Estate Management in the Winchester Diocese Before and After the Interregnum: a Missed Opportunity

Proc. Hampshire Field Club Archaeol. Soc. 61, 2006, 182-199 (Hampshire Studies 2006) ESTATE MANAGEMENT IN THE WINCHESTER DIOCESE BEFORE AND AFTER THE INTERREGNUM: A MISSED OPPORTUNITY By ANDREW THOMSON ABSTRACT specific in the case of the cathedral and that, over allocation of moneys, the bishop seems The focus of this article is the management of the to have been largely his own man. Business at episcopal and cathedral estates of the diocese of Win the cathedral was conducted by a 'board', that chester in the seventeenth century. The cathedral is, the dean and chapter. Responsibilities in estates have hardly been examined hitherto and the diocese or at the cathedral, however, were previous discussions of the bishop's estates draw ques often similar if not identical. Whether it was a tionable conclusions. This article will show that the new bishop's palace or a new chapter house, cathedral, but not the bishop, switched from leasing both bishop and cathedral clergy had to think, for 'lives' to 'terms'. Olhenvise, either through neglect sometimes, at least, not just of themselves and or cowardice in the face of the landed classes, neither their immediate gains from the spoils, but also really exploited 'early surrenders' or switched from, of the long term. Money was set aside accord leasing to the more profitable direct farming. Rental ingly. This came from the resources at the income remained static, therefore, with serious impli bishop's disposal - mainly income from his cations for the ministry of the Church. estates - and the cathedral's income before the distribution of dividends to individual canons. Both the bishop and the cathedral enjoyed INTRODUCTION impressive portfolios of property. The bishop's estates comprised at least 50 manors, the Ownership and management of estates, cathedral's nearer 20. The cathedral had though secular activities, were central to the some 25 rectories, the bishop three or four at operations of both bishops and cathedrals. most. Likewise the cathedral appears to have Property generated the money which enabled possessed many more tenements, mainly in them to finance and thus fulfil their respec Winchester, than the bishop.1 Both enjoyed, tive duties. Bishops could not have repaired between them, an assortment of liberties, their palaces, travelled their dioceses, offered boroughs, messuages, woods, mills, crofts, and hospitality, given charity, made bequests, or fishing rights. Episcopal properties stretched asserted any independence without money. over seven southern counties from Surrey to Cathedrals likewise could not have maintained Somerset. The cathedral's possessions were their buildings, offered charity, or supplied a somewhat more clustered and mainly in musical establishment without income from Hampshire and Wiltshire, but with outlying their estates. properties as far afield as Somerset and Den It might be thought that a distinction should bighshire. It will be clear from all this that both be drawn between the respective responsi institutions commanded considerable resources bilities of the bishop, an individual, and the but, as will be shown in a later section, the cathedral, a corporation, but such a distinc bishop was much richer than the cathedral. tion is not very meaningful in this context. It In the middle of the seventeenth century is true that spending commitments were more there was, of course, the almighty explosion 182 THOMSON: ESTATE MANAGEMENT IN THE WINCHESTER DIOCESE BEFORE AND AFTER THE INTERREGNUM 183 of the Civil Wars. In quick succession came Charles II, after them, had expressed concern, the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, considering £80 to be a 'competent' annual when church land was seized and sold, and the income.6 A crescendo of complaint climaxed in Restoration, when the lands were recovered. Queen Anne's bounty in the next century.7 Information about sales of the bishop's estates It was possible to tackle the problem less appears to have survived,2 but, momentous drastically than by the sequestration of church though these disruptions must have been, property, as under Cromwell, or by the alloca little seems to have survived concerning sales tion of First Fruits and Tenths, as under Queen of cathedral properties by the trustees of the Anne. The letters of Charles I and Charles II Commonwealth.3 Quite astonishingly, nothing urged deans, chapters, and bishops to transfer at all is recorded about the recovery of their surplus profits from their endowments to property by either bishop or dean and chapter augment parish clergy stipends. Winchester at the Restoration. The respective records of cathedral chapter had long adopted this course. both bodies simply resume in the autumn of The wills of Dean Clarke and Bishop Morley, 1660 without comment, as it were, and as if both after the Restoration, addressed the issue. nothing had happened. Although commendable, the scale of such Sequestration and