In the choirs of cathedral and conventual churches, and in the chancels of some other churches, a movable desk, at which the epistle and gospel were read, was placed: this was often called the eagle desk, from its being frequently sustained on a brazen eagle with expanded wings, elevated on a stand, emblematic of St. John the evangelist. Eagle desks are generally found either of the fifteenth or seventeenth century; notices of them occur, however, much earlier. In the Louterell Psalter, written circa A. D. 1300, an eagle desk supported on a cylindrical shaft, banded midway down by an annulated moulding in the style of the thirteenth century, is represented; and in an account of ornaments belonging to Salisbury Cathedral, A. D. 1214, we find mentioned Tuellia una ad Lectricum Aquilæ. Besides the brass eagle desks which still remain in use in several of our cathedrals, and in the chapels of some of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, fine specimens are preserved in Redcliffe Church, Bristol, of the date 1638; in Croydon Church, Surrey; and in the church of the Holy Trinity at Coventry; other instances might also be enumerated. Sometimes we meet with ancient brass reading-desks which have not the eagle in front, but both the sides are sloped so as to form a double desk: of these, examples of the fifteenth century may be found in Yeovil Church, Somersetshire, and in the chapel of Merton College, Oxford. Ancient wooden reading-desks, either single or double, are also occasionally found; some of these are richly carved, others are comparatively plain, but all partake more or less of the architectonic style of the age in which they were severally constructed, and from which their probable dates may be ascertained. In Bury Church, Huntingdonshire, is a wooden desk with a single slope, and the vertical face presented in front is covered with arches and other carved ornaments: this perhaps may be referable to the latter part of the fourteenth century. A rich double desk, of somewhat later date, with the shaft supported by buttresses of open-work tracery, is preserved in Ramsey Church, Huntingdonshire. In Aldbury Church, Hertfordshire, is an ancient double lecturn or reading desk, of wood, of the fifteenth century, much plainer in design than those at Bury and Ramsey; the shaft is angular, with small buttresses at the angles, and with a plain angular-shaped moulded capital and base, which latter is set on a cross-tree. In Hawstead Church, Suffolk, is a wooden desk with little ornament, supported on an angular shaft with an embattled capital, and moulded base with leaves carved in relief: this is apparently of the latter part of the fourteenth century. The ancient wooden desks found in some of our churches must not, however, be confounded with a more numerous class constructed and used subsequent to the Reformation.
Proceeding up the chancel or choir, we ascend by three steps to the platform, on which the high altar anciently stood: this was so called to distinguish it from other altars, of which there were often several, in the same church; high mass was celebrated at it, whereas the other altars were chiefly used for the performance of low or private masses. The most ancient altars were of wood, afterwards they were constructed of stone; those of the primitive British churches are spoken of by St. Chrysostom. By a decree of the council of Paris, held A. D. 509, no altar was to be built but of stone. Amongst the excerptions of Ecgbert, archbishop of York A. D. 750, was one that no altars should be consecrated with chrism but such as were made of stone; and by the council of Winchester, held under Lanfranc A. D. 1076, altars were enjoined to be of stone. The customary form of such was a mass of stone supporting an altar table or slab, and resembling the tombs of the martyrs, at which the primitive Christians held their meetings; from which circumstance it became customary to enclose in every altar relics of some saint, and without such relics an altar was esteemed incomplete.
Pertaining to the high altar, which was covered with a frontal and cloths, and anciently enclosed at the sides with curtains suspended on rods of iron projecting from the wall, was a crucifix, which succeeded to the simple cross placed on the altars of the Anglo-Saxon churches; a pair[180-*] of candlesticks, generally with spikes instead of sockets, on which lights or tapers were fixed; a pix, in which the host was kept reserved for the sick; a pair of cruets, of metal, in which were contained the wine and water preparatory to their admixture in the eucharistic cup; a sacring bell; a pax table, of silver or other metal, for the kiss of peace, which took place shortly before the host was received in communion; a stoup or stok, of metal, with a sprinkle for holy water; a censer or thurible[181-*], and a ship, (a vessel so called,) to hold frankincense; a chrismatory[181-†], an offering basin, a basin which was used when the priest washed his hands, and a chalice and paten. Costly specimens of the ancient pix, containing small patens for the reception of the host, are preserved amongst the plate belonging to New College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. A pix of a much plainer description, but without its cover, of the metal called latten, was until recently preserved in the church of Enstone, Oxfordshire: the body of this was of a semi-globular form, supported on an angular stem, with a knob in the midst, and in appearance not unlike a chalice. The monstrance, in which the host was exhibited to the people, and which has been sometimes confounded with the pix[182-*], does not appear to have been introduced into our churches before the fifteenth century; on the suppression of the monasteries and chantries we find it noticed in the inventories then taken of church furniture, as in that of the Priory of Ely, where it is called “a stonding monstral for the sacrament;” and in that of St. Augustine’s Monastery, Canterbury, where it is described as “one monstrance, silver gilt, with four glasses.”
