FABRIC AND FURNITURE OF CHURCHES, AND OFFICIAL COSTUME OF PRIESTS.
It is not necessary to describe the churches of mediæval England, for
happily they still exist of all periods and styles, from the rude Saxon
church built of split oak or chestnut trunks, at Greenstead, in Essex,
down to the noble perpendicular churches of the close of the fifteenth
century.
We may, however, make two remarks upon them. First, the comparative
magnitude and sublimity of the churches was far greater in the times when
they were built. The contrast between the village church and the cots of
the peasantry around it, and even the small, lowly, half-timber manor
house in its neighbourhood; the contrast between the town churches and the
narrow streets of timber houses; still more the contrast between the great
cathedrals and monastic churches and all the habitations of men; fills us
with admiration of the splendid genius of the men who designed them, and
the large-minded devotion of the men who caused them to be built.
[Illustration: Saffron Walden Church, Essex.]
The second remark which we have to make is that, though we have the old
churches, they are, for the most part, stripped of all their ancient
decorations and furnishing; and that it requires some ecclesiological
knowledge and some power of imagination to realize their ancient beauty.
If we want to replace before the mind’s eye the sort of church in which a
fourteenth or fifteenth century rector or vicar said the Divine service
continually, we shall have the advantage of finding the church still
existing, perhaps with very little alteration in its general architectural
outline; but we shall have to imagine the walls covered with fresco
painting of Old and New Testament story; the windows filled with gem-like
glass; the chancel screens and the rood loft with its sacred figures; the
chantry chapels; the altar tombs with effigies of knight and lady; the
lights twinkling before altar, rood and statue.
[Illustration: Market Harborough Church, Leicestershire.]
[Illustration: Chapel of Edward the Confessor, Westminster Abbey.]
* * * * *
We shall see from the Constitution of Archbishop Gray, quoted below, that
the parishioners were, by ancient custom, liable for the maintenance and
repair of the body and tower of their church; the fifth of the
“extravagants” of Stratford, Archbishop of York (1342),[183] records that
this was done by means of a proportionate tax on the estates and farms of
the parish. From the records of bishops’ Visitations, we learn, further,
that the bishops exercised greater power in the matter of church building
in old times than they do now. They had not only the power to require that
the church should be kept in good repair, but that, where necessary, it
should be enlarged. Thus, Bishop Stapledon (1309) orders the parishioners
of Ilfracombe, since the church is not capable of holding all the
parishioners, to enlarge it by lengthening the body of the church by 24
feet at least, and adding two aisles, within two years, under a penalty of
£40.[184]
At a Visitation of Sturton parish church, in 1314, in the time of the same
bishop, it was returned that, in addition to defects in the furniture, the
church is too small (_strictus_) and dark; the nave of the church
likewise. Therefore, “the lord bishop enjoins the rectors, vicar, and
parishioners, that they cause the said defects to be made good, according
to what belongs to them severally, before the next feast of St. Michael,
under penalty of £20 to the fabric of the [cathedral] Church of Exeter;
except the construction of the new chancel and the enlargement of the
church, and they to be done before St. Michael day twelve-month.”[185]
From the thirteenth century we have full information of the furniture and
utensils, vestments, and books which the canons required to be provided in
every church for the performance of Divine service and the ministration of
the offices of the Church. Walter Gray, Archbishop of York, c. 1250, made
a constitution which we subjoin; and similar lists occur from time to
time, for both provinces, in visitation inquiries, inventories and
constitutions;[186] _e.g._ in the Constitutions of Robert of Winchelsea,
Archbishop of Canterbury, 1305.
