Curious Church Customs and Cognate Subjects Part 12

The great church festivals were much abused by traders. At these great gatherings, dealers in all kinds of goods appeared on the scene, spread their wares on the tombstones, and could with difficulty be kept out of the sacred edifice itself. Their noisy shoutings, the a.s.semblage of pleasure seekers, and the tumult attending such gatherings interfered seriously with the Divine service proceeding inside the church. A presentment, in 1416, from St. Michael-le-Belfry, in the city of York, states "the parishioners say that a common market of vendibles is held in the churchyard on Sundays and holidays, and divers things, and goods, and rushes, are exposed there for sale, and horses stand over the bodies of the dead there buried, and defile the graves, to the great dishonour and manifest hindrance of divine worship, on account of the clamour of those who stand about." (_Ibid._, p. 248.) While so late as 1519, the churchwardens of Riccall, in Yorkshire, complain that "pedlars come on festival days into the porch of the church and there sell their merchandise." (_Ibid._, p. 271.)

Annual fairs were sometimes held in churchyards, especially where there was some saintly shrine or relic, which attracted crowds for the period of some anniversary. Perhaps Thomas-a-Beckett's shrine at Canterbury was the most celebrated, but the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham almost surpa.s.sed it. The common people held the idea that the Milky Way pointed towards Walsingham, and they called it Walsingham Way accordingly; while Glas...o...b..ry was called a second Rome for the number and sacredness of its relics. When the pilgrims had paid their devotion to the relics, they needed to eat and drink, and they were not averse to spend the rest of the day in amus.e.m.e.nt. Accordingly, minstrels, players, jugglers, and the like, supplied that demand, and the pilgrimage became a fair.

On Sundays and holidays, the churchyard became a public playground. In pre-Reformation days, a holiday was a holy-day, when man went not forth to his labour. Then there were no eight hours day, no Early Closing a.s.sociations, but work, work, work, from early morn till late night, the only cessation of toil being on Sundays and Saints' days, hence termed a holy-day. On that day, people went to matins and ma.s.s in the morning, and spent the rest of the day in amus.e.m.e.nts, not always elevating or refined.

The Synod of Exeter, already quoted, says, "We strictly enjoin on parish priests that they publicly proclaim in their churches, that no one presume to carry on combats, dances, or other improper sports in the churchyards, especially on the eves of the feasts of saints; or stage plays or farces, by which the honour of the churches is defiled and sacred ordinances despised." Again, at Salton, Yorkshire, in 1472, "it is ordered, by the consent of the parishioners, that no one use improper and prohibited sports within the churchyard, as, for example, wrestling, football, and handball, under penalty of twopence forfeit."[11] The ordinance seems to have been disregarded, or to have had only a temporary effect, for in 1519, a second complaint is made (_Ibid._, p. 270), when the ecclesiastical authorities commanded, "Let them desist on pain of excommunication."

In days when men went about armed with sword and dagger, it was sure to happen that a hasty quarrel would lead to stroke of sword or stab of dagger, without heed to the sacred character of the place, or to the fact that the a.s.sault const.i.tuted sacrilege, and desecrated "G.o.d's Acre" by bloodshed.

Whitsuntide used to have a special feast of its own, known as Whitsun Ales or Church Ales, an inst.i.tution by which money was obtained for repairing the church, helping the poor, and various charitable purposes. The churchwardens brewed the ale, and on the appointed day half the country-side a.s.sembled to join in the festivities;--music and song, baiting of bulls, bears, and badgers, bowls and ball, dice and card-playing, dancing and merry-making. The Church Ales were very popular in the North of England, where it was the practice to hold them in tents and booths erected in the churchyards. In 1651, in Somerset, seventy-two clergymen of the county certified that during these Church Ales, which generally fell on a Sunday, "the service of G.o.d was more solemnly performed, and the service better attended, than on other days."

As an instance of what could be accomplished at one of these Church Ales, we may mention that "in 1532, the little village of Chaddesden spent 34s.

10d. on an 'Aell' for the benefit of the great tower of All Saints', Derby, which was then being built, and earned by it 25 8s. 6d.,--near 400 of our money." (Lichfield, Diocesan Hist., S.P.C.K.)

