A One-Name Study for the BARNUM/BARNHAM Surname
Their marriage took place in the church of Saint Mary in the Marsh, which has survived only as a name. The church was right in the heart of the medieval city. In fact, it was in the cathedral close, a city within a city, walled off from the rest and entered by guarded gates. It was the parish church for the cathedral close, and was situated in the lower close, towards the river. It was originally founded by Herbert Losinga, first Bishop of Norwich. He actually founded it before he became Bishop there, as an act of penance for commiting the sin of Simony. The Pope seems to have realized that Losinga was "worth a bob or two", because as part of the same act of Penance he was also asked to build the great churches of Saint Margaret at Lynn and Saint Nicholas at Yarmouth, the two biggest in Norfolk. In return, the Pope let him move the See from Thetford to Norwich. In common with the other Norwich city churches, Saint Mary in the Marsh was extended and rebuilt as the centuries went by. There was money being spent on it in the late 15th century, because it acquired then what is now considered to be one of the great treasures of the English medieval Church, a Seven-Sacrament Font. There are about thirty of these fonts surviving today, and they depict on seven of the eight sides of their bowls the seven sacraments of the Catholic church. It may seem curious that Saint Mary in the Marsh continued to thrive after Losinga built the Cathedral beside it, but the functions of a Cathedral and a parish church are quite different, and were even more so in those lost days of Catholic England. While the Cathedral was the place where the Bishop exerted his authority, the parish churches were in the business of dispensing the sacraments to those who lived in their parishes. Once the Reformation came along there were fewer sacraments to dispense, but still the church marked the stages in the life of its parishioners, baptizing, marrying and burying them, as well as drumming the bible into them of a Sunday. The function of a church changed at the Reformation from being largely devotional to almost wholly congregational. Devotional worship can use as many churches as it can get its hands on, because the aisles can be filled with chapels and side altars, statues and images, where people can say their prayers in private. Congregational worship doesn't need any more churches than it has people to fill them, and Norwich had no shortage of churches. Several of the city churches were obviously surplus to requirements, and Saint Mary in the Marsh was one of the first to go. In 1564, just six years into the reign of Elizabeth, it was pulled down, and the materials sold off.
A Research Guide to the Genealogy of the Barnum/Barnam/Barnham Family Worldwide
AncientFaces - Family History Photos
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