adds: "verbum canendo interpretor de privata recitatione, nec aliam interpretationem sequentia patiuntur." Thus an old "Expositio missæ" edited by Cochlaus says: "prima autem oratio super corpus Christi futurum secreta dicitur, et secrete canitur:" and the margin explains this to be "secreta oratio legitur." Once more, a passage in the "defensorium directorii" of the church of Sarum is very much to the point: "item illa duo verba quæ ponuntur in multis festis, sic: Invitatorium triplex, nihil oneris imponunt sacerdotibus qui dicunt officium suum sine nota: sed solum pertinent ad illos qui cantant officium cum nota." Here the use

whether with or without music would continue equally and perfectly the use of Sarum; and no distinction as regards it either depends upon or is involved in the addition of a chant.

But there would be no end of accumulating examples of this sort. If the reader wishes to examine the question further I would recommend him, among other books, especially to read the dissertation of Mabillon de cursu Gallicano to which reference has already been made, and he will be satisfied that music does not form, except in an extended and improper sense, any part of what we ought to understand by the term "use" of a church.10

One word also, before I pass on, upon the expression in the passage in the preface to the com

De cursu Gallicano, § 46. Gerbert, de musica, tom. i. p. 326, cites the same canon, and explains it "de privata horarum canonicarum recitatione." See also pp. 355, 559, &c.

8

Spec. ant. devotionis, p. 140.

"The reader will find the whole of that important treatise printed in the second volume of the Monumenta ritualia.

10 See also Perrone, Prælect. theol. tom. 7. p. 383.

mon Prayer book, "the great diversity in saying and singing," and "now from henceforth all the whole realm shall have but one use." It is possible that the reformers, among their multiplicity of plans, did intend to enforce an uniformity in singing also throughout the realm: but, whatever they may have meant by the words just quoted, I think that it is quite clear that the first common Prayer book of king Edward was not aimed at the abolition of varieties of music but of a variety of prayers, and rites, and ceremonies. This last object was thoroughly effected. A diversity of singing nevertheless continued, not only in different dioceses but also in different churches of the same diocese: and at present there does not seem to be any rule, except the precentor's pleasure, even for the daily singing in a cathedral. Nevertheless, no one would suppose that the preface to the common Prayer is evaded or the act of uniformity is broken by this custom, whatever may be said of other practices. Merbecke (as is well known) about a year after the publication of the first Book tried something of the sort which the reformers merely hinted at; but his book was unauthorised, limited in its impression, and so far as we know never reached a second edition :11 which necessarily must have been the case, if the demand for the book had been great in consequence of some authoritative order which enjoined it. Elizabeth in her injunctions, which were supplemental to her act of uniformity, and so far as they might have had any authority were grounded upon an especial clause in that act, attempted to supply the deficiency: yet these did not insist on a particular or one mode of

11 See the statement of a doubt about this in a note to the disser

tation on service books, Monumenta ritualia, vol. i. p. xxv.

singing, but simply that there be "a modeste and destyncte songe used in all partes of the common prayers in the churche." 12

The portions of the missals which are reprinted and arranged in this edition form but a very small division of their respective volumes; but by far the most important. In examining them the student must bear in mind that although he may have expected to find greater and more numerous variations between them, such variations were not likely to occur, even in so large a proportion, in the ordinary and the canon. These, especially the last, were parts of the Divine Service which were studiously guarded against alterations, additions, or omissions and even the changes of single words and differences of arrangement which he will find in them constitute, as decidedly as far more considerable differences in other parts of the books would, a variety of use. And I do not hesitate to say that the distinctions of the ancient liturgies of the church of England, compared between themselves or with the Roman use in the ordinary and the canon, are not only as great but greater and more in number, and involving points of higher consequence, than any

