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 " ;