Pugin: An Earnest Appeal for the Revival of the Ancient Plain Song, now online

[Update Oct. 6: I just wrote a commentary on the Earnest Appeal which may can read here. That being said, I still want this tract to stand on its own merits, apart from my pontifications.]

[Update Oct. 10: You can now download an easy-to-read .pdf version of the Earnest Appeal here. The format is very nearly similar to the original pamphlet.]

Friends, I'm quite pleased to announce that after an edifying visit to Fisher-More College in Fort Worth, I made a quick stop at the Bowld Music Library of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The reason: their library, with its vast collection of books and other resources on religious music, happens to have one of the few surviving copies of Augustus Welby Pugin's Earnest Appeal for the Revival of the Ancient Plain Song in the entire country. With only half an hour until closing time, I got permission to go into their treasures room and photograph every page of Pugin's pamphlet. The pamphlet fell apart in my hands due to its age, but I've carefully transcribed every word as it appears in Pugin's tract onto my computer, and posted it below. I've scoured the Internet in vain for digitized versions of this work anywhere, and could find nothing more than short excerpts from this or that Victorian digest. Therefore, I can safely declare that I've published Pugin's Earnest Appeal on the world wide web for the first time ever.

A quick introduction: Augustus Welby Pugin was the most prominent Gothic revival architect and designer of Victorian Britain. Though his name is obscure, he is responsible for the design of Britain's most iconic building, the Clock Tower of Big Ben, as well as the interior of the Houses of Parliament. Pugin spent most of his brief forty years on earth, however, designing churches, cathedrals, and convents for the fledgling Catholic communities of 19th century England. He revolutionized the field of architecture by insisting on a moral dimension. To Pugin, one style of architecture (namely the Gothic, which he always called "Christian architecture") could be more moral than another. A building had to be true to its appearance: to use cheap bricks in the back while gilding the front would incur God's displeasure. Generations of architects after Pugin would look to his books, such as The True Principles of Christian Architecture, as something more like gospel than a mere manual of design.

Pugin never limited himself to the art of raising buildings. He insisted that the ethos behind the True Principles could be applied to everything, sacred or secular. In 1850, the year before he died, Pugin composed a pamphlet in defense of Gregorian chant and congregational singing. The patrimony of Christendom's medieval sacred music held a most revered place in his heart, as in his eyes, the hall of a church built according to the spirit of the medieval Christians could not possibly echo with anything but the plainchant for which the Gothic cathedrals of old were designed.

The edition I transcribed is a 1905 reprint by Benziger Press. It should become quickly apparent that Pugin was a man of passion. He had to contend with abuses in the Church that still persist today, which he confronted with "radical" remedies. Some of his positions may be considered extreme even for Catholics of a traditional persuasion: for example, his total assault on the practice of choir or organ lofts in place of the traditional chancel with choir stalls in the sanctuary. He even seems to challenge metered polyphony itself, though I believe if Mr. Pugin were alive today for me to question him further on the subject, he would direct his rage more to the compositions of the Baroque and later periods, rather than the earlier polyphony of, say, Palestrina, Tallis, or Josquin.

And now, I present to you all the first edition of Mr. Pugin's Earnest Appeal ever on the Internet. My only additions are of a few pictures to break the monotony of text. Otherwise, the formatting is all as it appears on the original pages, save for (obviously) page breaks. Enjoy!

An Earnest Appeal for the Revival of the Ancient Plain Song

by A. Welby Pugin

Prefatory Note

Through the kindness of Mrs. Pugin, the devoted widow of the great and gifted architect, it is permitted to reprint this paper, which first saw the light in 1850, and which is not without interest at the present moment. The medieval revival was not confined, in Pugin’s scheme, to architecture; it was to affect all the arts that had an ecclesiastical function, and notably Church Music.

