Chapter IX: Of the Debased English Style (1)

Q. When did this style commence, and how long did it prevail or continue?

A. It may be said to have commenced about the year 1540, and to have continued to about the middle of the seventeenth century; but it is difficult to assign a precise date either for its introduction or discontinuance.

Q. Why is this style called the DEBASED?

A. From the general inferiority of design compared with the style it succeeded, from the meagre and clumsy execution of sculptured and other ornamental work, from the intermixture of detail founded on an entirely different school of art, and the consequent subversion of the purity of style.

Q. What may be considered as one great cause of this falling off?

A. The devastation of the monasteries, religious houses, and chantries, which followed their suppression, discouraged the study of ecclesiastical architecture, (which had been much followed by the members of the conventual foundations, who were now dispersed, in their seclusion,) and gave a fatal blow to that spirit of erecting and enriching churches which this country had for many ages possessed.

Q. How could this be the cause?

A. The expenses of erecting many of our ecclesiastical structures, or different portions of them, from time to time, in the most costly and beautiful manner, according to the style of the age in which such were built, were defrayed, some out of the immense revenues of the monasteries, which at their suppression were granted away by the crown, and others by the private munificence of individuals who frequently built an aisle, with a chantry chapel at the east end, partly inclosed by screen-work, or annexed to a church, a transept, or an additional chapel, endowed as a chantry, in order that remembrance might be specially and continually made of them in the offices of the church, according to the then prevailing usage; which chantries having been abolished, one motive for church-building was gone.

Q. What concurrent causes may also be assigned for this change?

A. The almost imperceptible introduction and advance, about this period, of a fantastic mode of architectural design and decoration, which is very apparent in the costly though in many respects inelegant monuments of this age, and in which details of ancient classic architecture were incorporated with others of fanciful design peculiar to the latter part of the sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth centuries.

Q. What are the characteristics of this style?

A. A general heaviness and inelegance of detail, doorways with pointed-arched heads exceedingly depressed in form, and also plain round-headed doorways, with key stones after the Roman or Italian semi-classic style now beginning to prevail; square-headed windows with plain vertical mullions, and the heads of the lights either round or obtusely arched, and generally without foliations; pointed windows clumsily formed, with plain mullion bars simply intersecting each other in the head, or filled with tracery miserably designed, and an almost total absence of ornamental mouldings. Indications of this style may be found in many country churches which have been repaired or partly rebuilt since the Reformation. In the interior of churches specimens of the wood-work of this style are very common, and may be perceived by the shallow and flat carved panelling, with round arches, arabesques, scroll-work, and other nondescript ornament peculiar to the age, with which the pews, reading-desks, and pulpits are often adorned. The screens of this period are constructed in a semi-classic style of design, with features and details of English growth, and are often surmounted with scroll-work, shields, and other accessories. Of this description of work the screen in the south aisle of Yarnton Church, Oxfordshire, constructed A. D. 1611, may be instanced as a curious specimen.

Q. What peculiarity may be noted in the alterations and additions of this era?

A. A very common practice prevailed, from about the middle of the sixteenth century, when any alteration or addition was made in or to a church, of affixing a stone in the masonry, with the date of such in figures. Thus over the east window of Hillmorton Church, Warwickshire, (which is a pointed window of four lights, formed by three plain mullions curving and intersecting each other in the head, which is filled with nearly lozenge-shaped lights, but all without foliations,) is a stone bearing the date of 1640. In the south wall of the tower of the same church (which is low, heavy, and clumsily built, without any pretension to architectural design) is a stone to denote the period of its erection, which bears the date of 1655. Pulpits, communion-tables, church chests, poor-boxes, and pewing of the latter part of the sixteenth and of the seventeenth century, also very frequently exhibit, in figures carved on them, the precise periods of their construction.

