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HENRY BRADSHAW
SOCIETY

founbeb in tU ^^t of Our £or^ 1890

for i^t editing of (j^Are fiiturgicdf Certs.

Vol. XXV.

ISSUED TO MEMBERS FOR THE YEAR 1903,

PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY

HARRISON AMD SONS, ST. MARTIN'S LANE

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British Museum, C. 36. d. i.

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^ »-.. w

THE

CLERK'S BOOK

1549-

EDITED BY

J. WICKHAM LEGG,

Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and of the Society of Antiquaries of

Ijmdon. '

bonbon.

1903.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

. **"••' /XV^IL •«• ,,, ,,, ,,, ,,, ,,, ,,, ,^, ,,, g.

Introduction

Edwardian Psalters

Clerk as church officer

Clerk's Main Duties : Ability to sing

,, „ read the Epistle and Lesson

9 9 99 ICtt^xl •«• ••• ••• ••• ••«

„ to assist in ministering Sacraments and Sacra

ui6uUilS ••• ••• ••• ••• ••• ••<

Clerk's Minor Duties ,

^ \J A Bc_ L/CUd* •• ••• •«• ••• ••■ ■•• ••• ••

To bght lamps ... . < .

To fold up vestments

X O wLTTmiy eiliSkTS ••• ••• «•• ••• ••• ••• ••

JL \J 1CL\^U il.£C»*a ••■ ••• ••• •»• ••i> ••• ••

To keep church clean

To light lanterns

To serve at low mass

To open church ... ... ... ... ... ... ..

X \J \,0cLkLjf LKUL ••• ••• ••• ••• •■• ••• ••• ••

To keep registers ... < . .
Clerk's Social and' Ecclesiastical position

* WolvUXw ••• ••• ••• ••• ••• ■«■ ••• ••• *••

*^&^ ••• ••• ••• *•• •«• *•• *«• •«• •••

^^Ofl X Mtj^C ••• ••• •■• ■•• ••• ■«• ••• •••

Exceeding duties

X^ UAXAL/d ■•• ••• ••• !••• ••• ••• ••• ••• •••

Right of appointment

* V Ages ... *c« ... aaa ... ••« ... ... «••

Carrjdng roimd of holy water

XXwAV mxMOmX ■•• •«• • • p ••• ••• •■• •■• •••

Cakes, eggs, and sheaves

. Glebe and House...

JL CC0 ••• •■• ••• ••• ••« ••• »•• •••

^^ACA *b w QtACd ••• •«• •«• *•• ••• •«• »»•

i^cLmvX y ••• ••• *•• ••• ••• ••• ••• •••

XYXlSCdlclUCOUS •«• ■•• ••• ••• ••• •»• • • • •••

X xxl£ v^XjKRK S x)OOiv ••• ••• ••• ••• ••• ••• •••

Order how the psalter shall be read

Table for the order of the Psalms

XVaICXIUmX ••• ••■ ••• ••• ■•■ •«• •«« ••«

PAGE

vu.

xi.

xvii.

xix.

xxi.

xxiv.

,.• XXV*

xxvii.

• a . JULXa. '

. . . XXX*

• . . ^LAJkl.

■ . • XXX1<-

. . . xxxii.

. . . xxxiii.

... xxxiii.^

... xxxiv.r

• .• XXXVtf

xxxv<

. .. XXXV*

... xxxviii.

xli.

xlii.

xlvi.

. . . xlviii.

li.

liii*

Iv.

Ivi.

Ivii.

Iviii*

. . . ul«

I
3

• • • A

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Mattins

Evensong

Quicunque vult

Litany
Communion

Matrimony

Visitation of the Sick
Commmiion of the Sick ...
Burial of the Dead
Communion at Burial
Purification of Women ...
First day of Lent

• • •

PAGE

17
24

44
46

48
52
53
54

Appendices.

L Constitutions of Parish Clerks at Coventry
IL „ „ ,, All Saints Bristol

in. Duties of the Clerks at St. Nicholas Bristol

IV. Pa)mients to Clerks at St. Margaret Lothbury

V. Ofl5ce of the Clerks at Faversham

VI. Rules at St. Michael's Comhill

VII. Dispute about the Clerk at Morebath

VIII. Duties of Clerks at St. Stephen's Coleman Street

IX. Injunctions at Doncaster

X. The Holy Loaf at Staniord-in-the-Vale

XI. Extracts from Visitation Articles, etc

XII. Draft of licence to parish clerk to read prayers, etc

XIII. Godolphin on right to appoint Clerk

XIV. The duties of Parish Clerk at Barrow-on-Humber

X^ \J A AiO ••• ••• ••■ ••• ••• ••• ••• •«

^ A^ A^OfJik ••• •*• ••« ••• ••• •*• •••

64
66

75
82

84
90

94
96

98
105
107
109
III
129

PREFACE.

It would hardly be honest of me to present the following pages
to the Society with my name prefixed as Editor, unless I made
it clear that in them I have done little but play the part of the
rhapsodist, one who stitches and strings together the information
brought to him by others. Mr. Cuthbert Atchley is chief amongst
those who have so kindly furnished me with material ; in fact,
the book ought really to be called his, and I do not know of any
reason why he should not have edited the work in his own name,
except that he does not live in London, and thus could not have
daily access to the only copy of the Clerk's Book that is at
present known to exist In arranging the materials for the
introduction so freely offered to me, and in choosing them, I
have not in all cases followed Mr. Atchley's recommendations,
and he is free from all responsibility for defects thus ensuing ;
but I must express my very sincere thanks and heart-felt
gratitude for the generosity with which he has placed the
results of his prolonged researches so completely at my
disposal.

In investigations which I have made on my own behalf I
have been much helped by the lists of Parish and other accountSy
.which have been published by Mr. B. L. Hutchins in Notes and
Queries, 1899 and 1900, Ninth Series, Vol. IV. and Vol. V. I
have found the references to the churchwardens' accounts "^ very
valuable.

I am also much indebted to Mr. James Christie's work, which
has for its title. Some Account of Parish Clerks , printed at the
expense of the Company of Parish Clerks in 1893, but not
published.

viii PREFACE.

Illustrations of the duties of clerks taken from foreign sources
have been hardly, if at all, admitted to this work. It was felt
that such could be very much better dealt with by continental
writers, who would have command of the manuscript and
printed sources of such illustrations ; a lesser reason is, also,
that the introduction and notes would be enlarged beyond what
was desirable as an accompaniment to so small a work as the
Clerk's Book, which, again, is also itself merely English.

In printing the records of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
that appear as appendices, I have followed a plan which I
cannot flatter myself will meet with general approval. I have
given no indication of the contractions that I have expanded.
I have done this not without a good deal of consideration and
some misgivings. My aim has been, not thereby to give a
better look to the page, but rather to avoid a promise of
accuracy which, it may be feared, would not be invariably borne
out in the performance.

Finally, I would acknowledge with much gratitude the help so
kindly given me by many friends and correspondents. To the
Rev. Christopher Wordsworth I am indebted for much informa-
tion, especially about the clerk's duties at Barrow on the
H umber and the holy loaf at Stanford in the Vale ; to the Rev.
F. M. Beaumont, for allowing the constitutions of the clerks at
Coventry to be deposited in the British Museum, which enabled
me to transcribe these documents afresh from the originals;
to the Rev. Dr. Macray for transcripts of documents in the
Bodleian Library ; to the Rev. J. R. Hughes for transcripts of
documents from the parish records at Rempstone ; to Mr. J. A.
Herbert for transcripts from manuscripts in the British Museum;
to Mr. Robert Brown, Junior, F.S.A., for a fresh transcript of the
clerk's duties at Barrow on the Humber ; to the Rev. Dr. J, T.
Fowler for access to a printed book in the Library of the
University of Durham ; to the Rev. J. Erskine Binney for
access to the documents containing the dispute at Morcbath.
For information and encouragement I am also indebted to the

PREFACE, ix

Rev. Arthur Brinckman, Mr. Alfred W. Pollard, Mr. Francis B.
Bickley, Mr. Falconer Madan, the Rev. Sidney E. Dodderidge,
Mr. Francis F. Giraud, Mr. J. Brooking Rowe, the Rev. H. Aldrich
Cotton, and the Rev. A. L. Palmes.

Dr. Edwin Freshfield must be specially mentioned for the
abundant information that he has given me, as well as for the
great kindness that I have always received at his hands.

To our Treasurer, Mr. Dewick, and our Secretary, Mr. Wilson,
I am again, as so often before, under very deep obligations.
Their advice and time have been most ungrudgingly bestowed
upon me ; and only those who have received similar favours at
their hands can measure my indebtedness to their goodness and
generosity.

J. WiCKHAM LEGG.

INTRODUCTION.

The book of which a part is now reprinted was purchased for the
British Museum in the autumn of 1876. Beyond this I am able to say
little of the history of the copy. It was, indeed, in actual use in
Cheshire early in the seventeenth century; but besides this, nothing
else seems to be at present known.

Six years after the purchase of this volume, attention was called to it
by Mr. Maskell in the second edition of Monumenta Ritualia. In a
note to the Ordo ad faciendum Sponsalia he gave a short account of the
contents of the book ; but he does not make it quite plain how it is
more "a connecting link between the old rituals and the reformed
Prayer book," than the first prayer book of Edward VI. itself.^

I do not know that anyone else has described it in print.

The book is in 4°, the leaves now measuring 189 by 140 millimeters,
but they have been cut down by the binder. The size of a page of
25 lines including headline and catchword is 159 by 93 millimeters. It
is printed wholly in black, with the exception of the title page, and the
first quire, parts of which are in red, as the holy days in the calendar.
The type is black letter ; but when a capital W has to be used, it is in
nearly all cases Roman. There is only one column. The number of
lines in a full page varies from 25 to 26, 25 being more usual.

The book is composed of two parts ; each has a separate title page
and signatures. The first part is that containing the book for the
clerk, now edited ; the second, the psalter. Both parts have eight leaves
to the quire, except the last quire of the psalter, which has only six.
To the last quire (d) of the handbook the last leaf is wanting ; its place
is now taken by a blank leaf of modern paper, but the last leaf was
probably also blank. The signatures of the clerk's book are in small
black letter, with the exception of the first which is a cross; the
signatures of the psalter are in capital black letter, from A to T.

There is no pagination. There are forty leaves in the clerk's book,
counting the blank leaf at its end. There are 150 in the psalter.

The structure of the book may be thus expressed :

>J< a — ^^=40 ff.
A— S«T«=i5off.

The lines of the title are printed alternately in red and black,
excepting the two lowest, and the title is surrounded by a border of

^ William Maskell, Monumenli Ritualia Ecdesiae Anglicanae^ Oxford, 1882, vol. i«
p. 60, note 20.

xii INTRODUCTION,

architectural design ; a lintel supported by two columns which rest
upon an ornamental base. Parts of this border are in red ; (i.) a figure
on the left side of the upper border ; (ii.) two roundels, one in the
extreme left of the lower border, another in the middle right hand portion
of the side border; (iii.) the printer's device within a wreath in the
middle of the lower border.

The title page of the whole book has been reprinted below.* The
title page of the psalter is as follows :

The Psal-|| ter or Psalmes of Da-||uid, after the transla-||cion of the
greate II Bible, poyn-||ted as it shal-||be song in || Churches || [an
ornamental leaf] M.D. xlix.

The colophon which occupies the verso of the last leaf is :

Imprinted by || Richard | Grafton, prin-||ter to the || Kinges || Males- 1|
tie II Mense Augustij || 1549 | Cum priuilegio ad imprimendum solum ||

The binding is in purple morocco, and modem ; lettered on the back :
Psalter, Ordre for Mattyns^ 6-f. Lower down is R, Grafton, August
1549. From the crown impressed on the inside of the cover, it may be
inferred that the book was bound in this way after its entrance into the
British Museum. Its press mark is : C. 36 d. i.

This book seems to be of very considerable rarity. As yet, no other
copy has been found. The bulk of the work is made up. of a psalter,
distributed for Mattins and Evensong, as in the first Prayer Book of
King Edward VI. Prefixed to the psalter are " diverse things " which
are set out below,* under six headings : the first five of which are verbal
reproductions of the orders with the same name in Edward VI.'s first
book ; but the sixth sets forth " all that shall appertain to the clerks to
say or sing *' at the Communion, Matrimony, the Visitation of the Sick,
the Burial of the Dead, the Purification of Women, and the first day of
Lent. All under the sixth heading show considerable difference from
the like offices in Edward VI.'s first prayer book, the greater part of that
which is to be said by the priest being left out, while that said by the
clerks only is printed in full. The orders under this last heading are
thus emphatically for the use of the clerk, not of the priest, nor of
the people, and thus to the collection may very well be given the name
of The Cleries Book,

It should be noticed that the psalter has not been reprinted in the
following edition.

The order how the psalter is appointed to be read, is necessary for
the clerk's instruction in accompanying the priest in the recitation of the
psalter. The Kalendar, which contains the lessons for every day in the
year, would tell the clerk the lesson or lessons which he was to read in
the church. Mattins, Evensong, Quicunque vult^ the Litany and
Suffrages, would need the answer of the clerk at almost every line.
These are all printed at length. But the offices which follow, " AH that
appertain to the clerks to say or sing " only give at length the clerk's
portion.

It may, perhaps, be noticed that there is no reference given in the

' See below, p. i. ^ See below, p. 2.

INTRODUCTION. xiii

part that has come down to us to the variable parts of the communion
service, which fell to the lot of the clerk in the different seasons of the
Christian year. For example, it was his business to sing the introit, and
a leaf or so would have sufficed to set forth the psalms assigned to this.
Then he was also to read the Epistle/ and yet none of those for the
Christian seasons is set forth. It does not seem likely that the book
ever contained either introits or epistles, for such are not in the table of
contents, even considering that the last leaf before the psalter is
wanting.

The earlier editions of Edward YJ.'s first book did not contain
psalters, and thus it became advisable to provide psalters for use with
the book, such as the latter part of the work before us. In the
churchwardens* accounts about 1549, we find purchases of psalters
together with the new service book. For example, at North Elmham
in 1549, they paid sixteen shillings and fourpence "for ij books and
ij Sawlters for the order of the new sett forthe by the Kyngs Maiesties
Con."=*

At Ludlow in 1549, they "payde for the parishe bookes, viz. iiij
Mase bookes, one Paraffraces, and viij Salters xxxvj s,^^ And at
Hawkhurst in Kent, about the same time they '* payde to Sir Petur for
ij books of Salmes and a boke of prayer for peace vij ^."* and again in
1550-51, they bought two psalter books, but these were three shillings
and tenpence.^ Also at St. Dunstan's, Canterbury, in 1549-50, it seems
likely that the same books were bought, as they " paid for ij Salters iij s,
viij ^."^ much the same price. Also in 1548-49 at St. Matthew's,
Friday Street, they ** payd for iij newe sawters bokes ij s. vj dr and in
1549-50 "for iij sawter Boockes at ij s, vj d, the pece." In 1547-48,
they bought a book of the common prayer and " two sawter bokes for
the churche " for which they paid four shillings.'

At Wing, Buckinghamshire, in 1549, they "payd for two sawter
bokes iij s, iiij d,^^^

At Bridlington in Yorkshire, amongst other goods they had in 1552,
a Bible, a Paraphrase, a Communion book, and " two Englesse Satters '*
or Psalters. ® In the same collection, other psalters are mentioned*^ ;
though not precisely said to be English, yet their enumeration with
English books makes it likely that they were in the vernacular.

Mr. H. A. Wilson, our Secretary, has pointed out to me that a book
akin to the Clerk's Book is in the Library of the University of Durham.

^ See below, p. 35.

* A. G. Legge, Ancient Churchwarden^ accounts in the parish of North Elmham y
Norwich, 1 891, p. 51.

* Churchwardens' Accounts of the Town oj Ludlow^ Ed. Thos. Wright, Camden
Society, 1869, p. 38.

"* Archaeologia Caniianay 1 863, vol. v. p. 61.

« p. 66.

® Archaeologia Cantiana, 1887, vol. xvii. p. 1 12.

"^ Journal ^ the British Archaeological Association^ 1869, vol. xxv. p. 373.

^ Archaeologia, 1855, vol. xxxvi. p. 230.

^ The Inventories of Church Goods, . . . Vorh, etc. Surtees Society, 1897, p. 31.

^^ p. 169.

xiv INTRODUCTION,

By the courtesy of the Rev. Dr. Fowler, I have been enabled to
examine the book, the press mark of which is : Routh Collection,
xvii. E. 28. (2.)

The title page is almost identical with that of the Clerk's Book.
It is thus :

The Psal-|| ter, or Psalmes of Dauid, cor-|| reeled^ and poinded^ as
they shal' || be song in Churches, aftre the || Translaiion of the greate ||
Byble.

Hereunto is added, diuers || thinges as male apeare on the || nexte
side, wheare is expressed || the conientes of thy s || Booke.

Anno Do. MDLII. || Mense Martij. || Cum priuilegio ad imprimen- 1|
dum solum. ||

The title is surrounded by an architectural design the same as that
which surrounds the title of the Clerk's Book, only the pieces are
reversed ; the upper border is here the lower, and the right border the
left, and vice versd.

Of the psalter, A i. which was probably the title page, is missing.
After the one hundred and fiftieth psalm at the bottom of the verso of
R. viii. is : The ende of this Booke. || Imprinted by Richard Grafton,
Printer to the || Kynges Maiestie. ||

There is no pagination. The signatures of the earlier portion are
red a, black a, b, c, d, e, in black letter. Of these the first four quires
are in eights, d is in four and e is in two.

The psalter is in eights from A to R. but A i. and A vii. are now
wanting.

The type is black letter, and is printed in black ink throughout with
the exception of the title page and certain initial letters in the table for
the order of the psalter and parts of the kalendar including the festivals.
It is in single columns. The first part of the book is in smaller type
than the psalter.

There are 32 lines in a full page of the first part, the size of which,
including catchwords and headlines, is 163 by 94 millimeters.

At the end of the first part, the verso of the last leaf (e. ii.) is blank.

The margins have been cut down by the binder. The binding is of
brown calf, probably of the first half of the eighteenth century. A label
on the back is lettered : Common Prayer^ K. Edward VL

It is bound up with an imperfect primer of 1551, quarto, Richard

Grafton. This is described by Mr. Hoskins.^ After the psalter come

Certain Sermones or Homelies, Richard Grafton, 155 1, which are

followed by the Pystles and Gospels ^ of euery Sonday and holydaye in the

yerey apparently of Sarum use, but with no title or colophon remaining.

In spite of the identity of the titles of the two books the contents
are not the same. The contents given on the verso of the title of the
Clerk's Book agree verbally with those of the psalter from Durham
as far as Cap. V. the Litany and suffrages. Then instead of Cap. VI.
All that shall appertain, &'c., there is in the Durham book : vi. All
the collectes vsed throughoute the yeare at the Communion, and when

^ Edgar Hoskins, Horae^ London, 1901, p. 68.

INTRODUCTION. xv

there is no Communion, Thus the part which marks off the Clerk's
Book^ from other known books disappears, and is replaced by the
introits and collects of the first prayer book of Edward VI. from the
first Sunday in Advent to All Saints with proper psalms and lessons on
certain festivals. These are followed by the two collects for the King
and the general confession and prayer of humble access in the
communion service, with the thanksgiving after communion Almighty
and euerlastyng God, wee moste hardly thanke the, and the blessing.
After this are collects to be said after the offertory, the prayers for rain
and fair weather, with which the first part ends.

I have not discovered any noteworthy variations from the Clerk's
Book in the early part, such as the kalendar ; or in Mattins, Even-
song, and the Litany.

An English psalter printed in the year before the Clerk's Book, that
is, in 1548, follows the lines of the Latin books, and has little in common
with those just described. Its title page is :

The Psal || ter or Boke || of the psalmes, || where vnto is added the ||
Letany and cer- 1| tayne other de- 1| uout pra- 1| yers.

Set forth wyth the || Kynges moste || gracious ly- 1| cence [an ornamental
leaf].

Anno Do. M.D. . XLVIII. || Mensis lulij. ||

The colophon is :

Imprinted at London || by me Roger Car, for An-||thoni Smyth
dwellyng || in Pauls church || yarde. ||

The book is in 8° and consists of 187 pages numbered, to which are
added 18 unnumbered, and these contain the litany. The press
mark of the only copy known to^ me is : C. 25, b. 2, in the British
Museum. The binding, apparently contemporary with the printing, is
preserved.

The contents of this book are the psalter, the canticles at lauds,
also Benedicite, Benedictus, Magnificat, Nunc Dimittis, Te Deum^
and Quicunque vult, all in a translation different from that in
Edward VI.'s first prayer book. After these comes the Litany, which
retains the invocations of the Blessed Virgin, angels, patriarchs, apostles,
and other orders of saints. The psalter follows the numbering of the
Vulgate.

At St. Margaret's, Westminster, they bought about August loth,
1548, eight psalters in English for which they paid 13^. 4^.' It
seems quite possible that these may have been copies of the psalter now
described, which was published in July. Leave had been given on
April 22nd, 1547, to Grafton and Whitchurch to print books concerning
the divine service in English or Latin.^ These eight psalters may have
been copies of such books, they were not merely copies of the old
Latin psalter. The first book of Edward VI. did not come into use

^ See below, p. 2.

* J. Nichols, Illustrations, London, 1797, p. 13.

s Rot. Pat. I Ed. VI. Pars. 4 m. 7. Quoted by Gasquet and Bishop, Edward VI,
etc. 1890, chap. iv. p. 58.

xvi INTRODUCTION,

until Whitsunday, 1549, nearly a year after these psalters were bought,
and compline had been sung in English in the King's chapel as early as
Easter, 1547, and there were English mattins and evensong at St Paul's
and elsewhere in 1548.* It seems just possible that English services in
which these psalters were used might have been sung after August, 1548,
at St. Margaret's, Westminster.

There is a rhyming translation of the psalter by Robert Crowley,
which was published on September 20, 1549, a copy of which
Mr. Madan has shown me in Brasenose College Library. Its title
page is :

p;^ The Psalter of^ Dauid newely translated into Englysh || metre
in such sort that it maye the more || decently, and wyth more delyte of
the II mynde, be reade and songe of al men. || Whereunto is added a
note of four ^ partes^ wyth other thynges^ || as shall appeare in the || Epistle
to the II Readar. || i{<

<[ Translated and Imprinted by || Robert Crowley in the yere of ||
our Lorde. M,D, xlix, the \ xx, daye of September. || And are to be
solde II in Eley rentes in || Holbume. || i{4

Cum Priuilegio ad Imprimendum solum.

There is no colophon ; the greater part of the book is in black letter.
It is in 4°. The pages are unnumbered. The structure may be thus
expressed :

+ , + + , A— Z, Aa— Uu*.

The leaves measure 190 x 131 millimeters. The size of the page
including headline and catchword is 156 x 84 mm.

The book has been rebacked in modern times, but the sides
are apparently contemporary with the printing. The clasps have
disappeared.

The contents of the book are a calendar : the address to the christian
reader in which the author tells us he has added to the end of the book
all the canticles that are usually sung in the church, and that in
translating he has followed the version of Lejo Judas' : the four pans,
Countertenor, Tenor, Plainsong, and Bass : a dedication to Owen
Oglethorpe, then President of Magdalen College, Oxford : the psalter,
following the numbering of the Hebrews : and after the 150th psalm a
rhyming version of Magnificat, Nunc dimittisj BenedictuSy Benedicite,
Te Deum, which is called the songe of Nicetus the bishope^ and Quicunque
vult. With this the book ends.

It does not seem that the psalms or canticles were to be sung as we
now sing a modern metrical hymn ; but in a cadence just as the prayer
book psalms are sung either to Anglican or Gregorian chants. But it
would be an assumption if, without further evidence, it were stated that

* F. A. Gasqnet and Edm. Bishop, EchvArd VI. and the Book oj Common Prc^er^
London, iSqo, Ch. xi. p. i8i.

^ According to Hoefer {Nouvelle Biographie g^niralet Paris, 1858. t. xxvii. p. 134)
Leo Judas was born in 1482 and died in 1542. He was the natural son of a priest, not
of Jewish parentage. I have seen his Biblia, in the editions of Froschover and
Etienne, in the Bodleian Library.