            The pamphlet may be left to speak for itself. Those who know Pugin’s style of writing will not need to be told that he never watered down his statements. Had he lived in these days, he would undoubtedly have been among the most fervent advocates of the restored Plainsong. By reprinting this “Appeal” I hope to make his influence once more active in favour of the Ritual Music of Holy Church.

            The tender aspiration with which Pugin closes this paper seems to blend in striking harmony with the “Motu proprio” on Church Music of His Holiness Pope Pius X across the space of half a century.

                                                                                    Becket.

            July 7, 1905

An Earnest Appeal

For the Revival of Ancient Plain Song

            When chancel screens were first attacked, about three years since, I at once denounced the writer of the article as one who was opposed to the very principles of Christian Architecture, and, I then stated my firm belief, that the objection to screens was merely raised as a test of public opinion, and in order to ascertain how far the party, (of which the writer was an organ) might proceed in their opposition to the whole system on which the revival of true Ecclesiastical Architecture was based.

A chancel screen at Pugin's church of Saint Giles, Cheadle

            But, although I foresaw the evil tendency of their opinions, yet, I must confess, I was not prepared for the extent to which they have been carried in so short a period. At first the screens alone were objectionable, the architecture itself was praised as beautiful and appropriate, but now we are told that it is utterly unsuited to Catholic worship; that our finest Cathedrals, those most noble evidences of the piety of our forefathers, are only fit for demolition, and that, in fine, the buildings we should erect for divine worship should be as similar as possible to dissenting conventicles in their arrangement, only rather more offensive than their meager prototypes, by the meretricious decoration of their interiors. Now, monstrous as these suggestions must appear to Catholic-minded men, they become light when compared to the changes that are proposed in the divine service itself, and which have been lately put forth in a publication which is the recognised organ of the party from whom this miserable system of modern degeneracy emanates. It is, indeed, seriously proposed to change the whole nature of the divine services of the Catholic Church, under the specious pretext of rendering them more popular and adapting them to the spirit of the age: and what is scarcely credible this change is advocated not merely for the services of a peculiar order or body, but for the Parochial Churches of the whole country. (See the Rambler of 1850)

            Now, however we may deplore the wretched taste and principle which regulates the services of some religious bodies, yet as long as they are confined within the walls of their own institutions, and are not censured by the ecclesiastical authorities, we may view them in silent sorrow. No Catholic is compelled to assist at their maimed rites or to enter their conventicle-looking chapels, if any among the faithful are so debased as to prefer the trumpery display of a toy-shop and the vocal entertainment of a concert-room to a more solemn service, why we only pity and pray for them. But when we find that an attempt is made to thrust this parody of a Catholic service into the Parochial Churches of this country, where we are all bound to worship, it is time that every man who has a heart in the Catholic cause should testify his unbounded horror of so unhallowed an attempt to change the ancient offices. What! shall the song of Simeon, the hymn of Saint Ambrose, the canticle of our Blessed Lady herself, give place to the doggerel rhymes and poetical effusions of a few individuals whose tendencies and principles should have led them down to Geneva, but who appear to have mistaken their road and found their way into the Catholic Church, only to create divisions among the faithful, and to use the ancient liturgy as a mere vehicle for the display of their Methodism. I do not hesitate to say, that the Book of Common Prayer, bare as it is in comparison with the ancient office from which it is taken, is yet a far more Catholic service, and more in accordance with the ancient traditions than what is now proposed as the beau ideal of a popular service. On the same principle of lowering the divine service to the debased spirit of the age, some moral essays and family tales, embodying amusing anecdotes, should be substituted in lieu of the old lessons taken from Holy Writ, which are certainly quite out of date, and far more suited to the ambons of the Basilicas, and the rood lofts of the pointed churches, than for the assembly rooms for 19^th century Christians. England can never be Catholicised by the destruction of her cathedrals, the conversion of the liturgy into a song-book, and the erection of churches, whose appearance is something between a dancing-room and a mechanic’s institute, and I do greatly mistake the souls of Englishmen, if this miserable system is ever permitted to take root in this land; for, although some weak persons may be led away by novelties, yet there is a general feeling of solid devotion, and a growing appreciation of the glories of Catholic antiquity that will effectually preserve us from the encroachment of modern innovations. And, although there is every reasonable hope, that in due time this country will again receive Catholic truth in all its fulness, yet such a result can only be accomplished by our rising to the high standard of ancient excellence and solemnity, and not by lowering the externals of religion to the worldly spirit of this degenerate age.

