ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



or 40 marks in goods had to furnish a man provided with ' an hauberke, a 

 brest plate of yron, a sworde, a knife, and an horse.' Of the 233 archers, 

 seventeen w^ere harnessed archers (furnished with a leather corslet, etc.) and 

 armed with sword and battle-axe. The chaplains of Clapton and Stanion 

 had each to provide a pikeman, armed with ' palet and pole-axe.' 



This array did not secure a unanimous response. The master of the 

 college of Fotheringhay, with five of the eight chaplains, proved contumacious, 

 and so did the rector of Lutton. One of the chaplains at Apethorpe, one 

 of those at Cotterstock, and the chaplain at Newton were excused from 

 providing soldiers on the ground of impotence, that is, doubtless, of poverty. 

 At Barnwell there was an instance of a pensioned ex-rector, who, as he drew 

 twelve marks from the living, was liable to this array, as well as the rector in 

 charge. It is also of peculiar interest to note that Master John Colnet, 

 prebendary of Nassington, was exempt from the array, in consequence of his 

 being with the king in Normandy. 



Between the days of the French wars and the eve of the Reformation 

 the course of religious life in Northamptonshire was comparatively un- 

 eventful. As to the condition of the churches and the general support of 

 the various religious uses in them during the first half of the sixteenth 

 century, much information can be gleaned from the large number of 

 Northamptonshire wills of the time of Henry VIII in the local probate 

 office. Reference to some of the more important details will be made in 

 the account of the separate parishes, but a few particulars may be mentioned 

 here. It was an almost invariable custom to leave some bequest, however 

 small, to the mother church (Lincoln, and afterwards Peterborough), and 

 another to the parish church for forgotten tithes, for the repair or sustenta- 

 tion of the bells, and for the high altar. Usually there were also bequests to 

 the lights before different images or pictures, as well as to the sepulchre 

 (Easter) light, the rood light, or the light before the blessed sacrament. 

 Bequests to ' the torches ' or great funeral tapers for parochial use were also 

 common. These gifts were frequently in kind, such as a quarter or strike 

 of barley, a sheep, a cow, or a hive of bees. There was frequently a stock 

 or store pertaining to different lights or altars which was managed by 

 the churchwardens, or by special gilds under their supervision. The 

 procuring or repair of costly vestments, altar vessels, censers, candlesticks, 

 service books, and the like, as well as altar linen, was also materially helped 

 by means of legacies, those who could not afford whole gifts of this description 

 being content to leave small sums ' toward ' such and such an object.' It 

 should be remembered that the great cost of all the details of worship was 

 then borne, even in the humblest parish church, by the free-will offerings 

 and bequests of the parishioners, save in the rare cases of an endowment for 

 lights. Church rates were unknown until post-Reformation days. These 

 wills also show that considerable repairs and rebuildings of towers and spires 

 were in progress during the first quarter of the sixteenth century, with the 

 occasional addition or reconstruction of an aisle or a porch. Rood lofts were 

 now and again renewed at this period, and often re-gilded and repainted. 



' Readers of Tudor wills can see how later on they bear witness to the abandonment of the old usages, 

 the re-establishment of some of them under Mary, and their gradual cessation in the early days of Elizabeth. 

 In some parishes the various successive injunctions with regard to lights were but tardily obeyed. 



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