Since  the  owner  of  the  church  expected


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Dictionary  of  English  Church  History


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to  derive  profit  from  it,  his  interest  required
that  it  should  have  a  congregation,  whose
fees  and  offerings  would  form  a  considerable
part  of  the  revenue  to  be  divided  between
himself  and  the  priest.  Hence  compulsory
attendance  on  the  part  of  those  dependent
on  the  lord.  As  they  had  to  grind  their  corn
at  his  mill,  so  they  had  to  perform  their
religious  duties  at  his  church.  We  must  bear
in  mind  that  religion  meant,  in  practice,  the
ordinances  of  religion,  and  Bede  (q.v.)  has
told  how  illiterate  priests  sometimes  were
(Ep.  ad  Egbertum,  sec.  5).  As  the  country
became  more  populous  such  private  churches
spread.  A  well-known  piece  of  alliterative
verse  of  the  ninth  century  explains  some  of
the  growth.  If  a  free  man  (ceorl)  in  the
King's  service  thrives  till  he  gain  five  hides
of  land  (the  many  parishes  called  Fifield,
Fyfield,  Fifehead  all  mean  '  five  hides,'  and
show  what  the  estate  was),  and  have  church
and  kitchen,  bell-house  and  mansion,  seat
and  office  in  the  King's  hall,  then  he  is  to
rank  as  a  thegn.  We  must  not  suppose  that
he  buys  out  some  proprietor  of  cultivated
land.  He  collects  twenty  of  what  were
afterwards  called  copyholders— or  rather
nineteen,  for  the  priest  of  his  church  will
take  the  place  of  two — and  establishes  a
new  village  community  in  the  waste.  We  see
that  the  possession  of  a  church  is  one  of  the
conditions  of  his  gentility.  But  we  must  also
recognise  the  possibility  of  a  lordless  village
subscribing  lands  to  secure  itself  a  priest,
at  least  in  the  period  just  before  the  Conquest
(Maitland,  Domesday  and  Beyond,  144).
