JC
When
the church at Purley was founded is not known precisely. We know that it was described
as ‘ancient’ in 1125 and recent excavations have uncovered a late Saxon or
early Medieval burial ground beneath the new church hall. A number of graves
were excavated, most of which exhibited the pillowing style of burial in which
the head is pillowed by large flints. This was a practice which had virtually
died out by the time the
Originally
it is supposed that Purley and surrounding parishes were served by priests
based at the Minster Church of St Mary in the Butts in Reading, However
according to its own historians St Mary in the Butts is believed to have been
founded as late as 979 as a nunnery church and did not become a Minster until
after it had been rebuilt following a Viking raid in 1004 when the nunnery
church was burned to the ground. It is possible that there had been an earlier
Minster in
The
One
may further speculate that this church was burned down during the early part of
the reign of Stephen when Queen Matilda was based at
In
the mid 12th century a stone church in the Norman style was built and there
remain today the chancel arch from this church together with a font which is
very distinctively decorated in a style which can be closely dated to around
1150. [for a photo click here] There are also two lancet
windows from this period, one of which is blocked up now. It was around this
time that dedications to the Virgin Mary became very fashionable and it would
appear that at rebuilding the church was also rededicated.
Around
1185 we have a record of a gift of land in Purley to the Abbey of Reading by
Isabella de Sifrewast. It is contained in a charter preserved in the cartulary
of Reading Abbey. Isabella grants a half virgate of land (approx 15 acres)
which was tenanted by Osbert, son of Godwyn the fisherman and his sons. She
left it to the Abbey to decide whether to allow Osbert to continue tenanting
the land on the same terms. It seems the land remained in the hands of the
Abbey until dissolution as when the assets of the Abbey were catalogued in 1538
there was a holding of land in Purley by William Fuller paying an annual rent
of 6 shillings. One of the witnesses to Isabella’s Charter was John the
chaplain and it is conceivable that he was acting as vicar of Purley at the
time.
In
1230 persons who qualified as ‘tenants-in-chief of the
The
earliest record of the clergy in Purley was in 1248 when John, vicar of Purley,
was in dispute with Roger of Hide over a quarter of an acre of pasture in Great
Purley. Roger claimed that John had unjustly prevented him from grazing his
cattle on the land which formed part of the free tenement in Lething, whose
nature and location is not known. John was convicted of acting unjustly and
fined two pence
.
Walter
Fachell (or Vachell) was the son and heir of Roger and Alice Vachell who were
major landowners in the area. He is recorded as being rector of Purley as early
as 1280 and still holding it in 1332 when he had gone blind and a curate, Ralph
Scarfe had to be appointed to look after the parish. Ralph, a priest of
In
1306 Bishop Simon of
Walter
Fachell was recorded by Bishop Martival in 1329 as owing 22 marks to Master
James de Ispan who was Chamberlain of the Exchequer. Roger managed to get
Walter to pay one mark but there was still a debt of 21 marks a year later.
James de Ispan had been prebend of Lyme Regis since September 1302 and had
exchanged with the prebend of
From
1332 when Ralph Scarpe was appointed curate to Walter Fachel until 1361 there
is a curious omission of Purley from the records of institution by the Bishop
of Salisbury. For this period most other parishes have a continuous record of
their clergy and the Registers of Bishop Robert Wyville who was Bishop of
Salisbury from 1330 to 1375 are reasonably complete except for a gap towards
the end of his life in the late 1360s and early 1370s. It is quite
inconceivable that Walter Fachel remained as rector as he would have been at
least 100 by 1361. It is however just possible that Ralph Scarpe became Rector without
the need for a further entry in the Register and stayed for another 30 years.
In
1340 Edward III devised a new tax known as the ‘ninth’ to finance an army to
invade
From
1361 we begin to get a complete picture of the sequence of clergy in Purley as
the Bishops of Salisbury recorded appointments in their registers and these
have almost entirely survived. Robert Younge was made vicar of Purley in 1361
and later in the same year was replaced by Robert Farnetby. Both were presented
by John de Arnhald, Prior of St Edmunds.
This
same John de Arnhald had been condemned by Bishop Martival in 1326 for
committing adultery with Isabella Fynk of Childrey, who was the wife of John de
Hereham. He appealed to the archbishop but failed to sustain his case. He was
ordered to purge himself to ten priests but complained he couldn’?t find ten
priests in his vicinity so instead he was ordered to do penance on the 26th May
1326 but never did it as again he had the sentence commuted this time to a
public distribution of bread to the poor which he duly undertook. In 1355 The
Pope granted John a plenary indulgence on condition that when his time was near
he should find a priest and confessor and be truly penitent.
The
14th Century was a time of considerable tension between church and state. For
most of the century England was ruled by King Edward II (1307-27), Edward III
(1327-77) and Richard II (1377-99) and they sought to lessen the jurisdiction
of the Pope within the realm of England, particularly by limiting his right to
nominate clergy to benefices, and most particularly his right to appoint
bishops, who thereby had a seat in the House of Lords and therefore a powerful
voice of the raising of taxes. Edward III in particular invented new taxes,
many of which were styled ‘grants’ which were levied in quite new ways. In 1371
he got Parliament to make him a grant of £50,000 which was to be levied equally
on all the parishes in the Kingdom. It was thought that the number was 40,000
which would have meant 25s per parish, but in fact there were only 8600
parishes which meant nearly £6 each. This was considerably more than the value
of the living of Purley, which was then valued at £ 4-6-8.
In
the Public Record Office there is a file of excommunications by Robert Wyville
and his successor, spanning the period 1353 to 1390. It is interesting to note
that only one of these, for 1373, carried a schedule of persons excommunicated.
