Bishop Woodlock of Winchester, in 1308, has a special Instruction on the need of this Sacrament. Because he says, “our adversary the devil, wishing to have us as companions in his perdition, attacks with all his powers those who are baptized; our watchful Mother the Church has added the Sacrament of Confirmation, that by the strength received in it every Christian may resist with greater force our hostile enemy.” Parents are consequently to be warned to have their children confirmed as soon as possible. If they are not confirmed before they are three years old, unless there has been no opportunity, the parents are to be made to fast one day on bread and water in punishment of their negligence. Moreover, since the Sacrament may not be given twice, parents are to be bound to acquaint their children, when they grow up, of the fact of their Confirmation. Priests are also to instruct their people as to the law that through Confirmation there arises a spiritual relationship, as in Baptism, between the god-parents and the children and their parents.
SACRAMENT OF CONFIRMATION
The Synod of Oxford laid it down as the law, that any adult, when about to be confirmed, must first go to receive the Sacrament of Penance from his own parish priest and fast on the day of his Confirmation till after its reception. Priests were required, also, to instruct their people frequently on the need of getting their children confirmed as soon as possible after they were baptized. This the canonist Lyndwood considers would mean within six months or so. The Synod likewise warned parents not to wait for the bishop to come to their own parish, but to take their children to any neighbouring place, where they might have heard that the bishop was to be found. And any parish within seven miles was for this purpose to be considered “a neighbouring place.” In Bishop Grandisson’s Register there is an example of his giving confirmation, at St. Buryan’s, in 1336, to “children almost without number (quasi innumerabiles) from the parish and the district round about.”
The honour and respect shown to the Chrism, which was used by the bishop at Confirmation, is manifested by the “old silk cloth” and “a clothe of syndale” used to carry the Chrismatory at St. Mary the Great, Cambridge. The Chrism was also bound to be renewed every year, the old being burnt and a new stock procured from what was consecrated on Maundy Thursday, in every cathedral church. Moreover, when presenting a child for Confirmation, the parents had to bring with them a linen band, or napkin, to bind round its head after Confirmation, and cover the place where it had been anointed. This band, called Fascia, or “Chrism cloth,” was, according to various directions, to be left on the head of the child three, seven, or eight days, when the lately confirmed child was to be taken to the church by its parents, and there have its forehead washed by the priest over the font. The fasciæ ligaturæ, or “Chrism cloths,” were then to be either burnt or left to the use of the church. Myrc, in his Instructions, thus gives the usage—
“Whenne the chyldre confermed ben
Bondes a-bowte here neckes be lafte
That from hem schule not be rafte
Tyl at chyrche the eghthe day
The preste hymself take hem a-way