THE ANTIQUITY AND CONTINUITY OF THE OFFICE OF CLERK
The office of parish clerk can claim considerable antiquity, and dates back to the times of Augustine and King Ethelbert. Pope Gregory the Great, in writing to St. Augustine of Canterbury with regard to the order and constitution of the Church in new lands and under new circumstances, laid down sundry regulations with regard to the clerk's marriage and mode of life. King Ethelbert, by the advice of his Witenagemote, introduced certain judicial decrees, which set down what satisfaction should be given by those who stole anything belonging to the church. The purloiner of a clerk's property was ordered to restore threefold [2]. The canons of King Edgar, which may be attributed to the wise counsel of St. Dunstan, ordered every clergyman to attend the synod yearly and to bring his clerk with him.
[2] Bede's Hist. Eccles., ii. v.
Thus from early Saxon times the history of the office can be traced.
His name is merely the English form of the Latin clericus, a word which signified any one who took part in the services of the Church, whether he was in major or minor orders. A clergyman is still a "clerk in Holy Orders," and a parish clerk signified one who belonged to the rank of minor orders and assisted the parish priest in the services of the parish church. We find traces of him abroad in early days. In the seventh century, the canons of the Ninth Council of Toledo and of the Council of Merida tell of his services in the worship of the sanctuary, and in the ninth century he has risen to prominence in the Gallican Church, as we gather from the inquiries instituted by Archbishop Hincmar, of Rheims, who demanded of the rural deans whether each presbyter had a clerk who could keep school, or read the epistle, or was able to sing.
In the decretals of Gregory IX there is a reference to the clerk's office, and his duties obtain the sanction of canon law. Every incumbent is ordered to have a clerk who shall sing with him the service, read the epistle and lesson, teach in the school, and admonish the parishioners to send their children to the church to be instructed in the faith. It was thus in ancient days that the Church provided for the education of children, a duty which she has always endeavoured to perform. Her officers were the schoolmasters. The weird cry of the abolition of tests for teachers was then happily unknown.
The strenuous Bishop Grosseteste (1235-53), for the better ordering of his diocese of Lincoln, laid down the injunction that "in every church of sufficient means there shall be a deacon or sub-deacon; but in the rest a fitting and honest clerk to serve the priest in a comely habit." The clerk's office was also discussed in the same century at a synod at Exeter in 1289, when it was decided that where there was a school within ten miles of any parish some scholar should be chosen for the office of parish clerk. This rule provided for poor scholars who intended to proceed to the priesthood, and also secured suitable teachers for the children of the parishes.
It appears that an attempt was made to enforce celibacy on the holders of minor orders, an experiment which was not crowned with success. William Lyndewoode, Official Principal of the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1429, speaks thus of the married clerk:--
"He is a clerk, not therefore a layman; but if twice married he must be counted among laymen, because such an one is deprived of all clerical privilege. If, however, he were married, albeit not twice, yet so long as he wears the clerical habit and tonsure he shall be held a clerk in two respects, to wit, that he may enjoy the clerical privilege in his person, and that he may not be brought before the secular judges. But in all other respects he shall be considered as a layman."
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the parish clerks became important officials. We shall see presently how they were incorporated into fraternities or guilds, and how they played a prominent part in civic functions, in state funerals, and in ecclesiastical matters. The Reformation rather added to than diminished the importance of the office and the dignity of the holder of it.
The Mediaeval Clerk.
The Clerk in Procession.
The continuity of the office is worthy of record. From the days of Augustine to the present time it has never ceased to exist. The clerk is the last representative of the minor orders which the ecclesiastical changes wrought in the sixteenth century have left us. Prior to the Reformation there were sub-deacons who wore alb and maniple, acolytes, the tokens of whose office were a taper staff and small pitcher, ostiaries or doorkeepers corresponding to our verger or clerk, readers, exorcists, rectores chori, etc. This full staff would, of course, be not available for every country church, and for such parishes a clerk and a boy acolyte doubtless sufficed, though in large churches there were representatives of all these various officials. They disappeared in the Reformation; only the clerk remained, incorporating in his own person the offices of reader, acolyte, sub-deacon.
