THE PARISH CHURCH SERVICES
As the church was from the earliest times the centre of the parish, and
the priest the head of his flock and the chief person--the parson--of
the district, it is natural to look for the first indications of all
parochial life in the church itself. From the cradle to the grave, as
it has often been said, through the clergy, religion extended its care
to every soul, and exerted its influence over man, woman, and child
in every parochial district, mainly by means of the Church services
and the administration of the Christian Sacraments. In this and the
following chapter it is proposed to examine the nature and extent of
these influences in pre-Reformation parochial life.
_Daily Mass._--In the first place it is proper to speak of the
perpetual round of prayer and Eucharistic sacrifice known as the daily
Mass. Archbishop Cranmer, in his works on the “Supper,” testifies
to the devotion of the people generally to their morning Mass. He
represents them as “saying, ‘This day have I seen my Maker;’ and ‘I
cannot be quiet except I see my Maker once a day.’” The Mass was
regarded, as the author of _Dives and Pauper_ says, as “the highest
prayer that holy church can devise for the salvation of the quick and
the dead,” in which “the priest offereth up the highest sacrifice and
the best offering that any heart can devise, that is Christ, God’s Son
in Heaven, under the form of bread and wine.”
According to Lyndwood’s gloss on Archbishop Peckham’s Constitution,
every priest in those days was supposed to offer up his Mass as
frequently as possible, unless he was prevented by some bodily
infirmity, or some personal and adequate reason made him abstain from
daily celebration. In that case, very frequently, the parishioners
would themselves provide for the morning Mass to be said by some paid
chaplain. In one case, in the diocese of London, in the fourteenth
century, the people seriously complain to their bishop that their vicar
will not secure the services of a chaplain and a clerk, for whom they
had agreed to pay, to give them Mass “every day.”
At Henley-on-Thames, in 1482, “the Mayor and Commonalty” arranged
that the priest of the altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary should say
Mass every day at 6 a.m., and the chantry priest of St. Katherine’s
at 8 o’clock. In large churches, where there were many chaplains and
chantry priests, the Masses followed one another continuously: thus,
for example, at Lincoln Cathedral the early morning Mass was said at 5
o’clock each day in St. Chad’s Chapel, but the chaplain, whose duty it
was to say it, was not bound to be at midnight Matins. The same may be
said of Lichfield. The other daily Masses were to be each hour, from 6
a.m. till 10, when the High Mass was begun. After the consecration of
this sung Mass, the last daily Mass, intended for travellers, was to be
begun.
These early morning Masses were called by various names, of which
“Morrow Mass” and “Jesu Mass” were the most common. In the Chantry
Certificates a great number of entries of parcels of lands, etc., for
the support of some daily Mass in the early morning, show how popular
this service was in pre-Reformation days. In one place, in the county
of Nottingham, the chantry suppressed is declared to have been founded
for a priest “to say Mass every morning before sonne rysing, for such
as be travellers by the way, and to maintain God’s service there; which
town is also a thoroughfare towne.” At Barnards’ Castle, the Guild of
Holy Trinity paid for a priest “to say Mass daily at six o’clock in
the morning, and to be resident at Matins, Mass, and Evensong, and to
keep a free grammar school and a song school for all the children of
the town.” At Ipswich, “Mr. Alfrey’s chantry was founded for a priest
to sing the ‘Morowe Mass,’ in the parish church at St. Matthew;” whilst
at Newark the chantry priest of St. Mary Magdalene’s had to say Mass
for the people at 4 o’clock in the morning. Most of the instances
recorded show that the “Morrow Mass,” whether at daybreak or at 4 or
5 or 6 o’clock, was endowed by benefactors with the revenues of lands
or tenements. Sometimes, however, the stipend of the priest was paid
by money collected for the purpose from the parishioners. At Bury St.
Edmunds, for instance, the greater part of the necessary money for
the early-mass priest was “gathered wekely of the devotion of the
parishioners.” The churchwardens’ accounts of St. Edmund’s and St.
