,vN>x*^ '»%^^^ PRINCETON, N. J- Shelf..... BV 823 .B75 1881 v. 2 Bridgett, T. E. 1829-1899. History of the Holy Eucharist in Great Britain Ml - THE HOLY EUCHARIST IN GREAT BRITAIN VOL. II. HISTORY OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST IN GREAT BRITAIN T. E. BRIDGETT OF THE CONGREGATION OF THE MOST HOLV REDEEMER AUTHOR OF 'the RITUAL OF THE NEW TESTAMENT* ' OUR LADV's DOWRY ' 'the discipline OF drink' etc. VOL. II. ANGLO-NORMANS, LATER ENGLISH, AND SCOTCH Urmissu Superionim LONDON C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., i PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1881 {The rights of translation and of rcproduition arc ref^erved) %ig^r- ^: CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. CHAPTER PAGE I. Faith in Conflict i II. The Doctrine of Concomitance III. Changes of Discipline IV. Liturgical Changes V. Lay Prayers VI. Ceremonial Changes gj VII. Churches and their Veneration 73 VIII. The Tabernacle 84 IX. Riches in Churches ,03 X. The Priest at the Altar 120 XI. Chantries i^g XII. Canons, Monks, and Nuns 16^ XIII. The Solitary Life 177 XIV. Schools and Universities i^g XV. The Court and the Camp 209 XVI. Observance of Festivals 229 XVII. Holy Week .... 239 XVIII. Easter — The Communion 257 XIX. The Feast of Corpus Christi 265 XX. Interdicts 276 XXI. Wycliffe and the Lollards 293 XXII. The Key-stone INDEX 507 323 X, mmt."^^. >>-w'^ rri-^ HISTORY OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST IN GREAT BRITAIN. CHAPTER I. FAITH IN CONFLICT. The Anglo-Saxon Church had no heresies to encounter ; but in the very century in which England became the battlefield of Norman and Saxon, the Holy Eucharist had become the battlefield of faith and heresy, and the foremost champion of faith was Lanfranc, Abbot of Bee, who was shortly afterwards the first Archbishop of Canter- bury of Norman appointment. Although the conflict between Lanfranc and Berengarius, Arch- deacon of Angers, preceded the residence of the former in England, it will not be out of place to give an outline at least of its nature.' It is well known how often Berengarius retracted his heresies and then relapsed into them. Coleridge sought to apologise for these vacillations : Ye who, secure 'mid trophies not your own, Judge him who won them when he stood alone, And proudly talk of recreant Berengare — O first the age, and then the man compare ! That age how dark ! congenial minds how rare ! ' Alban Butler gives a good summary of the life of Berengarius, but he is mistaken in saying that Lanfranc wrote when he was arc'ibishop. Since the time of Butler two important works of Berengarius have been discovered : De Sacra Ccena adversia Lanfrancum, published by Vischer (Berlin) in 1834, and twenty- two letters published by Sudendorf (Hamburg) in 1850. They throw new light on the earlier part of Berengarius's career. VOL. II. B HISTORY OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST IN GREAT BRITAIN. CHAPTER I. FAITH IN CONFLICT. The Anglo-Saxon Church had no heresies to encounfer ; but in the very century in which England became the battlefield of Norman and Saxon, the Holy Eucharist had become the battlefield of faith and heresy, and the foremost champion of faith was Lanfranc, Abbot of Bee, who was shortly afterwards the first Archbishop of Canter- bury of Norman appointment. Although the conflict between Lanfranc and Berengarius, Arch- deacon of Angers, preceded the residence of the former in England, it will not be out of place to give an outline at least of its nature.' It is well known how often Berengarius retracted his heresies and then relapsed into them. Coleridge sought to apologise for these vacillations : Ye who, secure 'mid trophies not your own, Judge him who won them when he stood alone, And proudly talk of recrea7it Berengare — O first the age, and then the man compare ! That age how dark ! congenial minds how rare ! ' Alban Butler gives a good summary of the life of Berengarius, but he is mistaken in saying that Lanfranc wrote when he was archbishop. Since the time of Butler two important works of Berengarius have been discovered : De Sacra Cana adversiiT Lanfranatm, published by Vischer (Berlin) in 1834, and twenty- two letters published by Sudendorf (Hamburg) in 1850. They throw new light on the earlier part of Berengarius's career. VOL. II. B 2 FAITH IN CONFLICT. No host of friends with kindred zeal did burn ! No throbbing hearts awaited his return ! Prostrate aUke when prince and peasant fell, lie only disenchanted from the spell, Like the weak worm that gems the starless night. Moved in the scanty circlet of his light : And was it strange if he withdrew the ray That did but guide the night-birds to their prey ? ' Such a conception of Berengarius is convenient for the Protestant theory, but it is ludicrously false when confronted with history. Judged by his own acts and words, and by the testimony of his contemporaries, he was a vain, courtly, scoffing, scholastic professor. He was rich, and gained over a considerable party of followers by distributing his gold and silver among needy scholars. He was blustering and abusive towards his adversaries when he could be so with safety to himself, but cowardly and hypocritical when there was any risk to be run. When Lanfranc, of whom he was jealous, opposed him, he re- plied by ridiculing his vulgar stupidity. Lanfranc rejoined that ' he would rather be a rude and ignorant Catholic with the multitude, than with Berengarius try to be a courtly and witty heretic' ^ Beren- garius abused Cardinal Humbert, who had presided at the council which condemned him, as a ' Burgundian ' (which it seems was then a term of contempt among scholastics). Lanfranc answered that Humbert was from Lorraine, not from Burgundy, but even were it otherwise it would be arrogance and folly to despise a man on account of his countr)', since the ' Spirit breatheth where He will.' ' But it is your custom,' he adds, ' to make little of others, and much of yourself, and to boast in your self-conceit. You call yourself David, and Humbert Goliath. But you would have done better to call yourself Goliath for your great arrogance, and because your opinions, writings, and words are a sword with which you will be despatched. Humbert, indeed, you might well call David, for he lived humbly, taught humbly and as a member of the Church, and in his battle for the Church took the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.' The teaching of Berengarius, like that of most heretics, is itself a subject of dispute, since he was confused, vacillating, inconsequent, ' The Poetical Works of S. T. Coleridge, vol. ii. p. 88 (ed. 1828). ^ ' Mallem cum vulgo esse rusticus et idiota catholicus quam tecum existere curialis at que facetus hcereticus.' [De Corp. et Sang. Domini, Opera Lanf. torn. ii. ip. 156, ed. Giles.) BERENGARIUS. 3 and artful, especially in giving new interpretations to old words and formulae. It was quite clear that he denied the Catholic faith as held in his own day, but by no means clear what he would substitute in its place. To the charge of contradicting the Catholic faith he made no other reply than that what his adversaries called the uni- versal faith was in reality universal error, and not the real Catholic faith as taught by Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine.' He had been required to profess and swear that ' the bread and wine after conse- cration are the Body and Blood of Christ.' He did so, but gave to his profession a private meaning, which he knew was not that of those who required from him the declaration of faith ; and afterwards, when reproached for his relapse, he denied that ' he had ever con- fessed or sworn to the common error of fools which you (Lanfranc) do not hesitate to call the common faith of the Church.' ^ On the other hand, he says that at the time he was condemned at VercelH, in 1050, he was condemned unjustly, since no one then knew his opinions ; 'indeed,' he adds, ' I did not know them clearly myself as I do now, for I had not then suffered for them as I now have, nor so deeply studied the sacred Scriptures.' ^ It was, however, enough for the Pope to know that he taught a doctrine other than that of the Church, and it was of no importance, either then or now, to know what private fancies he elaborated.^ He certainly denied that consecration causes any change in the elements ; and he affirmed that they are called the Flesh and Blood of Christ because by using - them the Church celebrates the memory of our Lord's crucified Body and Blood-shedding, and reminds us to crucify our flesh and its vices. *If this were so,' said Lanfranc, 'then the Jewish sacraments would be better than the Christian sacraments. The miraculous manna was certainly more admirable than mere bread and wine • and if the Eucharist is only a memorial of things past, then the paschal lamb and other Jewish types were more excellent; since it is a divine thing to foretell the future, but to recall the past does not exceed human power.' ' But, secondly, if the doctrine of Berengarius were true, then the universal Church would have erred, and if it erred, it must have perished, for nothing destroys souls Uke error.' ' De Sacra Ccena, p. 36. ^ lb. p. 53. s /^, p_ -ig^ ^ Staudenmaier shows that he really anticipated all the systems of Luther Calvin, and Zuingle. (Art. ' Berengarius ' in Dictiona>y of Theology of Wetzer and Welte.) 4 FAITH IN CONFLICT. Lanfranc thus defines the CathoUc doctrine : ' We believe that the earthly substances which are consecrated by the priestly ministry on the Lord's table are converted ineffably, incomprehensibly, mar- vellously, by the operation of divine power, into the essence of the Lord's Body, the appearance, however, and some other qualities of the bread and wine remaining, lest the communicants should feel horror at receiving Flesh and Blood {cruda d cruenta), and also for the greater merit of believers. Nevertheless, the Body of the Lord remains in heaven at the right hand of the Father, immortal, in- violate, integral, incontaminate, unhurt, So that it may be truly said that we receive the very Body which was born of a Virgin, yet not that very Body. It is that very Body, if you consider its essence and the propriety and efficacy of its true nature. It is not the same, if you consider the appearance and the other qualities of bread and wine. This faith has been held from the beginning, and is still held by that Church which is called Catholic because it is spread through- out the world.' ' Lanfranc follows Berengarius paragraph by paragraph, giving the true meaning of each passage of the Fathers that Berengariis had quoted, exposing his sophisms and replying to his objections. This he does with great force and acuteness. But he also reminds his opponent that the faith does not depend on these solutions. ' In a matter of such depth,' he says, ' you ought rather to pray God, either that you may understand what the human mind is able to under- stand, or that, without failing in your faith, you may humbly and patiently bear what exceeds the power of the human mind in this great secret, and what in this life cannot be comprehended. This you ought to do, and not to cause strife, to dissent from the universal Church, and excite a new schism by words and writings contrary to the precepts of the holy fathers.' ^ The successor of Lanfranc both at Bee in Normandy and in the see of Canterbury was St. Anselm. Like Lanfranc, he was Italian by birth, yet, as he ruled the English Church, his writings may be quoted as English authorities, like those of St. Theodore. There are two letters of St. Anselm on the Blessed Eucharist, giving its theology very fully, ' Without any doubt,' he says, ' it is the true Body which was born of the Virgin Mary and rose from the tomb, and the very Blood which flowed from the side of that crucified Body. Those who pretend that after consecration it is bread materially, and the Body of the Lord figuratively only, are carnal and ' De Corp. torn. ii. p. 187. - lb. p. 193. ST. ANSELM. 5 think carnally and err foolishly against the faith, trusting rather their bodily eyes than the words of Truth. Of course it is a figure in the sense that we do not see or taste what we believe to be present, for how could we eat the Flesh of the Lamb of God except by means of a sacrament ? . . . According to the definitions of the holy fathers it is to be understood that the bread laid upon the altar is changed by those solemn words (of our Lord) into His Body, and that the sub- stances of bread and wine do not remain, but the species remain, that is, the form, colour, and taste. It is, therefore, in these species that changes take place, not in the reality. Though the wicked do not receive the virtue of the sacrament, yet it must not be denied that they receive not only the species, but also the true substance of the Body of Christ. Some are shocked at this, but they ought to know that this sacrament is so august that a worthy place cannot add to its dignity, nor an unworthy one diminish it.' ^ One of the assistants at the consecration of St. Anselm was Herbert of Losinga, Bishop of Thetford (afterwards of Norwich). Some of his sermons have been preserved and lately published. In that for Easter Day, he thus speaks of the great Mystery of the Eucharist : 'Brethren, we are to be fed with the Body of the Lord, and to be made to drink of His Blood. It is bread which you see before you, material bread ; but when, in the otiice of the conse- crating priest, we come to the words of Christ, that bread is made the Flesh of Christ, that very Flesh which proceeded from the Virgin, and hung upon the cross, and lay in the sepulchre, and rose again from the sepulchre, and which, not fantastically but substantially, was manifested to the eyes of the disciples, and now standeth incor- ruptible and immortal at the right hand of God. The same we assert, maintain, and preach concerning the liquor which is made the Blood of Christ. A great change of things ; but to the word of God nothing is impossible. The word of God was able to make all things of nothing ; and shall it not be able to make something of something? It was possible to the Lord to say : "Let there be light," and there was light ; " Let there be a firmament," and it was made ; " Let there be dry land, let there be water," and they were created ; " Let all creatures be," and they were. And shall God say : " Let bread become my Body, and the cup my Blood," and shall it not be ? Those things were possible to the word of God, and shall these things be impossible to the same word ? Nay, the most impossible of things is that that should not be done which the ' Opera, tom. ii. pp. 163-165 (ed. Gerberon). 6 FAITH IN CONFLICT. word of God biddeth to be done. The reason of these things is searched for ; but it is the highest reason to trust to the will and word of God, and in nowise to make search with fond inquisition into the hidden and secret work of God.' ^ Another early writer on the Eucharist was Robert Pully or Pulleyne, our first English cardinal, and the great promoter of studies at Oxford in the time of Henry I. We have of his a full treatise of theology, called the ' Book of Sentences.' ^ In the eighth book he defends in the most explicit manner and accurately defines the mysteries of this sacrament. ' The Lord by the power of His benediction, both in His own person converted, and now through His ministers converts, the bread into His Body and the wine into His Blood, so that neither the bread nor the wine remain what they were, but pass into another nature, the bread into flesh, the wine into blood.' He denounces consubstantiation (the doctrine afterwards maintained by Luther of the co-existence of bread and of our Lord's Body). He shows that our Lord's Body is not broken, though the species are broken, and that the accidents remain without their substance, while he guards against the thought that they inhere in the sacred Body and Blood. He denies that there is any delusion of the senses, since those judge only of the accidents.^ That exactly the same theology was taught at the same period in Scotland, may be seen in the treatise of Adam Scot of the order of Premonstratensians or Norbertines, who was Bishop of Withern (Candida Casa) in Galloway in 117 7. His words are as follows: ' While the species of the bread is seen, its substance is not there ; and the substance of Christ's Body is really there, though its form appear not.'** He thus expresses himself as to the mode of the Presence : ' The power of God can cause that one Body should be in different places at the same time, and the whole of the Body in every part of the outward species.' ^ Another writer who may be considered a witness for the Scotch Church is St. Aelred. He was born at Hexham, and brought up in ' Herbert de Losinga's Letters and Sermons, 2 vols. ed. by Dean Goulbourn and Canon Symonds. 2 This is an earlier production than another treatise bearing the same title by Peter Lombard, and perhaps more vigorous and original, though for some reason less known and supplanted by Peter Lombard's. 3 Migne, Patrol, tom. clxxxvi. * ' Ejusque et species apparet, cujus non est substantia, et latet substantia, cujus non apparet forma.' * ' Sicut in diversislocis potest esse unum, ita et in singidis partibus potest esse totum.' {On the Tabernacle, pt. ii. ch. x. p. 705. Migne, Patrol, tom. cxcviii.) Sr. AELRED. 7 the Scotch court of King David. He writes as follows : ' What was the sign that the shepherds received ? " You shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger." And this was to be the sign that He was the Saviour, the Christ, the Lord ! But what great thing is it to be wrapped in swaddling clothes, and to lie in a stable ? It is a great thing if we only understand it. And we sh.ill understand it, if we not only hear the message, but also have in our heart that light which shone round about the shepherds when the angels spoke. He appeared in the midst of splendour when first he told of the birth of Christ, that we may know that none can hear aright but those whose souls are illuminated by God.' ' I could say many things about this " sign," but one must suffice. Bethlehem means the "house of bread." It represents the holy Church, in which the true Bread, the Body of Christ, is ministered. The manger in Bethlehem is the altar in the Church. ... In this manger is Jesus, wrapped in swaddling clothes. The swaddling clothes are the sacramental veils {teginnentuin sacratnentonn/i). In this manger, under the appearances of bread and wine, are the true Body and Blood of Christ. ^ There Christ Himself is believed to be, but wrapped in swaddling clothes, that is to say, invisible in the sacrament.' ' We have no other so great and evident sign of the birth of Christ, as that we daily receive His Body and Blood at the holy altar ; and that He who was once born for us of a virgin is daily immolated in our sight. Therefore, brethren, let us hasten to the manger of the Lord, first preparing ourselves by grace "in a pure heart and a good conscience and an unfeigned faith," ^ that associated with the angels we may sing " Gloria in excelsis Deo." ' ^ A similar thought is thus developed by another writer of this century, Peter of Blois, who died Archdeacon of London in 1200 : ' In the hour when Christ was born, there were many rich men asleep, and some perhaps were awake and solicitous for the wisdom of this world. But Christ, who has made foolish the wisdom of this world, and decreed to save the faithful by the folly of preaching, granted the vision of His angels and the song of glory and of praise at His birth not to the wise, not to philosophers, but to shepherds, to rustics, to the simple and the humble. " I confess to Thee, O Father, for thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, ' In Sermon 11, col. 273, Aelred says: 'Post consecrationem jam non est substantia panis et vini quod prius fuit, sed in veritate corpus Christi et sanguis.' 2 I Tim. i. 5. ' S. Aelred, Scj/u. 2 ; Migne, Patrol, tom. cxcv. col, 227. 8 FAITH IN CONFLICT. and hast revealed them unto litde ones." ' And you, brethren, though you are not shepherds, yet you shall see that Little One whom many kings and prophets desired to see, reposing to-day on the altar, not in His glory, but wrapped in swaddling clothes. For as in the time of His Nativity, His strength was truly present though hidden by those coverings, so is His Majesty now hidden in the Sacrament. But a day will come when He will appear, not clad in swaddling clothes, but clothed with light as with a vestment as the only begotten of the Father; as the King in His beauty ; having His tabernacle in the sun, in the splendours of the saints, in the light that wanes not, in the glory that passes not away.' ^ These extracts from writers who all lived within the first century after the Norman Conquest, and long before the definition of Tran- substantiation by the general council of Lateran in 12 15, will suffice to show how clear and precise was the theological teaching, how ex- plicit the faith of the Anglo-Norman Church. Coleridge, in the poem already quoted, calls Berengarius 'Lynx among moles.' Could he be serious ? Were men like Lanfranc and Anselm intellectual or spiritual moles ? Had he called Anselm an eagle, blinded with excess of hght from gazing on the sun, there would have been some poetical fitness at least in the comparison. On the other hand, in what was Berengarius a lynx ? Did he alone see the difficulties that surround the mystery of the Real Presence ? Certes, every difficulty that gives rise to incredulity in this nineteenth century was perceived clearly, proposed and discussed by one ecclesiastical writer after another in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, no less than in the later ages of scholasticism and metaphysical subdety. Besides, it requires no lynx's eyes to see the difficulties of the Real Presence. The most brutal pagans saw them and mocked at them ; the ignorant peasants called Henricians, Petrobrussians, and Albigenses, were acute enough to see the difficulties that Berengarius saw, and sur- passed him in the obstinacy of their disbelief. Coleridge goes on to compare Berengarius to the Dawn : The ascending Day-star with a bolder eye Hath lit each dew-drop on our trimmer lawn ; Yet not for this, if wise, will we decry The spots and struggles of the timid Dawn ; Lest so we tempt th' approaching Noon to scorn The mists and painted vapours of our Morn. In this view the Protestant theology is the morn of which the nega- ' Matt. xi. 25. 2 Peter of Blois, semi. 6, Bib. Max, tom. xxiv. p. 1085. A -LYNX AMONG MOLES: 9 tions of Berengarius were the first bright streaks, while a noonday of bolder speculation than Protestantism is still to come, or was still to come when Coleridge wrote. Were all this said of the natural sciences, I could yield it a hearty assent. The eleventh century was indeed far behind the sixteenth, as that again behind the nineteenth, and the Day-star is still ascending. But when I look to the religious history of those centuries, I can find no proofs of progress even in negation. A monk of Cluny, named Rodolph Glaber, has written the history of his own times, viz. the first half of the eleventh cen- tury. In the third chapter of the third book he has a discussion about a comet, which, though by no means stupid, shows how little was known of astronomy in the eleventh century. But in the eighth chapter he relates with much detail the history of some heretics who were discovered at Orleans in 1023. They were men just such as abound in France at the present day, and who think themselves the maturest growth of civilisation. They treated both Old and New Testaments as ravings (lidiratnenta), and affirmed that the heavens and the earth are uncreated, and denied that any future punishment awaits those who indulge their passions. • Though I do not think this is exactly the noon foretold by Coleridge, yet it shows that there were speculators in those days besides Berengarius, that men did not believe merely because they were not tempted to deny or to doubt, or repeat words to which they attached no precise meaning. It is not true that ' prostrate alike both prince and peasant fell.' Peasants formed sects and met in secret conventicles, and princes like the Count Geoffrey of Anjou supported heresiarchs as long as it suited their political interests to do so. In a word, it is incon- sistent with genuine history to represent the unanimity of Catholic faith in any age or country as the result of indifference, mental sloth, or abject fear ; and still more so to make the heresiarchs who have appeared from time to time singular examples of intellectual activity or spiritual penetration. If they have been sometimes clever men like Berengarius and Wyclifife, they have been outmatched even in intellectual gifts by their Catholic adversaries, such as Lanfranc, Anselm, and Waldensis, while they could make no claim to the distinguishing Christian virtues, faith and humility, without which mental subtlety only misleads. Let us now consider what is the bearing of this famous contro- versy on England. We have been told that Anglo-Saxon England had a view of its own regarding the Holy Eucharist, quite opposed ' Rodolfi Glabri Hist. Libri 1. iii. cap. 8 ; Migne, torn, cxlii. lo FAITH IN CONFLICT. to that of Lanfranc, Anselm, and the Normans. This assertion has been sufficiently refuted in the former volume by means of purely native documents. But it is rendered still more paradoxical by the Berengarian controversy, and the arrival in England of the opponents of Berengarius. Berengarius was reproached by one adversary after another for contradicting the universal belief What was his answer? He appeals back to the fourth century, and ridicules the belief of his own day as universal stupidity. How gladly would he have replied that, if Italy and France and Germany were against him, yet England at least was on his side. But this he did not say, nor was it said by any of his party. Yet there had been, especially since the early days of St. Dunstan, much relation between England and the great monasteries in the North of France, and the faith of the English was well known on the continent.' And again, in the very heat of the controversy Lanfranc comes to England, and is placed over the English Church. He governs with a certain severity, and shows a certain contempt for the ignorance of the islanders. He deposes bishops and abbots. But when did he ever make a charge of heresy against any of them ? Not one favourer of the Berengarian heresy is mentioned in English history. Resent- ment burned in English hearts against the Normans, and civil passions found an entrance even into cloisters. We hear of a feud that led to sacrilege and bloodshed in the church of Glastonbury between the Nonnan abbot and the Saxon monks ; ^ but its origin was the refusal of the monks to abandon their Gregorian cajitus. What would it have been had they been required to change their faith in the Blessed Sacrament ? Then, indeed, the English would have fought for their altars as well as for their hearths, and the name of Beren- garius would have become a war-cry throughout the nation. On the contrary, they heard the doctrine which they had always beheved stated more lucidly and defended more acutely than it might have been in their native schools ; but it had for them no novelty. An illustration of all this will be found in the life of St. Wulstan. St. Wulstan had been appointed Bishop of Worcester by St. Ed- ' Guitmund, one of the principal opponents of Berengarius, had lived in England. There is, therefore, special force in his assertion : ' Berengariam ple- beculam nee unum solum regnum aliquo unquam tempore obtinuisse monstrari potest. ' And again : ' Notissimum est hoc tempore priusquam Berengarius in- sanisset hujusmodi vesanias nunquam fuisse.' Migne, tom. cxlix. p. 1487 and p. 1489. - See I'reeman's Norman Conquest, iv. 394. ST. WULSTAN. il ward in 1062. He retained his bishopric under the primacy of Lanfranc and St. Ansehii till his death in 1095. He was a thorough EngHshman, and no friend of the Normans, who had even meditated his deposition, but were deterred both by his reputation for sanctity and a miraculous occurrence. Yet this did not prevent St. Wulstan cherishing the greatest esteem and affection for St. Anselm, nor St. Ansehii from venerating St. Wulstan. And the mere fact that the Anglo-Norman Church procured the canonisation of the Anglo-Saxon prelate would be proof enough, were none other forthcoming, that with regard to the Holy Eucharist, as well as all other matters, the teaching and practice of St. Wulstan were the same as their own. But William of Malmesbury has left us some interesting details which show St. Wulstan's special devotion to the Mass ; and though he does not state the truism that the saint believed in transubstantiation, yet he certainly would not have praised him had it not been the case. He praises Wulstan because when a young priest he did not say mass hastily and spend the rest of the day in amusement and self-indulgence (as was too frequently done by his fellow-countrymen). Wulstan said mass devoutly, and spent much time afterwards in thanksgiving. When a bishop he sang mass daily, and after his mass recited many psalms and litanies of the saints ; and whilst at Worcester he reserved to himself the solemn and late mass in order to take his share in the burden of monastic offices. Moreover, he used to hear two masses before singing his own. An interesting story of his conduct when abbot must be related in the very words of Malmesbury. ' One day he was compelled to go early to the law courts, and therefore before he sang mass he ordered his dinner to be prepared. The servants put a wild goose on the spit : meanwhile the priest stood at the altar with his usual devotion. The church was near the house, and the savoury smell of the roasting goose was carried into it, and reached the nostrils of the celebrant while he was engaged in the silent part of the mass, and caused him a distraction. He immediately recalled his mind, and tried to put away the tempta- tion ; but when it continued in spite of his efibrts he grew angry with himself, and took an oath on the Sacrament which he held in his hand that he would never eat such kinds of food again. When mass was over he left the house fasting, and from that day forward he did not touch flesh meat.' ^ Such then was the devotion of St. Wulstan to the sacrifice of the altar. Now can anyone persuade himself that the faith of Wulstan ' Vita, apud Boll, die Jan. 19. 12 FAITH IN CONFLICT. when he said mass in the days of WiUiam Rufus had undergone a change from that with which he went to the altar in the time of St. Edward ? If not, then the traditions of St. Dunstan, of St. Odo, and of ^Ifric were in perfect harmony with those of St. Anselm and of Lanfranc. Wulstan was but one of innumerable links between the two churches, or, to speak more correctly, between the two epochs before and after the Conquest, of the one Church of England, and between the two peoples, which after the Conquest worshipped in unity of faith before the same altars. It was the old English faith that St. Margaret carried to Scotland, which was there also found to be identical with that which had come down from St. Columba, and which, borne back to England by Margaret's daughter, the ' good Queen Maud,' wife of Henry I., was recognised by St. Anselm as that which he had first learnt in Italy and afterwards taught in Normandy. Three centuries had yet to pass before a voice was raised in England calling in question this adorable mystery. How men treated it meanwhile, and how it became to them life or death according to their treatment, will form the subject of this volume. J3 CHAPTER II. THE DOCTRINE OF CONCOMITANCE. The Real Presence of our Lord's Flesh and Blood involves that of His Soul and of His Divinity, from which they are now inseparable. It involves also the presence of both Flesh and Blood under either species, though not in the same manner. This is called the doctrine of Concomitance. It was thus expressed by an English theologian : * Sub specie panis est Corpus Christi per conversionem, et Sanguis per connexionem, et Anima per conjunctionem, et Deltas per unionem.'^ The Council of Trent writes as follows : ' At all times the faith has been in the Church of God that, immediately after consecration, the true Body of our Lord and His true Blood, together with His Soul and Divinity, are present under the species of bread and wine ; but the Body indeed under the species of bread, and the Blood under the species of wine, by virtue of the words (of consecration) ; more- over, that the Body itself is under the species of wine, and the Blood under the species of bread, and the Soul under each, by virtue of that natural connection and concomitance by which the parts of Christ our Lord, who, being now risen from the dead, can die no more, are naturally joined together, the Divinity furthermore on account of its admirable hypostatic union with the Body and Soul.' ^ This work is not dogmatic, and I have purposely avoided, when- ever it was possible, treating dogmatic questions except from a purely historical point of view. If I now pause to examine an objection made against the antiquity of the doctrine of Concomitance, I am not departing from my plan, and am justified by the importance of the subject. The Council of Trent says that the doctrine which it proposed had been at all times that of the Church of God. But Canon Simmons, the learned editor of ' The Lay Folk's Mass Book,' commenting on the words, ' And so I trow that Housel is both flesh and blood,' sees in them a proof that the original (of which he sup- poses them to be a translation) was not written earlier than the ' Lyndwood, Proviitciale, p. S (ed. 1679). ^ Con. Trui. scss. xiii. cap. 3. 14 THE DOCTRINE OF CONCOMITANCE. twelfth century. ' We do not meet/ he says, ' with this opinion in the time of the Berengarian controversy, but we find it thus stated by Ansehn in the end of the eleventh century : ' In utraque specie totum Christum sumi.' ' On the other hand, when he meets a passage in a later writer where the doctrine of Concomitance chances not to be expressed, although on other grounds it is certain that it was held by the writer in question, Canon Simmons suggests that such language 'may probably have come down from an earlier period,' ^ i.e. when the doctrine was still unknown or only in embryo. I would here ask Canon Simmons whether the formula of St. John, ' Tlie Word was made flesh,' implies ignorance on the part of the Apostle that in that flesh was a human soul ; or whether it is safe, historically or theologically, to hold that a writer denies whatever he does not assert, or is ignorant of what he does not express. I confess that I can find no better grounds than such assumptions as these for the criticism of Canon Simmons. The Berengarian controversy turned on the reality of the presence of our I.ord's Flesh and Blood, not on the mode of their presence as regards their union or separation. If, then, it were true that Catholic writers engaged in that controversy do not affirm the doctrine of Concomitance, no adverse conclusion could be drawn from such silence.-^ Most certainly it cannot be shown that this doctrine was denied, either then or previously or since, by any Catholic author. It is to be regretted that Canon Simmons does not state what opinion he attributes to the defenders of the Real Presence who wrote before St. Anselm. Did they affirm the real separation of the Flesh and Blood as during our Lord's death, though without any dissolution of the hypostatic union with the Divinity? Or did they conceive His Flesh to be present under the species of bread without Soul or Godhead, and in the same manner His Blood under the ' Lay Folk's Mass Book, edited by Rev. Canon Simmons for the E. E. T. Soc, p. 225. 2 lb. p. 380. * One of Berengarius's opponents, Abbot Wolphelm, quotes the words of the famous acts of St. Andrew : ' Tostquam omnis popuhis credentium Agni carnes comederit et sanguinem biberit, Agnus qui sacrificatus est integer persevcrat et vivus.' (Migne, torn. cliv. p. 414-) Those who cannot admit the genuineness of these acts must at least accept them as testimony to the faith of the century when they were composed, and of those by whom they are quoted. Guitmund, in his answer to Bercngarius, quotes a Preface then in use : ' Singuli accipiunt Christum Dominuni et in singulis portionibus totus est, nee per singulos minuitur sed integrum se prxbct in singulis.' Migne, torn, cxlix. p. 1434. HISTORICAL THEORY OF PROTESTANTS. 15 species of wine? I find such a doctrine actually held by some Anglicans, unless I have utterly mistaken the import of their words. ^ And monstrous as it is, dissolving Christ and the virtue of His Re- demption even beyond the Nestorian impiety, it is looked upon by other Anglicans as a tenet less erroneous than that of Concomitance as understood by Catholics.^ Without attributing to Canon Simmons historical views which he has not stated, I will take occasion from his words to reply to what would seem to be the popular theory among Protestants as to the growth of the doctrine of Transubstantiation. They hold then that our Lord's Flesh and Blood were believed in the first ages to be present either figuratively or in some vague sense which none dared to define — that the objective reality of this presence was gradually admitted, especially in the time of Paschasius and in the Berengarian controversy, and that nothing was then affirmed about the presence of our Lord's Soul or Divinity ; that later and more acute theologians saw that, if the Flesh and Blood were present, they must be still united with the Godhead, under pain of renewing the errors of Nestorius, and they did not hesitate to state this consequence and draw the practical conclusions ; and that simultaneously it was per- ceived that, unless our Lord was dead, even the separation of the Flesh and Blood could be only apparent ; and so at last the doctrine came to its full growth about the beginning of the twelfth century. I have not seen it stated, nor do I suppose that it would be main- tained by any Protestant controversialist, that there was ever a school among Catholics who at the same time admitted that our Lord's Flesh and Blood in the Holy Eucharist were divine and adorable because united with His Divinity, and yet in a state of death because of their real separation from one another and from His human soul. I will therefore put aside altogether this just conceivable phase of opinion or error, and consider the supposed transition to which the remark of Canon Simmons refers. St. Anselm, then, is admitted to have taught explicitly that ' in ' See the reference in vol i. p. 126 note. - Six bishops of the Scotch Episcopal Church in 1858 state in a synodal ad- dress to their flocks : ' You will remember that, as our Chui ch has repudi ted the doctrine of Transubstantiation, so she has given us no authority wherelw we can require it to be believed that the substance of Christ's Body and Blood still less His entire person as God and man, now glorified in the heavens, is made to exist with, in, or under the material substances of bread and wine.' What is the meaning of the words 'still less,' unless they imply that it is a greater error to believe that our Lord's Body is present in union with His Godhead, than separated from it? By 'entire Person' we must suppose that the bishops meant Being as God Incarnate. Surely His Person was not divided even in His death. 1 6 THE DOCTRINE OF CONCOMITANCE. either species the whole Christ is received' Now, if Lanfrancand the other opponents of Berengarius did not hold this doctrine of Con- comitance, they must have supposed that under the species of bread was mere flesh, without blood, without soul, not united with the Godhead, i.e. neither living nor life-giving. It is not an exaggeration to say that the error of Berengarius would have been innocent com- pared with such ultra-Nestorianism, and that the holders of such an opinion would have differed toto ccelo, or rather tcto Deo, from St. Anselm, to whom the Blessed Sacrament was Chr'st Himself Yet where does St. Anselm hint that he has made some new deduction or development ? Who ever accused him of innovation ? Wlien he published his prayers to the Blessed Sacrament, who cried out against the novelty of addressing petitions to bloodless and inanimate flesh? Let us listen to his language : ' Call to mind,' he says to the priest, 'as sweetly as you can, the unspeakable mercy and inesti- mable sweetness of the Body of Christ which you hold, how for your redemption it suffered insult and was crucified. . . . And when your mind is saturated with these reflections, speak to the Body of your most sweet Lord, which you are holding in your hands, and, address- ing Him as present, lay before Him your necessities. . . . Doubt not that in that hour of the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of your Redeemer the angels are waiting on their Creator, and paying inef- fable homage to their Creator's Flesh and Blood.' ' This is but a specimen of many authentic prayers that St. Anselm penned for his own use and the use of others, In these prayers there is no apostrophe to an inanimate object as if personified, no am- biguity, but words of simple adoration, praise, and petition addressed to Jesus Christ, believed to be present in Body, Soul, and Godhead, just as they would have been addressed to Him had He become visible to the senses. Now to me, among all incredible things, nothing is more incredible than that anyo?ie should have begmi such a practice since the days of the Apostles — that a theologian, knowing that before his time the Blessed Sacrament had been revered as holy, yet never addressed as living, should have had the audacity to in- augurate a totally different view and practice, and then to publish it to the world without a word of apology or explanation ! But that that man should have been St. Anselm, a theologian and a philo- sopher unsurpassed in any age for the grandeur of his conceptions of the Divine attributes, is the very strangest of paradoxes. And then again we are asked to believe that the Church accepted this new view, this new practice, this bold idolatry, without a murmur of resistance ' S. Ansclmi Opera, Orat. 28, torn. i. p. 372. INNO VA TION IMPOSSIBLE. 17 throughout its wide extent, without a shadow of suspicion that a change had taken place. Those who hve outside the Cathohc com- munion, and build up theories at their pleasure about matters that are out of the range of their experience, may credit such views of history ; but to those who know the working of the Catholic mind, its subtle questionings, its jealousy of innovation, the supposition of such a change is not merely incredible, but even ludicrous.' St. Anselm had his enemies, ready enough to catch at any pre- text to accuse or depreciate him. But it occurred to no one that he had departed from the doctrine or the practice of his master Lan- franc, for he and Lanfranc had often walked together on Palm Sunday in the processions of the Blessed Sacrament at Bee, and knelt side by side in adoration of our Lord present under the single species of bread.2 In every monastery in Europe the words of the great St. Odo, abbot of Cluny (927-942), were familiar : 'A voice spoke to Moses, saying : " The place in w^hich thou standest is holy ground ; " and if Moses dared not gaze upon that fire, there is somethmg far greater on our altars. For that fire was not God, but only God's creature, whereas here is the Body of Christ, in which dwells all the fulness of the Divinity.' ^ It may perhaps be asked why such explicit state- ments as this are not more frequent. I reply that they were quite unnecessary for those who held the catholic faith about our Lord's Incarnation. Whoever believed the Real Presence of His Flesh and Blood, 7nust have held their union with His Soul and His Divinity. A writer of the twelfth century, examining step by step the doc- trine of the Blessed Sacrament as held by Catholics in his day, gives a very complete explanation of the expressions that aroused the ' I must refer to the authors of the Perpetnite de la Foi for a full examination of the theory of gradual change. Some Anglicans, it may be said, are trying to introduce, and successfully introducing, prayers to the Blessed Sacrament in their communion. Yes ! but are they doing it without detection ? without opposi- tion ? without a sense of innovation ? and if they succeed, will no one recognise that a change has taken place ? Yet tVey only attempt in this to revive the prac- tice of their forefathers. When they shall have succeeded in bringing the whole of England to their way of worship, it will be time to discuss how St. Anselm and his followers changed the worship of all Europe. ^ We shall see the regulations made by Lanfranc for this procession and fcr the adoration of the Sacred Host, in the chapter on the ceremonies of Holy Week. ' CoUat. ii. II, in Migne, torn, cxxxiii. p. 558. VOL. II. C i8 THE DOCTRINE OF CONCOMITANCE. suspicions of Canon Simmons.' This author is anonymous, yet he certainly wrote before the definition of transubstantiation in the Council of.Lateran in 12 15, since he does not use this term, but its equivalents. He first asserts as most certain that both the Body and Blood of our Lord are received under either species, and then asks whether only the Flesh and Blood of Christ are taken or the whole Christ. ' To this I answer,' he says, ' what as a son I have learnt from my mother, the Church, that the whole Christ is received undivided.' He does not say that this is a theological opinion of certain scholastics, or the teaching of St. Anselm, or the more probable view. He says it is the undoubted teaching of the Church which every true son of that supernatural mother must hold as divine truth, however stupendous the mystery may seem ; for this must be the meaning of his profession of filial obedience. He then asks : ' Why then is it customary to say that our Lord's Body is received, as if separately, whereas in the person of Christ are three substances, the Word, the Flesh, and the Soul ? ' He replies that ' this expression does not mean that the Body only is received, but the Lord Himself, as we might say, " The king's body sat there," meaning that the king himself was there. Or we are said to take the Body of the Lord, because the bodily substance of bread and wine does not pass into an incorporeal substance, but into a corporeal substance, viz. the Flesh and Blood of Christ. Or again, we name the Body of Christ out of tender affection ' (to the humility of the Incarnation). ' Or, we name that which would alone be seen by the bodily senses ' (were the mystery of our Lord's presence made visible). Canon Simmons, however, objects that ' the definiteness of later forms is very marked.' He alludes to such expressions as ' Welcome, Lord, in form of bread.' But Canon Simmons does not need to be told that doctrines which he, in common with us, holds to be apo- stolic, such as that of the Blessed Trinity, or of our Lord's Divinity, have also acquired a similar definiteness by having been contradicted and then defined either in the schools or in councils. One of the signs that such definiteness is legitimate development, and not cor- ruption, is that it was occasionally anticipated long before the con- troversy. The French peasant of to-day commonly speaks of our Lord Jesus Christ as * le bon Dieu,' whether he considers Him on His heavenly throne, or refers to Him as present m the tabernacle, or points to His efligy in the wayside crucifix. Here is doubtless a ' Speculum de niysteriis Ecdesia, cap. 7, in the Appendix to the works of Hugh of St. Victor, apud Migne, Patrol, torn, clxxv ii. EARLY TESTIMONIES. 19 greater definiteness than in the language used before the Arian and Nestorian controversies. Yet there has been no change of faith, and occasionally the early writers anticipated such formulas in a way that proves the identity of their belief with ours. So has it been with regard to the Holy Eucharist. In the sixteenth century the Blessed Sacrament was popularly designated in England as ' our Lord,' or ' the good Lord,' or ' our Creator.' * Such popular expressions had grown out of the disputes against Berengarius and Wycliffe, and the ceremonial, devotions, and festivals by which reparation had been made for their impieties. Yet expressions which imply the doctrine of Concomitance no less unmistakably are found in the early fathers. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, for example, in the fourth century, in giving directions for receiving the Sacred Host calls it a King : ' Make the left hand a throne for the right as being about to receive a King, and having hallowed the palm, receive the Body of Christ, saying after it, Amen.' ^ ' Knowest thou,' asks St. Basil, 'who He is whom thou art going to receive ? Even He who promised us that " I and the Father, we will come and make our abode with him." ' ^ 'The Flesh of the Word,' says St. Gregory of Nyssa, ' and the Blood that lies within that Flesh, have not one grace alone ; ' and he is here speaking of the Holy Eucharist.'* ' Others give their goods to their heirs,' says St. Avitus of Vienne ; ' He gives Himself, i.e. the Flesh and Blood of His Body.' ^ ' Christ is my food,' cries St. Ambrose, * Christ my drink. The Flesh of God is my food, and the Blood of God my drink.' ^ And again : ' In that sacrament Christ is, because it is Christ's Body ; therefore it is not bodily food but spiritual.' ^ Numerous and most explicit passages might be quoted from the writings of St. John Chrysostom, to the intent that Jesus Christ Him- self as God and man is present in the Holy Eucharist, and this really involves the doctrine of the Concomitance of the Flesh and Blood under either species. The same truth is indicated in those histories in which it was told ' ' She received the good Lord,' writes Kingston, the Lieutenant of the Tower, of Anne Boleyn in 1536. (Ellis's Orig. Letters, 1st series, vol. ii. p. 65.) 'I shall receive my Lord and Redeemer, Jesus Christ,' says Colet in his Rules for St. PauPs School. ' For the setting up of God's house,' say the churchwardens of St. Margaret's, Westminster, in 1520, meaning thereby the Easter sepulchre, where the Blessed Eucharist was placed. And again : ' For mats for the parishioners to kneel upon when they reverenced their Maker.' {lb. anno 1538.) Similar expressions are very common. " Catech. Myst. v. ^ Horn. i. De jejunio. * Horn. viii. in Eccles. ' In Serm. in Natali Calicis, ed. Sirmond. « In Ps. cxviii. sermo 18, n. 26. ' De Mysttriis, cap. 9, n. 58. c 2 20 THE DOCTRINE OF CONCOMITANCE. that Blood had been seen to issue from the sacred particle — histories that belong, as has been said in a previous chapter, to the early centuries no less than to the middle ages.' In fine, the doctrine of Concomitance is taught wherever it is said that the Flesh and Blood of Christ should be worshipped. For, says St. Ambrose, the reason why we adore Christ's Flesh in the mysteries of the Holy Eucharist, as the Apostles adored it in our Lord when He was on earth, is that Christ is not divided, but is one. ^ A still stronger testimony to the prevalence of this belief through- out the Church is to be found in the efficacy attached to the offering of our Lord's Flesh and Blood in sacrifice. It had been proved over and over again against Nestorius that the death of our Lord, the immolation of his Flesh and Blood on the cross, would have profited us nothing for our redemption had they not been divine, not by niere designation, but by personal assumption of God the Son. The mind of the Church was saturated with this belief Are we to suppose that her priests and people forgot it when our Lord's Death and Redemption were solemnly commemorated, and that they virtually retracted all their assertions by offering to God a Flesh and Blood no longer united with the Godhead ? Every expression they use contra- dicts such a supposition. In every age, in every country, it is repeated in a hundred forms that Christ is immolated on our altars in an unbloody manner to His Father, that a salutary, a life-giving, a Divine Victim is presented by the priest to God on behalf of His people. Every testimony of the liturgies to the Real Presence is thus a testimony to the doctrine of Concomitance. And, lastly, on no other foundation could have been grounded the practice of receiving communion, at least occasionally, under a single species, sometimes that of bread, sometimes of wine. That such communions have been made in East and West from the earliest time ' See vol. 1. ch. viii., where I have also given some Anglo-Saxon authorities for the doctrine of Concomitance. - ' Caro Christi quam hodieque in mysteriis adoramus, et quam apostoli in Domino Jesu adorarunt ; neque enim divisus est Christus sed unus.' (S. Ambro- sius, De Spiriiu Saiicto, lib, iii. cap. ii.) St. Ambrose appeals to the ptiblic fact of the adoration by the Church of our Lord's Flesh, and therefore of our Lord Himself, in the Holy Eucharist ; and he appeals to it as an ancient fact, one which had come down to his time from the days of the apostles, ' The apostles adored our Lord's Flesh after His resurrection, and taught the Church to do it in the mysteries, and we do it still [hodieque).^ Abbot Durandus, who wrote against Berengarius in lo6o, having quoted the words : ' Adore His footstool, for it is holy,' says : ' The footstool of the Divinity is the holy Humanity of our Redeemer, to which the reverence of lowly adoration is due on account of the truth of their inseparable union,' (Migne, torn, cxlix. p. 1383.) VARIATION IN LANGUAGE, 21 is proved beyond any possibility of dispute, and is admitted by all scholars, however unwilling some may be to draw the theological consequences from the facts. On this subject I shall treat in the next chapter. To sum up then the present discussion. In the Blessed Eucharist is our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, living and adorable as at His Father's right hand, though in a state of apparent annihilation which befits the sacrificial purposes for which this Rite was instituted, and makes possible the sacramental communion by which the Sacrifice is completed. This has been ever the faith of God's Church. Yet forms of language have varied according to the special point of view of the speakers, or the thoughts most current in each age. In this the doctrine of the Eucharist is exactly analogous to the doctrine of the Incarnation ; and what has been called the greater explicitness of later forms is probably quite as much a result of the growth or rooting of the doctrine of the Incarnation itself in the minds of the people as of that of the Eucharist. At the end of the popular rhymed treatise called the ' Lay Folk's Mass Book,' is found the following grace before meat : God that His bread brake At His maund when He sate Among His 'postels twelve. He bless our bread and our ale That we have and have schall, And be with us Himselve. In the Bidding Prayer, the people were asked to pray for 'the holy cross that God was done tipon, that God for His mercy bring it out of heathen men's hands.' Such expressions in which the name of God is substituted for the more usual one of Christ are, in a certain sense, developments. They presuppose that theological controversies have taken place and have done their work. In certain times or countries they would have been ambiguous and misleading to the ignorant. They were devoutly used as more honourable forms in a purely Catholic population. But they were never used exclusively. The same may be said of Eucharistic formulae. The very same motive —the desire to say that which would be most honourable to our Lord under present circumstances — has made men at one time use expressions that lay all the stress on the reality of His Flesh and Blood, at another time on the concomitance of one with the other, and then again on the fact that He who is so humbled is the Most High God. But at no time was there an exclusive devotion to one form of speech. There always have been, and will always be, special 22 THE DOCTRINE OF CONCOMITANCE. reasons for naming emphatically our Lord's Flesh and Blood. These alone are present sacramentally, i.e. as signified by the visible elements, and each is present sacramentally under its own species only. The Church has always conformed to the way of speaking of her Divine Spouse. ' He that eateth Me shall live by Me/ He had said, but more frequently, ' He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood.' ^ He thereby reminds us of His incorporation into the human race as the means whereby we may become partakers of the Divine nature. He also reminds us of the sufferings of His sacred Body and the shedding of His precious Blood for our redemption. This death is symbolised to the eye and mind by the apparent separation of His Body and Blood upon the altar. The double cle- ment of the sacred Rite symboHses also, according to St. Anselm, the redemption of our bodies and of our souls, for as ' blood is the life of man/ the drinking of our Lord's Blood reminds us that He shed it for our souls. The visible signs of bread and wine also represent to us a perfect banquet, and the Church's theologians and preachers have never neglected to develope the symbolic teaching of the bread and of the wine. Symbolic teaching, however, is through the eye to the understanding. It is not necessary that each communicant should carry out by his own personal act the fulness of that symbolism. It is publicly expressed by the oblation and communion of the cele- brating priest. The lay communicant perceives it clearly and expresses it sufficiently by feeding on the Divine Victim which has just been mystically immolated on the altar, whether he receive the Flesh and Blood of his Redeemer under the form of bread or of that of wine. This is a question of discipline, not of faith, John vi. 57, 58. 23 CHAPTER III. CHANGES OF DISCIPLINE. While faith remains ever the same, discipHne may vary, and changes of disciphne are sometimes made in order to guard the faith against new errors. The two main points in which discipHne changed at about the opening of the period we are now reviewing, were with regard to the communions of children, and receiving communion under one species. I. Communion of Children. It is singular how few traces remain in history of the communions of children. Though this was a matter of daily occurrence throughout the whole Catholic Church, yet it is only from a slight allusion here and there that we can gather any information on the subject either in England or in other countries. We have in this one more illustra- tion of the important principle, that what is best known and of most frequent repetition is often least recorded. We know that in the early centuries and for many ages infants received communion immediately after baptism, and that they often received subsequently before reaching the years of discretion. But we do not know at what date the custom of communicating infants began to be abandoned, nor when it finally ceased in the Church. Gilbert, Bishop of Limerick (1110-1139), says that the priest must give communion to those who have just been baptized.' The rubric of the baptismal office at the end of an Irish missal of the twelfth century prescribes confirmation immediately after baptism, should a bishop be present, but says nothing about communion.^ The ' Rede Boke of Darbye ' (of the eleventh century) prescribes both, as does also the Sarum Manual. The Pontifical of Bishop Lacy (fourteenth century), in the service for infant baptism, says : ' If a bishop be • Usher, Epist. Hibern. p. 77. Migne, torn. clix. p. looi. '^ Printed by Mr, Warren in 1879, from the MS. of Corpus Christi College, 0,xford. 34 CHANGES OF DISCIPLINE. present, the (newly baptized) must be immediately confirmed, and after- wards communicated, if he has the proper age {si ejus cetas est), with the words, " The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ keep thee to life ever- lasting. Amen." ' • But perhaps here the words about the age are a rubric referring only to adults, especially as the communion is given in the species of bread. And, even were it otherwise, the custom of giving communion to infants might have long become obsolete, though a scribe copying the ancient ritual would not dare to omit a line of his original. On the whole it seems probable that communion was rarely given to infants after the twelfth century. St. Thomas in the thirteenth distinctly treats it as unlawful and unknown in the West. When at last infant communion was no longer practised, we should like to know how children were prepared for their first communion, and at what age it was usual to make it. Both from my own researches, and by inquiry from those best informed in antiquarian lore, I have satisfied myself that a few isolated facts here and there are all that we can glean regarding these interesting subjects. From the laws of Howel the Good, drawn up in 926, we find that children then confessed in Wales at a very early age : * From every person who has been baptised,' says the Code, ' the bridaw {i.e. solemn asseveration) may be taken, as well man as woman . . . from the child of the age of seven years, which shall go under the hand of the confessor.' ^ And again in another law : 'At the end of seven years the child is to swear for his acts, and his father is to pay, for then he shall come under the hand of his confessor, and shall take duties upon himself ^ In Saxon canons we find occasional mention of the measure of penance given to children, and from Venerable Bede we know that in his opinion there were great numbers of boys and girls whose life was so innocent that he wished them to communicate more frequently than was then the custom. But to such mere glimpses into history our vision is limited. An anonymous author of the twelfth century thus writes : ' Give not the Lord's Body to boys under ten years old, for though they are pure yet they know not what they receive. But if death is imminent, communion may be given them, though they are only nine, or eight, or even seven years old, if they know the Our Father and are good.' ^ ' Liber Fontif., edited by Barnes (1847), p. 256. 2 Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, i. 273. ' lb. 281. ■* ' Nee pueris annos infra bis quinque manentes Des corpus Domini ; quamvis sint corpore puri, Quid sumant tamen ignorant, ergo prohibetur,' &c. INFANT COMMUNION. 25 This passage shows that infant communion was then almost un- known, though opinions differed as to the age of discretion for receiving so great a mystery. Bishop Henry of Sisteron, who governed his church from 1240 to 1250, fixes an earlier age. 'Let priests ad- monish their parishioners to teach children from the age of seven and upwards the Pater Noster and the Credo, and on Good Friday bring them with them to the church to kiss the cross, and on Easter Day to receive the Body of Christ, having however previously con- fessed.' Another synod of about the same date, 1255, prescribes that on Easter Day the Eucharist be Jiot given to children (pueris), but only the blessed bread. • The transition from infant communion to that of children pre- pared by instruction is indicated in the following passage taken from a treatise on the Sacraments, of the twelfth century, sometimes ascribed to Robert Paululus, sometimes to Hugh of St. Victor : ' If it can be done,' says the writer, 'without danger, according to the primitive institution of the Church, the Sacrament of the Eucharist should be given to children under the form of the Precious Blood. Some priests, ignorantly keeping up the form without the reality, give them wine instead of the Blood. I should think this quite unneces- sary if it could be given up without offence to the simple. But if in reserving the Blood of Christ, or in ministering it to children, there is danger, then indeed the doing so may be lightly omitted.' ^ n. Communion under One Species. We are brought in these words, by a natural transition, to the question of communion under one species. It had been thus given exceptionally, from the beginning of the Church, to children generally under the species of wine, to the dying under the species of bread. The doctrine of Concomitance, explained SeeBened. XIV. De Synodo Dioc. I. vii. cap. xii. r-3. Martene, De Antiquis Ri' . i. cap. iv. 10. Mathoud's notes to Cardinal Pullen. Migne, t. clxxxvi. p. 1140. ' Martene, ibid. 2 Hugo de S. Victore, De Officiis Eccl. 1. i. cap. 20. (In Append.) Migne, torn, clxxvii. In defect of English documents I will give a few words from John Nider, O. P., a great theologian, who took part in the synod of Constance : ' The time for communion is when they can sin mortally, discern corporal from spiritual food, and eat this sacrament with the teeth of devotion ; in the seventh, eighth, or any other year. And this is to be left to the judgment of a good man, though his decision ought not to be upheld against the statute of a synod or a good custom.' (Praceptoriuni Divinnni, Yxxc. iii. cap. 12.) 26 CHANGES OF DISCIPLINE. in the last chapter, made it evident that under either species the whole Christ, His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, were received. The holding of this doctrine can alone account for the occasional and not infrequent communions under one species in the early Church, and is the only adequate explanation of the gradual change by which the exception became the rule at a later period. Thougli many reasons are given for withdrawing the chaUce, yet they amount to no more than reasons of fitness. They at no time made the dis- tribution of communion to the people in the churches under both species impossible. Such reasons of convenience or precaution would therefore never have prevailed, had not both clergy and laity been thoroughly convinced that the loss of no necessary grace was incurred. ^ By some authors the prevalence in the West of the practice of com- munion under the species of bread only is dated from the conquest of Jerusalem by the crusaders in 1099, the same use being found already established there.^ But, whatever may have been the time or mode of the change, it is incorrect to say that the laity were ever deprived of the chalice. If I quote a somewhat singular theologian for this proposition, in such a matter at least he was a competent judge, and his authority has weight. Henry VHL, then, thus replies to Luther's book on the Captivity of Babylon, which supposes throughout that the Popes have by violence deprived the Church of her rights. * How can Luther prove,' he asks,^ ' that the custom of communicating under one species M^as brought in against the will of the laity ? Most certainly I, who see what things the clergy are unable to obtain from the laity — as, for example, that they are not able to prevent them from burying their dead almost under the very altars — I should not easily believe that the laity would have allowed them- selves against their wills, in so great a matter as holy communion, to be deprived of any part of their rights. So that the custom must have come in from reasonable causes approved by the people them- selves. ' What these reasons were has been stated at great length by Fisher in the book which he wrote in defence of Henry and in answer to Luther's scurrilous reply He mentions (i) the danger of spilling the precious Blood when great crowds were communicated ; (2) the danger in carrying it to the sick whether on foot or on horseback ; ' ' Quod sumitur in bina specie nihil abundat ad virtutem vel substantiam supra unam tantum, sed solum ad signum.' (Waldensis, De Euch.C2c^, 92, n. I.) * Rohrbacher, Histoire de F Eglise, torn. vii. p. 713 (ed. 1868). ' Asseriio Septcm Sacr. fol. 14 (ed. 1562). THE CHALICE, WHY WITHHELD. 27 (3) the danger to communicants, especially to such as feel disgust at the taste of wine ; (4) the danger of scarcity of wine in certain parts of Christendom 5(5) and especially the danger to the faith lest Christ should not be believed present wholly under either species, if they were never received apart. After entering into the controversy with Luther at great length he thus sums up : ' * Since then the custom of communicating under one species had not its origin in any corrup- tion ; since it is a preservative against many dangers ; since it is contrary to no precept of the Gospel, but rather authorised by examples related in the Acts of the Apostles and by figures in the old law ; since it does wrong to no one, and was not introduced by force, but by the tacit consent of all, and that too in a society governed by the Holy Ghost and in a matter regarding salvation (in which the Holy Ghost could not allow an error) ; and since it has been solemnly approved by the prelates of the Church — who is so mad as not to see that it is the work of the Holy Ghost? ' I cannot pass from this subject without some allusion to modem controversy, at least so far as it appeals to history. A recent pamphlet by Dr. Littledale, in reference to the argument that com- munion has been given under one kind, at least exceptionally, from the earliest ages, replies that this is as if one were to conclude that because in time of shipwreck the ship's crew had been reduced to a ration of half a biscuit a day, this should be made the normal standard throughout the navy. Dr. Littledale seems here to forget that among sophisms that of similitudes in place of arguments holds a prominent place. In truth there is no real simihtude whatever between the cases. All who admit the Real Presence believe that our Lord is received entire in the smallest particle ; and when the Church in East and West decreed that on Good Friday communion should be received only under one species, she did not understand that she thereby deprived herself of half the Christ. Were it other- wise, such a practice would have been utterly unlawful even on one day in the year, or under any circumstances ; for the Church cannot mutilate what belongs to the essence of a sacrament. She cannot consecrate in barley bread because wheaten bread is inaccessible, or baptize with oil when no water is to be found. Dr. Litdedale's simi- litude would be apt enough if directed against those Protestants who object to the use of rich vestments in worship because St. Peter celebrated in a plain toga, or to magnificence in ceremonial because the Christians in days of persecution did without it. But his sarcasm ' Fisher, Contra Cap. B^ Sacr. Miss(c Sacrif. lib. ii. cap. 22, nn. 30-32.) s A custom of that nature lasted in France into the seventeenth century, (see Chardon, Histoire des Sacniiients), and is still in force in Rome as regards the deacon and sub-deacon in the Pontifical Mass. UNCONSECRATED WINE. 37 thrones they go humbly to the altar to receive the Body and Blood of the Lord from the hand of the archbishop or bishop who celebrates mass. But when the Body of the Lord has been received by the king, the Abbot of Westminster, or his vicegerent for the time, will minister to the king wine to use after the reception of the sacrament, out of the stone chalice kept among the Regalia.' ^ From this it is clear that the king received the Body and Blood under one species only, and then the unconsecrated wine.^ So also in the directions for the coronation of King Henry VII. it is said, 'Wliile the offer- tory is in smging, the king crowned shall be led to the high altar, and the cardinal having his face to the choir, as the observance at the offering is, the king shall offer an obley of bread laid upon the paten of St. Edward's chalice, with the which obley afterwards consecrated the king shall be houselled ; and he shall offer, in a cruet of gold, wine which he shall use in the said chaHce after he is houselled.' ^ In these passages, mention is made of wine as being dnmk after communion. With a few words on this subject as well as on the blessed bread I will conclude this chapter, III. No motive of economy had entered into the change of dis- cipline, for though the consecrated Chahce was reserved for the celebrant, wine was given to all communicants. It will be remembered that from the very earliest ages wine had been mixed with the Precious Blood, according to the multitude of communicants ; and that this was absorbed, in many churches at least, by means of a tube. It would seem that many accidents had occurred which led to the abandonment of this practice. The period of this change coincides with that of the relaxation of the more strict penitential discipline. It has therefore been reasonably conjectured that the admission of multitudes on easier terms and with less training to the Easter com- munion, had led to irreverence, crowding, or awkwardness, and to some deplorable mishaps, which made the bishops direct that the Housel should be given only in form of bread. This would cause neither scandal nor surprise to the clergy or laity, because all had been accustomed to see it thus given to the sick, and there are good reasons for thinking that at all times it had been optional on the part of public communicants to receive or not from the chalice.* ' This great stone chalice was supposed to be older than St. Edward's days. The Liber Regalis is in the care of the Dean of Westminster. - The communion of the king is not specially mentioned in Bishop Lacy's Pontifical, though the ' Secret ' prayer seems to presuppose it. 3 'Device for the Coronation of Henry VII.' {Rutland Papers, Camden Soc, 1842, p. 21), quoted by Canon Simmons in Lay Folk's Mass Book, p. 238. " This matter is treated very well by Bulsano in his Institutiones TheologicB Theoretical vol. v. 266-282 j also by Bossuet in two treatises. 38 CHANGES OF DISCIPLINE. It was not with any view of concealing this withdrawal from the laity that a chalice of unconsecrated wine was distributed, for the bishops took special precautions that the people should be instructed that what they received was not the Precious Blood, but mere wine for facility of swallowing and honourably cleansing the mouth. ^ This was not merely formally announced by a council, but entered into the regular course of instructions of the village priest, as we learn from the rhymes of John Myrc, who wrote for the poor and unlearned pastors, and bids them : Teach them then, never the later That in the chaUce is but wine and water, That they receiveth for to drink After that holy houseling. But teach them all to lere sad {i.e. to believe earnestly), That it that is in the altar made {i.e. consecrated), It is very God's Blood That He shed on the Rood. IV. In connection with the changes of discipline, another practice may here be mentioned, in which indeed the Norman Church agreed with the Saxon, but in which we differ from both. This was the distribution of the Eulogies, or blessed bread. ' As soon as mass was ended,' says Dr. Rock, ' a loaf of bread was blessed, and then with a knife, very likely set apart for the purpose, cut into small slices, for distribution among the people, who went up to receive it from the priest, whose hand they kissed. This holy loaf or eulogia was meant to be an emblem of that brotherly love and union which ought always to bind Christians together ; and its use lasted in England up to the woeful change in religion, and still continues to be kept up in France, as well as in the Greek Church.' ^ This was carefully distinguished, even by name, from Holy Communion. ' Come neither to loaf nor to housel,' is an expression used in Saxon law.^ The custom also existed in the Welsh Church. ' Council of Lambeth, 1281, see above, p. 30. Canon Simmons quotes a similar decree of the Prince-Bishop of Augsburg in 1612. {Lay Folk's Mass Book, p. 381.) But he obcerves that the Germans 'were probably as content in their ignorance' as the simple English folk in 1281. In this he seems to me to depart from his usual moderation and candour. What proof is there that either population was contented in ignorance ? Surely a decree to obviate ignorance by careful instruction no more proves that the people are indifferent than that the pastors are negligent. 2 Church of our Fathers, i. 137. * 'Tohlafe ne cume ne to husle.' (Thorpe, ii. 151, 160.) The ' gehalgodne hlaf ' was the blessed bread. THE 'HOLY LOAF.' 39 The time for receiving the compurgation oath is said in an old law to be ' between the Benedicamus and distributing the blessed bread.' ' The holy bread was not given to notorious sinners, but Dr. Rock can scarcely be right when he says it was not given to ' those who were unwilling to participate in the Eucharist.' ^ Even if this were the case for a time among the Anglo-Saxons, it was understood differently in France, and at a later period in England also. A council of Nantes of the year 800 says, 'When the mass is over, those who were not prepared to communicate may receive the eulogies every Sunday and feast-day.' ^ In an old French sermon of the thirteenth century we read : ' Good people, see that you make good confessions and good repentance, and be so prepared to approach our Lord's table, that you may receive His most holy Body and His precious Blood, to the salvation of your souls and bodies. But it there is any unhappy man here who will not abandon his sin, I cannot nor ought not to refuse him if he wishes to receive, but I advise him not to receive, but to receive the blessed bread instead. But let him well understand that the blessed bread is no use whatever towards the salvation of his soul, but it is so ordered in the Church that we give blessed bread to such people as a cloak to their sins, that when they approach the altar they be not known for what they are.' ■* The author of this sermon and those who adopted this practice were in error as to the meaning of the blessed bread, which was never intended as a simulation of communion by sinners, but as a kind of spiritual communion by devout non-communicants : and the practice of simulating communion was warmly denounced by Belethus, a French writer of the same period.^ The blessed bread was not only distributed in the Church, but might be carried home to those absent. Robert de Brunne, after exhorting all to hear mass on Sundays, recommends those who cannot be present to take no food until they have received the holy bread: ' Haddan and Stubbs, i. 257. Mr. Haddan says 'sacramental bread.' This is a mistake. The Benedicamus was said after communion, not before it. The same mistake occurs at p. 638. ^ Dr. Rock quotes Egbert's Penitential or Confessional as given by Thorpe, but which is considered as doubtful by Haddan and Stubbs. ^ Dr. Rock himself quotes at p. 135 this canon, which says : ' Qui communi- care non fuerant parati, eulogias . . . accipiant. ' Mabillon says : ' Qui non communicabant eulogias accipiebant nisi communionis ecclesiasticae essent ex- sortes.' {De Lit. Gallic, lib. i. p. 53.) * La CJiaire Fran^aise an Moyen Age, par M. Lecoy de la Marche, pp. 228, 230. * Rationale, cap. 120. Migne, torn. ccii. p. 125. 40 CHANGES OF DISCIPLINE. If thou come not, algate I rede {i.e. counsel) Eat not ere thou have holy bread ; For to many things it may avail, To soul-help or life's travail. Thy body if thou smartly ends It is for housel against the fiends. And holy water take of the priest's hand, For anointing it will thee stand.' So also the English rule for the Brigittine nuns of Sion says,'' * Also, for (i.e. because) holy water is renewed every Sunday, it is according (i.e. fitting) that thou take no bodily meat till thou have taken holy water and holy bread, for thereto every Christian man and woman is bound by the law, outtake (i.e. except) comenyng days.' The holy bread was sometimes distributed in monasteries at the beginning of dinner.^ By a constitution of Giles de Bridport, Bishop of Salisbury, A.D. 1256, the parishioners were bound to provide the holy loaf every Sunday.* The householders did this in turn, and in the bede roll a special prayer was asked ' for the good man or woman that this day giveth bread to make the holy loaf, and for all those that first began it, and them that longest continue.' ^ The bread given in the churches was leavened, but that distributed in the Benedictine refectories to non-communicants was unleavened, according to Dom Mathoud.^ It may be remembered that before the battle of Agincourt the English soldiers all fell on their knees, and plucking a blade or two of grass, or taking a particle of earth, put it to their lips.^ By this ' Handlynge Synne, 1. 813 sq. * Rule of St. Saviour, in Appendix io hxc!\g\^xh Histoiy of Syon and Isleworth, P- 338. * Abbot Faricius in 11 30 gave to Abingdon ' vasculum unum in modum patinre, in quo hostiae deferuntur in refectorio pro communione sancta.' {Historia de Abingdon, ii. 151.) * Wilkins, i. 714. ^ Church of our Fathers, ii. 367. Also in the York Bidding Prayer : ' We shall pray specyally for theym that this daye gave brede to this chirche, for to be made holy brede of. For them that it began and lengest upholdes.' (See Lay Folk's Mass Book, p. 79.) * See Migne, Patrologia, tom. clxxxvi. p. 960. ' ' A singulis in ore capta terrre particula, ' says Livius, quoted by Lingard, ad annum 1415. See Bened. XIV. {De Synodo, 1. vii. cap. xvi. i, 2.) He men- tions similar customs in Flanders and among the Armenians. M. Leon Gautier, in his notes to the Chanson de Roland, pp. 190-193 (7th ed. Tours, 1880), gives several examples from French romances of this symbolical communion, made at the moment of death, when no priest was at hand, or before battle, by taking three blades of grass, or leaves of a plant or tree, rolling them up, and swallowing them in memory of our Lord and with a desire of Holy Communion. SPIRITUAL COMMUNION. ^l action they intended to signify their desire to receive holy communion, had it been possible. There is an allusion to this custom in the works of Cardinal Pullen. He has been showing how the Blessed Sacrament was prefigured to the Jews, so that by faith they ate the same spiritual food with ourselves (i Cor. x. 4). He objects to this : ' Then is the vulgar opinion confirmed by this, that those who take the blessed bread on Sunday, or who, being busy elsewhere, eat herbs instead of the Eucharist, have as much benefit as if they received the Eucharist.' He repHes that these things are not divinely appointed types,_that types cannot profit instead of the reality, when the reality is at hand— and that even the divine types of the ancients had no sacramental efticacy but merely aroused faith.' I have now to quote a document, painful if we consider the abuses it reveals, but edifying if we consider the energy and zeal which applied a remedy, but, whether painful or edifying, necessary to the knowledge of the whole truth. Walter Raynolds, Archbishop of Canterbury, issued the following decree a.d. 1325 : < The Great High Priest, our Lord Jesus Christ, being about to remove from our sight the glorious Body He had taken from His Virgin Mother, and to place it in the heavens above, on the day of His last supper consecrated for us the sacrament of His Body, that a perpetual Victim, a perfect and singular Host, might be constantly worshipped, by the mystery once for all offered for the Redemption of our souls ; and that He might live for ever in our memory, who is ever present by His grace to bring us back to life, to mercy, to salvation, and to truth. ' If, then, a faithful man should with holy fear consider the mag- nificence of that Sacred Host which he receives, and with a firm faith admire Its glory, and meditate on the too great condescension of Its obedience even unto death, he would endeavour to prepare his soul to receive it by a purity and sincerity almost beyond the reach of human nature. ' Among all sacrifices, the greatest is the mystical Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. This oblation surpasses every other. It must, therefore, be offered to God with a pure conscience, and • Lib. Sent. (Migne, torn, clxxxvi. p. 960). Lydgate says that earth was considered to be a ' clear token of the humanity of Christ Jesus,' no doubt in al- hision to the words : ' Terra dedit fructum suum,' so that in kissing the ground the people intended to honour our Lord's Humanity, in kissing wood, His Cross, stone His Sepulchre, and iron the Nails or Spear. {Mhiof- Poems, Percy Soc p. 60.) 42 CHANGES OF DISCIPLINE. received with true devotion, and preserved with the utmost rever- ence. ' But alas ! the sons of feasting and of gluttony, whose God is their belly, long since introduced into the holy Church this abuse, ^ that immediately after they have received the Lord's Body on Easter Day, they have served to them unconsecrated bread and wine, and there sit down eating and drinking as in a tavern, — a source of many disorders. Thus, some push forward to receive the Eucharist, that they may get sooner than others to the feasting ; or if the clerks are more generous with some, the rest threaten and murmur against them ; and, worse than this, some of the simpler sort, misled by the form of bread in what they have first received, and not knowing how to distinguish between material food and that of the soul, which is the Body of Christ, fall into dangerous errors against faith, as we have too much reason to fear. ' Alas ! in a contest for a perishable crown, men abstain from all things ; while seeking the unfading crown of glory, they will not endure one hour's abstinence, but without an interval defile the Body of Christ by gluttony, and, as far as in them lies, drown it amid bodily food. Hence, since we are bid to avoid not only evil, but every appearance of evil, we hereby command all rectors, vicars, and parochial priests, and other ministers in the churches, under pain of the greater excommunication, which will be incurred by the dis- obedient, that they prohibit for the future that, after the parishioners have received the Body of Christ according to the Catholic rite, oblation of bread or wine should be given to any of them according to the old custom, which we absolutely condemn as an abuse ; and this, however impudently any one may demand them. When the solemnity of the communion is over, and they have satisfied their devotion and prayers, and gone home, let the doors of God's house be shut, which delights only to receive guests for spiritual banquets. ' No one ought to think this decree a hard one. The old discipline prescribed, that he who had received the Body of Christ early in the morning, should fast till nine ; and he who had received at nine or ten, till vespers ; therefore modern Christians ought to think it an easy ordinance to abstain only so long as from the time of their communion till they reach home.' ^ It may seem to some who read this decree, that the men guilty * The custom, however, is praised by a writer of the twelfth century, who attributes it to St. Benedict. See John Belethus, Rationale Dir. Off. cap. 119 : 'De parvo prandiolo.' Migne, torn. ccli. p. 122, 2 Wilkins, torn. ii. p. 528. ABUSE CORRECTED. 43 of such conduct could not have had faith in the Real Presence. No doubt, they did not discern the Lord's Body as it should be discerned, with their moral faculties. But it would be most un- philosophical to conclude against a man's faith from the extravagant inconsistency of his conduct. Do none of those who sin believe in the omnipresence of God? Or, to take a case directly in point, where scurrilous games are carried on at the wake of a corpse, does the misguided company not believe in death or judgment? A council held in London in 1342, abolishing this very abuse of 'wakes of the dead,' remarks, how many things begun piously, gradually degenerate. Thus, nights devoted to prayer for the deceased, while his body is still unburied, had by degrees come to be spent in buffooneries, drinking, and impurity.^ So had the custom of sharing in the oblations — an imitation of the Apostolic love-feasts — ended at last in intemperance. Whether the scandal so vigorously repressed by the archbishop had spread into other parts of England, or much infected his own diocese, does not appear. But the very possibility of such abuses will explain the precaution taken by the Church in withdrawing the consecrated Chalice. Protestant writers have often reproached the Church for mutilating one of the sacraments. It would be answer enough to such men to say that, if the Church refuses the species of wine to all but the celebrant, she deprives none of her children of either the Body or Blood of the Lord. Protestantism has deprived them of both, and only gives them the unchanged bread and wine, which used to be the supplement or complement of Holy Communion. ' Wilkins, ii. 706. 44 LITURGICAL CHANGES. CHAPTER IV. LITURGICAL CHANGES. Among the changes which have taken place in the celebration and ministration of the Holy Eucharist, that of liturgy holds so prominent a position in history, that there is some danger of overrating its extent. The following correspondence belonging to the eleventh century may serve to show what were then the limits of divergence between various churches. Walram, Bishop of Naumburg, wrote a sententious letter to St. Anselm, complaining that, whereas the Church is one, there were many diversities in the ceremonies of Holy Mass in different countries. He enumerates three : firstly, the use of fermented bread by the Armenians ; secondly, the custom of making a single cross over both the bread and the cup, instead of one over each as prescribed by ancient tradition, and by the Ordo Romanus ; and thirdly, that some cover the chalice with the corporal, or with a cloth folded to represent the napkin which lay apart in our Lord's tomb. He asserts that Christians should not represent our Lord's burial, but His death ; and, as He died naked, so ought His body to be immo- lated imcovered on the altar. To some it may appear that the good German bishop had no real difficulties to propose after all, and that he merely wanted to get a letter from the great scholar whose fame was in all the Churches. Perhaps St. Anselm suspected this too, yet he wrote a courteous and interesting answer. ' Certainly,' he says, ' if throughout the whole Church there were one harmonious mode of celebration, it would be good and praiseworthy. Since, however, there are many diversities which do not affect the substance of the Sacrament, nor its efficacy, nor our faith, I think we ought rather to agree to tolerate them in peace, than to cause scandal and disagreement by condemning them. We have learnt from the holy fathers that, provided the unity of charity be preserved in the Catholic faith, diversity of customs hurts us not. If you ask whence such variety of customs originates, I can only answer, that it is from the diversity of human sentiments. They VARIETY AND DEVELOPMENT. 45 do not differ in the truth of the matter nor in its effects, but only in what is apt and fitting in administration.' Walram had said that our Lord had blessed the bread and wine separately, therefore the priest should never make a single cross over both host and chalice. St. Anselm replies that there is no greater departure from our Lord's institution than in not sacrificing after supper or towards evening, and that the matter is evidently of no importance. So, also, if Walram must imitate so closely by the uncovered chalice our Lord crucified naked, he must also offer mass outside the city or in the open air. ' True, our Lord was so poor that, coming into this world, he was born in a stable and laid in a crib, during His life He had no place to lay His head, when dead His shroud and tomb were gifts. But these things are better imitated in our personal conduct, if cir- cumstances permit, than in the bareness of the sacrifice.' ^ St. Anselm in the above letter recommends toleration of diversity within certain limits. These limits are easily fixed. There must be nothing in liturgy or ceremonial contraiy to faith or edification, and nothing that would be a serious hindrance to unity of action, between those who are called to act together. It belongs to legitimate authority to declare when this is the case ; and as it would be the part of pride or uncharitableness to find fault where authority is silent, so is it pride and schismatical obstinacy to cling to customs once tolerated and lawful, after authority has abrogated them. Ritual and Liturgy have had their epochs and phases like Theology. In Theology the period of the martyrs and apologists was succeeded by that of the great fathers and doctors. That season of spontaneous and tropical growth was not to last many centuries. It was followed in due course by that of the scholastics who sorted, sifted, and classified what they had received, and by the mystical contemplatives. Then came the writers of methodical ascetic treatises and the rest. So has it been with Ritual and Liturgy. These are created by certain influences, modified and regulated by others. I will borrow here the words of a thoughtful and learned Anglican writer : ' The same frame of mind,' he writes, ' which sought with careful reverence for mystical meanings beneath the letter of Holy Scripture, found vent in devising new significant ceremonies for their ecclesiastical offices, which might embody in many different ways their feelings of lowliness and gratitude. The leisure of the great religious communities, and the number of clergy, would afford many opportunities for this. And there probably were * Opera, torn, i, 204-207 (ed. Gerberon). 4^ LITURGICAL CHANGES. periods in which a craving for change came over the Church, which is indicated historically by the rise of new Monastic Orders, and was probably accompanied by Liturgical developments also. It is not to be wondered at if some of these were not altogether judicious, and there would arise a need for some great Liturgical scholar to select and methodise the various rites and ceremonies which had come into local observance,' ^ In the canon of the mass change was rarely attempted, and when bishops and great monasteries introduced varieties or develop- ments of their own it was in ceremonial, in collects and prefaces, in the psalmody, or in the ritual and pontifical. St. Osmund, who was Bishop of Sarum (1078-1099), finding that considerable variety had grown up in the course of centuries, drew up for his own church a Customary or book of regulations of the divine offices, which before many years spread through the greater part of England, and by the efforts of Bishop Gilbert, of Limerick, and St. Malachy, of Armagh, was soon adopted in Ireland. As to Scotland, Blind Harry, a poet of the fifteenth century, says that Edward I. caused the old Scotch liturgical books, ' the Roman bukis that than was in Scotland,' to be brought to Scoon, and there he burnt them, and thenceforth * Salysbery oyss (use) our clerkis has tane.' Boece has copied this story, but there is not a word of truth in it. Father Thomas Innes has shown from the records of Glasgow, Murray, and Dunkeld that the Sarum use was brought into Scotland long before King Edward's time, and by the bishops, 7notu pjvprio^ at the earnest request of their canons and chapters.^ A reformation, however, of some kind had been made in Scotland with regard to the Mass, even at an earlier date. Theodoric relates that ' in some places among the Scots there were persons who, con- trary to the custom of the whole Church, had used to celebrate masses according to some barbarous rite {nescio quo riki barbaro), which Queen Margaret, kindled with zeal for God, so laboured to destroy and bring to nothing, that henceforth there appeared no one in the whole race of Scots who dared to do such a thing.' Theodoric, unfortunately, does not say in what the barbarousness of the rites consisted, and we knov; how enormous even a slight difference in ceremonial appeared to some in those days. The priests guilty of the barbarous rites were the Culdees,^ and from the fact that the ' Introduction to the Arbuthnott Missal (p. Iviii.), by Dr. Forbes, Anglican bishop of Brechin. ^ See Spalding Chih Miscellany, ii. 365. * On the Culdees see Dr. Reeves's Essay ; also Skene's Celtic Scotland^ and Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, vol. ii. THE ENGLISH * USES.' 74 Culdee books were transferred to the Austin Canons for their use, it follows that, if the reform really in any way touched the holy sacrifice, the peculiarities consisted in ceremonial, not in liturgy. ^ I speak thus hesitatingly, because some have thought that by the word masses Theodoric meant fairs, which to this day are called masses in some northern languages, and that St. Margaret repressed unseemly riot on festivals, and not ritual irregularity in the churches.^ It is not probable, though barely possible, that St. Margaret introduced St. Osmund's rite, since she died in 1093, and the bisliop only published the Sarum forms in 1085. Certainly the Church of Glasgow first adopted the Sarum rite seventy-one years after her death. 3 But what change did St. Osmund make in the Mass ? None at all, says Dr. Rock. 'No essential change,' says Dr. Forbes, 'and certainly none in which any doctrinal bias is discernible.' The same may be said of all the other liturgies or ' uses ' that prevailed in England until the sixteenth century, whether they have grown out of the Sarum or are relics and modifications of forms previously in use. The York, Hereford, Bangor, and Lincoln uses were the principal. Perhaps Durham had a special rite,^ and St. Paul's, London, at least for a time.^ ' This inference is drawn by Haddan and Stubbs {Councils vol. ii. part i. p. 228), and by Rev. M. Walcott {The Ancient Church of Scotland), p. 521. 2 Note of the editor to the ' Life of St. Margaret,' Acta SS. torn. xxii. ■* Dr. Forbes, Arbuthnott Missal, p. Iv. ■• See Canon Simmons's Lay Folk's Mass Book, p. 260. 5 In 1414 it was agreed to abandon the usus S. Pauli for the Sarum. (Dug- dale's St. PauVs, p 16.) For those who do not possess the recent reprints of these old English uses I will here give a short account of their principal variations. Before the Confiteor (said at the foot of the altar), the Sarum, Hereford, and York uses placed the Kyrie Eleison and Pater Noster. The Sarum added Ave Maria. In the Hereford alone the prayers that preceded the Confiteor were said at the foot of the altar ; in the others they were said in the sacristy or while coming from it. The Confiteor was very short : ' I confess to God, to Blessed Mary, to all saints and to you, that I have sinned grievously in thought and in deed, through my fault. I beseech B. Mary, all the saints and you to pray forme.' The absolution was : ' Absolutionem et remissionem omnium peccatomm vestronmi, spatium verte pcenitentia:, emendationem vita;, gratiam et consolationem Sancti Spiritus tribuat vobis omnipotens et misericors Dominus.' Among the short verses and responses after the Confiteor, in the Hereford use, was one to the B. V. : ' Sancta Dei Genitrix, virgo semper, Maria ; Intercede pro nobis.' In the Sarum use the celebrant gave the kiss of peace to the deacon and sub- deacon before ascending the steps. The altar was kissed, but no mention made of the relics. The Introit, Kyrie, Gloria, Collects, Epistle, Gospel and Creed followed as 48 LnURGICAL CHANGES. Certainly no one ever dreamt of changing a single prayer in the canon of the mass, which remained throughout the middle ages, amidst all varieties and changes, and still remains, what St. Gregory left it. Greater freedom was allowed in what preceded and followed the canon, a freedom which had sometimes to be restricted. In 1173, Richard, Archbishop of Canterbury, in a Council at London, forbade in the Roman use, with veiy slight differences. On some festivals the Kyrie was expanded into a ' trope,' and on the feasts of our Lady the Gloria in excelsis was interpolated with versicles in her honour. This was called a 'farsura.' In the York use the Offertory was sung by the celebrant with his ministers. The prayers at the offertory and incensing were shorter in the English uses than in the Roman, but the intention of offering sacrifice for the living and dead was expressed in all. In the Sarum rite the bread and wine were offered with one prayer, in the York rite with two. In the York and Hereford, the hymn ' Veni Creator ' was said after the washing of the hands. The oblations were blessed with the sign of the Cross, in the York use with three crosses, but the blessing followed the washing of hands ; in the Roman it precedes. The 'Orate, fratres,' with mention of ' meum ac vestrum,' was in all, though the response of the ministers varied. Then followed the Secret Prayers and the Preface. After the Sanctus some copies of the York missal direct the celebrant to kiss the crucifix with the words * Adoramus te, Christe, ' &c. Indeed this was done throughout England though not mentioned in the rubric. The crucifix kissed was sometimes that represented m the Mass Book before the Canon. The Canon is word for word the same in all as in the Roman, though there are slight variations in the rubrics. After the consecration the priest prayed with his arms extended, while he commemorated our Lord's 'blessed Passion.' The mingling of the Body and Blood by placing the sacred particle in the chalice took place in the English uses after the Agnus Dei. The Pax was given with the words ' Pax tibi et ecclesi?e,' in the Sarum ; ' Habete vinculum caritatis et pacis, ut apti sitis sacrosanctis mysteriis Dei, ' in the York and Hereford ; to which in the Hereford was added : ' Pax Christi et sanctce Ecclesise tibi et cunctis Ecclesias filiis. ' The prayers before communion varied somewhat, nor were the words with which the celebrant communicated himself the same in all. In the Sarum use, before receiving the Sacred Body, the priest said : ' Ave in feternum sanctissima caro Christi, mihi ante omnia et super omnia summa dulcedo.' And before re- ceiving the precious Blood : ' Ave in seternum ccelestis potus, mihi ante omnia et super omnia summa dulcedo.' The two ablutions were made and the mass concluded as now, but no bene- diction of the people is mentioned. In the Hereford missal is a prayer for blessing the people with the empty chalice at the principal feasts and on doubles : ' Adju- torium, etc.. Qui fecit. Sit Nomen, etc. Ex hoc nunc, etc. Oremus — Benedicat vos divina Majestas et una Deltas, Pater + et Filius + et Spiritus + Sanctus. Amen.' In Sarum the priest recited the gospel ' In principio ' while returning to the sacristy. In the York and Hereford uses it is not prescribed. VOTIVE MASSES. 49 all prefaces ' except the ten which Rome, the mother of the Church, sings.' ^ In the course of centuries, very many exquisite prayers or collects have been composed, some of which may still be said according to the devotion of the celebrant at certain masses. John, the twenty- first abbot of St. Alban's, issued a decree to his monks ' that in the celebration of private masses, or even conventual, the number of collects should never exceed seven, because it is enough, and also for the dignity of that number.' ^ This is now the rule throughout the Church. As regards difference of ceremonial, the mass with deacon and subdeacon, and accompanied by singing, was called then, as now, a high mass {iiiissa alta, magna, summa, or soleiuiis). In contradistinc- tion to this was the low mass [i/ii'ssa sine nota and privata). It was forbidden to say mass without a clerk or server, except in very exceptional circumstances. There are many names by which certain masses were popularly known. The ' morrow mass ' was the mass said early in the morning. The ' Jesus Mass,' a very favourite one in later days, was that of the name of Jesus ; the Lady Mass, one of votive masses of our Lady. Some masses were in such request by the people that we find them printed in the Rituals and Breviaries at the beginning of the sixteenth century. That of St. Roch, the patron against the plague, sometimes occurs under two forms. This may be the place to say a word about votive masses and popular devotions. In an English Missal of 1523, the order assigned for votive masses throughout the week is as follows : Sunday, of the Blessed Trinity ; Monday, of the Holy Angels ; Tuesday, the mass called Salus Populi (against the plague or against war, for there were two masses thus called) ; Wednesday, of the Holy Ghost, or a Requiem Mass ; Thursday, of the Blessed Sacrament ; Friday, of the Holy Cross, or of the Five Wounds; and Saturday, of the Blessed Virgin. King Henry V. ordered by his will that three masses should be said daily for him to the world's end.