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Parochial Curates in Elizabethan London1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
Extract
As in other spheres of historical activity, the modern ecclesiastical historian has tended to examine traditional interpretations of the state of the Elizabethan Church in the light of detailed studies of clerical conditions within limited areas. The local approach has cast into the melting pot many well-established historical assumptions. No longer is it reasonable to condemn the intellectual attainments of the Elizabethan clergy in the terms employed by W. P. M. Kennedy as recently as 1914. The wide fluctuations in standards between dioceses—and even between different archdeaconries within the same diocese—have shown the decisive factors to be essentially local: the distribution of patronage, the proportion of impropriated livings, proximity to London or to a university. A definitive picture of clerical standards and qualifications will not be forthcoming until a representative number of dioceses have undergone this type of analysis.
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References
page 66 note 2 The most exhaustive study of this nature has been Canon Foster's, C. W.The State of the Church … [in] the Diocese of Lincoln, Lincoln Rec. Soc. XXIII, Horncastle 1926.Google Scholar
page 66 note 3 Kennedy, W. P. M., Parish Life under Queen Elizabeth, London 1914, 36: ‘… the uniform record of complaints justifies us in concluding that the vast majority of them [clergy] were men of small intellectual attainments … the standard of learning was generally low among them’.Google Scholar
page 66 note 4 Cf. Hill, C., Economic Problems of the Church from Archbishop Whitgift to the Long Parliament, Oxford 1956, 207Google Scholar, note 1, for an abstract of statistical information on clerical qualifications. In London, seventy-five per cent of the beneficed clergy were graduates in 1601. (See the writer's unpublished London Ph.D. thesis (1957)Google Scholar: ‘The London Parish Clergy in the Reign of Elizabeth I’, 100–1.)
page 66 note 5 The Archdeacon's Court: Liber Actorun 1584, ed. Brinkworth, E. R., Oxford Rec. Soc. XXIV, Oxford 1942, ii. p. vii.Google Scholar
page 67 note 1 The attraction of the capital to the aspiring cleric was established long before new opportunities emerged in the Elizabethan period: cf. Chaucer's rural parson who:
‘… ran unto London unto Poules
To seken him a chaunterie for soules’.
(Quoted by Milman, H. H., Annals of S. Paul's Cathedral, London 1868, 147).Google Scholar
page 67 note 2 Cf. The Seconde Parte of a Register, ed. Peel, A., Cambridge 1915, ii, 180–4.Google Scholar
page 67 note 3 Cardwell, E., Documentary Annals of the Reformed Church of England, Oxford 1844, i. 242–3.Google Scholar
page 67 note 4 Cardwell, E., Synodalia, Oxford 1842, i. 274.Google Scholar
page 67 note 5 In 1561, 8 out of 41 curates in London were described as preachers—all in their own cures only (Parker Certificates, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS. 122, pp. 72–97 passim).
page 67 note 6 St. Sepulchure, with a population of 3,400 in 1547, was an exceptional parish in that two assistants were engaged by the incumbent in the 1590's (Guildhall Library MS.—subsequently cited as G.L.M.S.—9537/9 [not foliated].
page 67 note 7 Parker Certificates, loc. cit. 72–97 passim.
page 67 note 8 G.L.M.S., 9234/6, fol. 228r.
page 67 note 9 Burn, R., Ecclesiastical Law, London 1797, ii. 355.Google Scholar
page 67 note 10 E.g. St. Benet Sherehog (vacant 1555–78); St. Nicholas Acon (vacant 1560–71).
page 68 note 1 Nicholas Nicholls served the cure of the vacant living of St. Benet Sherehog for at least 12 years without being instituted.
page 68 note 2 E.g. at St. Dunstan in the East an outsider outvoted the curate of the parish by 11 to 5 in a vestry election for the lectureship in 1583 (G.L.M.S., 4887, p. 235).
page 68 note 3 By 1600 chaplaincies or visitorships existed at Newgate, Bridewell, and Ludgate, while a hospitalership had flourished in St. Bartholomew's Hospital since its creation.
page 68 note 4 William Beckwith, Thomas Harrold, and Thomas Bendlow, all minor canons, held parochial curacies in the city.
page 68 note 5 John Bennet was perpetual curate of St. Mary Colechurch and a curate at St. Benet Gracechurch in 1577; Thomas Pratt was curate at St. Peter West Cheap as well as perpetual curate at St. Anne Blackfriars in 1589 (G.L.M.S., 9537/4–7 passim).
page 68 note 6 B. M. Lansdowne MS. 109, fol. 28.
page 68 note 7 Bodleian Tanner MS. 50, 10, fol. 86v.
page 68 note 8 Cardwell, Doc. Annals, i. 291.
