BRIDEMAIDS. THE use of bridemaids at weddings appears as old as the time of the Anglo-Saxons; among whom, as Strutt informs us, "the bride was led by a matron, who was called the bride's woman, followed by a company of young maidens, who were called the bride's maids." The bridemaids and the bridegroom men are both mentioned by the author of the Convivial Antiquities, in his description of the rites at marriages in his country and time.' In later times it was among the offices of the bridemaids to lead the bridegroom to church, as it was the duty of the bridegroom's men to conduct the bride thither. This has not been overlooked in the provincial poem of the Collier's Wedding: "Two lusty lads, well drest and strong, As soon the bridegroom's hands surprize." It was an invariable rule for the men always to depart the room, till the bride was undressed by her maids and put to bed. It is stated in the account of the marriage ceremonials of Philip Herbert and the Lady Susan, performed at Whitehall in the reign of James I., that "the Prince and the Duke of Holst. led the bride to church.” In the old History of John Newchombe, the Wealthy Clothier of Newbery, cited by Strutt, iii. 154, speaking of his bride, it is said, that after hee, came the chiefest maidens of the country, some bearing bridecakes, and some garlands, made of wheat finely gilded, and so passed to the church. She was led to church between two sweet boys, with bridelaces and rosemary tied about their silken sleeves; the one was Sir Thomas Parry, the other Sir Francis Hungerford." In the old play of A Woman is a Weathercocke, act i, sc. 1. on a marriage going to be solemnized, Count Fredericke says: “Antequam eatur ad templum Jentaculum sponsæ et invitatis apponitur, serta atque corollæ distribuuntur. Postea certo ordine viri primum cum sponso, deinde puellæ cum sponsa in templum procedunt." Antiquitat. Convivial. fol, 68. My bride will never be readie, I thinke; heer are the other sisters." Pendant observes: "Looke you, my lorde; there's Lucida weares the willow-garland for you, and will so go to church, I hear." As Lucida enters with a willow-garland, she says: "But since my sister he hath made his choise, This wreath of willow, that begirts my browes, Till he be dead, or I be married to him." Waldron, in his Description of the Isle of Man (Works, fol. p. 169), speaking of the Manx weddings, says: "They have bridemen and brides-maids, who lead the young couple as in England, only with this difference, that the former have ozier wands in their hands, as an emblem of superiority." In Brooke's England's Helicon, we read: "Forth, honour'd groome; behold, not farre behind, Your willing bride, led by two strengthlesse boyes :" marked in the margin opposite, "Going to church-bride boyes." Misson, in his Travels, p. 352, says: "The bridemaids carry the bride into the bed-chamber, where they undress her and lay her in the bed. They must throw away and lose all the pins. Woe be to the bride if a single one is left about her; nothing will go right. Woe also to the bridemaids if they keep one of them, for they will not be married before Whitsontide." Or, as we read in Hymen, 1760, p. 173, "till the Easter following at soonest." BRIDEGROOM MEN. THESE appear anciently to have had the title of brideknights. Those who led the bride to church were always bachelors, but she was to be conducted home by two married 1 "Paranymphi ejusmodi seu sponsi amici appellantur etiam vici 78 voμowvos (Matth. ix. 15) filii thalami nuptialis; qua de re optime vir præstantissimus Hugo Grotius. Singulare habetur et apud nos nomen ejusmodi eorum quos bride-knights, id est, ministros sponsalitios qui sponsam deducere solent, appellitamus." Seldeni Uxor Hebraica, Opera, iii. 638. persons. Polydore Vergil, who wrote in the time of Henry the Eighth, informs us that a third married man, in coming home from church, preceded the bride, bearing, instead of a torch, a vessel of silver or gold. Moresin relates that to the bachelors and married men who led the bride to and from church, she was wont to present gloves for that service during the time of dinner.2 It was part of the bridegroom men's office to put him to bed to the bride, after having undressed him. The following passage is in Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady: "Were these two arms encompassed with the hands of batchelors to lead me to the church?" In A Pleasant History of the First Founders, p. 57, we read: "At Rome the manner was that two children should lead the bride, and a third bear before her a torch of whitethorn in honour of Ceres, which custom was also observed here in England, saving that in place of the torch there was carried before the bride a bason of gold or silver; a garland, also, of corn-eares