Very similar to this bede-roll was what was known as the “Quethe-word,” for which fees are recorded so often as having been paid. Apparently this was the announcement of the death of a parishioner made for the first time after his decease. The fee for the speaking of this “Quethe-word” was usually paid by the wardens of the parish, but possibly only when bequests had been made by the deceased to the “common stock” of the parish. Besides this kind of Sunday notice, the pulpit was the means by which all manner of ecclesiastical or quasi-ecclesiastical business was notified. In the first place, of course, the banns of intended marriages were published on three successive Sundays and feast days. Then such warnings to parents were given as reminding them of the necessity of seeing that their children receive Confirmation, with the information that the bishop would either be in the church or in the neighbourhood at such a time. The Council of Oxford ordered that parish priests were frequently to warn parents from the pulpit about this duty of not delaying to bring up their children to the bishop. Then there were constant appeals being made for assistance of some kind or other, generally of a public or semi-public character, supported by an indulgence, or grant of spiritual favours from the bishop. To take an example: some time about 1270, Walter Langton, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, wrote a letter on behalf of a work, for which one John Perty was collecting. John Perty was the procurator and collector of the bridge at or near Colwich, and he was trying to get money to repair, or rather to rebuild, the bridge and its chapel, and at the same time to gather sufficient endowment to maintain a priest. The bishop asks all his priests to explain the matter from their pulpits, to show that it was a work of charity, and to say that to all who contribute in any way he grants forty days of indulgence under the usual conditions. The same bishop at another time orders all rectors and parish priests to publish “at the time of their sermons and exhortations” his indulgence to all who would visit the cathedral church of Lichfield and contribute to the building of the spires of his cathedral. Other episcopal letters, which were all to be read in the parish churches, were of a more private character. One man, for instance, had suffered great losses through a fire, which had destroyed his house; another had had his barns burned; a third had been left almost destitute by having his crops destroyed by floods; a fourth had been plundered by robbers; a fifth had suffered the loss of an arm, etc. In all such cases, if those who asked could prove that their needs were genuine, the bishop had not apparently much hesitation in granting letters of indulgence to those who would help in these Christian charities; and all such letters became matter for the Sunday parish pulpit.