Parish life in mediæval England

by Francis Aidan Gasquet

CHAPTER V

THE PARISH OFFICIALS

If the parish priest, rector, or vicar was undoubtedly the admitted centre of life in the district, the father of his people and the pastor of his flock, neither on his part nor on that of the parishioners was there any mistake about the rights and duties of the people to the parish church and towards parish matters generally. Within well-defined limits, the parish, which included both parson and people, managed its own affairs. Every adult of both sexes had a voice in this self-government, and, as Bishop Hobhouse has pointed out, in pre-Reformation days a wise freedom in the management of the fabric of the church and its accessories seemed to have been left to the parish by the diocesan authorities. They—the people—encouraged by every means in their power, and indeed frequently initiated, those manifestations of zeal for beautifying God’s house which form so remarkable a feature in the architectural history of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Moreover, it is impossible to turn over the church accounts of that period which have come down to us, without acknowledging that the love of the people for their parish churches was supported and intensified by the feeling that it was their work, and that upon each of them in conscience lay the duty of assisting to maintain the sanctuary, where, according to their strong and simple faith, God dwelt in their midst, and of helping to keep up within this holy place the round of prayers and praise and sacrifice.

This common purpose of all within a parish was in those days not left to be carried out by chance or by mere individual effort; it was highly and intelligently organised to secure the co-operation and the continual contributions necessary for successfully carrying out the work. For this end certain officials were chosen by popular election as the people’s representatives, others were appointed in various ways and others, again, were employed as their services were required.

The Churchwardens.—The representatives of the people in all parochial work were their wardens, or the churchwardens, as they are generally called. Pollock and Maitland, in their History of English Law, do not think that there were real churchwardens before the thirteenth century. Previously, however, it is admitted that certain burdens as to the support of the church had been placed upon the parishioners as a body. “In the thirteenth century,” for example, “the general custom of the Church of England, swerving in this from the jus commune of the Catholic Church, cast the burden of repairing the nave of the parish church, and providing the main part of the ecclesiastical apparatus, not upon the parson, but upon the parishioners.” Whether this burden implied any corporate organisation of the parishioners or any parish meeting seems doubtful. But “no doubt the occasional nature of the charge almost compels the rector or the archdeacon to deal with the parishioners as a body, to call them together, and endeavour to persuade them that a wall is crumbling or a new missal is wanting.”

Still, whatever their origin, the churchwardens are already in existence in the thirteenth century; they are then dealt with as the legal representatives of the parishioners, and they “present themselves as claimants for property and possession.” To the authors of the History of English Law their existence is due to the natural outcome of the responsibility placed upon the people. “If the parishioners are compelled to provide precious books, robes, vessels, etc., they will naturally desire to have their say about the custody of these articles; parsons have been known to sell the church plate.”

In the fifteenth century the churchwardens were chosen annually in a parish meeting at which, no doubt, the rector or vicar would have presided; all adult members of the parish having a voice in the election. At this meeting the outgoing wardens would give an account of their stewardship, and hand over the custody of the common funds and common property to their successors. At the church of St. Mary the Great, Cambridge, for instance, a special parish meeting was held in the church, “at the altar of the doom in the south aisle,” for the settlement of an account “between Thomas Curle, plumber, on the one part, and the parishioners.” But this was quite out of the ordinary, and as a rule, once the guardians or wardens were elected, all the parish business was transacted by them. In this same church the wardens were chosen, apparently, on Easter Monday, and the method of election was somewhat curious. The outgoing churchwardens first each nominated one parishioner, who conjointly chose eight persons to elect the officers of the coming year. In this case at Cambridge, besides the two churchwardens, there were at the same time elected for the parish two wardens of the lights at the Sepulchre and Crucifix; two guardians of the Jesus Mass; two parish auditors; and “two custodians of the keys of the chest, called the chantry hutch, in which are all the charters and deeds relating to the Chantry.”

