Project Canterbury
Alcuin Club Collections
XVII
Traditional Ceremonial and Customs
connected with the Scottish Liturgy.
by
F. C. Eeles, F.R.Hist.S, F.S.A. Scot.
Diocesan Librarian of Aberdeen
[pp 85-103]
Chapter V.
Reservation of the Eucharist.
In accordance with a long standing usage, the sick and infirm are still
communicated with the Reserved Sacrament—always
in both kinds. This has certainly been done since the early part of the
eighteenth century, and there is a persistent tradition in the remoter parts
of the north of Scotland that it has been continuous from still earlier days.
In more recent times it has existed as one of the old traditional customs
which belong to the Scottish liturgy, but it was looked upon by a previous
generation as antecedent to any form of that rite as now used.
From the Reformation until after 1718, there is no explicit evidence for
reservation in Scotland; indeed the direction of the modern English Prayer
Book that what remains of the Holy Eucharist shall not be carried out of the
church, first appears in the Scottish Prayer Book of 1637. On the other hand
there seems to be nothing said against the practice in all the controversial
writings of that period—at
least by the Church party. The struggle was not between clinical celebrations
and clinical communion with the reserved elements, but between clinical
communion and denying the Eucharist to the sick. This was a subject of fierce
controversy during the reign of James VI (I of England) and the Sacrament was
restored to the sick by one of the famous Five Articles of Perth in 1618. [1]
During the next few years we have record of sick communions, but nothing is
said whether reservation was used. [2] About the time of the Perth Assembly,
steps were being taken towards the provision of a Scottish Prayer Book. Later
on, a draft book was sent to London by the Scottish bishops, [3] but was
practically rejected through the influence of Laud, who with Wren and other
English divines and the Scottish bishops Maxwell and Wedderburn, ended in
substituting the far-famed and ill-fated Prayer Book of 1637, which contains a
service for clinical celebration exactly like that in the English Book of
1559, as well as a rubric at the end of the Liturgy forbidding what remains of
the consecrated elements to be taken out of the church. [4] The curious thing
is that the draft book of 1629 which did not contain this prohibition was
Puritan to a degree, and the 1637 Prayer Book in which it first appears was
the very reverse. Perhaps the explanation is that the use of reservation for
the sick was looked upon as part of the administration of the sacrament to the
faithful which had already taken place in the service. Certainly Laud, Maxwell
and Wedderburn drew up the new rubric to prevent the scandalous misuse of the
holy gifts which was common among the puritanical clergy. Probably no one
thought about reservation, or if it was considered as a remote contingency,
the compilers took it for granted that the rubric would be interpreted in the
sense in which the non-jurors explained and extended it in 1718. We may
remember that the Caroline divines must have known of reservation, as they
were well versed in Christian antiquity, and that the non-jurors were direct
descendents as far as theological opinion is concerned. We may also note that
in the seventeenth century there was no outcry against reservation which would
explain this prohibition as applying to it. In the middle ages there were very
similar prohibitions against the misuse of any of the reserved Sacrament that
might not be required for communicating the sick. In the light of these facts
the writer would venture to suggest that the continuous use of reservation,
which northern local tradition claims, is not impossible, although definite
evidence is still wanting for the period 1560-1718, and that the
interpretation of the rubric of 1662, which was condemned by the Archbishops
at Lambeth in 1899 is at least not unreasonable. [5]
The non-jurors' book of 1718 contained the following rubric,
"If there be any persons who through sickness or
any other urgent cause are under a necessity of communicating at their
houses, then the Priest shall reserve at the open Communion so much of the
Sacrament of the Body and Blood, as shall serve those who are to receive at
home. And if after that, or if, when none are to communicate at their houses
any of the consecrated elements remain, then it shall not be carried out of
the church; but the Priest, and such other of the Communicants as he shall
then call unto him, shall immediately after the Blessing reverently eat and
drink the same."
