stated that they received men under their protection who were not their tenants, and accepted annual payment from them for such protection ; that these persons wore the cross of the Templars on their tabards, and so passed free from tolls through the kingdom ; also that they erected templar crosses in their tenements, and claimed exemption from obligations to the capital lords of the fees. This evil became so serious that an Act was passed by Parlia- ment in 1285, declaring all tenements of this kind to be forfeited to the capital lord or the king.
The other possession of the Templars in Sussex was a much earlier gift than Sadelescombe. About the year 1225, Philip of Harcourt, Dean of Lincoln, gave them his manor of Shipley, near Horsham. William of Braose, the capital lord, ratified the grant. In 1 156, the same Philip of Harcourt, who had become Bishop of Bayeux, gave the Church of Sompting to the Templars of Shipley, who engaged to Seffrid H., Bishop of Chichester, that the Vicar of Sompting should have all the offerings made at the altar and the tithes of a mill and two acres on which the brothers undertook to build for his use, " two fair houses," and to pay him two marks a year.
When the Templars were arrested in 1308 avaluation was made of their property and an inventory of their goods. The lists of their effects in the preceptories of Sadelescombe and Shipley consist almost wholly of
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such implements of husbandry as indicate that the knights Avere industrious farmers ; and the furniture of their churches seems to have been simple, though suffi- cient. At Sadelescombe it consisted of i chalice, value 2S.; 2 pair of vestments, 6s. 8d. ; i missal, 20s. ; one temporal and sanctorum, los. ; 2 handwipers and i tin vial, 6d. ; i Salter (sic), is. ; i tin bracket for holy water, id. At Shipley the candlesticks were of pewter. The only articles which betoken the gentle blood of the knights are 20 silver spoons, 3 rings of gold, and three silk purses. The total value of the manor at Sadelescombe was assessed at ;^20. is. 3d., the value of the goods at ios. id. At Shipley
the manor was valued at ;£i. i8s. id., the church at ;^i3. 6s. 8d., the goods at £Ti- 12s. 3d. One precious memorial of the Templars has been preserved in the Church of Shipley — a reliquary, 7 inches long by 6 inches high, with gilt plates, ornamented with enamel, bearing representations of the crucifixion.
The Preceptor of Sadelescombe probably evaded capture, as his name does not appear among the list of prisoners. The Preceptor of Shipley, William de Egendon, was arrested by the sheriff, and kept, with others, twenty months in confinement, before exa- mination in the Bishop of London's Palace, October 1309.
The accusations made against the Templars that they spat on the cross, that they disbelieved the sacra- ments, that they worshipped a cat, and idols with two or more faces, that admissions to their order were made clandestinely, and accompanied by obscene rites — all these and many other preposterous charges
SUPPRESSION OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS. 1 29
were solemnly and indignantly denied by the prisoners ; but witnesses were allowed to repeat as evidence all manner of strange and disgusting gossip of this kind.
This miserable work went on for two years till all parties had grown sick of it and were ready for a com- promise. On the 29th of April, 131 1, the Preceptor of Shipley and twenty-seven otherTemplars were brought before the inquisitors in Barking Church, and there tended a paper which was accepted as a kind of con- fession. In this paper the unhappy knights stated that though they were sincere Christians they were in such evil repute that they were unable to prove themselves innocent, and therefore submitted themselves to the discipline of the Church, and implored its pardon.
The Bishops of London and Chichester were empowered to grant absolution. This they did . with much pomp, seated at the west door of St. Paul's, surrounded by clergy and people, while the poor Templars, kneeling before ihem, publicly abjured all heresies. It is noticeable that the prisoners were allowed to make their abjuration in Latin, English, or French, according to their capacity and taste : the Pre- ceptor of Shipley made his abjuration in French. The absolved knights were released from their prisons, but only to do penance for the rest of their lives, in various monastic houses, an exchange in some instances of doubtful advantage. Their property generally was transferred to the rival order of the Knights Hospitallers. A house and chapel belonging to the preceptory of Shipley at New Shoreham were granted to the Carmelite friars in that town.
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CHICHESTER.
The successor of Langton, Robert of Stratford (1337-1362), was even more of the statesman and less of the diocesan than his predecessor. He was the Chancellor, and his brother John the Primate of England, during a very trying period of Edward III.'s war with France. The tax on the ninth fleece, lamb, and sheaf, in 1340, is said to have been suggested by him, which may account for the fact that the returns of the valuations for this levy from the diocese of Chichester are more full and exact than from any other in the kingdom.
It was probably during the long absences of prelates who were engaged in secular rather than ecclesiastical business that cathedral chapters endeavoured to shake themselves free of episcopal control. The bishops, however, as a rule, were vigilant of their rights. We have seen how Langton asserted his authority, and his successor was equally tenacious. The dean claimed the right, as dating from times beyond the memory of man, to institute incumbents to all the city parishes, including the suburbs of Fish- bourne and Wyke : also the cognisance of matri- monial causes, and the probate of wills, and all other rights pertaining to ecclesiastical jurisdiction \rithin those limits. The subject was referred by Bishop Stratford to his brother, the primate, who decided that when the bishop held a visitation of the city all the above-mentioned rights should for the time be trans- ferred to him, but that at all other times the dean should freely exercise them. Walter de Segrave, the dean, accused the bishop of taking advantage of this judgment to advance an unfair claim to prove the
THE BISHOP AND THE DEAN.
will of a canon who was also chancellor of the cathedral. An appeal was made to the Pope, and after a protracted suit in the time of Walter de Segrave's successor, a decision was given in favour of the dean.i
' See Dr. Swainson's "History and Constilution of a Cathe- dral of the Old Foundation," p. 64.
K 2
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CHAPTER V.
A.D. 1362-I497.
Causes of Corruption in the Church— Prosecution of the Lol- lards—State of the Monasteries — Episcopal Visitations — Architecture, A.D. 1250-1500.
For the next thirty-five years, 1362-1397, the annals of our diocese are almost a blank, and with the excep- tion of William Rede,i 1369-1385, who is said to have been a distinguished theologian, mathematician, and astronomer, none of the bishops were men of mark. As a rule, they were court favourites recommended by the king, and appointed to the see by Papal provision.
We have seen what were the principal internal causes of the corruption of the Church, and in the practice of Papal provision we have one of the most mischievous evils to which it was subject from without. The Statute of Provisions, which was enacted and re-enacted against it, was continually being evaded. Unworthy and mercenary men, very often foreigners, were repeatedly thrust by Papal nomination into wealthy English benefices. During the episcopate of
' Bishop Rede founded the library of Merton College, Oxford ; and we are indebted to him for arranging and transcribing many of the ancient records of the see of Chichester. In 1379 he obtained licence to " crenellate," i.e., to fortify, the episcopal manor-house at Amberley. Some picturesque remains of the entrance-gate and walls may be seen at the present day.
CAUSES OF CORRUPTION IN THE CHURCH. 1 33
Richard of Wych, Pope Innocent IV. had demanded a canonry in Chichester Cathedral, but the claim had been resisted by the chapter. He also granted per- mission to Robert de Passelew, archdeacon of Lewes, who held a prebendal stall in the cathedral, but was non-resident, to receive his share of the commune as if he resided. The chapter stoutly resisted this interference with their ancient constitution, and declared that if the Pope continued to grant privileges of this kind to all manner of persons there would not be enough left to pay the resident canons and vicars, and otherwise to maintain the services of the Church. But however successful the chapter may have been in their resistance to aggressions of this kind, they were powerless to prevent the appointment of bishops whom the King and the Pope conspired to place in the sec. Nearly all the Bishops of Chichester during the reigns of Richard II. and Henry VI. were appointed through Papal provision at the recommendation of the king. The see was regarded as a stepping-stone in the promotion of court favourites to higher positions. Out of four bishops who occupied the see during the reign of Richard, three were personal friends of the king — Thomas Rushoke, a.d. 1385-1389, who was banished to Ireland on the downfall of the king ; Richard Metford, 1389-1395, who was royal con- fessor : and Robert Rede, appointed in 1397, who held the see through the reign of Henry IV., and part of the reign of Henry V. Robert Waldby, who held it for one year, 1396, when he was translated to York, was a friend of the Black Prince. All of them, with the exception of Metford, were friars.
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On the whole, the bishops appointed by Papal provision to the see of Chichester during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were respectable, and some of them diligent and zealous prelates. But the character of individuals could not blind men to the viciousness of the system. The increasing exactions of Rome, the continual violation of the statutes of provisions and praemunire, combined with the manifold internal causes of corruption to lower the influence and esti- mation of the Church. The whole picture of mingled abuses is vividly set before us alike in the gay satire of Chaucer, the grim sarcasms and lamentations of Piers the ploughman, and the vehement denunciations of Wyclifife and his disciples.
Duringthelast twentyyears of the fourteenth century, and the first twenty years of the fifteenth, Wyclififism or Lollardy was at its height. The whole machinery of Church and State was employed to stamp it out, but in vain ; the fire was smothered, but not extinguished, until, at the close of the fifteenth century, the smoulder- ing embers were fanned into a mightier and purer flame by the breath of the " New Learning." Wyclifife himself had for a time sought shelter from persecution on John of Gaunt's property at Maresfield, in Sussex, and officiated in the free chapel there. His preachers, the " simple priests," as they were called, clad in their long russet gowns, propagated his doctrine in every corner of the country, and probably preached their homely sermons in many a little town and quiet secluded village in this diocese.
Bishop Robert Rede is the first Bishop of Chi- chester whose register has been preserved. After his
THE LOLLARDS.
episcopate the series of registers, with occasional breaks, is tolerably complete ; and they form, of course, the most valuable sources of information con- cerning the history of the diocese. Two facts are most clearly revealed by these official records during the fifteenth century, — the decay of the monastic system, and the growth of Lollardy.
The episcopate of Robert Rede almost exactly tallies with that of the primate Arundel, and lasted through the whole reign of Henry IV. — a period when the most vigorous efforts were made to put down the Lollards. The Lollards might be called the political dissenters of that age, for they not only taught what was considered heresy, but proclaimed revolutionary pohtical opinions. Henry IV. was not so securely seated on the throne that he could afford to despise the influence of such teaching on the minds of the people ; and by prosecuting the heretics he hoped to win the wealth and interest of the clergy to his side. Treason and heresy were in those days regarded as two sides of the same crime. The Lollards were thus two-fold rebels, and the statute, " de heretico comburendo," passed in 1401, which empowered bishops to hand over obstinate Lollards to the sheriff, bailiff, or mayor, to be burned to death, was the pro- duct of an alliance between the ecclesiastical and civil powers to crush an enemy equally dangerous to both.
One of the first victims to suffer under this new statute was John Badby, a tailor of Evesham, who was tried before Archbishop Arundel at St. Paul's, London. The primate was supported by a mixed
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body of assessors, lay and clerical, one of whom was the Bishop of Chichester. The most notorious Lol- lard of the day was Sir John Oldcastle. His ability and position rendered him a formidable leader of the sect, and, as such, it was determined to make an example of him. A minute record of his several appearances and declarations of belief in the archbishop's court, and the final sentence of condemnation passed upon him, is contained in Bishop Rede's register, and was appa- rently circulated for transcription into the registers of all bishops of the southern province ; probably as a guide to them in dealing with smaller offenders, as it contains a very full list of the Lollard opinions, and the case was considered as a kind of typical case.
There are, however, no records of prosecutions for Lollardy in the diocese of Chichester before the episcopate of Bishop Praty, 30 years later, though we cannot doubt that Bishop Rede was diligent in searching out offenders ; for he was not only an active diocesan, but also a Dominican friar, and the friars were the most energetic adversaries of the Wycliffites.
There was always great jealousy also between the friars and secular clergy, and this may partly account for some symptoms of resentment by the cathedral chapter to Bishop Rede's authority, which appear in the records of his first visitation. This occurred in 1397, and it may be worth while to give some account of it as a specimen of mediaeval ceremonial. The bishop slept on the night of June 3 at his Manor- house of Aldingbourne, and, after having heard prime in his chapel there next morning, rode to his palace at Chichester. Having rested there awhile and put on
VISITATION OF THE CATHEDRAL. 1 37
his robes, he walked to the west door, where he was met by the dean, the treasurer, the canons in resi- dence (seven in number), and all the ministers of the church. Having been solemnly censed by the dean and treasurer, he was " honorifically " conducted up the nave, the whole body chanting as they went to the high altar, before which he prostrated himself, while a prayer was offered over him by the dean. The bishop then gave the kiss of peace to the dean and canons, after which an admirable discourse (" egregia collatio ") was preached by Father Peter, vicar of Eastbourne, on the theme, " Pastor visitat gregem." At the conclusion of the address the whole cathedral body, including the vicars, accompanied the bishop to the chapter-house. Here they were required to exhibit their letters of orders, to declare the names and titles of their several cures and offices, and to make profession of obedience to the bishop. This demand was resisted, principally, it would seem, by the dean, the treasurer, and the Archdeacon of Lewes; but after some altercation, it was conceded. The visitation was continued another day by the Arch- deacon of Carmarthen, who seems to have acted as chaplain and commissary of the bishop. All the canons who had not been present before were required to make their profession of obedience. A contention again arose, the canons maintaining that it had not been exacted by former bishops, and they asked time to consider their decision. Finally, on July 9, after much altercation, they consented to make their pro- fession before the dean, acting as the commissary of the bishop for the purpose.
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The results of the inquiry made at this and two subsequent visitations — one 1402, another 1409 — into grievances and abuses, prove that it was high time for the authority of the visitor to be exercised. Chapters were not regularly held, nor, when held, were the proper penalties for offences enforced. Con- fusion and irregularity were in the services, the "use" not being committed to writing. Many of the canons did not attend at the appointed hours, and some of them were in the habit of leaving before the service was over. One of them was convicted of abstracting three pounds from the treasury chest, carrying off for his own use some building materials intended for the repair of the cathedral, and habitually making a short cut from the cathedral to his house through the chapel of St. Faith at the south-eastern corner of the cloisters. The chancellor was not diligent in teaching the choristers grammar, or in mending the cathedral books, which were grievously out of repair. The vicars were very negligent of their duties ; many of them talked during service, others left before it was over. The dean had accepted 100 shillings from one of them as a fine for hving in concubinage, instead of trying him in the ecclesiastical court. Another kept several hounds, and was addicted to hunting and rambling idly about.
In fact, scarcely any one connected with the cathe- dral seems to have been doing his duty. And if this was the case in a large establishment of secular clergy living in a town, and more or less under the eye both of the public and of the bishop, we may easily imagine what was the condition of the monastic
SPIRITUAL DESTITUTION.
^39
houses, especially the small ones in secluded places. More of these by-and-by. Meanwhile, one entry in Bishop Rede's register tells a sad tale of the destitute condition of some of the country parishes. Com- plaints were commonly made that rectors did not reside on their benefices, but were occupied in secular affairs, and left their cures to the charge of ill-paid vicars. Sometimes they let their own livings, and went about the country acting as stipendiary curates for' other non-resident rectors. The bishop addresses a letter to the sequestrator for the Archdeaconry of Lewes, a.d. 1399, instructing him to cite all such rectors to appear before the bishop, to give an account of their conduct and to receive what was due for their deeds to the good of their souls, the welfare of the Church, and the avoiding of scandal ; and meanwhile the sequestrator is to collect and hold the proceeds of their livings, sufficient provision being made for their needs.
After the death of Bishop Rede, which occurred in 141 5 (the year of the battle of Agincourt) the see lay vacant for two years. Six prelates then occupied it in rapid succession — Stephen Patryngton, Henry Ware, Thomas Poldon, John Rickingale, and Simon Syden- ham. Of these all except one were appointed by Papal provision, and only occupied the see as a halting-place on their road to higher preferment. Their united episcopates cover a space of twenty years, but as their registers have been lost we are left in ignorance of the state of the diocese during this period. With the accession of Richard Praty, a.d. 1438-1446, the veil is lifted again. His register has been preserved, and
CHICHESTER.
contains a minute record of all his official acts. He appears to have been diligent in visiting his diocese, and in prosecuting persons accused of Lollardy. One example of the latter proves that under the head of Lollardy was included a curious mixture of Wycliffite tenets and vulgar superstitious practices, common, no doubt, everywhere, but especially perhaps in such remote rural parishes as abounded in Sussex.
In the course of the bishop's first progress through his diocese he was informed that John Boreham, who had been parish priest of Salehurst for twenty years, held and taught publicly and privately divers heresies, errors, and pestiferous tenets of the accursed John Wycliffe ; also that he had and hath divers books and tracts of accursed reading in the vulgar tongue. Boreham appeared before the bishop in the parish church and craved leave to purge himself of all the charges. The bishop assented, and bade him appear that day week for this purpose in the parish church of Eastbourne. Boreham, however, did not appear, and was pronounced contumacious. About a month later, on October 27, he was captured in London and sent down to the bishop, then at Amberley Castle. The bishop, sitting in front of the altar in his chapel, asked him why he had not appeared on the appointed day at Eastbourne. Poor Boreham replied that he dreaded his sentence, and had therefore fled to London. The bishop ordered him to be kept in custody and brought before him for a final hearing in the cathedral on November 4. On that day the bishop's gaoler brought Boreham to the cathedral where the bishop sat with his assessors, the Archdeacon of Lewes and a licentiate
TRIAL OF A LOLLARD.
in law. The charges were cited in Latin and English. Boreham swore on the Gospels that he would return a true answer to each. The principal were as follow : — (i.) He had used exorcism to expel demons. Confessed.
(2.) Declared that he could cast out evil spirits better than many priests by the aid of baptism could do it. Denied.
(3.) Believed that by incantations and abjurations made over willow wands he could cure fever as long as the ends of such rods were hung round the necks of the sufferers. Confessed.
(4.) Had disparaged the sacrament of the altar and of confession as unnecessary to salvation. Denied.
(5.) Had consorted with and aided heretics instead of discovering them to the ordinary. Denied.
(6.) Had books of Wycliffe and of Holy Scripture in English, and knew others who had such books, yet had not informed against them within 40 days. Confessed that he had the four Gospels in English and also some books of incantations.
The examination being ended, Boreham knelt down in the humblest manner before the bishop and craved to be absolved from the penalty of the greater excommunication. His petition was granted, he again swearing on the Gospels that he would never henceforth teach or cause to be taught or defend any of the above-mentioned errors, or any other errors contrary to the teaching of holy Church.
The bishop held his first visitation of the cathedral in 1 44 1. The dean was absent ; seven resident canons appeared. Twenty-four non-residents and
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twenty-five vicars were cited. No difficulty was made this time about the profession of obedience to the bishop, but otherwise the state of discipline does not seem to have mended much since the time of Bishop Rede. The vicars were very irregular in their attendance at matins ; the younger vicars especially being apt to lie in bed too late. Several of the chantry chapels were not served as they ought to be. The succentor was idle and suspected of incontinent living.
The canons often went to dine outside the city, not leaving enough in their houses to feed their vicars, who were obliged to go and beg a meal where they could, to the great scandal of the Church. Some of the houses and chancels of churches belonging to the chapter were in a ruinous state. Traffic and sports were carried on in the grave-yard and precincts of the cathedral, giving rise to unseemly language and quarrelling, and occasionally worse offences. There had been great negligence as to the custody of the common seal, so that sometimes business had been transacted by two or three members only, for which the consent of all the canons in residence ought to have been asked.
The visitation of the religious houses discloses an unpleasant picture of monastic life. A few were well reported of in every respect, but by far the larger number were in a very corrupt state. The Abbey of Battle, the Priory of Lewes, and the Premonstratensian Abbeys of Dureford and Bayham were exempt from episcopal jurisdiction, so that we have no means of ascertaining their condition, though the election of
VISITATION OF THE DIOCESE. 1 43
abbots for the two latter houses was subject to the bishop's confirmation. As a general rule, however, the larger houses were in a far better condition morally and otherwise than the small ones, especially those in secluded country places. Most of these, when Bishop Praty made his visitation, had lapsed into a very rotten state indeed. A few examples must suffice.
Boxgrove was one of those which now and later maintained a fair measure of respectability.
The Benedictine Nunnery of Eseborne, near Mid- hurst, was -^40 in debt, owing to the personal extravagance of the prioress. She dressed in costly garments; her fur mantle had cost loo shillings. She made the sisters work and gave them nothing for it, but took all the proceeds for herself. The bishop suspended the prioress from administration of the temporalities, which were to be put in charge of trustees until the priory was out of debt. She was forbidden to force the sisters to work ; she was to dress as became her order, and to reduce all her household and personal expenses. These injunctions were to be obeyed on pain of deposition.
At Rusper the sisters stated that the prioress never rendered any account to them of her administration of the property.
The Priory of Sele (Beeding) was poor and in debt. There were only four inmates. The prior was accused of dreadful immorality. The Bishop's Commissary suspended him, but he afterwards did penance, and was restored.
New Hastings, Shulbrede, and Michelham were all in debt. The latter was the most deeply involved.
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The prior sold everything for his own profit — oak timber, mill-stones, mill-gear, horses, books, and documents. He never reckoned with the chapter for anything. " Solus recipit, solus solvit."
It is clear from such records that most of the small monasteries were as ripe for suppression then as they were a hundred years later. The bishops could only patch the evils a little here and there ; a complete cure was in the nature of things impossible. The insti- tutions were corrupt because they had done their work, and a pure and genuine love of monastic life had passed away together with the causes which first called it into existence. All honour, however, is due to Bishop Praty, and other prelates Hke him who did their best to detect and reform abuses.
Adam Moleyns or Molyneux, a.d. 1446-1450, Bishop Praty's successor, is the only Bishop of Chi- chester who came to a violent end. He had accompanied the Earl of Suffolk to France in 1443 to arrange the marriage of our Henry VI. with Margaret of Anjou. His shar^ in the introduction of that unhappy princess into England, the "outlandish woman," as she was vulgarly called, and his connexion with the party of Suffolk, which was generally in favour of peace with France, was the main cause of his excessive unpopularity. The country sighed over the loss of the French territory won by Henry V., and regarded a departure from his aggressive policy as an evidence of pusillanimity, if not of treasonable sympathy with " our adversary of France."
Bishop Moleyns must have been a favourite with the king, for he obtained grants of extraordinary
MURDER OF BISHOP MOLEYNS. 1 45
privileges — exemption of all coast land belonging to the see from the jurisdiction of the Court of Admiralty, licence to "impark" 10,000 acres of land in different parts of his diocese, and to case with stone and fortify twelve out of his fifteen manor-houses. But before these grants could take effect the bishop was no more. In 1449 received permission to retire from all secular employment, and to travel on either side of the Channel for the benefit of his soul, taking with him a sum of 500 marks for his maintenance. On the 9th of January, 1450, he was at Portsmouth preparing to sail for France when he was assassinated by some sailors, but the particulars of the murder have not been recorded. The sailors probably hoped to get a reward for their foul deed from the Yorkist party, though there is no proof that they were bribed to do it. The Earl of Suffolk was executed or rather murdered a few monthslater, at sea, by the adverse faction; and Aiscough, bishop of Salisbury, was barbarously murdered by the mob at Edington, in Wiltshire, about the same time.i The insurrection of Cade broke out about a month after the execution of Suffolk. A large number of people in Sussex took part in it. The great majority belonged to the working class, but they only followed the lead of several families of position in the county. The only clergy who joined the movement were the Chaplain of May field, the Vicars of Dallington and Wartling, the Abbot of Battle, and the Prior of Lewes, with all the inmates of their houses, and probably most of the tenants and labourers on their
' See " Annals of Salisbury," in this series, p. 141. L
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estates. The insurrection was soon quelled, and a general pardon granted to all who had been con- cerned in it. The names of the Sussex insurgents may be read in the list of pardons contained in the Patent Roll of 28 Henry VI.
The strange career of Reginald Pecock, the suc- cessor of Bishop Moleyns, a.d. 1450-1459, could not be traced in detail within the limits of this work, nor indeed has it any close connexion with the history of the diocese. His register has not been preserved, and the only notice of him amongst the cathedral records occurs in a list of the bishops, where the brief state- ment is placed against his name that " being accused and convicted of heresy, he resigned his bishopric."
Without being a great man he became, partly from peculiarity of character, partly from the course of circumstances, one of the most notorious and con- spicuous men of the day. The middle position which he took up, adverse to Lollardism, yet not heartily papal, and occasionally almost verging upon ration- alism, coupled with the inordinate vanity of his disposition, left him at last almost destitute of friends, and the course of political events precipitated his ruin. But the long story of his numerous exami- nations, ending in his pusillanimous recantation, the destruction of his books, his deposition from the bishopric, and his imprisonment for the rest of his days in the Abbey of Thorney, in Cambridgeshire, must be read elsewhere. ^
' See Mr. Babington's preface to the "Repressor of Over- much Learning" (Master of the Rolls' series), and "Memorials of the See of Chichester," by the present writer, pp. 151-163.
BISHOP STOREY.
Bishop Pecock's successor, John Arundel, 1459- 1478, seems to have been a quiet and submissive court favourite, as strong a contrast to the restless Pecock as it was possible to find. His register, too, is lost. So passing over the 20 years of his episcopate, those fearful years of bloodshed through which the house of York fought its way to the throne, we come to
Bishop Edward Storey, who occupied the see to the end of the century. His register is an interesting fund of information concerning the state of the diocese.
