Carfae Church, Oxford. By the Rev. Carteret J. H. Fletcher.
(B. H. Blackwell, Oxford.)—Mr. Fletcher was the last rector of Carfax, which, after an existence of at least five hundred years —we are speaking of the ecclesiastical entity, not the actual building—was swept away in 1896. King Cnut granted it in 1036 to the Abbey of Abingdon, and after sundry vicissitudes it had to disappear before street-improvements. Curiously enough, its destruction was made necessary by the folly of the Corpora- tion in 1819, when the old church was pulled down, quite need- lessly, and a new one, so much larger as to encroach materially on the street, was erected in its place. The tower only now stands ; the parish has been incorporated with All Saints', which indeed, with its small population and spacious church, was well able to receive it. The history is full of curiosities. Ca.rfax was essentially the town church. Its bell summoned the warlike youth of the town to do battle with the scholars, as notably on the fatal day of St. Scholastica, 1355; it was even used, as a fortress. A more peaceful function was served by the Bench from which the Mayor and Aldermen dispensed justice. Under its walls was the famous " Penuyless Bench." The churchwardens' accounts for several years have happily been preserved, and contain, as usual, many interesting items which illustrate civil and ecclesias- tical changes. The Church in pre-Reformation times was endowed with not a few obits and chantries. Later on came the endowment of lectureships. Towards the end of the sixteenth century we find payments for seats ranging from is. to 9s. In these days men, or rather women, with gold ring, &c., were carefully protected in their high places. In 1664 the Council resolved that if the parish clerk suffered any girls or young women not of rank and quality with the wives of the City dignitaries to sit in the seats provided for them (for which the said Council had paid £15 fifty years before), his quarter's pay was to be stopped. Mr. Fletcher has written a highly interesting book.
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