Parish clerks, after having been duly chosen and appointed, are usually licensed by the ordinary. And when they are licensed, they are sworn to obey the minister.
By a recent regulation, (7 & 8 Vict. c. 59,) persons in holy orders may be appointed to the office of parish clerk, which is to be held under the same tenure as that of a stipendiary curacy. Lay-clerks may also be dismissed by the minister, without the intervention of a mandamus from the Queen’s Bench.
By 7 & 8 Wm. III. c. 35, a parish clerk, for assisting at a marriage, without banns or licence, shall forfeit five pounds for every such offence.
CLINIC BAPTISM. Baptism on a sick bed (κλινη) was so called in the primitive Church. In the earlier ages of Christianity certain solemn days were set apart for the administration of holy baptism, and only on extraordinary occasions were converts baptized, except on one or other of those days; but if one already a candidate for baptism fell sick, and if his life was endangered, he was allowed to receive clinic baptism. There was, however, a kind of clinics to whom great suspicion attached; some persons who were converts to the doctrines of Christianity would not be baptized while in health and vigour, because of the greater holiness of life to which they would account themselves pledged, and because they thought that baptism administered on their death-bed would wash away the sins of their life. Such persons, though they recovered after their baptism, were held to be under several disabilities, and especially they were not admitted as candidates for holy orders.
CLOISTER. (See Monastery.) A covered walk, not unusually occupying the four sides of a quadrangle, which is almost an invariable appendage to a monastic or ancient collegiate residence. The most beautiful cloister remaining in England is at Gloucester cathedral. Several of the cathedrals which were not monastic have or had cloisters; as York, old St. Paul’s, Chichester, Exeter, Hereford, Lincoln, Salisbury, Wells; formerly St. Patrick’s in Dublin; and some colleges, as New College, Magdalen, and Corpus at Oxford; Winchester College. A cloister was projected for King’s College by the founder, but never executed. St. George’s Chapel at Windsor has also a cloister.
CLUNIAC MONKS. Religious of the order of Clugni. It is the first branch of the order of St. Benedict.
St. Bernon, abbot of Gigniac, of the family of the earls of Burgundy, was the founder of this order. In the year 910, he built a monastery for the reception of Benedictine monks, in the town of Clugni, situated in the Maconnois, a little province of France, on the river Saone. The noble abbey of Clugni was destroyed in 1789.
The monks of Clugni (or Cluni) were remarkable for their sanctity. They every day sang two solemn masses. They so strictly observed silence, that they would rather have died than break it before the hour of prime. When they were at work, they recited psalms. They fed eighteen poor persons every day, and were so profuse of their charity in Lent, that one year, at the beginning of Lent, they distributed salt meat, and other alms, among 7000 poor.
The preparation they used for making the bread which was to serve for the eucharist is worthy to be observed. They first chose the wheat grain by grain, and washed it very carefully. Then a servant carried it in a bag to the mill, and washed the grindstones, and covered them with curtains. The meal was afterwards washed in clean water, and baked in iron moulds.
The extraordinary discipline observed in the monasteries of Clugni soon spread its fame in all parts. France, Germany, England, Spain, and Italy, desired to have some of these religious, for whom they built new monasteries. They also passed into the East; and there was scarcely a place in Europe where the order was not known.