At the time when this rubric was written the Scottish clergy were using
both the English book of 1662 and the Scottish book of 1637, and they
continued to do so at any rate until after 1731. [6] The non-jurors' book of
1718 seems to have been very little in actual use in Scotland, but the
Scottish clergy of the early part of the eighteenth century were very strongly
influenced by it, and the rubric just quoted entirely described their practice
with respect to reservation. When the 1637 liturgy was reprinted in 1722 the
final rubrics were omitted, including the one relating to the consumption of
the Sacred Elements, and no such rubric appears in the Scottish Liturgy of
1735 or in any subsequent edition. The custom of reservation had grown up, but
it was not provided for by any rubric. The non-jurors' book also provided for
the administration of the reserved Sacrament in the Office for the Communion
of the sick. No such directions were printed in any Scottish book until that
issued by Patrick Torry, Bishop of St. Andrews, in 1849. Custom determined
what was done.
In 1764 was published what the late Bishop of Edinburgh considered to be
the Textus receptus of the Scottish Liturgy, and thence forward all
other books seem to have been entirely disused until the English rite was once
more used in the Scottish Church by those of the "qualified"
congregations who returned to the communion of the national Church at the
beginning of the nineteenth century. It is sometimes said that in the time of
the penal laws most of the communions were made with the reserved Sacrament.
The consecration took place either in the clergyman's house or else in the
house of some of his parishioners, and thence the priest went from place to
place giving communion with the reserved elements. Reservation was always in
both kinds, and it is said that a specially prepared vessel was used. The
service on these occasions varied according to circumstances. Wherever a
congregation could be assembled in safety the whole service was used, with the
exception of the actual consecration. In the copy of the Scottish Liturgy used
by Bishop Alexander of Dunkeld between 1764 and 1776 a long prayer is added in
manuscript, to be said in place of the consecration when communion was given
with the reserved Sacrament:—
"When
the consecrated elements are reserved, and a new company is afterwards to
be communicated of them, the following may be used instead of the
Consecration Prayer:
"Almighty God our heavenly Father, who of thy tender mercy didst give
thine only Son J.+C. to
suffer death upon the cross for our redemption, who made there by his own
oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient
sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, and
did institute, and in his holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual
memorial of that his precious death and sacrifice until his coming again;
hear us, O merciful Father, we most humble beseech thee, and of thy
almighty goodness vouchsafe to bless with the Holy Spirit us (these) thy
servants here before thee, and to grant that we (they) receiving thy gifts
and creatures of bread and wine already consecrated into the most precious
body and blood of thy Son our Saviour J.+C.
according to his holy institution, and in commemoration of his death and
passion, may be made partakers of all the benefits of the same: and so
sanctify our (their) whole spirits, souls, and bodies, that we (they) may
become holy, living, and acceptable sacrifices unto thee. And we entirely
desire thy Fatherly goodness to be propitious to us sinners: and grant
that by the merits and death of thy Son, and through faith in his blood,
we and all thy whole Church may obtain remission of all our sins, may be
delivered from the Devil and his snares, may be fulfilled with thy grace
and heavenly benediction, and be made one body with him, that he may dwell
in us, and we in him, and at the last may obtain everlasting life in thee;
thou, O Lord Almighty, being through him reconciled to us, by whom, and
with whom, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honour and glory be unto
thee, O Father Almighty, world without end. Amen." [7]
While
this form as a whole is an adaptation of the consecration prayer in the
Scottish Liturgy, certain phrases towards the end—"may
be delivered from the Devil and his snares" "thou, O Lord Almighty,
being through him reconciled unto us" appear to have been adapted from
the non-jurors' liturgy of 1718, into which they were introduced from the
so-called Clementine Liturgy.
