issal are so closely regulated by law that incumbents and
churchwardens have to be very careful lest they in any way transgress
the legal enactments and judgments of the courts. It is not an easy
matter to dismiss an undesirable clerk: it is almost as difficult as to
disturb the parson's freehold; and unless the clerk be found guilty of
grievous faults, he may laugh to scorn the malice of his enemies and
retain his office while life lasts.

It may be useful, therefore, to devote a chapter to the laws relating to
parish clerks--a chapter which some of my readers who have no liking for
legal technicalities can well afford to skip.

As regards his qualifications the clerk must be at least twenty years of
age, and known to the parson as a man of honest conversation, and
sufficient for his reading, writing, and for his competent skill in
singing, "if it may be[85]." The visitation articles of the seventeenth
century frequently inquire whether the clerk be of the age of twenty
years at least.

[Footnote 85: Canon 91 (1603).]

The method of his appointment has caused much disputing. With whom does
the appointment rest? In former times the parish clerk was always
nominated by the incumbent both by common law and the custom of the
realm. This is borne out by the constitution of Archbishop Boniface and
the 91st Canon, which states that "No parish clerk upon any vacation
shall be chosen within the city of London or elsewhere, but by the
parson or vicar: or where there is no parson or vicar, by the minister
of that place for the time being; which choice shall be signified by the
said minister, vicar or parson, to the parishioners the next Sunday
following, in the time of Divine Service."

But this arrangement has often been the subject of dispute between the
parson and his flock as to the right of the former to appoint the clerk.
In pre-Reformation times there was a diversity of practice, some
parishioners claiming the right to elect the clerk, as they provided the
offerings by which he lived. A terrible scene occurred in the fourteenth
century at one church. The parishioners appointed a clerk, and the
rector selected another. The rector was celebrating Mass, assisted by
his clerk, when the people's candidate approached the altar and nearly
murdered his rival, so that blood was shed in the sanctuary.

Custom in many churches sanctioned the right of the parishioners, who
sometimes neglected to exercise it, and the choice of cl