The number of churchwardens was, apparently by the fifteenth century, fixed to two, although for special purposes, as in the above instance, other wardens were appointed. In the accounts of St. Edmund and St. Thomas at Salisbury, there were at first three supervisores fabricæ; in 1486 two “gardiani ecclesiæ” were charged with beginning the reparation of the church at Easter, “and not to wait till winter.” With these were two junior wardens, “custodians of the goods and ornaments of the church.” Apparently, in times when considerable work was going on, one or more additional wardens were appointed to give advice and share responsibility; and once, at least, in the time of some great repairs to the fabric, the parish meeting stood adjourned from Friday to Friday until the works were finished. In 1510 two wardens were appointed, and it is curious to note that one held the purse, and the other, who did not, became his surety. At St. Mary-at-Hill, in London, the name for the official churchwardens was, apparently, the “Wardeyns of the godes, rents, and werks;” or, the “Wardens of the godes, ornaments, werkes, livelihood, and rents, etc.”

Although the wardens were usually chosen from the men of a parish, there are examples to show that this need not necessarily be the case. Thus the accounts of St. Petrock’s, Exeter, show that in 1428 a woman, named Beatrice Braye, was people’s warden; and in the same way, in 1496-7, “Dame Isabel Norton” held the office at Yatton, in Somerset.

HOUSELING CLOTH FOR HOLY COMMUNION

Bishop Hobhouse, in his interesting volume of Churchwardens’ Accounts, has well summed up the duties and functions of these parish wardens, which were very varied. They might have both farming and trading to do in fulfilment of their office, as well as disposing of various gifts which were made by the parishioners in kind. They also might have the unpleasant duty of presenting parishioners to the archdeacon’s court for moral delinquencies. Besides this, if there was building or decorating to be done in the church or on buildings belonging to the parish, such as their common house, the wardens had to find the ways and means, and to supervise the work. They had to attend at Visitations, and if the church or the cemetery or a new chalice, etc., had to be consecrated, they had to arrange with the bishop and find the necessary fees. They had to see that the money due to the common purse from all the various sources was paid, and that, in the event of some extra work or engagement being undertaken by the parish, some method of raising the necessary funds was projected and carried out. At the same time, the wardens had no civil functions to perform until late in the reign of Henry VIII. In 1349, indeed, the Statute of Labourers names them, and tries to place upon them the duty of helping labourers to return to their homes; but the attempt came to nothing, and in the accounts printed by Bishop Hobhouse, the earliest entry for anything not strictly concerned with their parochial office is in 1512-13, when the wardens of Yatton “were charged with repairing the sluices and scouring the Yeo.”

It was frequently no light task that the churchwardens undertook for their fellow-parishioners, for the parish possessions were considerable, and comprised all kinds of property—lands, houses, flocks and herds, cows, and even hives of bees. These were, what may be termed, the capital of the parish, which was constantly being added to by the generosity of generations of pious benefactors. Then, over and besides the chancel, which was the freehold of the parson, the body of the church and other buildings, together with the churchyard and its enclosure, and generally, if not always, the common church house, were then under the special and absolute control of the people’s wardens. If the law forced the people of a parish to find fitting and suitable ornaments and vestments, it equally gave them the control of the ecclesiastical furniture, etc., of their church. Their chosen representatives were the guardians of the jewels and plate, of the ornaments and hangings, of the vestments and tapestries, which were regarded, as in very truth they were, as the property of every soul in the particular village or district in which the church was situated. It is no exaggeration to say that the parish church was in Catholic times the care and business of all. Its welfare was the concern of the people at large, and it took its natural place in their daily lives. Was there, say, building to be done, repairs to be effected, a new peal of bells to be procured, organs to be mended, new plate to be bought, and the like, it was the parish as a corporate body that decided the matter, arranged the details, and provided for the payment. At times, let us say when a new vestment was in question, the whole parish might be called to sit in council at the church house on this matter of common interest, and discuss the cost, the stuff, and the make.

