The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture Part 12

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 superst.i.tion, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ancient Communion Table, Sunningwell Church, Berkshire.]

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 n.o.bles, or the breaking down and defacing of any image in gla.s.s 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 superst.i.tion were destroyed and abolished; whether the rood-loft was pulled down, according to the order prescribed; and if the part.i.tion 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.

By the injunctions of Grindal, archbishop of York, A. D. 1571, all altars were ordered to be pulled down to the ground, and the altar stones to be defaced and bestowed to some common use.

Pulpits of the reign of Edward the Sixth are rare, nor are those of the reign of Elizabeth very common. The pulpit in Fordington Church, Dorsetshire, of the latter period, is of stone, the upper part worked in plain oblong panels; and a kind of escutcheon within one of these bears the date 1592; the lower part or bas.e.m.e.nt of this pulpit is circular in form.

The richly embroidered and costly vestments and antependia or frontals, of a period antecedent to the Reformation, were in some instances converted into coverings for the altar or communion table, or into hangings for the pulpit and reading desk. In Little Dean Church, Gloucestershire, the covering for the reading desk is formed out of an ancient sacerdotal vestment, probably a cope, of velvet, embroidered with portraits of saints. The cushion of the pulpit of East Langdon Church, near Dover, is made out of either an ancient antependium or vestment; the material consists of very thick crimson silk, embroidered with sprigs, and in the centre of the hanging are two figures supposed to represent the salutation of the Virgin, who is kneeling before a faldstool.

We occasionally, though rarely, meet with ancient charity-boxes of a date anterior to the Reformation: the churches of Wickmere, Loddon, and Causton, in Norfolk, still retain such[226-*]. At the Reformation, however, they were first required to be set up in churches. The ancient poor-box in Trinity Church, Coventry, is an excellent specimen of the Elizabethan era, and the shaft which supports it is of stone, covered with arabesque scroll-work and other detail peculiar to that age; but most of the old charity-boxes are of the seventeenth century.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ancient Charity-box, Trinity Church, Coventry.]

Towards the close of the sixteenth century the practice of preaching by an hour-gla.s.s, set in an iron frame affixed to the pulpit or projecting from the wall near it, began to prevail; and in the succeeding century this practice became quite common. In the churchwardens' accounts for St.

Mary's Church, Lambeth, occurs the following: "A. 1579, Payde to Yorke for the frame on which the hower standeth,--..1..4;" and in the churchwardens'

accounts of St. Helen's Church, Abingdon, is an item, "Anno MDXCI. payde for an houre gla.s.s for the pilpit, 4_d._" In the parochial accounts for St. Mary's, Shrewsbury, A. D. 1597, is a charge "for removing the desk and other necessaries about the pulpit, and for makeinge a thing for the hower gla.s.se, 9_d._" In Shawell Church, Isle of Wight, the old iron stand for the hour-gla.s.s still remains affixed to a pier adjoining the pulpit; it is composed of two flat circular hoops or rings, one at some distance above the other, annexed or attached and kept in position by four vertical bars of iron, and the lower ring has cross-bars to sustain the gla.s.s. In Ca.s.sington Church, Oxfordshire, projecting from the wall by the side of the pulpit, is an iron stand for the hour-gla.s.s, consisting of two circular hoops or rings of iron, connected by four wrought iron bars, worked in the middle; and across the lower ring or hoop is an iron bar or stay. In High Laver Church, Ess.e.x, the iron stand for the gla.s.s still remains, and is in fashion not unlike a cresset, having only one hoop or ring encircling the top, and supported on four iron bars, which cross in curves at the bottom. Many other churches might be enumerated in which the stand for the hour-gla.s.s is still preserved; and the hour-gla.s.s itself, together with its frame, is said to be retained in South Burlingham Church, Norfolk. An hour-gla.s.s within a rich and peculiar frame, supported on a spiral column, and apparently of the latter part of the seventeenth century, is yet preserved in St. Alban's Church, Wood Street, London.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hour-gla.s.s Frame, Shawell Church, Isle of Wight.]

