ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



century churches be found, clustered together within a very short distance of 

 each other, as those of Southwold, Covehithe, Blythburgh, and Walberswick 

 each of them the work of the actual inhabitants who were profiting largely 

 by the trade of their little ports. Or, if we go further inland, where, save in 

 Suffolk or Norfolk, can such pre-eminently noble parish churches be named, 

 erected at this particular period, as those of Lavenham and Long Melford ? 

 The monks of Bury, retaining their vigour to the last, might re-erect, at about 

 the same time, the fine fabrics of the churches of St. Mary and St. James, for 

 the use of the townsmen, but placed jealously within their own precinct walls ; 

 nevertheless, they were easily surpassed by the fervour of zeal of the unvowed 

 laity. Church towers, often stately and magnificent, like those of Laxfield, 

 Eye, or Bungay St. Mary, sprang up all over the county ; or, where the 

 parish was too small and poor to run to such an expense, they could at least 

 add an extra stage to the old round tower of early Norman days. 



Nor was it only in stately fabrics that the churchmen of Suffolk made 

 manifest the generosity of their religious faith. Towers were not raised for 

 mere idle show, but all were speedily furnished with rings of tunable bells, 

 cast for the most part in the county were they swung. The whole air of 

 Suffolk in the days of the Seventh Henry, above that of any other district of 

 the kingdom, must have been saturated with the brazen melody of its four 

 hundred belfries, calling men from earthly toil to spiritual worship as the 

 Sundays and Holy Days came round in their endless cycles. 1 To escape such 

 music anywhere in the county would have been an impossibility, for the 

 churches were well planted as well as numerous throughout its bounds. 



When, too, the particular details of church after church come to be 

 enumerated in the topographical section of this work, it will be found, from 

 the remnants still extant, after three centuries of wanton destruction or 

 criminal neglect, that the timber in which Suffolk abounded was wrought 

 almost everywhere during the fifteenth century into glorious roofs, or carved 

 with masterly skill into stalls and seats or pulpits, and above all into screen- 

 work ; that the sculptor's best art was lavished on the baptismal fonts and 

 their pediments ; and that figure and pattern-painting, as well as gessowork 

 and gilding, often of consummate beauty, were employed to add to the dignity 

 and worth of the interiors of remote village sanctuaries, as well as of the 

 churches in the small market towns where comparative wealth could far 

 more easily be attained. 



Among the unhappily few instances in which parish books of a pre- 

 Reformation age remain within this county, as at Cratfield and Huntingfield, 

 plain evidence is forthcoming that the villagers depended to no small extent 

 on those popular local gatherings termed church-ales 3 to find some of the 

 funds necessary to maintain the beauty of the sanctuary. 



In the remote village of Cratfield five church-ales occurred in 1490 ; 

 three of them were strictly parochial, and were held on Passion Sunday, 

 Pentecost, and All Saints' Day ; the other two were of exceptional occurrence, 

 being part of the Trental arrangements of deceased parishioners. The profits 

 on four of these church-ales were js. 4^., gj., 91. 8</., and ys. 8*/., respectively; 



1 For the highly exceptional number of the bells of this county see Raven, Church Belh ofSujf. By the 

 middle of the fifteenth century there was a flourishing bell-foundry at Bury. 



' Reproduced, to some extent, in the modern Church Bazaar, with its refreshment-stalls and tea-rooms. 



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