276 Cathedral Life and WorTc at Sanim in Olden Times. 



charitj', but of intercession, A bishop, as he rode about the country 

 to see his flock, would often halt, and say a portion of the psalter 

 aloud with his clerks on horseback. A decree of a council in 816 

 directed, that on the decease of a bishop thirty psalms should be 

 solemnly chanted in every church of the diocese ; and Bede tells us 

 that the anniversary of St. Oswald was kept partly by the " singing' 

 of psalms/^ 



This arrangement of the psalter vaio fort)/ -nine portions — for to 

 the three foreign abbots, who held the stalls of Okeborne, Loders, 

 and Upavon, there were assigned portions from other parts of Holy 

 Scripture — was a very ancient one ; reaching back possibly to the 

 thirteenth century. In any case it was a holy bond between the 

 members of the cathedral body, when they were thus unceasingly 

 reminded of the duty of intercession for each other and for all men ; 

 and in this way daily blended the memory of the past with the de- 

 votion of the present. 



(c) There was another most interesting practice at Sarum, of 

 co-opting lay benefactors and others into brotherhood. A similar 

 custom prevailed at Lichfield. Among documents belonging to the 

 cathedral there is one entitled " Modus recipiendi aliquam honestam 

 vel nobilem personam in fratrem seu sororem," — so that the practice 

 was an established one, with its settled mode of inauguration. The 

 chapter registers have many entries on this subject. Thus in 1388 

 the Duke of fjancaster and his wife were admitted " in fratrem et 

 sororem." In 1400 the Earl of Rutland was admitted " in fratrem 

 quoad stiff ragia." In 1405 we meet with a request from "Ludovicus,'' 

 described as " Untluanus Episcopus,'^ that he might be received as 

 a " brother of the church of Sarum." In 1409 the Prince of Wales, 

 and the Queen, together with her attendants {mulieres ejus) were 

 so received. In 1420 we have this record: — Henry Bishop of 

 Winchester — no less a person than the Cardinal Beaufort of after 

 days, who by the way had formerly held the prebend of Horton — 

 asking to be received back " as a brother " into his old cathedral — 

 " humiliter ad terram prostraius petit se admitti in fratrem intuitu 

 caritatii." And in 1473 King Edward IV., together with the 

 bishops of Durham and Carlisle, were so admitted into brotherhood. 



