Today’s post is an image of The Crucifixion taken from the mortuary roll of Lucy de Vere. In the twelfth century, she founded the Benedictine nunnery of Castle Hedingham, North Essex and and was its first prioress. According to the British Library’s catalogue “The roll was sent to 122 religious houses in the southern half of England, each writing an answer to a request for prayers made by Agnes, Prioress of Hedingham, for the soul of her predecessor Lucy.”
‘The Crucifixion’ from Mortuary roll of Lucy, foundress and first prioress of the Benedictine nunnery of Castle Hedingham, with tituli (responsive prayers) 1-6, (Essex, England) c. 1225 – c. 1230. Shelfmark Egerton 2849 Part I
Transcription of Tudor Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts (1527-9)
[in the left margin]The churchwardens
Choson Anno
xxjmc [21st regnal year of Henry VIII sometime between April 1529-April 1530]
Thom[a]s Savage
John Clark
John Cooleyn [Collin?]
John Dygby
[This margin note appears to be entered by a different set of churchwardens (or scribe) at a later date to the rest of the page. Analysing the churchwardens’ accounts chronologically show that this folio appears to relate to a period sometime between 1527 and 1529]
1. Dely[er]nd to the sayd wardens the s[um]ma aforsayd [delivered to the said wardens the sum aforesaid]
xxviijs ixd [28s 9d]
2. Item in the hands of wyll[ia]m Sturton [Item in the hands of William Sturton]
xs [10s]
3. It[e]m the halfe yere rent remaining ?? [Item the half year remaining ?]
xvijs jd [17s 1d]
4. Ite[m] res of Thom[a]s wete for the latt payment for hys howse [Item received of[f] Thomas Wete for the late payment for his house]
iijli vjs viijd [£3 6s 8d]
5. Ite[m] resayvyd att the fyrst maye [Item received at the first may]
xviijs xd [18s 10d]
6. Ite[m[ resayvyd att Corpuscrysty feste [Item received at Corpus Christi feast]
xxjd [21d]
7. Ite[m] res of John foster ych was gatheryd wha[n] he was lorde [Item received of John Foster which was gathered when he was lord]
liijs iiijd [53s 4d]
8. Item res of M[ister] Joyner [Item received off Mister Joyner]
vli [£5]
9. Ite[m] res of my lady gatys for washe of ye torchys [Item received off my lady ?? for washing of the torches]
xijd [12d]
10. Ite[m] res of the good ma[n] whale for hawys [Item received off the good man Whale for house]
xs [10s]
11. Ite[m] res of Nyclas Aylett of ye gyfte of mawde bemysche [Item received off Nicholas Aylett of [from] the gift of Maud Bemysche
iiijs [4s]
12. Ite[m] res of poole for halfe yerys rent of hawys [Item received of Poole (or Paul) for half years rent of house]
iijs iiijd [3s 4d]
13. Ite[m] res \for/ of ye hosker yt was solde of the cherchys [Item received for the ?? it was sold of [from] the church]
xs [10s]
14. Ite[m] res on Alhalows daye gatharde in the cherchye [Item received on All Hallows day gathered in the church]
xs xid [10s 11d]
15. Ite[m] res of Wylyem Sturton of ye gyfte of M[aster] Sturton [Item received off William Sturton of the gift of Master Sturton]
16. sumtyme vycar of thys chyrche [sometime vicar of this church]
lijs iiijd [53s 4d]
17. Ite[m] res att the laste maye [Item received at the last May]
xxvjs [26s]
18. Item res att corpuschrsti feste nexte folowynge [Item received at Corpus Christi feast next following]
xxs iiijd [20s 4d]
19. Ite[m] res A hole yerye rente [Item received a whole years rent]
xxxiiijs ijd [34s 2d]
20. Ite[m] gatheryd i[n] the cherche for p[ar]te of the cherche fence [Item gathered in the church for part of the church fence]
iijs vd [3s 5d]
21. Ite[m] reseyvyd for the olde tymber of the same fence [Item received for the old timber of the same fence]
iiijd [4d]
22. Ite[m] Res of Thom[a]s Savage towards the same fence [Item received off Thomas Savage towards the same fence]
xiid [12d]
[From here onwards starts the list of names of all the heads-of-households within the parish and their individual contributions towards the church’s bells. This list will be on a future blog]
Commentary Line 4: Whoever Thomas Wete was, he either hadn’t paid his rent for a long time or rented a large piece of church land/house. £3 6s 8d was a very large sum of money for the time equating to very roughly three or four months wages for a labourer.
Line 5 & 17: This must have been money collected for events held on May Day. The fact that there are two entries on this page for May Day gives unwitting testimony that the churchwardens hadn’t been as diligent as they should perhaps have been. They appear to have been ‘catching up’ on their yearly accounts long after the event.
Line 6 & 18: This is money collected during the festivities held on Corpus Christi day. See my post on Great Dunmow’s Corpus Christi events. Again, as per the commentary above on May Day, these two entries for two years show that the churchwardens were writing up the church’s accounts years after the actual event.
Line 7: John Foster had been playing the lord of misrule – possibly during the Christmas celebrations in the parish.
Line 8: Mister Joyner’s gift of £5 was a large sum of money for an unspecified reason. However, at the bottom of this folio and on subsequent folios, the churchwardens’ document each house-holder in the parish and their individual contribution towards purchases a new church bell. Mister Joyner is not documented within the list so it is entirely plausible that this entry is his individual contribution to the collection. Perhaps he didn’t give money at the time the collection took place, or maybe he didn’t live in the town. Bearing in mind that the entries on this page were written up some years after the events they were recording (as shown by the May Day and Corpus Christi feast entries), it is therefore unsurprising that Mr Joyner’s substantial gift appears separate to the list of the town.
Line 9: I would love to be able to read the missing word in this line! Can anyone help? Were the ladies washing torches! This line probably relates to torches that were used during the funerals of the great and good of Dunmow. The elite were buried within the church and torches were kept lit around their bodies on the night before their funeral. But I’m not sure where the ‘ladys’ come into this – unless the word is ‘lads’?
Line 15 & 16: This is money from the old vicar, Robert Sturton’s, now missing will. William Sturton was possibly Vicar Sturton’s nephew or other relation. The Sturton family were a very large and important elite family within Tudor Great Dunmow.
Notes about Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts
Great Dunmow’s original churchwardens’ accounts (1526-1621) are kept in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1. All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.
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Today’s post is about the contents of Tudor wills and how they can be used to inform the modern-day reader about religion during the turbulent reigns of Henry VIII and his three children. The text below formed one of the chapters within my dissertation Religion and Society in Great Dunmow, Essex, c.1520 to c.1560 from my Cambridge University’s Masters of Studies in Local and Regional history awarded to me in January 2012. The text here is in its entirety from my dissertation so reads more as an academic essay rather than a blog post. For this blog post, I have included headings (to break up the text) and images, my original was both heading-less and image-less. If you are wondering why my introduction and conclusion are so short, remember that this is just one chapter in a very lengthy 100 page dissertation and I had a very strict word count to adhere to. The dissertation’s overall introduction and conclusion was far more comprehensive. I have also had to re-arrange the two tables on this post from their original positions within my dissertations – so Table 2 now comes before Table 1. The research of wills I undertook for my dissertation is very different to my normal genealogical research. For genealogical research, I am normally sifting through the personal bequests so to find evidence of family relationships. But for my dissertation, I had to totally ignore family relationships and go for the ‘other bequests’.
