{"id":8045,"date":"2020-03-25T22:44:32","date_gmt":"2020-03-25T22:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/?p=8045"},"modified":"2020-03-26T10:48:37","modified_gmt":"2020-03-26T10:48:37","slug":"negotiating-spaces-today-and-in-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/negotiating-spaces-today-and-in-the-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Negotiating spaces – today and in the past"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Although not quite changing decisively hour by hour, things do seem to be doing that on a daily basis as national leaders scramble to keep abreast of this pandemic in various ways. This is such a tough time for so, so many across the world, including a whole host of groups and individuals in this country, and it is vitally important that everyone supports those working in health and care services wherever they are who are doing a brilliant job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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The Sandwich moot horn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Like the rest of the tertiary educational sector, CCCU has\nphysically closed, with those who can working from home, and home is now spread\nacross the country as staff members headed off to be with family members at\nthis challenging and very uncertain time. Consequently, online teaching has\nbecome the name of the game. This transition, from being a face-to-face\neducational establishment where lectures, seminars and labs were standard\npractice on campus to interacting through video and audio links with other\nforms of learning and communication, has been a steep learning curve for many.\nIndeed, I have been finding out about systems I had never even heard of let\nalone used in the past, and I cannot say my little corner of all of this has\nyet got to grips with everything. So even though there have been several setbacks:\nwe didn\u2019t manage to connect with Janet Clayton and Maureen Mcleod this morning,\nand Jacie Cole couldn\u2019t get back in time to join in, the Kent History\nPostgraduate group is back in business! For there were four of us connected by\nvideo link this morning: Dean Irwin, Peter Joyce, Jane Richardson and me, and\nthis was especially brilliant because Jane, having, we think, caught the virus\nand thus self-isolating, seems to be on the road to recovery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had expected to encounter technical difficulties, and as you can see we did, which meant we decided to use our first \u2018meeting\u2019 to catch-up, find out how each of us was coping, from Dean in the Manchester area to Peter and Jane in Kent. As you can imagine, as well as issues about getting food supplies and medicines etc, the conversation turned to matters relating to the sudden shutting of archives across the country, which is critical for all the postgraduates in different ways. For example, Dean is due to submit his doctorate this September and he was just about to embark on a concentrated study of records concerning the medieval Jews of Lincoln held at The National Archives. He is now stuck, and even though, yes, he can do some editing of his other chapters etc, the likelihood of having no archival access for potentially several months is exceedingly stressful at such a critical time. For he needs to finish in September \u2013 his CCCU scholarship runs out then, extensions are potentially costly, and post-doctoral applications that have their own timetable. He is waiting for official clarity on all of this, which he hopes will come ASAP. As do, of course, a whole host of other final year MA Research and PhD students, thereby giving them, hopefully, piece of mind and allowing them to get on and complete whenever without suffering any financial penalties due to circumstances way beyond their control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sandwich: Three Kings Yard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Although much earlier in their doctoral \u2018lives\u2019, Jane (and\nMaureen) can be seen as typifying postgraduates confronting related issues\nbecause they, too, need access to archives, as well as, like Dean, the university\nlibrary (although the excellent work of the library staff to make as much\navailable as possible is greatly appreciated), printing facilities etc. They\nhad similarly planned visits to TNA, as well as to Lambeth Palace Library (due\nto close at the end of April 2020 for the rest of the year as it\u2019s moving, but,\nnow, of course, already shut) and probably most significantly at the moment,\nthe Kent History and Library Centre at Maidstone. Yes, there are a few printed\nsources, and currently some material can be accessed at a price digitally from\nTNA, but for documentary researchers this is a serious blow. Thus they, like\nother postgraduates, will be concentrating on secondary materials for the time\nbeing, but longer term, as at universities across the country, considerations\nabout extending registration with no additional fees will be important, indeed\nvital for many.