The King’s Book.
“The King’s Book,” so frequently mentioned in connexion with the value of church livings, is the Return of the Commissioners appointed under 26 Henry VIII., c. 3, to value the first-fruits and tenths bestowed by that Act upon the King. The valuation then made is still in force, and the record containing it is that commonly known as the Kings’ Book (the Valor Ecclesiasticus, &c.) which has been printed by the Record Commission.
Compulsory Attendance at Church.
We do not find any very early regulations made to enforce the observation of festivals among Christians. The Middle Ages are somewhat more prolific. Attendance at church on the principal festivals was made a subject of inquiry, about A.D. 900, in Abbot Regino’s articles; and by that of Clovishoff, in 905, the clergy are enjoined to be more diligent in teaching, and the people to be more regular in their attendance. This observance is also enjoined by the laws of Canute, about 1032, which decree “all divine rites and offices, let every one studiously keep and observe; the feast-days and the fasts, let him celebrate with the utmost ceremony.” After the Conquest, the synod of Exeter, 1287, includes the “festival days,” with the Lord’s days, among those when the people ought specially to attend the churches. And Ascension Day, the feast of Corpus Christi, the high feast of the Assumption of our blessed Lady, and All Saints’ Day, are included with the Lord’s days, in the 27th Henry VI. (1450) in the list of days whereon the holding of fairs is prohibited.
The Acts by which at the Reformation it was attempted to secure the due attendance of the people upon the remodelled services include “the other days ordained and used to be kept as holidays.” But the application of their provisions to the attendance upon other holidays than Sundays, seems to have been pretty soon dropped. The statute of James the First, re-enacting the penalty of 1s. for default in attendance at church, is limited to Sundays; and the latter day alone is mentioned in the Acts of William and Mary, and George III.; by which exceptions in favour of dissenters from the Church of England were introduced. Mr. Neale, however, cites several cases which appear to settle that the ecclesiastical courts have not the power to compel any person to attend his parish church, because they have no right to decide the bounds of parishes.
The repeal of the Act enjoining attendance at church on the 5th of November, so far as Roman Catholics are concerned, by the 7 and 8 Victoria, c. 102, removing the penalties to which they stood exposed up to the year 1844, must be looked upon more as a piece of consistency in legislation than as the removal of a possible grievance. And a somewhat similar remark may be made in respect to members of the Church of England, upon the total repeal of the 1st of Elizabeth, so far as concerns the penalty of 1s., for non-attendance at church on holidays. As the statute of James applies solely to Sundays, there is now no civil punishment left for this neglect: though it would appear to remain punishable, under the 5th and 6th of Edward VI., by ecclesiastical censures.—Neale’s Feasts and Fasts, p. 307.
Among the recent cases of prosecution, in a Treatise on Sir Matthew Hale’s History of the Pleas of the Crown, by Professor Amos, the following passage occurs under “Repealed Statutes:”
“In the year 1817, at the Spring Assizes for Bedford, Sir Montague Burgoyne was prosecuted for having been absent from his parish church for several months: the action was defeated by proof of the defendant having been indisposed. In the Report of Prison Inspectors to the House of Lords, in 1841, it appeared that in 1830, ten persons were in prison for recusancy in not attending their parish churches. A mother was prosecuted by her own son.”
The Mark of the Cross.
The old Danish laws made it obligatory upon those who could not write to affix their bomærke (house-mark); and the Russians required a mark, or a cross. The probable reason why the cross was always used in the Middle Ages in the testing of ecclesiastical charters was not only that it was a sacred symbol, but that Justinian had decreed it should have the strength of an oath.—B. Williams, F.S.A.; Archæologia, xxxvii. p. 384.