            But as good frequently grows out of evil, it is most earnestly to be hoped, that this monstrous proposal of substituting vernacular compositions for the Church Offices, will be the means of awakening the ecclesiastical authorities to the absolute necessity of restoring the ancient Chaunt in all its purity, and I most gladly embrace this occasion for urging this all important subject.

            The very fact of such a proposal being made is an evidence that there is something very rotten in our present system; for, although the remedy suggested is far worse than the disease, yet that a disease does exist, and to a very great extent, no man who reflects on the subject can deny. There does exist a want of reality in the present services of the Churches, as they are performed in this and many other countries, and from what does it proceed, but the corrupt and artificial state of ecclesiastical music. Owing to the complicated nature of modern figured compositions, both the clergy and the people have been precluded from taking any real part in the service of Almighty God. They are reduced to the position of listeners instead of worshippers; so that, in lieu of the grand and edifying spectacle of priests and people uniting in one great act of adoration and praise, the service is transformed to a set of hired musicians, frequently heretics and infidels who perform in a gallery, while the congregation are either amused or wearied, and the clergy who are present generally take advantage of those interminable fugues to say their own office, which has no reference whatever to the great act of sacrifice at which they are ostensibly assisting. Thus the unity of this, the most majestic, the most solemn act of Christian worship, is destroyed, and in many places, it has degenerated into a mere musical entertainment for the audience, and at which they assist with no more devotion, than in a common theatre. Let no one think this picture is overdrawn. In one of the most Catholic cities of Flanders, Sunday after Sunday, an orchestra is set up in the nave, round which a full band arranges itself, and during the whole Mass—Kyrie, epistle, gospel, creed, offertory, and horrible to relate, even the consecration and elevation—do these men blow forth profane airs, taken from popular operas, while the Church is filled with irreverent listeners of their symphonies, and no man reverencing the Lord’s Body. Now, this is not a solitary example by any means. Scarcely is there a great Church in Europe which is not profaned by these miserable parodies of Divine Service; and what is most distressing, the greater the feast, the greater the abomination. I have been assured by a dignitary of the French Church, who abode at some time with the Franciscans of Assisi, that their daily offices were most solemnly sung; but the feast of St. Francis arriving, the Church was inundated with fiddlers from all parts of the neighbouring country, and this most glorious church converted into a perfect salle d’opéra. But I build not only on the testimony of others, I have been frequently grieved to the heart at what I have been compelled to hear and witness. No later than the Sunday in the octave of the last Corpus Domini, I was present at the High Mass in Antwerp Cathedral, whose choir and stalls were filled with lay spectators, two cantors standing among the crowd, who appeared to be only there for the purpose of displaying their copes, while the service was shouted and fiddled from a gallery at the end of the nave, an unintelligible mass of confused and irreverent sounds.

Antwerp Cathedral from the nave

            Were it not tedious, I could multiply examples without number of this miserable system which has completely cut off the people from taking part in the most solemn act of Christian worship, and degraded it in appearance to the level of pageant. It is impossible for men to sing this modern music, and worship at the same time, they are there as performers, and to these hirelings are the praises of Almighty God transferred, while the clergy and people look on in dumb show.

