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Order and Place in England, 1580–1640: The View from the Pew

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2012

Christopher Marsh
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Journal of British Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , January 2005 , pp. 3 - 26
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Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2005

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References

1 For a classic statement of this cosmology, see “An Exhortation concerning Good Order,” in Certaine Sermons or Homilies Appointed to be Read in Churches (1562), 2 vols. (London, 1623), 1:69–77Google Scholar. The word “order” appears twelve times on the first page alone. On the general subject of order, see also Wrightson, Keith, English Society, 1580–1680 (London, 1982), chap. 6Google Scholar; Sharpe, J. A., Early Modern England: A Social History, 1550–1760, 2d ed. (London, 1997), chap. 4Google Scholar; editors' introduction to Order and Disorder in Early Modern England, ed. Fletcher, Anthony and Stevenson, John (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 1–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Braddick, Michael J. and Walter, John, “Introduction: Grids of Power: Order, Hierarchy and Subordination in Early Modern Society,” in Negotiating Power in Early Modern Society: Order, Hierarchy and Subordination in Britain and Ireland, ed. Braddick, Michael J. and Walter, John (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 1–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Casey, Edward S., Getting Back into Place: Toward a Renewed Understanding of the Place-World (Bloomington, Ind., 1993), p. 23Google Scholar.

3 The relevance of the last of these factors is discussed in Marsh, Christopher, “‘Common Prayer’ in England, 1560–1640: The View from the Pew,” Past and Present, no. 171 (2001): 69–70Google Scholar.

4 See particularly Amussen, Susan Dwyer, An Ordered Society: Gender and Class in Early Modern England (New York, 1988), pp. 137–43Google Scholar; Dillow, Kevin, “The Social and Ecclesiastical Significance of Church Seating Arrangements and Pew Disputes, 1500–1740” (D.Phil. diss., University of Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar; Tittler, Robert, “Seats of Honour, Seats of Power: The Symbolism of Public Seating in the English Urban Community, c. 1560–1620,” Albion 24, no. 2 (Summer 1992): 205–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dymond, David, “Sitting Apart in Church,” in Counties and Communities: Essays on East Anglian History, ed. Rawcliffe, Carol et al. (Norwich, 1996)Google Scholar; Pittman, Susan, “The Social Structure and Parish Community of St. Andrew's Church, Calstock, as Reconstituted from its Seating Plan, c. 1587–8,” Southern History, 20–21 (1998–99): 44–67Google Scholar; Flather, Amanda, “The Politics of Space: A Study of Church Seating in Essex, c. 1580–1640,” Friends of the Centre for English Local History Paper (Leicester) 3 (1999): 1–55Google Scholar.

5 Flather, “Politics of Space,” pp. 54–55. See editors' introduction to The Experience of Authority in Early Modern England, ed. Griffiths, Paul, Fox, Adam, and Hindle, Steve (Basingstoke, 1996), pp. 2–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Keith Wrightson, “The Politics of the Parish in Early Modern England,” in ibid., p. 32; Griffiths, Paul, Youth and Authority: Formative Experiences in England, 1560–1640 (Oxford, 1996), p. 109CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 See Marsh, , “Common Prayer,” and “Sacred Space in England, 1560–1640,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 53, no. 2 (April 2002): 286–311CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Ideally, these articles and the current one should be considered in relation to one another.

7 Scott, J. C., Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven, Conn., 1985)Google Scholar, and Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, Conn., 1990)Google Scholar. For the application of Scott's ideas to early modern society, see Griffiths, Fox, and Hindle, “Introduction,” p. 6; Wrightson, “Politics of the Parish,” pp. 12, 35; Braddick and Walter, “Introduction.”

8 Braddick and Walter, “Introduction.”

9 Ibid., pp. 1, 5, 42.

10 Ibid., pp. 5, 6, 42; Wrightson, “Politics of the Parish,” p. 35.

11 Braddick and Walter, “Introduction.” Here, God features mainly as somebody who was recruited both by dominant groups in their efforts to subjugate others, and by the subordinate in their attempts to limit this subjugation. He seems to have no “real presence” beyond this and is scarcely considered as a unifying force.

12 Ibid. The authors seem to dissociate themselves from any tendency to emphasize “resistance” on pp. 18, 23, and 38, and yet the term is used quite freely on pp. 8, 29, 30, and 42.