The parish wardens had their duties, also, towards their poorer brethren in the district. In more than one instance they were guardians of a common chest, out of which temporary loans could be obtained by needy parishioners to enable them to tide over pressing difficulties. These loans were secured by pledges and the additional surety of other parishioners. No interest, however, was charged for the use of the money, and in cases where the pledge had to be sold to recover the original sum, anything over and above was returned to the borrower. In other ways, too, the poorer parishioners were assisted by the corporate property of the parish. The stock managed by the wardens “were,” says one of the early English reformers, “in some towns (i.e. townships and villages) six, some eight, and some a dozen kine, given unto the stock for the relief of the poor, and used in some such wise that the poor ‘cottingers,’ which could make any provision for fodder, had the milk for a very small hire; and then the number of the stock reserved (that is, of course, the original number being maintained), all manner of vailes (or profits), besides both the hire of the milk and the prices of the young veals and old fat wares, was disposed to the relief of the poor.”[A]

To take one or two specific instances. The churchwardens’ accounts for St. Dunstan’s, Canterbury, show how the funds required for the repair of the parish church and other parish work were obtained. The people of the district were banded together in brotherhoods; those that were authorised to beg wore “scutchons,” or badges, and the special fraternity was called the “schaft.” They received anything that was given to them, in kind as well as in money; and the record speaks of malt, barley, wheat, cows, and sheep belonging to the parish. One Nicholas Reugge left, by will, four cows to be let at a rent, the proceeds to pay for the “paschal light,” which the parishioners had to find, and for which they were to be freed from all further obligation. These cows, valued at 10s. each, were leased out at 2s. apiece. In 1521 a farmer, John Richardson, hired from the wardens twenty-five sheep, and at the same time the people’s representatives accounted for receipts from lambs, wool, etc. Everything goes to show, says Mr. Cowper, the sympathetic editor of these accounts, “what life and activity there was in the little parish, which never wanted willing men to devote their time and influence to the management of their own affairs.” The churchwardens’ accounts generally, it may be added, tell the same story, and show, as one writer has well said, “the simple-mindedness of the population, their cheerful contentment, the general absence of fraud, their religious feelings, and general goodwill towards each other.”

According to early legislation, the churchwardens had to present their settlement in writing to a committee of the parishioners, who were to be appointed by the parsons for the purpose, and these accounts were to be handed to the archdeacons at the time of their visitations. Thus Bishop Quevil, in the Synod of Exeter, in 1287, declares that the inventories of all that belonged to the church should be made yearly by the wardens and produced before the rectors, vicars, or, at any rate, the parish chaplains, and that such property should on no account be used for other purposes. Also, that whatever was given for a definite purpose, such as a light in the church, etc., must not be used for anything else.

Property, in greater or lesser amounts, houses, lands, cattle, and rich hangings, etc., were constantly being left by will, or otherwise given to the churchwardens as trustees for the parish. The Yarmouth wills of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries contain bequests to particular altars and lights in St. Nicholas’s Church. Jeffery Wyth, for example, in 1302 gave 5s. “for maintaining a lamp continually burning before the great crucifix.” Richard Fastalfe, by his will made in 1356, gave a tenement to St. Mary’s light in the same church. In 1490 Thomas Pound directed his executors “to supply a lamp with oil burning day and night,” and five wax candles standing “about the lamp before the Most Holy, or High Altar, to the honour of the Sacrament in the time of Divine Service, as the said Thomas in his lifetime had used to do, to continue for ever.” In the same way, in 1486, Rose Wrytell, a parishioner of St. Mary-at-Hill, left to the churchwardens, as trustees, certain houses to find the stipend for a chantry priest, who was to be appointed by the parishioners, and who was to assist at all the services.

The churchwardens frequently had considerable responsibility in regard to their office, and if they did not get more frequently into serious financial difficulties than they apparently did, it was owing to the cordial way in which the parish generally supported their endeavours to serve them. In St. Peter Cheap, in London, the churchwardens held a good deal of property as trustees. They embarked on “making and finishing our vestry” in 1475, and the names of those contributing to the work cover a whole page. We find them repairing and decorating chantries; employing a priest to serve; making the priests’ chambers in Cock Alley, where, apparently, the parson and the chantry priests dwelt in common; engaging in organ making and paying for a player and for “the readers of the Passion” on Palm Sunday. The “Morrow Mass” priest, whose duty it was to say Mass every day at six o’clock, was paid for by the wardens on behalf of the parish, as well as a clerk to serve his Mass.

