The Mysterious Hognells.

While encyclopedias have existed in one form or another for almost 2,000 years. And that they have evolved considerably during that time as regards size, intent, and cultural perspective. You’d still be forgiven if you were surprised while consulting one to encounter sarcasm from the author. However, in the first Polish-language encyclopedia, Nowe Ateny (New Athens) published in 1745. [1] Among the 938 pages, Under the entry for Horse, the encyclopaedia's author, Polish priest Benedykt Joachim Chmielowski rather snarkily chides the reader looking it up.

Horse: Everyone knows what a horse is!

And if you may be wondering how any of that relates to this blog about Lincolnshire Folklore, I’d like you to keep this sentiment in mind as we move forward.

Last year I got a copy of Professor Ronald Hutton’s excellent ‘The Rise and Fall of Merry England.’ [2] And it has sat on my to-read pile ever since. It was only this winter that I eventually got around to tackling it. This book takes us through the ritual year, examining the way seasonal customs and celebrations in England have evolved over the 3 centuries between 1400 - 1700. And among the Hobby Horses, Boy Bishops and Morris Dancers, Professor Hutton introduces in December - January a mysterious group of people known variously as Hognells, Hogners, Hogans, Hogglers or Hoggells. They appear around the 15th century, and are recorded in Churchwardens account books, making often sizable donations to the Parish Funds over the Christmas period. Groups of Hognells are recorded in parishes in Gloucestershire, Somerset, Devon, Surrey, Sussex, Kent, and South Lincolnshire and the fens. In two neighbouring Lincolnshire villages, Wigtoft and Sutterton they maintained a constant light in their respective parish church.

Tapers burning in a dark church.

These votive lights (often simple tapers or types of slower burning rush lights) would be positioned in front of an icon or effigy of the saint particularly favored by the group in question. The much more common Plough Lights, (a feature found in almost all surviving Lincolnshire Tudor churchwardens accounts) were set up by plough guilds, who looked to God and the saints for divine help at the critical points of the agricultural year. Plough Pays or Plough Jags were a fixed feature in the Lincolnshire calendar of customs. Taking place on plough Monday (the first Monday after Epiphany) teams would drag a plough around their parish, stopping to enact a short play, along with songs and dancing. A portion of the money raised during these celebrations went to pay for the lights to be burnt. 

So what did Hognells do? And as not all parishes that received funds from them record a light in the church, why were they out collecting donations amongst their community? 

It would appear Hognells, were such a familiar aspect of the winter festivities during the 15th and 16th centuries, that while recording the monies submitted by them for the parochial coffers, the same Churchwardens (or anyone else for that matter) never thought they’d need to ever describe what they actually did to raise this money! Because, in the spirit of Benedykt Joachim Chmielowski. Everyone knows what a Hognell is!  James Stokes, in 'The Hoglers: Evidences of an Entertainment Tradition in Eleven Somerset Parishes', saw them as an early form of Christmas Carolers. 

"In Somerset, it seems that the Croscombe Hogglers were a group of men who, sometime during the twelve days of Christmas, conducted door to door gatherings of money, or food for church-ales, in return for possibly sung entertainment." [3]

Alternatively, might Hognells have possibly performed some short form of play, in the way that Mummers Plays and Plough Plays are still seen in parts of Lincolnshire today? Throughout the middle ages, well into the Tudor period, there is ample evidence for Lincolnshire Fenland and Wash area communities, being regularly visited by troupes of travelling players who would put on popular dramatic productions, often in the courtyard of an inn, or the grounds of the local manor. But there are also records of communities often backed by local guilds, forming their own theatrical groups, to enact scenes from “Lives of the Saints” or Mystery Plays, religious dramas that depicted Bible stories, such as Adam and Eve, The Nativity, or the Last Judgment with parts played by members of these local communities, these could sometimes become rather grand affairs with ‘flying angels’ pitchfork wielding devils and often bawdy and satirical additions to the more familiar bible stories! Were small productions being wheeled around on pageant wagon stages soliciting cash donations at the end of performances?

Or were they simply groups of musicians, who could stand under lanterns in the blowing snow belting out a merry tune to households in return for remuneration? The Church of St Mary the Blessed Virgin, Sutterton, where the Hognells funded a votive light, features a fine 14th century central tower with a decorative frieze that runs below the battlement. At the corners of this frieze are carved figures holding and playing drums, bagpipes, and possibly a trumpet. Depictions of musicians in medieval carving are not that uncommon, but Just possibly could these be contemporary depictions of Sutterton’s Hognells?

St Mary the Virgin, Sutterton. The inset shows one of the musicians on corner of the central tower.

In other parts of the country records attest to the fact that Hognells often included people of some significant social standing. So the role of Hognell was clearly a respectable one to hold! But in Lincolnshire we currently only know the name of one possible Hognell, and yes, he comes from Sutterton! In his will of the 5th march, 1528, William Percy of Soterton [Sutterton] asks for his body to be buried within the Churchyard of our Blessed Lady in Sutterton, and among his various other bequests leaves money to 

 

 "The light callyd the Hogner’s Light."

It would seem even near death William did not want the light of his group to go out. Uvedale Lambert, writing in 1917 in an article for the Surrey Archaeological Collections, gives I think, a solid and heartwarming overview of the Hognells and their intentions.

“ The medieval Hoggler, in times when religious observances were an everyday part of men's lives, begged, not wholly for himself, but partly for the maintenance of his parish church; where the Hogglers' light burning perpetually before an altar or saint's statue bore witness to their humble efforts to turn all they did to the glory of God.”  [4]

Eventually the Hogners / Hogglers  along with their ever burning tapers would disappear from the Churchwardens accounts around the time of the Reformation, presumably due in no small part to the fact that in 1538, Henry VIII forbade “plough lights” and the like, in churches. Possibly the fundraising continued in some places under a new name for a while. But for Lincolnshire, this tradition, that never quite managed to show an actual face to the modern reader. Slipped back into the darkness when their light was finally put out.

---------------------------

Sources and further info:

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nowe_Ateny

[2] Hutton, Ronald. 'The Rise and Fall of Merry England: The Ritual Year 1400-1700'  Oxford University Press. ISBN: 9780198203636

[3] For more on hoggling in Somerset see James Stokes, 'The Hoglers: Evidences of an Entertainment Tradition in Eleven Somerset Parishes', Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries 32 (1986-1990), 807-17 and Stokes, Somerset II, pp. 641-708

[4] This is from - Uvedale Lambert, ‘Hognel Money & Hogglers’ Surrey Archaeological Collections, Vol 30, 1917, pp. 54-60

[5] Just for the sake of completeness, the Oxford Reference gives this definition of Hogglers 

“ their exact nature and role is only now becoming clear. In many surviving parish records, particularly churchwardens' accounts, from the 15th, to early 17th centuries, hoglers (sometimes hogglers, hognelers, or hoggeners) are listed as contributing substantial amounts to parish coffers, on a regular basis, year after year. By comparing all these entries it has become clear that these people would go round the parish collecting money (and/or corn) for the church, at a period before organized church rates existed (compare also church ales). In most cases, their activities were concentrated in the Christmas-New Year period, and there are hints that they went in procession and some of them at least entertained potential donors with songs."

https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095940649