I-herde any predicacyon?
Hast thou gon or setten else where
When thou myghtest have ben there?”
Besides the sermon, which followed upon the reading or singing of the Gospel in the Mass, there were several other Sunday practices connected with the pulpit. First may be mentioned the reading of the Bede-roll. This was of two kinds, general and particular, and Dr. Rock has printed an interesting specimen of the first and several examples of the second. From the first a few quotations will make the nature and intention of the Church in the “Bidding of Bedes” quite clear. It begins—
“Masters and frendes, as for holy dayes and fasting days ye shall have none thys weke” (of course, when there were any they were named), “but ye maye doe all manner of good workes, that shall bee to the honoure of God and the profyt of your own soules. And therefore, after a laudable consuetude and lawfull custome of our mother holy Churche, ye shall knele down movyng your heartes unto Almightye God, and makyng your speciall prayers for the three estates, concerning all christian people, that is to say for the spiritualtye and temporaltie and the soules being in the paynes of purgatory.”
SACRAMENT OF CONFIRMATION
YOUTHS RECEIVING HOLY COMMUNION
Then after mentioning the Pope, the metropolitan, the bishop, and parish priests “having cure of mannes soule,” and in the “temporalty” the king, queen, and royal family, with the lords, etc., the priest from the pulpit recommended to the people’s prayers all those “that have honoured the church wyth light, lamp, vestment, or bell, or any ornaments, by the whyche the service of Almighty God is the better maintained and kept.”