The receipts of the churchwardens in 1680 amounted to £53. 1s. 3d.; disbursements, £57. 13s. 5d. In 1683, receipts, £117; disbursements, only £48. In 1684, receipts, £144; expenditure, £62. In 1705, receipts, £131; expenses, £154. Pentecostals (a sum raised at a farthing per head from the householders in a chapelry or dependent church, and paid to the mother church at Whitsuntide--hence called "Whitsun farthings") were paid to the Dean and Chapter, St. Swithin's being a rectory in the gift of that body. Dr. Burn in his "Ecclesiastical Law," vol. iii, p. 110, says--"Pentecostals, otherwise called Whitsun farthings, took their name from the usual time of payment at the feast of Pentecost. These are spoken of in a remarkable grant of King Henry VIII [dated January 25, 1541] to the Dean and Chapter of Worcester, in which he makes over to them all those oblations and obventions, or spiritual profits, commonly called Whitsun farthings, yearly collected or received of divers towns within the archdeaconry of Worcester, and offered at the time of Pentecost. From hence it appears that Pentecostals were oblations." "These oblations grew by degrees into fixed and certain payments from every parish and every house in it, as appears not only from the aforementioned grant of King Henry VIII, but also from a passage in the Articles of the Clergy in the Convocation in the year 1399, where the sixth article is an humble request to the archbishops and bishops that it may be declared whether Peter's Pence, the Holy Loaf, and Pentecostals, were to be paid by the occupiers of the lands though the tenements were fallen or not inhabited, according to the ancient custom when every parish paid a certain quota. These are still paid in certain dioceses, being now only a charge upon particular churches, where by custom they have been paid; and if they be denied where they are due, they are recoverable in the spiritual court." A table of the Whitsun farthings payable in every parish in the diocese of Worcester is given by Dr. Nash in his "History of Worcestershire," vol. i. The clerk's wages in 1690 amounted to £2. 4s. 8d.; the sexton's, 18s.; and the ringers seemed to have had a perpetual license to make as much noise as they liked, and on all occasions, however contradictory: for instance-- "1688.--May 29. Wringing for the birth of the Prince of Wales, 10s. "Paid for the discharging of the bishopps, 10s. "July.--Wringing on the day of the late king's nativity, 5s. "Wringing for proclaiming the King and Queen, £1. "At ye news from Ireland, 2s."