In proportion as the several dialects branched off from the common stock, the service must have grown harder to be understood by the people. The passing of the canon requiring them to join with the clerks and "the virgins vowed to God" in answering the priest consona voce,(1) may be due to this greater difference between the written Latin and the spoken language.

In the Gallican Church the laity gradually ceased to take their appointed part. In the eighth century the forcing of the Roman rite upon a reluctant church was found to have hastened this change-probably by interrupting the traditional responses to which the people had been used in their Gallican liturgy. We gather from Dan Jeremy's rubrics that in the twelfth century the laity did not join in the Nicene creed, and that there were but few answers expected in Normandy, or from French speaking worshippers in England; though it is curious to observe, as an instance of the tenacity of custom in opposition to ritual changes, that one of these answers was also made in the Eastern Church, and in all likelihood a survival, after nearly four centuries, from that very Gallican liturgy which the ecclesiastical power at Rome and the civil power at the Frankish court had combined to suppress.(2)

The modifications in the English translation of Dan Jeremy's work that were made in the fifteenth century, (3) prove that the people were no longer required to answer aloud in the Church of England, if indeed any, except literates, (4) had ever done so, except at the Orate in the offertory, possibly at the Sanctus, (5) and in the Paternoster at the end of the canon. We must not forget that St Augustine and his Latin missionaries brought the Latin offices to a people who had not been subject to the Roman empire, and were never in the way of acquiring the Latin language, except in their minster schools; and therefore it is most probable that as respects the lay folk, there never had been that answering the priest as with one voice of which we read in countries where Latin, or what passed for Latin, had been the common tongue.

Be this as it may, we know that for years before the reformation

(1) Note, p. 256(3). (3) Notes, p. 255, 257, 310.

(2) Page 24. Note, p. 260. (4) Note, p. 200-201,

(5) Note, p. 271.

neither the unlearned, nor-unless they were members of a religious foundation, or were in minor or holy orders,-those

"Who of the letter could,"(1)

had taken any audible part in the service when they "heard mass as their share in it, very fittingly came to be called. In the reign of Queen Mary it was argued by a learned and temperate apologist for the papal system, that instead of its being an advantage for Englishmen to understand the common service of the church, it was a hindrance to their being occupied with their own prayers. (2) Very much in the same sense Lyndwood,(3) more than a hundred years before, quoting from Johannes Andreas, the great authority of the canon law in the earlier half of the fourteenth century, had already given "Ne impediatur populus orare," as one of his reasons for the canon being said in silence.

This we may fairly class among the a posteriori arguments that are apt to grow up around whatever is de facto established, but a publication of the Early English Text Society is not the place to discuss the character of the primitive practice or of the developed theory. In our present enquiry we have to consider the change, only in so far as Dan Jeremy had to deal with it, when he wrote the Lay Folks Mass Book; and the fact that the Latin was not understood by the people, much as it had to do with the form in which he has cast their devotions, does not altogether account for it.

If the difference of language had alone to have been taken into account, it would have been enough to have translated the appointed service of the mass, whereas he translates only a few parts, and does not draw the remainder from the missal.

We know that afterwards, as, for example, among the brethren of the common life, (4) who were especially devoted to the religious instruction of the laity, a scruple was felt as to translating the missal. In the treatise from the Vernon MS. in the appendix,(5) it is expressly said that certain parts are "out taken" as being what

(1) Page 14, C 83. (2) Note, p. 364. in the Church of Rome, (3) Lib. I, Tit. 10. (4) Note, p. 387.

See also a quotation from Romsée, as the modern rule post, p. 201.

Ut archidiaconi (a).

(5) Page 146, line 666. Note, p. 386-7.

"No man but a priest should read."

In the middle of the seventeenth century this feeling was fully developed, and a papal bull denounced the translation of the mass into French as a rash attempt to expose the dignity of the holy mysteries to the vulgar;(1) nor has this become a dead letter, for at the beginning of this present half century the congregation of rites at Rome guarded against the translation of the ordinary of the mass into the vulgar tongue.(2)

There may have been something of this exclusive sacerdotal feeling in an undeveloped form when Dan Jeremy wrote, but whenever and however it did originate-and no one has argued that it was the custom of the primitive church to have public prayers or to minister the sacraments in a tongue not understanded of the people there must have been some other cause to account for the form of these devotions. It has occurred to me that we may explain it upon the supposition, that before the difficulty from the difference of language had assumed its later proportions, the people were accustomed to separate devotions in the time of the divine service, simultaneous with, but not led by, the devotions of the officiating priest; and if I do not mistake, we may trace the origin of this custom in the practice of the church as early as the fourth century.

The nineteenth canon of the council of Laodicea directs that the first prayer of the faithful, after the withdrawal of the penitents, shall be dia ons; and this appears to be rightly explained by Bingham (3) as meaning, that the communion service began with private confessions, and "that they were not only made by the people in silence by themselves, but by the minister in private also."(4)

(1) Note, p. 388.

(2) Note, p. 389.

(3) Antiquities, Book XV, ch. i, sec. 1.

(4) The Apostolical Constitutions describe the silent or private prayer in this place as being said kneeling at the bidding of the deacon: "All we of the faithful, let us bend the knee." (Cons. Apost., VIII, 9.) The prayer ended, the people were bidden to stand, and the principal or presiding priest (ó ápɣuptúç) resumed the common service. (Ib., c. 10.)

