[212]“I was a poor pilgrim,” says one (“History of the Troubadours,” p. 300), “when I came to your court; and have lived honestly and respectably in it on the wages you have given me; restore to me my mule, my wallet, and my staff, and I will return in the same manner as I came.”
[213]“Church of our Fathers,” vol. iii. p. 442.
[214]Thus Pope Calixtus tells us (“Sermones Bib. Pat.,” ed. Bignio, xv. 330) that the pilgrims to Santiago were accustomed before dawn, at the top of each town, to cry with a loud voice, “Deus Adjuva!” “Sancte Jacobe!” “God Help!” “Santiago!”
[215]Surely he should have excepted St. Thomas’s shrine?
[216]In theGuardiannewspaper of Sept. 5, 1860, a visitor to Rome gives a description of the exhibition of relics there, which forms an interesting parallel with the account in the text: “Shortly before Ash-Wednesday a public notice (‘Invito Sagro’) is issued by authority, setting forth that inasmuch as certain of the principal relics and ‘sacra immagini’ are to be exposed during the ensuing season of Lent, in certain churches specified, the confraternities of Rome are exhorted by the pope to resort in procession to those churches.... The ceremony is soon described. The procession entered slowly at the west door, moved up towards the altar, and when the foremost were within a few yards of it, all knelt down for a few minutes on the pavement of the church to worship. At a signal given by one of the party, they rose, and slowly defiled off in the direction of the chapel wherein is preserved the column of the flagellation (?). By the way, no one of the other sex may ever enter that chapel, except on one day in the year—the very day of which I am speaking; and onthatday men are as rigorously excluded. Well, all knelt again for a few minutes, then rose, and moved slowly towards the door, departing as they came, and making way for another procession to enter. It was altogether a most interesting and agreeable spectacle. Utterly alien to our English tastes and habits certainly; but the institution evidently suited the tastes of the people exactly, and I dare say may be conducive to piety, and recommend itself to their religious instincts. Coming from their several parishes, and returning, they chant psalms.
“It follows naturally to speak a little more particularly about the adoration of relics, for this is just another of those many definite religious acts which make up the sum of popular devotion, and supply the void occasioned by the entire discontinuance of the old breviary offices. In the ‘Diario Romano’ (a little book describing what is publicly transacted, of a religious character, during every day in the year), daily throughout Lent, and indeed on every occasion of unusual solemnity (of which, I think, there are eighty-five in all), you read ‘Stazione’ at such a church. This (whatever it may imply beside) denotes that relics are displayed for adoration in that church on the day indicated. The pavement is accordingly strewed with box, lights burn on the altar, and there is a constant influx of visitors to that church throughout the day. For example, at St. Prisca’s, a little church on the Aventine, there was a ‘Stazione,’ 3rd April. In the Romish Missal you will perceive that on the Feria tertia Majoris hebdomadæ (this year April 3), there isStatio ad S. Priscam. A very interesting church, by the way, it proved, being evidently built on a site of immense antiquity—traditionally said to be the house of Prisca. You descend by thirty-one steps into the subterranean edifice. At this little out-of-the-way church, there were strangers arriving all the time we were there. Thirty young Dominicans from S. Sabina, hard by, streamed down into the crypt, knelt for a time, and then repaired to perform a similar act of worship above, at the altar. The friend who conducted me to the spot, showed me, in the vineyard immediately opposite, some extraordinary remains of the wall of Servius Tullius. On our return we observed fresh parties straggling towards the church, bent on performing their ‘visits.’ It should, perhaps, be mentioned that prayers have been put forth by authority, to be used on such occasions.
“I must not pass by this subject of relics so slightly, for it evidently occupies a considerable place in the public devotions of a Roman Catholic. Thus the ‘Invito Sagro,’ already adverted to, specifieswhichrelics will be displayed in each of the six churches enumerated—(e.g.the heads of SS. Peter and Paul, their chains, some wood of the cross, &c.)—granting seven years of indulgence for every visit, by whomsoever paid; and promising plenary indulgence to every person who, after confessing and communicating, shall thrice visit each of the aforesaid churches, and pray for awhile on behalf of holy church. There are besides, on nine chief festivals, as many great displays of relics at Rome, the particulars of which may be seen in the ‘Année Liturgique,’ pp. 189-206. I witnessedone, somewhat leisurely, at the Church of the Twelve Apostles, on the afternoon of the 1st of May. There was a congregation of about two or three hundred in church, while somebody in a lofty gallery displayed the relics, his companion proclaiming with a loud voice what each was: ‘Questo e il braccio,’ &c., &c., which such an one gave to this ‘alma basilica,’—the formula being in every instance very sonorously intoned. There was part of the arm of S. Bartholomew and of S. James the Less; part of S. Andrew’s leg, arm, and cross; part of one of S. Paul’s fingers; one of the nails with which S. Peter was crucified; S. Philip’s right foot; liquid blood of S. James; some of the remains of S. John the Evangelist, of the Baptist, of Joseph, and of the Blessed Virgin; together with part of the manger, cradle, cross, and tomb of our Lord, &c., &c.... I have dwelt somewhat disproportionally on relics, but they play so conspicuous a part in the religious system of the country, that in enumerating the several substitutes which have been invented for the old breviary services, it would not be nearly enough to have discussed the subject in a few lines. A visit paid to a church where such objects are exposed, is a distinct as well as popular religious exercise; and it always seemed to me to be performed with great reverence and devotion.”