To the close of the sixteenth century the mode of pewing with open low-backed seats continued to prevail; the ends of these seats were not covered with tracery or arched panel-work, but were plain, though they sometimes terminated with a finial. In the nave of Stanton St. John Church, Oxfordshire, are some old open pews or seats, apparently of the reign of Henry the Eighth, the backs of which are divided diamond-wise, and form a kind of lattice-work, and the ends terminate in grotesque heads. In Harrington Church, Worcestershire, are some open seats of plain workmanship, bearing the date of 1582. The church of Sunningwell, Berkshire, is fitted up with a range of open seats on each side of the nave, without any ornament, with the exception of a large carved finial at the end of each seat. In Cowley Church, near Oxford, are open seats of the date of 1632, which have at the ends finials carved in the shallow angular designs of that period. All these seats are appropriately placed, or disposed facing the east, and none are turned with the backs towards the altar[230-*]. About the commencement of the seventeenth century our churches began to be disfigured by the introduction of high pews, an innovation which did not escape censure; for, as Weaver observes, "Many monuments of the dead in churches in and about this citie of London, as also in some places in the countrey, are covered with seates or pewes, made high and easie for the parishioners to sit or sleepe in; a fashion of no long continuance, and worthy of reformation[231-*]." The high pews set up in the early part of this century are easily distinguished by the flat and shallow carved scroll and arabesque work with which the sides and doors are covered. In the directions given on the primary visitation of Wren, bishop of Norwich, A. D. 1636, we find an order "that the chancels and alleys in the church be not encroached upon by building of seats; and if any be so built, the same to be removed and taken away; and that no pews be made over high, so that they which be in them cannot be seen how they behave themselves, or the prospect of the church or chancel be hindered; and therefore that all pews which within do much exceed a yard in height be taken down near to that scantling, unless the bishop by his own inspection, or by the view of some special commissioner, shall otherwise allow."

From a paper found among secretary Cecil's MSS.[232-*], it appears that in 1564 some ministers performed divine service and prayers in the chancel, others in the body of the church, and some _in a seat made in the church_; and in the parochial accounts of St. Mary's Church, Shrewsbury, A. D.

1577, is an entry "for coloringe the curate's pew and dask;" but no public notice of the modern reading desk, or, as it was called, the "reading pew," occurs till 1603, when, in the ecclesiastical canons then framed, it was enjoined that besides the pulpit a fitting or convenient seat should be constructed for the minister to read service in; and in allusion to the reading desk, Bishop Sparrow, in his Rationale of the Book of Common Prayer, observes, "This was the ancient custom of the church of England, that the priest who did officiate in all those parts of the service which were directed to the people turned himself towards them, as in the absolution; but in those parts of the office which were directed to G.o.d immediately, as prayers, hymns, lauds, confessions of faith or sins, he turned from the people; and for that purpose, in many parish churches of late, the reading pew had one desk for the Bible, looking towards the people to the body of the church, another for the prayer-book, looking towards the east or upper end of the chancel. And very reasonable was this usage; for when the people was spoken to it was fit to look towards them, but when G.o.d was spoken to it was fit to turn from the people." And so he goes on to explain the custom of turning to the east in public prayer.

In Bishop Wren's directions it was enjoined that the minister's reading desk should not stand with the back towards the chancel, nor too remote or far from it.

The double reading desk is still occasionally met with, as in East Ilsley Church, Berkshire, where is a kind of double reading desk so that the minister can turn himself either towards the west or south. In Priors Salford Church, Warwickshire, is an old carved reading pew bearing the date of its construction, 1616; and in St. Peter's Church, Dorchester, Dorsetshire, and in Sherbourne Church, in the same county, are reading pews which evidently, from the style and the carved work with which they are covered, were constructed in the early part of the seventeenth century.

