240 ' JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
Archbishop Boniface “decreed “that if the parishioners should 
maliciously withhold the accustomed alms, they should be earnestly 
admonished to render the same, and, if need be, shall be compelled 
by ecclesiastical censure.” These alms were to be collected and 
levied according to the manner and custom of the place, which, in- 
asmuch as it concernest the increase of divine worship, ought not to 
be changed at pleasure. And then Lyndwood (from whom I quote) 
goes on, and here is the explanation we want: ‘“‘And custom of 
this kind is good and laudable, that every master of a family (for 
instance), on every Lord’s-day, give to the clerk bearing the holy 
water somewhat according to the exigency of his condition, and 
that on Christmas-day he have of every house one loaf of bread, and 
a certain number of eggs at Easter, and in the autumn certain 
sheaves. Also, that may be called a laudable custom where such 
clerk every quarter of the year received something in certain in money 
for his sustenance, which ought to be collected and levied in the 
whole parish. For such laudable custom is to be observed, an1 to 
this the parishioners ought to be compelled ; for, having paid the 
same for so long a time, it shall be presumed that at first they 
voluntarily bound themselves thereunto.” * Notwithstanding which, 
I am afraid, if the present worthy parish clerk was to attempt to 
collect quarter-pence in the parish of St. Andrew, we should proba- 
bly have disturbances to rival those we have recently heard of in 
Exeter. We thus see that a payment for wages, in lieu of loaves, 
eggs, corn, or otherwise, and a quarterly payment in money, was 
continued in Plymouth after the new state of things began at the 
Church. I suppose when the civil war began, and Puritanism was 
rampant here, all endeavours to collect such moneys failed, even if 
any were made, and although the churchwardens evidently hoped 
to revive the custom, their hopes were disappointed. Although they 
received, as I have said, about £20 per annum from this source, they 
paid the unfortunate clerk off with less than half the sum. 
With a few extracts of interest, I must leave the accounts. 
1635-6. Gyles was paid 10s. ‘‘ for keeping out the dogges and 
keeping in the boyes.” Such perverseness! This is a constant 
entry, and one we meet with in many parish accounts. It is some- 
what strange to find dogs so troublesome in churches, They are not 
so now. It has been suggested that it was usual for the rat-catcher 
* Lyndwood, 148. Burn’s Eccl. Law, vol. iii. 
