Curiosities of Christian History Prior to the Reformation

by James Paterson

The festival of All Saints was instituted in Rome in the eighth century. At the end of the tenth century a new celebration was annexed to it. It was related that a French pilgrim, on returning from Jerusalem, had been cast on a little island in the Mediterranean, where he met a hermit, who told him that the souls of sinners were tormented in the volcanic fires of the island, and that he could often hear the devils howling with rage because their prey was rescued from time to time by the prayers and alms of pious men, and especially of the monks of Cluny. The hermit solemnly adjured the pilgrim to report this when he returned home, and accordingly the pilgrim mentioned it to the Abbot Odilo of Cluny, who in 998 appointed the morrow of All Saints to be solemnly observed there for the repose of all faithful souls, with psalmody, masses, and copious alms to all the poor people present. The celebration was soon extended to the whole Cluniac order; and eventually some Pope, whose name is not known, ordered its observance throughout Christendom.

HOLIDAYS AND FEASTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

There were several holidays or celebrations of events very popular with young people and the lower clergy during the Middle Ages, and which had some connection with religious matters. These were the Feasts of the Ass, of the Deacons, of the Kings, of the Buffoons, and of the Innocents, all involving some horseplay and rude merriment, such as the Carnival still exhibits. About the twelfth century the Feast of the Kalends was conducted by actors having hideous beards over their faces. In the Feast of Buffoons of the same period the duties and rank of the clergy were caricatured and turned into fun and ribaldry. In the Feast of the Ass that animal was dressed like a priest, and all the people brayed as the incidents at the stable of Bethany and of Balaam’s conversation were rehearsed. In the Feast of Buffoons there were mock cardinals and a mock Pope. In the procession of the Mère Folle there were a mock tribunal, mock judgments, and mock sentences. As a counterpart to these boisterous revels, there were famous legends or superstitions represented, such as the story of the “Wandering Jew,” so called from a rebuke given to an insulting assault made on the Saviour at the Crucifixion, which was followed by a supposed sentence on the offender that he should await Christ’s second coming; the superstition about Prester John, a sort of pontiff king, half Jew, half Christian, who was said to have governed a vast Indian empire, but no particulars of which were ever ascertained, and yet he was said to have invited the Pope to go and live in his dominions.

FEAST OF THE ASS.

The Feast of the Ass, already alluded to, was a feast celebrated in several churches in France in commemoration of the Virgin Mary’s flight into Egypt. And the gross absurdities then practised under the pretence of devotion would surpass belief were there not such incontrovertible evidence of the facts. A young female, richly dressed, with an infant in her arms, was placed upon an ass, when High Mass was performed with solemn pomp. The ass was taught to kneel; and a hymn replete with folly and blasphemy was sung in his praise by the whole congregation. And as the climax to this monstrous scene of absurdity and profaneness, the priest used at the conclusion of the ceremony, and as a substitute for the words with which he on other occasions dismissed the people, to bray three times like an ass, which was answered by three similar brays by the people, instead of the usual response, “We bless the Lord,” etc.

FESTIVAL OF THE BOY BISHOP.

The childish solemnities of the boy bishop on the Festival of St. Nicholas, though prohibited so early as 1274 by the Synod and Bishop of Salzburg, were always much appreciated by the public. On the eve of the Holy Innocents the child bishop and his youthful clergy, in little copes and with burning tapers in their hands, went in procession chanting versicles, made some prayers before the altar, and sang complin. By the Statute of Sarum no one was to interrupt or press upon the children during their procession or service in the cathedral upon pain of anathema. This ceremony existed not only in collegiate churches, but in almost every parish. It is supposed that the anniversary montem at Eton, which used to be celebrated in winter, was only a corruption of this ceremony, and was as such suppressed by an order of Henry VIII.

MIRACLE PLAYS.

The miracle play was a theatrical representation of scenes in the Scriptures, and it seemed to be popular in mediæval times, and the monks took part in it as active promoters. But there were some of these in every century after the third. In times when reading was impossible, and the fancy of the public was kept alive chiefly by the pictures and images in churches, it was natural that this cognate representation by means of actors on a stage should occur to those who catered for something like a recreation. Chaucer and Piers Plowman allude to this as a frequent indulgence. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries religious plays were acted in England, France, and Spain. Bishops and canons and monks all supported them, and they were acted in churches and on Sundays, as was said to be the case in St. Paul’s until the time of Charles I. At length it was found that they degenerated into buffoonery and indecency. Some have said that the practice arose out of the lively spirits of the troops of pilgrims returning from the shrines of Compostella or St. Michael or Canterbury, and chanting or reciting sacred songs and hymns. The plays went out in England soon after the Reformation, and they became thereafter mere secular amusements.

THE PASSION PLAYS OF THE AMMERGHAU.