A List of Brief s from the Register Books of Langley Burrell. 449 



"the authority of the Commonwealth, 1653, Cromwell himself con- 

 tributing £200. 



In the Stamp Act, 1698, Briefs were exempted from all fiscal 

 imposts. 



The system of Briefs began to grow into disfavour in the time 

 of Pepys. In his Diary, 30th June, 1661, in which year no less 

 than fifty-one Briefs were granted, he noted: — 



" To church where we observe that the trade in Briefs is come now 

 up to so constant a course every Sunday that we resolve to give no 

 more to them." 



The above notes are taken from Fire Insurance Companies, by 

 F. B. Belton, whilst the footnotes accompanying this list of briefs 

 are from a valuable paper by the Rev. Canon Maddock in The 

 Transactions of the East Biding Antiquarian Society, 1899, pp. 

 84 — 99. "Kecords of Church Briefs published and collected in 

 South Holderness parishes." The author very truly says: — "I 

 venture to think that not only by students of local antiquities, but 

 by all who wish to gain an intimate knowledge of the history of 

 the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, far more attention 

 should be devoted to the subject of Church Briefs than has hitherto 

 been the case. We have been accustomed, perhaps, to regard the 

 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as times of deadness and 

 coldness of heart, but such false impressions are corrected by these 

 records. The large sums of money contributed on the Briefs, 

 whenever an appeal was made for any great and worthy cause, 

 show us that we have no reason to be ashamed of want of 

 generosity on the part of our ancestors in the seventeenth and ' 

 eighteenth centuries." 



It was ordered that " in every parish or chapelry and separate 

 congregation a register should be kept by the minister or teacher 

 there of all monies collected by virtue of such Briefs, the occasion 

 of the Brief and the time when the same was collected." In most 

 parishes, probably, these accounts were kept in separate books, 

 which have for the most part perished, but in many registers lists 

 of such Briefs occur, but it is very rare to find so long and complete 

 a list as this which is here printed. 



