290 CHILDERMAS* OR HOLY INNOCENTS' DAY. IN people never of this days N the Calendar of Superstition this day is of most unlucky omen, According to Melton's Astrologaster it was formerly an article in the Creed of Popular Superstition that it was not lucky to put on a new suit, pare one's nails, or begin anything on a Childermas Day; and from Fenn's Letters it appears that on account of this superstition the Coronation of King Edward IV. was put off till the Monday, because the preceding Sunday was Childermas Day. The monks, says Bourne, held it to be most unlucky to begin any work upon Childermas Day, let it fall on what day soever it may. In the play of Sir John Oldcastle (1600), Murley objects to the rendezvous of the Wickliffites on a Friday: "Friday, quoth'a, a dismal day; Childermas Day this year was Friday." The learned Gregory, in his Treatise on the Boy Bishop, observes : "It hath been a custom, and yet is elsewhere, to whip up the children upon Innocents Day morning, that the memorie of Herod's murder of the Innocents might stick the closer, and in a moderate proportion to act over the crueltie again in kinde." + The legal fraternity, however, disported on this day. Dugdale, speaking of the Christmas Festivities kept in Lincoln's Inn, cites an Order dated 9th Hen. VIII. (1517), "that the KING OF COCKNEYS, on Childermass Day, should sit and have due service ; and that he and all his officers should use honest manner and good order, without any waste or destruction making in wine, brawn, chely, or other vitails: as also that he, and his marshal, butler, and constable marshal, should have their lawful and honest commandments by delivery of the officers of Christmas, and that the said King of Cockneys, ne none of his officers medyl neither in the buttery, nor in the stuard of Christmass his office, upon pain of 40s. for every such medling. And lastly, that Jack Straw, and all his adherents, should be thenceforth utterly banisht and no more to be used in this house, upon pain to forfeit, for every time, five pounds to be levied on every Fellow hapning to offend against this rule." Processions of children on this day were forbidden by Henry VIII.'s proclamation of July 22d, 1540, as has been noted under St Clement's Day. COUNTRY WAKES, CALLED ALSO FEASTS OF DEDICATION, REVELLINGS, RUSH-BEARINGS, AND IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND HOPPINGS. SP PELMAN derives the word Wake from the Saxon yak, signifying drunkenness; but he is evidently mistaken, and even contradicts himself, when he tells us that on the Sunday after the Enconia, or Childermas cyoamærre dæg, Sax. Childirmas-dai, in Wicklif's time. Childerymasse Rob. Glouc. Gent. Mag. Jan. 799. The custom is mentioned by Hospinian. Feast of the Dedication of the Church, a great multitude both of old and young persons used to meet about break of day, shouting Holy Wakes! Holy Wakes! Strutt quotes from Dugdale's Warwickshire an old MS. legend of St John the Baptist, which entirely overthrows Spelman's etymology "And ye shal understond & know how the Evyns were furst found in old time. In the begynning of holy Churche, it was so that the pepul cam to the Chirche with Candellys brennyng and wold wake and coome with light toward to the Chirche in their devocions; and after they fell to lecherie and songs, daunces, harping, piping, and also to glotony and sinne, and so turned the holinesse to cursydness: wherfore holy Faders ordenned the pepul to leve that Waking and to fast the Evyn. But hit is called Vigilia, that is waking in English, and it is called Evyn, for at evyn they were wont to come to Chirche."* As in the times of paganism annual festivals were celebrated in honour and memory of their gods, goddesses, and heroes, when the people resorted together at their temples and tombs; and as the Jews constantly kept their anniversary Feast of Dedication in remembrance of Judas Maccabæus their deliverer; so it has been an ancient custom with the Christians of this island to keep a feast every year upon a certain week or day, in commemoration of the completion of their parish church, of the first solemn dedication of it to the service of God, and of its commission to the protection of some guardian saint or angel. At the conversion of the Saxons by Austin the Monk, says Bourne, the Heathen Paganalia were with some modifications continued among the converts by an order of Pope Gregory the Great to Mellitus the Abbot, who accompanied Austin in his mission hither. His words are to this effect. On the day of dedication, or the birthday of holy martyrs, whose relics are there placed, let the people make to themselves booths of the boughs of trees, round about those very churches which had been the temples of idols, and in a religious way observe a feast: let beasts be slaughtered not by way of sacrifice to the devil but for their own eating and the