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The Religious Fraternities of Medieval Middlesex

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The Religious Fraternities of Medieval Middlesex THE RELIGIOUS FRATERNITIES OF MEDIEVAL MIDDLESEX Jessica Freeman SUMMARY funeral rites took place, and that alms were channelled to those in need. Yet the type of Fraternities, gilds or brotherhoods (groups of people gild which flourished in any particular place coming together for a common purpose or mutual was determined by differences in population benefit) were established throughout England from and economic activity. Although the shire at least the early 14th century until their dissolution fell under the influence of the wealthy and in 1548. Through the surviving sources, this paper commercial City of London, and included examines the foundation, dedications and activities of the parish of Westminster, now home on a such lay associations within the county of Middlesex. regular basis to the king, his household and These fraternities can be grouped together by location the law courts, much of Middlesex remained and economic interest: fraternities and confraternities, a rural county which served the needs of craft gilds, suburban gilds in the busy extramural the capital as its hinterland. The crowded parishes adjacent to the City of London, town gilds suburban parishes adjacent to the City, which generally obtained a foundation licence, rural such as St Sepulchre without Newgate, or gilds, and hospital gilds. Within a parish, such a busy administrative, legal and religious groups supported a chapel, light, image or altar of centre like Westminster were capable of their patron saint or saints, provided post-mortem supporting several gilds, including one that masses for their members and financial help for the climbed to prominence and gradually built needy, and encouraged a sense of community through up a permanent and substantial landed feasts and processions. endowment. On the other end of the scale was the small rural parish – Edgware for Most parishes in Middlesex possessed at example – with possibly just one or two least one fraternity or gild during the later fraternities subsisting on members’ dues, Middles Ages which, strongly linked to bequests and ad hoc offerings, and tending parochial life, was one expression of lay piety. to appear, blossom for a time and then as (Fig 1 shows parishes in which one or more quickly die away. Middlesex fraternities were to be found.) At their simplest, fraternities were voluntary REGIONAL PATTERNS fellowships of men and women who joined together under the patronage of a particular Middlesex was the second smallest county in saint or saints, whose light, image or altar medieval England, with natural boundaries they supported, and whose feast day they on the south, east and west formed by the celebrated. Members undertook to provide rivers Thames, Lea and Colne respectively. their dead brothers and sisters – still The wooded northern boundary was considered gild members – with a funeral, distorted so as to retain within Middlesex the together with regular prayers and post- manorial estates of Enfield and Edmonton, mortem masses for their souls. For poorer yet incorporate within Hertfordshire the parishioners, bequests to brotherhoods southern lands of St Albans Abbey. The shire were one means to ensure that proper contained some of the best arable land in 205 206 Jessica Freeman England, fed by streams such as the Brent, chapel of St John, at Pinner in Harrow). Crane, Tyburn and Fleet. Husbandry and the In addition, for this research four parishes carriage of produce by boat and cart were which lay partly in the county and partly the only significant occupations, with corn, in London – St Andrew Holborn, St Giles wheat and barley finding a ready market in without Cripplegate, St Dunstan in the West, the City.1 and St Sepulchre without Newgate – are Yet Middlesex suffered from a lack of included. This is because those freeholders collective institutions, as there was no county living in the Middlesex portions attended the town nor boroughs; the shire fell under county’s parliamentary elections. However, the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the bishop the three parishes dedicated to St Botolph of London, and the secular jurisdiction (ie without Aldgate, without Aldersgate, and of the City’s two sheriffs, although one of without Bishopsgate), which also lay partly their three undersheriffs had responsibility in Middlesex, are not included since those for Middlesex. The Cathedral of St Paul parishes seldom appear in the county’s provided a focal point as the mother church records. This study therefore covers 75 of the diocese, and may have played a more parishes.5 important part in the religious affairs of London attracted a constant flow of mig- Middlesex than at first appears.2 Middlesex rants, and one result was that those Middlesex retained the right to elect two knights of the parishes adjacent to the City expanded into shire to represent the county in Parliament, the crowded ‘suburbs of London’. Here but only once, in 1275, did any Middlesex mobility, and separation from kinfolk, meant town return burgess members.3 These were that