St Michael's
Stoney Stanton
Notices
John Bold: Prayer Book Priest
By Canon Michael T.H. Banks
1. Introduction
The Domesday Book records that nine hundred years ago Stoney Stanton had ploughland, meadowland, a wood and open heath. This latter consisted of grass, plants and flowers and was used for grazing and also for hunting wild animals for food. Fourteen households lived at Stoney Stanton. If we reckon each household as a working father plus wife and children, together with unmarried sisters and elderly dependent relatives together with a girl or two as servants and a boy or two to help on the farm we can well imagine that fourteen households was in fact a village of 150 to 200 people. In this then Stoney Stanton was therefore a typical village of eleventh century England.
Things had not changed much in Stoney Stanton from the times of the Domesday Book when John Bold came as resident curate at the earliest canonical age of 23 in the year of our Lord 1702. Although by 1619, two families, the Coopers and the Palmers, had risen socially - at least enough to be recorded in the Heraldic Visitation of that year, the bulk of the population seems to have still been farmers with pockets of land among the wood and the heath and the meadowland. The pattern of life as a farming community cannot have been much different to that at the time of Domesday. The farmers still tilled their land and kept a few cattle and perhaps sheep. There were no fields. If a farmer wanted to contain his sheep he used portable hurdles. On half the tilled land they grew peas and beans and on the other half they grew about 5 parts barley and 1 part wheat. The population too remained much the same. We know this because in 1676 a survey recorded that there were 131 adults adhering to the Church of England with onl a handful of dissidents and this indicates a likely total population of about the same order as implied by the Domesday survey.
This remained the picture of Stoney Stanton life all during the time of the ministry of John Bold. The major change came after his death with the enclosure of the land in 1765 after the Enclosure Act of George 111 in 1764. The major movers behind the enclosure of Stoney Stanton, together with Potters Marston and part of Croft parish were Francis, Earl of Huntingdon who held the Lordship of the Manor and was also Patron of the living of Stoney Stanton and the Revd Caleb Lowdham who had become Rector in 1735 and held the living in plurality with the benefice of Diseworth until 1779 when RB Nickolls became Rector.
It needs to be noted that with all enclosures, even the smallest farmer was invited to enter into the agreement but part of this was that his fields had to be fenced. With pockets of land dotted here and there, most small farmers thought this was impractical and very expensive. These men sold out to the major landowner thinking they would continue as tenants. In this they were sadly mistaken. Fields were created, open heath was barred to them, woods too. Game ceased to be for all but reserved to the landowners. Proud independent small famers found themselves begging for jobs as labourers. The landowners however increased their wealth and frequently the value of the benefice increased too, giving a much larger annual income to the Rector. Hence one finds that after enclosure, the Rector usually builds a fine new Rectory after the style of a minor country gentleman and may even choose to live in the parish and dispense with a resident stipendiary curate.
The enclosure of Stoney Stanton in 1765 had a similar effect. Some went to the towns for work. There was an influx into the cottages of frame-work knitting and, perhaps fortunately, round about 1800, work became available as the quarries swung into major production.
For the story of John Bold, it is important to recognise that this industrialisation of the village lay in the future. All during his ministry, Stoney Stanton was much as it had been for seven hundred years. It was a parish of independent small farmers with their families and dependent relatives and servants. Although I shall show John Bold as a fine and able parish priest, I cannot over-emphasise how relevant was the quality of life in the Stoney Stanton of his day. He had parishioners who could choose their own leisure time, make their own decisions and had a little wealth. The reason being that they were what we would now call self-employed, or within the household of people who were self-employed. Moreover, it is clear that many of them could read. We know this must be true for John Bold distributed religious tracts for them to read at home. Skills like reading and counting imply leisure to acquire them.
John Bold was never the Rector. The living was held by others. These had other parishes which they held in plurality. He was therefore only ever a stipendiary curate but equally he was the only permanently resident priest. He was therefore the de facto parish priest.
I shall put forward to you the picture of John Bold as a man of the Prayer Book who used it to create a community of honesty and Godliness. The environment of the Stoney Stanton of John Bold's time was exactly right for Prayer Book religion to flourish. Being master of one's time, having a little wealth, and being literate, were essential pre-conditions for a religious way of life based on the Book of Common Prayer. Even John Bold would not have made much impression if things had not been as I have described.
We are blessed in that we have the invaluable record of John Bold's life written by the Revd RB Nickolls, Dean of Middleham, and Rector of the parish of Stoney Stanton from 1779 to 1814 and found in the vast work on Leicestershire compiled John Nichols. RB Nickolls became Rector within a generation of the death of John Bold in 1751. We can be sure that what he relates is accurate. His life of John Bold, and versions of it, are readily available.
I am indebted to RB Nickolls as anyone who has ever been at all interested in John Bold is, but though we have this written record, the unique thing about John Bold is that his memory has been handed on from generation to generation. In an earlier time, he would by now have been given the title of Saint by popular acclaim. For those who are interested in the details of modern canonisations, Saint-hood is the final stage. Prior to that someone may be refered to as "Blessed" and the earlier stage is when someone is remembered on a local list and may be counted "Venerable". John Bold is on the list of Leicester Diocesan holy men and women compiled by our former bishop, Richard Rutt, so I guess you can call him the Venerable John Bold if you so wish.