Indeed, if in these enlightened days any proof were needed of the historical continuity of the English Church, it would be found in the permanence of the clerk's office. Just as in many instances the same individual rector or vicar continued to hold his living during the whole period of the Reformation era, witnessing the spoliation of his church by the greedy Commissioners of Henry VIII and Edward VI, the introduction of the First Prayer Book of Edward VI, the revival of the "old religion" under Queen Mary, the triumph of Reformation principles under Queen Elizabeth; so did the parish clerk continue to hold office also. The Reformation changed many of his functions and duties, but the office remained. The old churchwardens' account books bear witness to this fact. Previous to the Reformation he received certain wages and many "perquisites" from the inhabitants of the parish for distributing the holy loaf and the holy water. At St. Giles's, Reading, in the year 1518-19, appears the item:
EXPENS. In p'mis paid for the dekays of the Clark's wages vis.
In the following year we notice:
WAGE. Paid to Harry Water Clerk for his wage for a yere ended at thannacon of our lady a° xi° ... xxvi s. viii d.
In 1545-6, Whitborne, the clerk, received 12 s. towards his wages, and he "to be bound to teche ij children free for the quere."
After the Reformation, in the same town we find the same clerk continuing in office. He no longer went round the parish bearing holy water, but the collecting of money for the holy loaf continued, the proceeds being devoted to the necessary expenses of the church. Thus in the Injunctions given by the King's Majesty's visitors to the clergy and laity resident in the Deanery of Doncaster in the second year of the reign of King Edward VI, appears the following:
"Item. The churchwardens of every Parish-Church shall, some one Sunday, or other Festival day, every month, go about the Church, and make request to every of the Parish for their charitable Contribution to the Poor; and the sum so collected shall be put in the Chest of Alms for that purpose provided. And for as much as the Parish-Clerk shall not hereafter go about the Parish with his Holy Water as hath been accustomed, he shall, instead of that labour, accompany the said Church-Wardens, and in a Book Register the name and Sum of every man that giveth any thing to the Poor, and the same shall intable; and against the next day of Collection, shall hang up somewhere in the Church in open place, to the intent the Poor having knowledge thereby, by whose Charity and Alms they be relieved, may pray for the increase and prosperity of the same [3]."
[3] The Clerk's Book of 1549, edited by J. Wickham Legg, Appendix IX, p. 95.
This is only one instance out of many which might be quoted to prove that the clerk's office by no means ceased to exist after the Reformation changes. I shall refer later on to the survival of the collection of money for the holy loaf and to its transference to other uses.
The clerk, therefore, appears to have continued to hold his office shorn of some of his former duties. He witnessed all the changes of that changeful time, the spoliation of his church, the selling of numerous altar cloths, vestments, banners, plate, and other costly furniture, and, moreover, took his part in the destruction of altars and the desecration of the sanctuary. In the accounts for the year 1559 of the Church of St. Lawrence, Reading, appear the items:
"Itm--for taking-downe the awlters and laying the stones, vs.
"To Loryman (the clerk) for carrying out the rubbish x d [4]."
[4] Rev. C. Kerry's History of S. Lawrence's Church, Reading, p. 25.
Indeed, the clerk can claim a more perfect continuity of office than the rector or vicar. There was a time when the incumbents were forced to leave their cure and give place to an intruding minister appointed by the Cromwellian Parliament. But the clerk remained on to chant his "Amen" to the long-winded prayers of some black-gowned Puritan. That is a very realistic scene sketched by Sir Walter Besant when he describes the old clerk, an ancient man and rheumatic, hobbling slowly through the village, key in hand, to the church door. It was towards the end of the Puritan regime. After ringing the bell and preparing the church for the service, he goes into the vestry, where stood an ancient black oak coffer, the sides curiously graven, and a great rusty key in the lock. The clerk (Sir Walter calls him the sexton, but it is evidently the clerk who is referred to) turns the key with difficulty, throws open the lid, and looks in.