[217]From Mr. Wright’s “Archæological Album,” p. 19.
[218]This slip of lead had probably been put into his coffin. He is sometimes called Thomas of Acre.
[219]Of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath we read:—
“Thrice had she been at Jerusalem,And haddé passed many a strangé stream;At Rome she haddé been, and at Boloyne,In Galice, at St. James, and at Coloyne.”
[220]Dugdale’s “Monasticon.”
[221]“Crudities,” p. 18.
[222]In Lydgate’s “Life of St. Edmund” (Harl. 2,278) is a picture of King Alkmund on his pilgrimage, at Rome, receiving the Pope’s blessing, in which the treatment of the subject is very like that of the illumination in the text.
[223]The shells indicate a pilgrimage accomplished, but the rod may not have been intended to represent the pilgrim’s bourdon. In the Harl. MS. 5,102, fol. 68, a MS. of the beginning of the thirteenth century, is a bishop holding a slender rod (not a pastoral staff), and at fol. 17 of the same MS. one is putting a similar rod into a bishop’s coffin. The priors of small cathedrals bore a staff without crook, and had the privilege of being arrayed in pontificals for mass; choir-rulers often bore staves. Dr. Rock, in the “Church of our Fathers,” vol. iii., pt. II, p. 224, gives a cut from a late Flemish Book of Hours, in which a priest, sitting at confession, bears a long rod.
[224]It is engraved in Mr. Boutell’s “Christian Monuments in England and Wales,” p. 79.
[225]Engraved in Nichols’s “Leicestershire,” vol. iii., pl. ii., p. 623.
[226]Engraved in the “Manual of Sepulchral Slabs and Crosses,” by the Rev. E. L. Cutts, pl. lxxiii.
[227]It will be shown hereafter that secular priests ordinarily wore dresses of these gay colours, all the ecclesiastical canons to the contrary notwithstanding.
[228]Here is a good example from Baker’s “Northamptonshire:”—“Broughton Rectory: Richard Meyreul, sub-deacon, presented in 1243. Peter de Vieleston, deacon, presented in 1346-7. Though still only a deacon, he had previously been rector of Cottisbrook from 1342 to 1345.”
Matthew Paris tells us that, in 1252, the beneficed clergy in the diocese of Lincoln were urgently persuaded and admonished by their bishop to allow themselves to be promoted to the grade of priesthood, but many of them refused.
The thirteenth Constitution of the second General Council of Lyons, held in 1274, ordered curates to reside and to take priests’ orders within a year of their promotion; the lists above quoted show how inoperative was this attempt to remedy the practice against which it was directed.
[229]A writer in theChristian Remembrancerfor July, 1856, says:—“During the fourteenth century it would seem that half the number of rectories throughout England were held by acolytes unable to administer the sacrament of the altar, to hear confessions, or even to baptise. Presented to a benefice often before of age to be ordained, the rector preferred to marry and to remain a layman, or at best a clerk in minor orders.... In short, during the time to which we refer, rectories were looked upon and treated as lay fees.”
[230]See Chaucer’s poor scholar, hereinafter quoted, who—
“busily gan for the soulis prayOf them that gave him wherewith to scholaie.”
[231]“Dialogue on Heresies,” book iii. c. 12.