In some documents connected with Exeter diocese in the fifteenth century, some of the personal difficulties in which the wardens might be involved are set out. In one case, where a good deal of repair to the fabric of the church was necessary, the churchwardens excused themselves on the plea that the tenants of certain houses belonging to the parish, upon the rents of which they had relied, had not paid for some time; in a second case, the excuse made was that parishioners who had promised help had not given it; in a third, the parishioners had agreed to a rate to repair the church and bell-tower, and many had not paid according to their promises. In every case the bishop, whilst warning the people to keep their obligations, pointed out that the “guardians,” or churchwardens, were personally responsible.

Again, there are many examples, in the accounts of the various parishes, which show that the people considered the parochial goods held by the churchwardens, even when they were in the shape of vestments and plate, as their own property. They exchanged them, lent them, and sold them—always, of course, for the benefit of the church. In the wardens’ accounts of St. Mary the Great, Cambridge, there are several examples of this open dealing with church goods. One instance of this kind of dealing is worth recording. In the parish of Yatton, Somerset, on the eve of the Reformation—about 1520, say—a difficulty, to which reference has already been made, arose as to the repair of certain sluices to keep back the winter floods. To make a long story short—in the end, the parishioners were ordered to make good the defect. It meant money; and the wardens’ accounts show that they had been spending money generously on the church. It was consequently decided that to raise the necessary cash they should sell a piece of silver church plate, which had been purchased some years before by the common contributions of the faithful. The instance furnishes a supreme example of the way in which the people of a mediæval parish regarded the property of God’s house as their own.

Parish Clerk, or Holy-water Bearer (Aquæbajularius).—Second only in importance to the churchwardens was the parish clerk, or, as he was frequently called from one of his chief duties, the “water-bearer.” Originally, as the name “clerk” implies, he was a cleric, and his office was considered to be a regular ecclesiastical benefice. In the fourteenth century the clerk was married, but one such was fined for the offence in a visitation in that century in the Salisbury diocese. In process of time, however, owing to the scarcity of clerics, the office was often held by a married layman.

HOLY WATER CLERK

The English law as to this official was laid down in the Constitution of Archbishop Boniface of Savoy, in the thirteenth century. The benefice was, according to this, to be bestowed “upon poor clerks.” And as there had been many disputes about the bestowal of the office, the archbishop decreed that henceforward “the rectors and vicars (of parish churches), who know better than parishioners those that are fit for the office, shall institute such clerics in these benefices as they know in their hearts can and will properly serve in the Divine offices (of the church) and will obey their directions.” Upon which law Lyndwood remarks, that it is always the privilege of the Ecclesiastical Superior to appoint his inferiors in his own church, and that it is no part of the right of any patron; which, in this instance, may be taken to include the parishioners, who were supposed to find the salary. In the manuscript accounts of the wardens of St. Botulph’s, Aldersgate Street, a payment of £4 a year was made to the clerk, and this sum was specially collected for the purpose.

A note “of clerke wage owing” in the accounts of St. Michael’s in Bedwardine, Worcestershire, makes it appear that there, ordinarily, each householder paid 1d. a quarter for the clerk, although one person, to whom is prefixed the title of “Mr.”, evidently pointing to a man of “class,” paid a shilling each time. St. Mary-at-Hill, in London, paid its clerk at the rate of £6 13s. 4d. a year, and he also received certain offerings at obits, etc., kept in the church. The regular wage was specially, although apparently not very regularly, collected by the wardens.

