CUSTOMS.
It remains to mention a great variety of observances and customs, some of
them superstitious, some innocent enough, many of them picturesque and
poetical and giving colour and variety to the popular religious life. It
would need another volume as large as this to do justice to the subject
which we find ourselves compelled to deal with in a single chapter.
The right of Sanctuary, the immunity from violence even of the criminal
who had put himself under the protection of present Deity, which was
provided for in the Levitical cities of refuge, which attached to the
temples of the gods of Greece and Rome, was, when the empire became
Christian, readily accorded to churches and their precincts. We have had
occasion to mention its existence in Saxon times;[322] it seems desirable
to say that it continued to be an important feature in the life of the
times of which we are now speaking. There were special
sanctuaries--cities of refuge--with special privileges, as at Durham,
Ripon, Hexham, Beverley, Battle, Beaulieu, Westminster, St. Martin’s le
Grand, the Savoy, Whitefriars, and the Mint in London, and other places.
Every church and every churchyard shared in the privilege, and it was no
very unusual incident to find it made use of.
As an illustration of its efficacy, we may point to the story that after
the battle of Tewkesbury, King Edward IV., with some of his knights, was
about to enter the church, sword in hand, in pursuit of some of the
defeated Lancastrians who had taken refuge there, when the priest met them
at the door bearing the consecrated host, and refused them entrance till
the king had promised pardon to several of the refugees. We frequently
meet with examples of people in danger to life or liberty taking refuge in
the nearest church.
The church was also a sanctuary for property. It was very usual to deposit
money and valuables there for safe custody. We give some examples of it in
a footnote.[323] Jews were not allowed to deposit their money and
valuables in churches.
The churchyard also gave a certain protection.[324] Ordericus Vitalis
relates that the villagers in time of war sometimes removed themselves and
their goods thither, and built themselves huts within the precincts, and
were left unmolested. From a canon of the Synod of Westminster, 1142, we
learn that ploughs and other agricultural implements placed in the
churchyard had certain immunities, probably freedom from seizure for debt.
The canon decreed that the ploughs in the fields, with the husbandmen,
should have the same immunity.[325]
A similar privilege attached to the persons of bishops; Bishop St. Hugh of
Lincoln meeting the sheriff and his men taking a man to execution, claimed
the criminal, and carried him off. The Abbot of Battle on one occasion
claimed and exercised the same episcopal privilege.
* * * * *
Pilgrimage was a popular act of devotion from Saxon times downwards, and
afforded a relief to the stay-at-home habits of the people. The pilgrimage
to the Holy Land was the most highly esteemed, after that, to the
thresholds of the apostles at Rome, and to Compostella, and great numbers
went thither. The most famous native pilgrimages were to St. Thomas of
Canterbury and Our Lady of Walsingham, but every cathedral had its shrine,
and many monasteries and many churches their relics. It would occupy pages
even to give a list of the known places of pilgrimage in every county. Let
it suffice to mention the shrines of St. Cuthbert at Durham, St. William
at York, and little St. William at Norwich, St. Hugh at Lincoln, St.
Edward Confessor at Westminster, St. Erkenwald at London, St. Wulstan at
Worcester, St. Swithun at Winchester, St. Edmund at Bury, SS. Etheldreda
and Withburga at Ely, St. Thomas at Hereford, St. Frideswide at Oxford,
St. Werburgh at Chester, St. Wulfstan at Worcester, St. Wilfrid at Ripon,
St. Richard at Chichester, St. Osmund at Salisbury, St. Paulinus at
Rochester. There were famous roods, as that near the north door of St.
Paul’s, London, and the roods of Chester and Bromholme; and statues, as
that of Our Lady of Wilsden, and of Bexley, and of other places. There
were scores of sacred wells; that of St. Winifred at Holywell, near
Chester, with its exquisite architectural enclosure and canopy, is still
almost perfect, and still resorted to for its supposed healing virtues.
Before a man went on any of the greater pilgrimages, he obtained a licence
from his parish priest, and first went to church and received the Church’s
blessing on his pious enterprise, and her prayers for his good success and
safe return, and was formally invested with his staff, scrip, and bottle
(water-bottle). The office for blessing pilgrims may be found in the old
service books. While he was away he was mentioned every Sunday, as we have
seen, in the Bidding Prayer, in his parish church. On the road, and at the
end of his journey, he found hospitals founded by pious people on purpose
to entertain pilgrims, and on the exhibition of his formal licence he
received kindly hospitality. At every great place of pilgrimage “signs”
were sold to the pilgrims, the palm at Jerusalem, scallop shells at St.