            Formerly such persons as now constitute the choir were unknown. The service was sung in Parochial Churches, between the clerks and devout laymen (ministri), who assisted them in the chancel, and the people in the body of the church, who responded in unison. This grand and overpowering effect of the people answering the priest is yet to be heard in parts of Germany. At Minden the Habemus ad Dominum rose from more than two thousand voices of faithful worshippers. What a difference from the vicarious reply of three or four professionals, thrusting their heads from out of their curtained gallery in the intervals of their private conversation, and whose hearts, instead of being raised up, were probably groveling in the contemplation of a pull at a wine bottle between the acts of the performance, for it must be distinctly understood that all persons who sing in galleries are performers by position. Nutshells, orange peel, and biscuit bags, abound in organ lofts and singing galleries, and those who are acquainted with the practical working of these places must be aware, that they are a constant source of scandal and irreverence.

The choir stalls in the chancel of Bristol Cathedral

            Now, when we contrast the Catholic arrangement in a chancel to their miserable expedient of a gallery, we shall at once perceive the infinite wisdom and beauty of the former. All are habited in vestments, whose colour reminds them of the purity of heart and intention, with which they should celebrate the praises of Almighty God. They stand within the sacred enclosure set apart for sacrifice; the very place tends to preserve a recollection of the Divine presence, and to keep the singers in a devout posture. The distinct and graduated Chaunt offers no impediment to the perfect union of the heart and mind with the words as they are sung; and in lieu of a more empty and vain display of vocal eccentricities, we have a solemn, heartfelt, and, we may trust, an acceptable service to the honour of Almighty God.

            Now, it cannot be too earnestly impressed on the minds of all, that these arrangements for the Church service were universal throughout Christendom. It is no new scheme or system, proposed for trial; it is simply carrying out the practices of the Church for certainly more than fourteen centuries. Not only were the cathedral and collegiate churches provided with stalls and seats, and ample space for the ceremonies of the choir, but every parish church, and even chapel, had its due proportion of chancel, where the divine praises were always sung; and from the Basilica of St. Clement’s, down to the humblest church of the 17^th century, we shall find the same traditional arrangement. Singing galleries are modern abominations, and no good will ever be effected in Church music, until they are utterly destroyed, and the service sung in its legitimate and ancient position—the choir or chancel. While these galleries are suffered to remain, the erection of pointed churches is a mere sham. In vain the long succession of clustered pillars; in vain the carved screen and gilded rood; the soul of the whole thing is wanting; it is the system of a modern chapel worked in the shell of an old church. Who, then, will be asked, are those who sit robed in surplices in the stalled seats? Only privileged persons, perhaps subscribers, who go in for a show, like supernumeraries on the stage; lay figures as the “Ecclesiologist,” most wittily termed them, and but dumb dogs into the bargain.

            A greater sham than this cannot be seen. And was it for this that the long chancel was stalled and screened? That the cunning work was carved and the gold laid on—merely for the accommodation of some good easy men, who take no part in the solemnity, nor contribute one note to the divine praise! Surely not; it is the greatest possible perversion of a chancel; a scandal, and a shame. What could be more painful than to read the account of the new church recently consecrated at Sheffield, where the architect had really produced an edifice quite in the old spirit; and instead of the solemn Chaunt of the dedication rising from its chancel we are sickened by a long eulogy on the quaverings of female singers. St. John’s, Salford, is even a more melancholy example; a great cruciform church, with an ample choir, and yet fitted up as if for the followers of John Knox; a most disheartening spectacle.

The carved stalls of Albi Cathedral

            While this wretched system of gallery singing, with Mozart’s and Haydn’s music, was carried on in the room-like chapels of the last century, it was in character with the edifices; but when the English Catholic body was awakened, or appeared to be awakened, to a sense of better things, and churches arose whose form and arrangement told somewhat of more ancient and better times, then, indeed, we might have hoped and expected, that with the shell they would have revived the soul; that they would have cast off for ever the worldly efforts of modern men, who merely make use of the sacred liturgy as a vehicle, for a display of their professional skill; and have returned to that simple and divine song, which was created, like the architecture, by the influence of the Christian faith, and which assimilates and harmonises with its lofty vaults and lengthened aisles; without this the service and the fabric will be at utter variance, a most humiliating spectacle of ancient grandeur and modern degeneracy.

