we are mainly concerned.



CHAPTER II

THE ANTIQUITY AND CONTINUITY OF THE OFFICE OF CLERK

The office of parish clerk can claim considerable antiquity, and dates
back to the times of Augustine and King Ethelbert. Pope Gregory the
Great, in writing to St. Augustine of Canterbury with regard to the
order and constitution of the Church in new lands and under new
circumstances, laid down sundry regulations with regard to the clerk's
marriage and mode of life. King Ethelbert, by the advice of his
Witenagemote, introduced certain judicial decrees, which set down what
satisfaction should be given by those who stole anything belonging to
the church. The purloiner of a clerk's property was ordered to restore
threefold[2]. The canons of King Edgar, which may be attributed to the
wise counsel of St. Dunstan, ordered every clergyman to attend the synod
yearly and to bring his clerk with him.

[Footnote 2: Bede's _Hist. Eccles_., ii. v.]

Thus from early Saxon times the history of the office can be traced.

His name is merely the English form of the Latin _clericus_, a word
which signified any one who took part in the services of the Church,
whether he was in major or minor orders. A clergyman is still a "clerk
in Holy Orders," and a parish clerk signified one who belonged to the
rank of minor orders and assisted the parish priest in the services of