CHAPTER VIII.

Of the Public Notices given at the Celebration.

RUBRIC VI.-PARAGRAPH I.

aqbThen the Curate shall declare unto the people what Holy-days, or Fasting-days, are in the week following to be observed. And then also (if occasion be) shall notice be given of the Communion; and the Banns of Matrimony published; and Briefs, Citations, and Excommunications read. And nothing shall be proclaimed or published in the Church during the time of Divine Service, but by the Minister: nor by him any thing, but what is prescribed in the Rules of this Book, or enjoined by the King, or by the Ordinary of the place.

a¶ THEN THE CURATE, ETC.]-These notices, etc., form also a part of the French Prône, of which it will be useful to insert a description in this place. "First turning to the people, the Priests appointed to the cure of souls bid the Prayers; secondly, they teach the people the rudiments of the faith, and the commandments of God and the Church, as the Roman Catechism has appointed; thirdly, they give notice of the Festivals, Vigils, Processions, that come in that week; fourthly, they publish edicts, excommunications, marriages about to take place, and in fine, whatever ought to be made known to the people." 1

b THEN.]-Before the last Revision the Sermon immediately followed the Creed, and the notices of Festivals, etc., followed the Sermon. We see many instances of this in the

1 Bona, Rer. Lit. L, ii. c. vii, n. vii.

Paschal Homilies of the early Bishops of Alexandria. To give one example from S. Athanasius :-" We begin the fast of forty days on the 13th of the month Phamenoth (Mar. 9). After we have given ourselves to fasting in continued succession, let us begin the week of the holy Easter on the 18th of the month Pharmuthi (Apr. 13). Then ceasing on the 23d of the same month Pharmuthi (Apr. 18), and keeping the feast afterwards on the first day of the week, on the 24th (Apr. 19), let us add to these the seven weeks of the great Pentecost, altogether rejoicing and exulting in Christ Jesus our Lord," etc. At the end of one of his sermons, S. Augustine2 gives notice of the anniversary on the morrow of the consecration of the Bishop, and invites the people to join in the celebration of it. In 572 the Second Council of Bracara, or Braga in Portugal, ordered that every year, on Christmas Day, the Bishops and other Clergy should "each in his own Church, after the Gospel Lesson," give notice of the time of Easter. In the thirteenth century, Durand speaks of this as an Italian custom, and says that the

1

1 Festal Epistles, ii. p. 21; Oxf. 1854. This volume yields seventeen examples, though several of the Epistles are imperfect, and several have been lost. It is clear that they were, as a rule, preached as homilies, and then adapted for dispersion as letters. Hence they are called by both names. Those of S. Cyril (twenty in number) are called Homilies; but in one (N. xxii. tom. v. P. i. p. 269) he speaks of it himself as a "little discourse or Epistle," and another (xxv. p. 302) ends with a salutation. Cassian (Collat. L. x. c. ii. p. 532), who wrote about 424, says that it was an "ancient custom" in Egypt for the Bishop of Alexandria, after the Epiphany, to send letters throughout his Province announcing the first day of Lent and Easter; and Eusebius (Hist. L. vii. c. xx. p. 217) mentions two Paschal letters of Dionysius, who became Pope of Alexandria in 247. At the Council of Nice, as we learn from S. Leo, in consequence of the superior mathematical skill of the Egyptians, it was settled that the Bishops of that See should send annual notice of the day on which Easter would fall to the Bishop of Rome, that "through his letters a general notice might reach the more distant Churches."--(Ep. cxxi. ad Marcianum, Opp. tom. i. col. 1228; Ven. 1753. See Labb. tom. ii. col. (69.) S. Athanasius, the first who could have acted on this arrangement, speaks incidentally himself, in 346, of having notified the day "to the Romans."-(Ep. xviii. p. 120. See the learned and careful Introd. to this valuable collection.) Three Paschal Letters of Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, A.D. 385, are also extant in the Latin of S. Jerome. Opp. tom. iv. coll. 691-727. In every instance, it may be added, the notice occurs at the end of the Homily (or Epistle formed from it), in accordance with the ancient custom mentioned in the text.

2 Serm. cxi. tom. vii. col. 563. Quod novit caritas vestra suggerimus. Dies anniversarius ordinationis Domini senis Aurelii crastinus illucescit, etc. The expression novit charitas vestra looks like a reminiscence of the formula, Noverit charitas vestra, used at Milan (see note 2, p. 287), where S. Aug. had received his Christian training.

3 Can. ix.; Labb. tom. v. col. 898.

notice was given on the Epiphany, by "the Priest or another after the Offertory." In the Sacramentary of Milan 2 is the form of a "Notice of the day on which Easter falls, by the Deacon," to be given out on the Epiphany:-" Let your Charity take notice, dearest brethren, that, the mercy of God and our Lord Jesus Christ permitting, we will celebrate the Lord's Passover on such a day of such a month." From its place among the proper Collects for the Epiphany, it evidently was published after the Gospel; but the Roman use was different; for a Rubric in the Gelasian Canon orders notices of Fasts, Scrutinia, Saints' Days, etc., and requests of Prayer for the Sick, to be given out immediately before the Communion. Forms to be used in giving notice of the fasts are provided both in the Gelasian and in the earlier Leonian Sacramentary but no inference as to the time of publication can be drawn from their position.

We have seen that at Milan the time of Easter was announced by the Deacon. It is probable that all similar notices were generally published by the Clergy of that Order; for the Council of Vaison,5 in 442, more than a century before that of Braga, in a decree respecting deserted children, orders that notice of such being found and preserved be given "from the Altar on the Lord's Day by the Minister,” i.e. the Deacon; and Durandus tells us that it was part of the Deacon's duty to "recite the names of those who were to be ordained or baptized,” and to "announce Festivals."

