The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church (Warren)

The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church (Warren)

continued

Chapter II: Celtic Ritual

1 IT is proposed in this chapter to lay before the reader such information as can be gathered both directly and incidentally about the structure and decoration of Celtic churches, the dress and ornaments of the clergy, and the ritual of the service performed by them. The sources from which such information is forthcoming have been generally summed up in the Preface, and will be more particularly specified in foot-notes. Of Wood. — Where however wood could be obtained it was generally employed, so much so, that the custom of the Irish to use wood for building obtained for it in the middle ages the title of 'mos Scottorum,' 'opus Scoticum,' 'the Scottish style.' The church of St. Derbhfraich, near Clogher, in Tyrone (fifth century), was a wooden structure. So was that of St. Ciaran of Saighir, in the same century. In the sixth century St. Monenna 'founded a monastery, which was made of smooth planks according to the fashion [CH. II.

2 of the Scottish nation, who were not accustomed to erect stone walls or to get them erected.' St. Columba's church at Derry was built of timber and wattling. In the seventh century St. Kevin (Coemgen) built his oratory of rods of wood; St. Gobban, a famous builder, constructed a wooden church for St. Mulling. It is told of St. Mochaoi, abbot of Nendrum, that on one occasion he went with sevenscore young men to cut wattles to make his church. In the ninth century the Annals of Ulster record a hurricane which occurred on the festival of St. Martin, and which prostrated a great many trees in the woods, and carried the churches (DIURTHEACHS) from their places. In the twelfth century the custom of building churches of wood was still continued in Ireland, as appears from St. Bernard's notice of a church built by Malachy Archbishop of Armagh. The same custom prevailed in other portions of the Celtic Church. In Scotland St. Ninian's church among the Southern Picts, at the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century obtained its name of Candida Casa from the very unusual circumstance that it was built of stone, the use of which material for building purposes was not customary at that date.

3 St. Adamnan implies that the first buildings at Iona, including the church, were of wood. Early in the eighth century, Nectan king of the Picts sent into England for builders in stone, after that Benedict Biscop had introduced there the Roman custom of employing this more durable material. In the Northumbrian Church, Finan, who had been a monk at Iona, and who succeeded Aidan as bishop of Lindisfarne A.D. 651, 'built a church fit for an episcopal see, not of stone, but altogether of sawn wood covered with reeds after the Scotic fashion.' In England, the buildings at Glastonbury, as they existed in the British Church, before the Anglo-Saxon refoundation of that monastery in the seventh century, were, according to tradition, of wood. In Wales, when St. Kentigern founded his monastery of St. Asaph, in the sixth century, he built the church of dressed wood, 'after the manner of the Britons, since they were not yet either accustomed or able to build with stone.' St. Gwynllyw, at the close of the same century, is recorded to have built a cemetery chapel of wood.

4 On the Continent, when the great Celtic missionary St. Columbanus received from the king of the Lombards a site for his church and monastery at Bobbio A.D. 615, he was said to [CH II. have been supernaturally assisted in procuring the wood necessary for that purpose. Of Stone.—Stone buildings, though not the general rule, were by no means unknown throughout this period. The remains of rude oratories of uncemented stone still survive in Ireland, either like the oratory of Gallerus, of a date antecedent to the mission of St. Patrick, or like that of Crumtherim, coeval with him, or, as in the case of the church of St. Kienan (Cianan, Kenan), built by his disciples. Stone began to be universally adopted in Ireland for building purposes after the first irruption of the Danes, A. D. 794, and the consequent transfer of the monastic establishment of Iona to Kells, A. D. 814.

5 In Scotland, it has been noticed that St. Ninian's church at Candida Casa, c. A.D. 400, was a stone structure. There are remains of a stone chapel of St. Medan, an Irish virgin and a disciple of St. Ninian, at Kirkmaiden on the Bay of Luce in Wigtonshire, similar to remains found in Cornwall and Brittany. There are also in the same neighbourhood stones, sepulchral slabs, &c., with representations of crosses, animals of interlaced work of Hiberno-British character, like the single stones found in Ireland, and described in detail by Mr. Petrie. The remains of British churches in England and Wales enumerated and described at length by Messrs. Haddan and Stubbs exhibit Romano-British stone or brickwork. An examination of these ruins points to the small dimensions of these primitive churches, and this inference is corroborated by early testimony. Sixty feet was the length of the Great Church of St. Patrick at Teltown in Meath; one hundred feet that of the first cathedral at Armagh, c. A.D. 445. But larger churches soon rose. The Annals of Ulster record the burning of two hundred and sixty persons in a wooden church A.D. 849. The following is the description of St. Bridget's church at Kildare, in her life by Cogitosus:—

6 'The church in which repose the bodies of both, that is, Bishop Conlaeth, and this Virgin Saint Bridget, on the right and left of the decorated altar, deposited in ornaments adorned with various embellishments of gold and silver and gems and precious stone, with crowns of gold and silver depending from above. For the number of the faithful of both sexes increasing, the church occupied a spacious area, and was elevated to a menacing height, and was adorned with painted pictures, having within three oratories large and separated by partitions of planks under one roof of the greater house, wherein one partition—decorated and painted with figures, and covered with linen hangings—extended along the breadth in the eastern part of the church, from the one to the other party-wall of the church: which partition has at its extremity two doors; and through the one door, placed in the right side, the chief bishop enters the sanctuary, accompanied by his regular school, and those who are deputed to the sacred ministry of offering sacred and dominical sacrifices; through the other door, placed in the left part of the above-mentioned partition, and lying transversely, none enter but the abbess with her virgins and faithful widows, when going to participate [CH. II.

7 in the banquet of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. But another partition, dividing the pavement of the house into two equal parts, extends from the eastern (western?) side to the transverse partition lying across the breadth. Moreover the church has in it many windows, and one ornamented doorway on the right side, through which the priests and the faithful of the male sex enter the church, and another doorway on the left side, through which the congregation of virgins and faithful women are accustomed to enter. And thus in one very great temple, a multitude of people, in different order and ranks, and sex and situation, separated by partitions, in different order but with one mind worship Almighty God. The remains of Bishop Conlaeth referred to in this extract were disinterred and enshrined A.D. 799. Cogitosus describes the windows as 'numerous' and the walls as 'covered with mural paintings.' This points to a date at least as late as the eighth century, for Bede assigns the first introduction of glass and painting into England A.D. 676 to Benedict Biscop, and he had to bring glaziers from Gaul; unless Dr. O'Conor is right in seeing in Cogitosus' work only a proof of the early and more advanced state of art in Ireland, or unless Mr. Petrie is right in laying stress on the fact that there is no mention of glass in these windows, which may have been only apertures.

8 The ornamentation of the church need not cause surprise, for there are extant elaborately-worked gold, silver, and bronze utensils and ornaments recently discovered in Ireland, and undoubtedly belonging to a still earlier date. See the description of silver flagons and cups with interlaced and triangular ornamentation found near Coleraine A.D. 1854, and assigned to a date 400-600 B.C. in the Ulster Journal of Archaeology, vol. ii. p. 182. The surviving architectural remains are a proof of the number of Celtic churches which must at one time have existed. As far as England alone is concerned, there is the direct testimony of the British historian Gildas, who speaks of the multitude of churches destroyed in England during the Diocletian persecution (A.D. 305-313), and again during the invasions of the heathen Saxons in the sixth century. Further details of Irish churches and oratories will be found in Dr. Petrie's Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, p. 186, and of Scottish churches in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, ii. 517.

9 Certain main features deserve to be further dwelt upon. Screens.—There appears to have been in early Celtic churches a substantial screen with doors in it, separating the chancel from the nave. This is implied in Cogitosus' description of St. Bridget's church (p. 89), and is stated in a fifteenth-century Gaelic MS. Life of St. Columba preserved in the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh, and translated in Mr. Skene's Celtic Scotland, vol. ii. p. 500. Altars.—British churches at the beginning of the fourth century had more than one altar. This is inferred from the expressions of Gildas, 'inter altaria' (p. 72), 'inter ipsa sacrosancta altaria' (p. 37). The altar was called 'coelestis sacrificii sedes' (p. 37). It stood at the east end of the church. It was sometimes made of wood, as in the case of the altar in the church of St. Bridget; sometimes of stone. Gildas [CH. II. alludes to the stone altars of British churches. A stone altar is mentioned as having been discovered by St. Patrick in a cave, a possible proof of the existence of Christians in Ireland before the arrival of that saint; and stone altars of the Celtic period have been found on the island of Ardoilan, six miles from the coast of Orney, on the site of the antique monastery of St. Fechin; in the oratory of St. Molaise at Inismurray; at Temple Molaga, with two stone candlesticks close to it; in the oratory of St. Piran at Perranzabuloe in Cornwall; and in that of St. Michael at Penkivel in the same county.