All the other information I have to share with you has been gleaned from elsewhere and it is indirect rather than direct. This does not make it less interesting. It helps fill out the picture we may already have of John Bold.
But perhaps the most useful thing I can do in this lecture is to put his ministry into context and hazard an interpretation and point to the likely significance of all that he did. The John Bold I will describe to you will, I hope, emerge not just as your local priest about whom some memories are recorded but as a priest of the Church of England who has left a lasting legacy of faithful Anglican ministry. What he did is as much of value today as a source of inspiration, as it was of value to Stoney Stanton during his ministry here three centuries ago.
2. Early Life
John Bold was born in 1679 and was a Leicester man. His family was connected to the Wigley's of Scraptoft who at one time supplied the town's MP. They were a local family of some significance and we know that among other things, they were patrons of at least one living. Not unusually for those days, John Bold's surname is variously spelled as BOLD, BOULD, BOUL and (at Hinckley), BOWLES. Contemporary with John Bold in Leicester and recorded among the lists of the Freemen of Leicester there are an Anthony Bold, an apprentice baker, a Samuel Bold, an apprentice chandler and a John Bold, described as "of Laughton" who was a merchant. In the relatively small market town of the Leicester of those days, perhaps no bigger than 5,000 people, it is likely that these Bolds were relatives of our John Bold.
Although it was in the process of dying out, in John Bold's time there was still relatively easy access to Cambridge University for clever youngsters from less affluent families. Many of these earned their keep at Cambridge by doubling up as college servants, making beds, cleaning rooms, emptying chamber pots and waiting upon table for their wealthy fellow undergraduates. It was an intensely unpopular system but it allowed a wide spectrum of boys entrance into University. Many of these young men found that the only real job available after university was to be ordained.
John Bold entered St John's College, Cambridge in 1694 when he was fifteen years old. It seems more than probable that he earned his keep and paid for his lectures by also carrying out the duties of a college servant. It is interesting to note that a significant number of the Leicestershire clergy of those days were graduates of St John's College, Cambridge. Clearly there was a regular link between Leicestershire and St John's.
We know exactly how John Bold entered St John's because an older contemporary of his, Abraham de la Pryme, has left a record of the procedures:
"First, I was examined by my tutor, then by the senior dean, then by the junior dean, and then by the master, who all made me construe a verse or two a-piece in the Greek Testament, except the master, who ask'd me both in that and in Plautus and Horace too. Then I went to the registerer to be registered member of the College, and so the whole work was done."
The fifteen year-old John Bold must have been well versed in greek and latin before he went to be registered. That would have been the task, probably undertaken as a labour of love, of a curate maybe at Saint Martin's, or Saint Margaret's or Saint Nicholas' or Saint Mary de Castro.
Undergraduates in those days first studied ancient and modern philosophy, literature, astronomy, geometry and rhetoric. Other subjects followed. This was considered to be a broad humane education in the late seventeenth century. Religious studies were part of the curriculum for those that stayed on to read for a Master's degree, which most ordinands did. The students in those days, like students in every generation, were highly critical of what they were taught, and indeed what was omitted. Some did their own thing. Abraham de la Pryme, for example, recorded that "I got knowledge of all herbs, trees, and simples without anybody's instruction or help".
Once again, Abraham de la Pryme tells us the details of the final examination and graduation in which John Bold would have participated. The finals took the shape of three days examinations in College covering rhetoric, logic, ethics, physics and astronomy. Then three more days of viva voce exams by anyone who wished to question them. After which they dressed up, just as today, in gowns and hoods and were presented to the Vice-Chancellor. Unlike today they then had to swear allegiance to the crown and submission to the 39 Articles of Religion. After which they signed the book and the Vice-Chancellor took their hands and said "Admitto te".
John Bold was nineteen years of age. It seems that he planned to be ordained as soon as possible but Church Law forbad that until he was twenty three.
Leicestershire was in those days but the westmost county of the vast and unwieldy diocese of Lincoln. John Bold was presented therefore to the Bishop of Lincoln's examining chaplains. They were well satisfied with his theology and his new testament greek. He was obviously well educated and intelligent. As was written later about him, "he was well calculated to enjoy and adorn...polished society". The consequence was that this intelligent, socially adjusted and graceful young man caught the eye of the Bishop. Bishop Gardner wanted him to be his domestic chaplain, but he was only nineteen. He had to do something else for four years. At whose instigation we do not know - possibly the Bishop's - he took up school-mastering.
I do not want to give the impression that John Bold was just teaching to fill in time before he could be ordained. In fact I believe that his decision to hold down both jobs, curate of Stoney Stanton and schoolmaster at Hinckley for so many years is an indication of his dedication to education. Education was top of the agenda for those days just as it is now.
In 1698, SPCK was formed and one of its aims was to establish charity schools in a network over the country. Clergy were enthusiastic about this. They threw themselves into the work of getting schools open in their parishes. At Cambridge, the establishment of schools must have been a major topic - especially among those planning ordination. John Bold would have been part of that debate. As is often the case, the motives for encouraging education were quite mixed. Another contemporary of John Bold's, Samuel Butler who became Bishop of Durham said that the purpose of establishing these schools was:
"to educate poor children in such a manner, as has a tendency to make them good, and useful and contented, whatever their particular station may be."