^ One of these, the second in ' Tewkesbury Annals, p. 51. ^ Vita Abbat2im of Matthew Paris. * The list is given by Fabian. (See his Chronick, p. 589, ed. 181 1.) It is taken from some Latin verses which Fabian incorrectly translates for the Monday. Two masses are given ' Salutatse INIarias,' viz. on Monday and Friday. I have translated one the Annunciation, the other the Visitation, But I suspect a mis- print, and that Friday's mass was of Our Lady's Compassion. VOL. II, E so LITURGICAL CHANGES. order of celebration, was to be that appointed for the day. The first and third were as follows : Sunday. I. The Assumption. 3. Our Lord's Resurrection. Monday. i. The Annunciation. 3. The H. Angels. Tuesday. i. Birth of our Lord. 3. Birth of our Lady. Wednesday, i. The H. Ghost. 3. Our Lady's Conception. Thursday. I. 'Corpus Christi. 3. Our Lady's Purification. Friday. i. The Holy Cross. 3. The Visitation. Saturday. i. All Saints. 3. Requiem. Devotions of course varied. Richard, Earl of Warwick, by his will (a.d. 1425), thus expresses his pious feelings : 'I will that in the chapel where my body be buried three masses be sung every day, so long as the world shall endure, one of our Lady with note, according to the Ordinale Sarum ; the second of Requiem without note ; [the third in this order] the Sunday, of the Trinity ; Monday, of the Angels ; Tuesday, of St. Thomas of Canterbury ; Wednesday, of the Holy Ghost; Thursday, of Corpus Christi; Friday, of the Holy Cross ; Saturday, of the Annunciation of our Lady ; for the performance of which I devise forty pounds of land per annum. Also I will that my executors treat with the Abbot and Convent of Tewkesbury, that in their monastery my obit be yearly kept ; as also one mass sung every day for my soul, which to be the first, if it might be; if not, then the last.'' Many pages might be filled with similar documents. Besides the devotion to special masses, we find a curious and sometimes a superstitious devotion to certain Gospels sa'd at the end of mass. The first chapter of St. John's Gospel, In Prhicipio, &c. was not indeed added to the Roman missal before the sixteenth century. In later times the Sarum use prescribed it, but only to be said by the priest while returning from the altar. Still it was com- monly used in some parts of England even in the twelfth century, and though it formed no part of the mass, but was merely a private devotion added to it, people were exhorted to wait till it was said. Lydgate admonishes his readers when they hear it to make a cross on their mouths, then kiss wood, iron, stone, or the earth, ^ kneeling on both knees at the words Verbian caro factum est. An old treatise on the manner of hearing mass of the thirteenth or fourteenth century says : ' j\ year and forty days at least, — For Verbum caro factum est, — ' Test amenta Vetusta, p. 232. Sir Ralph Shirley (p. 542), in 15 13 wishes the mass Salus Populi to be said both on Tuesday and Wednesday. Other ex- amples will be given in the Chapter on Chantries. * See p. 42, note i, on the meaning of these kisses. THE LAST GOSPEL. 51 To pardon have ye shall. — Man or woman shall have this — That kneels down the earth to kiss.' ' But Giraldus, writing towards the end of the twelfth century, complained ^ of a custom, or abuse, which had arisen in France and been condemned by synods. The celebrant used to say two or more Introits, Epistles, and Gospels before he went on with the rest of the mass. This was called a missa conflata, and was sometimes done to gratify devotion of the priest or assistants, and sometimes to satisfy the celebrant's avarice by getting more than one offertory, if we may believe Giraldus. In England the missa conjlata was unknown, but Giraldus adds that a somewhat similar abuse had become established and called for the interference of bishops. Knights and other laymen asked the priest to say at the end a special Gospel to which they had a devotion, and failed not to make some offering. In connection with this he quotes a popular proverb : ' This tail does not belong to that calf; ' and he tells a characteristic story of St. Hugh of Lincoln, his contemporary and friend. ' The bishop, entering a parish church, found that when the priest had come to the He, missa est, he began to repeat gospels, first In Priucipio, then Spiritus Domini, &c. The bishop on hearing this observed : " What will the priest say to-morrow, since he utters all he knows to-day ? " ' 3 It is unnecessary to repeat what was said in the former volume regarding the solemnities of High Mass, the use of lights, incense, and music. I will therefore give one or two facts illustrative of the period. Among the silly objections which CEcolampadius heaped together against the Real Presence, one was that the proofs which God gives of His infinite charity do not love concealment, an objection which in the sense of the heresiarch might be brought against the Incarnation, against Creation, and the very existence of God. But Fisher, after showing why our Lord in this sacrament both conceals His Presence out of love, and out of love reveals it, applies the words of his opponent in a better sense. ' True,' he says, ' the works of God's love should not be concealed. Therefore is this sacrament celebrated so publicly, not that all may see Christ with their bodily eyes, but that believing Him to be present they may be forced to love Him by the immensity of the gift.' '^ ' The Lay FoWs Mass Book, p. 146. Canon Simmons (p. 383) quotes a Ger- man council of 1023, alluding to the desire of the laity to hear special gospels, amongst others the * In principio.' - Gemma Ecd. Dist. i. cap. 48. ' //'. Dist. ii. cap. 26, i. 48. * De Veritate Corp, 1. i. cap. 12. The prophet Isaias cries : 'Verily thou E 2 52 LITURGICAL CHANGES. Founded on this principle was the whole of the Church's cere- monial. Hence the lights, used around our Lord's Presence, were not to dispel darkness but to symbolise faith and joy. Bishop Grandisson, for example, in his church of Ottery St. Mary's ordained that a lamp of oil should burn all day and a mortar or cresset by night (since it does not burn out so soon as a lamp), in a proper and convenient place, in honour of the Body of Christ. Several tapers were arranged on elegant beams near the high altar. At least two were to be on that of the Blessed Virgin, and one for mass on the other altars. The tapers on our Lady's altar were to be lighted not only during her mass, but at her antiphon after compline. Two torches were to be lighted at high mass and at our Lady's mass at the elevation. After these and other dispositions the bishop con- tinues : ' Lest these lights which we have ordained to the honour of God and the mother of the Eternal Light shall ever, which God forbid, be withdrawn or diminished by the carelessness, or malice, or avarice of those who, as sons of darkness, seek rather their own than what belongs to Jesus Christ, we have made the above regulations. If any inspired by God's grace increase the luminary, may God increase their light here and hereafter, and may eternal light shine upon them. But as to those who take away these lights, may they fall into the outer darkness where is weeping and gnashing of teeth, unless they quickly repent.' ^ On the subject of lights in the larger churches I could multiply quotations indefinitely, but here the principle is more important than the precise usage. One example more will suffice. In 1296, Edward I. endowed the monastery of Durham with 40/. a year, on condition that on each of the two feasts of St. Cuthbert the monks should have an extra pittance at the cost of 2/. 10s., and give to 3,000 poor a penny each, in all 25/. On each of these feasts two great tapers of twenty pounds of wax each were to burn before the altar, and smaller ones on other feasts. A monk was also to celebrate daily in the Galilee for the king.^ After reading the regulations made in cathedrals, monasteries, collegiate and parish churches, the reflection arises that some flourish- iw^ trades must have been almost ruined by the Reformation. The goldsmiths indeed found occupation in melting down chalices and art a hidden God, the God of Israel, the Saviour,' yet God answers immediately : ' I have not spoken in secret in a dark place of the earth. I have not said to the eeed of Jacob : Seek me in vain.' (Isai. xlv. v. 15, 19.) ' Oliver's Monasticon Exoniense, p. 273. « Dugdale, i. 244. LIGHTS. 53 pLxes to be reshaped, a few into communion cups, and by far the greater number into drinking goblets, but the vestment-makers and the chandlers must have been compelled to seek other occupations. There were no more orders given for enormous Easter tapers tower- ing to the roof, as at Durham ^ (called Judas candles, because of the wax figures of Judas hanging from diem) ; nor for Gild candles (sometimes round, some' imes square, adorned with painted flowers of wax). ^ Even the humbler purchases of parish church and country- chapel came to an end. How many poor cottagers lost by the change the profit of their beehives ! For as the supply of wax was limited and the demand very gi-eat, the price paid for wax in the middle ages as compared with other articles was enormous. A large candle cost as much as a fat sheep. The account-books of the parish of Heybridge in the time of Henry VHI. contain entries like the folloAnng : For two pounds of wax against Christmas, is. Sd. ; for striking of the said wax, i^^. ; for two pounds of tallow candle against the same feast, 2^(/. ; for eight pounds of wax against Easter, 6s. 8tl ; for half a pound of frankincense, 4^/. ; for a pound of frank- incense, 4^/.^ John Molyneux, priest and rector of the parish of Walton-on-the- Hill (formerly the parish church to which Liverpool was a succursal), was the third son of Sir Richard Molyneux of Sefton, who was knighted at Agincourt. At his funeral many priests and other guests were invited. The bill of expenses has been published.^ The bread cost but 4^/., the ale gd., the wine 2s. ^d. ; the ox, with the expenses of the butcher, only 10s. 4^., the cook, brought over from Chester, is. ; while for six torches weighing two pounds each were paid 12.C., and for six tapers ^s. Oil, which had to be imported, was no less expensive. The churchwardens' accounts of the parish of Hedon in Holderness in the year 1454 state that ' for six gallons of oil bought for the lamps hang- ing before the Body of Jesus Christ in the choir of the chapel of St. Augustine,' they paid $s. id.^ The cost of incense was naturally very great. The consumption of incense during the year 1279 in St. Paul's, London, amounted to eighteen-and-a-half pounds weight of the best, at xod. a pound ; eight pounds at gd., and nine-and-a-half pounds at ' Rites of Durham (Surtees Soc), p. 9. * In the Sixth Report of the Historical MSS. Cotntnission, part i. p. 600, the papers of a Winchester Gild. ' Churchwardens' Accounts, pp. 163, 166, 168. * Lancashire Chantries, ed. by Rev. Canon Raines (Chethani Soc), p. Si. * Poulson, History of Holderness, ii. 166. 54 LllVRGICAL CHANGES. id} To have an equivalent in modern money we may multiply these prices by twelve or even twenty, so that both wax and incense were four or five times their present value. It is not, therefore, surprising that those who were generous and devout made bequests to procure these expensive articles to their churches. From the Bridlington registers it appears that Ralph de Goxa gave to the church of Sproatley in Holderness two oxgangs of land to provide incense for the high altar. ^ Henry III, directed the Lord Treasurer to feed 15,000 poor people in St. Paul's churchyard on the festival of St. Paul's conversion, 1244, and to provide 15,000 tapers then to be placed within the Church. Richard de Beames, bishop of London, 1108-1128, endowed St. Paul's with certain revenues to purchase 300 lbs. weight of wax annually for six lamps to burn continually.^ These were gifts to great cathedrals, but each parish had its stock of cattle presented by the parishioners or purchased by their gifts, and fed on the parish land, the proceeds of which were applied by the churchwardens to the purchase of wax lights according to the intentions of the donors. When the chantries were confiscated by Henry VIII. and Edward VI. the foundations for lights went also to the crown, and the curse of bishop Grandisson and others fell upon these sons of darkness. * ArchcEol. Journal, iii. 252. * Poulson's Holderness, ii. 277. ' Dugdale's St, PauVs, pp. 7, 16. 55 CHAPTER V, LAY-PRAYERS. It has been said in a former chapter that in no period in Great Britain was the mass offered in the vernacular language. The Briton, the Scot, the Pict, the Saxon, the Dane, the Norman, all listened to the same majestic and changeless Latin. The fact that even one island has been peopled by so many races speaking different tongues, and that each of those tongues was undergoing continual and rapid change, would alone be enough to convince a thoughtful man of the almost absolute necessity for such a disciphne. But it will be asked : How then could the people take any intel- ligent part in public worship ? What was done to meet the difficulty arising from a strange tongue ? In a word, how did the people hear or assist at mass ? I reply that throughout the middle ages men heard mass as they do now, with perfect liberty, according to each one's capacity or devotion. Some prayed from their own hearts, some used their beads, some prayer-books. Some were melted into tears or rapt in contemplation of our Lord's Passion, while others gazed and stared about, admired or envied their neighbours' dress, or disturbed the priest and the worshippers with their chattering and jangling. Giraldus merely says : ' In hearing mass every one should show this reverence, to apply his mind to the work, to think of God only, so that the words Sursum corda, Habeamus (sic) ad Dominum, may be fulfilled. When the Gospel is read they should not sit,* but, standing reverently with the body inclined, should listen. After the Gospel let those offer who have the will, according to the words, " Let them not appear empty before My face." Let them not presume to leave until after the priest has raised his hands in blessing.' ^ This, however, was an instruction given to priests, and it left to them the care and the discretion of teaching their people hotv they ' This shows that seats were not unknown even in the body of the church in the 1 2th century. ' Gemma Ecd, Dist. i. cap. 7. 56 LA Y-PRA YERS. were 'to apply their minds to the work, and to put away every thought but that of God.' We cannot judge directly of the oral instruction given to the unlettered, but manuscripts have survived both in old French and early English which prove that, for those who could read their own language, forms of devotion were provided as well as instructions and exhortations. In the first place it was the custom throughout England, at the paro- chial mass on Sundays, for the priest, after the Offertory, to turn to the people and read the bidding prayer, by which their intentions were directed in the offering of the Holy Sacrifice. This was a cus- tom common to the early and to the later English Church. The Saxon form was shorter than that afterwards used. It is thus modernised by Canon Simmons : "* ' Let us pray God Almighty, heaven's high King, and St. Mary and all God's saints, that we may God Almighty's will work, the while that we in this transitory life continue ; that they us uphold and shield against all enemies' tempta- tions, visible and invisible : Our Father. ' Let us pray for our Pope in Rome, and for our King, and for the Archbishop and for the Alderman ; and for all those that to us hold peace and friendship on the four sides towards this holy place ; and for all those that us for pray within the English nation, or without the English nation : Our Father. ' Let us pray for our gossips {God-viothers) and for our God-fathers, and for our gild-fellows and gild-sisters, and all those people's prayer who this holy place with alms seek, with light and with tithe ; and for all those whom we ever their alms receiving were during their life and after life : Our Father. ' Pray we for {Here the bede roil was recited). For Thorferth's soul pray we a Pater-noster, and for many more souls, and for all the souls that baptism have undertaken, and in Christ believed from Adam's day to this day ; Our Father.' Thus the people were taught that the Church was one from the beginning to the end ; that its oneness came from Christ, since to Him the ancients looked forward as we look back, though by baptism we enjoy higher privileges and a visible Catholic communion. They were taught that as Christ is the Head and Centre of communion for the living and the dead, for all times and all places, so the bishop of Rome is the head and centre of visible unity on earth. ' Lay FoWs Mass Book, p. 63. Canon Simmons prints five forms belonging to the northern province. The Rev. H. O. Coxe printed many more in Forms of Bidding Prayer with Introditction and N'otes. See also Rock's Clmrch of our Fathers, iv. 192, ii. 363-367. BIDDING PRAYERS. S7 In later times the bidding prayer was usually divided into three parts, at the end of each of which the priest turned again to the altar, and with the clerk said or sang certain prayers, in Latin, while the people recited the Lord's Prayer, Angelic Salutation, and Creed in English. The following is the form used in York at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the language being somewhat modernised. ' We shall make a special prayer unto God Almighty, and to the glorious Virgin His mother, our Lady St. Mary, and to all the glorious company of heaven, for the state of all holy Church and for the peace of the realm ; and for all that are true to the king and to the crown. We shall pray for our holy father the Pope of Rome and all his true cardinals. And specially for the Holy Cross that God was done (to death) upon, that God of His mercy bring it out of the heathen men's hands into Christian men's keeping. We shall pray for our holy father the archbishop of this see, and for all bishops, abbots, priors, monks, canons, and for allmanner of men and women of religion, that God give them good perseverance in honest and clean religious living. W^e shall pray for the parson of this church,' and so the prayer continues for all the clergy, for the king, queen, lords, and commons. ' We shall pray for all those that worship {i.e. honour) this church or any other with book, bell, vestment, chalice, altar-cloth, or towel, for all who uphold the work of the church, for all who find torch, taper, or lamp, in worshipping of God or of our Lady or of any of God's saints.' Then for all parishioners, for all who are in debt or mortal sin, and for all good livers. ' And that these prayers may be heard and sped the sooner through your prayers, every man and woman that here is help them heartily with a Pater Noster and an Ave Maria.' Then the priest recited the sixty -sixth Psalm, with versicles and three collects. The celebrant proceeded, 'Ye shall kneel down devoutly on your knees and make a special prayer unto our blessed Lady St. Mary and to all the fellowship of heaven, for all the brethren and sisters of our mother church, St. Peter of York, St. John of Beverly, St. Wilfrid of Ripon, and St. Mary of Southwell.' Then for the sick, for the reward of those who ' paid their dues,' and the amendment of those who did not, ' for all the pilgrims and palmers wheresoever they be on water or on land, that God of His good- ness grant them part of our good prayers and us part of their good pilgrimages ; ' then for husbandmen, for the land and good weather, for women with child. ' ' We shall pray for them that this day gave ' In the southern form this was thus expressed : ' For all women that be in our Lady's bonds, that Almighty God may send them grace, the child to receive the sacrament of baptism, and the mother purification.' (Apud Rock, ii. 367.) 58 LA Y-PRA VERS. bread to this church to be made holy bread of. For them and for us, and for all that have need of good prayers, in worship of our Lady and of her five joys, every man and woman say in the honour of her five times, Ave Maria.' While this was being said the choir chanted the anthem, * Ave, Regina coelorum,' or ' Regina coeli, Isetare,' accord- ing to the season. The last part of the exhortation regarded the dead, * Ye shall pray for your fathers' souls, your mothers' souls, godfathers' souls, god- mothers' souls, and for all the souls whose bones are buried in this church or in this churchyard, that God of His mercy release them of their pain if it be His blessed will.' While the people said a Pater and an Ave the priest chanted the ' De profundis ' with the versicles and prayers. The sermon followed, and then the mass continued ; and it must be acknowledged that with such an instruction Sunday after Sunday the people would well appreciate the meaning of the Communion of Saints, and would be at no loss for subjects of prayer while assist- ing at the holy sacrifice, even though they could do little more than say Paters and Aves, with or without the help of their beads. ' You must teach them,' says Myrc to the parish priest, ' that when they to the Church fare, they leave their many words, — Their idle speech and nice hordes, — And put away all vanity, — And say their Pater noster and Ave, — And none in church stand shall, — Nor lean to pillar or to wall, — But fair on knees they shall them set, — Kneeling down upon the flat, — And pray to God with heart meek,— To give them grace and mercy eke.' ' So, too, in the book ' How the Good Wife taught her Daughter,' in the old Scotch dialect, the maiden is to Be of gud prayer, quhen scho may And heir mess on the haly day ; For mekill grace cumis of praying, And bringis men ay to gud ending. And in the kirke kepe our {i.e. above) all thing Fra smyrking, keking, and bakluking. And after noyne on the haly day Owthir pray or sport at honest play.^ I will now give an outline of the instructions and prayers which Canon Simmons has entitled ' The Lay Folk's Mass Book,' and which differ from the prayers contained in the Primers or Laymen's Prayer Books especially in this, that the latter are mostly authorised litur- gical prayers or else translations, whereas the prayers to be said ' Instructions fo7- Parish Priests (E. E. T. Soc), 1. 264 sq. ^ Printed at the end of 77ie Brtice, part iii. (E. E. T. Soc.) p. 532. ENGLISH VERSES. 59 during mass are private compositions. They differ from those in our ordinary modern EngUsh Missals and Prayer Books, in that both rubrics and prayers are in rhyme.* The prayers are seldom transla- tions of those of the liturgy, though they are in harmony with their character and object. Several copies exist of this book, or rather several variations and adaptations of an older English rhyme which Canon Simmons believes to have been itself a translation of an ori- ginal in Norman French made in the twelfth century. Mr. Bentley published some years ago some very beautiful Norman prayers to be said during mass, and some of these are in rhyme ; "^ so that this manner of praying would appear to have been in favour both with the French and English-speaking aristocracy, and with the lay members of religious orders, male and female, for to such persons the copies which have come down to us were adapted. To confine ourselves to one version. The priest is supposed to vest at the altar, as he would probably do in the oratories of noble- men, or even in many parish churches which had no sacristies. The people kneel. The author in red letter explains what the priest does at the foot of the altar, and exhorts his reader to shrive himself, i.e. to confess his sins together with the priest and the mass server, saying the Confiteor. I give his translation of this as a specimen. ' I know to God, full of might — And to His mother, maiden bright — And to all hallows here — And to thee, father ghostly — That I have sinned largely — In many sins sere — In thought, in speech, and in deHght — In word and work I am to wite — And worth to blame — Therefore I pray St. Mary — And all hallows holy — In God's name — And the priest to pray for me — That God have mercy and pity — For His manhede — Of my wretched sinfulness — And give me grace and for- giveness — Of my misdeed.' Pater, Ave, Credo. The assistant is then told to stand after the Confiteor, when the priest is ' at the south altar nook,' and to pray for the celebrant that he may acquit himself well of the mass ; and also for all present and all living and dead for whom it is offered. The Gloria in Excelsis is paraphrased and to be said by the assistant standing. He kneels at the collects and epistle and says Paters. At the Gospel he stands, ' They are rather like the Childreii's Mass of the late Father Furniss, C.SS.R., except that this was intended for congregational singing, whereas the old English rhymes were for private reading. ' Bentley's Excerpta Historica, pp. 406-4O9 : ' Je vos honore seynt sacrement Vos honore sank et corps Me donez garder deijns et hors, &c.' 6o LA Y-PRA VERS. makes a large sign of the cross, and says, ' In the name of the Father, and Son, and the Holy Ghost,— A {i.e. one) soothfast God of might most — Be God's word welcome to me — Joy and louing {i.e. praise) Lord, be to Thee.' If he could not follow the Gospel — and in the middle ages collections of the mass gospels in English, though not unknown, were rare — he could at least say as follows : ' Jesus mine, grant me Thy grace — And of amendment, might, and space — Thy word to keep and do Thy will — The good to choose and leave the ill — And that it so may be — Good Jesu grant it me, Amen.' The Creed is given in verses of eight or four syllables : ' I trow in God, Father of might — That all has wrought — Heaven and earthe, day and night — And all of nought,' etc. This change of metre is made either to avoid monotony or because the writer adopted a paraphrase already in popular use. At the Offertory the assistant may offer or not according to his devotion. The prayer commemorates the offerings of the Magi. When the priest asks prayers at the Orate, fratres, the layman replies : 'The Holy Ghost in thee light — And send into thee right — Rule thy heart and thy speaking — To God's worship and His louing.' These specimens will suffice to make known this interesting devotion. Reserving the prayers said at the time of Consecration for another chapter, I will conclude this with the words our layman was told to say after the Ite, Missa est. 'God be thanked of all His works — God be thanked of priests and clerks — God be thanked of ilk a man — And I thank God as I can.' 6i CHAPTER VI. CEREMONIAL CHANGES. The principal changes that ceremonial underwent in the middle ages were connected with the celebration of festivals, such as that of Corpus Christi, or the solemnities of Holy Week. These will demand separate treatment. In the present chapter we have to consider two cere- monial rites, small in their own nature but of great significance, and which being spread over the whole year exercised a vast influence over the minds and hearts of men. These were, first, the elevation of the sacred species by the priest at mass in order to invite the assistants to a special act of adoration of Him who is contained beneath them. The second was the manner in which the priest was instructed to carry the Blessed Sacrament to the sick. I. The elauition of the Host. The practice of elevating the sacred Host immediately after the consecration is said to have originated in France in the eleventh cen- tury as a protest against the heresy of Berengarius. • It was a cere- mony so exactly in harmony with the faith and feelings of Catholics and served so well the purpose of making an act of reparation of honour to our Lord outraged by the recent heresy, that it quickly spread throughout Europe, and in 12 19 received the authoritative sanction of Pope Honorius III.^ We find frequent mention of this rite in England. Thus the writer of the Annals of the abbey of Waverley in Surrey relates that on Palm Sunday, 1245, Aleanor, sister of Henry III. arid wife of the great Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, visited that abbey together with her husband, and by papal dispensation entered the enclosure with her children and attendants. The chronicler thinks it was by special Providence that she entered the church just at the moment ' History of the Mass, by Rev. J. O'Brien, p. 332. The Lay Folk's Mass Book, notes by Canon Simmons, p. 281. 2 Decrd. Greg. IX., 1. iii. tit. 41, c. x. 62 CEREMONIAL CHANGES, when the priest, saying the mass of the Blessed Virgin at the high altar, was elevating the Host, ' that He whose love had drawn her thither would thus show Himself promptly to her in His most loving Presence.' ^ At first the Host alone was elevated, but both Host and Chalice before the end of the thirteenth century. This second elevation, however, was not so strictly enjoined, and had not been adopted or had fallen into disuse in the great abbey of St. Albans, until it was enforced by a decree of a general chapter in 1429.^ Soto, who was in England in the reign of Mary, tells us that what the Spaniards called the Filiola, or what we now call the Palla, i.e. the small square covering of the chalice made of linen, was never in use here, but ' a silk tablet ' instead, which was removed when the chalice was raised aloft. I find no allusion to such an article in old inventories, unless the Bursa, or, as it was then called, the Corporax- case, was so used.^ The act of the priest was to be followed by corresponding ones in the laity. ' Let laymen be admonished,' wrote the Bishop of Durham in 1220, 'to behave reverently during the consecration of the Eucha- rist, kneeling down, especially when the sacred Host is lowered after the elevation.' ^ The provincial council of Oxford in 1222 decreed : * Let the laity be frequently reminded, that whenever they see the Body of the Lord carried out, they immediately kneel down as to their Creator and Redeemer, and with hands joined humbly pray, until He has gone past. And let them do this especially at the elevation of the Host, when the bread is transformed into the Body of Christ, and that which is in the chalice into His Blood, by the mystic blessing.' ^ A similar decree was issued by Bishop Grossteste of Lincoln in 1236,'^ and by many other bishops. To call the attention of the people at this solemn moment of the mass, a small bell was rung inside the church, and a larger one outside called the Sacring Bell, otherwise the Sancte, Saints, or Saunce Bell, for at a later period it was rung also at the Sanctus before the Canon of the Mass. Bishop Peter Quivil of Exeter, in 1287, says: 'The Host should be raised so high as to be seen by the faithful by- standers ; thus their devotion is increased and the merit of their ' Annales Monastici, ii. 336 (Rolls Ser.) * Amundesham, i. 40 (Rolls Ser.) See also Bened. XIV. De Sacr. Missce, 1. ii. cap. 15, n. 27-33. 3 ' Quaedam tabella serica ad cooperiendum calicem dum est in altai-i.' (Soto in IV. Sent. dist. 13, 9, 2, art. 5.) < Wilkins, i. 579. = lb. 594. * Ep. 52 (Rolls ed.) THE SACKING BELL. 63 faith. The parishioners should be exhorted that, at the elevation of Christ, they do not bend irreverently, but kneel and adore their Creator with all devotion and reverence. To this they shall be excited beforehand by the ringing of a little bell, and at the elevation the great bell should be struck thrice.' ' The larger bell here men- tioned hung outside, generally under a little turret on the gable at the east end of the nave. It was placed outside the church that not merely those present around the altar, but even people at a distance, might be invited to assist in spirit at the great Mystery. The pro- vincial council of Lambeth, 1281, says : ' At the elevation of the Body of the Lord a bell must be struck on one side, that the people who are unable to be present daily at the celebration of Mass, wherever they may be, in the fields or at home, may kneel and gain the indulgences granted by many bishops.' ^ In the statutes drawn up by Dean Colet for St. Paul's School we have an example of the carrying out of this practice. ' There shall be in the school a priest, that daily as he can be disposed, shall sing mass in the chapel of the school and pray for the children to prosper in good life and in good literature, to the honour of God and our Lord Jesus Christ. At his mass, when the bell in the school shall ring to sacring, then all the children in the school kneeling in their seats shall with lift-up hands pray in the time of sacring. After the sacring, when the bell knelleth again they shall sit down again to their books learning.' ^ The statutes of the Brigittine nuns of Sion warn them, how- ever, lest this good external act interrupt a better interior one."* ' When the convent is at any conventual act, none shall presume of her own head to go out to see any sacring at any altar, but they shall keep their wonted observance, or else kneel down, if it be in the choir, and see our Lord in their souls, looking upon their books, that no default be made in reading or singing. For God loveth more to be worshipped and seen with the eyes of the soul than with the eyes of the body, saying our Lord : Veri adoratores adorabunt Deum in spiritu et veritate.' In a similar spirit. Bishop Grandisson of Exeter, in the statutes of Ottery St. Mary's writes : ' No mass is to be said during the office of prime, unless there be some special necessity, in which case we forbid • Wilkins, ii. 13 1. 2 Wilkins, ii. 51. A writer in the Arch/xol. Jomjial iox March 1847 connects the low side windows often found in chancels with the ringing of this outside bell in luio latere. But it is the bell that is struck on one side or tolled. =* Knight's Life of Colet, p. 306 (ed. 1823). * Cap. xxii. at p. 329 of Aungier's History of Isle-worth and Syon. 64 CEREMONIAL CHANGES. the little bells {campanellce) to be rung at the elevation of the sacra- ment, and those who are singing in choir must not go out nor turn aside to see the sacrament, but keep their attention devoutly fixed upon their office.' Less edifying were the complaints made by the monks of Daven- try in 1390 against the very early and great ringing at the parish church. The monks, however, had risen much earlier, had sung the divine office, then gone to bed again, and their rest was broken by the bells. However, if it was hardly fair to disturb those who watched while others slept, neither was it fair to the laymen who rose early, or reverent to our Lord, to silence the bells altogether. John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, acted as arbiter, and decided that the parish- ioners should ring ' one convenable peal, and then ringing with one bell, and at the levation of the sanctment {i.e. consecration) of the same mass three knellings only.' ^ Different forms of pious salutation were taught to the people to be used at this solemn moment of the mass. \\\ an old prayer-book or Hor?e quoted by Mr. Maskell, the Ave veruni is recommended.^ The author of the ' Ancren Riwle,' composed at the beginning of the thirteenth century, says : ' In the mass, when the priest elevates God's Body, say these verses standing : " Ecce salus mundi, etc. Behold the Salvation of the world, the Word of the Father, a true Victim, hving Flesh, whole Godhead, very Man," and then fall down with this greeting : ' Ave Principium nostras creationis ! Ave Pretium nostrse rcdemptionis ! Ave Viaticum nostrte peregrinationis, ! &c. ' But what room is there in me that my God should come to me, He who made heaven and earth ? Is it so, O Lord my God ? Is there in me anything which may contain Thee ? Who will give me that Thou wilt indeed come into my heart to inebriate it ? ' Then the prayer continues at some length, and is very beautiful.'' In his Instruction to parish priests, John Myrc says : And when they hear the bell ring — To that holy sakering, — Teach them kneel down, both young and old, — And both their hands up to hold, — And say then in ' Mo7iasticon Exoniense, by Oliver, p. 270. 2 Baker's Northampton, p. 312. ' ' Prayers to the Sacrament atte levacion.' {Monum. Hit. p. clvii.) ^ Ancren Riwle, p. 33 (Camden Society, 1853). Among the Carmelites the celebrant at the present day, just before communion, repeats the words : ' Hail, Salvation of the world, Word of the Father,' &c., as above. (O'Brien, History of Mass, p. 367.) SALUTATIONS. 65 this manner, — Fair and softly without here {i.e. noise) : — Jesu Lord, welcome Thou be — In form of bread as I Thee see ; — Jesu, for Thy holy Name — Shield me to day from sin and shame ; — Shrift and housel. Lord, Thou grant me do {i.e. both) — Ere that I shall hence go, — And very contrition of my sin — That I, Lord, never die therein ; — And as Thou wert of a May i-bore {i.e. born of a Maid) — Suffer me never to be forlore — But when that I shall hence wend — Grant me Thy bliss withouten end. Amen.— Teach them thus or some other thing — To say at the holy sakering.' These last words are noticeable. The people were taught forms of salutation, and, as a help to memory, these were often in rhyme. As this practice is worthy of imitation in our own day, it may be useful to add a few more specimens. ' The Lay Folk's Mass Book ' says : When time is near of sakering — A little bell men use to ring— Then shalt thou do reverence — To Jesu Christ's own presence — That may loose all baleful bands. — Kneeling hold up both thy hands— And so the levation thou behold, — For that is He that Judas sold — And since was scourged and done on Rood — And for mankind there shed His Blood . . . — Such prayer then thou make — As likes best thee to take. — Sundry men pray sere, {i.e. several) — Each man in his best manner. — Short prayer should be without dread — And therewith Pater Noster and the Creed. — If thou of one be unpurveyed, — I set here one that may be said, — Though I mark it here in letter — Thou may change it for a better. The prayer that he adds is in another metre, and was probably an older form in common use. It is as follows : Loued - be Thou, King, And blessed be Thou, King, Of all Thy gifts good ; And thanked be Thou, King Jesu, all my joying, That for me spilt Thy Blood And died upon the Rood : Thou give me grace to sing The song of Thy louing. Pater Noster. Ave Maria. Credo. A later form in another MS. is this : Welcome, Lord, in form of bread, For me Thou tholedst a painful deed ; As thou sufferedst the crown of thorn, Grant me grace, Lord, I be not lorn. Some Latin prayers are provided in the MS. as substitutes. One consists of five series of honourable titles, somewhat like those of our modern Litany of the Name of Jesus, each series beginning, Ave Jesu Christe ; the second is a more popular rhyme : ' Instructions, &c., 1. 284 j',/. (E. E. Text Soc.) - Loued, i.e. praised, from Anglo-Saxon lofian., though the same word from A. S. lujian, meant love J. VOL. II. U 66 CEREMONIAL CHANGES. Ave Caro Christi cara, Immolata Crucis ara Pro redemptis Hostia, Morte tua nos amara Fac redemptos luce clara Tecum frui gloria. The learned editor of the Lay Folk's Mass Book says : < In addi- tion to these and very many others in books of devotion, there is a great variety put forth with authority in books of hours and primers and rubricated, " At the levacion of our Lord," " In elevatione cor- poris Christi," and so forth.' ^ The Rev. Colin Grant of Eskadale informs me that in Inverness the Catholic peasants are accustomed to recite Gaelic verses in honour of the Blessed Sacrament, which are derived from no prayer- book, but have been handed down by tradition perhaps from pre- reformation times. He has kindly furnished me with the following translation, and with the original Gaelic, which I give in a note. 'Hail to Thee, O Body of Christ— Hail to Thee, O King of Hosts — Hail to Thee, O gracious Godhead — Hail to Thee, O true Man- hood (man) — As Thou wert pleased, O Christ, to come — Under the cover of bread. Thy whole Body — Heal my soul from every evil— That is upon me now — Hail to Thee, Blood and Flesh — Hail to Thee, food of grace — Wash my sins in the Blood of Thy grace — Hail to Thee, both man and God — Guard me from him that goeth about— May I receive Thee at the hour of my death — ^O Trinity without end, without beginning — Neither let Thy anger be upon me — Hail to Thee, true body, born of Mary Virgin — By Thy being pierced, shedding waves of Blood — Holy Trinity, grant us thy Sacra- ments — To-day and at our death hour, and Amen.' ^ Although two candles were ordered to be lighted throughout the mass, one of which at least was to be of wax, yet two others were • The Lay Folk^s Mass Book, edited with notes and illustrations by Canon Simmons (p. 285). Early Eng. Text Soc. 1879. ^ Di do bh-atha, a Chuirp Chriosta, — Di do bheatha, a Righ namfeart — Di do bheatha, a Dhiadhachd chaomh — Di do bheatha, a dhaoudachd cheart — Mar a thoilich thu, Chriosta, teachd — Fo sgeith arain, do Chorp slan — Leighis m'anam bhogach ole, — Ormsa an drasda a ta. — Di do bheatha, Fhuil us Fheoil — Di do bheatha, a phor nan gras, — Bath m'uilc am full do Ghras — Faild ort, a dhuine sa Dhia. — Mothaich mi bho'n ti th' air chuairt, — Blaiseam ort aig nair mo bhais, — A Thrianaid gun deireadh gun tus — Na biodh t'fhearg rium nas mna — Failt ort, fhior Chuirp, a rugadh le Moire Oigh — A bhrigh do tholladh, a sileadh tonna fala — A Thrianaid Naomh, thoir d'Shacramaid Thuiorn — An diugh 's aig nair ar bais, Agus Amen. Mr. Grant says that the rhythm halts sometimes, as if they had been imperfectly handed down. He took them in July 1880 from the mouth of John Macdonald of Eskadale, 99 years old, who learnt them eighty years ago from Donald Mc Gruar, Slralhglass, then 70. CHIMES. 67 often lighted at the parochial or high mass during the canon or at least before the elevation, Henry Woodlock, bishop of Winchester in 1308, 'seeking in this to imitate the faith and devotion of his predecessors,' grants an indulgence of ten days to all who help to maintain these two torches.^ Bishop Peter Quivil of Exeter, in 1287, ordered that these two torches should be provided from the alms of the parish, and gave an indulgence of fifteen days to all contributors. ^ Many donations for this purpose are to be found mentioned in paro- chial documents and wills. The same rich mine of information about old customs shows that, in some few places, the little bell call- ing attention to the moment of consecration had been developed, under the influence of what I must think mistaken piety, into elabo- rate devices calculated to distract the pious and be food of merri- ment to children and to idlers. John Baret, who held a position of importance under the abbot of St. Edmund's, dying in 1463, ordered by his will ^ that an image of our Lady is to be set up against a pillar with five tapers burning before it, and with chimes to be set near it. About the winding up of these chimes he leaves minute directions. They are to strike Requiem seternam at certain times, and to be made to go ' at the sacring of the mass of Jesus, at the sacring of the St. Mary mass on the Sunday, and likewise at the sacring of the mass which the St. Mary priest is to say for him every week, also at the Aves and at Compline each Saturday, Sunday and holy day through- out the year.' Even this was outdone by the citizens of Lynne and of Hull. Thomas Gosiman, Alderman of Hull, leaves in 1502, 40/. in honour of the B. Sacrament, in order to construct at the high altar some machinery by which angels should ascend to the roof of the chapel and descend again during the elevation of the Body and Blood of our Lord, as is done in Lynne in the cathedral church, and this to continue until the end of the Pater Noster."* To turn back from these good citizens of the fifteenth century to a learned and pious bishop of the thirteenth — x\lexander de Stavensby, Bishop of Coventry, in his Constitutions of 1237, writes as follows : ' Nothing is holier than the Sacrament of the altar, so that had our Lord not left it to us, " We should have been as Sodom " (Is. i. 9), that is to say, we should have been mute and not able to answer those who asked us " Where is your God?" (Ps. xli. 4). But now we can answer that our God is here, and no other God shall be esteemed ' Wilkins, ii. 294. - lb. 132. ^ Wills of Bury St. Edmunds (Camd. Soc. vol. xlviii. ■• Testamcnta Eboiac. p. 209. F 2 68 CEREMONIAL CHANGES. compared with Him (Baruch iii. 36). '* Here on the earth He is daily seen ". (Baruch iii. 38), when by the hands of the priest He is daily elevated : and " He converses with men," from the lowly place in which He is hidden in a little pyx. And "we should have been as Gomorrha" (Is. i. 9) ^ that is rough and dry without spiritual devotion. Hence we order that at the elevation of the Eucharist, when it is last raised and higher, ^ then a small bell must be rung. This bell will be like a small trumpet announcing the coming of the Judge, or rather of our Saviour, secretly ; so that our souls may exult when we draw near to the heavenly banquet, with a threefold joy, for where our Lord's Flesh is, there is his Soul, and there is God the Word. '3 11. Carrying of our Lord to the sick. The ceremonial prescribed when the B. Sacrament was carried from the church to the sick was exactly similar to what may still be witnessed in many Catholic countries. In the year 11 95, Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury and Legate, celebrated a council at York, in which he decreed : ' When communion is to be given to the sick, the priest must himself, in clerical habit befitting so great a sacra- ment, carry the Host, with a light borne before him, unless the in- clemency of the ways or other good reason prevent it.'* He re- newed the same injunctions in a Synod of the province of Canterbury held at Westminster in 1200.^ A similar decree was promulgated in most of the Synods held throughout England and Wales in the thir- teenth century. Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, commands the priest to wear a fitting dress, and to carry to he house of the sick man and back again publicly and honourably the sacred Pyx, holding it before his breast resting on a clean veil. A light must go before It, since the Host is ' the brightness of eternal light ' (Wisdom vii. 26), and in order that thereby the faith and devotion of be- holders may be increased; as it has been ordered in the General Council.^ Giraldus notices that the stole was to be laid crosswise over the ' According to some mediseval writers, Sodom meant dumbness or blindness, and Gomorrha meant dryness and sterility. * 'Quando ultimo elevatur et magis in altum.' The first small elevation was before the consecration, when the priest said : ' Qui pridie. ' But this was after- wards abolished. 3 Wilkins, i. 640. •• lb, 501. a lb. 505. ° Epistola 52 (Rolls ed.) CARRYING THE VIATICUM. 69 pyx.' He is writing for the Welsh priests at the end of the twelfth century. In 1220 Richard Marsh, Bishop of Durham, gave a very full instruction on all points concerning the B. Sacrament : ' When the Eucharist is taken to the sick,' he says, ' let the priest have a clean and decent pyx, so that one always remains in the church, and in the other he carries the Lord's Body to the sick, the Eucharist itself being enclosed in a very clean purse. The pyx will be covered with a clean linen cloth, and a light will be carried before it, and a cross also, unless the cross has already been carried to another sick man. A little bell will also be rung before the priest to excite the devotion of the faithful. The priest will always have with him a stole when he carries the Eucharist to the sick, and when the sick man is not very far oft", the priest will go to him in a surplice. He will have a vessel of silver or tin, kept especially for the purpose, that he may give to him the ablutions of his fingers after the communion.' ^ Walter de Cantilupe, Bishop of Worcester, touches on some other details in his constitution of 1240. He forbids the priest to turn aside to any house unless he has first faithfully deposited this pledge of our Redemption in a fitting place ; and he says that the people are to be reminded frequently that, when the Blessed Sacrament passes, they should kneel in the road, without caring for the mud.^ I will quote that part only of the Bishop of Exeter's constitution which relates to the conduct of the people. ' A bell,' he says, * must be rung before the priest, that by its sound the faithful may be reminded to worship the Body of the Lord, bowing humbly, and, if possible, kneeling. And that their pains may be more meritorious we grant to all who show this reverence with pure and devout heart thirteen days' indulgence of the penance enjoined on them, that no one may think it hard to show such service to his Creator.' * It will help us to picture the practical carrying out of these pre- scriptions in mediaeval England if I add the gloss or commentary made in the fifteenth century by the great canonist I^yndwood : ' In case of necessity,' he says, ' if the priest cannot get a minister to carry the light, I do not think it would be improper to carry the lanthorn suspended from one of the arms, and to ring the bell in the best manner he can. Thus priests do in large parishes, when they go to the sick in distant places. Sometimes, when they ride, they fasten both lanthorn and bell to the horse's neck ; and in this they deserve no blame, since necessity has no laws. . . . The adoration should ' Gemma Ecdesiastica, Dist. i. cap. 6 (Rolls ed.) 2 Wilkins, i, 581. » lb. 665. * lb. ii. 132. 70 CEREMONIAL CHANGES. be made by the bending of the head and devotion of the heart, by the outspreading of the hands,' or their elevation, with the vocal expression of some devout prayer. I am used to say : Ave verum corpus natum ex Maria Virgine, etc' John Myrc's instructions are as follows : When thou shalt to sick gone — A clean surplice cast thee on, — Take thy stole with thee right — And pull thy hood over thy sight. — Bear thine Host anent thy breast — In a box that is honest — Make thy clerk before thee^w^ {i.e. gang, go)— To bear light and bell ring.^ In another place he speaks of the duties of the people : — Teach them also, I thee pray — That when they walken in the way, — And seen the priest again them coming — God's Body with him bearing, — Then with great devotion — Teach them there to kneel adown, — Fair ne foul, spare they not — To worship Him that all hath wrought ;— For glad may that man be — That once in the day may Him see.^ We almost ask ourselves as we read these old documents, did these things really take place in England ? Were all its country roads and bridle paths used to carry the King of kings ? Did He once visit in the sacrament of His ineffable love each little cabin in the forest, in the marsh, or on the mountain side ? Did the people rest from their labours when the church-bell sounded, and, uncovering their heads, or kneeling in the furrow, repeat the words of faith and adoration ? Did the children hush their game, and the traffickers sus- pend their traffic, and the knight rein in his horse and dismount, at the well-known sound of the bell, telling that our Lord, as in the days of His earthly life, was going to visit Peter's mother-in-law, or the centurion's servant ? Ah, He is still carried through the streets of our busy cities, and even the lanes of the country receive a rare visit, but His passage is unannounced and unsuspected by the mul- titudes. ' There hath stood One among them whom they know not' Surely no Catholic, catching a glimpse from the railway carriage, as he flies through the country, of many an old Catholic church in its little hamlet of farm houses, can be so indifferent to what was and what now is, as not to make an act of reparation for the crimes known and unknown which banished our Lord from His ancient homes, so that now once more ' the foxes have holes, and the birds ' Giraldus says the people should cover their eyes with their hands : ' Prse oculis palmam portante populo.' [Gemma Eccl. p. 20, Rolls ed.) 2 Instructions, &c., 1. 1957 sq. 8 lb. 1. 304, sq. Myrc goes on to make some promises, which are also found in other mediseval documents, but which have no better foundation than an apocryphal writing of St. Augustine. A CONTRAST. 71 of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head.' Gerald Barry, a well-known writer of the twelfth century, has recorded in his ' Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales,' a trait of piety of a nobleman of that time named William de Breusa or de Braose, lord of Brecknock. 'WHienever,' he says, 'on a journey he saw a church or a cross, although in the midst of a discourse either with his inferiors or superiors, from an excess of devotion, he imme- diately began to pray, and when he had finished his prayers, resumed his conversation.' ^ In the same work Gerald makes this prophetic remark : ' Many riches of nature lie concealed through inattention, which the diligence of posterity will bring to light.' ^ He is writing of South Wales in the year 1 185. Seven hundred years have since passed, and the hidden minerals and metals have been dug up, and the face of the whole country is changed. But, alas ! if the Treasure is lost which William de Braose saluted, what gain for the Welsh is there in coal and iron ? No more than for the Samaritan woman, had she drawn the water of Jacob's well and lost ' the Fountain springing up into life everlasting.' No more than for the men of Galilee, had they obtained the bread they coveted, and lost the ' living Bread which came down from heaven.' It is not that I look on Gerald Barry, or William de Braose, the archdeacon and the lord of Brecknock, as types of the Christian priest and layman. There seem to have been many defects in the character and life of both, and so may it have been with many others whose words or acts I may incidentally record. But their faith was true if not always enlightened or energetic ; and both the Divine Presence and the true faith in it were the common possession of the whole people. It was this which made their grandeur and their happiness, just as the endless disagreements and dissensions of our present population show that divine faith is not theirs, but human opinion. I am no more blind to the many excellences of individuals now than to the many defects of individuals formerly. But if we look back to the days when England was united in Catholic communion, we see fulfilled in it the promise : ' From the rising of the sun even to the going down My Name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice and there is offered to My Name a clean oblation ' (Mai. i. 11); whereas in modern England we are reminded of a far different prophecy : ' There shall be a time when they will not endure ' Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin, edited by Sir R. C. Hoare, 1806, vol. i. p. 27. « lb, p. 105. 72 CEREMONIAL CHANGES. sound doctrine, but -will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears ' (2 Tim. iv, 3). Ears that itch after novelty, and tongues that elect their own teachers, and hands that with foolish liberality heap up conventicles side by side, not that one faith may be announced, one sacrifice offered, one God worshipped, but that every new form of error may have its own exponent — these are the things which make us look back with regret even to the wild days of mediaeval England. 73 CHAPTER VII. CHURCHES AND THEIR VENERATION. The churches of Great Britain, considered as works of art and science, have been plentifully illustrated by pen and pencil, but as works of zeal and devotion they still await an historian. And there are few problems more worthy of study — none the solution of which would more redound to the honour of our forefathers — than that of the resources which not merely covered the land with cathedrals and abbeys, the wonder and admiration of the world, but gave to every little hamlet its church, often plain and humble, more often handsome, but always more than sufficient for the population. After the most painstaking study of the churches of the moun- tainous and once almost roadless county of Derbyshire, Mr. Cox speaks ^ with admiration of ' the bountiful provision of mediaeval England/ and notices that ' even within the limited area of the hun- dreds of Appleton, and of Repton and Gresley, upwards of a score of churches and chapels, which have completely disappeared, were then open to the worship of the faithful.' Sir Richard Hoare, a writer by no means unfavourable to the Reformation, in his * History of Wiltshire,' remarks, that ' whatever doubts may be entertained as to the merits or demerits of the monastic orders, it is at least un- deniable that the wanton destruction of so many of the capacious and magnificent churches belonging to those establishments was a national injury. From hence was derived that want of church accommodation which later ages have in vain attempted to remedy, and which may be reckoned among the most efficient causes of the dissent too justly urged as a reproach against the Church of Eng- land.'^ Similar reflections have been suggested to candid inquirers, not merely by the history of churches now destroyed, but by the fate of those that survive. ' It is at Wells,' says Sir Harris Nicolas, in his ' Life of Bishop Beckington,' ' that the lover of the arts and the admirer of the zeal and disinterestedness of the prelates of the middle ages will be most impressed with respect for Bishop Beck- ' Nbies on Derbyshire Chuiches, vol. iii. Introd. p. ix. * History of Wiltshire, p. 241. 74 CHURCHES AND THEIR VENERATION. ington ; but whilst viewing the effects of his munificence, will he be able to refrain from asking himself why it is that the most opulent successors of those great men have so rarely imitated them ? Will his respect for the established order of things be sufficient to repress the reflection, that with nearly the same revenues the modern clergy seldom indeed beautify or repair cathedrals or found colleges ? . . . Whether this neglect of what are termed " The Temples of God " is indicative of greater zeal in His service than was felt by the reviled monkish priesthood, or whether the public, who are so commonly accused from the pulpit of indifference to their religious duties, are likely to become more strict observers of them, whilst the richly endowed hierarchy of England allow the venerable religious fabrics to fall to decay, may be a proper subject for consideration of the dignitaries of our Church.' ^ These severe words were written in 1828, and in the fifty years which have since passed much has been done to remove the re- proach. This every Catholic gladly recognises, since it is one of the hopeful signs which may be set against the spread of infidelity, as betokening a partial return at least to that piety which, by the grace of God, is the moral preparation for faith. The times are certainly changed since Pilkington, the first Protestant bishop of Durham, in order to urge on Elizabeth's officers to defile Catholic churches and altars, wrote as follows : ' Though Jehu was an evil man other- ways, yet God gave him a worldly blessing and commended him for his earnest zeal in rooting out the posterity of Achab, pulling down Baal and his sacrificing priests, making a common jakes of the house where they worshipped him.'^ It must however be admitted that the republication of such language as this of late years, with the view of counteracting the movement of return towards the Church, is a sign that much remains to be done before sacrilege is repented of or its effects expiated. Somewhat less offensive than Pilkington's, but quite as extra- ordinary, are the reflections made by Alexander Neville, secretary to Elizabeth's first Protestant archbishops, Parker and Grindal, when recording the works of the first Catholic bishop of Norwich, Herbert de Losinga. Herbert has been accused of obtaining his bishopric from William Rufus by simoniacal gifts. That he did so is not cer- tain ; though he certainly felt scruples about having received inves- titure from the king, and therefore went to Rome and resigned his ring and crozier into the hands of the pope, from whom he received ' jfournal of Becldngton, p. 65. '^ Preface to Cofiimentary of Aggmis {Parker Soc. ed.) ZEAL FOR CHURCH-BUILDING. 75 them again. On his return to England he repaired any sin or irregu- larity of which he might have been guilty by devotion to his pastoral charge, and by many deeds of generosity. He transferred his see from Thetford to Norwich, and there built a cathedral and monastery besides several other churches. Neville found all this related by "William of Malmesbury and other ancient authors, and the following thoughts arose in his mind : ' Oh ! how wretched was the condition of those times, when ignorance of God covered the whole world with dense darkness ! How much happier is our lot, who by the mercy of God have emerged from this pit of superstition to heaven and eternal life ! Far different is the beauty and dignity of our Church from that of the Romans, far different the ways of Chris- tians from those of Papists, the splendour of true religion from the darkness of impiety ; in a word, the light of the Gospel from that of the lamps with which alone their murky temples are lighted. What stupidity and madness was it that when Herbert in his youth had disgraced himself by such fearful crimes,^ in later life he should have had recourse, not to Christ, the only fountain of eternal salvation, but to Rome, to the foul cisterns of the filthy pope ! By this journey not only he did not efface his guilt, but in my opinion he added the crime of perfidy to the infamy of simony. . . . On his return to England he had nothing more at heart than to expend the money which he had heaped together by rapine on the building of churches.' Let me interrupt this author's narrative to say that the money ex- pended by Herbert was not accumulated by any fraud or unlawful means, but merely the revenues of his see, which he spent in good works, living himself with great frugality. Neville then relates the building of the cathedral, and of five other monastic churches ; and then continues his commentary as follows : ' I have related these things, not as approving them, for who would not disdain and hate monastic impiety? but that the men of our time, when they con- sider the zeal and industry of these men in embellishing their Roman rites and ceremonies, and roused by their example may be inflamed with the love of God and with zeal for true piety. For if the fear of the Divinity impelled these men, bound as they were with a vile superstition and inexpiable deceits so far that they did not hesitate to spend great sums of money in things perverse and impious, what ought to be our dispositions now that the clouds of error are dis- pelled, and we gaze on the sun of heavenly discipUne ? Wherefore ' His youth had been pure, holy, and studious. No charges but those of simony and adulation have ever been made against him, and even those apparently without clear proof. 76 CHURCHES AND THEIR VENERATION. as these men spared no expense in building temples, and gathering together assemblies of sacrificing priests, so let us relieve the wants and poverty of the miserable.'^ What the miserable gained by the destruction of monasteries and such exhortations as the above it is unnecessary to inquire. A very different order of reflections arises in the mind of a Catholic in considering the ancient churches of England. ' The Catholic religion,' says Mr. Digby, ' is essentially a creative power, to edify and not to destroy, because it is under the immediate influence of that Holy Spirit which the Church invokes as the Creative Spirit, — Creator Spiritus . . . Alas ! with how much nobler an order of monuments than that which the present race of men erects, would England be now adorned, if her rich and powerful nobles and labo- rious population had continued Catholic ! With such means and with the activity inherent in the national character, what might not have been done, if all had been animated with the generous and self- devoted spirit of the Catholic religion ! ' ^ I will merely add that when some one shall have patiently gathered together from many quarters all that can throw light on the faith, the love, the zeal for God's glory and for man's salvation, the piety, the energy and the patience which covered our country with innumerable churches, it will be found that a lively faith in the Blessed Sacrament intermingled with all other motives, and was itself the most active and powerful of all. I would at present ask my reader's attention to that which makes especially the sanctity of a Catholic church — its rela- tions to the Mystery of the Word made Flesh, and of the Flesh made Sacrament. The Council of London, presided over by the Pope's Legate Otho, in 1237, commands that all churches are to be at once conse- crated ' because in them the heavenly Victim, living and true, namely the only begotten Son of God, is offered on the altar for us by the hands of the priest. Wherefore the holy fathers prudently decreed that an action so sublime should not be performed, except in case of necessity, in any places but such as are dedicated to God.' While making this decree the Council bore witness to the zeal for church erection which then prevailed, by a rule intended to keep it within bounds : ' Abbots and rectors must not pull down old churches in order to build better ones without leave of the bishop, who will judge of the necessity or expediency.'^ • Alex. Nevylli Norwicus,' i^JS) quoted in Latin in Goulburn and Symonds' Life and Letters of Herbert de Losinga, vol. i. p. 392. * Mores Catholici, book iii. ch. ii. ^ Matthew Paris, Hist. p. 449 (ed. Wats). CONSECRATION OF CHURCHES. yy In 1377 Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote to the bishop of St. Asaph that it was reported that in his diocese * many of the churches in which God Himself is daily immolated and received ' were not consecrated, and ordered the rite to be per- formed immediately. ' Bishop Lacy of Exeter, in giving orders for the reparation of the church of Glasney, writes that ' though the house of God in material substance does not differ from the houses of men, yet by its dedica- tion it is made the visible temple of God, for the expiation of sin and the imploring of divine mercy, and that in it may be the table on which the living Bread that came down from heaven is eaten for the benefit of the Hving and the dead.' ^ The prayers and rites of consecration, and still more the frequent offering of the Holy Mysteries, and their reservation day and night in the Tabernacle, conferred on the building a solemnity of associa- tion and a relative sanctity so great that certain profanations had the guilt of sacrilege, and every incongruous act was forbidden as sinful in some degree unless a justifying cause were found in necessity or other circumstances. For the Church has never forgotten that it her Divine Master was consumed with zeal for His Father's glory, and scourged away the profaners of the House of Prayer, yet on the other hand the principle which He laid down that the Sabbath is made for man and not man for the Sabbath has a wide application, and may certainly be applied to the use of consecrated buildings. Thus the holding of fairs and markets even in churchyards was made illegal by a statute of 1285. Yet the same king who had sanctioned this law had no scruple in holding his high court of adjudication and receiving the oaths of the competitors for the crown of Scotland in the church of Norham, since no other public building existed in that neighbourhood. I make this remark because it has been lately said that ' ever since the Reformation Englishmen have treated their churches with infinitely more of reverence (occasionally perhaps mingled with a contemptuous indifference) than was the case with their Catholic forefathers.'^ Were this the off"-hand statement of some reckless bigot, I should not consider it deserving of an answer. It is, how- ever, the assertion of one well qualified by his special studies to form a judgment, and whose tone as regards mediteval England is in general fair and even sympathetic. The assertion deserves therefore ' Wilkins, iii. 122. ^ Monasticon Exoniense. Oliver, p. 52. * The Churches of Derbyshire, by Rev. J. C. Cox, vol. i. p. 172. 78 CHURCHES AND THEIR VENERATION. to be fairly met. Mr. Cox justifies his startling proposition in the following way : ' The devotion,' he says, ' of churches to secular uses in the Middle Ages was not only not regarded as reprehensible, but there is no reasonable doubt that the main object and intention of building the large naves to our churches was for the very purpose of utilising them as town-halls, courts of assize, market-houses, granaries and storehouses in troublesome times, and even as suitable buildings for the holding of fairs and revels. Spiritual tribunals, justices' sessions, and manorial courts were all held in the naves of the churches, and the bodies of our majestic cathedrals were used with- out exception, at certain seasons of the year, for the accommodation of hucksters' stalls, stages for morrice dancers, and the performance of miracle plays, and served as pleasant places for a morning gossip or a midday promenade. There was nothing exceptional about the use to which old St. Paul's was put, and it was not till after the much- abused Reformation that the incongruity of things secular and spiri- tual under the same roof began to strike men's minds.' The best reply to this last assertion will be to quote the language of some pre -reformation writers. In an old book called ' Dives and Pauper,' written by Friar Parker, occurs the following dialogue : * Dives. What sayest thou of them that hold markets and fairs in holy church and in sanctuary ? ' Pauper. Both the buyers and the sellers and the men of holy church that maintain them when they might let it, been accursed. They make God's house a den of thieves, for commonly in such fairs and markets wheresoever it be holden, there be many thieves, mychers and cut-purses. ' Dives. And I dread me, that full often by such fairs God's house is made a tavern of gluttons and a bordel of lychors ; for the merchants and chapmen keep their wives and lemans both night and day, and what if the prelates and curates of the place take money of the chapmen for the place that they stand in by covenant ? ' At the very time this was being written by a friar, the Lollards were teaching that there was no more reverence due to a consecrated church than to a milk-shed ; and it was probably owing not a little to the influence of their principles, which were spreading like a pesti- lence through the nation long before the Reformation, that so many acts of irreverence are recorded, especially in the fifteenth century. It might surely be unnecessary to prove that the theory of a special sanctity in consecrated places, making them unfit not only for the commission of deeds in themselves sinful, but even for the pursuit of ordinary business and amusements, was familiar to Catholics, what- IRREVERENCE. 79 ever their practice may have been. If I must quote documents to prove such a truism, let one passage suffice. In a circular to all rectors and vicars Bishop Grosseteste commands by evangelical authority and also by special apostolical {i.e. papal) faculties, that there be no buying and selling in holy places, since the Lord drove such from the temple, lest the house of prayer be made a den of thieves. The churchyards are to be carefully shut and en- closed, the execrable custom observed in some churches of keep- ing a feast of fools he altogether prohibits by special authority of an apostolic precept.' In another letter he calls this custom 'diabolical.' ^ The fact is that much of our knowledge of the existence of gross irreverences in the churches in the Middle Ages is simply due to the energetic and unsparing language in which they were condemned by authority or denounced by private zeal. Thus, since Mr. Cox alludes to the case of St. Paul's, it is from Robert Braybrook, bishop of London in 1385, that we learn that a part of his cathedral was made into a mere market-place, especially on festivals, and that all kinds of indecencies and enormities were committed in and about it. But, by the same document, we know that he excommunicated all who after admonition should persist in such conduct.^ I am, then, utterly at a loss to know whence Mr. Cox derived his opinion that one of the very purposes for which the large naves of the churches were designed was to serve as halls for profane uses. Certainly it was not from the Pontifical, in which is contained the rite of consecration, every word of which supposes the exact contrary."* It was not from the canon law, which is quite clear as to what is lawful and what prohibited in churches. It was not from any of our English writers. They all speak to the same intent as John Myrc in his instructions to priests : ' Within church and church hay — Do right thus as I thee say — Song and cry and such fare — For to stint thou shalt not spare — Castino- of ax-tree and eke of stone — Suffer them there to use none — Ball and bears and such play — Out of churchyard put away— Court holding and such manner chost l^i.e. strife) — Out of sanctuary put thou must For Christ Himself teacheth us — That holy church is His house That is made for nothing else— But to pray in as the Book tells— ' Bishop Grosseteste's Letters (Rolls Series), Ep. 52. - lb. Ep. 32. ^ Wilkins, iii. 194. '' I would willingly quote from Bishop Lacy's Pontifical, but must be con- tented, for brevity's sake, to refer the reader to vol. i. p. 156, where are recorded some of the prayers of Egbert's Pontifical, which were repeated and amplified in later ones. 8o CHURCHES AND THEIR VENERATION. There the people shall gather within — To prayen and weepen for their sin,' ^ It may be said that the practice was not according to this theory, and I partly admit it, for the very passages I have quoted prove that there were abuses. But I cannot admit that they were either universal, as Mr. Cox asserts, or notably frequent. Some of those things which are strange to our habits were either permissible in themselves or merely the perversion of what at first had a colour of piety. I will borrow an illustration from Mr. Cox's volumes. He quotes the following from Stowe : ' Margaret Atkinson, widow, by her will, October i8, 1544, orders that the next Sunday after her burial there be provided two gammons of bacon, three shoulders of mutton, and two couples of rabbits, desiring all the parish, as well rich as poor, to take part thereof, and a table to be set up in the midst of the church with everything necessary thereto.' Such a feast as this in the church, especially if beer was among the things ' necessary,' would lead to mirth and unseemly talk, but in itself it was piously meant as an alms- deed. It was, however, never a common practice, and the examples of it found in old wills belong, if I mistake not, to the half-century preceding the Reformation. As to Whitsun ales held in the church, they were devised in order to pay church rates, and we know of their having been held within the sacred building principally by the con- demnation of the practice, which was never frequent. ^ It would then appear to me that Mr. Cox has drawn conclusions far wider than his basis of facts would warrant ; and in making his comparison between pre- and post-Reformation times he has neglected several considerations. First, we know of Catholic abuses by the documents which prove their correction. Protestant authorities have shown no such zeal. Secondly, Mr. Cox by his historical studies, which were bounded by the Reformation period, is probably much more familiar with Catholic than with Protestant documents. Thirdly, even if he is conversant with the three centuries of Protestantism, he should remember that his facts are spread over many more cen- turies of Catholicity. Fourthly, the times with which the Catholic Church had to deal were wild and rude compared at least with our own days. Fifthly, large public buildings, other than churches, were comparatively rare in those days, so that the plea of necessity could be often legitimately invoked. Sixthly, Protestant churches have, as a rule, been locked up when not employed for worship. The church to Catholics is a familiar resort. No huckster would be tempted to ' Instructions for Parish Priests, 1. 330, sq. (E. E. T. Soc) * See my volume, The Discipline of Drink. THE SACRAMENTAL PRESENCE. 8i set up his stall in the porch of a Protestant church on a week day in order to gain customers. I will pass from this subject with one other remark. Mr. Cox acknowledges that the reverence for the church which he claims as belonging to Protestants was ' occasionally mingled with contemp • tuous indifference.' This, I think, could never be said of Catholic times. Fearful sacrileges were perpetrated in the heat of passion and generously atoned for ; forgetfulness of God's Presence was common in the church as well as outside it. But of deliberate contempt for the Church's blessings or the presence of the Blessed Sacrament I know of no instance except among the Lollards. I will conclude this chapter with two examples which will illustrate this difference as regards the Real Presence. In a Conquestus made by the monks of Wearmouth against the Baron of Hilton, they mention how his son, having heard some false story, ' in his coming to the kirk for to be shriven, thereupon wholly moved, with high and stour countenance entered the choir of the said kirk of Wearmouth, without any prayer or reverence there made or showed to the blessed sacrament' ' This little circumstance is not the subject of their grievance ; they intro- duce it merely to illustrate the impetuous character of their aggressor ; but by noting this exception the framer of the monks' complaints has made known a beautiful and universal practice which has found no direct historian. An example of a very different kind of irreverence I find in the pages of Foxe, the Protestant martyrologist. The reader will, I trust, pardon the recital of this scoffer's blasphemies, for the sake of the illustration they give of Catholic piety. He relates that when Lady Jane Grey was very young, being at Newhall in Essex, at the Lady Mary's (afterwards queen), ' she was walking with Lady Anne Wharton by the chapel, when the latter made her curtsey to the popish sacra- ment hanging on the altar, which when the Lady Jane saw, she mar- velled why she did so, and asked her whether the Lady Mary were there or not. Unto whom the Lady Wharton answered, " No ; but she said that she made her curtsey to Him that made us all." " Why," quoth the Lady Jane, " how can He be there that made us all, and the baker made him ? " This, her answer, coming to the Lady Mary's ' Surtees's ffisloiy of Durliain, ii. 38. The date of this incident is I430. Lydgate about the same time describes the common practice of the devout : ' When thou comest to the holy place — Cast holy water in thy face — Then look to the high altar — And pray to Ilim that hangeth there,' ( Merita Missa, 1, 37. In Lay Folk's Mass Book, p. 148.) VOL. II. G 82 CHURCHES AND THEIR VENERATION. ears, she did never love her after, as is credibly reported, but esteemed her as the rest of that Christian profession.' My Catholic readers will, I think, share the princess's feeling towards the pert child who thus scoffed at the most loving and adorable of all God's works, unless they will charitably impute the blame to the teachers given her by her parents, men who, to use St. Peter's words, * walked after the flesh, despising government, audacious, pleasing themselves, and who feared not to bring in sects blaspheming ' (2 Pet. ii. 10). If any Protestant should read this page, I would ask him to make another reflection. It is said that Lady Jane Grey comforted her last moments by reading Plato. Perhaps the most beautiful pas- sage in that sublime pagan's imaginings is one in which, in a certain fashion, he unconsciously and imperfectly foreshadows the mystery of God with men. He has been drawing out in his Phsdo his belief in a better world than this, a world above this atmosphere of ours. Our air is to the inhabitants of that world what the ocean is to us. ' Here on earth we dwell in a sombre and profound abyss, while we fancy we walk on the surface ; as if anyone inhabiting some deep hollow at the bottom of the sea were to suppose that he was at the top, and, seeing the sun and stars through the water, were to suppose that the water was the sky, having never risen to the surface ; but if he were at last to rise and put out his head above the water, how much fairer would everything seem to him on this beautiful earth, than what he 'lad left below at the bottom. This is what we experience, for, in- habiting an abyss of the world, we think that we are on its surface, and we call the air heaven, from beholding the stars through it, but from our weakness and gravity we are unable to rise to the upper air. If, however, anyone were to escape to the top, or being winged should fly up thither, and, as a fish emerging from the sea, were to behold things there, and if his nature were competent to endure that vision, he would perceive that what is there is the true heaven, and the true light, and the true earth,' and that he had been living hitherto as it were at the bottom of the sea. Then Plato goes on to describe that ethereal world. He concludes as follows : ' The seasons are of such a nature that there is no disease, and lives are longer than here, and the sight, and hearing, and understanding as much surpass what we possess, as the air is purer than water, and the aether than the air ; and moreover, there are temples and sanctuaries of the gods, in which the gods actually dzaell, and there are responses, and prophesyings and visions of the gods, and there is a familiar intercourse tvith thejn.' After quoting this passage, Mr. Digby remarks : ' It was not enough for Plato to deck this sweet world with material beauty, with amaran- LADY JANE GREY AND PLATO. 83 thine bowers and streams of nectar, with aery cliffs and ghttering sands, but his sublime imagination still required him to seek God amidst the pleasant haunts of the garden ; for Plato had drunk deeply at the fountain of primitive truth, and had heard of Paradise, and how God had once walked there with man as his friend. Happy indeed the sage, could he have foreseen the restoration of this glorious union in the adorable sacrament of the Christian altar ; could behave believed that a period was approaching when men would no longer be left alone in the world, but would possess sanctuaries, where God would be pleased to descend once more amongst them, and to dwell under humble veils, to be ever present with them. Like Stolberg, when first brought to this celestial light, he too would have exclaimed, " My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God. The spar- row hath found a dwelling and the turtle-dove hath made a nest for her young ones. Thy altars, O God of my strength ; Thy altars, O my King and my God, are the place of my peace and my joy, from hence- forth and for ever." ^ * Tiighy^s Broad Stone of Iloiwicr, vol. ii. [Orlandus), p. 154. G i. 84 THE TABERNACLE. CHAPTER VIII. THE TABERNACLE. When the bishop was about to consecrate a church, standing with his clergy outside its door, he sang with a loud voice the following antiphon : Zachgee, festinans descende, etc., 'Zaccheus, make haste and come down, for to-day I must abide in thy house. And he made haste and came down and received him with joy. This day is salva- tion come to this house. Alleluia.' ' Thus does the Church commemorate her privilege of being the home not only of God's children, but of God Himself, of God made man, of Emmanuel ; and Christians repeat with exultation, what the Jews muttered with envy, that Jesus Christ has become the guest of sinners. I propose in the present chapter to treat of the place and mode of reservation of the Blessed Sacrament in the churches, and if I give far more examples than are necessary for the proof of the ritual observance it will be because each gift that I record of pyx and tabernacle is a proof of lively faith and grateful heart among our fore- fathers to their heavenly Guest. We have seen in the first volume of this work that from the earliest ages the Blessed Eucharist was reserved for the communion of the sick, and that precautions were taken with regard to Its renewal. The Church has in every age continued to watch over her great Deposit with the tenderest care. The Council of York in 1195 decreed that It must be renewed every Sunday.^ This was repeated in the Council of Westminster in 1200.^ The bishop of Durham in 1220 prescribed that the Hosts should not be kept more than seven days, and should be consumed by the priest before he received the Precious Blood in his mass, or by some innocent person of good life.^ The Synod of Exeter in 1287 says, ' For the sake of the sick, ' Bishop Lacy's Pontifical, p. 13. - Wilkins, i. 501. ^ //'. 505. ^ lb. 580. Evagrius, who wrote in the 6th century, says : ' It is an old custom in Constantinople, that when there remain over a considerable quantity of frag- ments of the immaculate Body of Christ our God, boys of a tender age should be fetched from among those who attend the schools, to eat them.' {Hist. iv. 35.) PLACE OF RESERVATION. 85 the parish priest must always have consecrated particles which it is strictly forbidden to keep more than seven days. Those that remain are to be consumed on the Sunday, before the ablution of the chalice, by the celebrant or another priest, worthily and devoutly, when others are to be consecrated in greater or smaller number according to the extent of the parish.' ^ Giraldus says that 'the priest must not pre- sume to consecrate more Hosts than are sufficient for the people ; and if any remain over they must not be kept to the next day, except a. few for viaticum, but must be consumed reverently by the clergy.' ^ From these and similar documents it appears that the custom of reserving in a ciborium a large number of particles to be distributed to communicants in other masses was then unknown. Indeed com- munions were much rarer then than now. I have noticed in a previous chapter that in the earlier ages the Most Holy Sacrament was reserved sometimes in the Sacrament Porch or Sacristy, sometimes in the Church itself In the period with which we are now concerned the chancel of the Church appears to have been the sole place of reservation. From inquiries made of several who have a wide acquaintance with the history of English churches, I have not been able to hear of any instance of a Blessed Sacrament Chapel, or side chapel for the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament. Altars and side chapels of the gilds of Corpus Christi were frequent, but they were not set apart for reservation. Mr. Joyce, in his account of the windows of Fairford Church, states that the chapel at the end of the north aisle was the Lady Chapel, that at the end of the south aisle the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. He was led, however, to this conclusion not by any documents, nor by any material construction now visible in the church, but solely by the subject of the window.^ This does not follow in its order the his- torical series of the other windows. It represents our Lord in His Transfiguration with the sacred Host on His breast. This arrange- ment would merely show that in this aisle was what was called a * Jesus altar,' or that it was the altar of a confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, or it might have been adopted in order to harmonise with the window in the north aisle representing our Lady's assumption. In any case the treatment is interesting. ' Upon the breast of this figure of the glorified Son of man,' says Mr. Joyce, ' is painted a small circular disk in diameter i| inch, from the edge of which pro- ceed all round darting rays as from a sun. On its lower circum- ference the rays lengthen, and underneath at the centre three very ' Wilkins, ii. 132. - Gemma Ecd. Dist. i. cap. 8, ^ I learnt this in a letter from himself. 86 THE TABERNACLE. long straight beams of sunlight stream downward toward the persons of the three favoured Apostles, spreading outward as they go. Within the disk are the letters I H S.' The date of this window is about 1500.1 If we look to the canons of the various synods held in the thir- teenth century, we find them very explicit regarding the honourable and safe custody of the great Treasure, but not defining the exact place. In a letter of Bishop Grosseteste, addressed to all the parish priests of the diocese of Lincoln, he says that ' the Eucharist, which is the Sacrament of our Lord's Body, must be devoutly and faithfully preserved and be always honourably laid up in a place apart, clean and sealed (or locked).'^ I.t seems that in some small churches it had been thought suffi- cient to place it in a purse upon a ledge or on the altar. This was strictly forbidden. Archbishop Peckham, in 1280, says : ' We order that the most excellent Sacrament of the Eucharist must for the future be so kept as not to be placed in a purse, for fear lest it should be broken, but in a beautiful pyx adorned within with whitest linen ; so that it may be easily taken out or put back without danger of breaking.' The synod of Chichester in 1289, the canons of which were adopted a {&-^ days later by the province of York, says : ' The Holy Eucharist (as well as the baptismal font and holy oils) are to be dili- gently guarded under lock and key, under pain of three months' suspension ab officio.' ^ The Council of Lambeth, in 1281, orders that ' in every parish church there must be a decent tabernacle, with a lock {clausura). In this the Body of the Lord must be placed in a very beautiful pyx, and linen coverings, but not in a purse lest it be broken.' * What is here to be understood by the word Tabernacle ? The question is proposed because it is certain that in England an almost universal custom prevailed until the sixteenth century of hanging the Receptacle of the Blessed Sacrament over the altar ; and Lyndwood, a great English canonist of the fifteenth century, in his commentary on 1 As about this date much devotion was shown to the Holy Name of Jesus, and St. Bernardine of Siena had established the practice of representing it exactly in the manner described above, it seems very probable that the artist intended to symbolise the Holy Name rather than the Sacred Host. See Liturgical Year, Christmas, vol. ii. p. 262, for an account of the feast of the Holy Name, and the manner of honouring it by emblematic representations. ' Ep. 52 (Rolls ed.), 'in loco singulari, mundo et signato.' » Wilkins. ii. 169. ■< lb. 48. THE WORD 'TABERNACLE? 87 this decree of Archbishop Peckham, considers that the letter of the decree had not been carried out, although its purpose had been attained in another way. In saying this he relies on the derivation of the word from tabula^ from which he concludes that a tabernacle should be a fixed wooden construction. In the time of Lyndwood the tabernacles used on the Continent were for the most part fixed, whether upon or near the altars or in recesses in the walls, though the practice of hanging the pyx, as in England, was not altogether un- known. Yet I conceive that Lyndwood was mistaken in thinking that the constitution of Lambeth had not been literally carried out, since the word tabernacle might apply to a hanging as fitly as to an immovable construction. The ecclesiastical use of this word is known to have varied in different times and countries. Both the missal and ponti- fical contain a ' Benedictio tabernaculi sive vasculi pro sacrosancta Eucharistia conservanda.' Some liturgical writers understand this of the box or cupboard or fixed structure in which the pyx or ciborium is placed. Others, with more probability, interpret it of the ciborium itself; and certainly the word is used in the ' Cseremoniale Episcoporum ' for what we call a monstrance : ' Sequitur episcopus portans manibus suis SS. Sacramentum in tabernaculo sive ostensorio inclusum.' ' In France, in the twelfth century, it was used for the receptacle of the pyx. Eudes de Sully, bishop of Paris, says of some of his priests : ' Ita sunt negligentes quod nondum habent pyxidem eburneam, nee tabernaculum ubi reservetur cum honore Corpus Domini.' But in the same country, at a later period, the word indicated the covering or canopy. A document of 1675 speaks of ' un tabernacle de drap d'or avec figures, double en satin de soie cramoisie, rouge, etc' ^ In England the word was generally used for a niche to receive a statue, or a triptych. Thus Henry VI. gave to Winchester College a * tabernacle of gold adorned with precious stones and with the images of the Holy Trinity and of the Blessed Virgin of christal,' ^ and an inventory of Lincoln mentions a ' tabernacle of ivory standing upon four feet with two leaves, with one image of our Lady in the middle, and the salutation in one leaf and the nativity in the other.' ■* On the ' Carcm. Episc. 1. ii. cap. 33, n. 8. ^ Revue de V Art Chretien, Avril 1879, art. ' Les Tabernacles de la Renaissance a Rome,' p. 258. ^ Lowth's Life of Wykeham, p. 181. ■* Dugdale's Monast, viii. p. 1204, When the expression is ambiguous I should interpret it in the same way. Thus the Register of Chertscy (Lord Clifford's MS.) says : ' Abbas construxit tabernaculum super magnum altare apud Egeham ' (in 1332). Here I understand a reredos. 88 THE TABERNACLE. other hand, the receptacle of the pyx was very rarely, if ever, after the thirteenth century, called a tabernacle in English documents. William Durand, however, a French contemporary of Peckham, says : ' In quibusdam ecclesiis super altare collocatur area seu tabernaculum in quo corpus Domini et reliquise ponuntur,' ^ and Peckham may have meant the same thing, though this is uncertain, and no conclusion can be made from the word itself. In the Vulgate the word taber- naculum, as applied to the Jewish tabernacle, comprises both the structure of wood and the curtains which enclosed it. It is also used for mere tents of boughs. In the Apocalypse it is used for a dwelling- place, but in such a way that no fitter description could be given of the hanging pyx and canopy as used in England than that of the vision of St. John : ' I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice from the throne, saying : Behold the tabernacle of God with men, and He will dwell with them. And they shall be His people, and God Himself with them shall be their God' (Apoc. xxi. 2, 3). Compare with this vision of St. John the description given of the tabernacle or hanging pyx in the great church of Durham. ' Within the said choir over the high altar did hang a rich and most sump- tuous canopy, for the Blessed Sacrament to hang within it, which had two irons fastened in the French piere' (i.e. the high screen of Caen stone) ' very finely gilt, which held the canopy over the midst of the said high altar — that the pyx did hang in it that it could not move nor stir — whereon did stand a pelican, all of silver, upon the height of the said canopy, very finely gilded, giving her blood to her young ones in token that Christ did give His blood for the sins of the world. And the pyx wherein the Blessed Sacrament hung was of most pure gold, curiously wrought of goldsmith's work. And the white cloth that hung over the pyx was of very fine lawn, all em- broydered and wrought about . with gold and red silk. And four great and round knobs of gold, marvellous and cunningly wrought, with great tassels of gold and red silk hanging at them and at the four corners of the white lawn cloth. And the crook that hung within the cloth that the pyx did hang on, was of gold, and the cords that did draw it up and down were made of fine white strong silk. '2 Before I give other examples of this method of reserving the sacred Host I will anticipate a difficulty. The synods command ' Ration. Div. Off. t. i. cap. 2 et 3. - Rites of Durham (Surtees Society), p. 7. THE PYX WAS LOCKED. 89 that the Blessed Sacrament should be kept under lock and key. Could this be done unless the pyx were enclosed in some kind of cupboard ? I reply that the pyx itself was locked. In the constitu- tions of Peter Quivil, bishop of Exeter, in 1287, it is said: 'The Lord's Body must be placed in a very clean burse, and this enclosed under lock and key, in a clean and decent pyx of silver or ivory or other proper material, which the priest must carry on his breast, a light being carried before him, because He who is the Brightness of eternal light is being carried forth.' ^ Thus the pyx, even when car- ried out, was locked. A curious history, related by Raineri, a monk of Liege in 1182, while it shows that the pyx was locked proves also that the English custom of suspending it before the high altar was then practised in Belgium. Raineri gives a graphic account of the fall of a thunderbolt on the church of his monastery. ' The light- ning,' he says, ' entered by the door and leaping over the Lenten curtain which hung over the great crucifix and before the chancel, it darted to and fro about the high altar, dividing without burning the altar-cloth, and so out of tlie door again.' Raineri ran to the altar, and, to give his own words : ' I found the silver pyx, in which the Lord's Body was kept, fallen on the altar, for the great heat had con- sumed the iron chain by which it used to hang, as if it were straw, so that we could scarcely find a few links. Full of fear I took it in my hand, and found it firmly locked {se?'rata), though blackened like ink, and having only a little opening made by I know not what workman. I rubbed off the black smoke with my hands and opened it, and found three particles within perfectly entire, though a little dis- coloured, and I showed them to those who stood near me.' ^ The description here given of the locked pyx seems conclusive on this subject ; and the general rule is further confirmed by the mention in an inventory of an unlocked pyx as an exception. I will give the whole passage because it reveals to us the very interesting fact of the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament in three places connected with St. Paul's cathedral in London, though in distinct buildings. A list of the treasures of that cathedral was made in 1295. I pass over the account of the five golden chalices, and twenty-five silver ones, the vestments, crosses, candlesticks innumer- able, to mention only what regards the present subject. For the high altar in the cathedral there was a cup of silver all gilt with sculptured work of lions and other beasts, hung by a silver chain, to contain the Eucharist, to be hung before the altar on feasts, the gift ' Wilkins, ii. 132. - Migne, torn. cciv. p. 141. 90 THE TABERNACLE. of King Henry (probably Henry HI.). Also another gilt silver pyx ' cum opere cocleato,' and silver chain. In St. Faith's Church, in the crypt, mention is made of a gilt cup of copper, with an ivory pyx, rmthont lock, dosed within, in which the Eucharist is placed. Also in the charnel chapel in the cemetery : 'A ciborium of crystal above the altar, to hold the Eucharist.' ' In not a few of our old churches, recesses, with hinges which show that they once had doors, may still be seen. Some of these may perhaps have been set apart for the custody of the Most Holy ; yet this must not without proof be assigned as their origin and pur- pose, for such cupboards or ambreys were used to hold vestments or holy oils, or whatever had to be carefully kept. The author of the ' Durham Rites ' tells us that there was an ambrey at the north side of the high altar to contain vestments, and another at the south side for chalices ; and that what were called 'the nine altars' were partitioned off with wainscot, carved with branches and flowers, and beautifully painted and gilded ; and that these partitions contained the several lockers and ambreys for the safe keeping of the vestments and orna- ments belonging to each altar. ^ The only unmistakable example I have met with of a fixed tabernacle erected on the altar, or in immediate connection with it, is in Scotland. From the inventory of ornaments belonging to King's College Chapel, Aberdeen, drawn up by the rector in his visitation in 1542, we find that there was 'the altar of the venerable Sacrament built by the rector of Kinkell. On this altar is a place {ioais) for the Sacrament, of pyramidal form, given by the same rector.' ^ Instances of ambreys or cupboards in the wall near the high altar can be still traced in Scotland. In the church of Kinkell in the diocese of Aberdeen, in the north wall of the chancel opposite the sedilia, is a recess with the inscription over it in green stone ' Hie est servatum corpus de Virgine natum.' Underneath are the words * obiit M. A. G. 1528.' These are the initials of Magister Alexander Galloway, who probably erected this tabernacle as well as the crucifix in the wall near it.'* There is a similar recess in the church of Auchindoir in the same diocese. 'In the north-east corner,' says a local historian, ' there is a very complete crucifix, cut in stone with the letters J. N, R. J. over it. Below it is a niche in the wall for the elements, with the following inscription immediately over it : ' Dugdale's ^A FaiiPs, pp. 310-339. ' Sine serura, interius clausa,' p. 335. - Durham Rites, p. 2 (Surtees). 3 Kennedy's Annals of Aberdeen, ii. 444. * Collections for a History of Aberdeen and £anf {Spald'mg Club), p. 571. SCOTCH TABERNACLES. 91 * Hie e. corpu. D. N. J. C. V. M, On the lower edge of the niche, but now concealed by one of the seats, are these words : ' Hie est servatum corpus ex virgine natum.' ^ In documents relating to the cathedral of Aberdeen mention is made more than once of the Sacrament-House. Thus in 1559, when the bishop distributes for safety the treasure of the cathedral, he gives to one canon ' the covering of the sacrament-house.' In an inventory of 1562 ^ there is 'antipend for the sacrament-house with a dornick towle to the same,' and immediately after ' a capin for the sepulture, of damas, and some other of double worsett, with a great verdure that lays before the altar.' And in a list of things stolen by some robbers, ' four great knops of gold and silk with their great cords of green silk that hang at the sacrament -house, price 3/.'^ In the inventory of the ornaments given by Bishop Gavin Dunbar to the high altar during his episcopate (1518-1531) is mentioned 'a veil most magnificent of very fine linen {bisso villosd) of a light blue colour, with most handsome representations worked in gold, together with wooden supports and rods beautifully painted, with good iron keys to guide these supports to the sacrament-house, with balls decorated with gold ; together with a table for carrying the venerable Sacrament, with antipendia decorated with letters of gold and scrip- tures embroidered as befits the house of God.' Whether this Sacrament-House was a hanging tabernacle over the high altar, or an Easter Sepulchre, or a shrine to be carried on the table {inensa) in solemn processions of Corpus Christi, I cannot de- termine. I incline, however, to the last supposition, since in the Epistolare of Gavin Dunbar there is mentioned a ' canopy to carry over the venerable Sacrament ex bisso villosa hyacinthina, with images, designs, and sculpture of gold work, with poles,'* and this is evidently the same canopy mentioned above. Mr. Mackenzie Walcott states that at Pluscardine, six miles from Elgin, once belonging to the Clugniacs, there are remains of a credence on the north side, with angels supporting a vat, into which they are pressing clusters of grapes ; also of a tabernacle showing angels holding a pyx and two others with a shield.