10 Vestry.—There was frequently an outside vestry attached to the church, 'exedra' or 'exedriola', where the sacred vessels were kept, and which served for the other purposes of a sacristy. Bells.—Each church had its bell, 'clocca' or 'campana,' used for summoning the congregation together for the divine offices. The bells of St. Columba and St. Ninian, the former being possibly the very bell alluded to by St. Adamnan, are still in existence in the collection made by the late Mr. John Bell of Dungannon. Pictures of them, with minute description and measurements, are given in Stuart's Sculptured Stones of Scotland, Wilson's Archaeology of Scotland, Archaeologia Scotica. A similar bell was found six hundred years ago in the ruins of Bangor Abbey, of which there is a woodcut in the Ulster Journal of Archaeology. There is a handbell in of the British St. Mel (Moel or Mael) Bishop of Ardagh, bowing her head she touched with her hands one of the wooden pillars of the altar, which ever afterwards remained green and sound. 1 'Inter altaria jurejurando demorantes, et haec eadem ac si lutulenta paulo post saxa despicientes. H. and S. i. 49. 2 St. Evin's Life of St. Patrick, np. Colgan, Trias Thaum, p. 134; Todd's Life of St. Patrick, p. 222; see Leabhar Breac, fol. 26a. 3 Transactions of Royal Irish Academy, xx. 421-3. 4 Dunraven, Lord, Notes on Irish Architecture, pp. 47, 62. 5 Transactions of Exeter Dioc. Arch. Soc. vol. ii. p. 95. 6 Ib. vol. iv. p. 91. 7 Adamnan, Vit. S. Columbae, iii. 19; Id. de Locis Sanctis, i. 8. Clocum pul-a, cujus sonitu fratres incitati ad ecclesiam ocius currunt. Vit. S. Columbae, i. 8; iii. 23; Cummian, Vit. S. Columbae, p. 41. 9 ii. p. liii. 10 p. 652. 11 iv. 119. 12 i. 179.

11 the hands of a very ancient sculptured figure of an ecclesiastic. A 'campanarius' is mentioned in the list of various persons who formed the household of St. Patrick, who is also said to have given fifty bells to the churches of Connaught. St. Fillan's bell, with its possibly phallic ornamentation, and with an account of the superstitious usages with which till lately it has been connected, is described in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Small quadrangular hand-bells of great age, very similar in construction to the Irish type of workmanship, have been found in Wales: an account of one dug up on the site of the oratory of St. Cenan, and of another formerly preserved in the church of Llangwynodd, is given in the Archæologia Cambrensis. Various ancient Irish bells still exist, of which the earliest is perhaps that of St. Patrick. A description of it has been published by Dr. Reeves.

12 A short account of the ancient bells of other Celtic saints is given by Professor Westwood. St. Mogue's bell and three others are figured in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, where Mr. Franks describes them as presumably 'hand-bells used by the early missionaries and cremitical bishops of the British Church to summon their followers to prayer.' They were kept either in the vestry, or in those round towers both of Scotland and Ireland which were so long a puzzle to antiquaries, but which are believed by some persons to have been belfries, as well perhaps as repositories for relics, books, and other valuables. Strange miracles sometimes attested the sanctity of these [CH. II. bells, as in the case of the construction of a 'ferrea campana et quadrata suae ecclesiae pernecessaria' by St. Molocus, and of the bell which followed St. Ternan day by day all the way from Rome to Scotland. They were also used, as well as pastoral staves, in the administration of oaths.

13 Churchyards.—In close proximity to the British church, then as now, was the churchyard, in the midst of which was planted the emblematic evergreen yew-tree. Many of the trees now standing date from the British period. The yew-tree at Aldworth, Berks, was examined A.D. 1841, and then concluded to be 1377 years old; i. e. it must have been planted c. A.D. 464, shortly after the preaching of St. Germanus against the Pelagian heresy. Crowhurst yew in Surrey is said to be 1450 years, and the yews at Fountains Abbey are of great antiquity. Giraldus Cambrensis noticed the abundance and age of yews in Ireland, especially in churchyards and cemeteries. We now pass on from the church itself and its surroundings to some account of the service which took place within its walls. Sacorfaice, Sacrificium, Sacrificale mysterium, Viaticum. The word 'sacrificium' was used equally for that which was offered to God, and for that which was given to and received by the communicant. St. Gall told his scholar Magnoaldus, 'My master Columbanus is accustomed to offer unto the Lord the sacrifice of salvation in brazen vessels.' The twelfth canon of the synod of St. Patrick runs thus: 'He who deserveth not to receive the sacrifice in his life, how can it benefit him after his death?' St. Patrick said to the newly-baptized virgin daughters of Laoghaire, 'Ye cannot see the face of Christ except ye taste of death, and except ye receive the sacrifice. And they answered, Give us the sacrifice, that we may behold the Son, our Spouse. And they received the Eucharist of God and they slept in death.' The two words 'communion and sacrifice' are frequently used together in one phrase in the Leabhar Breac.

14 To celebrate the Holy Eucharist was expressed by Offerre, Sacra offere, Offerre sacrificium, Christi corpus conficere, Eucharistiae celebrare mysteria, Sacra Eucharistiae mysteria [CH. II. conficere, Sacra oblationis mysteria ministrare, Missarum peragere sollemnia, Sacra Eucharistiae consecrare mysteria, Missarum sollemnia celebrare, Sacram oblationem consecrare, Sacrosancta ministeria perficere, Frangere panem, Sacra celebrare mysteria, Sacrosancta mysteria perficere, Immolare hostiam, Offerre sacrificium, Altario jungi. Mabillon gives a full account of the controversy, and mentions, after several trivial objections brought by Agrestius, the following more important one, that the Irish differed from the ritual and rule of other Churches, and celebrated the Holy Eucharist with great variation and multiplication of collects and prayers. Eustasius, the disciple and successor of Columbanus in the monastery of Luxovium (Luxeuil), admitted the charge, but pleaded in defence the general acceptableness of all prayer before God. It is impossible to decide with certainty to what Agrestius referred in his charge. Benedict XIV interpreted it of the substitution of several collects for the one collect which ordinarily precedes the Epistle in the Roman Missal, and which is thus referred to in one of the opening rubrics in the Gregorian Sacramentary: 'Postmodum dicitur oratio, deinde sequitur Apostolus.' Commenting on this rubric Benedict XIV says, 'Una tantum olim in hac Missae parte Collecta seu Oratio dicebatur, ut ostendit Menardus in notis ad Sacramentarium S. Gregorii. Sanctum quondam Columbanum accusavit Agrestinus (Agrestius?) quod contra Ecclesiae morem plures in Missa Orationes recitaret, quem egregie defendit Eustasius,' &c.

15 But why should not the charge of Agrestius have referred to the existence of other, and to the Roman worshipper unknown collects, which are found in the Gallican and Mozarabic Liturgies, and to which Alex. Lesleus, writing a Latin Preface to his edition of the latter Liturgy, refers thus: 'Tum sacerdos, in utraque Liturgia (i. e. Gallicana et Mozarabica) populum salutat, et ad altare accedens, septem illas solemnes orationes, quibus liturgiae Gallicana, Gotho-Hispana, et Mozarabica praecipue constant, et ab aliis quibuscunque distinguuntur, devote recitabat,' i.e. (i) Praefatio Missae, (ii) alia oratio, (iii) post nomina, (iv) ad pacem, (v) Contestatio aut Immolatio Missae aut Illatio, (vi) post mysterium aut post pridie, (vii) Dominica oratio cui brevis oratio praemittitur, ante orationem Dominicam Gallis dicta, et subsequitur alia, quae iisdem post orationem Dominicam nominatur'? Dr. O'Conor commenting on this point says, 'This multiplicity of prayers is expressly mentioned by Columbanus himself in his Rule, c. 7.' But on reference to that Rule it is found that St. Columbanus is not speaking of the Liturgy at all, but of petitions in the form of versicles inserted in the Day-hours of the Divine Office.

16 Ordine Romano, unica habetur oratio seu collecta in prima parte missae ante Evangelium, raro duae,' &c. Ib. p. 263. n. 12. [CH. II. It was not introduced with the unvarying formula of the Roman Missal in its earliest as well as latest editions, 'Praeceptis salutaribus moniti, et divina institutione formati audemus dicere,' nor was it followed by the Roman embolismus, 'Libera nos, quaesumus, Domine ab omnibus malis,' &c. The varying forms substituted for these in the fragments of the Books of Deer, Dimma, and Mulling, and in the Stowe Missal, are one of the strongest proofs of an Ephesine rather than a Petrine origin of the Celtic Liturgy. The names of local saints were sometimes introduced into the embolismus, as that of St. Patrick in the embolismus in the ancient Irish fragment at St. Gall, MS. No. 1394, and in that of the Stowe Missal. This may imply that in addition to the Epistle and Gospel there was a third lection from the Old Testament—the lectio prophetica—preceding them, as in the Mozarabic and Gallican Liturgies, of which Lesleus says in his Preface, 'In utraque Liturgia tres leguntur Scripturae lectiones una e Veteri, duae e novo Testamento.'

17 Christiano, deinde pro sacerdotibus et reliquis Deo consecratis sacrae plebis gradibus, postremo pro eleemosynas facientibus, postea pro pace regum, uovissime pro inimicis.' Migne, Bibl. Pat. Lat. lxxx. p. 212. The order of the Gallican Service is thus described by Germanus Bishop of Paris: 'Sequebatur lectio ex prophetis et ex apostolo. Nam praeter Evangelii lectionem, duas, unam ex veteri, alteram ex Novo Testamento, lectiones cantabant, quem ritum videre est apud Gregorium Turonensem (Lib. i. de Mirac. S. Martini, cap. 5) ubi haec habet; "Factum est ut illa Dominica, prophetica lectione jam lecta, ante altarium staret, qui lectionem beati Pauli proferret." In sanctorum festivitatibus, sive martyrum, sive confessorum, acta eorum etiam publice legebantur, ut, auditis eorum virtutibus, populi ad similia perpetranda accenderentur. Ita Gregorius Turonensis lectam fuisse S. Polycarpi passionem narrat.' It appears, from a passage in Adamnan's Life of St. Columba, as if an additional lection from the Gospels preceded the Liturgy itself: 'Hi uno codemque consensu elegerunt ut sanctus Columba coram ipsis in ecclesia sacra Eucharistiae consecraret mysteria. Qui eorum obsecundans jussioni, simul cum eis, die Dominica ex more, post Evangelii lectionem, ecclesiam ingreditur, ibidemque dum missarum sollemnia celebrarentur,' &c.

