*

Some suppose it is called Lammas Day, quasi Lamb mass, because on that day the tenants who held lands of the Cathedral Church in York, which is dedicated to St Peter ad Vincula, were bound by their tenure to bring a live lamb into the church at high

mass.

Others, according to Blount, suppose it to have been derived from the Saxon Hlar Mærre, i.e., loaf masse, or bread masse, so named as a feast of thanksgiving to God for the firstfruits of the corn. It seems to have been observed with bread of new wheat: and accordingly it is a usage in some places for tenants to be bound to bring in wheat of that year to their lord, on or before the first of August.

Vallancey, in his Irish Glossary, cites Cormac, Archbishop of Cashel in the tenth century, in support of the statement that "in his time four great fires were lighted up on the four great festivals of the Druids-viz., in February, May, August, and November." Vallancey adds: "This day (the Gule of August) was dedicated to the sacrifice of the fruits of the soil. La-ith-mas was the day of the oblation of grain. It is pronounced La-ee-mas, a word readily corrupted to Lammass. Ith is all kinds of grain, particularly wheat: and mas, fruit of all kinds, especially the acorn, whence mast. Cul and gul in the Irish implies a complete circle, a belt, a wheel, an anniversary."

Lammas Day (according to the Gentleman's Magazine for January 1799), in the Salisbury Manuals, is called "Benedictio novorum fructuum;" and, in the Red Book of Derby, hlar mæsse dæg. But in the Sax. Chron., A.D. 1009, it is hlam-mærre. Mass was a word for festival: hence our way of naming the festivals of Christmas, Candlemas, Martinmas, &c. Instead, therefore, of Lammass quasi Lambmasse, from the offering of the tenants at York, may we not rather suppose the to have been left out in course of time from general use? Thus La-mass or hla-mæɲre would arise.

G

ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN MARY.
15th of August.

OOGE'S version of Naogeorgus has the following lines upon this
day :-

"The blessed Virgin Maries feast, hath here his place and time,
Wherein, departing from the earth, she did the heavens clime;
Great bundels then of hearbes to church, the people fast doe beare,
The which against all hurtfull things the priest doth hallow theare.
Thus kindle they and nourish still the peoples wickednesse,
And vainly make them to believe, whatsoever they expresse :

We have an old proverb, "At latter Lammas," which is synonymous with the "ad Græcas Calendas" of the Latins, and the vulgar saying, "When two Sundays come together:" .., never.

It was in this phrase that Queen Elizabeth exerted her genius in an extempore reply to the ambassador of Philip II.

"Ad Græcas, bone Rex, fient mandata Kalendas."

For sundrie witchcrafts by these hearbs are wrought, and divers charmes,
And cast into the fire, are thought to drive away all harmes,
And every painefull griefe from man, or beast, for to expell
Far otherwise than nature or the worde of God doth tell."

Bishop Hall also tells us, in the Triumphs of Rome, that upon this day it was customary to implore blessings upon herbs, plants, roots, and fruits.

ST ROCH'S DAY.

16th of August.

IN the Churchwardens' Accounts of St Michael, Spurrier Gate, in the city of York, we find an entry: "1518. Paid for writing of St Royke Masse ol. os. 9d.”

On this passage Pegge remarks: "St Royk, St Roche (Aug. 16). Q. why commemorated in particular? There is Roche Abbey in the West Riding of the county of York, which does not take its name from the Saint, but from its situation on a rock, and is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The writing probably means making a new copy of the music appropriated to the day."

Dr Whitaker thinks that St Roche or Rockes Day was celebrated as a general harvest-home.

In Overbury's Characters (1630), we read of the Franklin: "He allowes of honest pastime, and thinkes not the bones of the dead any thing bruised, or the worse for it, though the country lasses dance in the church-yard after even-song. ROCK MONDAY, and the wake in summer, shrovings, the wakefull ketches on Christmas eve, the hoky, or seed cake, these he yeerely keepes, yet holds them no reliques of popery."

