CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
6g Wiffiam C&nbretts,
Mr. Andrews' books are always interesting. Church Bells.
Mr. Andrews' works are a rich mine of curious learning, displayed
in an attractive form. " Echoes of the H\-ck," by Mr. G. A. Sa/a.
I think your labours, -writes the Right Hon. ll' r . E. Gladstone to
Mr. Andrews, of real interest and value in their illustration of Old
English Life.
Curiosities of the Church.
We feel sure that many will feel grateful to Mr. Andrews for having
produced such an interesting book. The Antiquary.
A volume of great research and striking interest. The Bookbuyer
(New York).
Contains in a popular and readable form, much that is curious and
instructive. Manchester Gua rdian.
An interesting, handsomely got up volume. . . . Mr. Andrews
is always chatty and expert in making a paper on a dry subject
exceedingly readable. Newcastle Courant.
An admirable book. Sheffield Independent,
Old Church Lore.
Mr. Andrews' book does not contain a dull page. . . . Deserves
to meet with a very warm welcome. Yorkshire Post.
A worthy book on a deeply interesting subject. . . . We commend
this book strongly. European Mail.
An interesting volume. The Scotsman.
The book is eminently readable, and may be taken up at any
moment with the certainty that something suggestive or entertaining
will present itself. Glasgow Citizen.
Curious Church Customs.
A thoroughly excellent volume. Publishers' Circulat.
We are indebted to Mr. Andrews for an invaluable addition to our
library of folk-lore, and we do not think that many who take it up will
skip a single page. Dundee Advertiser.
Very interesting. To-Day.
Mr. Andrews is too practised an historian not to have made the most
of his subject. Review of Reviews.
A handsomely got up and interesting volume. The Fiteside.
Bygone England.
A very readable and instructive volume. The Globe.
Many are the subjects of interest introduced in this chatty volume.
Saturday Review.
A delightful volume for all who love to dive into the origin of social
habits and customs, and to penetrate into the byways of history.
Liverpool Daily Post.
There is a large mass of information in this capital volume, and it is
so pleasantly put that many will be tempted to study it. Mr. Andrews
has done his work with great skill. London Quarterly Review.
'A delightful book,' is the verdict that the reader will give after
a perusal of its pages. Mr. Andrews has presented to us in very pleasing
form some phases of the social life of England in the olden time
Publishers Circulat .
Some of the chapters are very interesting, and are most useful for
those who desire to know the origin and history of some of our daily
practices and amusements. The World.
BTHELMARUS, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, I26l.
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.
i 896.
preface.
I ^ H E welcome given by the public and the
-*- press to my previous volume issued under
the title of " Curious Church Customs," has en-
couraged me to prepare on similar lines another
collection of papers dealing with the byways and
highways of Church history.
My contributors have done their best to furnish
articles of interest, and I think their work is of
permanent value. I should be ungrateful if I
did not express my gratitude for their assistance.
I send forth this book hoping that it may not
fail to prove entertaining, and throw some
light on matters of interest to lovers of our
National Church.
WILLIAM ANDREWS.
THE HULL PRESS,
St. Nicholas' Day, 1895.
2068523
Content*.
PACK
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN AN OLD CHURCH. By George Benson i
EARLY CHURCH DEDICATIONS. By J. A. Sparvel-Bayly, B.A. 14
THE CHURCH PORCH. By William E. A. Axon, F.R.S.L. . . 29
THE .LIGHTS OF A MEDIEVAL CHURCH. By the Rev. J.
Charles Cox, LL.D., F.S.A 36
CONCERNING CROSSES. By Florence Peacock .... 65
MISERICORUES. By T. Tindall Wiidridge ..... 92
CHURCH GILDS. By the Rev. J. Malet Lambert, M.A., LL.D. . no
PEWS OF THE PAST. By J. A. Sparvel-Bayly, B.A. . . 138
THE BISHOP'S THRONE. By the Rev. Geo. S. Tyack, B.A. . 163
CHANTRIES. By John T. Page ....... 170
HAGIOSCOPES. By John T. Page 178
SOME ENGLISH SHRINES. By the Rev. Geo. S. Tyack, B.A. . 181
THE CHURCH AND WELL OF ST. CHAD. By J. A. Langford,
LL.D. .......... 193
BURIALS IN WOOLLEN. By William Andrews, F.R.H.S. . . 201
HEARSE: How A WORD HAS CHANGED ITS MEANING. By
Edward Peacock, F.S.A. ...... 209
HEART BURIALS OF ENGLISH PERSONS. By Emily Sophia
Hartshorne ......... 224
BOY-BISHOPS. By England Hewlett ...... 241
GLEANINGS FROM A PARISH CHEST. By Rev. J. Charles Cox,
LL.D. F.S.A. ......... 251
INDEX ........... 277
CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
Wbat to look for in an l& Cburcb.
BY GEORGE BENSON.
THE church in many villages is the only
object of antiquity. In it, generation after
generation of the villagers have been baptised,
married, and buried ; on it, the best work of the
village mason, joiner, smith, and carver has been
employed, and a good deal of the village history
is contained within its walls, rendering the edifice
so interesting that even strangers rarely leave the
village without a peep at the church. To render
the visit to a village church as interesting as
possible, we purpose explaining the various
objects as we may meet them.
The church, with its burial ground, is enclosed
by a wall.
1
2 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
Each in its little plot of holy ground,
How beautiful they stand,
These old grey churches of our native land.
At the entrance to the churchyard is the lych-
gate, or corpse gate (A.S., lich, a dead body),
being a covered gateway, beneath which the
coffin rests on a bier for a few minutes. Through
the lychgate are the stocks, in which those who
had been guilty of some minor offence were
placed. Nearer the church is the tall churchyard
cross, elaborately carved and raised on steps,
from which in some places sermons are preached
in fine weather. Scattered over the burial
ground are yew trees, which, having a long life,
are typical of immortality. At Easter, Whitsun-
tide, and Christmas, boughs of this tree were used
to decorate the interior of the church. The church-
yard is filled with headstones, table tombs, etc.,
many of them inscribed with quaint and curious
epitaphs.
The church, generally approached on the
south side, consists of a tower at the west end ;
south porch and aisles, with roof sloping from
below the windows of nave ; and chancel, with
priest's door. On the east end of the nave roof
is a Sanctus bell cot, containing the bell which
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN AN OLD CHURCH. 3
was rung at the words " Sancte, sancte, sancte,
Deus Sabaoth " (Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of
Sabaoth) ; and all who heard it were expected
to prostrate themselves. The east end of the
chancel roof is terminated by a gable cross, richly
sculptured, and on the wall is a consecration
cross sculptured where the bishop when con-
secrating the church had made the sign of the
cross. The projecting pieces of masonry to the
wall are termed buttresses, and on some there are
deep furrows worn by sharpening arrows, when
archery was practised in the churchyard. The
buttresses terminate in gargoyles, projecting
grotesque figures, with open mouths, which carry
the water from the roof and throw it off the
building. On one side of the entrance to the
south porch is an ancient sun-dial, whilst above
the moulded arch is a canopied niche, containing
an effigy of the patron saint. Above is a window
which lights the room over the porch. Within
the porch on either side runs a stone bench, and
on the walls are posted the church notices. The
deeply moulded and shafted doorway is fitted with
a door made from the oak of Old England, and
enriched with beautiful bands of wrought ironwork
representing the Fall of Man.
4 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
Within the church, at the east side of the door,
is a stone basin formed in the masonry. This is
the " Stoup " used in mediaeval days for holy
water. On entering, each worshipper dipped his
finger into it, and crossed himself. Sometimes a
stoup is met with outside the priest's door.
Opposite the entrance stands the font, of stone,
lined with lead, and filled with water for baptism.
It is deep and circular in shape, ornamented on the
exterior, and surmounted with a lofty crocketed
spire, raised by a pulley and a counterpoise in the
form of a dove, so that as it ascends the holy dove
descends. The font stands between the north
and south doors. Through the former Satan is said
to escape from the child when, by baptism, it be-
comes a child of Christ. Over the tower arch are
the Royal Arms, and along the walls under the
tower are tables recording the names of past
benefactors to the poor, the parish, and the church.
A bread board in the form of a carved cabinet
with shelves, displays the loaves given to the poor
who attend service in accordance with the wish of
the benefactor.
Unlocking a door in the angle, the tower is
ascended in corkscrew fashion by narrow, dusty,
and ill-lighted stairs. Plodding up the decayed,
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN AN OLD CHURCH. 5
broken, and rugged steps, a faint glimmering of
light illuminates the darkness, gradually increasing
until a low door is reached : stooping beneath, a
large, lofty, and gloomy apartment is entered.
This is the Ringing Chamber. A loud, sharp,
metallic creaking noise arrests attention, and the
clock apparatus is observed in the dim light.
The great clock is about to strike, and for some
minutes is preparing itself for the alarming event.
Dangling from the ceiling are the ropes from the
belfry ; on the floor is a carved oak settee for the
ringers, and a highly ornamented chest full of
disused rate books, with the banner of St.
George and the Union Jack thrown carelessly
over, and sometimes as carelessly hoisted on the
staff, for we have noticed church flags gaily floating
in the breeze upside down. From the windows of
this chamber many charming views are obtained.
Affixed to the walls are peal boards, recording
achievements of former ringers, and also rules in
rhyme relating to ringing, as follows :
He that a bell doth overthrow
Shall twopence pay before he go,
And he that rings with spur or hat
Shall fourpence pay, be sure of that :
And if these orders he refuse
No less than sixpence will excuse.
6 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
By a dilapidated ladder in the corner the ascent
is made to the belfry ; then passing through the trap
door, the breeze whistling through the louvres
and nearly taking away the breath, the belfry is
reached, and a sudden and loud dong alarms us,
but our nerves are reassured as we realise that
it is only
The crazy old church clock
And the bewildered chimes.
Amidst the heavy timbered framing hang the
bells, fine specimens of casting, in good tune, and
with pious mottoes beautifully lettered and
ornamented. Caution is necessary in examining
the bells, especially during ringing time. Im-
pressions of the raised inscriptions and ornaments
are obtained by stretching over them strips of thin
narrow paper and rubbing with pieces of thin,
black boot leather.
The interiors of belfries are often in a dirty
condition, owing to birds flying in and out, and
jackdaws and owls occasionally taking up their
abode there. By a ladder reaching to the trap-door
above, the summit of the tower is reached, and a
panoramic view of the district obtained. In
the centre of the tower is the flag-staff, whilst
a corner is occupied by the beacon, restored and
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN AN OLD CHURCH. 7
re-lighted at Her Majesty's Jubilee. In another
corner is the vane, a metal plate turning on a
vertical spindle to show the direction of the wind.
Descending the tower, the church is again
entered. In front is the alms box, formed
from a tree trunk, securely locked, and having
clasps of hammered ironwork. The Church-
wardens' Pew attracts attention, having at each
end of the seat a tall thick wand painted black,
with the Royal Arms or CW (churchwarden) in
gold on the upper part. These emblems of
authority demanded a good deal of respect in
days gone by. On the desk-rail are wrought-iron
candle-holders. In the spandrels of the nave
arches are hatchments, lozenge-shaped black
frames containing the coats-of-arms of persons
interred in the church. On the floor, fixed to
blue stones, are large plates of brass, on which
the effigy of the deceased is graven. They
are known as " Sepulchral brasses," a form of
memorial adopted about the middle of the
thirteenth century. Rubbings of these effigies
are obtained by placing a piece of thin white paper
to cover the brass and then rubbing it over with a
piece of black heel-ball, which can be obtained
at any shoemaker's. There are also some stone
8 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
slabs with floriated crosses, an earlier form of
memorial. A recess in the wall on the north side
was the hermit's cell, formerly tenanted by a
recluse.
A small stair leads to the room above the
porch, which is termed a parvise ; a small open
quatrefoil gives a view into the church, and a fire-
place occupies a corner. This room formerly
contained a library of chained books, the chain
of sufficient length to allow of the book being
laid on a desk for perusal. The room was
probably occupied by a priest. Descending
from the parvise, it is noticed that the walls of
the church have been scraped, revealing masons'
marks, some faint outlines of ''frescoes" and
texts on the wall. In this case the interior
of the walls being ashlar, the removal of the
plaster is justifiable, but the "scraping" process
has been carried too far, and plaster removed
from rubble walls that were never intended by their
designers to be exposed. All the irregularities of
these rubble stones have even been accentuated
by jointing them in black mortar. Round the
walls is a solid mass of masonry, forming a long
stone bench or seat, a remnant of the time
when there were no other seats in the church.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN AN OLD CHURCH. 9
The wood seats in the nave have beautifully
carved ends with poppy heads.
A beautiful oak screen, termed a parclose,
separates the nave from the chantry chapel,
which contains the tomb of its founder. He
erected the chapel, and endowed it with lands,
etc., in order that after his death masses should be
daily celebrated for his soul. Above are sus-
pended pennon and armour. The chapel con-
tained an altar, and also a " Squint," a splayed
opening through the masonry in an oblique
direction, which enabled the priest in the chantry
chapel to see the elevation of the Host during
mass at the high altar. Near the entrance to the
chancel is the desk, termed the " Lectern," from
which the lessons are read. It is formed of
brass, and represents a pelican with wings ex-
panded to hold the Bible. The bird is drawing
her blood out of her breast to feed her little ones.
The pulpit of oak has an imposing appearance.
It is reached by stairs having twisted balusters,
and surmounted by a huge projecting canopy or
sounding board, intended to throw the sound of
the preacher's voice among the congregation. On
the pulpit ledge is a relic of the days of long
sermons. It is the wrought-iron frame which con-
io CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
tained the sand hour-glass. Below the pulpit is the
old reading desk, having beneath, the seat formerly
occupied by the parish clerk. Such a pulpit
is commonly termed a three-decker. The gallery
at the west end formerly contained the choir of
male and female voices, and the orchestra of flute,
violin, and bassoon. Now the choir is surpliced,
and consists of male voices only, who are seated
in the chancel, near the organ, which has super-
seded the instrumental band.
In the vestry are kept the Parish Registers,
Churchwardens' Accounts, etc., which are invalu-
able to the Parish, and in these days of cheap
printing, copies should be made ere the originals
perish by neglect or fire. A framed Terrier sus-
pended on the wall records the possessions of this
church.
The chancel is separated from the nave by a
carved wood screen, with folding doors in the
centre. The upper part of the screen projects,
and carries a gallery or rood loft, the front of
which has canopied niches that were filled with
figures of saints. Above the screen is the rood
or Crucifixion, between the figures of St. Mary
and St. John. The approach to the rood loft is by
a narrow stair in the wall. Within the chancel are
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN AN OLD CHURCH. 1 1
the stalls, arranged on each side and re-turned at the
west end. They are separated from one another
by large elbows. The seats are fitted with hinges.
Underneath is a bracket, termed a miserere, with
a grotesque carving. When turned up it was
sufficient, without actually forming a seat, to
afford considerable rest to any one leaning upon
it, thus being a relief to the infirm ecclesiastics
during the long services when it was necessary to
stand. At the western end of the south side of
the chancel is a low side window, considered to
have been the window where lepers assembled
outside to hear the service. Three steps lead to
the railing across the altar space. The Com-
munion table is placed close to the east wall. At
the back is the reredos, enriched with sculpture ;
and on either side of the east window are the
Commandments and the Belief. South of the
table is the piscina, a sculptured recess, containing
the sink in which the chalice was rinsed at the
time of the celebration of mass ; above was the
Credence shelf, on which the bread and wine
were placed before consecration. A closet in the
.wall which contained the sacred vessels was
termed a locker. On the south side are the Sedilia,
three canopied seats recessed in the wall,
12 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
formerly used by the priest, deacon, and sub-
deacon ; and on the north side is a sculptured
recess, known as the Easter sepulchre. In it the
crucifix was placed with great solemnity on Good
Friday, and watched continually from that time
till Easter Day, when it was taken out and re-
placed on the altar with special ceremony. Under
the chancel was the crypt, a chapel with a stone
altar, the top slab being marked with five crosses, in
allusion to the five wounds of Christ, while a recess
in the altar once contained relics, the bones of a
saint. In course of time the crypt, being disused
as a chapel, was utilised as a bone-house ; any
bones dug up in the churchyard whilst making
new graves were religiously taken care of and
placed there. In later times it became the vault
of some local family, and is now filled up with
earth. An important element in the decoration
of the edifice is the stained glass. The earliest
was coloured throughout by oxide of metal fused
with it in the furnace, and termed "pot metal."
The first coloured glass windows were formed of
pieces of different colours, arranged in patterns
outlined by lead, similar to mosaic ; afterwards the
surface of larger portions of pot metal glass were
adorned with a dark brown fusible colour ; then
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN AN OLD CHURCH 13
diapered backgrounds became general, on which
were coloured outlined geometrical figures. After-
wards the windows consisted of subject panels
alternating with geometrical patterns, termed
grisaille work. Then came large single figures
under canopies, followed by greater freedom of
treatment. Finally, instead of each light being
a single subject, the whole window becomes
occupied with one general subject.
It is greatly to be regretted that much church
furniture of historic and artistic interest, that was
considered to adorn the edifice previous to what
is termed the restoration of the church, has been
sold or lost. They were relics of the various
epochs in the history of the church, as well as
examples of the progress of art, and were worthy
of preservation. All the objects mentioned in
this chapter may not be found in every
church we may visit, for much destruction has
taken place within churches during the centuries
they have existed, some suffering more than
others, but each edifice has some special feature,
and if examined in the manner indicated, the
visitor will find the inspection of an old church a
source of instruction and delight.
jarl\> Church BeMcatione.
BY J. A. SPARVEL-BAYLY, B.A.
MORE than once during the past ten or
twelve years have we heard a puzzled
clergyman say, when alluding to his recently
restored church, " I do not know when to ask the
Bishop to re-open it ; my church, unfortunately,
has no dedication that I am aware of." In answer
to this, we have, in our turn, put the question,
" Is a fair held in your parish ? because, if so, it
is most probable that your church is dedicated to
the saint whose festival falls upon that fair-day, or
the one nearest to it." That there is good warrant
for this assertion is proved by a comparison of
known dedications with the dates of the fairs held
or formerly held, in the respective parishes
Knowing that the pagan English had long been
accustomed to hold great feasts and drinking
festivals in honour of their gods and of dead
ancestors, St. Gregory the Great, who was a
EARLY CHURCH DEDICATIONS. 15
shrewd man of the world, directed the day of the
dedication of a church to be kept as a holiday,
that the people might build themselves huts with
branches of trees around the church, and pass the
time in religious feasting. Thus, the parochial
holiday and village fair on the day of the dedica-
tion of the church became an institution ; the
sylvan bowers suggested by St. Gregory in his
letter to the Abbot Mellitus being now represented
by the booths and stalls of itinerant mummers and
pedlars. Still, it would seem that even in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the dedication
names of many of our early churches were equally
unknown. Can it be possible that some of our
oldest churches had originally no dedication names
at all, but were simply consecrated to the honour
and glory of God ? It may have been so, but we
can scarcely think it, because in times long since
passed away religious sentiment took the form of
special devotion to this or to that particular saint
as, for example, that of the Confessor to St.
Peter, "his friend," and to St. John, "his own
dear one." Witness also the reverence of Edward
the Black Prince for the Holy Trinity, as evinced
in his will bv the minuteness of the instructions for
J
his burial in the Trinity Chapel of Canterbury
16 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
Cathedral ; and it is strange that it was on the
Trinity Sunday of 1376 that he, the
" Sable warrior,
Mighty victor, mighty Lord,"
entered upon his rest. But perhaps the most
striking example is afforded by Henry III., the
most alien in heart of all our Angevin Kings, who
spent his whole time and energy in vain efforts to
recover the Continental dominions lost by his
father, John. Henry was, after his fashion, a
deeply religious man, and did special honour, by a
curious contradiction, to two purely English saints.
One of these was Edward the Confessor, whose
Abbey Church of Westminster Henry rebuilt in
the shape in which we still see it, though it was
slightly enlarged by the Renaissance chapel of his
Tudor successor, Henry VII. The other was St.
Edmund, King of the East Anglians, murdered
during the first Danish invasion by the heathen
Scandinavians, and duly enshrined as a martyr in
the town of Bury St. Edmund's, which takes its
title from his relics. After these two English
saints Henry named his sons, Edward I. and
Edmund, Earl of Lancaster. Therefore, we think
it highly improbable that the founders of our
ancient churches " the gates of heaven, the
EARLY CHURCH DEDICATIONS. 17
ladders of prayer "-would omit to associate with
their great and good work the name of that member
of the celestial hierarchy whom they held in the
highest reverence. To many old churches, other
names than those originally invoked have, without
doubt, been added or substituted ; and especially
so at the time of the Reformation, when, no doubt,
many merely local and historical invocations gave
place to more catholic ascriptions. Re- dedications,
we know, were also common in honour of the
" saint-name " of some new and popular Bishop of
the diocese. Mistakes, too, may have arisen
through neglect or ignorance ; and in this arises
one of the greatest difficulties we have to contend
with in forming an estimate of the flow of the tide
of religious fervour in a bygone time, especially as
recent research proves that too much reliance
must not be placed on the " Liber Regis," once
regarded as infallible. The most valuable and
reliable information on the subject is that obtained
from early wills and similar documents.
It is somewhat strange that during the almost
universal restoration of our churches few, if any,
of the original dedication tablets have been found
or noticed ; but possibly the inscriptions may have
been painted on, instead of incised in the stone.
i8 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
In the north wall of the chancel of Postling
Church, Kent, there is a stone containing the
following inscription, which we thus interpret :
xix Kl Septbr
S. Evsebi cfor
&c. Hec eccla
Fuit dedicata
In honore see
Di Matr Mare
1 9th Kalendarum Septembris
Sancti Eusebii Confessoris,
etc. Hoc ecclesia
fuit dedicata
In honore sanctse
Domini Matris Mariae
We take the word " die " to be understood in
the second line, and the " etc." in the third to
mean " et Martyris." The sense then is plain
and easy. No doubt such inscriptions were as
common as the consecration crosses with which
we are familiar. Local martyrs and mediaeval
Churchmen enter, of course, largely into our dedi-
cations ; but, as at least eight thousand parish
churches were built in England within a century
after the Conquest by the Normans, religious
houses, chantries, and altars in the already erected
churches became the means by which especial
honour to the memory of such men as St. Thomas
a Becket could be paid, though it is probable that
in the case of this most uncompromising champion
the Church has ever possessed, the dedications of
innumerable parish churches, like that of the
EARLY CHURCH DEDICATIONS. 19
Metropolitan Cathedral itself, became merged in
the new title of the Church of St. Thomas a Becket,
or St. Thomas of Canterbury, until Henry VIII.
so unceremoniously unsainted and unshrined him.
Even at Verona, in Italy, we still find a church
built in 1316 dedicated to San Tomaso Cantuari-
ense.
It seems worthy of notice that church names in
some parts of the country appear to run in groups
of almost adjoining parishes, as though some
dominant influence had exercised its power upon
the early piety of the ancient days in that particu-
lar district. And it may perhaps be, in many
cases of joint dedication to St. Mary and another,
that although St. Mary be placed first, it was often
used as a prefixed and expletive term, the last-
named saint being the special invocation. In
every county of England the dedications were, as
a matter of course, most numerous to St. Mary.
" To her the eyes of all were raised." Then in
most counties came All Saints, so inclusive and so
very comprehensive in form, securing, as was
believed, the intercession of all, as all were equally
appealed to. St. Peter, "the Rock," gives his
name both by himself and in conjunction with St.
Paul, to many churches ; while St. Paul, unless
20 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
united with St. Peter, appears to be rather a rare
dedication, and even when it does appear may
sometimes be a contraction of St. Paulinus, the
Bishop of York, and afterwards of Rochester, who
appears to have been very generally popular. It
appears somewhat strange that so many of our old
churches should be dedicated to St. Andrew, he
being the special saint of Scotland : but he, him-
self a fisherman, was also the patron saint of
fishermen. And it will be remembered that the
monastery, founded by St. Gregory, on the
Ccelian, at Rome, was dedicated to him, and that
from it Gregory sent St. Augustine on his mis-
sionary expedition to England. Can it be that
this association had anything to do with the
veneration in which St. Andrew was evidently
held in olden time ? The dedications to St.
Michael are everywhere numerous, and the
churches dedicated to this saint are generally
situated on the summit of some steep and usually
isolated hill. This invocation is said to be a sur-
vival of Celtic Christianity, and it may well be
that the hill upon which a church dedicated to this
saint now stands may in pagan days have been the
sacred hill or mound on which the Beltaine, or fire
of Bel, was kindled, and sacrifices offered in
EARLY CHURCH DEDICATIONS. 21
honour of the solar deity. When the first Chris-
tian missionary planted his preaching cross in our
land, he thought it prudent to acknowledge existing
institutions by carving on the four corners of its
pedestal the dragon's claw. As a matter of fact,
he did a great amount of bowing down in the
House of Rimmon it was, as St. Gregory
thought, necessary. The serpent bore a very
important part in all representations connected
with the worship of Mithra, whose emblems occur
in many ruined Christian churches, and may still
be seen in the interesting churches at Bradfield
and Norton.
But side by side with the serpent cult, long
before the first missionary had raised the cross,
was the worship of the Sun-god himself, for the
Phoenician trader had come, and with him his
faith. The long sea route from Sidon to England
rendered the establishment of a resident colony
necessary, to be perpetually renewed by fresh
blood as its older members died off, for there was
no " run home " for the worn-out tin-trader, how-
ever home-sick he might be. Exile was to him
for life, with hardly any exception. Therefore, on
some high hill, from whose summit he could see
the sun rise in all its glory, he would wait to pros-
22 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
trate himself before his deity, as in the old days of
infancy among the Syrian hills, and there in time
he would place the temple of the Sun-God the
place of the sacred fire, served by a hierophant
of priestly caste, descending from father to son,
and dwelling close to, if not on, the, to him, holy
ground. This hill of the Temple would be dis-
tinguished by the Celts around as the Hill of the
Light. And when Christianity had become more
firmly established in the land, what so natural as
that the priests should convert the old Temple
on that Hill of Light into a church in honour of
him who led the Angelic Host to victory in their
conflict with the spirits of evil and darkness. The
old carvings to be seen on the gargoyles and fonts
of so many of our ancient churches the fancied
visages of demons, genii, giants, and dwarfs are
merely traces of a heathenism which lasted on into
Christian days a heathenism which Christianity
overlapped and absorbed. It was a great struggle
in this, our land, between the old and the new
faith ; but the time came when the missionary
pilgrim needed no longer to inscribe upon the
symbol of his faith the totems of a worship he had
set himself to subvert.
Dedications to SS. Simon, Jude, and Mark
EARLY CHURCH DEDICATIONS. 23
are conspicuous by their absence from our list of
early invocations. This is, of course, accounted
for by the comparatively late institution of their
festivals, dating only from A. D. 1090. St. James
and St. Luke instituted respectively in A. D. 1089
and 1130, are, for the like reason, uncommon,
although all five were favourably regarded in later
days. Churches bearing the name of St.
Nicholas are generally found near the sea-coast,
or on banks of rivers. Being regarded as the
patron of the sailor, the captive, the poor, and of
children, this dedication appears to have been
everywhere popular. He was Bishop of Myra, in
Asia, and died about A.D. 326. The St. Mar-
garet, whose name so frequently appears in the
southern and western parts of England, is most
probably the legendary virgin-martyr of Antioch,
who died in 306 ; but the saint of this name, com-
memorated in some parts of Yorkshire, and in the
more northern counties, may perhaps be the good
and noble-minded Princess Margaret, wife of
Malcolm Canmore, King of Scotland, and mother
of David I. She was born in 1046, and during
her life founded many churches and religious
houses, and her memory was much venerated.
St. Helen, the Christian Empress, figures some-
24 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
what uncertainly in our dedications. In some
counties, notably Yorkshire, Kent, and Lincoln-
shire, her invocation appears to have been at
one period very popular ; while in other counties
the churches bearing her name seem to have
been very few and far between. She founded the
church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and
the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. From
the circumstance that her son, Constantine the
Great, was in Britain when he assumed the purple,
Helen, or Helena, was supposed to have been a
British Princess, whereas she was in reality the
daughter of an innkeeper in Bithynia ; but the
British tradition, revived most probably during
the Crusading days, made her name popular in
England.
The modern prevalence of St. George in church
names is greatly due to loyal feeling during
the Georgian era ; but, of course, the dedication
commemorates St. George, who was martyred in
285. Being a Christian soldier, he became ideal-
ized as a redresser of wrongs the dragon slayer ;
and in the time of the Crusades as the patron of
chivalry, and was adopted by the third Edward as
the model of Knighthood for the Order of the
Garter. Another century may probably see
EARLY CHURCH DEDICATIONS. 25
English Churches dedicated to St. Victoria, there
being a saint of that name who was beheaded in
251. The most authentic life of this saint, and
the one accepted by the Roman Church, was
written by St. Anthelm, an English monk, son of
Kentred, and nephew of Ina, King of Wessex.
Why churches dedicated to St. Botolph were
placed near the gates of towns we know not.
But that they were so is proved by the existence
of churches so dedicated near four well-known gates
of London ; also at York, Colchester, and many
other places in the country. The Holy Cross and
the Holy Trinity are both late mediaeval ascrip-
tions ; and when we find them appearing in
connection with early Norman Churches, we may
be sure that they have replaced older invocations.
Among the Great Churchmen connected with the
history of our land, we find the names of SS.
Dunstan, Augustine, Gregory, Paulinus, Clement,
Wilfrid, Chad, and many others of less importance.
The Norman Conquest and consequent inter-
course with France has caused some of the old
churches to be dedicated to St. Giles, the French
recluse, who died in or about the year 7 1 2, a popu-
larity shared to a great extent by the good Bishop
St. Martin, to whom Queen Bertha, wife of Ethel-
26 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
bert, very naturally consecrated her first church in
Kent. There are some few dedications to St.
Edmund, especially in the Eastern counties. This
must be the generally revered martyr- King, slain
in 870. This Prince, it will be remembered,
was beaten and shot at with arrows by the Danes.
They proceeded to cut off his head, which, as well
as the decapitated trunk, they threw into the
thickest part of the wood of Eglesdene. The
East Anglians afterwards recovered the body, and
buried it at Hoxne, but could not find the head.
While engaged in the search, some of the men, we
are told, lost their companions, and called,
" Where are you ? " A voice answered, " Here,
here, here ! " On going to the spot the head was
found in a thicket of thorns, guarded by a wolf.
According to Matthew of Westminster, " Cum
caput quaeendo inter sylvas socii ad socios
clamantes patrio sermone. Ubi es, ubi es ?
interrogabant. Caput martyria eadem lingua
respondens dixit Her, her, her." As tales never
lose by their repetition, Lydgate tells us the head
of this English Sebastian
Never ceased of al that long day
So for to crye tyl they kam wher he laye,
and, arriving at the spot whence the sound pro-
EARLY CHURCH DEDICATIONS. 27
ceeded, they found a wolf holding the head
between his fore feet. The animal politely
delivered up his charge, which, the moment it
came in contact with the body, returned so exactly
to its former position that the junction was not
visible, except when closely examined. The wolf
remained a harmless spectator of the scene, and
after gravely attending the funeral at Hoxne,
peacefully trotted off to his native woods. Many
legends attach to the spot now called the Golden
Bridge, where the unfortunate monarch was cap-
tured. One is that a young couple had that day been
married and were going home at night. The
moon was shining brightly, and made King
Edmund's spurs glitter. The Danes were all
around looking about for their victim, and to save
their own lives the peasants pointed out the place
where they had seen the glittering golden spurs.
The Danes dragged the King from his hiding-
place, and at once commenced the ill-usage which
was to terminate so fatally. Then the unhappy
Edmund denounced in anticipation all who might
thereafter pass that way to be married, and for
hundreds of years no newly-married couple would
go near the Golden Bridge ; and we believe the
spot is still shunned by the engaged ones of the
28 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
neighbourhood. This dedication may sometimes
be confounded with that to St. Edmund the
Bishop, who was Archbishop of Canterbury,
1234-45, and after his decease was canonized as
St. Edmund of Pontigny, though it is very doubt-
ful whether any of our English churches now
commemorate that good man. But be the dedi-
cations what they may, our old parish churches
will ever prove a source of interest, and command
the loving sympathy of all thinking people, for
there is something in an ancient village church
which has a peculiar charm for the mind some-
thing felt, but not easily described. We take
pleasure not only in its stones, but in its very dust.
Every such building is a page of our National
Church history, reminding us of those early
Christian days in this land of ours long before the
coming of Augustine and his Italian monks.
She Church porch.
BY WILLIAM E. A. AXON, F.R.S.L.
CHRISTOPHER HARVEY, after passing
^~S through the churchyard, looking at the
church stile and the church gate, and surveying
the church, comes to the church porch :
" Now ere thou passest further, sit thee down
In the church porch, and think what thou hast seen ;
Let due consideration either crown
Or crush thy former purposes : between
. Rash undertakings and firm resolutions
Depends the strength or weakness of conclusions."
And a church porch is not an unfit place in which
to think of the past and of the future. Like many
other things, it no longer possesses the importance
it had in former years. No one is either married
or buried in the church porch now, nor is it a
place where weighty transactions are generally
concluded.
An architect might profitably devote a volume
to the church porches of the world. The great
cathedrals would hold a foremost place, but in
many smaller churches the porches did not lack
30 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
beauty. What wealth of care and artistic inven-
tion was sometimes lavished upon the structure
we may see by the famous south porch of Adel
Church, with its multifarious carvings of grotesque
symbolism. The apex is a demoniacal head, sup-
A DEL CHURCH PORCH.
posed to represent Satan. Underneath is a cross,
then the lamb with a banner of triumph, and then
the Son of Man seated on His throne. To right
and left are images or symbols of the sun and the
d the four evangelists. On one side two
moon, an
THE CHURCH PORCH. 31
stems are said to be emblematic of the Law and
the Prophets, and terminate in four flowery heads
for the Four Gospels ; on the other a single stem
symbolic of the Patriarchal System, ending in four
branches with serpents' heads, in allusion to the
Four Gospels and the Fall of Man. There is much
more symbolism connected with Adel in
" Archaeologia Adelensis," by a late rector, the
Rev. H. T. Simpson, M.A. (London, 1879). Mr.
Simpson's ingenuity of theorising, however, was
not sufficiently restrained to make him a safe
guide.
We know from many testimonies that in the
earlier ages of Christianity the veneration in
which churches were held extended to the whole
circuit of the outbuildings, and to the land in
which they stood. In the ample porches there
were placed relics of the saints. There were rich
hangings at the doors of the church. Some of
silk made for St. Peter's at Rome by order of
Leo III., are mentioned by Anastasius Biblio-
thecarius. In the porches and at the entrance to
the church itself, the faithful not only prayed, but
kissed the pavement.
Here, too, was sometimes the last resting place
of great kings and brave warriors, and other
32 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
worthies. Constantine the Great was buried not
in the midst of the Church of the Apostles that he
had built at Constantinople, but in its porch. In
the Greek Ritual, after the priest has perfumed
the church with incense, he performs the same
operation for its vestibule, for the sake of the
dead who are there, and in honour of the sacred
images with which it is adorned.
Images are mentioned in the porches of some
of the French churches in the seventeenth
century, as also is the custom of chanting litanies
there.
St. Chad is said to have been one of the
earliest to be buried inside the church. He was
first interred near St. Mary's Church, Lichfield,
but the body was afterwards transferred to St.
Peter's, and placed in a wooden shrine, roofed
like a house, and with a hole through which the
pilgrims passed their fingers and subtracted a few
grains of his dust, which, drunk in water, was
supposed to have a powerful remedial effect on
various diseases.
The beggars plied their trade in the church
porch, and might well hope to reap a rich harvest
in an age when the encouragement of mendicity
by indiscriminate alms-giving was deemed a virtue
THE CHURCH PORCH. 33
The baptismal fonts were anciently placed in
the porch, and there also were wells or basins in
which the faithful might wash their hands before
entering the church, and thus be reminded of the
need both for external and internal purity.
Chrysostom says that the poor waiting for alms at
the church door are the bowls in which the hands
of the soul are to be cleansed by the giving of
alms.
The porch was the place in which the penitents
had to wait, and in which on Holy Thursday the
greater part of the ceremony of reconciliation was
performed.
Several councils and synods issued decrees
forbidding the trial of pleas in the church or its
porches, and the number of the prohibitions is in
some measure a proof that such secular uses were
not unknown if indeed they were uncommon.