In cases of emergency the service consisted of Confession, Absolution,
Comfortable Words, Prayer of Humble Access, Administration, and Blessing. The
Collect, Epistle, Gospel, and Gloria were added wherever possible. [8]
That which in earlier days was done on account of the Penal Laws as well as
for the sick, was continued for the latter after the Penal Laws had been
repealed. It has been continuous to this day, and is the constant and
cherished tradition of the northern congregations. Documentary evidence is
practically nil even in later times, for when sick-communions were
sometimes recorded, no one ever thought of mentioning that the reserved
Sacrament was used. It was the custom; the usual, regular, and natural thing
to do. In the early years of the last century an Aberdeenshire priest would no
more have thought of recording the fact that he communicated a sick person
with the reserved Sacrament, than he would have thought of specifying that at
a particular administration of Communion in the church the newly consecrated
elements were used. To this day there are many old people who when ill would
not like to be communicated at a clinical or private celebration. In north
Aberdeenshire thirty years ago, old people spoke of Communion with the
reserved Sacrament as "the Altar coming to them."
In Shetland in the 18th century and later it was a common custom for
Presbyterian communicants to take away in a clean handkerchief a portion of
the Sacrament to sick members of their families. The writer has been told that
it is still done in many places.
In Bishop Robert Forbes's "Journal to and from Inverness, Ross-shire,
Strathnairn, Lachaber, and Appin, in Argyleshire, in 1770" is the
following:—
"June
24—2nd Sunday after Trinity and St. John Baptist's Day. . .In the evening
I went to Torbreck with Consecrated Elements, and communicated Fraser of
Phoppachie. . ." [9]
The
present Dean of Edinburgh, alluding particularly to the practice at Woodhead,
Fyvie, a congregation in the Diocese of Aberdeen which goes back as such to
about 1720, and which represents that of the old parish church of St. Peter,
Fyvie, says:
"It was unquestionably the general practice of the
Aberdeen clergy at the beginning of the 19th century to communicate the sick
from reserved elements. My father (who was ordained in 1826) continually
reserved the Sacrament at the Great Festivals, and carried it to all the
sick and aged in his parish on the days within the octave. He did not
consecrate again, however many he had to communicate during the octave; and
on account of the long distances he had to go, his rounds occupied him two
or three days very often. The old people in the north had a strong feeling
about the privilege of being communicated from the elements consecrated in
the church. They would have thought that the link which bound them to their
fellow churchmen through all being partakers of the one loaf, was relaxed if
one had consecrated for each separated Sick Communion."
In a private letter to the present Dean of Brechin, the Rev. William
Presslie, Rector of Lochlee in the Diocese of Brechin, gives the following
description of the practice he found in use in that remote district in Glenesk
in 1871.
"The celebrations were then only four in the year,
and large numbers came forward. After the congregation left, the
churchwardens came up to the altar giving in the names of any who wished to
be communicated privately. The consecrated elements were set aside for them,
the churchwardens (reverently) consuming the rest."
Further evidence of this tradition may be found in the rubrics of Bishop
Torry's Prayer Book. This was a service book set forth for use in the Diocese
of Dunkeld in 1849, which, however, never had any authority, having been
condemned by the Episcopal Synod, the Bishop of Brechin, Dr. Forbes, alone
dissenting. At the same time the rubrics undoubtedly represent the traditional
practice of the north, for in a letter by the Rev. Charles Wordsworth,
afterwards Bishop of St. Andrews, to Bishop Torry, published by Grant in 1850,
the following passage occurs:—
"You (Bp. Torry) stated that you had no thought or
intention of making new laws for the church—a
thing which you well knew, it was not competent for you to do—nor of
introducing new rubrics, still less of contradicting those which at present
exist, but merely of recording your own experience and recollection of the
usages of the church during the last century. . . . ."
The
rubrics are as follows.
At
the end of the Communion Service—
The
priest shall reserve so much of the Consecrated Gifts as may be required for
the Communion of the Sick and others who could not be present at the
celebration in church; and when he administers to them, he shall proceed as
directed in the Office for the Communion of the Sick.
In
the Communion of the sick:—
But if the sick person be not able to come to the
Church, and yet is desirous to receive the Communion, he must give timely
notice to the Curate, who shall thereupon carry the same unto him is he have
It reserved. But if there be a necessity for the sick person to receive the
Blessed Eucharist before the time of the next public Celebration, and It
hath not been reserved, then upon timely warning given, the Priest shall
come and visit the sick person, and having a convenient place. . . . shall
there Celebrate the Holy Communion. . . .
