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The Ancient Office of Parish Clerk and the Parish Clerks Company of London

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

Oswald Clark
Affiliation:
Parish Clerk of St Andrew by the Wardrobe in the City of London
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Abstract

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Attempt is made to trace the work and role of the parish clerk from menial monastic beginnings to its emergence in the thirteenth century as a canonically recognised office–probably the oldest unordained office at the parochial level in the English church and the last vestigial survival of Minor Orders. In parallel is developed the story of the coming together of London parish clerks as a guild or fraternity, radically distinguished from the merchant, craft and service guilds, and of the grant to that fraternity of ‘clerici et literati’– with its unique livery and ethos–of the first of its six Royal Charters. The duties and activities of mediaeval parish clerks and the constitution of their Company are considered along with its possessions, especially its Bede Roll. Attention is paid to the understanding of Purgatory and the devastating effects of the Chantries Act 1548. The parish clerk's changing role following the Reformation is examined within the prevailing continuities and discontinuities. New duties in relation to Registration and Bills of Mortality are marked in addition to the parish clerk's increasing social involvement in the civil affairs of the parish. The decline in the parish clerk's duties from the nineteenth century is studied and its effect on the office, the London Company and the ancient parishes of old London, from which the Company is exclusively recruited.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical Law Society 2006

References

1 An edited version of a paper delivered on 10 November 2004 as a contribution to the 2004 series of London Lectures of the Ecclesiastical Law Society. An earlier and much shorter version of this paper was given on 9 July 2003 to the Annual General Meeting of the Friends of the City Churches.Google Scholar

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3 No one—and certainly no one who like the present writer is neither lawyer, liturgist, theologian nor historian—can presume to contribute on this topic without acknowleding from the outset an overwhelming debt of gratitude to Adams, RH, The Parish Clerks of London (Phillimore 1971).Google Scholar Adams, friend and mentor to so many clerks, cites helpfully a number of the earlier authorities, especially Christie, J, Some Account of Parish Clerk, (privately printed 1893)Google Scholar and Ebblewhite, EA, The Parish Clerks' Company and its Charters (privately printed 1932).Google Scholar

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12 Inasmuch as there is almost nothing in that ancient Canon Law touching parish clerks which is repugnant or contrariant to English statute law or to the Royal Prerogative, it is at least arguable that, insofar as they have not been repealed or substantially amended, those parts of the old law are still binding in the Church of England.Google Scholar

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22 As recently as 1972 and 1990 the Clerks of London were still performing their plays – and may do so again before too long.Google Scholar

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25 It was for long held that legally a woman could not be elected to the office of parish clerk, though she might be a sexton (Olave v Ingram (1739) 7 Mod Rep 263, 2 Stra 1114). In fact there are many instances from the eighteenth century onwards when women acted as parish clerks. The mediaeval Company appears to have regarded the wives of brethren as ‘sisterne’ and certainly as a part of the Company's wider family. Many appear in the Bede Roll. There is no evidence, however, of any women having been elected as brethren of the Company prior to 1999. At December 2004, there were five women parish clerks in membership of the Company.Google Scholar

26 In addition to Henry VI, there appear the names of three further kings of England, one queen, many peers of the realm, Lady Margaret Beaufort, some 30 abbots, priors and prioresses, 35 and more (Lord) mayors, including Richard Whittington, 15 or so Masters of the Mercers Company, to say nothing of William Caxton.Google Scholar

27 William Cowper may be recalled: Here lies within this tomb so calm Old Giles–pray sound his knell– who thought no song was like a psalm No music like a bell (On a Parish Clerk Epitomie 1792).Google Scholar

28 ‘It was an act of spoliation devoid either of excuse in its cause or benefit in its results’ (ie to the King's wars in Scotland and France). Hibbert, FA, Influence and Development of English Gilds qu Westlake op cit p 134.Google Scholar

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34 Men like Parker, Whitgift and Toby Matthew of York were lavish and hospitable entertainers; each had over a hundred servants and in their charitable giving, in life and death, strove to emulate their Pre-Reformation predecessors: see Barlatsky, J in O'Day, R and Heal, F (eds) Princes and Paupers (Leicester University Press 1981) at p 114 et seq.Google Scholar See also Croft, P for Cecil, William, Burghley, Lord (d 1598), ‘a man who never moved much beyond the mid-Tudor years’ and Platten, S (ed) Anglicanism op cit at pp 77, 78.Google Scholar

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40 Lecturers and Parish Clerks Act 1844 (7 & 8 Vict, c 59).Google Scholar

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44 The saying of a loud AMEN has always been seen as a particular responsibility of the parish clerk: Alas, poor Johnis dead and gone who often toll'd the Bell And with a spade Dug many a grave And said AMEN as well. Epitaph John Blackburn, Scothorne, Lincs 1739/40 quoted in Ditchfield, op cit p 93.Google Scholar

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