Dear All,
Continuing the conversation on churches and pubs. I am sure I read
somewhere that inns (ie places where travellers could stay) in
medieval times were often run by the parish priests as part of their
ministry of hospitality.
The lord of the manor was often responsible for appointing the priest
and would also often invest (for the good of his soul, his power-base
or his purse?) in providing the priest's house and the inn, possibly
the same building, and would they would also have been a major
investor in the medieval churches. For this reason pubs were often
given the sign of the coat of arms of the lord of the manor. (Remember
that in those days beer was the drink of choice so every housewife
would have brewed their own, and the innkeeper would have had to brew
enough for all-comers.)
Just a quick Google search brought up this site:
http://www.britainexpress.com/History/TheMedievalChurch.htm
which says
"Medieval Churches and Monasteries
Apart from the manor, the church was the main focus of community life.
Church parishes were usually the manor villages.
The parish priest was appointed by the lord of the manor and was given
a house. He was obliged to carry money for alms with him, keep up the
church, and provide hospitality to travellers."
Such a simple model of society and useful, but open as all human
schemes to corruption and decay. Eventually many lords of the manor
would in time appoint members of their own families to the sinecure of
the 'living' of 'their' churches, take the tithes of the people for
their own use. Many of these Rectors appoint at a lower stipend,
'vicars' to do the actual priestly duties, who in turn might appoint
at even lower stipends, 'curates', often seldom even visiting their
parish.
Lords of the manor would also run the inn as a money-making enterprise
and install tenant publicans. (I don't have evidence for this - I'm
sure someone interested in pubs will have written a treatise on the
subject.)
Eventually as we all know, Henry VIII (Tudor, and grandson of a welsh
Lord of the Manor) spotted that the Church had become rich and corrupt
and thought he could acquire for his own purposes their wealth - hence
the dissolution of the monasteries (it wasn't all to do with his need
for a male heir or his marital plans for Ann Boleyn, and he wasn't
really a protestant as later chapel people would understand it, he
just didn't want to be subject to any other person on earth, including
the pope). One of the tings he did was to buy the support of Lords of
the manor by giving them, instead of the church as whole, the right to
the tithes.
For instance, the rites of the church were largely unchanged apart
from being in English rather than Latin, until the Civil War of the
C17th. And the system of church patronage continues to this day in the
Church of England (I think the disestablishment** of the Church in
Wales in 1914 may have ended this in Wales - see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_in_Wales#Disestablishment).
Tithes in England and Wales continued until 1836 (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe#England).
** Do you remember as children we used to tease with
"Antidisestablishmentarian is a very long word, can you spell it? and
then burst into giggles when the naive victim started "A N ...", "no,
no no you spell it I T" ?- I wonder if that is still going the rounds?
There are many arguments about whether Henry's dissolution of the
monasteries and Anglification of the Church was a good or bad thing.
Probably, as in so many cases, it was both, or in some case good and
some bad. But that is another [off] topic.
For family historians these changes produced documents relating to the
'commuting' of tithes etc.
The evolution of the church 'hostel' into market inn, then
drinking-den, male retreat and latterly family-friendly country eating
house together with the Victorian Tea-Total movement is another topic
which also has records which might be of interest to the family
historian. Chapels would often have registers of those who 'signed the
pledge' and children's 'Band of Hope' members etc.
Personally I've never had the opportunity to investigate these but
some day I'd like to. Maybe eventually they'll be put online.
Phyllis