Doles are often distributed in the churchyard. William Robinson, at one time Sheriff of Hull, when he died in 1708, left money to purchase a dozen loaves of bread, costing a shilling each, to be given to twelve poor widows at his grave every Christmas Day. Leonard Dare, in 1611, directed that on Christmas Day, Lady Day, and Michaelmas Day, the churchwardens were "to buy, bring and lay on his tombstone, threescore penny loaves of good wholesome bread," which were to be distributed to the poor of the parish. A quaint custom is still enacted annually in London on Good Friday. The vicar of St. Bartholomew's the Great, Smithfield, drops twenty-one sixpences in a row on a certain lady's grave. The money is picked up by the same number of widows kneeling, who have previously attended service at the church, where a sermon is preached.[12]

A quaint old custom, once not infrequently practised, was that of scrambling bread and cheese and other edibles in the churchyard. A story is told of two poor sisters walking to London to claim an estate. Arriving at Paddington, weary, hungry, and footsore, their miserable condition aroused sympathy, and the good folk of Paddington gave them relief. In course of time, their claim was established, and as a token of grat.i.tude they left a bequest of bread and cheese, to be thrown from the top of the church of St. Mary's, Paddington, among the people a.s.sembled in the churchyard below. This custom was continued into this present century, for in 1821, it is noticed in the newspapers as an annual practice to throw bread and cheese from the belfry of the church at eight o'clock on the Sunday before Christmas Day. At Barford, Oxfordshire, is a piece of land, known as White-bread Close, the rent of which was formerly spent in buying bread to be scrambled for at the church door. A correspondent of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1824, says that the "distribution occasioned such scenes of indecent riot and outrage, even fighting in the church itself, that a late curate very properly effected the suppression of a practice productive of this gross abuse." Mr. Tuke, of Wath, near Rotherham, who died in 1810, left a bequest whereby forty dozen penny loaves were to be thrown from the church leads at twelve o'clock on Christmas Day for ever. This is the latest instance of a scrambling custom with which we are acquainted.[13]

Bells were frequently cast in churchyards, and from the editor of this volume we have received some interesting notes on this subject. "In the days of the early bell founders," says Mr. William Andrews, "the country roads were little better than miry lanes, full of ruts and holes, and where the moisture of the winter was often not evaporated during the summer. For this reason bells were mostly cast in the immediate vicinity of the churches, or monastic establishments, they were intended to grace.

The monks, too, were not unwilling to retain the usage as an opportunity for a religious service; they stood round the casting pit, and, as the metal was poured into the mould, would chant psalms and offer prayers.

Southey, in 'The Doctor,' says:--'The brethren stood round the furnace, ranged in processional order, sang the 150th Psalm, and then, after certain prayers, blessed the molten metal, and called upon the Lord to infuse into it His grace, and overshadow it with His power, for the honour of the saint to whom the bell was to be dedicated, and whose name it was to bear.'

"Sometimes the bells were cast in the interior of the building, as at St.

Albans, where, in the beginning of the 14th century, the great bell called the 'Amphibalus,' being broken, was cast in the hall of the sacristy. In some places, Kirkby Malzeard, and Haddenham, for instance, the bells were cast in the church itself. But most frequently the churchyard was chosen for the purpose. At Scalford, during excavations made some time ago, there were found traces of a former furnace, and also a ma.s.s of bell metal, which had evidently been melted on the spot; about 1876, the churchyard of Empingham yielded a similar instance. The bells of Meaux Abbey were cast within the precincts. Coming down to more recent times we find the bell-founders obviating risks of transit by the same means. The 'Great Tom' of Lincoln, in 1610, and the great bell of Canterbury, in 1762, were cast in the yards of their respective cathedrals. It was customary also for bell craftsmen to settle awhile in a particular locality, and thence extend their business from that centre to the churches around. This was done in 1734 by Daniel Hedderly, of Bawtry, at Winterton, in Lincolnshire, and by Henry Bagley, who advertised in 1732, that he would 'cast any ring or rings of bells in the town they belong.' Latterly, however, the improved roads and means of transit have enabled bells to be cast in their proper foundries, and then conveyed to their posts of office."

Sundials were most commonly placed on the south wall of the church, but many a churchyard is graced by these obsolete time-keepers. At Kilham, East Yorkshire, opposite the door of the south porch of the church, a stone coffin has been sunk, head foremost, about half its length in the ground, and on the foot of this coffin a sundial was placed in 1769, and is still in a good state of preservation.

Wimborne Minster, Dorset, boasts a dial which must not be missed. It is dated 1732, and is to be found under the yew tree in the Minster yard, though its original position was on the gable of the north transept. It is of stone, 6 ft. in height; its south face is 4 ft. in width, and its east and west faces 3 ft. respectively, each of which bears a gnomon--a somewhat unusual feature.

A few miles from Canterbury, in Chilham churchyard, stands a beautiful sundial, the graceful stone pedstal of which was designed by the famous Inigo Jones.

Sundials have become well nigh useless owing to improved methods of keeping time, but one loves to see these relics which link us to a past which, with all its disadvantages, has many pleasant bye-paths for the men of to-day.

The stocks were sometimes placed in the churchyard, though more frequently near the village cross or in the market place. In 1578, tenpence was paid "for a hinging locke to the stockes in the Mynster Yearde,"[14] and again in 1693 "for rebuilding the gallows in the Horse faire, and the stocks in the Minster yard, 5 5s. 10d." The stocks at Beverley Minster were movable, and placed in the yard when required for use.

