Pray for us, thou prynce of pes.
Amici Christi, Johannes.
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To the now, Crystys der derlyng, That was a mayd bothe old and Ȝyng, Myn hert is sett for to syng Amici Christi, Johannes. For he was so clene a maye, On Crystys brest aslepe he laye, The prevyteys of hevyn ther he saye. Amici Christi, Johannes. Qwhen Cryst beforne Pilate was browte, Hys clene mayd forsoke hym nowte, To deye with hym was all hys thowte, Amici Christi, Johannes. Crystys moder was hym betake, Won mayd to be anodyris make, To help that we be nott forsake, Amici Christi, Johannes. |
On 28th December the Holy Innocents, or the children slain by order of Herod, are borne in mind. Naogeorgus says of this day:—
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Then comes the day that calles to minde the cruell Herode's strife, Who, seeking Christ to kill, the King of everlasting life, Destroyde the little infants yong, a beast unmercilesse, And put to death all such as were of two yeares age or lesse. To them the sinfull wretchesse crie, and earnestly do pray, To get them pardon for their faultes, and wipe their sinnes away. The Parentes, when this day appeares, do beate their children all, (Though nothing they deserve), and servaunts all to beating fall, And Monkes do whip eche other well, or else their Prior great, Or Abbot mad, doth take in hande their breeches all to beat: In worship of these Innocents, or rather, as we see, In honour of the cursed King, that did this crueltee. |
In the Rev. John Gregorie's pamphlet, Episcopus Puerorum in die Innocentium (1683, p. 113), he says: "It hath been a Custom, and yet is elsewhere, to whip up the Children upon Innocents' day morning, that the memory of this Murther might stick the closer, and, in a moderate proportion, to act over again the cruelty in kind."
By the way, the Boy Bishop went out of office on Innocents' day, and the learned John Gregorie aforesaid tells us all about him. "The Episcopus Choristarum was a Chorister Bishop chosen by his Fellow Children upon St. Nicholas Day.... From this Day till Innocents' Day at night (it lasted longer at the first) the Episcopus Puerorum was to bear the name and hold up the state of a Bishop, answerably habited with a Crosier, or Pastoral Staff, in his hand, and a Mitre upon his head; and such an one, too, some had, as was multis Episcoporum mitris sumptuosior (saith one), very much richer than those of Bishops indeed.
"The rest of his Fellows from the same time being were to take upon them the style and counterfeit of Prebends, yielding to their Bishop no less than Canonical obedience.
"And look what service the very Bishop himself with his Dean and Prebends (had they been to officiate) was to have performed. The very same was done by the Chorister Bishop and his Canons upon the Eve and Holiday." Then follows the full ritual of his office, according to the Use of Sarum; and it was provided, "That no man whatsoever, under the pain of Anathema, should interrupt, or press upon these Children at the Procession spoken of before, or in any part of their Service in any ways, but to suffer them quietly to perform and execute what it concerned them to do.