time hath been accustomed, they taking for their teaching as belongeth
thereto"; and at the church of St. Nicholas, Bristol, in 1481, this duty
of teaching is implied in the order that the clerk ought not to take any
book out of the choir for children to learn in without licence of the
procurators. We may conclude, therefore, that the task of teaching the
children of the parish not unusually devolved upon the clerk, and that
some knowledge of Latin formed part of the instruction given, which
would be essential for those who took part in the services of
the church.

Nor were his labours yet finished. In John Myrc's _Instructions to
Parish Priests_, a poem written not later than 1450, a treatise
containing good sound morality, and a good sight of the ecclesiastical
customs of the Middle Ages, we find the following lines:

"When thou shalt to seke[30] _gon_
Hye thee fast and _go_ a-non;
For if thou tarry thou dost amiss,
Thou shalt guyte[31] that soul I wys.
When thou shalt to seke gon,
A clene surples caste thee on;
Take thy stole with thee ry't,[32]
And put thy hod ouer thy sy't[33]
Bere thyne ost[34] a-nout thy breste
In a box that is honeste;
Make thy clerk before thee synge,
To bere light and belle ringe."

[Footnote 30: Sick.]