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2I2 V. THE REFORMATION (A.D. 15201592).
not, therefore, find fault with Olaus for not prescribing it ;
but, if we blame anyone, it must be his brother, Laurentius,
of whose treatment of the subject in his Kyrko-ordning
we shall speak later. Its absence may have been made
more natural by neglect on the part of the later mediaeval
bishops, a cause which I rather conjecture than am able to
prove.
Certainly it is but rarely mentioned, and, as regards that
worldly potentate, Archbishop Johannes Benedicti, we
have the complaint made against him by his own chapter
that his participation in secular politics and civil business
led him to neglect his spiritual duties of visitation
especially in the districts far from Upsala, so that con
firmation (fermelse), which it was a bishop s duty to
administer, was largely disused by a great number of
persons.
22
That the Swedish Church of the sixteenth century was
in favour of episcopal confirmation of a sort I shall show
when I come to speak of 1571.
The blessing of a corpse, whilst it is still in the house,
contains a rather striking prayer, which appears to be
mainly the composition of Olaus himself, though the last
clauses in it are suggested by an older form.23
A very
similar prayer also appears in the burial office. The
blessing of a corpse is as follows :
**
O almighty and merciful everlasting God, who on account
of sin hast laid on man that he must die, and who, that we
22
Ehdahl, I.e., p. 90, from A. W. Staaff : Om Konfirma-
tionens uppkomst och antagande i Sverige, p. 46 n., Stkh.,
1871.
23
See the prayer:
"
Oremus patres charissimi pro spiritu
cari nostri quern dominus de laqueo huius seculi liberare
dignatus est : cuius corpusculum hodie sepulture traditur, ut
eum pietas domini in sinu abrahe, ysaac et iacob collocare
dignetur : ut cum dies iudicii advenerit inter sanctos et electos
tuos eum in parte dextera collocandum resuscitari faciat," etc.,
in the Manuale Aboense, ed. Freisen, p. 230, Paderborn, 1904.
It is found in Muratori : Lit. Romano, vetus, Greg :
p. 216, and
in the Leofric Missal, p. 201.
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