from the Catechumens and others, who up to that point had been allowed to join in the service; though, in accordance with the discipline of reserve in the early Church, they were not allowed to be present at the "mysteries," which therefore were properly secreta or arcana. This would explain why the canon was also called secret when it was still said aloud and the people answered Amen. It was called secretum Missa(1) in this country as late as the twelfth century, though the name secreta had been very early applied kar' óxny to the prayers we are now considering. But there is one fact beyond dispute, which, as far as this prayer is concerned, is far more decisive than any à priori or etymological arguments in proving that it was not said in silence from the first throughout the West. In the Ambrosian rite, where, as already mentioned, it is called the oratio super oblata or oblatam, a rubric directs or did direct(2)—the priest to say it clara voce, or, according to Gerbert,(3) alta voce, and it is impossible to suppose that this could have been changed from "tacita voce," unless we had some record of the innovation. in the canon of the mass "plebs tua sancta," ante, p. 108, 1. 12. See Grancolas, Liturgie Ancienne et Moderne, 1752, p. 92. (1) In the Consuetudinarium of Sarum, compiled by St Osmund, and printed Maskell, A. E. L., 180. Also in the northern province, at the legantine Council held at York, A.D. 1195, Constit. 3.-Wilkins, I, 501. (2) Martene, I, 173, from the edition of 1560. So also in the Rubrica Generales, § 18. I have the Milan edition of 1849 before me, and the rubric there stands as I here quote it, but I do not know how far it may have been since altered. In the last edition of "L'Ordinario della Messa secondo il Rito Ambrosiano, colla versione Italiana” prefixed to the Vero Penitente of Diotallevi I find (p. 34) a note under "per omnia sæcula sæculorum," explaining that "This ending of the secret" (segrete -the Roman instead of the Ambrosian name) "is said by the priest aloud (‘ad alta voce') because the people confirm what he has said ('con voce bassa') with a low voice." For more than a thousand years the Roman curia has directed its efforts against the peculiarities of the Ambrosian rite, and since the beginning of the sixteenth century it has been modified in many respects. The comparison of our texts discloses changes in the manner of the people's devotions in the middle ages, and it may not be without interest to give another example of the process in the present day. I need not remind the reader who has paid attention to liturgical questions that the rubric and prayer speaking of the breaking of the body of Christ has been the subject of much controversy among divines of the Roman communion, and it is therefore very significant that in this Italian Lay-folks Mass-book (p. 49) the prayer at the "Fraction" (cf. ante, p. 112, 1. 15) beginning Corpus tuum frangitur is translated "L'Ostia che si spezza," &c. Early English writers in their books "for the lewed" had no scruple in reproducing the language of their rubrics. For example, Robert of Brunne : 66 euery prest aftyr þe sacre He partep þere Goddys body yn pre."-H. S. 7950-1. (3) "Oratio super oblata alta voce dicenda, ut expresse habetur."-Disquisitiones, I, 332. P. 26, B. 281. Knele pou doun. It will be observed that there is no corresponding direction in the later texts, for they assume that the people are already kneeling, see note, p. 251. The Vernon MS., ante, p. 143, ll. 545-7, agrees with this in directing the layman to kneel at the secret. B. 282. in blak wryten. Cf. the mention of rubrics, 11. 57, 624. B. 283-4. amende, hende. Here, as in 1. 36, the northern plural is retained on account of the rhyme. B. 287–296. It will be observed that this prayer of the layman during the "secrets" is an echo of the priest's "Orate," ante, p. 100, 11. 20-3, in asking it-though the meum pariter que vestrum sacrificium, in grammatical exactness and in the sense which, in theory at least, was always maintained in the middle ages,(1) ought to have been "(offered) by the priest and by us all," but has been paraphrased "for the priest and for us all." B. 288. his solempne sacrifice, that is the oblation of the bread and wine as a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. It may be that some of my readers who connect the idea of an offering for sin with the sacrifices of masses-and this whether they accept or protest against the doctrine-may not be prepared for this application of the name of sacrifice to the unconsecrated gifts, but the name is invariably used in every one of the many mediæval orders of inass I have had an opportunity of examining (for one, the York use, ante, p. 100, 1. 4, 1. 