BLESSING OF FOOD BY HOLY WATER CLERK

The actual payment of the clerk was sometimes a difficulty; and Archbishop Boniface anticipates this possibility by asserting the English custom of the parish paying for his services. It was in consequence of this, he says, that parishioners had asserted their right to make the appointment. He directs that, should there be objection made to this payment by any parish, the people should be compelled to do their plain duty by ecclesiastical censures. On the other hand, Archbishop Peckham seems to have thought it reasonable that those who paid the money should elect to the office, and held that the parishioners ought to appoint the parish clerks to their offices.

Lyndwood speaks of a praiseworthy English custom, according to which every father of a family made an offering on the Sundays to the cleric who brought the holy water to him; and that at Christmas the officer should have from each household a loaf, at Easter a certain number of eggs, and in the autumn so much of the harvesting. It may also be taken as an established custom that each quarter of the year the clerk received a sum of money for his support levied upon the entire parish. A curious entry in the accounts of the church of St. Mary the Great at Cambridge, shows a payment made by the parish “in reward to a yong man that should have bene parish clerk,” suggesting that the churchwardens wanted him, but the rector made another appointment.

The Synod of Exeter, in 1287, so frequently referred to in regard to the laws and customs of the English Church, declares that, according to tradition, “the benefice of the Blessed Water” was at first instituted to help poor clerks, whilst they were studying and thus fitting themselves for higher dignities. To this end Bishop Quevil directs, as already pointed out, that in all churches not more than ten miles distant from any school of a city or town, this purpose should be borne in mind, and the office given to a poor scholar to help him whilst at his studies. For this reason, no doubt, there are instances in which the bishop insisted upon the removal of a parish clerk who had married, and upon the appointment of another, whose intention it was to proceed to the reception of Holy Orders. At the same time it is quite clear that the bishop did not lightly interfere in the appointment or removal of any parish clerk. In one case, on November 13, 1386, Bishop Brantyngham refused to take cognisance of the appeal of the parishioners of Pont, in Cornwall, who, not being content with the appointment made by their rector, had caused the churchwardens to elect another. This the bishop altogether condemned, declaring that by law the appointment was in the hands of the rector.

Besides attending to carry the Holy Water on the Sundays, the clerk, according to the directions given in the tract called “Cilium Oculi Sacerdotis,” was to assist the priest at the altar, and to read the Epistle at Mass, when there was no deacon or subdeacon. He might be vested in an alb when he performed this service. It was part of his duty also to teach the children of the parish, not only their prayers, creed, and religion, but also their letters and “whatever singing they ought to know.”

A curious document relating to the “Offesse of dekyn” in Trinity Church, Coventry, in 1462, has been printed more than once, and lately for the Henry Bradshaw Society, by Dr. Wickham Legg. Some of the duties there set forth for the “deacon” show that in this case he acted as parish clerk, and his duties are most minutely described. He was to open the door of the church at six o’clock, and have the chalice and missal ready for the priest who said “the Trinity Mass:” on all feasts he was to ring for Matins, and bring in the books for the south side of the choir: he was to ring for the High Mass, and then sing in the choir, and again at three o’clock for Evensong. He shall be rector in the choir on the south side: he is to see that there is a deacon to read the Gospel at every High Mass.

Beside this he has the general care of the church: to see that the floor be swept when it needs it, and that the snow is taken off the roof and from out the gutters: that the font be ready for the blessing on Holy Saturday, and palms before Palm Sunday, and that palms be burned for ashes before Ash Wednesday. For the blessing of the font he is to provide three copies “for the priests to sing Rex Sanctorum.” Every Sunday “he shall bear holy water to every house in his ward, and he to have his due of every man, after his degree, quarterly.” In the same way he must see that the holy cake is ready every Sunday according to every man’s degree, “and he shall bear the holy bread to serve the people in the north syde of the church, and he to go to them on ‘twelfth day’ for his offering to the repair of his surplice. On Shere Thursday (the Thursday in Holy Week) and Holy Saturday he is to get ready a barrell for the blessed water, and on the former he is to have the ‘birch besom for the priest that washes the altar’ and the three discipling rods.”