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now for something completely different, I thought having\nhad a Sandwich topic last week I would stay in the same town and do a piece\nabout a non-event \u2013 when what should have happened didn\u2019t and the repercussions\nas a result. The event is question was a procession that should have taken\nplace from St Peter\u2019s church in the middle of the town to St Bartholomew\u2019s\nhospital chapel on the outskirts on 24th<\/sup> August 1532. It seems that as\nusual the mayor and jurats with the commonalty had met at the church with their\ntapers. Presumably the town musicians were all in place too, as well as the\nparish clergy and the chantry priests. But that was when it all started to go\nwrong. The curate Sir John Yonge refused to take part in the procession if he\nwasn\u2019t allowed to officiate at the high mass at the hospital chapel, and it\nseems the chantry priests backed his stance. The mayor and jurats weren\u2019t prepared\nto accept this and commanded that the curate, chantry priests and church\nwardens should be arrested, and it seems likely the day ended in total\nconfusion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ok, you may say, an interesting snippet from the archives, but does it matter? I think it does because it highlights religious tensions and how these were being played out not only at Henry VIII\u2019s court, but in parishes and towns. Furthermore, religion was part of a complex mix of socio-economic and political issues that all played their part in Civic\u2013Church relations in 1532 and beyond. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sandwich’s Custumal, 15th-century copy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Leaving aside the churchwardens, Sir John, who seems to have\nbeen a relatively recent incumbent, apparently left Sandwich within two years\nof the incident, because his successor was listed among the beneficiaries of a\nlocal will dated 1534. The chantry priests involved were the three priests at\nThomas Elys\u2019 chantry in St Peter\u2019s church, a foundation established in 1392.\nSir John Stephynson was possibly the most senior. He had served at the chantry\nfor twenty years in 1532, and he seems to have been an active and\nwell-respected member of the local community. His death in December 1533 (he\nwas found drowned at the bottom of his own well) may not be linked to the\nevents of the previous year, but he had suffered official censure in the\nintervening period. The other long-serving chantry priest, Sir William Ussher,\nwas replaced in 1534, while the third, Sir Thomas Philipp, had been removed a\nyear earlier (June 1533) and sent to the Poor Priests\u2019 hospital in Canterbury. The\nmayor and jurats justified Philipp\u2019s removal and replacement by Sir Edmund\nGrene, a chaplain \u201cof good conversation,\u201d by saying that Philipp\u2019s fellow\nchantry priests had acted wrongfully in allowing him to keep the position\nbecause he was a beneficed priest. Before taking this action the mayor and\njurats had had the chantry foundation charter read to them, thereby publicly\nconfirming their legitimacy to act as patrons, first because the other\nchaplains had been at fault and second because the civic authorities saw the\nchantry chaplains as \u2018theirs\u2019 from \u2018ancient times\u2019, the process made legally\nbinding through the use of the town\u2019s seal. As a consequence, the leading town\nofficers had publicly re-established their control over the chantry and the\nprocession, and in the process had penalised the clergy at St Peter\u2019s by replacing\nthem with more malleable priests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

William Stokes, the rector in 1532, who might have been\nexpected to officiate at the high mass in St Bartholomew\u2019s chapel, is not\nmentioned at all in these proceedings. Nor is he recorded in any capacity in\nany Sandwich wills, a situation apparently shared by his predecessor and\nsuccessor. As far as these latter men are concerned this may be because they\nwere nominated by the abbot of St Augustine\u2019s (clerical appointments were\nshared by the abbot and the mayor, taking it in turns), and it is possible they\nhad little involvement in the parish, their pastoral and other duties being\nundertaken by the curate. Although the year of Stokes\u2019 appointment as rector is\nunknown, the evidence from the town books points to 1528, that is, five years\nafter Sir Henry Guldeford, of the powerful west Kent family, first sought the\nposition for his chaplain, the mayor and jurats agreeing to his request in 1523\nfor the next nomination on the grounds that