Howden Minster and its Clergy - an introduction
This page is based on a talk I gave to the History of Howden WEA class, which was designed to accompany photographs and illustrations of the church. As it wouldn't have been appropriate to provide a lot of detail about sources and issues, it is presented as fact.
It's important to read the page that discusses canonical (non)residence and the vicars//vicars choral problem to understand why some of what I've written below may be inaccurate.
I've also simplified the liturgy to such an extent that it's not really possible to appreciate the complexity involved.
The Prior
The Prior of Durham, not the Bishop was the head of the clergy in Howden. Durham Cathedral was a monastery, and when the worldy goods of Howdenshire were given to the Bishops, the churches were appropriated to the Prior and the monks. This is what one author has to say...
"Howden (was) the greatest outpost of Durham's power and influence in one of the richest areas of Northern England. No other monastery in the region, possibly no other monastery in the entire kingdom, had such attractive prizes at its disposal; and their control of Howden … was in iteslf sufficient to give the monks of Durham a very special status in the eyes of contemporary lords and prelates"
from "Durham Priory 1400-1450" Dobson, R.E.
The Canons
What gave the Prior his status was his power of appointment of the Canons, Vicars and Chantry Chaplains of Howden church, so first I need to describe the different types of clergy in the church and explain what their duties were, then I'll talk about where in the church they performed those duties, and finally I'll go through a day in the life of the church around 600 years ago.
In theory, at the top of Howden's ecclesiastical heirachy were the canons - six of them by 1400. A canon was a priest in a regular order - something like a monk, but without the requirement to stay in the confines of a monastery, and definitely without the the vow of poverty. The canon's normal place of work was in a secular cathedral, where they formed the body of priests who conducted the services, and as part of the chapter provided the diocesan administation. Their income was called a prebend, and when in residence they lived in the prebendal house. Not all canons would be resident all the time, but there would always be enough to run the cathedral and conduct the services.
However, at Howden things were different. There was no obligation to be resident, and each canon had a permanent vicar. Vicar in this sense means someone who performs the duties of another - the word vicariously comes from this. As a result, the canonries were sinecures in the modern meaning of the word - which in latin means without (sine) the cure of souls; in other words they had no duties to perform.
The prebends of Howden were Howden, Barmby, Skelton, Thorpe, Saltmarshe and (later than the others) Skipwith
This was the great attraction of the Howden canonries - they were simply a source of income. To quote again...
"Howden...attracted the attention of the royal as well as the local clerk, of the english government as well as the northern earl. In the early 15C, the Howden canons included four future bishops, two barons of the exchequer, and a host of other royal and episcopal adminstrators."
The Vicars
There were six vicars, each one a substitute for one of the Canons, and they were designated by the name of the prebend - Howden, Thorpe, Saltmarsh, Barmby, Skelton and Skipwith - and like the Canons they were appointed by the Prior.
Their duties were "the perpetual celebration of divine worship - the recitation of the seven canonical hours and the celebration of the daily high mass"
The seven canonical hours were Matins and Lauds, Prime, Tierce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline. Each 'hour' was a combination of readings, prayers and singing of Psalms. I'll say a bit more about these, and the mass, when I come to describe a day in the life of the church.
The singing was originally chanting - all voices in unison, but by the late middle ages it had become more complex, with melodies, harmonies and rhythms that needed considerable skill to perform. It could not be expected that the canons (or in the case of Howden, the vicars) would be able to reach this standard in singing.As a result, there was a need for a group of men whose main function was to master this music. These were...
The Vicars Choral
These were a group of predominantly young men, expected to become priests but who had not yet always done so. As with the Vicars, there was one for each prebend so six in all. We know little about them, since they were not appointed by the Prior but locally by the resident Vicars, and no records of them has survived. However, we do know the rules in force when the Bedern was built in the early 15C. They included such things as:-
· any of them drawing a knife or sharp instrument against a colleague to pay the community 3s. 4d.
· and for striking a colleague 6s. 8d. as well as making due satisfaction
· none of them to be noisy in hall before, during or after lunch or supper, and the warden, or steward in his absence, to impose silence on any contravenors, on pain of 12d
· in the hall none to play chess, dice or other dishonourable game liable to cause discord, on pain of 12d
· none of them to stand hidden at another's chamber discovering secrets, on pain of 12d
which doesn't paint a good picture of their behaviour.
The final group of clergy who had specific duties in the church were
The Chantry priests.
