The Ancestor Volume 6 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 Excerpt: ...de Weston, vicar of Crich, on 11 November of the same year. The composition of the chantry of Our Lady at Annesley, Nottinghamshire, is next transcribed in the register. It is of almost equal length and similar form to that of Our Lady at Crich. This chantry was founded in 1363 conjointly by William de Wakebridge and Robert de Annesley, rector of the church of Ruddington (Rotyntone), with the consent of the prior and convent of Felley as patrons of the church of Annesley. The chantry chaplain was daily to assist the parochial chaplain at mattins, mass and evensong. A copy of an encyclical letter of Simon Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury, dated 14 December, 1362, addressed to all the bishops of his province, relative to the observance of holy days, follows in the register. It was probably ordered to be read in all parish churches. The archbishop therein complains, in the usual extravagant Latin of the times, that not only was the custom prevalent of transacting ordinary business on Sundays and holy days, but also of indulging in blasphemous and illicit practices, so that the very times intended for devotion were given up to dissoluteness, the tavern frequented rather than the church, and drunkenness and quarrelling abounded instead of prayers and meditations; in short the whole purport of God in hallowing the Sabbath, and of the Church in setting apart other days for pious observances, had been by the multitude perverted to evil uses. The archbishop therefore enjoined that there should be abstinence from even useful work on all Sundays (beginning to observe it from the vesper hour of Saturday), and on the festivals of St. Stephen, St. John, Holy Innocents, St. Thomas of Canterbury, the Circumcision, the Epiphany, the Purification, St. Matthias, the Annunciati...