"No cathedral has preserved such a variety of service books for its Use as Sarum. This is another name for the Ordinale: it was also named the Consuetudinary. -The Missal was the ritual, containing the rites, directions to the priests, prayers used in the administration of the sacraments," only one, viz: the Eucharist, "blessing of holy water," sometimes, "and the whole service used in processions": very seldom any portion of it. "It begins with the Speculum Sacerdotum, or directions for celebrating the mass": this tract seldom occurs in the Missals, neither is it directions, &c. as Gough has it: "or with benedictions of the bread and salt, or exorcisms. Then follows the service of every Sunday, (from the first in Advent) festival and eve prefaces, canons" what are canons?" conclusio and cautelæ missæ. Then the masses for saints, martyrs, &c."

"The Breviary seems to have been at first confined to rubrics": this is a repetition of an hypothesis of Quesnel, which I have examined elsewhere; "after became a more compendious missal (!) containing the whole office of the mass, and all services, except the forms of marriage." Lyndwood is quoted for this extraordinary statement, but no reference given: I do not remember to have seen so compendious a Breviary.

"The Portiforium, called also in some titles the Breviarium, and like it a commodious portable" not always portable, "abridgement of the service, has a gloss or paraphrase on each portion of scripture." What does this mean? "It is sometimes called Sanctorale." Never: the edition named in the note must have been an odd volume. "It was divided into the summer and winter part according to the holidays; the summer containing only Sundays, beginning with Tri

nity Sunday; the winter, the Saints' days." One would have supposed that with the books before him as Gough had, no writer could have made such a statement.

"The Enchiridion, called also Orarium, is supposed to have been the same with the Directorium": from which it differed as much as any two books can, which have nothing in common.

"The Manuale seems to have been a collection of prayers, canons, (?) and other forms not ranged through the year as in the Missal, and of a more portable size." Utterly wrong. "Lyndwood defines it the same as the Ritual, containing all things belonging to the sacraments, sacramentals and benedictions": why then did not our author content himself with this, instead of making guesses?

"The Horæ begin with some short prayers, or In principio erat verbum, and consist of prayers, sentences, suffrages, vigils, and psalms." The "In principio, &c." is a quaint way indeed of speaking of the 1st Ch. of the Gospel of S. John.

"The Processionale is a rubric of processions and chanting."

"The Graduale, derived from gradus or gradiri, was nearly the same with the Processional, a set of chants for processions," with which it had nothing to do, "though the words are not always the same. In this the epistles and gospels were set to music, with other choir music: and it contained all that was to be sung by the choir at high mass, and the office for sprinkling holy water." Lyndwood is quoted for this last, and fortunately not amended.

"The Legend contained the lessons taken out of scripture and the fathers, and the lives of the saints, &c."

"The Liber Festivalis was a set of homilies either in Latin or English, for the several festivals and saints' days."

"The Psalter, besides David's psalms, contained the other scripture songs, and a set of hymns sung at vespers, matins, and other canonical hours throughout the year": this latter part confounds the Hymnal with the Psalter.

"The Hymni were confined to the hymns in honour of saints, the Te Deum, Magnificat, &c. The Expositio hymnorum is a gloss or parsing of the hymns; reducing them to the meanest capacities, which was but too necessary. The Sequences or Prosa, whose exposition follows that of the hymns, were sentences or songs of praise sung at mass.

"The Primer seems to have been peculiar to the English Church; a collection of prayers, psalms, hymns, suffrages, matins, &c. in Latin and English; retained with alteration, after the Reformation."

I

CHAPTER II.

SHALL first lay before the reader a series of notices collected from authentic documents of the English Church, which have reference to the Books used in her public worship, or authorized by her. We shall thus arrive at least at the names of many of them. For to hope to do more than this, and to explain them, in such cases as we are able, from copies which are still extant, to hope I say more than this, would be a sure prelude to disappointment.

We may indeed venture to complain, adopting the words of a very learned writer, whose object was limited to the Choral books alone: "Hæc pauca, exempli causa, recensere libuit, catalogum enim texere, infinitum foret, omnium ejusmodi librorum, qui passim adhuc in monasteriis inter cimelia asservantur, magno plerumque ornatu conscripti, in pergameno etiam purpura tincto, litteris aureis vel argenteis: cujusmodi antiphonarii, &c." There is this difference however: that Gerbert is speaking of the Service Books of Churches which have not suffered almost total alterations; and of the archives of monasteries which have happily been preserved from the fury of fanatics, and the knavery of royal Commissioners.

Pope Gregory, whose Christian zeal had urged him to undertake the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, did not leave his missionary, Saint Augustine, without the proper necessaries for the due performance of the Divine Service. Bede' tells us that when he sent the Archbishop his pall, he sent also sacred vessels and vestments for the altar, for the Priests and Clerks, relics and many books, "necnon et codices plurimos." Named as they are together with vestments and sacred vessels, we must conclude that these books were also intended for the public worship, and not for S. Augustin's private use. I may mention here that there is preserved in the Bodleian library, a noble MS. Gospels, which tradition states to have been one of these famous books: unquestionably for 1000 years, all the care which pious gratitude and reverence for S. Au

8 Gerbert. De cantu et musica sacra. Tom. 1. 564.

9 Historia Eccles: Lib. 1. Cap. xxix.

gustin and S. Gregory could suggest, would have been bestowed upon these volumes: and at last they probably perished only through the destruction which accompanied the Reformation.10

About fifty years afterwards we learn from the same author" that Benedict, the first Abbot of Wearmouth, was equally careful to provide for the service of the altar; "cuncta quæ ad altaris et ecclesiæ ministerium competebant, quia domi invenire non potuit, de transmarinis regionibus advectare religiosus emptor curabat."

Egbert, Archbishop of York, was a contemporary and friend of Venerable Bede: the 4th ch. of the 3rd book of his Penitential teaches us the great reverence which he thought was due to the books which were employed in the service of God, and consecrated to Him. "Sacerdotes Dei, et diaconi, et alii Dei ministri quos in Dei templo Deo servire oportet, et reliquias et sacros libros manu tractare, castitatem suam usque servare debeat."12

In the year 960, the Canons of K. Edgar were published: the 3rd of these orders that all ministers, "ad quamlibet synodum habeant quotannis libros et vestimenta ad servitium ecclesiasticum." The 34th respects the correctness of the Books used in the Divine worship for it would appear that faulty copies were

10 An account of these books is contained in the Canterbury MS. preserved at Trinity Hall, Cambridge and published by Wanley in his Catalogue of Saxon MSS. See also, Elstob's Saxon Homily. p. 39.

11 Beda. Vita Beatorum Abbatum Benedicti &c. cap. 5.

12 Thorpe. Ancient Laws and Institutes of England. vol. 2. 197.