It is very commonly assumed that on the eve of the Reformation, and for a long period before, there was little in the way of popular religious instruction in England. We are asked to believe that the mass of the people were allowed to grow up in ignorance of the meaning of the faith that was in them, and in a studied neglect of their supposed religious practices. So certain has this view of the pre-Reformation Church seemed to those who have not inquired very deeply into the subject, that more than one writer has been led by this assumption to assert that perhaps the most obvious benefit of the religious upheaval of the sixteenth century was the introduction of some general and systematic teaching of the great truths of religion. Preaching is often considered as characterising the reforming movement, as contrasted with the old ecclesiastical system, which it is assumed certainly admitted, even if it did not positively encourage, ignorance as the surest foundation of its authority. It becomes of importance, therefore, to inquire if such a charge is founded upon fact, and to see how far, if at all, the people in Catholic England were instructed in their religion.

At the outset, it should be remembered that the questions at issue in the sixteenth century were not, in the first place at least, connected with the influence of religious teaching on the lives of the people at large. No one contended that the reformed doctrines would be found to make people better, or would help them to lead lives more in conformity with Gospel teaching. The question of what may be called practical religion never entered into the disputes of the time. Mr. Brewer warns the student of the history of this period that he will miss the meaning of many things altogether, and quite misunderstand their drift, if he starts his inquiry by regarding the Reformation as the creation of light to illuminate a previous period of darkness, or the evolution of practical morality out of a state of antecedent chaotic corruption. “In fact,” he says, “the sixteenth century was not a mass of moral corruption out of which life emerged by some process unknown to art or nature; it was not an addled egg cradling a living bird; quite the reverse.” For, as the historian of the German people, Janssen, points out, the truth is that the entire social order of the Middle Ages “was established on the doctrine of good works being necessary for the salvation of the Christian soul.” Whilst, as Mr. Brewer again notes, Luther’s most earnest remonstrances were directed not against bad works, but against the undue stress laid by the advocates of the old religion upon good works. Moreover, an age which could busy itself about discussions of questions as to “righteousness,” whether of “faith or works,” “is not a demoralised or degenerate age. These are not the thoughts of men buried in sensuality.”

Two questions are contained in the inquiry as to pre-Reformation religious teaching, namely, as to its extent and as to its character. There can hardly be much doubt that the duty of giving instruction to the people committed to their charge was fully recognised by the clergy in mediÆval times. In view of the positive legislation of various synods on the subject of regular and systematic teaching, as well as of the constant repetition of the obligation in the books of English canon law, it is obvious that the priests were not ignorant of what was their plain duty. From the time of the constitution of Archbishop Peckham at the Synod of Oxford in 1281, to the time of the religious changes, there is every reason to suppose that the ordinance contained in the following words was observed in every parish church in the country: “We order,” says the Constitution, “that every priest having the charge of a flock do, four times in each year (that is, once each quarter) on one or more solemn feast days, either himself or by some one else, instruct the people in the vulgar language simply and without any fantastical admixture of subtle distinctions, in the articles of the Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Evangelical Precepts, the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins with their offshoots, the seven principal virtues, and the seven Sacraments.”

This means that the whole range of Christian teaching, dogmatic and moral, was to be explained to the people four times in every year; and in order that there should be no doubt about the matter, the Synod proceeds to set out in considerable detail each of the points upon which the priest was to instruct his people. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the great number of manuals intended to help the clergy in the execution of this law attest the fact that it was fully recognised and very generally complied with. When at the close of the latter century, the invention of printing made the multiplication of such manuals easy, the existence both of printed copies of this Constitution of Archbishop Peckham, and of printed tracts drawn up to give every assistance to the parochial clergy in the preparation of these homely teachings, proves that the law was understood and acted upon. In the face of such evidence it is impossible to doubt that, whatever may have been the case as to set sermons and formal discourses, simple, straightforward teaching was not neglected in pre-Reformation England, and every care was taken that the clergy might be furnished with material suitable for the fundamental religious teaching contemplated by the law. As late as 1466, a synod of the York Province, held by Archbishop Nevill, not only reiterated this general decree about regular quarterly instructions of a simple and practical kind, but set out at great length the points of these lessons in the Christian faith and life upon which the parish priests were to insist.

Even set discourses of a more formal kind, though probably by no means so frequent as in these times, when they have to a great extent superseded the simple instructions of old Catholic days, were by no means neglected. Volumes of such sermons in manuscript and in print, as well as all that is known of the great discourses constantly being delivered at St. Paul’s Cross, may be taken as sufficient evidence of this. For the conveyance of moral and religious instruction, however, the regular and homely talks of a parish priest to his people were vastly more important than the set orations, and it is with these familiar instructions that the student of this period of our history has chiefly to concern himself. All the available evidence goes to show that the giving of these was not only regarded as an obligation on the pastor; but attendance at them was looked upon as a usual and necessary portion of the Christian duty. For example, in the examinations of conscience intended to assist lay people in their preparation for the Sacrament of penance, there are indications that any neglect to attend at these parochial instructions was considered sufficiently serious to become a matter of confession. It is, of course, hardly conceivable that this should be so, if the giving of these popular lessons in the duties of the Christian life was neglected by the priests, or if they were not commonly frequented by the laity. To take a few instances. “Also,” runs one such examination, “I have been slow in God’s service, and negligent to pray and to go to church in due time … loth to hear the Word of God, and the preacher of the Word of God. Neither have I imprinted it in my heart and borne it away and wrought thereafter.”[284] Again: “I have been setting nought by preaching and teaching of God’s Word, by thinking it an idle thing.”[285] And, to take an example of the view taken in such documents as to the priest’s duty: “If you are a priest be a true lantern to the people both in speaking and in living, and faithfully and truly do all things which pertain to a priest. Seek wisely the ground of truth and the true office of the priesthood, and be not ruled blindly by the lewd customs of the world. Read God’s law and the Expositions of the Holy Doctors, and study and learn and keep it, and when thou knowest it, preach and teach it to those that are unlearned.”[286]

Richard Whitford, the Monk of Sion, in his Work for Householders, published first in 1530, lays great stress upon the obligation of parents and masters to see that those under their charge attended the instructions given in the parish church. Some may perhaps regard his greater anxiety for their presence at sermons rather than at Mass, when it was not possible for them to be at both, as doubtful advice. In this, however, he agrees with the author of what was the most popular book of instructions at this period, and the advice itself is proof that the obligation of attending instructions was regarded as sufficiently serious to be contrasted with that of hearing Mass. Speaking of the Sunday duties, Whitford says: “At church on Sundays see after those who are under your care. And charge them also to keep their sight in the church close upon their book and beads. And whilst they are young accustom them always to kneel, stand, and sit, and never walk in the church. And let them hear the Mass quietly and devoutly, much part kneeling. But at the Gospel, the Preface, and at the Paternoster teach them to stand and to make curtesy at the word Jesus, as the priest does.… If there be a sermon any time of the day let them be present, all that are not occupied in needful and lawful business; all other (occupations) laid aside let them ever keep the preachings, rather than the Mass, if, perchance, they may not hear both.”

