Robert Parkyn Priest of Adwick 1541 – 1569
Historians of the reformation period are really pleased to have primary source material available to them from a contemporary figure such as Robert Parkyn.. Some of the most important and fascinating information comes from the writings of this man. He was the parish priest at Adwick at the time of the reformation.. His writings give us an insight into his own character and the scene at the time. Parkyn spent practically the whole of his long ministry at Adwick. He was evidently born of a fairly well to do family in the neighbouring parish of Owston and probably received his early education and knowledge of Latin at the Chantry School there. Soon after 1541 he appears as curate of Adwick. From the details of his will he seems to have lived comfortably in a well furnished house. Many of the clergy of his day were practically illiterate, but Parkyn was a man of wide taste and culture, particularly interested Richard Rolle. He possessed a good library of his own, and in order to maintain his reading he had books delivered from Cambridge College, where his brother John was a fellow of Trinity College. He kept up a correspondence with him as well as with other friends in the vicinity, amongst whom was William Watson, Curate of Melton on the Hill. It is fortunate that so many of his letters and writings of Rolle, letters to friends, a metrical ”Life of Christ” and a narrative of the reformation. This last great document in particular is of great importance for it gives an account of the changes which came about in the parishes as a result of the policies of the reformers. An item from 1548 reads….”Rogacion day, no procession was mayde abowtt the fealdes, butt cruell tiranttes dyd cast downe all crosses standynge lu open ways dispittefully.” Ornaments and customs assocated with the church services were abolished, the stone alters were removed, and the New English Prayer Books were introduced causing obvious distress to Parkyn, but his most violent feelings were reserved to castigate those clergy who took the opportunity to get married. For in 1549 he wrote….
.”Consequenttly then after Westmynster, wherein was enactyde no goodness towards the church of goode, butt in Christenmasse weake after was publisched the bandes of matrimony both in the parische churches of Bischoppethorpe and Aithwyk by the streatt in Yorkshire betwixt Robeett Ebor (alias Hollegaitte) Archebischoppe of Yorke of the one parttie and Barbara Wenttworthe, dowghter of Roger Wenttworthe esqwyer of the other parttie – the said Archebischoppe and Barbara was joined together in marriage the 15th day of January.”
This caused a great deal of distress not only because of a clergyman being wed, but also that he had to read out the banns in his church. Barbara Wentworth had been through a form of marriage eighteen years previous at Adwick church when she was just five years old and the groom was seven, and had lived with her child husband, Anthony Norman , in her fathers house at Adwick. Barbara must have succeded in her suit of nullity which she brought against Anthony Norman a short while before her marriage to Archbishop Holgate.
His long and detailed will included a clause whereby he left money to repair the steeple of his church and request that he be buried”in the churche yeard of the said Aithwyk nigh before the south qwire door of the said churche.” He was buried as the register shows on March 24th, 1569.
