_The Churchwardens._--The representatives of the people in all parochial work were their wardens, or the churchwardens, as they are generally called. Pollock and Maitland, in their _History of English Law_, do not think that there were real churchwardens before the thirteenth century. Previously, however, it is admitted that certain burdens as to the support of the church had been placed upon the parishioners as a body. “In the thirteenth century,” for example, “the general custom of the Church of England, swerving in this from the _jus commune_ of the Catholic Church, cast the burden of repairing the nave of the parish church, and providing the main part of the ecclesiastical apparatus, not upon the parson, but upon the parishioners.” Whether this burden implied any corporate organisation of the parishioners or any parish meeting seems doubtful. But “no doubt the occasional nature of the charge almost compels the rector or the archdeacon to deal with the parishioners as a body, to call them together, and endeavour to persuade them that a wall is crumbling or a new missal is wanting.” Still, whatever their origin, the churchwardens are already in existence in the thirteenth century; they are then dealt with as the legal representatives of the parishioners, and they “present themselves as claimants for property and possession.” To the authors of the _History of English Law_ their existence is due to the natural outcome of the responsibility placed upon the people. “If the parishioners are compelled to provide precious books, robes, vessels, etc., they will naturally desire to have their say about the custody of these articles; parsons have been known to sell the church plate.”