When the Curate ministers to a sick person of the
reserved Gifts, he shall begin with the words, "As our Saviour
Christ hath commanded and taught us," with the Lord's Prayer, and
then shall say the Exhortation, "Ye that do truly and earnestly
repent you of your sins," with the Confession following; and, if he
be a Priest, may add the Absolution, and he shall then proceed to say the
comfortable words of Holy Scripture, with the prayer of humble access,
changing, if necessary, its beginning into "These Thy humble servants
do not presume," or "This Thy humble servant doth not
presume," with other similar changes; and at the distribution of the
Holy Sacrament, he shall first receive the Communion himself, unless he hath
done so that day already [10] and after minister unto them that are
appointed to communicate with the sick, if there be any, and last of all to
the sick person.
At the end of several nineteenth century editions of the Scottish Liturgy
there is a rubric somewhat as follows:—
According
to a venerable custom of the Church of Scotland, the Priest may reserve so
much of the Consecrated Gifts as may be required for the communion of the
sick, and other who could not be present at the celebration in Church.
This
is a modern and unauthorised addition to the Liturgy, although a perfectly
true statement of fact. Reservation in no way rests upon it, and its history
is explained in the course of the following letter from the present Dean of
Brechin to the writer.
"My
own recollections go back to about 1844, when I have known relatives of my
own communicated with the reserved Sacrament as a matter of course and
without any remark as to novelty. I came of a fairly old Jacobite
Episcopalian family in the centre of Buchan (N.E. Aberdeenshire). My mother
was born in 1800; my grandmother, who was alive till I was about twelve, was
born about 1773. I have frequently heard them both expressing our duty of
thankfulness for the privilege we Episcopalians possessed in having the
reserved Sacrament at our command in times of sickness and old age—a
privilege denied to Presbyterians by their own forms, but common and
inalienable to us as Episcopalians. I never heard reservation for the sick
and infirm spoken of as anything new, but always as a regular part of the
Scottish Church system.
"When
there was a talk of revising the Scottish Communion Office in 1889, the
Primus met the clergy of the northern part of his diocese (on his own
invitation) at Brechin, and the draft revision was gone over between him and
his clergy. Reservation was taken as a matter of course. Some of us resented
the insertion of a permissive rubric as seeming to imply that we had been
reserving without due authority. We looked on reservation as an inheritance
antecedent to any form of the present Scottish Office.
"The
rubric in Bishop Torry's prayer-book, (which was expressly repudiated by the
Episcopal Synod about 50 years ago) was spoken of at the time as an absolute
novelty. The insertion of a similar note—"according to a venerable
custom, etc"—in the modern editions began first in an edition put
forth without any authority, by a committee of clergy serving mostly in the
dioceses of Aberdeen and Brechin. The previous editions of the Scottish
Communion Office had been bound up with a collection of hymns used in St.
Andrew's Aberdeen. This was out of print and was not a convenient size for
binding into any of the S.P.C.K. prayer-books ordinarily in use. Of their
own motion and without any authority, a number of clergymen resolved to
print a form which would be more convenient for use. There was also a hope
at the time that the use of the Scottish Office would spread further South
in the Scottish Church, among congregations
which represented the "qualified" of former days, and consequently
it was thought well for the sake of those who had hitherto used the English
Office, as well as for priests coming from the south to insert this note
(not rubric) so as to show the invariable Scottish Custom. This I know,
for I assisted to revise the proofs, and the note has no authority whatever.
I could mention some of the committee; one or two are still alive (1899),
most, like Dean Nicolson of St. Salvador's, Dundee, or Dean Webster of New
Pitsligo, are now gone. The note has no force, and reservation does not in
any way rest upon it. I have joined in the Communion of the Sick with the
reserved Sacrament, years before that note was even dreamed of."
The rubrics of Rattray and Deacon required the reserved Sacrament to be
kept "in the vestry or some other convenient place in the Church, under a
lock." And until the beginning of the Oxford Movement, and to the present
day in some places, the Scottish practice was to reserve in the vestry.
