Speaking generally of the average
parish, Elizabethan churchwardens accounts and vestry
minutes show that for the purposes of raising money
amongst themselves to meet every-day parish expenditures,
the parishioners of the period did not commonly resort
to rates, if by “rate” be understood a
general assessment of all lands or all goods alike
at a fixed percentage of their revenue or value above
a minimum exempted.
It must not be supposed, however,
that in the case of offerings or gatherings, or of
levies to raise a certain sum where each man assessed
himself, it was entirely optional for each to give
or to refuse. What a man customarily gave, or
what he had promised to give, or, again, what the
parish thought he ought to give, that the ordinary
might compel him to give. From an offering or
a voluntary assessment to a rate is often but a short
step, and the two former shade off into the latter
almost imperceptibly. The justices of the peace
and the ecclesiastical authorities usually cast lump
sums upon the parishes, leaving ways and means to
the parishioners themselves. But it was, of course,
optional with the justices to rate each individual
separately when it seemed good to them, and for this
they had the Queen’s subsidy books to guide
them. Here, however, we are chiefly concerned
with the raising of money amongst the parishioners
themselves. How manifold, how ingenious were the
parochial devices for creating resources, it is the
purpose of this chapter to set forth.
But before proceeding to the parish
expedients, properly so called, for raising money,
it will be well to say something of parish endowments,
whether in lands, houses or funds. According as
the revenue from these was available for general,
or at least for various purposes, or, on the other
hand, was impressed with a trust for some specific
object, these endowments may be divided into general
and special. Parishes well endowed might be able
to dispense with some of the devices for money-getting
which we shall have occasion to enumerate, but then,
after all, endowments might come and they might go;
moreover, the financial policy of any one parish would,
of course, differ according to the disposition or
the ability of those who shaped it.
Of Loddon, Norfolk, we are told that
“no complaint appears about Church Rates, for
there were none, as the revenue of the Town Farm ...
rendered a tax of that description unnecessary."
Of St. Petrock’s, Exeter, we
are informed that “the parish became so well
endowed by donations of land and houses as to enable
the wardens to dispense almost entirely with the quarterly
collections entered in the earlier accounts."
The editor of the Thatcham, Berks, Accounts, writes:
“In the early years of these churchwardens accounts
the available funds were derived chiefly from the two
oldest charities, one called ‘Lowndye’s
Almshouses,’ the first account of which is for
the year ... 1561 ... to 1562; the other known as ’the
Church Estate,’ the first account of which begins
in 1566." Summoned by the Bodmin, Cornwall, justices
in January, 159-4/5, to make a report as to the parish
stock, the representatives of Stratton certify at
sessions that their stock “am[oun]ts to the now
some of Sixteene poundes, some yeares it is more &
some yeares lesse....” And, they continue,
“the vsinge of our sayde stocke is by the
two wardens & the rest of the eight men w[hi]ch
for the same stande sworne, And it is bestowed aboute
her ma[jes]ties service, for buyenge of armor, settinge
forth of souldiers wth powder & shott.... And
likewise for the relievinge & mainetayning of the
poore....” They thereupon give the names
of the impotent and decrepit persons and orphan children
“wholly relieved” by the parish, ten in
number, and add that there are upwards of a hundred
poor “wich are not able to liue of themselues,
but haue reliefe dayly one thinge or another of the
séide p[ar]ish." The little parish of St.
Michael’s in Bedwardine, Worcestershire,
possessed lands and tenements in various parishes,
and in 1599 invested L10 in buying two more tenements
in Worcester city. Its wardens accounts, we are
told by their editor, disclose that there was never
any lack of money for parish purposes “in spite
of a rather lavish expenditure at times in the luxury
of law[suits]." Lapworth, Warwickshire, had many
acres of parish land. The churchwardens of St.
John’s, Glastonbury, Somerset, return in their
accounts the rent of the parish lands in 1588 at L9
13d., and, as these accounts show, they
occasionally received important sums for fines on changes
of tenants. The various properties managed by
the wardens of St. Michael’s, Bath, numbered
thirty-seven in 1527, yielding a revenue of L11 8s.;
and even in 1572 the rent amounted to L11 8s.
