In all cases it was the work of the people. Through their wardens they arranged, superintended, and finally settled the accounts of these various travelling workmen and artists. How they raised the money required for all the work that was carried out during the last half of the fifteenth century must always remain a mystery. Some account of their ways of collecting funds for parochial purposes will appear in the next chapter; but when all is said, the mystery remains. FOOTNOTES: [A] Lever, _Sermon before the King_, 1550 (Arber’s Reprint, p. 82). CHAPTER VI PAROCHIAL FINANCE In view of the many expenses which devolved upon the wardens in the working of a mediæval parish, it is important to try to understand how they were able to raise the necessary funds. In the first place, of course, it must be understood that the churchwardens had nothing to do with the tithes--that is, with the regular charge on the produce of the land, which was from the first intended for the support of the clergy, for the poor, and for the maintenance of the chancel portion of the church’s fabric. These were received in due course, according to the law, by the parson, or vicar, or by their agent, without any reference to the popular representatives of the parish as such, and except for an occasional donation from the priest to the common fund for some special purpose, the parish exchequer took nothing whatever from the tithe due to the clergyman. The methods by which the people of a parish raised money for their works were many and various, and some of them curious; some few of them must needs be touched upon briefly in any account of the life of a mediæval parish. In the first place, then, may be mentioned the occasional _voluntary assessment_ of the people of a parish, according to their possessions, sometimes called “setts,” or “cess.” This, however, was not a very common way of raising money, and recourse was had to it, apparently, only in the case of extraordinary repairs upon the church becoming necessary. From the many examples that are to be found in the extant accounts, the voluntary rate was evidently difficult to enforce, especially when the amount claimed had, more or less, to be proportioned to the property of individuals. Still, in some places, it was clearly very successful as a means of raising money; as, for instance, at Wigtoft, in Lincolnshire, where, in 1525, the accounts show that the church was completely repaired by money obtained by a voluntary rate. Here a list of eighty-six inhabitants is given, who are assessed at sums varying from 1_d._ to 3_s._ 4_d._ Although the unequal incidence of the tax was evidently admitted by all, it was apparently held that when the parish had made the rate, its vote was binding upon every one. At St. Dunstan’s, Canterbury, in 1485, a church rate, or “cess,” produced £4 5_s._ 1½_d._, in sums varying from John Roper’s 6_s._ 8_d._ to Richard Crane’s 4_d._; whilst at the same time