In the year 1406 it was ordered that "a Mass of the Holy Ghost should be celebrated with solemn music in the chapel annexed to the Guildhall, to the end that the same commonalty by the grace of the Holy Spirit might be able peacefully and amicably to nominate two able and proper persons to be mayor of the City for the ensuing year, the same Mass, by the ordinance of the Chamberlain for the time being, to be solemnly chanted by the finest singers, in the chapel aforesaid and upon that feast."

And when the Mass was no longer sung in the chapel of the Guildhall, they still chanted the Psalms and anthems before and after divine service and sermon, sometimes with the help of "two singing men of Paul's," who received twelvepence apiece for their pains; and sometimes the singing was done by a convenient number of the Clerks' Company most skilful in singing, and deemed most fit by the master and wardens to perform that service.

They were in great request at the great and stately funerals of the sixteenth century, going before the hearse and singing with their surplices hanging on their arms till they came to the church. The changes wrought by the Reformation strongly affected their use. In the early years of the century we can hear them chanting anthems, dirige, and Mass; later on they sing "the Te Deum in English new fashion, Geneva wise—men, women and all do sing and boys."

These splendid funerals were a fruitful source of income to the Clerks' Company. We see Masters William Holland and John Aungell, clerks of the Brotherhood of St. Nicholas, with twenty-four persons and three children singing the Masses of Our Lady, the Trinity and Requiem at the interment of Sir Thomas Lovell, the sage and witty counsellor of King Henry VIII and Constable of the Tower, while sixty-four more clerks met the body on its way and conducted it to its last resting-place at Holywell, Shoreditch. Perhaps it was not without some satisfaction that the clerks took a prominent part in the burial of the Duke of Somerset, the iniquitous spoiler of their goods. In the ordinances of the companies issued in 1553, very minute regulations are laid down with regard to the fees for funerals and the order in which each clerk should serve. At the burials of "noble honourable, worshipful men or women or citizens of the City of London," the attendance of the clerks was limited to the number asked for by the friends of the deceased. No person was to receive more than eight-pence. The beadle might charge fourpence for the use of the hearse cloth. An extra charge of fourpence could be made if the clerks were wanted both in the afternoon and in the forenoon for the sermon or other service. The bearers might have twopence more than the usual wage. Each clerk was to have his turn in attending funerals, so that no one man might be taken for favour or left out for displeasure.

The records of these gorgeous funerals, which are preserved in Machyn's diary and other chronicles, reveal the changes wrought by the spread of Reformation principles and Puritan notions. In Mary's reign they were very magnificent, "priests and clerks chanting in Latin, the priest having a cope and the clerk the holy water sprinkle in his hand." The accession of Elizabeth seems at first to have wrought little change, and the services of the Clerks' Company were in great request. On 21 October, 1559, "the Countess of Rutland was brought from Halewell to Shoreditch Church with thirty priests and clarkes singing," and "Sir Thomas Pope was buried at Clerkenwell with two services of pryke song[53], and two masses of requiem and all clerkes of London." "Poules Choir and the Clarkes of London" united their services on some occasions. Funeral sermons began to be considered an important part of the function, and Machyn records the names of the preachers. Even though such keen Protestants as Coverdale, Bishop Pilkington, Robert Crowley, and Veron preached the sermons, twenty clerks of the company were usually present singing. Machyn much disliked the innovations made by the Puritan party, their singing "Geneva wise" or "the tune of Genevay," men, women, and children all singing together, without any clerk. Here is a description of such a funeral on 7 March, 1559: "And there was a great company of people two and two together, and neither priest nor clarke, the new preachers in their gowns like laymen, neither singing nor saying till they came to the grave, and afore she was put in the grave, a collect in English, and then put in the grave, and after, took some earth and cast it on the corse, and red a thyng ... for the sam, and contenent cast the earth into the grave, and contenent read the Epistle of St. Paul to the Stesselonyans the ... chapter, and after they sang Pater noster in English, bothe preachers and other, and ... of a new fashion, and after, one of them went into the pulpit and made a sermon." Machyn especially disliked the preacher Veron, rector of St. Martin's, Ludgate, a French Protestant, who had been ordained by Bishop Ridley, and was "a leader in the change from the old ecclesiastical music for the services to the Psalms in metre, versified by Sternhold and Hopkins[54]."

[Footnote 53: The notes of the harmony were pricked on the lines of music.]

[Footnote 54: Some Account of Parish Clerks, by J. Christie, p. 153.]

The clerks indirectly caused the disgrace and suspension of Robert Crowley, vicar of St. Giles, Cripplegate, and prebendary of St. Paul's Cathedral, a keen Puritan and hater of clerkly ways. He loathed surplices as "rags of Popery," and could not bear to see the clerks marching in orderly procession singing and chanting. A funeral took place at his church on 1 April, 1566. A few days before, the Archbishop of Canterbury had issued his Advertisements ordering the use of the surplice. The friends of the deceased had engaged the services of the parish clerks, who, believing that the order with regard to the use of surplices applied to them as well as to the clergy, appeared at the door of the church attired according to their ancient usage. A scene occurred. The angry Crowley met them at the door and bade them take off those "porter's coats." The deputy of the ward supported the vicar and threatened to lay them up by the feet if they dared to enter the church in such obnoxious robes. There was a mighty disturbance. "Those who took their part according to the queen's prosedyngs were fain to give over and tarry without the church door." The Lord Mayor's attention was called to this disgraceful scene. He complained to the archbishop. The deputy of the ward was bound over to keep the peace, and Crowley was ordered to stay in his house, and for not wearing a surplice was deprived of his living, to which he was again appointed twelve years later[55]. The clerks triumphed, but their services at funerals soon ceased. Puritan opinions spread; no longer did the clerks lead the singing and processions at funereal pageants, and a few boys from Christ's Hospital or school children took their places in degenerate days.

[Footnote 55: Some Account of Parish Clerks, by J. Christie, p. 154.]

The Parish Clerks' Company were not a whit behind other City companies in their love of processions and pageantry, and their annual feasts and elections were conducted with great ceremony and magnificence. The elections took place on Ascension Day, and the feast on the following Monday. The clerks in 1529 were ordered to come to the Guildhall College on the Sunday before Whit-Sunday to Evensong clad in surplices, and on the following day to attend Mass, when each man offered one halfpenny. When Mass was over they marched in procession wearing copes from the Guildhall to Clerks' Hall, where the feast was held. Fines were levied for absence or non-obedience to these observances. Machyn describes the accustomed usages in Mary's reign as follows: "The sixth of May was a goodly evensong at Yeldhall College with singing and playing as you have heard. The morrow after was a great Mass at the same place by the same Fraternity, when every clerk offered a halfpenny. The Mass was sung by divers of the Queen's Chapel and children. And after Mass was done every clerk went their procession, two and two together, each having a surplice, a rich cope and a garland. After them fourscore standards, streamers and banners, and every one that bare had an albe, or else a surplice, and two and two together. Then came the waits playing, and then between, thirty Clarkes again singing Salva festa dies. So there were four quires. Then came a canopy, borne by four of the masters of the Clarkes over the Sacrament with a twelve staff torches burning, up St. Lawrence Lane and so to the further end of Cheap, then back again by Cornhill, and so down to Bishopsgate, into St. Albrose Church, and there they did put off their copes, and so to dinner every man, and then everyone that bare a streamer had money, as they were of bigness then." A very striking procession it must have been, and those who often traverse the familiar streets of the City to-day can picture to themselves the clerks' pageant of former times, which wended its way along the same accustomed thoroughfares.



But times were changing, and religious ceremonies changed too. Less pomp and pageantry characterise the celebrations of the clerks. There is the Evensong as usual, and a Communion on the following day, followed by a dinner and "a goodly concert of children of Westminster, with viols and regals." A little later we read that the clerks marched clad in their liveries, gowns, and hoods of white damask. Copes are no longer recognised as proper vestments. Standards, banners, and streamers remain locked up in the City's treasure-house, and Puritan simplicity is duly observed. But the clerks lacked not feasting. Besides the election dinner, there were quarterly dinners, and dinners for the wardens and assistants. Time has wrought some changes in the mode of celebrating election day and other festive occasions. Sometimes "plain living and high thinking" were the watchwords that guided the principles of the company. Processions and gown-wearing have long been discontinued, but in its essential character the election day is still observed, though pomp and pageantry no longer form important features of its ceremonial.

We have seen that the parish clerks of London were in great request on account of their musical abilities. In 1610 the masters and wardens were called upon to examine all those who wished to be admitted into the honourable company, as to whether they could read the Psalms of David according to the usual tunes used in the parish churches. The finest singers chanted Mass in pre-Reformation times in the Guildhall at the election of the Lord Mayor. In order to improve themselves in this part of their duties, the parish clerks soon after the Restoration of the monarchy, in 1660, provided themselves with an organ in order to perfect themselves in the art of chanting. The minute book of the company tells that it was acquired "the better to enable them to perform a service incumbent upon them before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City on Michaelmas Day, and also the better to enable them who already are, or hereafter shall be, parish clerks of the City in performing their duties in the several parishes to which they stand related." Here the clerks used to meet on Tuesday afternoons for a regular weekly practice in music, and for many years an organist was appointed by the company to assist the brethren in their cultivation of psalmody. The selection of psalms specially suited for each Sunday in the year was made by the company and set forth in The Parish Clerks' Guide, in order that the special teaching of the Sunday, as set forth in the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, might be duly followed in the Psalms.