[232]“Norwich Corporation Records.” Sessions Book of 12th Henry VII. Memorand.—That on Thursday, Holyrood Eve, in the xijth of King Henry the VIIJ., Sir William Grene, being accused of being a spy, was examined before the mayor’s deputy and others, and gave the following account of himself:—“The same Sir William saieth that he was borne in Boston, in the countie of Lincoln, and about xviij yeres nowe paste or there about, he dwellyd with Stephen at Grene, his father at Wantlet, in the saide countie of Lincolne, and lerned gramer by the space of ij yeres; after that by v or vj yeres used labour with his said father, sometyme in husbandrie and other wiles with the longe sawe; and after that dwelling in Boston at one Genet a Grene, his aunte, used labour and other wiles goyng to scole by the space of ij years, and in that time receyved benet and accolet [the first tonsure and acolytate] in the freres Austens in Boston of one frere Graunt, then beying suffragan of the diocese of Lincoln [“Frere Graunt” was William Grant, titular Bishop of Pavada, in the province of Constantinople. He was Vicar of Redgewell, in Essex, and Suffragan of Ely, from 1516 to 1525.—Stubbs’s Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum]; after that dwelling within Boston wt. one Mr. Williamson, merchaunt, half a yere, and after that dwellinge in Cambridge by the space of half a yere, used labour by the day beryng of ale and pekynge of saffron, and sometyme going to the colleges, and gate his mete and drynke of almes; and aft that the same Sir William, with ij monks of Whitby Abbey, and one Edward Prentis, went to Rome, to thentent for to have ben made p’st, to which order he could not be admitted; and after abiding in Larkington, in the countie of Essex, used labour for his levyng wt. one Thom. Grene his broder; and after that the same Sr. Will. cam to Cambridge, and ther teried iiij or v wekes, and gate his levynge of almes; and after, dwelling in Boston, agen laboured with dyvs persones by vij or viij wekes; and after that dwelling in London, in Holborn, with one Rickerby, a fustian dyer, about iij wekes, and after that the same William resorted to Cambridge, and ther met agen wt. the said Edward Prentise; and at instance and labour of one Mr. Cony, of Cambridge, the same Will. Grene and Edward Prentise obteyned a licence for one year of Mr. Cappes, than being deputee to the Chancellor of the said univ’sitie, under his seal of office, wherby the same Will. and Edward gathered toguether in Cambridgeshire releaff toward their exhibicon to scole by the space of viij weks, and after that the said Edward departed from the company of the same William. And shortly after that, one Robert Draper, scoler, borne at Feltham, in the countee of Lincoln, accompanyed wt. the same Willm., and they forged and made a newe licence, and putte therin ther bothe names, and the same sealed wt. the seale of the other licence granted to the same Will. and Edward as is aforeseid, by which forged licence the same Will. and Robt. gathered in Cambridgeshire and other shires. At Coventre the same Will. and Robt. caused one Knolles, a tynker, dwelling in Coventre, to make for them a case of tynne mete for a seale of a title which the same Robt. Draper holdde of Makby Abbey. And after that the same Willm. and Robt. cam to Cambridge, and ther met wt. one Sr. John Manthorp, the which hadde ben lately before at Rome, and ther was made a prest; and the same Robert Draper copied out the bulle of orders of deken, subdeken, and p’stehod for the same Willm.; and the same Willm. toke waxe, and leyed and p’st it to the prynte of the seale of the title that the said Robert had a Makby aforeseid, and led the same forged seale in the casse of tynne aforeseid, and with labels fastned ye same to his said forged bull. And sithen the same Willm. hath gathered in dyvers shires, as Northampton, Cambridge, Suffolk, and Norfolk, alway shewyng and feyning hymself that he hadde ben at Rome, and ther was made preste, by means whereof he hath receyved almes of dyvers and many persones.”—Norfolk Archæology, vol. iv. p. 342.
[233]Cobbler.
[234]Grease.
[235]York Fabric Rolls, p. 87, note.
[236]“Church of our Fathers,” ii. 441.
[237]Richmond Wills.
[238]“Church of our Fathers,” ii. 408, note.
[239]Newcourt’s “Repertorium.”
[240]Johnson’s “Canons,” ii. 421. Ang. Cath. Lib. Edition.
[241]Johnson’s “Canons,” ii. 421.
[242]One who sang annual or yearly masses for the dead.
[243]Enough.
[244]Chapel of Earl of Northumberland, from the Household Book of Henry Algernon, fifth Earl of Northumberland, born 1477, and died 1527. (“Antiq. Repertory,” iv. 242.);
First, a preist, a doctour of divinity, a doctor of law, or a bachelor of divinitie, to be dean of my lord’s chapell.
It.A preist for to be surveyour of my lorde’s landes.
It.A preist for to be secretary to my lorde.
It.A preist for to be amner to my lorde.
It.A preist for to be sub-dean for ordering and keaping the queir in my lorde’s chappell daily.
It.A preist for a riding chaplein for my lorde.
It.A preist for a chaplein for my lorde’s eldest son, to waite uppon him daily.
It.A preist for my lorde’s clark of the closet.
It.A preist for a maister of gramer in my lorde’s hous.