Nothing could possibly be more definite or explicit upon the necessity of popular instructions and upon the duty incumbent upon the clergy of giving proper vernacular teaching to their flocks than the author of Dives et Pauper, the most popular of the fifteenth-century books of religious instruction. In fact, on this point his language is as strong and uncompromising as that which writers have too long been accustomed to associate with the name of Wycliffe. No more unwarranted assumption has ever been made in the name of history than that which classed under the head of Lollard productions almost every fifteenth-century tract in English, especially such as dealt openly with abuses needing correction, and pleaded for simple vernacular teaching of religion. This is what the author of Dives et Pauper says about preaching: “Since God’s word is life and salvation of man’s soul, all those who hinder them that have authority of God, and by Orders taken, to preach and teach, from preaching and teaching God’s word and God’s law, are manslayers ghostly. They are guilty of as many souls that perish by the hindering of God’s word, and namely those proud, covetous priests and curates who can neither teach, nor will teach, nor suffer others that both can and will and have authority to teach and preach of God and of the bishop who gave them Orders, but prevent them for fear lest they should get less from their subjects, or else the less be thought of, or else that their sins should be known by the preaching of God’s word. Therefore, they prefer to leave their own sins openly reproved generally, among other men’s sins. As St. Anselm saith, God’s word ought to be worshipped as much as Christ’s body, and he sins as much who hindereth God’s word and despiseth God’s word, or taketh it recklessly as he that despiseth God’s body, or through his negligence letteth it fall to the ground. On this place the gloss showeth that it is more profitable to hear God’s word in preaching than to hear a Mass, and that a man should rather forbear his Mass than his sermon. For, by preaching, folks are stirred to contrition, and to forsake sin and the fiend, and to love God and goodness, and (by it) they be illumined to know their God, and virtue from vice, truth from falsehood, and to forsake errors and heresies. By the Mass they are not so, but if they come to Mass in sin they go away in sin, and shrews they come and shrews they wend away.… Nevertheless, the Mass profiteth them that are in grace to get grace and forgiveness of sin.… Both are good, but the preaching of God’s word ought to be more discharged and more desired than the hearing of Mass.”[287]

In the same way the author of a little book named The Interpretatyon and Sygnyfycacyon of the Masse, printed by Robert Wyer in 1532, insists on the obligation of attending the Sunday instruction. “On each Sunday,” he says, “he shall also hear a sermon, if it be possible, for if a man did lose or omit it through contempt or custom, he would sin greatly.”[288] And in The Myrrour of the Church, the author tells those who desire “to see the Will of God in Holy Scripture,” but being of “simple learning” and “no cunning” cannot read, that they may do so “in open sermon, or in secret collation” with those who can. And in speaking of the Sunday duties he tells his readers not to lie in bed, “but rising promptly you shall go to the church, and with devotion say your matins without jangling. Also sweetly hear your Mass and all the hours of the day. And then if there is any preacher in the church who proposes to make a sermon, you shall sweetly hear the Word of God and keep it in remembrance.”[289] And lastly, to take one more example, in Wynkyn de Worde’s Exornatorium Curatorum, printed to enable those having the cure of souls to perform the duties of instruction laid down by Archbishop Peckham’s Provincial Constitution, whilst setting forth a form of examination of conscience under the head of the deadly sins, the author bids the curate teach his people to ask themselves: “Whether you have been slothful in God’s service, and specially upon the Sunday and the holy day whether you have been slothful to come to church, slothful to pray when you have been there, and slothful to hear the Word of God preached. Furthermore, whether you have been negligent to learn your Pater Noster, your Ave Maria, or your Creed, or whether you have been negligent to teach the same to your own children or to your god-children. Examine yourself also whether you have taught your children good manners, and guarded them from danger and bad company.” The same book insists on the need of such examination of conscience daily, or at least weekly.[290]

The following in this connection is of interest as being a daily rule of life recommended to laymen in the English Prymer printed at Rouen in 1538: “First rise up at six o’clock in the morning at all seasons, and in rising do as follows: Thank our Lord who has brought you to the beginning of the day. Commend yourself to God, to Our Lady Saint Mary, and to the saint whose feast is kept that day, and to all the saints in heaven. When you have arrayed yourself say in your chamber or lodging, Matins, Prime, and Hours, if you may. Then go to the church before you do any worldly works if you have no needful business, and abide in the church the space of a low mass time, where you shall think on God and thank Him for His benefits. Think awhile on the goodness of God, on His divine might and virtue.… If you cannot be so long in the church on account of necessary business, take some time in the day in your house in which to think of these things.”… Take your meal “reasonably without excess or overmuch forbearing of your meat, for there is as much danger in too little as in too much. If you fast once in a week it is enough, besides Vigils and Ember days out of Lent.” After dinner rest “an hour or half-an-hour, praying God that in that rest He will accept your health to the end, that after it you may serve Him the more devoutly.”

“… As touching your service, say up to Tierce before dinner, and make an end of all before supper. And when you are able say the Dirge and Commendations for all Christian souls, at least on holy days, and if you have leisure say them on other days, at least with three lessons. Shrive yourself every week to your curate, except you have some great hindrance. And beware that you do not pass a fortnight unless you have a very great hindrance. If you have the means refuse not your alms to the first poor body that asketh it of you that day. Take care to hear and keep the Word of God. Confess you every day to God without fail of such sins you know you have done that day.” Think often of our Lord’s Passion, and at night when you wake turn your thoughts to what our Lord was doing at that hour in His Passion. In your life look for a faithful friend to whom you may open “your secrets,” and when found follow his advice. No doubt this “manner to live well” will perhaps hardly represent what people at this time ordinarily did. But the mere fact that it could be printed as a Christian’s daily rule of life as late as 1538, is evidence at any rate that people took at the least as serious a view of their obligations in religious matters as we should.[291] In the same way The art of good lyvyng, quoted above, suggests as the proper way to sanctify the Sunday: Meditations on death, the pains of hell, and the joys of Paradise. Time should be given to reading the lives of the saints, to saying Matins, and studying the Paternoster and the Creed. Others should be exhorted to enter into God’s service, and fathers of families are bound to see that “their children, servants, and families go to church and hear the preachings.”[292]

