Hobhouse prefixed to an edition of the surviving _Churchwardens'
Accounts_ of a number of Somersetshire parishes.

'The (parish) community was completely organized with a constitution
which recognized the rights of the whole and of every adult member to a
voice in self-government, but kept the self-governing community under a
system of inspection and (if need should be) restraint from central
authority.' 'The whole adult population were accounted parishioners,
and had an equal voice {114} when assembled for consultation under the
rector. Seeing that both sexes served the office of warden, there can
be no doubt that both had a vote.'

The strongly existing spirit of good will and pride in the parish
church found all the necessary funds for the maintaining of the church
and the services, and for the provision of often a sumptuous and rich
treasury of ornaments. The needs of the Church were met generally by
the local industry of 'such as were wise-hearted'--builders,
carpenters, workers in gold and silver, bell-founders, embroiderers,
writers, illuminators, book-binders, and others.

Hard by the church the church-house was the centre of the popular
recreations of the holy day or holiday.

The parish elected and paid its own officers, except the rector, and
the affairs and ornaments of the church, even in part the arrangement
of the services, were under the government, not of the rector, but of
the parish meeting, of which he was president, under the restraining
hand of the rural dean and archdeacon.

The support of the poor or disabled was a wholly voluntary matter.
'The brotherhood tie was so strongly realized by the community, that
{115} the weaker ones were succoured by the stronger as out of a family
store.'

'All the tendency of the feudal system, working through the machinery
of the manorial court, was to _keep the people down_. All the tendency
of the parochial system, working through the parish council, holding
its assemblies in the churches, where the people met on equal terms as
children and servants of the living God, and members of one body in
Christ Jesus, was to _lift the people up_.' In these assemblies there
was no distinction between lord and vassal, high and low, rich and
poor; in them the people learnt the worth of being free. Here were the
schools in which, in the slow course of centuries, they were
disciplined to self-help, self-reliance and self-respect[13].

No doubt these descriptions