their inhabitants found it particularly Staines and Uxbridge, and their short-lived helpful to join together under the umbrella role as boroughs may have left a mark, for of their parish church in smaller, voluntary they were the only Middlesex parishes, apart associations of parish and ward fraternity as from those in proximity to London, which well as craft gild, creating a sense of com- obtained a licence for the foundation of munity and providing neighbourly assist- a fraternity in the mid-15th century. The ance. Virtually all London’s extramural county’s largest landowners were eccles- parishes had a fraternity, and several more iastical institutions, with few magnate fam- than one, and these were amongst the most ilies; on the other hand there were several prosperous at the dissolution of the chantries gentry dynasties, such as the Frowyks and in 1548, particularly St Dunstan, St Giles and Charltons, prominent between the 14th and St Sepulchre.6 16th centuries. The other suburban parishes adjacent to Market towns were not plentiful. West- the City but completely in Middlesex were St minster, Brentford, Staines, Uxbridge, and Pancras in the Fields, St James Clerkenwell, perhaps Harrow on the Hill, all noted in St Mary Islington, St Mary Whitechapel, St 1593, together with Enfield and Edmonton, Augustine (now St John) Hackney, and St were the only places that could justifiably Leonard Shoreditch. Gradually filling in be called towns, and much of the county the green spaces between London and West- remained rural in character, with roads minster lay St Clement Danes, St Mary-le- deep in mire in winter. It was not until 1540 Strand and St Martin in the Fields (all three that Westminster was formally granted the once part of an extended parish of Westmin- title of city, and in 1548 about forty out of ster, but never as wealthy nor populous), plus some seventy parishes had fewer than 200 the tiny parish of St Giles in the Fields. Spread communicants, a total of 22,079 (probably around the county were semi-rural villages nearer 27,000 when ‘missing’ parishes and like Thames-side Chelsea, where wealthy strangers are included).4 By the early 16th Londoners often retired. Lastly there were century there were 71 parishes in Middlesex the small, country parishes, usually in the proper. This number included the three northern, central and western areas of the chapelries of St Lawrence, West Brentford, county, such as Stanmore Parva, inhabited nominally in Hanwell parish, St Margaret, by increasingly prosperous husbandmen.7 Uxbridge, in Hillingdon, and St Mary, All these differences in location, size and Stratford-le-Bow, in Stepney (but not the economic activity determine the Middlesex The Religious Fraternities of Medieval Middlesex 207 fraternity, and are also often revealed in in 1379. St Mary-le-Strand had a fraternity, their fundraising activity. Rural parishes and with an unknown dedication, by 1368.9 gilds had fewer resources and depended for funds on a wide range of activities with large 1547—8 Chantry Certificates numbers of participants, whereas fraternities in urban parishes could rely more heavily 1547—8 saw the final dissolution of chantries on rental income, the administration of (the endowed chapels where masses for the which was shouldered by specially-appointed dead were sung) by Parliament, and this wardens. included fraternities, since many of their objects were similar. The 1547 Act proscribed SOURCES landed endowments connected with so-called superstitious practices, for example prayers Two pieces of royal inquisitiveness and ac- and obits (memorial services) for the dead quisitiveness, the 1388—9 gild returns and as well as the maintenance of lamps. Such the 1547—8 Chantry Certificates, make con- lands were liable to confiscation, although venient starting and ending points for this gild and lightwardens often tried to conceal survey. Other sources are royal licences, these assets. The churchwardens’ accounts accounts and wills. for 1588—9 in one parish pragmatically noted the gradual dissolution of such fraternities: 1388—9 gild returns Note yat in ye beginning of yis Queens In 1388 Parliament required all fraternities reign. al ye other wardens of ye church and craft gilds to make a return giving to wytt lightwardens, were put downe. & details of their foundation, government, had no vse in yis parishe: as ye wardens feasts, meetings and property endowments. of St Syth & St Iohn & St christofer wer However, because of the uncertainty surr- put down in ye Latter end of king henry ounding this order, most gilds stressed their ye viijth ^& king Edward^ tyme when devotional activities, as against their fraternal the Landes given to such fraternites and economic pursuits. Responses to this & brotherhoodes were taken away by enquiry, known as ‘1388—9 gild returns’ exist statute.10 for only nine Middlesex fraternities and four of these are found within just two suburban The commissioners sent a written set of parishes, St Sepulchre (St Stephen, and questions to the officials of every parish and the Conception of Our Lady) and St Giles the returns were made up into the ‘chantry without Cripplegate (Our Lady and St Giles, certificates’.
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