THE BOY-BISHOP
Mention has been made of Hugh Rhodes and his "Book of Nurture." It is
pretty evident that this master of music was attached to the older form
of faith, since he published in Queen Mary's reign a poem bearing the
extravagant title: "The Song of the Chyld-Bysshop, as it was songe
before the Queen's Maiestie in her priuie chamber at her mannour of
Saint James in the feeldes on Saynt Nicholas' Day and Innocents' Day
this yeare now present by the chylde bisshop of Poules church with his
company. Londini in ædibus Johannis Cawood typographi reginæ, 1555."
This effusion Warton derides as a "fulsome panegyric" on the Queen's
devotion; and the censure is not wholly unjust, since the author,
without much regard for accuracy, likens that least lovable of our
sovereigns to Judith, Esther, and the Blessed Virgin. Meanwhile, who or
what was the "Chyld-Bysshop," or, as he is usually styled, the
Boy-Bishop?
In the first place it may be noted that the Latin equivalent of the
phrase was not, as might be expected, _Episcopus puerilis_, but
_Episcopus puerorum_, suggesting that the boy, if boy he was, was
elevated above his compeers and possessed perhaps some jurisdiction over
them. There is no question of the access of dignity, but the amount of
authority enjoyed by him would have depended on the humour of his
fellows, and boys are not always docile subjects even of rulers of
their own election. This, however, is a minor consideration, since the
Boy-Bishop, when we first make his acquaintance, has already emerged
from the obscurity of school and playground, and made good his claim to
the homage of superiors in age and station. Hence the term "Boy-Bishop"
appears to define more accurately than its Latin analogue the rank and
privileges of the immature prelate.
It seems to lie in the nature of things that the Boy-Bishop was
originally an institution of the boys themselves, the chief figure in a
game in which they aped, as children so commonly do, the procedure of
their elders, and that, in course of time, those elders, for reasons
deemed good and sufficient, extended their patronage to the innocent
parade, and made it a constituent of their own festal round.
In tracing the migration of the custom from the precincts to the
interior of the church we must not forget the tradition of the Roman
Saturnalia, with the season and spirit of which it accorded, and to
which the Christian festival, with its greater purity and decorum, may
have been prescribed as an antidote. The pagan holiday was held on
December 17th, and as the Sigillaria formed a continuation of it, the
joyous celebration endured a whole week. The Boy-Bishop's term of office
was yet longer, extending from St. Nicholas' Day (December 6th) to Holy
Innocents' Day (December 28th).
The distinctive feature of the Saturnalia was the inversion of ordinary
relationships; the world was turned upside down, and the licence that
prevailed, by dint of long usage and inviolable sentiment, imparted to
the merry-making a rough and even immoral character. Slaves assumed the
position of masters, and masters of slaves; and the general nature of
the observance is aptly described by the patron deity in Lucian's play
on the subject: "During my reign of a week no one may attend to his
business, but only to drinking, singing, playing, making imaginary
kings, playing servants at table with their masters."
The advent of Christianity was impotent to arrest the annual scenes of
disorder; and, in some form or another--sometimes tolerated, sometimes
the object of the Church's anathema--the tradition held its own down
through the Dark Ages, and we meet with the substance of the Saturnalia,
during the centuries immediately preceding the Reformation, in the
burlesque festivals with which the rule of the Boy-Bishop has been often
identified. We shall see presently how far this judgment is correct. An
example will, no doubt, readily recur to the reader from a source to
which we owe so many impressions of the Middle Ages, some true, others
false or at least exaggerated--we mean the historical romances of Sir
Walter Scott. That writer has introduced into "The Abbot" an Abbot of
Unreason, and he explains in a note that "The Roman Catholic Church
connived at the frolics of the rude vulgar, who, in almost all Catholic
countries, enjoyed, or at least assumed, the privilege of making some
Lord of the Revels, who, under the name of the Abbot of Unreason, the
Boy-Bishop, or the President of Fools, occupied the churches, profaned
the holy places by a mock imitation of the sacred rites, and sang
indecent parodies of the hymns of the church." The last touch, at any
rate, may be safely challenged as untrue, and the whole picture has the
appearance of being largely overdrawn. This is certainly the case as
regards England, though there is evidence that on the Continent the
Boy-Bishop celebration was, at certain times and in certain places, not
free from objectionable features. In 1274 the Council of Salzburg was
moved to prohibit the "noxii ludi quos vulgaris eloquentia Episcopus
puerorum appellat" on the ground that they had produced great
enormities. Probably this sentence referred to the accessories, such as
immoral plays, but it is quite possible that the Boy-Bishop ceremonies
themselves had degenerated into a farce. As the _Rex Stultorum_
festival was prohibited at Beverly Minster in 1371, we must conclude
that similar extravagance and profanity had crept into Yuletide
observances in this country. The festival of the Boy-Bishop, however,
was conducted with a decency hardly to be expected in view of its
apparent associations. It would seem, indeed, to have been an impressive
and edifying function, and that reasonable exception can be taken to it
only on the score of childishness, and the absence of any warrant from
Scripture, apart from the rather doubtful sanction of St. Paul's words,
"The elder shall serve the younger."
