"And is this song maked in reverence

Of Christe's moder?' seyde this innocent:
'Now, certes, I wol do my diligence

To conne it all eer Christemasse is went.""

Sunday in the Parish Church.-It is time to pass to the consideration of what took place in the medieval parish church on the ordinary Sundays of the year. In the Prymer of 1538 are to be found some verses called The Dayes of the Weke Moralysed, in which the duty of the Christian in regard to Sunday is thus set forth :

"I am Sonday ye honourable,

The hede of all the weke dayes.
That day all thyng labourable

Ought to rest and gyve lawd and prayers

To our Creatour, that alwayes

Wuolde have us rest after travayle

Man-servant and thy beeste he sayes
And the other or thyn avayle."

The first question that arises is as to the attendance of the people at the Matins which preceded the parochial Mass. It would seem to be quite certain that even in the smallest churches on Sundays and Holy days the Office was recited by the priests, or, in the cases where there was only one, by the priest and his clerk in the early morning. Further, from the various directions and instructions given to the people, it seems practically certain that they were not only expected to be at the Matins, but, as far as possible, were actually present at them.

The evidence of the various Visitations shows that even the smallest churches were expected to be provided by the rector with the Matin books. For example, in the Visitation

of churches in the diocese of Exeter, in 1440, there were constant notes as to the "libri matutinales" being in need of repair, or being "sufficiently good." In one case it is stated that the rector had built a new chancel, had done much to the rectory house, and had "provided good Matin books." In another the rector is said to have "hired a scribe to write new books." In the same diocese, in 1301, it was made an article of complaint, by the parishioners of Colebrooke, at the Visitation, that their vicar did not "sing Matins on the Greater Feasts with music" (cum nota), and that he "only said Mass every other day." The general orders for the provision of books for this service in the Constitutions of the English Church is sufficient evidence that the service was faithfully said or sung.

Myrc, in his Instructions, says that—

"The holy day only ordeynet was

To here goddes serves and the Mas.
And spare that day in holynes

And leve alle other bysynes."

And Langland, after saying that all business, hunting, and labour is to stop on the Lord's day, says, "And up-on Sonedays to cease-godes servyce to huyre, Bothe Matyns and Masse-and after mate, in churches to huyre here evesong, every man ought."

That this was really done, and moreover that the English practice was to go to the parish church and hear Matins before breaking the morning fast, appears in a passage of Sir Thomas More's writings.

"Some of us laymen," he says, "thinke it a payne ones in a weeke to ryse so soon fro sleepe, and some to tarry so long fasting,

as on the Sonday to com and hear out they Matins. And yet is not Matins in every parish, neyther, all thynge so early begonne norfully so longe in doyng, as it is in the Charterhouse, ye wot wel."

In a fifteenth-century book of instructions there are given as practical examples of the vice of sloth

"When a man castis hym to leze in reste; to slepe mekell; to be long in bed, late comyng to God's service; havyng non savour nor swetnes in prechyng, nor in bedys byddyng, nor no devocyon in Matynes nor in Evesong."

It is somewhat difficult to obtain any exact information as to the time when Matins were said or sung in the English parochial churches. That the service was begun at an early hour we must suppose, even if we had not the authority of Sir Thomas More for the fact. To conclude from the case of St. Michael's, Cornhill, just quoted, it may be judged that the hour for Matins was at 6 or 7 in the morning, and that High Mass would commence at 9 or 10. An interval between was thus left, during which the parishioners would have time to return home and break their fast. If the occupation of two hours or so on a Sunday morning, and another service in the afternoon, may appear somewhat excessive to our modern notions, we must bear in mind that it was in those days clearly understood and accepted as a first principle of religion that the meaning of the Sunday rest and freedom from work was, in the first place, that the Christian, who was occupied all the rest of the week mainly in temporal affairs, might have time to attend to the things of his soul. His chief duty on the Sunday was, as one of the Synodical Constitutions puts it, "to hear divine service and Holy Mass,

to pray and to listen to the voice of the priest instructing him in his belief and duty."

The parochial, or High Mass, as the chief sung Mass was called, was preceded on each Sunday by the public and solemn blessing of the holy water. For this ceremony the priest, who was about to celebrate the Mass, came to the entrance of the chancel, accom

panied by the deacon and subdeacon-if there were any such ministers; if not, by the clerks and servers carrying the platter of salt and the manual, and by the aquabajularius holding the vat of water to be blessed. From the earliest times of English Christianity the people had been taught to use this water and salt mingled together with the Church's prayers, that by it they might be reminded of the purity of heart necessary to all God's servants, and that, by virtue of the power of God invoked in the prayers upon the water, His providence might watch over them and defend them from all danger of body and soul. Pope St. Gregory the Great had told St. Mellitus to bid our first apostle, St. Augustine, make use of the old pagan temples, having first caused "holy water (to) be blessed and sprinkled all over" them.

In the same way the English people were taught to make use of the water thus solemnly blessed on the Sunday in

their midst. As far back as the days of Archbishop Theodore, as appears in Thorpe's Ancient Laws, it was written: "Let the people sprinkle their houses with hallowed water as often as they wish." And in the porch of each parochial church a small niche contained some of the consecrated water, with which those coming to God's house signed themselves, the while whispering a prayer that they may be accepted as pure in the sight of the Most High.

On the Sunday, moreover, after the blessing was finished, the priest and his assistants came to the foot of the altar, which was sprinkled with newly blessed water. Then turning, he, in the same way, sprinkled each of the assistants as they passed before him, and, last of all, if there were no procession, he passed down the church casting the water upon each altar he came to, and upon the people gathered in the nave. If there was a procession, as seems generally to have been the case, the assistants and clerks, with the servers, followed the celebrant singing the anthems proper for the day. The parish processional cross was carried first, with two servers bearing candles, and with the thurifer and the clerk "water-bearer." In the smaller churches, when the weather permitted, no doubt the procession would wend its way outside, and pass along, followed by the people, amidst the graves of those former parishioners who had gone before, and who were taking their long rest in God's acre. It was during this Sunday visit, in all probability, that the living offered their prayers for their dead, and cast the blessed water upon their graves. Some of the wills of the fifteenth century show how this practice was prized. In one will, for instance, a citizen of York leaves a bequest to three priests