The following excellent description of the chief kinds of Service-books which were used during the later mediæval period was originally written in 1881 by Henry Bradshaw, the Cambridge University Librarian, for _The Chronicles of All Saints' Church, Derby_, by the Rev. J. C. Cox and Mr W. H. St John Hope. It is by the kind permission of Mr Cox and Mr Hope that I am able to reprint Mr Bradshaw's valuable note, which, with admirable clearness and conciseness, explains the character of each of the principal classes of Service-books used in English Churches and the manner in which these books became differentiated and multiplied down to the time of the Reformation. NOTE BY HENRY BRADSHAW. _The Hours._ In the old Church of England, the Services were either-- 1. For the different hours (Mattins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline), said in the Choir, 2. For Processions, in the Church or Churchyard, 3. For the Mass, said at the Altar, or 4. For occasions, such as Marriage, Visitation of the Sick, Burial, &c., said as occasion required. Of these four all have their counterparts, more or less, in the English Service of modern times, as follows: 1. The Hour-Services, of which the principal were Mattins and Vespers, correspond to our Morning and Evening Prayer. _Processions._ 2. The Procession Services correspond to our Hymns or Anthems sung before the Litany which precedes the Communion Service in the morning, and after the third Collect in the evening, only no longer sung in the course of procession to the Churchyard Cross or a subordinate Altar in the Church; the only relic (in common use) of the actual Procession being that used on such occasions as the Consecration of a Church, &c. 3. The Mass answers to our Communion Service. _Occasional Services._ 4. The Occasional Services are either those used by a Priest, such as Baptism, Marriage, Visitation and Communion of the Sick, Burial of the Dead, &c., or those reserved for a Bishop, as Confirmation, Ordination, Consecration of Churches, &c. All these Services but the last mentioned are contained in our "Prayer-book" with all their details, except the lessons at Mattins and Evensong, which are read from the Bible, and the Hymns and Anthems, which are, since the sixteenth century, at the discretion of the authorities. This concentration or compression of the Services into one book is the natural result of time, and the further we go back the more numerous are the books which our old inventories show. To take the four classes of Services and Service-books mentioned above: _The Breviary._