It.A preist for reading the Gospell in the chapel daily.
It.A preist for singing of our Ladies’ mass in the chapell daily.
The number of these persons as chapleins and preists in houshould are xi.
The gentlemen and children of my lorde’s chappell which be not appointed to attend at no time, but only in exercising of Godde’s service in the chapell daily at matteins, Lady-mass, hyhe-mass, evensong, and compeynge:—
First, a bass.It.A second bass.Third bass.A maister of the childer, or counter-tenor.Second and third counter-tenor.A standing tenour.A second, third, and fourth standing tenor.
First, a bass.
It.A second bass.
Third bass.
A maister of the childer, or counter-tenor.
Second and third counter-tenor.
A standing tenour.
A second, third, and fourth standing tenor.
The number of theis persons, as gentlemen of my lorde’s chapell, xi.
Children of my lorde’s chappell:—
Three trebles and three second trebles.
In all six.
A table of what the Earl and Lady were accustomed to offer at mass on all holydays “if he keep chappell,” of offering and annual lights paid for at Holy Blood of Haillis (Hales, in Gloucestershire), our Lady of Walsingham, St. Margaret in Lincolnshire, our Lady in the Whitefriars, Doncaster, of my lord’s foundation:—
Presents at Xmas to Barne, Bishop of Beverley and York, when he comes, as he is accustomed, yearly.Rewards to the children of his chapell when they do sing the responde called Exaudivi at the mattynstime for xi. in vespers upon Allhallow Day, 6s.8d.On St. Nicholas Eve, 6s.8d.To them of his lordshipe’s chappell if they doe play the play of the Nativitie upon Xmas Day in the mornynge in my lorde’s chapell before his lordship, xxs.For singing “Gloria in Excelsis” at the mattens time upon Xmas Day in the mg. To the Abbot of Miserewle (Misrule) on Xmas.To the yeoman or groom of the vestry for bringing him the hallowed taper on Candlemas Day.To his lordship’s chaplains and other servts. that play the Play before his lordship on Shrofetewsday at night, xxs.That play the Play of Resurrection upon Estur Daye in the mg. in my lorde’s chapell before his lordship.To the yeoman or groom of the vestry on Allhallows Day for syngynge for all Cristynne soles the saide nyhte to it be past mydnyght, 3s.4d.The Earl and Lady were brother and sister of St. Christopher Gilde of Yorke, and pd. 6s.8d.each yearly, and when the Master of the Gild brought my lord and my lady for their lyverays a yard of narrow violette cloth and a yard of narrow rayed cloth, 13s.4d.(i.e., a yard of each to each).And to Procter of St. Robert’s of Knasbrughe, when my lord and lady were brother and sister, 6s.8d.each.
Presents at Xmas to Barne, Bishop of Beverley and York, when he comes, as he is accustomed, yearly.
Rewards to the children of his chapell when they do sing the responde called Exaudivi at the mattynstime for xi. in vespers upon Allhallow Day, 6s.8d.
On St. Nicholas Eve, 6s.8d.
To them of his lordshipe’s chappell if they doe play the play of the Nativitie upon Xmas Day in the mornynge in my lorde’s chapell before his lordship, xxs.
For singing “Gloria in Excelsis” at the mattens time upon Xmas Day in the mg. To the Abbot of Miserewle (Misrule) on Xmas.
To the yeoman or groom of the vestry for bringing him the hallowed taper on Candlemas Day.
To his lordship’s chaplains and other servts. that play the Play before his lordship on Shrofetewsday at night, xxs.
That play the Play of Resurrection upon Estur Daye in the mg. in my lorde’s chapell before his lordship.
To the yeoman or groom of the vestry on Allhallows Day for syngynge for all Cristynne soles the saide nyhte to it be past mydnyght, 3s.4d.
The Earl and Lady were brother and sister of St. Christopher Gilde of Yorke, and pd. 6s.8d.each yearly, and when the Master of the Gild brought my lord and my lady for their lyverays a yard of narrow violette cloth and a yard of narrow rayed cloth, 13s.4d.(i.e., a yard of each to each).
And to Procter of St. Robert’s of Knasbrughe, when my lord and lady were brother and sister, 6s.8d.each.
At pp. 272-278, is an elaborate programme of the ordering of my lord’s chapel for the various services, from which it appears that there were organs, and several of the singing men played them in turn.
At p. 292 is an order about the washing of the linen for the chapel for a year. Surplices washed sixteen times a year against the great feasts—eighteen surplices for men, and six for children—and seven albs to be washed sixteen times a year, and “five aulter-cloths for covering of the alters” to be washed sixteen times a year.
