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3. The Church at Cropredy.
Saint Mary's Church, Cropredy.
A Forgotten Saint and Saint Mary's Church.
The Reverend Canon Wood D.D. vicar of Cropredy (1870-1898) wrote an article called "A Forgotten Saint" in which he searches for the proof that Saint Fremund's shrine was in Cropredy church [ The Antiquary xxvii 1893]. In the 1870's no-one had any recollection of one, but a Danvers relative had come across references to Fremund's chapel in three wills. The first will belonged to a Richard Danvers of Prescote manor who was buried on the 14th of February 1489/90. His family's chantry supported a chaplain to pray for the souls of the departed Danvers, but was this at Prescote manor or transferred with the relicts to Saint Mary's church when the south chapel was built?
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"..to Sir Ranulphus chaplain of the chapel of St Frethmund 20s to pray for my soul. I give 100s to the works of the body or nave of the Prebend church of Cropredy; 20s towards the repairs of St Fremund, where his shrine is situated."
Richard placed the church bequest between two Fremund references so could this not mean they were on the same site? The shrine had once been in Fremund's Hamm a valuable Prescote meadow surrounded by the river Cherwell and fed by the Brademere (High Furlong brook). Although the meadow was visited by sick cattle, the main pilgrims would have been directed to the relicts in his chantry chapel from which came tales of miraculous cures.
Richard Danver's second son John had married Ann Stradling and lived at Dauntsey in Wiltshire (inheriting Prescote in 1511 after the decease of his brother Richard's wife and daughter Anna). In Dauntsey church John and Ann have a large tomb and above it is a stained glass window with a scroll "Sancte Fredismunde ora pro nobis." Saint Fremund is shown carrying his head under his arm. In John's will of 1514 he left 20s to Cropredy church and 20s to St Frethemund's chapel, while Ann also remembered the chapel when in 1539 she left a cow to Culworth church and ten ewes to the "Chapel of Saynte Fredysmunde in Cropredy." Dr Wood began with this information to try and establish the connection between Danvers and Fremund.
Who was this Fremund? How did the legend arise and how much was altered down the years? Dr Wood came across Lives of Saints compiled by John of Tynemouth in 1366 and copied by Hardy. The vicar quoted from this text in his A Forgotten Saint in 1893. The direct quotes are from Hardy interspersed with information taken from Dr Wood's interpretation of the tale.
"Fremund was the son of a pagan king who reigned in England, named Offa, and his queen Botilda, his birth foretold by a child, who died when 3 days old [sic]. He is baptised by Bishop Heswi [Oswy], performs many miracles, and converts his parents. Offa resigns his kingdom to his son," but after a year Fremund left the throne to become a hermit, taking Burchard and an attendant. For seven years he remained on Caerleon on the Wye until in 870 King Edmund was killed by the Danes when they invaded West Mercia. Offa sent twentytwo noblemen to find and collect his son asking for his help. "He assents in consequence of a vision in which it is revealed each of his companions shall appear as a thousand to his enermies. He attacks and defeats 24,000 of the enermy" with twenty four men.
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"While he is prostrate in thanksgiving for victory, Duke Oswi, formerly one of Offa's commanders" and a pagan, "cuts off his head," and as the blood splashes over Oswi he repents and is forgiven. Fremund jumps up and carrying his head walks from Radford, the scene of the battle, some distance to a place between Long Itchington and Harbury and there where he touches the ground with his sword a spring burst forth and he washes his wounds, "falls prostrate and expires. His body is buried at the royal mansion of Offchurch."
After sixtysix years Fremund's body was moved to a place between the "Charwell and the Brademere." This move came about when three disabled people, one deaf, one dumb and the last a cripple, were bidden by an angel in a dream to take the body there and to build a tomb. They set off, all cured, to prepare a place only to discover the body had mysteriously vanished, yet tradition has it that a tree grew over the body and that Fremunds Ham grew marvellous grass and herbs much sought after to cure sick beasts.
