away, it is seldom remembered or known that these floral decorations are relics of the social, rather than of the sacred, use of the Christian temple,* and that they are memorials of a state of society when the pure and lovely products of nature were made to perform the same services in private dwellings as are now rendered by works of art and manufacture. The same persons who embellished and supplied our medieval churches with flowers, and boughs, and rushes strewn upon the floor, periodically fitted up their homes in the same style: and if we would imitate the spirit rather than the form of these churchdecorators of old feudal time, instead of preparing our churches for festival seasons with holly and birch branches, yew boughs and oak leaves, box twigs and rushes, we should fit them up with turkey-carpets, curtains of silk damask, and such articles of taste and luxury as are ordinarily found in well-appointed drawing-rooms. Ancient usage and religious associations have induced many persons to attach certain vague notions of sacredness to these floral embellishments: but it is a matter of historic certainty that, though they cannot be shown to have had a purely secular origin, they are chiefly interesting to the antiquary as relics of the time when the parish church was a common home, as well as a place of worship.

Concerning these floral adornments, a beneficed clergyman of the seventeenth century-Herrick in the 'Hesperides 'sung with delightful sweetness, after witnessing the preparations for Candlemas,

'Down with the Rosemary and Bayes,

Down with the Mistleto;

Instead of Holly, now upraise

The greener Box for show.

The Holly hitherto did sway,

Let Box now domineere,
Until the dancing Easter Day
Or Easter's Eve appeare.

To assert that the use of flowers and leaves for the decoration of our sacred places had a secular origin, would be to say more than what can be proved. The practice, of course, is traceable to the pagan period of our history, when, as in later times, boughs, flowers, and berries, were employed at festive seasons, for religious as well as social ends. Whether the religious use of such natural objects proceeded from, or gave rise to, their use for purposes of domestic embellishment and festal adornment, must remain a matter for conjecture. To raise the question is to enter the still wider field of unanswerable inquiries, whether social life proceeded from, or gave birth to, religious life; how far each is indebted to the other for its forms and modes; and what in pre-historic times were the boundaries between the one and the other province of human life.

Though etymologists concur in assigning different derivations to holly' and 'holy,' it is at least a matter for discussion whether the former word, instead of having been derived from 'holen,' is not fairly referable to the same Saxon root as the latter epithet. All that is definitely known of the two words inclines me to the opinion that the holly-tree gained its name from the liberality with which it was used for the decoration of churches and private dwellings on the chief of holy days,—or, to adopt the spelling frequent in old books, of holly days. Another ancient name of the tree with prickly leaves and red berries, was Hulfere, or Hulver, which is explained by Skinner with questionable judgment as a corruption of hold fair'—a term applicable to the tree that kept the fairness and beauty of its leaves throughout the year; but not on that ground more applicable to the holly than any other evergreen tree. Another and perhaps preferable explanation of the word, is that it comes

* Herbert, in his Country Parson,' alludes to the now obsolete practice of strewing church-floors with rushes-a custom universal at a time when the galleries of great mansions and the parlours of manor-houses were carpeted in the same primitive manner. The country parson,' says Herbert, hath a speciall care of his church, that all things there be decent, and befitting His name by which it is called. Therefore, first he takes order that all things be in good repair, as walls plaistered, windows glazed, floore hard, seats whole, firm, and uniform; especially that the pulpit, communion-table, and font, be as they ought, for those great duties that are performed in them. Secondly, that the church be swept, and kept cleane, without dust or cobwebs, and at great festivalls strawed, and stuck with boughs, and perfumed with incense.' The Laudian High Churchmen were over-zealous for the attainment of uniformity in clerical costume, practices, and rites. This same delight in regularity was the motive to most of those Laudian innovations which provoked the Puritans; and the foregoing passage shows, that even in the country churches of Charles the First's time, pews were general, and of uniform construction. The extract also demonstrates how largely incense was used in our churches long after the Reformation.

from hold fear'-a term appropriate to the foliage which, when put up in private dwellings at festal seasons, was supposed in superstitious times to drive off Satanic spirits, and restrain persons from fear of them.

