Shall no Sunday be this seven years, Except sickness hinder,
That I shall not go before day To the dear church,
And hear Matins and Masse, As if I a monk were;
Shall no ale after meat Hold me thence
Till I have Evensong heard, I swear to the Rood.[200]
This confirms our statement that on Sundays people generally went to matins and mass, and afterwards to dinner; and in the afternoon to evensong. Sloth is boasting when he says that in future he will go to church before day like a monk; ordinary lay people did not do so; and he admits the fault of sitting over the ale after dinner, instead of going to evensong.
There seems to have been a certain laxity of practice in those days as in these. We all know that it was the custom in many country churches in modern times—and very likely still is so in some—not to begin the service until the squire came; we are shocked to find that it was so in those earlier times, and that the squire was sometimes very late. This is illustrated by two of the very curious stories in the “Book of the Knight of La Tour Landry.”[201]
I have herde of a knight and of a lady that in her (their) youthe delited hem to rise late. And so they used longe tille many tymes that thei lost her masse, and made other of her paryshe to lese it, for the knight was lord and patron of the churche, and therefor the priest durst not disobeye hym. And so it happed that the knight sent unto the chirche that thei shulde abide hym. And whane he come it was passed none, wherefor thei might not that day have no masse, for every man saide it was passed tyme of the day, and therefore thei durst not singe.
The other story is of
a ladi that dwelled faste by the chirche, that toke every day so long time to make her redy, that it made every Sunday the parson of the chirche and the parisseners to abide after her. And she happed to abide so longe on a Sunday that it was fer dayes, and every man said to other, “This day we trow shall not this lady be kemed and arraied.”
ELEVATION AT MASS.
FROM THE LATE XV. CENT. MS. 25698, f. 2.
We read also of instances on fast days, when men might not eat till after evensong, of evensong being said at noon.
After mass on Sunday, it was not very uncommon for a pedlar to take the opportunity of the assembling of the people to display his wares in the churchyard, in spite of injunctions to the contrary. And after evensong, the young people took advantage of their holiday to play at games, sometimes in the churchyard.[202]