authorizing the purchase of additional glebe land in Lunenburg Parish (Richmond), the assembly forbade the minister to cut timber except what was needed for firewood and the repair of glebe buildings. Hening, 8:204. St. Mark s Parish defended its request for permission to sell the glebe on the grounds that it was so destitute of timber that it is not in the minister s power to make the necessary repairs, either with respect to the houses or fences thereon. Ibid., 8:410 11. 43. C. G. Chamberlayne, ed., The Vestry Bookof Blisland (Blissland) Parish, New Kent and James City Counties, Virginia, 1721 1786 (Richmond, Va., 1935), 12 October 1726, 26 29; 17 October 1734, 57 58; 14 October 1735, 59 61. 44. The gent. Appointed to view the Chimney built to the Kitchen at the glebe of this Parish this day reported that the Same is insufficient, ordered that the said Chimney be Rebuilt and that the undertaker be paid for the Same when Sufficiently done and Received. Ibid., 23 April 1770, 221. 45. Kingston Parish Vestry Book, 20 June 1750, 41. 46. Ibid., 18 July 1755, 55. As a codicil to his will, John Taylor designated Ł300 for the purchase of six slaves to be placed on the Lunenburg Parish glebe. Elizabeth Lowell Ryland, ed., Richmond County, Virginia: A Review Commemorating the Bicentennial, 1776 1996 (Warsaw, Va., 1976), 116. 47. Petsworth Parish Vestry Minutes, 6 July 1730, 222; 10 August 1731, 227; 6 October 1731, 228; 16 February 1737, 246; 8 April 1740, 263. When Dettigen Parish s parson, James Scott, personally undertook responsibility for the construction of glebe buildings and then failed to complete them, the vestry voted to take him to court. Dettingen Parish Vestry Minutes, 14 March 1757, 61. chapter six 1. Churchill G. Chamberlayne, ed., The Vestry Book and Register of Bristol Parish, Virginia, 1720 1789 (Richmond, Va., 1898), 51. 2. The designation clerk can easily confuse the modern reader of seventeenth- and eighteenth- century documents. Clerk may refer to a clergyman, i.e., a cleric. In Virginia s official records, Anglican ministers frequently were so identified. Clerk more commonly in the eighteenth cen- tury denoted an official who had charge of the records and correspondence of a business, a court, or other governmental body, or a society. Each Virginia parish vestry had its clerk, as did each county court, the houses of the legislature, and the executive council. A third distinctive clerk role that described above as a lay assistant to the clergyman in worship perhaps was a carryover from medieval times of those men in minor orders as distinct from holy orders. In Anglican practice after the Reformation, clerks could denote laymen performing specified religious functions. For the duties of parish clerks in England, see Robert E. Rodes Jr., Law and Modernization in the Church of England: Charles II to the Welfare State (South Bend, Ind., and London, 1991), 41 42. 3. Va. Gaz. (Rind), 23 June1724; C. G. Chamberlayne, ed., The Vestry Bookof Christ Church Parish, Middle- sex County,Virginia,1663 1767 (Richmond,Va.,1927), 2 April1680, 61; Va. Gaz. (Rind), 4 August1774. By tradition, the selection of clerks belonged to the minister. Christ Church Parish (Middlesex) vestry acknowledged that the priviledge of choosing Clarks wholly lyes in the Minister of this Parish, thus confirming the practice while providing indirect evidence of contention over the matter. Christ Church Parish (Middlesex) Vestry Book, 10 October 1720, 176. Two years later the vestry claimed for itself the appointment of sextons. Ibid.,11 October1722,182. At least some vestries tested clerk applicants. The Petsworth Parish vestry in 1700 examined a prospective clerk in Reading and Singing Psalms. Petsworth Parish Vestry Minutes, 1 January 1700, 55. In 1733 the Lynnhaven Parish vestry appointed Ezra Brook, having had a Tryall of his ability to per[form] the office of a clerk. George C. Mason, ed., The Colonial Vestry Book of Lynnhaven Parish, Princess Anne County, Virginia, 1723 1786 (Newport News, Va., 1949), 13 November 1735, 18. 4. Va. Gaz. (Rind), 4 August 1774. 5. Seventeenth-century legislation and practice relating to the clerk/reader can be traced through Laws, 1:208; Hening, 2:29 30, 46 47; and EJC, 15 May 1691, 1:176. 6. In 1698 St. Peter s Parish paid Will Clapton 250 lbs. of tobacco for reading Homilies there bei noe minister. C. G. Chamberlayne, ed. The Vestry Book and Register of St. Peter s Parish, New Kent and . 354 notes to pages 55 58