Sir Henry had previously aided the\ntown and the Cinque Ports more generally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was not the only favour they granted the Guldefords. Two years later Sir Edward Guldeford\u2019s man was given the office of sergeant of the mace. Sir Edward, as warden of the Cinque Ports, was an even more powerful figure than his half-brother, and both men were important courtiers and favourites of the king. Nevertheless, there seems to have been a degree of unease on this second occasion, the mayor and jurats deciding that their actions should not set a precedent and in future no other town offices were to be granted as favours, yet when Sir Henry and Sir Edward presented their candidate in 1528 he appears to have been approved without any difficulty. Whether this relates at all to a desire on the part of the civic authorities to endorse the Guldeford\u2019s humanist ideas or to appoint a cleric with reformist ideas is unclear, but Stokes\u2019 apparent inactivity in the life of the parish might imply Sir John Yonge\u2019s expectations in August 1532 were wholly justified. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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St Bartholomew’s hospital chapel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Consequently, did the churchwardens want to thwart him by giving\nthe honour at St Bartholomew\u2019s chapel to one of the Elys chantry chaplains\ninstead? The actions of the mayor and jurats would appear to point to this\nconclusion. In terms of longevity there was relatively little to choose between\nStephynson and Ussher: the latter was an Oxford university graduate, but it is\nfeasible that Philipp was too. Furthermore, the latter\u2019s recent appointment to\nthe chantry in 1529\u20131530 may suggest that he is the most likely candidate.\nWhether the upstaging of Yonge by the churchwardens related to the curate\u2019s\nreligious views is very difficult to know. Neither Philipp nor Yonge had had\nmuch time to be involved in the wills of those from St Peter\u2019s parish, but it\nis interesting that one of the very few wills Yonge had witnessed, and in the\nleading role of first witness, was that of Alexander Alday, gentleman. Alday\nwas a relatively young, prosperous jurat and member of a substantial\nlandholding family in east Kent, who made his will in the spring of 1532,\npossibly during his last illness because he died in May, three months before\nthe date of the procession. Unusually, his testament barely mentions his\nfuneral or commemoration. He made no pious bequests beyond sums of money to the\nhigh altar and for church repairs (very standard bequests), the remainder of\nhis will being devoted to gifts to his pregnant wife, two daughters, and his\noverseer. His extensive property was in the hands of his feoffees, including\nhis fellow jurat Richard Butler. Even though such evidence is notoriously\ndifficult to use to assess personal religious convictions, it is conceivable\nthat Alday\u2019s instructions indicate that he, and perhaps also Butler and Yonge,\nwere interested in Humanism or possibly even more radical religious ideas.\nAlday\u2019s death, therefore, may have robbed Yonge of much needed support and\nprotection in August 1532 and may imply that the churchwardens were not\nsympathetic to his views. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mayor and jurats were seemingly equally unsympathetic. Rather they viewed the incident as a serious disruption of their ancient quasi-religious civic ritual. This breach in the town\u2019s customary order seen as damaging their authority, all part of Sandwich\u2019s civic identity that drew on ancient rights and privileges, and responsibilities which included oversight of the town\u2019s charitable institutions. Of these St Bartholomew\u2019s Hospital was of greatest consequence, not least because the saintly saviour of the town was commemorated there, and the refusal of the St Peter\u2019s clergy to fulfil their duty not only meant the mayor and jurats could not fulfil theirs either but meant the whole town risked divine as well as mortal censure. Consequently, as upholders of the king\u2019s royal authority and justice in Sandwich, the mayor and jurats were confronted by a situation that required them to act quickly to regain authority. Their need may have been especially pressing for two reasons. First, the king and a large entourage were due to pass through east Kent in September en route to a meeting with the French king in Calais, and even though this was not due to take place immediately, preparations had already begun. Second, the civic authorities, and particularly certain jurats, were still involved in the dispute over the role of the king\u2019s bailiff in the town. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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St Bartholomew’s hospital seal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 1532 the senior jurats who were particularly implicated\nin the at times violent clashes with the king\u2019s bailiff, Sir Edward Ringley, were\nHenry Boll, Roger Manwood, and Vincent Engeham, and it may have been these men\n(and others), with the mayor John Boys, who took the lead in the imprisoning of\nthe various parties from St Peter\u2019s. Notwithstanding that for all four\nself-interest may have played a part in some of their dealings, Manwood and\nEngeham also seem to have seen themselves as staunch supporters of the town\u2019s\ninterests in the preceding decades, and Boys, as a local gentleman who\npurchased the freedom in 1528 and became a jurat the same year, may similarly\nhave been concerned about civic authority and identity. Moreover, it was the\npriests as individuals rather than the clergy as a whole who were seen as\nhaving broken the divinely sanctioned, ancient agreement between civic and\nclergy, and it was, therefore, the town officers\u2019 duty to punish them. Furthermore,\nthe testaments of all four men contain pious bequests that indicate strongly\nheld orthodox Catholic beliefs. For example, Boll and Manwood left bequests to numerous\nlights in their respective parish churches, and Engeham wanted an orthodox\nCatholic funeral, which is especially revealing because he made his will in May\n1547. Yet probably equally informative is Manwood\u2019s instruction concerning his\ntomb. He wanted to be buried next to his late wife in St Laurence\u2019s chancel in\nSt Mary\u2019s church, the grave covered by a stone on which there was to be a brass\nshowing himself, his two wives and six children; at the corners were to be four\nshields, two having the arms of the Cinque Ports, one showing the cross of St\nGeorge, and the fourth having \u201ca token of deth on it.\u201d Age may have been a\ncritical factor: Boll, Boys (in 1533), and Manwood (in 1534) were elderly men\nwhen they died, and even though they, like others in Sandwich, would have been\nwell aware of the parliamentary and royal decisions emanating from Westminster,\nthere is nothing to indicate that they would have taken a lead from them beyond\ntheir traditional stance on lay\u2013clerical matters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So did this change in 1533 and 1534 when first Philipp and then Ussher were replaced by Grene and Lawney respectively? In 1532\/3 the mayor was John Pyham, whose will, made eight years after his mayoralty, does not reveal deep religious convictions of any form, and perhaps more indicative of his stance is an order in the town book made during his mayoralty to revive certain annual payments due to the town that were recalled as being part of its ancient customs. As mayor he may, therefore, have been perfectly at ease with the idea of upholding the civic dignity of Sandwich against those seen as malefactors, and may even have initiated later that year the similar recalling of the Elys chantry charter and the subsequent injunctions against the serving chantry priests. Consequently, the decision to replace Philipp and the process involved appear to have been in keeping with the ideas and concerns expressed the previous year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happened in 1534 is more problematic because it is not clear exactly what process was used to remove Ussher, or what happened with respect to Lawney and Newman. As a result the role of the mayor and jurats in the events of 1534 is difficult to assess, especially the degree to which the deaths of several senior jurats and Alexander Alday had affected the town\u2019s governing body, but in broad terms the magistracy remained conservative in outlook. Yet the appointments of Grene in 1533 and of Lawney the following year, may indicate an important (if unintentional) ideological shift, that influenced the course of the history of the Reformation at Sandwich. The town book does not record who nominated the Oxford graduate and reformist cleric Sir Edmund Grene to the mayor and jurats, but the most likely member of the magistracy is Richard Butler (see above). Yet it is also possible that the proposal was endorsed by John Master because Master was mayor in 1528 when the Guldefords received the right to nominate the new rector at St Peter\u2019s. As a wealthy merchant Master had overseas contacts that may have influenced his religious affiliations, and his involvement in the provisioning of Calais may also have contributed to his support of the regime\u2019s standpoint. Familial rather than overseas connections may have been the main contributory factor regarding Richard Butler\u2019s reformist views, and he seems to have been an early convert. His later activities in the reformist cause included aiding Sir John Crofte at St Mary\u2019s church to pull down the images there, and among the witnesses of his will made in 1545 was the locally very active reformer William Norris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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St John’s hospital seal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

