The Mediaeval Stage, Vol I (of 2)

[914] C. de Berger (1723), Commentatio de personis vulgo larvis seu mascharis, 218 ‘Vecolo aut cervolo facere; hoc est sub forma vitulae aut cervuli per plateas discurrere, ut apud nos in festis Bacchanalibus vulgo dicitur correr la tora’; J. Ihre (†1769), Gloss. Suio-Gothicum, s. v. Jul. ‘Julbock est ludicrum, quo tempore hoc pellem et formam arietis induunt adolescentuli et ita adstantibus incursant. Credo idem hoc esse quod exteri scriptores cervulum appellant.’ In the Life of Bishop Arni (nat. 1237) it is recorded how in his youth he once joined in a scinnleic or ‘hide-play’ (C. P. B. ii. 385). Frazer, ii. 447, describes the New Year custom of colluinn in Scotland and St. Kilda. A man clad in a cowhide is driven deasil round each house to bless it. Bits of hide are also burnt for amulets. Probably the favourite Christmas game of Blind Man’s Buff was originally a scinnleic (N. W. Thomas, in F. L. xi. 262).

[915] Brand, i. 210, 217; Jackson and Burne, 381, 392, 407; Ashton, 178; Jahn, 487, 500; Müller, 487, 500. Scandinavian countries bake the Christmas ‘Yule-boar.’ Often this is made from the last sheaf and the crumbs mixed with the seed-corn (Frazer, ii. 29). Germany has its Martinshörner (Jahn, 250; Pfannenschmidt, 215).

[916] Dyer, 501; Ashton, 214.

[917] Brand, i. 19; Dyer, 21, 447; Ashton, 86, 233. Brand, i. 210, describes a Hallow-e’en custom in the Isle of Lewis of pouring a cup of ale in the sea to ‘Shony,’ a sea god.

[918] Brand, i. 14; Dyer, 22, 448; Northall, 187. A cake with a hole in the middle is hung on the horn of the leading ox.

[919] Grimm, iv. 1808. Hens are fed on New Year’s day with mixed corn to make them lay well.

[920] Gregory, Posthuma, 113 ‘It hath been a Custom, and yet is elsewhere, to whip up the Children upon Innocents-Day morning, that the memory of this Murther might stick the closer, and in a moderate proportion to act over the cruelty again in kind.’ In Germany, adults are beaten (Grimm, iv. 1820). In mediaeval France ‘innocenter,’ ‘donner les innocents,’ was a custom exactly parallel to the Easter prisio (Rigollot, 138, 173).

[921] Dyer, 24; Cortet, 32; Frazer, iii. 143; Deslyons, Traités contre le Paganisme du Roi boit (2nd ed. 1670). The accounts of Edward II record a gift to the rex fabae on January 1, 1316 (Archaeologia, xxvi. 342). Payments to the ‘King of Bene’ and ‘for furnissing his graith’ were made by James IV of Scotland between 1490 and 1503 (L. H. T. Accounts, 1. ccxliii; 11. xxiv, xxxi, &c.). The familiar mode of choosing the king is thus described at Mont St. Michel ‘In vigilia Epyphaniae ad prandium habeant fratres gastellos et ponatur faba in uno; et frater qui inveniet fabam, vocabitur rex et sedebit ad magnam mensam, et scilicet sedebit ad vesperas ad matutinam et ad magnam missam in cathedra parata’ (Gasté, 53). The pre-eminence of the bean, largest of cereals, in the mixed cereal cake (cf. ch. vi) presents no great difficulty; on the religious significance attached to it in South Europe, cf. W. W. Fowler, 94, 110, 130. Lady Jane Grey was scornfully dubbed a Twelfth-day queen by Noailles (Froude, v. 206), just as the Bruce’s wife held her lord a summer king (ch. viii).

[922] Accts. of St. Michael’s, Bath, s. ann. 1487, 1490, 1492 (Somerset Arch. Soc. Trans. 1878, 1879, 1883). One entry is ‘pro corona conducta Regi Attumnali.’ The learned editor explains this as ‘a quest conducted by the King’s Attorney’!

