Of Blessed Memory

In addition to being the memorial of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, today is also the memorial of Saint Osmund, a Norman nobleman and cleric who arrived on English shores with William the Conqueror. In 1070 Osmund was appointed Lord Chancellor of England and, eight years later, consecrated as the second Bishop of Salisbury. It was during his episcopate that the first cathedral, at Old Sarum, was founded and consecrated in 1092. St Osmund was also one of the Chief Commissioners of the Domesday Book, and the progenitor of what became known as the Sarum Use. A century and a half later, after his death in 1099, his successor, Bishop Richard Poore, the founder of the present-day Salisbury Cathedral on its new site, compiled ‘The Register of Saint Osmund’, a work that ‘describes the {principal} persons and their duties; and the privileges and the customs by which Salisbury Cathedral is organised and governed according to the institution of Osmund of blessed memory, founder and bishop of the same’. 

The following is taken from the Customary, found within the Register, which deals that that perennially thorny topic - the ‘ordering of clerics’! 

‘THE ORDERING OF THE CLERICS IN CHAPTER
 
32.1. Now the clerics should sit in chapter in the following order: nearest the bishop on the right-hand side should sit the dean, then the chancellor, the Archdeacon of Dorset, {one} Archdeacon of Wiltshire and then the subdean. On the left of the bishop sit the precentor, treasurer, Archdeacon of Berkshire, then the {other} Archdeacon of Wiltshire, then the succentor: and the canon priests should sit next to these persons; then the canon deacons, then the subdeacons on either side; then the priest vicars, after which come the rest of the vicars from the upper step; then the canons from the second form, then the deacons, the subdeacons and the clerics of minor orders from the same form: and the boys, whether they be canons or not, should stand before the others in the space on each side of the pulpit, arranged in their order.
 
32.2. First, a boy should read, in a surplice, the lesson from the Martyrology without Jube domine or Tu autem. When the lesson is finished, he should announce the obits (if there are any). And if there are obits announced, the priest should stand behind the reader and reply: Anime eorum et anime omnium fidelium defunctorum per dei misericordiam in pace requiescant. The choir should respond Amen, then the priest should say Preciosa est in conspectu domini and the rest of the words pertinent to that hour. When this is finished, the boy reader starts another lesson with Jube domine, and finishes with Tu autem. And the priest, after having performed a blessing on the lesson, should return to his place; and the boy, having finished the lesson, should come down from the pulpit and read the roster’.

O God, whose miracles of old we perceive to shine forth even in our time to the glory and praise of thy Name, and to the honour of thy holy Confessor and Bishop Saint Osmund: mercifully grant that we who keep his festival may by his prayers both glorify thee in this present time, and be deemed worthy to enjoy thee in the world to come; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. - ​Divine Worship: The Missal.