Vicars/Rectors in 1600's

[Lady Di]

How important was the Rector/Vicar of a local church in the 1600's?

Would his children have married into the gentry of the area? Would the vicar have been well off/well paid?
Could he have come from a "well established" family?

I'm trying to make sense of my Turner family and it appears that one guy has "connections" to some of the VIP's both in the local area and the city but I'm not sure I have the right family.

Anyone know anything about Ministers of this era?

Thanks

Di

[Koromo]

Could he have come from a "well established" family?

As far as I understand, yes!

I can't remember where/when I came across the statement that the eldest son being the heir would be busy with the family estates, the second son would go into the army, and the third would enter the church.

I have quite a few clergymen in my family lines, going back a couple of centuries, and they did tend to marry well.  I believe that many (most?) of the early CofE clergymen would cultivate a patron who then placed them in a parish which would be 'worth' so much, paid for by a benefice from the patron and tithes from the parishoners - well, something like that.

In more recent times my family clergymen were generally poor!


Koromo

[Lady Di]

I can't remember where/when I came across the statement that the eldest son being the heir would be busy with the family estates, the second son would go into the army, and the third would enter the church.

Thanks Koromo - I have also heard/read this comment before as well. Unfortunately I can't work out who my Rev Turner's father was to see if he was the third son. 

I've found a few other Turner family members in the area and a few websites/google books infer that they are connected but I can't work out what the connection is - unless I go back another generation and the 1500's aren't easy to research.

Thanks for your input

Di

[ainslie]

In those days clergy were almost certainly graduates of Oxford or Cambridge.  A Record Office or large library should have volumes recording their names and other data - Foster's Alumni being one of them, Venn's the other.  Also try the Clergy Database online, which is not complete, but may help.
A

[MarieC]

I think Koromo is right with that statement.

I have a fairly aristocratic Anglo-Irish family.  Apart from having landed estates, some of them were in Parliament, some Major-Generals (and in these two categories, often knighted) and some were clergy.  The clergy did seem to marry quite well!

MarieC

[Ruskie]

I can't remember where/when I came across the statement that the eldest son being the heir would be busy with the family estates, the second son would go into the army, and the third would enter the church.

IKoromo

I might be wrong, but I thought this applied to Irish Catholics. 

Have you seen this Di?:
http://eagle.cch.kcl.ac.uk:8080/cce/

This is a lot later, but it was the first thing that came to mind when I read your question. It supports what Koromo says about patronage:
http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/ppv1n13.html#mrcoll1
(go to the letter written by Mr Collins about 1/2 way down the page) (great BBC TV series by the way  )

[Lady Di]

Thanks everyone for your input and info

The reason for my question was that the patronage and advowson of the Layston church in Herts was held by the Crouch/Crowch family for generations (They're also my ancestors). When the Crouch's married they seemed to only marry into about half a dozen different families. These families intermarried over and over again.

Then I have my John Turner (B: 1603, educated at Cambs Uni) as the Vicar of Layston from 1650 'til his death in 1663 (I have the PR's with his signature on each page and his death notice as Vicar)

John's grand daughter married Thomas Crouch c. 1690.

There are two marriages that may be part of my lot but I'm wondering if I clutching at straws here 

John Turner married Mary Crowch in 1600 at Layston
Margaret Turner married Richard Crouch 1604 Layston

Because the Crouch/Crowch family were one of the VIP families of the area, I was trying to work out if a normal everyday Vicar could be related as I can't prove any connection - except circumstantial at this stage.

The only other "thing" that I had was that, over the years, some of the other clergy at Layston were connected to the few families that the Crouch family had married into.

Sorry - that wasn't meant to be so long-winded and garbled.

I'm really trying to work it all out in my own mind - and failing at the moment    and I just hate it when I can't totally PROVE a connection.

Di

[behindthefrogs]

Many rectors who came from wealthy families would have a number of parishes.  They would put curates in charge of the individual parishes and only rarely visit them when an event of social importance took place.

If you can find the original parish registers an examination of who carried out the births burials and marriages will give some indication.  You will need the registers because this information is rarely transcribed.

David

[Lady Di]

Hi David,

I've checked the CCeD listing and unfortunately John only appears once, and that's for the Layston Church. I even wrote to the cced people who unfortunately don't have any further information other than John Turner was at Layston 1650-1663.

There are a few by the same name on cced but can't see if they could be the same guy at another Parish, even as a Curate, in the early days.

I have the Layston PR's (on film) so I know the Layston part is OK (with his signature) but that's all I have so far.

Thanks

Di