[923] Ashton, 119; Dyer, 388, 423, 427.

[924] Brand, i. 261, prints from Leland, Itinerary (ed. 1769), iv. 182, a description of the proclamation of Youle by the sheriffs at the ‘Youle-Girth’ and throughout the city. In Davies, 270, is a letter from Archbp. Grindal and other ecclesiastical commissioners to the Lord Mayor, dated November 13, 1572, blaming ‘a very rude and barbarouse custome maynteyned in this citie and in no other citie or towne of this realme to our knowledge, that yerely upon St. Thomas day before Christmas twoo disguysed persons, called Yule and Yule’s wife, shoulde ryde throughe the citie very undecently and uncomely....’ Hereupon the council suppressed the riding. Drake, Eboracum (1736), 217, says that originally a friar rode backwards and ‘painted like a Jew.’ He gives an historical legend to account for the origin of the custom. Religious interludes were played on the same day: cf. Representations. The ‘Yule’ of York was perhaps less a ‘king’ than a symbolical personage like the modern ‘Old Father Christmas.’

[925] Ramsay, Y. and L. ii. 52; Blomefield, Hist. of Norfolk, iii. 149. The riot was against the Abbot of St. Benet’s Holm, and the monks declared that one John Gladman was set up as a king, an act of treason against Henry VI. The city was fined 1,000 marks. In 1448 they set forth their wrongs in a ‘Bill’ and explained that Gladman ‘who was ever, and at thys our is, a man of sad disposition, and trewe and feythfull to God and to the Kyng, of disporte as hath ben acustomed in ony cite or burgh thorowe alle this realme, on Tuesday in the last ende of Cristemesse, viz. Fastyngonge Tuesday, made a disport with hys neyghbours, havyng his hors trappyd with tynnsoyle and other nyse disgisy things, coronned as kyng of Crestemesse, in tokyn that seson should end with the twelve monethes of the yere, aforn hym yche moneth disguysed after the seson requiryd, and Lenton clad in whyte and red heryngs skinns, and his hors trapped with oystyr-shells after him, in token that sadnesse shuld folowe, and an holy tyme, and so rode in diverse stretis of the cite, with other people, with hym disguysed makyng myrth, disportes and plays.’

[926] Jevons, Plutarch’s Romane Questions, 86. The Ides (Jan. 9) must have practically been included in the Kalends festival. The Agonium, probably a sacrifice to Janus, was on that day (W. W. Fowler, 282).

[927] Appendix N, Nos. ix, xi, xiv, xvii, xviii, xxviii, xxxvi.

[928] G. L. Gomme, in Brit. Ass. Rep. (1896), 616 sqq.; Tille, D. W. 11, Y. and C. 90; Jahn, 253; Dyer, 446, 466; Ashton, 76, 219; Grimm, iv. 1793, 1798, 1812, 1826, 1839, 1841; Bertrand, 111, 404; Müller, 478.

[929] Tille, Y. and C. 95.

[930] Dyer, 456; Ashton, 125, 188. A Lombard Capitulary (App. N, No. xxxviii) forbids a Christmas candle to be burnt beneath the kneading-trough.

[931] Müller, 236; Dyer, 430; Ashton, 54; Rigollot, 173; Records of Aberdeen (Spalding Club), ii. 39, 45, 66. In Belgium the household keys are entrusted to the youngest child on Innocents’ day (Durr, 73).