^ This again might possibly have been intended for the Easter Sepulchre. Mr. Walcott, however, considers this and some other Scotch examples to prove that after the war of independence the Scotch usage became ' lb. p. 614, from Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. xii. p. 449. ^ Registr. Episc. I. p. Ixxxvi. (Spalding Club.) ' Regist. Aberd. ii. 192, ' lb. 251. * I'he Ancient Church of Scotland, p. 292. 92 THE TABERNACLE. different from the English, which was certainly to reserve the Eu- charist in a pendent tabernacle. He mentions a recess at Kintire, five feet high, with sculptures of a monstrance, a crucifix and angels with crossed stoles, and vested in albs, with the legend 'Jesu Maria.' At Deskford there is the text, ' Ego sum panis vivus qui de coelo descendi ' (John vi. 51), with a recess on each side.^ As regards England at least, whatever may have been the original meaning of Archbishop Peckham's constitution, the uniform prac- tical interpretation is certain. Harding, in his controversy with Jewel, distinctly says that though there have been divers customs in divers countries, yet ' the hanging up of It on high hath been the manner in England.'^ When, however, Cardinal Pole took measures in 1555 for the restoration of religion in England, he seems to have wished that the old custom should not be revived, but that England should conform to the manner of reservation more usual on the continent. In quoting the decree of John of Peckham, he expressly says that the tabernacle ' be raised and fixed in the middle of the high altar, if it can conveniently be done, so that it cannot easily be moved ; other- wise in the most convenient and honourable place and nearest to the high altar which can be found.' The ordinaries were to begin in their own churches and see that it was done elsewhere. A perpetual lamp or taper was to burn before the most holy Sacrament.^ This decree was but imperfectly carried out when the death of Mary in 1558 brought about the destruction of all tabernacles throughout the land. A few examples of the splendid pyxes used in England in former times will both illustrate the mode of reservation, and still more the piety of our ancestors. Ivory pyxes were in general perhaps the least costly, and were used in village churches, as for example in the village of Histon, near Cambridge, 'an ivory pyx with lock' {pixis eburnca et sub sernira) is mentioned in a register of the thirteenth century,* Yet occasionally these were very costly. In St. George's ' The Ancient CJnirch of Scotland, p. 33. - The 9th article of the controversy (A.D. 1564) is : 'On the reverent hanging- up of the Sacrament under a canopy.' 3 'Fiat tabernacuhmi decens et honestum cum sera et clavi, quod in altum elevatum in medio summi altaris affigatur si commode fieri potest ; alias in com- modiori et honorabiliori et magis summo altari vicino loco qui haberi potest.' (Wilkins, iv. 121 and 797.) This decree is quite contrary to the existence of chapels of the Blessed Sacrament, even in cathedral churches. (See also Injtmc- tions of the Cardinal in the Diocese of Gloucester, Wilkins, iv. 148.) * Churches of Cambridgeshire (Cdixabnige. Camden Soc), p. 60. EXAMPLES OF PYXES. 93 Chapel, Windsor, in 1385, there was 'a noble ivory pyx, garnished with silver plates, gilt, with a foot covered with leopards and pre- cious stones, having a cover of silver gilt with a border of sapphires, and on the top of the cover a figure of the crucifix with Mary and John, garnished with pearls, with three chains meeting in a disk of silver gilt, with a long silver chain by which it hangs.' ^ Small silver and copper pyxes were also common in villages, as in the parish of Heybridge near Maiden in Essex we find one of each kind.2 But silver at least admitted of great magnificence. Geoffrey of Croyland, abbot of Peterborough in 1299, gave to the high altar of his abbey church ' a cup of silver gilt, with the silver chains and a desk of silver gilt ; and inside the cup another pyx {capsula) of silver gilt to hold the Body of Christ.' In the inventory of Salisbury Cathedral in 1222 there occurs a crown of silver with three silver chains, with a silver dove for the Eucharist. In the church of St. Paul's, London, was also a dove. At Ludlow the pyx was shaped as an image of our Lady of Pity ; and in St. Stephen's Chapel, Westminster, was ' a Trinity of silver and gilt, four angels of silver and gilt, and an image of our Lady and the Holy Ghost bearing the Sacrament, of silver and gilt, hang- ing over the high altar, weighing 316 oz.'^ At the abbey of St. Alban's, as we learn from Matthew Paris, Eadfrid, the fifth abbot, in the time of King Edmund the Pious (a.d. 941-6), had purchased a most beautiful vessel {cyphum desidera- bilem) as admirable in workmanship as in material, and had offered it to St. Alban's to place in it the Body of our Lord. Robert, the eighteenth abbot, who died 1166, placed the Eucharist in a precious vessel under a silver crown. His successor, Simon, had made by brother Baldwin the goldsmith a vessel most admirable, of pure red gold with gems of inestimable value set about it. This was to be hung over the high altar, and it may be said the workmanship even surpassed the material. When King Henry II. heard of this he gratefully and devoutly sent to St. Alban's a most noble and precious cup in which the shrine (tJiccd) immediately containing the Body of Christ should be placed.' Thomas Hatfield, Bishop of Durham, dying in 1381, leaves a silver cup, gilt within and enamelled without, for the Eucharist. ^ ' Dugdale, Moii. viii. 1365. - Cliurchzvardeiis' Accounts, p. 175- •' Waterton, Pictas Mariana Britannica, part ii. pp. 99, 229 ; Rock, iv. 102 •' Ilistoria Ahhatuiii. ^ Wills of the Northern Counties (Suilees) p. 37. 94- 7 HE TABERNACLE. Michael de Nortbberg, bishop of London, by his will in 1361 left 2000/, for the foundation of the Charter House, two large silver basins to serve at the altar there, with a vessel of silver enamelled in which the sacred Host should be placed. • Among the rich ornaments belonging to Holyrood Abbey, Edin- burgh, in 1493, were a chalice of pure gold with paten, weighing 46 oz., a great ' Eucharist' of silver gilt weighing 160 oz., and a great silver cup for the Blessed Sacrament.^ Eustace, bishop of Ely (1187-1293), one of the three who pub- lished the great interdict in the reign of John, gave to his church a gold chalice and a gold pyx for the Eucharist.^ Among the ' cups for the Lord's Body ' at Canterbury was one of gold offered by Louis, king of France, as among the six gold chalices was one given by Philip, king of France. William de Longespee, Earl of Sahsbury in 1226, son of Henry II., besides founding a house of Carthusians, left them among other things a pyx of gold.'* Among the riches stolen by Henry VIII. from Winchester was 'a gold pyx with gold cover for carrying the Blessed Sacrament.' ^ Cups of berill are frequently mentioned as destined for this use. Thus, in 1447, John, Duke of Exeter, leaves to the church of St Catherine, near the Tower of London, a cup of berill, garnished with gold, pearls, and precious stones, to put the Holy Sacrament in ; as also a gold chalice and many rich ornaments.'^ Among the innu- merable legacies of Bishop William of Wykeham to his church of Winchester was ' one vessel of berill ordained for the Body of Christ.' 7 In the accounts of the constable of the castle of Dover are two entries that notice how the cup was surrounded by a canopy of silk or lawn. Thus in 1344, 'one cup of silver-gilt with its cover (of silver) to receive the Body of Christ, and a cover of silk knotted to hang over the said cup.' And in 1361, in old French ' i coupe de coper endorre, i coverture pur coverer la dite coupe de sai, i buste de ivore pur le corps nostre seigneur deinz la dite coupe,' ** i.e. a cup of copper gilt and a cover of silk to put over it, and a box of ivory to be placed inside the said cup and to contain the Body of our Lord. ' Dugdale's St. Paul's, p. 25. ■^ The Ancient Chitrch of Scotland, by Rev. M. Walcott, p. 306. ' Anglia Sacra, i. 634. ' Testamenta Vetusta, p. 50. * Dugdale, i. 204. « Testamenta Vetusta, p. 256. ' Testamenta Vetusta, p. 768. ^ Aixhaolo^ical Journal, vol. xi. pp. 382, 384. THE CANOPY. 95 From these examples it appears that the sacred Species were placed in a clean linen corporal, and this inside the pyx. The sacred particles were not allowed to touch the pyx itself. In a directory of the Cistercians published by Dr. Rock,' it is prescribed that the cor- poral placed inside the pyx should on Holy Thursday be carefully purified and then burnt, being replaced by another on Easter Sunday. Sometimes at least, if not generally, the small pyx was placed inside a larger one, so that it could be taken out and carried to the sick. The Bishop of Durham in 1220 prescribes that two pyxes at least should be in every church. ' When the Eucharist,' he says, ' is to be carried to the sick, let the priest have a clean and decent pyx, so that one always remains in the church, and in the other, containing the Eucharist enclosed in a very clean burse, he may carry the Lord's Body to the sick. The pyx will be covered with a clean linen,' ^ etc. It is probable that the common name for the pyx, while French continued to be the fashionable language, was la coupe. Thus in the register of the cathedral of Aberdeen in 1496 we find, 'Item unum //i? coiup argenteum deauratum pendens coram magno altar i pro eucha- ristia.' ^ The same name frequently occurs elsewhere. The pyx or cup was always enclosed in a cover of silk or other rich material, varying of course in value or beauty according to the piety of the faithful or riches of the church ; and in many cases it would be changed at the greater festivals. In the churchwardens' accounts of St. Mary Hill, London, in 1485, we find ' a pyx- cloth for the high altar of sipers {i.e. Cyprus silk) fringed with gold with knopps of gold and silk of Spanish making, of the gift of Mr. Doctor Hatcliff", parson. Item, a pyx-cloth of sipers fringed with green silk and red with the knopps silver and gilt with corners going, of Master Suck- ling's gift. Item, a canopy for the pyx of white Baudekin.' Sir Thomas Camberworth in his will (1450) writes: 'I will the prior of Bridlington have the box for God's Body with the covering that hangs in the chapel.' "* The covering was sometimes called the canopy or sudary, and hung from a corona covering the chains and occasionally looped together underneath. The whole could be raised above the reach or let down at pleasure, like our sanctuary-lamps. It hung, however, ' ' Linteum vetus super patenam diligentius excussum, ne aliqua mica vel particula intus remaneat, comburatur super piscinam et cineres in ipsam projician- tun' (Rock, iv. p. 85.) ■'- Wilkins, i. 581. * Reg. ii. 167 (Spalding Club). ■• Will published by Mr. Peacock in Academy, Sept. 27, 1S79. 96 THE 7ABERNACLE. immediately over the altar, as we see from the accident above related by Raineri in the church of Liege. Hoveden and Matthew Paris also tell us that while King Stephen was hearing mass at Lincoln on the feast of the Purification in 1140, not only did the candle break in his hand when he went forward to make his offering, but ' the pyx in which was the Lord's Body fell upon the altar, the chain having broken ; ' and these things were looked on as portents of his coming defeat.^ From the earliest ages it had been the custom to keep a light burning day and night before our Lord's Body. The constitutions of Walter of Cantilupe, bishop of Worcester, 1240, however, merely say, ' In churches which can afford it, a lamp must burn day and night before the Eucharist.' The chroniclers ^ tell us that in 1200, Eustace, abbot of Flay, was sent into England by the Pope, and preached everywhere with many miracles. He exhorted men to take the cross for the recovery of the Holy Land, to give up markets and servile work on Sundays {i.e. from 3 P.M. on Saturday to simrise on Monday), he bade the rich keep on their table ' Christ's dish ' {discus Christi) into which each person put some part of his meat for the poor ; and ' to the rectors of churches and priests, as well as to the people, he gave frequent admoni- tions, that alight should burn continually before the Eucharist, in order that He who enlightens every man who cometh into this world, might in reward for this temporal light grant them the eternal light of glory.' Instead of giving proof that in the great abbeys and cathedrals abundant provision was made for the perpetual light, I will give in preference a few examples of priestly or lay devotion shown to our Lord in smaller parish churches. Henry of Workedlegh, for the spiritual welfare of Joanna, his wife, of his father, ancestors and descendants, and for all Christian souls, binds himself ' to God and to the high altar of tlie church of St. Mary' to pay to the rector of Eccles a pound of wax annually at the feast of St. Martin ; so that in case of failure he and his heirs may be compelled by ecclesiastical censures.' ^ William Sedman ' settled a wax taper to burn continually day and night for ever before the Body of our Lord in the chancel of the church of St. Peter of Mancroft, Norwich.'"* ' In St. George's Chapel, Windsor, the less precious pyx had two canopies 'cumduabus canapis, majore et minore,' Dugdale, viii. 1365. (See Rock, iii 201-208.) Viollet le Due, in his Dictio/ntaire, has a very good treatise on Taber nacles, with drawings of the hanging pyx in its canopy. - Higden, Matthew Paris, and others. 3 Coiuher Book of Whallcy, iii. 923. ' Blometield's Norfolk, iv. 206. THE SANCTUARY LAMP. 97 Sometimes the foundation is for a wax taper, sometimes fqr oil. The churchwardens' account of Hedon in Holderness in 32nd of Henry VI. have ' for six gallons of oil bought for the lamps hanging before the Body of Jesus Christ, in the choir of the said chapel of St. Augustine, 5X. 2d' • In the church of our Lady of Alfreton in Derbyshire we find an entry of 13^. for lamps yearly, a large sum, equal to nearly as many pounds in modern money ; and in the same church 435-. for lands given by John Ormund for ninety-nine years for finding of a lamp burning night and day before the high altar. This was in 1503.^ Edmund Verney, in 1 494, leaves directions for a lamp to be kept continually burning in the chancel of the church of the Friars Preachers at Warwick, before the sacred Host ; as does Ralph Shirley in 1 5 13 in the parish church of Rakedale.' Such examples might be multiplied from old documents ; I will be satisfied with one more example. It is the will of a priest. Henry Blomeir, chaplain of Sedbergh in Yoikshire, and probably one of the masters of the free school there, on November 5, 1543, makes his will as follows : * 'I commend my soul into the hands of my Lord God, Jesus Christ, my Creator and Redeemer, in full faith of our mother, holy Church, His Spouse, with full hope of His infinite mercy, beseeching His blessed Mother St. Mary, and all saints and company of heaven, to pray for me. And my mortal body to be buried in Christian man's burial, if it please God, in the churchyard of the said Sedbergh at the east end of the church, nigh the graves of my mother and sister ; and at the day of my burial I will there be complete observance done for my soul, after the usage there. Item, for the use of the more honest, cleanly, and decent keeping and washing of the adornments belonging to the altars of the said church, for the more reverence of the Blessed Sacrament there ministered, as corporaxes, altar clothes, albs, towels, and such other, I bequeath 20s. to be ordered by the discretion of the churchwardens and their successors, to uphold the said zos. yearly with continuance, for the use and purpose aforesaid. Item, I bequeath other 20s. to be ordered in like manner by the said churchwardens and their suc- cessors, to the upholding of one sirge (taper) of wax yearly with continuance, to stand before the Blessed Sacrament in the said church,' ' History of Holderness, by G. Poulson, vol. ii. p. 166. - Cox's Azotes on the Churches of Derbyshire, i. 9. ' Testamenta Vetusta, pp. 421, 542. * Wills of the Arc hdeaconrv of Richmond {^wxizti), p. 47, VOL. II. H 98 THE TABERNACLE. As this will was made in 1543, and in 1547, the first of Edward VI., all such lights were quenched and the foundations for them con- fiscated to the king's use, this good priest's candle only burnt for four years. No doubt he and the others have their reward, as if their pious intentions had been carried out, as they intended, ' for ever,' This may be the place to mention a few examples of sacred vessels made to carry our Lord's Body in procession. In St. Mary Hill, London, in 1427 was 'a coupe of silver and gold to ber in Godde's Body with cristall.' In the inventory of the church of Crediton in 1524, besides ' a round pyx of silver, for the sacrament, whole gilt,' we find ' a mon • strate, silver, whole gilt, with a berill in the midst and a crucifix in the top.' ' In Ely, after the surrender of the monastery, we find ' a pyx gilt/ weighing 17 oz., and 'a standing monstral for the Sacrament.' Edward, Lord Despenser, in 1375, leaves by will to the abbey of Tewkesbury, amongst other things, a vessel wherein to put the Body of Christ on Corpus Christi day, which was given him by the king of France.^ In an indenture of 1447 among the archives of Bridgwater, besides two cups of silver for the Sacrament and one box of laten (brass) for the Sacrament, n ention is made of ' one demonstration for the Sacrament of silver gilt.'^ The word monstral, or monstrant (in Latin motistrantia)^ was used both for reliquaries in which relics were exposed for veneration on certain days, and for the shrine in which the Blessed Sacrament was carried on days of procession. Both are mentioned among the plate of Worcester Priory at the surrender in 1540.* * Thus one monstrant of silver gilt weighing 117 oz. ; one monstrans of silver gilt weighing 13^ oz., and one monstrans of silver gilt with the brains of St. Thomas of Canterbury, 8| oz.' ^ In the inventory of Henry VIII. 's plunder at Lincoln in 1536, is ' one great feretrum, silver and gilt, with one cross aisle, and one steeple in the middle and one cross in the top with twenty pinnacles, and an image of our Lady in one end and an image of St. Hugh in the other end, having in length half a yard and one inch ; and it ' Oliver's Monastkon Exonicnse, p. 84. * Test. Vet. p. 99. ' App. to Third Report of Historical MS. Commission, p. 316. •• Green's History of Worcester, app. vi. 5 There were also two gold chalices weighing 40 oz. each, an image of our Lady of the Assumption gilt, weighing 204 oz., and another image of our Lady, parcel- gilt 60 oz., besides much more. THE MONSTRANCE. 99 is set in a table of wood, and a thing in the middle to put in the sacrament when it is borne, weighing 341 oz., of the gift of John Welborne.' ^ One of these splendid shrines has partially survived to the present day, and is in the possession of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.'' It was called the Gripe's Eye, sometimes written Grypyshey, because it consisted of an ostrich's egg richly set (a gripe being a vulture and an eye the old English for egg). Henry de Tangmer, a burgess of Cambridge, had presented the guild of Corpus Christi with a cup which bore the same name. This was replaced by a larger one weighing 78^ oz. given by Sir John Cambridge. This second Gripe's eye was also called the Monstre. It was broken in 1553, but afterwards mended at the expense of Richard Fletcher, Protestant bishop of Bristol (1589-1592). The mounting is very plain. That which was called in England a monstre, monstrat, monstral, monstrans, and demonstration, was called in Scotland not unfre- quendy a Eucharist. In the chronicle of John Smith, monk of Kin- loss in Moray, there occurs the following entry, ' Anno Domini 1529 Episcopus Rossensis benedixit eucharistiam majorem,' and Ferserius, a Piedmontese who spent many years at Kinloss, in his life of Abbot Thomas Crystall, says, ' he brought to Kinloss a silver shrine {theca) commonly called a Eucharist, half a cubit high and exquisitely made.'^ Of this abbot I take the following account from Mr. Walcott's 'Ancient Church of Scotland:'^ 'He was abbot from I5°5-153S5 and was a most munificent benefactor of his church. He gave to it a hanging chandelier over the high altar, a five- branched candlestick, two standards like pillars ; three bells called Anne, Mary, and Jerome ; a superb metal frontal for the altar ; chasubles of silk, one paled with green {porracea), one paled with red ; a suit of Venetian or sea-blue, one of light blue (cyaneus), one of "watered silk, one of blue velvet, one of purple frieze, one with orphreys of gold wrought with figures of saints in purple, crimson, and hyacinthine silk, one of black half-silk (the Scottish vorsetic) with white stoles for burials, seven copes of gold and hyacinthine needlework ; a mitre with pearls and precious stones, a Eucharist of silver, three and a half feet high, with other plate of Flemish work, ' Dugdale, viii. 1279. ^ Old English Plate, by W. J. Cripps, p. 278, and Ackermann's Cambridge, History of C. C. C. ' Records of the Monastery of Kinloss, by John Stuart (1872), pp. II, 32, ' Ancient Church of Scotland, p. 279. H 2 loo THE TABERNACLE. as were also the vestments ; and a Bible in six volumes with many other valuable books.' In the cathedral of Aberdeen, the register of 1518 says there was a copper Eucharist gilt for the ordinary use of the church, and a silver gilt Eucharist to be carried in the solemnities of the year. This was made like a tower.' An earlier register of 1436 gives us some account of this. It was shaped like a castle and had a berill for receiving the Blessed Sacrament, and on the top was an image of our Lady of Pity, the gift of Sir John Forstar. The shrine itself was the gift of Bishop Henry of Lictoun.^ In the same church was ' a monstrance like a silver chalice to keep the venerable Sacrament in the visitation of the sick, weighing twenty ounces ; ^ and a still larger one, six pounds weight, at the head of which was an ouch of gold, well enamelled, of our Lord of Pity, craftily made.''' When Bishop William Stewart at the invasion of the English in 1544 was carrying away the jewels of the cathedral for safety, he was set upon by James Forbes of Corsinda and robbed ; and he only redeemed the treasure, imperfect and mutilated, upon payment of 600 marks. The great Eucharist had lost ^ three angels from the top, bearing the title of the cross in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. In this there were ' duo berilU cum custodibus pro conserva- tione venerabilis sacramenti,' and it had a handsome wooden case. * Monstrantia lignea honeste decorata et depicta, cum angelis et can- delabris, pro custodia majoris monstrantise tempore et loco oppor- tunis.' ^ In the church of St. Nicolas, Aberdeen, was a Eucharist (or Occryst as it is written) weighing four pounds and two ounces. It was made in Aberdeen in 1450, and sold with the rest of the plate of the church in 1561 to Patrick Menzies for 540/.^ The Blessed Sacrament was carried ujider a canopy or baldac- chino,* of which many instances occur in registers and wills. The most curious that I have met with is the following : * Nicolas Hooker, rector of St. Pancras, Winchester, and of Twyford, and a fellow of Wiijichester College, dying in January 1546, makes a bequest as fol- lows : " I give the tester of my bed and the head sheet to the church of Twyford, the tester to be borne over the Blessed Sacrament upon ' Reg. ii. nz. ^ lb. pp. 144, 167. ' lb. p. 186. « lb. p. 196. * lb. p. 185. « lb. p, 193. ' Council Register of Aberdeen, vol. i. pp. 19, 320, 329. ' According to Dr. Tristam, in the famous Baldacchino controversy, derived from. Baldach, an old name for Babylon, whence came the stuff of which such canopies were composed. {Times, Dec. 16, 1873.) BEQUESTS. loi Corpus Christi days, and the head sheet of silk to make an altar- cloth in the said church.'" ' But the most touching legacy of all is that of Agnes Badgcroft, an ex-nun of the dissolved abbey of St. Mary's, Winton, and sub-prioress at the time of the dissolution in 1536. Dying in the reign of Mary, in her will June 30, 1556, she writes : ' I bequeath my professed ring to the Blessed Sacrament for to be sold and to buy a canopy for the Blessed Sacrament in the church of St. Peter's Colbroke.' What a beautiful revelation is this of twenty years of fidelity to her vows and her faith on the part of this poor nun rudely driven from her religious home by the tyranny of Henry ! "^ As I have been obliged to allude more than once in this chapter to the sacrileges of Henry VHI., I will conclude by recording something more edifying of his predecessors in connection with the reservation of the Body of our Lord. King Henry V. in 1419 drew up a body af ordinances for his soldiers in time of war. The second of these is as- folfows : For Holy C/iurc/i. ' That no man be so hardy, of less that he be priest, to touch the Sacrament of God's Body, upon pain to be drawn and hanged there- for ; nor that no manner man be so hardy to touch the box or vessel the which the precious Sacrament is in, upon the same pain aforesaid.' * No doubt in allusion to this decree are the words in Shakspere's ' Henry V. : ' * Fortune is Bardolph^s foe, and frowns on him ; For he hath stol'n a pyx, and hanged must a' be. Still more edifying is the will of Henry VH. : ' Forasmuch as we have often, to our inward regret, seen in many churches of our Realm, the Holy Sacrament of the Altar kept in full simple and inhonest pixes, specially pixes of copper and timber, we have appointed the Treasurer of our Chamber and the Master of our Jewel House to cause to be made forthwith pixes of silver and gilt in a great number, for the keeping of the Holy Sacrament of the Altar, after the fashion of a pix that we have caused to be delivered to them, every of the said pixes to be of the value of four pounds, ' History of Church of Wyke, by F. J. Baigent, p. 25. - Communicated from the original will by the kindness of Mr. Baigent ' Bentley's Excerpta Historica, p. 30. * Act iii. sc. 6. 102 THE TABERNACLE. garnished with our arms and red roses, and portcullises crowned, of the which pixes we will, that to the laud and service of God, the weal of our soul, and for a perpetual memory of us, every house of the four orders of Friars, and likewise every parish church within this our realm, not having a pix or some other honest vessel of silver and gilt, nor of silver ungilded, for the keeping of the said Holy Sacrament, have of our gift in our life, one of the said pixes, as soon as goodly may be done. And if this be not performed in part, or in all, in our life, we then will that it be performed by our executors within one year at the farthest of our decease.'' ' Testamenta Vetusta, p. 33. I03 CHAPTER IX. RICHES IN churches:, Walafrid Strabo has given us the following anecdote : * Boniface the martyr and bishop, being asked whether it was lawful to consecrate in wooden vessels, replied ; ** Formerly golden priests used wooden chalices; now, on the contrary, wooden priests use golden chalices.'" ^ St. Boniface died in 755, and Walafrid wa^ born in 806 and educated at Fulda, where the memory of the doings and sayings of our great Enghsh martyr would be best preserved. This anecdote has, there- fore, every appearance of being authentic, and has become a popular joke against the clergy. But what the saint said with a sad smile is repeated by sinners with a sarcastic grin or a hoarse burst of laughter. Longfellow was most true to nature when he put the old rhyme into the mouth of a roystering monk : In the days of gold, the days of old, Cross of wood, bishop of gold ; Now we have changed that rule so good To cross of gold and bishop of wood. ^ Nor must it be thought that the holy martyr was an enemy to the richness of ceremonial. He merely wished both priests and chalices, if possible, to be golden. It appears from letters written by him from Germany, that he sent to his old friend and patron, Daniel, bishop of Winchester, some presents, which, though not very precious, were intended to enhance the splendour of worship, viz. ' a chasuble, not whole silk, but mixed with goat's wool,' and to Pechthelm, bishop of Withern, ' an altar cloth {coi-porale pallium) variegated with white spots.' ^ These examples prove that the saint did not think that wooden chalices have any virtue in them to make golden priests, nor golden chalices any secret power to make wooden priests, whatever * Wal. Strabo, De reb. eccl. cap. 24 ; Migne, torn. cxiv. p. 951. The saying of St. Boniface was also embodied in the i8th chapter of the decrees of the Council of Tribur (near Mayence) held in a.d. 895. Longfellow's Golden Legend. Epist. apud Migne, torn. Ixxxix. pp. 702, 738. I04 RICHES IN CHURCHES. tendency they may possess to make covetous nobles and sacrilegious kings. We may therefore enter upon the study of the riches of the Sanctuary without any fear lest it should prove to be a history of decline and corruption. ■ At the very time that Walafrid quoted the words of St. Boniface, by way of moralising, he was engaged in defending the increased ceremonial of the holy Sacrifice, and he says that, ' as the external glory {deais) of the Church had gradually advanced till then, so would it continue to advance to the end' {iisqiie in finem augeri no?i desinet). Unhappily in our own country we have not much oppor- tunity of judging with our eyes what was the wealth of mediaeval churches. Though the skeletons of cathedrals and parish churches survive to tell us, by the splendour of their architecture, what must have been the far greater splendour of the altars for which they were designed, yet it requires a well-instructed imagination to recall even faintly, in the present dreary wastes of York or Lincoln, Gloucester or Westminster, what they were when filled with altars, glowing with colour and gleaming with gold and silver. A recent writer, who has made a long and special study of old English plate, says : ' It is difficult to realise the splendour of the display that would have met the eye of him who entered one of our great cathedrals or wealthy parish churches on very high festival days, in the three or four centuries that preceded the Reformation. The Church was the nursing mother of the arts, which lent themselves in their turn to the adornment of her services. The monks were the goldsmiths of the middle ages. St. Dunstan himself was the patron of their craft in England ; what wonder then that the wealth of gold and silver in its shrines and treasuries was immense, so immense as to be almost incredible ! ' ' That there is no exaggeration in this will be evident to anyone who reads the old inventories, many of which are given in Dugdale, or in the publications of antiquarian societies ; and especially the records of the plunder gathered into the jewel-house of Henry VIII. To take but one or two specimens out of multitudes : ' The total weight of the plate seized by Henry at Fountains Abbey was 2,840 ounces of silver ; and in addition to this was a cross of solid gold, and a table or frontal for the high altar, with three images of silver gilt, with beading and plate of silver gilt and some part gold and set with ' Old English Plate, by W. J. Cripps, p. 173 (Murray, 1878). Yet after an extensive inquiry Mr. Cripps could not find more than half a dozen specimens of English mediaeval chalices now in existence. [lb. p. 184.) CHURCH PLATE. 105 stones.' ' At Byland he got 516 ounces ; at Rievaux, 522 ; at Kirk- ham, 442 ; at Bolton, 329 ; at Newborough, 698. Dugdale gives many columns of the riches seized at Glastonbury. Amongst other things were four solid gold chalices and patens weighing together 106 ounces.^ The same author, in his ' History of St. Paul's,' gives an inventory of the treasury, made in a.d. 1295. Among twenty -eight morses three are of pure gold ; there are five gold chalices, and twenty- seven silver ones, splendid cups for the Blessed Sacrament, crosses, shrines, silver images of our Lady, and other things of exquisite work- manship and immense value. ^ This treasure must have enormously increased in the 240 years before it was all seized by Henry. In the sacristy of Winchester, when Henry sent his commissioners, were five crosses of gold adorned with jewels, candlesticks, pax, sacring-bell, pectoral cross, rings, reliquaries, all of gold ; the nether frontal of the high altar of plate of gold garnished with stones ; images of silver gilt, the silver shrine of St. Swithin, with other ornaments almost numberless.^ Scotland w^as far poorer than England, yet what we know of its churches shows that Scottish generosity vied with English in decorat- ing the sanctuary. In 1559, on the 7th of July, in fear of the church plundering to which Knox was exciting the nobles and the mobs, the bishop of Aberdeen distributed the gold and silver plate of his cathedral into the hands of his canons and others for safe custody. A record was made at the time. There was a silver statue of our Lady weighing I [4 oz. ; also a chalice of pure gold with diamonds and rubies in its foot, and its gold paten, the gift of Bishop Dunbar, which weighed 52 oz. ; a great silver 'Eucharist' or monstrance, double-gilt and artificially wrought ; two silver candlesticks, weighing 6 lb. 14 oz. ; the ' bishop's great mitre all overset with orient pearl and stones, weighing 5 lb. 15 oz. ; and about 1,000 oz. of other silver plate. Bishop Gavin Dunbar alone had given to his cathedral 900 oz. of silver.' ^ These examples have been taken at random as the first coming to hand, merely to illustrate what Walafrid Strabo meant when he said that the external lustre of the Church would go on increasing to the world's end, in which prophecy he was partly right and partly wrong. ' Memorials of Fountains, p. 294 (Surtees Society). ' Monasticon, vol. i. p. 63 (ed. 1846). ' History of St. Pauls, pp. 310-339. * Monasticon, i. 202-204. * 1 hese details are taken from the Registrum Episcopatus Aberdonensis, vol. i. p. Ixxxvi. (Spalding Club). See also Hay's Scotia Sacra, vol. i. io6 RICHES IN CHURCHES. He was right in believing that while faith and devotion remain in the world they will prompt men to offer their best to God. But he was wrong in forgetting how the cupidity of powerful men, who always make the riches of the house of God their first resource, would effect- ually prevent any perpetual or even very lengthy accumulation. Saxons plundered the churches of the British Christians, while the heathen Danes were tempted in their turn by the rich offerings of the converted Saxons. Even the Christian Normans were not guiltless of the plunder of many a rich shrine, to be melted down for the necessities of a conquering army, or to be transferred to continental churches,^ while the plunder of churches and of church lands was in England as elsewhere the prevailing cause of the apostasy of the six- teenth century. A more clear-seeing prophet than Walafrid was Erasmus, and since he wrote of the wonderful wealth he had seen in England his words may be appropriately quoted. In a Colloquy written about 1524, one of the speakers objects to the magnificence of churches, and the money spent on vestments, statues, and organs, ' whilst at the same time our brethren and sisters, the living temples of Christ, perish with thirst and hunger.' To this the other speaker replies : ' In these matters, indeed, no pious and wise man would not prefer moderation. But, since this fault arises from a species of extravagant piety, it claims indulgence, especially when we recollect the various disorders of those who despoil churches of their wealth. It is generally given away by princes and monarchs and destined to perish more lamentably in gaming or in war. And if you alienate anything from this source, at first it is re- garded as sacrilege ; next, those who have been accustomed to give withdraw their hands ; finally they are even led on to rapine. There- fore the ecclesiastics are more the guardians than the masters of these things.'^ In the instructions given by Henry VIII., about twelve years after this was written, to the commissioners whom he sent to seize the riches of Walsingham, there are clear proofs that he had read ' Thomas of Ely tells how the monks sought to recover the grace of William the Conqueror, after the resistance to him in the Isle of Ely, by a present of a thousand marks, to raise which they had to melt down crosses, altars, shrines, book-covers, chalices, patens, &c., and a spendid image of our Lady and the Divine Child made of gold and silver. (Anglia Sacra, i. 610.) Ingulf says that to pay the Dattegelt King Ethelred despoiled the churches : ' Direptis thesauris ac monasteriorum tam sacris calicibus quam aliis jocalibus, etiam sanctorum scrinia jubentur ab exactoribus spoliari. ' 2 Nicholl's translation in his Pilgrimage to Wahiiigham, p. 53. NO! PRIVATE PROPERTY. 107 this Colloquy of Erasmus, and it is curious that he fulfilled its fore- boding to the letter. The last observation of Erasmus that ecclesiastics were merely the guardians and not the owners of the riches offered to the churches is of great importance, though often forgotten. Revenues and church lands indeed, though they may be used well, are yet capable of being made to serve luxury and corruption. But the same thing cannot be said of shrines erected to the saints, golden altar frontals, jewelled chalices, and cloth-of-gold vestments. A priest becomes no richer because his church is filled with these. He is often rather impoverished by the expense attendant on their care and reparation. The riches we are now discussing were in no sense the property of the individual priests who served the churches. They had been given to God ; and in a very true sense they were the property of the people. I do not mean that the people had any right to take back what had been given irrevocably to God and His Saints, but that such things were given to God for the sake of His worshippers and contributed to the people's devotion.* The cathe- drals and parish churches throughout England in the Middle Ages were the homes and palaces of the poor as much as of the rich. They were museums and galleries of art, as well as temples of divine worship. Each town was proud of its own church and of its art treasures ; and when the men of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire rose in arms against Henry VHL, one of the reasons they assigned was that they feared (and their fears were but too well founded) that their parish churches would soon share the fate of the great monasteries. It is not perhaps the highest view of this subject, yet it should not be forgotten, that while for the last three hundred years, until within a very recent period, all works of art and all wealth have been the exclusive property of the rich, and it is only now that at last free art museums are being opened in some of oyr larger cities, for eight hundred years previously art and splendour were distributed throughout the whole country. The peasantry in the remotest ham- lets, while cherishing their own parish church and proud of its silver cross for Good Friday and its banners for procession-days, the gifts of their own humble forefathers, could, without travelling beyond their native county, visit the great abbey or cathedral on a festival day and gaze freely upon inestimable riches, which bishops, nobles, and ' Bracton, an English jurist of the thirteenth century, calls them ' res nullius,' when, by the appointment of men and solemn consecration, they have been made the peculiar property of God. {^De legibtis Anglic?, lib. i. cap. 12, n. 8, 10, p, 58, Rolls ed.) loS- RICHES IN CHURCHES. monarchs had presented during the course of centuries. Of all these things the bishops or the abbots were but the guardians, just as the parish priest and the churchwardens were the guardians of the sacristy of the parish church. The poor bondsmen possessed them as much as the clergy or the nobles. It has been well said, that throughout the Middle Ages works of art were to the people ' free as the light of heaven and the loveliness of nature, to declare like them the glory of God, and excite the piety of His people.' ^ But we must not consider the riches that adorned our altars merely as a means of exciting or nourishing devotion. They were in general monuments which testified to its previous existence. There is often some beautiful history connected with the building of a church, the erecting or beautifying of an altar, the presenting of a chalice or a vestment. Volumes would not contain all that might be gathered on this subject from the biographies of kings or queens, the acts of the saints, the chronicles of monasteries, parochial records, and registries of wills. And it may be safely affirmed that the most generous contributors to churches and altars have been uniformly the most intellectual and inorally noble, just as their plunderers have been the vilest and most impure, Tnus we are in no way surprised when we read that Henry VHI. at one cast of the dice lost to Sir Miles Partridge four great bells, called Jesus bells, and the image of St. Paul, from the top of the spire of that saint's cathedral in London. ^ It mattered httle to the king that these things did not belong to him and were the gift of others. It was amusing to stake them in a game of chance. So also we are not surprised that a certain Dr. John Smith gratifies Anne Boleyn with 'a precious little cross with a crucifix all of pure gold, with a rich ruby in the side, and garnished with four great diamonds, four great emeralds, and four large ballases and twelve great orient pearls,' etc. : with the humble petition that the queen will do him some little service relating to the deanery in return.^ It is quite what we expect, that schismatical ecclesiastics should pilfer from the altar, and that heretical queens should accept their gifts. But on the other hand we are not surprised, though we are edified, to read of the gifts of Catholic kings and queens, nobles and ecclesiastics. Thus Canute, at the time that he was earning for himself the fame of a just and intelligent ruler, was also a generous benefactor of churches, and his pious visits to Croyland, Ely, and Glastonbury, ' Digby, Orlandiis, p. 440. - Dugdale's St. PauVs, p, 87. ^ Ibid. p. 403, GIFTS OF PRINCES. 109 are on record. He was seconded, or perhaps instigated, by Queen Emma. When they went together to Croyland, besides more valu- able presents they bestowed ' twelve beautiful white bears' skins for the altars on festival days,' and a vestment of silk embroidered with eagles of gold. At Ely, Emma made an offering which her own hands had worked. This was ' an altar cloth of a green colour and beautiful with plates of gold, that appeared raised. If viewed lengthways along the altar it seemed of a blood-red colour, and it was finished at the corners with rich gold ornaments, which reached to the ground.' At Glastonbury they present a pall 'of various colours woven with the figures of peacocks,' and another, -'em- broidered with apples of gold and pearls : ' while at Winchester their gifts in gold and silver are said by the chronicler to surpass description. ' A curious story is related as to one of these gifts by Richard of Ely. According to him, the riches of the church sometimes tempted not only thieves and kings but even bishops. Nigellus, a Norman, made bishop of Ely in the evil days of King Stephen, besides other unjustifiable acts of plunder, seized on the magnificent palla which Queen Emma had given to veil the tomb of St. Etheldreda, and sold it to the bishop of Lincoln without the consent of the monks. The bishop of Lincoln took it to Rome to offer to Pope Eu- genius to gain his favour. But when the pope saw it he was so struck by its beauty that he inquired into its history, and when he heard it he bound the bishop to restore it to Ely under pain of ex- communication. It is fair, however, to say that Bishop Nigellus at a later period of his life was most devout, and that, dying in 1169, he left many precious vestments to his church : 'an alb embroidered in gold with marvellous beasts and birds, and the collar adorned with precious stones — a black chasuble bound with gold, and a yellow one with red birds, and a cope that was called " The glory of the world." '2 The munificence which Ave have seen in Canute and Emma had been a characteristic of the better class of English kings and prin- cesses from the beginning. Thus Venerable Bede relates ' there is a noble monastery in the province of Lindsey called Beardeneu (Bardney), which Queen Ostrida and her husband Ethelred much loved, and conferred upon it many honours and ornaments.' It was there that the queen built and decorated at her own cost the tomb ' See Mrs. Hall's Queens he/ore the Conquest, ii. 294-296. - Anglia Sacra, i. 627-630. no RICHES IN CHURCHES. of her uncle St. Oswald, hanging over it his banner of gold and purple. Not only in Saxon times, but until the Reformation, one of the principal occupations of ladies was to work exquisite vestments for churches, so that the old poet thus addresses them : And ye, lovely ladies, With your longe fyngres, That ye have silk and sandel To sowe when tyme is Chesibles for cbapelynes. Churches to honoure.' But on this subject we ought to hear a lady discourse. ' During the seventh century,' says Mrs. Hall, 'much talent was exhibited by our Anglo-Saxon countrywomen in the art of embroidery : women of the highest rank excelled in the accomplishment, and the example was followed by others. The products of this feminine industry and skill were usually devoted to the church and its ministers, and were esteemed so valuable as to become heirlooms, bequeathed by their owners to those most dear to them. The needles of illustrious women were busy, from the fair Ostrida, who wrought the tragedy of a murdered uncle, to the Norman Matilda, who depicted upon canvas the heroic actions of a warlike husband. The Anglo-Saxon ladies excelled in needlework and gold embroidery, and also were acquainted with the arts of dyeing and weaving. The last is alluded to by St. Aldhelm in these words : " The shuttles, not filled with purple only, but with various colours, are moved here and there among the thick spreading of the threads, and by the embroidering art they adorn all the woven work with various groups of images." Spinning was, indeed, so common an employment of the female sex, even among women of royal blood, that the will of King Alfred terms the members of his family who were of the female sex " the spindle side ; " so that the modern term of " Spinster" has descended to us in allusion to those unmarried, and able to devote themselves to feminine accomplishments more exclusively.' ^ The author of the ' Historia Eliensis ' relates how, in the days of Canute, a young and noble lady named ^Ideswida, without be- coming a nun, gave herself and her property to the service of the church of Ely, and, living in a house not far removed, there shut herself up with her maidens, spending the time not required by her * Vision of Piers Ploughman, vol. i. p. 117 (ed. Wright). * Queens before the Conquest, vol. ii. pp. 4-6. GJFTS OF NOBLES. in devotions, in the working of orphreys and similar textures.^ Theo- doric, the confessor of St. Margaret of Scotland, says that ' her chamber was like a workshop of a heavenly manufacture. There the copes of singers, chasubles, stoles, altar cloths, and other priestly vestments and church ornaments were always to be seen, either already made with admirable beauty or in course of preparation.' ^ One more example of noble ladies must suffice. It is that of the wronged and insulted queen of Henry VIII. Miss Strickland has taken her narrative from the contemporary manuscript of Nicolas Harpsfield. 'At Bugden, Queen Katharine spent her solitary life in much prayer, great alms, and abstinence, and when she was not this way occupied, then was she and her gentlewomen working, with their own hands, something wrought in needlework, costly and artificially, which she intended to the honour of God to bestow on some of the churches. There was in the said house of Bugden a chamber with a window that had a prospect into the chapel out of the which she might hear divine service. In this chamber she enclosed herself, sequestred from all other company, a great part of the night and day, and upon her knees used to pray at the same window, leaning upon the stone of the same. There was some of her gentlewomen, which curiously marked all her doings, who reported, that oftentimes they found the said stones, where her head had reclined, wet as though a shower had rained upon them. It was credibly thought that in the time of her prayer she removed the cushions that ordinarily lay in the same window, and that the said stones were embrued with the tears of her devout eyes, when she prayed for strength to subdue the agonies of wronged affections.'^ Having dwelt so long on the piety of kings, queens, and ladies, I must be content with selecting, as specimens of their respective classes, one nobleman and one great ecclesiastic, in order to show how the highest manly virtue and enlightened piety were united with zeal for the glory of God's house. Robert Melhent or Fitzroy, sometimes called Robert Rufus, natural son of Henry I., and first Earl of Gloucester after the Con- quest, is thus eulogized by Lord Lyttelton : ' He was unquestionably ' Historia Elicnsis, lib. ii. cap. 30, apud Gale [Scriplores, xv.). The aurifrisium, or more properly aurifngu{?>i, was Phrygian work in embroidery in solid gold wire or gold thread. For this English ladies were famous, and it was called opHS Anglkum. (See Rock's Introduction to Catalogue of Textile Fabric s of South Kensington Museum, and Church of Our Fathers, vol. ii. p. 276.) •■' Vita S. Margaritse, cap. i, Acta SS. tom. xxii. 3 Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England, vol. iv. p. 141. M2 RICHES IN CHURCHES. the wisest man of those times, and his virtue was such that even those times could not corrupt it. If, when the nation was grown equally tired of Matilda and of Stephen, he had aspired to obtain the crown for himself, he might very possibly have gained it from both. But he thought it less glorious to be a king than to preserve his fidelity and honour inviolate. He seems to have acted only from the purest and noblest principles of justice and duty, without pride, without passion, without any private views or selfish ambition.' • Of this great and worthy man it is related that he had the abbot and twelve monks of Tewkesbury to dine with him frequently on Sundays. He built the castles of Bristol and Cardiff" ; and that he might sanctify this work, undertaken for the protection of the country, not for its oppression, he gave every tenth stone that he had brought over from Caen in Normandy, towards erecting a chapel of our Lady in Bristol. This chapel formed part of St. James's Priory there, which he had founded on his own demesne lands and endowed.^ He was also founder of Margam Abbey and endowed that of Neath. The history of our churches reveals many a pious nobleman like Robert Fitzroy as founder or benefactor, and many a brutal plunderer, noble only in name. From laymen let us turn to ecclesiastics ; and passing over such well-known names as William of Wykeham, William Wainflete of Winchester, 'Grandisson of Exeter, and Hugh of Lincoln, let me take one from the north of Scotland, less familiar to Englishmen. William Elphinstone was bishop of Aberdeen at the opening of the sixteenth century. The learned editor of the Episcopal Registers of that city writes of Elphinstone in the following language:^ *We know him in the history of the time as the zealous churchman, the learned lawyer, the wise statesman ; one who never sacrificed his diocesan duties to mere secular cares, but knew how to make his political eminence serve the interests of his Church ; who, with man- ners and temperance in his own person befitting the primitive ages of Christianity, threw around his cathedral and palace the taste and splendour that may adorn religion ; who found time, amid the cares of state and the pressure of daily duties, to preserve the Christian antiquities of his diocese, and collect the memories of those old servants of the truth who had run a course similar to his own ; to renovate his cathedral service, and to support and foster all good letters ; while his economy of a slender revenue rendered it sufficient ' Life of Henry II. p. 344. ^ KndiAer's History of Gloucester, pp. 5 1 -53. ' Registers, edited for Spalding Club, p. xliii. GIFTS OF PRIESTS. 113 for the erection and support of sumptuous buildings and the endow- ment of a famous university.' ' The present students of the University of Aberdeen would be sur- prised and perplexed to learn that their founder, who has just been described by a Protestant writer in terms such as the above, ordered that a large silver image of our Blessed Lady should be carried on certain days in procession round the interior of his cathedral. But it will not surprise Catholics that a man eminent in learning and virtue should be zealous for every detail which could contribute to the splendour of God's worship and the honour of His saints. John of Salisbury, the friend of St. Thomas of Canterbury, thus wrote to a bishop : ' Be solicitous that in all your churches, according to their means, not only silver chalices be renewed, but the vestments and all that is used in the sacred ministry be so repaired that they can be fitly employed in the service of God. And in this, spare neither monks nor canons, nor any dignitary, obliging them to give to God what is best and most honourable. For in proportion as a man loves God and his own soul, so does he honour the church com- mitted to his care.' ^ This last warning about putting pressure on careless or avaricious ecclesiastics brings us back to the point from which we started. For it shows that wooden priests would be satis- fied with ragged vestments and pewter chalices ; whereas golden chalices, though they do not necessarily sanctify those that use them, are generally the gift to God of saintly men and women. Let anyone study the history of our cathedrals or the chronicles of our great abbeys ; he will find a long succession of bishops and abbots, and other ecclesiastics, devoting their revenues to the building and adorning of their churches, and the greater magnificence of the altars and ceremonial. But these things are so notorious that they are acknowledged even by the bitterest enemies of the Church, who, as they can neither deny these acts of generosity and piety nor imi- tate them, are generally contented with imputing them to unworthy motives, and either calling them superstition or sacrifices worthy of a better cause. Perhaps the most frequent complaint is that of Judas, that it was waste, and that the money thus spent would have been better given to the poor. This objection has been already to some extent met, since it has been shown that in reality the money was spent upon the poor, not indeed directly in feeding or clothing their bodies, but on their souls in stirring up their feelings of devotion, and in lightening ' See Register, vol. iii. p. 1 70. ^ Bib. Max. Lugd. torn, xxiii, p. 430. VOL. II. I 114 RICHES IN CHURCHES. by the splendour and beauty of God's house and worship the mono- tony and sadness of a life of toil and poverty. But the question of the poor shall be considered more attentively. And first, who are those who constitute themselves the advocates of the poor and critics of the Church ? The case of Judas, says the Protestant Bishop Andrews, ' is like when they that have wasted many pounds complain of that penny waste which is done on Christ's body the Church. Or, when they that in all their whole dealings, all the world sees, are unreformed, seriously consult how to reform the Church. When they that do no good with their own, devise what good may be done with Mary Magdalene's ; they that have spent, and sold, and consumed themselves, and never in their whole lives showed any regard for the poor, when they talk of charitable uses. God help us, when Judas must reform Mary Magdalene ! ' But our Saviour Christ overruled the case,' continues Andrews, ^and stayed the sale of Mary Magdalene's ointment ; and in staying it said enough to stop their mouths for ever that make like motions. But this, "■ Do but let her alone ; " if you will not further, yet hinder her not, trouble her not. That which she hath spent, of her ability she hath done it ; she hath not had of you one penny toward her three hundred, nor she asketh you none. Seeing you are at no cost, why should it grieve you ? If you like not to follow her, yet let her alone.' ' These words of Andrews are severe, and are answer sufficient to most adversaries. Yet the principles of the Catholic Church on this subject deserve some explanation for their own sake, and indepen- dently of objectors. It is certain then, that, though under ordinary circumstances, or even to meet ordinary distress, the riches of the altar should not be alienated, yet under the pressure of urgent need and in extreme want, it has been ever looked upon as an act of piety to sell what was given to our Lord, for the relief of His suffering members.^ That this should not be done without very grave reason is clear, since it would defeat its own object. Charity to the poor has ever been nourished by devotion, and devotion has been stimulated by the beauty and magnificence of God's worship. The same people who are generous ' Sermons, vol. ii. serm. 3. 2 Bracton says : ' Sacred things are those which have been solemnly conse- crated to God by the bishops, as sacred and religious buildings, and gifts which have been solemnly set apart to the service of God, as chalices, crosses, censers, which it is forbidden to alienate, except for the ptit-pose of redeeming captives'— De hgibus Anglite, 1. i. cap. 12, n. 9, p. 60, (Rolls ed.) RELIEF OF THE POOR. iij to the church are generally the most charitable to the poor, and it is not unfrequently on days of festival, when the heart has been warmed and melted by the beautiful celebrations of our Redeemer's mysteries, that the noblest projects for the relief of human misery are entertained or matured. No more short-sighted policy could be conceived than to strip the church of its beauty or diminish the splendour of its rites to meet the ordinary claims of poverty. In general and urgent cases of distress it is otherwise. Such a case was the ransom of King Richard I. in 1 193. When the Emperor Henry VI. exacted an enormous sum for the release of his royal prisoner, ' besides what was given by laymen,' say the Margau Annals, ' the revenues of all the churches were tithed, gold and silver and precious stones of abbeys and other churches were taken, crosses and feretories were stripped, and even the sacred vessels of the altar spoiled. They could indeed be redeemed for money at a value a little above their weight, and Richard, after his release, made some efforts to restore them.' ' It is related of St. Ethehvold, bishop of Winchester in the time of King Edgar, that during a great famine he sold all the plate of his church to purchase food for the poor, saying that if the church be reduced to poverty it can be again replenished, but that if the poor are starved it is not in the power of man to recall them to life.^ Yet this same saint is renowned for his zeal for the splendour of the sanctuary. When a monk at Abingdon, with his own hands he made a wonderful candelabrmn called the Golden Wheel. It was covered with forty pounds weight of gold and silver, and had twelve lamps and innumerable bells hung round it. He also made a table or reredos in which the Blessed Virgin and twelve apostles were sculptured, of gold and silver of immense value.^ Another munificent churchman was Abbot Ingulf of Abingdon. He had bestowed gold and silver ornaments on his church ; yet in a season of distress he melted down a splendid reliquary for the relief of the poor, and that too by the advice of his monks. He died in 1158." ' Atmaks ATonastici, i. 22 (Rolls ed.) "^ St. Rembert, Archbishop of Hamburg (a.d. 865-888), when reproached by some for selling consecrated chalices for the redemption of captives, replied : • Cum nullum aliud habeo consilium, non impie ago, si Christianum, qui filius Dei est, cum thesauris Ecclesi^ redimo, cum et semper invenire possimus quod ad usum sacri sufficiat ministerii, irrecuperabile autem sit, si Christianus in captivitatis afflictione deficiat.' (In Vita Ejtis, cap. 18, apud Langebek, Ro-iim Danicariim Scriptores, torn. ii. p. 140. Also Acta SS. tom. iv. Feb. 4). Something very similar is related in the life of St. Csesarius of Aries. * Historia de Abingdofi, ii. 278 (Rolls ed.) < lb. ii. 214, 291. 1 2 Ii6 RICHES IN CHURCHES. The chronicler who relates these things severely blames another abbot, named Alfred, for hoarding up when the poor were starving.' In beautiful contrast and yet in harmony with acts of generosity to the poor, I may relate two examples of disregard of self. St. Elphege had been the immediate successor of St. Ethelwold in the see of Winchester, and had thence been transferred to Canterbury. When the Danes took his archiepiscopal city, the life of the arch- bishop was spared by their avarice ; and the price of his ransom was fixed at three thousand pounds of silver. ' Had he called,' writes Dr. Lingard, ' upon the neighbouring clergy to give up their sacred ornaments, the sum might probably have been raised ; but to the urgent requisitions of the barbarians he answered that the life of a decrepit old man was of little value, and the obstinacy of his refusal increased the severity of his treatment.' ^ Another bishop of Winchester was Waldekin, who died in 1098. The Winchester Annals say : ' King Rufus sent word to him on Christmas Day, after he had begun mass, that he must send him with- out delay two hundred pounds. As he knew that without robbing the poor and despoiling the church he could not do this at once, this and similar troubles made him so sad that he was weary of life, and he prayed that God would take him from its sorrows. And this happened ten days later. He was a man of perfect piety and sanc- tity, and of great abstinence.' ^ I have spoken of the riches of the churches as given by the rich to aid the devotion of the poor, and as being sometimes sold by their guardians for the relief of the poor ; but it should not be forgotten how large a proportion of these riches were the gift of the poor them- selves. Though a poor man could not give a gold chalice, yet he gave what he could afford. And the widows' mites, besides being each of them intrinsically as great, and perhaps greater before God, than many a pompous offering, were so numerous as, when added together, to make no inconsiderable sum even in the eyes of men. Bradshaw, in describing the shrine of St. Werbergh at Chester, among the donors does not forget the poor. ' Some gave a cope, and some a vestment, some other a chalice, and some a corporaxe, many- albs and other clothes offered there was, some crosses of gold, some books, some bells ; the poor folk gave serges,^ torches, and towels.' Of course the evidence of such small gifts can hardly be given here. The dihgence of county historians and historians of particular ' Hisforia de Abingdon, ii. 293. " A. S. History, ii. 295. 3 Annalcs Monastici, ii. 39 (J^^Hs '^d.) ^ Tapers, from French cierses. GIFTS OF THE POOR. 117 churches has indeed often gathered from old papers, such as church- wardens' accounts, many interesting records even of very humble gifts. But one or two specimens are all that I can give. Mr. North in his chronicle of the Church of St. Martin, Leicester, tells us that the brethren of the Guild of the Assumption in All Saints agreed, by a subscription of a penny each every Sunday, to raise a fund to pur- chase one vestment, one chalice, one missal, and other ornaments.^ And as each one of the ten thousand guilds throughout the country had its own chaUce and vestments, the money must have been raised in a similar way. Jeffrey Pincknay, a poor weaver of Richmond in Yorkshire, makes his will in 1546,^ and after leaving 5^. for a trental of masses for his soul and all Christian souls, bequeaths to the church-work 8^., and wills that Thomas Amgill (perhaps his son-in-law and heir to his cottage) shall give 4^. yearly 'to the light belonging to our occupation before the Sacrament/ By which little item we see that the guild of weavers kept a light constantly burning in honour of our Lord's Presence. Not many wills of serving-men have been printed. Here is one. 'The second day of May, 1559, I, Robert Carlill of the parish of Wyclyf in the county of York, serving-man to Mr. William Wycliffe of Wyclyf, Esq., whole of mind, of good memory, and crazed in body, I thank my Lord and God, do make my last will. ... I give to the high altar, in the worship of the Holy Sacrament, 3^'. 4^. Item, I will that there be given among my household fellows to pray for my soul los.'^ Poor Robert's little bequest came too late. Elizabeth was already five months on the throne, and in a few weeks after the date of this will the Blessed Sacrament was removed from the high altars of all parish churches. But Robert, we hope, had his reward. I will now conclude this chapter with some words of Fisher, which will bring the tradition of St. Boniface down to the eve of the Reformation, and it will be interesting to find the proverb used by our great martyr, St. Boniface, repeated by the lips of another martyr. Fisher published in 1509 some sermons on the penitential psalms, which he had preached by the desire of the Countess of Richmond, the mother of Henry VH., and in her presence. In one of these he says : ' The glory and worship of the Church standeth not in silk copes of divers colours craftily embroidered, neither in plate of go'd ' North's Chronicle, &c. p. 62. ^ l-VtV/s o/t/ie A n-Mfacon/y 0/ /^/c/imivid (Suxtees Society, vol. xxvi.) ^ li/i/. p. 130. ii8 RICHES IN CHURCHES. or silver, nor in any other work or ornament, be it never so richly garnished with precious stones. These rich jewels in the old Temple were necessary to be had and used for the apparel of the bishop and other priests ministering the old law. But sith it is so all their doing was but only a shadow and figure of things to come : therefore now we may not seek the outward glory and worship of the bod)', but only the inward honour and profit of the soul. As St. Paul witnesseth saying, " Gloria nostra hsec est, testimonium conscientise nostrae." Our joy is the testimony of a clean conscience. Which joy without fail shone more bright in the poor Apostles than doth now our clothes of silk and golden cups. Truly it was a more glorious sight to see St. Paul, which got his Hving by his own great labour, in hunger, thirst, watching, in cold going woolward and bearing about the gospel and law of Christ, both upon the sea and on the land, than to behold now the archbishops and bishops in their apparel, be it never so rich. In that time were no chalices of gold, but there was many golden priests. Now, be many chalices of gold and almost no golden priests. ' Truly neither gold, precious stones, nor glorious bodily garments be not the cause wherefore kings and princes of the world should dread God and His Church, for doubtless they have far more worldly riches than we have. But holy doctrine, good life, and example of honest conversation be the occasions whereby good and holy men, also wicked and cruel people, are moved to love and fear Almighty God. . . . ' O Blessed Lord, how glorious and beautiful should Thy Church be, if it were garnished and made fair with such virtuous creatures ; for then should all people fear Thine holy name, and all kings and princes should dread Thine excellent glory, if Thou wouldst edify and ornate Thy Church on this manner. Then shall it be seen in a shining garment of divine grace, gilt with the golden wisdom of Holy Scripture, and garnished round about with all manner of pre- cious stones for the diversity of virtues. Which glory shall blind the worldly sight of kings, it shall turn the heart of princes from voluptuous delectations, and pierce through into the minds of all people much more than all the riches of this world.'' Were the above words of Fisher read alone and without knowledge of the circumstances of his life, it might be supposed that he was an enemy of ritual splendour. This was not the case. His generous gifts of plate and vestments to the College of St. John in Cambridge tell ' /;/ Ps. cxii. (E. E. Text Society's ed. p. i8o). FISHER'S SERMON. 119 a different tale. He was most certainly an enemy to pomp and luxury in ecclesiastical life, to that secular pomp which was the bane of his age, and against which his own life was a glorious protest. He did not grudge the Church her golden chalices ; but he sighed and wept, and scourged himself to blood, when he thought : ' Now be many chalices of gold, and almost no golden priests.' But while we gladly listen to admonitiorre from golden bishops like Boniface and Fisher, we grow angry at the lecturing of priests of base alloy like Erasmus, or the men of clay and iron who spoiled our churches under pretence of spiritual worship. CHAPTER X. THE PRIEST AT THE ALTAR. Among the injunctions issued by Grindal, archbishop of York (afterwards of Canterbury) in 1571, are the following :' ' That the churchwardens shall see that in their churches and chapels all altars be utterly taken down, and clear removed even unto the foundation, and the place where they stood paved, and the wall whereunto they joined whited over, and made uniform with the rest, so as no breach or rupture appear. And that the altar stones be broken, defaced, and bestowed to some common use. ' That the churchwardens and ministers shall see that antiphoners, mass- books, grailes, portesses, processionals, manuals, legendaries, and all other books of late belonging to their church or chapel, which served for the superstitious Latin service, be utterly defaced, rent, and abolished. And that all vestments, albs, tunicles, stoles, phanons,^ pixes, paxes, hand-bells, sacring-bells, censors, chrisma- tories, crosses, candlesticks, holy-water stocks or vats,^ images and all other relics and monuments of superstition and idolatry be utterly defaced, broken, and destroyed. ' That they shall half-yearly present to the ordinary the names of all such persons that be favourers of the Romish and foreign power, hearers or sayers of masses or of any Latin service . . . receivers of any vagabond popish priests or other notorious mislikers of true religion,' &c.'' By means of this document the reader may understand the diffi- culty to recover at the present day any exact information regarding the worship of Catholic England. The frenzied and diabolical hatred of the holy Sacrifice of the Mass that took possession of the impure and apostate priests who brought about or co-operated in ' Grindal's Rernains (Parker Society), pp. 123-144. ^ The vestment hanging from the left arm, or maniple. ' The editor of Grindal's remains has printed this ' fat images,' and in a note tells us that this means solid statues as distinguis'-ed from pictures ! '' Grindal had been brought up in the Catholic faith, and was a priest. He made similar Injunctions afterwards for the Province of Cantcrburj'. BROKEN ALTARS. 12T the Reformation of the sixteenth century, has left few memorials of ancient piety. Wherever churchwardens' accounts exist we find entries similar to this of Burnham in Buckinghamshire : ' Payd to tylars for breckynge downe forten (14) awters in the cherche.'^ It is only from such scraps of history that we can rebuild and repeople in imagination the interior of the desolate old churches, where countless masses were once offered. And with a feeling of intense sadness I begin this chapter in which I have to speak of the priests of Catholic England. The desolation which we behold gives a melancholy pathos to the memory of the zealous and holy men who once like Simon ' in their life propped up the house, and in their days fortified the temple . . . and when they went up to the altar they honoured the vesture of holiness.'^ The present state of our churches also reminds us of the venal and sacrilegious masses of which history contains innumerable records, a id which drew down on those who offered them the vengeance of God, and were, it is to be feared, one of the principal causes that made our Lord suff"er this portion of His vineyard to be laid waste. I do not mean that the mass itself was defiled by the unworthiness of the minister or lost any of its merit. Water passes through the stone conduit, says St. Augustine, and fertilises the garden that receives it, though the conduit itself is not fertilised. The alms sent by the hands of a wicked servant relieve the necessities of the poor. It matters not whether he who lays or lights a fire is hot or cold, since it is not from his own body he com- municates heat. So as regards those for whom mass is offered, they are not robbed of the grace it conveys by the demerit of the visible celebrant, since he offers for them not his own blood, but the Blood of Christ. Not only as minister of Christ, but also as the repre- sentative of the Church, the prayers and blessings of a priest, like those of Balaam, are efficacious though he who utters them be defiled by sin, or sin in his mode of blessing. The public address read to a king by a secretly disloyal mayor is the act of the loyal citizens not of the mere speaker. All this is true ; yet the same fathers and theologians who insist on this point declare also, that from none do our Lord and His Church suffer so much as from unworthy priests, especially such as make a trade of holy things. And when I attri- bute our present evils in part to unworthy priests I do but re-echo what was boldly argued by those who were eye-witnesses of their impiety. One who wrote just at the time when the altars throughout ' Collectanea Topog. iv. 292. * Ecclus. 1. i, 12. E22 THE PRIEST AT THE ALTAR. England were being destroyed by the orders of Elizabeth, exhorted the exiled priests and people, * not so lightly, so irreverently, so in- devoutly to use the Blessed Sacrament as heretofore, even before the time of heresy, it was used or rather abused. For the which abuse,' he says, ' I assure, I earnestly believe, that as in it we did sore offend, so God hath sore plagued us.'' Still more explicit is the testimony of Nicolas Sander. After dwelling on some proofs of the Catholic faith, he makes the follow- ing historical review : ' Upon this ground the Christian people were taught to esteem the holy sacrifice above all other external kinds of worshipping God in this life. Thence came so goodly building of so many churches, so rich decking of altars, so great foundation of chantries, in fine so much estimation of mass, that some came to the holy order of priesthood not for devotion but for wealth. And some others went into monasteries rather for ease than for intent to serve God. All which became through overmuch ease and lack of the fear of God negligent in their office, dissolute in their behaviour, ignorant in good learning, and (which in that vocation is most filthy of all) ambitious, rich, covetous. And the more that in such sort unworthily presumed to those holy professions, the greater anger of God their sinful doing provoked against themselves. ' The people on the other side, seeing the dishonest Hfe of certain religious persons and priests, and how irreverently they handled the divine service, fell in hatred, not so much with their faults as with the office itself, imputing the vices of evil men to a most holy vocation and ministry, against the commandment of Christ. They withdrew unjustly tithes and oblations, they envied the riches of the clergy, and in every alehouse discovered the privy misdoings of their spiritual fathers. ' When these great enormities were come to the highest, so that the cockle began to overgrow and hide the good corn, and now time required that judgment should begin at the house of God, and those that in deed were good and faithful should be discovered from the evil, Martin Luther, a friar of St. Augustine's order in Saxony, was permitted like a proud king of Babylon to come out of the north, and to make spiritual battle to the holy city of Jerusalem, because her citizens did not worship Christ in such purity of life as they ought to have done. Whereby it came to light who were the chaff, which is ' The Parliament of Chryste, by Thomas Heskyns, ii. 5, p. 99 (Antwerp, 1566). EVIL PRIESTS. 123 with every blast of wind carried up and down, and who were the true wheat which lieth immovable against all temptations and persevereth in the Church of God. For those that were light and evil disposed, when they understood they might keep their livings though they did not discharge the office belonging thereunto, seeing that they came to the office only to have the living, those, I say, embraced with all their endeavour the new religion of Martin Luther ; and that whether they were monks and religious men, or secular priests only. Make them sure of good pensions, and they will assure the prince to give up their abbeys and monasteries. And good reason why ; for they never loved neither the coat nor the vow, but only the ease and filling of their belhes. ' Then God made it evident to the world which were those who had slandered in deed the holy order of priesthood — who they were that, having licentiously kept women, said afterwards they were their wives, and who they were that esteemed their bellies more than their vows made to God. I shall need name no man ; but I think there are few men above forty years old, but they can of their own know- ledge reckon up divers lewd friars and priests who, before the preach- ing of Luther, shamed with their unhonest behaviour the clergy of the realm. And the same men showed themselves, when broaching time came, not to have been of the Church, but of that religion whatsoever should be set forth most carnal.' ' Testimonies like these haunt the mind when we enter the old cathedrals and parish churches of England, and see the altar slab become a paving-stone, dishonoured and trampled on.^ We lament that Protestants usurp the buildings erected by Catholic generosity, which were once not only the houses of God but also the witnesses of many a beautiful act of Catholic piety ; but Ave are constrained to acknowledge that it was not the Protestants of lo-day who took these from us. No ! Catholic princes, Catholic priests, Catholic nobles, Catholic mobs, worked the desolation that surrounds us ; and we re- call the prayer of Azarias in the fiery furnace of Babylon : ' Blessed art Thou, O Lord, the God of our fathers, and Thy name is worthy of ' The Sitppcr of our Lord, &c., by Nicolas Sander (Louvain, 1566), pp. 13- J5- ^ The author of Churches in Cambridgeshire speaks of more than thirty thus placed to be trampled on now known to exist, p. 27. But the reader should procure Peacock's Church Furniture in Lincolnshire, if he wishes to know the leality of the Reformation. A few altar slabs are still in situ, as in Warrington, and Shottleswell in Warwickshire, in the chapel of Broughton Castle, Oxon ; in Belper, Derby hire, and the transept of Jervaux Abbey. 124 THE PRIEST AT THE ALTAR. praise and glorious for ever. . . . For Thou hast executed true judg- ments in all the things that Thou hast brought upon us, and upon Jerusalem, the holy city of our fathers ; for according to truth and judgment Thou hast brought all these things upon us for our sins. . . . Deliver us not up for ever, we beseech Thee, for Thy Name's sake, and abolish not Thy covenant. And take not away Thy mercy from us for the sake of Abraham Thy beloved, and Isaac Thy servant, and Israel, Thy holy one.' ' Such should be our prayer whenever we enter these sanctuaries, substituting only in the place of the Jewish patriarchs the names of Augustine and Paulinus, Bede, Hilda, and Wilfrid, Anselm and Thomas, Margaret and Edward. We will now turn to the days when the consecrated altar stones were unbroken and in their place of honour ; and without closing our eyes to the evil for which we must still make reparation, let us by preference fix them on the good that we may perhaps imitate, and in which we can gratefully rejoice. The first questions would probably be, who were the priests ? whence came they ? How were they educated and prepared for the priesthood ? How was their divine vocation tested ? These are interesting as well as important questions, yet want of space compels me to pass them by. I must be content with saying that here lay, if I mistake not, the real wound of the Church of the Middle Ages. When universities were everywhere established, and the young clergy ceased for the most part to be educated in the bishops' houses, due vigilance was not exercised either in their selection or their education. The evil was felt and acknowledged, yet no wide-reaching and effec- tual remedy was applied before the Council of Trent. Giraldus, in the twelfth century, complained of the multitude of inefficient priests, and pointed out that the only way to meet the evil was greater strictness in admitting candidates, — * delectus ordinandorum.' ^ The Franciscan, Adam de Marisco, often recurs to this subject in his letters.' It was one of the principal topics in Dean Colet's ser- mon on reform preached to the Convocation in 15 ii. Of course, however, there were many in every age who aspired to the priest- hood from noble motives, and who prepared themselves for it in the fear and love of God ; and of this the following history is an example. St. Hugh, afterwards bishop of Lincoln, when eight years old had accompanied his noble father, the lord of Avalon, to a house of ' Daniel iii. 26, 28, 34, 35. 2 Gemma Ecd. dist. i. cap. 49. * Adami de Marisco Ep., inter Monumoita Fraud scana (Rolls Series), 1858. ST. HUGH'S ORDINATION. 125 Regular Clerks, among whom the old man had resolved to spend the last years of his life. The child had grown up like Samuel in the Temple, and at the age of nineteen showed so great proficiency in learning and in virtue that, by the desire of his superiors, he was ordained deacon. In this grade he ministered at the altar for several years, first with the Regular Clerks, and afterwards with the Carthu- sians. His biographer thus relates his elevation to the priesthood : ' It chanced after he had passed some years in this life of austerity and prayer,' at the Grande Chartreuse, and when he was about five- and-thirty years old, ' that the time was near at hand when the bishop of Grenoble would give ordination, A venerable old man whom Hugh was appointed to serve, and who was his spiritual director, wishing to try his disciple's spirit, said to him : " My son, if you wish,' you may now become a priest ; it depends on yourself. If you consent^ you can now be raised to that dignity." To Hugh nothing had ever been sweeter than to serve in the sacred mysteries and to feed on the divine Sacraments, and hearing what was said, his heart burnt within him to approach still more freely, in the life-giving Host, both with mouth and heart, to that Jesus so dear to him, his own Jesus. He answered, therefore, in all simplicity as he felt. " There is nothing, my father, that I desire more in this life, as far as I am free to choose." Then the old man exclaimed, " O what have you said ? What have you said? Who would have believed that you could have been so daring as to speak thus ? What a marvel ! So often have you read that he who does not receive the priesthood unwillingly receives it unworthily ; and yet now, not unwillingly but eagerly, as you your- self confess, you fear not to ofi-er yourself" Terrified at these words, and as it were struck by lightning, Hugh fell prostrate at the feet of his monitor, and, shedding many tears, with sobs asked pardon for his presumption. The old man for a short time concealed his feel- ings, though he was greatly moved at the sight of so much devotion and humility; at last he said gently, and with tears : "Rise, rise." And then making him sit down, the man of God said with a prophetic spirit : " Re not disturbed, my son, or rather, my lord. I well know by what spirit and with what affection you spoke as you did. I therefore say to you in truth, a priest you will be and soon and afterwards, when the time appointed by God shall come, you will be a bishop also." Reing ordained priest, as was foretold by his director his progress in devotion corresponded with his advance in dignity' In his functions at the altar he acted as if he held our Lord" and Saviour visibly in his hands. He seemed to the bystanders, when sajmg mass, to sing with the spouse in the Canticles in very deed and 126 THE PRIEST AT THE ALTAR. truth, " My beloved to me and I to Him," ' such devotion did his Beloved confer interiorly on him, and such reverence did he show exteriorly to his Beloved.' ^ The age at which men were raised to the priesthood varied much ; and it is important to bear in mind, when reading history, that high ecclesiastical dignities were held and important offices filled by clergy- men in minor orders. Thus, St. Richard of Chichester had become master of arts and doctor of canon law at Oxford, and had been chancellor of the university, and afterwards chancellor of the arch- diocese of Canterbury under St. Edmund, before he became a priest. It was only after the death of St. Edmund in 1241 that he retired to France to study theology. He was ordained priest by the bishop of Orleans, William de Bussin ; and by his permission he built an oratory in honour of St. Edmund, where he delighted to pray and offer the holy sacrifice, invoking the saint at whose mass he had so often assisted.^ St. Hugh, as we have just seen, was five-and-thirty when ordained priest ; St. Thomas of Hereford, much older. At all times, from the nature of an act so sublime, the day of the first offering of the holy sacrifice was made a great festival day. One or two casual allusions in old documents prove the tradition that a first mass was celebrated with pomp by both the secular and regular clergy. In the financial regulations of the abbey of Evesham it is said that all offerings at the high altar, whether of gold or silver, belong to the sacrist, except at the time when any monk celebrates his first mass, or sings the gospel for the first time.^ Entries also occur in the bursars' books of the great abbeys of sums spent in the entertainment of the community or of friends and relations on the occasion of a first mass ; as hi the Liber Bursarii of Durham, ' Paid to William Brown and Alexander Durham celebrating their first masses on the 20th and 22nd of March 15 17, 13 J. 4^.'^ But the rule of St. Gilbert of Sempringham shows that the re- joicings on such occasions were frequently carried to excess : ' Those who are raised to the priesthood will celebrate at the command of their priors. No expensive feast {onerosiwt conviviutn) or useless invitation of seculars may be made at the celebration of first masses. In such matters they will conform to the will of their priors.' ^ Thus ' Canticles ii. 16. '^ Magna Vita S. Hiigonis, i. cap. 11, 12 (Rolls Series, 1864). ' Life, by Ralph Booking, his confessor, Acta SS. vol. x. * TmAzXYs History of Evesham, -p. 117. * The Durham Household Book, p. 340 (Surtees See.) * Dugdale's Mon. Angl. vi. pt. ii. p. xliv. ST. ANSELM'S 'INTENTIONS: 127 even in the twelfth century customs were so estabhshed that abuses had to be guarded against. We may well believe that the occasion was one of spiritual as well as of convivial exultation. The registers of William of Waynefleet, bishop of Winchester, show that the faithful were invited to avail themselves of special spiritual privileges accorded by the Church at such times. In 1450 he granted an in- dulgence of forty days to all who .should assist at the first mass of Roger Favell, just ordained priest and about to celebrate in his parish church of Notewill in the diocese of Exeter.* St. Anselm tells us what were the intentions with which a true priest approached the altar in the following prayer to our Lord : ' Mindful of Thy venerable Passion, sinner though I am, I draw near Thy altar to offer the sacrifice which Thou hast instituted, and commanded to be offered for a commemoration of Thee and for our salvation. Receive it, I beseech Thee, O supreme God, for Thy holy Church and for the people whom Thou hast purchased with Thy Blood. And since Thou hast willed that I a sinner should stand between Thee and Thy people, though in me Thou seest no good thing, yet reject not the ministry Thou hast committed to me. Let not the price of their salvation be lost for my unworthiness, since Thou hast been their Victim and Redemption. I bring then, O Lord, before Thee — if Thou wilt deign in mercy to behold — the tribulations of the poor, the dangers of the people, the groans of the captives, the misery of the orphans, the necessities of strangers, the poverty of the weak, the despondencies of the sick, the decay of the old, the sighs of the young, the vows of virgins and the tears of widows. For Thou, O Lord, hast mercy on all, and hatest nothing that Thou hast made . . . We pray Thee also, O Holy Father, for the souls of the faithful departed, that this great Sacrament of Thy mercy may be to them health, and joy, and refreshment.'^ Among holy priests there was not always one uniform practice as to the length of time given to the celebration of mass. There could of course be no question among such of that irreverent and hurried celebration, in which words are clipped or gabbled over and holy rites mutilated, jumbled together, or performed fantastically, a mode to which Pope Benedict XIV. applies the question asked by Tertul- lian in another matter : ' Sacrificat an insultat ? ' ^ Archbishop Walter ' Waynefleet Reg. (MS.) vol. i. fol. 8. The indulgence has to be confirmed by the bishop of the diocese as regards his diocesans. ^ S. Anselm, Oral. 29, torn. i. p. 375, ed. Gerberon. There are many other prayers equally beautiful. ' De Sacrif. Missa, sect, ii, cap. 215 (aliter I. iii. 24). 128 THE PRIEST AT THE ALTAR. Raynold, in 1322, in a provincial synod held at Oxford, after de- claring that 'all the heavenly court vi^ithout doubt waits on this sacrament both during and after consecration,' orders that 'the words of the Canon be pronounced perfectly and devoutly, but not so slowly as to weary the assistants.' ' If then there was some variety among worthy priests in this matter, they were agreed in selecting that manner of celebration that each one found most conducive to reverence and devotion according to his own character and the circumstances in which he was placed. Benedict XIV. says that the example of St. Thomas of Canterbury has been invoked by certain advocates of quick celebra- tions, but he shows how little it serves their purpose if we take the full account and not a few expressions merely of his biographers. ^ He appeals to the life composed by Pope Gregory XI. It will, however, be better to quote earlier authorities and eye-witnesses of the mass of the holy martyr. Herbert of Bosham, his familiar attendant, thus writes : ' He used to eat the Immaculate Lamb with great reverence, and, out of respect for the command of the law,^ speedily.' ' Festivus sed festinus, cele- briter sed celeriter,' Herbert says, playing on words, and he goes on to complain of priests who, out of devotion or to appear devout, are very slow in celebrating mass ; and bids them imitate St. Thomas, who, either to avoid distractions himself or out of compassion for the assistants, was quick at the altar. These are the words so often quoted, but that their real meaning may be understood the details must be given. St. Thomas rose at midnight and assisted at matins; he next washed the feet of thirteen poor men and gave them alms. After a short repose he studied the Holy Scriptures, and continued in prayer and meditation until nine o'clock, when he either said or heard mass. ' He himself did not celebrate every day, and this was, as he himself said, not through negligence but reverence. . . . When he received the sacred vestments from the ministers, his countenance changed, and he was so affected that tears burst from his eyes. And when he stood at the altar praying for his sins and those of his people, his heart was so humbled and contrite, that he rather sobbed than spoke the words of intercession. During the early part of the Mass which is called the Mass of Catechumens, to preserve himself from distractions, while the ministers were singing, he would read some devout book, most frequently the book of prayers composed by his predecessor St. Anselm. He generally said one collect, and ' Wilkins, ii. 514. " De Sacrif. Missic, l.s.c. ' Exod. xii. 11. ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY. 129 sometimes three, but rarely if ever more. But all who witnessed his mass attest that he wept and sobbed as if he saw and touched the wounds of Christ/' John of Salisbury, another familiar companion of St. Thomas, adds : * When he was alone he shed tears in wonderful abundance, and when he stood at the altar, he seemed to be present even in the body at the Passion of the Lord. He handled the divine sacraments with great reverence, so that the very handling of them strengthened the faith and fervour of those who witnessed it.' ^ Benedict XIV. might well say that if the advocates of quick masses will imitate St. Thomas, no fault will be found with them. The Blessed Sacrament was the strength of the saint in all his combats. After his momentary weakness at Clarendon, he abstained in a spirit of penance from saying mass for forty days, when he was advised by a letter from the Pope to do so no longer. In the great contest at Northampton, when threatened with imprisonment and death, fearful of his own weakness, 'he prostrated himself before the altar^ and there with many tears he commended to God the cause of His Church. Then arising he sent for a religious, who gave him this advice : "To-morrow, before you go to court, celebrate solemnly the Mass of the Blessed Protomartyr, St. Stephen, and there, before the sacred mysteries of the Lord's Body and Blood, commend to Jesus Christ the cause of His holy Church. Commend it also to the Blessed and ever Virgin Mary, to St. Stephen, to our Apostle St. Gregory, to St. Elphege, and the other holy patrons of the Church of Canterbury. When you have done this, trusting in the mercy of God and the protection of the saints, go on securely and act with confidence. It is God's business rather than yours, and He will be with you."' This we learn from Roger of Pontigny, another companion of the saint,^ and Herbert de Bosham tells us how the archbishop followed the monk's advice. * He could scarcely finish the collects, being choked with sobs and tears ; but when the mass was over his countenance changed. It had expressed humility and contrition when he was speaking with God, now it was resplendent with fortitude and majesty.' ^ This double testimony to the tears of St. Thomas of Canterbury leads me to make a few remarks on the gift of tears, for which there is a special collect in the Roman Missal. A recent writer, not alluding, however, to holy mass or to any act of worship, speaks ot ' Herbert de Bosham, Migne, Patrol, torn. cxc. pp. 355, IC98, &c. 2 /<^. p. 198. 3/^^82. ■'//^ p. 1 152. VOL. II. K I30 THE PRIEST AT THE ALTAR. 'the strange heroic readiness to weep,' to which the old chroniclers so often bear witness.' The poet Gray looked on this readiness not as a womanly weakness, but as a beatitude. The following beautiful lines occur in one of his letters : — O lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros Ducentium ortus ex animo, quater Felix in imo qui scatentem Pectore te, pia nympha, sentit. Professor Stubbs, in his valuable Introduction to the Life of St. Dunstan, speaks of ' that gift of tears which is so curiously unintelligi- ble at the present day.' ^ I venture, however, here to disagree with him. At least as regards the holy mass it is not unintelligible to those who have faith. Rather it is strange to the intellect and painful to the heart that we should be able to stand at the altar unmoved and with dry eyes. For whether we consider the infinite condescension of God, the tenderness of His love, the greatness of His Majesty, the wretchedness of our own souls, or the needs of those for whom we offer the holy sacrifice, we might well find motives for compunction. St. Anselm, in asking for the gift of tears, lamented this dryness : ' Grant me, O sweet Jesus, that evident sign of love, an ever-flowing fount of tears. I call to mind, O merciful Lord, how, when Anna, who came to the tabernacle to petition for a son, shed tears in pray- ing, " her countenance was no more changed." But when I think of her virtue and constancy, I am grieved and confused at finding myself fallen so low. For if she wept and continued weeping, asking for a son, how much more ought I to lament, and ever to lament, who am seeking and loving God, and sighing for His possession ? It is strange that tears are not become my bread day and night. Look down then upon me and pity me, for the sorrows of my heart are multiplied. Grant me Thy heavenly consolation, spurn not my sinful soul for which Thou hast died. Grant me tears from my inmost heart, to wash away my sins, and fill my soul with heavenly joy ; so that if I cannot attain to the life or the compunction of perfect monks, at least I may have some share in Thy kingdom with devout women. O my only refuge, O Thou, the only hope of the wretched, whom we never implore without hope of mercy, grant me this grace for Thy own sake and for Thy Holy Name, that whenever I think of Thee, or write of Thee, or read of Thee, or speak of Thee, whenever I minister to > Notice of Mr. O'Hagan's translation of the Chanson de Roland, Athcnccuin, July 3, 1880. * Memorials of St. Dunstan, p. lix. (Rolls Series.) ST. THOMAS OF HEREFORD. , Thee, or offer praise and prayer and sacrifice to Thee, so often may tears well up and flow freely and sweetly in Thy presence ■ ■ ^ When men thus thought and thus prayed, it is without any sir- pr se that we read words similar to what were written of Rob t Hathbrande, pnorof St. Augustine's, Canterbury, who died in ,„! 'In the D,v,ne Office he was most simple and devout Ir the mmistry of the altar he could seldom refrain from tears ■ ^ Bede thus describes St. Cuthberfs gift of tears at mass : 'So filled was he with compunction, and so great was his desire of heavenly thmgs, that when celebrating holy mass he never ould come to the conclusion thereof without a plentiful shedding ears fl.^ '. ffT^ *" '"^='"'™^ °f °" Lord's passion, he ta 1 tated hat wh.ch he was doing, sacritieing himself to the Lo d In the tha" c Td I '""•, ^"' " ™= "°- •>'= ^'Shs than hi ; ice fte Lo d God his '"t '° ' " "" *™ "^"^ '"'<' '° S'- '"-'ks to the Lord God, his own heart bemg lifted up rather than his voice '3 of RnK / w''\"T'""°" "' ''"'"^ '■'S'"'<^'"g ""= """es and miracles of Rober Wtnchelsey, archbishop of Canterbury, who died in .T' H,s chaplams attested his great devotion in saying mass and * fh wept so abundantly that the corpora, and altar'clo°th?:ere:t 1 o that „e used to stand at the altar as if he saw Christ present before him hanging on the cross.-* ueiore Richard of Swinfield, bishop of Hereford and successor of St Thon,as Cantalupe, who died in x.82, was for fourteen years the inti mate attendant of the saint. In his sworn evidence for hTm .on he says: ' The manner in which ^.^.o.^Z^X:^^^ chvme sacraments mcreased the faith and devotion of the behofd s When he stood at the altar to celebrate mass, he had so con rit 4d humble a heart and shed such abundance of tears as if he had es'nt before huii the passion of our Lord.' He adds th.t ' 1 this great devotion he was very slow i: :4i„g mass ' ^'jX' ol Kenieseya, a canon of Hereford, and well acquainted with St Th„ tfo : h 1 ' ''■"'"; "'^ "" ""' ^-^ "-- wiSuT hedd^tr^ before the elevation of the Body of Christ; and he though that L had asststed at or served his mass more than a hundred Ime St Thomas sa.dhts last mass at Monte Fiascone (where he d edW„ ,f c urch o the Friars Minor, for one of his deceased e at n .nd' though there were many persons round about the altar Zl' h,m.„theface,he yet celebrated with his usual devotTonrnd"4t ' S. Ansclmi Orai. 16, ed. Gerberon. 2 ...,■ ^ ; S.^. ^^« ^- ^-^^'^-^^; cap. 16 ; also Hist, iv.lf "' '' ''''• ^W.lk.ns,:i.489. ^ ^--V. ^^. torn. xlL!-. p. 60.. Oct. a. 132 THE PRIEST AT THE ALTAR. many tears.' Roger of Hunneden, sub-prior of the eremites of St. Augustine in London, affirmed that ' when he was ordained priest by the saint in the church of Leominster, he happened to be nearest of all to the altar and could see clearly, and he noticed from the begin- ning of the canon that Thomas never ceased to shed tears and kept wiping them with a handkerchief which lay on the altar.' William of Cantalupe also declared that St. Thomas ' celebrated frequently, wept much, and that his masses were long.' ^ We have learnt from Herbert of Bosham that St. Thomas of Canterbury did not say mass every day, and that in this matter devotion varied. His successor, St. Edmund, offered the holy sacri- fice so frequently that he often passed a whole month without tasting flesh-meat because it was his custom to abstain from it both the day before and the day on which he celebrated.^ St. Gilbert of Sem- pringham, on the other hand, did not allow priests to offer mass at all while they were novices.^ Giraldus, when rebuking priests who said mass frequently, sometimes duplicating out of avarice, brings against them the example of the Carthusians : "* 'If the holy order of the Carthusians,' he says, ' who are offered to God as a holocaust and are cleansed from the stains of the world by abstinence and maceration of the flesh, and who fly on the wings of the wind, if these only venture to consecrate on feasts and pro-feasts which have a spiritual (?) office, how do you, bold sinner, dare to touch the holy things irreverently twice a day ? ' Erasmus, in his account of Colet, dean of St. Paul's, remarks : ' Although it is customary with the priests in England to celebrate mass almost every day, yet he was contented to do so only on Sundays and feasts, or at most on very few days besides, whether because he was engaged in his sacred studies by which he prepared himself for preaching, or whether he had found that he worshipped with greater devotion if it was with some intermission. Yet he by no means blamed the practice of those who chose to approach the altar every day.' The liberty of celebrating mass more than once in the day which we have seen in the Anglo-Saxon Church had been gradually re- stricted. The Council of London, a.d. 1200, decreed : ' A priest may not celebrate twice in one day except in case of necessity.' What ' Acta SS. torn. xlix. pp. 556, 557. =^ Clu-onicon de Melsa, i. 439 (Rolls Series). ^ Dugdale's Mon. Angl. vi. pt. ii. p. xliii. ■• Gemma Eccl. dist. ii. cap. 24. Mr. Brewer has printed Cistercians, but it should certainly be Carthusians. Giraldus was no friend of the Cistercians, nor do his words suit their customs. OMISSION OF MASS. ^33 was understood by necessity was explained a few years later by Cardinal Langton. ' Let no one presume to celebrate twice a day except on Christmas day and Easter, and if a corpse has to be buried, or if espousals have to be made, or the priest have to supply for another who is sick or necessarily absent. He who violates this prohibition without canonical necessity is suspended ai? officio.' ^ Similar statutes were made in subsequent councils, and they are evidently directed not against the indiscreet fervour of the devout, but against the avarice which trafficked with holy things. We should naturally expect that those who were only too ready to say mass whenever any emolument therefrom was forthcoming would be too slothful or indevout to celebrate when such incentive of gain was absent. We have seen that among the Saxons the married clergy, whose depravity aroused the zeal of St. Ethelwold and St. Oswald, were rarely found at the altar; similarly the married Culdees of the twelfth century in the church of St. Andrew's had little enough incli- nation for being brought by mass face to face with Jesus Christ. * There was no one,' it is recorded in the Register of St, Andrews, drawn up in 1144, 'to serve the altar of the Blessed Apostle, nor was mass said there except when the king or bishop came, which happened rarely. The Culdees performed their office after their fashion in a corner of the church, though the church itself was small enough.' ^ A remedy for these abuses was found by the zeal of St. David, the king of Scotland. A visitation of his cathedral held in 1440, by William Aiscough, bishop of Salisbury, revealed a state of things little less disgraceful. It is stated that by the babbling of the canons and vicars in the choir the divine offices were interrupted, and that by their gestures and impropriety of conduct the devotion of the people was much diminished. The canons absented themselves and paid (or ought to have paid) salaries to certain vicars to replace them. Some of these in priest's orders celebrated scarcely once a month, and others not even once a year.