page v note a Vol. 1, ed. 1849, p. 421.

page vi note a Hone, Ancient Mysteries, p. 193. See a good account of the legends connected with St. Nicholas in Hampson's Medii Ævi Kalendarium, i. 66 et seq.

page viii note a This is a somewhat extraordinary statement to make, for Gregory had the reputation of being a man of research. The custom of electing a Boy Bishop was universal.

page viii note b The PIE was the old Romish Ordinal, in Latin called Pica. “Ordinale quod usitato dicitur Pica sive Directorium Sacerdotum.”

page viii note c The PROSA or PROSE is a name for certain songs of rejoicing, chanted before the gospel, and so called because the regular laws of metre are not observed in them.

page x note a “D. Joannes de Molanus, De Historia S. Imaginum de Picturarum,” 12mo. Lugduni, 1619.

page x note b “Episcopus Puerorum, in Die Innocentium; or, A Discourse of an Antient Custom in the Church of Sarum, making an anniversarie Bishop among the Choristers.” Pages 95-123 in Gregorii Posthuma; or Certain Learned Tracts written by John Gregorie, 4to. Lond. 1649.

page x note c “It was upon this festival that some wealthy man or another of the parish would make an entertainment on the occasion for his own household, and invite his neighbours' children to come and partake of it; and of course Nicholas and his clerks sat in the highest place. The Golden Legend tells how ‘a man, for the love of his sone that went to scole for to lerne, halowed every year the feast of Saynt Nycholas moche solemply. On a tyme it happed that the fader had to make redy the dyner, and called many clerkes to this diner.’ (Wynkyn de Worde, Lond. 1527.) Individuals sometimes bequeathed money to find a yearly dinner on St. Nicholas's day for as many as a hundred scholars, who were, after that, to pray for the soul of the founder of the feast.”—Dr. Rock's Church of our Fathers, iii. part 2, 216.

page xii note a The meaning of “ad Novam” is uncertain.

page xv note a Perhaps distributed to the choristers.

page xv note b A copy of the original document is given as an Appendix.

page xvi note a Warton's History of English Poetry, ed. 1840, iii. 251, where other curious extracts from the York Registers are given.

page xvii note a “On December 7, 1299, the morrow of St. Nicholas, the boy-bishop in the chapel at Heton, near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, said vespers before Edward the First, then on his way to Scotland, who gave a considerable present to him and the boys that sang with him.”—Hampson's Medii Ævi Kalendarium, i. 79. This is possibly the earliest notice we have of the boy-bishop in this country. See also the Wardrobe Account of 23 Edward I. 1299, published by the Society of Antiquaries, p. 25.

page xvii note b Sports and Pastimes, book iv. chap. 3, sect. 10. “Warton quotes the fragment of a computus of Hyde Abbey, near Winchester, which is at vafiance with the assertion, made by himself and Strutt , that the boy-bishop did not perform mass; it is a disbursement, in 1327, for feasting the boy-bishop, who celebrated mass on St. Nicholas's day.”—Hampson, Medii Ævi Kalendarium, i. 80.

page xix note a Charters, &c. of Finchale Priory, Snrtees Soc. 1837.

page xix note b In his Glossary (p. ccccxxviii) Dr. Raine has inadvertently connected the entries Episcopo Puerili with those Cantoribus ad Indum suum, adding that “in later years, before the Reformation, the latter entry was the only one, but it referred to both, and included the two constitutions.” This, however, is not the case. The entry Episcopo Puerili, iij s. iiij d. continues to the last, and more frequently than otherwise separated by a considerable interval from the entry, Cantoribus ad ludum suum, ij s. The Christmas ludus of the singing-men was clearly a distinct matter from the celebration of the boy-bishop. It seems to have been simply a feast, like the Ludi Prioris, to which the cell of Finchale yearly made a contribution approaching or exceeding xxx s., and in 1483 a still larger sum, “Et in vino dato in ludis domini Prioris et in die annalis Capituli, xxxviij s. ij d.” From the similar entry of xxxiiij s in 1495, it appears that the Prior had yearly four of these ludi, of which Dr. Raine has given various particulars in his Glossary sub voce, and which are more fully developed in the Durham Household Book, another volume of the Surtees Society, 1844. The false impression that these “games of the lord prior” were connected with “the mock solemnity of the Boy Bishop” was carried on by Dr. Raine from his early work on “Saint Cuthbert,” 4to. 1838, p. 136, where he also stated that the latter “was partly performed in the Infirmary, and always for its benefit.” These I believe to have been misapprehensions. The profits or surplus of the collections made for the boy-bishop appear everywhere to have been given to the boy himself.—J. G. N.

page xx note a Quoted by Brand, Pop. Antiq. ed 1849, i. 422.

page xx note b In explanation of this we may remark that there is an injunction given to the Bencdictine nunnery at Godstowe, in Oxfordshire, by Archbishop Peckham, in 1278, that on Innocents' day” the public prayers should not any more be said in the church of that monastery per Parvulas,” i.e. little girls.

