e will
endeavour to fill in with sundry details culled from medieval sources.

Chaucer tells us that Jolly Absolon used to go to the houses of the
parishioners on holy days with his censer. His more usual duty was to
bear to them the holy water, and hence he acquired the title of
_aquaebajalus_. This holy water consisted of water into which, after
exorcism, blest salt had been placed, and then duly sanctified with the
sign of the cross and sacerdotal benediction. We can see the clerk clad
in his surplice setting out in the morning of Sunday on his rounds. He
is carrying a holy-water vat, made of brass or wood, containing the
blest water, and in his hand is an _aspergillum_ or sprinkler. This
consists of a round brush of horse-hair with a short handle. When the
clerk arrives at the great house of the village he first enters the
kitchen, and seeing the cook engaged on her household duties, he dips
the sprinkler into the holy-water vessel and shakes it towards her, as
in the accompanying illustration. Then he visits the lord and lady of
the manor, who are sitting at meat in their solar, and asperges them in
like manner. For his pains he receives from every householder some gift,
and goes on his way rejoicing. Bishop Alexander, of Coventry, however,
in his constitutions drawn up in the year 1237, ordered that no clerk
who serves in a church may live from the fees derived from this source,
and the penalty of suspension was to be inflicted on any one who should
transgress this rule. The constitutions of the parish clerks at Trinity
Church, Coventry, made in 1462, are a most valuable source of
information with regard to the clerk's duties.

The following items refer to the orders relating to the holy water:

"Item, the dekyn shall bring a woly water stoke with water
for hys preste every Sonday for the preste to make
woly water.

"Item, the said dekyn shall every Sonday beyr woly water of
hys chyldern to euery howse in hys warde, and he to have hys
duty off euery man affter hys degre quarterly."

At the church of St. Nicholas, Bristol, in 1481, it was ordered that the
"Clerke to ordeynn spryngals[20] for the church, and for him that
visiteth the Sondays and dewly to bere his holy water to euery howse
Abyding soo convenient a space that every man may receive hys Holy water
under payne of iiii d. tociens quociens."

[Footnote 20: Bunches of twigs for sprinkling holy water.]

[Illustration: TH