'
"Whereupon the agent demanded the percentage the Pope had just demanded
on all ecclesiastical benefices. And to pay that sum this poor man was
compelled to hold school for many days, and by selling his books in the
precincts, to drag on a half-starved life."
This story discloses another duty which fell to the lot of the mediaeval
clerk. He was the parish schoolmaster--at least in some cases. The
decretals of Gregory IX require that he should have enough learning in
order to enable him to keep a school, and that the parishioners should
send their children to him to be taught in the church. There is not much
evidence of the carrying out of this rule, but here and there we find
allusions to this part of a clerk's duties. Inasmuch as this may have
been regarded as an occupation somewhat separate from his ordinary
duties as regards the church, perhaps we should not expect to find
constant allusion to it. However, Archbishop Peckham ordered, in 1280,
that in the church of Bakewell and the chapels annexed to it there
should be _duos clericos scholasticos_ carefully chosen by the
parishioners, from whose alms they would have to live, who should carry
holy water round in the parish and chapels on Lord's Days and
festivals, and minister _in divinis officiis_, and on weekdays should
keep school[29].
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