Saxon Legislation for the Keeping of the Lord's Day.
We are told that the strict keeping holy the Lord's day was unknown to the early Church, and was brought in by the Puritans! What this statement is worth, may be seen from the following extracts from the statutes enacted by our Saxon forefathers. They are taken from the excellent edition of the Saxon laws, published by Mr Thorpe, in two volumes, 1841.
LAWS OF INA, KING OF WESSEX, TOWARDS THE END OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY, (ABOUT 693, JOHNSON.)
3. If a slave [theowman] work on Sunday by his lord's command, let him be free; and let the lord131pay thirty shillings as a fine. But if the slave work without his knowledge, let him suffer in his hide, or in "hide-gilt," [i. e., be scourged, or pay a certain sum in redemption of punishment;] but if a freeman work on that day without his lord's command, let him forfeit his freedom, or sixty shillings; and let a priest be doubly liable.
LAWS OF WHITRED, KING OF KENT, (ABOUT 696, JOHNSON.)
9. If a hired servant [esne] do any servile labor contrary to his lord's command from sunset on Saturday eve till sunset on Sunday eve, let him make a compensation of eighty shillings to his lord.
10. If a servant so do of his own accord on that day, let him make a compensation of six [shillings] or his hide.
LAWS OF ATHELSTAN, IN COUNCIL OF GREATLEA (A. D. 925, OR SOON AFTER, JOHNSON.)
24. And that there be no marketings on Sundays; but if any one so do, let him forfeit the goods, and pay thirty shillings as a fine.
LAWS OF ETHELRED, 1014.
17. And let Sunday marketings be strictly forbidden, on peril of full secular fine, [referring, probably, to the law of Athelstan.]
COUNCIL OF ENHAM, (1009, OR THEREABOUTS, JOHNSON.) UNDER THE SAME KING.
22. Let Sunday's festival be rightly kept as is thereto becoming; and let marketings and folk-motes, and huntings, and worldly works, be carefully abstained from on that holy day.
To the same purpose is a law of King Canute's in the early part of the eleventh century. To the above secular laws, let me add the following Ecclesiastical ordinances:
PENITENTIAL OF ARCHBISHOP THEODORE (LATTER PART OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY.)
XXXVIII.—6. On the Lord's day the Greeks and Romans sail and ride on horseback [some manuscripts read "neither sail nor ride;"] they do not make bread, nor travel in a carriage, except to church only, nor do they bathe. . . . 8. The Lord's day should be kept from evening to evening, according to what the Lord commanded in the law. But servile works ought by no means to be done on the Lord's day; i. e., men ought not to exercise rural occupations, as cultivating the vineyard, ploughing, [here follows a long list of agricultural works.] Also women ought not to weave, or wash clothes, or sew, &c; so that by all means the reverence and rest of the day of the Lord's resurrection may be preserved. And let them assemble on all sides to church to the Eucharistic sacrifice [missarum salennia] and praise God for all the good things which he did for us on that day. . . . 9. Let them not presume to have sports (jocations) and dances, or loose and indecent songs, or diabolical amusements, either at the church, or in their houses, or in the streets, or in any other place; for this is the remains of a Pagan custom. . . . 11. Let those who work on the Lord's day be beaten, if they are in such a condition (as to be liable) [for such, I presume, is the meaning of "si tales personae sunt;"] but, if not, let them live six days on bread and water. . . . 12. The head may be washed on the Lord's day, if necessary, and the feet also. . . . 13. To bathe, and shave, and cut hair on the Lord's day, is not allowed; if any one do this, let him live the fourth and sixth days (i. e., Wednesday and Friday) on bread and water.
EXCERPTIONS OF ECGBRIGHT (ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, A. D. 734—766.)
36. God the Creator of all things, created man on the sixth day, and on the Sabbath he rested from his works, and sanctified the Sabbath, for a future signification of the Passion of Christ, of his rest in the grave. . . . Christ suffered for us in the sixth age of the world, and on the sixth day; by his Passion and by the miracles done by him he formed anew lost man. He rested the Sabbath in the sepulchres, and sanctified the Lord's day by his resurrection. For the Lord's day is the first day of the world, and the day of Christ's resurrection, and of Pentecost, and therefore it is holy, and we ought spiritually to sabbatize, i. e., to cease from servile work, i. e., from sin, For he that committeth sin is the servant of sin.
106. An institution of the fathers. Men must do nothing on the Lord's day, but attend on God with hymns and psalms and spiritual songs.
LAWS OF THE NORTHUMBRIAN PRIESTS (JOHNSON SUPPOSES UNDER THE DANISH KING ANLAF, ABOUT 950.)
55. Sunday's traffic we forbid every where, and every folk-mote, and every journeying, whether in a wain, or on a horse, or as a burthen.
ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTES (PROBABLY SHORTLY BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST.)
Sunday is very solemnly to be reverenced, therefore we command that no man dare on that holy day to apply to any worldly work, unless for the preparing of his meat; except it happen to any one that he must of necessity journey, then he may either ride or row, or journey by such conveyance as may be suitable to his way; on the condition that he hear his mass, and neglect not his prayers. On Sunday God first created the light, and on that day he sent to the people of Israel in the desert heavenly bread; and on that day he arose from death, when he before, with his own will had suffered death for the salvation of mankind; and on that day he sent the Holy Ghost into his disciples. It is, therefore, very highly fitting that every Christian man very reverently honor that day.—London Record.