18 [CH. II. is ordered that on that Festival 'offertorium ejus proprium immolari.' This probably means that commemoration of St. Patrick should be made in the Liturgy in a Proper Preface, for which the Gallican name was 'Immolatio Missae'. A portion of the Proper Preface for the Feast of the Circumcision survives in a ninth-century MS. fragment of four pages of an ancient Irish Liturgy, No. 1394, in the library of St. Gall. Other Celtic Prefaces have been preserved in the Stowe Missal. There are also traces of the use of the Roman mode of benediction. The thumb, fore and middle fingers are extended, and the third and fourth fingers are bent in the case of a figure sculptured in the attitude of blessing on an Iona cross, and on a tenth-century cross at Oransay. With regard to the position in the Liturgy of the episcopal benediction, Dr. Döllinger concludes that it was given after the consecration and fraction, and before the immission of the consecrated particle into the chalice. This is an inference from the language in which the celebration of the Eucharist by Bishop Cronan at Iona is described by Adamnan.

19 The episcopal benediction occupied a similar position in the ancient Gallican and Mozarabic Liturgies. The same position was assigned to it in the Liturgy of the Anglo-Saxon Church, and was perpetuated in the Sarum Use up to the first vernacular Prayer Book of 1549, as it was also in France at Paris, Arles, Lyons, Rouen, Clermont, Angers, Tours, &c. Dr. Rock argues thus for the Gallican origin of this liturgical peculiarity:— 'That such episcopal blessings formed a part of the old liturgy followed by the Gauls long before Pope St. Gregory and St. Austin's days we learn from the fact that St. Caesarius of Arles, who lived almost a whole century before those apostles of our Anglo-Saxon fathers, speaks of this rite as a thing practised everywhere about him. Knowing then as we do from the formal and public visit made to the Church in this island by SS. Germanus and Lupus how the British and [CH. II.

20 Gallic Churches were knit together, not only by the feelings of religious friendship, but by the oneness of true belief, we are warranted in thinking that a ceremonial then in common use throughout a neighbouring country with which this land kept up such an intimate connection in matters of faith, must have been common, too, here; so that our bishops among the Britons, like their brethren beyond the sea in Gaul, used to bestow their episcopal blessing at this part of the holy sacrifice.' The following form is found in the Antiphonarium Benchorense: 'Ad pacem celebrandum. Injuste egimus. Redemisti nos Domine Deus veritatis in tuo sancto sanguine, nunc adjuva nos in omnibus Jesu Christe, qui regnas. Pax multa diligentibus; pax tua Domine, rex coelestis, permaneat semper in visceribus nostris ut non timeamus a timore noctis Qui regnas.' Exclusion from communion and from the kiss of peace was the punishment for certain offences in the Welsh Church, A. D. 570.

21 Traces of it are found in the earliest inscriptions on sepulchral or memorial stones. The following words are inscribed in Hiberno-Saxon characters on a stone cross at Gwnnws in Prayer for the Dead. Cardiganshire: 'Quicunque explicaverit hoc nomen det benedixionem pro anima Hiroidil filius Carotinn.' And on a stone in the ruins of Caldey Priory, Pembrokeshire, in letters assigned by Professor Westwood to a date soon after the departure of the Romans from these islands in the fifth century: 'Et singno crucis in illam fingsi; rogo omnibus ammulantibus ibi [ut] exorent pro anima Catuoconi.' Ancient inscriptions on gravestones at Iona in Scotland, and Lismore, &c. in Ireland, contain requests for prayers for the departed, facsimiles of which may be seen in the Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Lord Dunraven's Notes on Irish Architecture, Æmilius Hübner's Inscriptiones Britanniae Christianae. Others in vernacular Irish, centuries vi-x, are given in Petrie's (G.) Christian Inscriptions in the Irish Language. In one instance a bilingual inscription (Irish and Latin) has been found on a stone at Inismurray: 'Ordo Moredach hu chomochain hic dormit.'

22 The writers of manuscripts in old days would end their volumes by requesting the prayers of their hereafter readers. On the fly-leaf of the book of Durrow, or Gospel of St. Columba, a sixth-century MS. in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, there is this entry: 'Rogo beatitudinem tuam, sancte presbyter Patrice, ut quicunque hunc libellum manu tenuerit meminerit Columbae scriptoris, qui hoc scripsi ipsemet evangelium per xii dierum spatium, gratia Domini nostri.' A little below in a contemporary hand: 'Ora pro me frater mi; Dominus tecum sit.' The colophon at the end of the Book of MacRegol (end of eighth or beginning of ninth century) is: 'Quicunque [CH II. legeret et intelligeret istam narrationem orat pro Mac Reguil scriptori. Adamnan ends his tract De Locis Sanctis (seventh century) with these words: 'Obsecro itaque eos quicunque breves legerint libellos ut pro eodem sancto sacerdote Arculfo divinam precentur clementiam, qui haec de sanctis experimenta locis eorum frequentator libentissime nobis dictavit. Quae et ego quamlibet inter laboriosas et prope insustentabiles tota die undique conglobatas ecclesiasticas sollicitudines constitutus, sibi quamvis sermone describens declaravi. Horum ergo lectorem admone experimentorum, ut pro me misello peccatore, corundem craxatore, Christum judicem saeculorum exorare non neglegat.'

23 The colophon at the end of Adamnan's Vita S. Col. (Codex A, an early eighth-century MS.) is:— 'Quicunque hos virtutum libellos Columbae legerit pro me Dorbbeneo Dominum deprecentur, ut vitam post mortem aeternam possideam.' That at the end of St. John's Gospel (seventh century) in the Stowe Missal runs thus: 'Deo gratias. Amen. Finit. Amen. Rogo quicunque hunc librum legeris ut memineris mei peccatoris scriptoris. i.— peregrinus. Amen. Sanus sit qui scripsit et cui scriptum est. Amen.' It was part of the constant duty of the Irish Culdees in the eighth century to offer intercessions, in the shape of litanies, on behalf of the living and the dead. The old Irish civil law recognised the fact that tithes, first-fruits, and alms were due from the people to the Church, the Church in return being bound to provide for the people, offering or communion, baptism, and preaching, and burial and requiem or hymn of souls. The old Irish ecclesiastical law enumerated benefit to the souls of the departed among the three chief objects for which the Eucharistic offering was made. In one of the Prayer for the Dead.

24 canons of the Synod of St. Patrick the question is asked how the Sacrifice could be expected to benefit a person after his death, who had not received it during his lifetime. The monks at Iona were enjoined to display 'fervour in singing the office for the dead as if every dead person was a particular friend of theirs.' The Eucharist was celebrated on the day of the funeral, and on the third or seventh day afterwards. When St. Gall was informed of the death of St. Columbanus he forthwith gave orders for preparations to be made to enable him to offer the sacrifice of salvation for the repose of the departed saint. A like kind office was performed on behalf of St. Gall by a surviving episcopal friend. The commemoration of the departed, being one aspect and object of the Eucharist, naturally occupied a recognised position in the Liturgy.

25 Diptychs containing the names of the deceased were brought by the deacon to the celebrant, and their contents were announced by him during the offertory, after the first oblation of the unconsecrated elements and before the Canon. A special penance was assigned to the deacon who forgot this part of his duty. This recitation of names was followed pro commemoratione Jesu Christi qui dicit; hoc facite in meam memoriam; tertio, pro animabus defunctorum.' Sinodus Hibernensis, lib. ii. cap. 9. [CH II. by an anthem in an authorised form of words called the 'deprecatio.' It contained an enumeration of the names of those departed saints for whose repose the prayers of the congregation were requested, and of those by whose intercessions such prayers would be assisted. We know that this collect at Iona ended with the name of St. Martin, and that on one occasion St. Columba, celebrating on the day following his reception of the news of the death of Bishop Columbanus, suddenly turned to the cantors, and bade them add that bishop's name, to the deprecatio. The words of Adamnan in narrating this incident are these: 'Sed forte dum inter talia cum modulatione officia, illa consueta decanteretur deprecatio in qua sancti Martini commemoratur nomen, subito sanctus ad cantores ejusdem onomatis ad locum pervenientes, Hodie, ait, pro sancto Columbano episcopo decantare debetis. Tunc omnes qui inerant fratres intellexere quod Columbanus, episcopus Lagenensis (= Leinster), carus Columbae amicus, ad Dominum emigraverit.'

26 This passage affords a presumption in favour of the identity of the Celtic and Gallican Liturgies. In the latter Liturgy, the priest after presenting the oblations on the altar, and praying for the illapse of the Holy Ghost, recited from the diptychs the names of saints both quick and dead, in whose memory and for whom the offering was made. The liturgical formula in use for this purpose in the Church of Arles in the time of St. Aurelian (545-553) has been preserved, and in spite of its length is here subjoined in full, as being probably identical with the form of words which constituted the deprecatio in the Celtic Liturgy in use at Iona. The words suggesting such identity are printed in italics. 'Simulque precantes oramus etiam, Domine, pro animabus famulorum tuorum Patrum atque institutorum quondam nostrorum, Aureliani, Petri, Florentini, Redempti, Constantini, Himiteri, Hilarini, Januarini, Reparati, Childeberti, Ultrogothae, vel omPrayer for the Dead.

