[Pg 52]This action probably had its origin in the losses of public funds which had to be deplored in many parishes in consequence of the money being lent out at interest. "Culyet" is not a word to be found in the standard dictionaries of our time, although it appears in the parochial records of Millom. Canon Knowles took the word to mean the free-will offerings made from house to house, being used at Christ Church, Oxford, as the equivalent of "collecta," a collection. In some of the parishes which lent out church funds, rather heavy rates of security were exacted--at Millom the arrangement was seven and a half per cent. Hence there can be no room for surprise that so many parishes have had reason to deplore "lost stock."
Crosthwaite differed from other places in the manner of selecting and swearing the churchwardens and sidesmen, the form being settled by the Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes in Queen Elizabeth's time. They decreed "That yearly, upon Ascension Day,
the vicar, the eighteen sworn men, the churchwardens, the owner of Derwentwater estate, the sealer and receiver of the Queen's por-
tion at the mines, one of the chiefest of the company and fellowship of[Pg 53] the partners and offices of the minerals, then resiant
at Keswick, the bailiffs of Keswick, Wythburn, Borrowdale, Thornthwaite, Brundholme, and the forester of Derwent Fells, shall
meet in the church of Crosthwaite, and so many of them as shall be there assembled shall chuse the eighteen men and churchward-
ens for the year ensuing, who shall on the Sunday following before the vicar take their oath of office."
The seating of the men and women on different sides of the church was a proceeding once so common as to almost remove it from the list of curiosities. The churchwardens' books of Crosthwaite contain very minute orders as to where every person in the parish should sit, and in other places a similar rule obtained. In these days of "free and open churches" it is interesting to read of the arrangements which the churchwardens and vicar made so as to allocate every seat in St. Patrick's Church, Bampton, in 1726. The
rule appears to have been based on the land tax, and the list begins with "The Lord Vis. Lonsdale," who had one complete stall for the use of the tenants of Bampton Hall, another for Low Knipe, and other seats elsewhere. The whole of the inhabitants seem to have been provided for, the[Pg 54] catalogue concluding with a statement of the accommodation set apart for the schoolmaster of Measand and the school-dame at Roughill; the master at Bampton Grange, being an impropriator, found a place among the aristoc-racy on "the Gospel side" of the chancel.
Some quaint entries concerning the provision and cost of wine for sacred purposes--and for other uses not always answering
that description--are to be met with in several of the parochial records. In the vestry book of Cockermouth is this entry for June,
1764:--"Ordered that all the wine for the communicants be bought at one house where the Churchwardens can get it the best and
cheapest. Ordered that no wine be given to any clergyman to carry home." At one of the meetings of the Cumberland and West-
morland Antiquarian Society, the late Canon Simpson produced a paper which showed that very heavy sums, comparatively, had
been spent at Kendal in providing Communion wine. One item was for PS6, another PS9, and again PS11, while opposite one of the
entries was the remark: "That is exclusive of wine used at Easter." It was customary for the vicar or rector to give the Easter Com-
munion wine, receiving in return[Pg 55] Easter dues. On another occasion, when the Bishop of Chester was to visit the church, the
wardens ordered a bottle of sack to be placed in the vestry.
An interesting ceremony has long been gone through at Dacre Church in connection with the distribution of the Troutbeck Dole. The principal representative of the family now living is Dr. John Troutbeck, Precentor of Westminster. The Rev. Robert Troutbeck, in 1706, by his will gave to the poor of Dacre parish, the place of his nativity, a sum of money, the interest of which was ordered to be "distributed every year by the Troutbecks of Blencowe, if there should be any living, otherwise by the minister and churchward-
ens for the time being." A more curious proviso was contained in the will of John Troutbeck, made in 1787. By that document PS200
was left to the poor of the testator's native parish, and the interest was ordered to be "distributed every Easter Sunday, on the family
tombstone in Dacre churchyard, provided the day should be fine, by the hands and at the discretion of a Troutbeck of Blencowe,
if there should be any living, those next in descent having prior right of distribution. If none should be living that would distribute
the[Pg 56] money, then by a Troutbeck as long as one could be found that would take the trouble of it; otherwise by the minister
and churchwardens of the parish for the time being; that not less than five shillings should be given to any individual, and that
none should be entitled to it who received alms, or any support from the parish." The custom was carried out in due form on the
"through-stone" last Easter.
14
Kirkby Stephen, up to about sixty years ago, had a very curious custom--the payment, on a fixed day every year, upon a tombstone still in the churchyard, of the parishioners' tithe. The late Mr. Cornelius Nicholson, in a now scarce pamphlet on Mallerstang Forest, gave the following account of the observance:--
"The tombstone is unhewn millstone grit, covered with a limestone slab, whereon a heraldic shield was once traceable, supposed to indicate the ownership of the Whartons. Tradition says, however, that it is older than the tombs in the Wharton Chapel. Among the parishioners it went popularly by the name of the great 'truppstone,' a corruption perhaps of 'through-stone.' It is certain, however--and this is the gist of the story--that for generations, time out of mind, the money in lieu of tithes of hay was here regularly
paid to the incumbent of the church on Easter Monday. The grey coats of this part of Westmorland assembled punctually as Easter
Monday came round, and there and then tendered to the[Pg 57] vicar their respective quotas of silver. Some agreement, oral or writ-
ten, must have been made between the parties, which does not now appear. The practice became the law of custom. The payment
was called a modus in lieu of hay tithe. I find that when Lord Wharton purchased the advowson at the dissolution of monasteries
the tithes of corn and hay were excepted from the conveyance, which points to this customary modus on the 'truppstone.' If this
reference be correct, the curious custom dates back to the time of Henry the Eighth, and perhaps farther back, and gives it a continuance of some 300 years.
"We don't know its origin, but we do know its extinction. When the Rev. Thomas P. Williamson became vicar, in the first decade of this century, a quarrel arose between him and the tithe-payers as to this modus. Law proceedings were threatened, and some prelimi-naries were taken. The parishioners, notwithstanding, attended on Easter Monday as before, and tendered their doles. The vicar also attended, but determinedly refused the money, until his death in 1835, which put a stop to the custom. After his death, the vicar's widow set up a claim for the arrears, which had been offered and refused, so she took nothing by her motion. In 1836 all the tithes were commuted in England, under the provision of the Tithes Commutation Act, carried into execution by a Cumberland M.P., Mr. Aglionby, whom I knew very well, in Lord John Russell's Ministry. These particulars of the 'truppstone' were furnished me by Mr. Matthew Thompson, Kirkby Stephen, one of the county magistrates, who himself--and this clenches it as a fact--yearly attended in the churchyard, with his quota, and who was present on the very last occasion."
An incident which in some respects has had at[Pg 58] least one counterpart within recent years is recorded as happening at Little Salkeld towards the end of the fourteenth century. The little chapel there was "desecrated and polluted by the shedding of blood,"