Page 285 ordered that the vestry stuff shall have at every removal (from house to house) one cart for the carrying the nine antiphoners, the four grailles, the hangings of the three altars in the chapel, the surplices, the altar-cloths in my lord’s closet and my ladie’s, and the sort (suit) of vestments and single vestments and copes “accopeed” daily, and all other my lord’s chapell stuff to be sent afore my lord’s chariot before his lordship remove.
[Cardinal Wolsey, after the Earl’s death, intimated his wish to have the books of the Earl’s chapel, which a note speaks of as fine service books.—P. 314.]
[245]Edited by Mr. Gough Nichols for the Camden Society.
[246]Richard Burré, a wealthy yeoman and “ffarmer of the parsonage of Sowntyng, called the Temple, which I holde of the howse of St. Jonys,” in 19 Henry VIII. wills that Sir Robert Bechton, “my chaplen, syng ffor my soule by the span of ix. yers;” and further requires an obit for his soul for eleven years in Sompting Church.—(“Notes on Wills,” by M. A. Lower, “Sussex Archæological Collections,” iii. p. 112.)
[247]“Dialogue of Heresies,” iii. c. 12.
[248]See note on previous page, “the altar-cloths in my lord’s closet and my ladie’s.”
[249]Of the inventories to be found in wills, we will give only two, of the chapels of country gentlemen. Rudulph Adirlay, Esq. of Colwick (“Testamenta Eboracensia,” p. 30), Nottinghamshire,A.D.1429, leaves to Alan de Cranwill, his chaplain, a little missal and another book, and to Elizabeth his wife “the chalice, vestment, with two candelabra of laton, and the little missal, with all other ornaments belonging to my chapel.” In the inventories of the will of John Smith, Esq., of Blackmore, Essex,A.D.1543, occur: “In the chappell chamber—Item a long setle yoyned. In the chappell—Item one aulter of yoyner’s worke. Item a table with two leaves of the passion gilt. Item a long setle of waynscott. Item a bell hanging over the chapel. Chappell stuff: Copes and vestments thre. Aulter fronts foure. Corporall case one; and dyvers peces of silk necessary for cusshyons v. Thomas Smith (to have) as moche as wyll serve his chappell, the resydue to be solde by myn executours.” The plate and candlesticks of the chapel are not specially mentioned; they are probably included among the plate which is otherwise disposed of, and “the xiiiij latyn candlestyckes of dyvers sorts,” elsewhere mentioned.—Essex Archæological Society’s Transactions, vol. iii. p. 60.
[250]See the Rev. W. Stubbs’s learned and laborious “Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum,” which gives lists of the suffragan (as well as the diocesan) bishops of the Church of England.
[251]“Richmondshire Wills,” p. 34.
[252]“Test. Ebor.,” 220.
[253]Ibid., p. 39.
[254]In a pontifical of the middle of the fifteenth century, in the British Museum, (Egerton, 1067) at f. 19, is an illumination at the beginning of the service for ordering an ostiary, in which the act is represented. The bishop, habited in a green chasuble and white mitre, is delivering the keys to the clerk, who is habited in a surplice over a black cassock, and is tonsured. At f. 35 of the same MS. is a pretty little picture, showing the ordination of priests; and at f. 44 v., of the consecration of bishops. Other episcopal acts are illustrated in the same MS.: confirmation at f. 12; dedication of a church, f. 100; consecration of an altar, f. 120; benediction of a cemetery, f. 149 v.; consecration of chalice and paten, f. 163; reconciling penitents, f. 182 and f. 186 v.; the “feet-washing,” f. 186.
[255]Outer short cloak.
[256]Was not sufficiently a man of the world to be fit for a secular occupation.
[257]Obtain.
[258]To pursue his studies.
[259]For another good illustration of a clerk of time of Richard II. see the illumination of that king’s coronation in the frontispiece of the MS. Royal, 14, E iv., where he seems to be in attendance on one of the bishops. He is habited in blue cassock, red liripipe, black purse, with penner and inkhorn.
[260]“Test. Ebor.,” vol. ii. p. 98.
[261]Ibid., vol. ii. p. 38.
[262]“Test. Ebor.,” vol. ii. p. 143.
[263]Ibid., vol. ii. p. 149.
[264]Archdeacon Hale’s “Precedents in Criminal Causes,” p. 113.
[265]From the duty of carrying holy water, mentioned here and in other extracts, the clerk derived the name ofaqua bajulus, by which he is often called,e.g., in many of the places in Archdeacon Hale’s “Precedents in Criminal Causes.”
[266]Ibid., p. 122.
[267]York Fabric Rolls, p. 257.
