Historicaleigh: Church on Sunday

July 4, 2016 by Carole Mulroney

CHURCH ON SUNDAY

In 1578 a nonagenarian from Leigh (he was born in 1488, only three years after the Battle of Bosworth which ended the Wars of the Roses) was called before the church courts for non attendance at church. His wife attended and told the court that he was ‘a very old man and so impotent and lame that he was not able to go so far up the hill to the church being of the age of lxxxx or very near. The road from the riverside to the church was described as certainly one of the most stiffest, though short, climbs in Essex.

The 1559 Act of Uniformity made attendance at church compulsory and a fine of one shilling per week (nearly half the weekly wage of a labourer) was imposed for unauthorised absence.