By J. E. Nightingale, P.S.A. 385 



156S "for the holy lofe x«- xj-^- " In January, 1569, " Item for ye 

 holy lofe of ye dark v'f- " The accounts for the next nine years do 

 not exist, hut in 1580 we find " Itetn, the holy luafe came to xxvij''- 

 ■s.^- " ; and again in 1585, "for holy lofe xij« ij*!- •" In the next 

 account of 1588, and subsequently, receipts from the holy loaf are 

 no longer found. 



Mr. Peacock, in his paper on the churchwardens' accounts of St. 

 Mary's, Sutterton, Co. Lincoln, mentions " holybred " in the year 

 1512, and says that the holy bread was distributed as long as the 

 old services continued in use. The accounts of St. Martin's parish 

 show that its practice was retained in the English Church long after 

 the Reformation. 



Mr. Peacock gives the following particulars relating to this 

 custom: "This year [1512] the wardens bought ij 'holybred 

 mawndes' for xd. This is an additional proof, if proof on such a 

 matter be needed, that the holy bread or eulogia was almost univer- 

 sally distributed in this country before the Reformation. So frequent 

 are the mistakes that are still made on this very simple matter that 

 it may not be out of place to remark that this holy loaf had nothing 

 whatever to do with the eucharistic elements, but that it was ordinary 

 unleavened bread, such as was connnonly eaten in the parish, which was 

 blessed by the priest after he had said mass, cut into small pieces, 

 and given to the people to eat. When the custom originated it is, in 

 the present state of our knowledge, perhaps hardly safe to affirm. 

 It was intended as a symbol of the brotherly love which ought to 

 exist among Christians. Before the French Revolution we believe 

 that this rite was practised over a great part of Western Europe. 

 The joai» benit may still be seen distributed in several of the Churches 

 in Paris. One of the demands of the Devonshire men, when they 

 broke out into rebellion in 1549, for the purpose of resisting the 

 changes in faith and ritual, was that they should have ' holy bread 

 and holy water every Sunday,' The holy bread was distributed as 

 long as the old services continued in use. Baskets for containing 

 it are mentioned several times among the things removed as ' monu- 

 ments of superstition ' from the Lincolnshire Churches in the eighth 

 of Elizabeth." 



