388 APPENDIX IV. PORTIONS OF AN OFFICE IN MEMORY OF SIMON DE MONTFORT. I have thought it worth while to add here an interesting fragment, not hitherto published, illustrative of the veneration in which Simon de Montfort was held after death. It consists of three hymns, and the special portions of a service, in which the memory of Earl Simon was hallowed, by some part of the Church at least, as that of a martyr. It seems that in this commemoration of him, and the setting apart of a day for that purpose, consisted that popular canonisation, which was forbidden by the Dictum of Kenilworth. I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Bradshaw, of the University Library, Cambridge, for the copy of the MS. It was made from the last leaf but one of MS. Kk, 4, 20, in that Library, a volume which in the fourteenth century was in the Cathedral Library at Norwich. Mr. Bradshaw says: The hand-writing is of the time of Edward I, or thereabouts. The three hymns are probably those used at First Vespers, at Matins, and at Lauds, and the Suffragium was probably the Commemoration at Lauds.' |