HOLY
435
HOLY
pounds. Valves of the tridacna gigas are used as
holy water stoups in the church of Saint-Sulpice at
Paris, the RcpubUc of Venice having presented them
to Francis I.
The most ancient portaltle fonts are in the form of pails and shaped like truncated cones. Those most prized for their antiquity are of lead or bronze, some- times even of wood covered with a sheet of wrought metal. However, if there ever existed sUver or silver- gilt fonts, it is evident that they have not come down to us. The leaden pail found at Carthage, on which the raised designs seem to have been aimlessly selected, nevertheless presents a remarkable peculiar- ity, in that it bears a Greek inscription in which one can readily grasp the allusion to holy water: "Take water joyfully for the voice of the Lord is upon the waters."" Tfie second part of this epigraph is to be seen on a bronze holy water ]5ail preserved in the Gaddi Museum at Florence: "The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of majesty hath spoken." These quotations are from the twenty-eighth psalm, third verse. The Vatican Museum has a bronze pail equipped with a handle and ornamented with carved sketches of the Saviour and the Twelve Apostles, each figure being designated by the name in Greek letters. A Merovingian sarcophagus, found near Alabeville, contained the ruins of a small wooden pail covered with a thin plate of bronze; and in the Duljlin Museum is an Anglo-Saxon pail with a wooden surface and furnished with a handle. In our opinion, both of these pails did service as fonts.
Pails of this style remained a long time in use; they were often made of precious metals embossed, or even cut out of hard stone or from a piece of ivory. The crystal vase in the treasury of Venice is an antique vessel used for liturgical purposes, perhaps in the tenth century. But still more remarkable is the eleventh-century font preserved in the treasury of the cathedral of Milan. Slender in form and slightly funnel-shaped, it is ornamented with five arcades serv- ing as frames for the Blessed Virgin and the Four Evan- gelists. On the archivolts of the arcades are five verses designating the different personages and still higher runs a frieze of foliage bearing an inscription. This ivory pail measures about S inches in height by 4-7 in diameter on the upper rim and 3-5 at the base. The treasury of the Lyons cathedral also has an ivory font which is the product of Italian art. But the most ancient of these pails is found in the treasury of Aachen, and it is believed to date from the ninth century. At St. Mark's, Venice, there is an antique font hewn out of a garnet.
We could not attempt to enumerate many of the metal fonts, although, in most of them, the shape and workmanship are of decided interest. The pail seems to have always prevailed but to have been varied according to fancy. Thus, in the fourteenth century, it was the custom for the donors to apply their coat-of- arms to these gifts, the product of the goldsmith's art. In the fifteenth century the fashion became even more marked and the goldsmith sought everywhere pretexts for the exercise of his ingenuity.
In the Middle Ages holy water was held in such respect that it was not even taken from the font imless by means of an aspersorium or holy water sprinkler, attached by a small chain. Thenceforth the asper- sorium was the inseparable accompaniment of the font. For their aspersions the ancients used laurel branches or sometimes tufts on the end of a turned handle. The oldest representations of the Christian asperso- rium show a branch that was dipped into the font. For this purpose branches of hyssop, palm, and box- wood, and wisps of straw were employed, and finally the tail of the fox was pressetl into service, its long silky hair making it singularly adaptable. In Old •French the fox was called goupil, hence the word goupilton, one of the expressions for holy water
sprinkler. It would seem that about the thirteenth
century the aspersorium assumed the modern form of
a stick surmounted by a rose covered with bristles; at
least such is what we mfer from miniatures. Little by
little the handles of the sprinklers came to be very
richly ornamented. The inventory of the Duke of
.\njou mentions a "square aspergillus with three
knops", and the inventory of Philip the Good, "an old
silver aspergillus".
In the rules prescribed by St. Charles Borromeo for the construction of fonts in the Diocese of Milan, we read the following: "Heretofore we have treated of the sacristy and several other things, let us now speak of the vessel intended for holy water. It shall be of marble or of solid stone, neither porous nor with cracks. It shall rest upon a handsomely wrought column and shall not be placed outside of the church but within it and, in so far as possible, to the right of tho.se who enter. There shall be one at the door by which themenenterandoneat the women's door. They shall not be fastened to the wall but removed from it as far as convenient. A colimin or a Ijase will support them and it must represent nothing profane. A sprinkler shall be attached by a chain to the basin, the latter to be of brass, ivory, or some other suitable mate- rial artistically wrought."
Private fonts are generally smaller than the portable ones used in churches. There were very rich ones in gold and silver ornamented with pearls and enamel. In later times they have preferably been given the shape of a small roimd basin suspended from a plate fastened to the wall; hence they are "applied fonts". They are made of all materials, ivory, copper, porce- lain, faience, and glazed sandstone.
Barraud, De I'eau binite et des vases destim's h la contcnir in Bulletin mmumenlal, XXXVI (1870), :392-467; RoHAOLT DE Fleury, La viesse. Etudes archeologiques, V (Paris); Le- CLERCQ, Bt'-nitier in Dictionnaire d'areluologie chrtt. et de liturgie; Enlart, Manuel d'archeologie jrancaise, I (Paris, 1902). 782; Millet. Reeherehes au Monl-At/tos in Bulletin de correspondance hellcnique, XXIX (1905), 105-22.
H. Leclercq.
Holy Week is the week which precedes the great festival of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday, and which consequently is used to commemorate the Pas- sion of Christ and" the events which immediately led up to it. In Latin it is called hebdomada major, or, less commonly, hebdomada sancta, while the Greeks com- bine both epithets, styling it v ayla Kal fn-eydXii e/36o/iis. Similarly, in most modern languages (except for the German word CImrwoche, which seems to mean "the week of lamentation") the interval between Palm Sunday and Easter Day is known par excellence as Holy Week.
Antiquity of the Celebration of Holy Week. — From an attentive study of the Gospels, and particularly that of St. John, it might easily be inferred that already in Apostolic times a certain emphasis was laid upon the memory of the last week of Jesus Christ's mortal life. The supper at Bethania must have taken place on the Saturday, "six days before the pasch " (John, xii, 1, 2), and the triumphant entry into Jerusalem was made from there next morning. Of Christ's words and deeds between this and His Crucifixion we have a rela- tively full record. But whether this feeling of the sanctity belonging to these days was primitive or not, it in any case existed in Jerusalem at the close of the fourth century, for the Pilgrimage of ^theria contains a detailed account of the whole week, beginning with the service in the " Lazarium " at Bethania on the Sat- urday, in the course of which was read the narrative of the anointing of Christ's feet. Moreover, on the next day, which, as ^theria says, "began the week of the Pasch, which they call here the ' Great Week ' ", a spe- cial reminder was addressed to the people by the archdeacon in these terms: "Throughout the whole week, beginning from to-morrow, let us all assemble in the Martyrium, that is the great church, at the ninth