Another important duty which the parish clerks of London, and also in some provincial towns, discharged was the publishing of the bills of mortality for the City. This duty is enjoined in their charter of 1610. The corporation required from them returns of the deaths of freemen in their respective parishes, and also returns of the number of deaths and christenings. The records of the City of London contain a copy of the agreement, made in 1545-6 between the Lord Mayor and the Parish Clerks' Company, which provides that "They shall cause all clerks of the City to present to the common crier the name and surname of any freeman that shall die having any children under the age of 21 years." The Chamberlain was instructed to pay to the company 13 s. 4 d. yearly for their services. The custody of all orphans, with that of their lands and goods, had been entrusted to the City by the charter of Richard III, and this agreement was made in order to enable the "City Fathers" to faithfully discharge their duties in looking after children of deceased freemen. In spite of many difficulties, especially after the Great Fire which rendered thousands homeless and scattered the population, the clerks continued to perform this duty, though not always to the satisfaction of their employers, until the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the custom seems to have lapsed.



The earliest bills of mortality now in existence date back to the time of Henry VIII, when the clerks were required to furnish information with regard to the deaths caused by plague, as well as those resulting from other causes. The returns of the victims of plague are occasionally very large. In 1562, 20,372 persons died, of which number 17,404 died from the plague. The burial grounds of the City became terribly overcrowded, and the parish clerks were ordered to report upon the space available in the City churchyards. They also were appointed to see to "the shutting up of infected houses and putting papers on the doors."

An early "Bill of Mortality" is preserved at the Hall. It tells of "the Number of those who dyed in the Citie of London and Liberties of the same from the 28th of December 1581 to the 17th of December 1582, with the Christenings. And also the number of all those who have died of the plague in every parish particularly. Blessed are the Dead." There is also preserved a number of the weekly bills of mortality. Referring to the year of the Great Plague, 1665, these documents show that at the beginning of the pestilence in April, during one week only fifty-seven persons died; whereas in September the death-roll had reached the enormous number of 6544.

The company seems to have been a useful agency for carrying out all kinds of duties connected with gathering the statistics of mortality, nor do they seem to have been overpaid for their trouble. In the early years of the seventeenth century L 3. 6 s. 8 d. was all that they received. In 1607 the sum was increased to L8, inasmuch as they were ordered to furnish a bill to the Queen and the Lord Chancellor as well as to the King. Some clerks endeavoured to make illicit gains by supplying the public with "false and untrue bills," or distributing some bills for each week before they had been sent to the Lord Mayor; and any brother who "by any cunning device gave away, dispersed, uttered, or declared, or by sinister device cast forth at any window, hole, or crevice of a wall any bills or notes" before the due returns had been sent to the Lord Mayor, was ordered to pay a fine of 10 s. and other divers penalties.

The methods of making out these returns are very curious, and did not conduce to infallible accuracy. In each parish there were persons called searchers, ancient women who were informed by the sexton of a death, and whose duty it was to visit the deceased and state the cause of death. They had no medical knowledge, and therefore their diagnosis could only have been very conjectural. This they reported to the parish clerk. The clerk made out his bill for the week, took it to the Hall of the company, and deposited it in a box on the staircase. All the returns were then tabulated, arranged, and printed, and when copies had been sent to the authorities, others were placed in the hands of the clerks for sale.

The system was all very excellent and satisfactory, but its carrying out was defective. Negligent clerks did not send their returns in spite of admonition, caution, fine, or brotherly persuasion. The searchers' information was usually unreliable. Complications arose on account of the Act of the Commonwealth Parliament requiring the registration of births instead of baptisms, of civil marriages, and banns published in the market place; also on account of the vast mortality caused by the Great Plague, the burials in the large common pits and public burial grounds, and the opposition of the Quakers to inspection and registration. All these causes contributed to the issuing of unreliable returns. The company did their best to grapple with all these difficulties. They did not escape censure, and were blamed on account of the faults of individual clerks. The contest went on for years, and was only finally settled in 1859, when the last bills of mortality were issued, and the Public Registration Act rendered the work of the clerks, which they had carried on for three centuries to the best of their skill and ability, unnecessary. In the Guildhall Library are preserved a large number of the volumes of these bills which the industry of the clerks of London had issued with so much perseverance and energy under difficult circumstances, and they form a valuable and interesting collection of documents illustrative of the old life of the City.

One happy result of the duty laid upon the clerks of issuing bills of mortality in the City of London was that they were allowed to set up a printing press in the Hall of their company. The licence for this press was obtained in 1625, and in the following year it was duly established with the consent of the authorities. It was no easy task in the early Stuart times to obtain leave to have a printing press, and severe were the restrictions laid down, and the penalties for any violation of any of them. The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London had mighty powers over the Press, and the clerks could not choose their printer save with the approval of these ecclesiastical dignitaries.

Very strict regulations were laid down by the company in order to prevent any improper use being made of the productions of their press. The door of the chamber containing their printing machine was provided with three locks; the key of the upper lock was placed in the charge of the upper master, that of the middle lock was in the custody of the upper warden, while the key of the lower lock was kept by the under warden. They appointed one Richard Hodgkinson as their printer in 1630, with whom they had much disputing. Six years later one of their own company, Thomas Cotes, parish clerk of Cripplegate Without, was chosen to succeed him. Richard Cotes followed in 1641, and then a female printer carried on the work, Mrs. Ellinor Cotes, probably the widow of Richard.

The Great Fire caused the destruction of the clerks' press; but a few years later a prominent member of the company, whose portrait we see in the Hall, Mr. John Clarke, procured for them another press with type, and Andrew Clarke was appointed printer. He was succeeded by Benjamin Motte, whose widow carried on the work after his death. An intruding printer, appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London without the consent of the company, one Humphreys, made his appearance, much to the displeasure of the clerks, who objected to be dictated to with regard to the choice of their own official. Litigation ensued, but in the end Humphreys was appointed. He was not a satisfactory printer, and was careless and neglectful. The clerks reprimanded him and he promised amendment, but his errors continued, and after a petition was presented to the Archbishop and the Bishop of London by the company, he was compelled to resign.



The increase of newspapers and the publication of the bills of mortality in their sheets taken from the records of the clerks materially affected the sale of the company's issue of the same, and efforts were made in Parliament to obtain a monopoly for the company. This action was costly, and no benefit was derived. After the removal of the unsatisfactory Humphreys the printing of the company passed into the hands of the Rivingtons, a name honoured amongst printers and publishers for many generations. Mr. Charles Rivington was printer for the clerks in 1787, his brother being a bookseller in St. Paul's Churchyard, to whose son's widow, Mrs. Anne Rivington, the office passed in 1790. The printing of the bills of mortality was carried on by the company until 1850, having been conducted by the Rivington family for over sixty years[56].

[Footnote 56: I am indebted for this list of printers to Mr. James Christie's Some Account of Parish Clerks.]

In addition to their statistical returns, the Company of Parish Clerks are responsible for some other and more important works which reflect great credit upon them. Foremost among them is a book entitled:

"New Remarks of London; or, a Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, of Southwark and part of Middlesex and Surrey within the circumference of the Bills of Mortality." It contains "an account of the situation, antiquity, and rebuilding of each church, the value of the Rectory or Vicarage, in whose gifts they are, and the names of the present incumbents or lecturers. Of the several vestries, Hours of Prayer, Parish and Ward Officers, Charity and other schools, the number of Charity Children, how maintained, educated and placed out apprentices, or put to service. Of the Almshouses, Workhouses and Hospitals. The remarkable Places and Things in each Parish, with the limits or Bounds, Streets, Lanes, Courts, and numbers of Houses. An alphabetical table of all the Streets, Courts, Lanes, Alleys, Yards, Rows, Rents, Squares, etc. within the Bills of Mortality, shewing in which Liberty or Freedom they are, and an easy method of finding them. Of the several Inns of Court, and Inns of Chancery, with their several Buildings, Courts, Lanes, etc.

"Collected by the Company of Parish-Clerks to which is added the Places to which Penny Post Letters are sent, with proper Directions therein. The Wharfs, Keys, Docks, etc. near the River Thames, of water-carriage to several Cities, Towns, etc. The Rates of Watermen, Porters of all kinds and Carmen. To what Inns Stage Coaches, Flying Coaches, Waggons and Carriers come, and the days they go out. The whole being very useful for Ladies, Gentlemen, Clergymen, Merchants, Tradesmen, Coachmen, Chair-men, Car-men, Porters, Bailiffs and others.

"London, Printed for E. Midwinter at the

Looking Glass and three Crowns in St Paul's

Churchyard MDCCXXXII."