St Mary the Virgin, the Parish church of Great Dunmow, circa 1910-20.
Introduction
Historians have studied the wills of many English parishes to gain understanding about the impact of the Reformation. Eamon Duffy examined the wills of the Yorkshire village of Otley(1) and Caroline Litzenberger, in her analysis of the Reformation Gloucestershire, studied the wills of approximately 8,000 testators(2). Therefore, the analysis of wills is a significant methodology employed by historians to provide evidence for the acceptance (or non-acceptance) of religious changes during the Reformation.
Methodology
The methodology used for this article has been to locate, transcribe and analyse all wills for Great Dunmow for the period 1517 to 1565: 40 wills in total.(3) Litzenberger divided her Gloucestershire wills into elite and non-elite wills, but this division is not possible for Great Dunmow’s much smaller sample. Table 1 and Table 2 displays the results from this analysis and this article examines those results.
Great Dunmow’s 1523-4 Lay Subsidy assessments listed 139 tax-payers and 1525-6 church steeple collection listed 165 donations. From these figures, it can be deduced many wills have not survived. Those that have are
thirty-seven wills proved in the archdeacons’ court of the Commissary of the Bishop of London (originals held by the Essex Record Office in Chelmsford);
two proved in the London Consistory Court (official copies held by the London Metropolitan Archive in London); and,
one proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (official copy held by The National Archives in Kew).
The discovery of only two wills proved in the London Consistory Court is particularly disappointing. However, this has been caused because the registers from 1521 to 1539 are missing.(5) Moreover, the first surviving Great Dunmow will that was proved in this court, is from 1559. This demonstrates there are other inconsistencies within the surviving registers from the 1540s and 1550s with the wills for Great Dunmow almost totally missing. Great Dunmow was in the archdeaconry of Middlesex but many nearby towns and villages (for example, Maldon and Chelmsford) were in the archdeaconry of Essex. Any testator with land in only one archdeaconry had their will proved in that archdeacon’s court (and therefore, now their original wills are held by Essex Record Office). However, testators with land in more than one archdeaconry had theirs proved in the London Consistory Court (i.e. the official copies of their wills will be held by the London Metropolitan Archives in London). Therefore, many wills for the years 1520 to 1559 are missing for parishioners who were the ‘middling sort’ or elite (i.e. they owned land/property in both Great Dunmow and neighbouring villages or towns). The missing registers almost exactly span the offices of two incumbents of the bishopric of London: Cuthbert Tunstall, bishop 1522 to 1530(6) ; and John Stokesley, bishop 1530 to 1539(7). It could be speculated that the missing volumes were lost not long after these dates, perhaps handed over to the Elizabethan martyrologist, John Foxe, for his examination of early martyrs within the diocese of London.(8)
There is evidence within Great Dunmow’s Henrician churchwardens’ accounts which can also be used for will analysis. These accounts document six gifts of money from named parishioners to the church, but the wills from these people have not survived. However, as these donations were likely to have originated from wills, they have been included within this analysis. For example, vicar Robert Sturton’s missing will would undoubtedly contain a bequest to the church, as there is a 1528 churchwardens’ accounts entry ‘of[f] wylyem sturton of ye gyfte of M[aster] Sturton sumtyme vycar of thys chyrche…liijs iiijd [53s 4d]’(9). The churchwardens were diligent in recording bequests and gifts to the church in their accounts. This can be detected from John Skylton’s will of 1533 in which he left a bequest of 13s 4d to the church. This exact amount duly appeared in that year’s churchwardens’ accounts, given to the churchwardens by his wife.(10) Therefore, there is credibility to include gifts recorded within the churchwardens’ accounts within this analysis of wills.
Above, Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts (folio 9r) showing the gift from the former vicar. ‘Ite[m] Rec[ieved] of wylyem sturton of ye gyfe of M[aster] Sturton sumtyme vycar of thys chyrche liijs iiijd (53s 4d)‘.
Will of John Skylton of Great Dunmow (January 1533), Essex Record Office D/ABW 8/28. The Tudor scribe who wrote the will (above) couldn’t write in straight lines! The request to the church starts on the third line… ‘hie awter [high altar – this is the end of Skylton’s tithe bequest] of the church – xxd [20d] also to the rep[er]ations [repairs] of the church of Du[n]mowe xiijs iiijd [13s 4d] also to the church of powles iiijd [4d – this is the bequest to St Paul’s cathedral in London]‘.
And here’s the entry in Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts showing that his widow had duly handed over the bequest to the church ‘Ite[m] Rc [Received] of Jone [Joan] Skylton of the gyfte of John Skylton – xiijs iiijd [13s 4d]’.
Analysis of Soul Bequests [The table below for soul bequests was originally on an A3 sheet of paper. I have had to shrink it so that it fits this blog post. Click it to display it within a new window and then use your zoom facility to increase the size of the text. The wills for Elizabeth’s reign are only up until 1565 as this is the point my dissertation ended.]
Soul bequests within preambles of wills have been used by historians of Reformation England to ascertain religious changes. A Catholic preamble would include words similar to ‘almyghtie god & to our blyssed lady saynt mary the virgyn & to all the holy company of heaven’(11). An evangelical or Protestant might include words such as ‘Almighty God and his only Son our Lord Jesus Christ, by whose previous death and passion I hope only to be saved’(12). Somewhere in between would be other types of soul bequests. Litzenberger divided her wills into three major categories: ‘Traditional’ [i.e. Catholic], ‘Ambiguous’, and ‘Protestant’, and within these categories, wills were further sub-divided. Litzenberger’s categories have been used as a framework for the analysis of soul bequests for Great Dunmow’s wills; as demonstrated in Table 2. Categorising soul bequests have to be handled with caution. Wills were only ambiguous if there were no other bequests indicating that they were traditional. Some wills contain either a final stipulation to the executors to provide for the wealth/health of the testator’s soul, or the bequest for ‘tithes forgotten’. The existence of either clause, it can be argued, was the sign of a traditional will, as discussed below. Moreover, ambiguity might have been a defence employed by traditionalists against an increasingly hostile environment.(13) This strategy of ambiguity by traditionalists might account for the eight ambiguous Edwardian wills made during evangelical vicar Geoffrey Crisp’s time. Furthermore, a Protestant was unlikely to use an ambiguous soul bequest and would almost certainly proclaim their religion in unmistakable language.(14) Table 2 demonstrates there were no unquestionably Protestant soul bequests within the surviving wills of Great Dunmow.