Indeed, though parish lands and houses
were generally vested as to title in trustees (often
a numerous and cumbersome body), the churchwardens
themselves and sometimes other accountants, who
like the wardens were appointed from year to year,
usually exercised the actual management. The
feoffees existed chiefly for the purpose of making
it difficult to alienate the parish properties, “and
the larger the trust body the more difficult such
alienation was supposed to be."
Contenting ourselves with the above
examples, which could easily be multiplied, we pass
on under this same head of general endowments to an
interesting form of personal property, viz., cattle,
for not only did the wardens derive receipts from
parish holdings of real estate, but also from Endowments
of Cows or Sheep. The Pittington, Durham,
Twelve Men, a sort of parish executive and administrative
body, enact in 1584 “that everie iiij pounde
rent within this parrishe, as well of hamlets
as townshippes, shall gras winter and somer one
shepe for the behoufe of this church;" and we
are told that these “Church Shepe,” as
they were called, were here one of the chief means
of raising funds for parochial purposes. It was
the custom of pious donors, especially among the lowly,
to leave one or more sheep or cows to their parish.
In the year 1559 twelve sheep were thus given or bequeathed
to Wootton Church, Hants, by ten donors. These
sheep, as well as the parish cows, were often hired
out to parishioners, who gave security for their return.
Sometimes they were given to poor men at a reduced
rent, and thus they served to support the poor.
That the keeping of cattle was a well-recognized
source of parish income is seen by the Queen’s
Injunctions of 1559 in which she alludes to “the
profit of cattle” among other sources of parish
revenue to be devoted to the poor, “and if they
be provided for, then to the reparation of highways
next adjoining,” or to the repair of the church.
Leaving the topic of general endowments
to take up those sources of revenue destined to defray
particular forms of expenditure, we find that Permanent
Parish Endowments in lands, goods or money devoted
to the defraying of Specific Parish Administrative
Burdens or Utilities were very numerous
in the local documents of the 16th century. Sometimes
a land or fund was set apart by the donor, or by the
parish itself, for the support of a parish servant
or officer; sometimes its revenue maintained
this or that cripple or blind man, or a number
of them; sometimes it was used for feeding the poor,
or for buying wearing apparel for them; for setting
them at work in houses of correction, or for parish
education.
In particular, lands or funds were
frequently set apart as special and permanent endowments
for the repair of bridges. In fact, the proceeds
of parish lands or other endowments might be appropriated
to alleviate any tax burden whatsoever. In 1549
it was stated by the wardens of North Elmham, Norfolk,
that the net proceeds of the five and thirty or forty
acres which they rented out were devoted exclusively
towards the paying of the fifteenths due from time
to time to the king and his successors.
To illustrate the variety of purposes
for which parish trusts were created, I cannot do
better than quote part of the preamble of the 43 Eliz.
, known as the Statute of Charitable Uses:
“Whereas Landes, Tenements, Rentes
... Money and Stockes of Money,” it is there
rehearsed, “have bene heretofore given,
limitted ... and assigned ... some for Releife of
aged, impotent and poore people, some for Maintenaunce
of sicke and maymed Souldiers and Marriners, Schooles
of Learninge ... some for Repaire of Bridges,
Fortes, Havens, Causwaies, Churches, Sea-bankes and
Highewaies, some for Educacon and p[re]fermente
of Orphans, some for or towardes Reliefe, Stocke or
Maintenaunce for Howses of Correccon, some for Mariages
of poore Maides, some for Supportacon, Ayde and
Helpe of younge Tradesmen, Handiecraftesmen and p[er]sons
decayed, and others ... for aide or ease of any poore
Inhabitants conc[er]ninge paymente of Fifteenes, settinge
out of Souldiers and other Taxes [etc.]...."
As for money and goods left by testators
or given inter vivos for Temporary Expenses
or Special Occasions (as opposed to the creation
of permanent trusts and endowments), we find a constant
stream of such benefactions throughout the Elizabethan
period.
By the Queen’s Injunctions of
1559 parsons are diligently to exhort their parishioners,
“and especially when men make their testaments,”
to give to the poor-box, the surplus of which, after
provision for the needy, might be devoted to church
and highway repair.