This is a wonderfully interesting little book. Each clerk compiled the information for his own parish and appended his name. Most carefully is the information contained in the book arranged, and the volume is a most creditable production of the worshipful company.

Amongst the books preserved in the Hall is another volume, entitled "London Parishes; containing an account of the Rise, Corruption, and Reformation of the Church of England." This was published by the parish clerks in 1824.



CHAPTER X

CLERKENWELL AND CLERKS' PLAYS

Parish clerks are immortalised by having given their name to an important part of London. Clerkenwell is the fons clericorum of the old chronicler, Fitz-Stephen. It is the Clerks' Well, the syllable en being the form of the old Saxon plural. Fitz-Stephen wrote in the time of King Stephen: "There are also round London on the northern side, in the suburbs, excellent springs, the water of which is sweet, clear, salubrious, 'mid glistening pebbles gliding playfully; amongst which Holywell, Clerkenwell, (fons clericorum), and St. Clement's Well are of most note, and most frequently visited, as well by the scholars from the schools as by the youth of the City when they go out to take air in the summer evenings."

It was then, and for centuries later, a rural spot, not far from the City, just beyond Smithfield, a place of green sward and gently sloping ground, watered by a pleasant stream, far different from the crowded streets of the modern Clerkenwell. It was a spot famous for athletic contests, for wrestling bouts and archery, and hither came the Lord Mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen at Bartholomew Fair time to witness the sports, and especially the wrestling.



But that which gave to the place its name and chief glory was the fact that once a year at least the parish clerks of London came here to perform their mystery plays and moralities. "Their profession," wrote Warton[57], "employment and character, naturally dictated to this spiritual brotherhood the representation of plays, especially those of the scriptural kind, and their constant practice in shows, processions, and vocal music easily accounts for their address in detaining the best company which England afforded in the fourteenth century at a religious farce for more than a week." These plays were no ordinary performances, no afternoon or evening entertainment, but a protracted drama lasting from three to eight days. In the reign of Richard II, A.D. 1391, the clerks were acting before the King, his Queen, and many nobles. The performances continued for three days, and the representations were the "Passion of Our Lord and the Creation of the World," which so well pleased the King that he commanded L10, a very considerable sum of money in those days, to be paid to the clerks of the parish churches and to divers other clerks of the City of London. Here is the record of his gift:

"Issue Roll, Easter, 14 Ric. II.

"11 July. To the clerks of the parish churches and to divers other clerks of the city of London. In money paid to them in discharge of L10 which the Lord the King commanded to be paid to them of his gift on account of the play of the 'Passion of Our Lord and the Creation of the World' by them performed at Skynnerwell after the feast of St. Bartholomew last past. By writ of Privy Seal amongst the mandates of this term—L10."

[Footnote 57: English Poetry, vol. ii. p. 397.]

Skinners' Well was close to the Clerks' Well, and it was so called, so Stow informs us, "for that the Skinners of London held there certain plays yearly of Holy Scripture,"

A few years later, in the succeeding reign, 10 Henry IV, A.D. 1409, the fraternity of clerks were again performing at the same place. Stow says: "In the year 1409 was a great play at Skynners' Welle, neere unto Clarkenwell, besides London, which lasted eight daies, and was of matter from the creation of the world; there were to see the same the most part of the nobles and gentles in England"—a mighty audience truly, which not even Sir Henry Irving could command in his farewell performances at Drury Lane.



These religious plays or mysteries were a powerful means for instructing the people; and if we had lived in mediaeval times, we should not have needed to fly to Ober-Ammergau in order to witness a Passion Play. In the streets of Coventry or Chester, York, or Tewkesbury, Witney, or Reading, or on the Green at Clerkenwell, we could have seen the appealing spectacle; and though sometimes the actors lapsed into buffoonery, and the red demons carrying souls to hell's mouth created merriment rather than terror, and though realism was carried to such a pitch that Adam and Eve appeared in a state of nature, yet many of the spectators would carry away with them pious thoughts and some grasp of the facts of Scripture history, and of the mysteries of the faith. Originally the plays were performed in churches, but owing to the gradually increased size of the stage and the more elaborate stage effects, the sacred buildings were abandoned as the scenes of mediaeval drama. Then the churchyard was utilised for the purpose. The clergy no longer took part in the pageants, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the people liked to act their plays in the highways and public places as at Clerkenwell. The guilds and fraternities in many places provided the chief actors, and in towns where there were many guilds and companies, each company performed part of the great drama, the movable stage being drawn about from street to street. Thus at York the story of the Creation and the Redemption was divided into forty-eight parts, each part being acted by a guild, or group of companies. The Tanners represented God the Father creating the heavens, angels and archangels, and the fall of Lucifer and the disobedient angels. Then the Plasterers showed the Creation of the Earth, and the work of the first five days. The Card-makers exhibited the Creation of Adam of the clay of the earth, and the making of Eve of Adam's rib, thus inspiring them with the breath of life. The Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, of Noah and the Flood, of Moses, the Annunciation and all Gospel history, ending with the Coronation of the Virgin and the Final Judgment.

The stage upon which the clerks performed their plays, according to Strutt, consisted of three platforms, one above another. On the uppermost sat God the Father surrounded by His angels. He was represented in a white robe, and until it was discovered how injurious the process was, the actor who played the part used to have his face gilded. On the second platform were the glorified saints, and on the lowest men who had not yet passed from life. On one side of the lowest platform was hell's mouth, a dark pitchy cavern, whence issued the appearance of fire and flames, and sometimes hideous yellings and noises in imitation of the howlings and cries of wretched souls tormented by relentless demons. From this yawning cave the devils constantly ascended to delight the spectators and afford comic relief to the more serious drama. The three stages were not always used. Archdeacon Rogers, who died in 1595, left an account of the Chester play which he himself saw, and he wrote that the stage was a high scaffold with two rooms, a higher and a lower, upon four wheels. In the lower the actors apparelled themselves, and in the higher they played. But this was a movable stage on wheels. The clerks' stage would, doubtless, be a fixed structure, and of a more elaborate construction.

The dresses used by the actors were very gorgeous and splendid, though little care was bestowed upon the appropriateness of the costumes. The words of the play of the Creation differ in the various versions which have come down to us. Strutt thinks that the clerks' play, acted before "the most part of the nobles and gentles in England," was very similar to the Coventry play, which cannot compare in grandeur and vigour with the York play discovered in the library of Lord Ashburnham, and edited by Miss Toulmin Smith[58]. But as the north-country dialect of the York version would have been difficult for the learned clerks of London to pronounce, their version would doubtless resemble more that of Coventry than that of York. The first act represents the Deity seated upon His throne and speaking as follows:

Ego sum Alpha et Omega, principium et finis. My name is knowyn, God and Kynge; My work to make now wyl I wende; In myselfe resteth my reynenge, It hath no gynnyng, ne no ende, And all that evyr shall have beynge Is closed in my mende;[59] When it is made at my lykynge I may it save, I may it shende[60] After my plesawns."[61]

[Footnote 58: Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1885. A portion of this is published in Mr. A.W. Pollard's English Miracle Plays.]

[Footnote 59: Mind.]

[Footnote 60: Destroy.]

[Footnote 61: Pleasure.]

At the close of this oration, which consists of forty lines, the angels enter upon the upper stage, surround the throne of the Deity, and sing from the Te Deum:

Te Deum laudamus, te dominum confitemur.

The Father bestows much honour and brightness on Lucifer, who is full of pride. He demands of the good angels in whose honour they are singing their songs of praise. Are they worshipping God or reverencing him? They reply that they are worshipping God, the mighty and most strong, who made them and Lucifer. Then Lucifer daringly usurps the seat of the Almighty, and receives the homage of the rebellious angels. Then the Father orders them and their leader to fall from heaven to hell, and in His bliss never more to dwell. Then does Lucifer reply:

"At thy byddyng y wyl I werke, And pass from joy to peyne and smerte. Now I am a devyl full derke, That was an angel bryght. Now to Helle the way I take, In endless peyn'y to be put; For fere of fyr apart I quake In Helle dongeon my dene is dyth."

Then the Devil and his angels sink into the cavern of hell's mouth.

We cannot follow all the scenes in this strange drama. The final representation included the Descent into Hell, or the Harrowing of Hell, as it was called, when the soul of Christ goes down into the infernal regions and rescues Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, and the saints of old. The Anima Christi says:

"Come forth, Adam and Eve, with the, And all my fryends that herein be; In Paradyse come forth with me, In blysse for to dwell. The fende of hell that is your foe, He shall be wrappyd and woundyn in woo; Fro wo to welth now shall ye go, With myrth ever mo to melle."

Adam replies:

"I thank the Lord of thy grete grace, That now is forgiven my great trespase; No shall we dwell in blyssful place."

The accompanying print of the Descent into Hell was engraved by Michael Burghers from an ancient drawing for our Berkshire antiquary, Thomas Herne.