By far the most interesting and important part of any inquiry on the subject of pre-Reformation instructions, regards of course their nature and effect. We are asked to believe that the people were allowed to grow up in ignorance of the true nature of religion, and with superstitions in their hearts which the clergy could easily have corrected; but which they, on the contrary, rather fostered as likely to prove of pecuniary value to themselves. To keep the people ignorant (it is said) was their great object, as it was through the ignorance of the lay folk that the clergy hoped to maintain their influence and ascendency, and, it is suggested, to draw money out of the pockets of the faithful. The reverence which was paid at this time to images of the saints, and in an especial manner to the crucifix, is often adduced as proof that the people were evidently badly instructed in the nature of religious worship; and the destruction of statues, paintings, and pictured glass by the advanced reformers is thought to be explained, if not excused, by the absolute need of putting a stop once for all to a crying abuse. The explanation given to the people by their religious teachers on the eve of the religious changes on this matter of devotion to the saints, and of the nature of the reverence to be paid to their representations, may be taken as a good sample of the practical nature of the general instructions imparted in those times. The question divested of all ambiguity is really this: Were the people taught to understand the nature of an image or representation, or were they allowed to regard them as objects of reverence in themselves—that is, as idols? The material for a reply to this inquiry is fortunately abundant. The Dyalogue of Sir Thomas More was written in 1528, in order to maintain the Catholic teaching about images, relics, and the praying to saints. To this, then, an inquirer naturally turns in the first place for an exposition of the common belief in these matters; for Sir Thomas claims that in his tract he is defending only “the common faith and belief of Christ’s Church.” “What this is,” he says, “I am very sure; and perceive it well not only by experience of my own time and the places where I have myself been to, with the common report of other honest men from all other places of Christendom.” After having explained that the commandment of God had reference to idols or images worshipped as gods, and not to mere representations of Christ, our Lady, or the Saints,[293] he continues: “but neither Scripture nor natural reason forbids a man to reverence an image, not fixing his final intent on the image, but referring the honour to the person the image represents. In such reverence shown to an image there is no honour withdrawn from God; but the saint is honoured in his image, and God in His saint. When a man of mean birth and an ambassador to a great king has high honour done to him, to whom does that honour redound, to the ambassador or to the king? When a man on the recital of his prince’s letter puts off his cap and kisses it, does he reverence the paper or his prince?… All names spoken and all words written are no material signs or images, but are made only by consent and agreement of men to betoken and signify such things, whereas images painted, graven, or carved, may be so well wrought and so near to the life and the truth, that they will naturally and much more effectually represent the thing than the name either spoken or written.… These two words, Christus crucifixus, do not represent to us, either to laymen or to the learned, so lively a remembrance of His bitter Passion as does a blessed image of the crucifix, and this these heretics perceive well enough. Nor do they speak against images in order to further devotion, but plainly with a malicious mind to diminish and quench men’s devotions. For they see clearly that no one who loves another does not delight in his image or in anything of his. And these heretics who are so sore against the images of God and His holy saints, would be right angry with him that would dishonestly handle an image made in remembrance of one of themselves, whilst the wretches forbear not to handle villainously, and in despite cast dirt upon the holy crucifix, an image made in remembrance of our Saviour Himself, and not only of His most blessed Person, but also of His most bitter Passion.”[294]

Later on, in the same tract, rejecting the notion that people did not fully understand that the image was intended merely to recall the memory of the person whose image it was, and was not itself in any sense the thing or person, More says: “The flock of Christ is not so foolish as those heretics would make them to be. For whereas there is no dog so mad that he does not know a real coney (i.e. rabbit) from a coney carved and painted, (yet they would have it supposed that) Christian people that have reason in their heads, and therefore the light of faith in their souls, would think that the image of our Lady were our Lady herself. Nay, they be not so mad, I trust, but that they do reverence to the image for the honour of the person whom it represents, as every man delights in the image and remembrance of his friend. And although every good Christian man has a remembrance of Christ’s passion in his mind, and conceives by devout meditation a form and fashion thereof in his heart, yet there is no man I ween so good nor so learned, nor so well accustomed to meditation, but that he finds himself more moved to pity and compassion by beholding the holy crucifix than when he lacks it.”[295]

In his work against Tyndale, More again takes up this subject in reference to the way in which the former in his new translation of the Bible had substituted the word idol for image, as if they were practically identical in meaning. “Good folk who worship images of Christ and His saints, thereby worship Christ and His saints, whom these images represent.” Just as pagan worshippers of idols did evil in worshipping them, “because in them they worshipped devils (whom they called gods and whom those idols represented), so Christian men do well in worshipping images, because in them they worship Christ and His holy saints.”[296]

Roger Edgworth, the preacher, describes at Bristol in Queen Mary’s reign how the Reforming party endeavoured to confuse the minds of the common people as to the meaning of the word idol. “I would,” he says, “that you should not ignorantly confound and abuse those terms ‘idol’ and ‘image,’ taking an image for an idol and an idol for an image, as I have heard many do in this city, as well fathers and mothers (who should be wise) as their babies and children who have learned foolishness from their parents. Now, at the dissolution of the monasteries and friars’ houses many images have been carried abroad and given to children to play with, and when the children have them in their hands, dancing them in their childish manner, the father or mother comes and says, ‘What nase, what have you there?’ The child answers (as she is taught), ‘I have here my idol.’ Then the father laughs and makes a gay game at it. So says the mother to another, ‘Jugge or Tommy, where did you get that pretty idol?’ ‘John, our parish clerk gave it to me,’ says the child, and for that the clerk must have thanks and shall not lack good cheer. But if the folly were only in the insolent youth, and in the fond unlearned fathers and mothers, it might soon be redressed.” The fact is, he proceeds to explain, that the new preachers have been doing all in their power to obscure the hitherto well-recognised difference in meaning between an image and an idol. He begs his hearers to try and keep the difference in meaning between an image and an idol clearly before their minds. “An image is a similitude of a natural thing that has been, is, or may be,” he tells them. “An idol is a similitude of what never was or may be. Therefore the image of the crucifix is no idol, for it represents and signifies Christ crucified as He was in very deed, and the image of St. Paul with a sword in his hand as the sign of his martyrdom is no idol, for the thing signified by it was a thing indeed, for he was beheaded with a sword.”[297]

In another part of the Dialogue Sir Thomas More pointed out that what the reforming party said against devotion to images and pilgrimages could be summed up under one of three heads. They charge the people with giving “to the saints, and also to their images, honour like in kind to what they give to God Himself”; or (2) that “they take the images for the things themselves,” which is plain idolatry; or (3) that the worship is conducted in a “superstitious fashion with a desire of unlawful things.” Now, as to these three accusations, More replies: “The first point is at once soon and shortly answered, for it is not true. For though men kneel to saints and images, and incense them also, yet it is not true that they for this reason worship them in every point like unto God.… They lack the chief point (of such supreme worship). That is, they worship God in the mind that He is God, which intention in worship is the only thing that maketh it latria, and not any certain gesture or bodily observance.” It would not be supreme or divine worship even if “we would wallow upon the ground unto Christ, having in this a mind that He were the best man we could think of, but not thinking Him to be God. For if the lowly manner of bodily observance makes latria, then we were in grave peril of idolatry in our courtesy used to princes, prelates, and popes, to whom we kneel as low as to God Almighty, and kiss some their hands and some our own, ere ever we presume to touch them; and in the case of the Pope, his foot; and as for incensing, the poor priests in every choir are as well incensed as the Sacrament. Hence if latria, which is the special honour due to God, was contained in these things, then we were great idolaters, not only in our worship of the saints and of their images, but also of men, one to another among ourselves.” Though indeed to God Almighty ought to be shown as “humble and lowly a bodily reverence as possible, still this bodily worship is not latria, unless we so do it in our mind considering and acknowledging Him as God, and with that mind and intention do our worship; and this, as I think,” he says, “no Christian man does to any image or to any saint either.”