[932] Saupe, 9; Tille, Y. and C. 118; Duchesne, 267. A custom of feasting on the tombs of the dead on the day of St. Peter de Cathedra (Feb. 22) is condemned by the Council of Tours (567), c. 23 (Maassen, i. 133) ‘sunt etiam qui in festivitate cathedrae domui Petri apostoli cibos mortuis offerunt, et post missas redeuntes ad domos proprias, ad gentilium revertuntur errores, et post corpus Domini, sacratas daemoni escas accipiunt.’ I do not doubt that the Germano-Keltic tribes had their spring Todtenfest, but the date Feb. 22 seems determined by the Roman Parentalia extending from Feb. 13 to either Feb. 21 (Feralia) or Feb. 22 (Cara Cognatio): cf. Fowler, 306. The ‘cibi’ mentioned by the council of Tours seem to have been offered in the house, like the winter offerings described below; but there is also evidence for similar Germano-Keltic offerings on the tomb or howe itself; and these were often accompanied by dadsisas or dirges; cf. Saupe, Indiculus, 5-9. Saupe considers the spurcalia in Februario, explained above (p. 114) as a ploughing rite, to be funereal.

[933] Pfannenschmidt, 123, 165, 435; Saupe, 9; Golther, 586; C. P. B. i. 43; Jahn, 251. The chronicler Widukind, Res gestae Sax. (Pertz, Mon. SS. iii. 423), describes a Saxon three-days’ feast in honour of a victory over the Thuringi in 534. He adds ‘acta sunt autem haec omnia, ut maiorum memoria prodit, die Kal. Octobris, qui dies erroris, religiosorum sanctione virorum mutati sunt in ieiunia et orationes, oblationes quoque omnium nos praecedentium christianorum.’ This is probably a myth to account for the harvest Todtenfest, which may more naturally be thought of as transferred with the agricultural rites from November. For the mediaeval Gemeinwoche, beginning on the Sunday after Michaelmas, was common to Germany, and not confined to Saxony. Michaelmas, the feast of angels, known at Rome in the sixth century, and in Germany by the ninth, also adapts itself to the notion of a Todtenfest.

[934] Pfannenschmidt, 168, 443.

[935] Mogk, in Paul, iii. 260; Tille, Y. and C. 107.

[937] Appendix N, Nos. xii, xvii, xxvii, xxxiii, xxxv, xxxix.

[938] Appendix N, No. xlii.

[939] Martin of Amberg, Gewissensspiegel (thirteenth century, quoted Jahn, 282), the food and drink are left for ‘Percht mit der eisnen nasen.’

[940] Thes. Paup. s. v. Superstitio (fifteenth century, quoted Jahn, 282) ‘multi credunt sacris noctibus inter natalem diem Christi et noctem Epiphaniae evenire ad domos suas quasdam mulieres, quibus praeest domina Perchta ... multi in domibus in noctibus praedictis post coenam dimittunt panem et caseum, lac, carnes, ova, vinum, et aquam et huiusmodi super mensas et coclearea, discos, ciphos, cultellos et similia propter visitationem Perhtae cum cohorte sua, ut eis complaceant ... ut inde sint eis propitii ad prosperitatem domus et negotiorum rerum temporalium.’

[941] Usener, ii. 84 ‘Qui preparant mensam dominae Perthae’ (fifteenth century). Schmeller, Bairisch. Wörterb. i. 270, gives other references for Perchte in this connexion.

[942] Usener, ii. 58.

[943] Dives and Pauper (Pynson, 1493) ‘Alle that ... use nyce observances in the ... new yere, as setting of mete or drynke, by nighte on the benche, to fede Atholde or Gobelyn.’ In English folk-custom, food is left for the house-spirit or ‘brownie’ on ordinary as well as festal days; cf. my ‘Warwick’ edition of Midsummer Night’s Dream, 145.

[944] Jahn, 283; Brand, i. 18; Bertrand, 405; Cortet, 33, 45.

[945] Appendix N, No. xxiii. If the words ‘in foco’ are not part of the text, ‘youling’ (cf. pp. 142, 260) may be intended.

[946] Bertrand, 111, 404.

[947] Jahn, 120, 244, 269: the Gertruden-minnes on St. Gertrude’s day (March 17) perhaps preserve another fragment of the spring Todtenfest, St. Gertrude here replacing the mother-goddess; cf. Grimm, iii. xxxviii.

[948] Grimm, i. 268, 273, 281; Mogk, in Paul, iii. 279. The especial day of Frau Perchte is Epiphany.

