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CURIOUS CHURCH CUSTOMS.
[Illustration: AN OLD-TIME BISHOP WITH CROSIER.]
Curious Church Customs
And Cognate Subjects.
EDITED BY
WILLIAM ANDREWS, F.R.H.S.,
AUTHOR OF
"CURIOSITIES OF THE CHURCH," "OLD CHURCH LORE,"
"BYGONE ENGLAND," ETC.
HULL:
WILLIAM ANDREWS & CO., THE HULL PRESS.
LONDON:
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, & CO., LTD.
1895.
HULL:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM ANDREWS AND CO., THE HULL PRESS.
Preface.
It affords me pleasure to be the means of giving to the reading public
another volume dealing with the byways and highways of church history.
The authors who have been good enough to favour me with contributions are
recognised authorities on the subjects they have written about, and I hope
their efforts will not fail to find favour with the press and the public.
WILLIAM ANDREWS.
THE HULL PRESS,
_Christmas Eve, 1894_.
Contents.
PAGE
SPORTS IN CHURCHES, by the Rev. J. Charles Cox, LL.D., F.S.A 1
HOLY DAY CUSTOMS, by the Rev. Geo. S. Tyack, B.A. 21
CHURCH BELLS: WHEN AND WHY THEY WERE RUNG, by Florence Peacock 33
INSCRIPTIONS ON BELLS, by William Andrews, F.R.H.S. 49
LAWS OF THE BELFRY, by William Andrews, F.R.H.S. 64
RINGERS' JUGS, by Isaac J. Reeve 74
CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS OF BAPTISM, by the Rev. Canon Benham,
B.D., F.S.A. 78
MARRIAGE CUSTOMS, by England Howlett, F.S.A. 99
BURIAL CUSTOMS, by England Howlett, F.S.A. 126
CONCERNING THE CHURCHYARD, by John Nicholson 147
ALTARS IN CHURCHES, by the Rev. Geo. S. Tyack, B.A. 161
THE ROOD LOFT AND ITS USES, by John T. Page 167
ARMOUR IN CHURCHES, by the Rev. J. Charles Cox, LL.D., F.S.A. 174
BEATING THE BOUNDS, by John T. Page 182
THE STORY OF THE CROSIER, by the Rev. Geo. S. Tyack, B.A. 191
BISHOPS IN BATTLE, by Edward Lamplough 198
THE CLOISTER AND ITS STORY, by S. W. Kershaw, F.S.A. 232
SHORTHAND IN CHURCH, by William E. A. Axon, F.R.S.L. 246
REMINISCENCES OF OUR VILLAGE CHURCH, by the Rev. Canon Benham,
B.D., F.S.A. 261
CURIOUS CHURCH CUSTOMS.
Sports in Churches.
BY REV. J. CHARLES COX, LL.D., F.S.A.
In mediaeval and feudal days, as is well-known, our parish churches, in
addition to their primary purpose of providing places for public worship
and religious instruction, commonly served for various secular objects.
They were used for manorial courts and other legal purposes of an entirely
civil character, as well as for the meeting of spiritual and
ecclesiastical tribunals; they served, particularly in troublous times,
for the storage of wool and for the safe-custody of treasure chests; and
they occasionally gave shelter, as at fair times and during the parish
wakes, to hucksters' stalls, and to booths for the sale of victuals.
Public opinion of those days saw nothing specially reprehensible in such
uses of the churches, provided they were confined to the naves, and did
not interfere with divine service, more particularly on the Sunday and
festivals.
This being the case, it is not surprising to find that churches were, from
time to time, used for what may fairly be termed "sports," or amusements.
The custom, once so prevalent in the great churches, of appointing a
Boy-Bishop, or Nicholas-Bishop, which is so abhorrent to modern ideas of
reverence, and which gradually developed in extravagance, had a
praiseworthy commencement. It originated in the idea of rewarding, after a
religious fashion, the most deserving choir-boy or scholar of the
church-school. The selected lad was appointed bishop of the boys on St.
Nicholas' Day (the patron saint of boys) during the solemn singing of the
Magnificat, and was vested in special pontificals of a small size. He held
the office from December 6th (St. Nicholas' Day) to December 28th (Holy
Innocents). "The custom," says Precentor Walcott, "prevailed in the great
schools of Winchester and Eton, and was perpetuated by Dean Colet in his
foundation of St. Paul's, no doubt as a stimulus to Christian ambition in
the boy, just as the mitre and staff are painted as the reward of learning
on the scrolls of Winchester, or in honour of the Holy Child Jesus."
The following is the statute of Dean Colet, A.D. 1518, on this
subject:--"All these children shall, every Childermas Daye, come to
Paule's Churche, and hear the Childe Bishop's sermone; and after be at the
hyghe masse, and each of them offer a 1d. to the Childe Bishop, and with
them maistors and surveyors of the scole."
