nd Tunicles, with
lighted tapers. It should go out of the Choir down the Nave, and out
at the West Door of the Church, round the Church and Cloisters as on
Ascension Day"--_i.e._ round the outside of the whole church,
beginning with the north side and returning round the east end, and
through the cloister to the west door again, and thus back into the
nave. The colours of the vestments at Wells followed in the main the
custom of the neighbouring diocese of Sarum, but with some local
variations, such as are set down in the _Consuetudinary_ which
Archbishop Laud had copied from the late thirteenth-century MS. Indigo
and white were used on St. John's Day and on the Dedication Festival;
in Advent, indigo; at Passiontide, red, and on Palm Sunday, "except
one cope of black for the part of Caiaphas" at the singing of the
Passion; red, too, on Maunday Thursday, but with a banner of white.
Red was also used for Easter, Pentecost, and throughout the Sundays
after Trinity; while for Virgin Martyrs, red was mixed with white.
This mixture of colours was probably effected by the cantors wearing
different coloured copes; thus for confessors saffron _(croceus)_ was
mixed with green, _sicut honestius et magis proprie possunt adaptari
festo_; but St. Julian and some others had all saffron, while a few,
like St. Benedict, had all indigo. White is comparatively little in
evidence, but it was used at Christmas, and for commemorations of the
Blessed Virgin. Black was used for the commemoration of the dead.

To this vision of stately pomp, and changing colour, we must add in
our mind's eye the many chapels with their woven tapestries of flowers
and beasts and birds, their rich ornaments and sacred associations;
the majestic rood upon the screen, and the rich altars that stood
before it; the almost constant succession of services that went on
behind it, where the canons (each with his own book and candle) and
their vicars sat, and the pyx hung over the high altar; the sound of a
little bell from one of the chapels where mass was being said, the
glimmer of a hanging lamp, the gleam of a silver image, the shrines
here and there, with their frequent visitors; and, as years went on,
the subdued light from the gorgeous painted windows (that over the
high altar glowed then from east to west without obstructing organ),
the frescoes on some of the walls, the green and red and gold of the
later monuments; and over all the trail of incense and the sound