21 December 2023

Iudica me Deus

A Puritan narrator (writing about Canterbury Cathedral) recalls "An ordinary Cathedral-turne-Preacher, who in his morning service (as is directed in the Masse Booke) used to sing, Psal. 43. And when they sung Then will I to thine Altar goe, he presently went out of his seat, and did goe up, ducking, to the Altar, to read the Service there."

The Puritan had some familiarity with the Missale Romanum, and apparently suspected that the prebendary did as well. 

Also from the 1640s, we read that "there being a crucifix in the window over the altar, he useth to bow towards it , and would not suffer it to be taken down, notwithstanding the order of Parliament for it . ... John Mountford, D.D., rector of Anstey, Hertfordshire, hath introduced into his said church and other churches, a turning of the Communion-table altarwise; and having a great crucifix and picture of the Virgin Mary in the east window over the said Table, used bowings and cringings before the said Table and crucifix set altarwise, and caused the said Table to be railed in, and the Jesuit's badge [IHS] to be set upon the carpet there ... and, in his going up to the Table to read second service, usually caused that part of the 43rd Psalm to be sung, viz. 'Then shall I to the altar go, of God, &c.".

It was claimed of a Bedfordshire parson that he did a lot of bowing and falling down on his knees before the altar, with his eyes on a crucifix, "being in the next window over it".

When the glass was being eliminated at Canterbury, it was at the point when the vandals started smashing the crucifix in the glass that the devout wife, good woman, of one of the Cathedral clergy began to "shriek ... viraginously". 


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