THE PARISH CHURCH TO RUSHEY GREEN. 119 
churches, churchyards, etc.,” were inserted. This may have been 
mere phraseology, but it is highly probable that a church did exist 
at the time, and was no doubt built soon after the grant of a.p. 918, 
when the Abbot of Ghent would have sent over a representative to 
take charge of his new possessions. 
There is no mention of a church in Domesday Book, but the 
Commissioners were not specially charged to report as to the 
existence of churches, and frequently omit them in cases where 
they are known to have been built prior to the Conquest. It is 
most improbable that a population of 300 or 400 would have existed 
without a building for worship. 
At this period the church would have been what we call to-day 
a rectory, the parish priest receiving the whole of the tithe. A 
custom sprang up of appropriating a parish church to some 
religious house, for the support of the latter, whereby the whole 
of the tithe was transferred to the favoured monastery, which not 
infrequently made but scanty provision for the spiritual needs of 
the places from whence they drew their revenues. The evil grew 
at length to such a-pass, that the Lateran Council in 1179 decreed 
that in all such cases the religious house which held the tithes 
should be bound to appoint a cleric as its vicar, to serve the parish, 
with an adequate salary. 
The ultimate result of the system was not of course foreseen. 
When the monastic houses were suppressed by Henry VIII, that 
portion (much the larger as a rule, although not so in Lewisham) 
of the tithe held by the monasteries was not returned to the 
parochial clergy, but passed with the other property into lay hands. 
The old parish churches of England thus carry with them to-day 
the story of their former owners, and if the incumbent is a ‘‘ vicar” 
we know at once that the church formerly belonged to a religious 
house, and the ‘‘ rector” to-day in such cases is a layman, e.g., 
at Lewisham the Earl of Dartmouth. 
Acting on the above-mentioned decree, the Bishop of Rochester, 
in the reign of Henry II, appropriated the Church of Lewisham to 
the Abbey of St. Peter at Ghent, the Abbey undertaking to appoint 
a vicar, and the list of vicars is almost complete from that time 
onwards. 
The early church would have been very small, and, judging by 
examples in other places, we may imagine a building with a nave 
30 or 4o feet long by 20 feet wide, with a small chancel at the 
eastern end. As time went on an aisle was added on the south 
side, also with a chancel or chapel to the east, and there would 
have been a bell turret on the western gable. The whole building 
was probably not larger than the Parish Church Hall. In 1471, 
when the Wars of the Roses were dying down, a movement was 
started here, as in many other places, to build a bell tower. One 
William Sprig’s name occurs first on the list, and in that year he 
bequeathed his houses in Greenwich towards the Building Fund. 
His example was followed by nearly every one in the parish who 
