§ 57. The altar itself, as can be seen from the many altar-slabs which remain, was a long and fairly broad stone table: it was usually less than three feet high, and was covered by a cloth and frontal. It is probable that the frontal, like the vestments of the clergy, followed, in the ordinary parish church, no very strict sequence of colour according to the seasons. For festivals the handsomest and newest frontal and vestments would probably be used. The altar was kept fairly low, to make room for the reredos, which extended across the east wall above the altar, and below the sill of the east window. It will be found that modern restorers, in nine cases out of ten, have disregarded old English uses, by raising an altar until its upper surface is close to the sill of the window, and then by blocking up part, or even the whole of the window, by reredoses or altar screens of stone or wood. High reredoses and altar screens were not unknown, of course, in England; but the ordinary reredos was a single or double band of carving below the east window, as at Geddington or Ludlow. At Stanion in Northants, the string-courses of the east walls of the chancel and north chapel are raised, below the east windows, to form frames for mural paintings or carved retables above the altar. Sculptured tablets were not rare, and indications of their presence may be traced: in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the alabaster, dug out of the Chellaston ‘plaster-pits,’ and worked by the ‘plasterers’ of Nottingham, was used, among other purposes, for such tablets. On the north and south sides of the reredos the altar was enclosed by curtains hung on brass rods projecting from the wall or from upright standards. These curtains, known as riddels, had sockets for candles at the ends of the rods. They appear to be derived from the curtains which hung round the altar canopies of basilican churches, and were drawn at the consecration of the elements. Probably the reredos, in most churches, was formed by a painted cloth—that is, a piece of embroidered tapestry—hung behind the altar, or stretched from the upright of the one to the upright of the other riddel. It may be added that the arrangement of cross, candles and flower vases on a shelf, or even on several shelves, at the back of the altar, with which we are so familiar, was not frequent in the middle ages. The cross was usually the central carved or embroidered feature of the reredos: one or two lighted candles were placed upon the altar at mass; and flowers and sweet smelling herbs would be strewn at certain seasons on the chancel floor. Richness of colour and simplicity of furniture were the distinguishing features of the medieval altar. There is a curious ledge upon the back part of the upper surface of the crypt altar at Grantham: it actually lies upon the altar, and its height, as contrasted with that of the modern gradine or shelf, affords the same contrast that there is between the low foot-paces of the medieval, and the flights of steps of the modern chancel.

§ 58. The statue of the patron saint stood near the altar, on a corbel in the wall, in a canopied recess, or, as at Abbots Kerswell in Devon, where there is a very large figure of the Virgin, in the jamb of a window. In front of the altar, the pyx, or receptacle for the reserved Sacrament, hung by chains from the roof: it was covered by an embroidered veil, which was drawn aside when the pyx was opened. The rest of the ordinary furniture of the chancel was of a more permanent description. The piscina and sedilia, which are frequently of one date and form part of one design, were on the south side of the chancel, forming arched recesses in the wall. The number of sedilia varied from one to three: more than three are seldom found in a parish church. Permanent stone sedilia were usually regarded as part of the regular furniture of the chancel. Occasionally their place was supplied by the lowering of a window sill; but there were also instances, no doubt, in which the sedile or sedilia were simply wooden chairs placed near the south wall of the chancel. The piscina was frequently supplied with an upper ledge for cruets. In the piscina of the south aisle at Hawton, near Newark, there is an inner recess for this purpose on the east side; at Tansor a shallow niche is provided in the head of the arch of the piscina. The drain of the piscina was usually within the wall; but there are a number of twelfth century, and a few later, examples, in which the bowl forms a projection from the wall, and the drain was contained in a detached column, the base of which is frequently united to the foot of the wall. Projecting bowls are common, with drain-holes which slant downwards into the wall. A piscina is sometimes found in the sill of a window: one at Grantham is fitted with a removable drain, and there are other such examples. A drain in the chancel floor is sometimes found, usually of a rather early period. In addition to the piscina, most churches contain plain almeries or cupboards, rectangular recesses with rebates for wooden doors: these are generally in the north or east wall of the chancel.

