any respects to be done At A generall Charge of the wholl parish be equall portions without any deniall & likewise the haske & joules at A general Charge of the parish and likewise A fonte At A generall charge to be maintained In Testamony thereof we the said eightenne have sette our honds the day & yeare ffirst above-written. [The names of the Eighteen follow, under three headings of Gresmyre, Loughrigg, and Langdall. They are often crossed through and written again. On the other side of the MS. is given the following list.] The names of the Eighteen of the parish of Grasmere as they now stand, April the 24th, 1688. Grasmere Langdale Loughrigg and beneath Moss Reignald Thompson George Cooperthwaite John Banks John Haukrigg Christopher Dawson Reignald Brathwaite John Hird James Dixon Hendry Barrow John Haukrigg John Middlefell Thomas Benson Robert Harrisin William Satterthwaite Thomas Newton Edwin Green Leonard Benson Thomas Mackereth Something has already been said of the constitution of the parish, and of the lay control which existed over its finances--the three townships within the parish being represented by a body of eighteen (six for each) as well as by two churchwardens; and this document, while it strengthens the suggestion that the great addition to the church had been carried out by the united parish, and at the expense of the three townships--shows us exactly how each township arranged to fulfil its obligation to maintain the building in proper repair. It was an intricate matter. Each township by a common agreement made itself responsible for the maintenance of a particular portion of the church, not only of the fittings, but of the walls and windows of the fabric, as well as of the garth outside, with the garth wall down to its own particular gate of entrance.[137] There were besides general charges, along with the expenses of the Sunday worship, in which all took an equal share. Such an undertaking--both joint and individual--may seem to a merely modern mind a complicated business, especially as the church consisted structurally of two parts, which had to be divided for purposes of finance into three. But such problems were as nothing to men whose farmholds belonged to a township (indivisible in itself) that was broken up into several lordships, and whose land--though permanent in quantity--was every year freshly apportioned within the common fields of his _vill_. The subsequent accounts of the churchwardens, of which a few have already been given, prove that the obligations incurred by this document were rigidly fulfilled.