Anciently in Scotland an aumbry in the wall of the chancel was very commonly
used, although the hanging pix was employed in some churches and districts.
These aumbries were always on the north side of the high altar and were
usually in the north wall of the church, although sometimes in the north part
of the east wall. Many of them are still in existence, and some are ornamented
with great richness and elaboration. In the vernacular they were called
Sacrament Houses. When the Holy Eucharist once more began to be reserved in
the chancel, it was a Sacrament House in the north wall that was used. The
first modern example was erected by Dr. Forbes, late Bishop of Brechin, in the
church of St. Salvator, Dundee, where it is still in use. The ancient custom
was restored in several other churches which followed the example set by the
Bishop of Brechin. Later on Scotland became affected by the copying of
Continental practice in ceremonial which developed—largely
through ignorance—about
thirty or forty years ago in England, and tabernacles began to be built upon
the altars. In two cases where the ancient Scottish arrangement was already in
existence, a tabernacle was built to take its place; unintelligent imitation
of modern Roman methods could scarcely go further. During the
last few years the development of a sounder type of ceremonial which has taken
place in England, with the growth of the study of liturgiology, has made
itself felt north of the Border, and altar tabernacles are going out of
fashion again. At any rate there are several churches where Sacrament Houses
have been provided, and some cases in which they have been substituted for
tabernacles on the altar.
In some places it used to be the rule to reserve continuously for the whole
octaves of Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday and Michaelmas in case of emergency,
even where continuous reservation was not practised at other times. This, for
example, has always been the tradition at Muchalls.
As is the case in the Holy Orthodox Eastern Church at the present day, the
non-juring Scottish Church people treated the reserved Eucharist with perfect
reverence but without any external gestures of adoration.
[1] "The "Five Articles of Perth" were agreed
upon by a General Assembly held thee in 1618. They provided for (I) kneeling
at Communion (2) Baptism in private when necessary (3) Communion of the Sick
(4) Confirmation (5) Keeping of Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension and
Whitsunday. The third ran as follows:
"If any good Christian visited with long sicknesse and
knowne to the Pastor, by reason of his present infirmity vnable to resort to
the Church for receiving of the holy Communion, or being sick, shall declare
to the Pastor vpon his conscience, that he thinks his sicknes to be deadly,
and shall earnestly desire to receiue the same in his house: The Minister
shall not deny to him so great a comfort, lawfull warning being giuen to him
upon the night before, and that there be three or foure of good Religion and
conuersation, free of lawful impediments, present with the sicke person to
communicate with him, who must also prouide a conuenient place in his house,
and all things necessary for the reuerend administration thereof, according to
the order prescribed in the Church."
The "order" was the Communion service and
administration in Knox's Book of Common Order.
Dr David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin, speaking of a private
communion in reference to this enactment, says:—
"Our
owne Church hath practised this same (i.e. private communion) in former
times, as was qualified in diuers particulars at the last Assembly. So where
the reformed Churches haue approved it, and wee ourselves by our owne
practice, now to stand against it, when, by a speciall Canon, it is
appointed to bee done, cannot but bee thought obstinate disobedience."
A
true Narration of all the passages of the proceedings in the generall Assembly
of the Church of Scotland, holden at Perth the 25 of August. Anno
Dom. 1618.. . . . . with a just defence of the articles therein concluded,
against a seditious Pamphlet. By. Dr. Lyndesay, Bp. of Brechin, London, 1621,
pp. 32, pt. ii 107 et sq.
[2] That private Communion was practised in the 17th
century, especially in the North, there is good evidence, e.g.
In the Session Records of S. Nicolas, Aberdeen, occur the
following:
25 July 1630 Sibbaldo moderatore
Receaved be the Collector threttie fyve shillinges of Collection at Alexr.
