"I thinke your Wedding Shoes have not beene oft unty'd;" Down answering: "Some three times."

In The Praise of Musicke (1586), ascribed to Dr. Case, occurs a remarkable passage: "I come to Mariages, wherein as our Ancestors (I do willingly harp upon this string, that our yonger Wits may know they stand under correction of elder Judgements) did fondly and with a kind of doting maintaine many Rites and Ceremonies, some whereof were either Shadowes or Abodements of a pleasant Life to come, as the eating of a Quince Peare, to be a preparative of sweete and delightfull dayes between the maried persons."

The following, no less curious, is found in Northbrook's Treatise wherein Dicing, Dauncing, Vaine Playes, or Enterluds, with other idle Pastimes commonly used on the Sabboth Day, are reproved by the authoritie of the Word of God & auncient writers (1579): "In olde time we reade that there was usually caried before the Mayde when she shoulde be maried and came to dwell in hir Husbandes house, a Distaffe, charged with Flaxe, and a Spyndle hanging at it, to the intente shee might bee myndefull to lyve by hir labour."

Chaucer's Miller of Trumpington is represented as wearing a Sheffield knife

"A Shefeld thwitel bare he in his Hose;"

and it is observable that all the portraits of Chaucer give him a knife hanging at his breast. There is an old print of a female foreigner entitled Forma Pallii Mulieris Clevensis euntis ad forum, in which are delineated, as hanging from her girdle, her purse, her keys, and two sheathed knives.

Among the Women's Trinkets in the Four P's of John Heywood (circa 1560) occur—

"Silkers Swathbonds, Ribands, and Sleeve-laces,

Girdles, Knives, Purses, and Pin-Cases;

and in Copley's Wits, Fits, and Fancies (1614) we read—

"An olde Marchant had hanging at his Girdle, a Pouch, a Spectacle-case, a Punniard, a Pen and Inckhorne, and a Handkertcher, with many other Trinkets besides which a merry Companion seeing, said, it was like a Habberdasher's shop of small

wares."

THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY, OR PART OF IT, PERFORMED ANCIENTLY IN THE CHURCH - PORCH, OR BEFORE THE DOOR OF THE CHURCH.

Can this custom have had its rise in the uses of Gentilism? Vallancey informs us that the ancient Etruscans always were married in the streets, before the door of the house, which was thrown open at the conclusion of the ceremony.

All the ancient missals indicate, at the beginning of the nuptial ceremony, the position of the man and woman before the door of the

church, and direct, towards the conclusion, their entrance into the church as far as the step of the altar.

The vulgar reason assigned for the first part of this practice, that it would have been indecent to give permission within the church for a man and a woman to sleep together, is too ridiculous for serious refutation.

Selden's Uxor Hebraica maintains that only in front and at the door of the church could the marriage dower have been lawfully assigned. Accordingly we read in Bridges's History of Northamptonshire that "Robert Fitz Roger, in the 6th Ed. I., entered into an engagement with Robert de Tybetot, to marry, within a limited time, John his son and heir to Hawisia, the daughter of the said Robert de Tybetot, to endow her at the Church-door on her Wedding-day with Lands amounting to the value of one hundred pounds per annum."

Chaucer, who flourished during the reign of Edward III., has an allusion to this custom in his Wife of Bath

"She was a worthy woman all her live;

Husbands at the Church dore had she five."

In the curious collection of prints illustrative of ancient customs in Douce's library, there was one that represented a marriage solemnity at the church door; and in an MS. entitled Historical Passages concerning the Clergy in the Papal Times, cited in the History of Shrewsbury (1779), it is noted that "the Pride of the Clergy and the Bigotry of the Laity were such that both rich and poor were married at the Church Doors."

In the Marriage Ceremony contained in a MS. missal of the date of Richard II.'s reign (formerly the property of University College in Oxford) the man says: "Ich M. take the N. to my weddid Wyf, to haven and to holden, for fayrere for fouler, for bettur for wors, for richer for porer, in seknesse and in helthe, for thys tyme forward, til dethe us departe, zif holichirche will it orden, and zerto iche plizt the my treuthe;" and on giving the ring: "With this Ring I the wedde and zis Gold and Selver Ich the zeve* and with my Bodi I the worschepe, and with all my worldly Catelle I the honoure." The woman responds: "Iche N. take the M. to my weddid husbond, to haven and to holden, for fayrer for fouler, for better for wors, for richer for porer, in seknesse and in helthe, to be bonlich and buxum in Bed and at Burdo, tyl deth us departe, fro thys tyme forward, and if holichirche it wol orden, & zerto Iche plizt the my truthe."

