Ye shall make a special prayer for your fathers’ souls and for your mothers’ souls, godfathers’ souls and godmothers’ souls, brothers’ souls and sisters’ souls, and for all your elders’ souls, and for all the souls that you and I be bound to pray for, and specially for all the souls whose bones are buried in this church or in this churchyard or in any other holy place; and in especial for all the souls that bide the great mercy of Almighty God in the bitter pains of Purgatory, that God for His great mercy release them of their pain if it be His blessed will. And that our prayers may somewhat stand them in stead, every man and woman of your church help them with a Pater noster and an Ave Maria.
Psalmus: De profundis.
Kyrie Eleyson, etc.
Pater noster ... et ne nos ...
Requiem eternam.
Credo vivere.
A porta inferi.
Dominus vobiscum. Et cum spiritu tuo.
Oremus.
Fidelium Deus omnium Conditor, etc.
Fidelium animæ per misericordiam Dei in pace requiescant. Amen.
One of the features connected with this part of the service, which must have had a striking effect, was the Bede Roll, the reading out the names of those who had recently died in the parish, and the commendation of them to the prayers of the congregation. There are examples of the payment of a fee for placing a name on the list, and of people leaving money to the priest for naming them from year to year on their anniversary, and of endowments for the maintenance of the Bede Roll.[207]
The Procession, or Litany, was also a very popular service; its petitions and responses, though in Latin, were intelligible enough to the people; and the procession of priest and clerks round the church with cross and censer, while the petitions were chanted by a single voice, Sancte Katherine; etc., ora pro nobis, and the responses sung in chorus, “Ora, ora, ora pro nobis!” made up a very picturesque and solemn service. It was probably usually said in the afternoon. A painful, but no doubt very attractive, addition was sometimes made to it, when a miserable penitent condemned to the penance preceded the procession in white sheet, bearing a taper.
In churches in which there were one or more chantries the private masses would be said at the convenience of the cantarists, with this one regulation: that they might not on Sundays and festivals begin till after the gospel of the principal service. People might attend these chantry services if they pleased, and perhaps the relatives of persons commemorated usually or frequently did so; and, if said at a different hour from the principal service, they would practically add to the number of services, and meet the convenience of some of the people.
We shall see hereafter that chantry and special services were often provided in towns by the corporation, or one of the gilds, or by some group of persons, expressly to add to the number of services, first for the greater honour of Almighty God, and secondly to meet the wishes and circumstances of different people.
In most great churches, with the normal services, and the chantry services besides, services must have been going on all the morning long; sometimes the great celebration at the high altar, and, at the same time, chantry celebrations at a dozen altars besides in the surrounding chapels.
