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It would be indecent, no doubt, to compare either a curate or a

chaplain with a journeyman in any common trade. The pay of a

curate or chaplain, however, may very properly be considered as

of the same nature with the wages of a journeyman. They are all

three paid for their work according to the contract which they

may happen to make with their respective superiors. Till after

the middle of the fourteenth century, five merks, containing

about as much silver as ten pounds of our present money, was in

England the usual pay of a curate or a stipendiary parish priest,

as we find it regulated by the decrees of several different

national councils. At the same period, fourpence a-day,

containing the same quantity of silver as a shilling of our

present money, was declared to be the pay of a master mason; and

threepence a-day, equal to ninepence of our present money, that

of a journeyman mason. {See the Statute of Labourers, 25, Ed.