Parish Priests and Their People in the Middle Ages in England Part 10

THE PUBLIC SERVICES IN CHURCH.

The public services on Sunday in a parish church were Matins, Ma.s.s, and Evensong. We do not propose more than to take an outside view of them; the reader who cares to do so may without difficulty obtain a missal and breviary, and study their contents. We may, however, make two remarks bearing upon the important general question of the popular religion of these Middle Ages. The first is that there is a widespread error on the subject of the "Ma.s.s" in the minds of those who have never opened a missal. It is taken for granted that it was the most corrupt and idolatrous feature of all the Roman corruptions; on the contrary, the Eucharistic service of the Mediaeval English Church was very little altered in substance from that of the sixth century, and is so sound that it is inconsistent with some of the modern Roman corruptions in doctrine and practice. The Matins and Evensong of those times consisted of an acc.u.mulation of several of the "Hour" offices; and the Morning and Evening Prayer of our Prayer-book consists of a condensation of those same "Hours;" so that the regular popular services were far more free from corruptions and superst.i.tions than is commonly supposed. These were to be found chiefly in glosses on the services, and additions to them.

It is probable that the Sunday services were attended with fair regularity by the majority of the people.[193] Not only did the clergy exercise more authoritative oversight over their people than they do in these times, but it was the duty of churchwardens to present people who were flagrantly negligent of their religious duties, and of the Ecclesiastical Courts to punish them.[194]

The times of service varied in different times and places, but they were earlier than our present usage.

It is certain that matins always preceded the Divine service,[195] and it is probable that the normal time for the latter was nine o'clock;[196] it was not considered right to celebrate it after twelve o'clock.

If not every Sunday, at least at certain times a sermon was preached, about which we shall have to speak more at large presently. All the people who were of age and not excommunicate were communicants, but the vast majority only communicated once a year, at Easter, some pious people a little more frequently, but the most devout not oftener than twelve times a year.[197] But at every celebration a loaf of bread, the "holy loaf,"

was blessed, and broken or cut in pieces, and given to the people. Here comes in a question whether the laity attended ma.s.s fasting. It would seem that it was not necessary, since they did not communicate, but that they may have done so out of reverence is suggested by a note in Blunt's Annotated Prayer-book, that those who had not come fasting to the service, did not eat their portion of the "holy loaf," but gave it to another, or reserved it for future consumption. People dined no doubt immediately they reached their homes after service.

Probably the evensong at about three in the afternoon was not so well attended as the morning service; people who have some distance to go in all weathers from their homes to the church do not usually go twice a day.

It was probably the general custom to catechize the children in the afternoon.

All this is ill.u.s.trated by some extracts from the author of "Piers Plowman":--

For holy church exhorteth All manner of people Under obedience to be, And buxom to the Law.

First religious of Religion their Rule to hold, And under obedience to be by days and by nights; Lewd[198] men to labour, lords to hunt In friths and forests for fox and other beasts, That in wild woods be, And in waste places, As wolves that worry men, Women and children; And upon Sunday to cease, G.o.d's service to hear, Both Matins and Ma.s.se, And after meat in churches To hear their Evensong Every man ought.

Thus it belongeth to Lord, to learned, and to lewd, Each holy day to hear Wholly the service, Vigils and fasting days Further to know.[199]

Sloth said, in a fit of repentance--

Shall no Sunday be this seven years, Except sickness hinder, That I shall not go before day To the dear church, And hear Matins and Ma.s.se, As if I a monk were; Shall no ale after meat Hold me thence Till I have Evensong heard, I swear to the Rood.[200]

This confirms our statement that on Sundays people generally went to matins and ma.s.s, and afterwards to dinner; and in the afternoon to evensong. Sloth is boasting when he says that in future he will go to church before day like a monk; ordinary lay people did not do so; and he admits the fault of sitting over the ale after dinner, instead of going to evensong.

There seems to have been a certain laxity of practice in those days as in these. We all know that it was the custom in many country churches in modern times--and very likely still is so in some--not to begin the service until the squire came; we are shocked to find that it was so in those earlier times, and that the squire was sometimes very late. This is ill.u.s.trated by two of the very curious stories in the "Book of the Knight of La Tour Landry."[201]

I have herde of a knight and of a lady that in her (their) youthe delited hem to rise late. And so they used longe tille many tymes that thei lost her ma.s.se, and made other of her paryshe to lese it, for the knight was lord and patron of the churche, and therefor the priest durst not disobeye hym. And so it happed that the knight sent unto the chirche that thei shulde abide hym. And whane he come it was pa.s.sed none, wherefor thei might not that day have no ma.s.se, for every man saide it was pa.s.sed tyme of the day, and therefore thei durst not singe.

The other story is of

a ladi that dwelled faste by the chirche, that toke every day so long time to make her redy, that it made every Sunday the parson of the chirche and the parisseners to abide after her. And she happed to abide so longe on a Sunday that it was fer dayes, and every man said to other, "This day we trow shall not this lady be kemed and arraied."

[Ill.u.s.tration: ELEVATION AT Ma.s.s. FROM THE LATE XV. CENT. MS. 25698, f.

2.]

We read also of instances on fast days, when men might not eat till after evensong, of evensong being said at noon.

