0 a room in a church, especially one in which priests and the group of people who sing in church put on the special clothes they wear for church ceremonies, and in which things used in church ceremonies are sometimes kept --
In the 1740s, thirty men served on the vestry, ten of them attending more than half the meetings.
In the 1660s, thirty-eight individuals served on the vestry, seven of them attending more than half of the ten meetings.
Even where overseers of the poor were chosen, they remained subordinate to the vestry, which still set the poor rate and distributed it.
It is also evident in the drift towards pruning participation in the vestry as more select vestries of ' substantial ' parishioners were set up after 1600.
The role of the vestry envisioned in the act may well have accorded with local views in rural settlements.
Needs changed, and at monthly meetings during the remainder of the year the vestry agreed to adjustments in both names and amounts on the list.
Of course one might argue that the small numbers receiving relief meant that vestries could afford to be generous.
The forum that enabled them to do so was the parish vestry, a body whose constitution remains obscure.
