Who are these men in this picture? Why did they have their photo taken? Why are they wearing similar clothing? Where were they – in Great Dunmow or elsewhere?
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This photo was taken sometime between the 1860s and the 1880s by the Victorian photographer and nursery man of Great Dunmow, William Stacey. It is intriguing and offers up so many unanswerable questions. Can you help? What are the clothes they are wearing? Is a uniform or sports clothes? Are they really in front of a tree or bush – or is it something else? I ask this strange question because it seems that there are supports and pegs to the right of the photo (similar to tent ropes and pegs) which appear to be leading directly to the ‘tree’ – or is it just a trick of the camera angle?
Please do leave me a comment below if you can help out with some of these quandaries I have for this Essex boys from Victorian Great Dunmow…
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Transcription of Tudor Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts (1527-9)
[in the left margin]The churchwardens
Choson Anno
xxjmc [21st regnal year of Henry VIII sometime between April 1529-April 1530]
Thom[a]s Savage
John Clark
John Cooleyn [Collin?]
John Dygby
[This margin note appears to be entered by a different set of churchwardens (or scribe) at a later date to the rest of the page. Analysing the churchwardens’ accounts chronologically show that this folio appears to relate to a period sometime between 1527 and 1529]
1. Dely[er]nd to the sayd wardens the s[um]ma aforsayd [delivered to the said wardens the sum aforesaid]
xxviijs ixd [28s 9d]
2. Item in the hands of wyll[ia]m Sturton [Item in the hands of William Sturton]
xs [10s]
3. It[e]m the halfe yere rent remaining ?? [Item the half year remaining ?]
xvijs jd [17s 1d]
4. Ite[m] res of Thom[a]s wete for the latt payment for hys howse [Item received of[f] Thomas Wete for the late payment for his house]
iijli vjs viijd [£3 6s 8d]
5. Ite[m] resayvyd att the fyrst maye [Item received at the first may]
xviijs xd [18s 10d]
6. Ite[m[ resayvyd att Corpuscrysty feste [Item received at Corpus Christi feast]
xxjd [21d]
7. Ite[m] res of John foster ych was gatheryd wha[n] he was lorde [Item received of John Foster which was gathered when he was lord]
liijs iiijd [53s 4d]
8. Item res of M[ister] Joyner [Item received off Mister Joyner]
vli [£5]
9. Ite[m] res of my lady gatys for washe of ye torchys [Item received off my lady ?? for washing of the torches]
xijd [12d]
10. Ite[m] res of the good ma[n] whale for hawys [Item received off the good man Whale for house]
xs [10s]
11. Ite[m] res of Nyclas Aylett of ye gyfte of mawde bemysche [Item received off Nicholas Aylett of [from] the gift of Maud Bemysche
iiijs [4s]
12. Ite[m] res of poole for halfe yerys rent of hawys [Item received of Poole (or Paul) for half years rent of house]
iijs iiijd [3s 4d]
13. Ite[m] res \for/ of ye hosker yt was solde of the cherchys [Item received for the ?? it was sold of [from] the church]
xs [10s]
14. Ite[m] res on Alhalows daye gatharde in the cherchye [Item received on All Hallows day gathered in the church]
xs xid [10s 11d]
15. Ite[m] res of Wylyem Sturton of ye gyfte of M[aster] Sturton [Item received off William Sturton of the gift of Master Sturton]
16. sumtyme vycar of thys chyrche [sometime vicar of this church]
lijs iiijd [53s 4d]
17. Ite[m] res att the laste maye [Item received at the last May]
xxvjs [26s]
18. Item res att corpuschrsti feste nexte folowynge [Item received at Corpus Christi feast next following]
xxs iiijd [20s 4d]
19. Ite[m] res A hole yerye rente [Item received a whole years rent]
xxxiiijs ijd [34s 2d]
20. Ite[m] gatheryd i[n] the cherche for p[ar]te of the cherche fence [Item gathered in the church for part of the church fence]
iijs vd [3s 5d]
21. Ite[m] reseyvyd for the olde tymber of the same fence [Item received for the old timber of the same fence]
iiijd [4d]
22. Ite[m] Res of Thom[a]s Savage towards the same fence [Item received off Thomas Savage towards the same fence]
xiid [12d]
[From here onwards starts the list of names of all the heads-of-households within the parish and their individual contributions towards the church’s bells. This list will be on a future blog]
Commentary Line 4: Whoever Thomas Wete was, he either hadn’t paid his rent for a long time or rented a large piece of church land/house. £3 6s 8d was a very large sum of money for the time equating to very roughly three or four months wages for a labourer.
Line 5 & 17: This must have been money collected for events held on May Day. The fact that there are two entries on this page for May Day gives unwitting testimony that the churchwardens hadn’t been as diligent as they should perhaps have been. They appear to have been ‘catching up’ on their yearly accounts long after the event.
Line 6 & 18: This is money collected during the festivities held on Corpus Christi day. See my post on Great Dunmow’s Corpus Christi events. Again, as per the commentary above on May Day, these two entries for two years show that the churchwardens were writing up the church’s accounts years after the actual event.
Line 7: John Foster had been playing the lord of misrule – possibly during the Christmas celebrations in the parish.
Line 8: Mister Joyner’s gift of £5 was a large sum of money for an unspecified reason. However, at the bottom of this folio and on subsequent folios, the churchwardens’ document each house-holder in the parish and their individual contribution towards purchases a new church bell. Mister Joyner is not documented within the list so it is entirely plausible that this entry is his individual contribution to the collection. Perhaps he didn’t give money at the time the collection took place, or maybe he didn’t live in the town. Bearing in mind that the entries on this page were written up some years after the events they were recording (as shown by the May Day and Corpus Christi feast entries), it is therefore unsurprising that Mr Joyner’s substantial gift appears separate to the list of the town.
Line 9: I would love to be able to read the missing word in this line! Can anyone help? Were the ladies washing torches! This line probably relates to torches that were used during the funerals of the great and good of Dunmow. The elite were buried within the church and torches were kept lit around their bodies on the night before their funeral. But I’m not sure where the ‘ladys’ come into this – unless the word is ‘lads’?
Line 15 & 16: This is money from the old vicar, Robert Sturton’s, now missing will. William Sturton was possibly Vicar Sturton’s nephew or other relation. The Sturton family were a very large and important elite family within Tudor Great Dunmow.
Notes about Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts
Great Dunmow’s original churchwardens’ accounts (1526-1621) are kept in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1. All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.
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Today’s post is about the contents of Tudor wills and how they can be used to inform the modern-day reader about religion during the turbulent reigns of Henry VIII and his three children. The text below formed one of the chapters within my dissertation Religion and Society in Great Dunmow, Essex, c.1520 to c.1560 from my Cambridge University’s Masters of Studies in Local and Regional history awarded to me in January 2012. The text here is in its entirety from my dissertation so reads more as an academic essay rather than a blog post. For this blog post, I have included headings (to break up the text) and images, my original was both heading-less and image-less. If you are wondering why my introduction and conclusion are so short, remember that this is just one chapter in a very lengthy 100 page dissertation and I had a very strict word count to adhere to. The dissertation’s overall introduction and conclusion was far more comprehensive. I have also had to re-arrange the two tables on this post from their original positions within my dissertations – so Table 2 now comes before Table 1. The research of wills I undertook for my dissertation is very different to my normal genealogical research. For genealogical research, I am normally sifting through the personal bequests so to find evidence of family relationships. But for my dissertation, I had to totally ignore family relationships and go for the ‘other bequests’.
St Mary the Virgin, the Parish church of Great Dunmow, circa 1910-20.
