but whether it was used or not there is sufficient ground for concluding that in the West there were at one time simultaneous devotions, which may be supposed, as in the case of the Greek Church, to have taken their rise in these private prayers of priest and people. I do not refer to the overlapping of the several parts of the service. This, as resorted to in their own day, was animadverted on by French ritualists of the seventeenth century. For example, the priest began the secreta during the singing of the offertory; or the canon before the Sanctus had been sung, which last was forbidden as early as the ninth century. It is enjoined by the sixteenth of the Capitula of Archbishop Herardus of Tours (A.D. 858). "Ut secreta presbyteri non inchoent antequam Sanctus finiatur, sed cum populo Sanctus cantent."

The preces in prostratione of the Sarum use, and the psalms and prayers that were sung or said in other uses during the canon, indirectly prove the existence of earlier simultaneous devotions by this resort to them when it became the rule that the canon should be said secrete. There can, however, be little doubt that at the first part of the service was carried on by the congregation, whilst the

hearing mass, except at the gospel, as is the existing rule of the Roman Missal in respect to those who are present at low mass, "etiam tempore paschali" (Rubr. Gen. xvii. 2)-but bearing in mind the fact that at the first the people stood, or rather stood inclinati, that is, bowing down, when joining in the common prayer of the church, kneeling only for their private prayers, and not then on Sundays and between Easter and Whitsunday-it does not seem a very violent supposition, that instead of a momentary genuflection, the Oremus, Flectamus genua referred both to clergy and people, and called on them to add their silent prayers in furtherance of the petition which was bidden, and then stand whilst the priest "collected" their several devotions in the prayer, to which they added their Amen.

I am confirmed in this view by a rubric in the Sherborne Missal, from which, by the kind permission of the Duke of Northumberland, I have given other rubrics in the notes. The rubric at the Preces solemnes (p. 205) is as follows, and proves that in the XIVth century, an interval for private prayer was allowed before the word was given to stand-and this whether we understand the saying of Psalm (51) 1. to be a measure of time, as in the phrases, "for the space of five paternosters" and so forth; or the Spanish en un credo, en dos credos (in one, in two creeds, in a trice); or that the psalm itself was intended to be said as a prescribed form of private prayer: "Flectamus genua diutissime donec dicatur Psalmus. Miserere mei, Deus. Levate." Martene (IV, 137) gives a somewhat similar rubric from a "very old" Corby service book: "Dicat Sacerdos Oremus et diaconus Flectamus genua et orent diutissime usque dum dicat diaconus Levate."

priest was engaged in private prayer, very much as was done in the Eastern Church. It has been supposed by learned Roman Catholic ritualists, that the office or introit, and other devotions at the beginning of mass, were not said by the celebrant until the fourteenth century.(1) Until the several parts of the mass were written together in a Missale plenarium, probably not sooner than the twelfth century, (2) these portions were contained in the antiphoner, or more commonly in this country in the grayle; (3) and this appears to prove that they were the part of the choir and people. The old sacramentaries and the earliest missals, intended for the priest, have nothing before the oratio or collect, (4) but they not infrequently contain prayers for the priest, in some cases headed apologia or accusatio sacerdotis. For the most part, there are no rubrics as to when these prayers were to be said-and, indeed, in the oldest manuscript service-books there never are any rubrical directionsbut I give the following rubrics from forms printed by Martene, which will suffice to show when the same or similar prayers in MSS. without rubrics were intended to be said.

First, from the well-known Missa Illyrici:-"Has orationes interim dicat (sacerdos) donec cantentur Versus ad introitum, Kyrie Eleison, et deinde Carmen Angelorum." "Finita angelica laude" (The Gloria in excelsis) “missalem orationem dicat sacerdos.”

The next rubric is from a sacramentary which was given by the Abbot of St Benignus at Dijon, to the Bishop of Paris, in the year 1036 :—“ Interim quando Gloria in excelsis Deo canitur dicat has orationes. (5) The following is from a MS. of which Martene does not give the date" Post hanc" (kissing the gospels on the altar) sequentur hæ orationes interim dum Kyrie Eleison et Gloria in excelsis Deo canitur in quantum ei a Deo conceditur.(6)

Nor was this saying of simultaneous devotions confined to the Continent, as we may see by the following rubric from a Sarum missal, which was given by the Lord Prior of Worcester Cathedral

(1) Gerbert, Diss. I, 293.

(2) Note (1), page 155.

(3) Note (1), page 156. See also the article of enquiry in Regino: "10. Si missalem, psalterium, lectionarium, et antiphonarium habeat. Nam sine his missa perfecte non celebratur."

(4) Post, page 94, line 25.

(5) Martene, I, 209.

