48

THIS,

ASH WEDNESDAY.

HIS, which is the first day of Lent, is called Ash Wednesday (as we read in the Festa Anglo-Romana) from the ancient ceremony of blessing ashes on that day, and therewith the priest signeth the people on the forehead in the form of a cross, affording them withal this wholesome admonition: "Remember, man, thou art dust, and shalt return to dust." The ashes used this day in the Church of Rome are made of the palms consecrated the Sunday twelve months before; or rather, the ashes which they use this day are made of the palms blessed the Palm Sunday before. In a Convocation held in the time of Henry VIII. mentioned in Fuller's Church History, "Giving of ashes on Ash Wednesday, to put in remembrance every Christian man in the beginning of Lent and Penance, that he is but ashes and earth, and thereto shall return," &c., is reserved with some other rites and ceremonies, which survived the shock that at that remarkable era almost overthrew the whole pile of Catholic superstitions.

Lent was counted to begin, says Durandus, on that which is now the first Sunday in Lent, and to end on Easter Eve; which time, says he, containing forty-two days, if you take out of them the six Sundays (on which it was counted not lawful at any time of the year to fast), then there will remain only thirty-six days; and therefore, that the number of days which Christ fasted might be perfected, Pope Gregory added to Lent four days of the week before going, viz., that which we now call Ash Wednesday, and the three days following it. So that we see the first observation of Lent began from a superstitious, unwarrantable, and indeed profane conceit of imitating our Saviour's miraculous abstinence.

Lent is so called from the time of the year wherein it is observed: Lent, in the Saxon language signifying spring, being now used to signify the spring fast, which always begins so that it may end at Easter to remind us of our Saviour's sufferings, which ended at his resurrection. (Wheatley on the Common Prayer).

Ash Wednesday is in some places called "Pulver Wednesday," that is, Dies pulveris. The word Lentron, for Lent, occurs more than once in the edition of the Regiam Majestatem (1774). [Lengten-tide for spring, when the days lengthen, occurs in the Saxon Heptateuch, 8vo, Oxon. 1698. Exod. xxxiv. 18.]

There is a curious clause in one of the Roman casuists concerning the keeping of Lent; it is, "that Beggars which are ready to affamish for want, may in Lent time eat what they can get."

In The Festyvall (1511) we read: "Ye shall begyn your faste upon Ashe Wednesdaye. That daye must ye come to holy chirche and take ashes of the Preestes hondes and thynke on the wordes well that he sayeth over your hedes, have mynde, thou man, of asshes thou art comen, and to ashes thou shalt tourne agayne." This Festyvall, speaking of Quatuor Temporum, or Ymbre Days, now called Ember Days, says they were so called, "bycause that our elder fathers wolde on these dayes ete no brede but cakes made under ashes."

In an original black-letter Proclamation, dated 26th February, 30 Henry VIII., concerning Rites and Ceremonies to be retained in the Church of England, we read as follows: "On Ashe Wenisday it shall be declared, that these ashes be gyven, to put every Christen man in remembraunce of penaunce at the begynnynge of Lent, and that he is but erthe and ashes."

"Mannerlye to take theyr ashes devoutly," is among the Roman Catholic customs censured by John Bale in his Declaration of Bonner's Articles (1554), as also "to conjure ashes."

In The Doctrine of the Masse Booke (1554), we find translated the form of "The halowing of the ashes." "The Masse Book saith, that upon Ash-Wedensdaye, when the Prieste hath absolved the people, &c., then must there be made a blessynge of the ashes, by the Priest, being turned towards the East." In the first prayer is this passage: "Vouchsafe to blesse and sanctifie these ashes, which because of humilitie and of holy religion for the cleansyng out of our trespaces, thou hast appointed us to cary upon our heades after the manner of the Ninivites." And after directions to sprinkle the Ashes with holy water, and another prayer, this Rubrick is added: "Then let them distribute the ashes upon the heades of the Clarckes and of the lay people the worthier persons makyng a sygne of the Crosse with the ashes, saying thus: Remember, man, that thou art ashes, and into ashes shalt thou retourne."

