quoted by Ducange, in which the testator ordered a "trental de messes" to be said for his soul "le plus brief que faire se porra." But who it was at Brome or Scole who showed this preference for a dirge, and the prayer Deus summa spes, there is nothing in the manuscript to tell.
The "month's mind," sometimes mentioned in connection with a trental, appears to have been a day kept in remembrance of the departed a month after death, when a number of masses, probably a trental, was performed for his soul, and a dinner or feast given. "In Ireland," writes Sir Henry Piers, 1682, "after the day of interment of a great personage, they count four weeks; and that day four weeks, all priests and friars, and all gentry, far and near, are invited to a great feast (usually termed the month's mind). The preparation to this feast are masses, said in all parts of the house at once, for the soul of the departed. If the room be large you shall have three or four priests together celebrating in the several corners thereof. The masses done, they proceed to their feastings; and after all, every priest and friar is discharged with his largess." [Quoted in Brand's Dictionary of Antiquities, ed. 1870, vol. ii. p. 231.] Compare this with Dr. Rock's description of the trental above. Payments for the feast, as well as for the priests, are not infrequent in old wills, churchwarden's accounts, &c. (see Archæologia, vol. i. pp. 11-14; Brand's Dictionary of Antiquities, ed. 1870, ii. 229; also Rock's Church of our Fathers, ii. 518; and Dr. Skeat's Notes to Piers Plowman, text C., x. 320, p. 198.
Spenser, in Mother Hubberd's Tale, 1. 453, refers to the old state of things as past:—
"Their diriges, their trentals, and their shrifts, . . . . . . Now all those needlesse works are laid away." [Quoted in Brand's Dictionary of Antiquities, ed. 1870, vol. ii. p. 231.]
These Directions for Trental and for Prayers (p. 119) are written apparently by the same hand which wrote the Accounts, Articles of Leet and Baron, &c., i.e., Robert Melton.
Trentals er comonly seyd xxxti massis and no [folio 80a] derege; they shulde be sayd with euery masse a derege, soo I wolde haue them seyd yff I shulde cavsse them to be seyd for my selffe, euery derege with this preyur, Deus summa spes: they know it that hath seyd trentals. The massis er thes folowyng;—First iij of the nateuite of owre lord as of Crystmes day, iij of Epiphanie as of Twelth day, iij of the