His body is again discovered by a pilgrim named Edelbert. He was praying at the Holy Sepulchre when he had three dreams each telling him to go to a large willow tree near the Charwell and there to find "a mylk-whit sowhe...with younge piges in noumbre ful threttene" and five priests in a chapel nearby, at Prescote. Egelbert not believing the message soon found his arm dislocated by the angel. In some pain Egelbert gains permission to go, and with testimonial letters and bulls set out for Prescote. At Fremunds Ham he recovered the use of his arm and there under a tree he found "The sowhe, the piggis...and preestis fyue dwellyng ther-be-syde." The saint's body and former priests were moved to an eminence across the river in Cropredy and a church built around 1050.
By 1203 Richard de Morins the Prior of Dunstable, Bedfordshire (1202-1242) translated the relics, with the Pope's permission. Richard the prior was a friend of King John and pleased him with the acquisition of the saint, so much so that King John endowed lands to the priory and gave everyone a three days holiday. At Dunstable Saint Fremund's feast day is on May 13th. Why had Cropredy given up such an important relic, or was enough left to still perform miracles? Had money been so desperately needed by the laity to rebuild the church?
The Prescote's chantry at the east end of the south aisle was reassociated with the saint by Dr Wood. To understand the situation in Richard Danver's time and the importance of chantries and confraternities to the catholic congregation we have to look inside their church, before studying the general architectural features.
The calling bell rang out in time for the mass, and after 1512 the hourly clock struck, as they had all assembled, each crossing themselves with holy water from a stoop in the porch before entering. The Prescote people went to the south aisle, the Bourton's to the northern aisle and Cropredy people to the nave. The few pews belonged to the wealthier tenants, and standing was quite normal for the rest. The light coming through the windows aided by numerous candles lit up the pictures painted on the walls. The eye immediately being drawn upwards to the huge cross in the rood loft with the brightly coloured doom painting behind, under the chancel arch. The priest celebrating mass was in the chancel partially hidden by the wooden screen. The high altar was covered in rich cloths, but the priest in his embroidered vestments had all his attention on the latin mass. At the ringing of the bell the murmurs would stop for the adoration of the host. Afterwards bread would be distributed in the nave.
The men and boys with their plainsong and instruments joined in when they had a sung mass which fed the emotions and certainly the devotions.
The church may seem to be apart from the laity, but they and their ancestors had contributed to the high nave, side aisles, and the tall tower and now the fabric was always demanding attention.
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A group of parishioners would join in a fraternity, because the doctrine of Purgatory made it necessary to lighten their load of sins. The lay fraternity lit candles and kept the Easter sepulcre light lit as well as candles up in the rood loft which used to singe the wood. There were candles lit to Mary to intercede for them and money left for torches. Most important of all each deceased member had a funeral mass attended by every member who paid their penny for the priest. On a certain day they had their annual mass followed by a business meeting and feast. The brethren consisted of any townsman, man or woman. The women were there in their own right, something confined only to these medieval guilds. Cropredy was too small to have a trade or craft guild, but this town's small independent group had the chance to conduct their own affairs within the church.
Chantries were for the wealthier gentlemen who used them for their own private chapels for masses said for their family's souls. Usually land was set aside to pay for a chaplain who had his own altar in the chapel. A month after the funeral came the "month mind" mass and every year after the "obit" mass [Scarisbrick J.J. The Reformation and the English People 1984 Blackwell]. Some left money for bread to be distributed on each occasion to the poor. This could be said to bring in extra people to pray for the soul of the departed, but it was the custom and served two purposes. If Saint Fremund's relicts were kept in the south chapel, were the people allowed to have their fraternity masses said in there, or must they leave that altar to the Danver's, and use the north aisle chapel? There was a third chapel made in the south aisle next to Saint Fremund's for Simon of Cropredy's family [8].
To finance the chantries money, stock or land was left in wills. Ten years after Anne Danvers left the ten ewes to Saint Fremund's chapel in Cropredy the chantries were closed. The brethren would have already leased out the small flock to increase and provide an income for the obit masses for her soul. Part of the chantry and church income came from property in Wardington. The situation changed in King Henry VIII's reign turning their world upside down.