[949] Mogk, in Paul, iii. 260; Tille, D. W. 173.

[950] Grimm, iv. 1798.

[951] Ibid. iv. 1814.

[952] Tille, D. W. 163; Grimm, iv. 1782.

[955] Hamlet, i. 1. 158. I do not know where Shakespeare got the idea, of which I find no confirmation; but its origin is probably an ecclesiastical attempt to parry folk-belief. Other Kalends notions have taken on a Christian colouring. The miraculous events of Christmas night are rooted in the conception that the Kalends must abound in all good things, in order that the coming year may do so. But allusions to Christian legend have been worked into and have transformed them. On Christmas night bees sing (Brand, i. 3), and water is turned into wine (Grimm, iv. 1779, 1809). While the genealogy is sung at the midnight mass, hidden treasures are revealed (Grimm, iv. 1840). Similarly, the cattle of heathen masters naturally shared in the Kalends good cheer; whence a Christian notion that they, and in particular the ox and the ass, witnesses of the Nativity, can speak on that night, and bear testimony to the good or ill-treatment of the farmers (Grimm, iv. 1809, 1840); cf. the Speculum Perfectionis, c. 114, ed. Sabatier, 225 ‘quod volebat [S. Franciscus] suadere imperatori ut faceret specialem legem quod in Nativitate Domini homines bene providerent avibus et bovi et asino et pauperibus’: also p. 250, n. 1.—Ten minutes after writing the above note, I have come on the following passage in Tolstoi, Résurrection (trad. franç.), i. 297 ‘Un proverbe dit que les coqs chantent de bonne heure dans les nuits joyeuses.’

[957] Pfannenschmidt, 207.

[958] Müller, 235, 239, 248.

[959] Tille, D. W. 107; Y. and C. 116; Saupe, 28; Io. Iac. Reiske, Comm. ad Const. Porph., de Caeremoniis, ii. 357 (Corp. Script. Byz. 1830) ‘Vidi puerulus et horrui robustos iuvenes pelliceis indutos, cornutos in fronte, vultus fuligine atratos, intra dentes carbones vivos tenentes, quos reciprocato spiritu animabant, et scintillis quaquaversum sparsis ignem quasi vomebant, cum saccis cursitantes, in quos abdere puerulos occursantes minitabantur, appensis cymbalis et insano clamore frementes.’ He calls them ‘die Knecht Ruperte,’ and says that they performed in the Twelve nights. The sacci are interesting, for English nurses frighten children with a threat that the chimney-sweep (here as in the May-game inheriting the tradition on account of his black face) will put them in his sack. The beneficent Christmas wanderers use the sack to bring presents in; cf. the development of the sack in the Mummers’ play (p. 215).

[960] Müller, 235, 248.

[961] A mince-pie eaten in a different house on each night of the Twelves (not twelve mince-pies eaten before Christmas) ensures twelve lucky months. The weather of each day in the Twelves determines that of a month (Harland, 99; Jackson and Burne, 408). I have heard of a custom of leaping over twelve lighted candles on New Year’s eve. Each that goes out means ill-luck in a corresponding month.

[962] Caesarius; Boniface (App. N, Nos. xvii, xviii, xxxiii); Alsso, in Usener, ii. 65; F. L. iii. 253; Jackson and Burne, 400; Ashton, 111; Brit. Ass. Report (1896), 620. In some of the cases quoted under the last reference and elsewhere, nothing may be taken out of the house on New Year’s Day. Ashes and other refuse which would naturally be taken out in the morning were removed the night before. Ashes, of course, share the sanctity of the fire. Cf. the maskers’ threat (p. 217).

[963] Boniface (App. N, No. xxxiii); cf. the Kloster Scheyern (Usener, ii. 84) condemnation of those ‘qui vomerem ponunt sub mensa tempore nativitatis Christi.’ For other uses of iron as a potent agricultural charm, cf. Grimm, iv. 1795, 1798, 1807, 1816; Burne-Jackson, 164.