Bequests made to the highways or bridges
were considered as donated in pios usus.
“I thinke,” wrote a prebendary of Durham
Cathedral in 1599, “it also a deade of charitie
and a comendable worke before God to repaire
the high-wayes, that the people may travaille
saifely without daunger. I therefore will to
the mending of the highwayes [etc.]...."
Noblemen and wealthy men were expected
to help maintain the local poor in particular.
Elizabethan ballads celebrate the liberality to the
destitute of an Earl of Huntingdon, of an Earl
of Southampton, or of an Earl of Bedford.
At the funeral of George, Earl of Shrewsbury, in 1591,
eight thousand got the dole served to them, and it
was thought that at least twice that number were in
waiting, but could not approach because of the tumult.
The churchwardens and overseers of the poor accounts,
especially in London and the larger cities, abound
with receipt items of gifts from great personages
or wealthy merchants.
Owing to the difficulty of investing
money because present-day intermediaries were absent
between capital seeking employment and would-be borrowers;
and because the medieval stigma attaching to money
loaned at interest had by no means wholly disappeared,
there grew up in Elizabethan parishes a system of
laying out money, raised by the parish or donated
by benefactors, in various trades, such as wool-spinning,
linen-weaving, the buying of wood or coal to sell again
at a profit, etc. Sometimes well-to-do
parishioners with good credit would themselves borrow
parish money, returning ten per cent. for its use.
Usually, however, parish money was loaned gratis,
the parish taking sureties for its repayment and sometimes
articles of value, being, apparently, not always above
doing a little pawnbroking business. On the other
hand, when the parish itself had occasion to borrow
money it would occasionally give its own valuables
as security. Thus the Mere, Wiltshire, wardens
record in 1556 that they have redeemed on the repayment
of 40s. to one Cowherd, “borowed of hym to thuse
of the Churche,” “certeyn sylver Spones
of the Churche stocke." Finally, parishes
would now and then make some cautious speculation
in real estate, such as the buying of a local market
or fair with a view to profit.
Leaving the subject of endowments
we shall now take up in order the measures which may
be called Parish Expedients for raising money.
Of all means ever devised for obtaining
large sums of money for parish uses, the most popular,
as certainly the most efficacious, was the Church-ale.
Widespread during the first years of Elizabeth’s
reign, church-ales, for reasons hereafter to
be mentioned, ceased to be held in many parishes towards
the end of the reign. They constitute, nevertheless,
at all times during the 16th century an important
chapter in the history of parochial finance. In
some wardens’ accounts the proceeds of these
ales form a yearly recurring and an ordinary
receipt item; in others ales were resorted to
when some unusually large sum had to be raised, or
some heavy expense was to be met, such as the rebuilding
of the church tower, the recasting of the bells, the
raising of a stock to set the poor to work, or the
buying of a silver communion cup. Frequently,
also, funds were raised by means of ales called
clerk-ales, sexton-ales, etc., to pay
the wages of clerks, sextons and other servants of
the parish. “For in poore Countrey Parishes,”
writes an early 17th century bishop, “where the
wages of the Clerke is very small, the people ...
were wont to send him in Provision, and then feast
with him, and give him more liberality then their
quarterly payments [or offerings] would amount unto
in many years.” Indeed, he continues, since
these ales have been abolished “some ministers
have complained unto me, that they are afrayd they
shall have no Parish Clerks for want of maintenance
for them."
Church-ales were usually held
at or near Whitsuntide, hence they were also called
Whitsun-ales or May-ales in the accounts.
If the occasion were an extraordinary one, and it
was sought to realize a large sum, notices were sent
to the surrounding parishes, say to ten, fifteen, or
more, to be read aloud from the pulpits of their respective
churches after service, which notices contained invitations
to any and all to come and spend their money in feasting
and drinking for the benefit of the parish giving
the ale. As the day approached for the opening
of the ale, which, if it were a great one, would be
kept for four or five days or more, all was bustle
in the parish to prepare for a feasting which often
assumed truly Gargantuan proportions. Cuckoo kings
and princes were chosen, or lords and ladies of the
games; ale-drawers were appointed. For the brewing
of the ale the wardens bought many quarters of malt
out of the church stock, but much, too, was donated
by the parishioners for the occasion. Breasts
of veal, quarters of fat lambs, fowls, eggs, butter,
cheese, as well as fruit and spices, were also purchased.