Thomas’s, Salisbury, show that a certain “fraternity” paid for a priest
to say “the Morrow Masse of Jesus,” they also paid for a torch and 6
lbs. of tallow candles for “the said Morrowe Masse prest in Wynter.” In
the parish of St. Peter-Cheap, London, the Wardens paid the stipend for
a curate to say Mass every morning at six o’clock, and the wages of a
clerk to serve him.
At St. Martin’s Outwich, London, the sum of 33_s._ 4_d._ was found each
half-year as the reward of the priest who said the Morrow Mass. In
1472, one of the parishioners of St. Mary-at-Hill, London, left to the
churchwardens of the church certain lands and houses to find a priest
to say Mass daily, “immediately after the morowe masse, in the said
church of St. Mary, to be sung, yf the morowe masse in the same chirche
be continued as heretofore it was wont to be and now is used, or ellse
in defaute of the same morowe masse, that my said Prieste syng daily
reasonable tymely his masse in stede and tyme of the morrowe masse....”
Then, after saying that this chaplain will, of course, assist at all
the church services, the donor adds: “also that the said Priest say
every werkeday in the said Chirch of Seynt Mary atte hill, his matens,
pryme and hours, evensong and complene and all his other prayers and
services, by hymself or with his felowes preestes of the same chirch.”
In this church also the accounts show that the wardens paid one of the
priests an extra fee of 5_s._ a quarter for taking the “Morowe Masse.”
At St. Mary Woolnoth, to take but one more example, Symonde Eyre,
sometime Mayor of London, and draper, established a fraternity of our
Blessed Lady St. Mary the Virgin. There was to be a “Mass by note” and
also “two psalms by note,” one in honour of Our Lady, the other in
honour of St. Thomas of Canterbury, to be sung by a priest, clerk, and
children. To pay for this he gave the tavern called the “Cardinal,”
etc. In 1492 the property was found not to be sufficient to support
this, and another parishioner, Sir Hugh Bryce, alderman and goldsmith,
left to the churchwardens other property to maintain this custom,
namely, 6_s._ 8_d._ more to the priest, and 20_s._ “for that the clerk
shall daily kepe an anthem or _Salve_ before the Crucifix in the body
of the said Church, with _Aves_ of our Lady.” The Masses are to be sung
as follows: every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday a Mass of Our
Lady; every Wednesday a “Missa de Requiem;” and every Friday a Mass “in
honour of the glorious name of Jesus....”
[Illustration: ORGAN--TWELFTH CENTURY]
It may, then, be taken as certain that, generally speaking, Mass was
celebrated daily in most of the parish churches. It is equally certain
that this was fairly attended by those whose duties permitted them to
be present. The _Prymer_ of 1538, in giving the duties of the week,
thus speaks of Monday:--
“Monday men ought me for to call,
In which good werkes ought to begin;
Heryng masse, the first dede of all,
Intendyng to fle deadly syn.”
So, too, _The Young Children’s Book_, which is dated about A.D. 1500,
takes for granted that those to whom the author addresses his lines
will go to their morning Mass.
“Aryse be tyme oute of thi bedde,
And blysse thi brest and thi forhede,
Then wasche thi handes and thi face,
Keme thi hede, and aske God grace
The to helpe in all thi werkes;
Thou schall spede better what so thou confes,
Then go to ye chyrche, and here a masse.”
Andrew Borde also, in his _Regyment_, says that after rising and
dressing, “then great and noble men doth use to here Masse, and other
men that can not do so, but must apply theyr busyness, doth serve
God with some prayers, surrendrynge thankes to hym for hys manyfolde
goodnes, with askynge mercye for theyr offences.” In the Introduction
to _The Lay Folks Mass Book_ Canon Simons has gathered together a
considerable number of authorities for holding that people were
supposed to hear their daily Mass, with the exception of those “common
people,” who were employed on work and could only be present on the
Sundays and holidays. In Wynkyn de Worde’s _Boke of Kervynge_ the
chamberlain is instructed “at morne” to “go to the chyrche or chapell
to your soveraynes closet and laye carpentes and cuysshens and pute
downe his boke of prayers, then drawe the curtynes.” And so, too,
Robert of Gloucester says of William the Conqueror, reflecting the
manners of the time in which he himself wrote: “In chyrche he was
devout ynou, for hym non day abyde that he na hurde masse and matyns
and evenson[g] and eche tyde.” And Canon Simmons adds--
“But that the rule of the church was not a dead letter is perhaps most
unmistakably shown by the matter-of-course way in which hearing mass
before breaking fast is introduced as an incident in the everyday
life of knights and other personages in works of fiction, which,
nevertheless, in their details were no doubt true to the ordinary
habits of the class they intended to portray....”
