A wool church is an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 church built primarily from the proceeds of the mediaeval

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

 wool

Wool

Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....

 trade. Wool churches are common in the Cotswolds

Cotswolds

The Cotswolds are a range of hills in west-central England, sometimes called the Heart of England, an area across and long. The area has been designated as the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty...

 and in East Anglia

East Anglia

East Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of...

, where enormous profits from the wool business spurred construction of ever-grander edifices.

The church at Long Melford

Long Melford

Long Melford is a large village and civil parish in the county of Suffolk, England. It is on Suffolk's border with Essex, which is marked by the River Stour, approximately from Colchester and from Bury St. Edmunds...

, Suffolk, is widely regarded as one of the finest wool churches in England. Built largely from 1467–1497, Holy Trinity contains magnificent stained glass from the fifteenth century, the Clopton family chantry chapel and the soaring Lady Chapel, which extends at Holy Trinity's east end. The Flushwork

Flushwork

-Description:In architecture, flushwork is the decorative combination on the same flat plane of flint and ashlar stone. It is characteristic of the external walls of medieval buildings, most of the survivors being churches, in parts of Southern England, but especially East Anglia...

 employed by the builders of Holy Trinity is some of the finest in England. The church stands as testimony to the wool business and its dizzying success in medieval times.
Another grand Suffolk wool church is St. Edmund in Southwold

Southwold

Southwold is a town on the North Sea coast, in the Waveney district of the English county of Suffolk. It is located on the North Sea coast at the mouth of the River Blyth within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The town is around south of Lowestoft and north-east...

, which boasts extraordinary painted chancel screens, although nearly all the medieval stained glass is gone, thanks to zealous Puritans during Cromwell's reign. Ironically, Peter Hobart, who served as assistant vicar of St. Edmunds following his graduation from Magdalen College, Cambridge, later left Suffolk for the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony

Massachusetts Bay Colony

The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions...

, where Hobart became the first pastor of Old Ship Church

Old Ship Church

The Old Ship Church was built in 1681 in Hingham, Massachusetts in the United States. It is the oldest church in continuous ecclesiastical use in the United States. It is the only remaining 17th century Puritan meetinghouse in America...

 in Hingham, Massachusetts, the oldest church in continuous use in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.
(A more vivid contrast to England's wool churches can hardly be imagined. Old Ship Church is a hand-hewn wooden structure with a modified Hammerbeam roof and not a shard of stained glass in sight.)

St. Agnes's Church at Cawston, Norfolk

Cawston, Norfolk

Cawston is a small village located approximately North of Norwich, off the B1149 main road to Holt. Nearby villages are Reepham and Aylsham.-Church of St Agnes:...

 is also well-known as a "wool church." Its fifteenth century nave and western tower were financed by Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk

Earl of Suffolk

Earl of Suffolk is a title that has been created four times in the Peerage of England. The first creation, in tandem with the creation of the title of Earl of Norfolk, came before 1069 in favour of Ralph the Staller; but the title was forfeited by his heir, Ralph de Guader, in 1074...

, who had grown rich from the wool business. Typical of a 'wool church,' St. Agnes's scale is far grander than what the modest medieval village required. And the Earl of Suffolk spared no expense in embellishing the interior: the de la Pole crest is carved above the entrance; French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 stone was used for the tower and nave; the roof, although the typical wooden East Anglian style, is an elaborate hammerbeam confection with elaborate angels curving off the beam ends, and a trio of angels on outstretched wings hovering over each clerestory window.

Clearly in East Anglian medieval times, sheep furnished the currency for architectural atonement.

At St. Mary's Church at Worstead

Worstead

Worstead is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It lies 5 km south of North Walsham, 9 km north of Wroxham, and 20 km north of Norwich. The village is served by Worstead railway station on the Bittern Line....

, Norfolk, the village which gave its name to the cloth, the village church built by local weavers in the fourteenth-century towers over the small community, its tower jutting strikingly above the landscape. In other East Anglian communities, the wealth from wool poured in: Wymondham

Wymondham

Wymondham is a historic market town and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It lies 9.5 miles to the south west of the city of Norwich, on the A11 road to Thetford and London.- Before The Great Fire :...

, Diss

Diss

Diss is a town in Norfolk, England close to the border with the neighbouring East Anglian county of Suffolk.The town lies in the valley of the River Waveney, around a mere that covers . The mere is up to deep, although there is another of mud, making it one of the deepest natural inland lakes...

, East Harling

East Harling

East Harling is a village in the English county of Norfolk. The village forms the principal settlement in the civil parish of Harling, and is located some 8 miles east of the town of Thetford and 25 miles south-west of the city of Norwich.The village is served by Harling Road railway...

, Watton

Watton

-Places:England*Watton, Devon*Watton, East Riding of Yorkshire*Watton, Norfolk*Watton-at-Stone, Hertfordshire...

, Horsham

Horsham

Horsham is a market town with a population of 55,657 on the upper reaches of the River Arun in the centre of the Weald, West Sussex, in the historic County of Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester...

, Attleborough

Attleborough

Attleborough is a market town and civil parish in Norfolk, England situated between Norwich and Thetford. The parish falls within the district of Breckland and has an area of 21.90 km² with a Mainline to both Norwich and Cambridge....

, Aylsham

Aylsham

Aylsham is a historic market town and civil parish on the River Bure in north Norfolk, England, about north of Norwich. The river rises near Melton Constable, upstream from Aylsham and continues to Great Yarmouth and the North Sea, although it was only made navigable after 1779, allowing grain,...

. The churches basked in the refracted glory of wool wealth. Even in Norwich

Norwich

Norwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...

, which boasts more medieval churches than anywhere in Europe, it was wool money that got the stone lifted, the glass stained and the panels carved. Norfolk wool was best suited to heavier cloth, and so Norwich and Norfolk eventually gained almost a complete monopoly on worstead. Those profits fueled an extraordinary ecclesiastical building boom.
At Lavenham

Lavenham

Lavenham is a village and civil parish in Suffolk, England. It is noted for its 15th century church, half-timbered medieval cottages and circular walk. In the medieval period it was among the 20 wealthiest settlements in England...

, Suffolk, the striking Perpendicular church is one of England's largest parish churches. With its monumental flint and limestone tower, the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, largely rebuilt in the fifteenth century in the prevailing style, dominates the small weaving village. It was financed largely by two families.