Since much altercation has arisen between some of the rectors and
vicars and their parishioners about the various ecclesiastical
ornaments as to what it belonged to the rectors or their vicars to
provide and maintain and what to the parishioners, we ordain and
appoint that the parishioners provide a chalice, missal, the principal
vestment of the church, viz. a chasuble, white albe, amice, stole,
maniple, zone, with three towels, a corporal, and other decent
vestments for the deacon and sub-deacon, according to the means of the
parishioners and of the church, together with a principal silk cope
for chief festivals, and with two others for the rulers of the choir
in the foresaid festivals, a processional cross and another smaller
cross for the dead, and a bier for the dead, a vase for holy water, an
osculatory, a candlestick for the Paschal candle, a thurible, a
lantern with a bell, a Lent veil, two candlesticks for the taper
bearers; of books, a Legendary, Antiphonary, Gradual, Psalter,
Topiary, Ordinale, Missal, Manual; a frontal to the great altar, three
surplices, a suitable pyx for the “Corpus Christi,” a banner for the
Rogations, great bells with their ropes, a holy font with fastening, a
chrismatory, images in the church, and the principal image in the
church of the person to whom the church is dedicated, the repair of
books and vestments so often as they require repair; and in addition
to all the aforesaid things a light in the church, the repair of the
nave of the church, with its bell-tower, internally and externally,
viz. with glass windows, with the enclosure of the cemetery, with
other things belonging to the nave of the church, and other things
which by custom belong to the parishioners. To the rectors or vicars
belong all other things according to various ordinances, viz. the
principal chancel with its repairs both in walls and roofs and glass
windows belonging to the same, with desks and forms and other
ornaments suitable, so that with the prophet they may be able to sing,
“Lord, I have loved the honour of Thy house,” etc. As to the manse of
the rectory and its repair, and other things which are not written in
this book, let the rectors or vicars know that they may be compelled
by the ordinary of the place, to do according to this constitution and
others in this case provided.[187]
This is the formal catalogue of the minimum which the law required the
parson and the parishioners to provide and maintain. But people were not
satisfied with doing only what they were obliged to do. A considerable
number of inventories exist of the treasures which had gradually
accumulated as the gifts of pious benefactors to the cathedrals and
churches: shrines, reliquaries, statues, crosses, mitres, pastoral staves,
lamps and candlesticks, chalices, patens, pyxes, paxes, censers,
processional crosses of gold and silver, often set with precious stones;
altar cloths, hangings, palls,[188] vestments of the costliest fabrics,
many of them embroidered, and often ornamented with precious stones. When
we add the paintings of stained and sculptured marble, and carved woodwork
of the fabric, and the monuments with their recumbent statues, and call to
mind that the best art of the period was devoted to these works, we
recognize that the churches of the country were treasures of art. Even the
humblest village churches often possessed noble tombs of the local lords,
and their gifts of ornaments of costly material and fine workmanship.
[Illustration: PROCESSION OF BISHOPS WITH CROSS BEARER, THURIFER, HOLY
WATER BEARER, PRIESTS, CANONS AND BISHOPS. FROM THE XV. CENT. MS.,
TIBERIUS, B VIII., f. 43.]
If we wish to see our priests as they ministered in church, it will be
necessary to describe the vestments which were worn by them in those
days.[189]
It is a little doubtful what they wore at the very beginning of our
English Church history. The British bishops, no doubt, from early times
down to the sixth century, wore the white tunic with long sleeves, which
from its general colour was called the albe. The bishops and priests of
the Celtic school who clung to the old usages were probably still wearing
the pallium when Augustine came to Kent. But about that time the pallium
was being superseded by a newer vestment called the planeta or chasuble, a
circle of linen or other material with a hole in the middle through which
the head was passed, so that the garment fell in folds all round the
person. Very likely Augustine and the Continental school of clergy wore
this new garment, and it would be adopted by the Celtic school when they
accepted the Continental usages. The chasuble continued to be worn at the
altar down to the end of the Middle Ages with a slight modification in
shape; the voluminous folds in which it was gathered over the arms, when
the hands were in use, were practically inconvenient, and so the circle
came to be contracted into an oval, and then the ends of the oval were
shaped to a point.
The orarium, which afterwards came to be called the stole, was originally
a prayer-veil worn over the head by the priests and people of heathen Rome
when they attended a sacrifice. It had an embroidered border which fell
round the neck and shoulders. In course of time the veil was narrowed to
its embroidered border, and was lengthened into a kind of scarf, worn over
the shoulders and hanging down in front. A deacon wore the stole over one
shoulder.
In early times the priest and deacon bore a napkin, called the fanon or
maniple, over the left arm, with which to wipe the edge of the chalice;
but this also was in time reduced to a strip of embroidered material.
The amice was a linen hood worn with the chasuble, placed over the head
while the chasuble was put on, and then thrown back; so that it was seen
only like a loose fold of linen round the neck.
The dalmatic was another upper garment, in form like a wide short tunic
slit up at the sides, with short wide sleeves; and about the tenth
century it became the distinctive upper vestment of the deacon. A little
later the sub-deacon wore a tunicle, which was a scantier dalmatic.
We often find “a suit of vestments” mentioned in inventories and wills,
and in several places it is defined in detail as a chasuble, two tunicles,
three albes, and three amices, the vestments needed by the celebrant, his
deacon, and sub-deacon; the chasuble and tunicles would be of the same
material, colour, and style of ornamentation.
The cope was simply a cloak. The shape in which we first find it as an
ecclesiastical vestment was an exact semicircle, usually with an
ornamented border along the straight side, which, when worn, fell down in
two lines of embroidery in front. It was originally a protection from the
weather, as indicated by its name “Pluviale,” and by the hood, which is so
integral a part of the original idea of the garment, that for centuries a
flat triangular piece of ornamental work was sewn at the back of the cope,
to represent this hood. It first appears as a clerical vestment about the
end of the ninth century, and was worn in processions and in choir.