For example, in _Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight_ Gawayne, after the
lady has kissed him--
“Dos hir forth at ye dore, with outen dyn more
And he ryches him to ryse and rapes hym sone,
Clepes to his chamberlayn, choses his wede
Bozez forth, quen he watz boun, blythely to Masse
And thenne he meued to his mete, that menskly hym keped.”
And so again the lord hears Mass before he eats, and goes hunting at
daybreak--
“Ete a sop hastyly, when he hade herde Masse
With bugle to bent felde he buskez by-lyve.”
The Venetian traveller, who at the beginning of the sixteenth century
wrote his impressions of England, was struck by the way in which the
people attended to their religious duties in this matter of morning
Mass. “They all attend Mass every day, he writes, and say many
_Paternosters_ in public. The women carry long rosaries in their hands,
and any who can read, take the Office of Our Lady with them, and with
some companion recite it in church verse by verse, in a low voice,
after the manner of churchmen.” This story of English people going to
a daily Mass might perhaps be considered as one of the proverbially
curious stories told even by otherwise intelligent strangers from
foreign countries, were it not that it is confirmed by the assertion
of another Venetian some years later. This latter declares that every
morning “at daybreak he went to Mass arm-in-arm with some nobleman or
other.”
[Illustration: LOW SIDE WINDOW, BARNARD CASTLE, DURHAM]
Even in the case of those whose business kept them from the church
itself, it is probable that they were united in spirit to the great
act of worship which was being offered in God’s house, in their
name as well as in that of all those present. The bell known as the
Sanctus Bell, because it was rung at the saying of the Sanctus at the
beginning of the Canon of the Mass, and also at, what was considered
the most sacred time of the Sacrifice, the Consecration and Elevation
of the Elements, was intended to give notice to those working in the
fields or within reach of its sound, of these most solemn parts of
the Mass. Sometimes this bell was set in the rood beam, sometimes
in a turret rising from the chancel arch, and sometimes from the
nave gable. Occasionally it was of considerable size; but apparently
more frequently it was small, and rung by hand. Even then, however,
according to some antiquaries, the clerk or server rang the hand-bell
out of the low side window, which is frequently still existing in
parish churches, in order to warn people outside that the Mass was
going on. That this was really the practice is hardly doubtful in view
of a Constitution of Archbishop Peckham, in 1281. He directs in this,
that “at the time of the Elevation of the body of Our Lord, a bell be
rung on one side of the church (_in uno latere_), that the people who
cannot be at daily Mass, no matter where they may be, whether in the
fields or in their homes, may kneel down, and so gain the indulgences
granted by many bishops” for this act of devotion.
The behaviour of the people in the church, and in particular during
Mass time, was a matter upon which in mediæval times all were carefully
instructed. Myrc, in his _Instructions for Parish Priests_, bids the
clergy tell their parishioners that on entering the house of God they
should leave outside “many wordes” and “ydel speche,” that they should
put away all vanity and “say their _Pater noster_ and _Ave_.” They are
to be warned not to stand about or loll against the pillars or the
wall, but kneel on the floor--
“And pray to God wyth herte meke
To give them grace and mercy eke.”
When the Gospel is read they are to stand up and, blessing themselves
at the _Gloria tibi, Domine_, they are to continue standing until the
reading is finished, and then they are to kneel down again. When they
hear the bell ring for the Consecration, all, “bothe young and olde,”
are to fall on their knees, and, holding up both their hands, pray
softly to themselves thus:--
“Jesu, Lord, welcome Thou be
In form of bread as I Thee see.