Analysis of other bequests (not family)
There are other limitations when using wills for the analysis of religious belief. Duffy comments ‘wills tell us more about the external constraints on testators than they do about shifting private belief.’(15) External constraints could be the religious policy imposed by the monarch, for example, the Edwardian denouncement of purgatory, trentals and masses.(16) There were other constraints, including the scribe who wrote the will and the testator’s witnesses. Margaret Spufford, in her work on sixteenth and seventeenth century wills was the first historian to observe a will could be written by a scribe.(17) She stated
A man lying on his death bed must have been much in the hands of the scribe writing his will. He must have been asked specific questions about his temporal bequests, but unless he had strong religious convictions, the clause bequeathing the soul may well have reflected the opinion of the scribe or the formulary book the latter was using, rather than those of the testator. (18)
Some wills indisputably demonstrate the testator had not been influenced by a scribe or witness. Great Dunmow’s Marian will of Thomas Baker contains a traditional soul bequest along with bequests for tithes forgotten; and, even more revealingly, an obit and a solemnly sang dirge.
A priest providing Extreme Unction (the Last Rites) to a man in bed, from Pontifical; Tabula (England, 1st quarter of the 15th century), British Library’s shelfmark Lansdowne 451 f.234.
There is evidence of a Henrician scribe who was active in two 1520s wills from Great Dunmow, and he possibly used a book containing standard formulaic clauses. This type of precedent book was not unusual during the Tudor period.(19) The will of widow Clemens Bowyer, dated February 1526, almost exactly mimics the earlier will of John Wakrell (October 1525). Both wills have the same soul bequests (Catholic, as would be expected from this period); along with bequests to the high altar, to Saint John’s gild, to the church’ torches, and to the ‘moder holy chyrch of polye [St Paul’s] in London’. Both wills have a bequest for an ‘honest prest to synge a tryntall [trental] for my sol & all crysten solls yn ye p[ar]rsche churche’. However this is crossed out in Bowyer’s will. It is possible the scribe copied the wording from his precedent book, and Bowyer made him cross it out. Trentals were a series of 30 Masses performed within one year, with three Masses on each of the ten major feast-days of Christ and Mary; the priest also had to perform other liturgical duties throughout the year.(20) This was a substantial undertaking, as demonstrated by Wakrell’s bequest of 10s for his trental. Maybe Bowyer did not have sufficient funds, and so made the scribe delete the bequest. This scribe was probably the parish priest, Sir William Wree who was witness to these and one other will. Also witness to Wakrell’s will was former vicar, Robert Sturton, described as ‘p[ar]rsche prest’. Sturton had resigned as vicar in 1523, so he was still performing some of his previous clerical duties.
Will of John Wakrell of Great Dunmow (October 1525), Essex Record Office D/ABW 39/7. The trental bequest reads (from the second word): ‘It[e]m I be q[u]esthe [bequeath] unto an honest prest to synge a tryntall [trental] for my sol [soul] & all crysten [Christian] solls [souls] yn ye p[ar]iche chyrch \of D[u]nmowe a fore sayde xs [10s]’.
Will of Clemens Boywer [Bowyer] of Great Dunmow (February 1526), Essex Record Office D/ABW 3/8. The first crossing out is the trental: ‘It[e]m I bequethe to han [sic] honest prest to sy [n] ge [sing] a try[n]tall [trental] yn ye p[ar]rshe of myche [Much i.e. ‘Great’] D[u]nmow aforsad’. (Were pre-Reformation priests anything other than ‘honest’?)
Old St Paul’s Cathedral – the ‘moder[mother] holy chyrch of polye [Paul] in London’ mentioned by 7 testators of Tudor Great Dunmow. St Paul’s was the mother church of the Diocese of London, and this diocese included the parish of Great Dunmow. The cathedral was the largest church in England and had the tallest spire in England. The spire was struck by lightning in 1561 and not replaced. St Paul’s was destroyed in 1666 – a casualty of the Great Fire of London. Sir Christopher Wren designed the new cathedral – one of the iconic images of today’s London.
Witnesses to Wills The vicars and priests of the parish were witnesses to many wills. However, the decline in priests as witnesses demonstrates fewer priests were within the parish after Henry VIII’s break with Rome. Sir Edmund Clarke was witness to three traditional wills in the 1530s. Evangelical vicar Crisp, was witness to two Edwardian wills in 1551 and 1553; both with ambiguous soul bequests to ‘almighty god, my maker and redeemer’. Catholic vicar John Bird was witness to one traditional Marian will. The vicars must have witnessed many wills and surely influenced some testators by imposing their own beliefs on their dying parishioners. However, Elizabethan vicar, Richard Rogers, a former Protestant exile who spent Mary’s reign in Frankfurt,(21) did not enforce his beliefs on the wills of his parishioners. Seven Elizabethan wills were written during his tenure, although he was not witness to any of them. None of these wills were unequivocally and unmistakably Protestant: indeed the 1563 will of Gilbert Cooke had a traditional soul bequest including ‘the blesyd company of heavne’.
Priest administering last rites
from The Dunois Hours (Paris, c. 1440 – c. 1450 (after 1436))
British Library’s shelfmark Yates Thompson 3 f.211 .
The limitations of using wills to determine religious belief Wills do not always accurately reflect the complete representation of a testator’s religious beliefs. In an investigation of late Medieval wills for All Saints, Bristol, the author of the study found the wills of some of the elite did not include bequests to the parish church.(22) However, the parish’s Church Books demonstrate that during these testators’s lifetime, substantial gifts, such as gilding of the Lady altar, and the refurbishment of the rood loft, had been made to the church. Furthermore, a wife often made donations after her husband’s death but during her lifetime, on behalf of them both. This generosity would most likely not have appeared in either the husband’s or his widow’s wills. This discrepancy between a testator’s will and the gifts made during their lifetime is also true within Great Dunmow. For example, Miles Docleye’s Edwardian will of 1551 has an ambiguous soul bequest and only bequests to his family; there are no religious bequests. It would appear his will was ambiguous but conforming to Edward’s Protestantism. However, Docleye, who must have been at least in his 50s when he died, had given money to each of the parish’s seven collections for traditional religious items during the 1520s and 1530s. It is impossible to determine if his beliefs had changed or if his will was conforming to Edwardian policy. It was probably the latter. This one example demonstrates that the analysis of wills for religious beliefs has its limitations. The laity of Great Dunmow had been investing in traditional religious artefacts throughout the 1520s and 1530s, but these donations are not apparent from their wills.
The importance of ‘tithes negligently forgotten’ The bequest to the high altar for ‘tithes negligently forgotten’ clause was an important part of pre-Reformation wills; and all ten Henrician wills have this bequest. One of the duties of the parish priest was to pronounce the Great Excommunication or General Sentence to his parishioners four times a year.(23) This proclaimed transgressions against the church; and debts (including unpaid tithes) were such transgressions. The bequest ensured the testator cleared his or her debt to the church and so their soul could benefit from prayers. Furthermore, unpaid debts meant the testator’s soul would be longer in purgatory, so this was an important bequest for traditional religion. Henry VIII banned the reading of the General Sentence in parish churches because it was vehemently against those who appropriated Church property or contested the authority of the Church(24), and, of course, Henry VIII had unquestionable contested the Pope’s authority in England.
