Nineteen years later, the pope and his council still further strengthened the sacred day. The council of Friburgh in Germany, A. D. 895, under Pope Formosus, decreed that the Lord’s day, men “were to spend in prayers, and devote wholly to the service of God, who otherwise might be provoked to anger.”[823] The work of establishing Sunday sacredness in England was carried steadily forward:—
“King Athelston, ... in the year 928, made a law that there should be no marketing or civil pleadings on the Lord’s day, under the penalty of forfeiting the commodity, besides a fine of thirty shillings for each offense.”[824]
In a convocation of the English clergy about this time, it was decreed that all sorts of traffic and the holding of courts, &c., on Sunday should cease. “And whoever transgressed in any of these instances, if a freeman, he was to pay twelve oræ, if a servant, be severely whipt.” We are further informed that,
“About the year 943, Otho, archbishop of Canterbury, had it decreed that above all things the Lord’s day should be kept with all imaginable caution, according to the canon and ancient practice.”[825]
A. D. 967. King Edgar “commanded that the festival should be kept from three of the clock in the afternoon on Saturday, till day-break on Monday.”[826]
“King Ethelred the younger, son of Edgar, coming to the crown about the year 1009, called a general council of all the English clergy, under Elfeagus, archbishop of Canterbury, and Wolstan, archbishop of York. And there it was required that all persons in a more zealous manner should observe the Sunday, and what belonged to it.”[827]
Nor did the Sunday festival fail to gain a footing in Norway. Heylyn tells us of the piety of a Norwegian king by the name of Olaus, A. D. 1028.
“For being taken up one Sunday in some serious thoughts, and having in his hand a small walking stick, he took his knife and whittled it as men do sometimes, when their minds are troubled or intent on business. And when it had been told him as by way of jest how he had trespassed therein against the Sabbath, he gathered the small chips together, put them upon his hand, and set fire unto them, that so, saith Crantzius, he might revenge that on himself what unawares he had committed against God’s commandment.”[828]
In Spain also the work went forward. A council was held at Coy, in Spain, A. D. 1050, under Ferdinand, king of Castile, in the days of Pope Leo IX., where it was decreed that the Lord’s day “was to be entirely consecrated to hearing of mass.”[829]