SPRING 2023
Welcome to The Journal celebrating the launch of Coverham Church website. The Journal enables us to keep in touch with the community in Coverdale, and also with friends further afield.
The Journal will be produced every season to share all news , services, events and stories from the Dale. Already we have been told so many colourful stories that you may not have come across before. We invite you to share with us your own stories and images from life in the Dale using the email on the Coverham website.
As this is a new beginning, it seems appropriate that we start in Spring, whilst snowdrops give way to Easter daffodils and lambs are born in the fields surrounding the church - the sustainable churchyard strimmers and gardeners of the future..
SPRING PRAYER
Creator God, we thank you for the cycle of the seasons, through which you sustain life.
We thank you for the season of Spring when the cold dark days of Winter are behind us.
We thank you for the promise and hope that Springtime brings; in the lengthening of the days and warming sunshine.
We thank you for the joy and exuberance of new born lambs!
Good Friday and Easter help us to remember you bring life out of death and your love has conquered whatever darkness we face.
MIND THAT SWORD
Attending church in the 15th Century could be a dangerous experience. There were very few seats - perhaps a stone bench or two for the elderly to sit on - so most people stood, but rarely stayed contentedly in one place.
The service of Mass was said in Latin and the congregation was not really expected to join in, so it was tempting to wander around and have a chat with your neighbours. The key moment was when the priest raised the consecrated host which had become ‘the body of Christ’. Everyone wanted to see this miracle so would press forwards towards the altar trying to get a better view. Your neighbour was now an obstacle to be elbowed out of the way.
We might hope that the folk of Coverdale behaved well in Coverham Church. Unfortunately not! In 1428 an Archbishop’s visitation discovered a serious level of disorderly conduct and poor behaviour - far worse than any problems in neighbouring parishes.
‘Parishioners on Sundays and festivals filled the porch of the church with so many swords, bows, arrows, pointed staves and other instruments of war that one could scarcely enter the church.’
In addition ‘the chancel of the church at the time of divine service was filled with so many lay folk that the priest could hardly get to the altar’.
It got worse - ‘There are almost continually brawls and quarrels in the church amongst parishioners at the time of divine service’.
The illegal taking of public oaths inside the church, in the presence of witnesses but without any official licence, would also seem to have been widespread at Coverham.
Oops!
Till next time….