²Cf. the two following passages, the first from The Book of the Craft of Dying, chap. VI, in Bodleian MS. 42} {circa fifteenth century), Comper’s ed. (p. 39),the second from The Craft to Know Well to Die (fifteenth century), chap. IV,Comper’s ed. (p. 74):

‘Last of all, it is to be known that the prayers that follow may be conveniently said upon a sick man that laboureth to his end. And if it is a religious person, then when the covent [i. e. convent] is gathered together with smiting of the table, as the manner is, then shall be said first the litany, with the psalms and orisons that he used therewith. Afterward, if he live yet, let some man that is about him say the orisons that follow hereafter, as the time and opportunity will suffer. And they may be often rehearsed again to excite the devotion of the sick man—if he have reason and understanding with him.’

‘And if the sick man or woman may, nor can not, say the orisons and prayers beforesaid, some of the assistants [i. e. bystanders] ought to say them before him with a loud voice, in changing the words there as they ought to be changed.¹

³ Cf. the following from The Craft to Know Well to Die, chap. IV, Comper’s ed. (p. 73): ^l After all these things he [the person dying] ought to say three times, if he may, these words that follow/