Aspects of Kentish Local History

A paper on this subject appeared in Vol. XIV of Arch. Cant. (1882) under the title "Briefs in the Parish of Cranbrook". It was compiled by W. Tarbutt. These licenses, properly known as Church-briefs or King's Letters, were issued out of Chancery to Churchwardens specifically for damage or loss by fire to churches but, as we know, were sent round for other purposes. There seem to have been two types. The Rev. Nicolas Carter at St. George's notes that some appeals were granted to be collected through Great Britain while others only "in Cities, Boroughs and Market Towns and not elsewhere". There must have been a great revival in their issue after Charles II came to the throne. Pepys indignantly noted in 1661, after the fourteenth successive appeal at St. Olave's, Hart Street, "To church where we observe the trade of briefs is come now up to so constant a course every Sunday that we resolve to give no more to them." Their issue was regulated by a Statute in 1704, but when we find that 565 are entered in St. George's Register between August, 1717 and October 1773, there can be no doubt that, as in the present-day case of too many Flag Days, parishioners often refused to lighten their purses; especially when two Briefs might be published on one Sunday. In one of these cases at St. George's the

boxes rattled under people's noses collected 6 1/2d. and 1s., in a second 6d. and nothing, and this was possibly after the Parish Clerk had stood at the door as the congregation left, saying: "Please remember the Brief." The boxes are referred to by both Cowper and Southey and, as the century wore on in St. George's Parish, their appearance had become so distasteful to the burgesses that in 96 cases nothing was collected in church; in the ninety-seventh only 1/4d. And many of the appeals were doubtless genuine.
   At St. Leonard's the Briefs are entered among the Churchwardens' Accounts in the seventeenth century upright parchment-bound volume measuring 15 in. by 6 in. It was kept closed originally by two ties. A torn flyleaf shows the words London, printed for Roger Norttens, and the signature Tho: Knorler Gent. In MS. also appear the words Canterburie April 1637 and Canterbury April 18 1637. The Briefs are entered at the beginning of the back of the book, and are followed by two other entries which are transcribed below.
   The earliest Brief is entered separately among these Accounts for the year 1657, and was an appeal for a fire in Leicestershire. The loss was