The Church of St Mary, Sheriffhales, is a Church of England place of worship in the village of Sheriffhales, near the eastern edge of Shropshire, although for most of its history the parish was mainly in Staffordshire, with a small portion in Shropshire.
The history of the church goes back at least to the Norman period — possibly into Anglo-Saxon times. For more than three centuries it belonged to the Abbey of Saint-Evroul, an important monastery in the Pays d'Ouche region of south-east Normandy, before Henry V transferred it to Sheen Priory. The early modern period, from the Reformation to the English Civil War and Commonwealth, brought rapid change and turbulence, with a less eventful period after the Restoration
The fabric of the building dates from several periods, with some going back to the High Middle Ages, although much was constructed from 1661 as part of a major extension and improvement. There was Victorian restoration as well as further refurbishment in the 20th century. The overall appearance remains that of a square-towered, sandstone church, typical of its region.
Middle Ages Origins There is some doubt about the precise origins of the church in Sheriffhales. Arthur Tompson Michell, the vicar who edited the parish register for publication in 1908, referred to a belief that the church was originally dependent on the church at Shifnal but dismissed it as being "on slender grounds." However the Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535 reported that the vicar of Shifnal was still at that time drawing an annual pension of five shillings from Sheriffhales and made clear that it would continue to his successors, implying that it was paid by virtue of his office. This makes it plausible that Sheriffhales church began as a chapel dependent on the collegiate church at Shifnal in the Anglo-Saxon period. Shifnal evidently suffered an economic disaster after the Norman Conquest, which the noted Shropshire historian Robert William Eyton attributed to the upheaval caused by the revolt of Earl Morcar, the last Anglo-Saxon landholder. Its value reached a nadir at just six shillings around 1071. Robert Fitz-Tetbald took control and restored Shifnal's fortunes, so that it was worth 15 pounds in Domesday in 1086, but the church's collegiate status was lost during the recovery period, and it was gifted to Shrewsbury Abbey, with the proviso that it should pass finally only as the canons died off.Robert William Eyton. Antiquities of Shropshire. Volume 2. Page 266. Eyton assumes the existence Sheriffhales chapel among the Anglo-Saxon dependents of Shifnal church that became detached after the ConquestRobert William Eyton. Antiquities of Shropshire. Volume 2. Page 331. The disagreement between Michell and Eyton is probably not resolvable.
The first clear evidence of a parish church at Sheriffhales occurs in a charter of 1081, five years before the Domesday survey. The charter is known only because it was preserved in the Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, an important Anglo-Norman chronicler. Orderic was a Benedictine monk at the Abbey of Saint-Evroult, although he was born in Shrewsbury and had entered the order at Shrewsbury Abbey. In the charter, issued at Winchester, William the Conqueror approves a long list of donations by his barons to St Evroult. Including the church at Hales.
Warin was the first known Sheriff of Shropshire: Sheriff, rather than ‘viscount', is the usual translation of the Medieval Latin viscomes , although both make clear that Warin was subordinate to great landowner and magnate of the region, Roger de Montgomery, the Count (comes) or Earl of Shrewsbury. Roger was one of a handful of Tenants-in-chief trusted by William I to control important strategic areas: he dominated the county of Shropshire and a large part of the Welsh Marches, as well as a section of the English Channel coast in Sussex, with well over 350 holdings listed in Domesday.Roger, Earl of Shrewsbury, at Open Domesday Warin was unlikely to proceed in any major transaction without Earl Roger's approval. This approval is signalled not only in the text of the charter, but by the attendance of Roger and Warin together at court in Winchester to act as witnesses. The other Staffordshire properties in Warin's grant are probably the hamlet of Newton near Blithfield, in central Staffordshire, and Weston-under-Lizard, a short distance east of Sheriffhales along Watling Street. These grants failed to survive and neither property was held by St Evroult in 1086, but by Warin's successor, the Sheriff Reginald, as both tenant-in-chief and manorial lord. Sheriffhales, on the contrary, was divided between Reginald and St Evroult, with Roger de Montgomery as tenant-in-chief.
Rectory The rectory is essentially the right to use the income of the church, which came as rents from tenants on church lands; tithes, a 10% levy on the incomes of all parishioners; and produce of the glebe, the land retained by the church for its own use. In the early years these would have been paid largely in kind. Because of Warin's grant, St Evroult Abbey, which in legal documents is represented as its abbot and convent, was the rector of Sheriffhales.
This arrangement, by which a foreign monastery took considerable profits from a Staffordshire village, was not unique and did not start with the Norman conquest. Lapley Priory a few miles from Sheriffhales was a satellite house of the Abbey of Saint-Remi or Saint-Rémy at Reims in Northern France. Founded and endowed by Earl Morcar's father, Ælfgar, around the middle of the century, Lapley housed a cell, a small priory of monks who managed and exploited the Abbey's lands in Staffordshire..
