DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6913#0047
BARFRESTON CHURCH, KENT.
21
to an undue influence in his persecution of the eminent Wilfred, should be regarded
among the first of our metropolitans : yet it is uncertain whether he paid a minute
and detailed attention at the architectonic concerns of his province : for such regard
is not on record.
In his time the churches were chiefly conventual, at which the converted inhabi-
tants of a large space of country met for the purposes of religion, and whence many
of the clergy, who belonged to those associations, departed, at stated times, for the
performance of sacred rites, to a considerable distance : for whose accommodation
some notices of the village church are scattered in our ancient historians. Yet it
was long before these establishments had become numerous, and had each an assigned
district annexed, which by its tithes and oblations could maintain a priest, or become
what, on account of such contributions, has been named a parish. * It is evident,
then, upon this view of the country, within the first centuries after its conversion,
that several churches would be raised, as Dr. Kennett remarks, where the population
was numerous, or where the riches of the principal landholder, or his piety, would
demand, for the service of his family and tenants, f Not any of these advantages
had, however, likely fallen to Barfreston : it is a place remote, if not barren ; is
seated on open downs ; and that its possessors were not in a condition to undertake
a work of elegance in architecture, is sufficiently made out in the Domesday Survey
—for it is entered as a part of the vast estates of the Bishop of Baieux, and was
made up of two yoke lands. Of these one was not rated to the King's tax, to which
a poor woman paid the low sum of threepence farthing. Its dependant manor of
Hartanger was also the property of the same extensive possessor, and in the time of
the Confessor had been worth forty shillings, when it was held by a Saxon, named
l^ddid. J Ifj then, we are to assign the structure under review to any age previous
* The progressive increase of parish churches may be marked by the following authorities. The first of the
constitutions of Egbert, Archbishop of York, "50, enjoins that every priest shall use the utmost diligence in re-
building his church; in the 2d canon they are charged to ring the bells of their churches at proper hours, day and
mght. About 96 i, in the second chapter of Edgar's ecclesiastical laws, every Thane who had a church with a
cemetery on his land held by charter, was to confer upon it one-third of his tithes—the increase of parochial dis-
tricts is thus evidently pointed out. By the 9th of the Confessor's ecclesiastical laws, it appears there were then
three or four churches, where, at an earlier time, there had been but one; with which, and the state of the
country, as described in this respect in Domesday-Book, there could be but little difference; yet Sir H. Spelman
thinks the number was much increased before and during the reign of William Rufus : and it is not improbable that
such districts as are not entered with the words eccl^sia or presbyter, have become parochial since the formation of
that survey.
t Case of Appropriations. J Hasted's Kent, folio, vol. iv. p. 199, &c.
21
to an undue influence in his persecution of the eminent Wilfred, should be regarded
among the first of our metropolitans : yet it is uncertain whether he paid a minute
and detailed attention at the architectonic concerns of his province : for such regard
is not on record.
In his time the churches were chiefly conventual, at which the converted inhabi-
tants of a large space of country met for the purposes of religion, and whence many
of the clergy, who belonged to those associations, departed, at stated times, for the
performance of sacred rites, to a considerable distance : for whose accommodation
some notices of the village church are scattered in our ancient historians. Yet it
was long before these establishments had become numerous, and had each an assigned
district annexed, which by its tithes and oblations could maintain a priest, or become
what, on account of such contributions, has been named a parish. * It is evident,
then, upon this view of the country, within the first centuries after its conversion,
that several churches would be raised, as Dr. Kennett remarks, where the population
was numerous, or where the riches of the principal landholder, or his piety, would
demand, for the service of his family and tenants, f Not any of these advantages
had, however, likely fallen to Barfreston : it is a place remote, if not barren ; is
seated on open downs ; and that its possessors were not in a condition to undertake
a work of elegance in architecture, is sufficiently made out in the Domesday Survey
—for it is entered as a part of the vast estates of the Bishop of Baieux, and was
made up of two yoke lands. Of these one was not rated to the King's tax, to which
a poor woman paid the low sum of threepence farthing. Its dependant manor of
Hartanger was also the property of the same extensive possessor, and in the time of
the Confessor had been worth forty shillings, when it was held by a Saxon, named
l^ddid. J Ifj then, we are to assign the structure under review to any age previous
* The progressive increase of parish churches may be marked by the following authorities. The first of the
constitutions of Egbert, Archbishop of York, "50, enjoins that every priest shall use the utmost diligence in re-
building his church; in the 2d canon they are charged to ring the bells of their churches at proper hours, day and
mght. About 96 i, in the second chapter of Edgar's ecclesiastical laws, every Thane who had a church with a
cemetery on his land held by charter, was to confer upon it one-third of his tithes—the increase of parochial dis-
tricts is thus evidently pointed out. By the 9th of the Confessor's ecclesiastical laws, it appears there were then
three or four churches, where, at an earlier time, there had been but one; with which, and the state of the
country, as described in this respect in Domesday-Book, there could be but little difference; yet Sir H. Spelman
thinks the number was much increased before and during the reign of William Rufus : and it is not improbable that
such districts as are not entered with the words eccl^sia or presbyter, have become parochial since the formation of
that survey.
t Case of Appropriations. J Hasted's Kent, folio, vol. iv. p. 199, &c.