The purpose of the schools was clearly to give them skills to make the children useful in society - but also the schools had a moral agenda. They were intended to inculcate good behaviour. In a more sinister manner, the idea was that the schools would keep the poor in place by teaching them to be contented with their lot.
You have to remember the times. In 1688, Parliament had invited William and Mary to be constitutional monarchs but King James 11 was still alive and in France. There was every sign that given the right circumstances, he might lead a French army to recover his crown. In fact there were invasions as we know in 1715 and then in 1745, led by Bonnie Prince Charlie and then one that never happened but was planned in 1769. What neither church nor parliament wanted was discontented poor people who might very well throw in their lot with the Stuart cause.
This might sound cynical and I do not want to overstate the case, but intelligent young men like John Bold would recognise that teaching was a worthwhile occupation. They would not find it at all odd that coupled with giving skills to children and social manners, the task would also include instilling loyalty in them to the House of Hanover. It is only in our times that we have recognised the sinister side of social engineering as we have christened it.
| So John found himself at Hinckley. At Hinckley, he would have taught reading, writing and accountancy to the younger boys and moved into latin and greek with the older. Hinckley has some interesting memoirs about its past but curiously it only dates its Grammar School from 1785. All other references I have been able to locate refer to the Church of England charity school set up by SPCK, but that only dates from 1708. It is perhaps rather sad that as yet no records have emerged about the school John Bold taught in. Similar towns like Lutterworth and Loughborough had "endowed" schools, often dating from before the reformation. It would be curious if Hinckley did not. Perhaps there is more to find, or more probably I have failed to locate the information. I would hate to think that the only record we have of that four mile journey to Hinckley each morning and return each afternoon which occupied him until the year 1732, was his walking stick! |
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When John Bold reached the canonical age of 23 he sought ordination. He obviously wanted to keep on teaching and it was fortuitous that the absentee incumbent of Stoney Stanton, Mr Geary, who was vicar of Swepstone where he lived, wanted a curate for Stoney. A young man willing and able to do both jobs must have pleased both the school authorities in Hinckley and the vicar of Swepstone.
John Bold, that intelligent, graceful and socially adjusted young man who had caught the Bishop's eye, spurned fame and fortune in a career minded Church and opted for a country parish and a position as a school master in a small town. Only a Saint might have made that choice. John Bold was now set on his life's work.
3. Prayer Book Priest
It probably seems odd to you but when John Bold came to Stoney Stanton there would be some for whom the Book of Common Prayer was a new-fangled thing! The older generation among his parishioners would remember the Commonwealth when the Prayer Book was banned. When the King came back as it were, things returned to how they had been. The Prayer Book was reinstated and the new 1662 version was up-dated and modernised. Of course we must remember that in those days of slow communications it might have taken several years for it to be re-introduced at Stoney Stanton.
John Bold, as I have already indicated, was a devotee of the Book of Common Prayer and used it as a means to convert the Stoney Stanton of his day. It is worthwhile reflecting for a few paragraphs on why John Bold was sold on the Book which nowadays has lost its central place in the life of the Church of England.
We must turn to the Monasteries and Religious Houses that had existed a mere one hundred years before John Bold's time. These buildings, many of which would still have been standing in the early seventeenth century, housed communities of either men and women who were dedicated to a life of prayer. This followed a regular routine of services throughout the day and night. Interspersed with these times of prayer, the monks or nuns studied the scriptures and meditated on them.
These people also drew round them a large number of servants with their families who worked about the buildings and on the monastery lands. The cloisters were not perhaps as quiet as we imagine them to have been. Men would be repairing windows and re-plastering walls. Women might be sweeping or sitting sewing. Children would be playing around. Squash was invented as was Eton Fives by youngsters such as these bashing a ball against the church wall!
In addition, these Houses had an infirmary where the sick of the neighbourhood went for help. Brother Cadfael existed in every monastery, not just in Ellis Peters novels or TV dramas. Women worked here too. If it was a nunnery, the nuns worked here especially. That is why in hospitals today, nurses still receive the title "Sister". Also the monasteries gave homes to elderly people, which is where our phrase "the deserving poor" comes from. Many houses had schools attached to them.
When the monasteries and convents were dissolved in the 1540s, Cranmer did not want to destroy this idea of community. He wanted every village to become a monastery. He was convinced that the monks had professionalised religion. He wanted what they did to become common among everyone.
So at the heart of the Book of Common Prayer were two Services for daily use: Morning Prayer (Mattins) and Evening Prayer (Evensong). Cranmer envisaged that the daily round of the monks' worship would be the daily round of every parish's worship. But it wasn't just worship. It is clear from Cranmer's Service for the Visitation of the Sick which really ought to have been called the Visitation of the Dying, that Cranmer expected christian men moulded by daily prayer to leave of their wealth for all sorts of good works. The parish would meet daily for prayer and all would look after the sick and the elderly and educate the children. It was real christian care in the community.
It was a noble ideal rarely even attempted but John Bold was fired by the ideal and in fact succeeded in achieving it. Stoney Stanton of his day became a village of people who lived a daily round of prayer and cared for their own sick and needy and their own children. John Bold's Stoney Stanton was a model of what a christian community ought to be and the tool was that cleverly created by Thomas Cranmer, the Book of Common Prayer.
How did John Bold get fired up with this enthusiasm?