18, &c.); and the elaborate ceremonial which was prescribed by the rubrics and other ritual regulations of western churches, and which is still observed at the great entrance" in the East, bear witness to the special solemnity which was associated with this rite, until in the West an increasing and almost exclusive prominence, doctrinal and ceremonial, was given to the subsequent blessing and consecration of the gifts. B. 292. po sakring to se. Sacring is properly the consecration or blessing of the sacramental elements ("Sacryn or halwyn, Consecro, sacro." PP. 440), but from the twelfth century onwards it was so closely connected with the elevation, which men could see -and the words of the canon they could not hear-that it was used in popular language for the elevation of the host, and not only for the elevation of the host when it was consecrated (ante, (1) "A cunctis fidelibus, non solum viris sed et mulieribus sacrificium illud laudis offertur, licet ab uno specialiter offerri sacerdote videatur."-Petri Damiani Dominus vobiscum, c. viii. Five hundred years later we have the same idea, though not so well put, in the Book of Ceremonies (quoted above, p. 178), "The priest is a common minister in the name and stead of the whole congregation, and as the mouth of the same, not only rendreth thanks unto God for Christ's death and passion, but also maketh the common prayer and commendeth the people and their necessities in the same (i. e. the mass). "unto Almighty God."-Strype, Memorials, Appendix, p. 285. Cf. the words of the canon, ante, p. 104, 1. 30, “qui tibi offerunt hoc sacrificium laudis.” p. 106, 1. 32), but also when it was again elevated(1) at the end of the canon (ante, p. 110, 1. 21), according to an ancient rite, corresponding with the elevation in the Eastern Church, when the priest in all the liturgies now extant cries out, Ta ayia Tois ȧyíos (Sancta sanctis, Holy things for the holy). In the rubric, B. 406, we find the more exact phrase, levation to behold, but no doubt the one above was what passed current among the people. Cf. “All came this lady to behold As people that behold the sacring." Percy Folio, I, 161, l. 524-6. Cf. P. 26, B. 293. lyuen. The change to the midland third person plural in -en adds a syllable to the line to the injury of the metre. the northern -es in C 139. In F 119, the northern lyves is retained, but the scribe not improbably in "the lyues" supposed he had the definite article and a plural substantive before him, instead of the plural of the verb and the older form of the relative (pe), which not improbably was the reading of the original text, elsewhere altered into pat. Alle pat lyuen in gods name, as elsewhere, of Christ. Cf. "All they that do confess thy holy name."-B. C. P. B. 294. Cf. "Mary Moder, meke and mylde Fro schame and synne that 3e us schyllde Christmas Carols, Halliwell, Percy Soc., p. 7. B. 295. hethen are past. Cf. Hampole: "Wharfor it semes þat mes syngyng May titest þe saul out of payn bryng, bat passes hethen in charite."-P. C. 3702-4. hethen, though a northern word, has been left out in C, probably because obsolete in the middle of the fifteenth century, and is changed to hensse and hennes in E and F. B. 300-302. The priest had gone to his book (B 279), which had (1) Becon (Reliques, fol. 130 b) remarks upon the name of sacring being given to the elevation, and (Displaying, Works, III, 277) speaks of the minor elevation, as it came to be called after the first elevation had been established, being "called the second sacring." It was, in fact, the third elevation, at least according to those uses where the cup was elevated as in England, but was nevertheless spoken of by ritualists as the second, e. g. Grancolas (Liturgie Ancienne et Moderne, 1752, p. 143): "The custom of ringing a small bell at the second elevation, and at low mass of answering Ave salus, &c., which are spoken to Jesus Christ, whom men elevate (qu'on éleve), is a remnant of the ancient discipline, and shows that at some time there had been this elevation only." So also, p. 135. But he calls this the third elevation, e. g. ib. p. 133. been flitted to the north end of the altar before the gospel (B 155), P. 26, B. 303. Stande vp þou als men pe biddis. The Eastern origin of the answer to the Orate has been pointed out (page 259), and although it is in itself a thing altogether indifferent, it may not be unacceptable to those who are interested in tracing the families, so to speak, of different liturgies, to draw attention to what seems to be a similar character in this direction to stand at this place instead of continuing to kneel, as was the later practice. In fact, the connection is better established by coincidences in these smaller matters, which are not likely to have been expressly borrowed, than by the similarity of rites or