^ The bishop did his best, both then and in a second visitation a few years later, to remedy these evils, but with- • Wilkins, i. 505, 531. The synod of London makes regulations regarding the purification of the fingers and non-rinsing of the chalice at the first mass by a priest obliged to duplicate similar to those which are followed at the present day. " Haddan and Stubbs, vol. ii, pt. i. p. 179. ' Ayscotigh Register v.., quoted by Sir R. Hoare in his History of Wiltshire (City of Salisbury), p. 191, T34 THE PRIEST AT THE ALTAR. out much success. The conduct of such priests had already fur- nished arguments to the Lollards, as it afterwards supplied pretexts for the reformers of the next century, and Bishop Aiscough fell a martyr to his zeal. In 1450, during the rebellion of Jack Cade, the bishop had retired to the village of Edington. A party of miscreants, led by a butcher of Salisbury, repaired to his retreat on June 29, and found him in the act of celebrating mass, the day being the festival of St. Peter and St. Paul. Regardless of the sanctity of the place, of the respect due to his character, and of the solemn office in which he was engaged, they dragged him from the altar to a neigh- bouring eminence and there dashed out his brains. Leaving his mangled body they tore his bloody garments into strips to bear about in triumph, and then ended their atrocities with plunder and pillage.^ Thus he who had been so zealous for holy mass died in the very act of saying it. If the Church has not placed William Aiscough, like Thomas a Becket, in her list of martyrs, it is probably because distinct proof is wanting that his death was due to hatred of religion and not to social and political passions. Of St. Thomas of Canterbury his friend John of Salisbury wrote only a few months after his martyrdom to the Bishop of Poitiers : ' Remark where he was slain. In the principal and mother church of the kingdom, amongst his priests and the crowd of religious whom the noise made by the armed band of murderers had caused to run together to the piteous spectacle. He who had so long offered himself a living victim, holy, acceptable to God, he who had crucified his flesh and its concupiscences in prayers and vigils, fasts and rough cilices, he who had as a true servant of Christ accustomed his back to the scourges, as his familiar attendants knew, he who used to offer the Body and Blood of Christ at the altar, falling before the altar there offered his own blood poured out by the hands of the impious.'^ In gathering together this collection of fragments of the history of the Holy Eucharist, it is impossible to pass over a crime or sup- posed crime connected with the memory of a saint. It is well known that when St. William, after celebrating holy mass in York, on Trinity Sunday 1154, suddenly sickened, and after eight days died, a report was spread abroad that he had died from poison that had been mixed with the wine in the chalice. This was even stated in a hymn : "^ Sir R. Hoare, Histoiy of Wiltshire {s. Zd. As time went on, money decreased in value, so that Archbishop Simon Islip (1349-1362) increased the minimum to six marks, and Archbishop Simon Sud- bury shortly after increased it to eight marks, or 5/. ds. 8d. Later still Lyndwood, who died in 1446, commenting on these constitutions, declared that in his time priests required ten marks (6/. 13^-. 4^.), and that five were quite insufficient, even if the vicar had no other burdens but his own personal expenses ; whereas he had to provide food or clothing for one clerk or more, according to the size of the parish, to exercise hospitality, to pay episcopal dues, and to help his own poor relatives. ^ It is generally held that we must multiply by 11 or 12 a sum of money belonging to the beginning of the sixteenth century, in order to find a corresponding value in modern money. Conse- quently money of the beginning of the thirteenth century had a purchasing value twenty or twenty-five times as great as ours.^ Of course this does not mean that whatever cost ^s. in the year 1500 costs 3/. now ; but that such a calculation may be made as regards the value of land, or a gentleman's income, or the revenue of the state. Some articles were then much dearer, some much cheaper, than at the present day. Thus we saw in a previous chapter that in the fifteenth century an ox cost less than twelve pounds of wax tapers ; meat being then very cheap, wax very expensive. If we multiply by 15 the price of the ox, which was 10s., we find that it cost 7/. los. of our money ; and the tapers cost an equivalent to i^s. a pound, which is more than six times their present cost. On the suppression of chantries by Henry VIII. and Edward VI. their average net value was about 5/. per annum, or 60/. of our pre- sent money. The average honorarium for offering mass for a special intention at the beginning of the sixteenth century was four pence, which would be about four or five shillings to-day. When a fine of one hundred marks (over 60/.) was imposed by Elizabeth for hear- ' Lyndwood, Pravincialc, 1. i. tit. 12, p. 64 (ed. 1679). Mr. Anstey, in his Introduction to the Miiniinenta Acoiiemica (Rolls Series), p. xcix., says : 'In the fifteenth centuiy money is known to have been much more valuable than in the thirteenth.' There is probably here a slip of the pen, for what is said is quite contrary to the testimony of Lyndwood. '^ With regard to money of the beginning of the i6th century, see Mr. Brewer's Introduction to the Letters and Papers of Henry VHI., vol. iv. p. ix. and p, ccvii. 142 CHANTRIES, ing mass, Pilkington thus delicately bantered on the subject : 'The priests may speak well of the gospel, if they would, or had any good natures in them. For their mass was never so honoured, nor at so great a price as the gospellers have made it, at a hundred marks, whereas they will sell it for a groat {i.e. 4d.), and God forbid that ever it be better cheap.' ' He had his wish. Before many years the priest who said mass was imprisoned, exiled, and finally hung, drawn, and quartered. But we will confine ourselves to the days of Pilkington's childhood, before Luther had taught men to rail against the Holy Mass. ' The chantry priests,' says Canon Raines, ' could hardly be otherwise than poor men, as their stipends were regulated by various statutes of the realm, and were always limited in amount ; and the annual revenues of the Lancashire chantries ranged from thirty shillings to ten pounds, the average probably being not much more than eight marks, or 5/. 6^. 8^. each, per annum, after the pay- ment of the deductions, reparations, quit-rents, and tenths to the Crown. . . . ' Occasionally we find an appropriate house and garden provided for the accommodation of the chantry priest ; but for the most part he had one or two small rooms in a half-timbered hut, with little light, no fire-place, and an open chimney, with turf burning on the hearth between Michaelmas and Candlemas, and a yule log at Christmas. A bench or a stool, a wooden bedstead and a mattress of straw, would comprise the furniture and household comforts of these ecclesiastics. It is hardly to be supposed that the priest had a servant to stock his larder or minister to his culinary wants, and he probably prepared his own frugal fare. This would consist of salted meat twice a week. On the day of his patron saint, or on some great anniversary, he would have fresh meat and fish, and on high festivals a double mess. Beans to boil, and oatmeal for porridge, with " haberdine," ling, red-herrings, cheese, oat-cake and aj)ples, would be ordinary food, whilst eggs, coarse barley-bread, and fresh fish would be amongst the luxuries of the table, and were not very sumptuous refections. The repeated fasts of the Church would not be, with such a dietary, inconvenient duties.' ^ What has just been quoted applies to those who were strictly called cantarists or chantry priests, and whose only benefice consisted in a foundation for daily mass. At the same time masses were asked of other priests, both » IVorks, p. 506 (Parker Society). 2 History of the Lancashire Chantries, by the Rev. F. R. Raines, Introd. p. XX. (Chetham Society). THE HONORARY. 143 secular and religious. In the twelfth century, according to Giraldus the rural and parochial priests had the largest share in these.' In later times they were mostly given to the friars. The alms or honorarium given to the priest varied from one penny to six pence, as may be seen by a few examples appended in the following note.^ The Church did not fail to watch against the abuses which the spirit of avarice is ever bringing into the sanctuary. Thus, we find in the Council of Lambeth in 1281, the bishops warned priests that ' no cleric must undertake a year's masses {annualia celebranda) unless he himself celebrate every day for the deceased or have mass offered for him. No one must undertake more ammalia than he has priests to help him, except when the person who has the masses said, explicitly consents that the memory of the deceased be joined with ' Genima Eccl. dist. ii. cap. 24. - In 1369, Joan Lady Cobham by will desires seven thousand masses to be said for her soul by the Canons of Tunbridge and Tanfugge, and the four orders of Friars in London, viz., the Friars Preachers, Minors, Augustines, and Car- melites; who for so doing shall have 29/. y. ^d. (Testamenta Vetusta, p. 81) This is one penny per mass. A trental (i.e. thirty masses) for 2s. bd. in the time of Richard II. is also mentioned in the Sixth Report of the Historical MSS. Commission, part i. p. 600. In the Privy Purse expenses of Henry VII. {Ex- cerpta Histonca, p. 108), we read : ' In 1496, to the Freers of Ware for masses, after 3^. the masse, \2s. 6d.,' and in 1494: 'To my Lady the King's mother for the wages of Sir John Bracy singing before our Lady of the pewe, for a quarter's wages 2/.' (ib. p. 98). The same Henry VII. granted to the Grey Friars at Carmarthen a yearly rent of 8/. for a daily mass and perpetual an- niversary for the soul of his father Edmund, Earl of Richmond, who was there buried (Cooper's Memoirs of Lady Margaret, p. 11). If we deduct the expenses of the anniversary, this was about fivepence for a mass. It must be confessed that this was not a royal alms, especially as contrasted with an entry on the 5th of September, 1493: 'To the young damoysell that daunceth, 30/. o^. od.,' and in 1494 Patch, the fool, receives 26/. 14^-. od., in addition to his board ; but then priests willing to discharge the offices of their ministry could be found everywhere, whereas very few persons could be found clever or skilled enough to play the fool or tmn dL pirouette. In 1537, George, Earl of Shrewsbury, writes in his will : ' I will that immediately after my decease my executors cause to be given to a thousand priests sixpence a piece, to say Placebo, Dirige (i.e. Vespers and Matins for the Dead), and Mass for my soul and all Christian souls. And I will that 25 marks in money be distributed, on the day of my burial, to such poor people as shall be thereat, to pray for my soul. I will that three priests for the space of twenty years after my decease shall sing for my soul, whereof two in the parish church of Sheffield, at the altar where Lady Anne, my late wife, lieth, and the other in the chapel of our Blessed Lady of the Bridge in Sheffield, and that every of them have 13 marks (8/. 13^. 4rt'.);yearly during the time.' (Testam. Vet. p. 680.) Happily many of these masses were said before Edward VI. appropriated all such foundations. 144 CHANTRIES. that of another or of others in the mass.' ' It was strictly forbidden to enjoin as a penance the paying for the celebration of masses.^ On the other hand, the Church did not admit the doctrine ot Giraldus, that the guilt of simony is incurred whenever any kind of contract is entered into with regard to saying mass. This author, indeed, whom I have frequently quoted as a witness to facts, and who often displays both learning and acuteness, is no less frequently remarkable for his want of judgment. A curious specimen of sophis- tical censoriousness occurs in his treatise on this very subject. ' Those,' he says, * who agree to say mass on account of having received payment, sell Christ more basely than Judas. He sold One whom he believed to be a mere man, and that too when his own family was in penury. They sell Him whom they believe to be the Lord of the universe ; he for thirty pieces of silver, they for a penny or some such wretched sum. He repented, though not truly, and cast away his money ; they never do so. In the case of Judas the money, being the price of blood, was not put into the treasury ; whereas now altars are erected and churches built with money thus shamefully procured.' ^ Surely thus to compare the accepting of money for performance of a most holy act with the bargain to shed our Lord's Blood is a strange paradox. And to be shocked as at something peculiarly monstrous, when a pious priest dedicated the alms thus received to the decoration of his church, is the very climax of absurdity. In the same place, Giraldus says that both mass and the preaching of the Word of God ought to be rare in order that they may be esteemed ! Happily our Lord judged otherwise. Had He sought merely to inspire veneration or admiration, He might have given the power to offer mass to the successors of St. Peter alone, and have even restricted them to one mass in the year, on Easter Day. Whereas by allowing every priest in every village church to say mass daily, though He has robbed Himself of some external glory or of the admiration we give to what is extraordinary, He has nevertheless consulted the true glory of His Father as well as the good of His redeemed, and won thereby the gratitude and love of those who esteem things for their intrinsic value. But Giraldus, in his mistaken notions about simony, and sincere though imprudent zeal for God's honour and glory, would have wished to see few churches, and few altars in them, and would have abolished almost all voluntary and occasional offerings. He quotes the precedent of » Wilkins, ii. 52. ^ Wilkins, i. 505, 576, 577, 635. ^ Gcinina Eccl. dist. ii. cap. 24. FOUNDED BY PRIESTS. 145 the old law, where there was but one temple and one altar ; and expresses a wish that there should be but one church in each city, or in a very populous place one church with a iQ.\N succursals. ' It would be better,' he says, ' far better, if the churches] were fewer, and mass more rarely said in them, and then celebrated and heard more devoutly.' ' Giraldus here assumes two principles — first, that frequent repetition, like familiarity, always breeds contempt ; and secondly, that what is done rarely is sure to be done well. Giraldus was a Welshman, and not unacquainted with the writings of his countryman, St. Gildas ; yet he seems to have forgotten the terrible words in which Gildas had denounced the ancient British priests, ' raro cele- brantes, et nunquam puro corde ante altaria stantes.' Robert de Brunne had very different views. In 1303, he wrote as follows : ' That priest I blame over all thing — that without skill letteth' {i.e. omitteth) 'to sing' (i.e. to say mass) — 'For many a soul might be saved — With the mass that he hath leaved — For all that in pain is — Abideth the succour of the mass.' "^ In the sixteenth century, in order to screen the avarice of spolia- tion, cries were got up against superstitious endowments and the avarice of priests \ and as these cries have not yet ceased to echo, it is as well to consider what the facts were, and to examine whether Catholics have much need to blush for their ancestors. Pilkington, whose works are a very mine of scurrility ^ and calumny, thus writes : ' I think it hath not been oft heard tell of, that any priest ever said trental without money, or hired any said for themselves.' * With this assertion may be contrasted the statement of a recent writer who has carefully looked into the history of chantries. Canon Raines then has been struck with the fact that, when founda- tions for masses were made for limited periods, ' a short course seems to have been often prescribed by laymen, whilst archbishops and curates who taught the doctrine (and the confession is humiliating) needed ages to purify them.' ^ We here venture to differ with the ' Gemma Eccles. dist. ii. cap. 49. ^ Handlyng Synne, 1. 1 0304 (E. E. T. Soc. ) ^ Priests are called by this fellow, Sir John Smell-spioke (IVorks, p. 255), or Sir John Lack-Latin (p. 20), or Sir John Mumble-matins (p. 26), or the pope's oiled shavellings (p. 82), or the pope's belly-gods (p. 580) ; bishops are the pope's horned cattle (p. 664), in allusion to their mitres ; monks are abbey lubbers (/•nssim), Hildebrand is Hell-brand (p. 565), St. Thomas (of Canterbury) is a stinking martyr, Cardinal Pole is Carnal Fool (pp. 65, 77), purgatory is the pope's scalding-house (p. 497), the mass is 'the popish clouted Latin mass (p. 496). < iVoi-ks, p. 21. ^ Introd. to Histoiy of the Lancashire Chantries, p. xv. (Chetham Soc.) VOL. II. L 146 CHANTRIES. learned writer. The confession is not at all humiliating ; on the con- trary, it is most edifying. It proves, not that bishops and priests really needed so much purification, but that they thought they needed it, or might need it. They were mindful of the words of the Book of Wisdom : ' Give ear, you that rule the people ... a most severe judgment shall be for them that bear rule. For to him that is little mercy is granted ; but the mighty shall be mightily tormented.' ' They had not forgotten how much larger a measure of penance was exacted by the ancient canons from the clergy than from the laity ; and it was a deeper sense of sin and a clearer insight into the sanctity of God, not a more guilty conscience, that made them so anxious to secure suffrages. Nor must it be thought that bishops and priests showed herein less confidence in God than the laity, for to hope in the mass is nothing else but to hope in the precious Blood of Jesus Christ. In any case, the fact mentioned by Canon Raines effectually disposes of the charge of disbelief or of avarice made by Pil- kington. History is full of proofs that priests had the most lively faith in the holy mass, and dispensed with great liberality the priceless trea- sure that God had put in their hands. William Greenfield, arch- bishop of York, wrote to Pope Clement V. on October 20, 1306, to inform him that he had had no less than 22,503 masses offered for him during the course of that year, besides innumerable other prayers. 2 Still more remarkable is the generosity of a predecessor of Greenfield, Archbishop John Remain. Edward I. had written to him on November 28, 1290, announcing the death of Queen Eleanor, and asked for prayers and masses, ' that as she herself could no longer merit, she might be helped by the charitable prayers of others.' The following year, on June 7, the archbishop replied to the king that the number of masses that he had ordered to be said in his diocese in all parish churches and chapels where there were priests celebrating amounted to 47,528 ; and he had also granted forty days' indulgence to all who said a Pater zxv^ an Ave for the repose of the queen's soul.^ At the time this letter was written the masses were not all said, for the archbishop had directed his priests to offer the mass for this in- tention each Wednesday for the space of one year. As he specifies the exact number to be said, he must have had some method of cal- culating, and it was evidently the following. He multiplied the number of weeks by that of his priests : 52 x 914=47,528. Hence ' Wisdom vi. 3-7. 2 Historical Papers, &'c.,froni the Northern Registers, p. 178 (Rolls Series). » Ih. p. 91. FOUNDED BY PRIESTS. 147 we get the curious and surprising fact that at the end of the thirteenth century the number of priests in the archdiocese of York was 9x4.' Bishops who showed such care for the souls of others were not likely to neglect their own. Thus William de Kilkenny, Bishop of Ely, dying in 1256, left two hundred marks to his church to find two chaplains to celebrate perpetually for his soul.^ Walter Stapleton, bishop of Exeter (1308-1327) during his lifetime founded a per- petual mass. The mass of the Holy Ghost was to be said on his birthday as long as he lived, and a mass of Requiem for ever on the anniversary of his death. ^ But it is not possible to read the records of any of the great bishops of the Middle Ages without finding that, besides spending immense sums on their cathedrals, they uniformly made provision for masses for their souls, either by their wills or by founding chantries during life. Who more famous for his munificence during his lifetime than William of Wickham, bishop of Winchester ? He did not, however, trust in the glorious cathedral which has immortalised his name. The monks bound themselves to him to have three perpetual daily masses offered in the chapel that he had chosen for his burial-place. The first, of our Lady, was to be said at a very early hour, the second at tierce, and the third at sext. The prior bound himself to give daily to each monk one penny of good coinage, and the sacris- tan to provide them with bread and wine, chalice, missal, and vest- ments. The monks were to be appointed for these masses each Saturday for the following week. The choir boys also, who were maintained by the prior, were to go every evening to this chapel and sing the ' Salve Regina,' or the ' Ave Regina,' and afterwards to say the ' De Profundis ' and prayers for the bishop's soul.* The cathedral still exists ; but alas ! the chapel where Wickham lies is a show-place. Mass is not said there in the morning, nor the Antiphon of our Lady sung in the evening j and if a Catholic visit the spot, the Lamentations of Jeremias are the only prayers that rise to his lips. Of the faith and devotion of men less eminent in wealth or dignity the following may be taken as specimens. In 1392, Robert Kniveton, vicar of Dovebridge, in Derbyshire, founded a chantry in ' It is not certain that the regular clergy were included in the number 914, or even all secular priests. But it seems more probable that all had agreed to offer mass once a week. From a list of places to which preachers of the crusade were sent in 129 1, it appears that the diocese of York included Nottingham Newark, Lancaster, Preston, and Kendal. {N^ortliern Registers, p. 95.) - Anglia Sacra, i. 636. » Oliver's Mcnast. Exon. p. 80. ^ Lowth's Life of Wickham, Appendix xvi. L 2 148 CHANTRIES. his church at the altar of the Blessed Virgin. His brother Henry, rector of Norbury, founded a chantry in the same year at Ashbourne.' Henry Chaddesdon, archdeacon of Leicester, who died in 1354, appointed by his will the establishment of a chantry in his native place of Chaddesdon, Derbyshire, with three priests, to sing mass for the king, for himself, for his ancestors and benefactors, and for the souls of all the faithful departed.^ Few priests were rich enough to found chantries. Their wills, however, which exist in great num- bers, testify to their solicitude to have masses offered for them. Sir Oliver Bright, rector of Weston Favell, Northamptonshire, writes : ' I will that Sir Edward Wammersley, if it please him, or else another honest priest, say masses for my soul. Master Doctor Wammersley's soul, and those souls that I am most bound to pray for, for the space of half a year, and to have for his labour four marks.' -^ Dr. Spark, in 1527, directs his executors ' to wage a priest that is sad, virtuous, and good of living, and of good name and fame, to pray for my soul, my father's and mother's and such as shall be named, and all Christian souls ; and the said priest to sing mass within the White Friars at the high altar, and he to have my missal to say mass upon as long as he doth sing for me, and then the foresaid book to remain to the place.'-* Even the priests who had no money to leave by will were not forgotten. Sometimes they belonged to guilds, the members of which always had masses said for their deceased brethren. Thus the chan- try priests of St. Paul's in London had formed themselves into a special corporation or guild. ^ Besides this the priests ol each diocese formed a distinct body. The two following documents may be taken as indications of the practice that prevailed throughout the country. William Russell, bishop of Sodor, 1350, in his synodal constitutions orders that when any rector, vicar, or chaplain of the Church of Man dies, all the priests must come to his funeral, and if possible say mass. And after the day of his burial every priest must, with as little delay as possible, offer thirty masses for him, and recite for thirty days the Office of the Dead with nine lessons. If they have not accomplished these duties within sixty days, the deans are to fine them half a mark, and with the fines to get the masses said.*' > Cox's Derbyshire Churches, iii. 117. ^ lb. p. 304. ' Baker's Northampton, i. 76. ' Lancashire Wills, p. 18 (Chetham Soc.) ' See Rock, iii. pt. ii. p. 121. Nearly one hundred chantries had been founded in St. Paul's, but some were united, having been insufficiently endowed. At the dissolution there were thirty-five with fifty-four priests daily celebrating. There were likewise many obits, or anniversaries. (Dugdale's St. PauFs, p. 29. ) * Wiikins, iii. 10. FOUXDED BY NOBLES. 149 Robert Winchelsey, the holy archbishop of Canterbury who could never offer mass without tears, obliged all the officials of his consis tory to assist at a solemn mass of the Holy Ghost in the Church of our Lady of the Arches in London at the beginning of each term, and at a solemn Requiem for all the deceased officials at the end of the term. ^ We now turn to the laity. It is needless to say much of royal foundations ; Catholic kings could scarcely neglect a matter so im- portant. Yet it will be found that those who were best and greatest were most careful, whereas those who were immoral and impious seem to have anticipated the Protestant view as to ' superstitious uses,' and spent their money in personal gratification. Fabyan tells us that Henry IV. had been absolved by the pope for the deposition and (supposed) murder of Richard II., on condition that he should do as much as possible for Richard's soul. Henry took little heed of this condition ; but his nobler son, Henry V., tried to make up, and for this end founded the great monasteries of Sheen and Syon. He kept four tapers perpetually burning on the tomb of Richard, and every week had office and solemn mass said for his soul.- Of Henry V.'s care for his own soul I have spoken elsewhere.^ The provisions of other kings and queens are of the same nature. From the wills of the great nobles it is apparent that one of their principal solicitudes when death approached was with respect to the spiritual helps that the Church could bestow upon them. Out of a great multitude of such documents I transcribe two or three by way of specimen."* Lucy, countess of Kent, in her will (1423), leaves to the prior and convent of the Holy Trinity without Aldgate, London, one thousand crowns, upon condition ' that they find a fitting priest to celebrate divine service daily to the end of the world, in each of the religious houses of St. Mary Overies, in Southwark, the Carthu- sians, Minoresses, and Holy Trinity without Aldgate ; and in the Abbey of Brunne, as also the four houses of Friars Mendicants in London, for the health of the soul of Henry IV. and King Hemy v., late kings of England, for the souls of Edmund, late Earl of Kent, my husband, for ray own soul, and the souls of all the faith- ful departed. I will that in every of these houses they shall yearly celebrate the anniversaries of the said Edmund and me ; likewise ' Wilkins, ii. 21 11. "- Fabyan's C/ironicle, p. 5S9 (ed. Ellis). ' See pp. 49, 50. * Many more examples are given in the two volumes called Tcslamenia Vdnsta, published by Sir Harris Nicolas. ISO CHANTRIES. that every brother and sister in these houses shall every day say the psalm of " De Profundis," with the wonted orisorf for the dead, for the souls of the said Edmund and my soul by name, and once every month in their choir say " Placebo " and " Dirige " by note, and on the morrow Mass of Requiem by note, for our souls, and once in every year a trental of St. Gregory for our said souls by name ; . . . and I desire that two honest priests shall celebrate divine service for ever for the health of my soul and the soul of my said husband, one of them in the church where my body shall be buried, and the other in the church of the Minoresses without Aldgate.'^ What, it will be asked, was St. Gregory's Trental mentioned in this will, and often elsewhere ? It consisted of ten different masses three times repeated. The masses were. The Nativity of our Lord, The Epiphany, Our Lady's Purification and Annunciation, Our Lord's Resurrection and Ascension, Pentecost, The Trinity, and our Lady's Assumption and Nativity. These ben the chefe festes ten That sokor the sowles that ben fro heven ; Who so sayth these masses without fayle For synfull sowles they shall avayle : All a yere withouten trayne They delyvere a sowle out of payne. Let say these masses be your hestes Within the utas of the festes.^ According to this author each mass is to be said thrice within the octaves of the respective feasts, so that the whole could not be per- formed in less than nine months. But by others they were said in thirty consecutive days, and even by thirty priests in one day.^ There is no doubt that, though there was nothing amiss in the selec- tion of these masses, yet there was mistake or superstition in attribut- ing to them a special efficacy ; and it was not true that either the selection or the promise was derived from St. Gregory the Great. The practice was denounced by several writers and condemned by the sacred Congregation of Rites. The congregation, however, did ' Testament a Vetusta, p. 205. 2 Cotton MS. Calig. A. ii. fol. 85*, 86, quoted by Hampson in the Medii yEvi Kalendarium, ii. 139. The York Missal, published by Mr. Henderson, gives the same list in the same order, p. 436, with the words : ' Qui vult deliberate animam cito de poenis purgatorii dicat istas missas sequentes.' The Bollandists give from old German Missals a totally different list of masses. (Propyl. Mali, Conatus Histor. p. 93.) I have given what I have found in English authorities. ' ' Upon the day of my burial I will to be said a trental of masses.' (Will of Thomas Croughton, 1530, Lancashire Wills (Chetham Soc) TRENT ALS. 151 not forbid the pious custom of saying mass for a soul on thirty con- secutive days, a custom that was really derived from St. Gregory, and adopted by several religious orders.' Nor must it be thought that whenever a trental of masses is mentioned allusion is always made to the supposed Gregorian Trental. Another practice no better founded than the above is alluded to in the following will : ' I bequeath seven marks sterling to a priest for to sing or to say mass for my soul a whole year at Badworth Church, the same masses that Pope Innocent did sing for his mother, which be thirteen masses. And when the said priest hath sungen or said all the thirteen masses over, he shall begin them again, and so continue from time of my decease during a whole year.' * This was an eccentricity of devotion. The records of noble houses are better illustrated by the following examples. Richard, earl of Arundel, 1375, leaves to purchase lands and rents for the monks of Lewes, two hundred pounds ; ' otherwise that one or two churches be appropriated to that monastery for the mainte- nance of two monks to celebrate two masses perpetually every day, for the souls of my father and mother, my wife and my children, and successors, and all Christian people, in the chapel of St. Thomas the Martyr in that house, or else in the chapel of our Lady on the north of the great church ; the one mass to be that of our Lady and the other of the Holy Ghost. And I will that every prior of that house, on his first government, shall swear to see the same performed. ' Likewise I bequeath a thousand marks to purchase lands of the annual value of one hundred and seven marks, for the maintenance of six priests and three choristers, to celebrate divine service every day by note in the chapel of my castle at Arundel, and to pray for the souls of my father and mother, my wife and children, and all Christians. I will that they rise every day in summer at sun-rising, and in winter at break of the day,' ^ &c. Thomas, earl of Warwick, 1400, writes : 'For my funeral I will that there be three hundred pounds weight of wax, in six tapers and seven mortars which shall remain in the church ; also that sixty poor men, in gowns made of white cloth, carry each of them a torch at my funeral, and that forty of these torches, after my exequies, be dis- tributed to the poor churches of my patronage, the remainder to ' On this matter see Bened. XIV. De Sacrif. Missce, iii. cap. 23, and the authors quoted by him ; to whom may be added Rock, Church of our Fathers, ii. 319, 504, 508, iii. 60. - Will of Sir Hugh Starkey of Olton, \^2(), Lancashire Wills, p. 11. ^ Testameiita Vetusta, p. 94. 152 CHANTRIES. remain in the Collegiate Church of Warwick. ... I desire that thirty trentals be sung for my soul with all possible speed that may be after my decease, and likewise one thousand masses, viz., of the Trinity, of the Holy Ghost, of the Nativity of our Saviour, of the Holy Cross, of the five festivals of our Lady, of the Resurrection, of the Ascension, of Corpus Christi, of every feast sixty-seven masses, five in the whole excepted. . . . To my lord the king an image of the Blessed Virgin. . . , To the college of our Lady at Warwick ... a precious stone called a berill, bound with silver and enamelled, to put the Host into,' 1 &c. John Holland, duke of Exeter, 1447, leaves these instructions : ' My body to be buried in a chapel in the church of St. Katherine, beside the Tower of London, at the north end of the high altar. . . . To the high altar of the said church a cup of berill, garnislied with gold and precious stones, to put the holy sacrament in. Also a chalice of gold, with the whole furniture of my chapel. I will that another chalice, two basins, two silver candlesticks, with the two pair of vestments, and mass-book, a pax-bred, and a pair of cruets of silver, be given to that little chapel, for the priests that should cele- brate therein and pray for our souls ; to the priest and clerks and others of the house of St. Katherine, for their great labours and observance on the day of my obit and day of my funeral, forty marks. 1 will that four priests be provided to pray perpetually every year for my soul in the said chapel, and for the souls of Anne, my first wife, and of my sister Constance, and of Anne, my present wife, when she shall pass out of this world, and for the souls of all my ancestors,' ^ &c. It must be admitted, however, that these and the like elaborate bequests and directions did not please or edify all concerned. Wal- densis, after quoting a passage of St. Jerome, says : ' The holy father well rebukes the ambition of the rich and powerful, who, when they have offered anything to the Church of Christ, erect their titles, require that their names shall be recited, demand a perpetual labour from priests, while for so great a recompense they themselves have scarce ever undertaken a three-days' work. And what is a still greater wrong, they convert (as St. Jerome says), that which is merely the redemption of their sins into a monument to their praise. For the spoils they have wrung from the poor, for the devastation of the land, for their violation of virgins and widows, for their transgression of the fasts, for their unnumbered hes, frauds, perjuries, and detrac- ' Teslamenta Vetusta, p. 155. 2 /^_ p_ 255. THE CLAIMS OF JUSTICE. 153 tions, for their hatred, anger, murderous quarrels and violences, they ask God at this litde cost to pardon them ; and then, besides this weighing out their merits, as if they had conferred a benefit on God, they are more occupied in estimating the magnitude of their gift than contrite with horror of their crimes. In very truth, if the rich have made large offerings, yet the poor widow with the offering of her two mites will ever surpass them.' ^ Without contesting the justness of these strictures in certain cases, I think it would be quite contrary to the intention of the illustrious writer to generalise them. It was not alone the proud, worldly, and wicked nobles, that left foundations for masses. These often died with scanty provision for their souls, whereas those whose lives had been well spent, and who during life had been most generous to the Church, were consistent in their anxiety for her suffrages. There is good proof, too, that men were not so ignorant as to think that by getting prayers and masses for their own souls they could be released from obligations of justice to their neighbour or dispensed from the duty of restitution. There is a clause frequently to be found in these foundations which proves that the injured par- ties were to have their share of the suffrages. The Duchess of Montrose, in making a foundation for the choristers of Brechin, not only mentions certain souls to be benefited, but also adds 'especi- ally for all to whom I was ever a debtor or have in any way injured, or have had their goods and have not made full satisfaction.'^ John Smart, in 1449, founds a chaplaincy in the same cathedral 'for the souls whom I may have injured and to whom I have not perfectly atoned.'^ David de Lindesay, earl of Crawford, in 1406, likewise founds a chantry or chaplaincy. It is for his father and mother, his predecessors and successors, and especially for all those whose goods he may have had during life and whom he had not fully satisfied, and for all the faithful departed."* It is evident that this was an established formula, and that it does not prove that those who used it had really wronged any, but merely that the claims of justice were recognised in the most explicit manner. One of the most curious wills I have met with is that of John Baret, a gentleman of Bury St. Edmund's, who died in 1463. He is most precise in his instructions as to the masses at his funeral and the sermon. He orders ' the pardon which I purchased to be written ' De Sacramentalibus Misscp, cap. 33. - Registrmn Episc. Brech. i. 220 (Bannatyne Club). ^ lb. i. 125. ■• lb. i. 23. T54 CHANTRIES. near my tomb, and the bull and bishops' seals to be carefully secured near.' How some dabblers in history would exclaim at this! 'A pardon' or an indulgence 'purchased'! Here is simony, here is superstition ; here is trusting in the pope's blasphemous prerogatives to the neglect of all true religion and pure morality ! Not so, dear Protestant reader. John Baret's armorial motto (or ' reason,' as he calls it) written on his tomb was ' Grace me govern,' and he does not seem to have belied it. The word ' purchase ' is badly chosen, but he wrote for those who knew his meaning. He had given a sum of money for some pious purpose, and an indulgence had been granted him, of what extent is not said ; but it did not make him sure of going straight to heaven at his death according to the plenary indulgence claimed by all Protestants. The very reason why he asks that this document shall be placed near his tomb is ' that it may be read and known to exhort the people rather to pray for me.' It was probably then an indulgence to those who said a Pater or an Ave for him. It did not make him despise prayers as unnecessary, but eager to secure them, and further he makes provision for a per- petual weekly mass. I quote this will especially, because this good Catholic gentleman, who purchases a pardon, desires that the masses shall be offered not for himself alone, but for all whom he may have in any way injured or had dealings with, 'that God grant for His mercy that they nor I bear never no peril neither for the giving nor for the receiving, for any matter that ever I had to do. Praying Almighty God that they have part of every good deed I have done, or shall be done in my life, or shall be done after my decease for me, in masses, singing, almsgiving, &c.,as well as myself in reUeving and comfort of their souls and mine.'' He who will make inquiry into the subject of legacies for mass will find that among citizens, no less than among the nobles, the more generous and pious during life were the most solicitous to pro- pitiate God's justice after death. Roger Thornton was bailiff of Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1397 ; represented Newcastle in Parliament in 1399, 1410, and 1416; and was the founder of the Maison Dieu or hospital in that town. This active and benevolent citizen directs in his will, that thirty priests sing for him two years next after his decease, 'ilk priest having for his sould {i.e. payment) by year eight marks.' ^ The famous Sir William Walworth, mayor of London, who struck Wills of Btiry St. Ednnmd^s, pp. 15-36 (Camden Soc.) Wills, (Sr-v,, of the Northern Cotinties, p. 79 (Surtees Soc.) FOUNDED BY CITIZENS. 155 down Wat Tyler, and whose statue adorns Holborn Viaduct, not only founded a college for a master and nine priests in the church of St. Michael, Crooked Lane, in 1380, but in his will bequeaths 'to every anchoret in London and the vicinity \2d. ; to every hos- pital 20s. ; to every chaplain of the fraternity of chaplains in London, of which I am a brother, that they may have my soul remembered in masses and prayers, 2s. ; to celebrate within three days after my decease as many masses as can conveniently be done, 20/. ;' and he also bequeathed innumerable and very large sums in alms.' Sir John Milbourne was elected Lord Mayor of London in 1521, and had the honour of entertaining Henry VI IL and the Emperor Charles V. on their visit to the City, June 6, 1522, when he went out ' well horsed and dressed in scarlet' to meet their majesties. His will is dated June 10, 1535. 'My executors to have 1000 masses said or sung for my soul within three months after my death, which masses are to be sung by priests who have not any benefices, and who are not charged to pray for any other ; every priest to have for his labour 6d. ; to 153 ^ poor men and women each a black gown of cloth, a black gown of linen or cotton, and a pair of black beads, to assist at my burial and mass of requiem, and to pray specially for my soul and the souls of my wives. ... To thirteen poor people of Long Melford thirteen penny loaves every Sunday for ten years after my death on condition that they kneel before the Holy Sacrament at the High Altar in the Church of Long Melford, and say there a Fafer Noster, Ave, and Credo for my soul and the souls aforesaid. The Churchwarden of Long Melford to have a^s. per annum for distributing these thirteen loaves, and my executors to distribute 6/. 135. 4^. amongst the poor of Long Melford within thirty days after my death. '^ Sir John de Poultney was born at the village of Pontenei or Pultonherth in Leicestershire. ' He was a person,' says Mr. Aungier, ' of very great account in his time, much in favour with Edward in., and is taken notice of by our historians for his piety, wisdom, large possessions, and magnificent way of living. His ardour in commercial pursuits met with a suitable reward in the approbation of his fellow-citizens and in the favour of his prince, to which he re- ' ^QXi\.\^y''i, Excerpia Historica,i^. 137. 2 So Dean Colet founded St. Paul's School or 153 boys. The miraculous draught of fishes, 153 in number (John xxi. 11), has always been a favourite sul - ject of contemplation with the citizens of London. ' Genealogical Memoirs of the Extinct Family of Chester of Chichclcy, i. 27, 28 (1878). 156 CHANTRIES. commended himself not only by the wealth he acquired, but by a talent for business beyond the particular branch in which he was engaged, and the real merit by which he added dignity to riches, and invested an English merchant with a claim to greatness. The particular branch of business to which he applied his talents was probably that of a draper, an occupation which heretofore was very considerable, in consequence of the great quantities of woollen cloths which were exported to the continent. He is denominated a member of the Drapers' Company, and to the honour of that body discharged the high office of mayor no less than four times in the reign of Edward III., although he never served the office of sheriff. ... In 133 1 the king drew the attention of Sir John to the state of the chantries in the City of London, which it appears were in many instances robbed of the funds destined to their support. And it is not improbable that the abuses which came before him on this occa- sion in his official character first suggested to him the idea of be- coming the restorer and amplifier of one of those ancient founda- tions. In 1332 the king, at his request, wrote to the pope from Woodstock, that his faithful John de Poultney, for expiation of his sins, had erected and dedicated a chantry chapel in honour of the Holy Cross, adjoining to the Church of St. I^aurence in Candlewick Street for seven priests to perform divine service there ; and desired his holiness to sanction the appropriation of the said church by the abbot and convent of Westminster to the uses of the chantry priests. . . . Besides his foundation of Corpus Christi College in the parish of St. Laurence, Sir John founded the White Friars in Coventry. He likewise built the Church of Allhallows the Less in Thames Street. Among other good deeds he bequeathed 535". Ofd. annually to the prisoners in Newgate, and 10/. a year to St. Giles's hospital by Holborn for ever. Stow informs us that he built a fair chapel in St. Paul's, and was there buried in 1349.'' It is evident that in the century that preceded the change of religion the solemnities at funerals and anniversaries were becoming excessive and burdensome, and as their number was ever increasing, some remedy would soon have become necessary had not the aboli- tion of the mass solved the difficulty in another way. At the burial of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, on April 28, 1489, five hundred priests and a thousand clerks were invited to attend. The wax alone cost 80/., and the total expenses were more than 1,000/. or 12,000/. at the present value of money.^ ' Chroniques de London, edited by Mr. Aungierfor the Camden Society, p. 65. ^ See the details in Peck's Desiderata Ctiriosa, ii. 10. FUNERAL POMP. 157 Isabel, Duchess of Clarence, died at Warwick Castle on Decem- ber 12, 1476. Her body was brought for sepulture to Tewkesbury Abbey, of which she had been a benefactress. On January 4, solemn office was sung with nine lessons, absolutions given by bishops and abbots ; and the household of the duke watched by night around the body of the young duchess. On January 5, 1477, the vigil of the Epiphany, the first mass, which was of our Lady, was sung in our Lady's chapel by the suffragan of the bishop of Lincoln ; the second mass, of the Blessed Trinity, by the abbot at the high altar ; and the third of Requiem by the suffragan of the bishop of Wor- cester ; and during this Peter Weld, a doctor of theology of the order of Friars Minor of Worcester, preached to the prelates and others in the choir. The body remained under the hearse in the midst of the choir for thirty-five days, and solemn exequies were daily celebrated. At last, on the octave of the Purification, after mass, the body was buried in a vault behind the high altar and in front of the chapel of our L'sdy.' As each great family vied with others in the splendour of the exequies of their deceased relatives, the living would soon have been wholly occupied in caring for the dead. The evil was felt, and in many wills at the beginning of the sixteenth century the display of vain and unnecessary pomp is deprecated. x\s to foundations ; though several Mortmain Acts had restricted the power of alienating land for religious purposes, yet the number of chantries in England was very great. Henry VI IL suppressed 2,374 just before his death, but with strange inconsistency he left orders that masses should be said for himself /t?;- cve7\ and ' requiring his son Prince Edward, and all his heirs and successors who should be kings of this realm, as they would answer before Almighty God at the dreadful day of judgment, to carry out this his will.' In I Edward VI., Parliament 'gave the youthful king the last sweepings of the chantry lands of which his father had, from any cause, not held full possession. '^ 'The government,' says Canon Raines, 'considered the property of these foundations not so much national property as the property of the king, who was ready to secularise and monopolise it for any purpose he pleased. Principles of equity, justice, and legal security were set at nought, and the recognised rights of property disregarded. That the State had not furnished the endowments, or done anything for the support of the chantries, was obvious to every one. The ' Dugdale's Monasticon, ii. 69. - Raines' History of the Lancashire Chantries, p. xxv. 158 CHANTRIES. endowments were all individual donations from age to age. The State had even limited the donors in their benefactions, but had guaranteed to protect what they had given, and then violated the promise.' ' Of course Henry, in the commission that he issued, said that it was his wish that the carrying out of the power given him by Parlia- ment ' should wholly tend to the glory of Almighty God, whose honour we chiefly seek in this thing.' But this was the hypocritical style of that day, which probably deceived nobody then any more than it does now. Few perpetual foundations were made during the brief reign of Queen Mary. Even those who left small sums for masses did it with a great sense of insecurity, as may be seen in the subjoined example. Sir John Byron, of Clayton Hall, near Manchester, knight, the purchaser of Newstead Abbey, and ancestor of Lord Byron, the poet, declares in his will, August 17, 1558, that he 'firmly and stead- fastly believes every point and article of our faith as the holy Catholic and known Church doth believe and command us, the children and the members of the same, to believe ; out of which Church there is no salvation. And I utterly detest and abhor the Manichees, the Arians, the Anabaptists, and the Sacramentarians, and all other heretics, with their damnable sects and opinions, pray- ing and beseeching Almighty God to revocate and call home again all them that have severed and divided themselves from the Catholic Church by their misbelief, that they may be made inheritors of heaven.' ' I will that an honest priest be hired to sing or say mass for my soul &c., within the parish church of Colwich, for ten years, with 10/. for his yearly stipend. But if the said stipend by any law or laws heretofore made, or hereafter to be revived,' (be forbidden), ' the said to cease and the same to go to the poor and needy people, amending and repairing of highways and brigs (bridges), or other charitable deeds.''-* Now what was the eftect on the country of the large number of priests engaged in offering up masses at the various chantry altars ? I am far from thinking that their influence — I am speaking of this world alone — was purely beneficial. They were taken from the humbler classes, and in many cases the hope of the small benefice of a chantry priest was the motive of their ordination. They were prepared for the priesthood by no further studies than were just > Raines' History of the Lancashire Chantries, p. xxii. 2 Quoted from Lancashire MSS. vol. Wills, by Rev. F. Raines in his Histoiy of the Chantj'ies, p. 14. THE CHANTRY PRIESTS. 159 sufficient to enable them to say mass and office ; for very few of them had charge of souls, or were allowed to receive confessions. There was no adequate provision for that moral and religious train- ing that might at least have nourished piety in defect of learning. In fact there was a laxity of discipline in the training of the clergy, and a general freedom of life after ordination that holy men then contemplated with dismay, and which explain in a great measure the deplorable apostasy of the sixteenth century. Still we must not look on them as mere drones, saying a hurried mass in the morning and spending the rest of the day in idleness or secular pursuits. The chantry records show that the priests who served the altars had also to assist the parish clergy in the choir ; for it must not be forgotten that the psalmody of the Divine Office con- tinued uninterrupted even in the smaller parish churches from their first erection in Saxon times to the Reformation. The law of the English Church was, as Lyndwood declares it, that all chaplains celebrating in churches, whether cathedral, collegiate, or parochial, or even in chapels, whether they were parochial chaplains or only chantry priests, could be compelled, in virtue of obedience, to assist at the canonical hours on Sundays, feasts, or any days when the office was sung by note. They were not allowed to recite the office privately while sitting in choir ; but were strictly obliged to join in the service, singing the invitatories, hymns, antiphons, responses, and graduals, reading the lessons, epistles, and gospels, and intoning the psalms.' By the statutes of many of these foundations the chantry priest was bound to act as village schoolmaster, or master of the town grammar school, or to fill some other useful post. Thus the librarian of the first university library at Oxford was a chantry priest, and when the famous Lord Mayor Whittington founded a library for the city of London, he appointed a priest to be librarian who should daily say mass for the founder.^ The reader who wishes to obtain a more detailed knowledge of chantry founders and their foundations will do well to peruse the volumes of the Rev. Canon Raines, which I have frequently referred to, in which those of Lancashire are elucidated with wonderful re- search and great learning. It will be necessary, however, to bear in ' Pravinciale, p. 70, ed. 1679. * At the Reformation the books of this library were sold for waste paper, and the office of the librarian ceased together with the salary. Yet, when the Cor- poration re-established this library a few years since, the speaker, in the inaugural address, boasted of the outburst of light at the Reformation. i6o CHANTRIES. mind that Lancashire was then one of the poorest and least populous of English counties, and that the chantries were very few compared with those in many other parts of the country. It may be useful to the reader also, whether he be Catholic or Protestant, to spend a few hours in investigating, with the help of such documents, one of the old Catholic churches of England ; to decipher the few old Catholic monuments or brasses still remaining, and to contrast them with the Protestant mural tablets within and the grave- stones outside the church. As to the latter, if he puts aside those that have been erected within the last forty years, during which there has been a partial return towards Catholic feeling, he will see what has been the popular view of life and death among Englishmen during the last three centuries. The general tone of these inscriptions is that of mere paganism ; if they sometimes possess what seems a more Christian character, there is nevertheless an entire absence of anything that bears witness to a sense of the hohness of God, the responsibility of man, or to the fact that souls have been summoned to render an account before an awful Tribunal. To say nothing of facetious epi- taphs, pompous eulogies, and scraps of empty sentimental verse, even expressions of faith, hope, and resignation, and the texts of Scripture only speak of peace, and rest, and bliss, and the bosom of God and the embrace of Christ, as if all who were laid beneath the earth had lived the lives and died the deaths of virgins, confessors, and martyrs. To my mind there is something inexpressiblypainful, shocking, and unchristian in all this. How utterly different is the tone of Catholic epitaphs ! If they recount the good deeds of the deceased, and this they do but sparingly, they invariably end with a prayer for mercy : ' Cujus animse propitietur Deus ; ' or, 'Orate pro anima.' ' Pray for the soul : May his soul rest in peace,' or, ' May God have mercy on his soul.' It was the boast of those who first denied the need of purification after death, and set aside the apostolic practice of prayers and sacri- fices for the dead, that the new view would increase both fear and hope. It would, they said, inspire a greater fear in sinners when all chance of being ' saved so as by fire ' was taken from them. The believer's heart would be filled with greater joy and hope, when con- vinced that his reward would be immediate and perfect. What a fulness in the Redemption of Jesus Christ, that His merits, being applied by faith, should be able to wash the soul of the greatest sinner spotless in a moment ! I will not here contest the matter theoretically. I appeal to our MORAL RESULTS. i6l country churchyards to tell what has been the practical effect of the new theology. Protestants and Catholics were agreed as to the effect of mortal sin unrepented of, or at least unforgiven. They both admitted — at least Protestants did so until lately — that the sinner who dies separated by his own act from God, and without reconciliation obtained through Jesus Christ, is separated from God for ever ; that there is no further probation after death, whether there be purification or not. Now most certainly neither Catholics nor Protestants, however firmly they may believe in the terrible lot in store for the unpardoned sinner, will willingly think that those who are dear to them have incurred this final separation. They will cast about to see if their faith does not supply them with some motive of hope and consolation. I do not blame Protestants that their epitaphs never imply that the soul that once inhabited the cherished clay is burning in the flames of hell. No Catholic epitaph ever expressed such a fear. If it were enter- tained it could not be expressed. Thus both Catholics and Pro- testants have recourse to the merits of Him who shed His blood for sinners, in order to find some basis of hope. They may differ in their belief as to the way in which that Redemption is applied not only after death, but also during life ; yet it is to both the sole motive of their hope for themselves or for others. Where then lies the difference ? The Protestant, who believes in hell, maintains that for those who escape hell there is no other punishment whatever for sin after death. The most notoriously wicked, those who were utterly careless and impenitent, except at the very last moment, must go triumphantly to heaven, and as directly as the greatest saint. Consequently the popular Protestant opinion, sentiment, or hope, is that rt;// go straight to heaven, all die in the Lord, all are in peace, all in glory. Judgment according to a man's works loses practically all meaning. The purity and holiness of God are inoperative. And though in theory all is attributed to the Redemption of Christ, the common result is indifference to sin, and disregard of God's judgment. The belief of Catholics leads to very different conclusions. They may indeed hope and pray for all, even though the suffrages of the Church are not offered for those who die obstinately impen itent, or who wilfully cut themselves off from her communion. Yet, si nee the Catholic knows that the soul has to give an account even of an idle word and to pay her debts to the very last farthing, hope and conso- lation do not turn away the thoughts from a deep consciousness of the hoUness of God and the grievousness of sin. On the con trary, VOL. II. M 1 62 CHANTRIES prayer and sacrifice for the dead, which are acts of confidence, bring before the living in the most touching and effective manner the re- sponsibiUty of Ufe, the certainty of judgment, and both the dread and gracious attributes of God. The suppression of chantries was not begun with any profession of disbehef in the holy mass. It was simply an act of sacrilegious plunder on the part of Henry VIII. and of his servile parliament, after the proceeds of the abbeys had been exhausted. The advisers of the child Edward, being partisans of the new opinions, saw how the denial of purgatory as well as of the sacrifice of the mass would give a colour to their plans of robbery. The vested rights of the chantry priests were respected if only they subscribed the king's supremacy ; for they received a pension equal to their average net income. But the vested rights of the souls in purgatory were not respected, and I conclude this chapter with a history related by Matthew Paris, illustrative of their privation. ' In the year 1161, Bartholomew, a religious man well versed in theological studies, was consecrated bishop of Exeter. Of this vener- able man there is a well-known history related. Intent on gaining souls. Bishop Bartholomew, accompanied by his clerks, made a visita- tion of his diocese. It chanced that in a certain country town his bedroom looked into the churchyard. About the middle of the night he awoke to recite the night office, and finding the light was extinguished that usually burnt before him, he chid his chamberlain for his negligence, and bade him go quickly and fetch a light. While waiting for his return the bishop heard voices coming from the churchyard as of a great multitude of children, lamenting, " Alas ! who will now pray for us and give us alms, or will celebrate masses for us ? " He was greatly astonished, and wondered what this could signify. Meanwhile his chamberlain, not finding a light in the hall or kitchen, went out into the town, but long sought in vain. At last he saw a light in a house quite at the extremity of the town. He hastened thither and entering it found a corpse, the parish priest, and many people of either sex who were weeping and tearing their hair in their grief. But the chamberlain tarried not, he lighted his lantern, and, hurrying back to the bishop, told him what had detained him and how he had at last succeeded. They sang matins together, and when day broke the bishop sent for the priest and some of the townspeople, and inquired carefully of them who was the man lately deceased and what sort of life he had led. They all declared that he had been a just and Godfearing man, the father of orphans, and the consoler of THE CRY OF THE SOULS. 163 the afflicted, and that he had dunng his Hfe given aH his property to the poor and to strangers. Further, he had at his own expense main- tained a priest in his house, who every day said prayers and offered mass for the holy souls. When the bishop heard this, he at once un- deistood that the voices proceeding from the churchyard were the voices of the souls that bewailed the death of him, through whose chanty they had been consoled in their pains. Then the bishop summoned the priest who had used to celebrate masses for the dead, and gave him a portion in the parish church, enjoining on him to continue the same work of mercy for the rest of his life.' May I express a hope that from our ancient churchyards and desolate churches the cry of the holy souls bereft of the pious foun- dations of our forefathers may be heard in spirit by many of my readers, and that by prayers and sacrifices they may endeavour to mitigate the loss ? M 2 164 CHAPTER XII. CANONS, MONKS, AND NUNS. It is a disadvantage intrinsic to the subject of this work that, having to pass in review various classes of men and women, I can treat of one side only of their life, an important and noble phase indeed, yet not that which was most characteristic. In many respects it would be incongruous to group together canons, monks, and nuns, yet it is not so in their relations to the Holy Eucharist. If a cathedral chap- ter has not much in common with a convent of nuns, the monks will supply a connecting link, sharing with the former in the solem- nity of worship, and with the latter in the discipline of the religious life. In the churches of all, though psalmody or the divine office occupied daily a loager time than was devoted to the Eucharistic Rites, yet these held a higher place, whether looked upon as spiritual exercises or as acts of homage paid to God. To all, the chapter or conventual mass was the principal act of each day. It is uncertain whether the Holy Sacrifice was daily offered in the Columban monasteries of Scotland in the early ages ; but there is no doubt that its omission for even a day in later times was regarded in every part of Great Britain as a neglect of rule. Reform always began at this point, as we have seen in the case of the Culdees of Scotland and of the secular canons of Winchester. When in the thirteenth century Archbishop Peckham visited the Welsh dioceses, he found, owing principally to the long wars with England, that ecclesiastical discipline had fallen into decay. In the various mea- sures taken for its re-establishment the restoration of the day and night office and of the daily mass held a first place. ^ I have now to speak of the public worship of cathedral, collegiate, and monastic churches, as well as of the private masses of canons and monks. Then, after treating of the communions of the lay brethren and of nuns, I shall pass to the devotion to our Lord's abiding Presence, which was common to them all. ' Injunctions for the diocese of St. Asaph, A.D. 1284, Had dan and Stubbs, i, 565 ; for the diocese of St. David, 26. 571-573. PUBLIC MASSES. 165 I. Cathedrals. The order of the day was not precisely the same in all well- regulated cathedrals ; yet as the main features were alike, one or two examples will be sufficient to give a general view of the worship offered to God in the mother churches of every diocese of Great Britain, from Christ Church, Canterbury, to St. Magnus in the Orkneys. The statutes of the cathedral church of Aberdeen were drawn up in 1256 by Bishop Peter de Ramsay, with the approbation of Pope Innocent IV. This bishop appointed thirteen prebendaries ; and in addition to these, thirteen vicars, of whom seven were priests, three deacons, and three sub-deacons. There were daily two regularly fixed masses, one of our Lady at an early hour, and the High Mass at nine o'clock, and two of the vicars were appointed by turns to celebrate them for a week. Both these masses were sung, the first by the celebrant and choir, the second with the assistance of deacon and sub-deacon. All the other priests, unless prevented by reason- able cause, had to say mass daily for the dead. By degrees the number of prebendaries was increased to twenty- nine, and that of perpetual vicars to twenty, besides two deacons and two sub-deacons. And before the Reformation no less than sixty- eight anniversaries, most of them being foundations made by the clergy themselves, were celebrated in this cathedral. In 1506 Bishop William Elphinstone, the illustrious founder ot the University of Aberdeen, reformed his cathedral services and added to their solemnity. The mass of the Blessed Virgin was sung daily at six, the principal mass at ten, and the vespers at four, p.m. This order continued until Calvinism substituted popular hymn-singing and the soliloquies of the minister for the adorable sacrifice and the perpetual commemoration of Christ's Death.' At the beginning of the thirteenth century the constitutions of Lichfield provided that the mass of the Blessed Virgin be sung every day before Prime, and after the Chapter, mass for the dead but without deacon or sub-deacon. About noon the High Mass was celebrated with deacon and sub-deacon, and on double feasts, with two deacons and two sub-deacons.^ In 1428 Bishop William Hey- ' Registr. Aberdon. ii. 47, 102 (Spalding Club). Besides the clergy there were six choristers. These were tonsured like religious, and wore a blue cassock with surplice ; and before the matins of the day they had to recite in a low but audible voice the matins of our Lady in front of her altar. (7(5. pp. 114 iic) - Wilkins, i. 496. 1 66 CANONS, MONKS, AND NUNS. worth remodelled the constitutions of this cathedral. Mass was to be celebrated at five, six, and every subsequent hour till ten. At ten the High Mass began ; and a low mass for wayfarers was to begin immediately after the consecration in the High Mass.^ n. Collegiate Churches. Besides the cathedral church of each diocese, the piety and generosity of bishops, nobles, and citizens had erected and endowed many collegiate churches, where the cathedral model of worship was closely followed by a body of priests called Fellows or Secular Canons, living together in community. A certain number of them usually had the care of the parish in which the church was situated. The statutes of Ottery St. Mary's, drawn up by John Grandison, bishop of Exeter (1327-69), require that on every day of the year, except Good Friday and Holy Saturday, a solemn mass of the Blessed Virgin be sung in her chapel before Prime. At this mass two vicars were to be present, ex officio. This, however, did not satisfy the zeal of the pious bishop. He writes as follows : ' Let one canon at least, who desires to have the blessing of our Lady, be present at her mass, to see that all is done properly and devoutly, likewise the other canons and vicars, who are not then reasonably occupied or saying their private masses, should go to the mass of the Blessed Virgin — if they love her better than their own vanities — that they may obtain the blessing of the mother of Christ and the grace of her Son more abundantly in their necessities,' He granted an indulgence of twenty days each time they assisted at this mass. All the priests, whether canons or vicars, were to celebrate at least twice a week. The High Mass was sung at a later hour.^ Richard, Duke of Gloucester, afterwards King Richard III., founded in 1478 a college at Middleham, and he himself drew up the statutes. Matins began at 6 a.m. from the Annunciation to Michaelmas, and at 7 a.m. during the rest of the year. They were sung by the Dean, the six priests, and the clerks ; but Prime, Tierce, Sext, and None by only two priests and the clerks. These Hours were followed by our Lady's Mass daily, except on Friday, when the Mass of the Name of Jesus was sung. On the feasts of the Blessed Virgin the High Mass was sung in her honour, and that of the Holy Name was used to take the place of the early Lady Mass. Every day the High Mass was celebrated with the presence of the whole college and choir. On Wednesday a Requiem Mass followed the ' Wilkins, iii. 504. - Oliver, Monasficotj Exoniense, p. 269. PRIVATE MASSES. 167 Mass of our Lady. The vespers commenced at 4 p.m. from the Annunciation to Michaehnas, and at an earlier hour in winter. At the end of vespers a solemn anthem of the Blessed Virgin was sung at the lectern in the midst of the choir ; and every Friday between 5 and 6 was sung the anthem of Jesus, followed by the Stella Civli} III. Abbeys and Monastic Churches. Many of the English cathedrals were served by monks, and the services of the greater monastic churches in general character resem- bled those of cathedrals. It would require a special treatise to show fully and in detail the variations in worship and ritual of the different religious orders, and the modifications that took place in each succeeding century. But it will suffice for our present inquiry, if, in addition to what is incidentally said elsewhere in this work on the religious life, I here give a few regulations regarding the private masses of the priest-monks and the communions of the lay brethren. By the constitutions of the papal legate Othobonus, in 1268, the superiors of religious were instructed to watch over the frequent confessions of all their subjects, and to take cognisance of such priests as frequently omitted to celebrate mass.^ In the visitation held by Archbishop Winchelsey of his own church of Canterbury in 1298, it was decreed that no priest should abstain from mass for eight days without giving the reason to the prior or his substitute. If he neglected to do this, he could not return to the altar to cele- brate .again at his own discretion.^ By the constitutions of Benedict XII, for the Benedictines or Black Monks, which were published by the abbots of St. Mary's, York, and St. Alban's, in 1337, it was decreed that all priests residing in the abbey must celebrate at least two or three times a week, and those in the universities at least once a week." A similar constitu- tion was made by the same pope for the canons regular of St. Augiistine.^ A hundred years before, the monks of St Alban's had of their own accord legislated as follows : 'Since the monasteries are maintained by the alms and gifts of benefactors now dead, that their souls be not neglected and deprived of the masses due to them, it is decreed that whoever shall refrain from celebrating for four days must be secretly admonished by the abbot or prior, and if he do not ' Archaol. Journal, xiv. pp. 160-170. 2 Wilkins, ii. 18. In the 53rd chapter of the Constitutions. s Ih. ii, 245. ■• lb. ii. 610. ^ lb, ii. 64S. i68 CANONS, MONKS, AND NUNS. amend and show reasonable cause for his omission, on the following day he shall be publicly accused in the Chapter." The care of the monks for benefactors and for the dead is very conspicuous throughout their annals. Thus we read in 1350, in the Annals of Evesham, that it was the ancient and laudable custom in that convent to serve out for the soul of every monk, for a whole year after his decease, his stated allowance in the refectory, in the same manner as when he was alive, and afterwards to distribute it to the poor. ' But,' to quote the words of the Abbot William, ' since so many have perished (by the pestilence) this is now very burden- some. However, that the souls may not suffer, and that the burden may be relieved, William de Stone, who is affiliated to this house, has granted lands from which money is assigned to the keeper of the Blessed Virgin's altar in the crypt, who is to provide a chaplain to celebrate mass for those who have perished in the pestilence, every day immediately after the conventual mass at the altar of St. Stephen.'-' This document refers to the dreadful pestilence in 1350, and leads me to a reflection on that and similar calamities. The decay in religious houses was in great measure owing to the ' black death ' and subsequent plagues in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The few surviving inmates could not keep the rule, and to supply vacancies new members were admitted with less discretion than before. Dr. Oliver has gathered from the episcopal registers of Exeter some starding details of the plague of 1349 and following years. ' Not a single inmate of Sandown Hospital escaped death, and two abbesses, eleven priors, and very many canons fell victims in T349. When in 1361 the plague broke out again, it carried off two abbesses at Wherewell, two abbesses at St. Mary's, Winchester, the Abbot of Chertsey, and eight or nine priors of various houses.' The havoc in the northern dioceses was no less terrible than in the south. Canon Raine, in his ' Introduction to the Northern Regis- ters,' writes of the year 1349 : ' There were not priests enough within the province (of York) to administer the sacraments of the Church. The numerous vacancies recorded in the livings during the year show that the Yorkshire priests had fallen like leaves before the gale. They at least did not shrink from the performance of their duty. The strongest evidence of the awfulness of the mortality is to be found in the license which was granted by Pope Clement VI. to Archbishop Zouche, enabling him to hold supplementary ordinations, ' Statutes of 1249, in Matthew Paris (ed. Wats.), Addit. p. 171. "^ Tindall's Evesham, p. 192. CARE FOR THE POOR. 169 to supply the ravages which the plague made among the ranks of the clergy.' ' On October 24, 1348, at the news of the approach of the pestilence, William Edyndon, bishop of Winchester, ordered the seven penitential and fifteen gradual psalms to be recited in his cathedral on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and on the latter day also the Litany of the Saints. The people were earnestly invited to penance and confession, A procession was made through the city, in which the people joined, walking barefoot, fasting, and reciting the ' Our Father,' and ' Hail Mary.' The procession was followed by mass in the cathedral. ^ The sovereign Pontiff granted a plenary indulgence during the pestilence, on condition of receiving the sacraments.^ The plagues of the fourteenth century tempt me to relate another history. Ralph Haget, abbot of Fountains, of a noble family, had followed the profession of arms till the age of thirty. The old writer of his life tells us of the marvellous sweetness he experienced even as a novice when receiving holy communion ; but still more edifying is the account of his eagerness to impart some of that sweetness to con- sole the last moments of the poor. ' Incessant rain had produced a grievous famine among the common people in 1194, which brought in its train an acute fever, so contagious and fatal that there were scarcely any found to nurse the sick or to bury the dead. The ordinary preparations for funerals were dispensed with, and unless a person was of consequence or wealth, he was committed to the earth within the hour in which he died. In many places even separate graves could not be made, and the dead were deposited together in pits dug for the purpose. The houseless poor congregated at the gate of Fountains in so great a multitude that shelter could not immediately be provided for them all. The abbot, therefore, ordered huts — like shepherds' huts — to be made with branches of trees cut from the adjacent wood, in which the famished people were enter- tained. He procured diligent persons who ministered to their necessities, and he appointed priests who daily visited the sick and the dying, received their confessions, administered the viaticum, and entombed the dead with Christian rites.' '* From this digression I proceed to the communion of monks who were not priests, and of nuns. ' Historical Papers and Letters from the Northern Registers, p. xxxi. (Rolls Series), 1873. ' Edyndon Register, MS. torn. ii. fol. 17. ^ //'. fol. 19-21. * Memorials of Fountains, pp. 123 and Ixi, (Surtees Society, 1863.) I70 CANONS, MONKS, AND NUNS. The Constitution of Benedict XII. for the Benedictines in 1337, prescribed weekly confession and at least monthly communion to the monks who were not priests.^ The rule of St. Gilbert of Sempringham, the only rule of purely English origin, prescribes that the canons, when raised to the priest- hood, are to celebrate at the will of their priors. The canons who are not priests must communicate every Sunday, or some other day in the week, and whenever they minister at the altar in vestments on double or principal feasts, but not at masses of the dead. The lay brothers and choir novices as well as the sisters — for St. Gilbert founded a double order — are to receive communion only eight times in the year, unless by the judgment of their superior for some good cause they receive oftener or not so often. The eight communion days were, Christmas Day, the Purification, Assumption, and Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, Thursday in Holy Week, Easter Sunday, Pente- cost, and All Saints, The lay novices, both male and female, were to receive only thrice in the year, at Christmas, Sheer Thursday {dies absohitiofiis), and Easter. If any were prevented by occupations or obedience {i.e. absence from the monastery) from communicating on the appointed day, they were to supply on the first convenient oppor- tunity. If anyone neglected communion on the day fixed and for a week afterwards, he was to receive three disciplines in the Chapter, unless illness or some good reason had excused him.^ An old English Franciscan Manual, quoted by Mr. Brewer,^ states that the statutes made in the General Chapter called Bercy- nonde ordain that ' Every brother shalle have a confessor assigned hym by the wardene, to the whiche he shallbe at the lest in the weke be shrivyn ii tymes, and ons in fourtnyghte too be howselyd in the high mas, but yf he be dispensid withalle of the presedent.' Weekly communion for those dangerously sick appears to have been the general rule in the various orders. As to the mode of communion ; among the Gilbertines, the choir brethren, or canons who were not priests, served the masses of their brethren and communicated at various altars. The lay brethren were to receive at the early mass, and, if prevented, at the High Mass.-* The rule of St. Bridget of Sweden for her nuns was tliat they should be bound to confess at least three times a year, but were at ' Wilkins, ii. 6io. 2 Dugdale, Monast. Angl. vol. vi. part ii. pp. xliv-lxii. ^ Monumenia Franciscana, p. 576 (Rolls Series, 1858). ■• Dugdale, ttln supra, p. Ixii. COMMUNIONS OF NUNS. 17^ liberty to confess on any day. Communion was to be received on Easter Day, Ascension, Pentecost, and Christmas Day, but those whom God had inspired with greater devotion might, with the advice of the confessor, communicate every Saturday. In the additional rules made for the English foundation of Sion in the fifteenth century, it was prescribed that the bishop at his visitation should inquire, ' If any go unconfessed seven days together without a reasonable impe- diment known and allowed by her ghostly father ; ' 'If any go un- confessed fourteen days through her own default ; ' ' If any sister on the days of precept of the rule withdraw herself from communion without license or forbidding of her confessor ; ' and also ' If any sister be "comened" any other day than the days of precept or SaKirdays, without license of the confessor.' ' This rule enters into details, by which we find the communion could sometimes be given after mass, as well as during mass ; that the Confiteor was said aloud by the communicants, and that a com- munion cloth or towel ^ was held in their hands, or else spread before them by the assistant acolytes.^ The lay brothers either communi- cated at the mass they served, or all together at the conventual mass. It is probable that communions in religious houses were much more frequent than the mere precept of the various rules might suggest. Yet it is certain that they were rare compared with those of the present day. That the nuns were taught to supply by spiritual communion, is evident from the following exhortation : ' Forasmuch as they that are present and hear mass may receive our Lord spiritually at every mass, like as the priest receiveth Him in the sacrament, therefore, in time of Agnus Dei, and while the priest useth,'' ye ought to dispose you full diligently and devoutly, and with great fervour and ghostly desire, to stretch out your love and devo- tion reverently to our Lord, that ye lose not so great a ghostly fruit, and be not prived of the sweetness of that heavenly feast, with which ye may be fed at each mass that ye hear, if ye will desirously set your heart thereto.'^ ' Aungier, History of Sion, pp. 253, 277. - In an inventory of St. Andrew's, Bridport, 29 Henry VI., is the following entry: — 'A longe towelle, y wrouztte to howselle pepylle, of v ycrdys longe. ' Sixth Report of Historical MSS. Com., parti, p. 477. 8 History of Sion, pp. 308, 328. ■• To use was a common expression for to communicate. A rubrick of the Hereford Missal has 'usque ad usum,' and 'antequam utatur.' (See Lay Folks' Mass Book, pp. 381-2.) ^ Mirror of our Lady, written circ. 1430 (E. E. T. Society's ed. p. 331). 172 CANONS, MONKS, AND NUNS. IV. Adoration. I now come to another and an important aspect of the monastic life ; I refer to the silent adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and to the prayers poured out before the altar. Robert Grosseteste, the learned and pious bishop of Lincoln, (1235-1253), thus writes to the monks of Peterborough: 'In your monastery continually dwells the King of heaven, not only by His Divinity, but in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, by the true substance of the Flesh," which He took from the Virgin Mary ;' the bishop then goes on to exhort the religious to think often of this Presence and to honour It by the sanctity of their lives. ^ These three lines, like a vivid flash of lightning, reveal the exisience of a whole region of devo- tion, but like the lightning they give only a momentary glimpse and all is dark again. Vainly we strive to penetrate that darkness, for it has pleased God that the record of the prayers and tears, the acts of love and gratitude and adoration, that for centuries were offered before countless altars in England, should be reserved for eternity. Men who read hastily or unsympathetically the monastic chronicles that have been preserved complain that the monks seem to have been occupied in nothing but in increasing their possessions, or in quarrelling about their rights. It would be as reasonable to expect that a man's correspondence with his lawyer and steward should reveal his literary occupations or his domestic virtues, as that the chronicles of a monastery should make known the daily life and devotion of its inmates. They are little more than historical treatises on the origin of the title-deeds and charters in the muniment room. That there was a very different aspect of the religious life besides that of acquisition and of strife will be admitted by all who have any familiarity with the subject ; nevertheless, not even those who have spent a lifetime among mediaeval documents can recall the life of prayer and contemplation before the altar, except by means of ana- logy with what may be seen to-day in every convent chapel or monastic church. Judged by that analogy, what holy, what lovely pictures does mediaeval England bring to the imagination ! Milton had nothing but hatred for the Catholic doctrine of the Blessed Eucharist, yet he had caught a glimpse of its effects in his travels, the memory of which inspired the line, Pensive nun, devout and pure ; and Wordsworth almost touched the mystery of the Real Presence when he wrote : ' Grosseteste's Letters, Ep. 57 (Rolls Series). S/Ji THOMAS MORE. 173 It is a beauteous evening, calm and free ; The holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration ; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity. Surely this beautiful image drawn from what Wordsworth had seen, a nun before the tabernacle, ought to have arrested his pen when, in obedience to Protestant tradition, he wrote his sonnet on Transubstantiation, and spoke of ' rites that trample upon soul and sense.' The same poet has borne noble testimony ' to saintly Fisher and unbending More.' Though neither of these was a monk, yet both were the willing associates of the holiest monks of the day, and both strengthened a holy life and prepared for a holy death by fervent adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. With their testimony, then, I can appropriately conclude this chapter. A prayer of Sir Thomas More has fortunately been preserved, in which occur the following words : • ' O sweet Saviour Christ, by the divers torments of Thy most bitter Passion, take from me, good Lord, this lukewarm fashion or rather key-cold manner of meditation, and this dulness in praying to Thee. And give me Thy grace to long for Thy Holy Sacraments, and specially to rejoice in the Presence of Thy blessed Body, sweet Saviour Christ, in the holy Sacrament of the Altar, and duly to thank Thee for Thy gracious visitation therewith, and at that high Memo- rial with tender compassion to remember and consider Thy most bitter Passion. Make us, good Lord, participant of that holy Sa- crament this day, and eveiy day make us all lively members, sweet Saviour Christ, of Thine holy mystical body Thy Catholic Church.' Such was the faith and devotion of Sir Thomas More, if not learnt, yet fostered by his sojourn among the Carthusians. A pas- sage from the controversial writings of his holy friend and fellow- martyr. Bishop Fisher, will bring us more directly to the monastic life. It occurs in his book written in answer to CEcolampadius. CEcolampadius had been a monk in the order of St. Bridget. When he had fallen away from the Catholic faith, under the influence of Zuingle, lie wrote a treatise against the Real Presence with such a show of piety and reason that he almost won over Erasmus to Protestantism. Its effect was very different on Fisher, who had not only learning to refute its historical fallacies, but that deep sanctity which detected and shrank with horror from its false unction and ' It is printed in the Appendix to Knight's Life of Erasinuiy 174 CANONS, MONKS, AND NUNS. very real impiety. Amongst other arguments, CEcolampadius made use of a grotesque kind of appeal to conscience for sincerity and earnestness, Fisher quotes from him the following words : ' If we really with the whole heart believed that Christ was present in the Eucharist, it would be a wonder if we could be drawn away from adoring Him, and not lie prostrate before that bread day and night, and yet we only do so morning and evening, though indeed the superstition of some monasteries has almost gone as far as this.' His meaning appears to be : ' Be honest and look into your hearts and lives, and you will find that you do not believe this doctrine of the Real Presence at all. You have been only forcing yourselves and making pretence of believing it. Have then the courage to cast it off, and worship God in sincerity and freedom of soul.' Fisher answers this appeal by showing that it is founded on exaggeration, as well as sophistical in its deductions, and that such a mode of argument might be equally well directed against belief in the Blessed Trinity or the existence of God. ' Tell me, CEcolampa- dius,' he says, ' do you really believe with all your heart that the Blessed Trinity is everywhere present ? If so, how is it that you suffer yourself to be drawn from adoration ? Why are you not day and night on your knees, and not only morning and evening, since the Blessed Trinity seeks to be adored in spirit and in truth in every place? You will say that the Blessed Trinity is invisible. True, yet He is present, as every faithful man believes. Still no one is found who remains prostrate before Him always, day and night. Why then do you find it strange that we suffer ourselves to be with- drawn from the adoration of Christ in His Sacrament, since He is neither better nor more bountiful, nor more powerful, nor indeed, as regards His sacramental presence, more visible to the eyes, than the Blessed Trinity ? * As to what you say to monasteries, who is there to be free from ■ your cavils ? First you chide Catholics in general, as if they did not believe in the Eucharist, because they are not prostrate day and night before It ; and then again, when you find that some strive to do this, you chide them too and call them superstitious. Had you but tasted one drop of the sweetness which inebriates the souls of those religious from their worship of this Sacrament, you would never have written as you have, nor have apostatised from the reli- gion that you formerly professed.' ' In these last words Fisher gives a key which unlocks much that * Fisher, Dc Vcriiaic Corp. et Sang. i. cap. 21. DEATH OF FISHER. 175 is mysterious in the great defection that was already begun on the Continent, and was about to begin in England. It is a fearful thing to contemplate the number of priests who floated up and down on the currents of religious change, intent only on retaining their bene- fices, and the facility with which throughout England so many of the monks, at the bidding of Henry, repudiated the Sovereign Pontiff in the most outrageous terms, and afterwards denounced the religious life of which they had made profession. They had not tasted that the Lord is sweet, or they never would have thus apostatised. It is true that their apostasy did not during the reign of Henry touch directly on the Holy Eucharist, yet devotion to the Holy Eucharist would have preserved them — as it did preserve many — from schism even at the cost of life. That Fisher himself owed his glorious death to his tender love for Jesus Christ in the mystery of His love will not be doubted by those who will ponder the following account given of him by Hall. What this author states he had himself gathered from the lips of eyewitnesses. ' He never omitted so much as one collect of his daily service, and that he used to say commonly to himself aloud without the help of any chaplain, not in such speed or hasty manner to be at an end as many will do, but in most reverend and devout manner, so dis- tinctly and treatably pronouncing every word, that he seemed a very devourer of heavenly food, never satiate nor filled therewith. In so much as, talking on a time with a Carthusian monk, who much com- mended his zeal and diligent pains in compiling his book against Luther, he answered again, saying that he wished that time of writ- ing had been spent in prayer, thinking that prayer would have done more good and was of more merit. ' x^nd to help his devotion he caused a great hole to be digged through the wall of his church at Rochester, whereby he might the more commodiously have prospect into the church at mass and evensong times. When he himself should say mass, as many times he used to do, if he were not letted by some urgent and great cause, ye might then perceive in him such earnest devotion, that many times the tears would fall from his cheeks. ' And lest that the memory of death might hap to slip from his mind, he always accustomed to set upon one end of the altar a dead man's skull, which was also set before him at his table as he dined or supped. And in all his prayers and talk he used continually a special reverence and devotion to the name of Jesus. . . . When night was come, which commonly brings rest to all creatures, then would he many times dispatch away his servants and fall to his 176 CANONS, MONKS, AND NUNS. prayers a long space. And after he had ended the same, he laid him down upon a poor hard couch of straw and mats (for other bed he used none) provided at Rochester in his closet near the cathedral church where he might look into the choir and hear divine service. And being laid he never rested above four hours at a time, but straightway rose and ended the rest of his devout prayers.'' Bishop Fisher was deprived of the power of offering the Holy Sacrifice during his long imprisonment, but not of the memory of its sweetness br the influence of its grace. He went like Elias in the strength of that food to the Mount of God. When the last hour came, as he left his prison for the scaffold he opened his New Testa- ment to find some word of consolation. ' This is life eternal, to know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.'^ Such were the words on which his eyes fell. He closed the book saying : ' Here is even learning enough for me to my life's end.' As he mounted the scaffold the south-east sun shone very brightly in his face, whereupon he exclaimed, lifting up his hands : ' Draw near to Him and be enlightened, and your countenances shall not be put to shame. '^ Thus did he, who had ever sought the face of God in His hidden mystery, pass into the Beatific Vision. > Hall's MS. Life of Fisher. - John xvii. 3. ^ Ps. xxxiii. 6. "^n CHAPTER XIII. THE SOLITARY LIFE, The subject of the present chapter — The SoHtary Life — may seem at first sight to be misplaced in a history of Holy Communion. Yet in reality there is not only no contradiction but a very close analogy between the Christian hermit and that mystery of condescension and persevering love which has caused our Lord to be called by some the Hermit of our tabernacles. Multitudes of men and women have, with the full sanction of the Church, withdrawn themselves from their fellow-creatures to live solitary by themselves ; and their seclusion has had for one of its motives, and certainly for its sustaining force, a closer intercourse with Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. After a slight sketch of the nature and history of the solitary life, I will trace its connection with the Blessed Sacrament in the history of this land. It is strange how some Protestant writers, with the Old and New Testaments in their hands, seem to take it for granted that all pious men and women ought to live on the same spiritual level. In their study of Catholic history they seem unable to comprehend that those who might choose a specially austere or otherwise extraordinary state of life did not thereby condemn, or intend to condemn, any other whose vocation was less sublime. The Rev. Canon Perry has edited some writings of Richard Rolle of Hampole, an English hermit of the fourteenth century. He finds that his author, having to speak of the ordinary life in the world and its duties, explains the obligation and extols the merit of fulfilling them. In this Richard writes the merest commonplace, yet Canon Perry is bewildered and exults as if he had discovered a rare treasure. ' This,' he exclaims, ' for his age and profession, is highly creditable to the hermit. Of course the contem- plative life is in his view the higher state, but it is much to find an anchorite allowing even any possibility of merit to the despised active life.' Again, after recording some good but quite ordinary advice of Richard's about solid virtue, he makes the following comment : ' The man who could write this in an age of monkery and amidst the dci- VOL. II. N 173 THE SOLITARY LIFE. fication of the principle of asceticism, cannot be said to have been without some insight into the divine life.' ' Now Asceticism simply means practice, exercise or discipline of self. It is self-denial carried out thoroughly in the mortification of the unruly passions. In what sense it can be taken as the opposite of the divine life in the human soul, or how the divine Ufe is possible without it, is simply unintelli- gible. Canon Perry says of Richard RoUe, ' He was no Simeon Stylites, to court and practise bodily austerities simply for their own sakes,' which is quite true, but this may be said of all hermits and monks, St. Simeon Stylites not being excluded. But why, I may ask, is this style of writing confined to the criticism of post-Apostolic saints ? Why is it not applied to St. John the Baptist for instance ? why is he not patronised, and patted on the back like Richard Rolle, because he condescended, in spite of his asceticism, to give plain precepts to soldiers and to tax-gatherers ? Or why is not Anna sneered at ' Avho departed not from the Temple, by fastings and prayers serving night and day,' - and that at the advanced age of eighty four ? Proper natural feeling and simple common sense might have led the good woman to desist then from ascetic practices, even though such motives were powerless to bring down Simeon from his pillar. I venture, however, to hope that anyone who may read these historical studies will have spiritual discernment enough to understand the teaching of St. Paul, that while the majority must sanctify themselves in marriage and the education of children,^ there are still a few whose vocation it is ' to continue in supplications and prayers night and day,' •• in holy widowhood, or in the virginal state, to ' think on the things of the Lord, liow they may be holy both in body and in spirit.' ^ I pass now to the history of the solitary life in Great Britain. A life of voluntary religious seclusion has had folio aers in Britain since the introduction oi Christianity. We are told that Britons were among the crowds who surrounded the column of St. Simeon Sty- lites, whose fame in the fifth century spread throughout the whole Christian world ; " and if they did not imitate jirecisely the form of his extraordinary penance, it is ■'. cry probable that the hermits of the British fens in winter ctjualled in austerity the Eastern solitaries who ' Preface to Rkliard Ko'Jc (E. E. T. Society, 1 866). - Luke ii. 37. ^ i Tim. ii. 15. ^ See I Tim. v. 4, 5. ^ i Cor. vii. 34. 8 ' From the West there came many, as Britons, .Sj)aniard.s, Gauls, and from all the intervening comitrie?.' — Life of St. Simeon, apud Bulland, Ada SS. turn. i. 277. Simeon died in 459. /7^S ORIGIN. 179 endured the blaze of the summer sun. Thebkak, storm-swept coasts of Cornwall, especially in the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, were likewise the abode of many holy hermits, whose names are still preserved by the churches and villages that sprang from their oratories and cells. And the solitary life at no time lost its charm for the Welsh. Hermits are mentioned in the laws of Howell the Good in the tenth century.^ In the twelfth, Giraldus, who was ever more prone to blame than to praise, declared emphatically that * nowhere will you be able to find hermits and anchorets of greater austerity or more truly spiritual than in Wales.' ^ History bears the same testi- mony to the Picts and Scots. The solitary life came into honour with the immediate disciples of St. Columba, and did not decline in the dark days of heathen desolation or civil strife. For those causes that work the ruin of a life of community and of organised rule have the contrary effect on the eremitical life. Hardship and persecution keep away from the unhonoured cells all pretenders and half-hearted aspirants, and fill them with the heroic men who retire from a world they cannot otherwise aid, to weep before God over its woes and to make reparation for its crimes. Although seclusion and continual prayer day and night have been practised by Christians in all ages since the commencement of the Church, yet the eremitical life has taken an external form principally by means of persecutions. As in the days of which the Apostle speaks to the Hebrews, ' ihey wan- dered about in sheep-skins, in goat-skins, being in want, distressed, afflicted, of whom the world was not worthy ; wandering in deserts, in mountains, and in dens, and in caves of the earth.' ^ Many who thus began this life under compulsion, found s j great a sweetness in the uninterrupted intercourse with God, and in the perfect subjection of the body to the soul, that they clung to it when they might have returned to an easier mode of life. And their words and example l)rovoked others to emulation. Hence when St. Margaret went to Scotland, while she found society rude and vicious, and ecclesiastical discipline in decay, the country abounded with holy solitaries. Some uf them were her own Saxoii countrymen driven by the Norman conqueror into exile. ' There were very many,' says her confessor and biographer, ' dwelling in cells in different parts of the Scotch kingdom, and by their great austerity living rather the lives of angels than of men. The c^ucen was wont to venerate and to show her love to Christ in these His servants, and would frequently visit and ' Iladdan and SiuIjIjs, i. 265. - lb. 662. ^ llek XK 37, 3ii. ^ 2 l8o THE SOLITARY LIFE. converse with them and commend herself to their prayers. And when she could not induce them to receive from her hands any earthly gift, she earnestly begged them to impose on her by precejit some alms or work of mercy ; and she immediately and devoutly fulfilled whatever they suggested, whether it was succouring the poor and needy, pro- curing the liberty of captives, or assisting those who were in misery and oppression.' ' Similar impulses drove both Saxons and Normans to emulate the solitary life of the Celtic hermits. The solitary life was practised both by men and women ; among the former some were priests, and some were monks, who, after spending a considerable time under monastic discipline, received the permission of their abbots to pursue a more austere hfe in solitude, whilst they still remained under their former religious obedience. Sometimes also the lay hermits, without making profession of a mon- astic rule, placed themselves under the care of a neighbouring com- munity. The word Hermit or Eremite (from eremtis, the desert) is properly applied to those solitaries who dwelt in fens, islands, woods, and mountains, who were not strictly enclosed and lived by the produce of a field or garden. The Incluse or Recluse, on the contrary, was confined within fixed and narrow limits, and being thus shut up and unable to procure means of sustenance, except by the assistance of others, lived in the neighbourhood of men. The cell of a recluse was usually built on a bridge, or over a city gate, or against a church, within or in close proximity to a city or town, yet entirely cut off from the citizens and townspeople. In ecclesiastical Latin the former was called Erciiiita, the latter Anachorita, Redusus^ Jndusus, or Retrusiis. The English word in common use was applied to both modes of life. This was ancra, a/icar, or anchor, for men, anc?rs, ancresse, for women who led the life of solitaries.