This thread of discussion is about the 16th/17th centuries and
onwards, as it's about BCP and the Church of England. I wasn't
extrapolating anything medieval from that and I think that Sharon
Arnoult wasn't doing so either. Keeping registers of births,
marriages, and deaths is essentially a phenomenon which starts in the
16th century. Where you find it, you can assume a (perhaps very
small) degree of literacy. However (here I'm getting back to the
middle ages), you do find some record keeping (mostly to do with
finances), sometimes by laypeople, in late medieval parishes -
usually wealthy ones. For this type of record, have a look at Clive
Burgess, 'Shaping the parish', in J. Blair and B. Golding, ed. The
Cloister and the World (OUP 1996), 246-286, which is about St Mary at
Hill in London.
Julia Barrow
Date: 17 Aug 99 13:32:05 America/Knox_IN
Subject: Prayer Book Participation (was Summer Diversion)
From: Christopher Crockett <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Reply-to: [log in to unmask]
Julia Barrow wrote:
>....(each parish had to have at least one literate layman, to keep the
registers)....
Question:
around what sort of date may we say that this was indeed the case, in
even a simple majority of parishes?
and, *how* do we know that it was?
I have a failing memory of reading some accounts of late medieval episcopal
visitations from Northern France and being struck by the truly wretched
material ("there is no chalice nor paten" was a familiar
refrain) and moral (I cannot elaborate on a family list) state of things in a
*great* many parishes.
Of course, that was France.....
Sharon Arnoult wrote:
>....having completed a dissertation on the Prayer Book in the *16*th and
*17*th centuries [emphasis mine]....
Sharon, I take it that you would agree that extrapolation from Early Modern
data back into the Dark Ages, to the extent that it can be done at all, is a
potentially hazardous and ventursome exercise (?)
Or, is it?
Do you see cc. 16 &17 as being much closer to the medieval than to, say the
19th c.?
And:
>...changes in worship services between Elizabethan/early Stuart times
and today, as well as the differences between serving *mostly illiterate* and
virtually totally literate congregations [e.m. ditto].
My perverse reading of this makes me want to think that your research leads
you to believe that congregations were *mostly illiterate* in Elizabethan/e.
Stuart times.
Is this indeed what you meant to say?
Best from here,
Christopher
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