May 21.] CORPUS CHRISTI DAY.

May 21.]

CORPUS CHRISTI DAY.

Corpus Christi Day is held on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, to celebrate, as the name indicates, the doctrine of Transubstantiation, and was instituted in the year 1264 by Pope Urban IV.

In olden times the Skinners’ fraternity of Corpus Christi made their procession on this day, having “borne before them more than two hundred torches of wax, costly garnished, burning bright” (or painted and gilded with various devices); and “above two hundred clerks and priests, in surplices and copes, singing,” after which came the officers; “the mayor and aldermen in scarlet, and then the skinners in their best liveries.” A temporary revival of these imposing shows took place in Mary’s days previously to their discontinuance.—Timbs’ Something for Everybody, 1861, p. 84.

Norfolk.

At one time on Corpus Christi Day the crafts or companies of Norwich walked in procession from the common hall, by Cutter Row, and round the market to the hall again. Each company had its banner, on which was painted its patron or guardian saint.—See History of Norwich, 1768, vol. i. p. 175.

Northumberland.

The earliest mention of the religious ceremony of Corpus Christi play and procession in Newcastle-upon-Tyne occurs in the Ordinary of the Coopers’ Company, dated January 20th, 1426; though the great popularity of these exhibitions at York and other places must have induced the clergy, merchants, and incorporated traders of that town, to adopt them long before this time. There can be but little doubt that the several trades strove to outvie each other in the splendour of their exhibitions. The Company of Merchant Adventurers were concerned in the representation of five plays. The hoastmen, drapers, mercers, and boothmen had probably each one.

“Hoggmaygowyk” was the title of one of their plays, the representing of which, in 1554, cost 4l. 2s. This Company, in 1480, made an act for settling the order of their procession on Corpus Christi Day. In 1586 the offering of Abraham and Isaac was exhibited by the slaters.

By the Ordinary of the goldsmiths, plumbers, glaziers, pewterers, and painters, dated 1436, they were commanded to play at their feast the three Kings of Coleyn. In the books of the fullers and dyers, one of the charges for the play of 1564 is: “Item, for 3 yards of lyn cloth for God’s coat, 3s. 2d. ob.” About the year 1578, the Corpus Christi plays seem to have been on the decline; for the Ordinary of the millers, dated that year, says, “Whensoever the general plaies of the town shall be commanded by the mayor, &c.,” they are to play, “the Antient playe of, &c.” Similar expressions are used in the Ordinary of the house carpenters in 1579, in that of the masons in 1581, and also in that of the joiners in 1589. Weaver, in his Funeral Monuments, says that these plays were finally suppressed in all towns of the kingdom, about the beginning of the reign of James I. The only vestige that remains of the Newcastle Mysteries was preserved by Bourne. It is entitled “Noah’s Ark; or, the Shipwright’s Ancient Play or Dirge,” wherein God, an Angel, Noah and his wife, and the Devil are the characters. Mackenzie, History of Newcastle, 1827, vol. ii. p. 708; Hone’s Ancient Mysteries Described, 1823, p. 213.

Yorkshire.

The play of Corpus Christi was acted in the City of York till the twenty-sixth year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, 1584.

It consisted of a solemn procession, in remembrance of the Sacrament of the Body of Christ; the symbolic representation being borne in a shrine. Every trade in the city was obliged to furnish a pageant at its own expense, and join the procession, and each individual had to personify some particular passage in the Old or New Testament, and to repeat some poetry on the occasion. The whole was preceded by a great number of lighted torches, and a multitude of priests in their proper habits; after which followed the mayor and citizens, surrounded by an immense concourse of spectators. Commencing at the great gate of the priory of the Holy Trinity, they proceeded to the Cathedral Church and thence to St. Leonard’s Hospital, where they left the sacrament. There are several public orders yet remaining in the old register of the city relative to the regulation of this ceremony; and indulgences were granted from the Pope to those who contributed to the relief of the fraternity, or who observed the annual ceremony in the most devout manner, particularly if they personally attended from the country.—Drake’s Eboracum, 1736; Hargrove, History of York, 1818, vol. ii. p. 494.

IRELAND.

Corpus Christi Day was formerly celebrated at Dublin with high veneration. In the Chain-book of the City of Dublin are several entries to that purpose. We are told that there was a grand procession, in which the glovers were to represent Adam and Eve, with an angel bearing a sword before them.

The corrisees (perhaps curriers) were to represent Cain and Abel, with an altar and their offering.

Mariners and vintners, Noah and the persons in his Ark, apparelled in the habit of carpenters and salmon-takers.

The weavers personated Abraham and Isaac, with their offering and altar.

The smiths represented Pharaoh, with his host.

The skinners, the camell with the children of Israel, &c.—See Harris, History of Dublin, 1766, p. 147.