27 nium fratrum nostrorum, quos de hoc loco ad te vocare dignatus es. Cunctorumque etiam hujus loci memores fidelium, pariterque parentum nostrorum atque servientium hujus loci, et pro animabus omnium fidelium famulorum tuorum, vel famularum, ac peregrinorum in pace ecclesiae defunctorum, ut eis tu, Domine Deus noster, peccatorum tribuas veniam et requiem largiaris aeternam; meritis et intercessionibus sanctorum tuorum, Mariae genitricis Domini nostri Jesu Christi, Joannis Baptistae et praecursoris Domini nostri Jesu Christi, Stephani, Petri, Pauli, Joannis, Jacobi, Andreae, Philippi, Thomae, Bartholomaei, Matthaei, Jacobi, Simonis, Judae, Matthiae, Genesii, Symphoriani, Baudilii, Victoris, Hilarii, episcopi et confessoris, Martini episcopi et confessoris, Caesarii episcopi, haec propitius praestare et exaudire digneris, qui vivis et regnas in unitate Spiritus sancti Deus in saecula saeculorum. Amen. The first group of names in this 'deprecatio' (this title being suggested by the word 'precantes') consists of fathers and founders of the Church of Arles; the second group consists of fifteen saints of Holy Scripture, followed by certain leading Gallican saints, the last of whom is Caesarius Bishop of Arles, died A.D. 542. His name, which appears here on account of a local relation, would probably have been omitted at Iona, and so the name of St. Martin, who was held in special veneration in these islands, would be the last on the list, until on the occasion referred to by Adamnan St. Columba ordered the name of Columbanus to be added to it. Two specimens of the 'deprecatio' or 'Collectio post nomina' of the ancient Irish Liturgy have survived in the Stowe Missal.

28 This position of the commemoration of the living and the [CH. II. dead survives in the Anglican Liturgy, while in the Roman it occupies a different place, being within and a portion of the Canon itself. There are no instances recorded of the modern practice of praying to departed saints, although there was a strong and devout belief in the efficacy of their prayers for those left on earth. St. Columba's power of prevailing with God by intercession was recognised as continuing to be exercised after his death. Several instances of it are recorded by Adamnan, among them the exemption of the Picts and Scots from a pestilence which devastated the rest of Great Britain and Ireland. Adamnan's belief is expressed in these words: 'Now to what other person can this favour granted them by God be attributed unless to St. Columba, whose monasteries lie within the territories of both these people, and have been regarded by both with the greatest respect up to the present time? But what I am now to say cannot I think be heard without a sigh, that there are very many stupid people in both countries, who in their ignorance that they owe their exemption from the plague to the prayers of the saint, ungratefully and wickedly abuse the patience and the goodness of God.' In a very early collect for St. Patrick's Day preserved in the Corpus Missal God is directly besought to receive St Patrick's intercessions on behalf of His people.

29 in an audible voice. The breaking of the bread formed so integral a portion of its ritual that 'frangere panem' is used as an equivalent term for 'missarum sollemnia celebrare'. The use of the words of institution and consecration is sometimes indicated in Celtic MSS., as in surviving Gallican fragments, by the opening words, 'Qui pridie'. In both cases the Prayer of Consecration seems to have been brief, the introductory clauses up to this point varying with each festival. If this inference is admitted, we are able to reconstruct the Canon of the Celtic Church, as used on saints' days, in the following form:— 'Vere sanctus, vere benedictus, vere mirabilis in sanctis suis, Deus noster Jesus Christus ipse dabit virtutem, et fortitudinem plebi suae; benedictus Deus, quem benedicimus in Apostolis, et in omnibus sanctis suis, qui placuerunt ei ab initio saeculi, per eundem Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, Qui pridie quam pateretur, in sanctis manibus suis accepit panem, respexit in coelum ad te, sancte Pater, omnipotens aeterne Deus, gratias agens, benedixit, fregit, fractumque apostolis suis et discipulis suis tradidit dicens;

30 Accipite et edite ex hoc omnes; hoc est enim corpus meum, quod pro multis confringetur. Similiter etiam calicem postquam coenatum est, pridie quam pateretur, accepit, respexit in caelum ad te, sancte Pater, omnipotens aeterne Deus, gratias agens, benedixit, apostolis suis et discipulis suis tradidit dicens; Accipite et bibite ex hoc omnes; hic est enim sanguis meus. [CH. II. The absence of the full text of the Consecration Prayer as used in the earliest Liturgies of the Churches of Britain and Gaul has been sometimes accounted for by a theory, supported rather by conjecture than by evidence, that it was supplanted by the Roman Canon before the 'disciplina arcani' had been altogether abandoned, so that though the rest of the service was written, the Canon was recited by the priest from memory, only its opening words 'Qui pridie' being sometimes indicated in writing. The presence of the Roman Canon in the Stowe Missal proves that it was introduced into at least partial use in Ireland late in the eighth century, the numerous passages interpolated into it being probably survivals of the earlier and now lost Celtic rite.

31 During the communion of the people anthems were sung, slightly varying forms of which have been preserved in the St. Gall MS. No. 1394, the Antiphonary of Bangor, and the Stowe Missal. They occupied a position corresponding to that of the Missal, ch. iii. § 14. Compare the Collectio post Sanctus for Christmas Eve in the Missale Gothicum, p. 33. The second part is taken from the Gallican work known under the title of Ambros. de Sacramentis, lib. iv. cap. v. III anthem called 'Transitorium' in the Ambrosian, the 'Trecanum' in the Gallican, the anthem 'Gustate et videte' &c. in the Mozarabic, and the 'Communio' in the Roman rite. We pass on from the service itself to some account of its ritual accessories. [CH. II. priesthood describes them as 'seldom sacrificing and never with clean hearts standing at the altar.' Extended hands.—Gildas also makes mention of extended hands as part of the ritual of the Mass, speaking of British priests as 'extending their hands over the holy sacrifice,' an expression which may find a counterpart in the rubric which in the Sarum Missal immediately follows the consecration of the chalice, 'Deinde sacerdos elevet brachia sua in modum crucis;' in the 'extensis manibus' of the Roman rite; and in various rubrical directions in the Anglican and Eastern Liturgies. It is also the ordinary attitude of prayer in early Italian art.

32 Among the episcopal or sacerdotal vestments and ornaments alluded to in these passages as being in use in these early times we have proof of the existence of the following:— The Chasuble.—This vestment in its primitive full circular shape, with embroidered orphreys, is represented on figures in the reliquary of St. Maedoc (eighth-century, Irish), on Evangelists depicted in the Book of Deer (ninth-century, Scottish), and on figures of priests sculptured on the very ancient Kirriemuir stones in Scotland. Two of these priests hold books, the third has no book, but a -shaped ornament on the lower front part of his dress just above the feet. Several of these figures will be seen to have in front of them a rectangular ornament which may be taken for a book borne in the hand, but which is possibly the rationale. Rationale.—The rationale is an ancient but little known ornament of the Celtic bishops, which according to Dr. Rock is never found in Anglo-Saxon times, but which re-appeared among the episcopal ornaments in Anglo-Norman days, and dropped entirely out of use in the fourteenth century. It was fashioned in all shapes, at one time round, at another a trefoil or a quatrefoil, but more generally an oblong square. It was made of gold or silver, studded with precious stones, and it was worn in imitation of the rational of the Aaronic priesthood, from which it took its name. Another example of it

33 hominem ut ca-a tegat, respexerunt ad veterem casularum formam, quae totum revera sacerdotem a collo ad pedes ambibat, atque adeo brachia ipsa et manus tegebat, ita ut si iis ad sacra facienda, aut ad alios usus vellent uti, necesse haberent casulam ad utrumque latus erigere, aut fibula cohibere.' Du Cange, sub voc. [CH. II. may be seen on a figure of St. Gall in the Golden Psalter. It corresponds to the Greek Peristethion, an oblong plate of jewelled gold or silver worn over the chasuble by patriarchs and metropolitans in the Eastern Church. Alb.—The figures above referred to on the shrine of St. Maedoc are vested in albs with embroidered borders (apparels) under their chasubles. So also are those on the Soiscel Molaise. Maniple.—The maniple appears to have been worn not on the wrist, but over, and depending from the forefinger of the left hand, as on the figure of St. Jerome in the Golden Psalter at St. Gall. The same mode of wearing it prevailed in the Anglo-Saxon Church, as may be seen by the vested figure worked on St. Cuthbert's stole at Durham, and proved by the inscription on it to have been embroidered by Queen Elfleda, wife of King Edward the Elder, 905-906; and at Rome up to the eleventh century, as in the fresco of St. Clement.

34 Ring.—There was a ring in the tomb of Ebregesilus Bishop of Meaux, a monk of the Columban school, when it was opened in the seventh century. There is still earlier evidence of the use of the episcopal ring in Gaul, which is a presumption in favour of its use among contemporaneous British bishops. Clovis I, writing to the Gallican bishops A. D. 510, promised to pay every attention to their letters provided that they sealed them with the seals of their pastoral rings. Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, writing to Apollinaris alters, vol. i. p. 375. Taf. vi, where it is part of the dress of a thirteenth-century Italian bishop. 1 Unless this is a book which is so often represented in the hands of saints, held where the rationale would appear, if worn. Westwood, J. O., Unpublished Facsimiles. 2 Archaeologia, xliii. plate xviii. 3 Ib. plate xx. 4 Westwood, J. O., Unpublished Facsimiles. See Rahn, J. F., description of this Psalter, Taf. vii; St. Gallen, 1878. 5 Marriott, W. B., Vestiarium Christianum, plate xliii. 6 Mabillon, Annal. Bened. i. 456. 7 Nouveau Traité de Diplom. iv. 318.

