medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Dear John
Might you explain what a "portionary church" is?
Many thanks,
Jim

John Freeman wrote:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> Two corrections to misleading statements of mine, with apologies. 
> Firstly, I should not have called Bromyard and Ledbury 'collegiate 
> churches' but 'portionary churches', of course. Secondly, I should not 
> have said 'usually - but not always -- with the main name in the 
> possessive'. In fact, looking at my data again, out of a total of 31 
> instances of 'Holywater' between 1523 and 1547, only five have the 
> first element in the possessive:
>
> Taxes 1523 (p. 41): Lyntones - , Nortonz - , Wynslowez Holywater
>
> Taxes 1525 (p. 109): Ledons Holywater
>
> Taxes 1536 (p. 142): Ledonis Holiwater [but note Wellington in the 
> pareche of Leudbury a few entries further on -- Wellington (Heath) 
> does not get a Holywater addition until 1547]
>
>
>
> [this for Graham in particular: Ledon seems to be the name of a lost 
> sub-parochial unit/vill/township in Ledbury parish (Ledbury Foreign), 
> presumably centred on the River Leadon which runs north-south to the 
> west of the town. It is Ledene iuxta Ledebur'/-bury  in 1284 and 1294, 
> perhaps to distinguish it from Upleadon in Bosbury, and villata de 
> Ledon infra parochia de Ledbury in 1524. It is sometimes associated 
> with Haffield (a detached part of Ledbury to the south of Donnington, 
> where the bishop had his vineyard), so is likely to have been in the 
> south of Ledbury Foreign. In the 1663 Militia Assessments, for 
> instance, we have the [township] of Leadon & Hatfield.]
>
>
>
> A possible objection to John Brigg's surmise might be that if 
> Holywater stands for 'Bromyard' or 'Ledbury', wouldn't a more natural 
> expression be *Holywaters Lynton (or possibly *Lynton Holywaters) 
> etc.? But I agree that the possessive seems decidedly odd.
>
>
>
> More later. I'm delighted with the responses so far - more than I 
> could have hoped for! Thank you all.
>
>
>
> John Freeman
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Graham Jones" 
> <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, February 15, 2010 11:00 PM
> Subject: Re: [M-R] Holywater in place-names
>
>
>> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and 
>> culture
>>
>> 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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