The Parish Clerk Part 5

In 1411 the vicar of Elmstead was enjoined by Clifford, Bishop of London, to find a clerk to help him at private Ma.s.ses on weekdays, and on holy days to read the epistle.

In the rules laid down for the guidance of clerks at the various churches we find many references to the duties of reading and singing.

At Coventry he is required to sing in the choir at the Ma.s.s, and to sing Evensong on the south side of the choir; on feast days the first clerk was ordered to be _rector chori_ on the south side, while his fellow performed a like duty on the north side. On every Sunday and holy day the latter had to read the epistle. At Faversham the clerk was required to sing at every Ma.s.s by note the Grail at the upper desk in the body of the choir, and also the epistle, and to be diligent to sing all the office of the Ma.s.s by note, and at all other services. Very careful instructions were laid down for the proper musical arrangements in this church. The clerk was ordered "to set the choir not after his own brest (= voice) but as every man being a singer may sing conveniently his part, and when plain song faileth one of the clerks shall leave faburdon[37] and keep plain song unto the time the choir be set again."

A fine of 2 d. was levied on all clerks as well as priests at St.

Michael's, Cornhill, who should be absent from the church, and not take their places in the choir in their surplices, singing there from the beginning of Matins, Ma.s.s and Evensong unto the end of the services. At St. Nicholas, Bristol, the clerk was ordered "to sing in reading the epistle daily under pain of ii d."

[Footnote 37: _Faburdon_ = faux-bourdon, a simple kind of counterpoint to the church plain song-, much used in England in the fifteenth century. Grove's _Dictionary of Music_.]

These various rules and regulations, drawn up with consummate care, together with the occasional glimpses of the mediaeval clerk and his duties, which old writers afford, enable us to picture to ourselves what kind of person he was, and to see him engaged in his manifold occupations within the same walls which we know so well. When the daylight is dying, musing within the dim mysterious aisle, we can see him folding up the vestments, bearing the books into their place of safe keeping in the vestry, singing softly to himself:

"_Et introibo ad altare Dei; ad Deum qui loetificat juventutem meam_."

The scene changes. The days of sweeping reform set in. The Church of England regained her ancient independence and was delivered from a foreign yoke. Her children obtained an open Bible, and a liturgy in their own mother-tongue. But she was distressed and despoiled by the rapacity of the commissioners of the Crown, by such wretches as Protector Somerset, Dudley and the rest, private peculation eclipsing the greediness of royal officials. Froude draws a sad picture of the halls of country houses hung with altar cloths, tables and beds quilted with copes, and knights and squires drinking their claret out of chalices and watering their horses in marble coffins. No wonder there was discontent among the people. No wonder they disliked the despoiling of their heritage for the enrichment of the Dudleys and the _nouveaux riches_ who fattened on the spoils of the monasteries, and left the church bare of bra.s.s and ornament, chalice and vestment, the acc.u.mulation of years of the pious offerings of the faithful. No wonder there were risings and riots, quelled only by the stern and powerful hand of a Tudor despot.

But in spite of all the changes that were wrought in that tumultuous time, the parish clerk remained, and continued to discharge many of the functions which had fallen to his lot before the Reformation had begun.

As I have already stated, his duties with regard to bearing holy water and the holy loaf were discontinued, although the collecting of money from the parishioners was conducted in much the same way as before, and the "holy loaf" corrupted into various forms--such as "holy looff,"

"holie loffe," "holy cake," etc.--appears in churchwardens' account books as late as the beginning of the seventeenth century.

As regards his main duties of reading and singing we find that they were by no means discontinued. From a study of the First Prayer Book of Edward VI, it is evident that his voice was still to be heard reading in reverent tones the sacred words of Holy Scripture, and chanting the Psalms in his mother-tongue instead of in that of the Vulgate. The rubric in the communion service immediately before the epistle directs that "the collectes ended, the priest, or he that is appointed, shall read the epistle, in a place a.s.signed for the purpose." Who is the person signified by the phrase "he that is appointed"? That question is decided for us by _The Clerk's Book_ recently edited by Dr. J. Wickham Legg, wherein it is stated that "the priest or clerk" shall read the epistle. The injunctions of 1547 interpret for us the meaning of "the place a.s.signed for the purpose" as being "the pulpit or such convenient place as people may hear." Ability to read the epistle was still therefore considered part of the functions of a parish clerk, and the whole lesson derived from a study of _The Clerk's Book_ is the very important part which he took in the services. As the t.i.tle of the book shows, it contains "All that appertein to the clerkes to say or syng at the Ministracion of the Communion, and when there is no Communion. At Confirmacion. At Matrimonie. The Visitacion of the Sicke. The Buriall of the Dedde. At the Purification of Women. And the first daie of Lent."