Despite all the bad things about the seventeenth century Church of England, there were men around who took religion seriously. It may come as a surprise to you but in 1688, after the invitation to William and Mary to become joint sovereigns whilst King James 11 was in France, there was a flowering of Anglicanism. One of the leaders in this movement was Samuel Wesley who was later to become the father of John and Charles Wesley who are far more well known. Samuel Wesley was one of those who established Prayer Book Societies among undergraduates. These young students were taught to use the Book of Common Prayer daily. To study the scriptures appointed to be read, to keep the Holy Days and the Days of fasting and abstinence. John Bold was of an age to be involved in these and his subsequent ministry almost proves it.
It must now be apparent that John Bold's ministry was not just about the worship he led but also about his pastoral practice. The two cannot be separated. There is a third element too. This is the need for personal study. These three elements make up what I mean by the Prayer Book Priest and John Bold as must now be becoming apparent is an amazing example of what it means to be a Prayer Book Priest. I now want to proceed by looking in turn at each of these three inter-locking elements. In so doing I think John Bold is giving a message to the clergy of the Church of England today. It is a simple message. It is no good getting the worship right if there is no dedicated pastoral practice coupled with it. And you cannot get the worship right or the pastoral practice effective if they are not rooted in personal studies.
4. The Worship
John Bold read Morning and Evening Prayer every Sunday. He preached a Sermon at each. Baptisms were also held on Sundays. The Churchwardens accounts for "bread and wine for the sacrament" indicate the Holy Communion was also celebrated as frequently as the best practice of those days indicated. It is interesting to note that the churchwardens account also includes an item for washing the surplice. Clearly John Bold could not countenance celebrating Holy Communion wearing other than a newly washed and starched surplice!
As he visited on Mondays everyone in the village who failed to turn up on Sunday, attendance was massive and regular.
He also read Morning and Evening Prayer out loud in Church on Wednesdays and Fridays each week; on every Holy Day listed in the Book of Common Prayer; on every single day in Lent. How he did this whilst also walking daily backwards and forwards between Stoney Stanton and his school in Hinckley I do not know!
As year succeeded year, this weekly round of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer with a long sermon at each, together with regular daily services, began to show its effect. Perhaps I need to remind you that in the 1662 lectionary the whole of the Old Testament was read out loud once every year and the whole of the New Testament was read out twice every year. The readings were long and read slowly and leisurely. Also the Psalms were read or sung once every month. If you look at a Prayer Book now you will see that the Psalms are still divided into the mornings and evenings of a 30 day month. No wonder that the people became holy people. As it is recorded of one farmer and may be true of others, perhaps particularly the older women who had the time, "whenever he was absent from business, he was to be found at the Church".
In those days John Bold would not dress up for worship except to pull a surplice on top of everything else for Holy Communion. He would always wear clerical dress both for normal use and for worship. So, even for teaching he would wear a cassock all the time, but in his day the cassock had changed into a front buttoning coat which stretched down just to the knees. At his neck he would wear a cloth band and beneath his cassock, breeches that buckled at his knee. He would also wear hose and leather shoes. Outside he would always wear a shovel hat and in cold weather a cloak over all.
So picture him if you will. Shoes and hose, buckled breeches and cassock-coat, standing in the pulpit proclaiming the scriptures and preaching constantly in season and out of season. It is a noble, inspirational picture that makes our day look so inadequate!
What did he preach about? Well, he could take much for granted. Every single person in the village bar a couple of dissenters would have learned by heart the Catechism which includes the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles Creed and the 10 Commandments. They would have learned too the Collects for each week. These would be a rich resource in their own heads. Also, with attendance so regular on Sundays and with Holy D ays made much of, they would also be familiar with the Seasons of the Church's Year: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Ascension, Trinity. I can vouch for all this, because I went to a Church of England school in the days when the parish church used the Book of Common Prayer. I went to Sunday School and choir three times each Sunday and Catechism class before Confirmation. And even as late as 1948, I knew all those things off by heart too and so did the other 30 young people confirmed with me from my parish. I could never have met John Bold and I had never heard of him, but it was men like John Bold who established the Prayer Book tradition in the Church of England which lasted until these days. I digress!
Being able to take so much for granted, John Bold was able to engage in teaching which would not disgrace the curriculum for a Theology Degree course. We know that he printed some of his sermons and circulated them for parishioners to study at home. These sermons were the basis for his books. There is "The Sin and Danger of Neglecting the Public Service of the Church". As all his parish came to Church, this book is warning them and all readers not to hive off into separate groups and leave the Church. He had no room for Methodists whom he saw as sinful schismatics. In fact his charity established an annual sermon on the duties of attending the parish church!
Another book was ahead of its time: "The duty of Worthy Communicating". Here he was speaking about the Holy Communion which in some places was almost forgotten and he was drawing attention to its centrality in the Christian Life.
I like best of all, the title "Religion, the most Delightful Employment". We have a hint here of regular themes that related to relationships among all in the village. His contemporary, Samuel Butler, gives a list of familiar sermon subjects on this theme: living in society, governing the tongue, compassion, resentment and forgiveness, self-deceit, conscience, piety, love of neighbour..... Built upon the foundations of solid traditional teaching about Jesus Christ and the Christian religion, John Bold was moulding and shaping the quality of life in the village. His sermons were a school for saints.