“Now, as touching the second point—namely, that people take the images for the saints themselves, I trust there is no man so mad, or woman either, that they do not know live men from dead stones, and a tree from flesh and bone. And when they prefer our Lady at one pilgrimage place before our Lady at another, or one rood before another, or make their invocations and vows some to the one and some to the other, I ween it easy to perceive that they mean nothing else than that our Lord and our Lady, or rather our Lord for our Lady, shows more miracles at the one than the other. They intend in their pilgrimages to visit, some one place and some another, or sometimes the place is convenient for them, or their devotion leads them; and yet (this is) not for the place, but because our Lord pleases by manifest miracles to provoke men to seek Him, or His Blessed Mother, or some Holy Saint of His, in these places more especially than in some others.”

“This thing itself proves also that they do not take the images of our Lady for herself. For if they did, how could they possibly in any wise have more mind to one of them than to the other? For they can have no more mind to our Lady than to our Lady. Moreover, if they thought that the image at Walsingham was our Lady herself then must they needs think that our Lady herself was that image. Then, if in like manner they thought that the image at Ipswich was our Lady herself, and as they must then need think that our Lady was the image at Ipswich, they must needs think that all these three things were one thing.… And so by the same reason they must suppose that the image at Ipswich was the self-same image as at Walsingham. If you ask any one you take for the simplest, except a natural fool, I dare hold you a wager she will tell you ‘nay’ to this. Besides this, take the simplest fool you can find and she will tell you our Lady herself is in heaven. She will also call an image an image, and she will tell you the difference between an image of a horse and a horse in very deed. And this appears clearly whatever her words about her pilgrimage are calling, according to the common manner of speech, the image of our Lady, our Lady. As men say, ‘Go to the King’s Head for wine,’ not meaning his real head, but the sign, so she means nothing more in the image but our Lady’s image, no matter how she may call it. And if you would prove she neither takes our Lady for the image, nor the image for our Lady—talk with her about our Lady and she will tell you that our Lady was saluted by Gabriel; that our Lady fled into Egypt with Joseph; and yet in the telling she will never say that ‘our Lady of Walsingham,’ or ‘of Ipswich,’ was saluted by Gabriel, or fled into Egypt. If you would ask her whether it was ‘our Lady of Walsingham,’ or ‘our Lady of Ipswich,’ that stood by the cross at Christ’s Passion, she will, I warrant you, make answer that it was neither of them; and if you further ask her, ‘which Lady then,’ she will name you no image, but our Lady who is in heaven. And this I have proved often, and you may do so, too, when you will and shall find it true, except it be in the case of one so very a fool that God will give her leave to believe what she likes. And surely, on this point, I think in my mind that all those heretics who make as though they had found so much idolatry among the people for mistaking (the nature) of images, do but devise the fear, to have some cloak to cover their heresy, wherein they bark against the saints themselves, and when they are marked they say they only mean the wrong beliefs that women have in images.”[298]

As regards the third point—namely, that honour is sometimes shown to the saints and their images in “a superstitious fashion with a desire of unlawful things,” More would be ready to blame this as much as any man if it could be shown to be the case. “But I would not,” he says, “blame all things which are declared to be of this character by the new teachers. For example, to pray to St. Apollonia for the help of our teeth is no witchcraft, considering that she had her teeth pulled out for Christ’s sake. Nor is there any superstition in other suchlike things.” Still, where abuses can be shown they ought to be put down as abuses, and the difference between a lawful use and an unlawful abuse recognised. But because there may be abuses done on the Sunday, or in Lent, that is no reason why the Sunday observance, or the fast of Lent, should be swept away.[299] “In like manner it would not be right that all due worship of saints and reverence of relics, and honour of saints’ images, by which good and devout folk get much merit, should be abolished and put down because people abuse” these things. “Now, as touching the evil petitions,” he continues, “though they who make them were, as I trust they are not, a great number, they are not yet so many that ask evil petitions of saints as ask them of God Himself. For whatsoever such people will ask of a good saint, they will ask of God Himself, and where as the worst point it is said, ‘that the people do idolatry in that they take the images for the saints themselves, or the rood for Christ Himself,’—which, as I have said, I think none do; for some rood has no crucifix thereon, and they do not believe that the cross which they see was ever at Jerusalem, or that it was the holy cross itself, and much less think that the image that hangs on it is the body of Christ Himself. And though some were so mad as to think so, yet it is not ‘the people’ who do so. For a few doddering dames do not make the people.”[300]

It is hard to imagine any teaching about the use and abuse of images clearer than that which is contained in the foregoing passages from Sir Thomas More’s writings. The main importance of his testimony, however, is not so much this clear statement of Catholic doctrine on the nature of devotion to images, as his positive declaration that there were not such abuses, or superstitions, common among the people on the eve of the religious changes, as it suited the purpose of the early reformers to suggest, and of later writers with sectarian bias to believe.

For evidence of positive and distinct teaching on the matter of reverence to be shown to images, and on its nature and limits, we cannot do better than refer to that most popular book of instruction in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, already referred to, called Dives et Pauper, a treatise on the Ten Commandments. It was multiplied from the beginning of the fifteenth century in manuscript copies, and printed editions of it were issued from the presses of Pynson, Wynkyn de Worde, and Thomas Berthelet. These editions published by our early printers are sufficient to attest its popularity, and the importance attached to it as a book of instruction by the ecclesiastical authorities on the eve of the Reformation.

This is how the teacher lays down the general principle of loving God: “The first precept of charity is this: Thou shalt love the Lord God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, with all thy might. When He saith thou shalt love thy God with all thy heart, He excludeth all manner of idolatry that is forbidden by the first commandment; that is, that man set not his heart, nor his faith, nor his trust in any creature more than in God, or against God’s worship.… God orders that thou shouldst love Him with all thy heart, that is to say, with all thy faith, in such a way that thou set all thy faith and trust in Him before all others, as in Him that is Almighty and can best help thee in thy need.” Later on, under the same heading, we are taught that: “by this commandment we are bound to worship God, who is the Father of all things, who is called the Father of mercies and God of all comfort. He is our Father, for He made us of nought: He bought us with His blood, He findeth us all that we need, and much more, He feedeth us. He is our Father by grace, for by His grace He hath made us heirs of heavenly bliss. Was there ever a father so tender of his child as God is tender of us? He is to us both father and mother, and therefore we are bound to love Him and worship Him above all things.”[301]

Under the first commandment the whole question as to images, and the nature of the reverence to be paid to them, is carefully considered, and the matter put so plainly, that there is no room for doubt as to the nature of the instructions given to the people in pre-Reformation days. Images, the teacher explains, are ordered for three great ends, namely: “To stir men’s minds to meditate upon the Incarnation of Christ and upon His life and passion, and upon the lives of the saints;” secondly, to move the heart to devotion and love, “for oft man is stirred more by sight than by hearing or reading;” thirdly, they “are intended to be a token and a book to the ignorant people, that they may read in images and painting as clerks read in books.”

