Rogationtide

“It was many times remarked that a suitable time was this of Rogationtide for a Perambulation, the country was looking at its best, and yet the crops not being sufficiently advanced to impede progress”.

These were the words written by Revd. Edward Henry Lisle Reeve, Rector of Stondon Massey, in 1909.

The month of May is, and has been in 2020, the perfect month for walking.

The ancient commemoration of Rogationtide is (or was) held five Sundays after Easter when fields are blessed within the parish boundary in the hope of a good harvest. In 2020 Rogation Sunday was on 17 May.

There then followed on one of the three days up to Ascension Day the Annual Perambulation (or ‘beating the bounds’) which declared the territory subject to tithing to the Rector.

In the book ‘A History of Stondon Massey’ published in 1900, Reeve wrote: “The Annual Tithe Dinner was given at the Rectory to tenant farmers of the parish. It was not so very long before Mr Reeve’s institution [see note below] that Tithe had been taken in kind, for the Rectors, had gone round the cornfields claiming the tenth sheaf of every crop and sending it home to the Rectory tithe barn. It was a rough and ready way of collecting their revenue. The reverend gentleman might commence where he liked in the field. All this is now over: the Tithe has been commuted at a certain sum in each parish, which in future was to rise and fall proportionately with the rise and fall in the value of wheat barley and oats, on the average of the seven past years, and Mr Reeve had only to wait the ingathering of the harvest to receive his dues from his friends and neighbours”.

[Note. Mr Reeve, who our Revd Reeve refers to, was his father, Edward, Rector of Stondon Massey from 1859 until his death in 1893. Our Revd. Reeve succeeded him remaining as Rector of the Parish until 1935.

In 1834, as Reeve mentioned, tithing was commuted when a Tithe-Rent-Charge Map was produced. Tithing was abolished in 1936.

Reeve also mentions the observance of the Perambulation is a ‘detached’ part of the parish of Stondon Massey, in what is now Margaret Roding, formerly owned by the Marks family:

“The same branch of the family that lived at Stondon appear also to have owned a farm at Margaret Roothing. It is still called after them Mark’s Hall. Previously to the year 1200, those who had tithes at their disposal were allowed to assign them to whatever church they pleased, and it is certain it is that ever since that time the tithes of that particular farm have been held by the Rector of Stondon. There was a chapel attached to the hall, and the Rector was expected, no doubt, to go over and serve it, or to provide for another priest when necessary to go over and represent it. The chapel was later not required, and was gradually allowed to fall into decay. No trace of the building now remains. When the custom was in force of beating the bounds of each parish every year at Rogation-tide, the rector and parishioners of Stondon took care to include Mark’s Hall within their perambulation, and did not consider that they had completed their rounds until they had paid a visit to Margaret Roothing”.

With regard to the term ‘beating’ I refer to an extract published in The Essex Review in 1896 pertaining to the Bishops Stortford area.

“On the morning of … Ganging Day, as it was called, a great number of young men assembled in the fields, choosing an active fellow as leader, whom they were bound to follow, though, for the sake of diversion, he led the way through ponds, ditches, and hedges. Everybody they met was “bumped” by being taken up between two persons and swung against each other. This Ganging Day must have taken its name from the old Church festival of Gangtide during the Rogation Days, with its solemn processions about the parishes, originally instituted as a preparation for the devout observance of Ascension Day. In 1550 a form of prayers was added for a blessing on the fruits of the earth. After the Reformation, the “curate and substantial men of the parish” were enjoined by Queen Elizabeth to walk about the parishes as they were accustomed, and at their return to church make their common prayers; at certain convenient places the people were to be admonished on the sacred duty of giving thanks to God and of respecting landmarks and boundaries. This degenerated into the custom of merely “beating the boundaries,” when the parish officials and older men took a number of boys round with them, who received a beating at each important landmark to help them to remember it. Bumping Oak, above Manuden Hall, must have been one of the landmarks against which the luckless youngsters were bumped as a gentle reminder.

