is not meete for Christian men to daunce at their marriages. Let the cleargie aryse, and go their wayes when the players on the instruments (which serve for dauncing) doe bygynne to play, least by their presence they shoulde seeme to allowe that wantonnesse." Dancing was pracat the marriages of the Anglo-Saxons, as Strutt inthe wedding feast "the reCHAPTER by the youth of both

TT

Music at Weddings.—Musical Priest.—Dancing at Wer sort sat down Bride to Bed.-Money given to the Poor at Marriages.-Bedding the b and Bridegroom.-The Bride's Pins.-Flinging the Stocking.-Sack Posset Drinking.-Benediction Posset.-Sewing up the Bride in the Sheets.The Bride-cake.-Divinations therewith.-Riding for the Bride-cake.— Foot-ball at Weddings.--Presents by Masters to Servants at Marriage.— Royal Gifts at Weddings.-Meanness of Pepys.

T the marriages of the Anglo-Saxons the parties were attended to the church by musicians, and the custom was continued until comparatively recent times. In the "History of John Newchombe," cited by Strutt, we read of "a noise of musicians, that played all the way before” a bride going to church, Ben Jonson, in his "Tale of a Tub," makes Dame Sibil Turf reproach her husband for letting 66 no music go afore your child to church, to cheer her heart up ;" and in the same play Scriben says: Your wedding dinner is starved without music." In the "Christen State of Matrimony," in 1543, we read of the drunken, gorgeously-dressed company which usually attended weddings, "with a great noise of harpes, lutes, kyttes, basens, and drommes."

Vernon, in his "Hunting of Purgatory to Death," in 1561, says that he knew a priest who," when any of his parishioners should be maryed, woulde take his backe-pype, and go fetche theym to the churche, playnge sweetelye afore them, and then would he laye his instrument handsomely upon the aultare tyll he had maryed them and sayd Which thyng being done, he would gentillye bringe

masse.

"My wooing's ended; now my wedding's neere;
When gloves are giving, guilded be thou there."

Hacket, in his sermon above-mentioned, says of these herbs: "Smell sweet, O ye flowers, in your native sweetness: be not gilded with the idle arte of man.' Stephens, also above-named, says the bride wore "guilt rases of nth, ger, rosemary, and ribbands."r telling us that at wedding bride-cup of silver gilt road jests, and drank healths until "wherein was ays: "Some can not be merry without a noise of fiddlers." In the "Collier's Wedding" we read that

"The pipers wind and take their post,

And go before to clear the coast."

In olden times it was the custom to awaken newly-married couples on the morning after their wedding with music. Thus, at the marriage of Sir Philip Herbert to Lady Susan in 1604, "the King gave them a réveille matin before they were up." In the "Comforts of Wooing" we read that "Next morning came the fiddlers and scrape him a wicked réveillez," and that the whole street rang with the benedictions of fiddlers, drummers, pipers, and trumpeters. Misson, writing of a wedding, says: "If the drums and fiddles have notice of it, they will be sure to be with them by daybreak, making a horrible racket, till they have got the pence." Gay, in his "Trivia," says:

"Here rows of drummers stand in martial file,

And with their vellum thunder shake the pile,
To greet the new-made bride."

It is now a custom in some parts of Kent for hand-bell ringers to play tunes at the church door while a newly-married couple are leaving after the ceremony.

Dancing was common at the marriages of the early Christians, and as the custom led to excesses it was condemned by the Council of Laodicea in the year 364.

"It

is not meete for Christian men to daunce at their marriages. Let the cleargie aryse, and go their wayes when the players on the instruments (which serve for dauncing) doe bygynne to play, least by their presence they shoulde seeme to allowe that wantonnesse." Dancing was practised at the marriages of the Anglo-Saxons, as Strutt informs us. He says that after the wedding feast "the remaining part of the day was spent by the youth of both sexes in mirth and dancing, while the graver sort sat down to their drinking bout, in which they highly delighted."

