GHOSTS. Burney says, that Orpheus invented evocation of the manes. The terror of seeing and being haunted by them is ancient. Their appearance in sleep was to prognosticate future events 3. Their wandering in the night is mentioned in Prudentius and Cassian. Their frequenting church-yards is founded upon the heathen opinion, that the manes of the dead haunted the place where the body lay. Their airy and transparent bodies occur in Virgil, and Tertullian 4 annexes to them the power of feeling. The walking of Ghosts was enjoined by way of penance 5; but it seems, that they have complained of walking in cold and uncomfortable places, and begged for sheltered spots 6. The old opinion was, that the good souls were white, those of the wicked spotted or black, according to their guilt. In the fire of purgatory they fasted 8. OMENS. The influence of Omens was surprising 9. On particular occasions they were taken from the Bible 10. Great attention was paid to them ". It would be impossible however to mention all of them. Most of them are pure Roman superstitions. Ammianus Marcellinus says, that comets foretold the ruin of great conditions 12. In the Middle Age, they were supposed to fortel either pestilence, famine, war, or change of the kingdom 13. Milton's Comet shaking from his horrid hair pestilence and war, was seriously believed. Izacke says 14, that the Dutch war in 1664 ensued from a comet.-Lights in the Air, as portents of war, &c. are very ancient 15.-Money-Spinners belong also to ancient Rome 16.-Thirteen in Company is of the same æra 17. Many others might be found of the same origin, but Brand does not in general go so far back. NUMBERS. The mystick Pythagorean appropriation of numbers is very silly, but had amazing influence even in the Middle Age 18. Nine was the number which, by the agreement of Northern superstitions with those of Ovid and Propertius, seems to have been universal 19. Three and seven had also high mystical appropriation, but the general fact without particulars is sufficient for a work of this kind. Bible and Key, is derived from the Coscinomanteia, or turning a pendant sieve or shears round 20, mixed with the Homerica and Virgiliana sortes, which succeeded to the famous lots in the temple of Fortune at Preneste: for which the Christians substituted the Scripture 21. The Divination was of two kinds; 1. where the Gospel was opened at the altar and the prediction taken from the chapter which first occured, mentioned by Malmesbury and Matthew Paris 22, as very common at the election of Bishops, to learn their future characters; 2. another method was by placing two schedules, one negative, the other affirmative, of the matter doubted, under the pall of the altar, which, after solemn prayers, was believed would be decided by divine judgment. Gregory of Tours mentions another method by the Psalms. The Anglo-Saxons also took slips of wood, made from some fruit-bearing tree, and marked them on either side. These being shaken together were, after a solemn prayer, cast promiscuously into a Suet. Calig. lvii. lix. ii. 223. Hist. Aug. Commodo. 1 Mus. i. 325. 3 Amm. Marcellin. L. xxi. Resurr. 17. 5 Antiq. Vulgar. 108, 109, 119. 6 Id. ub supr. 7 M. Paris, 184. 9 Dec. Scriptor. 966. 10 M. Paris, 15, 468. "Dec. Scriptor. 2386. 13 Script. p. Bed. 512. Dec. Scriptor. 961. 14 Exeter, 170. 16 Popular Antiq. ii. 537. 17 See Chap. XII. p. 583, § Dinner. 19 20 Theocr. Id. iii. are explained by Ludovic. Vives in his notes to Augustine de Civil. Dei, p. 384. 21 Enc. • De Anim. 8 Douce, 19 L. 30. Is Lamprid. in 18 They Olaus Magnus. Archæol. Attic. 364. white garment for the purpose; and according to the number of marks lying uppermost the degrees of fortune were thought to be more or less favourable 1. PROPHECY. A Prophet in the Heathen Temples was an officer charged with interpreting, and especially with reducing to writing, the Divine Oracles 2. Of the fondness for vaticination in these Ages nothing need be said. In the Middle Ages the study of Divinity was supposed to be rewarded by God with the gift of Prophecy 3. Prophecies were inscribed upon stone tables, and much valued 4. The art was greatly affected 5, and astonishing attention paid to it. Trivet mentions Merlin's Prophecies, as indeed do others without end. ORDEALS. These have been found among the Hindoos, and most ancient nations 8. As accounts of them occur in the Histories of England, Law Dictionaries, &c. nothing more need be observed here, than that Mr. Vidall has detected the mistakes of Blackstone and the first writers. The culprit was to carry the iron, which was to be either one or three pounds weight. The person who walked