ABSTRACT
The ecclesiastical work of the clerk in minor orders was distinctly part-time and unpaid, confined to divine service and involving no pastoral responsibilities and no cure of souls; its extent depended both upon the need of the parish for his assistance and upon his sincerity of intention; for the most part such clerks who were of age lived as laymen and worked their patrimony or found other secular employment. For the boys and youths who must have constituted a significant proportion of the minor clergy, their assistance would largely be in the choir and their other employment in study, if not at some local school, under the direction of the organist (as happened at a London church) or of a chaplain or of the parish clerk. 1 In the thirteenth century the office of holy water clerk had been regarded as a benefice reserved, as a kind of exhibition, from the alms of parishioners for scholars named by the incumbent; but by our period this had been assimilated, or had evolved, into the office of parish clerk, whose holders were often far from youthful and long since scholars: Richard Pond, aquebaiulus of Theydon Garnon in 1522 was also described as clericus parochialis and was then 28 years old, having occupied the office four years; John Trew was parish clerk of Burton Pidsea for at least thirty-seven years, Henry Newson at Bugthorpe for twenty-eight, Richard Eland at North Newbald for more than fourteen, and there were many more like them. 2
