1154–1399: The Plantagenet Period, Loxwood and the Changing Western Weald

Royal finance drew upon the same rural economy. Sheriffs accounted for county revenue, military service could be converted into payments, and estates supplied grain, livestock, horses, timber and transport. The work of ploughmen, shepherds, millers, smiths, carpenters, brewers and carters supported households at every level of society. Plantagenet government expanded through written law and taxation, and its resources continued to come from land and labour.

Henry II and Thomas Becket: Crown and Church in Conflict

The medieval Church possessed its own government and law. The pope stood at the head of the western Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury led the southern province of England, and diocesan bishops governed clergy and religious institutions within defined territories. Archdeacons and other officials visited churches, heard cases and enforced episcopal instructions. Parish priests carried that authority into communities through worship, teaching and the sacraments.

Ecclesiastical courts dealt with marriage, legitimacy for spiritual purposes, wills, tithes, clerical discipline and church property. Royal courts dealt with land, debt, crime and the rights of the Crown. Some disputes crossed the boundary between the two systems. A marriage determined inheritance. A cleric accused of an offence claimed the privileges of the Church. A patron’s right to present a priest involved property, pastoral care and episcopal approval.

Henry II attempted to define royal authority in the Constitutions of Clarendon in 1164. Archbishop Thomas Becket defended the liberties of the Church and the right of appeal within the ecclesiastical system. Their dispute spread through royal councils, episcopal meetings and papal negotiation. Becket was killed in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170 and was canonised in 1173. His shrine became one of the leading destinations of medieval pilgrimage, and Henry publicly sought reconciliation with the Church.

The controversy gave parish life a national context. A village priest belonged to a chain of authority extending through bishop and archbishop to Rome, while the land supporting his church lay within the kingdom of an energetic monarch. Canon law was becoming more systematic after the compilation associated with Gratian in the mid-twelfth century. Bishops and trained officials used this developing legal culture to regulate clergy, benefices, marriage and church property.

In Sussex, Bishop Hilary served at Chichester until 1169, followed by John of Greenford and then Seffrid II. Clergy travelled to Chichester for ordination and diocesan business. Episcopal acts returned with them to churches across the county. Chichester connected the wooded northern parishes with the wider Catholic Church through people, records, liturgy and law.

Cathedral, Castle and Parish Church in a Changing Landscape

The Norman cathedral at Chichester remained the centre of the diocese. A major fire in 1187 led Bishop Seffrid II to direct an extensive rebuilding programme. Stone vaulting replaced vulnerable timber ceilings in important parts of the church, and pointed arches and new structural forms introduced the developing Gothic style. The rebuilt cathedral was consecrated in 1199, after years of work by masons, carpenters, smiths, glaziers, carters and labourers.

Cathedral building depended upon a regional supply system. Stone, timber, lime, iron, lead, food and fuel reached Chichester from estates and markets. The canons maintained the daily offices while construction continued. The bishop’s household ordained clergy, judged ecclesiastical business and managed property. Architectural change therefore accompanied a continuous routine of worship and administration.

Arundel remained the principal castle and lordship centre of western Sussex. Its position above the River Arun connected the coast, the borough and inland routes. Arundel Priory maintained its link with the Abbey of Seez in Normandy and held rights in lands and churches. The castle, priory and borough required supplies from farms, woods, mills and fisheries, drawing goods and information along the Arun valley and towards the Weald.

Parish churches developed within the same religious culture at a more intimate scale. The late-twelfth-century work at St Peter ad Vincula, Wisborough Green, enlarged a church already serving a dispersed rural population. Kirdford retained its early stone nave. At these churches the font, nave, chancel and altar ordered the movement of worship. Bells marked services and festivals, and images presented biblical history and saints to congregations whose access to books came mainly through clergy.

