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The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village

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Professor Duffy painlessly weaves an engrossing story from the manuscript record of Morebath parish in England's West Country. Important background information is worked in while you trace the story of the parish's growth and trials during the tumultuous changes of the Reformation. Duffy's treatment relies on a unique and garrulous chronicle kept by Morebath's priest for half a century, Sir Christopher Trychay.

Thanks to Duffy's explanations, you understand how catastrophic the changes imposed under Edward VI were for this rural parish. You also see how spirituality was closely woven into the daily life and practice of pre-Reformation Morebath. The story of how the priest and his parishoners work out a modus vivendi under the religious changes of the day makes for compelling reading. The Voices of Morebath is an outstanding example of micro-history, I highly recommend this book for students of Tudor history and culture.

From 1520 to 1574, in a small sheep-farming community in Devon, parish priest Christopher Trychay maintained a careful record of village happenings, filling the pages of his account book with what Eamon Duffy calls "the personality, opinions, and prejudices of the most vivid country clergyman of the English sixteenth century." That Trychay's tenure happened to coincide with the English Reformation -- in the course of which his parishioners would be swept into rebellion and he himself would adopt the new Protestant faith -- makes his chronicle all the more priceless.

In his 2001 history of Tudor reaction to and management of the Protestant Reformation, THE VOICES OF MOREBATH, what does author Eamon Duffy set out to do?

The first sentence of his Preface says it all: "This is a book about a sixteenth-century country priest, and the extraordinary records he kept." The priest is Sir Christopher Trychay (pronounced "Tricky"). The country is the sheep-raising part of Devon in southwestern England, more precisely the wee village of Morebath, 25 miles north of the county seat at Exeter. The years are 1520 - 1574 when Trychay was vicar of Saint George's parish church, and wrote up the fiscal accounts presented annually by elected lay parishioners. Laymen and laywomen managed various funds (called "stores") used for church upkeep and adornment and for other needs of the parish.

From the still rather jumbled manuscript of the Vicar's narrative of accounts, historian Duffy teases out a surprising mass of biographic and genealogical facts about the 30-odd farm families of Saint George's parish: men, women, boys, girls and infants. For 54 years their priest, Sir Christopher Trychay, baptized them, officiated at their weddings and funerals and fostered their pride in personal and collective religious service to the parish. Duffy treats all local cadres and both sexes fairly and evenhandedly.

The conservative but instinctively deferential Vicar of Saint George's begins Catholic, is forced to do Protestant things, enjoys five years of re-Catholicization under Queen Mary, then knuckles under to the victorious Protestantism of Queen Elizabeth. Why did Sir Christopher Trychay not resign his churches? Why not go underground in nonconforming opposition? Probably, argues Eamon Duffy, because at bottom the Vicar's personal Christianity was rooted in the local, the familiar, the dear. No mere change of monarchs would undermine his enduring loyalty to or cause him to leave "his" Morehead. Much the same seems likely for the conservative laymen of Saint George's parish. There was simply "no help for it." The inevitable had to be borne.

There are things you might care to know about the specfically feminine dimensions of Saint George's in the 54 years that Sir Christopher was vicar there. Here are some:

-- (1) local cult of the Virgin Mary,

-- (2) cult of Saint Sidwell,

-- (3) parish leadership roles of women and even girls,

-- (4) two wives' influence on King Henry VIII's religious leanings.

***

-- (1) Local cult of the Virgin Mary. Both Eastern and Western Christianity were in the 16th century thoroughly Incarnationalist, earthy, concrete, celebrating "the Word made flesh." And the Word was enfleshed in the virgin womb of Mary. Thus the most precious and valuable possession of any early Tudor country woman was a large rosary, with silver pater noster beads, and worn suspended from the waist. The fiscal reports of Saint George's record many donations of valuable rosaries to the church, to adorn statues or altars or to be sold back to relatives to fund good works for the poor and others.

But in Morebath the great Queen of Heaven, the Mother of God, also assumed a role more resembling that of minor "helper" saints invoked for special needs or on special occasions. Thus Our Lady of Sorrows was especially dear as companion to the severely ill as they prepared for a good death.

-- (2) Cult of Saint Sidwell. Buried outside the eastern gate of Exeter was the Saxon girl Saint Sidwell, murdered by her cruel step-mother. In 1520, almost upon his arrival as new Vicar at Morebath, Sir Christopher introduced the local cult of this saint. Remarkably soon, the women and girls of the parish embraced this cult. And one widow even willed her silver wedding ring to make shoes for the statue of Saint Sidwell. This statue was prominently supplied near an important side altar previously called "the Jesus altar," but soon the Jesus-Sidwell altar or simply the Sidwell altar.

-- (3) Parish leadership roles of women and even girls. Every year 12 laymen were elected to manage the parish funds or "stores" dedicated to the church's special needs: altar cloths, beeswax for candles, sheep for their wool, altar linen, etc. One of the several stores was the women's and another the "maidens" store. Girls as young as 12 (the traditional age for receiving first communion) were eligible for election and the record shows that they often served, too. Sometimes their fathers subbed for them in preparing the annual accounts. Women at times also filled the number one parish accounting role, or warden. Pre-Reformation Morebath shows women and girls heavily engaged in the daily minutiae of parish life, side by side with their menfolks and boys under the leadership of their pastor. As the Reformation juggeraut from on high destroyed old pious practices, participation of laymen in all parish activities fell off dramatically. In general, the numbers of clergy plummeted as did fresh vocations to the Protestant priesthood.