§ 59. More exceptional—indeed, very uncommon—as a piece of furniture, was the permanent Easter sepulchre, which usually was on the north, but sometimes on the south of the chancel. This was the place to which the Host was carried on the evening of Holy Thursday, and left until Easter eve: it was symbolical of the sepulchre of our Lord, and the services which took place in connexion with it were sometimes of a somewhat dramatic character. A permanent Easter sepulchre, like those at Hawton and Heckington, was a luxury. These, and the sepulchre at Navenby, have carvings referring to the story of the Resurrection, and in the lower panels are represented the guards at the tomb. The recess at Hawton, forming a triple opening, has an inner recess at the back, which could be shut and locked. At Heckington and Navenby the recesses are merely single cupboards, surrounded by elaborate carving. Frequently, an almery was used for the purpose; and where, as at Frating in Essex, Claypole in Lincolnshire, or Sefton in Lancashire, an almery is treated with special care, as, for example, with a floral hood-mould, this special use is indicated. There may also have been removable sepulchres of wood: a piece of furniture which remains at Cowthorpe in Yorkshire, is said to be one. Another was made for St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, in 1440. Certainly, the sepulchre was often a temporary arrangement, like the reposoir in a French church to-day. Thomas Meyring of Newark directed his burial to take place ‘where the sepulchre of our Lord was wont to be set up at Easter.’ A founder’s tomb near an altar was also used for the sepulchre, the receptacle for the Host being probably placed inside the tomb-recess or against it. At Sibthorpe near Newark, the small sepulchre is immediately above the founder’s tomb: this was probably the case at Fledborough. At Owston, near Doncaster, a tomb-recess in the north chancel wall is often called the Easter sepulchre, and a projecting stone at one side of it is pointed out as a stone for the watcher who kept guard over the tomb at Easter. The majority of Easter sepulchres which are left belong to the fourteenth century. The imposing structure at Northwold in Norfolk, which is on the south of the chancel, is of the fifteenth century, and, in at least one example, at Wymondham in Norfolk, also on the south side, there are details which approach the Renaissance period. The frequent identity of the founder’s tomb with the Easter sepulchre, for which there is documentary evidence, is proved further by the tombs of the rector and vicar, under whose auspices, in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, the chancels of South Pool and Woodleigh churches in south Devon were restored. These are vaulted recesses north of the altar, containing table tombs with effigies, and a large amount of florid carving, which shews signs of Renaissance influence. On the wall at the back of either tomb are sculptures dealing with the burial and resurrection of our Lord, which clearly point to the use of the tombs at Easter, and justify the name of Easter sepulchre, frequently applied to them. A third tomb of rather later date is at West Alvington, in the same neighbourhood: its details were suggested by South Pool and Woodleigh, but the brasses of the back wall are gone, and its inclusion in the list of Easter sepulchres is doubtful. There is a curious late thirteenth century piece of work, projecting inwards from the north wall of the chancel at Twywell, near Kettering. A tomb-recess forms the lowest stage; above this is a double almery, which may have been an Easter sepulchre, and above this, again, is a sloping stone desk with a book-rest for the reader of the gospel. Stone gospel-desks are found in a few Derbyshire churches, like Crich, Spondon, and Etwall; and in a few other rare instances. A founder’s tomb is, of course, by no means an invariable feature of a chancel. The natural place for the burial of the founder of a chantry would be close to the altar where his chantry was celebrated; and often, as at Grantham, the presence of a tomb in an aisle wall indicates the existence of a chantry altar near that spot.

Fig. 18. Hawton, Notts: Easter sepulchre.

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§ 60. The sacristy has been referred to in the previous chapter; and with this description of the furniture of the chancel, our account of the English parish church is nearly come to an end. Few persons who are in the habit of visiting parish churches will fail to meet with exceptional or unique features. For example, in the north wall of the chancel at Scawton in north Yorkshire, there is a long oblong trough, with a drain in the wall behind it, the use of which is difficult to conjecture. At Tunstead in Norfolk, there is a narrow platform behind the altar, the whole width of the east wall. At its south end is a stair from the floor of the chancel; and near the stair is a door leading into a chamber below the platform. This narrow room, far too small for a sacristy, is lighted by a grating in the floor of the platform. It is supposed that this was an arrangement for the exhibition of relics. At Tanfield, near Ripon, there is a little cell-like recess in the wall between the chancel and north chapel, with a window commanding the altar. The problems which are set by these details bring us by degrees into relation with the whole of medieval life; and the history of the parish church becomes an important part of the social history of the parish. The magnificent tombs of the Marmions at Tanfield also recall to us an artistic feature of the parish church which opens out a wide field, and can be dealt with here only so far as the tombs themselves afford evidence as to the date of the part of the church in which they occur.

§ 61. The actual development of the parish church comes to an end with the Reformation. The building of great churches, cathedral and monastic, ceased with the suppression of the monasteries. The suppression of the chantries, and the new doctrines which it symbolised, did away with one object which had been a powerful consideration with the lay benefactor of parish churches. Henceforward the best work of those English masons who, in every county, had for generations shaped the course of medieval art, and, with it, the best work of the wood-carvers and glaziers, is found in private houses. In the early part of the seventeenth century, under the influence of Laud, much restoration and rebuilding was done. Wood-carvers filled many churches with furniture of great beauty and historical value. Churches like St John’s at Leeds, or the little chapel of Carlton Husthwaite in Yorkshire, are, in stone and woodwork alike, complete examples of the work of this period. Brancepeth, Sedgefield, and Eaglescliffe in Durham; Burneston in north Yorkshire; and, above all, Croscombe in Somerset, contain wooden furniture which one would not willingly exchange for medieval work. But, in spite of the richness and picturesqueness of seventeenth century woodwork, the art of the Laudian revival had no power to strike out new lines for itself. The chancels of Astley Abbots in Shropshire, Kelmarsh in Northamptonshire, and Barsham in Suffolk, interest us by their quaint adaptation of Gothic detail: they tell us nothing new. The art of the mason, as regards the parish church, is exhausted.