In some documents connected with Exeter diocese in the fifteenth century, some of the personal difficulties in which the wardens might be involved are set out. In one case, where a good deal of repair to the fabric of the church was necessary, the churchwardens excused themselves on the plea that the tenants of certain houses belonging to the parish, upon the rents of which they had relied, had not paid for some time; in a second case, the excuse made was that parishioners who had promised help had not given it; in a third, the parishioners had agreed to a rate to repair the church and bell-tower, and many had not paid according to their promises. In every case the bishop, whilst warning the people to keep their obligations, pointed out that the “guardians,” or churchwardens, were personally responsible. Again, there are many examples, in the accounts of the various parishes, which show that the people considered the parochial goods held by the churchwardens, even when they were in the shape of vestments and plate, as their own property. They exchanged them, lent them, and sold them--always, of course, for the benefit of the church. In the wardens’ accounts of St. Mary the Great, Cambridge, there are several examples of this open dealing with church goods. One instance of this kind of dealing is worth recording. In the parish of Yatton, Somerset, on the eve of the Reformation--about 1520, say--a difficulty, to which reference has already been made, arose as to the repair of certain sluices to keep back the winter floods. To make a long story short--in the end, the parishioners were ordered to make good the defect. It meant money; and the wardens’ accounts show that they had been spending money generously on the church. It was consequently decided that to raise the necessary cash they should sell a piece of silver church plate, which had been purchased some years before by the common contributions of the faithful. The instance furnishes a supreme example of the way in which the people of a mediæval parish regarded the property of God’s house as their own. _Parish Clerk, or Holy-water Bearer (Aquæbajularius)._--Second only in importance to the churchwardens was the _parish clerk_, or, as he was frequently called from one of his chief duties, the “water-bearer.” Originally, as the name “clerk” implies, he was a cleric, and his office was considered to be a regular ecclesiastical benefice. In the fourteenth century the clerk was married, but one such was fined for the offence in a visitation in that century in the Salisbury diocese. In process of time, however, owing to the scarcity of clerics, the office was often held by a married layman.