Immediately connected with the subject of burials were two practices, which brought some additions to the parochial exchequer. The first was the custom of special payments made for the use of the best cross, etc., if the parish was possessed of one. It would seem that generally, besides the processional cross, every parish had a second cross used at funerals, but occasionally they had either purchased or in some way become possessed of a more magnificent and elaborate crucifix. For the use of this last the wardens as a rule made a charge, and this payment brought some money into the common purse. Thus the churchwardens’ accounts of St. Ewen’s, Bristol, show that, about the middle of the fifteenth century, the parish made a precious crucifix of this kind. People contributed all manner of broken silver and jewels for the work, and all sorts and conditions of men and women gave of their riches or their poverty to it. Alice Sylkwoman, for instance, gave a ring, and Thomas Fisher an old spoon, etc. When the work of art was finished it was weighed before the parson and the parishioners, and, not counting the bar of iron in its centre, it was found to be 116 ounces of “clere sylver and gold.” No sooner was it made than it was arranged to charge a special fee for its use, and in 1459-60 one of the parishioners, “Thomas Phelyp, barber,” paid the fee “for the best cross at his Wyf’s buryeng.” In the same way the churchwardens appear to have let out the bier and lights to be used at funerals for the payment of a fee. The parish lights especially are very frequently named in the accounts of the churchwardens; although not infrequently the torches were furnished by the various guilds, the members of which had sometimes the right of hiring them for the burials of friends. In this way, to take but one example, the wardens of the parish of Ashburton in 1523-24 let out “the best cross and parish tapers” to a neighbouring parish, and received 21_s._ 8_d._ for the transaction; a very notable addition to the parochial income. Parishioners also paid for the use of the parish cross and candlesticks at funerals in their own church. In the same way, the vestments and plate and hangings were lent for a payment to other parishes for a great funeral or festival. In the accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, for instance, 4_s._ 8_d._ were paid by “the churchwardens of All Hallows in Lombard Street for hyryng of the church stuffe.”