[964] Cf. Burchardus (App. N, No. xlii); Grimm, iv. 1793, with many other superstitions in the same appendix to Grimm; Brand, i. 9; Ashton, 222; Jackson and Burne, 403. The practical outcome is to begin jobs for form’s sake and then stop. The same is done on Saint Distaff’s day, January 7; cf. Brand, i. 15.

[965] Harland, 117; Jackson and Burne, 314; Brit. Ass. Rep. (1896), 620; Dyer, 483; Ashton, 112, 119, 224. There is a long discussion in F. L. iii. 78, 253. I am tempted to find a very early notice of the ‘first foot’ in the prohibition ‘pedem observare’ of Martin of Braga (App. N, No. xxiii).

[966] F. L. iii. 253.

[967] Kloster Scheyern MS. (fifteenth century) in Usener, ii. 84 ‘Qui credunt, quando masculi primi intrant domum in die nativitatis, quod omnes vaccae generent masculos et e converso.’

[968] Müller, 269 (Italy). Grimm, iv. 1784, notes ‘If the first person you meet in the morning be a virgin or a priest, ’tis a sign of bad luck; if a harlot, of good’: cf. Caspari, Hom. de Sacrilegiis, § 11 ‘qui clericum vel monachum de mane aut quacumque hora videns aut o[b]vians, abominosum sibi esse credet, iste non solum paganus, sed demoniacus est, qui christi militem abominatur.’ These German examples have no special relation to the New Year, and the ‘first foot’ superstition is indeed only the ordinary belief in the ominous character of the first thing seen on leaving the house, intensified by the critical season.

[969] Tille, D. W. 189; Y. and C. 84, 95, 104.

[971] Brand, i. 3, 209, 226, 257; Spence, Shetland Folk-Lore, 189; Grimm, iv. 1777-1848 passim; Jackson and Burne, 176, 380, &c., &c. Burchardus (App. N, No. xlii) mentions that the Germans took New Year omens sitting girt with a sword on the housetop or upon a [sacrificial] skin at the crossways. This was called liodorsâza, a term which a glossator also uses for the kindred custom of cervulus (Tille, Y. and C. 96). Is the man in Hom. de Sacr. (App. N, No. xxxix) ‘qui arma in campo ostendit’ taking omens like the man on the housetop, or is he conducting a sword-dance?

[972] Burchardus (App. N, No. xlii).

[973] Brand, i. 209.

[974] Grimm, iv. 1781, 1797, 1818.

[975] Quoted Pfannenschmidt, 489 ‘quod autem obscoena carmina finguntur a daemonibus et perditorum mentibus immittuntur, quidam daemon nequissimus, qui in Nivella urbe Brabantiae puellam nobilem anno domini 1216 prosequebatur, manifeste populis audientibus dixit: cantum hunc celebrem de Martino ego cum collega meo composui et per diversas terras Galliae et Theutoniae promulgavi. Erat autem cantus ille turpissimus et plenus luxuriosis plausibus.’ On Martinslieder in general cf. Pfannenschmidt, 468, 613.

[976] T. Gascoigne, Loci e Libro Veritatum (1403-58), ed. Rogers, 144.

[977] Aubrey, Gentilisme and Judaisme (F. L. S.), 1.

[978] Tille, D. W. 55; K. Simrock, Deutsche Weihnachtslieder (1854); Cortet, 246; Grove, Dict. of Music, s. v. Noël; Julian, Dict. of Hymn. s. v. Carol; A. H. Bullen, Carols and Poems, 1885; Helmore, Carols for Christmastide. The cry ‘Noël’ appears in the fifteenth century both in France and England as one of general rejoicing without relation to Christmas. It greeted Henry V in London in 1415 and the Marquis of Suffolk in Rouen in 1446 (Ramsay, Lancaster and York, i. 226; ii. 60).

