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Excerpt from The History of Norfolk, Vol. 5: From Original Records and Other Authorities Preserved in Public and Private Collections Parish Registers - which have not been employed for preserving local records to anything like the extent they might have been - were unknown in England before the Reformation, and, in fact, came into authorised use, by a royal injunction, in 1538, of which year about fifty of the Norfolk Registers are still preserved.2 It was ordered, in that year, that the Curate of every parish church shall keep one book or register, which book he shall every Sunday take forth, and in the presence of the Churchwardens, or one of them, write and record in the same all the Wed dings, Christenings, and Burials made the whole week before; and for every time that the same shall be omitted, he shall forfeit to the said church 35. 4d, one-half to the poor's box, the other half to the repairs of the church. In the 6th and 7th William and Mary an Act was passed granting to his Majesty certaine rates and duties upon Marriages, Births, and Burials, and upon Batchelors and Widowers for the terme of Five Yeares, for carrying on the Warr against France with vigour. The amount charged was, for every person buried, 4s., with extra amounts according to rank, a simple gentleman 45 I, going up to 1; 50 for a duke. Every birth (except the children of paupers) was taxed 2s., and every person married, 23. 6d., with extra for the several gradations of rank. The Act contained a proviso that any clergyman omitting to keep an exact and true account should forfeit 100 at the suit of any informer. SO that it may be presumed that during those five years Parish Registers will be found kept with much accuracy. As this page goes to press, I find I am confirmed in this opinion by the Parliamentary Boundary Commissioners' Report, just issued. They say the Hundred is now almost obsolete, often has detached parts, and its boundaries in some instances are no longer ascertainable. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.