Fairs and merchandise from time to time invaded
the porches in spite of many protests. The
Council of Constantinople, in 692, forbade the sale
of food, drink, and ornaments in the circuit of the
churches, and in support of the rule, adduced the
example of Christ in clearing the Temple of its
traffickers. But the church authorities found
it a hard task, as a long string of ineffectual
3
34 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
ordinances sufficiently shows. Nor were church-
men always averse from allowing the sale
of certain articles, such as chaplets and medals,
girdles of St. Francis of Assisi, scapulars,
prayer books, images of the saints, crucifixes,
etc., all of which were sold close by the
precincts of Notre Dame, and many other
churches. It was apropos of a controversy on
this subject that Jean Baptiste Thiers wrote
his " Dissertation sur les Porches des Eglises "
(Orleans, 1679), in which there is much curious
information. That the separation of the religious
from the secular has never been complete, is
evidenced by the notices of elections, rates, and
other worldly matters, which may still be read on
the doors and in the porches of churches. At
Mucklestone, near Market Dray ton, there hangs
in the porch a frame containing engravings after
Mr. Hedley Fitton's clever drawings of the district.
The church porch was in former days the place
often selected for the payment of dowries, legacies,
and other monies. There was a manifest con-
venience in such an arrangement, for the names of
those present could be added to the record as wit-
nesses, and, in case of dispute, their testimony
would be important.
THE CHURCH PORCH. 35
When the porch was chambered it furnished a
place for the sacristan, or for night watchers, who
from it could, by looking into the church, see that
it was safe from fire and sacrilege. At Malmesbury
Abbey Church it was used as a school-house.
Marriages were celebrated in the porch, and
there it was that the Wife of Bath was united to
the five husbands whom she survived. The mar-
riage by proxy of Charles I. to Henrietta Maria
was celebrated at the door of Notre Dame of
Paris.
The mystic ceremonies of St. Mark's Eve were
celebrated in the church porch. Young men and
young women went there between eleven at night
and one o'clock on the following morning, and
watched for the wraiths of those who were to die
within the next twelve months.
Such are some of the bygone associations of
the church porch. George Herbert ends his
moralising in the church porch thus :
" In brief acquit thee, bravely play the man :
Look not on pleasures as they come but go ;
Deferre nor the least vertue : life's poor span
Make not an ell by trifling in thy woe.
If thou do ill, the joy fades not the pains ;
If well, the pain doth fade, the joy remains.
Gbc liobts of a flDefci&val Church.
BY THK REV. J. CHARLES Cox, LL.D., F.S.A.
THE mediaeval churches of England were
artificially lighted in two ways, namely,
by lamps and by candles. The lighting of
churches for practical purposes, that is to say, to
enable each worshipper, if so minded, to follow the
prayers in print, or to join in responses, chants,
and hymns not known by heart, was a method of
procedure altogether unknown. The ordinary or
necessary lights for a church would be few and far
between. The usual offices were said by daylight,
save at the early winter masses. Gilds were in
the habit of attending at the late first evensongs
of festivals, but then special provision for lighting
was made. In the larger quires, where the night
offices were kept, the lamp before the high altar
would give at least a dim glimmer, \vhilst there
were usually attached two candle sockets to the
great lectern in the centre of the chancel, on which
lay large copies of the grayle and antiphonar.
Every mass had of course its own light, and the
THE LIGHTS OF A MEDIEVAL CHURCH. 37
great festivals, especially those of Christmas,
Easter, and Candlemas had their special illumina-
tions.
Cressets or mortars, which were cups hollowed
in stone and filled with grease or oil with a
floating wick, were occasionally placed at door-
ways and other points of vantage. They were
specially used at cloister corners and dormitory
staircases in the religious houses. A simple
Norman example, formed from a small stone shaft,
ten inches high, and four and a half inches in
diameter, and hollowed at the top into a shallow
cup, was unearthed at the 1894 excavations of the
cloister of Watton Priory. In some instances
several of these cups are formed in a single large
stone. Mr. Micklethwaite instances a stone of
this character, with seven cressets, which stands
on a base inside the north door of the church of
Lewanick, Cornwall. Good folk of those days
who attended a service in the dark, or darkling
hours, would bring their lanterns, and having
brought them would probably keep them lighted
when inside the church. In the present century,
worshippers at Somersetshire churches on the
confines of Exmoor were in the habit, during the
darkest of Sunday winter afternoons, of lighting
38 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
their lanterns for the metrical psalm at the end of
the sermon, candles being only provided for the
minister and the clerk, and in the singers' loft.
An old man told us, in the sixties, how he could
remember his father carrying his tinder box to
church at Wootton Courtney, and striking a light
in his seat, from which others were kindled.
With regard to lamps, as distinguished from
mere cressets or cups of stone or other material,
their chief use in church seems to have been in
the chancel. Mackenzie Walcott tells us that
"at Lichfield, in 1194 ; at Salisbury, by Osmund's
Custumal ; at Hereford, in the time of Edward
III., by bequest ; and in all wealthy churches, by
episcopal injunctions, in the. thirteenth century, a
perpetual lamp burned day and night before the
high-altar."
The continual light of the sanctuary lamp before
the high-altar, in honour of the reservation of the
Blessed Sacrament, is abundantly referred to in
charters, ordinances, inventories, and church
accounts from the thirteenth to the sixteenth
centuries. The lamp in this instance, to the best
of our belief, was never superseded by a candle or
torch, the chancels retaining them to the end ;
but in chapel lights, and lights before images,
THE LIGHTS OF A MEDIEVAL CHURCH. 39
lamps, in most instances, gave way to candles as
time went on, for they were found to give a better
and steadier light, and could more easily be kept
in order.
In pre- Reformation Churchwarden Accounts,
the references to candles are at least twenty times
as numerous as those to lamps ; nevertheless
some interesting allusions to lamps can occasion-
ally be found. The church of Yatton, Somerset,
paid, in 1518, 7d. "for hangyng up y e lampe in
y e chanselle," and 2d. " for a lyne to y e lampe."
Just twenty years later occurs an entry of id.
*' for makyng clene y e lampe in y e chanselle."
Much earlier than this, namely in 1447, the same
parish paid 4d. for lamp-wick (lichline vel filo
lichinis]. The interesting accounts of Yatton
show that, from 1445 to 1547, the area of the
parish was divided into three districts, for the
purpose of making voluntary gatherings, and
that those who brought in the gatherings were
usually termed " Lightmen," instead of wardens.
The name doubtless came from the chief expense
having originally been the supporting of lights in
the church, and this for festival and exceptional
illumination, and not for ordinary utilitarian
purposes.
40 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
The records of Morebath, Somerset, show that
in 1528, "William at Pole vel Potter gave his
part of beys (bees), that rested with John Morsse
at hys departyn, to the store of Thee to mayntayn
a lamppe barnyg afore the figar of Jhu, and afore
Sent Sydwyll every principall feste yn the ere, to
barne from the furste evensong untyll hygh masse
be done the morow, the whyche beys ware yn
valure at William at Pole ys departyng ij s .
'd "
V11J .
In 1349, the accounts of St. Michael's, Bath,
show a payment of lod. for oil for the lamp,
which would doubtless be the lamp in the chancel
before the Blessed Sacrament. The clerk's
annual fee for lighting the said lamp was one
penny. At first sight this sum, representing a
labourer's daily wage, seems altogether in-
adequate, but the payment was a mere Easter
honorarium, as we shall presently see, the
perpetual light being only extinguished and
rekindled once a year.
There are a variety of charters extant of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, by which
lands or rent- charges were given to churches,
both secular and religious, tor the purpose of
maintaining lamps for devotional purposes, for
THE LIGHTS OF A MEDIEVAL CHURCH. 41
instance at Chesterfield, Repton, and Dronfield,
Derbyshire ; at Alrewas, Wolverhampton, and
Lichfield, Staffordshire ; as well as at most of
our cathedral and big monastic churches. The
terms used, such as lampas, lucerna, and lichnicus,
clearly mean a lamp, and not candle, torch, or
mere cresset. Such charters occasionally only
specify the providing of light (lumen), and leave
it to conjecture as to how the artificial light was to
be supplied. On the other hand, candles are
sometimes specially named in charter bequests,
though usually in those of later date. The
earliest of these candle tenures that we have
noted are two of the beginning of the thirteenth
century, whereby lands were conveyed in Lich-
field on yearly payment to the cathedral church of
a candle worth 6d. and of a pair of candles to the
chapel of the Blessed Virgin in the market-place
of the same city.
Hooks in the roofs of churches in front of side
altars, notably where there is stone groining, may
not infrequently be observed ; these have served
for the cords or chains of suspended lamps. One
of these roof hooks may be noted at the east end
of the south quire aisle of the cathedral church of
Lichfield.
42 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
It will probably be a surprise to some of even
our well-read ecclesiologists to learn how large
was the number of devotional lights in the
majority of our English churches. The most
remarkable instance with which we are acquainted
is that of the parish church of the small county
town of Horncastle, Lincolnshire, where there
were twenty-three of such lights.
By will, dated June gih, 1536, James Barton,
of Horncastle, left his body to be buried in the
south side of the church of the Blessed Virgin of
Horncastle, and made inter alia the following
bequests :
Itm to the light in the quiere, viijd.
Itm to Set George light, viijd.
Itm to the roode light, xijd.
Itm to Set Michell light, xjd.
Itm to the light of our lady of grace, viijd.
Itm to our lady's light in Set Nicholes quiere, vjd.
Itm to Set Helene light, viijd.
Itm to our lady light at the high altares end, viijd.
Itm to our lady light at the font, vjd.
Itm to our lady light of the sowthe side of the churche, vjd.
Itm to our lady light on the northe syde of the churche, vjd.
Itm to our lady light in the churche porche, vjd.
Itm to Jesus light, viijd.
Itm to the yong men's light, vjd.
Itm to Set Jamys' light, iiijd.
Itm to the trynite light, vjd.
THE LIGHTS OF A MEDIAEVAL CHURCH. 43
Itm to all hallows light, vjd.
Itm to Set Tronyans light, viijd.
Itm to Set Xpofer light, vjd.
Itm to Set Lawrence light, vjd.
Itm to St Leonarde light, vjd.
Itm to St Savyor light, iiijd.
Itm to St Clement light, iiijd.
The churches of Tideswell, Derbyshire, and All
Saints, Derby, had, in the fifteenth century, at
least thirteen and fourteen lights respectively.
Dulverton, Somersetshire, had twelve lights,
Winsford nine, and many of the smallest village
churches of that county from three to five. And
yet a great mistake would be made if we were
led to suppose as more than one historical
novelist has imagined that a night visit to such
churches in pre- Reformation days would have
found the gloom to some extent dispelled by the
twinkling lights reflected from brightly-coloured
figures of the saints. Save at exceptional festi-
vals, no light would have been found burning after
nightfall, even in such a church as Horncastle,
except "the light in thequere." Reservation was
not permitted save at the high altar, and it was
only before the Sacrament that the light burned
perpetually.
44 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
With the exception of this choir light, all the
special lights at Horncastle would doubtless be
great candles, or torches, as they were more
usually called. Serges was another word for these
great tapers ; it was the term mostly used in the
midlands. The churchwardens' accounts of All
Saints, Derby, for 1466-7, give detached entries
with regard to these great wax lights.
" Imp'mis Sancte Cat'ne lyght ys upholden by gederyng of
the candyllyghter and conteneth xx serges.
Itm Sayncte Nicholas lyght ys upholden by the parishe clerke,
by his gederyng of Saint Nicholas nyghte and conteneth
xij serges.
Itm whoesoe ever ys scolemaster by gederyng amonge hys
scholars upholden before Sancte Nicholas iiij wax
serges.
Itm vj wax serges before sancte Loy that be upholden by the
farrers.
Itm v serges before Sancte Clemente upholden by the
Bakars.
Itm v serges before O r Lady upholden by the Shoemakars.
Itm v serges before the Roode, William Walkar one, John
Draper another, Thos. Farynton the thrydde, Thomas
Payn the forthe, Thomas Bradshae the fyfte.
Itm v serges before the Mary of pety holden uppe by Rawfe
Mayre wyffe.
Itm in or Lady Chappell before o r lady ys fonde iij serges,
William Walker one, Thomas Knolles another, Richerde
Baker ye thrydde.
Itm in the same chapelle by some before sancte John bap-
tiste holden up by William Walker.
THE LIGHTS OF A MEDIEVAL CHURCH. 45
Itm v serges before Sancte Cristofer att the fyndyng of
Masier Willugby, John Farynton, John Peneston wyffe,
William Bancrofte, and Edmund Busby.
Itm iij serges yt Anc r Geyr fonde one before o r lady,
anoyther before Sancte Cat'ne, the third before the
Trinite alter.
Itm ij serges before Sancte Edmunde holden up by the
gederyng of the clerke of Sante Edmund nyghte and
goyng with Sancte Edmunde within the parishes as ye
doe of Sancte Nicholas nyght."
From this interesting statement, it follows that
there were as many as seventy-eight of these great
wax tapers constantly upheld in the church of All
Saints. The whole would be lighted throughout
the great festivals ; those associated with special
saints from the beginning of the vigil to the end
of the festival, and most of them (if not all) during
the daily morning masses as well as throughout the
daylight, when worshippers were likely to be
present. The custom that now prevails in certain
parts of continental Christendom, as at Poictiers,
of the candle-lighter keeping the great standing
lights before special images and shrines burning
longer on market days, probably held good in the
churches of our English mediaeval towns.
The lights at All Saints, Derby, before Saint
Catherine and Saint Nicholas, were evidently
crowns or circlets containing twenty and twelve
46 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
tapers respectively. It is interesting to find the
gilds of farriers, bakers, and shoemakers, respon-
sible for other groups of tapers, and the school-
children did honour to St. Nicholas, the patron
saint of boys. The images of St. Nicholas and
St. Edmund were taken in procession round the
parish on the vigils of their festivals, the clerk
collecting from door to door for the support of
their special lights during the year.
Thomas Lawrence, the candle-lighter, was an
important functionary at All Saints, and was quite
distinct from the parish clerk. The candle-lighter
of that church was responsible to the wardens, not
only for the various serges and their proper
kindling, but also kept inventories of the jewels,
books, and other ornaments of the church. In
1446, Thomas Lawrence and his son report that
they have in their charge sixty serges in wax,
more or less. These they would be ready to sell
for funeral and other purposes, and the sale would
be credited to the church accounts. No doubt
there would also be perches or light metal stands
in front of the more favourite images, whereon
the " perchers " or thin votive tapers, for casual
and speedy use, would be placed and lighted, and
rapidly burnt away after being offered by grateful
THE LIGHTS OF A MEDIAEVAL CHURCH. 47
worshippers. When estimating the glare of light
that would often meet the eye, in the daylight
hours, within our more frequented old English
churches, the frequent gleaming of these smaller
and occasional votive candles must not be over-
looked.
But we are reminded by these Derby accounts
of another source of light in our English mediaeval
churches, which is usually only associated in our
minds with the actual period of the funeral cere-
mony. We allude to the great wax candles,
torches, or serges, that were used around the
corpse. They were usually carried in the funeral
procession to the church, and were burnt by
the side of the bodies. The funeral tapers of the
poorer folk, or of those not associated with special
gilds, seem only to have sufficed for the actua
funeral mass and ceremonials, or thereabouts ; but
with the funerals of the wealthy, or more devout,
it was different. When all was over, by far the
greater part of these slowly burning thick wax
tapers still remained, and they were removed to
the front of different altars or images, where they
were not infrequently removed by special bequests
or by the piety of sorrowing relatives. Or, again,
in the case of the more influential, whose hearses
48 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
were allowed to remain round their tombs or over
their burial places within the church, the torches
that had burnt there in their fixed places were
renewed from time to time, particularly at the
month's end or trental, and at obits or anniversaries
of death, and when once kindled were usually
allowed to burn themselves out, sometimes occupy-
ing in the process several days and nights. A big
and popular church would seldom then be without
the yellow flare of some of these great funeral
lights.
English churches still retain a few examples of
iron hearses. At Spratton church, Northampton-
shire, the iron rails round a beautiful modelled
knightly effigy of the fourteenth century, are
original. There are the prickets at the four
corners, on which were placed the great sepulchre
serges.
In 1447, there were twenty-seven of these
" sepulchre serges " in the church of All Saints,
Derby, and the names of those who were respon-
sible for their upholding are all entered. It would
seem then that these quite permanent serges were
kept burning day by day, but not, we believe,
during the hours of darkness. Certainly, the office
of candle-lighter in such a church was no sinecure.
THE LIGHTS OF A MEDLEY AL CHURCH. 49
Three sixteenth century wills of parishioners of
All Saints, that we copied at the Lichfield probate
office, illustrate this use. William Widdonson,
1515, bequeathes " iiij li wax to be brent aboute
my body in y e day of my buryall." Richard
Robinson, 1518, " wyll have v tapurs of wax in
the day of my byryall to bryn aboute my body and
likewyse in y e sevent day next ensenyng." John
Farjnton, 1526, wills that " my ij torches of yelow
wax be bernyed aboute my herse the day of my
buryal, And after y l I wyll yt one of them goe to
the hye alter in All Halowe Church, and
the other to Seynt Kathoryne alter. Also
wyll yt my litle link of a torch go to the Trinitie
alter."
The true sepulchre serge or torch was not made
of pure wax, but a considerable portion of resin
was added. The proportion of the latter was
sometimes astonishingly large ; thus at Tintinhull,
Somerset, in 1440-1, the wardens decided to make
four immense wax torches. For this purpose they
bought 47 pounds of wax at 293. 3d., and 43
pounds of resin at 45., and yarn for the wicks at
i5d. William Bowie, who made the torches, was
paid 2s. for his three days' work, whilst 2od. was
spent in diverse victuals then consumed by
50 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
William and by the wardens while watching him
and 2d. for ointment for his hands.
These parochial torches seem to have been
intended for the use of those who could not afford
special ones for their departed friends, and were
probably provided gratuitously. The Yatton
wardens, in 1529, " payd for xxviij pownde wexe,
wyche made y e torches and y e tapers wyche shall
brene y e corse shall be present xviij s viij d " as
well as 33. 6d. for 14 pounds of wick yarn, and 2s.
for making the torches. Bequests, by will, in
addition to leaving money for various specified
lights and the sepulchre light, sometimes leave a
sum (as at Pitminster and Trull, Somerset) for
"the torches," evidently meaning by this the
parochial funeral serges.
Nor are we to imagine that because a particular
lamp or big serge was kept definitely burning
before a particular image that this excluded more
casual gifts of a like kind, and these, too, distinct
from the mere hastily consumed thin taper, to
which allusion has already been made. In the
account given above of lamps, mention was made
of a bequest made to keep a lamp burning before
Saint Sydwell (Cealwold) at Morebath. In the
same year (1528) Joan Hillyer gave "a canstycke
THE LIGHTS OF A MEDIEVAL CHURCH. 51
of lattyn to stand afore Sent Sydwyle, prisse vjd.
Afore the wyche canstycke sche dotte mayntayn
a taper before Sent Sydwyll trymmed with flowers
to borne there every hye and principal fests, this
she doth extende to mayntayne whyll sche lyvyth,
gracia divina." To the same church, a few years
later, gifts were made of two five-light latten
candlesticks to stand before certain images.
The county parishes where there were no craft-
gilds, had usually, if well worked, brotherhoods or
fraternities, often called stores (staurum or
instauruni), which had gatherings for special
devotions, and accepted gifts such as sheep, bees,
etc., and offerings for these purposes, apart from
the usual churchwarden accounts for general
expenses. The young men were often then
associated for one purpose, and the maidens for
another. The maintaining of lights, latterly
almost invariably candles, was one of their chief
objects. This subject has been recently ably
treated of in connection with Somersetshire, by
Bishop Hobhouse, in the 4th vol. of Somerset
Record Series, and by Rev. F. W. Weaver in
Wells Wills. The particular light that seems to
have been most religiously maintained throughout
these west country parishes was the All Souls'
52 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
Light, or the Light for the Dead, which was
beautifully intended as an ever-present memorial
to the worshippers of the immortality of the soul,
and of their communion with the faithful departed.
The following is a list of the various titles by
which this li^ht is mentioned in Somersetshire
o
Wills : Allsolen Light, Alsolen Store, Lumen
Animarum, Almes Light (that is soul-light, pour
les ams\ Lumen Elemosinarum (a confusion
with the foregoing), Dead Light, Lumen Mortuum,
Lumen Mortuorum, Lumen Defunctorum, and
Lumen pro Defunctis.
There were three occasions upon which all
mediaeval English churches were ablaze with light,
Christmas, Candlemas, and Easter.
At the midnight mass on Christmas Eve, or at
very early masses on Christmas Day, all
parishioners were expected to attend, and English
wardens seem usually to have made a special
provision of candles ready for a general illumina-
tion at that season, as is evidenced by several of
the early Somersetshire accounts, such as those
of St. Michael's, Bath, and elsewhere, and by the
accounts of St. Laurence and St. Mary, Reading,
etc. Indeed this custom lingered after the Refor-
mation. The accounts of the church of St. Helen,
THE LIGHTS OF A MEDIAEVAL CHURCH. 53
Abingdon, state, " 1561, payed for four pounds of
candilles upon Christmas in the morning for the
masse ; " and again, " 1574, payed for candilles for
the church at Christmas." There would be no
general candlesticks in the nave and aisles, and
doubtless the good folk as they knelt would hold
their tapers in their hands, whether provided
in the church by the wardens, or carried by them
from their own homes.
We cannot refrain from quoting a beautiful
passage from a Christmas Sermon for Children,
by Rev. S. Baring Gould, from the text " I have
ordained a lamp for mine Anointed," as it exactly
illustrates old use by modern continental practice :
" Last winter I was in an old German town. On
Christmas Day, in the morning at four o'clock,
there was a celebration of the Holy Eucharist in
the Cathedral. The building was vast, lofty, and
solemn. It was quite dark when I went to it, and
the wind was whistling through the carved stone
battlements, and the snow was falling out of the
starless sky ; only a very feeble glimmer shone
through the stained glass of the minster windows
into the market-place, where the snow began to
whiten the ground, and a shivering sentinel paced
up and down before the guard-house. When I
54 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
got inside, the church was quite dark, except for
the candles on the altar, which were burning, for
there was no provision made for lighting it. But
by degrees the people came in, and each had
brought a little wax taper, a little twisted coil of
yellow or white or red wax, and the end was
lighted and uncoiled as wanted. Little by little,
as the people arrived, the light began to spread
throughout the vast building from their tiny
sparks of candles ; at last the great Cathedral was
full from end to end, and twinkling everywhere,
down the nave, behind the pillars, along the
aisles, in the transepts, all round the choir, with
more than a thousand lights. That great multitude
was assembled to meet their Christ, to hail Him
born of Mary, laid in a manger ; they had come
to pray to their Christ, to sing praises to their
Christ, to kneel to, to adore their Christ, and for
their Christ they had prepared their feeble lights."
In this picture, 'mutatis mutandis, we get a life-like
glimpse of our English churches on early Christ-
mas morn in the olden days. One of the good
old names for Christmas Day, throughout the
Western church, was the Feast of Lights.
The Feast of the Purification of the Blessed
Virgin, February 2nd, was the next occasion when
THE LIGHTS OF A MEDIEVAL CHURCH. 55
our churches blazed with light, a custom that from
early days gave to the festival the common name
of Candlemas. A proclamation of 30 Henry
VIII., concerning rites and ceremonies of the
church, says : " On Candelmas Daye it shall be
declared that the bearing of candels is done in the
memorie of Christe, the spirituall lyghte, whom
Simeon dyd prophecye, as it is redde in the
churche that day." Everyone was in the habit
of bringing a candle or taper to church on that
day. They were blessed by the priest and
sprinkled with holy water, and returned lighted to
the people. They were held lighted in the hand
at high mass. After the service they were taken
home and termed holy candles. It was usual to
light them in the house, as a protective during
thunder storms, and also when any lay a-dying.
There is a curious reference to this latter custom
in one of Bishop Latimer's sermons, wherein he
records how, soon after he had taken his Master of
Arts degree, he was called in to a relative who
o '
was very ill, and who died just as he entered the
house. His cousin, who had been in charge of
the sick man, upbraided him much, and told him
she thought his learning worthless, because he did
not know how to bless the corpse with the holy
56 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
candle. In addition to the candles borne by the
congregation at this feast, special provision for
lighting (but in the day time at mass) was made
by the wardens. Several of the Somersetshire
and other early warden accounts, contain entries
relative to two tapers purposely made for Candle-
mas, but the more usual particular feature, which
occurs in most of these parishes year after year,
was the making of the trendell, trindell, or tren-
dyll. Originally the trindle (of our word trundle,
to roll) seems to have been a roll or coil of thin
wax taper, but it afterwards signified a kind of
chandelier or series of circular, graduated wheels,
attached horizontally to a pole, and often suspended
by a cord from the roof; small tapers were
fixed to the outer margins of the wheels. There
are many entries about it at St. Laurence's,
Reading, such as 135. 4d. for supplying the
trendyll with lights, and "payed for the tymber
trendle for Candlemas Day iiijd." (1539-40). The
Tintinhull wardens had to give, in 1465-6, 6s. 4d.
for a new trendell, the old one having caught fire
and been burnt. We have not met with any clear
evidence about it, but we believe the trendell was
usually suspended in the nave in front of the rood,
and not in the chancel.
THE LIGHTS OF A MEDIEVAL CHURCH. 57
On Maunday Thursday, the Sepulchre, which
was sometimes a stone structure, but more usually
a movable one of wood, was prepared on the north
side of the sanctuary. Late in the evening, or
early on Good Friday, the altar was stripped, and
the Reserved Sacrament was removed from the
tabernacle or pyx, on or over the altar, and placed
in the Sepulchre. The perpetual lamp before the
Sacrament was taken down and affixed to a stand
(often of considerable magnitude and beauty) in
front of the Sepulchre. Other lights were
frequently kindled at the same place, and the
Sepulchre was solemnly watched from the time of
its erection until the dawn of Easter, when the
Host was replaced upon or over the altar. This
watching the Sepulchre was a paid service usually
done by two men, probably serving in watches
alternately, and entries for their payment occur in
almost every known churchwardens' book of pre-
Reformation date. This watching had its utili-
tarian advantage as well as its symbolic significa-
tion, for it became customary to offer a great
number of tapers to be burnt before the Sepulchre,
so that it would be necessary to have someone on
the spot night arid day, for fear of fire, and to see
to the frequent extinguishing or renewal of the
58 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
smaller lights. One of the most foolish of all the
foolish reasons given as an explanation of "low-
side windows," is that they were used for watchers
of the Sepulchre lights, and hence certain wise-
acres at the beginning of the Gothic revival gave
to them the ridiculous name of lychnoscopes ! As
if in our damp English climate the watchers would
stop outside in the churchyards to see if the lights
were properly burning !
On Easter Eve the perpetual light that had
been removed to the front of the Sepulchre, and
all other lights there, or that there might per-
chance happen to be anywhere else in the church,
were solemnly extinguished. The hallowed or
holy fire was then kindled in the church porch by
means of a crystal or burning glass if the sun was
bright, and if not by a new flint and steel. This
fire was blessed by the priest, and from it was first
kindled the great Paschal Candle, and afterwards
the perpetual lamp, and other lamps or candles in
the church according as light was required. The
devout had let their hearth fires die out at home,
and hastened to the church to obtain fresh light
from the hallowed fire for their renewal. The
immense size of the Paschal Candle has often
been explained ; in some of our cathedral and
THE LIGHTS OF A MEDIAEVAL CHURCH. 59
abbey churches it was simply colossal, the one for
the abbey church of Westminster weighing 300
pounds. Fifteen pounds was a usual weight for
one of our smaller English country parish churches.
This great taper, which was placed close to the
altar, was always burnt in English churches
throughout the octave of Easter, at matins,
mass, and vespers, and sometimes it appears to
have been kept alight continuously, and down to
Holy Thursday. At the same time that the
Paschal Candle was made, the font taper was
usually constructed. It was solemnly conveyed
down the church at Easter, and seems to have
been placed in a locker by the font, to be ready
for ceremonial use at baptisms throughout the
year.
Much might be written about altar candles and
candlesticks, usually only two in number, but that
is a subject that has already been treated of most
fully in a variety of ways, and everyone knows
that the invariable use for centuries was
to have lighted candles at the time of mass.
Remarks explanatory of the English use of
tenebral candles on their triangular candlesticks
(with their mystic gradual extinction), on the pro-
cessional tapers and their candlesticks, or on the
6o CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
lighted lantern carried before the Reserved
Sacrament when the priest visited the sick, might
be added. But these details, interesting in them-
selves, and capable of further original illustration,
are somewhat foreign to the purport of this
article.
Brief mention must, however, be made of the
lights of the rood loft, which were often so
numerous as to give to the rood-beam the alias
of the candle-beam. Entries abound in early
accounts proving that on festivals the rood-beam
was often a glow of light, being supplied with a
continuous line of candle-sockets, and occasionally
branched lights. Pages might be filled with
extracts as to the methods and manner of lighting
the rood loft at different seasons, and at various
ceremonials, not a few of which have never
appeared in print. A single quotation shall, how-
ever, suffice, as the subject has been so often
treated of, and it is taken from Mr. Kerry's
interesting book on St. Laurence's, Reading :
" 1506, It. payed for sysis (small wax tapers) to the
holy (holly) bush at Christmas, ixd.
Paid Macrell for an holy bush before the roode, ijd."
Is not this a forerunner of the Christmas tree ?
A holly bush covered with lighted tapers and
THE LIGHTS OF A MEDI/EVAL CHURCH. 61
suspended at Christmastide in front of the
rood !
In conclusion, a few words may be given with
regard to the changes in lights at the time of the
Reformation. The injunctions of Henry VI 1 1.,
issued in 1538, ordered that "they should suffer
from henceforth no candles, tapers, or images of
wax to be set before any image or picture, but
only the light that commonly goeth across the
church by the rood loft, the light before the
Sacrament of the altar, and the light about the
sepulchre which for the adorning of the church
and divine service they shall suffer to remain."
The injunctions of 1547 order the retention of
" two lights upon the high altar before the Sacra-
ment," excluding all else. The visitation articles
of Archbishop Cranmer of this year inquire
" whether they suffer any torches, candles, tapers,
or any other lights to be in our churches, but only
two lights on the high altar."
Bishop Bale, in The Image of Both Churches,
inveighs against " The continual light of lamps
before the high altar, the burning cressets at
triumphs in the night, the torches at burials and
solemn processions, tapers at high masses, and the
candles at offerings."
62 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
Lights seem to be literally a burning question
with the reformers. In the zealot Tyndale's
Answer to Sir Thomas Mores Dialogue, occurs
the following ; " When thou stickest up a candle
before the image, thou mightest with as good
reason make an hollow belly in the image and pour
in meat and drink ; for as the saint neither eateth
nor drinketh, so hath he no bodily eyes to delight
in the light of a candle."
But in another place the same writer gives a
sensible explanation of the origin of this custom,
which no one can gainsay : " Lights were sticked
before the memorials of the saints at the begin-
ning, to be a ceremony to put us in remembrance
that we so praised the saints, and boasted their
livings, that we followed their examples in our
deeds, as Christ saith, ' Let your light so shine
before men, that they see your good works, and
glorify your Father which is in heaven.' '
This is an ecclesiological, and not theological
article, and deals rather in the old customs than
their modern revival ; but we may be permitted to
point out that the beautiful teaching of lights, as
appealing to the brightness of Christian hope, has
in recent years regained much of its ancient
strength in the churches of our land. The great
THE LIGHTS OF A MEDIEVAL CHURCH. 63
festivals in many of our most crowded churches,
both in country and in town (and their number
increases year by year), are marked, as of old, by
the gladness and the glow of specially-kindled
lights at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist.
" The tapers now
In rosy morning dimly burn ! "
the chancel twinkles with the constantly burning
flame of the sanctuary lamp; and the tall sepulchre
serges once more glow beside the bier,
giving gleams to the mourners of resurrection
hopes. Although there has been no formal
restoration of the beautiful and touching English
custom, once so universal in our churches, of a
light for the faithful departed, we learn, as these
lines are being written, of a fair silver sanctuary
lamp just suspended in the quire of a Stafford-
shire church, on which are engraved the words :
" Oh, ye spirits and souls of the righteous, bless ye the Lord ;
praise Him and magnify Him for ever."
A traveller from the Continent, visiting England
in the fifteenth century, was so struck with the
festival glow of our churches from candles, lamps,
and tapers that he called it the Land of Light.
There can be no doubt that the cult of church
lights was more closely and generally followed in
64 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
England than elsewhere throughout Christendom,
and this, doubtless, through a desire to correct
the natural gloom and comparative dulness of our
climate. The recurrence of this sentiment among
us may partially arise from a like cause. May
England's worshippers, when their eyes are
gladdened with kindled lights, ever see in them
but symbols of the Light of the World, and thus,
and then only, will our native land be able to claim
with true justice, the lovely title of the
LAND OF LIGHT !
Concerning Crosses.
BY Miss FLORENCE PEACOCK.
THAT the cross was in some sense a religious
symbol amongst the heathen, long before
and after the Christian era, there can be but little
doubt. It is said that the Spaniards found it an
object of veneration when they conquered South
America, where it was used as the emblem of the
rain god. What connection there was between
rain and the cross we do not know ; but it must
be remembered that very little of the actual beliefs
of those whom Spain subdued, in the new world,
has come down to us. One form of the cross is
common upon Egyptian monuments, and was used
as the sign of immortality. It has been held that
the northern nations venerated the cross in pre-
Christian times, because in it they beheld the
hammer of Thor, the mighty god of war, second
only to Odin himself in power and strength. A
modern writer expresses this idea in verse :
66 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
" You shall mark your food with the hammer of Thor,
And think you are signing a holy sign ;
But the high gods shall laugh, for the symbol of war
You have laid on the bread, and the flesh, and the wine."
It would be impossible in anything like
moderate space to give an account of all the forms
into which the cross has been fashioned ; in the
symbolic language of heraldry alone there are
more than a dozen ways in which it is commonly
to be seen represented. Perhaps the most grace-
ful of these are the Maltese cross and the cross
pat^e fitche'e.
In the present paper we have confined ourselves
to an endeavour to describe some of the crosses that
were erected in England before the Reformation ;
the people of the present day do not realise how
common crosses were previous to that date.
Almost every parish had its cross, and it was
by no means an uncommon thing for the larger
parishes and towns to have several. We know
that at Liverpool there was the High Cross, the
White Cross, and St. Patrick's Cross. There was
usually the Churchyard Cross ; this was almost
invariably placed on the southern side of the
church ; in some instances it was a magnificent
piece of work, showing the sculptor's art in all
CONCERNING CROSSES. 67
its glory, but more often it was comparatively
small and plain.
From the time that Britain became Christian
until the Reformation, these churchyard crosses
continued to be set up ; it has been computed
that at least two-thirds of the crosses were then
destroyed. Not only those in the churchyards,
but Market Crosses, Weeping Crosses, Wayside
or Boundary Crosses, were all included amongst
those that thus perished.
The Anglo-Saxon crosses usually had the
Crucifixion carved on them. It was the custom
at that time to erect the churchyard cross either
near to the south doorway of the church or by the
side of the pathway which led to it, so that the
pious might be reminded at all times as they
entered or left the building by the sight of Our
Saviour upon the Cross, to pray for the souls of
those whose bodies were mouldering beneath the
grass at their feet.
Occasionally these churchyard crosses were
called " Palm Crosses," because on Palm Sunday
it formed a station in the Procession of the Blessed
Sacrament ; also after the Passion had been
recited at Mass on that day, blessed palms were
brought out, and the cross was decked with them.
68 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
Most likely these palm wreaths remained on the
cross until either very late on the following Thurs-
day, or early on Good Friday morning, when no
doubt they would be removed. Henry Bunn, in
his will, 1501, ordered a cross to be set up in
Hardley Churchyard " pro palmis in die ramis
palmarum offerendis."*
The ceremonies at the cross on Palm Sunday
were common also in France and Germany. It
was not only acts of religious ceremonial which
took place at the cross ; many civil functions were
performed there. Formerly the mayors of
Folkestone assembled the electors to meet them at
the churchyard cross on the eighth of September,
in order to choose the mayor for the following
term of office. It must have been an imposing-
sight ; the sign that the hour had arrived to pro-
ceed to the meeting-place was given by the
blowing of a horn.t This horn now hangs over
the mayor's seat in the Town Hall.
* Bloomfield's " Norfolk," x. I4f, edit. 1809.
t At Ripon the badge of the Wakeman (mayor as he has been called
since the Municipal Reform Act) is a very old horn, the baldric of which is
decorated with little silver ornaments given to it by the various Wakenien ?
some of these appear to be very ancient. Another large horn is blown
every evening in front of the mayor's house, and at what is known as the
Market Cross, an Egyptian-like obelisk which stands in the market-place,
and which no doubt occupies the place where the market cross once stood.
An engraving of the Wakeman's Horn may be seen in Walbran's " Guide
to Ripon."
CONCERNING CROSSES. 69
When all were assembled, the mayor addressed
them and bade them go into the chancel of the
church and there elect the new mayor, which was
then done. Whether they again returned to the
cross we do not know. The Manor Court of
Aston Rogers, Shropshire, met at the cross.