The ceremonies attached to this boyish parody of a most solemn office
varied considerably, but it is known to have existed in all the cathedral
churches of France and Spain, as well as in many parts of Germany and
Switzerland. In England, every cathedral, which possesses post-reformation
records, yields abundant evidence of the Child-Bishop customs. We found
interesting mention of it in several places when setting in order the
chaotic mass of capitular muniments at Lichfield. An inventory of 1345
names four small choir copes for the use of boys on the feast of Holy
Innocents. The next century names a mitre, cope, sandals, gloves, and
staff for the Nicholas Bishop. An invariable part of the proceedings seems
to have been a sermon from the Boy Bishop, delivered from the usual
pulpit. He was doubtless well drilled in the discourse by the chancellor,
or by his substitute, the choir school master. Indeed, several of the
sermons that were learnt by rote by the Boy Bishop are still extant. At
Salisbury, the whole details are set forth in the printed procession of
the cathedral church. In the order of the procession, on the eve of
Innocents' Day, the dean and canons residentiary walked first, and were
followed by the chaplains; the boy-bishop, with his boy-prebendaries,
closing the procession as the position of the greatest dignity. The
boy-bishop and his attendants took the highest places in choir, the canons
carrying the incense, tapers, etc. At the conclusion of compline the boy
gave the benediction, and until the close of the procession on the
following evening none of the clergy of any condition were allowed to
ascend to the upper part of the sanctuary, which was reserved for the
choir boys and their prelate.
In most churches the boys performed all the ceremonies, and said all the
offices save mass during this period; in some they were even permitted to
make a travesty of mass. On the Continent, a variety of indecent levities
were by degrees admitted, such as the boy being dressed in a bishop's
robes reversed, and old shoes being burnt instead of incense; and when
they had raised sufficient scandal in the church itself, they then paraded
the streets, or sought to make levies in the market-place. To the credit
of the church, it should be remarked that these excesses were on several
occasions interdicted by pre-reformation councils, though apparently with
but partial success. The Council of Basle, which sat in 1431, issued the
following stringent canon:--"This sacred synod, detesting that foul abuse
frequent in certain churches, in which, on certain festivals of the year,
certain persons with a mitre, staff, and pontifical robes, bless men after
the manner of bishops, others being clothed like kings and dukes, which is
called the Feast of Fools, of Innocents, or of Children in certain
countries; others practising vizarded and theatrical sports; others making
trains and dances of men and women, move men to spectacles and
cachin-nations; hath appointed and commanded as well ordinaries as deans
and rectors of churches, under pain of suspension of all their
ecclesiastical revenues for three months space, if they suffered these and
such like plays and pastimes to be any more exercised in the church, which
ought to be the house of prayer, nor yet in the churchyard, and that they
neglect not to punish the offender by ecclesiastical censures and other
remedies of law."
Boy-bishoping was by no means confined in England to the cathedral and
large collegiate churches, but it was so generally prevalent and popular
that it appears to have prevailed wherever there was a choir school,
attached to any church, whether in town or country. The churchwardens'
accounts of St. Mary Hill, London, 1485-6, contain the two following
entries:--"Item, six copes for children of dyvers sortes. Item, a myter
for a bishop at Seint Nycholas tyde, garnyshed with sylver and anelyd, and
perles and counterfete stones." The same accounts make mention of the
purchase of properties for a like purpose in 1549-50 during Queen Mary's
reign. We have met references to a like children's pageant in
comparatively out-of-the-way places of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and West
Somersetshire.
So far as England was concerned, the show of the boy-bishop, which the
Church had failed to suppress or to keep within decent limits was
summarily put an end to (save for a slight revival in the days of Mary
Tudor) by a vigorous proclamation of Henry VIII. This proclamation,
issued on July 22nd, 1542, thus concludes:--"Whereas heretofore dyvers and
many superstitious and chyldish observancies have been used, and yet to
this day are observed and kept in many and sundry partes of this realme,
as upon Saint Nicholas, the Holie Innocents, and such like, the children
be strangelie decked and apparayled to counterfeit priests, bishops and
women, and to be ledde with songs and dances from house to house, blessing
the people, and gathering of money; and boys do singe masse and preach in
the pulpitt, with such unfittinge and inconvenient usages, rather to the
derysyion than anie true glorie of God, or honour of His Sayntes. The
Kynge's Majestie wylleth and commandeth that henceforth all such
superstitious observancies be left and duly extinguished throughout all
this realm and dominions."
The writings of the early reformers, as well as allusions in secular
literature of the sixteenth century, help to prove how well-known, nay
almost universal, was this boyish sporting and strange burlesquing of
things sacred throughout England. In "The Catechism of the Offices of all
Degrees," issued by Thomas Beacon, Chaplain to Archbishop Cranmer, in the
time of Edward VI., occurs the following passage:--
"_Father._--What if he preach not, neither can preach?
_Son._--Then is he a Nicholas bishop and an idol, and indeed no better
than a painted bishop on a wall: yea, he is, as the prophet saith, 'A
dumb dog, not able to bark;' he is also, as our Saviour Christ saith
'Unsavoury salt, worth for nothing but to be cast out, and to be
trodden under foot of men.' Wo be to those rulers that set such idols
and white daubed walls over the flock of Christ, whom he hath
purchased with His precious blood! Horrible and great is their
damnation."
