Parishes

"Ancient Parishes" of Chester are the group of parishes that existed roughly within the period of 1200–1800. Initially, the ancient parishes had only an ecclesiastical function, but reforms initiated by King Henry VIII, developed by Queen Elizabeth I and expanded by later legislation led them to acquire various secular functions that eventually led to a split between the ecclesiastical parishes and the purely civil parishes that exist today.

History


The word "parish" which is the English equivalent of the Latin "parochia" and the Greek "paroikia", has been used by the Church since its very early days to denote a primary organisational unit. At first, during the spread of christianity in the later Roman empire, this would have been located in a city and would have defined a community rather than a geography. By the opening of the 4th century, christianity was spreading to the countryside, which was quite literally inhabited by "pagans". Minsters were established, but there were no parish boundaries as such. The minsters were sometimes staffed by monks living under a rule or secular clerks leading a semi-community life. Village churches were few and far between before the ninth century and very little is known about their organisation. The majority of "Ancient Parish" churches in England originated as the personal property of (predominantly lay) patrons; who had the right to appoint and dismiss the parish priest, to receive an entrance fee on appointment, and to charge an annual rent thereafter.

Each such ecclesiastical parish was administered by a parish priest, specifically Rector, Vicar or Perpetual Curate depending on if the original set up of the rectory had become lay or disappropriated meaning its medieval rectorial property rights sold or bestowed on another body such as an abbey. The legal right to appoint or recommend a parish priest is called an advowson, and its possessor is known as a patron. Each such right in each parish was mainly first held by the lord of the principal manor. The creation of an advowson was a secondary development arising from the process of creating parishes across England in the 11th and 12th centuries, with their associated parish churches. A major impetus to this development was the legal exaction of agricultural tithes specific to the support of churches and their clergy; landowners needed to establish parish churches on their lands in order to retain tithe income within their estates and prevent it being spent or dispersed elesewhere, and to this purpose sought to raise former field churches to parish church status. This was generally performed by a lord of a manor by rebuilding a church within the boundary of his manor, or within that of a newly subinfeudated manor, and then transferring proprietary rights of certain individual named fields, mills or messuages (i.e. houses on the manor which earned rents) to establish a glebe.

The lord of the manor, having incurred a very great expense in building the church and parsonage and having suffered a loss of income due to his donation of property to the glebe, quite reasonably insisted on the right to select the individual who would act as parish priest, from which office he could not be ejected by the lord until the priest's death. The bishop, without whose consecration the new church would have no religious and spiritual stature, in turn demanded the right of confirmation of the appointment. Thus from the earliest time the advowson was "appurtenant to" the manor, that is to say it appertained to the manor and was exercisable by the lord. The advowson, being real property could be "alienated" (i.e. disposed of) by sale or gift of the patron, but with special licence from the overlord as was required for the alienation of the manor itself.

By various reforms almost all these rights were extinguished for lay patrons, who were able only to retain the residual power to nominate the rector to a benefice, and many lay notables thereupon gave up parish churches into the ownership of religious houses, which were less inhibited by canon law from extracting fees and rents from rectors. Initially it had not been unusual for religious houses in possession of rectories also to assume the capability to collect tithe and glebe income for themselves, but this practice was banned by the decrees of the Lateran Council of 1215.

In the pre-Reformation church, a rector and was in contrast to a vicar, a cleric whose revenue is usually, at least partially, appropriated by a larger organisation (such as an abbey) to whom the vicar functioned as a "vicarious" assistant and representative.

Tithes
Tithes are first mentioned in a constitutional decree, made in a synod held A.D. 786. Upon their first introduction, though every man was obliged to pay tithes in general, he might give them to whatever priests he pleased, or he might pay them into the hands of the bishop. In time, the tithes of a parish became the legal property of the person who held the office of rector. The rector did not have to be an ordained man — it might well be a college, bishop, a nobleman, or even a female. The rector was simply the one who received the ‘greater’ tithes, 10% of the cereal crops grown in the parish, (which might be as much as 75% of the total tithes), in compensation for the freehold (land) used by the church. The tithes were not the property of his vicar, who is not an office-holder but an employee, remunerated by a stipend, i.e. a salary, payable by his employer the rector.

