Jan. 25.]

ST. PAUL’S DAY.

Strype, in his Ecclesiastical Memorials (1822, vol. iii. part i. p. 331), says: On the 25th of January (1554), being St. Paul’s Day, was a general procession of St. Paul by every parish, both priests and clerks, in copes, to the number of an hundred and sixty, singing Salve festa dies, with ninety crosses borne. The procession was through Cheap unto Leadenhall. And before went two schools; that is, first, all the children of the Gray Friars, and then those of St. Paul’s school. There were eight bishops, and the Bishop of London, mitred, bearing the Sacrament, with many torches burning, and a canopy borne over. And so about the churchyard, and in at the West door, with the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, and all the Companies in their best liveries. And within a while after, the King came, and the Lord Cardinal, and the Prince of Piemont, and divers lords and knights. At the foot of the steps to the choir, as the King went up, kneeled the gentlemen lately pardoned, offering him their service. After mass, they returned to the court to dinner. And at night bonfires, and great ringing of bells in every church. And all this joy was for the conversion of the realm.

It was on this day that the husbandmen of old used to make prognostics of the weather, and of other matters for the whole year, a custom which Bourne (Antiquitates Vulgares, chap. xviii. p. 159) has tried to unravel.—New Curiosities of Literature, Soane, 1847, p. 42.

St. Paul’s Cathedral.

—One of the strangest of the old ceremonies in which the clergy of St. Paul’s Cathedral used to figure was that which was performed twice a year, namely, on the day of the Conversion, and on that of the Commemoration of St. Paul. On the former of these festivals a fat buck, and on the latter a fat doe, was presented to the church by the family of Baud, in consideration of some lands which they held of the Dean and Chapter at West Lee in Essex. The original agreement made with Sir William Le Baud, in 1274, was that he himself should attend in person with the animals; but some years afterwards it was arranged that the presentation should be made by a servant, accompanied by a deputation of part of the family. The priests, however, continued to perform their part in the show. On the aforesaid days, the buck and doe were brought by one or more servants at the hour of the procession, and through the midst thereof, and offered at the high altar of St. Paul’s Cathedral; after which the persons that brought the buck received of the Dean and Chapter, by the hands of their chamberlain, twelvepence for their entertainment; but nothing when they brought the doe. The buck being brought to the steps of the altar, the Dean and Chapter, apparelled in copes and proper vestments, with garlands of roses on their heads, sent the body of the buck to be baked, and had the head and horns fixed on a pole before the cross in their procession round about the church, till they issued at the West door, where the keeper that brought it blowed the death of the buck, and then the horns that were about the city answered him in like manner; for which they had each of the Dean and Chapter three and fourpence in money, and their dinner; and the keeper, during his stay, meat, drink, and lodging, and five shillings in money at his going away; together with a loaf of bread, having on it the picture of St. Paul. This custom was continued till the reign of Elizabeth.—Beauties of England, Brayley and Britton, 1803, vol. v. p. 486.