He began the service of Holy Communion by singing the Psalm appointed for the introit. In the book only the first words of the part taken by the priest are given, whereas all the clerk's part is printed in full.

He leads the responses in the Lesser Litany, the _Gloria in excelsis_, the Nicene Creed. He reads the offertory sentences and says the _Ter Sanctus_, sings or says the _Agnus Dei_, besides the responses. In the Marriage Service he said or sang the Psalm with the priest, and responded diligently. As in pre-Reformation times he accompanied the priest in the visitation of the sick, and besides making the responses sang the anthems, "Remember not, Lord, our iniquities," etc., and "O Saviour of the world, save us, which by thy crosse and precious blood hast redeemed us, help us, we beseech thee, O G.o.d." In the Communion of the Sick the epistle is written out in full, showing that it was the clerk's privilege to read it. A great part of the service for the Burial of the Dead was ordered to be said or sung by the "priest or clerk," and "at the communion when there was a burial" he apparently sang the introit and read the epistle. In the Communion Service the clerk with the priest said the fifty-first Psalm and the anthem, "Turn thou us, O good Lord," etc. In Matins and Evensong the clerk sang the Psalms and canticles and made responses, and from other sources we gather that he used to read either one or both of the lessons. In some churches he was called the dekyn or deacon, and at Ludlow, in 1551, he received 3 s. 4 d. for reading the first lesson.

In the accounts of St. Margaret's, Westminster, there is an item in the year 1553 for the repair of the pulpit where, it is stated, "the curate and the clark did read the chapters at service time."

Archbishop Grindal, in 1571, laid down the following injunction for his province of York: "That no parish clerk be appointed against the goodwill or without the consent of the parson, vicar, or curate of any parish, and that he be obedient to the parson, vicar, and curate, specially in the time of celebration of divine service or of sacraments, or in any preparation thereunto; and that he be able also to read the first lesson, the Epistle, and the Psalms, with answers to the suffrages as is used, and also that he endeavour himself to teach young children to read, if he be able so to do." When this archbishop was translated to Canterbury he issued very similar injunctions in the southern province.

Other bishops followed his example, and issued questions in their dioceses relating to clerkly duties, and these injunctions show that to read the first lesson and the epistle and to sing the Psalms const.i.tuted the princ.i.p.al functions of a parish clerk.

Evidences of the continuance of this practice are not wanting[38].

Indeed, within the memory of living men at one church at least the custom was observed. At Keighley, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, some thirty or forty years ago the parish clerk wore a black gown and bands.

He read the first lesson and the epistle. To read the latter he left his seat below the pulpit and went up to the altar and took down the book: after reading the epistle within the altar rails he replaced the book and returned to his place. At Wimborne Minster the clerk used to read the Lessons.

[Footnote 38: cf. _The Parish Clerk's Book_, edited by Dr. J. Wickham Legg, F.S.A., and _The Parish Clerk and his right to read the Liturgical Epistle_, by Cuthbert Atchley, L.R.C.P., M.R.C.S. _(Alcuin Club Tracts_, IV).]

Although it is evident that at the present time the clerk has a right to read the epistle and one of the lessons, as well as the Psalms and responses when they are not sung, it was perhaps necessary that his efforts in this direction should have been curtailed. When we remember the extraordinary blunders made by many holders of the office in the last century, their lack of education, and strange p.r.o.nunciation, we should hardly care to hear the mutilation of Holy Scripture which must have followed the continuance of the practice. Would it not be possible to find men qualified to hold the office of parish clerk by education and powers of elocution who could revive the ancient practice with advantage to the church both to the clergyman and the people?

Complaints about the eccentricities and defective reading and singing of clerks have come down to us from Jacobean times. There was one Thomas Milborne, clerk of Eastham, who was guilty of several enormities; amongst others, "for that he singeth the psalms in the church with such a jesticulous tone and altisonant voice, viz: squeaking like a gelded pig, which doth not only interrupt the other voices, but is altogether dissonant and disagreeing unto any musical harmony, and he hath been requested by the minister to leave it, but he doth obstinately persist and continue therein." Verily Master Milborne must have been a sore trial to his vicar, almost as great as the clerk of Buxted, Suss.e.x, was to his rector, who records in the parish register with a sigh of relief his death, "whose melody warbled forth as if he had been thumped on the back with a stone."

The Puritan regime was not conducive to this improvement of the status or education of the clerk or the cultivation of his musical abilities.

