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done to the saints of God, called in Greek dulia. The veneration or worship that is done to the images (as Damascene, Basil, and St. Thomas say) rest not in them, but redound unto the thing that is represented by such images: as for example, the great ambassador or messenger of a king shall have the same reverence that the king's own person should have if he were present. This honour is not done to this man for himself, or for his own person, but for the king's person in whose name he cometh, and all such honour and reverence so done redoundeth to the king and resteth in him. So it is in the veneration or worshipping of the images of Christ and His saints. The honour rests not in the image, nor in the stock, nor in the stone, but in the thing that is represented thereby." According to St. Thomas, he says the images in churches are intended to "be as books to the rude and unlearned people," and to "stir simple souls to devotion."1

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Bond then draws out most carefully the distinction which the Church teaches as to the kind of honour to be

given to the saints. "Our lights, oblations, or Paternosters and creeds that we say before images of saints," he says, "are as praisings of God, for His graces wrought in His saints, by whose merits we trust that our petitions shall be the sooner obtained of God. . . . We pray to them, not as to the granters of our petitions, but as means whereby we may the sooner obtain the same.”2

Speaking specially of the reverence shown to the crucifix, our author uses the teaching of St. Thomas to explain the exact meaning of this honour. "The Church, in Lent, in the Passion time," he continues, "worships it, singing, 'O crux ave, spes unica,' ‘Hail, holy cross, our only hope.' That is to be understood as Hail, blessed Lord crucified, Who art our only hope '

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1 William Bond, The Pilgrymage of Perfeccyon, Wynkyn de Worde,

1531, fol. 192.

2 Ibid., fol. 196.

for all is one worship and act. Christ, our Maker and Redeemer, God and man in one person, is of duty worshipped with the high adoration only due to God, called latria. His image, also, or his similitude, called the crucifix, is to be worshipped, just as the Blessed Sacrament is adored with the worship of latria.” 1

To this testimony may be added that of another passage from Sir Thomas More. He was engaged in refuting the accusation made by Tyndale against the religious practices of pre-Reformation days, to which charges, unfortunately, people have given too much credence in later times. "Now of prayer, Tyndale says," writes More, "that we think no man may pray but at church, and that (i.e. the praying before a crucifix or image) is nothing but the saying of a Paternoster to a post. (Further) that the observances and ceremonies of the Church are vain things of our own imagination, neither needful to the taming of the flesh, nor profitable to our neighbour, nor to the honour of God. These lies come in by lumps; lo! I dare say that he never heard in his life men nor women say that a man might pray only in church. Just as true is it also that men say their Paternosters to the post, by which name it pleases him of his reverent Christian mind to call the images of holy saints and our Blessed Lady, and the figure of Christ's cross, the book of His bitter passion. Though we reverence these in honour of the things they represent, and in remembrance of Christ do creep to the cross and kiss it, and say Paternoster at it, yet we say not our Paternoster to it, but to God; and that Tyndale knows full well, but he likes to rail." "

Finally a passage on the subject of pre-Reformation devotion to the saints and angels, from the tract Dives et Pauper, may fitly close this subject. "First," says the author, "worship ye our Lady, mother and maid, above all, next after God, and then other saints both men and

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women, and then the holy angels, as God giveth the grace. Worship ye them not as God, but as our tutors, defenders and keepers, as our leaders and governors under God, as the means between us and God, who is the Father of all and most Sovereign Judge, to appease Him, and to pray for us, and to obtain us grace to do well, and for forgiveness of our misdeeds.

And, dear friend, him that is nearest

pray ye heartily to your angel, as to to you and hath most care of you, and is, under God, most busy to save you. And follow his governance and trust in him in all goodness, and with reverence and purity pray ye to him faithfully, make your plaints to him, and speak to him homely to be your helper, since he is your tutor and keeper assigned to you by God. Say oft that holy prayer, Angele qui meus est, &c."

