Churchwardens and their Accounts
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Parishes and churchwardens
Churchwardens, averred Giles Jacob succinctly, “are very ancient officers”, being “in the nature of a corporation to take care of the goods of the church” (Jacob, 1750: 105). Typically, an early modern parish had two churchwardens, serving two-year terms, with the terms offset so that there was always an experienced warden. In the long run, though, their position and role underwent considerable changes. There are already men so described in some of the handful of parishes for which fourteenth-century documentation survives, but role of churchwardens was particularly significant in early modern English parishes.
Among the many impacts of the Reformation at local level was the dissolution of the lay fraternities or parish guilds through which lay parishioners had been involved in church life and management. In town and country alike, pre-Reformation parishes frequently contained a plethora of bodies with specific roles, in fundraising, in the building and decoration of the church, in services, festivals and celebrations; and in everyday maintenance. Fraternities often assumed full responsibility for particular occasions or activities on behalf of the parish, contributing to a rich and varied church community. Churchwardens in such parishes had relatively limited roles connected to the condition and furniture of the church itself. The disappearance of parish fraternities after the Reformation created something of an administrative and participatory vacuum regarding many low-level tasks that had kept parish life running smoothly.
Most post-Reformation parishes had two churchwardens whose role, within a more centralised parish administration, expanded into those formerly fraternity-based activities that survived the reformation. Exceptionally, some very large upland parishes had four churchwardens, and some large multi-township parishes in northern England had ‘chapelwardens’ for each of their component chapelries, reporting to the parish authority.
Early modern churchwardens’ roles were practical rather than governmental. They were explicitly the servants of - and responsible to - the parish, control of which lay with a combination of the incumbent, the holders of the advowson, and leading parishioners. The parishioners were often constituted as a named group of leading parish figures, often referred to by labels like ‘the twenty four’. Churchwardens were required, for example, to provide accounts, usually six-monthly, sometimes yearly, for auditing. Such informal-sounding groups as ‘the twenty four’ or ‘the sixteen’ became formalised as the vestry, a term applied both to the prominent parishioners, and to its modern sense, of the room in which the group met.
As Tudor rulers charged parishes with ever-greater secular responsibilities, they extended parishes’ powers to levy rates for purposes beyond church maintenance, into the civic roles of supporting the sick and poor, and maintaining the roads. Parishes also picked up some disciplinary functions previously exercised by manorial courts, and became more built into the formal legal structures that fed local cases into courts of quarter sessions.
Only in the very smallest parishes could all these roles be discharged by a single part-time official, and churchwardens were one role alongside others. Constables had responsibilities for day-to-day law and order, in reporting offences, and indicting offenders, to courts. The overseers of the poor were responsible for the provision of poor relief or welfare, in cash or in kind, to those of the orphaned, sick, lame, elderly, or otherwise incapable deemed to entitled receive charity. Parishes did not have a general responsibility to people dwelling within them, and overseers acted to remove temporary residents or travellers back to the parishes where their settlement entitled them to relief. Surveyors of the Highways raised funds with which to ensure the adequate state of highways and bridges, and oversaw the materials and labour involved in building and repair work. Each of these offices prepared annual accounts for the scrutiny and approval of the vestry. In addition, most parishes had a parish clerk, and a sexton, ‘on call’ for routine, day-to-day maintenance tasks.
As parish administrative functions parishes increased, and responsibilities were split among parish offices operating within greater numbers of Parliamentary statutes, several books appeared to guide those performing the increasingly complex tasks. Indeed, if never best-sellers, guides for parish officers were staple sellers for some early modern publishers. Among the earliest handbooks was William Lambarde’s Duties of Constables, etc. in 1582, with some eight pages on the duties of churchwardens and statutes relevant to the office. By the mid-eighteenth century, Giles Jacob’s The Complete Parish Officer ran to 269 pages in its 1750 edition, with no fewer than 96 pages on the duties and offices of churchwardens and the overseers of the poor.
