800 years ago the single most important factor governing the thinking of Barlickers was the supremacy of the church of Rome. Even kings deferred to the edicts of the Pope. If anything this was stronger in Barlick than most other places because the Manor was a satellite of the Cistercian Abbey at Kirkstall and the parish priest was a monk. If we put ourselves into the frame of reference of the villagers, religion had largely (but not completely) replaced the magic associated with the older religion of Paganism. Prayer was certainly seen as a kind of magic whereby people could ask God to intercede and protect them from events over which they had no control. The traffic between God and Man was two-way. He (no doubt in those days it was a man!) had the power to help but could also punish. The teaching of the church was that the ills that man was heir to were punishment of sins. Nowhere was this more true than in plague times. There was no medical understanding of the Black Death, it was simply retribution for wrongs committed.
Prior to the plague this all made a lot of sense to the villagers. Obedience and clean-living led to a quiet life and beneficence from the church which was landlord as well as spiritual guide. Then came the Black Death and we know from the ecclesiastical records of the time that 40% of the clergy died, if anything, a slightly higher proportion than the ordinary people, possibly because in the course of their office they came into contact with more people and were perhaps more exposed to infection.
This death toll in the clergy was a puzzle for the villagers. They had been led to believe that the clergy were less sinful than them and yet the plague struck them down as well. There was obviously something wrong with the world view that Rome had imposed on them from time immemorial. At the very least, this must have raised doubts in some minds about the foundations of their personal beliefs. We know from church records that this was a problem the clergy were well aware of. There are records of church services being modified to pray for relief from the plague which was portrayed more as a general affliction than direct punishment. This makes sense and it is more than likely that the priest at Gill took the same line. We do not know whether the priest was a victim and was replaced but from our general understanding there was one chance in three that he did die.
There was another factor at work. When we look at Barlick we should always take note of what was happening in the wider world and recognise that news travelled fast. In 1331 the hostility between France and England exploded into open conflict and the Hundred Years War began. The catholic church in France suffered a double blow, a failure of the economy due to the war and looting by the marauding English soldiers. Remember that these were men who had been reared to respect the church as the supreme authority and suddenly they found themselves plundering it. How many men from the West Craven area served in that army? Surely there must have been some and what ideas did they bring back with them? It seems to be a fair assumption that the age-old supremacy of the church was faltering even before the Black Death hit in Barlick in 1348.
Now this is where we have to be careful not to reach further than the evidence. Nonconformism, opposition to the Roman church, didn’t spring up overnight in the 14th century and sweep all the old beliefs away. However, it isn’t stretching things too far to suppose that some seeds were sown in men’s minds which made them more open to new thinking which eventually became full-blown protest. Protestant ideas were current in society and slowly grew. It is inconceivable that factors like the damage done to the church by war, economic instability and the plague didn’t have some effect.
I think that life went on in Barlick largely as before. Everyone who was able attended church services and paid lip service to the Roman religion but I suspect that talk round the fireside at night might have been on more nonconformist lines. Beliefs were being questioned. Once you start to doubt the mainstay of your spiritual life, it spreads into other areas of day-to-day existence. It’s tempting to think that all the Barlickers in those days were peasants in thrall to the Cistercian monks who were Lords of the Manor but we have good evidence that this was not so. We have records in the Bolton Priory papers and the Court Rolls of Clitheroe of exports of grain and timber from Barlick. We even have the name of an individual, the 1312 entry in the Priory Compotus of payments to Johanni le Tournour of Barlick for wood products from Barnoldswick Wood. This man was no villein, he was a tradesman dealing directly with the Priory for cash. Add to this the domestic textile industry and we have families which had taken the first steps down the road of being entrepreneurs. My suggestion is that the weakening of the spiritual bonds with the church encouraged men to apply new thinking to everyday life as well. Could it be that their station in life wasn’t as fixed as the Chain of Being taught them? Could salvation lie in there own hands rather than upon the whims of a suspect clergy? After all, they knew they weren’t perfect, the plague had killed them as well.
So, Barlick and the whole of the surrounding area in 1350….. the village is recovering slowly from the catastrophe of 1348 to 1349. The wool trade is buoyant, there is a demand for timber and grain and the supremacy of the landlords, the Abbey at Kirkstall has been shaken. Men are daring to consider new ways of running their lives. There was no change overnight but I believe that seeds had been sown that were to prove influential in the development of the town. It could be said that capitalism and enterprise had been nudged forward by the Black Death. I think the evidence supports this, perhaps our kite has more wind under its wings than we thought. Next week, the reaction against these changes, the medieval equivalent of trouble at t’mill!
SCG/06 February 2007
1072 words.
This could have been John Turner working in Barlick in 1312.
