They've just decided Richard III won't be buried in York

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

You have to look at this document:

www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/richard-3rd-judgment-.pdf

It is cracking me up, properly. There's something so funny about seeing it all set out like that.

Just seen Tom Holland on twitter suggest Fotheringhay, the church where many York royals were buried. What do you think?

Oooooh I can see photos. This is brilliant.

Yes, they might be. I just find it interesting to speculate about.

He would have been accustomed to seeing the mass the other way around, and a following it with a lot more criss-crossing textual variation (personal prayers, differentiated responses, etc.). I know these things are not central to the meaning of the Eucharist, but I was reading about how disconcerting people found them after Vatican II, even - when a lot of change had already happened - and just trying to imagine what he would have thought.

I know of course that's pointless, but it is also interesting. Would he even have known how to follow a mass with the priest looking at him? That sort of thing.

santana, Paul Lay on twitter is worth checking out if you want someone who is passionately angry about this service. I don't agree with him but very interesting!

As well as the priest and worshippers facing in the same direction, I think the congregation would have stood or knelt, I think pews were a protestant innovation due to needing to listen to long sermons.

As he would've been dead at the mass I don't think he would be too worried about the priest.

No, pews weren't a Protestant innovation. You can see some in Holy Trinity Church in York, if you want an idea of what very early box pews would have looked like, and those did exist in medieval England.

They were for important people, but kings would have been included. Still, I agree there would have been much more standing and kneeling than sitting.

And yes, I know he would have been dead! But isn't that what we're all wondering - what he would have wanted had he been able to know?

You can see in these medieval choir stalls which were for the monks who prayed the Divine Office (Liturgy of the Hours, Work of God) seven times every 24 hours, especially Matins and Lauds during the night so they could stay propped up, not exactly sitting down.

Thanks jeanne.

Surely the most important bit is the consecrated ground burial?

(desperately trying to pull out parts of my degree from the baby brain)

hey - yes, but pews are different from choir stalls. Choir stalls come in much earlier - if memory serves, they're around at least as early as the Gregorian chant linked to upthread, whereas pews are later, and not becoming all that common until the fifteenth century.

santana - I think I agree.

Sorry : ) I have a non-English keyboard so can't do the smileys! Hope you knew I was being tongue-in-cheek.

I think basically it wasn't a case of a "state church" there was one church in Western Europe, known as Christendom and the idea that you could be buried outside that would be inconceivable and probably frightening. Richard would have gone to the same mass wherever he was in Western Europe: one, holy, catholic and apostolic.

YY, I agree, I don't think the idea of a 'state church' would have had much meaning to him, except as something worrying.

Yes that was my point about seating - except for the priest there wasn't any. I added the choir stalls as an aside to say - well they were kind enough to allow a tired monk a choir seat to slump in during the long nights.

What channel are you guys watching this on?

No, sorry, that's not what I am saying.

Richard died towards the end of the fifteenth century. There were pews in churches for rich people by that point - and certainly for a king. He would have had one.

Choir stalls in monasteries are different from the set-up in a non-monastic church, too.

Also mass would have been in Latin so would be literally the same everywhere. An educated man such as Richard would have a good grasp of Latin I imagine so no great hardship.

dobble - I'm not (boo!). I'm on twitter reading people's responses, but I think it's on C4 or More4?

DD (student at Leicester) was at the ceremony this morning where the coffin was handed over by the university

Yes, the mass would be in Latin. It looks as if Richard read at least some Latin, though I don't know how much offhand.

But you don't actually listen to the mass in the same way as a modern one. The priest will often be speaking under his breath (to God, as it were, not to you), and you follow along in your prayer book. We've still got one of Richard's prayerbooks - legend has it he prayed with it the night before the battle - and Margaret Beaufort took it afterwards, crossed out his name, and wrote in her own.

What was in your prayerbook might be Latin, or English, or French, or all three. It might be close to what the priest was muttering that you couldn't hear, or it might be complementary. It wouldn't be like a modern service where you listen to the priest and then make your own scripted response, though it would have portions a bit like that.

I suppose it's a question of how much you think these things change the character of a service.

woolly I am so jealous of your DD.

I've tried E4, Channel 4 and More4 (all the channels actually!), but no luck here. Where's everyone watching?

You could well be right, I saw a great film of a reenactment of mass from this time period but was admittedly in one of the Scandinavian countries. It was in a small rural parish and all were standing or kneeling - no seating. In the major cities and towns this may well have been changing, I imagine so with the growth in the diversity of classes.

I live in Leicester but am bloody working all day so will have to watch it on TV. Bugger. Nothing ever happens here. Ever!

(Having gone and checked) looks as if his Latin was fluent.

hey - I'd love to have seen that.

I don't know if things were different in Scandinavia. Maybe?

It's not starting on C4 until 5.10.

Also mass would have been in Latin so would be literally the same everywhere.

Weren't bedes being made in the vernacular by the fifteenth century?

I'm sorry I'm one step behind in my response. Well yes the mass is an offering of Christ to the Father on behalf of those present and the world. most people knew many of the prayers by heart and what we now respond in English (or other vernacular) is the same as the Latin.

I'm sure you are aware that most of the changes came in after Vatican II in the 1960s. The beliefs remain the same, and what is happening on the altar remains the same.