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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY organ ; extra clerks or singing-men were usually hired to assist at great festivals/" Rushes were strewn on the floor of the church, and were renewed several times during the year.'°^ Beneath the floor the bodies of departed parishioners were buried,'*' often in such large numbers and with so few precautions as to produce highly insanitary and dangerous conditions. To rectify this state of things to some extent frankincense, besides its use for ceremonial purposes, was burnt before or during the time of divine service.'" The churches were decorated with holly and ivy at Christmas ; with palm, flowers, box, and yew on Palm Sunday ; with garlands on Ascension Day, Whitsunday, and the patronal festival ; with birch, lilies, and fennel at Midsummer. Flags, torches and garlands of roses and woodruff were used on the feast of Corpus Christi. Banners, cross-banners, and streamers were also largely used.'*^ A holly-bush decorated with candles was hung up in St. Margaret's Westminster at Christmas.'**' Both there and at St. Margaret's Southwark there was an annual bonfire on the eve of the patronal festival.'™ The Easter sepulchre was usually a temporary structure erected for the occasion and then removed."' The pyx, or in some cases an image of our Lord, containing in its breast the reserved Sacrament,"^ having been placed within it on Maundy Thursday, the sepulchre was watched by two or more clerks until the dawn of Easter Day. These men received a small payment for their services, and were supplied with bread and ale. On Maundy Thursday the ceremony of washing the altars was performed."' A good many records of the hallowing of new fittings and ornaments are extant ; for example, there is an entry in the accounts of St. Botolph's Aldersgate for 1497 °^ ^^^ purchase of 'two ells of linen for an apron for the Suffragan for hallowing of the high Altar.'"* In 1558 the church- wardens of St. Stephen's Walbrook gave a detailed account of their expendi- ture on such an occasion. They bought frankincense, brown paper, wax, oil, cream, a pint of red wine, coals, water, two copes, and hyssop to wash the altars. A small sum was paid for the making of the cross in one of the altars ; and money was given ' to the Bishop for his pains and for his dinner the second day ; ' to his cross bearer ; and to the priests and clerks who assisted at the ceremony. The total expenses amounted to £1 i8j. 6^."° In 1522 the churchwardens of St. Margaret's Westminster bought ten yards of ' hair (i.e. hair-cloth) for closing in the altars after they were new hallowed.'"* Processions formed a prominent feature of church life in London at this period. The clergy and choir of St. Margaret's Southwark went in procession once a year to St. Mary Overy, where they made an offering of '" Par. Rec. gen. ; Christie, Parish Clerks, pms'm ; Sharpe, Cal. of Wills, ii, 613. '" St. Andrew Hubbard Accts. 15 17 ; St. Margaret Westm. Accts. 1488, &c. ^^ Par. Rec. gen. '" Ibid. '»» Ibid. '«» Accts. 1488-96. "" St. Margaret Southwark Accts. 1459, &c.; St. Margaret Westm. Accts. 1484. "' But cf. Sharpe, Cal. of Wills, ii, 626. '" See St. Alphage London Wall Accts. 1536. '" Arnold, Customs ofLond. 228. "* St. Botolph Aldersgate Accts. 1468, &c. '" Acas. 1559. See also St. Peter Cheap Accts. 1555 for a similar account, and Rec. of St. Mary at Hill (Early Engl. Tejit Soc), 403. ^'^ Accts. 1522. See St. Margaret Southwark Accts. 1462. 243