The above appears to have been a popular verse to inscribe in registers, for, with slight variations, it is to be met with in several parishes. Philomath’s Almanac, for the year 1674, contains similar rules in prose:—
“Times Prohibiting Marriage this Year.
Marriage comes in on the 13th of January, and at Septuagessima Sunday it is out again until Low Sunday, at which time it comes in again, and goes not out till Rogation Sunday. Then it is forbidden until Trinity Sunday, from whence it is unforbidden till Advent Sunday, but then it goes out, and comes not in again till the 13th of January next following.”
With regard to the publication of Banns of Marriage, it appears to have been the custom in the primitive ages that the Church should be forewarned of marriages. The earliest existing canonical enactment on the subject in the English church, is that in the eleventh canon of the Synod of Westminster, in the year 1200, which enacts that “no marriage shall be contracted without banns thrice published in the church, unless by the special authority of the Bishop.” Anciently, before the publication of banns, it was the custom for the curate to affiance the two persons to be married in the name of the Trinity; and at this period the banns were sometimes published at Vespers as well as at Mass.
Forbidding the banns of marriage is now a very rare occurrence; formerly, it was not so, and it was customary to interdict a marriage sometimes for the sole purpose of making a comparative stranger prove his bona-fides. The parish register of Frampton, near Boston, Lincolnshire, contains the following entry on January, 1, 1653:—“The marriage of Edward Morton and Jane Goodwin was objected to by John Ayne, Thomas Appleby, and William Eldred: because in the first place, the said Edward Morton was a stranger, and they did not know where he had lived until a short time before, or whether he was married or single; therefore they desired the marriage might be deferred until he brought a certificate of these things. And secondly because they have been informed and do believe that he is a very poor man, and therefore they wish him to get some sufficient man to be bound with him to secure the town from any charge of him or his.”
An interesting custom is still kept up at Laceby, a village in North Lincolnshire, where the bells ring a merry peal at the close of the service in which the third publication of banns has taken place. A similar custom prevailed at North Kelsey, in Lincolnshire, the practice there being to ring the peal of bells on the Monday evening after the last publication of banns, but in this latter case the custom appears to have fallen into disuse many years ago. Bells frequently bear inscriptions relating to the marriage peals; the fifth bell at Coton-in-the-Elms, Derbyshire, dated 1786, has inscribed on it:—
“The bride and groom we greet
In holy wedlock joined,
Our sounds are emblems sweet
Of hearts in love combined.”
In the early part of the century it appears to have been a common practice in most parts of the country for the clerk, after the publication of the banns of marriage, to rise and say, “God speed them well;” and in some places it was usual for the congregation to respond “Amen.” At Hope, in Derbyshire, this was done not only on the publication of banns, but also at the solemnization of the marriage, immediately after the abjuration—“I require and charge you both.” The practice has fallen into the same oblivion which has overtaken the old parish clerk—at one period so self-important an individual in the church, and now, except in remote villages, so insignificant an official. The custom appears to have lingered for some time at Croxton Kerrial, near Melton Mowbray, and at Birkby, a village near Northallerton.
The following extract from the parish registers for Chalgrave, Bedfordshire, for the year 1655, furnishes an instance of the manner in which weddings were frequently conducted during the Commonwealth, in pursuance of Cromwell’s Act of Parliament, August 24, 1653, and by which the presence of a priest was entirely dispensed with:—“Henry Fisher and Sarah Newson, of Chalgrave, published three severall Lords dayes in one psh meeting house called the church ended xxiijrd of Septb and no exception made against it, and the said Henry Fisher and Sarah Newson was married the xxixth Septb, as by certificate doth appear by Francis Austeres Esq, and in psents of Will: Martin and Abraham Newson.” In the parish registers of Launceston, Cornwall, is the following entry:—“Hereafr follow marriages by laymen, according to the prophanes, and giddynes of the times without precedent or example in any Christian Kingdom or Commonwealth, from the birth of Christ unto this very year 1655.
“1655, The 28th daye of October were married by John Hicks, Gent. and Maior of this Town, John Heddon and Mary Harvey. Their banns being published in the Markett Place att Launceston three severall Markett dayes, viz., the 11th, the 18th, and the 25th of this instant October, without contradiction.”