Minstrels, drum players and morris-dancers were engaged
or volunteered their services. In the church-house,
or church tavern, a general-utility building found
in many parishes, the great brewing crocks were furbished,
and the roasting spits cleaned. Church trenchers
and platters, pewter or earthen cups and mugs were
brought out for use; but it was the exception that
a parish owned a stock of these sufficient for a great
ale. Many vessels were borrowed or hired from
the neighbors or from the wardens of near-by parishes,
for, as will presently be seen, provident churchwardens
derived some income from the hiring of the parish
pewter as well as money from the loan of parish costumes
and stage properties. When the opening day arrived
people streamed in from far and wide. If any important
personage or delegation from another village were
expected, the parish went forth in a body with bag-pipes
to greet them, and (with permission from the ecclesiastical
authorities) the church bells were merrily rung out.
At the long tables, when the ale was set abroach,
“well is he,” writes a contemporary, “that
can get the soonest to it, and spend the most at it,
for he that sitteth the closest to it, and spendes
the most at it, hee is counted the godliest man of
all the rest ... because it is spent uppon his Church
forsooth." The receipts from these ales
were sometimes very large. So important were they
at Chagford, Devon, that the churchwardens were sometimes
called alewardens. At Mere, Wilts, out of a total
wardens’ receipts of L21 5-1/2d. for the
two years 1559-61, the two church-ales netted
L17 3-1/2d., thus leaving only L5 2d.
as receipts from other sources for these two years.
At a later period, on the other hand, this relation
of receipts was entirely reversed. For instance,
in 1582-3 the wardens secured only L4 10d. from
their ale, while proceeds from other sources amounted
to L17 9d.
In the thirty-one years from 1556-7
to 1587-8 in this parish the recorded wardens’
expenditures had more than doubled. In the first-named
year they had been but L8 I2d.; in the latter
year they had swelled to L18 14s 3-1/2d. This
characteristic is true of all Elizabethan church budgets,
and the writer has seen a number of them. The
Wootton churchwardens enter under the year 1600 the
following: “Rec. by our Kingale, all things
discharged, xij li. xiiij. jd. ob.,”
an important sum for the day.
Besides the churchwardens other wardens
or gilds sometimes busied themselves with the selling
of ale for the benefit of the church. One of
these gilds at South Tawton, Devon, records in its
accounts for 1564: “We made of our alle
and gathering xl l. viijs. viijd."
So important a source of parish income
had to be carefully looked after. A church-ale
with its attendant festivities for drawing visitors
was an important business matter. Accordingly
we find the parishioners of St. John’s, Glastonbury,
making an order in 1589 “that the churchwardens
shall yearly keape ale to the comodeti of the parishe
upon payne of xxs. a yere."
In Ashburton, Devon, in 1567 Christopher
Wydecomb had to pay 20s. to the wardens “because
he refused the office of the drawer of the church
ale." At Wing, Bucks, those refusing “to
be lorde at Whitsuntyde for the behofe of the church”
were fined 35. 4d. apiece. In some places these
masters of the revels were called Cuckoo Kings, and
the office seems to have gone in rotation like other
parish offices.
When invitations had been sent out
to surrounding parishes, interparochial courtesy seems
to have required the attendance either of the churchwardens
or of some other more or less official representatives
of the neighboring communities. These representatives
carried with them some small contribution made at the
expense of their respective parishes (’ale-scot’).
Because of the alleged drunkenness
and disorderly conduct attendant upon some of these
ales, the justices of assize and the justices
of the peace attempted in some shires to put them
down on various occasions. More effective, perhaps,
in doing away with them was the gradual growth of
Puritanism.
In conclusion it should be remarked
that church-ales seem to have obtained only in
Central and Southern England. The huge and thinly
populated parishes of the North did not favor the development
of an institution so essentially social in its character.