over the ploughshares was not blind-folded, and stepped upon each of them. In the trial by boiling water, in the expurgatio simplex, the party only immersed his arm up to the wrist; in the triple ordeal up to the elbow 9. WISHES. The Classical Ancients laid their requests or vows, inscribed upon waxen tablets, and put them upon the knees of the Divinities seated, in order to obtain the accomplishment of them. This is the Incerare genna Deorum of Juvenal 10. In the same manner, in the Middle Age, persons used to lay catalogues of their sins under the altar cloth of a favourite Saint, accompanied with a donation, and find them in a day or two erased 11. TOUCHING FOR THE EVIL. This custom of our kings is supposed to have origi nated with Edward the Confessor; but the vulgar in the Roman æra used to ascribe the power of curing diseases, especially blindness, in a similar way to great persons 12. It is not generally known, that it was customary to transfer the real or pretended great actions of one man to another, in order to make a splendid thing of his history. Thus an ancient writer of the life of any General, without regard to veracity or consistency, would, for the sake of embellishment, copy actions of Cæsar or other conquerors, and make them feats of the hero of his story 13. Thus probably from the anecdote of Vespasian, related by Suetonius, Edward the Confessor and Charles II. are both said to have restored blind persons to sight 14. At particular times, according to proclama tion, the afflicted used to attend at Court, and during a religious service for the occasion, receive a piece of money, with a hole in it, which was hung round the neck by a ribbon 15. It was a State trick, for superstitiously confirming loyalty in the lower orders. Queen Anne was the last who practised it. Dr. Plot has engraved a presumed Touch-piece of Edward the Confessor 16. The ceremony was suspended during hot weather, because then "neither safe nor fit 17." From persons coming two or three 3 XV. Scriptor. 515. 'J. Rous. 215, 219. ! Du Cange, v. Sortes Sanctorum. Strutt's Horda, i. 20. 2 Chishull, Antiq. Asiat. 90, 92. Grut. pl. 314. n. 2. 4 Scr. P. Bed. f. 386, 387. 5 Dec. Scriptor. 2394, 2476. 7 Annal. 166. • Halhed's Gentoo Laws, C. iii. § 6. p. 104, and Pref. lvi. Rous's Archæolog. Attic. 287. 9 Archæolog. xv. 192, seq. 10 Sat. x. 53. Enc. " Brit. Monach. 9. 12 See Sueton. ed. Delph, p. 515. 13 Fosbroke's Gloucester City, pp. 2, 3. 14 Pegge's Anecdotes of Old Times, 123. Mr. Pegge (Anecdotes, 111-163) treats the subject amply. 16 Oxfordshire, pl. 16. n. 5. The later commonly have St. Michael and the Dragon on one side, and a Ship on the other. The most recent are of James II., Anne, and the Pretenders. Pinkerton. 17 Kingdom's Intelligencer, No. 18, April 29 to May 6, 1661. times to get the money, an order was made, that the applicants should bring a certificate from the minister and churchwardens, that they had not been touched before 1. BLESSING CRAMP-RINGS. This was a ceremony used by the Catholick Kings of England on Good Friday. It was derived from the miraculous virtues of a ring given by Edward the Confessor to a pilgrim, who having conveyed it to Jerusalem, it was thence brought back to the King, and preserved in Westminster Abbey 3. Of other Cramp-rings, see p. 213. II. OBSOLETE ECCLESIASTICAL MATTERS. 1. Introductory Remarks. There has been much discussion about the æra when Parishes were formed, but the Parochia of the seventh century meant a Diocese, not the small district which we call Parish 4. These small portions of land were formed in various æras. Those which existed before the Conquest are specified in Domesday Book, by the mention of a Priest; and those which were formed between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries by the omission or nomination of them in the Valor of Pope Nicholas, the Nomina Villarum, Nonæ Rolls, and similar documents. According to Dr. Whitaker 5, where a rectory is not endowed with a glebe, the parish was not in its first institution separated from another. To meet the inconvenience of the extent of the early parishes, chapels were erected in the hamlets. The king's manors, before the Norman Invasion, were furnished with churches, and chapels also in the hamlets; as were many other great, and some little manors 6, but they were rare, the great landed proprietors preferring private chapels. In some places, says Thoroton, we have two parishes and but one church, which must needs arise from several manors, the Lords whereof joined in founding or building, but not in endowing the church, each keeping apart his tithes, and what else he would give for the