The Middleton Accounts of 1526: #25

The next entry in the Middleton household accounts for Sir Henry Willoughby in 1526 was dated Saturday 5th May. It was described as payment at Middleton Church for ale for Sir Henry. The amount was 1 penny, which was the equivalent of about £1.84 today. A church ale was essentially a feast centred around the drinking of ale.

Originally, church ales were gatherings established to honour the patron saint of the church. Ales were normally held on a Sunday and in 1526 that would have been the day after this entry. In 1526, the 6th May was the commemorative religious day of St John the Evangelist Before the Latin Gate. Middleton Church is dedicated to a St John but it is St John the Baptist not the apostle St John the Evangelist. Nevertheless, this feast day was commonly widely honoured in pre-Reformation England. It commemorated when St John was thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil in Rome and miraculously survived. This feast day did survive the English Reformation but was downgraded to a minor commemoration. However, in 1960, it was removed from the General Roman Calendar when Pope John XXIII aimed to simplify the calendar by reducing duplicate feast days for saints.

St John's Church, Middleton, Warwickshire, 2015. Photograph taken by Debbie Jordan.

Church ales had multiple functions. First, it was a major fundraising event for the church at which the church would make a profit through the sale of ale (at an inflated price) by the church wardens to the community. The profits would then be used for the parish church activities, or the repair of the church, or the repair of parish infrastructure such as roads or bridges, or distributed as alms to the poor.

It blended the ecclesiastical with the social role of the church as a central part of the community. The ale was normally held in the churchyard or an adjacent building and organised by the church wardens. All the parishioners would gather to eat, drink, dance and play music and sports. Ales were effectively a large community party held by the church, which were seen as forming a vital part of community cohesion and fundraising.

During the English Reformation, church ales initially encountered hostility as they were perceived as the commercialisation of the traditions of the church and were slightly suppressed. However, the vital fundraising they provided for church and parish repairs meant that they did survive in many areas and for many key dates. Hostility to them continued and puritanical critics highlighted the gluttony, drunkenness and disorder at the ales, which even included incidences of manslaughter and murder. Hence, following the introduction of new poor relief laws, which essentially replaced the role of church ale funds, and the rise of Puritanism, ales were largely abolished in the 17th century.

Further Reading: W. H. Stevenson, Report on the Manuscripts of Lord Middleton, Historical Manuscripts Commission, 1911. p.382.

Author - Debbie Jordan, Middleton Hall Volunteer.

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