64 



An Early Vernacular Service. 



to increase not only the number of the services but their length. 

 The " greater excommunication " has been expanded into the com- 

 mination service, which, like its predecessor, was to be read in public 

 at least four times a year. 1 Since all the services have been tran- 

 slated the bidding the bedes is naturally shortened into the bidding 

 prayer in the canon. But there was such a tendency to prolong the 

 sermon beyond the orthodox hour that even the Dean and Chapter 

 of the King's Church of Our Lady of Sarum painted up a good- 

 humoured protest on the pillar over the pulpit as a reminder to the 

 preacher before he commenced : -^y NOT ON HOVR. 



As the demand for vernacular services became more and more felt, 

 a commencement was made from this point of departure, viz. : the 

 service in the nave. What was specially for, and amongst, the 

 people, was to be in the people's tongue. Hence no doubt it was 

 that the first book of services and which we know to have been 

 translated into English was the Processionale? a book of litanies 

 and other devotions to be sung in procession. " It is thought con- 

 venient in this common prayer of procession to have it set forth and 

 used in the vulgar tongue for the stirring the people to more 

 devotion : " so ran the introduction to the prayer of the litany and 

 suffrages put forth in 1544, when the land was at war with Scotland 

 and France. 3 



But a little less than a hundred years before this, there was 

 written on a spare leaf of a Sarum breviary a short service in the 

 vernacular, set to musical notation, and therefore manifestly intended 

 for public use. It is an Aspersio, or sprinkling of holy Water, a 

 service said in procession in the nave. 4 It is no vulgar or rapid 



1 See Cranmer Letters, Parker Society, p. 281, and note. Lyndewode, Lib. 

 v., Tit. 17, p. 355, Oxford, 1679. Also Ritual Commissioners' Report, vol. ii. } 

 p. 407, 418, &c. 



2 See Cranmer Letters, Parker Society, letter eclxxvi., p. 412. 



3 See appendix to " Private Prayers of Queen Elizabeth," Parker Society. 



4 There were two forms of Aspersio in use in England, as in some parts abroad. 

 The common form was the antiphon, " Thou shalt purge me with hyssop and I 

 shall be clean, Thou shalt wash me and I shall be whiter than snow," with the 

 first verse of the miserere (the 51st) psalm. During Eastertide this was varied : 