35 Bishop of Valence, requested that his monogram might be engraved on his ring. Pectoral Cross.—The pectoral cross of St. Aidan, a monk of Iona and first Bishop of Lindisfarne (635-652), was preserved among the relics at Durham in the fourteenth century. There is evidence in the writings of St. Gregory of Tours that pectoral crosses were worn by Gallican bishops in the sixth century. Pastoral Staff.—There is varied evidence for the early use of the pastoral staff as an ornament and emblem of authority borne by bishops. Its Celtic name was cambutta, cambota, or more rarely cambo. St. Patrick's staff is alluded to in a seventh-century Irish prophecy, preserved by the Scholiast on Fiacc's Hymn, and later authority asserts that it was made of gold, and adorned with precious stones. His disciples St. Dagaeus and St. Asic were traditionally famous for their skill in gilding and bejewelling pastoral staffs and other ecclesiastical ornaments. St. Columba is said to have made many crosses, book-satchels (polaires), and pastoral staffs. When he and St. Kentigern met they exchanged staffs, and St. Kentigern's staff, as given to him by St. Columba, covered with gold and jewels, was still preserved [CH. II.

36 at Ripon in the beginning of the fifteenth century. In the tenth century it was held in great veneration, and was carried as a standard in going to battle under the name of 'Cathbhu-aidh' (= Battle Victory). 37 In its original shape the episcopal staff was short, rounded at the top, truncated at the bottom, and made of wood. A specimen may be seen in the hands of one of the figures engraved on the ancient Irish shrine of St. Maedoc of Ferns; and in the hand of an ecclesiastic, vested in an embroidered chasuble, engraved on the Soiseel Molaise, a small box of tenth-century work at the latest, which once contained a now lost copy of the Gospels written in the sixth century by St. Molaise of Devenish. It is fair to add that it rather resembles an aspersory than a pastoral staff, in which case it might be appealed to as evidence for the early use of holy water, and the small circular vessel, like a pome, held by another figure, might be a holy-water stoup, but the smallness of the vessel and the largeness of the staff seem fatal to this explanation. It is not unlike the baton of a ruler of a choir. St. Padarn, who arrived in Wales from Armorica A.D. 576 and became first bishop of Llandabarn, had a choral cap and staff presented to him by the people in recognition of his musical talent. But on the whole it may be with most probability inferred that it is an early form of a Celtic bishop's pastoral staff, which in the ninth or tenth century began to assume its more modern and now usual form.

38 Other specimens of the primitive cambutta, in its transition size and shape, may be seen in the hands of St. Matthew and St. Luke, as depicted in the MS. Gospels of Meiel Brith Mac Durnan, c. A.D. 850, and in the case of a figure carved on the cumhdach, or metal-work cover, of the Stowe Missal. The Bachal-more of St. Moloch, in the possession of the Duke of Argyll, and figured in the Origines Parochiales (ii. 163), is a black-thorn bludgeon, with traces of a metal covering, measuring only 2 feet 10 inches in length. Several of the bronze cambuttas preserved in the museum of the Irish Academy are little longer. 39 Bracelets.—It has been suggested that bracelets or cuffs formed part of the sacerdotal costume of a British priest. In the absence of documentary or other reliable evidence this is merely an inference from the custom of the early Gallican priesthood to wear metal bracelets or cuffs of silk or other handsome texture. 'If,' says Dr. Rock, 'the ritual observances of our Britons were like those of their nearest neighbour, Gaul,—and there is every reason for thinking so,—then do we, far off as we are from their times, catch a glimpse of another among the sacred appurtenances of a priest in the British era of our Church history; and beholding him vested for the holy sacrifice of [CH. II. the Mass, we shall perceive that along with the fine full chasuble he wore a kind of apparel on the sleeves of his alb. Cuffs of this sort are still found in use among the Greeks, who call them , &c.

40 Bracelets have frequently been found in ancient tumuli, and in other places and positions. A gold bracelet found in a loch in Galloway, and consisting of two very artificially intertwining circles, has been assigned to a late Celtic period. Celtic circular ornaments of gold have been found in Peebles-shire; bracelets, armlets, earrings, bead and jet ornaments have been discovered in British burial-places, and in Ireland. But there is nothing in the shape of proof, it is mere conjecture to assign to these bracelets, as has been sometimes done, any ecclesiastical connection. Such a connection, in any case, would more probably be with Druidism than with Christianity. The Druid priests of Great Britain may have resembled those of Gaul, who, Strabo informs us, wore golden bracelets, and coloured vesture variegated with gold. But the tendency of recent investigation has been to assign to all such relics a distant prehistoric date, perhaps as far back as the neolithic period of mankind.

41 Comb.—The ritual use of the comb, now long since obsolete, but as it was employed in Anglo-Saxon times before High Mass, was probably derived from the Celtic Church. The comb of St. Kentigern was one of the relics kept in Glasgow Cathedral. That of St. Cuthbert was buried with him. Representations of a comb, sometimes accompanied with scissors, are frequently found in the early sculptured stones of Scotland, where its appearance has been variously interpreted as a trace of the Eastern custom of designating the sex of a person by a single-toothed or double-toothed comb or as a sign of his trade, or dignity, or as having some ecclesiastical significance. These and other theories are discussed at length and with much ingenuity by Mr. Stuart. The Christian character of the device is just possible, but is incapable of proof, and is more nearly disproved by the probable date of the stones themselves. The profession of a Christian priest is usually indicated by other symbols, such as a book in the hand, a chalice and paten, or a consecrated host as in the Nigg stone.

42 Crowns.—The Celtic bishops wore crowns instead of mitres. St. Sampson, a Welshman, generally but incorrectly described as Archbishop of York, and subsequently of Dol in Brittany, c. A.D. 557, is said to have dreamed that he saw 'three eminent bishops adorned with golden crowns standing before him.' celebrated, the same office of the comb was performed for him seated in the sedilia. More curious was the ritual at Viviers in France, A.D. 1360, where the ceremony of combing was performed several times during Mass: 'Sacra celebraturus sedet dum in choro Kyrie, Gloria, et Credo decantantur; unde quoties assurgebat, ipsi capillos pectebat diaconus, amoto ejus capello seu almucio, licet id officii jam in secretario antequam ad altare procederet, sollicite ei praestitisset.' Du Cange, in verbo Sedes Majestatis. [CH. II. There is a representation of an Irish bishop thus crowned on a sculptured bas-relief of great antiquity, part of a ruined chapel in the valley of Glendalough. The use of this crown in a modified form continued in Anglo-Saxon times until the tenth century, when representations of the mitre, properly so called, begin to be found; which originally resembled a flat cap, and did not assume its present cloven and horned shape till after the Conquest.

43 Sometimes crowns were suspended over shrines, as in the case of the early Irish church of St. Bridget described by Cogitosus, where there was a richly decorated altar with gold and silver crowns hanging over it. This was an Eastern custom. According to Du Cange, the custom of hanging crowns over the altar in the church of St. Sophia dated from the time of Constantine the Great. It was also a Gallican custom. Crowns were suspended over the tomb of St. Martin at Tours, a tomb to which the early Irish made frequent pilgrimages. Discs or Brooches.—Two figures carved on an old stone at Invergowrie have on their necks ornaments which auctore anonymo subaequali apud Mabillon, Acta Sanct. tom. i. p. 176. sect. 43. The crown or mitre of an Eastern priest is alluded to in the rubrics of the Armenian Liturgy; Hammond, C. E., Lit. E. and W. p. 163.

44 look like discs of metal, fastened to the dress by laces passed through small holes perforated in the discs. They are possibly insignia of either lay rank or sacred dignity, or else large brooches which are often represented as fastening up the dress at the shoulder in the case of ecclesiastics on the early Irish crosses. The Brehon laws assign the brooch as one of the distinctive emblems of royalty; 'brooches of gold having crystal inserted in them with the sons of the King of Erin, and of the king of a province, and brooches of silver with the sons of a king of a territory,' &c. The following account gives a quasi-supernatural sanction for the brooch becoming part of a saint's dress: 'Then Diarmoyt, the son of Cearbuyll King of Ireland, who ruled in the city of Themoria in the country of Midhi, saw in a dream two angels take the royal necklace from off his neck and give it to a man unknown to himself. On the next day St. Brendan came to that king. And when he beheld him, he said to his friends, "This is the man to whom I saw my necklace given." Then the wise men said to the king, "Hitherto the rule of Ireland has been in the hands of kings; hereafter thy kingdom will be divided among Ireland's saints."'

45 We may take the fact that the brooch, which was originally part of the regal insignia, became a part also of ecclesiastical dress, as a sign of the great honour which was paid in early times to the saints in Ireland. [CH. II. Sandals.—Sandals are represented on the feet of St. Matthew and St. John in the Book of Kells, and in the case of many other figures in early Celtic MSS. They were worn at Iona, and were called 'calceus,' or 'calceamentum,' or 'fico,' all words frequently employed in the Lives of Celtic saints. Curiously-shaped slippers are to be seen on the feet of four ecclesiastics on a sculptured stone at St. Vigean's, to whom the Roman tonsure on their heads compels the assignation of a date subsequent to A.D. 710. Caracalla.—The ordinary outer dress of a British priest was a long hair cassock called a 'caracalla.' This was worn by the priest Amphibalus, and assumed by St. Alban in exchange for his own clothes in order to facilitate the escape of the former. The ordinary outer cloak of a monk at Iona was called 'amphibalus' or 'cuculla,' worn over a white under-dress, 'tunica candida' or 'pallium.' elaborate cycle of colours is concerned, such as is prescribed in mediaeval Missals and Rituals, but allusion to the ecclesiastical use in the Celtic Church of at least two colours has been preserved to us.

