A further source of income was found towards the beginning of the sixteenth century when the letting of pews or seats in the church became a custom. The revenue from this was always successfully claimed by the wardens in behalf of the parishioners, on the ground, no doubt, that the nave of the church where these seats had been erected was their property, and that the fee for the exclusive right of any special portion belonged to them, on the same principle as the money for the sale of any particular part for a grave. This practice of letting pews for the use of individuals has already been sufficiently illustrated by examples. The practice of leaving sums of money by will to the wardens for definite purposes was almost universal in the last half of the fifteenth century and at the beginning of the sixteenth. In the accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, in London, are to be found such entries as: “Received of William Blase, Barbowrez (_i.e._ the barber’s) wife, for painting of an image of Our Lady within the Church--20_d._,” and many other examples have previously been given of sums left by deceased parishioners for special work in their parish churches, such as the erection or adornment of the rood or its loft. Bishop Hobhouse has noticed in the Somerset churchwardens’ accounts that there was hardly any conceivable kind of property that was not handed over to the wardens for church purposes, either to produce income by being leased out, or to be sold for the benefit of the common exchequer. Live stock of every sort is represented--cows, oxen for ploughing, rams, sheep, lambs, bees, cocks and hens, geese, and even pigs are named. At Morebath almost every altar had its endowment of sheep, and at St. Mary’s, in the city of Bath, there was a little flock managed by the wardens. In the former small parish there were no fewer than eight different accounts kept, and “a supernumerary body” of from three to nine parishioners were added to the wardens “as controllers of the parish stock.” At Bromley, Margaret White, widow, who died in June, 1538, by her will gave to the church one hive of bees to support the light of All Hallows, one hive to support the light of the Sepulchre, and a third to the light of St. Anthony. Also to the keeping of her obit she gave two kine, and directed that the obit should be kept “out of the increase of the said kine,” and her name placed on the bede-roll, and that Mass be said and bread and cheese and drink given to four poor people.