Each clerk compiled the
information for his own parish and appended his name. Most carefully is
the information contained in the book arranged, and the volume is a most
creditable production of the worshipful company.
Amongst the books preserved in the Hall is another volume, entitled
"_London Parishes_; containing an account of the Rise, Corruption, and
Reformation of the Church of England." This was published by the parish
clerks in 1824.
CHAPTER X
CLERKENWELL AND CLERKS' PLAYS
Parish clerks are immortalised by having given their name to an
important part of London. Clerkenwell is the _fons clericorum_ of the
old chronicler, Fitz-Stephen. It is the Clerks' Well, the syllable _en_
being the form of the old Saxon plural. Fitz-Stephen wrote in the time
of King Stephen: "There are also round London on the northern side, in
the suburbs, excellent springs, the water of which is sweet, clear,
salubrious, 'mid glistening pebbles gliding playfully; amongst which
Holywell, Clerkenwell, (_fons clericorum_), and St. Clement's Well are
of most note, and most frequently visited, as well by the scholars from
the schools as by the youth of the City when they go out to take air in
the summer evenings."
It was then, and for centuries later, a rural spot, not far from the
City, just beyond Smithfield, a place of green sward and gently sloping
ground, watered by a pleasant stream, far different from the crowded
streets of the modern Clerkenwell.
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