Church Plays, Games and Dances
were allied in a measure with church-ales, partly
because they were sometimes held concurrently with
them, partly because they served as a substitute for
the ales when these fell into disrepute.
Miracle plays and other pageants were given by certain
parishes from time to time, too frequently in the churches
themselves, in which case the wrath of the ordinary
was called down upon the parish if he heard of them.
Some parishes kept various costumes and stage properties,
which were hired out to other parishes when not in
use. May games, Robin Hood plays or bowers, Hocktide
sports and forfeits, morris-dances and children’s
dances were all turned to the profit of the church,
collections being taken up at them. Morris coats,
caps, bells and feathers were frequently loaned out
for a consideration by wardens to other parishes.
Church-house. Here were
the brewing kettles and the spits, and here was stored
church grain or malt for beer making. Here, too,
presumably, the pewter ale pots, trenchers, spoons,
etc., which figure in the accounts, were kept.
These were hired out to other parishes for their ales.
While ale was brewed and drunk in the church-house
for the benefit of the parish, and that apparently
on other occasions than church-ales, it does
not seem probable that the place was often allowed
to degenerate into a common ale-house, even though
in some parishes it may have borne the name of “church
tavern." When not required for parish purposes
the church-house was rented out, and rooms in an upper
story were used for lodging.
As church-ales fell into disfavor
Offerings or Gatherings in church or
at the church door became more frequent and more
systematized. As time went on these collections
were regularly taken up in many parishes every quarter,
usually at Easter, Midsummer, Michaelmas and Christmas.
Hence the name quarterage. When the proceeds
went to general church furnishing and repairing, the
gatherings wrere sometimes called in the accounts “church
works." As the sum given by each was often noted
down in “quarter books” or “Easter
books," and was, on denial, occasionally sued
for before the official (together with dues for other
purposes clerk’s wages, pew rents,
etc., presently to be noticed), an “offering”
might become virtually an assessment or rate.
We come now to Communion Dues,
or Collections taken up at the time of communion.
“Paschall money”
is defined in a vestry order of Stepney parish, London,
in 1581 as a duty of 1d. paid by each communicant at
Easter “toward the charge of breade and wine
over and besides theyre offering mony due unto the
vicar.” These paschal dues, the order further
informs us, had long been farmed by the vicar for 40s.
yearly. But now the yield of a penny from each
communicant was “thought a thing so profitable
and beneficiall,” that only as a special mark
of favor was the vicar to continue to farm it, but
at L4 thenceforth instead of at 40s. “Easter
money,” an expression found not infrequently
in the accounts, may have referred to the same payment,
or it may have designated the offering which generally
followed the celebration of communion, taken
up, doubtless, from all those present, whether communicating
or not, the proceeds of which might go to the minister
or to the parish according to agreement or custom.
Though the Second Edwardine Prayer
Book (1552) provided that the elements were to be
found by the curate and the wardens at the expense
of the parish, which was then to be discharged of fees,
or levies on each household, nevertheless, we meet
with Communion Fees or with house-to-house
levies to defray the cost of bread and wine in many
parishes during Elizabeth’s reign. In order
to ensure payment of the communion fee, tokens (or
as we would say today, tickets) were provided in some
parishes which were first to be handed in before the
ministrant admitted the applicant to reception.
In a number of parishes a fine wine
such as muscatel or malmsey was provided for the better
sort, or the masters and mistresses, while the servants,
or poorer folk, were served with claret. Indeed
where all were compelled to communicate thrice yearly
the cost of wine was a very serious item.
Collections for the Holy Loaf,
that is, blessed but not consecrated bread, which
went to defray the costs of administering the Eucharist,
occur in some of the earlier Elizabethan accounts.
Surplus communion fee money, or communion offerings
were devoted to the care of the poor and other expenses.
The heading Clerk’s Wages,
which is so often met with in the wardens’ receipt
items, frequently serves (as do several other special
headings) as a mere peg on which to hang a collection
for various or even for general parish expenses.
