The Churches of Coventry | Page 9

shape of records or
deeds we have very little. Tradition says that there was once a brass
tablet in the church bearing the following lines:
William and Adam built the Tower, Ann and Mary built the Spire;
William and Adam built the Church, Ann and Mary built the Choir.
Now we know that William and Adam Botoner, who were each Mayor
thrice between 1358 and 1385, built the tower, spending upon it
_£_100 a year for twenty-two years, but what foundation there is for
the other statements cannot now be determined. The tower was in
building from 1373 to 1394, and the choir is contemporary with it, the
nave was in building from 1432 to 1450, and the spire was begun in
1430. As William was Mayor in 1358 it can hardly have been less than
one hundred years after his birth that both nave and spire were begun. It
is however, likely that other members of the family (if not he, by
bequest) contributed largely to the general building fund.
Much of the history of a parish church is concerned with its internal
economy but even the records of this are not quite trivial for they
enlighten us on many points wherein we are rightly curious. We are, for

instance, constantly reminded, as Dr. Gasquet points out in "Mediaeval
Parish Life," that "religious life permeated society in the Middle Ages,
particularly in the fifteenth century, through the minor confraternities"
or gilds.
Thus the Drapers' Gild made itself responsible not only for the upkeep
of the Lady Chapel but also for the lights always burning on the
Rood-loft, every Master paying four pence for each "prentys" and every
"Jurneman" four pence. The cost of lights formed a serious item in
church expenditure, needing the rent of houses and lands for their
maintenance. Guy de Tyllbrooke, vicar in the late thirteenth century,
gave all his lands and buildings on the south side of the church to
maintain a light before the high altar, day and night, for ever, "and all
persons who shall convert this gift to any other use directly or
indirectly shall incur the malediction of Almighty God, the Blessed
Virgin, St. Michael and All Saints."
Royal visits to the church have been noticed in the history of the priory
and city, especially that in 1450 which was apparently intended to mark
the completion of the church. Reference has also been made to the
plays and pageants with which such visitors were entertained. The site
for the performance of the cycle of Corpus Christi plays was the
churchyard on the north of St. Michael's. Queen Margaret, whose visits
were so frequent that the city acquired the fanciful title of "the Queen's
Bower" came over from Kenilworth on the Eve of the Feast in 1456,
"at which time she would not be met, but privily to see the play there
on the morrow and she saw then all the pageants played save
Doomsday, which might not be played for lack of day and she was
lodged at Richard Wood's the Grocer."
There is evident reference to the dedication of the church in the pageant
of the "Nine Orders of Angels" shown before Henry VIII and Queen
Catherine in 1510.
The history of the church since the Reformation has been not unlike
that of a vast number of others. Fanatic destruction, followed by
tasteless and incongruous innovations, and these again by "restorations"
sometimes as destructive, sometimes as tasteless, and nearly always

feeble; such is their common history. In 1569 even the Register books
were destroyed because they contained marks of popery, while from
1576 onward a want of repair is plainly suggested by frequent items of
expenditure for catching the stares (starlings) in the church, at one time
for a net, at another for "a bowe and bolts and lyme." In 1611 James I
addressed a strongly worded letter to the Mayor and Corporation and
the Vicar requiring them to reform the practice of receiving the Holy
Sacrament standing or sitting instead of kneeling, "As we our Self in
our person do carefully perform it." Whereupon the Bishop wrote that
he "felt persuaded that there were not above seven of any note who did
not conform themselves" to the church ordinances; while the Vicar said
he "did not know of half seven of any note but do the like."
A Puritanical writer in 1635 thus mentions the changed position of the
Communion Table, which had formerly stood away from the east wall:
"The Communion Table was altered which cost a great deal of money;
and that which is worst of all, three stepps made to go to the Comm'n
Table altar fashion--God grant it continueth not long." Even the font,
given by John Cross, mayor, in 1394, had to give place in 1645