Cassian in his Instituta Cœnobiorum speaks of this as being the established practice in the beginning of the fifth century, not only at the celebration of the liturgy, but also at the canonical hours. He suggests that those, who were in haste to kneel, did so, not so much to pray, as for a pretext to rest

I may add, in confirmation of this explanation, that the prayer in this place in the modern Euchologium is rubricated, "First prayer of the faithful," and is said in silence, as μvorik@g is generally translated, though perhaps in an undertone might more correctly convey its meaning.(1) A rubric for the simultaneous prayers of the priest within the sanctuary, and of the people led by the deacon without, was to be found in the earliest printed editions of the Euchologium, (2) and the practice survives, though this rubric is expunged. There still remain directions for the continuance of the service of the people in other parts of the liturgy, when the priest is engaged in private devotion. For example, there is a prayer appointed for the priest to say secretly, whilst the cherubic hymn is being sung, (3) and it is very easy to understand, that by a reverse process, the people, especially (obtentu refectionis) when weary with long standing; and then lays down the rule as follows: "Cum autem is qui orationem collecturus est e terra surrexit, omnes pariter eriguntur; ita ut nullus, nec antequam inclinetur ille, genuflectere, nec cum e terra surréxerit, remorari præsumat." This was subject to the exception of the custom of not kneeling on Sundays, and in Quinquagesima or the fifty days between Easter and Whitsunday, mentioned by him in a subsequent chapter (Lib, II, c. 18), as by other writers, both before and after him, and enforced by an express canon of the council of Nice.

It did not occur to me, when I wrote the note, p. 319(5), some years ago; but I take this opportunity of drawing attention to the early custom of kneeling in the time of public worship, when engaged in personal prayer, as contrasted with that of standing when joining in the common prayer of the church, because it seems not improbable that in it we may find the true explanation of the people kneeling more and more at mass, in proportion as they used other devotions and ceased to join in the service; until they ended, by kneeling throughout,-a gradual change, which may be very plainly traced in the later revisions of our treatise.

(1) In the liturgy of St Chrysostom, when the deacon calls upon the priest to bless (sign with cross) the consecrated bread, he must clearly speak so as to be heard. The rubric is worded Xéyu μvorikāç.—Goar, p. 77; Euchol. 60. So also in the liturgy of St Basil.-Goar, 169; Euchol. 84.

(2) Goar (p. 65) gives the following rubric from the liturgy of St Chrysostom at the beginning of the service : Τοῦ ἱερέως λέγοντος τὴν εὐχὴν μυστικῶς ἐν τῷ βήματι, ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ καιρῷ ὁ διάκονος λέγει ἔξω τοῦ βήματος τὰ sipηviká. (Whilst the priest is saying the prayer in an under tone in the sanctuary, at the same time the deacon says the Eirenica (Litany with the people) outside the sanctuary.)

He notes (p. 90) that this rubric had been changed in later Venice editions, which he quotes; and it has been again altered, as appears by the present Euchologion (Venice, 1854), p. 46.

(3) Goar, 72. Euchol. 76. And so too the Mechitarist (Uniate Armenian) liturgy, Venice, 1826-"Whilst the clerks sing the Agiologia' (as the cherubic hymn is called in the Italian translation), the priest, bowing towards the altar, prays secretly."

when they did not understand the spoken words, might have contracted the corresponding habit of offering their private prayers instead of hearkening to the priest.

To whatever extent this may actually be the case in the Eastern Church, we know that in the Roman Catholic communion, the laity, as a rule, do not habitually use the missal or follow the prayers of the liturgy. They have devotions provided for them, by episcopal authority or "permissu superiorum," in various manuals in their own languages, but these for the most part are not nearly so systematically adapted to the Latin office as our medieval Mass Book.

Now, however widely established this state of things may have become, we cannot assume that it was ever authoritatively substituted for a congregational service at any definite time. It is far more easy to suppose, that at first in the Latin Church, priest and people were in the habit of using private prayers at prescribed times in the public service, as was appointed by the Laodicæan canon, and as still the rule of the ordinal of the Church of England at the ordering of priests.

There may be no direct proof that such private prayer was the rule-and I do not remember to have seen the question (1) raised—

(1) The offertory of the Roman mass still begins with "Oremus," though no interval is allowed for prayer, and the offertory anthem is forthwith sung. (Cf. York Use, post, p. 98, 1. 21.) This is precisely that part of the Latin rite to which the Laodicæan canon would apply and if we suppose that the faithful did at one time engage in private prayer when they were apart (secreti) from those who were not admitted to communion (Note, p. 267); and that this direction was then inserted in the service books; it will supply a reason for the "Oremus" in this place, for which, in its present isolated position, Roman Catholic commentators have found a difficulty in accounting. In the same way, namely, that the invitation to private prayer has been allowed to remain, after the custom had been discontinued, we may explain the "Oremus. Flectamus genua. Levate." (Let us pray. Let us bow our knees, Rise up), which, according to the existing rubric of the Roman Missal, has become simply a direction for a transient genuflection (“sine mora," Rit. Celeb, Miss. V, 4)—the call to kneel being made by the deacon, and that to rise by the subdeacon, lest, as explained by Romsée (Tom. IV, 9, viii), if both these calls were made by the deacon, as of old, and without any pause, he might contradict himself—" contraria videatur proferre."

This form continued to be used at the Ember seasons, and in Lent, and especially after the Orationes solemnes on Good Friday, except the one for the Jews, several mediæval rubrics assigning as a reason for the exception, that the Jews bowed their knees before our Lord and mocked him, the history in the gospel notwithstanding, which records this of the soldiers of the Roman governor.

Now, no doubt, in the course of time, the people knelt throughout when