"Thursday, June 23rd, was the Eve of S. John. The sober green workaday dress in which the church settles down to her daily duties after the bridal raptures of Pentecost, had been put away, and the altar was white and shining once again. Vespers were over in the Lady Chapel at S. Onesimus -- a faint reek of incense hung cloudily under the dim beams of the roof. A very short acolyte with a very long brass extinguisher snuffed out the candles, adding the faintly unpleasant yet sanctified odour of hot wax. The small congregation of elderly ladies rose up lingeringly from their devotions and slipped away in a series of deep genflections. Miss Climpson gathered up a quantity of little manuals, and groped for her gloves. In doing so, she dropped her office-book. It fell, annoyingly, behind the long kneeler, scattering as it went a small pentecostal shower of Easter cards, book-markers, sacred pictures, dried palms and Ave Marias into the dark corner behind the confessional.
" ... She crammed the papers back into the office-book, grasped her gloves and handbag, bowed to the Sanctuary, dropped her bag, picked it up this time in a kind of glow of martyrdom, bustled down the aisle and across the the church to the south door, where the sacristan stood, key in hand, waiting to let her out. As she went, she glanced up at the High Altar, unlit and lonely, with the tall candles like faint ghosts in the twilight of the apse. It had a grim and awful look, she thought, suddenly.
" ... She was glad to come out of the shadowy porch into the green glow of the June evening. She had felt a menace. Was it the thought of the stern Baptist, with his call to repentance? the prayer to speak the truth and boldly rebuke vice? Miss Climpson decided that she would hurry home and read the Epistle and Gospel -- curiously tender and comfortable for the festival of that harsh and uncompromising Saint. 'And I can tidy up these cards at the same time', she thought.
" ..,. The card of the Last Supper went in at the Prayer of Consecration; the Fra Angelico Annunciation had strayed out of the office for March 25 and was wandering among the Sundays after Trinity; the Sacred Heart with its French text belonged to Corpus Chisti; the ..."
Dorothy Sayers, Unnatural Death, 1927. Sayers was, of course, a priest's daughter.
If I were doing a critical edition, and I had a fair wind of Housmanite textcrit doctrines behind me, I might have emended Pentecost to Paschaltide.
Notice the Anglo-Catholic usage of S. rather than St..
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was for nearly three decades at Lancing College; where he taught Latin and Greek language and literature, was Head of Theology, and Assistant Chaplain. He has served three curacies, been a Parish Priest, and Senior Research Fellow at Pusey House in Oxford. Since 2011, he has been in full communion with the See of S Peter. The opinions expressed on this Blog are not asserted as being those of the Magisterium of the Church, but as the writer's opinions as a private individual. Nevertheless, the writer strives, hopes, and prays that the views he expresses are conformable with and supportive of the Magisterium. In this blog, the letters PF stand for Pope Francis. On this blog, 'Argumentum ad hominem' refers solely to the Lockean definition, Pressing a man with the consequences of his own concessions'.
... once graced the high altar of the church of Sancta Maria in Ara Coeli on the Capitoline Hill.
Fr John Hunwicke
was for nearly three decades at Lancing College; where he taught Latin and Greek language and literature, was Head of Theology, and Assistant Chaplain. He has served three curacies, been a Parish Priest, and Senior Research Fellow at Pusey House in Oxford. Since 2011, he has been in full communion with the See of S Peter. The opinions expressed on this Blog are not asserted as being those of the Magisterium of the Church, but as the writer's opinions as a private individual. Nevertheless, the writer strives, hopes, and prays that the views he expresses are conformable with and supportive of the Magisterium. In this blog, the letters PF stand for Pope Francis. On this blog, 'Argumentum ad hominem' refers solely to the Lockean definition, Pressing a man with the consequences of his own concessions'.
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14 comments:
But the “raptures” were “bridal”, so “Pentecost” seems more theologically precise than “Paschaltide”. Precision in such prose is surely a good thing. It also seeks to highlight the briefness of the workaday dress in some years, presumably that of which she writes, as this one.
She's writing about Liturgical colours, saying that for S John one reverts to the white of Eastertide after the green of the last few days. But Pentecost is neither bridal white nor green; it is red.
I stand humbly corrected. You are quite right, of course! One was thinking of the Holy Ghost and birth of the Church, but it doesn’t pay to try to be too clever!
I suppose what I'm most struck by is public Vespers on a weekday evening!
Most Anglican parish churches,according to Prayer Book rules,would have had daily Matins and Evensong said by "the Curate". I just don't know what happens now, but this custom held right up to the 1980s, but I don't remember a bell being rung to let people know. In the film A PASSION FOR CHURCHES, John Betjeman shows a Vicar saying the office publicly in his church.
If I were being all lit-crit-y, I'd suggest that 'bridal' might (consciously or otherwise) be an ironic allusion, partly to the spinster status of Miss Climpson, but much more to the relationship of the villainess and her minion, whose Confession notes Miss Climpson is just about to find. Mind you, lit-crit devotees can always find some ironic metaphor lying around. Had Sayers remembered that Pentecost comes in red, it could have been associated with the very high body count in Unnatural Death.
But why would there be green before the feast of St. John the Baptist in 1927? Surely in 1927 the Vigil of St. John the Baptist was the Octave Day of Corpus Christi as Easter was April 17th, Pentecost 5th June etc.
I remember the vicar in St John’s Wood, London, saying Mattins and Evensong publicly in surplice daily in the church in the early 1970s. If he was unable, the parish by then not having a curate, it was said by a Lay Reader or indeed by the stately Deaconess (my goodness, aren’t we grateful for old age bringing its loss of memory).
Unless the church in question followed the Parson's Handbook for its colour cycle - possible, while iirc Dearmer didn't go for "tall candles", DLS doesn't tell us whether there are six or two. The term "Prayer of Consecration" and the Sundays after Trinity certainly say this is not a purely Roman Rite establishment.
If the book was published in 1927 it is presumably set at least in 1926, if any specific year - compare the disclaimer about tides attached to Have His Carcase.
There is a hermeneutic of continuity at work here. Alan Harding's history of English law in the Middle ages reports a C15 bishop of Hereford sending one of his rector's to the episcopal prison for two weeks for failing to ensure the celebration of Lauds and Vespers in his parish church.
I wonder if the name Vespers really meant Evensong ? I would have thought that no parish would have used any form (in English or Latin) of the Breviary offices. I know there were many Anglican versions of the Breviary which would have made things even more complicated.Outside the Religious Houses use of the Day Hours in public would have been unlikely. Has anyone heard of public office in a Parish Church that was not BCP Matins and Evensong. A papalist stronghold Holy Trinity,Shepherdess Walk,Hoxton [home of the English Missal] was maintaining daily Matins and Evensong still in the late 1970s (Vicar and Curate both present0
@Chris,
Indeed, but even so in most years green would not be common and after 1928 with the addition of the Octave of the Sacred Heart uncommon as this year with a single green weekday between Pentecost and St. John.
In 1926 the 3rd and 4th Sundays after Pentecost would have been green, and the weekdays of the 1st, 16th & 17th June unless there were local feasts. So I do not believe the description 'green workaday dress in which the church settles down' can apply to the Roman rite at the time and some other calendar.
She keeps her Sacred Heart card in the page for Corpus Christi, so this church probably doesn't observe the feast, let alone its octave.
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