[268]Ibid., p. 248.
[269]York Fabric Rolls, p. 265.
[270]Ibid., p. 266.
[271]Ibid., p. 248.
[272]Bohn’s Edition, ii. 388.
[273]Hair.
[274]Complexion.
[275]Neatly.
[276]Watchet, a kind of cloth.
[277]Small twigs or trees.
[278]Musical instruments.
[279]As the parish clerk of St. Mary, York, used to go to the people’s houses with holy water on Sundays.
[280]Grafted lies.
[281]As debtors flee to sanctuary at Westminster, and live on what they have borrowed, and set their creditors at defiance.
[282]Them.
[283]Their.
[284]Know.
[285]Great and little.
[286]Gave.
[287]Angry.
[288]Difficult nor proud.
[289]Smite, rebuke.
[290]Scrupulous.
[291]Cardinal Otho, the Papal legate in England in the time of Henry III., was a deacon (Matthew Paris, Sub. Ann. 1237); Cardinal Pandulph, in King John’s time, was a sub-deacon (R. Wendover, Sub. Ann. 1212).
[292]There is a very fine drawing of an archbishop inpontificalibusof the latter part of the thirteenth century in the MS. Royal, 2 A. f. 219 v.
[293]“Church of our Fathers,” i. 319.
[294]In a Spanish Book of Hours (Add. 1819-3), at f. 86 v., is a representation of an ecclesiastic in a similar robe of dark purple with a hood, he wears a cardinal’s hat and holds a papal tiara in his hand.
[295]Engraved by Dr. Rock, ii. 97.
[296]Engraved in theArchæological Journal, vii. 17 and 19.
[297]A plain straight staff is sometimes seen in illuminations being put into a bishop’s grave; such staves have been actually found in the coffins of bishops.
[298]The alb was often of coloured materials. We find coloured albs in the mediæval inventories. In Louandre’s “Arts Somptuaires,” vol. i. xi. siecle, is a picture of the canons of St. Martin of Tours in blue albs. Their costume is altogether worth notice.
[299]For another ecclesiastical procession which shows very clearly the costume of the various orders of clergy, see Achille Jubinal’s “Anciennes Tapisseries,” plate ii.
[300]Incisis, cut and slashed so as to show the lining.
[301]Monumenta Franciscana, lxxxix. Master of the Rolls’ publications.
[302]York Fabric Rolls, p. 243.
[303]This word, which will frequently occur, means a kind of ornamental dagger, which was worn hanging at the girdle in front by civilians, and knights when out of armour. The instructions to parish priests, already quoted, says—
In honeste clothes thow muste gonBaselard ny bawdryke were thou non.
[304]The honorary title of Sir was given to priests down to a late period. A law of Canute declared a priest to rank with the second order of thanes—i.e., with the landed gentry. “By the laws, armorial, civil, and of arms, a priest in his place in civil conversation is always before any esquire, as being a knight’s fellow by his holy orders, and the third of the three Sirs which only were in request of old (no baron, viscount, earl, nor marquis being then in use), to wit, Sir King, Sir Knight, and Sir Priest.... But afterwards Sir in English was restrained to these four,—Sir Knight, Sir Priest, and Sir Graduate, and, in common speech, Sir Esquire; so always, since distinction of titles were, Sir Priest was ever the second.”—A Decacordon of Quodlibetical Questions concerning Religion and State, quoted in Knight’s Shakespeare, Vol. I. of Comedies, note to Sc. I, Act i. of “Merry Wives of Windsor.” In Shakespeare’s characters we haveSir Hugh EvansandSir Oliver Martext, and, at a later period still, “Sir John” was the popular name for a priest. Piers Ploughman (Vision XI. 304) calls them “God’s knights,”
And also in the Psalter says David to overskippers,Psallite Deo nostro, psallite; quoniam rex terreDeus Israel; psallite sapienter.The Bishop shall be blamed before God, as I leve [believe]That crowneth such goddes knightes that conneth noughtsapienterSynge ne psalmes rede ne segge a masse of the day.Ac never neyther is blameless the bisshop ne the chapleyne,For her either is endited; and that ofignoranciaNon excusat episcopos, nec idiotes prestes.
[305]York Fabric Rolls, p. 268.
[306]Described and engraved in the Sussex Archæological Collections, vii. f. 13.
[307]Described and engraved in Mr. Parker’s “Domestic Architecture.”
[308]Parker’s “Domestic Architecture,” ii. p. 87.
[309]There are numerous curious examples of fifteenth-century timber window-tracery in the Essex churches.