restoration of these lands giving was far too modest an inroad. Contem would make a fascinating story. As it is, too porary opinion as high as the crown considered few documents have survived to tell the tale greater transfers from episcopal and cathedral and, in any case, the point of this enquiry is endowments to be the best solution. the long- term impact of mid-century disrup The need to finance all these activities - tion on ecclesiastical estate management. It whether usual and routine, such as building will focus on the 1630s and the 1670s- the repairs, or the newer expectations concerning decades immediately before and after the dis augmentations - raises questions about the ruption - and will compare practice, episcopal quality of estate management by the bishops and cathedral, in order to determine what, if and the cathedral clergy. Phyllis Hembry has anything, changed in the case of either body examined the estates of the bishops of Bath and over this period. Wells before 1660 and Christopher Clay has In one extremely important way, the surveyed management of ecclesiastical estates Interregnum is highly relevant to this study. after 1660. A number of writers have included The sequestration of church lands, already some discussion of property management in mentioned, was for a purpose: it was one way their histories of dioceses and cathedrals. It of addressing and augmenting clergy stipends.4 is also possible to trace developments in the This activity in the 1650s shows that, far from published chapter act books of other cathe being anachronistic and far from such issues drals. For Winchester, Felicity Heal has studied arising only in the 1830s or 1850s, re-direction the bishops' leasing records of the 1630s, of church income was a central concern of at comparing them with Canterbury and Chich least a proportion of the political population of ester, and Clay makes occasional reference to mid-seventeenth century England. both episcopal and cathedral estates in this Ecclesiastical stipends were certainly low. A diocese. There is no detailed account of these sample of some thirty parishes in the diocese estates and certainly no attempt to expose how shows annual average stipends at £57 in the far its management changed - or remained the 8 1650s and £77 by the early eighteenth century/' same - after the Interregnum. Parish clergy came above farmers and artisans, Writing about the stewardship of bishops Neile on the social scale, but below lawyers, merchants, (1628-32) and Curl (1632-47), Heal claims and gentry, let alone knights and peers. The that they subverted the instructions of Charles implications of such penury for the church's I and Archbishop Laud, that they persisted in ministry was not the monopoly merely of the the practice of leasing for 'lives' rather than for revolutionaries. Charles I, before the Wars, and 'terms', and that they exercised an early surrender 184 HAMPSHIRE FIELD CLUB AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY policy on their lessees. They were able, by these to which an early surrender policy was pursued. means, to exact larger entry fines and at more It will next examine whether any alternative frequent intervals. This, she concludes, was 'intel policy was tried. It will conclude by discussing ligent exploitation of the three-lease life'.9 the effects, if any, of these developments on If evidence is wanting for Winchester in the respective incomes of the bishop and the the Interregnum, it is much more plentiful cathedral. All this should show, in short, how before and afterwards. Heal relied on surviving 'intelligent' was the management of these bishops' lease books and these are indeed estates in the seventeenth century. a crucial source for any study of the Bishop of Winchester's leasing record before - and after- the Interregnum. For the bishop there LEASING FOR LIVES OR TERMS are also the Winchester pipe books, which are at first continuous, but, for the seventeenth Leasing- whether to lease for lives or for a century, more intermittent and often damaged term of years - was a central issue for eccle or incomplete. Winchester Cathedral has siastical finance in the seventeenth century. excellent series of ledgers and compotus rolls. Lessees appear to have preferred leasing for Much evidence can be gathered from all these lives. Such leases were not without risks as lives sources to reconstruct, more thoroughly and could end prematurely; but they were usually with a wider range than formerly, the leasing thought to be safer because three lives were policy of the bishop and the cathedral. involved, safer still if they were young lives. The The statistical foundations of this article rest lessee would never face renewal problems if on sample periods of years in the 1630s and his was one of the lives. Bishops and cathedrals 1670s. Lease documentation before the Wars is were able to exact larger fines for these leases. not quite so plentiful for the bishops as for the Leasing for a 'term' of years had the advantage cathedral.

Load more