Q. What specimens are there of this style of late or debased and mixed Gothic?

A. Annexed to Sunningwell Church, Berkshire, is a singular porch or building, sexagonal in form, at the angles of which are projecting columns of the Ionic order supporting an entablature. On each side of this building, except that by which it communicates with the church, and that in which the doorway is contained, is a plain window of the Debased Gothic style, of one light, with a square head and hood moulding over. The doorway is nondescript, neither Roman or Gothic. This building is supposed to have been erected by Bishop Jewell. The chapel of St. Peter’s College, Cambridge, finished in 1632, exhibits in the east wall a large pointed window, clumsily designed, in the Debased style, and divided by mullions into five principal lights, round-headed, but trefoiled within; three series of smaller lights, rising one above the other, all of which are round-headed and trefoiled, fill the head of the window, the composition of which, though comparatively rude, is illustrative of the taste of the age. On each side of the window, on the exterior, is a kind of semi-classic niche. In Stowe Church, Northamptonshire, are a number of windows inserted at a general reparation of the church in 1639; these are square-headed, and have a label or hood moulding over, and are mostly divided into three obtusely pointed-arched lights, without foliations. Under the windows of the south aisle is a string-course, more of a semi-classic contour than Gothic. On the south side is a plain round-headed doorway, inserted at the same period. The tower and south aisle of Yarnton Church, Oxfordshire, erected by Sir Thomas Spencer, A. D. 1611, have the same kind of square-headed window, with arched lights without foliations, as those of Stow. Stanton-Harold Church, Leicestershire, erected A. D. 1653, is perhaps the latest complete specimen of the Debased Gothic style. Towards the end of this century Gothic mouldings appear not to have been understood, as in the attempt to reconstruct portions of churches in that style we find mouldings of classic art to prevail. Such is the case with respect to the tower of Eynesbury Church, St. Neot’s, Huntingdonshire, rebuilt in a kind of Debased Gothic and mixed Roman style, in 1687. Other instances of the kind might also be enumerated. At the commencement of the eighteenth century the Roman or Italian mode appears to have prevailed generally in the churches then erected, without any admixture even of the Debased Gothic style.

CONCLUDING CHAPTER.

ON THE INTERNAL ARRANGEMENT AND DECORATIONS OF A CHURCH.

The churches of this country were anciently so constructed as to display, in their internal arrangement, certain appendages designed with architectonic skill, and adapted purposely for the celebration of mass and other religious offices.

At the Reformation, when the ritual was changed and many of the formularies of the church of Rome were discarded, some of such appendages were destroyed; whilst others, though suffered to exist, more or less in a mutilated condition, were no longer appropriated to the particular uses for which they had been originally designed.

On entering a church through the porch on the north or south side, or at the west end, we sometimes perceive on the right hand side of the door, at a convenient height from the ground, often beneath a niche, and partly projecting from the wall, a stone basin: this was the _stoup_, or receptacle for holy water, called also the _aspersorium_, into which each individual dipped his finger and crossed himself when passing the threshold of the sacred edifice. The custom of aspersion at the church door appears to have been derived from an ancient usage of the heathens, amongst whom, according to Sozomen[154-*], the priest was accustomed to sprinkle such as entered into a temple with moist branches of olive. The stoup is sometimes found inside the church, close by the door; but the stone appendage appears to have been by no means general, and probably in most cases a movable vessel of metal was provided for the purpose; and in an inventory of ancient church goods at St. Dunstan’s, Canterbury, taken A. D. 1500, we find mentioned “a stope off lede for the holy wat^r atte the church dore.” We do not often find the stoup of so ancient a date as the twelfth century; one much mutilated, but apparently of that era, may however be met with inside the little Norman church of Beaudesert, Warwickshire, near to the south door.

The porch was often of a considerable size, and had frequently a groined ceiling, with an apartment above; it was anciently used for a variety of religious rites, for before the Reformation considerable portions of the marriage and baptismal services, and also much of that relating to the churching of women, were here performed, being commenced “ante ostium ecclesiæ,” and concluded in the church; and these are set forth in the rubric of the Manual or service-book, according to the use of Sarum, containing those and other occasional offices.