In the "Christian State of Matrimony," in 1543, we are told that after the marriage ceremony came a feast, which was followed by dancing. "The bryde must be brought into an open dauncynge place. . . . Then muste the poore bryde kepe foote with al dauncers and refuse none." A rude and noisy revel lasted until supper, after which," must they begin to pipe and daunce again." When the bride and bridegroom had gone to bed worn out with the noise, their unmanly guests went to their chamber door and sung "naughty ballades." The dancing at weddings in the sixteenth century was conducted with great indecency, and was accompanied with many coarse jokes. In the "Summe of the Holy Scripture," in 1547, people were advised not to suffer their children "to go to weddings or banckettes; for nowe a daies one can learne nothing there but ribaudry and foule wordes."

It was formerly the custom at the weddings of both the rich and the poor to dance after dinner, and after supper, and also to dance the bride to bed. Early in the seventeenth century a tune was called "A round dance to dance the bride to bed." It appears from an account of the marriage of Sir Philip Herbert, in 1604, that there was at night a masque, at the conclusion of which, after supper, the company danced a round dance. In the "Apophthegms

of King James, in 1658, a cushion-dance at a wedding is thus mentioned: "At last, when the masque was ended, and time had brought in the supper, the cushion led the dance out of the parlor into the hall."

In Scott's "Mock Marriage," in 1696, one of the characters exclaims: "What! a couple of weddings, and not a dance ?" The old ballad of the "Winchester Wedding" says:

"And now they had din'd, advancing

Into the midst of the hall,

The fiddlers struck up for dancing,

And Jeremy led up the brawl.

Sucky, that danc'd with the cushion, &c."

Of

According to Grose, dancing was considered to be so essential at weddings, that if in a family the youngest daughter should be married before the elder sisters, they must all dance at her wedding without shoes. This would counteract their ill luck, and procure them husbands. late years this custom survived in the East of England, and the elder sisters were required to dance in a hog's trough. A similar usage prevailed in the West of England, but there the spinsters must dance in green stockings.

The early Christians paid much respect to the custom of formally taking home the bride by the bridegroom after the marriage. They also had convivial entertainments after the ceremony, the church seeking not to abolish these festivities, but only to restrain them within the bounds of decency. The epithalamium, or nuptial song, was a necessary part of the day's amusement, but very often it was little better than immodest ribaldry.

For the old custom of throwing about nuts at weddings, the primitive Christians substituted the better practice of distributing alms to children and the poor. Such is still the custom among the Continental Roman Catholics,

and at nearly all the weddings in France a collection is made for the poor. Many churchwardens' accounts in England during the seventeenth century show that it was a common practice in this country to distribute money among the needy at marriages. For example, the accounts of Allhallows, Barking, contain the following items: 22nd September, 1654, "Distributed at a marriage to the poore, 31." February, 1660,"Gave 68. to the poor, given by a gent. who was married on Easter Tuesday." The "Pleasures of Matrimony," a chap-book of the last century, describing a contemporary wedding, says: "They go from the church again, and first receive the joy of the beggars; the bridegroom, for the grandeur of the wedding, throwing amongst them a handful of small money, which sets them scrambling."

One of the most important marriage customs with our ancestors was the bedding of the bride and bridegroom. First, the bridal bed was dressed with colored ribbons by the bridemaids, who were obliged to exercise great care that the colors used expressed only agreeable sentiments. Strutt says, that among the Anglo-Saxons the bride was put to bed by her maids, and then the bridegroom was conducted to her by his men. All being present at the room, the health of the couple was drunk. In later times it seems that the bride was conducted to her chamber by the men and the women, but the former left the room while the latter undressed her and put her to bed. The men then undressed the bridegroom and put him to bed to his wife. Usually the wife lay on the left hand of her husband; the right hand side of the bed being reserved for the man as the place of honor.

The pins were important features in the undressing of the bride, inasmuch as certain superstitions attached to them. Randolph, in his "Letters," writing of the marriage