The Lord's Prayer, by the order of S. Gregory himself, concluded this part of the service, which came to be known as the Canon, the invariable part of the Mass. In the Roman rite the kiss of peace followed, the faithful kissing each other according to the ancient custom. Then the priest broke the bread, and said the Lord's Prayer alone till the last clause. Then he placed a piece of the bread in the cup, and received the Sacrament himself, afterwards giving it in one kind to the clergy and laity, while the deacon followed with the chalice. Before the Communion it was a custom taken from Gaul, which lasted in England up to the Reformation, that the Bishop, if present, should bless the people. A hymn was sung during the communion of the people; the ancient "Draw nigh and take the Body of the Lord" remains still to us from a Celtic source for use at this time. The service ended with a "Let us pray" and collect after Communion, closely followed by the second of the alternative post-communion prayers now in our English office. Immediately after this prayer the deacon said "Ite, missa est" ("Go: it is the dismissal").
In the English services to-day, while much is changed, and the language is our own, we can still trace very much that has been used continuously since the day when S. Augustine first said the whole office of the Church on British soil.
Much more might be said; but this may suffice to illustrate the interest and importance which belong to sacraments and liturgical rites in the ages of which we speak.
[1] Edmund Bishop, "The Genesis of the Roman Rite," in Essays on Ceremonial, 1904.
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CHAPTER XVII
THE END OF THE DARK AGE
[Sidenote: The end of the age.]
As we draw to the close of the long period which, through the conversion of the barbarian races and the growth of a central power in the Church at Rome, so profoundly influenced the future of the world, we are met by some outstanding facts which mark an epoch of crisis and of reformation. They are—the widening breach in matters religious, as earlier in matters political, between East and West; the influences which served to strengthen the theory of the papal monarchy even at the time of its greatest practical weakness; and the strength of the Empire under the Saxon Ottos as a power to unite Western Europe and to reform the Western Church.
[Sidenote: The papacy of Nicolas I., 858-67.]