It appears that texts of scripture were painted on the walls of some churches in the reign of Edward the Sixth; for Bonner, bishop of London, by a mandate issued to his diocese in 1554, after noticing that some had procured certain scriptures wrongly applied to be painted on church walls, charged that such scriptures should be razed, abolished, and extinguished, so that in no means they could be either read or heard.
In the articles set forth by Cardinal Pole in 1557, to be inquired of in his diocese of Canterbury, were the following: “Whether the churches be sufficiently garnished and adorned with all ornaments and books necessary; and whether they have a rood in their church of a decent stature, with Mary and John, and an image of the patron of the same church?” Also, “Whether the altars of the church be consecrated or no?”
But in 1559, the first year of the reign of Elizabeth, many of the injunctions set forth in the reign of Edward the Sixth, as to the mode of saying the Litany without procession, the removal and destruction of shrines and monuments of superstition, the setting up of a pulpit, and of the poor-box or chest, which latter was however “to be set and fastened in a most convenient place,” were re-established. By these injunctions it appears that in many parts of the realm the altars of the churches had been removed, and tables placed for the administration of the holy sacrament; that in some other places the altars had not yet been removed: in the order whereof, as the injunctions express, save for an uniformity, there seemed to be no matter of great moment, so that the sacrament was duly and reverently ministered; and it was so ordered that no altar should be taken down but by oversight of the curate and churchwardens, or one of them, and that the holy table in every church should be decently made and set in the place where the altar stood, and there commonly covered, and so to stand, saving when the communion of the sacrament was to be distributed; at which time the same was to be so placed within the chancel in such manner that the minister might be the more conveniently heard of the communicants in his prayer and ministration.
Many of the old communion-tables set up in the reign of Elizabeth are yet remaining in our churches, and are sustained by a stand or frame, the bulging pillar-legs of which are often fantastically carved, with arabesque scroll-work and other detail according to the taste of the age. The communion-table in Sunningwell Church, Berkshire, probably set up during the time Bishop Jewell was pastor of that church, is a rich and interesting specimen. Communion-tables of the same era, designed in the same general style, with carved bulging legs, are preserved in the churches of Lapworth, Rowington, and Knowle, Warwickshire; in St. Thomas’s Church, Oxford; and in many other churches. Sometimes the bulging pillar-legs are turned plain, and are not covered with carving: such occur in Broadwas Church, Worcestershire; in the churches of St. Nicholas and St. Helen, at Abingdon; and in the north aisle of Dorchester Church, Oxfordshire. The table or slab of the communion-table in Knowle Church is not fixed or fastened to the frame or stand on which it is placed, but lies loose; and this is also the case with an old communion-table of the sixteenth century, now disused, in Northleigh Church, Oxfordshire. In an inventory of church goods, taken in 1646, occurs the following: “Item, one short table and frame, commonly called the communion-table.” On examining the old communion-tables, the movability of the slab from the frame-work is of such frequent occurrence as to corroborate the supposition that some esoteric meaning was attached to its unfixed state, which meaning has been attempted to be explained.
Under the colour of removing monuments of idolatry and false feigned images in the churches, much wanton spoliation and needless injury was effected; and this to such excess that in 1560 a royal proclamation was issued, commanding all persons to forbear the breaking or defacing of any monument or tomb, or any image of kings, princes, or nobles, or the breaking down and defacing of any image in glass windows, in any churches, without consent of the ordinary. And in the same year, in a letter from the queen to the commissioners for causes ecclesiastical, occasion is taken to remark that “in sundry churches and chappells where divine service, as prayer, preaching, and ministration of the sacraments be used, there is such negligence and lacke of convenient reverence used towardes the comelye keeping and order of the said churches, and especially of the upper parte called the chauncels, that it breedeth no small offence and slaunder to see and consider on the one part the curiositie and costes bestowed by all sortes of men upon there private houses, and the other part, the unclean or negligent order or sparekeeping of the house of prayer, by permitting open decaies, and ruines of coveringes, walls, and wyndowes, and by appointing unmeet and unseemly tables, with fowle clothes, for the communion of the sacraments, and generally leavynge the place of prayers desolate of all cleanlynes, and of meet ornaments for such a place, whereby it might be known a place provided for divine service.” And the commissioners were required to consider the same, and in their discretion to determine upon some good and speedy means of reformation; and, amongst other things, to order that the tables of the commandments might be comely set or hung up in the east end of the chancel, to be not only read for edification, but also to give some comely ornament and demonstration that the same was a place of religion and prayer[223-*].
An ancient table, apparently of this period, of the commandments painted on panel, but in language somewhat abbreviated, is still hung up against the east wall of the south transept of Ludlow Church, Salop[224-*].
By the articles issued by royal authority in 1564, for administration of prayer and sacraments, each parish was to provide a decent table, standing on a frame, for the communion-table; this was to be decently covered with carpet, silk, or other decent covering, and with a fair linen cloth (at the time of the ministration); the ten commandments were to be set upon the east wall, over the table; the font was not to be removed, nor was the curate to baptize in parish churches in any basins.
In the Visitation Articles of Archbishop Parker, A. D. 1569, we find inquiries were to be made whether there was in each parish church a convenient pulpit well placed, a comely and decent table for the holy communion, covered decently and set in the place prescribed; and whether the altars had been taken down; also whether images and all other monuments of idolatry and superstition were destroyed and abolished; whether the rood-loft was pulled down, according to the order prescribed; and if the partition between the chancel and church was kept.
The latter inquiry is explanatory of the fact why, when the rood-lofts in many churches were taken down, the screens beneath them, separating the chancel from the nave, were left undisturbed.