Jesu! for Thy holy name
Shield me to-day from sin and shame,” etc.,
or in some similar way. The most ordinary prayers to be used at this
time, according to the books of religious instruction then in vogue,
were the _Salve lux mundi_: “Hail, Light of the world, Word of the
Father; Hail thou true Victim, the living and entire Flesh of God made
true Man,” and the _Anima Christi, sanctifica me_, supposed by many
people to be a devotional prayer of more modern origin.
Besides attendance at the morning Mass, there is little evidence of any
other ordinary daily use of the church. It would be altogether wrong,
however, to conclude that God’s house, standing open as it did all the
day through, did not attract people to it for private and unrecorded
devotion. One or two chance references in documents, such as “Proofs
of age” and “Depositions,” seem to point to the fact that the churches
were, in fact, used during the day by people seeking Almighty God’s
guidance and help, by passing strangers, and by labourers returning
from their daily toil. It has already been pointed out that in the case
of a Chantry, the benefactor who founded it made it a condition that
the priest should recite his Breviary in the church either by himself
or with others. This practice was recommended to priests generally, and
there is no reason to suppose that it was not carried out by them.
“Let all the Ministers of the Church,” says Bishop Quevil, in 1287,
“be diligent and careful in saying the Divine Office. In the name of
the Holy Trinity we order every minister of the church, carefully,
devoutly, clearly, and entirely, without any cutting down, to sing
or say the night and day Divine Office appointed by General Council.
Let those who chant it remember to pause in the middle of the verse,
and let no one begin any verse before the other has finished the
verse preceding;” and, in regard specially to parish churches, the
same Constitution ordered that “parish priests shall not leave their
churches until on feast days and Holy days they shall have said the
canonical hours either before or after Mass: and that no priest say
his Mass before he has done his duty to his Creator by saying Matins
and Prime.”
In the same way, in 1364, the Synod of Ely, held by Bishop Simon
Langham, ordered that priests were to say the whole office in their
churches, and
“that all pastors of souls and parish priests, when they had finished
the recitation of their Office in their churches, shall apply
themselves diligently to prayer and the reading of Holy Scripture, in
order that, by a knowledge of the Scriptures, they may be ready, as
becomes their office, to satisfy any one who asks for the reason of
their faith and hope. Let them ever be earnest in the teaching and
the effect of Scripture on their work, like the poles in the rings of
the ark of the covenant, so that their prayer may be nourished and
rendered fruitful by assiduous reading as by their daily bread.”
In some of the larger parish churches a considerable portion of the
Divine Office, as well as the Mass, was sung daily. A note in the
churchwardens’ accounts of St. Michael’s, Cornhill, London, written in
1538, asks prayers for “Richard Atfield, sometime parson of the church
... for that he, with consent of the bishop, ordained and established
Mattins, High Mass, and Evensong to be sung daily, in the year 1375.”
This had been done regularly for 163 years, and the hours at which the
various services were held would appear to have been: Matins at 7
a.m., High Mass at 9, and Evensong on work-days at 2 p.m.
In many of the larger churches, also, benefactors or fraternities had
arranged for the singing of a _Salve_ or other anthem of Our Lady in
the evening time at her altar or statue. At these times also tapers
would usually be lit in honour of Christ’s holy Mother. In the church
of St. Mary-at-Hill, for example, in 1353, the practice existed, for
in that year a parishioner left money to support a priest, and among
his duties it is said “that he be every day in the same chirch after
evensong, at the time of syngyng of _Salve Regina_, and that he sing
the same, or else help the syngers after his cunnyng, in honour of
our blessed lady the Virgin.” At other places, as at St. Edmund’s,
Salisbury, for instance, the singing of the _Salve_ was only undertaken
at stated times. In this case the Fridays in Lent were apparently
chosen for this evening hymn to Our Lady.
Chaucer, in _The Prioress’s Tale_, makes a little boy, who doubtless
had taken his part in this, ask his older schoolfellow what another
such anthem of Our Blessed Lady meant--the _Alma Redemptoris_.