There are weighty considerations on the other side. The mediæval Church
derived stores of strength from its sympathetic attitude towards women
and children and the illiterate; and there was a sensible loss of
vitality and interest when the ministry of the Church was curtailed to
suit the common sense of a handful of statesmen, scholars, and
philosophers. At the time the festival was abolished, opinion was
divided even among the leaders of reform. Thus Archbishop Strype openly
favoured the custom, holding that it "gave a spirit to the children,"
and was an encouragement to them to study in the hope of attaining some
day the real mitre. Broadly speaking, then, the Boy-Bishop festival is
evidence of the tender condescension of Holy Mother Church to little
children, and it does not stand alone. At Eyton, Rutlandshire, and
elsewhere, children were allowed to play in church on Holy Innocents'
Day, possibly in the same way as at the "Burial of the Alleluia" in a
church at Paris, where a chorister whipped a top, on which the word
"Alleluia" was inscribed, from one end of the choir to the other. As Mr.
Evelyn White points out, this "quickening of golden praise," by its
union of religious service and child's play, exactly reproduces the
conditions of the Boy-Bishop festival. Certain it is that the festival
was extraordinarily popular. There was hardly a church or school
throughout the country in which it was not observed, and if we turn to
the Northumberland Book cited in the foregoing chapter we shall find
that provision was made for its celebration in the chapels of the
nobility as well. The inventory is as follows:
"_Imprimis_, myter well garnished with perle and precious stones
with nowches of silver and gilt before and behind.
"_Item_, iiij rynges of silver and gilt with four redde precious
stones in them.
"_Item_, j pontifical with silver and gilt, with a blew stone in
hytt.
"_Item_, j owche broken silver and gilt, with iiij precious stones
and a perle in the myddes.
"_Item_, A Crosse with a staf of coper and gilt with the ymage of
St. Nicholas in the myddes.
"_Item_, j vesture redde with lyons of silver with brydds of gold
in the orferores of the same.
"_Item_, j albe to the same, with stars in the paro.[2]
"_Item_, j white cope stayned with cristells and orferes redde sylk
with does of gold and white napkins about their necks.
"_Item_, j stayned cloth of the ymage of St. Nicholas.
"_Item_, iiij copes blue sylk with red orferes trayled with whitt
braunches and flowers.
"_Item_, j tabard of skarlett and a hodde thereto lyned with whitt
sylk.
"_Item_, A hode of Scarlett lyned with blue sylk."
There is an entry in the book showing upon what terms the custom was
observed in the house of a great noble. When chapel was kept for St.
Nicholas--St. Nicholas was, of course, the patron saint of boys--6_s._
8_d._ was assigned to the Master of the Children for one of the latter.
When, on the contrary, St. Nicholas "com out of the towne where my lord
lyeth and my lord kepe no chapel," the amount is reduced to 3_s._ 4_d._
Abbeys, cathedrals, and parish churches were equally forward in their
recognition of the custom, and strove to celebrate it on a scale of the
utmost splendour and magnificence. A list of ornaments for St. Nicholas
contained in a Westminster inventory of the year 1388 comprises a mitre,
gloves, surplice, and rochet for the Boy-Bishop, together with two albs,
a cope embroidered with griffins and other beasts and playing fountains,
a velvet cope with the new arms of England, a second mitre and a ring.