Moreover, at “every principal feast” he is to help the churchwardens “to array the High Altar with clothes necessary for it,” being ready for them “at the third peal of the first Evensong.” He is to help “the churchwardens to cover the altar and the rood in lent with lenten cloths, and to hang the veil in the choir.” He and “his fellow” is to look to the bells and provide ropes and grease, and they are to divide the ringing fees between them. He is “to cover the pulpit with a pall when any doctor preaches.” He is to go vested in his surplice to accompany the parson when he goes to take the Blessed Sacrament to the sick, and “to fetch any corpse to the church.”

The second “deacon” or clerk, commonly called “the fellow” of the first in this document, has also his special duties assigned. Every week-day he is to ring the second peal for Matins at half-past six. He is to see to the books on the north side of the choir, and sing on that side as the first “deacon” does for the south. At Evensong he shall do in like manner, but “he shall be subdeacon every Sunday and Holy-day at the procession and Mass, and read the Epistle.” Generally he is to assist the “deacon” with the choir books and processionals, and help to fold up the vestments and albs, etc.

Beyond the above-named parish officials there were obviously, many others whose services were occasionally required. Amongst others are:

The Sexton, whose office was what it remains at the present day. Such an official is named, in 1490, in the parish accounts of Cratfield; but the extremely rare mention of the name seems to show that in a mediæval parish each individual family interested saw to the preparation of the last resting-place of any of their dead relations.

The Schoolmaster, or, at any rate, one who occupied the place of a teacher of the young, is more frequently named in connection with the parish than many people would be inclined to believe. An examination of the records of parish life contained in the invaluable Valor Ecclesiasticus will reveal the fact of the existence of both grammar and song schools in many places in the sixteenth century. At Preston, in Amounderness, for instance, a chantry priest was bound to keep a “free grammar school” for the parish, and at the suppression of the chantry, the lands left to support this were seized by the Crown. The official returns by the Commissioners for suppressing the chantries afford many examples of these schools taught by priests and by clerks. These generally, no doubt, existed by reason of special foundations made by generous benefactors for the purpose; but in one case at least, at Lavenham, “the alderman of St. Peter’s Guild” finds a priest who “teaches the children of the said town and acts as secondary to the curate, who, without help of another priest, is not able to serve the cure there.”

The Bell-ringer was an important official in every parish. His first duty was to ring for the services in the church, and to toll the bell for deaths, funerals, obits, or anniversary services. If his wages were paid by the parish, his labours were in most places one of the sources of income by which the parish chest was replenished, as the fees charged brought in more than the amount paid to him. In some places, besides his duty in regard to the bells, he was appointed to look after various lamps or lights. Thus at Swaffham, in Norfolk, one Simon Blake appoints “a lamp to burn by his grave on all holidays and Lord’s days, from Matins to Compline, and the bellman of the town of Swaffham to take care of it.”

At times, too, the bellman was employed in making collections for some church purpose. Thus at Sutherton, in 1485, the bellman, named Saunder, was engaged in soliciting money for keeping two lights at the High Altar, and he was paid by the churchwardens for going to Lincoln “to bring home the waxe,” for the making of candles for the consecration of the church. At St. Nicholas’s Church, Great Yarmouth, in 1511, the bellman was paid for covering the images in Lent-time. But, so far as the parish was concerned, the most important function of this official was his proclamation of deaths and anniversaries. In one of the York wills there is a bequest of 6d. to the bellman for announcing the funeral of the testator. Sir Adam Outlaw, priest, bequeaths a tenement to the West Lynn town bellman on condition of his “going with his bell about the town” on his “year-day” to ask the people to “pray for the souls of Thomas of Acre and Muriel his wife, his (Sir Adam’s) soul, and the souls of his benefactors.”