INTRODUCTION, xvii

these rhyming psalms and canticles were intended to be sung in the
place of the psalms and canticles of the Ed¥rardian prayer book. It is
true that the early editions of Edward's First Prayer book did not
contain the psalter. But under a Tudor it would have been dangerous
to use a book of private adventure which possessed not even the authority
conveyed by the licence to Grafton and Whitchurch spoken of above.*

The clerk, a church minister inferior to the deacon and priest, has
been known in England since the days of St. Augustine and King
Ethelbert. Rules as to his marriage and manner of living are given by
St. Gregory the Great to St. Augustine of Canterbury*; and he is
spoken of in the laws of King Ethelbert, which probably determine that
his property shall be returned threefold when wrongfully taken from
him.'*

These officers existed also at the same time in other parts of
Western Christendom. They are spoken of by St. Isidore of Sevile,
and they were part of the clerical body clearly marked off from the lay
folk.* In 655 the third canon of the ninth council of Toledo speaks of
the minister together with the priest ; and in 666 the eighteenth canon
of the council of Merida enjoins the parish priest to have about him
clerks, with whom he could discharge his duty of praising God.* The
office of the clerk was thus to praise God by singing psalms and
canticles, and he was described by St. Isidore under the name of
psalmista^ and men were ordained to this office without the intervention
of the bishop, solely by the command of the priest.^ T\xt psalmista in
St. Isidore's enumeration of the clerical degrees is the fourth from the
lowest, the ostiarius?

* See above, p. xv.

*** St. Gregory the Great, Epistolae^ lib. xi. 64. (studio et labore MonachorumO.S.B.
Venetiis, 1771, t. viii. p. 297.)

* B. Thorp, Ancient Laws . . . England^ London, 1840, p. i. This seems to be
the interpretation of Bede. {HisL EccUs, lib. ii cap. v. Oxon. 1896, Ed. C. Plumnier,
vol. i. p. 90. ) In the laws of King Edgar (Thorp, p. 395) it is ordered that every priest
at the synod have his clerk.

^ Isidorus, de Eccles, offic, lib. ii. capp. i and 12. Venetiis, 1558.

^ Mansi, Sacrorttm Conciliorum etc. Florentiae, 1765, t. xi. coll. 27 and 86.

^ Solent autem ad hoc ofiicium etiam absque conscientia Episcopi sola iussione
presbyteri eligi quique, quos probabile, in cantandi arte esse constiterit. {op, cit, cap.
12. ) Here is an echo of the tenth canon of the fourth council of Carthage : Psalmista
id est cantor potest absque scientia episcopi sola iussione presbyteri ofEcium suscipere
cantandi, dicente sibi presbytero : Vide, ut quod ore cantas, corde credas, et quod corde
credis, operibus comprobes. (H. T. Bruns, Canones Apostolorum^ etc Berolini, 1839,
pars I. p. 142.) Gallican canons which are now often quoted as Statuta
ecclesiae antiqua^ or stcUtita antiqua ecclesiae Arelatensis, This form appears in the
English pontificals of Egbert (Surtees Society, 1853, p. 10.) and St. Dunstan,
(National Library, Paris, MS. Latin 943, fo. 45.) and Archbishop Robert. (Henry
Bradshaw Society, 1903, p. 115.)

« Letter of St. Isidore de gradibus in J. Saenz de Aguirre, ColUctio maxima
£oncilioruin omnium Hispania^^ ed. J. Catalani, Romae, 1753, t. iii. p. 455.

CLERK. b

xnii INTRODUCTION,

The clerk being one of the clergy, the lay folk were forbidden by
the penitential of Theodore to take the clerk's duties. The layman was
not to read the mass lesson at the altar, nor to sing alleluia at the rood
screen ; but he was only to recite psalms and responds, without allehna}
From this we may gather something of the duties of the clerk in the
time of Theodore. He could read the mass lesson or epistle, and sing
the alleluia or chant between the epistle and gospel, and this we find
distinctly expressed in the ninth century by Pope Leo IV. Every priest
was .to have a clerk who should be a scholar and able to read the
epistle or lesson, and to answer at mass, and who should also be
sufficient to sing the psalms, that is, to take his part in the divine
service, what we now call the breviary, or choir offices.

Omnis presbyter clericum habeat scholarem, qui^epistolam, vel lectionem
legat, et ad missam respondeat, cum quo et psalmos cantet.^

Hincmar, archbishop of Rhemes, a contemporary of Leo IV. in a
series of questions which remind us of modem Visitation articles, asks
if each church have a clerk who can keep a school, read the epistle, and
sing.

xi. Si habeat clericum qui possit tenere scholam, aut legere epistolam, aut
canere valeat, prout necessarium sibi videtur.^

Four centuries later these requirements from the clerk pass into the
general body of the canon law, in the decretals of Gregory IX. Every
rector is to have a clerk to sing the divine service with him, and to read
the epistle or lesson, one who is sufficient to teach in the school, and
who is to warn the parishioners to send their children to the church to be
instructed in the Christian faith.

Ut quisque presbyter, qui plebem regit, clericum habeat, qui secum cantet,
et epistolam et lectionem legat, et qui possit scholas tenere, et admonere suos
parochianos, ut Blios suos ad fidem discendam mittant ad ecclesiam, quos ipse
cum omni castitate erudiat.**

Thus the three main duties of the clerk are to be able to sing ; to
read the epistle ; and to teach.

The ability to sing appears amongst the earliest of the clerk's quali-
fications.^ Leo IV. distinctly states that it is the psalms which he has to
sing ; and the psalms being the main portion of the divine service, it will

^ § 14. Laiciis in aecclesia iuxta altare non debet lectionem recitare ad missam, nee in
pulpito alleluia cantare, sed psalmos tantum aut responsoria, sine Alleluia. (B. Thorpe,
Aiicieiit Laws . . . England ^ London, 1840, p. 304.)

'-* Leoiiis IV. papae homilia\ Migne, Patrologia^ 1852. t. 115. col. 677. The
variants of Martene and Labbe are given in this edition, but they are of no great
importance. See also Conimonitorium cuiusqtu episcopi ad sacerdotes xiii. in Martene
and Durand, Veterum Scriptorum etc. Parisiis, 1733. t. vii. col. 2.

^ Hincmari Rhemensis archiepiscopi Capitula quibus de rebus viagistri et decani
per singulas ecclesias inquirere episcopo renuntiare debeant. Migne, Patrologia^ 1852.
t. 125. col. 779. Cf. K^ino, de ecclesiasticis disciplinisy ed. S. Baluse, Paris, 167 1.
p. 24. No. 26.

* Decret, Gregorii IX, lib. iii. tit. i. cap. iii. in M, L. Richter, Corpus luHs
Canonicif Lipsiae, 1839, pars ii. col. 433.

' Isidore, de eccles, off, lib. ii. cap. 12.

INTRODUCTION. xix

be the divine service which the clerk is to sing with the priest and to
recite with him.

Then he is to read the epistle or the prophetical lesson, or one of the
lessons at Mattins.

Lastly, he is to be of sufficient education to keep the parish school.

Ability to Sing. — St. Gregory in his answer to St. Augustine of
Canterbury, says that clerks are not only to be of good life and
conversation but to be diligent in singing the psalms. The same
accomplishment is noted throughout : in Leo IV. Hincmar, and the
canon law.* Lyndwood twice notes that one of the parish clerk's duties
is to sing ; and to sing the responds and Grails,^ that is, parts of Mass
and of the divine service.

According to the rules, at Coventry in 1462 the clerks were to sing
at high mass and evensong.^ So at Faversham in 1506 they were to be
diligent to sing and do their duty at all services to be sung by note.*
Also at St. Michael's, Cornhill, some time before 1538, it was ordained
that the priests and clerks should be in the quire singing there from the
beginning of Mattins, Mass, and Evensong.® A priest was made Ruler
or Dean of the Quire, who appointed two Rectors for every high or
solemn feast, apparently out of the clerks. But nothing much is said
about singing in the rules of St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, written in
1542, where it is counted among such small things that can hardly be
set down on paper.*

At Coventry the first clerk was to be rector chori on the south side,
the second on the north, on feast days."' This was an office that was not
despised even by royal persons. We read that our King Richard I.
delighted in the divine service at the great festivals ; and that he went
up and down the quire, stirring them up by hand and voice to sing the
louder.^ And we all of us remember an incident in the life of Sir
Thomas More when Lord Chancellor, his acting as parish clerk, and
wearing a surplice.®

^ See above, p. xviii.

^ W. Lyndwood, Provinciale, lib. iii. tit. de concessione praebendae cap. a nostris
maioribus^ verba clericis and sciant.

•^ See below. Appendix I. §§ 4 and 6, pp. 57 and 58.

* See below, Appendix V. § 4, p. 76.

® See below. Appendix VI. § 6, p. 83.

® See below, Appendix VIII. § 17, p. 91.

' See below, Appendix I. §§ 6 and 50, pp. 58 and 61.

^ Ralph of Co^geshall, Chronicon Anglicanunij Rolls Series, 1875, P* 97* Circa
divinum officium in praecipuis solemnitatibus plurimum delectabktur . . . atque
per chorum hue illucque deambulando, voce ac manu, ut altius concreparent, excitabat.

^ "This good Duke oi Norfolke comming on a tyme to Chelsey to dyne with Syr
Thomas More, found him in the Church, singing in the Quier, with a Surplisse on
his backe : to whome (after Masse was done) as they went towardes his house,
together arme in arme, the Duke said : Gods body, Gods body, my Lord Chancellour,
what turned Parish Clarke ? You dishonor the ICing and his Office very much. Nay
(quoth Syr Thomas More smyling vpon the Duke) your Grace may not thinke that the
King your Maister and myne, wilbe offended with me for seruing God his Maister,
or therby accompt his Seruice any way dishonoured." (William Roper, The Mirrour
of Vertue . , , the life of Syr Thomas More, Paris, 1626. p. 83. It is to the
same effect though not verbatim in § xvii. p. 64 of the London edition of 1729.)

b 2

XX INTRODUCTION.

Immediately after the accession of Elizabeth, the clerks seem to be
held responsible by Parkhurst for the character of the music, that it
be modest and distinct. Grindal speaks only of ability to read. The
Canons of 1603 speak of the clerk's "competent skill in singing (if it
may be.)"^ And thence the demand upon this point becomes very
usual in the visitation articles until the eighteenth century.

An instance of the misbehaviour of a parish clerk not only in doing
servile work on a Sunday and in refusing to kneel at proper times, but
also in making a jest of the music in church, is found in James I.'s
reign.

Eastkam, Contra Thomam Milhome, Presentatur, for spreadinge mowle
hills with a shovell in the churchyard upon the Sundaye next Septuagesima
last being the xiiith daye of Februarie 1013 and that betweene mominge and
eveninge prayer ; and was then taken at worke by the minister and other of the
parishioners, and for that he doth not kneele on his knees in tyme of devine
service when as it is fittinge he should and the rather in that he is the parishe
clerke who ought to give good example therby unlo others that are negligent
therin, and he hath often tymes bene admonished for to kneele by the minister
but he doth altc^ether refuse it. And for that he singeth the psalmes in the
church with such a jesticulus tone and altisonant voyce, viz. squeakinge like a
gelded pigg which doth not onlie interrupt the other voyces, but is altogether
dissonant and disagreeing unto any musicall harmonie and he hath been
requested by the minister to leave it, but he doth obstinatlie persist and
contynue therein.^

But the great rebellion, among other evils, seems to have caused
a decrease in the qualifications and education, especially the musical
education, of the parish clerk. So, at least, John Playford complains :

But at this day the Best^ and almost all the Choice Tutus are lost, and out of
use in our Churches : nor must we expect it otherwayes, when in and about this
great City, in above One hundred Parishes, there is but few Parish Clerks to be
found that have either Ear or Understanding to Set one of these Tunes Musically
as it ought to be : It having been a Custom during the late Wars, and since, to
Chuse men into such places, more for their Poverty than Skill and Ability ;
Whereby this part of God's Service hath been so ridiculously performed in most
places, that it is now brought into Scorn and Derision by many people.^

And apparently the scandal went on in the following century ; for a
parish clerk, in a work published by the company, in 1731, says :

My Meaning is this : The Parish-Clerk is oftentimes chosen rather for his
Poverty^ to prevent a Charge to the Parish^ than either for his Virtue or
Skill ; or else for some other By-end or Pur^se, more than for the immediate
Honour and Service of Almighty God and his Church^

Playford adds that it was in his time the custom for the clerk to
read out every line of the hymn before it was sung, a practice which
some of us no doubt can remember in our youth, though it has now
almost entirely disappeared. The parish clerk just quoted tells us of the

^ See below, Appendix XI. pp. 98 and 99.

'■* W. H. Hale, A Series of precedents . . . extructed from Act books ofEcclesi'
astical Courts in the Diocese of London, London, 1847, P* 238.

^ John Playford, Psalms and Hyntns in solemn musick London, Godbid, 1671. fo.
Prefece a 2. [B.M. Music G. 80.]

* The Parish Clerks Guide . . . by B. P. Parish Clerk, London, reprinted
by John March for the Company of Parish-Clerks, 1731, p. 19.

I
i
I
I
I
I

I
I
i

INTRODUCTION, xxi

custom of '* bespeaking" the psalm with these words, Let us Sing to the
Praise and Glory of God^ which has likewise gone out of use. He
justifies it with this analogy : "As the Priest has his Oremus^ Let us pray ^
so the Clerk has his CantemusJ^^ It seems clear that down to this date
one of the chief duties of the parish clerk was to sing.

Ability to Read the Epistle and Lesson. — This portion of the
clerk's duties is one of the best pieces of evidence that we have of the
good education required of those who undertook the clerk's office.
For he who could read the Latin epistle or a lesson at Mattins must
have possessed an education not far short of the parson himself.

Leo IV. and the Decretals of Gregory IX. mention the reading of
the epistle or lesson amongst the duties of the clerk ; Hincmar the
epistle only, but doubtless under the name of epistle is included the
prophetical lesson. For in the life of St. Godric, there is a story which
may well represent the practice of the twelfth century ; a young clerk
who wished to become a soldier and abandon his clerical profession, was
made to read Misit rex Herodes^ the epistle, as it is called, at the mass
on Lammas day, and thus, to his shame, discover his clerkly abilities.'
Misit rex Herodes is a portion of scripture taken from the Acts of the
Apostles, and read in many uses on Lammas day as the lesson in
place of the epistle.

John of Athon incidentally mentions this duty of the clerk when
speaking of a disputed election, for when the clerk appointed by the
parson began to read the epistle the clerk named by the parishioners
snatched the book from the other's hand, and smote him to the
earth with effusion of blood.*

In 141 1 CUfford Bishop of London sanctioned an arrangement by
which the Vicar of Elmstead was to find one clerk to help him to
celebrate private masses on week days, and on holy days to read the
epistle.*

Lyndwood, who wrote later than John of Athon, affirms more than
once that it is the business of the clerk to read the epistle.** He had also
to sing the grail and the responds.

In practice we find the parish clerk reading the epistle at Coventry,®

* B. P. op, cit, p. 32.

' Libellus de vita et vniracuHs S, Godrici., Surtees Society, 1847, cap. cix. p. 226.

' John of Athon, Constitutiones Othoboni, de residentia Archiepiscoporum^ cap.
Pastor bonuSi verb, sanctae obedientiae^ Appendix to Lyndwood, Provinciuie, Oxon.
1679. p. 119.

'* Rio. Newcourt, Repertorium^ Lond. 17 10, voL ii. p. 243.

* Lyndwood, Provinciate Lib. iii. tit. de concessione praebendae^ cap. a noitris
fnaioribusy ad verba Clericis and sciant, Oxon. 1679. pp. 142, 143. By the
Customary of St. Augustine's Canterbury, written in the first half of the fourteenth
century, the novices soon after their profession were to read the lessons and epistles,
sing the grails and responds, and to serve in other matters of less importance.
{Custotftary of the Benedictine Monasteries of St, Angttsttne^ Canterbury ^ and
St, Peter f IVesttninster^ Ed. by Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, H.B.S. 1902,
vol. i. p. 273.)

^ See below, Appendix I. p. 61. § 54.

xxii INTRODUCTION,

St. Nicholas, Bristol/ and Faversham.^ At St. Nicholas, Bristol, he had
to pay a fine of twopence, apparently every day that he failed to
sing.

John de Burgo notes that it is lawful for a clerk only in minor orders
to read the epistle in the mass, if a subdeacon be not at hand. But
at the same time he is not to read solemnly with the ornaments of a
subdeacon.'

So the right of the clerk to read the epistle was not to be exercised
without restriction. In 1229 the eleventh constitution of W. de Bloys
orders that no one shall read the epistle who is not a subdeacon except
in case of necessity.* Necessity in the hands of a canonist has a very
elastic meaning, and most likely the constitution only means that the
clerk may not read the epistle if a subdeacon be present, as John de
Burgo holds.

At the introduction of the first book of Edward VI. there seems to
have been no break with this custom of the past. The clerk's book
now edited certainly contemplates in more places than one, the reading
of the epistle and of the lesson by the clerk. In the communion
service itself, the epistle is directed to be read either by the priest or
clerk.* Accordingly at the communion of the sick, the epistle is given
in full, plainly that the clerk may have it ready before him to
read, while merely the first words of the rest of the service are
given.*

So too at the communion when there is a burial the epistle is given
in full for the same reason.'' At the burial service, the priest or clerk
is to read the lesson.® Thus it can hardly be doubted that the clerk
continued under Edward VI.'s first book the old office of reading the
epistle at mass and one or more of the lessons at mattins. Of this
latter there is evidence from the accounts of St. Margaret's, Westminster,
where in 1553 they paid thirteen shillings and fourpence "for the
pulpit, where the Curate and the Clark did read the chapters at service
time."* And at Ludlow in 155 1 they paid three shillings and four-
pence to the deacons, under which name the parish clerks appear, " for
readynge the first chapter."^"

The practice also prevailed under Elizabeth. In the metropolitical
visitations of Grindal, whether as Archbishop of York or of Canterbury,
he inquires whether the parish clerk is able to read the first lesson and the

? See below, Appendix III. p. 68, § 23.
^ See below, Appendix V. p. 76, § 4.

^ John de Burgo, Pup ilia oculi, pars vii. de sacrauiento ordinis^ cap. v. sub fine,
Argentini, Knoblouch, 1514, fo. cii.

* \)t nuUus epistolam legat in ecclesia nisi fiierit subdiaconus nisi causa necessitatis.
(D. Wilkins, Cofuilia, London, 1737. t. i. p. 624.) He was bishop of Worcester.

' See below, p. 35.

• See below, p. 46.
' See below, p. 52.
^ See below, p. 49.

' J. Nichols, lllustratiotis of the Alatuiers, etc. London, 1797. p. 14.
^^ Churchwardens' Accounts of the Town of LucUow, ed. Thomas Wright, Camden
Society, 1869. p. 47.

INTRODUCTION, xxUi

epistle^ Aylmer, Bishop of London, makes this same inquiry in 1577,'
and William Wickham, Bishop of Lincoln, asks the same question in
1585' and 1588,* and another bishop of the same see, William
Chaderton, also puts the same in 1598.^

After 1603, the inquiry whether the parish clerk be able to read the
first lesson and episde does not seem to be continued. . Yet clerks not
in holy orders continued in certain cathedral churches to read both
epistle and gospel, for it is forbidden by Laud at Winchester in his
metropolitical visitation of that church. It is quite reasonable that this
should be forbidden in a church with a large staff. It has been seen
that John de Burgo only allowed the clerk in minor orders to read the
epistle in the absence of the subdeacon, and in a church like Win-
chester a clerk in holy orders ought never to be wanting to assist the
celebrant.*

But clerks in minor orders to whom the duty of reading the gospel and
epistle was assigned continued after the Restoration of Church and State
in 1 660. There has been printed a list of the chapter at Worcester in
October, 1661 : after the clerks in holy orders come the lower clerks :

School-master ... John Toy.

Usher ... ... ... ... ... Stephen Richardson.

Deacon or gospeller ... ... ... Humphrey Withie.

Subdeacon or epistler ... ... ... John Laight.

Precentor ... ... ... ... Philip Tinker.

Sacrist ... ... ... ... ... John Sayre.'

That the custom of allowing clerks not in holy orders to read the
epistle had not died out in the middle of the nineteenth century is
shown by the following passage from one who claims to have been a
scholar of Merton College, Oxford.

When I was an undergraduate nt Merton College nearly fifty years ago, it
was the custom, if there were but one priest at the altar, for one of the scholars
to read the Epistle from the lowest chancel step on the Epistle side. . . .
That the custom existed at that time I am certain, for I was the unfortunate
scholar who read it.^

Mr. F. C. Eeles has given me the following statement :

At Keighley in the West Riding of Yorkshire it was the custom some thirty
or forty years ago for the parish clerk to wear a black gown and bands. He

^ The remahts of Ecbnund Grindaly Parker Society, 1843, P* 14^) § 2^* ^^'^ P* ^68,

§39.

'•* Appendix E to second report of the Royal Commission on Rttualy 1868. p. 420.

§ 31. The epistle does not appear in 1586. (p. 430.)

^ Articles . . . Dieocs^ of Lincoln^ London, 1585, § 24.

^ Idem^ London 1588. § 41.

^ Idem^ Cambridge, John Legat, 1598, § 33.

^ Itepa Dominus iniunxit, quod nullus dicti chori praesumat legere epistolas sive
c'vangelium, nisi prius sit in sacris ordinibus constitutus. ( Works of , . , William
Laud, Anglo-Catholic library, 1853. vol. v. p. 478.)

^ John Noake, The Monastery and Cathedral of Worcester, London and Worcester,
1866. p. 569.

* Church Times, March 30. 1899. p. 377 col. ii. A letter to the editor, signed
Mertoncttsis.

xxiv INTRODUCTION.

read the first lesson and the epistle. To read the latter he lett his seat below
the pulpit and went up to the altar and took down the book from behind ;
after reading the epistle within the altar rails he replaced the book and
returned to his place. Keighley parish church retained a number of old
customs at that time ; e.g, the people who sat facing across the church turned
to the east at the Gloried s^ the older people used to bow towards the altar on
entering the church, and the altar was decorated with a large display of plate.
This was told me by a man who was bom and brought up there, and who
remembers fasting communion being practised in his own family.

The reading of the lesson also continued into our own time. Am-
brose Fisher replying to those who complained that their forces were
exhausted in readiing the service before they got to the really important
part of divine worship, the sermon, says that " one of the Chapters is in
many churches read by the Clark."' John Johnson says: "those
Singing-Men, who read the first Lesson, are called Lay-Clerks (a
contradictory name.) "*

Giles Jacob says of parish clerks : " Their business consists chiefly
in responses to the minister, reading lessons, singing psalms."® In
Cornwall, in the first half of the nineteenth century, it was said : " A
very short time since, parish clerks used to read the first lesson."* The
reading of the epistle and of the first lesson by the clerk must have been
given up on account of an increasing want of education in these church
officers. But this ability to read is an essential part of their duty, and
no parish clerk ought to be appointed hereafter who is unable
satisfactorily to perform it.

Ability to Teach. — It has been seen that together with ability to
sing the psalms and read the epistle the clerk was also to be of
sufficient capacity to teach the children of the parishioners.* Perhaps
this is the least prominent of the clerk's duties in the middle ages. It
is sometimes said that in 1237 the Constitutions of Alexander, Bishop
of Coventry, require the clerk to be a teacher ; but it looks uncertain.
It is true that scholars are named who take about the holy water in
country places, but there is no exact indication that these scholars are
to teach." An ordination of John Peckham touching the church of
Bakewell is hardly more to the point. He requires that two clerks
(clerici scholasHct) shall take round the holy water on Sundays and
other festivals; but on week days they are to engage in disciplinis
scholasticism but whether this means that they are to teach or be
taught is not at all clear. It may mean that the two clerks kept the
school.

^ Ambrose Fisher, A defence of the Liturgie^ London, 1630. p. 7.

'^ John Johnson, Clergy-man^ s Vade-fnecum^ London, 1709. Ch. xxiii. vol. i. p. 203.

^ Giles Jacob, Neiv Law Dictionary^ ninth edition, London, 1772. s.v, parish
clerk.

■* R. Polwhele, Traditions and Recollections,, 1826, vol. i. p. 606. note. So also
T. D. Fosbroke, Encyclopaedia of Antiquities ^ London, 1825, vol. ii. p. 680.

'^ See above, p. xviii.

® Constitutiones Alexandri Covent. episcopi, in D. Wilkins, Concilia^ London, 1737.
t. i. p. 641. The passage is given at length below, p. li.

' W. Dugdale, MonasticoUy ed. Caley, Ellis, and Bandinel, Lond. 1830. vol. vi.
part iii. p. 1246. See the passage quoted below, p. lii.

