The country swarmed with these _clerics_. Only a small
proportion of them ever became ministers of religion; they were
lawyers, or even lawyers' clerks; they were secretaries; some few
were quacks with nostrums; and these all were just as much
_clerics_ as the chaplains, who occupied pretty much the same
position as our curates do now--clergymen, strictly so called, who
were on the look out for employment, and who earned a very precarious
livelihood--or the rectors and vicars who were the beneficed clergy,
and who were the parsons of parishes occupying almost exactly the
same position that they do at this moment, and who were almost
exactly in the same social position as they are now. Six hundred
years ago there were at least seven of these _clerics_ in
Rougham, all living in the place at the same time besides John of
Thyrsford, the vicar. Five of them were chaplains, two were merely
_clerics_. If there were seven of these clerical gentlemen whom
I happen to have met with in my examination of the Rougham Charters,
there must have been others who were not people of sufficient note to
witness the execution of important legal instruments, nor with the
means to buy land or houses in the parish. It can hardly be putting
the number too high if we allow that there must have been at least
ten or a dozen _clerics_ of one sort or another in Rougham six
hundred years ago.
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