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Please to remember the Brief


Barwicker No 8 December 1987


The following extract appears in the Barwick parish registers.

"Paid to a Brieffe, l0 shillings.

The 28 day of August 1694. Received then of ye Minister and Churchwardens of ye Parish of Barwick in Elmett in ye County of York, the sum of Ten shillings, being collected on their Majesties Letters Patent for ye Relief of the Poor Protestants which came forth of France, bearing Date the 31st of March 1694. I say Received by me. Tho.Holmes."


A brief was a royal mandate for the collection of money for some supposedly deserving object. It was addressed to the Minister and churchwardens, and it was read from the pulpit. At the close of the service the clerk stood by the church door to take the collection saying as the congregation left, "please to remember the brief". The funds were handed to a duly authorised collector or to the chancellor of the diocese at the bishop's visitation.

Another brief in the Barwick registers appealed for "Ye redeem of Two Merchants out of Tunis in Turkey, their losses £8000 and their Ransom £50". Others were for the victims of fire in Thirsk and Brecon, and "poor sufferers" from several towns.

An extract from the register of Brotherton, a few miles from Barwick, records a sorry tale.

"August 5 1666. Collected in the parish Church for the relief of a distressed Minister, John Beckett of Fryston, who had sustained great loss by fire by means of a carelesse maide who ... carrying a candle to bed with her, left it sticking on the bed's head; which, she falling asleepe, fell into the bed and burnt his house and goods to the amount of £40 and himself since by a thorne fallen into his eyes hath lost his sight so ... that he can neither see to preach nor teache schoole."


Briefs were originally issued by the Pope or a bishop, but after the Reformation, the mandate was vested in the Crown. In the Stuart period, briefs were farmed out to professional "undertakers" who contrived to pocket the lion's share of the proceeds. Enormous fees were paid to the Patent Officers and to the King's Printers.

Despite an attempt to reform the system by an act of parliament in 1705, abuses continued throughout the eighteenth century. The principal firm of "undertakers" in the middle of the century was managed by Robert Hodgson. About 1754, they were supplanted by a new concern, Messrs. Byrd, Hall and Stevenson of Stafford. This organisation, and its successors, the last being John Stevenson Salt, retained control of the business until 1828. An act of this year effectively abolished the system. J.S.Salt was ordered to hand over all undistributed monies to the Church Building Society, much of the work of which had formerly been financed by briefs.

(Information in this article has been taken from "The Parish Chest" by W.E.Tate, an invaluable source-book for the local historian)

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