This prohibition, along with the Edwardian theological retreat from the concept of purgatory,(25) was perhaps the reason why none of Great Dunmow’s Edwardian wills have the tithes to the high altar bequest. Moreover, the Great Dunmow’s high altar had been destroyed on the orders of Edward VI.(26) However, four Marian wills do have the clause; of these, three also have a traditional soul bequest. These four wills were written in 1557 and 1558; so it is possible this bequest was not included in earlier Marian wills because Great Dunmow’s high altar was still to be rebuilt after Catholic Mary came to the throne of England. In Elizabeth’s reign, Elizabeth Dygbey’s will written in December 1558 (i.e. one month after Mary’s death), also had a traditional soul bequest, along with the tithes clause. This was before the Marian high altar was taken down sometime between 1559 and 1561.(27) In 1564, John Byckner used a variation of the tithes bequest for a will which was otherwise ambiguous; the high altar had again been destroyed, so he left his money for ‘tithes forgotten’ to the ‘curate’. Byckner’s will is unusual because, apart from Dygbey’s will written shortly after Mary’s death, no other early Elizabethan will contains the tithes bequest. If this John Byckner, a wax chandler, was the same John Byckner, who lived in the High Street in 1525-6,(28) he would have been at least in his 60s and so perhaps had some of the old, traditional habits. This confirms the remark, ‘Wills were made usually by the old, who were generally less open to new ideas than the young or middle aged.’(29)
A priest excommunicating a group of people by raising a candle
from Omne Bonum (Ebrietas-Humanus) (London, England, c.1360-c.1375)
British Library’s shelfmark Royal 6 E VII f.75v.
Conclusion
The analysis within this articles has demonstrated that bequests within wills alone cannot substantially confirm the religious faith of a testator. However, it is clear that collectively the wills of Great Dunmow do demonstrate significant changes over time. Bequests to the church almost totally stopped after Henry VIII’s reign, in all probability because his attack on traditional religious artefacts made parishioners cautious. Not a single Edwardian testator made an unequivocally Protestant will, even with evangelical vicar Crisp present. Mary’s reign demonstrated a shift back towards traditional religion, with bequests to the high altar, and obits. The early years of Elizabeth’s reign demonstrate that wills had once again started to move away from traditional bequests. However, external factors could influence a testator’s will, for example, religious changes enforced by the monarch, local vicars, scribes and witnesses, and the age of the testator. Therefore wills cannot provide the complete account of the parishioners of Great Dunmow’s changing beliefs. Moreover, Henrician and Marian anti-Catholic events did take place in the parish with the 1546 re-enactment of the murder of Cardinal Beaton, and Thomas Bowyer’s disobedience to the re-established Catholic Church. Therefore, wills can provide only a limited narrative regarding the changes experienced by this parish during the Reformation.
Details of a funeral
from Book of Hours, Use of Sarum
(England, S. E. (Suffolk, Bury St Edmunds?), 2nd or 3rd quarter of the 15th century)
British Library’s shelfmark Arundel 302 f.77v.
Church End, Great Dunmow, postcard circa 1910-20.
Footnotes
(1) Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580 (2nd edn., 2005), pp.515-21.
(2) Caroline Litzenberger, The English Reformation and the Laity: Gloucestershire, 1540-1580 (Cambridge, 1997), pp.168-178.
(3) (n/a to this blog)
(4) This includes six monetary gifts, as documented in Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts, but a corresponding will has not survived.
(5) London Metropolitan Archives, Diocese of London Consistory Court Wills index (2011), (At the time of writing my dissertation, these indexes were in pdf file format and online at http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk. However they do not appear to be there at present.)
(6) D. Newcombe, ‘Tunstal, Cuthbert’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Online Edition, May 2011), http://www.oxforddnb.com
(7) Andrew Chibi, ‘Stokesley, John’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Online Edition, May 2011), http://www.oxforddnb.com
(8) Personal correspondence, Richard Rex, Cambridge, March 2011.
(9) Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts, fo.7r.
(10) Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts, fol.18v.
(11) Will of Katherine Smythe (1558), Essex Record Office, D/ABW/33/335.
(12) Margaret Spufford, ‘The Scribes of Villagers’ Wills in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries and their influence’, Local Population Studies (1972), pp.28-43 at 29.
(13) Correspondence, Rex.
(14) Correspondence, Rex.
(15) Eamon Duffy, Stripping the Altars, p.508.
(16) Eamon Duffy, Stripping the Altars, p.505.
(17) Margaret Spufford, Scribes of Villagers’ Wills, pp.28-43.
(18) Margaret Spufford, Scribes of Villagers’ Wills, p30.
(19) Correspondence, Rex.
(20) Eamon Duffy, Stripping the Altars, pp.370-371.
(21) Christina Hallowell Garrett, The Marian Exiles (Cambridge, 1966), p.273.
(22) Clive Burgess, ‘”By Quick and by Dead”: Wills and Pious Provision in Late Medieval Bristol’, The English Historical Review, 102 (October 1987), pp.837-858 at p.842.
(23) Eamon Duffy, Stripping the Altars, pp.356-7.
(24) Eamon Duffy, Stripping the Altars, pp.356-7.
(25) Eamon Duffy, Stripping the Altars, pp.504.
(26) Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts, fo.40v.
(27) Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts, fo.44v.
(28) Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts, fo.2v.
(29) Robert Whiting, Local Responses to the English Reformation (Basingstoke, 1998), p.130.
(30) The first two columns of Table 2 have been taken from Caroline Litzenberger, The English Reformation and the Laity: Gloucestershire, 1540-1580 p.172
Notes Great Dunmow’s original churchwarden accounts (1526-1621) are in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1. All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.
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A year ago today, I published my first post, Great Dunmow’s Medieval Manors, on this blog. Originally, I created my blog to publish some of my dissertation research ‘Religion and Society in Great Dunmow, Essex, c.1520 to c.1560′ from my Cambridge University’s Masters of Studies in Local and Regional history awarded to me in January 2012 (sadly, the degree no longer appears to be running).
However, over the year, this blog has evolved into a patchwork of posts all loosely based around the local history of the North Essex town of Great Dunmow, English medieval history, early-modern England and Tudor history. To celebrate my blog-anniversary, today and tomorrow I will be publishing my most viewed 12 posts from the last year. Thank you for reading my posts, writing lovely inspiring comments, and ‘talking’ to me on twitter. I look forward to writing another year of posts and sharing with you my view of England’s rich heritage and history.
Below are my most viewed top 6 posts from the last year.
4. The clergy in pre-Reformation England – The vicars and ‘Sirs’ of the pre-Reformation Catholic clergy with particular reference to the 1520s clergy to Great Dunmow.
Today, the first Monday after the Christian feast of Epiphany, was traditionally the day of another money-raising celebration in the lives and times of our Catholic Medieval ancestors: Plough Monday. My posts, Christmas in a Tudor Town, told the story of how the people of the North Essex parish of Great Dunmow celebrated Christmas with a Lord of Misrule who ‘reigned’ throughout the Twelve Days of Christmas, collecting money for the church. In 1538 (or 1539), Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts show that the Lord of Misrule possibly also collected money for the yearly Plough-Feast.