INTRODUCTION. xxv

There is an allusion in Matthew Paris to the keeping of school by
the parish clerk mtUtis dUbus scolas exercens in the woeful story of
the exaction^ of the officer of the Roman court.'

This instance comes from the thirteenth century. But during the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries I have been able to gather no
evidence of teaching by the clerk. In the sixteenth there are these
few. In 1506, at Faversham, the clerks or one of them had to teach
the children to read and sing in the quire and to do service.* Also
at St. Giles', Reading, in 1544-45, they "payd to Whitbome the clerk
towardes his wages and he to be bound to teche ij children for the
quere xiji*."'

There may be an allusion to the clerk's teaching of children at
St. Nicholas, Bristol, when he is told to take no book out of the quire
for children to learn.*

In Elizabethan times Dr. Raine notes that the parish clerk of
Woodhorne, Amor Oxley, was an eminent schoolmaster*; but it is
probably a mere coincidence.

In the succeeding centuries there is still less material.

\Vhite Kennett tells us that the parish clerk ought to instruct the
children in reading and writing and rehearsing the church catechism.®

A >vriter in the Gentleman's Magazine^ at the beginning of the
nineteenth century complains of the ignorance of the parish clerk of his
time, and suggests as a remedy that they should be taken hereafter from
a better class, such as would make good parish schoolmasters.''

To these three chief duties were added, in the later middle ages, a
multitude of others, many of them servile, until in our days, instead of
the parish clerk being the man of the best education in the parish next
to the parson, he has sunk to a lower level than that of a domestic
servant.

As the clerk was bound to attend the priest in the divine service, it
was considered that it was also his duty to be with the priest in all clerical
functions, to assist him in the ministration of sacraments and
sacramentals ; in short, wherever the priest went on duty within or
without the church the clerk also went.

Some of these lesser duties of the parish clerk may now be spoken
of, first considering that which is given him by Lyndwood, as the most
important.

To ASSIST IN Ministering Sacraments and Sacramentals. — This
duty is spoken of by Lyndwood, who says that no one can have a doubt

^ Matthew Paris, Chronica Maiora^ Rolls Series, 1880. ed. H. R. Luard, vol. v.
p. 172. See below, p. 'Hi. for the whole story.

*^ See below, Appendix V. p. 77, § 10.

^ W. L. Nash, Churchwarden^ Account book for the parish of St, dies' Reading'-,
1881. p. 74.

** See below, Appendix III. p. 69, § 33.

* The Injunctions . . . of Richard Barnes f Snrtecs Society, iS^o, p, 4$,

* White Kennett, Parochial Antiquities, Oxford, 1695. Glossary jz/^ 2;^^ Clericus
Sacerdotis.

^ Gentleman s Magazine, 1 801. vol. 71. p. 1090.

xxvi INTRODUCTION.

that this ministration belongs to the divine service.^ Thus if the clerk
be bound to help the priest in the divine service he must be bound also
to help him in ministering sacraments and sacramentals.

At Faversham the first of the clerks' duties is that one of them shall
diligently attend the Vicar or his deputy in the ministration of
sacraments and sacramentals at all times both by day and night.^ Also
at St. Stephen's, (!^oleman Street, the clerks were at no time to be out
of the way, but one was to be always ready to minister sacraments and
sacramentals to anyone that should need them, to wait upon the curate,
and to give him warning : and that none of the clerks should go or ride
out of town without special licence of the Vicar and church-
wardens.^

Included in this greater duty is the lesser duty :

To attend on the parson visiting the sick, — Lyndwood speaks of this,
recommending that the clerk be clad in a surplice and carry the light.^
At Coventry the clerk is to go with the priest when he visits the sick
in his ward.* So also at All Saints, Bristol.* At St. Nicholas, Bristol,
the Suffragan went, bearing the surplice, book, oil fat, and stole.' At
St. Michael's, Cornhill, the clerks were to be " redye at all visitacions
accustomed."®

At Wighton, a church belonging to York minster, the parishioners
present, about the year 1470, that the parish clerk absents himself
when the Vicar visits the sick, and sends only a boy with the Vicar.*

Bale, in the following century, profanely describes the visitation of
the sick.

Than came he, ful lyke a religious confessour, wyth hys cake God in a boxe,
and the parish clarke or sextan wyth a bell and a lanterne.^^

The parish clerk was accustomed to go with the priest to visit the
sick in the eighteenth century ; for we find it incidentally mentioned in
a tract published by the company of parish clerks. We, that is the
parish clerks, are

always conversant in Holy Places, in Holy Things ; sucji as are the Holy
Sacraments of Baptism and the Lorcts Supper ; yea, and in the most serious
Things too, such as the Visitation of the Sick^ where we do often attend, and
at the Burial of the Dead?^

■

^ Provincialey lib. iii. tit. de coticessione praebendae^ cap. a nostris maioribuSy
ad verb, deservire^ Oxon. 1679, p. 142.
*** See below, Appendix V. p. 75, § 1.
^ See below, Appendix VIII. p. 91, §§ 12, 13.

* Provinciate^ lib. iii. lit. de retiquiisy cap. Digftissimum^ ad verba saltern and
lumitie pranjioy Oxon. 1679, p. 249.

* See beJow, Appendix I. p. 59, § 36, p. 62, § 61.

* See below. Appendix II. p. 65, § 2.

^ See below, Appendix III. p. 68, § 21.

" See below. Appendix VI. p. 82, § 5.

^ Fabric Rolls of York MinstiV, Surtees Society, 1859, p. 257.

'® John Bale, A declaration of Edmonde Bontters articles y London, Frauncys
Coldocke, 156 1, fo. 80.

^* The Parish' Clerk's Guide, by B. P. Parish-Clerk, London, Company of Parish
Clerks, 1731. p. 16.

INTRODUCTION, xxvii

Minor Duties. — It has been said just above that the minor duties
of the clerk became multitudinous. The greater part of these are
named in the following extract from the Statutes of the collegiate church
of St. Mary Ottery, where the duties are arranged under eight heads, as
follows :

Item eciam sacrista idem in periculo anime sue et in virtute sacramenti
prcstiti sepius moneat et inducat aquebaiulos et alios duos clericos ecclesie
nuncupatos quod diligentes sint, solliciti, et devoti circa

campanas pulsandas,

luminaria accendenda,

vestimenta plicanda,

altaria ornanda,

ignem et carbones preparandos et querendos,

ecclesiam mundandam,

sconsas et boettas illuminandas,

et in privatis missis sacerdotibus ministrandum.^

The duties of the clerks, then, would be these : i. to ring the bells ;
ii. to light the ritual lamps and candles ; iii. to fold up the vestments ;
iv. to array the altars ; v. to fetch and make ready fire and coal ; vi. to
keep the church clean ; vii. to light the lanterns and sconses ; and viii.
to serve the priest at low mass.

I. To ring the bells, — In Germany this was considered so important
a part of the clerk's duty that it seems to have given him his name of
Campanariusi^ Even to this day it is part of the duty of the ostiarius^
the lowest of the minor orders as the modern Roman pontifical still
testifies, and the Latin edition of the Canons of 1603 gives the name of
ostiarius to the parish clerk.*

At St. Stephen's Bristol in 1393, the clerk was paid for tolling the
bell.*' The duty is prominent amongst the constitutions of clerks from
that of Coventry in 1462, to that of Barrow on Humber in 1713, and in
the visitation articles of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
At Coventry besides ringing the day bell, and for mattins, high mass,
and evensong, they had to ring for the sacring of the high mass, and at
procession, for compline in Lent, and for none on Saturdays and holy
day eves.*

There was, besides, the ringing at funerals and obits, and upon All
Souls' eve. Also the bells were to be rung when the bishop, the king,

^ George Oliver, Mottasticon Dioecesis Exoniensis^ Exeter, 1846, p. 271. § 46.

'* Labbe and Cossart, Sacrosaticta Concilia^ Venetiis, 1731. t. xiv. col. 1286.
Council of Cologne, 1300. canon xvii. JV^ campanarii sint illiterati. Prohibemus
item ne deinceps campanarii in villis et ecclesiis parochialibus ibidem assumantur, nisi
literati, qui in defectu respondentis ad altare, cum camisiis lineis assistant, in missis
deservientes presbytero, ne ministrator carent socio sibi respondent e. Also for the
same word see the Council of Triers in 1238, in Martene and Durand, Veterwn
Scriptorum etc., Parisiis, 1733, t. vii. col. 128. Canon xvi. Campanarii sine camisia
in superior! non serviant in ecclesia vel alias in divinis.

* Constitutiones sive Cationes ecclesiasticiy London, John Norton, 1604. Canon 91.

* T. P. Wadley, Notes or abstracts of the wills , , , at Bristol, Bristol and
Gloucestershire Society, 1886, p. 42.

5 See below. Appendix L Coventry, p. 57, §§ 2, 4, p. 58, §§ 5, 9, p. 60, §§39, 41,
42. Also p. 61, § 49, 52, p. 62, § 66, p. 63, §§ 74, 75, 77, 79.

xxviii INTRODUCTION,

the queen, and the prince, came^ j this reminds us that it was ordered
at St. Margaret's, Lothbury, in 1571, that the clerk should ring a peal
at the passing by of the queen's majesty, by water or land.'-*

With the exception of these lesser details, the rules were very much
the same at St. Nicholas, Bristol, but they had also to ring the bells to
keep off thunder and to the lady mass in Lent.^

At Faversham, the duty of ringing the bells seems to fall more into
the hands of the sexton than of the clerk* ; but the clerks were to help
the sexton when he had need.* At St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, the
sexton rang curfew,* and also for mattins, as the clerks were to give
him help if he wanted it, and they also rang the bells for mass, evensong,
the Lent compline, and curfew when the sexton was away, and to ail
manner of divine service after the use and cubtom of the city of
London.'

In 1 5 10, the parishioners of Wighton complain of

a faut that our parish clerk that he hath not done his dewlie to the kirk,
that is to say, lyngyng of the morne bell and the evyn bell.

There is added immediately, surely by the clerk himself,

and also a nother fawt, he fyndes that powr mene pays hym not his
wages.®

In 1548, they paid at Ludlow twelve pence to the deacons "for
rynginge day belle after Easter at Mr. baylifes commaundyment.-'®

In 157 1, at St. Margaret's Lothbury, the duty of ringing the bells is
divided between the clerk and the sexton, the sexton ringing the
morning and evening bell, while the clerk rings for burials, apparently
as being the more profitable, and also the passing bell.^^

At Barrow on Humber, the clierk had to attend at churchings and
burials and to toll a bell and ring a little, according to the accustomed
manner.^^

Dr. W. D. Macray has given me an abstract of a document in the
Bodleian Librarj' which is the official record, dated December 12th,
1 47 1, of the foundation by Thomas Peyton in the church of Iselham,
Cambridgeshire, of the ringing by the parish clerk of the smallest of
four bells, the one called Gabriel, immediately after the death of any
parishioner. But it was not to be rung unseasonably, in the silence of
the night.*'*

' p. 59, §31, p. 63, §75-

'^ See below, Appendix IV. p. 74.

' See below. Appendix III. p. 68, § 20,

* See below, Appendix V. p. 78, § 19 and p. 79, §§ 20, 21.

*p. 77»§".

" See be^ow, Appendix VIII. p. 90, § 3.

' p. 91, § 14, and p. 92, §§ 23, 26.

** Fabric Rolls of York Minster, Surtees Society, 1859, p. 265.

* Churchwardens^ Accounts of the Town of Ludlow, Ed. Thos. Wright, Camden
Society, 1869, p. 35

^® See below, Appendix IV. pp. 72 and 73.

" See below. Appendix XIV. p. 109, § 2.

*^ Bodleian Library, Cambridgeshire charter 60.

INTRODUCTION. xxix

In the visitation articles of the seventeenth century, it is often
enquired if the clerk ring the passing bell, as well as the bell before
divine service.* The tolling of the bell before prayers appears in the
visitation articles of Fleetwood, Bishop of St. Asaph, in 17 ic' The
duty of ringing morning and afternoon bells and curfew is expressly
mentioned at Barrow on Humber in 17 13.'

It must have been the custom for the clerk to carry about a little
bell before a funeral; for we find it forbidden in 1583, by the
Injunctions of Middleton, Bishop of St. David's, a convinced puritan :

2. Item, that the Clark nor his deputie, do carie about the Towne, a little
bell called the Sainctes bell before the Buriall, after the vse of Popishe
superstition."^

Besides ringing the bells, the clerk had also to take care of them,
and see that all things connected with them, such as the ropes,
baldricks, and clappers were in good order.* They were also to grease
them.* At Ludlow in 1564 they paid the deacon for mending the
bellropes.'

Attention to the church clock was also part of the clerk's duties, as
the proverb testifies : The clock goes as it pleases the clerk. At Cawood
in 1 5 10, we find him keeping the clock, ringing curfew at due times
appointed by the parish, and also ringing the day bell.® At Pilton also
he kept the clock.* At St. Giles', Reading, in 1534, they paid Stevyn
Bisbrige is. 6d. " for kepying of the clock ed chyme for a yere " and to
the same man 6s. Sd., '* for his service in the quere for a yere." Thus
he was a clerk, but it is not likely that he was the parish clerk.*®

2. To light the lamps. — These must be the ritual lamps and candles.
At St. Nicholas, Bristol, the suffragan was to have a torch ready for the
masses, daily ; and he put out all the lights in the quire and on the
altars. Further, he was charged with all other lights and the quire
light; also he kept two lamps burning, and saw that they had oil.
The undersuffragan provided two torches at the high mass sacring on
Sundays." At St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, the sexton was to light

^ See below, Appendix XI. pp. 100 and loi.
2 Appendix XI. p. 102.

» See below. Appendix XIV. p. 109, § 2, p. no, §§ 3, 4, 7, 9, 10. Cf. also
p. 102, § 7.

* Appeftdix E. to Second Report of the Royal Com/utssion on Ritual^ 1868, p. 427.

* Coventry, Appendix I. §§ 22, 57, 58, St. Nicholas Bristol, Appendix III. § 36,
St. Margaret, Lothbury, Appendix IV. p. 74. St. Michael's, Cornhill, Appendix
VI. p. 83. Barrow on Humber, Appendix XIV. § 2.

* Coventry, Appendix I. §§ 29, 57. Barrow on Humber, Appendix XIV. § 2.

' Churchwardens'' Accounts of the Town of Ludlow^ Ed. Thos. Wright, Camden
Society, 1869, p. 119.

* Fabric Rolls of York Minster, Surtees Society, 1859, p. 266.

* Churchwardens* Accounts, Somerset Record Society, 1890, p. 70.

1" W. L. Nash, The Churchwardens* Account Book . . . of St. Giles, Reading*,
1 88 1, Part i. p. 49.

" See below. Appendix III. p. 66, § 3, p. 69, § 35, p. 68, 30. The text of § 30
seems somewhat obscure.

XXX INTRODUCTION,

the candles every Sunday and holiday in the year and put them out
again. ^

At Coventry the senior clerk had to tend the lamp and to fetch oil
for it.*

At Faversham the clerk had to see that a light was in the quire while
any mass was being sung, and the sexton had to see that it was kept up
day and night, and that oil was supplied. The sexton also had to light
the tapers and beams (the lights on the beams) according* to the
solemnity of the feast, at first evensong, mattins, mass, and last
evensong.*

At Coventry the under clerk had to deliver to the woman about to be
churched a taper, and bread for holy bread.*

At St. Nicholas, Bristol, clerk and suffragan had to tend the light
before the sepulchre until Easter Even.'

Early in the sixteenth century, the Founders' Company in the city of
London paid twelvepence a year to the Sexton for attending to their
light and for ringing.® About the same time they paid fourpence to
the Clerk and Sexton at St. Michael's, Bishops Stortford, for keeping the
lamps at Easter. "^

3. To fold up the vestments, — In the latter half of the fifteenth century,
at Yatton, there is a reward of fourpence "paide to T. Clerke for
foldyng of the vestments," every year.' At Coventry the clerks had to
see the book, chalice, and vestment laid up in the vestry after
mass, and to fold up the albes and vestments every Sunday and
holiday.*

At St. Nicholas, Bristol, this duty had to be done on week days as
well as on principal feasts. ^^ At Faversham the ornaments for the
principal feast which were kept in the treasury had to be taken thence
and brought back again by the clerks." At All Saints, Bristol, the clerk
was to be true and profitable unto the church in keeping and guiding
(guarding ?) the vestments, books, jewels and all other ornaments."

In the late seventeenth century a parish clerk, writing about his duties,
tells us that " the clerk is to take care . . of the Holy Vestments, that
they be decently kept."** And at Barrow on Humber it was part of the

* See below, Appendix VIII. p. 90, § 2.
- See below. Appendix I. p. 59, § 32.

=» See below, Appendix V. p. 76, § 2 and p. 79, §§ 22, 23.
"* See below, Appendix I. p. 63, § 73.
^ See below, Appendix III. p. 67, § 16.
® Archaeological Journal^ 1806, vol. xliii, p. 170.

' J. L. Glasscock, Records of St, MichaeCs Parish Churchy Bishop* s Stortford^
London, 1882, p. ii.

* Churchwardens* Account Sy Somerset Record Society, edited by Bishop Hobhouse,
i8qo, p. 113.

^ See below, Appendix I. p. 57, §§ I, 37, p. 61, § 55.
10 See below, Appendix III. p. 67, §§ 9, 18.
** See below. Appendix V. p. 76, § 4.
^2 See below, Appendix II. p. 64, § i.

" The Parish Clerk's Vade Mccum, by B. P. Parish Clerk, London, Benj. Molte,
1694, Preface to the Reader.

INTRODUCTION, xxxi

clerk's business to lay up carefully the communion cloth, carpet, and
surplice.*

Allied to this is the duty of mending and washing the vestments. At
St. Nicholas, Bristol, the suffragan had to see that the albes, amices,
towels and altar cloths were washed, at the expense of the church-
wardens.^ In the tract issued by the Ecclesiological Society, instructing
parish clerks in their duties, they are told that it is their business to see
that " the surplices are clean and in good repair."'

4. To array the altars, — At Coventry the clerks had to wait upon the
churchwardens at the first evensong of every principal feast to array the
high altar with the cloths necessary for it ; and the second clerk made
ready the high altar every day for the priest to sing high mass.^ At St.
Nicholas, Bristol, both clerk and suffragan saw the altars dressed on
principal feasts. ^ At St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, the clerks had to
bring forth the copes, vestments, and apparels for the altars, on festival
days, with the jewels for the altars, and disarray them again as the
season required.* At Faversham the clerks had to apparel the altars
dnily where any priest was to sing mass, high mass, or morrow mass, or
after. Also to apparel the altars against every principal feast with such
apparel as belongeth to them.^

At Morebath one of the points agreed on in 1536 was that the clerk
should help the churchwarden to make up the vestments and to dress
the altars.^

At Coventry the clerks had to help the churchwardens at the
beginning of Lent to cover the altar, and rood, with Lent cloths and to
hang up the Lenten veil between the choir and the presbytery and to
take them down again when the Easter had come." The Lenten cloths,
Mr. W. H. St. John Hope has shown with great fulness, were white in
colour.*"

5. To fetch and make ready fire and coal, — Not a hundred years ago
fire had to be struck with flint and steel, a troublesome affair. Thus in
the early ages it had to be provided for as the duty of a special ofiicen
The fetching of fire occurs in many of the clerks' constitutions.

At St. Nicholas, Bristol, he is to fetch fire for the censers in a fire-
plate, and not in the censer." At Faversham they had to see that light
or fire was in the chancel, the clerk during the time of mass, the sexton

^ See below. Appendix XIV. p. 109, § i.
^ See below. Appendix III. p. 58, § 26.

^ A few words to the Parish Clerks and Sextons of Country Parishes, Third Ed.
London, 1846, p. 7, § ii.
^ See below. Appendix I. p. 58, § 19, p. 63, § 80.
' See below. Appendix III. p. 67, § 10.
^ See below. Appendix VIII. p. 91, § 15.
' See below. Appendix V. p. 76, §§ 2, 3, p. 77, §9.
^ See below. Appendix VII. p. 88, § 13.
* See below. Appendix I. p. 59, §§ 38, 25.

" Transactions of St. Paulas Ecclesiological Society, 1886-1890, voL iL p. 233.
" See below. Appendix IIL p. 68, § 24.

xxxii INTRODUCTION,

by day and night.* At St. Michael's, Cornhill, they had to provide for
fire on all such feasts as incense was offered.* At St. Stephen's,
Coleman Street, the sexton fetched fire in time of need, and the clerks
had to see it ready in the censers before it was needed.'

At Coventry the second deacon had to see that the churchwardens
provided the coals and fire on Easter Even.*

6. To keep the church clean, — This is of all time. At Coventry the first
deacon had to sweep the floor of the quire and nave and the second
clerk the floor of the south aisle, and to clean the corresponding leads,
and to clear away the snow from the gutters lest the pipes be stopped.*
Both had to attend to the snow on the steeple.* At All Saints, Bristol,
the church roofs, windows, pillars, walls and floor, stalls and seats, and
specially the altar, were to be kept clean by the clerk.'

At St. Nicholas, Bristol, the under clerk had to sprinkle the church
with water every Saturday to keep it from dust, to make tidy the crypt,
the stair, and the church doors, to clear away cobwebs and dust from
the altars and imagery. Both clerk and suffragan had to sweep the
glass windows, church walls, and pillars, once a quarter, and the seats in
the church when they were called upon.*

At Faversham every week the clerks had to make clean the quire, the
Trinity chapel, and specially over the altars, and to brush away the
cobwebs. The sexton had to make clean the body of the church and
the aisles every week, and every day to see the church made clean " for
skomeryng of doggs."'

At St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, the sexton had to sweep the church
once a week at the least, and cast water on the ground "for Rasynge of
dust, and to sweep the church roof four times in the year."*° The clerks
had to sweep all the images and glass windows twice a year, at Easter
and the translation of St. Stephen, and to keep tidy the alleys of the
church yard."

In the Visitation articles we find enquiries made if the clerk keep the
church clean. Grindal askes if the parish clerk keep the books and
ornaments of the church fair and clean, and if he cause the church
and quire, the communion table, pulpit, and font, to be made decent and
clean.*'* Much the same enquiries go on in the seventeenth century.
Cosin asks if the clerk keep the church or chapel clean from noisome
dust, cobwebs, litter, straw or any other annoyance*': and in 1710

^ See below, Appendix V. p. 76, § 3 and p. 79, § 22.

2 See below, Appendix VI. p. 82, § 4.

3 See below, Appendix VIII. p. 90, §§ 5, 16.
* See below, Appendix I. p. 62, § 63.

^ See below, Appendix I. p. 58, §§ 11, 12, and p. 61, § 53.

^ p. 59, § 21.

' See below, Appendix II. p. 65, § 4.

8 See below, Appendix III. p. 67, §§ 6, 7, 10, 12, p. 69, § 39.

^ See below, Appendix V. p. 76, § 7, and p. 79, §§ 24, 25.

^° See below. Appendix VIII. p. 90, §§ i, 7.

" p. 92, § 27.

^''* See below, Appendix XI. p. 98.

*^ Appendix XI. p. 100.

INTRODUCTION, xxxiii

Fleetwood asks if the clerk keep the church clean, and mentions the
good keeping of this part of their duty as a reason for due payment of
their salary and perquisites, as if it had become the chief, if not the ooly,
duty they had.*

At Barrow on Humber the clerk had to see that the church, chancel,
and seats, were swept, and kept handsome and decent.*

Mr. Beresford Hope gives as evidence of the apathy with which
elementary propriety in church matters was regarded in the reign of
King George IV. the fact that the parish clerk used to sweep the church
out during service time.^

In the little tract published by the Ecclesiological Society and
addressed to parish clerks they are told that " the first thing which it is
your business to do, or to see done, is the keeping the church clean."*

7. To light the lanterns and scoHses^ that is, the means of lighting up
the church when it was dark. Of this duty we find but little mention in
the clerk's constitutions. At Coventry the second clerk was to bring
out sconses for the winter time to light the quire, but nothing is said of
his duty in lighting the candles set in the sconses.* At St. Stephen's,
Coleman Street, it is said that the sexton, every Sunday and holiday, is
to light the candles and put them out again ; but the rule makes no
distinction between ordinary and ceremonial lights.^

8. To serve the priest at low mass. — This might almost be considered
one of the essential parts of a clerk's duty ; for he was to read the
epistle at mass, and thus of necessity he must serve the priest. The
evidence for this has been given above. In England, the reading of the
epistle by the clerk, and of his serving at the altar, had fallen into very
great disuse in the early nineteenth century. Yet not wholly: for
besides the instances given above of the clerk reading the epistle in
recent times, certain correspondents of the newspapers tell us also of his
-waiting at the altar, as the following extracts set forth.