The crosses at Sandbach in Cheshire are con-
sidered to be older than any in England, but they
do not stand in the churchyard ; they are held by
authorities to date from the eighth century, and
some even consider them not to be later than the
seventh. They are too well known to need any
description ; there seems to be no reason why
they should not last for the next thousand
years ; the stone of which they are made is the
Lower Silurian formation, and is practically inde-
structible by weather or time. It is by no means
an uncommon thing to find the bases of church-
yard crosses yet remaining, and at times they are
dug up by the sexton. Half the stone into which
the base of the cross had been fitted, was dug up
about forty years ago in the churchyard of
Northorpe, Lincolnshire, but it was destroyed at
the time, or very soon afterwards. At Bottesford,
in the same county, the base of the cross remains
in its original position on the southern side of the
7 o
CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
churchyard, about forty or fifty feet from the
church. The cross itself is still fixed firmly in its
place, but it has evidently been taken up at some
time and the column considerably shortened, and
then put back again. At the present time it is
only about three feet high. The object of thus
shortening it seems to have been that a sun-dial
might be placed on the top. The head of the
cross has been roughly
levelled to admit of this
being done. The holes in
the stone show where it was
attached, but the dial itself
has long since ceased to
mark the drawing nearer of
eternity.
The east of England is
much poorer in crosses than
the west, but Lincolnshire
can boast of one which is
said to be unique, and is by
some people considered to
be the most graceful church-
'yard cross in Britain. It
stands in the churchyard
of Somersby, near Louth,
SOMERSBY CROSS.
CONCERNING CROSSES. 71
celebrated as being the birthplace of Tennyson.
The beautiful octagonal column springs from
broaches which rest upon a square base ; it
is fifteen feet high, and is surmounted by
an embattled triangle, the top of the shaft
having also an embattled head. There is no
tradition by whom, or for what purpose, it was
erected ; we do not know whether it was meant to
keep in the memory of men someone who rests
near it, and who has been forgotten these four
hundred years, or whether it is a " Weeping
Cross," or only the ordinary churchyard cross.
There is a good account of it to be found in
" Ancient Stone Crosses of England," by Alfred
Rimmer. There is a curious custom connected
with the churchyard cross at Stringston, in
Somersetshire. A writer in the Ecclesiologist
for 1844 * says, " Until very lately it was the cus-
tom of the people of Stringston to do obeisance to
the churchyard cross."t
In many parts of England the old feeling of
reverence has never died out, but I do not at this
moment recollect another instance of the peasantry
* iv. 291.
t Sixty years ago, at Kirton-in-Lindsey, Lincolnshire, the old men used
to give a pull at their forelocks, towards the altar, on coming into and
leaving the church, and the old women curtsied towards it.
72 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
paying honour to the cross, so late as the middle
of the present century. At Ampthill, in Bedford-
shire, there is in the vestry of the church a most
interesting fragment of the old cross, which no
doubt once stood in the churchyard there. It has
on it, on one side, the Crucifixion, which is very
general ; on the other, Oar Lady, crowned, which
is unusual.
Some writers have spoken as though crosses
were never erected in churchyards after the
Reformation, and no doubt it was rarely done, but
we have positive evidence that it was occasionally
allowed. The following inscription upon the
cross in the churchyard of Fyfield, Berks, is an
instance in point :
This cross was erected
in the yeare 1627
at the expence of
WM. UPTON, esq.*
Wayside crosses are believed not to have been
so common in England as they are at the present
day in some parts of Spain and Italy, but there
were undoubtedly an immense number of them ;
there are probably more remaining now in
Gloucestershire, Somersetshire, Wiltshire, Devon-
* Gents. Mag. Lib., Topog. i. 156.
CONCERNING CROSSES. 73
shire, and Cornwall than in all the rest of England
o
put together. There were several reasons for the
erection of these emblems of Christianity, but no
doubt the chief one was that so quaintly expressed
in a kind of commentary on the ten command-
ments, " Dives et Pauper" printed by Wynken de
Worde, at Westminster, in 1496. The author
tells us that " for this reason ben crosses by ye
wave, that whan folke passynge see the crosses
they sholde thynke on Hym that dyed on the
crosse and worshyppe Hym above all thynge."
It was also a practice to set them up on the
spot where a murder had taken place, and this is
commonly done in Spain even now.
They were often erected in positions suitable
for funerals to halt at ; the body was placed at
the foot of the cross, and the mourners rested and
prafyed for the soul of the departed. Archbishop
Grindell* issued an injunction against resting with
corpses at crosses on the way to burial.t
There is a very ancient cross at Lancaster, with
the following Runic inscription upon it :
Pray for Cynibald the son of Cuthbert. J
* Edmund Grindal, Bishop of London ; Archbishop of York, 1570 ;
Archbishop of Canterbury, 1575-6.
t Parker Soc. Index, 255.
% Archaeological Journal, iii. 72.
74 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
In Ely Cathedral is the base of a cross that was
formerly at Heddenham, commemorating the
steward of Etheldreda (he seems to have died
about 680). The following is the inscription upon
it :
*%* Lucem . Tuam . Ovino .
Da . . Deus . . Et. Requie .
Amen.*
There is the fragment of an ancient cross to be
seen close to Doncaster, with an inscription upon
it in Norman French :
^ ICEST : EST : LA : CRVICE : OTE : D : TILLI :
A : KI : ALME : DEV : EN : FAICE : MERCI :
A.M.
Tradition says that this cross was destroyed by
the troops of the Earl of Manchester, either on
their way to, or as they came from, the battle of
Marston Moor ; if there be any truth in the
story, it would be most likely to have taken place
on the return march southwards. The Parliamen-
tary general was in a great hurry on his way to
the north, and however much their zeal against
signs and symbols might lead the Puritan soldiers
under him to desire to pause and demolish any
work of art which lay in their line of march, it
* Rock, "The Church of Our Fathers," vol. iii. part i. 18.
CONCERNING CROSSES. 75
is very unlikely that they would have been allowed
to waste valuable time by doing so at that
juncture.
Near Cambridge once stood a wayside cross,
asking the prayers of the passers-by for one
Evrard :
Quisquis es Eurardi memor esto Bechensis, et ora
Liber ut ad requiem transeat absque mora.*
Certain crosses seem to have been objects of
devotion to various trades or professions. The
cross at Kings Weston, Gloucestershire, stood
near the Severn, and was an object of great rever-
ence to sailors. After returning from a voyage
they visited it, to give thanks for being brought
home, and before they again sailed, to pray that
they might return in safety.
Wayside crosses, besides being memorials of
some person or event, or objects of especial devo-
tion to some class of people, were often used as
meeting-places. There is a local tradition which
says that the base of a mediaeval cross raised on
octagonal steps, which yet remains, half-way
between York and Fulford, a village about a mile
and a- half to the south of that city, was used as a
place of meeting between the townsfolk and the
* Leland's " Collectanea," ii. 438.
76 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
country people during the Plague in 1665. That
it was so used during the cholera in 1833 we
know. Those who had market produce of any
kind to dispose of, placed their goods on the steps,
and when the bargains were concluded, the pur-
chasers in their turn laid the money there, so that
none needed to touch each other. There can be
but little doubt that the crosses destroyed at the
Reformation far exceeded in number those that
remained, but the Civil War between Charles I.
and his Parliament, attended as it was by an out-
burst of fanatical zeal, caused many to be
demolished which had weathered the greater
storm of the preceding century. Many things of
interest suffered from the vandalism of the
ignorant soldiery, and crosses being considered
emblems of Popery, were very hardly dealt with.
Over the greater part of England where the tradi-
tion exists that any work of art was destroyed
from 1642 to 1658, it is stated, and firmly believed
to have been caused by, or at least received the
sanction of, Cromwell. In some few instances
there seems to be evidence that he did allow it,
but in most cases he never was near the place
either then or at any other time. Unfortunately,
the crosses in the west of England have suffered
CONCERNING CROSSES. 77
in more recent days from another cause. It was
by no means an uncommon thing for the farmers
in the eighteenth century, and even till within
living memory, to use them for gate-posts. This
was perhaps done more in Cornwall and Devon
than anywhere else, but the neighbouring counties
can, alas ! show specimens of this wanton destruc-
tion. The crosses generally to be met with in the
western part of the island are oblong blocks of
granite, generally with a flat circular top, on one
side a Latin cross, on the other usually a rough
sculpture representing the Crucifixion. In some
instances we find the Latin cross replaced by the
Greek one, but this is rarely to be found.
These crosses vary much in size ; while some are
nearly eight feet high, others appear only a foot
above the ground. It is believed there is no
o
Cornish cross with any inscription upon it, save
one, the Market Cross at Penzance. It is said the
following inscription is concealed at the bottom of
the shaft :
Hie procumbunt corpora plorum.*
The west of E no-land must have been wonder-
o
fully rich in crosses ; there are five remaining at
* Halliwell, " Rambles in Western Cornwall," p. 29.
78 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
the present time in the parish of Lelant, in Corn-
wall. At St. Erth, in the same county, the cross
has a square head, an unusual feature in that part
of the country, the heads of the crosses there being
nearly all of them circular. Many of these heads
have four round holes in them ; when this occurs
they are usually named " Four Hole Crosses."
Norfolk possesses several crosses in a fair state
of preservation. One of the best amongst them is
that in Langley Park. It consists of a single
shaft ; the ornamental carvings upon it are very
beautiful, and it is in wonderfully good repair.
Very early in the present century Sir Thomas
Proctor removed it from its original site near
the Abbey, and placed it where it now stands, to
mark where the parishes of Langley, Chedgrave,
and Thurlton meet. In the removal the shaft was
unfortunately broken, but it was mended when the
cross was once more set up. It is a great pity
that it was ever taken from its place, but to put it
back might be dangerous, as again the shaft might
break. Mr. Samuel Whitbread, the great-grand-
father of the late member for Bedford, put up
a wayside cross at Cardington in that county, in
the centre of the three roads which lead to Bedford,
St. Neots, and Cardington. This is a late instance
CONCERNING CROSSES. 79
of such a cross being erected before the present
revival. Many of the wayside crosses were set up
as boundary marks, and they are often alluded to
in old chartularies. When by far the greater part
of the country was unenclosed, such marks were
necessary, and a natural instinct of piety dictated
the form.
It would be difficult to say why the east
of England suffered more than the southern
and more westerly parts of the island by having
these memorials destroyed. The city of Lincoln
is an example of this. We know Remigius built
a cross there, he was succeeded by Hugh de
Grenoble, who erected two, if not more, in the
city, and from time to time we hear of others.
All have perished ; St. Mary's Cross, so-called,
being a conduit.
Weeping Crosses were crosses that had either
been expressly set up as stations at which to do
penance, or those used as such. They must have
been very common, for " to return home by weep-
ing cross " became a proverb, and signified that
the individual about whom such a remark was
made had failed in something in the success of
which he was deeply interested, or had in some
way or other been very unfortunate.
8o CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
He that goes out with often losse,
At last comes home by Weeping Cross,*
seems to indicate that the expression was generally
meant to indicate that a person had had a series of
misfortunes in his business or calling in life.
This phrase seems to have lasted as late as
the middle of the eighteenth century.
Ozel,t in his translation of Brantome's " Spanish
Rhodomontades " (2nd edit. 1774, p. 56), says :
" Making an eruption into Provence, he came
home by weeping cross."
The Weeping Cross at Shrewsbury was one of
the stations on Corpus Christi Day ; the various
guilds and corporations visited it, and there offered
up prayers for a good harvest. There is a road
outside Salisbury named " King John's Lane,"
leading from Clarendon to Old Sarum. It is
crossed by another road, and at this point there is
a clump of elm trees. These trees are known as
" the weeping cross trees." There can be but
little doubt that on this spot a Weeping Cross
once stood, and the memory of it is handed down
* Hazlitt's " Eng. Prov. ," p. 3.
t John Ozel. He was the translator of many French, Italian, and
Spanish Books, amongst the rest, of " Don Quixote," and the works of
Rabelais and Moliere. Pope alluded to him somewhat unfavourably in
" The Dunciad," whereupon he drew a comparison between the poet and
himself, by no means in favour of the former.
CONCERNING CROSSES. 8r
to us in this manner, though in all likelihood it
perished more than three hundred years ago ; but
let a name or a tradition once take firmly hold of
the hearts and minds of the people, and it dies
hard. As will be seen later on, it seems to have
been the custom to plant trees in the place of the
cross when it was demolished. I have been
informed that on some maps this clump of elms is
called " Whipping Cross Tree," which is evidently
a corruption. There is, however, a very curious
instance of the way in which, what may be termed
modern myths, are evolved, to be found in connec-
tion with this place. It is stated, and no doubt
truly, that the London coach stopped here to pick
up passengers, and that their friends usually
accompanied them to the starting-point ; and as,
in the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth
century, a journey from Salisbury to London was
not a thing to be lightly undertaken, the partings
that took place here were often of a tearful and
melancholy kind, hence the name "Weeping
Cross," for they wept where the roads crossed
each other. Such is history.
Near I slip Church, Oxfordshire, is to be seen a
large elm-tree, its root surrounded by stones.
This is known as " The Cross Tree," but whether
82 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
it was a Weeping Cross, or merely a Wayside
Cross, we have no means of knowing.
There is a Weeping Cross near Holy well in
Flintshire. The Welsh name for it means the
Cross of Mourning.* Weeping Crosses must
have been numerous ; there is one yet remains
near Stafford, and there was one formerly between
Banbury and Adderbury.
Preaching Crosses were places where sermons
were delivered by the preaching friars and other
ecclesiastics. There was, until about twenty years
ago, an old sycamore tree in the village street at
Messingham, in Lincolnshire. It was named
" The Cross Tree," and no doubt occupied the
place where the cross once stood. Did John
Wesley realise, as standing beneath it he preached
to the crowds that flocked to hear him, that, as
the shadow of the sycamore fell upon him, so on
that very spot had the shadow of the cross fallen,
centuries before, upon those who then spoke to
the ancestors of the men and women listening to
him, of things spiritual and the life eternal to
come ?
When the old tree died, a young one of the same
kind was planted in its place, and is also known
* Rimmer, " Ancient Stone Crosses of England," chap. i. p. 14.
CONCERNING CROSSES. 83
as the "Cross Tree." St. Paul's Cross was one
of the most celebrated of the preaching crosses,
not only of England, but of Europe ; what it may
have been like at first we have no means of know-
ing, but in later days it was a pulpit of wood,
raised on a flight of stone steps, and covered with
lead. The citizens of London formerly held their
meetings at it, and it is associated with many
historical events, the memories of which yet
remain with us. In the reign of Richard III.,
Jane Shore did penance before it. It was in front
of this cross that Cardinal Wolsey sat in state to
hear fulminations against the doctrines of Luther,
and it was here that, by the orders of Henry VI II.,
sermons were delivered to the wondering crowds
in favour of the Reformation. Hither came Queen
Elizabeth in 1588 to attend a service of solemn
thanksgiving for the defeat of the Spanish Armada.
Sermons continued to be preached here, more or
less irregularly, until 1643, when, by the orders of
Parliament, it was demolished with various objects
of interest. The destruction of crosses, glass, and
the many other monuments of bygone ages,
occasioned much ill-feeling, and there still remains
some of the satires written at the time. The fol-
lowing is a specimen of verse of the better sort
84 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
that was written to bring the spoilers of sacred
things into contempt in the eyes of the
people :
They pluckt communion-tables down, and broke our painted
glasses,
They threw our altars to the ground, and tumbled down the
crosses ;
They set up Cromwell and his heir, the Lord and Lady
Claypole,
Because they hated common-prayer, the organ, and the may-
pole.*
Bishop Percy refers to Whitelock's statement,
under the date May 3, 1643, that Cheapside and
other crosses were ordered to be pulled down by
a vote of Parliament, but this order was not
carried out so far as Charing Cross was concerned
until the summer of 1647^
In his "Relics" [ii. 331] Bishop Percy prints
an amusing account of the destruction of Charing
Cross. It commences thus :
Undone, undone, the lawyers are,
They wander about the towne,
Nor can find the way to Westminster,
Now Charing Cross is downe ;
* Thomas Jordan, " A royal Arbor of loyall Poesie," 1663. Jordan
wrote an immense number of books and pamphlets. He has been called
" the professed pagent writer and poet-laureat for the city."
t " Relics of Ancient English Poetry," ed. 1794, ii. 333.
CONCERNING CROSSES. 85
At the end of the Strand, they make a stand,
Swearing they are at a loss,
And chaffing say, that's not the way,
They must go by Charing Cross.
There are six verses in the poem, and perhaps
the one already quoted and the fifth are the best.
The latter is interesting, as showing that the
destruction of crosses was general :
The committee said, that verily,
To popery it was bent,
For aught I know, it might be so,
For to church it never went.
What with excise and such device,
The kingdom doth begin
To think you'll leave them ne'er a cross
Without doors nor within.
A beautiful specimen of a Preaching Cross at
Hereford escaped the fate of so many others, and
is still to be seen in the Dominican Priory there.
Preaching crosses may yet be found at the Cathe-
drals of Norwich and Worcester, on the north
side. It is said St. Oswald used to preach at the
cemetery cross at Worcester, but I do not know
the evidence for this belief. There are other
specimens of preaching crosses to be seen we
know of the existence of many that have perished
and there must have been numbers of others of
86 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
which no tradition, either written or unwritten,
now remains.
Market crosses were to be found in the Middle
Ages in almost all towns ; they were generally
placed in the centre of the cross streets, and were
no doubt intended as places of shelter for those
attending the market. The usual form was a
vaulted structure, with opening at the sides and
cross on the top ; they varied much in size,
shape, and detail. Fine examples yet remain at
Chichester, Malmesbury, Elgin, Glastonbury,
Shepton Malet in Somersetshire, Salisbury, and
other places.
Some people consider the Market Cross at
Chichester to be the finest specimen now left in
Britain it is certainly one of the most elaborate.
It was built by Edward Storey, who was translated
from the see of Carlisle to that of Chichester in
1478. It was restored during the reign of Charles
II. by the Duke of Richmond.*
Ipswich could once boast of a very interesting
old market cross, but, to the everlasting disgrace
of those who authorised such an act of vandalism,
it was destroyed early in this century. On the
summit was a colossal figure of a woman holding
* Rimmer, "Ancient Stone Crosses of England," 1875, chap, v., p. 62.
CONCERNING CROSSES. 87
a pair of scales ; so far as I am aware, there is
but one other instance of this in England,
Coventry Cross has the figure of Justice at the
top, holding a pair of scales also. There is little
doubt that these figures were intended to typify
the fact that just dealing ought to reign below.
Malmesbury Market Cross is in very good preser-
vation. Leland gives an account of it. Market
Crosses served a double purpose : the seller looked
upon the cross and swore that what he offered
was honestly come by and good, and this supplied
the place of a voucher.* The Market Cross at
Shepton Mallet, Somersetshire, is one of the best
examples that yet remain. It was erected in 1505,
by one Walter Buckland, and Agnes, his
wife.t
In addition to the Market Cross, each town
usually had a High Cross, at whose foot public
meetings were held, proclamations made, and
much civil business transacted. If there were no
High Cross, such things were then, as a rule, done
at the Market Cross. Macaulay alludes to this in
his account of the Mayor of Plymouth, in " The
Armada," raising the standard,
* Southey, " Com. PI. Bk.," iii. 139.
t Rimmer, "Ancient Stone Crosses of England," 1875, ix. 113.
88 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
His yeomen round the market cross make clear an ample
space,
For there behoves him to set up the standard of Her Grace.
We find that in 1529 the play of " Robert
Cecill " was performed at the High Cross, at
Chester, and that it was newly gilded, most likely
in honour of the event. In 1583, Nicholas Massy,
sheriff, " being a godly zealous man," not long
before his death, pulled down certain Crosses
there by command of the Archbishop's * visitors
one at the Barrs, one at Northgate, and another
at Spittal Boughton.t There was also a Cross
somewhere near to St. Michael's Church.
There is a meadow on the west side of the city,
called the Roodee. In former days, when the
tide rose it was covered with water, with the
exception of a small island, on which stood a Cross,
or Holy Rood. A writer in the Gentleman s
Magazine, in 1807,^ speaking of Chester, says,
<( The only remains of any cross at this time here,
is upon the Roode where races are run." The
High Cross escaped the fate of most of the other
crosses in the city in 1583, but was torn down by
the Puritan soldiers in the following century. In
* Edward Sandys, elected Jan. 25, 1577-8, died at Southwell, July 10,
1588.
t Gents. Mag. Lib., Topog. part ii. 117. % Ibid., 1807, part i. p. 313.
CONCERNING CROSSES. 89
1804 the remains were discovered buried in the
porch of St. Peter's Church, and were taken to
Netterleigh House, and there used to form a kind
of ornamental rock work in the gardens. They
are now restored to their original position, and
Chester High Cross once more looks down on the
busy life of the city lying below it.
Melton Mowbray had two crosses ; they seem
to have been placed at the two principal entrances
to the town. The following interesting mention
of them occurs in an old minute book belonging to
the town :
1584 Itm. The stock stone at Thorpe Crosse was sold to
John Wythers for towe shillings and towe pense, and to plante
or sett one Ashe tree, or a thorne, and to renewe the same till
yt please god theye grow.
Itm. The stocke stone at Kettelbye Crosse wt one
stone standing, is solde to Willm Trigge for fyve shillings
and he to sett a Tree and husbond yt till yt growe as
abovesaid.
The crosses in Scotland do not seem to have
been so elaborate as they were in England ; not
infrequently they had the unicorn on the summit.
The High Cross of Edinburgh stood in the middle
of the High Street. It was removed in 1617, a
royal pageant then being organised to welcome
90 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
home James VI. on his first visit to his northern
capital after he had succeeded to the English
throne; and it was thought the cross would obstruct
the royal procession.
So far as I am aware there has been
no list compiled of the crosses that yet
remain in Britain. The crosses of some districts
have been accurately and fully described ; and
scattered about in various periodicals and the trans-
actions of learned societies there is much valuable
information to be obtained on the subject, but
what is really needed is an exhaustive list of the
crosses of Britain, arranged under the counties.
A short account of each cross should be given,
and especial care ought to be taken to record the
existence of the bases or fragments of any kind
that are still to be found.
It ought not to be difficult to get some resident
in each county to undertake this, the larger coun-
ties being sub-divided again, and the result of their
investigations forwarded to some zealous antiquary
who would undertake to direct the whole proceed-
ing, and edit the book. Surely someone might be
found at once capable of, and with leisure enough,
to undertake this most needful compilation. The
bells of many counties have been fully described
CONCERNING CROSSES. 91
and chronicled ; in others the church plate has
been made the subject of investigation; the crosses
have not been so fortunate, but it is earnestly to be
hoped that they may ere long receive the
attention they most certainly merit.
fllMsericorfces.
BY T. TlNDALL WlLDRIDGE.
A LT HOUGH examples of the graphic art of
** mediaeval times which illustrate life and
character with fidelity are abundant, the informa-
tion conveyed by them is not so vast that the sister
art of sculpture cannot be considered as not hold-
ing equal place as an exponent of the past. Sculp-
ture had by indirect courses come down from the
ancients without material break, and it is fortunate
for enquirers into the customs and costumes,
habits and habilaments, sports and pastimes, beliefs
and disbeliefs of the Middle Ages that the spirit
pervading Gothic architecture freely admitted and
cherished the representation of common and
uncommon things as a part of architectural
decoration. Chiefly the churches were the
galleries of art in wood and stone, and to these
we readily turn for precise information on very
many points of mediaeval life.
On the one hand we have the stately mail-clad
figure, rich with facts scarcely to be met else-
MISERICORDES. 93
where, on the other the sculptured capital crowded
with some mimic scene ; there whole choirs of
life-like musicians ; here, below the choir seats, a
series of oaken carvings which are, in this church
or that, mines of antiquarian wealth, giving
countless contemporary facts and countless in-
stances of survivals of thought and design dating
from the birth of the Sphinx. These seat-
carvings are the subject of the present study.
They are found in churches having a connection
with purposes beyond the celebration of ordinary
parochial services, and were an essential adjunct
of collegiate and monastic choirs. Being designs,
by some strange freak of continuous fashion,
more or less independent of the object on which
they are placed, they are less conventional than
other decorations ; their retired situation also gave
a free hand, though this was a consideration not
greatly weighing with the artists of old, who were
not usually deterred by motives of prudence or
delicacy.
The seats of the choirs of conventual or
collegiate churches, as well as of the smaller
churches depending on such, are moveable,
turning up on pivot hinges, and on the lower side
is a second seat or shelf. This small second seat
94 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
is variously known as the Misericord, Miseri-
cordia, Miserere, Patience, Subsellium (Greek,
Sumpsellion), Sediculum, or Sellette, and it is this
bracket rest which was invariably seized by the
mediaeval wood carver on which to exercise the
most unrestrained freedom of his art. There is a
popular error, for which the cathedral cicerone of
the old school is responsible, that this is an
arrangement to keep awake sleepy ecclesiastics, by
compelling them to maintain a watchful regard for
their equilibrium, and so avoid an undignified
descent into the floor of their stalls. The stability
of various examples varies according to the bulk of
the projecting block and the angle of fall
backward, given either originally or at subsequent
replacing of the stalls.
The term "miserere," now in general use, was
adopted by Britton in 1817, and by Hart in 1846,
but it bears on it the stamp of being an earlier half-
jocular term for the misericord. It was anciently
customary to stand during religious services, but
gradually the practice of sitting during a portion
of the time crept in, and was the occasion of
severe reprimands by the more severe heads of
orders. Eventually the secondary seat seems to
have become the compromise by which devotees
MISERICORDES. 95
might rest without entire deviation from the
attitude of standing. The twelfth century seems
to have been the period when the use of the
contrivance came to be fully recognized. The
seat proper was only let down at the Epistle, the
Gradual at Mass and the Responses at Vespers :
but the secondary seat was used at the will or
inclination of the canons at any other time. In
the early part of the twelfth century, the word
THE sow AS MUSICIAN (Btverley).
misericorde is met at the convent of Hirsaugh, in
Germany. Peter of Clugny, in 1121, doubtless
alludes, as quoted by Walcott, to the same thing
in the expression, " scabella sediliis inhserentia."
' ; Sedes paratae " appears to be the English
Mediaeval term, though the word misericord was
well known. Chaucer says :
"The spices of misericorde ben for to lene."
No doubt many a canon prone to comfort would
96 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
consider the narrow shelf a penance rather than
a mercy, and forgetting how far it was an
indulgence, would, as he leaned thereon during the
singing of the Penitential Psalm or installion,
be applying its opening word to the situation in
which he found himself. Hence, doubtless, the
misericorde became a miserere.
The earliest examples of misericordes extant in
England are those of Exeter, of the thirteenth
century, and in them knights in armour are a
principal subject ; those of Chichester are at-
tributed to the same century. Those of Boston,
Cartmell, Ely, Gloucester, Hereford, and Lincoln
are among the fourteenth century examples ;
Carlisle, Chester, Darlington, Norwich, Ripon,
and Whalley among the fifteenth century ;
Beverley, Bristol, and Manchester the sixteenth
century ; Durham and Wimborne the seventeenth.
Misericordes previously vaunted as being with-
out conventionality of subject, are, in one respect,
the most conventional of the ancillary ornaments
of churches, for they have almost invariably one
curious characteristic : the central design carved
on the block, corbel, or bracket of the misericorde,
is flanked or supported at the sides by smaller
carvings, which, in the majority of cases, have a
MISERICORDES.
97
distinct connection with the chief subject, and
often are a kind of commentary on it. These
sides are always much smaller than the centre
device, and are connected with it by a band, which
is a continuation of its top moulding and often
encircles the side pendants ; they are in semi-
relief (except in a few instances of exquisite
foliage designs), and their object is simply to take
off the blankness of the empty space which would
FOOLS DANCING (Bevcrley).
otherwise be left. The edge of the misericorde
is generally shaped into six facets, with several
mouldings, very frequently including an inverted
crenellation.
It will be interesting to review a few of the
subjects of misericorde ornamentation.
Scriptural incidents are frequent. At Beverley
Minster are shewn the spies returning from the
98 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
land of Canaan, bearing between them the
grapes of Eschol. At Ripon there is a treat-
ment of the same subject ; here the sides are
an excellent representation of a fabulous race
of men fully accepted as realities in mediaeval
times. These are veritable " nobodies," being
heads with legs attached to the jaws. One
has arms proceeding from his temples. In the
Cosmographiae Universalis of 1550, there is the
following passage : " Sunt qui cervicibus carent,
et in humeris habet oculos ; De India ultra
Gangem fluvium sita," which, like the report
of the spies, was a mere " traveller's tale."
Ripon has three other good biblical subjects.
One is Samson bearing away the gates of Gaza.
The city affords a good example of the walls
of a fortified English town, with a square gate
and a round corner tower. Within are indicated
the roofs of the houses. The proportions of the
whole thing, however, are ludicrous, the gates
(two half-doors, iron-bound, with hinges complete)
being of a size that a labourer, which the sly and
triumphant Elder much resembles, could carry
with ease. The other two contain the story of
Jonah. First is shewn the prophet being cast
overboard by three mariners. The ship is the
MISERICORDES.
99
usual single-masted, rostrumed mediaeval galley.
It is well shewn as though seen from above, the
interior of the crow's nest being seen. The
" whale," a curious sea-creature, is waiting outside
among the carefully combed waves. The sequel
carving depicts Jonah being cast out of the jaws
of the much-relieved monster ; he has emerged
half-way, and is in the attitude of prayer. Behind
is the shore, with a few neat trees. The trees of
FOOL GRIMACING (Severity).
misericordes are the conventional growths of
carefully-ordered leaves such as from Anglo-
Saxon times had been considered the proper
representation. Gloucester has the shepherds
{medievally three) marvelling at the appearance
of the star, their dog sharing in the general
astonishment. The dresses of these are remark-
ably good, all three wearing hoods, and having
ioo CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
also hats, probably of leather or felt ; one has his
hat on his head, the other two bearing them
slung behind, as was done with the classic
petasus. Two have high many-buttoned boots r
and all have at their girdles their knives, other
implements, and pouches.
Trades and occupations are illustrated in
several examples. In Beverley Minster is a good
instance, in which both sides and centre are occupied
by the figures of sculptors or carvers, with aprons
complete. The best of such, however, is a figure
known as the Wellingborough Shoemaker, though
it is perhaps to be doubted whether he is not of
some other trade, the object on which he is engaged
being a tudor rose. He has on his knee-board,
however, seven tools, including an awl, a hammer,
several chisels, or other cutting instruments.
Allied to trades are the carvings dealing with the
ever popular subject of ale. At Ludlow an ale-
drawer is filling a flagon from a barrel of some-
what the same capacity. At Wellingborough an
ale-wife is preparing to pour ale from a jug into a
horn cup, but first, apparently, asks a boorish-
looking customer for his money. This is
evidently not ready, for he scratches his head in
perplexity, and both their faces are turned aside
MISERICORDES.
101
as though for the utterance of sotto voc$ remarks
suited to the occasion. The Ludlow series
also tells the dreadful end of the fraudulent
ale-wife. She is shewn entirely naked, except
for the horned head-dress, and is carried
in an unconventional manner on the back
of a scaly demon. In her hand is her false
measure. Another demon gleefully greets her
with a tune on the bagpipes. At one side a
SHOEMAKER (IVellingborougli).
third demon is reading from a scroll, which is
presumably either one of her bills, or a list of her
enormities. The common practice of women
keeping ale-houses was productive of much evil,
and they were a constant subject for the satirist
in mediaeval times. In the reign of Elizabeth it
became a frequent town's ordinance that ale-
houses be no longer kept by women.
102 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
In misereres we find the material form of Hell,
so widely believed in during the middle ages, well
illustrated. " Hell's Mouth " is shewn, here as
elsewhere in church ornament, as the yawning
mouth of a dragon, horrid with teeth. There are
scenes in many manuscripts very similar to the
condemnation of the Ludlow ale-wife, though
without the allusions to the trade of the overtaken
one ; the nearest approach to it in another
carving is an elaborate stone sculpture over the
south transept doorway of Lincoln Cathedral.
The demons are such as are found in the
accepted forms of the greater and the lesser
embodiments of pure evil. Lineal descendant of
the ancient satyr, the mediaeval demon was a man
with the legs and feet of a goat, and all the
propensities towards mirthful mischief and
hilarious abandon characteristic of his classic
prototype. The idea of the bad hob-goblin of
Saxon-English folk-lore fell in well with the
design thus perpetuated by the monks, and the
fact that evil is almost invariably represented
under ludicrous forms, is probably due to the
reflection that good men could afford to laugh ;
that the demons enjoyed a thousand humorous
antics while burning or otherwise tormenting
MISERICORDES. 103
their victims, was of course no consolation to the
wicked sufferers. In his transition from classic
groves to the haunts of mediaeval man, the satyr
demon became slightly differentiated in form.
His horns in some instances have disappeared,
but in most have become those of a bull, and his
goatish tail is mostly found to be elongated to
that of a bull or lion ; or often has the barbed end
incident to the dragon form. From the same
source, the dragon being a favourite embodiment
of evil, is also derived the demon's bat-like wings.
To these physical equipments is frequently added
a human face set in the abdomen, as in the
famous demon playing Luther's head as bagpipes,
or more rarely at the knees. The misericorde
carving of the demon rushing upon the miser at his
money chest, in Beverley Minster, has these traits,
while a figure of a goose-shaped dragon in the
same series has the additional human face in the
breast. It is not improbable that this was an
arrangement brought to mind by the figures used
by mummers, who inside light mimic structures
representing dragons and other creatures, looked
out through a hole cut in the breasts. Perhaps
there is no form of mediaeval dragon which cannot
be found in one or another set of misericordes.
104 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
One of the most prevalent subjects was the
history of Reynard the Fox. It is to be particu-
larly noticed that the incidents shewn in
misericordes by no means closely follow the
narrations given in the abundant Reynard litera-
ture. The fox preaching to the geese is carved
in Boston Church, in Beverley Minster, in the
great church of St. Mary in the same town, in
Ripon Cathedral, and other places. He is also fre-
quently represented in the seat carvings as having
laid violent hands on his flock, as at Nantwich,
and many other places. Though, however, the
details of the fox's career vary in misericordes
from the received story, they closely adopted its
main ideas. Thus the ape is shewn as a friend
and attendant (in the fable, Reynard claims the
monkey family as relatives, and makes them
useful to himself). In several carvings the ape
participates in Reynard's religious ministrations,
and carries some of the poultry. In one he is
shewn taking the rope from the fox's neck after
the execution of the marauder (shewn fully in
another sculpture) by a flock of geese. In another
Reynard is laid in a little bed, which has four legs,
with a drooping coverlet (rather like the meaner
sort of modern German arrangement), while the
MISERICORDES. 105
ape tends him, perhaps after resuscitation from
his hanging. The hanging by geese is shewn
carved among the misericordes of Sherborne and
Beverley Minsters. In the former the sides are
two monks, who look up from their books to note
the execution. In the latter one of the sides is
the fox prowling near to two sleeping geese.
The gallows is invariably the square mediaeval
form. In the pulpit scenes, the fox, in some
representations other than misericordes, is shewn to
be uttering the words of St. Paul to the Philippians,
Testis est mihi deus quam, cupiam vos omnes
visceribus meis (God is my witness, how I desire
you all in my bowels). Except when in monkish
garb the fox in misericorde illustration is shewn
simply in his natural appearance, and he is the best
rendered of the numerous animal forms attempted.
There is among the fox carvings some of the
evidence that misericordes were, though not copied
one from another, yet suggested by the same
actual designs. The fox at Ripon is shewn
making off with a goose from among the flock ; a
dog pursues him, and a woman runs out of her
house with her distaff, illustrating the old cry of
" The fox is come into the town, ho ! " The same
thing, exactly tallying in description, is at
io6 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
Beverley, but very differently rendered. Another
in the last-named Minster shews the fox beino-
o
despatched in a manner which would not have
been beloved by Beckford ; an archer shoots him
as he lies at the mouth of his earth.
Leaving the fox, another misericorde instancing
an old nursery phrase is among the same set ;
" The Cat and the Fiddle " is a well-known
combination, and there we find her playing to five
mice who dance before her. There again the
popular fantasy known as " the world turned
upside down," has its allusion in the shape of a
hare on the back of some unnameable animal,
which it is driving.
Minstrelsy of every variety is caricatured in
misericordes, the tabor
" When tightly stretched and struck with hearty blow,
For half a mile you'll hear it as you go,"
the pipe, the viol, and the harp, most often shewn
to be played by the sow (an animal dedicated, by
the way, to Apollo), are nearly as common
beneath the seats of the choir as on the stone
arches above. Both at Ripon and at Beverley
are carvings of the sow playing the bagpipes to
her dancing family. That of Beverley is the
MISERICORDES. 107
subject of an illustration in this article, and
affords also an instance of the harpist sow.