Henry VIII cut the church off from Rome and became the spiritual head of the church. He went further having severe monetary problems. Over a period of years he set a plan in action. First his Royal commissioners went round all the monasteries, abbeys and priories taking down particulars of their assets. His intent was to end all their superstitious practices, pension them off and take into his coffers the money from the sales of land and valuables.
The choice of becoming a protestant country did not come from below but from above. Edward VI continued to draw in ecclesiastical property following an Act of 1545 which had allowed Henry to suppress colleges, free chapels and chantries, many of whom had supported the poor, funded schools, hospitals and almshouses. Clattercote and Chacombe priories had both lost their funding in his father's time. In 1547 Bishop Holbech of Lincoln had to exchange the prebend manor [A] of Cropredy with the Crown for a grant. For a short period fifty of the town's household's very existence depended upon the Crown. The rest of the tenants on the Brasenose manor would no doubt be anxiously wondering if the Crown would seize the Colleges as well. In 1549 the Royal commissioners were out again in the neighbourhood but this time taking particulars of Chantries, now unnecessary as masses for the dead did not take place. Lights need not be lit. Rood screens must come down and the paintings whitewashed over. Statues must go. The high altar had been removed from the chancel and a communion table placed by the nave.
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From the commissioners Book of Particulars volume lxvii [Cal. Pat. 1548/9, 191] the Revd D Royce copied out the Cropredy entry that "certyn lands were gyven for the maynteynynge of a lampelyght within the said parishe churche forever by whome unknowen. The value of the lands to the same belongynge ys yerely 4s."
Within the church they had apparently no "ornaments, plate, jewels and stocks to the same." Who had carefully hidden the eagle, the pyx and surely the chalice and candlesticks? Where were the vestments? Perhaps forewarned by Clattercote the fraternity had taken action [Royce p43].
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Royce found more: "Divers lands in Cropredye...Rent of a cottage and meadow in Cropredye in tenure of John Hill at the will of the Lord ijs...Rent of another cottage in tenure of Thomas Hill ijs...Rent resolute from land in Croprydye, paid annually to William Gifford, gent ijs...Memord, the premises aforesd were given by dyvers persons unknown to the mayntenance of lampelights, obitts, and to be prayed for in the aforesaid churche for ever."
So their assets were to be sold off as the chantry was no longer needed in the eyes of the spiritual head of their church. No one asked what the majority thought who had kept the fraternity going for so long. They were informed purgatory had been dismissed and mass forbidden. However the commissioners made one big mistake. Some of this land belonged to the clock, the church bells and church repairs all of which had nothing to do with "superstitious practices" and so should not have been taken. It was only in 1512 that the Reverend Roger Lupton had given them, so documentation was found and produced which showed the trust had purchased two quarter parcels of land, one in 1513 and the second in 1517, but these trustees had to fight long and "oftimes harde in the Courte." They had been sold in 1549 with the chantry to George Owen and a William Harrison who bought up Banbury's as well. They could have pulled down the building, but if it was part of the church it made sense to sell it to the Danvers to keep their pews in their former chapel. Besides they had owned it before the commissioners came round. The chapel was much older than 1549 and has not been rebuilt. The chancel door the Danvers used to reach the chapel may be of this period, but why a chancel door? It can only have been to save the gentlemen from coming to the south aisle through the townsmen's porch.
These townsmen wanted back their land to pay for the clock to be wound and bells rung and five trustees from the Bourton and Cropredy Bell Land trust were chosen to act on their behalf namely Thomas Smith, Will Newman, John Sherman, Roger Truste and Thomas Gubbyn. They presented a bill proving the land was the gift of Roger Lupton and Richard Skipwith and that "the premises came not, nor ought to come into the hand of the late king..." By 1553 catholic Mary was on the throne and she did allow land and grants to help many churches and by 1557 it was finally returned. One tenement in which Joane Hill widow dwelt for twentyone years was to be leased for half a year to the defendant plus 40s and the present tenant Thomas Gardner must surrender. With no doubt a sigh of relief the five transferred the property to younger trustees. For nine years they had fought to win back their strips of land in the Wardington Open Common Fields, which after 1775 were gathered into one Bell Land plot on the road to Chacombe.