“Noght wiste he what this Latin was to seye,
For he so yong and tendre was of age;
But on a day his felow gon he preye
T’ expounden him this song in his longage,
Or telle him why this song was in usage.
* * * * *
“His felow, which that elder was then he,
Answerede him thus: ‘This song, I have herd seye
Was maked of our blisful Lady free,
Hir to salue, and eek hir for to preye
To been our help and socour when we deye.’
* * * * *
“‘And is this song maked in reverence
Of Christe’s moder?’ seyde this innocent:
‘Now, certes, I wol do my diligence
To conne it all eer Christemasse is went.’”
_Sunday in the Parish Church._--It is time to pass to the consideration
of what took place in the mediæval parish church on the ordinary
Sundays of the year. In the _Prymer_ of 1538 are to be found some
verses called _The Dayes of the Weke Moralysed_, in which the duty of
the Christian in regard to Sunday is thus set forth:--
“I am Sonday ye honourable,
The hede of all the weke dayes.
That day all thyng labourable
Ought to rest and gyve lawd and prayers
To our Creatour, that alwayes
Wuolde have us rest after travayle
Man-servant and thy beeste he sayes
And the other or thyn avayle.”
The first question that arises is as to the attendance of the people at
the Matins which preceded the parochial Mass. It would seem to be quite
certain that even in the smallest churches on Sundays and Holy days the
Office was recited by the priests, or, in the cases where there was
only one, by the priest and his clerk in the early morning. Further,
from the various directions and instructions given to the people, it
seems practically certain that they were not only expected to be at the
Matins, but, as far as possible, were actually present at them.
The evidence of the various Visitations shows that even the smallest
churches were expected to be provided by the rector with the Matin
books. For example, in the Visitation of churches in the diocese
of Exeter, in 1440, there were constant notes as to the “_libri
matutinales_” being in need of repair, or being “sufficiently good.”
In one case it is stated that the rector had built a new chancel, had
done much to the rectory house, and had “provided good Matin books.” In
another the rector is said to have “hired a scribe to write new books.”
In the same diocese, in 1301, it was made an article of complaint, by
the parishioners of Colebrooke, at the Visitation, that their vicar did
not “sing Matins on the Greater Feasts with music” (_cum nota_), and
that he “only said Mass every other day.” The general orders for the
provision of books for this service in the Constitutions of the English
Church is sufficient evidence that the service was faithfully said or
sung.
Myrc, in his _Instructions_, says that--
“The holy day only ordeynet was
To here goddes serves and the Mas.
And spare that day in holynes
And leve alle other bysynes.”
And Langland, after saying that all business, hunting, and labour is
to stop on the Lord’s day, says, “And up-on Sonedays to cease--godes
servyce to huyre, Bothe Matyns and Masse--and after mate, in churches
to huyre here evesong, every man ought.”
That this was really done, and moreover that the English practice was
to go to the parish church and hear Matins before breaking the morning
fast, appears in a passage of Sir Thomas More’s writings.
“Some of us laymen,” he says, “thinke it a payne ones in a weeke to
ryse so soon fro sleepe, and some to tarry so long fasting, as on
the Sonday to com and hear out they Matins. And yet is not Matins in
every parish, neyther, all thynge so early begonne norfully so longe
in doyng, as it is in the Charterhouse, ye wot wel.”
In a fifteenth-century book of instructions there are given as
practical examples of the vice of sloth--
“When a man castis hym to leze in reste; to slepe mekell; to be long
in bed, late comyng to God’s service; havyng non savour nor swetnes
in prechyng, nor in bedys byddyng, nor no devocyon in Matynes nor in
Evesong.”
It is somewhat difficult to obtain any exact information as to the
time when Matins were said or sung in the English parochial churches.
