black sanctus

plural black sanctuses · alternative black santis · alternative blacke-saint · alternative blacke santis · alternative blacke santus · alternative blacksaunt · alternative black-sant · alternative blacke saunts · alternative blacke sanctus · alternative black santos · alternative black sanctis

1. archaicA profane or blasphemous parody of a hymn.

   I knewe I would make him soone change his note, / I will make him sing the blacke sanctus, I holde him a grote.

   1578, Thomas Lupton, A moral and pitieful comedie, intituled, All for money […], folio 8ʳ

   1 more example

   The surly sinners sing / A horrible black santis, so to cheer / The work in hand. And evermore you hear / A shout of awful joy, as down goes some / Three-hundred-years-old treasure.

   1861, Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, “Adolfus, Duke of Guelders”, in All the Year Round: A Weekly Journal, volume 5, page 14

2. archaicfigurativelyHarsh words, especially profanities, or other dissonant noises; a cacophony.

   As plesaunt to the ere as the blacke sanctus / Of a sad sorte vpon a mery pyn.

   1533, Robert Saltwood, A comparyson bytwene. iiij. byrdes, the larke, the nyghtyngale, ye thrusshe & the cuko, for theyr syngynge who shuld be chauntoure of the quere, folio 14ᵛ