In 1540 mention occurs of the "vj^th mytre for St. Nicholas bisshope,"
and "a great blewe cloth with kyngs on horsse back for the St. Nicholas
cheyre." At St. Paul's Cathedral twenty-eight copes were employed not
only for the Boy-Bishop and his company, but for the Feast of Fools. The
earliest inventory of the church--that of 1245--speaks of a mitre, the
gift of John de Belemains, Prebendary of Chiswick, and a rich pastoral
staff for the use of the Boy-Bishop. At York Minster were kept a "cope
of tissue" for the Boy-Bishop, and ten for his attendants, while an
inventory made in 1536 at Lincoln refers to "a coope of rede velvett
with rolles and clowdes ordeyned for the barne bisshop with this
scripture THE HYE WAY IS BEST." Typical of many other places,
the custom was observed at Winchester, Durham, Salisbury, and Exeter
Cathedrals; at the Temple Church, London (1307); St. Benet-Fynck; St.
Mary Woolnoth; St. Catherine, near the Tower of London; St. Peter Cheap;
St. Mary-at-Hill, Billingsgate; Rotherham; Sandwich, St. Mary; Norwich,
St. Andrew's and St. Peter Mancroft; Elsing College, Winchester; Eton
and Winchester Colleges; Magdalen College, Oxford, and King's College,
Cambridge; Witchingham, Norfolk (1547); Great St. Mary, Cambridge
(1503); Hadleigh, Suffolk; North Elmham, Norfolk (1547). When the goods
of Great St. Mary, Cambridge, were sold, in May 1560, among the rest
were the following: "_It._ ye rede cote and qwood yt St. Nicholas dyd
wer the color red. _It._ the vestement and cope yt Seynt Nicholas dyd
wer. Also albs for the children."
Recapitulating, the vestments and ornaments of the Boy-Bishop and his
attendants, as gleaned from these and similar sources, were: (i) Mitre;
(ii) Crosier or Pastoral Staff; (iii) Ring; (iv) Gloves; (v) Sandals;
(vi) Cope; (vii) Pontifical; (viii) Banner; (ix) Tabard; (x) Hood; (xi)
Cloth for St. Nicholas' Chair; (xii) Alb; (xiii) Chasuble; (xiv) Rochet;
(xv) Surplice; (xvi) Tunicle; (xvii) Worsted Robe.
Usually the Boy-Bishop was chosen from the choristers of the cathedral,
collegiate or other church by the choristers themselves; but at York,
after 1366, and possibly elsewhere, the position fell, as of right, to
the senior chorister. The date of the election was the Eve of St.
Nicholas, when the boys assembled for an entertainment, and gloves were
presented to the Boy-Bishop. On St. Nicholas' Day the boys accompanied
the youthful prelate to the church; and we learn from the Sarum Use that
the order in which the procession entered the choir was as follows:
First the Dean and Canons, then the Chaplain, and lastly the Boy-Bishop
and his Prebendaries, who thus took the place of honour. The Bishop
being seated, the other children ranged themselves on opposite sides of
the choir, where they occupied the uppermost ascent, whilst the Canons
bore the incense and the Petit Canons the tapers. The first vespers of
their patron saint having been sung by the boys, they marched the same
evening through the precincts, or parish, the Bishop bestowing his
fatherly blessings and such other favours as were becoming his dignity.
The statutes of St. Paul's Cathedral show that, as early as 1262, the
rules underwent some modification. It was thought that the celebration
tended to lower the reputation of the church; so it was ordained that
the Boy-Bishop should select his own ministers, who were to carry the
censer and the tapers, and they were to be no longer the Canons, but
"Clerks of the Third Form," i.e., his fellow-choristers. But the
practice remained for the Boy-Bishop to be entertained on the Eve of St.
