George Henry Sumner

Churchwardens' Manual George Henry Sumner

I am so constantly asked in the course of my inspection of the Churches in the Archdeaconry of Winchester what are the duties and responsibilities of Churchwardens, that I have thought it might be useful to publish the following remarks, which were in substance delivered in my charge to the Clergy and Churchwardens of the Archdeaconry of Winchester in the Spring of 1889. Many requests were then made to me that I would publish my charge as a manual for Churchwardens, and it is in consequence of those requests that this publication has been put forth. Let me first refer to the origin of the office. The name appears in connection with the ecclesiastical history of the fourth century. St. Augustine refers to certain officers in the Church called seniores Ecclesiastici. These officers were not ordained persons, but yet had some concern in the care of the Church. They were entrusted with the treasure and management of the outward affairs of the Church. These persons may be looked upon as the ecclesiastical ancestors of our present race of Churchwardens. [2] In Lyndwood's Provinciale there are allusions in some of the Provincial Constitutions of the fourteenth and fifteenth Centuries which seem to point to officers in connection with the Church corresponding to our present Churchwardens. It is not, however, until after the Reformation that we find their duties distinctly defined in successive Canons, as in 1571 (Cardwell's Synodalia, I, 122), in 1597 (Cardwell's Synodalia, I, 160), and in our own Canons of 1603.