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His armes that beares the same two of the welthiest men do holde, And over him a canopey of silke and cloth of golde.

Foure others used to beare aloufe, least that some filthie thing Should fall from hie, or some mad birde hir doung thereon should fling.

Christe's passion here derided is with sundrie maskes and playes,
Faire Ursley, with hir maydens all, doth passe amid the wayes:
And, valiant George, with speare thou killest the dreadfull dragon here
The Devil's house is drawne about, wherein there doth appere
A wondrous sort of damned sprites, with foule and fearfull looke;
Great Christopher doth wade and passe with Christ amid the brooke :
Sebastian, full of feathred shaftes, the dint of dart doth feele,
There walketh Kathren, with hir sworde in hande, and cruel wheele :
The challis and the singing cake with Barbara is led,

And sundrie other pageants playde, in worship of this bred,
That please the foolish people well: what should I stand upon
Their banners, crosses, candlestickes, and reliques many on,
Their cuppes and carved images, that priestes, with count'nance hie,
Or rude and common people, beare about full solemlie ?
Saint John before the bread doth go, and poynting towards him,
Doth shew the same to be the Lambe that takes away our sinne:
On whome two clad in angels shape do sundrie flowres fling,

A number great with sacring belles, with pleasant sound doe ring.
The common wayes with bowes are strawde, and every streete beside,
And to the walles and windowes all are boughes and braunches tide.
The monkes in every place do roame, the nonnes abrode are sent,
The priestes and schoolmen lowd do rore, some use the instrument.
The straunger passing through the streete upon his knees doe fall.
And earnestly upon this bread, as on his God, doth call;
For why, they counte it for their Lorde, and that he doth not take
The form of flesh, but nature now of breade that we do bake.

A number great of armed men here all this while do stande,
To looke that no disorder be, nor any filching hande:

For all the church-goodes out are brought, which certainly would bee
A bootie good, if every man might have his libertie.

This bread eight dayes togither they in presence out do bring,
The organs all do then resound, and priestes alowde do sing:
The people flat on faces fall, their handes held up on hie,
Beleeving that they see their God, and soveraigne Majestie.
The like at masse they doe, while as the bread is lifted well,
And challys shewed aloft, whenas the sexten rings the bell.
In villages the husbandmen about their corne due ride,
With many crosses, banners, and Sir John their priest beside,
Who in a bag about his necke doth beare the blessed breade,
And oftentyme he downe alightes, and Gospel lowde doth reade.
This surely keepes the corne from winde, and raine, and from the

blast;

Such fayth the Pope hath taught, and yet the Papistes hold it fast."

In Lysons's Environs of London, i. 229, I find the following extracts from the Churchwardens' and Chamberlains' Accounts at Kingston-upon-Thames, relating to this day

“21 Hen. VII. Mem. That we, Adam Backhous £. 8. d.
and Harry Nycol, amountyd of a play

27 Hen. VII. Paid for packthred on Corpus

Christi Day

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"This," Lysons adds, "was probably used for hanging the pageants, containing the History of our Saviour, which were exhibited on this day, and explained by the Mendicant Friars." The Cotton MS. Vesp. D. viii. contains a Collection of dramas in old English verse (of the fifteenth century) relating principally to the History of the New Testament. Sir William Dugdale mentions this manuscript under the name of Ludus Corporis Christi, or Ludus Coventriæ, and adds, "I have been told by some people, who, in their younger years were eye-witnesses of these pageants so acted, that the yearly confluence of people to see that shew was extraordinary great, and yielded no small advantage to this city." See Antiq. of Warwickshire, p. 116. It appears by the latter end of the prologue, that these plays or interludes were not only played in Coventry, but in other towns and places upon occasion. [This MS. was edited by Mr. Halliwell in 1841, for the Shakespeare Society. The elder Heywood thus alludes to the devil, as a character in these mysteries,

"For as good happe wolde have it chaunce,
Thys devyll and I were of olde acqueyntaunce;
For oft in the play of Corpus Christi
He hath played the devyll at Coventry."]

"the

In the Royal Entertainment of the Earle of Nottingham, sent Ambassador from his Majestie to the King of Spaine, 1605, p. 12, it is stated that on Corpus Christi Day, greatest day of account in Spaine in all the yeare," at Valladolid, where the Court was, the king went a procession with all the apostles very richly, and eight giants, foure men and foure women, and the cheefe was named Gog-magog.”

In the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, in the city of London, 17 and 19 Edw. IV., Palmer and Clerk

churchwardens, the following entry occurs: "Garlands on Corpus Christi Day, xd." I find also, among the ancient annual church disbursements, "For four (six or eight) men bearing torches about the parish" on this day, payments of ld. each. Among the same accounts for the 19th and 21st years of Edw. IV. we have: "For flaggs and garlondis, and pak-thredde for the torches, upon Corpus Christi Day, and for six men to bere the said torches, iiijs. vijd." And in 1485, "For the hire of the garments for pageants, js. viijd." Rose-garlands on Corpus Christi Day are also mentioned under the years 1524 and 1525, in the parish accounts of St. Martin Outwich. Pennant's Manuscript says, that in North Wales, at Llanasaph, there is a custom of strewing green herbs and flowers at the doors of houses on Corpus Christi Eve.