Having entered the church, the font is generally discovered towards the west end of the nave, or north or south aisle, and near the principal door; such, at least, was in most cases its original and appropriate position: this was for the convenience of the sacramental rite there administered; part of the baptismal service (that of making the infant a catechumen) having been performed in the porch or outside the door[156-*], he was introduced by the priest into the church, with the invitation, _Ingredere in templum Dei, ut habeas vitam æternam et vivas in sæcula sæculorum_; and after certain other rites and prayers the infant was carried to the font and immersed therein thrice by the priest, in the names of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity. By an ancient ecclesiastical constitution a font of stone or other durable material, with a fitting cover, was required to be placed in every church in which baptism could be administered[156-†]; and it was, as Lyndwood informs us, to be capacious enough for total immersion. Some ancient fonts are of lead, as that in Dorchester Church, Oxfordshire, and that in Childrey Church, Berkshire; both of these are cylindrical in shape, and of the Norman era, encircled with figures in relief; those on the font at Dorchester representing the twelve apostles, whilst those on that of Childrey are of bishops. Leaden fonts are also to be met with in the churches of Brookland, Kent; Wareham, Dorsetshire; and Walmsford, Northamptonshire. Square and cylindrical or truncated cone-like shaped fonts, of Norman design, supported on a basement by one or more shafts, and either plain or sculptured, are numerous; we sometimes find on them figures of the twelve apostles, sculptured in low relief; the baptism of our Saviour also was no uncommon representation. Fonts subsequent to the Norman era are not so frequently covered with sculptured figures, though such sometimes occur; they are sexagonal, septagonal, or octagonal in shape; and the different styles are easily ascertained by the architectural decorations, mouldings, tracery, and panel-work, with which they are more or less covered. On the sides of rich fonts of the fifteenth century representations of the seven sacraments were not unfrequently sculptured, as on that in Farningham Church, Kent. The covers to some rich fonts, especially to some of those of the fifteenth century, were very splendid, in shape somewhat resembling that of a spire, but the sides were covered with tabernacle-work, and decorated at the angles with small buttresses and crockets. Fonts with rich covers of this description are to be found in the churches of Ewelme, Oxfordshire; of North Walsham and of Worstead, Norfolk; and of Sudbury and of Ufford, Suffolk.[158-*]

The general situation of the tower or campanile is at the west end of the nave; it is sometimes, however, found in a different position, as at the west end of a side aisle, which is the case with respect to the churches of Monkskirby and Withybrooke, Warwickshire; or on one side of the church, as at Eynesbury Church, Huntingdonshire, and Alderbury Church, Salop; and the tower of the latter church is covered with what is called the saddle-back roof, having two gables--a peculiarity to be found in some few other churches. In cross churches the tower was generally, though not always, erected at the intersection of the transept, and between the nave and chancel. In the towers the church bells were hung, with the exception of one; without these no church was accounted complete; they were anciently consecrated with great ceremony, named and inscribed in honour of some saint, and the sound issuing from them was supposed to be of efficacy in averting the influence of evil spirits. Bells appear to have been introduced into this country in the latter part of the seventh century, but comparatively few bells are now remaining in our churches of an earlier date than the seventeenth century, since the commencement of which century most of our present church bells have been cast. Towers were also occasionally used, up to the fourteenth century, as parochial fortresses, to which in time of sudden and unforeseen danger the inhabitants of the parish resorted for awhile. The tower of Rugby Church, Warwickshire, a very singular structure built in the reign of Henry the Third, appears to have been erected for this purpose; it is of a square form, very lofty, and plain in construction, and is without a single buttress to support it; the lower windows are very narrow, and at a considerable distance from the ground; some of them are, in fact, mere loop-holes; the belfry windows are _square-headed_, of two lights, simply trefoiled in the head, and divided by a plain mullion; the only entrance was through the church; it has also a fire-place, the funnel for the conveyance of smoke being carried up through the thickness of the wall to a perforated battlement, and it altogether seems well calculated to resist a sudden attack. Other church towers of early date appear to have been erected for a double purpose: that of a campanile, as well as to afford temporary security. The towers of Newton Arlosh Church, of the Church of Burgh on the Sands, and of Great Salkeld Church, Cumberland, appear to have been constructed with a view to afford protection to the inhabitants of those villages upon any sudden invasion from the borders of Scotland, and for that purpose were strongly fortified[160-*]. Some church towers, especially in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, are round and batter, or gradually decrease in diameter as they rise upwards; most of these are of the Norman, though some are in the Early English, style; that at Little Saxham Church, Suffolk, may be adduced as a specimen. Spires in some instances appear to have served as landmarks, to guide travellers through woody districts and over barren downs. The spire of Astley Church, Warwickshire, now destroyed, was so conspicuous an object at a distance, that it was denominated the lantern of Arden. The spires of the churches of Monkskirby and Clifton, in the same county, now also destroyed, were formerly noticed as eminent landmarks.

