At
St. Nicholas, Bristol, the clerk was ordered "to sing in reading the
epistle daily under pain of ii d."
[Footnote 37: _Faburdon_ = faux-bourdon, a simple kind of counterpoint
to the church plain song-, much used in England in the fifteenth
century. Grove's _Dictionary of Music_.]
These various rules and regulations, drawn up with consummate care,
together with the occasional glimpses of the mediaeval clerk and his
duties, which old writers afford, enable us to picture to ourselves what
kind of person he was, and to see him engaged in his manifold
occupations within the same walls which we know so well. When the
daylight is dying, musing within the dim mysterious aisle, we can see
him folding up the vestments, bearing the books into their place of safe
keeping in the vestry, singing softly to himself:
"_Et introibo ad altare Dei; ad Deum qui loetificat
juventutem meam_."
The scene changes. The days of sweeping reform set in. The Church of
England regained her ancient independence and was delivered from a
foreign yoke. Her children obtained an open Bible, and a liturgy in
their own mother-tongue. But she was distressed and despoiled by the
rapacity of the commissioners of the Crown, by such wretches as
Protector Somerset, Dudley and the rest, private peculation eclipsing
the greediness of royal officials.
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