To the choir boys and altar boys of English churches it was a particularly exciting time.
On St. Nicholas’ eve all the boys who sang in the choir or served at the altar met at their parish church, or in the great cathedral, if they belonged to a bishop’s see, and elected one from among their number, who took the title of “the Boy-bishop.” This title with its dignities he retained until December 28th, Holy Innocents’ Day, so called because it is the anniversary of the slaughter of the children in Palestine by order of the wicked King Herod.
The Boy-bishop was dressed in the robes of a real bishop. On his head was placed a mitre, in his right hand a crozier. Another boy was elected dean, while the rest were styled canons, all being dressed in the robes of their office.
During the three weeks from December 5 to December 28, the Boy-bishop could perform all the duties of a real bishop, except that of saying mass. If a priest died during the period when he held office he could appoint another to take his place in the church left vacant. If he himself died before Holy Innocents’ Day he was given a bishop’s grand funeral in the cathedral.
“There is a little tomb of this kind,” says Miss Abbie Farwell Brown, “not half the size of a full-grown one, in a great cathedral that I know. It is of white marble, grandly carved and decorated, and though it is worn and nicked by eight hundred years of change, one can plainly see that it is a child’s face among the long curls beneath the bishop’s mitre. No one knows his name, nor aught about him, save that he must be one of the Boy-bishops who died at Christmas time, or he would not be buried in the great cathedral tomb.”[4]
Doubtless Miss Brown has in mind the cathedral of Salisbury, England. In the nave of that great minster there is just such a tomb, with just such a likeness carved upon it. The boy’s foot rests on the figure of a monster with a lion’s head and a dragon’s tail, in allusion to the words of the psalmist “Thou shalt tread on the lion and the dragon.”
But to continue. On December 6th the newly elected Boy-bishop with his dean and canons held a grand service in the church to which they were attached, the prayers being chanted in the boy’s sweet childish voice. A great crowd always thronged the church to gaze on so rare a sight, and the offerings that they made were all for the Boy-bishop.
After the services were over the bishop and his boy-assistants would form themselves into a procession and parade through the streets of the town or the lanes of the countryside, asking some small money tributes from all they met and at every door where they knocked. This was known as the Bishop’s Subsidy and though no one was likely to give a great deal, yet as the procession was continued every day during the three weeks, the amount collected sometimes rolled up into quite a pretty sum.
Faster and more furious grew the fun as the time of the bishop’s rule neared its close. On the afternoon of December 27th little Nicholas and his companions sang vespers, while the real priests of the church acted as altar boys and choristers. Then the Boy-bishop gave a solemn benediction to all present. Making the sign of the cross over the kneeling throngs, he dismissed them with the words:
Crucis signo vos consigno; vestra sit tuitio,