It was, I remember, at this dale, [thirty- five years before 1876] customary
for the parish clerk (not in orders) to take his place within the communion rails
as assistant, or acolyte, if that word would have been understood in those days.

I well remember the importation of what would be called an " Evangelical
curate," who strongly objected to this, and the clerk was forthwith ejected
from his post at the " altar table," as we Northerns called it, greatly to his
indignation.^

Mr. J. B. Wilson writes in 1880 :

Up to a few years ago at Lower Sapey Church in Worcestershire, when the
parson left the reading-desk at the end of Morning Prayer, and took up

^ Appendix XI. p. 102.

^ See below, Appendix XIV. p. 108, § 2.

^ A. J. B. Beresford Hope, Worship in the Church of England^ London, 1875, sec.
-ed. p. 8.

** A frw words to the parish clerks and sextons of country parishes^ London, 1846.
Third Ed. p. 4, § 5.

* See below. Appendix I. p. 63, § 72.

® See below. Appendix VIII. p. 90, § 2.

^ A letter signed F. B. G. in the Guardian^ May 31, 1876, p. 711, under ** Reserva-
tion for the sick."

CLERK. C

xxxiv INTRODUCTION,

his position at the north side of the altar, it was the custom for the
clerk also to go within the rails and kneel down at the south side of the
altar. ^

Dr. F. G. Lee asserts that it was customary for the parish clerk in
many Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire churches to attend upon the
parson at the communion table, and to kneel either at or within the rails,
and that in some cases he wore a surplice.'

There has been a recent revival of the practice in several English
parishes. In the early days of the ecclesiological revival it was, however,
thought very improper that the clerk should go inside the altar rails.
He is told in a tract published by the Ecclesiological Society that

If old customs were kept up as they ought to be, you would never be allowed
to go within the altar-rails ; and this I hope may some day be the case again.
In the meantime, I would not go there needlessly : and when there, would
behave so as to show that I knew myself to be on very holy ground.*

At this point we leave the duties named in the Statutes of St. Mary
Ottery. But there are still some few to be spoken of.

Opening and shutting church, — At Coventry the senior clerk had to
open the church doors every day at six o'clock,* while the junior needed
only to be in the church half-an-hour before seven. At All Saints,
Bristol, the clerk had to open and shut the church at due times, and also
to search the church.* So at St. Nicholas, Bristol, with a search for fear
of sleepers.® At Morebath it was agreed that when service was done,
the clerk should knock at the church door half-an-hour after ; then if
any would abide in the church so that the door stood open all night, the
hurt to the church should fall upon them and not on the clerk.^

At St. Michael's, Cornhill, it was ordered in 1596 that the church door
should be kept shut in the weekdays after service, whereby boys and
others may be kept forth from doing damage.

The Latin edition of the canons of 1603 gives the title De Ostiariis
sive Clericis Parochialibus to Canon 91, which deals with the office of
parish clerk.' The ostiarius in prae-Reformation times was held to be the
lowest or first conferred of the minor orders, and according to St. Isidore
he held the keys of the church, which he opened and shut.^°

In the same century as these canons were passed Christopher Hervey
calls the sexton by the name of the " Churches key-keeper."^^

^ Notes and Queries, May, 1880, 6th Series, vol. i. p. 356.
2 Notes and Queries, ibid,, p. 522.

* A few words to the parish clerks and sextons of country parishes, third edition^
London, 1846, p. 6, § 11.

* See below. Appendix I. p. 57, § i.

* See below, Appendix 11. p. 64, § i.

® See below. Appendix III. p. 66, §§ i, 2.
' See below, Appendix VII. p. 84, § i,

^ The Accounts of the Churchwardens , . , St, Michael, Cornhill, 1872, p. 253^
® Cotistitutiones sive Canones Ecclesiastici, LiOndon, John Norton, 1604.
10 Epistola B. Isidori, in T. Saenz de Aguirre, Collectio ntaxima conciliorum, ed. J*
Catalani, Romae, 1753, t. iii. p. 455.
^- See below, p. xlvii.

INTRODUCTION, xxxv

To carry the pax round the church. — This is one of the duties of the
clerk which we find all over England. It is spoken of incidentally in
the marriage service of the rites of Sarum/ York,' and Hereford,'
almost in the same words in all : '* clericus statim a presbytero pacem
accipiens, proferat aliis sicut solitum est." He carries the pax to the
others as it has been accustomed.

Thomas Becon says that ''the boye or parrish dark carrielh the Pax
aboute," for the people to kiss.* Also in the injunctions for the
Deanery of Doncaster^ we are told that " the Clarke in the like manner
shall bring down the Fcuce**

To keep the registers. — Thomas Cromwell in 1536 ordered registers to
be kept of the weddings, christenings, and burials ;* and there is evidence
that this duty was performed by the parish clerk. For example, at St.
Stephen's, Coleman Street, in 1542, the clerks were everj' week to certify
to the curate the names of those married, baptized, and buried, under
pain of a penny fine.' At St. Margaret's, Lothbury, it was ordered in
1571,* the clerk should keep the register of christenings, weddings, and
buryings, perfectly, and should present the same every Sunday to the
churchwardens to be perused by them, and to have for his pains
3J. 4i/. yearly.

In 1563 at St. Margaret's, Westminster, they bought

a quier of paper, for the clerks to make weekly certificates unto the court
of all buryals and christenings.*^

A duty of the parish clerk in the city of London, beginning before the
injunctions of Thomas Cromwell and lasting into the middle of the nine-
teenth century, was the drawing up of the bills of mortality. This was
a weekly return of the number of deaths in each parish, sent to the Lord
Mayor of London and to the King's Council. Probably it was some
such return that is spoken of in the entry of St. Margaret's, Westminster,
just named.

The history of the bills of mortality has been dealt with at length by
Mr. James Christie, *° and it does not seem necessary to go further into
this matter in the present edition.

Social and Ecclesiastical Position. — It has been seen that King
Richard I. delighted to take the place of rector chori^^ and John of Athon

* MissaU . . . Saruniy ed. F. H. Dickinson, Burntisland, 1861-83, col. 844*.
^ Missale . . . Ebor. Surtees Society, 1874. Vol. ii. p. 192.

' Missale . . . Herford. ed. Henderson, Leeds, 1874, p. 443.

* Thomas Becon, The displayeng of the Popysh Masse, in WbrkeSf London, 1563,
vol. iii. fo. xlix. b,

^ See below, Appendix IX. p. 94.

* D. Wilkins, Concilia^ Lond. 1737, t. iii. p. 816.
■^ See below. Appendix VIII. § 10, p. 91.

* See below, Appendix IV. p. 72.

' J. Nichols, Illustrations of the Manners ^ etc. London, 1797, p. 17.
^" James Christie, Some account of Parish Clerks, 1893, privately printed by James
Vincent, pp. 132-147.
^^ See above, p. xix.

C 2

xxxvi INTRODUCTION,

lays down the rule that any clerk, even if he be the son of a king, must
not be ashamed to go up to the book and read and sing in the church.'
It may be noticed also that in the time of Henry VII. a canon of
Newburgh did not think it beneath his dignity to ask for the place of
parish clerk for his brother.^ And it does not seem to be universally true
that the office of parish clerk was considered vile and mean in the un-
reformed church as Ayliffe would suggest.* We have seen the instances
to the contrary given above. And later on, in the seventeenth century,
there is an instance, for the knowledge of which I am indebted to Mr.
J. Brooking Rowe, of the parish clerk being in the holy order of a deacon :
one Hobbes, parish clerk of Plymouth at the beginning of the troubles
in King Charles the First's reign.

Hobbes, — : He was in Deacon's Orders^ and so must have a Place in this
List ; Although he was no other than Parish-Clerk of Plymouth x And having
one Day Buried a Corpse by the Common- Prayer^ he was Threatned, that if he
came again with his Mass-Book^ to Bury any body, he should be thrown into
the same Grave : Which worked so much upon his Spirits, that partly with Fear,
and partly with Grief, he Died soon after. ^

Upon this Mr. J. Brooking Rowe has the following note :

It is interesting to find Walker's story of William Hobbs, the clerk of St.
Andrew's, confirmed. He was frightened to death while burying a corpse
in the yard, the Puritans threatening to throw him into the grave if he
came there again with his mass- book, that is, the book of common prayer.
In the earliest book we find him clerk, receiving ;^7 per annum, in addition
to burial and other fees, and £,z lo^. for keeping the burial account, and lor.
for keeping the register. He died in 1643 ; and the balance of his salary was
paid to his widow. His successor, Henry Champlyn, who was appointed to
keep the register by the mayor in 1653, appears to have been the clerk until
1683, and was, I believe, succeeded by his son, who was clerk until 17 16,
the two thus holding office for about 73 years.**

Later on in the same century, in the reign of James II. the Act of
Parliament which erects the new parish of St. James, Piccadilly, directs
that the clerk of the new church shall be in priest's orders, and shall
receive thirty pounds a year from the pew rents.* Mr. James Christie,
examining the records of the Company of Parish Clerks in the city of
London, is able to tell us that the parish clerks in orders, by which it
may be inferred was meant holy orders, were recognised specially in a
minute of 1689. Many such in the following century, he adds, joined
the Company, and up to 1823 their membership is recognised.'

^ Unde quicunque sis, etiamsi filius Regis, ex quo Clericali Militiae es ascriptus,
non erubescas in Ecclesia ad librum accedere, legere, et cantare ; quod si per te nescias,
sequere scientes. (Constitutio Othonis, tit. de Institutione Vicariorum § de iam vero^
verb, ecclesiis. Appendix to Lyndwood, Provinciale, 1679, p. 28.)

^ Plumpton Correspondence i edited by Thomas Stapleton, Camden Society, 1839,
p. 66.

^ John Ayliffe, Parergon luris Canonici Anglicani^ London, 1726, p. 409.

* John Walker, An attempt tovtards recovering an account of the numbers and
sufferings of the Clergy , London, 17 14. Appendix, p. 418.

"* J. Brooking Rowe, The Church of St, Andrew, Plymouth, Plymouth, 1875,

p. 45-

* See below, Appendix XI. p. 10 1.

' James Christie, Some cucount of parish Clerks, 1893, privately printed by James
Vincent, p. 212.

INTRODUCTION. xxxvii

In 1844 an Act was passed by which it was definitely made lawful
for a person in the holy orders of Deacon or Priest to be elected parish
clerk ; but to such person it gave no freehold, but only the same rights
as a stipendiary curate.* At All Hallows Barking, a priest has served
the office of parish clerk since 1884.

The courts do not seem to agree in opinion whether ihe parish clerk
be a spiritual person or not. In the case recorded by Godolphin it was
held, apparently by the Court of King's Bench, that the parish clerk is a
mere layman.^ But afterwards there was another case, in the third year
of Queen Anne, where one Judge seems to have held that the clerk was
not a spiritual person, while other Judges held that he was an
ecclesiastical person and in inferior orders.

In the Case of Parker and Cterk^ 3 AnncLe^ where Prohibition was pray'd
to stay Proceedings in the Spiritual Court, of a Parish Clerk against the
Church-wardens, for soe much money due to him yearly, and by them leviable
upon the Parishioners ; it was said by Holt^ Without doubt, the Spiritual Court
has noe original Jurisdiction here, if they doe not make the Clerk a Spiritual
person, which will be hard to doe ; but others said, they look'd upon the
Clerk to be an Ecclesiastical person, and in inferior Orders, and that as such,
he might sue in the Spiritual Court for a stipend or pension.^

It must be owned that it seems more reasonable to agree with the
second thoughts of the Court of Queen's Bench in the time of Queen
Anne rather than to assert a contradiction in terms, as John Johnson
calls it, by speaking of a lay clerk.* In* 17 10 Fleetwood, Bishop of St.
Asaph, points out that the parish clerk was heretofore in some low sort
of Orders and that they still kept the name of Clerici}

The following remarks, made by Dr. Raine, the editor of Dr. Barnes'
Injunctions^ may help us to understand in some degree the position of
parish clerks in the north of England towards the end of the sixteenth
century.

At the end of this Visitation of Northumberland, it is worthy of remark,
that in many parishes or chapelries, in which was settled a house of old descent
and note and coat armour, we have one of the same family name acting as
parish clerk, a fact which is not to be observed in the Visitation of the county
of Durham, to which we proceed. The following list, derived from the
preceding pages, leads to the conclusion that either the persons here specified
were in such circumstances as to make even a parish-clerkship acceptable,
or that they thus officiated because no parishioner of the humbler class was
able to read.

Here follow the names of some sixteen parish clerks. Dr. Raine then
adds :

We have, moreover, as parish clerk of Woodhorne, Amor Oxley, who
was an eminent schoolmaster. Edward Stanley, parish clerk of Chillingham,
was a young gentleman in the household of Sir Thomas Grey.**

1
2

See below. Appendix XI. p. 102.
See below. Appendix XIII. p. 107.
' £dm. Gibson, Codex luris Ecclesiastici Anglicani^ tit. ix. cap. xiv. Oxford, 1761.
t. i. p. 214. note d.
* John Johnson, Clergy-mans* Vade-meainiy London, 1709, Ch. xxiii. p. 203.
® See bielow. Appendix XI. p. 102.

^ The Injunctions and other Ecclesiastical proceedings of Richard Barnes , Bishop oj
Durham t Surtees Society, 1850, p. 45. Chancellor's Visitation 1577-8.

xxxviii INTRODUCTION.

It may be that these varying statements may be explained by
supposing that the parish-clerkship was an office sometimes filled by
men of education and position, sometimes taken by men who had
scarcely the qualifications to enable them barely to exercise their duties.
This may be seen in many professions and callings; and the parish
clerk does not seem an exception.

Exemption from Juries, — By the 6th George IV. cap. 50, § 2, made in
the year of our Lord 1825, a number of persons are exempt from serving
on juries : " all officers of Customs and Excise ; all Sheriffs, Officers,
High Constables and Parish Clerks shall be and are hereby absolutely
freed and exempted from being returned and from serving on any
Juries.*' It is believed that this Act is still in force. A gentleman of
large property in Wales was summoned upon the Grand Jury oftener
than he liked. He procured himself to be appointed parish clerk ; he
claimed exemption on this ground and the claim was allowed by Mr.
Justice Blackburn. And in 1S88 a man resident in West Kensington
received a jury notice ; at the foot was a statement of various grounds
of exemption ; one of these was the holding of the office of parish
clerk. Having been appointed to this office in his father's parish, he
claimed exemption, and obtained it.

Vesture. — The clerks who accompany Maximianus in the well-
known mosaics at St. Vitalis in Ravenna wear a vesture which is the
forerunner of the surplice, rochet, or alb. But though the thing appears
in the sixth century, yet the name hardly makes its appearance before
the twelfth.* In the late middle ages we find the surplice frequently
named as the vesture of clerks. In 1229 the sixth Constitution of
W. de Bloys directs that he who serves at mass shall wear a surplice.^
By Winchelsey's Ut parochiani three surplices and one rochet had to
be found; and Lyndwood glosses this order, saying that the three
surplices are for the priest, deacon, and subdeacon, while the rochet is
for the clerk.^ But there are directions of Archbishop Walter's

^ D. Wilkins, Concilia^ Lond. 1737. t. i. p. 624.

* The surplice is incidentally alluded to by William of Malmesbury in a work
finished by 1 125. {Gesta PontificufUy lib. i. cap. 44. Rolls Series, 1870. p. 71.
" canonicos cappis et superpellitiis ornaverat "), and in the laws of Edward the
Confessor, a collection which may have been in existence before 1125 if it be spoken
of by Henry I. (B. Thorpe, Ancient Laws . . . England^ 1840. p. 199. Law
xxxvi. "clencis in suppelhciis.") If it could be proved that the surplice is mentioned
in the third canon of the Council of Cayaca, a.d. 1050, as Messrs. Addis and Arnold
maintain {Catholic Dictionary^ London, 1884, sub voce surplice : and again in the
edition of 1897.) the first appearance of the word would be sent back more than half a
century ; but I cannot find it in the editions of these canons by Labbe, or Mansi, or
Saenz. Lyndwood seems to suggest that the word surplice has not the right to exist,
because he cannot remember to have found it in the civil or canon law, nor in holy
cripture. (Provituictle^ lib. i. tit. de off, Archi, cap. Sint Ecclesiarumy verb, altari,
Oxon. 1679. p. 53.) It may be an example of the frequent antagonism between the
canonist and the ritualist. However usual the word may be in liturgy, yet it ought
not to be sanctioned unless the canonist have set his seal upon it.

' Lyndwood, Provincialej lib. iii. tit. De ecclesiis aedificandis cap. Ut parochiani^
verb. Tria superpellicia and Rochetum^ Oxon. 1679. p. 252. Winchelsey is from 1294
to 1313.

INTRODUCTION. xxxix

that he who waits at the altar shall be clothed in a surplice,* and
Lyndwood glosses the second direction which contains the word clerk,
by noting that it is the parish clerk. In the same way, in the visitation
of the sick, the Constitutions of Alexander, Bishop of Coventry in 1237,
direct that the deacon or clerk accompanying the priest who carries the
eucharist shall wear a surplice.^ Under the same circumstances
Lyndwood thinks it better that the minister who accompanies the
priest should wear a surplice.^

Chaucer *s parish clerk, the jolly Absolon, wore a surplice :

I-clad he was ful smal and propurly,
Al in a kirtel of a fyn wachet
Schapen with goores in the newe get.
And therupon he had a gay surplys
As whyt as is the blosme upon the rys.^

And in the clerk's rules we find the clerk is to wear a surplice. At
Coventry he collects offerings on Twelfth day for the reparation of his
surplice.* He wore a surplice when at mass at St. Nicholas, Bristol.®
At Faversham he wore a rochet.' At St. Michael, Comhill, no
minister was to " sitt in quire during divine service without a surplice."*

The Churchwardens' accounts and similar documents of the
fourteenth, the fifteenth, and the sixteenth centuries show mention
of the clerk's surplice or rochet. At St. Michael's, Bath, in 1364, the
churchwardens paid for the mending of the parish clerk's surplice.® In
1430 they bought a new surplice for him for four shillings and fourpence.*'*
In 1455, there was at St. Ewen's, Bristol, "a Rochette for the Clerk."*^
In 1489 the churchwardens at Leicester paid for a "rochet for the clerk
and making 2^. \d, ob."*'^ In 1502-3 at St. Michael's, Bath, they bought
linen for a rochet for the parish clerk, two ells and a half for seventeen
pence, and paid for the making eightpence."

^ Lyndwood, lib. i. tit. rf? officio Archidi, cap. Sint Ecdesiarum^ p. 53. ** Qui altari
ministrat suppellicio induatur." See also lib. iii. tit. De celebratiotu missaruiHy cap.
Linfeamina p. 236. *' Item nullus clericus permittatur ministrare in officio altaris nisi
indutus in superpellicio." Clericus : supple Parochialis^ adds Lyndwood.

'■* D. Wilkins, Concilia^ London, 1737. t. i. p. 641.

^ Lyndwood, lib. iii. tit. de reliquiis^ cap. Dignissimumy verb. Saltetfty p. 249.

^ Chaucer, Miiler^s tale^ 134, Poetical Works ^ edited by R. Morris, Bell and
Daldy, no date, vol. ii. p. 102. The kirtle with gores can hardly have been the
clerical cassock that is worn under the surplice. And he was used to let blood
(v. 140) forgetting Ecclesia abhorret a sanguine. Altogether he was no good clerk.

^ See below. Appendix I. §§ 18 and 59, pp. 58 and 02.

•^ See below, Appendix III. p. 67, § 18.

^ See below, Appendix V. p. 76, § 2.

^ See below, Appendix VI. p. 83, § 11.

* C. B. Pearson, Churchwarden^ Accounts » , » of St. Michael without the
ftorth gate, Bath, Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society's Proceedings,
vol. xxiii. Taunton, 1878, p. 6.

10 Ibid, p. 41.

^^ Cuthbert Atchley, Inventories of the Goods of the Parish Church of St, Ewen^
Bristol, p. 6. (Privately printed by G. du Boistel and Co. Bristol, 1900.)

^'■^ Thomas North, Accounts of ' the Churchwardens of St. Afartin^s^ Leicester y
Leicester, 1884, p. 2.

^^ C. P. Pearson, <?/. cit. p. 96.

xl INTRODUCTION,

At St. Margaret's, Westminster, in 1534, they paid for a surplice for
the curate ; John More, the clerk \ Thomas Adams the clerk ; and also
for the sexton. The curate's cost ten shillings ; the others only three.
But in 1628, for thirteen ells of holland to make surplices for the two
clerks and sextons at 3^. 4//. the ell they paid ;t3 ^^j. Zd} At
Wing in Buckinghamshire in 1562 they "payde for makynge of the
Clarkes surplas " at the same time that they also paid " for mendynge
of the Curates surples."***

In 1568 at Worcester they paid \)d, "for mendyng the dark's
surples" which they had in 1551.^ Also in 1572 at Bristol they had two
surplices for the priest, two surplices for the clerk, as well as two long
houseling towels, and six old albes.*

The instances of the wearing of the surplice or rochet by the clerk
in the sixteenth century are numerous, and it does not seem necessary
to give here all that are known.

From the records of the Parish Clerks' Company in London
Mr. Christie is able to cite a rule made in 16 10 that the clerks are to
appear at their special evensong at Guildhall Chapel in a fair white
surplice, under a penalty. But in 1640 the rule is altered : ''he shall sit
or stand in decent manner in his gowne.''* This is doubtless the result
of the prevailing Puritanism of the time.

The visitation articles of the diocese of Exeter in 1638 inquire
if the clerk usually wear a surplice or rochet in the time of divine service.*

About thirty years later, in the visitation articles of Dr. John Cosin,
Bishop of Durham, in 1662, it is inquired if the parish clerk wear a
gown and a surplice over it, if the custom have been such.' The gown,
doubtless, means some variety of the cassock, such as vergers still
wear in cathedral churches.

The surplice or rochet for the clerk seems to have been in use even
at the end of the eighteenth century. In the parish church of Bledlow,
Buckinghamshire, an inventory was taken in 1783, and one of the items
is this :

A surplice without Sleeves, intended for the Clerk.^

Also Fosbroke says of the clerks that "in some churches they still
wear a surplice without sleeves."®

Of the survival of the surplice as part of the vesture of the clerk
into the first half of the nineteenth century I have one other solitary

* John NicnoUs, Illustrations of the Manners ^ etc. London, 1797, pp. 10 and 37.
' Archaeologia^ 1855, vol. xxxvi. p. 235.

' |ohn Amphlett, Churchwardens^ Accounts of St. Michael* s in Bedwardine^
Worcester^ Oxford, 1896, pp. 28 and 63. Here they paid in 1545 "for a peare of
gloues for the Gierke's ease ij.d." (p. 14) I presume to keep his hands warm.

^ J. F. Nichols and John Taylor, Bristol past and present^ 1881, vol. ii. p. 37.

* James Christie, Sottie account of parish clerks^ 1893, privately printed by James
Vincent, p. 175.

^ See below, Appendix XI. p. 99.
"* See below, Appendix XI. p. 100.

8 This inventory wiU shortly appear in the Transcutions of St. PauVs EcclesiologiccU
Society,

* T. D. Fosbroke, Encyclopcsdia of Antiquities^ London, 1825, vol. ii. p. 680.

INTRODUCTJON, xli

witness.^ After the rise of the Cambridge Ecclesiological movement
a clerk wearing a surplice may ofteii be found ; but this is a restoration,
not a survival of old custom.

Age. — Saint Cyprian tells us of one whom he had ordained reader
that he was iilustris adolesrens and therefore it will be seen of no great
age." And an early notice that we have of clerks supposes that they
will be boys, before the age of puberty and incapable of marriage, for it
allows them to marry after they have grown up.' There are traces of
ordination even in the period of infancy.*

We all remember the lines in Chaucer :

Among these children was a widow sone
A litel clei^eoun, that seve yer was of age.'

He was already a little clergyman, though only seven years of age.

Justinian forbad readers to be ordained before the age of i8,' and
there may be some reminiscence of this in the ninety-first canon of 1603,
which orders that the parish clerk shall be at least twenty years of age' ;
and accordingly in the visitation articles of the seventeenth century we
find inquiries whether the clerk be of the age of twenty at the
least.