            Whenever an attempt has been made by the members of the separated English communion to restore some of the external ornaments of religion which were lost by the apostasy of their Catholic forefathers in the 16^th century, they have been usually met by insult and ridicule from a great portion of what is called the Catholic press; but I must say that the dedication of a modern Catholic church, as we have seen it occasionally announced, accompanied by a full band of music, and where bishops and dignitaries are exposed to the degradation of sitting in dumb show to listen to the interminable squalling of a few female professionals and whiskered vocalists from the front of a gallery, is a far more ridiculous and inconsistent exhibition. Indeed, with some few exceptions, the churches that have been raised after the old models are become so many evidences of our degradation and our shame. The altar and the arch may belong to the ages of faith, but the singing drags us down to the concert-room of the 19^th century, and is a sad and striking proof of the little sympathy which exists between the architecture and the men.

A choir loft typical of many Catholic churches today

            I have long mourned most bitterly in secret on this state of things, but when a scheme is actually put forth to abolish the very words of the ancient offices and to reduce the services of Almighty God to the level of the conventicle, I can remain no longer silent. It is evident that the extreme hollowness of the present system is attracting attention; but alas! instead of advocating the only remedy, a return to the real music of the Church in all its purity, we are assailed by a scheme for its utter abolition. Monstrous suggestion! but by its very enormity, as I have before said, I trust in God that it will awaken our ecclesiastical rulers to a sense of the absolute necessity of casting aside all novelties and private conceits and returning to that music which has the sanction of ages and the full authority of the existing Church. What can be more perfect, what more edifying and consoling than that Divine Office, the compilation of so many saints and glorious men, and which is so wonderful in the perfection of its system and composition, that the more it is studied, the more it gains on our reverence and love! What appropriate fitness in all the antiphons—what noble simplicity in the hymns! while the Chaunt of the Psalter has an almost sacramental power in calming a troubled spirit and leading the soul to God; these were the divine Chaunts that penetrated the heart of St. Augustine, and though many centuries have elapsed, they have not lost one fraction of their influence. It is a monstrous error to suppose that the people cannot be brought to enter fully into the spirit of the Divine Office. In France, there is hardly a country parish where the people do not join in the Vesper Chaunt and the offices with heartfelt devotion. The mass of persons are opposed to the plain song from pure ignorance; they do not understand it; all their ideas are, perhaps, formed from some miserably corrupt version they have heard drawled out by a cantor, who scarcely knew a note of music, and they never trouble themselves to examine and study the wonderful beauty of these heavenly compositions, which, independent of their own intrinsic merit, have all the weight and authority of the Church to recommend them.

            To what extreme inconsistency and absurdity does not the substituting of any other music lead in the celebration of the Divine Office! It is well known that the Kyrie is ordered to be sung nine times in honour of the Holy Trinity; modern composers utterly disregard the mystical symbolism of the number, and multiply the supplications to an indefinite repetition merely to suit their notes. Again, the priest intones the Gloria after the old traditions, while the choir takes it up in a totally different manner. The Credo, so far from being a distinct profession of faith as ordered, is a mass of unintelligible sound; and at the Sanctus, where the priest invites the people to join with the angels and archangels, in one voice (cum una voce), in singing the Trisagion, a perfect babel of voices usually break forth, and the Ter Sanctus is utterly lost in a confusion of Hosannas, Benedictuses, and broken sentences all going together in glorious confusion, which scarcely ceases in time to enable the distracted worshipper a moment’s repose to adore at the Elevation. After a short pause the din recommences, and this generally lasts till a thundering Agnus Dei begins. Whether it is a spirit of pure contradiction that modern composers have usually imparted to this supplication for peace the character of a great row it is impossible to say, but such is decidedly the case. Some of these compositions would be admirably adapted for a chorus of drunken revelers shouting for wine outside a tavern, and if the words—“Wine, give us more wine,” were substituted for “Dona nobis, nobis pacem,” we should have a demand in perfect accordance with the sound with which it is accompanied. In lieu of this, were the simple Chaunt, as ordered by the authoritative books, the Antiphonals and Graduals of the Roman Church, restored, the people would soon be able to take part in responding to the clerks in the chancel. The Kyrie would be alternate, the Gloria a real hymn of praise, and the Credo would be again a real profession of the Christian faith, not a piece of complicated music, while the “O Salutaris” would rise from the lips of hundreds, and ascend with the incense to the throne of grace.

