A family who attends Mass at the St. Ogmus parish [St. Fidgeta & Other Parodies, 22-3]. Father Voltimand holds the consecutive Communions record at the church. Mother Emily writes letter to Father Thurifer in Sunday Intruder. Six-year-old Eudoxia twitches and fiddles endlessly during Mass. Son Caxton made up the First Mondays devotion.
Definition of Faldstool: A folding stool or chair, specifically one used by a bishop or person during devotions.
Voltimand was an ambassador in Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Catholics were, and I suppose still are, urged to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion frequently, and many people considered it an honor to be a daily communicant, Bowen explains. "In those days, this meant going without eating or drinking anything (except plain water up to an hour before Mass) until after the Mass at which you received the sacrament. There's nothing awful about this pious habit but some people got so fixated on it that they would get up and go out to Mass, fasting, even when they were sick, a degree of obsession that others noted was not in any good sense religious. John's reference to a 'consecutive communions record' is a neat skewering of this mindset and one of my favorite pieces in this chapter."
Definition of eudoxia: Greek name meaning "good judgment or good opinion." There was an early Byzantine empress who went by Eudoxia.
William Caxton (1422-1491) is famous for setting up the first printing press in England and printing the first books in English; the first dated book issued from this press was Dictes and sayings of the Philosophers and bears the imprint 1477.