46 Purple.—Gildas refers to the custom of covering the altars in British churches with purple palls. The three choirs of saints which appeared to St. Brendan were clad 'in vestibus candidissimis jacinctinis purpureis' (Navigatio S. Brendani, eleventh century MS. Nat. Lib. Paris, No. 3784). St. Cuthbert was buried in a purple dalmatic A.D. 687, but this fact illustrates early Anglo-Saxon rather than Celtic usage. In the legend of St. Mulling, as preserved in the Book of Leinster, an Irish MS. of the earlier half of the twelfth century, Christ is represented as appearing to that saint, in a vision vouchsafed to him in church, in a purple garment. Purple is very largely introduced into the earliest extant specimens of Celtic illumination, as in the Book of Kells, and into the later Irish MSS. at St. Gall. A passage in Bede's works alluding to the ease with which a red or purple dye could be obtained from shells on the Irish coasts, at once explains and renders probable the preponderating ecclesiastical use of this colour. We have evidence of the use of purple altar-cloths—pallae—in the early Gallican Church. St. Germanus of Paris, c. A.D. 550, explains the use of this colour by referring to the mention of purple in [CH. II.

47 the Levitical account of the tabernacle. St. Gregory of Tours, in the same century, mentions the defence of the Abbess of St. Radegund against the charge of cutting up one of these purple altar-coverings for a dress for her niece. And the use of these purple altar-palls was perpetuated, like other British and Gallican customs, in the Anglo-Saxon Church. White.—The second colour, of the ecclesiastical use of which there is distinct mention, is white. It was the festal colour at Iona. Adamnan describes how white vestments were worn by St. Columba and his attendants on the occasion of the celebration in memory of Columbanus, as if it was a holy day. The same saint when dying before the altar at Iona was clothed in a white dress. White is the only colour referred to in the early Irish Canons, which order that the deacon at the time of oblation should be clad in a white vestment; whereas in a mediaeval Irish tract on the origin and meaning of colours in the mass-vestments, as many as seven colours are named, yellow, blue, white, green, red, black, purple. In this employment of white the custom of the Celtic agreed with that of the early Gallican Church. In the fifth and sixth centuries white was recognised there as the festal, and especially as the Paschal colour. St. Remigius Bishop of Rheims, in his will A.D. 499, bequeathed to his successor his white Easter vestment. Similar allusions are found in the case of St. Caesarius of Arles, and of St. Gregory of Tours. St. Germanus of Paris c. 550 mentions the appearance of angels clad in white at the sepulchre as the symbolical reason for the selection of white as the liturgical colour at Eastertide.

48 The predominant employment of white and red in the Sarum Use may be a survival of the early British preference for those colours. Is it only a coincidence that the Rule of St. Columba recognised but two classes of martyrdom, 'red martyrdom' (= death), 'white martyrdom' (= self-mortification)? [CH. II. that the voice of St. Columba was so powerful that when he was chaunting he could be heard sometimes half a mile, sometimes even a mile off,—a statement not necessarily involving either miracle or exaggeration,—in the still air of an autumn day on one of the western islands of Scotland. In Ireland music was an art early cultivated, and intimately connected with divine worship. Harpers are represented on the most ancient sculptured stones of Ireland, and pipers are introduced as decorations of initial letters in sacred manuscripts of the eighth and ninth centuries. In the Félire of Oengus a good man is compared to 'an altar whereon wine is shed, round which is sung a multitude of melodies.' Irish Annals speak of the destruction of church organs A.D. 814. There is nothing improbable in such an entry, as organs are known to have been in general use in Western Europe before that date. The more interesting question is, What was the style and character of the music in the Celtic Church? To this enquiry, unfortunately, no answer can be given beyond the negative one, that it was not the Roman chaunt in its Gregorian, nor probably in any other form. Bede asserts that the Roman style of singing was first introduced into England generally by Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Wearmouth, A.D. 678, and into the monasteries founded by Scottish missionaries in the North of England by St. Wilfrid, who died c. A.D. 709.

49 Dr. O'Conor discusses the question with much ingenuity and research in his 'Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores'. He endorses to a certain extent the conclusion of Mabillon, that the choral service of the British Church which was not 'juxta morem Romanum' was therefore 'juxta morem Orientalem.' The Eastern course having been introduced into the monasteries of Lerins and Marseilles (as described by Cassian), and having been learned there or elsewhere in Gaul by Germanus and Lupus (and Patrick), was by them introduced into Great Britain and Ireland in the fifth century, and was transferred thence to Scotland by Irish missionaries in the sixth century. The subject is hardly sufficiently relevant to the Liturgy to be discussed here at further length. [CH. II. 50 proves that they were intended to be suspended above the level of the eye. The symbol of the cross has been found on some of these cups, as on those discovered at Bryn Seiont, Carnarvonshire, and at other places. The date of such relics is undetermined. The mark of the cross used generally to be referred to as an evidence of their connection with Christianity, and was often relied upon by antiquarians as a proof of a post-Christian date, as in the case of bronze spoons found at Llanfair in Wales, and of inscribed stones, &c. elsewhere. But it has been found as an emblem on vases, ornaments and relics, both in the British islands and in continental pile-wrought villages, and lacustrine dwellings and cemeteries, many centuries anterior to the Christian era; and the most recent and experienced archaeologists are decided in their view that these incense urns have no connection with Christianity. The psalm 'Dirigatur,' &c. which accompanies the act of censing in the modern Roman Missal is indicated for use in the Stowe Missal, but there are no rubrical directions there for the use of incense. It may be added that no trace exists of the use of incense in the early Gallican Church. It is not mentioned in any rubric of the surviving Missals, nor is there any allusion to it in the somewhat full 'Expositio Missae' of Germanus Parisiensis (sixth century.)

51 Adamnan records how 'on one occasion a stranger from the province of Munster, who concealed through humility the fact that he was a bishop, was invited, on the next Sunday, by Columba to join with him in consecrating the body of Christ, that as two priests they might break the bread of the Lord together. Columba, on going to the altar, discovered his rank, and addressed him thus: "Christ bless thee, brother; consecrate alone as a bishop; now we know that thou art of episcopal rank. Why hast thou endeavoured to disguise thyself so long, and to prevent our giving thee the honour due to thee?" On another occasion four illustrious visitors from Ireland paid a special mark of respect to St. Columba by requesting him to offer the Eucharist in their presence. This custom of joint celebrants in the case of priests, and of a single celebrant in the case of a bishop, is peculiar to the Celtic rite, no similar practice existing in any other country or at any other time. There was something exactly opposed to it in the once general but now nearly obsolete rule of the Western Church, that when a bishop celebrated the priests present should unite with him in the words and acts of consecration. This direction still survives in the Roman service for the 'Ordering of Presbyters,' when the newly-ordained priests join with the bishop in repeating the words of the Canon. The same custom [CH. II.

52 existed at Chartres, on Maundy Thursday, as late as the fifteenth century. Early Irish canons, attributed to St. Patrick, lay down that the offerings of the wicked and the excommunicate are not to be accepted. St. Patrick mentions in his Confession how the devoted and warm-hearted Irish women among his disciples made offerings at his altar of ornaments and personal presents, and how he offended them by always returning them afterwards, lest the unbelieving should have appearance of ground for scandal against him. When St. Columba was making 'the offering of Christ's Body and Blood' in the presence of Comgall and Cainnech, at their special request, 'then it was possint scum omnia dicere, et presertim verba consecrationis, quae dici debent eedem momento per ordinatos quo dicuntur per pontificem. 2 Le Jeudi-saint six Archidiacres Pretres celebrent la grand' Messe conjointement avec l'Eveque... l'Eveque est au milieu de l'Autel; il a trois Pretres a sa droite, et trois a sa gauche, sur la meme ligne. Ils chantent tous sept unanimement, et pratiquent ensemble toutes les ceremonies de la Messe. De Moleon, Voyages Liturgiques, p. 231. See p. 105. n. 6. Prima interrogatio beati Augustini episcopi Cantuariorum ecclesiae. De episcopis, qualiter cum suis clericis conversentur, vel de his quae fidelium oblationibus accedunt altaris; quantae debent fieri portiones, et qualiter episcopus agere in ecclesia debeat. Bede, H. E. i. 27, Interrogatio i. 5 'Contentus tegmente et alimento tuo cetera dona iniquorum reproba. S. Patric. Synodus, c. 2. Quicunque Christianus excommunicatus fuerit, nec ejus eleemosyna recipiatur. Synodus Episcoporum Patricii, &c. xii. The passage is corrupt, but the meaning is obvious. Nam etsi imperitus sum in omnibus, tamen conatus sum quispiam servare me etiam et fratribus Christianis, et virginibus Christi, et mulieribus religiosis, quae mihi ultronea munuscula donabant, et super altare reddebant, ex ornamentis suis, et iterum redlebam illis, &c. Patricii Confessio, c. xxi.

53 that Cainnech beheld a pillar of fire over Colombcille's head while at the offertory. In the Mozarabic and Gallican Liturgies an anthem or hymn was sung during the offertory called 'Sacrificium' or 'Sonum'. Such may be this short anthem in the Antiphonary of Bangor, which resembles an offertory sentence of the Anglican Liturgy rather than the offertorium of the Roman Missal. 'Pro eleemosynariis.—Dispersit, dedit pauperibus, iustitia ejus manet in saeculum saeculi, cornu ejus exaltabitur in gloriâ. Eleemosynas facientibus in hoc mundo retribue, Domine, in regno tuo sancto.' An account is preserved in the Leabhar Breac of the ritual accompanying the oblation of the elements which is probably a genuine survival of the ancient Celtic Liturgy. First three drops of water were placed in the chalice, the priest saying, 'Peto [or Quaeso] te, pater, deprecor te, filii, obsecro te, spiritus sancte;' then three drops of wine, with the accompanying formula, 'Mittet pater, indulgeat filius, misseretur spiritus sanctus'; or, 'Remittet pater, indulget filius, misseretur spiritus sanctus'.

