A HISTORY OF RUTLAND Oakham: — 'The seats in the south aisle all broken in the bottom and neither paved nor boarded. The pavements in the east and north aisles broken. The chancel and the chapel in the north aisle neither plastered nor vi^hited. Many seats in the church broken, and neither boarded nor paved. Two bell wheels broken, but being mended. The communion table unfit. The linen cloths very old. The north door in decay. There dwelleth two poor folks in the churchyard in a lean-to made to the church, very inconvenient and noisome to the churchyard.' The chapels appendant to Oakham were in similar state. At Uppingham the chancel was unpaved towards the cast ; the seats in church and chancel were unpaved, and a part of the north aisle ; the pulpit was unfit, the Bible torn, the west door out of repair, the windows at the west end boarded up, as well as some on the south side ; the north porch was unpaved, and lay so low that water ran down into the church often : the south porch was no better ; there was no pewter stoup. To sum up some of the worst points. In more than half the churches of the deanery the chancel was said to be unpaved towards the east end, or where the high altar stood ; in other words, the place whence the altar and its steps had been removed about forty years before had been left just as it was, and no attempt had been made to cover the earth or boarding thus laid bare. Not one of the churches of the deanery was decently paved throughout ; not one but had some other defect in porches, font, or doors ; scarcely any but had windows broken and the empty mullions filled with boards, mortar, or rough stone. In more than half the communion table was said to be unfit ; in twelve places there was no carpet to cover it ; in fifteen the carpet was torn, patched, or made of such unsuitable material as coarse black buckram. The frequent description of the linen cloth as old, coarse, patched, or torn, and the fact that as many as twenty-seven churches had no flagon even of pewter for the altar wine, suggests small reverence for the most sacred mysteries of religion. The almost universal absence of the Homilies and the works of Jewel and Erasmus might be less matter of regret, if it did not argue a disregard for the authority which prescribed the purchase of these volumes ; and the state of the Bibles and Prayer Books, which are noted as torn and defective in many places, was entirely in harmony with the condition of the churches in general. There was another visitation in 1619: the report of it shows that the effects of the earlier admonitions had been but slender. In ten churches some few repairs had been carried out, but in the rest there was practically nothing done. Flagons had been bought in some places ; but (as at Ham- bleton. North Luffenham, Great Casterton, Tickencote, and Tinwell) they were but pewter pots, ' after the fashion of an alehouse quart.' " It would not be fair to lay all this neglect, as some have done, to the charge of Puritan influences. There can be little doubt that the standard of Church life was deplorably low in this county, amongst both clergy and laity : and it is small wonder that alien principles, both Puritan and Roman, found easy acceptance. It might be expected that Puritanism would be fairly strong in a county so closely connected with Northamptonshire. In 1640 the vicar of Ketton wrote to Archbishop Laud, complaining of certain parishioners " The report of 1619 is from the same source as that of 1605. 152
