The old writers say that a misprision is contained in every felony and that the Crown may elect to prosecute for the misprision instead of the felony. This proposition merely affirms the right of the Crown to choose a more merciful remedy in certain cases, and has no present value in the law. Positive misprisions are now only of antiquarian interest, being treated as misdemeanours.
In the United States, misprision of treason is defined to be the crime committed by a person owing allegiance to the United States, and having knowledge of the commission of any crime against them, who conceals and does not, as soon as may be, disclose and make known the same to the president or to some judge of the United States, or to the governor, or to some judge or justice of a particular state. The punishment is imprisonment for not more than seven years and a fine of not more than one thousand dollars.
MISRULE, LORD OF, in medieval times the master of the
Christmas revels. Probably J. G. Frazer (Golden Bough III.)
is right in suggesting that the lord or abbot of misrule is the
successor of the king of the ancient Roman Saturnalia, who
personated Saturn and suffered martyrdom at the end of the
revels. Compare, too, the burlesque figure at the carnival, which
is finally destroyed. Stow (Survey) writes: “In the feast of
Christmas there was in the King’s House, wheresoever he lodged,
a Lord of Misrule or Master of merry disports, and the like had
ye in the house of every nobleman of honour or good worship,
were he spiritual or temporal.” The mayor and sheriffs of London
also had Lords of Misrule. These mock-monarchs began their
reign on Allhallows Eve, and misruled till Candlemas. In Scotland
they were known as “Abbots of Unreason,” and in 1555 a
special act suppressing them was passed. In Tudor times their
reign was marked by much display and expense. In Henry VIII.’s
reign an order for a fool’s coat is signed by six of the
Privy Council. By an Act of Common Council (1555) the city
expenses of the Lords of Misrule were severely curtailed.
Machyn speaks of a Lord of Misrule who in 1561 rode through
London followed by a hundred gentlemen on horseback hung
with gold chains (see also Revels, Master of).
MISSAL, the book containing the liturgy, or office of the mass (missa), of the Roman Catholic Church. This name (e.g. Missale gothicum, francorum, gallicanum vetus) began to supersede the older word Sacramentary (sacramentarium, liber sacramentorum) from about the middle of the 8th century.[1]
At that period the book so designated contained merely the fixed
canon of the mass or consecration prayer (actionem, precem canonicam, canonem actionis), and the variable collects, secretae or orationes super oblata, prefaces, and post-communions for
each fast, vigil, festival or feria of the ecclesiastical year; for a
due celebration of the Eucharist they required accordingly to
be supplemented by other books, such as the Antiphonarium,
afterwards called the Graduale, containing the proper antiphons
(introits), responsories (graduals), tracts, sequences, offertories,
communions and other portions of the communion service
designed to be sung by the schola or choir, and the Lectionarium
(or epistolarium and evangelistarium) with the proper lessons.[2]
Afterwards missals contained more or less fully the antiphons
and lessons as well as the prayers proper to the various days,
and these were called missalia plenaria. All modern missals
are of this last description. The Missale romanum ex decreto
ss. concilii tridentini restitutum, now in almost exclusive use
throughout the Latin obedience, owes its present form to the
council of Trent, which undertook the preparation of a correct
and uniform liturgy, and entrusted the work to a committee of
its members. This committee had not completed its labours
when the council rose, but the pope was instructed to receive
its report when ready and to act upon it. The “reformed
missal” was promulgated by Pius V. on the 14th of July 1570,
and its universal use enjoined, the only exceptions being churches
having local liturgies which had been in unbroken use for at
least two centuries.[3] It has subsequently undergone slight
revisions under Clement VIII. (1604), Urban VIII. (1634) and
Leo XIII. (1884), and various new masses, both obligatory and
permissive, universal and local, have been added. Although
the Roman is very much larger than any other liturgy, the
communion office is not in itself inordinately long. The greater
part of it is contained in the “ordinary” and “canon” of the
mass, usually placed about the middle of the missal, and occupies,
though in large type, only a few pages. The work owes its bulk
and complexity to two circumstances. On the one hand, in the
celebration of the sacrifice of the mass practically nothing is
left to the discretion of the officiating priest; everything—what
he is to say, the tone and gestures with which he is to say it,
the cut and colour of the robe he is to wear—is carefully prescribed
in the rubrics.[4] On the other hand, the Roman, like all
the Western liturgies, is distinguished from those of the Eastern
Church by its flexibility. A distinctive character has been given
to the office for each ecclesiastical season, for each fast or festival
of the year, almost for each day of the week; and provision has
also been made of a suitable communion service for many of the
special occasions both of public and of private life.