That the service was begun at an early hour we must suppose, even if
we had not the authority of Sir Thomas More for the fact. To conclude
from the case of St. Michael’s, Cornhill, just quoted, it may be judged
that the hour for Matins was at 6 or 7 in the morning, and that High
Mass would commence at 9 or 10. An interval between was thus left,
during which the parishioners would have time to return home and break
their fast. If the occupation of two hours or so on a Sunday morning,
and another service in the afternoon, may appear somewhat excessive
to our modern notions, we must bear in mind that it was in those days
clearly understood and accepted as a first principle of religion that
the meaning of the Sunday rest and freedom from work was, in the first
place, that the Christian, who was occupied all the rest of the week
mainly in temporal affairs, might have time to attend to the things of
his soul. His chief duty on the Sunday was, as one of the Synodical
Constitutions puts it, “to hear divine service and Holy Mass, to pray
and to listen to the voice of the priest instructing him in his belief
and duty.”
The parochial, or High Mass, as the chief sung Mass was called, was
preceded on each Sunday by the public and solemn blessing of the holy
water. For this ceremony the priest, who was about to celebrate the
Mass, came to the entrance of the chancel, accompanied by the deacon
and subdeacon--if there were any such ministers; if not, by the clerks
and servers carrying the platter of salt and the manual, and by the
_aquæbajularius_ holding the vat of water to be blessed. From the
earliest times of English Christianity the people had been taught to
use this water and salt mingled together with the Church’s prayers,
that by it they might be reminded of the purity of heart necessary to
all God’s servants, and that, by virtue of the power of God invoked
in the prayers upon the water, His providence might watch over them
and defend them from all danger of body and soul. Pope St. Gregory the
Great had told St. Mellitus to bid our first apostle, St. Augustine,
make use of the old pagan temples, having first caused “holy water (to)
be blessed and sprinkled all over” them.
[Illustration: HOLY WATER VAT AND SPRINKLER]
In the same way the English people were taught to make use of the water
thus solemnly blessed on the Sunday in their midst. As far back as the
days of Archbishop Theodore, as appears in Thorpe’s _Ancient Laws_, it
was written: “Let the people sprinkle their houses with hallowed water
as often as they wish.” And in the porch of each parochial church a
small niche contained some of the consecrated water, with which those
coming to God’s house signed themselves, the while whispering a prayer
that they may be accepted as pure in the sight of the Most High.
On the Sunday, moreover, after the blessing was finished, the priest
and his assistants came to the foot of the altar, which was sprinkled
with newly blessed water. Then turning, he, in the same way, sprinkled
each of the assistants as they passed before him, and, last of all, if
there were no procession, he passed down the church casting the water
upon each altar he came to, and upon the people gathered in the nave.
If there was a procession, as seems generally to have been the case,
the assistants and clerks, with the servers, followed the celebrant
singing the anthems proper for the day. The parish processional cross
was carried first, with two servers bearing candles, and with the
thurifer and the clerk “water-bearer.” In the smaller churches, when
the weather permitted, no doubt the procession would wend its way
outside, and pass along, followed by the people, amidst the graves of
those former parishioners who had gone before, and who were taking
their long rest in God’s acre. It was during this Sunday visit, in all
probability, that the living offered their prayers for their dead, and
cast the blessed water upon their graves. Some of the wills of the
fifteenth century show how this practice was prized. In one will, for
instance, a citizen of York leaves a bequest to three priests to say
Masses for his soul, and asks that “each after his Mass should proceed
to his grave, say a _De profundis_ over it, and sprinkle it with holy
water.” Another citizen of the same city, and a merchant, provided for
a priest to visit his grave daily and to cast the blessed water upon it.
To return to the procession. On coming back to the church, or, if there
had been no procession, when the sprinkling of the church had been
finished, the clergy and assistants in cathedrals, gathered round the
celebrant in front of the great rood at the entrance of the choir for
the _bidding prayer_. This was, in smaller parochial churches, however,
given out from the pulpit after the Gospel of the Mass, and will be
spoken of in connection with the Sunday sermon, to which a special
chapter must be devoted.
It is unnecessary to follow the Sunday congregation of a
pre-Reformation church through the singing of the parochial Mass.
The church itself, as the bequests in the wills of the fifteenth
century and other documents show, will have been gay with a profusion
of candles burning on the rood beam, on the altars, and before each
picture or shrine or image, whilst in many places the great “rowell,”
or candle-wheel, would have been lit up, and with its crown of candles
have added to the general appearance of festivity, which the people of
mediæval England loved so much to see in their churches.
