BOOK II. mas Day. countries in coming to the maturity which is required for the table, we find that they are introduced at a later period The custom is unquestionably of higher antiquity than the Michaelfollowing record, which, however is curious:" In 1470, John de la Hay took of William Barnaby, lord of Lastnes, in the county of Hereford, one parcel of land of that dedemesne, rendering 20d a year, and one goose fit for the lord's dinner on the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, with suit of court, and other services." Among the old charms mentioned in Bale's Interlude concerning the Laws of Nature, Moses and Christ, 4to, 1562, St. Leger (whose day is October 2) appears as the patron of geese; Idolatry says "With blessynges of Saynt Germayne, I will me so determyne, That neyther fox nor vermyne Shall do my chyckens harme. For your gese seke Saynt Legearde, And for your duckes Saynt Leonarde, There is no better charme." M. Stevenson, in the Twelve Months, Lond. 4to, 1661, mentions the following superstition:-"They say, so many dayes old the moon is on Michaelmas Day, so many floods after." The odd expression of "a goose with ten toes," said to be a mistake of "a goose intentos," which is equally absurd, has been attributed to the people of Lancashire, who, however, have no other knowledge of it than such as they glean from those industrious antiquaries, who have taken the pains to investigate the origin of a phrase, which seems to exist only in their own books. Lawless At Kidderminster, on the election of a bailiff, says a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine," the inhabitants assemble in the principal streets to throw cabbage-stalks at each other; the town-bells give signal for the affray. This is called Lawless Hour. This done (for it lasts an hour), the bailiff Hour. elect and corporation, in their robes, preceded by drums and fifes (for they have no waits), visit the old and new bailiff, constables, &c. attended by the mob. In the mean time, BOOK Michaelmas Day. Lawless the most respectable females in the neighbourhood are invited to meet, and fling apples at them on their entrance. I have known forty pots of apples expended at one house." This custom obtains at the present time.* Camden says of Rochford, in Essex, that it is remarkable for its Lawless Court, held on the Wednesday morning af ter Michaelmas on a hill called King's Hill, in the open air, by twilight, where all the business is transacted in whispers, and a coal supplies the place of pen and ink. Absentees forfeit double their rent for every hour's absence.† Jacob says (quoting the Britannia, p. 411), that the servile attendance was imposed on the tenants for conspiring, at the like unreasonable hour, to raise a commotion. It belongs to the honor of Rochford, and is called Lawless Court because held at an unlawful hour, or quia dicta sine lege. The title of it is in rhyme, and in the court rolls runs thus: Tenta ibidem die Mercurii (ante diem) proximi post Festum Sancti Michaelis, Anno Regni Regis, &c." The Protestant inhabitants of Skie observe the festivals of Christmas, Easter, Good Friday and St. Michael, on Hone's Every Day Book, vol. I, p. 1337-43. + Gough's Camd. vol. II, p. 130. Law Dict. v. Lawless Court. I cannot find any such passage in Camden. Certainly it is not in the edition of 1500, or in that from which Gough's translation was made. which latter day they have a cavalcade in each parish, and several families bake the cake called St. Michael's Bannock. BOOK II. mas Day. Bannock. They have likewise a general cavalcade on St. MichaelMichael's Day in Kilbar village, and do then also take a St. Miturn round their church. Every family, as soon as the so- chael's lemnity is ended, is accustomed to bake St. Michael's cakes, and all strangers, together with those of the family, must eat the bread that night." "It was, till of late (says Macauley), an universal custom among the islanders on Michaelmas Day, to prepare in every family a loaf or cake of bread enormously large, and compounded of different ingredients. This cake belonged to the Archangel, and had its name from him. Every one in each family had his portion of this kind of shew-bread, and had of course some title to the friendship of Michael."* tion of By an act of convocation passed in the year 1536, by CelebraHenry the Eighth, the feast of the dedication of every church Wakes. was ordered to be kept on one and the same day every where; that is, on the first Sunday in October, and the Saint's day to whom the church was dedicated was entirely laid aside. Hence it is that wakes, which were formerly celebrated at all seasons of the year in different places, fall about the same time; for the royal injunction is now disregarded. The celebration of these festivals seems almost coeval with the introduction of Christianity into England. Our earliest ecclesiastical historian, Bede, has preserved a letter from Pope Gregory to the abbot Mellitus, written about the year 601, in which wakes are described :— "When, therefore," says the Pope, " Almighty God shall bring you to the most reverend man our brother bishop, St. Augustine, tell him what I have, upon mature deliberation on the affair of the English, thought of, namely that the temples of the idols in that nation ought not to be destroyed. Dr. Jamieson, Etymol. Dict. art. Bannock. + Augustine and his companions landed in 597.