Queen Mary had the altar reinstated during her six years and once again the rood light was mentioned in wills, but all vanished when Elizabeth came on the throne. The rood screen being recycled to the north chapel. It includes the candle burns. The altar went back to the nave. Queen Elizabeth had no wish to interfere with inner convictions, but her people would no longer be allowed to believe in the miracle of the catholic mass. To them the Doctrine of the Real Presence in the mass came with the words: "The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life."
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The communion service having taken the place of the mass, used the words "Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee and feed on Him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving."
The church now had no holy stoops in the porch and the inside was whitewashed and plain. The new protestant order was for the congregation (which must go to church or pay a fine), to listen to the minister and take part in the communion service. Holloway had communion at least three times in the year. "All in the parish do receve the communyon reverently kneling." Few "absent themselves from their parish church at morning prayre wher by the xijd a piece hath not bene demanded. He redeth the lateny and other prayers Wednesday and Fridays" and the canons were read out yearly to the parishioners. This was reported in 1619 and catholicism was well in the past for the majority. Holloway's morning service could be as early as nine o'clock and the evening sevice began at two o'clock in the winter and three in the summer. Towards the end of our period the altar moved back to the east window and a communion rail was put up.
Gradually pews paid for by the husbandmen and perhaps forms for the poorer elderly made it easier to listen to the sermons. Archbishop Laud (1633-45) insisted pews be low, of uniform height and face the altar. Parishioners building their own before this could make high, boxed in affairs. At Claydon from 1609-11 some were jostling in their seats over who should sit where, and had to be presented at the church court. Around 1610 none were arguing over pews in Cropredy "nor any hath of many yers bene buylte." Widow Robins [26] mentions her pew in 1627, but no record has survived of when it was built (p165).
The choir, when there was one, was divided into four parts, cantus, altus, tenor and bassus to chant the rhyming psalms in English. The processing in through the south door and out through the north stopped, but the Whitson beating of the bounds kept on. Gradually one by one the festivals went. The maypole hung on for a while and then the church ales were replaced by a church rate (p37). Structurally their beautiful church remained as magnificent as ever even without Mary's window. All was not entirely lost for when the head was found from the glass portrait they placed it in the north aisle window (p45).
Cropredy church is not in the grand tradition of the local churchs of Adderbury, Bloxham and Broughton all of which are in the Oxford Diocese and yet the architecture is just as impressive. Cropredy church originally belonged to the Prebend of Lincoln cathedral who possessed all the land in the parish, leaving no room for wealthy townsmen, and that alone could account for the difference.
In 1880 Dr Wood as vicar of Cropredy, helped with the research for the Revd Royce who wrote about Cropredy church for a series called The Ecclesiastical and Architectural Topography of England published by the Parkers. Henry Parker added an appendix [p53-56] "Questions and suggestions on the Architectural details of Cropredy Church." Some of Parker's Victorian quotes with additions by Royce are used below. Others put the nave in the Decorated Period, but Parker finds a mixture of styles (p699). Why? It was decided to repeat some of Royce's details of the architecture after describing each area.
Architectural Details.
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Henry Parker speculates [p55] that because the north windows had high, wide and well arched proportions they were perhaps inspired by the architect William of Wynford in the fourteenth century. Others put the date of their construction into the following century. Parker believed that the work on the church, especially the nave, resembled the work of William who was architect in chief at Windsor, the protege of the bishop of Wykeham whose financial backing was largely responsible for the architect's work. How was he connected with Lincoln? The architect had been working at Windsor castle, the new nave at Winchester, Winchester college, New college Oxford and Wells cathedral and was surely too eminent a man to journey north to Cropredy? However at that time Thomas Boteler held the Prebend of Cropredy and also the Deanery of Winchester. Had he secured the interest, advice and direction from William of Wynford? Parker was greatly impressed with the designs and mixing of periods to make old and new blend together. William "adapting this and that to the one general effect making all mouldings old and novel, all proportions Decorated and Perpendicular and Flamboyent, all imaged faces grim enough, all geometric foliations and flame-like wavings, all pendant bosses, and petalled flowers, and inter-weaving leaves, all serve his purpose, work out his will" superbly. He also left both the Early English windows on the south side one of which still commands the eye of most visitors.
