In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the parish clerks became important officials. We shall see presently how they were incorporated into fraternities or guilds, and how they played a prominent part in civic functions, in state funerals, and in ecclesiastical matters. The Reformation rather added to than diminished the importance of the office and the dignity of the holder of it. [Illustration: THE MEDIÆVAL CLERK] [Illustration: THE CLERK IN PROCESSION] The continuity of the office is worthy of record. From the days of Augustine to the present time it has never ceased to exist. The clerk is the last representative of the minor orders which the ecclesiastical changes wrought in the sixteenth century have left us. Prior to the Reformation there were sub-deacons who wore alb and maniple, acolytes, the tokens of whose office were a taper staff and small pitcher, ostiaries or doorkeepers corresponding to our verger or clerk, readers, exorcists, _rectores chori_, etc. This full staff would, of course, be not available for every country church, and for such parishes a clerk and a boy acolyte doubtless sufficed, though in large churches there were representatives of all these various officials. They disappeared in the Reformation; only the clerk remained, incorporating in his own person the offices of reader, acolyte, sub-deacon. Indeed, if in these enlightened days any proof were needed of the historical continuity of the English Church, it would be found in the permanence of the clerk's office. Just as in many instances the same individual rector or vicar continued to hold his living during the whole period of the Reformation era, witnessing the spoliation of his church by the greedy Commissioners of Henry VIII and Edward VI, the introduction of the First Prayer Book of Edward VI, the revival of the "old religion" under Queen Mary, the triumph of Reformation principles under Queen Elizabeth; so did the parish clerk continue to hold office also. The Reformation changed many of his functions and duties, but the office remained. The old churchwardens' account books bear witness to this fact. Previous to the Reformation he received certain wages and many "perquisites" from the inhabitants of the parish for distributing the holy loaf and the holy water. At St. Giles's, Reading, in the year 1518-19, appears the item: EXPENS. In p'mis paid for the dekays of the Clark's wages vis. In the following year we notice: WAGE. Paid to Harry Water Clerk for his wage for a yere ended at thannacon of our lady a° xi° ... xxvi s. viii d. In 1545-6, Whitborne, the clerk, received 12 s. towards his wages, and he "to be bound to teche ij children free for the quere."