"Ay," he says, chuckling, "the old surplice and the old Book of Common Prayer. Ye have had a long rest; 'tis time for you both to come out again. When the surplice is out, the book will stay no longer locked up." He draws forth an old and yellow roll. It was the surplice which had once been white. "Here you be," he says; "put you away for a matter of twelve year and more, and you bide your time; you know you will come back again; you are not in any hurry. Even the clerk dies; but you die not, you bide your time. Everything comes again. The old woman shall give you a taste o' the suds and the hot iron. Thus we go up and thus we go down." Then he takes up the old book, musty and damp after twelve years' imprisonment. "Fie," he says, "thy leather is parting from thy boards, and thy leaves they do stick together. Shalt have a pot of paste, and then lie in the sun before thou goest back to the desk. Whether 'tis Mass or Common Prayer, whether 'tis Independent or Presbyterian, folk mun still die and be buried--ay, and married and born--whatever they do say. Parson goes and Preacher comes; Preacher goes and Parson comes; but Sexton stays." He chuckles again, puts back the surplice and the book, and locks the coffer [5].
[5] For Faith and Freedom, by Sir Walter Besant, chap. 1.
Like many of his brethren, he had seen the Church of England displaced by the Presbyterians, and the Presbyterians by the Independents, and the restoration of the Church. His father, who had been clerk before him, had seen the worship of the "old religion" in Queen Mary's time, and all the time the village life had been going on, and the clerk's work had continued; his office remained. In village churches the duties of clerk and sexton are usually performed by the same person. Not long ago a gentleman was visiting a village church, and was much struck by the remarks of an old man who seemed to know each stone and tomb and legend. The stranger asking him what his occupation was, he replied:
"I hardly know what I be. First vicar he called me clerk; then another came, and he called me virgin; the last vicar said I were the Christian, and now I be clerk again."
The "virgin" was naturally a slight confusion for verger, and the "christian" was a corrupt form of sacristan or sexton. All the duties of these various callings were combined in the one individual.
That story reminds one of another concerning the diligent clerk of R----, who, in addition to the ordinary duties of his office, kept the registers and acted as groom, gardener, and footman at the rectory. A rather pompous rector's wife used to like to refer at intervals during a dinner-party to "our coachman says," "our gardener always does this," "our footman is ...," leaving the impression of a somewhat large establishment. The dear old rector used to disturb the vision of a large retinue by saying, "They are all one--old Corby, the clerk."
One of the chief characteristics of old parish clerks, whether in ancient or modern times, is their faithfulness to their church and to their clergyman. We notice this again and again in the biographies of many of these worthy men which it has been a privilege to study. The motto of the city of Exeter, Semper fidelis, might with truth have been recorded as the legend of their class. This fidelity must have been sorely tried in the sad days of the Commonwealth period, when the sufferings of the clergy began, and the poor clerk had to bid farewell to his beloved pastor and welcome and "sit under" some hard-visaged Presbyterian or Puritan preacher.
Isaac Walton tells the pathetic story of the faithful clerk of the parish of Borne, near Canterbury, where the "Judicious" Hooker was incumbent. The vicar and clerk were on terms of great affection, and Hooker was of "so mild and humble a nature that his poor clerk and he did never talk but with both their hats on, or both off, at the same time."
This same clerk lived on in the quiet village until the third or fourth year of the Long Parliament. Hooker died and was buried at Borne, and many people used to visit his monument, and the clerk had many rewards for showing his grave-place, and often heard his praises sung by the visitors, and used to add his own recollections of his holiness and humility. But evil days came; the parson of Borne was sequestered, and a Genevan minister put into his good living. The old clerk, seeing so many clergymen driven from their homes and churches, used to say, "They have sequestered so many good men, that I doubt if my good Master Hooker had lived till now, they would have sequestered him too."
Walton then describes the conversion of the church into a Genevan conventicle. He wrote: "It was not long before this intruding minister had made a party in and about the said parish that was desirous to receive the sacrament as at Geneva: to which end, the day was appointed for a select company, and forms and stools set about the altar or communion table for them to sit and eat and drink; but when they went about this work, there was a want of some joint-stools which the minister sent the clerk to fetch, and then to fetch cushions. When the clerk saw them begin to sit down, he began to wonder; but the minister bade him cease wondering and lock the church door: to whom he replied, 'Pray take you the keys, and lock me out: I will never more come into this church; for men will say my Master Hooker was a good man and a great scholar; and I am sure it was not used to be thus in his days': and report says this old man went presently home and died; I do not say died immediately, but within a few days after. But let us leave this grateful clerk in his quiet grave."