* In process of time it became necessary for the Church to make practical regulations for modes of piety and seclusion that are in their own nature extraordinary and demand extraordinary grace, and might degenerate either into fanaticism or become a cloak for hypocrisy.'^ Hence in later times the bishop's permission was needed by those • Vita S. Margai: cap. 3, n. 19. Bolland, lojunii. * Derived, according to Bosworth, from an, i.e. only, or alone. I hliould have thought it derived through the Latin anacJiorila, from the Greek ai/axiipfif, to retire. ' Constitutions were issued in luigland by S'. Edmund in the tinrieenth cen tury, , and again by Simon Meixliam in the fuuitecntli. ITS VARIETIES. i8i ■who undertook this life, and that for several reasons — to prevent im- posture and scandals ; to give an ecclesiastical status ; and because the eremitical life often required the erection of a chapel and the cele- bration of Holy Mass. In 1240, the bishop of Exeter made a foundation for the maintenance of a recluse near the chapel of St. Lawrence in Crediton ; in 1383, the bishop of the same diocese granted a license to David Bukketore, a poor hermit of the chapel of St. John Baptist, near Tavistock, to have the Holy Sacrifice offered in his chapel.' Entries like these are common in episcopal registers. Both the hermit and recluse entered on the solitary life by taking a special habit and making a solemn profession. The lay hermit did this in the following terms : ' I, N. not wedded, promise and avow to God, and to our Lady Saint Mary, and to all the saints of heaven, in the presence of you, Reverend Father in God, N., bishop of N., to live in perpetual chastity, after the rule of St. Paul, the first hermit, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.' ^ The bishop then prayed as follows : ' O God, who didst feed the Israelites in the desert with manna for forty years, and who didst show Thy delight in the eremitical life both by Thy Son spend- ing forty days and forty nights in the wilderness, and by Thy prophets and saints, grant, we beseech Thee, that this Thy servant, wno chooses as far as in him lies a similar life, may by the eremitical dis- cipline so change, order, and regulate his life, that by persevering progress he may attain to its perfection and at length reach the joys of the perfect. Through our Lord, (S:c.' When the bishop gave him the habit, he admonished him to live chastely, soberly, and holily in vigils, fasts, labour, prayers, and works of mercy.'' That these works of mercy were sometimes of a very humble though useful nature is seen from an entry in Bishop Waynflete's Register, where it is recorded that this bishop grants an indulgence to all who shall assist a hermit who is giving his labour to mend roads and bridges at Farnham.'* The ceremonial for walling up a recluse was much more solemn. It was required that his vocation should be very rigorously tested, and the candidate was warned not to think much of himself because he was thus about to be secluded from the company of men, but ' Oliver, Monastkon Kxoiiicnse, pp. 88, 93. - Bishop Lcicy's Register, iii. fol. 352. * Bishop Lacy's Pontifical, p. 129. The profession w.ts sometimes called ordhiatio. * A.D. 1472. Reg. fol. 157, b. i82 THE SOLITARY LIFE. rather to consider that it was done by God's Providence for his salvation, lest he should sin more grievously if exposed to temptation, or should contaminate others by his bad example. He was to look on himself as one condemned to prison for his crimes, and unworthy of the society of men. He prepared for his seclusion by a general confession and a rigid fast on bread and water, and spent the pre- ceding niglit in vigils. On the morning the bishop, or priest appointed by him to perform the ceremony, stood at the altar with the clergy, and the candidate, if a cleric, lay prostrate, barefoot, in the middle of the choir ; if a layman, outside the entrance of the choir ; if a woman, in the west side of the church, which was set apart for women, 1 while several psalms were sung, together with the litanies and appropriate prayers. At the end of the prayers the candidate received two lighted tapers from the bishop, lessons were read from the Old and New Testaments, and then the solemn profession was made by the anchorite, and the tapers were placed on the altar. The clothing followed, and a sermon was preached to the people. If the anchorite was a priest, he then said the mass of the Holy Ghost ; if a layman or a woman, during the mass said by the bishop or his delegate, the newly professed received communion. A procession was then formed and the anchorite was led to the cell, which was blessed by the bishop. After the blessing of the cell — in the case of a priest, of the oratory and the altar — the bishop coming forth pro- claimed : * If he wish to enter, let him enter ; ' and while the anchorite entered to take possession of his future home, the choir sang the antiphon, ' In Paradisum deducant te angeli,' with the psalm, * In exitu Israel.' Once more the enclosure ^yas sprinkled and incensed ; and the office of extreme unction (the sacramental forms and anointings being of course omitted) was recited, likewise the Commendation of the Soul and the first part of the burial service. A grave inside the cell was opened, and the anchorite laid himself in it, intoning the words : ' This is my rest for ever and ever. Here will I dwell, for I have chosen it.' The bishop cast earth on the body, then raising the anchorite from the grave, he gave him a last word of advice and left the cell. The door was immediately walled up and sealed.^ It has been said that ' nothing short of the insane obstinacy of ' It is thus stated in Bishop Lacy's Pontifical. We have seen (vol. i. p. 192) that in earlier days the north aisle was reserved for women. Perhaps the practice was not uniform, though the sexes seem always to have prayed apart in public worship. * The Office is given in Bishop Lacy's Pontifical, and in the Sanwt Manual. I have completed the one by a few details from the other. NOT rANATICISM. 185 fanaticism could have supported human nature under the self-priva- tions practised by the hermits ;' ^ and Tennyson has been thought to have painted to the life in his soliloquy of St. Simeon Styiites this form of madness in which an unreal and exaggerated sense of guilt struggles in vain with a more powerful consciousness of extraordinary sanctity. History, however, tells us that the bishops who deliberated on the novel mode of penance practised by St. Simeon took an effectual means to try his spirit, and make sure whether he was a saint or a fanatic. They ordered him at once to leave his column, and, as he obeyed without a moment's hesitation, they recognised that he was not guided l)y ' insane obstinacy,' but by humility, and he was allowed to remain. Had he refused obedience, neither his penances nor his miracles would have won for him the slightest con- sideration. It is principally by this test of humility and obedience that the Church in every age distinguishes between extraordinary vocations that con^e from God, and extraordinary delusions. With- out this test we might easily confound St. Francis of Assisi with George Foxe, the founder of the Quakers, or St. John Colombini with the unauthorised laymen who preach in Methodist revivals. It v.ould be useless to try to convince those who take a funda- mentally different view of life from that of the Catholic Church, that men who immured themselves as did recluses were not fanatics. Yet every man who wishes to ascertain the truth, instead of to indulge in theorising, may convince himself that they were not madmen, and that they were sustained in their strange and painful life by many other things besides obstinacy. In the ninth century a rule of life for recluses was drawn up by a monk named Grimlaic. It is not so much an original composition as a compilation from the waitings of the ancient fathers, and the traditions of the solitary life founded on the experience of centuries. It is divided into sixty-nine chapters, and is full of wisdom, and, if I may so say, of calmness and good sense.^ Grimlaic requires in the recluse learning, discretion, and virtue — • long and well tried ; and he considers assiduous meditation of the Holy Scripture, and above all, frequent communion, to be the only sure foundations and bulwarks of the solitary life. ' EncycL Mctrop. quoted by Dr. Ogilvitr in the Imperial Dictionary, stth voce Hermit, - It is printed in Migne's Pairologia, torn. ciii. pp. 576-664. Had Tennyson read this or similar works before he wrote St. Simeon, or Kingsley before com- posing his Hermits, the portraits would have been more real without being less pictures'^ue. 1 84 THE SOLITARY LIFE. We gather also from this rule that the rediisorium or voluntary prison of the solitaries was then constructed so as to hold two or three, for it was not thought good that even solitaries should live quite aione. Each had a separate cell, but a small window gave them means of communication with one another. Through this they could confer on spiritual subjects at certain hours, pray together, and even join in their scanty meals. If possible there was to be attached to each cell a little yard or garden, where they could breathe fresh air and cultivate a few plants. Another window was to look into the monastic church, so that they might take part in all the day and night offices without being seen themselves. At this window only could they in certain cases speak with friends and strangers who came to solicit their prayers and ask for counsel. There was, moreover, an interior window that looked into a room to which their special dis- ciples, who dwelt outside the enclosure, could have access. If the solitaries were priests, they had each a small oratory, blessed by the bishop before they were enclosed, where they might say mass. They were to keep their priestly vestments and altar linen very clean. Each priest had a chasuble, two albs, two amices, two stoles and maniples, two corporals, and two altar cloths.' It will surprise some to learn that in the cell was a small bath or tub (doUu7n) supplied witli water, that, as often as need was, the priest might wash and bathe. * Perhaps,' says Grimlaic,^ ' some will say, St. Antony never bathed. To such I answer shortly, if St. Antony never bathed neither did he ever sing mass. Hence the use of the bath is com- mitted to the discretion of priests, that with due cleanliness they may celebrate the sacred mysteries.' ^ As to the frequency of celebration, it is left to the discretion of each, though the author strongly advises daily celebration or communion. I now proceed to give some details and examples regarding each of the three classes, priests, laymen, and women, who practised the solitary life, distinguishing when necessary between the Hermit and the Recluse. I. Priests. — No statistics have come down to us by which to judge of the extent to which the solitary life of hermits and recluses was practised by priests in Great Britain. Incidental notices in documents lead us to believe that it was by no means rare. The porch at the east end of the north aisle of Durham Cathedral was ' Cap. 49. There were clearly no ' servers' of mass. ^ Cap. 51. ^ ' Ideo balneorum usus in sacerdotum relinquitur arhitrio, ut mundi et digni haheantur sacra mysteria celehrare.' (Cap. 51). ST. CUTHBERT. ^^5 called the Anchorage. It contained an altar where the recluse said mass A small chapel was built on the bridge at CambrKlge, m which the Bishop of Ely granted license to say mass, ^^^^ this d.^^^^^^^^ was served in i399 by a hermit named John Jaye.> J ^^^^f^^ '^ the wall beside Bishopsgate, London/ mentioned m an old will, was^a priest, since the testator asks him to say twenty masses for his soul There may still be seen many hermitages in caves with altars cut out of the rock. That at Knaresborough in Yorkshire is very per- fect. It was occupied by St. Robert. Sir James Sin^-on — .s St. Columba's on Loch Killesport, St. Kieran's on Loch Ivilkerran St Ninian's on the shore of Wigtonshire, St. Molaises on Hoi Island, St. Margaret's at DunfermUne, St. Serf's at ^^^f^J^'; Adrian's at Caplawchy, St. Rule's at St. Andrews.^ Kn.g Henr> \ gave everything necessary for the use of the altar to a pnest-anchont. at Westminster : Jugiter inclusus fundit pro rege pvecatus, Contulit ornatus cui rex altaris ad usus.'' Several of the priest-hermits are honoured as saints. One of the earliest and most famous was St. Cuthbert. ^. ^, r. ,,,,,,, Venerable Bede, who has written so much regarding St. Cuthbeit, does not even tell us whether that great servant of God, during his two periods of seclusion in the Island of Fame, first as monk and afterwards as bishop, ever offered the Holy Sacrifice It j ordy incidentally that we learn that he had an altar in his cell ; for B de made it a rule to set do^vn nothing for which he had not evidence, and as the masses said by St. Cuthbert had no assistants or witnesses besides the holy Angels, his biograi^.er passes by ^ - -^J^^^;^;;; bably deeming it needless to record the mere fact of the ma ses, when he could give no authentic detail of their frequency or devotion^ He has told of the tears w^.ich St. Cuthbert shed w^ien he celebated in public, and this is enough for us to judge what was his piety and compunction in his hermitage. It was certainly the tradition handed down among the monks of Durham, that their holy father Cuthbert had celebrated mass in the hermitage of Fame, for he w^as beUeved sometimes to return to it from his heavenly glory, in order to renew mysteriously the seed rites. In the twelfth century Cuthbert's cell was occupied for forty- . Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, i. 143-148. ^ Test ^'■^'«'- ?' ff ; 3 ArLol. EssaysX 125, quoted by Rev. M. Walcott m Anaent Chunk of Scotland, p. 34?- ,„ „ o • » 4 Memorials of Henry V. p. 72 (Rolls Series). i86 THE SOLITARY LIFE. two years by a hermit named Bartholomew. His biographer writes the following story : — ' On the solemn night of Our Lord's Nativity, Bartholomew, having said the Midnight Mass and Lauds, after a short interval, went out to see if morning had yet dawned over the sea, in order that he might begin the second celebration. On his return he found the candles lighted and a priest of venerable aspect in the sacred vestments stand- ing before the holy altar. As no one came to serve him,' Bartholomew, full of joy and admiration, drew near, and after they had said the Confiteor to each other, they sang the introit Lux fulgebit and the rest in a voice of gladness and jubilation. And Bartholomew after- wards declared that in his joy he sang {clamasse) above his strength. When the sacred mysteries were ended the candles were extinguished without the hand of man, and the venerable priest disappeared from sight ; nor dared the hermit ask him v/ho he was, knowing without any doubt that he was the holy bishop Cuthbert. He told this event to Brother William, from whom I learnt it.' '^ Of the masses said by St. Guthlac, a contemporary of St. Cuth- bert, we have somewhat fuller information, and it is given us by his disciple Felix, an eyewitness of much that he describes. Guthlac, of the Mercian royal family, was born in 673, and trained to arms. At the age of twenty-four he retired into a monastery, and after two years' training in the spiritual life he became a hermit. From the time he left the world to his death, seventeen years later, he never tasted intoxicating drink. On leaving the monastery he went to Croyland, a place then uninhabited, and in the midst of immense fens, the channels through which were known only to a few. Lie was accompanied by four companions. Having found a low reedy island, on which there was a barrow that had been excavated by some seekers for hidden treasure, they made this excavation their cell and oratory, covering it with a shed. Their clothing was made of the skins of beasts, and they took no food until after sunset, and then only barley bread and muddy water. When Guthlac had been a few years ^ in this wild spot, he received a visit from Hedda, bishop of Winchester, who was so delighted with his conversation and know- ledge of the Holy Scriptures that he begged him to receive the ' There were no inhabitants of the island besides the hermit. He seems to have expected that some heavenly server would come, but as none came, and the mysterious priest ' stood waiting, ' he understood that he should serve. 2 Vita, cap. 4, n. 32, apud Bolland, die 24 Junii. ^ Guthlac retired to Croyland in 699, at the age of twenty-six. Hedda died in 705 ; Guthlac was probably about thirty years old when ordained. ST. GUTHLAC AND ST. ULFRIC. 187 priesthood. Guthlac consented, and the bishop immediately con- secrated the Httle oratory that had by this time been built, and ordained Guthlac to serve it. The canons required then, as now, that an interval should elapse between the reception of each order, but Hedda considered that he might dispense in Guthlac's case, and he conferred the various minor and major orders one after another /rr saltitm., apparently in one day. He was not deceived in his expecta- tions regarding Guthlac, who became famous for his virtues and miracles. He died at the age of forty-one, after spending fifteen years at Croyland. Some days before Easter 714, he fell very ill, but ' on Easter Day,' says his biographer, ' rising above his sickness, he immolated the sacrifice of the Lord's Body and the libation of His Blood, and then began to announce to his companion his approaching end. On the night of the Wednesday in Easter week he sat throughout the night in his orator)', leaning his head against the wall and looking towards the altar. From midnight to sunrise the place was illuminated as by a fire. At sunrise the man of God lifted himself up a little, saying, " My son, get ready to depart ; it is time for me to leave this body, and my soul must pass to eternal joy." Having thus spoken he stretched out his hand to the altar, and strengthened himself with the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, and raising his eyes to heaven and stretching out his arms he breathed forth his soul into the joys of everlasting beatitude. The brother who was present immediately saw the house filled with heavenly splendour, and a tower, as it were, of fire pass from earth to heaven, before which the sun became pale, angelic voices filled the air, and the island was perfumed with sweet odours.' ^ It is clear from this account that the Blessed Sacrament was re- served in his oratory, since he did not say mass on the morning of his death when he communicated.- His admonition to his disciple to get ready to depart was in allusion to the instruction previously given that immediately after his death his sister, whom he would never allow to visit him, and who also led a solitary life not far off, should be summoned to take care of his burial. St. Guthlac had sought a spot remote from the habitation of men ; but St. Ulfric, another priest-hermit, built himself a cell contiguous to a church. He lived in the middle of the twelfth century, in a little town called Haselberg in Somersetshire. Several contemporary chroniclers have mentioned the great austerity of his life, his humility, ' Vita S. Gnthlaci, Boll. April, torn. ii. 2 Butler is mistaken in saying that he celebrated mass every morning, as well as in giving his age as forty-^even. He was only forty-one. i88 THE SOLITARY LTFE. and his miracles. The following extract from Matthew Paris shows that he not only said mass in his cell or in the adjoining church, but also exercised, occasionally at least, the office of confessor. ' A man, who was thought to have made a pact with the devil and to be pos- sessed by him, was brought to Ulfric. He took him into his inner cell and kept him there until he had moved him to true penitence, and persuaded him by a good confession to vomit out the poison which the devil had infused. When he had regained his strength, Ulfric showed him the Lord's Body in the appearance of bread, and asked him if he believed. " I do beUeve," answered the man ; " for, wretched and sinful though I am, I see the Body and Blood of my Lord in thy hands in the appearance of flesh." The saint replied : " Thank God ! Let us now pray together that you may receive It in the accustomed species." And thus he gave him communion, and sent him away in peace.' ^ Venerable Bede has given us a beautiful story of the friendship that existed in life and death between two priest-hermits, or rather between a bishop-hermit and a priest-hermit, St. Cuthbert and St. Herbert. The latter had built himself a cell on an island in the centre of one of the Cumberland lakes called Derweiitwater : After long exercise in social cares And offices humane, intent to adore The Deity with undistracted mind, And meditate on everlasting things . In lUter solitude.^ He was known, venerated, and loved by St. Cuthbert, who acted as his spiritual father ; yet they could seldom see each other more than once a year. In 687 Herbert had left his solitude and gone to Car- lisle to meet Cuthbert who was then bishop, and was making the visitation of his vast diocese. Cuthbert, knowing that his end was near, spoke to Herbert, as Elias to Ehseus, bidding him ask some grace or favour, as this would be their last meeting on earth. Her- bert fell at his feet, and begged with tears that he might not survive his holy friend and guide. ' You know,' he said, ' that I have always studied to live according to your direction, and if from ignorance or infirmity I have in any point failed, I have taken pains to chastise myself and amend my fault according to the decision of your will.' The bishop prayed, and told him that his request was granted. Herbert received his purification by a severe illness, so that dying ' Matt. Paris, ad annum 1154. ^2 Wordsworth, Poem on St. Herbert, ST. HERBERT. 189 the same day and hour as St. Cuthbert, March 20, 687, they passed together into the joys of heaven.' In 1374, Thomas de Appleby, bishop of CarUsle, reading this history in Venerable Bede, was so touched by this incident that he issued a mandate to the vicar of Crossthwaite, in which parish Derwentwater was, that, on the anniver- sary of the death of St. Cuthbert and St. Herbert, he should go with his parishioners to the island and cause the mass of St. Cuthbert to be sung there, granting an indulgence of forty days to all who should be present.^ II. Laymen. — From the nature of the case, such occasional inci- dents as the above will be all that is known of men who lived and died in solitude. There is, however, one great exception. A lay- hermit named Godric lived in a place called Finchale, a few miles from Durham. During the last years of his life he was attended by a monk from the abbey named Reginald, who not only carefully noted all that he saw, but gathered from the old man in repeated conversations almost the whole story of his life. There is no book that gives a more vivid and interesting picture of England in the twelfth century than Reginald's Life of St. Godric. ^ Godric was born in Norfolk in the latter half of the eleventh century. Beginning life as an itinerant merchant, he travelled into many countries, as Scotland, Flanders, and Denmark, becoming partner in a ship and at last captain. In all his travels he was accus- tomed to pray and to invoke the various saints whose churches he visited. He made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to St. James of Com- postella, and two to Rome. The sight of Lindisfarne and the memory of St. Cuthbert inspired him with desire of a hermit's life. To prepare himself for it he went to Carlisle, and there frequented the churches, being the first to enter in the morning, the last to leave at night. He learnt by heart the whole of a manual of Latin psalms and hymns that was known as the Psalter of St. Jerome, though it appears that he did not understand the Latin tongue. During his eremitical life he was accustomed daily to recite these psalms and prayers, dividing them into seven portions like the canonical hours, and God rewarded his assiduity by the gift of great and infused knowledge, of extraordinary devotion and sublime contemplation. Nothing can be more beautiful than the picture drawn by his bio- grapher of his life and virtues, revelations and marvellous graces. ' Bede, Hist. iv. 29. ^ The document is given in Nicolson and Burns's History of IVcstinordaiidand Cumberland, vol. ii. app. x. p. 529. ' Vita S, Godcrici, edited in 1S47 by Mi. SLcvcnbon for the Surleei Sucitly. I90 THE SOLITARY LIFE. Unfortunately for my purpose, Reginald is only intent on what is extraordinary, or, at least, what is unknown to those whom he addresses, and he gives no detail regarding divine worship or the reception of the sacraments. Thus he says nothing of Godric's communions when a youth, and as a merchant ; we may suppose that, like most of his countrymen at that date, he communicated about thrice in the year. But it does seem strange that one who delighted, as he did when at Carlisle, in frequenting the churches day and night, should have gone deliberately and by free choice to live for years in an utter solitude, where he could neither take part in an assembly of the faithful, nor even cross the threshold of a church or receive a sacrament. We see the same phenomenon in the lives of many other solitaries, as St. Paul and St. Anthony in early days ; and yet we know the deep reverence they had for the Holy Eucharist. St. Augustine has well said that that Sacrament may be honoured by devout fi equentation or devout abstention ; one thing only It cannot bear— neglect and contempt. And St. Francis of Sales reminds us that there is something higher still than keeping our Lord company, viz., the accomplishment of His Will, a truth that he illustrates from the history of the great hermit, St. John the Baptist, who, as the friend of the Bridegroom, would fain have kept always in the company of his Beloved and so have rejoiced to hear the Bridegroom's voice ; yet to fulfil his austere vocation remained long away from His presence and far from the sound of His voice. This will explain the conduct of St. Godric, who, when sufficiently prepared by his devotion and studies at Carlisle, withdrew into a great forest near Wolsingham in County Durham, living on wild apples and nuts and performing gieat austerities. Wandering through the forest he found another hermit, named yElfric, an old man with whom he took up his abode and under whom he studied the secrets of the solitary life. He lived more than two years in this remote spot utterly unvisited. Neither he nor his companion (who had been a lay brother) ever assisted at mass or received sacraments, so far as we can gather from Reginald's narrative. Yet most certainly they abstained neither through contempt nor through error in faith, for, when yElfric fell dangerously ill, Godric went in search of a priest, begging him to bring the old man the Holy Viaticum ; 'and so he departed out of life with all the rites of Holy Church.' After ^Ifric's death Ciodric went again on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and on his return to England resided as a hermit for a short time at Eskedale near Whitby. His presence displeased the lord of the soil, and he ST. GODRIC, 191 left this hermitage and went to Durham, where he became a kind of sacristan in St. Giles's Church, and though about forty years old, he even sat on the benches with the children of St. Mary's school. There he learnt by heart the whole Psalter and many hymns and prayers, and practised works of mercy and almsgiving. Being moved to return to the solitary life, he obtained leave from the Bishop of Durham and also the grant of a small piece of land on the banks of the Wear at Finchale, a few miles from Durham. This was in mo, and there he lived for sixty years practising the greatest austerities, and doing immense good to the bodies and souls of the people who came to visit him. He encountered, however, for several years, opposition and persecution from the rude peasants who looked on him as an intruder, but, by unalterable sweetness and charity, rather than by the mere fame of austerity, he gained their affections and admiration. Djring the sixty years he resided at Finchale, three times only he left his hermitage, and that in the first year of his residence ; once on the Christmas night to he.ir mass at Durham, a second time to receive communion on Easter Day, and a third at the urgent request of the bishop. After some years he was taken under the special charge of the monks of Durham, who served his hermitage ; and it is by means of the love and admiration they bore him, especi- ally Reginald, who was for several years his confessor, that we know the details of his marvellous life. At first he built himself a small hut of boughs, which he called St. Mary's Chapel, but the people made him build afterwards a little stone church which he dedicated to St. John the Baptist, and which was joined by a cloister to the wooden oratory of our Lady. In his church was an altar with steps to it, a beam supporting a crucifix with statues of the Blessed Virgin and St. John ; and on this beam were placed the cruets, chalice, and a box with altar-breads. Mass was said for him every Sunday and festival, when the people from the neighbourhood and visitors from a distance were allowed to assist, so that sometimes his little church was crowded to overflowing. In later years he received communion, preceded by confession, every Sunday, and, when drawing near his end, every second and lliird day. He would never speak to anyone except his confessor on the mornings when he was about to communicate. Reginald tells us how he would kneel in prayer through nearly the whole night on the steps of his altar, and Reginald supposes that his readers will know (for he does not tell them) that these prayers were addressed to our Lord Jesus Christ sacramentally there present. That which he has not stated explicitly he puts beyond all question 192 THE SOLITARY LIFE. by two circumstances, related quite incidentally. Reginald is describ- ing the inroad made by the Scotch which ended in the battle of the Standard at Northallerton. Though the Scotch were led by King David, who was a saint, and a saint especially devout to the Blessed Sacrament, yet some of his soldiers, and notably the Galwegians, were, according to unimpeachable testimony, little better than their heathen ancestors. These miscreants in their course came to St. Godric in his hermitage. They treated the poor hermit most brutally, and ' ferocious in heart,' says Reginald, * and degenerate in faith, they rushed into his church and plundered whatever was of value, trampling the Eucharist under their filthy feet, and crushing the offletes (uncon- secrated altar-breads) into pieces.' ^ This happened in 113S, and Godric died in 1170 ; we learn then that for more than thirty years Godric had the privilege of keeping the Blessed Sacrament in the pyx over his altar. The second mention of the Blessed Sacrament is in recording how Godric raised a girl to life at the prayer of her parents, and made them swear on the Holy Eucharist that they would not tell during his lifetime what he had done.'-^ In spite of his terrible austerities, Godric lived to be more than a hundred years old. For several years before his death he was con- fined to his bed, but we must not picture to ourselves a patient in a modern hospital, carefully tended by trained nurses. Godric simply lay on a few planks in his little church opposite to his altar, unable to rise and almost to turn without assistance, but conversing day and night with Him who had Himself when on earth ' spent the night in prayer on the mountain side,' ^ who had hung with His mangled limbs on the hard bed of the Cross, and who was now watching day and night with His faithful servant in the mystery of His love. The grotesque pictures of St. Anthony's temptation, on which so many artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries exercised their ingenuity, and which are still to be seen in many galleries throughout Europe, have created an impression on the minds of most of us that the solitaries were always engaged in ghostly combats or assailed by fearful phantoms, probably the creation of their own brains disordered by over-fasting and want of sleep. There are certainly in the history of St. Godric not wanting elements of this nature, though he who has meditated on our Lord's temptations in the desert will be slow in - r. 134. Eadmcr in \\\'a Ilisioria Novoniiii, lib. ii., rdales anulbcr instance of an oalh taken on the Blessed Sacrament by the Archbisliup of Benevenlo to Ennna, the molher of St. Edward. ' Luke vi. 12. ST. GODRIC. 193 speaking of the similar trials of those who imitated Him in that por- tion of His life, as mere delusions of the imagination. After Satan's departure the angels came and ministered to our Lord, and so was it with His servants. I will illustrate this by relating what occurred to St. Godric in his last illness, and I shall translate literally from Reginald. * I asked him one day,' says Reginald, ' what saint's mass he would wish to hear. He rephed : " I have already heard to-day the mass of the Holy Trinity, and have received communion from the hand of a man dressed in white. He came down from heaven and returned thither, and went through all the holy rites just as you are wont to do ; and taking the Eucharist reverently from the altar, he coun- selled and persuaded me to make a confession of all that I could remember, and I do not believe that I forgot anything whatever of all my past excesses ; and when I had obtained absolution for my sins, I received from his hand the holy things of God {sanda Domini), and then he gave me his blessing. When the mysteries were con- cluded, he raised his hands and was carried up into heaven, leaving behind him an odour of great sweetness." When he had related all this, he added : "Do you think, my son, that I should still receive discipline" {i.e. confession) "and communion from you ?" I replied that I dared not give them after what had happened. Then he said : " I think the grace of Christ will not forsake me, and the virtue of the Holy Ghost will protect me." I asked him what saint he thought it was ; he answered that he thought he was like St. Peter, the prince of the Apostles. "He who opens and closes as he will the gates of heaven came to me at dawn, and sat here and strengthened me ; but when you knocked at the door he departed. And he told me that he had come by command of our Lord Jesus Christ to visit His servant and absolve him from his sins. Do you then," continued Godric, " celebrate for me a mass of the Blessed Virgin, that by her intercession our Lord Jesus Christ may be propitious to us." I, therefore, did as he bade me, glorifying and praising the Lord in all His wonders towards His beloved servant.' ^ This slight sketch of the history of St. Godric must suffice for an account of the lay hermits, though I am, of course, very far from pre- tending that they were all heroic like him. in. Women. — We have seen that the sister of St. Guthlac lived in a hermitage in the fens. So too the sister of St. Godric, named Burchwine, imitated her holy brother, and spent several years in a Vita S. Goderici, p. 211. VOL. II. O J94 THE SOLITARY LIFE. hermitage not far from Finchale, though she only came occasionally to his oratory in order to hear mass.^ The eremitical life, however, was not well suited to women, and was rarely followed by them. On the other hand, the number of female recluses was very great. Hence, bishops were wont at various times to draw up special rules for their conduct, and more than one ascetic treatise was written for their benefit. Regulations were made regarding them by St. Richard of Chichester,^ and St. ^Ired addressed to his sister, who was a recluse, a letter in which he enters fully into the duties and the dangers of their manner of life.^ The more common ankerhold or reclusery was a small house of one or two cells built against the chancel of a church, with a low window looking towards the high altar, through which the anchoress could take part in the mass and ofifice, and also receive communion. An entry in the churchwardens' accounts of St. Margaret's, Westmin- ster, in 1538, is as follows : — ' Paid to my Lady Ancress for washing all the corporas clothes 8^/.' This indicates one little occupation of these holy women. But St. Richard forbade that the care of the church vestments should be given to them, since he wished to reduce as much as possible communication with the outside world. St, ^Ired mentions and disapproves the custom of some anchoresses of teaching a class of little girls through the window of their cell. Indeed there is no use in concealing the fact that the special danger of these recluses was that of becoming gossips through the multitude of pious but talkative people who resorted to the outside window of their cells. But while admitting this danger, about which their spiritual advisers were very explicit, I do not believe there is any evidence of serious evil ; but, on the contrary, there are abundant proofs that the institution of female recluses was a subject of great edification to Catholic England. Were it otherwise, we should not find so many shrewd as well as pious people leaving sums of money for their support. "^ A treatise written in English in the thirteenth century tells the recluses : ' When ye are quite dressed, sprinkle yourselves with holy ' Reginald, p. 140. '^ Wilkins, i. 693. ^ This treatise was often attributed to St. Augustine of Hippo, and had grea; authority. It will be found in the Appendix to his works. ■* Henry II. by his will left legacies to the recluses of Jerusalem, England, and Normandy. Walter de Suffield, Bishop of Norwich, who died in 1257, left gifts to ankers in his diocese, especially to his niece, Ela, in the reclusory at Massing- ham. (Blomefield's A^&, ii. 347-8.) St. Richard of Chichester made several similar donations by his will, which is printed accurately with notes in the Sussex Anhaological Collections, i. 164. RECLUSES. 195 water, which ye should have always with you, and think upon God's Flesh, and on His Blood, which is over the high altar, and fall on your knees toward It with this salutation : — Ave principium nostrae creationis ! Ave pretium nostrse redemptionis ! Ave viaticum nostrae peregrinationis ! Ave prsemiutn nostrse expectationis ! Tu esto nostrum gaudium Qui es futurus praemium. Sit nostra in te gloria Per cuncta semper ssecula. Mane nobiscum Domine, Noctem obscuram remove, Omne delictum ablue, Piam medelam tribue. Gloria tibi Domine, Qui natus es de Virgine, &c. Thus shall ye do also when the priest elevates It in the mass, and before the Confiteor when you are about to be houseled.' ' The same author gives the following instruction regarding com- munion : ' Men esteem a thing as less dainty when they have it often, and therefore ye should be, as lay brethren are, partakers of the holy communion only fifteen times a year : at Midwinter, Candlemas, Twelfth Day ; on Sunday half-way between that and Easter ; on our Lady's Day, if it is near the Sunday, because of its being a holiday ; Easter Day ; the third Sunday thereafter ; Holy Thursday {i.e. the Ascension) ; Whitsunday, and Midsummer Day ; St. Mary Magda- len's Day ; the Assumption ; the Nativity (of the Blessed Virgin) ; St. Michael's Day ; All Saints' Day ; St. Andrew's Day. And before all these days, see that ye make a full confession and undergo discipline ; and forego your pittance for one day. And if anything happens out of the usual order, so that ye may not have been houseled at these set times, ye may make up for it the Sunday next following, or if the other set time is near, ye may wait till then,''^ Matthew Paris tells us that in 1225, in the town of Leicester, there died a recluse who for seven years before her death never tasted food, except that on Sundays she received communion of the Body and Blood of the Lord. When this miracle was related to Hugh Wallis, bishop of Lincoln, he did not believe it. He therefore ordered the recluse should be strictly guarded for fifteen days by ' Ancren Riwle, p. 16 (Camden Society). ^ lb, p. 413. o 2 196 THE SOLITARY LIFE. priests and clerics, until it was found that in all that time she took no nourishment. Her face was bright as a lily, yet with a ruddy tint, a sign of her virginal purity. ^ A similar story to this is related by Lawrence of Durham, a writer of the twelfth century. A girl was then living in the south of England in her father's house, who for twenty years had tasted no food, but a little water. She received communion every Sunday. ^ A third example is recorded by Thomas Waldensis as having occurred in his own time, about two centuries later. ' In the northern part of Eng- land,' he says, ' called Norfolk, which is very rich both in spiritual and temporal things, there lately lived a devout Christian girl, com- monly called Jane the Meatless, becaused she was proved never to have tasted meat nor drink for fifteen years, but only fed with the greatest joy every Sunday on the Sacrament of the Lord's Body. And what is most marvellous, she could distinguish a consecrated host from unconsecrated ones among a thousand breads all alike. And what many thought even more wonderful still, she did this not only by divine inspiration, but by a certain sagacity of her sense, since she had such a horror of all bodily food, that she could not tolerate its taste or smell, and turned from it even at a distance.' ^ Before leaving this subject I would willingly have given an account of a kind of hermits of whom we read much in the Middle Ages — I mean the unfortunate lepers. But, however interesting is this sub- ject in itself, there is not sufficient connection with the Blessed Sacrament to justify me were I to enter into any detail. Some ecclesiological writers maintain that the low windows so often found in the chancel of parish churches were used, in part at least, for giving communion to lepers.'' This may have been the case, though there is no evidence offered of the fact. From an early date lepers had been specially committed to the care of the bishops,'^ and Pope Gregory II., in a letter to St. Boniface, had declared that they were not to be refused holy communion. When the disease — or those forms of disease that were called leprosy — spread more widely in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, leper-houses were erected all over the land, and the lepers were licensed by the third council of Lateran (a.d. 1 1 79) to have their own chaplains. The foundation or main- ' Historia, p. 327, ed. Wats. 2 In his Life of St. Brigid, apud Boll. Acta SS. Feb. torn. i. p. 174. 3 Doctrin. Fidei, ii. 376 ; De Euch. cap. 62. ■« They were sometimes the windows of the reduses, whose cell was built out- side. * See 5th Council of Orleans, A.D. 549, and 3rd of Lyons, a.d. 583. LEPERS. 197 tenance of leper-houses was a favourite form of charity, and for those who were capable of heroic virtue there was no species of self-denial more recommended and more tenderly practised than personal service of those afflicted with this loathsome malady. In doing this the devout were sustained by the thought of our Lord Jesus Christ as described by Isaias : ' Despised and the most abject of men . . . and as it were a leper and one struck by God and afflicted.' ^ He whose passion is thus recorded beforehand has instituted a special rite for its commemoration ; and among the countless graces of the Holy Eucharist we must count as by no means the least, the grace poured into the souls of poor lepers and outcasts to bear their trials, and the grace given to the pious to alleviate them. We have thus seen that He who is the centre of communion to the faithful, and who is the bond of minds and hearts when men gather together in church for public worship, was also the chief object of devotion and love to those who, following the divine voca- tion, had left all in the world to live the life of solitaries in austerities and penance, that thus they might hold close communion with God. With Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, they found the most direct means to this union, with Him they found companionship which compensated them for the society they had foregone. From Him they drew consolation and strength to persevere in their painful life, grace to advance in the way of perfection, while some reached so high a degree of sanctity that their fame went abroad amongst men, and the world they had left behind now followed them to their seclu- sion. Nothing then could be more false than to compare such men to Indian gymnosophists. They chose solitude and austerity not from pride and ambition of human glory, but from humility and love of Jesus Christ, and they used their influence and the honour in which they were held not to draw to themselves sterile admiration, but to draw hearts to God and to one another, sometimes, Hke St. John, rebuking the cruel and the unjust, but more willingly, like him^ say- ing to the people : ' He that hath two coats let him give to him that hath none, and he that hath meat let him do in like manner.' ' Isaias liii. 3, 4. 198 CHAPTER XIV. SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES. I. Schools. Catholic England was well supplied with schools, village, communal, cathedral, monastic, and at a later period with what were called grammar schools. Education was accessible to all, for it was in almost all cases gratuitous, so that the epithet poor was constantly asso- ciated with the name of scholar. Men of birth, who gloried in the lance and sword, often affected to despise the pen as belonging to the low-born and the vulgar ; and from instances of such proud and voluntary ignorance has arisen the popular modern error that to read and write were rare accomplishments in the Middle Ages.' There were very few schools corresponding to what we call ' boarding ' schools, and as the scholars lived in their own houses a domestic chapel seldom formed part of a scholastic foundation. The great establishments of William of Wykeham at Winchester, and of Henry VI. at Eton, will occur at once as exceptions. Schoolboys, however, were expected to hear mass daily, as is evident from many passages in our old writers. Thus in the ' Young Children's Book,' the boy is taught : ' Arise betime out of thy bed — And bless thy breast and thy fore- head, — Then wash thy hands and thy face — Comb thy head, and ask God grace — Thee to heljD in all thy works — Thou shalt speed better whatso thou carps. — Then go to the church and hear amass, —There ask mercy for thy trespass.' ^ The history of Wykeham furnishes an illustration of the care with which young scholars were taught to assist at mass in their parish churches before assembling for study. The illustrious bishop of Winchester, when a boy, used to be present daily at the mass that a monk named Peeke said at an early hour at an altar of our Lady ' See Buckingham's excellent and learned work, The Bible in the Middle Ages, chapter, ' Libraries and Schools.' Mr. Furnivall, in his Education in Early England (Triibner, 1867), has treated of the education of the upper classes. 2 The Young Children'' s Book, p. 17 (E. E. T. Society). GRAMMAR SCHOOLS. 199 against a pillar in the nave of the cathedral. And William of Wyke- ham ever retained so affectionate a men?ory of those early masses of his boyhood, that he chose that very place for his burial and chantry chapel. At the first foundation of his grammar school he required that on Sundays the scholars should assist at the masses and all the offices, at the parish church of St. John-on-the-Hill. If anyone was absent he lost his commons for fifteen days. ' At a later period the chapel was built which still exists. We find that King Henry VI., in 1444 and the following years, frequently assisted at mass in this chapel, and made generous offer- ings towards its adornment, at one time giving a gold chalice and cruets, at another leaving his robe with sable borders to the Blessed Virgin. He gave also a tabernacle or triptych of gold to the high altar, besides large sums of money. ^ It is interesting that to the present day the foundation scholars uncover their heads passing through the quadrangle outside the chapel, a custom taught Ly Wil- liam of Wykeham in honour of the Blessed Sacrament. The masters of the grammar schools were frequently chantry- priests, and to celebrate daily mass in a neighbouring church was one of their duties. Their scholars would probably be expected to be present at this mass. Thus at Stratford-on-Avon, in the school where Shakspere was educated, the master, previous to the Reforma- tion, was a priest and one of the five prefects of the Gild of the Holy Cross. On feast days he said mass in the parish church, at the altar of St. John Baptist, for the good estate of the Bishop of Worcester and for certain persons deceased ; on other days he said mass in the Gild chapel adjoining the school. Before the Lavabo he turned to the people saying, ' Ye shall pray specially for the souls of Master Thomas Joliffe, John and Joan, his father and mother, the souls of all brethren and sistern of this Gild, and all Christian souls, saying of your charity a Pater and an Ave.' On Wednesdays and Fridays, after mass, the master and scholars sang together an Antiphon of the Blessed Virgin and recited the De Profundis? In the statutes of Dean Colet's school (St. Paul's, London),^ it is prescribed : ' There shall be also in the school a priest, that daily as he can be disposed shall sing mass in the chapel of the school, and ' Life of Wykeham, by Dr. Lowtli, Appendix x. ^ Lovvth, Life of Wykeham, Appendix xiii. ' See Gentleman! s Magazine, Feb. 1835, and Collectanea Tofographica, iii. 81-83. * There had been a school at St. Paul's from time immemorial. It was already ancient in the days of Henry I. Colet enlarged and refounded it. 2O0 SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES. pray for the children to prosper in good Ufe and in good literature, to the honour of God and our Lord Christ Jesus.' It appears that not all the boys were present at this mass, since directions were given that the children in the school, when they heard the sacring-bell ring, were to kneel on the forms.' It was the duty of this priest, who was not the head master of the school, to teach the children ' the catechyzon and instruction of the articles of the faith and the ten commandments in English.' Among these instructions is the following : ' If I fall to sin I shall anon rise again by penance and pure confession ; and as often as I shall receive my Lord in Sacrament, I shall with all study dispose me to pure cleanliness and devotion. When I shall die I shall call for sacra- ments and rites of Christ's Church betimes, and be confessed and receive my Lord and Redeemer, Jesus Christ.' ^ Among the pre- cepts of living is 'use oft times confession.' It was for this school that Erasmus wrote his * Christiani Hominis Institutio,' in which occur similar sentiments. Another statute of Colet regarded the popular institution of the boy-bishop. ' All these children,' he says, * shall every Childermas Day come to St. Paul's Church to hear the child-bishop's sermon, and after be at high mass, and each of them to offer a penny to the child-bishop, and with them the masters and surveyors of the school.' ^ It is well known that on the feast of the Holy Innocents (Childermas Day), or in some places on the feast of St. Nicolas, a boy was appointed to preach and even to preside at the offices in the church. In the statutes of Eton, Winchester, and King's College, Cambridge, mass was specially excepted. But at St. Paul's the boy appears to have occupied the bishop's throne while mass was celebrated. These customs were aboHshed by a proclamation of Henry VIII, in the twenty-third year of his reign, but restored under Mary, for they were as greatly relished by the Catholics as they were intensely hated by the morose heretics of those days.'* Among the Gild statutes published by Mr. Toulmin Smith are those of a gild of young scholars, established in 1383 at Lynn. They took for their patron the boy-martyr, St. William, and kept six lights burning on festivals before his statue in St. Margaret's Church. If a member died, the rest assisted at his funeral and had twenty-four ' Knight, Life of Colet, p. 306. ^ //^_ p_ ^^2. s //,_ p_ ^08. * See Warton's History of Poetry, i. 248, ii. 375, iii. 390, and Hampson's Medii ^vi Kalendariw)!, i. 78. This celebration must not be confounded with the Feast of Fools, so indignantly denounced by Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln. See antea, p. 79. OXFORD. 20 1 masses said for his soul. Their ' general day ' was the feast of the Holy Relics, when all were expected to assist at^a solema mass of the feast, and then at a Requiem for deceased members. > II. Universities. As rec^ards the Catholic universities of Oxford and Cambridge, I much reg!-et that, in the words of Mr. Anstey in his Introduction to the ' Munimenta Academica,' ' to a great extent all means of actually reproducing medieval life have perished,' 'all details of hfe are utterly lost ' ^ Both universities have contended for a fabulous anti- quity,' and though schools existed and were much frequented both at Oxford and Cambridge in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, yet no royal charter or letter is known earlier than the reign of Henry III. The number of scholars has also been much exaggerated. They were certainly more numerous than they are at the present day yet it is scarcely possible that in the thirteenth century the students numbered 30,000 at Oxford, as was stated to the Pope by Richard of Armagh ^ Mr. Anstey thinks the largest number of scholars, pro- perly so called, present at one time would be 6,000, with perhaps as many more ' members of the privilege.' Many colleges were founded consisting of fellows and scholars. These colleges did not open their rooms, as at present, to a large number of students called pen- sioners,' i.e. students who pay (not receive) a pension, and are not on the foundation. At first these dwelt in lodgings and at a later period resided in hahs. In another point the medu^val differed much from our present universities. The undergraduates were often verv young and frequented the schools for many years. They were also in a far greater degree derived from the humbler classes. I cannot do better than transcribe the page in which Mr. Anstey sums up the results of his investigations as to the matter with which I am now occupied, that of devotion to the Holy Eucharist. On one important subject,' he says, 'we are strangely and wholly > English Gilds, p. 51 (K- E. T. Society). ^ Munimenta Academica, edited by Rev. H. Anstey, p. Lm- (Roll. Series, '^"s^ilatthew Paris, writing of the year 1209 says: ' Three thousand clerics including masters a;d scholars, retired from Oxford, so that not one remamed of he whofe university. Some went to Cambridge, some to Reading^ Oxford wa leftrmpty.' {HisLa, p. 228, ed. Wats.) Could the number have mcreased lenfoS'ln a century? Yet both Richard of Armagh and Gasco.gne compute the number at 30,000 in 1348, before the great plagues. 202 SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES. without information of a direct kind — whether any regular attend- ance at divine service was required or not from the junior mem- bers of the university. There is no statute requiring it, but as to graduates, many statutes require that they must attend without ex- ception, and the omission of any mention of the "juniors would seem to imply that it was taken for granted they should accompany their masters. The halls, so far as we know, were not usually provided with chapels, those existing in halls at present standing being of comparatively recent erection ; the religious houses, of course, had their own chapels for their scholars, as also had the colleges, but the ordinary students must have had ample provision for their presence in the numerous parish churches of the town, which we know from several scattered notices were the object of peculiar regard to the scholars. Their determinations used to take place in them until it was forbidden, and the scholars were in the habit of celebrating the festival days of the patron saints of their several churches, dancing disguised with masks and crowned with garlands of leaves and flowers, a practice v/hich, originating in the esprit de corps of the several nations, gave rise to frequent riots and violation of the peace, and was very early attempted to be suppressed by penal statutes.' Mr. Anstey adds that, ' although no mention is made of daily devo- tions ' (for the undergraduates), ' the whole spirit of the university forbids us to suppose they were not compulsory.' ' It is related of St. Edmund Rich, that when he was at Oxford he used to confess every day, and though not in Holy Orders, yet when Master of Arts he every day heard mass and said the hours before lecture, and taught his pupils to do the same.^ Whether this is to be taken as a confirmation of Mr. Anstey's conjectures that the scholars heard mass with the graduates, or whether it is an exception proving that such was not the general rule, will depend on the inten- tion of the narj-ator. It seems to me that the stress is laid not on St. Edmund's taking his pupils to hear mass, but on his leading them to say with him the Divine Office before the mass began or at its conclusion, previously to their all going together to the lecture- room. Later statutes certainly require the presence of both graduates and undergraduates at mass, and there is nothing in them to make us suppose tliat a new discipline was being introduced. We may take as an example the Statutes of Canterbury Hall, at Oxford, drawn up by Archbishop Islip in 1362. In these it is ordered that ' Introduction, pp. Ixxv, Ixxvi. ^ Chronicon de Melsa, i. 439 (Rolls Series), GRATITUDE TO BENEFACTORS. 203 every day there must be mass of the Blessed Trinity and of the Blessed Virgin, if it can be done conveniently, though the mass * of the day ' must not be omitted for the sake of them. On Sundays and festivals mass with music {cum notct) at which all the fellows must be present ; on greater doubles, matins and vespers and mass will be solemnly sung, and all the fellows must be present in white surplices. All priests when they celebrate must say, except on solemn feasts, for the archbishop and his predecessors, the prayer Deus qui inter apostolicos sacerdotes^ &c. Those who do not celebrate must say every day for them fifty Hail Mary's with Our Father and Creed, as is the custom. There was also a chaplain who had to celebrate early every morning for the scholars.' The reference made by Mr. Anstey to the rival celebrations of the different nations {i.e. not only the English, Welsh, Scotch, and Irish, but the Northern-English and Southern-English) proves the unnatural prominence that abuses acquire in history over quiet orderly and daily usage. Nothing has come down to us about the daily or even the Sunday masses but these extraordinary celebra- tions have been recorded for all future ages because they had to be suppressed. It was not however forbidden to have celebrated, in the church of the parish where a student or master might live, the feast of a saint of his native diocese, but it was forbidden to invite friends from other parishes, lest these celebrations should assume a character of rivalry and defiance, and give rise to factions. The dances were prohibited under pain of excommunication. ^ From the numerous documents collected by Mr. Anstey we find that the mass of the Holy Ghost was solemnly celebrated, in the presence of the whole University of Oxford, at the beginning of each academical year, at Michaelmas, and again at its close. The Regents were also bound to be present several times a year at solemn masses for benefactors, generally in St. Mary's but some- times in other churches. If a member of the university died in Oxford, the Chancellor, Proctors, and Masters assisted at his funeral and made an offering at the mass. They did not consider themselves bound to this if the scholar was a monk, though they sometimes did it, with a protest against precedent. Religious had of course the suffrages of the order to which they belonged. Many of these old documents bear witness to the beautiful spirit of gratitude that animated the University and the Colleges. They continued to offer the Holy Sacrifice for their deceased founders and ' Wilkins, t. i. p. 56. ^ Munimenta, i. 18. 204 SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES. benefactors for centuries after their decease ; and their fideHty to this duty, though pure and disinterested, proved to be also excel- lent policy, for the hope of such suffrages brought them many a benefaction. Out of a vast number of documents illustrating this spirit of gratitude I select a few specimens. In the very first statute (date 1292) of the oldest college in Oxford— University College — it is decreed that at the beginning of each term a mass be celebrated for all benefactors of every kind. ' In the statutes of the same col- lege (in 131 1) it is provided that every scholar shall cause two masses to be offered for his founder in the parish where he resides, for as yet there were no college chapels.^ Chests were established by benefactors for loans to poor scholars. It was always appointed that those who borrowed should say five Paters and five Aves for their benefactors ; and in some cases it was added that the borrower, if not a priest, should say the Office of the Dead with three nocturns, and if a priest a Mass of Requiem within eight days.^ At first a chaplain had been appointed by the University of Oxford to say masses for benefactors. At a later period the duties of chaplain were annexed to the office of librarian of the University. The first founder of a university library at Oxford, as distinct from a collegiate one, was Thomas Cobham, bishop of Worcester, in 1320, from whom it was called Cobham's Library. ' The Librarian was also called Chaplain to the University, and as such was ordered in 141 2 to offer masses yearly for those who were benefactors of the University Library, and was endowed with half a mark yearly, as well as with 5/., issuing from the assize of bread and ale, which had been granted to the University by King Henry IV., who was also a principal contributor to the completion of the Library, and is there- fore to this day,' says Mr. Macray, ' duly remembered at the Bidding Prayer at all the academic " Commemorationes Solenniores." But no trace remains,' he adds, 'of the devotional and sacred duties once attaching to the Office of Librarian, and laymen have- been eligible •to it from the time of Bodley's re-foundation.'^ After an existence of more than two hundred years the Library was pillaged and wasted by the visitors of Edward VI. in 1550, and the very shelves and stalls sold for what they would fetch, so that when after half a century of desolat'on Bodley made his magnificent foundation, he had to remind the University that ' there had been ' Mtiniineuta, i. 59. 2 //,_ ;_ gg_ 3 //,_ j_ g^^ 298, 343. •• Aiinah of the Bodleian Library, by Rev. W. D. Macray, p. 5 (1868). CAMBRIDGE. 205 heretofore a public library in Oxford, which you know is apparent by the room itself remaining and by your statute records.'^ But to go back to Catholic times. For the benefactors of the Library, the Librarian said every quarter three masses of the Holy Ghost and one of Requiem, besides the more solemn masses for notable benefactors at which the University assisted. At a certain time of the year the chaplain went round all the schools, and, read- ing out a list of the deceased benefactors, exhorted the scholars to pray for their souls. To be placed on this bede-roU was considered a great privilege. Among commemorations of benefactors, one was remarkable for the place in which the Holy Sacrifice was offered. Henry VII. visited the College of St. Mary Magdalen in i486, and, in memory of this visit and his benefactions, mass was offered every May-day morning at an early hour for the welfare (and after death for the repose) of his soul, on the top of the beautiful tower of the college chapel.'^ There were other solemn commemorations besides those ot benefactors. In a riot some students had been slain by townsmen. To atone for this the Mayor of Oxford, the Bailiffs, and sixty of the principal citizens were bound anfiually to assist at a Requiem for their souls in the church of St. Mary's, and each to offer one penny after the Gospel, forty pence of which was immediately distributed to poor scholars, the remainder going to the curate of the church.^ All the foregoing illustrations of university life have been taken from the history of Oxford. That of Cambridge presents features exactly similar. Yet affection for my ow^n Alma Mater will not allow me to pass to another subject without a glance at what she was in her Catholic days. We meet with formal documents first in the thirteenth century, but these suppose the University long esta- blished. A question having arisen in 1276, between the regents and scholars of the University of Cambridge and the Archdeacon of Ely, with respect to jurisdiction, the same was referred to the arbitra- ment of Hugh de Balsham, bishop of Ely. He decided ' that the rectors of the churches, vicars, parochial chaplains, and other minis- ters of the churches of Cambridge, shall be subject to the arch- ' Annals of the Bodleian Library, p. 14. ^ Ackerman, Oxford, i. 257. Mass is no longer offered on the tower or within the chapel, but every May day chaplain and choristers still sing a Latin hymn at a very early hour. ^ Mimimenta, i. 194. 2o6 SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES. deacon in all things, like others iu the archdeaconry ; adding our declaration, that under the appellation of ministers of the churches we will to be in this case included the rector, vicar, and the clerks in the service of the church, as well as the priests who celebrate the masses of the Blessed Virgin, and the masses for the souls of the faithful, provided, however, that they have been deputed by one of the parishioners in Cambridge, and are staying there principally for the sake of celebrating such masses, although perhaps these may desire to study and to attend the schools incidentally. ' But if they have come to Cambridge chiefly for the sake of learning, although perhaps they may celebrate the aforesaid masses at the desire of the parishioners, we will and ordain that they be entirely subject to the jurisdiction of the Chancellor.' ^ It was not until nearly a century later that several of the colleges obtained chapels of their own. The Master of the Hospital of St. John received a license in 1341 ; the Warden of Trinity Hall in 1352. In the same year the Master of Clare House received a similar license, but it was only to last till the relaxation of the inter- dict on their parish church of St. John. The Master of St. Peter's and the Master of the College of the Annunciation {i.e. Gonville Hall) in 1389, but the latter grant was for three years only. In each case the rights of the parish churches were secured.'^ By special bulls, King's College, founded by Henry VI. in 1448, was exempted from episcopal jurisdiction. As regards masses, the scholars were subject to the Chancellor.^ During the preceding century the power of the Chancellor had been gradually increased, for in 1345 he himself required and re- ceived a license from the Bishop of Ely to have a low mass said in his presence in a private oratory in his mansion.'* We find the same gratitude at Cambridge that we have already seen at Oxford. In 1347, by a foundation of Nigel Thorndon, a physician of Cambridge, a chaplain was appointed to the University. His special office was to say mass for the benefactors, whose names he recited.* A solemn commemoration was appointed for the soul of Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely, and founder of St. Peter's College (in 1291) ; and a decree was made that all the Regents in their robes should repair yearly on the vigil of St. Vitus and St. Modestus (June 14) to St. Peter's Church for the dirge. We find that even a hundred years later this decree was in full force, for in 1396 the University made a ' Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, i. 57- ^ lb. i. 136. ^ II). i. 203. ■* lb. i. 96. ^ lb. i. 97. FISHER AND ST. JOHN'S. 207 rule that no one should ' incept ' on that feast, in order that the exequies of the founder of Peter-House might be celebrated with greater devotion.' In 1398, the Divinity Schools having been erected, together with a chapel adjoining, by the executors of Sir William de Thorpe, the University engaged that on May 6 in every year the Chancellor and Regents should meet in the said chapel, with a solemn mass on the morrow ; and on November 19 a similar service for his consort, the Lady Grace. "■^ By a statute of 1494, in gratitude for a loan given by Thomas Barowe, archdeacon of Colchester, of 240/., the University ot Cambridge made a statute that his name was to be read out in all the schools by the bedells each term and recommended by the priest of St. Mary's in the bidding prayer, and masses to be said for him, and a present of money to five poor men in honour of the five Wounds of our Lord.^ The will of King Henry VI. in which he makes provision for the foundation of Eton and of King's College, Cambridge (properly called the College of our Lady and St. Nicholas), and appoints the solemn services to be performed in those chapels, concludes with these formidable words : ' I not only pray and desire, but also in Christ require and charge, all and every of my said feoffees, &c., in the virtue of the aspersion of Christ's Blood and of His painful Passion, that they . . . truly faithful and diligently execute my said will and every part thereof, as they will answer before the blessed and dreadful visage of our Lord Jesu, in His most fearful and last day, when every man shall be most straitly examined and dealt with after his merits.'* How far this awful summons before the Judgment Seat may concern the present administrators of the Universities and Colleges founded in Catholic England I do not inquire. Those who first violated their founders' wills have long ago given their account. If I may dwell for a moment on the history of my own coUege^St. John's, Cambridge — we find one of the greatest of English bishops, John Fisher of Rochester, with untiring energy and great expense, carrying out the designs of his holy penitent, the Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby, and mother of Henry VII. ; yet before his death heresy with regard to the two doctrines that he had most learnedly and warmly defended — the supremacy of the Pope, and the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist — had infected many ' Cooper, Annals 0/ Cambridge, i. 64, 142. ^ //, j_ j^^^ ' Dyer, Privileges of (he University of Cambridge, i. 155. •• Nichol, Royal Wills, 291-319. 208 SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES. whom their founders' hberality had educated and was still supporting ; and in the very Presence of the Blessed Sacrament they held a disputation against It in the College Chapel, as scon as the death of Henry VIII. gave them courage to speak aloud, and in the night following the chain was cut that held the Sacred Pyx over the altar. ' What act of reparation was made at that moment in heaven by the souls of Lady Margaret and Cardinal Fisher will be revealed in eternity. We may form some judgment of what they would have felt had they been on earth from what we know of their lives. Lady Margaret had translated and published the fourth book of the * Imitation,' which treats so admirably of the Holy Eucharist. Fisher had dedicated his book ' On the Truth of the Body and Blood of Christ,' which he wrote against Qicolampadius, to Richard Fox, bishop of Winchester, the founder of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He thus writes : ' Since, to satisfy the devotion that you feel and have always felt to the Sacrament of the Eucharist, it has pleased you to call your College by Its name (for it is called the College of the Body of Christ), it has seemed fitting to me that a book which defends the truth of that Body in the Eucharist should be dedicated to your Paternity, lest you might seem to have given your College a mere empty title.' ^ The College Chapel of St. John's, in which Fisher celebrated mass, was for three centuries a mere forlorn wreck of what he had made it. Its altars had been broken in pieces, the Real Presence no longer sanctified its walls. It has lately been pulled down, and a chapel architecturally far superior has been built. The names of Lady Margaret and of Fisher are still honoured in St. John's College, yet the mass is still abolished, and under the new statue of Fisher should be engraved his own words : ' He who goes about to take the Holy Sacrifice of Mass from the Church plots no less a calamity than if he tried to snatch the sun from the universe.' ^ ' Baker, History of St. JoJoCs, p. 25, ed. Major. ^ There is a college of Corpus Christi at Cambridge also. A Guild of Corpus Christi had been established at the beginning of the fourteenth century. In 1342 its members formed the design of erecting a college to provide academical instruc- tion for persons who might become qualified to act as chaplains. In 1344, another Guild, called St. Mary's, proposed a union which was accomplished. The mem- bers of this college cirected the great procession on the feast of Corpus Christi. ^ ' Quo fit ut quisquis hoc sacrificium ab ecclesia tollere moliatur, nihilo minorem ei jacturam intentat quam si mundo solem eripere studuerit.' — Asser iionum Regis Anglice Defensio, vi. 9. 209 CHAPTER XV. THE COURT AND THE CAMP. Royalty. I HAVE no intention of making a general eulogy of our English kings and queens, much less of passing against them a sweeping censure. They were probably as good as those of other Christian countries, or as men and women are likely to be who are exposed to the many temptations that beset royalty. A few only of the kings were thoroughly corrupt and impious, most of the queens were conspicuous for piety and charity. Faith held some sway in the hearts even of the tyrannical and immoral (with the exceptions perhaps of Rufus and John), even in prosperity producing remorse and noble acts of reparation, and in periods of sickness and adversity shining with a brightness that almost makes us forget past misdeeds. In the first volume something was said of the way in which the Holy Eucharist gave sanction and sanctity to the ancient coronation oath and ceremonial. No essential change was made in later times. An oath worthy of a Christian king and a Christian people continued to be taken and laid upon God's altar ; the whole coronation service bore a religious character, and was concluded with solemn mass and communion of the king.^ Of John alone (I think) is it recorded that he refused to receive communion. Whether from infidelity, as some asserted, or from a better motive — unwillingness to burden his soul with sacrilege — he never approached the sacraments from the days of his youth until just before his death. Devotion in a royal household necessarily took a stately and ceremonial character, and became the subject of numerous ordinances. From their perusal very interesting glimpses may be gained of ' The kings of Scotland used to be anointed while sitting on the famous stone near the high altar at Scone, and remained seated during the whole mass except at the elevation. {ChronicoJi de Melsa, ii. 361, Rolls Series). The order of the con- secration of Richard II. is given in detail in Historical Papers front the Nortlicrn Registers, p. 413. VOL. II. . P 2IO THE COURT AND THE CAMP. Catholic life and piety, and they have supplied the historians of royalty with many of their best pages. ^ In the first place, then, Innocent IV., in 1245, granted to all royal chapels and oratories in England the privilege of exemption from ordinary jurisdiction, and of immediate subjection to the Holy See.^ A chapel, moreover, formed a necessary part not only of every palace, but of the smallest royal lodging. Mr. Wright gives a remarkable example of this. ' It may give some notion,' he says, ' of the simpli- city of the arrangement of a house, and the small number of rooms, even when required for royalty itself, when we state that in the January of 1251, King Henry III., intending to visit Hampshire, and requiring a house for himself with his queen and court, gave orders to the Sheriff of Southampton to build at Freemantle a hall, a kitchen, and a chamber with an upper story {cum estagio, sometimes called, in documents written in French, chambrc estagce), and a chapel on the ground for the king's use ; and a chamber with an upper story, with a chapel at the end of the same chamber, for the queen's use.' ^ As our kings made frequent progresses through the land, they carried with them 'a travelling chapel,' by which word c/iapd is to be under- stood not the building, but everything necessary for the celebration of mass and other offices. It was the duty of the abbeys of royal foundation to find sumpter beasts to transport these things from place to place.'* Not only on Sundays and festivals was mass celebrated in the royal presence, but daily and even several times daily. Hoveden relates of Richard I. that in his better days he used to rise early and seek first the kingdom of God, ' never leaving the church till all the offices were ended.' ^ William the Conqueror, whatever were his faults, was looked on by those who saw the vices of his sons as a religious-minded king. He heard mass daily, and assisted at matins, vespers, and the other canonical hours.'' A contemporary Norman chronicler speaks in the highest terms of his virtues, his prudence, magnanimity, energy, courage, fortitude, hatred of all excess, especi- ' For details the reader must be referred to Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England, and Mrs. Green's Lives of the Princesses of England. A volume called A Collection of Ordinances and Regulatio)is for the Government of the Royal Household, was published by the Society of Antiquaries in 1 790. - Burton Annals, p. 275 (Rolls Series). ' Thomas Wright, The Homes of Other Days, p. 152. '' See letter of Henry III. to the Abbot of Battle, in Shirley's Royal Letters, ii. 213 (Rolls Series). ^ Chronica, iii. 289, 290 (Rolls Series). "• jMatthew Paris, Hist. p. 12 (ed. Wats.) ST. DAVID OF SCOTLAND. 2ii ally in drinking, and even of his spirit of penance ; and the account that he has left of William's last moments bears out his claim to the last-mentioned virtue. In a fit of terrible pride and anger, he had burned the city of Mantes and harried the country round. If his death was a punishment for this act of sacrilege and cruelty, he at least accepted it as such, and expressed great regret for what he had just done, as well as for his previous barbarities in Northumberland. He had himself carried to the priory of St. Gervase in the suburbs of Rouen, and there took to his bed. ' Who can sufficiently relate,' says the chronicler, ' the floods of tears he shed to hasten the Divine clemency ? He did not grieve for his own death, but for what he knew would follow it, for he foretold the misery of Normandy, and the event has shown the truth of his words. Many venerable bishops and other servants of God were there seeking to comfort him. He asked that they should celebrate for him the offices of the Visitation of the Sick and Extreme Unction, and that he should receive Holy Communion from the hands of the archbishop. And then he ended his life, and passed, as we trust, to eternal rest.' ' The death of St. David, king of Scotland, is more beautiful than that of William the Conqueror, because it was in perfect keeping with his holy life. I give it in the words of St. ^Ired, who had been brought up in his court. ' When he knew that his end was approach- ing, he asked that the Sacrament of the Lord's Body might be given to him. While they were getting ready he stopped them, saying that he would receive the most holy mysteries before the altar. Being carried, therefore, by the hands of the clergy and the soldiers into the oratory, after mass he asked that the venerable cross, called the black cross, might be brought to him to venerate. This is a cross a palm long of most pure gold, wonderfully made, so as to open. Within it is a portion of the true Cross (the truth of which is proved by a multitude of miracles). It has the image of our Saviour of ivory adorned with gold. The most pious Queen Margaret, the king's mother, brought this cross to Scotland, and left it as an heir- loom to her children. When the king had most devoutly adored this cross so revered and loved by the whole Scottish nation, and had made his confession with many tears, he then strengthened him- self for his death by the reception of the heavenly mysteries. After- wards, being carried back to his bed, when the priests came to give him the Sacrament of Holy Unction, he rose from his bed as well as he could, and, casting himself on the ground, received that holy rite ' From the History of the Normans, by William Calculus, quoted by Sir T. D. Hardy in the Rerum B ritannicarntii I\ledii ^vi Set iptores. p 2 212 THE COURT AND THE CAMP. with great devotion, and when the clerks recited the psalms too fast, he checked them both by sign and word, responding to every prayer. He begged that when his death came, it might be made known immediately, that the people might at once pray for his soul' ^ St. David had learnt his tender devotion to the Holy Eucharist from his mother St. Margaret. Of her piety several instances have been already recorded in this work. Her biographer moreover tells us that, ' when in the morning the king was busied in affairs of state, Queen Margaret would enter the church, and there with long prayers and many sobs and tears would offer herself in sacrifice to God. For besides the hours of the Blessed Trinity, of the Holy Cross, and of Holy Mary, in the space of twenty -four hours, on certain holy days, she would say two or three psalters ; and before the public celebra- tion of mass, she had five or six masses said for her in private.' ^ The same author adds that she trained her children to great reverence when assisting at the Holy Sacrifice. Royal and noble personages were accustomed, throughout the whole period which we are reviewing, to make their offering at mass. To do this they left their places, and, advancing to the altar or to the entrance of the chancel, placed their gift in the hand of the celebrant or of the deacon. St. Margaret trained her children to do this piously and with dignity, the eldest taking precedence, and the rest following according to their age. As I have not hitherto spoken of the Offertory, this will be an appropriate place to do so. When the faithful ceased to make offerings of bread and wine, offerings of money were substituted. These were in some places laid by the people themselves on the altar ; in other places, where the laity were not allowed to enter the chancel, the priest came forward himself to receive the oblations, or, if he was assisted by deacon and subdeacon, it was in their hands that the money was placed. The offerings belonged to the celebrant, the rector of the church, or the vicar, according to arrangement. The offertory was voluntary, that is, it was no debt of justice, and the omission was not sinful ; though in many cases it would have been contrary to good taste and established custom to hear mass without making an offering. Custom had regulated the amount. We find the statutes of Guilds appoint- ing that on their solemn days each member shall offer a farthing, or perhaps a penny. In great funerals the chief mourners offered a noble {ds. 8d.), the rest of the company according to rank, or at ' St. JEhed, Genealogia Reguin Aiigloniin, Migne, Patrol, torn. cxcv. col. 715- - Bolland, Acta SS. torn. xxij. THE OFFERTORY. 213 their discretion. It is almost needless to say that if avarice was sometimes justly charged against the clergy in the mode of collect- ing the oblations, the laity were not always free from pride and ostentation in their manner of offering, especially as to the right of precedence. Chaucer may well have drawn his picture from life when he says of the Wife of Bath : In al the parisshe wyf ne was ther noon That to the offryng beforn hire schulde goon, And if ther dide, certeyn so wroth was sche That she was thanne out of alle charite.' These are human infirmities, from which, as St. James tells us, the primitive Christians were not free, and which have survived into our nineteenth century. It was good, therefore, that such questions should be solved by custom or etiquette, as we find to have been the case at court and in noblemen's mansions, to which I will now re- strict myself. This offering of the great was regulated according to the feast, and forms a frequent item in Wardrobe or Privy-Purse Accounts. We read of special coins being struck for offertory-money. Edward II. had made a inagnus denarius oblatorius (a great 'mass-penny,' as such coins were called whatever was their value). He offered it each day, and it was redeemed for seven pence daily. In other words, the same coin was daily placed in his hand by his attendant, and Avas by him carried to the priest, and the treasurer paid to the dean of the chapel or head chaplain every quarter or every year for the king's oblations a sum of money, calculated at the rate of seven pence on ordinary days. On the greater feasts both king and queen each offered a noble in gold.^ Similar details are given in the Ordi- nances of Edward IV. The little princesses Isabella and Joanna, daughters of Edward III., when they were eight years old, had two coins made for them, engraved on one side with a crucifix, on the other with an Agnus Dei. With these they made their daily offering, which was calculated at the rate of one penny per day.^ Mrs. Green relates an incident regarding the Lady Margaret, fourth daughter of Edward I., which confers great honour on the piety of that illus- trious king and his zeal for his children. She was born in 1275, ^"d married John of Brabant in her sixteenth year. ' Careful as the princess usually had been in the performance of her religious duties,' ' Canon Simmons gives many quotations to ilhistrate the Offertory in the notes to the Lay Folks' Mass Book, pp. 231-248. ^ Archceologia, xxvi. 343. ^ Mrs. Green, Lives of the Princesses, iii. 171. 2 14 THE COURT AND THE CAMP. says Mrs. Green, ' yet on the return of her bridegroom to court she became infected with somewhat of his recklessness of spirit ; and their irreverence occasioned some concern and no small expense to the king. This appears by the following curious entry in the often - quoted wardrobe book of the year : " Sunday, the ninth day before the translation of the Virgin, {i.e. the Assumption) paid to Henry, the almoner, for feeding 300 poor men, at the king's command, because the Lady Margaret, the king's daughter, and John of Bra- bant, did not hear mass, 36^. 7^.," a sum equal to 27/. of our'money ; and not satisfied that the neglect was sufficiently atoned for, by the king's request, John of Brabant gave an additional sum in alms.' ^ The piety that Edward I. sought to transmit to his children he had inherited from his father Henry IH., of whom Walsingham gives the following account : ' Every day he was wont to hear three masses with music {cum notd), and, not satisfied with that, was pre- sent at many low masses ; and when the priest elevated the Lord's Body, he used to support the priest's hand and kiss it. It happened one day that he was conversing on such matters with St. Louis, king of the French, when the latter said that it was better not always to hear masses, but to go often to sermons. To whom the English king pleasantly replied, that he would rather see his friend frequently than hear another talking of him, however well.'^ The chaplain of Henry V. shows us that the bravery of that great king was equalled by his piety. In a poem that he composed, apparently before the king's death, he says that it was his custom to confess every week. Qualibet hebdomada culpas confessio mundat. He heard mass with the deepest recollection and ardent prayers, putting aside all other cares, present or future. Externas. curas, prsesentes sive futuras, Tunc non disponit, in Christo spem quia ponit. He would allow no Lollard in his household. The services of his chapel were beautifully performed, and he took care that his choir should be devout.^ We have seen what were the special devotions of this great man by the masses that he appointed to be said after his death.'* The ordinances that Edward IV. drew up for the direction of John Alcock, bishop of Rochester, and Earl Rivers to whom he had ■ Mrs. Green, Lives of the Princesses, ii. 373. ^ Chronica S. Albajti, i. 8 (Rolls Series). * Memorials of Henry V. p. 68 (Rolls Series). * See antea, p. 50. ROYAL HOUSEHOLDS. 215 committed the education of his son, Prince Edward, may be quoted at some length, since they show the care paid to the household as well as to the prince. ' First, we will that our said first-begotten son shall arise every morning at a convenient hour, according to his age, and till he be ready no man be suffered to enter into his chamber, except our right trusty and well-beloved the Earl of Rivers, his chamberlain, and his chaplains, or such other as shall be thought by the said Earl Rivers convenient for the same season, which chaplains shall say matins in his presence ; and when he is ready and the matins said, forthwith to go into his chapel or closet to hear his mass there, and in no wise in his chamber without a cause reasonable, and no man to interrupt him during his mass time. ' Item, we will that our said son hear every holiday all the divine service of the day in his chapel or closet ; and that he offer before the altar according to the custom. ' Item, we will that upon principal feasts, and usual days of pre- dication, sermons to be said before our said son ; and that all his servants be there that may conveniently be spared from their offices. ' Item, we will that our said son have his breakfast immediately after his mass, and between that and his meat to be occupied in such virtuous learning as his age shall now suffice to receive. . . . ' Item, we will that our said son go to his evensong at a conve- nient hour, and that soon after done to be ere at his supper, and thereat to be served accordingly as before. . . . ' Item, we will that every day be said mass in the hall for the officers of household, to begin at six of the clock in the morning ; and at seven matins to begin in the chapel, and at nine a mass by note with children. ' Item, we will that our said son have three chaplains, one of them to be his almoner ; and that he will truly, discreetly, and diligently gather and distribute our said son's alms to poor people ; and that the said almoner be confessor to the household ; and the other two chaplains to say mass and divine service before our said son. . . . ' Item, we will that the sons of nobles, lords, and gentlemen, being in household with our said son, arise at a convenient hour, and hear their mass, and be virtuously brought up. . . . ' If any man come too late to matins upon the holiday, that is to say, after the third lesson, he shall sit at the water board, and have nothing unto his dinner but bread and water ; and if he absent him- self wilfully, he shall thus be i)unished whensoever he comes to dinner or supper. ' If any man be a customable swearer, or specially by the tnass, he 2i6 THE COURT AND THE CAMP. falleth into perdition after his degree ; if he be one of my Lady's Council, or a great officer, he loseth \2d.; a gentleman A^d. ; a yeoman 2d., or groom id., a. page \d. . . . 'Also, that every man at time of Easter bring sufficient writing or witness where he was shriven, and when he received the holy sacra- ment, in pain of losing his service.' ' In connection with the last item in these ordinances regarding the Easter Communion, I may observe that we now speak of Christians making their Easter Duties. Formerly it was said they ' took their Rights ' ^ (not Rites), and this word was used of Communion in general at any time. Thus in the Privy- Purse expenses of Henry VII. there is an entry on March 25, 1494, 'To thenxmen for their rights, i/. oi'. od.,' i.e. to the henchmen for the offertory on making their Easter Communion ; and in those of Henry VIII. in 1532, i.e. the year before his adulterous marriage with Anne Boleyn, there are three entries for gifts at the Housel of the servants (including the court fool), but none for that of the king himself.^ In a letter written by Dr. West in 15 13 from Scotland, whither he had gone as ambassador from Henry VIII., he tells the king, ' On Saturday, Ester evone, the queue was houseld, and that day I came not at the cort, for so much as my servauntes were busy also to serve God.' * In those days such things might be written to Hemy with- out seeming to convey a reproach or a hint, since in his youth he was conspicuous for at least external piety. The following was the description which Sebastiano Giustiniani, the Venetian resident in England in 1519, gave to the Council of the Pregati, of the person and manners of King Henry VIII. : ' He possesses a good know- ledge of the French, Latin, and Spanish languages, and is very devout. On the days in which he goes to the chase, he hears mass three times ; but on other days he goes as often as five times. He has every day service in the Queen's chamber at vespers and com- pline.' ^ Even in June 1528, mention occurs in a letter of Sir Bryan ' Collection of Ordinances, pp. 27-33. ^ See several examples quoted in Lay Folks'' Mass Book, p. 230. ^ These have been published by Sir Harris Nicolas, who remarks on the re- cords of numerous lavish gifts to favourites : ' The mind is impressed with horror at the reflection of how few of them escaped falling victims to his suspicion, jea- lousy, or revenge. ' (Introd. p. xxxi.) Our Blessed Lady was treated after the same fashion. In May 1532, Henry sent an offering to our Lady of Walsing- ham ; in 1538, her statue was publicly burnt by his order. •• lUusti-ations of Scottish History, p. 76 (Maitland Club, 1834). ^ Sir Henry Ellis, Original Letters illustrative of English History, Second Series, iii. 177. HENRY THE SEVENTH. 217 Take to Cardinal Wolsey of the king's hearing three masses on a Sunday.' It was when he had himself ceased to communicate that Henry became so zealous for others, that he sent Inquisitors to visit the monasteries, and among other articles they had to inquire, ' How often in the year the sisters of this house useth to be confessed and communicate,' and enjoined on the monks, ' Every brother of this house that is a priest shall every day in his mass pray for the most happy and most prosperous estate of our sovereign lord the king, and his most noble and lawful wife Queen Anne.' It is more pleasant as well as edifying to conclude this notice of the devotion of English kings Avith the description given by Bishop Fisher of Henry VII.'s reception of the sacraments : — ' The cause of this hope was true belief that he had in God, in his Church, and in the sacraments thereof, which he received all with marvellous devotion ; namely in the Sacrament of Penance, the Sacrament of the Altar, and the Sacrament of Anehng. The Sacra- ment of Penance, with a marvellous compassion and flow of tears, that at some time he wept and sobbed by the -space of three quarters of an hour. The Sacrament of the Altar he received at Mid-Lent, and again upon Easter Day, with so great reverence that all that were present were astonyed thereat ; for at his first enter into the closet where the Sacrament was, he took off his bonnet, and kneeled down upon his knees, and so crept forth devoutly till he came unto the place self where he received the Sacrament. Two days next be- fore his departing, he was of that feebleness that he might not receive It again, nevertheless he desired to see the monstrant wherein It was contained. The good father, his confessor, in goodly manner as was convenient, brought It unto him ; he with such a reverence, with so many knockings and beatings of his breast, with so quick and lively a countenance, with so desirous a heart, made his humble obeisance thereunto ; with so great humbleness and devotion kissed, not the self place where the Blessed Body of our Lord was contained, but the lowest part of the foot of the monstrant, that all that stood about him scarcely might contain them from tears and weeping. The Sacrament of Aneling, when he well perceived that he began utterly to fail, he desirously asked therefor, and heartily prayed that it might be administered unto him ; wherein he made ready and offered every part of his body by order, and as he might for weakness turned him- self at every time, and answered in the suffrages thereof. That same day of his departing, he heard mass of the glorious Virgin, the mother ' Original Letters, First Series, i. 285. 2i8 THE COURT AND THE CAMP. of Christ, to whom always in his Hfe he had singular and special de- votion. The image of the crucifix many a time that day full devoutly he did behold with great reverence, lifting up his head as he might, holding up his hands before it, and often embracing it in his arms, and with gi'eat devotion kissing it, and beating oft his breast. Who may think that in this manner was not perfect faith ? Who may sup- pose that by this manner of dealing he faithfully believed not that the ear of Almighty God was open unto him, and ready to hear him cry for mercy ; and assistant unto these same sacraments which he so devoutly received ? ' ^ The same holy preacher, not many months after the death of Henry VII., pronounced the funeral oration of the king's mother, the Lady Margaret. Though this sketch of a noble and saintly widow has been often quoted and is well known, yet I cannot omit it in a History of the Holy Eucharist : — ' Every day at her uprising, which commonly was not long after five of the clock, she began certain devotions, and so after them with one of her gentlewomen the Matins of our Lady, which kept her to then she came into her closet, where then with her chaplain she said also Matins of the day ; and after that, daily heard four or five masses upon her knees, so continuing in her prayers and devotions unto the hour of dinner, which of the eating day was ten of the clock, and upon the fasting day eleven. After dinner full truly she would go her stations to three altars daily ; daily her dirges and commendations she would say and her even-songs before supper, both of the day and of our Lady, beside many other prayers and Psalters of David throughout the year ; and at night before she went to bed she failed not to resort to her chapel, and there a large quarter of an hour to occupy her devotions. '^ . . . Her marvellous weeping they can bear witness of, which here before have heard her confession, which be divers and many and at many seasons in the years, lightly every tliird day ; can also record the same those that were present at any time when she was houseled, which was full nigh a dozen times every year, what floods of tears there issued from her eyes. She might w^ell say, ExUhs aqiiarum dediixerinit oculi mci. ... ' For the second part now, that this noble princess had full faith in Jesu Christ, . . . she that openly did witness this same thing at the hour of her death, which saying divers here present can record ; ' This sermon has been published by Baker, by Hymers, and in the works of Fisher, by the E. E. Text Society. ^ The order of the day of the Princess Cecily, mother of Edward IV., was very similar during her widowhood. See Collection of Ordinances, p. 37. ROYAL LADIES. 119 how heartily she answered when the Holy Sacrament containing the Blessed Jesu in It was holden before her, and the question made until her, whether she believed that there was verily the Son of God that suffered His blessed Passion for her and for all mankind upon the cross. Many here can bear record, how with all her heart and soul she made answer thereunto, and confessed assuredly that in that sacrament was contained Christ Jesu, the Son of God, that died for wretched sinners upon the cross, in whom wholly she put her trust and confidence. . . . And so soon after that she was aneled, she de- parted, and yielded up her spirit into the hands of our Lord.' Fisher speaks of Lady Margaret's monthly communions as ot something very unusual. From the Privy-Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York in 1502, it appears that she went three times to communion during that year, viz., on the feasts of Easter, All Saints, and Christmas. ^ Probably few queens or great ladies received communion more frequently, though of Catherine of Aragon it is related that she confessed at least weekly, and received the Eucharist every Sunday.^ I will conclude my account of royalty with Sander's eulogy of this holy queen: — ' There was some difference in age between Henry and Catharine, and a still greater difference in their lives. She was older than her husband in years, at the utmost five years, but more than a thousand years in character. Catharine used to rise at midnight in order to be present at matins sung by religious. At five o'clock she dressed herself, but as quickly as she could, saying that the only time wasted was the time spent in dressing. She was a member of the third Order of St. Francis, and wore the habit thereof under her royal robes. She fasted every Friday and Saturday, and on bread and water on the eves of our Lady's feasts. She went to confession every AVednesday and Friday, and on Sunday received communion. She said the ofifice of our Lady daily, and was present every morning in church for six hours together during the sacred offices. After dinner, and in the midst of her maids of honour, she read the lives of saints for two hours. That done, she went to church, and generally re- mained there till it was time for supper, which was with her a very scanty meal. She always prayed on her knees without a cushion or anything else between them and the pavement. Can anyone be astonished that so saintly a woman was to be tried in a greater fire of ' Miss Strickland describes the ceremonial pomp with which this queen was houseled before ' taking to her chamber ' for the birth of her eldest daughter in 1489. {Lives of the Queens, iv. 47.) '^ !b. iv. 117. 