The enclosing of the communion table in the church of Stow, in the county of Norfolk, by rails, about the year 1622, is noticed by Weaver, who states that the vicar and churchwardens pulled down a tomb to make room for the rail.

In Bishop Wren's diocesan directions it was ordered that the communion table in every church should always stand close under the east wall of the chancel, the ends thereof north and south, and that the rail should be made before it, reaching up from the north wall to the south wall, near one yard in height, so thick with pillars that dogs might not get in.

But we find the situation of the altar or communion table, and the reason of its severance by means of rails, more particularly noticed in the canons entertained by the convocation held in 1640. In these (after an allusion to the fact that many had been misled against the rites and ceremonies of the church of England, and had taken offence at the same upon an unjust supposal that they were introductive unto popish superst.i.tions, whereas they had been duly and ordinarily practised by the whole church during a great part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and that though since that time they had by subtle practices begun to fall into disuse, and in place thereof other foreign and unfitting usages by little and little to creep in, yet in the royal chapels and many other churches most of them had been ever constantly used and observed) it was declared that the standing of the communion table sideway under the east window of every chancel was in its own nature indifferent[235-*]; yet as it had been ordered by the injunctions of Queen Elizabeth that the holy tables should stand in the places where the altars stood, it was judged fit and convenient that all churches should conform themselves in this particular to the example of the cathedral and mother churches; and it was declared that this situation of the holy table did not imply that it was or ought to be esteemed a true and proper altar, whereon Christ was again really sacrificed; but that it was and might be called an altar, in that sense in which the primitive church called it an altar, and in no other. And because experience had shewn how irreverent the behaviour of many people was in many places, (some leaning, others casting their hats, and some sitting upon, some standing, and others sitting under the communion table, in time of divine service,) for the avoiding of which and like abuses it was thought meet and convenient that the communion tables in all churches should be decently severed with rails, to preserve them from such or worse profanations.

Communion rails carved in the nondescript style, almost peculiar to the reign of Charles the First, are preserved in St. Giles's Church, Oxford; in the Lady Chapel, Winchester Cathedral; in the Church of St. Cross, near Winchester; in the choir of Worcester Cathedral; and in Andover Church, Hants: in which last instance the rails are composed of open semicircular arches, supported on bal.u.s.ter columns, with pendants similar to hip k.n.o.bs hanging from the arches; but specimens of altar rails of a period antecedent to the Restoration are not often to be met with, the reason for which will be adduced.

By the canons of 1603 the churchwardens or questmen were to provide in every church a comely and decent pulpit, to be set in a convenient place within the same, and there to be seemly kept for the preaching of G.o.d's word. Carved pulpits set up between the years 1603 and 1640 are numerous, and the sides are more or less embellished with circular-arched panels, flat and shallow scroll-work, and other decorative detail in fashion at that period; and not a few bear the precise date of their construction.

In the nave of Bristol Cathedral is a stone pulpit, ascended to by means of a circular flight of steps; the sides are panelled and ornamented with escutcheons surrounded by scroll-work, and it bears the date of 1624.

In Ashington Church, Somersetshire, is a pulpit with the date 1627.

In Bradford Abbas Church, Dorsetshire, is a fine carved wooden pulpit and sounding-board, and on it appears the date 1632.

The date of 1625 appears on a fine carved wooden pulpit, the sides of which are covered with semicircular-headed panels, in Huish Episcopi Church, Somersetshire.

In one of the churches at Wells is a fine wooden pulpit, of the date 1636; at the angles are columns of semi-cla.s.sic design, fantastically carved; the panels are curiously ornamented with figures in relief, and it is supported on a stand composed of a square and four detached columns, above which are represented a number of birds with large beaks; the sounding-board over corresponds in design with the pulpit.

A very fine carved wooden pulpit, the sides of which are embellished with circular-arched panel and scroll-work, with the date 1640, and a sounding-board over, is contained in Cerne Abbas Church, Dorsetshire.

