178 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 199. 



It is called ' Antiphona pro Peccatls/ or ' de Morte ;' 

 and the text there given corresponds nearly with that 

 in our Burial Service. 



" Media vita in morte sumus : 

 Qiiem quaerimus adjutorom nisi Te Domine, 

 Qui pro peccatis nostris juste irasceris : 

 Sancte Deus, sancte fortis, sancte et misericors Sal- 



vator, 

 AmarsB morti ne tradas nos. 



" Rambach says, ' " In the midst of life " occurs in 

 MSS. of the thirteenth century, as an universally com- 

 mon dirge and song of supplication on all melancholy 

 occasions, and was in this century regularly sung at 

 Compline on Saturdays. A German translation was 

 known long before the time of Luther, and was en- 

 larged by him by the addition of two strophes.' Mar- 

 tene describes it as forming part of a religious service 

 for New Year's Eve, composed about the year 1300. 



" Hoffmann says that this anthem ' by Notker the 

 Stammerer, a monk of St. Gall's (an, 912), was an 

 extremely popular battle-song, through the singing of 

 which, before and during the fight, friend and foe 

 hoped to conquer. It was also, on many occasions, 

 used as a kind of incantation song. Therefore the 

 Synod of Cologne ordered (an. 1316) that no one 

 should sing the Media vita without the leave of his 

 bishop.' 



" Daniel adds that it is not, to his knowledge, now 

 used by the Roman Church in divine worship ; but 

 that the admirable hymn of Luther, ' Mitten wir im 

 Leben sind,' still flourishes amongst the Protestants of 

 Germany, just as the translation in our Prayer-Book 

 is popular with us." 



Geo. a. Trevob. 



Your correspondent J. G. T. asks wlience comes 

 the expression in the Burial Service, " In the 

 midst of life we are in death?" There are some 

 lines in Petrarch which express precisely the same 

 idea in nearly the self-same words ; but as the 

 thought is by no means an unlikely one to occur 

 to two separate and independent authors, we may 

 not go to the length of charging the seeming pla- 

 giarism upon the compilers of our Prayer-Book. 

 I have mislaid the exact reference"^, but subjoin 

 the lines themselves : 



" Omnia paulatim consumit longior £Btas, 

 Vivendoque simul morimur, rapimurque manendo : 

 Ipse mihi collatus enim, non ille videbor ; 

 Frons alia est, moresque alii, nova mentis imago, 

 Voxque aliud mutata sonat." 



John Booker. 

 Prestwich. 



Patrick's purgatory. 



(Yol. vii., p. 552.) 



Dr. Lanlgan, in his learned Ecclesiastical His- 

 tory of Irelmid (vol. i. p. 368.), states that the so- 

 called Patrick's Purgatory is situated at Lough 



["' Barbato Sulmonensi, epist. i. — Ed.] 



Derg (Donegal). It is never mentioned in any. 

 of the lives of the apostle, nor heard of till the 

 eleventh century, the period at which the canons 

 regular of St. Augustine first appeared, for it was 

 to persons of that order, as the story goes, that 

 St. Patrick confided the care of that cavern of 

 wonders. Now there were no such persons in the 

 island in which it is situated, nor in that of St. 

 Dayoc [Dabeoc ?] in the same lake, until about the 

 beginning of the twelfth century. This purgatory, 

 or purging place, of Lough^Derg, was set up against 

 another Patrick's purgatory, viz. that of Crough 

 Patrick, mentioned by Jocelyn, which, liowever 

 ill-founded the vulgar opinion concerning it, was 

 less objectionable. Some writers have said that 

 it got the name of Patrick's Purgatory from an 

 Abbot Patrick, that lived in the ninth century ; 

 but neither were there canons regular of St. Au- 

 gustine at that time, nor were such abridged 

 modes of atoning to the Almighty for the sins of a 

 whole life then thought of. It was demolished in 

 the year 1497, by order of the Pope, although it 

 has since been in some manner restored. 



The original Patrick's Purgatory then, it would 

 appear, was at Croagh Patrick, in Mayo, near 

 Westport ; speaking of the pilgrimages made to 

 which, the monk Jocelyn (In his Life of St. Patrick, 

 written a.d. 1180, cap. 172.) says that — 



" Some of those who spent a night there stated that 

 they had been subjected to most fearful torments, which 

 had the effect, as they supposed, of purging them from 

 their sins, for which reason also certain of them gave 

 to that place the name of St. Patrick's Purgatory." 



By the authority of the Lords Justices who 

 governed Ireland in 1633, previously to the ap- 

 pointment of Wentworth, Lough Derg Purgatory 

 was once more suppressed ; but the sort of piety 

 then fostered among the members of the Roman 

 communion in Ireland could 111 afford to resign 

 without a struggle what was to them a source of 

 so much consolation. High influence was, there- 

 fore, called Into action to procure the reversal of 

 the sentence ; and the Roman Catholic Queen of 

 Charles I. was induced to address to the Lord 

 Deputy of Ireland a letter in which she requested 

 that he would be pleased " to allow, that the 

 devotions which the people of that country have 

 ever been wont to pay to a St. Patrick's place 

 there, may not be abolished." The Lord Deputy 

 declined acceding to this request, and said in his 

 reply, " I fear, at this time, when some men's zeal 

 hath run them already, not only beyond their 

 wits, but almost forth of their allegiance too, it 

 might furnish them with something to say In pre- 

 judice and scandal to his majesty's government, 

 which, for the present indeed. Is by all means to 

 be avoided." And adds, " your Majesty might do 

 passing well to let this devotion rest awhile." 

 After this second suppression, the devotion has a 

 second time been " in some manner restored ;" and 



