Seasons of By the ecclesiastical laws of this realm, there be some times of the year, wherein marriages are not usually solemnized; as, *At the day and time appointed for solemnization of Matrimony, We must note, that neither all days of the year, nor all hours of the day, are proper for this office, which also hath its appropriate time, and ought to be done in due season (Eccles. iii. 1). And first for the days of the year, it hath been very ancient in the Christian Church to prohibit all persons from entering upon their nuptial joys on those solemn times which were set apart for fasting and prayer, and other exercises of extraordinary devotions. . . . And there is so great a contrariety between the seriousness that ought to attend the days of solemn religion, and the mirth that is expected at the marriage feast, that it is not convenient they should fall upon the same day, lest we violate religion, or disoblige our friends. Upon these grounds that eminent and ancient council of Laodicea, above thirteen hundred years ago, forbids expressly all weddings in the time of Lent; and about four hundred years after, the collections of Egbert, Archbishop of York (which seems to have been the Saxon's canon law), do forbid marriages to be made upon Sundays, Wednesdays, or Fridays, as being days of more solemn observation for religion. Later canons do add some other times, in which matrimony is not to be performed. One of our own nation, about six hundred and fifty years since, excepts all solemn festivals, Emberweeks, and from Advent till after Christmas, and from Septuagesima till after Easter; and the times still observed by some among us are not much different, viz. Seasons of from Advent Sunday till the octaves of Epiphany (being Marriage. the festival of Christmas); from Septuagesima Sunday till the octaves of Easter (being the fast of Lent and feast of the Resurrection); from Ascension-day till Trinity Sunday (being the feast of Whit Sunday).'-Comber, A Companion to the Temple, vol. iv. sect. i. § 4. pp. 16, 17. Oxford, 1841. 1715 "We might right well," says the great and judicious Mr. Hooker (1. 5, sect. 73), "think it absurd to see in the church a wedding on the day of a publick fast:" therefore no regular clergyman marries any by banns during the solemn time of Lent, when good Christians ought to be engaged in more serious and heavenly business and even when a license comes, and the case is somewhat extraordinary, yet he can scarce ever get his own consent to the doing so unagreeable a thing.'-The Clergyman's Vade Mecum, 4th ed., p. 199. 12mo. 1715. • Advent. This is also one of the seasons, from the beginning of which to the end of the octaves of the Epiphany, the solemnization of marriages is forbidden without special license, as we may find from the old verses: Conjugium Adventus prohibet; Hilarique relaxet; Law Dict. v. Advent. 'An old translation of these verses is given in Termes de la Ley, p. 26, as follows: Advent all marriage forbids, Hilary's feast to nuptials tends; Seasons of Marriage. 'The time for celebrating marriages prohibited by the Council of Trent is not so much curtailed; it is from the first Sunday of Advent to the Epiphany, and from Ash Wednesday to the octave of Easter, inclusively.'-Hampson, Medii Evi Kalendarium, ii. 4. Declaration concerning Sports. The king's Majesty's Declaration to bis Subjects concerning lawful Sports to be used on Sundays and other bolydays 1617 and 1633 BY THE KING 'Our dear father of blessed memory, in his return from Scotland, coming through Lancashire, found that his subjects were debarred from lawful recreations upon Sundays after evening prayers ended, and upon holydays; and he prudently considered, that if these times were taken from them, the meaner sort, who labour hard all the week, should have no recreations at all to refresh their spirits. And after his return, he further saw that his loyal subjects in all other parts of the kingdom did suffer in the same kind, though perhaps not in the same degree; and did therefore in his princely wisdom publish a declaration to all his loving subjects concerning lawful sports to be used at such times, which was printed and published by his royal commandment in the year 1617, in the tenor which hereafter followeth : 1 Veilings.-A name given to some feasts, when marriages might or might not be solemnized in Spain, where veils were used during the ceremony. They stand thus in their almanacs and kalendars : Veilings shut-Advent Sunday. Veilings open.-Low Sunday. Gent, Mag., Apr. 1755, Jan. 1756.'—Qu. Hampson, ii, 384. |