The Parish Clerk. P. H. Ditchfield
Syntax is a good example of an old-world parson, whose biographer thus describes his laborious life:
"Of Church preferment he had none;
Nay, all his hope of that was gone;
He felt that he content must be
With drudging-in a curacy.
Indeed, on ev'ry Sabbath-day,
Through eight long miles he took his way,
To preach, to grumble, and to pray;
To cheer the good, to warn the sinner,
And if he got it,--eat a dinner:
To bury these, to christen those,
And marry such fond folks as chose
To change the tenor of their life,
And risk the matrimonial strife.
Thus were his weekly journeys made,
'Neath summer suns and wintry shade;
And all his gains, it did appear,
Were only thirty pounds a-year."
And when the last event of his hard-working life was over--
"The village wept, the hamlets round
Crowded the consecrated ground;
And waited there to see the end
Of Pastor, Teacher, Father, Friend."
Who could write a better epitaph?
Doubtless the crying evil of what is called "the dead period" of the Church's history was pluralism. It was no uncommon thing for a clergyman to hold half a dozen benefices, in one of which he would reside, and appoint curates with slender stipends to the rest, only showing himself "when tithing time draws near."
When Bishop Stanley became Bishop of Norwich in 1837 there were six hundred non-resident incumbents, a state of things which he did a vast amount of work to remedy. Mr. Clitherow tells me of a friend who was going to be married and who requested a neighbour to take his two services for him during his brief honeymoon. The neighbour at first hesitated, but at last consented, having six other services to take on the one Sunday.
An old clergyman named Field lived at Cambridge and served three country parishes--Hauxton, Newton, and Barnington. On Sunday morning he used to ride to Hauxton, which he could see from the high road to Newton. If there was a congregation, the clerk used to waggle his hat on the top of a long pole kept in the church porch, and Field had to turn down the road and take the service. If there was no congregation he went on straight to Newton, where there was always a congregation, as two old ladies were always present. Field used to turn his pony loose in the churchyard, and as he entered the church began the Exhortation, so that by the time he was robed he had progressed well through the service. My informant, the Rev. M.J. Bacon, was curate at Newton, and remembers well the old surplice turned up and shortened at the bottom, where the old parson's spurs had frayed it.
It was this pluralism that led to much abuse, much neglect, and much carelessness. However, enough has been said about the shepherd, and we must return to his helper, the clerk, with whose biography and history we are mainly concerned.
CHAPTER II
THE ANTIQUITY AND CONTINUITY OF THE OFFICE OF CLERK
The office of parish clerk can claim considerable antiquity, and dates back to the times of Augustine and King Ethelbert. Pope Gregory the Great, in writing to St. Augustine of Canterbury with regard to the order and constitution of the Church in new lands and under new circumstances, laid down sundry regulations with regard to the clerk's marriage and mode of life. King Ethelbert, by the advice of his Witenagemote, introduced certain judicial decrees, which set down what satisfaction should be given by those who stole anything belonging to the church. The purloiner of a clerk's property was ordered to restore threefold [2]. The canons of King Edgar, which may be attributed to the wise counsel of St. Dunstan, ordered every clergyman to attend the synod yearly and to bring his clerk with him.
[2] Bede's Hist. Eccles., ii. v.
Thus from early Saxon times the history of the office can be traced.
His name is merely the English form of the Latin clericus, a word which signified any one who took part in the services of the Church, whether he was in major or minor orders. A clergyman is still a "clerk in Holy Orders," and a parish clerk signified one who belonged to the rank of minor orders and assisted the parish priest in the services of the parish church. We find traces of him abroad in early days. In the seventh century, the canons of the Ninth Council of Toledo and of the Council of Merida tell of his services in the worship of the sanctuary, and in the ninth century he has risen to prominence in the Gallican Church, as we gather from the inquiries instituted by Archbishop Hincmar, of Rheims, who demanded of the rural deans whether each presbyter had a clerk who could keep school, or read the epistle, or was able to sing.
In the decretals of Gregory IX there is a reference to the clerk's office, and his duties obtain the sanction of canon law. Every incumbent is ordered to have a clerk who shall sing with him the service, read the epistle and lesson, teach in the school, and admonish the parishioners to send their children to the church to be instructed in the faith. It was thus in ancient days that the Church provided for the education of children, a duty which she has always endeavoured to perform. Her officers were the schoolmasters. The weird cry of the abolition of tests for teachers was then happily unknown.
The strenuous Bishop Grosseteste (1235–53), for the better ordering of his diocese of Lincoln, laid down the injunction that "in every church of sufficient means there shall be a deacon or sub-deacon; but in the rest a fitting and honest clerk to serve the priest in a comely habit." The clerk's office was also discussed in the same century at a synod at Exeter in 1289, when it was decided that where there was a school within ten miles of any parish some scholar should be chosen for the office of parish clerk. This rule provided for poor scholars who intended to proceed to the priesthood, and also secured suitable teachers for the children of the parishes.
It appears that an attempt was made to enforce celibacy on the holders of minor orders, an experiment which was not crowned with success. William Lyndewoode, Official Principal of the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1429, speaks thus of the married clerk:--
"He is a clerk, not therefore a layman; but if twice married he must be counted among laymen, because such an one is deprived of all clerical privilege. If, however, he were married, albeit not twice, yet so long as he wears the clerical habit and tonsure he shall be held a clerk in two respects, to wit, that he may enjoy the clerical privilege in his person, and that he may not be brought before the secular judges. But in all other respects he shall be considered as a layman."
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the parish clerks became important officials. We shall see presently how they were incorporated into fraternities or guilds, and how they played a prominent part in civic functions, in state funerals, and in ecclesiastical matters. The Reformation rather added to than diminished the importance of the office and the dignity of the holder of it.
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