Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps and tables
- Preface: ‘A phoenix in flames’
- Abbreviations
- Dedication
- Introduction: Commune at the crossroads
- 1 A domination of abbots
- 2 The crisis of the early fourteenth century
- 3 Classes of the commune before the Black Death
- 4 The struggle continues, 1335–99
- 5 A turning-point: the generation of 1400
- 6 Highpoint of vernacular religion: building a church, 1400–1548
- 7 Classes of the commune in 1522
- 8 Surviving Reformation: the rule of Robert Strange, 1539–70
- 9 ‘The tyranny of infected members called papists’: the Strange regime under challenge, c.1551–80
- 10 Phoenix arising: crises and growth, 1550–1650
- 11 Only the poor will be saved: the preacher and the artisans
- 12 Gentlemen and commons of the Seven Hundreds
- 13 Immigrants
- 14 The revival of the parish
- 15 ‘More than freeholders ought to have voices’: parliamentarianism in one ‘countrey’, 1571–1643
- 16 ‘Moments of decision’, August 1642 to February 1643
- Afterword: Rural sunrise
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - Highpoint of vernacular religion: building a church, 1400–1548
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps and tables
- Preface: ‘A phoenix in flames’
- Abbreviations
- Dedication
- Introduction: Commune at the crossroads
- 1 A domination of abbots
- 2 The crisis of the early fourteenth century
- 3 Classes of the commune before the Black Death
- 4 The struggle continues, 1335–99
- 5 A turning-point: the generation of 1400
- 6 Highpoint of vernacular religion: building a church, 1400–1548
- 7 Classes of the commune in 1522
- 8 Surviving Reformation: the rule of Robert Strange, 1539–70
- 9 ‘The tyranny of infected members called papists’: the Strange regime under challenge, c.1551–80
- 10 Phoenix arising: crises and growth, 1550–1650
- 11 Only the poor will be saved: the preacher and the artisans
- 12 Gentlemen and commons of the Seven Hundreds
- 13 Immigrants
- 14 The revival of the parish
- 15 ‘More than freeholders ought to have voices’: parliamentarianism in one ‘countrey’, 1571–1643
- 16 ‘Moments of decision’, August 1642 to February 1643
- Afterword: Rural sunrise
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
And for good works, who seeth not that herein they went far beyond us … What memorable and famous buildings, what stately edifices of sundry kinds … What churches, chapels and other houses of prayer did they erect …!
Legend has it that while staying at the abbey ‘in about 1380’, the young Richard II and his wife paid a visit to the parish church. Richard's wife, Anne of Bohemia, expressed a wish that a chantry be set up ‘at the east end of the north aisle of the nave’, to pray for the souls of the kings of England and their friends. True or false, it is recorded that on 18 November 1382 three pious burghers of the town, Robert Playn, John Boys and Nicholas Poynter, paid 40 marks into Richard's treasury for a licence to found a chantry dedicated to the Holy Trinity. They assigned ‘the manor of Bagendon juxta Cirencester’ and ‘three acres of meadow at Bandynton, Gloucs.’ to pay the salaries of ‘two chaplains… to pray for the souls of the king's ancestors formerly kings of England, and for his welfare while he lives, one at the altar of Holy Trinity, the other at the altar of St Mary’. ‘The altar of St Mary’ referred to an older chapel, founded at the peak of medieval prosperity, around 1250, ‘by all the parishioners of Cirencester to celebrate the divine service daily in honour of our Lord Jesus Christ and the most blessed Virgin Mary, on behalf of the whole parish’.
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- Information
- Commune, Country and CommonwealthThe People of Cirencester, 1117-1643, pp. 64 - 88Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2011