Parish life in mediæval England

by Francis Aidan Gasquet

Of this religious ceremony a writer says—

“In accordance with a practice of the Early Church at morning and evening, the Angelus bell, as it was called,” pealed “forth from every steeple and bell-turret in the Kingdom, and as the sound floated through the surrounding neighbourhood, the monk in his cell, the baron in his hall, the village maiden in her cottage, and the labourer in the field, reverently knelt and recited the allotted prayer in remembrance of Christ’s Incarnation for us.”

CHAPTER VIII

CHURCH FESTIVALS

The round of Church festivals was followed with a lively interest by the people of every English parish. From Advent to Advent the sequence of ecclesiastical feasts was calculated to bring before the minds of practical Christians the great drama of the Redemption of mankind; and the joyous participation of the people in the various celebrations was outwardly marked by the decoration of their churches for the greater solemnities with hangings and banners, with garlands of flowers, and with the multitude of lights which on those days were set burning before altars and statues.

The ecclesiastical year began always with Advent—the time of preparation for the coming of our Lord into the world, when the old-world yearning of the nations for the promised Redeemer was ever brought prominently by the Church before the Christian people in the words of the liturgy, from the Ad Te levavi, “To Thee have I lifted up mine eyes,” of the Introit for the first Sunday, to the Hodie scietis, “Know ye to-day that the Lord will come, and will bring you salvation,” of the Christmas Eve. In a fifteenth-century English book of Instructions for Parish Priests, it is said that fasting during Advent was counselled, though not ordered by the Church. The Church of Rome kept this practice of preparing strictly for the festival of Christmas, and priests, in the opinion of the writer, ought to follow this example. Lay people were free of any obligation, but those who intended to receive Holy Communion on the Nativity were to be strongly urged to prepare by this salutary fasting. The festival of Christmas was celebrated with the customary three Masses—the first at midnight, preceded by Matins; the second in the early morning; and the third at the usual time of nine or ten. In many places in the time of Christmas, a religious play suitable to the season enlivened the winter evenings, and impressed on the minds of the people the chief incidents in the history of our Lord’s birth. The coming of the Kings on the Epiphany was also a subject lending itself to picturesque illustration, which never failed to delight the simple-minded parish audience of pre-Reformation days. At Great Yarmouth, year after year, the people kept the Feast of the Star; and such entries occur in the accounts as “for making a new Star,” “for leading the Star,” “for a new balk-line to the Star, and ryving the same.” Manship, in his History of that town, says that “in the chancel aisles were performed those sacred dramas intended to give the people a living representation of the leading occurrences narrated in Holy Writ, and of the principal events in our Lord’s life.”

On the feast of Holy Innocents, or, as it was called frequently, “Childermas,” there was kept a feast which may seem somewhat strange to our notions, but which our forefathers evidently loved well. It was the festival of the boy-bishop, attended by his youthful ministers. Sometimes the celebration was associated with the name of St. Nicholas, and was thus kept on December 6th, rather than on the 28th; but the method of the festival was the same. Dr. Rock, in The Church of our Fathers, has described this pageant for us. In every cathedral, collegiate, and parish church the boys of the place—and in those days every little boy either sang or served about the altar at church—met together on the eve of the feast, and chose of their number a “St. Nicholas and his clerks.” This boy-bishop and his ministers then sang the first Vespers of the Saint, and in the evening walked all round the parish making collections for their feast. All who could afford it asked them into their houses and made them presents of various kinds. In 1299 Edward I., for instance, attended Vespers in his chapel at Heton, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, at which the “boy-bishop” and his fellows sang, and he gave them 40s. for singing before him; and the Northumberland Household Book tells us that “My Lord useth and accustomyth to gyfe yerly, upon Saynt Nicolas—even, if he kepe chapell for Saynt Nicolas, to the mester of his children of his chapell for one of the childeren of his chapell, yerely 6s. 8d.”

It was upon this feast that, in memory of the Holy Innocents, some father of a family in the parish would make an entertainment for his children, and invite those of his neighbours to join in the festivities. In such a case, of course, the “Nicholas and his clerks” sat in the most honoured place. The Golden Legend relates a story illustrating the practice: “A man, for the love of his sone that wente to scole for to lerne, halowed every year the fest of Saynt Nicholas moche solemnly. On a tyme it happed that the fader had doo make redy the dyner, and called many clerkes to this diner.”

It was, however, on Holy Innocents’ day that the boy-bishop, chosen on the feast of St. Nicholas, played his part in a set of pontificals provided for him. At St. Paul’s, at York Minster, and at Lincoln, we find recorded in the inventories pontificals provided for his use. In the parish church of St. Mary-at-Hill, in London, the churchwardens paid for “a myter for a bysshop at St. Nicholas tyde.” At this parish church, too, there was a store of copes, a mitre, and a crosier for the boy-bishop; whilst at St. Mary’s, Sandwich, the inventory contains “a lytyll chasebyll for Seynt Nicholas bysschop,” and at York there were “nine copes” for the boy attendants.

On the feast of Holy Innocents the boy-bishop was frequently expected to preach a sermon, which had been written for him. One such, written for a boy in St. Paul’s school by Erasmus, is still extant. Until Archbishop Peckham’s day the “little Nicholas and his clerks” used to take a conspicuous place in the services of the church during the octave of the feast, but in 1279 that prelate decreed that the celebration should be confined to the one day of the feast only. That this feast was popular, and that our forefathers delighted in coming to their parish churches to witness their children associated in this ceremonial around God’s altar, may be judged from the statute of Roger de Mortival, Bishop of Sarum in 1319, in which he forbids too much treating of the children, and orders that the crowd at the procession are not to hustle or hinder the boys as they do their ceremonies.