After ma.s.s on Sunday, it was not very uncommon for a pedlar to take the opportunity of the a.s.sembling of the people to display his wares in the churchyard, in spite of injunctions to the contrary. And after evensong, the young people took advantage of their holiday to play at games, sometimes in the churchyard.[202]

An inquiry[203] by Cardinal Pole, in 1557, whether taverns and ale houses opened their doors on Sundays and holy days in time of ma.s.s, matins, and evensong, indicates that the law required them to be closed at those times, but permitted them to be open at other times on Sundays and holy days.

The churchgoing habits of clergy and people on other days than Sundays and holy days are not so easily arrived at. There is no proof that a daily celebration was ordered in the Saxon Church; after the Norman Conquest, a weekly celebration was ordered.[204] There is no canon of the English Church which imposes a daily celebration on the clergy; by a Const.i.tution of Peckham,[205] they are required to say ma.s.s once a week, and that, if possible, on a Sunday; at a later period it became the general practice for a priest to say his daily ma.s.s. Where the services of the church were regularly performed, it is probable that the parish priest said the Divine service every day, either in the parish church or in one of its chapels, if it had any; and that he also said matins and evensong; but it is not unlikely that in many country parishes there was an amount of laxity. We have seen that the inhabitants of hamlets who were solicitous about the services in their chapel were content with it on three days a week, viz.

Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday; and we should not be surprised to be told that in many of the rural parish churches it was not said more frequently, or indeed more frequently than on Sundays and holy days.

As for the attendance of the laity on daily service, we have given reasons in the chapter on domestic chapels for believing that it was the custom of the n.o.bility and those of the higher cla.s.ses who had domestic chapels and chaplains to have a daily celebration of ma.s.s, matins, and evensong.

There is a pa.s.sage in the "Vision of Piers Plowman" (Pa.s.sus V.) which seems to indicate that this was the case in churches also--

The king and his knights to the church wenten, To hear matins and ma.s.s, and to the meal after.

But the services were likely to be duly performed in any church which "the king and his knights" were likely to attend, and in the princ.i.p.al churches in towns, and in well-served churches everywhere; we only doubt it in many of the churches and chapels in rustic parishes where devotion was cold and discipline slack, or the number of the clergy insufficient.

At the ordinary daily services in parish churches it is very likely that there was some congregation; for attendance on the Divine service was highly regarded as a pious exercise, and pious people who had the leisure--women especially--would be likely to attend it; the custom of gathering poor people into almshouses in which they formed a kind of religious community with their chaplain, chapel, and daily prayers, would be likely to have its counterpart in the attendance of the pensioners of the parish church at the daily service in it; but it is unlikely that it was ever customary for the middle cla.s.s, still less the lower cla.s.s of laymen, engaged in the active business of life, to attend daily ma.s.s, or matins, or evensong, as a habit of their religious life.

The Bidding Prayer, being in English, was a popular part of the service.

It was usually, from the eleventh century onward, said from the pulpit before the sermon. It differed somewhat in various places and at different periods; but the following example, taken from "The York Manual," is a fair example of the cla.s.s:

_Prayers to be used on Sundays._[206]

To G.o.d Almighty and the glorious Virgin Mother, our lady S. Mary, and all the glorious company of heaven.

For the Pope and his Cardinals, for the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and for the holy cross, that G.o.d bring it out of the heathen men's hands into Christian men's keeping.

For the Archbishop of this see, and the Bishops, etc.

For the Parson of this church [and others] that hath the cure of men's souls, that G.o.d give them grace well to teach their subjects, and the subjects well to work after heleful teaching, that both the teachers and subjects may come to everlasting bliss.

For all priests and clerks who sing in this church, and any other, etc.

For the King and Queen, the peers and lords, and all the good Commoners of this land, and especially for those that hath the good council of the land to govern, that G.o.d give them grace such counsel to take and ordain, and so for to work thereafter that it may be loving to G.o.d Almighty, and profit and welfare to the royalme, and gainsaying and reproving of our enemy's power and malice.

For all that worship in this church, or any other, with book, bell, vestment, chalice, altar-cloth, or towell, or any other ornament, etc.

For all that give or leave in testament any good to the right maintenance and upholding of the work of this Church, and for all them that find any Light in this Church as in torch, taper, land, in worshipping of G.o.d or of our Lady or of any of His Saints.

For all our good parishioners wheresoever they be, on water or on land, that G.o.d of His goodness save them from all manner of perils, and bring them safe where they would be in health of body and soul and also of goods.

For all that are in debt or deadly sin, that G.o.d for His great mercy bring them soon thereof; and for all those that are in good living, that G.o.d maintain them and give them good perseverance in their goodness; and that these prayers may be heard and sped the sooner through your prayers, every man and woman that here is, help them heartily with a _Pater Noster_ and an _Ave Maria_, etc.

Deus misereatur [the whole Psalm].

Gloria Patri.

Kyrie Eleyson, etc.

Pater noster ... et ne nos ... sed libera.

Sacerdotes tui induantur just.i.tia.

Et sancti tui exultent, etc.

Et clamor meus ad te veniat.

Dominus vobisc.u.m. Et c.u.m spiritu tuo.

Oremus [three Latin prayers].

Ye shall kneel down devoutly and pray for the brethren and sisters of St. Peter of York, St. John of Beverley, St. Wilfred of Ripon, and St.

Mary of Southwell; and specially for all those that be sick in this parish or any other, that G.o.d in His goodness release them from their pains in their sickness, and turn them to the way that is most to G.o.d's pleasure and welfare of their souls.