And in reply to a question from Dives, who pretended to think that it would be difficult to read a lesson from any painting, Pauper explains his meaning in calling them “books to the unlearned.” “When thou seest the image of the crucifix,” he says, “think of Him that died on the cross for thy sins and thy sake, and thank Him for His endless charity that He would suffer so much for thee. See in images how His head was crowned with a garland of thorns till the blood burst out on every side, to destroy the great sin of pride which is most manifested in the heads of men and women. Behold, and make an end to thy pride. See in the image how His arms were spread abroad and drawn up on the tree till the veins and sinews cracked, and how His hands were nailed to the cross, and streamed with blood, to destroy the sin that Adam and Eve did with their hands when they took the apple against God’s prohibition. Also He suffered to wash away the sin of the wicked deeds and wicked works done by the hands of men and women. Behold, and make an end of thy wicked works. See how His side was opened and His heart cloven in two by the sharp spear, and how it shed blood and water, to show that if He had had more blood in His body, more He would have given for men’s love. He shed His blood to ransom our souls, and water to wash us from our sins.”

But whilst the instructor teaches the way in which the crucifix may be a book full of deep meaning to the unlearned, he is most careful to see that the true signification of the image is not misunderstood. In language which for clearness of expression and simplicity of illustration cannot be excelled, he warns Dives not to mistake the real nature of the reverence paid to the symbol of our redemption. “In this manner,” he says, “read thy book and fall down to the ground and thank thy God who would do so much for thee. Worship Him above all things—not the stock, nor the stone, nor the wood, but Him who died on the tree of the cross for thy sins and thy sake. Thou shalt kneel if thou wilt before the image, but not to the image. Thou shalt do thy worship before the image, before the thing, not to the thing; offer thy prayer before the thing, not to the thing, for it seeth thee not, heareth thee not, understandeth thee not: make thy offering, if thou wilt, before the thing, but not to the thing: make thy pilgrimage not to the thing, nor for the thing, for it may not help thee, but to Him and for Him the thing represents. For if thou do it for the thing, or to the thing, thou doest idolatry.”

This plain teaching as to the only meaning of reverence paid to images, namely, that it is relative and intended for that which the image represents, our author enforces by several examples. Just as a priest when saying mass with a book before him, bends down, holds up his hands, kneels, and performs other external signs of worship, not to the book, but to God, “so should the unlettered man use his book, that is images and paintings, not worshipping the thing, but God in heaven and the saints in their degree. All the worship which he doth before the thing, he doth, not to the thing, but to Him the thing represents.”

The image of the crucified Saviour on the altar is specially intended, our author says, to remind all that “Mass singing is a special mind-making of Christ’s passion.” For this reason, in the presence of the crucifix, the priest says “his mass, and offers up the highest prayer that Holy Church can devise for the salvation of the quick and the dead. He holds up his hands, he bows down, he kneels, and all the worship he can do, he does—more than all, he offers up the highest sacrifice and the best offering that any heart can devise—that is Christ, the Son of the God of heaven, under the form of bread and wine. All this worship the priest doth at mass before the thing—the crucifix; and I hope there is no man nor woman so ignorant that he will say that the priest singeth his mass, or maketh his prayer, or offers up the Son of God, Christ Himself, to the thing.… In the same way, unlettered men should worship before the thing, making prayer before the thing, and not to the thing.”

One of the special practices of the mediÆval church to which the English reformers objected, and to which they gave the epithet “superstitious,” was the honour shown to the cross on Good Friday, generally known as “the creeping to the cross.” The advocates of change in insisting upon this time-honoured ceremony being swept away, claimed that in permitting it the Church had given occasion to wrong ideas of worship in the minds of the common people, and that the reverence shown to the symbol of our redemption on that occasion amounted practically to idolatry. In view of such assertions, it is not without interest to see how Pauper in this book of simple instructions treats this matter. “On Good Friday especially,” says Dives, “men creep to the cross and worship the cross.” “That is so,” replies the instructor, “but not in the way thou meanest. The cross that we creep to and worship so highly at that time is Christ Himself, who died on the cross on that day for our sin and our sake.… He is that cross, as all doctors say, to whom we pray and say, ‘Ave crux, spes unica,’ ‘Hail, thou cross, our only hope.’” But rejoins Dives, “On Palm Sunday, at the procession the priest draweth up the veil before the rood and falleth down to the ground with all the people, saying thrice thus, ‘Ave Rex noster,’ ‘Hail, be Thou our King.’ In this he worships the thing as King! Absit!” “God forbid!” replies Pauper, “he speaks not to the image that the carpenter hath made and the painter painted, unless the priest be a fool, for the stock and stone was never king. He speaketh to Him that died on the cross for us all—to Him that is King of all things.… For this reason are crosses placed by the wayside, to remind folk to think of Him who died on the cross, and to worship Him above all things. And for this same reason is the cross borne before a procession, that all who follow after it or meet it should worship Him who died upon a cross as their King, their Head, their Lord and their Leader to Heaven.”

Equally clear is the author of Dives et Pauper upon the distinction between the worship to be paid to God and the honour it is lawful to give to His saints. It is, of course, frequently asserted that the English pre-Reformation church did not recognise, or at least did not inculcate, this necessary difference, and consequently tolerated, even if it did not suggest, gross errors in this matter. No one who has examined the manuals of instruction which were in use on the eve of the Reformation can possibly maintain an opinion so opposed to the only evidence available. In particular, the real distinction between the supreme worship due to God alone, and the honour, however great, to be paid to His creatures is drawn out with great care and exactness in regard to the devotion paid to our Lord’s Blessed Mother. Thus, after most carefully explaining that there are two modes of “service and worship” which differ not merely in degree, but in kind and nature, and which were then, as now, known under the terms latria and dulia, our author proceeds, “Latria is a protestation and acknowledgment of the high majesty of God; the recognition that He is sovereign goodness, sovereign wisdom, sovereign might, sovereign truth, sovereign justice; that He is the Creator and Saviour of all creatures and the end of all things; that all we have we have of Him, and that without Him we have absolutely nothing; and that without Him we can neither have nor do anything, neither we nor any other creature. This acknowledgment and protestation is made in three ways: by the heart, and by word, and by deed. We make it by the heart when we love Him as sovereign goodness; when we love Him as sovereign wisdom and truth, that may not deceive nor be deceived; when we hope in Him and trust Him as sovereign might that can best help us in need; as sovereign greatness and Lord, who may best yield us our deserts; and as sovereign Saviour, most merciful and most ready to forgive us our misdeeds.… Also the acknowledgment is done in the prayer and praise of our mouths.… For we must pray to Him and praise Him as sovereign might, sovereign wisdom, sovereign goodness, sovereign truth; as all-just and merciful as the Maker and Saviour of all things, &c.

