It may not be improper here to take notice of the celebration of divine service, the obsequies, anniversaries and chauntries particularly belonging to this cathedral: as to the first, Richard Clifford, Bishop of London, in 1414, with the consent of the Dean and Chapter, ordained that from thence forward it should be altered from the old form, and made conformable to the church of Salisbury, and other cathedrals within this kingdom. The performance of obsequies for great persons deceased, was however retained as a peculiar privilege of this cathedral, from whence great profits arose. Indeed “the state and order observed on these occasions,” says Sir William Dugdale, “was little inferior to that used at the funerals of those great personages; the church and choir being hung with black, and escutcheons of their arms; their herses set up in wonderful magnificence, adorned with rich banner rolls, &c. and environed with barriers; having chief mourners and assistants, accompanied by several Bishops and Abbots in their proper habits; the Ambassadors of foreign Princes, many of our Nobility, the Knights of the Garter, the Lord Mayor, and the several Companies of London, who all attended with great devotion at these ceremonies.” This author adds a list of Emperors, Empresses, and Kings performed in this cathedral. As to anniversaries, those of the conversion and commemoration of St. Paul, the consecration of the church, and the canonization of St. Erkenwald, were the principal. It is very remarkable, with respect to the first of these anniversaries, that Sir William le Baud, Knt. in the third year of Edward I. granted a good fat doe annually on the day of the conversion of St. Paul, and a good fat buck upon the day of commemoration, which till the reign of Queen Elizabeth were received with great formality at the steps of the choir, by the Canons cloathed in their sacred vestments, with garlands of flowers on their heads. Camden, who was an eye witness of this solemnity, says, that the horns of the buck were carried on a spear in procession round the inside of the church, the men blowing horns, &c. and then the buck being offered at the high altar, a shilling was ordered by the Dean and Chapter for the entertainment of the servants who brought it, and this concluded the ceremony.