Nevertheless, we have to deplore the disappearance of large numbers of priceless manuscripts, the value of which was not recognized by their custodians. Owing to the ignorance and carelessness of these keepers of historic documents vast stores have been hopelessly lost or destroyed, and have vanished with much else of the England that is vanishing. We know of a Corporation—that of Abingdon, in Berkshire, the oldest town in the royal county and anciently its most important—which possessed an immense store of municipal archives. These manuscript books would throw light upon the history of the borough; but in their wisdom the members of the Corporation decided that they should be sold for waste paper! A few gentlemen were deputed to examine the papers in order to see if anything was worth preserving. They spent a few hours on the task, which would have required months for even a cursory inspection, and much expert knowledge, which these gentlemen did not possess, and reported that there was nothing in the documents of interest or importance, and the books and papers were sold to a dealer. Happily a private gentleman purchased the "waste paper," which remains in his hands, and was not destroyed: but this example only shows the insecurity of much of the material upon which local and municipal history depends.
Court rolls, valuable wills and deeds are often placed by noble owners and squires in the custody of their solicitors. They repose in peace in safes or tin boxes with the name of the client printed on them. Recent legislation has made it possible to prove a title without reference to all the old deeds. Hence the contents of these boxes are regarded only as old lumber and of no value. A change is made in the office. The old family solicitor dies, and the new man proceeds with the permission of his clients to burn all these musty papers, which are of immense value in tracing the history of a manor or of a family. Some years ago a leading family solicitor became bankrupt. His office was full of old family deeds and municipal archives. What happened? A fire was kindled in the garden, and for a whole fortnight it was fed with parchment deeds and rolls, many of them of immense value to the genealogist and the antiquary. It was all done very speedily, and no one had a chance to interfere. This is only one instance of what we fear has taken place in many offices, the speedy disappearance of documents which can never be replaced.
From the contents of the parish chests, from churchwardens' account-books, we learn much concerning the economic history of the country, and the methods of the administration of local and parochial government. As a rule persons interested in such matters have to content themselves with the statements of the ecclesiastical law books on the subject of the repair of churches, the law of church rates, the duties of churchwardens, and the constitution and power of vestries. And yet there has always existed a variety of customs and practices which have stood for ages on their prescriptive usage with many complications and minute differentiations. These old account-books and minute-books of the churchwardens in town and country are a very large but a very perishable and rapidly perishing treasury of information on matters the very remembrance of which is passing away. Yet little care is taken of these books. An old book is finished and filled up with entries; a new book is begun. No one takes any care of the old book. It is too bulky for the little iron register safe. A farmer takes charge of it; his children tear out pages on which to make their drawings; it is torn, mutilated, and forgotten, and the record perishes. All honour to those who have transcribed these documents with much labour and endless pains and printed them. They will have gained no money for their toil. The public do not show their gratitude to such laborious students by purchasing many copies, but the transcribers know that they have fitted another stone in the Temple of Knowledge, and enabled antiquaries, genealogists, economists, and historical inquirers to find material for their pursuits.
The churchwardens' accounts of St. Mary's, Thame, and some of the most interesting in the kingdom, are being printed in the Berks, Bucks, and Oxon Archæological Journal. The originals were nearly lost. Somehow they came into the possession of the Buckinghamshire Archæological Society. The volume was lent to the late Rev. F. Lee, in whose library it remained and could not be recovered. At his death it was sold with his other books, and found its way to the Bodleian Library at Oxford. There it was transcribed by Mr. Patterson Ellis, and then went back to the Buckinghamshire Society after its many wanderings. It dates back to the fifteenth century, and records many curious items of pre-Reformation manners and customs.
From these churchwardens' accounts we learn how our forefathers raised money for the expenses of the church and of the parish. Provision for the poor, mending of roads, the improvement of agriculture by the killing of sparrows, all came within the province of the vestry, as well as the care of the church and churchyard. We learn about such things as "Gatherings" at Hocktide, May-day, All Hallow-day, Christmas, and Whitsuntide, the men stopping the women on one day and demanding money, while on the next day the women retaliated, and always gained more for the parish fund than those of the opposite sex: Church Ales, the Holy Loaf, Paschal Money, Watching the Sepulchre, the duties of clerks and clergymen, and much else, besides the general principles of local self-government, which the vestrymen carried on until quite recent times. There are few books that provide greater information or more absorbing interest than these wonderful books of accounts. It is a sad pity that so many have vanished.
The parish register books have suffered less than the churchwardens' accounts, but there has been terrible neglect and irreparable loss. Their custody has been frequently committed to ignorant parish clerks, who had no idea of their utility beyond their being occasionally the means of putting a shilling into their pockets for furnishing extracts. Sometimes they were in the care of an incumbent who was forgetful, careless, or negligent. Hence they were indifferently kept, and baptisms, burials, and marriages were not entered as they ought to have been. In one of my own register books an indignant parson writes in the year 1768: "There does not appear any one entry of a Baptism, Marriage, or Burial in the old Register for nine successive years, viz. from the year 1732 till the year 1741, when this Register commences." The fact was that the old parchment book beginning A.D. 1553 was quite full and crowded with names, and the rector never troubled to provide himself with a new one. Fortunately this sad business took place long before our present septuagenarians were born, or there would be much confusion and uncertainty with regard to old-age pensions.
The disastrous period of the Civil War and the Commonwealth caused great confusion and many defects in the registers. Very often the rector was turned out of his parish; the intruding minister, often an ignorant mechanic, cared naught for registers. Registrars were appointed in each parish who could scarcely sign their names, much less enter a baptism. Hence we find very frequent gaps in the books from 1643 to 1660. At Tarporley, Cheshire, there is a break from 1643 to 1648, upon which a sorrowful vicar remarks:—
"This Intermission hapned by reason of the great wars obliterating memorials, wasting fortunes, and slaughtering persons of all sorts."
The Parliamentary soldiers amused themselves by tearing out the leaves in the registers for the years 1604 to the end of 1616 in the parish of Wimpole, Cambridgeshire.
There is a curious note in the register of Tunstall, Kent. There seems to have been a superfluity of members of the family of Pottman in this parish, and the clergyman appears to have been tired of recording their names in his books, and thus resolves:—