54 [CH. II. Latinos, Bibl. PP. Max. xviii. 405. aus; Qui azymorum adhuc participant, sub umbra legis sunt, et Hebraeorum mensam comedunt. This ingenious inference is supported, as far as the later continental Celtic Church is concerned, by a statement of Walafrid Strabo that it was the custom of St. Gall to use unleavened bread. The design at the foot of the monogram of the Book of Kells may be taken to prove that circular wafer bread, stamped with a x, was in use in Ireland in the sixth century. The consecrated wafer bread is there drawn between animals which seem to hesitate to destroy or devour it. The host in a circular form, with a chalice or portable altar underneath it, is represented between two kneeling figures on the Nigg stone in Ross-shire. In mediaeval Celtic literature there are plentiful allusions to wafer bread. I asked the secular priests, To their bishops and their judges,

55 What is the best thing of the soul? The Paternoster, and consecrated wafers, and a holy Creed. Dr. Döllinger is not quite right in inferring that in their use of unleavened bread the British Church differed from the rest of Western Christendom,—'wahrend man sich damals in der Römischen Kirche und im übrigen Occident noch des gesäuerten Brodes bediente,'—and Bingham is quite wrong in asserting that it is 'a matter beyond all dispute that the Church for a thousand years used no other but common or leavened bread in the Eucharist.' Unleavened bread was not only used in the early Celtic Church, but also in the African Church in St. Cyprian's time, in the Spanish Church in the ninth century, in the Anglo-Saxon Church under Archbishop Theodore, and in Alcuin's time. On one occasion, when St. Finden of Movilla was celebrating, water only, and not wine, had been provided. St. Columba, who was present, removed the difficulty by turning the water into wine.

56 The cross engraved on bronze spoons found at Llanfair in Wales has been held to be a proof of their connection with Christian usage; and it has been suggested that they were Eucharistic spoons used for the administration of the consecrated wine. This is merely conjecture, faintly supported by the fact that a bronze chalice was used by St. Columbanus in the sixth century, and that another bronze chalice of eighth-century Irish workmanship is still preserved in the convent of Kremsmünster on the Rhine. But if these bronze spoons had any liturgical use at all, they were more probably [CH. II. employed for conveying a little water into the chalice of wine before consecration, in accordance with a custom which prevailed almost universally in the early Church. Such might have been the use of the small bronze spoon found under St. Martin's Cross at Iona, and now in the possession of the Duke of Argyll, and of a diminutive gold spoon found in the river Bann, and figured in the Ulster Journal of Archaeology. An account of ancient bronze spoons found at Weston is given in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries for Scotland. Notwithstanding the sacred character which has been conjecturally assigned to their ornamentation, it is probable that all these spoons were put to ordinary culinary, rather than to any ecclesiastical use.

57 Communion Hymn of the early Irish Church is full of allusions to the reception of the chalice. So are the formulae of Administration and of the Communio preserved at the close of the Antiphonary of Bangor. In the later lives of the saints such expressions as these abound: 'After the girl had received the Body of Christ and His blood she died without anxiety;' and 'The old man pointed out to them the land of which they were in search, i.e. the Land of Promise, and having received the Body of Christ and His blood he went to heaven.' Reference has been already made to the possible connection of certain ancient spoons with the administration of the Eucharist. In the church at Kildare there was 'a special door through which St. Bridget and her virgins passed, that they might enjoy the banquet of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.' The act of communion was called 'going to the chalice' in the Rule of the Irish Culdees. St. Cuthbert, who cannot be supposed in his later days to have deserted on such a point as this the Celtic traditions of his youth, was entreated by an officer of the court of Egfrid King of Northumberland to send a priest to visit his wife before her death, and to administer to her 'the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ;' [CH. II.

58 and himself, immediately before his own death, received the Blessed Sacrament in both kinds from the hands of Herefrid Abbot of Lindisfarne. The cup was administered by the deacon. There are extant certain canonical regulations of the Welsh Church c. A.D. 589, where among the penances attached to greater crimes are a refusal of permission to a priest to celebrate or to a deacon to hold the chalice. The chalice from which St. Bridget was communicated was administered by 'unus de pueris Episcopi.' tions laid down in the Penitential of Cuminius is one that 'women shall receive the Holy Communion under a dark veil;' and St. Basil is referred to as an authority for this undoubtedly Eastern custom. There was a similar order for women to approach the altar with their heads veiled in the Apostolic Constitutions, in a passage relied upon by Bunsen as a proof of their Eastern origin: , , .

59 This was also a custom of the early Gallican Church, where a head-covering (dominicale) was ordered to be worn by women at the time of communion, by the 42nd canon of the Council of Auxerre. In later times we hear of a church in North Munster into which no woman, or any animal of the feminine gender, ever entered but it immediately died. There was another church where Irish women were prohibited from going near the altar, or taking the chalice in their hands: 'Nulla femina ad altare Domini accedat, nec calicem Domini tanget.' The latter part of this direction proves it to be of considerable antiquity. It occurs in a 'Sermo sinodalis parrotianis prespeteris,' but must surely apply only to some particular monastic altars. Yet injunctions of a similar character were not confined to Ireland. The Gallican Constitutions of Theodulf Bishop of Orleans (A.D. 802-11) ordered 'ut feminae ad altare non [CH. II.

60 accedant.' Women were not allowed to enter the chancel of Durham Cathedral within a line of blue marble which ran across the nave. In a collection of tenth-century Anglo-Saxon laws the Gallican rule of Theodulf was incorporated and expanded thus: 'Eac we beoda þæt þæm tidum þe mæsse-preost mæssan singe þæt nan wif ne ženealæce þam weofode, ac standen on hyra stedum, and þe mæsse preost þær æt hiom onfó þære ofrunge þe hið Gode ofrian wyllath.' charist was at a very early date placed on a person's breast when he was buried, as in the case of St. Cuthbert, whose body was found 'oblatis super sanctum corpus positis'. May we infer from the use of the plural number here that the reservation took place in both kinds, just as Dr. Rock infers from the employment of the singular number in another case that in Anglo-Saxon days the reservation was of one kind only? The decolorisation of the reserved Sacrament alluded to as a test of its corruption in the Regula St. Columbani, cap. xv, possibly points to the twofold but conjoint reservation of both elements. The Eastern custom of simultaneous administration of both reserved elements is implied in the cases of sick or death-bed Communion previously referred to, and in the Celtic remains of services for the Communion of the Sick in the Books of Deer, Dimma, Mulling, and Stowe.

61 There are proofs of its use in the Celtic Church. Adamnan states that at St. Kenneth's monastery at Aghaboe in Ireland there was a table in the refectory on which the Eulogiae were cut up for distribution. The passage is curious, as showing that in Ireland in the sixth century it was customary to partake of the Eulogiae, not in connexion with the Eucharist in [CH. II. the oratory, but at the afternoon meal in the refectory. The same practice existed at Iona in Scotland, and, as has been inferred from a passage in the old hymn attributed to St. Columba, under the same conditions of time and place as at Aghaboe. At Lindisfarne, in St. Cuthbert's time, it was distributed at the third hour, after Mass. In the continental monasteries of St. Columbanus it was distributed on Sundays and holy days after Mass. It is recorded of the saintly and humble Ermenfried, who presided over the Columban monastery of Cusance (625-670), that he always kissed the hands of the poorest persons before distribution. Its unworthy reception was forbidden by special enactment.

62 By the old law of distress in Ireland a stay of two days was granted in the case of church furniture, and the requisites of the Mass, though it be not celebrated every day. On Sundays.—When four distinguished Irish saints visited St. Columba at Iona and requested that he would celebrate in their presence he complied with their request, as usual on Sunday. The same saint is described as celebrating on the last Sunday (June 2, 597) before his death, which took place on the Saturday following. Cuminius in his Penitential defends and explains these Sunday celebrations by a reference to the custom of the Greeks. In the eighth century in Ireland there was a seven years' probation for admission into the society of the Culdees. In the first year the novice was not allowed to communicate at all, only to be present at the sacrifice. In the second year his communions began, and gradually increased in number, till they mounted to communion every Sunday in the seventh year.

63 On Saints' Days.—We read of St. Columba at Iona giving special orders for the celebration of the Eucharist in commemoration of St. Brendan and of Columbanus, and it is noted that the latter order was carried out in detail, as if it had been a regular and recognised holy-day. Passengers on their way to Iona pray that they may reach the island in time to celebrate the Eucharist on the day dedicated to St. Columba and St. Baithene, on whose joint festival (June 9) the wished-for Eucharist is offered. In Ireland, in the sixth century, we read of celebration on a holy-day in the church of St. Finnian at Movilla, county Down. In St. Bridget's [CH. II. church at Kildare, early in the sixth century, there was a celebration on Sundays and on the vigils of the feasts of Apostles. In the mother church of every Irish monastery in the eighth century there was an offering upon every altar on Sundays and solemnities.

