Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/63

TO 978.] The twenty-ninth forbids the burying in churches all those that were not of known and approved probity.

The thirty-second prohibits the priests from officiating without the service-book before them, for fear the trusting to their memories might make them mistake.

By the thirty-sixth, no person was to eat or drink before receiving the communion.

The thirty-eighth enjoins the priest to have the holy Eucharist always ready by him; but if it grew so stale that it could not be eaten without disgusting the palate, it was to be burnt in a clear fire, and the ashes laid under the altar.

The forty-third forbids the eating of blood.

The fifty-second orders priests to preach every Sunday.

The sixty-fourth decrees hunting and hawking are improper diversions for a priest, who is to make books his entertainment.

These canons have been translated by Sir H. Spelman, from a Saxon manuscript in Bennet College, Cambridge.