It begins with an account of his enthronisation, which is a curious illustration of the splendour with which bishops were surrounded in those days, and the taste of the age for pageantry and display. On Saturday, June 25, he slept at Midhurst, on Sunday attended mass and preached in the chapel. Very early on Monday (summo mane) he started on horse- back, with his retinue, for Chichester. On the crest of the hill, commonly called Bishoppeston HilP (super cacumine montis vulgariter ntmcupati Bishoppeston), he was met by the Prior of Lewes, Lord Dakyngs, Lord John Ffynes, and several others, knights and gentle- men, with attendants to the number of 200. Outside the north gate of the city, " near the grove of the Bruyll," the company was joined by Lord de la Warr and other noblemen, with their retinue, 300 in all, who conducted the bishop into the city with much
' A point on the South Downs about four miles from Chiches- ter, which was formerly crossed by the high-road from Midhurst to Chichester.
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reverence and joy. He was met near the cathedral by the Abbot of Battle, with mitre and staff, the dean, John Waynfleete, the precentor, the Archdeacon of Lewes, ten canons, and the choir arrayed in silken copes. Here he was censed, kissed the cross, and took an oath to observe the statutes, and to preserve, or recover (if alienated) the possessions of the Church. Then he was conducted by the cathedral body round the south side of the church to the west door, where he entered, preceded by the choir singing "Honour, virtue," etc. At the high altar the bishop kneeled down while he was censed by the dean and the canons, after which he made the customary offering of a gold noble. Then he received the dean and canons to the kiss of peace, and repeatedly blessed the people, after which he was enthroned, the choir singing the Te Deian. From his throne he proceeded to the chapter-house, and thence to the pulpit, from which he preached on the text, " I will build up my Church." After this he celebrated the Mass of the Holy Spirit at the high altar (z« poiitificalibics), assisted by the Abbot of Battle and several other priests. The ceremonies in church being ended, he repaired to the palace, where a sumptuous entertainment was provided for 1,500 people of both sexes.
Bishop Storey held a visitation of the cathedral soon after his enthronisation. The number of residentiaries was remarkably small— the dean, John Waynfleete, the precentor, the Archdeacon of Lewes, and two pre- bendaries. The absentees were the chancellor, the treasurer, twenty-four prebendaries, and seventeen vicars.
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Many of the old grievances were still complained of, and some new ones.
The full number of canons had not been maintained, and the prebend of Woodhorn was annexed to the chancellorship. There was a vicar for every pre- bendar}', but owing to the greater cost of living in "these modern days," the vicars could not be properly sustained out of the revenues of the Church. Being scantily and irregularly paid, they became slack in the discharge of their duties. Often there were not more than three or four present at the chief services. Instead of being in church at the proper time, they were to be seen wandering about the streets. The vicar, whose business it was to rise at midnight for matins, was not paid the bread which he ought to receive for it. The Prebendary of Wittering neglected to deliver the lectures, on condition of which he held his prebend. The dean was an offender in a variety of ways. He did not summon chapters at proper times ; he was accustomed to take a vicar-choral with him when he went out riding; he had sold imple- ments and stock on several of the manors without the consent of the chapter ; and had signed deeds and conferred offices in the Church with the knowledge and consent of only two of the canons. He kept several of the muniments of the Church in his own hands, especially one which declared the rights of the chapter, and he had shifted images of saints from one chapel to another, contrary to the customs of the Church, and to the great detriment of the offerings which had been made in honour of these saints.
Under a lax head laxity seems to have pervaded
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all departments. The boys did not cense properly, the sacrists rang the bells badly and at irregular hours : sometimes they left the doors of the cathedral oi)en all night.
There was a chest called Elsted Box, in which a fund was kept for lending money to necessitous members of the cathedral body. This box is men- tioned in every visitation during the mediaeval period. It never seems to have contained as much as ought to have been in it ; but we have no explanation of the principle on which the fund was maintained. At the time of Bishop Storey's visitation there were only ^8 in it, whereas there ought to have been ;^so.
The bishop visited every parish and every monastic house in his diocese, either in person or through his commissary. Unfortunately there is only a list of the parishes visited ; but of the visitation of monasteries there is a fairly complete record. Very much the same tales are repeated as those with which we are already familiar : priors and prioresses squandering the revenues of the house for their own profit and amusement, buildings in a state of ruinous dilapida- tion, the sacred offices performed with slovenly irreverence, many of the monks addicted to drinking, hunting, and other unseemly sports, corrodies let at various rates to all sorts of people, utterly secularising the character of the house, and leading to scandals of the grossest kind.
The city of Chichester contains two lasting monu- ments of Bishop Storey's munificence. One is the beautiful market-cross which stands at the central junction of the four main streets. It is an octagon
BISHOP STOREY.
building supported by a central column, and present- ing outwards alternate arches and buttresses, with well-carved finials and panelled surfaces in the spaces between. Over the centre of each arch is a niche which once contained a figure of the founder or one of the other bishops.
In the indenture of agreement made between the bishop and the Mayor of Chichester, it is stated that the former having made, "as well in the love of God as to the worschyp of the sayd city, and in especiall to the soocure and comforte of the poore people here, a crosse sett and founded in the middes of the said cite upon the ground of the said mayor and burgesses, for the which the said by shop hath gevyn ;^io of lawful money of England for discharging of them," etc.; the mayor and burgesses, on their side, "granten that neither they nor theyre successors shall from henceforth claim, ne vexe, int'rupt, nor trouble any of the pore people that shall hereafter stand or sell any chaffre with in the said crosse." They also undertake not to allow houses to be built against the cross, or so near as to interfere with the free access to it, and not to take any toll or other duty of " noo persone that shall stand or sell any chaffre within the said crosse."
The other good work of Bishop Storey for the benefit of the city and diocese, was the foundation of a free grammar school in Chichester, commonly called the Prebendal School, because the headmastership was annexed in perpetuity to the Prebend of Highley. The school was intended to be a nursery of learned clerks, of which the bishop observes in the preamble
CHICHESTER.
to the Statutes, there had been a lamentable scarcity in the diocese. The dean and chapter were to appoint the master, and the bishop to collate him to the prebend. He was to teach grammar gratis, and not to hold any other benefice ; but this latter restric- tion was afterwards repealed. Master and scholars were to attend mass, or at least to be present at the elevation of the Host in St. George's Chapel in the cathedral, at five o'clock in the morning in summer, and six in winter. i
Architecture. — The two centuries which we have been traversing are the period in which architectural genius matured and finally exhausted its powers. The simple and graceful Early English or First-Pointed style, in specimens of which the diocese is eminently rich, was succeeded, about the middle of the thirteenth century, by what has been called the Geometrical style, which lasted till about 13 15. The main charac- teristic of this style is the circular tracery introduced into the heads of windows or arcades, by piercing the spandrels between the lancet-shaped lights or openings. In the latter part of the period also, carved capitals begin to be common. It is obvious that this plan once adopted would afford scope for an almost endless play of fancy ; and thus the Geometrical st)'le grew into the Decorated, which lasted till about the middle of the fourteenth century, distinguished by its large windows of flowing tracery, the rich ornamental
' One of the first men educated at this school, who rose to great eminence, was John Selden, who was bom at West Tar- ring, near Worthing, in 1585.
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sculpture of capitals and doorways, canopied tombs, and screens.
Parts of Buxted and Pevensey churches belong to the earlier portion of the Geometrical period ; but the most important example of the style as a whole in the diocese is the Church of St. Thomas at Winchel- sea, which is full of beauty and interest, both in its general structural lines and in its details, especially the carved foliage on the corbel-heads at the spring of the arches.
The Ladye Chapel of the cathedra! was built by Bishop Gilbert de Sancto Leofardo, about the same date, 1288 — 1305, and the chapel of the Bishop's Palace was recast probably a little later. The windows of the Ladye Chapel are beautiful specimens of the simple and graceful tracery of this period, and the foliated corbels of the vaulting ribs, alike in this and in the Bishop's Chapel, can hardly be surpassed in elegance.
Passing on to the fully-developed Decorated, which lasted from about 13 15 to 1360, incomparably the finest and most perfect example in the diocese is the Church of Etchingham, between Tunbridge and Hastings. The whole church was built at one time by Sir William of Etchingham, who died in 1387. The chancel is of unusual length : the tower is placed in the centre, between chancel and nave, an un- common arrangement in Sussex when there are no transepts. The east window is flamboyant, and the windows of the nave are peculiar, both in tracery and shape. The cruciform Church of Alfriston is nearly of the same date as Etchingham, though a
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little later, and in parts verging to the Perpen- dicular.
Of more detailed examples of this style, imdoubtedly the foremost place must be assigned to the noble window in the south transept of the cathedral, built by Bishop Langton, and justly called by Leland the "great sumptuous south window." And of the canopied tombs, for which the Decorated period is so famous, it would be hard to find more beautiful specimens than the tombs in St. Thomas, Winchelsea, of Gervase Alard, and Stephen Alard, his grandson, both admirals of the Cinque Ports in the first half of the 14th century. One parsonage -house of the 14th century has survived almost intact at West Dean, near Seaford. It is built of stone and oak. One mark of great antiquity is the staircase, of which the walls project outside one end of the house. They are externally square, and semi-cylindrical within, con- taining a spiral flight of stone steps which lead to the upper story ; the floor consists of massive oak beams and joists, the doorways are pointed, and the doors themselves of oak, with very old fittings. The Church of West Dean belonged to the priory of Wilmington, and the probability is that the parsonage-house was built for the monks by their vicar. If so, the house must have been built in the fourteenth century, or very early in the fifteenth, since Wilmington, which was an alien priory, was suppressed in the reign of Henry IV., who died in 1413. The hall and chapel of St. Mary's Hospital, Chichester, and the screen dividing them, are extremely curious and interesting specimens of Decorated work.
ARCHITECTURE.
The Decorated style gradually passed in this country into the Rectilinear or Perpendicular, which lingered on till the decadence of ecclesiastical architec- ture in the latter half of the sixteenth century. The cha- racteristics of this style are strongly marked ; in place of the gracefully-flowing lines of the Decorated tracery, straight mullions carried right up into the head of the window, windows increasing in width as the style ad- vances, flat surfaces covered with panelling, doorways consistingof adepressed arch within a square frame, and over this a label often filled with foliage, richly-groined vaults with fan-like tracery, especially in porches and cloisters, wide open timber roofs very slightly arched, massive towers with ornamental battlements, crocketed pinnacles and turrets at the angles. The beauty of the style consists in the rich decoration of flat surfaces, and of projecting parts of the structure, such as finials, pinnacles, and cornices ; its grandeur, in the bold sweep of wide arches, broad spanning arches, and high massive towers ; its poverty, in the shallowness of mouldings, and, as time goes, the coarseness of much of the ornamental work.
The examples of this style in our diocese are com- paratively rare, and none of them first-rate. The traveller will search in vain for the grand, lofty, and richly ornamented towers which abound in Somerset- shire and many other counties. By far the best pro- ductions of this style in Sussex are the market-cross in Chichester already described ; the detached bell- tower of the cathedral, which, though plain, is not wanting in a certain stern and massive grandeur ; and, lastly, the old cathedral spire. The original central
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Norman tower was low and thick ; about the middle of the thirteenth century an addition had been made with lancet-headed openings, and on the top of this again was built the fifteenth-century spire. It was a graceful piece of work, flanked at each angle by a small octa- gon turret and pyramid, and presenting in the centre of each face an ornamented porch-like projection. But it was a fatal addition ; the Norman piers upon which the whole of this vast weight was thrown (the height from the base of the tower to the top of the spire being 277 feet) were composed of rubble with an outward casing only of stone, and had never been intended to bear the heavy load which was piled upon them. How at last they gave way,^ bringing down tower and spire in one appalling crash, is still fresh within the memory of all who saw or heard of the catastrophe. Within less than seven years,^ how- ever, tower and spire again soared into the sky, and the new structure is a model of both solidity and strength.
The only churches in Sussex deserving much notice, which are built throughout in the Perpendicular style, are Mayfield, Poynings, Arundel, and Pulborough. In these last, and in parts of several other churches in Sussex, the windows are enclosed in a depressed arch, over which is the usual square label of the Rectilinear style, a peculiarity which would seem to indicate that these buildings belong to the time when Decorated forms were just passing into the Perpendicular.
^ February 21, 186 1.
' The cathedral was reopened for divine service November 14, 1S67.
ARCHITECTURE.
All the architectural styles which we have been considering are represented in various parts of the noble cruciform Church of Rye, one of the largest parish churches in the kingdom : massive Norman in its central portions ; Early English in the beautiful Chapel of St. Clare ; Decorated in the west window ; and rich Perpendicular in the east.
CHICHESTER.
CHAPTER VI.
A.D. 1497-1536.
The Approach of the Reformation — The Episcopate of Bishop Sherburne, and the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
We have reached the close of the fifteenth century, and stand on the threshold of a new era in the his- tory of the Church. But the men of that time could not foresee what mighty and upheaving changes were at hand. The wealth of the Church was great, her political influence was powerful, her buildings magni- ficent, her ceremonial splendid. The heresy of the Lollards seemed to have been well-nigh stamped out; the fate of Pecock warned all churchmen in high position not to be tempted by ability or learning to stray beyond the boundaries of a rigid orthodoxy. But the internal cankers of the Church were growing in proportion to the outward semblance of strength. With the increase of worldly wealth and pomp, and the suppression of free thought, she had been losing more and more of that power over men's hearts and minds which nothing but pre-eminence in spiritual zeal and in intellectual ability and learning can give. And, meanwhile, the forces were in preparation which were destined to strike to its foundation and ulti- mately to transform the fabric which, to a superficial
APPROACH OF THE REFORMATION. 159
view, might have seemed so stately and solid. After the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, in 1452, the literature, the science, and the art, partly Oriental, partly Greek, of which that city had been the centre, moved westwards. The treasure-houses of Greek philosophy and poetry were unlocked to the western mind, which had long been ignorant of their contents. Alike in philosophy and theology the mediaeval fetters were burst asunder, and the intellect took a new departure. The discovery of printing facilitated indulgence of the passionate enthusiasm which took possession of scholars for the study of what was called the " New Learning." Italy was the great receptacle of the Greek exiles, and of the learning which they brought with them. Scholars flocked from all parts of Europe to sit at their feet. Grocyn, Linacre, and John Colet were amongst the first Oxford students to cross the Alps for this purpose, and, on their return to England, their lectures on Greek literature and science, and on the study of the Bible, opened the way for a great revolution in intellectual and religious thought.
What they began, Erasmus, during his long sojourn in England, carried on, and Archbishop Warham fos- tered. From this point a reformation of some sort in the Church of England became inevitable. The peculiar circumstances of Henry VIII. 's reign only precipitated and shaped the change which sooner or later must have come.
A quiet rural diocese, like Chichester, would be slow to feel the effect of forces which were gradually leavening the Church. A few men, however, here
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and there, in the retirement even of country parson- ages, may have read some of the works of Erasmus and Colet. And if more read, some must have heard something about the character and aims of those writings. They must have heard, some, no doubt, with simple horror and amazement, but others with secret sympathy and satisfaction, of their bold attacks upon established customs and modes of thought, their exposure of the absurdities of the old scholasticism and ancient methods of Biblical interpretation, their indignant invectives against the scandals of the Church, their sarcastic criticisms on monks, pilgri- mages, and relics.
We, of the present day, are often apt to imagine change, especially in matters which concern the Church, to be nearer than it really is ; but in that age events moved slowly, and, notwithstanding the distur- bing forces which were at work, probably few men at the beginning of the sixteenth century anticipated the ap- proach of any great alteration in the old existing order of things until they were startled by the suppression of the monasteries and the demolition of the shrines. The episcopate of Robert Sherburne lasted from 1508 to 1536 ; it began when the "New Learning" was reaching the height of its influence in England ; it ended when some momentous changes had been made in the condition of the Church, and others were in contemplation. Vet he does not seem, up to the middle at any rate of his career, to have been troubled by presentiments of impending danger. In his Book of Donations, dated 1523, which is a record of his gifts and benefactions to the Church and City
APPROACH OF THE REFORMATION. l6l
of Chichester, it is touching to read the minute and careful instructions of the poor old man respect- ing the celebration of masses and the repetition of pater nosters and ave marias, especially on the anni- versary of his death, for the benefit of his own soul and the souls of his predecessors and successors, made on the very eve of a revolution in religion which was to sweep them all away. Almost more touching is it to read his provision, slight and vain, against days of spoliation and poverty, which he deemed as possible, though improbable and remote. If, he says, at any future time the revenues and possessions con- ferred by him on the Dean and Chapter should be dissipated or disturbed, the Dean and Chapter were strenuously to resist the injury, and were to draw for their expenses in defending their rights upon a reserve sum bequeathed by him for that purpose. And if (which Heaven forbid) they were despoiled of all the property, they were to consult with the bishop and implore him to interpose on their behalf, as it could not be supposed that any bishop would be so iron-hearted " as not to be softened by such an appeal. "And because," he concludes, "as the world verges to its decadence, human nature, poi- soned at its root, daily increases in all evil, we there- fore wishing so far as our frailty permits, to meet it shield to shield, ordain and will that £,20 sterling be kept in our chest- for accidental cases, to be used in repelling injuries at the discretion of the Dean and Chapter."
Sherburne was a well-educated Wyketamist, kindly disposed towards men of genius and learning, yet
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belonging himself essentially to the old school. Pre- ferments had been heaped upon him with a lavish hand, and unlike his contemporary and friend, Arch- bishop Warham, he was remarkably fond of pageantry and ceremonial, and surrounded himself in his office with all possible dignity and state.
The elaborate directions contained in the book already referred to respecting the ceremonies to be performed in the cathedral on the anniversary of his obsequies, the dress and style of living to be observed by the holders of the four prebends and the four lay clerkships which he founded, and by the priest vicars, all bespeak a man who was fond of external display, and found a pleasure in regulating the most minute details of it. On the other hand, sympathy with the more intellectual spirit of the age is manifested in his foundation of a Free Grammar School at Rolleston, his native place in Staffordshire. The wise and sens- ible rules which he draws up for the mental and moral training of the boys are such as might have been approved by Colet himself ; and it is significant that Sherburne's friend, Tailour, archdeacon of Buckingham, whom he consulted respecting the government of the school, closes a long correspond- ence on the subject by suggesting that passages from Latin divines should be translated into English, and copied into a large book to be given to the master of the school and churchwardens, and by them attached by iron chains to a wall for passers-by to read. By the bearer of this letter also he sends the bishop a most elegant little book containing the " familiar colloquies " of the " most learned Erasmus," which he
APPROACH OF THE REFORMATION. 1 63
hopes the master of the school will gradually instill into the minds of young beginners, and train them by means of the same instead of the themes which in old days were called " Latinities."
There is in the bishop's register a deed for the manumission of a bondman, which is drawn up in terms of an uncommon character, suggestive of one who had imbibed that generous love of freedom in all ways which breathes throughout the writings of Erasmus, Colet, and Sir Thomas More. The deed begins with a quotation from the Institutes of Justinian : — "Whereas at the beginning nature brought forth all men free, and afterwards the law of nations placed certain of them under the yoke of servitude, we believe that it is pious and meritorious towards God to manumit them and to restore them to the benefit of pristine liberty." And on this principle the bishop emancipates Nicholas Holden, a " native and serf," who for many years had served him on his Manor of Woodmancote and elsewhere, from every chain, servitude, and servile condition by which he was bound to the bishop and his cathedral, and, " so far as we can, we make him a freeman."
Many instances occur throughout the medieval period of such manumission, especially by the monasteries, of bondmen attached to manors ; the act of Bishop Sherburne, however, which bears the date of 1536, the last year of his life, is interesting as an illustration of the late period at which villenage of so degraded a kind still survived on ecclesiastical property, and of the enlightened and generous spirit in which freedom was sometimes conferred.
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Bishop Sherburne's visitations of the monastic houses are the last which took place before their dis- solution. The records of them prove, that some houses, which had hitherto mamtained a respect- able character, were becoming infected with the general corruption. The account of Boxgrove, for example, in 1518, is far less satisfactory than on any former occasion. The prior was too notorious for his skill in archery, and other vain sports, outside the precincts. Henceforth neither he nor any of the brethren are to indulge in such amusements. Bad characters having been admitted as brethren, no ad- missions were to be made in future without the bishop's knowledge and consent. The common seal was to be kept under three keys belonging to the prior, sub-prior, and senior brother, and nothing was to be sealed without the consent of a majority of the chapter. An audit of accounts was to be held once a year, and recorded in a parchment book. The bell for matins was to ring at one o'clock, when the brethren were to enter the church two and two, and go out in like manner. No talking or drinking was to go on in church : when the brethren were eating, listening to reading, going to bed, or getting up, they were to keep silence ; they were to clean out their cells with their own hands ; and, that the devil might never find them idle, they were to have gardens in which they might work, the ground having been first cleared of thorns and weeds, and brought into such a conditionastomakelabourupon ita pleasant recreation. They were to dine at eleven, and sup at five, in the refectory, according to the rule of St. Benedict, and
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were not to wander outside the precincts of the house without the licence of the prior or sub-prior.
That such injunctions should have been considered necessary by the bishop, proves how seriously the rules of the order had been neglected. They were to be written into a large parchment book, and read over in chapter once a month.
The increasing poverty of all the smaller houses is shown by the remarkably large list of those which were exempted on this account from the payment of a tenth in 1527. These were the college of Arundel, and the monasteries of Boxgrove, Dureford, Ese- borne, Hardham, Rusper, Shulbrede, and Tortington, in the archdeaconry of Chichester ; and Bayham, Hastings, and Mychelham, in the archdeaconry of Lewes.
In 1535, the visitation of the monasteries by Crom- well, in his capacity of vicar-general, took place ; and in the following year the Act was passed which de- creed the dissolution of all which were under the annual value of £,200. Most of the houses in Sussex fell under this Act, and the insight into their condi- tion afforded by the episcopal visitations which have been already noticed, renders it impossible to deny that most of them had become nuisances, which it was high time to remove. The misfortune was, that the property which might have been turned to pur- poses of religion, charity, or education, — purposes which the monasteries had originally served, was, for the most part conferred on individuals, often none of the worthiest, and lost to the public benefit. The re- moval of houses which, with all their faults, had been
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in many instances conducive to the comfort and advantage of the poor, occasionally provoked violent resentment and opposition. Thus, at Bayham,^ four months after its suppression, a "riotous compagnie, disguysed and unknowen, with painted faces and visures, came to the said monasterie, and brought with them the chanons, and put them in their place again, and promised them that whensoever they rang the bell they would come with a great power and defend them."^ From a letter of Mr. Edward Guide- ford, to his brother. Sir Harry, comptroller of the king's household, we learn that the "riotous com- pagnie " amounted to 200 persons, and that the people in the neigbourhood were all prepared to a man to support the canons. The resistance, however, was, of course, overpowered ; the canons were dis- lodged, and " confessed their capitanes, which were emprisoned and sore punished."
Intercession, however, of a temperate and reasonable kind, was, in another instance, equally unavailing to avert suppression. Lord de la Warr had become by marriage possessed of the lordship of Halnaker, within which stood the priory of Boxgrove. At the last visitation of which there is any record, that of 1527, probably the last which ever took place, the priory was well reported of in every respect ; it was out of debt ; the buildings were in repair ; and the inmates, consisting of six monks and five novices,
' Bayham was not suppressed under the Act of 1536, but ten years before, being one of those which were appropriated for the endowment of Wolsey's colleges at Ipswich and Oxford.
' " Hall's Chronicle. "
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were said by the prior to be virtuous and obedient to him and to the rules of their order.
In 1535, on Ladye Day, Lord de la Warr wrote to Cromwell, stating that he had heard an Act had been passed for the suppression of the smaller monasteries, and he proceeds to say, "So hyt is that I have a power house callyd Boxgrove, very near to my power house callyd Halnaker, whereof I am founder and there lyethe many of my anncystorys, and also my wyffy's mother : and for by cause hyt ys of my founda- cion, and that my paryshe church ys under the roofe of the churche of the said monastery, and I have a power chappell to be buryed yn,^ wherefor yf yt myght stande with the kynge's grace's pleasure, for the power servyce that I have doyn his highnes to forebere the subpressyng of the same, or else to translate hyt ynto a college of such nombre as the landes wyll bere. And yf hyt may not so stand with his grace's pleasure, then I would lowly beseeche hys grace to have the preferment of the farme, with all such other things as the pryor had in hys tyme for the provysyon of hys house." The priory was not spared, but its possessions were granted to Lord de la Warr ; and, in order to prevent his ever restoring it to the monks, he was compelled, in 1540, to exchange the property of the priory with the crown for the Abbey of Wherwell, in Hampshire, a transaction to which he submitted unwillingly, and his reluctance nearly got him into serious trouble with the council.
' I.e., more strictly speaking, patron.
" Really a very beautiful sacellum, with an altar in it, on the south side of the nave, made of Caen stone, and richly carved.