[310]The deed of settlement of the vicarage of Bulmer, in the year 1425, gives us the description of a parsonage house of similar character. It consisted of one hall with two chambers annexed, the bakehouse, kitchen, and larder-house, one chamber for the vicar’s servant, a stable, and a hay-soller (Soler, loft), with a competent garden. Ingrave rectory house was a similar house; it is described, in a terrier of 1610, as “a house containing a hall, a parlour, a buttery, two lofts, and a study, also a kitchen, a milk-house, and a house for poultry, a barn, a stable and a hay-house.”—Newcourt, ii. p. 281.
Ingatestone rectory, in the terrier of 1610, was “a dwelling-house with a hall, a parlour, and a chamber within it; a study newly built by the then parson; a chamber over the parlour, and another within that with a closet; without the dwelling-house a kitchen and two little rooms adjoining to it, and a chamber over them; two little butteries over against the hall, and next them a chamber, and one other chamber over the same; without the kitchen there is a dove-house, and another house built by the then parson; a barn and a stable very ruinous.”—Newcourt, ii. 348. Here, too, we seem to have an old house with hall in the middle, parlour and chamber at one end and two butteries at the other, in the midst of successive additions.
There is also a description of the rectory house of West Haningfield, Essex, in Newcourt, ii. 309, and of North Bemfleet, ii. 46.
[311]Newcourt’s “Repertorum,” ii. 97.
[312]Newcourt, ii. 49.
[313]George Darell,A.D.1432, leaves one book of statutes, containing the statutes of Kings Edward III., Richard II., and Henry IV.; one book of law, called “Natura Brevium;” one Portus, and one Par Statutorum Veterum.—Testamenta Eboracensia, ii. p. 27.
[314]There are other inventories of the goods of clerics, which will help to throw light upon their domestic economy at different periods,e.g., of the vicar of Waghen,A.D.1462, in the York Wills, ii. 261, and of a chantry priest,A.D.1542, in the Sussex Archæological Collections, iii. p. 115.
[315]Bohn’s Edition, vol. ii. p. 278.
[316]Matthew Paris, vol. i. p. 285 (Bohn’s edition).
[317]Ibid., vol. ii. p. 193.
[318]Ibid., vol iii. p. 48.
[319]Numb. x. 9.
[320]Exod. xv. 21.
[321]1 Sam. xviii. 7.
[322]Jer. xxxi. 4.
[323]Is. v. 12.
[324]1 Sam. x. 5.
[325]2 Sam. vi. 5.
[326]Psalm lxviii.
[327]Also a paper read before the London and Middlesex Architectural Society in June, 1871.
[328]The king’s minstrel of the last Saxon king is mentioned in Domesday Book as holding lands in Gloucestershire.
[329]In the reign of Henry I., Rayer was the King’s Minstrel. Temp. Henry II., it was Galfrid, or Jeffrey. Temp. Richard I., Blondel, of romantic memory. Temp. Henry III., Master Ricard. It was the Harper of Prince Edward (afterwards King Edward I.) who brained the assassin who attempted the Prince’s life, when his noble wife Eleanor risked hers to extract the poison from the wound. In Edward I.’s reign we have mention of a King Robert, who may be the impetuous minstrel of the Prince. Temp. Edward II., there occur two: a grant of houses was made to William de Morley, the King’s Minstrel, which had been held by his predecessor, John de Boteler. At St. Bride’s, Glamorganshire, is the insculpt effigy of a knightly figure, of the date of Edward I., with an inscription to John le Boteler; but there is nothing to identify him with the king of the minstrels. Temp. Richard II., John Camuz was the king of his minstrels. When Henry V. went to France, he took his fifteen minstrels, and Walter Haliday, their Marshal, with him. After this time the chief of the royal minstrels seems to have been styledMarshalinstead of King; and in the next reign but one we find aSergeantof the Minstrels. Temp. Henry VI., Walter Haliday was still Marshal of the Minstrels; and this king issued a commission forimpressingboys to supply vacancies in their number. King Edward IV. granted to the said long-lived Walter Haliday, Marshal, and to seven others, a charter for the restoration of a Fraternity or Gild, to be governed by a marshal and two wardens, to regulate the minstrels throughout the realm (except those of Chester). The minstrels of the royal chapel establishment of this king were thirteen in number; some trumpets, some shalms, some small pipes, and other singers. The charter of Edward IV. was renewed by Henry VIII. in 1520, to John Gilman, his then marshal, on whose death Hugh Wodehouse was promoted to the office.
[330]Ellis’s “Early English Metrical Romances” (Bohn’s edition), p. 287.
[331]From Mr. T. Wright’s “Domestic Manners of the English.”
[332]Among his nobles.
[333]Their.