There are remains of the first church possibly as early as 1050, in the nave foundations, the nave's east gable foundations and some of the south aisles outer wall in which there could have been a very early chantry for the B.manor. Two tomb recesses were apparently for Simon of Cropredy, father and son [In charters 1150 - 1209. Ch. Arch. 156 and Bk. of Fees,39]. Was it one of this family's monumental effigies they found under a footpath and identified by the armour to be of late thirteenth century? It was placed tidily in one of the recesses. The Early English three light window with geometrical tracery links the family to the Decorated period. The outside cornice and rough stone work underneath are from the earlier church.
Royce describes the windows in more detail: The geometrical Early English window of three lights. The central light with round trifoliated head. The side ones with five soffit cusps are higher than the central one because of the large uncusped circle in the head. The smaller Early English of two lights, five foliated in the head, a trefoil in a circle, cusped with a fleur-de-lis, the jambs of two orders, outer, roll between fillets, inner plain. The labels of both windows alike. Here are a knight in mail, a lady in wimpole, a greyhound and a bulldog.
Parker comments on the outside south wall to the east of the porch. The stones are "rough and irregular gathered from the surface of the soil of the parish and flung into a bedding of indifferent mortar, the soup-like mess being called rubble." Other stones were of good cut ashlar. It has been suggested that the downfall of the first church with its nave and two aisles and possibly a smaller chancel, was because of this poor masonry upon which it was impossible to improve the height and grandure of the building. The foundations' of the east gable of the nave were kept with disastrous results to its structure. They rebuilt the rest using only ashlar.
Around 1320 the Prebend rebuilt the chancel and perhaps enlarged it. The fine eastern window is in the Decorated style with sunk chamfers. These are detailed and well proportioned. Notice the corbels with monk's heads whose tongues are out as far as their ears. The parapet is plain and carried down in one line over the priest's chamber.
Royce: The window has four lights, ogeed; net-work tracery, mullions correspond externally, but internally are hollow chamfered.
The south window of the chancel is lofty like the east one, but of only two lights. The priest's door has two orders, a sunk chamfer and wave mould, and a label scroll. The Danvers also had access via this door which suffers slightly in shape from the protrubrance of the eastern wall of the Prescote and Williamscote Saint Fremund's chapel (p135).
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From the chancel the masons moved to the south aisle outer wall, but retained the older Early English door and the Simon de Cropredy's chantry. The cornice above the two Early windows was reused. The new south windows had "flowing tracery of beautiful design and delicate details." Parker noticed that the architect had mixed old and new. He had copied the chancel's east and south windows with their sunk chamfers and made this a feature of the south aisle windows, but gave them Flamboyant tracery in their headings. A replacement porch was added to the south door. Until recently a scratch dial remained to the east of the outer door. These were the early "clocks." The Reverend John Rosse added a larger sundial in 1747 high up on the south west end of the south wall. This has been renewed.
Around 1370 the nave was entirely rebuilt (possibly under the influence of Thomas Boteler and William of Wynford). The original arcades had no clerestories and the steep thatched roof came down to the older arches. The mouldings of the new arcades continue to the ground entirely without capitals. Parker found the arches were examples of early Perpendicular, but the contours of the arches Decorated. Royce has described the piers as Early English: "The piers are bevelled off to a lozenge, set on a square base. On the east and west faces of the south side is a small pyramid in relief, on the fillet of the pier. Mouldings continuous." Perhaps Parker was right thinking he used every period to form a whole with the rest of the church, but others call them tall Decorated arcades. The roof was extended up to make the clerestory which has five two light windows under square heads on each side. In the Perpendicular style windows were often set in a square "panel" and their arches were no longer as pointed as in the Decorated style. Some are Decorated and some Flamboyant. In 1880 these were described as "bold and vigorous in design and execution, the work of the man who designed the later north aisle windows," but did he?
Royce: There are five two light clerestory windows on each side. Tracery varied and vigorous. In 2 and 5 south and 3 and 4 north a central quatrefoil is flanked by two halves. In 4 south and 1, 2 and 5 north are two divergent bilobed foils with small oval between. 3 south has two inverted curves foiled, one over each light.
