234 SUNDAY LEGISLATION AND ITS OBSERVANCES. 



cising the office of barber on the said Sundays ; and also from blood- 

 letting, except when there is imminent peril of death or infirmity. 

 Inhibiting their parishioners,* under the pain aforesaid, from shaving 

 themselves on Sundays, or suffering others to shave them, or receiv- 

 ing any barber-like service (vcl barbitonsoris officium) on peril of their 

 souls. Inhibiting also all millers whomsoever, under the intermina- 

 tion aforesaid, and the owners of mills (molendinorum dominis) from 

 causing or suffering their mills to grind on the said Sundays, espe- 

 cially from vespers on Saturday to vespers on Sunday, notwithstand- 

 ing the abuse of a long time, which should not be deemed a use or 

 custom, but truly a corruption ; since the heavier the sins, the longer 

 they detain the unhappy soul in bonds, and no prescription can avail 

 against the precepts of the Decalogue."-)- 



Notwithstanding this severe and minute enactment against shaving, 

 we find that the Sunday, denominated misericordia domi?ii, had, long 

 anterior to the Bishop of Anjou, been one of the days set apart for 

 shaving the brethren in the austere monastery of Cluny, which had 

 probably adopted the more liberal construction of the council of Or- 

 leans. Udalric has a chapter expressly on the days appointed for 

 this cleanly operation.^; 



Returning to England, by stat. 27 Henry VI, cap. 5., no fair or 

 market shall be held on the principal festivals, Good Friday, or any 

 Sunday (except the four Sundays in harvest) on pain of forfeiting 

 the goods exposed for sale. So much for the law ! but clergymen in 

 this reign made contracts and disposed of landed property on the Sun- 

 day. In 1579, Henry, Earl of Derby, Henry, Earl of Huntingdon, 

 William, Bishop of Chester, and others her Majesty's high commis- 

 sioners^ Elizabeth) being assembled at Manchester, gave forth good 

 orders and injunctions against "pipers and minstrels playing, making, 

 and frequenting ales, beare bayting, or bull bayting on the Sabbath 

 dayes, or uppon any other dayes in time of devine service," &c.|| 

 These orders and injunctions seem to have created the gloomy and 

 melancholy disposition among the people, which struck the attention 

 of King James, when on a visit in 1617-18 at Hoghton Tower, in 

 Lancashire ; where he concocted his celebrated proclamation, called 

 the Book of Sports. This, it is well known, allowed of nearly all the 

 sports which the high commissioners had discouraged ; and, says 

 Hume, by his authority, "he endeavoured to give sanction to a 

 practice, which his subjects regarded as the utmost instance of pro- 

 faneness and impiety. ^[ A modern writer, Professor Vaughan, in his 



* Subditis suis ; perhaps their subordinate officers. 



f Dacherii Spicil. Script. Vet. torn i. p. 734. edit. fol. ; torn. xi. p. 201. 

 edit. 4to. 



J Antiquior. Consuet. Monast Cluniac. Lib. III. cap. 1G. DeRasuraFra- 

 Irura, apud eund. torn. 1. p. 695, edit. fol. 



Harl. MS. 2,042, fol. 330 b. The practice of dating charters and convey- 

 ances on Sunday seems to have been pretty general in Germany in this and the 

 preceding century. D. Eberh. Baringii Clav. Diplomet. pp. 533, 541, 553, &c. 



|| Mancuniensis, fol. 20. A manuscript history of the town of Manchester, 

 by Richard Hollimvorth, a celebrated Puritanical preacher in the time of the 

 civil wars. ( Vide Nicholson's Engl. Historical Libr. p. 17-) 



f Vol. VI. ch.47, p. 92. 



