A WINDOW ON THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND The History of Wye Parish Church by C. PAUL BURNHAM 2015 Published by Wye Historical Society 1 CONTENTS 1. Introduction 3 2. St. Gregory’s Minster 5 3. Wye Church in Lawless Times 11 4. The Church in the Market Place 13 5. John Kempe’s Contribution 15 6. The Reformation in Wye 20 7. The Church Building under Elizabeth 26 8. Puritans in Wye 28 9. The Restoration Church 33 10. Thomas Brett and the rebuilding of Wye Church 36 11. Wye Church in the Eighteenth Century 43 12. Wye Church in the Nineteenth Century 50 13. Response to changing times 61 14. A long and productive pastorate 75 15. Into the 21st Century 88 Appendix: List of Parish Priests of Wye 90 Bibliography 92 2 A WINDOW ON THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND The History of Wye Parish Church 1. INTRODUCTION The big picture of national history is inevitably made up of many interlocking local histories. This book is a local history not only for local people, but to offer a case study of an individual Christian community. The research was initiated in the year 2004 to commemorate 1400 years of Christian worship and witness in Wye. As an important regional centre of the independent Kingdom of Kent, it is highly likely that the Christian activities in Wye began in the lifetime of the missionary saint, Augustine of Canterbury, who died on 26 May, probably in 604. The year 2004 was also the 1400th anniversary of the death, on 11 March, 604, of Gregory the Great. He was the Pope who sent Augustine to England, and who is remembered by the original dedication of Wye Parish Church. While 2004 is also the 1400th anniversary of the foundation of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and St. Andrew’s Cathedral at Rochester, the story of the ancient minster church of Wye probably spans an equal period, going back to the very beginning of the Church of England as we know it. This enables Wye Parish Church to be a window through which we can study the whole history of the Church of England as it affected one community. Certain episodes in this story do little credit to some leaders in the church, but the details, as revealed for example in the Churchwardens’ accounts, which go back to 1515, show the followers of Christ engaging in many acts of public spirit and kindness to needy neighbours. Alongside these, however, was a passionate adherence to what was considered right belief, often extending to what seem now to be marginal details. Only gradually, especially in the last hundred years, has Christian diversity, within limits, been recognised as a source of strength. Today we see the Christian tradition as a many stranded rope, in which some once cherished threads peter out but others re-emerge to prominence after many hidden years. Thus the ideas of St. Francis, controversial at the time, foreshadow the Christian environmentalism of today. In Wye, the pioneering Puritan House Groups and Thomas Brett’s rediscovery of the Parish Communion services of the Early Church are the most obvious examples of ideas that were rejected at the time, but are commonplace today. Oddly, it is scientific thinking that has given us faith to stand back and allow time to reveal what is worthwhile. Heresies, like a flat earth or the phlogiston theory, will be perceived as such. Conversely, a diversity of good ideas enables them to interbreed, and thus richer truth can emerge from their dialectic. In this way the apparently messy and unprofitable subject of church history can have some positive outcomes. This modern history of Wye Parish Church deliberately sets local events in the context of such wider issues, to enable its activities to form a case study contributing to the history of the entire Church of England. Thus it is very different in style from the only previous detailed history of Wye Church, published, undated but probably in 1912, by C.S. Orwin and S. Williams, two Wye academics on the staff of the South Eastern Agricultural College. For its time this was a work of considerable scholarship, and it is excellently referenced to original sources. The present book does not rehearse all the detail and references given there, but has drawn on material they did not examine, notably the Churchwardens’ Accounts and the Vestry and Church Council 3 Minutes preserved in the Canterbury Cathedral Archives and, most important, the Parish Magazines from 1889 onwards in the archives of the Wye Historical Society. It also seeks to make links with features that survive, enabling their historical and cultural significance to be appreciated by residents and visitors alike. There is inevitably some overlap with other publications in the series sponsored by the Wye Historical Society, with the help of the Local Heritage Initiative. Wye Parish Church: A Historical Guide is