Nor were his labours yet finished. In John Myrc's _Instructions to
Parish Priests_, a poem written not later than 1450, a treatise
containing good sound morality, and a good sight of the ecclesiastical
customs of the Middle Ages, we find the following lines:
"When thou shalt to seke[30] _gon_
Hye thee fast and _go_ a-non;
For if thou tarry thou dost amiss,
Thou shalt guyte[31] that soul I wys.
When thou shalt to seke gon,
A clene surples caste thee on;
Take thy stole with thee ry't,[32]
And put thy hod ouer thy sy't[33]
Bere thyne ost[34] a-nout thy breste
In a box that is honeste;
Make thy clerk before thee synge,
To bere light and belle ringe."
[Footnote 30: Sick.]
[Footnote 31: Quiet.]
[Footnote 32: Right.]
[Footnote 33: Sight.]
[Footnote 34: Host.]
It was customary, therefore, for the clerk to accompany the priest to
the house of the sick person, when the clergyman went to administer the
Last Sacrament or to visit the suffering. The clerk was required to
carry a lighted candle and ring a bell, and an ancient MS. of the
fourteenth century represents him marching before the priest bearing his
light and his bell. In some town parishes he was ordered always to be at
hand ready to accompany the priest on his errands of mercy.
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