Parish clerks have not always had very musical voices when they shout out the "Amens." The Rector of Buxted, Sussex (1666 A.D.), records with a sigh of relief the death of his old clerk, "whose melody warbled forth as if he had been thumped on the back with a stone."
Sometimes royal visits to the neighbourhood are recorded, even a royal hunt, as when James I. hunted the hare at Fordham, Cambridgeshire. The register of Wolverton gives "a license for eating flesh on prohibited days granted to Sir Tho. Temple, on paying 13s. 4d." Storms, earthquakes, and floods are described; and records of certificates granted to persons to go before the king to be touched for the disease called the king's evil.
The Civil War is frequently mentioned, and also caused the omission of many entries. At Tarporley, Cheshire, there is a break from 1643 to 1648, for which the rector thus accounts:--
"This intermission hapned by reason of the great wars obliterating memorials, wasting fortunes, and slaughtering persons of all sorts."
Parish registers have fared ill and suffered much from the gross carelessness of their custodians. We read of the early books of Christ Church, Hants, being converted into kettle-holders by the curate's wife. Many have been sold as waste paper, pages ruthlessly cut out, and village schoolbooks covered with the leaves of old registers. The historian of Leicestershire writes of the register of Scraptoft:--
"It has not been a plaything for young pointers--it has not occupied a bacon scratch, or a bread and cheese cupboard--it has not been scribbled on within and without; but it has been treasured ever since 1538, to the honour of a succession of worthy clergymen."--_O si sic omnes_!
The churchwardens' account books are even of greater value to the student of history than the registers, priceless as the latter are for genealogical purposes. The Bishop of Oxford states that "in the old account books and minute books of the churchwardens in town and country we possess a very large but very perishable and rapidly perishing treasury of information on matters the very remembrance of which is passing away, although their practical bearing on the development of the system of local government is indisputable, and is occasionally brought conspicuously before the eye of the people by quaint survivals.... It is well that such materials for the illustration of this economic history as have real value should be preserved in print; and that the customs which they illustrate should be reclaimed by History from the misty region of folklore, whilst they can." Many of these account books date from pre-Reformation times, and disclose the changes which took place in the fabric of our churches, the removal of roods and other ecclesiastical furniture, during the Reformation. They are usually kept with great exactness, and contain an accurate record of the receipts and expenditure for each year. Some of the entries are very curious, and relate to the sports and pastimes of our ancestors, the mystery plays, and church ales, which were all under the patronage of the churchwardens. The proceeds of these entertainments were devoted to the maintenance of the church, and were included in the accounts, as well as the necessary cost of the merry diversions. Thus in the books of St. Lawrence's Church, Reading, we find such items as the following:--