a partner church in the WOLDSBURN benefice
CHURCH AT KIRKBURN
THE PARISH REGISTERS OF KIRKBURN
MARCH 2007
Keith Holt
The Kirkburn registers which survived in the church date from 1686. Under the Parochial Registers and Records Measure of 1978 they are now deposited for safe keeping with the East Riding Archives and Local Studies Service in Beverley, along with the registers of all the other ancient parishes in the Archdeaconry of the East Riding. They are available for consultation in the new Archives Office (the so-
The date of 1686 is rather disappointing. The first instruction for the keeping of formal registers of baptisms, marriages and burials came as early as 1538, soon after Henry VIII’s break with Rome. The injunction from Thomas Cromwell, the Lord Chancellor, ordered parishes to write the entries in a book and to provide a “sure coffer” with two locks in which the book was to be kept. Like many instructions from the centre, then and now, it took several more attempts to get it right and enforced before the definitive legislation, formally approved by Elizabeth I, came in 1598. This required the keeping of a bound parchment register (rather than the loose sheets with which some parishes had apparently been “making do”) and the copying therein of all previous entries. “All” should, in theory, have meant back to 1538 (assuming they had survived) but a compromise was offered by requiring the entries especially from 1558, the start of Elizabeth’s reign, to be copied into the new registers. Hence, some registers begin in either of those years -
The “sure coffer”, in other words what we would refer to as the parish chest, was now to have three locks, one key each held by the minister and the two wardens. The wardens were to subscribe each page of the register and were to transmit a copy of the entries made during a year to the Diocesan Registry, in our case, York. These copies became known as Bishops’ Transcripts and, even though they have not always survived, particularly in the 17th century .they form a useful back-
The instructions of 1598 form the basis of the Church’s system of registration of baptisms, marriages and burials which is still in use, subject to the amendments of subsequent legislation. Unfortunately Kirkburn does not have its register for the Puritan Commonwealth period, when under an Act of 1653
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www.churchatkirkburn,org,uk page 156 (157-158) The Parish Registers of Kirkburn March 2007 18/3/07