Pews and Seats in Church
were often made a source of revenue. Thus at
St. Mary’s, Reading, it was agreed in 1581 by
the chief men of the parish, in order to augment the
parish stock and to maintain the church, because “the
rentes ar very smale,” that those sitting
in front seats in the church should pay 8d., those
behind them 6d., the third row 4d., and so on.
At St. Dunstan’s, Stepney parish,
London, a book was made by the wardens “whearein
was expressed the pewes in the whole Church,”
distinguished by numbers. “Also there was
noted against everie pewe the price that was thought
reasonable it shoulde yeeld by the yeare....
The w[hi]ch rates by this vestrie is allowed
and confirmed to be imploied to the use of the parish
Church.” When a few months later it was
determined to build a gallery because the congregation
needed more seats, it was also settled that the cost
should be met by a year’s pew rent in one payment
down, over and besides the usual quarterly payments
for seats. Sometimes the seats were sold outright
and for life only.
Mortuary Fees were a source
of revenue in almost all parishes, and sometimes an
important one. Consequently tariffs of fees were
drawn up in various places. So much is charged
for interment within, so much for burial without the
church; so much for a knell according to duration
and according to size of the bell; so much for the
herse a sort of catafalque so
much for the pall, the fee varying from that charged
for “the best” to that charged for “the
worst cloth”; so much if the body is coffined
or uncoffined, most of the dead being buried in winding
sheets only, though the parish provided a coffin for
the body to lie in during service in church and for
removal to the graveside. So, too, one fee was
charged for interring a " great corse,” another
for a “chrisom child." All, in fact, is
tabulated with minute precision, the minister getting
certain fees for himself alone, and sharing others
with the parish; and so of the clerk and of the sexton,
if any. Among other reasons alleged by the vestry
of Stepney parish for dismissing their sexton in 1601
was because he made “composicon with diu[er]s
& sundry p[ar]ishoners for the duties of the church
to the hinderannce & great damage of the bennefitt
of the church & p[ar]ishoners."
Fees for Weddings, Christenings
and Churchings, and for the ringing of the
bells (at marriages), together with the Offerings
taken up on these occasions, might form a source of
revenue to the parish, either going directly into
the parish coffers, or being paid in whole or in part
to minister, clerk or sexton, who, after all, had
to be supported by the parish (or otherwise), being
essential officers or servants.
The parish poor and the parish church
derived an uncertain, but by no means negligible,
income from the product of Fines for various Delinquencies.
In the previous chapter fines for
non-attendance at church have been alluded to.
A contemporary, writing in 1597, refers to these as
an important fund for the support of the poor if duly
levied. He writes: “Whereunto [he
is speaking of various means to alleviate poverty]
if we adde the forfaiture of 12 pence for euerie
householders absence from Church (man and woman) forenoone
and after, Sunday and holiday (according to the statute
without sufficient cause alledged) to be duely collected
by Churchwardens and other appointed to that end,
with the like regard for Wednesday suppers: there
would be sufficient releefe for the poore in all places
...."
Ecclesiastical courts sometimes condemned
offenders to pay a fine for the use of the poor.
Sometimes they commuted a penance for money to go
to church-repair or to the parish poor. The churchwardens
or overseers of the poor accounts also mention fines
received for profanation of the Sabbath and for offences
during service time. The Star Chamber often condemned
offenders, especially enclosers of cottage land and
engrossers of corn, to fines for the benefit of the
poor. Finally, most parishes derived some income
from fining men various sums for refusing parish offices;
for neglect of duty when in office; and for not attending
duly called vestry meetings. Sometimes a parishioner
would pay down a large lump sum for exemption forever
from all offices served by the parishioners.
Yet another irregular but appreciable
means of revenue might be classed under the heading
of Miscellaneous Receipts.
As the parishioners were always eager
to turn an honest penny for their own benefit, no
possible source of receipts was neglected. If,
for instance, any part of the church or the church
premises might, temporarily or permanently, be rented
out without drawing upon the community the censure
of the ordinary, the parishioners were happy to do
so. Owners of structures of any kind encroaching
upon the churchyard, or other church land, were promptly
made to pay for the privilege. Occasionally parishes
derived more or less large sums from the sale of parish
valuables. The sale of costly vestments, embroideries,
hangings, images, chalices, pyxes and other church
furnishings and ornaments condemned as superstitious
by the Anglican church, brought some income to the
wardens of most parishes during the first years of
Elizabeth. Examples will be found in all the accounts.