1538 (or 1539) In primo receyvyd of the lord of mysserowell & for the plowgh ffest – xls [40s] (folio 29r). This entry is ambiguous – did the Christmas Lord of Misrule also collect money for the plough-feast? Or have the churchwardens simply lumped the two events together in one entry? As the two events have not been recorded as separate sums of money, it is more likely the former.
In Medieval times, many rural towns and villages of England celebrated the first Monday after the Feast of Epiphany as the start of the agricultural year. Ancient customs and religious practices were used to protect and safeguard the plough which was so vital for the coming year’s crops. ‘Plough lights’ were kept burning in the parish church and feasts were held to celebrate the plough. Sums of money received from Great Dunmow’s plough-feast activities were recorded throughout the churchwardens’ accounts for the reign of Henry VIII. As the accounts were only the financial records of the church, once again the accounts do not explicitly state what occurred during the Plough-Feast. However, it is likely that the young men of the town dragged a highly decorated plough from door to door of the richest households in the parish collecting money. If people did not hand-over money, then a trick would have been played on the unlucky house-holder (an event similar to today’s Halloween Trick or Treating). This trick was likely to have involved the young men ploughing a furrow across the offender’s land. So that the house-holders could not identify them, the lads probably had their faces blackened with soot. The young lads were often accompanied by someone playing the Fool – in Great Dunmow’s case, this person could possibly have been the Christmas Lord of Misrule (I have made this assumption because of the way the entries in the accounts have been written.)
The accounts do not state what happened to the money raised but possibly the money was used to maintain a special candle (the plough-light) to constantly burn within the church. Henry VIII banned the practice of plough-lights in 1538 – along with other traditional lights maintained in churches. However Great Dunmow’s plough-feast still continued for a further few years -the final plough-feast occurring during one of the years between 1539 and 1541.
Item Reseyvyd of the lorde of mysrowle at thys Crystmas last wt [with] the plowfest mony at the town declard to the chyrche & all thyngs dyschargyd – xxxviijs jd [38s 1d] (folio 30v, sometime between 1539-1541)
The forty shillings (£2) raised in 1538 and the final 38s 1d were considerable amounts of money in Tudor times. According to Great Dunmow’s accounts paid out to various labourers for a day’s work during the 1520s, the average daily pay was 4d. Therefore, the collection for the Lord of Misrule and the Plough Feast was roughly equivalent to 114 to 120 days labour.
It is interesting to note that the above two entries on this blog post have nameless Lords of Misrule. Other ‘Lords’ were explicitly named in the churchwardens’ accounts – see my post here. I think that this is unwitting testimony that only the Lords who were amongst the middling sort or the elite of Great Dunmow’s social hierarchy were named. Those Lords of the common sorts were too unimportant and lowly to have their names recorded in the magnificent churchwardens’ accounts!
It is possible that the modern day practice of Molly Dancing derives from the ancient practices of plough-Monday. My post The Catholic Ritual Year has photographs my son took of Molly Dancers in Maldon on New Year’s Day 2012.
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Notes Great Dunmow’s original churchwarden accounts (1526-1621) are in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1. All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.
Transcription of Tudor Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts (1526-7)
1. Item ffor ij scaynys of whyte threde ffor ye copys [Item for 2 skeins of white thread for the copys (corpus?) 2d]
iid
2. Ite[m] for lyne & pakthrede & whepcorde when p[ar]nell [Item for line and pack-thread and whipcord when Parnell]
iiiid
3. made the pagantes our corpuscryti daye [made the pageants our Corpus Christi day 4d]
4. Ite[m] payde ffor hornynge of the cherche <illegible crossing out> lanton [Item paid for horning(?) of the church lantern 8d]
viiid
5. Ite[m] for strekynge of ye Rodelyght [Item for striking of the Rood light 13d]
xiijd
6. Ite[m] for a peys lether ffor bawdryk [Item for a piece leather for bawdrick 8d]
viid
7. Ite[m] for mendynge of lede on the new chapell [Item for mending of lead on the new chapel]
iis
8. & on ye gelde on the same syde [and on the gild on the same side 2s]
9. Ite[m] ffor a li of wex for & strykynge a fore owr [Item for a pound of wax & striking before our]
viid
10. lady in the chawnsell [lady in the chancel 7d]
11. Ite[m] payde to dychynge for carryynge of tymber for ye frame [Item paid to Dychynge for carrying timber for the frame [2s]
iis
12. Ite[m] to Wylye[m] blythe for mendynge of ye glase wyndowes [Item to William Blythe for mending the glass windows]
iis iiijd
13. in the new chapell & in other plasys of the cherche [in the new chapel & in other places in the church]
14. Ite[m] pade to burle for the rest of the gyldy of owr lady [Item paid to Burle for the rest of the gild of our lady 6s 8d]
vjs viijd
15. Ite[m] pade to Robart Sturtons wyfe for wasshynge of [Item paid to Robert Sturton’s wife for washing of]
vjs viiid
16. the cherche gere for iij yere [the church gear for 3 years 6s 8d]
17. Item for the bordynge of hynry bode att doscetor & when [Item for the boarding of Henry Bode at Dowsetter & when]
xijd
18. the bell was a perynge [the bell was repairing 12d]
19. Ite[m] laynge of ij shovylls & a mattoke for ye cherche [Item laying of 2 shovels & a mattock for the church 12d]
xiid
20. Ite[m] for wode when the bell was pesyd [Item for wood when the bell was repaired(?) 12d]
xiid
21. Item payde to the belfowder in rernest of ye bargine [Item paid to the bell-founder in ? of the bargain(?) 3s 4d]
iijs iiijd
22. S[u]m[m]a Alloe lvijs ixd & rend ?? xxviijs ixd [Sum of 52s 9d remainder(?) ?? 28s 9d
Commentary Line 1-3: Great Dunmow’s Corpus Christi pageant. See the commentary below.
Line 6: Bawdrick – According to Wikipedia, a bawdrick/baldric was a belt worn over one shoulder which was often used to carry a weapon (such as a sword). (Not to be confused with Blackadder’s sidekick, Baldrick!)
Line 7 & 8 and 12 & 13: Mending of the led, gild and glass in the ‘new chapel’. This must have been a side chapel within the church of St Mary the Virgin. It does not refer to a separate building, such as the small chapel which existed in the town’s centre.
Line 19: A mattock was a tool used for digging. It had a flat blade set at right angles to the handle.
Line 21: The bell-founder. This is possibly the same bell-founder in London which the parish of Great Dunmow commissioned to make their bells in the late 1520s. It is very likely that this is the same bell-foundry in Whitechapel which is still in existence today and cast the magnificent bells for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Bells & the London 2012 Olympic Bell.
Great Dunmow’s Corpus Christi Plays Lines 1-3 above record the expenditure for ‘lyne & pakthred & whepcorde when P[ar]nell made the pagantes on Corpus Cryti day’. It has been suggested that this entry in Great Dunmow’s accounts signifies rope scourges and therefore, Great Dunmow’s Corpus Christi plays were Catholic religious set-pieces involving flagellation. (1) Packthread is very strong thread or twine and whipcord is strong worsted fabric often used for whiplashes. This argument is further enforced by the claim that the P[ar]nell in the churchwarden’s accounts was one John Parnell who was active in 1505 in Ipswich.(2) This John Parnell of Ipswich was given 33s 4d by that town to find ornaments for their Corpus Christi plays for a period of twelve years.(3) Ipswich’s Corpus Christi plays must have been a magnificent event because of the amount of money given to John Parnell. Therefore, if Ipswich’s Parnell was the same person as Great Dunmow’s Parnell, then this connection could be used to support a supposition that the town of Great Dunmow was trying to emulate the more prosperous town of Ipswich.
