Bishop Hall, in his “Triumphs of Rome,” mentions a red velvet buckler to have been preserved in a castle in Normandy which Michael wore in his combat with the dragon.
Bishop Patrick who wrote subsequently, in 1674, says “I hope that the precious piece of St. Michael’s red cloth is forthcoming—his dagger and his shield were to be seen at the beginning of this age, though one of their historians says, that five years before he came thither, in 1607 the bishop of Avranches had forbidden his shield to be any more showed: but who knows but some of the succeeding bishops may have been better natured, and not have denied this gratification to the desires of their gaping devotees.”
Bishop Patrick cites a Roman catholic litany, wherein after addresses to God, the Trinity, and the virgin Mary, there are invocations to St. Michael, St. Gabriel, and St. Raphael, together with all the orders of angels, to “pray for us.” He also instances that in the old Roman missal, and in the Sarum missal, there is a proper mass to Raphael the archangel, as the protector of pilgrims and travellers, and a skilful worker with medicine. Likewise an office for the continual intercession of St. Gabriel, and all the heavenly militia. In these catholic services St. Michael is invoked as a “most glorious and warlike prince,” “chief officer of paradise,” “captain of God’s hosts,” “the receiver of souls,” “the vanquisher of evil spirits,” and “the admirable general.” After mentioning several miracles attributed by the Romanists to St. Michael, the bishop says, “You see from this legend, that when people are mad with superstition, any story of a cock and a bull will serve their turn to found a festival upon, and to give occasion for the further veneration of a saint or an angel, though the circumstances are never so improbable.” He relates as an instance, that in a Romish church-book, Michael is said to have appeared to a bishop, whom he required to go to a hill-top, where if he found a bull tied, he was to found a church, and dedicate it to God and St. Michael. The bishop found the bull, and proceeded to found the church, but a rock on each side hindered the work, wherefore St. Michael appeared to a man, and bade him go and put away the rock, and dread nothing; so the man went, and “sette to his shoulders,” and bade the rock go away in the name of God and St. Michael; and so the rocks departed to the distance necessary to the work. “This removing the rock,” says bishop Patrick, “is a pretty stretcher!”
Michaelmas.
It is noticed by Mr. Brand in his “Popular Antiquities,” which cites most of the circumstances presently referred to, that—“It has long been and still continues the custom at this time of the year, or thereabouts, to elect the governors of towns and cities, the civil guardians of the peace of men, perhaps, as Bourne supposes, because the feast of angels naturally enough brings to our minds the old opinion of tutelar spirits, who have, or are thought to have, the particular charge of certain bodies of men, or districts of country, as also that every man has his guardian angel, who attends him from the cradle to the grave, from the moment of his coming in, to his going out of life.”
Mr. Nichols notices in the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” that on Monday, October 1st, 1804,—“The lord mayor and alderman proceeded from Guildhall, and the two sheriffs with their respective companies from Stationers’-hall, and having embarked on the Thames, his lordship in the city barge, and the sheriffs in the stationers’ barge, went in aquatic state to Palace-yard. They proceeded to the court of Exchequer: where, after the usual salutations to the bench (the cursitor baron, Francis Maseres, Esq. presiding) the recorder presented the two sheriffs; the several writs were then read, and the sheriffs and the senior under-sheriff took the usual oath. The ceremony, on this occasion, in the court of Exchequer, which vulgar error supposed to be an unmeaning farce, is solemn and impressive; nor have the new sheriffs the least connection either with chopping of sticks, or counting of hobnails. The tenants of a manor in Shropshire are directed to come forth to do their suit and service; on which the senior alderman below the chair steps forward, and chops a single stick, in token of its having been customary for the tenants of that manor to supply their lord with fuel. The owners of a forge in the parish of St. Clement (which formerly belonged to the city, and stood in the high road from the Temple to Westminster, but now no longer exists,) are then called forth to do their suit and service; when an officer of the court, in the presence of the senior alderman, produces six horse-shoes and sixty-one hobnails, which he counts over in form before the cursitor baron; who, on this particular occasion, is the immediate representative of the sovereign.
“The whole of the numerous company then again embarked in their barges, and returned to Blackfriars-bridge, where the state carriages were in waiting. Thence they proceeded to Stationers’-hall, where a most elegant entertainment was given by Mr. Sheriff Domville.”
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.