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One of the most active of Cromwell's commissioners for the visitation and suppression of the monasteries was Richard Layton, a man of low origin, but re- warded for this and other services to the State, with liigh preferment in the Church, becoming ultimately Dean of York. From his letters to Cromwell, and other friends, we learn some particulars respecting the suppression of one of the smallest houses in the diocese, Shulbrede Priory, and the greatest of all, Battle Abbey. He states that the Bishop of Chichester (Sherburne) had, ten years before, " put oute all the canons of Shulbrede, and purposed to have suppressed the house for their wyckedness." It must be owned the bishop seems to have made so free with their property, that there was very little left to suppress when Layton visited the house. According to his account, the bishop " took from the house iii hun- dredth shepe, Ix oxen, kyen and swyne xx, and barnes full of corn xx." He had pulled down large portions of the buildings, and taken away the furniture, leaving only bare walls, so that I.ayton advises the king to finish the job, and make a clean sweep of the whole ruinous place.
Layton and his fellow commissioner, Sir John Gage, visited Battle Abbey in 1538, by which year the suppression of the larger houses had been de- creed. Their report of the condition in which they found the vestments and other furniture of this cele- brated house is not complimentary. " The imple- ments off householde," writes one, "be the worste that ever I se in abbaye or priorye : the vestyments so old and so bayrre worne, raggede and torne, as
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youre lordeshyppes wolde not thynke : so that very small money can be made of the vestrye." They think that the church and house plate together would amount to 400 marks {^266. 13s. 4d). Layton ex- presses himself in yet stronger terms. " So beggery a house I never se, nor so fylthe stuffe. I assure you I wil not xxs. for all manner hangyngs in this house, as this bringer can tell you." He is writing to a friend for whom he had evidently hoped to get some handsome pickings, in the way of vestments, out of this rich house, and he is bitterly chagrined to find them all so worthless. " The best vestment," he says, " that I can fynde complete ye shall have ; but I assure you so many evill I never see, the stuffe is like the persons." The revenues of the abbey at the time of suppression were nearly 10,000, according to the present value of money, and the only way of accounting for the miserable state of the furniture and effects is, that the monks, foreseeing their impending fate, had disposed of all their most valuable posses- sions before the commissioners came. This was the plan adopted by the Abbot of Dureford, who seems to have sold most of the cattle and farm stock be- longing to the abbey, as well as the furniture of the church, before the commissioners arrived. Layton calls it a filthy place, and says DurtioxA would have been a more fitting name for it than Dureford.
The fate of one more house must be mentioned before closing these notices of the suppression of monasteries in Sussex. The Priory of Lewes had been spared through the intercession of the descend- ants of the founder, when so many of the alien
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priories were suppressed in the reigns of Edward III. and Henry V., and its annual revenue in the time of Henry VI H. was larger than that of Battle Abbey, amounting to about 6,000. Richard Layton, in a letter to Cromwell, tells the usual tale concerning the depravity of the monks, and then de- scribes his interview with the prior. The abject terror of the poor prior is depicted in lively colours, and the whole scene is, no doubt, a fair specimen of what frequently occurred when the commissioner paid his dreaded visit. " The subprior hath confessede unto me treason in his preaching. I have causede hym to subscribe his name to the same, submittyng hymself to the kynges mercy and grace. I have also made hym confesse that the prior knew the same and consilede hit. ... I called hym (the prior) ' Haynose tratur ' with the worst words I coulde deliver, he all the tyme knelyng upon hys knes making intercession unto me, not to utter to you the principal for his un- doyng, whos words I finally regarded, but comaundit him to appere before you at the court on Alhalow day, .... and to bring with hym hys supprior. At my cumming unto you, wiche I truste shal be shortly, I shall declar unto you all at large, and the tragedie thereof, so that it shall be in your power to do vnth hymn what you like." It is consoling to learn that the terrified prior was pardoned, and ended his days tranquilly as a prebendary of Lincoln. The house was surrendered, Nov. 16, 1537. The beautiful church and most of the conventual buildings were ruthlessly destroyed, but the prior's house was reserved as a residence for Cromwell's son, Gregory', who, in a
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letter written to his father soon after his arrival, de- clares that " it doth undoubtedly right moche please and content both me and my wife, and is unto hir so commodious that she thinketh hirself to be here right well settylled." Not long afterwards the king pro- posed to lodge there during a progress, but Gregory did not relish the prospect of a royal visit, and recom- mends his father to deter the king from his purpose, by making the most of a little outbreak of the plague in Lewes.
Bishop Sherburne died in extreme old age just before the dissolution of the monasteries, but he survived to witness some of the most tragical and heartshaking events in the reign of Henry VIII., the fall of Wolsey, the divorce of Katharine, the rapid rise of Cromwell, and the beginning of his measures of oppression, the coronation of Ann Boleyn and her death, the execution of Fisher, bishop of Rochester, and of Sir Thomas More. His own feelings respect- ing the promulgation of the royal supremacy are ap- parent from the following letter to Cromwell, in 1534, which prepares us for the resignation of his bishopric, which occurred soon afterwards. " Pleaseth it you to be advertised, that upon Sunday, the 13th day of this instant month of June, after such smal talent as God hath lent me, I preached the word of God openly in my cathedral church of Chichester, and also published there the king's most dreadful commandment con- cerning (with other things) the uniting of the supreme head of the Church of England with the Imperial Crowne of this realm ; and also the abolishing and secluding out of this realm the enormities and abuses
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of the Bishop of Rome's authority, usurped within the same. And Hkewise have sent forth my suffragan to preach and publish most speedily the same in the most populous townes within my dioces. And further, have proceeded that by this day, at the furthest, there is neither abbot, prior, dean, archdeacon, provost, parson, vicar, nor curate, within my dioces, but they have commandment to publish the same in their churches every Sunday and solemne feast accordingly, and as much as in me is, I shal see and cause them to continue in doing of their duty in this behalf, most heartily desiring you, the king's highness, that it may please his grace, considering my age and impotency, that the further doing of these promises by other sufficient persons, may be sufficient for my discharge in this behalf. And if it shall please you to particu- larly advertise me of the king's plesure herein, ye shall bind me to do you any plesure that lyeth in my litel power. And thus fare ye most heartily well. From Selsey, 28th June. Your bounden orator, Robt.
CiCESTER."
This is the letter of a man who was too loyal a subject to disobey his sovereign, yet had small relish for the duty imposed upon him. He might have been content to see papal jurisdiction in England repudiated. He might have sympathised with a reformation brought about by the natural progress of piety and learning, under the influence of large- minded and large-hearted men like Erasmus, Colet, and More ; but to accept a system of doctrine and ceremonial, manufactured under the direction of a man like Cromwell, was more than he could bear.
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He resigned his bishopric shortly before Convocation met on June 6, 1536, — that convocation in which Cromwell sat as vicar-general in the Upper House, and was practically almost supreme. A pension of ;^40o was assigned to him for the rest of his life, but he did not live long to enjoy it. His successor, Richard Sampson, was consecrated on June 11; but Sherburne sat in the earlier meetings of Convocation and supported the Archbishop of York, and the Bishops of London and Lincoln, in their defence of the seven sacraments, when Cranmer and his party maintained that two only were divinely instituted. The articles finally agreed upon in this Convocation, prohibiting some of the worst abuses of mediaevalism, — the adoration of saints and relics, the traffic in pardons, and the practice of singing masses for the dead, were signed by Sampson as Bishop of Chi- chester, with seventeen other bishops. But before they were published Sherburne was no more. He died August 20, 1536, aged 85. His will is dated August 2. It is touching to read the clause in which, as with a presentiment of impending days of spoliation, he attempts to propitiate the spoiler, "and to my singular goode Lorde Cromwell one cup of silver gilt with a cover of xx ounces, desyring him to be goode Lorde to my executors for performing my last will."
The death of Bishop Sherburne coincides with the termination of the mediaeval state of things ; of the days when bishops had been statesmen and lawyers as well as prelates, and had rivalled or surpassed the greatest of the aristocracy in the vastness of their
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wealth, and splendour of their style of living. The days, also, of mediaeval superstition, — of pilgrimages to shrines, of wonder-working images and relics, and of gorgeous ceremonial, — are almost ended. And it must be owned with sorrow that architectural genius also had almost run its course. Few, if any, ecclesi- astical buildings of sufficient importance to be noticed were erected in Sussex during the episcopate of Bishop Sherburne, save those which owe their origin to the bishop himself. And even these, with the exception of his tomb in the cathedral, were domestic rather than ecclesiastical. The tomb, which is often, referred to in his documents, was prepared under his own direction ; and in his will he desires his body to be buried in his cathedral church, in " a poore remembrance that I have made there in the south side of the same church." This "poore remem- brance," like Lord de la Warr's " power chappell " at Boxgrove, is really a very handsome piece of work. It is a recess in the wall, enclosed by a carved canopy, beneath which is an alabaster effig}', painted and gilded, of the bishop in his robes. The back- ground is blue, spangled with stars, in the midst of which are the figures of two angels bearing the mitre of the bishop over his coat of arms, and the motto, " Operibus credite." Below the figure is the text, "Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Domine, Roberto Sherburne."
Fuller, after his quaint manner, says that Bishop Sherburne "decorated the cathedral church with many ornaments," and that if " Bishop Seffrid II. bestowed the cloth and making on the church. Bishop Sherburne,
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gave the trimming and best lace thereto." The lace and trimming consisted merely of the upper portion of the choir stalls, eighteen on either side, and two large oil paintings on wood, now in the south transept. They were executed by Bernardi, an Italian artist, who, with his two sons, seems to have been much patronised by the bishop. The first picture represents Wilfrith and his companions supplicating King Cead- walla for a grant of land on which to build their church and clergy-house at Selsey. The second depicts Bishop Sherburne approaching Henry VIII. with a petition that he will protect the Church of Chichester as Ceadwalla had protected the Church of Selsey.
The episcopal palace is indebted to Bishop Sher- burne for the entrance gateway at the west end of Canon Lane, and the beautiful panelled and painted ceiling of the dining-hall. But a more striking memo- rial of him is the quaint, picturesque lofty tower of red brick which he added to the episcopal manor- house at Cakeham, near West Wittering.
The view from the top is not only beautiful, but in some sort historically interesting. With an easy sweep of the eye the spectator can take in the shore where the South Saxon invader first set his foot, and the extremity of the Selsey peninsula, where the posterity of that invader first learned to worship in Wilfrith's cathedral church ; south-westwards, the view of the Channel is broken by the Isle of Wight, from which the Danes so often crossed to the mouth of the harbour near Cakeham, and then went up the country on their errand of plunder and destruction.
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Turning northwards, the grey spire of Chichester cathedral may be discerned, standing out against the soft green background of the Downs ; while the tower itself, on which the spectator stands, is in its peculiar character a fitting emblem of an age which, alike in architecture, literature, and religion, was a time of transition from old forms to new.
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CHAPTER VII.
.^.D. I 536-1 604.
Progress of the Reformation — Demolition of the .Shrine of St. Richard — The Diocese during the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth.
On July the 29th, just four days before the death of Bishop Sherburne, the chancellor of the diocese read in the presence of a large number of the clergy assembled in the cathedral, a mandatory letter from the king to Sherburne's successor, Bishop Sampson. The letter stated that Convocation had been engaged in drawing up certain articles with a view to the suppression of error, and calming of controversies lately arisen, and lest any seditious persons should attempt to expound the same before they were thoroughly divulged, "after theyr own fantasticall appetite in anywise defacid or slandrid," it is ordered " that no sarmons shall be made or preached between this and Michaelmas next, in any churche, chappell, monastery, etc., withyn this our realme, unless it be our byshops in youre owne persones, or in your pre- sence, or in youre cathedral churches." and in this case the bishop was to appoint the preacher, and to be answerable for his teaching. Meanwhile, the bishop is charged to withdraw all licences from preachers in his diocese, and enjoin all incumbents
N
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" to pass over the time with a secrete silence till ye shall eftsoons other advertise them by your com- mandment." The letter ends by prescribing the form of Bidding Prayer which is to be adopted from that time forward, to the intent "that all diversitie in the manner of teaching and preaching may be avoyded." In this prayer the people are instructed to pray first for the Church and for "the Kynge's most excellent majestic, supreme hed immediately under God of the spiritualtie and temporalitie of the same Churche"; for the Lords and Commons; and for the souls of the departed. Finally, the clergy are warned that after the 29th September, when preaching would be again permitted, they must not add to or diminish from anything contained in the articles as they will answer for it at their peril, unless they have a special licence from the bishop to "expHcate the same at more length."
This letter was to be read in every deanery through- out the diocese. The order for silencing the pulpits was soon followed by another, in which we can imagine the people were not quite so willing to acquiesce. It is entitled a "Charte concerning the abrogacion of the holy days," and, after stating that " the nombre of holy days is so excessyvely growen " as to be the occasion of much "slouth and idleness"; that work is neglected under pretence of religious devotion, whereas, in fact, "more express riot and superfluitie" is practised on those days than any other ; it declares the decree of Convocation under the king, as supreme head on earth of the Church, — (i.) that the feast of the dedication of churches shall
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everywhere be kept on the first Sunday in October, and on no other day ; (ii.) that it shall be lawful for all people to pursue their usual occupations on the feast-day of the patron saint of their church, the same as on other days. This stroke at the observance of holy days affected the whole kingdom ; but it was followed up by another, which told more severely upon certain places, one of which was Chichester. In 1538, the order was issued for the destruction of shrines ; and Sir AV. Goring and Richard Ernley were appointed commissioners to superintend the demo- lition of St. Richard's shrine in the cathedral church. The shrine of St. Richard was not, indeed, like the shrine in some other places, the very heart and life- blood of the place, nor did the cathedral and the city owe their origin to it, as at Durham and Ely, where the minsters had been originally raised to shelter the remains of their patron saints, and the towns had grown up round them as if in humble adoration. For nearly 300 years, however, St. Richard had been one of the great saints, his shrine one of the great shrines of southern England. The existence of the shrine enhanced the dignity and importance of the place in which it was situated, and surrounded it in the eyes of the world with a kind of halo of sanctity. It was also a source of no small prosperity, attracting, as it did, large numbers of pilgrims, who visited it for the benefit of soul or body. And although many even of the less learned were beginning to look upon saint-worship as a vain and foolish superstition, yet the deliberate and cold-blooded destruction of the shrine which had so long been the pride of the N 2
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cathedral and the city must have been painful to most men, and to a few old-fashioned and devout believers positively heart-rending. The order for demolition is addressed to the commissioners in the name of the king, who is styled, " Henry VIII., by the grace of God king of England and of France, defender of the faith, lord of Ireland, and in earth immediately under Christ supreme Head of the Church of England."
The document proceeds, that "having been in- formed that in our cathedral church at Chichester there hath been used long heretofore and yet at this day is used much superstition and a certain resorte there of the [common people] ^ which being men of simplicity [are seduced] by the instigacion of some of the clergy who take advantage of [their credulity to ascribe miracles of healing and other virtues] to the said shrine and bones that God only hath power to grant ; wee .... have assigned unto you to repa}T unto the said cathedral church, and to take away the shrine and bones of that bishop called St. Richard within the same, with all the ornaments to the said shrine belonging, and all other relicks, sylver, gold, and all jewels belonging to the said shrine ; and that yee shall see them safely and surely conveyed unto oure Tower of London : and yee shall see that both the shryne and the place where it was kept be destroyed even to the ground : and all such other images of that church whereabout any notable super- sticion [is used to be carried] and conveyed away, so
' The words in brackets are supplied conjecturally by Wilkins, in his " ConciHa."
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that our said subjetts shal by them in no wise be deceived hereafter, but that they paye unto Almighty God, and to no earthly creature, such high honour as is due unto Him the Creator."
The document ends with an admonition to "the clergie and officers of the said churche and citye to aid and assist in the demolition as they under our pleasure will answer for the contrary at theyr extreme perill."
This must have been a trying time of perplexity and suspense to bishops and clergy and zealous churchmen. It was impossible to forecast from day to day the proceedings of an arbitrary king and an unscrupulous minister. At any moment the loyalty of the most loyal might be strained by some eccle- siastical measure to the very verge of breaking. Bishop Sampson was a reformer, but a reformer of the most conservative type. He had written a book in defence of the royal supremacy, which had called forth a vituperative reply from Cardinal Pole. In his " brief instruction " to the clergy of his diocese, circulated soon after his appointment, he enlarges on the duty of . . . " following and humbly obeying the high commandments, injunctions, and godly intents of the king's majesty our sovereign, high governor under God, and supreme head of the Church of England. . .... not so much for fear of the corporal paines appointed in the same orders and commandments as for the fear of the displeasure of God." He requires and exhorts every good Christian man and woman to endeavour " themselfs to accomplish the spiritual pleasure and goodnes that the K. M. with his godly
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intents desireth above all things to have among his people." These he signifies as being charity and concord with one another, and a dutiful sub- mission to the royal authority. And he ends by requiring and charging every priest within his "diocese as at other times so especially in his mass to say a special collect for the prosperous health of his majesty."
The force of loyal language could not go further than this, yet Bishop Sampson had the misfortune to incur the suspicion and displeasure of Cromwell and the king. In doctrine, he could scarcely be called a reformer, for he gave a hearty support to the Six Articles, passed by Parliament in June 1539, during a temporary depression of the party of Cranmer and Cromwell. These articles affirmed the doctrine of transubstantiation, approved the denial of the cup to the laity, the celibacy of priests, private masses, and auricular confession. About the same time the Vicar of Rye had a controversy with his parishioners, who desired, contrary to his wishes, to have parts of the divine offices sung or said in English. He consulted the bishop on the subject, who encouraged him not to yield, or to make any alterations " till it should please the king's majesty to declare his pleasure." Cromwell, therefore, was not averse to making the most of a sinister report brought to him by some enemies of the bishop, that in a sermon preached in the cathedral he had not only advocated Romish doctrines, but Papal authority. Sampson was alarmed, and wrote an earnest vindication to Cromwell of his fidelity alike to the authority of the king, and to the
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doctrines of the Church of England as he understood them. ... "Os concerning mine own preaching," he says " I will not otherwise teach, God willing, than may be to the health of the hearers, and pleasure first, I should have said, of God. If there have been ony sinister report of the little sermon that I had at Chichester, upon our Ladle's Day. the Assumption, I shall gladly answer to it. I suppose in my littel mind I spoke nothing but that, if ye had been present, ye would have been very wel content with it. And OS concerning ony other man's preaching that is of my dioces, if I shal know his evil preaching, I shal endeavour me to reform him, or else to bring forth his fault that it may be corrected in example of others. My good Lord, I shal use no fawning or dissimula- tion, I assure you, in these things." He acknowledges some slackness in visiting his diocese, and promises amendment in that respect ; confesses that he is not " very friendly to novelties, except necessity or a great expedient cause require it. But os touching the worshipping of images, setting up of candles before them, or kneeling, I assure you I trust ye shal hear shortly in my poor dioces that they shal know their former fault and leave it. It was one part of my sermon at Chichester upon the Feast of the Assumption, and I shal also now send one to Rye and those parties." Notwithstanding this spirited defence, however, Sampson was sent to the Tower at the close of the year 1539, and there remained until the downfall and execution of Cromwell in the summer of the following year. This event was a complete check for a time to the advanced reformers, and Cranmer himself was
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considered to be in great jeopardy. Bishop Sampson was released, and after occupying the See of Chi- chester for two years more, was translated to Lichfield and Coventry.
His successor, George Daye,i who was bishop for nine years, 1543-1552, proved even less pliable than Sampson to the secular authority. To the royal supremacy as limited by the clauses, " under God," or " after Christ upon earth." he may have been favour- able, but in doctrine his sympathies were mainly Roman, so that, like many others of his time, he was a papist only without the Pope. Together with Heath, bishop of Worcester, however, he approved of the letter which Cranmer addressed to the king in Januar)'i545, praying him to issue a royal prohibition of the super- stitious customs of ringing bells during All Hallow night, the veiling of images in Lent, unveiling of the cross on Palm Sunday, " and creeping to the same on bare knees." And this probably represents the length to which men like Daye and Heath were pre- pared to go. Uoctrinally, they adhered in the main to Rome, though they were willing to pare away some excrescences in the shape of superstitious customs and extravagant ceremonial.
But after the death of Henry VIH. difficult times set in for men of this stamp. The Regent, the Earl of Hertford, afterwards Duke of Somerset, was prompted alike by his sympathies and his political interests to put himself at the head of the more pro-
' For more detailed accounts of Bishops Sampson and Daye, see my "Memorials of the See of Chichester," pp. 215-239.
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nounced Protestants. Sweeping measures of reform followed thick and fast, and against nearly all of them Bishop Daye protested — the Acts for repealing the severe laws against heretics, for repealing the Six Articles, for the reception of the Holy Communion in both kinds, for giving the Chantries to the King, for allowing the marriage of priests, for enjoining the use of the Book of Common Prayer, January 15, 1549, and for the destruction of the old Service Books, December, 1550.
He does not appear, however, to have resisted (openly at least) the orders in council forwarded' to all bishops in February, 1547, directing that all images remaining in any church or chapel be removed and taken away. In the autumn of the same year royal commissioners were sent to every diocese in England to inquire into the condition of the church and to deliver certain injunctions and articles. The whole cathedral body at Chichester was cited to appear before them between eight and nine o'clock in the morning of September 30, in the chapter-house. Provosts of colleges, rectors, schoolmasters, curates, and four or six laymen from each parish were to pre- sent themselves, at such places and times as should be afterwards specified. During the visitation the jurisdiction of the bishop was suspended, and he was prohibited from ])reaching anywhere but in his cathe- dral church, so that his hands were completely, and his tongue very nearly, tied. The principal injunctions delivered by the commissioners were that all images known to be abused by pilgrimages and offerings should be taken down, that at high mass the epistle
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and gospel should be read in English, and every Sunday and Holy Day a chapter from the Old and New Testament. Holy Days were to be kept as Holy, not spent in licentious festivity : the people were to be taught, not to despise any ceremonies still retained, but to beware of such superstitions as sprinkling their beds with holy water, ringing of bells, or using blessed candles to drive away devils. The homilies were to be read and the primer of King Henry to be used.
One consequence of discouraging the old cere- monial was that the needy or avaricious clergy sold many of the vessels and ornaments of the Church. This kind of traffic, however, was forbidden by the council (who reserved it for themselves), with some show of virtuous indignation. Their letter, dated October 17, 1547, addressed to the bishop, may be read in Daye's register. It instructs him to cause " dew sirche to be made what hath byn takyn awaye, solde, or alienatyd out of any church or chapel of yr' dioces, and to what uses the moneye comyng there- upon hath been employed, and by whom used."
When the Act was passed for the confirmation of the new liturgy, January 15, 1549, Daye and five other bishops dissented from it. On the whole, the prayer book was well received by the clergy, but it was not relished by large numbers of the people, who clung to the forms to which they had been accus- tomed from their youth. The Bishop of Chichester probably connived readily enough at departures from it in his diocese, and after the imprisonment of the Duke of Somerset in October, the dissentient party in
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the country seems to have waxed bolder. Their con- duct drew forth an order from the council to the bishops, a copy of which is contained in Daye's register. He is enjoined to teach the people " to put such vain expectations " (as the recovery of the old ceremonial) " out of their heads," and to command the clergy and churchwardens of every parish to deliver to him or his deputy all the old Service Books which he is so " to deface and abolyshe that they never after may serve to any suche use as they were fyrst provyded for."
This order in council was followed up by an Act of Parliament to the same effect, only expressed in yet more stringent terms. Daye opposed the Act, and it is more than probable that he was, to say the least, slow and slack in enforcing its distasteful requisitions. It appears, however to have been the policy of Daye and his party, after making their protest, however vain, to comply, as far as they conscientiously could, with unpalatable orders. In the spring of 1550 Daye even attempted to preach acceptable doctrine before the court. King Edward, in his journal, under date April 4, writes, " The Bishop of Chichestre, before a vehement affirmer of transubstantiation, did preach against it at Westminster, in the preachinge place."
But whatever may have been thought of his preach- ing at Westminster, the council was very ill-pleased with the tidings which reached them of his preaching in his own diocese. His sermons were considered calculated to excite animosity against the reformation in the minds of his people, and on October 7 the king's almoner. Dr. Cox, was ordered to go into
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Sussex to calm the popular discontent, and counteract the disturbing effects of the bishop's discourses. On November 8, in the words of the council book, " the Bishop of Chichester appeared to answer to the things objected against him for preaching ; and because he denied the words of his accusation, therefore he was commanded within two days to bring in writing what he preached." On November ii the archbishop was sent for by the council to examine the said discourses. The bishop felt that he was now being hunted down ; his powers of compliance had been strained to their utmost limit, and one more act of the council brought him to bay.