A famous carving is at Beverley in " the
shoeing of the Goose," also at Cartmel. A man
nails a horse-shoe upon the webbed foot of the
bird. This is an allusion to a saying which has
left few traces, but which apparently has been
formerly of common acceptation, "Whoso melles
him, what all men does, let him come here and
sho the Goes." Melles equals " meddles " and may
contain a mediaeval pun on hammering. The
phrase is equivalent to " Melez vous de vos
affaires" as supplying an occupation for those
who have no business except that of other
people.
The Feast of Fools was elaborately celebrated
at Beverley, and there is a good carving of three
fools engaged in a sort of morris dance, with
others at the sides, one supplying the music of
pipe and tabor, the other with the time-honoured
bladder and staff. It is scarcely necessary to
enter here upon an account of the great and
popular festival which this in some measure
illustrates. The sketches give excellent examples
of the fool's costume. Fools' heads with hoods and
long stuffed ears are also common, occasionally
io8 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
grimacing, assisting the distortion of features by
the forcible use of the fingers. In one instance
the fool's-head has two birds perched upon it.
There is a considerable amount of morality
conveyed by some of these sculptures, some being
very complete sermons. It is shewn at Beverley
how the Devil is on the watch alike for the
miser who kneels before his treasure chest, and
the prodigal glutton, who, in eating and drinking,
runs to excess in the opposite direction.
The monsters of all times are favourite subjects,
and these are among the best survivals of classic
design. No doubt the nondescripts plentifully
scattered throughout our churches were believed
in to a considerable extent. The Greek gryphon
ubiquitous as the mediaeval griffin, the dragon
under every conceivable form, the dog-headed
ape, the boar-headed doe with a lion's tail, the
unicorn, the mermaid, and other specimens of
unnatural history, are common. Ripon has
probably the noblest griffin and the most repulsive
dragon.
At Ripon an old story is well illustrated. Among
a tangle of oak branches is shewn the wandering
Orson, hairy and muscular, and armed with an
enormous club. That he may not be mistaken
MISERICORDES. 109
for an ordinary wild man of the woods, he is
crowned with the knightly chaplet of his forgotten
birth. As well as these direct references there
are many carvings dealing with incidental ordinary
life ; the knight hawking, and the labourers mow-
ing are there. Puns are not unknown, and
heraldry has its part ; bear-baiting and boar-
hunting are given in spirited carvings ; while
some of the works are elaborate and careful
compositions of fruit, flowers, or foliage ; and
nearly every symbol of the Church is treated
more or less picturesquely.
Thus the ground covered by the subject of
misericordes is as wide as the whole field of
mediaeval art, and almost every phase of thought
has its illustration in these quaint carvings, which,
little regarded in a "minster gloom" more
profound than that which enwraps the rest of the
ecclesiastical ornament, invites in every county
the attention of the curious.
Cburcb <5ilt>s.
BY REV. J. MALET LAMBERT, M.A., LL.D.,
THE " Guild " is now again a living institution
in English Church life. Even in the
eclectic circles of Nonconformity here and there
we see an institution establishing itself under the
name which has become popular with the develop-
ments of the Anglican revival. Chiefly as a
parochial agency for cherishing a corporate spirit
among the youth of the Church, but now and
again taking a wider sphere, and under the names
of St. Matthew or St. Luke, aiming at a national
association of those who feel the urgency of some
special aspect of Church work or some theory of
social duty, the " Guild " bids fair to settle down
as a familiar form of religious and social organism.
Yet it bears upon its face the evidence of its
nineteenth century origin. " Guild " is most
common as a title of the later trade or mercantile
association which played so great a part in the
England which followed the Reformation. The
original was a " Craft " or a " Gylde " or " Gilde."
CHURCH GILDS. in
The "unnecessary and obtrusive u," as it is severely
termed by one of our encyclopaedic philologists,
is a siofn of the relation which the modern associa-
O
tion bears to its ancient original, though whether
we should be justified in going on to say with the
same author, that "Guild" is "an obsolete form
of Gild," is a question which we will not attempt
to decide.
Freeman, in one of his essays, points out the
historical distinction between those names of
ancient title or institution which are genuine
survivals of bygone ages, and those which are
the result of conscious imitation or attempts at
revival. The municipal rulers of the city of Alby,
at the time of the French Revolution, were called
consuls ; before many years France itself, under
Bonaparte, was governed by a consul. But the
consuls of Alby dated from a time when the
memory of the consuls of Rome was still a living
power in Gaul. The consulship of Bonaparte, like
the Capitol of Washington, was a thing of imita-
tion and revival. It is not often that the relics of
the past, and the imitation of it, thus touch in the
same decade, oftener the gulf between them is
wide enough to lend a glamour of mystery and
romance to the distance. What we mean, then,
ii2 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
is that the ancient gild of which we are about to
speak was a different thing from its modern
useful, but distinct, congener, dating, it is said,
from Manchester in 1851.
What was the ancient church gild ? Alas, its
very name betrays its ecclesiastical association, as
it betokens one source of its enduring popularity
and strength. The name is but little removed from
the Anglo-Saxon for a collection. The plain-
spoken old lady member of Society who briefly
described the principles of her Connexion as "a
shilling a quarter, a penny a week, and justifica-
tion by faith," went more to the heart of the
enduring principles of association than her hearers
conceived. Only there was a directness about
the form of the collection in old England which
is more in accordance with the bluntness of
unsophisticated men than the modern rather
clumsy attempts to euphemise over the naked
fact. It was Gildan, to pay, which gave its name
to the gild. The other attempts to account for
the origin of the term, such as that which would
connect it with Welsh * Briton, or Dutch words,
meaning a feast or holiday, may be regarded as
mistaken. The ancients were strangers to the
modern custom of glossing over the fact of a
CHURCH GILDS. 113
collection by a pretence of a feast. The tran-
sition stage between the two is found in the
Elizabethan ordnance which preceded the estab-
lishment of the Poor Law, namely, that a
(voluntary) collection should be made for the
poor, but that those w r ho neglected to subscribe
should be visited and given clearly to understand
that a continuance of their neglect would result in
proceedings before the justices.
Few more interesting subjects for students of the
religious and social life of the Middle Ages could
be suggested than this. As the mist of oblivion
is being lifted from the lower social life of those
times, we begin to trace the outlines of the customs
and institutions which gave warmth and interest
to existence. Life for our forefathers was rigorous
enough. Shut in by the walls of their narrow
cities, or scattered over the sparsely peopled land,
violence may have been common, famine was
too often a reality, and pestilence was terrible
enough, but when we can get , a glimpse of the
everyday life of the burgher or villager, we see
him to be a man by no means soured or cowed.
Civic patriotism was vigorous, trade after its kind
struggled against the barriers which restricted it,
everywhere the Church reared its massive tower
ii4 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
in the centre of the community, and round it
gathered the associations which gave the strongest
bonds of union to the slowly growing elements of
society.
The Church itself, it may be said, is an associa-
tion, one which claims to satisfy the truest and
widest aspirations of men. What room is there
within her boundaries for these minor associations
which detract from the sense of unity which she
is to cherish in herself? The answer is practical.
At the times when she has been the strongest,
and her influence has been most extensive, there
has always exhibited itself the tendency to
develop subordinate unions within. The ex-
tensive character of her domain, the catholicity of
her communion, not only leaves room for, but
invites, the natural cohesion in smaller groups of
those who are attracted by mutual affinity or
united in common aims. Hence the scope for
monastic orders, for gilds and fraternities, in the
Middle Ages, hence, too, the scope for the
multitudinous "Societies" which mark the vigor-
ous Church life of our own clay.
The present chapter is concerned especially
with gilds in their connection with the church.
But the very distinction itself is redolent of
CHURCH GILDS. 115
modern habits of thought. Nearly all gilds were
connected with the church, hardly any gilds were
solely and purely a part of church organization.
All said prayers, all had their lights, all came
solemnly to hear mass and invoke the services
of the priest. No gild but rested under the wing
of some saint or angel, many under the protection
of them all. Though devotees of S. Anthony, the
gildsmen founded their ordinances " in the
worshep of God of heven, and of his modir Seynt
Mari, and alle the holy Company of heven, and
souerengly of the noble confessour Seynt Antony,
with a grete devocion the fraternite was begonne
in the toun of lenne (Lynn)." The anniversary
days were Saints Days or were reckoned from
them. If this constituted a Church gild our
range is wide. But as truly must it be said
that of purely ecclesiastical influence, still more of
ecclesiastical government or control, there was in
the great majority of cases, at any rate till late in
the Middle Ages, but little. The priest was
possibly the chaplain, in some cases one of the
founders, in some was expressly excluded, but the
gild was the " fraternite " of the good folk
themselves. The line between the gild of a craft
and the gild of the patron saint of the craft was
n6 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
one which, if it existed in every case, and it is
doubtful, we at any rate cannot accurately follow.
The craft of the tailors and the gild of " ye holy
prophete Seynt Jon baptist " were almost identical.
The members of the one were probably members
of the other. We have more than a shrewd
suspicion that under this "grete devocion " to
some of the "armie of heven " the turbulent
journeymen or artisans of more than one craft
sought and found some measure of that liberty of
association which was denied them in a more open
form. If this be so, it was within the circle of
the gild that some of these social forces were
nourished, which have claimed so much attention
in our own day.
Again, nothing can be more plain than that the
religious observances were closely interwoven
with observances less distinctly devotional. We
know not quite whether to admire or to smile
when we read in the rules of the prayers which
were to be said over the great tankards of ale in
the gild of Shakespere's town. Who would pray
over them now ? Those were days when the
water, if we may judge from the notices in city
ordinances, was by no means so wholesome as ale
inspected by the mayor, and tried by the ale-
CHURCH GILDS. 117
conner, and when tea was unknown. The
naivete of the documents is beyond suspicion.
As we study their quaint simplicity, replete with
shrewd touches of life, we can imagine no smile
passing over the face of the scribe who engrossed
them or the brethren who gave them their loyal
adhesion. Humour was there, but it was the grave
humour of wholehearted men. There was then
no such boundary line between the secular and
the religious as there is with us. Church and
nation, parish and township, were one, different
sides of the same life ; prayers and feasting,
worship, and work, and merriment, alternated
without a thought of incongruity or inconsistency.
It is the spirit of that bygone world of thought
which was imaged in Dante, and which has now
passed away before the haunting self-consciousness
of modern civilization.
Let us try to picture to ourselves one of these
companies of fourteenth century English men and
women. For women were there on terms of inde-
pendence and respect. They, too, brought their
great tankards for the ale ; for the ordinance
stated that if any sister did not bring her tankard
she should pay a halfpenny. But there is no
record, so far as we are aware, of either an alder-
n8 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
woman or other female officer, only, " if any
brother or sister is bold enough to take the seat of
another," another halfpenny followed.
It is the age of Chaucer, and the goodly fellow-
ship of the country town determine to follow the
example of their acquaintance and establish a gild.
About a score agree to join in the foundation-
citizens and their wives, and one or two more on
their own account. They meet in the hall, or, as
we might say, the Parish room of the place, for
as yet they have none of their own, or especially
if, as was often the case, the gild was founded on
a Sunday, it may be in the nave of the Parish
Church. Preliminaries being settled, the ordin-
ances were drafted, on lines common to the genus,
but having distinctive features of its own, for
hardly any two of these old bodies of rules are
exactly the same.
Each member promised his payment, perhaps
charged his estate with an endowment. In Hull
it was two shillings and two-pence for each, or
for man and wife ; but the form and manner
of payments varied much. In Lincoln, in the gild
of the Resurrection, it was fourpence to the ale
and a penny to the wax on entrance, and thirteen-
pence yearly. Officers were appointed an
CHURCH GILDS. 119
alderman, a warden, a rector or a dean, a grace-
man, seneschals, six good men, or twelve, a beadle
or a clerk. Their office was hedged round with
dignity, and privileged by double fines ; sureties
were appointed, and an oaken chest, with its iron
hoops and many locks, was provided for the safe
keeping of parchments and liveries, silver plate,
pewters, money, and old world treasure. The
feast days, the mornspeeches, were decided on,
the fines fixed, the objects of the charity of the
Sfild determined. Each member affixed his seal.
o
A new interest was added to life. Each member
belonged henceforth to a new social unity. They
were brethren and sisteren. The monotony of
old custom was broken by the expectation of the
procession and the feast, and the consciousness of
the Church's approval, the special patronage of
the presiding saint, and the remembrance of the
charity to the poor, were sweet to the soul. So
the weeks would pass, and on the Sunday after
the Feast, say, of the Epiphany, a mornspeech
would be held a general meeting we should say
in these days. If it were held in the proper hall,
the alderman or warden would sit on a raised
chair at the end where the chest of the gild was,
and there, too, were the officers, while the mem-
120 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
bers sat on the benches below. Often it would
be held in the nave of the Church. Four times
in the year were these meetings held " to consider
and do whatever the welfare of the gild needs."
Everyone then paid his sixpence, or whatever was
the sum due. If he was in default " he shall pay
a pound of wax." " And the Dean shall pay a
penny for every brother he ought to have warned
and did not." But there is some unruly brother
who is inclined to grumble, or the new-fledged
dignity of the president does not meet with the
respect which is its due. A member is " rebelle
of his tonge ageyn ye Alderman, or ageyn ani of
ye gylde breyeren or sisterere." Such conduct is
foreseen and provided for. The rule is referred
to. ' ' I f he grucche (grumble) he shal pay a pounde
of wax, or leve ye fraternite for evere more."
Thus good order is preserved, and the " grete
lyte " is liberally supplied with wax. But the day
of festival is at hand, the order of the procession
is to be arranged, the details of the feast are to be
settled. All is done in good humour, and with
serious attention to business, and the members go
home abundantly satisfied. The great day arrives,
and the brethren and sisters assemble " atte hous
that is assignen for the fraternite, for to gone, two
CHURCH GILDS. 121
and two togedre, worshipfully to the chirche, with
the aldirman, for to heren messe and evensonge,
and atte general messe for to offre in worship of
the holy martir, atte messe of Requiem ilke for hem
that ben deed," upon pain of two pounds of wax.
Nor were the prayers ended when the church was
left, for " atte general tyme while the drinkynge
lastes, everyche nygt, afore the feste, the clerk
shal stonden up and done pees ben in the house,
while that he says the bedes for the state of holy
chirche and the state of the londe, with the lygt
brenninge that longes to the compaignye." Hear
the prayer said at Wygnale in Norfolk, " Beseche
we ihesu crist mercy, for the pees and state of
holy chirche, for the pope of Rome an the car-
dinals, for the patriak of Jerusalem, and for the
stat and pees of holy chirche, meinten hem and
susten him ; and for the Archbischope of Canter-
bury, and the Bischope.of Norwyche, and for the
Prioresse of Crabous, and for alle the covent, and
for alle Archbishopes, Bisshopes, Abbotes, Priours
an for alle men and wommen of religioun ; and for
the kynge and the quene and al the comones of
this Roialme." Truly, their sympathies were
wide. Into the details of the feast which followed
our accounts do not enter. Familiar to the
122 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
authors of them, they had no thought of the
curiosity of those who should come after, and
should have lost the peculiar secret of their enjoy-
ment. The potentialities of the human system,
as we are often reminded, are wonderful, and that
good digestion waited upon appetite the silence of
the chroniclers would lead us to suppose. Steaks
of roasted porpoise, wonderful pasties, swans, pea-
cocks, and venison all these and more would be
on the board in some of the greater gilds, nor
would the humbler fare of the lesser ones be less
plentiful or relished the less ; for the great tan-
kards of ale had been first sent to the poor,
and the occasion could be improved, with a good
conscience.
We should, however, do grievous wrong to
these good brethren if we should regard their
fraternities as nothing better than clubs for feast-
ing, praying, and jollity. As we have pictured
the gild so far, it was a social union, with a fixed
payment, with a close connection with the
Church, and with periodical holiday feasts. If
this were all, it would be worthy of passing
interest. But there were two features besides
which gave it a place both of greater practical
usefulness and of higher religious and social
CHURCH GILDS. 123
significance. These were its functions of charity
to the living", and of its peculiar care for the
welfare and memory of the dead. In the more
recent popular accounts of the pre-Reformation
gilds, there is perhaps too much tendency to
dwell exclusively on the former of these aspects.
The gilds have been repeatedly described, not
without reason, as the Friendly and Provident
Associations, the Insurance Societies, the Clubs,
and the Trades Unions of the middle ages. But
it is difficult to say, and probably no generalisa-
tion on the subject could be accurately made,
whether to their contemporaries they presented
the spectacle of institutions chiefly social, or
charitable, or religious. The elements varied in
their proportions in different localities and in
different gilds of the same town. It is with this
word of caution that we proceed to say something
of their works of charity. For charity of some
kind may be said to have been a universal feature
among them, and the kindly feeling it must have
cherished in the community where it existed must
have been a most wholesome element in con-
temporary society.
But the first objects were ever, and often ex-
clusively, the members of the gild, " especially to
i2 4 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
them of the household of faith," as the apostle
enjoined of old. Take the memorable gild at
Ludlow. " When it happens that any of the
bretheren or sisteren of the gild shall have been
o
brought to such want, through theft, fire, ship-
wreck, fall of a house, or any other mishap, that
they have not enough to live on ; then once,
twice, and thrice, but not a fourth time, as much
help shall be given to them, out of the goods of
the gild, as the rectors and stewards, having
regard to the deserts of each, and to the means
of the gild, shall order ; so that whoever bears
the name of the gild, shall be upraised again,
through the ordinances, goods, and help of his
brethren." If any brother or sister should be
wrongfully cast into prison, the gild would do its
utmost to spend money to get him out. "If any
of our poorer bretheren or sisteren fall into
grievous sickness, they shall be helped, both as to
their bodily needs, and other wants, out of the
common fund of the gild, until their health is
renewed as it was before. But if anyone becomes
a leper, or blind, or maimed in limb, or smitten
with any other incurable disorder (which God for-
bid), we wish that the goods of the gild shall be
largfelv bestowed on him." Again, " If any
o * o *
CHURCH GILDS. 125
girl of the gild, of marriageable age, cannot
have the means found by her father, either to go
into a religious house or to marry, whichever she
wishes to do ; friendly and right help shall be
given her out of our means and our common
chest, towards enabling her to do whichever of
the two she wishes." Or at Coventry, " If any
brother or sister of the gild become so feeble,
through old age or through any worldly mishap,
that he has not, and cannot earn, the means of
living, he shall have such help, at the cost of the
gild, that he shall not need to beg his bread."
At Chesterfield also the provision was character-
istic, "If any brother is sick and needs help, he
shall have a halfpenny daily from the common
fund of the gild, until he has got well. If any of
them fall into poverty, they shall go, singly, on
given days, to the houses of the brethren, where
each shall be courteously received, and there shall
be given to him, as if he were master of the
house, whatever he wants of meat, drink, and
clothing, and he shall have a halfpenny like those
that are sick ; and then he shall go home in the
name of the Lord."
At Hull, in the Corpus Christi Gild, the charity
dispensed was strictly practical. "If it befall
126 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
that any brother or sister become, by mishap, so
poor that help is needed, twenty shillings shall be
granted to him for one year, to enable him to
follow his calling. And if he cannot earn the
twenty shillings in that year, he shall keep the
money for another year. And if then he cannot
earn it, with increase, nor make his ' living, he
shall have it for another year, so that he may
make a profit out of it. And if, through no fault
of- his own, he can get no increase even in the
third year, then the money shall be released to
him." And in the gild of St. John Baptist, it
was further provided that five shillings should be
given to each of the afflicted at the feast of St.
Martin, in winter, to buy a garment. But the
strictly business-like character of this charity is
marked by the further provision in these Hull
gilds, that in each case, except only in extreme
necessity, a deduction was to be made to cover the
regular yearly payments due from the members
to the gild. Charity, too, in a wider sense was
nourished. For, " inasmuch as the gild was
founded to cherish kindness and love, the alder-
man, steward, and two help-men," in case of a
quarrel arising between members, "shall deal
with the matter, and shall earnestly strive to
CHURCH GILDS. 127
make the quarrellers agree together, without any
suit or delay, and so that no damage, either to
body or goods, shall in anywise happen through
the quarrel." And if the officials should neglect
to compose the quarrel, they should pay between
them four pounds of wax, or if the quarrellers
will not listen, " they shall pay four pounds of wax."
And, finally, if the officials cannot agree in a
matter of this sort, "then all and every of the
gild shall be summoned to meet, and the matter
in difference shall be discussed before them, and
be referred to them for settlement." It was, in
fact, a common rule that no brother should go
to law with brother, a rule which not only has
apostolic authority, but even goes back to the
gilds of the heathen, which were contemporary
with and prior to St. Paul.
The extent of the external charity of the gilds
is less easy to determine. It was a common,
and possibly we might even say a universal,
practice among them, that on the occasion of
the annual feast, portions should be given to
the poor. So at Grantham, each married
-couple or single man, on the day of the gild
feast, was to feed one poor person. There
were also given to the friars minor of the town
128 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
who had gone in procession with them fourteen
loaves, eight gallons of ale, and half a kid or
sheep. We have already alluded to the tankards
of ale at Ludlow, which were given to the poor
before the feasting began. But there were other
and more far-reaching works of charity done by
many gilds. The Report of the Commissioners
of Henry VIII. reported of the Gild of the Holy
Cross, at Birmingham, " There be dyuers pore
people founde, ayded, and suckared, of the seyde
Gylde, as in money, Breade, Drynke, Coles." And
their successors sent by Edward VI. reported
of the same gild, " There be relieved and
mainteigned uppon the possessions of the same
Guilde, and the good provision of the M r and
bretherne thereof, twelve poore persones, who
have their howses Rent free, and alle other kinde
of sustenaunce, as welle foode and apparelle as
alle other necessaryes." This gild, however, was
no ordinary one. Founded by the Bailiffs and
Commonalty of the town, its membership and
influence must have been very large. It is stated
that in the year 37 Henry VIII., there were " in
the same towne of Byrmyngham 2000 houseling
people. And at Ester tyme, all the prestes of the
same Gilde, with dyuers others, be not sufficient
CHURCH GILDS. 129
to mynyster the sacraments and sacramentalles
unto the seyde people." At Coventry also we
find that out of the goods and chattels of the gild
means of living were found for thirty-one men and
women who were unable either to work or to find a
living, and this at a charge of thirty-five pounds
five shillings a year. u Moreover, one of the
houses before named is kept as a lodging-house
with thirteen beds, to lodge poor folks coming
through the land, on pilgrimage or any other
work of charity, in honour of God and of all saints.
And there is a Governor of the house, and a
woman to wash their feet, and whatever else is
needed. The yearly cost hereof is ten pounds."
These, be it remembered were the days of
pilgrimage, to Canterbury and farther afield, and
the popularity of the custom finds frequent
illustration in the ordinances of the I4th century.
In some cases a gild brother going on
pilgrimage was excused his payments till his
return. It was so at Hull. But at Lincoln, " If
any brother or sister wishes to make pilgrimage to
Rome, St James of Galacia, or the Holy Land,
he shall forewarn the gild ; and all the bretheren
and sisteren shall go with him to the city gate,
and each shall give him a halfpenny at least."
130 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
And at the same city in another gild it was
further ordained that they should meet him on
his return and go with him to the monastery.
Hitherto we have dealt with the gilds as
institutions for the diversion and the profit of the
living. We have now to add some illustration of
their function in the care for the dead. For the
world of the departed loomed larger in the eyes
of our forefathers than it does in the nineteenth
century. Ghosts were real. At any rate they
still lingered round the habitations of the living.
At Ludlow, in the gild of the Palmers, "If any
man wishes, as is common, to keep night watches
with the dead, this will be allowed, on the
condition that he does not call up ghosts "
(monstra larvarum in ducere).
It is here that we come into contact with what
was undoubtedly one of the fundamental and vital
principles of ancient gilds a principle which,
indeed, was strong in the middle ages, but which
was as potent in far more ancient times, and links
on the mediaeval gild to the collegium of Rome,
and the brotherhoods of both east and west. We
will first note the universal practice of our English
societies : "All the brethren then in the town (of
Lancaster) shall come to placebo and dirige if
CHURCH GILDS. 131
summoned by the Belman, or pay twopence " ;
<l all shall go to the mass held for a dead brother
or sister" ; " each brother and sister so dying shall
have at the mass, on the day of burial, six torches
and eighteen wax lights, and at other services two
torches and four wax lights " ; "If any of the gild
dies outside the town of Lancaster, within a space
of twenty miles, twelve brethren shall wend and
seek the body at the cost of the gild, and if the
brother or sister so dying wished to be buried
where he died, the said twelve shall see that he
has fitting burial there, at the cost of the gild."
Or in Lincoln, "When any brother or sister dies
in Lincoln, two torches shall be kept burning about
the body until it has been carried into the Church.
The torches shall then be put out ; afterwards, the
mass being ended, the torches shall be lighted
again, and shall be kept -burning till the body is
buried." Or again, " When any of the bretheren
or sisteren dies, the rest shall give a half-penny
each, to buy bread to be given to the poor, for the
soul's sake of the dead." At Stamford, the ordin-
ance is interesting, " Also it is ordeyned that
when any Broder or Suster of this Gilde is
decessed oute of this worlde, then, withyn the xxx
dayes of that Broder or Suster, in the chirch of
132 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
Seynt Poules, ye Steward of this Glide shall doo
Rynge for hym, and do to say a placebo and
dirige, w* a masse on ye morowe of Requiem, as
ye commoun use is. Att the which masse, the
Alderman of ye glide, or his depute, shall offer ijd.
for the same soule ; and to ye Clerk for Rynging
ijd., and to the Belman for goyng aboute ye
Town jd. The seid dirige to be holden on ye fry-
day and it may be, and the masse on the morowe.
All this to be doon on ye Coste and charge of the
seid gylde." But the pageantry, so dear to the
thought of the living and the relatives of the dead,
was also provided by the gild. It was a valued
privilege to know that the gorgeous pall of the
gild would cover the departed, that the " hearse "
should be put about it, with thirteen square wax
lights burning in four stands, with four angels, and
four banners of the Passion with a white border,
and scutcheons of the same, powdered with gold.
For the hearse was not the hideous monstrosity
of to-day. The old iron frame in the church of
Tanfield, in Durham, over the Marmion tomb,
will serve to illustrate the original of which we
have to witness the degenerate descendant. For
the poor brother there was no pauper's funeral in
store. For him, too, the light would burn, and
CHURCH GILDS. 133
though his kith and kin were gone, his gild
brethren would follow him, two and two, to his
last resting-place.
It would carry us beyond our sphere to illus-
trate the similarity we might almost say the
identity of these observances in many details
with those of the gilds of heathen Rome. The
funeral chapel on the Appian way, with its
arrangements for memorial feasts and its liveries
for the gild brethren, presents an analogy with the
mediaeval gild too close to be accidental. It is
singular how the parallelism at times stands out.
Take the following two cases :
ORDINANCE OF LANCASTER ORDINANCE OF THE GILD OF
GILD OF HOLY TRINITY AND DIANA AND ANTINOUS AT
ST. LEONARD, A.D. 1377. LANUVIUM, A.D. 133.
If any of the gild dies out- If any member die beyond
side the town of Lancaster, the zoth milestone from the
within a space of xx miles, xij town, and his death be fully
brethren shall wend and seek reported, three members
the body at the cost of the chosen from our body shall
gild. And if the brother or proceed to the place to take
sister so dying wished to be charge of his funeral, and shall
buried where he died, the said render a true account, etc.
xij shall see that he has fitting But if the death take place
burial there at the cost of the beyond the 2oth milestone,
gild. then (those undertaking the
funeral), shall be re-imbursed.
134 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
Change Diana and Antinous into Christian
saints, change the objects of worship, increase the
charitable ordinances of the gild, and the
fundamental social principles of the institution
have changed but little in the 1 200 years which
have elapsed. The payment of the fixed con-
tribution, the endowment, the funeral ceremonies,
the help to poorer brethren, the rules for
maintaining order, the periodical feasts, the gild
hall, the dedication, occur in both Roman and
mediaeval forms. The persistency of these more
homely social institutions throughout long periods
of external historic change is one of the most
interesting of the facts which meet the student of
sociology. Whatever be the explanation of the
parallelism we are now noticing, whether it be a
case of similar causes producing similar effects, or
whether there be in it rather a curious example of
more direct historic descent, it is certain that the
prevalence of gilds, or at any rate we may say of
institutions closely resembling them, is almost
co-extensive with the beginning of civilisation
both ancient and modern.
Still more strange is the irony of fate. It was
this feature in the mediaeval English gilds, the
one above all others, as we have seen, which
CHURCH GILDS. 135
reaches back to an immemorial antiquity, and
seemed in its nature indestructible, which was the
chief cause of their destruction. To estimate the
proportionate strength of state policy, mere greed
for plunder, and religious conviction, in the com-
posite forces which disestablished the chantries,
colleges, and gilds in the reign of Edward VI.,
would be at this date impossible. But it is clear
that although we find instances of a confusion in
the reports of the commissioners between the
chantries and gilds which it is hard to believe was
entirely due to ignorance, nevertheless, in striking
at the gild property the reforming party struck an
effective blow at one of the mainstays of the old
religious system. The pageantry connected with
the masses for the dead, obits, and maintenance of
the chantry priests, was firmly rooted in the old
gilds. Plunder there was, but it was plunder,
which achieved a calculated end.
Still we prefer not to think of them as dead.
The image which we will leave in the minds of
our readers is a brighter sort. In the Minster
town of Beverley was a gild dedicated to St.
Elene, the holy mother of Constantine, who
found the Holyrood. At the year end, the alder-
man and stewards, and the bretheren and sisteren
136 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
of the gild, met together on the feast of St.
Elene ; and there a fair youth, the fairest they
could find, was picked out, and clad as a queen,
like to St. Elene. And an old man went before
the youth, carrying a cross, and another, a
woman, carrying a shovel, in token of the finding
of the Holy Cross. The sisteren of the gild
followed after, two and two, and then the
bretheren, two and two ; and then the two
stewards, and after all followed the alderman.
And so, all fairly clad, they went in procession,
two and two, with much music, to the Church of
the Friars Minors of Beverley ; and there, at the
altar of St. Elene, solemn mass was celebrated,
and every one of the gild made an offering of a
penny. The mass ended, and all prayers said,
they went home ; and after dinner, all the gild
met in a room within the hall of the gild ; and
there they ate bread and cheese, and drank as
much ale as was good for them. Afterwards
they chose, by consent of all, out of the best men
of the gild, an alderman and two stewards for the
next year ; and to these were handed over all the
goods of the gild. And the alderman and
stewards were bound to maintain two, or three,
or four, bed-ridden poor folks while they live,
CHURCH GILDS. 137
and when these die, they must bury them, and
choose others in their place, and in like manner
maintain them. Lights were kept burning in
honour of St. Elene, and any money in hand at
the year's end was spent in repairing the chapel
of the gild, and in gifts to the poor. At least,
this was the account given of themselves to King
Richard by the good folk themselves. Peace be
with them.
of the {past.
BY J. A. SPARVEL-BAYLY, B.A.
IN every parish of England, from Cumberland
to Cornwall, the one most important feature
is the venerable building designated the Parish
Church. This edifice, with its massive square
tower, from which
" ascends the tapering spire,
That seems to lift the soul up silently
To heaven, with all its dreams,"
commands the sympathetic respect of all. Some
remember with reverence the scenes which have
been enacted within its walls in the days that have
gone by, and hope that yet once more it will be the
home of the ancient faith. All know that beneath
the church's Gothic shade the ashes of their fore-
fathers are laid in peace. A strange feeling of
tranquil awe falls upon one on entering so holy and
so ancient a building. But, unfortunately, to its
habitual frequenters it contains within its walls a
fruitful germ of envy, and one calculated to utterly
destroy a peaceful and contented state of mind ;
PEWS OF THE PAST. 139
for probably more heart-burnings and petty
jealousies have been caused by the position of
seats or pews within the church than by anything
else connected with the sacred edifice, and it is to
these that we now propose to turn our attention.
yEtheberht had given the little pagan Saxon
temple embosomed in thickets to Augustine and
the monks who came with him. From its ruins,
and on the site of this temple, rose the first
Christian church in Kent, and the homely church
of St. Pancras became the type of future parochial
churches. Simple in form, they possessed no
furniture the altar, the stone cross, and the
sedilia for the clergy in the chancel, being, in fact,
structural parts of the edifice. The parishioner
rich or poor, without distinction who desired to
attend divine service, could, on entering the
church, place himself anywhere in the part
designed for the congregation, none interfering,
and there he was expected to stand or kneel the
whole service through. The inconvenience to the
old, the sick, and infirm, must have been very
great, compelled thus to stand on the damp, cold
floor, whether paved with tiles or stones, or, as
was commonly the case, on the ground itself, the
clay having been simply beaten hard.
Uo CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
A stone bench, in some instances, ran round
the north, south, and west walls, to which the
weary might retire for a while. In Chaldon
Church, Surrey, a long low stone seat ran along
the wall of the south aisle, until 1871, when it was
" restored " away ; and in Acton Church, near
Nantwich, there is still a stone bench along the
wall of the south aisle. The porch was always
provided with benches, where those coming from
a distance might rest themselves before entering
the building.
No sitting accommodation for the congregation
appears to have been provided before the four-
teenth century, though it is probable mats were
used to sit and kneel on long before that period. In
one parish there is a record of " nats " or mats of
plaited straw being charged in the accounts ; and
we know that straw and rushes were very gener-
ally used for strewinge the church, and upon these
the people may have sat. But it is somewhat
doubtful whether originally this strewing of straw
or rushes was not with a view of keeping the
church clean, the rushes taking the place of mats.
When the roads were bad, and villagers had some
distance to walk to church, probably they uninten-
tionally brought a good deal of dirt into the build-
PEWS OF THE PAST. 141
ing. This supposition arises from certain entries
in some old churchwardens' accounts, where par-
ticular attention appears to be given to the new
pues.
In 1493, the churchwardens of St. Mary-at-Hill,
in Middlesex, paid 3d. for three burdens of rushes
for ye new pews, and, in 1504, 2d. for "three ber-
dens of rysshes for the strewing the new pewes."
Within the memory of the present writer, the
floors of the churches of Pitsea, Bowers Gifford,
Vange, and South Benfleet, in Essex, and that of
Swanscombe, in Kent, were regularly covered with
straw during the winter months. But it is only fair
to say that the same family influence was para-
mount in the five parishes at that period.
In the inventory of the plate and furniture of
Worcester Cathedral there is an entry of " three
long carpets to sytt upon at sermons." But these
were for the quyer. Sermons at this time were
not the heavy cumbrous discourses of the religious
and political controversalists of the Reformation.
The Gesta Romanorum was one of the most
applauded compilations of the Middle Ages. Its
great popularity encouraged the monks to adopt
the method of instructing by fables in their dis-
courses from the moveable pulpits then in use, and
142 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
thus endeavour to make an impression on the
minds of their illiterate auditors. Short and inter-
esting as these moral discourses must have been,
the hearers were often chided for their restless
inattention, probably induced by the standing or
squatting position which, through lack of seats,
they were obliged to adopt. Thus we find Bishop
Bentham in his visitation articles directing the
people " not to walk up and down in the church,
nor to jangle, babble, nor talk in church time, but
to give diligent attention to the priest." And long
before, even in the fifteenth century, Myrc had
noticed the very irreverent behaviour of those who
lolled about, lounging against the pillars, as per-
haps well they might, if the sermon happened to
be inordinately long. He says in his Instructions
for Parish Priests, that men should put away all
vanity :
" Ne non in Chyrche stonde schal,
Ny lene to pyler, ne to wal.
But fayre on kneus they schall hem sette
Knelynge down up on the flette.
And whenne the Gospelle red be schalle
Teche hem thenne to stande up alle."
With the increase of domestic comforts, the
necessity for seats became urgent. The clergy
PEWS OF THE PAST. 143
reluctantly had allowed laymen of opulence to
occupy stalls in the chancel hitherto reserved for
themselves, and it soon became difficult to prevent
other parishioners, differing but in degree, from
enjoying the same privileges in the nave, hence
moveable seats or benches were introduced. The
poorer classes still being without either, the body
of the church remained open ; nor was the space
thus left often unappropriated. In 1326, the tithe-
corn of Fenham, Fenwick, and Beale was collected
in the chapel of Fenham, and about the same
time, when the good monks of Holy Island found
their grange would hold no more, they converted
the chapel attached to their manse into a tem-
porary tithe-barn. A manor-court called Temple
Court was held in the church of SS. Mary and
John the Baptist, Dunwich, annually on the feast
of All Souls. Wool was stored in one of the
churches of Southampton. Parliaments have been
held in the parish church of Northampton, and a
law-suit settled in S. Peter's Church, Bristol. As
an illustration of how old customs survive, we
remember a case in Essex, where the non-resident
incumbent came into the neighbourhood, and ex-
pressed a not unreasonable wish to perform service
in the church of his parish ( Bowers Gifford). The
. .,4 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
principal farmer, an ancestor of the present writer,
who was also churchwarden, was consulted ; but a
difficulty presented itself. It was harvest time,
the weather had been showery and uncertain, and
the churchwarden was obliged to reply that they
would have had much pleasure in seeing their
rector amongst them, but there had been a
deficiency in barn accommodation, and the church
was then full of his wheat.
