Abstract
This impression of the religious life of the English, as reported by a member of the Venetian embassy about the year 1500, may seem over-optimistic, but it is supported by other evidence.2 Certainly it is right in regarding the Mass as central; whether it was High Mass on Sunday, celebrated in Salisbury Cathedral with full ceremonial, or weekday Low Mass in a remote country hamlet, whether at a wedding or a funeral, the Mass was the most important of the services of the Church. Other services were attended by the very devout, but everyone went to Mass. It is important, therefore, to consider not only the structure and language of the service, but also the meaning that was read out of it and into it, and the circumstances in which it was celebrated.
Everyone sees and hears Mass every day; they say numbers of Paternosters in public; the women carry long rosaries in their hands; those who can read take the Office of Our Lady with them and say it in church with a companion, verse by verse, in a low voice, just as monks do; yet they always hear Mass on Sunday in their parish church … neither do they neglect any practice that betokens a good Christian.
Anon., A Relation of the Island of England1
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Bibliography
The Hereford Breviary (1505), ed. W. H. Frere and L. E. G. Brown (1904, 1911: HBS xxvi, xl, xlvi).
Breviarium ad usum insignis Ecclesiae Sarum (1531), ed. F. Procter and C. Wordsworth, 3 vols (Cambridge 1879, 1882, 1886).
… ET of the Office for Advent Sunday in Documents, pp. 252–74. Breuiarium ad usum insignis Ecclesiae Eboracensis (1493), ed. S. W. Lawley (Durham 1880, 1883: SS lxxi, lxxv).
Consuetudinaries
The Use of Sarum, ed. W. H. Frere (Cambridge 1898, 1901). Vol. 1, Consuetudinary; vol. 11, Ordinal.
Manuals
Manuale ad usum percelebris Ecclesiae Sarisburiensis (1543), ed. A. J. Collins (1960: HBS xci).
— ed. W. Maskell, in Monumenta Ritualia Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1(1846) 13–160;2 (Oxford 1882) 13–227.
— ed. W. G. Henderson, in York Manual, below, App. 1 (incomplete).
… ET of the Orders for Baptism and Confirmation in J. D. C. Fisher, Christian Initiation (1965: ACC xlvii) 158–81; E. C. Whitaker, Documents of the Baptismal Liturgy 2 (1970) 231–53.
Manuale et Processionale ad usum insignis Ecclesiae Eboracensis (1509, 1516), ed. W. G. Henderson (Durham 1875: SS LXIII).
Missals
Missale ad usum percelebris Ecclesiae Herfordensis (1502), ed. W. G. Henderson (Leeds 1874).
Missale ad usum insignis et praeclarae Ecclesiae Sarum, ed. F. H. Dickinson (Burntisland 1883). Collation of many printed editions.
— ed. J. W. Legg (Oxford 1916). From MS of c. 1250.
— ET by F. E. Warren, 2 vols (1913: ACC xi).
— ET of Mass for Advent Sunday in Documents, pp. 233–51.
Missale ad usum insignis Ecclesiae Eboracensis, ed. W. G. Henderson (Durham 1874: SS, lix, lx). Collation of all MSS and the five printed editions.
W. Maskell, The Ancient Liturgy of the Church of England (11846; 2Oxford 1882). The Missals of Sarum, Hereford, York, ‘Bangor’ and Rome in parallel columns.
Ordinals
Ordinale Exon, ed. J. N. Dalton (1909, 1925, 1940: HBS xxxvii, xxxviii, lxiii, lxxix).
Ordinale Sarum sive Directorium Sacerdotum, ed. W. Cooke and C. Wordsworth (1901, 1902: HBS xx, xxii).
See also Consuetudinaries, above.
The Tracts of Clement Maydestone, ed. C. Wordsworth (1894: HBS vii). Crede michi and Defensorium Directorii.
… Defensorium Directorii, ed. W. Maskell, in Monumenta Ritualia Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1(1846) ii 337–51; 2(Oxford 1882) iii 345–65.
Pontificals
The Pontifical of Egbert, Archbishop of York, A.D. 732–766, ed. W. Greenwell (Durham 1853: SS xxvii).
Liber Pontificalis Christophen Bainbridge, Archiepiscopi Eboracensis, ed. W. G. Henderson (Durham 1875: SS lxi).
The Canterbury Benedictional, ed. R. M. Woolley (1917: HBS li).
The Pontifical of Magdalen College, ed. H. A. Wilson (1910: HBS xxxix). A Canterbury book containing the archiepiscopal Use.
Primers
W. Maskell (ed.), in Monumenta Ritualia Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1(1846) ii 1–178; 2(Oxford 1882) iii 1–183. From MS in English, c. 1410.
H. Littlehales (ed.), The Prymer or Prayer Book of the Lay People in the Middle Ages (1891). Vol. 1 from MS in English, c. 1400; vol. 11, collation of thirteen MSS, 1350–1450.
H. Littlehales (ed.), The Prymer or Lay Folk’s Prayer Book (1895, 1897: EETS cv, cix). Vol. 1, from MS in English, c. 1425; vol. 11 includes essay by E. Bishop, ‘On the Origin of the Prymer’.
C. Wordsworth (ed.), Horae Eboracenses (1536) (Durham 1920: SS cxxxii).
E. Hoskins, Horae beatae Mariae Virginis, or Sarum and York Primers (1901). Summarizes the contents of all printed Primers.
Processionals
Processionale ad usum insignis ac praeclarae Ecclesiae Sarum (1508), ed. W. G. Henderson (Leeds 1882).
— ed. C. Wordsworth, in Ceremonies and Processions of the Cathedral Church of Salisbury (Cambridge 1901). From MS of fifteenth century.
York Processional, see Manuale … (above).
Other Texts Referred to
T. F. Simmons (ed.), The Lay-Folk’s Mass-Book (1879: EETS lxxi). Thirteenth-century English devotional texts.
J. W. Legg (ed.), Tracts on the Mass (1904: HBS xxvii). Includes B. Langforde, Meditations in the time of Mass.
J. Mirk, Festial, ed. T. Erbe (1905: EETS, Extra Series xcvi) Sermons for the Church year.
F. Clark, Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Reformation (11960; 21967) 543–60. Generous selection of popular expositions of the theology of the Mass.
The Greater Excommunication, in T. Cranmer, Works, ed. J. E. Cox (Cambridge 1846: PS) ii 281–2.
— Other forms in W. Maskell, Monumenta Ritualia Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1(1846) ii 286–305; 2(Oxford 1882) iii 309–30.
The following books and articles are relevant; the numbers refer to Parts 11 and 111 of this Bibliography.
Books: 3, 9, 18, 37, 43 (pp. 594–608), 47 (pp. 59–80), 62, 69, 96 (pp. 68–89), 120 (pp. 91–203), 125, 128, 133, 208.
Article: 162.
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© 1982 G. J. Cuming
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Cuming, G.J. (1982). The End of the Middle Ages. In: A History of Anglican Liturgy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05786-3_1
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