2017-09-24 09.42.442017-09-24 09.48.16

The people of Longstowe are celebrating 800 years of Christian community today, and I was delighted to be with them this morning for a special service, and to think with them about what has made their church special and makes its special still, the gateway to heaven not only as eternity but as the transformation of the world today.

Local historian Steve Owen put on a display about the history of the village and had just unearthed an entry in the Bishop’s Register (do we still keep them like this?) from 1387, and asked me to decipher it. image

It’s nice when my alter ego can come into play in the day job so the relevant first part reads:

Licencia ad celebrandum in capella beate Marie infra parochiam de Stowe

Item xvj die aprilis anno predicto apud Dytton dominus concessit licenciam domino Galfrido Pye Rectori ecclesie Stowe Eliensis diocesis per se et alios presbuteros ydonees celebrandi diuina in capella beate marie infra parochiam suam situata per vnum annum.

Licence to celebrate [the mass] in the chapel of the Blessed [Virgin] Mary within the parish of Stowe

Item, on the 16th April of the aforesaid year [1387] at [Fen] Ditton, the Lord [Bishop] granted a licence to master Geoffrey Pye, Rector of the the church of Stowe in the Diocese of Ely, for him and the other clergy of the same parish to celebrate the divine [service] in the chapel of the Blessed [Virgin] Mary situated within his parish, for one year.

The Bishop was Thomas Arundel. Fen Ditton was one the manors of the Bishops of Ely where they resided from time to time and from which official business might be conducted. The Register is a list of such legal business covering especially the granting of benefices and licences to clergy, and the licence in this case is permission to celebrate mass in a chapel within the grantee’s parish which would not normally benefit from such permission.

There is no indication where this subsidiary chapel was. Might it have been attached to St Mary’s Hospital nearby (which would shortly close and have its property taken over by the then Rector). And could the dedication of the chapel have become the dedication of the parish church (which has no dedication recorded before this) as part of this process?