With regard to the seasons for celebrating marriage, the Church was formerly very strict. The parish register for St. Mary's, Beverley, contains the following entry under date November 25, 1641:-- "When Advent comes do thou refraine, Till Hillary set ye free again, Next Septuagessima saith thee nay, But when Low Sunday comes thou may, Yet at Rogation thou must tarrie, Till Trinitie shall bid thee marry." The above appears to have been a popular verse to inscribe in registers, for, with slight variations, it is to be met with in several parishes. _Philomath's Almanac_, for the year 1674, contains similar rules in prose:-- "TIMES PROHIBITING MARRIAGE THIS YEAR. Marriage comes in on the 13th of January, and at Septuagessima Sunday it is out again until Low Sunday, at which time it comes in again, and goes not out till Rogation Sunday. Then it is forbidden until Trinity Sunday, from whence it is unforbidden till Advent Sunday, but then it goes out, and comes not in again till the 13th of January next following." With regard to the publication of Banns of Marriage, it appears to have been the custom in the primitive ages that the Church should be forewarned of marriages. The earliest existing canonical enactment on the subject in the English church, is that in the eleventh canon of the Synod of Westminster, in the year 1200, which enacts that "no marriage shall be contracted without banns thrice published in the church, unless by the special authority of the Bishop." Anciently, before the publication of banns, it was the custom for the curate to affiance the two persons to be married in the name of the Trinity; and at this period the banns were sometimes published at Vespers as well as at Mass. Forbidding the banns of marriage is now a very rare occurrence; formerly, it was not so, and it was customary to interdict a marriage sometimes for the sole purpose of making a comparative stranger prove his bona-fides. The parish register of Frampton, near Boston, Lincolnshire, contains the following entry on January, 1, 1653:--"The marriage of Edward Morton and Jane Goodwin was objected to by John Ayne, Thomas Appleby, and William Eldred: because in the first place, the said Edward Morton was a stranger, and they did not know where he had lived until a short time before, or whether he was married or single; therefore they desired the marriage might be deferred until he brought a certificate of these things. And secondly because they have been informed and do believe that he is a very poor man, and therefore they wish him to get some sufficient man to be bound with him to secure the town from any charge of him or his."