St Helen’s, Understanding a Medieval Church
By Archaeologist Dr David Mercer
At May’s meeting, the group was joined by the Friends of St Helen’s Heritage Trust and it was held in the ancient church of St. Helen’s Treeton. Visiting speaker David Mercer started by separating the fact and fable about St Helen, after whom the church is named. It is fact that she was a British princess who married a Roman General, Constantius Chlorus, and became the mother of Constantine the Great, (who legalized Christianity), but stories that her father was ‘Old King Cole’ are groundless. On a trip to Jerusalem, she is said to have found the ‘True Cross’ of the crucifixion. This would be difficult to prove, but she did play a vital part in the spread of Christianity and many churches are named after her.
David carried us back in time to show us what the church would have been like in 1550, concentrating mainly on the Chancel which was the area of the church only accessible to the priests and the choir. The church at this time would of course have been Catholic and would have covered a larger parish including Ulley and Whiston; it was operated quite different from today. Eucharist or Communion would have been celebrated every day and it is likely that there were more than one priest as is suggested by the seats in the chancel and the piscinas. These are stone wash hand basins set into the church wall for the priests to wash their hands and would have been near the Altar Tables where Eucharist was served. There are two of these in the chancel and one more in the South wall, so there were probable at one time three priests serving the bread and wine. He showed us slides of many other medieval articles that would have been used at that time, but there is no evidence of any of these at surviving at St Helen’s.
He showed us slides of interesting medieval Reredos, this is the decorative panel behind the altar, there are not many of these left as they were destroyed in the Reformation, but some survived by being buried and are now coming to light (That of St Helen’s is Victorian in date).
Also in the Chancel was an Aumbry or safe, which is actually a cupboard in the wall. Here church valuables would have been stored and possibly other valuable items belonging to parishioners.
He pointed out many other things of interest in the church; among these was the knight effigy. He was of the opinion that this would at one time have been in the Brampton Chapel. He also pointed out the grave covers that can be seen around the church built into the walls. One prime example of these is behind the pulpit and has a cross and a sword on it denoting that this was the grave of a knight. He also pointed out the oldest pew in the church, now unused, which has a Latin inscription on it. He translated this to read “Pray for the soul of Master William Holme cleric, formally Rector of the church”.
It was a very informative evening and David spoke well on a subject that he was very familiar with.