(6) Ib., 211.

to the church of Bromesgrove, in the year 1511, though the last clause of the rubric shows that the practice was dying out:"Oratio sancti Augustini dicenda a sacerdote in missa dum canitur Officium et Kyrie et Gloria in excelsis et Credo in unum: vel tota dicitur ante Missam quod melius est."(1)

There is no occasion to multiply quotations, or to bring examples of a similar kind in other parts of the mass. These parallel devotions may be strange to the notions of those of us who are used to the common prayer of priest and people in a common tongue, and the continuous arrangement of offices, alternating between priest and people in the reformed church of England; but it will be evident that Dan Jeremy did but adopt the principle of an example which had been set by the church in very early times. In the application of this principle, the fact that the Latin of the common service was no longer understood by the people, accounts for the private devotions being assigned to them, instead of to the officiating priest, as they were in the liturgies both of the Eastern and of the Western Church.

In the present day, as has been already remarked, handbooks of the same general character are to be found in the languages of all Roman Catholic countries. In German, too, there was a Messbüchlein, dating from the time of the reformation; and in English there were similar manuals for the Roman Catholic laymen, before the penal laws had ceased to inspire caution-the earlier editions bearing the imprint of Paris or Antwerp, though not impossibly the production of unlicensed presses in this country.

In some of the later English Hore and primers before the reformation, and of the reign of Queen Mary, there were added some or all of the following forms, sometimes in Latin with an English rubric, as Ebor, "When the priest him turneth after the lavatory; or Sarum, "When he saith Orate pro me;" at other times in Latin with a Latin rubric; or in English with a Latin rubric; or English and Latin, in the primers Latin and English, viz.: at the Orate, the elevation, the giving of Pax before receiving the sacrament, and after receiving it. There is no attempt at supplying devotions for every part of the mass resembling those which are now general in (1) Miss. Sar. 567.

the Roman communion. In this, Dan Jeremy appears to have stood alone-in this country, to say the least.

Any man who is acquainted with medieval theology, or has run through a catalogue of medieval manuscripts, must have observed that the mass was a very favourite topic; but our good Norman's "treatise" is in signal contrast with the greater number of the ritual and devotional works on this subject that have come down to us from the middle ages. There were many painstaking and devout commentaries, in which the words and ceremonies are minutely explained and devoutly "moralized," but as a rule they ignore the presence of the people, or at most are content with the direction, that all stand at the gospel, or that none depart before the end of the service. This silence as to the lay people extends to the rubrics of the mass, which almost exclusively refer to the officiating priest (executor officii) and the assistant minister and clerks, at least after the "responsio populi" had been assigned to the clergy or a clerk.

The Instructions for Parish Priests and the Myroure of our Lady are no exception-most valuable, almost indispensable as they are in the study of the religious life of our forefathers. Myrc's "work," as he himself styles it after what sounds like a more modern fashion, was intended for the "priest curatour," who was not great clerk;" and the Myroure was written for the nuns of Syon with reference to their peculiar conventual offices.

Numerous tales and doctrinal books were indeed written for the layman. For the most part, they merely insist upon the obligation of hearing mass, or set forth the advantages, spiritual and temporal, of so doing, or of procuring a mass to be said with some specified intention; but they do not profess to furnish the reader with suitable devotions, or to give him instruction as to his part in the service.

This was indeed the purpose of both Lydgate's Merita Missæ and the "Treatise" from the Vernon MS. printed in the Appendix; but they differ from the Mass-book in having been intended for recitation "To the lewd that cannot read."(1)

Our Mass Book was written for a more educated class. It was designed at the first for those who heard mass in the chapels and (1) Post, p. 148, 1. 3.

oratories of the great, though, as time went on, it was adapted, as in text F, for general use; or, as in text C, for the members of a monastic foundation when not ministering at the altar. It was intended to be read rather than heard, as is evident from references to what is "written above," "written in black letter," and so forth; and from the suggestion to "look at the rubrics" from time to time and get the prayers off by heart.

As already pointed out, the devotions are not a translation from the missal. The only parts that are retained in the translation are the general confession, the Gloria in excelsis, the answer at the Orate, and the Lord's Prayer. There is a version of the Apostles' Creed instead of the Nicene Creed, which was known as the mass-creed from being said in the mass. Nothing is said of the houselling, or administration of the sacrament-an omission which is very significant, as proving how completely the celebration of the mass had been dissociated from the communion of the laity. With this exception, rubrics and devotions are provided for the whole of the mass; these devotions being analogous to the parallel form which was being used by the clergy, though in some cases bearing traces of the still surviving influence of the proscribed Gallican liturgy.

A few of the shorter forms may serve to give some idea of the general character of the whole; and I modernize them for the ease who may find the facsimile texts uncouth from not being used

of any

to them.

AT THE GOSPEL (p. 18, 19).

Thesu, my Lord, grant me Thy grace,
And of amendment might and space,
Thy word to keep and do thy will.
The good to choose and leave the ill:
And that it may be so,

Good Ihesu, grant it me. Amen.

AT THE SANCTUS (p. 28).

In world of worlds (to all ages) with out ending
Thanked be Thou, Ihesu, my king.

All my heart I give it Thee.

Great right is it that it so be;

With all my will I worship Thee,

Iesu, blessed mayst Thou be.