4. A Golden Age in Willingham

Reigns of Edward ll 1307-1327,  Edward lll 1327-1377

When John de Ellerker was presented by King Edward II to Willingham as Rector in 1324 he was already a King’s Clerk. We know he was sent by the King to Dublin in 1336, where he was made Canon and Treasurer of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He was also sent to Bordeaux in France, perhaps because of the success of his Willingham predecessor there. By this time the English possessions in Gascony covered a vast area of south west France, and were administered from Bordeaux on the Atlantic coast. The military campaigns of King Edward III and his son the Black Prince had now brought almost one quarter of present day France under the English Crown.
Back in Willingham the Church building was being extended with major additions which stand unchanged today: a tower and spire to the west, an entrance porch to the south, and a sacristy to the north.  The sacristy is built entirely of stone, including the roof beams, and it meets all the criteria of an Anchorhold, a place in which someone was enclosed for a spartan lifetime of prayer and devotion. The narrow south aisle was also widened to its present dimensions. These additions must have made an enormous visual impact at a time when the village population was still only around 350.

It was particularly convenient for the Bishop of Ely to travel south to Willingham, where he had his Manor House. In 1341 and 1343 Willingham was the scene of ordinations on a massive scale. On one occasion alone there were 293 candidates. They were needed to match the great expansion of the Catholic church at this period.  No less than 46,000 churches were built in England between 1250 and 1550.  These ordinations must have presented an incredible scene – a procession of 300 priests and ordinands in their flowing vestments passing through the village to a building that now boasted a new tower and spire of gleaming limestone.

Next time: The Black Death