            How easy in the age of printing to multiply Choral books ad infinitum. How simple to print music for the five Gregorian Masses, so as to bring them within the reach of the humblest individual. If these were taught in every school, and inculcated in every Catholic family, our churches would soon present the cheering, the inspiring spectacle of a mass of people united, not only in heart, but in voice, in the worship of their Creator; and this not in modern and unhallowed sounds, but in the very words sung by the angels in heaven, when the Redeemer was born; and in words to which the old vaults raised to God centuries ago, have often re-echoed with the returning festivals; and in words which, protected by Catholic authority, will descend, by tradition, to ages yet unborn. May the Almighty God in His mercy open the hearts of our rulers to these important truths; may He inspire our ecclesiastics with the spirit of reviving these solemn offices, which alone embody the spirit of the liturgy and set forth the majesty of the divine mysteries. May He grant us to see a restoration not only of the external glory of His temple but of the reverent service which is alone suited to its ancient symbolism; and may our churches—which, for the most part, are so many stumbling blocks to our separated countrymen, from the discrepancy between the fabric and the service—be purged from the disgrace of these modern performances, and become as shining beacons, not alone by the altitude of their spires, but by the purity and reality of the Divine Office as celebrated in them.

                                                                                    A. Welby Pugin

If you enjoyed this post, you'll want to click on the following links to see what else I've posted on the subject of Augustus Pugin:

-The Marvelous Creations of Pugin, and Other Photos

-Selections from Ferrey's "Recollections of A.N.W. Pugin"

-Gems from Pugin's "Glossary of Ecclesiastical Ornament"

Gems from Pugin's "Glossary of Ecclesiastical Ornament"

I've taken a short break from my ongoing series on Victorian neo-medievalism to read and post some interesting gems from an art guide by my favorite designer of all time, Augustus Pugin (the Victorian Catholic architect who, among many other feats, designed the Big Ben Clock Tower and the interior of the Houses of Parliament). 

 The book, published in 1844, is called the Glossary of Ecclesiastical Ornament and Costume. Its purpose is to serve as a guide for Catholic church designers, artists, and craftsmen how the furnishings of a church should look, and exactly what they're for. We're talking about vestments, chalices, altar cloths, statues, inscriptions, and even wallpaper. There are bunches of wonderful illustrations in the second half of the book, all drawn by the man himself. A book like this would also be of great interest to a sacristan. If this sounds like your sort of thing, it's available for download in .pdf or .epub right here (see the orange button on the left).

A breathtaking cover page illustration by Pugin himself.

The first thing I noticed is from the cover, describing Pugin as "Professor of Ecclesiastical Antiquities" at Saint Mary's College, Oscott (currently a seminary in Birmingham, England). It's amusing because Pugin himself never spent a day in college as a student. Nonetheless, it takes only a few pages to see that Pugin, through self-study, amassed a savant-like knowledge of Church history and liturgy. 

Pugin opens his text with an introduction on "Symbolism in Art". Lest you ever accuse his churches and designs of being too vibrant or too ornate, he sternly warns that: 

 "Every ornament, to deserve the name, must possess an appropriate meaning, and be introduced with an intelligent purpose, and on reasonable grounds. The symbolical associations of each ornament must be understood and considered: otherwise things beautiful in themselves will be rendered absurd by their application."