However, when Grene arrived to take up his office, such\ndestruction was almost ten years in the future and the mayor and jurats may\nhave believed they had just appointed a cleric \u201cof good conversation.\u201d How\noutspoken he was initially is unknown, and similarly unrecorded are the\nactivities in Sandwich of Thomas Lawney, another Oxford man who arrived in 1534\nat Grene\u2019s invitation, but Lawney\u2019s almost immediate replacement by John Newman\nis suggestive. It may reflect a local desire to remove at least one reformist\npriest from the town, though equally it may indicate a move by the reformists\nto provide greater preaching opportunities for him in east Kent. Nonetheless,\nfor the probably tiny number of townspeople interested in reform, Grene\u2019s\narrival was important, offering support for the only other known clerical\nreformist in Sandwich, Sir John Crofte the curate at St Mary\u2019s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, the nomination of Sir Edmund Grene to be a chaplain at\nElys\u2019 chantry may mark a shift in civic\u2013clerical relations, though how far this\nwas ideologically motivated rather than personal remains unclear. Yet if it was\na criticism of the clergy it is important because not only did it mean that\nthere were at least two reformist priests in the town, perhaps acting as a\ncatalyst for the Reformation there, but also the appointment of such a cleric\n(whether unwittingly or not) had been made for the benefit of the town by those\nrepresenting the town, not by an outsider. In contrast, and even though it\noccurred only in the previous year, the violent censure of the clergy and\nothers by the mayor and jurats after 24 August 1532 seems to reflect\ndisapproval of specific individuals, not of the clergy per se. This difference\nis important with respect to the ways the people of Sandwich experienced the\nReformation, but also because it opens up ideas about why civic ritual was\nvalued and by whom, how \u201ccompeting constituencies\u201d were prepared to negotiate\ntheir places\/roles in it and society more broadly, and what happened when\nconflict occurred. So I hope I have shown that the events of 1532, although\napologies for the length of this piece, can provide valuable and fascinating\ninsights on the complex relationships that individuals and groups engaged in as\nthey sought to negotiate political and religious dynamics during a crucial\nperiod in the 16th<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although not quite changing decisively hour by hour, things do seem to be doing that on a daily basis as national leaders scramble to keep abreast of this pandemic in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6665,"featured_media":8062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[973,822,1581,818,5762,982,986,1029,817,1370,1],"tags":[1417,897,2566,4762,7713,637,7093,4610,1022,7069,7706,1093,7705,285,7374,3809,6338,1037,809,505,2938,7709,289,2578,1133,4150,1625,6210],"class_list":["post-8045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic","category-blog-posts","category-early-modern","category-events","category-heritage","category-kent","category-local-and-regional-history","category-middle-ages","category-news","category-tudors","category-uncategorised","tag-calais","tag-canterbury-city","tag-cinque-ports","tag-dean-irwin","tag-guldeford","tag-henry-viii","tag-jane-richardson","tag-janet-clayton","tag-kent-history-library-centre","tag-kent-history-postgraduates","tag-lambeth-palace-library","tag-lincoln","tag-manchester","tag-manwood","tag-maureen-mcleod","tag-medieval-jews","tag-peter-joyce","tag-poor-priests-hospital","tag-reformation","tag-sandwich","tag-sandwich-custumal","tag-sandwich-moot-horn","tag-st-augustines-abbey","tag-st-bartholomews-hospital","tag-st-johns-hospital","tag-st-peters-church-sandwich","tag-the-national-archives","tag-tna"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"authorName":"Sheila Sweetinburgh","featuredImage":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/445\/2020\/03\/SandwichStBart_Seal.jpg","postExcerpt":"Although not quite changing decisively hour by hour, things do seem to be doing that on a daily basis as national leaders scramble to keep abreast of this pandemic in […]","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6665"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8045"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8070,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8045\/revisions\/8070"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/kenthistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}