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
******************************************
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 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
>
>
> ******************************************
> 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
> 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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