Perhaps it makes more sense when put into context.
Church wasn't only for worship - in the old days royal proclamations and other public announcements (including criminals wanted!) were always read from the lectern.
Also the death of a parishioner was always announced in this way (still is). The vicar begins by saying A new reminder of our mortality is given us this day... and then he reads out the names of those that have died during the preceding week. For some reason (I really have no idea why, it's one of those things that just are) the age of the person is always stated - number of years, months and days instead of announcing date born and date died.
E.g. Anna Lindgren, at the age of 82 years, four months and five days.
So the vicar had to figure the age of everyone who died in order to be able to announce it properly - and of course he wrote it down also. It doesn't always add up with a known date of birth/date of death, some of the clergy were quite simply not very good at maths.
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