The different parts of the Roman communion office are not all of the same antiquity. Its essential features are most easily caught, and best understood, by reference to the earliest Sacramentaries (particularly the Gregorian, which was avowedly the basis of the labours of the Tridentine committee), to the Gregorian Antiphonary, and to the oldest redaction of the Ordo romanus.[5] The account of the mass (qualiter Missa Romana celebratur) as given by the sacramentarium gregorianum is to the effect that there is in the first place “the Introit according to the time, whether for a festival or for a common day; thereafter Kyrie eleison. (In addition to this Gloria in excelsis Deo is said if a bishop be [the celebrant], though only on Sundays and festivals; but a priest is by no means to say it, except only at Eastertide. When there is a litany (quando letania agitur) neither Gloria in excelsis nor Alleluia is sung.) Afterwards the Oratio is said, whereupon follows the Apostolus, also the Gradual and Alleluia. Afterwards the Gospel is read. Then comes the Offertorium,[6] and the Oratio super oblata is said.” Then follow the Sursum corda, the Preface, Canon, Lord’s Prayer and “embolism” (ἐμβόλισμα or insertion, Libera nos, Domine), given at full length precisely as they still occur in the Roman missal.
- ↑ It first occurs in Ecgbert of York’s De remediis peccatorum, where it refers to the sacramentary of Gregory the Great.
- ↑ One of the most celebrated of early missals is the Stowe missal of the 6th century in the British Museum. It contains the litany of the saints, the gloria with the collects, the part of the Epistle to the Corinthians relating to the Eucharist, the credo and the consecratio and memento corresponding exactly to the Roman canon. After the daily mass follow the missa apostolorum, missa sanctorum, missa pro poenitentibus vivis and the missa pro mortuis. To the 7th century belong the Missale francorum and the Missale gothicum, originally in the abbey of Fleury. In the 8th century we find in Ecgbert of York’s De remediis peccatorum, i., that those who devote their lives to sacred orders are supposed to furnish themselves with a psalter, lectionary, antiphonary, missal, baptismal office and martyrology. The adoption of the Roman liturgy by Charlemagne explains the great quantity of missals within this period; e.g. the missal of Worms in the library of the Arsenal at Paris. From the 10th century we have the missal of St Vougay, although badly mutilated, and several others. From the 12th century missals became common, and more so with the invention of printing.
- ↑ The English missal consequently continued to be used by English Roman Catholics until towards the end of the 17th century, when it was superseded by the Roman through Jesuit influence. The Gallican liturgy held its ground until much more recently, but has succumbed under the Ultramontanism of the bishops.
- ↑ In all the older liturgies the comparative absence of rubrics is conspicuous and sometimes perplexing. It is very noticeable in the Roman Sacramentaries, but the want is to some extent supplied by the very detailed directions for a high pontifical mass in the various texts of the Ordo Romanus mentioned below. That there was no absolutely fixed set of rubrics in use in France during the 8th century is shown by the fact that each priest was required to write out an account of his own practice (“libellum ordinis”) and present it for approbation to the bishop in Lent (see Baluze, Cap. Reg. Franc. i. 824, quoted in Smith’s Dict. of Chr. Antiq. ii. 1521).
- ↑ For the genealogical relationships of the Roman with other liturgies, see Liturgy. For the doctrines involved in the “sacrifice of the mass,” see Eucharist.
- ↑ Some editions do not mention the Offertory here.
