Richard Poore, 1217—1229. 



245 



But there is another great work, which, in the form at all events 

 in which it appears in the Old Register, was, I believe, compiled at 

 this same eventful period in the history of our Cathedral. What is 

 commonly termed the " Consuetudinary of S. Osmund " — the oldest 

 MS. of which is found in this same register — must have been so 

 arranged about the year 1222, because (first of all) the handwriting 

 is of the same character and date as the narrative of De Wanda 

 the Dean (which is bound up in the same volume), and then, in the 

 next place, because there is a reference in it to the " Festival of S. 

 Michael in monte tumba" (§. xliv.), which was appointed as a lesser 

 holiday by the Council of Oxford in A.D. 1222. As regards S. 

 Osmund himself, what he did was this — to choose out of the 

 practices he saw in use around him and so to arrange the church 

 offices that the clergy might have one uniform rule to guide them 

 whilst performing their respective functions within the sanctuary, 

 and their several duties amid their flocks. To a great extent, 

 probably, the " Consuetudinary " is as Osmund left it ; though the 

 opening sentence (as we have it) seems to imply that it only professes 

 to be an account of what he ordained, and not the original document 

 itself. 1 A work of this kind in any case could not at once have 

 arrived at anything like completeness, but must have been gradually 

 compiled, and adapted from time to time to the changing circum- 

 stances of the church itself. 



As in some sort a corroboration of the view now advanced of the 

 Consuetudinary having been arranged, as we now have it, in prospect 

 of the consecration of the new cathedral, two interesting facts 

 may be mentioned. Henry de Loundres, Archbishop of Dublin 

 (1213-28), who was present on that occasion, was the prelate who 

 in 1219 erected S. Patrick's Dublin into a Cathedral Church, and 

 very shortly afterwards a copy of the Consuetudinary was made for 

 its use, that so its ordinal might be "ad exemplar insignis Ecclesice 

 Sarum." Again, in the year 1223, among the acts and statutes of 



1 The opening words are as follows : " Personas, et eorum officia, dignitatis, et 

 consuetudines, quibus Bcclesia Sarisbiriensis ordinatur et regitur, juxta institu- 

 onem felicis memorise Osmundi, presens tractatus explanat." The document 

 itself is entitled " De officiis ecclesiasticis tractatus." 



VOL. XVIII. — NO. LIII. 



S 