John the Evangelist either at the Deanery or at the house of the
Canon-in-residence. Should the Dean be the host, fifteen of the
Boy-Bishop's companions were included in the invitation. The Dean, too,
found a horse for the Boy-Bishop, and each of the Canons a horse for one
of his attendants, to enable them to go in procession--a show formally
abolished by proclamation on July 25, 1542, but, nevertheless, retained
for some years owing to the attachment of the citizens to the ancient
custom.
The question has been raised--Did the Boy-Bishop say mass? The
proclamation of Henry VIII. distinctly affirms that he did, but there is
reason to suspect the truth of the statement. In the York Missal,
published by the Surtees Society, there is a rubric directing the
Boy-Bishop to occupy the episcopal throne during mass--a proof that he
cannot have been the celebrant. But the Boy-Bishop, if he did not
officiate at the altar, unquestionably preached the sermon. The statutes
of Dean Colet for the government of his school enjoin that "all the
children shall every Childermas Day come to Paule's Churche, and heare
the chylde bishop sermon, and after be at hygh masse and each of them
offer 1_d._ to the chylde bysshop." Specimens of the sermons preached on
Holy Innocents' Day have come down to us from the reigns of Henry VIII.
and Mary, and are of extreme interest. They, indeed, go far to justify
the custom as a mode of inculcating virtue and, particularly, reverence
in the minds of the auditors. The earlier discourse appears to have been
prepared by one of the Almoners of St. Paul's, and the "bidding prayer"
contains a quaint allusion to "the ryghte reverende fader and
worshypfull lorde my broder Bysshop of London, your dyocesan, also my
worshypfull broder, the Deane of this Cathedral Churche." The later
discourse was pronounced by "John Stubs, Querester, on Childermas-Day at
Gloceter, 1558," and, most appropriately, based on the text, "Except you
be convertyd and made lyke unto lytill children," etc. Referring to the
"queresters" and children of the song school, the preacher remarks, with
a touch of delightful humour, "Yt is not so long sens I was one of them
myself"; and, in explaining the significance of Childermas, adverts to
the Protestant martyrs, who, alas! are without "the commendacion of
innocency." It may be added that, according to the testimony of the
Exeter _Ordinale_, the Boy-Bishop, on St. Nicholas' Day, censed the
altar of the Holy Innocents, recited prayers, read the Little Chapter at
Lauds "in a modest voice," and gave the Benediction.
We have seen that Dean Colet required his scholars to contribute, each
one, a penny to the Boy-Bishop. At Norwich annual payments were made by
all the officials of the cathedral church to the Boy-Bishop and his
clerks on St. Nicholas' Day, and the expenses of the feast were defrayed
by the Almoner out of the revenues of the chapter. An account of
Nicholas of Newark, Boy-Bishop of York in 1396, shows that, besides
gifts in the church, donations were received from the Canons, the
monasteries, noblemen, and other benefactors. On the Octave he repaired,
accompanied by his train, to the house of Sir Thomas Utrecht, from whom
he obtained "iij_s._ iiij_d._"; on the second Sunday he went still
farther afield, including in his perambulation the Priories of Kirkham,
Malton, Bridlington, Walton, Baynton, and Meaux. _En route_, he waited
on the Countess of Northumberland at Leconfield, and was graciously
rewarded with a gold ring and twenty shillings.
These "visitations" seem to have been characterized by feasting and
merriment and some undesirable mummery. Puttenham, in his "Arte of
Poesie" (1589), observes: "On St. Nicholas' night, commonly, the
scholars of the country make them a Bishop, who, like a foolish boy,
goeth about blessing and preaching with such childish terms as make the
people laugh at his foolish counterfeit." In some quarters regulations
were in force to preclude such levity. At Exeter, for example, one of
the Canons was appointed to look after the Boy-Bishop, who was to have
for his supper a penny roll, a small cup of mild cider, two or three
pennyworths of meat, and a pennyworth of cheese or butter. He might ask
not more than six of his friends to dine with him at the Canon's room,
and their dinner was to cost not more than fourpence a head. He was not
to run about the streets in his episcopal gloves, and he was obliged to
attend choir and school the next day like the other choristers.
