[d] Mess—a particular number or set who eat together. At the Inns of Court at the present day, a mess consists of four persons.

[e] This rather upsets the theory as to the origin of eating a goose at Michaelmas, connected with Queen Elizabeth and the news of the English victory over the Spanish Armada.

[f] Furmenty or Frumenty was made of new wheat boiled in milk and seasoned with sugar and spices.

[g] Ale, anciently was made of wheat, barley, and honey, the term was then applied exclusively to malt liquor. Hops are supposed to have been introduced into this country in 1524 from Flanders, and the term “Beer” was used to describe liquors brewed with an infusion of hops. The two terms are now generally used synonymously.

[h] The seven Canonical hours of the Church were:—

(1){Mattins or Nocturns, usually sung between midnight and daybreak.
Lauds, a service at daybreak following closely on and sometimes joined to mattins.
(2) Prime, a later morning service, about six o’clock.
(3) Tierce, a service at nine o’clock.
(4) Sexts, a service at noon.
(5) Nones, a service at three in the afternoon.
(6) Vespers, a service at six in the evening.
(7) Compline, a service at eight or nine in the evening, being the last of the seven hours.

These seven offices were condensed in 1519 into two, our present Mattins and Evensong.

[] A Paternoster is a chaplet of beads.

A Rosary comprises 15 Paternosters and Glorias, and 150 Ave Marias, divided into three parts, each of which contains five decades consisting of one paternoster, ten Ave Marias, and one Gloria, each preceded by the Creed.

[j] Similar Services and Masses for the Dead were sung over Monks and Nuns on retiring from the world to a Monastery or Nunnery. See Manuale ad usum Sarum.