"The institution of churchwardens is of remote antiquity, they having been first appointed at the African Council, held under Celestine and Boniface, about the year of our Lord 423. These officers have at different periods been distinguished by different appellations, Defensores, Œconomi, and Præpositi Ecclesiæ, Testes Synodales, &c. In the time of Edward III. they were called Church Reves, as we read in Chaucer:
'Of church reves, and of testamentes,
Of contractes, and of lacke of sacramentes.'
At this day they are called Churchwardens; all those names being expressive of the nature of the office, which is to guard, preserve, and superintend the rights, revenues, buildings, and furniture of the church. In an old churchwarden's book of accounts, belonging to the parish of Farringdon, in the county of Berks, and bearing date A.D. 1518, there is the form of admitting churchwardens into their office at that period, in the following words: 'Cherchye Wardenys, thys shall be your charge: to be true to God and to the cherche: for love nor for favor off no man wythin thys parriche to withold any ryght to the cherche; but to resseve the dettys to hyt belongythe, or else to go to the devell.'"
Your readers will observe that the last is a very summary kind of sentence. Any farther information relating to the institution of churchwardens[[1]] will be esteemed by
J. B. Whitborne.
Footnote 1:[(return)]
On the institution of churchwardens consult Burn's Ecclesiastical Law, tit. Churchwardens; and the works noticed in "N. & Q.," Vol. vii., p. 359.
Epigram.—In an old book I found this epigram, published in 1660, more suitable perhaps for your columns during the excitement of the Papal aggression than now:
"ON ROME.
"Hate and debate Rome through the world hath spread,
Yet Roma, amor is, if backward read;
Then is it strange, Rome hate should foster? no,