It may be remarked that the Boy-Bishop proceedings had their counterpart
in the girls' observance of St. Catherine's Day; and the phrase "going
a-Kathering" expressed the same sort of alms-seeking as attended the
ceremonies in honour of St. Nicholas.
In its palmy days the festival of the Boy-Bishop was favoured not only
by the people, but by the monarch. Edward I. and Henry VI. gave their
patronage to the custom, and the latter is said to have followed the
example of his progenitors in so doing.
However, in 1542, Henry VIII. "by the advys of his Highness' counsel,"
saw fit to order its abolition, which he did in the following terms:
"Whereas heretofore dyuers and many superstitions and chyldysh
obseruances haue been used, and yet to this day are obserued and kept,
in many and sundry partes of this realm, as vpon St. Nicholas, Saint
Catherine, Saint Clement, the holie Innocents, and such-like holie
daies, children be strangelie decked and apparayled to counterfeit
Priests, Bishopes, and Women, and so be ledde with Songes and dances
from house to house, blessing the people and gathering of money; and
boyes do singe masse and preache in the pulpitt, with other such
onfittinge and inconuenient vsages which tend rather to derysyon than
enie true glorie of God, or honour of his Sayntes: the Kynges maiestie,
therefore, myndynge nothinge so muche as to aduance the true glory of
God without vain superstition, wylleth and commandeth that from
henceforth all such superstitious obseruations be left and clerely
extinguished throu'out all his realme and dominions for as moche as the
same doth resemble rather the vnlawfull superstition of gentilitie than
the pure and sincere religion of Christ."
The allegation that boys dressed up as women is confirmed by a Compotus
roll of St. Swithin's Priory at Winchester (1441), from which it appears
that the boys of the monastery, along with the choristers of St.
Elizabeth's Collegiate Chapel, near the city, played before the Abbess
and Nuns of St. Mary's Abbey--attired "like girls."
The custom was restored by an edict of Bishop Bonner on November 13,
1554, much to the satisfaction of the populace; and the spectacle of the
Boy-Bishop riding _in pontificalibus_--this was in 1556--all about the
Metropolis gave currency to the saying--"St. Nicholas yet goeth about
the city." Foxe tells us that at Ipswich the Master of the Grammar
School led the Boy-Bishop through the streets for "apples and
belly-cheer; and whoso would not receive him he made heretics, and such
also as would not give his faggot for Queen Mary's child." (By this
expression, which was common during this reign, was intended the
Boy-Bishop; the Queen had, of course, no child of her own.) Amidst the
sundry and manifold changes that marked the accession of Elizabeth the
Boy-Bishop again went down; and the memory of the festival lingered only
in certain usages like that at Durham, where the boys paraded the town
on May-day, arrayed in ancient copes borrowed from the Cathedral.
On one or two points connected with the subject there prevails some
degree of misapprehension, and thus it will be well--very briefly--to
touch upon them. It is not now believed that the effigy in Salisbury
Cathedral--"the child so great in clothes"--which led to the
publication, in 1646, of Gregorie's famous treatise, is that of a
Boy-Bishop, who died during his term of office and was buried with
episcopal honours. There are similar small effigies of knights and
courtiers. Nor, again, does it seem correct to state that the
Boy-Bishop might present to any prebend that became vacant between St.
Nicholas' and Holy Innocents' day. This usage, if it existed at all, was
apparently confined to the Church of Cambray.
On the other hand, the Eton Ad Montem ceremony has the look of genuine
descent from the older festival, with which it has numerous features in
common. The Boy-Bishop custom, it will be remembered, was observed at
the College.
Finally, reference may be made to the coinage of tokens, some of them
grotesque, which bore the inscription MONETA EPI INNOCENTIUM,
or the like, together with representations of the slaughter of the
innocents, the bishop in the act of giving his blessing, and similar
scenes. Opinions differ as to the purpose for which these tokens, which
date from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, were struck, but it is
extremely probable that they were designed to commemorate the Boy-Bishop
solemnity. Barnabe Googe's _Popish Kingdom_ tells of
"St. Nicholas money made to give to maidens secretlie,"
and in the imperfect state of human society this may have been, at
times, their incongruous destiny.
ECCLESIASTICAL