Hilles wyff her commonion
27 November 1631 Sibbaldo moderatore
The Sessioun appointes this day aucht dayes the holy communion to be celebrat
and for that effect ordainnes the ministeris To Intimat the samen to the
people out of the pulpettis of both the kirkis.
xj decembris 1631 Sibbaldo moderatore
Collectit to the poore at the auld kirk dore be Archibald Beanes upon the
thirsday efter sonday being wponn the fourt of december ten pundis and be
Alexander Patersoun at the new kirk dore wponn sonday and twysday thaireeftir
pundes xij shillings six penneis
Collectit at the priuat communion ministered to Marioun Beanes aught punds
Vigesimo tertio die mensis decembris 1632 magistro Alexandro
Ross moderatore
Collectit siklyk to the poore at the ministration of the
holie communion on sonday the sixteene day of December. . . . .
Item gevin be Alexander Stewart at the ministration of the communion to him in
his house be occasion of his sicknes the soume of Ten poundes aughtene
shillinges on the sixtene day of December. . . . .
Tertio Novembris 1633 Doctore Forbesio moderatore
Collectit to the poore
Item nyne shillinges gewin by John Touche at the receaving
of the sacrament of the Lords Supper
[3] See Scottish Liturgies of the Reign of James VI.
"The Booke of Common Prayer and administration of the Sacraments with
other rites and ceremonies of the church of Scotland as it was sette doune at
first, before the change thereof made by ye archb. of canterburie, and sent
back to Scotland." Edited with an introduction and notes by the Rev.
G. W. Sprott, Edinburgh 1871.
[4] Dr. Sprott called it "the fourth or fifth
draft" adding "There was that of the original Committee in 1617;
that approved by King James a year or two later, and sent up to Charles in
1629; the book referred to as signed by the King, Sep. 28, 1634, the draft
taken to London by Maxwell, and approved with corrections May 1634, partly
printed towards the end of that year but then destroyed; and lastly that of
Laud and Wren, written into an English Prayer Book, April, 1636." Scottish
Liturgies of James VI., pp. lxiv., lxv.
This draft book contains the following rubric at the end of
the Visitation of the Sick:—
["Line cut off] able to resoirt to the Church for
receiving the holy communion, and desire earnestly to receive the same
declaring upon his conscience that he thinks his sicknesse to be deadlie,
the minister shall not deny him ye comfort, lawfull warning being given him,
upon the night before and some of good religion and conversation being
present to communicat with him."
In the book of 1637 the Communion of the Sick is the same as
in the English Prayer Book of 1559, the word "minister" and not
"celebrate" being used. At the end of the Communion Service is the
following rubric, which appears for the first time:—
And to take away the superstition, which any person
hath or might have in the Bread and Wine, (though it be lawfull to have
wafer bread) it shall suffice that the Bread be such as usuall: yet the best
and purest Wheat Bread that conveniently may be gotten. And if any of the
Bread and Wine remaine, which is consecrated, it shall be reverently eaten
and drunk by such of the communicants only as the Presbyter which celebrates
shall taken unto him, but it shall not be carried out of the Church. And to
the end that there may be a little left, he that officiates is required to
consecrate with the least, and then if there be want, the words of
consecration may be repeated again, over more, either bread or wine: the
Presbyter beginning at these words in the prayer of consecration (our
Saviour in the night that he was betrayed, too, &c)
[5] The Lambeth "Opinions" on Incense and
Reservation of 1899 are greatly discredited. The practice of the particular
clergy who were singled out as examples was for the most part based not on any
sound knowledge of liturgical history and principles, but rather upon an
unauthorised copying of a foreign rite. Worse test cases could scarcely have
been found, for—with
one exception—no
honest man could say from a Catholic stand-point that all the details of what
those clergy did were lawful in the English dioceses. From the two chief
bishops in the land, however, a wider knowledge of the subjects might have
been looked for. One might have thought that the history of the
liturgical use of Incense and Reservation of the Holy Sacrament would have
received original and independent investigation at the hands of those who were
to give decisions on the subjects. The actual "opinions" make it
very plain that nothing of the kind was done.
