SARUM. VEN BANGOR. se sacerdos vesti bus dicat hunc ENI Creator spiritus: mentes tuorum visita: imple superna gratia, quæ tu creasti pectora, &c. v. Emitte spiritum tuum et crea- R. Et renovabis faciem terræ. DE EUS cui omne cor patet et omnis voluntas loquitur, et quem nullum latet secretum: purifica per infusionem sancti Spiritus cogitationes cordis nostri: ut perfecte te diligere et digne laudare mereamur. Per Per Dominum. Christum. In unitate ejusdem. 'Aliqui illud tribus digitis dextræ manus efformant sub invocatione sanctissimæ Trinitatis, alii vero duobus, ad duas Christi naturas et voluntates contra monophysitas et monothelitas indicandas." 6 It frequently happened in large parishes or in cathedrals and churches of monasteries that more than one mass would be said at the same time. These would be of course at different altars, and very seldom would begin together. Unless I am mistaken, there is no rubric in any English missal referring to this practice, but there is the following in an "Ordo missæ" printed at Rome in 1511: "Postquam id [In nomine &c.] dixerit non debet advertere quemcunque in alio altari celebrantem etiam si sacramentum elevet; sed continuate prosequi missam suam usque in finem." We can scarcely doubt that the same rule was observed according to the English uses after the Introibo. 7 The Hereford and York liturgies did not admit this HERFORD. ROM. IN N nomine Patris, et Fi lii, et Spiritus sancti. Amen.® prayer; neither at any time did the Roman. It is now used at the beginning of the communion service of the reformed church of England, immediately before the reading of the ten commandments. An early translation occurs on a blank leaf between two treatises in English, forming part of a volume of religious tracts which seems formerly to have belonged to the Carthusian monastery of Mount Grace in Yorkshire: the manuscript is of about the year 1420 :— "God, vnto whome alle hertes bene opene, and vnto whome alle wylle spekyth, and vnto whome no prive thing is hyd, I beseche the for to clence the entent of myn herte wt the vnspekeable gift of the holy goste, that I may perfytely loue the and worthyliche prayse the, and also haue the here by grace and in heuene be joy euerlastynge. Amen." MS. Harl. 2373. fol. 23. 8 (Mentium. Ebor.) My edition has, by a plain typographical error, manuum. The preceding prayers according to the uses of Sarum, Bangor, and York, having been said in the sacristy, the priest proceeded to the altar. I do not remember any direction as to whether his head should be covered or uncovered. Possibly in the mediæval church of England the earlier practice, observed almost everywhere throughout the west until the tenth century, was still the rule and the priest wore nothing on his head. For many centuries the Roman use has ordered the contrary, and so it is directed by the present rubrics: "Sacerdos omnibus paramentis indutus. . . capite cooperto accedit ad altare...cum pervenerit ad altare, stans ante illius infimum gradum, caput detegit, biretum ministro porrigit, et altari profunde inclinat." 10 (Functis manibus. Rom.) "In missa semper ita persistit, nisi quidpiam agendum impediat." Le Brun, Explicatio missæ, tom. i. p. 51. 11 (Introibo. Sarum.) This antiphon at the beginning of the service was highly appropriate. Some writers have said that St. Ambrose alludes to it, as being used in his time in the church of Milan: but as others, Bona and Gavantus &c., have pointed out, that father in the place cited is not treating of the communion but of the newly-baptized, of baptism and confirmation. "His abluta plebs" (are his words) "dives insignibus ad Christi contendit altaria dicens, Introibo," &c. There is no doubt however that it was very anciently used in this place, for Micrologus says, cap. 23: "paratus, sacerdos venit ad altare dicens antiphonam." 12 (Fudica me. Sar.) From almost the earliest ages of which records remain, we find evidence that the liturgy began with a psalm: but it was not universal; and for the four first centuries at least there was a variety of practice. It is not possible to decide what psalms in particular were appointed, or even whether in the first ages the later practice of a fixed psalm was observed. Durand says, lib. iv. cap. 7, that pope Cœlestin the first originally appointed this particular psalm. This would have been about the year 430. But it would seem from an old ordo Romanus that Coelestin merely ratified the custom of saying a psalm. A French ritualist of little or no authority, Claude de Vert (of some considerable learning, but excessive prejudice towards many peculiar conceits of his own), has laid it down that the custom of saying the psalm Judica is not older than the fourteenth century; in which he is confuted by innumerable witnesses to the contrary: and we may conclude that (though we cannot fix it either to the time of pope Cœlestin or of St. Ambrose, to whom also the institution of it has been attributed, yet) for more than five hundred years it had been so used in this part of the liturgy. The Mozarabic liturgy appoints the antiphon, but omits the psalm. The Roman liturgy follows the same rule in masses |