Another faithful clerk was William Hobbes, who served in the church and parish of St. Andrew, Plymouth. Walker, in his Sufferings of the Clergy, records the sad story of his death. During the troubles of the Civil War period, when presumably there was no clergyman to perform the last rites of the Church on the body of a parishioner, the good clerk himself undertook the office, and buried a corpse, using the service for the Burial of the Dead contained in the Book of Common Prayer. The Puritans were enraged, and threatened to throw him into the same grave if he came there again with his "Mass-book" to bury any body: which "worked so much upon his Spirits, that partly with Fear and partly with Grief, he Died soon after." He died in 1643, and the accounts of the church show that the balance of his salary was paid to his widow.
Many such faithful clerks have devoted their years of active life to the service of God in His sanctuary, both in ancient and modern times; and it will be our pleasurable duty to record some of the biographies of these earnest servants of the Church, whose services are too often disregarded.
I have mentioned the continuity of the clerk's office, unbroken by either Reformation changes or by the confusion of the Puritan regime. We will now endeavour to sketch the appearance of the mediæval clerk, and the numerous duties which fell to his lot.
Chaucer's gallery of ancient portraits contains a very life-like presentment of a mediæval clerk in the person of "Jolly Absolon," a somewhat frivolous specimen of his class, who figures largely in The Miller's Tale.
"Now was ther of that churche a parish clerk
The which that was y-cleped [6] Absolon.
Curl'd was his hair, and as the gold it shone,
And strutted [7] as a fannë large and broad;
Full straight and even lay his folly shode. [8]
His rode [9] was red, his eyen grey as goose,
With Paulë's windows carven on his shoes. [10]
In hosen red he went full febishly. [11]
Y-clad he was full small and properly,
All in a kirtle of a light waget; [12]
Full fair and thickë be the pointës set.
And thereupon he had a gay surplice,
As white as is the blossom on the rise. [13]
A merry child he was, so God me save;
Well could he letten blood, and clip, and shave,
And make a charter of land and a quittance.
In twenty manners could he trip and dance,
After the school of Oxenfordë tho', [14]
And with his leggës castë to and fro;
And playen songës or a small ribible; [15]
Thereto he sung sometimes a loud quinible. [16]
And as well could he play on a gitern. [17]
In all the town was brewhouse nor tavern
That he not visited with his solas, [18]
There as that any gaillard tapstere [19] was.
This Absolon, that jolly was and gay
Went with a censor on the holy day,
Censing the wivës of the parish fast:
And many a lovely look he on them cast,
Sometimes to show his lightness and mast'ry
He playeth Herod on a scaffold high."
[6] Called.
[7] Stretched.
[8] Head of hair.
[9] Complexion.
[10] His shoes were decked with an ornament like a rose-window in old St. Paul's.
[11] Daintily.
[12] A kind of cloth.
[13] A bush.
[14] The Oxford school of dancing is satirised by the poet.
[15] A kind of fiddle.
[16] Treble.
[17] Guitar.
[18] Sport, mirth.
[19] Tavern-wench.
I fear me Master Absolon was a somewhat frivolous clerk, or his memory has been traduced by the poet's pen, which lacked not satire and a caustic but good-humoured wit. Here was a parish clerk who could sing well, though he did not confine his melodies to "Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs." He wore a surplice; he was an accomplished scrivener, and therefore a man of some education; he could perform the offices of the barber-surgeon, and one of his duties was to cense the people in their houses. He was an actor of no mean repute, and took a leading part in the mysteries or miracle-plays, concerning which we shall have more to tell. He even could undertake the prominent part of Herod, which doubtless was an object of competition among the amateurs of the period. Such is the picture which Chaucer draws of the frivolous clerk, a sketch which is accurate enough as far as it goes, and one that we will endeavour to fill in with sundry details culled from medieval sources.