At the first blush, any connection with dancing and church attendance or
worship may seem profane and impossible; but further reflection at all
events qualifies any too hasty generalisation. Emotions of joy and sorrow
universally express themselves among mankind in movements and gestures of
the body. Efforts were therefore made in early days, particularly among
the more demonstrative people of the east and south, to reduce to measure,
and to strengthen by unison, pleasureable emotions of joy. The dance is
spoken of throughout the Old Testament as symbolical of rejoicing, and the
rejoicing in their feasts is emphatically and repeatedly enjoined upon the
Israelites. So, too, with both Romans and Egyptians, the dance, in
certain circumstances, was associated with religious ceremonies, and was
intended to express the thankful worship of the body. The dances led by
Miriam, by Jephthah's daughter, by Judith, and doubtless too by Deborah,
soon occur to the mind. David also himself led the dance on the return of
the Ark of God from its long exile; whilst from the mention in association
of "damsels," "timbrels," and "dances" as elements of religious worship in
Psalms cxvii, cxlix, and cl, it may be concluded that David incorporated
these joyous movements in the formal rites of the established Tabernacle
service. In later Judaism the dance certainly survived in the religious
festivities of the feast of Tabernacles. It may therefore have come to
pass that early Christians, realising the joyous feature of their special
creed, expressing its constant belief in the "resurrection of the body,"
may have desired in all honesty and innocency to occasionally associate
the dance with festal service. The results were, however, unfortunate;
pagan practices of a like character were, as a rule, of a licentious
nature, and it became necessary to try and suppress all such forms of
expression of joy or thanksgiving. St. Augustine mentions with abhorrence
that dancers invaded the resting place of St. Cyprian at night and sang
songs there, a custom that died out on the institution of vigils. Pope
Eugenius II. (824-7) prohibited dancing in churches, thereby showing how
usual the custom became. In 858 the Bishop of Orleans condemned the
dancing of women in the presbytery on festivals. The Council of Avignon,
which sat in 1209, prohibited the theatrical dances in churches which were
sometimes the accompaniment of the vigils of Saints' days. The Councils of
Bourges in 1286, and of Bayeux in 1300, condemned all dances which took
place in church or churchyards.
In the later mediaeval period Morris-dancing was associated with churches,
and the wardens not infrequently had in their possession certain
properties that were necessary for its due performance. The Morris-dancing
was occasionally actually performed within the churches, that is in the
nave or at the west end; the mummers not going forth on their Whitsuntide
round until the first dance had been given within the sacred fabric. Nor
is it difficult for the antiquary to trace the connection between the
Morris-dancing and the active expression of Christianity. When the Fifth
Crusade succeeded in effecting the capture of Constantinople, the Latins
in their joy celebrated the event by solemn dances in the great church of
St. Sophia. The usual, nay almost invariable, subject of the mumming-play,
as apart from the miracle-play, was one drawn from the crusading legend.
St. George rescuing a Christian maid from her Turkish masters was the
usual stock piece, whilst the joy of victory was invariably celebrated in
the Morris (that is the Moorish) dance.
The earliest of the Kingston-upon-Thames churchwarden accounts, which
cover the last years of Henry VII. and the reign of Henry VIII., have
various references to these dances. In the inventory of church property
for 1537-8 are enumerated:--"A fryers cote of russet and a kyrtele welted
with red cloth, a mowrens (Moor's) cote of buckram, and four morres
daunsars cotes of white fustian spangelid, and too gryne satin cotes, and
disarddes cote of cotton, and six payre of garters with belles."
In the recently published and highly-interesting churchwardens' accounts
of St. Mary's, Reading, are the following entries for the year 1556-7:--
"I'tm payed for the morrys daunsers and the
mynstrelles mete and drinke at Whitsuntide iii.s.iiij.d
I'tm payed to them the Sondy after Mayday xx.d
Pd to the painter for paynting of their Cottes ii.s.viij.d
Pd for a peir of showes for the morris daunsers iiij.s
Pd for iiij dozen belles for the morrys daunsers ij.s
Pd for sowing of the morrys Cottes vij.d
The churchwardens' accounts of St. Helen's, Abingdon, for the second year
of Queen Elizabeth (1559) show that "two dozen of morres belles were
bought by the parish for a shilling."
An injunction of Henry VIII. laid down the principle, now so generally
accepted, that "all soberness, quietness, and godliness ought there (in
the churches) to be used," and enjoined that "no Christian person should
abuse the same by eating, drinking, buying, selling, playing, dancing, or
with other profane or worldly matters." But this injunction was often
treated as a dead letter up to the close of the century in which it was
issued. In Stubb's "Anatomie of Abuses," first printed in 1585, we read:--
"The wild heades of the parish, flocking together, chuse them a grawnd
captain of mischief, whom they innoble with the title of my Lord of
Misrule. Then marche these heathen companie towards the church and
churchyard, their pipers pypyng, drummers thonderyng, their stumpes
dauncyng, their belles jyngling, their handkerchefes swyngyng about
their heads like madmen, their hobbie-horses and other monsters
skyrmishyng amongst the throng; and in this sorte they go to the
church (though the minister be at praier or preachyng) dauncing and
swyngyng their handkerchiefs over their heads in the churche, like
devilles incarnate, with such a confused noise that no man can heare
his owne voyce. Then the foolish people, they looke, they stare, they
laugh, they fleere, and mywnt upon the formes and pewes to see these
goodly pageants solemnized in this sort. Then, after this, about the
church they go againe and againe, and so fourthe into the churchyard,
where they have commonly their summerhalls, their bowers, arbours and
banquetyng houses set up, wherein they feast, banquet and dance all
that day, and peradventure, all that night too, and thus these
terrestrial furies spend the sabbath daie."
