The Growth of Parish Churches

During the very early Middle Ages, the parish system which we understand today, i.e. a smaller area served by an individual church, was gaining strength in continental Europe. When the Normans conquered England this system was also introduced here. Many landholders set up churches on their land.

Building a church and endowing it with land gave the lord (the patron) the right to choose the priest and to share with him the tithes (a one-tenth share of the agricultural produce) of the community. The patron of course got the lion's share. In most rural areas the priest was a simple man with little education who often farmed the church (glebe) land himself and lived like the villagers, from whose ranks he often came.  

Sometimes a lord wanted to have a private chapel solely for the use of himself, his family and retainers (household). This was not cheap. Walter de Clifford, for example, had to grant to Leominster Priory all the tithes of Hamnish, both those of the demesne (the lord's land) and of the villeins, in order to get a license for his chapel (Kemp, p. 87). 
 
It was often in the lord's interest to create a village church. Medieval people believed that if they did good deeds, such as building a church, they would go to heaven sooner after their death. Sometimes people who had committed a serious crime built churches or gave land or money to monasteries to atone for their sins. On a more practical level, building a church would give the lord more control over the lives of his villagers. 

The punishment meted out by manorial courts sometimes involved whipping the culprit several times around the church. Medieval punishment could be gruesome. Hereford Museum has a piece of pre-14th century human skin from someone who had been flayed to death, meaning that he had been whipped until his skin came off. This disturbing object had been nailed to the door of Pembridge Church as a warning to others.

By the time of the Domesday Survey in 1086, many villages already had small churches which served the local population. Ross-on-Wye is a good example of a small place that had its own priest.

Minster churches were often reluctant to give up rights to smaller parish churches. One example is the right of sepulture, i.e. the right to bury someone. Every burial was accompanied by a payment, and this payment was a good source of income for the churches. 

There is an interesting 13th century case involving the priory at Leominster and the church at Stretford. When Hugh, the priest at Stretford, buried a man in his churchyard, the prior of Leominster complained to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Hugh had to give up the body and - more importantly - the 11½ pence which was received by him at the funeral. The money was duly handed over, but a request was made to allow the body to remain buried as it had already been there for more than three months and "would by now be stinking and horrible to look at" (Trevor Rowley, The Welsh Border: Archaeology, History and Landscape, Tempus, 1986, p. 118). 
 
Nevertheless, the most valuable source of income for churches was the tithe. One tenth of the harvest proceeds was meant for the church, but in some cases this amount was split between two or even three churches or monasteries. 
 
[Original author: Toria Forsyth-Moser, 2002]