The prime reason for the punishment was that they had omitted to pay even the
smallest part of the annual subsidy of £50 granted by the Archbishops of
By
the end of the 13th Century the effects of the Renaissance were beginning to be
felt. The founding of
John
Wyclif became a strong influence in the area towards the end of the 14th
century and his followers became known as Lollards. The movement was
particularly strong in the Newbury area and in the Chilterns although the
church hierarchy did all they could to suppress what they saw as heresy.
Some
time in the 14th century work was done on
In
1383 Bishop Ralph Erghum recorded that he had received a certificate from the
Bishop of Winchester commissioning him to effect the exchange between Roger
Watford, vicar of Purley and William Battesford, vicar of Wympering near
William
moved to become rector of St James the Greater, Tytherington (Glos) in 1384 and
exchanged again in November 1388 to become Rector of All Saints, Littleton Drew near Chippenham in
Wiltshire. Less than a year later in June 1389 he exchanged again to become
vicar of St Mary's Maidenwell near
In
1384 the exchange with Tytherington brought Adam Wrocwardyn to Purley. Adam was
a member of a long established family whose descendants were the namesake of
Thogmorton St in
Adam
did not last very long as he exchanged livings in 1387 with William Smyth,
vicar of All Saints, Hannington near Kingsclere, Hants.
William
had not been long at Hannington, having moved there in 1386 from Bix (near
In
1391 BIshop Waltham made his first primary visitation to
In
1394 on the 16th August, Isabel Seman of Purley confessed to Bishop Waltham at
Sonning that she had been the concubine of William Smith, former vicar of
Purley for five years and had borne him sons, one of whom was still a babe in
arms. She was made to give up William's company and do penance. Her punishment
involved parading around Reading Market Place on seven convenient days, barefooted
and bareheaded with her hair hanging loose and wearing only an undergarment.
She had to do the same around Purley on seven festival days and the rural dean
was ordered to certify to the bishop that she had obeyed. Presumably Isabel had
moved with William to Chobham and when the affair was discovered she had been
thrown out of Chobham vicarage and made to return to her own parish where she
came under the jurisdiction of the bishop of
In
August 1391 Stephen atte Walle came from
In
early 1394 Bishop Waltham held his second triennial visitation but while no
records of his visit to
On
In
1405 he moved from Purley to St Peter’s church at
John Midderhill had come to
The
next exchange was in 1413 when Richard Atte Water moved to St Peter’s church,
Stantonbury near Wolverton in Buckinghamshire. Richard steyed there a while and
then moved on to be vicar of Little Gaddesdon in Hertfordshire, which living he
resigned in 1424.
Thomas Geoffray & John Ferby
Thomas
Geoffray came to Purley from Stantonbury in 1413 and stayed 20 years in Purley,
something of a record for the time, however in 1433 he too moved on exchanging
livings with John Ferby of Little Bookham in
By
the early 15th Century exchanges seemed to cease. One can speculate why they
occurred so frequently during this period. The answer may be that one of the
taxes introduced was the ‘First Fruits’. What this meant was that in grateful
thanks for being appointed to a living the person concerned donated the whole
of the first year’s income to the bishop. Thereafter the tax was only a tenth.
It was thus very much in the bishop’s interest to keep his clergy on the move and
especially to move them to a different diocese so that he could appropriate
most of the parish income. It is noticable that almost all the exchanges
involved a change of diocese and many involved proctors, who were essentially
livings brokers’ who acted as a clearing house for clergy who wished to move.
The bishops have been recorded as being very opposed to the practice but this
is not very evident from their registers.
In 1436
the vicarage of Purley was vacant, it having been served by clergy from
Pangbourne and St. Laurence,
Richard
Cotton was appointed on
John
Braace became vicar of Purley in 1444. He had previously been vicar of St Mary
in the Butts in
Prior
to 1472 John Strete was vicar of Purley. He resigned in 1472 and in 1476 he was
granted a Papal Dispensation to hold the living of Hinton St George in the
diocese of
In
1472 William Stele was instituted as John Strete’s replacement. During his
period of tenure Purley was left two separate bequests of one mark. The first
was in 1493 when Henry Kelsall, a clothier of
The
second bequest was by Margaret Twynhoo in 1500. Margaret was the widow of
Nicholas Carew, the Lord of the Manor of Purley Magna from 1458 to 1466 and she
asked to be buried in
William
Stele seems to have been a resident priest as Purley was specifically listed as
being exempt from the clerical tithe in April 1487, November 1491 and February
1492 on account of the rector being resident and the living assessed at 12
marks or less. The parish was not excused in March 1489 when it had to pay two
instalments of 3/4. William died in 1505.
Richard
Davy became vicar in 1505 and lasted 35 years until his death in 1540. Richard
was witness to the momentous changes which occurred as Henry VIII made the
break with
Thomas
Edmundes became vicar on
John
Leke was appointed perpetual vicar of Purley on
This
was a very useful method for the clergy to earn a living as he would have been
paid by the relatives of a dead person to sing regular masses for the repose of
the soul of the dear departed at frequent intervals. It would seem that John
was married as he was one of the first to be ejected by Queen Mary.
It
is from John Leke’s time that we have the first of a long series of
Churchwarden’s Presentments. One isolated return has survived from 1553 and in
it we learn that Richard Gatskyll was John’s curate, he had three wardens,
Edward Comber, John Carew and William Hunt. They reported to the bishop that they had a carpet
for the Lord’s table and that all was well. The carpet was undoubtedly the
tapestry of Venus and Adonis which survived in its original purpose until 1904
when it was sold to the
JC 25/3/2008