Latin remained the language of Mass and the formal books of the Church. Priests explained doctrine and announced obligations in spoken English. Psalms, Gospel readings, sermons, images and processions brought Scripture into the week and year. Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter and Pentecost provided a repeated sequence of preparation, fasting and celebration, while Rogation observances joined prayer to fields, crops and boundaries.

William Durandus, writing in the later thirteenth century, described how an educated churchman understood this ordered space. The material church represented the Christian community; the doorway signified entry through Christ; the windows transmitted the light of Scripture; and the eastward altar directed worship towards resurrection. His account explains the religious force carried by nave, chancel, screen, image and light in churches such as Wisborough Green, Kirdford and Alfold.

Richard I, King John and the Cost of Royal Government, 1189–1216

Richard I succeeded Henry II in 1189. His crusade, continental campaigns and ransom required substantial revenue. Ministers governed England through the Exchequer, sheriffs, justices and royal councils while the king spent long periods abroad. Religious houses and lay estates converted crops, animals, wool, rents and rights into money for taxation and loans. Coin and written accounts became increasingly important within an economy still sustained by produce and labour.

The Knights Templar occupied a prominent place in this international world. Founded in Jerusalem as a military religious order, they combined monastic vows with the protection of pilgrims and the defence of the crusader states. Gifts of land across Europe supported their work. Their New Temple in London became a religious house, treasury, diplomatic centre and secure base used by kings and magnates. The Round Church recalled the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and placed crusading devotion within the heart of London.

John became king in 1199 and lost Normandy to the French Crown in 1204. The loss increased the Crown’s reliance upon English revenue. Scutage, fines, wardships, judicial payments and taxes brought royal finance into frequent contact with lords, bishops, religious houses and free landholders. Estate officers and clerks became essential to the collection and proof of what was owed.

John’s dispute with Pope Innocent III arose from the election of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The pope supported Stephen Langton, while John resisted his appointment. England came under an interdict from 1208 to 1213. Public Mass and many church ceremonies were suspended, while baptism and ministry to the dying continued. Silent bells and closed public services changed the weekly and seasonal rhythm by which communities experienced the Church.

John accepted Stephen Langton and submitted his kingdoms to papal lordship in 1213. Langton then became an important figure in the negotiations that led to Magna Carta. King John used the New Temple as a London headquarters during the crisis, and the Templars acted as trusted custodians and financial agents. William Marshal, one of the leading mediators, belonged to the Temple’s circle and later guided the government of the young Henry III.

Magna Carta was sealed in June 1215. It addressed royal justice, inheritance, debts, taxation, trade, local officials and the freedom of the Church. William d’Aubigny, lord of Arundel, was one of the twenty-five barons appointed to enforce the settlement. The charter’s immediate political life was brief, while its reissues under Henry III gave it durable authority. The principle that government should proceed through law and recognised custom entered the written constitution of the kingdom.

Henry III: Parish Reform, Parliament and a More Literate Society, 1216–1272

Henry III inherited the Crown as a child in 1216. His regents reissued Magna Carta in 1216 and 1217, and Henry issued the definitive version in 1225 in return for taxation. The charter and the Charter of the Forest were confirmed repeatedly during the century. In 1297 Edward I placed them on the statute roll, ensuring their continuing place within English law.

The opening of Henry III’s reign also changed Chichester’s secular landscape. French forces captured the city’s Norman castle during the First Barons’ War, and English forces recovered it in 1217. Henry ordered the fortress demolished, removing the principal royal stronghold from within the Roman walls. During the century the site passed to the Greyfriars, whose church and precinct established a religious use in the ground now known as Priory Park. The cathedral close and bishop’s palace became still more prominent within the city.

Royal councils also developed. Knights from the counties attended assemblies to discuss taxation and grievances. In 1265 Simon de Montfort summoned knights and representatives of selected towns alongside bishops and nobles. The assembly arose from civil conflict, yet it demonstrated how county and borough representation could be joined to the older royal council. The process continued under Edward I and gave Parliament a recognised role in taxation and legislation.

The Church entered Henry III’s reign with a programme of parish reform shaped by the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. Adult Christians were expected to confess annually and receive communion at Easter. Priests taught the basic prayers and beliefs of the faith, announced fasts and festivals and prepared parishioners for the central ceremonies of the year. Bishops and archdeacons inspected altars, service books, vessels, vestments and the conduct of clergy.

The friars added a new form of ministry. Dominicans and Franciscans established English houses during the 1220s and became known for preaching, study and work in growing towns. Oxford and Cambridge trained theologians, canonists and administrators. Learned clergy moved between schools, royal service, episcopal households and parish administration, carrying a more exact culture of teaching and record keeping.

Henry’s devotion found monumental expression in the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey from 1245. Gothic architecture created high vaults, pointed arches, traceried windows and a carefully ordered setting for royal worship. Rural churches used the same architectural language in smaller forms. A new aisle, chancel or tower gave room for processions, altars, images, clergy and bells. Church building also supported quarries, timber yards, kilns, smithies and transport.

The closer relationship between Henry III and the papacy drew criticism when papal taxation and appointments affected English benefices and church revenue. The king relied on bishops and abbots as councillors and landholders, while clergy also defended the rights of their offices. Parliament, royal law and ecclesiastical government developed through repeated negotiation over money, patronage and jurisdiction.

Loxwood Enters the Written Record, c. 1248

In about 1248 Loxwood entered the surviving written record. A deed names John, son of Walter de la Punde of Lokeswude, as the recipient of three acres of free land in Billingshurst from Gilbert de Baseuile. The land lay in the wood called La Sperre. John gave service and fidelity, made a payment and accepted an annual rent.

By the middle of the thirteenth century, John, son of Walter de la Punde, was recorded as being of Lokeswude. He acquired three acres of free land in La Sperre, within Billingshurst, for an initial payment and an annual rent. The boundaries followed neighbouring woodland, Spercroft and the highway from Rudgwick to a new bridge. Witnesses came from Billingshurst, Malham, Wephurst and other nearby holdings, placing John within the network of landowners, tenants and clerks operating across the Western Weald.

A small land grant carried the legal culture of the Plantagenet kingdom into the Western Weald. The parcel was described by adjoining land, field, wood and road. Witnesses gave public authority to the transaction, and the sealed parchment preserved its terms. The same principles of written title that supported royal and monastic estates now protected the rights and obligations attached to a few acres of woodland.

Woodland holdings supported a varied economy. Oak supplied structural timber, doors, carts and agricultural equipment. Underwood provided fuel, fencing and hurdles. Pigs fed on autumn mast, and cattle grazed suitable ground. Clearings contained houses, yards, gardens and fields. The first written Loxwood appears as a working landscape of land use, rent, loyalty, roads and access.

The de la Punde family remained connected with Loxwood in later deeds. Their appearance across generations gives the earliest local narrative a family thread: people held land, witnessed transactions and preserved boundaries while the Crown, Parliament and Church developed at national scale.

St Richard, Bishop Climping and the Bishops’ Manor at Drungewick

Richard of Wych became Bishop of Chichester in 1245. His episcopate emphasised pastoral discipline, the proper administration of the sacraments and the responsibilities of clergy. He travelled through the diocese and became closely associated with the spiritual identity of Sussex. He was canonised in 1262, and the translation of his remains to a new shrine at Chichester in 1276 drew King Edward I, bishops, clergy and pilgrims to the cathedral.

John Climping succeeded Richard as bishop in 1253. In 1256 Drungewick passed into the bishop’s possession from the religious estate connected with the Abbey of Seez at Arundel. The manor stood east of Loxwood within Wisborough Green parish and close to the boundary with the Diocese of Winchester.

