This excellent book by Ronald Hutton is a great background to the events in Milton Abbas in the 16th and 17th centuries. It explains a lot of the information in our Churchwardens Books for the 17th century.

For example there are clear changes in the expenses on Communion wine during the Interregnum and Restoration. There is no income from Church ales from the start of the existing records in 1638, since these had been declining since Elizabethan times.