WAKE is the eve-feast of the dedication of churches, which is kept with feasting and rural diversions. Concerning the origin of wakes we have the following dissertation in Mr Whitaker's History of Manchester.
"Before a building could be used for divine offices, it was required to be consecrated by the bishop, formally sequestered from all secular applications, and dedicated to the purposes of public devotion. And every church at its consecration received the name of some particular personage, who was celebrated in the written annals or the traditional history of Christianity, and whose name had been admitted into that great roll of ecclesiastical fame, the calendar of the church. This custom was practised among the Roman Britons; and they had the church of St Martin at Canterbury, and that of St Michael at Manchester. It was also continued among the Saxons; and the Saxon churches in York, London, and Manchester, were distinguished by the names of St Peter, St Paul, and St Mary. And in the council which was held at Cealchythe in 816, the name of the denominating saint was expressly required to be inscribed on the altars, and also on the walls of the church or a tablet within it.
"The feast of this saint became of course the festival of the church. And the connection betwixt the church and saint being enhanced by the fancifulness of superstition, and the former supposed to be under the patronage of the latter, the parishioners would naturally consider the day of their spiritual guardian with particular respect, and celebrate it with peculiar festivity. This conduct would as naturally be encouraged by the civil and ecclesiastical governors, because it substituted innocent and Christian festivals in the room of the impious and idolatrous anniversaries of heathenism. The common people, generally in all countries as much attached to the festivals as they are devoted to the principles of any religion, finding their annual feasts return as before, and being now able to join in them without guilt, would be the sooner weaned from their idolatrous attachments. And this would be the natural operation of the affections, equally on the continent and in the island, and equally among the Britons and Saxons. Thus, at the first commencement of Christianity among the Jutes of Kent, and with a view to promote the conversion of them and the rest, Gregory prudently advised what had been previously done among the Britons, Christian festivals to be instituted in the place of the idolatrous, and the suffering-day of the martyr whose relics were deposited in the church, or the day on which the building was actually dedicated, to be the established feast of the parish. Both were appointed and observed. And they were observed and appointed as distinct festivals. Bishop Ken-
net indeed, in his sensible account of our wakes, has invariably confounded them, and attributed to the day of dedication what is true only concerning the saint's day. But they were fully distinguished at first among the Saxons; as appears from the laws of the Confessor, where the Dies Dedicacionis or Dedicatio is repeatedly discriminated from the Propria Festivitas Sancti, or Celebratio Sancti. And they remained equally distinct to the Reformation: the dedication-day in 1536 being ordered for the future to be kept on the first Sunday in October, and the festival of the patron-saint to be celebrated no longer.
"But the former could never have been observed by the people with the same regard as the latter. That was merely a feast commemorative of the church's commencement; and this was one previously kept by the nation in general, and the day of their own saint in particular. This therefore, in a high strain of pre-eminence over the other, was actually denominated the church's holiday, or its peculiar festival. And while this remains in many parishes at present, the other is so utterly annihilated in all, that the learned and sensible antiquary whom I have mentioned before, actually knew nothing of its distinct existence, and absolutely confounded it with this.
"Thus instituted at first, the day of the tutelary saint was observed, most probably by the Britons, and certainly by the Saxons, with great devotion. And the evening before every saint's day, in the Saxon-Jewish method of reckoning the hours, being an actual part of the day, and therefore like that resigned to the duties of public religion, as they reckoned Sunday from the first to commence at the sunset of Saturday; the evening preceding the church's holiday would be observed with all the devotion of the festival. The people actually repaired to the church, and joined in the services of it. And they thus spent the evening of their greater festivities in the monasteries of the north, as early as the conclusion of the 7th century. In that of Rippon, and on the anniversary of Wilfrid particularly, we see the bishops, abbots, and numerous trains of attendants, all convened at the monastery in order to celebrate the day, and all assembled the evening before it at the prayers of the church. And these services were naturally denominated from their late hours paccan, or "wakes," and vigils, or "eves." That of the anniversary at Rippon, as early as the commencement of the 8th century, is expressly denominated the vigil. But that of the church's holiday was named the paccan, or "church-wake," the church-vigil, or "church-eve." And it was this commencement of both with a wake which has now caused the days to be generally preceded with vigils, and the church-holiday particularly to be denominated the church-wake. So religiously was the eve and festival of the patron-saint observed for many ages by the Saxons; even as late as the reign of Edgar, the former being spent in the church and employed in prayer. And the wake, and all the other holidays in the year, were put upon the same footing with the octaves of Christmas, of Easter, and of Pentecost; and any persons repairing to the celebration of the day were, as all ordinarily resorting to the church were, under the immediate protection of the king, and consequently free from arrests in their way to and return from it.