The variations of the missals on this head are observable.

The Hereford makes the man say: “I N. underfynge the N. for my wedde wyf, for betere for worse, for richer for porer, yn sekenes & in helthe, tyl deth us departe as holy Church hath ordeyned, and thereto Y plygth the my trowthe; to which the woman returns: "I N. underfynge the Ñ. &c. to be boxum to the tyl deth us departe, &c."

The Sarum Manual has a striking variation in the woman's speech: "To be bonere and buxum in Bedde and at Borde ; " explained in the

• So also the Missale ad usum Sarum (1554).

margin as meek and obedient; while in the York the woman engages to be "buxom" to her husband, and the man takes her "for fairer for fouler, for better for warse," &c.

By the parliamentary reformation of marriage and other rites under King Edward VI., the man and woman, standing no longer (as formerly) at the door, were first permitted to come into the body or middle of the church; yet the following passage from Herrick leads us to think that the old custom had survived the Reformation

"The Entertainment; or, PORCH VERSE at the Marriage of Mr Henry Northly and the most witty Mrs Lettice Yard.

"Welcome! but yet no entrance till we blesse
First you, then you, and both for white successe:
Profane no Porch, young Man and Maid, for fear
Ye wrong the Threshold-God that keeps peace here:
Please him and then all good Luck will betide

You the brisk Bridegroom, you the dainty Bride."

DRINKING WINE IN THE CHURCH AT MARRIAGES.

This custom is enjoined in the Hereford missal. By the Sarum it is directed that the sops immersed in this wine, as well as the liquor itself, and the cup that contained it, should be blessed by the priest. The beverage used on this occasion was to be drunk by the bride and bridegroom and the rest of the company.

In the account of the Parish of Wilsdon in Middlesex, Lysons' Environs of London has an "Inventory of the Goods and Ornaments belonging to Wilsdon Church about A.D. 1547," in which occur "two Masers that were appointed to remayne in the church for to drynk yn at Brideales."

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In the Churchwardens' Accounts of St Lawrence's Parish for the year 1561, in Coates' Reading, is the following entry: Bryde-Past. It. receyved of John Radleye, vis. viijd. ;" a note explaining: Probably the Wafers, which, together with sweet Wine, were given after the solemnization of the Marriage." Leland has an account of the ceremony of marriage between Frederick, Count Palatine of the Rhine, and the Princess Elizabeth, eldest daughter of King James I., on St Valentine's Day, 1613; and we read that at the marriage of Queen Mary and Philip of Spain, "Wyne and Sopes were hallowed." In the Workes of John Heiwood (1576) the following passage

occurs

"The Drinke of my Brydecup I should have forborne,
Till temperaunce had tempred the taste beforne.
I see now, and shall see while I am alive
Who wedth or he be wise shall die or he thrive;"

and in the Compleat Vintner (1720) it is asked-
"What Priest can join two Lovers hands,

But Wine must seal the Marriage-bands?

As if celestial Wine was thought
Essential to the sacred Knot,

And that each Bridegroom and his Bride,
Believ'd they were not firmly ty'd,

Till Bacchus, with his bleeding tun,

Had finish'd what the Priest begun."

Traces of this custom are to be noted in Gentilism. Malone claims a high antiquity for it, as subsisting among our Gothic ancestors, and supports his position by a quotation from Stiernhook's treatise (1672) "De jure Sueorum et Gothorum vetusto."

The pieces of cake, or wafers, that appear to have been immersed in the wine on this occasion, were properly called sops, and thence doubtless originated the name given to the flower termed "Sops in Wine."

The allusions to this custom in our old plays are very numerous.