[979] Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, de Caeremoniis Aulae Byzantinae, Bk. i. c. 83 (ed. Reiske, in Corp. Script. Hist. Byz. i. 381); cf. Bury-Gibbon, vi. 516; Kögel, i. 34; D. Bieliaiev, Byzantina, vol. ii: Haupt’s Zeitschrift, i., 368; C. Kraus, Gotisches Weihnachtsspiel, in Beitr. z. Gesch. d. deutschen Sprache und Litteratur, xx (1895), 223.

[980] Fouquier-Cholet, Hist. des Comtes de Vermandois, 159, says that Heribert IV (ob. †1081) persuaded the clergy of the Vermandois to suppress the fête de l’âne. This would have been a century before Belethus wrote. But he does not give his probatum, and I suspect he misread it.

[981] Belethus, c. 72 ‘Festum hypodiaconorum, quod vocamus stultorum, a quibusdam perficitur in Circumcisione, a quibusdam vero in Epiphania, vel in eius octavis. Fiunt autem quatuor tripudia post Nativitatem Domini in Ecclesia, levitarum scilicet, sacerdotum, puerorum, id est minorum aetate et ordine, et hypodiaconorum, qui ordo incertus est. Unde fit ut ille quandoque annumeretur inter sacros ordines, quandoque non, quod expresse ex eo intelligitur quod certum tempus non habeat, et officio celebretur confuso.’ Cf. ch. xv on the three other tripudia.

[982] Lebeuf, Hist. de Paris (1741), ii. 277; Grenier, 365:

Ad amicum venturum ad festum Baculi.

Festa dies aliis Baculus venit et novus annus,

Qua venies, veniet haec mihi festa dies.

Leonius is named as canon of N.-D. in the Obituary of the church Guérard, Cartulaire de N.-D. in (Doc. inédits sur l’Hist. de France, iv. 34), but unfortunately the year of his death is not given.

[983] During the fifteenth century the Chantre of N.-D. ‘porta le baston’ at the chief feasts as ruler of the choir (F. L. Chartier, L’ancien Chapitre de N.-D. de Paris (1897), 176). This baculus must be distinguished from the baculus pastoralis or episcopi.

[984] Guérard, Cartulaire de N.-D. (Doc. inéd. sur l’Hist. de France), i. 73; also printed by Ducange, s. v. Kalendae; P. L. ccxii. 70. The charta, dated 1198, runs in the names of ‘Odo [de Soliaco] episcopus, H. decanus, R. cantor, Mauricius, Heimericus et Odo archidiaconi, Galo, succentor, magister Petrus cancellarius, et magister Petrus de Corbolio, canonicus Parisiensis.’ Possibly the real moving spirit in the reform was the dean H[ugo Clemens], to whom the Paris Obituary (Guérard, loc. cit. iv. 61) assigns a similar reform of the feast of St. John the Evangelist. Petrus de Corbolio we shall meet again. Eudes de Sully was bishop 1196-1208. His Constitutions (P. L. ccxii. 66) contain a prohibition of ‘choreae ... in ecclesiis, in coemeteriis et in processionibus.’ In a second decree of 1199 (P. L. ccxii. 72) he provided a solatium for the loss of the Feast of Fools in a payment of three deniers to each clerk below the degree of canon, and two deniers to each boy present at Matins on the Circumcision. Should the abuses recur, the payment was to lapse. This donation was confirmed in 1208 by his successor Petrus de Nemore (P. L. ccxii. 92).

[985] A ‘hearse’ was a framework of wood or iron bearing spikes for tapers (Wordsworth, Mediaeval Services, 156). The penna was also a stand for candles (Ducange, s.v.).

[986] A prosa is a term given in French liturgies to an additional chant inserted on festal occasions as a gloss upon or interpolation in the text of the office or mass. It covers nearly, though not quite, the same ground as Sequentia, and comes under the general head of Tropus (ch. xviii). For a more exact differentiation cf. Frere, Winchester Troper, ix. Laetemur gaudiis is a prose ascribed to Notker Balbulus of St. Gall.

[987] cum farsia: a farsia, farsa, or farsura (Lat. farcire, ‘to stuff’), is a Tropus interpolated into the text of certain portions of the office or mass, especially the Kyrie, the Lectiones and the Epistola. Such farces were generally in Latin, but occasionally, especially in the Epistle, in the vernacular (Frere, Winchester Troper, ix, xvi).

