Excerpt from A History of the Municipal Church of St. Lawrence: Reading The archives of St. Lawrence's Church, in Reading, are amongst the oldest and most interesting in England. They commence in 1410, and are tolerably complete down to the present time. The earlier details are so graphic, that they afford not only a wonderful insight into the history and changes of the fabric, the exquisite nature of its furniture and decorations - so valuable to the ecclesiologist and art student - but also illustrate to a great extent the parochial life of the fifteenth and following centuries. It is quite beyond the Author's means to publish the documents in extenso, but he has endeavoured to illustrate, by hundreds of literal extracts, the various points of interest connected with the Church, and the manners and customs of the people; so that the present work will be found to contain all that is really interesting in the records, not only to the antiquary, but to the general reader. In many respects this work may be considered a typical history of every parish church in England - everywhere the ancient centre of parochial life; and it is on this account chiefly that the Author has felt justified and encouraged in his responsible undertaking. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.