The passage in Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, where Gremio calls for wine, and gives a health, and, having quaffed off the Muscadel, throws the sops in the sexton's face, will readily occur to the reader; and so in Armin's History of the Two Maids of Moreclacke (1609), the serving-man, who is perfuming the door, observes: "The Muscadine stays for the Bride at Church."

Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady, we read—

"If my Wedding Smock were on,

Were the Gloves bought and given, the Licence come,
Were the Rosemary Branches dipt, and all

The Hippocras and Cakes eat and drunk off."

Among the articles ordained by King Henry VII. for the regulation of his household, that for the marriage of a princess directs: "Then Pottes of Ypocrice to bee ready, and to be put into the cupps with Soppe, and to be borne to the Estates; and to take a soppe and a drinke;" and the ceremony was observed at the magnificent marriage of Queen Mary and Philip in Winchester Cathedral, in 1554-" The trumpetts sounded, and they both returned, hand in hand, to their traverses in the Quire, and there remayned until Mase was done : at which tyme Wyne and Sopes were hallowed and delivered to them booth."

Farmer, in his Notes on Shakespeare, adduces a line in an old canzonet on a wedding, set to music by Morley in 1606: “Sops in Wine, Spice Cakes are a dealing;" and in Ben Jonson's Magnetic Lady the wine drunk on this occasion is called "a Knitting Cup."

The Jews to the present day are wont to break the glass in which the bride and bridegroom have drunk, by way of admonishing them of mortality. With us wedding sermons anciently were preached at all marriages of consequence.

This custom of nuptial drinking seems to have prevailed in the Greek Church. Indeed, it still survives in Russia.

A curious account of Irish marriage customs about 1682, in Piers' Description of Westmeath, has it that "especially in those countries

where cattle abound, the parents and friends on each side meet on the side of a hill, or, if the weather be cold, in some place of shelter about midway between both dwellings. If agreement ensue, they drink the Agreement-Bottle, as they call it; which is a bottle of good Usquebaugh (i.e., Whiskey, the Irish aqua vita, and not what is now understood by Usquebaugh); and this goes merrily round. For payment of the portion, which generally is a determinate number of cows, little care is taken. Only the father, or next of kin to the Bride, sends to his neighbours and friends, sub mutua vicissitudinis obtentu, and every one gives his cow or heifer, which is all one in the case, and thus the portion is quickly paid; nevertheless, caution is taken from the Bridegroom, on the day of delivery, for restitution of the cattle, in case the Bride die childless within a certain day limited by agreement, and in this case every man's own beast is restored. Thus care is taken that no man shall grow rich by often Marriages. On the day of bringing home, the Bridegroom and his friends ride out, and meet the Bride and her friends at the place of treaty. Being come near each other, the custom was of old to cast short darts at the company that attended the Bride, but at such a distance that seldom any hurt ensued yet it is not out of the memory of man that the Lord Hoath on such an occasion lost an eye: this custom of casting darts is now obsolete."

The Gentleman's Magazine for March 1767 notes the prevalence in Ireland, at that period, of the forcible abduction of women for wives, and records an instance of recent occurrence in the county of Kilkenny, where a farmer's son, being refused a neighbour's daughter of only twelve years of age, took an opportunity of running away with her; but, being pursued and recovered by her parents, she was brought back, and married by her father to a lad of fourteen. Her former lover, however, resolved to maintain his priority, procured a party of armed men, and besieged the house of his rival, and in the contest the father-in-law was shot dead, and several of the besiegers were mortally wounded; but they were forced to retire without their prize."

THE NUPTIAL KISS IN THE CHURCH.

This osculatory salutation in the church is enjoined by both the York Missal and the Sarum Manual, and there is express mention of it in the line from Marston's old play of the Insatiate Countess"The Kisse thou gav'st me in the Church, here take."

Among the middle classes, as well as the vulgar, it is still customary in most parts of England for the young men individually to salute the bride immediately upon conclusion of the service. This practice I have seen frequently myself in the course of my official ministrations. A note in Reed's edition of Shakespeare (vol, xi. p. 142) intimates that, in dancing, “a kiss was antiently the establish'd fee of a lady's partner." So, in Lovel's Dialogue between Custom and Veritie concerning the Use and Abuse of Dauncing and Minstrelsie (1581) we read