By the Rev. J. Wilkinson. 17 



they seem to have retired from the thankless duty of finding fault, 

 without finding a remedy ; accordingly the more recent present- 

 ments are meagre, while the courts are held at long intervals 

 (now every three years), instead of every six months as in the 

 olden time. We are suffering under their failure. Our high poor 

 rates are owing to those very encroachments against which they 

 protested in vain. Had the Homage been properly supported by 

 the lords of the manor and by the stewards, the population, squat- 

 ting hibcrnice on the margin of the common, would have been kept 

 down, and the farmers here would not have had to support out of 

 their profits those who contribute nothing by their industry to the 

 agricultural employments of the place. They console themselves 

 by the reflection — " delicto, majorum immeritus luis," — meaning 

 by majorum, lords and stewards. 



I should add that, from some old Bradford papers, it appears that 

 " the ty thing of Broughton" (as it is called) paid at Michaelmas 

 yearlyl6 d . at the court of the Abbess of Shaston at Bradford. The 

 Abbess, being lady of the manor of Bradford, held a court for the 

 hundred of Bradford, as well as for the borough of Bradford. And 

 Broughton, being in the hundred, made the payment at the hun- 

 dred court. 



Parochial Registers. 



These begin 1665, 1 old style, Edmund Proby, who happily wrote 

 an excellent hand, being Rector. They have been kept with toler- 

 able regularity, excepting the baptisms between 29th November, 

 1812, and 25th April, 1813. The entries are in separate columns, 

 and appear from the first to have been made singly and contem- 

 poraneously with the events recorded. During a vacancy in the 

 incumbency the clerk seems to have made the entries, but generally 

 the clergyman was the writer, signing his own name and sometimes 

 those of the churchwardens at the foot of each page. 2 The induc- 



1 Earlier Registi rs going back to the H5th century once existed, but are now- 

 lost. They were here in 1786, for the then Rector made some extracts from 

 them at that date. In 1831 they were gone, as appears from a Parliamentary 

 return then made. I have made every inquiry for the missing volume, but as 

 yet without success. The loss is serious, and scandalous too. 



* In accordance with a constitution made by the Archbishop and Clergy of 



C 