Did they sing at Morning and Evening Prayer in Stoney Stanton Church? I confess to failure. I can find no reference to music or a choir, but there must have been. All parish churches had music. So I turn to Thomas Hardy's "Under the Greenwood Tree" to give us a flavour of what it must have been like for the musicians of Stoney Stanton on a Sunday:
"After a great deal of crunching upon the sanded stone floor by the feet of father, son and grandson as they moved to and fro in preparation, the bass-viol and fiddles were taken from their nook, and the strings examined and screwed a little above concert pitch, that they might keep their tone when the service began.
"The three left the door and paced down Melstock Lane and across the ewe-lease, bearing under their arms the instruments in faded green-baize bags, and old brown music books in their hands. At the foot of the incline the church became visible through the north gate. Seven agile figures in a clump were observable beyond which proved to be the boy choristers; sitting on an altar tomb to pass the time and letting their heels dangle against it. The musicians now being in sight the youthful party scampered off and rattled up the wooden stairs of the gallery like a regiment of cavalry.
"Old William sat in the centre of the front row, his violincello between his knees and two bass singers on each hand. Behind him on the left came the treble
singers and Dick; and on the right the tranter and the tenors. Further back was old Mall with the altos and supernumaries."
I think that Stoney Stanton musicians in John Bold's day must have been something like that!
The musicians sang the Psalms but they sang them in metrical versions which the congregation could join in if they knew the words by heart - which they probably did. A new version by Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady had come out in 1696, but as choirs always prefer what they have always sung, I suspect Stoney Stanton's musicians stuck to the old favourite produced by Sternhold and Hopkins. The metrical psalms were doggerel verse but some have survived even into our day. Of course the fashion of copying the Cathedrals and College Chapels and singing the Psalms to chant had not yet emerged.
Thus Sunday by Sunday John Bold led the village into the community of love and care that the Book of Common Prayer pointed to. This worship however relied on pastoral practice. I have already hinted at this in telling you of John Bold's Monday visitations of the absentees but we now must turn to this element in his ministry.
5. Pastoral Practice
I must reiterate the point I made at the beginning. John Bold could have rung the church bell as loud as he wished; he could have said mattins and evensong as often as as he felt like it; he could have preached sermons as learned as he felt inclined to make them but, under the grace of God, he would not have converted Stoney Stanton except for the fact that the majority of the money-earners in his time were self-employed farmers; had leisure to pursue his teachings in the daily round of their lives and also had a little wealth which enabled them to be relaxed and to give to charity - in a word, had the opportunity to respond. The vision of the Book of Common Prayer which was to convert a community into a christian community of mutual caring and concern, required both a learned and pious priest and also an open and responsive people.
Of course, I do not want to paint Stoney Stanton in too rosy a manner. John Bold was conned in the eighteenth century just as clergy today are conned. There was the case of John Poyner. John Poyner constantly proclaimed his ill health and inability to work. He was married and had a family. Under John Bold's teaching, the parish rallied round this poor man and the children were fed and clothed. His wife was helped in practical ways to run her home. John did not want in any way. A wonderful example of care in the community, you might proclaim and indeed it was.
However, after John Bold's death a parish rate was imposed to establish an institution (at Sapcote I think) to deal with the unemployed. (In parenthesis I might add that this was becoming common practice across the country and the idea was to evolve into what later generations would call the Work House). John Poyner was faced with being sent to this institution and suddenly made a miraculous recovery!
I suspect that the good pious people who had been made christian saints by John Bold's ministry saw in this a miracle. In a Roman Catholic country the apparent cure would certainly have been attributed to John Bold's heavenly intercession. I am far too cynical. I think Stoney Stanton and John Bold had in John Poyner a man who conned them for years.
On the other hand all during John Bold's long ministry there was only one crime in Stoney Stanton. It was a crime of theft but the crime was committed by someone visiting relatives - a sailor it is said. So they were not all saints. However, the fact that these are the only two recorded sinners in the anecdotes says much about John Bold's dedicated pastoral practice and the response the vast majority made to this.
Before we pass on from these two anecdotes, I must comment that they also reveal much about how times changed after his death. In all his time, Stoney Stanton cared for its own but the tale of John Poyner reveals that after John Bold's death a parish rate was imposed to house the unemployed. What a gross change in outlook and I have to add, supported by the rectors of the parish. And is not the anecdote of only one crime a nostalgic looking back to a golden era? I think it is. One must not forget that the industrialisation of the village after the imposition of enclosure on the small farmers changed the character of the village. Throughout John Bold's ministry there had always been 2 or 3 (some say six) framework knitters in the village but newcomers moved in and the sound of the knitting frames raised to a crescendo. Those who stayed remembered John Bold and how good it had been then. No wonder he was and is remembered. It was a time when Stoney Stanton, shaped by the Book of Common Prayer and John Bold, beame "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people" to use and apply Saint Peter's description of the Church.
As you have just experienced, when we turn to John Bold's pastoral practice, we have to rely on comments that are recorded about him. But the comments refer to the results of his ministry. This means that I have to ask myself what was he doing for these to be remembered? I hope to weave before your eyes a pattern of pastoral practice that is rooted in the Book of Common Prayer and has become synonymous with Anglicanism. John Bold emerges in this section as an example, in fact a model, of the best of Anglican pastoral ministry.
