CHAPTER III

THE MEDIÆVAL CLERK

At the present time loud complaints are frequently heard of a lack of
clergy. Rectors and vicars are sighing for assistant curates, the vast
populations of our great cities require additional ministration, and the
mission field is crying out for more labourers to reap the harvests of
the world. It might be well in this emergency to inquire into the
methods of the mediæval Church, and observe how the clergy in those days
faced the problem, and gained for themselves tried and trusty helpers.

One method of great utility was to appoint poor scholars to the office
of parish clerk, by a due discharge of the duties of which they were
trained to serve in church and in the parish, and might ultimately hope
to attain to the ministry. This is borne out by the evidence of wills
wherein some good incumbent, grateful for the faithful services of his
clerk, bequeaths either books or money to him, in order to enable him to
prepare himself for higher preferment. Thus in 1389 the rector of Marum,
one Robert de Weston, bequeaths to "John Penne, my clerk, a missal of
the New Use of Sarum, if he wishes to be a priest, otherwise I give him
20 s." In 1337 Giles de Gadlesmere leaves "to William Ockam, clerk, two
shillings, unless he be promoted before my death." Evidently it was no
unusual practice in early times for the clerk to be raised to Holy
Orders, his office being regarded as a stepping-stone to higher
preferment. The status of the clerk was then of no servile character.

A canon of Newburgh asked for Sir William Plumpton's influence that his