![](http://static.cambridge.org/content/id/urn:cambridge.org:id:book:9781846150920/resource/name/9781846150920i.jpg)
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Part One The Realm of the Living
- Part Two The Kingdom of the Dead
- Part Three Tributes and Gifts
- Part Four The Glorious Company
- Conclusion: Dimming the Lights
- Appendix: Testators in the 1524 Subsidy
- Bibliography
- Index
- Miscellaneous Endmatter
1 - Domus Dei
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Part One The Realm of the Living
- Part Two The Kingdom of the Dead
- Part Three Tributes and Gifts
- Part Four The Glorious Company
- Conclusion: Dimming the Lights
- Appendix: Testators in the 1524 Subsidy
- Bibliography
- Index
- Miscellaneous Endmatter
Summary
Theophilus twice uses the word ‘paradise'; and he is describing what he sees as a visionary experience in which anyone who goes into a church is lifted up to a clearer perception of the truths of the Christian faith. The fabric of the building and its embellishments become the metaphors for the institution and what it stands for; the building of the church becomes also a glimpse of heaven.
Andrew Martindale from ‘Patrons and Minders: The Intrusion of the Secular into Sacred Spaces in the Late Middle Ages'In 1524, Suffolk and Essex ranked on a par as the fourth richest counties in the realm: only Kent, Devon and Norfolk were richer. Suffolk had always been well populated too. As early as 1086, it had been the most densely settled county in England, revealing even then an unusual landscape of small, individual freeholdings: it had 7,460 freemen, half the total for whole the kingdom. Nearly five centuries later, the number of taxpayers in the 1524/5 subsidy shows that Norfolk and Suffolk had some of the highest densities of population in the country, with many low-level taxpayers, the distribution of which hints at a population denser and perhaps wealthier (per capita) than usual. Suffolk's parishes, of which there were many, were relatively modest in size. Most of these were mentioned in the Domesday survey complete with a church or churches, some parishes being credited with two or more.
The deanery of Dunwich, which was part of the diocese of Norwich and which lay within the Archdeaconry of Suffolk, was the largest deanery in pre-Reformation Suffolk (MapII). Inparochial make-up,the Deanery was identical to the civiladministrativeareaofBlythingHundredexceptthat the Deanery contained, in addition, theparishesofKelsaleandCarlton, both situated in the adjacent civil administrative area of theHundredof Hoxne. The inclusion of Kelsale in the deanery of Dunwich gave the DeaneryanimportantDomesday marketwithinitsboundaries.Later, Kelsale's gild dedicated to St ]ohn the Baptist was a centre of communal religious focus.
When the deanery of Dunwich is considered in the light of the area's Anglo-Saxon past, it appears as a later religious administrative unit superimposed on a distinct and identifiable area of historic importance and great antiquity.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Inward Purity and Outward SplendourDeath and Remembrance in the Deanery of Dunwich, Suffolk, 1370-1547, pp. 13 - 40Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2001