Reservation
for the sick has a fair claim to be called a Catholic custom in the strict
meaning of the word, and in view of the history of the so-called prohibitive
rubric at the end of the Communion Service it scarcely can be held to be
forbidden by the Prayer Book. A similar prohibition existed in mediaeval days,
but certainly did not then exclude reservation. It is in Gratian's Decretum;
De consecr. dist. ij, c. 23 tribus. Lindewode comments on it in
his Provinciale, Lib. III, tit. de custodia Eucharistie, cap. Dignissimum,
verb. die dominica, and says "Non obstat eodem dist. c. tribus."
Too much has been made of the provision of the service for clinical
celebration and the absence of directions for reservation, but the history of
reservation in Scotland shows that the first is no obstacle and the directions
unnecessary, for in Scotland communicating the absent with the reserved
Sacrament is and has been looked upon as a natural sequel to the public
service, and no special form is used.
The
use of Incense is a very ancient and widespread custom, about as much so as
that of "lights" and "vestments." It is very difficult to
understand how the Act of Uniformity can affect the use of it. There are
numerous missals of various mediaeval rites in which incense is not mentioned;
but it certainly was not used at the usual times, e.g. the
entrance of the celebrant and the reading of the Gospel—times
of ministration provided in the Book of Common Prayer. See A History of the
use of Incense in Divine Worship, E. G. Cuthbert F. Atchley, (Alcuin Club
Collection xiii), London 1909, pp. 328-269.
[6] In 1731 certain articles of agreement, sometimes known
as they Concordat of 1731, were drawn up by the Scottish bishops with a view
to terminating various disputes about the "usages" and certain
matters of jurisdiction. The first of these ran thus:—
"That
we shall only make use of the Scottish or English Liturgy in the public
divine service nor shall we disturb the peace of the church, by introducing
into the public worship any of the ancient usages, concerning which there
has been lately a difference among us; and that we shall censure any of our
clergy who shall act otherwise."
The
Scottish Liturgy here referred to seems to be that of 1637. It is noteworthy
that although the "ancient usages" here spoken of grew and
flourished in spite of this concordat, reservation was not among those
concerning which there had been any "difference."
[7] Hall, Fragmenta Liturgica, v. pp. 217, 223.
[8] "It is singular that there are no contemporary
allusions to Reservation,—even
for the sick—before
1718. Tradition would put it earlier. I do not think there is any room for
doubt that it was practiced earlier as a matter of course. I have no great
belief in the modern statements about the celebrant carrying the elements from
one central Celebration to a number of subordinate meetings. For one thing I
fear the celebrations were few and far between; for another all traditions are
in favour of the people habitually breaking the law by meeting in considerable
numbers rather than evading it by restricting themselves to the legal few. The
Episcopalians were well known, and the neighbours were seldom spiteful enough
to "inform." Even when zealots did so, there was a difficulty in
finding evidence. There was a tradition of two Udny farmers, Temple and Pirie
by name, having been fined for permitting services to be held in their
barns." G.S.
[9] Journals of the Episcopal Visitations of the Right
Rev. Robert Forbes, with a history of the Episcopal Church in the Diocese
of Ross, chiefly during the 18th century, by the Rev. J. B. Craven, London,
1896, p. 283.
[10] "I scarcely think Mr. Grieve observed this rule,
but my recollections go in the direction of the Communion of the Clergyman
being considered part of the nexus with the Celebration in the church.
As a Deacon I have carried the reserved elements for Mr. Grieve, but never to
more than one Communion in the day." G.S.
[11] Reservation in the vestry was at one time the practice
at Ellon. It lasted into the 18th century in some parts of France. It is an
exceedingly ancient custom. The great Benedictine liturgiologist Mabillon
speaks of it as follows:—
"Antiquior
modus [sc. asservandi eucharistiam apud Romanos] is esse videtur, ut in
secretario seu sacristia servaretur: quo ex loco Pontifici ad altare
accedenti capsula eucharistiam continens praeferebantur. His modus tempore
Gregorii XI perseverasse videtur saltem in basilica Lateranensi quod innuunt
hujus Pontificis Constitutiones hic editae num. XVIII. ubi praescribitur, ut
vetera ejusdum ecclesiae instrumenta in sacristia, ubi est mensa Domini,
reclusa custodiantur."—Museum
Italicum, ii, p. cxxxix, Paris 1724.
