Nicholas,
patron of children; he was often called "Nicholas bishop"; and sometimes,
as at Eton and Mayence, he exercised episcopal functions at divine
service on the eve and the feast itself. It is possible, as Mr. Chambers
suggests, that St. Nicholas's Day was an older date for the boys'
festival than Holy Innocents', and that from the connection with St.
Nicholas, the bishop saint _par excellence_ (he was said to have been
consecrated by divine command when still a mere layman), sprang |308|
the custom of giving the title "bishop" to the "lord" first of the boys'
feast and later of the Feast of Fools.
In the late Middle Ages the Boy Bishop was found not merely in cathedral,
monastic, and collegiate churches but in many parish churches throughout
England and Scotland. Various inventories of the vestments and ornaments
provided for him still exist. With the beginnings of the Reformation came
his suppression: a proclamation of Henry VIII., dated July 22, 1541,
commands "that from henceforth all suche superstitions be loste and
clyerlye extinguisshed throughowte all this his realmes and dominions,
forasmoche as the same doo resemble rather the unlawfull superstition of
gentilitie [paganism], than the pure and sincere religion of
Christe.
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