Anciently the body of the church appears to have contained no other fixed seats for the congregation than a solid mass of masonry raised against the wall, and forming a long stone bench or seat. A bench of this description runs along great part of the north, west, and south sides of the Norman church of Parranforth, Cornwall. In the Norman conventual church of Romsey plain stone benches of this description occur; they are likewise to be met with in Salisbury and other cathedrals; also in some of our ancient parish churches, as in the south aisle of Kidlington Church, Oxfordshire. Seats for the use of the congregation are noticed in the synod of Exeter, held A. D. 1287. Open wooden benches or pew-work are rarely, if at all, met with of an earlier era than the fifteenth century, when the practice of pewing the body of the church with open wooden seats, if not then introduced, began to prevail. In 1458 we meet with a testamentary bequest of money “to make seats called puying,” and several of our churches still retain considerable remains of the ancient open seats of the fifteenth century. At Finedon, in Northamptonshire, the body of the church and aisles are almost entirely filled with low open seats, with carved tracery at the ends, disposed in four distinct rows; so that the whole of the congregation might sit facing the east. Similar seats occur in Culworth Church, in the same county, and these are likewise of the fifteenth century. The pulpit was anciently disposed towards the eastern part of the body of the church, but not in the centre of the aisle. Pulpits are now rarely to be found of an earlier date than the fifteenth century, when they appear to have been introduced into many churches, though not to have become a general appendage. Ancient pulpits of that era, whether of wood or stone, are covered with panel-work tracery and mouldings; and some exhibit signs of having been once elaborately painted and gilt. Mention, however, is made of pulpits at a much earlier period; for in the year 1187 one was set up in the abbey church, Bury St. Edmund’s, from which, we are told, the abbot was accustomed to preach to the people in the vulgar tongue and provincial dialect[164-*]. The most ancient pulpit, perhaps, existing in this country, is that in the refectory of the abbey (now in ruins) of Beaulieu, Hampshire: it is of stone, and partly projects from the wall, and is ornamented with mouldings, sculptured foliage, and a series of blank trefoiled pointed arches, in the style of the thirteenth century. The church of the Holy Trinity, at Coventry, contains a fine specimen of a stone pulpit of the fifteenth century. In Rowington Church, in the county of Warwick, is a stone pulpit of the same age as that at Coventry, but much plainer in design. At Long Sutton Church, Somersetshire, is a splendid wooden pulpit of the fifteenth century, painted and gilt; and the sides are covered with ogee-headed niches, with angular-shaped buttresses between; but the pulpits of this era may be distinguished without difficulty by the peculiar architectural designs they exhibit.

