14. In 1573 charge is made of paper for four bookes of Geneva psalms. It is well known, that the vocal music in parochial churches received a great alteration under the reign of queen Elizabeth, being changed from antiphonyes into metrical psalmody, which is here called the Geneva psalms.
15. In the year 1578 tenpence were paid for a book of the articles. These articles were agreed to and subscribed for by both houses of convocation in 1562, and printed the year following. But in 1571, being again revised and ratified by act of parliament, they seem to have been placed in churches.
16. The last article in these extracts is fourpence for an houre glass for the pulpit. How early the custom was of using hour glasses in the pulpit, I cannot say; but this is the first instance of it I ever met with.
It is not to be thought that the same regulations were all made within the same time in all other places. That depended with the several bishops of their dioceses, and according to their zeal for the Reformation. Abingdon lies in the diocese of Salisbury, and, as bishop Jewel, who was first nominated to that see by queen Elizabeth, and continued in it till the year 1571, was so great a defender of the reformed religion, it is not to be doubted but every thing was there carried on with as much expedition as was judged consistent with prudence.
[114] Manchet, or cheat-bread.
[115] Fuller’s Hist. of Waltham Abbey, p. 13. T. Lewis’s Hist. of the English Translation of the Bible, p. 199.
[116] Pref ad Camdeni “Eliz.” p. xxix. l. i. g.