Modern buildings have obliterated the scene of this ancient drama acted by the clerks of London, but some traces of the association of the fraternity with the neighbourhood can still be found. The two famous conventual houses, for which Clerkenwell was famous, the nunnery of St. Mary and the priory of St. John of Jerusalem, founded in 1100, have long since disappeared. Clerks' Close is mentioned in numerous documents, and formed part of the estate belonging to the Skinners' Company, where Skinner Street now runs. Clerks' Well was close to the modern church of St. James's, Clerkenwell, which occupies the site of the church and nunnery of St. Mary de fonte clericorum, which once possessed one of the six water-pots in which Jesus turned the water into wine. Vine Street formerly delighted in the name Mutton Lane, which is said to be a corruption of meeting or moteing lane, referring to the clerks' mote or meeting place by the well. When Mr. Pink wrote his history of Clerkenwell forty years ago, there was at the east side of Ray Street a broken iron pump let into the front wall of a dilapidated house which showed the site of Clerks' Well. In 1673 the spring and plot of ground were given by the Earl of Northampton to the poor of the parish, but the vestry leased the spring to a brewer. Strype, writing in 1720, states that "the old well at Clerkenwell, whence the parish had its name, is still known among the inhabitants. It is on the right hand of a lane that leads from Clerkenwell to Hockley-in-the-Hole, in a bottom. One Mr. Crosse, a brewer, hath this well enclosed; but the water runs from him, by means of a watercourse above-mentioned, into the said place. It is enclosed with a high wall, which was formerly built to bound in Clerkenwell Close; the present well (the conduit head) being also enclosed by another lower wall from the street. The way to it is through a little house, which was the watch-house. You go down a good many steps to it. The well had formerly ironwork and brass cocks, which are now cut off; the water spins through the old wall. I was there and tasted the water, and found it excellently clear, sweet, and well tasted."



In 1800 a pump was erected on the east side of Ray Street to celebrate the parish clerks' ancient performances, which were immortalised in raised letters of iron with this inscription:

A.D. 1800. William Bound, Joseph Bird, Churchwardens. For the better accommodation of the neighbourhood, this pump was removed to the spot where it now stands. The spring by which it is supplied is situated four feet eastward, and round it, as history informs us, the Parish Clerks of London in remote ages commonly performed sacred plays. That custom caused it to be denominated Clerks'-Well, and from which this parish derived its name. The water was greatly esteemed by the Prior and Brethren of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem and the Benedictine Nuns in the neighbourhood.

Hone, in his Ancient Mysteries, describes this pump, which in his day, A.D. 1832, stood between an earthenware shop and the abode of a bird-seller, and states that the monument denoting the histrionic fame of the place, and alluding to the miraculous powers of the water for healing incurable diseases, remains unobserved beneath its living attractions. "The present simplicity of the scene powerfully contrasts with the recollection of its former splendour. The choral chant of the Benedictine Nuns, accompanying the peal of the deep-toned organ through their cloisters, and the frankincense curling its perfume from priestly censers at the altar, are succeeded by the stunning sounds of numerous quickly plied hammers, and the smith's bellows flashing the fires of Mr. Bound's ironfoundry, erected upon the unrecognised site of the convent. The religious house stood about half-way down the declivity of the hill, which commencing near the church on Clerkenwell Green, terminates at the River Fleet. The prospect then was uninterrupted by houses, and the people upon the rising ground could have had an uninterrupted view of the performances at the well."

In the parish there is a vineyard walk, which marks the site of the old vineyard attached to the priory of St. John. The cultivation of the vine was carried on in many monasteries. In 1859, in front of the old Vineyard Inn, a signboard was set up which stated that "This house is celebrated from old associations connected with the City of London. After the City clerks partook of the water of Clerks' Well, from which the parish derives its name, they repaired hither to partake of the fruit of the finest English grapes." This was an ingenious contrivance on the part of the landlord to solicit custom. It need hardly be stated that the information given on this signboard was incorrect. Before the Reformation there were few inns, and the old Vineyard Inn can scarcely claim such a remote ancestry.

When miracle plays ceased to be performed the clerks did not desert their old quarters. It is, indeed, stated that the ancient society of parish clerks became divided; some turned their attention to wrestling and mimicry at Bartholomew Fair, whilst others, for their better administration, formed themselves into the Society of the Mayor, Aldermen, and Recorder of Stroud Green, assembling in the Old Crown at Islington; but still "saving their right to exhibit at the Old London Spaw, formerly Clerks' Well, when they might happen to have learned sheriffs and other officers to get up their sacred pieces as usual." Even so late as 1774 the members of this ancient society were accustomed to meet annually in the summer time at Stroud Green, and to regale themselves in the open air, the number of persons assembling on some occasions producing a scene similar to that of a country wake or fair. These assemblies had no connection with the Worshipful Company of Parish Clerks.



CHAPTER XI

THE CLERKS AND THE PARISH REGISTERS

A study of an old parish register reveals a remarkable variation in the style and character of the handwriting. We see in the old parchment pages numerous entries recorded in a careless scribble, and others evidently written by the hand of a learned and careful scholar. The rector or vicar ever since the days of Henry VIII, when in 1536 Vicar-General Thomas Cromwell ordered the keeping of registers, was usually supposed to have recorded the entries in the register. Cromwell derived the notion of ordering the keeping of the registers from his observation of the records kept by the Spanish priests in the Low Countries where he resided in his youth. Archbishop Ximenes of Toledo instituted a system of registration in Spain in 1497, and this was carried on by the Spanish priests in the Netherlands, and thus laid the foundation of that system which Thomas Cromwell introduced to this country and which has continued ever since.

But not all these entries were made by the incumbents. There is good evidence that the parish clerks not infrequently kept the registers, especially in later times, and from the beginning they were responsible for the facts recorded. The entries do not seem to have been made when the baptism, marriage, or burial took place. Cromwell's edict required that the records of each week should be entered in the register on the following Sunday, in the presence of the churchwardens. It seems to have been the custom for the clerk or vicar to write down particulars of the baptism, marriage, or burial in a private memorandum book or on loose sheets of paper at the time of the ceremony. Afterwards these rough notes were copied into the register book. Sometimes this was done each week; but human nature is fallible; the clerk or his master forgot sometimes to make the required entries in the book. Days and weeks slipped by; note-books and scraps of paper were mislaid and lost; the spelling of the clerk was not always his strongest point; hence mistakes, omissions, inaccuracies were not infrequent. Sometimes the vicar did not make up his books until a whole year had elapsed. This was the case with the poor parson of Carshalton, who was terribly distressed because his clerk would not furnish him with the necessary notes, and mightily afraid lest he should incur the censure of his parishioners. Hence we find the following note in his register, dated 10 March, 1651:

"Good reader, tread gently:

"For though these vacant years may seem to make me guilty of thy censure, neither will I excuse myself from all blemishe; yet if thou doe but cast thine eye upon the former pages and see with what care I have kept the Annalls of mine owne time, and rectifyed sundry errors of former times, thou wilt begin to think ther is some reason why he that began to build so well should not be able to make an ende.

"The truth is that besyde the miserys and distractions of these ptermitted years which it may be God in his owne wisdom would not suffer to be kept uppon record, the special ground of that permission ought to be imputed to Richard Finch, the p'rishe Clarke, whose office it was by long pscrition to gather the ephemeris or dyary by the dayly passages, and to exhibit them once a year to be transcribed into this registry; and though I have often called upon him agayne and agayne to remember his chadge, and he always told me that he had the accompts lying by him, yet at last p'ceaving his excuses, and revolving upon suspicion of his words to put him home to a full tryall I found to my great griefe that all his accompts were written in sand, and his words committed to the empty winds. God is witness to the truth of this apologie, and that I made it knowne at some parish meetings before his own face, who could not deny it, neither do I write it to blemishe him, but to cleere my own integritie as far as I may, and to give accompt of this miscarryage to after ages by the subscription of my hand[62]."

[Footnote 62: Social Life as told by Parish Registers, by T.F. Thiselton-Dyer, p. 57.]

We may hope that all clerks were not so neglectful as poor Richard Finch, whose name is thus handed down as an "awful example" to all careless clerks. The same practice of the parish clerks recording the particulars of weddings, christenings, and burials seems to have prevailed at St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, London, in 1542, as the following order shows:

"They shall every week certify to the curate and the churchwardens all the names and sir-names of them that be wedded, christened, and buried in the same parish that week sub pena of a 1 d. to be paid to the churche."

In this case the curate doubtless entered the items in the register as they were delivered to him.

At St. Margaret's, Lothbury, the clerk seems to have kept the register himself. Amongst the ordinances made by "the hole consent of the parrishiners" in 1571, appears the following:

"Item the Clarcke shall kepe the register of cristeninge weddinge and burynge perfectlye, and shall present the same everie Sondaie to the churche wardens to be perused by them, and shall have for his paines in this behaufe yearelye 0. 03. 4."

It is evident that in some cases in the sixteenth century the clerk kept the register. But in far the larger number of parishes the records were inserted by the vicar or rector, and in many books the records are made in Latin. The "clerk's notes" from which the entries were made are still preserved in some parishes.