Near the high altar we frequently find, in the south wall of the chancel, a series of stone seats, sometimes without but generally beneath plain or enriched arched canopies, often supported by slender piers which serve to divide the seats. In most instances these seats are three in number, but they vary from one to five, and are the sedilia or seats formerly appropriated during high mass to the use of the officiating priest and his attendant ministers, the deacon and sub-deacon, who retired thither during the chanting of the Gloria in excelsis, and some other parts of the service[183-*]. The sedilia sometimes preserve the same level, but generally they graduate or rise one above another, and that nearest the altar, being the highest, was occupied by the priest; the other two by the deacon and sub-deacon in succession[183-†]. We do not often meet with sedilia of so early an era as the twelfth century; there are, however, instances of such, as in the church of St. Mary, at Leicester, where is a fine Norman triple sedile, divided into graduating seats by double cylindrical piers with sculptured capitals, and the recessed arches they support are enriched on the face with a profusion of the zigzag moulding. In the south wall of the choir of Broadwater Church, Sussex, is a stone bench beneath a large semicircular Norman arch, the face of which is enriched with the chevron or zigzag moulding. In Avington Church, Berkshire, is a stone beneath a plain segmental arch. Norman sedilia also occur in the churches of Earls Barton, Northamptonshire, and of Wellingore, Lincolnshire. From the commencement of the thirteenth century up to the Reformation sedilia became a common appendage to a church, and the styles are easily distinguished by their peculiar architectonic features. Some are without canopies, and are excessively plain. On the south side of the chancel of Minster Lovel Church, Oxfordshire, is a stone bench without a canopy or division, and plain stone benches thus disposed are found in the chancel of Bloxham Church, Oxfordshire, and of Rowington Church, Warwickshire. In Sedgeberrow Church, Gloucestershire, are two sedilia without canopies; and in Standlake Church, Oxfordshire, the sedilia, three in number, are without canopies or ornament. In Spratten Church, Northamptonshire, is a stone bench for three persons under a plain recessed pointed arch. In Priors Hardwick Church, Warwickshire, is a sedile for the priest, and below that one double the size for the deacon and sub-deacon; both are under recessed arched canopies. Quadruple sedilia occur in the churches of Turvey and Luton, Bedfordshire; in the Mayor’s Chapel, Bristol; in Gloucester Cathedral; in the church of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire; and in Rothwell Church, Northamptonshire: these are beneath canopies, and most of them are highly enriched. Quintuple sedilia sometimes occur, but are very rare; in the conventual church of Southwell, Nottinghamshire, are, however, five sedilia beneath ogee-headed canopies richly ornamented. A single sedile for one person only is occasionally met with, but not often.
Eastward of the sedilia, in the same wall, is a fenestella or niche, sometimes plain, but often enriched with a crocketed ogee or pedimental hood moulding in front, over the arch, which is trefoiled or cinquefoiled in the head. This niche contains a hollow perforated basin or stone drain, called the piscina or lavacrum[186-*], into which it appears that after the priest had washed his hands, which he was accustomed to do before the consecration of the elements and again after the communion, the water was poured, as also that with which the chalice was rinsed. The usage of washing the hands before the communion is one of very high antiquity, and is expressly noticed in the Clementine Liturgy, and by St. Cyril in his mystical Catechesis[187-*]; we do not, however, find the piscina in our churches of an era earlier than the twelfth century, and even then it was of uncommon occurrence; but in the thirteenth century the general introduction is observable. In Romsey Church, Hampshire, is the shaft and basin (the latter cushion-shaped) of a curious Norman piscina: this is now lying loose, in a dilapidated state. In the south apsis of the same church is another Norman piscina, consisting of a quadrangular-shaped basin projecting from the south wall; and on the south side of the chancel of Avington Church, Berkshire, is a plain Norman piscina within a simple semicircular arched recess. The churches of Kilpeck, Herefordshire, Keelby, Lincolnshire, and Bapchild, Kent, also contain Norman piscinæ. Those of all the various styles of later date are common; they exhibit, however, an interesting variety in design and ornamental detail. The drain of the piscina communicated with a perforated stone shaft, commonly enclosed in the wall, through which the water was lost in the earth; as in the case of the piscina with its shaft taken out of the south wall of the chancel of the now destroyed church of Newnham Regis, Warwickshire. Sometimes a piscina was a subsequent addition to a structure of early date, as in the old and now demolished church of Stretton-upon-Dunsmore, Warwickshire, in the south wall of the Norman chancel of which a piscina of the latter part of the thirteenth century had been inserted.
The piscina is very common in churches even where the sedilia or stone seats are wanting, and not only in the chancel, but also in the south walls at the east end of the north and south aisles, and in mortuary chapels, as will be presently noticed; it appears, in short, to have been an indispensable appendage to an altar.