opinions” (to quote the language of their enemies) of the Lollards were creeping into men's minds and inspiring them with the heroic spirit of martyrs. Externally, however, Wilton wore a thoroughly Catholic aspect. The Preaching Friar set up his temporary pulpit in the market-place, and expounded his doctrines to the people in their mother tongue.

The Pardoner, with his wallet full of relics, dispensations, and indulgences, fearless of Councils and strong in his reliance on popular credulity, vended his bulls and bones in open day, and promised to assoil men's souls as glibly as he undertook to cure their bodily maladies by virtue of his wonder-working fragments of saintly anatomies. The Host, with tapers, cross, and aspersion of the kneeling crowd, was borne in procession through the busy streets, and possibly bespoke a prayer—from those who marked its progress—for the dying man, into whose chamber it would carry consolation, and who only waited for his viaticum to depart in peace.

Once in three months, or oftener, the glutton-mass was held, when, the religious rite being first performed, each worshipper brought forth his contribution to the feast, the church re-echoed with the din of revelry, and priest and layman mingled in rude and riotous excesses, intended to do especial honour to the Virgin Mother.

Sometimes the brethren of the Hospital of St. John would receive beneath their roof a Palmer from the Holy Land, who shared their evening meal and joined the circle as it gathered round the fire, while winter winds were moaning round the building like a human voice, or making wild music in the icy trees without. Unfolding all his pilgrimage, that sun-burnt, way-worn man assumed a more than human interest in the eyes of those who listened to his history, for he had walked barefooted up the Dolorous Way, knelt at the Sepulchre, and worshipped at the Shrine of the Nativity, had stood upon the Mount of Olives, and kissed the hallowed site of Calvary.

And Wilton did not want for pilgrims of a less excursive character-substantial burgesses, who had strayed as far as Walsingham, and laid their offerings on Becket's shrine at Canterbury. These, too, were local lions in their way, for there were dangers to be braved, and adventures to be encountered, even in a journey into Kent, or the remoter wilds of Norfolk. Moreover, it was something to have seen the Virgin's shrine, the miraculous wicket, the finger of St. Peter, the solidified milk, and the gold and silver statues religiously preserved at Walsingham;—to have actually looked upon the point of the sword which cleft à Becket's skull, to have kissed the forehead of the “ martyred saint," and contemplated the hair-shirts, girdles, and bandages with which the prelate mortified his flesh, and which were treasured up in various ivory coffers in the cathedral church of Canterbury. A sober summary of the articles of gold and jewellery accumulated at this celebrated shrine, at all times sufficed to excite the profound amazement of a wondering auditory; while the incidents of the pilgrimage, -the exhibition of piety and profanity, devotion and licentiousness, on the part of the miscellaneous assemblage to which an individual pilgrim generally attached himself,—the commotion they created in passing through a town by reason of their piping, and singing, the "jangling of their Canturburie-bels and the barking out of dogges after,"—the picturesque aspect they assumed as they wound through a forest,

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or came trailing down a steep hill-side, supplied a never-failing theme for comment and enlargement during the remainder of a pilgrim's life.

Of the popular pastimes, we have spoken in a previous page. While the great body of the English people were in a state of villeinage, their servitude was lightened by periodically recurring sports, which constituted a lively record of the progress of the year, and permitted the helots of society to obtain a transient glimpse of the personal freedom from which they were debarred. When serfdom ceased, the sports survived, and none were so heartily maintained as those which did “observance to a morn of May.” Then was the pageant of Robin Hood and Maid Marian performed with all the pomp and circumstance which Wilton wardrobes and the ingenuity of the mummers could supply. The representative of the bold outlaw, in his green and gold-fringed tunic, his parti-coloured hose and hood, and bright-blue baldrick, felt himself a hero for the nonce: Maid Marian, in her watchet-coloured tunic, linen rochet, and silver garland, became the “ cynosure of neighbouring eyes,” while in Friar Tuck and Little John, in Will Stukely and Much, the miller's son, the populace recognized the types of classes familiar to them all. Then the hobby-horse and dragon played their antic feats, as Payne or Wieland, in a similar disguise, have played them since. Then the pipe and tabor, the bout at quarter-staff, the morris-dance, the feats of archery, the wrestling match and mimic tilt, filled up the hours with constant change of sport, and, with a burst of mirth, “ brought in the maiden May.”

A cursory notice of some of the other festivals popular and ecclesiastical-which occurred at different

periods of the year, will further assist the object we have in view.

Plough Monday was emphatically a rustic carnival. Husbandmen were in the habit of maintaining ploughlights before certain images in the churches, and, to support these lights, they claimed the contribution of their wealthier neighbours in the town. The plough was drawn in procession through the streets, with music and morris dancing; alms were collected by a man in a mummer's garb, and the surplus funds were spent in convivial enjoyments at night.

On Candlemas-day, the church blessed her candles for the year, and distributed these hallowed lights to the faithful.

Collop Monday was distinguished as the last day of eating flesh before Lent, and the good housewives of Wilton devoted it to cutting up their fresh meat into steaks or “collops” for salting or otherwise preserving till the end of Lent.

On Ash Wednesday, the branches of brushwood or palms, consecrated in the previous year, were burnt to ashes, blessed, and sprinkled on the people's heads, while the priest reminded them of their mortality by uttering the words, “ Memento, homo, quia cinis est; et in cinerem reverteris."

Palm Sunday witnessed the ceremonial of drawing up the veil before the rood in various churches, while the priest and people prostrated themselves with a thrice-repeated, “Hail, our King."

On Easter-day, the faithful children of the Church expressed their abhorrence of the Jews by eating bacon, and if one of the unfortunate outcasts could be obtained, he was turned out, hunted through the streets, and stoned-an eminently“meritorious work!”

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though not exactly in accordance with the example of Him, who, “when he was reviled, reviled not again."

During the Rogation Week, the priests passed frequently in procession through the streets, chaunting or singing litanies.

On Whitsun Eve, as also upon Easter Eve, the practice of font-hallowing was observed. The writer of some Homilies (preserved among the Harleian MSS.) says, “In the begyning of holy chirch all the children weren kept to be chrystened on thys even at the fonthallowyng; but now for enchesone that in so long abydynge they might dye without chrystendome, therefore holi chirch ordeyneth to chrysten at all tymes of the yeare; save eyght dayes before these evenys, the chylde shalle abyde till the font hallowing, if it may safely for perill of death and ells not.”

On Whit-sunday, there was a general gathering of alms for the poor by maidens who stood by the church porches, where shrubs were planted and banners reared for the occasion; while an arbour, called Robin Hood's bower, was erected in the church yard, and the congregation, after mass, betook themselves to sports.

Midsummer Eve was signalized by bonfires, round which the people danced, while each, on leaving, bore away a brand, the ashes of which he scattered to the wind, believing, as he did so, that the evil spirits who might chance to be abroad, would undergo a similar dispersion.

The anniversary of the beheading of St. John the Baptist was a solemn festival with the guilds. Chantries were formed, and a portable shrine of St. John carried in procession through the town, with lighted torches and a glittering display of banners. Masses