sustenance of his own clerk, whom he intended to present to the Bishop, for the ministerial care and government of his own tenants, who, with the lands which they occupied, made up one parish, as the others did another, yet both had use of the same church. Saint Palaye observes, that in the eleventh century the great lords were reproached with multiplying their domestick chapels, which abuse continued till the fourteenth century. Even common lawyers had their chaplains 8. Dr. Whitaker is of opinion, that many chapels formerly existed, which after the great Saxon parishes were subdivided, and new churches formed, were suffered to dilapidate 9. În short, as manors augmented (an evil which was checked by the statute of Quia Emptores 18 Edw. I.) parishes augmented with them; and the old substitutes of chapels gradually disappeared. Churches were built with good will by the rich, because such acts were supposed to confer prosperity and duration upon the family 10; the very inducement which Ovid recommends for the foundation of temples 11. See a full account of CHURCHES, p. 87, seq. CHURCH-YARDS were introduced by Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury, from what he saw at Rome, A. D. 742; 12 but they were not universal till long after, and many legends were invented to show the sanctity of burial in them 13, nor were all of them 'Kingdom's Intelligencer, No. 7, Feb. 11-18, 1661. Anecdotes, 164–172. • Mr. Pegge has preserved the Ceremonial. 6 Thoroton's Nottinghamshire, i. xiv. ed. Throsby. • Richmondshire, i. 86. valry, p. 5. Engl. Trans. B. vi. 326. Scriptores, 871, 941. at first inclosed'. The Institutes of Lycurgus mention burial of the dead outside the temples 2. The elevation of tents and bowers, and festivals held in them, was a substitution, according to Huntingdon3, by Gregory, for the heathen sacrifices of oxen, which instead were to be killed for eating. [See CHAP. XIII. § 1. art. WHITSUNTIDE, p. 580.] We hear of persons walking round them at night, singing psalms for the dead, and notwithstanding, of fear of going through them at night, an apprehension derived from the heathens believing that departed spirits came out of the tombs, and wandered about the place where the body lay. Indeed there is reason to think that the living desired burials in church-yards, that ghosts might be confined to such spots. Another superstition, supposed Druidical, is, that the ghost of the person last buried wanders round the church-yard till another is interred, who then takes his place 5. We hear also of dancing and singing in them 6; of fighting in them at fair times; of persons passing through them praying for the dead; of high roads running through them, and of penitences performed in them 9. The custom of laying flat stones occurs in Cicero 1o. A form of benediction was provided for consecrating church-yards, by erecting a cross in the centre, and four in the corners; some churches had more than one in the church-yard 11. The graves are turned round to the south for the benefit of Paters and Aves from the passengers; and a part left unconsecrated, called Burial without the procession, for the reception of excommunicants 12. PARSONAGE HOUSES. Some were embattled and fortified, and had numerous offices and appendages, sometimes a chapel. Others, as at Bucknor in Kent, were mere hovels, built on to the church 13. 2. ECCLESIASTICAL OFFICERS, and latent particulars of others, now obsolete. Burn's Ecclesiastical Law, and other familiar works, contain such histories of the existing orders, as to render it unnecessary to reprint the matter in this work, where room is precious. ADVOCATES OF CHURCHES. Protectors of Church-property, who pleaded in the Courts, &c. first instituted after the Consulship of Stilicho 14. ARCHPRIEST, certain places or revenues, called Archpriestships, conferred this title 15. CAPELLANE. This term was at first applied to persons who had the care of things necessary for different services, and simply meant custos. It was the same also as Cubicularius, Scribe, Secretary, Amanuensis, Notary. To the Arch-capellane in the French Court, belonged the office of saying grace. It also signified Rector of a church, or Curate; in after ages, he who presided over a chapel, or small religious building 16. The word chaplain is derived from Capellanus. Some Roman families kept priests for the lustral waters, altars 17. In the Middle Age, as before observed, (see § 1, p. 677.) they were quite common; noblemen began to neglect having chaplains in their houses about the time of Charles II. 18 CARDINAL. The Prefects of some countries in the time of Theodosius were so de 3 R. C, Hoare's Modern 4 XV. Scriptor. 