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 The old writers say that a misprision is contained in every felony and that the Crown may elect to prosecute for the misprision instead of the felony. This proposition merely affirms the right of the Crown to choose a more merciful remedy in certain cases, and has no present value in the law. Positive misprisions are now only of antiquarian interest, being treated as misdemeanours.

In the United States, misprision of treason is defined to be the crime committed by a person owing allegiance to the United States, and having knowledge of the commission of any crime against them, who conceals and does not, as soon as may be, disclose and make known the same to the president or to some judge of the United States, or to the governor, or to some judge or justice of a particular state. The punishment is imprisonment for not more than seven years and a fine of not more than one thousand dollars.

 MISRULE, LORD OF, in medieval times the master of the Christmas revels. Probably J. G. Frazer (Golden Bough III.) is right in suggesting that the lord or abbot of misrule is the successor of the king of the ancient Roman Saturnalia, who personated Saturn and suffered martyrdom at the end of the revels. Compare, too, the burlesque figure at the carnival, which is finally destroyed. Stow (Survey) writes: “In the feast of Christmas there was in the King’s House, wheresoever he lodged, a Lord of Misrule or Master of merry disports, and the like had ye in the house of every nobleman of honour or good worship, were he spiritual or temporal.” The mayor and sheriffs of London also had Lords of Misrule. These mock-monarchs began their reign on Allhallows Eve, and misruled till Candlemas. In Scotland they were known as “Abbots of Unreason,” and in 1555 a special act suppressing them was passed. In Tudor times their reign was marked by much display and expense. In Henry VIII.’s reign an order for a fool’s coat is signed by six of the Privy Council. By an Act of Common Council (1555) the city expenses of the Lords of Misrule were severely curtailed. Machyn speaks of a Lord of Misrule who in 1561 rode through London followed by a hundred gentlemen on horseback hung with gold chains (see also ).

 MISSAL, the book containing the liturgy, or office of the mass (missa), of the Roman Catholic Church. This name (e.g. Missale gothicum, francorum, gallicanum vetus) began to supersede the older word Sacramentary (sacramentarium, liber sacramentorum) from about the middle of the 8th century. At that period the book so designated contained merely the fixed canon of the mass or consecration prayer (actionem, precem canonicam, canonem actionis), and the variable collects, secretae or orationes super oblata, prefaces, and post-communions for each fast, vigil, festival or feria of the ecclesiastical year; for a due celebration of the Eucharist they required accordingly to be supplemented by other books, such as the Antiphonarium, afterwards called the Graduale, containing the proper antiphons (introits), responsories (graduals), tracts, sequences, offertories, communions and other portions of the communion service designed to be sung by the schola or choir, and the Lectionarium (or epistolarium and evangelistarium) with the proper lessons. Afterwards missals contained more or less fully the antiphons and lessons as well as the prayers proper to the various days, and these were called missalia plenaria. All modern missals are of this last description. The Missale romanum ex decreto ss. concilii tridentini restitutum, now in almost exclusive use throughout the Latin obedience, owes its present form to the council of Trent, which undertook the preparation of a correct and uniform liturgy, and entrusted the work to a committee of its members. This committee had not completed its labours when the council rose, but the pope was instructed to receive its report when ready and to act upon it. The “reformed missal” was promulgated by Pius V. on the 14th of July 1570, and its universal use enjoined, the only exceptions being churches having local liturgies which had been in unbroken use for at least two centuries. It has subsequently undergone slight revisions under Clement VIII. (1604), Urban VIII. (1634) and Leo XIII. (1884), and various new masses, both obligatory and permissive, universal and local, have been added. Although the Roman is very much larger than any other liturgy, the communion office is not in itself inordinately long. The greater part of it is contained in the “ordinary” and “canon” of the mass, usually placed about the middle of the missal, and occupies, though in large type, only a few pages. The work owes its bulk and complexity to two circumstances. On the one hand, in the celebration of the sacrifice of the mass practically nothing is left to the discretion of the officiating priest; everything—what he is to say, the tone and gestures with which he is to say it, the cut and colour of the robe he is to wear—is carefully prescribed in the rubrics. On the other hand, the Roman, like all the Western liturgies, is distinguished from those of the Eastern Church by its flexibility. A distinctive character has been given to the office for each ecclesiastical season, for each fast or festival of the year, almost for each day of the week; and provision has also been made of a suitable communion service for many of the special occasions both of public and of private life.

The different parts of the Roman communion office are not all of the same antiquity. Its essential features are most easily caught, and best understood, by reference to the earliest Sacramentaries (particularly the Gregorian, which was avowedly the basis of the labours of the Tridentine committee), to the Gregorian Antiphonary, and to the oldest redaction of the Ordo romanus. The account of the mass (qualiter Missa Romana celebratur) as given by the sacramentarium gregorianum is to the effect that there is in the first place “the Introit according to the time, whether for a festival or for a common day; thereafter Kyrie eleison. (In addition to this Gloria in excelsis Deo is said if a bishop be [the celebrant], though only on Sundays and festivals; but a priest is by no means to say it, except only at Eastertide. When there is a litany (quando letania agitur) neither Gloria in excelsis nor Alleluia is sung.) Afterwards the Oratio is said, whereupon follows the Apostolus, also the Gradual and Alleluia. Afterwards the Gospel is read. Then comes the Offertorium, and the Oratio super oblata is said.” Then follow the Sursum corda, the Preface, Canon, Lord’s Prayer and “embolism” ( or insertion, Libera nos, Domine), given at full length precisely as they still occur in the Roman missal.