'"
This measure, so inconsistent with the spirit of the age and so
contradictory in its terms, was re-enacted at various dates during the
reigns of Elizabeth and James I. It is perhaps the last "word" as
regards the Lady Fast, but the legislature by no means suspended its
vigilance in enforcing abstinence at the proper season. Discussion of
post-Reformation fasting, however, or fasting in general, forms no part
of our present undertaking.
ECCLESIASTICAL
CHAPTER IV
CHILDREN OF THE CHAPEL
The fact may not have escaped notice that Domina Alicia Seynt Johan de
Baggenet "took the vow of widowhood in the chapel of the Lord of
Amberley." Possession of a private chapel was, as it still is, a mark of
social distinction. "It was once the constitution of the English," runs
a law of King Athelstan, "that the people and their legal condition went
according to their merits; and then were the councillors of the nation
honoured each one according to his quality, the earl and the ceorl, the
thane and the underthane. If a ceorl throve so as to have five hides
booked to him, a church, bell-tower, a seat in the borough, and an
office in the King's court, from that time forward he was esteemed equal
in honour to a thane." Again, the laws of King Edgar relating to tithe
ordain "that God's church be entitled to every right, and that every
tithe be rendered to the old minster to which the district belongs, and
be then so paid, both from the thane's inland and from geneat land, as
the plough traverses it.
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