CHAPTER XII. THE LITANY. He § 62. Origin of Litanies.-Processional supplications in times of public distress were resorted to in the early ages of the Church, both in the East and West, and the service was called Airaveía and rogatio, words denoting supplication. In course of time, however, they, from frequent repetition, lost their original fervour, and the person to infuse a new life and solemnity into them was Mamertus bishop of Vienne, c. A.D. 467, in a period of great public disasters. proposed to his people to keep the three days before the approaching feast of the Ascension as fasts with special rogations; and so deep an impression was made that the services were repeated in the following year. Other bishops in the south of Gaul, under similar circumstances, adopted the plan, and soon the three. days' Ascension-tide Rogation fast became general (D.C.A. 1004, a; D.C.B. "MAMERTUS"). In England the observance began probably with the arrival of St. Augustine, since the council of Clovesho, in 747, enjoins the keeping of the "three days before Ascension according to the custom of our (H. & S. iii. 361, 368). ancestors But although the Rogation solemnity, as a whole, was an annual one, it need not be supposed that the distinctive prayer which accompanied it, the Litany, was used at no other times. The pathos and earnestness of the language in which it was composed made it suitable and welcome on any special occasion, like an ordination or church dedication. § 63. History of the English Litany. -From the fifth or sixth century the Litany in the West began with Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison (Palm. O. L. i. 322),—a circumstance which quite accounts for these versicles being named the Lesser Litany. The English Litany in the Primer of c. 1410 (Mask. M. R. iii. 99) has that beginning, and so have others belonging to pre-Reformation times (e.g., in Maskell's Appendix, 217, 223; and Burton's Primers, p. 381). Another feature of the medieval Litany was an appeal to the saints. It was about the eighth century when this began, and the invocations, few at first, prodigiously increased, until a Paris Litany of the ninth century numbered as many as one hundred and two of them. Succeeding line after line, and page upon page, they appear almost to monopolise the Litany, or at least the invocatory part of it. The Lesser Litany, in three versicles, led the way; the Trinity was then invoked in four brief lines, thus : "Pater de cœlis, Deus: miserere nobis ! Fili, Redemptor mundi, Deus: miserere nobis! To the eye the seven lines look intended as intro ductory to the long list of saints who follow. At the head of these St. Mary occupies almost the same room as the Trinity, as she occurs in three separate invocations parallel with those of the Divine Persons. Next to her are invoked the angelic beings, of whom Michael, Gabriel, Raphael are named; then St. John the Baptist, then the patriarchs and prophets in general; afterwards each of the apostles, Peter and Paul leading. The female list, headed by Mary Magdalen, comes last. As each name is successively pronounced, "Ora pro nobis" is the response of the processionists. The Litany was thus the grand service for the invocation of saints. In Saints' Day collects God was petitioned for the blessings through their intercession; in the Litany they were themselves directly appealed to. The Litany, being intended from the first for popular services, probably always existed in the vernacular ; which, however, would not prove that English was used by the priests in public processions or in churches. On the contrary, when in 1544 an English Litany was set forth by royal authority for use in churches, one object of it was stated to be to encourage a better attendance at processions, which had fallen into neglect from the people not understanding Latin (§ 26). This English Litany of 1544, the direct parent of our present one, exhibited in several respects a very marked difference from its predecessors. The long catalogue of saints was gone, and there were retained only three invocations to created beings, -one alone being named "St. Mary, mother of God our Saviour;" after whom came one to " Holy angels, archangels, and all holy orders of blessed spirits ;" though but one was named. With this striking abridgment the people would hardly recognise their Litany. In the popular notion all that string of invocations, which once began and went more than half through the whole service, was itself the Litany (Palm. O. L. i. 296). It, however, went some way towards swelling out the shrunken dimensions that the invocations to the Divine Persons were considerably amplified in the English rendering; and still further, that each of them was repeated in full by the people after the minister. But not only were the several saints excluded, the Lesser Litany was likewise omitted, and the effect was that the Trinity, which was before almost obscured in some four lines between the Kyrie and the saints, now opened the service and became its most prominent feature. The saints had been banished, the Trinity shone forth, Although the disappearance of the saints had left the invocatory element comparatively so diminished, the expansion of what remained was so considerable as to enable that element still to retain its old place in popular estimation and be reckoned as the Litany par excellence. Indeed, invocations to the Divine Being for mercy were ever the fundamental idea of the Litany. It is from such a point of view, therefore, that we may best explain the new title which the service came to bear in 1544-and which it still bears 1 in the Ordination Service-namely, "A Litany with Suffrages." The suffrages which had used to follow the saints now came into greater prominence. They were reformed, and in various ways improved, as will be noted further on, and special attention was called to them by the new title. Nor can another difference fail to strike any one who compares the Latin with the new English. The short marching step has disappeared, and a recitative more adapted to a motionless congregation has taken its place. "Sancta Trinitas, unus Deus, miserere nobis!" "Sancta Maria, virgo virginum, ora pro nobis !"—that was the kind of movement throughout. The Litany and Suffrages of 1544 belonged to a period when processions were confined to churches or their immediate precincts (vid. PROCESSIONS in the Glossary). Finally, two other differences must be noted. In the Litany proper of 1544 the words "proceeding from the Father and the Son" were first added, thus bringing our English Litany into closer harmony with the Nicene Creed. Now also first, among the suffrages, following "privy conspiracy," came the clause, "from the tyranny of the bishop of Rome, and all his detestable enormities." The new Litany will be compared with its predecessors more in detail in the next section. In 1549 the Litany was annexed to the Prayer Book rather than formed a constituent part of it. The title continued to run, "A Litany with Suffrages." Invocations to created beings were entirely omitted. |