The key to this best practice of Anglican pastoral ministry which John Bold exemplified is visiting. Visiting is often ridiculed as a social round of tea and thin cucumber sandwiches but John Bold would have distinguished between the noun "visitation" and the verb "to visit". There is a huge difference. Some of you will be familiar with the Archdeacon's Visitation and will know that a Visitation implies a purpose and a reason usually including both a carrot and a stick. John Bold made Visitations with a purpose and using the Prayer Book each Visitation has a carrot and a stick. I will return to his visiting but first of all I will deal with his Visitations. Get ready for strong language!
As I have already mentioned to you, John Bold visited every Monday those who had been absent from Church the previous Sunday. These were not occasions for social visiting. These were Visitations. Steeped in the Book of Common Prayer as he was, we know exactly what he would say to them. There is an Exhortation in the Holy Communion Service (now never used) which the priest is to say to those who are negligent about attending Church. John Bold's Visitation of the absentees would cover the same ground:
"It is an easy matter for a man to say, I will not (come to Church) because I am otherwise hindered with worldly business. But such excuses are not so easily accepted and allowed before God.
"If any man say, I am a grievous sinner, and therefore am afraid to come: wherefore then do ye not repent and amend?
"When God calleth you, are ye not ashamed to say ye will not come?
"When ye should return to God (at your death), will ye excuse yourself and say ye are not ready?"
So John Bold would dismiss as insulting to God any comment from the absentee that he was too busy. If the absentee said he was too sinful, John Bold would say, repent! And if this did not work he would try to shame the person into coming. And if this did not work he would use the weapon of sarcasm - Oh, so when you are dying, you will also tell God to delay it because you are not ready!
That was what the Visitation on Mondays would have meant. If John Bold could not convince them of the need to attend Church, he would have used the Book of Common Prayer's weapons of shame and ultimately the hint of God's wrath at the time of death. Strong stuff.
Similar to this would have been John Bold's Visitation of Sinners. If any were back-sliding in Stoney Stanton they would have had John Bold at their door. He would obey the Prayer Book rubric which urged him:
"Men should often be put in remembrance to take order for the settling of their estates, whilst they are in health".
The word "estates" is in the plural and meant both spiritual and financial "estates". As we would say, they should be urged to look to their spiritual state as well as their financial state - because death is round the corner.
What language would John Bold have used to sinners? We once again have the words of the Prayer Book:
"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God: he shall pour down rain upon the sinners, snares, fire and brimstone, storm and tempest; this shall be their portion to drink.
"Then shall appear the wrath of God in the day of vengeance, which obstinate sinners, through the stubbornness of their heart, have heaped upon themselves.
"Then shall it be too late to knock when the door shall be shut; and too late to cry for mercy when it is the time of justice. O terrible voice of most just judgement, which shall be pronounced upon them, Go, ye cursed, into the fire everlasting, which is prepared for the devil and his angels."
Those extracts are taken from the section of the Prayer Book called the Commination which John Bold read out every Ash Wednesday to the whole assembled congregation. Shuddering language.
There was also the Visitation to the Sick. The rubric of the Prayer Book tells us again what John Bold would have done at such a Visitation:
"The Minister shall examine the sick person, whether he repent him truly of his sins, and be in charity with all the world; exhorting him to forgive, from the bottom of his heart, all persons that have offended him; and if he hath offended any other, to ask them forgiveness; and where he hath done injury or wrong to any man, that he make amends to the uttermost of his power.
"And if he hath not before disposed of his goods, let him then be admonished to make his Will, and to declare his debts, what he oweth, and what is owing unto him; for the better discharge of his conscience, and the quietness of his Executors."
"Here shall the sick person be moved to make a special confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter. After which the Priest shall absolve him......."
The Prayer Book with typical bluntness has no room for silence in the face of death. John Bold, in carrying out the Prayer Book's teaching would have confronted the dying with their sins and the disposal of their goods and urged them to confession. The Prayer Book is solidly with the pre-reformation Catholic tradition.
There were other Visitations. In a tight-knit community like Stoney Stanton was, there would be few secrets. John Bold would soon know when someone was pregnant and he would take heed of the rubric at the beginning of the Baptism Service:
"The minister of the parish shall admonish the people that they bring their children to Baptism as soon as possible after birth, and that they defer not the Baptism longer than the fourth or fifth Sunday."
There would be friendly and social visiting of the family during the pregnancy but a Visitation at some point to admonish the parents to bring the child for baptism as soon as possible. In those days of high infant mortality there was a reason given in the rubrics for this admonition:
"It is certain by God's Word, that children which are baptized, dying before they commit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved."
The Book of Common Prayer firmly teaches baptismal regeneration. In this it is solidly in the Catholic tradition also and has no room for anabaptist protestantism. It holds no truck with those who delay baptism for any reason. John Bold would have stood no nonsense over this and would have insisted the child be brought to the font without delay and would brook no excuse.
It is the Visitation in connection with baptism that reveals the other side of the coin - regular social visiting. John Bold could only have gained the authority to act as he did in his formal Visitations through the relationships he had built up through his regular social visiting.
Thus, despite this Visitation to admonish the parents to have the child baptised, the anecdotes also tell us that he often joined the family parties after christenings and gave a gift of money to the baby. Giving silver is an old custom that still exists. After my two sons were baptised in my Sunderland parish in the North East, we found that some people would push half-crowns and florins under the pillow of the pram as a gift of silver for the new christian baby. John Bold knew and practised that old custom but the fact that he was welcome at the christening reveals something that is not immediately obvious. You invite to a party people who are family and friends. John Bold came not only as the priest who had admonished them to bring the child to baptism but also as their loving pastor who was in fact a family friend. Behind this anecdote there lies not only John Bold's formal Visitation urging baptism but also a huge hidden tale of constant love and conversation as friend to friend with all his parishiones. He knew them and loved them and they loved him and invited him to their family parties.