The bishop established a substantial private residence on the moated site, with a chapel for his household and a staurum, or stock and provisioning base. Drungewick’s fields, livestock, stores and woods supplied food, fuel and fodder. Chaplains, clerks, servants, grooms and estate workers supported episcopal visits. The private chapel allowed the bishop and his household to maintain worship during residence at the manor.

Drungewick gave the Bishops of Chichester a northern base within a large and difficult diocese. The journey from Chichester required horses, attendants and planned supplies. From the manor, the bishop could conduct estate and diocesan business within reach of Wisborough Green, Billingshurst, Kirdford and the Surrey border. Alfold lay immediately across that border under the Bishop of Winchester.

The diocesan line had practical force. Each bishop ordained clergy, licensed worship and exercised church jurisdiction within his own territory. Roads and family connections crossed the boundary, while episcopal authority followed the formal geography of diocese and parish. Drungewick placed the Chichester bishop’s land, household and private worship close to the northern edge of his jurisdiction.

The Knights Templar in Loxwood’s Woodland, 1280

A second Loxwood deed, dated 1280, connects the settlement with one of the best-known religious orders of medieval Europe. Maud, daughter of Ida la Scuppeltre, and her husband John Cuccu granted part of a curtilage to Richard de la Punde of Loxwood. The deed placed him within the parish of Wisborough Green and described a neighbouring wood belonging to the preceptory of the New Temple in London. The wood itself was called Loxwood.

A curtilage was the working enclosure around a house: yard, garden, access and space for storage or small-scale production. Hedges and ditches marked its edges and controlled drainage and animals. The deed therefore places a house and enclosed domestic ground beside local woodland. Maud’s participation also records a woman’s interest in property within the legal forms of the period.

The New Temple was the London headquarters of the Knights Templar. The order received estates, rents and churches from patrons who wished to support its religious and military work. Rural properties generated grain, wool, livestock, timber and cash. Preceptors and estate officers converted those resources into income for the order’s houses, hospitality, worship and commitments in the eastern Mediterranean.

The Templar wood at Loxwood linked a small Sussex holding with an international institution. Income from woodland could arise from rent, timber, underwood, grazing and pannage. The order’s London house dealt with kings, diplomats and creditors, while its rural estate interests depended upon tenants, boundaries and local labour. The same organisation that guarded royal treasure and hosted negotiations at the New Temple held land beside a Loxwood household.

The deed’s phrase ‘in the parish of Wisborough Green’ gives the first direct surviving statement of Loxwood’s parochial position. Wisborough Green church provided parish worship, pastoral care and consecrated burial ground, while its clergy received the parish tithes. Drungewick belonged to the Bishop of Chichester nearby, and Alfold church stood across the diocesan boundary in Winchester.

Loxwood’s parochial connection also mattered to the growth of settlement. A house or woodland holding became more attractive when a family could reach Mass, the sacraments, pastoral care and burial within a practicable journey. Occupied holdings brought fields and woods into use and generated rents for their owners. By the end of the period, the distance to Wisborough Green placed growing pressure upon this arrangement and prepared the ground for the petition of 1404.

Edward I: Parliament, Taxation and the Church’s Public Voice, 1272–1307

Edward I succeeded Henry III in 1272. His campaigns in Wales, Scotland and France required regular taxation, military service and supplies. Statutes addressed landholding, debt, local administration and royal justice. Parliament became a regular place for bishops, abbots, nobles, knights of the shire and burgesses to consent to taxation and present petitions. The assembly of 1295 later became known as the Model Parliament because it brought these groups together in a form that influenced later practice.

County representation gave local landholders a place within national government. Knights of the shire knew the operation of hundreds, manors, taxation and roads. Collectors assessed movable wealth through local lists and juries. Grain, livestock, wool, horses, carts and money entered the machinery of war and royal finance through county officers.

The king’s demand for clerical taxation created a major dispute with Pope Boniface VIII and Archbishop Robert Winchelsey. The papal decree Clericis laicos in 1296 restricted taxation of clergy without papal permission. Edward insisted that church wealth should contribute to national defence. The resulting confrontation affected the legal protection, revenue and political position of the clergy until compromise restored working relations.

