THE ADVENT BELLS.
The Advent bells are ringing in many parishes throughout various parts of England during this month of December, if I may judge from my own neighbourhood—on the western borders of Berks—where, at least three times in the week, I hear their merry peals break gladsomely upon the dark stillness of these cold evenings, from many a steeple around. In the Roman States and the kingdom of Naples and Sicily, the "pifferari" go about playing on a kind of rough hautboy and bag-pipes, before the pictures of the Madonna, hung up at the corners of streets and in shops, all through Advent time; but why are the church bells rung in England? What reference in ancient documents can be pointed out for the meaning or antiquity of the usage?
He who draws upon a joint-stock bank of literature as rich as yours, Mr. Editor, already is, should bring a something to its capital, though it be a mite. Allow me, then, to throw in mine. At p. 77. "A SUBSCRIBER" asks, "if William de Bolton was an ecclesiastic, how is it that his wife is openly mentioned?" For one of these two reasons: 1st. By the canon law, whether he be in any of the four minor orders, or in any of the three higher or holy orders, a man is, and was always, called "Clericus," but clerks in lower or minor orders did, and still do, marry without censure; 2d. The Church did, and still does, allow man and wife to separate by free mutual consent, and to bind themselves by the vows of perpetual continence and chastity, the man going into a monastery, or taking holy orders, the woman becoming a nun. Such, I suspect, was the case with Sir William de Bolton ("Sir" being the ancient title of a priest) and his wife, whose joint concurrence in the transfer of property by charter would be legally required, if, as is likely, she had an interest in it.
Your correspondent "MUSAFIR," while on the subject of the Flemish account, p. 74., is in error, in assigning to a Count of Flanders the "old story" of the cloaks; it belongs to Robert, Duke of Normandy, who played off the joke at Constantinople in the court of the Greek emperor, as Bromton tells us (ed. Twysden, i. 911.)
CEPHAS