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northern, those of York, were generally followed. In South Wales the Offices of Hereford were adopted, and in North Wales, those of Bangor, &c. :" and so he passes on. Neither does Dr. Nicholls in his Commentary make remark upon any the passage. Bishop Mant in his selection of Notes upon the Common Prayer, has referred to Sparrow and Brown, who give no further information upon the subject, except indeed that Osmund the Bishop of Salisbury, about 1070, was the compiler of the Use of Sarum.

There are many again, who are better informed, but yet have never had an opportunity of examining any copies of the old services which still exist, whether from living at a distance from public libraries, or from some other cause. It is hoped therefore, that an attempt to render accessible these books or portions of them, (in the present instance the most important of all) will not be unacceptable.

Before the Reformation the public services of the Church of England were not contained, as they now are, in one volume, but in several. Prefixed to an edition of the Portiforium secundum usum Sarum, by Grafton and Whitchurch in 1544,3 are a privilege and license of the King under his great seal to those printers, that they alone should print certain "bookes of devine servyce, and praier bookes, that is to saie, the Masse booke, ye Graile, the Hympnal, the Antiphoner, the Processyonale, the Manuel, the Porteaus, and the Prymer."

Of the books here enumerated the Missal contained the rites and ceremonies and prayers to be used in the celebration of the Holy Communion. It has a Calendar

3 In the possession of the Editor.

at the beginning, always I believe in the printed editions, if not in the Manuscripts: then come the Collects, Epistles, Gospels, Secrets, &c. which vary, throughout the year, succeeded by the Ordinary and the Canon:* after which are the services appointed at the Communion for Saints days, and the commemorations of confessors, martyrs, and virgins. These are followed by occasional services to be used when required for the King, for peace, for penitents, against pestilence, for travellers, for the newly married, &c.; and the book not uncommonly ends with forms for blessing water, or bread, &c. and directions to the officiating Priest. The Graile or Gradual and the Processional contained the chants and directions for the processions to be used throughout the year: in the Antiphoner, as its name imports, were the Introits and other Antiphons, with their music, which were chanted during the celebration of the Communion :6

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The Ordinary and Canon are also, especially in MSS., often placed after Easter Day; they are sometimes printed upon separate sheets, or upon vellum; and are almost always preceded by a large drawing or wood-cut of the crucifixion.

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Notandum est volumen, quod nos vocamus Antiphonarium, tria habere nomina apud Romanos. Quod dicimus Graduale, illi vocant Cantatorium, qui adhuc juxta morem antiquum apud illos in aliquibus Ecclesiis uno volumine continetur. Sequentem partem dividunt in nominibus. Pars, quæ continet Responsoria, vocatur Responsoriale. Et pars, quæ continet Antiphonas, vocatur Antiphonarius.” Amalarius lib. de Ord. Antiphonarii: cited by Du Cange. Two editions of the Processional, 1532 and 1558, in the possession of the Editor, contain very curious wood-cuts of the positions in which the officiating priest, deacons, and subdeacons, &c. should stand. The censers, candlesticks, and crucifixes are marked, and the clergy distinguished by shaven crowns, the priest alone having part of a cope added below! • This is the strict and old meaning of the Antiphonarium: about the end of the fifteenth century it began to include also the Antiphoris which were to be sung at Matins, Lauds, and at the other Canonical Hours.

and in the Hymnal, (or Psalter as it was called, if it also contained the Psalms) were the ecclesiastical and other hymns, which were sung in the Church service. Litanies and prayers were frequently added in the Hymnal.' The Manual corresponded with what we now are accustomed to call "the Offices," and contained the prayers and services to be used in blessing water or salt, or the lamps at the Feast of the Purification: the Order for Baptism, for "Churching of Women," for Marriage, for Visiting the Sick, for Extreme Unction, for Burial, and several others. The London edition of the Manual in 1554, has at the end directions to the curate if called suddenly by a parishioner to make his will, and a form

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7 For example, in the edition of the Hymnal and Psalter, in one vol. 24mo. according to the use of Sarum and York, 1529; in the possession of the Editor.

* The following is a translation of these directions, from a copy in the possession of the Editor.

