By the Rev. W. C. Plenderleath. 305 



the Empire. By an edict issued in A.D. 170 he directed all Roman 

 citizens to report the birth of their children within thirty days to 

 the " prsefectns OErarii/^ the record of which was preserved in the 

 temple o£ Saturn. And public officers called " Tabularii " were ap- 

 pointed for the same purpose in the provinces. (See Capitol. M. 

 Anton. Phil. cap. 9.) These officers were afterwards known as 

 " commentarienses." (Paulus T)\g., B. 49., Tit. xiv., d. 45.) 



Of foreig-n mediaeval registers I have been able to learn scarcely 

 anything, save that there are some to be met witb as early as 1308 

 in France, and that in Spain Cardinal Ximenes ordered registers to 

 be kept in every parish as early as 1497.^ At Florence it is stated 

 by a writer in the (Quarterly Review, vol. Ixxiii., p. 561, that a sort 

 of rude annual record of the number of baptisms used to be kept by 

 putting into a bag a white bean for every girl baptized, and a black 

 bean for every boy, and counting tbem over at the end of the year. 

 This was at the Church of St. John, where all baptisms in the city 

 then took (and in fact, still take) place, and if true, would appear 

 to exclude the probability of any nominal registration. 



But to come to England. Now the origin of parochial registers 

 in this country is no further back than the thirtieth year of Henry 

 VIII., when we find an injunction issued by Lord Cromwell, in his 

 capacity of Vicar-General, directing a book to be kept for every 

 parish in a coffer with two keys, one of which keys is to remain in 

 the possession of the parson, and one in that of the churchwardens. 

 Entries are to be made by the parson on Sundays of such functions 

 as he had performed dm-ing the previous week, in presence of the 

 churchwardens. These injunctions were issued in September, 1538, 

 and I see no reason to doubt but that they were pretty generally ob- 

 served, though in many cases probably with no great good-will. I 

 have come across a curious letter, preserved among the records of 



* Spain is one of the few European countries which has not adopted the pro- 

 visions of the Code Napoleon in respect of registration. The old system is still 

 in force, and appears to be very eifectively carried out, it being compulsory on 

 the parochial clergy to add an alphabetical index to each volume as it is com- 

 fleted. 