In times of laxity and confusion wrought by the Civil War and Puritan persecution, the clerk would doubtless be the only person capable of keeping the registers. In my own parish the earliest book begins in the year 1538, and is kept with great accuracy, the entries being written in a neat scholarly hand. As time goes on the writing is still very good, but it does not seem to be that of the rector, who signs his name at the foot of the page. If it be that of the clerk, he is a very clerkly clerk. The writing gradually gets worse, especially during the Commonwealth period; but it is no careless scribble. The clerk evidently took pains and fashioned his letters after the model of the old court-hand. An entry appears which tells of the appointment of a Parish Registrar, or "Register" as he was called. This is the announcement:

"Whereas Robt. Williams of the p ish of Barkham in the County of Berks was elected and chosen by the Inhabitants of the same P ish to be their p ish Register, he therefore ye sd Ro: Wms was approved and sworne this sixteenth day of Novemb.. 1653

Snd R. Bigg."

Judging from the similarity of the writing immediately above and below this entry, I imagine that Robert Williams must have been the old clerk who was so beloved by the inhabitants that in an era of change, when the rector was banished from his parish, they elected him "Parish Register," and thus preserved in some measure the traditions of the place. The children are now entered as "borne" and not baptised as formerly.

The writing gradually gets more illiterate and careless, until the Restoration takes place. A little space is left, and then the entries are recorded in a scholarly handwriting, evidently the work of the new rector. Subsequently the register appears to have been usually kept by the rector, though occasionally there are lapses and indifferent writing appears. Sometimes the clerk has evidently supplied the deficiencies of his master, recording a burial or a wedding which the rector had omitted. In later times, when pluralism was general, and this living was held in conjunction with three or four other parishes, the rector must have been very dependent upon the clerk for information concerning the functions to be recorded. Moreover, when a former rector who was a noted sportsman and one of the best riders and keenest hunters in the county, sometimes took a wedding on his way to the meet, he would doubtless be so eager for the chase that he had little leisure to record the exact details of the names of the "happy pair," and must have trusted much to the clerk.

Some of the private registers kept by clerks are still preserved. There is one at Pattishall which contains entries of births, marriages, and burials, and was probably commenced in 1774, that date being on the front page together with the inscription: "John Clark's Register Book." The writing is of a good round-hand character, and far superior to the caligraphy of many present-day clerks. The book is bound in vellum[63]. The following entry, taken from the end of the volume, is worth recording:

"London, March 31th

"Yesterday the Rev'd Mr Hetherington ... transferred. 20,000 L. South-Sea Annuities into the Names of S'r Henry Banks Kn't. Thos Burfoot, Joseph Eyre, Thos Coventry, and Samuel Salt. Esqu'rs in Trust to pay always to 50 Blind people, Objects of, Charity, not being Beggars, nor receiving, Alms from the Parish, 10 L. each for their lives, it may be said with great propriety of this truly benevolent Gentleman that 'he hath displeased abroad, and given to the poor and is Righteousness remaineth for ever; his Horn shall exalted with Honour.'"

[Footnote 63: By the information of the Rev. B.W. Blyn-Stoyle, who has most kindly assisted me in many ways in discovering quaint records of old clerks.]

Amongst the register books of Wednesbury there is a volume bound in parchment bearing this inscription:

"This Book seems to be the private register of Alexander Bunn, Parish Clerk, because it corresponds with another bearing the same dates; the private accounts written in this book by the said A. Bunn seem to corroborate my opinion.

"A.B. Haden

"Vicar of Wednesbury

"August 7th 1782."

These accounts appear to be of items incurred by the parish clerk in his official capacity, and which were due to him in repayment from the churchwardens. The accompanying remarks of this old Wednesbury parish clerk are often quaint and interesting.

The following extracts will show the nature of the book and of the systematic record the good clerk kept of his expenditure. The only item about which there is some uncertainty is the amount "spent at Freeman's Coming from Visitation." Is it possible that he was so much excited or intoxicated that he could not remember?

"1737. Land tax to hon. Adenbrook 0. 0. 11 Acount What Mary Tunks as ad. Redy money 4/-, for a hapern 2/-, for caps 1/6 and for shoes 2/6, and for ye werk 6 d. Stokins and sues mendering 6 d, and for string 2 d, and for a Gound 3/-, and for ale for Hur father 2 d, for mending Gound 8 d, for stokens 10 d, for more Shuse strong 2/6, Shift mending and maken 5 d, for Hur mother 1/6, for a Shift 2/7."

To this day old Wednesbury natives say "hapern" for apron, and "sues" for shoes.

"Sep. the 10th, 1745, then recd of Alex. Bunn the sum of six pounds for one year's rent due at Midsmar. Last past Ellin Moris. Wm. Selvester and his man the first wick 14/-. Mr. Butler and Gilbut Wrigh, church wardens for the year 1741, due to Alex Bunn as under. Ringing for the Visitation 2/-, spent at Roshall, going to the visitation 1/6-, spent at Henery Rutoll 1/-, paid at Litchfield to the Horsbox (?) 6 d, Wm. Aston Had Ale at my House 6 d, for Micklmas Supeles washing and lining 1/8, for Ringing for the 11th of October 5/-, for Ringing for the 30th of October 5/-, for half year's wages Due June ye 24 L 1 12 s. 6. Ringing for the 5th November, for washing the Supelis and Lining and Bread at Chrsmus 1/3, for Easter Supelis washing and Lining and Bread 1/8, for Joyle for the Clock and Bells 2/6, for Leader for the 4th Bell Clapper 5 d, Ringing for the 23rd of April 5/-, for making the Levy 2/-, for a hors to Lichfield 11/6, pd John Stack going to Dudley 2 times for the Clockman 1/-. For a monthly (?) meeting to Ralph Momford Sep. the 15th 2/-, Spent at freeman's Coming from the Visitation——-"[64]

[Footnote 64: Olden Wednesbury, by F.W. Hackwood, who kindly sent me this information.]

But we have grievous things to record with regard to the clerks and the registers, not that they were to blame so much as the proper custodians, who neglected their duties and left these precious books in the hands of ignorant clerks to be preserved in poor overcrowded cottages. But the parish clerks sinned grievously. One Phillips, clerk of Lambeth parish, ran away with the register book, so Francis Sadler tells us in his curious book, The Exaction and Imposition of Parish Fees Discovered, published in 1738, "whereby the parish became great sufferers; and in such a case no person that is fifty years old, and born in the parish, can have a transcript of the Register to prove themselves heir to an estate." Moreover, Master Sadler, who was very severe on parish clerks, tells of the iniquities of the Battersea clerk who used to register boys for girls and girls for boys, and not one-half of the register book, in his time, was correct and authentic, as it ought to be.

What shall be said of the carelessness of an incumbent who allowed the register to be kept by the clerk in his poor cottage? When a gentleman called to obtain an extract from the book, the clerk produced the valuable tome from a drawer in an old table, where it was reposing with a mass of rubbish. Another old parchment register was discovered in a cottage in a Northamptonshire parish, some of the pages of which were tacked together as a covering for the tester of a bedstead. The clerk in another parish followed the calling of a tailor, and found the old register book useful for the purpose of providing himself with measures. With this object he cut out sixteen leaves of the old book, which he regarded in the light of waste paper.

A gentleman on one occasion visited a church in order to examine the registers of an Essex parish. He found the record for which he was searching, and asked the clerk to make the extract for him. Unfortunately this official had no ink or paper at hand with which to copy out the entry, and casually observed:

"Oh, you may as well have the leaf as it is," and without any hesitation took out his pocket-knife, cut out the leaf and gave the gentleman the two entire pages[65].

[Footnote 65: History of Parish Registers, by Burn; Social Life as told by Parish Registers, by T.F. Thiselton-Dyer, p. 2.]

Another scandalous case was that of the clerk who combined his ecclesiastical duties with those of the village grocer. The pages of the parish register he found most useful for wrapping up his goods for his customers. He was, however, no worse than the curate's wife, who ought to have known better, and who used the leaves of the registers for making her husband's kettle-holders.

What shall be said for the guardians of the church documents of Blythburgh, Suffolk? The parish chest preserved in the church was at one time full of valuable documents in addition to very complete registers. So Suckling, the historian of Suffolk, reported. Alas! these have nearly all disappeared. Scarcely anything remains of the earliest volume of the register which concludes with the end of the seventeenth century, and the old deeds have gone also. How could this terrible loss have occurred? It appears that a parish clerk, "in showing this fine old church to visitors, presented those curious in old papers and autographs with a leaf from the register, or some other document, as a memento of their visit[66]."

[Footnote 66: Social Life as told by Parish Registers; also Standard, 8 Jan., 1880.]

Another clerk was extremely popular with the old ladies of the village, and used to cut out the parchment leaves of the registers and present them to his old lady friends for wrapping their knitting pins. He was also the village schoolmaster, as many of his predecessors had been, but this wretch used to cover the backs of his pupil's lesson-books with leaves of parchment taken from the parish chest. Another clerk found the leaves of the registers very useful for "singeing a goose."