In Bp. Bonner's Injunctions (1555) we read "that the hallowed ashes gyven by the Priest to the people upon Ashe Wednisdaye, is to put the people in remembrance of penance at the begynnynge of Lent, and that their bodies are but earth, dust, and ashes.'

Dudley North, in his Forest of Varieties (1645), in allusion to this custom, styles one of his Essays "My Ashewednesday Ashes."

From the following passage cited by Hospinian from Naogeorgus it appears that anciently, after the solemn service and sprinkling with ashes on Ash Wednesday, the people used to repeat the fooleries of the Carnival. It is thus translated by Barnaby Googe

"The Wednesday next a solemne day, to Church they early go,
To sponge out all the foolish deedes by them committed so,
They money give, and on their heddes the Prieste doth ashes laye,
And with his holy water washeth all their sinnes away:
In woondrous sort against the veniall sinnes doth profite this,
Yet here no stay of madnesse now, nor ende of follie is,
With mirth to dinner straight they go, and to their woonted play,
And on their deuills shapes they put, and sprightish fonde araye.
Some sort there are that mourning go, with lantarnes in their hande,
While in the day time Titan bright, amid the skies doth stande:
And seeke their Shroftide Bachanals, still crying every where,
Where are our feastes become? alas the cruell fastes appere.
Some beare about a herring on a staffe, and lowde doe rore,
Herrings, herrings, stincking herrings, puddings now no more.
And hereto joyne they foolish playes, and doltish dogrell rimes,
And what beside they can invent, belonging to the times.
Some others beare upon a staffe their fellowes horsed hie,
And carie them unto some ponde, or running river nie,

That what so of their foolish feast, doth in them yet remayne,
May underneth the floud be plungde, and wash't away againe.
Some children doe intise with nuttes, and peares abrode to play,
And singing through the towne they go, before them all the way.
In some places all the youthful flocke, with minstrels doe repaire,
And out of every house they plucke the girles, and maydens fayre,
And them to plough they straightways put, with whip one doth them hit,
Another holds the plough in hande; the Minstrell here doth sit
Amidde the same, and drounken songes with gaping mouth, he sings,
Whome foloweth one that sowes out sande, or ashes fondly flings.
When thus they through the streetes have plaide, the man that guideth all,
Doth drive both plough and maydens through some ponde or river small :
And dabbled all with durt, and wringing wette as they may bee,
To supper calles, and after that to daunsing lustilee.*
The follie that these dayes is usde, can no man well declare,
Their wanton pastimes, wicked actes, and all their franticke fare.
On Sunday at the length they leave their mad and foolish game,
And yet not so, but that they drinke, and dice away the same.
Thus at the last to Bacchus is this day appoynted cleare,
Then (O poor wretches!) fastings long approaching doe appeare:
In fourtie dayes they neyther milke, nor fleshe, nor egges doe eate,
And butter with their lippes to touch, is thought a trespasse great:
Both ling and saltfish they devoure, and fishe of every sorte,
Whose purse is full, and such as live in great and welthie porte :
But onyans, browne bread, leekes and salt, must poore men dayly gnaw
And fry their oten cakes in oyle. The Pope devisde this law
For sinnes, th' offending people here from hell and death to pull,
Beleeding not that all their sinnes were earst forgiven full.
Yet here these wofull soules he helpes, and taking money fast,
Doth all things set at libertie, both egges and flesh at last.
The images and pictures now are coverde secretlie,
In every Church, and from the beames, the roof and rafters hie,
Hanges painted linnen clothes that to the people doth declare,
The wrathe and furie great of God, and times that fasted are.
Then all men are constrainde their sinnes, by cruel law, to tell,
And threatned if they hide but one, with dredfull death and hell.
From hence no little gaines vnto the Priestes doth still arise,
And of the Pope the shambles doth appeare in beastly wise."

The ancient discipline of sackcloth and ashes on Ash Wednesday is at present supplied in our Church + by reading publicly on this day the curses denounced against impenitent sinners, when the people are directed to repeat an Amen at the end of each malediction.

"There is a strange custom used in many places of Germany upon Ash Wednesday, for then the young Youth get all the Maides together, which have practised dauncing all the year before, and carrying them in a carte or tumbrell (which they draw themselves instead of horses), and a minstrell standing a top of it playing all the way, they draw them into some lake or river, and there wash them well favouredly."-Aubanus.