glory of God and when they are satisfied let them return thanks to Him who is the Giver of all good things. Such are the foundations of the country wake. In Tusser's Husbandry, under the head of Ploughman's Feast Days, are the following lines To these convivial entertainments Bishop Hall refers in his Triumphs of Pleasure: "What should I speak of our merry Wakes and May Games and Christmass Triumphs, which you have once seen here and may see still in those under the Roman dition: in all which put together, you may well say no Greek can be merrier than they? Collinson writes of Stocklinch in St Magdalen Parish, Somersetshire: "A Revel is held here on St Mary Magdalen's Day." "THE WAKE-Day. "Fil oven ful of flawnes, Ginnie passe not for sleepe, Both Tomkin with Tomlin, and Jankin with Gil." Thus explained in Tusser Redivivus: "The Wake Day is the Day on which the Parish Church was dedicated, called so, because the night before it they were used to watch till morning in the church, and feasted all the next day. Waking in the Church was left off because of some abuses, and we see here it was converted to waking at the oven. The other continued down to our author's days, and in a great many places continues still to be observed with all sorts of rural merriments; such as dancing, wrestling, and cudgel-playing." At first the feast was regularly kept on the day in every week on which the church was dedicated but, upon complaint that the number of holidays was excessively increased, to the detriment of civil government and secular affairs, and upon the discovery that the great irregularities which had crept into these festivities by degrees, especially in churches, chapels, and churchyards, were highly injurious to piety, virtue, and good manners, both Statutes and Canons were made to regulate and restrain them: and by an Act of Convocation passed by Henry VIII. in the year 1536 their number was considerably reduced. The feast of the dedication of every church was ordered to be kept upon one and the same day everywhere; that is, on the first Sunday in October; to the total abolition of the observance of the particular Saint's Day. This Act is now disregarded; but to it probably is due the fact that the Feast of Wakes was first postponed to the Sunday following the proper day, that the people might not have too many distractions from necessary business and domestic duties. In Charles I.'s Book of Sports (1633), however, we read: "His Majesty finds that, under pretence of taking away abuses, there hath been a general forbidding, not only of ordinary meetings, but of the Feasts of the Dedications of the Churches, commonly called Wakes. Now his Majesty's express will and pleasure is that these Feasts, with others, shall be observed; and that his Justices of the Peace, in their several Divisions, shall look to it, both that all disorders there may be prevented or punished, and that all neighbourhood and freedom, with manlike and lawful exercises, be used." In the Churchwardens' Accounts of St Mary at Hill, London (1495), we have these entries: "For bred and wyn and ale to Bowear (a singer) and his co., and to the Quere on Dedication Even and on the morrow, Is. vjd.” 1555. "Of the Sumcyon of our Ladys day, which is our Church holyday, for drinkyng overnight at Mr Haywards at the Kings Head with certen of the parish and certen of the chapel and other singing men, in wyne, pears, and sugar, and other chargis viiis. jd.” This injunction, says Borlase, was never universally complied with Cornwall; custom prevailing against the law of the land. ic "For a dynner for our Ladys Day for all the syngyng men & syngyng children, il." "For a pounde and halfe of sugar at dinner is. vijď. ob.” 1557. "For garlands for our Ladys Day & for strawenge yerbes, ijs. ijd." "For bryngyng down the Images to Rome Land and other things to be burnt." On some of the grand festivals, particularly the parish feast (Our Lady's Assumption), rewards in money and feasts are for several years charged in these accounts: "To singing Men and Children from the King's Chapel and elsewhere." When an order was issued in 1627 and 1631, in Exeter and Somersetshire, for the suppression of the wakes, both the ministers and the people desired the continuance of these feasts of charity, on the ground not only of their preserving the memorial of the dedication of their several churches, but of their civilising parishioners, composing differences by the mediation and meeting of friends, and contributing to the relief and comfort of the poor. Most country villages in the South of England, says Bourne, are wont to observe some Sunday in a more particular manner than the rest, i.e., the Sunday after the Day of Dedication, or Day of the Saint to whom their church was dedicated. Then the inhabitants array themselves in their gaudiest clothes, and throw open their doors for the entertainment