A strange scene was enacted in St. Paul's churchyard, in May, 1531.

According to Fox, the well known writer on martyrs, Bishop Stokesley "caused all the New Testament of Tyndal's translation, and many other books which he had bought, to be openly burnt in St. Paul's churchyard."

A curious act of penance was performed in Hull, in 1534, by the vicar of North Cave. He had made a study of the work of the Reformers, who had settled in Antwerp, and sent their books over to England. In a sermon preached in the Holy Trinity Church, Hull, he advocated their teaching, and for this he was tried for heresy and convicted. He recanted, and as an act of penance, one Sunday, he walked round the church barefooted, with only his shirt on, and carrying a large f.a.ggot in his hand to represent the punishment he deserved.

Crosses have always been deemed a fitting emblem and suitable ornament for churchyards. Many ancient, interesting, and valuable crosses are yet to be found, notably at Ilkley, Crowle, Bakewell, and Eyam, the latter of which lay in pieces in a corner of the churchyard, until restored by John Howard, the philanthropist.

One result of church restoration by vicars, strangers to the place and people, and but newly installed, is the formation of a rubbish heap, in some neglected or unseen corner of the churchyard. Here are thrown, carelessly, cruelly, wantonly, costly stones of marble, alabaster, or granite, removed from the interior of the church, because there is no representative to plead for their safety. Boys clamber over the wall, make houses of the slabs, and for one brief hour, "dwell in marble halls," then go home and carry off the smaller pieces to ornament a rockery. It has been my good fortune, on more than one occasion, to rescue a monumental slab from destruction, and place it in the hands of the present representative of the family mentioned thereon.

Let us go through this little wicket gate which gives entrance to this village churchyard. As the gate clicks behind us, we find ourselves close to a handsome modern cross, raised on four circular steps. Here let us sit awhile and find rest for body and soul. The gra.s.s is closely cut between the graves, the little gra.s.sy mounds themselves have been made into tiny flower gardens. All around is evidence of care and pride in work; it is somebody's hobby as well as his living. Round the larger family graves, tasteful iron railings are fixed, and creeping plants and climbing roses rob the erection of its rigidity. At the beginning of the eighth century, a wise Northumbrian monarch was laid to rest in this "garden of sleep,"

and for twelve centuries the long roll of those joining the majority has been added to here in this quiet place, until the very dust on which we walk is sacred. Like Moses in the desert we are on holy ground--it is "G.o.d's Acre."

Altars in Churches.

BY THE REV. GEO. S. TYACK, B.A.

The altar, although it is the most important and most conspicuous article of church furniture, is not one that provides much material for gossip of the quaint and curious kind. And this is natural: a decent reverence having protected the Christian "Holy of Holies" from the vagaries that have sometimes invented grotesque customs in connection with other parts of the church. This feeling of sanct.i.ty arises most obviously from the fact that on the altar the sacred mystery of the Eucharist is offered; but in early times it was intensified by the knowledge that beneath that altar rested the remains of some saint or martyr. In the first ages it was so far customary thus to commemorate the church's departed heroes, that _confessio_, or _martyrion_ (that is, the grave of a confessor or martyr), became recognized names for the altar.

In later times the custom was reversed; the altar was no longer reared over the bones of the saint, but the body of anyone whom the church specially wished to honour was buried beneath the altar; and even now, when interments within churches are forbidden, the same natural feeling often finds expression in the burial of a parish priest immediately without the east wall, as near as possible to the altar that he served.

Probably it was the thought of security guaranteed by the sacredness of the altar which suggested to the monks of Canterbury the making of a grated vault beneath the high altar of the cathedral, in which to store their treasures. Here, before the Reformation, was kept a collection of gold and silver vessels, so large and costly, that in the opinion of Erasmus, Midas and Croesus would seem but beggars in presence of it.

This altar was itself lavishly adorned, and all its glory had not disappeared in the days of Archbishop Laud, one of whose offences was the adorning of it with "a most idolatrous costly glory cloth."

For richness of material no altar that the world has seen could well excel the one erected in the Cathedral of S. Sophia by the Emperor Justinian. It was "a most inimitable work, for it was artificially composed of all sorts of materials that either the earth or the sea could afford, gold, silver, and all kinds of stones, wood, metals, and other things; which being melted and mixed together, a most curious table was framed out of this universal ma.s.s." The result, one cannot but think, with all its splendour, must have been somewhat barbaric. Other altars we read of in the early ages made of gold, or of pure silver, and others, like that presented to a church by Pulcheria according to Sozomen, adorned with gold and precious stones.

There seems never to have been any very definite rule in force as to the material of which an altar should be made. It is true that the Council of Epaone (A.D. 517) decreed that "no altar should be consecrated except it were of stone;" but in practice, metal and wooden altars still continued to be used, both in the east and the west.