"When Gregory recommended the festival of the patron-saint, he also recommended something more adapted to gain a general reception than religious acts and exercises. He advised, that the people should be encouraged on the day of the festival to erect booths of branches about the church, and to feast and be merry in them with innocence. And as the authority of Gregory would certainly cause the encouragement to be given, so the smallest would be effectual. Nor would such churches only as had previously been heathen temples, but all immediately have the day of their guardian saint observed with this open festivity. As the people had been all idolaters, the reason would be equally forcible for one parish as another. And the strong tendency of the common people to every sensitive enjoyment would make the practice universal. In every parish, on the returning anniversary of the saint, little pavilions were constructed of boughs; and the immediate neighbourhood of St Michael's, and the church-yard of St Mary's, resounded with the voice of hospitality and the notes of merriment.
"But few persons are ever to be trusted to feast; and fewer are to be allowed to meet in numbers together. There is a contagious viciousness in crowds. Though each individual among them, alone by himself, would act with a religious propriety; yet all together they act with irreligion and folly. The fire imperceptibly runs from breast to breast; each contributes to swell the tide of spirits beyond its proper bounds, and wickedness and absurdity enter at the breach that is made in reason. And this viciousness is always augmented in its force, when the grosser spirits, that are merely the result of feasting, mingle and ferment the tide. The feasting of the saint's day was soon abused. And it seems to have been greatly so before the reign of Edgar, as the intemperance of the festival was then creeping even into the vigil, and even mixing with the offices of religion. In the very body of the church, when the people were assembled for devotion, they were beginning to mind diversions and introduce drinking. And so gross an abuse of the eve could have stolen in only from the licentiousness of the festival. The growing intemperance would gradually stain the service of the vigil, till the festivity of it was converted, as it now is, into the rigour of a fast. These disorders would be less obnoxious on the day itself, because they did not intrude within the church and profane the prayers. But they were certainly greater, and went on increasing in viciousness and folly, till they too justly scandalized the puritans of the last century; and numbers of the wakes were disused entirely. Our own has been long discontinued. It was abolished in 1536 by the laws of Henry VIII. which appears to have had little or no influence on the general practice. It was put down by a particular and local order in 1579, and forgotten in the long and rigid reign of puritanism that was then commencing at Manchester. And Henry earl of Derby, Henry earl of Huntingdon, William lord bishop of Chester, and others of the high commission under queen Elizabeth, assembled at Manchester in 1579; issued orders against pipers and minstrels playing, making and frequenting ales, bear-baitings and bull-baitings on the Sunday, or any other day of the week in time of divine service or sermons; and prohibited for the future all superfluous and supersti-
Wake. tious ringing, common feasts, and wakes. But the wake of the neighbouring parish of Eccles is celebrated among us to the present day; and a considerable number of people resort to it annually from our own and the adjoining parishes.
“ This custom of celebrity in the neighbourhood of the church on the days of particular saints, was introduced into England from the continent, and must have been familiar equally to the Britons and Saxons; being observed among the churches of Asia in the 6th century, and by those of west Europe in the 7th. And equally in Asia and Europe, equally on the continent and in the island, these celebrities were the causes of those commercial marts which we denominate fairs. See FAIRS. The people resorted in crowds to the festival, and a considerable provision would be wanted for their entertainment. The prospect of interest invited the little traders of the country to come and offer their wares, and the convenience of the accommodation promoted a vigorous sale among the people. And other traders were induced by the experience of these, to bring in different articles, and hope for an equal sale. Thus among the many pavilions for hospitality in the neighbourhood of the church, various booths were erected for the sale of commodities. In large towns surrounded with populous districts, the resort of the people to the wake would be great, and the attendance of traders at the celebrity numerous. And this resort and this attendance constitute a fair. Basil expressly mentions the numerous appearance of traders at these festivals in Asia; and Gregory notes the same custom to be common in Europe. And as the festival was observed on a feria or holiday, it naturally assumed to itself, and as naturally communicated to the mart, the appellation of feria or fair; the same among the Saxons, the French, the Germans, and the Britons, fezer, foire, feyer, and faire: the word was derived from the same source in all these nations, the one ecclesiastical language of West Europe at this period. And several of our most ancient fairs appear to have been actually held, and have been actually continued to our time, on the original church-holidays of the places; as that on the festival of St Peter, at St Peter's church in Westminster; another on the feast of St Cuthbert, at St Cuthbert's in Durham; and a third on the holiday of St Bartholomew, at St Bartholomew's in London.”