A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

ANNUNCIADA. A society founded at Rome, in the year 1460, by Cardinal John Turrecremata, for the marrying of poor maids. It now bestows, every Lady-day, sixty Roman crowns, a suit of white serge, and a florin for slippers, to above 400 maids for their portion. The popes have so great a regard for this charitable foundation, that they make a cavalcade, attended with the cardinals, &c., to distribute tickets for these sixty crowns, &c., for those who are to receive them. If any of the maids are desirous to be nuns, they have each of them 120 crowns, and are distinguished by a chaplet of flowers on their head.

ANNUNCIADE, otherwise called the Order of the Ten Virtues, or Delights, of the Virgin Mary; a Popish order of women, founded by Queen Jane, of France, wife to Lewis XII., whose rule and chief business was to honour, with a great many beads and rosaries, the ten principal virtues or delights of the Virgin Mary; the first of which they make to be when the angel Gabriel annunciated to her the mystery of the incarnation, from whence they have their name; the second, when she saw her son Jesus brought into the world; the third, when the wise men came to worship him; the fourth, when she found him disputing with the doctors in the temple, &c. This order was confirmed by the pope in 1501, and by Leo X. again in 1517.

ANNUNCIATION of the BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. This festival is appointed by the Church, in commemoration of that day on which it was announced to Mary, by an angel, that she should be the mother of the Messiah. The Church of England observes this festival on the 25th of March, and in the calendar the day is called the “Annunciation of our Lady,” and hence the 25th of March is called Lady-day. It is observed as a “scarlet day” at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford.

ANOMŒANS. (From ἄνομοιος, unlike.) The name of the extreme Arians in the fourth century, because they held the essence of the Son of God to be unlike unto that of the Father. These heretics were condemned by the semi-Arians, at the Council of Seleucia, A. D. 359, but they revenged themselves of this censure a year after, at a pretended synod in Constantinople.

ANTELUCAN. In times of persecution, the Christians being unable to meet for divine worship in the open day, held their assemblies in the night. The like assemblies were afterwards continued from feelings of piety and devotion, and called Antelucan, or assemblies before daylight.

ANTHEM. A hymn, sung in parts alternately. Such, at least, would appear to be its original sense. The word is derived from the Greek Ἀντιφωνὴ, which signifies, as Isidorus interprets it, “Vox reciproca,” &c., one voice succeeding another; that is, two choruses singing by turns. (See Antiphon.) In the Greek Church it was more particularly applied to one of the Alleluia Psalms sung after those of the day. In the Roman and unreformed Western offices it is ordinarily applied to a short sentence sung before and after one of the Psalms of the day: so called, according to Cardinal Bona, because it gives the tone to the Psalms which are sung antiphonely, or by each side of the choir alternately; and then at the end both choirs join in the anthem. The same term is given to short sentences said or sung at different parts of the service; also occasionally to metrical hymns. The real reason of the application of the term in these instances seems to be this, that these sentences are a sort of response to, or alternation with, the other parts of the office. The preacher’s text was at the beginning of the Reformation sometimes called the Anthem. (Strype, Ann. of the Ref. chap. ix. A. D. 1559.) In this sense it is applied in King Edward’s First Book to the sentences in the Visitation of the Sick, “Remember not,” &c., &c., “O Saviour of the world,” &c., which were obviously never intended to be sung. In the same book it is applied to the hymns peculiar to Easter day, and to the prayer in the Communion Service, “Turn thou us,” &c., both of which are prescribed to be said or sung. In our present Prayer Book it occurs only in reference to the Easter Hymn, and in the rubrics after the third Collects of Morning and Evening Prayer. These rubrics were first inserted at the last Review, though there is no doubt that the anthem had always been customarily performed in the same place. To the anthem so performed Milton alluded in the well-known words, “In service high and anthems clear;” these expressions, as well as the whole phraseology of that unrivalled passage, being technically correct: the service meaning the Church Hymns, set to varied harmonies; the anthem, (of which two were commonly performed in the full Sunday morning service,) the compositions now in question.

The English Anthem, as the term has long been practically understood, sanctioned by the universal use of the Church of England, has no exact equivalent in the service of other Churches. It resembles, but not exactly, the Motets of foreign choirs, and occasionally their Responsories or Antiphons. There are a few metrical anthems, corresponding to the hymns of those choirs. But, generally speaking, the English anthem is set to words from Holy Scripture, or the Liturgy; sung, not to a chant, or an air, like that of a hymn, but to varied consecutive strains, admitting of every diversity of solo, verse, and chorus. The Easter-day Anthem, at the time of the last Review, was not usually sung, as now, to a chant, but to varied harmonies, (as is still the case at Salisbury cathedral,)—and in the sealed book it is to be observed, that it is not printed like the Psalms, in verses, but in paragraphs. Properly speaking, our services, technically so called, (see Service,) are anthems; as are also the hymns in the Communion and Burial Service. The responses to the Commandments, and the sentence “O Lord, arise,” &c., in the Liturgy, give a tolerably correct notion of the Roman Antiphon.

The Church of England anthems consist of three kinds: Full; or those sung throughout by the whole choir. Full with verse; that is, consisting of a chorus for the most part, but with an occasional passage sung by but a few voices. Verse; consisting mainly of solos, duets, trios, &c., the chorus being the appendage, not the substance. Objections have been made of late to verse anthems; but there is no question that they are nearly, if not quite, coeval with the Reformation.

In many choirs, besides the anthem in its proper place after the third Morning Collect, another was sung on Sundays after the sermon. In the Coronation Service several anthems are prescribed to be used.—Jebb.

An anthem in choirs and places where they sing is appointed by the rubric in the daily service in the Prayer Book, after the third Collect, both at Morning and Evening Prayer.