The Protectorate was a period of musical darkness. The organs of the cathedrals and colleges were taken down; the choirs were dispersed, musical publications ceased, and the gradual twilight of the art, which commenced with the accession of the Stuarts, faded into darkness. Many clerks, especially in the City of London, deserve the highest honour for having endeavoured to preserve the true taste for musical services in a dark age. Notable amongst these was John Playford, clerk of the Temple Church in 1652. Benjamin Payne, clerk of St. Anne's, Blackfriars, in 1685, the author of _The Parish Clerk's Guide_, wrote of Playford as "one to whose memory all parish clerks owe perpetual thanks for their furtherance in the knowledge of psalmody." The _History of Music_, by Hawkins, describes him as "an honest and friendly man, a good judge of music, with some skill in composition. He contributed not a little to the art of printing music from letterpress types. He is looked upon as the father of modern psalmody, and it does not appear that the practice has much improved." The account which Playford gives of the clerks of his day is not very satisfactory, and their sorry condition is attributed to "the late wars" and the confusion of the times. He says:

"In and about this great city, in above a hundred parishes there are but few parish clerks to be found that have either ear or understanding to set one of these tunes musically, as it ought to be, it having been a custom during the late wars, and since, to chuse men into such places more for their poverty than skill and ability, whereby that part of G.o.d's service hath been so ridiculously performed in most places, that it is now brought into scorn and derision by many people." He goes on to tell us that "the ancient practice of singing the psalms in church was for the clerk to repeat each line, probably because, at the first introduction of psalms into our service great numbers of the common people were unable to read." The author of _The Parish Clerk's Guide_ states that "since faction prevailed in the Church, and troubles in the State, Church music has laboured under inevitable prejudices, more especially by its being decried by some misguided and peevish sectaries as popery and anti-Christ, and so the minds of the common people are alienated from Church music, although performed by men of the greatest skill and judgment, under whom was wont to be trained up abundance of youth in the respective cathedrals, that did stock the whole kingdom at one time with good and able songsters." The Company of Parish Clerks of London [to the history and records of which we shall have occasion frequently to refer] did good service in promoting the musical training of the members and in upholding the dignity of their important office.

In the edition of _The Parish Clerk's Guide_ for 1731, the writer laments over the diminished status of his order, and states that "the clerk is oftentimes chosen rather for his poverty, to prevent a charge to the parish, than either for his virtue or skill; or else for some by-end or purpose, more than for the immediate Honour and Service of Almighty G.o.d and His Church."

If that was the case in rich and populous London parishes, how much more was it true in poor village churches? Hence arose the race of country clerks who stumbled over and miscalled the hard words as they occurred in the Psalms, who sang in a strange and weird fashion, and brought discredit on their office. Indeed, the clergy were not always above suspicion in the matter of reading, and even now they have their detractors, who a.s.sert that it is often impossible to hear what they say, that they read in a strained unnatural voice, and are generally unintelligible. At any rate, modern clergy are not so deficient in education as they were in the early years of Queen Elizabeth, when, as Fuller states in his _Triple Reconciler_, they were commanded "to read the chapters over once or twice by themselves that so they might be the better enabled to read them distinctly to the congregation." If the clergy were not infallible in the matter of the p.r.o.nunciation of difficult words, it is not surprising that the clerk often puzzled or amused his hearers, and mangled or skipped the proper names, after the fashion of the mistress of a dame-school, who was wont to say when a small pupil paused at such a name as Nebuchadnezzar, "That's a bad word, child! go on to the next verse."

Of the mistakes in the clerk's reading of the Psalms there are many instances. David Diggs, the hero of J. Hewett's _Parish Clerk_, was remonstrated with for reading the proper names in Psalm lx.x.xiii. 6, "Odommities, Osmallities, and Mobbities," and replied: "Yes, no doubt, but that's noigh enow. Seatown folk understand oi very well."

He is also reported to have said, "Jeball, Amon, and Almanac, three Philistines with them that are tired." The vicar endeavoured to teach him the correct mode of p.r.o.nunciation of difficult words, and for some weeks he read well, and then returned to his former method of making a shot at the proper names.

On being expostulated with he coolly replied:

"One on us must read better than t'other, or there wouldn't be no difference 'twixt parson and clerk; so I gives in to you. Besides, this sort of reading as you taught me would not do here. The p'rishioners told oi, if oi didn't gi' in and read in th' old style loike, as they wouldn't come to hear oi, so oi dropped it!"

An old clerk at Hartlepool, who had been a sailor, used to render Psalm civ. 26, as "There go the ships and there is that lieutenant whom Thou hast made to take his pastime therein."

"Leviathan" has been responsible for many errors. A shoemaker clerk used to call it "that great leather-thing." From various sources comes to me the story, to which I have already referred, of the transformation of "an alien to my mother's children" into "a lion to my mother's children."