64 St. Gall ordered a special celebration in commemoration of St. Columbanus on receiving intelligence of his death, and no doubt from that day forward the festival of St. Columbanus was added to the Kalendar of St. Gall. In all these passages, as usually in the language of the seventh century, the word 'Missa' means the Liturgy proper, and such phrases as 'Missarum sollennia' and 'sacra Eucharistiae ministeria' are used as synonymous expressions, but the word Missa is also used occasionally to denote any sacred office. The last service at which St. Columba was present is called the 'vespertinalis Dominicae noctis Missa'. This service was evidently not an evening communion, but 'Vigiliae nocturnae' or 'nocturns.' The word 'Missale' or 'Missal' was also used to denote not only the text of the Mass itself, but also other Office Books. The book which in the Irish life of St. Columba is called the Book of the Gospels, but which is no longer extant, is called by Colgan in his Latin translation 'Missarum Liber.'

65 A golden chalice, a relic of Iona, perhaps coeval with St. Columba himself, once existed, but has in recent times been [CH. II. unfortunately lost. A similar fate has attended the relics of St. Kieran (sixth century). When his grave was opened A.D. 1791 his relics comprised beads strung on brass wire, a crozier, a hollow brass ball which opened, resembling the ball (possibly a pome) in the hands of one of the figures on the Breac Moedog (Archaeol. xliii. pl. 18), and a paten and chalice. Plentiful evidence of the early use of the flabellum in Western Christendom is adduced by Gerbert, and especially as to Gaul in Smith's Dictionary of Christian Antiquities. In a thirteenth-century illumination in a French MS., a facsimile of which is given in Bastard's Peintures et Ornements, a priest vested in an ample chasuble is represented in the act of consecration at Mass. Behind him stands the deacon in a dalmatic, waving a flabellum composed of peacocks' feathers.

66 Knife.—A knife is depicted in the left hand of St. Matthew in the Treves Gospels, and in the right hand of the right-hand figure in the monogram of the Garland of Howth. It is impossible without further evidence to decide for what purpose this knife was employed, although its character as a sacred symbol is evident. It may have been used as the holy spear is used in the Eastern Church, for the ceremonial piercing of the Amnos and severing the host into portions during the Liturgy, or as the knife specially set apart in the Anglo-Saxon Church for the purpose of cutting up the Eulogiae. [CH. II. Wednesday and Friday were observed as fast-days at Iona, but a dispensation was granted by the abbot in the case of the reception of strangers, &c.; also at Lindisfarne, where the Celtic custom of fasting till three o'clock (except in Easter-tide) had been introduced by St. Aidan from Iona. The Rule of St. Columbanus prescribed the same custom for the Irish continental monasteries. In the Rule of the Irish Culdees (eighth century) skimmed milk was allowed on St. Patrick's Day even if it fell on a Wednesday or Friday. The non-eating of flesh on Wednesdays and Fridays was one of the customary laws by which the soul-friend (an meara) bound the Irish people.

67 Lent (dies quadragesimales) was observed at Iona as a season of preparation for Easter. The severity of the Lenten Rule may be gathered from the statement of Bishop Cedd that the strict rule which he observed had been learned by him in the Columban monastery in which he had been brought up. The three Rogation Days, before the Feast of the Ascension, were observed, with fasting up to the ninth hour, and their observation was perpetuated in the Anglo-Saxon Church by the 16th canon of the Council of Clovesho (A.D. 747), which expressly refers to their observation not as a custom derived from Rome, but as a traditional custom of the country: 'Sexto decimo condixerunt capitulo: Ut Laetaniae, id est rogationes, a clero omnique populo his diebus cum magna reverentia agantur, id est, die septimo kalendarum Maiarum, juxta ritum Romanae Ecclesiae, quae et Letania major apud eam vocatur. Et item quoque, secundum morem priorum nostrorum, tres dies ante Ascensionem Domini in caelos cum jejunio usque ad horam nonam et Missarum celebratione venerantur,' &c.

68 The wording of this canon is noteworthy. The observance of the Rogation Days was a Gallican custom, unknown at that date in the Roman Church, into which it was first introduced by Leo III (795-816); and their recognition in the British Church, and their perpetuation from that source in the Anglo-Saxon Church, if we may see an allusion to that Church in the words 'priores nostri,' is a link in the proof of the early connection between the British and Gallican Churches. The connection of a special fast with the Celtic rite of the consecration of churches has been already pointed out. [CH. II. St. Donnan of Eig requested St. Columba to act as his anmcara. 'This Donnan went to Columcille to make him his soul's friend; upon which Columcille said to him, "I shall not be soul's friend to a company of red martyrdom; for thou shalt come to red martyrdom, and thy people with thee." And it was so fulfilled.' St. Columba is said to have been 'anmcara' to Aidan King of Dalriada A.D. 574.

69 Adamnan acted as anmcara to Finnsnechta, who became monarch of Ireland A.D. 675. Minute regulations about confession are laid down in the Irish Rule of the Culdees (pp. 88-90). In some of the later entries in the Annals of Ulster the office of chief confessor is named. There are various regulations on the subject of penance and confession in the Welsh laws of Howel. In the Black Book of Caermarthen an irreligious Welshman is taunted with the question, 'What gavest thou of thy wealth before private confession?' Three points are worthy of note with regard to the practice of confession in the Celtic Church. (a) It was public rather than private. We read how a certain Irishman (de Scotia), named Feachnaus, touched with remorse for some crime committed by him, came to Iona, and falling at St. Columba's feet, lamenting bitterly, 'confessed his sins before all that were there present.' Whereupon St. Columba, weeping together with him, absolved him in these words: 'Rise up, my son, and be comforted; thy sins which thou hast committed are forgiven, because, as it is written, a contrite and a humble heart God doth not despise.' On another occasion, when St. Columba was visiting the little monastery of Trevet, co. Meath, a priest who had been chosen by the brethren to celebrate the Eucharist on account of his supposed superior sanctity, was conscience-stricken by some words uttered by St. Columba, and 'was compelled to confess his sin in the presence of them all.'

70 An old Irish canon speaks of confession of sins in the presence of priest and people. (b) It was optional rather than compulsory. In early Irish law there is frequent mention of the anmcara, and of confession to him being profitable (not necessary), and of his power to impose penances, such as a pilgrimage after a murder. The direction on the subject in the Penitential of Cuminius ran in these words: 'Confessio autem Deo soli ut agatur, si necesse est, licebit.' It was perhaps owing to its optional character that the practice of confession seems to have dropped into disuse in the later Irish Church. Alcuin writing to certain brethren in Ireland (eighth century) urged the practice of confession very strongly on men and women, secular and religious, young and old. In another letter he complained peccantias confitetur suas. Sanctus tum, cum eo pariter illacrymatus, ad eum ait, Surge fili, et consolare; dimissa sunt tua quae commisisti peccamina; quia sicut scriptum est, Cor contritum et humiliatum Deus non spernit.' Adamnan Vit. S. Col. i. 30.

71 [CH. II. that 'it is reported that none of the laity are willing to make their confession to the priests, whom we believe together with the holy Apostles to have received the power of binding and loosing from God in Christ.' St. Bernard asserted that the custom of going to confession had died out in Ireland in the twelfth century, and that its restoration was one among the reforms of St. Malachi. (c) It was not the custom to pronounce absolution until after the penance assigned had been fulfilled. An early Irish canon assigned a year of penitence as the punishment for certain crimes. When the year was accomplished the penitent might come with witnesses and receive absolution from the priest. Bede records how an Irish youth named Adamnanus made confession to a priest, and on hearing the penance imposed complained of it, not on account of its severity, but because he wished more quickly to receive absolution. The penance had been imposed for an indefinite time, and absolution was deferred until the priest should see him again. No second interview ever took place, in consequence of the sudden death of the priest in his native country (Ireland), whither a sudden emergency had caused him to return, and Adamnanus continued to comply with the conditions of the penance for the rest of his natural life.

72 This regulation, although it led to a practical inconvenience in the case of Adamnanus, is more in accordance with the discipline of the primitive Church than the modern practice of making the absolution precede the performance of the penance. The following portion of an Irish Penitential survives among the MSS. at St. Gall:— incesta dimittere, non potes ei dare poenitentiam; et si null ipsa incesta dimittere, fac eum confiteri omnia peccata sua, et ad ultimum dicere, Multa sunt peccata mea in factis, in uerbis, in cogitationibus. Tunc da illi poenitentiam, et dic istas orationes super eum, Oremus. Preneniat hunc famulum tuum ill. Domine misericordia tua, et omnes iniquitates eius celeri indulgentia deleat. Per. Oremus. Exaudi, Domine, preces nostras, et confitentium tibi parce peccatis, et quos conscientiae reatus accusat, indulgentia tuae pietatis absoluut. Et caeteras si tempus habueris sic in sacramentario continentur. Si tibi non uacat istae sufficiant. Et si homo ingeniosus est, da ei consilium ut ueniat tempore statuto ad te aut ad atium sacerdotem in Coena Domini, et reconciliaretur sic in Sacramentario continetur. Quicquid manens in corpore consecutus non fuerit (hoc est reconciliatio) exutus carne consequii non poterit. Si uero minus intelligens fuerit, quod ipse non intelligit, in uno statu reconciliare potes eum, ita dicendo,

73 Oremus. Presta, quesumus, Domine, dignum poenitentiae fructum huic famulo, ut Ecclesiae tuae sanctae, a cuius integritate deuiarat peccando, admissorum ueniam consequendo reddatur innocuus. Per. Si infirmus est homo, statim reconciliare eum debes. degradation in the morality of Ireland. It should also be remembered that marriages with persons occupying positions of spiritual affinity as well as with near kindred fell under the designation of incest. (Hook, W. F., Archbishops of Canterbury, i. 372. § 7.) The charge of 'incest' was frequently brought against the Anglo-Saxons in the ninth century. (Lingard, A. S. Church, ii. 220.)