Makriagb. — St. Gregory, answering one of the questions put to him
by St. Augustine of Canterbury, replies that clerks who are not in holy
orders may marry and receive their stipends from without.® Innocent II.
in a Council held at K hemes in 1131, orders that all who had entered
the subdiaconate and upwards and yet retained their wives should be

' Dr. F. G. Lee, Azotes and Queries^ May, 1880, 6th Series, vol. i. p. 522.

'■^ Cyprian, Epistolae xxxiii. Migne, Patrologia, t. 4. col. 317.

' Canon. I. Concilium Vasense A.D. 529.

Hoc enim placuit, ut omnes presbyteri, qui sunt in parochiis constituti, secundum
consuetudinem, quam per totam Italiam satis salubriter teneri cognovimus, iuniores
lectores quantoscumque sine uxore habuerint, secum in domo, ubi ipsi habitare
videntur, recipiant : et eos quomodo boni patres spiritaliter nutrientes, psalmos parare,
divinis lectionibus insistere, et in lege domini erudire coniendant : ut el sibi dignos
successores provideant, et a domino praemia aeterna recipiant. Cum vero ad aetatem
perfectam pervenerint, si aliquis eorum pro carnis fragilitate uxorem habere voluerit,
potestas ei ducendi coniugium non negetur.

(Labbe and Cossart, Sacrosaftcta Coficilia^ Venetiis, 1728, t. v. col. 821.)

■* Eugenms [654-657] natione Romanus de regione prima Aventinensf, clericus a
cunabulis. (L. Duchesne, Liber Pontificalis^ Paris, 1886, t. i. p. 341.) Other
instances among the popes may be found in P. Batiffol, History of the Roman Breviary,
Ch. li. § i. London, 1898, p. 55.) Inter quos quam plurimi erant lectores infantuli.
(Victor Vitensis, de persecutione Vattdalica, Lib. v. cap. ix. Migne, Patrologia, t. 5S.
col. 246.) The rule of St. Benedict (capp. lix. and Ixx.) encourages the offering of
children and infants to a monastery.

* Chaucer, Prioresses Tale, line 50. (ed. R. Morris, iii. 123.)

^ Novellae constitttiioties Dn. lustininiani, Antv. 1567, p. 224. (thus, for 324)
Novel. 123, Clericos autem.

"' Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastically London, Robert Barker, 1604, No.
xci.

* St. Gregory the Great, Epistolae, lib. xi. 64. (studio et labore Monachorum O.S.B.
Venetiis, 1771, t. viii. p. 297.)

xlii . INTRODUCTION,

put from their benefices. It may be inferred from this that clerks below
the subdiaconate might marry, and yet not lose their benefices.*

Lyndwood deals with the marriage of clerks in two glosses.* He
declares that married clerks, especially if they be twice married, are
nothing better than laymen, and that if they do not wear the clerical
dress and tonsure they enjoy no clerical privilege. The married clerk is
not to sit or stand among the clerks, but among the layfolk. But as is
the custom of canonists, what he takes away with one hand, he immedi-
ately restores with the other, and he adds at once that when unmarried
cleiks are not to be had, married clerks may perform duty, provided
they have not been twice married and retain the tonsure and clerical
dress. A passage from the Decretals of Gregory IX. favours this :

Clericus, si tonsura dimissa uxorem acceperit, qui quidem sit sine gradu, nee
monasterio a parentibus traditus, uxorem permittatur habere, et iterum tondeatur,
nee in vita sua uxorem dimittere audeat.^

There can be no doubt that married clerks abounded in England.
Amongst other instances there are these : John Brian parish clerk of
the church of St. Mary Aldermanbury left to Alice his wife his
tenements and to the priory of St. Mary de ElsyngspituU his books on
tlie canon law.* At St. Mary Bishophill York in 1416 it is complained
that the parish clerk and his wife were hindered from entering their
house on Sundays with the holy water according to the custom of the
city.* In the same year the accounts of St. Michael's Bath, twice make
mention of payments made clerico et uxori.^ In 1378 the wife of the
parish clerk of St. Peter the less in the city of London was successful
in her suit for the release of her husband who had spoken disrespect-
fully of John of Gaunt.'' In 15 14 John Huyk parish clerk of Hull
was to be buried beside his wife in the wedding porch of the church.®

Exceeding Duties. — In the first years of Elizabeth we meet with an

inquiry from the Pui itan Bishop of Norwich, Parkhurst, if the reader be

exceeding his duties :

§ 27. Whether that any reader being admitted but to reade : taketh vpon him
to baptize, to marie, to celebrate the Lords supper or to distribute the Lords cup.'

^ Concilium Remense, anno Domini 1131, Canon IV. (Labbe, Sacrosancta Concilia^
Venetiis, 1730, t. xii. col. 1463.) See also 3rd Canon of first Lateran Council under
Calixtus IL in 1123. {ibid. col. 1333.)

'^ W. Lyndwode, Provinciale^ Lib. iii. tit. de clericis conitigatis cap. cum ex eo verb.
vestigia cMionum^ and tit. de coftcessione praebendae^ cap. a tiostris maioribus, verb.
clericiSf Oxon. 1679, pp. 129, and 142.

'^ Dtcreta Gregorii IX. lib. iii. tit. i. cap. vi. in /E. L. Richter, Corpus luris
Caiumiciy Lipsiae, 1839, pars ii. col. 433.

^ Reginald R. Sharpe, Calendar of Wills . . . Court of Husting London^ i%^,
part ii. p. 24 under year 1361. See also part i. pp. 243, 253, 378, 396, 467, 509, 667,
694, part ii. 18, jy^ 228.

* Fabric Rolls of York Minster^ Surtees Society, 1859, p. 248.

* C. B. Pearson, Churchwardens' Accounts . . . of St. Michael witlwtU the
north gaie^ Bath, Somersetshire Archseological and Natural History Society's
Proceedings, vol. xxiii. Taunton, 1878, p. 24.

' H. T. Riley, Memorials of London, 1868, p. 425.

** Testamenta Eborcuensia, Surtees Society, 1884. Vol. v. p. 49.

* Jftterrogatories, in Iniunctions exhibited by John by gods sufferance Bishop of
Norwich, London [1561] B. i. b.

INTRODUCTION, xliii

In the visitation articles of Matthew Parker,^ issued in 1569, it is
asked " whether their churche or chappell be served with any readers.'*
Apparently in the answer to this question we find more than one
instance of the parish clerk intruding into the duties of the parson. At
Westbere it is presented :

That when the Parson is absent the parish clerk readeth the service*

And at Waltham they present :

That our parish is served by our clerk for the most part, for that our
Vicar cometh seldom there.

And at Tenterden :

John Hopton readeth divine service, having received no orders, neither
tolerated to that effect.

While at Fairfield they complain :

That their church is served with a Reder.**^

Two years later in 157 1, Grindal as Archbishop of York puts out as
the first of his injunctions to the laity :

I. First, We do enjoin and straightly command, that from henceforth no
parish clerk, nor any other person not being ordered, at the least, for a deacon,
shall presume to solemnize Matrimony, or to minister the sacrament of Baptism,
or to deliver to the communicants the Lord's cup at the celebration of the holy
Communion. And that no person, not being a minister, deacon, or, at the
least, tolerated by the ordinary in writing, do attempt to supply the office of a
minister in saying of divine service openly in any church or chapel.^

Sandys also when Bishop of London is said to have issued injunc-
tions in the visitation of his new diocese, of which the last was as
follows :

6. That parish clerks intrude not into the priests' duty, as before they had
sometimes done."*

But I have looked through the Articles of his visitation of 157 1 and
cannot find any inquiry as to exceeding their duty by the parish clerks.^
Also in the diocese of Lincoln in 1574 it was inquired : —

6. Whether sithens the last visitation, ^our parish Gierke, or any other not
being minister or deacon, or not being licensed by the Ordinarie, haue taken
vppon them to begin or say seruice, or minister any sacraments, or distribute the
Lords Cup, or read the Homely in your parish, what they be and what be their
names.^

^ £dward Cardwell, Documefttary Annals of the Reformed Church of England^
Oxford, 1839, vol. i. p. 322, § vii.

^ Home Counties Magazine^ 1903, vol. v. pp. 9, 14, 209, 288.

^ Injunctions . . . Metropoliticall Visitation of the Province of Yorke . . .
Anno Domtni 1 57 1, printed in the Remains of Edmund Grindal^ Parker Society,

1843, P- ^V"

* Sermons of Edwin Sandys^ edited by John Ayre, Parker Society, 184 1, p. xx.

• Articles . . . visitation of the Dioces of London by the Reuerende Father in
God Edwyn . . . London, William Seres, 1 57 1.

^Articles . . . diocese of Lincolne . . . 7)b///a5 [Cowper] London, Rafe
Newbery, 1574. A ii. b.

xliv INTRODUCTION,

And in 1588 in the same diocese it is inquired :

Whether the Clarke be . . . suffered to reade anything in the Church,
saue the one Lesson, and the Epistle.^

But this intrusion into the office of clerks in holy orders must have
gone on ; and in some cases it was authorised by the bishop. For in
1625-26 in the parish of Stepney, at the request of the vicar, the
bishop did grant a licence to empower Robinson, the parish .clerk, to
bury parishioners and to church their wives, using the prayer book forms.
The reason given is that there was more than the curate could do single
handed, the mortality from the plague being so great.^ These two acts,
saying the burial service and churching women, are not so exclusively
sacerdotal that their performance by a parish clerk might not be winked
at in cases of great necessity. But it touches upon the scandalous when
the parish clerk is allowed to baptize as well as read prayers, bury,
marry, and church. In 1634 in the diocese of Winchester it was
answered :

Touching the Parish Clerk and Sexton all is well only our clerk doth some-
times to ease our Minister, read prayers, church women, christen, bury, and
marry, being allowed so to do.'

It may be that the following inquiry is not wholly unconnected with
this reply :

Touching the Parish Gierke^ afzd Sexton.

« « * * • • •

2. Whether doth your Gierke meddle with anything above his Office, as
churching of women, burying of the dead, reading of Prayers, or such
like?*

After 1630 the Bishop of Lincoln inquires :

Whether doth the Clerk or any person not authorized meddle above his
place, as to read prayers, bury the dead, church women, and such like ?*

In 1 639 the Bishop of Winchester makes the same inquiry.*

So also the Bishop of Exeter in 1 638,® the Archdeacon of Chichester
in 1640.'

After the Restoration the " meddling above his place " would seem
to have been less frequent, if we may judge from its disappearance in the
visitation articles after that revival of discipline.

Another sort of meddling above his place may be detected in the
giving out of notices ; a practice glanced at by the rubric contained in

* Articles . . . Diocesse of Lincoln^ London, 1588, § 41.

2 G. W. Hill and W. H. Frere, Memorials of Stepney Parish, Guildford, 1890-91,
p. xvi. See below, Appendix XII. p. 104, in which the draft of a licence to the
parish clerk is given.

^ E. Greatorex, Reliquary , 1 894, vol. viii. new series, p. 157.
I * Visitation Articles of Walter [Cui 11] Bishop of Winchester, London, John Norton,

I 1639. A. iv. b.

I ' Appendix E. to the Second Report of the Royal Comvtissioit on Ritual , &^c., 1 868,

j p. 520, tit. 5, § 6.

I ^ See below, Appendix XI. p. 99.

^ See below. Appendix XI. p. 100.

INTRODUCTION. xlv

the book of common prayer after the Nicene creed, which was inserted
at the last revision in 1662 it may be to stop such practices. We find
it inquired into in an archidiaconal visitation in 1630.

Proclamations of lay-businesses made in the Church \in w.]

8. Whether hath your Parish Clerk, or any other in Prayers time, or before
Prayers or Sermon ended, before the people departed, made proclamation in
your Church touching any goods strayed away or wanting, or of any Leet
court to be held, or 01 common-dayes-works to be made, or touching any other
thing which is not meerly ecclesiastical!, or a Church-businesse ?

Something like this persisted even into the nineteenth century.
Sir Walter Scott speaks of a strange custom at Hexham :

It is common for the traders in cattle, which business is carried on to a great
extent, to carry all letters received in course of trade to the parish church,
where the clerk reads them aloud after service, and answers them according to
circumstances. ''*

Also in a parish near Manchester we are told :

After Sunday morning service it was customary in the last generation for the
parish clerk to turn bell-man and announce in the churchyard any engagements
for the coming week, such as sales by auction, and other worldly matters in
which the parish was interested.^

So too Mr. Beresford Hope, speaking of the practice known to him
of the reign of King George IV. writes as follows :

The clerk, a wizened old fellow, in a brown Welsh wig, repeated the
responses in a nasal twang, and with a substitution of " w " for '*v**so
consistent as not even to spare the Belief ; while the local rendering of ** briefs,
citations, and excommunications," included announcements by this worthy after
the Nicene Creed, of meetings at the town inn of ** executors "of a deceased
Duke. . . . During the sermon this zealous servant of the sanctuary
would take up his broom and sweep out the middle alley, in order to save him-
self the fetigue of a week day visit. ^

Mr. Christopher Wordsworth informs me that his mother could
remember hearing the clerk give out, about 18 16, invitations to
tradesmen to tender for supplying bread for the poor of the
parish. Mr. Vaux says that it was the clerk who published all notices
both religious and secular during service.*

But these instances of notice-giving do not seem so irreverent as
the custom described by Sir Walter Scott. In fact they are akin to the
notices now printed and affixed to the church doors, such as jury lists,
militia service, and the like. And, when reading and writing were not
the common accomplishments that they are now, such verbal notices
must have been a convenience to the parishioners, and joined together

^ J. G. Lockhart, Memoirs . , , of Sir Walter Scott ^ Edinburgh, 1837, vol. i.
p. 192.

'^ John E. Bailey, Old Stretford^ Manchester, 1878, p. 49.

' A. J. B. Beresford Hope, Worship in the Church of England^ London, 1875.
Sec. ed. p. 8.

* J. E. Vaux, Church Folklore^ London, 1894, Ch. ix, p. 194. There is a story
told in Blackwood s Magazine^ August, 1903, p. 170, of the parish clerk administering
baptism in the last century, but the circumstances do not inspire confidence in the
accuracy of the report.

xlvi INTRODUCTION,

the secular and ecclesiastical aspects of the parish. Nowadays, every
effort is made to put the civil and the church notices into strictly
separated divisions, so that the life of the parish as a whole is some-
what obscured.

Number. — St. Augustine, it would seem, was accompanied into
Britain by more clerks than one. They were part of his train. But the
clerk, who was the later companion of the parish priest, who assisted
him in all his duties, might be but one, according to Leo IV. Hincmar,
and the decretals of Gregory IX.* To take the place of the deacon and
subdeacon in churches which had no large income, it was allowed by a
bishop of Durham in the middle of the thirteenth century that there
should be but one clerk.^ And doubtless this was the rule in most
country parishes where the population was but small. But in London
there may have been more often two. Brewster gives six instances in
fourteenth century.'*

At the end of the middle ages every considerable church might have
had two officers in the position of the parish clerk. It is so at York,*
Coventry,' Bristol,® and Faversham,' as well as in London.® Henry VIII.
in the indenture between himself and the mayor and citizens of London
directs that the new Christchurch Newgate Street shall have two clerks
and one sexton, while St. Bartholomew the Less is to have only one clerk
and one sexton.®

But at Faversham it will be noted that one of the first results of the
changes under Edward VI. was the diminution of the number of clerks.
Time out of mind there had been two clerks ; but as the work of the
clerk was diminished so the number was to be diminished too, and there

* See above, p. xviii.

'-^ Ad augendum vero divini cultus obsequium ordinamus et disponimus ; ut in
singulis ecclesiis, quarum facultates ad hoc sufficiunt, sint diaconi et subdiaconi, sicut
decet, Deo ministrantes. In aliis vero ecclesiis saltern unus clericus idoneus, et honestus,
Qui in tonsura decenti congruo habitu deserviat sacerdoti, ne ecclesiae debitis officiis
aefraudentur ; ita quod idem clericus nullatenus uxoratus existat, nee deserviat in
altari.

(Constitutiones Walteri de Kirkham, episcopi Dunelm. a.d. 1255, in D. Wilkins,
Concilia^ London, 1737, t. i. p. 707. Cf. Constitutions of Norwich, 1257, ibid, p.
733. Acts of the Synod of Ely, 1364, ibid. vol. iii. p. 61, where these rules are
repeated in substance. )

^ Samuel Brewster, Collectanea Ecclesiastical London, 1752, p. 405. In an Essay
concerning the Office and Duties of Parish Clerks.

* See Testamenta Eboracensia^ vol. v. Surtees Society, 1884, p. 13. In 1509 a
bequest is made to every parish clerk and underclerk in the city of York and its
suburbs.

' See Appendix I. pp. 57 and 61.

« See T. P. Wadley, Notes or abstracts of the Wills . , , at Bristol^ Bristol
and Gloucestershire Society, 1886, pp. 9, ii, 42, 137.
'' See Appendix V. p. 75.

* See Appendix VIII. p. 91.

In the early sixteenth century the Founders* Company paid iiijaT. to the ij parish
clerks. {Archaeological Journal y 1886, vol. xliii. p. 170.) Money was also paid to
the sexton for keeping their light and for ringing.

^ William TroUope, A History of the Royal Foundation of Chrisfs Hospital^
London, 1834. Appendix I. p. viii.

INTRODUCTION. xlix

Lyndwood, glossing the chapter a nosiris maioribus^ mentioned
above, notes upon the words Rectores et Vicarii that in a church where
there are a Rector and a Vicar it is more desirable that the Vicar
appoint the clerk. Lyndwood has said previously that the parishioners
might be claiming the appointment against the Rector or Vicar. But
this custom of the parishioners did not die out though condemned ; for
later, in the time of Henry VII. Sir William Catton, a canon of
Newburgh, asks of Sir Robert Plumpton to use his influence that " my
brother, your trew servant, myght have that service of the clarkship,
trustyng to God he should please the parishioners according to his
dutie."^ The patronage seems to have been in the parishioners of
Cukeswald (Coxwold) and the other candidates to have been two sons
of the clerk late deceased.

Also in 1527 at Hawkhurst in Kent there was a dispute between
the parson and the parishioners, which was settled by a compromise
arranged by the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is curious that the
parson who agrees to pay the clerk's wages (forty shillings a year, no
unusual sum in those days) yet resigns to the parishioners his right of
appointing the clerk.

Memorandum That in the yere of our Lorde m v c xxvij. mr. Drien beynge
person, ther arose a contencion betwene the said person and the parochyans
aboute the Fyndynge of a surjjles, wher as the said person would [have] forced
the parishe to Fynde for hym or the curate a surples with sieves the whiche the
parish denyed beynge before accustomed to Fynde but onely a Rochett, wher-
upon the said person denyed the Fyndynge of the Clerck. This matter beynge
brought before the bisshoppe Warrame dyde then determen and with the said
person and parochyans the bysshope decreed that from thence forth the parishe
should ever after fynd the curate or person one Sieved Surplys, and the person
to Fynde continewally every yere for clerks wages fortie shyllyngs an alwayes
the parishe to choose the Clerck. Present at Knoll at this conclusion takyn
these persons folowynge

[Here follow the names of 13 parishioners, p

In the diocese of London in 1540 we find the parishioners
neglecting to elect a parish clerk, and the parson choosing the clerk in
default of such election.

[1540] Tolkshunt militis. The sexte day of October presented at Witham,

before Mr. Officiall ther sittyng, thes articles following hi me, Richard

Baldwyer, parson of ToUeshunt Knyghtis.

♦ ♦ ♦ * * ♦

Also wher for lacke of a parishe [clerk ?] lawfully chosen by the parishe, and
admytted hi the ordinary, I was constrayned to chose me one George Ponde,
whiche hathe ben admitted hi you, and hathe helpid me this xviii weeks past,
to ministre sacramentis and sacramentallis, with all other devyne service not-
withstanding thefy] will note through the meanes of Laurence pay him his
wagis.^

•

^ Plumpton Correspondence i edited by Thomas Stapleton, Camden Society, 1839,
p. 66.

'^ Churchwardens' accounts of Hawkhurst, edited by W. J. Lightfoot, Archaeologia
Cantiana, 1863, vol. v. p. 78.

^ W. H, Haley Series 0/ Precedents . . . Ecclesiastical Courts in the Diocese of
London, London, 1847, p. 113. Laurence had met the parson on the King's high way,
and there smote him and strake him sondry and diversely.

CLERK. d

1 INTRODUCTION,

In the reign of Elizabeth* there are enquiries about the appointment
of the parish clerk in the visitation articles which show that the
appointment had not yet become wholly the right of the parson.
Grindal in his metropolitical visitation of the province of York in 1 5 7 1
enjoins :

that no parishe Clarke be appoynted agaynst the good will, or without the
consent of the person, vicar, or curate, in any Parishe.'^

Matthew Parker enquires in 1575 at a metropolitical visitation of
the province of Canterbury.

Whether the parishe clarkes be admitted without the consent of the Parson
or Vicar.*

But Grindal making a visitation of the same province in 1576
merely inquires " whether the parish Clerk be appointed according to
the ancient custom of the parish.'* So does Aylmer Bishop of London
in the next year.® And there is some evidence that in the city of
London especially the parishioners claimed the right of electing the
parish clerk. The example set by Grindal is also followed at Lincoln
in 1585® and 1598.' But after 1603 there is a great change ; for in
this year it was ordered by the 91st Canon that parish clerks should be
chosen by the Parson or Vicar ; and this choice was to be signified to
the parishioners the next Sunday following during the time of divine
service.® This was the only recognition that remained of the claim of
the parishioners to appoint : and there are traces of an inclination to
withstand the alteration.

Before the passing of the canon it is noted at Salehurst " in Aprill
1597 " " Item the minister hathe ever chosen the parish Clarke and one
of the Churchwardens and bothe the Sydemen." And later on a note
that James Prichard was appointed Clark in 16 14 solely "by my father*s
[that is, the vicar's] power."® There must have been some movement
in the parish which caused the insertion of this note. There is an
account of the appointment of the parish clerk by the vestry against

•

^ It is sometimes said that according to the canons of 1571 the parish clerks were
appointed by the parishioners. I cannot help thinking that this is due to a mistrans-
lation of the word Aedituus as parish clerk, an error into which John AyliflFe himself
has fallen. [Parfrgon, London, 1726, p. 409. ** By a Book of Canons in Queen
Eltzabeth^s'RQigVi[\.'D, 1571. Parish-Clerks are in Z^z/m termed -^ditui. ") But the
contemporary translation of these canons, lately reprinted for the first time since 1 571
(W. E. Collins, Canons of \yj\ in English and Latin, S.P.C.K. 1899, p. 60) gives
aeditui as churchwardens ; and this is clearly enough the meaning of the word, as the
context shows.

'^ § 21. Appendix E, to Second Report of the Royal Commission on Ritual^ 1 868, p.
415.

'* Ibid, § 32, p. 417.

^Remains of Edmund Gri^idaly Parker Society, 1843, P» ^68, § 39.

^ Report . . . Ritual Commission, %'^i, ^. /^20.

* Articles to be enquired . . . within the Dieocsse\ of Lincohi, London, Johiv
Windet, 1585, § 24, signature B. j. verso.

' Articles to be enquired of within the Diocesse of Lincolne, Cambridge, John Legat,
1598, § 33, p. 10. See notes by Whitgift on the appointment of parish clerks. (John
Strype, Annals of the Reformation, Oxford, 1824, vol. iv. p. 63.)

® See below, Appendix XI. p. 99.

• Sussex Archaeological Colltctions, 1873, ^^1. xxv. pp. 155 and 157.

INTRODUCTION. li

the nomination of the parson in the registers of St. Bartholomew
Exchange in 1630.^

John Godolphin, writing in the seventeenth century, says that "if
custom prevail for vestry to elect this is better than a canon because
custom in temporals can only be taken away by Act of Parliament, a
clerk being a mere layman."* This extraordinary statement appears to
have been a dictum of the Court of King's Bench, contradictory as such
an opinion may seem to the meaning of the word clerk. I have heard
another impossible expression, a lay deacon, because the deacon
followed a secular employment. Possibly the judges only intended to
state that a parish clerk need not necessarily be in holy orders, and
might follow a trade or other business.

With the desuetude into which the office fell in the nineteenth
century there would be naturally in our time very few or no disputes as
to the right of electing the parish clerk. But in the Act of 1844 it is
provided that where the appointment is by others than the parson, it
is to be subject to the approval of the parson.*

The fact that a parish clerk cannot be dismissed from his office at the
mere nod of the parson and churchwardens is some evidence of the
importance of his office. A mere menial servant would not have had
this privilege. He claimed a freehold, and consequently it was a hard
matter to dislodge him from his office of parish clerk, whatever his
conduct might be.* But the act of 1844 made it possible to prosecute
him before the Archdeacon, and to eject him from any premises
occupied by him as parish clerk.*

Wages. — Under this heading may be pursued still further the duties
of the clerk, especially those duties for which he received particular
remuneration. The sources of these wages or rewards of the clerk are
many ; and it will be convenient to consider them under several heads.