In like manner, the Guild of St. Botulph’s Church at Boston employed the bellman to announce the anniversaries of its brethren. Thus, in January the Sacrist was to remember to send him round about the city to proclaim the obit day of Richard Chapman, and proclaim each year his will. At each street he was to ring his bell and say: “For the sowles of Richard Chapeman and Alys his wyf, brother and syster of Corpus Christi Gylde to-morne (i.e. to-morrow) shall be theyre yere day,” for which service he was to receive a penny. This crier was constantly being sent round on similar errands for other guilds, and from these same records the names of some eight such societies, besides the Corpus Christi Guild, are known: that is, St. Mary’s Guild, that of the Trinity, and those of St. George, St. Peter, the “Felichyp of Heven,” Seven Martyrs, St. Katherine, and the Apostles. The object of these constant proclamations was, of course, to call the various members of fraternities and societies to attend at funerals and anniversary masses and pray for the souls of the brethren and sisters who had gone before them to that future life, which in those days of simple faith was hardly less a reality to all Christian folk than the present world which their senses told them about.

The bells used by the bellmen seem, from some inventories, to have been the property of the parish. They are called “Rogation bells,” from their use in calling people to the church, and they were rung in the funeral procession from the house of the deceased parishioner to the church. In 1463, John Baret, of Bury St. Edmunds, directs that the two bellmen, who go about the town on his death announcing his funeral, are to have gowns given them. And at “my yeer-day,” he adds, they are to have each 4d. for going about the town to call on the inhabitants “to pray for my soul, and for my faderis and modrys,” and the same for ringing on the “month’s mind.”

Another remarkable custom, which seems to have been no novelty in the middle of the fifteenth century, was the use of a chime barrel set with the tune of the Requiem æternam, the Introit of the Mass for the dead. This, as it only ranged over five notes, was easily managed, and the instrument was wheeled throughout the town, grinding out this lament for some departed inhabitant. The John Baret named above makes special arrangements for this to be done at Bury on his decease, for thirty days after, and during the following Lent-time.

Of people employed at various times and for diverse purposes by the parish, there were a great many about whom very little need be said. Over and above masons and carpenters and women to wash surplices and albs and repair vestments, who may be called regular employees, the accounts of the churchwardens show that many others were, from time to time, paid by the parish funds. One of the most regular, naturally, when lights were so much used, was the Candlemaker, who apparently travelled about from place to place exercising his art. At Cowfield, in Sussex, for instance, in the years 1471-85, the churchwardens’ payments for candlemaking were at regular intervals, and besides finding the wax and the wages, the wardens supplied also the board and lodging for the master workman. At Great St. Mary’s, Cambridge, the wardens, in 1537, bought 35 lbs. of wax, at 7d. a pound, “for the Sepulchre and Roode lyghtes;” they paid 5s. for making it up, and 2s. 3½d. “for a dinner at the making.” At St. Mary-at-Hill, London, “Roger Middelton, wax channdeler,” was paid “for makyng of the said ryeve loen (92 lbs.) and olde wax, made in tapris for the Bemelight and other tapris, prickettes, and tenebre candilles, for every lb. a half-penny—11 shilling 9d.”

In the same way parishes employed travelling bookmakers, that is, scribes and bookbinders and illuminators. Thus, as an instance, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, the wardens of St. Augustine’s Church, at Hedon, in the East Riding, paid 10s. 8d. for parchment to make a book; to Adam Skelton, a scribe, for writing it, 4d.; to “John Payntor for a picture, 10s.,” and 6d. for the breakfasts of the scribes. There is evidence that sometimes the curate of a parish acted as a scribe, and received a fee for so doing; sometimes clerics at other places were employed, as a clerk at the Almonry at Canterbury, who wrote a book for the church of St. Dunstan in that city.

The same applies also to the Bookbinder, who used to ply his trade from place to place, repairing the old and making new bindings for new and old manuscript service and music books. So too the same evidence of the accounts of churchwardens shows the Painter, the Carver, the Silversmith, the Gilder, and the Tinker constantly at work in various places, according to the needs and means and enterprise of the English parochial authorities.

In all cases it was the work of the people. Through their wardens they arranged, superintended, and finally settled the accounts of these various travelling workmen and artists. How they raised the money required for all the work that was carried out during the last half of the fifteenth century must always remain a mystery. Some account of their ways of collecting funds for parochial purposes will appear in the next chapter; but when all is said, the mystery remains.