Clerk (Lat. clericus), properly a clergyman; also, in old usage, a scholar; an officer attached to courts and corporations, who keeps the records; a lawyer's assistant; a booking or railway clerk; and in the United States, a shopman.
The PARISH CLERK is an official in the Church of England, who leads the responses in a congregation, and assists in the services of public worship, at funerals, &c. There is usually one in each parish. In cathedrals and collegiate churches there are several of these lay-clerks; and in some cases they form a corporate body, having a common estate, besides payments from the chapter. Before the Reformation, the duties of parish clerk were always discharged by clergymen in minor orders.