That moveable seats were a source of danger
to unpopular priests may be gathered from the
account of a riot which took place in the church
of S. Giles, Edinburgh: "When the Bishop
stepped into the pulpit, hoping to appease them
by reminding them of the sanctity of the place,
they were the more enraged, throwing at him
cudgels, stools, and what was in the way of fury."
A woman was at the bottom of this mischief, one
Janet Geddes, who, like the wretch that burnt the
temple at Ephesus, would never have had her
name mentioned but for some villainous exploit
of this kind. She struck up the prologue to
the subsequent tragedy by heaving her folding
stool at the Bishop. There are several stools
preserved, which each claim to be Janet Geddes'
stool so applied. The derivation of the word
PEWS OF THE PAST. 145
" pew " is about as difficult to determine as the
time in which it came into use. Dr. Johnson
gives the word a Dutch origin, implying "a seat
enclosed in a church." Among other explanations
is that ingeniously suggested by Mr. A. Heales,
F.S.A., in his exhaustive work on The History
and Law of Church Seats, that Pewis may be a
corruption of Pervis, the Parvise or Paradise,
used occasionally by our old writers to signify an
enclosure. Nearly all the pre- Reformation church
seats in this country are of the late Perpendicular
era. Pews were, however, in common use, long be-
fore that time. In some parts of England, it is now
extremely uncommon to meet with a church still
containing ancient pews, or, more properly
speaking, benches, many of them having fallen
victims, no doubt, to the fashion for family isola-
tion in the sixteenth century ; but in other parts,
old pews still remain, even in this present age of
destructive restoration. Sir Thomas More often
mentions them in his discourses. He tells how
men "fell at varyance for kissing of the pax, or
goyng before in procession, or setting of their
wives' pews in the church ;" while Sir Richard
Baker in his Chronicle, gives a long account of a
disturbance in the church of St. Dunstan, London,
10
146 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
between the wives of a nobleman and a knight as
to the right of the occupation of a particular pew
in that church, resulting in a riot, and death and
injury to various persons, partisans of the angry
ladies. This event took place early in the
fifteenth century. We may, therefore, surmise
that pews were sometimes restricted to the use of
the fair sex.
Lord Bacon tells us : " When Sir Thomas
More was Lord Chancellor, he did use at mass to
sit in the chancel, and his lady in a pew. And
whereas upon the holy days during his High
Chancellorship, one of his gentlemen, when
service at the church was done, ordinarily used
to come to my Lady his wife's pew door, and
say unto her ' Madam, my Lord is gone ; ' the
next holy day after the surrender of his office,
and departure of his gentlemen from him, he
came unto my Lady his wife's pew himself, and
making a low courtesy, said unto her : ' Madam,
my Lord is gone.' But she, thinking this at first
to be but one of his jests, was little moved till he
told her sadly he had given up the Great Seal."
At the church of St. Botolph, Aldgate, an entry
appears in the year 1553, of money paid to a
carpenter for " two new pewes, wherein Dr.
PEWS OF THE PAST. 147
Arthur Darsey and his wife are sett." A pew
each! Addison says: "If our sex take it into
their heads to wear trunk breeches at church, a
man and his wife would fill a whole pew." But a
man and his wife were not allowed to try the
experiment, for the practice of separating the sexes
seems never to have been abandoned from the
earliest period of Christianity down to the present
time. It is said to have been customary in the
time of St. Mark ; and the author of the Apostolic
Constitution says : " Let the doorkeeper stand at
the gate of the men and the deaconesses at the
gate of the women."
St. Augustine intimates that each sex had its
distinct place ; and St. Ambrose, who was always
getting into scrapes, " was once furiously assaulted
in a church by an Aryan woman, who tried to
hale him by his garments to the women's part
that they might beat him." The great Emperor
Theodosius had to leave his seat in the sanctuary
or chancel, and sit without among the men ; and
the Empress Helena prayed with the women in
their part of the church. Females were forbidden
the privilege of sitting in the chancel in the seven-
teenth century ; and when the laymen invaded
that sacred portion, the women, ecclesiastically
148 CURIOUS CHURCPI GLEANINGS.
the most obnoxious, were very pertinacious in
their attempts to do likewise.
" Lewde men holy church \vyl forbede
To stonde yn the chaunsel whyl men rede,
Who so ever tharto ys custummer
Though he be of grete powere.
Yet for wommen's sake thys tale ys tolde
That they oute of the chaunsel holde,"
for it was great folly for women to stand with the
clergy :
" Other at matyns or at messe,
But y hyt was yn cas of stresse ;
For there of may come temptacyun
And disturbyng of devocyun."
This practice of the laity sitting in the chancel
should have ceased when the nave became
occupied with pews ; but such was not the case.
In an age full of mystical significations, when
every part of the church was symbolized, it
appears nothing strange that the division of the
sexes should still maintain. That the men should
be placed on the southern the women on the
northern side, to signify that the saints which be
most advanced in holiness should stand against
the greater temptations of the world. But
according to others the men are to be in the fore-
PEWS OF THE PAST. 149
part, i.e., eastward, the women behind, because
the husband is the head of the wife, and therefore
should go before her. The extreme simplicity of
this arrangement, makes its symbolical character
more impressive.
The seventeenth century came, and with it the
time when the pews became both comfortable and
magnificent.
The patron of the church had always been
well seated, the squire fairly so ; but now
money and position could acquire by precept,
license, or faculty what was needed. Sermons of
the highest importance in reference to disputed
tenets, and the religious and political controversies
of the day were preached in country parishes ;
and rustic priests, who derived but a scanty
subsistence from their tithe-sheaves and tithe-pigs,
developed the professional spirit in the highest.
In the words of Macaulay : " Living in seclusion,
with little opportunity of correcting their opinions,
they held and taught the doctrines of hereditary
right, of passive obedience, and of non-resistance,
in all their crude absurdity." The high pew
became a refuge for the parishioners to sit or
sleep in, where the Puritan could listen to a
teaching not sufficiently reformed, and the loyal
iSo CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
Catholic could cross himself in safety, and mutter
his aves unnoticed.
The luxury of some pews of this period may be
inferred from their having glass windows. At
Merstham, in Surrey, until comparatively recently
there were pews raised some feet above the cold
damp floor, comfortably fitted, and possessing a
fire-place and table by no means an uncommon
example. Such pride of place must have been
peculiarly offensive even in private chapels.
That such seats were well considered and tended,
we may readily believe. In the Booke of Nurture,
by John Russell, A.D. 1420, the following advice
is given concerning " the office of a chamberlain,
to prepare for his master attending church "
" Prynce or prelate if hit be, or any other potestate,
Or he enter in to the churche, be it erly or late,
Perceive all thynges for his pewe that yt be made
preparate.
Bothe cosshyn, carpet, and curteyn, bedes and boke,
forget not that,
Then to your Sovereyne's chamber walk ye in haste."
It was this fashion of having " seates or pewes
made high and easie for the parishioners to sit or
sleepe in, a fashion of no long continuance and
worthy of reformation," which called forth the
indignant reproof from Bishop Corbet : " I am
PEWS OF THE PAST 151
verily persuaded," he says, " were it not for the
pulpit and the pews (I do not now mean the
Altar and the Font for the two Sacraments, but
for the pulpit and stools as you call them) many
churches had been down that stand. Stately
Tj'
CANOPIED FEW, BKEEDON-ON-THE-HILL.
pews are now become tabernacles with rings and
curtains to them. There wants nothing but beds
to hear the Word of God on ; we have casements,
locks and keys, and cushions I had almost said
bolster and pillows ; and for those we love the
152 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
Church." Strong words, but undoubtedly in their
time very true.
A good example of a canopied pew is in the
church of Breedon-on-the-Hill, Leicestershire.
It bears the date of 1627. This pew is in the
Ferrers or north aisle of the church, which is
railed off from the rest of the building. The
Earl of Ferrers is the owner of the pew, but it
is never used. It is beautifully carved, and on
the whole, is in a good state of preservation.
A pew seems, from the following story, to have
sometimes been the eminence upon which
offenders did public penance : " These witness in
dede will not lye," as the pore man sayd
by the priest, "if I may be homely to tell
you a mery tale by the way." "A mery tale,"
quod I, "commith never amyse to me." "The pore
man," quod he, "had founde ye priest over famyliar
with hys wyfe, and because he spake of yt abrode
and could not prove yt, the priest sued him before
ye byshoppes offyciale for dyffamatyon, where the
pore man upon pain of cursynge (i.e., excommuni-
cation), was commanded that in hys paryshe
chyrche, he should upon ye Sundaye at high
masse time, stand up and sai, ' Mouth, thou
lyest ! ' Whereupon, for fulfilling of hys penance
PEWS OF THE PAST.
153
up was the pore soul set in a pew that the
people might wonder on hym and hear what he
sayd. And there all a loud (when he had
PEW, WENSLEY CHURCH.
rehersyed what he had reported by the priest),
then he sett hys handys on hys mouthe and saide,
' Mouth ! mouth, thou lyest ; ' and by and by
thereupon he set hys hand upon his eyen and
i54 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
saide, ' but eyen, eyen,' quod he, ' by ye mass ye
lie not a whitte.' '
We give an illustration of a historically inter-
esting pew in Wensley Church, Yorkshire. The
chief part of it consists of portions of a richly-
carved parclose, believed to have been brought
from the Scrope Chantry, Easby Abbey, near
Richmond, in the county of York, the ancient
burying-place of the Scropes. On the top of the
screen are inscriptions, and " a sort of Scrope
pedigree in woodwork." The carving is well
executed, the pew was richly gilt and blazoned.
It belongs to the Lords of Bolton, and in the
tomb under it rest the remains of members of that
noble family. The flag suspended above the
pew is that of Loyal Dales' Volunteers.
Before the well-cushioned family pew could be
reached, a journey in many cases had to be under-
taken, sometimes attended with no few difficulties.
All the establishment was beaten up, and the lord
of the manor marched at the head of no mean pro-
cession, carrying his favourite hawk on his wrist,
and closely followed by his hounds. The latter,
when arrived at the church, were placed in the
"hall dog pew" during divine service. One of
these pews was in existence, and used for this
PEWS OF THE PAST. 155
purpose, at Aveley, in Essex, at the close of the
last century.
That the clergy possessed no power to check
the freaks of the squirearchy, and if they had
would not have used it to the hurt or hindrance
of those animals which ministered to their
pleasures, is most abundantly proved. It was
always difficult to restrain the clergy from the
pursuit of field sports from the time of King
Edgar to that of Rowland Hill. One of the
ecclesiastical canons, passed in the reign of the
former, enjoins : " That no priest be a hunter, or
fowler, or player at tables, but let him play on his
books as becometh his calling." Lord Hermand,
the Scotch judge, had a large Newfoundland dog
called Dolphin, which used to go everywhere
with him, and even to church on Sundays. His
master taught him to place his huge paws on the
book-board of the pew, and rest his head gravely
thereon, like a country farmer. The dog seemed
to relish this part of his duty, and when the judge
could not attend, went itself to church and
devoutly listened. And when there was no
service in the parish church, the dog was even
liberal enough to attend the dissenters' meeting
house with apparently equal relish and
156 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
spiritual refreshment. A Scottish laird, en-
sconced in the family pew, thought nothing of
there smoking his accustomed pipe, and the yelp-
ing cur at his feet would often disturb the parson
in the midst of his most polished eloquence. But
the social barometer had not then risen ; the
parsons were not as yet the men they were in the
time of Cowper :
" The things that mount the rostrum with a skip,
And then skip down again ; pronounce a text,
Cry ' hem ; ' and read what they never wrote,
Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work,
And with a well-bred whisper close the scene."
As an example of the way licenses for pews
were asked for and obtained, we may mention the
instance of a clergyman and his wife who alleged
that they had lately purchased an ancient house
in the parish, " where, by reason of the situation
and air, she, for her health's sake, for five months
past, and he also do sometimes dwell," and not
having a convenient seat, and there "also want-
ing a seat for women who came after childbirth to
give God thanks," they offered to build, in a void
place, a seat for themselves and one for such
women. So a faculty was at once granted to
them for leave to build two pews. Thus, with a
PEWS OF THE PAST. 157
show of providing occasional additional accom-
modation to a part of the parishioners, they
acquired two new pews for themselves and
servants.
The absence of any system in making these
early grants will be seen in another case. The
applicant, a widow, was decreed to be restored to
the " uppermost room in the pew, as before, and
her husband's place also to be restored if she
should again marry." In another, the court
directed the churchwardens to "place Mr.
Church, his daughters, when God should send
them him, in the said third seat."
The attempt to seat parishioners according to
their degree three centuries ago involved very
great litigation, and we are sorry to think that
ever since pews have been fought for more for
the pride of place than as places for prayer.
Man is a creature of habit. It is likely that
while many persons would consciously or un-
consciously each acquire the habit of occupying a
particular place, their neighbours would, from
friendly feelings or peaceable motives, be dis-
inclined to interfere, a right by courtesy would be
acquired, and this right be allowed on no other
grounds by the Ecclesiastical Courts. We take
158 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
for granted the undisputed right of the patron
and the lord of the manor, or his representative,
to share with the rector those parts of the chancel
which have, by common consent, appertained
respectively thereto. Until the restoration of
Swanscombe Church, Kent, in the year 1873, the
whole of the south side of the long chancel of
that ancient edifice was occupied by a magnifi-
cently upholstered pew, with table, etc., in which
sat, in solitary state, a dignified tenant farmer, as
representative of the lord of the important Manor
of Swanscombe. The north side of the chancel
being equally divided between the rector and the
lord of the tributary Manor of Alkerden in the
same parish.
While on the Continent the parson is charge-
able for the repairs of the whole church, in
England he is responsible for the state of the
chancel alone, and in some instances not for that.
In London, from long usage, the inhabitants
claim the right of appointing both churchwardens,
and they have the privilege and duty of repairing
the chancel as well as the nave, and apportioning
the seats in both, but as a rule their authority is
limited to the nave.
The claim of churchwardens to appoint to
PEWS OF THE PAST. 159
everyone where he must sit in the church,
appears to have been enforced in 1605 against
one Lancelot Ridley, who was presented " for
that he will not be ordered for his seat in church,
being appointed by the churchwardens," and
being interrogated on the next court day whether
he had done so, " Dixit that he hath not, nor
doth sit in it," wherefore he was pronounced in
contempt, and suspended " Ab ingressu ecclesice"
Rather a singular punishment, but no doubt a
very effectual means of preventing a repetition of
the offence.
There might be reasons we know not of why
Lancelot would not sit where he was ordered.
We have heard of church rats and mice, but a
" hungry ." Well, we will give an extract
from the churchwardens' account-book of St.
Margaret's, Westminster :
" 1610. Item. Paid to Goodwyfe Wells for salt to
destroy the fleas in the Churchwardens' seat, 6d."
Perhaps such presence may have been accepted
as a reasonable excuse which, under an Act of
Elizabeth, every inhabitant had to make for not
being present at the solemn services of the
Church. But if some sittings were uncomfort-
able, we may imagine those provided by the
160 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
generosity of benefactors were not so. Amongst
these we should class the pew erected in the nave
of Little Bemington Church by a shepherd
crossed in love, who, lacking a memento mori
inscription, has spoiled the effect of his very
commodious pew by placing a skeleton carved in
wood in the south-west angle, with the in-
scription :
" For couples joined in wedlock ; and my Friende
That stranger is ; this seate I did intende
Built at the cost and charge of
Stephen Crossbe,
1640."
About this time (1640), the pews were so
arranged in many churches that they could easily
be taken up, and the ground used for interments.
Among the numerous pews of the past bearing
inscriptions, we may mention one at Whalley, to
this effect :
" Factum est per Rogerum Nowell, Ann. MCCCCCXXXIIIJ."
The history of it is this, as appears from the
deposition of an old parish clerk given in a suit
in 1605. A pew belonging to the Townley
family in right of their Manor of Hapton, was
anciently called St. Anton's Cage ; and a dispute
having arisen in respect to places in the church,.
PEWS OF THE PAST. 161
Sir Joseph Townley, as the principal man in the
parish, was called upon to decide it ; and after-
wards it was remembered that he had made use
of the following remarkable words : " My man
Shuttleworth, of Hacking, made this form, and
here will I sit when I come ; and my cousin
Nowell may make one behind me if he please ; and
my son Sherbourne shall make one on the other
side, and Mr. Catterale another behind him, and
for the residue the use shall be, ' First come, first
speed,' and that will make the proud wives of
Whalley rise betimes to come to church." This
is simply the sovereign order of the local auto-
crat, for which no authority but his ipse dixit is
pretended.
In contrasting the pewed churches of the
seventeenth century with the bare and com-
paratively unfurnished naves of earlier times, we
should remember that though the pre- Reforma-
tion congregations were for the most part
unseated, they usually stood or knelt within reach
of benches, to which they could retire in case of
illness or extreme fatigue.
So long as the people's quarter preserved its
old social usages, and was by turns a court-house,
a market-hall, a granary, and a place for such
11
162 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
neighbourly entertainments as church ales and
bid ales, it usually contained stacked away in
corners, a stock of boards, stools, and tables. It
seems to us strange that the sacred buildings
should have been used for any secular purposes,
yet such was the case ; and we are compelled to
confess that the advice given by Seager, in his
Sckoole of Virtue, printed in 1557, is still often
disregarded :
" When to the churche thou shalt repayer,
Knelynge or standynge, to God make thy prayer ;
All worldly matters from thy minde set apart,
Earnestly prayinge, to God lyfte up thy heart."
Bishop's throne.
BY THE REV. GEO. S. TYACK, B.A.
FROM very early, if not even from the earliest,
times it has been customary for a special
seat to be reserved for the Bishop in the chief
church of his diocese. This, as is well-known, has
given its name to the cathedral, from the Greek
cathedra, and even to the See itself, from the
Latin sedes, both being, in a narrower or a wider
sense, seats of the Bishop.
Doubtless at first the chair was in itself simple
enough, and it has grown to its present dignity of
form and circumstance by gradual and natural
stages, just as the useful crutch has become the
symbolic crozier. But what the first thrones
lacked in splendour of design, they gained in
dignity of position. In the days of Basilican
churches the altar stood on the chord of the arc
formed by the apse, and the stalls of the clergy
were ranged in a semi-circle behind it, with the
bishop's chair on a dais in the midst. Thence,
with his clergy on either hand, and looking over
164 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
the altar at the congregation assembled in the
o o
nave, the bishop preached to, and blessed, his
people.
This arrangement of the church is referred to,
among other early writers, by St. Gregory
Nazianzen, who describes himself sitting as
bishop on the high throne, with the priests on
lower benches ; the Apostolical Constitutions also
allude to the same thing. Even on the continent,
where churches of the basilican type are still found,
another order now prevails, yet at Nantes an
almost perfect example exists, although the apsi-
dal east-end of the cathedral is as late as the
eleventh century in date ; while further south in
France, the ancient arrangement may not in-
frequently be seen, save that some decorative
feature, such as a pair of folding doors, has
usurped the original place of the throne.
Over the elevated seat thus set apart for the
" Father of the Diocese " a handsome covering
was thrown, characteristic either by its richness
or its decoration of its purpose. St. Athanasius,
in one of his apologies, speaks of a " Throne
episcopally draped ; " and St. Augustine of
Hippo, warns Maximin, the Donatist Bishop, that
" neither thrones raised on steps, nor covered
THE BISHOP'S THRONE. 165
(perhaps canopied) seats," will avail one at the
Last Judgment.
At the same time the Church was jealous of
too much display in the state of the episcopate.
At the Council of Antioch (A.D. 341) one of
the charges against Paul of Samosata was that
he had built himself a lofty tribune, too much
resembling those of secular princes. It was the
Church's care, in the quaint words of Bingham,
that "the honours bestowed on her bishops
should be such as might set them above con-
tempt, but keep them below envy ; make them
venerable, but not minister to vanity." A
practice similar to this of draping the throne with
handsome stuffs, prevailed at old St. Paul's
Cathedral, among the ornaments appertaining to
which, in the seventh year of Edward VI., were
" baudkins of divers sorts and colours, for
garnishing the quire for the King's coming, and
for the Bishop's seat."
With a different style of architecture, a different
arrangement of the seats for the clergy became
necessary ; and in England, at any rate, where
basilican churches were probably never common,
the usual position seems always to have been on
the south side of the choir, between the altar and
166 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
the 'canons' stalls, although the marble chair,
known as St. Augustine's chair, at Canterbury, is
said at one time to have stood behind the altar,
after the ancient style.
Some of the earliest representations of epis-
copal thrones occur on coins, especially on those
of the Italian cities, which, in the days when they
were separate republics, generally marked their
money with the figures of their patron saints. A
coin of Milan bears on its obverse the effigy of St.
Ambrose, in full episcopal vestments, his right
hand raised in benediction ; he sits on a square
seat, without arms or back, but carved in front,
and having an embroidered cushion upon it.
Other examples exhibit thrones almost equally
simple, though various in shape. Several of the
English Archbishops, both of Canterbury and
York, issued a coinage of silver pennies, previous
to the Norman Conquest ; but, though they
stamped them with their own names, and some-
times with an exceedingly rough representation
of their faces, English art at that time was
evidently unequal to the task of attempting the
delineation of the whole figure.
For primitive English examples we may turn
to the illuminated manuscripts of our monkish
THE BISHOP'S THRONE. 167
scribes. One of the Royal manuscripts has a
figure of St. Augustine seated in a carved chair,
the arms of which terminate in the heads of
animals, and the feet of which are correspondingly
clawed ; the seat is cushioned, and the whole is
elevated on a shallow step, or dais. A Harleian
manuscript has a figure of the same saint,
enthroned on a chair precisely similar, which
would imply that the seat in question was drawn
from one actually in use, unless the artists copied
one from the other.
An ancient episcopal chair is preserved at
Hereford. It is a substantial seat with spindles
in the arms, and in front and sides below the seat.
But this was probably never the official throne
of the. See. It was usual for a movable chair to
be provided, wherein the bishop might sit in any
part of the cathedral in which he might be
ministering. This was often made to fold up,
for convenience of carriage, and was conse-
quently termed faldistorium ; and although the
Hereford chair is not of that type, it was doubtless
used in a similar way.
Several of the early English thrones were of
stone, which, by its very solidity and durability,
gave them, however simple in form, a restrained
168 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
dignity. Allusion has already been made to St.
Augustine's chair at Canterbury ; another example
is the " Frithstool," or " seat of peace " in
Hexham Abbey. At the time of the abolition of
the right of sanctuary, this had been long used as
the spot to be gained by the fugitive criminal ere
he could claim the church's protection ; but it is
scarcely questionable that originally it was the
throne of the ancient see of Hexham, which
existed from A.D. 68 1 to 825. The throne used
by the Bishops of Durham when presiding in the
chapter-house belongs to the same class.
The fourteenth century was apparently a great
time for the erection of thrones in the English
cathedrals. One of the most splendid in the
country is at Exeter, the canopy of which, with its
towering pinnacles soars almost to the roof. The
rearing of it was probably the work of Bishop
Walter Stapledon (1308-1327), a great builder at
Exeter, though by some it is ascribed to Bishop
John Boothe (1465-1478). Bishop Hatfield, of
Durham (1345-1382) endowed his cathedral with
a magnificent episcopal throne. Below he pre-
pared for his own entombment, and above,
supported by arches of stone and reached by an
equally solid stair, he placed the throne, thus
THE BISHOP'S THRONE. 169
to teach himself, it is said, to remember the
dignity of the episcopate, and the frail mortality of
the bishop. The throne at Lincoln was put up
under the auspices of John de Welbourn, the
minster treasurer, in the same century ; and those
at Hereford, and several other cathedrals, are of
about the same date. Thomas de Bekinton, bishop
of Bath and Wells from 1443 to 1466, is credited
with the throne at Wells, but many consider it an
earlier work. At Chester, fragments of the shrine
of the abbess-patroness St. Werburga, destroyed at
the Reformation, have been built up into a throne.
The most modern English episcopal throne is
that in Norwich Cathedral, a handsome and
dignified structure, which was erected in 1895 to
commemorate the episcopate of nearly forty years
of Bishop Pelham (1857-1893).
Many of our cathedrals were also abbey-
churches, and in these the bishop had a dual
office. He was both bishop of the diocese and
abbot of the monastery, the dean being his prior.
Thus it happens that at Durham, Carlisle, Ely,
and elsewhere, the bishop had assigned to him not
only his throne, but also the first stall on the south
side (the abbot's stall), the dean in these cases
having the opposite one.
Chantries.
BY JOHN T. PAGE.
" He sette not his benefice to hire,
And lette his shepe accombred in the mire ;
And run into London unto Seint Pouls,
To seken him a chanterie for soules."
CHAUCER.
I ^HE equivalent of the word chantry in
-1. mediaeval Latin was Cantaria, which in
French is expressed as Chanterie from Chanter,
to sing.
Chantries may be said to have flourished in
England, roughly speaking, from the fourteenth
to the middle of the sixteenth century. Most of
the churches which date back to this period still
retain traces of chantries within their walls.
These were established in nearly every parish,
and could literally be counted by the thousand at
the time when the fiat went forth for their
suppression. During the Middle Ages the belief
in purgatory was real and widespread. The
clergy pourtrayed with harrowing details the
torments of lost souls, and enhanced their descrip-
CHANTRIES. 171
tions by the aid of startling frescoes on the church
walls. Thus it came about that those who
possessed money were easily persuaded to set
apart a portion of it in order that prayer might
continually be made for the repose of their souls.
For this purpose small private chapels were
either added to or divided from the parish
churches by those who could afford to do so.
Here priests were employed to keep up a per-
petual succession of prayers for the prosperity of
the founder and his family while they lived, and
for the repose of their souls when they died.
Within the precincts of the chapel their bodies
were eventually committed to the dust, and richly
sculptured altar tombs were erected over their
remains. Many of these gorgeous memorials
still exist, although the small enclosures in which
they were enshrined have long ago been
demolished.
Sometimes as many as half-a-dozen chantries
were attached to an ordinary parish church, and
in St. Paul's Cathedral, at the suppression, there
were found to be no fewer than forty-seven such
foundations within its walls.
The service in the chantry was very simple.
It was usually conducted by a priest and his
172 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
acolyte, no congregation whatever being necess-
arily present. Bishop Jewell, in condemning
these "private masses," speaks of them as being
"for the most part sayde inside iles alone, with-
out companye of people, onely with one boye
to make answer."
In constructing a chantry, it was customary to
enclose a part of either the north or south aisle of
the church at the east end. The partitions were
composed of stone-work or wood, the bottom
part being panelled and the upper part open-
work like the rood screen dividing the chancel
from the nave of the church. Most of these
partitions have now entirely disappeared, but in
some cases they are intact. A piscina in the
outer wall of the edifice is often the only remain-
ing indication of the position of a chantry. It
should here be mentioned that chantries were not
always contiguous to a church. In some cases
buildings were specially erected for this purpose
near the residence of the founder.
A few examples of the stone altars at which
mass was said in the chantries still exist. A very
good specimen of one of these may be seen at
Warmington Church, Warwickshire. It consists
of a slab of stone marked with crosses at each
CHANTRIES. 173
angle and in the centre. It is let into the wall
and supported from beneath on three stone
brackets. The founder's tomb was occasionally
utilised as an altar, but this was not often the
case.
The Beauchamp Chapel attached to St. Mary's
Church, Warwick, may be cited as one of the
finest chantries now to be seen in England.
Under directions contained in the will of Richard
Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, it was commenced
in 1443, and is constructed in the purest Gothic
style. It took twenty-one years to accomplish its
completion, the cost, including the elaborate altar-
tomb of the founder, being ,2,481, equal to about
,40,000 in the present day. It is, practically
speaking, still intact, and contains many choicely
sculptured tombs and memorials. Another very
good specimen is to be seen at the little village of
Kirk Sandall, in Yorkshire. It was founded by
William Rokeby, Archbishop of Dublin, who died
in 1521. He was a native of the place, and left
directions in his will that his body should be
buried at Kirk Sandall, his heart at Halifax, and
his bowels at Dublin.
During the time that chantries were in vogue,
they were frequently established by royal person-
i 7 4 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
ages. In such cases much money was spent on
their internal decoration, and they were, of course,
very richly endowed. A royal chantry formerly
existed on the spot now occupied by the north
aisle of the Church of All Hallows, Barking, in
the city of London. It was founded by King
Richard I., and dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
Some even believe that the " lion heart " of
Richard was buried here, but this is, to say the
least, very doubtful. As a royal foundation, estab-
lished for the benefit of Kin^ Richard and his
O
successors, great care was naturally bestowed upon
it by later kings of England, notably by Edward
I., Edward IV., and Richard III. Many allu-
sions to this chantry occur in old documents. The
following entries are from the " Privy purse
expenses of Elizabeth of York " (1470).
Paid to our Ladye of Berkinge xi s - vi d -
Item to Sr. William Barton, preest, singinge
at oure Ladye of Barkinge vi s - viii d -
Another celebrated royal chantry is that of
Henry V., at Westminster Abbey, which occupies
the whole of the east end of the chapel of Edward
the Confessor. Some of the grandest sculpture
in the venerable edifice is to be seen in this
chapel.
CHANTRIES. 175
The commencement of the crusade against
chantries, which ultimately led to their dissolution,
may be traced to the year 1529, when an Act was
passed forbidding any person to receive money
for celebrating Mass for the souls of the dead.
This Act effectually prevented the establishment
of any new foundations, but did not affect those
already in existence. In 1545, a statute provided
that the revenues of the chantries should be tem-
porarily appropriated for the King's use, but this
only lasted until Henry's death. A more drastic
measure was then set ' on foot. Soon after the
first parliament of the young king, Edward VI.,
met, an Act was passed (i Ed. VI., c. 14) which
permanently dissolved all chantries and confiscated
all their endowments. The avowed object of its
promoters was to convert the foundations into
" good and godly uses, in erecting grammar
schools, in farther augmenting the universities,
and making better provision for the poor and
needy." *
That nothing of the kind was intended, the
sequel amply proved. This was, indeed, "a har-
vest time for thieves, and a high holiday for the
profane." t It is true that a few grammar schools
* Collier. t Lane.
176 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
still known as King Edward the Sixth's schools
were established throughout the country, and
the hospitals of St. Bartholomew and St. Thomas
were provided with endowments for the relief of
the sick poor ; but the bulk of the spoil was used
to defray the warlike operations in Scotland and
Ireland, and last, but not least, to enrich the
coffers of the court sycophants. " Educational
endowments had to be left for later reigns, and
largely to private munificence. The unique
opportunity which the dissolution of the chantries
presented for advancing the cause of education
was practically lost."
The uses to which the chantry chapels had been
put amounted to a parody on religion, and the cry
for reformation was irresistible and imperative.
But the change proved too sudden to be useful.
Things once held in reverence became common
and profane, and money bequeathed for pious uses
was squandered like water to compass the ends of
unscrupulous courtiers. Thus the remedy was in
many respects worse than the disease.
The chantries desecrated and demolished, their
revenues misappropriated and misspent, and their
priests turned adrift to face a frowning world
* William Page, F.S.A.
CHANTRIES. 177
such is the picture of havoc that meets our gaze as
we turn back to the stirring period of the Refor-
mation. In these later times, all that is left to us
is a mass of beautiful wreckage, which the hand
of demolition has scattered along the shores of
time.
12
Ibacjioscopes,
BY JOHN T. PAGE.
A HAGIOSCOPE, or Squint, generally con-
sists of an oblique opening in the interior
walls of a church, cut through the angle formed
by the junction of the north or south aisles with
the chancel. It is carried through the thickness of
the wall immediately at the back of the pillar
which supports the chancel arch. By this means
a good view is obtained of the east end of the
chancel, which would otherwise be quite hidden
from anyone occupying a position at the eastern
ends of the aisles. It will at once be obvious that
during the time when the Chantries or private
chapels were in vogue, something of the kind was
necessary in order that the elevation of the host,
and other ceremonies conducted at the high altar,
might be witnessed and participated in by the
Chantry priests. Examples of these oblique
openings, or hagioscopes, are to be found in
nearly every county in England, but, notwith-
standing this, they are by no means common.
HAGIOSCOPES. 179
It should here be mentioned that there are
a few instances in which the sight line of a
hagioscope is not directed towards the high altar,
but to some other part of the building. As an
example the church at Eastbourne may be cited,
where the opening in the south pier of the
chancel is directed towards the south aisle. This
is, however, most unusual, and it is assumed that
in such a case, the opening was made to overlook
the tomb of the founder of a Chantry, where Mass
was celebrated daily. This would enable any one
to participate in the ceremony, without of
necessity entering the private chapel.
Sometimes the openings are continued in a line
through more than one wall, as in Bridgwater
Church, Somerset, where an opening, now bricked
up, in the north porch, commands a hagioscope in
the north transept, through which the position
occupied by the high altar may be viewed.
At Tilebrook Church, Bedfordshire, the north
aisle is continued eastward, so as to form a
chapel, which contains a hagioscope and a
piscina combined, and at Minster Lovell Church,
Oxfordshire, there is a hagioscope in each tran-
sept, and another opening from the vestry.
Most of these hagioscopes are perfectly plain
i8o CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
slits in the masonry, and are quite devoid of
ornament, as at Stepney Church, Middlesex,
but there are very occasionally to be seen
specimens of a more ornate description. At
Hadleigh Church, Essex, there are openings both
in the north and south piers of the chancel arch,
which are cinque-foiled in shape, and at Irthling-
borough Church, Northamptonshire, the head of
the opening is arched, cinque-foiled within, and
surmounted by an embattled moulding.
In modern times many of these hagioscopes
have been glazed at both ends, and thus tem-
porarily closed, and in some cases, they have
been permanently blocked up with masonry.
Where they still exist, they generally serve the
purpose of silent witnesses against a system of
architecture which has not yet succeeded in
devising a scheme whereby every worshipper
can see and participate in the most important
part of the services of the church.
Some English Shrines.
BY THE REV. GEO. S. TYACK, B.A.
WHILE not questioning the fact that good
was wrought by that great upheaval
which is commonly called the Reformation, it is
impossible for the thinking man to close his eyes
to the excesses to which its leaders drifted, both
in thought and deed. It is not the province of a
volume such as this to discuss the strictly religious
results of that stormy time, but the artist and the
antiquary can hardly deplore too deeply the havoc
which it wrought in the domains most interesting
to them during the century or more that elapsed
between the beginning of the Reformation and
the end of the Commonwealth. Nothing that
was beautiful, nothing hallowed by the veneration
of the ages, seems to have been able to touch a
tender chord in the spoilers' souls ; and if much
that is both lovely and venerable has nevertheless
been spared to us, it is chiefly owing to good
fortune, or to the happy skill of our ancestors in
combining artistic beauty with almost impreg-
1 82 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
nable strength. Thus, while our massive cathe-
drals remain to us, and our once glorious abbeys,
though disused as well as desecrated, still, after
three centuries of neglect, rear many a sightless
window and graceful tower to defy the winds,
the painted glass all aglow with inimitable colour,
the statues of saints and martyrs, and the tombs
and shrines of the great and the holy of old time,
these have been grievously mutilated, or swept
totally away.
The mediaeval Church loved to show her devo-
tion to the saintly dead by the erection of shrines
in their honour. Some of the most ornate
portions of our cathedrals were built specially to
receive them, and on the shrines themselves all
the resources of art were willingly lavished.
The shrine of St. Thomas a Becket at Canter-
bury needs only to be mentioned in illustration.
It was, we are told, " blazing with gold and
jewels, and embossed with innumerable pearls
and jewels and rings." But even this is reported
to have been surpassed in magnificence by the
tomb of St. Cuthbert of Durham, "of costly
green marble, all limned and gilt with gold."
Almost all our cathedrals contained the bones
of some local saint, whose last resting-place
SOME ENGLISH SHRINES. 183
devotion and patriotism combined to honour and
adorn. Thus York cherished in its minster the
relics of St. William, archbishop (with an
interval), from 1143 to 1154; Lincoln, those of
St. Hugh, bishop from 1186 to 1203; and Here-
ford, those of St. Thomas (Thomas de Cantelupe),
whose arms still form the armorial bearings of the
see, bishop from 1275 to 1283. Oxford, Ely,
and Chester boasted the possession respectively
of the abbesses, St. Frideswide (died 735), St.
