Boy-bishop

Boy-bishop. The custom of electing a boy-bishop on St Nicholas's Day dates from a very early period. It spread over most Catholic countries, and in England seems to have prevailed in almost every parish. Although the election took place on St Nicholas's Day (6th December), the authority lasted to Holy Innocents' Day (28th December). The boy-bishop was chosen from the children of the church or cathedral choir, or from the pupils at the grammar-school. He was arrayed in episcopal vestments, and, attended by a crowd of subordinates in priestly dress, went about with songs and dances from house to house, blessing the people, who, as Bishop Hall says, 'stood grinning in the way to expect that ridiculous benediction.' The mock prelate exacted implicit obedience from his fellows, who, along with their superior, took possession of the church, and performed all the ceremonies and offices except mass. The custom found countenance not among the populace only. In 1299 Edward I., on his way to Scotland, permitted a boy-bishop to say vespers before him at Heaton, near Newcastle-on-Tyne. At Salisbury the boy-bishop, it is said, had the power of disposing of such prebends as happened to fall vacant during the days of his episcopacy; and if he died during his office, the funeral honours of a bishop, with a monument, were granted him. The genuineness of the effigy in Salisbury Cathedral known as 'the boy-bishop's monument' has, however, been seriously questioned. In England, the custom was abolished by a proclamation of Henry VIII., dated July 22, 1542; restored by Queen Mary in 1554; and again abolished during the reign of Elizabeth, though it seems to have lingered here and there in villages till about the close of her reign. On the Continent it was the subject of a formal interdict at the Council of Basel (1431); and at Zug, in Switzerland, a similar usage was suppressed so recently as 1797.