We now approach the division between the nave or body of the church and the chancel or choir: this was formed by a beautiful and highly decorated screen, sometimes of stone, but generally of wood, panel and open-work tracery, painted and gilt: above this was a cross-beam, which formed a main support to the rood-loft, a gallery in which the crucifix or rood and the accompanying images of the blessed Virgin and St. John were placed so as to be seen by the parishioners in the body of the church, and also in accordance with the traditional belief that the position of our Saviour whilst suspended on the cross was facing the west. The passage to the rood-loft was generally up a flight of stone steps in the north or south wall of the nave; but as the rood-loft frequently extended across the aisles, we sometimes meet with a small turret annexed to the east end of one of the aisles for the approach. Though the introduction of the lattice-work division between the chancel and nave may be traced in the eastern church to the fourth century, we possess in our own churches few remains of screen-work of earlier date than the fifteenth century; and it appears probable that wooden screen-work before that period was not common, and that in most instances a curtain or veil was used for the purpose of division. The rood-loft generally projected in front, so as to form a kind of groined cove, the ribs of which sprang or diverged from the principal uprights of the screen beneath. In Long Sutton Church, Somersetshire, is a splendid wooden rood-loft, elaborately carved, painted, and gilt, which extends across the whole breadth of the church, and is approached by means of a staircase turret on the south side of the church. In the churches of Great Handborough, Enstone, Great Rollwright, and Hook Norton, Oxfordshire, are considerable remains of the ancient rood-loft, and numerous other instances where it is still retained could be adduced. Sometimes this gallery was so small as to admit of the rood and two attendant images only, and had no apparent access to it, as that in Wormleighton Church, Warwickshire. Hardly a rood-loft is, however, remaining of earlier date than the fifteenth century; prior to that period, and in many instances even during it, the crucifix or rood and its attendant images appear to have been affixed to a transverse beam extending horizontally across the chancel arch; this was sometimes richly carved, and a beam of this description still exists in the chancel of Little Malvern Church, Worcestershire. An earlier date than the eleventh century can hardly be assigned for the introduction of the rood, with the figures of St. Mary and St. John, into our churches, though in illuminated manuscripts somewhat before that period we find such figures pourtrayed with the crucifix[167-*]. In the abbey church, Bury St. Edmund’s, the rood and the figures of St. Mary and St. John, which were placed over the high altar, were (as we are informed by Joceline, who wrote his Chronicle in the twelfth century) the gift of Archbishop Stigand[167-†]. Gervase, in describing the work of Lanfranc in Canterbury Cathedral, as it appeared before the fire, A. D. 1174, notices the rood-beam, which sustained a large crucifix and the images of St. Mary and St. John, as extended across the church between the nave and central tower[168-*].

All the carved wooden roods appear to have been destroyed at the Reformation in compliance with the injunctions issued for that purpose. We occasionally meet, however, with bas relief sculptures of our Saviour extended on the cross, with a figure on each side representing the Virgin and St. John, but in a mutilated condition. On the outside of the west wall of the south transept of Romsey Church, Hants, and close to the entrance from the cloisters into the church, is a large stone rood or crucifix sculptured in relief, with a hand above emerging from a cloud[169-*]: this is apparently of the twelfth century. Small sculptured representations of the rood, with the figures of St. Mary and St. John, still exist on one of the buttresses near the west door of Sherborne Church, Dorsetshire; over a south doorway of Burford Church, Oxfordshire; and in the wall of the tower of the church of St. Lawrence, Evesham.