This prayer to the Guardian Angel, so highly commended, was well known to pre-Reformation Catholics. Generations of English mothers taught it to their children; it is found frequently recommended in the sermons of the fifteenth century, and confessors are charged to advise their penitents to learn and make use of it. For the benefit of those of my readers who may not know the prayer, I here give it in an English form, from a Latin version in the tract Dextra Pars Oculi, which was intended to assist confessors in the discharge of their sacred ministry—

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It is, of course, impossible here to do more than refer to the books of instruction, and those intended to furnish the priests on the eve of the Reformation with material for the

familiar teaching they were bound to give their people. Such works as Walter Pagula's Pars Oculi Sacerdotis, and the Pupilla Oculi of John de Burgo, both fourteenth-century productions, were in general use during the fifteenth century among the clergy. The frequent mention of these works in the inventories and wills of the period shows that they were in great demand, and were circulated from hand to hand, whilst an edition of the latter, printed in 1510 by Wolffgang, at the expense of an English merchant, William Bretton, attests its continued popularity. In a letter from the editor, Augustine Aggeus, to Bretton, printed on the back of the title-page, it is said that the Pupilla was printed solely with the desire that the rites and sacraments of the church might be better understood and appreciated, and to secure "that nowhere in the English Church" should there be any excuse of ignorance on those matters.1

The contents of the first-named tract, the Pars Oculi Sacerdotis, show how very useful a manual it must have been to assist the clergy in their ministrations. It consists of three parts: the first portion forms what would now be called the praxis confessarii, a manual for instructing priests in the science of dealing with souls, and giving examples of the kind of questions that should be asked of various people, for example, of religious, secular priests, merchants, soldiers, and the like. This is followed by a detailed examination of conscience, and pious practices are suggested for the priest to recommend for the use of the faithful. For example, in order that the lives of lay people might be

The full title or this book is: Pupilla oculi omnibus presbyteris precipue Anglicanis necessaria. It is clear from the letter that W. Bretton had already had other works printed in the same way, and it is known that amongst those works were copies of Lyndwood's Provinciale (1505), Psalterium et Hymni (1506), Horæ, &c. (1506), Speculum Spiritualium, and Hampole, De Emendatione Vita (1510), (cf. Ames, Ed. Herbert, iii. p. 16). Pepwell the London publisher, at "the sign of the Holy Trinity," was the same who published many books printed abroad, and had dealings with Bishops Stokesley and Tunstall.

associated in some way with the public prayer of the Church, the Divine office, the priest is advised to get his penitents to make use of the Pater and Creed, seven times a day, to correspond with the canonical hours. Those having the cure of souls are reminded that it is their duty to see that all know at least the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Hail Mary by heart, and they are urged to do all in their power to inculcate devotions to our Lady, Patron Saints, and Guardian Angels.

The second part of the Dextra Pars Oculi deals minutely and carefully with the instructions which a priest should give his people in their religion, and this includes not only points of necessary belief and Christian practice, but such matters as the proper decorum and behaviour in Church, and the cemetery, &c. The materials for these familiar instructions are arranged under thirty-one headings, and following on these are the explanations of Christian faith and practice to be made in the simple sermons the clergy were bound to give to their people quarterly. The third part, called the Sinistra Pars Oculi, is an equally careful treatise on the sacraments. The instructions on the Blessed Eucharist are excellent, and in the course of them many matters of English religious practice are touched upon and the ceremonies of the Mass are fully explained.1

1 For further information upon popular religious instruction in England, see an essay upon the teaching in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in my The old English Bible and other Essays. The Rev. J. Fisher, in his tract on The Private Devotions of the Welsh (1898), speaking of the vernacular prayer-books, says, "they continued to be published down to the end of Henry's reign, and, in a modified form, even at a later date. Besides these prymers and the oral instruction in the principal formula of the Church, the scriptorium of the monastery was not behind in supplying, especially the poor, with horn-books, on which were, as a rule, written in the vulgar tongue the Lord's prayer, the Creed, and the Hail Mary." In 1546 appeared a prymer in Welsh in which, amongst other things, the seven capital or deadly sins and their opposite virtues are given and analysed. This book, consequently, besides being a prayer-book afforded popular instruction to the people using it. The prymers in Welsh, we

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