At the end of the Mass a loaf of bread, called the “holy loaf,” or
“holy bread,” was brought into the chancel, and, after being blessed by
the priest, was cut into small pieces and distributed to the people.
Then all came up to the chancel steps and received the morsel from the
celebrant, whose hands they kissed. This blessed bread signified the
fraternal love that always ought to bind Christians together, and the
practice of distributing it at the principal Sunday Mass continued
until the religious changes in the reign of Edward IV. That the custom
should be restored to them was one of the demands of the Devonshire
insurgents in that reign. The churchwardens’ accounts contain many
references to this pious practice: the purchase of baskets for the
distribution of the bread, for instance, is recorded at St. Michael’s,
Cornhill, St. Mary the Great, Cambridge, at Cratfield, and elsewhere.
At Bromley, in Surrey, the churchwardens collected from the people the
money to furnish the bread. In 1523, for instance, they acknowledge
a collection of 2_s._ for this purpose, and double that amount the
following year. Evidently, however, the custom which still prevails in
France, of families taking it in turn to give the bread to be blessed,
was not unknown in England in pre-Reformation days. Dr. Rock quotes
from some churchwardens’ accounts of Stamford-in-the-Vale, Berks, to
show that the custom was revived in Queen Mary’s days. A piece of land
there, “called Gander’s,” provided at least a portion of the expense.
“The whole value of the chargis,” says the document, “comyth to
2½_d._ and it is thus divided. They offer to the curatis hand too
penyworth of bread with halfepeny candull--brought uppe to the preste
at the highe altar. Of the too penyworthe of breade they reserve
a halfepenny lofe whole for to be delyvered to the next that shul
geve the holy lofe, for a knowledge to prepare against the Sonneday
followyng.”
The remainder of the Sunday, with the exception of the time--from half
an hour to three-quarters--spent in taking part in the Evensong or
Vespers, which were probably sung about two or three o’clock in the
afternoon, was devoted to rest and reasonable recreation, about which
something will be said in a subsequent chapter. For the priest Sunday
was the day when by law he had to visit the aged, infirm, and sick in
his parish. “Let the priests,” says the Constitution of Gilbert, Bishop
of Chichester, in 1289, “see the sick every Sunday and feast day, and
let them visit them with diligence. Let them take heed that they make
no difficulty about attending to the sick at whatever hour they may be
asked for.” This same order is repeated in the Constitutions for the
Province of York in 1518, more than two centuries after.
From the earliest times work was prohibited on Sundays and holy days.
Lyndwood, in his gloss on the Constitution of Archbishop Chicheley
prohibiting on such days “all servile work in any city or place of the
Province of Canterbury,” explains at some length the nature of the
prohibition. When the work was genuinely necessary, as might be in
the case of a barber, or a blacksmith, or a cook, then it was excused
by the necessity, and did not come under the law. But where the work
could be done on another day, or could have been easily anticipated
or postponed, then it was prohibited by ecclesiastical law. This
applied to the fairs and markets, which were so often held on feast
days, and which the authorities in the fourteenth century were so much
concerned to suppress, and the prohibition affected as well those who
sold as those who bought at them. The Constitution of John Thoresby,
Archbishop of York in 1367, was the first order against the growing
practice of holding markets and fairs on the Sundays, and the misuse
of the cemeteries in this respect. The following year Archbishop Simon
Langham sent out a general monition for the Province of Canterbury, and
a special prohibition against certain abuses in the Isle of Sheppey,
where, “for the noise of the people, the solemnities of the Mass in
the church” were disturbed, and where, on account of the attraction of
the market, people were induced to neglect their duty of being present
at the Divine Service. The prohibition against selling and purchasing,
however, did not apply to the ordinary necessaries of life, as bread,
meat, etc., so long as the sale or purchase did not interfere with the
religious obligations of the parties, and did not prevent them from
going to church.