+ In the Churchwarden's Account of St Mary at Hill, in the City of London, A.D. 1492, is the following article

It appears from the account of Eton School, of the date of 1560, that at that time it was the custom of the scholars of that seminary to choose themselves confessors out of the masters or chaplains, to whom they were to confess their sins.

Herrick, in Noble Numbers, has this poem

"TO KEEP A TRUE LENT.

For several curious customs or ceremonies observed abroad during the three first days of the Quinquagesima Week, Hospinian de Origine Festorum Christianorum may be consulted.

A Jack-o'-Lent was a puppet, formerly thrown at, in our own country, in Lent, like Shrove-cocks. So in The Weakest goes to the Wall (1600), A mere Anatomy, ȧ Jack of Lent." Again, in The Four Prentices of London (1615), "Now you old Jack of Lent, six weeks and upwards." Again, in Greene's Tu quoque, "For if a Boy, that is throwing at his Jack o' Lent, chance to hit me on the shins." So, in the old comedy of Lady Alimony (1659)

"Throwing cudgels

At Jack-o'-Lents or Shrove-cocks."

Again, in Ben Jonson's Tale of a Tub

"On an Ash Wednesday,

When thou didst stand six weeks the Jack o' Lent,
For Boys to hurl three throws a penny at thee."

And in Beaumont and Fletcher's Tamer Tamed

"If I forfeit,

Make me a Jack o' Lent, and break my shins
For untagg'd points and counters."

In Quarles' Shepheard's Oracles (1646)—–—–

'How like a Jack a Lent

He stands, for Boys to spend their Shrove-tide throws,
Or like a puppit made to frighten crows."

At Dijon, in Burgundy, it is the custom upon the first Sunday in Lent to make large fires in the streets, whence it is called Firebrand Sunday. This practice originated in the processions formerly made on that day by the peasants with lighted torches of straw, to drive away, as they called it, the bad air from the earth.

ST DAVID'S DAY.

March 1.

"March, various, fierce, and wild, with wind-crackt cheeks,
By wilder Welshmen led, and crown'd with Leeks."

CHURCHILL

T DAVID, Archbishop of Menevy (now from him cailed St turies of the Christian era, and died at the age of a hundred and forty years.*

We read in the Festa Anglo-Romana (1678), that "the Britons on this day constantly wear a Leek, in memory of a famous and notable victory obtained by them over the Saxons; they, during the battle, having Leeks in their hats for their military colours, and distinction of themselves, by the persuasion of the said prelate, St David." Another account adds that they were fighting under their king, Cadwallo, at Hatfield Chace in Yorkshire, A.D. 633, near a field that was replenished with that vegetable.

So Walpole, in his British Traveller, tells us: "In the days of King Arthur, St David won a great victory over the Saxons, having ordered every one of his soldiers to place a Leek in his cap, for the sake of distinction; in memory whereof the Welsh to this day wear a Leek on the first of March."

The following lines are extracted from a manuscript in the British Museum, entitled a Collection of pedigrees made by one of the Randall Holmes (Harl. MS. 1977, fol. 9)—

"I like the leeke above all herbes and flowers.
When first we wore the same the feild was ours.
The Leeke is white and greene, wherby is ment
That Britaines are both stout and eminent;
Next to the Lion and the Unicorn,

The Leeke the fairest emblyn that is worne.

In The Diverting Post (1705) we have these lines

"ON ST DAVID'S DAY.

"Why, on St David's Day, do Welsh-men seek
To beautify their hats with verdant Leek,
Of nauseous smell? 'For honour 'tis,' hur say,
'Dulce et decorum est pro patria.'

Right, Sir, to die or fight it is, I think:

But how is't Dulce, when you for it stink?"

To a querist in The British Apollo (1708), asking why do the ancient Britons (viz. Welshmen) wear leeks in their hats on the first of March, the following answer is given: "The ceremony is observed on the first of March in commemoration of a signal victory ob

According to a Welsh pedigree, he was the son of Caredig, Lord of Car diganshire, and his mother was Non, daughter of Ynyr, of Caer Gawch.