However, by not just looking at Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts in isolation but also analysing other primary sources from Great Dunmow, it can be established that a Robert Parnell was a Tudor resident of Great Dunmow. Whilst he is not listed in any of the parish collections itemised in the churchwardens’ accounts, he is listed in the Great Dunmow’s 1524-5 Lay Subsidy returns.(4) Moreover, a Roberd Parnell is also detailed in John Bermyshe’s 1526 will as living in one of Bermyshe’s houses in Great Dunmow.(5) Robert Parnell was a resident of Great Dunmow. Therefore, the evidence suggests that Ipswich’s Parnell was not the same Parnell who supplied rope for Great Dunmow’s pageant. Moreover, as the rope was for ‘pagantes’, it is probable the rope was used to support the pageant’s scenery, and not used as rope-scourges.
Footnotes 1) Clifford Davidson, Festivals and plays in late medieval Britain (Aldershot, 2007) p55.
2) Ibid.
3) John Wodderspoon, Memorials of the ancient town of Ipswich in the county of Suffolk (1850) p170.
4) Hundred of Dunmow: Calendar of Lay Subsidy Rolls (1523-4), E.R.O., T/A427/1/1.
5) Will of John Bermyshe (1527), E.R.O., D/ABW/3/9.
Notes about Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts
Great Dunmow’s original churchwardens’ accounts (1526-1621) are kept in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1. All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.
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Today, 27th June, is the anniversary of the burning of thirteen people at Stratford le Bow in 1556, executed in the most horrible manner because of their religion and faith. It was the largest burning of a group of people in Tudor history, and this terrible spectacle was watched by a crowd of over 20,000 people.
Burning of 13 people (11 man and 2 woman) at Stratford le Bow June 1556,
from John Foxe, Acts and Monuments (1570 edition), p2135.
The story regarding this terrible burning in London is being retold today by myself on Spitalfields Life blog here. The story of one of those victims who perished in Queen Mary Tudor’s flames, Thomas Bowyer, weaver of Great Dunmow is retold here at Essex Voices Past.
Piecing together details about these men and women is difficult because, apart from John Foxe’s book, there is not much surviving contemporary evidence, particularly as these were not high-profile victims. However, during my research of Tudor Great Dunmow, I have been able to piece together circumstantial evidence regarding the background of Thomas Bowyer, weaver of Great Dunmow.
According to John Foxe’s 1563 version of The Acts and Monuments (more commonly known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs),
Thomas bowyer sayde he was brought before one maister Wiseman of Felsed, and by him was sent to Colchester castel, and from thence was caryed to Boner Byshop of London, to be by him further examined.
Colchester Castle – county gaol of Tudor Essex
Felsted is the neighbouring village to Great Dunmow and Master Wiseman was probably the local JP whom Bowyer was hauled before. It is curious that Bowyer was not taken to the magistrates in Essex’s county town of Chelmsford. However, there is possibly a reason for this (or rather, a person): Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich. Lord Rich, that arch-villain of Tudor history, was an enthusiastic persecutor of Essex Protestant heretics during the Marian years. This enthusiasm was in spite of his earlier zealous support of Henry VIII’s break from Rome (resulting in his betrayal of Sir Thomas More), and his support of Edward VI’s Protestant religious changes. One of Rich’s many manors included his great mansion, Leighs Priory, (located a very short distance from Felsted) a former religious house granted to him by Henry VIII at its dissolution in 1536. Thus, Rich had very strong connections to Felsted and was buried in the parish church in 1567. With the presence of Lord Rich in Felsted, this must have been the reason why Bowyer was taken there, and not to magistrates in Chelmsford. Foxe did record that another victim who died alongside Bowyer, George Searle from White Notley (a village a couple of miles from Felsted), was taken before Rich. So the supposition that Richard Rich was involved in the case of Thomas Bowyer is entirely plausible.
Leighs Priory, Felsted (also known as Lees and Leez),
home of Richard Rich, Lord Rich
That the small North Essex town of Great Dunmow had produced a weaver with such strong and unshakeable Protestant convictions is, on the surface, remarkable. However, the parish of Great Dunmow had already visibly demonstrated that many townsfolk supported Henry VIII’s break with Rome. This evidence is contained within an extraordinary folio of Great Dunmow’s beautifully tooled leather-bound churchwardens’ accounts, now in the care of Essex Record Office.
In the summer of 1546 (the final summer of Henry VIII’s life and reign), the townsfolk of Great Dunmow staged a remarkable anti-papist event involving the entire parish. It is very likely that an impressible 16 year old Thomas Bowyer was also present. This event took place during the parish’s annual Corpus Christi religious play when people from the neighbouring towns and villages came into Great Dunmow for the communal celebration of this Catholic religious feast-day. The churchwardens’ accounts itemise receipts for that year’s Corpus Christi play, followed by the money received from each named local village who attended the play (eleven villages in total).
Entries for Great Dunmow’s June 1546 Corpus Christi feast-day
(Essex Record Office, D/P 11/5/1 f.39v)
[heading] At our playe
[in the margin] Recepte at ye playe Receved at our play & fryste the games of of [sic] the bysshope of saynte andrews and for the shottyng of at the same viijsvijd Rec for the games of our runnyng ijsid Rec for the \games at the/ leapyng ijs Rec for the games of the casell and the shotyng of the same iiijs Rec for the games of the pryke and shotyng of the same xxsxd Rec for the games of the lade pryke and the games of the same vs
Deciphering this entry demonstrates that the people of Great Dunmow and surrounding villages had held an archery competition (the ‘shottyng’) which included shooting bows and arrows against an effigy of the Archbishop of Saint Andrews and at a structure which resembled the Archbishop’s Scottish castle (the ‘casell’). The ‘prykes’ were archery targets set at a specified number of paces away from the archer.
The reason for the staging of this remarkable event was because of a personal grudge of Great Dunmow’s evangelical vicar, Geoffrey Crispe MA, against Cardinal David Beaton. Beaton was the Catholic archbishop of Saint Andrews and the highest ranking cleric in a then Catholic Scotland. He had been murdered by Scottish Protestants in May 1546, three weeks previously to the feast-day of Corpus Christi, and his castle seiged. Beaton’s murder and the storming of his castle in Saint Andrews was in direct retaliation for him burning at the stake the Protestant Scottish martyr George Wishart a few months previously. Prior to his Protestant teachings in Scotland, George Wishart had been a lecturer at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge – the same college and university where Great Dunmow’s vicar, Geoffrey Crispe, had studied and had been a fellow. The vicar of Great Dunmow, Geoffrey Crispe, was a contemporary, friend and associate of Protestant George Wishart.
