medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I can't help feeling that we are looking at this the wrong way round. "Holywater" seems to be being used as a synonym for the parish name, and it is the township name (particularly if it is in the genitive) which is the affix.
John Briggs
---- Graham Jones <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Dear John and colleagues
>
> None of the usual solutions appears to work: e.g. Holywater as a
> district name, tagged on to distinguish the place from others with the
> same name. So how about the following for an off-the-wall idea, thanks
> to Christine Buckley's reminder, via Maddy, of the large parochia
> attached to each of the two minsters:
>
> As I understand it, Winslow had no church of its own, nor did Linton or
> Norton, also in the parish of Bromyard, and the same applied to Upleadon
> (which I assume is represented by 'Leadon'), Massington, Wellington. The
> last two are in Ledbury parish and Upleadon was in Bosbury parish but
> possibly in Ledbury earlier.
>
> These were all, therefore, places where the peripatetic ministration of
> holy water might have had greater than usual pastoral significance. Is
> it conceivable that the affix 'Holywater' represents a late medieval
> usage local to these two old minster parishes, near neighbours in
> eastern Herefordshire, signifying a township without a place of worship?
>
> Could one go further and imagine that in such parishes the office of
> holy water clerk might have evolved from a degraded canonry or prebend?
> Already by 1086 Bromyard was served not by a chapter but by two priests
> and a chaplain. Moreover, two priests at Avenbury may have represented a
> division of a single pre-Conquest parish.
>
> At Ledbury, by 1086, a priest held two-and-a-half hides and the other
> two-and-half were held directly by the canons of Hereford. A priest with
> a hide at Bosbury may have represented a similar situation to that at
> Avenbury.
>
> Bromyard's Domesday priests were the forerunners of the medieval
> portioners, clergy who shared the parish tithes. Is it possible that the
> tithes of 'Le Holywater' were payable to the parish because 'Le
> Holywater' did not contribute to these portions, but rather was a group
> of physically separate townships originally under the care of, and
> contributing to the maintenance of a cleric whose status had become
> degraded and/or his canonry/prebend had become obsolete. Since chapter
> members normally provided pastoral care for one or more chapelries, such
> a process might explain the unchurched nature of the townships in
> question.
>
> Does any of that (pun on the way) hold water? It might be worth looking
> at the later tithe history of Bromyard's constituent townships.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Graham
>
> PS: Have you chatted about this with Sylvia Pinches, who has been
> writing/editing the recently published VCH volume on Ledbury with
> additional archival research by a group led by Janet Cooper (retired VCH
> Editor for Essex now living in Herefordshire)? If not, she's currently
> abroad but is due back soon and I can put you in touch with her.
>
> John Blair may also have some ideas, having published with Joe Hillaby
> on The Early Church in Herefordshire.
>
> A quick search for other Holywaters found Holywater Meadows at Bury St
> Edmunds, owned by the Abbey and subject to flooding. There was a
> messauge called Holywater at Milton next Gravesend in 1598 (Kent
> Archives, CKS-U386, Darell of Calehill MSS, c, 1150-1882).
>
>
> ******************************************
> Dr Graham Jones
> St John's College (University of Oxford)
> Oxford OX1 3JP
> Tel: +(0)1865 280146 (with voice-mail)
> e-Mail: [log in to unmask]
>
> Senior Research Associate
> School of Geography and the Environment
> University of Oxford.
> Web: http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/staff/gjones.html
> Honorary Visiting Fellow
> Centre for English Local History
> University of Leicester.
> Web: http://www.le.ac.uk/users/grj1
> ******************************************
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious
> culture [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John
> Freeman
> Sent: 15 February 2010 16:31
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [M-R] Holywater in place-names
>
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and
> culture
>
> Dear All,
>
> Since I was the originator of the question about 'Holywater' in
> place-names
> on the English Place-Names List, which John Briggs kindly posted on this
> site, perhaps I might make a guest appearance to clarify things, as
> Graham
> requested?
>
>
>
> The documents concerned are not testamentary, but are lay taxation
> documents
> (subsidies/tenths/fifteenths) in NA Class E179 (published in M.A.
> Faraday,
> Herefordshire Taxes in the Reign of Henry VIII, Hereford 2005) and
> muster
> documents in NA class E36 (transcribed by Faraday in an unpublished
> edition). They list, under each hundred, the townships under which
> collection was organized, and under them the names of the people
> assessed
> and their assessments. For example, in the 1539 Musters (E36/31) we
> have
> the heading 'The Towneship of Masynton Haliwater'. So they are certainly
> names of administrative entities and not, at least directly,
> descriptions of
> rents/dues etc. I'm sure that the affix has something to do with holy
> water,
> and not, say, with the names of streams (such as Holywell) (cf. the
> Valor
> Ecclesiasticus of 1535 (p. 42 of the Herefords section of the Record
> Commission text), where the tithes of "le Holywater" are to go to
> Bromyard)
> But why should the townships be so named, and apparently exclusively in
> lay
> documents?
>
>
>
> Thanks for all your thoughts so far.
