Page:The Review of English Studies Vol 1.djvu/27

Rh with this, the sisters have just been given elaborate instructions how to say their hours, instructions which show that they are educated women, who can use service books: “Let every one say her hours as she has them written.” Then suddenly we have this alternative method of saying the hours “as our lay brethren do,” obviously intended for illiterate devotees. The fact that this alternative method is found in one manuscript only, makes us quite certain that it must be the addition of some scribe (possibly enough a Dominican). But the essential reason for rejecting it is not that it is found in one MS. only, but that it is inconsistent with the rest of the Rule. As Miss Allen says, “the omission of the passage from all other copies is the least suspicious detail in its connection.”

Another passage in which “our lay brethren” are mentioned as partaking of the Holy Communion only fifteen times a year has better manuscript authentication. But until this rule is shown to be peculiar to Dominican lay brethren, it is of no help to the argument. And so far is this from being the case, that Father Dalgairns (to whose authority Father McNabb more than once appeals) speaks of communicating fifteen times a year as “the practice of the Church at the time.”

Again, Father McNabb’s other parallels between the Rule and Dominican usages, and the mention of austerities practised by a certain man and a certain woman, have been shown by Miss Allen and by Mr. Coulton to refer to practices too widespread to carry the weight of the argument. Some of these parallels might perhaps have possessed some corroborative value, if the argument about the hours of “our lay-bretheren,” which is quite the most striking, could have been maintained. But when that has fallen, none of the others seem sufficient to support the theory.

Miss Hope Emily Allen has suggested that the three maidens