Now and then, too, a parish would make a large sum
from the sale of the wood or other products of parish
lands. A fairly common item in city parishes
especially were fees paid for licences to eat flesh
during Lent and on other legal fast days.
When an Elizabethan parish undertook
some work on a great scale, such as the rebuilding
of its church, or of the church steeple; or, again,
when it had suffered great losses by fire or flood,
it solicited through Begging Proctors the Contributions
of Outsiders, sometimes from all parts of England.
To terminate our enumeration of means
of raising money, or of contributions of all sorts
on which the wardens could count (as apart from rates,
properly so-called), we might mention Fixed Contributions,
of money or of labor, issuing out of certain tenements;
and Annual Payments to Mother Churches.
Certain lands or houses, generally abutting on the
church grounds, had fixed upon them the obligation
to repair a certain portion of the churchyard enclosure,
Tenement X, so many feet of fence, Tenement Y, such
a portion of brick or stone wall, and so forth.
Sometimes also certain houses or lands
are spoken of as yielding so much a year for the repair
of the church and the support of the poor. Incidentally
we might mention though hardly connected
with parish finance certain payments for
church repair, etc., claimed of old by some cathedral
churches from the parishes of the diocese. Originally
a tax varying from a farthing to a penny for each household
(hence the names “smoke farthings,” “hearth
penny,” “smoke silver"), the payments
were commuted for a small lump sum exacted yearly.
Thus we find in the Elizabethan accounts mention of
“St. Swithin farthings;" of “Ely
farthings;" of “Lincoln farthings,"
etc., according to the name of the cathedral
to which they were paid; or, again, of “Whitsun
farthings;” of “Pentecost farthings,”
etc., according to the time of the year
at which the payments were made. These payments
must not be confused with “Peter’s pence,”
which had before the Reformation been paid by English
parishes to Rome.
Lastly the mother parish church, in
large parishes requiring chapels of ease, would exact
(when it could) contributions from those congregations
who frequented for ordinary divine worship these chapels
of ease within the parish. And these exactions
would be made irrespective of the fact that these
congregations were bound to repair their own chapels
and possessed their own churchwardens.
When the means or expedients we have
hitherto set forth were found insufficient, or impracticable,
or too tardy for an emergency, the parish was compelled
to resort to Rates or Assessments.
Assessments were levied in all sorts
of ways and for all sorts of purposes. In an
emergency, or if the sum to be raised was not large,
a levy might be made by the principal men of the parish
upon themselves only. A “rate” might,
however, be made to collect a very small sum, as well
as a very large one. All kinds of units or rules
of assessment were resorted to from parish to parish,
and (apparently) sometimes no fixed unit at all was
taken, men’s ability to pay being roughly gauged,
or a man being permitted to rate himself, or give
his “benevolence.”
In the wardens’ accounts are
frequently seen long lists of names, each being taxed
at a sum varying from 1/2d. to three or four shillings.
Such lists may represent an attempt to tax each man
at 1/2d. or 1d. in the pound, or, likely as not, it
may merely mean a crude sizing up of the ability of
each to contribute.
Furthermore, a “rate”
might consist in a fixed sum, the same for all, and
levied by polls or by households, say 1d. or 2d.
each. Or, again, it might be levied by pews at
varying sums. Assessments to pay the parish clerk
or sexton might sometimes be made in kind, and issue
from households, from cottages, or from ploughlands:
so much corn at Easter, so much bread, so many eggs.
When it came to the more accurate
basing of rates upon lands, or goods at a valuation,
the inhabitants of the various communities observed
no uniform ratio of taxation from parish to parish,
nor even in the same parish, and disputes were always
recurring.
It must be borne in mind that parish
financiering was largely of the hand-to-mouth variety.
Indeed, it was difficult it should be otherwise, for
the exigencies of the civil or the ecclesiastical
authorities were constantly shifting, now a petty lump
sum being required (and to be spent as soon as raised),
now a great one to be disbursed in the same manner.
