Parish life in mediæval England

by Francis Aidan Gasquet

If the case was so urgent, that there was no time for the priest to secure a clerk to carry the light and bell, Lyndwood notes that the practice was for the priest to hang the lamp and bell upon one of his arms. This he would also do in large parishes, where sick people had to be visited at a distance and on horseback. In this case the lamp and bell would be hung round the horse’s neck.

On the return to the church, should the Blessed Sacrament have been consumed, the light was to be extinguished and the bell silenced, so that the people might understand, and not, in this case, kneel as the priest passed along. Lyndwood adds that the people should be told to follow the Sacrament with “bowed head, devotion of heart, and uplifted hands.” They were to be taught also to use a set form of prayer as the priest passed along, such as the following: “Hail! Light of the world, Word of the Father, true Victim, Living Flesh, true God and true Man. Hail flesh of Christ, which has suffered for me! Oh, flesh of Christ, let Thy blood wash my soul!” The great canonist says that he himself on these occasions was accustomed to make use of the well-known “Ave verum Corpus, natum ex Maria Virgine,” etc.

HEARSE AND PALL, FIFTEENTH CENTURY. CANTORS AT LECTERN

The bell and light, or lights, for the visitation of the sick, were to be found by the parish, and the churchwardens’ accounts consistently record expenses to procure and maintain these lights. In some places, apparently, the people found two such lanterns instead of the one which the law obliged them to furnish. In the Archdeacon’s visitations, also, there were set inquiries to see that the parish did its duty in this matter. In one such examination there are references to the necessary “cyphus pro infirmis,” which is stated to be good, bad, or wanting altogether. What this may have been is not quite clear; but probably it was the dish in which the priest purified his fingers, after having communicated the sick person. Myrc gives a rhyming summary of what a priest should know about visiting the sick. He is to go fast when called; he is to take a clean surplice and a stole, “and pul thy hod over thy syght;” in case of death being imminent, he is not to make the sick man confess all his sins, but merely charge him to ask God’s mercy with humble heart. If the sick man cannot speak, but shows by signs that he wishes for the Sacraments—“Nertheless thou schalt hym Soyle, and give hym hosul and holy oyle.”

The bishops watched carefully to see that no laxity should creep into the mode of giving the Viaticum to the sick. Bishop Grandisson, in 1335, issued a special mandate to the priests of his diocese on the matter, as he had heard that some carelessness had been noticed. He reminds them that the Provincial Constitutions were clear in their prescriptions that all were to wear a surplice and stole, unless the weather were bad, and then these might be carried and put on before the room of the sick man was entered. They must always have the light borne before them, however, and the bell was to be rung to call the attention of the people generally to the passing of the Sacrament, and thus enable them to make their adoration.

According to most books of instruction on the duties of priests, before the sick man was anointed or received the holy Viaticum, the parson was to put to him what were known as “the seven interrogations.” He was to be asked: (1) if he believed the articles of the faith and the Holy Scriptures; (2) whether he recognized that he had offended God Almighty; (3) whether he was sorry for his sins; (4) whether he desired to amend, and if God gave him more time, by His grace he would do so; (5) whether he forgave all his enemies; (6) whether he would make all satisfaction; (7) “Belevest thowe fully that Criste dyed for the, and that thow may never be saved but by the merite of Cristes passione, and thonne thonkest therof God with thyne harte as moche as thowe mayest? He answerethe, Yee.”

“Thanne let the curat desire the sick persone to saye In manus tuas &cetera with a good stedfast mynde and yf that he canne. And yef he cannot, let the curate saye it for hym. And who so ever may verely of very good conscience and trowthe without any faynyng, answere ‘yee,’ to all the articles and poyntes afore rehersed, he shalle live ever in hevyne with Alle myghtie God and with his holy cumpany, wherunto Ihesus brynge bothe youe and me. Amen.”

Marriage.—So far in this chapter the Sacraments which every parishioner had to receive at one time or other have been briefly treated. It remains to speak of the Sacrament of Matrimony, which, though not absolutely general, yet commonly affected most people in every parish. “Marriage,” says Bishop Quevil, in the Synod of Exeter—“marriage should be celebrated with great discretion and reverence, in proper places and at proper times, with all modesty and mature consideration; it should be celebrated not in taverns nor during feastings and drinkings, nor in secret and suspect places.” That a matter of this importance should be rightly done, the Synod lays down the law of the Catholic Church on the point; no espousal or marriage was to be held valid unless the contract was made in the presence of the parish priest and three witnesses. For, although the contract of the parties was the essential factor in marriage, still, “without the authority of the Church, by the judgment of which the contract had to be approved, marriages are not to be contracted.”