The popularity of these lights is shown in many ways—gilds maintained them, the public generally subscribed to them, and testators frequently left money to them.
A taper seems sometimes to have been symbolical of a person, as when the people who followed a procession carried them and presented them at the altar; when a nun to be professed and an anchoress to be enclosed, thus carried and offered them; when a penitent carried them; and, when in excommunication, “by bell, book, and candle,” the candle was extinguished. Perhaps, in giving to the lights before the rood and the images of saints, there was some notion in the donors’ minds that they were keeping themselves in the recollection of Christ and the saints.
Besides these ritual lights, it was customary at a funeral to set up a wooden herse in church around the coffin, and to place two or more large wax candles, often called torches, about the herse. People often made provision in their wills for such lights, not only on the day of the funeral, but on the week-day, month’s-mind, and yearly obit, and sometimes at a perpetual obit. Perhaps what was intended to be symbolized was that, though their bodies were buried in darkness, their souls were in the land of light.
The dramatic representation of Scripture subjects—the Three Kings at Christmas, the Passion of our Lord in Lent, and others at other times—was common in the cathedrals, monasteries, large towns, and perhaps villages. Bishop Poor, in his “Ancren Riewle,” suggests that female recluses, who sometimes lived in a cell beside the church, may have to mention among other subjects of confession, “I went to the play in the churchyard; I looked on at the wrestling, or other foolish sports.” The Passion play at Ober Ammergau has proved that such performances may be made dignified and devotional.
The custom of using the churchyard for purposes of business and pleasure was very common and very persistent. As early as the fourth century St. Basil protested against the holding of markets in the precincts of churches, under pretext of making better provision for the festivals; but the custom held its own, and we have a catena of synodical declarations against holding secular pleas, markets and fairs, and indulging in sports, in church and churchyard, and a series of complaints by the synodsmen in their annual presentation to their bishops of the breach of the canons.
Cardinal Ottobon, at the Synod of London, 1268, made a constitution prohibiting this kind of use of the sacred building and its enclosure; and strictly enjoining all bishops and other prelates to cause it to be inviolably observed on pain of ecclesiastical censure; and here are a few examples of the way in which it was disregarded down to so late a period as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries:
The parishioners of St. Michael le Belfry, York, in 1416, complain that a common market is held in their churchyard on Sundays and holidays.[329] In the explanation of the Second Commandment, c. xvi., in “Dives and Pauper,” in allusion to the abuse, which adds a little to our information, “no markette sholde be holden by vytaylers or other chapmen on Sondaye in the churche or in the churchyarde or at the church gate ne in sentuary (churchyard) ne out.” In another place (Sixth Commandment, c. i.) we learn that the chapmen and their families sometimes slept in the church or churchyard.
One of the canons of the Synod of Exeter, 1287, strictly enjoins on parish priests that they publicly proclaim in their churches that no one presume to carry on combats, dances, or other improper sports in the churchyards, especially on the even and feasts of saints, or stage plays or farces (ludos theatrales et ludebriorum spectacula).[330] Yet in 1472, at Sallay, in Yorkshire, it is found necessary to make an order that no one use improper and prohibited sports within the churchyard, as, for example, pilopedali vel manuale, tutts and handball, or wrestling.