HOW TO WRITE The History of a Parish . BY J. CHARLES COX, Author of “Notes on the Churches of Derbyshire,” etc. “Every man’s concern with the place where he lives, has something more in it than the mere amount of rates and taxes that he has to pay.”— Toulmin Smith. LONDON: BEMROSE & SONS, 10, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS; AND DERBY. 1879. LONDON: BEMROSE & SONS, 10, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS; AND DERBY. 1879. ENTERED AT STATIONERS’ HALL. TO THE REV. THOMAS PRESTON NOWELL BAXTER, M.A., (LATE

Some of the Clergy of the Diocese of Lincoln are responsible for the issue of this booklet. A much-needed county history of Lincolnshire is now being projected, upon the basis of separate parochial histories. A circular put forth in one of the rural deaneries was good enough to refer in laudatory terms to the introduction to the first volume of my Notes on the Churches of Derbyshire . This led to my being asked to re-publish that introduction; but it applied so peculiarly to Derbyshire that I fe

P.R.O.—For the Public Record Office. Almost the whole of our national records, which were until recently in upwards of half-a-dozen different buildings, are now under one roof in Fetter Lane, Fleet Street. All documents mentioned in the following pages must be understood to be at the Public Record Office, unless it is otherwise stated. Several of the earlier folio publications of the Record Commissioners, to which reference is herein made, are out of print, but they are to be found in most of ou

Not only should the etymology of the name of the parish be carefully considered, and its various forms of spelling be collected, from Domesday Book downwards, but a list should be made of the whole of the names of the physical features, such as hills, streams, and lanes, and especially of the field-names. Field-names—which will often establish the sites of disused chapels or manor-houses, of Celtic burials or Roman roads, as well as help to decide the nationality of the colonists that predominat

If there are any so-called “Druidical” (almost invariably a complete misnomer) or other “prehistoric” remains of that class, not a word should be written respecting them until Fergusson’s “Rude Stone Monuments” has been thoroughly digested. Though published in 1872, not one of the old-fashioned antiquaries has made any serious attempt to refute its conclusions. The best work on tumuli, or barrows, is Canon Greenwell’s “British Barrows.” See also Bateman’s “Ten Years’ Diggings in Celtic and Saxon

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , and other Old English chronicles, should be consulted for possible early mention of the parish. Most of these have been cheaply printed in an English dress in Bohn’s Antiquarian Series. In Kemble’s “Saxons in England” will be found a good list of the old tribal divisions into “marks.” Thorpe’s Diplomatarium Anglicum Ævi Saxonici is an admirable collection of early charters (with translations); some of the wills contain many place-names; the volume is indifferently ind

Any British, Roman, Danish, or Anglo-Saxon remains that there may be in the parish, had, perhaps, better be described before the manorial history is given. Every earthwork, mound, or ancient roadway should be carefully noted. It is not possible to refer to any one, or even three or four, satisfactory books on such subjects. Fosbrooke’s “Encyclopædia of Antiquities” is out of date, but we know of no better compendious work of reference. The two volumes of Wright’s “Essays on Archæological Subject

The pedigrees and brief particulars of the Nobility can be readily found. The most useful standard works are Dugdale’s “Baronage,” Collins’ “Peerage and Baronetage,” Banks’ “Dormant and Extinct Baronage,” and the “Baronagium Genealogicum,” or pedigrees of English Peers, in five folio volumes, by Joseph Edmondson. Burke’s “Landed Gentry” gives much information with respect to the principal families of commoners, but the earlier genealogical statements that he prints are often purely mythical. Sev

Foremost under this head come Parish Registers . Burn’s “History of Parish Registers in England” is the standard work on this subject. The first mandate for keeping registers of baptisms, marriages, and burials, in each parish was issued in 1538, but it is quite the exception to find registers of this early date. This mandate was repeated in more rigorous terms on the accession of Elizabeth, 1558, but not being regularly observed, it was ordained in 1597 that parchment register books should be p

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, or pre-Norman charters, occasionally give definite information of a church in a particular parish or district, but as a rule the earliest mention of the parish church will be found in the previously described Domesday Book . But the Commissioners, not being specially instructed to make returns of churches, acted on their own judgment, and in some counties omitted them partially, and in others altogether. Taxatio Ecclesiastica P. Nicholai IV. —Pope Nicholas IV. (to whos

Having finished the history of the Church, it will be best to follow it up by a description of the fabric of the Church, and of all its details. Styles of Architecture. In deciding as to the different “periods” under which to classify the various styles into which almost every parish church is more or less divided, it is perhaps wisest to confine oneself to the simple and generally accepted divisions of English architecture, originally adopted by Mr. Rickman, viz. (1) the Saxon, from 800 to 1066

If the parish includes within its boundaries the remains or the site of any abbey, priory, hospital, monastic cell, or other religious building otherwise than the parish church, the history and description of such places must of course be separately undertaken. And let not the local historian consider it is needless for him to explore into a subject that has probably been treated of with greater or less detail in the original edition of Dugdale’s “ Monasticon ,” or with more precision in the exp

Under this head we may classify the more general and modern subjects that should not be left out of any complete parochial history, but which it is sufficient just to indicate without further comment, only premising that the annalist should keep constantly before him that it is the history of a parish, and not of a county or country, on which he is engaged, and that the more sparing he is of general disquisitions the more likely he is to please his readers. The value of a thorough study of the f