The Parish Clerk

by P. H. Ditchfield

A very unseemly disturbance truly! Two clerks righting for the book in the midst of the sanctuary during the Eucharistic service! Still their quarrel teaches us something about the appointment and election of clerks in the Middle Ages, and of the duty of the parish clerk with regard to the reading of the epistle.

In 1411 the vicar of Elmstead was enjoined by Clifford, Bishop of London, to find a clerk to help him at private Masses on weekdays, and on holy days to read the epistle.

In the rules laid down for the guidance of clerks at the various churches we find many references to the duties of reading and singing. At Coventry he is required to sing in the choir at the Mass, and to sing Evensong on the south side of the choir; on feast days the first clerk was ordered to be rector chori on the south side, while his fellow performed a like duty on the north side. On every Sunday and holy day the latter had to read the epistle. At Faversham the clerk was required to sing at every Mass by note the Grail at the upper desk in the body of the choir, and also the epistle, and to be diligent to sing all the office of the Mass by note, and at all other services. Very careful instructions were laid down for the proper musical arrangements in this church. The clerk was ordered "to set the choir not after his own brest (= voice) but as every man being a singer may sing conveniently his part, and when plain song faileth one of the clerks shall leave faburdon [37] and keep plain song unto the time the choir be set again." A fine of 2 d. was levied on all clerks as well as priests at St. Michael's, Cornhill, who should be absent from the church, and not take their places in the choir in their surplices, singing there from the beginning of Matins, Mass and Evensong unto the end of the services. At St. Nicholas, Bristol, the clerk was ordered "to sing in reading the epistle daily under pain of ii d."

[37] Faburdon = faux-bourdon, a simple kind of counterpoint to the church plain song-, much used in England in the fifteenth century. Grove's Dictionary of Music.

These various rules and regulations, drawn up with consummate care, together with the occasional glimpses of the mediæval clerk and his duties, which old writers afford, enable us to picture to ourselves what kind of person he was, and to see him engaged in his manifold occupations within the same walls which we know so well. When the daylight is dying, musing within the dim mysterious aisle, we can see him folding up the vestments, bearing the books into their place of safe keeping in the vestry, singing softly to himself:

"Et introibo ad altare Dei; ad Deum qui loetificat juventutem meam."

The scene changes. The days of sweeping reform set in. The Church of England regained her ancient independence and was delivered from a foreign yoke. Her children obtained an open Bible, and a liturgy in their own mother-tongue. But she was distressed and despoiled by the rapacity of the commissioners of the Crown, by such wretches as Protector Somerset, Dudley and the rest, private peculation eclipsing the greediness of royal officials. Froude draws a sad picture of the halls of country houses hung with altar cloths, tables and beds quilted with copes, and knights and squires drinking their claret out of chalices and watering their horses in marble coffins. No wonder there was discontent among the people. No wonder they disliked the despoiling of their heritage for the enrichment of the Dudleys and the nouveaux riches who fattened on the spoils of the monasteries, and left the church bare of brass and ornament, chalice and vestment, the accumulation of years of the pious offerings of the faithful. No wonder there were risings and riots, quelled only by the stern and powerful hand of a Tudor despot.

But in spite of all the changes that were wrought in that tumultuous time, the parish clerk remained, and continued to discharge many of the functions which had fallen to his lot before the Reformation had begun. As I have already stated, his duties with regard to bearing holy water and the holy loaf were discontinued, although the collecting of money from the parishioners was conducted in much the same way as before, and the "holy loaf" corrupted into various forms--such as "holy looff," "holie loffe," "holy cake," etc.--appears in churchwardens' account books as late as the beginning of the seventeenth century.

As regards his main duties of reading and singing we find that they were by no means discontinued. From a study of the First Prayer Book of Edward VI, it is evident that his voice was still to be heard reading in reverent tones the sacred words of Holy Scripture, and chanting the Psalms in his mother-tongue instead of in that of the Vulgate. The rubric in the communion service immediately before the epistle directs that "the collectes ended, the priest, or he that is appointed, shall read the epistle, in a place assigned for the purpose." Who is the person signified by the phrase "he that is appointed"? That question is decided for us by The Clerk's Book recently edited by Dr. J. Wickham Legg, wherein it is stated that "the priest or clerk" shall read the epistle. The injunctions of 1547 interpret for us the meaning of "the place assigned for the purpose" as being "the pulpit or such convenient place as people may hear." Ability to read the epistle was still therefore considered part of the functions of a parish clerk, and the whole lesson derived from a study of The Clerk's Book is the very important part which he took in the services. As the title of the book shows, it contains "All that appertein to the clerkes to say or syng at the Ministracion of the Communion, and when there is no Communion. At Confirmacion. At Matrimonie. The Visitacion of the Sicke. The Buriall of the Dedde. At the Purification of Women. And the first daie of Lent."