12 The forty-ninth of these injunctions declares that "because in dyvers collegiate and also some paryshe churches heretofore, there hath ben levynges appointed for the mayntenaunce of men & chyldren to use synging in the church, by meanes whereof the lawdable science of musicke hath ben had in estimation and preserved in knowledge: the quenes maiestie... wylleth and commaundeth, that fyrste no alteration be made of such as

signementes of levynge but that the same so remayne. And that there bee a modeste and destyncte songe so used in all partes of the common prayers in the churche that the same maye be as playnelye understanded, as if it were read without singing." Injunctions geven by the quenes maiestie. Imprinted by Jugge and Cawood, anno M.D.LIX. Reprinted in Cardwell, Documentary annals, vol. i. p. 196.

previous acquaintance with such subjects, before an actual examination of the English missals, would have entitled us to expect.

To attempt even a sketch of the innumerable variations which existed in other parts of the English missals would be far too extensive a subject of enquiry. But take for example some masses near the beginning of the sanctorale according to the uses of the churches of Salisbury and York. The first service is that of the vigil of St. Andrew. In this the psalm, the verse after the gradual, one of the secrets, and one of the post-communions are different. Upon St. Andrew's day, the psalm again differs. Upon St. Thomas's day, the gradual, the offertory, and the post-communion are different. Upon the feast of the conversion of St. Paul, the introit, the psalm, the sequence, and the post-communion. Upon the feast of the purification, the sequence, tract, offertory, and secret.

Or again, compare one or two services from the commune of the missals of Hereford and Bangor. The services "In natali unius martyris et pontificis " agree only in the epistle and gospel. For "many martyrs" different lections, graduals, secrets, and communions are appointed. And, once more, in the service for a confessor and bishop, the tract, offertory, communion and post-communion are different.

The ordinary and the canon therefore occupying (as I have said) only a small part of the missal, the rest of that volume was filled with the various collects, epistles, gospels, sequences, graduals, &c. proper to the great festivals and fasts, the sundays, and to occasions when the Church offered up especial prayers in behalf, for example, of the king or in the time of any dearth or pestilence. These were

of course used, at least many of them, only once a year; but the ordinary and the canon were daily said.

In these latter, moreover, were contained those rites which have been held from the earliest times to be essential not only to the valid but to a right or proper consecration of the holy eucharist. The several collections by Asseman, Renaudot and others, of liturgies which have been used in different patriarchates of the catholic church, contain those portions which are edited in the present volume: the other parts of many are altogether lost, and possibly some of the earlier liturgies had little else beside.13

13 All that part (says bishop Rattray, speaking of the liturgy of St. James) which precedes the anaphora, both in this and the other ancient liturgies, is a later addition to the service of the church, as appears from the account given thereof by Justin Martyr, from the Clementine liturgy, and from the nineteenth canon of the council of Laodicea. By comparing of which with other ancient authorities, we plainly find that the service of the church began with reading of the scriptures, intermixed with psalmody; after which followed the sermon. Then the ἀκροώμενοι and ἄπιστοι, the hearers and unbelievers, being dismissed, there followed in order, the bidding prayer of the deacon, and the collect of the bishop, first for the catechumens; then, after they were dismissed, for the energumens; and after they were dismissed for the competentes or candidates for baptism; and

lastly, after dismissing them likewise, for the penitents. Then, all these being dismissed, the missa fidelium, or service of the faithful, began with the exǹ dià owns, the silent or mental prayer, which is the first of the three prayers mentioned in the Laodicean canon; the second and third are said to be διὰ προσφω νήσεως. And these are the εὐχαὶ κοιναὶ καὶ ὑπὲρ ἑαυτῶν—καὶ ἄλλων πανταχοῦ πάντων in St. Justin. Then, after the priests washing their hands, and the kiss of peace and the μήτις κατά τινος, the deacons brought the δώρα, the gifts of the people, to the bishop, to be by him placed on the altar; and he having prayed secretly by himself, and likewise the priests, and making the sign. of the cross with his hand upon his forehead, says the Apostolical constitutions, began the anaphora. Ancient liturgy of St. James, pref. 3.