They sent food to his lodgings for him which is another example of good relationships based on regular social visiting. He never kept this for himself but put it in the farmhouse larder for all to use. I guess a hare or two, or a dozen eggs, were always welcome.
This important and revealing aspect of social visiting, I mean the way in which it developes and maintains friendship, comes out even more clearly in the anecdote about his pipe smoking. Apparently he rarely accepted a meal when visiting homes but always accepted a pipe. I see the picture. John Bold comes in to the house. Mrs is busy with the children or some other activity but the farmer and probably his old Dad are happy to take a break and have a pipe with their permanent curate. What a warm friendly atmosphere this reveals of relationships between priest and people.
I have often talked of the village but the parish of Stoney Stanton stretched out quite a long way then as it does now. Those living far away may not have seen as much of him as those who saw him daily about the village but they were not neglected. He must have been a great walker for the statement that in later life he borrowed a horse to visit the outlying parishioners indicates not only his practice of visiting but also that when younger he visited on foot.
Visiting and Visitations was his practice and this pastoral ministry coupled with the Prayer Book worship created saints. Anne Farmer can stand for them. She is said to have lived a life of "faultless piety, virtue, industry and every good work." Let that epithet stand for all (or most, let us not forget the notorious John Poyner!).
In a parish which was trained to practise care in the community, there was no need for any institution to care for the needy. There were of course the poor as well as the better off but the poor were taken care of. It is interesting to note that John Bold persuaded others to join with him in establishing a charity with, as one objective, money for the poor at Christmas time. Clearly they all managed - but a bit extra at Christmas was a kindly intention (even though the Charity unwisely invested in Leicester Abbey meadow which then was cut through by the canal - causing years of litigation).
So, the sick, the elderly, women in confinement and the bereaved were all looked after by neighbours. The dead would be washed and made decent and buried in the churchyard and the little children would learn to read and write and to count. And thereby lies a puzzle.
The puzzle is that in 1811 it was reported of Stoney Stanton that there was no school, "just a petty schoolmistress and a Sunday School" yet in John Bold's time there is evidence of literacy and numeracy. How did the children learn?
If John Bold had only been an Hinckley schoolmaster as well as the curate it would still have to be assumed that he was anxious that the children of Stoney Stanton had some education. As it is, we can be sure that his interest in education goes back to his University days when SPCK was founded. As I have said one aim of SPCK was to have a network of charity schools across the country. I find it impossible to believe that John Bold was not taken up in zeal for that cause too. Therefore I have hunted around and put two and two together.
John Bold was never the Rector of the parish and so the opening of a parish school would have meant consulting the Rector and possible getting money from him. John Geary held the benefice of Stoney Stanton as an absentee, as well as Swepstone where he lived, until 1722 - and nothing happened. We can only guess that Mr Geary was too old to bother, he had been absentee holder of the benefice of Stoney Stanton since 1676.
In 1722, the benefice of Stoney Stanton passed to John Carte who was Vicar of Hinckley. There was every chance that for the first time in his life, John Bold, curate of Stoney Stanton, met regularly with his absentee Rector for our John taught at Hinckley as we know. Now John Carte was the son of Samuel Carte who was Vicar of Saint Martin's Leicester - not the Cathedral as now, but the Town church and Guild Church of Leicester. Samuel Carte was taken up by the great vision of the new society the SPCK which not only wanted a network of charity schools but wanted regional libraries for the districts and stipends to send missionary chaplains to India with the East India Company. Carte father became the local Secretary for the SPCK and furthered its aims. Carte son was brought up in this atmosphere and perhaps caught the vision of SPCK from his father.
Thus it was that in 1722, John Carte, absentee Rector of Stoney Stanton, fired (let us assume) with the vision of SPCK, met up with John Bold, curate of Stoney Stanton, also fired up with the vision of SPCK. Whatever else happened between them, surely they agreed on a school for Stoney Stanton. And John Carte had the money and the ecclesiastical position to do something about it.
All this is reasonable supposition but there is one fact. In 1724, two years after John Carte became absentee Rector, it is recorded in Lincoln diocesan records that SPCK funded the establishment of a school for Stoney Stanton. It had disappeared by 1811, true, but John Bold had his school and the children of his parish access into literacy and numeracy. I now hand over to local historians. Where was that school? How long did it remain open? Are there any records?
Life must have been full for John Bold as Hinckley schoolmaster and yet model parish priest in the Anglican fashion. You could have been forgiven if you had imagined he took Saturday off. He did not. We have one further example of pastoral care to explore and that was the teaching of the Catechism.
Sundays were busy days. There were two major sermons and sometimes baptisms. There was no time for Catechism and yet this had to be done. The Prayer Book requires that the minister shall present to the bishop all who are of an age to receive Confirmation but they must know the Catechism.
