The New Forest: its history and its scenery/Chapter 19

by John Richard de Capel Wise

 

CHAPTER XIX.

PARISH REGISTERS AND CHURCHWARDENS' BOOKS.

As the monasteries of former days preserved the general records of the times, so, in a minor degree, do our churches preserve the special history of our villages. In the social life of the past our Church Books are the counterpart of our Corporation Books, performing quite as much for their own parishes as the latter for their boroughs; not only giving, in the register, a yearly census of the population, but by the Churchwardens' Accounts the social and religious life of each period.

Added to this also the clergyman, having nowhere else to chronicle them, has often entered in his register the passing events of the day; so that this further possesses, at times, a wider historical interest than could have been expected, giving us often glimpses of the views of men, who, however unsympathetic with the changes and fortunes of the hour, still carry, from their office and position, some not inconsiderable weight.

All these books are far too seldom consulted. The few notes we shall make are by no means given as examples of what may be elsewhere found, but must be looked upon only as extracts from the books of a district, where we naturally could expect little of any general interest.

The New Forest has never been, since registers became the law of the land, the scene of any of the great events of English history—never the theatre of the Civil Wars, as the Midland Counties, where entries of victories and defeats, and battles and sieges, are mixed with the burials and births.

Various causes, too, especially the scanty and scattered population, have contributed to the late date at which nearly all the Forest registers commence.^[1] Still, at Eling, there occurs the second earliest parish register in Hampshire, beginning one year before Cromwell's Act has been passed; showing, as was before noticed, that this part of the Forest was always the richest, and, consequently, the most civilized.^[2] In this register we find the following most interesting entry:—

"1654. Thomas Burges, the sonne of William Burges and Elizabeth Russel, the daughter of Elizabeth, the now wife of Stephen Newland, were asked three Sabbath dayes, in the Parish Church of Eling: sc: Apriel 16th, Ap^r 23rd, Ap^r 30th, and were marr: by Richard L^d Cromwell, May xxii^d."

I need scarcely add that it was under the Protector that an Act of Parliament was passed in 1653, enabling any persons, after the due proclamation of the banns in the church or chapel, or in the market-place, on three market days, to be married by a simple affirmation before a magistrate; thus in a remarkable way nearly anticipating modern legislature.^[3] The Protector's son, at the date of this entry, was probably living at Hursley, about ten miles away to the north.

Going across to the other side of the Forest, we shall, at Ellingham, find, in the Churchwardens' Books, an entry in a different way quite as interesting. The leaf is, I am sorry to say, very much torn, and, towards the lower part, half of it is wanting. I give, however, the extract as it stands, indicating the missing passages by the breaks:—

"Martii 13. Anno dom. 1634. A special license, granted by the moste reverende ffather in God, William Lord Archbishop of Canterbury his Grace, under his Grace's hand and seale, used in the like grants, dated the nyneteenth day of ffebruarie, Anno dom. 1634, and second yeare of his Grace's translation. And confirmed by the Letters patents of our Sovraigne Lord Charles the King's ma.^tie that now is . . . . Under the Greate Seale of England ffor S^r White Beconsaw of this parish and county of Southton . . . . (and) Dame Edith hys wife ffor the tyme of their naturell (lives) . . . . to eate flesh on the daies p'hibited by the Lawe . . . . (upon condition of their giving to the) poore of the p'ish . . . . Thirteene shillings . . . ."

Whether or no the knyght and his lady were to give the sum yearly, as seems most probable, it is impossible, from the torn condition of the leaf, to say. Their daughter was the noble Alice Lisle. The licence, of course, refers to the prohibition against eating meat on Fridays and Saturdays, and other specified times, first made by Elizabeth for the encouragement of the English fisheries, which had even in her reign begun to decay.^[4] And now that we are on the subject of Churchwardens' Books, let me give some brief extracts from those of Ellingham:—

"1556.	Itm for waxe	ixd.
	Itm for a gyrdle	iijd.
	Itm for waxe and for makynge of ye paschall and fontetapers	xvd.
	First payed for a rod (rood)	xijs.
	Itm payed for the paschall and fontetapers	ijs. viijd.
"1558.	First payed for the pascall and fontetapers	xxijd.
	Itm payed for frankeincense	id."

Such notices well prove how quick and strong was the reaction from Protestantism to Catholicism when favoured by the State. Again, to still further show the variety of entries, let me make some extracts from the Fordingbridge Churchwardens' Books:—

"1636.	Itm for a fox-head	0	1s	0
	Itm for one badgers head	0	1	0
	Itm for one fox-head	0	1	0"

Among miscellaneous notices, as giving the average wages of the day, and the prices of various articles, let me add also the following from the same accounts:—

"1609.	Itm laide out for a pint of muskadine	viid"
"1616.	It for viij dayes' worke for three men	xxiijs
	It for a new beel-Rope	iijs iiijd
	It for a daye's worke for three men	iijs iijd
	It for a booke of artykeels	iijs
	It for mates (mats) about the Communyon tabelle	xiijd
	It payde the Person for keeping the Stocke	iijs iiijd"

