BLESSING THE CROPS
OLD ROMAN CUSTOM Children In Procession London, May 8. In the Somerset village of Cannington the ancient custom of blessing the growing crops has been revived. This was a Christian practice in pre-Re-formation times, but its origin dates back much earlier, to the Roman “Terfaiinalia” and “Ambarvalia.” Carrying rods decorated with wild flowers, the school children went in procession with the surpliced choir around the village, singing litanies, and halthg for short services on the gardens and allotments. Such processions ,it is- said, took place in Constantinople as early as the days of St. Chrysostom, A.D. 398, but it is to Claudius Mamertus, Archbishop of Vienne, in Gaul, that the institution of Rogation ceremonies is attributed. About two hundred years later, Gregory the Great invited the people to come at daybreak and sing litanies through the streets of Rome to avert the wrath of God.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TCP19370529.2.34
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Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 445, 29 May 1937, Page 5
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148BLESSING THE CROPS Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 445, 29 May 1937, Page 5
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