"Whereas heretofore dyuers and many superstitions and chyldysh obseruances haue been used, and yet to this day are obserued and kept, in many and sundry partes of this realm, as vpon St. Nicholas, Saint Catherine, Saint Clement, the holie Innocents, and such-like holie daies, children be strangelie decked and apparayled to counterfeit Priests, Bishopes, and Women, and so be ledde with Songes and dances from house to house, blessing the people and gathering of money; and boyes do singe masse and preache in the pulpitt, with other such onfittinge and inconuenient vsages which tend rather to derysyon than enie true glorie of God, or honour of his Sayntes: the Kynges maiestie, therefore, myndynge nothinge so muche as to aduance the true glory of God without vain superstition, wylleth and commandeth that from henceforth all such superstitious obseruations be left and clerely extinguished throu'out all his realme and dominions for as moche as the same doth resemble rather the vnlawfull superstition of gentilitie than the pure and sincere religion of Christ."
The allegation that boys dressed up as women is confirmed by a Compotus roll of St. Swithin's Priory at Winchester (1441), from which it appears that the boys of the monastery, along with the choristers of St. Elizabeth's Collegiate Chapel, near the city, played before the Abbess and Nuns of St. Mary's Abbey—attired "like girls."
The custom was restored by an edict of Bishop Bonner on November 13, 1554, much to the satisfaction of the populace; and the spectacle of the Boy-Bishop riding in pontificalibus—this was in 1556—all about the Metropolis gave currency to the saying—"St. Nicholas yet goeth about the city." Foxe tells us that at Ipswich the Master of the Grammar School led the Boy-Bishop through the streets for "apples and belly-cheer; and whoso would not receive him he made heretics, and such also as would not give his faggot for Queen Mary's child." (By this expression, which was common during this reign, was intended the Boy-Bishop; the Queen had, of course, no child of her own.) Amidst the sundry and manifold changes that marked the accession of Elizabeth the Boy-Bishop again went down; and the memory of the festival lingered only in certain usages like that at Durham, where the boys paraded the town on May-day, arrayed in ancient copes borrowed from the Cathedral.
On one or two points connected with the subject there prevails some degree of misapprehension, and thus it will be well—very briefly—to touch upon them. It is not now believed that the effigy in Salisbury Cathedral—"the child so great in clothes"—which led to the publication, in 1646, of Gregorie's famous treatise, is that of a Boy-Bishop, who died during his term of office and was buried with episcopal honours. There are similar small effigies of knights and courtiers. Nor, again, does it seem correct to state that the Boy-Bishop might present to any prebend that became vacant between St. Nicholas' and Holy Innocents' day. This usage, if it existed at all, was apparently confined to the Church of Cambray.
On the other hand, the Eton Ad Montem ceremony has the look of genuine descent from the older festival, with which it has numerous features in common. The Boy-Bishop custom, it will be remembered, was observed at the College.
Finally, reference may be made to the coinage of tokens, some of them grotesque, which bore the inscription Moneta Epi Innocentium, or the like, together with representations of the slaughter of the innocents, the bishop in the act of giving his blessing, and similar scenes. Opinions differ as to the purpose for which these tokens, which date from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, were struck, but it is extremely probable that they were designed to commemorate the Boy-Bishop solemnity. Barnabe Googe's Popish Kingdom tells of
"St. Nicholas money made to give to maidens secretlie,"
and in the imperfect state of human society this may have been, at times, their incongruous destiny.