A clerk at Bletchley always called caterpillars _saterpillars_, and in Psalm lxviii. never read JAH, but spelt it J-A-H. He used to summon the children from their places to stand in single file along the pews during three Sundays in Lent, and say, "Children, say your catechayse."

Catechising during the service seems to have been not uncommon. The clerk at Milverton used to summon the children, calling out, "Children, catechise, pray draw near."

The clerk at Sidbury used to read, "Better than a bullock that has horns _enough_"; his name was Timothy Karslake, commonly called "Tim," and when he made a mistake in the responses some one in the church would call out, "You be wrong, Tim."

Sometimes a little emphasis on the wrong word was used to express the feelings engendered by private piques and quarrels. There were in one parish some differences between the parson and the clerk, who showed his independence and proud spirit when he read the verse of the Psalm, "If I _be_ hungry, I will not tell _thee_," casting a rather scornful glance at the parson.

Another specimen of his cla.s.s used to read "Ananias, Azarias, and Mizzle," and one who was reading a lesson in church (Isaiah liv. 12), "And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles,"

rendered the verse, "Thy window of a gate, and thy gates of crab ancles."

Another clerk who was "not much of a scholard" used to allow no difficulty to check his fluency. If the right word did not fall to his hand he made shift with another of somewhat similar sound, the result frequently taxing to the uttermost the self-control of the better educated among his hearers. He was ill-mated to a shrewish wife, and one was sensible of a thrill of sympathy when, without a thought of irreverence, and in all simplicity, he rolled out, instead of "Woe is me, that I am constrained to dwell with Mesech!" "Woe is me, that I am constrained to dwell with _Missis_!"

Old age at length puts an end to the power of the most stalwart clerks.

That must have been a very pathetic scene in the church at East Barnet which few of those present could have witnessed without emotion. The clerk was a man of advanced age. He always conducted the singing, which must have been somewhat monotonous, as the 95th and the 100th Psalm (Old Version) were invariably sung. On one occasion, after several vain attempts to begin the accustomed melody, the poor old man exclaimed, "Well, my friends, it's no use. I'm too old. I can't sing any more."

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD BECKENHAM CHURCH]

It was a bitter day for the old clerks when harmoniums and organs came into fashion, and the old orchestras conducted by them were abandoned.

Dethroned monarchs could not feel more distressed.

The period of the decline and fall of the status of the old parish clerks was that of the Commonwealth, from 1640 to 1660. During the s.p.a.cious days of Elizabeth and the early Stuarts they were considered most important officials. In pre-Reformation times the inc.u.mbents used to receive a.s.sistance from the chantry priests who were required to help the parson when not engaged in their particular duties. After the suppression of the chantries they continued their good offices and acted as a.s.sistant curates. But the race soon died out. Then lecturers and special preachers were frequently appointed by corporations or rich private individuals. But these lecturers and preachers were a somewhat independent race who were not very loyal to the parsons and impatient of episcopal control, and proved themselves rather a hindrance than a help.

In North Devon[39] and doubtless in many other places the experiment was tried of making use of the parish clerks and raising them to the diaconate. Such a clerk so raised to major orders was Robert Langdon (1584-1625), of Barnstaple, to whose history I shall have occasion to refer again. His successor, Anthony Baker, was also a clerk-deacon. The parish clerk then attained the zenith of his power, dignity, and importance.

[Footnote 39: _The Parish Clerks of Barnstaple_, 1500-1900, by Rev. J.F.

Chanter (Transactions of the Devonshire a.s.sociation).]

After the disastrous period of the Commonwealth rule he emerges shorn of his learning, his rank, and status. His name remained; his office was recognised by legal enactments and ecclesiastical usage; but in most parishes he was chosen on account of his poverty rather than for his fitness for the post. So long as the church rates remained he received his salary, but when these were abolished it was found difficult in many parishes to provide the funds. Hence as the old race died out, the office was allowed to lapse, and the old clerk's place knows him no more. Possibly it may be the delectable task of some future historian to record the complete revival of the office, which would prove under proper conditions an immense advantage to the Church and a valuable a.s.sistance to the parochial clergy.

CHAPTER V

THE CLERK IN LITERATURE

The parish clerk is so notable a character in our ecclesiastical and social life, that he has not escaped the attention of many of our great writers and poets. Some of them have with gentle satire touched upon his idiosyncrasies and peculiarities; others have recorded his many virtues, his zeal and faithfulness. Shakespeare alludes to him in his play of _Richard II_, in the fourth act, when he makes the monarch face his rebellious n.o.bles, reproaching them for their faithlessness, and saying:

"G.o.d save the King! will no man say Amen?

Am I both priest and clerk? Well then, Amen.

G.o.d save the King! although I be not he; And yet, Amen, if Heaven do think him me."