A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE The clergy list of 1605 ' throws light on one point of interest : it seems that the parish priests at the end of the Elizabethan period had at any rate the best education that the times could afford ; more than three-quarters of them were University graduates. Their stipends were very small : £j was the average, and very few rose above £12 ; Melch- bourne, Bletsoe and Stotfold were less than £6 ; while Cranfield with ^3 3, Luton with £35, and Blunham with £46 2s. od. were the richest. Pluralities were still common, as indeed they continued to be till very recently ; and with more excuse than in the pre-Reformation period. The archdeacon's visitations of 1610-20 2 show a few churches (not the same ones as before) out of repair. Totternhoe in particular is reported 'in great decay and like to fall down,' Ridgmont in 161 6 had not a ' sufficient Bible.' There are several cases of irreverence, open quarrelling and fighting in church, and presentations for immorality are very numerous. One or two clergy are accused of not being in orders, or not licensed to preach ; two for not wearing surplices ; two for neglecting their cure ; two for not reading prayers on Wednesdays and Fridays (in one case Saturdays). The presentations which sound strangest to modern ears are those for various forms of Sabbath-breaking, showing the prevalence of Puritan ideas. The open exercise of a trade, or stopping away from Sunday services to join in ' a football play,' we might expect to see condemned, but one man is accused of ' travelling his horses,' another for ' going towards London ' upon the Sabbath day ; and we are reminded of arch- deacons' visitations of a much earlier date by the presentation of one for fetching a load of wood upon a wagon upon a ' holliday, about Christ- mas,' and another for carting on St. Lukes Day, 3 and several for marrying in Lent. The accusation of' keeping company with one excommunicate' shows that the ancient discipline of the Church was still occasionally exercised 4 ; but the repetition of several of these presentations two or three months running shows that it had become difficult to enforce. At the Commissaries' Court in 1606 the churchwardens of Poding- ton presented their vicar, Thomas Whytbie, for not catechising and in- structing the youth and ignorant persons of the parish according to law, ' being thereunto required by J. Barnes, one of the churchwardens, and made a tushe and skorne thereat.' Whytbie was at the same time pre- sented for not wearing ' a typpet, hoode and square cap at the time of 1 Transcribed by Mr. Alfred Gibbons and printed in Beds N. and Q. The only notable man among the clergy in Bedfordshire at this time was Thos. Archer, rector of Houghton Conquest, and chaplain to James I. He was a great preacher (ibid. i. 89-98). 3 The reports are dated in one book, 1610-II and 1620, at Bedford ; in 1616-17 at Ampthill, where they seemed to be monthly. 3 At Milton Ernest one Walter Griffin was accused of ' setting his nets and catching larks upon a holiday' ! At Elstow a woman was presented for ' churching herself,' and stated that she had given the minister warning over night, but as he did not come she took the Book of Common Prayer and read the Thanksgiving openly herself. She was dismissed with a warning.
- Another illustration of the survival of ancient discipline is found in a licence dated 22 March
1632 (and renewed 30 March and 7 April) from the parish priest of Clophill, to « Sir Henry More and his lady Dame Elizabeth,' ' for eating flesh for the space of eight days, upon a Certificate fro' Mr. John More, Dr. of Physicke, y' Abstinence from Flesh would be very pi'iuditious to there health ' {Beds N. and Q. ii. 257) ; from the parish register at Clophill. 336