[334]Great chamber, answering to our modern drawing-room.
[335]Couches.
[336]For other illustrations of musical instruments see a good representation of Venus playing a rote, with a plectrum in the right hand, pressing the strings with the left, in the Sloane MS. 3,985, f. 44 v. Also a band, consisting of violin, organistrum (like the modern hurdy-gurdy), harp, and dulcimer, in the Harl. MS. 1,527; it represents the feast on the return of the prodigal son. In the Arundel MS. 83, f. 155, is David with a band of instruments of early fourteenth-century date, and other instruments at f. 630. In the early fourteenth-century MS. 28,162, at f. 6 v., David is tuning his harp with a key; at f. 10 v. is Dives faring sumptuously, with carver and cup-bearer, and musicians with lute and pipe.
[337]Mallory’s “History of Prince Arthur,” vol. i. p. 44.
[338]Viz., by making the sign of the cross upon them.
[339]Edward VI.’s commissioners return a pair of organs in the church of St. Peter Mancroft, Norwich, which they value at 40s., and in the church of St. Peter, Parmentergate, in the same city, a pair of organs which they value at £10 (which would be equal to about £70 or £80 in these days), and soon after we find that 8d.were “paied to a carpenter for makyng of a plaunche (a platform of planks) to sette the organs on.”
[340]Another, with kettle-drums and trumpets, in the MS. Add. 27,675, f. 13.
[341]A harp with its case about the lower part is in the Add. MS. 18,854, f. 91.
[342]There are casts of these in the Mediæval Court of the Crystal Palace.
[343]“Annales Archæologiques,” vol. vi. p. 315.
[344]Ibid., vol. ix. p. 329.
[345]Kettle-drums.
[346]In the account of the minstrel at Kenilworth, subsequently given, he is described as “a squiere minstrel of Middlesex, that travelled the country this summer time.”
[347]
“Miri it is in somer’s tideSwainés gin on justing ride.”
[348]
“Whanne that April with his shourés sote,” &c.“Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages.”
[349]Tedious, irksome.
[350]Lose their.
[351]Renders tedious.
[352]Fontenelle (“Histoire du Théâtre,” quoted by Percy) tells us that in France, men, who by the division of the family property had only the half or the fourth part of an old seignorial castle, sometimes went rhyming about the world, and returned to acquire the remainder of their ancestral castle.
[353]In the MS. illuminations of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the messenger is denoted by peculiarities of equipment. He generally bears a spear, and has a very small, round target (or, perhaps, a badge of his lord’s arms) at his girdle—e.g., in the MS. Add. 11,639 of the close of the thirteenth century, folio 203 v. In the fifteenth century we see messengers carrying letters openly, fastened in the cleft of a split wand, in the MS. of about the same date, Harl. 1,527, folio 1,080, and in the fourteenth century MS. Add. 10,293, folio 25; and in Hans Burgmaier’s Der Weise Könige.
[354]It is right to state that one MS. of this statute gives Mareschans instead of Menestrals; but the reading in the text is that preferred by the Record Commission, who have published the whole of the interesting document.
[355]In the romance of Richard Cœur de Lion we read that, after the capture of Acre, he distributed among the “heralds, disours, tabourers, and trompours,” who accompanied him, the greater part of the money, jewels, horses, and fine robes which had fallen to his share. We have many accounts of the lavish generosity with which chivalrous lords propitiated the favourable report of the heralds and minstrels, whose good report was fame.
[356]May we infer from the exemption of the jurisdiction of the Duttons, and not of that of the court of Tutbury and the guild of Beverley, that the jurisdiction of the King of the Minstrels over the whole realm was established after the former, and before the latter? The French minstrels were incorporated by charter, and had a king in the year 1330, forty-seven years before Tutbury. In the ordonnance of Edward II., 1315, there is no allusion to such a general jurisdiction.
[357]One of the minstrels of King Edward the Fourth’s household (there were thirteen others) was called thewayte; it was his duty to “pipe watch.” In the romance of “Richard Cœur de Lion,” when Richard, with his fleet, has come silently in the night under the walls of Jaffa, which was besieged on the land side by the Saracen army:—
“They looked up to the castel,They heard no pipe, ne flagel,[A]They drew em nigh to land,If they mighten understand,And they could ne nought espie,Ne by no voice of minstralcie,That quick man in the castle were.”
And so they continued in uncertainty until the spring of the day, then
“A wait there came, in a kernel,[B]And piped a nott in a flagel.”
And when he recognised King Richard’s galleys,
“Then a merrier note he blew,And piped, ‘Seigneurs or sus! or sus!King Richard is comen to us!’”