written in rhyme, many of the lines show much of the old alliterative feeling, even if, as might be very possible, some of them were not adapted from an older poem in that metre. In its present form it was intended for recitation "in hall,"

"Herknep hende in halle" (1. 595);

and the hearers are called on to listen (l. 17, 1. 557); and harken (1. 628); and are addressed as "sires" (1. 257, 383).

"Jon the blynd Awdlay,"(1) somewhat to the damage of his originality, borrows from this piece, or rather, in all likelihood, from a common original, more than two hundred lines out of the four hundred and fourteen of his poem "De meritis missæ; quomodo debemus audire missam," which calls itself a sermon, and claims an indulgence for the hearers:

"Alle that han herd this sermon

A c. days of pardon

Saynt Gregore grauntis zou this."(2)

It was edited from a Douce MS. [No. 302, fol. 10b-12] in the Bodleian for the Percy Society by Mr Halliwell.

Very much the same matter, though with a very great many various readings, is included in the unpublished Meritum Missæ of the Harleian MS. 3954. (3) This was also intended for recitation, and the audience is addressed as "Lordingis."

The Vernon MS. as here printed is patched together from the copies of at least two different scribes, who have altered the original according to their several dialects. As one instance, the lines already mentioned as having been repeated are here given for the sake of comparison:

"Whon pat pou comest þe chirche with-Inne

And pou sest pe prest bi-gynne

Take his vestimens

on."—l. 212-14.

Here the Douce MS. reads:

"Fro tyme the cherche ze ben within,
And the prest he doth begyn

His vestmentus to take on."(4)

(1) He was a chaplain in the monastery of Hagmon in Shropshire, and became blind and deaf. He wrote in the early part of the fifteenth century. (2) Poems of John Audelay, Halliwell, 1844, p. 81.

(3) This is a fairly written MS., early in the XV century, on vellum, oblong small folio. It contains among other pieces Sir J. Mandeville's travels, with rough illustrations, Piers Plowman, &c.

(4) Audelay, Poems, ed. Halliwell, p. 75.

And the Harleian MS. 3954, fol. 75:

"Sun pou be pe chyrch with in
And pe prest wyl be-gyn

þe vestement to tan."

But amidst the jumble of dialects, there is no difficulty in recognising Northumbrian as having been the dialect of the original, the northern forms being retained, when they rhymed with a word, which did not readily admit of being changed; and in one or two other instances where the scribe appears to have let them pass per incuriam. In fact it would be very easy to restore the northern forms in the text as it stands. For example, in the two staves where we have the lines here quoted, and they would perhaps be more difficult than any, but for the hint in the Harleian MS.-the rhyme-words of the four tails in the first (1. 209-220) are con (take his vestimens), on, non, and euerichon; and the northern formns would be can (pe vestement to), tan, nan, and ever ilk an. In the second (1. 281-292) we have the tailrhymes mon, on, euerichon, and bigon; and we may restore man, tan, everilcan, and bigan. Or in the first stave (1. 5—16), which does not occur in the other MSS., the scribe has not altered the northern tan, and the other tail-rhymes which, however, do not rhyme with it, are on, ston, and gon, and no doubt were originally written an, stan, and gan. In the second stave there is nothing so obviously characteristic in the tail-rhymes; and in the third (1. 29-40) we have four northern forms, say, may, day, and way-probably because may did not admit of being transliterated, for a few lines above (1. 23-4) we have seye and preye rhyming together; and lines 596-7 we have sei (say) and wey (way).(1) And so too in the couplets: 1. 104 we have the northern pou gas, in the second person, unaltered to rhyme with pas; and so 1. 578, in the phrase "gas hame," gas has most likely been retained by an oversight, but hame because a rhyme to schame did not readily present itself;and upon the same principle we may account for the northern first person singular being retained in "I sees," because rhyming with "lees," 1. 176-7.

