A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



{monaster ium), being also endowed with the unusually large glebe of 2 hides. 

 It was likewise the head of an early deanery, and was the mother church of 

 a large district including Great Wymondley, Little Wymondley and 

 Ippollitts. The endowments of both Welwyn and Hitchin suggest that their 

 original foundations were for establishments larger than manorial churches, and 

 this, coupled with the fact that these churches are described in the loth and 

 I ith centuries as minsters, points possibly to the existence of communities of 

 priests at them before the introduction of the parochial system into the county. 



The Danish invasions of the 9th and loth centuries had probably dis- 

 located ecclesiastical organization. In France and other parts of the Con- 

 tinent the modern parochial system had been for some time adopted," partly 

 as a consequence of the reforms then being carried out in the Benedictine 

 monasteries. It was naturally found that the restriction of the monks to 

 the cloister hampered their ministrations to the people. Oswald and 

 Dunstan had seen the modern parochial system at work in France and 

 recognized its advantages with regard to their scheme of ecclesiastical 

 reform at home. The earliest evidence of its introduction into Hertford- 

 shire arose apparently out of the reforms at St. Albans Abbey. Here 

 the imposition of a stricter rule and the increasing population of the recently 

 established market town at St. Albans necessitated other accommodation for 

 the lay folk of the neighbourhood. As a result in the latter part of the 

 loth century the abbot built the churches of St. Peter, St. Michael, and 

 St. Stephen '* on the main roads on the outskirts of the town of St. Albans. 

 These churches were probably served from the abbey, and had no separate 

 glebe, consequently their priests are not mentioned in the Domesday Book. 

 St. Peter's ministered to the district on the north and north-east of the 

 abbey, St. Stephen's to that on the south and south-east, probably to the 

 county boundary, and St. Michael's to that on the west and south-west to 

 the county boundary. These churches seem to have been mother churches, and 

 their districts were gradually subdivided, St. Peter's with the later chapelries 

 of Sandridge (where the chapel was consecrated about i 100), Ridge and Nor- 

 thaw remained as it was originally formed till the 14th century, when the 

 chapelries became parishes. St. Stephen's and St. Michael's districts from 

 architectural evidence were possibly subdivided during the 12th century." 



The same process went on perhaps a little later in other parts of the 

 county. The Saxon thegns and Norman lords were in the loth and i ith 

 centuries building churches on their demesnes adjoining their houses." In 

 the eastern and middle parts of the county the church next the manor-house 

 is the usual tvpe of development," while in the west on the lands of 



" Lord Selbome, Ancient Facts and Fancies concerning Churches and Tithes, 60. 



" Matt. Paris, Gesta Abbat. (Rolls Ser.), i, zz. See below, p. 369, n. 32. 



*' Abbots Langler, Sarratt, East Barnet and Watford have 12th-century churches. We have definite 

 evidence that Bushey Church vras built by Geoffrey de Jarpenville about 1 1 66. Except in the case of Bushey 

 there may have been early churches which were rebuilt in the i 2th century, but it is quite liliely in this late 

 settled district that the churches now standing are the earliest which were built on the sites. 



'^ Selbome, op. cit. 293. 



*' Some notable instances are at Hatfield, where the church adjoins the remains of the old palace of the 

 Bishops of Ely ; at Pirton, Benington and Anstey, where the churches were probably within the earthworks of 

 the Norman castles ; at Bygrave, Wallington, Reed, Barkway, Hormead, Meesden, Cottered, Aspenden, 

 Sacombe, Much HaJham, Thundridge, Hunsdon, Thorley and other places where the churches adjoin the 

 manor-houses or the sites of such houses. At Stevenage, Digswell, North Mimms and elsewhere the villages 

 have migrated to the roads and left the churches and manor-houses standing alone. 



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