Churches served as the clearest regular meeting places in rural society. Priests announced feast days, fasts, marriage banns, episcopal instructions and requests for charity when parishioners were gathered. Royal and manorial notices could also circulate around Sunday worship. Bells gave notice over fields and woodland, and the church porch provided covered space for business and ceremony.

Wisborough Green church changed substantially during the thirteenth century. Its tower, chancel and north aisle enlarged the earlier building, while wall paintings made around 1275 presented sacred figures and teaching in colour. The aisle increased space for movement and worship; the developed chancel gave the altar and clergy a more ordered setting; the tower carried bells across the parish. Across the diocesan boundary, St Mary and All Saints at Dunsfold was built in a concentrated campaign during the later thirteenth century. Kirdford gained a north aisle, and the growing church at Horsham served an expanding market centre.

These buildings communicated through space, sound and image. The font stood near the entrance as the place of baptism. The nave gathered the community. The chancel arch and screen marked the approach to the altar. Paintings and carved figures supplied a visual account of biblical history and the saints. Preaching and announcements in English accompanied the Latin liturgy.

Life and Work in the Thirteenth-Century Weald

Loxwood’s deeds belong to a landscape where farming and woodland management operated side by side. Holdings combined arable plots, meadow, gardens, pasture and rights in woods. Wheat, rye, barley, oats, peas and beans met different needs and conditions. Cattle supplied traction and dairy produce, sheep supplied wool and meat, and pigs turned autumn acorns and beech mast into food.

The heavy clay of the Low Weald demanded careful timing. Wet ground delayed ploughing and transport. Ridges offered firmer routes, while bridges, fords and causeways concentrated movement at water. The highway named in the first Loxwood deed connected Rudgwick with a new bridge, placing the woodland parcel beside an active route.

Packhorses carried modest loads throughout much of the year. Carts moved grain, hay, timber, stone and household goods when roads allowed. A broken axle or damaged harness required the skill of wheelwright, carpenter, smith and leatherworker. Mills drew grain towards controlled streams. Horsham, recognised as a borough by 1235, developed as the principal town and trading centre of the northern Western Weald; Billingshurst, Petworth and Pulborough connected dispersed holdings with estate offices, craftsmen and river routes.

Houses were working buildings. Timber frames or earthfast posts supported walls of clay, timber and woven material. Thatch or shingles covered the roof. The hall contained the principal hearth, while adjoining spaces stored food, tools and bedding. The curtilage held yard, garden, sheds, animals, fuel and materials awaiting repair or use.

Household production filled the hours between seasonal farm tasks. Grain was ground and baked, ale brewed, milk made into butter and cheese, wool washed and spun, clothing mended, and vegetables and herbs tended. Children and servants entered useful work early. Women’s labour sustained dairying, brewing, poultry, gardens, textiles and trade, while their property rights also appear in deeds, marriage settlements and inheritance.

The Church calendar organised this labour. Sundays and principal feasts brought rest and worship. Lent altered food and prepared parishioners for Easter confession and communion. Rogation processions followed boundaries and prayed for crops. Patronal feasts gave each church an annual focus. Tithes transferred a share of grain, livestock and other produce to the support of clergy and religious institutions.

Edward II: Harvest Crisis and the End of the Templars, 1307–1327

Edward II became king in 1307. His reign brought continued war with Scotland, conflict among the leading nobility and heavy demands upon royal finance. The same year also opened the final crisis of the Knights Templar. King Philip IV of France moved against the order, and the English Templars were taken into custody in 1308. Pope Clement V dissolved the order in 1312. Across England much of its property passed to the Knights Hospitaller, another military religious order.