Towards the end of November, to cite the king's journal again, "there were letters sent to every bishop to pluck down the altars," and, in the words of the letter itself, " in the lieu of them to set up a table in some convenient place of the chancel within every church or chapel to serve for the mini- stration of the blessed communion." Here Daye made a final stand. He declared " he could not conform his conscience to do what he was by the said letter commanded." In a letter to Secretary Cecil, written some time later, he says that he "stycked not att the form, situation, or matter (as stone or wode) whereof the altar was made, but I then toke, as I now take, those things to be indifferent. . . But the commandment which was gyven to me to take downe all altars within my diocese, and in the lieu of them to ^ sett up a tabled implying in itselffe (as I take it) a playne abolyshment of the altare (bothe the name and the thinge) from the use and ministration
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of the Holy Communion, I cowlde not with my con- science then execute." He was repeatedly summoned before the council, and maintained his view as being consistent with the teaching of Scripture, and of the Fathers of the Church. The council were very un- willing to proceed to extremities, and gave him time for deliberation, and for conference with the Primate Cranmer ; Ridley, bishop of London ; and Goodrich, bishop of Ely.
Daye, however, was inflexible and at the close of December, 1550, he was committed to the Fleet prison in company with Heath, bishop of Worcester : but they were not tried and formally deposed till September, 1551.
Meanwhile the clergy of Sussex seem to have shared tlieir bishop's reluctance to execute the order of the council, and a letter contained in Daye's register was sent to the chancellor of the diocese directing him to enforce obedience. The letter states that " it is of late comyd to oure knowledge that their do yett remayne (in whomsoever the faulte may bee) aulters standyng in sondraye churches withyn that diocese of Chichester whereof like as we cannot but mervayle, considerynge our former orders as y^ aforesaid grounded upon good and godlye consideracions, and do thynke you not altogether faultless : so have wee thought good by thys to requyre you ... to take such substantiall ordre throughout all the diocise as all manner aulters be with dylygence takeyn downe, and yn their places tables sett upp, according to our former commandment and as is already executed in all partes throughout our realme."
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A severe outbreak of the sweating sickness in the summer of 1551 afforded the council an opportunity for urging the use of the Prayer Book on the clergy and their flocks. A letter in Daye's register, dated July 18, addressed to the chancellor requires him to take means " through the whole diocise to persuade the people to resorte more dilygently to the boke of Commyn Prayer than they have done," and " to pacyfie God's furie and recover hys mercy" not only by prayer, but "amendment of lyves." There seems to be an allusion to the delinquencies of the bishop in the concluding words of the letter. " As the bodye and members of a dull or syke head cannot be lustie or apt to do well, so the chiefest mjnisters as well as the smallest have been so dull and feeble in discharg- ing of their duties that it ys no mervaille tho' theyr flocke wander." . . .
The accession of Queen Mary, two years afterwards, 1553, relieved the recalcitrants for a time from their embarrassment. Bishop Daye was, of course, released and received into favour. John Scory, who had been put into the See, was a married man and thought it prudent to retire with his wife to Wesel in Friesland. Daye preached at the coronation of the Queen, was reinstated in his See, and in March, 1554, served on two Commissions of inquiry into doctrine and discip- line, the result of which was that three bishops were deprived for erroneous teaching, and four for contract- ing marriages. In fact, in the words of Str)-pe, he became " a mighty busy man." In his own diocese the altars were replaced, the old services were restored, and obstinate Protestants were tried and burned ; one at
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Brighton in 1555, four in 1556 at the same place, and three at East Grinstead.
It must be borne in mind that such acts do not imply any cruelty in the individual bishop who ordered them. He might personally be as amiable and humane as the judge who in the present day passes sentence of death on a murderer. There was no conception in that age of the justice or expediency of religious toleration. Papist and Protestant alike agreed that heresy was a crime, and to be punished as a crime. The heretic was a disturber of the public peace, if not a destroj'er of the everlasting peace of the soul : as such he was to be put to death. In this Papist and Protestant were agreed : only each thought that the other was the obnoxious offender who ought to be put out of the way.
John Christopherson, who succeeded Daye in 1557, was an uncompromising Romanist. Vehement and uncritical writers indeed, on the Protestant side, have represented him as a monster of cruelty. " He had not so much mercy," says Fuller, " as Nero to begin courteously, having no sooner put on his epis- copal ring than presently he washed his hands in the blood of poor martyrs. Had he sat long in this See there had needed no iron-mills to rarify the woods of the countr}'. Though he carried so much of Christ in his name, he did bear nothing of him in his nature." After this fierce invective it is consoling to find that the extent to which the woods of Sussex were thinned to supply fuel for burning heretics was for ten burned at Lewes in one fire, and seventeen others at several times and in sundry places. Horrible enough with-
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out doubt 1 ; but not more horrible than the executions of Romanists by the Protestant party when it was dominant, nor more horrible than the executions common during the last century, and even at the beginning of this, for forgery and theft.
Queen Mary exercised her supremacy as Head of the Church with thorough Tudor vigour, although some semblance of liberty was granted where her wishes were not likely to be seriously thwarted. The Dean of Chichester, Thomas Sampson, resigned in 1552. In the Queen's conge (Telire for filling up the vacancy she desires the election to be made by the chapter accord- ing to " your ancient rights and liberties which j-ou used to have untill the same of laat daies hath been interrupted." The chapter, very probably under the influence of fear, and of the bishop [Daye], elected William Pye, a staunch opponent of the doctrines of the Reformation, who helped to worr)' and puzzle poor Philpot, archdeacon of Winchester, when he spoke against transubstantiation in the Convocation of IS53-
The accession of Elizabeth to the throne was a crisis of anxious suspense for all members of the Church of England. What shape was that Church to
' The burnings at Lewes took place in front of the Star Inn. The most notable of the ten who were burned in one fire was Richard Woodman, an iron-worker, of Warbleton. The vicar of Warbleton had conformed to all the changes in the reign of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., but veered round to Romanism in the reign of Mary, and was the informant against Woodman. The trials of the Sussex Martyrs may be read in Foxe, making allowance for his notorious inaccuracies and Protestant pre- judices.
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take ? How were the conflicting elements within it to be adjusted? The queen was an inscrutable person, and men could but vaguely guess what attitude she would adopt. But they soon learned. A strange mortality thinned the ranks of the bishops who were appointed during Mary's reign, brief though it was. The queen and the primate, Pole, died nearly at the same time. Several bishops died either just before, or just afterwards. Among the latter was Christo- pherson. Bishop of Chichester. The way in which these vacancies were filled up proved that, whatever the ultimate balance of parties might be, neither the popish nor the puritan element could hope imme- diately to obtain a decisive predominance.
William Barlow, a.d. 1559, the new Bishop of Chichester, had been a consistent Reformer during the reign of Henry VHI. and Edward VI., first as Bishop of St. David's, and afterwards as Bishop of Bath and Wells. He had been deprived soon after the accession of Mary ; and of the prelates whom she deposed, he and two others — Scory, who had been Bishop of Chichester during the suspension of Bishop Daye, and Miles Coverdale of Exeter — were the only survivors. As in her foreign, so in her domestic policy, and especially in the ecclesiastical department of it, Elizabeth held the balance between opposing forces. With her councillors Cecil, and Parker, the primate, she was the great originator of that middle course in doctrine and practice which found its most forcible and eloquent expression in the great work of the "judicious Hooker." Passionless herself, she partly scorned and partly dreaded the intemperate o
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zeal of partisans. The excesses of puritanism were utterly abhorrent to her, for she loved splendour ; but the puritans were too powerful to be despised, while the papists were dangerous owing to their political intrigues. Neither element was to be encouraged but neither was to be exasperated into rebellion. The course which she and her councillors deemed the safest to pursue was to enforce the existing law where that law was clearly disobeyed.
There is a copy in Barlow's register of a circular letter sent by the primate, Parker, to his suffragans in 1564, which illustrates this policy. The diversities in the mode of conducting public worship had become manifold and glaring. According to a letter of Cecil to the queen, some of the clergy performed the service in the chancel, others in the body of the church, in some places the altar stood in the body of the church, in others in the chancel; in some it was placed altarwise, in others tablewise ; in some it was covered with a carpet, in others it had none. Some of the people received kneeling, others sitting ; some clergy baptized in a font, others in a basin ; some marked the child with the sign of the cross, others omitted it, and so on. What was to be dreaded was an excess of puritanical slovenliness, passing into positive irreverence in the performance of sacred functions. The letter of Parker addressed to Barlow and his other suffragans contains the sub- stance of a letter which he had received from the queen expressing her great displeasure at the diversity in opinions, usages, and rites, and in the behaviour of the clergy observable in different parts of the
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realm, which "caused foreigners to slander the countrye." The primate proceeds to say that he is determined to suppress all such varieties, and " reduce all to a Godly uniformitie," and, consequently, he desires all the bishops and others having jurisdiction to search diligently into such diversities as were against the established laws, usages, and order of the Church, and to send in a faithful return of the persons by whom, and the places in which, these irregularities were practised. No one was to be instituted hence- forth to a benefice, who would not solemnly swear to conform to the prescribed order ; and offenders were to be visited with ecclesiastical censures. If these failed, a further remedy was to be provided by some " sharpe proceeding."
I have not discovered in Bishop Barlow's register, or in Archbishop Parker's, any return of the places in which the irregularities complained of were prac- tised in the Diocese of Chichester. But how great the diversities must have been it is easy to conceive. In the small secluded country parishes it is probable that many of the clergy followed their own inclina- tions with considerable independence. And, in truth, the vicissitudes in the Church at large, and the variations of character in the bishops who had pre- sided over the diocese during the past twenty-eight years, must have been very perplexing, not to say bewildering to the more simple-minded of the clergy and their flocks. During that period the diocese had been administered by Sampson and Daye, who were somewhere between complete Romanists and re- formers, then by Scory, a thorough-going reformer, o 2
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then by Daye again, then by Christopherson, a staunch papist, and lastly by Barlow, a consistent reformer. The letter of Parker, however, left no room to doubt that gross and glaring diversities would no longer be tolerated. Bishop Barlow died in 1568, but the see was not filled up for two years, and it was probably at this time that the queen made a considerable spoliation of the episcopal property. The exchequer had been much impoverished by the mismanagement and disasters of Mary's reign, and the queen and Cecil resolved to replenish it out of the Church lands. It was safer to vex the Church than to irritate the whole country by taxation. In spite of the remon- strances of the primate and other bishops an Act was passed enabling the queen on the avoidance of a bishopric to take into her hands any of the landed property of the see in exchange for a certain number of impropriate parsonages. Thus the bishop was nominally, though not really, compensated at the expense of the clerg)'. In the reign of Charles I. Bishop Montagu made an unsuccessful attempt to recover the manor of Selsey, and from the statement of his case we learn the precise extent to which the bishopric was despoiled under Elizabeth's Act. " She took away," he says, " from this poor bishoprick eight manours out of thirteen, and gave in recompense, of her special grace, as the phrase runneth, four par- sonages impropriate, and the reste in dead rente of tenths, ;^2 29. 2s. 6d. Dead rentes in tythes," the bishop stated, "are noways improvable, and to be collected in a hundred parcels, whereas the manors were worth at least ;^2,5oo per annum."
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The evil practice of swelling the income of the bishoprics by annexing other preferments to it, dates from this act of spoliation. Barlow's successor, Richard Curteys, a.d. 1570-1583, held a prebendal stall in Canterbury Cathedral, but, in spite of this, such was the diminution of the episcopal revenues that they were insufficient to support the hospitality and beneficence which the bishop thought proper to ex- ercise, and after occupying the see for thirteen years, he died in poverty and debt. He was an energetic bishop of the reformed Anglican type, who did his best to secure sound teaching, and promote uni- formity of practice throughout his diocese. We learn from the testimony of a contemporary writer,^ that "over and beside his ordinary preaching upon Sun- days and holidays, he hath gone three times through this whole diocese of Chichester, preaching himself at the greatest towns, and many learned preachers with him in other places. He hath been received of the whole shire exceeding well, and in such sorte as the like hath not been seen in the memory of man. And whereas it was a rare thing before his time to have a learned sermon in Sussex, now the pulpittes in most places sound continually with the voyce of learned and godly preachers, he himself as dux gregis, giving good example unto the rest in so grave and learned a manner that the people with ardent zeale, wonderful rejoicinge, and in great number, take farre
' Preface to Bishop Curteys's " Exposition of certain Wordes of St. Paula to the Romaynes," in note book of White Kennett among the Lansdowne MSS.
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and long journeys to be partakers of his good and godly lessons."
Bishop Curteys, however, was not one of those who overvalued preaching to the neglect of other ordinances. He was a member of the commission under Parker, in 157 1, which issued instructions to churchwardens in no wise to suffer any incumbent to minister any sacrament, or to say any public prayer, except as prescribed by the book of common prayer and the queen's laws ; or any person publicly or privately to teach, read, or preach in any public place of worship, or private house, unless licensed by the queen, the primate, or bishop of the diocese. The ■writer already quoted dilates upon the vigour with which the bishop "suppressed Machiavels, Papistes, Lilestines, and Atheists, charitably maintained orphans and widows, and punished immoralities of all kinds, for the which good deeds (such is the maUce of Sathan and his lims) most bitter and bad speeches are thrown out against him ; yea, and certain h}Ted and suborned to go from nobleman to nobleman from justiciaries to justiciaries, from common table to common table, to carry such tales and surmises as the informer knowith to be false."
After the death of Bishop Curteys, the see lay vacant again for two years. His successor, Thomas BiCKLEY, 1585-1596, had been, like Curteys, a chaplain to the late primate, Parker, and was a diligent, painstaking prelate of the same moderate type. Some of the returns made to articles of en- quiry at his primary visitation, in 1586, have been preserved among the episcopal records, and much
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curious information may be gleaned from them, touching the condition of the churches and the character of the clergy and their flocks. No church appears to have been reckoned in a satis- factory state unless the walls were "whyted, and beautyfied with sentences from Holy Scripture." The altars had, as a rule, been moved from the east end, for complaints are made in several instances that " the floor is not paved where the altar stode." The names of persons in each parish who did not attend church, or receive the holy communion, or who went to religious meetings at private houses, are presented, as well as of scolders and brawlers. One man is represented as being slanderous, not only " of our mynister but of the bishop, in saying that he made very blynde and unskilful mynisters." A quarterly sermon from the incumbent was considered a suf- ficient allowance ; but in many cases it was not regularly delivered, and in some parishes it is stated that there had not been any sermon for a year or more. At Boxgrove there had not been any for three years. One of the commonest complaints made by the parochial witnesses is that "oure mynister is not dyligent in catechizing the children and ser- vants upon holydays," and that the Wednesday and Friday prayers are omitted. Amongst the delin- quencies of the vicar of the subdeanery church, Chichester, it is stated that he administered the holy communion only once a year, and that he frequently married people without administering the holy com- munion to them. This was a breach of the rubric, which at that time directed that " the new-married
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persons the same day of their marriage must receive the holy communion."
On the whole the returns to these articles of en- quiry indicate the prevalence of much slovenliness in the manner of performing the di\ane services, and especially in the administration of the holy com- munion ; and many of the churches were in a dis- graceful state of untidiness or positive dilapidation.
Such defects were, no doubt, sometimes due to mere carelessness and laziness on the part of incum- bents, but sometimes also to puritanical objections to the teaching and ritual prescribed by the book of common prayer. In the interval between the epis- copates of Curteys and Bickley, Archbishop Whitgift suspended eight of the Sussex clergy who declined to subscribe to the prayer book. These were the vicar of Salehurst, the rector of Hamsey, the vicar of Lyminster, the rector of St. Mary's, Lewes, the vicar of Burpham, the vicar of Amberley, the preacher of Hodeleigh, the preacher of Warbleton. After their suspension they were brought before the primate Whitgift, the bishops of London, Sarum, and Ro- chester, and the dean of Westminster, and being required to subscribe to the book of common prayer, alleged that there were certain rubrics wherein was some doubt which moved them to enquire of the bishops the interpretation of the said rubrics. The rubrics in question were (i.) at the end of the pre- face to the catechism — "And that no man shall think that any detriment shall come to children by deferring of their confirmation, it is certain by God's word that children being baptized have all things
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necessary for their salvation, and be undoubtedly saved." Question — Did these words imply that bap- tism conferred grace ex opere opei-ato, so that the baptized were undoubtedly saved ? Atisivered by the bishops — No; it only dissuaded from the popish opinion of confirmation called " bishopping," which they believe to be necessary to salvation, and do think that children are not properly baptized till they be also bishopped, and so make confirmation a sacrament.
(ii.) Did the rubric as to the crossing of children mean that it was a part of the Sacrament, as though baptism were improper without it ? Answer — No ; it was only a significant ceremony and profitable cir- cumstance.
(iii.) Did the words in the ordination service, " Receive the Holy Ghost " signify that the bishop had authority to give the Holy Ghost ? Anszcer : No, only instnimentaliter ; even as he is not the author and giver of baptism, but only the administrator of it.
(iv.) Was baptism by women lawful ? Answer: The book did not name women in connexion with private baptism, and their subscription was not required to anything not contained in the book.
This last question was not an unnatural one, for it appears from the episcopal articles of inquiry that at this time, and long afterwards, children were com- monly baptized two or three days after birth by the mother's nurse. Midwives were not permitted to pursue their calling without being certificated, and at the bishop's visitation they were required to produce these certificates, and to declare that they used tiie
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service prescribed in the prayer-book, and did not practise any Romish rites or magical arts.
The eight clergymen expressed themselves satisfied with the replies of the primate and his assessors to their inquiries, and consented to subscribe to the prayer-book.
But if some of the clergy entertained puritanical objections to the reformed liturg>', there were not a few of the lay people who clung to Roman doc- trine and practice. From the great majority of parishes in Sussex during the reign of Elizabeth in the returns made to the bishop's " Articles of Inquiry " there is mention made of popish recusants ; some of them harboured, or were suspected of harbouring, Roman priests in their houses ; such were the Poles, of Lordington, in the parish of Racton, who were connexions of the late primate, Cardinal Pole. For the most part, they seem to have conducted them- selves very quietly, and were probably glad, if they could, to escape observation, but some, of less discreet and more vehement temperament, openly insulted and derided the clergy and their flocks, and profaned the churches. Thus we have an account of the out- rageous conduct of one Walter Cushman, of Bux- sted, — "Whereas, Walter Cushman hath these three years last past been presented divers tymes by the churchwardens and swornemen, being honest men that favoured the laws of God and the Queen's Majesty's proceedings, and also by Henry Monuques, minister of Buchstedde, and a preacher, for divers sundry causes touched in her Majesty's injunctions ; viz., that the said Walter Cushman, ma)Titayned
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divers popish errors, as of the corporal presence in the sacrament, images, and other popish opinions; that he carried about a popish book touching the corporal presence in the sacrament, which he con- fessed ; also that he carried letters between papist and papist in the tyme of the Queen's Majesty's danger, by treason by the 14 notorious trayters : that he led his horse up and down in the church and about the communion-table in the chancel : that he was a contemner and abuser of ministers, and especially now of late of Mr. Monuques by sundry malicious and opprobrious words against him; that he was a disturber of divine service by talking and laughinge in the church, and specially in the time of the sermon : that he paid not the poor, nor to the repara- tion of the^churche, nor to the clerke's wages as he ought, that he hath not receaved these three years at Buchsted, and hath taken his oath lately that he durst not receave for fear of poysoning." The end of it all was that Walter Cushman " submitted and humbled himselfe to the Queen's Majesty's pro- ceedings," and, at the request of some of the Queen's officers, upon his reconciliation, " was receaved and admitted to the Lord's supper, June 2, 1588, being Trinity Sundaye."
From a report made to the Crown in 1587 respecting the numbers and qualifications of the justices of the peace for Sussex, it appears that several of them were not hearty supporters of the reformed church, or at least were considered to live on terms of perilous intimacy with recusants. Thus, of some it is reported, " theas be counted cold professors oi
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religion." Of one that he has "lett his house to a notable recusant;" another, that "he hath his wyff's mother in his howsse a recusant ; " of another, that he had been a recusant, and put out of commission in consequence, " but now syns his last marryadg he dooth dilygently come to the church, and publykly receaveth the sacrament, wherefor yf he was restored to the justys office, it might encourage hym to pro- ceed, and to allure other recusants for to do their dughty to God and their prinse." The commissioner ends his report by recommending that " their be moor justiciaries in Sussex than in other countys, for that it bordereth south on the sea and north on the ^vyld [weald], in which towe places comminly the people be geven mutch to rvvednes and wyllfulnes."
The fluctuating and doubtful attitude of many of the people towards the reformed Church is indicated by a letter from the deputy-lieutenants of Sussex to " my lords of the Council," asking for directions how to proceed in dealing with the different classes of recusants. They represent that some refuse to come to church once a month, will not take the oath (of the queen's supremacy), nor have their children christened, except in secret corners, and besides are known to favour papists, entertaining them and fre- quenting their houses. Ansu'er: " Being so proved, then to be restrained."
Others scrupled about the oath, yet came to church ; others conformed in all respects, yet were well known to be in sympathy with papists ; others took the oath, and came to church, yet would not communicate. Anstcer: "Not to be dealt withall." Some lay
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hidden in corners, or were not known, before proof made. Ansiuer: "Being taken, and proved recusants, then to be committed."
The tenacity with which many persons in Sussex, especially among the higher ranks, clung to the usages and the creed of the unreformed church, is amply illustrated by the phraseology of wills made in the sixteenth century. Throughout the reign of Henry VIII., many of these wills contain no hint that any changes had been made in the arrangements of the churches, or that the testators supposed any great alterations to be impending. From 1530 right on to 1548 we find people directing their bodies to be buried in front of particular images, or altars, or pictures of " Oure Ladye," and bequeathing sums of money to priests to sing masses for their souls, and the souls of their relations, either for ever or for periods ranging from ten to twenty years. Lord Dacre, whose will was proved in 1534, directs his body to be buried in the parish church of Hurstmonceaux, on the north side of the high altar j also, "that a tombe be there made for placing the sepulchre of our Lord, with all fitting furniture thereto, in honour of the most blessed sacrament : that ;^ioo be employed toward the lights about the said sepulchre, in wax tapers of 10 pounds weight, each to burn about it. . . Also, that an honest priest shall sing there for my soul by the space of seven years, taking annually for his salary, and to find bread, wine, and wax, xii marks sterling."
Parish registers and churchwardens' accounts supply evidence that in some churches the furniture and
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goods which pertained to the unreformed ritual remained undisturbed, although the need and the significance of them had passed away. In Lindfield Church, for instance, the roodloft was not taken down till 1583. In some parishes, on the other hand, the goods seem to have been sold very freely, to any one who was disposed to purchase them, and the proceeds put to the credit of the churchwardens' accounts. In the churchwardens' accounts of the parish of Bolney, in the reign of Henry VIII., there are entries of profits arising from the sale to various purchasers of altar-cloths, a sacring bell, call bell, broken candle- stick, old vestment, cope, pyx, and two tabernacles.
In fact, there can be little doubt that throughout the reign of Elizabeth, in spite of the efforts of the bishops to secure uniformity, the varieties in the details of ritual, furniture, and general arrangement in the churches must have been very considerable.
THE REIGNS OF JAMES I. AND CHARLES I. 20 7
CHAPTER VIII.
A.D. 1604-1660.
The Diocese during the reigns of James I. and Charles I. — The Siege of Chichester and Sack of the Cathedral — The Commonwealth.
AViTH the accession of the Stuarts to the throne began that close intimacy between the Church and the Crown which seemed destined to promote the welfare of both, but in the end precipitated their fall. The secret of Elizabeth's power was that she knew how to distribute both her frowns and her favours. She was the mistress of all her subjects, and would not place herself at the head of any one party to depress the rest. James and Charles courted the Church, and the Church fell into the snare. It became the church of the monarchy rather than the church of the whole nation. The close connexion between the Church and the Throne led to an equally close connexion between political rebellion and religious dissent. These two combined forces gained the upper hand, and so for a time mitre and crown were laid low together in the dust.
When James I. began his reign the puritan party were very sanguine that more indulgence would be extended to them than they had enjoyed under Elizabeth. The strict uniformity which Archbishop
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Whitgift endeavoured to exact had been very galling to many of the clergy, who were infected with the teaching of the foreign reformers, and not a few had resigned their livings. The views of this party were embodied in the well-known millenary petition, signed by 750 ministers, and presented to the king in the first year of his reign ; and their cause was pleaded in the Hampton Court Conference.
Two petitions presented to James in March, 1603, immediately after his accession, from the inhabitants of Sussex, one by the nobility and gentry, the other by the commonalty, manifest, although cautiously worded, an unquestionable leaning in the puritan direction. The first petition is signed by Thomas, Lord de la Warre and twenty-six other gentlemen of Sussex. After a long preamble, deprecating the dis- pleasure of the king, who, they fear, is rather over- whelmed by the "multiplicity and indiscretion of petitioners," they say that they have " received strength and boldness to come before his Majesty's presence as the woman of Samaria did in a great famine (2 Kings vi. 26), before the Kinge and crye ' Helpe, my Lord, O King.' They pray that every parishe or congre- gation may have a godly and learned pastor to instruct the people, provided with sufficient maintenance : and that pluralities, non-residence, unpreachinge, ignorant,
and ungodly ministers bee removed that the
preaching of subscription, otherwise than to your Majesty's supremacy, and those articles which concern the true faith, doctrine, and sacraments commanded in the thirteenth year of her late Majestj^'s reign, and the hot urging of ceremonies not approved of in the
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judgment (as we are persuaded) of many godly and learned ministers within this your realm, which greatly hindered the growth of true religion and piety (whilst many learned and zealous preachers have been deprived, silenced, and secluded from their flocks, and many learned and well- qualified men discouraged from entering into the ministry, whereby Atheism, Popery, and Ignorance, have taken root and spread themselves over the lande) may now quite cease, or be accounted indifferent for the ministers to retain or omit without trouble, or being reputed obstinate for not submitting themselves unto them." . . .