Introduction
Historians have studied the wills of many English parishes to gain understanding about the impact of the Reformation. Eamon Duffy examined the wills of the Yorkshire village of Otley(1) and Caroline Litzenberger, in her analysis of the Reformation Gloucestershire, studied the wills of approximately 8,000 testators(2). Therefore, the analysis of wills is a significant methodology employed by historians to provide evidence for the acceptance (or non-acceptance) of religious changes during the Reformation.
Methodology
The methodology used for this article has been to locate, transcribe and analyse all wills for Great Dunmow for the period 1517 to 1565: 40 wills in total.(3) Litzenberger divided her Gloucestershire wills into elite and non-elite wills, but this division is not possible for Great Dunmow’s much smaller sample. Table 1 and Table 2 displays the results from this analysis and this article examines those results.
Great Dunmow’s 1523-4 Lay Subsidy assessments listed 139 tax-payers and 1525-6 church steeple collection listed 165 donations. From these figures, it can be deduced many wills have not survived. Those that have are
thirty-seven wills proved in the archdeacons’ court of the Commissary of the Bishop of London (originals held by the Essex Record Office in Chelmsford);
two proved in the London Consistory Court (official copies held by the London Metropolitan Archive in London); and,
one proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (official copy held by The National Archives in Kew).
The discovery of only two wills proved in the London Consistory Court is particularly disappointing. However, this has been caused because the registers from 1521 to 1539 are missing.(5) Moreover, the first surviving Great Dunmow will that was proved in this court, is from 1559. This demonstrates there are other inconsistencies within the surviving registers from the 1540s and 1550s with the wills for Great Dunmow almost totally missing. Great Dunmow was in the archdeaconry of Middlesex but many nearby towns and villages (for example, Maldon and Chelmsford) were in the archdeaconry of Essex. Any testator with land in only one archdeaconry had their will proved in that archdeacon’s court (and therefore, now their original wills are held by Essex Record Office). However, testators with land in more than one archdeaconry had theirs proved in the London Consistory Court (i.e. the official copies of their wills will be held by the London Metropolitan Archives in London). Therefore, many wills for the years 1520 to 1559 are missing for parishioners who were the ‘middling sort’ or elite (i.e. they owned land/property in both Great Dunmow and neighbouring villages or towns). The missing registers almost exactly span the offices of two incumbents of the bishopric of London: Cuthbert Tunstall, bishop 1522 to 1530(6) ; and John Stokesley, bishop 1530 to 1539(7). It could be speculated that the missing volumes were lost not long after these dates, perhaps handed over to the Elizabethan martyrologist, John Foxe, for his examination of early martyrs within the diocese of London.(8)
There is evidence within Great Dunmow’s Henrician churchwardens’ accounts which can also be used for will analysis. These accounts document six gifts of money from named parishioners to the church, but the wills from these people have not survived. However, as these donations were likely to have originated from wills, they have been included within this analysis. For example, vicar Robert Sturton’s missing will would undoubtedly contain a bequest to the church, as there is a 1528 churchwardens’ accounts entry ‘of[f] wylyem sturton of ye gyfte of M[aster] Sturton sumtyme vycar of thys chyrche…liijs iiijd [53s 4d]’(9). The churchwardens were diligent in recording bequests and gifts to the church in their accounts. This can be detected from John Skylton’s will of 1533 in which he left a bequest of 13s 4d to the church. This exact amount duly appeared in that year’s churchwardens’ accounts, given to the churchwardens by his wife.(10) Therefore, there is credibility to include gifts recorded within the churchwardens’ accounts within this analysis of wills.
Above, Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts (folio 9r) showing the gift from the former vicar. ‘Ite[m] Rec[ieved] of wylyem sturton of ye gyfe of M[aster] Sturton sumtyme vycar of thys chyrche liijs iiijd (53s 4d)‘.
Will of John Skylton of Great Dunmow (January 1533), Essex Record Office D/ABW 8/28. The Tudor scribe who wrote the will (above) couldn’t write in straight lines! The request to the church starts on the third line… ‘hie awter [high altar – this is the end of Skylton’s tithe bequest] of the church – xxd [20d] also to the rep[er]ations [repairs] of the church of Du[n]mowe xiijs iiijd [13s 4d] also to the church of powles iiijd [4d – this is the bequest to St Paul’s cathedral in London]‘.
And here’s the entry in Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts showing that his widow had duly handed over the bequest to the church ‘Ite[m] Rc [Received] of Jone [Joan] Skylton of the gyfte of John Skylton – xiijs iiijd [13s 4d]’.
Analysis of Soul Bequests [The table below for soul bequests was originally on an A3 sheet of paper. I have had to shrink it so that it fits this blog post. Click it to display it within a new window and then use your zoom facility to increase the size of the text. The wills for Elizabeth’s reign are only up until 1565 as this is the point my dissertation ended.]
Soul bequests within preambles of wills have been used by historians of Reformation England to ascertain religious changes. A Catholic preamble would include words similar to ‘almyghtie god & to our blyssed lady saynt mary the virgyn & to all the holy company of heaven’(11). An evangelical or Protestant might include words such as ‘Almighty God and his only Son our Lord Jesus Christ, by whose previous death and passion I hope only to be saved’(12). Somewhere in between would be other types of soul bequests. Litzenberger divided her wills into three major categories: ‘Traditional’ [i.e. Catholic], ‘Ambiguous’, and ‘Protestant’, and within these categories, wills were further sub-divided. Litzenberger’s categories have been used as a framework for the analysis of soul bequests for Great Dunmow’s wills; as demonstrated in Table 2. Categorising soul bequests have to be handled with caution. Wills were only ambiguous if there were no other bequests indicating that they were traditional. Some wills contain either a final stipulation to the executors to provide for the wealth/health of the testator’s soul, or the bequest for ‘tithes forgotten’. The existence of either clause, it can be argued, was the sign of a traditional will, as discussed below. Moreover, ambiguity might have been a defence employed by traditionalists against an increasingly hostile environment.(13) This strategy of ambiguity by traditionalists might account for the eight ambiguous Edwardian wills made during evangelical vicar Geoffrey Crisp’s time. Furthermore, a Protestant was unlikely to use an ambiguous soul bequest and would almost certainly proclaim their religion in unmistakable language.(14) Table 2 demonstrates there were no unquestionably Protestant soul bequests within the surviving wills of Great Dunmow.
Analysis of other bequests (not family)
There are other limitations when using wills for the analysis of religious belief. Duffy comments ‘wills tell us more about the external constraints on testators than they do about shifting private belief.’(15) External constraints could be the religious policy imposed by the monarch, for example, the Edwardian denouncement of purgatory, trentals and masses.(16) There were other constraints, including the scribe who wrote the will and the testator’s witnesses. Margaret Spufford, in her work on sixteenth and seventeenth century wills was the first historian to observe a will could be written by a scribe.(17) She stated
A man lying on his death bed must have been much in the hands of the scribe writing his will. He must have been asked specific questions about his temporal bequests, but unless he had strong religious convictions, the clause bequeathing the soul may well have reflected the opinion of the scribe or the formulary book the latter was using, rather than those of the testator. (18)
Some wills indisputably demonstrate the testator had not been influenced by a scribe or witness. Great Dunmow’s Marian will of Thomas Baker contains a traditional soul bequest along with bequests for tithes forgotten; and, even more revealingly, an obit and a solemnly sang dirge.
A priest providing Extreme Unction (the Last Rites) to a man in bed, from Pontifical; Tabula (England, 1st quarter of the 15th century), British Library’s shelfmark Lansdowne 451 f.234.
