Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them Part 7

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sedilia and Chantry. Luton, Beds.

_Photograph Fredk. Thurston, F.R.P.S._]

Mr. Parker, in his "_Glossary of Architecture_," gives the following definition of the miserere, patience or pretella. "The projecting bracket on the underside of the seats of stalls in churches; these, when perfect, are fixed with hinges so they may be turned up, and when this is done the projection of the miserere is sufficient, without actually forming a seat, to afford very considerable rest to anyone leaning upon it. They were allowed as a relief to the infirm during the long services that were required to be performed by ecclesiastics in a standing posture."

It is in the carving of these that one is frequently struck by the curious mixture of the sacred and the profane, the refined and the vulgar, for which it is difficult to find any adequate explanation. Of so coa.r.s.e a nature are some of these carvings that it has been necessary to entirely remove them from the stalls. They are usually attributed to the mendicant and wandering monks, and they undoubtedly reflect the licentiousness which at one time pervaded the monastic and conventual establishments. Among our best examples are those at Christchurch Priory, Hants, and in Henry VII.'s Chapel. There is a remarkably complete set in Exeter Cathedral.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Typical Somerset Bench-End.

Showing a Fuller at work with the implements of his trade. Spaxton.

_Photograph Mr. Page._]

Of modern pews it is not necessary to say anything here, but previous to the Reformation the nave of a church was usually fitted with fixed seats, parted from each other by wainscoting, and partially enclosed at the ends by framed panelling, but more often by solid pieces of wood, either panelled or carved on the front. These bench-ends are very common in the West of England, in Somerset and Devon, and they are often very beautiful pieces of work and were in all probability executed by local craftsmen. They embrace a variety of subjects: figures, scrolls, dragons, serpents, etc., and frequently bear the arms of the family who owned the pew. Sometimes they terminate at the top with finials either in the form of heads, bunches of foliage, a chamfered _fleur-de-lys_ and a variety of other ornaments called Poppy-heads, from the French _Poupee_. No examples are known to exist earlier than the Decorated style, but of Perpendicular date specimens are very numerous, especially in our cathedrals and old abbey churches.

[Side note: Pulpits.]

Pulpits were formerly placed, not only in churches, but in the refectories and occasionally in the cloisters of monasteries, and there is one in the outer court of Magdalen College, Oxford, and another at Shrewsbury. In former times pulpits were placed in the nave attached to a wall, pillar or screen, usually against the second pier from the chancel arch. Some are of wood, others of stone; the former are mostly polygonal, with the panels enriched with foliation or tracery. Few exist of earlier date than the Perpendicular style, but stone pulpits of Decorated date are sometimes met with as at Beaulieu, Hants, a very early specimen. Wooden pulpits are usually hexagonal or octagonal; some stand on slender wooden stems, others on stone bases. A few have canopies or sounding boards, and their dates can be fixed by the character of their ornamentation. At Kenton, Devon, there is an early pulpit which has retained its original paintings. Jacobean pulpits are very numerous, and are frequently gilded and painted; the one at S. Saviour's Church, Dartmouth, being a most elaborate example.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Richly Carved Pulpit and Canopy.

Edlesborough, Bucks. _Photograph H. A. Strange._]

Open-air preaching is anything but a modern invention, for long before the erection of parish churches it was the recognised method of addressing the people. There is a print of some popular bishop preaching in a pulpit at Paul's Cross in S. Paul's Churchyard, and in mediaeval days open-air pulpits were erected near the roads, on bridges and often on the steps of the market crosses, which are often still known as preaching crosses.

[Side note: Squints.]

In some of our churches is to be seen a squint, an opening in an oblique direction through a wall or pier for the purpose of enabling persons in the aisles or transepts to see the elevation of the Host at the high altar. They are of frequent occurrence in our churches and are very numerous in the neighbourhood of Tenby, South Wales, also in Devon and the West generally. They are usually without any ornament, but are sometimes arched and enriched with tracery. They are mostly found on one or both sides of the chancel arch, but they sometimes occur in rooms above porches, in side-chapels and the like; in every instance they were so situated that the altar could be seen. When they occur in porches or the rooms above they are thought to have been for the use of the acolyte appointed to ring the sanctus bell, who, viewing the performance of ma.s.s, would be thus able to sound the bell at the proper time. The name hagioscope has been used to describe these oblique openings.