The petition of the commons is much to the same effect, though rather less explicit.
How grievously the hopes of the puritan party were disappointed by the ecclesiastical policy of James is well known. The petitioners from Sussex and else- where must have been rather crestfallen when they read the king's proclamation, issued in October, 1603. " Concerning such as seditiously seek reformation in Church matters." In this document he declares his persuasion that " both the constitution and doctrine of the English Church is agreeable to God's word, and near to the condition of the Primitive Church." He admits that some imperfections may have crept into this as into all institutions administered by fallible men, and that he designs to hold a conference with a view to their redress ; but meanwhile he reprobates " those restless spirits whose heat tendeth rather to combustion than reformation : some using public in- vectives against the state ecclesiastical here estabHshed, some contemning their authority and the processes of p
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their courts, some gathering subscriptions of multitudes of vulgar persons to supplications to us to crave that reformation, which if there be cause to make is more in our heart than in theirs." In short he warns all his subjects to abstain at their peril from presenting any more petitions, or infringing in the smallest de- gree the existing ecclesiastical order.
Archbishop Whitgift meanwhile was indefatigable in his efforts to enforce religious uniformity throughout the kingdom. He addressed a letter to Watson, Bishop of Chichester, desiring him to ascertain — I St. The certaine number of those who do receive the communion in everie several parishe. 2nd. The certaine number of every man . . . and every woman recusant in every several parishe. The returns to Bishop Watson's enquiry have not been preserved except in a few instances, and if these may be taken as samples of the general condition of the diocese, the amount of outward nonconformity was very small. In Eastbourne there was only one recusant, a widow. With the exception of this person and a Scotchman who had been excommunicated four years since, the vicar states that all the adults, numbering about 500, were habitual communicants. At Poynings there were not any recusants, and all the adults were com- municants. In Bexhill the number of communicants was 225 ; in Brightling, 195 ; and in neither were there any recusants. At West Firle there were eight men and nine women who would not receive the holy communion : these were either members of the family of Gage, who were Roman Catholics, or persons under their influence. At All Saints, Hastings, the
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number of communicants was 247 ; at Ditchling, 200. Archbishop Bancroft was no less vigorous than his predecessor in exacting uniformity ; and in the dio- cese of Chichester we cannot doubt that his efforts were well seconded by the successor of Bishop Watson for this successor was no less a person than Lancelot Andrewes. He only occupied the see, however, for four years, 1605 to 1609, when he was translated to Ely, and his register is a bare record of official acts. The number of clergy actually deprived at this period for nonconformity in all England does not appear to have exceeded fifty. In Sussex the Vicar of East Grinstead was deprived by the primate during his Metropolitan visitation, and nine other puritan preachers are said to have been deprived at the same time, but whether they all belonged to Sussex I have not discovered.
Bishop Harsneti- who succeeded Andrewes, and occupied the see ten years, 1609-16 19, must have
' There are a few notices in Archbishop Bancroft's register of acts done by him in Sussex, during the vacancy of the See, before the appointment of Andrewes. He institutes new ■\ncars to the parishes of East Hoathley and of Kingston-by-Sea, both of which were vacant by the deprivation of the former incum- bents.
The vicar of Wartling, Thomas Lyllie, had been deprived by Bishop Watson for contumacious nonconformity to the book of common prayer, and a new vicar had been instituted ; but his predecessor continued to reside in the parish and molested his ministrations in every possible way, inteiTupting di\Tne service, and endeavouring to prevent his recei\ing the full fruits of his benefice. The archbishop directs the living to be seques- trated until such time as the deprived vicar should desist from his aimoying behanour.
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been very unfavourable to puritan teachers and Cal- vinistic teaching in his diocese, for he had originally attracted public attention by a powerful sermon against Calvinism, preached at Paul's Cross in 1584. We have not any record of Bishop Harsnett's diocesan administration, but some orders which he drew up for the better regulation of the cathedral estab- lishment have been preser\'ed ; and it is time now to direct our attention to the mother church of the diocese.
The right of residence originally enjoyed freely and equally by all the canons had been checked at Chichester, as in most other cathedrals of the " old foundation," about the middle of the fourteenth cen- tury, by a custom of imposing costly outlays in hospi- tality and other ways on those who came to reside during the first year of their residence. Thus many were deterred from coming to reside at all, and the executive power, as well as the divisible fund of the corporate body gradually fell more and more into the hands of a small section of the chapter. In the records of episcopal visitations in the fifteenth cen- tury we rarely find more than seven canons in resi- dence, and often not so many. As the cost of living increased with the decrease in the value of money, as the Church became impoverished by the pressure of frequent and heavy taxation in the fifteenth century, and distracted by the religious dissensions of the sixteenth, the number of canons who were able or willing to reside diminished yet more. IMost of them, especially after the marriage of the clergy became lawful, preferred to live in peaceful and frugal retire-
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ment with their famihes on their prebends. Or if at any time an unusual number did come into residence, discontent and difficulties arose, because, when the attenuated common fund was divided among many, the share of each was too small to meet the expenses of his residence. In the reign of Elizabeth the in- convenience arising from this state of things was so serious, that at Chichester (as in most of the other cathedrals of the old foundation) steps were taken to put an end to it. Accordingly in 1573-4, during the episcopate of Bishop Curteys, statutes were passed which remodelled or rather revolutionized the old con- stitution. " Whereas," it is stated, " the revenues of the cathedral are very small, and by reason of a mul- titude of residentiaries, the profits being divided and dispersed into many hands, the old laudable hospi- tality is not, nor can be, kept up of any, whereby is grown a contempt of this state : it is agreed that henceforth there shall be no more residentiaries but four beside the dean." It was also enacted that no canon should be admitted to reside without first ob- taining the consent of the dean, and the more part of the residentiaries ; that is to say, they were constituted electors to a vacancy in their own body, on the prin- ciple of what is called co-optation : and further, that every residentiary should keep residence, per se ant per alium, by the space of three months every year, to be settled by common consent of the dean and chapter.
Thus the ancient cathedral body was reduced to a mere skeleton of its former self, and the original pur- poses of its creation were as nearly as possible frus-
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trated. The connexion of the great mother church with the diocese, through the medium of a large body of canons, resident, sometimes on their prebends, sometimes within the precints of the cathedral, was broken down : the maintenance by a large staff of clergy of frequent divine services, bearing some pro- portion in their variety to the size of the building, came to an end. The services were reduced to two daily, the residentiary body to five, and residence was defined as being not inconsistent with nine months absence out of twelve. What the condition of the cathedral was thirty-five years after these changes had been made, may be gathered from the enquiries made and the orders given by Bishop Harsnett at his visita- tions. The articles of enquiry at his third visitation allude to negligence of his injunctions, issued on a former occasion. " Have not many of the vicars and lay vicars," he asks, " been absent for months to- gether ? Is the choir sufficiently furnished, and are the boys properly instructed ? What has become of the copes and vestments ? Who is responsible for the custody of them and of the books ? Who is the principle cause of the defects that do appear in those things ? Are there not ale houses in the close ? And have not laymen keys to open doors ? Why are boys and hogs allowed to beastly defile the walls ? Why are all these things not amended since the last visitation ? "
These articles seem to have stirred up the chapter to issue some rules " for the better ordering of their church and churchmen," which bear date September 27th, 16 16. The bells are to be rung more regularly,
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and the bell ringers are to keep order all sermon time, each in his proper quarter or beat : the vest- ments are to be carefully put away in presses. Bishop Sherburne's bedesman was to be more diligent in his duties, and " to purge the churchyard of hogs and dogs, and lewd persons that play or do worse." The verger was to keep the cloisters clean, and " to scourge out the ungracious boys, with their tops, or at least to present them to the old man of the vestry." The principal of the vicars was to see the " outdoors of their cloisters locked up and fast barred by nine o'clock at night, to keep the keys himself," and to repress all seditious brawlers and other enormities there, or if they flame out so fast that he cannot, " then he was to report them to the dean or president of the chapter."
The cathedral, indeed, and the adjacent buildings must have been now and long afterwards a somewhat melancholy spectacle of untidiness and decay. Bishop Watson obtained a licence from the archbishop to remove a " noysome house on the east side of the palace gatehouse, twenty feet long and ten feet broade." And inside the same gate, " a deformed house, used heretofore for a prison, and a low de- formed house thereto adjoining, used now for a stable." But if some unsightly and noisome buildings in the vicinity of the cathedral were removed, the canons' houses which remained appear from the notices of them in episcopal visitations to have been often in an extremely dilapidated, almost ruinous con- dition, during the greater part of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries : the immediate precincts of the
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cathedral are commonly described as being in a dis- graceful state of neglect, while the interior of the church became gradually encumbered and disfigured by pews and lofts which were let to the congregation. The articles of enquiry addressed to incumbents of parishes by Bishop Montagu, and his successor, Brian Duppa, both high churchmen of the school of Laud, whose episcopates extend from 1628 to 1642,1 reveal what tendencies to irreverence and irregularities of various kinds prevailed in parish churches. Bishop iVIontagu enquires whether communicants " meekly kneel," or whether they stand or sit at the time of reception : whether the holy table is profaned at any time by persons sitting upon it, casting hats or cloaks upon it, writing or casting up accounts, or any other indecent usage.
The necessity of putting such questions proves to what lengths irreverence was carried in regard to the Holy Table, and accounts for the determination of Laud to have it set back again, altar-wise, at the east end of the church in all parishes. This order of the primate is referred to in Bishop Brian Duppa's articles of inquiry at his primary visitation in 1638. "Is your communion-table," he asks, " or altar, strong, fair, and decent ? Is it set according to the practice of the ancient church, — upon an ascent at the east end of the chancel, with the ends of it north and south ?
' For a sketch of the personal history and character of Bishop Montagu I may refer the reader to my " Memorials of the See of Chichester," 269-274. Bishop Duppa was translated to Salisbury : see the account of him in " Annals of the Church of Salisbury," pp. 208, 209.
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Is it compassed in with a handsome rail to keep it from profanation according to an order made in the metropolical visitation?" Bishop Duppa also asks, " What galleries and scaffolds have you in your church ? Is there not conveniency of room for the parishioners without them? Have there been kept in the church, chappie, or churchyard, any plays, feasts, suppers. Church ales, temporal courts, or Leet day juries, musters or meetings for rates and taxa- tions, especially at the communion-table ? "
The questions respecting the character, conduct, and dress of the clergy are instructive and enter- taining. " Doth your minister use such comely and decent apparel as becometh the gravity of his calling, and may distinguish him from the laity ? or doth he wear long hair and deep ruffles, falling bands down to his shoulders, or any other unseemly garments not proper to his ministry ? If a parson or vicar, doth he reside? or, if a curate, hath he an honest and sufficient salary ? Doth he idly vague up and down, or in any way else so entangle himself in secular affairs as to neglect the duties of his calling? Does he diligently labour for the reclaiming of recusants, whether they be such as with peril of their souls superstitiously adhere to the Church of Rome, or such, in the other extreme, who, having perversely relinquished our communion, find nothing to adhere to but their own private fancies ? Doth he use the prescribed form of prayer before his sermon to prevent the indiscreet flying out of some in their extemporary prayers? Doth he preach in a gown and cassock, not in a riding or ambulatory cloak ? Doth he deliver
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the Holy Communion to any standing, or sitting, or in any other posture than on the knee ? Doth he- first receive it himself, and after, deliver it to the communicants, not in gross, but one by one, using all the words enjoined severally to each of them?
Bishop Duppa, having been translated to Sarum in 1641, was succeeded by the pious, amiable, and ac- complished Henry King. The storm-clouds were now gathering thick and fast around the monarchy and the church. The Act had been passed which deprived bishops of their votes in the upper house. Strafford had fallen. Laud was in prison, waiting his doom, and twelve other prelates had just been im- prisoned for protesting against the loss of their rights as peers in Parliament. Down to the year 1642 Sussex was, on the whole, favourable to the royal cause. In 1640 the county had sent 640 foot and 80 horse to the king's army against the Scotch ; and the clergy had contributed ;^985. i6s. for the support of the army. But in February, 1642, Sussex swelled the general cry of discontent by a petition to Parlia- ment, praying for a thorough reformation in religion. AVhen the war broke out in the autumn of that year, Arundel was in the hands of royalists, Chichester and Lewes in the hands of parliamentarians. The cathedral city, however, was seized, on November 22, by a body of royalists, of whom the chief leaders were. Sir Edward Bishop, of Parham ; Sir ^V. Morley, of Halnaker; Sir Edward Ford, of Up Park, and others. The Parliament now became alarmed, and bestirred itself in earnest to assert its power in the western part of Sussex.
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By the middle of December the Parliamentary general, Sir W. Waller, having captured Farnham and Winchester, moved upon Sussex. He took Arundel by a surprise, and then turned upon Chichester, which surrendered, after an eight days' siege, on December 29, 1642. The victors first released those whom the royalists had imprisoned, and then arrested the bishop, the clergy, the royalist leaders and their followers, to the number of eighty. The bishop is called by a fanatical writer of the day, " as proud a prelate as all the rest are, and a most pragmatical malignant against the Parliament, as all his catercapt companions also are." But such language is utterly at variance with trustworthy accounts of the bishop's character, and indeed the terms papist and malignant were so freely dealt out by Parliamentary fanatics at this period that they are no clue whatever to the real character of the individuals to whom they were applied.
The Dean of Chichester, Bruno Ryves, was fined ;^i2o, and of course deprived of his emoluments. He lived to become Dean of Windsor after the Restoration, and employed some of his leisure during the Commonwealth in writing an account of the war, to which we are indebted for a curious description of the sack of the cathedral by Waller's troops. "Their first business," he writes, " after the surrender was to plunder the cathedral church. They left not so much as a cushion for the pulpit, nor a chalice for the
blessed Sacrament As the soldiers broke
down the organ, and dashed the pipes with their poleaxes, they cried out in scoff, ' Harke how the
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organs goe ! ' The altar and the rails were demo- lished, and the table of commandments broken into ' small shivers.' The leaves of the books were torn out and scattered about; the surplices were taken for secular purposes ; Bishop Sherburne's pic- tures of the bishops and kings were defaced. A solemn thanksgiving for the victory was offered in the cathedral, and after the sermon the soldiers 'ran up and down the church with their swords dra\vn, defacing the monuments, hacking and hewing the seats and stalls, scratching and scraping the painted walls, Sir W. Waller and the rest of the commanders standing by as spectators and approvers of these impious barbarities. ' In the north transept, then used as the parish church of St. Peter, ' the chalice was broken into bits for division of spoil, and the Bible marked in divers places with a black coaL' One of the soldiers picked out the eyes from an image of Edward VI., saying that he and his prayer- book were the cause of all this mischief Meanwhile, Sir Arthur Hazelrigg having learned, through the treachery of one of the officers of the church, where more of the plate was concealed, brought some of his men up with ' crowes of iron ' into the chapter-house, and directed them to break down the wainscot about the room. As the work went on he cried out, 'There, boys! there, boys ! hearke, hearke ! it rattles! it rattles.' His tongue was not enough to express his joy; it was operative at his verj' heels by dancing and skipping. ' Marke what music it is lawful for a puritan to dance to ! "'
From the same writer, and from Walker in his
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" Sufferings of the Clerg}'," we learn the fate of some of the principal members of the chapter. The pre- centor was seized at Exeter by the Earl of Stamford, whose naturally violent temper was inflamed by an " after dinner," and the poor precentor almost died of the barbarous treatment he received. The chan- cellor, Dr. Marsh, managed to escape to the king at Oxford ; his living of Cuckfield was of course seques- trated. John Gregory, Prebendary of Bracklesham, a prodigy of multifarious learning and a friend of Selden, retired to the village of Kidlington, near Oxford, where he spent the remainder of his days in great poverty, and died in an alehouse. Dr. Oughtred, Prebendary of Heathfield, a first-rate mathematician, had good offers of a home and emolument in Italy, France, and Holland, but preferred living in poverty in England in hope of better times ; and when they came the shock was too much for him. On hearing of the vote passed for the restoration of the king he died in a transport of joy, in the 86th year of his age.
The estates of the bishop were sequestrated, and it would appear from a passage in his will that he was deprived of some of his personal effects ; he bequeaths his books to his son being a " small remainder of a large library, taken from me at Chichester, contrary to the condition and contracte of the general and counsell of warre at the taking of that citie." Most of his time during the Commonwealth was spent in retirement at Richkings, near Langley, and not far from Eton, in the house of Lady Salter, a sister of Bishop Duppa. Several members of Bishop King's family also found a hospitable refuge here as well as
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John Hales, one of the greatest scholars in Europe, who had been turned out of his fellowship at Eton because he refused to sign the engagement required of all who held office, to be faithful to the established government.'^
In December, 1643, Arundel was recaptured by the royalists under Lord Hopton. Their occupation of the town, however, was very short-lived, as it was recovered by the parliamentary forces under Waller in the following month, after a siege of seventeen days. One of the prisoners of war on this occasion was a person too remarkable to be passed by without notice in these pages. William Chillingworth was skilled in material as well as theological warfare; especially in the engineering department. In the beginning of the war, he was, as we are informed by Calamy, with the Earl of Essex, and showed himself a person of great strength and undaunted courage. At the siege of Gloucester he invented some ingenious machines for the use of the besiegers. The excessive cold, which facilitated the rapid march of Hopton upon Arundel by hardening the roads in Sussex, then, as long aftenvards, notorious for depth of mire, had, combined with the other hardships of the cam- paign, made Chilling^vorth so ill that he could not be taken to London with the other prisoners. He was conveyed to Chichester, and comfortably lodged
' All that can be made out respecting the life of Bishop King has been brought together in a very agreeable form in the preface to a collection of his poems edited in 1843 by Dr. Hannah, the present Archdeacon of Lewes and Vicar of Brighton.
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in the palace (then deserted by the bishop) a favour which he owed to one of his bitterest theological opponents, Francis Cheynell, a presbyterian minister, who had been installed in the living of Petworth, formerly held by Bishop King. Chillingworth died about a month after he was brought to Chichester, and was buried in the south walk of the cloisters, where a tablet is attached to the wall over his grave, inscribed with his name and the motto, " Nec sensit damna sepulchri."
Cheynell, who had frequently visited Chillingworth during his illness, rewarded himself for his charitable care of his opponent by delivering a virulent invective upon him at his funeral ; at the same time flinging into his grave a copy of his celebrated work, " The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation," with expressions of contempt and detestation.
There must have been many among the inhabitants of Petworth who groaned over the substitution of such a stern narrow-minded puritan as Cheynell for their former rector, the gentle, amiable, and scholarly Bishop King. There can have been few parishes in the whole diocese where the change occasioned a harsher, or more unpleasant contrast. No doubt in many of the secluded country parishes the incum- bents remained undisturbed ; but their tenure was very insecure, and if any man of property and influence in the neighbourhood was a zealous partisan of the Parliament, they were probably either ejected or sub- jected to much harshness and violence. The rector of Beckley, Thomas Sharpe, WTOte a lamentable and minute account, which has been preserved, of the
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rough treatment he experienced. He was an old man who had held the living for many years. At a meeting of freeholders summoned at Battel in 1643, he had expressed his dissent from some propositions sent down by the Parliament respecting the levying of troops for the defence of the country. He was, in consequence, cited to appear before Colonel Morley, of Glynde, an active organizer of the Parliamentary forces in Sussex. The poor old rector set out in very inclement weather, to go before Colonel Morley on the appointed day, at Lewes ; but hearing on the way that the colonel had been called off to Arundel, he returned home. Some months after this, a party of troopers came to his parsonage, accused him of breaking his engagement, fired bullets into his house, broke in the doors, plundered many of his effects, terrified his aged wife and servants by their threats and blows, and ended by carrj'ing him off to Rye, where he was compelled, under a warrant from Colonel Morley, to give security for the payment of ;^2 2o to the Parliament ; an extortion which reduced him to a condition of extreme povertj'. The same Colonel Morley entered Hastings one Sunday even- ing in July, 1643, and demanded the deliver)- of all the arms in the town. Divine service was going on in All Saints' Church when the news of the Colonel's approach arrived ; the service was broken off; the curate fled for refuge to a wood near the town ; the soldiers were quartered in the church for the night — one of them preached to his comrades from the pulpit, and either he or one of his audience stole the surplice. Poor Mr. Hinson, the curate, was caught
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the next day, and after being imprisoned for three weeks in Rye gaol, in the same cell with a tinker, was sent to London, whence he escaped to the king at Oxford.
In 1653 a measure was passed in Parliament to ensure the appointment of such ministers to all bene- fices vacant by deprivation or otherwise as should be acceptable to the Government. The preamble to the measure stated that for some time past no certain course had been established for supplying vacant parishes with able and fit ministers, whereby many weak, scandalous, popish, and ill-affected persons had intruded themselves. Consequently a body of ex- aminers, called triers, was appointed, thirty-eight in number, and without a certificate of approval from this body no one was to be deemed lawfully possessed of any benefice, while by virtue of such certificate he was to be put into full possession as much as if he had been admitted by institution and induction. The low and coarse type of men sometimes admitted by the " triers," may be gathered from some of the contem- porary local records. Thus in the parish register of East Lavant, we read, under the date of October 29, 1653, "Richard Batsworth was approved of and sworn to be parish minister for the said parish according to an Act of Parliament in the case made and provided. He was a man of low stature, very violent for the rebels, and a plunderer of the royalists. He had some learning, and a great deal of chicanery, though seldom more than one coat, which for some time he wore the wrong side out (its right side was seen only on Sundays) till it was almost worn out, and Q
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then he had a new one, which he used in the same manner."
In the parish of Wivelsfield the tithes belonged to a Mr. More, of Morehouse, to whose ancestors they had been appropriated on the dissolution of Lewes Priory. A long correspondence has been preserved which passed between Mr. More and Bishop King, in the first year after the Restoration, and it affords a curious insight into the condition of the parish during the Commonwealth. The parishioners had com- plained that Mr. More had recently made no allow- ance for a minister, according to the custom of him- self and his ancestors for many years. The bishop requires Mr. More to " settle an orthodox minister with a competent maintenance." To this Mr. More replies that he and his grandfather before him, " out of the natural addiction we had to a scholar's com- pany, and the respect we bore to a divine function, did uninterruptedly entertayne some student as com- panion, to whom we did not only show the civiHty of a gentleman, but in consideration of his office in the parish we allowed some salary, not out of necessity, but as we hoped out of charity, till the late sad times." During the commonwealth Mr. More's scholarly chaplains had been silenced in the church, and their place supplied, first by a presbyterian jack- maker and then by a drummer, while at the time of the correspondence with the bishop, it was occupied by an " unlearned and unordayned maltman." The people had endeavoured, Mr. More says, "to force me to mayntayn the maultman by giving him over all the tithes, whom I judged worthy of none;"
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and in conclusion he states that he is ready to "entertayn a minister as formerly, allowing him a noble salary, on condition that he be of my own election without stint or limitation, subject to the approval of yr lordship."
On the other hand, despite the ordinance of the triers, not only good men, but fairly good church- men were sometimes admitted to vacant benefices. The diary of the Rev. Giles Moore, rector of Horstead Keynes from 1655 to 1679, has been preserved, and is a curious and interesting illustration of the times. In the first entry he states : " I, Giles Moore, was admitted rector of Horsted Keynes by the com- missioners for the approbation of publique preachers, sitting at Whitehall, on Feb. i, 165 5-6. The parsonage was left to mee in so ruinous a state that it cost me ;^24o before I could make it fit to dwell in. Should I leave a widow behind me, let my successor, whoever he may bee, deal alike kindly by her as I have done by Mistress Pell [the widow of his predecessor]. Mrs. Pell had the whole year's tythes ending at Ladye Day, 1656, though her husband dyed at the beginning of the harvest."
The diary of the rector consists, in a great measure, of notices of household expenditure ; but mingled with these are bits of interesting information about church matters. From these we may infer that the rector, although approved by the triers and acquiesc- ing in the existing form of ecclesiastical polity, was at heart a moderately sound churchman, and was more than contented when the Commonwealth came to an end and the Church was re-established. He enters Q 2
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in his diary the number of communicants in his church on Easter Day, year by year. The number ranges from 156, which he seems to have thought very small, to 184, which would be reckoned a large pro- portion in the present day out of a population rather less than 700. He buys the Short Catechism, drawn up by the Assembly of Divines in 1646, for distribu- tion among his people ; but he gets Pearson on the Creed at the same time, and after the Restoration we find him buying along with prayer-books, such works as Heylin on the Creed, Pearson on the Epistles of St. Ignatius, and Cosin on the Canon of Scripture. On the day of Thanksgiving for the Restoration (May 24, 1660), he gives three shillings to the singers, three pounds of powder to the parishioners, and ninepence to the boys towards their buying a drum wherewith to celebrate their joy.