Outside the roof of some churches, on the apex of the eastern gable of the nave, is a small open arch or turret, in which formerly a single bell was suspended: this was the _sanctus_ or _sacringe_ bell, thus placed that, being near the altar, it might be the more readily rung, when, in concluding the ordinary of the mass, the priest pronounced the _Ter-sanctus_, to draw attention to that more solemn office, the canon of the mass, which he was now about to commence; it was also rung at a subsequent part of the service, on the elevation and adoration of the host and chalice, after consecration[171-*]; but though the arch remains on the gable of the nave of many churches, the bell thus suspended is retained in few; amongst which may be mentioned those of Long Compton, Whichford, and Brailes, in Warwickshire, where this bell is still preserved hung in an arch at the apex of the nave, with the rope hanging down between the chancel and nave[171-†]. Mention of this bell is thus made in the Survey of the Priory of Sandwell, in the county of Stafford, taken at the time of the Reformation: “Itm the belframe standyng betw: the chauncell and the church, w^t. a litle _sanct_^m bell in the same.” Generally, however, a small hand-bell was carried and rung at the proper times in the service, by the acolyte; and in inventories of ancient church furniture we find it often noticed as “_a sacringe bell_;” but in an inventory of goods belonging to the chapel of Thorp, Northamptonshire, it is described as “a litle _sanctus bell_.” A small sacringe bell, of bell-metal, with the exception of the clapper, which was of iron, was in 1819 discovered on the removal of some rubbish from the ruins of St. Margaret’s Priory, Barnstable; and within the last few years a small sanctus bell was found on the site of a religious house at Warwick[172-*].

Passing under the rood-loft, we enter the chancel: this was so called from the screen or lattice-work (cancelli) of stone or wood by which it was separated from the nave, and which succeeded the curtain or veil which anciently formed this division of the church[173-*].

We often perceive in the choirs of conventual churches, as in our cathedrals, on either side of the entrance, facing the east, and also on the north and south sides, a range of wooden stalls divided into single seats, peculiarly constructed, the _formulæ_ or forms of which were movable, and carved on the _subselliæ_ or under-sides with grotesque, satirical, and often irreverend devices: these were appropriated to the monks or canons of the monastery or college to which the church was attached. The form of each stall, when turned up so as to exhibit the carved work on the under-part, furnished a small kind of seat or ledge, constructed for the purpose of inclining against rather than sitting on; and this was called the _misericorde_ or _miserere_. The _formulæ_ or forms when down, and the misericordes when the forms were turned up, were used as the season required for penitential inclinations[174-*]. In front of these stalls was a desk, ornamented on the exterior with panelled tracery; and over the stalls, especially of those of cathedral churches, canopies of tabernacle work richly carved were sometimes disposed. In Winchester Cathedral we have perhaps the most early, chaste, and beautiful example of the canons’ stalls, with canopies over, that are to be met with, although a greater excess of minute carved ornament may be found in the canopies which overhang the stalls in other cathedrals. In old conventual churches, now no longer used as such, the stalls have been often removed from their original position to other parts of the church, and they appear to have varied in number according to that of the fraternity.

In the choirs of cathedral and conventual churches, and in the chancels of some other churches, a movable desk, at which the epistle and gospel were read, was placed: this was often called the eagle desk, from its being frequently sustained on a brazen eagle with expanded wings, elevated on a stand, emblematic of St. John the evangelist. Eagle desks are generally found either of the fifteenth or seventeenth century; notices of them occur, however, much earlier. In the Louterell Psalter, written circa A. D. 1300, an eagle desk supported on a cylindrical shaft, banded midway down by an annulated moulding in the style of the thirteenth century, is represented; and in an account of ornaments belonging to Salisbury Cathedral, A. D. 1214, we find mentioned _Tuellia una ad Lectricum Aquilæ_. Besides the brass eagle desks which still remain in use in several of our cathedrals, and in the chapels of some of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, fine specimens are preserved in Redcliffe Church, Bristol, of the date 1638; in Croydon Church, Surrey; and in the church of the Holy Trinity at Coventry; other instances might also be enumerated. Sometimes we meet with ancient brass reading-desks which have not the eagle in front, but both the sides are sloped so as to form a double desk: of these, examples of the fifteenth century may be found in Yeovil Church, Somersetshire, and in the chapel of Merton College, Oxford. Ancient wooden reading-desks, either single or double, are also occasionally found; some of these are richly carved, others are comparatively plain, but all partake more or less of the architectonic style of the age in which they were severally constructed, and from which their probable dates may be ascertained. In Bury Church, Huntingdonshire, is a wooden desk with a single slope, and the vertical face presented in front is covered with arches and other carved ornaments: this perhaps may be referable to the latter part of the fourteenth century. A rich double desk, of somewhat later date, with the shaft supported by buttresses of open-work tracery, is preserved in Ramsey Church, Huntingdonshire. In Aldbury Church, Hertfordshire, is an ancient double lecturn or reading desk, of wood, of the fifteenth century, much plainer in design than those at Bury and Ramsey; the shaft is angular, with small buttresses at the angles, and with a plain angular-shaped moulded capital and base, which latter is set on a cross-tree. In Hawstead Church, Suffolk, is a wooden desk with little ornament, supported on an angular shaft with an embattled capital, and moulded base with leaves carved in relief: this is apparently of the latter part of the fourteenth century. The ancient wooden desks found in some of our churches must not, however, be confounded with a more numerous class constructed and used subsequent to the Reformation.

