fidem mulieri per verba de prefēti ita dicens: facermanum retrahendo. Deinde dote dicente dicat mulier facerdote docente manum retrahendo. The second runs, Et dicat fponfus tenens manum sponse: docente facerdote nomine patris et filii et spūs fancti, C In This missa sponsalium is followed by some other services, the last of which is a mass Pro peftilentia euitanda, and ends six lines above the bottom of the first column on the recto of bi. This space of course is left blank. The colophon begins at the top of the second column of this page, thus: Impensa et arte magři Mar The remainder of the column is blank. Upon the reverse of the leaf is the device of the printer Martin Morin; surrounded by the legend JYPRIDE. A. ROUEN. DEUANT. SAINCT. LD. A full page (for example ki) without rubrics contains forty lines, besides the running title: a ii nearly full of rubric in a smaller letter (as I have already said) has the same number. The missals contain very frequently "Extracta e compoto," either at the beginning or end; these are helps to the proper understanding of the calendar: sometimes a table "ad inveniendum pascha in perpetuum:" and occasionally at the end, "Prologus in accentuarium," a guide to the quantity of various words in reading and chanting, with an ample list of words long and short. Before the ordinary of the mass or at the end of the volume are commonly also to be found the "Cautelæ missæ." The canon is sometimes printed upon vellum, and (I believe) always preceded by a woodcut representing generally the crucifixion, occupying sometimes the upper half and sometimes the whole of a page.27 To the presence of this picture we must trace the cause of the mutilation of so many of the copies which have come down to us: and those in which it was allowed to remain, or were hidden and so escaped, are almost always perfect in other respects.28 It is wonderful what an effect a first mutilating of any book has upon the after-care bestowed upon it: it is no longer complete, and offends its possessors. How much more would such a feeling, mournful indeed, be the 27 I have already briefly alluded to this woodcut or illumination of the cross or crucifixion. Bona, lib. 2. xi, speaks of it as of a very ancient observance in MSS. which is true; but it was not absolutely necessary: its object was to remind the priest of the Divine service in which he was engaged. Probably we are to trace to this the interpolated prayer of the Hereford missal, "Adoramus," etc. 28 Very many editions of the Sarum missal are adorned with a profusion of woodcuts, small and large, varying also with the size of the volume. These are generally prefixed to the beginnings of each day's service. Among them two especially will often be found defaced or cut out altogether. One, the crucifixion, before the missa de quinque vulneribus; the other, a representation of St. Mary Magdalene. consequence of the indignities to which the churchbooks were subjected in the sixteenth century; and we may trace to this another among the causes owing to which thousands of copies perished altogether. I shall now copy from an edition printed by Regnault, in fol. at Paris 1529, the table of contents and this, with an account of the service for one sunday, will enable the student to form a tolerably correct idea of what he may expect to find in the old missals of the Church of England : "Hoc in opere hæc sequentia hoc ordine continentur. Primo. Tabula annorum communium et bissextilium literarumque dominicalium quotannis currentium. Clavium item festorum mobilium: simulque aurei numeri subjuncti. Secundo, kalendarium, ex quo multas elicere poteris utilitates: quia aureus numerus in principio locatus, novilunii singulis mensibus est declarativus. Post numerum vero aureum sequitur series literarum, dominicalium literarum declarativa. Post hanc vero locantur festa, tam celebria quam non celebria, ac modus eorumdem dicendi officia. Postremo autem ponuntur numeri mensium dierum declarativi: per quos officia sanctorum atque sanctarum hoc in opere contentarum, facile inveniuntur, 29 ¶ Dominicarum ac feriarum officia cum ordinem servent, ac per titulos satis constent, non opus esse duxi de his tabula cudere. ¶ Sanctorum atque sanctarum officia 30 numerus 29 This is a very complete arrangement of a calendar, as comparison with other editions will show. 30 Some editions which have tables of the same sort (for all have not) say "officia manifesta sunt per titulos." (ut supra dixi) in kalendario positus tibi facile indi cabit. ¶ Sequuntur ea in quibus in quærendo labor contingere potest. Primo. Commune sanctorum atque sanctarum proprium non habentium. Missa votiva sive communes, scilicet Salus populi, pro fratribus et sororibus. primo: fo. xx. De quinque vulneribus Christi. fo. xxiij. fo. xxv. |