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March 19.] maundy Thursday. 141
of the poor, feed and clothe them; and, with humility, wash your feet among yourselves as Christ himself did, and commanded us so to do." On the whole there seems to be no reason to doubt that the name maundy is derived from the mandate obeyed on this day.
The bread given to the poor on Maundy Thursday was named mandate bread, mandati panes, in the monasteries; as the coin given was called mandate money.—Med. AEvi Kalend. i. 183-185.
One of the earliest instances on record of a monarch observing this custom, and which is the more curious as it shows that the practice of regulating the amount of the dole given on Maundy Thursday by the age of the king was then in existence, is preserved in the " Motulus Misce, or role of the wardrobe expenses of the 14th year of King John," in which there appears an item of " fourteen shillings and one penny, for alms to thirteen poor persons, every one of whom received thirteen pence at Eochester, on Thursday, in Coena Domini" (Holy Thursday), John having then reigned thirteen complete years.
In the wardrobe expenses of Edward I. we find money given on Easter eve to thirteen poor people whose feet the Queen had washed; which latter custom is said to have been performed by the sovereign so late as the reign of James II. —Thorns, Book of the Court, 1844, p. 311.
Henry VII. gave, when thirty-eight years old, thirty-eight coins and thirty-eight small purses to as many poor people:
"March 25. To thirty-eight poor men in almes, £6 Os. 4d. For thirty-eight small purses, 1$. 8d
There are several entries for the Maundy in the " Privy Purse expenses" of this sovereign, as in 1496 :
" April 10. For bote hire for the Maundy and the kinges robe, payed by John Flee, 4s."
The order of the Maundy, as practised by Queen Elizabeth in 1579 is here given—(from No. 6183, Add. MSS. in the Br1sth Museum) :
" Order of the Maunday made at Greenwich, 19th March 1579, 14 Elizabeth."
"First.—The hall was prepared with a long table on each |
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