A Chantry is a side altar in the nave or the aisles, or possibly in a seperate chapel. The one or two priests attached to the chantry would pray for the health of a benefactor while alive, and after his or death perform masses with the intention of speeding the souls journey through purgatory.
For a long time there were 4 chantries in Howden church - dedicated to Saints Mary, Thomas, Martin and Catherine. There seem to have been two priests for each chantry, since in the 1381 clerical poll tax 8 are listed. In 1404 Bishop Skirlaw created a fifth chantry, dedicated to Saint Cuthbert. We have a record of his instructions regarding the priest's duties...
[1] daily, barring legitimate reasons, to celebrate mass at the said altar for the bishop's happy condition while living and his and his parents' souls after death, saying a special collect in the mass and saying obsequies according to the use of the church of York, unless at festivals and times excluded ( exceptis ) in the ordinal of the church of York,
[2] to wear the habit as worn by the vicars of the said church and to officiate in the choir, singing, reading and otherwise ministering in divine offices and in processions inside and outside the church, just as the vicars and other chaplains of their rank do, apart from the office of hebdomadary and daily mass assigned to them as above,
[3] to have the fifth stall in the choir on the south side, and to have this position on this side in processions and other offices,
[4] to have the upper room at the south-east corner ( versus austrum et orientem ) in the new bedern
The chantry priests had an income from land, buidings etc granted to the chantry, but most were very poor and one reason for building the Bedern was to allow them to live in greater comfort.
Finally, there was a group of clergy simply called 'clerks', of whom we know little, other than there were six of them. The may well have acted as deacons assisting the priests.
Adding them together, there were 32 clergy in all -6 canons, 6 prebendal vicars, 6 vicars choral, 8 chantry priests and 6 clerks. The 1381 clerical poll tax lists only 5 vicars choral, but there may well have been a vacancy.
Now we need to put them into the church and look at where they were and what they did.
The Church
Rather than thinking of Howden Minster as a large parish church, in the middle ages it makes more senese to think of it as a small cathedral, like Ripon or Southwell. The most important division in the church was between the nave, aisles and transepts on one hand, and the chancel on the other. The chancel was reserved for the clergy - in particular the canons (if any were resident), the vicars and the vicars choral and possibly the clerks acting as deacons. The other parts of the church were public, and home to the parishioners and the altars of the chantry priests.
The chancel was divided from the rest of the church by a screen. It was where the liturgy and the eucharist were performed, culminating in the high mass, performed once a day. The high mass was choral, but the other (low) masses were said at the chantry altars and only required a priest and a deacon.
The Church day
The day began with the morrow mass - a low mass said for travellers and workers who had to make an early start, possibly at one of the side alters. This was followed by Matins and Lauds sung at around 5am. This was a series of psalms and payers with other choral interludes, lasting from 50 minutes to an hour.Then came the various chantry masses, and breakfast except for the priest saying High Mass. Prime followed at 9:00, Tierce at 10:00. These were two of the four Little Hours of the day, all conceived on the same plan, a hymn, three psalms, and the concluding prayers while High Mass was prepared.
Nowadays, we think of communion as the most important part of church-going, but in the middle ages communion was a rare event. Margaret Beaufort (mother of Henry VII) took communion once a month, and was regarded as extremely, not to say excessively pious. For most people, communion was an annual event after high mass on Easter day.
In the middle ages, it was the mass was the centrepoint of worship, and the elevation of the host was the centrepoint of the mass. A bell would be rung to alert the congreation, then the priest would say the words "hoc est enim Corpus Meum" and raise the host high ovrer his head. So that everyone could see, there would be holes pierced in the screen, and side chapels would have tunnels called squints for priests serving there. At this point, the congregation beleived they were in the presence of Christ himself.
After Mass came the other two little hours - Sext and Nones - then finally breakfast for those who had not yeat had it, sometime between 11:00 and 12:00. If there was business to be done, the chapter would meet at this point.
Lunch/dinner was at 3:00, followed by Vespers then Compline, with finally supper at 6:00. Vespers was the most accesible of the major hours, taking place in mid-afternoon. This is why composers such as Monteverdi, Vivaldi and Mozart would later write music for it. Compline ended the day - a hymn, an evangelical canticle, the prayer, and the benediction.
The hours were not fixed, but varied with the length of the day - so the morrow mass would be at dawn, and compline at dusk.
There’s no record of the actual service at Howden, but this is a description of the simplest day in a large collegiate church.