There is evidence of a Henrician scribe who was active in two 1520s wills from Great Dunmow, and he possibly used a book containing standard formulaic clauses. This type of precedent book was not unusual during the Tudor period.(19) The will of widow Clemens Bowyer, dated February 1526, almost exactly mimics the earlier will of John Wakrell (October 1525). Both wills have the same soul bequests (Catholic, as would be expected from this period); along with bequests to the high altar, to Saint John’s gild, to the church’ torches, and to the ‘moder holy chyrch of polye [St Paul’s] in London’. Both wills have a bequest for an ‘honest prest to synge a tryntall [trental] for my sol & all crysten solls yn ye p[ar]rsche churche’. However this is crossed out in Bowyer’s will. It is possible the scribe copied the wording from his precedent book, and Bowyer made him cross it out. Trentals were a series of 30 Masses performed within one year, with three Masses on each of the ten major feast-days of Christ and Mary; the priest also had to perform other liturgical duties throughout the year.(20) This was a substantial undertaking, as demonstrated by Wakrell’s bequest of 10s for his trental. Maybe Bowyer did not have sufficient funds, and so made the scribe delete the bequest. This scribe was probably the parish priest, Sir William Wree who was witness to these and one other will. Also witness to Wakrell’s will was former vicar, Robert Sturton, described as ‘p[ar]rsche prest’. Sturton had resigned as vicar in 1523, so he was still performing some of his previous clerical duties.
Will of John Wakrell of Great Dunmow (October 1525), Essex Record Office D/ABW 39/7. The trental bequest reads (from the second word): ‘It[e]m I be q[u]esthe [bequeath] unto an honest prest to synge a tryntall [trental] for my sol [soul] & all crysten [Christian] solls [souls] yn ye p[ar]iche chyrch \of D[u]nmowe a fore sayde xs [10s]’.
Will of Clemens Boywer [Bowyer] of Great Dunmow (February 1526), Essex Record Office D/ABW 3/8. The first crossing out is the trental: ‘It[e]m I bequethe to han [sic] honest prest to sy [n] ge [sing] a try[n]tall [trental] yn ye p[ar]rshe of myche [Much i.e. ‘Great’] D[u]nmow aforsad’. (Were pre-Reformation priests anything other than ‘honest’?)
Old St Paul’s Cathedral – the ‘moder[mother] holy chyrch of polye [Paul] in London’ mentioned by 7 testators of Tudor Great Dunmow. St Paul’s was the mother church of the Diocese of London, and this diocese included the parish of Great Dunmow. The cathedral was the largest church in England and had the tallest spire in England. The spire was struck by lightning in 1561 and not replaced. St Paul’s was destroyed in 1666 – a casualty of the Great Fire of London. Sir Christopher Wren designed the new cathedral – one of the iconic images of today’s London.
Witnesses to Wills The vicars and priests of the parish were witnesses to many wills. However, the decline in priests as witnesses demonstrates fewer priests were within the parish after Henry VIII’s break with Rome. Sir Edmund Clarke was witness to three traditional wills in the 1530s. Evangelical vicar Crisp, was witness to two Edwardian wills in 1551 and 1553; both with ambiguous soul bequests to ‘almighty god, my maker and redeemer’. Catholic vicar John Bird was witness to one traditional Marian will. The vicars must have witnessed many wills and surely influenced some testators by imposing their own beliefs on their dying parishioners. However, Elizabethan vicar, Richard Rogers, a former Protestant exile who spent Mary’s reign in Frankfurt,(21) did not enforce his beliefs on the wills of his parishioners. Seven Elizabethan wills were written during his tenure, although he was not witness to any of them. None of these wills were unequivocally and unmistakably Protestant: indeed the 1563 will of Gilbert Cooke had a traditional soul bequest including ‘the blesyd company of heavne’.
Priest administering last rites
from The Dunois Hours (Paris, c. 1440 – c. 1450 (after 1436))
British Library’s shelfmark Yates Thompson 3 f.211 .
The limitations of using wills to determine religious belief Wills do not always accurately reflect the complete representation of a testator’s religious beliefs. In an investigation of late Medieval wills for All Saints, Bristol, the author of the study found the wills of some of the elite did not include bequests to the parish church.(22) However, the parish’s Church Books demonstrate that during these testators’s lifetime, substantial gifts, such as gilding of the Lady altar, and the refurbishment of the rood loft, had been made to the church. Furthermore, a wife often made donations after her husband’s death but during her lifetime, on behalf of them both. This generosity would most likely not have appeared in either the husband’s or his widow’s wills. This discrepancy between a testator’s will and the gifts made during their lifetime is also true within Great Dunmow. For example, Miles Docleye’s Edwardian will of 1551 has an ambiguous soul bequest and only bequests to his family; there are no religious bequests. It would appear his will was ambiguous but conforming to Edward’s Protestantism. However, Docleye, who must have been at least in his 50s when he died, had given money to each of the parish’s seven collections for traditional religious items during the 1520s and 1530s. It is impossible to determine if his beliefs had changed or if his will was conforming to Edwardian policy. It was probably the latter. This one example demonstrates that the analysis of wills for religious beliefs has its limitations. The laity of Great Dunmow had been investing in traditional religious artefacts throughout the 1520s and 1530s, but these donations are not apparent from their wills.
The importance of ‘tithes negligently forgotten’ The bequest to the high altar for ‘tithes negligently forgotten’ clause was an important part of pre-Reformation wills; and all ten Henrician wills have this bequest. One of the duties of the parish priest was to pronounce the Great Excommunication or General Sentence to his parishioners four times a year.(23) This proclaimed transgressions against the church; and debts (including unpaid tithes) were such transgressions. The bequest ensured the testator cleared his or her debt to the church and so their soul could benefit from prayers. Furthermore, unpaid debts meant the testator’s soul would be longer in purgatory, so this was an important bequest for traditional religion. Henry VIII banned the reading of the General Sentence in parish churches because it was vehemently against those who appropriated Church property or contested the authority of the Church(24), and, of course, Henry VIII had unquestionable contested the Pope’s authority in England.
This prohibition, along with the Edwardian theological retreat from the concept of purgatory,(25) was perhaps the reason why none of Great Dunmow’s Edwardian wills have the tithes to the high altar bequest. Moreover, the Great Dunmow’s high altar had been destroyed on the orders of Edward VI.(26) However, four Marian wills do have the clause; of these, three also have a traditional soul bequest. These four wills were written in 1557 and 1558; so it is possible this bequest was not included in earlier Marian wills because Great Dunmow’s high altar was still to be rebuilt after Catholic Mary came to the throne of England. In Elizabeth’s reign, Elizabeth Dygbey’s will written in December 1558 (i.e. one month after Mary’s death), also had a traditional soul bequest, along with the tithes clause. This was before the Marian high altar was taken down sometime between 1559 and 1561.(27) In 1564, John Byckner used a variation of the tithes bequest for a will which was otherwise ambiguous; the high altar had again been destroyed, so he left his money for ‘tithes forgotten’ to the ‘curate’. Byckner’s will is unusual because, apart from Dygbey’s will written shortly after Mary’s death, no other early Elizabethan will contains the tithes bequest. If this John Byckner, a wax chandler, was the same John Byckner, who lived in the High Street in 1525-6,(28) he would have been at least in his 60s and so perhaps had some of the old, traditional habits. This confirms the remark, ‘Wills were made usually by the old, who were generally less open to new ideas than the young or middle aged.’(29)
A priest excommunicating a group of people by raising a candle
from Omne Bonum (Ebrietas-Humanus) (London, England, c.1360-c.1375)
British Library’s shelfmark Royal 6 E VII f.75v.
Conclusion
The analysis within this articles has demonstrated that bequests within wills alone cannot substantially confirm the religious faith of a testator. However, it is clear that collectively the wills of Great Dunmow do demonstrate significant changes over time. Bequests to the church almost totally stopped after Henry VIII’s reign, in all probability because his attack on traditional religious artefacts made parishioners cautious. Not a single Edwardian testator made an unequivocally Protestant will, even with evangelical vicar Crisp present. Mary’s reign demonstrated a shift back towards traditional religion, with bequests to the high altar, and obits. The early years of Elizabeth’s reign demonstrate that wills had once again started to move away from traditional bequests. However, external factors could influence a testator’s will, for example, religious changes enforced by the monarch, local vicars, scribes and witnesses, and the age of the testator. Therefore wills cannot provide the complete account of the parishioners of Great Dunmow’s changing beliefs. Moreover, Henrician and Marian anti-Catholic events did take place in the parish with the 1546 re-enactment of the murder of Cardinal Beaton, and Thomas Bowyer’s disobedience to the re-established Catholic Church. Therefore, wills can provide only a limited narrative regarding the changes experienced by this parish during the Reformation.
Details of a funeral
from Book of Hours, Use of Sarum
(England, S. E. (Suffolk, Bury St Edmunds?), 2nd or 3rd quarter of the 15th century)
British Library’s shelfmark Arundel 302 f.77v.
Church End, Great Dunmow, postcard circa 1910-20.
Footnotes
(1) Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580 (2nd edn., 2005), pp.515-21.
(2) Caroline Litzenberger, The English Reformation and the Laity: Gloucestershire, 1540-1580 (Cambridge, 1997), pp.168-178.
(3) (n/a to this blog)
(4) This includes six monetary gifts, as documented in Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts, but a corresponding will has not survived.
(5) London Metropolitan Archives, Diocese of London Consistory Court Wills index (2011), (At the time of writing my dissertation, these indexes were in pdf file format and online at http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk. However they do not appear to be there at present.)
(6) D. Newcombe, ‘Tunstal, Cuthbert’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Online Edition, May 2011), http://www.oxforddnb.com
(7) Andrew Chibi, ‘Stokesley, John’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Online Edition, May 2011), http://www.oxforddnb.com
(8) Personal correspondence, Richard Rex, Cambridge, March 2011.
(9) Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts, fo.7r.
(10) Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts, fol.18v.
(11) Will of Katherine Smythe (1558), Essex Record Office, D/ABW/33/335.
(12) Margaret Spufford, ‘The Scribes of Villagers’ Wills in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries and their influence’, Local Population Studies (1972), pp.28-43 at 29.
(13) Correspondence, Rex.
(14) Correspondence, Rex.
(15) Eamon Duffy, Stripping the Altars, p.508.
(16) Eamon Duffy, Stripping the Altars, p.505.
(17) Margaret Spufford, Scribes of Villagers’ Wills, pp.28-43.
(18) Margaret Spufford, Scribes of Villagers’ Wills, p30.
(19) Correspondence, Rex.
(20) Eamon Duffy, Stripping the Altars, pp.370-371.
(21) Christina Hallowell Garrett, The Marian Exiles (Cambridge, 1966), p.273.
(22) Clive Burgess, ‘”By Quick and by Dead”: Wills and Pious Provision in Late Medieval Bristol’, The English Historical Review, 102 (October 1987), pp.837-858 at p.842.
(23) Eamon Duffy, Stripping the Altars, pp.356-7.
(24) Eamon Duffy, Stripping the Altars, pp.356-7.
(25) Eamon Duffy, Stripping the Altars, pp.504.
(26) Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts, fo.40v.
(27) Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts, fo.44v.
(28) Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts, fo.2v.
(29) Robert Whiting, Local Responses to the English Reformation (Basingstoke, 1998), p.130.
(30) The first two columns of Table 2 have been taken from Caroline Litzenberger, The English Reformation and the Laity: Gloucestershire, 1540-1580 p.172
Notes Great Dunmow’s original churchwarden accounts (1526-1621) are in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1. All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.
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Today, the first Monday after the Christian feast of Epiphany, was traditionally the day of another money-raising celebration in the lives and times of our Catholic Medieval ancestors: Plough Monday. My posts, Christmas in a Tudor Town, told the story of how the people of the North Essex parish of Great Dunmow celebrated Christmas with a Lord of Misrule who ‘reigned’ throughout the Twelve Days of Christmas, collecting money for the church. In 1538 (or 1539), Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts show that the Lord of Misrule possibly also collected money for the yearly Plough-Feast.
1538 (or 1539) In primo receyvyd of the lord of mysserowell & for the plowgh ffest – xls [40s] (folio 29r). This entry is ambiguous – did the Christmas Lord of Misrule also collect money for the plough-feast? Or have the churchwardens simply lumped the two events together in one entry? As the two events have not been recorded as separate sums of money, it is more likely the former.
In Medieval times, many rural towns and villages of England celebrated the first Monday after the Feast of Epiphany as the start of the agricultural year. Ancient customs and religious practices were used to protect and safeguard the plough which was so vital for the coming year’s crops. ‘Plough lights’ were kept burning in the parish church and feasts were held to celebrate the plough. Sums of money received from Great Dunmow’s plough-feast activities were recorded throughout the churchwardens’ accounts for the reign of Henry VIII. As the accounts were only the financial records of the church, once again the accounts do not explicitly state what occurred during the Plough-Feast. However, it is likely that the young men of the town dragged a highly decorated plough from door to door of the richest households in the parish collecting money. If people did not hand-over money, then a trick would have been played on the unlucky house-holder (an event similar to today’s Halloween Trick or Treating). This trick was likely to have involved the young men ploughing a furrow across the offender’s land. So that the house-holders could not identify them, the lads probably had their faces blackened with soot. The young lads were often accompanied by someone playing the Fool – in Great Dunmow’s case, this person could possibly have been the Christmas Lord of Misrule (I have made this assumption because of the way the entries in the accounts have been written.)
The accounts do not state what happened to the money raised but possibly the money was used to maintain a special candle (the plough-light) to constantly burn within the church. Henry VIII banned the practice of plough-lights in 1538 – along with other traditional lights maintained in churches. However Great Dunmow’s plough-feast still continued for a further few years -the final plough-feast occurring during one of the years between 1539 and 1541.
Item Reseyvyd of the lorde of mysrowle at thys Crystmas last wt [with] the plowfest mony at the town declard to the chyrche & all thyngs dyschargyd – xxxviijs jd [38s 1d] (folio 30v, sometime between 1539-1541)
The forty shillings (£2) raised in 1538 and the final 38s 1d were considerable amounts of money in Tudor times. According to Great Dunmow’s accounts paid out to various labourers for a day’s work during the 1520s, the average daily pay was 4d. Therefore, the collection for the Lord of Misrule and the Plough Feast was roughly equivalent to 114 to 120 days labour.
It is interesting to note that the above two entries on this blog post have nameless Lords of Misrule. Other ‘Lords’ were explicitly named in the churchwardens’ accounts – see my post here. I think that this is unwitting testimony that only the Lords who were amongst the middling sort or the elite of Great Dunmow’s social hierarchy were named. Those Lords of the common sorts were too unimportant and lowly to have their names recorded in the magnificent churchwardens’ accounts!
It is possible that the modern day practice of Molly Dancing derives from the ancient practices of plough-Monday. My post The Catholic Ritual Year has photographs my son took of Molly Dancers in Maldon on New Year’s Day 2012.
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Notes Great Dunmow’s original churchwarden accounts (1526-1621) are in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1. All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.
My postChristmas in the Tudor town of Great Dunmow – Part 1told the story of Great Dunmow’s Christmas Day candles (each weighing two pounds) which were bought by the churchwardens in the 1540s and placed in the parish church on Christmas Day morning. Having analysed some of the religious elements of Christmas in a Tudor Catholic town, it is now time to turn to the social pleasures of Christmas.
Today’s post onChristmas in a Tudor town is about the ‘Lord of Misrule’ and his activities. A regular occurrence in Great Dunmow’s Tudor churchwardens’ accounts is that of the money collected (or ‘gathered’) each year by these Lords. During the Medieval and early Tudor period, Lords were appointed yearly by their parish to be the master of ceremonies and thus supervise parish entertainments, revelry and general chaos. It is difficult to find any clear understanding on what the Lords got up to – some historians say that it was for one day only and others say that it was for the 12 Days of Christmas, starting on Christmas Day. Moreover, some internet websites mix the ‘Lord of Misrule’ with the medieval practice of the boy-bishops of St Nicholas. As Great Dunmow’s churchwardens accounts have separate financial entries for money collected for a ‘boy-bishop’, it is therefore unlikely that Great Dunmow’s Lords of Misrule were also ‘boy bishops’.
Unfortunately, the churchwardens’ accounts of Great Dunmow only provide the plainest of descriptions (see below). So we don’t know what actually took place during the Lord of Misrule’s ‘reign’. However, whatever happened, we do know that it raised a considerable amount of money for the parish church – so possibly took place over the 12 Days of Christmas, as opposed to just one day. All the money gathered from the townsfolk by the Lord of Misrule was handed over to the churchwardens to provide funds for the parish church and thus recorded in their accounts. We can also determine from other information in the churchwardens’ accounts coupled with theLay Subsidies of 1523-4, that whenever Lord of Misrule was personally named in the records, he was normally of the ‘middling sort’ or a churchwarden.
The majority of Great Dunmow’s accounts specify ‘at Christmas’ alongside the entry for the ‘Lord of Misrule’ and only two entries don’t specify ‘Christmas’ (see below). Without this extra description, it is impossible to determine if Great Dunmow’s ‘Lords of Misrule’ were all at Christmas-time or were for other times in the year. The historian Ronald Hutton documents that many English pre-Reformation villages and towns celebrated May-day with a ‘Lord of Misrule (Ronald Hutton, The Rise of Merry England: The Ritual Year 1400-1700 (Oxford, 1994), p116-7). In fact, Hutton states that Great Dunmow chose a Lord of Misrule to preside over its May ales (p33) but, as shown below, there is nothing in the original primary source to confirm this assertion. The entries, as shown below, document that all but two were at Christmas, and none explicitly document that the Lord was at May. Moreover, the receipts for Great Dunmow’s yearly May festivities are documented separately to the Lord of Misrule. One of the two entries that doesn’t mention ‘Christmas’ does, instead, mention the Plough Feast (1538-9) and the Plough Feast was celebrated in January, shortly after the activites of the Lord of Misrule. It seems that there is overwhelming evidence that all Great Dunmow’s Lord of Misrules, as recorded in their Tudor churchwarden accounts, took place during the Christmas period.
The churchwardens weren’t precise or consistent with the dating of their financial records. See Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts. Therefore, the dates below show the most likely period in which the events recorded by the entries ‘Lord of Misrule’ took place. The Lord of Misrule appears for every period recorded by the churchwardens between 1527 and 1542. The entry for 1541-42 is the last entry in Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts for the Lord of Misrule. It is not known why the custom died out in Great Dunmow before the end of Henry VIII’s reign as it is well documented that the king had a Lord of Misrule in his court, and his son, Edward VI, carried on the tradition.
1527-1529 ‘Item recd of John Foster ytch [which] was gathered whan he was lorde – liijs iiijd [53s 4d]’ (folio 7r). John Foster was a churchwarden of Great Dunmow from 1530 for two years. In theLay Subsidies of 1523-4, he was assessed as having goods to the value of 25s and paid 4d in taxes to Henry VIII’s commissioners. He paid 12d towards the parish collection for the church steeple. John Foster was clearly of the ‘middling sort’.
1529-1530 ‘Item rec of the lord of mysrowle [misrule] which was gadred [gathered] at Crystmas – ljs viijd [51s 8d]’ (folio 11r).
1530-1532 ‘ffyrste of the lorde of mysse rule – xxxviijs iiijd [38s 4d]’ (folio 15r).
1532-1533 ‘Itm rd of ye lord of mony at Crystmas – 10l s [£10]’ (folio 17v). It is interesting that the word ‘of’ is crossed through in this entry. Was our Tudor scribe about to write ‘Lord of Misrule’ but thought better of it and so wrote just ‘Lord’s Money at Christmas’?
1533-1534 ‘Resayved at Crystmas of ye lorde of mysrewle declard xxxiiijs 10d ob [34s 10½d – the ‘ob’ is the abbreviated form of ‘obolus’]’ (folio 20r)
1537-1538 ‘In primo recayvyd of Wylliam Stuard lord of mysserewle whych he gathered att Crystmas – xl is [£10 1s]’ (folio 24v). William Stuard (possibly ‘Steward’) paid 8d towards the 1530-32 collection for the church’s organ. In theLay Subsidies of 1523-4, a William Steward was assessed as having goods to the value of 20s and paid 4d in taxes to Henry VIII’s commissioners.
1539-1541 ‘Item reseyvyd of the lorde of mysrowle at thys Crystmas last wt [with] the plowfest mony at the town declard to the chyrche & all thyngs dyschargyd – xxxviijs jd [38s 1d]’ (folio 30v).
1541-1542 ‘Receyvyd of Skyngle the lord of myserule that he gatheryd at Crystmas there to ye cherche – lijs id [52s 1d]’ (folio 32r). It’s very difficult to determine the social status of this ‘Skyngle’. There was a Thomas Skyngell who gave 1d towards the 1537-1538 collection for the Great Bell Clapper and 1d for the 1537-1538 collection for the Great Latten Candlestick – but he doesn’t appear anywhere else in the churchwardens’ accounts and doesn’t appear in Great Dunmow’s Lay Subsidy of 1523-4.
Notes about Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts Text in square [brackets] are my transcriptions.
The original churchwarden accounts (1526-1621) are in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1. All digital images within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced.
Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.
Christmas was a significant event of great importance for the ordinary people of English villages and towns in the early Tudor Catholic period. The townsfolk of the North Essex town of Great Dunmow were no exception to this and celebrated with much vigour both the religious and social aspect of this, the most Christian of celebrations. To discover what Christmas events took place in Great Dunmow, we once more have to turn to the exquisitely tooled leather-bound churchwarden accounts of the town. In this handsome volume, between the years 1526 to 1621, the churchwardens of Great Dunmow meticulously recorded their expenditure and income of their parish church of St Mary the Virgin.
Front cover of the exquisite churchwardens’ accounts, Essex Record Office, D/P 11/5/1.
Buried within this book are the financial accounts for various religious and social activities which took place over the Christmas period between the 1520s and 1550s. Only the bare-bones can be gleaned from the churchwardens’ accounts but there is enough detail to gather a basic knowledge of the events at Christmas in this Tudor English parish.
St Mary the Virgin, Great Dunmow
So, over the next few days in the lead-up to our 21st Century consumer-driven Christmas, we shall explore together
Christmas in the Tudor town of Great Dunmow
Christmas Day Candle
The expenditure for a special candle, used in the parish church on Christmas Day morning, first appeared in the churchwardens’ accounts in 1544, then again in 1545 and also in 1546 (the final Christmas of Henry VIII’s reign). It is curious that these Christmas candles do not appear in the early years of the churchwardens’ accounts. However it is likely that these earlier Christmas candles were bought but not itemised by the churchwardens with such precision as seen in the 1540s folios.
The candles must have been substantial items – probably very large and very long – as the 1544 and 1545 candles weighed two pounds each and cost 3d apiece. The 1546 candle also weighed two pounds, but cost 4d – had Tudor inflation taken place? I wonder what our Tudor churchwardens thought of this price increase! Unfortunately we do not know if they were ornate or a simple candles. It is possible that the Christmas candle was carried in a procession through the church, a procession led by the vicar and priests of Great Dunmow at the Mass held for the entire parish on Christmas morning.
Payd ffor ijli [2 pounds] off ca[n]dell att crystmas – iijd [3d] (folio 37v 1544-5)
No further mention is made of Christmas candles in the accounts until the reign of Mary I when there are two entries for Christmas Day candles – one which cost 2d but without the weight recorded, and the other weighing the usual two pounds and costing 5d. The entries for Mary’s reign are not dated, so these Christmas Day candles relate to Christmases in the period 1553 to 1558. The churchwardens’ accounts are confusing for the period of Henry VIII’s immediate successor, the devoutly Protestant Edward VI. Therefore, it cannot be determined if the lack of Christmas Day candles during his reign (1547-1553) was because of his religious inclinations and edicts or simply because the churchwardens did not record the entries with their usual meticulous thoroughness. The Marian entries show that the Christmas candle was enclosed or surrounded by some form of canopy.
Item for Candell on Christmas Day morninge & for nayeles [nails] for the Canapie – ijd [2d] (folio 43r 1553-1558)
There are no further entries in the churchwardens’ accounts for a large candle at Christmas. Below summarises the entries that are in the accounts.
Entry for 1544 Christmas candle – folio 37v
Entry for 1545 Christmas candle – folio 38v
Entry for 1546 Christmas candle – folio 39r
Entry for Christmas candles in Mary I’s reign – folio 43r
Notes about Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts Text in square [brackets] are my transcriptions.
The original churchwarden accounts (1526-1621) are in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1. All digital images within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced.
Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.
Who are these nameless people of Great Dunmow who stare into the middle-distance of their 1860s photographs? Only a few bare facts are known about them – their photos all purchased from that well-known internet auction-house. The first five photos came from a single house-clearance in Sussex, so were all related to each other; whilst the sixth photo came from Ireland.
The ladies from Sussex are all wearing the same head-dress. Are they grandmother, two daughters, and grand-daughter? The small child (boy or girl?) has been photographed against the same background as the two younger women. The lady from Ireland is sitting on the same chair with the same table as the two older ladies from Sussex. Their clothing dates all of them to the first half of the 1860s.
Who are these ladies and child? All frozen for a moment in time through the lens of the photographer and nurseryman, William Stacey* of Great Dunmow. Nameless people to add to the local history of Great Dunmow.
*Even today, there is still a flower/plant shop in Great Dunmow’s High Street called ‘Stacey’s Flowers of Great Dunmow’.
Transcription of Tudor Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts (1526-7)
1. Item ffor ij scaynys of whyte threde ffor ye copys [Item for 2 skeins of white thread for the copys (corpus?) 2d]
iid
2. Ite[m] for lyne & pakthrede & whepcorde when p[ar]nell [Item for line and pack-thread and whipcord when Parnell]
iiiid
3. made the pagantes our corpuscryti daye [made the pageants our Corpus Christi day 4d]
4. Ite[m] payde ffor hornynge of the cherche <illegible crossing out> lanton [Item paid for horning(?) of the church lantern 8d]
viiid
5. Ite[m] for strekynge of ye Rodelyght [Item for striking of the Rood light 13d]
xiijd
6. Ite[m] for a peys lether ffor bawdryk [Item for a piece leather for bawdrick 8d]
viid
7. Ite[m] for mendynge of lede on the new chapell [Item for mending of lead on the new chapel]
iis
8. & on ye gelde on the same syde [and on the gild on the same side 2s]
9. Ite[m] ffor a li of wex for & strykynge a fore owr [Item for a pound of wax & striking before our]
viid
10. lady in the chawnsell [lady in the chancel 7d]
11. Ite[m] payde to dychynge for carryynge of tymber for ye frame [Item paid to Dychynge for carrying timber for the frame [2s]
iis
12. Ite[m] to Wylye[m] blythe for mendynge of ye glase wyndowes [Item to William Blythe for mending the glass windows]
iis iiijd
13. in the new chapell & in other plasys of the cherche [in the new chapel & in other places in the church]
14. Ite[m] pade to burle for the rest of the gyldy of owr lady [Item paid to Burle for the rest of the gild of our lady 6s 8d]
vjs viijd
15. Ite[m] pade to Robart Sturtons wyfe for wasshynge of [Item paid to Robert Sturton’s wife for washing of]
vjs viiid
16. the cherche gere for iij yere [the church gear for 3 years 6s 8d]
17. Item for the bordynge of hynry bode att doscetor & when [Item for the boarding of Henry Bode at Dowsetter & when]
xijd
18. the bell was a perynge [the bell was repairing 12d]
19. Ite[m] laynge of ij shovylls & a mattoke for ye cherche [Item laying of 2 shovels & a mattock for the church 12d]
xiid
20. Ite[m] for wode when the bell was pesyd [Item for wood when the bell was repaired(?) 12d]
xiid
21. Item payde to the belfowder in rernest of ye bargine [Item paid to the bell-founder in ? of the bargain(?) 3s 4d]
iijs iiijd
22. S[u]m[m]a Alloe lvijs ixd & rend ?? xxviijs ixd [Sum of 52s 9d remainder(?) ?? 28s 9d
Commentary Line 1-3: Great Dunmow’s Corpus Christi pageant. See the commentary below.
Line 6: Bawdrick – According to Wikipedia, a bawdrick/baldric was a belt worn over one shoulder which was often used to carry a weapon (such as a sword). (Not to be confused with Blackadder’s sidekick, Baldrick!)
Line 7 & 8 and 12 & 13: Mending of the led, gild and glass in the ‘new chapel’. This must have been a side chapel within the church of St Mary the Virgin. It does not refer to a separate building, such as the small chapel which existed in the town’s centre.
Line 19: A mattock was a tool used for digging. It had a flat blade set at right angles to the handle.
Line 21: The bell-founder. This is possibly the same bell-founder in London which the parish of Great Dunmow commissioned to make their bells in the late 1520s. It is very likely that this is the same bell-foundry in Whitechapel which is still in existence today and cast the magnificent bells for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Bells & the London 2012 Olympic Bell.
Great Dunmow’s Corpus Christi Plays Lines 1-3 above record the expenditure for ‘lyne & pakthred & whepcorde when P[ar]nell made the pagantes on Corpus Cryti day’. It has been suggested that this entry in Great Dunmow’s accounts signifies rope scourges and therefore, Great Dunmow’s Corpus Christi plays were Catholic religious set-pieces involving flagellation. (1) Packthread is very strong thread or twine and whipcord is strong worsted fabric often used for whiplashes. This argument is further enforced by the claim that the P[ar]nell in the churchwarden’s accounts was one John Parnell who was active in 1505 in Ipswich.(2) This John Parnell of Ipswich was given 33s 4d by that town to find ornaments for their Corpus Christi plays for a period of twelve years.(3) Ipswich’s Corpus Christi plays must have been a magnificent event because of the amount of money given to John Parnell. Therefore, if Ipswich’s Parnell was the same person as Great Dunmow’s Parnell, then this connection could be used to support a supposition that the town of Great Dunmow was trying to emulate the more prosperous town of Ipswich.
However, by not just looking at Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts in isolation but also analysing other primary sources from Great Dunmow, it can be established that a Robert Parnell was a Tudor resident of Great Dunmow. Whilst he is not listed in any of the parish collections itemised in the churchwardens’ accounts, he is listed in the Great Dunmow’s 1524-5 Lay Subsidy returns.(4) Moreover, a Roberd Parnell is also detailed in John Bermyshe’s 1526 will as living in one of Bermyshe’s houses in Great Dunmow.(5) Robert Parnell was a resident of Great Dunmow. Therefore, the evidence suggests that Ipswich’s Parnell was not the same Parnell who supplied rope for Great Dunmow’s pageant. Moreover, as the rope was for ‘pagantes’, it is probable the rope was used to support the pageant’s scenery, and not used as rope-scourges.
Footnotes 1) Clifford Davidson, Festivals and plays in late medieval Britain (Aldershot, 2007) p55.
2) Ibid.
3) John Wodderspoon, Memorials of the ancient town of Ipswich in the county of Suffolk (1850) p170.
4) Hundred of Dunmow: Calendar of Lay Subsidy Rolls (1523-4), E.R.O., T/A427/1/1.
5) Will of John Bermyshe (1527), E.R.O., D/ABW/3/9.
Notes about Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts
Great Dunmow’s original churchwardens’ accounts (1526-1621) are kept in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1. All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.
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Saturday 14 July 2012 was the date of the latest Dunmow Flitch: the ancient English tradition of couples proving their mutual love for each other in a court of law and thus winning (or losing) a side of bacon. My previous post, The Dunmow Flitch: bringing home the bacon, gives the background to the Flitch trials and has images of The Dunmow Flitch’s past: from the fourteenth century (during the days of William Langland’s Piers Plowman and Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales) to the nineteenth and twentieth century. Today’s post contains images of yesterday’s Flitch Trials: a very modern twenty-first century celebration of this ancient custom.
Five couples each were separately tried by a court comprising of a judge, barristers (two for The Claimants and two for The Pig/Bacon) and a jury of six maidens and six bachelors. One trial was in the morning, two in the afternoon, and a further two in the evening. My images are of the two couples on trial for their marriage during the evening’s proceedings.
In the town before the evening’s trials
After the trial, any successful claimants of the Flitch have to kneel ‘on pointed stones’ and swear the Flitch Oath. This van acted as the platform to hold the Judge, Court Chaplain and the successful Claimants so that they could kneel on ‘pointed stones’ and swear the Flitch Oath in full view of the watching town.
Shortly after 6:30pm, sturdy yeoman of the town carried the Flitch of Bacon and the empty Flitch chairs to the court-house in Talberds Ley. Successful Claimants are carried on these chairs back through the town after the trial.
Carrying the Flitch and empty chairs through the town before the trial.
The Flitch of Bacon.
The brand new Flitch Chair. The chair was hand made by a 21 year-old student of Leeds College of Art. He was a former pupil of the Helena Romanes school on Great Dunmow’s Parsonage Down.
The original Flitch chair is kept in the parish church in Little Dunmow and brought out for the Dunmow Flitch.
Members of the Court. In the front, the Court Usher and the Clerk of the Court; followed by the four barristers (including BBC Essex’s Dave Monk). At the back, the Court Chaplain, the Reverend Canon David Ainge (the current vicar of Great Dunmow’s St Mary’s church).
Reverend Canon David Ainge, the vicar of Great Dunmow, latest in a long line of distinguished vicars of Great Dunmow; followed by the Judge, Michael R Chapman.
In the court-room
The Court Usher, the Judge and the Court Chaplain before the trial.
The swearing in of the jury: 6 maidens and 6 bachelors.
The swearing in of the first of the evening’s Flitch Claimants.
The shenanigans of the barristers: two are for the Claimants and the other two are for the Pig. The Claimants have to prove that they have never ‘wished themselves unwed’ and are happily married. The barristers for the Pig have to prove that they are not happily married and the Claimants are unworthy of winning the Pig. (It’s all very light-hearted and funny – nothing too serious at all.)
The verdict from the jury for the first of the evening’s couples: they successfully fought their case!
The swearing in of the second couple.
Dave Monk vigorously defending the Pig.
Dave Monk taking extreme umbrage at comments the Judge made about his wife.
The verdict from the jury for the second of the evening’s couples: they also successfully fought their case!
The procession through the town to the location of Great Dunmow’s ancient market
Shortly before 10pm the Court moved in procession from the Court’s location in Talberds Ley, up through Stortford Road and then down into Market Street.
Great Dunmow’s Town Crier and Mayor.
Carrying the winners of the Flitch aloft.
The first couple kneeling on pointed stones whilst listening to the Flitch Oath and Sentence.
The second couple kneeling on pointed stones whilst listening to the Flitch Oath and Sentence.
The end of the day’s proceedings.
The Flitch Oath You shall swear by the Custom of our Confession
That you never made any Nuptial Transgression
Since you were married Man and Wife
By Household Brawls or Contentious Strife
Or otherwise in Bed or at Board
Offended each other in deed or in word
Or since the Parish Clerk said Amen
Wished yourselves unmarried again
Or in a Twelvemonth and a day.
Repented not in thought any way
But continued true and in Desire
As when you joined Hands in holy Quire
The Sentence
If to these Conditions without all fear
Of your own accord you will freely swear
A Gammon of Bacon you shall receive
And bear it hence with love and good Leave
For this is our Custom at Dunmow well known
Though the sport be ours, the Bacon’s your own.
[This last line is normally said to great rousing cheers from the watching audience and the yeomen throwing their caps in the air.]
This Saturday, 14 July 2012, heralds the much awaited ancient custom of The Dunmow Flitch whereby couples from all over Britain (and, in recent years, the world) come to Dunmow to persuade a formal court that they have not wished themselves unwed for a year and day. If they win the court case, and persuade the judge and jury of their love for each other, then they win a ‘flitch of bacon’ (a large side of cured pig). This court is very formal with a judge, jury and barristers: one barrister defends the Pig, and the other is for the couple. Any couple who wins the Flitch is said to be ‘bringing home the bacon’ and is carried aloft on the ancient Dunmow Flitch chair by ‘yeomans’ in a parade through the streets of the town . Once the parade arrives in the market place, the winners of the Flitch have to kneel on pointed stones and say The Oath.
The Flitch Oath You shall swear by the Custom of our Confession
That you never made any Nuptial Transgression
Since you were married Man and Wife
By Household Brawls or Contentious Strife
Or otherwise in Bed or at Board
Offended each other in deed or in word
Or since the Parish Clerk said Amen
Wished yourselves unmarried again
Or in a Twelvemonth and a day.
Repented not in thought any way
But continued true and in Desire
As when you joined Hands in holy Quire
The Sentence
If to these Conditions without all fear
Of your own accord you will freely swear
A Gammon of Bacon you shall receive
And bear it hence with love and good Leave
For this is our Custom at Dunmow well known
Though the sport be ours, the Bacon’s your own.
[This last line is normally said to great rousing cheers from the watching audience.]
If you are in the area of North Essex, I do recommend watching one of these very funny and witty trials. Sadly, this year’s trials will be without the lovely agony aunt Claire Rayner, who died in 2010. She was always tremendous fun at the Trials and gave a wonderful performance to the audience. It was fitting that during the last Dunmow Flitch in 2008, she and her husband took ‘home the bacon’ as they successfully fought their case that they hadn’t argued for a year and a day. She will be much missed at this year’s Trials.
The ‘custom of the flitch’ appears to have started in the twelfth or thirteenth century by the prior of the priory at Little Dunmow – although no evidence has survived to verify this. The first recorded mention of the Flitch is by William Langland in his 1362 ‘The Vision of Piers Plowman’ and his contemporary, Geoffrey Chaucer in his ‘Canterbury Tales’. Both of these authors, writing in the fourteenth century, use words that imply that this custom was, at the time of their writings, well known.
In ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’, Chaucer said
The bacon was nat fet for hem, I trowe, That som men han in Essex at Dunmowe.
Confusingly, there are two places next to each other in Essex called Dunmow: Great Dunmow and Little Dunmow. During the medieval and Tudor period, Little Dunmow was normally styled as ‘Dunmow Parva ’ and Great Dunmow was ‘Muche Dunmow’. It was within Dunmow Parva that there was Austin priory which, according the Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535, had the net value of £150 3s 4d. The priory was dissolved in 1536 under the Act for the Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries. However, before it was dissolved, there is recorded instances of the Dunmow Flitch taking place at the Priory in 1445 and 1510.
During the eighteen century, the ancient custom of The Flitch was moved from the village of Little Dunmow to the nearby town of Great Dunmow where it is now held every four years.
British Pathé film archive
The Pathé film archive has some interesting silent film-reels of the Dunmow Flitches held in the 1920s at Ilford: 1920s Dunmow Flitch
Postcards and magazine articles
Dunmow Flitch
A Note on the Flitch Trials held between 1890-1906, and 1912-1913 Between the years 1890 to 1906, and 1912 to 1913, the Dunmow Flitch was held every year within the town and the events of the day reported in newspapers such as Essex County Chronicle, Essex Standard, Essex County Standard, Pall Mall Gazette, and The Sketch. From these newspapers, the author Francis W Steer of the Essex Record Office in his book The History of the Dunmow Flitch Ceremony drew up a list of all those that took part in the Trials. This list includes those that claimed the Flitch, members of the jury (young men and women of the area all under 18), barristers and judges. The judge, barristers, and jury were all chiefly from Great Dunmow and its surrounding villages.
Sadly, these lists contain the names of sons, brothers, lovers, and husbands of many who marched away to war in 1914 never to return to home. One such person was my grandfather’s cousin, Harold James Nelson Kemp, son of the James and Alice Kemp, first of the White Horse, then of the Royal Oak. On the 1st August 1904 Harold was one of the young jurymen for the Flitch Trials held in a meadow near the Causeway in Great Dunmow. On 28 May 1916, he was killed in action in German East Africa (now Zambia). His brother, Gordon Parnall Kemp, was killed in action the following year in the mud and gore of Passchendaele (the 3rd Battle of Ypres).
Mr J N Kemp of the Golden Lion, The Conge, Great Yarmouth for many years resident in Dunmow has received information from the British South Africa Co that his son Harold has been killed in action with the Northern Rhodesian Force. Harold was educated at the Dunmow Church Schools. He started in life with the late Mr F J Snelland at his death continued with Mr Gifford, under whose instructions he became very proficient and acting on Mr Gifford’s advice obtained a situation in the Council offices at Sidcup where his instructions stood him in good steed. From there he joined the R.S.A. Police and became the manager of the Police Review. When he had served his time he obtained a good situation with Messrs. Arnold and Co of Salisbury and London. On the outbreak of the war he volunteered for active service and now, alas, his end. He was a member of the Dunmow church choir from his school days up to the time of his leaving Dunmow and he will be remembered as singing solo in the old church the Sunday before his departure for South Africa. From Essex Chronicle 9 June 1916
Mr J N Kemp for many years a resident at Dunmow and now of Yarmouth has received the sad news that his second son, Gordon, has been killed in action in France. From Essex Chronicle 19 October 1917
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St Mary the Virgin, the Parish church of Great Dunmow, circa 1910-20.
Above, Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts (folio 9r) showing the gift from the former vicar. ‘Ite[m] Rec[ieved] of wylyem sturton of ye gyfe of M[aster] Sturton sumtyme vycar of thys chyrche liijs iiijd (53s 4d)‘.
Will of John Skylton of Great Dunmow (January 1533), Essex Record Office D/ABW 8/28. The Tudor scribe who wrote the will (above) couldn’t write in straight lines! The request to the church starts on the third line… ‘hie awter [high altar – this is the end of Skylton’s tithe bequest] of the church – xxd [20d] also to the rep[er]ations [repairs] of the church of Du[n]mowe xiijs iiijd [13s 4d] also to the church of powles iiijd [4d – this is the bequest to St Paul’s cathedral in London]‘.
And here’s the entry in Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts showing that his widow had duly handed over the bequest to the church ‘Ite[m] Rc [Received] of Jone [Joan] Skylton of the gyfte of John Skylton – xiijs iiijd [13s 4d]’.
Church End, Great Dunmow, postcard circa 1910-20.
1538 (or 1539) In primo receyvyd of the lord of mysserowell & for the plowgh ffest – xls [40s] (folio 29r). This entry is ambiguous – did the Christmas Lord of Misrule also collect money for the plough-feast? Or have the churchwardens simply lumped the two events together in one entry? As the two events have not been recorded as separate sums of money, it is more likely the former.
After the trial, any successful claimants of the Flitch have to kneel ‘on pointed stones’ and swear the Flitch Oath. This van acted as the platform to hold the Judge, Court Chaplain and the successful Claimants so that they could kneel on ‘pointed stones’ and swear the Flitch Oath in full view of the watching town.
Shortly after 6:30pm, sturdy yeoman of the town carried the Flitch of Bacon and the empty Flitch chairs to the court-house in Talberds Ley. Successful Claimants are carried on these chairs back through the town after the trial.
Carrying the Flitch and empty chairs through the town before the trial.
The Flitch of Bacon.
The brand new Flitch Chair. The chair was hand made by a 21 year-old student of Leeds College of Art. He was a former pupil of the Helena Romanes school on Great Dunmow’s 
The original Flitch chair is kept in the parish church in Little Dunmow and brought out for the Dunmow Flitch.
Members of the Court. In the front, the Court Usher and the Clerk of the Court; followed by the four barristers (including BBC Essex’s Dave Monk). At the back, the Court Chaplain, the Reverend Canon David Ainge (the current vicar of Great Dunmow’s St Mary’s church).
Reverend Canon David Ainge, the vicar of Great Dunmow, latest in a long line of distinguished vicars of Great Dunmow; followed by the Judge, Michael R Chapman.
The Court Usher, the Judge and the Court Chaplain before the trial.
The swearing in of the jury: 6 maidens and 6 bachelors.
The swearing in of the first of the evening’s Flitch Claimants.
The shenanigans of the barristers: two are for the Claimants and the other two are for the Pig. The Claimants have to prove that they have never ‘wished themselves unwed’ and are happily married. The barristers for the Pig have to prove that they are not happily married and the Claimants are unworthy of winning the Pig. (It’s all very light-hearted and funny – nothing too serious at all.)
The verdict from the jury for the first of the evening’s couples: they successfully fought their case!
The swearing in of the second couple.
Dave Monk vigorously defending the Pig.
Dave Monk taking extreme umbrage at comments the Judge made about his wife.
The verdict from the jury for the second of the evening’s couples: they also successfully fought their case!
Shortly before 10pm the Court moved in procession from the Court’s location in Talberds Ley, up through Stortford Road and then down into Market Street.
Great Dunmow’s Town Crier and Mayor.
Carrying the winners of the Flitch aloft.
The first couple kneeling on pointed stones whilst listening to the Flitch Oath and Sentence.
The second couple kneeling on pointed stones whilst listening to the Flitch Oath and Sentence.
The end of the day’s proceedings.