[On this day the members of the Skinners' Company of London, attended by a number of boys which they have in Christ's Hospital school, and girls strewing herbs before them, walk in procession from their hall, on Dowgate-hill, to the church of St. Antholin, in Watling-street, to hear service. This custom has been observed time out of mind.]

Nares, in his Glossary, p. 103, says this festival was held annually on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, in memory, as was supposed, of the miraculous confirmation of the doctrine of Transubstantiation under Pope Urban IV. Its origin, however, is involved in great obscurity.

ST. VITUS'S DAY.

JUNE 15.

a

In the Sententiæ Rythmicæ of J. Buchlerus, p. 384, is passage which seems to prove that St. Vitus's Day was equally famous for rain with St. Swithin's:

"Lux sacrata Vito si sit pluviosa, sequentes
Triginta facient omne madere solum."

Googe, in the translation of Naogeorgus, says:

"The nexte is Vitus sodde in oyle, before whose ymage faire Both men and women bringing hennes for offring do repaire: The cause whereof I doe not know, I thinke for some disease Which he is thought to drive away from such as him do please." See a Charm against St. Vitus's Dance in Turner on the Diseases of the Skin, p. 419.

[The following rural charm on parchment was actually carried by an old woman in Devonshire, as a preventive against this complaint:

"Shake her, good devil,

Shake her once well;

Then shake her no more
Till you shake her in —."]

MIDSUMMER EVE.

THE Pagan rites of this festival at the summer solstice may be considered as a counterpart of those used at the winter solstice at Yule-tide. There is one thing that seems to prove this beyond the possibility of a doubt. In the old Runic Fasti, as will be shown elsewhere, a wheel was used to denote the festival of Christmas. The learned Gebelin derives Yule from a primitive word, carrying with it the general idea of revolution and a wheel; and it was so called, says Bede, because of the return of the sun's annual course, after the winter solstice. This wheel is common to both festivities. Thus Durand, speaking of the rites of the Feast of St. John Baptist, informs us of this curious circumstance, that in some places they roll a wheel about, to signify that the sun, then occupying the highest place in the zodiac, is beginning to descend, and in the amplified account of these ceremonies

"Rotam quoque hoc die in quibusdam locis volvunt, ad significandum quod sol altissimum tunc locum in cœlo occupet, et descendere incipiat in zodiaco." Among the Harleian Manuscripts, in the British Museum, 2345, Art. 100, is an account of the rites of St. John Baptist's Eve, in which the wheel is also mentioned. The writer is speaking "de Tripudiis quæ in Vigilia B. Johannis, fieri solent, quorum tria genera." "In Vigilia enim beati Johannis," the author adds, "colligunt pueri in quibusdam.

given by the poet Naogeorgus, we read that this wheel was taken up to the top of a mountain and rolled down from thence; and that, as it had previously been covered with straw, twisted about it and set on fire, it appeared at a distance as if the sun had been falling from the sky. And he farther observes, that the people imagine that all their ill luck rolls away from them together with this wheel.

Googe, in the translation of Naogeorgus, says:

"Then doth the joyfull feast of John the Baptist take his turne,
When bonfiers great, with loftie flame, in everie towne doe burne;
And yong men round about with maides doe daunce in everie streete,
With garlands wrought of motherwort, or else with vervain sweete,
And many other flowres faire, with violets in their handes,
Whereas they all do fondly thinke, that whosoever standes,
And thorow the flowres beholdes the flame, his eyes shall feel no paine,
When thus till night they daunced have, they through the fire amaine
With striving mindes doe runne, and all their hearbes they cast therein.
And then with wordes devout and prayers they solemnely begin,
Desiring God that all their illes may there consumed bee;
Whereby they thinke through all that yeare from agues to be free.
Some others get a rotten wheele, all worne and cast aside,
Which, covered round about with strawe and tow, they closely hide :
And caryed to some mountaines top, being all with fire light,
They hurle it downe with violence, when darke appears the night:
Resembling much the sunne, that from the Heavens down should fal,
A straunge and monstrous sight it seemes, and fearefull to them all:
But they suppose their mischiefes all are likewise throwne to hell,
And that from harmes and daungers now in safetie here they dwell."

The reader will join with me in thinking the following extract from the Homily De Festo Sancti Johannis Baptistæ a pleasant piece of absurdity:-"In worshyp of Saint Johan the people waked at home, and made three maner of fyres: one was clene bones, and noo woode, and that is called a Bone Fyre; another is clene woode, and no bones, and that is called a Wode Fyre, for people to sit and wake therby; the thirde is made of wode and bones, and it is callyd Saynt Johannys

regionibus ossa et quædam alia immunda, et in simul cremant, et exinde producitur fumus in aere. Cremant etiam Brandas (seu Fasces) et circuiunt arva cum Brandis. Tertiam, de Rota quam faciunt volvi. Quod cùm immunda cremant, hoc habent ex Gentilibus." The catalogue describes this curious manuscript thus, "Codex membranaceus in 4to. cujus nunc plura desiderantur folia : quo tamen continebantur diversa cujusdam monachi, uti videtur, Winchelcumbensis, opuscula."

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