“Lancelot Coleman & Edward Britwel, Churchwardens, Anno Dom. 1631.”
In Whitwell Church, Isle of Wight, the communion table stands on plain bulging pillar-legs; and on the frieze round the ledge is carved in relief an arm holding a chalice, with the following inscription:
“I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. Psa. 116. v. 53. Anno Dom. 1632.”
As the rubric of the church enjoined that at the communion the priest should himself place the elements upon the holy table, the custom of having a side table, called the credence table, for the elements to be set on previous to their removal by the priest to the communion table for consecration, was observed in some churches in the latter part of the sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth century. Such table appears to have been introduced in the reign of Elizabeth, by Andrews, bishop of Norwich, whose model Archbishop Laud is said to have followed[242-*]; and it originated from the πρόθεσις, or side table of preparation, used in the early church; it was likewise, as we have seen, used at the sacramentals of the church of Rome, and on that account was strongly objected to by the Puritans.
In the chancel of Chipping-Warden Church, Northamptonshire, on the north side of the communion table, is a semicircular oak table, apparently of the reign of Charles the First, standing on a frame supported by three plain pillar-legs, like those of the communion tables of the same period, and enriched with carved arched frieze-work similar to the arched panel-work on pulpits of the same period.
A plain credence table of black oak, which from the style and make was evidently set up after the Restoration, still continues to be used as such in St. Michael’s Church, Oxford, being placed on the north side of the communion table.
The objections of the Puritans against many of the usages of the Anglican church, and their refusal to conform to such under the pretence of their being superstitious, had no slight effect in altering the internal appearance of our churches in the middle of the seventeenth century, and during the period their party had obtained the ascendancy, and had succeeded for a while in abolishing in this country episcopal church government; for among the “innovations in discipline,” as they were called by the Puritan committee of the House of Lords in 1641, we find the following usages complained of: the turning of the holy table altarwise, and most commonly calling it an altar; the bowing towards it or towards the east many times; advancing candlesticks in many churches upon the altar, so called; the making of canopies over the altar, so called, with traverses and curtains on each side and before it; the compelling all communicants to come up to the rails, and there to receive; the advancing crucifixes and images upon the parafront or altar cloth, so called; the reading some part of the morning prayer at the holy table, when there was no communion celebrated; the minister’s turning his back to the west, and his face to the east, when he pronounced the Creed or read prayers; the reading the Litany in the midst of the body of the church in many of the parochial churches; the having a credentia or side table, besides the Lord’s table, for divers uses in the Lord’s Supper; and the taking down galleries in churches, or restraining the building of galleries where the parishes were very populous[244-*].
In August, 1643, an Ordinance of the Lords and Commons was published, for the taking away and demolishing of all altars and tables of stone, and for the removal of all communion tables from the east end of every church and chancel; and it was prescribed that such should be placed in some other fit and convenient place in the body of the church or in the body of the chancel; and that all rails whatsoever which had been erected near to, before, or about any altar or communion table, should be likewise taken away; and that the chancel-ground which had been raised within twenty years then last past, for any altar or communion table to stand on, should be laid down and levelled, as the same had formerly been; and that all tapers, candlesticks, and basins should be removed and taken away from the communion table, and not again used about the same; and that all crucifixes, crosses, and all images and pictures of any one or more Persons of the Trinity, or of the Virgin Mary, and all other images and pictures of saints, or superstitious inscriptions belonging to any churches, should be taken away and defaced before the first day of November, 1643: but it was provided that such ordinances should not extend to any image, picture, or coat of arms, in glass, stone, or otherwise, set up or graven only for a monument of any dead person not reputed for a saint, but that all such might stand and continue.
By a subsequent ordinance, passed in May, 1644, it was prescribed that no rood-loft or holy water fonts should be any more used in any church; and that all organs, and the frames or cases in which they stood, in all churches, should be taken away and utterly defaced.