-- (4) Two wives' influence on King Henry VIII's religious leanings. Eamon Duffy credits Henry VIII's second wife, Anne Boleyn, with pushing him into his earliest Protestant reforms. He credits his fifth wife, Catherine Howard and her conservative relatives, for pulling Henry back toward the end of his reign from earlier reforming zeal.

Bottom line: Women mattered in both Morebath and England, especially the two Tudor Monarchs Mary I and Elizabeth I. The Reformation, however, according to Duffy, greatly diminished the role of women in parishes. At the same time the centralizing Tudor state based in London increasingly converted parishes from religious to secular entities for raising revenues for the Crown.

The book is very visual, well illustrated and presents two useful maps of Morebath, Devon and southwestern England. For my personal taste, there is too much minute scholarship scattered proudly through the text. Otherwise almost anyone keen to know more about how three Tudor Monarchs imposed Protestantism on an unhappy but compliant population will enjoy THE VOICES OF MOREBATH: REFORMATION AND REBELLION IN AN ENGLISH VILLAGE. -OOO-

This study is a supplement to the author's Stripping of the Altars, a major revisionist account of the English Reformation. While his point of view is controversial, it certainly provides insight, background, and important questions. This one especially is full of personal detail and makes very interesting reading.

THE VOICES OF MOREBATH is perhaps not quite accurately titled. As Duffy himself confesses, what we really have is one voice, that of Christopher Trychay, the local priest, who meticulously set down the financial transactions of his church in this small, rural, not-quite-impoverished hamlet. Even there we do not hear Trychay's total voice, for he was not recording his thoughts, philosophies, or observations about the government or the society around him, just the financial records of the church. Of course, a careful reading of such records can tell us a surprising amount about the welfare of the hamlet, especially because, at the time, the secular and spiritual realms were inextricably intertwined.

Duffy's writing style is not, I fear, particularly engrossing, and, at times, I had to force my attention on the sense of the text. Still, considering that Duffy was examining primarily financial records, hardly scintillating fare regardless of the historical era, he does a fair job at interpretation and extrapolation, and the observations of Morebath society that he draws from these records are well supported. Duffy is being a careful historian here, for he refrains from interjecting conclusions and suppositions that are not supported by the record; however, occasional dry passages are the inevitable result of such a studied approach.

I did find several points in this book to be instructive in that they created new perceptions for me: It seems as though churches in 16th Century Britain were as much concerned with their financial status as are those in today's Western societies; we find practically nothing in the record concerning spiritual or social matters but much concerning money. On at least the local level, Tudor-era agricultural villages seem to have had no civil government of any sort, the priest and his church being its substitute. Rather than civil law, social pressure, orchestrated as needed by the priest, ensured conformity with societal norms and financial support of the church.

Most surprisingly, these country farmers seem largely to have bent before the prevailing monarchical winds, changing their religious devotions as dictated by the current king or queen, moving from Catholicism to Protestantism under Henry and Edward, reverting to Catholicism under Mary, and then harking back to Protestantism under Elizabeth. Under one monarch, they had to surrender their holy books and ornamentation, and under the next they had to restore them. They apparently did so with such relative ease that one wonders just how sincere they were in their religious beliefs. This picture does seem to conflict with that drawn by Alice Hogge in her book GOD'S SECRET AGENTS, which is rife with beheadings, disembowelings, secret "priest holes" built into houses, and serious government spying. However, perhaps that is a difference between powerless country farmers and aristocratic city dwellers of the time. There was, of course, indication of at least some passive resistence to these abrupt changes decreed by the government, such as the hiding of church ornamentation now and then, but, except for the Prayer Book Rebellion, the causes of which are not entirely clear to Duffy, there appears to have been little overt resistence in the countryside.

In sum, THE VOICES OF MOREBATH does provide the reader with an informative glance at life in a small country hamlet during the 16th century. Frustratingly, it is a glance through the small window of local church finances and, as such, must surely miss seeing many other aspects of that life. Also, because it is a glance based primarily on everyday financial concerns of a rural church, it sometimes approaches the boring. Still, for a reader who wishes to further his understanding of commoners' lives over four hundred years ago, of the forced transitions of the Reformation, and of the burdensome taxation imposed by successive monarchs intent on waging fruitless wars with Scotland and France, all of which underlay the founding of a constitutional representative democracy in the New World, the book is a valuable resource. I recommend it for the serious student of history if not, perhaps, for the casual reader.

This is a detailed account of life in a small village during the time of the Anglican reformation. Drawn from parish records, it is more than a casual student of the period needs to know, while at the same time lacking a broader description of other events that were taking place. Interesting, but chiefly for experts. Not the place to start.

The Voices of Morebath is really just one voice, that of the parish priest, Sir Christopher Trychay. Author Eamon Duffy retells the trials and tribulations of a small West County English village during the tumultuous times of the Reformation, as written down by Sir Trychay in his parish account books.