Following his introduction is a massive glossary of every imaginable thing you could find in a church. For many of these entries, Pugin felt the need to supply them with lengthy essays. For example, the entry on Chasuble, the upper vestment worn by priests during the Mass. Fairly straightforward, right? But Pugin has nine and a half pages to tell us all about this garment. Much of it is spent lambasting the Roman, or "fiddleback" style that was popular in his time and which has been revived in the vast majority of traditional Catholic churches. My fellow trads would find the entry annoying, but I believe he's right. He says:

"It is surprising how soon the minds of the multitude are reconciled to changes, when they are for the worse; and the clipping principle, in the course of little less than two centuries has reduced the most graceful Vestment of the Church into a most hideous shape, with a front resembling the body of a wasp, and a back like a board, without a vestige of its ancient beauty or mystical signification; nay more, not only have modern vestments been made in this stunted and miserable form, but hundreds of ancient ones--ample and glorious--which had escaped the ravages of harassing pursuivants, in secret recesses of the Catholic mansions of England, have been actually cut and clipped in latter times by the hands of the degenerate descendants of those very men, who in days of greatest trouble and distress, had preserved alike intact the Vestments and the Faith. The present forms of Chasubles are not only hideous, but they destroy the meaning of many of the ceremonies of the Mass." (page 62, or 83 in Adobe)

And so he goes on, for several more paragraphs. In the passage above, he was referencing the practice of how Catholics in his time would actually cut up old, flowing chasubles so they'd conform to the fiddleback style! I've seen them; chasubles going back all the way to the High Middle Ages, cut down to size; for myself on display at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. It was absurd.

The dreaded fiddleback!

Pugin also points out a very odd, but true, observation on the fiddleback chasuble: the fact that you hardly ever see it in sculptures. In short, artists hate the fiddleback:

"Every artist is aware that the folds of drapery constitute its great beauty; the most majestic mantle extended flat is unsightly. Ever since the chasubles have been made of a stiff material, they have been avoided by sculptors and painters in their works, and they invariably select the Cope instead, solely on account of its folds, when, if the chasubles were made of the ancient graceful form, they would afford the most beautiful combinations of folds." (footnote on page 63, or 84 in Adobe)

But enough on that. Moving on in the Glossary, Pugin peppers this book, which would normally be as dull as watching paint dry, with his own English sense of humor. Whereas he normally has detailed descriptions of the liturgical colors and what they represent, his entry for Purple merely reads, 

"See Blue, and Red".

On his entry for Dog, I seriously can't tell if he's being funny or not. It reads, 

"Emblem of fidelity, and generally introduced at the feet of married women in sepulchral effigies, with that signification. It also signifies loyalty to the sovereign."

Other entries are ridiculously obscure. Ever wanted to know how to dress a boy bishop for Mass? See page 46. And what on earth is a pome? Pugin explains: 

 "A ball of precious metal filled with hot water, and placed on the Altar during the winter months, to prevent danger of accidents with the Chalice, from the hands of the priest becoming numb with cold."

            Only in England, friends. Only in England....

One of these obscure antiquities, which really ought to be revived, is the use of the herse at funerals. No, not the funeral carriages, though those are nice, too. But the herse was a frame for candles and heraldic devices, placed over a corpse during the funeral rites. It can only be explained by a picture, which Pugin the illustrator generously provides:

In the entry for hoods, Pugin embraces his inner medievalist to the core in an opinion that would warm the heart of any religious.

"Hoods: are a most ancient covering for the head, and far more elegant and useful than the more modern fashion of hats, which present a useless elevation, and leave the neck and ears completely exposed."