of their relations and friends from the neighbouring towns. The morning is spent for the most part at church, but not as it used to be, not in commemorating the saint or martyr, or in gratefully remembering the builder and endower; and the rest of the day is devoted to eating and drinking. The next day or two also they spend in all sorts of rural pastimes and exercises, such as dancing on the green, wrestling, cudgelling, and the like. In Cornwall, according to Carew, the Saint's feast is observed on Dedication Day by every householder in the parish," within his own dores, each entertaining such forrayne acquaintance, as will not fayle, when their like turne cometh about, to requite them with the like kindness." But Borlase says that, in his day, it being found to be very inconvenient (especially at harvest time) to observe the Parish Feast on the Saint's Day, they were by the Bishop's special authority transferred to the following Sunday. Stubbes, in his Anatomie of Abuses, records the manner of keeping wakes and feasts in England in 1585: "This is their order therein. Every towne, parish, and village, some at one time of the yeare, some at an other (but so that every one keeps his proper day assigned and appropriate to itselfe which they call their Wake day) useth to make great preparation and provision for goode cheare. To the which all their friendes and kinsfolkes farre and neere are invited." He adds that there are such doings at them, "insomuch as the poore men that beare the charges of these Feastes and Wakesses are the poorer and keep the worser houses a long tyme after. And no marvaile, for many spend more at one of these Wakesses than in all the whole yere besides." Stubbes, who has been already mentioned as a Puritan, did not duly distinguish between the institution itself and the degenerate abuse of it. Borlase says the parish feasts instituted in commemoration of the dedication of parochial churches were highly esteemed among the primitive Christians, and were originally kept on the day of the saint to whose memory the church was dedicated. The generosity of its founder and endower was at the same time celebrated by a service suitable to the occasion; as is still done in the Colleges of Oxford. On the eve of this day prayers were said and hymns sung all night in the church; and from these watchings the festivals were styled Wakes; which name still continues in many parts of England, though the vigils have long been abolished. Speght, in his Glossary to Chaucer, writes: "It was the manner in times past, upon festival evens called Vigiliæ, for parishioners to meet in their church houses or churchyards, and there to have a drinking fit for the time. Here they used to end many quarrels between neighbour and neighbour. Hither came the wives in comely manner and they which were of the better sort had their mantles carried with them, as well for shew as to keep them from cold at the table. These mantles, also, many did use in the church at morrowmasses and other times." In the 28th Canon given under king Edgar (preserved in Wheloc's edition of Bede), we find decent behaviour enjoined at these Church Wakes. The people are commanded to pray devoutly at them and not betake themselves to drinking or debauchery. This, too, opposes the opinion of Spelman that Wakes are derived from the Saxon word vak, signifying drunkenness. Silas Taylor says that in days of yore, "when a Church was to be built, they watched and prayed on the Vigil of the Dedication, and took that point of the horizon where the sun arose for the east, which makes that variation; so that few [Churches] stand true except those built between the two equinoxes. I have experimented some Churches, and have found the line to point to that part of the horizon where the sun rises on the day of that Saint to whom the church is dedicated." Before the wake or feast of the dedication of the church (that is, on the eve of the wake) it was customary at North Wilts, writes Aubrey, to sit up all night fasting and praying; and the night before the day of dedication certain officers were elected for collecting the money for charitable purposes. "Old John Wastfield of Langley was Peter Man at St Peter's chapel there." Through the large attendance at these wakes devotion and reverence gradually diminished until, at length, from hawkers and pedlars coming thither to sell their petty wares, merchants also came and set up stalls and booths in the churchyards and not only those, says Spelman, who lived in the parish to which the church belonged resorted thither, but others also from all the neighbouring towns and villages and, the greater the reputation of the saint, the greater were the numbers that flocked together on this occasion. The holding of these fairs on Sundays was opposed by the clergy. The Abbot of Ely, in King John's reign, inveighed heavily against |