In conclusion, a few observations
on the parish as a financial unit in connection with
county government may be made. There seems to
have been no general treasury at the disposal of the
hundred or of the county, but merely certain treasurers
charged with the disbursement of this or that special
collection for this or that special purpose. A
collection is made by order of the justices, for instance,
in certain hundreds, or throughout the shire, for
the support of the prisoners in the county gaol, and
a treasurer for the fund is appointed. Or it may
be that this treasurer is a more or less permanent
official. And so with collections for hospitals,
for houses of correction, for great bridges, etc.
If the constables levied more than was sufficient for
a parish, or if the contemplated disbursement turned
out to be less than originally estimated, the surplus,
if the justices had no immediate use for it, might
be returned to that parish to go back into the pockets
of the rate payers. Furthermore, it seems scarcely
accurate in Elizabethan times to speak of any county
rate, for there was no recognized basis of
assessment common to all parishes, unless it were
at any given time the then prevailing subsidy rate,
and a rating according to the subsidy books by the
justices would fail to reach many whom a parish rating
might attain. As a matter of fact the justices,
when they had a large sum to levy on the county at
large, almost always apportioned it in lump sums among
the hundreds, or among the parishes of their respective
divisions, according to “the bygnes or smallnes
of their parishes." It comes, then, to all practical
intents and purposes to this: that each parish
is left to produce according to its own local methods,
or rating, the wherewithal for carrying on county
government.
While in local government itself the
parishioners have practically no voice, the large
measure of freedom they enjoy for the devising of
ways and means to meet the demands made upon them (though
they have no option whatever in granting or withholding
supplies) gives to the parish a vigorous entity and
a certain autonomous life of its own, which otherwise
it never could have possessed over against the all-regulating
and inquisitorial Tudor machinery of Church and State.
As the reign advanced the parish developed
a selfish, jealous and exclusive gild life of its
own, especially under the operation of the poor laws.
Non-parishioners, or “foreigners,”
were viewed with the strongest suspicion. Generally
they were discriminated against if they happened to
have dealings with the parish. Wedding or funeral
fees were doubled in their cases. If the parishioners
could have had their will no alien poor could have
gained a settlement amongst them no, not
even after twenty years’ residence. In
1598 the West Riding, Yorkshire, justices were compelled
to interfere in favor of divers poor persons in various
parishes, where officers were seeking to expel them
as vagrants born elsewhere, though they had been domiciled
in their adopted communities for twenty years and
upwards.
Already that “organized hypocrisy,”
so characteristic of parish life in later reigns,
shows itself in the many presentments of, and petitions
against, persons supposedly immoral especially
single women. Not zeal for morality prompts these
indictments, but fear that the community may have
to support illegitimate children. Quite typical
of the times is the language held by the inhabitants
of Castle Combe in appealing to the Wiltshire justices
against a townwoman in 1606. They are apprehensive,
they say, lest “by this licentious life of hers
not only God’s wrath may be powered downe uppon
us ... but also hir evill example may so greatly corrupt
others than great and extraordinary charge ... may
be imposed uppon us."
Few laws on the statute book were
so frequently enforced as the 31 Eliz. , which
required four acres to be laid to every cottage to
be constructed, for there was a powerful local backing
behind the law. When John Fletcher, “a
meere stranger lately come into this Parish with
his wife and children,” took certain parcels
of land in Severn Stoke in 1593, and was suspected
of the intention to build a cottage without laying
to it the requisite number of acres, the parishioners
immediately complained to the Worcester justices, for
they wanted to provide against the contingent liability
of having to support the inmates. Four acres
was then the quantity considered necessary to maintain
a man and his family. It was an indictable offence
to sublet, for then there would be two families where
only one was before. Nor could lodgers be taken,
for such increase of the inmates of the house would
surcharge the land.
In short, that feeling of distrust
and discrimination against the outside world, which,
in the 18th century, led a Lancashire vestry to dub
all outsiders “foreigners," is already fully
developed by the end of the 16th century. But
we must also recognize that this feeling engendered
in the parish itself solidarity of interests, close
fellowship and local spirit.