Having enlarged the nave with the four fine arches the east gable arch was now out of proportion and a larger one was made. The old rougher rubble walls at the base were too insecure to take the added weight, made worse when a rood loft with stairs was added. The doom painting over the eastern arch suffered as fissures appeared in the masonry. The flat nave roof replaced the steep thatched one. The wood is all moulded from principals, purlins, rafters, to ridge and wall plates. Figures of bishops, some with mitres, decorate the centres of the tie-beams. At the chancel end tudor roses were painted on the beams.
The north aisle was rebuilt around 1375. Again others have mentioned the fifteenth century. Each of the three aisle windows has three lights. In the second window of the aisle is a fragment of fifteenth century glass which was recovered from the churchyard. It is the head of the Blessed Virgin Mary crowned as Queen of Heaven in the church dedicated to her name when the Pope was still the spiritual head of the English church.
Royce: Good transitional Decorated of three lights trifoliated, ogeed; over the middle light in tracery are 4 openings, 2 above 2, counter foiled, flanked by a longer opening, ogeed. In the eyes, bilobed foils; apex plain. Chamfered string under the sills and round the buttresses in the lower stages. The diagonal buttresses at the angles and one where the chantries join the aisles. For example the north east one is a fine pedimented and crocketed in the lower stages, the weatherings overlap, the nosing runs slanting up the east wall. The chamfered string cuts the buttress and the next one set where the chapel begins.
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Early in the fifteenth century a tower was begun with a fine arch made in the nave's west gable. The first part was finely constructed and described as "massive, simple and of good character." The belfry and parapets added later were not as good.
After the tower was finished entrances were made from the chancel to the north and south chapels. Each had a massive arch with Perpendicular mouldings. The south chapel was then partially rebuilt. A new window was put in the north chapel. The priests doorway through the five feet thick sanctuary wall to the vestry was altered. The priest's chamber over the vestry was reached by a ladder. His small three foot high west window had two lights. The sides were plain, the mullion chamfered and with a lozenge opening in the head cut out of a single stone. This looked into the church as the chapel had filled the space between the aisle and vestry. One of the north chancel windows is from the Perpendicular period and Parker points to the sunk chamfer in the other one which must have been moved from the chancel wall to the north chapel, to explain why it is in the Decorated style.
Paintings, Clocks, Bells, Chest, Font, Screen, Pulpit and Eagle.
Almost the whole of the north wall was covered in paintings. One painting showing a tree of the seven deadly sins and seven virtues had seven branches to left and right. Beside it was a quotation done in black lettering. In 1876, when the roof repairs were being carried out, the wall paintings were left exposed to the elements so that water damage destroyed them.
The fifteenth century doom painting over the chancel arch behind the old rood loft is described by Dr. Wood: "In the centre, upon a rainbow appears our Lord in glory; His uplifted hands and His feet bearing the marks of the nails. On the right and left appear the saints. At his feet, in front, kneel St. John Baptist and the blessed Virgin Mary. In the foreground are the opening graves and mankind rising. A woman holds a crown in her hand and above it is a bright star." To the left some of those raised from the dead are seen ascending into heaven, while on the right hand side almost lost through damage, hell threatens the damned .
Placed below this hidden painting the table would be the centre of attention when the communion was celebrated. The table would also be used for the Church court and other parish meetings. With sixty households in Cropredy well over a hundred and fifty adults were expected to attend from Cropredy alone. There were even more parishioners coming in from the two Bourtons, Prescote & Williamscote-in-Cropredy.