The value of old registers for proving titles to estates and other property is of course inestimable. Sometimes incomes of thousands of pounds depend upon a little entry in one of these old books, and it is terrible to think of the jeopardy in which they stand when they rest in the custody of a careless clerk or apathetic vicar.

The present writer owes much to the faithful care of a good clerk, who guarded well the registers of a defunct City church of London. My father was endeavouring to prove his title to an estate in the north country, and had to obtain the certificates of the births, deaths, and marriages of the family during about a century. One wedding could not be proved. Report stated that it had been a runaway marriage, and that the bride and bridegroom had fled to London to be married in a City church. My father casually heard of the name of some church where it was thought that the wedding might have taken place. He wrote to the authorities of that church. It had, however, ceased to exist. The church had disappeared, but the old clerk was alive and knew where the books were. He searched, and found the missing register, and the chain of evidence was complete and the title to the property fully established, which was confirmed after much troublesome litigation by the Court of Chancery.

Sometimes litigants have sought to remove troublesome entries in those invaluable books which record with equal impartiality the entrance into the world and the departure from it of peer or peasant. And in such dramas the clerk frequently appears. The old man has to be bribed or cajoled to allow the books to be tampered with. A stranger arrives one evening at Rochester, and demands of the clerk to be shown the registers. The stranger finds the entry upon which much depends. In its present form it does not support his case. It must be altered in order to meet his requirements. The clerk hovers about the vestry, alert, vigilant. He must be got rid of. The stranger proposes various inducements; the temptation of a comfortable seat in a cosy corner of the nearest inn, a stimulating glass, but all in vain. There is something suspicious about the stranger's looks and manners; so the clerk thinks. He sticks to his elbow like a leech, and nothing can shake him off. At length the stranger offers the poor clerk a goodly bribe if only he will help him to alter a few words in that all-important register. I am not sure whether the clerk yielded to the temptation.

There was a still more dramatic scene in the old vestry of Lainston Church, where a few years previously a Miss Chudleigh had been married to Lieutenant Hervey. This young lady, who was not remarkable for her virtue, arrived one day at the church accompanied by a fascinating friend who, while Mrs. Hervey examined the register, exercised her blandishments on the clerk. She expressed much interest in the church, and asked him endless questions about its architecture, the state of his health, his family, his duties; and while this little by-play was proceeding Mrs. Hervey was carefully and noiselessly cutting out the page in the register which contained the entry of her marriage. Having removed the tell-tale page she hastily closed the book, summoned her fascinating friend, and hastened back to London. The clerk, still thinking of the beautiful lady who had been so friendly and given him such a handsome present, locked the safe, and never discovered the theft. But time brought its revenge. Lieutenant Hervey succeeded unexpectedly to the title of the earldom of Bristol. His wife was overcome with remorse. By her foolish scheme she had sacrificed a coronet. That missing paper must be restored; and so the lady pays another visit to Lainston Church, on this occasion in the company of a lawyer. The old clerk unlocks again the parish chest. The books are again produced; confession is made of the former theft; the lawyer looks threateningly at the clerk, and tells him that if it should ever be discovered he will suffer as an accomplice; and then, with the promise of a substantial bribe, the clerk consents to give his aid. The missing paper is produced and deftly inserted in its former place in the book, and Miss Chudleigh becomes the Countess of Bristol. It is a curious story, but it has the merit of being true. Many strange romances are bound up within the stained and battered parchment covers of an old register.

Sometimes the clerk seems to have recorded in the register book some entries which scarcely relate to ecclesiastical usages or spiritual concerns. Agreements or bargains were inserted occasionally, and the fact that it was recorded in the church books testified to the binding nature of the transaction. Thus in the book of St. Mary Magdalene, Cambridge, in the year 1692, it is announced that Thomas Smith promises to supply John Wingate "with hatts for twenty shillings the yeare during life." Mr. Thiselton-Dyer, who records this transaction in his book on Social Life as told by Parish Registers, conjectures with evident truth that the aforenamed men made this bargain at an ale-house, and the parish clerk, being present, undertook to register the agreement.

A most remarkable clerk lived at Grafton Underwood in the eighteenth century, one Thomas Carley, who was born in that village in 1755, having no hands and one deformed leg. Notwithstanding that nature seemed to have deprived him of all means of manual labour, he rose to the position of parish schoolmaster and parish clerk. He contrived a pair of leather rings, into which he thrust the stumps of his arms, which ended at the elbow, and with the aid of these he held a pen, ruler, knife and fork, etc. The register books of the parish show admirable specimens of his wonderful writing, and I have in my possession a tracing made by Mr. Wise, of Weekley, from the label fixed inside the cover of one of the large folio Prayer Books which used to be in the Duke of Buccleuch's pew before the church was restored, and were then removed to Boughton House. These books contain many beautifully written papers, chiefly supplying lost ones from the Psalms. The writing is simply like copper-plate engraving. In the British Museum, amongst the "additional MSS." is an interleaved edition of Bridge's History of Northamptonshire, bound in five volumes. In the fourth volume, under the account of Grafton Underwood, some particulars have been inserted of the life of this extraordinary man, with a water-colour portrait of him taken by one of his pupils, E. Bradley. There is also a specimen of his writing, the Lord's Prayer inscribed within a circle about the size of a shilling. There is also in existence "a mariner's compass," most accurately drawn by him. He died in 1823.



CHAPTER XII

THE CLERK AS A POET

The parish clerk, skilled in psalmody, has sometimes shown evidences of true poetic feeling. The divine afflatus has occasionally inspired in him some fine thoughts and graceful fancies. His race has produced many writers of terrible doggerel of the monumental class of poetry; but far removed from these there have been some who have composed fine hymns and sweet verse.

An obscure hymn-writer, whose verses have been sung in all parts of the world, was Thomas Bilby, parish clerk of St. Mary's Church, Islington, between the years 1842 and 1872. He was the parish schoolmaster also, and thus maintained the traditions of his office handed down from mediaeval times. Before the days of School Boards it was not unusual for the clerk to teach the children of the working classes the three R's and religious knowledge, charging a fee of twopence per week for each child. Mrs. Mary Strathern has kindly sent me the following account of the church wherein Thomas Bilby served as clerk, and of the famous hymn which he wrote.

The church of St. Mary's, Islington, was not internally a thing of beauty. It was square; it had no chancel; the walls were covered with monuments and tablets to the praise and glory of departed parishioners. On three sides it had a wide gallery, the west end of which contained the organ, with the Royal Arms as large as life in front. On either side below the galleries were double rows of high pews, and down the centre passage a row of open benches for the poor. Between these benches and the altar, completely hiding the altar from the congregation, stood a huge "three-decker." The pulpit, on a level with the galleries, was reached by a staircase at the back; below that was "the reading desk," from which the curate said the prayers; and below that again, a smaller desk, where, Sunday after Sunday, for thirty years, T. Bilby, parish clerk and schoolmaster, gave out the hymns, read the notices, and published the banns of marriage. He was short and stout; his hair was white; he wore a black gown with deep velvet collar, ornamented with many tassels and fringes; and he carried a staff of office.

It was a great missionary parish. The vicar, Daniel Wilson, was a son of that well-known Daniel Wilson, sometime vicar of Islington, and afterwards Bishop of Calcutta. The Church Missionary College, where many young missionaries sent out by the Church Missionary Society are trained, stood in our midst; and it was within St. Mary's Church the writer saw the venerable Bishop Crowther, of the Niger, ordain his own son deacon. Mr. Bilby had at one time been a catechist and schoolmaster in Sierra Leone, and was full of interesting stories of the mission work amongst the freed slaves in that settlement. He had a magic lantern, with many views of Africa, and of the churches and schools in the mission fields, and often gave missionary lectures to the school children. It was on one of these occasions, when he had been telling us about his work abroad, and how he soon got to know when a black boy had a dirty face, that he said: "While I was in Africa, I composed a hymn, and taught the black children to sing it; and now there is not a Christian school in any part of the world where my hymn is not known and sung. I will begin it now, and you will all sing it with me." Then the old man began:

"Here we suffer grief and pain."

Immediately every child in the room took it up, and sang with might and main:

"Here we meet to part again; In heaven we part no more."

We had always thought the familiar words were as old as the Bible itself, and could scarcely believe they had been written by our own old friend.

Soon after that memorable night, the old man began to get feeble; his place in the church and schools was frequently filled by "Young Bilby," as he was familiarly called; and in 1872, aged seventy-eight, the old parish clerk was gathered to his fathers, and his son reigned in his stead.

The other day a copy of a Presbyterian hymn-book found its way into my house, and there I found "Here we suffer grief and pain." I turned up the index which gives the names of authors, wondering if the compilers knew anything of the source from whence it came, and found the name "Bilby"; but who "Bilby" was, and where he lived, is known to very few outside the parish, where the name is a household word, for Mr. Bilby's son is still the parish clerk of St. Mary, Islington, and through him we learn that his father composed the tune as well as the words of "Here we suffer grief and pain."

