| Burial of the Dead | [Frontispiece] |
The illustration taken from a French MS. of the middle of the fifteenth century [Egerton 2019, f. 142, British Museum] will reward a careful study. Begin with the two pictures introduced into the broad ornamental border at the bottom of the page. On the left are a pope, an emperor, a king, and queen; on the right Death, on a black horse, hurling his dart at them.
Go on to the initial D of the Psalm Dilexi quoniam exaudiet Dominus vocem: “I am well pleased that the Lord hath heard the voice of my complaint.” It represents a canon in surplice and canon’s fur hood, giving absolution to a penitent who has been confessing to him (note the pattern of the hanging at the back of the canon’s seat). Next consider the picture in the middle of the border on the right. It represents the priest in surplice and stole, with his clerk in albe kneeling behind him and making the responses, administering the last Sacrament to the dying person lying on the bed. Next turn to the picture in the left-hand top corner of a woman in mourning, with an apron tied about her, arranging the grave-clothes about the corpse, and about to envelope it in its shroud. In the opposite corner, three clerks in surplice and cope stand at a lectern singing the Psalms for the departed; the pall which covers the coffin may be indistinctly made out, and the great candlesticks with lighted candles on each side of it. All these scenes lead us up to the principal subject, which is the burial. The scene is a graveyard (note the grave crosses) surrounded by a cloister, entered by a gate tower; the gables, chimneys, and towers of a town are seen over the cloister roof; note the skulls over the cloister arches, as though the space between the groining and the timber roof were used as a charnel house. The priest is asperging the corpse with holy water as the rude sextons lower the body into the grave. Note that it is not enclosed in a coffin—that was not used until comparatively recent times. He is assisted by two other priests, all three vested in surplices and black copes with a red-and-gold border; the clerk holds the holy-water vessel. Three mourners in black cloak and hood stand behind. The story is not yet finished. Above is seen our Lord in an opening through a radiant cloud which sheds its beams of light over the scene; the departed soul [de—parted = separated from the body] is mounting towards its Lord with an attitude and look of rapture; Michael the Archangel is driving back with the spear of the cross the evil angel disappointed of his prey. Lastly, study the beautiful border. Is it fanciful to think that the artist intended the vase of flowers standing upon the green earth as a symbol of resurrection, and the exquisite scrolls and twining foliage and many-coloured blossoms which surround the sad scenes of death, to symbolize the beauty and glory which surround those whom angels shall wait upon in death, and carry them to Paradise?
| Ordination of a Priest, Late 12th Century | [94] |
Gives the Eucharistic vestments of bishop and priest, a priest in cope and others in albes, the altar and its coverings, and two forms of chalice.
| Ordination of a Deacon, A.D. 1520 | [146] |
Gives the vestments of that period. The man in the group behind the bishop, who is in surplice and hood and “biretta,” is probably the archdeacon. Note the one candle on the altar, the bishop’s chair, the piscina with its cruet, and the triptych.
| (1) An Archdeacon Lecturing a Group of Clergymen on their Secular Habits and Weapons, 14th Century | [174] |
He is habited in a red tunic and cap, the clergy in blue tunic and red hose and red tunic and blue hose.