Summoning all these people to church was very important. Time keeping was difficult when no-one had clocks. At first they relied upon the scratch dial which was hopeless on cloudy days. When Roger Lupton was the priest (1487-1528) he lost his way returning from Chacombe in a fog and only the sound of the Cropredy bell tolling helped him to reach home safely. In gratitude he made an Indenture on the 26th of August 1512 in which he placed £6-13s-4d in the care of the Cropredy and Bourton Churchwardens to be invested in land which was to pay one person to daily wind up a faceless clock. This struck the hours. He was also to ring the bell daily both winter and summer at four in the morning the "grettest or myddell bell by the space of a quarter of an houre and toll dayly the Aves bell" at six in the morning, at twelve noon and at four in the afternoon, and to toll in winter at seven in the night three tolls and immediately after the tolling to ring curfew by the space of a quarter of an hour." In summer to toll and ring curfew between eight and nine at night. Failure to get this seen to would mean the churchwardens had to forfeit 6s-8d to the vicar for every month the curfew was left unrung. Already then Cropredy had a great, middle and perhaps the priest's bell hung in the tower's bell chamber. Not until between 1686-90 were a peal of six bells in the key of A to join the older priest's bell [Richard Rawlinson (1690-1755) "The church good, 6 bells"].
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William Rede [born at 32 moved to 55 and then 59] as parish clerk would surely be employed by the Cropredy and Bourton trustees of the Bell Land to wind the clock and ring both the curfew and daybell. There was a piece of land for Redes use in Church Piece, and all parishioners had to pay a set amount yearly as well as for any services he provided specifically for them. Another responsibility of the clerks was to keep the church "clean and decent, in tolling and ringing the bells before Divine service and when any person is passing out of this life" [Articles of Enquiry...within the Arch-Deaconry of Sudbury]. William took care of the church documents (under the eye of the churchwardens who had the responsibility of church repairs, partly paid for by the bell fund), transcribing the bills, writing levies, accounts and before 1654 sometimes filling in the registers. There was also the vicar's surplus for his wife to mend and wash and the communion bread to provide [Church Accounts 1694ff].
In about 1610 the churchwardens Henry Broughton [9] and Thomas Devotion [3] found "that our byble in certen leaves are rent." They went on to plead "we stay the provyding of a new, for that we understand ther is appoynted by the kings authorite a new shortly to be impressed for the whole realme, when we shalbe willinge to provyde of that sort." This was for King Jame's 1611 authorised version. There were other books the church must provide besides the book of Homilies and Common Prayer. They had to have the book of canons, registers and a terrier of the glebe land while Archbishop Bancroft (1604-10) insisted two of his works be provided.
Before William Rede could enter anything into a register, kept in the parish chest, he must first have both the church wardens and the vicar each with their key to one of the three locks on the thirteenth century chest. A new padlock, costing 8d, was bought for the chest in the chancel (now in the south aisle) in 1726. This was a long wooden coffer greatly strengthened by decorative ironwork. Two bars at each corner and the wooden frame forming feet to keep the chest off the floor and well above the straw. Even so some damp not surprisingly ate away the corners of the parchments and tarnished the parish silver.The recent tale that the chest was hidden in the Cherwell before the battle of Cropredy bridge is without any documentary evidence and seems unlikely. Much easier to hide it in a dry cockloft nearby amongst the household garners or coffers with all the documents safely inside.
Thomas Holloway would have appreciated the safety of the coffer for in his time the majority of the parchments were written in his hand. The registers began in 1538 and the first has been preserved by sewing the paper folios inside the sheets of a twelth century breviary. There are some gaps in the baptisms from December 1555 to October 1563 and between 1558 to 1563 in the burial register.
In Holloway's time children were baptised at the medieval octagonal font. In the early nineteeth century this was removed and sunk into the vicarage garden to be used as a plant pot. When returning it to the church, in the late nineteenth century, an extra seven inches of stem were added which would present a problem for any parson trying to use the raised font for baptisms [Revd George Barr c1920].
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Behind the ancient chest at the east end of the south aisle is the south chapel's screen. The carpenter was instructed to repeat the letters A.D. as part of a design using carved tudor roses. Richard Danvers died in the winter of 1489/90 just three years after the war of Roses ended. His mother was Alice Danvers nee Verney, his sister Agnes and his new grand daughter Anna, daughter of Richard and Elizabeth nee Preston. Surely it was he who had commissioned this screen? The later screen between the chancel and the Prescote chapel has unfinished sections, but also some fine carvings of grapes and vine leaves. Part of the north side of the chancel's screen came from the old rood loft.
