Even when the rise of the Lollard heretics rendered it important that some check should be given to general and unauthorized preaching, this did not interfere with the ordinary work of instruction. The orders of Archbishop Arundel in A.D. 1408, forbidding all preaching without an episcopal licence, set forth in distinct terms, that this prohibition did not apply “to the parish priests,” etc., who by the Constitutions of Archbishop Peckham were bound to instruct their people, in simple language, on all matters concerning their faith and observance. And further, in order to check the practice of treating people to such formal and set discourses, these simple and practical instructions were ordered to be adopted without delay in all parish churches.
To this testimony of the English Church as to the value attached to popular instruction may be added the authority of the Provincial Council of York, held in A.D. 1466 by Archbishop Nevill. By its decrees not only is the order as to systematic quarterly and simple instructions reiterated, but the points of the teaching are again set out by the Synod in great detail.
There is, moreover, ample evidence to convince any one who may desire to study the subject, that this duty of giving plain instructions to the people was not neglected up to the era of the Reformation itself. During the fifteenth century, manuals to assist the clergy in the performance of this obligation were multiplied in considerable numbers; which would not have been the case had the practice of frequently giving these familiar expositions fallen into abeyance. To some of these manuals it will be necessary to refer presently, but here should be noted specially the fact that one of the earliest books ever issued from an English press by Caxton, probably at the same time (A.D. 1483) as the Liber Festivalis (or book of sermons for Sundays and feast days), was a set of four lengthy discourses, published, as they expressly declare, to enable priests to fulfil the obligation imposed on them by the Constitutions of Peckham. As these were intended to take at least four Sundays, and as the whole set of instructions had to be given four times each year, it follows that at least sixteen Sundays, or a quarter of the year, were devoted to this simple and straightforward teaching of what every Christian was bound to believe and to do.
That the parish priests really did their duty in instructing their people there is evidence of another, and that an official character. The Episcopal, or Chapter Registers fortunately in some few cases contain documents recording the results of the regular Visitations of parishes. It is almost by chance, of course, that papers of this kind have been preserved. Most of them would have been destroyed as possessing little importance in the opinion of those who ransacked the archives at the time of the change of religion. The testimony of these Visitation papers as to the performance of this duty of instruction on the part of the clergy is most valuable. Hardly less important is the proof they afford of the intelligent interest taken by the lay-folk of the parish in the work, and of their capability of rationally and religiously appreciating these instructions given them by their clergy. The process of these Visitations must be understood to fully appreciate the significance of their testimony. First of all, certain of the parishioners were chosen and were examined upon oath as to the state of the parish, and as to the way in which the pastor performed his duties. As samples of these sworn depositions, what are to be found in a “Visitation of Capitular manors and estates of the Exeter diocese” may be taken; extracts from these have been printed not long ago by Prebendary Hingeston Randolph, in the Register of Bishop Stapeldon. The record of these Visitations comprises the first fifteen years of the fourteenth century; at one place, Colaton, we find the jurati depose that their parson preaches in his own way, and on the Sundays expounds the Gospels, as well as he can (quatenus novit)! He does not give them much instruction (non multum eos informat), they think, in “the articles of faith, the Ten Commandments, and the deadly sins.” At another place, the priest, one Robert Blond, “preaches, but,” as appears to the witnesses, “not sufficiently clearly;” but they add, as if conscious of some hypercriticism, that they had long been accustomed to pastors who instructed them most carefully in all that pertained to the salvation of their souls. But these are perhaps the least satisfactory cases. In most instances the priest is said to instruct his people “well” (bene), and “excellently” (optime), and the truth of the testimony appears more clearly in places where, in other things, the parish-folk do not consider that their priest was quite perfection; as, for instance, at Culmstock, where the vicar, Walter, is said to be too long over the Matins and Mass on feasts; or still more at St. Mary Church, where the people think that in looking after his worldly interests, their priest was somewhat too hard on them in matters of tithe.
The Register from which these details are taken is a mere accidental survival, but the point which it is of importance to remember is this: that during Catholic times, in the course of every few years the clergy were thus personally reported upon, so to say, to the chief pastor or his delegates, and the oaths of the witnesses is a proof of how gravely this duty was regarded. And here may be noted, in passing, a fact not realized nor even understood, namely, that one of the great differences between ecclesiastical life in the Middle Ages and modern times lies in the fact that then people had no chance “of going to sleep.” There was a regular system of periodical Visitations, and everything was brought to the test of inquiry of a most elaborate and searching kind, in which every corner, so to speak, was swept out.
In this special instance, before passing on, attention may be called to the manifest intelligence, in spiritual things, shown by these jurors—peasants and farmers—in out-of-the-way parishes of clod-hopping Devon, in the early years of the fourteenth century.
To assist priests in the preparation of these familiar discourses, manuals of all kinds were drawn up in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It is impossible here to do more than give the names of a few of the best known. They are (1) The Pars Oculi Sacerdotis, by William Pagula, or Parker. (2) The Papilla Oculi, by John de Burgo, Rector of Collingham in A.D. 1385. (3) The Regimen Animarum, compiled about 1343. (4) The Speculum Christiani, by John Walton. (5) The Flos Florum, etc. All these, and many others like them, may be called popular books of instruction. Besides these, of course, there are a multitude of theological text-books, all calculated to aid the clergy in what the great Grosseteste calls “as much a part of the cura pastoralis as the administration of the Sacraments.”
In the same way that the work of instruction proper took a fixed form, so that of preaching was fashioned on a well-understood and well-recognized model. A short exordium, following upon the chosen text of Scripture, led almost invariably to a prayer for Divine guidance and assistance, which concluded with the Pater and Ave, and only then did the preacher address himself to the development of his subject. For the most part, until comparatively recent times, which have introduced somewhat strange themes into the sacred pulpit, the sermon was based almost entirely upon the Bible, and generally upon the Gospel or other Scripture proper for the day. This practice, whilst it imbued the minds of those who listened with a thorough knowledge of the sacred writings, gives the sermons, as we read them now, so great a similarity that we are apt to regard them as generally dull and uninteresting. With rare exceptions it is clear that, in England at least, brilliant, startling, and sensational sermonizing was not regarded with favour, but, on the contrary, was looked on with suspicion, as savouring of the “treatise” or method of the schools, and founded on the practice of heretics.
Surveying the ground of parochial preaching, one or two facts seem to stand out from the background of much that is still vague and uncertain. First, it is certain that popular and vernacular teaching was by no means neglected by the parish priests in pre-Reformation pulpits. Next to this is the prominence given to homely and familiar instruction, as distinct from formal sermons, and the importance which in those days was attached to the constant reiteration of the same old, yet ever new, lessons of faith and practice. On the part of the people hearing of sermons was taught as a duty, and they had to examine their consciences as to whether they had tried to shirk the obligation. As Myrc puts it—
“Has thou wythowte devocyone