It has been suggested that "Rocke Monday" might be a misprint for "Hock-Monday;" but there is a passage in Warner's Albions England (1597) as follows

“Rock and Plow Monday gams sal gang with saint feasts and kirk sights :" and in the edition of 1602

"I'le duly keepe for thy delight Rock-Monday, and the wake, Have shrovings, Christmas Gambols, with the hokie and seed cake."

ST BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY.

24th of August.

N Stephens's New Essayes and Characters (1631) we read

the stalls of which are so adorn'd with Bibles and Prayer-bookes, that almost nothing is left within, but heathen knowledge."

Gough, in his History of Croyland Abbey, mentions an ancient local custom of giving little knives to all comers on St Bartholomew's Day. This abuse, he says, "was abolished by Abbot John de Wis

bech, in the time of Edward the Fourth, exempting both the abbot and convent from a great and needless expence. The custom originated in allusion to the knife wherewith St Bartholomew was flead. Three of these knives were quartered with three of the whips so much used by St Guthlac, in one coat borne by this house. Mr Hunter had great numbers of them, of different sizes, found at different times in the ruins of the abbey and in the river. We have engraved three from drawings in the Minute Books of the Spalding Society, in whose drawers one is still preserved. These are adopted as the device of a town-piece, called the Poore's Halfepeny of Croyland, 1670.”

HOLY-ROOD DAY.

14th of September.

"HIS festival, called also Holy Cross Day, was instituted to comEmperor Heraclius, after it had been taken away, on the plundering of Jerusalem by Cosroes, King of Persia, about the year of Christ 615. The custom of going a-nutting upon this day appears from the following passage in the old play of Grim the Collier of Croydon—

"This day, they say, is called Holy-rood Day,
And all the youth are now a nutting gone."

In the month of September, "on a certain day," most probably the fourteenth, the boys of Eton school used to have a play-day, in order to go out and gather nuts, with a portion of which, when they returned, they made presents to their different masters. It was required, however, before leave was granted, that they should write verses on the fruitfulness of autumn and the deadly colds of advancing winter.

"The Rood," writes Fuller in his History of Waltham Abbey, "when perfectly made, and with all the appurtenances thereof, had not only the image of our Saviour extended upon it, but the figures of the Virgin Mary and St John, one on each side: in allusion to John xix. 26. 'Christ on the Cross saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing by."

Such was the representation denominated the ROOD, usually placed over the screen which divided the nave from the chancel of our Churches. To our ancestors, we are told, it conveyed a full type of the Christian Church; the nave representing the Church militant, and the chancel the Church triumphant, denoting that all who would go from the one to the other must pass under the rood, that is, carry the Cross, and suffer affliction.

Churchwardens' accounts, previous to the Reformation, are usually full of entries relating to the Rood-loft. In the Church of St Mary at Hill, 5 Henry VI., we have

"Also for makynge of a peire endentors betwene William Serle, carpenter, and us, for the Rode lofte and the under clerks chambre, ijs. viijd."

The accounts also contain the names (it should seem) of those who

contributed to the erection of the Rood loft: "Also ress. of serteyn men for the Rod loft; fyrst of Ric. Goslyn Iol.; also of Thomas Raynwall 10%.; also of Rook 26s. 7d.; and eighteen others. Summa totalis 95%. 11s. 9d."

The carpenters on this occasion appear to have had what in modern language is called "their drinks" allowed them over and above their wages

"Also the day after Saint Dunston, the 19 day of May, two carpenters with her Nonsiens."*

Other entries respecting the Rood-loft run thus

"Also payd for a rolle and 2 gojons of iron and a rope xiiijd.

Also payd to 3 carpenters removing the stallis of the quer xxd.

Also payd for 6 peny nail and 5 peny nail xjd.

Also for crochats, and 3 iron pynnes and a staple xiijd.

Also for 5 yardis and a halfe of grene Bokeram iijs. iijd. ob.
Also for lengthyng of 2 cheynes and 6 zerdes of gret wyer xiiijd.
Also payd for eleven dozen pavyng tyles iijs. iiijd."