CCURATE.]-The announcement of Festivals, etc., is most fitly given to the Priest who has the cure of souls in the Parish, because it is an act of authority, and he is more fully the representative of the Church among his people.

d HOLY-DAYS OR FASTING-DAYS.]-The order for the announcement of the holy-days was inserted in 1552, with a view to regulate the number observed as much as to secure the observance of those retained. Many had been kept on very insufficient, or even imaginary grounds, "and therefore the Bishops inquired in their Visitations, whether the Curates bid any other days than were appointed by the New Calen

1 Ration. L. vi. c. xvi. n. 17.

2 Pamel. Liturg. tom. i. p. 314. Noverit Charitas vestra, Fratres charissimi, etc.

3 Murat. tom. i. col. 698.

4 Ibid. tom. i. coll. 602 and 410, 416.

6 Can. ix. Labb. tom. iii. col. 1459.

6 Rat. L. ii. c. ix. n. 11.

dar,"1 and whether any such were "superstitiously observed" by any in the Parish, or the bells rung "to call the people together on any of those days more or otherwise than commonly was used upon other days that were kept as work days."

The minor Holy-days had been reduced to our present number in 1549, with the sole addition of a day for S. Mary Magdalene (July 22) which was retained with a proper service. In 1552 this was omitted, with its service. The name of S. Barnabas was at the same time, by a printer's mistake, omitted from the Calendar, but the service was left. The error was corrected in 1559. S. George, Apr. 23, Lammas, Aug. 1, S. Lawrence, Aug. 10, and S. Clement, Nov. 23, were inserted in 1552 without proper service. A "New Calendar" was published in 1561. A list of holy-days to be observed is given in the Preface to it, identical with our own, save that it omits the Festivals of S. Paul and S. Barnabas. In the Calendar itself their names appear, though not, like those of the Twelve, etc., as redletter days. Nevertheless, a Collect, Epistle and Gospel, and Proper Lessons, were provided for them in the P. B. of Elizabeth, 1559, and were therefore still used under the authority of her Act of Uniformity. In the Calendar of that Book they are also marked as red-letter days. This anomaly was done away with at the last Revision.

The list of Festivals prefixed to the New Calendar of Elizabeth was preceded by the notice, "These to be observed for Holy-days and none other." In the Calendar itself, however, so many names of minor saints, etc., had been restored that an explanation became necessary; and this was accordingly given, about three years later, in a note at the end of the Preces Private published by authority;-to which also a Calendar was prefixed with a name attached, as before the Reformation, to almost every day in the year. "We have not done it," say the compilers, "because we hold them all for saints, of whom we do not esteem some to be even among the good; . . . but that they may be as notes and marks of some certain things, the stated times of which it is very important to know, and ignorance of which may be a disadvantage to our countrymen."3 In the same year

1 Cosin, Notes on the B. C. P. third Ser.; Works, vol. v. p. 464. (In which passage for "Sundays," should be read "such days," as the sense requires, and as appears from Grindal, to whom he refers.)

Grindal's Artt. of Visitation, 1576, n. 8; Works, p. 160. Doc. Ann. vol. i. p. 399.

3 Private Prayers, p. 428, ed. Clay; Camb. 1851. The explanation refers expressly to the Calendar prefixed to the Preces Privatæ; but it

1564, it was ordered in the Advertisements of Elizabeth, "that there be none other holy-days observed, besides the Sundays, but only such as be set out for holy-days, as in the Statute1 5 and 6 Edw. VI. and in the New Calendar, authorized by the Queen's Majesty."2 The present "Table of all the Feasts that are to be observed" does not give any name that is not printed in red letters in the Calendar. There is therefore no authority whatever for the religious observance of the Black-Letter Days.

No table of Fasts was prefixed to the Calendar before the last Revision; at which time one was added, most probably at the suggestion of Bishop Cosin, who, in his "Particulars to be Considered," had remarked, "The Curate is ordered to 'bid the fasting-days,' which being not usually known to every Curate, it would be here specified what days are appointed to be fasted."3

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NOTICE BE GIVEN OF THE COMMUNION.]-An apparent discrepancy has been pointed out between this order and the Rubric before the first Exhortation to Communion ::- "When the Minister giveth warning for the Celebration of the Holy Communion... after the Sermon or Homily ended, he shall read this Exhortation following." As these two directions were both inserted for the first time at the last Revision, it is most improbable that they should contradict each other, and it requires but little consideration to show how they are to be reconciled. It was clearly intended that the Minister should give "notice" or "warning" of the Celebration in any form that he thinks proper after the Nicene Creed, and that afterwards, "after the Sermon or Homily ended," he should instruct the people how to prepare for it by reading the Exhortation. The apparent confusion is caused by the fact, that the opening words of both Exhortations contain furnishes also the key to the apparent discrepancy between the New Calendar, on the one side, and the list prefixed to it, and the Advertisement, on the other. It is applied also by the last Revisers to our present Calendar:-"The other names are left in the Calendar, not that they should be so kept as Holy-days, but they are useful for the preservation of their memories, and for other reasons, as for leases, law-days, etc."Cardw. Hist. Conf., p. 341.

1 Cap. 3. This Act gives a table of the Red-Letter Days, and adds, "And that none other day shall be kept and commanded to be kept holy-day, or to abstain from lawful bodily labour." A yet earlier evidence of the same intention is found in one of the Articles (or instructions for a Royal Visitation) of 1549: "That none keep the abrogate Holy-days other than those which have their proper and peculiar Service." -Doc. Ann. vol. i. p. 76.

2 Doc. Ann. vol. i. p. 327.

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3 No. 49; Works, vol. v. p. 514.