-Bed. Eccl. Hist. lib. I, cap. 25; Chron. Saxon. ad Ann. BOOK II. Michaelmas Day. Let holy water be made and sprinkled in the said temples, let altars be erected, and let relics be deposited in them. For, since those temples are built, it is requisite that they be converted from the worship of the devils to the service of the true God; that the nation, not seeing those temples destroyed, may remove error from their hearts, and, knowing and adoring the true God, may the more familiarly resort to the same places to which they have been accustomed. And because they are wont to sacrifice many oxen in honor of the devils, let them celebrate a religious and solemn festival, not slaughtering the beasts for devils, but to be consumed by themselves, to the praise of God. Some solemnity must be exchanged for them, as that on the day of the dedication, or the natal days of holy martyrs,* whose relics are there deposited, they may build themselves booths of the boughs of trees, about those churches which have been turned to that use from temples, and celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting, and no more offer beasts to the devil." The best account of the wake is unquestionably that of the learned Whitaker. He observes that every church, at its consecration, received the name of some particular saint; this custom was practised among the Roman Britons, and continued among the Saxons. In the council held at Cealehythe, in 816, the name of the patron saint was expressly required to be inscribed on the altar and walls of the church, or a tablet within the building. The feast of the saint became of course the festival of the church, which the people naturally celebrated with peculiar festivity. As this conduct substituted Christian festivals for the idolatrous anniversaries of heathenism, it was encouraged. Accordingly, at "birth *Strutt is mistaken in making Bede, or rather the Pope, say day of the saint." The natalitium of a martyr is the day of his suffering, when he is presumed to be regenerated. The passage is—“ ut die Dedicationis, vel Natalitiis Sanctorum Martyrum, quorum Reliquiæ ponuntur, tabernacula sibi circa easdem ecclesias, ex fanis commutate sunt, de ramis arborum faciant."-Lib. I, cap. 30. BOOK II. the introduction of Christianity among the Jutes of Kent, Gregory advised what had been done previously among the Britons-the substitution of Christian festivals for the ido- Michaelmas Day. latrous, and the suffering day of the martyr, whose relics were deposited in the church, or the day on which the edifice was actually dedicated, to be the established feast of the parish. Both were appointed and observed as distinct festivals, though confounded by Bishop Kennet, who, says Whitaker, attributes to the day of the dedication what is true only of the saint's day; and to the Bishop he might have added several others, had he been living. They were clearly distinguished among the Saxons; and in the laws of the Confessor, the Dies Dedicationis, or Dedicatio, is discriminated from the Propria Festivitas Sancti, or Celebratis Sancti. They remained equally distinct to the Reformation,* when, in 1536, the dedication-day was ordered to be kept, and the festival of the saint to be celebrated no longer. The festival of the dedication merely commemorating the commencement of the church, could not have been observed with the same regard as that of the patron saint, which, in pre-eminence over the former, was actually denominated the Church's Holiday, or its peculiar festival; and while the latter remains in many parishes at present, the other is so utterly annihilated in all, that Bishop Kennet knew nothing of its distinct existence. Thus instituted at first, the day of the tutelar saint was observed most probably by the Britons, and certainly by the Saxons, with great devotion. And the evening before every saint's day, in the Saxon-Jewish method of reckoning the hours, being an actual part of the day, and therefore, like that, was appro In corroboration of Mr. Whitaker, if necessary, it might be stated that this distinction is absolute in a bull of Pope Alexander IV, in 1260. He grants a remission of one hundred days' penance to those who visit the church of the monastery of Lancaster, on the feasts of the blessed Virgin Mary, in whose honour it is dedicated, or on the anniversary of the dedication of the same church, for the sake of devotion.-Registr. S. Mariæ Lanc. Harl. MS. 3764, fo. 14. A A |