Cruciform marks are sometimes found on our churches, often on a stone in the porch; they are usually incised crosses or five dots in the form of a cross. They were, presumably, cut by the bishop when the building was consecrated, and are called consecration crosses.

[Side note: Screens.]

The rood-screens, separating the chancel or choir of a church from the nave, usually supported the great Rood or Crucifix, not actually on the screen itself, but on a beam called the rood-beam, or by a gallery called the rood-loft, which last was approached from the inside of the church, by a small stone staircase in the wall, as can be seen in many of our churches to-day. Although rood-lofts have been generally destroyed in England, some beautiful examples remain at Long Sutton, Barnwell, Dunster and Minehead, Somerset; Kemsing, Kent; Newark, Nottingham; Uffendon, Collumpton, Dartmouth, Kenton, Plymtree and Hartland, Devon.

The general construction of wooden screens is close panelling below, from which rise tall slender bal.u.s.ters, or wooden mullions supporting tracery rich with cornices and crestings, frequently painted and gilded.

The lower panels often depict saints and martyrs. From the top of the screen certain parts of the services and the lessons were read. They were occasionally close together and glazed, as we see by a most beautiful example at Charlton-on-Otmoor, in Oxfordshire. These screens, many of which have been over-restored, are very common, and in addition to those above mentioned, are found at S. Mary's, Stamford, Ottery S. Mary, Chudleigh, Bovey, and in nearly all the Devon parish churches. At Dunstable a screen of Queen Mary's time separates the vestry from the chancel.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Screen with Rood Loft.

Kenton, Devon. _Photograph by Chapman._]

Of stone screens s.p.a.ce will permit of only the briefest mention. They were used in various situations, to enclose tombs and to separate chapels, and occasionally the rood-screen was of stone.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Carved Oak Bal.u.s.trade in Compton Church.

Held to be the oldest existing piece of carved woodwork in England.]

The oldest piece of screen work in this country is that at Compton Church, Surrey; it is of wood and shows the transition from the Norman to the Early English styles. Stone screens are often ma.s.sive structures enriched with niches, statues, tabernacles, pinnacles, crestings, etc., as those at Canterbury, York and Gloucester.

[Side note: The Reredos.]

The reredos forms no part of the altar, and is often highly enriched with niches, b.u.t.tresses, pinnacles, and other ornaments. Not infrequently it extends across the whole breadth of the church, and is sometimes carried nearly up to the roof, as at S. Alban's Abbey, Durham and Gloucester Cathedrals, S. Saviour's, Southwark and in that remarkably fine example at Christchurch, Hants. In village churches they are mostly very simple, and generally have no ornaments formed in the wall, though niches and corbels are sometimes provided to carry images, and that part of the wall immediately over the altar is panelled, as at S. Michael's, Oxford; Solihull, Warwickshire; Euston and Hanwell, Oxfordshire, etc.

It is interesting to note that the open fire-hearth, once used in domestic halls, was also called a "reredos."

CHAPTER IX.

BELLS AND BELFRIES.

The history of bells is lost in antiquity, and little is known about them previous to the XVth century. It is probable, however, that they were used in India and China centuries before they reached Europe.

Bells were used by the Romans for many secular purposes, and although their use was sanctioned by the Christian Church about 400 A.D., they were not in general use in England until 650 A.D.

The earliest bells were hand bells, quadrangular in shape, and made of thin plates of copper or iron riveted together, and their abominable sound when struck must have been one of their chief merits, as the early bells were much used for the purpose of frightening the devil and other evil spirits.

Our oldest bells are hand bells, S. Patrick's bell at Belfast (1091) and S. Ninian's bell at Edinburgh, which is probably of even earlier date.

From 1550 to 1750 was the golden age of production for bells, more especially so in Belgium and the Low Countries, where the bells of the towers and belfries were rung to arouse the country in times of danger and invasion. It is quite possible that the bells used for secular and religious purposes were kept distinct. Bells played a very important part in mediaeval life, and next to cannon were regarded as the chief city guardians, for he who held the bells held the town, and the first thing done by the invader on taking a town was to melt the bells and thus destroy the means of communicating an alarm.

In England our old towns, being almost entirely constructed of wood, were liable to periodic and devastating conflagrations, which fact suggested to that genius, William the Conqueror, the inst.i.tution of Couvre-feu, or in its more popular form, Curfew, which rang at eight o'clock in the evening, when all lights were to be extinguished. The ringing of curfew has survived in many of our towns and villages to this day, but it is doubtful if the custom has been continuous from its first inst.i.tution.