As the hymn is not included in Hymns Ancient and Modern or some other well-known collection, perhaps it will be well to print the first two verses. It is published in John Curwen's The Child's Own Hymn Book:

"Here we suffer grief and pain; Here we meet to part again: In heaven we part no more.

O! that will be joyful, Joyful, joyful, joyful, O! that will be joyful! When we meet to part no more!

"All who love the Lord below, When they die to heaven will go, And sing with saints above. O! that," etc.

A poet of a different school was Robert Story, schoolmaster and parish clerk of Gargrave, Yorkshire. He was born at Wark, Northumberland, in 1795, but migrated to Gargrave in 1820, where he remained twenty years. Then he obtained the situation of a clerk in the Audit Office, Somerset House, at a salary of L90 a year, which he held till his death in 1860. His volume of poems, entitled Songs and Lyrical Poems, contains some charming verse. He wrote a pathetic poem on the death of the son of a gentleman at Malham, killed while bird-nesting on the rocks of Cam Scar. Another poem, The Danish Camp, tells of the visit of King Alfred to the stronghold of his foes, and has some pretty lines. "O, love has a favourite scene for roaming," is a tender little poem. The following example of his verse is of a humorous and festive type. It is taken from a volume of his productions, entitled The Magic Fountain, and Other Poems, published in 1829:

"Learn next that I am parish clerk: A noble office, by St. Mark! It brings me in six guineas clear, Besides et caeteras every year. I waive my Sunday duty, when I give the solemn deep Amen; Exalted then to breathe aloud The heart-devotion of the crowd. But oh, the fun! when Christmas chimes Have ushered in the festal times, And sent the clerk and sexton round To pledge their friends in draughts profound, And keep on foot the good old plan, As only clerk and sexton can! Nor less the sport, when Easter sees The daisy spring to deck her leas; Then, claim'd as dues by Mother Church, I pluck the cackler from the perch; Or, in its place, the shilling clasp From grumbling dame's slow opening grasp. But, Visitation Day! 'tis thine Best to deserve my native line. Great day! the purest, brightest gem That decks the fair year's diadem. Grand day! that sees me costless dine And costless quaff the rosy wine, Till seven churchwardens doubled seem, And doubled every taper's gleam; And I triumphant over time, And over tune, and over rhyme, Call'd by the gay convivial throng, Lead, in full glee, the choral song!"

The writers of doggerel verses have been numerous. The following is a somewhat famous composition which has been kindly sent to me by various correspondents. My father used to tell us the rhymes when we were children, and they have evidently become notorious. The clerk who composed them lived in Somersetshire[67], and when the Lord Bishop of the Diocese came to visit his church, he thought that such an occasion ought not to be passed over without a fitting tribute to the distinguished prelate. He therefore composed a new and revised version of Tate and Brady's metrical rendering of Psalm lxvii., and announced his production after this manner:

"Let us zing to the Praze an' Glory of God part of the zixty-zeventh Zalm; zspeshul varshun zspesh'ly 'dapted vur t'cazshun.

"W'y 'op ye zo ye little 'ills? And what var du 'ee zskip? Is it a'cause ter prach too we Is cum'd me Lord Biship?

"W'y zskip ye zo ye little 'ills? An' whot var du 'ee 'op? Is it a'cause to prach too we Is cum'd me Lord Bishop?

"Then let us awl arize an' zing, An' let us awl stric up, An' zing a glawrious zong uv praze; An' bless me Lord Bishup."

[Footnote 67: Another correspondent states that the incident occurred at Bradford-on-Avon in 1806. Mr. Francis Bevan remembers hearing a similar version at Dover about sixty years ago. Can it be that these various clerks were plagiarists?]

A somewhat similar effusion was composed by Eldad Holland, parish clerk of Christ Church, Kilbrogan parish, Bandon, County Cork, in Ireland. This church was built in 1610, and has the reputation of being the first edifice erected in Ireland for the use of the Church of Ireland after the Reformation. Bandon was originally colonised by English settlers in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and for a long time was a noted stronghold of Protestantism. This fact may throw light upon the opinions and sentiments of Master Holland, an original character, whose tombstone records that "he departed this life ye 29th day of 7ber 1722." When the news of the victory of William III reached Bandon there were great rejoicings, and Eldad paraphrased a portion of the morning service in honour of the occasion. After the first lesson he gave out the following notice:

"Let us sing to the praise and glory of William, a psalm of my own composing:

"William is come home, come home, William home is come, And now let us in his praise Sing a Te Deum."

He then continued: "We praise thee, O William! we acknowledge thee to be our king!" adding with an impressive shake of the head, "And faith, a good right we have, for it was he who saved us from brass money, wooden shoes and Popery." He then resumed the old version, and reverently continued it to the end[68].

[Footnote 68: This information was kindly sent to me by Mr. Robert Clarke, of Castle Eden, Durham, who states that he derived the information from The History of Bandon, by George Bennett (1869). My father used to repeat the following version:

"King William is come home, Come home King William is come; So let us then together sing A hymn that's called Te D'um."

I am not sure which version is the better poetry! The latter corresponds with the version composed by Wesley's clerk at Epworth, old John; so Clarke in his memoirs of the Wesley family records.]

In a parish in North Devon[69] there was a poetical clerk who had great reverence for Bishop Henry Phillpotts, and on giving out the hymn he proclaimed his regard in this form: "Let us sing to the glory of God, and of the Lord Bishop of Exeter." On one occasion his lordship held a confirmation in the church on 5 November, when it is said the clerk gave out the Psalm in the usual way, adding, "in a stave of my own composing":

"This is the day that was the night When the Papists did conspire To blow up the King and Parliament House With Gundy-powdy-ire."

[Footnote 69: My kind correspondent, the Rev. J.B. Hughes, abstains from mentioning the name of the parish.]

My informant cannot vouch for the truth of this story, but he can for the fact that when Bishop Phillpotts on another occasion visited the church his lordship was surprised to hear the clerk give out at the end of the service, "Let us sing in honour of his lordship, 'God save the King.'" The bishop rose somewhat hastily, saying to his chaplain, "Come along, Barnes; we shall have 'Rule, Britannia!' next."

Cuthbert Bede tells the story of a poetical clerk who was much aggrieved because some disagreeable and naughty folk had maliciously damaged his garden fence. On the next Sunday he gave out "a stave of his own composing":

"Oh, Lord, how doth the wicked man; They increases more and more; They break the posts, likewise the rails Around this poor clerk's door."

He almost deserved his fate for barbarously mutilating a metrical Psalm, and was evidently a proper victim of poetical justice.

A Devonshire clerk wrote the following noble effort:—

"Mount Edgcumbe is a pleasant place Right o'er agenst the Ham-o-aze, Where ships do ride at anchor, To guard us agin our foes. Amen."

Besides writing "hymns of his own composing," the parish clerk often used to give vent to his poetical talents in the production of epitaphs. The occupation of writing epitaphs must have been a lucrative one, and the effusions recording the numerous virtues of the deceased are quaint and curious. Well might a modern English child ask her mother after hearing these records read to her, "Where were all the bad people buried?" Learned scholars and abbots applied their talents to the production of the Latin verses inscribed on old brass memorials of the dead, and clever ladies like Dame Elizabeth Hobby sometimes wrote them and appended their names to their compositions. In later times this task seems to have been often undertaken by the parish clerk with not altogether satisfactory results, though incumbents and great poets, among whom may be enumerated Pope and Byron, sometimes wrote memorials of their friends. But the clerk was usually responsible for these inscriptions. Master John Hopkins, clerk at one of the churches at Salisbury at the end of the eighteenth century, issued an advertisement of his various accomplishments which ran thus:

"John Hopkins, parish clerk and undertaker, sells epitaphs of all sorts and prices. Shaves neat, and plays the bassoon. Teeth drawn, and the Salisbury Journal read gratis every Sunday morning at eight. A school for psalmody every Thursday evening, when my son, born blind, will play the fiddle. Specimen epitaph on my wife:

My wife ten years, not much to my ease, But now she is dead, in caelo quies.

Great variety to be seen within. Your humble servant, John Hopkins."

Poor David Diggs, the hero of Hewett's story of The Parish Clerk, used to write epitaphs in strange and curious English. Just before his death he put a small piece of paper into the hands of the clergyman of the parish, and whispered a request that its contents might be attended to. When the clergyman afterwards read the paper he found the following epitaph, which was duly inscribed on the clerk's grave:

"Reader Don't stop nor shed no tears For I was parish clerk For 60 years; If I lived on I could not now as Then Say to the Parson's Prases A loud Amen."