I . The carrying round of holy water, ^ From this office the clerk derives
his name of aquaebatulus. The constitutions of Alexander, Bishop
of Coventry in 1 237, speak of this. The poor scholar is to take round the
holy water in country places ; but no clerk who serves in the church is
to live of the fees thus received.

De aqua beftedicta.^

Ad hec. Quia oportet in ecclesia dei esse pastores et doctores/ nee est
diuisio inter pastores et doctores cum alia diuidat apostolus. Dicit enim. Ipse

^ Vestry Minute Books of the Parish of St. Bartholomew Exchange, edited by
Dr. Edwin Freshfield, London, Rixon and Arnold, 1890, p. 99.

2 See Appendix XIII. p. 107. A quotation from John Godolphin, Repertorium
Caftofticum, cap. xvii, § 15. London, 1687. Third ed. p. 193.

3 7 and 8 Victoria, Cap. 59, § 3.

* "The Ordinary cannot deprive the Parish- Clerk, tho' he may Censure, and Ex-
communicate him for any Fault ; but they only, who put him in, can deprive him."
(J. Johnson, Clergy-ffiait^ s Vade-Mecum, London, 1709, vol. i. p. 204, ch. xxiii.)

* See below, Appendix XI. p. 103. See §6 of the Act.

* British Museum, Vesp. E. iii. fo. 142. b. formerly 132. b. See D. Wilkins, Coti-
ciliay Lend. 1737, t. i. p. 641.

d 2

lii INTRODUCTION,

quidem dedit alios quidem apostolos et euangelistas, alios pastores et doctores.
Hie nullam fecit diuisionem. Precipimus igitur ut illi quorum interest videant
ut in singulis locis ubi est regimen scolarum : sint tales qui sciant alios doctrina
instruere et uelint eos exemplo bone vite informare, Sed quia plerique scolares
carent necessariis quorum scientia multi per gratiam dei poterunt edificari:^
uolumus ut scolares ferant aquam benedictam. per villas rurales. si sint qui
postulent et indigeant.

««■*««■

Item, precipimus sub pena suspensionis ut nuUus clericus qui seruit in ecclesia
viuat de aqua benedicta.

The eleventh constitution of W. de Bloys in i 229 also directs that this
office is only to be given to the poor scholars.^ So also a constitution
attributed to Boniface or Robert Winchelsey directed that the profits of
carrying round the holy water should be assigned to the poorer clerks.

Much to the same effect is a constitution of John Peckham in 1280.

Volumus insuper ibidem esse duos clericos scolasticos per parochianorum
de quorum habeat vivere elemosinis industriam eligendos, qui aquam benedic-
tam circumferant in parochia et capellis diebus dominicis et festivis in divinis.
ministrantes ofHciis, et profestis diebus disci plinis scolasticis indulgentes.*

How poor these aquaebaiuli were, and how unsparing in their
exactions were the ofl^icers of the Roman court, the following story
from Matthew Paris teaches us. It was written in the same century as
the foregoing constitutions. The scene is laid in France.

Harum quoque in Francia factarum extorsionum unam, quia turpissimam,.
duximus memorandam. Contigit ut memoratus papalis exactor obvium haberet
unum clericulum de villa venientem, aquam in vasculo cum aspersorio et frusta
panis, data sibi pro aspersione aquae benedictae, baiulantem. Cui Romanus^
insidiator ait, "Ad quantum pretium ascendit beneficium hoc tibi ab ecclesia
concessum per annum?" Cui clericus, laqueorum ignarus Romanorum, re-
spondit, ** Ad viginti, ut aestimo, solidorum." Cui Romanus iam se manifes-
tans, ait, " Hie ergo assurgunt ad fisci commodum per annum viginti et quatuor
denarii, scilicet duo solidi." Et suffocavit ipsum pauperem ostiatim mendican-
tem, dicens, "Redde domino regi quod debes." Unde pro ilia substantiola
persolvenda cogebatur ille pauperculus, multis diebus scolas exercens, venditis
in parvisio libellis, vitam famelicam et codrinam protelare. Talibus igitur
omissis sermocinationibus collateralibus, ad materiam redeamus principalem.^

By Lyndwood's time, the right of the parish clerk to the benefit of
holy water was well established. He could claim something from every

^ Constitutiones . . . W. de Bloys, Worcester, Wilkins, op. cit, p. 624.
^ W. Dugdale, Monasticotiy ed. Caley, Ellis, and Bandinel, Lond. 1830, vol. vi..
part iii. p. 1246.

' Matthew Paris, Chronica Maiora^ Rolls Series, 1880, ed. H. R. Luard, vol. v.
p. 172. [a.d. 1250.] Mr. J. A. Herbert of the British Museum has been kind enough
to give me the following transcript which shows the carrying of holy water to have been
a custom of the Gallican Church very similar to that in England :

Audivi de quodam milite qui morabatur in quadam villa in dyocesi Parisiensi
sita. Quidam autem pauper et religiosus scolaris diebus dominicis portabat
aquam benedictam in parrochia ilia secundum consuetudinem Gallicanam. (MS.
Harl. 463, fo. 6. <$ ; a 14th century MS. of the Exempla of Jacques de Vitry,
Bishop of Acre, afterwards Cardinal Bishop of Tusculum, ob. 1240. The above
passage is printed from a Paris MS. in Crane's edition of the Exefupla of J, de
Vitry ^ Folk Lore Soc. 1890, p. 47.)

INTRODUCTION, liii

householder.^ At Coventry the senior clerk had every Sunday to bear
holy water to every house in his ward, and to have his duty of every
man after his degree quarterly. Also every Sunday he and his fellow
brought their holy water stock with water to be blessed.* So also at
St. Nicholas, Bristol, the clerk had to take the holy water to every
house, abiding so convenient a space that every man might receive his
holywater.^ And at Faversham* and St. Stephen's, Coleman Street,®
the clerk was to bear holy water every Sunday in the year.

At the conclusion of the great dispute at Morebath in 1536 one of
the points agreed upon as to the dues to be given to the clerk was this :
that he should go about the parish with his holy water when men have
shorn their sheep, to gather wool to make him a coat to go in the livery
of the parish.^

Other things connected with the holy water had to be seen to by the
clerks. At St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, for example, after mattins on
Sunday they had to make ready the water and salt to be blessed.' At
St. Nicholas, Bristol, the suffragan had to see that fresh water was in the
holy water stocks ; the clerk had to provide the bunches of twigs for
sprinkling holy water, not only for the church, but for him that went
about with the holy water.® At Faversham the clerks had to keep clean
the holy water stoops of laten.® At St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, the
clerks had to cleanse the font and fill it again with clean water at Easter
and Whitsuntide and oftener if need require^^ ; and at Coventry at these
two feasts, the first clerk was to see that water was brought to the
church for the blessing of the fonts, and also a barrel of water prepared
on Maundy Thursday for the washing of the altars. ^^

Closely connected with the holy water is the holy loaf. The holy
loaf was blessed after the holy water on Sundays,^'* and the delivery of
it was the cause of a demand by the parish church clerk for a reward,
the holy loaf halfpenny.

At StilHngton in 1472 they complained that the vicar demanded a tithe
of beer, contrary to custom ; and also every Sunday the parish clerk's
halfpenny called the haly bred halfpeny}^

At Coventry the first clerk had to see the holy loaf cut every
Sunday according to every man's degree, and he gave it to those on

' Unusquisque Paterfamilias die quolibet Dominico Clerico deferenti aquam
Benedictam aliquid secundum exigentiam Status sui tribuat. {^Provinciate^ Lib. iii. tit.
de concessione prebendae cap. a nostris maioribus ad verb. Compellantur, Oxod.

1679. p. 143- )
2 See below, Appendix I. p. 58, §§ 14, 17, p. 63, § 78.

' See below, Appendix III. p. 68, § 21.

* See below, Appendix V. p. 77, § 12.

^ See below, Appendix VIII. p. 91, § 18.

* See below. Appendix VII. p. 88, § 13.

■^ See below. Appendix VIII. p. 92, § 28.

* See below. Appendix III. p. 66, § 3, and p. 68, § 21.

* See below, Appendix V. p. 1%^ § 14.

^^ See below. Appendix VIII. p. 91, § 2.

^1 See below. Appendix I. p. 58, § 20, p. 62, § 64.

" Missal . . . Saru?n, ed. F. H. Dickinson, Burntisland, 1861-1883, Col. 33**

" Fabric Rolls of York Minster^ Surtees Society, 1859, p. 254.

liv INTRODUCTION,

the north side of the church. The second clerk dealt the holy bread
to those on the south side.^ At St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, the clerks
every Sunday after mattins had to prepare water and salt for holy water
and to cut the holy loaf.*

But the giving of holy bread, together with the giving of holy water,
did not survive the changes of the sixteenth century. In 1543 a man
is enjoined penance for giving his dog holy bread in contempt of the
ceremony of holy bread.' And the first years of Edward VI. saw the
ceremony of taking holy bread made voluntary,* so that it becomes
dubious if the directions at Doncaster were issued by commissioners
appointed by the Protector Somerset. Both holy water and holy
bread were then ordered, but it is said that the parish clerk is not
hereafter to go about the parish with holy water ; but nevertheless,
instead of that labour, he is to accompany the churchwardens and
register the names of the persons that give and the sums given to the
poor.*

And in the first prayer book of Edward VI. it appears to be under-
stood that the holy loaf has disappeared, and in its place its value was
to be given at the time of the offertory towards defraying the expenses
of the bread and wine for the communion.® Consequently we find in
the fifth year of Edward VI. anno Domini 1551, that there was a fresh
arrangement made as to the wages of the clerk at Reading.

At this day it was concludid and aggreid that from hensforthe euery
inhabitant of the parisshe shall here and pay euery Sonday in the yere \d. for
euery tenement as of old tyme the Holy Lofe was used to be paid and be
received by the parisshe dark wekely, the said dark to have euery Sonday for
his pajmes \d. And m\d. residewe to be paied and delyuered euery Sonday to
the churchewardens to be employed for bred and wyne for the communyon.^

Yet the holy loaf returns under Mary, as the very curious and
interesting document from Stanford in the Vale shows us.® The disuse
of holy bread is said to have begun as early as 1547, the ** second''
year of Edward VI. The money collected for the holy bread
was devoted to the supplying of bread and wine for the communion,
and with this is an enumeration of the houses wont to give the holy
loaf.

Though after Mary the holy loaf may be found here and there in
parish registers, yet it had ceased to be a direct source of profit to the
clerk.

' See below, Appendix I. p. 58, § 18, p. 62, § 59.

^ See below, Appendix VIII. p. 92, § 28.

' W. H. Hale, A series of Precedeiits, London, 1847, p. 124.

* Edward Cardwell, Documentary Annals of the Refortned Church of Engla^idy
Oxford, 1839, vol. i. p. 35.

^ See below, Appendix IX. p. 95.

^ See the third and fifth rubrics at the end of the Communion Service in Edward
VI. 's first book. (Grafton, 1549, fo. cxxxiii. bJ)

' Charles Kerry, A history . . . St. Laisrrence, Reading, Reading, 1883, p. 48.

^ See below, Appendix X. p. 96. See the contemporary explanation of holy bread,
holy water and tht pax in Edm. Bonner's Articles to be enquired &^c., 1554. Signature
C. i.

INTRODUCTION, Iv

2. CakeSy £ggs, and Sheaves, Lyndwood tells us that besides the
claim the parish clerk could make upon every householder for the holy
water brought every Sunday, he had the right to demand from every
household one loaf at Christmas, eggs at Easter, and sheaves in the
Harvest.^

In the settlement of the great dispute at Morebath it was agreed that
the clerk should have " a steche of clene corne to euery howsseholde "^ •
and there are directions how it should be compounded for.

Traces of the right to cakes and eggs last into the following century.
I am indebted to the Rev. J. R. Hughes, Rector of Rempstone, for a
transcript from his registers of 1629 which shows the custom of
giving eggs at Easter to the clerk to have persisted to that year, but by
courtesy. So also a peck of barley for every yardland, but the time of
paying this had been postponed from harvest to the weeks between
Christmas and Lady Day.

22nd November, 1629.

The wages of the Clarke of the Parish Church of Rempston.

At Easter yearely he is to have of every Husbandman one pennie for every
yard land^ he hath in occupation. And of every Cottager two pence.

Furthermore he is to have for every yard land one peche of Barley of the
husbandmen yearely.

Egges at Easter by Courtesie.

For every marriage two pence. And at the churching of a woman his dinner.

The said Barley is to be payed between Christmasse and the feast of the
Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Marie.

This is signed by the Clerk, an Ex-clerk, the Rector, and several
parishioners.

At Houghton le Spring 1658 the buns at Christmas and the eggs at
Easter were still paid.

That the Clerk's wages of this parish is ixfl?. upon a plow, iiijaf. upon a
cottager to be paid yearely at Easter time. Also for a Christning yi. a Buriall
4^. a marriage 4//. and asking the banes 2d,

That the Sexton's wages is 2d, a plow, each cottage a ob, a Christning 2d,
for a grave in the Quire yyd, in the Church iiij^. in the yard \}d. And buns at
Xtmas and egs at Easter yearely.*

Robert Story, who was himself a parish clerk, has left some lines
describing his emoluments. It would seem that the egg which he
claimed at Easter had already developed into the chicken :

Learn, next, that I am Parish Clerk
A noble ofhce, by St. Mark !
It brings me in six guineas clear
Besides et cetcras^ every year.

^ Et quod in Natali Domini habeat a singulis Domiciliis unum Panem, et etiam
certa Ova ad Pascha, etin Autumno certas garbas. {Proinnciale^ Lib. iii de conccssione
praebendae cap. a nostris viaioribiis^ ad verb, compellantur^ Oxon. 1679, p. 143.)

2 See below, Appendix VIL pp. 85 and 88, §§ 4 and 8.

' A yardland varies in amount. It may be as much as 25 or 40 acres.

* Churchwarden^ accounts of Pittington^ Surtees Society, 1888, p. 318. The
number of acres in a ploughland is uncertain, but it is rated at ;£"50 a year.

Ivi INTRODUCTION,

Nor less the sport, when Easter sees

The daisy spring to deck the leas ;

Then, claimed as dues by Mother Church,

I pluck the cackler from the perch ;

Or, in its place, the shilling clasp

From grumbling Dame's slow opening grasp. ^

3. Glebe and House, The clerk sometimes had a house and also a
glebe. About 14 11 it is complained at St. Michael le Belfrey in York
that the parish chaplain and parish clerk have no house assigned to
them.' In 1590 they payd "for mendyng the dark's house"* at St.
MichaePs Worcester.

In 1653 at St. Edmund's, Salisbury, there must have been a clerk's
house and garden, for both are spoken of, and the clerk was to
have forty shillings " by the yeare in lewe of his house."* I owe this
reference to the kindness of Mr. Christopher Wordsworth, who has
besides given me several other instances drawn from his own observation
in country parishes as well as from the Charity Commissioners' Reports.

Mr. Vaux speaks of a clerk's glebe at Barton Turf, Norfolk, where
the rent of three acres known as " dog whippers land '* is paid to him.*

A cottage and garden formerly belonged to the parish clerk of
Saltwood, Kent, but it has lately been sold.

In the Act of 1844 it is expressly enacted that the parish clerk when
suspended from his office may be ejected from the premises which he
holds as parish clerk.*

4. Fees, These again have varied sources. The present rubric
in the marriage service directs that the accustomed duty to the priest
and clerk shall be laid upon the book at a certain moment in the
service. Other fees seem due by custom ; at funerals, for ringing
the bell, churchings, baptisms. In Beaumont and Fletcher's play, the
Spanish curate talks thus with his sexton :

Let weddings, christ'nings, churchings, funerals.
And merry gossipings, go round, go round still ;
Round as a pig that we may find the profit.'^

These occasions probably represent the chief sources of the clerk's
fees. The amount varies very considerably, and most likely the
variations have always followed the position and wealth of the persons
whom the parish clerk thus assists. A table of the fees at St. Margaret's,

* Robert Story, Poetical Works^ London, 1857, p. 109. In a " Reply to an Epistle
from Mr. Gourley, 1828."

' Fabric Rolls of York Minster^ Surtees Society, 1859, p. 250.
' John Amphlett, Churchwardens^ Accounts of St. Michael* s in Bedwardiney
Worcester y Oxford, 1896, p. 100.

* H. J. F. Swayne, Churchwardens* Accounts of S. Edmund and S, Thomas ,
Sarum, Wilts Record Society, 1896, p. 230, last lines. In the same volume, p. 310,
a sexton's house is spoken of under the year 1620.

* J. E. Vaux, Church Folklore, London, 1894, p. 199.

* 7 and 8 Victoria, Cap. 59, § 6.

' Beaumont and Fletcher, The Spanish Curate, III. ii. The merry gossipings are
perhaps the ales.

INTRODUCTION. Ivii

Lothbury, in 157 1, is given below,* and it may be compared in some
respects with the fees allowed in a country parish in Sussex much about
the same time.

April 18 1597.

Memorandum that the dutyes for Churchinge of women in the parishe of
Salehurst is vnto the minister yad, ob. and vnto the Clarke 'iyd.

Item the due vnto the minister for a marriadge is xxj^/. And vnto the
Clarke \]d, the Banes, and iiij^. the marriadge.
Item due for burialls as followeth
To the minister in the Chancell xiijj. iiij^.

To the Clarke in the Chancell vjj. viijaf.

To the parish in the Church yjj. yvCyd,

To the Clarke in the Church vj. od.

To the Clarke in the Churchyard for great Coffins ijj. \yi,

for great Corses vncoffined ijj. o

for Chrisomers and such like Coffined jj. \\\]d,

and vncoffined o xij^.

for tolling the passing bell an houre j^.

for ringing the sermon bell an houre jj. o^.

To the Clarke for Carying the beere o iiijflf.

if it be fetched o \}d.

Item at fimeralls the minister is to haue the mourning pullpit Cloth, and die
Clarke the herst Cloth

Item the minister hathe ever chosen the parishe Clarke and one of the
Churchwardens and bothe the Sydemen

Item if they bring a beere or poles with the Corps the Clarke is to haue
them

If any Corps goe out of the parish they are to pay double dutyes and to
haue leaue

If any Corps come out of an other parish to be buryed here, they are to pay
double dutyes besides breakinge the ground ; which is xiijx. 4//. in the
Church and 6j. viij^. in the Churchyard

For marryage by licence double fees both to the minister and clerke''*

5. Clerks^ Ales, These were part of the Wakes or Revels, which are
known under the generic termination of ale, as Church ale, bride ale,
Whitsun ale, bid ale. The clerk's ale was for the benefit of the parish
clerk, and was commonly held at Easter.' At Morebath it was agreed
that the clerk should have his " hyre mette at ester of euery howse
holder '' ; but as Easter had passed in the year of the great contention
without a clerk's ale, it was agreed that it should be upon Trinity
Sunday that year only.*

But unfortunately for the Ales they were commonly celebrated on

^ See Appendix IV. p. 72. Appendix VII. p. 88, §§ 10, 11, Appendix XIV.
p. 1 10, § 10. See also above, p. Iv. for Houghton le Spring. See also a table made
in 1630 for St. Bartholomew Exchange. ( Vestry Minute Books, edited by Dr. Edwin
Freshfield, London, printed by Rixon and Arnold, 1890, p. 106.)

* From Salehurst Parish Books, Sussex Archaeological Collections y 1873, ^^^* ^x^*

p. 154-

* There may be notes of the clerk's ale about 1457 in the Transactions of the Bristol

and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society y 1890-91, vol. xv. pp. 166, 167, 169.

* See below, Appendix VII. pp. 85 and 88, §§ 3 and 14.

Iviii INTRODUCTION,

the Sunday/ and the rise of Puritanism, with its insistence upon the
Jewish keeping of the " Sabaoth," proved fatal to them. The judges
ordered them to be discontinued as early as 1594 according to Prynne,
who prints the documents at length* ; but about 1633, the judges in
the west again forbad wakes and revels. This coming to the ears of
Dr. Laud, just elected Archbishop of Canterbury, he asked his
suffragan, Dr. William Pierce, Bishop of Bath and Wells, to make
some enquiry how these had been managed of late. The answer as
to clerks' ales is as follows :

Touching Clerke-ales (which are lesser Church-ales) for the better
maintenance of Parish-Clerks, they have bin used (untill of late) in divers
places, and there was great reason for them ; for in poore Countrey Parishes,
where the wages of the Clerke is very small, the people thinking it unfit that
the Clerke should duly attend at Church, and lose by his office, were wont to
send him in Provision, and then feast with him, and give him more liberality
then their quarterly pa3anents would amount unto in many years. And since
these have bin put down, some Ministers have complained unto me, that they
are afrayd they shall have no Parish Clerks for want of maintenance for
them.'

Dr. Pierce's answer was not forgotten by the Parlinmentarians.
The Commons accused him in 1642, and the fifth article of
impeachment asserts that he "both by precept and example most
prophanely opposed the sanctification of the Lords day, by approving
and allowing of prophane Wakes and Revels on that day " : and the
articles end with the discovery of " what a desperately prophane,
impious, turbulent Pilate the Bishop is."*

The more sober-minded and reasonable people seem to have found
no great harm in these ales. John Aubrey speaks well of them* and
White Kennett, with regret, says they were abolished by the " nice
Puritans."*

6. Salary, The churchwardens' accounts give us abundant
information as to the amount of wages paid to the parish clerk by these
officers ; but only a few instances may be here given from these and
other sources. The French clerk spoken of by Matthew Paris in the
thirteenth century had only 20 sous a year.'' At the end of the

^ The prejudice against these ales, or indeed against any manner of recreation on a
Sunday, is plain in Philip Stubbes' Anatomic of Abuses^ 1583 (edited for the New
Shakspere Society, 1877-79, pp. 137 and 150.) " Some spend the Sabaoth day (for
the most part) in frequenting . . . May-games, Church-ales, feasts, and
wakeesses : ... In foot-ball playing, and such other deuilish pastimes. "

^ It is from these that P. Heylin {Cyprianus Anglicus, Part ii. Lib. iv. a.d. 1633,
London, 1771, p. 242) and D. Neal, History of the Puritans^ vol. ii. chap. v.
London, 1733, vol. ii. p. 246) seem to have drawn their accounts of this affair.

^ William Prynne, Canterburies Doomey London, 1646, p. 151, Signature V. 2.
The pagination of this work is irregular.

^ Articles of Accusatiott and Impeachment of the House of Commons . .
against William Fierce, London, 1642, pp. 4 and 8.

^ Topographical Collections of John Aubrey, ed. J. E. Jackson, Wiltshire
Archaeological and Natural History Society, Devizes, 1862, p. 10. See also notes to
Appendix X.

® White Kennett, Parochial Antiquities, Oxford, 18 18, vol. ii. p. 309.

■^ See above, p. Hi.

INTRODUCTION. lix

fifteenth century at Craffield, the sexton or clerk had 4^. \d. a year.*
At St Giles, Reading, about 1520, they paid the clerk for his years
wages 26x. 8^.*

In the middle of the sixteenth century the clerk's wages, as might be
expected from the decrease in the value of money, rose considerably.
In Henry VIII. 's new foundation of Christ Church, Newgate Street, the
two parish clerks had £fi^ and the sexton £,\ yearly. It was to be
the same as St Bartholomew the Less.' At St Michael's, Comhill, in
1556, the year's wages were £,(i 6j. &/.* In the country the clerk's
yearly wages were not far off from those in London. At Bishop's
Stortford in 1546 they were £,\} It will thus be seen that the clerk's
wages in the middle of the sixteenth century were in London as high
as those recorded by the clerk poet, Robert Story, in the tirst half of the
nineteenth century.® But at the end of the seventeenth century the
priest who served the office of parish clerk at St. James', Westminster,
was to have £^yi a year,' the highest salary from anything like an
endowment that I have yet met with.

But in some parishes they seem to have been extraordinarily low.
The churchwardens' accounts of Came in Dorsetshire from 1696 to
1 780 show that ten shillings a year was the usual amount paid the clerk
during this time ; and where it is said he was paid twelve shillings it is
very likely that the two extra shillings were for the washing of the surplice.*
The churchwardens' accounts for the eighteenth century at Bledlow, in
Buckinghamshire, have lately been under my notice, and the annual
charge for the clerk's wages is only ten shillings.

