We sometimes meet with one or more brackets, with plain mouldings or sculptured, projecting from the east wall of a chancel aisle or chantry chapel; and on these, lamps or lights were formerly set, and kept continually burning in honour of the Virgin or of some other saint; and we also meet with rich projecting canopies or recessed niches, with brackets beneath, on which images of saints were formerly placed.
The use of the low side window, common in some districts, near the south-west angle of the chancel, and sometimes, but not so frequently, near the north-west angle, and occasionally even in the aisle, has not been correctly ascertained; it has, however, been conjectured to have served for the purpose of a confessional; and on minute examination indications of its formerly having had a wooden shutter, which opened on the inside, are sometimes visible; and on the south side of Kenilworth Church, Warwickshire, is an iron-barred window of this description, on which the wooden shutter is still retained.[209-*]
The sedilia or stone seats, so frequently found in the south wall of the chancel, are occasionally, though not often, to be met with in the south walls of side aisles or chantry chapels: when this is the case it is presumed the endowment was for more priests than one.
Such, not to digress into more minute particulars, may suffice to convey a general idea of the manner in which our churches were internally decorated, and how they were fitted up, with reference to the ceremonial rites of the church of Rome, in and before the year 1535. The walls were covered with fresco paintings, the windows were glazed with stained glass; the rood-loft and the pulpit, where the latter existed, were richly carved, painted, and gilt; and the altars were garnished with plate and sumptuous hangings. Altar-tombs with cumbent effigies were painted so as to correspond in tone with the colours displayed on the walls; the pavement of encaustic tiles, of different devices, was interspersed with sepulchral slabs and inlaid brasses; and screen-work, niches for statuary, mouldings, and sculpture of different degrees of excellence, abounded. Suspended from aloft hung the funeral achievement; at a later period, even more common, the banner, helme, crest, gauntlets, spurs, sword, targe, and cote armour.[210-*] In addition to these were, in some churches, shrines and reliquaries, enriched by the lavish donations of devotees, and wooden images excessively decked out and appareled[211-*]—objects of superstition, to which pilgrimages and offerings were made. And if in the review of the conceptions of a prior age, viz. of the fourteenth century, we find a higher rank of art to be evinced, and the style and combination of architectural and sculptured detail to be more severe and pure, at no period were our churches adorned to greater excess than on the eve of that in which all were about to undergo spoliation, and many of them wanton destruction.
For on the suppression of the monasteries and colleges, to the number of 700 and upwards, and of the chantries, in number more than 2300, effected between the years 1535 and 1540, the abbey churches were not only despoiled of their costly vestments, altar plate and furniture, and shrines enriched with silver, gold, and jewels, but many of them were entirely dismantled, and the sites with the materials granted to individuals by whom they were soon reduced to a state of ruin. Some were even, either then or in after-times, converted into dwelling-houses; and others, or some portion of such, were allowed to be preserved as parochial churches; but the private chantry altars, though left bare and forsaken, were not as yet ordered to be destroyed.
By the royal injunctions exhibited A. D. 1538, such feigned images as were known to be abused of pilgrimages, or offerings of any kind made thereunto, were, for the avoiding of idolatry, to be forthwith taken down without delay, and no candles, tapers, or images of wax were from thenceforth to be set before any image or picture, “but onelie the light that commonlie goeth about the crosse of the church by the rood-loft, the light afore the sacrament of the altar, and the light about the sepulchre;” which, for the adorning of the church and divine service, were for the present suffered to remain. By the same injunctions a Bible of the largest volume, in English, was directed to be set up in some convenient place in every church, that the parishioners might resort to the same and read it; and a register-book was ordered to be kept, for the recording of christenings, marriages, and burials.
