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CHURCHBUILDING AT BIDDENHAM AND BOLNEY RECONSIDERED

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2022

G W Bernard
G W Bernard*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Southampton, Southampton S017 1BJ, UK. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

In a paper on the north aisle of St James, Biddenham, Bedfordshire, published in The Antiquaries Journal in 2015, in a related paper on the west tower of Bolney, West Sussex, and in a recent book, Church Building and Society in the Later Middle Ages, Gabriel Byng has questioned the typicality of church-rebuilding single-handedly directed and financed by wealthy individuals such as the Sussex knight Sir William de Etchingham. In a close study of Bolney and Biddenham, Byng argues instead that church-rebuilding ‘was run and financed by comparatively wealthy groups of peasants or townsfolk’. The case rests on Byng’s assessment of unusual surviving sources, a series of informal accounts for Bolney and a draft contract for Biddenham. This paper offers a rather different reading, and questions Byng’s claim. The decisive role at both was played by the lords, John Bolney at Bolney, and Sir William Butler at Biddenham.

Keywords

church buildingtowerchapelpatronagenoblemengentryparishioners
Type
Research paper
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 102 , September 2022 , pp. 252 - 259
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Society of Antiquaries of London

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References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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