[42] S.P.C.K., “Roch. Dioc. Hist.,” p. 25.
[43] Ellis’s “Introduction to Domesday Book.”
[44] Parishes with two rectors continued not infrequently throughout the Middle Ages; there are some even to the present day. The way in which the parochial duties were divided is indicated by two examples given in Whitaker’s “Craven” (p. 504). Linton has two rectors, who take the service in alternate weeks; they have their stalls on either side of the choir, and parsonage houses nearly adjoining one another. So at Bonsal each rector has his own stall and pulpit.
Sometimes each mediety had its own church. The churches of Willingale Spain and Willingale Doe, in Essex, are in the same churchyard. At Pakefield, Suffolk, there is a double church, each with its choir and nave and altar, divided only by an open arcade.
[45] Bôt = compensation.
[46] This is the earliest notice (in England at least) of the ancient custom of having a confirmation god-parent, different from the baptismal sponsors. There are other notices of it in the canons of Edgar (see [p. 69]) and the twenty-second of the laws of Canute; and in many canons of English Mediæval Diocesan Councils. Queen Elizabeth and Edward VI. were each baptized and confirmed at the same time, and, according to primitive custom, each had three baptismal sponsors and one confirmation god-parent. It is still enjoined by the third rubric at the end of the Church Catechism and by the twenty-ninth of the canons of 1603.
[47] i.e. be scourged.
[48] So it is usually stated, but the date and place of the council are very questionable.
[49] Zachary’s letters to the English inhabitants of Britain were in Latin and English. The documents are not on record, but we are told that they were read at the Council; in them he “familiariter admonebat et veraciter conveniebat et postremo amabiliter exorabat,” and to those who despise these modes of address he “anathematis sententiam procul dubio properandam insinuabat.”
[50] This prayer is as follows: “O Lord, we beseech Thee, of Thy great mercy, grant that the soul of (such a person) may be secured in a state of peace and repose, and that he may be admitted with the rest of Thy saints into the region of light and happiness.”