But beyond the suppression of the monasteries and chantries, an act the effect of secular rather than religious motives, little alteration was made during the reign of Henry the Eighth in the ceremonies and services of the church, although the minds of many were becoming prepared for the change which afterwards ensued. And in the reign of his successor, Edward the Sixth, a striking difference was effected in the internal appearance of our churches; for many appendages were, not all at once, but by degrees, and under the authority of successive injunctions, discarded. Thus, by the king’s injunctions published in 1547, all images which had been abused with pilgrimage, or offering of any thing made thereunto, were, for the avoiding of the detestable offence of idolatry, by ecclesiastical authority, but not by that of private persons, to be taken down and destroyed; and no torches or candles, tapers or images of wax, were to be thenceforth suffered to be set before any image or picture, “but only two lights upon the high altar before the sacrament, which, for the signification that Christ is the very true light of the world, they shall suffer to remain still.” And as to such images which had not been abused, and which as yet were suffered to remain, the parishioners were to be admonished by the clergy that they served for no other purpose but to be a remembrance. The Bible in English, and the Paraphrases of Erasmus upon the Gospels, also in English, were ordered to be provided and set up in every church for the use of the parishioners. It was also enjoined that at every high mass the gospel and epistle should be read in English, and not in Latin, in the pulpit or in some other convenient place, so that the people might hear the same. Processions about the church and churchyard were now ordered to be disused, and the priests and clerks were to kneel in the midst of the church immediately before high mass, and there sing or read the Litany in English set forth by the authority of King Henry the Eighth. By the same injunctions all shrines, covering of shrines, all tables, candlesticks, trindles or rolls of wax, pictures, paintings, and all other monuments of feigned miracles, pilgrimages, idolatry, and superstition, were directed to be utterly taken away and destroyed; so that there should remain no memory of the same in walls, glass windows, or elsewhere within churches; and in every church “a comely and honest pulpit” was to be provided at the cost of the parishioners, to be set in a convenient place for the preaching of God’s word; and a strong chest, having three keys, with a hole in the upper part thereof, was to be set and fastened near unto the high altar, to the intent the parishioners should put into it their oblation and alms for their poor neighbours[215-*].
Hence the primary introduction of desks with divinity books, the litany stool, and the charity box, yet retained in some of our churches. But as much contention arose respecting the taking down of images, also as to whether they had been idolatrously abused or not, all images without exception were shortly afterwards, by royal authority, ordered to be removed and taken away.
In the ritual the first formal change appears to have been the order of the communion set forth in 1547 as a temporary measure only, until other order should be provided for the true and right manner of administering the sacrament according to the rule of the scriptures of God, and first usage of the primitive church. In this the term altar is alone made use of; but in the first Liturgy of King Edward the Sixth, published in 1549, the altar or table whereupon the Lord’s Supper was ministered is indifferently called the altar, the Lord’s table, God’s board. Ridley, bishop of London, by his diocesan injunctions issued in 1550, after noticing that in divers places some used the Lord’s board after the form of a table, and some as an altar, exhorted the curates, churchwardens, and questmen to erect and set up the Lord’s board after the form of an honest table, decently covered, in such place of the quire or chancel as should be thought most meet, so that the ministers with the communicants might have their place separated from the rest of the people; and to take down and abolish all other by-altars or tables. Soon after this, orders of council were sent to the bishops, in which, after noticing that the altars in most churches of the realm had been taken down, but that there yet remained altars standing in divers other churches, by occasion whereof much variance and contention arose, they were commanded, for the avoiding of all matters of further contention and strife about the standing or taking away of the said altars[216-*], to give substantial order that all the altars in every church should be taken down, and instead of them that a table should be set up in some convenient part of the chancel, to serve for the ministration of the blessed communion; and reasons were at the same time published why the Lord’s board should rather be after the form of a table than of an altar, expressing however in what sense it might be called an altar. In the second Liturgy of King Edward the Sixth, amongst other important changes both of doctrine and discipline, the word altar, as denoting the communion-table, was purposely omitted.
The peculiar formation, frequently observable, of the old communion-tables, seems to have originated from the diversity of opinion held by many in the Anglican church, as to whether or not there was in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper a memorative sacrifice; for by those who held the negative they were so constructed, not merely that they might be moved from one part of the church to another, but the slab, board, or table, properly so called, was purposely not fastened or fixed to the frame-work or stand on which it was supported, but left loose, so as to be set on or taken off; and in 1555, on the accession of Queen Mary, when the stone altars were restored and the communion-tables taken down, we find it recorded of one John Austen, at Adesham Church, Kent, that “he with other tooke up the table, and laid it on a chest in the chancel, and set the tressels by it[218-*].”