That Christe’s Gospel trewely wolde preche,
His parischens devoutly wolde he teche.
But Christe’s lore and His Apostles twelve
He taughte, but first he folwede it himselve.”
It will be remembered, too, that the story Chaucer makes his priest contribute to the Canterbury Tales is nothing else than an excellent and complete tract, almost certainly a translation of a Latin theological treatise, upon the Sacrament of Penance.
As a sample, however, of what is popularly believed on this subject at the present day, it is well to take the opinion of by no means an extreme party writer, Bishop Hobhouse. “Preaching,” he says, “was not a regular part of the Sunday observances as now. It was rare, but we must not conclude from the silence of our MSS. (i.e. churchwardens’ accounts) that it was never practised.” In another place he states, upon what he thinks sufficient evidence, “that there was a total absence of any system of clerical training, and that the cultivation of the conscience as the directing power of man’s soul, and the implanting of holy affections in the heart seem to have been no part of the Church’s system of guidance.” That this is certainly not a correct view as to the way in which the pastors of the parochial churches in pre-Reformation days discharged—or rather neglected—their duties, in view of the facts, appears to be certain. The grounds for this opinion are the following: for practical purposes we may divide the religious teaching, given by the clergy, into the two classes of sermons and instructions. The distinction is obvious. By the first are meant those set discourses to prove some definite theme, or expound some definite passage of Holy Scripture, or deduce the lessons to be learnt from the life of some saint. In other words, putting aside the controversial aspect, which, of course, was rare in those days, a sermon in mediæval times was much what a sermon is to-day. There was this difference, however, that in pre-Reformation days the sermon was not probably so frequent as in these modern times. Now, whatever instruction is given to the people at large is conveyed to them almost entirely in the form of set sermons, which, however admirable in themselves, seldom convey to their hearers consecutive and systematic, dogmatic and moral teaching. Mediæval methods of imparting religious knowledge were different. For the most part the priest fulfilled the duty of instructing his flock by plain, unadorned, and familiar instructions upon matters of faith and practice. These must have much more resembled our present catechetical instructions than our modern pulpit discourses. To the subject of set sermons I shall have occasion to return presently, but as vastly more important, at any rate in the opinion of our Catholic forefathers, let us first consider the question of familiar instructions. For the sake of clearness we will confine our attention to the two centuries (the fourteenth and fifteenth) previous to the great religious revolution under Henry VIII.
Before the close of the thirteenth century, namely, in A.D. 1281, Archbishop Peckham issued the celebrated Constitutions of the Synod of Oxford which are called by his name. There we find the instruction of the people legislated for minutely.
“We order,” runs the Constitution, “that every priest having the charge of a flock do, four times in each year (that is, once each quarter), on one or more solemn feast days, either himself or by some one else, instruct the people in the vulgar language, simply and without any fantastical admixture of subtle distinctions, in the articles of the Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Evangelical Precepts, the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins with their offshoots, the seven principal virtues, and the Seven Sacraments.”
The Synod then proceeded to set out in considerable detail each of the points upon which the people must be instructed. Now, it is obvious that if four times a year this law was complied with in the spirit in which it was given, the people were very thoroughly instructed indeed in their faith. But was this law faithfully carried out by the clergy, and rigorously enforced by the bishops in the succeeding centuries? That is the real question. I think that there is ample evidence that it was. In the first place, the Constitutions of Peckham are referred to constantly in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as the foundation of the existing practices in the English Church. Thus, to take a few specific instances in the middle of the fourteenth century, the decree of a diocesan Synod orders—