In Howe's edition of Stow, 2 Edw. VI. 1547, we read: "The 17 of Nov. was begun to be pulled downe the Roode in Paules Church, with Mary and John, and all other images in the Church, and then the like was done in all the Churches in London, and so throughout England, and texts of Scripture were written upon the walls of those Churches against Images, &c."

Many of our Rood-lofts, however, were not taken down till late in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

MICHAELMAS

29th of September.

T has long been and still continues to be the custom at this time

I be the year, or thereabouts, to elect the governors of towns and

cities, the civil guardians of the peace of men, perhaps, as Bourne supposes, because the feast of angels naturally enough brings to our minds the old opinion of tutelar spirits, who have, or are thought to have, the particular charge of certain bodies of men, or districts of country, as also that every man has his guardian angel, who attends him from the cradle to the grave, from the moment of his coming in to his going out of life.

Nichols contributed the subjoined account to the Gentleman's Magazine for October, 1804

"Monday, October 1st, 1804.

"This day the lord mayor and aldermen proceeded from Guildhall,

"Nunchion," a piece of victuals eaten between meals. (Ash's Dictionary.) The word occurs in Cotgrave's Dictionary: "A Nuncions or Nuncheon (or afternoones repast), Gouber, gouster, recinè, ressie. To take an after. noone's Nuncheon, reciner, ressiner."

N

and the two sheriffs with their respective companies from Stationers' Hall, and having embarked on the Thames, his lordship in the city barge, and the sheriffs in the stationers' barge, went in aquatic state to Palace Yard. They proceeded to the Court of Exchequer : where, after the usual salutations to the bench (the cursitor baron, Francis Maseres, Esq., presiding) the recorder presented the two sheriffs; the several writs were then read, and the sheriffs and the senior undersheriffs took the usual oaths. [The ceremony, on this occasion in the Court of Exchequer, which vulgar error supposed to be an unmeaning farce, is solemn and impressive; nor have the new sheriffs the least connection either with chopping of sticks, or counting of hobnails. The tenants of a manor in Shropshire are directed to come forth to do their suit and service: on which the senior alderman below the chair steps forward, and chops a single stick, in token of its having been customary for the tenants of that manor to supply their lord with fuel. The owners of a forge in the parish of St Clement (which formerly belonged to the city, and stood in the high road from the Temple to Westminster, but now no longer exists), are then called forth to do their suit and service; when an officer of the court, in the presence of the senior alderman, produces six horse shoes and 61 hobnails, which he counts over in form before the cursitor baron; who, on this particular occasion, is the immediate representative of the sovereign.]

"The whole of the numerous company then again embarked in their barges, and returned to Blackfriars-bridge, where the state carriages were in waiting. Thence they proceeded to Stationers' Hall, where a most elegant entertainment was given by Mr Sheriff Domville."

In the same magazine for 1790, a singular custom is recorded of Kidderminster :-"On the election of a bailiff the inhabitants assemble in the principal streets to throw cabbage stalks at each other. The town-house bell gives signal for the affray. This is called lawless hour. This done (for it lasts an hour), the bailiff elect and corporation, in their robes, preceded by drums and fifes (for they have no waits), visit the old and new bailiff, constables, &c., &c., attended by the mob. In the meantime the most respectable families in the neighbourhood are invited to meet and fling apples at them on their entrance. I have known forty pots of apples expended at one house."

The Egyptians believed that every man had three angels attending him the Pythagoreans that every man had two: the Romans, that there was a good and evil genius.

This idea has been adopted by Butler

"Whether dame Fortune or the care

Of Angel bad, or tutelar."

"Every man," says Sheridan in the notes to his Translation of Persius, was supposed by the antients at his birth to have two Genii, as messengers between the gods and him. They were supposed to be private monitors, who by their insinuations disposed us either to good or evil actions; they were also supposed to be not only reporters of our crimes in this life, but registers of them against our trial in the next, whence they had the name of Manes given them."