“And in this manner we are not to pray to or praise any creature. Therefore, they who make their prayers and their praises before images, and say their Paternoster and their Ave Maria and other prayers and praises commonly used by holy Church, or any such, if they do it to the image, and speak to the image, they do open idolatry. Also they are not excused even if they understand not what they say, for their lights, and their other wits, and their inner wit also, showeth them well that there ought that no such prayer, praise, or worship be offered to such images, for they can neither hear them, nor see them, nor help them in their needs.”

Equally definite and explicit is another writer, just on the eve of the Reformation. William Bond, the brother of Sion, in 1531 published his large volume of instructions called The Pilgrymage of Perfeccyon, to which his contemporary, Richard Whitford, refers his readers for the fullest teaching on sundry points of faith and practice. In setting forth the distinction between an image and an idol this authority says, “Many nowadays take the Scripture wrongly, and thereby fall into heresy as Wycliffe did with his followers, and now this abominable heretic, Luther, with his adherents.… And (as I suppose) the cause of their error is some of these following:—First, that they put no difference between an idol and an image; secondly, that they put no difference between the service or high adoration due to God, called in the Greek tongue latria, and the lower veneration or worship exhibited and done to the saints of God, called in Greek dulia.… The veneration or worship that is done to the images (as Damascene, Basil, and St. Thomas say) rest not in them, but redound unto the thing that is represented by such images: as for example, the great ambassador or messenger of a king shall have the same reverence that the king’s own person should have if he were present. This honour is not done to this man for himself, or for his own person, but for the king’s person in whose name he cometh, and all such honour and reverence so done redoundeth to the king and resteth in him.… So it is in the veneration or worshipping of the images of Christ and His saints. The honour rests not in the image, nor in the stock, nor in the stone, but in the thing that is represented thereby.” According to St. Thomas, he says the images in churches are intended to “be as books to the rude and unlearned people,” and to “stir simple souls to devotion.”[302]

Bond then draws out most carefully the distinction which the Church teaches as to the kinds of honour to be given to the saints. “Our lights, oblations, or Paternosters and creeds that we say before images of saints,” he says, “are as praisings of God, for His graces wrought in His saints, by whose merits we trust that our petitions shall be the sooner obtained of God.… We pray to them, not as to the granters of our petitions, but as means whereby we may the sooner obtain the same.”[303]

Speaking specially of the reverence shown to the crucifix, our author uses the teaching of St. Thomas to explain the exact meaning of this honour. “The Church in Lent, in the Passion time,” he continues, “worships it, singing, ‘O crux ave, spes unica,’ ‘Hail, holy cross, our only hope.’ That is to be understood as ‘Hail, blessed Lord crucified, Who art our only hope’—for all is one worship and act. Christ, our Maker and Redeemer, God and man in one person, is of duty worshipped with the high adoration only due to God, called latria. His image also, or his similitude, called the crucifix, is to be worshipped, just as the Blessed Sacrament is adored with the worship of latria.”[304]

To this testimony may be added that of another passage from Sir Thomas More. He was engaged in refuting the accusation made by Tyndale against the religious practices of pre-Reformation days, to which charges, unfortunately, people have given too much credence in later times. “Now of prayer, Tyndale says,” writes More, “that we think no man may pray but at church, and that (i.e. the praying before a crucifix or image) is nothing but the saying of a Paternoster to a post. (Further) that the observances and ceremonies of the Church are vain things of our own imagination, neither needful to the taming of the flesh, nor profitable to our neighbour, nor to the honour of God. These lies come in by lumps; lo! I dare say that he never heard in his life men nor women say that a man might pray only in church. Just as true is it also that men say their Paternosters to the post, by which name it pleases him of his reverent Christian mind to call the images of holy saints and our Blessed Lady, and the figure of Christ’s cross, the book of His bitter passion. Though we reverence these in honour of the things they represent, and in remembrance of Christ do creep to the cross and kiss it, and say Paternoster at it, yet we say not our Paternoster to it, but to God; and that Tyndale knows full well, but he likes to rail.”[305]

Finally a passage on the subject of pre-Reformation devotion to the saints and angels, from the tract Dives et Pauper, may fitly close this subject. “First,” says the author, “worship ye our Lady, mother and maid, above all, next after God, and then other saints both men and women, and then the holy angels, as God giveth the grace. Worship ye them not as God, but as our tutors, defenders and keepers, as our leaders and governors under God, as the means between us and God, who is the Father of all and most Sovereign Judge, to appease Him, and to pray for us, and to obtain us grace to do well, and for forgiveness of our misdeeds.… And, dear friend, pray ye heartily to your angel, as to him that is nearest to you and hath most care of you, and is, under God, most busy to save you. And follow his governance and trust in him in all goodness, and with reverence and purity pray ye to him faithfully, make your plaints to him, and speak to him homely to be your helper, since he is your tutor and keeper assigned to you by God. Say oft that holy prayer, Angele qui meus est, &c.”

This prayer to the Guardian Angel, so highly commended, was well known to pre-Reformation Catholics. Generations of English mothers taught it to their children; it is found frequently recommended in the sermons of the fifteenth century, and confessors are charged to advise their penitents to learn and make use of it. For the benefit of those of my readers who may not know the prayer, I here give it in an English form, from a Latin version in the tract Dextra Pars Oculi, which was intended to assist confessors in the discharge of their sacred ministry—

It is, of course, impossible here to do more than refer to the books of instruction, and those intended to furnish the priests on the eve of the Reformation with material for the familiar teaching they were bound to give their people. Such works as Walter Pagula’s Pars Oculi Sacerdotis, and the Pupilla Oculi of John de Burgo, both fourteenth-century productions, were in general use during the fifteenth century among the clergy. The frequent mention of these works in the inventories and wills of the period shows that they were in great demand, and were circulated from hand to hand, whilst an edition of the latter, printed in 1510 by Wolffgang, at the expense of an English merchant, William Bretton, attests its continued popularity. In a letter from the editor, Augustine Aggeus, to Bretton, printed on the back of the title-page, it is said that the Pupilla was printed solely with the desire that the rites and sacraments of the church might be better understood and appreciated, and to secure “that nowhere in the English Church” should there be any excuse of ignorance on those matters.[306]

The contents of the first-named tract, the Pars Oculi Sacerdotis, show how very useful a manual it must have been to assist the clergy in their ministrations. It consists of three parts: the first portion forms what would now be called the praxis confessarii, a manual for instructing priests in the science of dealing with souls, and giving examples of the kind of questions that should be asked of various people, for example, of religious, secular priests, merchants, soldiers, and the like. This is followed by a detailed examination of conscience, and pious practices are suggested for the priest to recommend for the use of the faithful. For example, in order that the lives of lay people might be associated in some way with the public prayer of the church, the Divine office, the priest is advised to get his penitents to make use of the Pater and Creed, seven times a day, to correspond with the canonical hours. Those having the cure of souls are reminded that it is their duty to see that all at least know the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Hail Mary by heart, and they are urged to do all in their power to inculcate devotions to our Lady, Patron Saints, and the Guardian Angels.