There can be little doubt indeed that if we could recover exact records of all the parishes during the Commonwealth, the strangest varieties in doctrine and practice would be brought to light ; in some places there was as little departure as possible from the ancient lines of the Church's teaching, while in others the most gloomy and severe type of Calvinistic doctrine in the pulpit was coupled with the most rigid exclusion of all ceremonial from worship. The registers in not a few parishes record marriages per- formed by laymen, and the numerous entries of births without any mention of baptism, encourage the sus- picion that the administration of this sacrament was often delayed, if not omitted. On the other hand, fines for profane language and Sabbath-breaking seem
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to have been exacted with considerable 'strictness. In an old churchwarden's account book for the parish of Cowden, there is a Hst of fines levied for offences of this kind in the year 1656, amounting to ^2. IIS. lod.
It is needless to say that during the period treated of in this chapter, there is nothing to record in the department of church architecture, and it does not fall within the scope of this work to notice such matters of detail as the carved pulpits and screens which date froni the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. These were the last efforts of artistic feeling in the internal fittings of our churches, and about the same time begin the dismal records, in parish registers, of the erection of pews and galleries, with which, throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, our churches were increasingly encumbered and dis- figured, which were partly a consequence, partly a cause, of the loss of the idea of public worship, and which have been almost to the present day fertile sources of malice and all uncharitableness.
Neither are there any religious foundations of im- portance to be mentioned within this period, with the solitary exception of Sackville College at East Grinstead, and a hospital or almshouse founded in 1608 by Robert, the second Earl of Dorset, for a warden and 31 inmates — 21 unmarried men and 10 unmarried women. The name, at least, of the college has become familiar to many far beyond the bound- aries of the diocese through the literary reputation of Ur. J. Mason Neale, who held the wardenship from 1846 to 1867.
23° CHICHESTER.
CHAPTER IX.
A.D. 1660 1800.
State of the Diocese after the Restoration, and in the Eighteenth Century.
If the rector of Horstead Keynes was fairly contented with the restoration of the inonarchy, some of his clerical neighbours were transported with joy. In the parish register of Newick the rector writes : " Charles II., by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland : after having been expelled from his kingdom by the violence of fanatics, and spent twelve years in most unjust exile, he returned to his own people to London amidst the greatest joy of all, on the 29th of May, 1660, his own birthday ; " and further on the enthusiastic rector writes : " God grant that after a long and happy old age he may be blessed with life eternal ! "
The total number of ministers ejected in the king- dom for refusing to comply with the Act of Uniformity, was about 2,000. Calamy, in his " Nonconformists' Memorial," gives a list and a brief account of 67 ministers ejected in the diocese of Chichester. Of these the great majority continued to reside in or near the parishes where they had ministered ; many of them set up schools, and notwithstanding the Five Mile Act, either by the connivance of friendly justices
STATE OF DIOCESE AFTER THE RESTORATION. 23I
of the peace, or by evading the ofificers of the law, preached on Sundays to people of their own persua- sion. No doubt some must have been reduced to poverty; Calamy, however, does not record any instances of severe distress in Sussex, as he does in the case of many other counties.^ The rector of Horstead Keynes, however, mentions In his diary in 1668, that he gave fourpence to Mr. Salisbury, "a begging minister " — no doubt a nonconformist.
Bishop King survived the Restoration nine years ; but beyond a memorandum that he repaired the cathedral nnd the palace, I have not discovered any record of his administration.
Calamy states that he endeavoured to persuade many of the nonconforming ministers to take the oath, and even promised preferment to some if they would conform, but without success in any instance.
Peter Gunning, the successor of Bishop King, A.D. 1670-1675, had been a consistent, though not extreme high churchman and royalist throughout his career. He had been turned out of his fellowship at Clare College, Cambridge, for refusing to take " the engagement," and after some wanderings settled in London. Here, in the chapel of Exeter House,
' It would not be possible without a searching e.\aminatioii of parish registers and other records, which I have not been able to attempt, to arrive at the exact number of the clergy who were ejected in 1643, and the ministers ejected in 1662. Walker (" Sufferings of Clergy,") gives a list of 40 ejected at the time of the Rebellion. If this is correct, and if, as Calamy states, 67 ministers were ejected in 1662, many vacancies must have occurred in the interval.
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Strand, he read the Liturgy of the Church on Sundays, administered the Sacraments, and preached to all who had the courage to attend. He was often reproved by Cromwell, but seemingly not otherwise restrained, and he also ventured on other days to carry on public disputations with the leaders of various sects — Presbyterian, Independent, Anabaptist, Quaker, and Brownist. At the Savoy Conference he was selected as the divine best qualified to dispute with Richard Baxter. Their contest was considered a miracle of subtle dialectical fencing ; but like many theological combats it was barren of any practical results. Burnett informs us that Gunning was " for conforming in all things to the rules of the Primitive Church," including among these "praying for the dead, the use of oil with many other rituals " which made many suspect him as inclining to go over to the Church of Rome, but Burnett adds " he was far from it and was a very honest, sincere man, but of no sound judgment, and of no prudence in affairs." How far Burnett's estimate of him may have been justified in the administration of his diocese it is impossible from the lack of con- temporary local records to determine. No doubt since Burnett also calls him " an unweariedly active man " he did his best to re-establish the authority of the Church in Sussex, and probably encountered a good deal of resistance ; for there was a large and powerful Puritan and Calvinistic element in the diocese. A large number of the Parliamentary troops had been quartered in the county, especially the eastern end of it, during the Commonwealth, and were not disbanded till 1659 ; several families of good position, such as the
STATE OF DIOCF.SE AFTER THE RESTORATION. 233
Springetts, the Morleys of Glynde, and Stapleys of Hickstead,\vere thoroughly Puritan in theirsympathies; and in the east end of the county, more especially at Rye, there was a considerable infusion of French Pro- testant refugees who had settled there in the reign of Elizabeth. This foreign element was augmented soon after the time we have now reached by another immi- gration which set in after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. All these influences concurred to give Puritan sentiment and Calvinistic doctrine a hold upon the people in this diocese which has not even yet been wholly lost, and if Bishop Gunning was more zealous than judicious in his endeavours to re-establish the teaching and practice of the Church we can easily imagine that he strengthened rather than weakened these elements of dissent. Gunning's successor
Ralph Bridecake, 1675-1678, seems to have been a much more pliable man, for he prospered alike under the Commonwealth and the Monarchy. He had been Chaplain to Speaker Lenthall who gave him the rich living of AVhitney, near Oxford, where we are told he " preached twice every Lord's day, and in the evening catechised the youth in his own house ; outvying in labour and vigilancy any of the godly brethren in those parts." In 1659 he was made one of the " triers," yet immediately after the Restoration he was rapidly promoted to a canonry at Windsor, to the Deanery of Salisbury, and finally to the Bishopric of Chichester.
In the parish register of Wadhurst is a notice under the year 1677-78 of an act of ecclesiastical discipline which is the latest example of the kind that I have
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discovered recorded in this diocese. It seems less suitable to the easy character of Bishop Brideoake, if indeed, he had anything to do with enforcing it, than to that of his stiffer predecessor Gunning. The entries are July 1 6, Eleonora Woodgate et Sarah Moore in ecclesia parochial! inter divinorum solemnia palam, public^, et solemniter, denunciatse et declaratae fuerunt pro excommunicatis.
April 5. Eleonora AVoodgate et Sarah Moore in ecclesia parochiali inter divinorum solemnia palam, publice, et solemniter, paenitentiam agebant. As to the nature of the offence and of the penance, we are unfortunately left \vithout any means of gratifying our curiosity.
The memorandum of a visitation of the cathedral, held by Bishop Brideoake in the first year of his episcopate, reveals the extent of the damage caused partly by the siege thirty years before, partly by the subsequent neglect during the Commonwealth, and proves how little poor Bishop King had been able to effect in the way of repair. The report speaks of "dilapsas turres, laceratas fenestras, convulsa funda- menta, ruinam minitantia claustra, multaque praeterea mala et incommoda quae gliscente bello ecclesia sus- tinuerat." The deanery and the chancellor's house are described as being in a ruinous state. The bishop and the chapter solicited subscriptions to aid them in repairing these lamentable dilapidations, and contributed what they could themselves ; the bishop ;^ioo, the dean ^40, the precentor ^30, and so on.
If Bishop Brideoake prospered by his facile con- formity to each order of government in its turn, his
STATE OF DIOCESE AFTER THE RESTORATION. 235
successor rose through his ardent and inflexible devo- tion to the monarchy.
Guy Carleton, 1678-1 685, a native of Cumberland, was a sturdy cavalier alike in the literal and the political sense ; for he was an excellent horseman and a staunch adherent to the royal cause. He was ejected from two livings by the " triers," was at one time imprisoned at Lambeth, escaped by dropping from a window into a boat, and after suffering considerable hardships escaped to the exiled king. He was eighty-two years of age when he was translated from Bristol to our see, which, however, he occupied for seven years. The only record of his episcopate which I have discovered is a long letter to Sancroft, the primate, describing with much indignation a reception given at Chichester to the Duke of Monmouth, natural son of Charles II., at a time when he was trying to put himself at the head of a party disaffected to the king and the Duke of York. Much to the horror of the loyal old bishop, the cathedral chapter paid great court to the duke. They probably shared the popular alarm caused by the report of the Titus Oates conspiracy, and of other Roman Catholic plots against the Church ; appre- hensions which Monmouth and his party were careful to foster. "The great men of our cathedrall," says the bishop, "welcomed him with belles and bonfires, made by wood had from their houses to flare before
his lodgings " Dr. Edes (one of the canons),
that night officiated as his chaplain, supped with him and herded himself there with such company as no man that had a loyal heart towards the king, or been really a cordial son of the Church of England, would
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have been amongst. The next day, Dr. Edes went to his lodging, caused the way to be swept, though the weather was dry enough, and conducted him to
the church He was ushered into the dean's
seat, with a voluntary upon the organ. Before sermon a part of the ist Psalm was ordered to be sung, " He shall be like the tree that growes fast by river syde," &c. The anthem at evening prayer was "The slaughter of King Saul and his people upon the Mountains of Gilboa," but not a word, I warrant you, of the " Kinge's enimies to perish," or that upon his head his crown might long flourish : these were apocryphal anthems "when the Commonwealth saints appeared amongst us." He then proceeds to relate how he was reviled because he would not join in these " bell and bonfire solemnities," or " bow the knee to the people's idol and how after dark a rabble came to his house and demanded wood for bonfires, and when it was refused shouted that the bishop was an old popish rogue, shot three times into the house, and followed up their shots with a volley of stones.
The bishop says that neither the mayor of Chi- chester nor any of the gentlemen in the neighbour- hood took part in the reception of the duke ; so that the cathedral clergy were more sympathetic with the popular movement than the laity of the upper rank.
The episcopacy of Bishop Lake, 1685-1689, brings us to the time of the Revolution. The name of John Lake must be dear to all who love their church and their country, and who are thankful that the liberty of both were preserved by the intrepid resist-
STATE OF DIOCESE AFTER THE RESTORATION. 237
ance of this prelate and six other bishops to the crafty designs of an unconstitutional, unscrupulous king. The whole story of the petition of the seven bishops against James II. 's Declaration of Indulgence, their imprisonment, their trial, their acquittal by a patriotic jury, the tumultuous joy with which they were received after their release is too well known, and has been too amply and brilliantly described in the pages of Macaulay, to need any repetition here. Lake was a thorough cavalier, and had actually fought for Charles I. before entering holy orders, but his devotion to the House of Stuart did not blind him to the interests of his country and his Church, which he honoured and loved still better. Though inflexible in his principles, he is described by his biographer as "of an extraordinary courteous and generous temper, always affable and easy of access, free and cheerful in his conversation, full of meekness and condescension. .... He was so prudent and so successful in all the wise and kind methods of gaining upon obstinate men, that the worst enemies of episcopacy were oftentimes reconciled to the order for his sake. . . . He was e xceedingly dear to the gentlemen of Sussex, who met him in several parts of his diocese with that respect which was wont to be paid to the primitive bishops, and they were no less dear to him ; but his coming to them after his release from his trial was like the return from banishment of St. Athanasius, or St. Chrysostom."
The only memorials of Lake's Diocesan adminis- tration are some of the returns made to the Commis- sioners appointed by him in 1686 to enquire into the
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condition of the parish churches and of their furniture. A few examples will suffice to show to what a deplor- able state of squalor and disorder many of them were reduced by the combined operation of Puritan fanaticism, poverty, and neglect. The Church and Chancel of Poynings were in good repair, but the chancel " very indecent by reason of the pigeons dunging there and the communion table very bad." At Portslade the " communion cup was battered and cracked." At Old Shoreham the pulpit was "very weak, the steeple-floor decayed, an out chapel utterly ruinate, the cup cracked, no book for strange preachers' name,i the Church wall decayed and the Vicarage house and barns wholly ruinate." At Oving- dean there had not been any Communion within the memory of man : the steeple was good but there was no bell in it — the small bell that belonged to it lying without a clapper in a private house. At Fairlight the steeple was ruinous and dangerous, one bell on the ground, and the other knocked to pieces. At Winchelsea the bells were all sold but one, there was no linen cloth and napkin for "the administ ation of the most blessed Sacrament " and no surplice : swine were kept in the churchyard — the parsonage house had been pulled down and the materials all sold.
Lake and his brethren disobeyed King James in obedience to the higher mandates of their conscience and their God, and on the same principle they re- fused to take the oaths of allegiance to William of
' This was a point of importance as a check upon the admis - sion of unordained preachers, representatives of the numerous sects which were beginning to abound in the country.
STATE OF DIOCESE AFTER THE RESTORATION. 239
Orange because they had sworn allegiance to James, and had been appointed to their bishoprics under his government. We may think their judgment was misled, but none can fail to honour them for obey- ing the dictates of their conscience.^ They were suspended, and afterwards deprived. Lake retired to London after his suspension, and died, aged 66, before his deprivation. He was buried in the Church of St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate, of which he had once been rector. Three days before his death he dictated to his chaplain, Mr. Jenkins, a declaration of his unswerving conviction of the truth of his principles. " Being called by a sick, and, I think, a dying bed, and the good hand of my God upon me in it, to take the last and best viaticum, the Sacrament of my dear Lord's body and blood, I take upon me to make this short recognition and confession. That whereas I was baptised into the Church of England, and sucked it in with my milk, I have constantly adhered to it through the whole course of my life, and now, if so be the will of God, shall die in it, and I had re- solved, through God's grace assisting me, to have died though at a stake. And whereas that religion taught me the doctrine of passive obedience and non- remittance, I adhere no less steadily and firmly to that. ... I find in so doing much satisfaction, and if the oath had been tendered at the peril of my life I could only have obeyed by suffering." . . ,
In the Ufe of Kettlewell there is a list of the non-
' With two exceptions the non-juring bishops in 1689 were identical with the seven petitioners in 1687.
240 CHICHESTER.
juring clergy in the several dioceses. Eleven are mentioned in Sussex : — Jenkyns, the Precentor of the Cathedral, who was chaplain and biographer of Bishop Lake ; the Vicar of Cuckfield, the Vicar of Sompting, the Rector of Blatchington, the Vicar of West Firle, the Rector of Tarring Neville with South Heighten, the Vicar of Seaford, the Rector of West Dean, the Rector of Jevington, the Vicar of Icklesham, and the Vicar of Chiddingly. The latter survived his deprivation about thirty years, dying in 17 17. He was buried in the Church of Chiddingly, where his epitaph records that
" He was suspended in the Dutchman's days Because he would not walk in their strange ways."
The secession of the non-jurors undoubtedly de- prived the Church of some of the soundest and most earnest members of her communion, both clerical and lay. The depression and persecution of the Church during the Commonwealth had been mercilessly re- taliated after the Restoration upon Nonconformists of every description. In Sussex the Quakers, and more especially at Lewes, seemed to have been pursued with the most relentless animosity, which, however, was by no means confined to the Church. Side by side with this intolerance of Nonconformity, which embittered the relations between the Church and the sects, a flood of worldliness and profligacy had overspread the country, the unnatural restraints of a Puritanical Government being removed, and had lowered the religious tone of the whole people. The Toleration Act, passed in 1689, softened the relations
THE DIOCESE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 24I
between the Church and Nonconformity ; but while the cessation of strife was a blessing, the zeal and energy which are partly the causes, partly the effects of strife, began to die out. The result of these combined influ- ences was the suspension of activity, the relaxation of discipline, the low and feeble standard of faith and morality which from the beginning of the eighteenth century, and more especially after the accession of the Hanoverian dynasty, paralyzed the religious spirit of the people until it was kindled into life again, first by the Wesleyan and then by the Evangelical movement.
Six bishops — Simon Patrick, Robert Grove, John Williams, Thomas Manningham, Thomas Bowers, and Edward Waddington — occupied the See of Chichester in rapid succession after the suspension of Bishop Lake. Their episcopates cover a period of forty years, and with the exception of Simon Patrick, whose com- mentary on the Bible was once a standard book of reference, none of them had much pretension to eminence. We have seen what was the condition of several of our country parish churches in the time of Bishop Lake. From some returns to articles of en- quiry made by Bishop Bowers in 1724, and Bishop Waddington, his successor, in the same year, we gather that the state of the fabrics and of their fittings was in many places just as bad then as it had been forty years before. One service and sermon on Sundays and the administration of the Holy Communion four times a year seems to have been the normal provision of spiritual food in most of the country parishes. The bishops were probably well content if they could secure as much as this. In one small place, Houghton R
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it was reported that there had not been any Com- munion within the memory of man. The altar stood against the north-wall without any rail.
It is curious to compare the returns made to Bishop Waddington's enquiries in 17 24, respecting the number of communicants, with the returns made to Bishop Watson's enquiries in 1603 : —
In Eastbourne, in a.d. 1603, the number of communicants was 500 ; in A.D. 1 724, 100.
In Poynings, in A.D. 1 603, all the adults were communicants ; in A.D. 1724, 25.
\vl Bex hill, in A.D. 1603, the number of communicants was 225 ; in A.D. 1724, 30.
In Brightling, in A.D. 1603, the number of communicants was 195 ; in A.D. 1724, 40.
In Hastings All Saints, in A.D. 1603, the number of com- municants was 247 ; in A.D. 1724, 40.
Francis Hare, 1731-1740, the successor of Bishop Waddington, is too remarkable a personage to be passed over without some notice. Yet it is not neces- sary to dwell upon his character or career at any length, partly because they have been already described by one of his own descendants in a book which is in almost every library ,1 partly because, though he was a man of acute intellect and considerable though not profound learning, it cannot be said that he greatly edified the Church by these gifts or left any deep
' "Memorials of a Quiet Life," by Augustus J. C. Hare. The bishop had been chaplain to the Duke of Marlborough. He was made Dean of St. Paul's in 1726, Bishop of St. Asaph in 1727, and translated to Chichester in 1731. He held hisdeanery in connexion with both bishoprics.
THE DIOCESE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 243
impress on the diocese. Few can derive pleasure or instruction from his controversial writings directed against Bishop Hoadley, fewer still from his sermons preached on days of thanksgiving for the Duke of Marlborough's victories, filled with descriptions of the Duke's military operations and eulogies on his genius. His tract, published anonymously, on " The Diffi- culties and Discouragements which Attend the Study of Holy Scripture in the way of Private Judgment," is his most powerful production. He describes in the most vivid manner the various ways in which the student may and probably will be led to form heretical opinions, and the perils and difficulties which will in consequence beset his course if he be a clergyman. And his advice therefore is to abstain from hazardous enterprises in the field of Biblical criticism, and to accept and to teach received opinions without scrutiny. "Whatever you do," he says, "be orthodox. Ortho- doxy will cover a multitude of sins, but a cloud of virtues cannot cover the want of the minutest point of orthodoxy." A subtle vein of sarcasm runs through the whole performance, and a suspicion is awakened in the reader's mind that the bishop's inward con- victions were very much in the direction of those heretical opinions against which he warns the student.
Three years before Hare was translated from the See of St. Asaph to Chichester, Thomas Sherlock was elevated from the Deanery of Chichester, which he had held for thirteen years, to the Bishopric of Bangor, whence he was translated to Sarum, and ultimately to London. He was one of the most powerful writers — perhaps the most powerful after
R 2
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William Law — who took part in the celebrated Ban- gorian controversy, and an equally formidable oppo- nent of the Deists — Collins, Tindal, and the unhappy AVoolston. His sermons were long considered to be models of eloquence. By readers in the present day they may be allowed the merit of sustained argument- ative force ; but that such sermons should have been considered eloquent only proves how completely the religion of Sherlock's age was made a matter of hard reasoning rather than of deep feeling. In the total absence of any appeal to the emotions, the passions, the imagination, the sermons of Sherlock are an illustration of the words of Bishop Butler at the beginning of his noble sermon on the Love of God, where he remarks, after alluding to the "extrava- gances which have been vented under the pretence or endeavour of explaining the love of God," that "manifestly we are got into the contrary extreme under the notion of a reasonable religion ; so very reaso7iable as to have nothing to do with the heart and affections."
Sherlock built the present deanery at Chichester, a massive square structure in red brick, with a roof shaped very much like the hats worn by the footguards in the eighteenth century, as one sees them in the pictures of Hogarth. In its solidity and plainness, destitute of any play of fancy or artistic ornament, it is quite in keeping with the discourses of the dean who built it, some of Avhich he probably penned inside its walls.
Two more episcopates after Bishop Hare's nearly cover the remainder of the century. Matthias Maw-
THE DIOCESE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 245
son, held the see from 1740 to 1754, and Sir William Ashburnham from 1754 to 1799. He died in his eighty-eighth year, having been bishop forty-five years, the longest episcopate since the foundation of the see.
It is needless to say that during this period there is nothing to record which can fairly be called progress in Church work. Scarcely any new churches were built, and when one looks at such a church as Glynde, which was erected in 1764, one is thankful that the lack of religious zeal at least saved the diocese from the infliction of many such hideous piles. The churches in Sussex, as elsewhere, suffered indeed much mutilation and disfigurement ; their beauty internally was overlaid or concealed behind paint and whitewash, and every conceivable and inconceivable form of gallery and pew, but as a rule the churches themselves have been preserved to us.
Amongst the clergy there were here and there some men of learning and ability, others who dis- charged their pastoral duties with zeal and love. The presence of such men must have been of incal- culable value, especially in the country parishes, of which many in Sussex were extremely secluded and isolated from the outer world, partly by their situa- tion; partly, during the winter season at least, by the wretched condition of the roads, which were proverbial for their abysmal depth of mire.
Too often, however, there can be little doubt that the clergy themselves, especially in these isolated places, fell into the gross and apathetic habits which were characteristic of the age. A very curious insight into
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the habits and condition, social and religious, of the inhabitants of a. Sussex village and the neighbourhood, in the middle of last century, is afforded us by the diary of Mr. Thomas Turner, a mercer and general shopkeeper, in the parish of East Hoathley. Turner himself was a strange character ; he appears to have been an industrious tradesman, and a voluminous reader, religiously minded, and attentive to religious observances, but an inveterate drunkard — continually deploring his infirmity, and perpetually yielding to it. His diary records on the one hand an amount of reading, and a warmth of religious feeling, not com- mon in a young man of business — he was only twenty-eight years of age when his diary begins in 1754 — and on the other hand indulgence in such gross and drunken revels as few in his position of life at the present day would consent to take a part in. Yet the vicar of his own parish, and other neighbouring clergy, frequently assisted at these disgraceful orgies. In the course of two years Mr. Turner's diary records his i^erusal of Gay's " Poems," Milton's " Paradise Lost and Regained," twice over, Stewart " On the Supreme Being," " Othello," Thomson's " Seasons," Young's " Night Thoughts," Sherlock's " Sermons," Tillotson's " Sermons," of which he reads five aloud one Sunday ! Burnett's "History," "Peregrine Pickle," " Clarissa Harlowe," parts of the " Spectator," and several smaller miscellaneous works. When he has not got too drunk on Saturday evenings he goes to church on Sunday. He always makes some criticism on the sermon, and sometimes expresses great admira- tion, but complains of " the idle, lazy way of preaching
THE DIOCESE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 247
many of our clergy have got into." On Easter day, and other great festivals, he and his wife and servant receive the holy communion. At such times he is filled with remorse for his follies and excesses, and makes all manner of good resolutions and vows of amendment, which he generally breaks the next day. Bad as he was, however, in regard to intemperance, he does not seem to have been much worse than most of his neighbours. Whether they met for busi- ness or for pleasure the final result seems to have been generally the same. With rare exceptions the company broke up in a state of intoxication. A few examples must suffice. "April 21, 1756. Went to the audit, and came home drunk ; but I think never to exceed the bounds of moderation more." [If they did not get drunk at public meetings, they made up for it by a plentiful amount of swearing, e.g., "We had several warm arguments at our vestry to-day, and several voUies of execrable oaths oftentimes redounded from almost all parts of the room."]