The rood loft had been reached by a flight of stairs and after taking down the loft the doorway was blocked off. The infill can still be seen above the pulpit.
Thomas Holloway having been a great preacher died in November 1619. The pulpit has, according to local information, the date of 1619 somewhere upon it. The whole two tier pulpit was carved from one great Cropredy oak tree. A local carpenter left marks from his adze and slips from his gouge as he worked at the bevelled sides of the panels. This was then painted. The preacher reached the platform up a flight of wooden stairs.Cropredy now had a fine pulpit, but heard few sermons. Where had Thomas preached from? Did he pace about or have a desk? In the oldest postcards the steps had a metal rail, but later ones show a replacement in wood.
Across the nave from the pulpit was the rare pre-Reformation brass lectern for the church bible . Richard Rawlinson (1690-1755) remarked that "In the church [is] a brass eagle of very curious workmanship" [MS Rawl. B 400 Bodl]. The lectern is an eagle standing on a globe which in turn has a stem supported by three small lions. The beak of the eagle was used to collect Peters pence called sometimes Pentecostals, Whitsuntide farthings or Smoake farthings. The farthings were removed from the eagles brass tail feathers. After the Hearth tax the two became associated with smoke rather than heads of household taxes. In the diocese of Lincoln this was a church tax paid by every head of household at a farthing a house. In 1138 the Oxfordshire pentecostals were granted by the bishop of Lincoln to Eynsham Abbey. The farthings were taken by the faithful on a Whitson pilgrimage. In 1154 the bishop having recently granted a Whit fair to Banbury wanted the processions in his Peculiar to go to Banbury and so encourage the trade associated with such events. In Edward VI's reign we saw that there were sixtytwo houselyngs which would contribute fifteen pence and two farthings yearly and this would be entered up in the bishops register. Did the Bourtons, Prescote and Williamscote add their farthings?
On September 22nd 1699 the churchwardens "paid four shillings and ninepence upon ye account of a duty called Smoak farthing for eleven years ending at Micalmas as our part" [Church Accounts]. Most cottages escaped and only ten or eleven of the rate payers had contributed but in 1701 there were twentyfour paying a farthing or just over a third. It was discovered that most had hearths, but with only a little land the cottages did not pay rates (p623).
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It may be that past Cropredians cared passionately enough to save the eagle from being melted down. When Henry VIII and then Edward VI were seizing church property had the Cropredy churchwardens hidden the eagle for the first time, or did they do so in Elizabeth's reign? Archbishop Parker (1559-1575) was asking for brazen eagles which stood in many of the church's chancels, acting as lecterns. He considered them as ornaments that must be melted down to make pots and basins for new fonts. Demanding church treasures went on and with a rising puritanical mood the eagle would be safer in the river. When church treasures were no longer being seized by the crown the lectern was returned to the church (perhaps late on in Holloway's time). In 1643 the townsmen thought the treasures again in danger this time from the Parliamentarians on the eve of the battle of Cropredy bridge. They carried the eagle down to the river Cherwell and hid it there. Unfortunately due to lost church accounts the date when the eagle was brought back is unknown. Entries of the eagle being scoured yearly begin in 1695 [Church Accounts]. Dame Whyte or her daughter Hannah with John Neal [46] were paid 2d for the work. As she scoured, the word generally used for a vigorous polishing, it would be clear that the eagle was made of brass not bronze. After rescuing the eagle, which was discoloured from the immersion and missing a lion, a replacement in bronze had been hastily made to match, only to find too late that the eagle was made of shining brass. The lectern must have been left for many years for the men to have forgotten how bright it used to be. Had they enquired of the women in the Whyte family no doubt the truth would have been found out sooner. When Rawlinson saw it in the early eighteenth century he knew it was brass, but only because the parishioners kept it polished? The foot was made between 1644 and 1695, not in 1841 as Beesley thought. He wrote that the eagle was "sadly mutilated and the feet used as ornaments on a wooden desk." The bronze one was mentioned. Would the stern Reverend Ballard (1811-1850) have done this? [Beesley History of Banbury p128]. Tales and legends have a habit of attributing events which happen several hundred years ago to a later era.