The Templar wood named beside Richard de la Punde’s curtilage belonged to the order at the opening of Edward II’s reign. Its appearance in the earlier deed preserves the local phase of a European story whose centre lay in Jerusalem, Paris, Rome and London. The suppression transferred estates, rents and patronage into new administration and altered the institutional ownership behind many rural tenancies.

A second crisis came through the weather. Persistent rain from 1315 damaged grain, reduced hay and made harvesting difficult. Food prices rose, seed and fodder became scarce, and livestock suffered. The Great Famine lasted through several harvests and placed pressure upon households, estates and religious institutions.

The clay soils and winter tracks of the Weald magnified transport problems. Grain and salt became harder to move, carts damaged soft roads and haymaking lost valuable dry days. Households relied upon gardens, livestock, stored food and woodland resources. Tithes fell with the harvest, reducing the income available to clergy and churches. Monastic and episcopal estates managed stores and offered hospitality and alms according to their resources.

John Langton served as Bishop of Chichester from 1305 to 1337. His earlier career as a royal chancellor illustrates the close connection between episcopal office and government. At Chichester he supervised clergy, church courts and diocesan property. Drungewick continued as part of the episcopal estate, supplied by the work of tenants and servants in the northern Weald.

Parish worship gave continuity through years of shortage. Mass, confession, Easter communion and the sequence of fasts and feasts remained familiar duties. Priests visited the sick, heard wills and administered burial. The Church’s calendar, courts and property system continued to function within the same agricultural strain experienced by the households that supported them.

Edward III: War, Wool and the Black Death, 1327–1377

Edward III succeeded in 1327 and assumed personal government in 1330. The Hundred Years War began in 1337 from his claim to the French Crown and the rivalry between England and France. Customs on wool, parliamentary taxation, loans and military contracts financed campaigns. Parliament grew in importance because repeated taxation required consent and because counties and towns used petitions to seek remedies.

Wool connected rural production to national finance and international trade. Sheep were kept throughout Sussex, while the strongest commercial flocks occupied other parts of England. Wool, hides, grain, timber and livestock moved through markets and ports. The Channel coast required defence and shipping, and inland estates supplied horses, carts, food and men.

The reign also sharpened the legal relationship between the English Crown and the papacy. Papal provision could appoint candidates to English benefices, and appeals could carry cases from England to Rome. The Statute of Provisors in 1351 protected English patronage from papal appointments, while the legislation known as Praemunire from 1353 restricted appeals and legal processes that challenged royal jurisdiction. England remained within the Catholic Church, and these statutes asserted the Crown’s authority over appointments, property and justice inside the kingdom.

The Black Death reached southern England in 1348 and spread through Sussex in 1349. A very large share of the population died within a short period. Farms lost tenants and workers, religious houses lost members, and parishes lost priests and families. Bishops had to fill benefices and organise pastoral care, while churchyards received a level of use far beyond an ordinary year.

The disease altered the balance between land and labour. Surviving workers could seek better wages and tenancies. Vacant holdings were offered on new terms or combined with neighbouring land. Lords converted labour services into cash where that secured tenants and cultivation. The Crown’s Ordinance of Labourers in 1349 and Statute of Labourers in 1351 attempted to hold wages and service to earlier levels.

The working landscape still demanded skilled labour at precise seasons. Oxen needed handlers, hay needed dry weather, grain required harvesting and milling, and woods required managed cutting. Carpenters, smiths, millers, servants and carters gained value because farms, churches, castles and episcopal households competed for their work.

Robert Stratford became Bishop of Chichester in 1337, followed by William Lenn and then William Reade in 1368. Reade was a scholar with interests in theology, mathematics and astronomy, and his episcopate strengthened the written administration of the see. The cartularies associated with his period gathered charters, rights and property into organised records, preserving the memory of diocesan estates in the same century that plague and labour change were reshaping them.

Bishop William Reade also transformed the episcopal manor at Amberley. A royal licence to crenellate in 1377 allowed him to enclose the residence with high curtain walls, a gatehouse and towers, and the work continued into the 1380s. Amberley became a fortified bishop’s residence in the Arun valley, while Drungewick remained the bishop’s northern manor near Loxwood and the Winchester boundary.

