34 REPTON CHURCHWARDENS ACCOUNTS. 



I. The 17th of November is the day set apart in the Anglican 

 Calendar for the commemoration of S. Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln. 

 It was also the day of the accession of Queen Elizabeth. The 

 latter reason was doubtless the cause of Repton bells being rung 

 on that date, but it is interesting to find that the people were true 

 to their Prayer Book in giving the day that nomenclature which 

 the Church had conferred upon it. In 1576, Archbishop Grindal 

 issued " a Fourme of Prayer with Thanksgevying to be used every 

 yeere,the 17 of November, beyng the day of the Queenes Majesties 

 Entrie to her Raigne." There are metrical anthems appended to 

 the edition of 1578. 



II. It is also interesting to note the 24th of March, described 

 as "Our Lady's Even," a term that is used in our own Prayer 

 Book, but which in later times came to be ignorantly regarded as 

 peculiarly Roman. " The preservation of our Queene " refers 

 to the " Babington conspiracy." Anthony Babington, of 

 Dethick, and thirteen others, were executed on September 

 20th and 21st, 1586. 



III. The keeping of a parish bull was by no means an excep- 

 tional incident, but was only part of the general semi-communistic 

 principles upon which the unenclosed lands of England {i.e., by 

 far the largest portion of the soil) were then, and for long after- 

 wards, held. We have met with entries relative to the parish bull 

 in the early parish accounts of Allestree, Marston-on-Dove, and 

 Tickenhall, and, in short, in all the old accounts of Derbyshire 

 parishes that we have searched. At Eckington there was a parish 

 boar. 



IV. It seems rather hard on the Churchwardens to make them 

 pay for a certificate of their own excommunication. The reason 

 for this excommunication appears to be explained by the next 

 entry, wherein is mentioned their appearance at Derby to certify 

 to the due glazing of Repton church. The excommunication 

 would doubtless be issued under the Archdeacon's seal, of which 

 there are several post-Reformation instances, owing to persistent 

 neglect in the repair of the church. 



V. The names of twenty-two persons contributing sums varying 

 from id. to 3d. to this levy for providing the elements for Holy 



