Church and Chaple in Medieval England

Abstract

In Emlyn Williams's play,The Corn is Green(1938), an Englishwoman arriving in Wales is asked an important question: ‘Are you Church or Chapel?’ Since the seventeenth century, when non-Anglican places of worship made their appearance, this question has indeed been important, sometimes momentous. ‘Church’ has had one kind of resonance in religion, politics and society; ‘chapel’ has had another. Even in unreligious households, people may still opt for ‘church’ when the bread is cut (the rounded end) or ‘chapel’ (the oblong part). The distinction is far older than the seventeenth century, however, by at least five hundred years. There were thousands of chapels in medieval England, besides the parish churches, when religion is often thought of as uniformly church-based. Although these chapels differed in some ways from those of Protestant nonconformity, notably in worship, they also foreshadowed them. Locations, architecture, social support and even religious diversity are often comparable between the two eras. Arguably, the creation of chapels by non-Anglicans after the Reformation marked a return to ancient national habits.