The gathering of the dalesfolk for worship must have been a striking sight, especially on the great feast days when--four times in the year--the sacraments were administered. Certainly attendance at church was obligatory upon every Sabbath Day, and fines were levied for default. But from the early seventeenth century, if not before, the dependent chapels in Langdale (at Chapel Stile) and Ambleside would absorb many of the more distant worshippers. For the four great celebrations, however, the whole of the adult population of the valleys, except the sick and infirm, would attend the parish church.[39] It is of course impossible to compute the number of the people, especially in early times; but if we accept the statement made in the Presentment of 1712, that there were then about 200 families in the parish, it may be reckoned that at that time and for at least a century previously, no fewer than from 500 to 700 communicants would gather for the rite. Besides the master and mistress of the homestead, there were grown-up sons and daughters, with farm servants.[40] The garth would be crowded with the concourse of folk; and when they trooped into the fane, each township to its own quarter of the building, where men and women again divided to take their accustomed places upon their separate forms, and the dogs sneaked in, hoping to escape the dogwhipper's eye as they settled under their masters' legs, the whole space must have been packed. [39] It is not easy to discover what was the early practice of the church concerning the administration of the sacrament, or the number of times it was received yearly by the laity. As early as 750, laymen who failed to communicate at Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, were not esteemed christians; they were expected to make offerings four times a year. A later rule, which was stringent, seems to have been once a year, though a more frequent attendance--specially at Easter and Christmas, was urged. See Abbot Gasquet's _Parish Life in Medieval England_, Wall's _Old English Parishes_, p. 90, and Wordsworth's _Medieval Services in England_. The sacrament was called _housel_, and the bread _houselling-bread_. Henry VII's queen, Elizabeth of York, appears to have communicated three times a year, at the festivals of Easter, All Saints, and Christmas (Canon Simmon's _Notes to the Lay Folks' Mass Book_, p. 239). Queen Victoria no doubt clung to an old custom when she communicated no oftener than three or four times a year. (See _Life_.)