The second part of the Dextra Pars Oculi deals minutely and carefully with the instructions which a priest should give his people in their religion, and this includes not only points of necessary belief and Christian practice, but such matters as the proper decorum and behaviour in Church, and the cemetery, &c. The materials for these familiar instructions are arranged under thirty-one headings, and following on these are the explanations of Christian faith and practice to be made in the simple sermons the clergy were bound to give to their people quarterly. The third part, called the Sinistra Pars Oculi, is an equally careful treatise on the sacraments. The instructions on the Blessed Eucharist are excellent, and in the course of them many matters of English religious practice are touched upon and the ceremonies of the Mass are fully explained.[307]

It is obvious that much of the real religious instruction in pre-Reformation days, as indeed in all ages, had to be given at home by parents to their children. The daily practices by which the home life is regulated and sanctified are more efficacious in the formation of early habits of solid piety and the fear of God in the young than any religious instructions given at school or at Church. This was fully understood and insisted upon in pre-Reformation books of instruction. Such, for example, is the very purpose of Richard Whitford’s book, called A werke for Housholders, or for them that have the guyding or governance of any company, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1534, and again by Robert Redman in 1537. After reminding his readers that life is short, and that it is impossible for any man to know when he shall be called upon to give an account of his stewardship, he turns to the consideration of the Christian’s daily life. Begin the day well, he says; on first awakening, turn your thoughts and heart to God, “and then use by continual custom to make a cross with your thumb upon your forehead or front, whilst saying these words, In nomine Patris; and another cross upon your mouth, with these words, Et filii; and then a third cross upon your breast, saying, Et spiritus Sancti.” After suggesting a form of morning and evening prayer, and urging a daily examination of conscience, he continues: Some may object that all this is very well for religious, or people secluded from the world, “but we lie two or three sometimes together, and even in one chamber divers beds, and so many in company, that if we should use these things in the presence of our fellows some would laugh us to scorn and mock at us.” But to this objection Whitford in effect replies that at most it would be a nine days’ wonder, and people would quickly be induced to follow an example of such a good Christian practice if set with courage and firmness.[308]

Speaking of the duty of instructing others, “the wretch of Syon,” as Whitford constantly calls himself, urges those who can read to use their gifts for the benefit of others not so fortunate. They should get their neighbours together on holidays, he says, especially the young, and teach them the daily exercise, and in particular the “things they are bound to know or can say: that is the Paternoster, the Ave, and the Creed.” Begin early to teach those that are young, for “our English proverb saith that the young cock croweth as he doth hear and learn of the old.” Parents, above all things, he urges to look well after their children and to take care of the company they keep. Teach them to say their grace at meals. “At every meal, dinner or supper, I have advised, and do now counsel, that one person should with loud voice say thus, ‘Paternoster,’ with every petition paraphrased and explained, and the Hail Mary and Creed likewise. This manner of the Paternoster, Ave, and Creed,” he says, “I would have used and read from the book at every meal, or at least once a day with a loud voice that all the persons present may hear it.” People are bound to see that all in their house know these prayers and say them.[309]

Very strongly indeed does Whitford in this volume write against belief in charms and giving way to superstitions. There is no question about his strong condemnation of anything, however slight, which might savour of reliance on these external things, and as an instance of what he means, he declares that the application of a piece of bread, with a cross marked upon it, to a tooth to cure its aching, savours of superstition, as showing too great a reliance on the material cross. In the same place our author urges parents to correct their children early for any use of oaths and strong expressions. “Teach your children,” he says, “to make their additions under this form: ‘yea, father,’ ‘nay, father,’ ‘yea, mother,’ ‘nay, mother,’ and ever to avoid such things as ‘by cock and pye,’ and ‘by my hood of green,’ and such other.”[310]

Finally, to take but one more example of the advice given in this interesting volume to parents and others having the charge of the young, Whitford says: “Teach your children to ask a blessing every night, kneeling, before they go to rest, under this form: ‘Father, I beseech you a blessing for charity.’” If the child is too stubborn to do this, he says let it “be well whisked.” If too old to be corrected in this way, let it be set out in the middle of the dining-room and made to feed by itself, and let it be treated as one would treat one who did not deserve to consort with its fellows. Also teach the young “to ask a blessing from every bishop, abbot, and priest, and of their godfathers and godmothers also.”[311]

In taking a general survey of the books issued by the English presses upon the introduction of the art of printing, the inquirer can hardly fail to be struck with the number of religious, or quasi-religious, works which formed the bulk of the early printed books. This fact alone is sufficient evidence that the invention which at this period worked a veritable revolution in the intellectual life of the world, was welcomed by the ecclesiastical authorities as a valuable auxiliary in the work of instruction. In England the first presses were set up under the patronage of churchmen, and a very large proportion of the early books were actually works of instruction or volumes furnishing materials to the clergy for the familiar and simple discourses which they were accustomed to give four times a year to their people. Besides the large number of what may be regarded as professional books chiefly intended for use by the ecclesiastical body, such as missals, manuals, breviaries, and horÆ, and the prymers and other prayer-books used by the laity, there was an ample supply of religious literature published in the early part of the sixteenth century. In fact, the bulk of the early printed English books were of a religious character, and as the publication of such volumes was evidently a matter of business on the part of the first English printers, it is obvious that this class of literature commanded a ready sale, and that the circulation of such books was fostered by those in authority at this period. Volumes of sermons, works of Instruction on the Creed and the Commandments, lives of the saints, and popular expositions of Scripture history, were not only produced but passed through several editions in a short space of time. The evidence, consequently, of the productions of the first English printing-presses goes to show not only that religious books were in great demand, but also that so far from discouraging the use of such works of instruction, the ecclesiastical authorities actively helped in their diffusion.

In considering the religious education of the people in the time previous to the great upheaval of the sixteenth century, some account must be taken of the village mystery plays which obviously formed no inconsiderable part in popular instruction in the great truths of religion. The inventories of parish churches and the churchwardens’ accounts which have survived show how very common a feature these religious plays formed in the parish life of the fifteenth century, and the words of the various dramas, of which we still possess copies, show how powerful a medium of teaching they would have been among the simple and unlettered villagers of Catholic England, and even to the crowds which at times thronged great cities like Coventry and Chester, to be present at the more elaborate plays acted in these traditional centres of the religious drama.

