Poor’s-Box in Cawston Church, Norfolk.

Before the Reformation, says Anthony à Wood, “in every church was a poor man’s box, but I never remembered the use of it; nay, there was one at great inns, as I remember it was, before the wars.”

Poor-boxes are often mentioned in the twelfth century. At that period pope Innocent III. extended papal power to an inordinate height; absolved subjects from allegiance to their sovereigns; raised crusades throughout Europe for the recovery of the holy sepulchre; laid France under an interdict; promised paradise to all who would slaughter the Albigenses; excommunicated John, king of England; and ordered hollow trunks to be placed in all the churches, to receive alms for the remission of the sins of the donors.[214]

A communication to the Antiquarian Society, accompanied by drawings of the poor-boxes on [this] and the [opposite page], briefly describes them.[215] The common poor-box in the churches appears to have been a shaft of oak, hollowed out at the top, covered by a hinged lid of iron, with a slit in it, for the money to fall through into the cavity, and secured by one or two iron locks.

Perhaps the most curiously constructed of the ancient poor-boxes now remaining, is that in the church of Cawston, near Aylsham. The church was built between 1385 and 1414. The poor-box was provided with three keys, two of which were for the churchwardens, and the third was most probably for the clergyman, as one of the key-holes is more ornamented than the others. The most singular part of this box is an inverted iron cup, for preventing the money from being taken out by means of any instrument through the holes on the top of the box.

The [engravings] above represent—1. this poor-box, as it stands on an octangular stone basement; 2. a perfect view of the lid; 3. another of the interior, with the manner wherein the cup is suspended for the security of the money; 4. a section of the box.

In places where the presumed richness of the boxes rendered them liable to be plundered, they were strongly bound or clamped with iron plates, as shown in the present engravings.

Poor’s-Box in Loddon Church, Norfolk.

The church of Loddon, in the south-eastern angle of the county of Norfolk, about five miles from Bungay, was built about 1495, and contains a depository of this description, with two separate boxes, each of them secured by two padlocks: over one of these is a hole in the lid for the offerings. When a sufficient sum was collected, it was taken out and placed in the adjoining box in the presence of the two churchwardens.

Ben Jonson, in his “Masque of the Metamorphosed Gipsies, as it was thrice presented before king James, 1621, &c.” makes a gipsy tell Tom Ticklefoot, a rustic musician,—

“On Sundays you rob the poor’s-box with your tabor;
The collectors would do it, you save them a labour.”

Whereunto a countryman answers,

“Faith, but a little: they’ll do it non-upstant.”[216]

From this we gather that it was customary at that time to put money in the parish poor’s-box on Sundays, and that the trustees of the poor were sometimes suspected of misapplying it.

The neglect of this mode of public contribution is noted in Hogarth’s marriage scene of the “Rake’s Progress,” by a cobweb covering the poor’s-box in the church. There is an intimation to the same effect in one of Beaumont and Fletcher’s plays, which further intimates that poor’s-boxes had posies—

The poor man’s box is there too: if ye find any thing
Besides the posy, and that half rubb’d out too,
For fear it should awaken too much charity,
Give it to pious uses: that is, spend it.

Spanish Curate, 1647.

The posies or mottoes on poor’s-boxes were short sentences to incite benevolence—such as, “He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord,” &c.

[214] Fosbroke’s Encyclopædia of Antiquities.

[215] This communication from J. A. Repton, Esq., is printed, with engravings from his drawings, in the “Archæologia,” 1821.

[216] Non-upstant, notwithstanding.