220 THE COURT AND THE CAMP. tribulation, so that the fragrance of her goodness might be the more scattered over the Christian world ? ' ^ From the documents and histories here given it will have been apparent to every thoughtful reader that, in proportion as kings and queens were virtuous, great, and noble, were they filled with devotion to the Holy Eucharist. Neglect of that sacrament went along with immorality and impiety. So that here again we may see a confirma- tion of the Catholic Faith in that Divine Mystery. And now, if we descend in the social scale to the nobility and knighthood, the chivalry and soldiery of the nation, we shall meet with similar facts and be brought to the same conclusion. The Nobility. In 1 34 1, the Provincial Council of Canterbury under Archbishop John Stratford decreed : 'That at all times it had been irregular to celebrate the Holy Mysteries in unconsecrated places without necessity, that this tradi- tion and the Church's canons were now neglected by many priests regular and secular, thus withdrawing people from their parish churches and instructions : wherefore anyone in future celebrating in oratories, chapels, and houses of this kind, without the permission of the bishop, will incur suspension from mass for a month ipso facto, unless the place or its master has an apostolic privilege, in which case it must be shown to the bishop within two months. This does not extend to the oratories and chapels of kings. Bishops are not easily to grant privileges in this matter.' ^ It will be seen from this decree how eagerly the nobility were copying the example of royalty in having their own chapels and chaplains. Some of the great lords, indeed, fell little short of kings in the splendour of their household and the number of ecclesiastics who formed part of it. From the Northumberland Household Book we find that in 15 12 there were no less than eleven priests attached to the service of that great family — a Doctor or Bachelor of Divinity as dean of the chapel, a sub-dean to ' order the choir,' a secretary, an almoner, a surveyor of lands, and a riding chaplain to my lord, a priest for a chaplain for my lord's eldest son, one for the Lady Mass, ' Nicolas Sander, Rise ami Growth of (lie Angiican Schism, translated by David Lewis, p. 7. ^ Wilkins, t. ii. p. 677- When this decree was renewed next year in a pro- vincial council held in London, it was added that it was not intended to derogate from the rights of ['relates, rectors, canons, and religious, to continue to celebrate in their oratories already constructed. (^Ib. p. 696.) DOMESTIC ORATORIES. 221 one to read the Gospel daily in the chapel, one as clerk of the closet, and lastly, one as master of grammar. • This was the exceptional retinue of one of the great ducal families ; but few of any distinction had less than two or three chaplains, and private chapels must have been extremely numerous throughout the country. In 1238 William, Earl Warren, had caused his chaplain to say mass in his hall. His bishop was Robert Grosseteste, a man without any human respect. He at once cited both the earl and his chaplain to answer for this before his court. The earl complained of this citation, but the bishop justified and renewed it : ' Your hall is not a place dedicated to God, but a common dwelling-place, a place for eating and drinking, where men talk frivolously, scurrilously, and perhaps obscenely, where dogs run about and sleep and leave filth. Must not every Christian see how unbecoming it is in such a place to consecrate the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, the Body taken from the most pure Virgin, which suffered on the cross, was glorified in the Resurrection, and is raised above the heavens ? Therefore, both Old and New Testaments and the Canons prescribe that the mass be not celebrated except in consecrated places, unless in case of very great necessity {sumfiia necessitas). ' "^ But though the bishops could and did fight against abuses like the above, they were obliged to yield to custom and authorise private chapels, where the only necessity was the respectability of the family that could not forego a privilege enjoyed by others of like condition.^ In the fifteenth century grants of portable altars from the popes became not unfrequent.^ It was, however, added in the grants that ' the altar was to be kept with reverence and honour,' and mass to be said only * in fit and decent places.'^ No wonder with such facilities as these an old poet says : ' The Northiiniba-land Household Book, edited by Bishop Percy, p. 370. • 2 Ep. 66 (Rolls Series). ' From Bishop Edyndon's Register, vol. ii., it appears that he granted licenses for private oratories in Hampshire as follows : In 1346, 16 licenses ; in 1347, 12 ; in 1348, 10 ; in 1349, 4 ; and from that year to 1365, 21. I owe this and other extracts from the Winchester Registers to the kindness of Mr. Baigent, who has transcribed the whole. According to Lyndwood, the term nobiles, to whom such license could be granted, included knights and esquires holding dignified office. {Prov. p. 234.) ^ Pope Martin V. granted one to the merchants of the Staple, because of their frequent journeys. (\Ne.&ve.r, Monnin. p. 340.) Julius II. confirmed a similar grant to the Guild of St. Botolph's at Boston. (Arch. Journal, iv. 248.) ^ See grant to Sir John Bardolf, by Clement VI., in Blomefield's History of Norfolk, iv. 210 ; and by Innocent VIII. to Sir Robert Arbuthnot, in the Spald- ing Club Miscellany, ii. 104. 222 THE COURT AND THE CAMP. Lords that hath priests at will Me thinketh they trespass full ill, That any day eat, ere they hear mass, But if it be through harder distress. ' And indeed not only lords who had private chapels, but men and women of all conditions above the labouring classes, were accus- tomed to hear daily mass, and that before breakfast, or dinner as it was then called. Early English literature is full of allusions to this custom. Not only the lord before he goes hunting, but the mer- chant before opening his shop, must hear mass. Even for travellers starting at daybreak mass was said in chapels on the bridge, as in London. In Morecambe Bay is an island still called Chapel Island, because on it once stood a chapel where travellers across the sands at low water stopped to hear mass. These things, however, are so well known to all who have any acquaintance with the Middle Ages, that a kind of objection against Catholic piety has been founded on the fact of its being so universal. The ballads and stories of Sir Walter Scott and other writers of romance have created an impression that a certain kind of trust in the mass often went along with a wild and lawless life ; and the im- pression is correct thus far, that when there was unity of faith throughout the land, and the Divine leaven had penetrated society and all its institutions, and religion had clothed itself in innumerable external forms, whole classes of people, who are now perfectly in- different or even hostile to religion, would then retain its forms and use its language, and there would result that strange mixture of faith and irreverence, holy allusions and ribald jokes, ceremonial usage and immoral conduct, with which the poems of Chaucer have fami- liarised us. And again, if religion was sometimes profaned by the vicious, it exercised a restraining influence on those who were rather weak than hardened in sin. There may have been men such as an old poet imagines in his account of Robyn Hood : A good maner than had Robyn In londe where that he were, Every day or he woulde dyne. Three Messes wolde he here. The one in the worshyp of the Fader, The other of the Holy Goost, The thyrde was of our deere Lady, That he loved of all other the moste. Robyn loved our dere Lady For doute of dedely sinne, Wolde he never do company harme That ony woman was ynne. ' Robert de Brunne, Handlyngc Synnc, 1. 731 1, sq. MASS HEARD DAILY. 223 But the type here depicted is by no means frequent in history. Men were more consistent in good or in evil than this pious free- booter. Certainly, if we pay attention to the accounts that eye- witnesses have left us of the nobility, we shall find some of the grandest as well as some of the vilest representatives of the Chris- tian name. Henry of Huntingdon has sketched for us some of the monsters in human shape who got lands and power, and built castles and oppressed the people, in the days of King Stephen. He does not, however, say that they made any profession of piety, but on the contrary they were impious men, hating religion and despising all its forms as well as its influences. William of Newborough, another contemporary of Stephen, shows us on the one hand the robber nobles, with bands of reckless retainers, many of them hired soldiers from Flanders, building strong places from which they issued to plunder the country round ; or seizing on monasteries and churches, whence they drove the monks and clergy, and converting them into places of brutal orgie. On the other hand he records that ' at the same time the wise and merciful Providence of the Great King (Almighty God) shone forth, who then built, as all know, so many castles, such as befit the Prince of Peace to fight against the King of Pride. For in the short time that Stephen reigned, or rather had the name of king, more monasteries were begim in England by God's servants and handmaids than in a hundred years before." They were not, however, the same, the men who plundered the monas- teries and those who built them. It is not true, as is often assumed, that foundations of monasteries were, in general, penances for lives of immorality and injustice. Let the facts be examined in Dugdale, and it will be found that while a few were built as acts of expiation, by far the greater number were founded or enlarged from the purest devotion. The noblest names in English history appear in the list of the builders of abbeys, cathedrals, and parish churches. The sensual and cruel were enemies of all piety, and sometimes even erred in the faith. William de Dene thus writes in the year 1322 : ' Many of the nobles err in the faith, especially regarding the resur- rection and the Sixth Commandment. They use signs, verses, charms, and put their trust in the prophecies of Merlin, and even in familiar spirits.- They have no fear of God, no love oi their neigh- bour. They spoil and rob churches and holy places, and opjDose their liberties.'^ ' De rebus Anglic is, i. 15. - ' Ne dicam de spiritibus inclusis.' Perhaps he speaks of table-rapping and turning, which is an ancient mystery of iniquity. * Historia Roffensis in Anglia Sacra, i. 363. 224 THE COURT AND THE CAMP. Chivalry. The Church has ever sought to consecrate to God and to ennoble whatever in human institutions was innocent, good, and capable of such consecration. It need not be told here how she laboured to sanctify the profession of arms, and to make the knight not only brave, but also pure and just, compassionate and pious.' As usual, one of her mightiest instruments in this work was the Holy Eucharist. The writer who calls himself Ingulph may be trusted in a matter of so public a nature as the consecration of a knight, even though the history of Hereward the Saxon, in which it occurs, may in some of its details be of doubtful authenticity. ' It was the custom,' he says, ' of the English, that he who was about to be lawfully consecrated a knight, should, the evening before the day of his consecration, with contrition and compunction, make confession of all his sins before some bishop, abbot, monk, or priest, and should, after being absolved, pass the night in a church, giving himself up to prayer, devotion, and mortification. On the following day he was to hear mass, and to make offering of a sword upon the altar, and, after the gospel, the priest was to bless the sword, and with his blessing to lay it upon the neck of the knight ; on which, after having communicated at the same mass in the sacred mysteries of Christ, he became a lawful knight. The Normans held in abomina- tion this mode of consecrating a knight, and did not consider such a person to be a lawful knight, but a mere tardy trooper, and a degenerate plebeian. And not only in this custom, but in many others as well, did the Normans effect a change.' ^ Whatever this writer may mean by these reflections, the Normans certainly had no contempt for the religious ceremonies used in making a knight, for it is well known that they survived for centuries. It is seldom, however, that the modern writers who allude to them tell us how prominent a part was always given to the celebration of mass and holy communion. Herbert has printed a formula for making a Knight of the Bath. It is imperfect, but contains the following rubrics for the mass, which was at a very early hour: — ' When the spring of the day appeareth the squire shall confess him, and then hear matins and mass, and after mass be houseled if ' The Broadstone of Honour, or Philosophical History of Chivalry, by the late Kenelm H. Digby, Esq., was republished a few years since in its complete form in five volumes by Quaritch. Alas that one of the noblest works in our language should be so little known ! - Ingulph 's Chronicle, translated by Riley, p. 141. MAKING OF KNIGHTS. !S he will. But after that he be entered into the chapel, he shall (have) a taper of wax brenning in the chapel before him. And when the mass is begun, one of his chamberlains shall hold the taper before the squire till the gospel be begun, and then he shall betake it to the squire to hold during the gospel time. . . . And at sacring of the mass one of the chamberlains shall take the squire's hood off his head, and after the sacring put it on again till the priest comes to " In principio." And at the beginning thereof one of the chamberlains shall put off the squire's hood again, and give him the taper in his hand to stand up and hold, and then must a penny be stacked on the said taper above fast by the light. And when the priest cometh to " Et Verbum caro factum est," the scpire shall kneel and offer the taper with the penny, that is to say, the taper to the worship of God, and the penny at worship of him that shall make him knight.' ' If the sanctity and mystic signification of the marriage contract does not always insure a holy union, nor the Sacrament of Holy Orders make a saint of every priest, it need hardly be said that this solemn initiation did not always insure the virtues of a Christian knight. And owing to the preponderance of the records of what is evil over those of what is good in human affairs, it is much more easy to draw up a list of acts of barbarity and sacrilege than of acts of knightly piety towards the Blessed Sacrament. In the wars between the English and the Scotch there occur on both sides acts of impiety towards churches and monasteries ; there are found also many re- deeming examples of faith and justice. If, for instance, the Scotch soldiers offered violence to a priest while saying mass at Hexham, Wallace punished them with death. If Bruce stabbed Sir John Comyn before the high altar of the Grey Friars church at Dumfries, he afterwards consented to do public penance for his crime at the shrine of St. Mungo in Glasgow. ^ Besides such recorded acts of reparation on the part of the guilty, a very lively belief prevailed that, in lack of other avengers, God Himself interfered to punish outrages against the Blessed Sacrament. Geoffry Mandeville, in the time of Stephen, had seized on the Abbey of Ramsey, and ejected the monks. Henry, archdeacon of Hunting- don, writes : ' While that church was being held as a castle, blood bubbled out of the walls of the church and the adjacent cloisters, as I myself saw with mine own eyes, and many others, and thus mani- fested the Divine indignation, and foreshowed the fearful end of these ' Dibdin's Herbert and Ames, Typographical Antiquities, ii. 28. •^ Hailes, i. 355. VOL. II. Q 226 THE COURT AND THE CAMP. miscreants. For since the impious affirmed that God was asleep, He showed Himself awake by this sign and'the fulfilment of it.' ^ In 1379, John Arundel, with a body of armed men, set sail from Plymouth for Brittany, when a sudden storm wrecked the ships on the shores of Ireland, Wales, and Cornwall, and more than a thou sand persons perished. This was considered a chastisement ; for ' while waiting at Plymouth they had oppressed and robbed the people, insulted the women, even carried off nuns and the young ladies who, as was customary, were being educated in the convent ; and lastly, had carried off a chalice from a church. The priest had followed them to their ships, and publicly and solemnly excommunicated them, while they laughed and mocked at him. But they soon paid the penalty, being swallowed up in the salt waves, and eaten by the mon- sters of the deep.' ^ There are, however, histories of a very different kind which show that faith and piety were not always banished from the camp. The Normans before the battle of Hastings are said to have spent the night in prayer and confession, and their victory was attributed to their piety rather than their bravery ; for the English, it is said, trusted in themselves and prepared for battle by songs and drinking.^ The chronicler of Meaux says that before the battle of Bannockburn ' the English in their pride trusted in their strength and numbers, while the Scotch, contrite, and after confession and viaticum, implored the help of God.' ^ The Scotch historians enter into more detail : ' Maurice, abbot of Inchaffray, celebrated mass on a hill in sight of the Scottish army, and then passed along the front of the line bare- footed, and lifting up a crucifix before their eyes adjured the troops in burning words to fight for their rights and liberty. The whole army knelt down, and the priests administered the Holy Eucharist to them. " They yield," cried the English king, mistaking the pious action ; "see, they ask mercy." " Sire," said Ingelram de Umfraville, " they do, but it is not yours. On yonder field they will conquer or die." ' 5 ' Book viii. 22 (Rolls Series). ^ Life of Richard II. , by a contemporary monk of Evesham, Hearn's ed. p. 16. ^ William of Malmesbury. * Chronicon de Mclsa, ii. 331. The chronicler of Woburn gives the same account. * Annals of the Church of Scotland, by Rev. Mackenzie Walcott, p. 41. He refers to Annals of .Scotland, ii. 471; Boece, xiv. 11 ; Hailes, ii. 60; Leslie, 144. The Abbot of Inchaffray, afterwards Bishop of Dunblane in 1319. He was confessor to Robert Bruce. Inchaffray means the Island of Masses. It was an abbey of Austin Canons, founded early in the thirteenth century, on a rising ground or island near Perth. DEVOTION BEFORE BATTLE. 227 In the examples just related neglect of religion and defeat were on the side of the English. Before the battle of Agincourt the con- trary was the case. It was the French who trusted in themselves, the English who prayed, did penance, and made at least a spiritual or symbolic communion.' Again, it was under the protection of the famous banner of St. Cuthbert — his ' corporax cloth ' — that the English gained the battle of Nevil's Cross, near Durham, in 1346, against David Bruce. ^ Still more famous was their devotion to the Holy Eucharist at the battle of the Standard at Northallerton in 1 138. The Standard consisted of the sacred banners of St. Cuthbert of Durham, St. Peter of York, St. John of Beverley, and St. Wilfrid of Ripon, hung from a pole fixed on a cart in the midst of the army. Some authors state that the Holy Eucharist Itself hung in a pyx from this pole ; ^ and if this seems a strange and even sacrilegious use to give to the Sacrament of Peace, it may be said that this was a holy war, and that the indignation of all faithful men had been aroused by the frightful sacrileges of the men of Galloway. Henry of Hunting- don, a contemporary, says, they beheaded priests at the very altar, and then, cutting off the heads of the great crucifixes on the rood- beams, they put the priest's head on the trunk of the crucifix, and the head of the crucifix on the trunk of the priest."* If this seems a story too horrible to be believed, it is perfectly borne out by northern writers, such as Reginald of Durham, and by St. ^Ired, who, if not an eye-witness, was intimately acquainted with the leaders of both the Scotch and English armies. In the speech which St. ^Ired puts into the mouth of Walter of Espec before the battle, it is said that the Scotch barbarians from Galloway, besides their other enormous brutalities and cruelties, had trodden the Blessed Sacrament under their feet in the churches they had ravaged.'^ Walter also encourages his followers to the battle by the thought that they have just received the Flesh and Blood of Christ. Again, in the speech of Robert de Brus to King David, it is mentioned that this holy king had been horrified at the wicked- ness of these men of Galloway, had wept, beaten his breast, and pro- tested that it was against his orders. Before the fight begins, Ralph, bishop of the Orcades, sent by Archbishop Turstan, commands the ' See p. 40. * On this banner see Rites of Durham, p. 79 (Surtees Society). ^ ' Placing above the banners the Body of the Lord, that He might be their standard-bearer and leader of the battle ' (Richard of Hexham), ^ Book viii. 6. (Rolls Series.) * They did this in St. Godric's chapel. See ch. xiii. Q2 228 THE COURT AND THE CAMP. English to fight for the pardon of their sins, and gives them a general absolution and his blessing. ^ The facts gathered together in this chapter are too miscellaneous and too few, scattered as they are over several centuries, to justify any conclusion for or against the general piety or morality of the higher and military classes. To those who have faith they will give occasion to glorify the condescension and longanimity of God. Even those who hesitate to accept the Mystery of Faith will do well to pause thoughtfully on one aspect of the facts here related, which needs no faith to verify it. In every class of life, from the king to the common soldier, in proportion as men were pure, and generous, and noble in life and death, was their faith lively, and their devotion tender, and their adoration profound towards the Holy Eucharist ; while in proportion as their faith, and devotion, and adoration were earnest, were their lives elevated, and their deaths magnanimous. ' Migne, Patrol, torn. cxcv. 229 CHAPTER XVI. OBSERVANCE OF FESTIVALS. Robert de Brunne thus states his views regarding the ecclesiastical year and its observances : For the pope may, through his power— Turn the holy days in the year, -How as he will, at his own will ;-But the Sunday shall stand still. -The holy days that in harvest are— In Yole he may set them there ;— And of the Yole every feast-May be set in harvest.— But he may through no reason-The Sunday put up nor down.— Therefore the Sunday specially-Is highest to hallow and most worthy,— And that day thou owest and shail- For to hear thy service all,— Matins, mass hear, to read or sing— Every deal to the ending. -Wait the time and be not last— To come when" holy water is cast,— Come first to matins if that thou may -For it is God's own day.' It matters not to inquire how far Robert was right in his estimate of the extent and limitation of the pope's authority. There is an old ma.xim, ' Summum jus, summa injuria.' And though the pope may ' have a giant's power,' he has not been wont ' to use it as a giant,' unless in cases of extreme necessity. Certainly hitherto the sove- reign Pontiffs have no more thought of placing Christmas at mid- summer, or Whitsuntide in winter, than they have thought of abolish- ing the Sunday, or, like the revolutionists of France, changing the week from seven days to ten. The controversies regarding Easter in the third century are suffi- cient to prove that the observance of fasts and feasts is of apostolic origin. But while the greater commemorations of the year remain the same throughout all ages, and through the whole extent of Christendom, almost each century has witnessed some addition, and each country contributed some modification, to the calendar. If the continued contemplation of ancient mysteries is ever bringing forth new forms of devotion, on the other hand new heresies or impieties demand new protests, new events in the Church's history require grateful commemoration, and new saints in every age and country arise as claimants for the Church's honours. This growth has to be ' Bandlynge Symtc, 1. 809, sq. 230 OBSERVANCE OF FESTIVALS. checked or regulated by authority, by which also the problem has to be solved as to how far the celebrations of the Church should en- croach on social and civil life, and how, while the fervent are re- strained from excess, the slothful should be urged on, and the dis- orderly chastised. A full history both of popular devotion and of the action of authority in the celebration of fasts and feasts, even in one country, would require a volume. It will be enough, however, for my pur- pose to give a general indication of the number and kind of holidays which were, as we say, of obligation for the people ; in other words, of the days on which the people were bound to make holiday and to be present at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We shall thus understand what mysteries or events were then specially commemo- rated in England. The synod of Exeter, held in the year 1287, gives a list of the days of precept at that time. Instead of following this list month by month, it will be more convenient to classify the commemorations, completing our information from some other sources.' Besides the Sundays throughout the year (which included Trinity Sunday, Easter, and Pentecost), the great festivals of our Lord, Christmas and the Circumcision, Epiphany and the Ascension, were of strict obligation. In the fourteenth century Corpus Christi was added to the number. The whole octave of Christmas was a con- tinued holiday, as were also the three days which followed Easter, and the three days after Pentecost. Among days of precept were the two feasts of the Holy Cross, that on which is commemorated its finding by St. Helen (May 3rd), and thence popularly called in England St. Helen's Day, and that of its recovery or exaltation by the emperor Heraclius (September 14th). At a considerably later period we find two other feasts of our Lord added to some calen- dars — that of the Transfiguration 2 on the 6th of August, and that of the Name of Jesus on the 7th. But at no time were these days of precept throughout England. Both Corpus Christi and Holy Week will demand separate treat- ment. In the latter. Good Friday, though a fast, was a day of strict precept in regard to assistance at the divine ofiices in church, as we learn from Archbishop Islip. In addition to the four festivals of our Lady celebrated by the Anglo-Saxon Church— viz. the Purification, Annunciation, Assump- 1 Wilkins, ii. r45, 175; iii. 252. Also notes and calendars prefixed to various missals. '^ An ancient feast, however, in some churches. LIS 7^ OF FEASTS. 231 tion, and Nativity, in February, March, August, and September — the feast of our Lady's Conception was made of obligation by a Council of the Province of Canterbury in 1328. It is placed in the list of the synod of Exeter in 1287. In the Scotch Church, as we learn from the Arbuthnot Missal, written in 1491, the Visitation of our Lady (2nd July) was to be kept as a holiday by clergy and laity. It appears also as a principal feast in some English calendars of the fifteenth century. ^ Two other feasts, the Presentation (21st Novem- ber), and Our Lady of the Snow (5th August), though found in some calendars, had not attained a general celebration before tlie Reformation, and were nowhere obligatory on the laity. The synod of Exeter also enumerates the various feasts of the twelve Apostles as well as of St. Barnabas, St. Mark, and St. Luke, the two feasts of St. John Baptist, those of St. Michael, St. Martin, St. Nicholas, St. Gregory, and of All Saints. St. Mary Magdalen and St. Catharine the virgin martyr were the only women besides our Blessed Lady whose feasts the people were bound to celebrate, though in a.d. 1400 St. Anne and St. Winifred were added. The feasts of St. Augustine, the Apostle of England, and of St. George the special patron, are not found in all MSS. of the Exeter list. Pope Innocent VI. in 1354 ordered the feast of St. Augustine to be thus publicly kept as a holiday. The devotion to St. George did not begin with the crusades. His feast is in Anglo-Saxon calendars, and his name was even mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Canon of the Mass. Besides the feasts just named the following were of precept in the thirteenth century, the Conversion of St. Paul, the Chair of St. Peter at Antioch (22nd February), St. John before the Latin Gate, and St. Peter's Chains. In 1400 all these were omitted from among days of obligation together with those of St. Barnabas, St. Gregory, St. Martin, and the beheading of St. John Baptist, while in compensa- tion the feast of St. Chad and the commemoration of All Souls (as well as St. Anne and St. Winifred) were added. St. Thomas of Canterbury alone of English saints was thus pub- licly honoured by the whole country (before St. Chad's feast was ordered to be kept as of obligation). ^ St. Thomas, however, was not only honoured on his festival in the octave of Christmas, but ' In the province of Yoik the Visitation was added to the calendar by Convo- cation as late as 1526, and then assigned to the 2nd of April. - St. Thomas of Hereford has two feasts of obligation in the list of the Pro- vincial Council of Canterbury under Archbishop Simon Islip in 1359 ; but I do not find them mentioned by Archbishop Arundel in 1400. 232 OBSERVANCE OF FESTIVALS. also on the day of his translation (yth July), and was commemorated daily in the suffrages. Thus, including the Sundays, rather more than a hundred days in the year were kept as public holidays, by cessation from servile work and assistance at the divine offices. In addition to these, each parish kept the feast of the patron of the place and that of the dedication of the church, and each diocese the feast or perhaps feasts of the patron or patrons of the cathedral. Popular devotion too would often outrun precept, and the feasts of English saints were probably observed throughout the whole country with more enthusiasm than would be roused by saints of higher ecclesiastical rank, but less intimately known. How, it may be asked, were the numerous festivals observed ? With what piety ? With what benefit to men's souls ? With what benefit to the country ? If we consider what these questions involve, what an immense field of human action they comprise, what a long period of history they embrace, it will be evident that no one, how- ever versed in antiquarian studies, could without utter folly attempt to give any general answers. Were such an inquiry instituted about our own times, were it even restricted to one diocese, and were a score of experienced and thoughtful priests and laymen called on to give an account of the observance of Sundays and festivals within the last twenty years, how varied and even contradictory would be their statements ! Not only does town differ from country, and class from class ; but place also differs from place, because of local in- fluences, the varying zeal of the clergy, the good or bad example of the more conspicuous among the laity, the effect of past traditions, the thinness of the population, the extent of the district, the occupa- tions or wealth of the inhabitants. If then we extend the inquiry to the whole of Great Britain and to five hundred years of time, the solution of the questions proposed becomes so complicated as to baffle any but Him ' to whom His Father has given all judgment.' Generation after generation passes before Him. From the taber- nacle He invites all, on the altar He offers Himself for all, at the foot of the altar He gives Himself to all and to each who is willing to receive Him, He will know how He has been treated by each country, by each parish, by each soul that He has created and re- deemed. He alone can judge. One thing only we know — that the Father seeketh those who will adore Him in spirit and in truth, and that the Son has given men the means of offering to the Father that sacrifice of adoration which He will accept. These remarks will perhaps not seem uncalled for to such as will ABUSE OF HOLIDAYS. 233 reflect on the extreme difficulty we all feel in abstaining from hasty conclusions and unfair judgments, when confronted by some striking fact in former times. Our vision of distant times is so indistinct that one such fact when placed before us seems to occupy the whole field. We can indeed easily distinguish between country and country, but not so between century and century. We require frequently to recall the elementary truths that ' the ancients did not all live at the same time,' that ' the Middle Ages ' is merely a convenient term in- cluding in itself the lives of many generations of Christians. Let then the documents I am about to quote have their due weight, but let them not be exaggerated into sweeping condemnations of the whole of mediaeval England. John Peckham, a Franciscan friar, became Archbishop of Canter- bury. He showed on the throne of St. Augustine the same zeal and apostolic boldness of language which had distinguished him as a missionary. No one ever used more freedom in condemning the evils of his day, and he speaks in very strong terms of the inobserv- ance of Sundays and festivals in 1291.' About seventy years later Archbishop Islip called the attention of his suffragans to the same subject. He complains that ' what had been established for the honour of God's elect has been turned into blasphemy and abomination, since on feast days especially meetings, marketings, and other prohibited practices are carried on. What had been instituted for the strengthening of devotion is now maintained for the increase of dissoluteness. Taverns are more frequented than churches, feasting and drunkenness abound more than prayer and tears, and people give themselves up to lasciviousness and quarrelling more than to the repose of contemplation.' ^ The archbishop orders therefore that stringent measures of refor- mation be adopted. All who have come to the years of discretion may be compelled, if necessary, by canonical censures, to attend their parish churches on the Sundays. The Sunday begins from Saturday evening vespers, and so is it with all feasts which have a vigil. The very words used by Simon Islip were repeated in 1401 by Thomas Arundel in a decree directed against the Sunday fairs kept up at Harrow-on-the-Hill.^ Before quoting the language of authority on this subject, it may be well to listen to the complaints and exhor- ' Wilkins, ii. 175. ^ From the MS. register of William of Edyndon, Bishop of Winchester, fol. 119, vol. i. date Nov. 2, 1362. Also, though not in the same terms, in Wilkins, iii. 43, date 1359. 3 Wilkins, iii. 266. 334 OBSERVANCE OF FESTIVALS. tations of a preacher. The Dominican John Bromyard, writing in the fourteenth century, after first showing how festivals should be kept, continues thus : ' But now-a-days the very contrary is done, for there are few who give up bodily labour. Either they gather the harvest or store it, or lead carts or lend them to others, when they ought to serve God and not their neighbours. And if perhaps a few cease from labour, there are very few who do not either go them- selves or send their servants with loaded mules to fairs and markets. There is scarce a great day in the year on which a fair is not held in some place, and in many places there is a market on every Sunday throughout the year, to which there is a much greater concourse than if it were held on any other day, so that as you go on the roads you meet many a packhorse on the Sunday. Many think that they keep the feast well if they do not labour, and also that it is clear gain if they can make their sales and purchases when they are not occupied in labour. And thus, from such a concourse, many do not hear mass or obey any other precept of God ; and the people of the town where the market is held are so busy that they scarcely hear a low mass. ' But suppose they neither work nor go to markets, yet how little do they do for their souls. They get up late, and come late to church, and wish to be so little there, that they will urge the priest to be quick because they have a friend coming to dinner. If there should be a sermon about their salvation, they excuse themselves from hearing it, by saying that it is getting too late for them to remain, or they are vexed and wearied if compelled to stay. Even the short time that they cannot help remaining in the church they spend in unnecessary talk, forgetting that the house of God is the house of prayer. Then they go away to dinner or to the tavern, and there they are in no hurry, for some will spend there the whole of the rest of the day and even till late at night, like the Amalecites, " eating and drinking and as it were keeping a festival day " ' (i Kings xxv. i6).' Robert de Brunne makes a similar complaint of the unwillingness of some slothful or sensual men to listen to sermons : And if a frere come for to preach, Of a dinner were better speech ; Then saith he : ' God shall save all. Do well, well shall thou have.' Certes, that is not enough For he doth nothing to prow. But if he would listen the frere To do well then might he lere.- Stifiinia Pnidicatitium, part i. p. 292. ^ Ilandlynge Synne. ABUSE OF HOLIDAYS. 235 Such complaints as these, or satirical descriptions, belong to all times and countries, but the abuses connected with the fairs kept on Sun- days and holidays are peculiar to country districts, and admit of easy explanation if not of excuse. Archbishop Arundel, while blaming and abolishing the market or fair carried on every Sunday in the churchyard of Harrow, and for- bidding any shops or tents to be erected there in future under pain of excommunication, makes an exception for the harvest time. Then, as the people are engaged during the week in agriculture which they cannot leave without great loss to go to the town to make their purchases, he allows them to do this on Sunday, outside the church- yard, provided they have heard mass, though not necessarily the High Mass.^ In days when there were few fixed stores or shops except in the great towns, and when most of the necessaries or conveniences of life were purchased from itinerant merchants, every effort would be made by these to dispose of their goods wherever there was a con- course of people, and so save themselves the trouble and expense of travelling from house to house. They therefore tried to convert the Sunday gathering for mass into a weekly fair. This, of course, suited the convenience of the people too well to admit of easy remedy, and the evil grew until it called for the interference of the State. The following is the preamble of a statute passed in the 27th year of Henry VI. (a.u. 1448) : ' Considering the abominable injuries and offences done to Almighty God and to His saints, always aiders and singular assisters in our necessities, because of the fairs and markets upon their high and principal feasts, as in the feast of the Ascension of our Lord, in the day of Corpus Christi, in the day of Whit Sunday, in Trinity Sunday, with other Sundays, as also in the high feast of the Assumption of our Blessed Lady, accustomably and miserably holden and used in the realm of England ; in which principal and festival days, for great earthly covetise, the people is more willingly vexed, and in bodily labour foiled, than in other ferial days ; as in fastening and nraking their booths and stalls, bearing and carrying, lifting and placing their wares outward and homeward, as though they did nothing remember the horrible defilement of their souls in buying and selling, with many deceitful lies and false perjury, with drunken- ness and strifes, and so especially withdrawing themselves and their servants from divine service : Therefore, the king, by the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and the commons of this - Wilkins, iii. 266. 236 OBSERVANCE OF FESTIVALS. realm, decrees that fairs be no longer held on Sundays and holi- days/ &c. We have now seen the dark side of English life as described by satirist and preacher, bishop and parliament. Soft and apologetic language was unknown in the Middle Ages. In describing abuses men used the strongest terms they could find. In their panegyrics they make reserves, but rarely in their censures. Moreover, the pas- sages quoted have been so many indictments against criminals ; no balance of good and evil has been attempted, no praise whatever bestowed upon the virtuous and devout. Yet who does not know that while a church is crowded with pious worshippers, and hundreds are feeding on the Bread of Life, a handful of brawlers in a public- house may cause scandal and bring disgrace upon a parish ? Is it to be wondered at, that when the whole of England was at least nominally Catholic, and the pastoral care of the bishops included all and gave account of all, many should have been found of whom a most unsatisfactory account had to be given ? At the present day, when church accommodation is not provided for half the population, and the descendants of Christians, now heathen and unbaptized, and ignorant of all religion, are wandering on every side like sheep with- out a shepherd, it little behoves us, whether we are Catholic or Pro- testant, to pass censure on mediaeval England, covered as it was with churches far beyond the needs of the whole people. If there were many who neglected or profaned the Church's holi- days, they were certainly few compared with those who kept them, who entered into their spirit and profited by their observance. It is impossible, of course, to bring documents in proof of this assertion. Bishops do not issue letters in order to praise the good, as they do to blame and coerce the wicked. Councils do not meet to sing Te Deums for the flourishing state of religion, but to deplore and correct abuses. Sermons generally — medieval sermons most certainly — are laudatory of past ages and the deeds of the saints, but only by way of contrast with the present degeneracy. The evidences of piety are so scattered, so incidental, so minute, that however convincing they may be to one long conversant with mediaeval documents, and all the more convincing because of their incidental nature, they yet cannot be produced, so as to affect in a like manner those to whom such studies are unfamiliar. To give a few small details would be useless, to classify and array a great multitude would be tedious. It may, however, be said, without exaggeration, that almost all the acts of piety and devotion contained in these volumes are connected directly or indirectly with the festivals of the Church, since the cycle BENEFIT OF HOLIDAYS. 237 of fast and feast of the Christian year was the most active, most con- tinuous, and most universal means of enlightening the minds and moving the hearts of men. How few were the books possessed by any but monks ! Two or three, in addition to those belonging to his church, formed the treasure of a parish priest. Without the festivals of the Church the life of the bulk of the nation would not merely have been of the world worldly and sensual, but it would have been shut up in the present. A few ballads and traditional tales would alone have told them of things remote or past. The absence of books was made up for by the constantly recurring, though ever varying, feasts. The wonderful drama of God's dealings with men in former ages was ever being acted before the nation. Not only by sermons did the Church teach. The churches in which the people assembled were teachers. The history of Malmesbury, Abingdon, Westminster, Peterborough, went back into far-distant times, beyond the Norman, and even, as in the case of Glastonbury, beyond the Saxon conquest. The plainest parish church, with its Rood and its statues and its pic- tured windows and its symbolic carving, was full of instruction. The detail of the prayers and ceremonial might be known only to the clergy, but their general characteristics, perceived and felt by all, were full of lessons. If the priests had few superfluous books, those which they were bound to have, and which made up what we now call the Breviary, the Missal, and the Ritual, contained an inexhaustible store of instruction, moral and dogmatic, and of more recent as well as old-world history. And it was by means of the Sundays and fes- tivals that the sublime mysteries of psalm and prophecy, the holy and pathetic records of the gospels, and the faithful accomplishment of divine promises in the Church's history, were gradually taught to priests, and so to the people according to their measure. We have seen that more than a hundred days, between a third and fourth part of the year, were set apart for this direct and, so to say, exclusive action of religion. No one can doubt that it was a sufficient proportion of human life if men profited by it. But it may be said : Was it not too much ? Though the service of God is the general end of all human life, are men capable in their present state of devoting so great a part of it exclusively to the thought of what is spiritual and eternal ? Do not the very complaints, so constantly repeated, of the violation of the festivals by work or commerce show that they were felt to be too great a burden ? I reply that I can find no evidence of this, but the contrary. They were a burden to sloth or to covetousness, not to industry, commerce, or the happiness and mirth of the nation. We read of the people rising in revolt against 238 OBSERVANCE OF FESTIVALS. crushing taxes and exactions, and demanding their abolition ; but not of such complaints against the burden of the holidays. • Markets and fairs, in other words the principal commercial transactions of the people, tended ever to encroach on the festivals ; but the festivals in no way encroached on them. The abolition of festivals or lessening of their number would have been no boon to packmen, merchants, or shopkeepers, for it would simply have prevented those gatherings which they sought to turn to their own profit. Nor did pastoral pursuits suffer seriously from the number of holidays. Herds and flocks required little care, and what they demanded was not forbidden at any time. Only a small part of the country was under tillage ; rotation of crops was little known, and the earth had often to lie fallow. The population was sufficient for the culture in spite of holidays, and the produce sufificient for the population. Tradesmen and artisans at the present day seldom care to work more than four or five days in a week on an average. It could be no great hardship, then, for the Church to bid them rest two days in the seven when manufactures were in comparatively small demand. On the other hand, it would not be easy to over-estimate the effect of the holidays in enhancing the joy and interest of life. One of our best antiquarian writers, the Rev. Joseph Hunter, makes an observation regarding chantries, or foundations for daily masses, which may be applied still more truly to the whole subject of Divine worship which we are now considering. ' The chantries,' he says,^ ' will be found to be closely connected with the social habits and even the recreations of the people. They formed one of the provi- sions which, in early ages, broke the monotony of country life, without science, without literature, and without politics.' So that here again the Blessed Sacrament is found to have been the source of innocent joy, rest, and recreation ; and ' piety had the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come.' ^ ' Latimer complained before Convocation, but his reasons were such as would have been equally valid against making holiday on Sundays. ^ Essay on the Nature, Purpose, and Resources of lopography, printed in the Proceedings of the Archcsological Institute iox 1847, p. 90. ' I Tim. iv. 8. 239 CHAPTER XVII. HOLY WEEK. The ceremonies of the Holy Week have from the earliest ages had a special character, and it would be most interesting to trace their development and variations. But we must confine ourselves to those which regard immediately the Blessed Sacrament. Though it is the Passion of her Divine Spouse which absorbs the whole' soul of the Church in that week, yet since the Blessed Sacrament is the divinely appointed Rite for the commemoration of our Lord's Death, and this sacred Rite was instituted on the very eve of His Passion, it was natural that the Holy Eucharist, whether as sacrifice or sacrament, should occupy a large part in the observances of Holy Week and Easter. And this is so truly the case, that it will be necessary to devote a considerable space to the rites of almost each successive day. Palm Sunday. At least from the days of St. Augustine there had been in England a procession on Palm Sunday in memory of our Lord's triumphal entry into Jerusalem. St. Aldhelm in the seventh century declares this was done in reliance on ancient authority.^ Alcuin in the next century informs us that during this procession the holy Gospel was carried on a feretory. But it does not seem that a procession of the Blessed Sacrament on this day was known in England before the Norman Conquest. It was probably introduced by Lanfranc, for Matthew Paris says that the directory, which had been drawn up by Lanfranc for the Abbey of Bee, was soon adopted in the larger Benedictine abbeys in England. Lanfranc's directions for Palm Sunday are as follows : ^ ' After tierce the abbot blesses the palms and flowers. The palms are carried by the abbot and other dignitaries, branches and flowers by the rest. All the bells are rung while the procession leaves the ' De Laiide Virg. cap. 15. ' Opera Lanfranci, vol. i. p. 100, ed. Giles. 240 HOLY WEEK. choir. Servants lead the way with the banners, then a lay-brother with holy water, two others with crosses, and two with candlesticks and lighted tapers, two with thuribles. . . . Then two subdeacons carrying two books of the Gospels, followed by the lay monks. Next the boys with their masters, then the rest of the brethren two and two, and lastly the abbot.' During the procession antiphons were sung. The Directory thus continues : ' A Httle before daybreak a place has been prepared, to which the Body of our Lord has been carried by two priests and placed in a shrine. When the procession reaches this place it halts, and the two priests vested in white come forward. The banner and cross- banners having moved forward, the two priests take up the feretory with the Body of Christ and stand still. The procession is ranged around and antiphons are sung, at the end of each of which they genuflect. When the abbot intones the antiphon Ave Rex fioster, the bearers of the feretory go forward, preceded by the banners and crosses, and pass up between the lines of the rest of the procession. As the Blessed Sacrament passes they genuflect two and two. Then they follow in procession till they reach the gates of the city, where a halt or station is made, and the feretory is laid on a table covered with a pall, in the entrance to the gates. The gateway is adorned with curtains and rich hangings. ' Then the boys sing the Gloria, Laus, and other antiphons, and at the Ingrediente Domino the procession returns, the great bells of the city ringing during the rest of the procession. When the procession returning comes to the gates of the monastery, another station is made before a temporary altar. Antiphons are sung. The Blessed Sacrament is again taken up, and they enter the church, and make a third station before the crucifix uncovered for the purpose. Then the mass begins.' These rites, after they had been brought into England, continued to be observed in many of the greater churches. Simon, the nine- teenth abbot of St. Albans,' who lived in the latter part of the twelfth century, was a friend of St. Thomas of Canterbury, and a great bene- factor of his own church. Among other magnificent gifts, he bestowed on it a splendid shrine to be used on Palm Sunday, which Matthew Paris, who had seen it and was a good judge of art, calls ' Vas mirificum.' ' He decreed,' writes his biographer, ' that on Palm Sunday the Body of the Lord should be reverently placed in this shrine, and be carried by one of the brethren, venerable for character as > Life, by Matthew Paris. PROCESSION OF PALM SUNDAY. 241 well as for age, clothed in a white chasuble, to a pavilion erected in the churchyard and composed of the most precious stuffs, unless the inclemency of the weather should prevent it. Thence it should be carried to the chapter- house, two of the brethren in copes honourably supporting the arms of him who carried the shrine. In the same manner, followed by the procession, it should at length be carried back to the church with the greatest veneration. And this should all be done,' adds the chronicler, ' that the faithful may see with what honour the most Holy Body of Christ should be treated, which at this season offered Itself to be scourged, crucified, and buried.' The Hereford Missal ' also makes mention of the altar of repose to which the Body of Christ Avith relics of the saints had been carried in the morning. The York Missal 2 prescribes that 'during the blessing and distri- bution of the palms, the Body of the Lord is to be earned to the appointed place by a priest in a silver cope, with thurifers, acolyths, and deacons. The officiant (after the arrival of the procession) genuflects to our Lord three times, saying : Dignus es, Domi?ie Dens nosfer, accipere gloriam et /loiiore?/!, "Thou art worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honour," and the choir follows his example each time with the same words. Then the Blessed Sacrament is carried back to the church by another way.' This ceremony took place outside the church if the weather permitted, and the Blessed Sacrament was placed under a tent {tentoriiun). If the weather was bad, the Blessed Sacrament was carried to the altar of our Lady and there honoured. An old commentator on the Sarum rites, Clement Maideston, describes the procession round the parish church. His account is thus given, though not verbatim, by Dr. Rock : ^ 'While they were going from the north side towards the east, and had just ended the gospel read at the first station, the shrine with the sacrament, surrounded with lights in lanterns and streaming banners, and preceded by a silver cross and a thurifer with incense, was borne forwards so that they might meet it, as it were, and our Lord was hailed by the singers chanting, Ecce rex venit mansuetus. Kneeling lowly down and kiss- ing the ground, they saluted the Sacrament again and again, in many appropriate sentences out of Holy Writ ; and the red wooden cross ' (which was always used in Lenten processions, and which had pre- ceded the procession issuing from the church) now ' withdrew from ' Hereford Missal, published by Rev. W. Henderson {1874), vol. ii. p. So. 2 York Missal, Surtees Society (1874), p. 85. 3 Church of our Fathers, vol. iii. part ii. pp. 227, 228. VOL. II. R 242 HOLY WEEK. the presence of the silver crucifix. The whole procession now moved to the south side of the close, or churchyard, where in cathedrals a temporary erection was made for the boys who sang the Gloria, laus, as a halt was made for a second station.' In parish churches this station was generally made at the churchyard cross, which on this day was decked with flowers and palm branches.' ' From the stone cross, . . . the procession went next to the western doorway, if the church had one, otherwise to the south porch, and there paused to make its third station. The door itself was shut, but after a while flew wide open. The priests who bore the shrine with the Blessed Sacrament and relics, stepped forwards with the heavenly burden, and held it up on high at the doorway, so that all that went in had to go under this shrme ; and thus the procession came back into church, each one bowing his head as he passed beneath the Sacrament' A gentleman named Roger Martin, who died in 1580, longing for the restoration of the Catholic religion, has left a most interesting account of his parish church of Melford in Suffolk, and of some of the ceremonies which he remembered in it in his youth. He thus describes Palm Sunday : ' Upon Palm Sunday, the Blessed Sacra- ment was carried in procession about the churchyard, under a fair canopy, borne by four yeomen. The procession coming to the church gate went westward, and they with the Blessed Sacrament went eastward ; and when the procession came against the door of Mr. Clopton's aisle, they, with the Blessed Sacrament and with a little bell and singing, approached at the east end of our Lady's chapel ; at which time a boy with a thing in his hand pointed to it, signifying a prophet, as I think, and sang, standing upon the turret that is on the said Mr. Clopton's aisle door : Ecce Rex tuns venit, etc. And then all did kneel down, and then, rising up, went singing together into the church, and coming near the porch, a boy or one of the clerks did cast over among the boys flowers and singing cakes.' ^ This description brings us down to the very days of the Reforma- tion, and proves that even the establishment of the Corpus Christi feast and procession had not caused the abandonment of the more ancient one of Palm Sunday. The spirit of the whole rite was that of reparation, and thus harmonised well with Holy Week ; but as it tended to take a festal rather than a penitential character, we need not regret its present disuse. ' Church of our Fathers, p. 229. ^ Views of the most Interesting Churches, &c. , by J. P. Neale (1825), vol. ii. where the history of Martin's MS. is given. THE SEPULCHRE. 243 Shear Thursday, &>€. The Ccena Domini, or day on Avhich our Lord celebrated His last supper with His disciples, before the institution of the Holy Eucharist, is now commonly called Holy Thursday. This name belonged in old England to Ascension Day, and the Thursday in Holy Week was called Shear or Shorp Thursday, or Maundy Thurs- day. The first name is probably derived from the public absolution given to penitents on that day, though John Myrc in the fourteenth century supposed it to allude to the hair and beard cutting which was usual as a preparation for Easter. Maundy is by some derived from ' maund,' a basket, because of the gifts made to the poor at the washing of the feet. By others it is thought to be a corruption of Mandatum Thursday, from the antiphon, Mandatum novum, '■ h. new commandment I give you, that ye love one another,' which was sung at that ceremony. But with these observances I am not concerned, and must refer my reader to the accounts given by Dr. Rock. ' One of the principal associations in the mind of a Catholic of the present day with Holy Thursday is that of adoration at the sepulchre, and many are puzzled to discover why our Lord's burial is honoured before His death. In order to explain this seeming anomaly, it will be necessary to give an historical account of the changes which have taken place in the popular observances of Holy Week, much more than in the approved ritual itself It will then be understood that before the Reformation in England the adoration of our Lord in the sepulchre did not precede but followed the celebration of His death on Good Friday, and had no connection whatever with the Thursday. But when the peculiar rite of the sepulchre, which belonged to the Friday evening and the Saturday, was abandoned, the popular devo- tion was transferred to the adoration at the altar of repose of Holy Thursday, which then took a new development, and the name of Sepulchre, though now an anachronism, was so appropriate to Holy Week that it has clung to the minds of the people, and has even been adopted by liturgical writers. I. First, then, the compilers of the 'Regularis Concordia,' ^ for the guidance of the great Benedictine monasteries in England in the time of King Edgar (tenth century), state that they have been careful, while consulting foreign authorities, to retain all good customs of their own land. This document gives the following directions. On Thursday, after the midnight office and morning hours, the floor of ' Church of our Fathers, vol. iii. part ii. pp. 74 ard 235. "^ Migne, Falrologia, tom. cxxxvii. R 2 244 HOLY WEEK. the church was washed by lay monks, while the priests with their assistants washed the altars with holy water. No mass could be said that day at an altar until it had been washed. When Sext had been said {i.e. about noon) the mass was celebrated, at which the poor were present whose feet were to be washed. When None had been said {i.e. at 3 p.im.) monks went to the door of the church to fetch fire struck from the flint, as we do still on Holy Saturday, In England at that time this ceremony took place on each of the last three days of Holy Week. Instead of a crucifix they carried a spear with the representation of a serpent, and the candle which was carried was in the same form, no doubt to commemorate the serpent in the desert which our Lord has explained as a type of Himself on the cross. Then followed the celebration of the principal mass — ' at which mass, as well as those of the following days, com- munion will be given both to the brethren and to all the faithful, the Eucharist being reserved in sufficient quantity for the communion of Friday.' It appears from what follows that the Eucharist was reserved in the sacristy ; but nothing is said of watching before It, nor was the place of reservation called the sepulchre. This name is, however, used in connection with one of the ceremonies of Good Friday. The fathers, without prescribing, approve of a custom of certain religious, which they think may conduce to strengthen the faith of the ignorant and of converts {indocti viilgi ac neophytorutii). A place was prepared at one side of the altar, to look like a tomb, and a curtain drawn round it. When the solemn adoration of the cross (made as it is at the present day) was concluded, the deacons came and wrapped the crucifix in a winding-sheet, and then carried it to the tomb,, singing the antiphons : In pace in idipsimi ; Habitabit ; and Caro mea requiescet hi spe. When they had laid the cross in the tomb they sang : Sepulto Domino signatum est nionununfurn, poncntcs milites qui ciistodirent eum. The cross was to remain in this place until Easter morning, and, if the community was large enough, two or three of the brethren might remain watching reverently before it during the night singing psalms. The cross having thus been removed, the deacon and subdeacon brought from the sacristy the Body of the Lord which had been reserved from the preceding day, and the Mass of the Presanctified was concluded as at present, except that all were silently communicated. The Holy Saturday offices and mass were very much as they are at present, except that they took place late in the afternoon. ' ' ' In Sabbato niagno circa noctis initium ' (celebratur missa), says Giialdus in the twelfth century. {Gemma Ecclcs. p. 24, Rolls ed.) ANGLO-SAXON RITES. 245 On Easter morning the ceremonies at the Sepulchre were very curious. One of the monks, clothed with an alb and bearing a palm branch in his hand, was to go and seat himself in the sepulchre to represent the angel. Then three others, vested in copes, and carrying thuribles with incense in their hands, were to advance slowly towards the sepulchre, as if in search of something, to repre- sent the holy women going with spices and ointments to anoint our Lord's Body. When they drew near the tomb, the angel sang in a low and sweet voice : Quern qucejifis, 'Whom seek ye?' The three replied together: 'Jesus of Nazareth.' The angel answered: 'He is not here, He has risen, as He said.' At which words the three, turning towards the choir, sang Alleluia, surrexit Doininus, ' Alleluia, the Lord has risen.' The angel then recalled them with the words : ' Come, see the place where the Lord lay : ' and with these words rose, and withdrew the veil, and showed them the place, without the cross, but with the Hnen in which it was wrapped folded together. The three put down their thuribles and took the winding-sheet and unfolded it towards the choir, singing : ' The Lord has risen from the tomb,' and spread the linen on the altar. Then the prior intoned the Te Deum, and all the bells were rung.' In the whole of these rites of Holy Week, with the exception of those just described regarding the Sepulchre, the Anglo-Saxon Church conformed to the ritual brought by St. Augustine from Rome. In the Sacramentary of Pope Gelasius, and in the Liber Sacramentorum of St. Gregory, as well as in the most ancient Ordo Romanus (of the eighth century), the prescriptions regarding the reservation of the Blessed Eucharist on the Thursday, the mass of the Presanctified and the general communion on the Friday, and the mass and com- munion on the Saturday, are precisely the same as those which were sanctioned again in the tenth century in England for the monastic churches, and which remained in use until they were somewhat modified by the ritual brought from Bee by Lanfranc. It is correct then to say that no special honours besides the viass and covimunion were as yet paid to the Blessed Sacrament in England on the Thursday in Holy Week, and that the rite of the Sepulchre belonged to the Friday evening and to the Saturday, not to the Thursday ; and that it appertained to the Crucifix, not to the Holy Eucharist. ' A similar and still more elaborate ceremony was in use in the church of Rouen. Words and music may be found in Migne, ratrologia, torn, cxlvii. P- 139- 246 HOLY WEEK. 2. In the directory of the Monastery of Bec,^ set in order by Lanfranc in the eleventh century, though the rites were not originated by him, we find the following particulars. On Thursday a low mass was said after Sext, for the poor whose feet were to be washed, and they were to be communicated with unco7isecrated bread, and without any formula of words {i.e. from the holy loaf), and then a repast was given them. After None the solemn mass was sung, at which as many hosts were consecrated as might suffice for that day and the following ; and it is prescribed that during these four days, that is, the last three of Holy Week, and Easter Sunday, no brother should abstain from Communion without a reasonable cause. While vespers were being sung after mass, a priest with assistants carried the Body of the Lord to a place most beautifully adorned for its reception {locum decentissime prceparatum). Incense was offered and a light was to be kept burning before the place of reservation. On Good Friday afternoon, when the adora- tion of the Cross was finished, the priest with his assistants went to the place of repose, and all adored the Body of the Lord on both 'kne.&s {adorenf om?ies ffatres Co7-pus Domini flexis gemihis). It was incensed and carried to the high altar, and the rite proceeded as at present, except that all communicated. In Lanfranc's Directory the sepulchre is nowhere mentioned, for neither was that name given to the place where the Eucharist was reserved from Thursday to Friday, nor is there any mention of the ceremony of burying the Crucifix. Both these are, however, found in another Norman treatise by a contemporary of Lanfranc. John, brother of Richard, duke of Normandy, was archbishop of Rouen, and died in 1079. In his treatise on the Ofhces of the Church, ^ he gives directions for the honourable reservation of the Blessed Sacrament from Thursday to Friday, and orders that a light be kept burning before It until the extinction of the last taper in the office of Tenebrse on Thursday night. After the adoration of the Crucifix on Friday it was washed with wine and water, and the ablution was given to the priests and people to drink after the Good Friday communion, in memory of the blood and water which flowed from our Lord's side. The Cruci- fix, after being washed, was carried to the sepulchre, there to remain till Sunday, and thence it was to be triumphantly taken early on Sunday morning, while the choir sang the anthem Sitrrexit Dominus, ' Miyne, Patrologia, torn, cl., or Opera Lanfratici, ed. Giles. * lb. torn, cxlvii. p. 50. LATER ENGLISH RITES. 247 From these documents it is quite clear that originally the name of Sepulchre was in no way connected with the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament on Thursday, but with honours paid to the Crucifix from Friday to Sunday. iNTor was the name given to the altar or place of reservation at any time in England previous to the Reformation. From the first it designated the place where the Crucifix was kept after the adoration on Good Friday, and it continued to do so to the end; but with this difference, that at the outset it had no reference to the Blessed Sacrament, whereas in process of time devotion was more directed to the Blessed Sacrament reserved with the Crucifix than to the Crucifix itself. 3. The precise period when it was appointed that the Body of our Lord should be placed in the sepulchre with the Crucifix, is not known. A French manuscript of the thirteenth century shows that the ceremonial described in the Regularis Concordia of St. Dunstan was by that time transferred to the Blessed Sacrament.' The Sarum Directory of St. Osmund, edited by Dr. Rock, is of the thirteenth century, and we cannot be sure that no addition was made after the death of the saint in 1099. His directions for Good Friday are wanting, but the taking the Body of our Lord from the sepulchre early on Easter morning is mentioned, as well as that of the Crucifix: ' In die Paschse ante Matut. duo excellentiores presbyteri in super- pelliciis prius incensato sepulchre, cum magna veneratione corpus Dominicum super altare deponant, deinde crucem de sepulchro tollant.' 2 4. These ceremonies continued to be observed in England until the death of Henry VHL, with some variations, and with greater or less solemnity according to the rank and riches of the church. The author of the Durham Rites thus describes what he had seen perhaps in the days of Wolsey : ' After the adoration of the Cross on Good Friday it was carried to the Sepulchre, which was set up on that morning on the north side of the choir near unto the high altar, and there laid with great devotion, with another image of our Saviour, in whose breast they enclosed with great reverence the most holy and blessed Sacrament of the altar, censing it and praying to it on their knees a great space, and setting two tapers lighted before it, which burned till Easter Day in the morning. ' On Easter Day, between three and four in the morning,^ two of ' Office du Sepulchre selon F usage de V Abbaye d'Ongny, Paris, 1858. Vide Union Reviezv for 1870, p. 433. 2 Rock, vol. iv. p. 53. 3 A similar rubric is found in the Sarum Breviarj' for Easter Day, not in the Missal, since the ceremony did not immediately precede mass. 248 HOLY WEEK. the eldest monks came to the Sepulchre, set up on Good Friday after the Passion, all covered with red velvet and embroidered with gold, and then censed it on their knees. Then rising, they took from the Sepulchre an extreme beautiful image of our Saviour, representing the Resurrection, with a cross in His hand, in the breast whereof was enclosed, in the brightest crystal, the Holy Sacrament of the altar, through which crystal the Blessed Host was conspicuous to the beholders. When the anthem Chrishis resurgcns was sung, they carried this, upon a velvet cushion all embroidered, to the high altar, knelt, and censed it. When the anthem was sung they took up again the cushion and statue, and proceeded to the south choir door, where there were four ancient gentlemen belonging to the prior, appointed to attend their coming, holding up a very rich canopy of purple velvet, tasseled round about with red silk and gold fringe ; and they bore this canopy over the Blessed Sacrament carried by the monks about the church, the whole choir waiting on It with torches and a great number of lights, all singing, rejoicing, and praying to God most devoutly, till they returned to the High Altar, whereon they placed the said Image, there to remain till the Ascension.' ' Ceremonies very similar to the above were prescribed in the various uses throughout England and Scotland. Thus the Hereford Missal orders that three Hosts be consecrated on Holy Thursday, one for the day, one to be consumed on Good Friday, and one to be placed with the Cross in the Sepulchre. When the two reserved Hosts had been carried to the place appointed, the altars were stripped and washed. On Good Friday the Cross after adoration was washed with wine and water at the door of the sepulchre, and in the meantime the Body of Christ was brought and honourably placed with the Cross in the sepulchre. Incense was offered, a candle was lighted, and the door was closed. The rubrics of the York Missal mention that others who wish may communicate with the priest on Good Friday. It is evident, therefore, that other particles were reserved for this purpose as well as for the sick^ — whether in the sepulchre or not is not said. Indeed, the York Missal, though giving directions about the sepulchre for the Cross, does not explicitly order the Blessed Sacrament to be placed there. The Arbuthnot Missal proves that the devotion of the Sepulchre ' The Durham Rites, pp. lo, ii (Surtees Soc. ed.) Silver images of our risen Lord with a beril in the breast, to receive the Blessed Sacrament at Easter, were in Wells and Lincoln Cathedrals. USE OF THESE RITES. 249 extended to Scotland. The Blessed Sacrament, carried by a priest in surplice without shoes, was placed with the Cross in the sepulchre. One taper at least was to burn before the sepulchre until the proces- sion on Easter Sunday ; but it was extinguished with all other lights during the Benedidus of the Tenebras, and during the striking of the fire on Holy Saturday, until the lighting of the Paschal candle. Such rites spoke for themselves and required little explanation, yet we find them made a theme for instruction. Thus the ' Liber Festivalis ' says : ' The veil that all this Lent hath been drawn between us and the choir betokeneth the Passion that was hid and unknown till the day came.' The which these days be done away and the altar openly showed to all the people. . . . The altar stone betokeneth Christ's body that was drawn on the cross as a skin of parchment on a harrow, so that all His bones might be told. And the besoms that the altar is washen with are the thorns that He was crowned with. The water and the wine that it is washen with betokeneth the blood and the water that ran down from His wound that was in His side pierced with a spear. The wine that is poured upon the altar on the five crosses betokeneth the blood that ran down from His principal wounds of His body,' and so on. 5. Roger Edgeworth, canon of Salisbury in the time of Henry VTIL, writes : 'The devout ceremonies of Palm Sundays in proces- sions, and on Good Fridays about the laying of the cross and Sacra- ment into the sepulchre, gloriously arrayed, be so necessary to succour the lability of man's remembrance, that if they were not used once every year, it is to be feared that Christ's Passion would soon be forgotten. The crucifixes erected in churches and crosses by the highways were intended for the same purpose, although some pestiferous persons have overthrown them and destroyed them, for the very contempt of Christ's Passion, more than to find money under them, as they have pretended.' ^ A very few years later they needed no such cloak for their im- pieties, since both Edward and Elizabeth became the leaders of such ' pestiferous persons,' whom their father would have burnt ; ' The Lenten veil was stretched across the sanctuary on the Saturday before Quinquagesima. It was lifted during the gospel, and on feasts of nine lessons. On the Wednesday in Holy Week, at the words of the Passion, ' The veil of the Temple was rent in the midst ' (Lukexxiii. 45), it fell to thegiound. The crosses, images, and relics, and the pyx containing the Holy Eucharist, were veiled on tlie Monday of the first week of Lent, and continued so until Matins early on Easter Sunday. {Tract. S. Csvmndi, cap. 102, apud Rock, iv. p. 68.) - Edgeworlh's Sermons, fol. 94 (cd. 1557). 250 HOLY WEEK. and Edgeworth's foreboding has been too truly fulfilled. Even Good Friday no longer suggests a thought of our Lord's death to the multitude. On Good Friday, 1538, Bishop Longland closed a sermon preached before Henry in these words : ' In the mean season I shall exhort you all in our Lord God, as of old custom hath here this day been used, every one of you, ere you depart, with most entire devotion, kneeling before our Saviour Lord God, this our Jesus Christ, which hath suffered so much for us, to whom we are so much bounden, who lieth in yonder sepulchre, in honour of Him, ot His passion and death, and of His five wounds, to say five Pater Nosters, five Aves, and one Creed, that it may please His merciful goodness to make us partners of the merits of His most glorious passion, blood, and death.' ' This appeal of Bishop Longland was in form both orthodox and pious ; and yet he and the king who listened to him were at that moment inflicting an injury on Christ's mystical body by schism, as great as that of the Jews upon His natural body. The king and bishop both forgot the truth expressed in the words of Holy Scrip- ture : ' The beginning of quarrels is as when one letteth out water ' (Prov. xvii. 14). They had opened the sluice gates of schism, and the waters of heresy soon poured in and swept away even what Henry and Longland still venerated. The above sermon was preached in the Lent of 1538. Exactly ten years later all venera- tion of the Holy Cross had been prohibited by the council of that very heir to his throne whom Henry had so eagerly longed for ; and, in the following year the sepulchre was abolished and the belief of ages in the Blessed Sacrament laughed to scorn. The historian of Worcester has published a contemporary manu- script giving the exact dates of these changes in that city : ^ ' A.D. 1548. March 15 being Palm Sunday, no palms hallowed, no cross borne on Easter Eve, no fire hallowed, but the Paschal taper and the font. On Easter day the pix, with the Sacrament in it, was taken out of the sepulchre, they singing, " Christ is risen," without procession. On Good Friday, no creeping to the cross.' ' Also on October 20 was taken away the cup with the Body of Christ from the high altar of St. Mary's Church' {i.e. the cathedral) ' and in other churches and chapels.' 'A.D. 1549. No Sepulchre or service of Sepulchre on Good ' Sei'mon printed by Petyt. 2 Green's History of Worcester, vol. i. p. 127. (Extracts from Bishop Bland- ford's MS.) SACRILEGES. 251 Friday. On Easter Even no paschal hallowed, nor fire, nor incense, nor font. On 23rd April this year was mass, matins, even-song, and all other services in English. All books of divine service were brought to the bishop, mass-books, graduals, pies, port and legends, and were burnt.' Once more in Queen Mary's days an attempt was made to re- store the old devotions. The churchwardens' accounts which survive bear curious evidence to all these changes ; and it is sad to think that we only learn how wide-spread was this devotion from the docu- ments that tell of its destruction. Thus, in the list of church furniture destroyed by order of Queen Elizabeth in the first years of her reign, we find constant mention of Easter Sepulchres. Mr. Peacock has published the returns of the churchwardens of Lincolnshire.' They comprise 153 churches, and explicit mention is made of at least fifty-one Easter Sepulchres as having been destroyed, and probably most of these had been made in the reign of Mary to replace others burnt or broken up under Edward. Many of these were of wood and were either burnt or used for profane purposes. Thus the churchwardens of Belton report : ' Item. A Sepulker with little Jack, broken in peces one year ago, but little Jack was broken in peces this year.' ' Jack in a box ' was the nickname which the miscreants of the Reforma- tion gave to the Blessed Sacrament, and these fellows probably mean by ' little Jack ' the pyx for the sepulchre. Though in Edward's days a law had been made prohibiting the use of such opprobrious language, it was as much a dead letter as the proclama- tion of the first year of Elizabeth, which forbade the use of scurrilous language in controversy ; and the churchwardens of Belton did not fear to draw any rebuke from him who was now intruded into the see of Lincoln. Indeed, the tone of the reports throughout this volume not only proves the utter havoc wrought in the souls of many poor villagers by sacrilegious larceny and ribald controversy, but it proves also the estimate these men had formed of their new religious guides. They knew no better way to ingratiate themselves into their favour than to vie with one another in scurrility and blasphemy. At Croxton, the wardens report, ' Item, a sepulker, whearof is made a shelf to set dishes on ; ' at Denton, ' One sepulchre sold to John Orson, and he hath made a presse thereof to laie clothes ' Church Fu7-niture, &c., edited by E. Peacock, F. S.A., from the Episcopal Register of Lincoln, entitled Inventariiiin Monumentoriim Supcrstitionis. 2 '^2 HOLY WEEK. therein ; ' at Stallingbrock, ' A sepulker, defacid, whearof we made a bear (bier) to carie tlie dead corps and other things ; ' at Dur- rington, 'Sepulker was broke and sold to men who have made a henne penne of it.' 6. But enough of these horrors. Let us go back to better days. These reports show tliat the sepulchre was often a construction of wood. This framework was in part richly painted and gilt and hung with cloths of silk and gold or sil er tissue, and it sometimes sup- ported candles which were kept lighted during the hours of reserva- tion. Sir Roger Martin, whose account of Palm Sunday has been already quoted, writes as follows about the sepulchre in his parish church of Melford : ' In the quire there was a fair painted frame of timber, to be set up about Maundy Thursday, with holes for a number of fair tapers to stand in before the sepulchre, and to be lighted in service time. Sometimes it was set overthwart the quire, before the high altar, the sepulchre being always placed and finely garnished, at the north end of the high altar, between that and Mr. Clopton's little chapel there, in a vacant place of the wall, I think upon a tomb of one of his ancestors. The said frame with the tapers was set near to the steps going up to the said altar. Lastly {i.e. latterly) it was used to be set up all along Mr. Clopton's aisle, with a door made to go out of the rood-loft into it' ^ There is an entry in the churchwardens' account of St. Peter's, Sheffield,^ just before the death of Queen Mary : ' Paid, for a cloth to the sepulchre-house containing 12 yards at 8^. the yard, ^s. Paid to Hugh, painter, for painting the sepulchre-cloth 4^-. Paid for set- ting up of the Resurrection 7^/.' The last entry seems to indicate a change of scene on Holy Saturday evening or Eas<:er Sunday morn- ing. The churchwardens of St. Margaret's, Westminster, in 1520, make an entry in their accounts 'for the setting up of God's house and taking it down again,' indicating by this expression, it would seem, the Easter Sepulchre. But in some churches of the Decorated and Perpendicular periods these sepulchres were permanent erections of stone, elabo- rately carved and ornamented. There is a beautiful specimen in the choir of Lincoln Cathedral ; others may be seen at Heckington and Navenby, Lincolnshire, at Northwold in Norfolk, and Hawton, Not- tinghamshire. Sometimes the sepulchre was under a low arch in the wall, but occasionally it was a very grand and beautiful ' Ncale's Views of the most Interesting CJnirchcs, &c., vol. ii. ^ History of Haltamshirc, by Joseph Hunter, p. 246 (ed. 1869). DEVOTION TO THE SEPULCHRE. 253 structure. That of Hawton is about twelve feet high and seven in breadth. It is let into the wall, and is divided into three compart- ments, representing in sculpture the sleeping Roman guard, the Resurrection, and the Ascension. In the beautiful church of Pat- rington in Yorkshire, above the sleeping soldiers is a shelf or recess, above that our Lord's Resurrection, surmounted by another recess. These recesses were probably filled with carved and gilded wood- work. In Sir Roger Martin's description of the Easter Sepulchre at Melford it may have been noticed that a high tomb beneath an arch served the purpose of an altar of repose. Such tombs were some- times erected for that very end. ' I will that there be made,' wrote Thomas Windsor in his will (a.d. 1479), ' a plain tomb of marble of a competent height, to the intent that it may bear the Blessed Body of our Lord at the time of Easter, to stand upon the same ; and mine arms and a convenient scripture to be set about the same tomb.' This tomb was to be erected ' in the north side of the choir of the church of our Lady of Stanwell, before the image of our Lady, where the sepulture of our Lord standeth.' ' Similarly Thomas Lord Dacre, in a.d. i53£, writes : ' My body to be buried in the parish church of Hurst Monceaux, on the north side of the high altar. I will that a tomb be there made for placing the sepulchre of our Lord, with all fittmg furniture thereto, in honour of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Also 1 will that 100/. be employed towards the lights about the said sepulchre, in wax tapers of ten pounds weight each, to burn about it. ' ^ Such documents as these not merely show a zeal for the beauty of God's house, and a most lively faith in our Lord's presence, but testify to a hope and love springing from the devotion of a lifetime rather than from a death-bed repentance. ' Sub umbra lUius quem desideraveram sedi,' might well have been selected for Thomas Windsor's ' scripture.' ' I have reposed beneath the shadow of Him whom I had yearned after.' One more example of this devotion may be given. In the will of Eleanore, second wife and widow of Sir Roger Townsend, a justice of the Common Pleas, 'dated November 9, 1499, she orders her body to be buried by the high altar, before our Blessed Lady, in the chancel of Rainham St. Mary, and a new tomb to be made for her husband's and her bones \ upon which tomb to be cunningly graven ' Tcslamcnta Vctusta, p. 352. This gentleman was an ancestor of the Earls of Plymouth. = lb. p. 653. 254 HOLY WEEK. a sepulchre for Easter day, if a chapel be not made at her decease ; and if a chapel be made, then she would be buried in the same, and her husband's bones to be had home into the same chapel, and the tomb to be made there.' ' Few persons could erect these costly monuments of their faith and love ; yet among scraps of old paper accidentally preserved in worm-eaten parochial chests we sometimes come upon curious and interesting evidence that all classes took part in the great watching round our Lord's sepulchre of honour, in reparation for the watching of the perfidious Jews and blind heathen round His sepulchre of humiliation in Jerusalem. Such is the /i^s. ^d. set down in the churchwardens' accounts of St. Margaret's, Westminster, in 1538, as 'paid for mats for the parishioners to kneel upon when they reverenced their Maker.' Such is the legacy of William Smyth in 1436 to St. Mary's Church, Devizes, ' for the maintenance of three sepulchre tapers.' ^ Such again is the entry in the books of Heybridge Church in 21st of King Henry VHI. : ' The bachelors of the parish of Heybridge have delivered the nine tapers, belonging to the sepulchre, at the feast of Easter, each con- taining five pounds of wax, and they have above all charges 5^. \od. ; and so remaineth in the stock, clearly above all forty-three pounds of wax, which resteth in the hands of Richard Langore, wax chandler. Also in the said year, the maidens of the said parish have delivered in the nine tapers belonging to the said sepulchre, at the feast of Easter, every taper containing five pounds of wax, and they have above all charges 2s. lod.' ^ This rivalry between young men and maidens in doing honour to our Lord Jesus Christ is very beautiful, and could well be revived in our own day. It would appear from an entry in the accounts of Wagtoft, Lin- colnshire, in 1545, that there was, in that parish at least, an 'Alder- man of the Sepulchre Light' It is probable that his ofiice was either to superintend the parish collections for providing light, or to regulate the burning of the tapers and the watching at the sepulchre. The corporation of Bridport ^ possesses a document of 15 Richard II., in which Robert Clement delivers 25^-., which he had 'to find wax candles before our Lord's Sepulture.' During the day the parish- ioners relieved each other in the duty of adoration and recitation of psalms and litanies. At night the church would appear to have been ' Blomefield's N'orfolk, vii. p. 132. 2 Wiltshire ArcJuEol. Magazine, vol. ii, p. 252. ' Churchwardens'' Accounts, pp. 177) 1 78. * Sixth Report of Historical MSS. Commission, parti, p. 476. HUMAN FICKLENESS. 255 dosed, although the tapers still burnt and men were appointed to watch. At Walberswick, in Suffolk, in 145 1, a small sum is paid ' for watching of candel Estorne nytis \ ' and again at St. Mary's, Devizes, in 1499, ' to four men for keeping of the sepulchre two nights \s. 2d' Whether the adoration continued by night as well as by day in monasteries I cannot say. In the Constitutions of the Brigittine nuns of Syon, it is said that only two tapers were to burn during the nights of Friday and Saturday ' in a more syker place for eschewing of perelle.' • We are, alas ! unable to get more accurate or extensive knowledge of this beautiful devotion than what we can obtain from such slight glimpses as are here recorded. We see, however, a devotion not unlike that of the Forty Hours now in use, and this devotion was established in every parish church in England. We must not forget that this solemn adoration served as the preparation for the universal communion which was made on Easter Sunday morning. Alas ! that the sons of the men and women who vied with each other in adorning the Holy Sepulchre should have done the deeds and written the blasphemies recorded in episcopal registers of the first years of Elizabeth, some specimens of which have been given above ! But Holy Scripture has prepared us for such fickleness in human nature. The people at the foot of Mo int Sinai are seen washing their garments and preparing minds, hearts, and bodies for the descent of the Glory of God, which they witness with exceeding awe (Exod. xix.) ; and while the mighty spectacle is still before their very eyes, and Moses is receiving from the hand of God the law of their sanctifi- cation, they fall into complaints and disbelief, and celebrate idolatrous rites with feasting and impurity (Exod. xxxii.). Well might the great Apostle warn Christians against such fickleness by alleging this very example and its chastisement. ' I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea . . . and all did eat the same spiritual food ' (the mystical and figurative manna), 'and all drank the same spiritual drink ' (the water from the rock which typified Christ) ; ' but with most of them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the desert. Now these things were done in a figure, that we should not covet evil things as they also coveted ' (i Cor. x. 1-6). It would be well for us, who now enjoy freedom of worship, to ask ourselves, while we are in adoration at the Forty Hours or on Holy Thursday, what we should do if the command of a tyrant bade us, under pain of fine, exile, or death, forsake our faith, and if we saw ' Aungier's History of Syon, p. 350. 256 HOLY WEEK. many priests and many neighbours yielding around us. Should we be strong against all cries of flesh and blood ? Would neither fear for ourselves nor love of those dear to us make us yield a reluctant obedience lest we should involve our families in our own ruin? Should we resemble Daniel who braved the lions' den, and the three youths in the fiery furnace, and the heroic mother with her seven sons who defied the torments of Antiochus ? In a word, should we belong to the white-robed army of martyrs who passed through many tribu- lations and washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, and who now praise Him in heaven whom they worshipped in faith and stead- fastness on earth ? Or should we be numbered among the larger multitude of recreants and cowards who denied His name here, when it was a reproach to confess it, and who will be denied by Him when the world shall tremble at His coming ? If we ask ourselves such questions, suggested by the memory of our forefathers, our adoration will be more humble and our prayer more fervent. 257 CHAPTER XVIII. EASTER THE COMMUNION. The greatest festival in the year was undoubtedly that of our Lord's Resurrection. As such it has ever been selected, either in union with other days, or in preference to them, as tlie proper time for receiving Holy Communion. After what has been already said, a few words will suffice in regard to the mass and office of the day. We shall then dwell on the general communion of the people which was certainly the characteristic feature of this festival throughout the Middle Ages. Since England and France in the twelfth century may in eccle- siastical observances be considered one country, we may safely take as our guide John Belethus, a Parisian doctor of that age, who is considered by some to have been an Englishman by birth, and who frequently alludes to the slight variations in different countries in such a way as to show that his knowledge of these matters was extensive, and that, when he makes no such distinction, he may be considered as describing what was the common practice of Western Chris- tendom. He tells us that all prepared for the great festival by taking baths, cutting the hair, trimming the beards, if laymen, or shaving clean if ecclesiastics, and by laying aside the dark-coloured garments worn in Lent and putting on in their place the best in the wardrobe, especially such as were white or glorious.' And all this was of course done to symbolise the glory of our Lord's and our own resurrection, as it had been symbolised by the angels around our Lord's tomb. In proof of the universality of these observances, from the laws of .Howell the Good, king of Wales, made in 926, we find that the chaplains of the king and queen were entitled to have as perquisites the garments in which their majesties did penance during Lent.^ In harmony with the change in the outward aspect of the people was that of the material church. The Lenten veil which hung across ' Rationale Divinovum Officioriun, cap. II4-II9, Migne, torn. ccii. = Iladdan and Stubbs, i. 227. VOL. II. S 258 EASTER— THIC COMMUNION. the sanctuary, had been as it were rent in two on Wednesday in Holy Week, and the veils of the crosses and images were removed early on Sunday morning. The walls were hung with rich draperies, the seats and stalls in the choir adorned, and carpets laid before the high altar and on the steps of the bishop's throne. Digressing for a moment I may here remark that, when carpets were rare and costly, and heating apparatus unknown, it was customary to strew the cold flags with hay or rushes, and on greater feasts to mix or replace these with leaves of box or ivy, sometimes mixed with flowers.' Festoons of leaves and flowers were also used on festivals to hang between or round the pillars, as may be gathered from entries like the following in churchwardens' accounts. ' For rose garlands on Corpus Christi Day ; ' * for birch and broom at Mid- summer ; ' * for rose garlands and ivy on St. Martin's day ; ' and ' for holly and ivy at Christmas.' ^ It is, however, more certain that gar- lands of roses and of ivy were worn by both clergy and laity in pro- cessions, than that they were placed upon the altars, or elsewhere. But to return to the Easter festival in the twelfth century. The crucifix now unveiled was raised aloft, a rich dorsal cloth hanging behind it, and sometimes banners at each side, to represent the victory of Christ and the unveiling of the mysteries of His Passion. The altar was adorned with the richest reliquaries and most splen- didly bound gospels, reserved for that day alone. The altar frontal was to be of silk, of silver, or of gold plates, if the church possessed such riches ; concerning which Belethus tells us of an interesting symbolic rite practised in some places in his day. In front of the rich antependium, or altar frontal, were hung three cloths. That nearest to the altar was red, it was covered with one of greyish tint, and that again with black. The matins were sung at early dawn, and during the singing of the psalms and reading of the first lesson the black cloth was alone seen. This represented the time before the law of Moses. At the end of the first lesson this was removed and the second or grey antependium was uncovered, representing the Mosaic dispensation. During the third lesson the red frontal ■ In the rules of the great monastery of Abingdon, the sacristan is told when to place mats before the altars and when hay. Hay was to be strewed thickly on the eve of All Saints, the eve of Christmas, and the Monday in Holy Week. On Saturday in Easter week (after removal of carpets) ivy leaves were to be scattered. On Pentecost, the Assumption, the Nativity of the B. Virgin (their dedication feast), and the feast of St. Athelwold (their patron), rushes were laid in the choir and round about. {Historia de Abingdon, ii. 378, Rolls ed.) ^ These are all taken from the Churchxvardens' Books of St. MartMs, Dulwich, London, in 1524, 1525. PREPARATIONS. 259 was displayed, indicating the time of grace purchased by the Precious Blood. But when the Te Deum was intoned the red hang- ing also was removed, and the more brilliant white, or gold, or silver frontal foretold the eternal glory purchased by Christ's death and resurrection. No one will despise this detail but those who are blind to the beauty and variety of nature, to the universal customs of human society, and who are regardless of the great rule — Segnius irritant animam demissa per aures Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus. Perhaps the word ' fidelibus ' may bear a sense not intended by the pagan poet ; for the effect of the beauty or gloom of the sanctuary, as well as of all the Church's ceremonies, depends on the minds and eyes of ' the faithful ' being instructed and prepared for the impres- sions intended to be conveyed. How they were prepared for the joyous and triumphant impressions of Easter we may gather from what has been said of Lent and Holy Week. John Belethus goes on to tell us of a more immediate and still more affecting preparation. All those who were at enmity were to seek each other out for recon- ciliation, and the salutation between neighbours when they met was, ' The Lord is risen,' to which the reply was made, ' Thanks be to God.' At this time also workshops of men and women were to be closed, and no goods even exposed to sale but such as were required for consumption. Men condemned to the quarries or confined to prisons were to be allowed to share the common joy ; domestic ser- vants, and the herdsmen, and agricultural labourers to make holiday. ' Nothing,' says our author, ' should be eaten on this Easter Day that has not received a blessing from a priest. In some regions the cus- tom is to bring to the porch or neighbourhood of the church in large vessels whatever is to be set on the table that day, and the priest in sacred vestments and with the Easter holy water blesses all. The priest,' he adds, ' has a right to take a little from each at his choice for his own use. On this day, then, three virtues especially have to be practised : mercy towards the poor and strangers, by sending to them what they are unable to procure ; liberality in entertaining friends and neighbours ; and sobriety by being bountiful to others rather than to oneself He then explains the little lunch {parvum prandiolum) which it was the custom to make that day in the churches on bread and wine, after the communion. He commends the custom and attributes the origin to St. Benedict. We have already seen in a former chapter 26o EASTER— THE COMMUNION. how at a much later period it had degenerated into an abuse which excited the indignation of the archbishop of Canterbury, just as the abuse of the primitive love-feasts excited that of St, Paul, We are now brought to consider that which was the distinctive feature of this great day — the communion of the laity. As it was a day of general communion for all, so it was to most — as the historian of the middle ages must sorrowfully record — the solitary communion day of the year. At one time, indeed, in Scotland, relaxation had gone so far that the neglect of Easter Communion was not merely tolerated, but even defended, and its re-observance was due in great measure to the zeal of St. Margaret. This English princess had been married to Mal- colm III. at Dunfermline in 1070. She had built there a church ' in honour of the Most Holy Trinity, for the redemption of the king's soul and of her own, and to obtain for her children prosperity in this life and in the next. She adorned the church with many ornaments, and she gave not a few vessels of solid and pure gold for the service of the altar.' ' But she was not satisfied with increasing the external splendour of God's worship. The love of Jesus Christ which burnt in her own pure heart she wished to see kindled in every Christian heart throughout Scotland. In a council assembled by her influence, she and her husband, Malcolm, were present, and she took an active part in the reform of abuses. Amongst other things, according to ''J'heodoric, her biographer, who was an eye-witness, ' she bade them show why on Easter Day they neglected to receive the sacraments of the Body and Blood of Christ, as is the custom of the holy and Apostolic Church. They answered that the Apostle had said : " He who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself." " And therefore because we acknowledge ourselves sinners, lest we eat and drink our own judgment, we fear to approach that mystery." The queen replied : " What, then, may none who are sinners take the holy mysteries? If so, then no mortal will take them, for no one is without the stain of sin, not even the child which is one day old upon the earth. But if no one ought to receive, why does our Lord say in the Gospel : ' Unless you cat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you ' ? But clearly the sentence you bring forward of the Apostle must be understood differently, as it was by the fathers. He does not assert that ail sinners receive the sacraments of salvation unworthily. For when he had said : ' He eats and drinks his own judgment,' he added, ' Not ' Theodoiicus, Vita S. Marg. cap. i, Acta SS. torn. xxii. ST. MARGARETS ZEAL. 261 discerning the Lord's Body,' that is, not separating it in faith from natural food. Such a man eats and drinks his own judgment. So also does he who without confession and repentance, with the filth of his crimes upon him, presumes to approach the sacred mysteries. But we who many days before, having confessed our sins, are chastened by penance, reduced by fasts, cleansed from the stains of sin by almsdeeds and by tears, draw near, on the day of the Resur- rection of our Lord, to His table, in the Catholic faith, receive the Flesh and Blood of the immaculate Lamb Jesus Christ, not to judg- ment, but to the remission of our sins, and as a pledge of eternal beatitude." ' They could not answer these reasons,' continues Theodoric, ' and for the future observed the acknowledged ordinance of the Church in the reception of the life-giving mystery.' Theodoric does not tell us who were Margaret's opponents on this occasion. He merely says that with only a few on her side she fought against the maintainers of evil customs for three days, she speaking in her native Saxon, and Malcolm translating her words into Gaelic. In those days there was no archbishop in Scotland, and but few bishops, and the council was not purely ecclesiastical, but a mixed assembly of clergy and laity, and Malcolm and Margaret made no ecclesiastical laws, but merely brought about the observance of the common law of the Church. This she herself distinctly stated and insisted on.' About the year 1200 Giraldus wrote: 'Non-celebrants may receive often or seldom as their conscience dictates. . . . not daily, but at least thrice in the year, at Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, or at least at Easter, as is now the custom. And the usage of the Church proves that they should communicate on Holy Thursday {in Coena Domifii)." ^ The constitutions of Alexander de Stavenby, bishop of Coventry, made in 1237, speak as follows: — 'As travellers stand in need of nothing so much as of food for their journey, let both laymen and clerics be admonished to receive thrice in the year at least the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, when they are of sufficiently advanced age, viz. on the feast of our Lord's Birth, at Easter, and at Pentecost. And if they are unwilling to do this (so often) let them be admonished to fast in Advent, or at least for half a week, and make a confession before (Christmas) ; and so also to fast from the Ascension to ' Vita, Theod. ibid. cap. 2. - Gemma EccUs. dist. i. cap. 9. 