He therefore desires that in churches which are not distant more than ten miles from the cities and castles of the province of Canterbury, the rectors and vicars should endeavour to find such clerks, and appoint them to the office. And if the parishioners withhold the customary alms to them, let them be urgently admonished, and, if need be, compelled to give them.
We are not surprised to find that parish clerks of this kind often kept the village schools.
Peckham, Archbishop in 1280, ordered in the church of Bauquell and the chapels annexed to it, that there should be duos clericos scholasticos, carefully chosen by the parishioners, from whose alms they would have to live, who should carry holy water round in the parish and chapels on Lord’s days and festivals, and minister in divinis officiis, and on week days should keep school.[309] Alexander, Bishop of Coventry, 1237, ordered parish clerks who should be schoolmasters in country villages.[310]
The custom of putting young scholars into the office of parish clerk to help them to proceed to holy orders, explains some kindly bequests which we meet with in wills:
Robert de Weston, Rector of Marum, 1389, leaves “to John Penne, my clerk, a missal of the new Use of Sarum, if he wishes to be a priest, otherwise I give him 20s. My servant Thomas Thornawe, 20s. The residue of my goods to be solde as quickly as possible, communi pretio, so that the purchasers may be bound to pray for my soul.”[311]
Giles de Gadlesmere, in 1337, left to Wm. Ockam, clerk, Cs., unless he be promoted before my death.[312]
The parish clerks of a town or neighbourhood sometimes formed themselves into a gild, as in London, Lincoln, etc.,[313] and it would seem that these gilds in some places entertained their neighbours, and no doubt augmented their own funds, by the exhibition of miracle plays. The parish clerks of London used to exhibit, on the anniversary of their gild, on the green in the parish of St. James, Clerkenwell. In 1391, Stow says that they performed before the king and queen and the whole court for three days successively, and that, in 1409, they performed a play of the “Creation of the World,” the representation of which occupied eight successive days.
Chaucer gives a portrait of a parish clerk in the Miller’s Tale of his “Canterbury Pilgrims”—
Now was there of that churche a parish clerke
The which that was y-cleped Absolon.
Crulle[314] was his here and as the gold it shon,
And strouted[315] as a fanne large and brode;
Ful streight and even lay his jolly shode.[316]
His rode[317] was red, his eyen grey as goos,
With Poules windowes carved on his shoos,
In hosen red he went ful fetisly[318]
Yclad he was ful smal and proprely
All in a kirtle of a light wajet[319]
Ful faire and thicke ben the pointès set.
And therupon he had a gay surplise
As white as is the blossome upon the rise.[320]
A mery child he was so God me save,
Well could he leten blod and clippe and shave
And make a charte of lond and a quitance.
In twenty manner could he trip and daunce
(After the schole of Oxenfordè tho)
And playen songès on a smal ribible[321]
Therto he sang, sometime a loud quinible[321]
And as wel could he play on a giterne.[321]
In all the town n’as brewhouse ne taverne
That he ne visited with his solas,
Theras that any galliard tapstere was.
This Absolon that jolly was and gay
Goth with a censor on the holy day
Censing the wivès of the parish faste
And many a lovely loke he on hem caste.
*******
Sometime to shew his lightness and maistrie
He plaieth Herod on a skaffold hie.
