Curious Church Customs and Cognate Subjects

In some parishes the bells are rung at the close of the morning service upon Sunday, and at Harpswell it was, until very lately, the custom to ring a bell at noon if by any chan...

Controversies concerning Infant Baptism, as well as concerning Immersion as distinguished from affusion, or pouring water upon the baptized, would be out of place here. The latt...

Thomas Filsby and Ursula Russet were married; and because the said Thomas is naturally deaf and dumb, could not for his part observe the order of the form of marriage, after the...

The altar, although it is the most important and most conspicuous article of church furniture, is not one that provides much material for gossip of the quaint and curious kind....

Two bushels of corn, two dozen pots of beer, and cheese, to the value of 1.s. 1.d. for the play. The wardens also paid for this play 20.d. for skins, which would be used for dis...

It was customary in many places for the priest to entwine the ends of his stole round the joined hands of the bride and bridegroom, at the words "Those whom God hath joined toge...

Some idea of the importance which eventually came to be attached to this Rogation time, may be gathered from an old sermon, still extant, in which the preacher, after animadvert...

It was a general belief that if a corpse was carried over fields on the way to burial, it established a public right of way for ever, hence it became customary, when, for conven...

"The Requiem of the late three bells of Batley Church, two of which were introduced into the tower in the 17th century, and the third or last in the 18th century, and were taken...

Richard Scrope had a brief and most unfortunate experience of military operations. His appearance in arms was purely the result of the complications that followed the deposition...

The authors who have been good enough to favour me with contributions are recognised authorities on the subjects they have written about, and I hope their efforts will not fail...

And yet that church, if you had been taught how to look for it, contained features of the deepest interest to an antiquary. Within, were heavy Norman pillars between nave and ai...

The battle terminated in a signal triumph to the English army, despite the distinguished valour of the Scottish host, and the closing scene was one of peculiar interest. Almost...

Indeed, the subtle way in which our old documents, of whatever class, interweave themselves with the annals of our mediæval buildings, whether as regards the general plan, the d...

BYGONE CHESHIRE, edited by William Andrews, F.R.H.S. BYGONE DERBYSHIRE, edited by William Andrews, F.R.H.S. BYGONE ESSEX, edited by William Andrews, F.R.H.S. BYGONE ENGLAND, by...