Three weeks after the murder of Cardinal Beaton and 450 miles away, Great Dunmow used that year’s Corpus Christi feast-day to reenact his murder and the storming of his castle. An event which must have been instigated and supported by Wishart’s friend and colleague, vicar Geoffrey Crispe. This very public celebration of the cardinal’s murder demonstrates that by 1546 there was very strong anti-Pope (and probably anti-Scottish) feeling within Great Dunmow. Moreover, as Beaton’s murder was welcomed by the English king, Henry VIII, the town was visibly demonstrating their loyalty to their monarch. This folio within Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts contain the only evidence for this event, so it cannot be determined if the motivation behind the celebrations was inspired by Crisp’s personal affiliations to Wishart, or the parish’s loyalty to their sovereign, or their changing religious theology. It was probably a combination of all three.
George Wishart (b. c1513, d. 1 March 1546)
Cardinal David Beaton,
archbishop of Saint Andrews
(b. c1494, d. 29 May 1546)
Ruins of Cardinal Beaton’s castle in St Andrews, Scotland.
St Andrews’ castle – laid siege by Scottish Protestants in retaliation for the burning of George Wishart. The English parish of Great Dunmow and its neighbouring villages re-enacted the storming of this castle three weeks later.
It is likely that an impressionable 16 year old Thomas Bowyer had been present at the reenactment of the shooting of Catholic Cardinal Beaton and the storming of his castle. Furthermore, it is also probable that he was one of those young lads who took part in the ‘games of the lade pryke and the games of the same’. These activities during Corpus Christi 1546 was a clear demonstration of the anti-papist feelings within the parish of Great Dunmow, and its surrounding villages. Moreover, vicar Geoffrey Crispe had embraced these religious changes to such an extent that at some point during his 1540 to 1554 tenure of the living of Great Dunmow, he had married and so had a wife. Many parishioners, led by vicar Crispe, had started to embrace Henry VIII’s break with Rome and the changing religious wind blowing through England. However, in June 1556, ten years after Great Dunmow’s anti-papist Corpus Christi feast-day, Thomas Bowyer was burnt at the stake in Stratford le Bow in punishment for being a Protestant. The winds of religious change (Catholic this time, led by the Pope in Rome), instigated by a Tudor English monarch, had once more blown through England and reached the north Essex parish of Great Dunmow.
The narrative about Great Dunmow’s reenactment of the murder of Cardinal Beaton possibly explains why Thomas Bowyer had such strong Protestant convictions: he had probably learnt some of his faith through the parish’s anti-papist married vicar, Geoffrey Crispe. But who exactly was Thomas Bowyer of Great Dunmow, and how did he come to the attention of Bishop Bonner?
The Bowyer family of Great Dunmow occur within approximately ten legal documents, from 1483 to 1529, now held by Essex Record Office. The majority of these documents relate to land located near the parish church of St Mary the Virgin. Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts also contain numerous entries from the reign of Henry VIII for various Bowyers. These entries include a 1536-7 gift from ‘old Thomas Bowyer’ of 3s 4d (possibly a bequest from his, now lost, will) and entries for Mother Bowyer of Parsonage Downs, and Richard Bowyer of Church End. Parsonage Downs and Church End are two locations within Great Dunmow near the parish church. Richard Bowyer was a tenant of church land from at least the 1530s and paid yearly rent to the church, as recorded in churchwardens’ accounts. The final entry for the payment of his rent occurred in the early years of Edward VI’s reign: Richard Bowyer’s tenancy of church land must have been terminated at the time of the 1547-8 crown investigations into church lands. The Bowyer family are also documented within Henry VIII’s 1523-1524 Lay Subsidy returns for Great Dunmow: Clemens Bower (the ‘Mother’ Bower in the churchwardens’ accounts) had goods to the value of £6 and paid 3d in taxes, and Johanne (or, more likely, John) was assessed at 26s 8d and paid 4d.
The records prove that the Bowyer family of Great Dunmow were of the middling sort and were tenants of church land. No records exist to connect the martyr Thomas Bowyer to these Bowyers and he is not named in the churchwarden accounts. However, it is possible that the ‘Old Thomas Bowyer’ documented in the accounts was the martyr’s close relation (perhaps his father). Moreover, a few hundred yards away from Richard Bowyer’s tenement at Church End and just past the area still known to this day as Parsonage Downs where Mother Bowyer lived, is a bridge over the River Chelmer called ‘Bowyers Bridge’. This is said locally to be so named to commemorate the Protestant martyr, Thomas Bowyer. The date when the bridge became named is unknown. However, its close proximately to the land tenanted by the Bowyer family cannot be coincidence.
Bowyers Bridge, on the way to Little Easton c1901-1910
If the martyr, Thomas Bowyer, was related to Richard Bowyer, tenant of church property, and the Old Thomas Bowyer who left money in his will to the parish church, then he would have been well-known to the vicars of Great Dunmow. By the time of Thomas Bowyer’s martyrdom in 1556, anti-papist vicar Geoffrey Crispe had been deprived of the parish of Great Dunmow (because of his marriage). The next vicar of Great Dunmow was Catholic Doctor John Bird – the former Bishop of Chester – who had been deprived of his bishopric because he had married during Edward VI’s reign. Bird, having cast aside his wife, arrived in Great Dunmow in 1554, and became the suffragan bishop (i.e. assistant) to the Bishop of London, Edmund Bonner. The same Bonner, who was the zealous oppressor and burner of Protestants within his diocese which included the parish of Great Dunmow.
Furthermore, because of an unfortunate incident by the vicar, which took place in front of Bishop Bonner in the parish church of Great Dunmow in July 1555, Bird would have been anxious to show Bonner his Catholic allegiance. For this story, we once again turn to the Elizabethan martyrologist, John Foxe, who gave a heavily biased account of this incident in an unpublished manuscript (Harleian MS 42 f.1r-v). According to Foxe, Bird’s sermon that day in front of Bishop Bonner was about the text ‘Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam’ (‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church’). Bird’s intention was to ‘prove the stability of St. Peter, and so successively of the Pope’s seat; but unfortunately wandered away into the account of St. Peter’s fall’ (W T Scott, Antiquities of an Essex Parish: Or Pages from the History of Great Dunmow (1873) p57). Bonner was infuriated by this anti-papist sermon and
stood upon thorns, for he made face, his elbows itched, and so hard was his cushion whereon he sat, that many times during the sermon he stood up looking towards the suffragane, giving signs (and such signs as almost had speaking) to proceed to the full event of the cause in hand. (Harleian MS 42 quoted in Scott, p57.)
The outcome of this disastrous sermon was that vicar Bird broke down to the great distress of the parish’s Catholics and the jubilation of the Protestants (Scott, p58). Vicar Bird must have been an old man in his 60s at this time, and had lived through so many religious changes. So the direction this sermon took was probably caused by the ramblings and forgetfulness of an old man. Therefore, despite Foxe’s insinuations, this sermon was probably not a deliberate attempt to displease Bishop Bonner or to show Protestant beliefs. However, the sermon had displeased Bishop Bonner and vicar Bird probably would have done anything to restore himself to Bonner’s favour.
