Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13.djvu/541

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SARZANA


481


SARZANA


standing round or suspended from the roof were many other Hghts. An ornament used at Sarum, which at present survives only at papal functions, was the ritual fan. It was made of rich materials and was waved by a deacon over the priest during his cele- bration of the Holy Mysteries.

(4) The Sarum churches followed the Roman ecch;- siastical calendar, supplementing it, as is still done, with a multiplicity of local feasts. We note one or two variants. The feast of the Apparition of St. Michael at Mont-St-Michel in Normandy (16 Oct.) was kept in.stead of that of the same archangel in Italy (8 May) ; Sts. Cri.spin and Crispinian take as in France and elsewhere the place of Sts. Chrysanthus and Darias (25 Oct.) ; a feast of Relics is kept in July; that of the Most Sweet Name of Jesus on 7 August; that of St. Linus the Pope in November instead of in September, etc. The classification of festivals in Sarum Use is slightly more complicated than that which now prevails. To the cleverly drawn up Book of Rules for finding out the particulars of the Office or Mass to be said, which was parti-coloured, being written in red and black, the name of "Pica" or " Pie" was given. Feasts are either double or simple, the former being subdivided into principal doubles, non-principal doubles, greater doubles, etc. Simple feasts (among which are reckoned days within octaves) have only three lessons at Matins, though the no(!turn preceding these is sometimes of three, sometimes of nine and sometimes of twelve psalms.

(5) The order of Collects, Epistles, and Gospels differs from that of our Missals in that the summer Sundays being called First, Second, etc., after Trinity, instead of being counted from Pentecost, there is some slight inversion of order. The Second Sunday of Lent had its proper Go.spel (Matt., XV, 21) in lieu of that of the Transfiguration now repeated from the pre- ceding Saturday. P^or the Sunday next before Advent, the Gospel assigned was not that of the Last Judg- ment, but the entering of our Lord into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (Matt., XXI, 1), our Gospels of the First, Second, and Third Advent Sundays becoming those of the Second, Third, and Fourth respectively. It is evident, therefore, that the selection of Sunday Gospels in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer merely perpetuates a Catholic tradition.

(6) The Sarum sequence of colours is very ill- defined. However, as in the Dominican Missal, it is expressly laid down that on solemn days the most precious vestments be used irrespective of their hue. Otherwise, the recognized Sarum colours were white, red, green, and yellow, with black for Masses for the Dead. In the later centuries purple or violet, and blue, seem to have been very generally added. Yellow vestments are prescribed for feasts of Confessors. To our Blessed Lady white was allotted, but never blue, which colour, on its introduction from the Continent, was looked upon as merely a substitute for purple or violet. In Passion-tide (Good P'riday included) the Sarum liturgical colour was red — a custom still ob- served at Milan. A striking peculiarity of the Sarum Use was the appointing of white vestments for Lent, except at the Blessing of Ashes on Ash Wednesday, when the celebrant wore a red cope. Similarly the sacred pictures and statues were veiled in white and not as with us in purple. They were thus covered not only during the two last weeks of Lent, but from its beginning until Easter Sunday morning.

(7) Sarum customs included elaborate ceremonial observance at Christmas-tide, of the feast of Deacons on St. Stephen's Day (26 Dec), of the feast of Priests on St. John's Day (27 Dec), and of the feast of Children or Childermas, on Holy Innocents' Day (28 Dec). Much also was made of the traditional re- hearsing of the twofold genealogy of our Blessed Lord; on Christmas Day itself that according to St. Matthew, and on the Epiphany that according to St. Luke.

XIII.— 31


(8) The Sarum Holy Week was imposing. The Palm-Sunday procession moved to a tent or chapel at some distance from the church, whith(-r the Blessed Sacrament had been conveyed at daybreak, and r(;- turned preceding two priests bearing the Blessed Sacrament in a feretory on their shoulders. At the words in the Passion: "And the veil of the temple was rent in the midst", a great white curtain which from tlie first day of Lent had concealed the altar and sanctuary from the choir and people was divided and drawn aside. The Tenebrse candles were twenty-four in number instead of fifteen, and the Office itself was almost identically that now in use among the Domin- icans, Calced Carmelites, etc. On Maundy Thursday, three hosts were consecrated: for, in addition to the one to be consumed in the Good-Friday service, an- other was needed to remain m the sepulchre until Easter Sunday morning, beside which on Good Fri- day, with much ceremony and the formal sealing of the tomb, the unveiled crucifix was laid. The Easter Sepulchre itself was mostly a permanent stone struc- ture recalling in its shape and decoration the altar- tombs of the period. Very much, too, was made of the Easter Sunday procession of the return of the crucifix and of the Blessed Sacrament to the high altar, the latter again to be enshrined in the pendant dove for which our tabernacle has been substituted. The Holy Saturday function was very similar to that of the present day. The grand old hymn of Pruden- tius "Inventor rutili" has, however, long since given place to our "Lumen Christi", and the prolix five- fold and seven-fold Litanies have been materially abridged. In medieval England, as in French churches almost to our own day, the solemn visit to the font by the officiating clergy during the Second Vespers of Easter was the occasion of much musical display.

(9) Holy Church in all ages has tolerated consider- able diversity in the accessory ceremonies accompany- ing the ministering of Sacraments other than that of the Holy Eucharist. The ritual still in use in England perpetuates some of the Sarum peculiarities such as the manner of the plighting of troths, the giving of gold and silver by bridegroom to bride during the marriage ceremony, and the like, though some other observances, such as the holding of a silken canojiy over the newly-married couple and the falling of the bride at her husband's feet to kiss them in token of subjection, have dropped out. As evidence of the dependence of the Sarum Use on the Roman tradition, it may also be noted that in place of the Anglo- Saxon form for the Sacrament of Extreme Unction "Ungo oculos tuos", etc., the Sarum books prescribe the Roman formula "Per istam sanctam Unctionem", etc, a change which from the point of view of the theologian is of real importance.

During the few years of the reign of Mary Tudor an attempt was made in England to resuscitate the Sarum Use, which lingered on for sometime after- wards among the Seminary priests of persecution times; but it is now wholly obsolete, except, as the reader will have remarked, in so far as the Dominican, Carmelite and kindred Uses, cling, like that of Sarum, to certain liturgical practices derived from early Roman discipline, but which the Church has allowed to fall into desuetude.

Sarum Missal (Cambridge, 1880); Sarum Breviary (Cambridge, 1886); Rock, Church of our Fathers (London, 1903); Idem, Hierurgia (London, 1892) ; Frere, Use of Sarum (Cambridge, 1898) ; Wordsworth, Mediceval Services in England (London, 1898) ; Idem, Salisbury Processions and Ceremonies (Cambridge, 1901); Maydston, Tracts (Bradshaw Society, 1894); Feasey, Ancient English Holy Week Ceremonial (London, 1897); Maskell, Ancient Liturgy of the Church of England (Oxford, 1882); Proceedingg of the St. Paul's amd other ecclesiological societies, etc.

F. Thomas Bergh.

Sarzana. See Ltjni, Sarzana-Brugnato, Dio- cese OF.