The secular use of the bell is, however, only incidental, and it is in its connection with religious life that we are now concerned, for all church history, church doctrine and church custom and observances are set to bell music. Bells in fact may be said to sum up the short span of our mortal life, for the birthday, the wedding and the funeral, are all welded to religion by the church bell.

Bells were used for ecclesiastical purposes in England long before the erection of our parish churches, for Bede, speaking of the death of S.

Hilda, A.D. 680, says that "one of the sisters in the distant monastery of Hackness, thought she heard as she slept, the sound of the bell which called them to prayers," and Turketul gave to Croyland Abbey a great bell called Guthlac, and afterwards six others which he called Bartholomew and Betelin, Turketul and Tatwin, and Pega and Bega.

S. Dunstan gave bells to many of the churches in Somerset, and he also seems to have introduced bell ringing into the monasteries.

A few words may be of interest concerning the number and purposes of these monastic bells, with which the life of the monks must have been completely bound up. The _Signum_ woke up the whole community at day-break. The _Squilla_ announced the frugal meal in the refectory; but for those working in the gardens, the cloister-bell, or _Campanella_, was rung. The abbot's _Cordon_, or handbell, summoned the brothers and novices to their Superior; whilst the _Petasius_ was used to call in those working at a distance from the main building. At bed-time the _Tiniolum_ was sounded, and the _Noctula_ was rung at intervals throughout the night to call the monks to watch and pray. The _Corrigiumcula_ was the scourging bell, while the sweet-toned _Nota_, a choir bell, was rung at the consecration of the elements.

The use of the bell-tower was recognised in the ancient Saxon law, which gave the t.i.tle of thane to anyone who had a church with a bell-tower on his estate, and two of our most interesting Saxon churches, Brixworth and Brigstock, both in Northamptonshire, have each a semi-circular tower rising together with the bell-tower, and forming a staircase to it.

One of the most beautiful campaniles or bell-towers still standing is that at Evesham, in Worcestershire, which is a good specimen of Perpendicular architecture. It was built by Abbot Lichfield, the last abbot but one of the abbey, and took six years in building, and was not quite completed when the famous abbey, of which it was a final ornament, was pulled down.

In addition to this example at Evesham, detached bell-towers exist, or once existed, at Chichester, East Dereham, Glas...o...b..ry Abbey, Bruton, in Somerset, and in several other places.

Markland, in his _Remarks on Churches_, says: "The great bell-tower which once formed part of the abbey church of S. Edmundsbury was commenced about 1436. From the year 1441 to 1500 legacies were still being given towards the building. In 1461 an individual, probably a benefactor, desired to be buried _in magno ostio novi campanilis_."

In Protestant use church bells have been stripped of much of the former superst.i.tion and symbolism. They are no longer rung to announce the miracle of transubstantiation; neither are they called upon as of old for the purpose of scaring devils, demons, and other evil spirits which formed so prominent a feature in the faith of the early Christian communities.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bell Turret for 3 Bells. Radipole, Dorset.]

Closely connected with the subject of bells and belfries are the bell-gables or bell-turrets, so frequently found at the west ends of our smaller churches which have no towers. They usually contain but one bell, but are sometimes found with two, and at Radipole Church, near Weymouth, the bell-turret was originally designed to carry three bells.

They are generally most picturesque little features of which a few may be of Norman date, but by far the greater number of them are Early English, a style in which they are frequently found. In addition to these bell-turrets at the western ends of our churches one sometimes finds a similar, but smaller, erection at the eastern end of the roof of the nave, but used for a very different purpose, for while the bell at the western end was rung to summon the parishioners to service, that at the eastern end, known as the Sanctus or Ma.s.s-bell, was rung on the elevation of the Host during the celebration of ma.s.s; although usually placed on the apex of the roof, this bell sometimes occupied a position in the lantern or tower, or in a turret of larger dimensions. In churches where no turret existed it was carried in the hand, and such is now the prevailing practice on the continent. The turret for the Sanctus bell still exists at Barnstaple, Devon, and St. Peter Port, Guernsey. The Sanctus bell was generally made of silver, and occasionally a number of little bells were hung in the middle of the church, and by means of a wheel they were all made to ring at once.

CHAPTER X.

THE SPIRE; ITS ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT.