Parish life in mediaeval England / by His Eminence Cardinal Gasquet, with numerous illustrations.

  • Francis Aidan Gasquet
Date:
[1906]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Parish life in mediaeval England / by His Eminence Cardinal Gasquet, with numerous illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in fact, of course always were, members of the corporation- parishioners—and their positions entitled them to respect and gave, no doubt, authority to their suggestions. But the records of the old parishes that have come down to our time clearly prove that “ Squire-rule ” over parson and people in mediaeval parochial life did not exist. Sometimes, no doubt, the “ great men ” of a place tried to have their own way, but they were quickly shown that the “ corporation ” of the parish was under the protection of a power greater than any they possessed—the power of the Church ; and, as a matter of fact, this was so well recognised that it is difficult enough to find individual instances of any great landlords who were willing to try conclusions with the paramount Spiritual authority. To “ Holy Mother Church ” all were the same, and within God’s House the tenant, the villain, and the serf stood side by side with the overlord and master. In fact, at times, as when a feast fell upon a day when work had to be done by custom for the lord of the manor, the law of the Church forbade these servile works, and the master had per- force to acquiesce. In other words, the parish, so far as it was organised, had been the creation of the Church, and was free. “ The parish,” writes Bishop Hobhouse, “ was the community of the township organised for Church purposes, and subject to Church discipline, with a constitution which recognised the rights of the whole body as an aggregate, and the right of every adult member, whether ?nan or woman, to a voice in self-government, but at the same time kept the self-governing community under a system of inspection and restraint by a central authority outside the parish boundaries.”
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