262 EASTER— THE COMMUNION. Pentecost, or at least half a week, and make their confession before (Whitsunday).' ^ The bishop says nothing here of any compensation for omitting communion at Easter, because the General Council of Lateran in 12 15 had made it of strict obligation under pain of personal interdict. The bishop of Worcester, Walter de Cantilupe, in 1240 decreed that ' the people must confess at least once a year, but should be advised to confess several times, at least at Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost ; that cleansed by fasting and confession, they may worthily receive their Saviour.' ^ Robert de Brunne beautifully says : Commandment in the old law was Once in the year to show thy trespass ; The new law is of more honour Once to receive thy Creator, And he greatly reproaches those who * forget or oversit the time of housel,' and will not give God one night's lodging in the year. And thou ne wilt a night's guest Let him harbour in thy house, Thou art unkind right marvellous. An old homily says: ' The time of Lent is ordained only to scour and to cleanse your conscience of all manner rust and filth of sin that it is defiled with, so that ye may with a clean conscience, on Easter day, receive the clean Body of our Lord Jesus Christ.' ^ And Chaucer in the * Persone's Tale ' : ' And certes once a year at the least way it is lawful to be houseled, for soothly once a year all things in the earth renovelen.' The second and third of the precepts of the Church, as given in an old book called 'The Ordinarye of Crysten Men,' written in 1467, are these : * Of all thy sins thou shalt be confessed at the least one time in the year.' 'And thy Creator thou shalt receive at Easter humbly."* ' Wilkins, i. 640 ; Concilia, ed. Colet, t. xiii. p. 1385. ■^ Wilkins, i. 666. * Lansdowne MS. 392, f. 40, quoted by Hampson in his Medii ^vi Kalen- dariu7n. • This book is a translation from the French. It was printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1502. The five precepts of the Church are given in exactly the same words in The Book named the Royall, translated from the French by Caxton. At least they occur on one of the plates in a reprint by Wynkyn de Worde or Pynson. They are evidently taken from the old French rhymes. The 1st is : ' On the Sundays thou shalt hear mass and the feasts of commandment.' The 2nd and PRECEPTS OF THE CHURCH. 263 Proof that the Easter Communion had been made could be required, and the neglect punished by process of ecclesiastical law.' The Communion had to be made in the parish church of the communicant, unless a special permission to the contrary had been granted by the parish priest. ' Let no one,' says the Constitution of Giles of Bridport, bishop of Sarum in 1256, 'let no one presume on Easter Day to approach the Body of Christ, unless he has first confessed and adored the cross. No one is to go to confession or communion' out of his parish without permission.' ^ 'Parish priests must beware,' says the Council of Lambeth in 1281, 'not to give any one the Body of the Lord, unless it be first proved by trustworthy evidence that he has confessed. No one must give holy communion to the parishioners of another priest without his explicit leave. But this ordinance does not include travellers, nor cases of necessity.' ^ It was, of course, one of the principal duties of the pastors to prepare their parishioners for this great day, both by instructions and by hearing their confessions. Richard de Marisco, Bishop of Durham in 1220, gives in his synodical constitutions long and very pious instructions regarding the Eucharist,'* and does not omit to remind priests how carefully they should instruct the laity : ' As men about to go on a long journey are wont to invite their friends, and entertain them at a banquet, so did our Lord Jesus Christ, when about to pass from this world to His Father, prepare a feast for His disciples, feeding them truly on His Body and Blood, under the species of bread and wine — the bread having been tran- substantiated into the Body, and the wine into the Blood, by the power of God. ' You ought then to communicate at this holy table without any doubt as to the truth of the Body and Blood of Christ. For that is received by the mouth which is believed by faith, and to no purpose is Amen answered by those who think differently about what is received. You ought also to instruct laymen, when they communi- cate, not to admit any doubt of the truth of Christ's Body and Blood. 3rd as above ; the 4th : ' These feasts thou shalt hallow that be given thee in commandment ; ' and the 5th : ' The four embers, vigils thou shalt fast, and the Lent entirely.' The same are in the Catechism of Lawrence Vaux, though in a different order. ' John Coxhon, accused that he has not received the sacrament of the Eucharist since he has resided in Wylton. He denies the charge and has to clear himself at next session, ' cum sexta manu.' — Depositions, &=€., or Record of Judicial Pro- ceedings of Prior and Convent of Durham, 1435-1456. (Surtees Soc, 1S45, p. 36.) « Wilkins, i. 704. ' //'. ii. 52, a alili. * P. i. 571-5S2. 264 EASTER— THE COMMUNION. For they receive beyond all question, under the appearance of bread, that which hung for us upon the cross. They receive that in the chalice which was shed from the side of Christ. As Augustine says, " The faithful now drink what infidels first shed." ' The power and virtue and effect of this sacrament is clearly ex- pressed in the words of the Lord : " The bread which I give you is my Flesh, for the life of the world : My Flesh is meat indeed, and my Blood is drink indeed : if any one eat of My Flesh and drink of My Blood, he shall live for ever." But since elsewhere it is said : " He that eats the Flesh of the Lord or drinks His Blood unworthily, is guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord," this terrible sentence may inspire us with dread. Wherefore, my dear children, listen to the advice of the Apostle : *' Let every man prove himself," (cleansing and sanctifying himself by confession) " and so let him eat of that Bread and drink of that cup." And as the children of Israel, eating the lamb, girt their loins, so do you also gird your loins, that is, quench in yourselves all lusts of the flesh, and teach others also to quench them.' The priests did not fail to give the necessary instructions to their people at this season especially. We have still extant several very interesting sermons preached at the Easter festival, from which I would willingly quote did space permit.' * See Old English Homilies of the 1 2th century, and series, p. 92 (E. E. T. Soc), and The Festival by Jolin Myrc. 265 CHAPTER XIX. THE FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI. ' Good men, know well that this is a high feast day and a solemn in all holy Church, and is called the feast of Corpus Christi, i.e. the feast of Christ's Body, the which is each day offered in holy Church on the altar to the high Father of heaven in remission of sin to all that live here in perfect charity, and in great succour and release of their pain that be in purgatory.' Thus wrote John Myrc in his ' Liber Festivalis,' in the fourteenth century. This famous solemnity, probably the most popular of all, had then been long established in England. It took its origin in Liege in Belgium, and, like the festival of the Sacred Heart at a later period, was the result of the lifelong prayers and penances of a holy nun, to whom it was made known in visions and revelations that a festival in honour of the Blessed Sacrament was still lacking in the Church. She was of course treated as a visionary and encountered much opposition and persecution, but the final realisation of her desire is a sufficient proof to us that her visions came from God. The history of this feast has been written at great length by many authors. It is enough to say here that in 1246 the celebration of a special feast was ordered in the diocese of Lie'ge by the bishop, Robert de Torote, who explained how it might supply the defects of priests and people in the perpetual commemoration in the Mass. He died the same year ; and, though the celebration was begun in 1247 by the canons of St. Martin's, yet owing to civil commotions it spread no farther for a time. It was, however, approved by the Papal Legate, Cardinal Hugo of St. Cher (famous for his concordance of the Bible) in 1253, and again the next year by Cardinal Peter. But their authority only extended within the bounds of their lega- tion, and was disregarded even there after their departure, except in the church of St. Martin. On the 29th of August, 1261, Urban IV., formerly archdeacon of Liege, was elected Pope at Viterbo, and, at the request of the bishop of Liege, confirmed the feast for that diocese. Moved by several pro- 266 THE FEAST OF CORPUS CHRIS Tl. digies which took place about that] time, the Pope determined io extend the feast to the whole Church, and he commanded St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure each to prepare an office. In 1264 he published his bull. But he died the same year, and troubles prevented the carrying of it out, especially in Italy. At last, in the Council of Vienne held in 1311 under Clement V., it was decreed that the bull of Urban IV. should be observed. John XXII. in 1318 appointed an Octave of the Feast to be kept, and pro- cessions to be made. The king of England, Edward II., had been present at the Coun- cil of Vienne, and very shortly after that time we find the observance of the festival promulgated or enforced in the dioceses of England. Thus, on the 21st of May, 1325, the Bishop of Winchester, after reciting the decree of Urban IV. and the more recent one of Cle- ment v., enjoined the feast to be kept on the Thursday after the Octave of Pentecost, and the indulgences granted to its celebration, complains that certain priests neglect to celebrate it, and orders his official to enforce the decrees.' Five years earlier the Bishop of Exeter, in a French document addressed to the prioress of Polslo, ordered ' qe le serviez du corps at du sank notre seigneur Jhesu Crist soit fait de grant solemp- nite entre vous, chescun an, le Judi prochein apres la Trinite et par les oytaves suivantes, si autre feste de plus grant solempnite' ne viegne dedans les ditz oytaves.' ^ The author of the ' Durham Rites ' ^ has left a minute account of the procession in a great cathedral : ' The bailiff of the town stood in the Tolbooth and called together all the trades that were established within the town. Every trade in its degree was to bring forth its banners" and with them to repair to the abbey church- door. Every banner stood in rank, in its degree, from the abbey church-door to Windishole gate. On the west side of the way stood all the banners, and on the east side all the torches pertaining to the banners. ' In St. Nicolas Church was a goodly shrine, called Corpus Christi shrine, appointed to be carried the said day in procession. The shrine was finely'gilt, and on the top thereof was a square box of chrystal, wherein was enclosed the holy Sacrament of the altar. It was carried the same day by four priests up the Place green, the whole procession of all the churches of the town going before it. And when it was brought a little space within the Windishole gate, it stood still till St. ' John de Stratford's Register, MS. ^ Mo7tastko7i Diacesis Exoniensis, by Dr. Oliver, p. 165. • Rites of Durham (Surtees Soc), p. 89. THE PROCESSION. 267 Cuthbert's banner, with two goodly fine crosses, was brought out to meet it ; and the prior and convent with the choir in their copes met the said shrine and fell on their knees and prayed. The prior fetched it, and they carrying it forward into the abbey church, the prior and convent with all the choir following, it was set in the choir, and solemn service said before it, and the Te Deum solemnly sung and played in the organs, every man praising God \ and all the banners of the trades followed the shrine into the church, going round St. Cuthbert's feretory with their torches lighted and burning all the service time. Thence it was conducted with the said procession of the town to its place again. The shrine was carried into the revestry, there to remain till that time twelve months.' ' In the above account it may have been noticed that the cere- monial part of this celebration was not confined to ecclesiastics. Corpus Christi was pre-eminently the people's feast. Trades and guilds took part in the processions. Thus, in Aberdeen, on the 25th of January, 15 12, the provost, baillies, and council ratified and approved the acts made before, that every craft should have a pair of torches, honestly made of four pounds of wax, to ' decore ' and worship the Sacrament on Corpus Christi Day, and at the feast of Pasch, at Yule, and at all other times, when need is to the honour of the town.^ It is evident that with regard to a matter of so public a nature as a civic procession many records will have survived. But, since disorders attract more attention and are more readily chronicled than proceedings which are peaceful and regular, no one should be sur- prised if, in the midst of much that is edifying, we occasionally meet with evidence of human infirmity ; that sometimes the clergy and sometimes the laity have to be exhorted not to grow weary of a pious work which has lost its novelty ; that there are disputes between the trades for precedence, questions about right of way ; and that even now and then disorders and riot disturb the sacred pomp. It should, however, be added that we only know of such things by the docu- ments which tell of their repression and punishment.^ There is, ' The author, who was an eye-witness of what preceded and followed the Reformation, thus continues : ' Afterwards, in the first year of King Edward VI. , commissioners were appointed to deface all such ornaments in the parish churches at Durham as were left undefaced in a former visitation. The names of the com- missioners vv^ere Dr. Harvey and Dr. Whitby. Dr. Harvey called for the said shrine, and when it was brought before him, he trode upon it with his feet and broke it into pieces, with many of the ornaments of St. Nicolas Church.' * Extracts from Burgh Register (Spalding Club), i. 442. » The Corpus Christi procession in London used to pass through a draper's house in the parish of St. Mary Abchurch. John Basse, the proprietor, caring 268 THE FEAST OF CORPUS CHRIST!. therefore, edification to be found even in such records. Thus in 1419, Phihp Repingdon, bishop of Lincohi, wrote as follows : — ' The Son of God having descended from the highest heavens for the redemption of mankind, when about to suffer death for us, and to ascend into heaven, left us a magnificent memorial of His surpassing love for us, the precious Sacrament of His Body and His Blood. From the devout veneration of this Body, until we enjoy Its beatific vision, we advance in grace and virtue, get pardon of our sins and help to life eternal. ' The beloved inhabitants of our city of Lincoln well knowing these things, and considering the power of this Sacrament to increase devotion and merit, have zealously and fervently kept up a devout custom, that at certain times of the year, viz. on the day of the solem- nity of Corpus Christi, and the following Sunday, this precious Sacra- ment is carried in solemn procession, and with a numerous and devout attendance of priests and clerics, from some church in Wyk- ford in the suburbs of our city to our cathedral church, in order that by the frequent sight of this Sacrament the devotion of the people may be increased, and they may more easily obtain pardon of their sins.' He then complains that some priests, though not otherwise occu- pied, neglect the procession, to the great danger of their souls and scandal of others. He reminds them that since priests alone can consecrate this Sacrament, they ought to be especially devout to it, and commands and entreats them in future to assist in surplice. To all those who take part, and pray for the peace and prosperity of the Church and kingdom of England, he grants forty days' indulgence.' It was not merely in cathedral cities that processions were held on this festival. There was probably no town or village or rural church in England which had not its procession. The will of William Bruges,^ first Garter king of arms, dated 1450, shows that, to enhance the splendour of the procession at Stamford, this pious citizen had had constructed a most rich and elaborate feretory, partly of wood gilt, partly of silver adorned with jewels, which he calls a ' solemp- nitie of array for the fest of Corpus Christi,' and which was to be carried between the deacon and subdeacon. It was surrounded by angels bearing emblems of the Passion. The Blessed Sacrament was more for the damage done by the crowd than for the glory and benefit of our Lord's visit, made armed resistance in 1389. He was fined by the mayor. See Memorials of London from 1276-1419, by II. T. Riley, M.A., p. 509. ' Wilkins, iii. p. 396. * Peck's Antiquarian Aniiah of Stamford, book xiv. p. 24. USE OF FLOWERS. 269 placed in a small cup of silver gilt, and this inside a large silver cup. This was covered with a great crown of silver gilt and garnished with stones. Only a few great churches had such costly furniture, but small items of expense put down by churchwardens in their accounts are equally edifying as witnesses to devotion in humbler places. Thus in St. Mary's Church, Devizes, in 1499, 6d. {i.e. about six shillings modern value) ' for making up ' (repairing) ' the canopy on Corpus Christi day;' and again in 1529 'for buckram for the canopy over the sacrament' ' In 1458 Marion Mason, widow, gives a canopy to be placed over the host, to the church of St. Peter of Mancroft, Norwich."'^ In 1489 the churchwardens of St. Mary Hill, London, expend lod. on ' garlondes for Corpus Christi day.' Sometimes garlands were entwined round torches,^ sometimes they were worn by the priests and people, and especially by the members of guilds. Flowers were also mingled with the rushes strewn along the path of the procession. Indeed, long after our Lord had ceased to be carried through the streets or fields, the custom survived in some places of strewing flowers on Corpus Christi day. Brand records^ two examples of this. In North Wales at Llanasaph there was a custom of strewing green herbs and flowers at the doors of houses on Corpus Christi Eve. And the Skinners' Company, which was originally incorporated as the Fraternity of Corpus Christi of Skinners, and held a solemn procession in London on the festival of Corpus Christi, after the suppression of that festival and of all honour paid to the Blessed Sacrament, still continued on the old day to walk in procession from their hall on Dowgate Hill to the church of St. Antholin in Watling Street, attended by a number of boys, whom they supported in Christ's Hospital school, and of girls ; and though they carried nothing and followed nothing better than themselves, the old honour intended for our Lord was continued, and the children strewed herbs before them as they walked, only knowing that this was an ancient custom. There have been stranger and less innocent perversions of the old joyous procession than this. Mr. Davies, who has collected a minute account of the celebration of this festival in York during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, says : ' It was, un- questionably, with the utmost reluctance, and after a protracted struggle, that the citizens of York were ultimately constrained to ' IViltshire ArchcEological Mag. vol. ii. p. 252. - YAovcizi^iA'^'i History of Norfolk, iv. 213. ' Rock, ii. 425. ^ Popular Antiquities, i. 297. 270 THE FEAST OF CORPUS CHRIST I. relinquish their celebration of the Corpus Christi festival, which during nearly three centuries they had regarded as the great holiday of the year, the day on which their "pageants of delight were played." ' ^ 'As the Corpus Christi pageants were gradually discontinued other spectacles and diversions were provided for the entertainment of the citizens.'^ ' The diversion of bear-baiting was occasionally authorised by the lord mayor and his council, who countenanced the cruel sport by their presence.' Alas ! poor Christian people of York ! Surely if the ' fantastic tricks ' of men in power ever ' made the angels weep,' it was when the Sacrament of Love was taken from you, and you were invited to bear-baiting instead ! To the honour of the good citizens of York, Mr. Davies adds : ' But none of these entertain- ments appear to have afforded the same gratification, and to have been undertaken with the same alacrity, as the Corpus Christi pageants for which they were substituted. A degree of coercion was sometimes necessary to induce the citizens to take their allotted part in the processions.' ^ I will add an extract from the * History of Guernsey.' ■* Mr. Berry has related how, in Catholic times, ' before the ceremony (the Corpus Christi procession) took place, it was customary for the seneschal, vavasors and all the members of the royal court of justice, attended by the king's officers, to make a survey of the roads throughout the island, to see that they were in pro, er repair for the procession &c. When popery declined,' he says, ' and the perambulation of the Host was suppressed, those surveys became less frequent.' At the time the author wrote, i.e. in 1814, they had been revived, and he continues thus ; the rabble who join the procession of the officers ' have the privilege of saluting or rather insulting every female they meet with- out distinction, so that a dirty carman may now exultingly boast of having pressed the Hps of some colonel's lady ! ' Is this then the worship in spirit and in truth which was pro- mised when the old Catholic ceremonies were abolished? In 1527 CEcolampadius found especial fault with the pomp of Corpus Christi. Bishop Fisher could not deny that there were some abuses in the popular gathering, ' but,' he added, ' the institution of public proces- > Records of York, by Robert Davies, F.S.A., p. 278. 2 lb. p. 273. ' lb. p. 277. The ' pageants' were not simply the religious ceremonies, but he mystery-plays to be mentioned presently. These also were religious. * Berry's History of Guernsey (1814), pp. 129, 130. PAGEANTS. 271 sions is in itself excellent. By such spectacles, the rude people, seeing the honour given by the higher classes to the Holy Eucharist, is more easily moved to piety. And on account of the weak (who would be offended if their old customs were interfered with) we must tolerate much (which we cannot altogether approve).'* The good bishop would have used a less apologetic tone could he have foreseen what would take the place in England of those relio-ious amusements in which the people then delighted. When he speaks of tolerating or conniving, his allusion is not to the processions which were ordered by the Pope and Bishops, but to the pageantry which in many places followed or even encroached upon them. Many modern writers have illustrated from a literary or social point of view the Mysteries and Miracle-plays of the Middle Ages, which were the rude beginnings of our drama. I shall confine my few remarks to their religious aspect, and even as much as possible to their connection \\ith the festival of Corpus Christi. Before this festival was promulgated by the Council of Vienne, Robert de Brunne had turned into English rhymes the ' Manuel des Pe'ches,' composed in French by another Englishman, William de Waddington.2 Speaking of the duties of pastors, he says : It is forbid him in the decree— Miracles for to make or see, — For miracles if Shou begin— It is a gathering of sin.— He may in the church, through his reason, Play the resurrection, —That is to say, how God rose— God and man in might and Ids {i.e. praise)- To make men in the belief good— That He has rose with flesh and blood ;— And he may play, withouten plight [i.e. guilt)— How God was born in Yole night.— If thou do it in ways or graves,— A sight of sin truly it seems. The French original here has : 'Mais fere folcs assemblez— En les rues des cites— Ou en cymiters apres mangers.' The danger, then, was not in a religious play acted under the super- intendence of the priest in the church, but in plays performed on fixed or movable stages in streets and churchyards, especially after eating and drinking, when the assembly was likely to become riotous, and the acting to degenerate into buffoonery. But even when acted in church, If priest or clerk lend vestment— That hallowed is through sacrament,— More than other they are to blame ;— Of sacrilege they have the fame. ' ' Nam id genus spectaculis, in quibus honor a proceribus impenditur eucha- ristise, rude vulgus ad pietatem facilius trahi solet. Et certe propter infirmiores ad multa connivendum est.'— Z?£ Veritate Corporis et Sanguinis Chrisii, lib. i. cap. 22. - Robert de Brunne's Handlynge Synne was written in 1303. 272 THE FEAST OF CORPUS CHRIST I. There exists a common impression at the present day that- the. mediaeval Church encouraged sports and merriment among the people, and to some extent this is true. But abuse pressed so closely on the heels of use, that it is easier to collect many passages from old writers condemning such sports in the severest manner than to find even a fevv^ which give them direct encouragement. The whole tone of Robert de Brunne's book shows that he was a man of good sense, with good love of the people, and he wrote in hopes that his book might be read aloud and give instruction and amusement at the same time. His opinion as an eye-witness of many popular amusements was as follows : Dances, carols, summer games, — Of many such come many shames. — What see ye by every minstrel— That in such things delight them all? — Their doing is full perilous ;— It loveth neither God, nor God's house. But as people must have sport and recreation, wise men taught them to turn from the dances and summer gatnes, not only by cere- monial strictly religious, but by pageants in harmony with such cere- monial. The Chester and Coventry plays are well known, and may be here passed by. In Stamford, ' the play of Corpus Christi was acted upon Corpus Christi day in the north chancel of the church of St. Mary's at the Bridge, called Corpus Christi Chapel, and else- where in the town.'^ There, as in many other places, was a Corpus Christi guild, whose duties, however, were probably rather connected with the procession which preceded the plays than with the pageants which were under the management of the trades. So at least it was in York, of which city's devotion, through the diligence of Mr. Davies, we possess the most detailed knowledge. The plays had been acted yearly since the middle of the fourteenth century, whereas the guild commenced only in the year 1408. It was very popular, and persons of the highest rank, both ecclesiastical and secular, were enrolled among its members. Their office was, on this festival, to take part in and to arrange, and watch over, the religious ceremonial outside the church. Mr. Davies thus describes the procession : 'On the morrow of Corpus Christi day, the persons who were to join in the procession assembled at the great gates of the Priory of the Holy Trinity in Micklegate. The parochial clergy of the city in their surplices walked first. The Master of the Guild, invested with a silken cope, appeared as " presidens principalis." He was supported on either side by one of the clergy who had previously filled the same office, and was attended by the six keepers of the ' Peck's History of Stamford, book xiv. pp. 6, 7. PAGEANTS, 273 guild, with silk stoles round their necks, and white wands in their hands. The costly shrine of silver gilt and decorated with a pro- fusion of jewels inclosing a vase of beryl in which the sacred elements were deposited, was borne in the midst by the chaplains of the guild. It was the duty of two of the keepers of the guild to attend diligently upon the shrine, whilst the others took care that strict order and decorum were observed. Singers attended to chaunt the proper services of the day, in which such of the clergy as were able to sing were required to join, and the procession was accom- panied with the usual display of crosses, tapers, banners, and torches. After the ecclesiastics came the lord mayor, aldermen, and other members of the Corporation in their robes of ceremony, attended by the city officers, and other persons bearing their appropriate number of lighted torches, and followed by the officers and members of the numerous crafts or trade- companies of the city wich their banners and torches, taking their places according to a prescribed order of precedence. In the streets through which the procession passed, a prodigious crowd of the populace was assembled ; the fronts of the houses were decorated with tapestry and other hangings, and their entrances strewed with rushes and flowers. From the priory gates they took their course to the cathedral, where a sermon was preached in the chapter-house. Thence they went to the Hospital of St. Leonard, where the Holy Sacrament was left.' It will be seen from this passage that in York the procession took place on Friday, not on the feast itself. , This was to some extent an abuse, yet it came from an attempt to remedy an evil. Both the procession and the pageants had formerly been appointed for Thurs- day, the feast of Corpus Christi. But a great multitude of strangers used to be attracted to York, and of course in the multitude were the riotous and sensual as well as the devout. Disorders were of frequent occurrence at the beginning of the fifteenth century. At length in 1426, 'a certain very religious person, one William Melton, a brother of the order of Friars Minor, professor of holy pageantry, and a most famous preacher of the word of God, coming to the city, had in several sermons recommended the Corpus Christi play to the people, affirming that it was good in itself and highly praise- worthy ; yet he said that the citizens and others, strangers visiting the city at the festival, not for the play alone, joined in revellings, clamours, singing, and other improprieties, little regarding the divine offices of the day ; and it was to be lamented that they consequently lost the benefit of the indulgences graciously conceded by Pope Urban IV. to those who duly attended the religious services.' The VOL. II. T 271 THE FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI. City council, by his advice, decreed that the plays should be per- formed in future on the Wednesday. But long-established custom prevailed. The trades still persisted in exhibiting their pageants on the day of the festival, and Friar Melton's advice only prevailed to this extent, that the two celebrations took place on diffei'ent days, and the religious procession was deferred to the Friday. The plays consisted of representations of a whole series of scriptural subjects, with appropriate costume. It is supposed, says Mr. Davies, that the pageants were little more than tableaux vivants, or what Dr. Percy describes, a kind of dumb show intermingled with a few short speeches. They were performed in at least twelve dif- ferent parts of the city. The Corpus Christi Guild had, however, a special and more elaborate play of its own, called the Credo play, which had been bequeathed to it by William Revetor, a chantry priest, on condition that it should be publicly performed at least every tenth year. In connection with this subject it maybe mentioned that there exists in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, a manuscript called 'The Play of the Sacrament,' written about 146 1. Mr. Whitley Stokes, who has published it for the Philological Society, says it is 'the earliest dramatic poem in the language of which the characters are not allegorical, and which is founded neither on a biblical narrative nor on the life of a saint.' ' It is the history of an outrage done by some Jews to the sacred Host, and of the miracles which led to their conversion. The Jews go to confession apparently before they are baptized. But so, apparently, did some mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. Con- fession is useful even when not sacramental. Thus in our lawe they wer made stedfast ; The holy Sacrement sheuyd them grette faveur, In contrycyon thyr hertis wer cast, And went and shewyd their lyves to a confesour. This review of the popular devotions of our forefathers may be fitly, if somewhat sadly, concluded by the words of the late Canon Oakeley, who laboured so successfully to revive the pomp of ritual, first as a minister of the Church of England, and afterwards for thirty years as a priest of the Catholic Church. Still find we, up and down, In country or in town. The footprints of our fathers' holier tread ; A relic here and there, A pageant, or a fair, And old traditions floating round the dead. ' Transactions of the Philological Socieiy, 1860-I, p. 104. REGRETS. But substance Iiave they none, For Christ, their Light, is gone ; And they but as the ghosts of blessings bide ; Of inward sense bereft. The husks alone are left ; No saving import theirs, no heavenward side. O foolish, foolish World ! How madly hast thou hurl'd Thy loving Saviour from His earthly throne, Hoping to do Him spite ! Whereas thy fatal might Hath wreak 'd its vengeance on thyself alone.' ' Lyra Liturgica, ' Corpus Christi,' p. 152. 275 T 2 276 CHAPTER XX. INTERDICTS. The subject of the present chapter is connected with that of the last by way of contrast. A festival adds unusual splendour to divine worship ; an interdict casts the gloom of spiritual privation over even ordinary days. The Church was sent by our Lord in His own place to carry peace and joy to the world ; but at the same time she was bidden to shake the dust off the soles of her feet as a testimony against those who should reject her. Her primary desire is to dispense to all the spiritual goods entrusted to her care ; but she has been warned not to cast her pearls before swine, nor to give what is holy to dogs. Even towards her own children she must sometimes act with apparent rigour for their good, since a mother should not only feed and fondle and exhort — she must sometimes show that she is displeased, reprove, rebuke, and chastise. Hence the Church's power of inflicting cen- sures, by which she deprives her perverse children, with a view to their ultimate amendment, of certain of the spiritual goods over which she has jurisdiction. This power was most clearly committed to her by Jesus Christ,' and has been exercised from the days of the Apostles to the present. Censures are of three kinds — excommunications, suspensions, and interdicts. Most persons possess some general knowledge of the two former. They remember St. Paul's question to the Corinthians as to whether they wished him to come to them with a rod or in charity, and how he bade them solemnly, by his authority and in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver the incestuous man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, in order to put away the evil leaven from among them ; ^ and how he delivered Hymenseus and Alexander to Satan, that they might learn not to blaspheme.^ It is also easily un- derstood that the priest should be removed from a charge to which he is unfaithful, or forbidden to perform acts of which he is unworthy. But an interdict, as the word is understood by the Church, is a less ' Matt. xvi. xviii. - i Cor. iv. 21, v. 3-n. ' i Tim. i. 20. NATURE OF CENSURES. 277 familiar mode of coercion and requires a few words of explanation . It differs from an excommunication especially in this, that an excom- munication (as the word implies) separates the guilty person from communion with others, and so indirectly deprives him of the use of certain spiritual goods ; whereas the interdict deprives him directly of the use of some of these, leaving him, however, in full communion with his fellow Christians in all civil intercourse, and in the use of all spiritual goods not specially forbidden. An interdict may also include the innocent together with the guilty, for though it is never imposed except for guilt, the innocent may be justly called on to repair an outrage, or to humble themselves for the crimes of those with whom they associate. Interdicts are local or personal, general or particular. These words explain themselves or will be made clear by the examples which I am about to give. The first is one laid on a private person. It appears from the Register of WiUiam Waynflete, bishop of Winchester, that in 1468 a quarrel arose between Robert Peverell, rector of Drokensford, and one of his parishioners, named John Champney, about tithes. When the matter was at last brought into the bishop's court and John was legally cited to appear, he contumaciously refused to come. Thereupon he was interdicted by the court from entering his parish church. But pride and obstinacy got the better of him, and, moved by evil counsellors, he appeared publicly in the midst of the solemni- ties of Corpus Christi, The office was immediately interrupted, and the priest having brought his conduct once more before the bishop, Champney and his partisans were excommunicated.* Here the milder form of remedy first applied proved ineffectual, and the Church had to treat the hardened offender as a heathen and a pub- lican. For a great offence committed in a sacred place, or committed by many of those who frequent it, a ban is sometimes laid on the place itself, and the celebration of divine offices and ministration of sacra- ments are suspended, not only as regards the guilty persons, but the whole community : that the good may urge on the guilty to do penance, and may unite with them in making satisfaction. This is what is called a local interdict. In a Welsh charter, of about a.d. 1070, the cause and manner of a local interdict are given. The family of Cadwgan, son of Meurig, king of Glamorgan, had gone to Llandaft" for the Christmas festivals, with good intention, but, as the charter quaintly puts it, ' Waynflete's Register (MS.), fol. 95, torn. i. 278 INTERDICTS. * as Aaron's rod had been transformed into a dragon, so excessive feasting had transformed these men from pious worshippers into brawlers and murderers.' They had slain Berthute, the nephew of the bishop, a holy man and the physician of the whole country around . Bishop Herwald immediately summoned a synod of his clergy, and a solemn interdict was pronounced. The crosses and relics were taken from the altars and laid on the ground, the bells were reversed, the doors of the churches were blocked with thorns, and no service was permitted either day or night. The royal household was excommu- nicated. The effect of these measures on the whole country was so great that the king with tears asked for pardon and reconciliation for his household. Having received penance and absolution, he laid his hand on the altar of St. Peter and the holy confessors, Dubricius, Telau, and Oudoceus, and made a solemn offering of land to God, His saints, and the church of Llandaff. ' A far more terrible outrage occurred in the city of Norwich in the year 1272, It is without parallel in its enormity in English Catholic history ; but it deserves to be known, as revealing not merely the wild passions which occasionally burst out, but the appeals to faith by which they were met and expiated. It is not possible at the present day to ascertain with certainty the origin of the outrage, or the degrees of guilt of the parties in the disputes from which it arose ; for though several accounts have been preserved, and two or three of these are the detailed narratives of eye-witnesses, yet they are written with evident partisanship on different sides. With regard, however, to the facts of the interdict itself by which the outrages were punished, there is more agree- ment, and we have several official documents.^ One thing is certain. There was a long and violent feud between the citizens and the prior of Norwich, William de Brunham. Blome- field quotes an old roll from which it appears that during a fair held on Trinity Sunday, 1272, near the monastery gates, a conten- ' Haddan and Stubbs, i. 295. ^ The event is related by Matthew Paris, as well as by Hemingford, Trivet, and Matthew of Westminster. A much fuller account is found in the Historia A7Jglicana of Bartholomew Cotton, a monk of Norwich, and an eye-witness. This part of his work was printed by Wh-arton in the Anglia Sacra, i. 399 ; and more accurately in the Rolls Series. The editor of this edition adds an important letter of Pope Gregory X. In 1831 another account, givin-^ a different colour to the dispute of the prior and citizens, was published in Bently's Excerpta Historica, pp. 252-259, with some official documents. This account was not known to Blomefield, the historian of Norfolk ; nojr was the Pope's letter known to the editor of the Excerpta. OUTRAGE IN NORWICH, 279 tion arose between the prior's men and the men of the town, so that many of the townsmen were killed in the fray ; wherefore the coro- ners of the city took an inquest, and found the prior's men guilty, and made out a precept to take them, if they came within the liberty of the town ; and not long after two were taken in the city liberties. For this inquest, continues the account, the prior got (some of) the citizens excommunicated, pretending it a breach of his privi- leges,' which increased the malice between them till August, so that the prior's men shut up their gates, and hung out over them scutcheons, targets, bucklers, and crossbows, with which they wounded many that went by ; and the Sunday before St. Lawrence they came out by night armed, robbed a merchant, and broke open a tavern. The citizens congregated and repelled violence by violence ; and one account says that the prior, seeing the great excitement and fearino- an attack, sent to Great Yarmouth and brought thence a mob of malefactors or roughs, whom he armed and placed in the belfry, for- tifying it as a castle. Bartholomew, the monk of Norwich, admits that many serious charges were made by the citizens against the prior, and he indig- nantly protests that he was innocent of them all. But from the fact that the prior was imprisoned by the king, it would seem that another view was taken by the judges. It is not easy to credit the statement of Bartholomew that the whole of the forty judges or jurymen were bribed by the citizens to give false judgment. And, on the other hand, the fact of the prior's imprisonment entirely disproves the other- wise incredible accusation made against the bishop of Norwich by a partisan of the city, that he excommunicated all who should take part with the citizens during the trial, and that out of fear of this excom- munication the king himself would not grant any pardon to the citi- zens who were condemned to death. Putting aside then these unlikely charges on both sides, it would seem that there must have been some great provocation given to the citizens before they could act as they did. In their defence they alleged that when they saw the Yarmouth mob and the prior's men making a castle of the monastery contrary to the king's peace, they thought themselves bound to demolish it, and bring the culprits to justice. \A'hen the investigation Avas made the king took a very different ' Other accounts say that the prior's men fled for refuge into the church of St. F.thelbert in the abliey precincts, and that their pursuers had violated the sanctuar)'. 28o INTERDICTS. view of these defenders of peace and justice; and calls them ' sons of blasphemy, reckless of their souls.' ' An attack then was made upon the monastery, not by a mob, but by the citizens summoned to the work by the bailiffs and council of the city, and instigated by certain priests and clerics who sided with the citizens against the monks. According to Bartholomew, they bound themselves by oath to the total destruction of the monastery. On the nth of August the tocsin was rung, and criers summoned all the citizens above twelve years old to the attack. Unable to force the outside gates, the citizens set fire to them and burnt also the parish church in the precincts with all its contents. They also burnt down the almery, the gates of the cathedral and the great bell-tower, the chapel of our Lady, the dormitory, refectory, guesthouse and infirmary, with its chapel. The pope mentions especially that ' the sacrament of the altar, kept with great veneration in divers places,' was consumed, together with relics, vestments, and many precious books and ornaments. The mob also slew many of the servants, some subdeacons, clerks and laymen, both inside and outside the monastery ; others they imprisoned. Some of the monks were cruelly beaten and subjected to other indignities, and all but two or three were driven from the monastery. The sacred vessels, books, gold and silver, which were not burnt, fell into the hands of the sacrilegious robbers. When Henry III. heard of this outrage he ordered all the sea- ports to be watched, that none of the perpetrators might escape, and summoned a parliament for the feast of St. Giles at Bury St. Edmund's, to give counsel how to treat such malefactors. In the mean time, the bishop, of Norwich, Roger Skirving, held a synod on the feast of the decollation of St. John Baptist (August 29), and after canonical warnings, and summoning the corporation in vain to make satisfaction, he excommunicated some of them by name, and all participators in general, and put the city of Norwich under inter- dict, excommunicating also all who should carry victuals to its citizens. By the advice of the barons and bishops, the king went himself to Norwich on the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (September 14), and the bishop, at the king's demand, relaxed ' Dissensions between monasteries and cities, leading to acts of great violence, were by no means infrequent in the 14th century, owing to questions of jurisdic- tion and privilege. Mr. Noake, in his Monastery and Cathcih-al of Worcester, pp. 96-IOI, relates an attack by the townspeople on that monastery in 1349, and refers to another still more serious at Bury in 1327, and to a third at Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, in the 15th century. EXPIATION OF THE OUTRAGE. 281 the interdict while the king was in the city. The judges, having tried the malefactors, ordered about thirty of them to be drawn by horses to the gallows and their bodies to be hanged and then burnt. The citizens on the other hand, though they could not deny the attack on the monastery and the murders, affirmed that the fire which had consumed the buildings was simply the result of accident. They also made many charges against the prior. The king seques- trated the manors of the monastery, and the prior was first im- prisoned in the custody of the bishop, and then resigned. On the election of a new prior the manors were restored. On the feast of St. Luke (October 18) the interdict was renewed, but relaxed from the vigil of Christmas to the day after the Epiphany ; and once more, at the election of the new archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Kilwarby, it was suspended until the octave of Easter. In the mean time the whole affair was reported to the Holy See, not merely by the monks, but by letters from the bishops ; and Pope Gregory X., considering the unexampled enormity of the offence, wrote to the bishops of London and Ely a letter such as, according to the chronicler, had never before been received in England, so strong was its language and terrible the measures it prescribed. The pope confirmed all the censures passed against the criminals, and ordered them to be published in all the cathedral churches through- out England, that those who had been excommunicated might be avoided. Their absolution was reserved to the pope ; and even if they were absolved by others in danger of death, their bodies could not receive ecclesiastical burial. They were deprived of any bene- fices or fiefs they might hold from the Church, and any rights of patronage they might have ; and their descendants even to the fourth generation were made incapable of admission to any clerical body, or to any position of honour in a monastery, without apostolic dis- pensation. Should the citizens of Norwich contumaciously dis- regard the censures for four months, the bishops were then to see that none of the neighbouring cities of England should have any dealings with them, under pain of interdict and excommunication ; the payment of all debts due to them was to be suspended ; and finally the secular power was to be invoked, according to the custom introduced in England by the devotion of the faithful against such as persist in a state of excommunication beyond a certain time. All ecclesiastics, secular and regular, were at once to leave the city, except a few appointed to baptize children and give communion to the dying. Lastly, the bailiffs and councilmen were summoned to appear personally at Rome, and the corporation by procurators. 282 INTERDICTS. Owing to the appeals of the citizens to Rome and other caiises, two more years elapsed before peace was perfectly restored. By common consent of the monks and the citizens, and permission of the Holy See, the new king, Edward I., was made arbitrator. The monks demanded 4000 marks compensation for injury done to their property. The citizens offered 2000, The king ordered 3000 to be paid in yearly instalments of 500, and that there should be mutual forgiveness of wrongs. As a solemn act of reparation for the in- sults offered during the riot to our Lord Jesas Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, the young king made another ordinance : ' We decree and ordain that the corporation shall have made a golden vessel, ten pounds weight of gold and value of one hundred pounds weight of silver, to hold the Body of Christ above the altar of the church.' The interdict was finally removed on November 14, 1275, after having lasted more than three years. We now come to the famous interdict to which the whole of England was subjected by Pope Innocent III. on account of the refusal of King John to accept Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury. The reasons of this interdict belong to poUtical history and need not be discussed here.^ But as the nature of it belongs to the present subject, and is frequently misunderstood and exaggerated by historians, it may be well to supply a few historical details which will help us to realise one of the most striking events in our history — the cessation among a Catholic people for more than six years of the fulness of Catholic rites and worship. The interdict was pub- lished on March 23, 1208, and ceased on July 2, 1214.^ Mr. Green says : ' All worship save that of a few privileged orders, all administration of the sacraments save that of private bap- tism, ceased over the length and breadth of the country ; the church- bells were silent, the dead lay unburied on the ground.' There are several inaccuracies in this description. Dr. Lingard, with his usual precision, writes : * The appointed day came, and instantly the churches were closed ; no bell was tolled ; no service was solemnly performed ; the administration of the sacraments, except to infants and the dying, was suspended, and the bodies of the dead Avere in- terred silently and in unconsecrated ground.' He adds in a note : ' They are well treated in an article in the Mont/i, April, 1S79. - 71ie I\/a7-gan and Dunstable Annals, and the Annales Ca7nbricE, say March 23, which was Passion Sunday in I2c8. Winchester, Teivkesbnry, and Waverley S'ay Monday, 24. It was probably published on Sunday and began on Monday. As to \}[VQ Sohitio, Wendover says June 29, 1214; the Dtinstable Annals say July 3 ; the rest are unanimous as to July 2. THE GREAT INTERDICT. 283 ' Sermons were preached on the Sundays in the churchyards : mar- riages and churchings took place in the porch of the church.' Before completing this picture, the outline of which is correct, it is well to remark that the extent of the cessation of the divine rites during an interdict depends on the will of the lawgiver, and has been modified from time to time, as was judged expedient. The pre- scriptions of Innocent III. cannot therefore be accurately ascer- tained by inspection of the canon law in the nineteenth or even in the sixteenth century. At a period later than that of Innocent III.' baptism could be solemnly given even in the church as well as confirmation ; the sacrament of penance was freely administered to all who asked for it ; the Holy Eucharist could be carried with solemnity to the dying, and could be received by monks and nuns who had the privilege to assist at mass. Mass could be celebrated once a week in each church, though with closed doors and without the ringing of bells, and with the exclusion of the laity as well as of all persons excommunicated or specially interdicted or who had given occasion to the interdict ; and burial in consecrated ground was granted to ecclesiastics. Above all an interdict was always suspended on the feasts of Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and the Assumption, and during the whole octave of Corpus Christi. On these days mass and office were said and sung with the usual solemnity. But several of these concessions were quite unknown in the great interdict of 1208. Already in 1207, on account of the tyranny of the king and his treatment of his half-brother, Geoftry Plantagenet, Archbishop of York, the pope had threatened to put the northern province under interdict, ' not permitting in it any divine oflce except the baptism of children and penances for the dying to be celebrated.'^ As the king, however, continued, like Herod, ' to stretch forth his hand to afflict some of the Church' (Acts xii. 1), driving the monks from Canterbury, seizing their possessions and refusing to receive Cardinal Langton as archbishop, not only the province of York but the whole of England was interdicted. Martene has published, from a manu- script of St. Michael's Mount in Normandy, the prescriptions of this interdict.^ The clergy could celebrate, in small groups in the churches, the ' See Suarez, De Censiiris, Disput. 32, 34, 35 ; S. Alph. T/ieol. iMoral. de Censm-is, cap. 4. 2 See Kegist. Innoc. III. lib. xi. ep. 87 : Migne, torn. ccxv. col. 1404. 3 Thesaur. Anecd. i. 810 ; also Migne, torn, ccxvii. col. 190. 284 INTERDICTS. various hours of the Divine Office,^ without any solemnity or singing, and could read the gospel ; but with closed doors, allowing no lay- man to enter even for private prayer, unless it were some person of great rank, not excommunicated, who should with great devotion beg to be allowed to enter the church, and who could not be refused without grave danger. In that case such a person might enter alone, but he should hear nothing from the clergy, except words of exhorta- tion ' to obey God rather than man,' or others of the like kind. The priests were to call together their parishioners every Sunday and at the principal feasts around a cross in the town or churchyard, and there preach to them patience and obedience, setting before them the example of Jesus Christ, obedient to death, teaching them to obey God rather than man, and not to fear those who can kill the body but can do no more. At the end of the sermon the priests were to say prayers for the peace of the Church, for the king, that our Lord Jesus Christ would direct his feet into the way of salvation, and give to him the spirit of counsel, &c. They were to say also prayers for the living and the dead, all kneeling, and to exhort the people to persist in such prayers day and night, so as to supply for the loss of masses by vigils and prayers ; assuring them that those who were obedient to the Church were following the way of salva- tion, while those who were rebellious might fear the vengeance of God, since the child is cursed who when his mother chastises him strikes her with his fist. The priests were to publish the festivals, but not to bless bread nor water. This refers to the bread usually distributed at the end of mass, for blessing and grace were not pro- hibited at table. Nevertheless blessed bread and water were dis- tributed after the sermon, according to the Dunstable Annals, a con- cession to this effect having been made by the pope. Infants were to be baptized at home with the usual anointings and with all due solemnity. The archdeacons and deans were to assem- ble on Holy Thursday to receive instructions, and the old chrism was to be reserved. (In general the holy oils are renewed on that day, but in answer to a consultation of the bishops the pope had decided that no new oil should be consecrated, and that the old should still be used, and, if need were, mixed with unconsecrated oil.2) The baptismal water and vessels were to be carried from house to house. ^ Whoever should ask for confession should have it when- ' The Office, i.e. the Psalms,, Lessons, &c., of the Breviary, not the Mass. ^ Keg. Inn. III. lib. xi. ep. 102. ' It appears, however, that in renlity the baptisms took place in the churches : REGULATIONS OF INNOCENT III. 285 ever he wished, but without the Eucharist and without extreme unction. As to this last privation, the pope replied to the bishops in May 1208, that though the Viaticum, as a general rule, might be understood as included under the clause 'penances of the dying,' yet in this case it was not included, and the rule of St. Augustine might now be applied : Crede ei mandiicasti ; in other words, that the dying should make spiritual communions, and could do so fruitfully, being deprived of the sacramental communion not by neglect or contempt of it, but by necessity. The necessity would, he hoped, be of short duration.^ In 12 12, as the necessity was prolonged, the pope relaxed this rigorous prohibition. The bodies of the dead, whether clerics or lay, might be laid by their friends wherever they might choose outside the churchyards, especially where the passers by might be moved by the sight, but no priest could be present at the burial. The priest might, while the body lay in the house, make privately a commendation of the soul, without cross or holy water. The bodies of the clergy might be placed in sealed cofhns or in lead, and laid in the trees of the church- yards, or on the walls ; and the bodies of religious within their clois- ters, but without opening the soil of the cemeteries. This was so strictly carried out that bishops who died during the interdict re- mained unburied.^ The altars in the churches were to be stripped. Espousals and marriages were not to be contracted. The Annals of Dunstable, how- ever, mention that espousals ^ and churchings took place in the porch of the church. There are several other prescriptions in this document concerning schools, the Hospitallers, the privilege of sanctuar}'-, and the violation of church property ; and then we come to the following : ' Those who might have received the Body of the Lord, and who were ordered to receive it, and who scorned to do so, may not eat flesh meat on Easter day or afterwards without the permission of the bishop or of some authorised official.' As the interdict was published on Passion ' Sacerdotes in ecclesiis baptizabant . . . et offerie volentibus accessum ad altaria concedebant.' {Ann. de Duns. p. 30, ed. Rolls.) Suarez says that in the lime of interdict baptism may and should be administered solemnly in the church. This was contrary to the Pope's first intention. ' Regist. lib. xi. ep. 102. ^ Gesta Innoc, Migne, tom. ccxiv. ^ Dr. Lingard says 'marriages,' but i\\e. Annals of Dunstable, to which he refers, only say sponsalia. These, according to Suarez, were lawful, but not marriages, though, as the interdict was prolonged beyond the expectation of the pope, a concession on such a point was very probably granted later on. 286 INTERDICTS. Sunday, it was probably ordered that the Easter Communion should be anticipated that year, and this was the penalty against wilful neglect. Lastly, it was decreed that 'wherever the Body of the Lord, after the publication of the interdict, should remain unconsumed {r esidman fuerit),\\. ^ovXdi be honourably kept in the church, until orders should be given as to what should be done with it ; but that it should be received by none, not even by a priest.' In a letter to the bishops of Ely and London, who had published the interdict, Innocent wrote on the 14th of June, 1208, that he should not have been sorry had they allowed the religious orders to make use of their privilege, by which they were entitled in times of interdict to say mass with doors closed, &c., 'especially because by the oblation of the saving Victim the Divine Majesty might be ap- peased in this great necessity.' ' It appears that this declaration of the Sovereign Pontifif was soon known ; for on the 22nd of August the Pope writes again that he has heard that at first all the Cistercians observed the restrictions of the interdict most rigorously, but that soon some of their own authority, and others after a time at the command of their abbot, had begun to say mass, though some still persisted in their observance. The reasons of this had been that some considered themselves not com- prised in the general terras of the interdict, the privileges requiring a special mention of them to be made. The pope, without blaming them, gives the bishops power to decide whether this partial non- observance of the interdict is likely to cause scandal, or to make the king think that the pope will relent if he persists in his contumacy. Should this- be the case, the bishops are to restrain at once the liberty claimed by these religious.^ However, in January 1209, at the request of Cardinal Langton, permission was granted to all conven- tual churches, which had hitherto been obedient, to say mass once a week secretly, ' that the virtue of this most divine Sacrament may obtain a good end to this business.' ^ Permission was also granted to Cardinal Langton and the three bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester, should they be summoned to England by the king, to have mass said for themselves and their household wherever they should pass.^ ' Reg. 1. xi. ep. 102. - Reg. 1. xi., ep. 141. ' lb. ep. 214. Matthew Paris says that the white monks, i.e. the Cistercians, did not enjoy this privilege, because they had not obeyed from the beginning. I think he is mistaken. They asked for greater favours. •* lb. ep. 217. OBEDIENCE THE BEST SACRIFICE. 2S7 The Cistercians were not satisfied with this general concession, and petitioned the pope for an extension. They pleaded their privi- leges, their immemorial custom, and, above all, that their houses were in solitary places, so that they might keep choir without scandal to others ; and that by celebration of mass they might draw down greater grace on the king and country. They also alleged the danger to their religious spirit if their usual practices were longer intermitted. The pope replied that he had carefully weighed, with the cardinals, all that they alleged, and the reasons for and against his granting their petition. He loved and even venerated them, but he did not think it right to yield. There were reasons of prudence, lest jealousy should be excited in the other orders or among the clergy ; and there w'ere special reasons why he should maintain great severity on this occa- sion. No ordinary battle would conquer such a king as John, and he must not be allowed to harden himself by any hope of the pope's yielding. As to the decay of discipline in the order, they must pro- vide against it by other means j but in any case the danger of a part could not weigh against the danger of the whole. He comes at last to the argument which they had evidently borrowed from his former letter, and thus replies to it : ' Although you very piously believe that the immolation of the saving Victim will bring about more speedily the desired ending to this business, yet we hope that if you bear patiently this undeserved pain, the "Spirit who asketh for you with unspeakable groanings," will all the more quickly obtain a happy issue from Him, who by bearing a pain not due, and by pay- ing what He had not taken, hath redeemed us, even our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore we pray and beseech you, beloved sons, that remembering that this affair is now almost at its end, you will not disturb its progress, but that you will well weigh what we have written for God's sake and for ours, who with a most fervent charity are zealous for you and your order, and who hold it in veneration ; and that bearing your present troubles in patience you will give yourselves to prayer to God that He would so soften the author of this guilt as to absolve those who bear his pain ; and be certain that, for the un- deserved pain you bear, a worthy recompense is in store for you, not only from God but from us also.' ' This letter was written on March 6, 1209; and on the same day another was addressed to the bishops who had promulgated the interdict, instructing them so to temper the rigour of ecclesiastical discipline for these good monks, that the cord should not be broken. Discipline is compared to a cord ' Reg. lib. .\ii. ep. 9. Migne, torn, ccxvi. p. 19. 288 INTERDICTS. {nervo) for the very reason that it can be bent when necessary without being unbound. ' In 12 12 the pope granted a further relaxation, that the holy Via- ticum could be given to the dying, but commanded that it should be brought to them with great reverence from the conventual churches.^ John had given the pope some reasons to think at first that he was about to yield ; but they were illusions, and it was no care for the distress of his people or their spiritual state that weighed at last with him; much less did he care for his own excommunication which followed, It was only when he saw his people falling away from him, and all other hope of retaining his throne was gone, that, from a motive of policy, he submitted to the Church. In the meantime he envied Mahommedan nations who knew no restrictions of morality and had no pope to vindicate the rights of God and of God's people. He is said even to have sought help from the Emir of Morocco with an offer of renouncing Christianity. As to the mass and sacraments, as he had never cared for them he did not feel their loss.^ He pillaged the churches and confiscated the goods of the churchmen who resisted him. He gave himself up to every kind of brutal self-indulgence, without fear of God or man. It happened that the years of the interdict were prosperous with abun- dant harvests, and Matthew Paris relates that in 12 13, after the interdict had lasted five years, John chanced to see a very fat stag brought in, and he cried out with a laugh ! ' Oh ! he had a good life, and yet he never heard a mass ! ' This is but a specimen of his blasphemies, ' for at heart he was an infidel,' says the historian. John's character and acts prove that what is called the Reforma- tion, that is to say, the perpetual and self-imposed interdict of the Catholic religion in England, might have come some centuries earlier than it did, had it only depended on the will of kings. Such men as Rufus and John were quite as willing as Henry VIII. to sacrifice the souls of their people to the gratification of their own avarice, lust, and hate. Remedies such as that made use of by Innocent were possible in the thirteenth century, but would have been found useless in the sixteenth. They depend for their efficacy on the strength of faith, not merely in one country, but throughout Christendom. When ' Reg. lib. xii. ep. 10. 2 Wavei-ky Annals, p. 271 (Rolls ed.) ; AngHa Sacra, i. 480. Matthew Paris and Wendover speak incorrectly, as if Viaticum had been granted .from the commencement of the interdict. 3 ' Magna tribulatio fuit super omnes ecclesiasticas personas, quia a cura Christianitatis omnes fere laici pedem reilectebant, sed victualium plena fuit abundantia.' — Annaks IVigomenses, p. 397 (Rolls ed.). WHY THE INNOCENT SUFFERED. 289 a great number have come to be of the opinion of John, that tem- poral prosperity is more important than religion, and boast how well a country can get on without mass — like John's fat buck — then it would be an idle threat to deprive them of what they already dis- regard. There are different ways in which the privation of our Lord's Presence may be regarded. The devils in the Gospel asked to be let alone, because they knew our Lord to be the Holy One with whom they could have no communion. The masters of the herd of swine asked Him to leave their country because they feared some new losses. In this spirit, malicious wickedness and sordid worldli- ness are glad to be rid of our Lord's inconvenient or tormenting Presence. In this spirit John regarded the interdict, and modern nations have driven out the Church \ but the majority of the people in those days felt very differently. When the Holy Mass was no longer offered and the Blessed Sacrament was removed from the churches, they wept bitterly, like Magdalen, saying : ' They have taken away my Lord and I know not where they have laid Him ; ' or like Mary and Joseph ' they sought Him sorrowing.' The humiliations of the guilty mingled with the tears of the innocent, until even the hardened were moved to repentance or to fear. Dr. Lingard has spoken with less than his usual thoughtfulness on this subject. He considers it 'a singular form of punishment, by which the person of the king was spared, and his subjects, the un- offending parties, were made to suffer.' Yet surely a mediaeval monarch, however despotic, could not be considered apart from his people, as if they bore none of the responsibiUty of his acts. When it suited their own interests the barons could be bold enough both to counsel and to resist their sovereigns. The feudal system put no standing army in the pay and obedience of the king. It left him dependent on the fidehty of his great vassals. If kings were bold to do evil, it was because they were pushed on by evil counsellors among the clergy and the laity, were surrounded by docile agents, and counted on the co-operation or connivance of their people. What were the great excommunications and interdicts of the Middle Ages but lessons in constitutional government given to kings and people alike, teaching them that they were responsible to and for each other? If the innocent suffered with the guilty, that is the very con- dition of human society. If, however, we seek the truth as it appeared to men of God who saw things as they really were, we are forced to the conclusion that as a nation England at that time was far from innocent. Baldwin, VOL. II. u 290 INTERDICTS, arclibishop of Canterbury, who died about twenty years before the interdict, had warned both clergy and laity that some great chastise- ment was impending over them.^ His allusion to the recent death of St. Thomas and its causes gives additional interest to his words : ' The signs which shall precede the day of judgment are prefigured spiritually in us. It is written that " the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord shall come" (Joel ii. 31). What the sun and the moon are in the heavens, such are the clergy and the laity in the Church of God. The moon is inferior and receives its light from the sun ; so the inferior life of lay people ought to be illuminated by the higher life of those to whom it was said " You are the light of the world." But when rulers are ignorant and err, and are blind leaders of the blind, the sun is turned into darkness ; and therefore the life of their subjects is turned into blood — the blood of corruption and cruelty. ... As the laity do not find in us what they ought to imitate, they find what they wish to persecute. The rage of the persecutors lately wounded us in our head, since they persecuted even to death, for his illustrious defence of ecclesiastical liberty, the most blessed martyr of Christ, Thomas, our archbishop. And if what fame says, and what the conscience of many fears, is true, it was our disorderly life which was the cause of the evil and which fed so great a hatred. Men did not judge of us as of the ministers of Christ and dispensers of the mysteries of God. Whoever thus erred shall indeed bear the judg- ment of God. We, however, seemed unworthy of the ancient privi- leges granted by the indulgence of the Roman Pontiffs and our ancient noble kings, for the peace and liberty of the clergy. Yes, let us not fear to confess the truth, we were most certainly unworthy. As regards the merit of our life, we were altogether unworthy ; though in every priest, be he what he may, the priestly ministry is holy, and the sacrament of the priesthood honourable. ' Call to mind the days when Doeg the Idumaean slew eighty-five priests wearing the ephod. Remember the old times and the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, shed between the temple and the altar. How many deeds of sacrilegious cruelty have been perpetrated in our own days, though all are as it were summed up in the greatness of that one crime (the murder of St. Thomas). But if we still walk in darkness will not the blood of the people be required at our hands ? And wiil not that blessed martyr, who laid down his life for us, lay also his complaint against us ? Will not the voice of his blood cry ' ' Tr.actatus de corruptis moribus clcri et populi,' Migne, torn. 204, p. 41. THE POPE JUSTIFIED. 291 against us from the earth, and we shall be found guilty before the tribunal of the just Judge? He died for our guilt and through our guilt ; for if it was not the cause it was the occasion of his death. If we continue to sin, we may well think that he will not be our patron to justice nor our advocate to pardon, but rather a witness against us and an accuser to vengeance. In the evil we suffer by the just judgments of God we need blame none but ourselves. We have deserved worse, and do not yet endure according to our merits. To us it is to be imputed, and to our peril it redounds, that the secular power usurps ecclesiastical judgments, and refuses to be guided by ecclesiastical authority ; that it neither uses nor relies on the counsels of the Church, but rebels against them ; that the sword of Peter is blunted and the keys of Peter are contemned ; that the sacraments of the Church are despised ; that the holy and terrible Name of God is taken in vain in reckless perjury ; that due reverence is not paid to consecrated churches, nor due honour given to ecclesiastical per- sons ; and that the honourable name of the religious life is brought into contempt. . . . God, however, is able to free, when He shall please, the spouse whom He loved from the hands of the persecutor.' That there is no exaggeration in these words of Baldwin is un- fortunately proved by superabundant evidence. If there were much faith and many virtues in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, there was also a general corruption of morals among the clergy and the laity which might well draw down the chastisements of God, but which, nevertheless, men like Archbishop Baldwin rebuked with apostolic boldness and men Uke Pope Innocent III. fought against with apostolic energy. Not love of power and priestly domination, but fear of God to whom he was responsible, determined that great pope to free the Church from the tyranny and consequent corruption to which the sins of men had subjected her. The crimes of the country attained their climax in John, one of the vilest of our kings ; and there was no injustice in requiring the whole nation to unite in expiating his guilt. Besides this, if we would form a right conception of the great interdict of 1208, we must remember that an interdict is not an ordinary punishment of ordinary crimes. It is a solemn protest against outrages to the liberty and majesty of the Church. She is established by God as the queen of the nations as well as their mother. She has a right to hide her countenance when she is in- sulted. She had a right to demand reparation. Pope Innocent ex- ercised no tyranny. He withdrew from the English nation nothing to which it had a right. He confiscated none of its riches, he abridged u 2 292 • INTERDICTS. none of its liberties. It was as a supernatural society, as a baptized people, as a part of the Church of which he under Christ was supreme ruler, that he humbled the nation, or called upon it to humble itself, by the withdrawal of the brightness of God's Presence. He judged it better that the churches should be closed even for years than that they should be opened for the pompous but sacrilegious ministrations of the enslaved and corrupted priesthood which John would have created. It was better, as he wrote to the Cistercian abbots, that the Holy Spirit should with ineffable groans plead in the hearts of deso- late men, than that masses should be offered in the presence of im- penitent sinners. The obstinacy of the king, and perhaps the sins of the nation, made the interdict far longer than the pope had anticipated. He had hoped that a short vigil would be followed by a glad festival. It was not his fault if the vigil was of unexampled length. It was a war and partook of war's chances. Innocent chose it, it would seem, as a milder measure than excommunication. Having once entered upon it, he had no choice but to fight it out to victory, even though the victory could not be gained without a far more terrible and prolonged contest than he had expected, and though he was obliged to add at last those other spiritual penalties from which he had shrunk at first. The interdict lasted six years and three months ; for though the king had been absolved from his excommunication, and High Mass and Te Deum were sung in the cathedral of Winchester on the 20th of July, 1 2 13, yet reparation was not made by him, nor the interdict removed from the country, until July 2, 12 14. We may well believe the annalist who says, ' Et factum est gaudium magnum in universa Ecclesia Anglicana.' ^ Picture who can that joy : the joy of the devout priests once more oftering the holy sacrifice ; the joy of the monks and nuns raising their voices again in choir and once more assisting at daily mass ; the joy of the men and women feeding their hungry souls on the bread of life ; the joy of the youths and maidens witnessing for the first time the sacred rites of which they had so often heard their parents speak, and receiving at length their long-deferred communion ; the joy of the holy souls in purgatory that the Precious Blood would plead for them on countless altars ; the joy of the saints that their prayers were heard, and the joy of the angels that England had done penance. ' Thomas Wykes, p. 58 (Rolls Series). 293 CHAPTER XXI. WYCLIFFE AND THE LOLLARDS. There remains one more subject to be studied before we can sum up and review these pre-Reformation fragments of the history of the Holy Eucharist in Great Britain. In 1327 England gave birth to Wycliffe, whose name will be ever specially associated with a fierce rejection of the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation. The continuator of a chronicle called the ' Eulogium,' writing early in the fifteenth century, gives the following account of Wycliife and his writings : ' John Wyclifte taught at Oxford that the sacrament of the Eucharist is bread . . . and that this bread is the Body of Christ as the rock was Christ ; yet the Body of Christ is there other- wise than in a sign, for it is there by grace, that sanctifies those that receive it worthily ; but that no accident is there without a subject ; and that Hugh of St. Victor was the first who invented the term Transubstantiation ; and that the sacrament of the altar is not an accident but a substance, otherwise common bread would be more excellent than the sacrament of the altar, for substance of any kind is more excellent than any accident whatever ; and that the con- trary cannot be proved from scripture ; and that all the doctors of the first thousand years after Christ, during which, as the Apocalypse says, Satan was bound, thus thought of the sacrament; and that now Satan is unbound, and has deceived the nations in the faith of the sacrament ; and lastly, that that holy bread ought not to be regarded as bread, but as the Body of Christ in memory of our Lord's Passion.' ' His disciples,' continues this writer, ' preached and spread this doctrine throughout all England, seducing many of the laity, even noblemen and great lords, who took the defence of these false preachers. But the masters in theology teaching in Oxford decided against this doctrine, and especially the regents of the Friars Minor confuted its teachers powerfully, and proved that they were Lol- lards.' ^ ' Euloguiin, iii. 350. The last phrase proves that Lollards was a generic term for heretics, and already in use before the time of Wyclifte. The derivation 294 WYCLIFFE AND THE LOLLARDS. The summary of Wycliffe's teaching on the Eucharist here given is not unfair to him, yet it would give the reader, who might chance to be ignorant of Wychffe and his times, but little idea of the origin of his errors, their importance, or the sources of their great influence on his own and later generations.* That influence was in no way due to any positive teaching on the subject of the Eucharist, for his admirers are not agreed as to his system of belief.^ His strength, like that of most heretics, was in negation ; and though he neither attacked the doctrine of sacrifice, nor the discipline of the Church in administering communion under one species, yet his disciples quickly drew the logical consequences involved in his denial of Transubstantiation. Wyclifte died at the end of 1384, and it was not until 1381, when he was fifty-seven years old, that he began publicly to deny the Catholic doctrine of the Holy Eucharist. During those three years, however, his activity was incessant, and it was all directed against that doctrine. 'In all his writings,' says Lechler, 'from 1381 on- wards, in Latin and English, learned and popular, also in his ser- mons, Wycliffe continually refers to this doctrine, which had now become the hinge or pole of all his thoughts, and he lives in the conviction that for this righteous contention, when this brief poor life is over, the Lord in His mercy will most bounteously reward him.'3 It will be worth our while to study the history of this tardy but sudden and complete change in Wycliffe's views. Most Protestant of the word from lolium (tares or cockle sown among the wheat) is not improba- ble ; but it is more generally supposed to be of German origin, and to mean psalm-singers, or babblers. ' There are many lives of Wyclifie in English. To say nothing of those of Lewis and Le Bas, Dr. Robert Vaughan published in 1853 John de IVydiffe, a Monograph (Seeley), and in 1S78 there appeared in two volumes a translation by Dr. Lorimer of the German work of Professor Lechler, John IVidif and his English Freaifsors {K.tg2in Paul & Co.), a book with a foolish title, since the author is compelled to admit that Wycliffe really had no English precursors. Professor Lechler's book is useful for the quotations it gives from unpublished MSS. and for its discussion of dates. After a careful study I can find in it no other excellence. 2 Wycliffe taught consubstantiation when he first began to deny the Catholic doctrine. Dr. Lechler says that this was ' transitional,' and that his ultimate doctrine was that of Calvin— a virtual presence of our Lord's Body {i.e. without metaphor, of grace purchased by His Body), and this presence is due, not to conse- cration, but to the faith of the communicant (ii. 177, 184, 189, 192, 195). This is also the testimony of Waldensis, who says he taught the same doctrine as Beren- garius, but not so boldly. (De Euchar, cap. 19.) 5 Lechler, ii. 202 (Eng. Transl.) SUDDEN CHANGE. 295 writers, taking little heed of dates, have treated his denial of Tran- substantiation as the gradual but necessary and logical result of his earlier struggles against practical abuses. According to them, his keen sense of the corruption of clergy and laity in the fourteenth century caused him to examine more jealously the foundation of Catholic dogma, and his moral insight discovered in the Real Pre- sence the source of all the prevailing evils.' The upholders of this view of Wycliffe's career are however quite unable to give a plausible explanation why it was only just at the close of his life that Wycliffe discovered the evils of the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist. We can understand a man of corrupt or worldly life holding to a false doctrine until he is converted to seri- ousness or purity, and then rejecting it energetically. We can under- stand a religiously minded man, like Saul of Tarsus, clinging to a false or imperfect system until suddenly aroused by revelation to see the delusion of his mode of life. Or lastly, we can understand a really virtuous man holding some inherited error of little importance or practical effect, or even defending eagerly an error because of its supposed connection with a great truth. But the case of Wycliffe, as related by his modern partisans, is analogous to none of these. According to them he had been battling for years against abuses. He had long been an earnest, enlightened man ; no sudden conver- sion aroused him, no external revelation was granted him, yet he quite suddenly discovered that a doctrine in which he had suspected no evil was a monstrous and unmitigated mischief. Let us listen to •his latest biographer, who has given great attention to this part of his subject. ' We are able,' writes Professor Lechler, * to prove that Wycliffe for a long time did not stumble at all at the doctrine of Transubstantiation, but received it in simple faith in common with other doctrines of the mediaeval Church. '^ < It is certain,' he says in another place, 'that up till 1378 Wycliffe was still attached with- out any misgiving to the doctrine of the mass. We have now two certain dates, the year 1378 and the year 1381. At the former date Wycliffe still adhered to the scholastic doctrine of Transubstantia- tion with unbroken confidence ; at the latter date he already enters into public conflict with the same doctrine with entire decision.' ^ Now having made this sudden discovery, in what terms did Wycliffe speak of his former error? * He affirms,' says Lechler, 'that the so-called Christians who take to be their God that "accident'' which they see in the hands of the priest at mass, sin worse than the ' Tliis is Dr. Vaughan's view in his monograph. » Lechler, ii. 173. ' Il\ 175. 296 WYCLIFFE AND THE LOLLARDS. heathen who in their fetish worship give divine honours throughout the day to whatever object they chance first to see in the early morning.' ^ ' The indignation of WycUffe against the idolatry committed in the worshipping of the Host,' says the same writer, 'is all the stronger that he cannot avoid the conviction that the authors of this deification of a creature are perfectly well aware of what their God really is. Such priests accordingly he does not scruple to call plainly Baal-priests.'^ If Wycliffe did not scruple to call Bede and Dunstan and Anselm and Edmund by such opprobrious names, one would have thought that his biographer would have felt some necessity of apologising for him, seeing that he had himself recorded that Wycliffe had only just ceased to share their error. He ' could not avoid the conviction,' forsooth, that they were all conscious hypo- crites and impostors, and yet two years before he had held the very same doctrine with ' simple faith,' ' without any misgiving,' with ' un- broken confidence ' ! Now let it be well remarked that in Wycliffe's attacks on the Catholic doctrine, it is the doctrine itself that constitutes the crime of those who uphold it, not its moral consequences. He accuses Catholic worshippers of immorality, but their immorality consists in their false worship. ' Towards Francis of Assisi and Dominic and the orders founded by them, he continued,' says Lechler, 'to cherish and express all manner of respect and sincere recognition.'^ How long did he continue to do this? Until the mendicant orders opposed his new teaching on the Eucharist.'' From that time he poured out the vials of his wrath upon them. He had seen no evil consequences flowing from their worship of the Blessed Sacrament until it pleased him suddenly to call it idolatry. Then he wrote : ' I maintain that, among all the heresies which have ever appeared in the Church, there was never one which was more cunningly smuggled in by hypocrites than this, or which in more ways deceives the people ; for it plunders the people, leads them astray into idolatry, denies the teaching of Scripture, and by this unbelief provokes the Truth Himself oftentimes to anger.' ^ Those who approve this language should, for mere consistency, admit that its condemnations fall on Wycliffe himself, and that he was an idolater, a denier of Scripture, a provoker of God's anger, until the last three years of his life. If they are unwilling to say this, they must admit that he was an intemperate zealot. Indeed ' Lechler, ii. 182. " Ih. a //,_ j_ 55^ ;;_ ^^ * lb. ii. 290, and Dr. Lorimer's note, i. 250, * In Trialogo. INCONSISTENCIES. 297 this character is not denied him by some of his admirers. If Mr. Green gives him credit for ' spotless purity,' he admits no less his ' unconquerable pride,' and calls him ' a master of popular invective,' and ' an audacious partisan.' ^ * Whatever other Christian qualities there may be in his writings,' says the author of a notice in the ' Penny Cyclopaedia,' ' there is at least very little of Christian meek- ness or charity. His intolerance and violence, and often his coarse- ness of invective, are unmeasured.' The inconsistency of Wycliffe as well as of some of his biogra- phers may be seen very strikingly in their treatment of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln. This great man is most commonly known for his energetic resistance to abuses, and above all for the famous appeal to Christ against what he believed to be the support given by the Sovereign Pontiff to those abuses. For this he has been often claimed by Protestants as a forerunner of men like Luther and Cranmer. More cautious and impartial writers admit the folly of such a claim, and readily acknowledge that Grosseteste was a thorough Catholic. ^ In spite of this, Professor Lechler has classed him among the precursors of Wycliffe. ' As Protestants,' he says, ' we have a right and a duty to hold in honour the memory of a man like Grosseteste. His creed mdeed was not iJie pure confession of the Evangelical churches ; but his fear of God was so earnest and upright, his zeal for the glory of God was so glowing, his care for the salvation of his own soul and of the souls committed to him by virtue of his office was so conscientious, his faithfulness so approved, his will so energetic, his mind so free from man-fearing and man-pleasing, his bearing so inflexible and beyond the power of corruption — that his whole character constrains us to the sincerest and deepest veneration.'^ All this is perfectly true, and it is credi- table to Professor Lechler to have written it. Yet it does not in any way estabhsh his right ^ as a Protestant' to honour Grosseteste, or to name him among Wycliffe's precursors. If those who make light of all dogmatic belief choose to place both the Catholic Bishop of Lincoln and the heretical Rector of Lutterworth in their Walhalla, on account of their moral qualities, I cannot complain of their in- consistency, though I must still dispute Wycliffe's claim to virtues like those which belonged indisputably to Grosseteste. Yet it should be remembered by all that neither Grosseteste nor Wycliffe in any ' History of the English People, by J. R. Green, M.A., vol. i. p. 446. 2 See the Introduction by the Rev. H. Luard to the edition of Grosseteste's Letters in the Rolls Series. ' fohn Wiclif and his English FrccursoJ's, i. 54. 298 WYCLIFFE AND THE LOLLARDS. way held the views of modern Hberals. Utterly different as they were in their creeds, both insisted on the importance of a right creed. And— to confine ourselves to the matter of the Holy Eucharist — Wycliffe, as we have just been told, spoke of those who held the doctrine of Transubstantiation as ' priests of Baal.' Grosse- teste, on the contrary, looked on those who denied Transubstantia- tion as heretics. Wycliffe considered that this belief brought upon its holders the anger of God, Grosseteste that it was in itself a homage to God's veracity, and that it gave those who held it a most powerful means of propitiating God's mercy. Wycliffe thought the doctrine so detestable that his whole attitude of mind was changed towards its defenders. He had revered and cherished the friars for their moral and religious virtues so long as he himself held the Catholic doctrine of the Holy Eucharist. But their one sin — the sin of not changing as he did and of resisting his change — cancelled all their virtues and made them enemies of God and man. Grosse- teste, on the contrary, considered that a lively faith in Transubstantia- tion, and a lively sense of the condescension and love of God in residing personally amongst us in this Sacrament, are the most power- ful motives and means of sanctification. This being the case, I can see nothing but inconsistency in Professer Lechler's praise of Grosse- teste, with the mere parenthetical reserve implied in the words, ' His creed, indeed, was not the pure confession of the Evangelical churches.' Is this exception insignificant or not? If it is, then Professor Lechler should have given Wycliffe less praise for opposing so harmless a creed as that of Grosseteste. If it is not insignificant, then he should have given Grosseteste less credit for his holy life ; or he should at least have explained how it is that the holiness of his life was in no way affected by his energetic and, so to say, pas- sionate belief in a doctrine which his hero, Wycliffe, denounced as so monstrous. These considerations affect our estimate of Wycliffe no less than that of his biographer. For Wycliffe had always made much of the authority of Grosseteste. ' Lincolniensis ' — for by this name he was known among scholastics — is always mentioned by Wycliffe with honour until his own change of views.' He was familiar with his writings and could not be ignorant of his faith and devotion as regards the Holy Eucharist. Yet this knowledge did not in any way restrain him from denouncing in the language we have heard not only that faith itself, but all who held it. ' Lechler, i. 28. CAUSES OF HIS HERESY. 299 I conclude therefore that it is contrary to the facts of history to represent Wychfife's views as the gradual growth of a candid and faithful soul honestly seeking after truth. It is also contrary to facts to trace his sudden change to a discovery of any supposed connec- tion between Catholic belief and practical abuses. The belief itself in the eyes of Wycliffe was the practical abuse. I may be excused from investigating minutely what were the real causes of Wycliffe's hostility to Transubstantiation, since it would be necessary for this purpose to enter more fully into his previous life, and his writings and character, than my space will allow. Waldensis is probably right in attributing his change partly to his false philoso- phical views, and partly to his general hostility to the Church.* Per- haps it might be more correctly said that his hostility to the Church prepared his mind for the suggestions of the Father of lies, and that the enemy of souls and of truth took occasion of his pride of metaphysical subtlety to suggest doubts and objections to which he willingly listened. Certainly his opposition took a philosophical form. Canon Simmons says that in respect to the doctrine of the Eucharist ' it was not the Presence that was in dispute so much as the scholastic explanations which were put forward to account for it, and the logical consequences which were supposed to be involved in it.' ^ Wycliffe's determined follower, Lord Cobham, was willing to say : ' I believe that the most worshipful sacrament of the altar is Christ's Body in form of bread, the same Body that was born of the blessed Virgin our Lady St. Mary,'^ yet he obstinately refused to affirm Transubstantiation. He contended that ' as Christ while living on earth had both divinity and humanity, but the divinity veiled and in- visible beneath the humanity, so in the sacrament of the altar is a true Body and true bread, the bread which we see and the Body of Christ veiled beneath it which we do not see.''' Canon Simmons also speaks of ' the scholastic subdeties which cost Lord Cobham his life.' 5 But it should be added that it was not the Church only that judged these scholastic subtleties to be important. Lord Cobham would not have been asked to affirm them had not Wyclifife put the whole strength of his cause in the rejection of them. The words ' consubstantial ' and ' hypostatic union ' may also be called scholastic subtleties, yet when by means of their denial heretics sought to reject our Lord's Divinity the Church was obliged to re- quire a more precise profession of faith than had been necessary ' De Euchar. cap. 17, n. 6. ^ Lay Folks' Mass Book, p. 226, note 4. » Fasciculi Zizanioruni, p. 439 (Rolls Series). * Jl>. p. 444. * Lay Folks' Alass Book, p. 121. 300 WYCLIFFE AND THE LOLLARDS. before the rise of heresy. So, under cover of rejecting definitions of schoohnen, Wychffe was introducing a denial of our Lord's Presence in the Holy Eucharist. Had the English bishops not been already aware of the importance of the doctrine of Transubstantiation as the true and only intelligible mode of the Real Presence, they would have discovered its importance by the very vehemence of Wycliffe's hatred. Why such frenzy against a mere scholastic subtlety ? Why accuse men of idolatry and fetishism if there was no substantial differ- ence of belief? Waldensis was then right in affirming that Wycliffe was in reality a pure Berengarian, although he sought by certain logical additions to hide his heresy and make it sound less openly uncatholic. ^ To sum up — Wycliffe was proud of his skill in scholastic discus- sions. He had unbounded confidence in his own judgment. What- ever seemed to him true for the time was to him all important, though he had never seen its importance previously. Whoever dis- agreed with him was an enemy of God and of Scripture. By the most frivolous interpretation of Scripture, of which his friends are now ashamed, he had declared the Church to have been governed by the Holy Ghost for a thousand years, and since then to have fallen under the power of the Evil One. This he had maintained merely that he might be at liberty to criticise and blame. His spirit of hatred and his boldness in blasphemy grew always stronger and stronger. I by no means deny that he attacked much that was really evil. But he did it, not like Grosseteste, distinguishing what was of God and what was of man. He was not moved by charity, but by bitter zeal, and thus he blamed without discretion. To a mind like his it was easy for Satan to suggest doubts about the Real Presence, just as in the present day he would lead a proud and morose priest to doubt our Lord's Divinity, the eternity of hell, or the existence of God. I consider it therefore merely accidental on Wycliffe's side that in his late years he embraced a new error regard- ing the Eucharist, but the intensity with which he defended it when once embraced was in harmony with his previous life. ' These men find fault with everything,' wrote a contemporary of Wycliffe con- cerning the Lollards, in the very year 1381 in which Wycliffe first spoke against the Eucharist. ' Nothing can please them. They blame the secular clergy because they hold benefices, the monks because they have property in common, the friars because they observe rigid poverty. They care not how often they contradict ' De Etichar. cap. 19, CHARACTER OF WYCLIFFE. 3oi themselves. If they applaud it is not from joy, if they lament it is not from sorrow : every judgment is due to hatred alone.' Non curant quam contrariam De rebus dent sententiam, Et dissonum judicium ; In plausu non iKtitiam, In planctu non tristitiam Monstrant, sed solum odium.' So far as I can read history, this estimate of Wycliffe and his followers is perfectly correct. Neither in his life nor writings can I find anything but rancour and bitter zeal. And his influence over the men of his own day was obtained by appeals not to faith or charity, but to pride and hatred. He called on the nobles to deprive the Church of her property, though I do not see that he resigned any of his own benefices. He denounced the worldUness of the clergy, yet he allied himself with the most worldly and worthless of political parties, 'the brutal and greedy baronage under John of Gaunt, eager to drive the prelates from office and to seize on their wealth.' ^ Wycliffe never deluded himself so as to believe that John of Gaunt was a lover of truth, even as he understood truth, yet he took him for his friend and protector, knowing the immorality of his life, and the pride and avarice which alone induced him to lend his aid to the Lollards. With this man by his side Wycliffe appeared before William Courtenay, bishop of London, who liad summoned him on a purely spiritual charge ; and when the insolent prince threatened to drag the bishop out of the church by the hair of his head, we hear of no protest made by Wychfife, nor any cessation of friendship between the priest and his sacrilegious, patron. Professor Lechler observes, however, that 'to Wycliffe himself it nmst have been a source of sincere pain that he should have been the occasion of such a scene, and that too in a consecrated place.' ^ But Wycliffe's reverence for consecrated places is as mythical as his ' sincere pain.' Wycliffe accused Catholic priests of being hypocrites in adoring the Most Holy Sacrament. Yet when he had ceased to believe with the Church he did not consider it safe to change his external de- meanour. He continued therefore to kneel at the elevation of the Host, while he tried to save his heretical conscience, or rather his reputation for consistency, by protesting in some of his writings that ' if he conformed himself to the custom of the Church it was only in • Political Songs, ed. by Mr. Wright (Rolls Series). 2 Green's Short History, p. 231. ^ Lechler, i. 260. 