Tithes were paid for every thing that yields an annual increase, such as corn, hay, hops, fruit, wood, cattle, poultry, and the like, and for wool or milk; but not for any thing that is of the "substance of the earth", or is not of annual increase, such as stone, lime, and the like; nor were they payable for creatures that are of a wild nature, such as deer and hawks. Personal industry resulted in tithes, as of manual occupations, trades, fisheries, and the like; and of these only the tenth part of the clear gains and profits was due.

In the Reformation of the 16th century, the Dissolution of the Monasteries led to the transfer of much monastic property back to laymen, and with the properties passed the advowsons which the monasteries had held: thus creating a large group of lay patrons (impropriators) who were thus entitled to tithes. These lay purchasers of the tithing rights could not themselves fulfil the spiritual obligations of a parochial cure, and nor was it considered proper that they appoint stipendiary priests for the function, as the canons had done. Instead lay purchasers of appropriated tithes, were required in these instances both to nominate a clergyman to the diocesan bishop to serve the cure, and also to provide a fixed stipend of appropriate annual value to support the new perpetual curacy. In practice, most of the nominated incumbents to the new perpetual curacies were the canons or stipendiaries who had been serving those cures before the dissolution. In 1603, there were an estimated 3849 livings in the hands of lay impropriators out of a total of 9284. Termed ecclesiastical pluralism some parish priests held more than one parish living (benefice), traditionally placing a possibly temporary curate in charge of those where they did not reside.

A rector received direct payment of both the greater and lesser tithes of his parish, whilst a vicar received only the lesser tithes (the greater tithes going to the lay holder, or impropriator, of the living). A curate held the Cure of souls in an area which had not yet been formally or legally constituted as a parish, and received neither greater nor lesser tithes, but only a small stipend in return for his duties. Perpetual curates (the title was abolished in 1868, after which they became vicars) tended to have a lower social status, and were often quite poorly remunerated. Any distinct status that perpetual curates had in law was abolished in 1968. The traditional titles of rector and vicar continue in English use today, although the roles and the conditions of employment of the two titles are now essentially the same. Which of the titles is held by the parish priest is largely historical, some parishes having a rector and others a vicar. Owing to the origins of the terms, parishes with a rector are often of more notable historical importance or prominence than parishes with a vicar.

By the early 19th century tithe payment in kind seemed a very out-of-date practice, while payment of tithes per se became unpopular, against a background of industrialisation, religious dissent and agricultural depression. The 1836 Tithe Commutation Act required tithes in kind to be converted to more convenient monetary payments called tithe rentcharge. The Tithe Survey was established to find out which areas were subject to tithes, who owned them, how much was payable and to whom. The first task of the Tithe Commissioners appointed to oversee the administration of the Act was to discover to what extent commutation had already taken place. Enquiries were directed to every parish or township listed in the census returns. The results of these enquiries are in the tithe files, which cover the whole of England and Wales, and not only those places where tithes remained uncommuted by 1836. For parishes where tithes were still being paid in kind, the land had to be surveyed and valued, to arrive at total parish rentcharge figures, and to calculate each individual landowner’s liability to pay tithe. Assistant tithe commissioners travelled to these parishes to hold meetings with parishioners about valuations, and to settle the terms of the commutation of their tithes. Thus, the tithe maps represent the end of the era of tithes.



Chester Parishes
For the City of Chester, and some detached portions the nine ancient parishes were: Holy Trinity (inc. the Blacon part of Blacon cum Crabwall), St Bridget, St Johns, St Martin, St Mary on the Hill (inc Claverton, Little Mollington, Marlston cum Lache, Moston, Gloverstone and greater part of Upton.), St Michael, St Olave, St Oswald (inc. Bache, Croughton, Great Boughton, Iddinshall, Newton by Chester, Wervin, the Crabwall part of Blacon cum Crabwall, part of Upton, and the islands of Hilbre and Little Eye in the Dee Estuary) and St Peter. St John had no townships which were dependent upon this parish, but it did contain 16 fields that were part of Hoole. St Oswald had a chapelry of Bruera which included Churton Heath, Huntington, Lea Newbold and Saighton. Chester Castle was extra-parochial, as was Little St John which in 1778 contained Bluecoat Hospital, Northgate Gaol, and six almshouses. Other places not in an ancient parish included Spital Boughton and the Cathedral precincts.

