Page:VCH London 1.djvu/262

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

A HISTORY OF LONDON evangelists, a tabella depicta, a ' banner,' two pallae to go before the altar and two to go on it, and a chest in which to keep books and vestments. There is not sufficient space to deal with the rest of these visitations in detail, but a few general deductions may be made. The inventories as a whole show that the London churches possessed decidedly less than the mini- mum of articles considered necessary at that time. Archbishop Hubert Walter in a council held in 1200 decreed that every church ought at least to have ' a silver chalice, sufficient and honourable priestly vestments,' and necessary books and utensils belonging to the care and reverence for the sacraments. ^^' The twenty London churches were well provided with vest- ments, every church having one, and most of them two or three complete sets ; but five had no missal, and two no antiphonary, while three were without chalices. Three churches are definitely stated to have had books of the Use of St. Paul : St. Helen's and St. Michael Queenhithe had antiphonaries, and St. Benet Paul's Wharf a lectionary. Very little information can be gathered as to how general at any time this Use was in London. The fact that in these 12th-century visitations only certain books, and so few of them, are noted to be of the Use of St. Paul, makes it most improbable that it was then at all generally followed, even in the City. About a hundred and fifty years later there appears to have been some effort to make it compulsory. In 1344 Pulteney's College next St. Laurence Candlewick Street obtained a papal indult to follow the Sarum Use in their chapel and its appropriated churches."' In 1376 the parishioners of St. Giles Cripplegate petitioned the pope for leave to follow the Sarum Use, on the ground that the office books of their church according to the Use of St. Paul were worn out, and that the Sarum Use obtained not only in the chapel of the metropolitan but throughout almost the whole province of Canterbury, ' though the dean of St. Paul's strives with all his power that the ancient Use of his church may be preserved.' "* The 15th-century Defensorium directorii ad usum Sarum (attributed to Clement Maydeston) says the general rubrics of the Sarum Use were adopted, but not those relating to ceremonial — e.g. ' at St. Paul's they use the Sarum office in singing and reading, but in ceremonies and observances they care nothing for it, but keep the ancient observances in St. Paul's used there from the beginning.' A pontifical of Bishop Clifford (1406-36) gives the London colours, and another"^" of the 14th century, which would refer to St. Paul's so far as it referred to any Use at all, is almost equivalent to it. These colours were used before the adoption of the Sarum Breviary by Bishop Cliiford in 1414, and if so they would be part of the antiquae observantiae which according to Clement Maydeston were retained at St. Paul's."' It is interesting to note that in every church except the two belonging to the Prior of Butley and one other, one or more laymen, in several cases "' Roger of Hoveden, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), iv, 31 ; cf. Abp. Gray's (1215-55) list of necessary furniture {Reg. Abp. Gr<2y [Surtees Soc], 2 1 7), which was adopted for the Canterbury province in 1305 (Wilkins, Concilia, ii, 278). '" Cal. of Papal Pet. i, 39 ; Cal. oj Papal Letters, iii, 114. "' Ibid, iv, 226 ; Trans, of St. Paulas Eccles. Soc. vi (2), 94. On this Use, especially in connexion with St. Paul's, see Simpson, Doc. Illustrating Hist, of St. Paul's, Introd. xxi, and i 7 seqq. ; cf. account of St. Paul's in this volume. "*" B.M. Lansd. MS. 451. "'J. Wickham Legg, Hist, of Liturgical Colours, 36, 51, 53 ; Maskell, Ancient Liturgy (3rd ed.), Ixvi ; Mon. RituaFta, ii, 350, where the ' Defensorium ' is printed in full. 182