It is therefore little wonder that Thomas Bowyer of Great Dunmow, whose family had been in the parish since at least the 1480s, came to the attention of the authorities. With Bishop Bonner’s loyal assistant, Dr John Bird, being the Catholic vicar of Great Dunmow, and Lord Rich living nearby in Felsted, Thomas Bowyer would not have been passed over by the anti-Protestant tide of persecution for long. Hence, on 27th June 1556, Thomas Bowyer, weaver of Great Dunmow was burnt at the stake at Stratford le Bow in London alongside 10 men and 2 women.
Modern-day plaque on Bowyers Bridge, on the main road from Great Dunmow to Thaxted by the turning for the village of Little Easton. The age of Thomas Bowyer on the plaque is incorrect: according to John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, Bowyer died aged 26.
Notes on the ‘bishop of Saint Andrews’ in the churchwardens’ accounts Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts has been much examined by historians of the Reformation, Corpus Christi plays and early-modern drama in England. However, the entries on folio 39v for the ‘bysshope of saynte andrews’ and ‘casell’ have been either incorrectly transcribed or misinterpreted. In the secondary literature, ‘casell’ has been transcribed as either ‘tavell’ or ‘tarell’, and then totally ignored, and the reference to the ‘Bishop of Saint Andrews’ has been totally misunderstood. One historian even asserted that the entry to the bishop meant that Great Dunmow was acting the masquerade of a boy-bishop. All historians who have analysed the churchwardens’ accounts have totally missed the connection between the vicar of Great Dunmow to the Scottish Protestant martyr, George Wishart. This connection explains why such an extraordinary event took place in Great Dunmow in June 1546. In the secondary literature, I have found no other references to an English parish celebrating the murder of the Scottish Catholic archbishop. My post today is the first time this connection, and Great Dunmow’s reenactment of the murder of Cardinal Beaton during Corpus Christi feast-day 1546, has been made public. I discovered it in 2011 whilst researching for my Cambridge University master’s degree.
The historian’s craft of teasing evidence from sources
My main break-through came after I had told myself countless times that what I was reading HAD to make sense. The churchwarden accounts were the financial records of a parish church and therefore had to contain information about money either coming in or going out, along with the reason for the income/expenditure. Furthermore, the churchwardens’ accounts were an open record so could be read by any contemporary church or state official so had to make sense in that context. Indeed, Eamon Duffy has argued that it is likely many parishes’ churchwardens read their accounts out loud in front of their parish in a manner similar to a modern-day public meeting. Therefore, the language used in some churchwardens’ accounts imitates the behaviour of the spoken word (Eamon Duffy, Voices of Morebath, p23-4). So I read out-loud the entries about the bishop of Saint Andrews – and, once again, I heard our Tudor scribe’s Essex/Suffolk voice shining down through the centuries. However, I was somewhat startled when the scribe’s soft ‘casell’ came out of my mouth as a loud and clear ‘castle’! By reading the entry aloud, I had cracked the secret of this folio! After that breakthrough, and with a little more research into the men who were the Tudor vicars of Great Dunmow, everything else slotted into place.
The historical analysis techniques I used to decipher Great Dunmow’s 1546 Corpus Christi feast-day are discussed in the posts listed below.
Parsonage Downs and Church End, home of the Bowyers of Great Dunmow
The pictures below are of Parsonage Downs (a small area of land located next to Bowyers Bridge) and Church End (a tiny hamlet next to the parish church). (Photos from 2012 and postcards from c1901-1910)
Parsonage Downs
Church End
Notes about Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts
Great Dunmow’s original churchwardens’ accounts (1526-1621) are kept in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1. All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.
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This blog
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Line 5: Michaelmas Day is 29th September. Originally a medieval Catholic Saint’s day for St Michael, the Archangel, over time Michaelmas become one of the English legal system’s quarter days for paying landlords their rent.
Line 16: Wax for the rood light. The 14 pounds of wax detailed here is probably for the entire year. This is quite a substantial weight so the rood-light (i.e. the candle in front of the rood) must have been quite large. The rood was the cross at the entry to the chancel and often had images of the Virgin Mary on one side and St John on the other side. No evidence survives as to what Great Dunmow’s pre-Reformation rood looked like. As the church was dedicated to St Mary the Virgin, it is likely that the pre-Reformation rood also contained the images of St Mary and St John. Sadly, very few English medieval roods survived the Reformation.
Line 21: corpraxis a cloth on which the host and the chalice was placed on during Mass.
Line 26: ob [in the money column] Latin abbreviation – short for obolus. One-half old penny.
Easter week in late medieval Great Dunmow Line 22: The sepulchre represented the tomb of Christ and was used (or created) in many medieval/pre-Reformation English Catholic churches during Easter week. From Good Friday until Easter Sunday, the church’s consecrated religious items were hidden in their sepulchre and a man was set to watch over the sepulchre night and day until Easter morning. During the reign of Henry VIII, in Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts, there are numerous references to pins, nails, lights and canopies for the sepulchre, along with payments to the sepulchre’s watcher. Watching over the sepulchre was a serious duty for the men of the parish as there are also references for charcoal for the fires burnt by these watchers.
Notes about Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts
Great Dunmow’s original churchwardens’ accounts (1526-1621) are kept in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1. All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.
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St Mary the Virgin, the Parish church of Great Dunmow, circa 1910-20.
Above, Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts (folio 9r) showing the gift from the former vicar. ‘Ite[m] Rec[ieved] of wylyem sturton of ye gyfe of M[aster] Sturton sumtyme vycar of thys chyrche liijs iiijd (53s 4d)‘.
Will of John Skylton of Great Dunmow (January 1533), Essex Record Office D/ABW 8/28. The Tudor scribe who wrote the will (above) couldn’t write in straight lines! The request to the church starts on the third line… ‘hie awter [high altar – this is the end of Skylton’s tithe bequest] of the church – xxd [20d] also to the rep[er]ations [repairs] of the church of Du[n]mowe xiijs iiijd [13s 4d] also to the church of powles iiijd [4d – this is the bequest to St Paul’s cathedral in London]‘.
And here’s the entry in Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts showing that his widow had duly handed over the bequest to the church ‘Ite[m] Rc [Received] of Jone [Joan] Skylton of the gyfte of John Skylton – xiijs iiijd [13s 4d]’.
Church End, Great Dunmow, postcard circa 1910-20.
1538 (or 1539) In primo receyvyd of the lord of mysserowell & for the plowgh ffest – xls [40s] (folio 29r). This entry is ambiguous – did the Christmas Lord of Misrule also collect money for the plough-feast? Or have the churchwardens simply lumped the two events together in one entry? As the two events have not been recorded as separate sums of money, it is more likely the former.
Burning of 13 people (11 man and 2 woman) at Stratford le Bow June 1556,
Colchester Castle – county gaol of Tudor Essex
Leighs Priory, Felsted (also known as Lees and Leez),
Entries for Great Dunmow’s June 1546 Corpus Christi feast-day
Modern-day plaque on Bowyers Bridge, on the main road from Great Dunmow to Thaxted by the turning for the village of Little Easton. The age of Thomas Bowyer on the plaque is incorrect: according to John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, Bowyer died aged 26.