was set upon her head, or else she bare it on her hand; or, if that were omitted, wheat was scattered over her head in token of fruitfulness; as also, before she came to bed to her husband, fire and water were given her, which, having power to purify and cleanse, signified that thereby she should be chast and pure in her body. Neither was she to step over the threshold, but was to be borne over, to signifie that she lost her virginity unwillingly; with many other superstitious ceremonies, which are too long to rehearse.' "In Anglia servatur ut duo pueri velut paranymphi, id est, auspices, qui olim pro nuptiis celebrandis auspicia capiebant, nubentem ad templum -et inde domum duo viri deducant, et tertius loco facis, vasculum aureum, vel argenteum præferat." This was called "the bride-cup." So we read in the account of the marriage of John Newchombe (cited by Strutt, ut supra), where, speaking of the bride's being led to church, it is added by the writer that "there was a fair bride-cup of silver-gilt, carried before her, wherein was a goodly branch of rosemary, gilded very fair, and hung about with silken ribbands of all colours." It is remarkable that Strutt (i. 77) should be at a loss to explain a man with a cup in his hand, in plate xiii. fig. 1, representing a marriage. 3 "In Anglia adhuc duo pueri mediam in templum, præcedente tibicinedeferunt nupturam, duo conjugati referunt, his, tempore prandii, ob præstitam operam nova nupta dat chirothecas." Papatus, pp. 114-5. STREWING HERBS, FLOWERS, OR RUSHES, BEFORE THE BRIDEGROOM AND BRIDE IN THEIR WAY TO CHURCH; AS ALSO THE WEARING NOSEGAYS ON THE OCCASION. THERE was anciently a custom at marriages of strewing herbs and flowers, as also rushes, from the house or houses where persons betrothed resided to the church. The follow. ing is in Herrick's Hesperides, p. 129: "Glide by the banks of virgins then, and passe And drown ye with a flowrie spring." As is the subsequent, in Braithwaite's Strappado for the Divell, 8vo. Lond. 1615, p. 74: "All haile to Hymen and his marriage day, Strew rushes, maides; and ever as you strew, Think one day, maides, like will be done for you." So, likewise, Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, p. 50. Every one will call to mind the passage in Shakespeare to this purpose: "Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse." Armin's History of the Two Maids of Moreclacke, 4to. 1609, opens thus, preparatory to a wedding: "Enter a maid strewing flowers, and a serving-man perfuming the door. The maid says, 'Strew, strew,'-the man, The muscadine stays for the bride at church.' So in Brooke's Epithalamium in England's Helicon : 999 "Now busie maydens strew sweet flowres." In Ram Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1636, we read: "Enter Adriana and another, strawing hearbes. "Adr. Come, straw apace; Lord, shall I never live To see a bride trip it to church so lightly, in the Oxford Drollery, 1671, p. 118, is a poem styled "A Supposition," in which the custom of strewing herbs is thus alluded to: "Suppose the way with fragrant herbs were strowing, All things were ready, we to church were going; And now suppose the priest had joyn'd our hands," &c. ""Tis worthy of remark that something like the ancient custom of strewing the threshold of a new-married couple with flowers and greens is, at this day, practised in Holland. Among the festoons and foliage, the laurel was always most conspicuous; this denoted, no doubt, that the wedding-day is a day of triumph."-Hymen, or an accurate Description of the Ceremonies used in Marriage in every Nation of the World, 1760, p. 39. The strewing herbs and flowers on this occasion, as mentioned in a note upon the old play of Ram Alley, to have been practised formerly, is still kept up in Kent and many other parts of England. Among the allusions of modern poetry to this practice may be mentioned Six Pastorals, by George Smith, Landscape Painter at Chichester in Sussex, 1770, where, p. 35, we read: "What do I hear? The country bells proclaim My love continues, though there's no redress! Ah, happy rival!—Ah, my deep distress! Now, like the gather'd flow'rs that strew'd her way, Forc'd from my love, untimely I decay." So also Rowe, in the Happy Village (Poems, 1796, i. 113), tells us : "The wheaten ear was scatter'd near the porch, The green bloom blossom'd strew'd the way to church." The bell-ringing, &c., used on these occasions are thus introduced: "Lo! where the hamlet's ivy'd gothic tow'r With merry peals salutes the auspicious hour, -"The wedding-cake now through the ring was led, "Now Sunday come, at stated hour of prayer, Or rain or shine, the happy couple there: Where nymphs and swains in variour colours dight, With regard to nosegays, called by the vulgar in the north |