page xxi note a This proclamation is printed in Wilkins's Concilia.

page xxi note b See the Diary of Henry Machyn, Citizen and Merchant Taylor of London, from A.D. 1550 to 1563. Edited by J. Gough Nichols, for the Camden Society, in 1848.

page xxii note a From a subsequent passage it appears that Mrs. Crockhay's brother married Dr. Mallet's sister. Mallet became Dean of Lincoln.

page xxii note b Foxe, edit. 1843-9, p. 1941.

page xxiii note a History of English Poetry, edit. 1840, iii. 265.

page xxiii note a At Magdalen College, Oxford, “on the eve of St. Nicholas, an entertainment at the expense of the College was served up to the choristers in the hall, at which the chaplains and clerks were also present, and occasionally the fellows. The boy-bishop was then chosen, and presented with gloves, &c. as marks of dignity, for which payments occur in the libri computi of the College.”—Millard's Historical Notices of the office of Choristers, 1848, p. 50.

page xxiv note a Dr. Rock's Church of our Fathers, iii. part ii. p. 217, where authorities are quoted.

page xxv note a Hampson's Medii Ævi Kalendarium, i. 80. See also Hearne's Liber Niger Scaccarii, 1728, ii. 674, 686.

page xxv note b Millard's Historical Notices of the office of Choristers, 1848, p. 49.

page xxvi note a Brand's Popular Antiquities, i. 424, edit. 1849, where authorities are quoted.

page xxvi note b London and Middlesex Arch. Soc. ir. 318.

page xxvi note c Ibid. 328.

page xxx note a “All these children shall every Childermas daye come to Paull's chnrche, and here the childe-hishoppes sermon, and after be at highe masse, so each of them offre a j d. to the childe-bishopp, and with the maisters and snrveyours of the scoole. In generall processions, when they be warnyde, theye shall go tweyne and tweyne togither soberly, and not synge oute, but saye devoutly, tweyne and tweyne, vij salmes wit latynye.”—MS. copy of the Statutes of St. Paul's School, Additional MS. No. 6274, Brit. Mus.

page xxxi note a The great foreigner was of course Erasmus. A sermon from his pen, “Concio de puero Jesu,” spoken by a boy of St. Paul's School, is still extant. It is printed in the Rotterdam edition of Erasmus's works, folio, 1704.

page xxxi note b Brayley rightly conjectures, as to the “chylde-byshop's sermons,” that “probably these orations, though affectedly childish, were composed by the more aged members of the Church.”—London and Middlesex, ii. 229.

page xxxii note a See the Rev. J. E. Millard's Historical Notices of the office of Choristers. 12mo. 1848.

page 1 note a Qn. an error for the Psalmist?

page 2 note a Originum, sive Ethymologiarum libri xx., one of the works of Saint Isidorus Hispalensis, bishop of Seville, 601–636.

page 3 note a Those two clauses are deficient in the Latin.

page 3 note b i. e. theme (or text).

page 4 note a That he should make away with himself. This and the following passages are confirmatory of other accounts that we have of the severe discipline then exercised in schools.

page 4 note b i.e. promoted.

page 4 note c So in the original.

page 5 note a A reference to Saint Augustine's Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew, where the text (thema) occurs.

page 7 note a The Grammar of Ælias Donatus was one of the earliest books placed in the hands of boys.

page 7 note b The lower sciences

page 7 note c Informator was a usual Latin word for a schoolmaster.

page 8 note a i. e. lending.

page 9 note a i. e. theme (or text).

page 12 note a This was a favourite mode of playing upon the sound of words taken in combination. Saint Augustine was quoted as authority for monumenum being derived, “eo quod moneat mentem.” See Weever's Discourse of Funerall Monuments, p, 9.

page 12 note b Jeremiah.

page 16 note a εs thei dyd, takyng penance upon them, and professyng a new lyfe opynly, not regardyng what the world wold talke or judge of them, but what was expedient for their salvation, as men that dyd stryve, &c. These words are erased in the MS.

page 24 note a Campus, or camp-days, for matches at football.

page 24 note b As first written, what fightyng, lying, mooching, and forgyng of false excuses was among them, beside that, where thei are brought up specially to serve God in the church, thei do nothing lesse in the church then serve God.

page 24 note c which lak twynggyng, erased.

page 26 note a This commences another sheet of the MS.

page 31 note a The meaning of “ad Novam” is doubtful.

page 32 note a One of the nine anthems called “the great O's,” and this one was sung at vespers, on the 23rd of December.

page 32 note b This was probably for “the holy loaf.”—See Dr. Rock's “Church of Our Fathers,” i. p. 135.

page 33 note a His tenor voice singer, or, in other words, the leader of his choir.

page 33 note b This John Baynton sang the introit of the mass on the Sunday next after Christmas Day, and this introit begins “Dum medium silentium tenerent omnia,” &c

page 34 note a These were small wax tapers carried in procession by the boys in the Boy Bishop's train, or by bis so-called “clerks.”