A member of our church community in Blackmore recalled when his father was Rector of a Buckinghamshire parish in the late 1950s that he was given a gentle beating on a Rogationtide walk.

Reverting to Stondon Massey in May 1909 Revd. Reeve decided to re-enact this event using the perambulation of 1828. “I myself was still in good health”, he wrote, “and in possession of perhaps an unusual store of minute and local information: our new lord of the manor, Mr Herman J Meyer, has just succeeded to his responsibilities and was anxious to see what he could of the Parish, and a number of Parishioners were willing to give up the day to accompany us”.

The party assembled at Stondon Place at 10am, on Monday 17th May. “The round was, of course, taken at a leisurely pace, as we wanted if possible to identify all the old land marks. We did not think it necessary, as no legal issues were involved, to beat literally every corner and to crawl along brambly ditches or brave the Roding’s flood; but we took care to go so near to every boundary as to satisfy ourselves of it. We probably walked about seven miles in accomplishing the round.

“The Ancient Religious aspect of the Perambulation was observed in a short service of a few special Prayers and Collects held before luncheon at Woolmonger’s Farm”.

Reeve tells of the capital luncheon provided by Mr Brace and the loyal toasts given to the lord of the Manor and himself.

And so it was that in May 2020 I achieved that long-held ambition to walk as closely to the parish boundary of Stondon Massey as is legally permitted using the current Ordnance Survey Explorer map and the Perambulation of 1828 (published in Reeve’s book) as my Guide “crossing the road by Clapgate field, (fence to Stondon) to William Mullock’s barn [Woolmongers Farm]; dividing the barn; the [threshing] floor in High Ongar, the Cottage in Stondon, the Brewhouse in High Ongar: then in a line to a Hawthorn (at the) corner of Hill House Mead …”. The landmarks may have gone but the historic footmarks of our previous inhabitants are there.

Rogation Elsewhere in Essex
Brightlingsea

William Beriff, the elder, yeoman, in his Will dated January 9th, 1542, makes the following curious bequest:

“Item I bequetlie to Thomas my soon and a noother pcell (parcel) called turners keaping them well in reparacion and allso heaping a dryncking on gang Munday at this crosse in turners so that whoso ever shall enjoye the said lands and tenements shall be bounde to heap the foresayde dryncking on gange Mundaye at the saide crosse.”

This “ drynckjpg on gange Mundaye” signifies the necessary refreshments for those who took part in the religious processions and “ beating of the bounds” on Rogation Monday.

(Extract from The Essex Review 1904)

Earls Colne

An inventory of church goods in 1547 includes “Item 5 streamers and bannerclothes whereof 2 be very olde and decayed” which were used in Rogationtide processions.

(Extract from The Essex Review 1944)

Saffron Walden

The Churchwardens’ Accounts of this town are unique in Essex, for they commence in 1439 (17 Henry VI) and continue until 1485. They consist of 150 pages written on both sides and are in the library at Audley End ; this probably explains their preservation. They refer to expenditure connected with feasts, shows and plays organised by the Church. No details are given, but the references, written in a quaint mixture of English, Old French and Latin, prove that the May Revels, the Church Ales, Midsummer Fair, Rogation and Corpus Christi processions and religious plays were organised by the Churchwardens for the amusement and edification of the people as well as for, the pecuniary profit of the Church. The earliest reference is 1439.

(Extract from The Essex Review 1945)

Toppesfield

Noted in the Parish Register:

“Toppesfield Steple fell downe July the forth day 1689 and five beles and a little bel broke all to peeces”

“Toppesfield, on 1st page of Register, (writing c1600)
When Advent climes to take his time, then out goes wedding tide;
Like Artillary in come Hillary, with weddings at his side.
Septuagist takes the next hint, and bids them next adewe:
But Ester mass wth eight days past thou mayst goe wedd anewe.
Rogation did ye last forbid, & bid thee pray instedd:
But Trinity gives Liberty to make a marring bedd.”