Sittings in the church were paid for yearly, at the rate of from 4d. to 6d. each. In 1567, a Mr. Doctor gave 5s. for a seat "which the parishioners promised should remain to his house for ever." Also, in the same year, "received of Mrs. Bland for the seat that her husband paid for her frendes to knele in, 12d.;" and the keeper of the Castle (then the county gaol) paid the like sum for himself and wife. A Mr. Richard Jones was paid 3s. 4d. for preaching two sermons on Palm Sunday in the year 1624; but the usual mode of paying ministers who did not belong to the parish when they preached was by treating them with a quart of sack, claret, or other wine. The Bishop sometimes preached here; and on one occasion the vestry treated his lordship to a rundlett of sack, costing £1. 10s. 10d., besides a quart of sack and a quart of white wine—the rundlett probably for the use of the numerous suite which bishops in those days always brought in their train, and the other for his lordship's own dinner table on the day that he honoured St. Michael's pulpit. On the same occasion a silk girdle, costing 8s., was given to Mr. Parr, one of the Bishop's chaplains, for preaching twice. The number of needy and itinerant preachers in the seventeenth century must have been considerable, judging from the frequent relief allowed them. Probably one of these is referred to in the following curious entry:
"Given to one that come with Tres patents out of Turkie, that had bin long in prison for the maintenance of the ghospel, vid."
Muscadell was used for the communion wine. At Christmas the church was decked with rosemary and bays, sometimes with ivy and holly. A curious illustration of the poorness of the living occurs in these books. It seems that about the year 1551, the living, which was a peculiar, in the gift of the Dean and Chapter, lapsed to the Crown, and has so continued ever since, it not being worth while to pay the expense of the seals, &c., on account of the smallness of the rectory. The custom, therefore, was for the parishioners to make a present of 40s. annually to the parson—a sum equivalent to £20 of present money. In addition to which, in the year 1627, their benevolence expanded into the donation of a suit of clothes to his reverence, Mr. Hoskins. For this purpose they purchased, "by general consent," five yards of "russett kersey," three yards of white cotton, half an ell of "russett bayes," an ell and quarter of linen cloth, three dozen buttons, and silk, also a sheepskin to make him pockets; all of which, including the making, cost £1. 5s. A yearly pension was also paid by the church of Worcester (the Cathedral) to one Roger Follyott, for the use of the parson of St. Michael's, but about the year 1590 the said Roger fell into arrears; a great controversy arose, which was settled by the Dean ordering him to pay 50s. to the churchwardens. Much care seems to have been taken of the parish records, and in 1630 a memorandum specifies that "the church and parish evidences and writings were removed forth of the old chest, and brought and put into the new frame of cubbords or boxes by the feoffees of the lands belonging to the church and parish, and by the churchwardens and divers others of the ancient and better rank of the parish, on Sunday, Nov. 5," and five keys were distributed amongst them with abundant precaution. The period was approaching in which all their care and solicitude were necessary. The first indication of the troublous period of the Civil Wars was the outlay of 12d. for a book of "prayers for the Parliament for a fast." Then, in 1642 (the year of the siege of Worcester), on the 24th of September, being the day when the Earl of Essex took possession of the city, after defeating the Princes Rupert and Maurice, and driving them, together with Lord Coventry, Sir William Russell, and their forces, over the bridge towards Herefordshire, a general pillage ensued, but the churchwardens of St. Michael's apparently compromised the matter by "giving to captains and soldiers for preserving our church goods and writings," 10s. 4d. Widow Ward's chimney, however, was broken down by the soldiers, and its reparation cost 12d.