>
>
>
> John Freeman
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Graham Jones" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, February 15, 2010 3:38 PM
> Subject: Re: [M-R] Holywater in place-names
>
>
> > medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and
> culture
> >
> > Dear All
> >
> > Elaine makes a good point. I've argued in 'Saints in the Landscape'
> for
> > Ledbury church occupying a baptismal site (mother church, St Michael
> > dedication, church built on - if not over - a stream), and Bromyard is
> > even more intriguing. St Peter's has a curvilinear yard around which
> the
> > town developed, so presumably represents the ninth-century minster.
> > However, it sits uphill from the river Frome. Just a mile south is St
> > Mary's, Avenbury ('burh associated with the Avon' - which Ekwall took
> to
> > be an older name for the Frome but could be the generic 'afon', I
> > suppose). It's isolated in a loop of the river. This, rather than
> > Bromyard, may have been the earlier, baptismal mother church of the
> > district.
> >
> > Maddy's suggestion is worth taking up, too. John's post set me
> thinking
> > about Holywells (where 'wealla' is a stream, not just the spring) and
> > Holybournes. Holybourne churchyard, Hampshire, is the source of
> > Holybourne stream, a short tributary of the northern arm of the river
> > Wey. I mention this in Saints in the Landscape, too, but what I hadn't
> > realised until now is that near the source of the southern arm, only a
> > few miles away, is another Holywater. It takes its name from a similar
> > short tributary (or vice versa?). Divided between Headley and
> Bramshott
> > parishes, it is mentioned in 1350 as 'la Holewatre juxta
> Iveleybrigge'.
> > The natural mother church would be Farnham, Surrey, another mid-Saxon
> > minster.
> >
> > So, two or three lines of enquiry, but the gap from the early to the
> > late medieval is rather large...
> >
> > Best wishes
> >
> > Graham
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious
> > culture [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Elaine
> > Beretz
> > Sent: 15 February 2010 12:39
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: [M-R] Holywater in place-names
> >
> > medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and
> > culture
> >
> > Or, to build on what Graham is saying: could the designation of
> > Holywater indicate a mother church [or minster] that retains the right
> > of baptism? Certainly baptism -- where, when, how, by whom -- was a
> key
> > point of contention during the Reformation.
> >
> >
> > Elaine
> >
> >
> > Elaine M. Beretz, Ph.D.
> > Research Associate
> > Center for Visual Culture
> > Bryn Mawr College
> > 101 Merion Avenue
> > Bryn Mawr, PA 19010-2899
> >
> >
> > --- On Mon, 2/15/10, Graham Jones <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> >> From: Graham Jones <[log in to unmask]>
> >> Subject: Re: [M-R] Holywater in place-names
> >> To: [log in to unmask]
> >> Date: Monday, February 15, 2010, 3:48 AM
> >> medieval-religion: Scholarly
> >> discussions of medieval religion and culture
> >>
> >> Dear All
> >>
> >> A quick search of the IHR on-line material reveals 21 cases
> >> of the word
> >> 'holywater', almost all from the sixteenth century and
> >> referring to the
> >> water in the stoup or in relation to the parish holy water
> >> clerk.
> >>
> >> Though I have never come across it before (just shows my
> >> ignorance), I
> >> wonder if these Herefordshire cases refer to land and rents
> >> in the
> >> specified places (rather than the townships themselves
> >> [Massington is a
> >> farm, I think, rather than a township]) devoted to the
> >> upkeep of the
> >> stoups or perhaps towards the payment of the holy water
> >> clerk. I'm
> >> thinking obviously of a comparison with land whose income
> >> was given for
> >> the upkeep of lights, images, chantries, etc. and/or their
> >> attendant
> >> clergy.
> >>
> >> Could we be told the actual passages and contexts, please?
> >> Are they
> >> testamentary in the main?
> >>
> >> Best wishes
> >>
> >> Graham
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval
> >> religious
> >> culture [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> >> On Behalf Of John
> >> Briggs
> >> Sent: 14 February 2010 17:01
> >> To: [log in to unmask]
> >> Subject: [M-R] Holywater in place-names
> >>
> >> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval
> >> religion and
> >> culture
> >>
> >> Another query from the English Place-Name List:
> >>
> >> "Could anyone suggest a reason for a curious place-name
> >> usage found in
> >> documents at the time of the Reformation?
> >>
> >> In certain documents written between 1523 and 1547, several
> >> townships
> >> surrounding Bromyard and Ledbury in Herefordshire are
> >> fairly
> >> consistently cited with the affix "Holywater" or
> >> "Halywater", usually -
> >> but not always -- with the main name in the possessive,
> >> e.g. "Winslow is
> >> Holywatir" (= "Winslow's Holywater"). They are "Linton
> >> Holywater",
> >> "Norton Holywater" and "Winslow Holywater." (near
> >> Bromyard), and "Leadon
> >> Holywater.", "Massington Holywater." and Wellington
> >> Holywater." (near
> >> Ledbury). Also, in the Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535 , the
> >> tithes of "le
> >> Holywater" are to go to Bromyard. The usage has not been
> >> found before or
> >> after this period, and the documents were created at
> >> different times and
> >> by different persons during the reign of Henry VIII. Both
> >> Bromyard and
> >> Ledbury were collegiate churches, and Bromyard certainly,
> >> and Ledbury
> >> possibly, were Anglo-Saxon minsters. The named places were
> >> townships in
> >> Bromyard and Ledbury parishes."
> >>
> >> John Briggs
>
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