the old." Parents above all things, he urges to look well after their children and to take care of the company they keep. Teach them to say their grace at meals. "At every meal, dinner or supper, I have advised, and do now counsel, that one person should with a loud voice say thus, Paternoster,' with every petition paraphrased and explained, and the Hail Mary and Creed likewise. This manner of the Paternoster, Ave, and Creed," he says, "I would have used and read from the book at every meal, or at least once a day with a loud voice that all persons present may hear it." People are bound to see that all in their house know these prayers and say them.1

Very strongly indeed does Whitford in this volume write against belief in charms and giving way to superstitions. There is no question about his strong condemnation of anything, however slight, which might savour of reliance on these external things, and as an instance of what he means, he declares that the application of a piece of bread, with a cross marked upon it, to a tooth to cure its aching, savours of superstition, as showing too great a reliance on the material cross. In the same place our author urges parents to correct their children early for any use of oaths and strong expressions. "Teach your children," he says, "to make their additions under this form: 'yea, father,' ' nay, father,' 'yea, mother,' 'nay, mother,' and ever to avoid such things as 'by cock and pye,' and 'by my hood of green,' and such other."

Finally, to take but one more example of the advice given in this interesting volume to parents and others having the charge of the young, Whitford says: "Teach your children to ask a blessing every night, kneeling, before they go to rest, under this form: 'Father, I beseech you a blessing for charity.'" If the child is too stubborn to do this, he says let it "be well whisked." 2 Ibid., sig. C. 8.

'Ibid., sig. B. i.

If too old to be corrected in this way, let it be set out in the middle of the dining-room and made to feed by itself, and let it be treated as one would treat one who did not deserve to consort with its fellows. Also teach the young "to ask a blessing from every bishop, abbot, and priest, and of their godfathers and godmothers also."1 In taking a general survey of the books issued by the English presses upon the introduction of the art of printing, the inquirer can hardly fail to be struck with the number of religious, or quasi-religious, works which formed the bulk of the early printed books. This fact alone is sufficient evidence that the invention which at this period worked a veritable revolution in the intellectual life of the world, was welcomed by the ecclesiastical authorities as a valuable auxiliary in the work of instruction. In England the first presses were set up under the patronage of churchmen, and a very large proportion of the early books were actually works of instruction or volumes furnishing materials to the clergy for the familiar and simple discourses which they were accustomed to give four times a year to their people. Besides the large number of what may be regarded as professional books chiefly intended for use by the ecclesiastical body, such as missals, manuals, breviaries, and horæ, and the prymers and other prayerbooks used by the laity, there was an ample supply of religious literature published in the early part of the sixteenth century. In fact, the bulk of the early printed English books were of a religious character, and as the publication of such volumes was evidently a matter of business on the part of the first English printers, it is obvious that this class of literature commanded a ready sale, and that the circulation of such books was fostered by those in authority at this period. Volumes of sermons, works of Instruction on the Creed and the Commandments, lives of the saints, and popular expositions of Scripture

1 Ibid., sig. D. 5.

history, were not only produced but passed through several editions in a short space of time. The evidence, consequently, of the productions of the first English printingpresses goes to show not only that religious books were in great demand, but also that so far from discouraging the use of such works of instruction, the ecclesiastical authorities actively helped in their diffusion.

In considering the religious education of the people in the time previous to the great upheaval of the sixteenth century, some account must be taken of the village mystery plays which obviously formed no inconsiderable part in popular instruction in the great truths of religion. The inventories of parish churches and the churchwardens' accounts which have survived show how very common a feature these religious plays formed in the parish life of the fifteenth century, and the words of the various dramas, of which we still possess copies, show how powerful a medium of teaching they would have been among the simple and unlettered villagers of Catholic England, and even to the crowds which at times thronged great cities like Coventry and Chester, to be present at the more elaborate plays acted in these traditional centres of the religious drama.

As to their popularity there can be no question. Dramatic representations of the chief events in the life of our Lord, &c., were commonly so associated with the religious purposes for which they were originally produced, that they were played on Sundays and feast days, and not infrequently in churches, church porches, and churchyards. "Spectacles, plays, and dances that are used on great feasts," says the author of Dives et Pauper, quoted above, "as they are done principally for devotion and honest mirth, and to teach men to love God the more, are lawful if the people be not thereby hindered from God's service, nor from hearing God's word, and provided that in such spectacles and plays there is mingled no error against the faith of Holy Church and good living. All

other plays are prohibited, both on holidays and work days (according to the law), upon which the gloss saith that the representation in plays at Christmas of Herod and the Three Kings, and other pieces of the Gospel, both then and at Easter and other times, is lawful and commendable."

A few examples of the kind of teaching imparted in these plays will give a better idea of the purpose they served in pre-Reformation days than any description. There can be no reasonable doubt that such dramatic representations of the chief mysteries of religion and of scenes in the life of our Lord or of His saints served to impress these truths and events upon the imaginations of the audiences who witnessed them, and to make them vivid realities in a way which we, who are not living in the same religious atmosphere, find it difficult now to understand. The religious drama was the handmaid of the Church, and was intended to assist in instructing the people at large in the truths and duties of religion, just as the paintings upon the walls of the sacred buildings were designed to tell their own tale of the Bible history, and form "a book" ever open to the eyes of the unlettered children of the Church, easy to be understood, graphically setting forth events in the story of God's dealings with men, and illustrating truths which often formed the groundwork for oral instruction in the Sunday sermon.

Whatever we may be inclined to think of these simple plays as literary works, or however we may be inclined now to smile at some of the characters and "situations," as to the pious spirit which dictated their composition and presided over their production there can be no doubt. "In great devotion and discretion," says the monk and chronicler," Higden published the story of the Bible, that the simple in their own language might understand."

This was the motive of all these mediæval religious

1 B. Mus. Harl. MS. 2125, f. 272.

plays. As a popular writer upon the English drama says: "There is abundant evidence that the Romish ecclesiastics in the mystery plays, especially that part of them relating to the birth, passion, and resurrection of Christ, had the perfectly serious intention of strengthening the faith of the multitude in the fundamental doctrines of the Church, and it seems the less extraordinary that they should have resorted to this expedient when we reflect that, before the invention of printing, books had no existence for the people at large."

The subjects treated of in these plays were very varied, although those which were performed at the great feasts of Christmas and Easter generally had some relation to the mystery then celebrated. In fact, the mystery plays of the sacred seasons were only looked upon as helping to make men realise more deeply the great drama of the Redemption, the memory of which was perpetuated in the sequence of the great festivals of the Christian year. In such a collection as that known as the Towneley Mysteries, and published by the Surtees Society, we have examples of the subjects treated in the religious plays of the period. The collection makes no pretence to be complete, but it comprises some three and thirty plays, including such subjects as the Creation, the death of Abel, the story of Noah, the sacrifice of Isaac and other Old Testament histories, and a great number of scenes from the New Testament, such as the Annunciation, the Visitation, Cæsar Augustus, scenes from the Nativity, the Shepherds and the Magi, the Flight into Egypt, various scenes from the Passion and Crucifixion, the parable of the Talents, the story of Lazarus, &c.

Any one who will take the trouble to read these plays as they are printed in this volume cannot fail to be impressed not only with the vivid picture of the special scene in the Old or New Testament that is presented