ST. NICHOLAS IN ENGLAND
St. Nicholas is practically forgotten to-day in Protestant England. But
in the merrie England of olden times, before the Catholic religion had
given way to Protestantism, he was one of the most popular saints in
the calendar.
This is shown not only by the number of churches dedicated in his
honor, but also by the number of boys who received his name in baptism.
Nicholases were once as common among the Englishmen of the past as
Maries were among English women. A curious fact may be brought up in
evidence. In English catechisms, whose forms date from a very early
time, the question is put to the pupil:
“What is your name?”
And the answer is printed thus: “N. or M.” Of course the pupil is
expected to put his or her name in place of these initials. Now it is
probable that N stands for Nicholas and M for Mary, and the choice of
these initials was made not only because Nicholas was the patron of
boys and Mary of girls, but because these were the commonest names in
Old England.
The feast of St. Nicholas used to be celebrated by a ceremony known as
the election of a Boy-bishop. This custom existed to some extent on
the continent of Europe, but it nowhere flourished so vigorously as in
England. It has been traced as far back as the thirteenth century.
To the choir boys and altar boys of English churches it was a
particularly exciting time.
On St. Nicholas’ eve all the boys who sang in the choir or served at
the altar met at their parish church, or in the great cathedral, if
they belonged to a bishop’s see, and elected one from among their
number, who took the title of “the Boy-bishop.” This title with its
dignities he retained until December 28th, Holy Innocents’ Day, so
called because it is the anniversary of the slaughter of the children
in Palestine by order of the wicked King Herod.
The Boy-bishop was dressed in the robes of a real bishop. On his head
was placed a mitre, in his right hand a crozier. Another boy was
elected dean, while the rest were styled canons, all being dressed in
the robes of their office.
During the three weeks from December 5 to December 28, the Boy-bishop
could perform all the duties of a real bishop, except that of saying
mass. If a priest died during the period when he held office he could
appoint another to take his place in the church left vacant. If he
himself died before Holy Innocents’ Day he was given a bishop’s grand
funeral in the cathedral.
“There is a little tomb of this kind,” says Miss Abbie Farwell Brown,
“not half the size of a full-grown one, in a great cathedral that I
know. It is of white marble, grandly carved and decorated, and though
it is worn and nicked by eight hundred years of change, one can plainly
see that it is a child’s face among the long curls beneath the bishop’s
mitre. No one knows his name, nor aught about him, save that he must be
one of the Boy-bishops who died at Christmas time, or he would not be
buried in the great cathedral tomb.”[4]
Doubtless Miss Brown has in mind the cathedral of Salisbury, England.
In the nave of that great minster there is just such a tomb, with just
such a likeness carved upon it. The boy’s foot rests on the figure of
a monster with a lion’s head and a dragon’s tail, in allusion to the
words of the psalmist “Thou shalt tread on the lion and the dragon.”
But to continue. On December 6th the newly elected Boy-bishop with his
dean and canons held a grand service in the church to which they were
attached, the prayers being chanted in the boy’s sweet childish voice.
A great crowd always thronged the church to gaze on so rare a sight,
and the offerings that they made were all for the Boy-bishop.
After the services were over the bishop and his boy-assistants would
form themselves into a procession and parade through the streets of the
town or the lanes of the countryside, asking some small money tributes
from all they met and at every door where they knocked. This was known
as the Bishop’s Subsidy and though no one was likely to give a great
deal, yet as the procession was continued every day during the three
weeks, the amount collected sometimes rolled up into quite a pretty sum.
Faster and more furious grew the fun as the time of the bishop’s rule
neared its close. On the afternoon of December 27th little Nicholas
and his companions sang vespers, while the real priests of the church
acted as altar boys and choristers. Then the Boy-bishop gave a solemn
benediction to all present. Making the sign of the cross over the
kneeling throngs, he dismissed them with the words:
Crucis signo vos consigno; vestra sit tuitio,
Quos nos emit et redemit suae carnis pretio.
These latin words being translated into English mean:
“I bestow upon you the sign of the cross, yours be it to learn what is
sent for our redemption through the price of his flesh.”
Next day (the actual feast of the Holy Innocents), the Boy-bishop
preached a sermon which usually was written for him by some famous
prelate. On his dismissal of the congregation at the close of the
sermon, the festival of the Boy-bishop was at an end.
When Henry VIII became a Protestant and brought over a great many of
his subjects to the new faith one of his first acts was to abolish the
Boy-bishop and his festival. Henry’s daughter, Queen Mary, restored
both for the few years of her own reign, but Queen Elizabeth, her
sister and successor, put an end to the mummery forever.
We catch our last glimpse of the Boy-bishop in the pages of a historian
called William Strype, who informs us that on the fifth day of
December, 1556, (Queen Mary being then still alive) “a boy habited
like a bishop in pontificalibus, went abroad in most parts of London,
singing after the old fashion, and was received by many ignorant but
well disposed people into their houses, and had as much good cheer as
was ever wont to be had before, at least in many places.”
Old customs die hard. We have come across many instances of the truth
of this saying in the course of our study of the Christmas festivals.
Just as Christianity had to retain and remodel many old heathen
customs, so Protestantism (often without meaning it) retained and
remodeled many an old Catholic custom. Just as Silenus, and Saturn,
survived in a measure as Santa Claus, so the Boy-bishop, in a measure,
survived as the hero of a ceremony which flourished at the school of
Eton until nearly the middle of the nineteenth century.
This was known as Eton Montem. It was celebrated not in December but in
June, though tradition tells us that the original date was St. Nicholas
Day and that the ceremony was instituted in the year 1440, the very
year when Eton was founded.
Later it took place every third year on the Tuesday after Whitsunday
or Pentecost, which usually falls in June. On that day a procession of
all the scholars went from the school buildings to a hill known as Salt
Hill that rises just outside of the grounds. At their head marched the
captain and his chaplain, the one being the head boy of the highest
class in school, the other the head boy of the second class. The
chaplain was dressed in a suit of priestly black with a bushy wig upon
his head.
Two boys called “salt bearers” with “scouts” dressed like old-time
footmen ran beside the procession begging from all passersby and they
scattered through the roads to beg at the doors of houses for miles
around.
The money thus collected was put into a great bag, already sprinkled
with a small quantity of salt and at the end of the day this bag was
handed over to the captain. It was used to pay his expenses when he
left Eton for some one of the great universities. Not infrequently it
mounted up to hundreds of dollars and sometimes even to a thousand or
more.
Up to the middle of the eighteenth century it was customary for the
chaplain to read prayers on Salt Hill. He was assisted by a clerk whom
he kicked down hill at their conclusion. The irreverence of this part
of the ceremony shocked Queen Caroline and at her request it was ever
afterwards omitted. In 1847 the entire ceremony was abolished by act of
Parliament, the last celebration having taken place on June 28th, 1844.
And thus the last vestige of Saint Nicholas passed out of the
ceremonial life of England.