Not until the nineteenth century did the formal administrative roles of parishes decline, when vestries’ charge of the poor was transferred to new Poor Law Unions in 1834, and when civil and ecclesiastical elements in parish administration were separated in the 1890s. In early modern England, though, the vestry remained central to parish authority through its influence, along with vicars and major gentry landowners, on the appointment of parish officers, and setting their priorities.
Churchwardens and church authorities
Churchwardens were responsible not just to their parishioners, but to higher ecclesiastical authorities, principally the bishop of their diocese, and the relevant archdeaconry and deanery authorities. Wardens could make ‘presentments’ of errant clergy or parishioners to the authorities at the relevant archdeaconry court, usually held twice a year. Typically these covered behaviour such as non-conformity, non-attendance at church, or drinking and brawling at service times.
In addition, church authorities conducted ‘visitations’. These were periodic inspections made by a bishop, or (more often) a subordinate, who examined incumbents and churchwardens, usually around precirculated questions. Lists of questions were sometimes published in advance: on the condition of the church and other buildings; on the provision of, and attendance at, services; on the financing of the church and parish; on the appropriate instruction of children; and on the state of parish property. This last category ranged widely from church bells, plate, and service items, to the pews and doors within the church, and the churchyard and fences outside it. It also covered books, whether used in services (bibles, prayer books, etc), or in record-keeping (parish registers, accounts).
In the main, visitations confined themselves to ecclesiastical life in the parish, rather than non-religious functions situated in the church for practical convenience, such as church clocks and public timekeeping.
Churchwardens’ Accounts
Churchwardens’ accounts were among the many types of documentary record kept in parish churches. The term ‘parish chest’ was originally the physical location of such material, and later became a collective name for all kinds of parish business records: churchwardens’ and other accounts, minute books, parish registers, legal documents, and so on (Tate. 19__).
Churchwardens retained receipts for their expenditure, and copies of the receipts they had given for sums received. They compiled draft accounts, usually covering a period of twelve months (but occasionally six-monthly or two-yearly) which, when accepted, were copied into the parish books. Despite extensive publication of handbooks for churchwardens, there is neither as a standard account format, nor a uniform level of detail in recording across the country.
The form of accounts follows the charge-discharge principal in which the account first lists sums received (the ‘charge’ for which wardens stand in debt to the parish) followed by their spending (the ‘discharge’ of that debt). Those auditing (literally hearing) the account could accept or reject particular items in the account. At the close of the account the wardens returned the sum remaining in their hands, or sought repayment of sums owed to them.
Most extant accounts are the approved accounts accepted by the vestry, so they represent the end of the spending process, and it is rare for either draft accounts, or the collections of receipts on which they were based, to survive. Where they survive, the latter are usually much more detailed than the final accounts. Even so, for a surprisingly long period, especially given the expense and/or difficulties in obtaining large paper books, ink, and writing skills, many final accounts preserve considerable detail. The other side of the coin, of course, is that working through those detailed accounts can be a very large, and time-consuming, undertaking.
In the late-seventeenth century, when parishes were receiving accounts from several different officers, it becomes more common for parishes to enter a rather summary form of each in their main account book, and to retain the submitted and audited account either a loose sheets, or bound into separate book for each post. As this practice becomes more widespread towards the end of the seventeenth century, many parish account books become so brief and formulaic as to be relatively uninformative. For many research purposes, the survival of the fuller version of accounts is critical. It is important in a systematic analysis of information in churchwardens’ accounts, therefore, to appreciate whence in the process the extant documents derive. While this usually presents no difficulties, it does affect the transparency and value of the account as a record of spending.
Most surviving churchwardens’ accounts are now among the parish records in county archives and record offices, though some are to be found among private, estate, or other governmental papers. For a guide to the locations and call numbers of accounts used in this project, follow this link. 00000000.
Many accounts are now in a frail state. Many record offices make accounts available only on microfilm or microfiche, but some accounts require extensive repair before they can be photographed, and are not currently available in any form until after conservation has been completed. In using microform items, much depends on the quality of filming and of the viewing equipment.