London in the Time of the Tudors

by Walter Besant

It is commonly believed that in the parish churches there was but one step from the mass to the Reformed service. This was not so (see an article by Mr. T. T. Micklethwaite on “Parish Churches in the year 1548,” Arch. Journ. xxxv.). The Dissolution of the Religious Houses made at first very little difference in the churches. The guilds were suppressed, and therefore the lights which they kept up; the endowed lights were also suppressed; but people went on endowing new lights for the parish churches. In the year 1547 certain rules or injunctions were issued which commanded that all images which had been made the object of pilgrimage should be destroyed; that no lights should be set up before any picture except two wax tapers on the altar, and these because Christ is the Light of the World. Images which had not been abused were to remain “for remembrance only.” The English Bible and the Paraphrases of Erasmus on the Gospel were to be set up in every church where the people could have access to them. Shrines, pictures of miracles, and glass depicting miracles, were to be destroyed; a pulpit was to be provided, and an alms chest to be placed by the altar.

As regards the services, changes were gradual. The High Mass continued, but the Gospel and Epistle were read in English, and a chapter from the New Testament was read after lessons at Matins and after Magnificat at Evensong. The English Litany was sung after High Mass. The Pater Noster, Creed, and Ten Commandments were sometimes publicly rehearsed in English, and Communion was refused to those who did not know them.

In the year 1548 the “Order of Communion” was put forth; in 1549 the Prayer Book appeared. Mr. Micklethwaite has drawn up an account of the parish church of 1548 before the Reformed Prayer Book, and with the alterations made in the service up to that date. The principal entrance was by the south door; in the porch was a basin of holy water; the font stood sometimes in the middle of the nave, sometimes against the west side of one of the pillars; it had a cover which could be locked down. Near it was a locker in which were kept the oils, salt, etc., required for the old rite of baptism.

“At the beginning of the sixteenth century all but very poor parish churches seem to have been furnished with pews, but the whole area was not filled with them, as at a later date. Old pews west of the doors are very rare, but they are found sometimes, as at Brington, Northants. Generally all this space was left clear, and there was a clear area of at least one bay, and often much more at the west end. A church with aisles had nearly always four blocks of pews, and the passages were broad alleys, that in the middle being often more than a third of the width of the nave, and the side passages were not much less. The appropriation of special places to individuals seems to have been usual, and even that bugbear of modern ecclesiastical reformers, the lock-up pew or closet, was not unknown. These in parish churches were generally chantry chapels, arranged for private services at their own altars and for use as pews during the public services.”

The pulpit had no fixed position: it was made movable; one of that period still remains at Westminster. It was ordered in 1547 that the priests and choir should kneel in the midst of the church and sing or say the Litany; the Litany desk came into use afterwards. The confessional had been continued in certain London churches: at St. Margaret Patens there was the “shrivyng pew”; at St. Christopher le Stock the “Shriving House.” The usual custom was for the penitent to kneel or stand before the priest, who sat in a chair. The Bible and the Paraphrases of Erasmus were chained to a desk somewhere in the nave.

The Rood screen, which was a music gallery, carried a loft and the organ when there was one. The loft contained desks for singers; it was also provided with pricks for candles. The great cross rose above the loft. In the chancel stood the high altar; when there were no aisles two smaller altars stood one on either side. Above the altar was a reredos of carved work; at the ends of which hung curtains. There was generally a super altar. On the high altar stood the cross, with figures, reliquaries, and images to adorn it. Also they laid on the altar the Textus or Book of the Gospels, with the paxbrede or tablet for the kiss of peace. There were generally two lights on the altar.

“It is convenient to mention here the other lights, which were kept in 1548, by the retention of the ceremonies with which they were connected. These were the two tapers carried by boys in processions at High Mass, and at other services when solemnly performed; the herse light, used at Matins or Tenebres on the last three days of Holy Week; the paschal candle, which stood in a tall candlestick, or hung in a bason on the north side of the high altar, and was lighted with much ceremony on Easter Eve, and burned at all the principal services throughout Paschal tide; the torches carried in the procession on Corpus Christi Day; the lantern carried before the Sacrament when it was taken to the sick; the large standing tapers which were placed round a corpse during the funeral service; and the candle used at baptism. Most of the lights, which a little earlier had been common round tombs, were endowed, and as such had been taken away, but the custom of survivors placing lights round the graves of their departed friends would probably be continued still for a few years.”

Chapels were the most usual places for tombs, but they are found in every part of the church. The various forms of them are too familiar to require description, but the use of colour gave them much more decorative importance in an interior than they have now. Many were painted, and others were covered with rich cloths. Flat gravestones had often carpets laid over them, and raised tombs had palls of cloth of gold or other costly stuff. The church of Dunstable still possesses such a pall: it is of crimson velvet, richly embroidered. Tapestries and cloths of various kinds were very much used, especially in chancels, as curtains and carpets, and as coverings for seats and desks and the like. Every church also had special hangings for Lent, when images and pictures were covered up generally with white or blue cloths, marked with crosses and the emblems of the Passion. The Lenten veil between the choir and the high altar seems also to have been retained in 1547, but in 1548 Cranmer and his party had partly succeeded in doing away with it. All parts of the church were more or less adorned with imagery and pictures on walls, in windows, or on furniture. None had been ordered to be taken away except such as had been superstitiously abused, or which were representations of “feigned miracles.”

“When the priest took the Sacrament to the sick he was accompanied by clerks, who carried a cross, bell, and light. The Sacrament itself was enclosed in a pyx, and with it was taken a cup in which the priest dipped his fingers after giving the communion. The chrismatory was generally a little box of metal containing three little bottles for the three oils, which seem generally to have been kept together. For use at funerals, every church had a cross, a bier, and a handbell, the last being a good-sized bell which was rung before the corpse as it was being carried to the church. It was also used for ‘crying’ obits about the parish, and asking for prayers for the deceased. Some churches had what was called the common coffin, which was used to carry bodies to the church, the most general custom being to bury without coffin. And they had palls and torches for funerals, for the use of which a charge was made according to the quality of the pall and the ‘waste’ of the torches. At weddings it was the custom to hold a large square cloth of silk or other material, called the care cloth, over the heads of the bride and bridegroom whilst they received the benediction, and it was kept for that use amongst the church goods. At St. Margaret’s, Westminster, we find also a crown or circlet for brides, which appears to have been a thing of some value.”

It will be seen from these quotations that the parish church contained in essentials the whole of the Catholic ritual except the parts which were ordered to be read in English. At the same time by reading, by hearing sermons, by the newly awakened spirit of examination and discussion, the people were preparing for more drastic changes. When they came there was no violent revolution, and though many remained faithful to the old creed, the bulk of the people in London were Protestant at heart. The weak point of the Reformation was that as yet no one was sure that it was stable and assured. Nor was there any such assurance till the defeat of the Spanish Armada and fifty years of the Maiden Queen had turned Protestantism into patriotism.