In the days of the antiquary, Sir John Aubrey, who died in 1697, there was
Christmas dancing in various Yorkshire churches, accompanied with songs of
Yule.
The mounted reindeer antlers, as well as the dresses and other properties
of the remarkable horn dancers of Abbots Bromley, Staffordshire, are still
kept in the parish church, where we recently had an opportunity of
examining them when investigating the history of this highly interesting
survival. The dance still continues year by year, and there seems no doubt
that the tradition is true which assigned to the performers a preliminary
dance through the churches before they started on their rounds through the
parish and neighbourhood, collecting money for church purposes. There are
those living who can recollect the accompanying music being played in the
church porch, whilst the dancers executed their steps in the adjacent
parts of the churchyard.
A singular and attractive relic of the custom of dancing in churches is
still practiced three times a year in the great cathedral of Seville,
namely on the feasts of the Immaculate Conception, and of Corpus Christi,
and on the last three days of the Carnival. Ten choristers, dressed in the
costume of pages of the time of Philip III., with plumed hats, dance a
stately but most graceful measure, for about half-an-hour, within the iron
screens in front of the high altar. They are dressed in blue and white for
the Blessed Virgin, and in red and white for Corpus Christi. The boys
accompany the minuet-like movements with the clinking of castanets. During
the measure, a hymn, arranged for three voices with orchestral
accompaniment, is sung in honour of the Blessed Sacrament. The refrain to
the verses is as follows:--
"Tu nombre Divino,
Jesus, invocamos,
Y Dios Te adoramos
Por nos encarnado,
Yen hostia abreviado
De celico pan!"
The canons of the Church of England, as well as the visitation articles of
several of our bishops soon after the Reformation, afford plain proof of
the not infrequent continuance of sports and feastings within the
churches.
The 48th of Bishop Hooper's visitation articles runs as follows:--
"Item, that the churchwardens do not permit any buying, selling,
gaming, outrageous noises, tumult, or any other idle occupying of
youth, in the church, church porch, or churchyard, during the time of
common prayer, sermon, or reading of the homily."
Still more explicit is the 61st article of the provincial visitation of
Archbishop Grindal:--
"Whether the ministers and churchwardens have suffered any lords of
misrule, or summer lords or ladies, or any disguised persons, or
others, in Christmas or at May-games, or any morris-dancers, or at any
other times to come, unreverently into the church or churchyard, and
there to dance, or play any unseemly parts, with scoffs, jests, wanton
gestures, or ribald talk, namely in the time of Common Prayer; and
what they be that commit such disorder, or accompany or maintain
them?"
The 88th Canon of the Church of England (1603), under the heading,
"Churches not to be profaned," says:--
"The churchwardens or questmen, and their assistants, shall suffer no
plays, feasts, banquets, suppers, church-ales, drinkings, temporal
courts or leets, lay-juries, musters, or any other profane usage to be
kept in the church, chapels or churchyard."
With regard to plays in churches, it has to be recollected that the
mediaeval Miracle Play, particularly in England, had its origin in an
elaboration of the liturgy at special seasons, in order to bring home
Christian truths more closely to the understanding of an unlettered
people. The primitive Passion play consisted in the solemn removal of the
Crucifix on Good Friday, the laying it away beneath the altar or in a
specially constructed "sepulchre," the setting of a watch to guard it and
the raising it again with joyous anthem on the Resurrection morn of
Easter. After the third lesson, before the _Te Deum_ at mattins on Easter
Day (according to the English use), the clergy walked in procession to the
high altar, where two singingmen took the parts SS. Peter and John, whilst
three altos, in albes, represented the three Maries, to each of whom
certain words were assigned. The same colloquy was repeated at Mass as
part of the sequence. So, too, with Nativity plays, they had their origin
in the parts assigned to the choir boys and singing men, as representing
angels, shepherds, wise-men, etc. A manger was always erected in one part
of the church, and as the play developed a throne for Herod was placed in
another position, whilst a distant corner was supposed to represent Egypt.
As the Miracle Plays grew in importance and popularity, their
representation in churches became increasingly impossible, if any regard
was to be had to scenic effects. Hence the actors ceased to be the clergy
and choir, their place being taken by members of trade-gilds, or by
wandering players. Occasionally, however, these playing troops were
allowed to use the churches, of which, if space permitted, a variety of
instances, many of our own culling, could be given. Nay, the authorities,
both in pre-reformation and post-reformation times were occasionally lax
enough to suffer secular country dramas and rude representations of
historic scenes to be given by the players in the naves of the parish
churches.[1]
In the churchwarden's accounts of St. Michael's, Bath, under the year
1482, are several entries pertaining to the miracle players, who doubtless
performed in the church, and who certainly partook of their refreshment in
the same place. The players received a preliminary refresher on their
arrival, which is thus expressed in the original:--
_Propotatione le players in recordacione ludorum
diversis vicibus_ _iij.d._
They seem to have been paid chiefly in kind, as the accounts are charged
with--
Two bushels of corn, two dozen pots of beer, and cheese, to the value
of 1.s. 1.d. for the play. The wardens also paid for this play 20.d.
for skins, which would be used for disguisements, and 3.s. for
staining diverse properties that were provided for the occasion.
