190 Some Account of the Parish of Monition Farleigh. 



There are only five adult and one private baptisms recorded. In 

 1786-87-88-91-92 baptismal entries marked with a cross are noted 

 as "exempt from the tax/' on the ground that the parents were 

 receiving 1 relief from the parish. So we evidently passed through 

 that evil time when baptismal fees were the rule. The entries of 

 " Base-born, spurious or illegitimate'''' children commence in 1651 

 and close in 1831. They are fifty-four within the one hundred and 

 eighty years. The custom was apparently to baptise under any 

 circumstances, so I imagine that these figures fairly represent our 

 moral character in this respect, but I note that in one series of years, 

 when there was no resident rector, the evil was peculiarly rampant, 

 and thus much of our immorality had no doubt its root in the neglect 

 of spiritual oversight. 



The analysis of Christian names is, in a small way, quite a history 

 in itself. The earliest names, both of men and women, are pure 

 Norman or Saxon: — Chrystopher, Edward, Giles, Henry, John, 

 Perigord, Robert, Richard, Thomas, William, Walter, or Alice, Agnes, 

 A vice, Bridget, Cybil, Gyllyan, Joan, Maude, Margaret, Marion, and 

 so on. Then certain names only come in with the Sovereigns, as 

 Charles (1656), and Elizabeth (1585), and Mary 1578). Then 

 comes a flood of old Scripture names with the Commonwealth : — 

 Abigail, Deborah, Dinah, Esther, Hannah, Judith, Kezia, Leah, 

 Miriam, Ruth, Rebecca, Rachel, or Abraham, Aaron, Benjamin, 

 David, Daniel, Ephraim, Enoch, Elisha, Jacob, Joshua, Joseph, 

 Jonathan, Joel, Jeremiah, Isaac, Mary, Mordecai, Obadiah, Solomon, 

 Samuel. Interspersed are the Quaker names of Timothy, Betty, 

 Joyce, Martha, Prudence, Pleasant, Patience, and so on. Later on 

 are the Charlottes and Georges of Hanover, and occasioaally are 

 names in honor of the manor house — as the Anna-Maria of the 

 Somersets. 



The surnames over a period of three hundred years are compara- 

 tively few, and amongst them are many like those of the Bolwells, 

 the Deverells, the Ganes, and the Godwins, where the same family 

 is lineally traceable throughout, and there is scarcely one family in 

 the parish now which has not, in name at least, been in the parish 

 always. I give particulars in Appendix E. 



