The Channel IslandsMorris, Joseph E. (Joseph Ernest)
History
The Channel Islands
Morris, Joseph E. (Joseph Ernest)
Channel Islands
Most that is best in Jersey is identified with its coast, except,
perhaps, for the archæologist, who will want to push a little inland,
to investigate the ancient churches of St. Mary, St. Lawrence, and St.
Peter. Inland, too, is the Prince's Tower, built on the Hougue-Hambye
in the eighteenth century. The mound is associated with a serpent
legend, that perhaps has points of contact with the well-known stories
of the Sockburn and Laidley "worms." The old chapel that adjoins it
was remodelled by Richard Mabon, Dean of Jersey, in 1525. He had
returned from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and constructed an
imitation of the Holy Sepulchre; just as Opice Adornes, a hundred
years earlier, had erected the Church of Jerusalem at Bruges.
Preserved in this now-deserted chapel is a font for the exact parallel
of which we shall look in vain in England, though analogous cases
occur in our country, and some precisely similar instances may be
found in France. Attached to the inside of the bowl is a smaller bowl,
which was probably meant to catch the drippings of the consecrated
water that ran off the baby's head. This is the ceremony demanded in
terms by the _Rituale Romanum_, as cited in Mr. F. Bond's beautiful
book on Fonts (p. 60): "Ne aqua ex infantis capite in fontem, sed vel
in sacrarium baptisterii prope ipsum fontem ex-structum defluat, aut
in aliquo vase ad hunc usum parato recepta, in ipsius baptisterii vel
in ecclesiæ sacrarium effundatur." Modern Roman Catholic fonts are now
often constructed in two separate partitions, and this is said to be
the origin of the plural _fonts baptismaux_, of such constant
occurrence in France.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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