[988] Laetabundus: i. e. St. Bernard’s prose beginning Laetabundus exultet fidelis chorus; Alleluia (Daniel, Thesaurus Hymnologicus, ii. 61), which was widely used in the feasts of the Christmas season.

[989] The document is too long to quote in full. These are the essential passages. The legate says: The Church of Paris is famous, therefore diligence must be used ‘ad exstirpandum penitus quod ibidem sub praetextu pravae consuetudinis inolevit ... Didicimus quod in festo Circumcisionis Dominicae ... tot consueverunt enormitates et opera flagitiosa committi, quod locum sanctum ... non solum foeditate verborum, verum etiam sanguinis effusione plerumque contingit inquinari, et ... ut sacratissima dies ... festum fatuorum nec immerito generaliter consueverit appellari.’ Odo and the rest order: ‘In vigilia festivitatis ad Vesperas campanae ordinate sicut in duplo simplici pulsabuntur. Cantor faciet matriculam (the roll of clergy for the day’s services) in omnibus ordinate; rimos, personas, luminaria herciarum nisi tantum in rotis ferreis, et in penna, si tamen voluerit ille qui capam redditurus est, fieri prohibemus; statuimus etiam ne dominus festi cum processione vel cantu ad ecclesiam adducatur, vel ad domum suam ab ecclesia reducatur. In choro autem induet capam suam, assistentibus ei duobus canonicis subdiaconis, et tenens baculum cantoris, antequam incipiantur Vesperae, incipiet prosam Laetemur gaudiis: qua finita episcopus, si praesens fuerit ... incipiet Vesperas ordinate et solemniter celebrandas; ... a quatuor subdiaconis indutis capis sericis Responsorium cantabitur.... Missa similiter cum horis ordinate celebrabitur ab aliquo praedictorum, hoc addito quod Epistola cum farsia dicetur a duobus in capis sericis, et postmodum a subdiacono ... Vesperae sequentes sicut priores a Laetemur gaudiis habebunt initium: et cantabitur Laetabundus, loco hymni. Deposuit quinquies ad plus dicetur loco suo; et si captus fuerit baculus, finito Te Deum laudamus, consummabuntur Vesperae ab eo quo fuerint inchoatae.... Per totum festum in omnibus horis canonici et clerici in stallis suis ordinate et regulariter se habebunt.’

[990] The feast lasted from Vespers on the vigil to Vespers on the day of the Circumcision. The Hauptmoment was evidently the Magnificat in the second Vespers. But what exactly took place then? Did the cathedral precentor hand over the baculus to the dominus festi, or was it last year’s dominus festi, who now handed it over to his newly-chosen successor? Probably the latter. The dominus festi is called at first Vespers ‘capam redditurus’: doubtless the cope and baculus went together. The dominus festi may have, as elsewhere, exercised disciplinary and representative functions amongst the inferior clergy during the year. His title I take to have been, as at Sens, precentor stultorum. The order says, ‘si captus fuerit baculus’; probably it was left to the chapter to decide whether the formal installation of the precentor in church should take place in any particular year.

[991] P. L. ccxv. 1070 ‘Interdum ludi fiunt in eisdem ecclesiis theatrales, et non solum ad ludibriorum spectacula introducuntur in eas monstra larvarum, verum etiam in tribus anni festivitatibus, quae continue Natalem Christi sequuntur, diaconi, presbiteri ac subdiaconi vicissim insaniae suae ludibria exercentes, per gesticulationum suarum debacchationes obscoenas in conspectu populi decus faciunt clericale vilescere.... Fraternitati vestrae ... mandamus, quatenus ... praelibatam vero ludibriorum consuetudinem vel potius corruptelam curetis e vestris ecclesiis ... exstirpare.’ As to the scope of this decretal and the glosses of the canonists upon it, cf. the account of miracle plays (ch. xx).