a well illustrated booklet by Anne Findlay, published in 2006 and primarily intended for visitors. A New History of Wye, edited by Paul Burnham and Maureen de Saxe and published in 2003, has two chapters on the history of Wye Church, one dealing with it as a worshipping community and the other concentrating on the building. Overlap here is appropriate to an overarching summary volume. But overlap with recent, more specialised works has been avoided, and enquirers are directed to other works in the references at the end of the book for the career of Cardinal John Kempe and to Stewart Richards’ book for the detailed history of Wye College. We appreciate that the affairs of the Church and the College have often been closely entwined, and that Kempe was a key figure in the history of both institutions. 4 2. ST GREGORY’S MINSTER The Dedication to St. Gregory the Great Wye Parish Church is now dedicated to St Gregory and St. Martin, but during its first seven centuries the dedication was only to St Gregory, the Great. Although it cannot be verified, it is possible that the history of Christianity in Wye goes back to his time, so it is appropriate to begin its story with him. He was buried on 12 March, 604, which was celebrated as his anniversary, although he died the previous day. In 1225, a market was granted to Wye, together with a three day fair on 11, 12 and 13 March Celebrations on 12 March continued for many years. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- S. GREGORY’S DAY, 1899 March 12th, being the day appointed by the Church for the commemoration of S. Gregory, was specially observed at Wye Church, which is dedicated in part to his memory. It happened to fall on Mid-Lent Sunday; and the penitential character of the services was laid aside. The Church appeared in festal array, as on the great festivals; hymns specially appropriate to the occasion took the place of the Lenten ones; special reference was made to the commemoration in both morning and evening sermons; while “the life and work of S. Gregory” formed the subject of instruction in all the Sunday Schools. (Wye Parochial Magazine for April 1899). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When Archbishop John Kempe established his College dedicated to St. Gregory and St. Martin in 1447, his documentation continued to refer to ‘the Parish Church of St. Gregory’. St. Martin had been added by 1475, presumably to mark the connection with Battle Abbey, which was dedicated to St. Martin, and to assimilate the dedication to that of the College. In 1980 the Church of England moved the celebration of Gregory to 3 September, the anniversary of his elevation to the Papacy. The Greatness of Gregory Gregory is rightly called Gregory the Great. He renounced great wealth and become a monk of considerable piety and theological expertise. But his greatness lies in his fourteen years as a very reluctant Pope. His tenure marked a major turning point in European history, for Gregory was a man of vision who brought about almost single handed a policy change that would mould Europe for more than a thousand years. Before Gregory, it was assumed that the maintenance of civilisation depended on keeping ‘the barbarians’ at bay by military actions. After Constantine, the maintenance of Christendom was also bound up with the defence of the Roman Empire. This policy worked, more or less, while the Empire was strong and the barbarians weak and disorganised. Now all resistance had crumbled, and the unspeakable Lombards were at the gates of Rome. Gregory transformed the situation by developing a new policy of working with ‘barbarians’, which culminated two centuries later when Charlemagne was crowned as a new kind of ‘Roman Emperor’. While retaining defensive forces, Gregory engaged in the most vigorous diplomacy. He flattered the Lombard dukes by treating 5 them as civilised nobles with whom he made peace. The Byzantine emperor was disgusted, and would not recognise the treaty, but was powerless to intervene. The Lombard dukes were very pleased, and allowed Gregory and succeeding popes to reestablish their influence over the church in Lombard territories. Their zeal for the Christian faith is reflected in some of the wonderful mosaics still preserved in Ravenna. The Lombards had been Arians, denying the full divinity of Christ, but by judicious appointments of bishops were gently weaned back to the Catholic church. Copies of about 800 letters of Gregory have been preserved. They show him making similar approaches to rulers in France and Spain, gradually strengthening their links with Rome. But even before he became Pope, he was challenged by the much more difficult task of reclaiming Britain for Catholic Christianity. This former Roman province had been invaded by Angles, Saxons and Jutes, who brought their gods of Tiew, Woden and Thor.