o masses of requiem and all clerkes of London." "Poules
Choir and the Clarkes of London" united their services on some
occasions. Funeral sermons began to be considered an important part of
the function, and Machyn records the names of the preachers. Even though
such keen Protestants as Coverdale, Bishop Pilkington, Robert Crowley,
and Veron preached the sermons, twenty clerks of the company were
usually present singing. Machyn much disliked the innovations made by
the Puritan party, their singing "Geneva wise" or "the tune of Genevay,"
men, women, and children all singing together, without any clerk. Here
is a description of such a funeral on 7 March, 1559: "And there was a
great company of people two and two together, and neither priest nor
clarke, the new preachers in their gowns like laymen, neither singing
nor saying till they came to the grave, and afore she was put in the
grave, a collect in English, and then put in the grave, and after, took
some earth and cast it on the corse, and red a thyng ... for the sam,
and contenent cast the earth into the grave, and contenent read the
Epistle of St. Paul to the Stesselonyans the ... chapter, and after they
sang _Pater noster_ in English, bothe preachers and other, and ... of a
new fashion, and after, one of them went into the pulpit and made a
sermon." Machyn especially disliked the preacher Veron, rector of St.
Martin's, Ludgate, a French Protestant, who had been ordained by Bishop
Ridley, and was "a leader in the change from the old ecclesiastical
music for the services to the Psalms in metre, versified by Sternhold
and Hopkins[54]."

[Footnote 53: The notes of the harmony were pricked on the lines of
music.]

[Footnote 54: _Some Account of Parish Clerks_, by J. Christie, p. 153.]

The clerks indirectly caused the disgrace and suspension of Robert
Crowley, vicar of St. Giles, Cripplegate, and prebendary of St. Paul's
Cathedral, a keen Puritan and hater of clerkly ways. He loathed
surplices as "rags of Popery," and could not bear to see the clerks
marching in orderly procession singing and chanting. A funeral took
place at his church on 1 April, 1566. A few days before, the Archbishop
of Canterbury had issued his Advertisements ordering the use of the
surplice. The friends of the deceased had engaged the services of the
parish clerks, who, believing that the order with regard to the use of
surplices applied to them as well as to the clergy, appeared at the door
of t