From other sources we learn what his duties were. In 1540 the parish of Milend, near Colchester, was presented to the archdeacon by the rector, because in the said church there was "nother clerke nor sexten to go withe him in tyme of visitacion [of the sick], nor to helpe him say masses, nor to rynge to servyce."[264] And in 1543 the Vicar of Kelveden, Essex, complains that there is not "caryed holy water,[265] nor ryngyng to evensonge accordyng as the clerke shuld do, with other dutees to him belongyng."[266] In the York presentations we find a similar complaint at Wyghton in 1472; they present that the parish clerk does not perform his services as he ought, because when he ought to go with the vicar to visit the sick, the clerk absents himself, and sends a boy with the vicar.[267] The clerk might be a married man, for in 1416 Thomas Curtas, parish clerk of the parish of St. Thomas the Martyr, is presented, because with his wife he has hindered, and still hinders, the parish clerk of St. Mary Bishophill, York [in which parish he seems to have lived] from entering his house on the Lord's days with holy water, as is the custom of the city. Also it is complained that the said Thomas and his wife refuse to come to hear divine service at their parish church, and withdraw their oblations.[268] In the Royal MS., 10, E iv., is a series of illustrations of a mediæval tale, which turns on the adventures of a parish clerk, as he goes through the parish aspersing the people with holy water. Two of the pictures will suffice to show the costume and the holy water-pot and aspersoir, and to indicate how he went into all the rooms of the house--now into the kitchen sprinkling the cook, now into the hall sprinkling the lord and lady who are at breakfast. In the woodcut on p. 241, will be seen how he precedes an ecclesiastical procession, sprinkling the people on each side as he goes. The subsequent description (p. 221) of the parish clerk Absolon, by Chaucer, indicates that sometimes--perhaps on some special festivals--the clerk went about censing the people instead of sprinkling them. [Illustration: _The Parish Clerk sprinkling the Cook._] [Illustration: _The Parish Clerk sprinkling the Knight and Lady._]