Clepes to his chamberlayn, choses his wede
Bozez forth, quen he watz boun, blythely to Masse
And thenne he meued to his mete, that menskly hym keped.”
And so again the lord hears Mass before he eats, and goes hunting at daybreak—
“Ete a sop hastyly, when he hade herde Masse
With bugle to bent felde he buskez by-lyve.”
The Venetian traveller, who at the beginning of the sixteenth century wrote his impressions of England, was struck by the way in which the people attended to their religious duties in this matter of morning Mass. “They all attend Mass every day, he writes, and say many Paternosters in public. The women carry long rosaries in their hands, and any who can read, take the Office of Our Lady with them, and with some companion recite it in church verse by verse, in a low voice, after the manner of churchmen.” This story of English people going to a daily Mass might perhaps be considered as one of the proverbially curious stories told even by otherwise intelligent strangers from foreign countries, were it not that it is confirmed by the assertion of another Venetian some years later. This latter declares that every morning “at daybreak he went to Mass arm-in-arm with some nobleman or other.”
LOW SIDE WINDOW, BARNARD CASTLE, DURHAM
Even in the case of those whose business kept them from the church itself, it is probable that they were united in spirit to the great act of worship which was being offered in God’s house, in their name as well as in that of all those present. The bell known as the Sanctus Bell, because it was rung at the saying of the Sanctus at the beginning of the Canon of the Mass, and also at, what was considered the most sacred time of the Sacrifice, the Consecration and Elevation of the Elements, was intended to give notice to those working in the fields or within reach of its sound, of these most solemn parts of the Mass. Sometimes this bell was set in the rood beam, sometimes in a turret rising from the chancel arch, and sometimes from the nave gable. Occasionally it was of considerable size; but apparently more frequently it was small, and rung by hand. Even then, however, according to some antiquaries, the clerk or server rang the hand-bell out of the low side window, which is frequently still existing in parish churches, in order to warn people outside that the Mass was going on. That this was really the practice is hardly doubtful in view of a Constitution of Archbishop Peckham, in 1281. He directs in this, that “at the time of the Elevation of the body of Our Lord, a bell be rung on one side of the church (in uno latere), that the people who cannot be at daily Mass, no matter where they may be, whether in the fields or in their homes, may kneel down, and so gain the indulgences granted by many bishops” for this act of devotion.