" Nov. 25. The Curate of Laughton came to the shop, and he having bought some things of me (and I wish he had paid for them) dined with me, and also staid in the afternoon till he got in liquor, and being so complaisant as to keep him company I was quite drunk. How do I detest myself for being so foolish."
On February 22, 1757, he records what may be called one of his greater orgies. A party of fifteen people, including the vicar of the parish, Mr. Porter, and his wife, meet at four in the afternoon. They play at bragg till ten, when they go to supper. After
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supper he says, " our diversion was dancing or jumping about without a violin or any musick, singing of foolish healths, and drinking all the time as fast as it could be well poured down." About three o'clock in the morning he manages to get home, " without even tumbling." His wife is brought back two hours later. At six o'clock they are roused by Mrs. Porter, the vicar's wife, on pretence of being wanted in the shop. Mrs. Turner goes down and finds " Mr. Porter, Mr. Fuller, and his wife, with a lighted candle, part of a bottle of wine, and a glass." The party then go up stairs, drag poor Mr. Turner out of bed, and bring him down, dressed partly in his own clothes, partly in his wife's, " and in this manner they made me dance without shoes or stockings, until they had emptied the bottle of wine, and also a bottle of beer." About three o'clock in the afternoon, Mr. Porter and his companions were able to go home. The diarist con- cludes his account of these extraordinary proceedings by remarking. " Now let any one call in reason to his assistance and seriously reflect on what I have recited, and they will join with me in thinking that the pre- cepts delivered from the pulpit on Sunday, though delivered with the greatest ardour, must lose a great deal of their efficacy by such examples." We shall certainly find no diflnculty in agreeing with this sage judgment of Mr. Turner's, but his observations only make the entry against the following Sunday sound more wonderful. " We had as good a sermon as I ever heard Mr. Porter preach, it being against swearing." Whether Mr. Porter ever ventured to preach against drunkenness, Mr. Turner does not inform us ; but he
THE DIOCESE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 249
tells US how, only a few days afterwards, the same party of people met one night at Mr. Fuller's, another at Mr. Porter's, where similar scenes were repeated. " We continued," he says, " drinking like horses, and singing till many of us were very drunk, and then we went to dancing, and pulling of wigs, caps, and hats, and thus we continued in this frantic manner, behaving more like mad people than they that possess the name of Christians." The last specimen which I shall extract is not one of the least remarkable. On June 29, 1758, he is invited to meet a party the following day at the house of Mr. Coates, the Duke of Newcastle's steward, to celebrate the news of a victory over the French. He is unwilling to decline, but groans over the inevit- able prospect of getting drunk. " Oh ! a melancholy thing it is to deprive one's self of reason, and even to render ourselves beasts ! But what can I do ? If I go I must drink just as they please, or otherwise I shall be called a poor, singular fellow. If I stay at home I shall be stigmatized with the name of being a poor, proud, ill-natured wretch, and perhaps disoblige Mr. Coates." So he resolves to go. The party consists of twenty, including the vicar and another clergyman, Mr. Fletcher. Toast after toast is drunk ; about ten o'clock, our friend the diarist " deserted and came safe home," but it is almost needless to say, " very much in liquor," and he adds, " before I came away I think I may say there was not one sober person in the company."
This is, indeed, a melancholy picture of the country life of the middle classes a hundred and twenty years since. And although it is to be hoped that most of
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the clergy abstained from joining in such excesses as those which are described by our diarist, and many, no doubt, reprobated them, yet it is clear from- the way in which he speaks of his vicar, Mr. Porter, and his other clerical acquaintance, that their conduct was not regarded as anything very exceptional.
A contemporary of the general dealer of East Hoathley was Mr. Walter Gale, a schoolmaster at Mayfield. He also kept a diary, which is a not less curious and instructive picture of the moral and religious condition of the people than the journal of our friend the general dealer of East Hoathley. Walter Gale was appointed, on June 29, 1750, master of a free school recently founded at Mayfield. The trustees and managers were the vicar and six of the principal inhabitants. The master was to be a member of the Church of England, understandjng the grounds and principles of the Christian religion, of sober life and conversation, of a meek and humble behaviour ... a frequenter of the holy communion, possessing a genius for teaching . . . careful of the manners and behaviour of the poor children com- mitted to his care. These rules are subscribed by the vicar and the six principal inhabitants, of whom the first makes his mark, being unable to sign his name. How far the new schoolmaster fulfilled them a glance at his diary will shew. He does not seem to have got drunk quite so often as poor Mr. Thomas Turner, the dealer ; or if he did he does not record it, but he certainly spent a great deal of his time in rambling about, on visits to friends, jaunts to fairs, cricket matches, and other convivial gatherings, at
THE DIOCESE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 25 X
which an amazing quantity of beer, milk punch, gin, brandy, cherry brandy, etc., as the case may be, was consumed. The twenty-one scholars to whom he undertakes to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic, are seldom mentioned except when he has disputes with the trustees as to which of the children should be taught gratis, or when he mentions that " having heard the spellers and readers a lesson a-piece," he breaks off school at two o'clock to attend a cricket match. He ekes out his wretched salary of ;^i6 a year by picking up fees for all manner of odd jobs. He " paints the commandments" for the church, and signs for public houses, engraves tombstones, draws last wills and testaments, and patterns for needle work. He seems to have been as regular as Mr. Turner in attendance at church, and in making notes of the sermon when there, and curiously enough the first to which he refers is at East Hoathley, where " divine service was performed by the Rev. Richard Porter. Text, S. Matthew, 5 th chap. 19th verse. " The subject of his discourse kept very close to the sense and words of the text ... to show that those who by their live's example, precepts, and commands, should teach others to break the com- mandments of God, should be called the least in the kingdom of Heaven, viz., be excluded for ever there- from, it being a more heinous offence to corrupt others than to live loosely ourselves." Knowing a we do from Mr. Turner's " Diary " what the example of poor Mr. Porter's life was, the line of his discourse seems rather wonderful.
Walter Gale entertained many of the superstitious
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notions which were still very prevalent, especially among the country folk in that age, although there is no trace of them in the diary of his contemporary, Thomas Turner. Soon after his appointment to the school at Mayfield he dreams that he will "be advan- tageously married, be blessed with a fine offspring, and live to the age of eighty-one, of which time I should preach the Gospel forty-one years." This he con- siders a divine intimation of his future career, and fervently prays that it may be accomplished ; but he was destined to be disappointed. A kind of astrolo- ger or conjuror, as he calls him, pays him a visit at his school, and he entertains him at an inn with great respect. He goes to see his sister, who was very ill, and informs the family that the town clock had been heard to strike three in the afternoon, twice : " the strikes at the second striking seemed to sound very dull and mournfully ; this, together with the crickets coming to the house at Laughton just at our coming away, I look upon to be sure presages of my sister's death." The sister died. On another occasion he "recieved a testimony" as he calls it, whatever it may have been, of a death within a tAvelvemonth in his family. He believed that it pointed to himself. His mother, however, dies within the twelvemonth, "agreeable," as he says, "to the testimony I had of a death in our family." As she was eightj-- three years of age the fulfilment of the testimony in this manner does not seem surprising. Neither his superstitious apprehensions however, of death, nor his more rational religious feelings, saved poor Walter Gale from his besetting weakness of drinking,
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and in 1771 he was dismissed by the trustees for neglect of his duties.
The special interest of these curious diaries con- sists, I think, in the fact that they reflect the working of three elements, the influence of which upon society and upon the Church may be traced more or less through the last century. We discern a tinge of the old serious puritanical vein in a reverence for the sanctity of Sunday, in the idea of the importance of hearing and reading sermons on that day, coupled with some real religious feeling and a certain taste for theological study. Then a remnant of old high church feeling and practice is observable in the habit, regularly maintained on the whole, of receiving the Holy Communion on certain days after some amount of careful preparation. And, lastly, there is the coarse sensual element, only too prominent, which got the upper hand in the national character in that rebound from puritanical austerity to unbridled license which accompanied the Restoration.
In Sussex, and probably elsewhere, the main back- bone of morality and religion during the whole period from the Restoration to the Wesleyan movement was to be found in those persons who, whether they con- formed outwardly or not to the Church, belonged to the Puritan school in their disposition and habits. A father and son, who were excellent specimens of this type in Sussex, especially in the union of a firm reli- gious faith with a great deal of worldly shrewdness, industry, and thrift, left behind them some interesting autobiographical memoirs.
Leonard Gale, the elder, drew up a memorandum
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for the future guidance of his two sons, and enforces his counsel by a reference to his own career. Thus he begins : " The advice of me, Leonard Gale, to my two sons Leonard and Henry, being in the sixty- seventh year of my age, a.d. 1687. My sons, hearken to the words of your loving father, who earnestly desireth your welfare and increasing of grace, learning, and riches. I have thought good to leave these few lines for your directions and going on in this miserable world, a world of fraud and deceit, a world of all manner of wickedness in all sorts of people — therefore I will first give you a short breviate of my birth and living since." He then relates that he was the son of a blacksmith at Sevenoaks, in Kent. When he was about sixteen, the whole family was swept off by the plague, with the exception of himself and one brother. The brother quarrelled with him about money, went to sea, and died soon after. Thus, at the age of seventeen, Leonard was left alone in the world. He toiled hard at his trade, but "bad servants and trusting" almost ruined him. Then he lived " starke alone " for a month, but at the end of it found "he was not worth ^50 if he had sold himself to his shirt." " Then I was in a great strait and knew not which way to steer, but I cried unto the Lord with my whole heart and with tears, and He heard my cry, and put into my mind to try one year more to see what I could do, for I resolved to spend nothing but mine own, and I resolved always to keep a conscience void of offence towards God and towards man." By dint of great industry and frugality he extricated himself from his diffi-
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culties, made money, migrated into Sussex, where he took St. Leonard's forge, and soon after entered into partnership with a prosperous ironmaster, Mr. Walter Burrell. From this point he steadily throve, became in fifteen years sole proprietor of the forge, acquired a considerable fortune, and married at the age of forty-six. The retrospect of his career fills him with wonder and thankfulness, and "enforces" him "to extol the Name of the Great God, for He was always my director in all good ways, and when I was in dis- tress I called upon Him, and He heard me, and gave me more than ever my heart desired, for I had no man in the world that would stand by me, either for advice or for money, when I wanted, which enforced me to be careful not to run beyond my own substance, and always resolved to keep a good conscience to- wards God and towards man ; and not to do to others that which I would not have them do to me. . . . Thus, my sons, I have set down a short breviate of my life unto this day, and what the Almighty hath bestowed on me in all which time I hated idleness and vain-gloriousness. ... I always held the Scrip- tures for the rule of life to walk by, and I always counted it to be a deadly sin to be in any man's debt longer than they were willing to trust me." Then, after solemn cautions not to be too familiar with " vile neighbours," nor to allow certain grasping per- sons to build houses, enclose ground, or stop up footways on certain specified bits of land, he proceeds : " Next, I advise you to have a great care of ill and debauched company, especially wicked and depraved priests such as are at this present time about me, as
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Lee and Troughton, of Worth; never give any of them any entertainment, nor none of their companions, for they are most vile and wicked men to my know- ledge. Next, my advice is, that whatever estates either of you ever attain to, yet, follow some employ- ment which will keep you from abundance of expenses and charges, and take you off from evil thoughts and wicked actions ; and obsen-e the mechanic priests, which have nothing to do but to come to church one hour or two on a Sunday, and all the week besides they will eat and drink at such men's houses as you are : but avoid them : but love and cherish every honest godly priest wherever you find them ; and, above all, hold fast the ancient Protestant religion, for a better religion cannot be found out than that is, only I could wish the abuses were taken away, and wicked men found out and punished, or turned out. Above all things avoid swearing, lying, drunkenness, whoring, and gaming, which are the ruin of all men's estates that are ruined in this nation ; and pride in apparell, which is a great consumer of men's estates in this kingdom."
Leonard Gale, the father, died in 1690. His eldest son Leonard, then 1 7 years old, inherited his father's property, as well as his prudence and piety, with the additional advantage of a good education. He went after his father's death as a gentleman com- moner to University College, Oxford ; and, after four years there, studied for the bar, and was called to it in 1697, but never practised, and spent the rest of his life in the management of his property in Sussex, and in adding to it. He bought an estate near Worth in
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1698, married in 1703, and in 1710 became M.P. for East Grinstead. He also drew up a memorandum of advice for his children, based very much on the model of his father's, whose wisdom and virtue he extols, and says that, " considering the meanness of his birth and education, he was indeed the wonder of the age and country in which he lived." Leonard Gale, the younger, died in 1750, having survived his wife and the only son who grew up to manhood. They were all interred in Worth Church, where the epitaph states that husband and wife
Natura duce et ralione vixerunt, Unde venerunt, quo abituri, memoies, In Xti meritis confidentes. Disce.'
The glances which we have taken, hasty and imper- fect though they have been, at the moral and religious I condition of the diocese in the eighteenth century, are enough to prove that there was abundant scope for the evangelistic labours of Wesley and his disciples. Sussex, however, was not one of his most frequented or most fruitful fields of missionary toil. His journal records visits at intervals of two or three years to a certain round of places at the eastern end of the county — Rye, Winchelsea (" that poor skeleton," as he calls it, " of ancient Winchelsea"), Robertsbridge,
' " Tliey lived with Nature, and Reason for their guide," [a sentence typical of the teaching of Bishop Butler.] Mindful of whence ihey came, and whither they were to depart, Trusting in the merits of Christ.
Learn thou ! " (from their example). S
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Northianm, and Ewhurst. Shoreham seems to have been the furthest point which he was accus- tomed to visit westwards. But he does not seem to have achieved a briUiant success in any of these places. There were various hindrances to it. One was the inveterate attachment of the people on the south coast to smuggling. The Sussex smugglers were notorious for the dogged resolution with which they pursued their trade, and the ferocious cruelty with which they treated the revenue officers or any one else who interfered with it. The inhabitants gene- rally connived at the smuggling, and this, of course, depraved their moral sense. In his journal Wesley remarks that the people of Rye " will do many things gladly, but they will not part with the accursed thing ; " and in another entry he says, " How large a congregation we should have here could we but spare them in one thing !" The strong infusion of Calvinism again, which had been brought by the foreign Pro- testant refugees, was very adverse to his teaching. Even as late as the year 1790 he writes as if the con- gregation at Rye had but recently shaken itself free of this influence. " While our people," he says, " mixed with the Calvinists here we were always per- plexed and gained no ground ; but since they kept to themselves, they have continually increased in grace as well as in number."
A third obstacle to Wesley's work in Sussex was presented by the character of the people. The bulk of the population was agricultural, and was remark- able then as now for a certain mingled sluggishness, shyness, and caution of disposition, which is slow to
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receive new ideas, not readily kindled to enthusiasm, and firmly tenacious of old habits. Wesley owns that there was no class upon which, as a whole, he made less impression than the farmers. He mentions in his journal how, on one of his rides from Shoreham to Sevenoaks, he meditated "on the huge encomiums which have been for many ages bestowed on a country life," and records his conviction that they were in flat contradiction to universal experience. He then draws a picture of the dreary monotonous round of daily toil pursued by the occupants of many a farm-house which he passed in the course of his ride, and concludes by remarking, " Our eyes and ears may convince us there is not a less happy body of men in all England than the country farmers. In general, their life is supremely dull ; and it is usually unhappy too. For of all people in the king- dom they are most discontented ; seldom satisfied either with God or man." And, lastly, a literal physical impediment to the progress of Wesley's labour in Sussex consisted in the miserable state of the roads, Avhich in winter were often nearly, if not quite, impassable from depth of mire. He states in his journal for January 19, 1778, that after preaching at Rye in the evening he set out in a chaise for Car- borough, a place two miles distant, where he was to spend the night. It was pitchy dark, a heavy tempest of wind and rain was raging, and the road was so deep in mud and ruts that it was with the greatest difficulty the horses could drag the vehicle along. It took an hour to accomplish the journey, the roughest, he says, he had ever made in his life. On another S 2
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occasion he records that in traveHing from Rye to Sevenoaks, with two pair of good horses, he managed, but "with great difficulty," to get through fifteen miles in five hours. 'J'he most active and successful Wesleyan missionary in Sussex was undoubtedly George Gilbert, a native of Rotherfield, who had been a cavalry soldier. After a campaign on the continent, where he had led a reckless immoral life, he was converted to Methodism at Northampton, settled at Heathfield about 1770, where his former com- mander, General Elliott, had purchased the property of Heathfield-park ; and for more than forty years he was an indefatigable preacher and evangelist, encoun- tering at first the most violent and barbarous opposi- tion, but ultimately reclaiming many from vice, and winning the respect of all.
It must not be forgotten, too, that in many a parish at the very time that poor Mr. Porter, of East Hoathley, and such as he, were living in a manner of which the record fills the reader with horror and amazement, the clergy of the evangelical school were multiplying in the diocese, and they, by their per- sonal holiness of life and pastoral zeal, wTought a great moral and religious reformation amongst their flocks. No more eminent example of this class could be found than Richard Cecil, who, for a few years, had two small livings in Lewes.
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CHAPTER X.
THE DIOCESE IN THE PRKSENT CENTURY.
The history of our diocese during the present century must be compressed into a very narrow compass — not because there is little to relate, but, on the contrary, because there is so much that anything like a complete record would far exceed the limits of this work. More- over, much of the work which has been done, and many of the actors concerned in it are so fresh in the recol- lection of persons still living that it would be unneces- sary to do more than briefly recall them to mind, and unseemly to make them the subjects of lengthened criticism. It is no disparagement to the immediate predecessors of Bishop Otter to say that his episco- pate, A.D. 1836 to 1840, marks an epoch when the Church began to make the most decided visible advance in the diocese. Before his time indeed there were men in the diocese who have never been sur- passed for holiness of life, ability, and learning, com- bined with pastoral zeal. Such in the ranks of the evangelical school was the Rev. John Sargent, the friend and biographer of Henry Martyn, and the father-in-law of the late Bishop Wilberforce ; for thirty years Rector of Graffham and Lavington, where his saintly example and untiring ministration are by no means forgotten. Such amongst High Churchmen
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was Hugh James Rose, a native of Sussex, where he spent the beginning of his clerical life, first as curate of Uckfield and afterwards as vicar of Horsham. He was a power not only in the diocese but in the Church at large, in which he seemed destined by his high attainments and great virtues to occupy an eminent place had he been permitted to reach the full term of middle age. Partly contemporary with him was the Rev. H. M. AVagner, who devoted a large measure of his worldly wealth, as well as time, thought, and energy, to providing for the welfare of the rapidly increasing population in Brighton. The humblest classes were not forgotten, and the evening schools which he started in 1835 for chimney sweep- ing lads were probably amongst the earliest efforts of the Church, since become so common, to extend the hand of kindliness and help to the lowest and most neglected sections of society.
Notwithstanding these, however, and other bright examples of individual excellence which might be adduced amongst clergy and laity in the diocese during the first 35 years of this century, it is true to say that the first great manifestation of activity in the Church as a body dates from the episcopate of Bishop Otter. This was not solely due to the character of the man : the Church of England as a whole was waking up to a sense of her duties ; but Bishop Otter was well qualified to guide this spirit of revived activity in the diocese over which it was his lot to preside ; and as a matter-of-fact the work of church building, enlargement, and restoration, the erection of schools, the increase in the number of clergy and
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Other outward signs of activity mainly began in his day, from which they have gone on in one continuous stream of progress to the present time.
The Diocesan Association was instituted in 1838 to promote the building, restoration, or enlargement of churches and schools, the augmentation of poor livings, and the increase and maintenance of curates. At the inaugural meeting held on January 12, the bishop stated that between 1801 and 1831 the population of the diocese had increased 80 per cent., chiefly of course through the rapid growth of the towns on the sea coast. There was a pressing need of additional churches in most of the towns, and of a larger num- ber of free sittings in churches which already existed. In Chichester, for instance, with a population of 7,996, only 1,262 sittings were free. In Lewes, with a population of 9,297, the free sittings were only 732.
The Association was launched on its career of / usefulness with the modest sum of ^£1,28$ in dona- tions for the increase of church accommodation, and ;^64 promised in annual subscriptions for the same : for the additional curates fund the donations were ;!^65i, the annual subscriptions ;^224. At the first quarterly meeting in the following June the sums promised, exclusive of special donations, amounted to ;^4,92i, and there were promises of special donations to the amount of ;^i,382.
Since its institution the society has expended upon the several objects which it embraces upwards of ;^88,ooo.
The year following the establishment of this useful society saw the foundation of the Theological
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College at Chichester, by the joint exertions of Bishop Otter and Dean Chandler. The Rev. Charles Marriott, fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, whose learning, ability, and goodness it would be superfluous to praise, was the first Principal of the College.
The weekly celebration of Holy Communion in the Cathedral was begun in the same year a.d. 1839.
In 1840 the Archdeaconries of Chichester and Lewes became vacant and were filled up by two men equally eminent for ability and zeal, though widely different in character and cast of thought — Henry Edward Manning, Rector of Graffham and Lavington, and Julius Charles Hare, Rector of Hurstmonceaux.
The rex ival of the rural deaneries completed the framework of diocesan machinery which, under the administrative skill and energy of Bishop Otter's successors, has been continually e.xtended, and adapted to meet the ever increasing needs of the diocese.
As a memorial of the gratitude of the diocese to Bishop Otter, a training college for schoolmasters was established at Chichester, in the episcopate of his successor, Bishop Shuttleworth. After a period of success, followed by a time of depression, the insti- tution has been revived under the auspices of our present zealous and energetic bishop, and reopened as a college for training ladies to become mistresses in elementary schools.
Sussex has been the first and principal scene of one of the most successful efforts ever made in modern times to provide a good liberal education combined with sound church principles, at an exceedingly cheap rate, for the children of the middle and lower middle
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class. It is probably quite unprecedented in history that the same man should have founded and lived to watch the prosperous growth of so many schools as the munificence, the energy, and the faith of Mr. Woodard have enabled him to found and to foster. There are four of them in Sussex — St. Nicholas, at Lancing ; St. John's, at Hurstpierpoint ; St. Saviour's, at Ardingly ; and St. Michael's (for girls) at Bognor. Mr. Woodard encountered a great deal of opposition, obloquy, and suspicion at one time, on account of his reputation for being what is called an advanced High Churchman, but the support which he received from the wise, brave, and deeply respected bishop. Dr. Gilbert, combined with his own unflagging perse- verance and invincible faith, enabled him to triumph over all hindrances.
It would be quite beyond the scope of this volume to attempt any description of the work of church building, restoration, and enlargement which has been and is still going on in the diocese ; but the fall and restoration of the tower and spire of the cathedral church are events too remarkable to be passed over without notice.
The central tower and spire had continually been a source of expense. In 1563 the dean and chapter made a sale of their plate to meet the cost of repairs, 507 ounces were sold at 5s. id. the ounce, realising about ^128. A certain William Phillips, of Salisbury, was paid 13s. 4d. to examine the steeple, and after- wards ;i^2 2 were paid to the said William for pointing the whole of it. The work of repairing tower and spire lasted from May 8 to July 31, and the total
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expense of labour and materials, and of getting a license for the sale of plate, amounted to 12 6. 19s. 8d. No uneasiness, however, seems to have been felt either then or for long afterwards respecting the actual sta- bility of the tower. The mind of the chapter after the restoration seems to have been mainly exercised by the condition of the north-western tower, which was in ruins. Sir Christopher Wren was consulted about it in 1684 and proposed to clear it away, to pull down the corresponding tower at the south-western angle, to shorten the nave by one arch, and substitute a " fair built west end " of his own design. We may be well content that the proposal of Wren was not accepted j the chapter raised about ;£'loo with a view to rebuilding the ruined tower, but their attention was soon diverted to a more pressing question. Early in the eighteenth century some setdements in the central tower began to excite alann. The arch into the north transept was repaired in 1707, being considered in a dangerous condition. During the eighteenth century about ^15,000 were spentupon the church, a great part of which went to the repairs of tower and spire. The real cause of weakness, however, was not discovered till the year a.d. i860. Dean Chandler, who died in 1859, had bequeathed ^^2,000 for the restoration of the choir. When the work was begun in the following year, one of the first operations was to take down the vaulted stone passage commonly called the Arundel Shrine, having been erected by Bishop Arundel, which stood between the western piers of the central tower, supporting the organ, and dividing the nave from the choir. When this screen was removed the rotten
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condition of the piers against which it rested was revealed. The piers were not constructed of soHd stone, but consisted of a core of rubble cased with ashlar ; and, in addition to this source of weakness, to make room for some of the stall work of the choir, and for the stair-case to the organ, the bases and plinths of the piers had been partly cut away. Fissures of alarming breadth and depth were now disclosed in the responds of both the western piers. The rest of the story had best be told in the words partly of Professor Willis, and partly of the "Builder" for March 2, 1861. " Centres and shores were put up and men employed instantly to restore the ruined portions of the piers. Bond stones were inserted as far as practicable considering the loose and rotten state of the core. . . . These works were carried on during the summer and autumn of i860, but in November it was observed that settlements began in the new work. Old fissures extended themselves into the fresh masonry and new ones made their appearance. A system of centering, to stiffen the arches which connected the western piers with the nave and tran- septs, was now commenced, but before it could be carried out the symptoms of approaching ruin in- creased and multiplied so fast that there was no time to construct and apply the contemplated framing. Shores were therefore resorted to. But in the next place the walling began to bulge towards the end of Jan. 7, 1861, first in the north west pier and after- wards in the south cracks and fissures, some opening and others closing, and the gradual deformation of the arches in the transept walls and elsewhere indicated
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that fearful movements were taking place throughout the walls connected with the western piers, and it was then determined that the bulging of the piers should be checked by the application of a jacketting of solid timber, powerfully hooped together with iron bolts and balks of timber. The preparation for this work began on Saturday, February i6, and the afternoon service was performed in the nave as usual on the following day, but was interrupted by the urgent necessity for shoring up a part of the facing of the south-west pier which had exhibited new symptoms of giving way. The workmen were now employed early and late in desperate attempts to avert the impending ruin, which was continually heralded by new evidences of weak- ness. Still the men went on diligently applying shores, struts, and braces, while the piers were bulging and cracking and fissures increasing around them. On Wednesday crushed mortar began to pour from the old fissures, flakes of the facing stone fell, and the braces began to bend. Yet the workmen continued to add shoring until half-past 3 o'clock in the morning, notwithstanding the violent storm of wind which arose in the evening and beat first on the north-east side of the church but as night advanced came with unabated force from the south-west.
