226 The New Forest: its History and its Scenery. 



CHAPTER XIX, 



PARISH REGISTERS AND CHURCHWARDENS' BOOKS. 



Boldre Church. 



As the monasteries of former days preserved the general records 

 of the times, so, in a minor degree, do our churches preserve 

 the special history of our villages. In the social life of the past 

 our Church Books are the counterpart of our Corporation Books, 

 performing quite as much for their own parishes as the latter 

 for their boroughs; not only giving, in the register, a yearly 

 census of the population, but by the Churchwardens' Accounts 

 the social and religious life of each period. 