            Pugin fascinatingly also tries his hand at apologetics. Some of these entries are genuinely edifying and deserve to be printed in pamphlets or posted on Internet fora even today. I draw attention in particular to his entry on Images:

"No sooner had the doctrine of the Cross triumphed over Pagan error, and the danger of idolatry been removed by the overthrow and destruction of the idols themselves, than the Church permitted the glorious art of sculpture, hitherto dedicated to the illustration of error, to be exercised in honour of the true God and his blessed Saints, and to contribute to the piety and devotion of the faithful, by setting forth the most sacred representations, for their contemplation and instruction. Although the fury of the early iconoclastic heretics had well nigh stifled Christian sculpture in its birth, and the still more fatal destruction caused by the Calvinistic and revolutionary iconoclasts of more recent times, has defaced or destroyed many of its finest productions, the great churches of Christendom yet exhibit most wondrous proofs of that the art of man, when influenced by faith and devotion, could do, in embodying the Life and Sufferings of our Blessed Lord, the lives of the Saints, and the glories of the Heavenly Kingdom." (page 158, or 179 in Adobe)

Finally, I'd like to touch on Pugin's entry for Chair. In it, he covers all kinds ranging from the bishop's cathedra (throne), to the humble priest's sedilia. In most trad chapels today, the sedilia is a sort of bench with three seats on an equal plane: the priest in the middle, and the deacon and subdeacon (or acolytes) to his sides. Pugin, however, revived the medieval use of niches in the wall arranged hierarchically with the priest at the highest point, then the deacon, then the subdeacon. Again, such a thing can't be envisioned without a picture. There isn't one in the book, but I'll show you one he actually made at the church of Saint Giles, Cheadle. (Full-size image here.)

The names of the orders are inscribed under each seat (sacerdos for priest, diaconos for deacon, etc.). Each seat has symbols of his order as well. The subdeacon has cruets, the deacon has a gospel book, and the priest has the Eucharist. Pugin also incorporates function with form; the easternmost niche has a credence shelf above (to hold the cruets, bowl, ewer, etc.) and a sacrarium below (to safely wash vessels so that any remaining particles of the Eucharist may settle in the earth). And to add further function, the seats are conveniently arranged so that the priest, deacon, and subdeacon can go to and from the altar without changing places to allow the priest in the middle.

Pugin, in his typical medievalist manner, scorns the newfangled "Italian" chairs used in most churches of his time (and in trad chapels today) as suited more for saloons.

"These sedilia or stalls, for the celebrant and assistants, were formerly to be found in every foreign church; but the love of modern Italian design to which the Catholic clergy of the last three centuries have been so lamentably addicted, combined with the stiffness of modern vestments which rendered these seats inconvenient, has banished them from all the ancient continental choirs, and in lieu of them chairs of the most unsuitable description, fit only for the saloon of an hotel, are frequently used." (page 58, or 79 in Adobe)

            I’ll close this post with a few choice scans of artwork from the second half of the book and this final thought: while I created this post mainly to share some levity, this blog’s purpose is to show just how the ideas of the Middle Ages are relevant to our needs, not obsolete. Pugin was accused in his lifetime of being an “architectural bigot” for asserting that Gothic style (which he simply called Christian architecture) was morally superior to other forms. He responded that the medievals, through Gothic, actually fulfilled the ideals of classicism more faithfully than the imitators of Greece and Rome and that their style, formed entirely in a Christian age for Christian purposes, is timeless. Therefore, I hope that if you who are reading this are a cleric, a sacristan, a religious artist, or even just a humble server, you’ll add Pugin’s Glossary to your collection and make use of it as a guide for how the Catholic Church ought to look: not just for Pugin’s century, but for ours today.

Some illustration of priestly vestments, based on medieval funeral effigies around Europe.

An altar with a reliquary underneath, and curtains drawn back.

Various patterns.

An alphabet guide to Gothic lettering.

Cope designed by Pugin for his own parish church, now at the V&A. (Rowan Williams wore a copy of it for the recent royal wedding, though with a Holy Ghost dove in place of Saint Thomas Becket's face.)

A bishop's mitre designed by Pugin, based on one of the illustrations in the Glossary. I believe it's currently kept at Westminster Cathedral, London.

Uber-Gothic chalice by Pugin, which I also saw at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Requiem Mass illustration at the very end of the Glossary. Note the ominous hooded monks.