he public services on Sunday in a parish church were Matins, Mass, and Evensong. We do not propose more than to take an outside view of them; the reader who cares to do so may without difficulty obtain a missal and breviary, and study their contents. We may, however, make two remarks bearing upon the important general question of the popular religion of these Middle Ages. The first is that there is a widespread error on the subject of the “Mass” in the minds of those who have never opened a missal. It is taken for granted that it was the most corrupt and idolatrous feature of all the Roman corruptions; on the contrary, the Eucharistic service of the Mediæval English Church was very little altered in substance from that of the sixth century, and is so sound that it is inconsistent with some of the modern Roman corruptions in doctrine and practice. The Matins and Evensong of those times consisted of an accumulation of several of the “Hour” offices; and the Morning and Evening Prayer of our Prayer-book consists of a condensation of those same “Hours;” so that the regular popular services were far more free from corruptions and superstitions than is commonly supposed. These were to be found chiefly in glosses on the services, and additions to them.
It is probable that the Sunday services were attended with fair regularity by the majority of the people.[193] Not only did the clergy exercise more authoritative oversight over their people than they do in these times, but it was the duty of churchwardens to present people who were flagrantly negligent of their religious duties, and of the Ecclesiastical Courts to punish them.[194]
The times of service varied in different times and places, but they were earlier than our present usage.
It is certain that matins always preceded the Divine service,[195] and it is probable that the normal time for the latter was nine o’clock;[196] it was not considered right to celebrate it after twelve o’clock.
If not every Sunday, at least at certain times a sermon was preached, about which we shall have to speak more at large presently. All the people who were of age and not excommunicate were communicants, but the vast majority only communicated once a year, at Easter, some pious people a little more frequently, but the most devout not oftener than twelve times a year.[197] But at every celebration a loaf of bread, the “holy loaf,” was blessed, and broken or cut in pieces, and given to the people. Here comes in a question whether the laity attended mass fasting. It would seem that it was not necessary, since they did not communicate, but that they may have done so out of reverence is suggested by a note in Blunt’s Annotated Prayer-book, that those who had not come fasting to the service, did not eat their portion of the “holy loaf,” but gave it to another, or reserved it for future consumption. People dined no doubt immediately they reached their homes after service.
Probably the evensong at about three in the afternoon was not so well attended as the morning service; people who have some distance to go in all weathers from their homes to the church do not usually go twice a day. It was probably the general custom to catechize the children in the afternoon.
All this is illustrated by some extracts from the author of “Piers Plowman”:—
For holy church exhorteth All manner of people
Under obedience to be, And buxom to the Law.
First religious of Religion their Rule to hold,
And under obedience to be by days and by nights;
Lewd[198] men to labour, lords to hunt
In friths and forests for fox and other beasts,
That in wild woods be, And in waste places,
As wolves that worry men, Women and children;
And upon Sunday to cease, God’s service to hear,
Both Matins and Masse, And after meat in churches
To hear their Evensong Every man ought.
Thus it belongeth to Lord, to learned, and to lewd,
Each holy day to hear Wholly the service,
Vigils and fasting days Further to know.[199]
Sloth said, in a fit of repentance—