262. 1 Cemeterium nunc clausum Bestiis primum (of Mere, about anno 1090). Sir Wilts, 143. 2 Boiss. iii. n. 9. Scriptor. p. Bed. 185, ed. 1596. Popular Antiq. ii, 194, 5, 202. Malmesb. Gest. Reg. &c. ii. c. 10. 7 Dec. Scriptor. 1796. 8 Id. 2368. 9 Scriptor. p. Bed. 494. a. Dec. Scriptor. 2737. 10 Popular Antiq. ii. 203. "Gough's Sepulchr. Monum. Introd. ii. 177, 236. 12 Grose's Olio. Hearne's Antiq. Discours. i. 220. 13 Collinson's Somersetsh. ii. 408. Dec. Scriptor. 1676, 2096, 2104. Hutchinson's Durh. ii. 359. Hasted's Kent. Fosbroke's Gloucester, &c. 14 Du Cange, v. Advocatus. Spelm. Archæologus, p. 22, seq. where 15 Froiss. ii. 211. 17 Enc. Reines. ample particulars of them. Inscr. Cl. v. n. 58. 16 Du Cange, v. Capellanus. 18 Burnett's Own Times, iv. 440, ed. 1753. nominated1. Ancient churches were either parochial, with priests, or deaconries, or a kind of hospital for the poor, under deacons. The other places of worship were oratories, in which there were neither baptisms or sacraments, only private masses by capellanes. Hence cardinal priests, because they assisted the pope, when he officiated, and in processions, &c. Hence, too, cardinal deacons, because they assisted together with the cardinal priests, or because they were the chief of the deacons. The popes are always elected from the cardinal priests. The title was anciently common to all the priests of parish churches in Rome; but was afterwards transferred to seven bishops of the Roman Provinces, and again to other bishops. Thus Du Cange 2. Martin Polonus first mentions the institution of fifteen cardinalships at Rome in the year 3043. The red hat was first granted to them by Innocent IV. in 12444, and pompous ceremonies attended the transmission of it. Ornamented pillars were formerly carried before cardinals 6. CHANCELLOR'S VICAR. In 1539 the Chancellor of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, had a vicar who assisted that dignitary in amending the false Latin of the choir books 7. CLERGY. The first regular settlement of our clergy was since the Conquest, and their institution to parochial cures then chiefly commenced. Aldred, Bishop of Worcester, afterwards Archbishop of York, made great alterations in the habits of his clergy, which did not differ before from that of laymen. This was A. D. 10618. Upon this copious and familiar subject, some curious notices shall only be given. We find them drinking at alehouses; wearing gay and coloured cloaths; treated with great respect; taking liberties even with the king; dining at the tables of the great; treated as laymen if appearing in arms; begging alms; leaving their profession to become knights; detested, if married, because the people thought that married persons were most subject to the influence of malignant dæmons, and therefore unfit to instruct others; engaged in trade; if not graduated, entitled Sir; if graduates, Master. To learn the four Gospels by heart was part of the Anglo-Saxon preparations for the ministry 9. Writs were sometimes issued by our kings, for calling into military service all the clergy between sixteen and sixty. See a curious clause roll in Grose, as quoted below 10, but it is a mistake to think it a mere attempt to extort money. Knighton says, that when the clergy of the North were summoned to march against the Scots, temp. Edward III. they assembled at Berwick, unshod themselves, uncovered their heads, and with swords and arrows at their thighs, and bows under their arms, marched in procession, singing hymns, services, &c. In 1386 Nicholas Lillington, Abbot of Westminster, though nearly seventy years of age, prepared himself with two of his monks to go armed to the sea-coast, to assist in repelling a threatened invasion by the French. The monks which he elected seem to have been those of the greatest stature; for one of them is described as being so extremely large, that when his armour was offered for sale afterwards, no person could be found of sufficient size to wear it 12. CURATES, originated in ordination without titles. The stipend of them down to 1672 and 1718, was the appropriation of one third of the tithe 13. Enc. • In voce. Scriptor. p. 3 Chron. sub anno. 4 Du Cange, v. Galerus. 5 Fiddes's Wolsey, p. 252, &c. "Nares, v. Pillar. 7 Mason's St. Patrick's Cathedral, i, 89, 8 Willis's Cathedrals, i. 33. Bed. 13, 425, 430. M. Paris, 78, 82, 342, 396, 511, 574, 677, 1122, Monachism, 43. Edd. Vit. Wilfr, c. 5. 10 Milit. Antiq. i. 67, 68. and Brayley's Westm. Abbey, i. 83, 84. 13 Mason's St. Patrick's, i. 33. 2 C VOL. II. Dec. Scriptor. 962, 2412. Brit. 11 Dec. Scriptor, 2591. " Neale Fra. Paulo. Eccl. Benef. c. 14. |