It would seem, indeed, to have been an impressive
and edifying function, and that reasonable exception can be taken to it
only on the score of childishness, and the absence of any warrant from
Scripture, apart from the rather doubtful sanction of St. Paul's words,
"The elder shall serve the younger."
There are weighty considerations on the other side. The mediaeval Church
derived stores of strength from its sympathetic attitude towards women
and children and the illiterate; and there was a sensible loss of
vitality and interest when the ministry of the Church was curtailed to
suit the common sense of a handful of statesmen, scholars, and
philosophers. At the time the festival was abolished, opinion was
divided even among the leaders of reform. Thus Archbishop Strype openly
favoured the custom, holding that it "gave a spirit to the children,"
and was an encouragement to them to study in the hope of attaining some
day the real mitre. Broadly speaking, then, the Boy-Bishop festival is
evidence of the tender condescension of Holy Mother Church to little
children, and it does not stand alone. At Eyton, Rutlandshire, and
elsewhere, children were allowed to play in church on Holy Innocents'
Day, possibly in the same way as at the "Burial of the Alleluia" in a
church at Paris, where a chorister whipped a top, on which the word
"Alleluia" was inscribed, from one end of the choir to the other.
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