Another entry relative to the same visit, has, we think, been
misinterpreted by Rev. Prebendary Pearson, when he edited these accounts
in 1878. The entry reads:--
_Et Johi Fowler pro cariando le tymbe a cimiterio
dicto tempore ludi_ _v.d._
Mr. Pearson thought this meant a tomb (_tymba_), but it is far more likely
that it was a bulky platform of timber, placed in the churchyard when not
in use, and only brought into the church when it was required to serve as
a stage.
With regard to feasting in churches, one of the canons put forth in 1571
specially enjoined the churchwardens to disallow the holding of feasts,
drinking parties, banquets, and public entertainments within the walls of
churches. The Church-ales, Clark-ales, and Bid-ales, about which so much
has been written, were originally held within the fabric, and a variety of
other drinking and eating customs in the same place were at one time
prevalent, lingering on for some time after the Reformation in certain
places, and even lasting almost to our own days in occasional retired
parishes.
Funeral banquets, for the entertainment of mourners, were not infrequently
held in the church when the ceremony was over, or even on the next Sunday.
In Strype's edition of _Stowe's London_ it is recorded that:--
"Margaret Atkinson, widow, by her will, October 18th, 1544, orders
that the next Sunday after her burial there be provided two dozens of
bread, a kilderkin of ale, two gammons of bacon, three shoulders of
mutton, and two couples of rabbits, desiring all the parish, as well
as rich as poor, to take part thereof, and a table be set in the midst
of the church, with everything necessary therto."
We have seen wills pertaining to Porlock and Cutcombe, Somersetshire, to
Scropton, Derbyshire, and to Easingwold, Yorkshire, all of the latter part
of the sixteenth century, which expressly provide for the refreshment of
the mourners within the church.
Occasionally, too, parochial charities provided that the bequest in kind
should be consumed in the church. This was the case with regard to a small
seventeenth century charity, by the terms of which a certain quantity of
bread and beer were to be distributed in the parish church of
Barton-le-Street, Yorkshire, on Holy Thursday to the children of the
parish, to be by them consumed within the church, close to the tomb of the
testator. This custom prevailed until about 1820, when it was abandoned in
favour of the churchyard. The reformed custom prevailed for some twenty
years, when it in turn gave way to a distribution of the fund in money to
the aged poor.
Sad and quaint instances of the occasional evil uses of churches in recent
times, even during the present century, could be gleaned, such as
cock-fighting, card-playing, etc.; but the record would be of no profit,
for they would not be examples of any once established custom, but mere
freaks of wanton impiety.
Holy Day Customs.
BY THE REV. GEO. S. TYACK, B.A.
It is not surprising that a multitude of quaint customs has sprung up
around the holy days of the church. For these were the holidays of the
people in "Merrie England" of the bygone times; the seasons when gossips
met to talk, and young folk to play, and all the country-side was gathered
first in the church, and then on the village green, or round their
neighbours' hospitable hearths. By sermon or by eloquent device of ritual,
the parish priest endeavoured to imprint upon the simple minds of his
flock the great truth which the holy day commemorated; and they, on their
part, as free for the day from responsibility as from labour, showed their
joy in a hundred different jests and homely sports. Within the church and
without, therefore, was there ample scope for curious customs to grow up,
some of which, even though the origin and meaning have been lost, live on
among us to the present day.
The word _feast_, in the sense of a banquet, is now so familiar to us,
that we are in danger of altogether forgetting that originally it
contained no allusion to eating and drinking. But so universal is the idea
that on all days of rejoicing a meal of special dainties should form part
of the celebration, that long before we English had wrought the word into
its present form, the Roman poets had begun to use its Latin original in
the sense of a festal banquet. Certainly no high day is complete and
national with us unless it include a dinner amongst its pleasures. We
find, therefore, in surveying the holy day customs of yore, signs of much
merry-making of this kind, and particularly of the dedication of special
viands to certain occasions.
From time immemorial, for instance, Christmas cheer was incomplete without
its mince-pies and plum-pudding; the former emblematic, so some say, by
their shape, of the manger-bed of the Infant Redeemer, and the latter by
its rich ingredients of the offerings of the three kings. The pancakes of
Shrove Tuesday are equally universal, and form so conspicuous a part of
the day's solemnities that the day is often known as "pancake-day," and
the bell which formerly summoned the faithful to the shriving was
similarly named the "pancake-bell." In many parts of the country, as for
example at Crowle, in North Lincolnshire, the bell is still rung under
that name.
Mid-Lent, or Mothering Sunday, has its peculiar fare in simnel cakes. Few
days in the year have received so many titles as this one. It is Mothering
Sunday from the ancient practice of priests and people going, on that day,
in pilgrimage to the mother-church of the district, from which arose also
a traditional habit of children visiting their parents on the same
occasion. At this family re-union simnels were the proper fare. But the
day is also Bragget Sunday, from the draughts of bragget, or mulled ale,
with which, in some parts, notably in Lancashire, the cakes were washed
down. Again it is Fag-pie Sunday, from another refection sacred to it in
the same county, namely a pie of figs and spices. Refreshment Sunday, and
the Sunday of the Five Loaves, have reference to the Eucharistic Gospel
for the day.