Etheldreda (died 697), and St. Werburgh (died
699). St. Wulfstan (1002-1016) reposed in his
cathedral at Worcester, St. Wilfrid (664-709) at
Ripon, St. Richard (1245-1253) at Chichester,
St. David (died 544) at St. David's, St. Swithun
(852-862) at Winchester, St. Osmond (1078-
1099) at Salisbury, and St. Paulinus, the com-
panion of St. Augustine (633-644), at Rochester,
all bishops of the sees in which they were after-
wards venerated. Rochester also raised a shrine
for St. William of Perth ; and of the English
kings, St. Oswald, the martyred sovereign of
Northumbria, was honoured at Worcester, and
St. Edward the Confessor at Westminster ; while
at Gloucester the unhappy Edward II. was
esteemed a saint and a martyr, and his body was
1 84 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
preserved in a richly-carved shrine, which still
exists. Of all these, and of the many shrines of
minor interest, once standing in the cathedrals
and the great abbey churches of England, few
now remain ; and even the sacred contents of
most have disappeared. The shrine of the Con-
fessor, of course, is still to be seen at West-
minster ; the lower part, consisting of the actual
tomb of St. Thomas, is found at Hereford, and
portions of the shrine of St. Frideswide yet exist
at Oxford ; while the various fragments of that of
St. Alban have recently been discovered and
laboriously pieced together. Of several others
the bases alone remain, and in some few cases the
bodies were undisturbed at the destruction of
their shrines, or were re-interred after it.
Durham still boasts the relics of St. Cuthbert ;
Salisbury, those of St. Osmond ; Canterbury,
those of St. Alphege ; and Ripon perhaps those
of St. Wilfrid.
The history of these sacred repositories is very
similar in outline. It will be useful to follow in
some detail the fortunes of one, as an example of
all ; and for this purpose we turn to the shrine of
St. Hugh of Lincoln, as being in its time one of
the most famous in the country, yet to us of
SOME ENGLISH SHRINES. 185
to-day not so well known as those of St. Thomas
of Canterbury or St. Edward the Confessor.
Hugh of Avalon, afterwards to be venerated
as St. Hugh of Lincoln, came to the throne of
that see in 1 1 86, and after a reign of seventeen
years, during which his gentle firmness and un-
flinching devotion to duty commanded both the
affection and respect of his contemporaries, from
the graceless King John to the meanest of his
people, he died in London in 1203. The body,
brought with all pious care to his cathedral city,
was buried in the chapel of St. John Baptist, near
the cloister door.
The name and fame of Hugh soon brought such
multitudes of devotees to visit his tomb, in hope
of some signal blessing for soul or body through
the intercession of so holy a man, that the little
chapel proved all too small for their convenience.
The walls were therefore carried out some fifty
feet further in length, and, at the same time,
the relics were translated to a more dignified
tomb in the centre of the chapel.
St. Hugh was formally canonized in 1220, and
from that time increased efforts were, made to pro-
vide for his remains a resting-place commensurate
with the esteem in which they were held. In
i86 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
1256, a scheme far more ambitious than the mere
enlargement of a side chapel was begun. The
apse terminating the choir of the cathedral was
pulled down, and a new and noble addition was
commenced. This extension, known as the angel
choir, provided a worthy site for a splendid
shrine, and ample room for the many pilgrims.
This building was not itself complete, when, on
October 6th, 1280, the second and final transla-
tion of St. Hugh's relics took place amid a scene
of pomp probably never equalled in Lincoln.
It was usual, in erecting a shrine, to place it
immediately behind the reredos of the high
altar, and to so raise it as to make it visible
to the priest while saying Mass, the object being
to raise his thoughts, with his eyes, to the
example of the saint whose tomb stood before
him. So was placed the shrine of St. Cuthbert, at
Durham ; so, too, that of St. William, at York, and
many others ; and so, too, probably stood the
shrine of St. Hugh, at Lincoln.
The custom in Wales was an exception to this
rule, the favourite position being on the side of the
choir. St. David's shrine was on the north side in
his cathedral, and that of St. Teilo on the south
side at Llandaff.
SOME ENGLISH SHRINES. 187
At Lincoln, on a lofty stone base was placed a
metal " here " or portable shrine, adorned with
jewels and the precious metals ; a grill of curiously
wrought ironwork was added later to protect it,
and a cover, inlaid with gold and silver figures,
surmounted all. Plates of beaten gold covered
the tomb, which was eight feet long and four feet
broad.
Although the body was thus removed to the
angel choir, the chapel of St. John Baptist was
not shorn entirely of its glories, for the head of St.
Hugh was replaced in it, and was presently pro-
vided with a gold reliquary of its own, beautifully
enamelled and jewelled. A mitre of silver gilt
accompanied the head, and rings set with
sapphires, beryls, and other stones, together with
old gold coins and branches of coral, adorned
either the sacred relic itself, or its case. A
chained copy of the life of St. Hugh stood some-
where near for the instruction of the visitors.
It was a usual thing for a church, having more
than one relic of a saint, or relics that had become
separated into parts, to distribute them in different
chapels in this way. At Chichester, the body, the
head, and the chalice of St. Richard had each its
proper place. At York, too, and at Lichfield, the
i88 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
heads and bodies of St. William and of St. Chad
were severally provided for.
When so much treasure was lavished upon
relics, it will be obvious that great care had need
to be shown in guarding them. We are not sur-
prised, therefore, at finding quite a retinue of
keepers of various degrees employed about the
shrine. These consisted of two principal keepers,
with a day-keeper and two night-keepers, all of
whom had assistants. Besides these there was a
chaplain, with deacon, sub-deacon, and choristers.
Alms-boxes stood near the shrine, into which
the faithful pilgrims dropt their thank-offerings,
and the record of the opening of these twice
yearly at Whitsuntide, and at the feast of the
translation of St. Hugh (October 7th) has come
down to us fairly complete from 1339 to 1532.
The largest amount noted is ,37 145. 8d. in 1365.
In the fifteenth century it begins to show a per-
ceptible decline, and in the sixteenth it reaches
only five or six pounds a year.
From the money thus collected wax was pur-
chased, presumably for tapers to burn at the
shrine ; and the residue was divided amongst the
cathedral officials, clerical and lay, in sums varying
from 2os. for the actual guardians of the shrine,
SOME ENGLISH SHRINES. 189
to 3d. each for the sacristy-clerk and the clerk of
the fabric, and i8d. to be divided amongst the
boys of the choir. Those employed about the
tomb had a special allowance from the fund for
wine.
It was not always, nor even frequently, that the
offerings at a shrine were thus distributed. More
commonly the fabric of the church, or some other
more general object, benefitted by the gifts of the
faithful. The alms-box at the shrine of St.
William of Perth, at Rochester, provided means
for erecting the east end of the cathedal ; and pil-
grims to the resting-place of St. Wilfrid gave no
small help towards building the cathedral at
Ripon.
It is not, perhaps, a difficult matter for an age
which has lost all faith in saints, and almost all
in the possibility of saintliness, to find ground for
scornful derision in the devotion of the men of
old, to the tombs of the hallowed dead ; but it is,
at least, open to question, whether such a method
of raising funds for religious purposes was not
quite as legitimate and consistent as the modern
fancy for the frivolity of a " Bazaar," or the
feebleness of an amateur concert.
In spite of all the guardians and clerks who
1 9 o CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
watched the relics of St. Hugh, a sacrilegious theft
of the head was perpetrated in 1364. Monastic
chronicles are not wanting in stories of monks
who, for the honour of their own house, have
" conveyed" thither venerated relics found in the
churches of their neighbours ; but in this case it
was not the head of the saint, but the casket
containing it, that formed the temptation. A
speedy vengeance, however, dogged the sinners'
steps. Their ill-got wealth was in turn stolen
from them, and they were arrested, convicted,
and hanged ; while the head, miraculously pre-
served from harm, tradition tells, came into the
hands of the king, Edward III., who restored it
to Lincoln.
The next robbery of the shrine was more
successful, as it was more thorough. Along with
most other churches, containing anything of
value, Lincoln Minster was plundered by royal
warrant at the Reformation, and the shrine with
all its gold and jewels, vanished. Far into the
eighteenth century, the iron clamps which secured
some portion of it to the ground, remained to
mark the spot, but even those have now dis-
appeared. The body was long supposed to have
been re-buried in a grave within the retro-choir,
SOME ENGLISH SHRINES. 191
and Bishop Fuller (1667-1675) erected a tomb
over the spot ; but recent investigation has shown
that if indeed the relics of St. Hugh were ever
laid there, they were again removed, let us hope
by pious hands.
Besides the splendid shrine of which we have
been speaking, Lincoln Cathedral had others of
less note. The body of St. John of Dalderby,
bishop from 1300 to 1320, lay in a shrine of
silver, and another was erected over the remains
of "little St. Hugh," the Christian child, said to
have been crucified by the Lincoln Jews. So, in
Ely also, three other holy abbesses shared the
honours of St. Ethelburga ; at Durham, the
Venerable Bede kept watch over the western
chapel, as did St. Cuthbert over the eastern one,
while Canterbury had the shrines of several
saintly archbishops, and others.
For the better guardianship of these hallowed
spots, a special chamber was often erected for the
caretakers. Those at St. Alban's, a handsome
structure of two storeys, and at Oxford yet
remain. In other cases with the need of the
watch the watching-chamber has gone.
Alas ! that in speaking of the English shrines,
one should have to speak always of what has been,
i 9 2 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
or of the fragments, the shadows, the dry records
only, that remain to us. If the veneration of
centuries, if the glories of art, had no voice that
could be heard against the clamorous cupidity of
the despoiler, surely one might have hoped that
the presence of the holy dead would have availed
to arrest the royal tyrant and the puritan bigot
in their career of sacrilege and crime.
Gbe Cburcb anfc Well of St. dbafc.
BY J. A. LANGFORD, LL.D.
A SHORT but pleasant walk from Lichfield
Cathedral, by the side of Stowe Pool, leads
to the ancient and famous Church and Well of St.
Chad. Both in history and legend they are
indissolubly united, and the church cannot be
mentioned without the well being recalled at the
same time. Their history is an important chapter
in the Church History of Staffordshire, and is a
very interesting record to all lovers of antiquity,
and who take a pride in tracing the course of their
country's progress and the life of her people.
The Church of St. Chad is the oldest, and in some
respects the most interesting, foundation in Lich-
field older than the Cathedral which, since its
formation to the present time, is, of course, one of
the most important, as it is one of the most beau-
tiful, buildings in the country. But the cathedral
is the outcome and owes its existence to the little
cell of the saint on the site of which is the present
church. Authorities differ somewhat as to the
13
i94 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
exact dates, but the most generally received belief
is that the church goes back to 669, while the
cathedral was founded in 700 A.D.
The Venerable Bede gives a full account of St.
Chad in his " Ecclesiastical History." This has
been well summarised, so far as our subject is con-
cerned, by the Rev. T. Harwood, in his History
of Lichfield : " In 4669, St. Ceaddn, Ceddn, or
Chad, succeeded to the episcopal seat in this
place. He first retired to Lichfield for the pur-
pose of religious solitude, where he led (as legend
tells us), an eremitical life in a cell, by the side of
a spring, near the place upon which the church of
his name now stands, and supported himself upon
the milk of a doe. Here, attended by Ovin and a
few other pious men, he was accustomed to preach
and pray. The spot thus chosen by St. Chad for
his habitation was well adapted to inspire senti-
ments of devotion. It was in the midst of a wood,
and a little river ran by the side of it. The
church was small, according to the age in which it
was erected, and here St. Chad was buried."
Then he quotes from Dr. Stukeley, who wrote in
1756, " I have long ago taken drawings of St.
Chad's habitation, by the neighbouring church of
Lichfield, where Ovin heard the angels at St.
CHURCH AND WELL OF ST. CHAD. 195
Chad's obituary. There is his well, and a little
monastery ; the habitation joins on the north-west
angle of the church." Leland, who visited Lich-
field about 1538, thus refers to the church and
well in his Itinerary : " Stowe Church, in the
easte end of the towne, where is St. Chad's well
a spring of pure water, where is seen a stone at
the bottom of it on the Kvhiche, some say, St.
Chadd was wont naked to stande in the water and
praye. At this stone St. Chad had his oratory in
the tyme Wulphar, King of the Merches."
In these early times, when England was being
converted to Christianity, preachers like St. Chad
always selected for their cells and habitations
places near to a stream, a spring, or a well, water
being necessary for the ceremony of baptism.
The natural consequences followed. Immediately
after, and often before, the death of the holy man,
miraculous power was ascribed to the waters of the
stream, or spring, or well. This was especially
the case with wells, as a large number of holy
wells in the county remain to testify. Hence
arose Well Worship, which was accompanied
with religious ceremonies, some of them very
beautiful, some quite innocent, and others neither
beautiful nor innocent. In addition to these cere-
196 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
monies, each well was visited by large numbers of
pilgrims, especially by persons suffering from
any kind of disease, who sought relief and
health by drinking, or washing themselves in the
miraculous waters, whose health-bestowing
efficacy was never doubted. This well worship
was never approved by the church, and was
" strictly prohibited by the Anglican councils,"
even in the earliest times. These prohibitions
had little effect, and were generally, if not univer-
sally, disregarded, so strong is the power of
custom when united with religious or with any
superstitious belief.
During the Puritan rule all such observances,
ceremonies, and customs were rigidly suppressed.
At the Restoration, however, the people returned
to their old use and wont ; and although
pilgrimages had ceased, and the religious senti-
ment which formerly accompanied these observ-
ances had very little influence, the custom of
adorning, and having processions in honour of the
well, was made the occasion for a general holiday.
In Staffordshire the day selected for this purpose
was Holy Thursday. In his natural history of
the county, Dr. Plot says : "They have a custom
in this county of adorning their wells on Holy
CHURCH AND WELL OF ST. CHAD. 197
Thursday with boughs and flowers. This, it
seems, they do in all gospel places, whether wells,
trees, or hills, which, being now observed only for
decency and custom sake, is innocent enough.
Heretofore it was usual to pay this respect to
such wells as were eminent for curing distempers
on the saint's day whose name the well bore ;
diverting themselves with cakes and ale, and a
little music and dancing, which, whilst within
these bounds, was also an innocent recreation."
Most readers will recall the lines in " Comus," in
which Milton sings the old honours paid to the
Severn :
" The shepherds at these festivals
Carol her good deeds in rustic lays,
And throw sweet garland wreaths into her stream
Of pansies, pinks, and gaudy daffodils."
The custom was carried out at St. Chad's Well
in the olden time with much ceremony. From
various sources, from bits taken from one writer
and bits from another, we are enabled to form
a rather clear idea, and to present a rather com-
plete picture of this now curious old Church
custom. Early on the morning of Holy Thurs-
day, the citizens would be busily employed in
dressing" the well to make it beautiful for the
o
198 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
coming festival. This was done by decorating
it with wreaths and garlands of freshly-gathered
flowers, interspersed with slips from shrubs and
branches from the newly-budding trees. The
flowers were arranged in such devices as the
fancy or taste of the men and women engaged in
the work suggested. Here differently-shaped
boards were used, which were covered with moist
clay in which they placed the stems of the
flowers arranged in diverse patterns, which it is
stated made a very beautiful sight, the damp clay,
of course, preserving their freshness. These were
so suspended about the well that the flowing
water seemed to come between beds of flowers.
This labour of love finished, the workers put on
their holiday clothes ready for the next part of
the day's proceedings.
In olden times a service was held in the church ;
after which the people, with all the children
arrayed in their Sunday best, and carrying
flowers, formed in procession, and marched to the
well. Then the clergyman read the psalms,
epistle, and gospel for the day ; and this portion
of the festival was concluded by the church choir
and people singing a hymn ; the singing was
accompanied by music. The remainder of the
CHURCH AND WELL OF ST. CHAD. 199
day was spent in rustic sports, in dancing, and
in other harmless and innocent modes of recreation.
In this manner a religious ceremony was com-
bined with secular festivity. Similar observances,
with local variations, were observed at nearly all
holy wells ; but the midland counties were
especially distinguished by the number of such
places, and by the thoroughness with which the
people celebrated the day.
The ceremony is still observed at St. Chad's
Well, but it is sadly shorn of its ancient glory,
and robbed of its ancient significance. Writing
early in the present century, the Rev. Mr.
Nightingale says, " Even at this day, it is cus-
tomary for the clergyman and churchwardens, and
a great concourse of children, to visit this well on
Holy Thursday (Ascension Pay), when it is
adorned with boughs and flowers, and the gospel
for the day is read." This description, with slight
alterations, will fairly describe the ceremony at
present performed. On Holy Thursday, the
choristers of the cathedral " walk in procession to
the well, carrying green boughs, and sing the
old looth Psalm, and the Priest Vicar reads the
Holy Gospel for that day."
The holiday, the procession, the loving labour of
200 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
decorating the well, and the festivities, the sports,
and the general rejoicings of the olden time have
ceased and passed away, never likely to be again
restored. It is useless to preserve a form, when
the spirit which gave it vitality is dead. Still we are
pleased that even this rather poor survival of an
old custom remains, to call attention to the things
which delighted and made glad the hearts of our
forefathers, in the dim and distant past. Such
reflections are not without their happy effects on
the minds in which they arise. It is a pity to
lose any of the old customs which added to the
harmless pleasures of life, and gave a touch of
poetry to the otherwise prosaic intercourse of
daily existence. At such times, when thus recall-
ing the days that are no more, and for a little
time living in the past, we sympathize with
nature's great poet, and exclaim with Words-
worth :
" Would that our scrupulous sires had dared to leave
Less scanty measure of those graceful rites
And usages, whose due return invites
A stir of mind too natural to deceive ;
Giving to Memory help when she would weave
A crown for Hope ! "
Burials in TKBoollen.
BY WILLIAM ANDREWS, F.R.H.S.
\ SINGULAR sumptuary law was passed in
** 1666 to enforce burials in woollen. The
Act was devised by Parliament professedly for the
encouragement of woollen manufactures, and pre-
vention of the exportation of moneys for the
buying and importing linen. It is to be feared
that it was really the outcome of a selfish spirit of
protection, similar to that shewn in the Act which
prohibited the importation of cattle bred in
Ireland and fish caught by foreigners.
After March 25th, 1667, the Act directed that
no person should " be buried in any shirt, or
sheet, other than should be made of wooll onely."
The Act even prohibited the use of linen for
quilling round the inside of the cofHn, and the
ligature round the feet of the corpse ; both were to
be of woollen. A custom which was more ancient
than Christianity was hard to put aside. The
practice of wrapping the dead in linen is of great
antiquity. It is not surprising to learn that the
202 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
Act was almost a dead letter. The fines were
seldom enforced, for reliable information could
not be easily obtained, and could only as a rule be
given by the parties most interested in concealing
the transgression.
A more stringent Act was passed in 1678. The
first Act consisted of two clauses only, and the
second Act recites these, and includes a number
of clauses. The Act says that it is intended for
the "lessening the importation of linen from
beyond the seas and the encouragement of the
woollen and paper manufacturers of this kingdom."
In the second section of this Act it is stated
" Noe Corpse of any person or persons shall be
buried in any Shirt, Shift, Sheete, or Shroud, or
any thing whatsoever made or mingled with Flax,
Hempe, Silke, Haire, Gold or Silver, or any
stuffe or thing other than what is made of Sheep's
Wooll onely, or be put in any coffin lined or faced
with any sort of Cloath or Stuffe or any thing
whatsoever that is made of any Materiall but
Sheep's Wooll onely, upon paine of the forfeiture
of five pounds of lawfull money of England," etc.
Another section enacted that the clergy were to
keep a register of burials, and in it to record
affidavits that had previously been made before a
BURIALS IN WOOLLEN. 203
justice of peace for the county, or other person
authorised by the Act.
When the Act was broken, half the penalty went
to the poor of the parish and the other half to the
informer. Usually, by arrangement, a servant of
the household, or someone whom the family
desired to receive the benefit, laid information.
The Act provided that persons dying of the
plague might be buried without a penalty being
incurred, even if linen were used.
In section nine it was directed that " this Act
shall be publiquely read upon the first Sunday
after the Feast of St. Bartholomew every yeare
for seaven yeares next following, presently after
Divine Service."
Dr. T. N. Brushfield, in his paper on " The
Church of All Saints, East Budleigh," read at a
meeting of the Devonshire Association for the
Advancement of Science, Literature, and Art, at
Plymouth, July, 1892, has an interesting note on
burials in woollen. " The earliest allusion to this
subject at East Budleigh," writes Dr. Brushfield,
" in our parish accounts are as follow :
1678-9. For Act for Buring in Wooling ... co oo 08
For a Register Book for Burying
in Woollen oo 01 oo"
204 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
Copies of the Register were sent to the
Sessions, e.g. :
" 1688-9. P d f r a transcript for y e burying
in woollen only w ch was putt
in att the Sessions ... ... oo 01 oo
1689-90. p d for a transcript for those
buried in woollen ... ... oo 01 oo"
At the conclusion of the burial service it was
customary for the parish clerk to call out, " Who
makes the affidavit ? " A chief relation came
forward and took the necessary oath, and this was
duly noted in the register.
The following is a common form of an
affidavit :
" Elizabeth Bryant^ of the parish of Radmill, in the
county of Sussex, maketh oath that Elizabeth Ford, of
the parish of Radmill, in the county of Sussex, lately
deceased, was not put in, wrapt up, or wound up, or
buried in any shirt, shift, sheet, or shroud, made or mingled
with flax, hemp, silk, hair, gold or silver, or any other than
what is made of sheep's wool only ; nor in any coffin
lined or faced with any cloth, stuff, or any other thing
whatsoever made or mingled with flax, hemp, silk, hair,
gold, or silver, or any other material contrary to the Act
of Parliament for burying in woollen, but sheep's wool
only. Dated the 16 day of Jan., 1724."
It will not be without interest to show the
manner of recording the affidavits in the parish
books. The first is from Newburn-on-Tyne :
BURIALS IN WOOLLEN. 205
"1687, 18 Aug. Cuthbert Longridge was buried in
woollen, as by a certificate dated 24 Aug., 1687."
An entry from Lamesley, county of Durham, is
to the effect :
" 1678. Anne Marley wrapped in sheep's skin, bur."
From Woolvercot, Oxon., is the following- :
"1693, August 17. Catherine, dau. of Sir William
Juxon, buried in woollen. Affidavit."
Records of no affidavits are by no means un-
common, and we give as illustrations particulars
of two. The first is drawn from the register of
St. Mary-le-Bow, Durham :
" Christopher Bell, Gent., was lapped in linen contrary
to the late Act, Dec., 1678."
The next example is from the Gainsborough,
Lincolnshire, burial register :
"6th Sept., 1703. Buried Thomas Day Batchellor.
No Affidavit."
In 1730 was interred, in Westminster Abbey,
Mrs. Ann Oldfield, a celebrated actress. She
gave her maid, Mrs. Elizabeth Saunders, also a
clever actress, instructions respecting the manner
she desired to be dressed when dead. She
wished to wear "a very fine Brussels' lace head-
dress, a holland shift with a tucker, and double
206 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
ruffles of the same lace, and a pair of new kid
gloves, and was then wrapped in a winding-sheet
of linen." Pope, in his " Moral Essays," thus
refers to Mrs. Oldfield :
" Odious ! in woollen ! 'twould a saint provoke,
Were the last words that poor Narcessa spoke :
No, let a charming chintz and Brussels' lace
Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face ;
One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead :
And, Betty, give the cheek a little red."
The parish book of St. John the Baptist, Chester,
contains a quaint entry bearing on this subject
well worth reproducing :
" 1689. The Churchwardens paid, by request of
Widow Gardener, to four poore widdows of her daughter's
acquaintance, her daughter being buried in Linen,
02 10 oo."
Some curious information is contained in a
book published in London in 1719, under the
title of " M. Misson's Memoirs and Observations
in his Travels over England, etc., disposed in
Alphabetical Order, written originally in French,
and translated by Mr. Ozell." The work made
its first appearance in 1698, and was published at
the Hague. The manners and customs of our
countrymen are fully noticed, and usually in an
entertaining style. When Sir Henry Ellis was
BURIALS IN WOOLLEN. 207
preparing a new edition of Brand's " Popular
Antiquities," he frequently drew upon Misson's
Travels for information to illustrate his work.
We find in his volume a curious account of the
custom of burying in woollen. " There is an
Act of Parliament," says Misson, " which ordains
that the dead shall be buried in a woollen stuff which
is a kind of thin bays, which they call flannel ;
nor is it lawful to use the least needleful of
thread or silk. (The intention of this Act is for
the encouragement of the woollen manufacture.)
This shift is always white ; but there are different
sorts of it as to fineness, and consequently
different prices. To make these dresses is a
particular trade, and there are many that sell
nothing else." We are told that a man's shirt
' 'has commonly a sleeve purfled about the wrists,
and the slit of the shirt done in the same manner.
This should be at least half-a-foot longer than the
body, that the feet of the deceased may be
wrapped in it as in a bag. Upon the head they
put a cap, which they fasten with a very broad
chin-cloth, with gloves on the hands, and a cravat
round the neck, all of woollen. The women
have a kind of head-dress with a forehead cloth.
. . ." He also states "That the body may ly
208 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
the softer, some put a lay of bran about four
inches thick at the bottom of the coffin. The
coffin is sometimes very magnificent. The body-
is visited to see that it is buried in flannel, and
that nothing is sewed with thread. They let it
lye three or four days."
The law of burying in woollen was introduced
into Ireland in 1733, but the Irish Government,
it is recorded, seldom enforced it. The Act was
not repealed in England until 1814, but long
before that period it had fallen into disuse.
Ibearse :
HOW A WORD HAS CHANGED ITS MEANING.
BY EDWARD PEACOCK, F.S.A.
ALL serious students of our mother tongue
owe a deep debt of gratitude to the late
Archbishop Trench for directing attention to the
fact that words are things, and have a history of
their own. We do not, of course, mean to imply
that he was the first person to make the discovery,
or even to point it out to English readers. Not to
mention the great continental scholars with whose
labours on Latin and Greek we have at present no
concern, there are traces, faint though they be,
that Sir Thomas Browne, on this as on many
other matters, held ideas in suspension in his
mind, though they were never formulated, which
have a strikingly modern aspect. We are, how-
ever, indebted to a fierce political partizan John
Horne Tooke for first compelling Englishmen
to give attention to the history of the words they
use. His Diversions of Purley, to which Dr.
Trench made such graceful reference in the pre-
14
210 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
face to his Lectures on tke Study of Words, was
it seems the first work which attracted notice to
a class of facts which had hitherto been almost
completely neglected. It appeared upwards of
fifty years before the Archbishop's book saw the
light, during the crash and turmoil of the French
Revolution (1798-1805), a time most unpro-
pitious for thoughtful literature. Abounding as
it does, not only in shortcomings, but in absolute
errors, the Archbishop was unquestionably correct
in saying, at the time he wrote, though it would
be very far from being the case now, that his
first acquaintance with that remarkable book had
been " an epoch in many a student's intellectual
life."
Another forerunner of the philology of our own
day must not be passed by without some mention.
Walter Whiter was a learned man, by no means
without intellectual power ; but he held radically
wrong notions regarding those great laws or
forces which lie at the foundation of all rational
speech. His Etymologicon Universale, or
Universal Etymological Dictionary (1811-1825),
was not only dipped into but widely read, and
the very absurdity of some of the author's
assumptions stimulated thought. Still, when all
HEARSE. 211
this has been allowed for, we cannot but acknow-
ledge that much of the earnest spirit of enquiry
regarding not only the words of our own
literary language, but also of the folk-speech
which still, we are happy to say, flourishes every-
where around us, is due to the memorable lectures
delivered by Trench to the pupils of Winchester
Training School, some forty-four years ago. The
New English Dictionary, which some of us think
the greatest literary work of the Victorian era, has
resulted from the combination of many causes, but
there cannot be a question that many of the
workers who have served and are serving under
the leadership of Dr. Murray, received their
first impulse towards a study of words from the
writing of Dr. Trench.
That the New English Dictionary is an im-
mense advance on all that has gone before it,
is admitted by everyone ; we doubt, however,
whether the historical treatment words receive
therein is generally appreciated as it deserves.
To us this is by far the most important part of
the work. It has, however, been found impos-
sible to treat even the most important words with
the fulness that they deserve, when looked upon
as units in the great structure of English speech.
212 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
As time goes on we do not doubt that many of
the words calendared in Dr. Murray's great work
will be dealt with separately. We propose, so
far as space will allow, to do so with one familiar
term. It is no fitter for our purpose than
hundreds of others which might have been
pitched upon, but its curious history and strange
changes of meaning are of much interest to our-
selves, and cannot, as we believe, fail to stimulate
the imagination of such of our readers as do not
happen to be already in possession of the facts
which we are about to lay before them.
The word HEARSE or HERSE, for both forms
are recognized by those who are authorities on
the subject of spelling, has for modern people,
who have not devoted themselves to word-studies,
but one meaning. When they hear it, the mind-
picture produced is that of a funeral car, with its
black trappings and nodding plumes, in which the
bodies of the dead are borne to burial. If they
have visited Northern Germany or the Nether-
lands, they may perhaps add to this mental sketch
the white skulls and cross-bones painted on the
panels, and a driver clad in a long black cloak,
with a quilted frill round his neck, such as we see
represented in pictures of men who were old, or
HEARSE. 213
at least middle-aged, when James the First was
king.
HEARSE may, like by far the greater number of
words we use, be traced back to an Aryan root.
We shall not, however, go further backwards up
the stream of time, on the present occasion, than
to the days of the Romans.
The most remote ancestor we shall claim for our
word on the present occasion is Hirpex, the Latin
term for a harrow or rake. This word Hirpcx,
though not identical, was, it is evident, near of
kin to Ericius or Hericius, a hedgehog, a term
which got to be employed metaphorically by
writers on the art of war to indicate a military
engine of the nature of a portcullis. In the Com-
mentaries of Caesar we have " erat objectus portis
ericius," * and Sallust says " eminebant in modum
ericti militaris veruta binum pedum." t
We have no clear notion of what was the exact
form of the Roman Hirpex, but until quite recent
days, when a great change has taken place, there
is nothing in which mankind has been more con-
servative than in the shapes of agricultural imple-
ments. We shall therefore probably not stray far
from the truth if we take it for granted that the
* De Bell. Civ. iii. 67. t Fragm. Lib. iii.
214 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
harrows, of which there are a few representations
in mediaeval illuminations, represent not inaccu-
rately the Hirpex of the ancients.
The science of blazonry, too, comes to our aid.
An old English family of the surname of Harrow-
had for its arms three harrows joined together by
what the heralds called a wreath, but what is in
fact the ring, chain, or rope, by which it was
the custom to join them together in triplets. An
engraving of this shield is given in John Guillim's
Display of Heraldry.* They are represented as
triangular objects, having three bars running
across, into which the tynes or teeth are fixed.
The word HEARSE was occasionally used to
indicate the farmer's harrow. Lord Berners, in
his admirable translation of Froissart's Chronicles,
published in 1523, says of a certain battle that
"The archers . . . stode in manner of a herse,
and the men of armes at the bottom of the
bataile." t The first ecclesiastical use of the word
is probably due to France, but, if so, it was soon
imported into this country. It signifies a triangular
frame of wood, which was suspended by a cord
or chain from the roof of the Church. In form it
would seem to have been just like a harrow, but
* 5th edit., 1679, p. 214. t Vol I., ch. cxxx., p. 156.
HEARSE. 215
at the points where the bars crossed each other
there were sockets in which to put candles.
These hearses soon gave way, except, perhaps, in
poor churches, to chandeliers of metal, but the
hearse only changed its place. It was taken down
from above-head, mounted on a stand or post, and
used in the service of Tenebrae. Then it usuallv
*
held twenty-four lights, but the custom was by no
means everywhere the same. Sometimes this
hearse was constructed to carry fourteen yellow
candles, with one of white wax in the centre.
The yellow candles symbolized the eleven faithful
apostles and the three Marys, the white candle in
the middle representing our Blessed Lord. In the
Tenebrae services of mediaeval England fourteen
psalms were said. As each one was ended a
candle was put out. When the time arrived that
the white taper alone remained burning, it was
concealed behind or near the altar, so as to leave
the church in darkness.
When the people had got accustomed to connect
the word hearse with a frame for holding candles,
it required but a short step to arrive at a new
meaning. Prayers for the dead were the
universal custom throughout the mediaeval
Church. When a corpse was brought to
216 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
church for burial it was placed near to,
or at least in sight of, the altar. Over
the body, which was usually without a coffin,
except in the case of persons of high position, a
light frame-work of wood was placed, on which
the pall was spread. These frames were a regular
part of the church's furniture ; at the corners, and
sometimes on the ridge also, there were sockets for
candles. To these frames the word hearse was
soon applied. They occur frequently in ecclesi-
astical inventories. In the early part of the reign
of Elizabeth we find mention of them in several
Lincolnshire churches, e.g., Alkborough, Newton,
and Ripingale.* Of these hearses, not a single
example is known to have come down to our time.
Their fragile nature would render them peculiarly
liable to destruction, and they had become mere
lumber when prayers for the dead were no longer
used by the Established Church. Occasionally,
however, these wooden hearses were copied in
metal, and made permanent parts of the tombs of
persons whose last resting-place was in the
Church. A few examples of hearses of this kind
have survived the storms of upwards of three
hundred years. A very graceful hearse of this
* Peacock, Engl. Church Furniture, pp. 36, 118, 127.
HEARSE. 217
sort still canopies the tomb of one of the Marmions
in the Church of Tanfield, near Ripon. It has
attached to it sconces for holding seven candles,
two on each side, and three on the ridge. A
portion of another of singularly beautiful design,
which was long ago cast out of the church of
Snarford in Lincolnshire, is now in the South
Kensington Museum. The effigy of Richard,
Earl of Warwick, who died in 1439, possesses a
hearse of this kind. It is smaller than those we
have already mentioned, but is made of brass, or
rather of that mixed metal our forefathers called
latten. The contract for making it still exists, and
it is noteworthy that it is therein spoken of as a
hearse,* shewing that before the middle of the
fifteenth century, hearse had become the re-
cognised term.
The next step in the progress of word-growth
was to apply the term hearse to a temporary
canopy of timber, decorated with a profusion of
tapers, and draped with hangings and banners
bearing heraldic and religious ornaments. This
was placed over the body while the funeral rites
were being performed. It has been known in
every country of Western Europe, but England
* Parker, Gloss, of Architecture, ed. 1850, vol. I, p. 250.
218 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
is, so far as we know, the country wherein it was
called a hearse. Chapelle ardente is the ordinary
French term. We find Catafalco in Italian, and
Castrum doloris in the Latin of the Church.
When the bodies had to be carried a long
distance, it was the custom in the case of rich
families to erect one of these hearses in every
church where it rested for the night. Minute
accounts of several of these have come down to
us, showing that they were sumptuously decorated.
They were, however, we may be sure, never in
common use. Chaucer knew these hearses well ;
as he spent much of his life in court society he
must have seen several of them. In his Dream
he has given a description of the prayers which
were offered up around them :
" And after that about the herses,
Many orisons and verses,
Without note full softly
Said, were, and that full heartily,
That all the night, till it was day,
The people in the church can pray,
Unto the Holy Trinity,
On those soules to have pity."
Though public prayers for the dead were
abolished when the new ritual came into force,
yet the use of these sumptuous hearses was long
HEARSE. 219
retained. They seem to have been employed as
a mark of social dignity, and as a means of
heraldic display. In 1589, a violent Puritan
satire against the then existing order of things in
Church and State was issued from a secret press,
bearing the strange title of Pappe with a Hatchet,
wherein the following passage occurs :
" Now you put me in minde of the matter, there is a
booke coming out of a hundred merrie tales, and the
petigree of Matin, fetchte from the burning of Sodome ;
his armes shall be set on his hearse, for we are providing
for his funeral." *
In William Habingdon's Castara, we find the
lines :
" Lily, Rose, and Violet,
Shall the perfumed hearse beset,"
which shows that flowers were sometimes used as
a means of decoration. Love knots, too, had a
place there. Dryden makes one of his charac-
ters say :
" And maidens when I die
Upon my hearse white true-love-knots should lie ;
And thus my tomb should be inscribed above,
Here the forsaken virgin rests from love." *
That these stationary hearses were well known
to everyone in the middle of the seventeenth
* Ed., 1844, p. 17. * Marriage-a-la-mode, Act II., Sc. I
220 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
century is proved by the title of the sermon
preached by Richard Vines on the death of the
Earl of Essex, the Parliamentary general at the
beginning of the great Civil War. It runs
thus :
" The Hearse of the Renowned and Right Honourable
Robert, Earl of Essex, and sometime Captain-General of
the Armies raised for the Defence of Kinge and Parlia-
ment, as represented in his Funerall Sermon, preached at
Westminster, 1646."
That stationary hearses were in use at the
funerals of the upper classes, so late as 1681, is
made evident by a passage in a sermon preached
by Nathaniel Resburg, in that year, at the burial
of Sir Alan Broderick. The preacher told his
hearers that the dead knight had made provision
in his will, "that his herse should by no means
be garnish'd with the usual ornaments of a family,
and no escutcheon should either there or else-
where appear.*
The funeral car or chariot, to which we now
give the name of hearse, to the exclusion of the
older meanings, originally differed but very little
from these stationary hearses, except that it was
upon wheels, and the necessities of locomotion
. Page 1 8.
