, inspired by
The Two Noble Kinsmen In the late
Medieval period, it was common for Western Christian
laity–both men and women–to attend the celebration of the
Divine Office (canonical hours) according to various editions of the
breviary alongside members of
monastic communities. Formal
liturgical saying of the
Dirige–then legally required to be in Latin–persisted through the first half of the 16th century, with occasional requirements that certain proportions of a
parish church's congregation be present for such events. as the members' anthem of the Lyke Wake Club, a society whose members are those who have completed the walk within 24 hours. This dirge saw a resurgence in popularity in the 1960s following performances by English folk bands such
The Young Tradition and
Pentangle. The
Dirige was retained within the Elizabethan primer over
Protestant objections to prayers for the dead and there remained resistance to the public liturgical performance of the devotion. In 1560 and 1561,
episcopal visitors of the
Church of England observed with disapproval the continued practice of clerks singing psalms in "dirge-like" fashion. Since their evolution away from Christian usage, some dirges have intentionally been written to be
set to music, while others have been set or reset at later dates. Among the latter cases is the "Dirge for Fidele", a portion of
William Shakespeare's play
Cymbeline that was later set to music by multiple composers. ==Notable dirges==