[12] The two most ancient places of reservation are the
aumbry or locker in the wall and the hanging pix. Speaking roughly the hanging
pix was more particularly Gallican, and during the middle ages it was almost
universal in the larger churches of the greater part of France, and throughout
England. It was also used elsewhere, but not to so great an extent. The aumbry
in the chancel wall prevailed in the Netherlands, Germany, Scandinavia,
Portugal and some parts of France and Italy, and it often attained to a high
degree of elaboration—indeed
in many of the larger German and Flemish churches it developed into a separate
structure standing by itself on the north of the altar. Lyndewode, the
fifteenth century English canonist, while approving the hanging pix as
fulfilling the requirements of the canon law in England, recommends the locker
in the wall on the grounds of safety, and it seems to have been occasionally
used in England.
In
Scotland, while the hanging pix was certainly used in places, the more general
custom appears to have been to reserve in the Sacrament House on the north
side of the altar. There is a plain receptacle of the kind in nearly every
remaining thirteenth century chancel. Few churches were built in Scotland in
the fourteenth century; in the early part of the fifteenth century the hanging
pix seems to have become fashionable, chiefly in the south, but before the end
of the century, at any rate in the east and north of the country, the aumbry
in the chancel wall was very widely adopted. It was more or less elaborate,
and several fine examples remain, mostly between the Tay and the Moray Firth.
In Aberdeen Cathedral one of them too the place of a hanging pix which had
previously been used there. A veil hanging in front of the Sacrament House
corresponded to the pix-cloth which veiled the hanging pix. Pictures and
descriptions of the best may be found in the Transactions of the Aberdeen
Ecclesiological Society, vols i, ii, and iii, passim; and, accompanied
by a not very trustworthy paper, in the Proceedings of the Society of
Antiquaries of Scotland, 1890-91, vol i, 3rd series, pp. 89-116, Edinburgh,
1891. A little additional information may be found in a rough description of
them in the Appendix to the present writer's rather hastily compiled tract on Reservation
of the Holy Eucharist in the Scottish Church, Aberdeen and Oxford, 1899.
[13] Among other modern examples are those at Kirrimuir,
Braemar, Ellon, New Pitsligo, and Thurso.
[14] In a previous note something has been said of other
methods of reserving the Holy Eucharist. The tabernacle on the altar is of
more recent growth than any of them. It seems to have developed in Italy, and
to have become popular there very quickly at the time of the renaissance. The
use of it spread very much after "Benediction of the Blessed
Sacrament" increased in popularity, perhaps because it could be easily
combined with a "throne" on which to set the monstrance containing
the Host.
The altar tabernacle is associated with that cultus
of the Eucharist which developed very rapidly in the 16th century, and with
the modern Roman form of altar, which appears to be constructed for
"Benediction" rather than for Mass. In the pictures of model altars
issued by the late Cardinal Vaughan, when Bishop of Salford, for the guidance
of architects, the altar has become a mere adjunct to the tabernacle above it
and to the huge erection of gradines which support and surround the
tabernacle. The Eastern method of reserving in a small shrine or casket placed
upon the Holy Table itself has but a superficial resemblance to the tabernacle
set in the gradines behind a modern Roman altar. It is rather that the
security of the closed screen or eikonostasis renders it unnecessary to do
much more than leave the reserved Sacrament upon the altar itself. It may be
added that both hanging pixes and Sacrament houses are still in use on the
Continent, both in East and West, although the former are but rare. Sacrament
houses of magnificent size and elaboration are used in the low countries and
in Germany, particularly fine examples being at Notre Dame de la Dyle, Malines,
and S. Pierre and S. Jacques, Louvain. That in the Lorenz Kirche at Nuremberg
(now a Lutheran church) is 65 feet high, and said to be the finest in Europe.
[15] See Appendix VI.