13 Thompson, E. P., in looking back to the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I, clearly believed that the “paternalist model” had then enjoyed the backing of a powerful social and moral consensus. See his Customs in Common (Harmondsworth, 1993), pp. 252–54Google Scholar. It seems to me that most of the evidence relating to riot in this period can be taken to demonstrate the real force (rather than merely the pragmatic utility) of hierarchical beliefs on all social levels, though there were of course some interesting variations in emphasis. For an excellent recent synthesis written from a different viewpoint, see Wood, Andy, Riot, Rebellion, and Popular Politics in Early Modern England (Basingstoke, 2002), chap. 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Wood, Andy, The Politics of Social Conflict. The Peak Country, 1520–1770 (Cambridge, 1999), p. 20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Braddick and Walter do, admittedly, argue at one point that “the authority of the gentry was widely accepted, the more so since their authority was presented as natural” (“Introduction,” p. 26), but they also assert that “the behavioural conformity of the weak … does not necessarily imply acceptance of the existing order as natural” (p. 9). The first statement suggests that the elite's representation of the status quo as “natural” was persuasive; the second suggests that it was not. To my mind, the latter of these two views is more representative of the essay as a whole.

16 I am grateful to Jonathan Kelly for allowing me to use the notes that he took while preparing an undergraduate dissertation (1991), under my guidance, on the subject of Sutton. I have, of course, also consulted the original documents.

17 The legal technicalities of church seating are discussed more fully in Dillow, “Social and Ecclesiastical Significance of Church Seating,” chaps. 2, 4.

18 Ibid., p. 108.

19 Cambridge University Library (CUL), Ely Diocesan Records (EDR), B.2.35, fol. 163r.

20 Cheshire Record Office (ChRO), EDC5, 1620.24, 1639.21.

21 CUL, EDR, B.2.35, fols. 207r–11r. This plan is referred to on a number of occasions in this article, and the reference will not subsequently be repeated.

22 Gough, Richard, The History of Myddle, ed. Hey, David (Harmondsworth, 1981), p. 78Google Scholar.

23 CUL, EDR, B.2.35, fol. 210 (Sutton) and D.2.18A, flyleaf; ChRO, EDC5, 1632.66 (Stockport), 1611.13, 1631.2, 1632.66, 1636.39, 1636.48, and 1639.21.

24 ChRO, EDC5, 1639.21.

25 I have compared the plan with the following lay subsidy returns: Public Record Office, London (PRO), E179 83/353a, 83/361, 83/172, and 83/387.

26 On seating for the poor, see Griffiths, , Youth and Authority, p. 105Google Scholar; Dillow, “Social and Ecclesiastical Significance of Church Seating,” p. 154; Schen, Claire S., “Women and the London Parishes, 1500–1620,” in The Parish in English Life, 1400–1600, ed. French, Katherine L., Gibbs, Gary G., and Kümin, Beat A. (Manchester, 1997), pp. 258–59Google Scholar.

27 Oxfordshire Record Office, Archdeaconry Papers Oxon, c. 118, fol. 90 (cited by Dillow, “Social and Ecclesiastical Significance of Church Seating,” p. 131).

28 CUL, EDR, B.2.24, fols. 17v–18r, B.2.35, fols. 207–10; Cambridgeshire Record Office (CamRO), P68/611 (Ely); ChRO, EDC5, 1612.19 (Warrington). See also Dymond, “Sitting Apart in Church,” pp. 215–17; Dillow, “Social and Ecclesiastical Significance of Church Seating,” p.131; and Evans, Nesta, “A Scheme for Re-pewing the Parish Church of Chesham, Buckinghamshire, in 1606,” Local Historian 22 (1992): 204Google Scholar.

29 ChRO, EDC5, 1639.21; Alldridge, Nicholas, “Loyalty and Identity in Chester Parishes, 1540–1640,” in Parish, Church and People. Local Studies in Lay Religion, 1350–1750, ed. Wright, S. J. (London, 1988), p. 95Google Scholar; ChRO, EDC5, 1632.66; Dillow, “Social and Ecclesiastical Significance of Church Seating,” pp. 138–42.

30 CamRO, P68/611; ChRO, EDC5, 1631.2.

31 CUL, EDR, D.2.18A, flyleaf.

32 CUL, EDR, B.2.35, fol. 27r; ChRO, EDC5, 1636.39.

33 ChRO, EDC5, 1620.21. For cases in which individuals were demoted within the church on moral and religious grounds, see Dillow, “Social and Ecclesiastical Significance of Church Seating,” pp. 99–100.

