Chapter XXIX: Traces of Early Times in the Churches (Cont.)

The fourteenth century is covered by the reigns of King Edward II, King Edward III, and King Richard II. The architecture became much more ornamental, and there is a good deal of fine stone-carving.[15] Many beautiful window-heads and doorways belong to this period. A good many aisles were added to the old naves; many of the old Norman towers were rebuilt and crowned with graceful spires; but the work is not all equally good.

[15] See "Fourteenth-century Doorway", on p. 94, for a specimen
of this style.

It will be noticed that the most beautiful spires are very frequently met with in districts that are flat and destitute of the natural beauty which mountains and hills, valleys and woodlands, give to a landscape; and it looks as if the people in different parishes had tried to outdo their neighbours in erecting graceful spires on their church towers.

There are a great many tombs in the churches in various parts of the country, and much money was spent upon them in this and in the next century. They are raised some two or three feet from the ground; the sides are divided into panels and ornamented with rich carvings and shields of arms, brilliantly coloured and gilded. On the top of the tombs are to be seen effigies carved in stone of the man and his wife, lying on their backs, with hands clasped. The men are usually in armour, and their wives in the dress of the time, with strange-looking head-dresses. Many of the effigies are much defaced and battered, but there are others of them well preserved still. It was in the latter part of the fourteenth century that great attention began to be paid to shields of arms, and heraldry became an important science.

But in the middle of the fourteenth century, during the reign of King Edward III, there came a time of great distress. There were the long years of war with France, years of famine and the Black Death. That meant a period of great distress for the country; all classes suffered, and there was much discontent and disorder. These bad times left their marks upon the buildings, especially upon the churches. In some churches work can be pointed out to you which was begun before the time of the Black Death on a grand scale, but finished off in a much plainer manner--apparently years after it was begun. The work had been started, but bad times stopped it, and it had to wait. Those who had begun it never saw it finished, for the pestilence carried them away; and, long afterwards, those who did finish it were not well enough off to carry out the design as it was at first intended.

Still, all through these centuries much was spent on the churches, not only by the great nobles, not only in monastery buildings and the cathedral churches, but on the ordinary town and village churches as well.

The wealthy wool-merchants, especially in the fourteenth century, spent much on the building and decoration of churches. Some of the finest churches in the eastern and western counties of England owe much to them. Then, too, it was quite a common thing for the various trade guilds in a town to have a little chapel, or an aisle, or an altar in the parish church, which the guild undertook to keep up. One guild tried to outdo the others in this matter. All the craftsmen of those days belonged to a trade guild of some sort, and much good artistic work was done, which found a place in the churches.

People took a keen interest in their churches, and we find them leaving money towards their upkeep, towards making a statue, or doing some carving, or even keeping a light burning. Whatever may have been their reasons for so doing, the fact that they did so is very clear.

They used their churches in ways that may seem strange to us; but they looked upon them as their own, and were evidently in many cases proud of them. Each parish annually chose its churchwardens, who had charge of the buildings and the furniture, and these were responsible to the bishop, as well as to the people of the parish. Every now and then the bishop visited the parish, or sent someone to do so in his name. Enquiry was made as to how the priest and the people carried out their duties towards each other. Complaints were heard, and attempts made to set matters right. Some of the reports which were made on such occasions have come down to us, and show often much disorder, and at times much that was evil. But we must not forget that good was also being done then, which was not talked much about.

"The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones."