CONSECRATION OF PARISH CHURCHES 337 



but they were their original type, and in the private chapels or 

 " field churches " of the greater landowners are seen the germs of a 

 further extension of a parochial system. 



The law of Edgar remained unaltered at the Conquest. Practically 

 re-enacted by Canute and by Edward the Confessor, it was accepted 

 by William the Conqueror. As years passed, district or parochial 

 churches were multiplied by their voluntary founders in various 

 parts of the country. Some were built by kings or great nobles as 

 private chapels ; some by bishops, some by monastic houses, some 

 by landowners, some by freemen on the landowners' estates. 

 Church-building proceeded on no general system, and without any 

 uniformity of date. There was a gradual growth under varying 

 circumstances ; but the people, acting through the legislature in a 

 national capacity, neither built, nor endowed, nor repaired these 

 churches. As with the buildings, so with the endowments. They 

 were gradually appropriated to particular churches, in different 

 proportions, without either system or uniformity. No priest serving 

 a district could enforce any claim to local tithes, except for the third 

 which was appropriated only to churches with burial-grounds. 

 Though the payment had become a legal liability, the dedication of 

 tithes to particular parochial uses is, therefore, still unexplained. 

 Something more remained to be done. The final steps were taken 

 between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. 



The chief instrument by which local endowments were secured 

 to parish churches was consecration. A founder desired to build a 

 church on his estate, and to have it consecrated. But the bishop 

 could refuse to consecrate, unless proper provision was made for its 

 maintenance. Between the bishop and the founder, who in building 

 the church was a free agent, there might be bargaining. There 

 might also be opposition from outside. The neighbouring monastery 

 perhaps resented the intrusion of a new church and a new priest 

 into the field which it had regarded as its own. But at no stage, 

 either in the bargain or in the opposition, does the national will 

 express itself. Throughout, the founder was at first practically 

 master of the situation. There was no compulsion on him to build 

 a church at all. If he did, not only did he himself nominate and 

 invest the priest, with or without the consent of the bishop, but he 

 could delay appointing to vacancies, and thus leave the church 

 without services. Even where local endowment had been secured 

 to the parochial church at consecration, the system was thus in- 



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