And let them collect and keep under their care, (adgregent sibique socient,) not only children of servile condition, but those belonging to persons of better rank; and let there be schools of reading boys. In all monasteries and dioceses, let them learn the Psalms, the musical notes, the chants, the calendar,* and grammar. But let them have catholic books well corrected; because frequently, when they desire to pray for anything very properly, they ask amiss, by reasons of incorrect books. And do not suffer your boys to spoil the books, by either their reading or writing; and if you want a gospel or a missal to be written, let it be done by men of mature age, with all diligence." Again, in the Capitula data Presbyteris, in the year 804, he says, "I would admonish you, my brethren and sons, to give attention to these few capitula which follow:-first, that a priest of God should be learned in holy scripture, and rightly believe, and teach to others, the faith of the Trinity, and be able properly to fulfil his office. Secondly, that he should have the whole Psalter by heart. Thirdly, that he should know by heart the creed and the office for baptism. Fourthly, that he should be learned in the canons, and well know his penitential. Fifthly, that he should know the chants and the calendar."+ More might be quoted from this source, but perhaps it is not necessary for my present purpose, which is, to shew that it was pretty commonly taken for granted that a clerk could read. But, in case any reader should have thought that I lay undue stress on the word bene, and should suppose (as it is charitable to hope that Robertson did when he left it out), that it was a mere expletive, I will here give an extract from a writer of this period, from which it will appear that the inquiry as to reading well was one actually and particularly made. Rabanus Maurus, who was afterwards Archbishop of Mentz, and who wrote his book "De Institutione Clericorum," in the year 819, says, "The canons and the decrees of Pope Zosimus have decided, that a clerk proceeding to holy orders shall continue five years among the readers, or exorcists; and, after that, shall be an acolyte, or subdeacon, four years. That he shall not be admitted to deacon's orders before he is twenty-five years of age; . and that if, during five years, he ministers irreproachably, he may be promoted to priests' orders; but on no account before he "Chants and calendar" is not a very satisfactory translation of "cantus et compotus." To call the latter (as I have seen it called) "the compost" would not be very intelligible to the English reader. Still calendar does not express the thing, which was rather that learning, that compotus, or computus, which would enable a computista, or artis computatoriæ magister, to make a calendar, or computorium; and some of which (enough to shew its nature) the reader may find in the beginning of his Prayer Book. I may however, perhaps, be allowed at present to pass over some words without explanation, of which I hope to speak more fully hereafter. What is implied in knowing the cantus, compotus, grammatica, and penitential, will then more fully appear. ↑ Capit. Reg. Fr., edit. Baluz., tom. i. 237. Ibid. p. 417. دو is thirty years of age, even though he should be peculiarly qualified, for our Lord himself did not begin to preach until he had attained that age."* Now, as Rabanus had just before remarked, "Lectores are so called " a legendo;" and if a man was to fill that office for five years before he became even a subdeacon, we may reasonably suppose that, when he came to be examined for, what the Romish church calls, greater orders, it might be taken for granted that he had learned to read; but as to reading well, (I hope no offence to modern times,) it certainly was then quite another question, and one to which some attention was paid. "He," says Rabanus," who would rightly and properly perform the duty of a reader, must be imbued with learning, and conversant with books, and instructed in the meaning of words, and the knowledge of words themselves; so that he may understand the divisions of sentences, where a clause ends, where the sense is carried on, and where the sentence closes. Being thus prepared, he will obtain such a power of reading as that, by various modes of delivery-now simply narrating, now lamenting, now angry, now rebuking, exhorting, pitying, inquiring, and the like, according to circumstances-he will affect the understanding and feelings of all his hearers. For there are many things in the scriptures, which, if they are not properly pronounced, give a wrong sense; as that of the apostle-Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? God who justifieth.' Now if, instead of pronouncing this properly, it were to be delivered confirmatively, it would create great error. It is, therefore, to be so pronounced as that the first clause may be a percontation, and the second an interrogation. Between a percontation and interrogation, the ancients made this distinctionthat the former admitted a variety of answers, while the latter must be replied to by 'yes' or 'no.' It must, therefore, be so read that, after the percontation- Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?'-that which follows be pronounced in an interrogatory manner-God that justifieth ?'-that there may be a tacit answer, 'no.' And again we have the percontation Who is he that condemneth ?" and again we interrogate'Christ that died? or rather that is risen again? who is at the right hand of God? who also maketh intercession for us?' At each of which there is a tacit answer in the negative. But in that passage where he says, 'What shall we then say? that the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness,' unless after the percontation-What shall we say then?'-the answer were added-' that the Gentiles which followed not after righteousness have attained to righteousness,' the connexion with what follows would be destroyed. And there * Lib. i. c. xiii. ap Bib. Pat. tom. x. 572. VOL. VII-April, 1835. 3 E are many other parts which, in like manner, require to be distinguished by the manner of pronouncing them. Besides this, a reader ought to understand the force of the accents, that he may know what syllables he is to lengthen; for there are many words which can only be prevented from conveying a wrong meaning by being pronounced with the proper accent. But these things he must learn from the grammarians. Moreover the voice of a reader should be pure and clear, and adapted to every style of speaking, full of manly strength, and free from all that is rude or countrified. Not low, nor yet too high; not broken, not weak, and by no means feminine; not with inflated or gasping articulation, or words mouthed about in his jaws, or echoing through his empty mouth; not harsh from his grinding his teeth; not projected from a wide-open mouth, but distinctly, equally, mildly pronounced; so that each letter shall have its proper sound, and each word its proper quantity, and that the matter be not spoiled by any affectation."* -- It is true that Rabanus Maurus has taken the substance of this from Isidore of Seville,† who wrote more than two hundred years before, though he has improved it; but if it was good, why should it not be repeated? So thought Ivo, Bishop of Chartres, who gave it again in his discourses "De Rebus Ecclesiasticis," + nearly three hundred years after Rabanus wrote-and I cannot help suspecting that if Robertson had gone to the Archbishop of Seville in the seventh century, the Archbishop of Mayence in the ninth, or the Bishop of Chartres in the eleventh, for holy orders, he would have found the examination rather more than he expected. If I have failed to convince the reader of this, by the extracts already given, I shall hope to do so hereafter; but I think that what has been said must be sufficient to shew that it was not a very uncommon thing, even in the dark ages, for the clergy to be able to read and write. CONFESSIONAL CHAIR AT BISHOP'S-CANNINGS. SIR, I send you a drawing of what I consider a curious relic, and a great rarity in England-namely, a confessional cell, or chair, in the church of Bishop's-Cannings, Wilts. I have never seen anything of the kind in any church in this country, and have therefore thought that you might like to affix it to the Magazine as a piece of ecclesiastical antiquity. It is of oak, and very strong. I send, on a separate page, the sentences inscribed Lib. ii. c. lii. Bib. Pat. x. 616. t De Eccles. Offic., lib. ii. c. xi., Bib. Pat. x. 209. |