e, sent
Augustine in his stead A.D. 596. The yearly Synod of the English
Church was appointed in 673 to be held at Cloveshoo--a place probably
near London but in the kingdom of Mercia. In 747 at a great council
held at Cloveshoo, March 12 was appointed as S. Gregory's Day; May 26
as the day of S. Augustine Archbishop of Canterbury[3]; and Gregory's
Sevenfold Litany, together with the Rogation Services, was sanctioned
for use in England, with a phrase which implies that custom had already
introduced them.

The 2nd Book of Homilies (1562. See Art. xxxv). contains a Homily for
Rogation Week in four parts--three of which appear to be designed for
the three Rogation Days, and the fourth for The Perambulation of the
Parish, or Beating of the Bounds--a custom which has survived into our
own time. The parishioners walked along the outline of the parish,
taking {156} care that at least one of them passed through any
obstruction which was built, or erected, across the boundary. Thus, if
a cottage were so built, a boy would be passed though the door and
window of it. Trees at corners were marked with a hatchet: a note book
was preserved as a guide for the next perambulation. From this useful
and ancient ceremony, Rogation Days were called by the Anglo-Saxons
Beddagas=Prayer-days, or Gang-dagas=perambulation-days. Boundary
stones, dated May 4, 1837, are to be seen in the thickets of Buckland
Woods, Devon, showing that Ascension Day was chosen in that year for
the perambulation of Ashburton. More recently the perambulation of
Exeter has been performed on Ascension Day. The steps by which the
religious dedication of the year's work, at each centre of agricultural
industry, passed into a municipal ceremony accompanied by social
amenities, may be conjectured. It was still a religious
service--partly in the church and partly in the fields, in the time of
Queen Elizabeth, and much later.

Litanies, however, have ceased to be processions. They are not said
walking, but kneeling. The Litany is to be said at some different
place from the Morning Prayer: for, in the Commination it is ordered,
that part shall be said by the Minister in the Reading Pew, or Pulpit,
and the rest "in the place where they are accustomed to say the
Litany." Since this recognises an accustomed place, the kneeling desk
or fald-stool[4], placed "in front of the chancel door," or "in {157}
the midst of the Church" (Injunctions of Edw. VI.), appears to b