The morrow after was a great Mass at the same place by the same
Fraternity, when every clerk offered a halfpenny. The Mass was sung by
divers of the Queen's Chapel and children. And after Mass was done every
clerk went their procession, two and two together, each having a
surplice, a rich cope and a garland. After them fourscore standards,
streamers and banners, and every one that bare had an albe, or else a
surplice, and two and two together. Then came the waits playing, and
then between, thirty Clarkes again singing _Salva festa dies_. So there
were four quires. Then came a canopy, borne by four of the masters of
the Clarkes over the Sacrament with a twelve staff torches burning, up
St. Lawrence Lane and so to the further end of Cheap, then back again by
Cornhill, and so down to Bishopsgate, into St. Albrose Church, and there
they did put off their copes, and so to dinner every man, and then
everyone that bare a streamer had money, as they were of bigness then."
A very striking procession it must have been, and those who often
traverse the familiar streets of the City to-day can picture to
themselves the clerks' pageant of former times, which wended its way
along the same accustomed thoroughfares.
[Illustration: THE ORGAN AT THE PARISH CLERKS HALL]
But times were changing, and religious ceremonies changed too.
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