devotions which may very well have been adopted on the score of their importance. It will be observed that there is no reference to this direction in texts C and F which were adapted to the practice in this country; nor have I met with any trace of any such direction in any use of the Latin rite, and certainly not in any of the old English uses. But in the Greek liturgies, and the so-called liturgy of St Clement in the Apostolical Constitutions, and in almost all the oriental liturgies collected by Renaudot, there is to be found in this part of the service either the rμev kaλuç of the deacon, to which St Chrysostom refers, (2) or some similar direction to stand; and, like the рóoxwμev (ante, p. 254)—curiously enough with reference to the survival of a custom once rooted in the traditions of the people-in many cases, as we learn from Renaudot,(3) the untranslated Greek words are reproduced more or less exactly in the vernacular liturgies of the Copts and Syrians, as we also find them in the liturgy of the native Christians of St Thomas.(4) When therefore we take into account the Eastern origin of the Gallican liturgy and its influence upon the service of the Church, not only in France, but also in this country, and especially upon those parts of it in which the people were more directly concerned, it will not appear fanciful to suggest that in the direction of the text we may recognize an Eastern form cropping up through the (1) Cf. "Ut autem sacerdos finierit secretas, retrahat se contra medium altaris, dicens Per omnia sæcula sæculorum."—Lib. Usuum Cisterc. c. 53, ap. Martene. IV, 61. (2) De Incomprehensibili Dei natura. Hom. IV, § 5, Ed. Ben. I, 478 C. He also quotes these words, but in another part of the liturgy, Hom. II, in II Cor. i, 11, Ed. Ben. X, 435 D. (3) Liturg. Oriental., Tom. I, 225; Tom. II, 75. (4) Howard, Christians of St Thomas, 206. Roman order, if not in this country, when the translation was made, at least in France when the original was written, and this although whatever date we may assign to Dan Jeremy-he must have lived several hundred years after the Roman had displaced the national liturgy. As to the "bidding," the words might very well have been used, though no longer in the service books, or a signal might have called the worshippers to their feet, and we find this practice still existing in the diocese of Orleans, though noted as peculiar, so late as the end of the seventeenth century.(1) P. 27, F. 113. God reherse. This may have been written by mistake for receive, or it might perhaps have been suggested by the thought that Christ presents in heaven what the Church offers on earth. F. 119. the lyues, see above on B. 293, page 269. P. 28, B. 307. Sursum corda, see order of mass, ante, p. 102, 1. 24. B. 308, At po ende, sc. of the preface, ante, p. 102, 1. 25-—p. 103, 1. 6. [he] sayes sanctus thryese. It will be noticed that E reads he says in this place, and though in that text, notwithstanding the want of intelligence of the scribe, or perhaps in consequence of it, many old readings have been preserved which have disappeared in the other more recent texts, on looking at it again I am inclined to think I was wrong in adopting this reading and inserting it conjecturally in the B text. "Sayes" is the northern form of the second person, singular and plural, and in the York bidding prayer (ante, p. 66, 1. 17, and p. 67, l. 1) we find the people bidden to pray with this form, "Says a paternoster and ave." It is therefore not at all unlikely that sayes here is a direction to the people to say the Sanctus, though the midland scribe may not have altered it to the " saye" to which he was more accustomed, as he did four lines lower down, from supposing that it here referred to the priest. Martene (I, 143) draws attention to the fact that anciently the people joined in singing the Sanctus, citing several councils to that effect. It was the rule in this country, as witness a rubric in Archbishop Egbert's Pontifical, "Dicit omnis clericus et populus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus,"(2) and we find it referred to in the Meditacyons elsewhere quoted: "So lyke wyse dispose yow to say with pe prest Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus."(3) As in other cases, already noticed, the people appear to have ceased to join in the Sanctus, as time went on, and it was said by the priest alone, or sung by the choir to elaborate music. According to the Roman rite, the Sanctus is said by the priest "voce mediocri," which cor (1) "Tout le monde se leve à sursum corda par geste.”— Voyages Liturgiques en France, 220. (2) Pontifical of Egbert, Archbishop of York [A.D. 732-766], from a MS. of the tenth century, ed. Greenwell, p. 120. (3) MS, Bodleian, A. Wood, 17, fol. 12, see p. 168. |