page 68 note 9 The minimal age was raised from 21 to 23 by Convocation in 1575 (Cardwell, Synodalia, i. 133).
page 68 note 10 John Atkinson, assistant at St. Mary Colechurch in 1589, was also usher at the Merchant Taylors’ School (G.L.M.S., 9537/7, fol. 107r).
page 68 note 11 London County Council Rec. Office, Liber Vicar-Generalis, Stanhope, iii. fol. 18v.
page 68 note 12 Ibid., Hamond, fol. 325v.
page 69 note 1 Valor Ecclesiasticus(1810), i. 374.
page 69 note 2 G.L.M.S., 819/1, fol. 15r.
page 69 note 3 G.L.M.S., 1002/1, fol. 143v.
page 69 note 4 Hill, op. cit., 113, 205.
page 69 note 5 St. Bartholomew's Hospital Rec. Office, H.b/1/2 [not foliated].
page 69 note 6 G.L.M.S., 1013/1, fol. 22v.
page 69 note 7 G.L.M.S., 4810/1, fols. 4r–50r passim; L.C.C. Rec. Office, Consistory Court, Liber Actorum 1579–81, fol. 84v.
page 69 note 8 G.L.M.S., 1279/2, fols. 83r, 136v.
page 69 note 9 G.L.M.S., 4457/2, fol. 32v.
page 69 note 10 Bermondsey Public Library, Church-Wardens’ Accounts 1546–92, p. 190.
page 69 note 11 G.L.M.S., 4457/2, fol. 38v.
page 69 note 12 Harrison's Description of England, ed. F. J. Furnivall, London 1877, i. 22.
page 70 note 1 St. Bartholomew's Hospital Rec. Office, H.b/1/2 [not foliated].
page 70 note 2 G.L.M.S., 1311/1, fol. 83v.
page 70 note 3 G.L.M.S., 1046/1, fol. 48v; 1279/2, fol. 154r; 1002/1, fol. 317.r
page 70 note 4 The parishes covered were those within the episcopal jurisdiction. The 1561 list is taken from the Parker Certificates (C.C.C.C. MS. 122, pp. 72–97), the others from the visitation call books at the Guildhall.
page 70 note 5 Excepting perpetual curates, there were only 8 non-graduates among the clergy admitted into London benefices between 1590 and 1603. (Cf. the writer's thesis, 100–1).
page 70 note 6 G.L.M.S., 9234/7, fol. 72r.
page 70 note 7 G.L.M.S., 9234/2, fol. 93r.
page 70 note 8 G.L.M.S., 9234/1, fol. 60r. [2nd foliated section].
page 70 note 9 G.L.M.S., 577/1, fols. 6v, 22r, 27v; G.L.M.S., 4959, fol. 6r.
page 71 note 1 E.g. John Taylor, who was curate to four successive vicars at All Hallows Barking 1570–1607 (G.L.M.S., 9537/3–9 passim).
page 71 note 2 Cf. the efforts made by London citizens to purchase impropriations and advowsons, and to set up lectureships (see the writer's thesis, chapers vi-viii).
page 71 note 3 A. G. B. West, The Church and Parish of St. Dunstan in the East, London n.d., 51.
page 71 note 4 Bermondsey Public Library, Vestry Minutes 1551–1604, fols. 104r-116r passim.
page 71 note 5 G.L.M.S., 4570/1, p. 46.
page 71 note 6 G.L.M.S., 819/1, fol. 15r.
page 71 note 7 Seconde Parte of a Register, i.131.
page 71 note 8 A list of their names—as of all parochial curates traced in Elizabethan London—may be found in Appendix B of the writer's thesis, 604–22.
page 71 note 9 L.C C. Rec. Office, Lib. V-G., Stanhope, i. fol. 30r.
page 72 note 1 L.C.C. Rec. Office, Liber Examinationis Testium ac Partium Principalium (Consistory Court), 1597–1600 [not foliated], sub 23 October 1599.
page 72 note 2 L.C.C. Rec. Office, Lib. Examin. 1591–4 [not foliated], sub 23 April 1594.
page 72 note 3 L.C.C. Rec. Office, Lib. V-G., Stanhope, i. fol. 46v.
page 72 note 4 Seconde Parte of a Register, i. 266.
page 72 note 5 Cf. the episcopal licences granted throughout the diocese of London 1580–95 (episcopal visitation years marked thus*):
page 72 note 6 G.L.M.S., 1432/s [not foliated]; L.C.C. Rec. Office, Lib. V-G., Hamond, fol. 218r
page 72 note 7 G.L.M.S., 9535/1, fol. 154r; L.C.C. Rec. Office, Lib. V-G., Hamond, fol. 252r.