A very worthy poetical clerk was John Bennet, shoemaker, of Woodstock. A long account of him appears in the Lives of Illustrious Shoemakers, written by W.E. Winks. He inherited the office of parish clerk from his father, and with it some degree of musical taste. In the preface to his poems he wrote: "Witness my early acquaintance with the pious strains of Sternhold and Hopkins, under that melodious psalmodist my honoured Father, and your approved Parish Clerk." This is addressed to the Rev. Thomas Warton, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and sometime curate of Woodstock, to whose patronage and ready aid John Bennet was greatly indebted. Southey, who succeeded Warton in the Professorship, wrote that "This Woodstock shoemaker was chiefly indebted for the patronage which he received to Thomas Warton's good nature; for my predecessor was the best-hearted man that ever wore a great wig." Certainly the list of subscribers printed at the beginning of his early work is amazingly long. Noblemen, squires, parsons, great ladies, all rushed to secure the cobbler-clerk's poems, which were published in 1774. The poems consist mainly of simple rhymes or rustic themes, and are not without merit or humour. He is very modest and humble about his poetical powers, and tells that his reason for publishing his verses was "to enable the author to rear an infant offspring and to drive away all anxious solicitude from the breast of a most amiable wife." His humour is shown in the conclusion of his Dedication, where he wrote:

"I had proceeded thus far when I was called to measure a gentleman of a certain college for a pair of fashionable boots, and the gentleman having insisted on a perusal of what I was writing, told me that a dedication should be as laconic as the boots he had employed me to make; and then, taking up my pen, added this scrap of Latin for a Heel-piece, as he called it, to my Dedication:

"Jam satis est; ne me Crispini scrinia lippi Compilasse putes, vertum non amplius."

The cobbler poet concludes his verses with the humorous lines:

"So may our cobler rise by friendly aid, Be happy and successful in his trade; His awl and pen with readiness be found, To make or keep our understandings sound."

Later in life John Bennet published another volume, entitled Redemption. It was dedicated to Dr. Mavor, rector of Woodstock. It is a noble poem, far exceeding in merit his first essay, and it is a remarkable and wonderful composition for a self-taught village shoemaker. The author-clerk died and was buried at Woodstock in 1803.

A fine character and graceful poet was Richard Furness[70], parish clerk of Dore, five miles from Shalfield, a secluded hamlet. He was then styled "The Poet of the Peak," of sonorous voice and clear of speech, the author of many poems, and factotum supreme of the village and neighbourhood. Two volumes of his poems have been published. He combined, like many of his order, the office of parish clerk with that of schoolmaster, his schoolroom being under the same roof as his house. Thither crowds flocked. He was an immense favourite. The teacher of children, healer of all the lame and sick folk, the consoler and adviser of the troubled, he played an important part in the village life. His accomplishments were numerous. He could make a will, survey or convey an estate, reduce a dislocation, perform the functions of a parish clerk, lead a choir, and write an ode. This remarkable man was born at Eyam in 1791, the village so famous for the story of its plague, in an old house long held by his family. Over the door is carved:

R. 1615. F

[Footnote 70: Biographical Sketches of Remarkable People, by Spencer T. Hall.]

When a boy he was very fond of reading, and studied mathematics and poetry. Don Quixote was his favourite romance. His father would not allow him to read at night, but the student could not be prevented from studying his beloved books. In order to prevent the light in his bedroom from being seen in other parts of the house, he placed a candle in a large box, knelt by its side, and with the lid half closed few rays of the glimmering taper could reach the window or door. When he grew to be a man he migrated to Dore, and there set up a school, and began that active life of which an admirable account is given by Dr. G. Calvert Holland in the introduction of The Poetical Works of Richard Furness, published in 1858. In addition to other duties he sometimes discharged clerical functions. The vicar of the parish of Dore, Mr. Parker, was somewhat old and infirm, and sometimes found it difficult to tramp over the high moors in winter to privately baptize a sick child. So he often sent his clerk to perform the duty. On dark and stormy nights Richard Furness used to tramp over moor and fell, through snow and rain to some lonely farm or moorland cottage in order to baptize some suffering infant. On one occasion he omitted to ascertain before commencing the service whether the child was a boy or a girl. Turning to the father in the midst of a prayer, when the question whether he ought to use his or her had to be decided, he inquired, "What sex?" The father, an ignorant labourer, did not understand the meaning of the question. "Male or female?" asked the clerk. Still the father did not comprehend. At last the meaning of the query dawned upon his rustic intelligence, and he whispered, "It's a mon childt."

Thus does Richard Furness in his poems describe his many duties:

"I Richard Furness, schoolmaster, Dore, Keep parish books and pay the poor; Draw plans for buildings and indite Letters for those who cannot write; Make wills and recommend a proctor; Cure wounds, let blood with any doctor; Draw teeth, sing psalms, the hautboy play At chapel on each holy day; Paint sign-boards, cast names at command, Survey and plot estates of land: Collect at Easter, one in ten, And on the Sunday say Amen."

He wrote a poem entitled Medicus Magus, or the Astrologer, a droll story brimming over with quiet humour, folk-lore, philology and archaic lore. Also The Ragbag, which is dedicated to "John Bull, Esq." The style of his poetry was Johnsonian, or after the manner of Erasmus Darwin, a bard whom the present generation has forgotten, but whose Botanic Garden, published in 1825, is full of quaint plant-lore and classical allusions, if it does not reach the highest form of poetic talent. Here is a poem by our clerkly poet on the Old Year's funeral:

"The clock in oblivion's mouldering tower By the raven's nest struck the midnight hour, And the ghosts of the seasons wept over the bier Of Old Time's last son—the departing year.

"Spring showered her daisies and dews on his bed, Summer covered with roses his shelterless head, And as Autumn embalmed his bodiless form, Winter wove his snow shroud in his Jacquard of storm; For his coffin-plate, charged with a common device, Frost figured his arms on a tablet of ice, While a ray from the sun in the interim came, And daguerreotyped neatly his age, death, and name. Then the shadowing months at call Stood up to bear the pall, And three hundred and sixty-five days in gloom Formed a vista that reached from his birth to his tomb. And oh, what a progeny followed in tears— Hours, minutes, and moments—the children of years! Death marshall'd th' array, Slowly leading the way, With his darts newly fashioned for New Year's Day."

Richard Furness died in 1857, and was buried with his ancestors at Eyam. He thus sang his own requiem shortly before he passed away:

"To joys and griefs, to hopes and fears, To all pride would, and power could do, To sorrow's cup, to pity's tears, To mortal life, to death adieu."

I will conclude this chapter on poetical clerks with a sweet carol for Advent, written by Mr. Daniel Robinson, ex-parish clerk of Flore, Weedon, which is worthy of preservation:



A CAROL FOR ADVENT

"Behold, thy King cometh unto thee."—MATTHEW xxi. 5.

Behold, thy King is coming Upon this earth to reign, To take away oppression And break the captive's chain; Then trim your lamps, ye virgins, Your oil of love prepare, To meet the coming Bridegroom Triumphant in the air.

Behold, thy King is coming, Hark! 'tis the midnight cry, The herald's voice proclaimeth The hour is drawing nigh; Then go ye forth to meet Him, With lamps all burning bright, Let sweet hosannahs greet Him, And welcome Him aright.

Go decorate your churches With evergreens and flowers, And let the bells' sweet music Resound from all your towers; And sing your sweetest anthems, For lo, your King is nigh, While songs of praise are soaring O'er vale and mountain high.

Let sounds of heavenly music From sweet-voiced organs peal, While old and young assembling Before God's "Altar" kneel; In humble adoration Let each one praise and pray, And give the King a welcome This coming Christmas Day.



CHAPTER XIII

THE CLERK GIVING OUT NOTICES

After the Nicene Creed in the Book of Common Prayer occurs a rubric with regard to the giving out of notices, the observance of Holy-days or Feasting-days, the publication of Briefs, Citations and Ex-communications, which ends with the following words:

"And nothing shall be proclaimed or published in the Church, during the time of Divine Service, but by the Minister; nor by him any thing but what is prescribed in the Rules of this Book, or enjoined by the King or by the Ordinary of the place."

This rubric was added to the Prayer Book in the revision of 1662, and doubtless was intended to correct the undesirable practice of publishing all kinds of secular notices during the time of divine service. Dr. Wickham Legg has unearthed an inquiry made in an archidiaconal visitation in 1630, relating to the proclamation of lay businesses made in church, when the following question was asked:

"Whether hath your Parish Clerk, or any other in Prayers time, or before Prayers or Sermon ended, before the people departed, made proclamation in your church touching any goods strayed away or wanting, or of any Leet court to be held, or of common-dayes-works to be made, or touching any other thing which is not merely ecclesiasticall, or a Church-businesse?"

In times of Puritan laxity it was natural that notices sacred and profane should be indiscriminately mingled, and the rubric mentioned above would be sorely needed when church order and a reverent service were revived. But in spite of this direction the practice survived of not very strictly confining the notices to the concerns of the Church.

An aged lady, Mrs. Gill, who is now eighty-four years of age, remembers that between the years 1825 and 1835, in a parish church near Welbeck Abbey, the clerk used to announce the date of the Duke of Rutland's rent-day. Another correspondent states that after service the clerk used to take his stand on one of the high flat tombstones and announce sales by auction, the straying of cattle, etc., and Sir Walter Scott wrote that at Hexham cattle-dealers used to carry their business letters to the church, "when after service the clerk was accustomed to read them aloud and answer them according to circumstances."