The following Sunday, Passion Sunday, has its special dish in _carlings_,
or peas fried in butter; and on Palm Sunday figs were again thought
appropriate. A strange custom, existing till comparatively recent times at
Sellack, in Hertfordshire, was the distribution to those present at church
on Palm Sunday of buns and cider by the churchwardens, with the words,
"Peace and good neighbourhood."
Even the great fast of the year has its peculiar food in the hot cross
buns of Good Friday. These are probably a survival of the heathen practice
of offering consecrated cakes to the gods. They were originally unleavened
cakes, made, it is said, from the dough out of which the hosts for the
altar were baked, a fact which suggests a connection with the Pascal
regulations of the Jews. The stamp of the cross probably marks the effort
of the church to give a Christian significance to a practice that was
found to be practically ineradicable.
Easter, the "Queen of Festivals," has no fare so unmistakably assigned to
it as some other holy days. Hare-pie is the correct thing in some places,
and at Hallaton, in Leicestershire, there is an endowment for providing
hare-pie, bread, and ale, for distribution at this season. At Twickenham
two large cakes were formerly divided among the young folk of the parish
at Easter; a harmless practice which the Puritans suppressed in 1645,
with the result that often attends the efforts of busy-bodies, matters
were altered for the worse; for, thenceforward, penny loaves were
purchased with the money, and flung from the Church Tower to be scrambled
for. At Biddenden, in Kent, a large number of cakes and loaves are given
away on this day, on the former of which is impressed the image of two
females, joined together at hip and shoulder. These are the "Biddenden
Maids," Eliza and Mary Chulkhurst, who are said to have been born in the
village, in the year 1100, thus strangely joined, and in whose memory the
rent of a plot of land, called the "Bread and Cheese Land," is thus
distributed.
Other viands traditionally connected with certain holy days are the great
spiced-cakes on Twelfth Night, and Valentine Buns given to children in
Leicestershire, on S. Valentine's Day. A special "brand" of toffee is made
at Bozeat, in Northamptonshire, for S. Andrew's Day; and roast goose has
long been considered essential to the due observance of Michaelmas.
Reference was made above to the survival of heathen customs among us, in a
dress more or less Christian; and there can be no doubt that such is the
fittest description of very many holy day practices. Some usage was found
in vogue, in itself harmless enough, but allied by long association with
the superstitions of paganism. In some cases the mere conservatism of
popular feeling kept these alive, after all meaning had died out of them;
but in many instances the church took them up, and gave to the dry bones
of the heathen custom a soul of Christian meaning. Conspicious among such
are the use of mistletoe, and the burning of the Yule-log, as adjuncts to
the gaiety and brightness of the Feast of the Nativity. Mistletoe was the
most sacred of plants in the days of the Druids; and it is certainly one
of the most extraordinary examples of the tenacity of life displayed by
popular customs, that a tradition of special privilege should still cling
to the mistletoe in spite, not only of the passage of so many centuries,
but even of the exterminating wars waged against the Druids by the Romans,
and against the Britons generally by the English. It was these same
English forefathers of ours who taught us to burn the Yule-log in
sacrifice to Thor the Thunderer.
Again, there can be little question that the "well-dressing," or
decoration of springs of water with moss and flowers, so common in
Derbyshire, had its origin in the worship of the nymphs or goddesses of
stream and river; yet now in almost every case it has become part of the
celebration of some Christian festival. At Tissington, which claims to
have the only real survival of the custom, it takes place on Ascension
Day; at Derby, and Wirksworth, at Whitsuntide; at Barton on the Thursday
nearest to S. John the Baptist's Day. A pagan rite still existing without
Christian "baptism," is found in the bon-fires that yearly crown the
Cornish hill-tops on the night of Midsummer Day.
Some sports and games were in the past traditionally associated with
certain church festivals, for reasons which in most cases are not very
clear. In Derbyshire, particularly in the county-town, and in Ashbourne,
Shrove Tuesday was marked by the playing in the streets of a rough and
unorganised game of football, in which a large part of the populace took
part. School children were very generally supposed to have the privilege
of demanding a holiday on that day, or even of enforcing one by locking
the master out of the school-house. At Haxey, in North Lincolnshire, the
"Haxey Hood," is always thrown on the Feast of the Epiphany. This curious
sport consists in the struggle for a roll of coarse sacking, about three
inches in diameter, and two feet long, known locally as the "hood," and is
the occasion of much wild excitement. This is said to have no connection
with the holy day, except that it is a commemoration of some local contest
that chanced originally to happen on that day. A similar reason is given
for the fact that the town of Stamford formerly celebrated S. Brice's Day
with the brutal sport of bull-running.
