Author Topic: The Second Mort Cloth  (Read 3949 times)

Offline vivdunstan

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Re: The Second Mort Cloth
« Reply #9 on: Saturday 31 March 18 17:08 BST (UK) »
It was quite common for parishes to have more than one mortcloth. Sometimes a new one was made or presented to the kirk before the old one wore out. One might be heavier than the other or made of velvet. The "second" mortcloth may have been cheaper to hire than the "first" one. Have a look on the page of the accounts and see if there is a different charge for the first and second cloths. In any case the money went into the poor-box.

Yes this is bang on. Parishes also often had smaller mortcloths sized for children, and sometimes a very fancy velvet mortcloth. I transcribed and indexed the Coldingham parish mortcloth records, and they had quite a variety of mortcloths, with differing rental charges.