What time of year did this itineration take place? If during sowing or
harvest the occupants of the tenements might not have had time to go to
that fine 12th century church as regularly as we might hope they did at other
times of the year. I'd wonder whether the presence of that church was itself
enough to make us believe that people flocked to it merely to enjoy the
exterior or interior of a fine building. Distance might also have been a
factor--so plot the route on a good map--or even (again time of year) the
weather. English chroniclers often noted the severity or benignity of the
weather year by year.
John Parsons
On Fri, 5 Jun 1998, Bill East wrote:
> >I am working on English parish life (in one particular parish) in the late
> >15th century, having found a hitherto unnoticed itinerary of a priest
> >visiting 48 tenements over two weeks to hear confessions (ad peccata
> >confitenda). In a small, deeply rural Devonian parish with a fine church
> >dating from the 12th-century this takes some explaining. I think, but
> >cannot prove, that it may be connected with the presence of large numbers
> >of itinerant workers employed in the Royal Silver Mines, operating from 12th
> >century. Have you perhaps come across anything similar? Has anyone else?
> >
> >The obvious reason for visiting people in their homes to hear their confessions
> is that they were sick or housebound. The friar in Chaucer's Summoner's
> Tale invites the bedridden Thomas to make his confession. One might include
> a round of such home confessions in one's parish routine. We might also be
> dealing with an epidemic
> of 'flu.
>
> Bill.
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