34 For background information on Gleadall and William Gunton, see CUL, EDR, B.2.14, fol. 6v, B.2.29, fol. 25r, B.2.31, fol. 116r; PRO, E179 83/353a. The accusations of nonconformity are in CUL, EDR, B.2.35, fols. 190v, 193r, 194r, and B.2.33, fol. 96v.

35 CUL, EDR, B.2.35, fol. 204r (Upchurch), B.2.30, fol. 31r (Bond).

36 William Thomas was repeatedly accused of incontinence with another man's wife (CUL, EDR, B.2.24, fol. 124v, B.2.33, fol. 98r).

37 CamRO, Ely Consistory Court Probate Register (ECCPR), wills from Sutton. In this period, members of this group appeared as witnesses on thirty-four occasions.

38 ChRO, EDC5, 1631.2, 1632.66, and 1639.21; Alldridge, “Loyalty and Identity,” p. 95; CamRO, P68/611; CUL, EDR, B.2.35, fols. 207–11r; Tittler, “Seats of Honour,” pp. 217, 222; Evans, “Scheme for Re-pewing,” p. 204.

39 See Burke, Peter, History and Social Theory (Oxford, 1992), pp. 48–49Google Scholar.

40 CUL, EDR, B.2.35, fol. 197r.

41 CUL, EDR, B.2.39, fol. 229v, B.2.21, fols. 11v, 93r, B.2.46, fol. 45r, B.2.35, fol. 195r, B.2.18, fol. 126v.

42 CUL, EDR, B.2.35, fol. 197r–v.

43 CUL, EDR, B.2.35, fol. 212r.

44 Flather has also noted seating cases in which religious disagreement was a factor. See “Politics of Space,” pp. 37, 51.

45 The daughters are named in CamRO, Ely Consistory Court Wills, William Gunton (1631), and PRO, Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, Thomas Jetherell (1619).

46 CUL, EDR, B.2.21, fols. 33v, 36v, 183v, B.2.24, fol. 123v, B.2.29, fol. 142v, B.2.30, fols. 29v, 30r, B.2.35, fols. 191v and 204r; CamRO, Sutton Parish Registers.

47 CamRO, ECCPR, wills from Sutton. Members of the antiplan group witnessed wills on only fourteen occasions in the period 1617–41.

48 In the other group, two out of six testators remembered the church. See CamRo, ECCPR, Robert Gleadall (1641) and John Gunton (1637). Intriguingly, members of the less integrated antiplan group were more likely than their opponents to ask specifically for burial in the church or churchyard at Sutton, perhaps reflecting a high degree of insecurity regarding ecclesiastical placement.

49 CUL, EDR, B.2.35, fol. 214r. Despite this revocation, however, the plan was still referred to in the parish fifteen years later (CUL, EDR, F.5.39, fol. 108r–v).

50 The proprietorial attitude of early modern church-goers to their seats is discussed in Marsh, “Sacred Space.”

51 CamRO, ECCPR, wills from Sutton; PRO, E179 83/353a, 83/361, 83/172, and 83/387.

52 CUL, EDR, B.2.10, D.2.18, B.2.14, B.2.21, B.2.24, B.2.29, B.2.30, B.2.30A, B.2.31, B.2.33, B.2.35, B.2.37, B.2.39, and D.2.51; CamRO, ECCPR, wills from Sutton; PRO, E179 83/353a, 83/361, 83/172, and 83/387.

53 Dillow, “Social and Ecclesiastical Significance of Church Seating,” pp. 204–7. See also Flather, “Politics of Space,” p. 31.

54 Cited in Moir, M., “Church and Society in Sixteenth-Century Herefordshire” (M.Phil. thesis, Leicester University, 1984), p. 112Google Scholar.

55 Dymond, “Sitting Apart in Church,” p. 220.

56 CUL, EDR, D.2.18, 149r.

57 I have searched the following court books: CUL, EDR, B.2.10, D.2.18, B.2.14, B.2.21, B.2.24, B.2.29, B.2.30, B.2.30A, B.2.31, B.2.33, B.2.35, B.2.37, B.2.39, B.2.43. B.2.46, B.2.47, B.2.52, B.2.53, and D.2.51.

