BOY-BISHOP. From a remote period, in the cathedrals and greater churches of Christendom, it was the custom on St Nicholas day (Dec. 6) to select a child, usually one of the choir, and to invest him with the robes and other insignia of the episcopal office; and from the time of his election until the feast of the Holy Innocents (Dec. 28), the boy-bishop continued to practise a kind of mimicry of the ceremonies of the church, for the amusement of the people. This custom, which was countenanced by the great ecclesiastics themselves, continued to exist till the year 1542, when it was finally suppressed by royal proclamation. (See Ellis's edition of Brand's Popular Antiquities, vol. i.)