This is a minor and general point but "average life expectancy" can be a somewhat misleading term. It is not all the longer people expected to live or what they considered old age. There have always been people living to the same ages we regard as very old today. Just not so many people did live so long. The averages of centuries past are brought down by all the infant and women's childbirth mortality as well as that from other infections and diseases that killed otherwise healthy people at young ages before antibiotics and immunizations, etc. If a person survived childhood and managed to avoid infectious diseases one could still have a reasonable expectation to live to be 70 or 75 or even more. There was less heart disease than today--President Eisenhower's physician reportedly said that during his medical education in the early part of the 20th century a heart attack was considered a rare event. Supposedly the American diet changed for the worse in the 1890s with a sharp increase in sugar consumption and 20 years later the increase in heart attacks began. Food for thought anyway... : ) --Pam Berger ----- > > As the average life span was 45-50 years, I would doubt that ONLY men of considerable years would be appointed churchwardens.