Chaucer tells us that Jolly Absolon used to go to the houses of the parishioners on holy days with his censer. His more usual duty was to bear to them the holy water, and hence he acquired the title of aquæbajalus. This holy water consisted of water into which, after exorcism, blest salt had been placed, and then duly sanctified with the sign of the cross and sacerdotal benediction. We can see the clerk clad in his surplice setting out in the morning of Sunday on his rounds. He is carrying a holy-water vat, made of brass or wood, containing the blest water, and in his hand is an aspergillum or sprinkler. This consists of a round brush of horse-hair with a short handle. When the clerk arrives at the great house of the village he first enters the kitchen, and seeing the cook engaged on her household duties, he dips the sprinkler into the holy-water vessel and shakes it towards her, as in the accompanying illustration. Then he visits the lord and lady of the manor, who are sitting at meat in their solar, and asperges them in like manner. For his pains he receives from every householder some gift, and goes on his way rejoicing. Bishop Alexander, of Coventry, however, in his constitutions drawn up in the year 1237, ordered that no clerk who serves in a church may live from the fees derived from this source, and the penalty of suspension was to be inflicted on any one who should transgress this rule. The constitutions of the parish clerks at Trinity Church, Coventry, made in 1462, are a most valuable source of information with regard to the clerk's duties.
The following items refer to the orders relating to the holy water:
"Item, the dekyn shall bring a woly water stoke with water for hys preste every Sonday for the preste to make woly water.
"Item, the said dekyn shall every Sonday beyr woly water of hys chyldern to euery howse in hys warde, and he to have hys duty off euery man affter hys degre quarterly."
At the church of St. Nicholas, Bristol, in 1481, it was ordered that the "Clerke to ordeynn spryngals [20] for the church, and for him that visiteth the Sondays and dewly to bere his holy water to euery howse Abyding soo convenient a space that every man may receive hys Holy water under payne of iiii d. tociens quociens."
[20] Bunches of twigs for sprinkling holy water.
The Clerk Bearing Holy Water And Asperging The Cook.
The Clerk Bearing Holy Water And Asperging The Lord And Lady.
At Faversham a set of parish clerk's duties of the years 1506, 1548, and 1593 is preserved. In the rules ordained for his guidance in the first-mentioned year he with his assistant clerk is ordered to bear holy water to every man's house, as of old time hath been accustomed; in case of default he shall forfeit 8 d.; but if he shall be very much occupied on account of a principal feast falling on a Sunday or with any pressing parochial business, he is to be excused.
A mighty dissension disturbed the equanimity of the little parish of Morebath in the year 1531 and continued for several years. The quarrel arose concerning the dues to be paid to the parish clerk, a small number of persons refusing to pay the just demands. After much disputing they finally came to an agreement, and one of the items was that the clerk should go about the parish with his holy water once a year, when men had shorn their sheep to gather some wool to make him a coat to go in the parish in his livery. There are many other items in the agreement to which we shall have occasion again to refer. Let us hope that the good people of Morebath settled down amicably after this great "storm in a tea-cup"; but this godly union and concord could not have lasted very long, as mighty changes were in progress, and much upsetting of old-established custom and practice.
The clerk continued in many parishes to make his accustomed round of the houses, and collected money which was used for the defraying of the expenses of public worship; but he left behind him his sprinkler and holy-water vat, which accorded not with the principles and tenets, the practice and ceremonies of the reformed Church of England.
This was, however, one of the minor duties of the mediæval clerk, and the custom of giving offerings to him seems to have started with a charitable intent. The constitutions of Archbishop Boniface of Canterbury issued in 1260 state:
"We have often heard from our elders that the benefices of holy water were originally instituted from a motive of charity, in order that one of their proper poor clerks might have exhibitions to the schools, and so advance in learning, that they might be fit for higher preferment."
He had many other and more important duties to perform, duties requiring a degree of education far superior to that which we are accustomed to associate with the holders of his office. We will endeavour to obtain a truer sketch of him than even that drawn by Chaucer, and to realise the multitudinous duties which fell to his lot, and the great services he rendered to God and to his Church.