Book Review

Europe: Early Modern and Modern

This book is based largely on the entries in a series of churchwardens' accounts kept by a garrulous priest, Christopher Trychay, vicar of Morebath, who survived all of the various religious settlements in the life of the parish during his tenure from 1520 to 1574. Since many historians agree that the English Reformation—as carried out in the localities—was a slow process and was not carried through until well into the Elizabethan period, this is a unique and valuable record. Every possible scrap of information has been teased from these parish documents, analyzed, and put into context. Eamon Duffy has written a classic account of how one small parish adapted to the bewildering changes of the Reformation.

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Morebath was a manor as well as a parish, but with no resident squire or gentry. It was an upland Devonshire sheep-grazing community that barely exceeded 150 souls who suffered from a serious shortage of surnames. A few boys were able to walk to a grammar school across the Somerset border, so that, although the vicar kept the churchwardens' accounts, there was literacy in the parish. The lack of social stratification and the intimacy of the community assured that all male and female householders—even cottagers, agricultural laborers, and near paupers—served alongside the most substantial husbandmen as churchwardens and had a voice in parish government. A notable aspect of this participatory democracy was that all parishioners, male and female, who were old enough to be communicants were expected to assume responsibilities for managing the various "stores" or devotional lamp funds that derived from the sale of wool or beeswax taken from animals or hives kept by parishioners for parochial devotions and the upkeep and repair of the church fabric. Responsibility for long-term planning of financial resources and major repairs and improvements was vested in four or five of the wealthiest male householders.

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