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107
Cart. of St Denis, II, 275 (no. 496).
108
R.H. Snape, English monastic finance (Oxford, 1926); R.A.L. Smith,  The Regimen Scaccarii in English
monasteries , in: Collected papers of R.A.L. Smith (London, 1947), 54 73.
Lamps, lights and layfolk:  popular devotion before the Black Death 113
ecclesia (late twelfth-early thirteenth century) and preter missas et orationes et cetera
beneficia spiritualia que fiunt in prefata ecclesia (mid-twelfth century).109 Specific
provision for the purpose of gifts was often directed towards remembrance and before
c.1300 some of the smaller forms of remembrance  pittances and lights  allowed the
greater participation in spiritual benefits of a larger number of lay benefactors, extending
to the free peasantry and townspeople.110 The provisions of the Fourth Lateran Council
of 1215, such as annual communication and confession, were a stimulus to internal piety
which was expressed through voluntary lay benefactions for lights. One of the
consequences of these individual benefactions for lights might have been from the early
thirteenth century the development of lay offices in the parish and over the later middle
ages more  lay control over the contributions of the laity to the parish.111 Individual lay
provision for lighting was already associated with the mass and Marian devotion, but
there is no need to attribute an integrative or communitarian impulse or response.
Individual benefactions for lights were received from only part of the  community , a
small selective part, so that social status was further defined by such benefactions.
Indeed, social differentiation was visible in the materials used, the size and weight of
candles and the extent of decoration.112
Since the circumstances between late medieval piety and the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries were somewhat different, so some changes also occurred. By the later middle
ages, local social and religious allegiances had generally been transferred from religious
houses to parish churches. Whilst a case might be made for a communitarian motive in
the late middle ages by augmenting divine service in the parish, the direction in the
earlier period of grants for lights in religious houses, to the enclosed religious, cannot be
associated with that influence. Except where a religious house functioned also as parish
church, parishioners were unlikely to be able to participate in the benefits of the lights.113
If the origins of grants for lights in the later middle ages were located in the earlier
grants, then the primary motivations must have been internal devotion, personal
salvation, and definition of social status, rather than any wider sentiment.
A transformation occurred in the nature of the grantors and their instruments for
allocating grants for lights. In the twelfth and thirteenth century, at least some part of the
grants consisted in charters, with the implication that, even if the contribution to the
109
The Thame cartulary, ed. H.E. Salter, 2 vols (Oxfordshire Record Society, 25 6, 1947 8), I, 59 (no. 71);
Blythburgh Priory cartulary, ed. C. Harper-Bill (Suffolk Record Society Suffolk Charters 3 1981), 2, 141
and 189 (nos 247 and 359). For a résumé of free alms, B. Thompson,  Free alms tenure in the twelfth
century , in: Anglo-Norman studies XVI. Proceedings of the Battle Conference, ed. M. Chibnall (Wood-
bridge, 1994), 221 43.
110
Grants for lights to some religious houses in Suffolk, however, seem to have been more exclusive, conferred
by people of higher social status, sometimes knightly: Sibton Abbey cartularies and charters, ed. P. Brown,
4 vols (Suffolk Record Society Suffolk Charters, 6, 8 10, 1985 8), 2, 284 5 and 316 17 (nos 390 and 436)
(Hugh II Bigod and Cecily de Herford, 121731230); Blythburgh Priory cart., 114 (no 196) (Roger de
Mainwaring, 1244).
111
E. Mason,  The role of the English parishioner 1100 1500 , Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 27 (1976),
17 29; B.A. Kümin, The Shaping of a community. The rise and reformation of the English parish
c.1400  1560 (Aldershot, 1996), 17 42; Brown, Popular piety, 77 91.
112
For some examples of differentiation, Kempers,  Icons, altarpieces, and civic ritual , 97 and 112.
113
See C. Burgess,    For the increase of divine service  : chantries in the parish in late medieval Bristol ,
Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 36 (1985), 48 65.
114 David Postles
lights continued after the death of the grantor, the association was between the living and
the religious institution. Since grants by charters were not usually ambulatory  that is,
the grant had to be immediately effective rather than deferred until some future date,
such as death  support for the lights occurred in the grantor s lifetime as well as
afterwards. By the later middle ages, the patronage of lights was largely effected through
testaments, so that the grant was only made after the grantor s death, by bequest.
Fundamentally, the later medieval relationship was between the dead and the religious
institution. Despite these differences, however, what is clear is the essential continuity of
many aspects of late medieval popular piety, not least in lay provision for lights.114
Lights, consequently, continuously had symbolic importance in the liturgy. Through
benefactions to their support, the laity hoped to be more closely associated with the
liturgical rites and, before the late middle ages, lay piety was expressed through such
grants. This sort of benefaction was inclusive since the cost could be small, so that
participation extended to burgesses and even the free peasantry. The earlier circum-
stances differed, however, since the parish church had not yet become the primary focus
of lay piety, as religious houses offered an alternative.
114 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]