The quarterage, a sum paid every quarter to the clerk, is spoken of
by Lyndwood' amongst other of the clerk's dues, and it may be found
as late as the seventeenth century. At Morebath it was agreed that the
clerk should have a penny a quarter of every householder.*^ I am not
as yet confident that it was the same as the duty paid for the holy
water.

The collecting of the clerk's wages or fees led to trouble, and pro-
ceedings in the ecclesiastical courts. In 1 465, Thomas Walynger refused
payment towards the light on the beam and the salary of the parish

^ W. Holland and J. J. Raven, Crat/Uld, London, 1895, pp. 22 and 30. The
church ales abound in these churchwardens' accounts.

2 W. L. Nash, Church-warden^ Account Book , , , St. Giles Recuiing^ 1881.
p. 10.

' William TroUope, A history of the Royal Foundation of Christ's Hospital^
London, 1834. Appendix L p. viii.

^ Accounts oj the Churchwardens . . . Saint MichaelyCorfthill,tdi,OwtX9}\2LTid.
Waterlow, privately printed about 187 1. p. 129.

* J. L. Glas-cock, Records of St. Michacts Parish Churchy Bishops Stortfordy
London, 1882, p. 46.

^ See above, p. Iv.

' See below, Appendix XI. p. 102.

® My son has given me these notes from Came, and he has also helped me with
the papers from Morebath, printed as Appendix VII.

^ Provinciate, Lib. iii. de concessione praebetuiae, cap. a twstris maioribus, ad verb.
compellantur, Oxon. 1679. p. 143. See also Appendix IV. p. 71.

10 See below, Appendix VII. pp. 85 and 88. §§ 2 and 9.

Ix INTRODUCTION.

clerk. A little later on Peter Cornel would not give the clerk his fee at
marriage, and one declined the clerk's wages. ^ Much about the same
time, by rules made between 1455 and 1469, we find at All Saints',
Bristol, that refusal of communion was to follow refusal to content the
clerk.^ The disturbance at Morebath in 1531 and 1536 was owing to
the objection of some parishioners to pay the accustomed dues.^
Excommunication was threatened in Warham's time with satisfactory
results :

In the Visitation of Archbishop Warham^^ a little before the Reformation,
one Inhabitant was enjoya'd, Quod solvat ad Salarium Aquaebaiuli ibidem
cessiottein suatn ; and two others, Sub poena Excommunicationis ^ ad solvend*
salarium Aquaebaiuli ibidem, ut alii Parochiani solvunl ; and, in another
place,® it is noted as follows, Iconomi dixerunt, quod cmnes subtrahentes
Salarium Aquaebaiuli, satisfecerttnt et composuerurU.^

A well known antiquary, whose acquaintance with the parish records of
the city of London is very great, thinks that it is quite likely that
hereafter it will be proved that the money collected for the clerk was
the source of the church rate of modern times, abolished some years
ago, by making the payment voluntary. The sum collected under the
name of the clerk's wages was, he tells me, applied to all sorts of church
purposes.

Miscellaneous. — The clerk in former times had his seat close by
the parson, below him or at his side. It was his practice tc precede
the parson from the vestry to the reading desk at the beginning of
divine service. There is evidence that the clerk had a seat to himself
in the quire in mediaeval times, for at the visitation St. Maurice at York
it is complained that the desks on both sides of the quire, where the
parish chaplain and the parish clerk used to sit, need repair.*'

As this was in 14 16 it seems hardly possible that the first pew erected
for a clerk was in 1627.® And in the visitation articles of the diocese
of Norwich in 1620 it is inquired whether there be a seat for the clerk
near the parson.®

Some instances have been brought forward of women having served
the office of parish clerk, and that decisions have been given in the
courts in favour of the practice. ^° Certainly strange notions have been
entertained in Westminster Hall as to the character of the parish clerk ;
but they hardly agree with the facts taught by the history of the

^ W. H. Hale, Series of Precedents and Proceedings . . . from Act books of the
Ecclesiastical Courts in the Diocese of London, London, 1847. pp. 2, 3, 14.

'-^ See below. Appendix II. p. 64.

^ See below. Appendix VII. p. 84.

^ Reg. Warh. f. 60. a f. 62, 6, \in w.]

® f. 68. a. \in m.]

® Edm. Gibson, Codex Juris Ecclesiastici Anglicani, tit. ix. cap. xiv. Oxford,
1761. t. i. p. 214, note d.

■^ Fabric Rolls of York Minster, Surtees Society, 1859, p. 248.

^ See All the Year Round, 1880, vol. xxvi. (new series) November 6, p. 54. «.

' Articles . . . diocese of Norwich, London, 1620, sign. B. 3, § 4.

*® All the Year Round, 1880, vol. xxvi. (new series) p. 83.

INTRODUCTION, Ixi

parish clerk. If parish clerks be in an inferior degree of orders, no
woman can possibly be a parish clerk, for she is incapable of receiving
orders. She may in some degree perform part of the menial duties of
a parish clerk, which consist in keeping the church clean, or opening
the doors and the like ; but the higher duties such as reading in the
church, singing, and attending at the altar, cannot be performed by a
woman.

Instances of the office having passed from father to son through
several generations have been quoted as something extraordinary. But
in a village with a small population, and indeed elsewhere, offices often
tend to become hereditary in a family.

The parish clerks of London have been a company since the year
1422, and they were granted a charter by Henry VI. in 1442, and the
company still exists/ There was a guild of clerks at Lincoln in 1381, but
it is uncertain if they were parish clerks. It was apparently dissolved
about 1549.^

It may be worth while to give here an instance of a penance inflicted
upon a parish clerk for misbehaviour, at the end of the eighteenth
century, when discipline was not, it is commonly said, at its highest in
the Church of England.

In January, 1799, the Dean of Middleham cited the parish clerk into
his court and pronounced the following sentence :

That Thomas Ibbotson should be suspended from the ofiice of parish clerk,
without forfeiting the wages, until after the loth day of February then next,
being the first Sunday in Lent ; that he do not approach the Sacrament of the
Lord's Supper on that day, that, by ihe prayers of Lent, he might be fitted for
it at the festival of Easter ; and, lastly, that, on the first Sunday of the ensuing
Lent, he should stand during service until the Nicene creed was read, before
the font under the gallery, and then depart to a private seat, after having read
distinctly the following acknowledgement, viz.

" I, Thomas Ibbotson, do acknowledge that, on the day of the Feast of
Circumcision, I behaved very irreverently in the House of God : that I
interrupted the divine service, and conducted myself in such a manner, both in
the church and out of it, as to give just cause of offence to the congregation then
present : that I was led to this misconduct by resentment, and not being
perfectly sober at the time, for which I beg pardon of Almighty God, and do
promise to order myself with greater sobriety and decency for the time to
come."*

There are many allusions to the parish clerk in general English
literature. We all of us remember the description that Crabbe gives of
the parish clerk of a hundred years ago; of his fall from a proud
austerity of life to the practice of stealing the money collected at the
offertory. Probably also a good view is given mcidentally of what
manner of man the parish clerk then was.* Another aspect is given of
the clerk of that same period by Dr. Johnson, who hearing a wish that

* James Christie, Sonie account of Parish Clerks, 1893, privately printed by the
Company, p. 25.

' Christopher Wordsworth, Notes on Mediaeval Services in England, London,
1898, p. 149.

* Documents relating to . , . Middleham, Camden Society, 1847, p. 42.

* See the Borough, Letter xix.

Ixii INTRODUCTION,

better provision were made for parish clerks, said, " Yes, sir, a parish
clerk should be a man who is able to make a will, or write a letter for
anybody in the parish."^ He could see that unless the clerk were
adequately paid his education was not likely to be as high as his duties
demanded ; and that his office has been, since the great rebellion, much
degraded, there seems good evidence to show, while there are many
wishes expressed in the literature of the eighteenth century for a
restoration of the office to better things. The activities of the
nineteenth century, so often misplaced, appear to have done hardly any-
thing to improve the parish clerk. This introduction may be ended by
an extract from the preface of a little work wTitten by a parish clerk for
parish clerks at the end of the seventeenth century, and thus coming
from the period between 1660 and 1730, which has not unjustly been
described as the golden age of the Church of England.

To THE Reader.

The Parish Clerk is an Officer to be chosen by the Minister of the Parish
(unless Custom prevail to the contrary) .... A Parish Clerk then is
not so mean and contemptible an office as some people render it. He is more
than a Door- Keeper in the House of God, he is Servus in Sacris, conversant
in all the Holy Offices of the Church ; whose Life and Conversation ought to
be such, that he be Habitually prepared at all times to Communicate with the
Sick, &c. The Clerk is to take care about the Elements proper to be used in
the Holy Sacraments ; of the Holy Vestments, that they be decently kept to
the Honor of God, and the Reputation of that particular Church he hath the
honour to serve. In a word, the Parish- Clerk ought to be an exact Pattern of
Conformity in all the respective Offices of the Church, by whose good example
the congregation may be excited to Reverence and Devotion, viz. Kneeling
at Prayer, standing up at the Creed, bowing at the name of Jesus, &c.^

^ J. Bos well, Life of Samuel Johnson, June 3. 1 781.

2 The Parish Clerks Vade-Mecum, by B. P. Parish Clerk. London, Benj. Motte,
1694*

THE

CLERKS BOOK

1549-

I ' ■»»^»- « ^» ■ ^m ^-^^ip^^^i^^^^^— ^^^^— — ^■^■^11^^— ^— — ^^^M^^»^>^

/ € The Psalter [^. I

or Psalmes of Dauid, cor-
rected and poyncted, as
thei shalbe song in Churches
after the translacion
of the greate
Bible.

H Hereunto is added, diuerse thyn-

ges as male appere on the next

side, where is expressed

the contentes of

this boke.

A° Domini. M.D.XLIX.

Mense Augustij.f

CLERK.

/ The contentes of this boke. [* i. v.

I. First, the ordre how the Psalter shalbe red.

II. The table for the ordre of the Psalmes.

III. The Kalender for the ordre of common praier.

nil. The ordre for Mattyns and Euensong the whole yere.

V. The Letanie and Suffrages.

VI. All that shall apperteigne to the clerkes to saie or syng,
at the ministracion of the Communion and when there is
no Communion.

At Matrimonie.

The visitacion of the Sicke.

At Buriall of the dedde.

At the Purificacion of women.

And the first daie of Lent.

Here is to bee noted, that throughout this boke of the
Psalter, ye shall find ouer the hed of euery leaf Moneth.
First, ii. iii. liii. dale. &c. Which signifieth, that forasmuche
as the Psalter is appoyncted to bee redde ouer euery .xxx.
daies, ye shall nede no more, but turne to the daie of the
Moneth, titled ouer the hedde of the leafe, and there ye shall
finde bothe where Mattins for that daie beginneth, and also
Euensong.

/ C The ordre how the Psalter is appoyncted [*. 2.

to be redde.

'HPHe Psalter shalbe red through once euery Moneth, and
^ because that some Monethes, be longer then some other
be : It is thought good, to make them euen by this meanes.

To euery Moneth, as concernyng this purpose, shalbe
appoyncted lust .xxx. dales.

And because January and Marche hath one dale, aboue the-
saied nombre, and February whiche is placed betwene them
bothe, hath onely xxviii. dales, February shall borowe of either
of the Moneth.es, of January and Marche one dale, and so the
Psalter whiche shalbee redde In February, muste bee begon
the last dale of January, and ended the firste dale of Marche.

And where as Male, luly, August, October, and December,
hath xxxl. dales a pece, it is ordered that thesame Psalmes,
shalbee red the last dale of thesaied Moneth, whiche were
redde the daie before, so that the Psalter male be begon again
the first dale of the next Monethes ensuyng.

Now to knowe what Psalmes shalbe redde euery dale, looke
in the Kalendar the nombre that is appoyncted for the Psalmes,
and then find thesame nombre in this table, and vpon that
nombre shall you see, what Psalmes shalbe saled at Mattins,
and Euensong.

And where the .C.xix. Psalme Is deulded Into .xxli. porclons,
and Is ouer long to be red at one tyme : it is so ordered, that
at one tyme shall not bee red aboue foure or fiue of thesaied
porcions, as you shall percelue to bee noted in this table.

And here Is also to bee noted, that in this table, and In all
other partes of the seruice, where any Psalmes are appoyncted,
the nombre is expressed after the greate Englishe Bible, whiche
from the .ix. Psalme, vnto the .C.xlvili. Psalme (folowyng the
diuision of the Ebrues) doth vary in nombres from the common
Latin translacion.

This Is also to be noted, that whensoeuer there bee any propre
psalmes or lessons, appoyncted for any feast, moueable or
vnmoueable, then the Psalmes and Lessons appoyncted in the
Kalender, shalbee omitted for that tyme.

B 2

/H A table for the ordre of the Psalmes, to be [^. 2. v.

said at Mattins and Euensong.

C Mattins.

C Euensong.

I. 2. 3. 4. 5

6. 7. 8.

9. 10. II.

12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17.

18.

19. 20. 21.

22. 23.

24. 25. 26.

27. 28. 29.

30. 31-

32. 33. 34.

35- 36.

37.

38. 39. 40.

41. 42. 43.

44. 45. 46.

47, 48. 49.

50. 51. 52

53. 54. 55.

56. 57. 58.

59. 60. 61.

62. 63. 64.

65. 66. 67.

68.

69. 70.

71. 72.

73- 74.

75. 76. 77.

78.

79. 80. 81.

82. 83. 84. 85.

86. 87. 88.

89.

90. 91. 92.

93. 94.

95- 96. 97.

98. 99. 100. lOI.

102. 103.

104.

105.

106.

107.

108. 109.

no. III. 112. 113.

114. 115.

116. 117. 118.

119. Inde. 4.

Inde. 5.

Inde. 4.

Indc. 5.

Inde. 4.

120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125.

126. 127. 128. 129. 130.

131-

132. 133. 134. 135.

136. 137. 138.

139. 140. 141.

142. 143-

144. 145. 146.

147. 148. 149. 150.

C Ianuary.

Mattins.

Euensong.

C Psalmes

I. Lesson.

2. Lesson.

I. Lesson.

2. Lesson.

Kalend.

Circumcisio.

Gene. 17

Roma. 2

Deut. 10

CoUos. 2

4. No.

Gene, i

Math I

Gene. 2

Roma. I

3- No.

Prid. No.

Nonas

8. Id.

Epiphania.

Esay. 60

Luke 3

Esay 49

Ihon. 2

7. Id.

Gene. 9

Math. 5

Gene. 11

Roma. 5

6. Id.

5. Id

4. Id.

3. Id.

Prid. Id.

Idus.

19. kl.

18. kl.

17. kl.

16. kl.

15. kl.

14. kl.

I. Cor. I

13. kl.

12. kl.

II. kl.

10. kl.

9. kl.

8. kl.

Con. Paule.

Actes. 22

Actes 26

7. kl.

Math. 23

I. Cor. 7

6. kl.

Exodi. I

S kl.

Exodi 2

4. kl.

3. kl.

Prid. kl.

12I

^ The signature i{< 3 appears within the last rule below the line for the last day of the month.

€ February.

Mattins.

Euensong.

e
f

g
A

e
f

g
A

Kalend.

2. No.
I No.

Prid. No
Nonas

8. Id.

7. Id.

6 Id.

5. Id.
4. Id.

3. Id.
Prid Id.
Idus

16 k]
IS kl
14 kl

13 kl
12 kl
II. kl
10. kl

9 kl

8 kl

7. kl

6. kl
5 kl
4 kl
3 kl

Prid. kl.

I
2

5
6

7
8

9
10

15
16

17
18

19
20

23
24

25
26

Purif. Mari

Mathias.

C Psalmes.

5
6

7
8

9
10

IS
16

17
18

19
20

27
28

I. Lesson

Exodi. 10
12

H
16

24
33

Leuit. 18

Nume. II

19
21

35
Deut. I

3
5

2. Lesson

Marke i

3
4

5
6

7
8

9
10

15
16

Luk. di. I.

di. I

5
6

7
8

9
10

I. Lesson

Exod. II

13
15
17
19

'21

34
40

Leuit 19

Num. 10

14
16

20
22

24
26
28
30
32
34
36
2

Deut.

4
6

2. Lesson

1. Cor. 13

2. Cor. I

5
6

7
8

9
10

13
I

5
6

3
4

Gala.

Ephe.

€ Marche.

Mattins.

Euensong.

C Psalmes.

I. Lesson

2. Lesson

I. Lesson.

2. Lesson

Kalend.

Deut. 7

Luke 12

Deut. 8

Ephe. 4

6. No.

Philip. I

5. No.

4, No.

3- No.

PridNo

Collos. I

Nonas.

2 .

8. Id.

3 r

7 Id.

6. Id.

I.Tessa, i

5. Id.

2 -

4. Id.

3. Id.

Prid. Id.

Ihon. I

5 •

Idus.

losue I

2. Tess. I '

17. kl.

2 .'

16. kl.

3 .

15. kl.

•

I. Tim. I .

14. kl.

2.3

13 kl.

12. kl.

II. kl.

10 kl.

2. Tim. I

9. kl.

It.

8 kl.

Annunciacio.t

7. kl.

6. kl.

ludic. -I

ludic. 2

Tit. I

5. kl.

2. 3

4.kl.

PhUe. I

3 kl.

Hebre. i

Prid. kl.

^ Below this but within the rule is the signature mark it^ .4.

€ Aprill.

Mattins.

Euensong.

1
1

C Psalmes

•

I. Lesson

2. Lesson

I. Lesson.

2. Lesson.

Kale[n]d

ludic. II

Ihon. 19

ludic. 12

Hebre. 3

4 No.

3 No.

Prid. No.

Actes. I

Nonas.

8. Id.

Ruth. I

7. Id.

Ruth. 2

6. Id.

i.Regum.i

5. Id.

i.Regum.2

4. Id.

12 !

3. Id.

Prid. Id.

lacob. I

Idus.

18 kl.

17. kl.

16 kl.

15 kl.

I. Peter, i

14 kl.

13 W.

23 3

12. kl

II kl.

1 g

10 kl.

2. Peter i

9 kl.

8 kl.

2.Regum I

7. kl.

Marke Eua. 25

I. Ihon. I

6. kl.

5. kl

4. kl.

3. kl.

Prid. kl.

2. 3 Ihon.

C Maib.

Mattins.

Euensong.

C Psalmes

I. Lesson

2. Lesson

I. Lesson

2. Lesson

Kalend.

Phi. & lames

2. Reg. 15

Actes. 8

2 Reg. 16

ludas. I

6 No.

Roma I

5- No.

Math. I

4. No.

3. No.

Prid. No

3.R^um.i

3. Regum 2

Nonas

3 5

8. Idiis

5 6

7. Id.

6. Id.

9 8

5. Id

II 9

4. Id.

13 10

.11

3. Id.

15 II

Prid. Id.

17 12

Idus

17 kl.

ih kl.

4. R^um I

4 Reg. 2

15 kl.

I. Cor. I

14 kl.

13 kl.

12 kl.

II kl.

10 kl.

9 kl.

8 kl.

7 kl.

6 kl.

5 kl.

23 26

4 kl.

I. Esdre. i

3 kl.

I. Esdr. 2

Prid kl

Marke i

14^

^ Below this but within the rule is the signature mark ^ . 5.

C lUNE.

Mattins.

Euensong.

CPsalmes.

I. Lesson.

2. Lesson

I. Lesson

2. Lesson

Kalend.

I. £sdr.6

Marke 2

I. Esdr. 7

I. Cor. 15

4. No.

3. No.

2. Esdr. I

2. Cor. I

Prid No

2. Esdr. 2

Nonas.

8. Id.

7. Id.

6. Id.

5. Id.

4 Id.

Hester, i

Hester. 2

3 Id.

Bamabe Ap.

Actes 14

Actes 15

Prid. Id

Mar. 12

2. Cor. 9

Idus

18 kl.

9 ' 14

lob. I

17. kl.

lob. 2 , 15

16. kl.

15. kl.

Luke. I

Galla. I

14. kl.

13. kl.

12. kl.

II. kl.

10. kl.

17. 18

9. kl.

Ephe. I

8 kl.

Nat. Ihon. ba.

Mala. 3

Matth. 3

M»la. 4

Mat. 14

7. kl.

lob. 21

Luke. 8

lob. 22

Ephe. 2

6 kl.

23 1 9

24. 25

5 kl.

26. 27

4 kl.

3. kl.

S. Peter.

Actes. 3

Actes. 4

Prid.

Luke. 12

Ephe. 6

C lULY.

Mattins.

Euensong.

g
A

e
f

g
A

e
f

g
A

c
d
e
f

g
A

Kalend.

6. No.

5 No.

4. No.

3. No.
Prid No.
Nonas

8. Id.

7. Id.
6. Id.

5. Id.

4. Id.

3. Id.
Prid. Id
Idus.
17. kl.
16. kl.
15- kl.
14 kl.
13. kl.
12 kl.
II. kl.
10 kl.

9 kl.

8 kl.

7 kl.

6 kl.
5 kl.

4. kl
3 kl

Prid. kl.

I
2

5
6

7
8

9
10

15
16

17
18

19
20

23
24

25
26

27
28

29
30
31

Magdalen.

lames apost.

4L Psalmes

5
6

7
8

9
10

15
16

17
18

19
20

25
26

27
28

29
30
30

I. Lesson

lob. 35
37
39
41

Prou. I

5
7

9
II

19
21

31
Eccls. 2

4
6

Ihon

lere.

2. Lesson

Luke .13
14

15
16

17
18

19
20

24
I

5
6

7
8

9
10

15
16

17
18

Pro.

I. Lesson

lob. 36

38
40

4
6

14
16

24
26

30
Eccles. I

3
5
7

lerem. i

3
5

9
II

2. Lesson

Philip. I

Coll. I

3
4

1. Tes. I

2. Tes. I

1. Tim. I

2.3

5
6

2. Tim. I

4
Tit. I

2. 3

Phile.
Hebre. i

C August

Mattins.

Euensong.

C Psalmes

I. Lesson.

2. Lesson

I. Lesson

2. Lesson

Kalend.

lerem. 12

Ihon. 20

lere. 13

Hebre. 4

4. No.

3 No.

Actes I

Prid No

Nonas.

8. Id

7. Id.

6. Id.

5. Id.

•
29

4. Id.

3. Id.

lacob. I

Prid. Id

Id us.

19. kl.

18. kl.

17. kl.

I. Peter i.

16. kl.

45-46

15. kl.

14. kl.

13- kl.

12. kl.

Lamen. i

I^men. 2

2. Pete. I

II. kl.

10. kl.

Ezechi. 2

9. kl.

Bart. Apostle.

Ezechi. 3

I. Ihon I

f 8. kl

7. kl

[I] 4

6. kl.

5. kl.

Daniel, i

Daniel. 2

4 kl.

2. 3. Ihon

3 kl.

lude I

[e]

Prid. kl.

Math. I

Roma. I

C September

•

Mattins.

Euensong.

1
1

C Psalmes

I. Lesson

2. Le6son

I. Lesson

2. Lesson

Kalend.

Dani. 9

Math. 2

Dani. 10

Roma. 2

4. No.

^ 2

3. No.

3 >

Prid. No

Ose. I

Ose. 2. 3

Nonas

5.6

8. Id.

7. Id.

6 Id.

5. Id.

4. Id.

loel. I

loel. 2

3. Id.

Amos. I

Prid. Id.

Amos. 2

Idus.

18. kl.

17. kl.

16. kl.

Abdias. i.

lonas. I

I. Cor. I

15. kl.

Ihon. 2. 3.

14 kl

1 18

Miche. I

Miche. 2

13. kl

12. kl.

II. kl.

Maethewct

Naum. I

10 kl.

Naum 2

9. kl.

Abacuc I

Abacuc 2

8. kl.

Soph. I

b 7. kl.

Soph. 2

c , 6. kl.

Agge. I

Agge 2

5. kl.

Zacha. i

Zach. 2. 3

4. kl.

4. 5-

Marke i

3. kl.

Michaell 29

Prid. kl

C October.

Mattins.

Euensong.

C Psalmes.

I. Lesson.

2. Lesson

I. Lesson.

2. Lesson.

Kalend.

Zach.

i[i]

Mark. 4

Zach. 12

I. Cor. 16

6. No.

2. Cor. I

5. No.

Mai.

Mai. 2

4. No.

3. No.

Toby.

Toby. 2

Prid No

Nonas.

