like the still more definite prayer in the Canon of the Mass, implied that the people should communicate with the priest. The priest next prayed:

O Lord, holy Father, almighty, everlasting God, grant me so worthily to take the sacred Body and Blood of Thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ, that through this I may deserve to receive remission of all my sins and be filled with Thy Holy Spirit, and have Thy peace. For Thou art God, and there is none other beside Thee, Whose glorious kingdom abideth for ever and ever. Amen.

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The celebrant then kissed the corporal and chalice and then kissed the deacon, or gave him to kiss the carved or embossed picture called the pax or or pax-brede (i.e. pax-board). Such was the late mediæval manner of giving the Kiss of peace. The pax was carried round to different members of the congregation in order of precedence. It was constantly used in England in the first half of the sixteenth century. In 1548, the second year of King Edward VI., it was directed in the deanery of Doncaster that the clerk should take the pax, and standing with it outside the door in the rood screen say boldly to the people: This is a token of joyful peace, which is betwixt God and men's conscience. Christ alone is the peace-maker, which straitly commands peace between brother and brother.' It is difficult to see how such a custom, as thus practised in the early days of the Reformation, could be abused. But there were sometimes unseemly quarrels about precedence in kissing the pax. Chaucer's Parson speaks of the proud man who liked to 'kisse the paxe, or be encenced before his neighbour'; and in 1496 woman was presented before the Archdeacon of Middlesex for throwing the pax on the church floor because another woman was allowed to kiss it first.

a

Siv (b). The Communion.

After the Kiss of peace the priest recited three prayers of great beauty, communicated himself, and

gave thanks. All these prayers were unknown in the older Roman Mass.

After the Communion the service soon ended. The people very rarely communicated at High Mass, and the psalm and antiphon which had been chanted during their communion were now reduced to an antiphon. The deacon then folded up the fine linen cloth or corporal (then known as the corporas cloth 1). The sub-deacon rinsed the chalice, while the priest held it, with wine and water. The priest rinsed his fingers with this wine and water, and drank the contents of the chalice. He then again rinsed his fingers with wine or water, and drank the contents. Then he washed his hands at the sacrarium in the south wall of the sanctuary. During these ablutions, or rinsings, as they were formerly called, the people knelt.

Siv (c). The Thanksgiving.

The celebrant, having returned to the altar, invited the people to join in the last collect, known as the Post-communion, and the people rose to pray. They were then dismissed with the words Ite, missa est. The mediæval English Mass Books contain no final blessing, and it has been commonly supposed that none was given. But the Rationale and other documents show us that a benediction in the name of the whole Trinity' was sometimes given, and that the Reformers only continued a medieval usage in placing a benediction at the end of the Eucharist. The Mirroure of our Lady says, 'Every priest may bless the people in the

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1 In some English churches it is now the custom to provide (i) a corporal, (ii) the stiffened corporal known as the pall, (iii) a fair linen cloth to be used after the Communion. This is a mistake. The fair linen cloth was in the seventeenth century correctly called the 'corporas cloth,' and nothing is needed except the two corporas cloths. In some medieval English churches only one was used, and this practice is not yet extinct.

end of his Mass, if there be no bishop present that will bless.' This proves that the English custom of the fifteenth century was the same as the printed rule of the present Prayer Book.

4. Popular Mass Books.

The immense price of large books, whether written or printed, made it impossible that many of the laity should be provided with complete Mass Books. Nevertheless a series of prayers especially intended for worshippers at the Eucharist was provided in the Lay Folk's Mass Book. The original seems to have been composed in French by an Anglo-Norman of the twelfth century. The existing English translations are of different dates, and illustrate in a significant manner the difference between the more archaic form of Yorkshire English and the later Yorkshire and Midland English. The reader is bidden to say the Pater noster when nothing else is provided. There is a good paraphrase of the Creed, accurate enough except that the communion of saints' is misinterpreted as the 'housel' or Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood. Some of the prayers, in spite of the roughness of their metre, are of the greatest beauty, and are here transcribed in a slightly modernised form.

At the Offertory:

Jesu, that wast in Bethlem bore,

Three kings once kneeled Thee before,
And offered gold, myrrh, and incense;
Thou disdained not their presents,
But didst guide them all the three
Home again to their countree.
So our offerings that we offer,
And our prayers that we proffer,
Take them, Lord, unto Thy praise,
And be our help through all our days.

Equally beautiful is the prayer to be said at the Sanctus:

In world of worlds without ending
Thanked be Thou, Jesu my King:
All my heart I give to Thee
For meet it is that so it be.
With all my will I worship Thee
And give Thee thanks most heartily.
Jesu, blessed mayest Thou be
For all the good Thou givest me.
Sweet Jesu, grant me this,
That I may come into Thy bliss,
There with angels for to sing
This sweet song of Thy praising,
Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus,

Jesu, grant that it be thus.

As the time of the consecration approaches and the 'little bell' is rung to give warning before the priest says 'This is My Body,' the worshipper is exhorted to pray in his best manner' and 'without dread,' kneeling and holding up both his hands in the ancient attitude of supplication. He is to behold the elevation and not cover his eyes in the fashion which modern reverence has dictated. He should pray in his own words, but if he cannot find words of his own then he may say:

Loved be Thou, King,

And blessed be Thou, King,
For all Thy gifts good
That for me spilt Thy blood
And died upon the rood.

Thou give me grace to sing
The song of Thy loving.

When we compare the prayers contained in the Lay Folk's Mass Book and other old books with some modern devotions, we are reminded of the difference between an English primrose and the creations of a merchant of artificial flowers.

E

CHAPTER III

CHANGES UNDER HENRY VIII

My lord of Canterbury,

I have a suit, which you must not deny me.

SHAKESPEARE, King Henry VIII.

§ 1. Service Books at the Eve of the
Reformation.

THE account given in the preceding chapter is enough to suggest that some reform in the manner of celebrating the Eucharist was desirable. Other chapters will show that a reformation was equally needed in the case of other services of the Church. It is also important to remember that even in matters where there was no moral necessity for a change, practical convenience demanded it. The ritual of different dioceses varied considerably. The 'uses' of Sarum, York, Hereford and Bangor diverged from one another in many details, and a similar though less important divergence was to be found elsewhere. A priest who knew the ceremonial of High Mass at Exeter would have been puzzled at Lincoln, and a monk of Westminster would not have felt at home in the midst of the rites of some of the great Yorkshire abbeys. Moreover, the number of books through which the different services of the Church were distributed made it almost impossible for the laity to possess any adequate knowledge of these services in their entirety.