Stoke-by-Clare No. 2 / Stoches / Stoke by Clare / Stoke-juxta-Clare / Stoke nexte Clare
INFORMATION
FontID: 22272STO
Church/Chapel: Collegiate [former Benedictine Priory] Church of St. John the Baptist [disappeared]
Church Patron Saints: St. John the Baptist
Country Name: England
Location: Suffolk, East Anglia
Historical Region: Hundred of Risbridge
Century and Period: 11th century, Pre-Conquest
Font Notes: Click to view font notes
[cf. Index entry for Stoke-by-Clare No. 1 for the parish church]. Two separate entries in the Victoria County History account for the history of the prioy [first] and college [later] at Stoke-by-Clare. That institution was a later development and a separate entity from the old parish church which was already mentioned in the Domesday survey. The entry for the alien priory in Stoke-on-Clare in the Victoria County History (Suffolk, vol. 2, 1975) notes: "Earl Alfric, son of Withgar, who lived in the reigns of Canute, Hardecanute [i.e., Harthacnut], and Edward the Confessor, founded the church or chapel of St. John Baptist in the castle of Clare, and therein placed seven secular canons. This church, with all its endowments, was given by Gilbert de Clare, in 1090, to the Benedictine monastery of Bec in Normandy, of which it became a cell, and thus remained until the year 1124, when Gilbert's son Richard removed the foundation to Stoke, where it eventually reverted to a collegiate establishment." [cf. infra for the history of this institution as a collegiate]. The entry for a 'college' in Stoke-by-Clare in the Victoria County History (Suffolk, vol. 2, 1975) notes: "Richard de Clare, earl of Hereford, removed, in 1124, the monks of Bec whom his father had established in the castle of Clare to the town of Stoke. This alien priory was naturalized in 1395; [...] but in 1415 Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, its then patron, caused it to be changed into a college of secular priests or canons, by virtue of a bull from Pope John XXIII, ratified by Pope Martin V'; at the time of the Dissolution, adds the VCH entry (ibid.), "An inventory of the goods of Stoke College was drawn up on 8 December, 1547. There was a very rich supply of vestments, including thirteen suits for priest, deacon, and subdeacon, with albs; fifty-five copes, seventeen single vestments, and a considerable number of altar cloths, corporas cases, etc. [...] There was also a considerable supply of church ornaments in latten. There was a pair of organs in the rood loft, another in the quire, and two pairs in the Lady chapel. In the tower were six great bells and a little sanctus bell, and 'a clock perfect striking on ye great bell.' The destruction contemplated is shown by the fact that twenty-two gravestones with their brasses were valued at £3 13s. 4d. and even 'the foundar's tombe' at 20s." A study of the two 16th-century inventories of the collegiate exists: INVENTORIES OF THE COLLEGE OF STOKE-BY-CLARE TAKEN IN 1534 AND 1547-8. TRANSCRIBED AND ANNOTATED BY SIR WILLIAM
ST. JOHN HOPE [http://suffolkinstitute.pdfsrv.co.uk/customers/Suffolk Institute/2014/01/10/Volume XVII Part 1 (1919)_Inventories of College Stoke-by-Clare taken 1534 and 1547-8 W H St J Hope_21 to 77.pdf] [accessed 1 August 2019]; the word 'fonte' appears in it several times, indicating the existence of three such objects, about which Hope writes: "But what was their purpose ? Queen Katharine's example above cited calls it "a wyder or a disshe," which suggests its use at "the voyde" to contain the broken meats and pieces of bread left upon the trenchers and platters. The word "font" seems, however, rather to be connected with washing or cleansing, and these great silver basons might have been used for washing the spoons during meals; or even the hands, at a time before forks had come into fashion, and the
fingers were used instead. But in no English, French, or Latin dictionary known to or consulted by the writer is the word "font" or "fount" applied to any piece of plate; so until more definite instances can be found the actual use of these fonts must remain uncertain." Hope (ibid.) further argues: "But the collegiate church of Stoke was entirely distinct and at some distance from the parish church, and so far as is known, like the Earl of Oxford's chapel, it had not any baptismal rights, so would not have had a font. The fonts must therefore have been pieces of secular plate as the Stoke inventory clearly shows." [NB: whereas Hope may likely be right about identifying the three objects as "secular plate", the argument of a church not having baptismal rights must be flawed, as any church, monachal or parochial, whould require a font to comple the Easter liturgy of the water].
REFERENCES
Victoria County History [online], University of London, 1993-. Accessed: 2019-08-01 00:00:00. URL: https://www.british-history.ac.uk.
Victoria County History [online], University of London, 1993-. Accessed: 2019-08-01 00:00:00. URL: https://www.british-history.ac.uk.