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writers." Two English Bibles were to be provided
for use in the choir, and two other copies placed in
some convenient part of the body of the church for
the use of the laity. Sermons were to be preached
regularly every Sunday, the dean preaching two every
year—on Christmas day and Easter day. Night
services were forbidden. Instead of rising at midnight
for matins, that office was to commence at six
in the morning in summer and seven in winter. No
cope or other vesture was to be worn over their
surplices in the choir services.^ On the days when
nine lessons had been the rule, six only were to be
used. One mass alone was to be said daily, and the
hour fixed was nine in the forenoon. Ev^ensong and
compline, without any responds, were to be sung at
three in the afternoon, and in the winter half-year, at
two, or half past. No anthems were to be used except
such as were specified in the injunctions, or might
hereafter be ordered by royal authority. A godly,
retired, and contemplative life was earnestly pressed
upon the clergy connected with the minster. All
sermons and lectures, whether at visitations, chapters,
or on any other occasion, were to be in the mothertongue.
Similar injunctions
appear to have been sent to all
the cathedral churches. Their meaning was clear
' It had been the custom for secular canons to wear a black
woollen cloth cope over their surplices in choir, excepting at
Easter and Whitsuntide, and other high festivals and great saints'
days, when the black cope was laid aside and a rich silk one
worn in its stead for the procession and the grand high mass.
Cf. Dr. Rock's " Church of our Fathers," ii. pp. 84, 85.