P. 128, l. 11. pris prayere.

Cf. William of Palerne, 1. 161, where the Romance is described as a "pris tale;" and in Robert of Gloucester, Hearne, I, 409 :

"Vyfty hors of prys þe kyng of pe londe

And vyfty pousand besans, he send hem by his sonde."

P. 129, 1. 36. Audelay begins his poem by borrowing lines 17-47. His reading here

"zef we wyl of our syn lete,"

very probably shows what the original must have read.

(1) In the same stave we have wey and weye in lines 125 and 136, where in line 133 way has been retained when wanted for the rhyme.

P. 130, 1. 80. 3or seruice say, of the people; and so pointing to a time before they had ceased to join aloud in the ervice. See p. 200, 256-7.

1. 86-8.

Further on(1) we may see what was the feeling, when this was written, as to the gospel in the mother tongue. It has already been pointed out (2) that in the later texts we may trace a change as to the practice of the people answering aloud and joining in the prayers with the priest, when they "of the letter could," which is recognized here and in the original of our Mass-book. In fact, some years before the reformation, not the practice only, but the theory, of congregational worship had died out;(3) and in the reign of Queen Mary, after the English service had been in use during the reign of Edward VI, not only were laymen not expected to take their part with the clergy in the prescribed office, if they chanced to understand it, but their being able to understand the language was looked upon as a hindrance to their devotions.

Dr John Christopherson, Dean of Norwich, writing in defence of the recent submission of the Church of England to the see of Rome, describes the jeer of the malcontents at Divine service in Latin. "But now, I warrant you, you must turn your tippet, and lay away your old mumpsimus, and shut up your portesse(4) and your mass-book too, and put away clean your purgatory masses."(5) "But many," he afterwards admits, “grudge and are offended that the masses and all other Divine Service is in Latin, so that when they be in the church, they do not understand what the priest saith."(6) For himself he says, "I have oftentime much marvelled at us Englishmen of late that we came to the church at the time of our English service to hear only and not to pray ourselves. When they come to church, and hear the priests, who saith common prayer for all the whole multitude, albeit they understand them not, yet if they be occupied in a godly prayer themselves, it is sufficient for them. And let them

not so greatly pass for understanding what the priests say, but

(1) Page 140, 1. 425-448, and note, p. 211.

(2) Notes, p. 201, 257, 310.

(3) See note, p. 158.

(4) Portesse, or Portiforium, the old Anglican service book corresponding to the Roman Breviary. The English name occurs in great variety of formsportous, portuows, portowse, portuyse, portuas, portuasse, portas, portes, portess, portos, portose, portosse, portuary; but the form here (portesse) seems to have become general towards the middle of the sixteenth century; and in 1610 we have the translators of the Bible adopting it in their address "to the reader."

(5) Exhortation to all men to take hede and beware of rebellion, John Cawood, 1554, Sig. T iiij, b. I modernise the spelling in the quotations, Christopherson was made bishop of Chichester in 1557, and died Dec. 1558. (6) Ib. Sig. X. iij.

travail themselves in fervent praying, and so shall they highly please God. Yea, and experience hath plainly taught us, that it is much better for them not to understand the common service of the church, because when they hear others praying in a loud voice, in the language that they understand, they are letted from prayer themselves, and so come they to such a slackness and negligence in praying, that at length, as we have well seen in these late days, in manner pray not at all."(1)

P. 130, 1. 90. holi, writ. We must not suppose that the writer pretends to have inspired authority for his statements. Both "holy writ"

66

and "holy scripture" are used in the present day exclusively of such books as may be accounted canonical in particular churches; but in the middle ages, as in line 95, of patristic and mediæval writers of recognized authority. (2) We find a like wider use in authorized Roman Catholic formularies of a later date, e. g. Sacri scriptores," in the Catechism of the Council of Trent (Pars II, c. IV, q. 5). Our old writers used it still more largely of legendary tales;(3) and, curious to note, while on the one hand. they included the writings of the fathers, genuine and supposititious alike, in the general name of holy writ, on the other hand we find our Lord and the inspired writers classed together as doctors of the Church :

(1) Exhortation to all men to take hede and beware of rebellion, John Cawood, 1554, Sig. X. v.