Other curious customs, such as the cracking of a gad-whip in Caistor
Church, on Palm Sunday, by which a local land tenure was maintained, and
which survived until 1846, were evidently associated, each with its
special day, by a merely arbitrary arrangement, having no allusion
whatever to the festival. To the same class belongs, perhaps, the ceremony
of washing the tomb of Molly Grime, at Glentham, in Lincolnshire, by seven
old spinsters, every Good Friday. This was regularly done until 1832, a
neighbouring property being charged with the payment of one shilling each
to the washers, but since that date, the tomb has been abandoned to a
condition more typical of its occupant's name. Another strange usage, the
meaning of which it is hard to conjecture, was the pinning of bits of
coloured rag to the back of the women on their way to church, on Palm
Sunday, a sport once found full of amusement by the lads of Leigh, in
Lancashire.
Another class of holy day usages consists of endeavours to reproduce, in
some more or less realistic manner, the fact commemorated by the festival,
with a result that to us seems grotesque at times, if not profane.
Amongst the more obvious of these, we must reckon the singing of carols at
Christmas, a memorial of the angelic hymn heard by the shepherds at
Bethlehem; and the doll laid in a decorated box, rudely representing the
Holy Child in His manger-bed, which children frequently carry from door to
door at that season. The miners of Llwynymaen, when asking for Christmas
gifts, used at one time, it is said, to carry boards to which lighted
candles were fixed, in allusion no doubt originally to the coming of the
"Light of the World."
The cruel custom of stoning a wren to death on S. Stephen's Day, once
generally prevalent, is well-known, and was an obvious endeavour after
commemorative realism. At Padstow, in Cornwall, the same scene was
enacted less objectionally on the Eve of the Conversion of S. Paul, by the
stoning of a pitcher, whence that day was locally known as "Paul's Pitcher
Day."
The royal offering of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, at the Chapel Royal,
S. James's, on the Feast of the Epiphany, was once a ceremony of real
dignity, but is now rather a paltry business, interesting chiefly as one
of the most curious of survivals. The royal charities on Maunday Thursday,
are really a portion of an otherwise lapsed custom, which recalled the
action of our Lord on the day before His Crucifixion. Down to the reign of
James II. the king attended by some of the great officers of his court,
washed the feet of a number of poor people on this day, and then
distributed money, food, and clothing among them. The lads of Kendal have
a different way of keeping the day; in parties of a dozen or so, they
drag, or used to drag, tin cans through the streets, beating them with
sticks, until they were quite demolished. Can this, one wonders, be in any
way related to that Good Friday custom of Spanish sailors, the beating and
hanging in effigy of Judas the Traitor?
An old Dorset poet, Barnes, says, referring to a well-known Easter custom:
"Last Easter I put on my blue
Frock coat, the vust time, vier new;
Wi' yaller buttons aal o' brass,
That glittered in the zun like glass,
Bekaze 'twer Easter Zunday."
No good luck can attend you, so the belief was, unless you wear at least
one new thing on Easter Day. The fancy probably arose from an idea of the
"newness of life" of which the festival speaks to us. Easter eggs again
were obviously used at first as supplying a fitting emblem of the
Resurrection. As a rule they are simply treated as pretty ornaments, but
at Liege, in Belgium, boys have a kind of game with them, similar to an
English lad's use of chestnuts, knocking two together; the boy whose egg
remains unbroken the longest being proclaimed the conqueror.
The subject of holy day practices is an immense one, especially when one
wanders into all the bye-paths of local peculiarities. All of them, no
doubt, had their meaning in times past, and therefore their use; if some,
having now become unintelligible or even foolish forms, drop year by year
into disuse, we can scarcely, from mere love of the olden days, regret
them. But all the more tenaciously should we cling to those old customs,
which have still a living soul in them, still a lesson to teach. Our
forefathers, with their ready wit in finding means for impressing truth on
the mind through the medium of the eye, showed a deeper knowledge of human
nature than some of their sons, who boast so freely of the superior wisdom
of the nineteenth century.
Church Bells: When and Why they were Rung.
BY FLORENCE PEACOCK.
Bells filled a much more important place in the lives of our ancestors
than they do in ours. From the time that Britain became Christian until
the Reformation, there was scarcely an event in public or private history
into which they did not enter--they were rung to celebrate the birth of an
heir to the rich and noble, they were heard at his daughter's marriage,
and the marriages of his dependants; they sounded alike for high and low,
rich and poor, when the soul was passing away; and again some hours after
death had taken place; as well as at the funeral. On these occasions, and
upon many others, it was the universal custom to ring them, but there were
also what may be termed local events in honour of which they were chimed;
these differed in various parts of the country; in many cases adjoining
parishes followed totally different rules in this respect. Some of these
customs are so quaint that they are worth recording, not only as memorials
of a past that we can but dimly enter into, but as throwing considerable
light upon the manners and doings of our forefathers.