"Form of a Will. In the name of God. Amen. To all to whom these presents shall come, N, Curate of N, wisheth health in the Lord. We do you to wit, that in the presence of us and of the witnesses whose names are written below, specially called and summoned for this very purpose, the honest man N, lying upon a sick bed, infirm of body, but of sound mind, weighing and considering that the life of man is short upon the earth, and that nothing is more sure than death, nothing more uncertain than the hour of death; desirous also to provide for his soul's health, and to attain to the joys of everlasting bliss; hath made his last Will and Testament in the manner and form following. First he hath committed his soul to the Most High God, his Creator: and to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the whole heavenly host. But his body to the worms of the earth, desiring it to be buried in the churchyard or church of N aforesaid. Then he hath willed and commanded all his just debts to be paid, and restitution to be made to all whom he may have injured. And the aforesaid testator out of the goods which God hath given him hath bequeathed to the fabric of the aforesaid church Item, to the curate Item, to the vicar

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Item, to his brother

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Item, to the clerk comes the appointment of executors, and the signing and witnessing

of the Will. In how much more Christian a spirit is the above, than

for the certifying the publication of Banns. The Porteau or Portiforium and the Breviary are different names of the same book, which contained the full services to be said throughout the year at the Canonical Hours: these consisted of various prayers and psalms, and hymns. The Portiforium, says Du Cange, was so called from its being small in size and easy to be carried about. No unnecessary qualification in days when men, wherever they might be, whether at home or abroad, at leisure or in the hurry of a journey, did not neglect to comply, if possible, with the directions of the Church. Travellers were permitted, having said some of the more solemn part of the Hour upon their knees, to remount and finish the rest as they proceeded upon horseback.9 The Primer was little known until about 1530, between which year and 1560 several editions, or rather several Books under that name, were published, some by private individuals, many of which were rigidly suppressed, and some with various alterations as time went on, by royal authority. These contained the Lord's Prayer, the Salutation of the Angel, the Creed, the Commandments, the Hours, the penitential Psalms, the Litany, the Dirge, the Commendations, the Psalms of the Passion, the History of the Passion from the Gospels, and other godly prayers for sundry purposes.10 They were sometimes

the documents which men now-a-days leave behind them; records indeed of their having once lived, but not that they were members of the Church of God. Modern wills are but a part and parcel of that system which desecrates burial-grounds and even church-yards with inverted torches, and urns, and the other symbols of a creed which denied the doctrine of the resurrection.

9 See, Life of S. Stephen. Abbot. p. 10. Statuta Lanfranci. c. 15. 10 These contents are given from the Primer of 1545, in the Editor's possession, printed by Whitchurch, in small 8vo. At the beginning

in English only, sometimes in Latin and English in parallel columns.

The above were the chief old service and prayerbooks of the Church of England: and although there were undoubtedly very numerous editions of all of them, (with the exception of some of the early Primers) there are no books, as a class, which at present are so rare. By far the greater number moreover of those which do remain are mutilated and imperfect: and this is equally the case both as regards manuscripts and printed editions.

are also a Calendar and the King's Injunction establishing and authorizing its use. It is entirely in English, and the Injunction declares that it should be so "specially for that the youth are taught the Pater noster, Crede, & x commandmentes al in latin & not in englysshe, by meanes wherof the same are not brought up in the knowledge of their faith, duti and obedience wherin no christen person ought to be ignoraunt." It goes on to say that " for the avoyding of the diversitie of primer bokes that are now abrode, wherof are almoost innumerable sortes which minister occasion of contentions and vayne disputations, rather then to edefy, & to have one uniforme ordre of all such bookes throughout all our dominions, bothe to be taughte and used: have set furth this primer in Englishe to be frequented in all places of our said realmes and that the youth customably & ordinarelye use the same untyl they be of competent understandyng and knoweledge to perceive it in Latyn." It is scarcely necessary then to add that these Primers vary much in their contents. The Editor possesses several. Among which particularly are Grafton's edition of the same Primer of 1545, Latin and English: The Prymer of Salisbury Use, 1532, Thielman Kerver: the same, 1538, printed at Rouen : The Primer set furth by the Kinges maiestie, 1543, London, by Thomas Petyt: The Prymer in Latin and English, 1555, by Wayland: The Primer in Englishe and Latine, 1557, Kyngston and Sutton: The Prymer in Latine after the use of Salisburye, 1557, by the assignes of Ihon Waylande: and the Prymer in English and Latine, 1558, by the same. Many of these books have very curious wood-cuts, and verses in English describing the ages of man, and the seasons or months of the year. The foreign printers about the year 1500 or 1510 excelled in illustrating with wood-cuts small books of devotion: and these, when upon vellum, are matchless specimens of typography.

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