Basically the Catechism consists of repeating by heart the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles Creed and the 10 Commandments together with questions about the Sacraments. It is in outline a summary of the Christian Faith. Young people had to learn it by heart but a good teacher such as John Bold would want to be sure that they not only had learned it but understood it and accepted it. Teaching the Catechism to the young people was therefore a major task that he would not squash into a busy Sunday. So he taught the Catechism on Saturday afternoons. Joseph Brown leaves us a memory of this. He recorded:
"Whenever the church bell rang at 3 o'clock on Saturday afternoon, I always left my plough team at plough, to come to Mr Bold to be catechized, and then went back to plough."
It says much about "Mr Bold" that he could summon the young parishioners at the pull of a bell for catechism. It might have meant a break from chores on the land or around the house, but his personality must have attracted them too and what he taught must have been interesting - otherwise would Joseph Brown as a very old man have remembered?
6. John Bold at Home
No doubt heads appeared in windows and doorways as one day in May 1702 the new 23 year old curate arrived in the parish of Stoney Stanton. He arrived with furniture for the room he had agreed to rent but in those days this was likely to have been no more than his chair and a mattress to sleep on. We know from clergy Wills of that period that good mattresses were prized possessions often left to relatives and friends. He also had with him what was described as a select library which then as now frequently meant small. He took lodgings in a farmhouse that is today identified as "The Homestead" on Carey Hill Road and stayed there in the same house with the same family until he died aged 72 in October 1751. He was curate of the parish of Stoney Stanton for nearly fifty years. Towards the end of his life, the Wigleys, his relatives in Leicester, offered him a living, but he turned it down. He was content with being curate of Stoney Stanton.
It was in his farmhouse home that we see the third element of John Bold the Prayer Book Priest. Here we see John Bold at his studies. It is in his books that John Bold found the intellectual food that fed his concern for Worship and for Pastoral Practice. It is in his books that he found the reasoning that convinced him of the wisdom of the way of life and worship taught and extolled in the Book of Common Prayer.
In his select library he had some Latin and Greek classics from his University studies and for teaching purposes at Hinckley. We know that he had some writings of the classic Church Fathers and some books of the early Reformers. There is only a slight glimpse open to us of this side of his life but it reveals what is important. In the fading light of a summer evening he would be seated in the window of his room for there he read his books from his own little library and wrote his sermons and tracts. In the winter he would slip down to the farmhouse kitchen and write and read the Fathers in the original latin and greek, in front of the fire. Later, after he gave up teaching in Hinckley in 1732 at the age of about 53, he added to these studies the writing of his three published books.
Dedicated leader of worship and committed preacher, determined visitor and regular student might be a fine summary of any priest's life but in John Bold's case it is all brought together in his saintly life. We know of his public prayer in the Church but alas we know nothing of his private prayer. That was in secret in his closet as the Gospel tells us it should be. Yet his life-style shows that he was driven by his Christian faith and we cannot but assume that Christ was at the heart of all he did.
He was a man who was humble in his simple life-style. His daily routine was boring by our standards. For breakfast he always had a bowl of porridge made with water. Dinner (probably late afternoon) was a plate of whatever the family was eating brought up to his room for him. For supper he always had milk pottage which I think is what my grandmother served when I was a child. I remember it as broken pieces of bread with warm milk poured over. A man of his time, he brewed his own beer which he drank with his dinner and he enjoyed a pipe afterwards. I guess he shredded his own plug bought from a pedlar. He was always neat in his dress but he was quite parsimonious in obtaining new clothes. His old were darned and repaired again and again.
We know nothing of his personal social life. We do not know how often he visited his relatives in Leicester, if at all. He seems to have been on good terms with the local gentry but no more so than with the farmers and their wives.
He was never a rich man though he was not poor by the standards of his day. He received £10 each year for teaching at Hinkley and he received £30 each year until the day he died as his curate's stipend. His lodgings went up in price from £8 per year at first to £12 and when he needed extra laundry and care in the last six years of his life, to £16. He saved from the very first but always gave away £5 per year in charitable giving. In his last years he had to dip into his savings for he paid the Revd Charles Cooper, a relative of the Cooper family in the parish, to help him as well as the increased rent for his board and lodging. He was still able in his Will to leave £100 to his relatives, £100 to the family he had lodged with all those years and £40 to invest in his Charity.
We have a picture of a man who was quite detached from worldly goods and possessions; satisfied with whatever food was brought to him and content with his role in life. He did not shun the conventions of his time nor did he make much of them. As was then common he drank his home brew and he relaxed with his pipe. He kept up relationships with the local gentry but not at the expense of his teaching and his pastoral care of his parish. He was a paradigm of "self-denial, humility, charity and piety." He was a man who prayed the Book of Common Prayer, studied the scriptures and the Church Fathers, and lived out the life of a priest of the Church of England in a way that is a model of what is now recognised as the Anglican tradition.
7. John Bold the Saint
In the last six years of his life he was incapacitated and eventually he died at the age of 72.
| He was buried on October 29th 1751 in an outside grave next to the high altar of Stoney Stanton Church where he served for so long. His dust still lies with us in that hallowed spot but he reigns now in heaven. |
|
O Shepherd of the sheep
High Priest of things to come
Who didst in grace thy servant keep,
And take him safely home:
Accept our song of praise
For all his holy care,
His zeal unquenched through length of days,
The gifts of love he shared.
John Bold is for everyone a Prayer Book Saint, but for Stoney Stanton people he is also, and more especially, your own local Saint.