Many carved pulpits of this era have, however, no a.s.signed date; they are commonly placed at the north or south-east angle of the nave, but never in the middle of the aisle, so as to obstruct the view of the communion table.

The commandments were again, by the canons of 1603, ordered to be set upon the east end of every church, where the people might best see and read the same; and other chosen sentences were to be written upon the walls of the churches in places convenient.

On the south wall of Rowington Church, Warwickshire, are sentences painted with a border of scroll-work; the like also occur at Astley Church, in the same county; and on the walls of Bradford Abbas Church, Dorsetshire, are sentences of scripture painted in black-lettered characters within panels surrounded by scroll-work.

By the same canons the churchwardens were required to provide, if such had not been already provided, a strong chest, with a hole in the upper part thereof, having three keys, of which one was to remain in the custody of the minister, and the other two in the custody of the churchwardens; which chest was to be set and fastened in the most convenient place, to the intent the parishioners might put into it their alms for their poor neighbours.

In the retro-choir, Sherbourne Church, Dorsetshire, is a poor-box with three locks; and a carved poor-box, of the early part of the seventeenth century, is preserved in Harlow Church, Ess.e.x. In Elstow Church, Bedfordshire, are the remains of a poor-box of the same period. In Clapham Church, in the same county, is an old poor-box, the cover of which is gone, on which are the initials I. W., and the date 1626: this is fixed on a plain wooden pillar near the south door; and in the south aisle of Bletchley Church, Buckinghamshire, is an oak pillar or shaft surmounted by a poor-box, with an inscription carved on it of "Remember the Pore," and the date 1637[240-*].

The communion tables of the early part of this century were not so richly carved as those of the reign of Elizabeth, and in general the pillar-legs were plain and not so bulging; but the frieze or upper part of the frame-work, on which the table rested, was often covered with shallow and flat carved panel and scroll-work, and sometimes with the date of its construction.

In the church of St. Lawrence, at Evesham, the communion table bears the date of 1610; and round the frieze is carved an inscription, stating by whom it was given. In Cerne Abbas Church, Dorsetshire, is a carved communion table, bearing the date of 1638. The communion table in G.o.dshill Church, Isle of Wight, is supported on four carved bulging pillar-legs; and round the frieze, below the ledge of the table, is the following inscription:

"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 p???es??, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Table, (temp. Charles I.,) Chipping-Warden Church, Northamptonshire.]

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 superst.i.tious, 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 superst.i.tious 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 gla.s.s, 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, pa.s.sed 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.

Under colour of these ordinances the beauty of the cathedrals and churches was injured to an extent hardly credible; the monuments of the dead were defaced, and bra.s.ses torn away, in the iconoclastic fury which then raged; the very tombs were violated; and the havoc made of church ornaments, and destruction of the fine painted gla.s.s with which most church windows then abounded, may in some degree be estimated from the account given by one Dowsing, a parliamentary visitor appointed under a warrant from the Earl of Manchester for demolishing the so called superst.i.tious pictures and ornaments of churches within the county of Suffolk, who kept a journal, with the particulars of his transactions, in the years 1643 and 1644: these were chiefly comprised in the demolition of numerous windows filled with painted gla.s.s, in the breaking down of altar rails and organ cases, in levelling the steps in the chancels, in removing crucifixes, in taking down the stone crosses from the exterior of the churches, in defacing crosses on the fonts, and in the taking up (under the pretence of their being superst.i.tious) of numerous sepulchral inscriptions in bra.s.s. Nor did the churches in other parts of the country, with some exceptions, escape from a like fanatical warfare; and, in this, many of our cathedrals suffered most. But this was not enough: our sacred edifices were profaned and polluted in the most irreverent and disgraceful manner; and with the exception of the destruction which took place on the dissolution of the monastic establishments in the previous century, more devastation was committed at this time by the party hostile to the Anglican church than had ever before been effected since the ravages of the ancient Danish invaders.