The "coming of the princes" had been welcomed by a plentiful ringing of the bells of St. Michael's, but "Colonel Essex" was treated to a pottle of white wine and sugar at the Talbot. The jumbling together of incidents at this period is amusing, for about the same time the sum of half-a-crown was spent upon a Mr. Hackett, "in wine, beare, and tobacko, he reading prayers and preaching with us;" also 17s. "for a musket and bandeleer for the parish use, by command of the Governor and Commissioners, remaining with Abraham Pilkington, trained souldier for the parish." Providing one soldier seems to have been the fixed requirement for this parish, as in 1560 a charge of 3s. 2d. was made "for settyng forthe of a man in the warres to Berwick." The second siege of Worcester was in 1646, but the only allusion to military matters in that year are the donations of 5s. to "a soldier's wife delivered of a child in the Dark Alley, her husband having gone from her;" and 6d. "given in charity to one goodwife Packman, a very pore woman, whose husband was killed at Stowe fight, and she beinge at old Gyles his house in the Colledge, and in great miserie, was recommended by Mr. Moore, one of the committee." The year 1651, when Cromwell's crowning victory put the loyal city of Worcester to so much trouble, left numerous traces of the event in the books of this parish. After an inventory of the church plate and furniture then in their possession, the churchwardens say that "All the rest of the parish goods were plundered by Generall Cromwell's souldiers after the routinge of the Scotish army at Worcester ye 4th September last, viz., one flaggon, a pewter pott of three pints, one carpet of stript stuffe, half silk, being the gift of Richard Wannerton, one fayre carpet of branched green velvet, frindged about with deep green frindge, being the gift of Nicholas Archbold, gent., one holland table cloth for the comm'n table, one covering of fine holland to lay over the cushion upon the com'n table, with buttons at the four corners thereof, one table napkin of holland for the com'n board, two old velvet cushions." It seems that shortly after this sanguinary struggle, a County Session was held at Droitwich, and the sum of £500 was granted for the relief of the poor of Worcester, so much impoverished in the war. St. Michael's churchwardens acknowledge receiving the tenth part of this sum; and at the same time there was also laid out the sum of £2. 9s. 4d. "for buryall of the Scots that were slain and dyed in our parish, the Pallace, the Colledge, the Colledge Green, Castle Hill, and ye precincts of the said several places, and of divers others that were brought out of ye citty of Worcester and layd in the churchyard." From this interesting entry it is evident that large numbers of the combatants in those eventful days are resting beneath the sod of St. Michael's churchyard—
"Their bodies dust—their good swords rust—
Their souls are with the saints, we trust."
Just a century later it was ordered that for all bodies buried in the church the sum of one guinea should be paid, and a brick arch turned "to avoid the offensive smells which the inhabitants too often have been annoyed with;" and in October, 1767, appears the following:
"Ordered, that whereas it appears to us that the sextons of the College having unjustly received for many years past 20s. for the use of the Rev. the Dean and Chapter, and 8s. for their trouble in receiving the same, making in the whole £1. 3s., for every person buryed in the said parish churchyard, not being a parishioner, besides tacking of horses, and tolerating pedlars and other strollers to sell their ware thereon, as also in the passage leading unto the High Street, to the great detriment of the parish and a nuisance to the community in general, ordered that the officers of the said parish do set forth their grievances to the Rev. Dean and Chapter, and humbly request their assistance towards fencing the said churchyard in a decent manner, the said parishioners having been at large expense in repairing and beautifying the parish church, and a numerous poor rendering them incapable of doing the whole."
About a century ago the parsonage house was ordered to be excused from all manner of payments, upon consideration of the minister preaching a sermon on Good Friday yearly; part of this parsonage house was called "the coffee-house," and was probably used for that purpose. An annual guinea was paid to the clerk "for singing a psalm every Sunday between the two services;" the same amount to Mr. Staples to act as parish attorney to give his advice at any time; Mrs. Mary Linton was allowed "to have the sole use of the gallery of the church in her time, to take her scool there, on condition that she be at the expense of a new staircase to the gallery;" and "ordered, that the parish pump be locked down, and not to be used (except in case of fire) without the parishioners who make use of it will contribute towards the late expense of the said pump."
This brings us to the subject of parochial expenditure. The first year that figures are introduced into the accounts (and then only for the dates) was in 1557; small numerals were used in carrying out the sums of the items until the year 1644, when figures regularly superseded them. The churchwardens and their friends met and drank together on Easter Day, chiefly at the Talbot, when new churchwardens were chosen, also at the visitation, at "beating the parish bounds," going to inspect the parish property at Clifton, Severn Stoke, and on many other occasions. In 1624, on account of the perambulation, the church was dressed with boughs and rushes, by the clerk, at a charge of 4d., and the sum of 5s. 8d. was spent at the Talbot; the prisoners of the county gaol received 6d. wherewith to forget their sorrows for a time, bread was given to the poor, money to the ringers (there were three bells and a "tinking bell" at that time); and 8d. was "paid to a bottman for carrienge by water the minister and other of ye p'ishe when they went the p'ambulacon round by the Castle Hill and B'pp's Pallace." The poor had grown so numerous and burdensome by the year 1701, that an order was made for no officer to spend money on any of these public occasions; but the lust of the flesh soon reassumed its ancient sway, for in the succeeding year a meeting of twenty of the parishioners, including most of those who had been so considerate for the parochial purse, ordered that the old custom of spending £1 at the perambulation and election of officers should be revived. Many other subsequent efforts at economy were made, but without any permanent effect; and in 1778 I find that no less than £5 for processioning and 18s. for cakes, besides other sums for various parish meetings, were allowed. The total receipts of the parish in 1657 were £56. 4s. 3d., and the disbursements £55. 2s. 9d., but of the balance in hand the accountant observes—"in which money there was a leaden shilling which had long been in the parish stock, and was now broken to pieces by consent of ye parishioners." The Whitsun farthings paid by the officials from the beginning of these records regularly amounted to 5d. per annum. For an explanation of this item, as also for hoseling or houseling money, which was regularly paid, see some of the following chapters.