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VI.—The Kalendar and Rite used by the Catholics since the time of Elizabeth
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2012
Extract
Accuracy in dating is of the first importance amongst the various contributions made by the antiquary for the use of the historian. The different commencements of the year and the introduction of the new style are well-known causes of confusion in dating events and documents; and it will perhaps not be devoid of interest if we now examine one portion of this large subject. The Catholics of this country in queen Elizabeth's time were in this matter in a peculiar position. They took their citizenship from England and their religion from Rome. The new style had been introduced by a pope, and for that very reason was not accepted in England; and indeed, apart from this, the kalendar had always been Church property, connected closely with fasts and feasts and prefixed to breviaaries and missals, so that it would seem most probable that Catholics would follow the new style. On the other hand, it is plain that if they had done so they would have been exposed to a thousand practical inconveniences while living in the midst of a people who reckoned by the old style, and we cannot therefore decide the question à priori. Unfortunately proofs are not very numerous; but we will see to what conclusion we are brought by such proofs as we can find. And there will probably be some interest in the cognate inquiry when the English Catholics ceased to use the ancient Rites of Sarum and York, and in their stead adopted the Roman Rite.
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- Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1890
References
page 115 note a Commentaries; London, 1783, vol. iii. p. 333Google Scholar.
page 116 note a Labanoff, , Lettres inédites de Marie Stuart, Paris, 1839, p. 200.Google Scholar Mary's will is dated “ce jourd'huy 7 febvrier 1587.” The translation of Elizabeth's commission for the execution, dated Greenwich 1 Feb. 29 regni, is endorsed “Cette commission ainsi donnée, le septième jour ensuivant, qui etoit le 17 février selon le calendrier grégorien, dont aujourd' hui les chrestiens se servant,” &c. Ibid. pp. 189, 198.
page 118 note a Bond's, Handybook of Rules and Tables. London, 1875. p. xviiGoogle Scholar.
page 121 note a Stonyhurst, MSS. Grene's Collectan. P. fol. 128Google Scholar.
page 121 note b More, Hist. Prov. Angl. lib. iv. n. 11, p. 133.
page 121 note c “A Treatise, witli a Kalendar and the proofes thereof, concerning the Holy-daies and Fasting-daies in England. Printed with Licence.”
page 121 note d In the Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536, one vicar in “the bidding of beads” on Sunday, October 15, did not give out St. Luke's day (18th) as a holiday, “and after mass,” according to one witness, “they thought to have murdered him. Wherefore for fear of his life, he took the sacring bell into his hands, when they caused him to bid the beads again.” On the previous Sunday, another witness declared, that “being in his parish church, when he heard the parish priest at the bidding of beads leave out St. Wilfrid's day (12th) for a holy day, he asked the same priest openly then why he did leave it out, for it was wont always to be a holy day there. And the priest answered that the same feast and divers others were put down for divers causes by the pope's authority and the consent of the whole Clergy in Convocation. And as soon as mass was done, all the whole parish was in a rumour for the matter, and said they would have their holidays bid and kept as they had before, and so they had ever since.” Gasquet's, Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries, London, 1889, vol. ii. p. 104Google Scholar.
page 122 note a This seems to indicate that, though written in 1598, this treatise mast have gone through the press after the death of Elizabeth in 1603.
page 123 note a This almanac has the chronogram trlstltla Vestra VertetVr In gaVDIVM. aLLeLVIa.
page 124 note a In 1857 the custom was confirmed, which had prevailed at least from 1765, of keeping the feast of St. Thomas as a double of the first class by the secular clergy.
page 126 note a The First and Second Diaries of the English College, Douay. Edited by Fathers of the Congregation of the London Oratory. London, Nutt, 1878, p. 118Google Scholar.
page 127 note a The Roman Ritual was published by Paul V. in 1614.
page 127 note b “Sacra Institutio Baptizandi, Matrimonium celebrandi, infirmos ungendi, mortuos sepeliendi, ac alii nonnulli ritus Ecclesiastici, juxta usum insignis Ecclesias Sarisburiensis. Duaci, excudebat Laurentius Kellam, typog. iurat. M.DC.IIII. Permissu Superiorum.”
page 127 note c Mr. Maskell mentions an 8vo. edition published at Douay in 1610. Monumenta Ritualia, 2nd edit. vol. i. p. xciGoogle Scholar.
page 127 note d “Missæ aliquot pro sacerdotibus itinerantibus in Anglia, ex Missali Romano Reformato. Permissu Superiorum. M.DC.XV.” sm, 40. pp. 152.
page 127 note e “Missale parvum pro Sacerdotibus in Anglia, Scotia et Ibernia itinerantibus. Ordo etiam baptizandi, aliaque sacramenta ministrandi, et officia quædam Ecclesiastica rite peragendi. Ex Pontificali et Rituali Romano, iussu Pauli PP. Quinti editis, extractus. Anno M.DC.XXVI.” sm. 40 pp. 271.
page 127 note f In searches made by pursuivants in Catholic houses, the old books were carried off as part of the “massing stuff.” In the State Papers we often come across seizures of church books. Thus in 1582, a Sarum primer was taken; in August of the same year two portasses were taken from James Lessman a Franciscan friar of Mary's restored house at Greenwich; in January 1583 thirty primers from Peter Lawson, who must have been bringing in books from abroad, as he had also five hundred catechisms, fifteen Latin Testaments, forty-five books of meditation (Domestic, Elizabeth, vol. 154, n. 75, vol. 155, n. 9, vol. 158, n. 17).
page 128 note a Si quæ provinciæ aliis, ultra prædictas, laudabilibus consuetudinibus et ceremoniis hac in re utuntur, eas omnino retineri Sancta Synodus vehementer optat. Sess. xxiv. cap. 1. De Reform. Matr.