As to their popularity there can be no question. Dramatic representations of the chief events in the life of our Lord, &c., were commonly so associated with the religious purposes for which they were originally produced, that they were played on Sundays and feast days, and not infrequently in churches, church porches, and churchyards. “Spectacles, plays, and dances that are used on great feasts,” says the author of Dives et Pauper, quoted above, “as they are done principally for devotion and honest mirth, and to teach men to love God the more, are lawful if the people be not thereby hindered from God’s service, nor from hearing God’s word, and provided that in such spectacles and plays there is mingled no error against the faith of Holy Church and good living. All other plays are prohibited, both on holidays and work days (according to the law), upon which the gloss saith that the representation in plays at Christmas of Herod and the Three Kings, and other pieces of the Gospel, both then and at Easter and other times, is lawful and commendable.”

A few examples of the kind of teaching imparted in these plays will give a better idea of the purpose they served in pre-Reformation days than any description. There can be no reasonable doubt that such dramatic representations of the chief mysteries of religion and of scenes in the life of our Lord or of His saints served to impress these truths and events upon the imaginations of the audiences who witnessed them, and to make them vivid realities in a way which we, who are not living in the same religious atmosphere, find it difficult now to understand. The religious drama was the handmaid of the Church, and was intended to assist in instructing the people at large in the truths and duties of religion, just as the paintings upon the walls of the sacred buildings were designed to tell their own tale of the Bible history, and form “a book” ever open to the eyes of the unlettered children of the Church, easy to be understood, graphically setting forth events in the story of God’s dealings with men, and illustrating truths which often formed the groundwork for oral instruction in the Sunday sermon.

Whatever we may be inclined to think of these simple plays as literary works, or however we may be inclined now to smile at some of the characters and “situations,” as to the pious spirit which dictated their composition and presided over their production there can be no doubt. “In great devotion and discretion,” says the monk and chronicler, “Higden published the story of the Bible, that the simple in their own language might understand.”[312]

This was the motive of all these mediÆval religious plays. As a popular writer upon the English drama says: “There is abundant evidence that the Romish ecclesiastics in the mystery plays, especially that part of them relating to the birth, passion, and resurrection of Christ, had the perfectly serious intention of strengthening the faith of the multitude in the fundamental doctrines of the Church, and it seems the less extraordinary that they should have resorted to this expedient when we reflect that, before the invention of printing, books had no existence for the people at large.”[313]

The subjects treated of in these plays were very varied, although those which were performed at the great feasts of Christmas and Easter generally had some relation to the mystery then celebrated. In fact, the mystery plays of the sacred seasons were only looked upon as helping to make men realise more deeply the great drama of the Redemption, the memory of which was perpetuated in the sequence of the great festivals of the Christian year. In such a collection as that known as the Towneley Mysteries, and published by the Surtees Society, we have examples of the subjects treated in the religious plays of the period. The collection makes no pretence to be complete, but it comprises some three and thirty plays, including such subjects as the Creation, the death of Abel, the story of Noah, the sacrifice of Isaac and other Old Testament histories, and a great number of scenes from the New Testament, such as the Annunciation, the Visitation, CÆsar Augustus, scenes from the Nativity, the Shepherds and the Magi, the Flight into Egypt, various scenes from the Passion and Crucifixion, the parable of the Talents, the story of Lazarus, &c.

Any one who will take the trouble to read these plays as they are printed in this volume cannot fail to be impressed not only with the vivid picture of the special scene in the Old or New Testament that is presented to the imagination, but by the extensive knowledge of the Bible which the production of these plays must have imparted to those who listened to them, and by the way in which, incidentally, the most important religious truths are conveyed in the crude and rugged verse. Again and again, for instance, the entire dependence of all created things upon the Providence of Almighty God is declared and illustrated. Thus, the confession of God’s Omnipotence, put into the mouth of Noah at the beginning of the play of “Noah and his Sons,” contains a profession of belief in the Holy Trinity and in the work of the three Persons: it describes the creation of the world, the fall of Lucifer, the sin of our first parents, and their expulsion from Paradise. In the story of Abraham, too, the prayer of the patriarch with which it begins:

gives a complete rÉsumÉ of the Bible history before the days of Abraham, with the purpose of showing that all things are in the hands of God, and that complete obedience is due to Him by all creatures whom He has made.

The same teaching as to the entire dependence of the Christian for all things upon God’s Providence appears in the address of the soul to its Maker in the “morality” of Mary Magdalene, printed by Mr. Sharpe from the Digby Manuscript collection of religious plays:—

The more these old plays which delighted our forefathers are examined, the more clear it becomes that, although undoubtedly unlearned and unread, the people in pre-Reformation days, with instruction such as is conveyed in these pious dramas, must have had a deeper insight into the Gospel narrative, and a more thorough knowledge of Bible history generally, not to speak of a comprehension of the great truths of religion, than the majority of men possess now in these days of boasted enlightenment. Some of the plays, as for example that representing St. Peter’s fall, exhibit a depth of genuine feeling, of humble sorrow, for instance, on the part of St. Peter, and of loving-kindness on the part of our Lord, which must have come home to the hearts as well as to the minds of the beholders. At the same time, the lesson deduced by our Saviour from the apostle’s fall, namely, the need of all learning by their own shortcomings to be merciful to the trespasses of others, must have impressed itself upon them with a force which would not easily have been forgotten.

In that most popular of all representations—that of Doomsday—“people learnt that before God there is no distinction of persons, and that each individual soul will be judged on its own merits, quite apart from any fictitious human distinctions of rank, wealth, or power.” Thus, as types, appear a saved pope, emperor, king and queen, and amongst the damned we also find a pope, emperor, king and queen, justiciar and merchant. And the words of thankfulness uttered by the Pope that has obtained his crown betrays “no self-satisfaction at the attainment of salvation; on the contrary, the true ring of Christian humility betokens a due appreciation of God’s unutterable holiness, and our unworthiness to stand before His face till the uttermost blemish left by sin has been wiped away” by the healing fires of Purgatory. No less clearly is the full doctrine of responsibility taught in the lament of the Pope, who is represented as having lost his soul by an evil life, and as being condemned to eternal punishment. The mere fact of a pope being so represented was in itself, when the Office was held in the highest regard, a lesson of the highest importance in the teaching of the true principles of holiness. In a word, these mystery plays provided a most useful means of impressing upon the minds of all the facts of Bible history, the great truths of religion, and the chief Christian virtues. The people taught in such a school and the people who delighted in such representations, as our forefathers in pre-Reformation days unquestionably did, cannot, even from this point of view alone, be regarded as ignorant of scriptural or moral teaching.