e aid of generous benefactors, looks well after the
poor widows of clerks and the decayed brethren, bestowing upon them
adequate pensions for their support in their indigence and old age.
These benefactions entrusted to the care of the company, and the gifts
by its members of plate and other treasures, show the affectionate
regard of the parish clerks for their ancient and interesting
associations, which has done much to preserve the dignity of the office,
to keep inviolate its traditions, and to improve the status of
its members.
[Illustration: A PAGE OF THE BEDE ROLL OF THE PARISH CLERKS' COMPANY]
CHAPTER IX
THE CLERKS OF LONDON: THEIR DUTIES AND PRIVILEGES
A brief study of the history of the Parish Clerks' Company has already
revealed the important part which its members played in the old City
life of London. They were intimately connected with the Corporation. The
clerks held their services in the Guildhall Chapel, and were required on
Michaelmas Day to sing the Mass before the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and
commoners before they went to the election of a new Lord Mayor. As early
as the days of the famous Richard Whittington, on the occasion of his
first election to the mayoralty, which as the popular rhyme says he held
three times, we hear of their services being required for this
great function.
In the year 1406 it was ordered that "a Mass of the Holy Ghost should be
celebrated with solemn music in the chapel annexed to the Guildhall, to
the end that the same commonalty by the grace of the Holy Spirit might
be able peacefully and amicably to nominate two able and proper persons
to be mayor of the City for the ensuing year, the same Mass, by the
ordinance of the Chamberlain for the time being, to be solemnly chanted
by the finest singers, in the chapel aforesaid and upon that feast."
And when the Mass was no longer sung in the chapel of the Guildhall,
they still chanted the Psalms and anthems before and after divine
service and sermon, sometimes with the help of "two singing men of
Paul's," who received twelvepence apiece for their pains; and sometimes
the singing was done by a convenient number of the Clerks' Company most
skilful in singing, and deemed most fit by the master and wardens to
perform that service.
They were in great request at the great and stately funerals of the
sixteenth century, going before the hearse and singing with their
surplices hanging on their arms till they came to the chur
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