As far as we are aware no complete collection of these old usages relating
to the ringing of Church Bells has ever been made, though there is much
valuable information to be found upon the subject in the various books
upon bells which have been published during the last twenty-five years. It
is said that year by year fewer bells are heard to ring upon the
twenty-ninth of May, but "Oak-apple Day," as it is still called in many
parts of England, is yet celebrated by the bells of Swineshead, amongst
other places; and also by sprays of oak leaves being worn, though in the
northern and eastern counties, if the season be a late one, it is somewhat
difficult to obtain them. Some six or seven years ago many of the engines
of trains running upon the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway
were decked with branches of oak on that day; and it is no uncommon thing
to see the plough boy adorn the heads of his horses with sprays of oak
leaves in memory of King Charles's escape. There is an entry in the
churchwardens' accounts belonging to the church of St. Mary at
Stamford:--"1709 Pd. Richard Hambleton for ale for the Ringers on ye 29
May ... 00 06 00." We find three years later the ringers at the church of
All Saints in the same town received five shillings for ringing the bells
upon the twenty-ninth of May. At Waddington it has been the custom from
sometime which is now forgotten to ring one or two strokes on the tenor
bell to publish the fact that an apprentice belonging to the parish is
"out of his time." The fifth of November was a day of general bell-ringing
all over the country, and we believe they are still sounded in many parts
of England to call to mind the escape of King, Lords, and Commons from the
Gunpowder Plot; Guy Fawkes is to be seen burning through the length and
breadth of the land, and crackers and bonfires are usual. There is a
curious inscription upon the second bell at Owmby, commemorating the
events of 1605; it is dated 1687, and bears upon it:--
"LET VS REMEMBER THE 5 OF NOVEMBER."
The churchwardens' accounts of S. John the Baptist at Stamford contain the
following entry:--"1608 Item paid for Rynging the vth of November vi{d}."
In some places the bells are rung to summon people to attend the vestry
meeting which is held on the Monday after Easter Sunday, to elect the
churchwardens for the following term of office, to pass the church
accounts for the year, and to transact various other business; this is
done amongst other places at Bottesford and Epworth (the latter celebrated
as being the birth-place of John Wesley, the former for possessing the
most perfect specimen of an Early English church to be found in the
northern part of Lincolnshire).
On Shrove Tuesday it was the general custom in pre-Reformation times to
call the people to church, that they might confess their sins before Lent;
this was done by one of the bells being rung, or more likely tolled, but
in later times the real reason for which its sound was heard has been
forgotten by the people, and where the custom has been kept up it has now
got to be called "The Pancake Bell," because it is usual to have pancakes
upon this day, the last of feasting, before the fast of Lent begins, and
Shrove Tuesday is often known by the name of "Pancake Tuesday." This bell
is rung in a great many places, though the present writer never happened
to hear it: noon is the usual time for it to be heard, and at Navenby it
used to be rung by the eldest apprentice in the place, but this part of
the custom is now obsolete. Our forefathers believed that the ringing of
church bells had the effect of allaying storms; this is illustrated by an
entry in the Spalding churchwardens' accounts:--"1519 It'm pd. for ryngng
when the Tempest was, iijd."
In some parts of the country the bells were rung on the fifth of August to
celebrate the escape of James I. from the Gowrie Plot; there are charges
for ringing on this day to be found in the churchwardens' accounts of
Kirton-in-Lindsey at various times during the seventeenth century. In the
same parish there was also the custom of ringing what is in some parts of
the country known as the "Market Bell," but here it was, and we believe is
still, called the "Winter Ringing," because it was only done during the
months of November, December, and January, from seven until eight o'clock,
on Tuesday and Thursday evenings--on the former night to guide people home
who had attended the Gainsborough market, and upon the latter to aid
those who had been to Brigg market to find their way back again. This was
a useful precaution when the country was unenclosed, as the sound of the
bells told people when they were going in the right direction; the same
was done in the neighbouring parish of Scotton on the Tuesday night. The
custom is still kept up at Kirton-in-Lindsey during November and December,
but we believe the bells are not heard upon these two evenings after
Christmas, the modern idea being that the ringers are practising for that
great festival of the Church.
Bells very often had names bestowed upon them; there is one in St. Mark's
Church, Lincoln, always spoken of as "Old Kate," and "Great Tom" of Oxford
has a world-wide reputation. Many old bells have unfortunately been sold,
in some cases to obtain money with which to repair the churches; in others
we fear the money merely went into the pocket of the holder of the living,
or those of the churchwardens; it was for the former reason that two bells
at Cadney were parted with during the last century. A writer in the
_Gentleman's Magazine_, in 1849 (p. 158), states that there is reason to
believe that, since the death of Edward VI., not less than four hundred
bells have, from one cause or another, been lost in Lincolnshire alone.
In some parishes the bells are rung at the close of the morning service
upon Sunday, and at Harpswell it was, until very lately, the custom to
ring a bell at noon if by any chance there should be no morning service.
It is popularly said, but on what authority we know not, that this bell
was meant to warn those who were preparing dinner that the time for that
important meal had nearly arrived. The custom of ringing a bell at the
conclusion of the morning service still obtains at Kirkleatham.
Inscriptions upon bells are very common, sometimes they are in English,
but on the older bells it is more usual to find them in Latin. There is a
bell at Alkborough which is believed to be of the early part of the
fourteenth century, with the following inscription upon it:--
"Jesu For Yi Moder Sake Save All
Ye Sauls That Me Gart Make
Amen."
At Semperingham, on an early sixteenth bell, there is to be found a very
useful piece of advice:--
"Be Not Ouer Busie;"
and a bell at Benniworth merely puts on record the year in which it was
made:--"Anno Domini 1577;" is by no means an uncommon thing to find only a
date upon bells. Many of them have the names of the churchwardens for the
time being, or the name of the giver of the bell or bells; at Burgh we
find:--
"William Pavlin chimed so well
He payd for casting of this bell. 1589."