Chester's nine medieval parishes were not mapped until 1833, but there is no reason to suppose that the boundaries as then defined were substantially different from those of 1200, by which date all the churches were in existence. The parishes of St. Michael, St. Olave, and St. Peter lay within the medieval walls, and St. Martin's almost entirely so. St. Bridget's was partly extramural but confined to the liberties. Holy Trinity and St. John's extended beyond the liberties, and St. Mary's and St. Oswald's far beyond them. The partly extramural detached portion of St. Martin's parish in the Crofts may originally have been the parish of a tenth church, St Chad's, which had disappeared before the Reformation.

The evolution of the parishes and the final shape of their boundaries have been plausibly explained as the successive subdivision of territories attached to the two oldest foundations, St. Oswald's and St. John's, as new churches were established from the 10th century onwards.

It is often said that the boundaries of rural ancient parishes reflect those of Anglo-Saxon manors. Clearly this is not true of urban parishes, as in Chester where the interlocking of the boundaries can be quite complex on a very small scale. As an example of a rural parish consider the ancient parish of Plemstall. This comprises the townships of Hoole, Mickle-Trafford, Bridge-Trafford and Pickton. The original church was built in the 12th century but the present building dates mostly from the 15th century. Inscriptions in the church show that there were restorations in 1684, 1711, 1802–03 and 1819.

Mickle-Trafford is mentioned in Domesday as belonging to the Hundred of Willaston and in the lordship of Earl Hugh of Chester. It had a recorded population of 8 households comprising 4 villagers, 2 smallholders and 2 slaves. There were 6 ploughlands with 2 lord's plough teams and 1 men's plough teams. There is no mention of any pasture or meadow. It had previously belonged to Ording of Trafford. It had a value of 2 pounds in 1086 reduced from 5 pounds in 1066.

Bridge-Trafford is mentioned in Domesday as being in the Hundred of Ruloe. It had a recorded population of 7 households in 1086, although details are only given as "1 smallholder, 4 slaves, 1 female slave, 1 men" and that there is ploughland for one lords team and one acre of meadow. The Tenant-in-chief in 1086 was the canons of Chester St Werburgh. The annual value to its lord was 8 shillings in 1086 up from 5 shillings in 1066.

Picton in Domesday was the land of Richard of Vernon and had six households comprising 3 smallholders, 2 other population and 1 "riders". The ploughland consited of 3 ploughlands with 1 lord's plough team and 1 men's plough team. There was a meadow of 0.5 acres. It had previously belonged to Toki of Picton. Picton was also in the Hundred of Willaston. It had a value of 1 pound in 1086; 5 shillings when acquired by the 1086 owner, reduced from 2 pounds in 1066.



Extra-mural Parish Boundaries
Parish boundaries are marked on maps with varying degrees of detail. In general these boundaries stayed stable for in some cases hundreds of years, but in recent times there has been much combination and sub-division (see the example of Hoole below). Hedges were an early form of boundary as were brooks, streams and ditches. In some places the boundary is now simply a track, but may have once been followed by a hedge.

The terminology used on maps can be confusing but the following abbreviations are fairly common. "4ft R. H." means four feet from the "root of the hedge", indicating that the planter of the hedge has ensured that the hedge is set back from the actual boundary to allow it to grow without taking land from the neighbour. On modern maps this may be written as "1.22m RH". The distance differs between 3ft and 5ft depending on which parish the land lies within. "C.Tk.D" means the center of the track of a ditch (or drain), with similar for stream (C.Tk.S). "CS" may also be used for the mid-line of a stream, and "CCS" for the centre of a covered stream. "FW" is "follows wall" and is obviously associated with a more modern landscape. "Und" is used for boundaries which are "undefined": one where there was no real-world feature to align the boundary to when it was surveyed. "Def" does not mean defined, but rather "defaced", meaning that the original feature that the boundary was aligned to no longer exists: often this was probably a hedge that was removed. Where one type of boundary stops and another starts this is often indicated by a short line with a circle at each end. The most notable boundary marker is often the boundary stone (marked on maps as "BS"): these are also the most expensive to install and may have a special history associated with them, such as memorial stones for mayoral "beating of the bounds".

Bounds of Hoole
Neither the township of Hoole nor the parish of Plemstall are mentioned in Domesday, but there is suggestive evidence that the parish of Plemstall is based on an ancient foundation. These include the likely association with it of Plegmund and the fact that while there is a church at Plemstall there has never been a township associated with it, and yet the parish is moderately extensive in terms of area.

Related Pages

 * Flookersbrook: for the boundaries of Chester overall;
 * Plegmund: for some informatiom on the parish;
 * Hoole: for a general discussion of the township;