58 Amussen, Ordered Society, pp. 141–42.

59 For additional statistics to support these comments, see Dillow, “Social and Ecclesiastical Significance of Church Seating,” pp. 191, 196, and Flather, “Politics of Space,” pp. 26, 33–34. In contrast, the extent of the problem may be somewhat exaggerated in Amussen, Ordered Society, p. 138.

60 Goffman, Erving, Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order (Harmondsworth, 1971), p. 344Google Scholar: “All behavior of the individual, insofar as it is perceived by others, has an indicative function, made up of tacit promises and threats, confirming or disconfirming that he knows his place.”

61 Wiltshire Record Office, D1/39/2/5, fol. 75r. I am grateful to Eric Carlson for bringing this case to my attention.

62 ChRO, EDC5, 1632.41, 1612.19.

63 Thompson, Customs in Common, p. 45.

64 ChRO, EDC5, 1631.3, 1620.24.

65 ChRO, EDC5, 1632.30.

66 Dillow, “Social and Ecclesiastical Significance of Church Seating,” p. 191.

67 ChRO, EDC5, 1630.54.

68 For comments on the impact of Laudianism on church seating, see Marsh, “Sacred Space.” My figures on instance cases in the diocese of Chester are based on the EDC5 listings held in the Cheshire Record Office.

69 The Prayer-Book of Queen Elizabeth (1559; London, 1890)Google Scholar.

70 Pamplyn is identified as Henry Fawxe's curate in CUL, EDR, B.2.35, fol. 196r. For advice to curates on the use of the official homilies, see the introductory admonition in Certaine Sermons or Homilies, vol. 2.

71 Certaine Sermons or Homilies, 1:40–45, 69–78, 89–98, 2:1–11.

72 Wrightson, English Society, p. 60.

73 For related comments, see Burke, History and Social Theory, p. 94.

74 Lippincott, H. F., ed., “Merry Passages and Jeasts: A Manuscript Jestbook of Sir Nicholas Le Strange,” Elizabethan and Renaissance Studies 29 (1974): 126Google Scholar.

75 Certaine Sermons or Homilies, 1:69.

76 See, e.g., ChRO, EDC5, 1630.54, 1620.21.

77 Tillyard, E. M. W., The Elizabethan World Picture (1943; Harmondsworth, 1988), pp. 36–37Google Scholar.

78 See Marsh, “Common Prayer.”

79 Certaine Sermons or Homilies, 1:89.

80 Fox, Adam, Oral and Literate Culture in England, 1500–1700 (Oxford, 2000), p. 325Google Scholar. In any case, most of the libelers discussed in chap. 6 seem to have been intent on reinforcing the hierarchical code through mockery and irreverence rather than on subverting it.

81 Certaine Sermons or Homilies, 1:92: “Dearely beloved, avenge not your selves, but rather give place to wrath, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, and I will revenge, saith the Lord.”

82 Wrightson, English Society, p. 60.

83 ChRO, EDC5, 1630.54; Dillow, “Social and Ecclesiastical Significance of Church Seating,” pp. 97–98; ChRO, EDC5, 1588.30.

84 CUL, EDR, B.2.10, D.2.18, B.2.14, B.2.21, B.2.24, B.2.29, B.2.30, B.2.30A, B.2.31, B.2.33, B.2.35, B.2.37, B.2.39, B.2.43. B.2.46, B.2.47, B.2.52, B.2.53, and D.2.51.

85 CUL, EDR, B.2.35, fol. 195r, B.2.46, fol. 64r; ChRO, EDC5, 1632.30.

86 CUL, EDR, B.2.14, fol. 42r, D.2.18, fol. 135v; Catherine Wright, “A Social Map of Community” (1998), p. 21. I am grateful to the author for allowing me to read her unpublished paper.

87 There are excellent discussions of this office in Carlson, Eric, “The Origin, Function, and Status of the Office of Churchwarden,” in The World of Rural Dissenters, ed. Spufford, Margaret (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 164–208Google Scholar, and Craig, John, “Co-operation and Initiatives: Elizabethan Churchwardens and the Parish Accounts of Mildenhall,” Social History 18, no. 3 (October 1993): 357–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

88 Radical ideas did, of course, circulate among the population during this period, particularly during the exceptional circumstances of the 1650s. I am not attempting to deny the existence, nor the significance, of such currents of thought, but I wish to emphasize their unrepresentative nature.