On Thursday, the 21st, before daylight, the work was resumed. Seventy men, working with most com- mendable enthusiasm and courage, under great personal risk made strenuous efforts to increase the number of shores under and around the tower ; for those applied only the night before were bent, and the danger became more and more imminent. The
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workmen were only induced to quit the building by the inevitable dinner-hour of noon. But by this time the continued failing of the shores showed too plainly that the fall was inevitable. Warning was given to the inhabitants near the building on the south-west, and the workmen returning at one o'clock were pre- vented from re-entering it. Anxious groups outside the cathedral enclosure stood gazing at the tower, and in less than half an hour the spire was seen to inchne slightly to the south-west, and then to descend perpendicularly into the church, as one telescope tube slides into another, the mass of the tower crum- bling beneath it The stones and dust from
the base of the tower rushed into the nave, choir, and transepts, and rapidly crumbling at the bottom as it descended, the mass subsided in the centre of the church, and the top of the spire falling at last to the south-west, threw the capstone against the abut- ment of one of the flying buttresses of the nave, and broke itself across another of them intervening. The fall was the affair of a few seconds, and was complete at half-past one. No person was injured in life or limb, nor was tlie property of anyone damaged in the least. The ruin presented a compact mass of detached materials huddled together in the form of a rounded hill, which rose at the summit nearly to the level of the triforium capitals, and sloped gradually downwards into the four arms of the cross." In con- clusion. Professor Willis says, " I beg to record my opinion that the internal disintegration of the piers of this noble tower had gradually and silently increased to such a degree that no human power could have
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CHICHESTER.
arrested its fall, and that the evidence of its utter rottenness was developed only when it became too late to apply the remedies that had been found efficient in the middle ages and in our own time to sustain such structures. Yet, as the measures adopted in the first instance for the repair were those that have been found effectual at Hereford and else- where, no blame can be imputed to the authorities or to any of the architects, engineers, or other persons connected with the work."
In six years more, a new tower and spire, erected at a cost of about ^60,000, the latter a close copy of the original, the former a few feet higher, glad- dened the eyes of the inhabitants of Chichester and the neighbourhood. I'he homeward-bound sailor, and the shepherd on the Downs, again beheld the old familiar landmark. In the autumn of 1867, the cathedral was re-opened for public worship. The event was celebrated by an octave of services, which were attended by a vast concourse of people from all parts of the country. Sermons were preached by the Bishop of Oxford (Dr. Wilberforce), the Bishop of Worcester (Dr. Philpot, a native of Chichester), the Bishop of Illinois, and the Bishop of St. Andrews.
Within the last ten years, the Ladye Chapel, ori- ginally built by the Bishop Gilbert of the thirteenth century, has been restored to its pristine beauty in memory of his beloved and honoured namesake, the Bishop Gilbert of our own day ; while the bell-tower has been repaired and a clock and chimes placed in it as a memorial to Dean Hook.
And here we bring our annals of the Church in
THE DIOCESE IN THE PRESENT CENTURY. 27 1
this diocese to a close. The retrospect will not have been in vain if it helps to increase our faith in the Church as a divine institution, and, on the other hand, to make us more contented with the age in which we live. We see that Christ has never forsaken His Church, nor suffered its lamp to go out in this our land. In ages of barbarism, ignorance, fanaticism, or worldliness, still the true succession of Christ's ministers has been preserved, His sacraments have been administered. His word, however feebly, has been preached. His example, however imperfectly, held up. But when we look back, either upon the supersti- tions of the mediaeval period, the distractions which accompanied the Reformation, the confusions of the Commonwealth, or the coldness and worldliness of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, who would exchange his present lot for any of those times? Without underrating any of the grave trials and anxious difficulties which beset us we may surely say, — passi graviora — thank God ! and take courage.
LIST OF BISHOPS, WITH THE DATES OF THEIR ACCESSION.
Bishops ok Selsey.
|
Eadberht' |
About 1 |
About |
|
|
... 709 ! |
Beinege |
... 909 |
|
|
EoUa |
... 714 , |
Wulfhun |
•■■ 93< |
|
Sigga |
■•• 733 |
.-Elfred |
■■■ 944 |
|
Aluberht |
Eadhelm |
... 963 |
|
|
Osa |
••• 76s |
iEthelgar |
... 980 |
|
Gislehere |
... 780 1 |
Ordberht |
... 989 |
|
Totta |
- 785 ; |
yElmer ... |
... 1009 |
|
Wiohtun |
■•• 789 : ... 8u , |
i4;thelric I. |
... 1032 |
|
^thelwulf |
Grimketel |
... 1039 |
|
|
Cenred .. |
... 824 1 |
Hecca |
... 1047 |
|
GuthearJ |
... 860 1 ^thelric II. ... |
... 1058 |
Bishops or Chichester.
Stigand
Godfrey
Ralph Liififa Seffrid d'Escures
Hilary
John [Grecnford ?] Seffrid II. Simon of Wells Richard Poore ... Ranulf of Warham Ralph Neville ... St. Richard of \\'ych John of Climping Stephen of Durghstedc Gilbert de Sancto Leo fardo
|
A.I). |
A.D. |
|
|
1070 |
John of Langton |
•• 1305 |
|
I0S7 |
Robert of Stratford |
■• 1337 |
|
109 I |
William of Lynn |
.. 1362 |
|
II2S |
William Rede ... |
.. 1368 |
|
1147 |
Thomas Rushook |
•• 138s |
|
II74 |
Richard Metford |
■• 1390 |
|
I180 |
Robert Waldby |
.. 1390 |
|
1204 |
Robert Rede ... |
•■ 1397 |
|
I215 |
.Stephen Patryngton |
.. 1417 |
|
I21S |
Henry Ware |
.. 1418 |
|
1224 |
John Kemp |
.. 1421 |
|
1245 |
Thomas Poldon |
.. 1421 |
|
1254 |
John Rickinirale |
.. 1426 |
|
1262 |
Simon Sydenham |
■ 1431 |
|
Richard Praty ... |
• 1438 |
|
|
I2S8 |
Adam Moleyns... |
■■ 1446 |
|
274 |
CHICHESTER. |
||
|
Reginald Pecock |
• '45° |
Pet r |
1670 |
|
John Arundel |
Ralph Brideoake |
167s |
|
|
Edward Storey |
• 1478 |
Guy Carleton |
1678 |
|
Richard Fitz James .. |
• 1503 |
John Lake |
1685 |
|
Robert Sherburne |
1508 |
Simon Patrick |
1689 |
|
Richard Sampson |
Robert Grove |
1 69 1 |
|
|
George Daye ... |
• 1543 |
T^omas'ManniDgham |
1696 |
|
John Scory |
• 1552 |
1709 |
|
|
George Daye, restored |
1554 |
Thomas Bowers |
1722 |
|
John Christopherson . |
I cr^ |
Edward ^Vaddington |
1724 |
|
William Barlow |
• 1559 |
1731 |
|
|
Richard Curteys |
' 1586 |
IVIathias Alawson |
1740 |
|
Thomas Bickley |
William Ashbumham |
I7S4 1798 |
|
|
Antony Watson |
11:06 |
T h B k r |
|
|
Lancelot Andrewes |
Robert James Carr |
1824 |
|
|
Samuel Harsnett |
1609 |
Edward Maltby |
1831 |
|
George Carleton |
. i6j9 |
William Otter .. |
1836 |
|
Richard ^lontagu |
. 1628 |
Philip N. Shuttleworth |
1840 |
|
Brian Duppa ... |
. 1638 |
Ashurst Turner Gilbert |
1842 |
|
Henry King |
. 1642 |
Richard Durnford |
1870 |
INDEX.
[The Names of the Diocesan Bishops aie printed in Capitals.]
yElfheah, Archbishop, murder of, 25 ; his day, 72
Ailfred, King, his lament over decay of learning, 23 ; his
struggle with the Danes, y^lle, his conquests in Britain, 2, 3
yEthelberht, a South Saxon King, grants lands for monastery, 18
.(Ethelgar, Bishop of Selsey, translated to Canterbury, 24
Aithelmer, Bishop of Elmham, deposed, 35
/Ethelric, Bishop of Selsey, deposed, 35 ; attends Council on
Penenden Heath, 36 ^thelwealh. King of South Saxons, receives Wilfrith, 8 ;
killed in battle, 12 Alard, Gervase and Stephen, their tombs at Winchelsea, 154 Altars, order for removing, 188; various positions of, 194, 199 Amberley, Episcopal Manor-house at, 132, itoU Andredesceastcr, or Anderida, destruction of, 3 Andredeslea forest, 2, 4, 6, 8 Andrewes, Lancelot, Bishop, 211 Appledram, Church of. III
Architecture in Sussex, notices of, 29-32, 105-111, 152-157 ;
decline of, 174, 229 Atricles of enquiry, 214, 216, 217, 24I
Arundel, Earl of, his dispute with Bishop of Chichester, 123 Arundel, John, Bishop, 147 ; his screen or shrine, 226 Arundel, town of, taken and retaken in civil war, 219, 222 ; Priory of, 96 ; Collegiate Church of, 96, 156
ASHBURNHAM, StR W., Bishop, 245
Augustine, St., 1,6
Austin Canons, houses of, in Sussex, 92, 94 Barlow, W., Bishop, 193, 196
Battle Abbey, foundation of, 72-75 ; its disputes with the Bishops of Chichester, 43, 50, 76 ; privileges of, 77 ; dis- solution of, 168
276
CHICHESTER.
Bay ham Abbey, 91, 110, 165, 166 Beckley, Vicar of, maltreated, 224 Bexhill, number of communicants in, 210 BicKLEY, Thomas, Bishop, 198 Bignor, Roman remains at, 5 Bishopitone, Church of, 32
Bosham, Monastery at, 7; Churcli of, 31 ; harbour o', 37;
College at, 95 Bowers, Thos., Bishop, 241
Boxgrove, Priory at, noticed, 86, 164, 165, 167 ; Church of, 109, 199
Brideoake, Ralph, Bishop, 233, 234 Brightling, number of communicants at, 210 Brighton, Protestants burned at, 191 British Church, referred to, 1 Broadwater, Church of, noticed, 106 Broyle, meaning of the, 58 Burwash, Church of, noticed, 32 Butler, Bishop, references to, 244, 257, note Biixtcd, curious proceedings at, 202
Cade, part taken by Sussex in his insurrection, J 45 Cakeham, Bishop Sherburne's tower at, 175 Calamy, his notices of Nonconformists, 230 Cari.eton, Guy, Bishop, his letter to Archbishop Sancroft, 235
Carmelites, settlement of, at Shoreham, 129
Cathedral at Selsey, 11 ; destroyed, 25 ; at Chichester begun,
44, 45 ; nearly destroyed by fire, 52 ; renewed, 53, 55 ;
Ladye Chapel built, 153 ; south transept window, 154 ;
bell tower and spire of, 156 ; visitations of, 137, 141, 214,
233 ; sack of, 219 ; reception of Duke of Monmouth in,
235 ; constitution of Chapter, 212-214 Ceaiiwalla conquers Sussex, 12 ; goes to Rome and dies there,
13
Cecil, Rev. Richard, notice of, 260 Cheynell, Francis, 223
Chichester, derivation of the name, 4 ; attacked by Danes, 23 ;
■why chosen for Episcopal See, 37 ; siege of, 219 Chilling-worth, William, 222, 223 CHRiSTorHERSON, JoHN, Bishop, 191, 193, 196 Churchwardens' accounts, notices of, 205, 2c6, 22) Cissa, son of jElIe, 2, 3, 4 Cistercians, only one house of, in Sussex, 87 Clergy, character of the mediaeval, 120, 121 Climping, Church of, noticed, 1 1 1
INDEX.
277
Climping, John of, Bishop, 70 Clovesho, Council at, noticed, 19 Cmit, King, prosperity of the Church under, 25 Colet,John, referred to, 159, 160, 162, 163, 172 Cominunicanls, comparative number of, at different p.-riods, 210, 242
Corrody, meaning of a, 92 ; instances of a, loi, 102
Cranmer, letter of, 1 84
CuRTEYS, Richard, Bishop, 197, 213
Cuthman, St., legend of, 21
Cymeiusora, South Saxons land at, 3
Dacrc, Lord, his will, 205
Danes attack Chichester, 23
Daye, George, Bishop, 1S4-190, 195
Dt la Warre, Lord, intercedes for Boxgrove Prioiy, 167
Diciil, his monastery at Bosham, 7 •
Ditchling, notices of, III, 210
Domesday Book, references to, 39-42
Dominicans, houses of, in Sussex, 104
Dorset, Earl of, founds Sackville College, 229
Dunstan, Archbishop, 24
DUPPA, Brian, Bishop, 216, and note
Dureford Abbey, notices of, 90, 169
DuRNFORD, Richard, Bishop, 264
Eadberht, first Bishop of Selsey, 15 Ea'.ditlf, South Saxon ealdoman, 19 Easehourne, Benedictine nunnery at, 94, 143 Eastbourne, number of communicants at, 210 Edes, Dr., Canon of Chichester, his reception of the Duke of Monmouth, 235
Elizabeth, Queen, her policy, 193, 207, ; her spoliation of the
Church, 196 Erasmus, references to, 159, 160, 162, 163, 172 Etchingham, Church of, 153
Evangelical SichooX, clergy of the, in Sussex, 260, 261
Eairlight, Church of, 238
Fecamp, Abbey of, Steyning granted to, 89
Eirle, West, communicants at, 210
Five Mile Act, the, 230
Fletching, Church of, 1 1 1
Franciscans, houses of, in Sussex, 104 ; chapel of, in Chiches- ter, III
278
CHICHESTER.
Gale, Leonard, autobiography of, 254-256
Gale, Walter, extracts from diary of, 250
Gausbcrt, Abbot of Battle, 43
Gilbert Ashurst Turner, Bishop, 265
GiLHERT DE Sancto Leofardo, Bishop, 121, 123, 153
Cilbei-t of r Aigle founds Priory of Michelham, 91
Glyndc, Church of, 245
Godfrey, Bishop, 44
Grestein, Abbey of, founds Priory of Wilmington, 84 Grinstead, East, Vicar of, deprived, 211 ; Sackville College
founded at, 229 Gundrada, wife of William of Warren, 78-81 Gunning, Peter, Bishop, 231-233
Hardham, Priory of, 93 Hare, Francis, Bishop, 242, 243 Hare, Jiditts Charles, 264 Harsnett, Bishop, 211 Harting, South, Church of, in Hastings, Priory of, 93 Hilary, Bishop, 48-51
Hoathlcy, East, journal of a tradesman at, 246
Holy days, suppression of, 1 78
Horstead Keynes, diary of Vicar of, 227, 231
Hospitals, mediaeval, in Sussex, 97
Houghton, no communion at, 241
Hussey Henry, founds Dureford Abbey, 90
Ine, King, founds See of Sherburne, 14
Innocent IV., Pope, his disputes with the Chapter of Chichester
Cathedral, 133 Iping, mention of, in Domesday Book, 39, tiote
James I., his Church policy, 207 ; petition to, from Sussex, 208
James II., his declaration of indulgence, 237
Jevington, Church of, 32
John of CLiMriNG, Bishop, 70
John [Greenford], Bishop, 52
John King, his benefactions to Chichester, 56
King Henry, Bishop, 218, 221, 226, 231
Lake John, Bishop, 237-239 Lanfranc, Archbishop, 36, 37, 43
INDEX.
279
Langton, Archbishop, 58 Langton, John, Bishop, 124-126 Lanzo, Prior of Lewes, 82, 83 Laud, Archbishop, 216, 218
Lavant, East, parish of, 43 ; extract from Parish Register of, 225
Lay ton, Richard, letters of, 168-170
Lewes, Priory of, founded, 78-81 ; dissolved, 170, 171
Lruies, Protestants burned at, 191
Lewinna, St., legend of, 13, 14
Lollards, trials of, 134-136
London, See of, founded, 5 ; councils of, 37, 47
Lyminster, nunnery at, 93
Mailing, Old, College founded at, ig ; re-founded, 94 ; iiianor
of, given to the See of Canterbury, 20 Manning, Henry Edward, 264 Manumission, instances of, 163 Mary, Queen, 190, 192
Marmoutier, monks brought from Abbey of to Battle, 43, 74 May field. Church of, 156
Michelham, Priory of, founded, 91 ; visited, 143 MOLEYNS, Adam, Bishop, 144 ; murdered, 145 Monasteries, uses and influences of, 97-102 ; causes of their
corruption, 103 ; visitation of, 143, 164 Monmouth, reception of the Duke of, at Chichester, 235 Montague, Bishop, 196, 216, and Jiote More, Mr., correspondence of, with Bishop King, 226 Moore, Rev. Giles, extracts from diary of, 227
Nantes, revocation of the Edict of, 233
Neale, Dr. J. Mason, 229
Newhaven, Church of, 106
Newick, extract from Parish Register of, 230
Nicholas IV., Pope, his valuation of Church property, 113-116
Nonarum Inquisitio, notice of the, I16
Nonconformists, notices of, in Sussex, 230, 231, and note ; their
sufferings, 240 Non-jurors, list of, in Sussex, 240 •
Norman Conquest, effects of the on English Church, 34, 35 Nothelm, a South Saxon king, 16 Nunna, a South Saxon king, 17
Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, his rapacity, 36
Olave, St., Church of, 31
Osmund, a South Saxon Ealdoman, 1 7
28o
CHICHESTER.
Otter, William, Bishop, 261 ; his diocesan work, 262, 264 Ovitigdean, Church of, 238
Papa! Provision, Bishops appointed by, 133 Parker, Archbishop, letter of, 194 Patrick, Simon, Bishop, 241 Pecock, Reginald, Bishop, 146 Peculiars, Archiepiscopal, in Sussex, 43 Penendeii Heath, Council on, 36
Petitions from Sussex to James I., 208 ; to Parliament, 218
Pevensey, Roman remains at, 3
Poles, family of the, 202
Poll-tax, produce of from Sussex clergy, 1 1 7
PoORE, Richard, Bishop, 57
Popish Recusants in Sussex, 202
Portslade, Churcli of, 238
Poynings, Church of, 156, 238; number of communicants in, 210
Praty, Richard, Bishop, his letter on poverty of Sussex livings, 119; his trial of Lollards, 140; his visitation of
the diocese, 142 /Vrar/;;;/^'- forbidden, 177
Property, Church, value of, in Sussex at different times, I13-
Pulborough, Church of, 156
Pye, IViltiam, Dean of Chichester, 192
Pyuham, Priory of, 92
Quakers, persecution of, in Sussex, 240
Rcuton, parish of, 202 Ralph I., or Luffa, Bishop, 44-47 Ralph II., or Neville, Bishop, 58-61 Ranulph ofWarham, Bishop, 57 Recluses, notices of, in Sussex, 104 Rede, Robert, Bishop, 133-139 Rede, William, Bishop, 132 Reformation, beginnings of the, 158, 159
Richard OF Wych, Bishop, 61-69; canonised, 70; visits to his shrine, 71 ; shrine of, demolished, 179, 180; his day, 72
Robert, Count of Morlain, his lands in Sussex, 40, 42 ; his bene- factions to the Church, 84 Robert of Stratford, Bisho]>, 130 Robertsbridge, Abbey of, 87, 88 Rochester, See of, founded, 5
INDEX.
281
Rogate, Church of, 1 1 1
Roger of Montgomery, his lands in Sussex, 40, 42 Rollestoti, free school at, founded by Bishop Sherburne, 162 Romanesque Architecture, remarks on, 29, 30 ; specimens of the
primitive, in Sussex, 31, 32 Rose, Rev. Hunk James, 262 Rusper, Benedictine nunnery of, 94
Rye, Church of, 157 ; vicar of, 182 ; French refugees at, 233 ;
Wesley's vi>its to, 258 Ryves, Bruno, Dean of Chichester, his account of the sack of
the Cathedral, 2 19
Sadelescomhe, property of Knights Templars in, 126, 128 Sampson, Richard, Bishop, 173, 181-184, 195 Sargettt, Rev. John, 261
Saumur, Abbey of, founds Priory of Sele, 82 ScoRY, John, Bishop, 190, 193, 195 Seffrid I., Bishop, 47 ; deposed, 48 Seffrid II., Bishop, 52-55 Sele, Priory of, 85 Selham, Church of, 31
Selsey visited by Wilfrith, 9, 10 ; church built there, II ; See fixed at, 15 ; cathedral of, destroyed, 25 ; bishop of, de- posed, 35 ; See removed from, to Chichester, 34, 37
Sherburne, .See of, founded, 14 ; removed, 37
Sherburne, Robert, Bishop, 160, 173; his tomb, 174
Sherlock, Thomas, Dean of Chichester, 243
Shipley, possessions of Knights Templars at, 126, 128
Shoreham, New, mention of, 85 ; Church of, described, 107, 108
Shorcham, Old, 85, 106, 238
Shulbrede, Priory of, 93, 168
Sigeberht, King of the East Saxons, 5
Simon of Wells, Bishop, 55-57
Slindon, Archiepiscopal Manor of, 58
Sompting, Church of, 32 ; given to the Knights Templars, 127
Statute de herelico comhurendo, 1 35
Stephen of Burghstede, Bishop, 70
Steyning, 21, 89, 108
Stigand, Archbishop, deposed, 35
Stigand, Bishop, 36 ; his dispute with Battle Abbey, 43 ; with Lanfranc, ib.
Storey, Edward, Bishop, his regulations about St. Richard's shrine, 71 ; letter to from Henry VII., 119; enthronisa- tion of, 147; builds market cross, 151 ; founds prebendal school, ib.
Stuarts, the, their Church policy, 207 U
282
CHICHESTER.
Templars, the Knights, suppression of, in Sussex, 1 26- 1 29 Teutonic races, effects of the conquest of Britain by, I -3 Toleration Act, the, 240 Toriington, Priory of, 93 Triers, the, 225, 227, 233, 235
Turner, Mr. Thomas, extracts from diary of, 246-249 Turnham, Robert of, founds Abbey of Baybam, 91
Wagner, Rev. H. M., 262
Waller, Sir W., siege of Chichester by, 219
Watson, Antony, Bishop, 210, 211, 215
Wedmore, the peace of, 23
Wesley, John, his work in Sussex, 258, 259
West Dean, old parsonage house at, 154
West Tarring, Church of. III
Whitgift, Archbishop, suspends some Sussex clergy, 200 ; letter
of, to Bishop Watson, 210 Wilfrith, conversion of Sussex by, 8-13
William of Braose, his lands in Sussex, 40, 42 ; his gifts to the Church, 85
William the Conqueror, his Church policy, 35 ; his confiscation of land, 39 ; his vow at Senlac, 73 ; founds Abbey of Battle, 74
William, Count of Eu, his lands in Sussex, 40, 42
William of Warren, his lands in Sussex, 40, 42 , founds
Priory at Lewes, 78 Wills, extracts from, 205 Wilmington, Pricry at, 84
Winchelsea, Church of St. Thomas at, 153, 154, 238 Wivelsfield, appointment to living of, 226 Wisboroiigh Green, Church of, III Woodard, Mr., his schools in Sussex, 265
Woolbeding, Church of, 31 ; mention of in Domesday Book,
39, note Worth, Church of, 31, 32
Wren, Sir Christopher, his proposed alterations in Chichester Cathedral, 266
York, See of, founded, 6
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By the Eev. B. L. Cutts, B.A., Author of " Pastoral Counsels," &o. Crown 8vo Cloth boards 5 0
Under His Banner.
Papers on Missionary Work of Modern Times. By the Rev. W. H. Tucker." With Map. Crown 8vo. New Edition Cloth boards 5 0
Ventures of Faith; or, Deeds of Christian Heroes. By the Rev. J. J. Halcombe. With six Illustrations on toned paper. Crown 8vo Cloth boards 2 6
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