After the Black Death: Labour, Land and Parish Community

The decades after 1349 brought gradual changes to everyday life. Wage labour expanded, cash rents became more common and servants moved between employers. Women and younger workers took opportunities created by vacant holdings and labour shortage. Marriage and inheritance formed new households on land previously occupied by families lost during the epidemic.

Manorial rolls recorded admissions to holdings, rents, fines, debts and local disputes. Church courts dealt with marriage, wills and probate. Charters and indentures preserved transfers. Written evidence therefore became denser at the same time as the population became more mobile. The names of ordinary tenants, widows, servants and craftsmen appear with greater frequency in surviving records.

Housing reflected unequal prosperity. Successful tenants enlarged timber-framed halls, added service rooms or created upper chambers. Other households continued in modest buildings using local timber, clay and thatch. Barns, byres, ovens, wells and yards held the equipment and stores of the farm. Smoke from open hearths marked roof timbers, and repeated repair kept buildings usable through wet winters.

The Church remained a focus for memory and communication. Parishioners endowed lights, images and altars, requested prayers and left gifts for repairs. Screens gave the chancel a stronger visual boundary, and fixed benches appeared more widely. Bells marked services and significant moments, while announcements concerning fasts, feasts, marriages, charity and diocesan business reached the congregation in English.

Wisborough Green added a south aisle during the fourteenth century, extending the church that served Loxwood. Kirdford developed its chancel, and Holy Trinity at Rudgwick took much of its surviving medieval form. These works created room for additional altars, processions and congregational use. Masons, carpenters, glaziers, painters, smiths and carriers translated parish income and private gifts into stone, timber, colour and sound.

Markets and roads carried the products of this changing society. Horsham, Petworth, Pulborough and Billingshurst linked farms and woodland holdings with buyers, craftsmen and officials. Travellers brought news of war, taxation, plague and religious debate. The same routes led to parish churches, manorial courts and episcopal estates, keeping dispersed communities in regular contact.

Richard II: Taxation, Revolt and the English Bible, 1377–1399

Richard II became king in 1377 at the age of ten. His government inherited the costs of war, the regulation of labour and a population still adjusting to repeated outbreaks of plague. Poll taxes in 1377, 1379 and 1380 assessed people directly and required local collectors to identify households and individuals. The third tax contributed to the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381.

The revolt gathered grievances about taxation, labour controls, lordship and local administration. Its largest movements occurred in eastern and south-eastern England, while the pressures behind it were familiar across the kingdom. Religious language entered political argument through sermons and popular discussion, placing ideas of Christian community, justice and authority beside demands concerning work and government.

English was gaining status in public culture. The Statute of Pleading in 1362 required court proceedings to be spoken in English because French had become unfamiliar to much of the population, while formal records continued in Latin. Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland and other writers used English for poetry, social observation and religious thought. Parish priests had long taught and announced obligations in the language understood by their congregations.

This growth of English created a new setting for debate about the Bible. Scripture in formal worship remained the Latin Vulgate. Biblical teaching reached parishioners through sermons, prayers, images, drama, song and the annual sequence of feasts. Portions of Scripture and devotional material already circulated in English. The later fourteenth century brought the first complete translation of the Vulgate into Middle English, produced by scholars and writers associated with John Wycliffe.

Wycliffe was an Oxford theologian who placed exceptional authority upon Scripture and criticised the wealth and political power of the clergy. He questioned papal claims and challenged the received teaching of the Eucharist. His followers, increasingly called Lollards, promoted vernacular preaching and the reading of religious texts in English. Their ideas varied, and communities of sympathisers ranged from educated gentry to artisans and household readers.