The custom of having a tabernacle permanently on the altar for the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament did not become usual until the twelfth century, but as early as the middle of the ninth century, Leo IV.

mentions a pyx suspended for the same purpose above it. In fact we find traces as far back as the sixth of the use of pyxes in the form of doves made of gold or silver; and in England this custom continued until the Reformation. The pyx at Durham Cathedral, which hung from a hook still to be seen in the roof, was in the form of a pelican "in her piety," that is, feeding her young with her heart's blood; a figure which has been copied in the lectern now in use.

As the usual ornaments of the altar and its ministers became more numerous and more costly, it was inevitable that the question of responsibility for their provision should arise. Such a dispute came for settlement before Walter de Gray, Archbishop of York (1216-1256) in 1253, and he drew up a catalogue of such necessary things as the parishioners were to provide.

It will perhaps surprise some people to know that the custom of placing vases of flowers on the altar, so far from being a modern innovation, is one of the most ancient ways of adorning it. S. Augustine speaks of a young man taking a flower from an altar in an oratory dedicated to S.

Stephen; and elsewhere we read of flowers, skilfully interwoven, as a decoration of the altar.

Anciently altars had no covering, except the linen clothes placed on the top, but as early as the sixth century Gregory of Tours speaks of a silk pall as a covering for one. It was in the eighth century, however, and by the influence of Pope Leo III., that altar-cloths came generally into use.

The name for this in the Roman Missal is _Pallium_, or pall, and that name is still preserved in our English Coronation Service, where the gift of a pall is prescribed as part of the oblation to be made by the Sovereign. In accordance with this direction, and the custom of her ancestors, Queen Victoria, at her coronation, made an offering of a pall of cloth-of-gold, which was presented at the altar steps.

In marked contrast to the reverence shown to the altar in almost all ages and places, is a custom that for some couple of centuries existed at S.

Ives in Huntingdonshire. A certain Dr. Robert Wilde, dying there in 1678, left a sum of 50, the interest of which was to be annually expended in the purchase of Bibles, each of which was not to exceed 7s. 6d. in price.

The following extraordinary method of distributing these volumes was also enjoined. Six boys and six girls of the parish having been selected, were to stand at the altar and cast thereon with three dice, those making the highest aggregate number of points to have the Bibles. The occasion was to be further improved by the preaching of an appropriate sermon by the Vicar, for which he was to receive the sum of 10s. A piece of ground, now known as "Bible Orchard," was bought with the legacy, and the distribution has duly taken place ever since in accordance with the donor's wishes, except that in recent years a small table has been placed at the chancel step for the dice throwings, and the desecration of the altar avoided.

So strange a custom, however good the founder's intention, could scarcely begin, much less take root, and live among us now; when we see on every hand efforts to treat G.o.d's altar-throne with the reverence, and to adorn it with such dignity, as becomes it. And we may surely see in the revived life and widened usefulness of the English Church of to-day, a fulfilment of the Divine promise, "Them that honour Me, I will honour."

The Rood Loft and its Uses.

BY JOHN T. PAGE.

The word _rood_ or _rod_ is of Saxon origin, and signifies a cross, or crucifix. It was universally adopted in Roman Catholic times to denote the cross on which Christ suffered death, and thus instead of the Holy Cross we invariably read of the Holy Rood.

The annals of legendary lore record that on the 3rd of May, A.D. 328, the true cross was found by St. Helena, buried deep in the ground at Jerusalem. Cosroes, King of Persia, on plundering the city, carried the precious relic away with him, but it was recovered again by Heraclius, Emperor of the Eastern Empire, who, in the year 629, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and restored it to the Holy Sepulchre.

Ever since then the 14th of September has been celebrated as the Festival of the Holy Rood, or Holy Cross. Crosses had been set up in churches as far back as the year A.D. 431, and henceforward until the time of the Reformation they continued to be an important article of church furniture.

From the earliest times it had been customary to separate that part of the Church at the east end where the altar stood, from the body of the nave, where the common people a.s.sembled for worship. For this reason we find the arches between the chancel and the nave in Anglo-Saxon and Norman Churches very narrow, so that a curtain could easily be stretched across the opening. Later on this curtain was displaced by a screen of open woodwork, and in some cases stone was used instead of wood. This screen was generally carried up to the capitals of the columns which supported the chancel arch, and was surmounted by a substantial cross-beam. Upon the beam was constructed a loft or gallery, in the centre of which stood the rood, or crucifix. Access was generally gained to the rood loft by a newel staircase cut either in the north or south wall of the chancel, and occasionally the staircase existed on both sides. In some churches the rood loft extended across the side aisles as well, and this necessitated the erection of a specially constructed turret at the east end of one of the aisles.