Welsh Journals

A Study of a Gentry Family's Patronage of the Church in South-West Wales in the later Middle Ages Roger K Turvey In many ways and at all levels the church exercised a dominant and decisive influence on the lives of contemporaries in medieval society. True, from the mid-fourteenth century the church was, generally speaking, experiencing a decline and there were those who questioned it, those who exploited it and many who abused it, yet none could ignore it. Indeed, the majority remained faithful to it for it impinged upon the lives of almost every individual. Many more aspects of the relationship and interplay between medieval ecclesiastical and lay society have been explored in print since Professor R I Jack first expressed this truism in 1964. Nevertheless, some areas remain unexplored, even neg- lected, in particular the ecclesiastical patronage exercised by the gentry in the two centuries before the Reformation. The work of Professor Jack and, more recently, that of J C Ward have demonstrated what can be achieved when the materials are available for such a study. However, both were concerned with those of the baronial class with Welsh connections. Neglect of that class below the aristocracy is understandable, for the further down the social scale one travels the less likely one is to encounter material in abundance. There are exceptions; the most familiar example in England is the Paston family but Wales too has acquired a gentry family where the medieval archive has recently been re- assembled. Though not as rich in variety or as fruitful as the Paston letters, the Perrot family muniments are sufficient to sustain a worthwhile study of their relationship with the church in late medieval Wales. The Perrots typify the so-called "rise of the gentry", a 1 R I Jack, "The Ecclesiastical Patronage Exercised by a Baronial Family in the Late Middle Ages", The Journal of Religious History, 3 (1964-65) 275- 95. 2 J C Ward, "Fashions in Monastic Endowment: the Foundations of the Clare Family 1066-1314", Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 32 (1981) 427-51. 3 R K Turvey, "The Perrot Family and their Circle in South-West Wales during the Later Middle Ages" (Unpublished University of Wales (Swansea) Ph.D. thesis, 1988).