The Wycliffite Bible existed as handwritten manuscripts. Complete copies required extensive labour and costly parchment or paper, while smaller books contained Gospels, New Testaments or selected readings. The translation therefore opened a new intellectual and devotional possibility before printing made books abundant. It also raised a decisive question: who held authority to translate, explain and interpret Scripture for the laity?

The Church Confronts Wycliffe and Lollardy

William Courtenay became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1381 after the death of Simon Sudbury during the revolt. Courtenay had opposed Wycliffe’s teaching and moved quickly to organise an ecclesiastical response. In 1382 he summoned bishops and theologians to the Dominican house at Blackfriars in London. An earthquake during the meeting gave it the later name of the Earthquake Council.

The council condemned a group of propositions associated with Wycliffe, including teaching on the Eucharist and the authority of the Church. Courtenay pressed Oxford to act against teachers who promoted them, and Richard II’s government supported the control of unauthorised preaching. The campaign concentrated on doctrine and public teaching, while English religious manuscripts continued to circulate through private networks.

The issue extended beyond the language of a book. Church leaders feared teaching that separated biblical interpretation from episcopal authority and the received sacramental order. Lollards argued that Scripture should judge clergy and institutions. Their criticism of wealth, images, pilgrimage, clerical status and traditional devotion varied between writers and communities, but the English Bible became the most enduring material expression of their programme.

In 1395 a group of Lollards presented the Twelve Conclusions to Parliament and displayed them publicly in London. The document challenged central features of the established Church and brought religious criticism into direct contact with royal government. Bishops sought the support of the Crown, while Parliament became another arena in which religion, law and authority met.

Thomas Arundel became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1396. His family held the earldom and castle of Arundel, giving the new archbishop a strong connection with western Sussex as well as the highest office in the English Church. He lost the see during Richard II’s final political crisis and returned in 1399 with Henry of Bolingbroke. The alliance between the Lancastrian Crown and Archbishop Arundel would shape the regulation of preaching and biblical translation in the next period.

The Diocese of Chichester passed from the learned Bishop William Reade to Thomas Rushook, Richard Mitford and Robert Waldby. In 1397 Lord Bishop Robert Rede took possession of the see. A Dominican friar and experienced churchman, Rede entered a diocese whose northern border contained Loxwood, Wisborough Green, Drungewick and the neighbouring Winchester parish of Alfold.

Bishop Rede, John Okehurst and the Northern Diocese, 1397–1399

Lord Bishop Robert Rede inherited the cathedral, diocesan courts, estates and rights of the see. Drungewick formed part of that inheritance as a private northern residence with household chapel and stores. The manor placed the bishop within a short journey of Loxwood and Wisborough Green and close to the diocesan line at Alfold.

A local landholder named John Okehurst connected this northern landscape with law, taxation, Parliament and the bishop. In 1369 he acquired land, tenements and rents in Wisborough Green, Billingshurst and nearby places. He worked as an attorney, appeared in property business, collected taxation in Sussex and held land under the earls of Arundel.

In March 1397 Okehurst paid homage to Bishop Rede for land at Ham in Sidlesham. Later that year he represented Chichester in Parliament. His career moved between the Arun valley, the Western Weald, the bishop’s lordship and the national assembly. He belonged to the group of substantial local men who used deeds, courts and public office to organise land and obligation.

By the end of Richard II’s reign, Loxwood had entered written history through the de la Punde family and through deeds describing woodland, a house, a curtilage, rent and parish identity. The Templar wood placed an international religious order within its local landholding. Wisborough Green remained Loxwood’s parish church. Drungewick brought the Bishop of Chichester’s household to the northern diocese, and Alfold stood nearby under Winchester.

Richard II’s reign ended in 1399 when Henry of Bolingbroke became Henry IV. The new king inherited a mature Parliament, an assertive Church, a growing body of English religious writing and active concern about Lollard teaching. Lord Bishop Rede and John Okehurst were already positioned within the local story. In 1404 they would become central to a petition that brought authorised worship into Loxwood itself.