Evroult Abbey built up a much larger and more widespread endowment of lands and churches in England than most other French abbeys. Warin's grant of three properties in Staffordshire was dwarfed by the other gifts even in the same charter of William I. Other similar royal charters hugely enlarged this property portfolio,. to the extent that its English possessions became its main source of income, bringing in, it claimed, up to £2000 a year.. Instead of establishing many local priories, it chose to develop a central administrative and collection centre at Ware Priory in Hertfordshire. Ware Priory is first explicitly mentioned as agent of St Evroult in a charter of William de Blois, bishop of Lincoln,Round, J. H., Calendar of Documents, p. 227 whose episcopate lasted from 1203 to 1206, but it had probably been handling Evroult Abbey's business in England for some time before that. By the early 14th century Ware is being mentioned in relation to Evroult's business at Sheriffhales.The Register of Sheriffhales, p. vi.
At the commencement of what became the Hundred Years' War in 1337, Edward III took over churches held by French monasteries, known as alien priories, including Ware Priory, annexing their revenue and presenting their priests. In this instance he allowed the priors to carry on administering their monasteries on condition they paid large sums to one of his favourites, William Trussell, a close relative of the manorial lords of Sheriffhales. The prior of Ware was told to find £115 by the following Easter towards a grant of £1000 for Trussell. at HathiTrust. The known vicars of Sheriffhales in the reign of Richard II and Henry IV were all appointed by the king during wartime, so the revenues of the rectory at those times will have been going to the king.
This changed in 1414, a year after the accession of Henry V, when he undertook the first major dissolution of monasteries in England. Authorised by the Fire and Faggot Parliament at Leicester, he dissolved all the alien priories: hence Sheriffhales church, and all the other estates of St Evroult vested in Ware Priory, were taken over by the king. Initially the income was simply used to meet current royal expenses. A large, lifelong, annual income from Ware was granted to Queen Joan, the king's step-mother, in January 1415. at HathiTrust. In less than three months, the plan had changed. By a charter issued at Westminster on 1 April 1415, Sheriffhales rectory, along with the rest of the Ware endowment, was transferred to one of the king's favourite building projects: Sheen Priory, a magnificent Charterhouse or monastery for forty Carthusians, and part of a royal complex centred on Sheen Palace, later Richmond Palace, at the side of the River Thames in Surrey. at HathiTrust. In July the prior of Sheen was given permission to pursue any debts owing to Ware in the Exchequer,Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1413–1416, p. 367 and Joan was promised compensation for loss of the promised income. St Evroult took the matter as far as a complaint to the Pope, which was not finally dismissed until 1427, five years after the Henry V's death.
Advowson The advowson of church is the right to present or nominate a candidate to become its priest, who becomes entitled to its living or benefice, the package of rewards associated with the post. At Sheriffhales the advowson went with the rectory throughout the medieval period. So the Abbey of St Evroult held the right to appoint the parish priest from 1081 to 1414, subject to the approval of the diocesan bishop. The advowson at Sheriffhales was quite valuable because it gave access to a good income. The vicarage at Sheriffhales was valued for tax purposes at £13 6s. 8d. by the Taxatio Ecclesiastica of 1291-1292, an inquiry that was part of a fund-raising effort by Pope Nicholas IV, who promised a 10% cut to Edward I, By comparison, nearby Shifnal was worth rather more at £21 10s. 8d.,Taxatio: Benefice of Shifnal while Tong was valued at a mere £4 6s. 8d.Taxatio: Benefice of Tong For Ware Priory and its mother Abbey of St Evroult, Sheriffhales was a useful office with which to reward faithful servants or a marketable asset to sell to ambitious clergy. It was described as ecclesia de Hales appropriata priori de Ware, the church at Hales, appropriated by Ware Priory. As with its flow of income from the rectory, the Abbey's appointments were interrupted by the king's own nominees in times of war, until Sheen Priory, also known as “House of Jesus of Bethlehem," took over in 1415.
It is clear that St Evroult did ensure from the outset that a priest was provided for Sheriffhales. The Domesday, inquiry just 5 years after Warin's grant to the abbey, found that “In this village Saint-Evroult's has 1 plough with a priest who has 2 oxen." At some point the Abbey established a vicarage – not in this usage a clergy house, but the position of resident priest supported by a designated portion of the tithes. The first vicar whose name is known, John Pillardington, was recorded as presented by the Abbot and Convent of St. Evroult in 1319, but his successor in 1328 was recorded as the nominee of Hugh of Wye, who was the proctor of the Abbot of St Evroult in England and also Prior of Ware.Page (ed). Alien house: Ware priory. The two descriptions amount to the same thing.