James of Compostella, and the like. In many places water, in which had
been dipped one of the relics, was sold, to be used in case of sickness,
enclosed in a leaden ampul, and was worn suspended by a cord from the
neck. Fragments of the pilgrim roads may still be traced in narrow deep
overgrown lanes on the hillsides between Guildford and Reigate, between
Westerham and Seven Oaks, leading towards Canterbury, and in green lanes
through Norfolk leading towards Walsingham. On his return the pilgrim went
to church to return thanks, and hung up his signs over his bed as
treasured mementoes of his adventurous journey. Sometimes the palmer’s
staff, or the scallop shells, were, on his death, hung on the church wall,
as the knight’s gauntlets, sword, and helmet were.[326]
The whole body of the people had an opportunity of a short pilgrimage on
the occasion of the annual procession of the parishes to the cathedral
church, or if that were too far, to some other central church with
special attractions, with banners waving and most likely music playing,
there to meet the processions from other parishes, as has been already
described at p. 121.
* * * * *
Very frequently at the great Festivals there was some picturesque addition
to the services in church; as the grotto and cradle at Christmas, the
sprinkling of ashes on Ash Wednesday, the veiling of the rood during Lent,
the procession bearing palms round the churchyard on Palm Sunday, the
creeping to the cross on Good Friday, the Easter sepulchre, on Whitsunday
the white dresses of the baptizands, the blessing of the fields on
Rogation days, the festival of the Dedication of the parish church which
was held on its saint’s day, and was a great day of social feasting. Every
Sunday the procession (Litany) round the church, sometimes preceded by a
miserable figure in white, bearing a taper, doing penance. At funerals
there was a great display of mournful pageantry; and month’s-minds, and
obits, frequently occurring, added a feature to the service in which
everybody took a personal interest; for the good people then, when the
banns of a marriage were published, kindly responded with a “God speed
them well”; and when the names of the departed were proclaimed, prayed
“God rest their souls.”
* * * * *
In the Middle Ages, all the services of the church, attended by the
people, were celebrated by daylight, except, perhaps, the first evensong
on the eves of saint days, and very early celebrations, and then the
attendants probably brought a taper or a coil of wax-light for themselves,
so that there was no need of provision for the lighting up of the whole
interior of churches, such as is customary in these days; but lights in
churches were a conspicuous part of their furniture, and the provision of
them was a source of general interest to the people.
First there were the altar lights. A law of Edmund directs that the priest
shall not celebrate without a light; not for use, but as a symbol. At low
mass one candle on the gospel side of the altar was sufficient, _e.g._ one
was habitually used in Lincoln Cathedral at low mass. In poor churches,
sometimes only one was used. Myrc, in his “Instructions to Parish
Priests,” says--
Look that thy candle of wax it be,
And set it so that thou it see,
On the left half of thine altere,
And look always that it burn clere.
In pictures of the celebration of the Eucharist in illuminated MSS., we
sometimes find only one candle on the altar, _e.g._ in Nero E. II.
(fourteenth cent.) _passim_. More usually in later times two wax candles
were placed on the altar, which were understood to symbolize the presence
in the sacrament of Christ the Light of the World, and their number to
allude to the two natures in our Lord.
It was required that an oil-lamp should hang before the high altar, always
alight, in honour of the reserved sacrament in its Pyx. It was an ancient
custom to have a great ornamented wax-light at Easter, called the Paschal
Candle, in honour of the Resurrection of our Lord. Lights were placed on
the rood-loft, and tapers were burned in front of the images of the
saints, here and there in the church and its chapels. “The lighting of
candles is not to dispel darkness, but to show that the saints are
lightened by the light of heaven from God, as when they were alive, and
the light of Faith, Grace, and Doctrine shone in them in this life.” “The
Church Light before the rood, the relics, or images of saints burneth to
the honour of God.”[327]
The number of these lights before saints was sometimes considerable. For
example, the churchwardens’ accounts of All Saints’, Derby, for 1466-67,
give entries with respect to the lights in that church, which tell us the
number of images of saints, the number of tapers before each image, and
the way in which they were provided:--
St. Catherine’s lights contained 20 serges, maintained by the
collection of the Candle lighter.
St. Nicholas’ light contained 12 serges, maintained by the gathering
of the Parish Clerk on St. Nicholas’ night.
Four other serges were burnt before St. Nicholas, which were provided
by the Schoolmaster’s gathering from his scholars, St. Nicholas being
the patron saint of School boys.
St. Eloy’s (Elgius) light had 6 serges, maintained by the Gild of the
Farriers.
St. Clement’s light had 5 serges, maintained by the Gild of Bakers.
Our Lady’s light contained 5 serges, maintained by the Shoemakers.
Before the Rood 5 serges were maintained by 5 several benefactors.
Before the Mary of Pity 5 serges were maintained by the wife of Ralph
Mayre.
In the Lady Chapel before our Lady 3 serges, maintained by 3 several
benefactors.