HEARSE. 221
required it to be smaller. We are not aware that
there is any evidence that these wheeled hearses
were in use in earlier days. There is no reason
why they should not have been, but it is probable
that the bodies of all but the very great, if they
had far to travel, would be conveyed in an
ordinary waggon. *
The body of Colonel Rainborowe, the Parlia-
mentarian officer, who was so basely murdered
at Doncaster, on the 29th of October, 1648, by
desperadoes from the Royalist Garrison, in Ponte-
fract Castle, t seems to have been conveyed from
the place where he fell to Wapping, then a village
in the outskirts of London, in a hearse.
Milton, in his " Epitaph on the Marchioness of
Winchester," when he introduces the word, implies
a movable structure.
" Gentle lady, may thy grave
Peace and quiet ever have ;
After this thy travel sore,
Sweet rest seize thee evermore.
* In Lincolnshire, and we imagine elsewhere, it is frequent for waggons
to be used for funereal purposes, by those families which are practically
connected with the cultivation of the land, and so possess them of
their own.
t A Memoir of this brave soldier, and upright gentleman, containing
many of his letters, has been compiled by the present writer, and appeals
in the Archxologia, vol. xlvi.
222 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
" Here he tears of perfect moan
Wept for thee in Helicon,
And some flowers and some bays
For thy herse to strew the ways."
Anthony Walker, a clergyman of the Established
Church, preaching in 1673, said that " more friends
attend an hearse to the towne-end than will drive
through with it the whole journey ; " * and in
1690, they had become one of the necessities of
civilization, for we find in that year an advertise-
ment in The London Gazette, offering them for
hire.
We have accomplished our task by furnishing
our readers with a sketch of the evolution of the
word Hearse through many centuries, until its
meaning has become settled as we now know it.
We must not conclude, however, without directing
attention to what we consider no legitimate de-
velopment, but a disease of language. We mean
the habit, not uncommon in the seventeenth
century, of using hearse in the sense of a dead
body. Thomas Hey wood, in his Brytaines Troy,
1609, says :
" Now grew the battell hot, bold Archas pierces,
Thrugh the mid-hoast and strewes the way with Herses."f
Many similar examples of this perversion, as we
* Lees Lacrymans, p. 10. t Canto 3, st. 86, fol. 72,
HEARSE. 223
regard it, might be produced, but no good end
would be served by quoting them.
A dialectic use of the word hearse must not pass
unnoticed. A writer in The Gentleman s Magazine
for the year 1861, says that herse signifies a
" crib of wattles," used to protect the banks of the
Severn against the encroachments of the tide. *
We have never seen one of these objects, but
conjecture that they are, or have been, originally
made in the form of a harrows.
* Gent. Mag. Lib. Eng., Topog. pt. iv. , p. 217.
Ibcart Burials of English persons.
BY EMILY SOPHIA HARTSHORNE.
A NTIQUARIES regret, as time proceeds,
^~1- the loss of many of those varied relics
which gladden their heart, and but for tradition,
ancient chronicles, and county histories, we should
be left very much in ignorance of the days of old.
So those who love the past, and follow step by
step the progress of civilization and new customs,
must rejoice that some memories are retained of
those who are gone, and whose deeds live to
record their actions and their honoured names.
Our subject, however, only refers to a special
object : that of heart burial in England, or with
reference to English people, who have signified
their wish that this portion of their mortal frame
should receive sepulture apart from the body
As this was easy to transport, it was considered a
safe and certain means of having the heart maybe
one which had known many cares and sorrows
transmitted to the place where affection
dictated, and where it would be regarded with
HEART BURIALS OF ENGLISH PERSONS. 225
reverence and love, and where human tears could
be shed over the casket
or urn, or in whatever
form the heart was
HEART AND FORGET-ME-NOTS,
LINCOLN CATHEDRAL.
By the Crusaders this custom appears to
have been instituted, as we learn that from the
Holy Land the earliest instances are recorded,
both by these precious relics being taken back to
the native country, or of being deposited in
Palestine's sanctified soil,
" The brave who sleep in soil of thine,
Die not entomb'd, but shrined, O Palestine."
Amongst the earliest instances of heart burials,
(we refer to the twelfth century), we read of
Stephen, Earl of Brittany and Richmond, who
commanded the rear of the conqueror's army at
Hastings. He was a man of peace, a lover of
the poor, and an honourer of religion. He died
in 1104, and directed that his heart should be
placed in the Abbey of St. Martin's at York, to
which he had been a great benefactor. In 1118,
Robert de Mellent, Earl of Leicester, desired that
his heart should be placed in a stone depository
at Brackley, in Northamptonshire (where he had
founded a hospital), and kept in salt. The
15
226 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
Bishop of Winchester, who died in 1129, directed
that his heart should be placed in a stone deposi-
tory, in two leaden dishes, where it was found at
Waverley Abbey, undecayed and preserved with
spices. In the same year Edith, wife of Robert
D'Oiley, who had previously founded a Priory of
Canons Augustines at Oxford, caused her heart to
be there interred, and she is represented upon her
tomb holding it in her hand.
William, third Earl of Warren, who fought
against the Turks in the second crusade in the
Holy Land, where he was slain, caused his heart
to be transmitted to England, and deposited in
Lewis Priory.
William Mandeville, Earl of Essex, who died
at Gisors, 1190, desired that his body should be
conveyed to England. Being told that the
difficulty of the passage was such that it could
not be done, he replied, " If you cannot, it is
because you have no mind to do what I, a dying
man, desire ; then take my heart and carry it
thither." Accordingly, it was buried in the
Chapter House at Walden in Essex.
William de Longo-Campa, Bishop of Ely,
caused his heart to be brought from Poictiers,
where he died, and deposited in his cathedral.
HEART BURIALS OF ENGLISH PERSONS. 227
This brings us to the end of the twelfth
century, and amongst the earliest records in the
following one, we find that King John, who
died in 1216, had directed that his heart should
be buried at the Cistercian Abbey of Crokesden in
Staffordshire. The heart of another Earl of Essex
(1228) was sent by his
Countess to the Chapter
House at Walden.
Margaret, wife of the
Earl of Winchester, who
had great affection for
Brackley, directed that
her heart should be there
enshrined within St.
John's Hospital. The
heart of William, third
Earl of Albini, who built '.
Belvoir Castle, had sep- L
ulture there, and that of
his son William, the fourth Earl, subsequently at
the same place. Richard Poore, Bishop of
Durham, one of King John's executors, was buried
with this inscription : " Ibique cor ejus corpus vero
apud Durham humatum est," which was extant
in Leland's time.
BRASS, ELMSTEAD CHURCH, ESSEX.
228 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
The heart of Bishop des Roches, of Win-
chester, who was also one of King John's
executors, was sent to Waverley Abbey. That
of Isabel, Countess of Gloucester, in 1239, was
placed in a silver gilt cup at Tewkesbury.
Ethelmarus, Bishop of Winchester, who died
in 1261, is represented in his cathedral with his
crosier, and holding a heart in his hands.
Senechia, Countess of Cornwall, departed this
life in 1262. Her heart received sepulture at
Cirencester. Robert de Gourney's heart was
interred in the church of Friars Preachers at
Bristol in 1269. Henry, son of Richard, King of
the Romans and Earl of Cornwall, went to the
Holy Land. On his way home, in 1270, he was
slain in Tuscany when attending mass in the
church of St. Lawrence. His father caused his
heart to be honourably placed in a gilt cup, near
the coffin of St. Edward, in Westminster Abbey.
Sir Roger de Leyburn was one of the most stirring
and distinguished warriors of the day, whose
whole life was passed between the tilting lists and
the battlefield.
Sir Roger, the servant of Henry III., and the
trusty friend of Prince Edward, went to the Holy
Land. Wherever he may have died, we know
CROKESDEN ABBEY.
2 3 o CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
for certain that his death had occurred before the
end of November, A.D. 1271, and it is more than
probable that Prince Edward took care that his
heart was enshrined at Leybourne, as on
examination of the heart shrine in that church,
there is every reason to believe that his heart was
laid to rest there.
Again, in 1272, Richard, King of the Romans,
Earl of Cornwall, who had undertaken a second
journey to the Holy Land, died. His fourth wife,
Beatrix Falkeston, deposited his heart, under a
sumptuous pyramid of wonderful workmanship, in
the Church of Friars Minors, at Oxford, which
had been beautified and enlarged at the expense
of herself and her husband. The same year we
read that Ralph de Scopham's, Lord of Bryanston,
heart was buried under the font in his church, in
Dorsetshire, with this brief inscription :
" Hie jacet cor Radulphi de Scopham."
In 1274, the heart of Robert de Sutton, a
Monk of Peterborough, was brought in a cup to
his Monastery, and there buried before the altar
of St. Oswald.
The Bishop of Winchester, Nicholas de Ely,
directed that his heart should be entombed in the
HEART BURIALS OF ENGLISH PERSONS. 231
south wall of the Presbytery of Winchester, where
it was placed in 1280, with the following
inscription :
" Intus est cor Nicholai olim episcopi cujus corpus
est apud Waverlie."
The heart of Thomas Cantelupe was enshrined
with great honour in the Chapel of Our Lady in
his cathedral at Hereford, 1282.
The death of Alphonso, son of Edward I. and
Queen Eleanor, was a great affliction to his royal
parents, and they caused his heart to receive
sepulture in the Church of the Black Friars',
London, 1284.
Robert de Ros, Lord of Belvoir, who raised a
new battlement to the Castle of Belvoir, deceased
in June, 1285. His heart had sepulture at
Belvoir.
The heart of Hugh de Batsham, Bishop of Ely
in T 286, was placed near the altar of St. Martin, at
Ely.
The heart of Eleanor of Provence, wife of
Henry III., was interred with great solemnity in
London, in the church belonging to the Minor
Brothers, 1290.
Eleanor of Castille, the heroic wife of Edward
I., and the most devoted of consorts, was buried
232 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
at the feet of Henry III., in Westminster Abbey,
in December, 1290, and, two days after, her heart
was deposited in the Church of Black Friars,
London.
William Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, who
died 1298, requested that his heart should be
taken wheresoever the Countess, his dear consort,
should herself resolve to be interred. The hearts
of John and Margaret, children of William
Valence, were taken to the Black Friars' Church,
in London, the interment of which is mentioned
with that of Alphonso, son of Edward I., who
was related to them.
We now pass on to 1300, and find at an early
date that the heart of Maude de Hastings was
buried before the High Altar, at Barn well Priory,
Cambridgeshire.
Edward I., whose heart had known such intense
sorrow for the death of his beloved Eleanor,
expressed a much more pious wish with respect to
his heart than he did with regard to the disposal
of his body, as he desired this might be sent to
the Holy Land, since he would not go in person
according to his vow, and that it should be
deposited at Jerusalem, with thirty-two thousand
pounds sterling, which he had provided for the
HEART BURIALS OF ENGLISH PERSONS. 233
support of the Holy Sepulchre, to be taken
thence with a noble retinue.
Stow, in his Survey of London, states that in
the midst of the Church of the Grey Friars,
London, is an alabaster tomb, containing the body
of Queen Isabella, with the heart of her husband
on her breast ; also that of Peter Mountford in
the same church, says the same author.
Early in the fifteenth century, the heart of Sir
Hugh Mortimer received sepulture in Reading
Abbey. In the Church of Burford, Shropshire, a
simple tomb records that the heart of Edmond
Cornwall, Esquire, lies within it
" O Lord, my contrite heart and meek,
Do not refuse, I Thee beseek."
William, Lord Botreau, a great benefactor of
religious houses, directed his heart to be buried at
Bridgewater, 1462, and that of Anthony Wood-
ville, Earl Rivers, was by desire carried to our
Lady of Pue, at Westminster.
With the sixteenth century, we learn that the
heart of the young Prince Arthur of Wales, was
buried in the Church of Ludlow. Some years
ago the silver box in which it was encased was
taken up, and the heart was found to be double.
The case was embezzled by the sexton.
234 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
Eleanor, Duchess of Buckingham, appointed
that her heart should be buried before the image
of St. Francis, in the Church of the Grey Friars,
London. She died in 1531.
The heart of Queen Mary, the daughter of Henry
VIII., was interred in Westminster Abbey, where
subsequently that of Queen Elizabeth was taken, in
1670. When the royal vault was opened, the
urns containing them were found within the
niches, having their names inscribed upon them.
The heart of Sir Robert Peckham, who died at
Rome, 1569, was discovered at Denham, Bucking-
hamshire, in 1711, in a small box of lead
fashioned like a heart, flat and soldered, and
wrapped with several cloths still smelling strong
of the embalment. On the lid was written this
inscription :
"I.H.S. Robertas Peckham Egnes Auratus Anglus cor
summ Dulciss, patrie major. Monumentis commendari
Obitt idie September MDLXIX."
In 1575 died Edward, Earl of Windsor, abroad,
but his heart was enclosed in lead, and sent to
England to be buried under his father's tomb, in
token of a true Englishman.
Captain Thomas Hodges, on receiving his last
wound in 1583, gave three legacies; his soul to
HEART BURIALS OF ENGLISH PERSONS. 253
his Lord Jesus, his body to be lodged in Flemish
earth, his heart to be sent to his dear wife in
England. At Wedmore, Somerset, is a monu-
ment to his memory, bearing the following
inscription :
" Here lies his wounded heart
For whom
One kingdom was too small
A room ;
Two kingdoms therefore have
Thought fit to part
So stout a body and so brave a heart."
In 1586 died Sir Henry Sidney, Earl
of Leicester. The
leaden urn or cup
containing his heart
was carried to Ludlow
and deposited in the
same tomb with his
dearly loved daughter
Ambrosia, in the
little oratory he had V%NNO y poMNf <:?
made in the church
of St. Lawrence. The seventeenth century
records, in 1600, the heart of Anna Sophia
Harley, the infant daughter of the French
Ambassador, which was deposited in a
OF SIR HENRY
236
CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
gilt cup or vase, and placed upon a pyramid of
marble in St. Nicholas' Chapel, Westminster
Abbey.
The heart burial of Henry, Prince of Wales,
who died at eighteen, took place in 1612. His
heart was enclosed in lead, and placed upon his
breast in Westminster Abbey.
At the church of Brino;-
O
ton, Northamptonshire,
the parish in which
Atthorp is situated, is a
leaden drum deposited in
the wall, which is supposed
to contain the heart of
Henry, Lord Spencer,
Earl of Sunderland, who
died in 1643.
The heart of Arthur,
Lord Chapel, who, in
1648, submitted to his death upon the scaffold with
unparalleled Christian courage, was deposited in a
silver box enclosed in another with two locks, which
was subsequently placed in an iron box and de-
posited in the family vault. In 1656, the heart of
Admiral Blake, who had died in the harbour, was
embalmed, and buried in St. Andrew's Church at
CARVING ON A FINIAL IN BRINGTON
CHURCH.
HEART BURIALS OF ENGLISH PERSONS. 237
Plymouth. That of Isabella, Countess of North-
ampton, was placed in the Sackville vault, in the
church of Withyam, Sussex, in a leaden case in
the shape of a heart, on a brass plate affixed to
which is inscribed :
" The Hart of Isabella, Countess of
Northampton.
Died the i4th of October, 1661."
In the same year the heart of Esme Stuart, Duke
of Richmond, was enshrined in St. Nicholas'
Chapel, Westminster Abbey.
Sir Nicholas Crispe, a wealthy citizen of
London, who built the church of Hammersmith
in the time of King Charles I., had placed under
an effigy of the King on a pedestal an urn with
this inscription :
" Within this urn is entombed the heart of Sir Nicholas
Crispe, Knight and Baronet, a loyal sharer in the suffer-
ings of his late and present Majesty. He first settled the
trade of gold from Guinea, and then built the Castle of
Cormantin. Died the 28th of July, 1665, aged 67."
In 1685, Arthur Capel's (Earl of Essex, son of
the heroic Lord Capel) heart was enclosed in a
marble heart case, and kept at the family seat,
Cashiobury. The heart of Charles the Second
received sepulture in Westminster Abbey enclosed
2 3 8
CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
in a silver case covered with purple velvet,
and placed upon his coffin. The heart of
Mary II., Queen of England, was also
treated in a similar way, and
placed upon her coffin in the
vault of Henry the Seventh's
Chapel in Westminster
Abbey. Sir William Temple,
who died in 1699, selected
for his heart's resting-place a
sunny spot under the sundial,
opposite to the window of an
apartment from which he
used to contemplate the
works of Nature, and there it
was placed in a silver box.
In the year 1702 we record
that the heart of William III.,
King of England, was en-
closed in silver, covered with
purple velvet, and placed
upon his coffin in West-
minster Abbey, and that
of Prince George of Denmark
in a like manner at the same place.
Queen Anne's heart received sepulture in 1714,
MONUMENT TO THE HEART OF
ANNA SOPHIA HARLEY.
HEART BURIALS OF ENGLISH PERSONS. 239
also encased in silver, and covered with purple
velvet.
In the Columbarium, under the mausoleum at
Maulden Church, Bedfordshire, are two urns con-
taining " the hearts of Thomas, Earl of Ailsbury,
and his second Lady," date 1741.
In 1755, we know that the heart of the well-
known antiquary, Dr. Richard Rawlinson, was
bequeathed by him to St. John's College, Oxford,
where it is placed in a beautiful marble urn.
To Paul Whitehead, Esquire, of Twickenham,
we find the following obiit, December 30, 1774 :
" Unhallowed hands this urn forbear,
No gems nor orient spoil
Lie here conceal'd, but what more rare
A heart that knew no guile."
The year 1822 points out to us that the poet
Percy Bysshe Shelley, whose body was washed on
shore in the Gulf of Spizia, was, according to
Italian custom, burnt. The heart, however, would
not consume, and was placed in an urn and
deposited in the English Protestant burial ground
at Rome :
"Born August 5, 1792,
Died July 8, 1822."
" Cor Cordium."
24 o CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
The same remarkable circumstance took place
when Archbishop Cranmer was brought to the
stake. His heart was not once touched by the fire,
and was found amongst his ashes after his body
was consumed.
The heart of George Gordon, Lord Byron, who
died at Missolonghi, in 1824, was sent to England
for interment, enclosed in a silver urn. It was
not placed in the family vault at Newstead as was
supposed, but in the chancel of Hucknall Torkard
Church, with an inscription upon the box in which
it was enclosed.
This must close our list of English heart burials,
although there are many more ; yet it is sufficient
to state these tell us much that is sad, much that
is interesting, and where, in those singular and
strange receptacles, the ingenuity of man has
fondly sought to preserve these remnants of mor-
tality from the power of oblivion and decay. We
desire to echo a piteous response for those now
calmly sleeping, and by their works of piety revive
and hallow their memory.
" Theirs are enshrined names, and every heart
Shall bear the blazon'd impress of their worth."
BY ENGLAND HOWLETT.
OF the many bygone festivals which at one
time were so popular in England, and
which from one cause or another have gradually
fallen into such oblivion as to be almost forgotten,
perhaps few, if any, held for so long a period such
a fascination for all classes of people throughout
the length and breadth of the country as the
ceremonial incident to the election, and mimic
pontificate, of the boy-bishops. No doubt the
fact that all the participators in the observance of
this curious custom were children would strongly
appeal to the feelings of the people, who would,
not unnaturally, crowd together to see with what
solemnity and dignity these children could imitate
the office of the highest ecclesiastical dignitaries.
It would certainly seem that in the olden days
some good must have resulted from the observ-
ance of the ceremonial, for it received support
from nearly every church throughout the land,
and also support from the monasteries.
16
242 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
In the Middle Ages, when festivities and
pageantry were so popular as almost to form a
necessary part of existence, St. Nicholas' Day
(6th December) took a very prominent place ;
this day being set apart for the election of boy-
bishops in various parts of the country. This
practice was not confined to cathedral cities alone,
but boy-bishops were elected from colleges,
grammar schools, and parish churches. As
patron of scholars, St. Nicholas had a double
feast at Eton College, where the scholars, to
avoid in anyway interfering with the boy-bishop
on St. Nicholas' Day, elected their boy-bishop in
November on St. Hugh's Day.
This festival in various forms seems to have
been celebrated in most, if not all, Christian
countries, therefore it naturally assumed very
different complexions according to time and
place ; in some instances the ceremony was of
a purely serious and religious character, and in
others it verged closely on the burlesque and
profane. In all places this childish pageantry
appears to have appealed strongly to the people,
and so great were the crowds which assembled to
witness the processions and mimic pontifical
ministrations, that it was specially provided by
BOY-BISHOPS. 243
the statute of Sarum that no one was to press
upon the children or interrupt them during their
procession or service in the cathedral upon pain
of anathema.
In the early days of this festival in honour of
St. Nicholas, there is no doubt but that it was
intended solely as a reverential observance, but it
was impossible that such a farce could for any
length of time be ta'ken seriously either by the
children taking part in it, or the people who
thronged to witness it. That the show main-
tained its popularity to the last is amply proved,
but the wonder is that the Church did not sooner
awake to the fact that this playing at bishops was
certainly not in anyway conducive to the dignity
of those who properly held the office.
The boy-bishop was elected annually on St.
Nicholas' Day ; he was generally a chorister, and
elected by members of the choir. His term of
office sometimes only lasted until Holy Innocents'
Day, but in other cases for a much longer period,
the title itself being held until the next election.
According to the custom of Salisbury, the
Episcopus Puerorum was chosen by his fellow
children, and he held all the state of a true
bishop. After the election, the boy-bishop was
244 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
vested in full episcopal vestments, with mitre,
ring, and pastoral staff. In some cases he
entered the church or cathedral, and performed
episcopal functions there, even going through a
form not unlike what has been called ''Table
Prayers" in the Church of England; that is,
celebration of mass without any consecration.
At Salisbury, in the procession of the boy-
bishop, the dean and residentiaries went first,
followed by the chaplains, the bishop, and petty
prebendaries. The choristers sat in the upper
stalls, the residentiaries furnished the incense
and book, and the petties were taper-bearers.
The boy-bishop exacted ceremonial obedience
from his fellows, who, dressed like priests, per-
formed all the ceremonies and offices which might
have been celebrated by a bishop and his pre-
bendaries.
In the diocese of York, as early as 1367, it was
ordered as an indispensable requisite, " that the
bishop of the boys should, for the future, be he
who had served longest in the church, and who
should be most suitable, provided, nevertheless,,
that he was sufficiently handsome in person, and
that any election otherwise should not be valid.''
It would seem, therefore, that good looks were
BOY-BISHOPS. 245
indispensable requisites for every candidate for the
youthful bishopric.
The boy-bishops made visitations to various
places in their diocese. These appear to have
been lucrative, as well, no doubt, as pleasant
excursions, especially at the hands of the local
nobility, whose welcome guests they were. On
December 7th, 1229, a boy-bishop, in the chapel
at Heton, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, said vesper
before Edward I. on his way to Scotland, who
made considerable presents to him and the other
boys who sang with him. In 1319, Roger de
Mortival, Bishop of Salisbury, found it necessary
to curtail some of the observances. He forbade
both feast and visitation, and, in some places, the
boys were kept from wandering beyond parish
bounds.
In 1396, John de Cave, boy-bishop of York,
went on his visitation tour. He was attended by
a considerable retinue, and his accounts were kept
by Nicholas, of Newark, " Guardian of the
property of the boy-bishop." It seems to
have been a succession of excursions from
and back to York. When the accounts
were balanced, and the receipt of gifts
weighed against expenses, there remained forty
246 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
shillings and sixpence halfpenny for the little bishop
to put in his pocket, a considerable sum in those
days, considering the relative value of money.
It does not seem quite clear at what period this
idle ceremony was first established, but probably
it was ancient, and at least it can be traced back
with certainty to the thirteenth century.
With respect to vestments, etc., used by the
boy-bishop and his companions, there are many
notices of these in cathedral and parish records.
In the will of Thomas Rotheram, Archbishop of
York, dated in 1481, is a bequest to the college of
that place of a mitre of cloth of gold, with two
silver enamelled " knoppes," to be worn by the
"Barnes Bishop" In a MS. inventory of vest-
ments, committed to the care of the Sacristan of
Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1495, are "pro
peuris " tunicles, red and white and crimson, with
orfreys of damask and velvet, one set of albs of
blue damask, and two with apparels of red silk,
and, lastly, a banner of St. Nicholas. The
churchwardens' accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill,
London, 10 Henry VI., make mention of "two
children's copes, also a myter of cloth of gold set
with stones."
It would seem as though the Boy Bishops
BOY-BISHOPS. 247
either each had a new seat or throne, or that the
one provided required constant repair. The
following extracts are taken from the Louth
Churchwardens' accounts :
1500. Paid to the Chyld Byshop at Cristynmes for
j paire cloffes, id.
To Thomas Couper, ijd. John Bradpull,
ijd., and making his See ov. nayles.
1501. Paid for one Chyld Bishop j pair cloffes.
Making his See, vjd.
1505. Paid for making the Child Bishop See, vjd.
On the Feast of Holy Innocents, the Boy
Bishop delivered a sermon, which, although
couched in somewhat childish language, was
doubtless prepared by some dignitary of the
church. This ancient custom was not only
allowed and continued by the founders of Win-
chester and Eton, but when Dean Colet made the
laws for his Grammar School, in the year 1512,
he directed that his scholars should on every
Childermas day hear the child bishop's sermon
in Paul's, and afterwards, attending the High
Mass, offer each of them one penny to the child-
bishop. This was done no doubt as a stimulus to
Christian ambition in the boys, just as the mitre
and staff are painted, as the rewards of learning,
on the school walls of Winchester.
248 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
It appears to have been usual that money
should be struck for the boy-bishop " St.
Nicholas pence "-it was called. In the church
of St. Mary, at Bury St. Edmund's, there was a
Guild of St. Nicholas ; and in the year 1842,
during the removal of the priest's stalls, a quantity
of leaden pieces, formed in imitation of money,
were discovered ; these were undoubtedly relics
commemorative of the boy-bishop.
In case a boy-bishop died within a month of
his election, his obsequies were solemnized with
glorious pomp and sadness. He was buried, like
all other bishops, in his vestments and ornaments.
In Salisbury Cathedral, there is a diminutive
effigy of a bishop in full canonicals, and this is
popularly believed to be the tomb of a boy-bishop ;
the figure is about three feet in length, and the
name of the person represented is not known.
It seems, however, probable that it is the
monument of one of the earlier bishops, who are
known to have been buried in the Cathedral, but
the place of whose interment is not known. The
Salisbury Chapter memorials contain many refer-
ences to the boy-bishops, in which the name of
the boy is given, and not unfrequently the
amount of the money offerings received, but there
BOY-BISHOPS. 249
is not any record of the death of any boy-
bishop.
In the year 1541, Henry VIII., by proclama-
tion, abolished the practice of electing boy-
bishops, much to the regret of the people, who
were thus deprived of what, for so long a period,
had been their most popular show, and one which,
no doubt, they had come to look upon as being
an annual ceremonial to continue for all time ;
however, it was hardly to be expected that the
puritan spirit of that age could countenance or
even permit such a burlesque. Up to this time,
what Archbishop Peckham had denounced, at
Godstowe, in 1279, the dressing up of girls to
publicly read prayers on Innocents' Day, still con-
tinued ; but Henry suppressed this also, with
other " chyldysh observaunces."
After the accession of Mary, and the re-estab-
lishment of the Roman Catholic religion, an order
was issued for the going about of the procession
of St. Nicholas. For some reason or other,
which does not appear, the order was recalled ;
but in 1556, the festival, processions, and all the
rites and ceremonies of the boy-bishop were fully
restored. The youthful prelate, with his retinue
and all their paraphernalia, was introduced to the
250 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
Queen, and in whose honour he sang a song in
her presence. All collegiate churches, and a
large number of schools, revived the practice ;
but the final abolition was near at hand. The
half sacred element, which was once connected
with the principal actor, died out in the eyes of
authorities, who began to see much abuse in this
sacro-comic performance.
All came to an end with the death of Mary,
and no longer the boys of Paul's obeyed the
order of their founder, Dean Colet, to attend at
Childermas and listen to the boy-bishop's ser-
mon. The popular festival died hard, but a
period of three hundred years has not effaced
the interest incident to the ceremony, although
it is now well-nigh shrouded by the mists of
antiquity.
(Bleanings from a parish Cbest.
BY REV. J. CHARLES Cox, LL.D., F.S.A.
PARISH chests, which were almost invariably
kept in the parish church, as the safest
possible place for their preservation, were used as
the store-holds for most interesting and valuable
classes of documents, for centuries before the days
of the Reformation. In such places, were not
only kept the charters and evidences that per-
tained to lands given for the purpose of
maintaining lights in the church, and for other
like ecclesiastical purposes, but also, in many
cases, documents of still greater value to the
parish at large, such as the manor court rolls, that
regulated all the affairs of village and community
life.
In searching among a great number of our
village parish chests, stores of such rolls are even
now occasionally found ; we have met with them
from early fourteenth century days, in the chests
of Alrewas and Yoxall, Staffordshire.
After the parochial legislation of the close of
252 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
Elizabeth's reign, parish books and accounts
began to multiply, and the well-kept parish chest
will be found to contain the separate accounts of
churchwardens, overseers of the poor, parish
constables, and way-wardens.
From time to time search will be rewarded by
a strange variety of unexpected scraps and frag-
ments, that may throw some little light not only
on local customs, but even on national history.
During the last thirty years, we have opened the
lids and searched with more or less diligence
into hundreds of village and town chests, and
though not infrequently some wretched spirit of
modern neatness or utilitarianism has cleared
out every document and book, and left perchance
nothing more savoury than smelling paraffin cans
and noisome lamp wick, still as a rule the search
is well repaid (particularly when we are assured
there is nothing of value), and occasionally
delightful finds are the reward of patient per-
sistence and considerable trouble.
But never do we expect to find so rich a
variety of unexpected treasures and scraps as
rewarded our efforts in April, 1864, when we
handled the first contents of the first parish
chest that came under our notice. In clearing
GLEANINGS FROM A PARISH CHEST. 253
out a large, roughly-made, lidless chest, beneath
the tower of the parish church of Luccombe,
Somerset, wherein the sexton kept his tools, a
considerable store of decaying papers came to
light, beneath a mildewed parish pall. The first
thing that attracted attention was a small roll in
which were tightly wrapped in the blank parch-
ment leaf of a register book, and fastened round
with a leathern thong, a 1643 Form of Prayer
and Thanksgiving issued by the king at Oxford,
together with special thanksgivings for the birth
of Charles II., in 1630, and of the Princess
Mary in 1631. Among the heap of papers were
found a variety of post- Restoration and eighteenth
century forms of prayer, several of which, after
painstaking investigation, appear to be abso-
lutely unique copies. The preservation of the
earliest of these forms of prayer in this out-of-
the-world, though lovely little west country
village, which nestles in the offshoots of Exmoor,
under the shadow of Dunkery Beacon, is
accounted for when we recollect the parsons
who were once rectors of Luccombe. In 15/5,
Queen Elizabeth presented Laurence Byam, one
of an old Monmouthshire family of note, to this
rectory, which he held for nearly forty years,
254 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
dying in 1614. Three, of his four sons became
distinguished divines. Henry, the eldest, born
at Luccombe, in 1580, "one of the greatest
ornaments of the University," says Wood, in
his Athence, succeeded his father in the living of
Luccombe. He resided at Luccombe, though
holding other preferments, and was proctor in
convocation for his diocese. At the beginning
of the civil war, he took so active a part for the
crown, that troops were dispatched to arrest him.
Escaping from the Roundheads, Henry Byam
joined the king at Oxford, in 1642. Dr. Byam's
devotion to the royal cause was strongly echoed
by his family. Four of his five sons were cap-
tain s in the king's armies, two of them losing
O ' O
their lives in battle. His wife and daughter, when
trying to escape the persecution of the Round-
heads (whilst Dr. Byam was at Oxford), by
crossing the Bristol Channel into Wales, were
both of them drowned. When Prince Charles,
afterwards Charles II., fled from England, Dr.
Byam accompanied him to the Scilly Islands,
and afterwards to Jersey, as his chaplain. He
was also for a time with Charles at the Hague.
o
At the restoration, he was reinstated in the
benefice of Luccombe, and made Canon of Exeter
GLEANINGS FROM A PARISH CHEST. 255
and Prebendary of Wells. It was only his
modesty that prevented him from being made
Bishop. He died in 1669, aged 81, having been
rector of Luccombe for 55 years. Father and
son had thus held that benefice for only six years
short of a century.
We have already given full descriptions of the
highly interesting series of Forms of Prayer and
Thanksgiving, in the occasional accompanying
proclamations, that were discovered in this chest,
in four articles, in vols. vii. and viii. of the
Newbery House Magazine, but nothing has
hitherto been made known with regard to other
curious contents of this parochial chest. We now
proceed to deal with the more noteworthy of
these odds and ends.
The earliest fragments of a document found in
this chest contained a list of high officials of the
kingdom, followed by a list of bishops according
to their precedence. How these two leaves came
to be deposited in such a place it would be idle
now to conjecture. They have evidently formed
part of some large manuscript book, carefully
written. There is no date on these pages, but
from the names mentioned, and from the fact of
the sees of Oxford and Bristol being vacant, it is
256 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
clear that they belong to the end of Elizabeth's
reign, somewhere between 1593 and 1600. The
following is a transcript :
" The names of the High Commissioners.
Tharchbishopp, Bishopp of London, B. of Durham,
B. of Winchester, B. of Elye, B. of Hereford, B. of
Coventrie and Lichfeld, B. of Sarum, B. of Lincolne, B.
of St. Davies, B. of Peterborough, B. of Worchester, B.
of Norwiche, B. of Chichester, and the Bishopp of
Rochester for the time being, B. of Carlisle, B. Suffragan
of Dover, Lo. Maior of London, Lord Wentworthe, Lo.
Ryche, Lord Bathurst, S r Xpoper Wraye, 1. chefe Justice
of England, Sir Henry Sidney, Sir Frauncis Knollis,
S r Xpofer Hatton, S r Frauncis Walsingham, S r Walter
Myldmay, S r Gilbert errard, M r of the Rolls, S r Roger
Marwood, L. cheife Baron, John Southcotte armiger
mort., William Aliffe armiger, S r George Carew knight.
The names of the Lordes and others of her Ma! ties Privie
CounselL
Sir Thomas Bromley, Knight, Lord Chauncellor of
England ; the Lord Bourleigh, 1. Treasurer ; the Earle of
Lincolne, L. Admirall ; the Earle of Shreuesberye, high
Marshall of England ; the lo. Charles Howard Baron of
Effingham, Lo. Chamberlayne of her Maties house; the
Earle of Warwick, M r of the Ordinaunce ; the Earle of
Bedforde, the Earle of Leicester, M r of the horse ; the
lo. Hundsdon, lo. Governor of Barwick, capt. of the
Gentlemen Pensioners ; S r Frauncis Knollis, knight,
Treasurer of the household ; S r James Acroft, knight,
comptroller ; Sir Henry Sidney, knight of the order, lo.
President of Walles.
GLEANINGS FROM A PARISH CHEST 257
A note of the Bishoppes and how they are to take place each
below or after other,
Archbishopp of Canterbury.
Archb. of Yorke.
Bishopp of London.
B. of Winchester.
B. of Duresme.
B. of Hereford.
B. of Elye.
B. of St. Davies.
B. of Salisburye.
Bishopp of Bath and Wells.
B. of Coventrie and Lichfeld.
B. of Peterborough.
B. of Chester.
B. of Gloucester.
B. of Bangor.
B. of Carlisle.
B. of Chichester.
B. of Lincolne.
B. of Exeter.
B. of Worcester.
B. of St. Asaph.
B. of Landaff.
B. of Rochester
Bristoin
^ r A I Vacant-
Oxford )
The 2 Archbishoppes so placed of dignitye, the 3
Bps. following so placed by an Act of Parlament.
All that follow have there places as they be putt downe
neither by there dignitye nor by Act of Parlament, but
according to the severall tymes of there severall
Consecretions."
17
258 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
In a torn and fragmentary condition, below a
heap of comparatively recent apprentice in-
dentures, was a creased and much- folded paper.