Conspicuous also amongst the internal adornments of our churches in old time, were the candles which, liberally at ordinary times, though most bountifully at festal seasons, were burnt at sacred shrines, and before the images of saints in every part of the temple, as well as before the various altars of the edifice. It was seldom that an important church was altogether without artificial illumination; and on occasions of exceptional pomp and ceremonious splendour, even rural churches were filled with light that must have been alike attractive and exhilarating to spectators in days when candle-light was a costly luxury, and used with severe parsimony even in the houses of the wealthy. By recalling the social use of the medieval Church, and reflecting how largely its abundance of artificial light contributed to its cheerfulness and the satisfaction of its habitual frequenters, we put ourselves in a position to appreciate the reasonableness and practical utility of the penances which enjoined persons guilty of ecclesiastical offences to demonstrate their contrition, and conciliate the clergy, by offerings of tapers, to be consumed in their ordinary places of worship. The penitent thus compelled to supply a pair of large fair tapers for the high altar, or to place a row of cheaper candles before a saint's image, in his parish church, was required to render atonement in the manner most likely to benefit the special community which he had scandalised and injured by his misdemeanour.

So also, to appreciate the incidents of medieval church-life and the influence which every parish church exercised on its habitual attendants, we must contrast the beauty, and brightness, and numerous attractions of the Common Home, against the meanness, and darkness, and sordid discomforts of the private dwellings of ordinary men in feudal England. In an age that delighted in gorgeous pomps and spectacles designed to stimulate the imagination, the populace were entertained in the churches with ambulatory processions of richly-clothed priests and ministrants, compared with which frequent displays of clerical magnificence the occasional parades of civic magis

trates were paltry and insignificant. In times that had no profane theatres, lecture-rooms, opera-houses-none of those sources of artistic amusement and intellectual diversion which are so abundant in modern society-the medieval citizen went to his church for wholesome relaxation and æsthetic culture, as well as for devotional exercise and spiritual edification. His ordinary dwelling-room was low, dark, narrow, and ill-furnished : the church, a work of noble art, was lofty, luminous, spacious, and richly decorated. His home was usually a foul, stinking place the church airy, and redolent with the rich perfumes of incense. Away from the churches he never heard any music better than the strains of ballad-singers, and such discordant noises as wandering minstrels produced with fife and bagpipe, drum and fiddle, for the exhilaration of jaded pilgrims: in the churches he was stirred and fascinated by sacred harmonies, to which the most fastidious critics of the melodious art still listen with delight and admiration. Whilst the homes of the wealthiest persons of the land were without the instrumental appliances for the creation of harmony superior to the music of a booth at a village fair, the poorest of our medieval ancestors might satiate their appetite for sweet sounds by listening to the organs and choristers of our cathedrals and minsters.

THOSE

CHAPTER V.

CLERGY AND LAITY IN CHURCH.

HOSE who have watched the demeanour of a full congregation in the Catholic cathedral of a continental city, at a time when a flood of English tourists and other Protestant sight-seers has added to the ordinary confusion and restlessness of the scene, may realise something of the stir and bustle that usually pervaded an assembly of worshippers in an important medieval church during sacred celebrations; but the buzz and clatter of a feudal congregation were far louder and more opposed to Puritanical decorum than the hum and agitation of any similar gathering of the present time.

On

One bad result of the ancient social use of the Christian temple, was the air of irreverent familiarity that distinguished the medieval church-assemblies during Divine service. such occasions the public quarter was never without a due complement of frequenters, but their dress and conduct were such, that the spectators whose religious proclivities were in the direction of Lollardy had cause to disapprove the lightness and inquietude of the gossiping throng. The women donned their brightest attire ere they set out for church on sacred days; and on entering the place of worship they often showed that their presence in the house of prayer was quite as much due to love of the world as to delight in holy thoughts. Having duly crossed themselves half-a-score times, knelt on the bare floor for ten minutes, and muttered a few prayers to the rood, they deemed themselves at liberty to look about for their admirers and prattle to their acquaintance. The ladies of superior degree very often had pet sparrow-hawks perched on their wrists, and toy-hounds following close at their heels.

The case was the same with the men, who, having walked to