2»'« S. N» 105., Jan. 2. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



CHRISTMAS IN THE MIDDLE AGES : 

 THE ASSES," ETC. 



FEAST or 



Du Cange collected some very curious monu- 

 ments of these " miracle -plays," in his Olossarium 

 ad Scriptores Medice et Infima Latinitutis — under 

 the title Festum. From Henschel's splendid edi- 

 tion of 1844, 1 have gleaned the following account, 

 which Du Cange professes to have taken from the 

 MS. Ritual of the Church at Rouen. 



The order of the Procession of the Asses, ac- 

 cording to the usage of Rouen, was as follows : — 

 .The Prophets were stationed according to their 

 scriptural rank, and Nebuchadnezzar's Furnace 

 was represented, in the middle of the nave, by 

 means of burning tow. The procession then 

 moved from the cloister, headed by two priests in 

 their copes, chanting certain verses, " Gloriosi et 

 famosi,'' &c., and halted in the nave, where were 

 stationed six Jews on one side and six Gentiles on 

 the other. 



Here the grand ceremony began. The singers 

 interrogated the Prophets, one after the other, 

 according to their predictions in the Bible re- 

 specting the coming of the Messiah. Not only 

 the ancient prophets, but even the prominent per- 

 sonages of the New Testament, were represented, 

 and had to repeat their predictions, — Zachariah, 

 Elizabeth, John the Baptist, and Simeon ; nay, 

 the poet Virgil was called upon in these words : 

 Maro, Maro, Votes Gentiliuin da Christo! To 

 which Virgil replied : Ecce polo demissa solo, re- 

 ferring to his IVth Eclogue, or Pollio, and the 

 verse — Jam nova progenies ccelo demittitur alto. 

 (See Lemaire's remarks on this Eel., Virg. i. 119.) 

 AH the calls and responses are given seriatim by 

 Du Cange, — many of them quite unintelligible. 

 All the personages were appropriately costumed, 

 according to the precise requisitions of the 

 Ritual. Of course it was the striking incident of 

 Balaam and his Ass which gave its name to the 

 festival. 



" Two criers being sent by King Balak, let them say, 

 Balaam come and do. Then Balaam, duly adorned, sitting 

 upon his ass, let him check the reins and sticlc his spurs 

 into the ass ; and a certain youth, holding forth a sword, 

 must stop the ass. Some one under the ass must say : 

 Why do you thus torture me with your spurs ? Then the 

 Angel must say to him: Don't obej' the command of 

 King Balak." 



All this tremendous ceremonial preceded the 

 Mass, — the last personage called upon being the 

 Sibyl, and she was invited to utter her unintel- 

 ligible jargon iti these words: Tu, tu, Sibylla, vates 

 ilia. She replied : Judicii signum tellus sudor e., — 

 " The Earth in sweat — a sign of Judgment " — 

 being the prediction alluded to in the now well- 

 known Prose or Sequence — Dies tree, dies ilia — 

 . which has become an object of admiration to all 

 denominations by the help of Mozart's music and 



the grim legend of its composition.* (Respecting 

 the Sibylline oracles, see Hon. de Ste Mar. Ani- 

 mad. in reg., &c., ii. p. 81., and Cud worth, Intel- 

 lect. Syst., i. 463., ed. 1845.) A general chorus of 

 all the prophets and attendants concluded the 

 pageant. The effect altogether must have been 

 very grand and imposing. 



At Beauvais, on the 14th of January, they re- 

 presented the Flight into Egypt. A beautiful 

 young woman, with an infant in her arms, was 

 placed upon an ass elegantly adorned for the pur- 

 pose. A procession set out from the cathedral to 

 the parish church of St. Etienne with immense 

 pomp and circumstance, the clergy and the people 

 uniting to do honour to the pageant. On arriving 

 at the parish church, the girl and the ass were 

 placed near the altar, on the gospel side ; High 

 Mass then commenced, and wonderful to tell, the 

 Introit, Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, &c., all terminated 

 with an imitation of the ass's bray, hin-ham! or 

 He-hawn ! Nor was this all. At the end of the 

 Mass, when the priest turned to the people, saying 

 /(fe, Missa est, he actually he-hawned or brayed 

 thrice (ter hinhannabit), as ordained by the Ritual ! 

 .And instead of the usual response, Deo Gratias, 

 the people he-haivned or brayed thrice in like 

 manner. The following hymn, or Prose, as it is 

 named, was sung during the Mass. I translate 

 or upset it into English after the manner intro- 

 duced by Longfellow to the English Parnassus : — 



" Orientis partibus 

 Adventavit Asinus, 

 Pulcher et fortissimus 

 Sarcinis aptissimus. 



" Chorus. 

 " Hez, Sire Asnes, car chantez 

 Belle bouche rechignez, 

 Vous aurez du foln assez 

 m Et de I'avoine h plantez. 



" Lentus erat pedibus, 

 Nisi foret baculus, 

 Et eum in clunibus 

 Pungeret aculeus. 



Chorus. Hez, Sire, &c. 



" Hie in collibus Sichem, 

 Jam nutritus sub Reuben, 

 Transiit per Jordanera, 

 Saliit in Bethlehem. 

 Chorus. Hez, Sire, &c. 



" Ecce magnis auribus, 

 Subjugalis Alius, 



* A grim legend says that a Stranger came to the 

 divine composer and ordered a Requiem or 3Iass for the 

 Dead. Mozart undertook it. After a time the Stranger 

 returned. " Begun," said Mozart, " but not finished." 

 " Good," said the Stranger, and went his way. A second 

 time he came. " Progressing," said Mozart. " Good," 

 said the Stranger. A third time the Stranger came. " It 

 will be finished to-night" said Mozart. " Ha ! indeed ! " 

 exclaimed the Stranger (I suppose in the tone of Mephi- 

 stophiles in Faust), and vanished. That very night the 

 famous Requiem was finished — and on Mozart himself, in 

 his coffin, was it sung for the first time I 



