At times, too, the bellman was employed in making collections for some church purpose. Thus at Sutherton, in 1485, the bellman, named Saunder, was engaged in soliciting money for keeping two lights at the High Altar, and he was paid by the churchwardens for going to Lincoln “to bring home the waxe,” for the making of candles for the consecration of the church. At St. Nicholas’s Church, Great Yarmouth, in 1511, the bellman was paid for covering the images in Lent-time. But, so far as the parish was concerned, the most important function of this official was his proclamation of deaths and anniversaries. In one of the York wills there is a bequest of 6_d._ to the bellman for announcing the funeral of the testator. Sir Adam Outlaw, priest, bequeaths a tenement to the West Lynn town bellman on condition of his “going with his bell about the town” on his “year-day” to ask the people to “pray for the souls of Thomas of Acre and Muriel his wife, his (Sir Adam’s) soul, and the souls of his benefactors.” In like manner, the Guild of St. Botulph’s Church at Boston employed the bellman to announce the anniversaries of its brethren. Thus, in January the Sacrist was to remember to send him round about the city to proclaim the obit day of Richard Chapman, and proclaim each year his will. At each street he was to ring his bell and say: “For the sowles of Richard Chapeman and Alys his wyf, brother and syster of Corpus Christi Gylde to-morne (_i.e._ to-morrow) shall be theyre yere day,” for which service he was to receive a penny. This crier was constantly being sent round on similar errands for other guilds, and from these same records the names of some eight such societies, besides the Corpus Christi Guild, are known: that is, St. Mary’s Guild, that of the Trinity, and those of St. George, St. Peter, the “Felichyp of Heven,” Seven Martyrs, St. Katherine, and the Apostles. The object of these constant proclamations was, of course, to call the various members of fraternities and societies to attend at funerals and anniversary masses and pray for the souls of the brethren and sisters who had gone before them to that future life, which in those days of simple faith was hardly less a reality to all Christian folk than the present world which their senses told them about. The bells used by the bellmen seem, from some inventories, to have been the property of the parish. They are called “Rogation bells,” from their use in calling people to the church, and they were rung in the funeral procession from the house of the deceased parishioner to the church. In 1463, John Baret, of Bury St. Edmunds, directs that the two bellmen, who go about the town on his death announcing his funeral, are to have gowns given them. And at “my yeer-day,” he adds, they are to have each 4_d._ for going about the town to call on the inhabitants “to pray for my soul, and for my faderis and modrys,” and the same for ringing on the “month’s mind.”