Parish life in mediæval England

by Francis Aidan Gasquet

“Some of us laymen,” he says, “thinke it a payne ones in a weeke to ryse so soon fro sleepe, and some to tarry so long fasting, as on the Sonday to com and hear out they Matins. And yet is not Matins in every parish, neyther, all thynge so early begonne norfully so longe in doyng, as it is in the Charterhouse, ye wot wel.”

In a fifteenth-century book of instructions there are given as practical examples of the vice of sloth—

“When a man castis hym to leze in reste; to slepe mekell; to be long in bed, late comyng to God’s service; havyng non savour nor swetnes in prechyng, nor in bedys byddyng, nor no devocyon in Matynes nor in Evesong.”

It is somewhat difficult to obtain any exact information as to the time when Matins were said or sung in the English parochial churches. That the service was begun at an early hour we must suppose, even if we had not the authority of Sir Thomas More for the fact. To conclude from the case of St. Michael’s, Cornhill, just quoted, it may be judged that the hour for Matins was at 6 or 7 in the morning, and that High Mass would commence at 9 or 10. An interval between was thus left, during which the parishioners would have time to return home and break their fast. If the occupation of two hours or so on a Sunday morning, and another service in the afternoon, may appear somewhat excessive to our modern notions, we must bear in mind that it was in those days clearly understood and accepted as a first principle of religion that the meaning of the Sunday rest and freedom from work was, in the first place, that the Christian, who was occupied all the rest of the week mainly in temporal affairs, might have time to attend to the things of his soul. His chief duty on the Sunday was, as one of the Synodical Constitutions puts it, “to hear divine service and Holy Mass, to pray and to listen to the voice of the priest instructing him in his belief and duty.”

HOLY WATER VAT AND SPRINKLER

The parochial, or High Mass, as the chief sung Mass was called, was preceded on each Sunday by the public and solemn blessing of the holy water. For this ceremony the priest, who was about to celebrate the Mass, came to the entrance of the chancel, accompanied by the deacon and subdeacon—if there were any such ministers; if not, by the clerks and servers carrying the platter of salt and the manual, and by the aquæbajularius holding the vat of water to be blessed. From the earliest times of English Christianity the people had been taught to use this water and salt mingled together with the Church’s prayers, that by it they might be reminded of the purity of heart necessary to all God’s servants, and that, by virtue of the power of God invoked in the prayers upon the water, His providence might watch over them and defend them from all danger of body and soul. Pope St. Gregory the Great had told St. Mellitus to bid our first apostle, St. Augustine, make use of the old pagan temples, having first caused “holy water (to) be blessed and sprinkled all over” them.

In the same way the English people were taught to make use of the water thus solemnly blessed on the Sunday in their midst. As far back as the days of Archbishop Theodore, as appears in Thorpe’s Ancient Laws, it was written: “Let the people sprinkle their houses with hallowed water as often as they wish.” And in the porch of each parochial church a small niche contained some of the consecrated water, with which those coming to God’s house signed themselves, the while whispering a prayer that they may be accepted as pure in the sight of the Most High.

On the Sunday, moreover, after the blessing was finished, the priest and his assistants came to the foot of the altar, which was sprinkled with newly blessed water. Then turning, he, in the same way, sprinkled each of the assistants as they passed before him, and, last of all, if there were no procession, he passed down the church casting the water upon each altar he came to, and upon the people gathered in the nave. If there was a procession, as seems generally to have been the case, the assistants and clerks, with the servers, followed the celebrant singing the anthems proper for the day. The parish processional cross was carried first, with two servers bearing candles, and with the thurifer and the clerk “water-bearer.” In the smaller churches, when the weather permitted, no doubt the procession would wend its way outside, and pass along, followed by the people, amidst the graves of those former parishioners who had gone before, and who were taking their long rest in God’s acre. It was during this Sunday visit, in all probability, that the living offered their prayers for their dead, and cast the blessed water upon their graves. Some of the wills of the fifteenth century show how this practice was prized. In one will, for instance, a citizen of York leaves a bequest to three priests to say Masses for his soul, and asks that “each after his Mass should proceed to his grave, say a De profundis over it, and sprinkle it with holy water.” Another citizen of the same city, and a merchant, provided for a priest to visit his grave daily and to cast the blessed water upon it.

To return to the procession. On coming back to the church, or, if there had been no procession, when the sprinkling of the church had been finished, the clergy and assistants in cathedrals, gathered round the celebrant in front of the great rood at the entrance of the choir for the bidding prayer. This was, in smaller parochial churches, however, given out from the pulpit after the Gospel of the Mass, and will be spoken of in connection with the Sunday sermon, to which a special chapter must be devoted.