In another place the same canonist states, as he says, “briefly,” what
kind of work was to be considered “servile,” and as such was prohibited
to the people in mediæval England. This includes all mechanical,
agricultural, and mercantile work, as well as the holding of courts or
legal inquiries of every kind, unless “reasonable necessity or charity”
required that any such work should be undertaken. In the cause of
charity, however, it was held to be lawful on the holy days to assist
to till, etc., the lands of the really poor, after all religious duties
had been fulfilled. The obligation of resting from servile work on the
Sunday or festival was reckoned from the Vesper hour on the Saturday,
or the eve.
The instruction given to the people as to servile work was very clear
and well understood. In _Dives and Pauper_ it is thus put:--
“Every deadly sin is servile work, and such servile work God defendeth
every day, but most on the Holy day. For he that doth deadly sin
on the Holy day he doth double sin, for he doth sin and thereto he
breaketh the Holy day against God’s precept. Also servile work is
called every bodily work done principally for lucre and worldly
winning, as buying, selling, sowing, mowing, reaping, and all craft
of worldly winning, also markets, fairs, sitting of Justices and of
Judges, shedding of blood and execution, of punishing by law, and
all works that should draw men from God’s service. Nevertheless, if
sowing, reaping, mowing, carting, and such other needful works (are
done) purely for alms, and only for heaven made, and for need of them
that they are done to on holy days, then are they not servile works
nor the holy day broken thereby. Nevertheless, on Sundays and great
feasts, such works should not be done, but if great need compel men
thereto and deeds of great charity.”
Then, after saying that certain tradesmen and merchants are permitted
the preparation of wares and foods that must be ready on the Monday,
the author of _Dives and Pauper_ proceeds: “Also messengers, pilgrims,
and wayfarers that might well rest without great harm are excused, so
that they do their duty to hear Matins and Mass, if they mown, for long
abyding in many journeys is costful and perilous.” Any tendency to grow
slack in the observance of the Sunday was noted, and strictly repressed
by the authorities. In one instance a bishop directs the priest to
put a stop to the shoemakers in his parish working on the Lord’s day,
as he has heard they did; in another an inquiry is ordered upon a
denunciation being made against an individual; and in a third a parson
is directed to denounce a parishioner from the pulpit for having been
proved to have worked without reason on a holy day.
Before concluding this brief sketch of the Sunday and week-day in an
English mediæval parish from the point of view of religion, notice must
be taken of one regular feature of that life--the Angelus. The Angelus
bell, the Ave bell, or the Gabriel bell, as it was variously called
in England, probably grew out of the Curfew, which originally was a
civil notification of the time to extinguish all lights; but in the
thirteenth century it was turned into a universal religious ceremony
in honour of Our Lord’s Incarnation and of His Blessed Mother. In 1347
Ralph de Salopia, Bishop of Bath and Wells, desired the cathedral
clergy to say, the first thing in the morning and the last thing at
night, five _Aves_ for all benefactors living or dead. Some few years
before that time, Pope John XXII. had urged the habit of saying three
_Aves_ at Curfew time. The practice soon spread to England, and grew
as it spread, and Archbishop Arundel of Canterbury, in 1399, at the
earnest request of King Henry IV., ordered the usage of saluting the
Mother of God the first thing in the early morning and the last thing
at night, to be universally adopted in the province--“at daybreak and
at the Curfew,” and the bell that was then rung was called by our
English ancestors the “Gabriel Bell,” in memory of that archangel’s
salutation of Our Blessed Lady. By a fortunate chance we are able to
know the actual time at which this Angelus bell was rung, for a casual
note in a Bury St. Edmund’s book gives the times of the tolling in that
city as at 4 a.m. and 9 p.m. in summer, and 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. in the
winter.
Of this religious ceremony a writer says--
“In accordance with a practice of the Early Church at morning and
evening, the Angelus bell, as it was called,” pealed “forth from every
steeple and bell-turret in the Kingdom, and as the sound floated
through the surrounding neighbourhood, the monk in his cell, the baron
in his hall, the village maiden in her cottage, and the labourer
in the field, reverently knelt and recited the allotted prayer in
remembrance of Christ’s Incarnation for us.”