302 WYCLIFFE AND THE LOLLARDS. the sense of addressing his devotion to the glorified Body of Christ which is in heaven.' ' Professor Lechler, who gives these facts with- out a word of censure, does not remark how easily the millions of Christian martyrs might have saved their lives had they been willing to burn incense before idols, with a protest made privately to their friends of their interior intention. The death of Wycliffe is thus related by the same writer : ' After having suffered for two years from the effects of a paralytic stroke, on Innocents' Day of the year 1384, while hearing mass in his parish church at Lutterworth, Wycliffe sustained a violent stroke at the moment of the elevation of the host, and sank down on the spot. His tongue in particular was affected by the seizure, so that from that moment he never spoke a single word more, and remained speech- less till his death, which took place on Saturday evening— Sylvester's Day — on the eve of the feast of Christ's Circumcision. This declara- tion, the aged priest, John Horn, who must have been a young man of three-and-twenty in the year of Wycliffe's death, confirmed with an oath to Dr. Gascoigne, and it is also entirely credible in every respect.' ' Of course, Professor Lechler, and those who think with him, see in this no judgment of God. Yet if those who love the Holy Mass esteem it a precious grace to receive their summons into the unveiled Presence, while celebrating or assisting at the sacred mysteries, nothing can be conceived more awful than for a blasphem- ing tongue to be struck dumb, and a body accustomed to bend in hypocrisy to fall powerless, at the moment of that solemn ceremony bv which Catholics are wont to make reparation for impiety. I iiave attributed the success of Wycliffe to his impassioned appeals to the spirit of pride and hatred to which the condition both of the Church and the world in the fourteenth century gave great force. It will be enough to remind the reader how the long residence of the Popes at Avignon had made them unpopular with the English during the French wars ; and that the Great Schism, which still fur- ther weakened their influence in England, began just when W3-cliffe was spreading his heresies. England too, though gaining empty glory on the continent by great victories, and at home intoxicated with vanity and ambition, was never more wretched or more divided. There was, however, still one faith in the country held alike by king, by baron, and by bondsman, and had Wycliffe been a man of God like St. Bernardine of Siena, by appealing to that faith he might have done much to heal the miseries of the times. There was one great » Lechler, ii. 182. ^ //'. ii. 290. CAUSES OF SUCCESS. 303 bond of men's hearts unbroken. It was the Holy Eucharist. All men worshipped at the same altar, fed on the same Flesh and Blood of the Lamb of God. What might not a saint have done by ener- getic and impassioned appeals to faith, love, and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament ! But, alas for the sins of England ! no great apostolic saint was given her in those days ; but, instead of a saint, Wycliffe and his followers were allowed to stir up bitterness and strife, and to do so, above all, by making of the sacrament of unity their principal weapon of hatred and division. The nature and consequences of Wycliffe's teaching soon became more and more clear. It was proved that Bishop Courtenay and Archbishop Arundel had not been defending scholastic subtleties merely in condemning Wycliffe's propositions. His followers threw off the thin disguise their master had worn. Bishop Pecock tells us that in the middle of the fifteenth century the frenzy of the Lollards in England against the Holy Eucharist knew no bounds. ' The sacraments,' he says, ' some of the lay people hold to be points of witchcraft and Windings brought into Christian men by the fiend, and the antichrist and his limbs. And in special they abhor above all other the highest and worthiest sign and sacrament of all other, the sacrament of the altar, the precious Body and Blood of Christ, for us hanged on the cross and for us outshed ; insomuch that they not only scorn It, but they hate It, miscall It by foul names, and will not come into the bodily church while that Sacrament is hallowed, treated and used in the mass.' • How had the English people, once so united in faith, come to this deplorable state ? William of Newborough, whom I have quoted elsewhere,^ testified that at the end of the twelfth century, no heresy had ever found entrance into Britain since it came to be called England. ' In all the writings of Wycliffe,' says Professor Lechler, * which I have searched through in manuscript, I have never come upon a single trace to indicate that either in his own time or in earlier centuries heretics of any kind had made their appearance in Eng- land.' ^ Wycliffe, then, has the undisputed claim to be the father of heresy, strife, and anarchy in England. He was not satisfied, like Berengarius, with getting the reputation of a subtle disputant in the schools. He sought, as Berengarius had never done, to propagate his opinions. He surrounded himself with disciples called ' poor priests,' who were to spread his heresies throughout the country. And this they did by preaching, not only in churches, but in churchyards, ' Pecock's Repressor, p. 563 (Rolls Series). ' See vol. i. p. 134. " Lechler, i. 73. 304 WYCLIFFE AND THE LOLLARDS. streets, gardens, and private houses. Their sermons were principally invectives. Knyghton tells us that when William of Swinderby, one of these apostles of hatred, preached against women, ' they were on the point of stoning him ; when he preached against the merchants, he nearly drove them to despair j but when he preached against the priests the people were delighted, and said they had never listened to such a preacher.' No doubt such readiness to listen to invectives against priests showed that there was already much evil — that, whether the fault was on the side of the laity or the clergy, or on both sides, love was dead, and reverence had not survived. From the malice against priests thus stirred up came contempt and hatred of their ministry, and especially of the great Sacrament in which consists their highest dignity and glory. So that our Divine Lord miglit say in truth of His clergy what he said by the Psalmist of His heavenly Father : ' Opprobria exprobrantium tibi ceciderunt super me.' The reproaches of them that reproached Thee are fallen upon Me.* Ten years after the death of Wycliffe the fanaticism of the Lol- lards emboldened them to present a petition to parliament, which, though then rejected, is remarkable as being the first mention in that assembly of a heresy which was in course of centuries to be adopted by it as a test of the allegiance to the Crown and Protestant Church. ' The false sacrament of bread,' says this petition, 'leads all men, with a few exceptions, into idolatry ; for they think that the Body of Christ, which is never out of heaven, is, by virtue of the priest's words, essentially enclosed in a little bread, which they show to the people.' ^ There was much corruption of morals, much scep- ticism in England at that time among the higher classes, much misery and ignorance in the lower orders, yet the nation was not yet pre- pared to reject the faith of centuries and cut itself off from Christen- dom. There was a sturdy, common-sense view which prevailed over the metaphysical subtleties of Wycliffe, and which is thus exposed by Netter : ' Are then all infidels who are not Wycliffites .? All — Greeks, Illyrians, Spaniards, French, Indians, Hungarians, Danes, Germans, Italians, Poles, Lithuanians, English, Irish, Scotch — all the innumerable priests and bishops throughout the world — all blind, all infidels ? And has the whole Church throughout the world now at length to learn from this John Wicked-life ^ Avhat Christ meant in the Gospel when He gave His Body in the Eucharist ? And did Christ ' Ps. Ixviii. lo. ^ Wilkins, iii. 221. 3 ' A Joanne, cognomento impicE vitre.' If my translation is correct, this pun on Wycliffe's name must have been well known in England, since the Latin would convey no meaning to any but an Englishman. CREDULITY OF HERETICS. 305 thus leave His spouse, the Church of the whole world, deprived of the possession of the true faith, in order to cleave to this Wycliffian harlot ? Surely the portentous ambition of this new sect is alone deserving of eternal punishment. You wretched, deluded men, does it really seem to you a trifle to believe in Christ as you profess to do, and to disbelieve in His Church ? To believe in Christ the Head, and to sever from Him His mystic body ? To begin the Creed with " I believe in God," and to terminate your counter-creed with " I deny the Catholic Church " ? ' 1 I do not propose to enter any further into the history of Lollardry. Wycliffe may have been 'The First Protestant,' as Mr. Green calls him, and the Lollard negations may have prepared the way for the wider and ever-widening negations called by the general name of Protestantism, but I can see no proof in Wycliffe's success of the intellectual, moral, or spiritual power which it has of late years been the fashion to claim for him. Success in destruction requires no great gifts, but a combination of untoward circumstances. The torch of the incendiary is a vile instrument, yet appUed to inflammable ma- terials, and aided by a strong wind, it may burn down a great city which it required centuries to build. So has it ever been in the history of God's Church. St. James has described the tongue of the heresiarchs, of those who would be ' many masters.' ' The tongue is a little member and boasteth great things. Behold a small fire what a great wood it kindltth ! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is placed among our members which defileth the whole body, and inflameth the wheel of our nativity, being set on fire by hell.' ^ It is the creduUty of the people in lending ear to any false Christ or false prophet who comes in his own name which gives the power and popularity to leaders like Wycliffe. ' Alexander the coppersmith has done me much evil,' said St. Paul ; ^ and the acknowledgment is full of humiliation, not to the apostle, but to his disciples, and of instruction to ourselves. Coppersmiths hke Alex- ander, fabricators of doctrines as well as of pots, are received as pro- phets, while men who have been rapt into the third heaven, and have proved their mission by a thousand miracles, are reviled as impostors.* St. Augustine has admirably contrasted the caution of the Church with the rash credulity of heretics in listening to those who claim to speak in God's name. ' St. Paul,' he says, ' when he received his ' Thomas Netter (Waldensis), Doch'inale Fidei, iii. 35. * St. James, iii. 5, 6. '2 Tim. iv. 14. * I think the remark is M. Louis Venillot's, but I know not where to look for it. vol.. 11. X 3o6 WYCLIFFE AND THE LOLLARDS. vocation from heaven after our Lord's Ascension, would not have been believed by the Church, had he not found apostles still living with whom he communicated, and, by comparing his Gospel with thiirs, proved that he belonged to the same society. Then, when the Church found that he taught what the other apostles also taught, and was living with them in communion and unity, and working miracles like them, then indeed, when the Lord thus bore witness to him, he gained authority, and now his words are listened to in the Church, as Christ is believed to speak by him. And yet,' continues St. Augus- tine, ' the Manichgeans think that the Church of Christ must believe in them, coming as they do, no one knows how, out of Persia, two hundred years and more after the apostles, and claiming to speak in opposition to the Scriptures, which, with all the weight of apostolic authority, warn us that if any one bring any new doctrine besides that which we have received, he is to be anathema.' ' After quoting this passage, Waldensis makes on it the following reflection : ' What then would Augustine think of men foolish enough to believe in a man who turns up in Britain, nearly fourteen hundred years after the apostles, and undertakes to tell us, contrary to the teaching of all saints and doctors and the whole Catholic Churcn, what was the meaning of our Lord's words ? O foolish sheep to desert their shepherds in order to run after the howling ol this wolf ! ' 2 ' S. Aug. Contra Fausiiim, lib. xxviii. cap. 4. ^^ Doctr, Fid. iii. 15. 307 CHAPTER XXII. THE KEY-STONE. Throughout these volumes I have treated of the Holy Eucharist in its human rather than its divine aspects, of man's reception of the Gift — which is a medley of good and evil — rather than of the Gift in itself, which is all good. To the Holy Eucharist, in which the In- carnation is continued throughout the ages, the words may be applied : ' He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, He gave them power to be made the sons of God.' ' History, therefore, must treat of incredulity and ingratitude, no less, or much more, than of faith and love ; nmch more, I say, not only because of the pre- ponderance of evil in itself, but because, as has been said repeatedly, evil has necessarily occupied much more than its due share in all human records. By dint of long and toilsome search into many volumes and out-of-the-way books and documents, much, indeed, that is noble and edifying has been brought together ; yet how few the gleanings, how little, compared with the reality that is unrecorded or that has escaped my search ! And how much fuller and truer a picture might have been drawn had the scanty relics of this country been supplemented from the memorials of other lands, since Catho- lic intercommunion was so close that Great Britain was a stranger to no good thing that belonged to the rest of Christendom ! The history of the Holy Eucharist is far from being a history of the whole of Catholic religious life, yet it is the history of its most important phase, since it is that of the Church's central and all- pervading rite. ' Throughout the circle of the Church,' writes Digby, ' all is one beam reflected from this first, giving to every part light and warmth.' ^ We have traced this intimate connection from the first preaching of the faith in this island to the eve of that Reformation which all who believe in this work of the love of God must look on as the great national catastrophe. We have seen it in all phases of ' St. John i. IO-I2. ^ Mores Catholui, book viii. cap. i6. X 2 3o8 THE KEY-STONE. civilisation and variety of external circumstances. The Presence took possession of every nook and corner of the land. The faith and worship of the Blessed Sacrament pervaded all classes of society, entered into all public and private life, and gave birth to the most varied works and institutions. This is confessed by friends and foes, by believers and unbelievers. ' If there was one doctrine,' says a recent popular historian, ' upon which the supremacy of the medi- aeval Church rested, it was the doctrine of Transubstantiation. It was by his exclusive right to the performance of the miracle which was wrought in the mass that the lowliest priest was raised high above princes. With the formal denial of the doctrine of Transubstantia- tion which Wycliffe issued in the spring of 1381 began that great movement of revolt which ended more than a century after in the establishment of religious freedom, by severing the mass of the Teutonic peoples from the general body of the Catholic Church.' ' If the word * anarchy ' be substituted in the place of ' freedom,' there is nothing in this statement that a Catholic cannot accept ; ^ and I pro- pose in this concluding chapter to gather from all that has preceded how truly and how divinely the Holy Eucharist was, and still is, the key-stone of the arch erected by Jesus Christ to connect earth with heaven. I. First, then, Jesus Christ is Himself that key-stone, for He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and the Sacrament of the altar is the key-stone because It is Jesus Christ. This is not a mere dog- matic statement to be accepted only by Catholics and scornfully rejected by others. It must be admitted by every thoughtful student of history, that the belief in our Lord's sacramental Presence was the great means of making known to each succeeding generation His visible, but transient, Presence in the land of Palestine ; and that without this dogma and worship, the memory of the Birth, Life, ' J. R. Green, History of the English People, i. 488. Also in his Short History, p. 234. - Mr. Green would probably not attach quite the same meaning to the word 'supremacy ' as a Catholic. He seems to speak not so much of the supremacy of the ' Church,' composed as it is both of clergy and laity — i.e. of the kingdom of God over the kingdoms of the world — as of the supremacy of the clergy over the laity. Now, though that supremacy is real and legitimate, and is intimately connected with the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, yet the word ' supremacy ' may be taken, and is probably taken by Mr. Green, to cover whatever there was of human am- bition and human imperfection among the clergy, and in this sense there was no connection between it and the Holy Eucharist. If anything whatever has been proved by the foregoing history, it is that proud, avaricious, or sensual priests had little enough devotion to the Holy Eucharist. THE EUCHARIST GOD'S ECCE HOMO. 309 and Death of the Son of God on this earth would have faded away, or have been transformed into a fable and a myth. I am not saying that the Holy Ghost, whose office it is to make known i\ e Son of God,' had no other means, in the resources of His wisdom, to keep alive in the Church the knowledge of Jesus Christ, even though the Blessed Sacrament had never been instituted, but that as a matter of fact this is the chief of the means that He has employer!. Before our Redeemer's death, and just after the institution of that Sacrament of which He had said ' Do this for a commemoration of Me,' He made this promise : ' When the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceedeth from the Father, He shall give testimony of Me ; and you shall give testimony because you are with Me from the beginning.' ^ If then we look back through the ages to see how this promise has been fulfilled, how this double testimony has been given, we shall 'find beyond all ques- tion that the celebration of the Holy Eucharist in the Catholic Church has been the main instrument of both divine and human testimony ; it has been the historical evidence of a visible Fact in the world's history ; it has been the bond of that supernatural society through which the Holy Ghost ever speaks ; and it has been the channel of His communications with each individual soul. The same Apostle who recorded this promise has described a heavenly vision that was granted to him. He saw and heard heavenly harpers singing : ' O Lord, Thou wast slain and hast re- deemed us to God in Thy Blood, out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, and hast made us to our God a kingdom and priests, and we shall reign on the earth.' ^ The Christian religion is therefore not a theosophy or a philosophy ; it is a priestly kingdom, based on historic facts, and subsisting in the memory and realisation of those facts. ' Thou hast redeemed us in Thy Blood ' is the heavenly song, ' He suffered under Pontius Pilate ' is the earthly echo. The Redemption is not merely a heavenly mystery ; It has Its place, and Its date in the records of earth. It is the main fact of this world's history. And as a special people and polity were chosen by God to bear witness to the Coming Fact and to prepare for its accomplishment, so has God prepared a special people and polity to bear witness to the Accomplished Fact and to assimjlate its results. That people and polity we call the Holy Catholic Church, and because of its mighty functions and the powers with which it is endowed to ' ' He shall glorify Me, because He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it you.' — John xvi. 15. - John xv. 26. 27. ^ Apuc. v. 9, 10. 3IO THE KEY-STONE. perform them, it is called by St. Paul ' the House of God, the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the Truth.' By its means the ' great Mystery of Godliness that was manifested in the flesh ' is * preached unto the Gentiles and believed in the world.' • What can be more worthy of our study and admiration than the means by which God has realised what would be impossible to human effort alone — that ' every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation,' during so many centuries, should be united in the daily and hourly memory, not of a Truth known to their reason or manifested to them by earth and heaven, such as the existence and attributes of God, but of a Life and Death, of words and acts which only one small nation witnessed, and even that nation for the greater part witnessed with indifference ? St. Peter, who knew how easily the heart may forget and the lips deny even what the eyes have seen and the lips professed, could not refrain from a burst of enthusiastic praise to ' the power of God ' by which alone faith can be maintained. * Blessed,' he exclaims, ' be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ... for by His power you are kept by faith unto salvation, at the appearance of Jesus Christ whom having not seen you love, in whom also now, though you see Him not, you believe.' ^ For are not ignorance and indifference the state in which most men live with regard to any events which take place far from them, or which have happened long since ? How little beyond the mere names do most men know of the world's most famous heroes ! How difficult is it to keep up any permanent en- thusiasm as to events both well known and of acknowledged impor- tance ! Yet intimate knowledge and enthusiastic love of Jesus Christ have been attained by thousands and millions of ' every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation,' and have been ever accessible to all. If He has not been known and loved by all, the ignorant and indif- ferent will not be able to plead distance of time or remoteness of place from the date and scene of their Redemption, but will be con- demned because they loved darkness rather than light. And this accessibility of Jesus Christ has been the result of the universahty of His Sacramental Presence. This has been God's own Ecce Homo to every tribe and tongue. ' Brethren,' said St. vElred to his monks one Christmas night, ' we have no such great and evident sign of the birth of Christ, as that we daily receive His Body and Blood at the holy altar, and that He who was once born for us of a Virgin is daily immolated in our sight.' ^ ' 1 Tim. iii. 15, 1 6. - * I Peter i. 3-8. ' Migne, Pahvi. torn. cxcv. col. 22. Heretics had the same instinct, and VIVID COMMEMORATION. 311 It will not be denied by any one who has any real acquaintance with the Catholic Church, that the Incarnation and Death of the Son of God are the all-familiar and all-absorbing topics of the thoughts and feelings of her children. An eloquent writer, whose views are in some respects very different from those of Catholics, has most truly said : * The Church never failed to hold up one sublime Figure towards which all eyes might ever turn for help and strength : it was that of the suffering God upon the cross. The great fact of human nature on which mediaeval religion was based was its sinfulness, the great consolation was the redeeming efficacy of the death of Christ. The central idea of all devotion, therefore, was the Passion. Its force was not impaired by doctrines of predestination and election, which, by emphasizing the immediate connection between God and the soul, throw into the shade the historic aspects of reconciliation and atone- ment' The author seems to refer here to Calvinism, but he con- tinues : ' On the other hand, as though the death upon the cross had not sufficed, day by day upon ten thousand altars the mystic sacri- fice was renewed.' The author's meaning is faultless, but he would have more clearly expressed the Catholic belief, had he said that the mystic sacrifice was ever renewed, because the death on the cross was all- sufficing and inexhaustible.- He goes on to say what may perhaps be considered as an objec- tion to the view I am developing : ' Jesus had been born, indeed, only to die. The intervening events of His career faded out of sight ; and His condescension in entering on our human life and His anguish in quitting it were the two points on which all thoughts and loves were fixed.' 1 These last words might be taken, contrary no doubt to the intention of their author, as an objection to the Church's method of teaching, as if the Gospel history in its details were purposely kept in the background and nothing offered to the contemplation of men but Divine Mysteries, worked out on earth, indeed, yet too sublime to be daily lessons of instruction. In answer to this it may be admitted that the Holy Eucharist, by its associations and analogies, recalls more directly the Incarnation, Passion, and Ascension of the Son of God than His public life, His parables and works of mercy ; yet the drew a correct conclusion. The Gnostics, according to St. Ignatius, 'abstain from the Eucharist and the prayer, because they do not confess the Eucharist to be the Flesh of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins.' They denied the Incarnation, and therefore repudiated the Eucharist. ' The Church of England duiing the Middle Ages, by J. EstHn Carpenter, M.A., Professor of Eccles. History in Manchester New College, p. 26 (London : Williams & Norgate, iSSo). 312 THE KEY-STONE. main difficulty was overcome when the existence of the Man-God was taken out of the region of myths and made a vivid and present reaUty, when it was withdrawn from the far-off regions of time and space, and brought home and put face to face with each generation and each redeemed souL Certainly the Church was not wanting either in zeal or in skill to fill up the outlines of the Great Mystery of Godliness for all such as were capable of apprehending them, and neglected no channel of teaching, whether written or oral instruction, festal celebration, painting, sculpture, or even stage representation. It would, indeed, almost seem as if the Providence of God had delayed the invention of the art of printing to show how much His Church could do to make Jesus Christ known by means of His great commemorative Sacrament, and how little those who have rejected that Sacrament can do for the same purpose with all the multiplied resources that printing has put within their reach. In the Middle Ages, when men's knowledge of ancient history was even ludicrously imperfect and unreal, the Gospel story was both known and understood. In our own day the cultivation of historical criticism has filled men's minds with doubts and perplexities as to the origin and elements of Christianity. The rationalistic explanation of this fact is of course that exact science has dispelled blind credulity. But there is another explanation perfectly satisfactory to the reason, in harmony with the facts of history, and with all our conceptions of the attributes of God — it is that even true historical knowledge of Jesus Christ cannot be attained by history alone. The knowledge of God Incarnate is a deposit committed by the Holy Ghost to His Church, and lost to those who in their pride turn from the living Church and her living sacraments, which God has made accessible to all, to the dead records of the past, which are the peculiar possession of the learned few. 2. We have seen, then, that the Holy Eucharist is the key-stone or central fact of historical Christianity. It makes known Jesus Christ both as God and man. But as Jesus Christ alone makes known to us His Father and gives us power to worship Him, so it is by means of the Holy Eucharist that the Church ever renders to God that adoration in spirit and in truth which He seeks and is willing to accept Awe and adoration are the special characteristics of Catholic worship. The reason is evident. The very Victim that is offered in adoration is Itself adorable. How, then, can the wor- shippers in such a sacrifice fail to recognise the infinity of the Divine Attributes ? A learned and thoughtful ^vriter, the late Mr. Brewer, in his Introduction to the * Gemma Ecclesiastica ' of Gerald Barry, appears GOD KNOWN AND WORSHIPPED. 313 to think that the doctrine of sacrifice held a more prominent position in the minds of men in the earlier than in the later Middle Ages. He writes as follows : 'With the schoolmen that followed in the wake of Giraldus the centre ' (of theological science) ' was the mystery of the Trinity ; with him, and before his days, it was sacrifice as set forth in its highest type in the mass. The distinction is of paramount importance. The two principles affected all forms of doctrine and discipline, of practice and belief, during the two great epochs into which the Middle Ages fall, until they were superseded by the Refor- mation.' ' I have given to this statement the careful attention to which the well-merited reputation of Mr. Brewer entided it, yet I must confess that I can find for it no foundation whatever, either in history or in the nature of theology. The treatise of Giraldus which Mr. Brewer was editing does, indeed, deal principally and almost ex- clusively with the Holy Eucharist; but it not only does not profess to be a complete theology, it disclaims any such pretension, and was written to convey practical instruction on daily duties to country clergymen. When John Myrc, two centuries later, wrote his rhymed treatise for the same purpose, he also confined his lessons mainly to the sacra- ments. On the other hand, long before Giraldus, St. Anselm and others limited their theological instructions to the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation ; while Peter Lombard and Cardinal PuUen, contemporaries yet earlier writers than Giraldus, seeking to elucidate the whole circle of Christian doctrine, give no more promi- nence to sacrifice than any of the later scholastics. Moreover, the distinction made by Mr. Brewer, even if it existed in the order of treat- ment of subjects, could not be of that paramount importance that he attributes to it. For God and Sacrifice are correlatives. Sacrifice is offered to none but to God, and God's greatness demands sacrifice as its only adequate acknowledgment. The Christian sacrifice of the mass presupposes the doctrine of the Trinity, and cannot be under- stood without the knowledge of that mystery. According to a very probable interpretation of our Lord's words, the three Divine Persons are alluded to in the great prophecy : ' The hour cometh, and now is, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in Spirit and in Truth, '/>. the Holy Spirit shall teach men how, by union with and through Him who is the Word and the Truth, to offer a true, a perfect, an accept- able Sacrifice to the Father. Whatever may be thought of this inter- pretation — which does not exclude the ordinary one that * spirit and truth ' are qualities of the worshippers and of the worship— it is most certain that in the later Middle Ages no dimness came over the mind ' Intrcid. p. xvi, (Rolls Series, 1S62), 3t4 THE KEY-STONE. of the Church or of her theologians as to the importance of sacrifice ; and later theologians have drawn out with more fulness than the older ones all the marvels of God's power and prodigalities of His grace that meet in the Holy Eucharist as in their centre. 3. The Holy Eucharist is a link between us and the Saints in Heaven ; for by teaching us practically the incommunicable worship due to God, it has made safe, and easy, and in some sort necessary, our intercourse with saints and angels. It is probably owing to the loss among Protestants of the worship of sacrifice that they appear generally unable to comprehend the im- measurable distance between the supreme adoration given by the Catholic Church to God and the honours paid by her to God's saints and servants.^ Mr. Hallam and others have thought that they had discovered that in practice (though not in theory) the devotion to the saints displaces the worship of God. More careful or less pre- judiced observers would not have failed to notice that the very cultus of the saints in the Catholic Church consists practically in a more festive and fervent offering of the sacrifice of the mass to God only, or in a more pure and humble reception of the Holy Eucharist. The author whom I quoted a few pages back, in his estimate of the medieval Church touches admirably on this point. ' Above the worshipper,' he says, ' in circle after circle, rank after rank of hohness, were the innumerable company of the saints. The stories of their lives, read in the public services of the Church, revealed to him the achieve- ments of piety in his own land, amid the fields and houses which he knew ; they kept before him a standard of conduct nearer to his capacities than the supreme Figure of the Gospels, but still loftier than his own, and never let his reverence droop, but quickened it constantly by some fresh appeal.' 2 * Only in the rarest moments of supreme communion was the soul left alone with God ... In seasons of intense devotion these lower forms of the manifestation of righteous- ness were lost in the excess of light revealed in the unchanging ground of holiness and love from whence they sprang, and the soul and God were left alone. But for the ordinary believer, praying in his accustomed place in his parish church, there rose over the incense- clouds shrouding the priest at the altar, there shone through the gleaming lights of the windows, a mighty company of the unseen, filling the way to heaven, ready to give their suffering for his gain, out of their peace to aid him in his peril. They belonged to all ' I have treated of this subject elsewhere by analysing the nature of samt- worship. See Otir Lady''s Dotciy, part ii. ch. i., 'The Ilonouis paid to our La y.' ^ Carpenter, The Church of England diirbtg tJic Middle Ages, p. 27. THE EUCHARIST AND SAINT-WORSHIP. 315 times, they came from all lands, though they spoke but one language, that of thanksgiving, pity, aspiration, trust. Among these he felt a strange familiarity ; to their guidance he yielded himself without reserve ; their aid he invoked for those most dear to him, and for the sorrowing and helpless everywhere ; moreover, with them lay the testimonies of truth, for they had suffered and overcome. What he believed had been learned by them through the sword and the cross ; the martyrs had written in their blood the articles of his creed. And so faith and endeavour were not of himself alone, nor of the far-off God beyond all space and time ; they were of the Church, which through all ages, among angels, spirits, men, remained the same, yesterday, to-day, and for ever.' ^ I have gladly quoted this page, which shows an insight into Catholic thought and feeling very rare among Protestants. Professor Carpenter does not confound the not going alone to God with not going to Him directly, or not approaching Him except through a series of mediators. He says most truly that the God of the Catholic Church is not the abstraction of Brahminical contemplation, ' a far- off God beyond all space and time.' He is indeed far greater and higher above the range of human or angelic thought than Brahmin or Pantheist ever dreamt, yet the Psalmist asks of Him : ' Who is as the Lord our God who dwelleth on high, and looketh down on the low things in heaven and on earth ? ' He is ' the King of ages, immortal and invisible,' yet He became mortal and visible; He 'dwells in inaccessible light,' yet He draws so near to us, that not only has He made our nature His own, but as food becomes one with the body that it nourishes, so does He as the Food of immortality identify Himself with His creatures. The devotion to the saints, instead of being a substitute for communion with a far-off God, is a help to our weakness in the ineffable intercourse we hold with a God so near that our sinful nature shrinks and trembles at such familiarity. Nothing short of experience can teach these truths in their perfect harmony ; yet those who possess the insight and sympathy of Pro- fessor Carpenter may obtain some glimpse of them if they will reflect on the twofold aspect which Catholic devotion presents, whether it is studied among modern believers or in mediaeval documents. Some- times the observer will be tempted to think that the Blessed Virgin and the saints have absorbed the whole of our affections and left no- thing for God \ and then again he may notice the facts to which every page of these volumes bears witness, that the Holy Eucharist, that is (in the faith of Catholics) Jesus Christ, God and Man, is the ' Carpenter, The Chttnh of England during the Middle Ages, '^. 14. 3i6 THE KEY -STONE. centre and the end of all devotion, the Rite of daily celebration, uni- versal throughout the whole Church, and unvaried throughout all the ages. As Mr. Carpenter truly says, * the central idea of all devotion was the Passion,' and it was while assisting at mass and preparing for communion that the worshipper called the saints to his aid. The study of these various phases of devotion will explain how it is that familiarity blends with awe in Catholic worship, and how the daily sacrifice and daily food are still the ' tremendous mysteries ' before which the seraphim veil their faces. Thus, then, the Holy Eucharist unites us with our Divine Redeemer Jesus Christ, unites us with the ever-blessed Trinity, unites us with saints and angels ; and it is ever with a full conscious- ness of this union that the Church enters on the canon of the mass, asking in the Preface that her voice may be admitted into the chorus of angels and archangels who sing Holy, Holy, Holy, before the eternal throne. 4. The Holy Eucharist is also the key-stone of the Church on earth. By its means especially the Church is Apostolic ; for the power of consecrating can only exist as derived by unbroken succes- sion from the Apostles ; and a visible and perpetual priesthood both requires and constitutes a visible and perpetual Church, conscious of her powers, and in possession of those truths that such a priesthood presupposes. By the Holy Eucharist this perpetual Church is at all times and in all places One. I do not mean that the apostolical succession of the priesthood suffices by itself, or that it cannot co- exist with heresy and schism, though it is a great element of stability wherever it exists, and the schismatical bodies which retain their priesthood and the Holy Eucharist have a living tradition that pre- serves them from the mutability characteristic of all Protestant sects. Still the mere presence of our Lord in this gracious mystery does not unite and sanctify and preserve in the truth all who approach it, any more than the visible presence of Jesus Christ in Palestine illuminated or sanctified all who saw and heard Him, or than the omnipresence of God prevents the innumerable sins that daily out- rage it. The prcacxice and action of the Holy Spirit are necessary to the n-iystic Body of Christ, that is, the Holy Church, as well as the presence of His real and Sacramental Body. But how can the Holy Ghost more eff"ectually promote unity both external and internal, and inspire horror of schism, than by enlivening faith in the presence of the Church's Head, one and the same in all times and places ? The Holy Eucharist is the heritage of all. If the priest consecrates, the layman partakes. No difference of dignity or learning makes one CATHOLIC UNITY. 317 priest's consecration better than another's ; no inequaUty of rank among the laity adds to, or takes from, the greatness of the Gift. The hermit of Farne called down on the rude altar in his thatched oratory as great a Guest, because the same, as the archbishop of Can- terbury in his metropolitan church ; the bondman was as privileged as the king. Whether St. Wilfrid celebrated among the Picts of North Britain, the Angles of Northumbria, the Franks of Gaul, or in the presence of men of every nation whom he met in Rome, he found everywhere the same faith, and could say to all : ' The bread that we break, is it not the partaking of the Body of the Lord ? For we, being many, are one bread, one body, all that partake of One Bread.' This unity of the Catholic Church among so many tongues and tribes has no parallel elsewhere in human religions or philosophies, and is the special mark by which our Lord wished His disciples to be recognised. Mr. Green, in the passage that I have quoted, seems to exult in the severance of the Teutonic nations from the Catholic Church as the means by which Wyclifife had achieved ' religious free- dom.' But the Son of God made permanence and unity the condi- tions of freedom. ' If you continue in My word, you shall be My disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.' ' Not for them only (the Apostles) do I pray, but for those also who through their word shall believe in Me : that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.' ' Who does not know that if doubts at the present day are disturbing men's minds as to the Divine Mission of Jesus Christ, it is principally owing to that great severance and subsequent religious anarchy of so many nations once united? Yet the spectacle of the Church's unity is no less striking and instructive than of old, and is indeed gi'eatly enhanced by the endless and hopeless divisions of the sects. The Catholic of to-day, as he kneels before the altar, says with a feeling of gratitude, greater than could have been known in the Middle Ages : ' Thou hast hidden me in Thy tabernacle from the strife of tongues.' ^ It is the fashion, but an ignorant and thoughtless fashion, to treat this great fact of unity as the result of unreasoning acquiescence in whatever dogmas are promulgated by authority, and consequently as a proof of mental sloth. Though I have touched on this matter in the opening chapter of this volume, I will add here that the spec- tacle of the unity of Catholic belief in the twelfth century suggested a very different conclusion to those who were familiar with the restless- ' John viii. 31, 32, xvii. 20, 21, - Ps. xxx. 21. 3i8 THE KEY -STONE. ness of speculation which was then agitating the nations, so that Baldwin, a Cistercian monk (afterwards archbishop of Canterbury), saw in it a marvel of God's grace. ' Two things are very marvellous in this Sacrament,' he wrote : ' one is, that such things should be done by God ; the other is, that they should be believed by man. Those who do not believe that tliey are done by God wonder that they should be believed. But in truth God is the Author both of the thing tliat is believed and of the faith that believes, and God is equally won- dei'ful in both! ^ 5. The Holy Eucharist was also the key-stone of the social fabric, and created a profound unity in a society in which many natural causes were at work to cause division and to sever race from race and class from class. It spoke to all in the same accents, which all understood in the same way. It bade all assist at the common Sacri- fice. It invited all to partake of the same Communion Feast. It awoke the same chords in the hearts of all, touching their most tender, their most sacredly cherished feelings and affections, so that on these the hearts of all could beat in unison. It was the Blessed Eucharist that presided in the family circle at the various epochs of the life of each, whether of joy or sorrow. It sanctified childhood at the first communion. It blessed the marriage bond in the nuptial mass. It strengthened the mother before the agonies of child-birth, and sanctified her joy when her pains were over.^ It comforted the dying with the Holy Viaticum, It consoled and gave hope at the Requiem to the mourner in his bereavement. It marked rest from labour to the toiling. It gave the note of joy and gladness to the festival and the holiday, and it sweetly chastened the season for penance. All looked upon the Holy Mass as the great fountain of benediction from whence they might seek a supply for all their needs, not only spiritual, but also temporal, for themselves and those dear to them. This brings me to the reflection that the Eucharistic faith and practice were not imposed upon an unwilling people from above by the clergy, by princes and governments, as in Protestant times have been the denial and repudiation of Catholic doctrine and the recep- ' Trcalise on the Holy Communion, Migne, torn. cciv. col. 655. I regret that I could not quote more largely from this beautiful treatise. It would well repay translation. 2 These were two epochs at which the reception of Holy Communion was especially urged. But the synod of Durham (a.d. 1220) prudently added : ' "When women come to be churched after child-birth, priests must only give them blessed bread and not the Body of Christ, unless they expressly ask for it, and have made their confession.' (Wilkins, i. 580.) SOCIAL UNITY. 319 tion of the bread and wine by 7'est and Corporation laws, by fines, imprisonment, and exile. If, in the course of the fifteenth century, a few Lollards were compelled to abjure their heresy, or were punished at the stake for bringing in division where all had been unity, these were but the rarest exceptions to the general feeling of the country through so many ages. The Catholic faith and practice had been heartily adopted, embraced, and entered into by the laity, who not only zealously promoted it, but even showed themselves not unfre- quently foremost in their zeal. We have seen their generosity in build- ing churches, erecting altars, furnishing ornaments, sacred vessels and vestments, in their guilds, in maintaining chaplains, founding masses, organising processions.' It was from the people, moreover, that the clergy themselves and the religious orders were recruited with priests, brothers, hermits, nuns. Thus then, in spite of the influence of WyclifFe and the Lollards, in spite of the influence of Cranmer and Latimer and so many more in spreading Lutheran, Calvinistic, and Zwinglian heresies, the Catholic faith and devotion had taken such deep root in the mass of the nation, that the acknowledgment is be- coming more and more frequent, on the part of those who nave studied the history of the sixteenth century, that the Reformation was forced on an unwilling people.^ 6. On account of this unitive power of the Blessed Sacrament manifested in so many ways, some of our old English writers under- stood not inaptly by ' sanctorum communionem ' in the Aposdes' Creed, not merely the communion of saints, but the communion of holy things by which saints are made, and especially that sacrament which 'is called pre-eminently the sacrament of Holy Communion. Thus in the ' Chester Plays,' St. Matthew is introduced promulgating ' The Burgh Register of Aberdeen contains many curious proofs of the interest taken by the laity in all matters of religion. The town council was in the habit of imposing penances on faulty citizens. The following is a specimen : ' William Matthewson, for injury done by him to John Gall, shall uphold the lady mass with voice on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, each week for a year, and which of them two trespass first on the other in time to come shall pay to the Kirk- work 10/.' This was in 1444. Burgh Register, i. 12 (Spalding Club). * Should I ever complete these studies, I shall have abundant proofs to give of the assertion in the text. I will be satisfied here with one quotation from an Anglican clergyman of great historical learning and accuracy : ' The establish- ment of the Mass in Queen Mary's reign,' writes Dr. Jessopp, 'had caused im- mense joy throughout the land. . . . The mass was felt to be, and known to be, the one great and precious mystery which every devout Cathoiic clung to with unspeakable awe and fervour, and to rob him of that was to rob him of the one thing on which his religious life depended ; that gone, it was imagined all else would go with it.' (One Genei'ation of a Norfolk House, p. 64.) 320 THE KEY-STONE. the article in the Creed : * Sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam, sanctorum communionem,' and says : And I beleeve, thnigh Godes grace, Such beleefe as holye church ha^, That Godes bodye graunted us was To use in forme of Bredde. ' The paraphrase of the Creed in the ' Lay Folks' Mass Book' has : Wei I trow in tho holi gost, And holi kite that is so gode ; And so I trow that liousel es Bothe flesshe and blode.'' John Myrc thus translates or interprets : In the holy gost I leve welle, In holy chyrche and hyre spelle, In goddes body I be-leve nowe Amonge hys seyntes to geve me rowe. ' Sacramental Communion is not, indeed, equivalent to the Com- munion of Saints, yet it is one great part of it, and it is the principal means of effecting it. Wyclifife used to object that faith in Transub- stantiation is not contained in any creed. Waldensis replied : 'Let the enemy of the Sacred Host learn that faith in all its mysteries is contained in that article of the Apostles' Creed : " I believe in the Communion of Saints." For if the principal communion of Christians consists in the communication of the sacraments, how can that one be wanting to their number which is the highest communion among all communions ? As well might Peter be absent when Christ speaks to His twelve Apostles.' Waldensis quotes in support of this view the commentary of Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, on the ' Hea- venly Hierarchy' attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite. Diony- sius had said that the Eucharist was called Communion in a singular sense. Grosseteste writes : * Every other sacrament receives its power of uniting us in communion with God from this Sacrament which is primarily and principally unitive. For in this Sacrament is the true Flesh of our Saviour which He took from the Virgin, and in which He suffered to redeem us ; not separated from His soul nor from His Divinity, but inseparably united. And so in this Sacrament ' Chester Flays, 'The Emission of the Holy Ghost,' vol. ii. pp. 135, 136. '^ Lay Folks'' Mass Book (E. E. T. Soc.) p. 20. Canon Simmons remarks, p. 228, that while it is rare to find ' sanctoram comm. nionem ' understood as communion in holy things, yet ' the seven sacraments are often specified under this head as being the inheritance of the saints.' ^ Fnstriictiims, &c. (E. E. T. Soc), p. 14. THE C0MMUN10.\ UF SAINTS. 321 is the Son of God, perfect God and jierfect Man, who taking our humanity united us to Himself, and made us communicate in one nature with Himself; and then giving back to us His Flesh thus pre- eminently dignified to eat, He gathers us together and unites us with His own Person, that we may be all one in Christ, perfect in His perfection.' ^ This being so, all Christian sanctity is an emanation from the Blessed Sacrament, directly or indirectly, and is therefore a testimony to Its truth. When the heathen brothers Tiburtius and Valerianus heard the noble words, and saw the noble mien, and considered the noble conduct of St. Cascilia, they exclaimed : ' Of a truth, this Christ of hers must be the true God, since He has chosen such a handmaid.' In the same way, when we read in Christian history the record of holy words and deeds, we must exclaim ' Truly is the Sacrament of the altar nothing less than what the Holy Church proclaims, since It has had such worshippers and has borne such fruits.' Let this be one result of our review. Yet on the other hand let us guard against measuring the greatness or the holiness of this Sacrament by the treatment It meets from evil men or by the imper- fect correspondence of even the best men. As to the indifference or mockery of the modern infidel or heretical world, he only will be moved by it who is shaken in his faith in Jesus Christ because Pilate muttered ' What is truth ? ' or who has never understood why oui Lord kept silence before Herod and allowed that trifler to treat Him as a fool. God derives not His greatness from man's homage, nor is He a loser though the whole miserable world forsake Him. Im- piety and outrage and neglect should only make us redouble our acts of faith and love. But, though we should not measure God's greatness by the homage paid to Him by His saints, we should glorify His power and mercy in inspiring it and His condescension in receiving it. It was when contemplating this ineffable mystery of the Holy Euchaiist in the words and lives of Catholic saints, that the late Kenelm Henry Digby, the father in England of all real study of the Middle Ages, broke out into the exclamation : ' O holy Church, Catholic and Roman, if all that hitherto is told of thee were in one praise concluded, it were too weak to furnish out this turn. The human race had preserved the remembrance of an original society between God and man, and the same tradition had perpetuated the hope that more intimate commu- nications would be re-established by the Redeemer, universally ' Waldensis, Dc Eucli. ii. 557. VOL. II. Y 332 THE KEY-STONE. expected. ... So through the long lapse of ages which faith illu- minated, there is heard from the race of men an uninterrupted voice of praise, and literally witnessed a sleepless act of adoration. For behold God, the Saint of saints, the Creator of men, and the Lord of angels, is present on the altar. Those who are in chosen fellowship advanced to the great supper of the Blessed Lamb, whereon who feeds hath every wish fulfilled, can say with truth that Jesus, the most sweet, most benign Jesus, is in the midst of them ; they see Him — blessed are they. They see God. " O invisible Creator of the world, how wondrously dost Thou act with us!" exclaims one of that happy number ; " how sweetly and graciously dost Thou dispose things with Thy elect, in offering them in the sacrament Thyself ! " ' But alas ! the blindness of man ! Why does not every heart commingle with the flame that shrouds that glory ? Tibi hoc incredi- bile, quia beatissimum 1 Why should not the Saviour's promise be fulfilled ? Why should not the clean of heart be comforted ? Yes, when we recall to mind those ancient holy men, many of them the wonder of their age for wisdom, the glory of their age for earthly grandeur, who evinced seraphic love for this divine mystery ; when we recollect the number of profound angelic intelligences which recognised in it the source of all their light, of all their virtue ; when with the eyes of mind we behold them bowed unto the earth in pre- sence of the Eucharist, or with looks directed toward the hallowed steps, so full of joy, as if they saw descending from them every light in heaven, the natural impulse is to exclaim with the ascetic, " O vera ardens fides eorum, probabile existens argumentum sacrse prgesentice tu2e!"'i ' Mores CatJiolici, book viii. ch. i6. May I say Reqtiiescat in Pace of my venerable friend, who has passed away from us while these last chapters were being written ? And may he enjoy His Presence in heaven whom he adored and loved on earth ! My own imperfect studies in the Middle Ages were prompted by a desire to supplement in some small degree the writings of Mr. Digby, who, among his innumerable quotations and illustrations of medieval piety, has very little about England. Many indeed of the books I have quoted were unpublished when he wrote. When last I saw him he spoke of the pleasure with which he should read this book. I N DEX. ADA A DAMN AN, St. , passages relating ■*^ to Holy Eucharist from his life of St. Columba, quoted, i. 5Q-63 ^Ifric, i. 133, et scq. ; his language on the Eucharist different in tone from that of earlier or later writers, 135 ; is capable of being understood in a Catholic sense, 135 , Anglican writers on /Elfric, 1 33-136 ; /Elfric defended, 143-148 .(Elred, St., extracts from his writings on the Real Presence, ii. 7, 310 ; his perseverance in saying mass in spite of great bodily infimiities, 136 .(Ethelred, King, his devotion to the holy mass, i. 195 ^thelwine, his beautiful death, i, 236, 237 Agelwy, Abbot, his charity to the poor, and great devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, i. 213, 214 Aimo, his testimony to transubstantia- tion, i. 123 Aiscough, William, bishop of Salisbury, killed by the mob while saying mass, Alcuin, asks the intercession of St. Niniar, quoted, i. 54, 55 ; his zeal for the Roman Liturgy, 1 78 Aldhelm, St., his zeal in drawing the people to church, i. 191, 192 Alfred, King, heard mass daily, at night visited churches to pray, i. 239 Alleluia Victory, gained after hearing mass and receiving communion, i. 21 Almsgiving for the dead, doctrine of, i. 206 ; by Charlemagne for the soul of Pope Adrian, 20S ; by Alfred for his own soul, 209 ; by bishop Theo- dred, 209 ; by Tatbert for St. Wilfrid, 210 Altar, how called, i. 157 ; form of, among Britons, 21 ; consecration of, 41, 159-162 ; dimensions of, 156 ; position of, 20, 158; constructed AQU over tombs of saints, 41 ; stone, 20, 21, 90, 156, 157; wooden, 156, 157 ; a few altar slabs still in situ, ii. 123, n. ; portable, i. 157, 165, 166; grants of portable altars from the pope, ii. 221; portal)le altars some- times made of precious materials, i. 165 ; death before the, 42, 68, 69 ; swearing before, 21, 253, 254; veneration for, 161, 162; prayers before, 38, 39, 239 ; high altar place of reservation, 36, 39, 238; each altar dedicated to a saint, 162 ; restric- tion put upon altar as regards the number of masses to be offered on it, 190 Altars, number of, in a church, i. 41, 63> I57> 158; covered with linen cloths, 166, 174; covered with a purple covering or pall, 21, «., 156, 174; destruction of, ii. 120, 121; washed with water and wine, 249; altars of sacrifice in Britain, mentioned by St. John Chiysostom, i. 18; de- struction of altars of sacrifice, i Altar-breads, jtv Elements Altar cloths, used by Britons, i. 21, by Anglo-Saxons, 174; gifts of, ii. 103, 109 Altar frontal, i. 157, ii. 25S, 259 Anchoress, see Recluse Anglians, East, conversion of, i. 92 Anglo-Saxon faith, i. 119, et scq. Anselm, St., quoted on use of unlea- vened bread, i. 169; letters of, on the Holy Eucharist, ii. 4, 5; his prayers to the Blessed Sacrament, 16; his prayer for tears, 130; on diversity of ceremonies in celebration of mass, 44, 45 ; his death, 136 Antependium, see Altar frontal Aquinas, St. Thomas, quoted, i. 124, ii. 29 ; commanded to prepare Office for feast of Corpus Christ i, 266 324 INDEX. ARL Aries, Council of, canons of, as regards Easter, Holy Orders, Marriage, i. 19 Armorica, see Brittany Arms, forbidden to be worn when assisting at mass and vespers, i. 42 Augustine, St., of Canterbury, his con- ferences with the Britons, and his demands rejected by them, i. 82-84 ; vindicated, 107 ; introduced the Roman rite, 177 "D ALDACCHINO, or canopy, ii. 91, ^ 100, loi, 242, 248; .rtv Ciborinm Banner, St. Oswald's, ii. 1 10 ; the ' Standard, ' what it was, 227; Holy Eucharist Itself said to have hung in a pyx from pole of Standard, 227; banners carried in the procession on Palm Sunday, 240, 241 Bath, use of, i. 147, ;;., ii. 184; all pre- pared for Easter by taking baths, 257 Bede, Venerable, his testimony to the unity of faith in Great Britain, i. 52; quoted as to the indefectibility of the Church, 119, 120; speaks of the reverence due to consecrated churches, 164; on frequent com- munion, 220, 221, 224; his death, 235, 236 Bede-roll, i. 212; at Oxford, ii. 205 Bells, used in Gaul, i 42 ; use of, 192 ; special form of blessing for, 192; bell to be rung at the death of a bishop, 208 ; bell ordained to be rung when the Holy Eucharist was carried to the sick, ii. 69; sacring bell tolled at the elevation, 62, e/ seq. ; other names for sacring bell, 62 ; bell used in procession of Blessed Sacrament, 242 Benediction of the bishop at mass, i. 32, 199; in the Gallican Liturgy given before the people's communion, 48 ; adopted by the Anglo-Saxon Church, 178; specimen of, from St. Ethelwold's Benedictional, 179 Bererigarius, outline of the conflict between Lanfranc and, ii. i, et seq. ; character of, 2 ; his teaching, 2, 3 Bidding-prayer, ii. 56-58 Birinus, St., his great devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, i. 93 ; he built and consecrated churches, 93 Bishops, British, orthodoxy of, r, 18; attend the Councils of the Church, 18-19; their dignity recognised by St. Columba and the Scots, 62, 64 CAP Blois, Peter of, archdeacon of London, his testimony to transubstantiation, ii. 7, 8 Boniface, St. , quoted on Confession, i. 227 ; on Viaticum, 232 Books, Service, in Anglo-Saxon times, i. 179, 180; mass-book mentioned in Bishop Theodred's will, 209 ; list of service books to be defaced and abolished by injunction of Grindal, ii. 120; absence of books in Middle Ages made up for by the festivals, 237 Boy-bishop, institution of, ii. 200 Bread for mass, see Elements ; Blessed, see Eulogia Brewer, Rev. J. S., quoted on the Welsh Church, i. 116; on va'ue of money, ii. 141 ; his assertion about mediaeval theology, 312 Britons (of Brittany), their perfect identity of faith and practice with the Gallic Church, i. 30 Brittany or Little Britain, sketch of its early political and social history, i. 27-30 (~*/EDMON, how he received Viati- cum, i. 218 Candles, custom of Gallic Church to burn candles before shrines, i. 42 ; lighted at mass in Anglo-Saxon times, 184; rules and customs as regards, in later times, 184, 185, ii. 52, 66 ; perpetually burnt on a tomb. 149 ; used in the ceremonial of walling up a recluse, 182; Paschal candles, 53; bequests of wax candles. 54; bequests of, to burn before the Holy Eucharist, 96, 97 ; gifts of, for Easter Sepulchre, 254; cost of, 53; cost of tallow can- dle, 53 Canon of Mass, in Anglo-Saxon Li- turgy almost word for word as in the present Roman rite, i. 179, w. ; li- turgy of, invariable, 200 ; remained throughout the Middle Ages, and still remains, what St. Gregory left it, ii. 48 Canons, first mention of, in England, i. 150 ; unworthy, ii. 133; secular, served Collegiate Churches, 166 Canopy, ii. 94-96 ; material of, 86-88, 94, 95; mentioned in the ninth article of controversy (1564), 92, n; seeVyx- cloth, Sudary Canopy, see Baldacchino, Ciborium Canute, his piety, i. 202, ii. 108, 109 Captives, redemption of, example of, INDEX. 325 CAR i. 38 ; sacred vessels might be sold for, ii. 114; St. Rembert's saying as to, 115, n. Carpenter, Rev. J. E., quoled concem- ing medieval religion, ii. 311, 313 Carpets, laid before the high altar, Easter Day, ii. 258 Catharine of Aragon, Queen, Harps- field's account of her piety, ii. Ill; Sander's eulogy of, 219, 220 Cathedra's, cathedral of stone erected at York, i. 89; public worship in, ii. 165, 166; statutes regarding, 165, 166 Cedd, St., built churches, and ordained priests and deacons, i. 94 Celibacy, see Clergy Cemeteries, mass said in, i. 153, 154; burials forbidden in, during the great Interdict, ii. 285 Ceolfrid, Abbot, not debarred even by fatigues of long journey from offering mass daily, i. 190 Ceremonies, of Holy Mass, many diver- sities of, in different countries, ii. 44, 45; of High Mass, i. 183, ii. 51; of elevation, ii. 61-68; in carrying the Blessed Sacrament, 68 ; of walling up recluses, 182; excessive, at fune- rals, 156; jtr Churches, Sepulchre Chad, St., angels announce his ap- proaching death, he receives the Holy Viaticum, i. 93 Chalices, golden chalice dedicated to the use of the altar, i. 90 ; clialice requisite for mass, 172; material of the rhalice, 1 73 ; decrees of Anglo- Saxon synods regarding the material, 173; the chalice was consecrated, 173; stone chalice kept among the Regalia of England, ii. 37 ; gold and silver chalices belonging to St. Paul's, 105; rules as to rinsing, 133, ;/. ; two- handed chalice used for reservation of Holy Eucharist, i. 35 ; representation of a two-handed chalice, 35 ; commu- nion chalice, ordinarily, with two handles, 218, n. ; one found in a field at Ardagh, 219, n. Chantries, ii. 138, et seq. ; founded by priests, 146-148; by the laity, 149- 157; suppression of, not begun from disbelief in mass, 162; net value at suppression, 141 ; number of, sup- pressed by Henry VHI., 157 Chantry priest, stipends of, ii. 142 ; duties of, 159; occupations of, 159, 199 Chapel, derivation of the word, i. 195, COL n. ; a necessary part of the smallest royal lodging, ii. 210 ; royal chapels exempt from ordinary jurisdiction, 210, 220; meaning of 'travelling chapel,' 210 Chapel of Blessed vSacrament, no in- stance of in Middle Ages, ii. 85, 93 Charlemagne, caused mass to be cele- brated in Lent at two in the after- noon, i. 189; his letter to Offa, 208 Chasuble, Pictish, of ninth century, i. 66 ; worn by priests and clergy, 174; material used for a, ii. 103 Chimes, played at the Elevation, ii. 67 Chivalry, ii. 224, 225 Christ's Dish, ii. 96 Churches, in Britain, spoken of by St. John Chrysostom, i. 18; description of Cornish, 20; stone, 20, 40, 77, n., 155; wooden, 20, 40, 77, «., 89, 155; of boughs, 21; erected over tombs of saints, 40; building of churches, 87, ii. 73-76; dedication of, in honour of saints, i. 56, 87, 93, 162; consecration of, 40, 155, 156, ii. 76, 77, 79, 84; reverence for con- secrated, i. 42, 164, 165, ii. 73, et seq. ; irreverences in churches in Mid- die Ages, 79> 80 ; comparisons drawn by Mr. Cox between pre- and post- Reformation times, 77, 78; his as- sertions disproved, 77, et seq.; regard for materials that had belonged to a consecrated church, i. 165 ; cere- monies observed on entering a church, 165, ii. 81 ; always open during the day, i. 42; abbeys and monastic churches, ii. 167 ; colle- giate, 166, 167; destruction of churches, i. 20, 71 Ciborium or canopy, usually con- structed over the high altar, i. 35, 158; prayer for the blessing of, 126, 127 Ciborium, ii. 87, 90; custom of reserv- ing the Eucharist m, for distribution in other masses, unknown in Middle Ages, 85 Clergy, necessity of a native, i. 97, 98; dress of the, 173; enimeration of various orders of, 148; discipline of Church in Brittany as regards celi- bacy of, 31 ; legislation of Councils concerning celibacy of, 31, et seq. ; by means of this discipline hereditary succession prevented, 249 Coifi, heathen high priest, i. 73) ■"•> conversion of, 89 Coleridge, his lines on Berengarius, li. I, 2, 8 326 INDEX. COL Colet, John, dean of St. Paul's, his words express the Catholic doctrine as to the Holy Eucharist, i. 138; said mass only on Sundays and feasts, ii. 132; his rules for St. Paul's school, 6t„ 199, 200 Collects, may vary according to devo- tion of celebrant at certain masses, ii. 49; nuiiiber of, now permitted, 49 ; St. Thomas of Canterbury usually said. only one, 129 Columba, St., sketch of his life, i. 59; apparition of, to St. Oswald, 91 Communion, names for, i. 215217; of choir monk«, 97, ii. 170, 246; of lay brothers, i. 221, ii. 170; of lay- hermits, ii. 191 ; of nuns, 170, 171 ; of recluses, 195; of the laity on Good Friday, 244, 245, 248 ; ad- ministered at the coronation of kings and queens, i. 257, ii. 37, 209; frequency of, i. 45, 46, 48, 49, 219, 220, 222, 227, ii. 219; Easter, i. 67, 221, 224, ii. 257, et seq.; various decrees as regards, 263 ; proof could be required that the Easter commu- nion had been made, 263 ; Council of Lateran made it of obligation under pain of interdict, 262 ; daily, i. 48, 221, 228; Ven. Bede's lan- guage on daily communion, 221 ; of children, i, 223, ii. 23-25 ; of infants, i. 22, 222, 223, ii. 23-25 ; under both species, i. 45, 217, ii. 264; optional to receive or not from the chalice, 37 ; communion under one kind, i. 22, ii. 25, et scq. ; by infants, i. 217, 222, ii. 25, 33; on Good Friday received both by celebrant and people only under one species, i. 217, ii. 27 ; modern controversy respecting communion under both species, 27-32 ; communion of the Hostia intincta, 33, 34 ; concession of the chalice, 34-37 ; when and where received, i. 37, 38, 48, ii. 170, 171 ; how distributed, i. 37; hours for communion, 224 ; manner of receiving, 217-219, ii. 171 ; to be received fasting, i. 223 ; fast pre- scribed after, li. 42 ; what disposi- tions are necessary for frequent com- munion, i. 221,224; preparation for communion, i. 224-227 ; leave of confessor necessary for, 228, 229; legislation of Council of Tours against unworthy, 34 ; before battle, 68, I95> '2-Zl)^ "• 226 ; received by a queen ' before taking to her cham- COR ber,' 216, «. ; before and after child- birth, 317; spiritual communion, ii. 41, 171 ; recommended to the dying during great Interdict, 285 ; sym- bolic, 40, 227 ; of the sick, see Viati- cum Concomitance, belief in, among Picts and Scots, i. 66 ; Anglo-Saxon be- lief in the doctrine of, 126, 131 ; what it is, ii. 13; as defined by Council of Trent, 13; antiquity of this doctrine, 13, et seq. ; objection against the antiquity of, answered, 13, et seq. Confession, children admitted to, at an early age, i. 22, ii. 25 ; by laws of Howel children confessed in Wales at the age of seven, 24 ; always obli- gatory on all who have been guilty of mortal sin, i. loi, 227-229 ; ex- amples of 99, 100, 224 ; private, 226, 227; of venial sins, 228, 229; counselled at the principal feasts, ii. 261, 262 ; frequent confession, i. 229, ii. 191, 200, 214, 218, 219; obligatory at Easter, 263 ; certificate of, required at Easter, 216, 263; before battle, 226 ; confessions of monks and nuns, 170, 171, 195 Confessor, i. 227, 229, ii. 215 ; office of, exercised by a priest-hermit, 188 Confirmation, administered to infants, i. 223, ii. 23, 24 Consecration, effect of, i. 61, 62, 122, 145, 149, ii. 5, 6, 13 ; see Transub- stantiation Consubstantiation, denounced by Car- dinal Pullen, ii. 6 ; taught by Wy- cliffe, 294, 71. Corporal, i. 93 ; material and size of, 174; in Anglo-Saxon Church corpo- rals blessed by the bishop, 174; Rule of St. Bridget forbids nuns to touch corporals with bare hands, 181, 182 ; washed by an ancress, ii. 194; placed inside the pyx, 95; Cis- tercian rule that it should be purified then burnt on Holy Thursday, 95 ; St. Cuthbert's 'Corporax,' 227 Corpus Christi, account of institution of feast of, ii. 265, 266 ; observance of festival enforced in England, 266 ; processions on Corpus Christi Day, 266, et seq. ; Corpus Christi plays, 271-274; abuses and disorders, 27a- 273 ; spectacles and diversions that took the place of procession and pa- geant, 270; Corpus Christi Guild, 208, «., 272-274 INDEX. 327 CRO Cross, position of, i. 35, 36; St. Pau- linus's golden cross, 90; description of black cross of Scotland, ii. 21 1 ; churches dedicated to the honour of the, i. 162; red wooden cross always used in Lenten processions, ii. 241 ; adoration of, on Good Friday, 244, 246-248 ; Bi-hop Longland's words on, 250 ; when forbidden, 250; no one to approach communion on Easter Day without having adored the Cross, 263 Crucifix, erected by Abbot Godric at Peterborough, i. 153; horrible treat- ment of crucifixes and priests, ii. 227 ; ceremony of burying the, on Good Friday, 244, et scq. Culdees, ii, 133 ; said to have cele- brated masses according to some barbarous rite, 46, 47 Cuthbert, St., his missions, i. 99, 100; friendship between, and St. Herbert, ii. 18S, 1S9; death of, 188, 1S9 ; apparitions of, 185, 186 ; his banner, 227; his gift of tears at mass, 131 Cyril, St., his instructions as to man- ner of receiving communion, i. 218 THANES, devastations of, contributed "^ to the overthrow of discipline and devotion, i. 195, 196; Danes and St. Elphege, 202 ; their cruelties and sacrileges, 153; their conversion, 202 David, St., king of Scotland, how he received Viaticum and Extreme Unction, ii. 211, 212 David, St., of Wales, decrees of, i. ^9 . Deacon, in early ages, duty of, to distri- bute the Holy Eucharist, i. 147, 219 ; in later times only permitted in case of necessity, 219 Death, examples of holy deaths, i. 234-236, ii. 136, 137 Dichuil, St., an Irish monk, estab- lished a monastery in Sussex, i. 74, Digby, Kenelm H., quoted, ii. 76, 82, S3, 320 Discipline, penitential, of the Church, a principle of civilisation, i. 251 Domiiiicale, cloth on which women re- ceived the Blessed Sacrament, i. 218, n. Doves, made of gold and silver, recep- tacle for our Lord's Body, i. 35, 36, ii- 93 ELE Dress, love of, among Anglo-Saxons, i, 192, 243 ; at altar, see Vestments Dunstan, St., his vision, he teaches his attendants the Kyrie Eleison, i. 1 75 ; his devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, 197; example of his love of justice, 197, 198; his last mass and his death, 199 TOASTER, uniform observance of, i, ■^ 19, 32, 2,2) > controversy, 103, et seq.; time for keeping Easter, 105, 106 ; importance of the question, 107, et seq. ; obstinacy of the Britons blamed both by Anglo-Saxons and Irish, 112; 5tv Communion Edgar, King, account of coronation of, i- 255, 256 Edmund, St., archbishop, his devo- tion, ii. 132, 201 ; his death, 137 Edward. St., the Confessor, our Lord appears to him during Mass, i. 127, 128 Elements. — I. Bread, sort of, used in the Sacrifice of the Mass, i. 45, 88, 167-170; names given to altar- breads, 45, 168-170,??.; HeniyVII. at his coronation required to offer an obley of bread for his own commu- nion, ii. 37 ; directions for making altar- breads, i. 168-170; form of host, 45, 1 68, 170; legacy of fire- wood for preparation of hosts, 170. II. Wine, pure, necessary for the altar, i. 167, 17IJ what sort required for Mass, 172; the colour a matter of indifference, 171, 172; gifts of wine for the altar, 172; prices given for, 172; offeiings of, 45, 48; un- consecrated, given after communion, ii- 37> 38) wine and water used for washing Crucifix on Good Friday given to communicants, 246. III. Water, mixed with the wine in the Lloly Sacrifice, i. 167, 168; mystical reason given by Bede for mingling water with the wine, 172 Elevation of the Host, origin and cause of, ii. 61 ; frequent mention of this rite in England, 61, 62 ; kneeling at, prescribed in XIII. century, 62, 63; bell rung at, 62, et seq., 200; forms of pious salutations to be used at, 64-66, 195; elevation of both Host and Chalice, 62 ; curious customs at, 67 ; first small elevation, 68, «. ; kings of Scotland sat the whole of mass at coronation except at. 209, 328 INDEX. KLI ;/. ; Henry III. used to sujiport llie priest's hand at, 214 Elizabeth, Queen, her coronation oath, she seals her perjury with a sacrilege, i- 257 Elphege, St., during siege of Canter- bury prepared his flock for Holy Communion, i. 202 ; martyred by the Danes at Greenwich, 201. Embroidery, ii. no, in ; Anglo-Saxon women excelled in, 1 10 Eucharist, Holy, central rite of religion, i. I, 13, ii. 307, et seq.; Catholic belief in, I-4 ; Protestant view of, 1,2; history of, mainly a secret one, 8, 9 ; testimony to respect shown to, in Gaul, and manner of showing it, 37 ; in early ages carried on journeys, 93, w. ; worn suspended from the neck, 93 ; carried to the sick suspend- ed round the neck, 237 ; enclosed as a relic in the consecration of altars, 1 59-161; names for, among the Anglo-Saxons, 121 ; adoration given by Anglo-Saxons to, 239 ; silent adoration of, ii. 1 72, 173; how the Holy Eucharist wps the origin or sanction of some of the great prin- ciples of national prosperity, i. 246, et seq. ; the belief of Anglo-Norman Church with regard to, was the same as that of Anglo-Saxon, ii. 9-12; popular designations of, in XVI. century, 19; soldiers not to touch the Eucharist, or the vessel that con- tained It, loi ; punishment for so doing, loi ; reverence shown to, on passing a chapel, 199; on entering the choir, 81 ; in the procession on Palm Sunday, 241 ; disputation against, in the very Presence of, 20S ; sanctified the profession of arms, 224 ; belief that God Himself pun- ished outrages against, 225, 226; solemn act of reparation to, 282 Eucharist, see Monstrance Eulogia, or holy loaf, ii. 38 ; leavened and unleavened bread distributed, 40 ; how and where received, 38-40 ; time of distribution, 38-40 ; to whom given, 39 ; given to poor on Holy Thursday, 246 ; abuse of, con- demned, practice abolished, 42, 259, 260; blessed bread allowed by concession during Great Interdict, 284 Excommunication, nature of, ii. 276, 277; examples of, 277, 27S, 280, 281 ; see}o\\n Extreme Unction, received only once in every illness, i. 233 ; received only when death is expected from sick- ness, 233; since XIII. century given after the Viaticum, 233 PAIRFORD windows, ii, 85, 86 -^ Fasting, fast of Eent, i. 32, 108, 188, 189, ii. 263; penitential fast, i. 22, 23, 61, 95 ; sacramental fast, see Communion, Mass Felix, St., built a splendid cathedral at Nantes, i. 36 ; fragments of it lately discovered, 36, n. ; his taber- nacle, 37 Festivals, observance of, ii. 229, et seq. ; days of obligation, 230, 231 ; number o^, in England, 232 Filiola, see Palla Fisher, John, bisho]i of Roch ster, passages from his writings on the Blessed S crament, i. 3, 4, 132, ii. 26, 27, 51, 117, 118, 174, 175, 20S; his devotion to the Holy Eucharist, 175, 176 ; death of, 176 Flowers, churches and altars adorned with, i. 42, ii. 258; garlands of, worn by students on festival days, 202, and by clergy and laity in pro- cessions, 258, 269 ; twined round torches, 269 ; blessed on Palm Sunday, 239 ; churchyard cross adorned with, on Palm Sunday, 242 ; strewed in procession on Corpus Christi Day, 269, 273 Fortunatus, .St., bishop of Poitiers, i. 39 ; author of Pange lingua ^loricsi lauream certaminis, 40, n. ; he con- stantly alludes to CJreat Britain being one in faith with the rest of the world, 50; his inscription for the tabernacle of St. Felix, 37 Fraction of the Host, miracles at, i. 26, 128, 129, 145 Funerals, mass at, i. 207 ; vam display at, ii. 156, 157 r^ AF.LIC verses, in honour of ^--'^ Blessed Sacrament, recited by Catholic peasants, ii. 66 George, St., his name mentioned in Anglo-Saxon Canon of the Mass, i. 179, «., ii. 231 Gildas, the historian, principal witness to the faith of British Church in the Eucharist, i. 15 ; genuineness of his writingsgenerally aluiitted, 15 ; code INDEX. 3=9 GIR of jjt'nileiuial canons drawn up by, 19, 22, 23; almost our only authority as to the moral state of British Church, 23 ; Mr. Green's descrip- tion of, 23 ; his warning against the spiritual dangers that accompany a profession of austerity, 79-81 Giraldus Cambrensis, his Gemma Ecclesiastica, i. 117; its scope, ii. 312; written against abuses, 51; sometimes paradoxical, 144; his im- ] ortant testimony to Welsh ortho- doxy, i. 116, 117 Glaber, Rodolph, his description of French heretics in XI. century, ii. 9 Glastonbury, sanctuary of, i. 77; sacrilege in church of, ii. 10 Godric, St., lay-hermit, account of, ii. 189-193 Gospels, read to the sick, i. 66 ; super- stitious devotion to certain, said at end of mass, ii. 50, 51 ; splendidly bound, reserved for Easter Day alone, 258 Cirace before meat, ii. 21 ; not pro- hibited during the Interdict, 284 Greeks, rule of, as to frequent com- munion, i. 220 Green, J. R., quoted concerning Gildas, i. 15, «., 23, Wycliffe, ii. 297, Transubstantiation, 308 Gregory, St., of Tours, his History of the Franks, i. 39, n. ; his books of miracles, ih. Grey, Lady Jane, her want of reverence for the Blessed Sacrament, ii. 81, 82 Grimlaic, his Rules for recluses, ii. 1S3, 184 Guilds, Early Saxon, many supported a chaplain, i. 214; masses said by him for the brethren living and dead, 214; priests formed themselves into guilds, 214, ii. 148; their subscrip- tions for vestments and lamp, 117; Guild of young scholars, 200, 201 ; Guild of Corpus Christi, 2c8, 272- 274 Guthlac, St., priest-hermit, slight sketch of, ii. 186, 187 "LTAGET, Ralph, abbot of Foun- -*■ ■*■ tains, experienced a marvellous sweetness in receiving communion, ii. 169; his care of the pilague- stricken poor, 169 Harold Ilarefout, coronation story of, i. 256 INC Henry II., King, leaves legacies to re- cluses, ii. 194, ;/. Henry III., King, holds and kisses the priest's hand at the Elevation, ii. 214; his love for mass, 214 Henry V., King, his piety, ii. 49, 50, loi, 149, 214 Henry VI,, King, his generosity to Winchester, ii. 199 ; his will, 207 Henry VII., King, his devotion to the Holy Eucharist, ii. loi, 217, 218; mass offered for him every May-day on top of tower of a colkge chapel, 205 ; his will, loi, 102 Henry VIII., King, his devotion to mass in early life, ii. 216, 217 Herbert de Losinga, bishop of Thetford and Norwich, quoted on the Holy Eucharist, ii. 5, 6 Heresy, none among Anglo-Saxons, i. 134; Berengarian, ii. i, et seq.; of Wycliffe, 293-306 Hermit, derivation and meaning of the word, ii. 180; form of profession of, 181 Hewald, Black and White, two ]iriests bearing the same name, i. 74, 75 ; their piety and devotion to Holy Eucharist, their martyrdom, 75 Honorarium, or offering to the clergy for special application of intention in offering mass, i. 208, ii. 139, et seq. ; amount of, fixed by the bishop, 140 Host, Sacred, Anglo-Saxon name for, i. 239; name given in Middle Ages, 216 Ilostia intincta, see Communion Ilousel, i. 216, 217; see Eucharist, Communion Houseling towel, ii. 1 71, «. Howel the Good, king of Wales, draws up a code of laws, i. 114; takes them to Rome for confirmation, 114; they are approved of by the pope, 1 14; see Confession Hugh, St., of IJncoln, his preparation for the priesthood, ii. 124-126; his sarcasm, 51 T H. S., manner of representing the Holy Name of Jesus, ii. 86, n. ' Imitation of C'hrist,' author of, con- firms Real Presence from sanctity of worshi]ipers, i. 3, ii. 321 Incense, used at mass, i. 185 ; used in consecration of an altar, 155, ii;9, 185; burnt before a shrine, 42; used 33° INDEX. INC in procession, ii. 241 ; bequests for, 54; cost of, 53, 54 Incluse, see Recluse Indulgences, for maintaining two torches at the elevation, ii. 67 ; for assisting at a first mass, 127; granted for praying for the dead, 146 ; for taking part in the Corpus Christ i procession, 268 Intentions, doctrine of, ii. 138, 139; examples of, among Britons, i. 22; in Gaul, 43 ; among Scots, 63 ; among Anglo-Saxons, 95, 96, 200, et seq. ; in later times, ii. 147, et seq. ; see Mass Interdict, what is meant by, ii. 276, 277 ; different kinds of, 277 ; exam- ples of, person d and local, 277-282 ; the great Interdict, 282, et seq. ; re- gulations as regards, 283-286, 288; privileges demanded by the Cister- cians during, 286, 287 TOriN, King, refused to receive com- •^ munion at his coronation, ii. 209; character, acts, and excommunica- tion of, 288; absolved from excom- munication, 292 Judas, figures of. hung on the Easter candle, ii. 53 T AMPS, kept burning before pic- "^ tures, altars, and relics, i. 41 ; lamp to burn day and night before the Holy Eucharist, ii. 52, 96; be- quests for, ^ Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, his controversy with Berengarius, ii. 2, et seq. ; his definition of the Catholic doctrine, quoted, 4; direc- tions of, for Palm Sunday, 239-241 ; for Holy Thursday, 246 Lantern, fastened to the horse's neck when Holy Eucharist was carried to the sick in distant places, ii. 69 Latin, language of liturgy was, i. 21, 98, 176, 177; reasons for which the Church adopted this language, 176, 177 ; see Liturgy LejDers, ii. 196, 197; Abbot Agelwy's charity to lepers, i. 213 Liber Vitte, i. 211, 212 Lights, used in the consecration of a church, i. 155; foundations for, went to the crown at confiscation of chan- tries, ii. 54 ; ' Alderman of the Se- MAS pulchre Light,' 254; see Candles, Lamps, Sepulchre Liturgy of mass invariably celebrated in Latin tongue, i. 21, 98; ii. 55; uncertain whether the liturgy used in British Church was Roman or Galilean, i. 21 ; outline of Galilean Liturgy of the mass, 24-26 ; whole congregation joined in some parts of the liturgy, 44; liturgy used in St. Columba's churches, 64; Roman, followed in the south of England from time of St. Augustine, 177; Scottish form of liturgy prevailed in parts of England, 178 ; course pur- sued by St. Boniface to ensure cor- rectness in liturgy, 180; the Sarum Rite, ii. 46-48 ; principal liturgies used in media?val England, 47 ; varia- tions of the old English uses, 47, 48. ti. Loaf, Holy, see Eulogia Lollards, taught no reverence was due to a consecrated church, ii. 78 ; con- tempt of, for the presence of Blessed Sacrament, 81, 303; teaching and conduct of, 300-306 lyrARGARET, Countess of Rich- mond, translated 4th book of the ' Imitation,' ii. 208 ; went to confession every third day, and com- munion once a month, 218 ; her death, 219 Margaret, St., queen of Scotland, her veneration for solitaries, ii. 179, 180; her tender devotion to Holy Eu- charist, 212 ; she trained her children to great revt-rence while assisting at mass, 212; re-observance of Easter communion in Scotland mainly due to her zeal, 260, 261; her 'work- shop ' of Church ornaments, ill Martin, St., of Tours, churches dedi- cated to him in Britain, i. 30, 87 ; St. Ninian dedicated a church to him, 56. Martyrdom, preparation for, by mass and communion, i. 69 Mass, names for, i. 21, 121, 122; offered to God alone, 43 ; teaches of the Blessed Trinity, ii. 312, 313; offered for special intentions, i. 22, 43, 44, 96, 97, 200-203, ii. 13^, 139; votive masses, i. 200, 201, ii. 49, 50; names by which certain masses were popularly known, 49 ; Lady-Mass, i. 201, ii. 165, 166, 193; INDEX. 331 MAS where celebrated, rule in Catholic Church, i. 152; in churches, 20; in oratories, 96, ii. 206 ; licenses for private oratories, 221 ; proscribed in unconsecrated, 220, 221 ; penalties for saying, in unconsecrated without permission, 220 ; in chambers of the sick, i. 154, 231, 232; sometimes said by abuse in bed-chambers of Anglo-Saxon nobles, 154; forbidden in country churches and private oratories on great feast days, 44 ; said in hermitages, 191, ii. 181, 185-18S, 193; in tents, i. 21, 152, 153, 195; occasions of celebration, 194, 195, 21:3; consecration of a knight, ii. 224; before battle, 226; high mass, i. 9", 182, 183, ii. 49, 165, 166; low mass, i. 183, ii. 49, 165, 166; for wayfarers, 166, 222; pontifical mass, i. 183, «. ; solitary mass, 191, ii. 185, et seq. ; Mass of the Presancti- fied, 244, 245 ; frequency of cele- bration, i. 24, 63, 92, 189, 190, ii. 132, 133, 167, 210; Leo III. often celebrated many masses on one day, i. 189; example of daily celebration in VI. century, 75; daily celebration, recommended to recluses, ii. 184; attendance at, obligatory on Sundays and festivals, i. 43, 191, 193, 194, ii. 230, 232, 262, n. ; atonement for neglect of this duty, 214; daily attendance at, of all classes, 222 ; examples of, i. 43, ii. 210, 212, 214, 215 ; sec Scholars, Universities ; non- communicants present at, i. 46-49, 191, 192; excommunicated persons could not be present at solemn parts of mass, 48, 194; must be said fast- ing, 45, 232 ; chastisement for neg- lect of this discipline, 45 ; heard fasting, 189, 193, ii. 222; hours for, i. 43, «., 67, 188, 189, ii. 165, 166, 215 ; omission of mass, 133 ; length of time given to celebration of mass, 127, 128; assistants at, forbidden to leave before the conclusion of, i. 32, 47-49; a first mass, ii. 126, 127; Anglo-Saxon rules concerning mass for the dead, i. 207, 20S ; mass for the dead, 43, 203, 204, ii. 146, ct seq. ; see Universities ; legacies for, see Chantries ; examples of, annually said for the dead, i. 153, 210, 212, ii. 147, 149; daily, i. 43, 210, ii. 165; examples of, 143, ;?., 1 17, 149; offerings at, see Oblatiins; payment for, see Honorarium ; fines for swearing NIN 'by the mass,' 215, 216; server at, i. I So, 181, 191 ; generally a monk or cleric, 180 ; forbidden to say mass without, except in very exceptional circumstances, ii. 49; according to Grimlaic's rule, a priest recluse had no server, 184; rules among the Gilbertines as regards, 1 70 ; serving mass one of the first things taught to young scholars, i. 180, 181 Maur, Raban, his account of the cere- monies of Holy .""aturday, i. 223, 224; of consecration of a church, 155, 156; of high mass, 183; quoted on daily communion and penance, 228 Mellitus, St., offered mass, and distri- buted communion in St. P-iul's, i. 88 ; banishment of, 88 RIemento in the Mass, a great spiritual advantage to be named in, i. 122, 203, ii. 139 Mercia, conversion of, i. 93 Miracles, life sustained by the Holy Eucharist only, ii. 195, 196; related by St. Gregory of Tours, i. 38, 44, 45 ; see Visions Missa co7iftata, ii. 51 Missal, Gotho-Gallic, i. 60, ;/. ; Stowe Missal, 64, n. ; see Books, Liturgy Missions, in VII., XVII. and XVIII. centuries, i. 99, 100 Monasteries, in early British Church, i. 19; double, under government of an abbess, i. 181; mass and communion in, ii. 167-176; inquiries made by Inquisitors sent by Henry VIII. , respecting communion and confession in, 217; see Monks, Nuns Money of Middle Ages, corresponding value in modern, ii. 53, 54, 141 Monks, of early British Church, i. 195 forbidden to wear arms or to fight, 195 ; goldsmiths of Middle Ages, ii. 104; care of, for benefactors and the dead, 167, 168 ; Sir Walter Scott's remark on, i. 8 ; see Monasteries, Confession, Communion Monstrance, ii. 98-ico More, Sir Thomas, prayer of, ii. 173 Music, orchestral, vocal, i. 44 IVTEALE, Dr., statements historically and doctrinally false in his ser- mons on Blessed Sacrament, ii. 28, et seq. Ninian, .St., a Briton of Strathclyde, i, 54 ; made a bishop, preached success- 332 INDEX. NUN fully to the Southern Picts, 54 ; built his church of stone (Candida Casa), 54 ; traditions concerning him, 54, 55 Nuns, i. 19 ; custom of Anglo-Saxon, to hear mass in their ' minsters, ' 193 ; Anglo-Saxon, love of dress, 192, «.; exhorted to frequent com- munion, 221 ; mediaeval, their com- munion, ii. 171-173; see Monas- teries, Confession, Communion /^ATHS, Saxon coronation oath, i. 255, ii. 209 ; solemn, of the Welsh and Saxons, i. 253, 254; time for receiving compurgation oath, ii. 39; oath placed upon the altar, i. 253, 254, ii. 209 ; oath of communicants of more value than that of others, i. 253 ; Declaration prescribed by Act of Settlement, 255 Oblations, of the people, i. 45, 171 ; offerings of money substituted in- stead of bread and wine, ii. 212; royal offering-;, 213; offerings at the Easter Communion, 216 Odo, St., gives a banquet to the poor in honour of a great miracle at the altar, i. 130, 131 Office, Divine, attendance of laity at, i. 32, 42; what is meant by, 187; attendance at, a matter of coimsel, 194; performed publicly in every parish church, 150, 15 1 ; how di- vided, 187; hours for reciting it, 187, ii. 165-167; an account of the monastic hours, i. 188; St. Edmund Rich said daily, with his pupils, ii. 202 ; punishment for being absent from, 215; attendance at, not per- mitted to laity during the great Inter- dict, 284 Oflete or obley, see Elements Oil, burnt in lamps before the Blessed Sacrament, ii. 52, 97 ; cost of, 53, 97 Opus Anglicum, English ladies famous for, ii. Ill, n. Oratories, see Churches, Mass, Chapel Organs, i. 184 Oswald, St., archbishop of York, died washing the feet of the poor, i. 236 ; imposed penalties for carelessness in carrying the Holy Eucharist, 238 Oswald, St., king of the Northum- brians, i. 90, 91 ; the day of his martyrdom honoured with the cele- bration of masses, 96 ; erected a cross at Heavenfield, 91, 152 I'RI pAINTINGS, used in churches, i. Palla, not in use in media;val England, ii. 62 Paten, necessary for mass, i. 1 72 ; re- quired to be of same material as chalice, 173; consecrated by the bishop, 1 73 ; size of, 45 ; chastise- ment for profanation of a, 45 Paulinus, St., sketch of his missionary labours, i. 89, 90 Pelagianism, i. 18, 23 Penance, ordinary minister of the sacra- ment of, i. 227 ; required after con- fession of sin, 67, 226, 227 ; for- bidden to enjoin as a, paying for celebration of masses, ii. 144; see Confession Picts and -Scots, i. 52-69; sketch of the geography and history of, 52, 53 ; Christianity of Southern Picts and Northern Britons, 54, 55 ; orthodoxy of) 55. 56 ; relapse into pagan im- morality, 58 Plagues of XIV. century, ii. 168, 169; decay in religious houses mainly owing to the ' black death,' 168 Plate, Church, ii. 104, et seq. ; not private property, 107, 108 ; sold for relief of the poor, 1 14-1 16 Plato, unconsciously and imperfectly foreshadows the mystery of the Holy Eucharist, ii. 82 Poor, care of, i. 212, 213; washing the feet of, on Maundy Thursday, ii. 244, 246; gifts of, 116, 117 Poverty, title of, i. 151, ;/. Prayers, bidding, ii. 56-58 ; lay prayers, 55-60 Prefaces, decree concerning, ii. 48, 49 Priest, names for, i. 147, 148; how re- garded by the Anglo-Saxons, 147- 149; no doubtfully ordained, was permitted to celebrate, 149; duties of, 150, 151; secular priests, 19, 150; both secular and monastic priests, at an early period attached to country churches, 98 ; had care of districts, 150; commanded to keep carefully their c'nirches, and to pay great attention to celebration of mass, 150, 186; distinctive dress ff, 173; for- bidden to bear arms, 195; probably often vested at the altar, ii. 59 ; the intentions with which a priest should approach the altar, 127 ; duty of, to prepare parishioners for Easter communion, 263 ; stipends of priests, 141 ; number of priests in royal and INDEX. 333 PRI noble families, 215, 220, 221 ; number of, in diocese of York (1291), 147; priests who practised the solitary life, 184, dseq.; noble con- duct of priests in time of plague, 168; unworthy priests, 121-123 ; scurrilous names giv. n to priests liy Pilkington, 145, n. Priesthood, offering of Holy M^ss con- sidered the characteristic function of, i. 149; candidates for, required to write out the service books, 179, 180; preparation for, ii. 124; age at which men were raised to, 1 26 Procession of Blessed Sacrament on Palm Sunday, ii. 239-242 ; of Corpus Christi, 266, ef seq. PuUen, Cardinal, his Rook of Sentences, ii. 6 ; he denounces consubstantia- tion. 6 ; he condemns the custom of giving the Hos/ia inthn-ta, 33, 34 Purgatory, belief of Church of Brittany in, i. 43 ; Anglo-Saxon beliefin, 204 ; how mass avails the soul in, ii. 139 ; faith of the Church as regards, summed up by Florus, i. 204-207 ; effects of belief in the doctrine of, ii. 161, 162; souls of the poor not for- gotten, i. 212, 213, ii. 140; * vested righ's' of souls in, not respected, 162 ; see Mass, Chantries Piirificatorium, vessel of silver or tin, required for the ablations in visitation of the sick, ii. 69 Purse, the Eucharist enclosed in a, when carried to the sick, ii. 69 ; decree forbidding the use of, 86 Pyx, used for reservation of Blessed Sacrament, i. 35 ; used for carrying the Holy Eucharist to the sick, 61, ii. 68, 69; hung above the altar, i. 35, ii. 88, 89, 93: was locked, 86, 89, 92 ; material of, 92-94, loi, 102 ; form of, 93, 94 ; beriests, 1 12, 113 ; gifts of the poor, 116, 117; seized by Henry VHP, 104, 105 'Rights,' meaning of, ii. 216 Ring, touching bequest of a, to buy a canopy for the Blessed Sacrament, ii. lOI Roman liturgy, i. 177, 178 Romans, changes wrought in Britain by their occupation, i. 16, 17 334 INDEX, ROM Romans, rule of, as to frequent com- munion, i. 220 Rushes, churches strewed with, ii. 258 ; strewed in processions, 269, 273 CACRAMENT-HOUSE, ii. 91 •^ Sacrament, play of the, ii. 274 Sacrament-porch, i. 238, ii. 85 Sacrifice, doctrine of, maintained by St. John Chrysostom, i. 18; due to God alone, ii. 312, 313; Eucharistic rite in British Church regarded a^ a, i. 22 ; Holy, called by the Britons mass or missa, 21 ; Anglo-Saxon language about, 121, 122; value of the sacri- fice does not depend on the sanctity of the minister, 151, ii. 121 ; see Mass Sacring, see Elevation Saints, British, recognised by Fortuna- tus, i. 51 ; invocation of saints, 54- 58, 66, 67 ; how the worship of, is connected with sacrifice, ii. 313, 314; doctrine and example of, see tinder respective names Sanctuary, laity not admitted during mass and office, i. 37 Sanctuary, right of, i. 42, 252 Saxons, East, re-conversion of, i. 93, 94 Saxons, South, brought to the faith, i. 94 Saxons,' West, conversion of, by St. Birlnus, i. 92, 93 Scholars expected to hear mass daily, ii. 198-200; Guild of young, 200, 201 Scot, Adam, bishop of Withern, quoted as to the mode of our Lord's Presence in the Eucharist, ii. 6 Scots, see Picts Seats used in churches in XII. cen- tury, ii. 55 Sepulchre, explanation how popular devotion was transferred from rite of, to adoration at altar of repose on Holy Thursday, ii. 243, et seq. ; cere- monies at, on Easter morning, 245- 248 ; different kinds of Easter sepul- chres, 250-252 ; devotion to the, 253, 254; watching at, 254, 255; adora- tion at, a preparation for Easter Com- munion, 255; destruction of sepul- chres, 250-252 Serfs, i. 250, 251 Sermons, leaving church before the SUR sermon, i. 47 ; unwillingness to hear, ii. 234 ; attendance at, required by Council of Clovesho, i. 194; law commanding the attendance of laity at the preaching of God's word, 193 ; sermon followed the bidding prayer, ii. 58; permitted during Great Inter- dict, 284; remark of Henry III. on, 214; Edward IV. required his son and his servants to be present at, 715 Serpent, representation of, used in cere- monies of Holy Week, ii. 244 Shear Thui sday, derivation of the name, ii. 243 Shechinah, the Christian, i. 240 Singing, i. 183, 184; meaning of the expression 'to sing mass,' 183 Sins, different in kind and in effect, i. 228 ; see Confession Slavery, Britons reduced to, i. 72 ; in Saxon England, 246, et seq. Slaves, ransomed for the priesthood, i. 97, 98, 250, 251, «. ; at the death of a bishop all his English slaves libe- rated, 208 ; whether mass or office could be offered for a runaway slave, 212, 213 Solitary life, sketch of the nature and history of, in connection with the Blessed Sacrament, ii. 177, et seq. ; bishop's permission needed for, 180, 181 Spiritual, meaning of, as applied to the Blessed Sacrament, i. 141-143 Stole, how worn by the Anglo-Saxons, i. 174; the priest to have a stole with him when he carries the Eucharist to the sick, ii. 69 ; to be laid crosswise over the pyx, 68, 69 Stowe Missal, extracts from the ' Canon' of the, i. 64 Strabo, Walafrid, quoted on frequency of communion, i. 219, 220; as to what is the legitimate (or perfect) mass, 180, 215; as to a saying of St. Boniface, ii. 103 ; as to progress in splendour, 104 ; on martydom of St. Blaithmac, i. 68 Sudary, ii. 95; j^t' Canopy, Pyx-cloth Sunday, observance of, i. 193, 194, ii. 229-238; how reckoned, i. 193, ii. 233; freedom of, i. 193, ii. 96. Surplice, worn in carrying the Eu- charist to the sick, ii. 69, 70; worn while making altar-breads, i. 168; priests commanded to assist in sur- plice in procession of Corpus Christi, ii. 268 INDEX. 335 TAB nPABERNACLE, what is understood ■*■ by, ii . 86, et seq. ; example of fixed tabernacle erected on the altar in Scotland, 90 ; fixed tabernacles first used in England in reign of Queen Mary, 92 ; see Tower, Pyx Tears, gift of, ii. 129-132; special collect for, in Roman Missal, 129; St. Anselm's prayer for, 130; ex- amples of saints who had this gift, ii. 128, 129, 131, 132, 136, 185 Test Act, first mention in parliament of a heresy afterwards adopted by that assembly as test of allegiance, known as, ii. 304 Theodore, St., archbishop of Canter- bury, condemned certain Britons, i. 113, ;;. ; forbade steps to altar, 157; his Penitential, 152, 165; dcL^^isions of, regarding frequent communion, 220, and mass for the dead, 207; quoted on the use of incense, 185 Thomas Cantalupe, St., never said mass without shedding tears, ii. 131 Thomas, St., of Canterbury, his great reverence for the Holy Eucharist, ii. 128, 129 Thomas, St., of Villanova, hisargument for the Church's sanctity, i. 3 Thurible, described by St. Aldhelm, i. Time, necessity of understanding divi- sion of, i. 186; how reckoned by Anglo-Saxons, 1S6 Torches, lighted at the elevation, ii. 67; used at funerals, 151 ; lighted, carried on Corpus Christi Day, 266, 267, 273 Tower or Tabernacle, i. 25, 35, 37 Transubstantiation, belief of Picts and Scots in, i. 60 ; Anglo-Saxon belief in, 122; explicit assertions of Anglo- Saxon writers, 123; how expressed by the Anglo-Saxons, 122; denied by Berengarius, ii. 3 ; belief of the Anglo-Norman Church in the doc- trine of, 8 ; early writers quoted in proof of this assertion, 4, et seq. ; rejection of the doctrine by Wyclifife and his followers, 293, et seq. ; English kings and queens made to repudiate the doctrine of Transubstan- tiation by Act of Settlement, i. 255 ; popular Protestant theory as to the growth of the doctrine of, ii. 15; repudiation of, by Scotch Episcopal Church, 15 ; see Real Presence Trent, Council of, as to frequent com- VIC munion, i. 191 ; on concomitance, ii. 13 Trentals, ii. 150, 151 ; what is meant by St. Gregory's Trental, 150 Tube, Eucharistic, i. 219, ii. 37 Turner, Sharon, his statement regard- ing Anglo-Saxon belief, i. 140 ; curious mistranslation of, 147, n. TJNIVERSITIES, number of ^ students at, ii. 201 ; rival cele- brations of different nations, 203 ; statutes requiring the attendance of students at daily mass, 202, 203 ; beautiful spirit of gratitude that animated universities to offer mass for deceased benefactors, 203-205 ; examples of, 204-207 'Use, To,' meaning of, ii. 171, n. WAUGHAN, Herbert, bishop of Salford, quoted, see Intentions Veil, Lenten, ii. 249, n. Vestments, parts, shape, and material, i. 173, 174, ii. 1 20; legacies of, i. 209, 210; gift of, ii. 99; rich, 109- III, 241; what, necessary for a priest-hermit, 185; injunctions for destruction of, 120; see Chasuble, Embroideiy Viaticum, IVeg - nest Anglo - Saxon name for, i. 231; might be lawfully administered under either species or under both, 234 ; received under one kind by the Britons, 22, 23 ; likewise by Anglo-Saxons, 217; examples, 95, 96, 234; received under one kind in Middle Ages, ii. 31 ; form for administration from Book of Deer, i. 65 ; forms from books of Moling and Dimma, 66 ; directions for administering, 232 ; not given to those who were insensible, 232 ; given before battle, 68, 233, ii. 226, 227 ; not usually granted to criminals condemned to death, i. 232, 233 ; since XIII, century given before Extreme Unction, 233 ; frequency of, 233 ; how often received in mo- nasteries, 233, 234; could be re- ceived at all hours, 234; conceded by the pope towards the end of Great Interdict, ii. 288 ; ceremonial pre- scribed in carrying the Blessed Sacra- ment to the sick, 68-70 Victricius, St., passage from his trea- tise De Laude Sanctorum, i. 57 336 INDEX. VIN Vine plmted in England, in III. cen- tury, i. 171 Vineyards, in England, i. 171 Vision of Judgment, i. 230 Vision of St. Peter seen by St. Godric, ii. 193 Vision of Splendour seen by St. Gutli- lac, ii. 187 Visions of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, told by Palladius, i. 129, by St. Germain, 26, by ^Ifric, 145; of St. Edward, 127; of St. Odo, 1 28-1 3 1 ; related by Matthew Paris, 'V^AKES of the dead,' when abol- ^ • ished in England, ii. 43 Walafrid, see Strabo Water, see Elements Water, Holy, used in the consecration of a church, i. 160; of an altar, 155; taken on entering a church, ii. 8i, n. ; on Holy Thursday altars washed with, 244 ; use of, conceded by the pope during Great Interdict, 284 ; Easter holy w ter, 259 ' Weg-nest,' see Viaticum Welsh Church, sketch of, i. 114-I18 Wilfrid, St., rescues 250 men and women from slavery, i. 94 ; founds a monastery in Selsey, 94 ; a story re- lated of this monastery that illustrates the history of the Eucharist, 95, 96 William the Conqueror, King, his assiduity in hearing Mass and attend- ing Divine Office, ii. 210 ; his recep- tion of the last sacraments, 2 1 1 WYC William, St., of York, his tears and devotion and supposed poisoning, ii. 134-136 Wills, Extracts from King Alfred's, i. 209; Bishop Theodred's, 209, 210; the will of Mantat, 'the anker,' 210; Robert Carlill's bequest to the high altar, ii. 117; j'(?£' Chantries Wine, see Elements Witenagemot, Anglo-Saxons assisted at mass before their deliberation in the, i. 253 Women, owe their freedom and dignity to the Catholic Church, i. 182 ; held in great esteem among the Anglo- Saxons, 181 ; not allowed to serve at the altar, 181 ; their place in church, 192, ii. 182 ; Milton's views as regards, i. 182 ; allowed to carry the Blessed Sacrament in times of per- secution, 182 ; doubtful whether women wore veils in church, 192 ; St. Theodore's decision that women should receive communion clothed with a black vt'il, 193, 194 ; see Nuns, Recluse, Embroidery Wordsworth, his sonnet on Transub- stantiation, ii. 173 ; his lines on St. Herbert, 188 Wright, T., his theory that Christian- ity was not established in Roman Britain discussed, i. 14, 15 Wulstan, St., bishop of Worcester, his special devotion to the mass, ii. 11 ; on account of a distraction at mass, he abstained from flesh meat, 1 1 Wycliffe, account of his teaching and his writings, ii, 293-306 THE END LONDON" : PRI.S'TRD BY SPOTTISWOODK AND CO., NliW-STRF, KT AND FARLIAMKNT STREET Date Due H ^f>^^^^ ^- ^^'*»^"*C(SA» ^w^s^aft'^^,^ " _ PRINTED IN U. 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