The Customs of Old England | Page 3

It may be added that, in numerous instances, indebtedness to able students (e.g., Sir George L. Gomme) has been expressed in the text, and need not be repeated. Finally, it would be ungrateful, as well as ungallant, not to acknowledge some debt to the writings of the Hon. Mrs. Brownlow, Miss Ethel Lega-Weekes, and Miss Giberne Sieveking. Ladies are now invading every domain of intellect, but the details as to University costume happened to be furnished by the severe and really intricate studies of Professor E. G. Clark.
F. J. S.
TIVERTON, N. DEVON, January 22, 1911.

CONTENTS
ECCLESIASTICAL
CHAPTER PAGE
I. LEAGUES OF PRAYER 11 II. VOWESSES 18 III. THE LADY FAST 27 IV. CHILDREN OF THE CHAPEL 32 V. THE BOY-BISHOP 39 VI. MIRACLE PLAYS 51
ACADEMIC
VII. ALMS AND LOANS 61 VIII. OF THE PRIVILEGE 71 IX. THE "STUDIUM GENERALE" 91
JUDICIAL
X. THE ORDER OF THE COIF 115 XI. THE JUDGMENT OF GOD 127 XII. OUTLAWRY 150
URBAN
XIII. BURGHAL INDEPENDENCE 167 XIV. THE BANNER OF ST. PAUL 187 XV. GOD'S PENNY 195 XVI. THE MERCHANT AND HIS MARK 200
RURAL
XVII. RUS IN URBE 204 XVIII. COUNTRY PROPER 216
DOMESTIC
XIX. RETINUES 238
INDEX 249

THE CUSTOMS OF OLD ENGLAND

ECCLESIASTICAL
CHAPTER I
LEAGUES OF PRAYER
A work purporting to deal with old English customs on the broad representative lines of the present volume naturally sets out with a choice of those pertaining to the most ancient and venerable institution of the land--the Church; and, almost as naturally it culls its first flower from a life with which our ancestors were in intimate touch, and which was known to them, in a special and excellent sense, as religious.
The custom to which has been assigned the post of honour is of remarkable and various interest. It takes us back to a remote past, when the English, actuated by new-born fervour, sent the torch of faith to their German kinsmen, still plunged in the gloom of traditional paganism; and it was fated to end when the example of those same German kinsmen stimulated our countrymen to throw off a yoke which had long been irksome, and was then in sharp conflict with their patriotic ideals. It is foreign to the aim of these antiquarian studies to sound any note of controversy, but it will be rather surprising if the beauty and pathos of the custom, which is to engage our attention, does not appeal to many who would not have desired its revival in our age and country.[1] Typical of the thoughts and habits of our ancestors, it is no less typical of their place and share of the general system of Western Christendom, and in the heritage of human sentiment, since reverence for the dead is common to all but the most degraded races of mankind. That mutual commemoration of departed, and also of living, worth was not exclusive to this country is brought home to us by the fact that the most learned and comprehensive work on the subject, in its Christian and medi?val aspects, is Ebner's "Die Klosterlichen Gebets-Verbrüderungen" (Regensburg and New York, 1890). This circumstance, however, by no means diminishes--it rather heightens-the interest of a custom for centuries embedded in the consciousness and culture of the English people.
First, it may be well to devote a paragraph to the phrases applied to the institution. The title of the chapter is "Leagues of Prayer," but it would have been simple to substitute for it any one of half a dozen others--less definite, it is true--sanctioned by the precedents of ecclesiastical writers. One term is "friendship"; and St. Boniface, in his letters referring to the topic, employs indifferently the cognate expressions "familiarity," "charity" (or "love"). Sometimes he speaks of the "bond of brotherhood" and "fellowship." Venerable Bede favours the word "communion." Alcuin, in his epistles, alternates between the more precise description "pacts of charity" and the vaguer expressions "brotherhood" and "familiarity." The last he employs very commonly. The fame of Cluny as a spiritual centre led to the term "brotherhood" being preferred, and from the eleventh century onwards it became general.
The privilege of fraternal alliance with other religious communities was greatly valued, and admission was craved in language at once humble, eloquent, and touchingly sincere. Venerable Bede implores the monks of Lindisfarne to receive him as their "little household slave"--he desires that "my name also" may be inscribed in the register of the holy flock. Many a time does Alcuin avow his longing to "merit" being one of some congregation in communion of love; and, in writing to the Abbeys of Girwy and Wearmouth, he fails not to remind them of the "brotherhood" they have granted him.
The term "brother," in some contexts, bore the distinctive meaning of one to whom had been vouchsafed the prayers and spiritual boons of a convent other than that of which he was a member, if, as was not always or necessarily the