The surplice is the most modern of the clerical vestments. The fashion,
introduced about the eleventh century, of having the tunic lined with fur,
was found very comfortable by the clergy in their long services in cold
churches; but the strait, girded albe looked ungraceful over it, and so
the albe was enlarged into a surplice, to be worn in all minor offices
over the furred robe, as its name, _superpelliceum_, indicates, while the
albe continued to be used in the Eucharistic Service.
[Illustration: Bishop and Canons, from Richard II.’s “Book of Hours,”
British Museum.]
The shape of the surplice differs much in different examples. We give some
illustrations in which it will be seen that the surplice of a canon is
long and ample, while that of a clerk is little wider than an albe, but
has wide sleeves and is not girded. In an inventory of the goods of St.
Peter, Cornhill, at the time of the Reformation, we find “gathered
surplices” for the “curate,” and “plain surplices” for the choir.[190]
Canons in choir wore over the surplice a short furred cope or cape, called
an amyss, with a fur-lined hood attached, of curious shape, as shown in
several of our illustrations. Bishops wore the whole series of vestments
with the addition of mitre, jewelled gloves and shoes, and carried a
pastoral staff.
The furniture of the churches and the vestments of its ministers were of
very different degrees of beauty and cost--from altar vessels of simple
silver of rude country make up to vessels of gold fashioned by great
artists and enriched with jewels; from a simple linen chasuble up to copes
and chasubles of cloth of gold, enriched with embroidery of high artistic
merit and adorned with gems.
After these dry technicalities, we have only to illustrate the vestments
as they appeared in actual use by some pictures from illuminated
manuscripts and other sources, with a few explanatory notes where they
seem to be necessary. Once granted that some distinctive dress is becoming
and desirable for the clergy in their ministrations, and the rest is mere
matter of taste. There is nothing mysterious about the mediæval vestments.
They were all at first (except the Orarium) ordinary articles of everyday
apparel, worn by clergy and laity alike. But it has always been thought
right that the clergy should not be in too great haste to follow new
fashions, and so they went on wearing fashions till they were obsolete;
moreover, some of these copes and planetas were costly vestments given by
kings and great men expressly to be worn in Divine service, and had been
worn by saints, and had come to have venerable associations, and no one
wished to discard them; and so they came to be distinctive and venerable.
Imaginative people soon invented a symbolical meaning for the various
vestments, and other imaginative people varied the symbolism from time to
time. St. Isidore of Seville, in the sixth century, saw in the white
colour of the albe a symbol of the purity which becomes the clerical
character, and that was so obvious and simple, that it continued to be the
recognized meaning all through the ages. Of the chasuble, St. Germanus of
Constantinople, in the eighth century, says it is a symbol of our Lord’s
humility; Amalarius of Metz, in the ninth century, says it means good
works; and Alcuin, in the tenth century, takes it to signify charity,
because it covers all the other vestments as charity excels all other
virtues. Later writers made the dalmatic, because it is in the shape of a
cross, signify the Passion of our Lord; the stole, the yoke of Christ; and
so forth.[191]
There is a fashion in clerical vestments as well as in the clothes of the
laity; the forms of the cope, chasuble, etc., at different times are
sufficiently shown in our illustrations to make description unnecessary.
We may make the one remark, that whereas the cope and chasuble of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries are of pliant material and skilful
fashion, and fall in graceful folds, the like vestments in the sixteenth
century came to be made of stiff material unskilfully shaped; in the
seventeenth century the chasuble has its sides entirely cut away, of
necessity, because the arms were unable to act under the weight and
rigidity of the material, while the back and front hang down like boards
cut into the shape of a violoncello.[192]
[Illustration: Goodrich, Bishop of Ely. (From his monumental brass.)]
It will be convenient to introduce here, from the monumental brass of
Bishop Goodrich, 1554 A.D., an example of late date, in which the
vestments are very clearly drawn, and briefly to enumerate them. The albe
reaches to the feet, the piece of embroidery upon it being one of five
such pieces, in front and back at the feet, on the wrists, and on the
breast, symbolizing the “five wounds” of our Lord. Over that may be seen
the lower part of the sub-deacon’s tunicle; over that the ends of the
stole; then the dalmatic; and over all the chasuble. The embroidered
vestment round the shoulders is probably the “rationale,” an ornament rich
with gold and jewels, worn by some bishops in this country. The plain
fillet round the neck is the linen amice. The jewelled mitre and the
pastoral staff need no description. The hands are covered with gloves of
gauntlet shape, and the tassel with which the wrist terminates will be
evident to careful observation. The maniple will be seen hanging over the
left wrist. The book held in the right hand is probably the Bible, and the
seal dependent from the same hand is the badge of this bishop’s civil
office of Lord Chancellor.
[Illustration: Abbot Delamere. St. Albans.]