(2) Thus we find good old Richard of Hampole prefaces his account of the seven joys of heaven and the seven "schendschepes" of hell with the statement that he shows them

"Als es fonden in haly wrytt" (P. C. 8186),

and he thereupon names his authority:

"Ffor Saint Austyn pat mykelle couth of clergy.

Says in a sarmon þat he made openly."-P. C. 8207-8.

And so, too, Robert of Brunne :

"Of holy wryt, þe englysh y toke

Dialogus men clepyn þe boke."-H. S. 1364-5.

(3) The York Minster Library MS. of the tale of Ypotyse-the appearance of our Lord as a child, under this name, to the emperor Hadrian-begins thus (fol. 58) :—

"Lystenes to me and ze may heere,

All þat wil of wysdom leere,

Of a tale of hooli writte.

Seint iohn þe apostil witnessep it."

The writer furnishes an example of the reckless manner in which the authority of a weighty name was constantly claimed.

His authority when he

began, as we have seen, was Saint John the Apostle, and he ends with Saint John the Baptist (fol. 69) :

"Seynt iohn þe baptist

þat went on erpe wit Iesu crist

þis tale wrote in latyn

Clerkis to haue in parchemyn."

"After the text of Crist, and Powel, and Ion)

And of oure other doctours many oon."-Chaucer, C. T. 7229-30.

P. 131, 1. 98. mony a mede. This refers to the virtues or virtutes missæ, which were also known as the medes of the mass or merita missr, though merita and mede were often used of the mass in a less restricted sense.

These virtutes or merita were sayings ascribed to our Lord himself, the evangelists, apostles, and ancient fathers, and so assigned without any attempt at critical exactitude-not to say, with an absolute unconcern as to the merest semblance of probable truth. They attribute to the fact of hearing a mass a variety of advantages, spiritual and temporal, most calculated to work upon the hopes or fears, the selfishness or affections, of the ignorant and superstitious. I hope this will not seem prejudiced or uncharitable, for I am not one of those who can see nothing to admire—or to desideratein the religion of our forefathers. In forming a judgment as to their opinions or practice, I endeavour, so far as I know how, to do so from their point of view, with their means of information, and in their circumstances; but in respect to those who debited these fables-and in this I may include the great majority of the legends and tales of the mass-the conviction has forced itself upon me, that whilst there were many humble and holy men who had a single eye to the saving of souls and the honour of their Lord, there were others to whom, whatsoever else they may have believed as to the merits of the mass, not the least of its merits was this, that it gave occasion for the mass-penny of the layman.

It would be an incomplete illustration of this part of our subject if the reader were left without materials for forming his own opinion. I have met with a great diversity from various printed and unpublished manuscript sources, and it had occurred to me to print some of the pieces entire in the Appendix; but they had so little to recommend them either to an antiquary or a philologist, that I have taken my own patience and my readers' into account, and give only a few extracts, without including all of those under the names of "Austin, Ambrose, Barnard, and Bede," who are mentioned in the text.(1)

I begin with a few of the first items of the "Vertewis of the Mess," from a MS. of the Lowland Scotch dialect of the fifteenth century, edited for the society by Mr Lumby.

"Her begynnis the Vertewis of the mess, apprewyt be the haly wryt, baith be our lord Ihesu cristes wordes, and vthir haly sanctis and doctour's of pe cristyne faith. And fyrst and formist. "Sanct paul sais that rycht as our lord Ihesu cryst is mar worthi and mar preciouss than ony vthir creatur that god maid, (1) Line 95. The Harleian MS. gives the four names, "Ierome, ambroce, Bernard and bede,” and adds, " And Austyn ouer hem Ichon.”—fol. 74, b.