The Parish Registers. 27 



ful register of all Urths, marriages and burials within the parish of 

 All Cannings since the 29th Septr., 1653," Jeoffrey Simpkins who 

 was appointed by the Tryers, and held the living from 1646 to 1651, 

 has made a few baptismal entries. There have been some fraudulent 

 excisions and erasures from the register. The burial entries from 

 1664 — 1680 are irregular. In a period of 18 years, from 1680 till 

 1698, there are no baptisms recorded. Possibly some leaves of the 

 register, on which they are written, have been torn out. 



In the oldest register book there are two references to Archi- 

 episcopal visitations at Devizes. Thus in one place it is said, " All 

 the names above written were delivered up at the Archbishop's 

 visitation at the Devizes, the 31st May 1613." A similar entry is 

 found in the year 1610, and both statements are signed by " Eobert 

 Matthewe, Curate." It would be interesting to ascertain whether 

 other parochial registers refer to these metropolitical visitations ^ 

 which would seem to have taken place during the episcopate of 

 Henry Cotton who held the see of Salisbury from 1598 till 1615. 

 The Archbishop, in tho earlier visitation, was Richard Bancroft, — 

 in the later, Greorge Abbot, whose elder brother, Robert Abbot, 

 became two years afterwards Bishop of Salisbury. In the Church- 

 wardens' accounts of another "Wiltshire parish, we have notice 

 of earlier metropolitical visitations. Thus under the date 1577 is 

 the following entry : — " Item, at the Bysshopp of Canterbury his 

 visitacon, expenses xvid." — And in an accompanying inventory of 

 the church books a like circumstance is thus alluded to : — "Articles 

 to be enquired in the Metropoliticall visitacon of the reverends 

 father in God, Matthewe, Archebyshopp of Canterbury." One of 

 these must have taken place between 1559 and 1576, when Matthew 

 Parker held the See of Canterbury ; the other, under his immediate 

 successor. Archbishop Grindal. 



Under the date of 1625 we have the following entry : — 

 " ^emoranUum, — that upon the 21st day of August, 1625, the book of 



* In 1634 and the following years, Ai'chbishop Laud was engaged in a Metro- 

 political visitation of the Province of Canterbury. His right to do so, as far 

 as the Diocese of Lincoln was concerned, was disputed by Bishop Williams, 

 but on an appeal to the Lords of the Council, the Archbishop's claim was es- 

 tablished. See Le Bas' Life of Archbishop Laud, pp. 186, 203. 