A tedious process removed the creases, and when
mounted it became evident that this was the first
of two consecutive large-sized Parliamentary
broadsheets which are of great rarity issued
on 1 7th April, 1646, in the midst of the great
Civil War struggle, but a few days before the
unhappy and deserted Charles left Oxford in
disguise, with two attendants, on his way to
Newark. The sheet measures eighteen inches
by fifteen inches, and is clearly printed in good
type. It is styled " A Declaration of the
Commons of England assembled in Parliament,
of their true Intentions concerning the Ancient
and Fundamental Government of the Kingdom ;
the Government of the Church ; the present
Peace ; Securing the People against all Arbitrary
Government, and maintaining a right understand-
ing between the Two Kingdoms of England
and Scotland according to the Covenant and
Treaties." The Commons proceed to recite the
objects they had had in view from the beginning
of the war, observing that " when it hath pleased
God to blesse our Endeavours and the Actions of
GLEANINGS FROM A PARISH CHEST. 259
Our Forces and Armes, as that the Enemy is in
dispair to accomplish his designes by War, and
We are brought into good hopes of attaining and
enjoying that which with so much expense of
Blood and Treasure We have contended for "-
the same spirits are still stirring as at the begin-
ning to misrepresent their intentions and aims.
They state that they are accused of wishing to
recede from the solemn league and covenant
entered into between the two kingdoms, and of
desiring to continue " these uncomfortable troubles
and bleeding distractions," in order to leave all
government in Church and State loose and
unsettled, and to assume for themselves the same
arbitrary power over the persons and estates of
the subjects, " which this Parliament hath thought
fit to abolish by taking away the Star Chamber,
High Commissioners, and other Actuary Courts,
and the Exorbitant Power of the Council Table."
The Commons, therefore, think well solemnly
to repeat what are their true and real intentions.
First, with regard to Church government, they
note how they had ''fully declared for a
Presbyterial Government," and passed most of
the particulars brought to them from the
Assembly of Divines, and had only refrained
260 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
from granting arbitrary and unlimited power, and
that it was their resolve still further " to
endeavour the Reformation of Religion in the
kingdoms of England and Ireland, in Doctrine,
Worship, Discipline, and Government, according
to the Word of God, and the Example of the
best Reformed Churches, and according to our
Covenant."
This sheet from the Luccombe chest stops
short in the midst of the declaration about
religion, and it was a long time before we could
discover the conclusion of this valuable historical
utterance. It is not referred to in any of our usual
histories of England, even the fullest, and we
failed to find a copy in several collections of
proclamations. But at last we came across a
folio volume printed by " Ed. Husband, Printer
to the Honorable House of Commons, and sold
at his shop at the signe of the Golden Dragon in
Flete Street nere the Temple Gate, 1646," which
contained a collection of " All the Publick Ordain
Ordinances and Declarations of both Houses of
Parliament from the ninth of March, 1642, untill
December, 1646." From this volume we were
able to recover the remainder of the declaration.
The remainder states that the Commons were in
GLEANINGS FROM A PARISH CHEST. 261
favour of the continuance of the fundamental
constitution and government of the kingdom by
King, Lords, and Commons ; of depriving the
crown of any pretended power of the Militia ; by
maintaining the abolition of court of wards and
liveries, and of all tenures in capite, and by
knights' service ; of reducing garrisons ; of bring-
ing delinquents who had fomented the war to
due punishment ; and of fully observing the
solemn league and covenant between the two
kingdoms of England and Scotland.
One of the very next orders issued by the
parliament, when the news reached them of the
flight of the king from Oxford, on April 27th, on
an unknown journey, was the following brief
statement by far the shortest that the " long
parliament " ever put out which runs to the
following effect :
"Die Lunae, 4 Mali, 1646.
Ordered that it be, and it is, hereby Declared by the
Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled, that what
person soever shall harbor and conceal, or know of the
harboring and concealing of the King's person, and shall
not reveal it immediately to the Speakers of both Houses,
shall be proceeded against as a Traytor to the Common-
wealth, forfeit his whole Estate, and dye without Mercy."
On the same day it was ordered that the
262 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
committee of the Militia of the city of London
be desired to publish the above order by beat of
drum or sound of trumpet within the cities of
London and Westminster and lines of com-
munication. The order was hardly likely to be
sent out save to districts where there was strong
reason to suspect that the king might be inclined
to make his way or to seek concealment. Why
then should this order have found its way to this
retired little Somersetshire village of Luccombe ?
The probable answer is that Luccombe, as has
been already remarked, was the residence of that
very prominent royalist clergyman, Lawrence
Byam, and his family, and that the royalist
garrison of Dunster Castle, six miles distant from
Luccombe, had but just yielded to the Parlia-
mentarians. An order of the two Houses, dated
May 2nd, had just been issued, commanding
that May iQth be observed as a day of " Publique
Thanksgiving in all places within the power of
the Parliament for the several Mercies of God
upon the forces of the Parliament in reducing and
taking in the several Castles and Garisons of
Portland, Ruthyn, Exeter, Barnstaple, the
Mount in Cornwall, Dunster Castle, Tutbury and
Aberistwith Castles, Woodstock Manor, and the
GLEANINGS FROM A PARISH CHEST. 263
Castle of Bridgenorth." At Dunster Castle there
is still shown a hiding-place, behind the panelling
of a bed-chamber, where Charles I. is traditionally
said to have been concealed. We believe this
brief order of May 4th, found at Luccombe, to be
an absolutely unique copy.
In another corner of the chest, crumpled up into
a small ball, was a thin printed paper. After
careful unrolling and smoothing, it proved to be a
somewhat damaged broadsheet, seventeen inches
by fifteen inches, printed on one side, with orna-
mental heading and initial letter. It was "the
humble Petition of Arthur Gwin and Roger
Gwin, Ministers of God's word, in behalf of their
captivated and distressed families in Ireland,"
addressed to " the Right Honourable the Lords
assembled in Parliament." In the body of the
petition it was stated that the petitioners had lost
their estates in Ireland " by that horrid and
matchless Rebellion" to the value of ,2,240, in
addition to an annual income of ^350, whereby
they and their families, numbering sixteen souls
were reduced to great want ; that the aged mother
and two children of Arthur were captives with
the Irish Rebels ; that Roger's wife and five
small children were in the city of Cork suffering
264 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
extreme want, and without God's special provi-
dence like to perish ; and that through their
grievous losses and the sad destruction of the
kindgom they "are utterly disenabled to redeem
and bring away those miserable Captives, and
other distressed persons in whom they are so
nearly concerned." They therefore prayed for
authority " to quietly pass and repass in and about
their specified occasions " for a period of ten
months, and more especially to be recommended to
godly ministers of the gospel that they may
effectually move their congregation to charitable
contributions, "that so they may be in some
possibility to Redeem, relieve, and Fetch away
those poor captivated and distressed Christians
from among the Barbarous Rebels." Appended
to the petition is the certificate of " sundry
Protestant Lords and Noble Personages of the
Kingdom of Ireland," who sign as Kerry,
Ranelagh, Broghill, W. Fenton, and John
Percivall, testifying to the truth of the statements.
At the base of the broadsheet, printed in italics,
is the following parliamentary record :
" Die Jovis. 3 Septemb., 1646.
Upon the Petition of Arthur Gwin and Roger Gwin,
ministers, read this day in the House, shewing that
GLEANINGS FROM A PARISH CHEST. 265
(besides their great losses in the Kingdom of Ireland) the
said Arthur hath his mother and two children captives
with the Irish Rebels, and that Roger Gwin hath his wife
and five small Children in the City of Cork ;
It is ordered by the Lords in Parliament assembled,
That the Petitioners be permitted to pass into Ireland, and
to return back with their said company without the let or
hindrance of any person whatsoever.
And that the Ministers of God's Word to whom they
shall address themselves, be pleased to move effectually
their Congregations charitably to contribute towards the
inabling of the said poor petitioners to Relieve, Release,
and fetch off the said Captives and other distressed
persons, as in their said Petition is expressed.
Joh : Brown, Cleric. Parliamentorum."
Comparatively little is known about post-
reformation excommunications in England,
although frequently put in force during the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for technical
ecclesiastical offences, and occasionally for moral
wrong-doing. So far as we aware, no example of
such an excommunication has ever been printed
in extenso, and therefore no apology is necessary
for giving one from the Luccombe chest of the
time of Charles I. According to English canon
law, a sentence of excommunication was bound
to be delivered in writing and under proper seal.
This document is written on a half-sheet of
foolscap lengthways, and has borne a large vesica-
266 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
shaped wafer seal on the left-hand margin, but
nothing now remains of the seal save the stain
where it was originally stamped.
" Samuel Ward doctor of divinity Archdeacon of the
Archdeaconry of Taunton to our well-beloved the Parson
Vicar or Curate of the parish church of Luccombe within
our Archdeaconry of Taunton sendeth greetinge in our
Lord God everlastinge. Whereas Walter Pugslie, Moses
Pugslie, and John Anton of y e parish aforesaid for their
manifest contempte and disobedience have been longe
time justlie excommunicated and for excommunicate
persons openly denounced in the face of the Chuch at the
time of divine service in which dangerous estate without
feare of God or shame of ye world they still remaine in
contempte of lawe and lawful magistrates. We therefore
will and require you that the next Sabath day or holiday
ensuinge the Receipt hereof in your said parish Church at
the time of divine service before the whole congregation
assembled you shall publiquely denounce those Walter
Pugslie Moses Pugslie and John Anton for aggravated
persons and also then and there you shall admonish all
Christian people by virtue hereof that they and any of
them henceforth eschewe and avoid the society, fellow-
shippe and company of the said persons and that they
neither eate, nor drink, buy, sell, or otherwise by any
manner of means communicate with them, being members
cut off from all Christian Society under the payne of
excommunication by lawe in this behalf provided until
they shall submit themselves to be reconciled. And of
y r doinges herein Certifie us or our Deputy the next court
day ensuinge after fortye dayes after the denouncinge
hereof and fayle you not under the payne contempte.
GLEANINGS FROM A PARISH CHEST. 267
Dated under our Scale the three and twentye day of May
Anno dom, 1628.
Ric : Peeke Reg."
It is no use trying to surmise what had been
the original offence (non-payment of tithes, or
some moral evil) of which these three Luccombe
parishioners had been guilty. The offence would
have been stated in the original sentence. This
excommunication is a further declaration ; for the
excommunication was obliged, by English canon
law, to be repeated at the end of six months, and
to continue to be repeated at that interval
of time, provided the person or persons had not
meanwhile purged themselves by submission and
penance, and obtained the benefit of absolution.
The reason for the mention of the forty days, was
because of the law and custom of England,
which in this respect differed from all other parts
of Christendom the civil authority in the person
of the sheriff was bound to step in and imprison
excommunicated folk, until they made their
submission, provided that their wish de excom-
municato capiendo was sought for by the
diocesan or bishop. On the same Sunday on
which these three Luccombe offenders were
denounced in their parish church, and all Christian
268 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
folk commanded to boycott them, the same ex-
communication was read during the service at the
cathedral church of Wells, and on the following
day the names and offences of those excom-
municated were forwarded to the Archbishop of
the province.
On November i6th, 1628, the Archdeacon
issued another sentence of excommunication for
long-standing contempt against three Luccombe
parishioners, in very similar terms to the one
just quoted. The offenders were Moses Pugslie,
Amy Hawten, and Silvanus Band, and we may
conclude that Walter Pugslie and John Anton
had been meanwhile reconciled. This second
excommunication is somewhat damaged in
parts.
Another official document in the chest, which
has had a large marginal wafer seal attached,
was a marriage licence, issued by William.
Bishop of Bath and Wells, on March i2th,
1627. The contracting parties were John
Bryant, tailor, and Jane Jurdan, spinster. The
body of the document was in Latin, but at the end
is added in English: "If you knowe anie law-
full impediment to the contrary wherefore the
said parties ought not to be lawfully joyned to-
GLEANINGS FROM A PARISH CHEST. 269
gether in matrimony you are not to precede to the
solemnization thereof these presents notwith-
standinge."
Another interesting, though damaged paper, for
it was wrapped round some old pieces of tallow
candle ends, proved to be a series of instructions
put forth by the combined powers of church and
state with regard to the regulations of authorised
worship. The document is written throughout in
a neat running hand. The provisions relative to
lecturers would only apply to market towns, and
those more populous places where such lecture-
ships had been established. These lecturers
were, as a rule, chosen by the parishioners, and
paid by them after a voluntary fashion, or from
some endowment left for that purpose. They
were often the Sunday afternoon preachers, and
usually preached on a week-day in addition.
They were of Puritan origin, and intended in
their foundation to specially exalt preaching, and
to counteract the stiff, state preaching of the
incumbent. Hence, the necessity of the church
regulating their institution and methods, as is
done by canons 36 and 37. This document is not
dated, but it was obviously issued soon after the
Restoration. There was legislation on the
270 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
subject of lecturers and lectureships by 13 and 14
Charles II. c. 4, and 15 Charles II. c. 6.
" Instruction from his excellent Majestie to our
Reverend Diocesan and by his Lordshippe given in
charge to the clergie and all others whom it doth or shall
concern within his Lordshippe's Diocese.
That ye declaration for y e settling of all questions and
differences Bee strictly observed of all parties.
That in all parishes the afternoon sermon may be
turned into catechising by questions and answers when
and wherever there is not some great cause apparent to
break this ancient and profitable order.
That every lecturer doe read Divine service according
to the Liturgie printed by Authority in their surplice and
hood before the lecture.
That when a lecture is sett up in a Markett town it
may be read by a companie of grave and orthodox
Divines neare adjoining and of the same diocese and that
they preach in gownes and not in Cassocks as too many
use.
That if a Corporation do maintain a single lecturer he
be not suffered to preach till he do profess his willingness
to accept a benefice with care of soules in the same
Incorporation and that he actually take such a benefice,
or cure, soe soone as it shall be fairly procured for him.
That none under Noblemen and men qualified by lawe
have any private chaplaine within their house.
That Divine service be deligently frequented as well for
prayer and catechisms as sermons that can be had of it
and that a particular note be taken of all such as absent
themselves as Recusants or otherwise.''
A curious example of seventeenth century
GLEANINGS FROM A PARISH CHEST. 271
arithmetical problems came to light on the inner
side of the lining paper of the loose cover of a
parish account book, which began in the year
1702. It contained the statement of three sums
or problems, with the space below each occupied
by the working out of the figures by the scholar.
They seem to us worth printing as a sample of
the work done by our schoolboys about 1650 :
"(i) Suppose a piece of Timber be 2 foot by 2 inches
broad and i foot by 8 inches deep w' is the true square
of that piece say you.
(2) There be two Townes A and B lye south and north
and betweene them 25 miles a third Towne as C lyes
straight west from B 60 miles I demand the just distance
A and C.
(3) A Towne wall being besieged which is 36 foot high
and is moated round with a ditch 18 foot broad now the
General commandeth Ladders to be made of that Length
which may reach from y e edge of the ditch to the topp of
the wall how many foot must the Ladder be in Length."
Three pages of parish accounts, very neatly
kept, for the years 1633-5, were found. They
thus begin :
" Luccomb. Heare followeth the account of William
Stock and Richard Blackmore, Churchwardens, John
Balle and John Eame, Overseers for the Relleefe of the
poore of the saith parish for this present yeere, Ano.
dom. 1633."
Received by vertu of one Rate viij 11 - xv s iij d
272 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
" Monthly distribucians beginning
May 12. Imprimis payd unto the old overseers
ij u - xiij s - iiij d -
Payd for a warrant of o r ofice - vj d -
To Jane Way - ij s
To Florence Keene - - viij d -
To Alice Adam - - xvj d -
To Jane Yomens - ij s -
To Edward Steere ij s -
Som is iij 1 '- j s x d -
The poor entries are made most carefully and
totalled for each month, those relieved average
six per month, and the same names are for the
most part repeated. The relief varies from 8d.
per month to 45. From July onwards, the parish
paid Alice Adam's house rent, which was 2s. 6d.
per month. In August, is. is paid " for a trusse
for Adam's boy," and in September, 8s. is paid to
George Gore, " for healing y e widow Adams
boy." In November, 53. 8d. is paid "for a
shroud for Robert Steere, and other charges at
y e funerall." The poor were never then buried
in coffins.
At the end of the year's accounts occur the
following entries :
" The viij 1 '- given by Laurance Byam, clarke, for the
binding out of apprintices remaineth iij 1 '- in the hand of
Anne Weber with Simon Pugsly, and is to be payd unto
GLEANINGS FROM A PARISH CHEST. 273
the overseers the xxvj th day of July, Ano. dom. 1635.
The other v h - remaineth in our hands to be payd unto the
new overseers."
In another hand.
" Somerset. Apud Dunster in com. pdt. xxi die April
Ano. dni. 1634. If the overseers of the poore now
nominated doe nott mak uppe this ten pounds full and
all againe to bee put out with apprentices accordinge to
the good and memorable intention of Mr. Lawrence
Byam, deceased, they shall pay the fortie shillinges which
now comes short themselves ; and wee doe order that the
goods of one Richard Daniel, the late servant of John
Ball, which hee left in his said masters custodie when hee
ranne away for basterdie upon the accusation of Agnes
Duddridge, bee sould for the best profitt and advantage
towards the releafe of the bastard.
Tho. Windham.
Tho. Luterell."
The above are interesting instances of the way
in which the justices, according to the poor law
legislation of 39 and 43 Elizabeth, intervened in
the regulating of parish officers' accounts. The
justices above-named, Windham or Wyndham,
and Luttrell, were of the well-known west country
families resident respectively at the adjacent little
towns of Minehead and Dunster. Just one
example was preserved in the Luccombe chest of
the old form of appointing two parish overseers,
who, together with the churchwardens, were to
o
18
274 CURIOUS CHURCH GLEANINGS.
raise competent sums for the necessary relief of
the aged and indigent, and to provide work for
such as were able but could not get employment.
This document, two years later than the poor's
account cited above, is signed by the same
magistrates.
" Somerset. Wee whose names bee subscribed Justices
of the peace within the said countye of Somerset and
neere unto the parish of Luccombe in the said countye
have accordinge to the statute in that case made and
provided and appointed Robert Phillips and Amos
Byckham together with the Churchwardens of the said
parish to bee Overseers of the Poore there for this yeare
next ensuinge. Witness our hands and seales the xxij day
of April, Ano R. R. Caroli Anglic etc 1635.
Tho : Wyndham (Seal)
Tho : Luttrell (Seal)
It is well known to ecclesiologists that up to
comparatively recent times, a variety of notices,
that would now considerably startle demure
congregations, were given out in parish churches.
Not a few Acts of Parliament, even of the
beginning of the present century, provide for
declarations and announcements being made, by
such officials as parish constables, on the Sunday
in church at the conclusion of service. But so far
as our acquaintance with old parochial documents
extends, the Luccombe chest is the only one that
GLEANINGS FROM A PARISH CHEST, 275
has yielded absolute evidence of announcements
being made in church in the seventeenth century
about strayed cattle. By no means the least
interesting of the curious medley of fragments so
strangely preserved in this West Somerset village
was one of which the following is a copy :
" The Clerke shal give nottice on Trinitie Sondaye after
divine service is ended publickly in the Chuche that one
score and three straye sheepe hav bin vounde in David
Pugsley his bartone with a clippette in ye lefte eare.
Alsoe that a redde covve hath bene pinned by the pyndere
of East Luckham."
The writing is good, too good probably for the
village constable, and is most likely that of the
rector or curate. The sheep had doubtless
strayed off the closely adjacent Exmoor. The
" Zomerzet," v for f may be noticed in " vounde "
for " found." This paper is not dated, but there
can be no doubt that it is of the reign of Charles
the First.
Adel, Porch at, 30
Ale-drawer, 100, 102
Ale at gilds, 116, 128
Alms-boxes, 188
Altar cards, 59
Andrews, William, Burials in
Woollen, 201-208
Anglo-Saxon crosses, 67
Archery in churchyards, 7
Arithmetical problems, 271
Axon, W. E. A., The Church
Porch, 29-35
Banner, 5, 153
Baptismal Superstitions, 4
Baptismal Fonts in the Porch, 33
Baring-Gould, Rev. S. (quoted)
53-54
Beauchamp Chapel, 173
Bedfordshire Crosses, 78
Beggars at the Church Porch, 32
Bellman and Funerals, 131-132
Bells, 2, 3, 6
Benson, George, What to look for
in an old church, 1-13
Breedon-on-the-Hill, Pew at,
151-152
Bequests for Lights, 42
Bishop's Throne, 163-169
Brotherhoods, 51
Brasses, How to make rubbings
of, 7
Bread -board, 4
Boy-Bishops, 241-250
Burials in Woollen, 201-208
Candle lights, 46, 48
Candle tenures, 4
Candlemas Day, 55
Canopied pews, 152
Cat and fiddle, 106
Celtic Christianity, 20, 22
Civil function in churchyard, 68
Civil War, 76 ; broadsheets, 258-
263
Chancel, females not to sit in, 147
Chantries, 170-177
Charters for lights, 40-41
Charing cross, 84
Cheapside cross, 84
Chester crosses, 83
Children, Sermon for, 53-54
Corpus Christi Gild, 125
Church Gilds, 110-137
Church Porch, 29-35
Church and Well 01 St. Chad,
193-200
Churchwardens' accounts, 10, 39,
42-43, 44, 52, 53, 56, 60, 141,
247
Churchwardens, Appointing, 158,
159
Coins issued by Archbishops, 1 66 ;
struck for Boy-Bishops, 248
Colet, Dean, 247
Collecting from door to door for
lights, 46
Concerning Crosses, 65-91
Consecration cross, 3
Cornish crosses, 78
Cox, Rev. J. Charles, LL.D., F.S.A.,
The Lights of a Mediaeval
Church, 36-64 ; Gleanings from
a Parish Chest, 251-275
Cressets, 37
Crokesden Abbey, 227-229
Cross trees, 81
Crosses, Concerning, 65-91
Crusaders introduce heart burial,
225
Dancing, Fools, 97
Dead, Prayers for, 175, 215
Dedications, Early, 14-28
Dedications, Joint, 10
Demons, 102-103
Destroying Crosses, 74
Disturbance in Church, 145-146
Dogs at Church, 152-155
2 7 8
INDEX.
Doors, Oak, 3
Dowries paid in porch, 34
Early Church Dedications, 14-28
Edward, Black Prince, Reverence
of, 15-16
Edward I. and Boy-Bishops, 245
Edward the Confessor, 16
Egyptian Monuments, 65
Edinburgh High Cross, 89-90
Earliest church, 139
Easter Eve lights, 58
Easter Sepulchre, 12
Eleanor, Queen, 232
English Saints, 16
England called the ' ' Land of
Light," 63-64
Eton College, Custom at, 242
Excommunication, 265-278
Fables, Instructing by, 141
Faithful departed, Lights for, 63
Females not to sit in the Chancel,
147
Feast of Fools, 107-108
Feast of Lights, 54
Field Sports, Clergy joining in, 155
Fire of Bel, 20
Fire, Hearts not consumed by, 239-
240
Fleas, Destroying in Church, 159
Freeman on Gilds, III
Frescoes, 8
Fools Dancing, 97 ; Grimacing, 99
Font, 4
Forms of Prayer and Thanksgiving,
253
Fridstool, 168
Funeral Crosses, 73
Gable Cross, 3
Gargoyles, 3
Geddes, Janet, 144
Georgian Era, 24
Gilds, Light at, 36
Gleanings from a Parish Chest,
251-275
Good-fellowship, Age of, 118
Hagioscopes, 178-180
Hartshorne, Miss Emily Sophia,
Heart Burials of English Per-
sons, 224-240
Hearse, 48, 132, 209-223
Heart Burials of English Persons,
224-240
Hell's Mouth, 102
Henry III., 16
Henry VIII., Abolishes Boy-
Bishops, 249
Herbert, George (quoted) 35
Hermit's Cell, 8
Hexham Frid-stool, 168
High Altar, Continual Lights at, 61
High Cross, 87
High Pews, 149
Holly Bush at Christmas, 60
Holy Cross, Gild of, 128
Holy Water, 4
Horn-blowing Customs, 68
Hewlett, England, Boy-Bishops,
241-250
Images, Lights before, 38
Images taken in Procession, 46
Irish Rebellion, 263-265
Italian custom of burning, 239
Lambert, Rev. J. Malet, M.A.,
LL.D., Church Gilds, 110-137
Lamps before the high altar, 38
Langford, J. A., LL.D., The
Church and Well of St. Chad,
193-200
Lanterns brought to church, 37
Latimer, Bishop, 55
Lectern, 9
Lectures, Institution of, 269-270
Legacies paid in the porch, 34
Licenses for pews, 156
Lights furnished by gilds, 46
Lights of a Medueval Church, 36-64
Lightmen, 39
Low-side windows, 58
Luccombe, Rectors of, 253-254
Lychgate, 2
Maltese Cross, 66
Market cross, 77, 86, 87
Marmion's tomb, 132
Marriages celebrated in the Porch,
35
Marriage license, 268-269
Mass, Lights at, 36
Mass for the Dead, 175
Mats, 140
INDEX.
279
Maunday Thursday, 57
Meetings at the Cross, 69
Middle Ages, Life in the, 113
Misericordes, 92-109
Misson on Burials, 206-208
Monument to a Heart, 238
More, Sir Thomas, 145, 146
Night offices, 36
Night watchers, 35
Norman Conquest, 25
Obeisance to the Altar and Cross,
71-79
Odin, 65
Oldfield, Mrs., Burial of, 205-206
Orson, 108
Overseers, Appointment of, 273-274
Ozel, John, 80
Page, John T., Chantries, 170-177 ;
Hagioscopes, 178-180
Pagan feasts, 14
Pall, Parish, 253
Palm cross, 67
Palm Sunday Ceremonies, 68
Parliaments held in church, 143
Paschal candle, 58
Peacock, Edward, F.S.A., Hearse,
209-223
Peacock, Florence, Concerning
Crosses, 65-91
Penance, Public, 152
Penitents waiting in the porch, 33
Pews of the Past, 138-162
Pews. When came in use, 145
Phoenician traders, 21
Pilgrimages by members of gilds,
129
Porch, The Church, 29-35
Preaching crosses, 82, 85
Precedence of Bishops, 255
Pulling down crosses, 84
Pulpits, movable, 141
Purification, Feast of, 54-56
Puritan rule, 196
Purgatory, Belief in, 170
Plague, Use of cross during the, 76
Poor Law, 273
Rain-god, 65
Rain and the cross, 65
Reformation, Lights at, 61-62
Relics of Saints, 184, 187
Reynard the Fox, 104-106
Ringing chamber, 5
Ripon wakemen, 68
Rood loft, 10
Rood loft lights, 60
Roodee, Chester, 88-89
Royal arms, 4
Rules for ringers, 5
lushes, 141
loyal chantries, 174
Sailor, Patron Saint of, 23
Sale of Food, etc., in the circuit of
the Church forbidden, 33, 34
Sanctus-bell, 2-3
Schools in the Porch, 35
Scotland, Crosses in, 89
Scotland, Patron Saint of, 19
Seats, Movable, 144
Seats of Stone, 140
Secular Notices posted in the Porch,
34
Separating the Sexes in Church, 147
Sepulchre Lights, 57
Serges, 47, 48, 49
Sermons, Crude, 149 .
Sheep lost, Announcement of in
Church, 274-275
Shoeing the Goose, 107
Shrewsbury Cross, Customs at, 80
Smoking in church, 156
Some English Shrines, 181-192
Somershy Cross, 70-71
Sow as Musician, 95
Spar vel- Bayly, J. A., B.A. : Early
Church Dedications, 14-28 ;
Pews of the Past, 138-162
Squint, 9
Stocks in Churchyard, 2
Striking a light in Church, 38
Straw on Church floors, 141
Sumptuary law, 201
Sun-god, 21
St. Andrew, 19
St. Catherine, 45 ... (
St. Chad, 32, I93> *94> Llfe of > Z 94
St. Edmund, 16, 26-29
St. Gregory, 14-15. 2O '* 1 , c
St. Hugh of Lincoln, 184-100, 107,
190
St. Mark's Eve, Mystic Ceremonies
on, 35
St. Margaret, 23
280
INDEX.
St. Mary, 19
St. Nicholas, 45-46, 242-243
St. Paul's Cross, 83
St. Peter, 19-20
St. Thomas a Beckett, 18-19
St. Victoria, 25
Teaching of Lights, 62-63
Talking in Church, 142
Tennyson, Lord, 71
Tenures, Candle, 41
Thor, 65-66
Tombs, Lights Burnt on, 48
Torches, 47
Torches, Parochial, 49-50
Townley, Sir Joseph, on Pews, 161
Trial of Pleas in the Porch, 33
Tyack, Rev. Geo. S., B.A. , Bishop's
Throne, 163-169. Some
English Shrines, 181-192
Unpaved Churches, 139
Vanity to be put away in church,
142
Veneration of the Cross, 65
Vestments for Boy-Bishop, 246-247
Wayside Cross, 72, 75
Weeping Cross, 67, 71, 80, 81, 82
Well dressing with Flowers,
196-200
Well Worship, 195
Wensley Church, pew at, 153-154
Westminster Abbey, 16
What to look for in an old church,
I-I3
Wheat stored in church, 144
Wildridge, T. Tindall, Misericordes,
92-109
Wills, wax named in, 49
Windows of coloured glass, 12-13
Wool stored in church, 144
Yew-trees, 2
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The Lee Penny How our Fathers were Physicked Medical Fold-
Lore Of Physicians and their Fees A carefully compiled Index.
"A rich fund of quaint and out-of-the-way information relating to
physicians and the healing art will he found in the ' The Doctor ' . . .
got up in neat and attractive form." Leeds Mercury,
"Most interesting. . . . An immense amount of information that
will be new to most readers."- The News, edited by Rev. Charles
Bullock, B.D.
"'The Doctor' is an attractive miscellany of the type so pleasantly
associated with Mr. William Andrews' name, in which he has, as he tells
us, ' attempted to bring together from the pens of several authors, who
have written expressly for this book, the more interesting phases of the
history, literature, folk-lore, etc., of the medical profession.' The subject
is an interesting one. and is treated by Mr. Andrews and his several
contributors in a genial, gossiping, and not too abstruse fashion." The
Times.
"The volume, besides being readable and entertaining lo all who are
interested in bygone fashions and characters of the medical profession, is of
some value as a work of reference on its antiquities . . . An admirable
index. " Scotsman.
"An excellent volume. . . . The book is elegantly got up."-
Chester Courant.
HULL: WILLIAM ANDREWS & CO., THE HULL PRESS.
London : Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, & Co., Ltd.
Elegantly Bound, Crown 8vo., price 2s. 6d.
Faceg oq the Queen's . Highway,
By FLO. JACKSON.
THOUGH oftenest to be found in a pensive mood, the writer
of this very dainty volume of sketches is always very sweet
and winning. She has evidently a true artist's love of
nature, and in a few lines can limn an autumn landscape full of
colour, and the life which is on the down slope. And she can
tell a very taking story, as witness the sketch "At the Inn,"
and "The Master of White Hags," and all her characters are
real, live flesh-and-blood people, who do things naturally, and
give very great pleasure to the reader accordingly. Miss Jackson's
gifts are of a very high order. Aberdeen Free Pre*.?.
A charmingly written series of sketches and stories by Flo
Jackson, published under the happy title "Faces on the Queen's
Highway." The writer possesses descriptive powers of a high
order, and her " visionary glimpses of the passers on the patch
of highway beyond the curtained window," appeals strongly to
one's better and nobler feelings. Chester Courant.
This volume bears the name, as its author, of Flo Jackson,
a talented writer, whose sketches and stories we have often read
with pleasure. We can promise the same experience for readers
of this volume, which contains some of Miss Jackson's typical
work in prose. "In Winter Mood," "At the Inn," "The Journey
of the Leaves," "Safe at Last," and the sketches in "Faces" are
specimens of a high standard of literary excellence. With a poetic
and imaginative nature the writer combines a happy power of
expression, and she is thus enabled to paint a picture which easily
arrests the attention. "At the Inn," already named, is a short
story, which for its artistic effect and its pathos would sustain the
reputation of one of our leading authors. Throughout the book there
is a spirit of tender refinement ; while there are numerous features
likely to attract the reader, there are none to repel him. The pre-
vailing style is as unconventional as the " introduction," which is a
pretty departure from the orthodox mode of bowing to the reader.
Bristo/ Observer.
HULL : WILLIAM ANDREWS & CO., THE HULL PRESS.
London : Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, & Co., Ld.
legantly bound in cloth gilt, Demy 8uo., Price 6s.
Bygone England :
Social Studies in its Historic Byways and Highways.
BY WILLIAM ANDREWS, F.R.H.S.
CONTENTS : Under Watch and Ward Under Lock and Key The
Practice of Pledging The minstrel in the Olden Time Curious
Landholding Customs Curiosities of Slavery in England Buying
and Selling in the Olden Time Curious Fair Customs Old Pre-
judices against Coal The Sedan Chair Running Footmen The
Early Days of the Umbrella A Talk about Tea Concerning Coffee
The Horn Book Fighting Cocks in Schools Bull Baiting The
Badge of Poverty Patents to wear Nightcaps A Foolish Fashion
Wedding Notices in the Last Century Selling Wives The Story of
the Tinder Box The Invention of Friction matches Body Snatching
Christmas under the Commonwealth Under the mistletoe Bough
A carefully prepared Index.
" We welcome 'Bygone England.' It is another of Mr. Andrews'
meritorious achievements in the path of popularising archaeological
and old time information without in any way writing down to an
ignoble level." The Antiquary.
"A delightful volume for all who love to dive into the origin of
social habits and customs, and to penetrate into the byways of
history." Liverpool Daily Post.
" There is a large mass of information in this capital volume, and it
is so pleasantly put that many will be tempted to study it. Mr.
Andrews has done his work with great skill." London Quarterly
Review.
Bound in cloth gilt, demy 8vo., price 7s. 6d. Only 500 copies
printed, and each copy numbered.
The Monumental Brasses of Lancashire
and Cheshire.
With some Account of the Persons Represented.
Illustrated with Engravings from Drawings by the Author.
By JAMES L. THORNELY.
" Mr. Thornely's book will be eagerly sought by all lovers of
monumental brasses. "London Quarterly Review.
" Local archaeologists will give a hearty welcome to this book/'-
Manchester Guardian.
" Mr. Thornely has produced a very interesting volume, as he has
not only figured every monumental brass within the two counties to
which he has confined his researches, but in every case he has given a
description also, and in some instances the genealogical information
is of a high order of value." The Tablet.
"The book is wonderfully readable for its kind, and is evidently
the result of careful and painstaking labour. The chapters are well
condensed, nowhere burdened with verbiage, yet sufficiently full to
serve the purpose in view. The illustrations of the various brasses
are exceedingly well done, and add much value and interest to the
work, which should become popular in Lancashire and Cheshire. "-
Warrington Guardian.
HULL : WILLIAM ANDREWS & CO., THE HULL PRESS.
London : Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, & Co., Ltd.
Just published. Crown 8vo., 330 pp. A Portrait of the Author,
and other Illustrations. Price 3/6.
(Reb, (Re* TEine,
BY THE REV. J. JACKSON WRAY.
" This, as its name implies, is a temperance story, and is told in the
lamented author's most graphic style. We have never read anything so
powerful since ' Danesbury House,' and this book in stern and pathetic
earnestness even excels that widely-known book. It is worthy a place in
every Sunday School and village library ; and, as the latest utterance of
one whose writings are so deservedly popular, it is sure of a welcome. It
should give decision to some whose views about Local Option are
hazy." -Joyful News.
" The story is one of remarkable power." The Temperance Recora.
" An excellent and interesting story." The Temperance Chrotiicle.
"It is written in a graphic and conversational style, abounding with
rapidly-succeeding incidents, which arrest and sustain the interest of the
reader." The League Journal .
" It is just the right sort of book for a prize or present, and should find a
place in every Band of Hope and Sunday School library." The Abstainer's
Advocate.
" A pathetic interest attaches to this volume, it being the last legacy of
Mr. Jackson Wray. It is a story with a purpose to advocate the claims
of total abstinence. The plot is laid in a small village of the East Riding
of Yorkshire, and the author sketches the awful ravages of intemperance in
that small community. The victims include a minister, doctor, and many
others who found, when too late, that the red, red wine biteth like a serpent.
Though terribly realistic, the picture is drawn from life, and every tragical
incident had its counterpart among the dwellers in that village. It is a
healthy and powerful temperance tale, and a fearless exposure of the quiet
drinking that was so common in respectable circles thirty years ago. It
should find a place in our school libraries, to be read by elder scholars."
Ale'hodist Times.
"This is a powerful story, the last from the pen of an indefatigable
worker and true friend of the total abstinence cause. The scene of the o'er
true tale is laid in East Yorkshire, the author's native district, which he
knew and loved so well. The characters appear to be drawn from life, and
every chapter has a vivid and terrible interest. The friendship between
old Aaron Brigham and Little Kitty is touching. The tale of trouble,
sorrow, and utter ruin wrought by the demon of strong drink might well
rouse every man, woman, and child to fight the destroyer, which, in the
unfolding of the story, we see enslaving minister and people, shaming the
Christian Church, breaking hearts all round, and wrecking the dearest
hopes of individuals and families. A striking and pitiful tale, not
overdrawn. Alliance News.
Hull : William Andrews & Co., The Hull Press.
London : Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co , Ltd.
And all Booksellers.
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