CHAPTER XII THE FORM OF SOLEMNIZATION OF MATRIMONY A contract of eternal bond of love, Strengthen'd by interchangement of your rings, Seal'd in my function, by my testimony. SHAKESPEARE, Twelfth Night, Act v. Sc. 1. THE present Form of Solemnization of Matrimony differs very little from that issued in 1549, and it is substantially the same as that in the Sarum Manual, though influenced by the Consultatio of Archbishop Hermann. It seems that in the earliest ages of the Church there was no special benediction of Matrimony except a special Eucharist. The man and woman are themselves the ministers of Holy Matrimony, and their acceptance of one another as husband and wife in the presence of witnesses constitutes a valid marriage. The Roman bride as a sign of her marriage was covered with a flame-coloured veil; so S. Ambrose speaks of this flammeum nuptiale, and Pope Siricius speaks of marriage vows 'at which we were present at the veiling." Tertullian also about A.D. 210 speaks of the happiness of a marriage which the Church counsels, which the oblation of the Eucharist confirms, and a benediction seals.2 The Leonine Sacramentary 1 Epp. Ambrosii, 80. 2 Ad Uxor. ii. 9. 1 shows that in the sixth century there was at this Eucharist a prayer inserted before the consecration, and a short prayer and a long Eucharistic prayer after the Our Father and before the Fraction of the bread. These two latter prayers formed the benediction, and were pronounced while a veil was held over the man and his wife. This veil is distinct from the marriage veil of the bride. It is called by S. Ambrose' the priestly veil,' and was commonly used until lately in France and Spain, though the fact that it has disappeared in Italy is causing its disappearance in other lands. For several centuries at Rome, and perhaps still longer at Milan, no other religious service was held at a marriage than such a Eucharist as that which we have noticed. But the disappearance of paganism and the absorption of all social life into the Church caused the Roman civil ceremonies of marriage to become a part of ecclesiastical ritual. This is first shown in the reply of Pope Nicholas I. to the Bulgarians in A.D. 866. He divides the various ceremonies of marriage as follows:(1) The sponsalia or espousals, being the promise of of marriage with the consent of the parents; (2) The subarrhatio or giving of the ring by the man to the woman; (3) The conveying of the dowry by a written document in the presence of witnesses. All this was preliminary. consisted of: The actual marriage (a) The Mass at which the man and the woman both take part in the Offertory and in the Communion; (b) The benediction pronounced while the veil is held over their heads; (c) The coronation as they leave the church. The crowns used were usually kept in the church. All these ceremonies were the ancient Roman ceremonies, with the all-important exception that the Holy Eucharist was substituted for the worship of pagan gods with sacrifices of blood. The Roman bride and bridegroom both wore crowns of flowers, and in the West this custom has survived in the case of the bride. In the East large crowns of metal are worn by both husband and wife, and apparently such crowns were used at Rome in the time of Nicholas I. The medieval English Offices are midway between the rites of the ninth century and the modern form in which several of the old English features are preserved. The rites differed slightly in different dioceses, and the vernacular language was largely employed in this service. An interesting proof of the continued persistence of Norman French among the upper classes in this country is the fact that about 1200 a Council held at Durham directed the use of either French or English. The priest, wearing alb and stole, met the man and woman at the church door. Hence Chaucer in describing the Wife of Bath says: She was a worthy woman all hire live, Housbondes at the chirche dore had she had five. But it is certain that as early as 1472 the service was sometimes begun in modern fashion within the body of the church at the chancel door. The priest gave a brief admonition in the mother tongue. The espousals then took place, the man saying, 'I N. take the N. to my wedded wyf to have and to holde fro this day forwarde for better, for wors, for richer, for poorer, in syknesse and in hele, tyl dethe us departe1 if holy chyrche it woll ordeyne, and therto I plight the my trouthe.' In the woman's formula the present 'love, cherish, and obey' was represented by the words 'to be 1 This sense of the word having become obsolete, 'depart' was in 1661 replaced by 'do part.' bonere and buxum,' i.e. gentle and obedient-words which were already unintelligible at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The man then laid gold and silver and a ring upon a shield or upon the book. In 1549 these are called tokens of spousage.' This custom is retained by the English Roman Catholics. On the Continent a medal is sometimes used, and in some places the custom has been given up altogether. In 1552 the English rubric, which is still retained, refers to this money as the accustomed duty to the Priest and Clerk.' This rubric reveals two facts: first, that it was even previously to 1552 the custom to give these tokens to the priest and the clerk; secondly, that the wording of the present rubric has caused the origin of the custom to be forgotten. The money symbolises the same thing as the ring, to whatever purpose it may be devoted when the ceremony is over. The priest blessed the ring with holy water, and the man took it, saying 'With this ryng I the wed, and this gold and silver I the geve, and with my body I the worshipe,1 and with all my worldely cathel I the endowe.' Placing the ring on the woman's thumb he said 'In the Name of the Father,' on the second (now called the first) finger he said 'And the Son,' on the third he said And of the Holy Ghost,' and on the fourth he said Amen.' There is a quaint Sarum rubric which explains that the ring is placed upon that finger because it contains a vein connected with the heart. Having been twice blessed, the man and woman came to the altar step.' Psalm cxxviii. was then said, as now. They knelt or prostrated themselves, and the 1 The Hereford form has 'honour.' In medieval English 'worship' included almost any kind of honour or veneration. The lower sense of the word 'worship' is still preserved in the modern title 'worshipful.' A similar ambiguity attaches to adorare and роσкνveîν, and has been a fruitful cause of error. Lord's Prayer, versicles and responses followed. Five collects then followed. The second besought God as 'God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob,' and the third referred to the sending of the angel Raphael to guard Tobias and Sara the daughter of Raguel.' In 1549 these two collects were compressed into one; and in 1552 the reference to Thobie and Sara the daughter of Raguel' (1549) was omitted as being taken from the Apocrypha. Then came a collect, of which 'O merciful Lord, and heavenly Father' in the present Office is an inferior version. The present final blessing referring to Adam and Eve is an appropriate fusion of the fifth Sarum collect and the subsequent benediction. The Mass then began, the husband and wife being placed between the choir and the altar, on the north side of the church.' After the Sanctus the married pair knelt at the altar step, and the pallium or veil was held over them by four clerics until the Agnus, when the priest gave the pax to the husband and the husband kissed his wife. Immediately after the Fraction was given the solemn sacramental benediction,' in which the priest spoke of the mystical union between Christ and His Church. He then went on to offer a special prayer for the wife that she might be lovable as Rachel, wise as Rebecca, aged and faithful as Sara. Part of these prayers is preserved in the prayer 'O God, Who by Thy mighty power,' but in 1661 the reference to Rachel, Rebecca, and Sara was omitted. In some parts of England the husband and wife were given bread and wine to drink immediately after the Mass, in memory of the marriage feast at Cana. In the wording of the service of 1549 one or two very interesting changes occur. Most of the opening address, which describes the three reasons for which Matrimony was instituted, does not occur in any known copy of the medieval English books, but bears a striking resemblance to an address in a Parisian |