摘要
This article offers a broad survey of the parish as the basic unit within the structure of the medieval English church, concentrating on the period between 1291 and 1535. It sets out the challenges presented by the fact that each parish was different and resisted standardisation, yet individually and collectively played a central role in many areas of the social and economic life of pre-Reformation England. A parish can be examined and analysed as a community; but it was also the focus of many different aspirations and ambitions. This article draws attention particularly to the significance of the parish to its patron (as the person who had the right to appoint the chief local priest), to the clergy (for whom it provided income, and also imposed the duties and responsibilities of the ‘cure of souls’), and to the parishioners as the local community. It also points to the usefulness of jurisdictional records as sources for recovering parish life during the period. While these discussions cannot offer a full picture of the late medieval English parish, they do help to explain how it functioned, and the importance of its role within the religious, social, and economic life of the period.
