The various properties managed by the wardens of St. Michael's, Bath,
numbered thirty-seven in 1527, yielding a revenue of L11 8s.;[213] and
even in 1572 the rent amounted to L11 8s.[214]
Indeed, though parish lands and houses were generally vested as to
title in trustees (often a numerous and cumbersome body),[215] the
churchwardens themselves and sometimes other accountants,[216] who
like the wardens were appointed from year to year, usually exercised
the actual management. The feoffees existed chiefly for the purpose of
making it difficult to alienate the parish properties, "and the larger
the trust body the more difficult such alienation was supposed to
be."[217]
Contenting ourselves with the above examples, which could easily be
multiplied, we pass on under this same head of general endowments to
an interesting form of personal property, viz., cattle, for not only
did the wardens derive receipts from parish holdings of real estate,
but also from _Endowments of Cows or Sheep_. The Pittington, Durham,
Twelve Men, a sort of parish executive and administrative body, enact
in 1584 "that everie iiij pounde rent[218] within this parrishe, as
well of hamlets as townshippes, shall gras[219] winter and somer one
shepe for the behoufe of this church;"[220] and we are told that these
"Church Shepe," as they were called, were here one of the chief means
of raising funds for parochial purposes.
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