8. Id.

7. Id.

6. Id.

5. Id.

4. Id.

ludit.

ludith. 2

3. Id.

Prid. Id.

Luk. di. I

Idu.5.

di. I

Gala. I

17. kl.

16. kl.

15. kl.

Luke Euang.

14. kl.

13- kl.

Sap.

Sap. 2

12 kl.

Ephe. I

II. kl

10. kl.

9. kl.

8. kl.

7. kl.

6. kl.

PhiUp. I

5. kl.

Simon & lu.

4. kl.

Eccls. I

3. kl.

Eccls.

Prid. kl.

Colics. I

CNOUBMBER.

Mattins.

Euensong.

CPsalmes.

I. Lesson

2. Lesson

I. Lesson

2. T^esson

Kalend.

All sainctes.

SapL 3

He. II. 12

Sapi. 5

Apo. 19

4. No.

Eccl. 6

Luke. 18

Eccl. 7

CoIIos. 2

3- No.

Prid. No.

Nonas.

I. Tes. I

8. Id.

7. Id.

6. Id.

5. Id.

Ihon I

4 Id.

2. Tes. I

3. Id.

Prid. Id.

Idus.

I. Tim. I

18. kl

2.3

17. kl.

16. kl.

15. kl.

14. kl.

2. Tim. I

13- kl.

12. kl.

II. kl.

10. kl.

Tit I

9. kl.

2. 3

8. kl.

Phile. I

7. kl.

Baruc. i

Banic. 2

Hebre. I

6. kl.

5 kl.

4 kl.

Esaie. i

Esaie 2

3.kl.

Prid. kl.

Andrew Apo.

Actes. I

C December.

Mattins.

Euensong.

C Psalmes

I. Lesson.

2. Lesson

I. Lesson

2. Lesson.

Kalend.

Esaie 7

Actes. 2

Esaie 8

Hebre. 7

4. No.

3. N.

Prid No

Nonas.

8. Id.

di. 7

7. Id.

di. 7

20. 21

6. Id.

lacob. I

5. Id.

4. Id.

3. Id.

Pri.1. Id

Idus

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18. kl.

17. kl.

16. kl.

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13. kl.

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I. Ihon. I

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9. kl.

8. kl.

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Math. I

Esaie 7

Tit. 3

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Acte. 6. 7

Actes. 7

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Apoca. I

Apo*. 22

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2. Ihon. I

3 kl.

3. Ihon I.

Prid. kl.

lude. I

C An ordre for Mattyns daily through the yere. [a.i.

^^^ The priest beeyng in the quier, shall begin with a loude
voyce, the Lordes praier, called the Pater noster,

OUR father whiche art in heauen, hallowed bee thy name.
Thy Kyngdome come. Thy will bee doen in yearth as it
is in heauen. Geue vs this day our daily bread. And forgeue
vs our trespasses, as we forgeue them that trespasse against vs.
And leade vs not into temptacion. But deliuer vs from euill.
Amen.

Then likewise he shall saie.
O lorde open thou my lippes.

Answere.
And my mouthe shall shewe furth thy praise.

Priest.
O God make good spede to saue me.

Answere.
O lorde make hast to helpe me.

/Priest. [a. i. v.

Glory be to the father, and to the sonne : and to the holy
ghoste.

As it was in the beginnyng, is now, and euer shalbe : worlde
without ende. Amen.

Praise ye the Lorde.

C And from Easter to Trinitie Sondaie.
Alleluya.

'p^ Then shalbe saied or song without any Inuitatory this Psalme,
Venite exultemus. &*€, in Englishe, as foloweth,

OCome, lette vs syng vnto the lorde : let vs hartely reioyce
in the strength of our saluacion.
Let vs come before his presence with thankesgeuyng : and
shew ourself glad in hym with Psalmes.

For the Lorde is a greate God : and a greate kyng aboue all
Goddes.

In his hande are all the corners of the yearth : And the
strength of the hilles is his also.

CLERK. C

1 8 MATT INS,

The sea is his and he made it : and his handes prepared the
drie lande.

O come, let vs worship and fal doune : and knele before the
lorde our maker.

/For he is (the lorde) our God : And we are the [a. ii.
people of his pasture, and the shepe of his handes.

To daie if ye wil heare his voyce, harden not your hartes :
As in the prouocacion, and as in the daie of temptacion in the
wildernesse.

When your fathers tempted me : proued me, and sawe my
workes.

Fortie yeres long was I greued with this generacion, and
saied : it is a people that do erre in their hartes, for thei haue
not knowen my waies.

Unto whom I sware in my wrathe : that thei should not
entre into my rest.

Glory be to the father, and to the. &c.

As it was in the beginnyng. &c. Amen

^^1^ Then shall folowe certain Psalmes in ordre, as thei been
appoyncted in a Table made for that purpose, excepte there bee
propre Psalmes appoyncted for that daie. And at thend of euery
psalme through out the yere, and likewise in the ende of Benedictu^^
BenedicitCy Magnificat^ and Nunc dimittis^ shalbe repeated.

Glory be to the father, and to the. &c.

f[ Then shalbe red .ii. lessons distinctly with a loude voyce, that
the people maie heare. The first of thold /testament, [a. ii. v.
the seconde of the newe. Like as thei bee appoyncted by the
Kalendar, except there be proper Lessons assigned for that day ; the
minister that readeth the Lesson, standyng and turnyng him so as he
mai best bee heard of all suche as bee present. And before euery
lesson, the minister shall saie thus. The firste, second, third .iiii.
Chapiter of Genesis, or Exodus, Matthewe, Marke, or other like as is
appoincted in the Kalendar. And in the ende of euery Chapiter he
shall saie.

Here endeth suche a Chapiter of suche a booke.

'p^ And (to thende the people maie the better heare) in suche
places where thei dooe syng, there shall the Lessons bee song in a
plain tune, after the maner of distinct readyng : and likewise the
Epistle and Gospel.

'p^ After the first Lesson shall folowe Te deum in Englishe, daily
throughout the yere, except in Lent, all the whiche tyme in the place of
Te deum shalbee vsed Benedicite omnia opera domini domino^ in
Englishe as foloweth.

MATTINS, 19

Te deum.

"1X7' E praise thee, O GOD, wee knowlege thee to be the
^ ^ lorde.

Al the yearth doth worship thee, the father euerlastyng.

To thee all Angelles crie a loude, the heauens and all the
powers therein.

To thee Cherubyn, and Seraphyn, /continually do crie. [a. iii.

Holy, holy, holy, lorde God of Sabaoth.

Heauen and yearth are full of the maiestie of thy glory.

The glorious compaignie of the Apostles praise thee.

The goodly felowship of the Prophetes, praise thee.

The noble armie of Martyrs, praise thee.

The holy Churche throughout al the worlde doth knowlege
thee.

The father of an infinite Maiestie.

Thy honorable, true, and onely sonne.

Also the holy ghost the comforter.

Thou art the kyng of glory, O Christ.

Thou arte the euerlastyng sonne of the father.

When thou tookest vpon thee to deliuer manne, thou diddest
not abhorre the Virgins wombe.

When thou haddest ouercomedt the sharpenesse of death :
thou didest open the kyngdome of heauen to all beleuers.

Thou sittest on the right of God, in the /glory of the [a. iii. v.
father.

We beleue that thou shalt come to be our Judge.

We therefore praie thee, helpe thy seruauntes whom thou hast
redemed with thy precious bloud.

Make theimf to bee nombred with thy sainctes, in glory
euerlastyng.

O Lorde saue thy people : And blesse thyne heritage.

Gouerne them and lift them vp for euer.

Daie by daie we magnifie thee.

And we worship thy name euer world without ende.

Vouchsafe, O Lorde to kepe vs this daie without synne.

O Lorde haue mercie vpon vs : Haue mercie vpon vs.

O Lorde, let thy mercie lighten vpon vs : as our trust is in
thee.

O Lorde, in thee haue I trusted : Let me neuer be confounded.

Benedicite,

/^ All ye woorkes of the Lorde, speake good of the Lorde :
^^ praise hym, and /set hym vp for euer. [a. iiii.

O ye Angels of the lorde, speake good of the Lorde : praise
Jiym, and set hym vp for euer.

C 2

90 MATT INS.

O ye heauens speake good of the lorde : praise hym, and set
hym vp for euer. * ••

O ye waters that be aboue the firmament, speake good of the
lord : praise him and set hym vp for euer.

O all ye powers of the Lorde, speake good of the lorde :
praise hym, and set him vp for euer.

O ye Sonne and Moone, speake good of the Lorde : praise
hym, and set hym vp for euer.

O ye Starres of heauen, speake good of the Lorde : praise
hym, and set hym vp for euer.

O ye showers and dewe, speake good of the Lorde: praise
hym, and set hym vp for euer.

O ye wyndes of GOD, speake good of the Lorde : Praise
hym, and set hym vp for euer.

O ye fire and heate, praise ye the lord : /praise hym, [a. iiii. v.
and set hym vp for euer.

O ye Wynter and Sommer, speake good of the lorde : praise
him, and set him vp for euer.

O ye Dewes and frostes, speake good of the lorde : Praise
hym, and set hym vp for euer.

O ye frost and cold, speake good of the lorde ; praise him,
and set him vp for euer.

O ye ise and snowe, speake good of the lorde : praise hym,
and set him vp for euer.

O ye nightes and Daies, speake good of the Lorde : praise
hym, and set hym vp for euer.

O ye Light and Darkenesse, speake good of the Lord : Praise
hym, and sette hym vp for euer.

O ye lightnynges and cloudes, speake good of the lorde :
praise hym, and set him vp for euer.

O lette the yearth speake good of the Lorde : yea, let it
praise hym, and set hym vp for euer.

O ye Mountaignes and Hilles, speake good of the Lorde :
praise hym, and sette/ hym vp for euer. [a. v.

O al ye grene thynges vpon the yearth, speake good of the
Lorde : Praise hym, and set hym vp for euer.

O ye welles, speake good of the lorde : praise hym, and set
hym vp for euer.

O ye seas and fluddes, speake good of the lorde : praise him,
and set him vp for euer.

O ye whales, and all that moue in the waters, speake good of
the lorde : praise hym, and set hym vp for euer.

O all ye Foules of the Ayre, speake good of the lorde : praise
hym, and set him vp for euer.

O all ye Beastes and Cattell, speake good of the lorde : praise
hym, and set him vp for euer.

MATTINS, 11

O ye children of men, speake good of the lorde : praise hym,
and set hym vp for euer.

O let Israeli speake good of the lorde : praise hym, and set
hym vp for euer.

O ye priestes of the lorde, speake good of the Lorde : praise
hym, and set hym vp for euer.

O ye seruauntes of the Lorde, speake /good of the [a. v. v.
lorde : praise hym, and set him vp for euer.

O ye spirites and soules of the righteous, speake good of the
lorde, praise hym and set hym vp for euer.

O ye holy and humble men of harte, speake ye good of the
lorde : praise ye him and set hym vp for euer.

O Ananias, Azarias, and Misaell, speake ye good of the lord :
praise ye hym, and set hym vp for euer.

Glory be to the father, and to the sonne and to the holy
ghost.

As it was in the beginnyng, is nowe, and euer shalbe : worlde
with. &c. Amen.

C And after the second lesson, throughout the whole yere, shalbe
vsed Benedictus^ in Engilshet as foloweth.

p)Lessed bee the lorde God of Israeli : for he hath visited and
^ redemed his people.

And hath lifted vp an home of saluacion to vs : in the house
of his seruaunt Dauid.

As he spake by the mouth of his holy /Prophetes : [a. vi.
whiche hath been sencef the worlde began.

That wee should bee saued from our enemies : and from the
handes of all that hate vs.

To perfourme the mercie promised to our fathers : and to
remembre his holy couenaunt.

To performe the othe whiche he sware to our father Abraham :
that he would geue vs.

That wee beeyng deliuered out of the handes of our enemies :
might serue him without feare.

In holinesse and righteousnesse before hym : all the daies of
our life.

And thou child, shalt be called the prophete of the hiest : for
thou shalt go before the face of the lorde, to prepare his waies.

To geue knowlege of saluacion vnto his people : For the
remission of their synnes.

Through the tendre mercie of oure God : whereby the dale
spryng from an high hath visited vs.

To geue lighte to theim that sitte in /darknesse, and [a. vi. v.
in the shadowe of death : and to guyde our feete into the waie
of peace.

21 MATTINS,

Glory be to the father, and to the. &c.
As it was in the beginnyng. &c. Amen.

^^1^ Then shalbe saied daily through the yere, these praiers
folowyng, aswell at Euensong as at Mattins, all deuoutly knelyng with
a loude voyce. &c.

Lorde haue mercie vpon vs.
Christ haue mercie vpon vs.
Lorde haue mercie vpon vs.

^^ Then the minister shall saie the Crede, and the Lordes
praier in Englishe.

Answere.
But deliuer vs from euill. Amen.

Priest.
O lorde shewe thy mercie vpon vs.

Answere.
And graunt vs thy saluacion.

Priest.
O lorde saue the Kyng.

Answere
And mercifully heare vs when we call vpon thee.

Priest.
Indue thy ministers with righteousnes

Answere.
And make thy chosen people ioyfull.

/Priest, [a. vii.

O lorde saue thy people.

Answere.
And blesse thyne inheritaunce.

Priest.
Geue peace in our tyme, O lorde.

Answere.

Because there is none other that fighteth for vs, but onely
thou, O God.

MA TTINS. 23

Priest.
O God, make cleane our hartes within vs.

Answere.
And take not thyne holy spirit from vs.

Priest.
The Lorde bee with you.

Answere.
And with thy spirite.

([ Then shall daily folowe three Collectes. The firste of the dale,
whiche shalbee thesame that is appoyncted at the Communion. The
second for peace. The thirde for grace to Hue well. And the twoo last
Collectes shall neuer alter, but daily bee saied at Mattins, throughout
al the yere, as foloweth. The priest standyng vp and saiyng.

([ Let vs praie.

^^^ Then the Collect of the daie.
^^^ The second Collect for peace.

//^ GOD, whiche art aucthor of peace, and louer of [a. vii. v.
^^ Concorde, in knowlege of whom standeth our eternall life,
whose seruice is perfecte fredome : defende vs thy humble
seruauntes, in al assaultes of our enemies, that wee surely
trustyng in thy defence, maie not feare the power of any
aduersaries : Through the might of lesu Christ our lorde.
Amen.

([ The third Collect : for grace.

O Lorde oure heauenly father, almightie and euerliuyng
GOD, whiche hast safely brought vs to the beginnyng of
this daie : defende vs in the same, with thy mightie power, and
graunt that this daie we fall not into sin, neither runne into any
kynd of daunger, but that al our doynges, maie be ordred by
thy gouernaunce, to do alwaies that is righteous in thy sight :
through lesus Christ our lorde. Amen.

24 EVENSONG,

/An ordre for Euensong throughout the yere. [a. viii.

([ The priest shall sale.

2^ Our Father. &c.

Then likewise he shall saie.
O God make spede to saue me.

Answere.
O Lord make hast to helpe me.

Priest.

Glory be to the father, and to the. &c.
As it was in the beginnyng. &c. Amen.
Praise ye the Lorde.

([ And from Easter to Trinitie Sondaie.

Alleluya.

([ As before is appoincted at Mattins.

^^ Then Psalmes in ordre, as thai bee appoyncted in the Table for
Psalmes, excepte there bee propre Psalmes appoyncted for that daie.
Then a Lesson of the olde Testament, as is appoyncted likewise in
the Kalendar, excepte there bee propre Lessons appoyncted for that
daie. After that (Magnificat) in Englishe, as foloweth.

\MagnificaL [a. viii. z/.

My soule doth magnifie the lord.
And my spirit hath reioysed in God my sauior.

For he hath regarded the lowlinesse, of his handmaiden.

For behold from hencefurthe all generacions shall call me
blessed.

For he that is mightie, hath magnified me : and holy is his
name.

And his mercie is on theim that feare hym, throughout all
generacions.

He hath shewed strength with his arme he hath scattered the
proude in the imaginacion of their hartes.

He hath put doune the mightie from their seate, and hath
exalted the humble and meke.

He hath filled the hungery with good thynges, and the riche
he hath sent emptie awaie.

EVENSONG, 25

He remembryng his mercie, hath holpen his seruaunt Israeli :
As he promised to our fathers, Abraham and his sede for euer.
Glory be to. &c. As it was. &c. Amen.

\^V Then a Lesson of the Newe testament. And after that [b. i.
(Nunc dimittis) in Englishe, as foloweth.

Nunc dimittis Luke, ij\ [in m.]

T Orde, now lettest thou thy seruaunt depart in peace
-*— ' Accordyng to thy woorde.

For mine lyes haue seen : thy saluacion.

Whiche thou hast prepared : before the face of all people.

To be a light to lighten the Gentiles : and to be the glory of
thy people Israeli.

Glory be to the father, and to the. &c.

As it was in the begin. &c. Amen.

^^^ Then the Suffrages before assigned at Mattins, the Clerkes
kneelyng likewise, with three Collectes. Firste of the daie : Seconde of
peace : Thirde for aide against all perilles, as here foloweth. Whiche
twoo last Collectes shalbe daily saied at Euensong, withouc alteracion.

f[ The second Collect at Euensong.

r\ God, from whom al holy desires, all good counsailes, and
^^ all iuste woorkes doo procede : geue vnto thy seruauntes
that peace, whiche the worlde cannot geue, that both our
hear/tes maie be so set to obeye thy commaundementes, [b. i. v.
and also that by thee, wee beyng defended from the feare of
oure enemies, maie passe oure tyme in reste and quietnesse :
Through the merites of lesu Christ our sauior. Amen.

f[ The third Collect for aide against al perils.

T Ighten our darkenes we beseche thee, O lorde, and by thy
•" greate mercie, defende vs from al perils and daungers of this
night, for the loue of thy onely sonne our sauior lesu Christ.
Amen.

26 EUENSONG.-):

f[ In the feastes of Christmas, Thepiphanie, Easter, the Assencion,
Pentecost, and vpon Trinitie Sondaie, shalbe song or saied immediatly
after Benedictus^ this confession of our Christian faithe.

Quicunque uult [in m.]

T 71 /"Hosoeuer will be saued : before all thynges it is necessary
^ ^ that he hold the catholike faithe.

Whiche faithe, except euery one do kepe holy and vndefiled :
without doubt he shall perishe euerlastyngly.

And the catholike faithe is this : that wee worship one God in
Trinitie, and /Trinitie in vnitie. [b. ii.

Neither confoundyng the persones : nor deuidyng the
substaunce.

For there is one persone of the father, another of the sonne,
and another of the holy ghost.

But the Godhed of the father, of the sonne, and of the holy
ghoste, is all one : the glory equall, the maiestie coeternall.

Suche as the Father is, suche is the sonne : and suche is the
holy ghost.

The father vncreate, the sonne vncreate : and the holy ghost
vncreate.

The father incomprehensible, the sonne incomprehensible :
and the holy ghost incomprehensible.

The Father eternal, the Sonne eternall : and the holy ghost
eternall.

And yet thei are not three eternalles : but one eternall.

As also there bee not three incomprehensibles, nor three
vncreated : But one vncreated, and one incomprehensible.

So likewise the father is almightie : the sonne almightie, and
the holy ghost /almightie [b. ii. v.

And yet are thei not three almighties : but one almightie.

So the father is God, the sonne is god : and the holy ghost is
God.

And yet are thei not thre Goddes: but one God.

So likewise the Father is Lorde, the sonne lorde : and the
holy ghost lorde.

And yet not thre lordes : but one lorde.

For like as wee bee compelled by the Christian veritie :
To acknowlege euery persone by hymself to be God and lorde.

So are we forbidden by the catholike religion : to saie there
be three Goddes or three Lordes.

The father is made of none : Neither created nor begotten.

The sonne is of the father alone : Not made nor created, but
begotten.

EVENSONGS 27

The holy ghost is of the father, and of the sonne : neither
made nor created, nor begotten, but procedyng.

So there is one father, not thre fathers one sonne, not thre
sonnes : one holy ghost, /not three holy ghostes [b. \\\.

And in this Trinitie, none is afore or after other : none is
greater nor lesse then other.

But the whole three persones : be coeternall together and
coequall.

So that in all thynges, as is afore said : the vnitie in Trinitie,.
and the Trinitie in vnitie, is to be worshipped.

He therefore that will be saued : muste thus thynke of the
Trinitie.

Furthermore it is necessary to euerlastyng saluacion : that he
also beleue rightly in the incarnacion of our Lorde Icsu Christe.

For the right faithe is that we beleue and confesse : that our
lorde lesus Christ the sonne of God, is God and man.

God of the substaunce of the father, begotten before the
worldes : and manne of the substaunce of his mother, borne in
the worlde.

Perfect God and perfect man : of a reasonable soule, and
humain fleshe subsistyng.

Equall to the father as touchyng his /Godhed : And [b. iii. v.
inferior to the father, touchyng his manhode.

Who although he bee God and man : yet he is not twoo, but
one Christ.

One, not by conuersion of the Godhede into fleshe : but by
takyng of the manhod into God.

One altogether, not by confusion of substaunce : but by
vnitie of persone.

For as the reasonable soule and fleshe is one man : so God
and man is one Christ.

Who suffered for our saluacion : descended into hell, rose
again the thirde daie from the dedde.

He ascended into heauen, he sitteth on the right hande of the
father, GOD almightie : From whence he shall come to iudge
the quicke and the dedde.

At whose commyng all men shall rise again with their
bodies : And shall geue accompt of their awne workes.

And thei that haue dooen good, shall go into life euerlasting :
and thei haue doen euill into euerlastyng fire.

This is the Catholike faithe : whiche / except a man [b. iiii.
beleue faithfully, he cannot be saued.

Glory be to the father, and to the. &c.

As it was in the beginnyng. &c. Amen.

THE LETANIE AND SUFFRAGES.

<[ The Letanie and Suffrages.

/~\ God the father of heauen : haue mercie vpon vs miserable
^-^ synners.

O God the father of heauen : haue merde vpon vs miserable

synners.

O God the sonne, redemer of the worlde: haue mercie vpon
vs miserable synners.

O God the sonne, redemer of the worlde : haue mercie vpon vs
miserable synners.

O God, the holy ghoste, procedyng from the father and the
sonne : haue mercie vpon vs miserable synners.

O God the holy ghost, procedyng from the father and the sonne :
haue mercie vpon vs miserable synners.

O holy, blessed, and glorious Trinitie, three persones and one
God : haue mercie vpon vs miserable synners.

/O holy, blessed, and glorious Trinitie, thre persones and [b. iiii. v.
one God : haue mercie vpon vs miserable synners.

Remembre not Lorde, our offences, nor the offences of our

forefathers, neither take thou vengeaunce of our synnes : spare

vs good lorde spare thy people whom thou haste redemed with

thy moste precious bloud, and bee not angrie with vs for euer.

Spare vs good Lorde.

From al eutl and mischief, from synne, from the craftes and
assautes of the Deuill, from thy wrathe, and from euerlastyng
<lampnacion :

Good Lorde deliuer vs.

From blindnes of hart, from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy,
from enuie, hatred, and malice, and all vncharitablenesse :
Good Lorde deliuer vs.

From fornicacion, and all other dedly sinne, and from all the
dcceiptes of the worlde, the fleshe, and the deuill :
Good Lorde deliuer vs.

From Lightnyng and Tempest, from plague, pestilence, and
/amine, from battaill, and murder, and from sodain death :

/Good Lorde deliuer vs. [b. v.

THE LETANIE AND SUFFRAGES, 29

From all sedicion and priuie conspiracie, from the tyranny of
the bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities, from all
false doctryne and heresy, from hardenesse of harte and
contempt of thy worde and commaundement :

Good Lorde deliuer vs.

By the misterie of thy holy incarnacion, by thy holy natiuitie
and circumcision, by thy baptisme, fastyng, and temptacion :

Good Lorde deliuer vs.

By thyne agonye and bloudy sweate, by thy Crosse and
Passion, by thy precious death and buriall, by thy glorious
resurreccion, and ascencion, by the commyng of the holy
ghost :

Good Lorde deliuer vs.

In all tyme of our tribulacion, in al tyme of our weal the, in the
houre of death, in the daie of Judgement :

Good Lorde deliuer vs.

We synners do beseche thee to heare vs, O Lorde GOD, and
that it male please thee to rule and gouerne thy holy Churche
vniuersall in the right waie :

/We beseche thee to heare vs good Lorde. [b. v. v.

That it male please thee to kepe Edward the .vi. thy seruaunt
our kyng and gouernor :