It is perhaps not altogether surprising that in times when ordained clergymen were scarce, and when much confusion reigned, the clerk should occasionally have taken upon himself to discharge duties which scarcely pertained to his office.  Great diversity of opinion is evident as regards the right of the clerk to perform certain ecclesiastical services, such as his reading of the Burial Service, the Churching of Women, and the reading of the daily services in the absence of the incumbent.  In the days of Queen Elizabeth, judging from the numerous inquiries issued by the bishops at their visitations, one would imagine that the parish clerk performed many services which pertained to the duties of the parish priest.  It is not likely that such inquiries should have been made if some reports of clerks and readers exceeding their prescribed functions had not reached episcopal ears.  They ask if readers presume to baptize or marry or celebrate Holy Communion.  And the answers received in several cases support the surmise of the bishops.  Thus we read that at Westbere, “When the parson is absent the parish clerk reads the service.”  At Waltham the parish clerk served the parish for the most as the vicar seldom came there.  At Tenterden the service was read by a layman, one John Hopton, and at Fairfield a reader served the church.  This was the condition of those parishes in 1569, and doubtless many others were similarly situated.

The Injunctions of Archbishop Grindal, issued in 1571, are severe and outspoken with regard to lay ministration.  He wrote as follows: 

“We do enjoin and straitly command, that from henceforth no parish clerk, nor any other person not being ordered, at the least, for a deacon, shall presume to solemnize Matrimony, or to minister the Sacrament of Baptism, or to deliver the communicants the Lord’s cup at the celebration of the Holy Communion.  And that no person, not being a minister, deacon, or at least, tolerated by the ordinary in writing, do attempt to supply the office of a minister in saying divine service openly in any church or chapel.”

In the Lincoln diocese in 1588 the clerk was still allowed to read one lesson and the epistle, but he was forbidden from saying the service, ministering any sacraments or reading any homily.  In some cases greater freedom was allowed.  In the beautiful Lady Chapel of the Church of St. Mary Overy there is preserved a curious record relating to this: 

“Touching the Parish Clerk and Sexton all is well; only our clerk doth sometimes to ease the minister read prayers, church women, christen, bury and marry, being allowed so to do.

     “December 9. 1634.”

Bishop Joseph Hall of Exeter asked in 1638 in his visitation articles, “Whether in the absence of the minister or at any other time the Parish Clerk, or any other lay person, said Common Prayer openly in the church or any part of the Divine Service which is proper to the Priest?”