In the same chapel before the Image of St. John Baptist several serges
maintained by one benefactor.
Before St. Christopher 5 serges by 5 individuals.
3 serges which Anc{r} Geyr found, one before our Lady, another before
St. Catherine, and the third before the Trinity Altar.
Before St. Edmund 2 serges by the gathering of the Clerk on St.
Edmund’s night, gathering as they do on St. Nicholas’ night.[328]
Dr. Cox says that these lights were probably all lighted at high mass; but
those of saints only on their saint days, and that only the altar-lamp was
left alight all night.
At the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a temporary
wooden chandelier, called a trindle, bearing many lights, was set up in
church, and the attendants at the service brought tapers with them; the
general illumination gave to the festival the name of Candle-Mass.
The popularity of these lights is shown in many ways--gilds maintained
them, the public generally subscribed to them, and testators frequently
left money to them.
A taper seems sometimes to have been symbolical of a person, as when the
people who followed a procession carried them and presented them at the
altar; when a nun to be professed and an anchoress to be enclosed, thus
carried and offered them; when a penitent carried them; and, when in
excommunication, “by bell, book, and candle,” the candle was extinguished.
Perhaps, in giving to the lights before the rood and the images of saints,
there was some notion in the donors’ minds that they were keeping
themselves in the recollection of Christ and the saints.
Besides these ritual lights, it was customary at a funeral to set up a
wooden herse in church around the coffin, and to place two or more large
wax candles, often called torches, about the herse. People often made
provision in their wills for such lights, not only on the day of the
funeral, but on the week-day, month’s-mind, and yearly obit, and sometimes
at a perpetual obit. Perhaps what was intended to be symbolized was that,
though their bodies were buried in darkness, their souls were in the land
of light.
* * * * *
The dramatic representation of Scripture subjects--the Three Kings at
Christmas, the Passion of our Lord in Lent, and others at other times--was
common in the cathedrals, monasteries, large towns, and perhaps villages.
Bishop Poor, in his “Ancren Riewle,” suggests that female recluses, who
sometimes lived in a cell beside the church, may have to mention among
other subjects of confession, “I went to the play in the churchyard; I
looked on at the wrestling, or other foolish sports.” The Passion play at
Ober Ammergau has proved that such performances may be made dignified and
devotional.
* * * * *
The custom of using the churchyard for purposes of business and pleasure
was very common and very persistent. As early as the fourth century St.
Basil protested against the holding of markets in the precincts of
churches, under pretext of making better provision for the festivals; but
the custom held its own, and we have a catena of synodical declarations
against holding secular pleas, markets and fairs, and indulging in sports,
in church and churchyard, and a series of complaints by the synodsmen in
their annual presentation to their bishops of the breach of the canons.
Cardinal Ottobon, at the Synod of London, 1268, made a constitution
prohibiting this kind of use of the sacred building and its enclosure; and
strictly enjoining all bishops and other prelates to cause it to be
inviolably observed on pain of ecclesiastical censure; and here are a few
examples of the way in which it was disregarded down to so late a period
as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries:
The parishioners of St. Michael le Belfry, York, in 1416, complain that a
common market is held in their churchyard on Sundays and holidays.[329] In
the explanation of the Second Commandment, c. xvi., in “Dives and
Pauper,” in allusion to the abuse, which adds a little to our information,
“no markette sholde be holden by vytaylers or other chapmen on Sondaye in
the churche or in the churchyarde or at the church gate ne in sentuary
(churchyard) ne out.” In another place (Sixth Commandment, c. i.) we learn
that the chapmen and their families sometimes slept in the church or
churchyard.
One of the canons of the Synod of Exeter, 1287, strictly enjoins on parish
priests that they publicly proclaim in their churches that no one presume
to carry on combats, dances, or other improper sports in the churchyards,
especially on the even and feasts of saints, or stage plays or farces
(_ludos theatrales et ludebriorum spectacula_).[330] Yet in 1472, at
Sallay, in Yorkshire, it is found necessary to make an order that no one
use improper and prohibited sports within the churchyard, as, for example,
_pilopedali vel manuale_, tutts and handball, or wrestling.
* * * * *
A custom which is still more opposed to our sense of propriety was that of
holding church ales in the sacred building. A church ale was the old form
of parish tea. It was connected with works of piety or charity, or of
Christian fellowship, and in the eyes of the people of those times perhaps
partook of the nature of the primitive love-feasts. They made a collection
for the poor of the parish at a Whitsun Ale, started a young couple with a
little sum by a Bride Ale, or got a man out of difficulties by a Bid Ale
(from _biddan_, to pray or beg). So persistent was the custom, that in our
latest English canons of 1603 it is thought necessary to prohibit any
holding of feasts, banquets, suppers, or church ale drinkings in
church.[331]