These domestic chapels were thoroughly furnished with every usual ornament and appliance in a style of sumptuousness proportionate to the rank and means of the master of the house. From the Household Book of the Earl of Northumberland we gather that his chapel had three altars, and that my lord and my lady had each a closet, i.e. an oratory, in which were other altars. The chapel was furnished with hangings, and had a pair of organs. The service books were so famous for their beauty that, on the earl’s death, Cardinal Wolsey intimated his wish to have them. There is mention, too, of suits of vestments, and single vestments, copes and surplices, and altar cloths for the five altars. All these things were under the care of the yeoman of the vestry, and were carried about with the earl at his removals from one to another of his houses.
Catalogues of the furniture of the smaller domestic chapels are numerous in the inventories attached to ancient wills; two may be given here as examples—
Lady Alice West, of Hinton Marcel, Hants, 1395, bequeaths to her son Thomas, “a pair of matins bookes and a pair of bedas,” and to her daughter Iohane, a masse book and all the books that I have of Latin, English, and French, out-take the foresaid mattins books bequeathed to Thomas. Also all my vestments of my chappel with the towels belonging to the altar, and my tapites white and red paled,[491] and blue and red paled, with all my green tapites that belong to my chappel aforesaid, and with the frontals of the aforesaid altar, and with all the curtains and trussing coffers, and all other apparele that belong to my chapel. Also a chalice and paxbrede and holy-water pot with the sprinklers; two cruets, two chandeliers, two silver basins for the altar with scutcheons of my ancestors’ arms, and a sacring bell, and all of silver. Also a table depainted of three (a triptych).[492]
In the inventories of the will of John Smith, Esq., of Blackmore, Essex, in 1543—
In the chapel chamber, a long setle joyned. In the chapel, one aulter of joyner’s work. Item, a table with two leaves of the passion gilt The altar vessels are not specially mentioned; they were probably included with the other silver, and the altar candlesticks among the “xiiiij latyn candlestics of dyvers sorts,” mentioned elsewhere. It is a very pleasant feature in the daily life of the manor house of mediæval England which is brought home to us by these studies of ancient domestic architecture and these dry extracts from Episcopal Registers. By the latter part of the fourteenth century it would seem that nearly every manor house had a chapel, and a resident chaplain. Divine services—Matins and mass before breakfast, and evensong before dinner—were said every day; and when the solemn worship of Almighty God held so conspicuous a place in the daily family life, it is not possible that it should not have exercised an influence upon the character and habits of the people; for the family and household really attended the service as a part of the routine of daily duty. There are numerous incidental allusions in the course of historical narratives which prove it. Robert of Gloucester says of William the Conqueror— In church he was devout enow, for him none day abide The story that William Rufus, before he succeeded to the throne, was first attracted to William of Corboil by the rapidity with which he got through the mass, indicates that even that graceless prince submitted to the irksome restraint of the universal custom. And the stories about Hunting Masses, in which chaplains omitted everything but the essentials of the Divine service, afford the same sort of confirmation.[493]
That he heard not Mass and Matins, and Evensong and each tide.