488^ 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 268. 



The liturgical symbolism of such a rite was 

 meant to teach that all true Christians ought to 

 be, in a ghostly sense, " one bread," by holding a 

 oneness of belief, and living in brotherly love with 

 one another : the taper was an emblem of the light 

 of the Gospel, and the money an offering of the 

 people to the Church, to say that " they that serve 

 the altar, partake with the altar." 



The origin of the Holy-loaf is very early : in 

 the first ages of the Church there was a two-fold 

 offering ; at the first, which was in all likelihood 

 made at the beginning of the day's service, not 

 merely full communicants, but public penitents in 

 the last stage of their penance, and also catechu- 

 mens, might bring their gifts of bread, &c. for the 

 maintenance of the clergy and relief of the poor ; 

 at the second, which took place at that part of the 

 liturgy still called from that ancient rite the 

 " offertorium," such only as were in fullest com- 

 munion with the Church might go to the altar with 

 this their second offering, which consisted of bread 

 and a small cruise of wine. (See The Church of 

 our Fathers^ t. i. p. 141.) Of the bread brought 

 up at the first or general offering made by all 

 without distinction, some was blessed and given as 

 a type of the Eucharist to those non-communicants 

 above mentioned. 



When it ceased to be the discipline for all the 

 people to receive the Holy Communion at the 

 mass, which they were however bound to hear on 

 the Sunday, the Church, while she kept up the use 

 of the Holy-loaf, widened its application by dis- 

 tributing it to all the faithful, for the sake of that 

 teaching embodied in its beautiful symbolism 

 which we noticed before. 



Individuals, too, would sometimes carry to 

 church a goodly parcel of bread, one part for the 

 support of the clergy, another to be bestowed as 

 an alms upon the poor (Hincm. cap. prim. c. 16.). 

 Because, then, before distribution, this bread for 

 the needy had a blessing spoken over it by the 

 Church's ritual; and as a dole became a blessing to 

 the recipient, and as God's blessing and the poor 

 man's prayers were both asked for, in the gift, by 

 the giver, on himself and his, fitly did the bread 

 itself come to be called " eulogia," or a blessing. 



It is an oversight to say, as is said (Vol. ix., 

 p. 150.), that Ducange, v. Panis benedictus, men- 

 tions that " money was given by the recipients of 

 it." J. H. B., too (Vol. ix., p. 256.), is under a 

 mistake when he tells us that "at some time 

 before the date of present rubrics, it was the 

 custom for every house in the parish to provide in 

 rotation bread (and wine) for the Holy Commu- 

 nion." What the parishioners had to find for the 

 celebration of mass was the wax-lights. (Wilkins, 

 Condi, i. 714.) In the first book of Edward VI., 

 it was ordered that in recompense of such costs 

 and charges (for bread and wine) the parishioners 

 of every parish shall offer every Sunday, at the 



time of the offertory, the just value and price of 

 the Holy-loaf (with all such money and other 

 things as were wont to be offered with the same) 

 to the use of their pastors, &c. (ed. Cardwell, 

 p. 314.) While this enactment acknowledges the 

 antiquity and claims the old due of the Holy-loaf, 

 it changes the mode of its discharge by requiring 

 its value in money to be given to the pastors and 

 curates, for the bread and wine found by them for 

 their parishioners' communion : it becomes, in 

 fact, the very first ordinance for gathering money 

 to pay for such bread and wine. 



F. C. H. believes (Vol. x., p. 36.) " The custom 

 of distributing the pain beni, or blessed bread, 

 is retained in France only. It is the sole rem- 

 nant of the oblations of the faithful." In both 

 observations, that learned and valuable corre- 

 spondent of " N. & Q." is incorrect. It is en- 

 joined by all the liturgies of the Eastern Church. 

 While travelling through Greece, I everywhere 

 witnessed its use, and during my stay at Rome the 

 winter before last, I received, as I had often done 

 many years ago when a student in the English 

 college there, some of the blessed bread given to 

 all who like to take it, after mass according to the 

 Greek rite, at the church of the Greeks, and like- 

 wise after the ma3S of the Armenian ritual. In 

 Greece, as in France, the Holy-loaf is cut up into 

 small pieces for distribution ; and so I have seen 

 it at Home among the united Greeks ; but the 

 bread I received there on the Epiphany in 1853, 

 from the hands of the Greek bishop who had sung 

 the mass, is a very small uncut roll of common 

 bread ; while that distributed, a few days after- 

 wards, at the Armenian mass by the deacon when 

 the service was over, is a very thin oblong wafer 

 of unleavened bread stamped with a lamb lying on 

 a seven- sealed book. How, for some high festi- 

 vals, the Holy-loaf is still made in parts of France, 

 measuring several feet round, tastely adorned, and 

 solemnly borne to church, strewed with flowers, 

 and overshadowed by a laough springing out of 

 its tall centre, may be seen in a wood-cut of the 

 " procession du loup-verd," given at p. 18. of poor 

 Langlois's Essai sur les Enerves de Jumieges. 



So far is the Holy-loaf from being " the sole 

 remnant of the oblations of the faithful," that there 

 even yet exist on the Continent several others. A 

 large wax taper is always brought as an offering 

 in Spain and Italy, at baptisms, and at the church- 

 ing of women. In some cathedrals, for instance, 

 in the south of Spain, as I remember seeing when 

 there in 1837, all the chapter make an offering of 

 a certain sum at offertory time, to the celebrant 

 on the greater festivals. Money offerings are left 

 near the cross by those who go to kiss it on Good 

 Friday. Eggs are given in Italy to the parish 

 priest, who goes round his parish on Holy Satur- 

 day to bless the houses and the food for the Easter 

 Sunday's meal of his parishioners. If I be not 