These accounts, too, like all others, are full of items for the repairs of the bells and bell-ropes, confirming what may be found in the narratives of old French and Italian travellers concerning our English passion for bell-ringing. The following looks very much like cause and effect:—

"1636.	It~m to the Ringers one ye Kinges daye.	ijs vjd
	It~m for one belroape	is ivd"

The "King's day" was that on which the King ascended the throne. Again, to show the mixed and varied contents of the Churchwardens' Books, we will once more go back to those of Ellingham. Under the date of 1556 we find:—

"It~m for a baudericke of the great bell	xijd
It~m for a lanterne	viijd
It~m for nailes and sope	iijd"

Under the head of "Layinges out in the secunde yere," meaning 1557, we meet:—

"It~m for a pot of claye	iijd
It~m payed for ij bokes	xs
It~m payed for smoke sylver	ijs xid"

And, again, under the "Layinges out in the thyrdde yere," we find:—

"It~m payed for storynge of the tythynge harnesse	xviijd
It~m for white lether	iijd
It~m for lyme and vj creste tyles	xxid
Itm for surplus for the clerke (clergyman)	iijs
Itm for smoke silvar	xvijd"

All these entries, to the church historian, and no less to the general student, cannot be without peculiar interest. The smoke silver, which so frequently occurs, is either the money paid for certain privileges of cutting fuel, which, as we have seen, was formerly the case in the Forest, or an assessment on the houses according to the number of hearths, but more probably the former.^[5] The general reader will scarcely care for more, but I trust elsewhere to give further extracts from these most interesting books.

Turning back to the Registers, let me add from the Ibbesley Parish Register Book, as so few people have seen a specimen, an entry of an affidavit of burial in a woollen shroud, in compliance with the Act passed in 1679, for the encouragement of the woollen manufacture in England.^[6] It thus runs, placed opposite to the entry of the person's burial, and written in the same handwriting:—"Jan. 9^th, 1678/79, I rec^d a certificate from Mr. Roger Clavell, Justice of y^e peace at Brokenhurst, that Thomas King and Anthony King, sons of Anthony King, deceased, did make oath before him, the sayd Roger Clavell, that the aforesayd Antony King was buried according to the late Act of Parliament."

And again, opposite to the entries of their deaths, we find—"November 11^th.—Certified by John Torbuck, Vicar of Ellingham, y^t Edward Baily and Nicholas Baily, of Ibsely, were buried in woollen only."

Pope's lines on Mrs. Oldfield need hardly here be quoted. To conclude, of the parish books in the district let me only say that at Fordingbridge may be found an inventory of all the church furniture for 1554; at Christchurch, notes of a Papist buried by women, for no one else would place her in the grave; and entries of lay marriages; at Ibbesley, lists of collections "towards the redemption of the poor slaves out of Turkey," "for the poor French Protestants," "for the redemption of captives," and "for the distressed Protestants beyond the sea,"—all testifying to the social and moral condition of the people, without which it is impossible to give the history of any district or any country.

Footnotes

1. The following dates prior to 1700 of the Parish Registers in the Forest district are taken from the Parish Register Abstract: Accounts and Papers: 1833, vol. xxviii (No. 13), p. 398:—

   Eling	1537	|	Milton	1654
   Christchurch	1586	|	Lymington	1662
   Milford	1594	|	Dibden	1665
   Boldre	1596	|	Fawley	1673
   Ellingham	1596	|	Breamore	1675
   Bramshaw (loose leaves)	1598	|	Sopley	1678
   Fordingbridge	1642	|	Minestead	1682
   Beaulieu	1654	|	Ringwood	1692
   Ibbesley	1654	|	Brockenhurst	1693

2. See chapter v., p. 51, foot-note.
3. Part of the Act is quoted in Burn's History of Parish Registers, second edition, pp. 26 and 27, and where, at pp. 159, 160, 161, are given several examples of this kind of marriage—amongst them, that of Oliver Cromwell's daughter Frances, in 1657, from the Register of St. Martin's-in-the Fields.
4. Burn, in his History of Parish Registers, second edition, pp. 171, 172, 173, gives several similar instances of such licences. These most valuable books at Ellingham are, notwithstanding the incumbent's care, in a shocking state of preservation. I trust some transcript of them may be made before they quite fall to pieces. Ellingham also possesses another book containing the names of the owners of the different pews in the church in 1672, invaluable to any local historian. In the beginning of this book are inserted a number of law-forms of agreements, wills, and indentures, probably for the use of the clergyman, who was, perhaps, consulted by his parishioners in worldly as also spiritual matters. In the Register there is, unfortunately, no mention of the death of Alice Lisle, as the burials are torn out from 1664 to 1695.
5. See Notes and Queries. First Series, vol. ii., pp. 344, 345. In the Churchwardens' Books of Fordingbridge we find—"1609. For smokemony, for makynge and deliveringe of the bills xvj^d," which would confirm the first explanation given in the text.
6. 30 Car. II., cap. iii. See Journals of the House of Commons, vol. viii., p. 650; ix., p. 440. In Burn's History of Parish Registers, second edition, p. 117, may be found a much more complicated affidavit than those given in the text.