Proceeding up the chancel or choir, we ascend by three steps to the platform, on which the high altar anciently stood: this was so called to distinguish it from other altars, of which there were often several, in the same church; high mass was celebrated at it, whereas the other altars were chiefly used for the performance of low or private masses. The most ancient altars were of wood, afterwards they were constructed of stone; those of the primitive British churches are spoken of by St. Chrysostom. By a decree of the council of Paris, held A. D. 509, no altar was to be built but of stone. Amongst the excerptions of Ecgbert, archbishop of York A. D. 750, was one that no altars should be consecrated with chrism but such as were made of stone; and by the council of Winchester, held under Lanfranc A. D. 1076, altars were enjoined to be of stone. The customary form of such was a mass of stone supporting an altar table or slab, and resembling the tombs of the martyrs, at which the primitive Christians held their meetings; from which circumstance it became customary to enclose in every altar relics of some saint, and without such relics an altar was esteemed incomplete.

Pertaining to the high altar, which was covered with a frontal and cloths, and anciently enclosed at the sides with curtains suspended on rods of iron projecting from the wall, was a crucifix, which succeeded to the simple cross placed on the altars of the Anglo-Saxon churches; a pair[180-*] of candlesticks, generally with spikes instead of sockets, on which lights or tapers were fixed; a pix, in which the host was kept reserved for the sick; a pair of cruets, of metal, in which were contained the wine and water preparatory to their admixture in the eucharistic cup; a sacring bell; a pax table, of silver or other metal, for the kiss of peace, which took place shortly before the host was received in communion; a stoup or stok, of metal, with a sprinkle for holy water; a censer or thurible[181-*], and a ship, (a vessel so called,) to hold frankincense; a chrismatory[181-†], an offering basin, a basin which was used when the priest washed his hands, and a chalice and paten. Costly specimens of the ancient pix, containing small patens for the reception of the host, are preserved amongst the plate belonging to New College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. A pix of a much plainer description, but without its cover, of the metal called latten, was until recently preserved in the church of Enstone, Oxfordshire: the body of this was of a semi-globular form, supported on an angular stem, with a knob in the midst, and in appearance not unlike a chalice. The monstrance, in which the host was exhibited to the people, and which has been sometimes confounded with the pix[182-*], does not appear to have been introduced into our churches before the fifteenth century; on the suppression of the monasteries and chantries we find it noticed in the inventories then taken of church furniture, as in that of the Priory of Ely, where it is called “a stonding monstral for the sacrament;” and in that of St. Augustine’s Monastery, Canterbury, where it is described as “one monstrance, silver gilt, with four glasses.”

Near the high altar we frequently find, in the south wall of the chancel, a series of stone seats, sometimes without but generally beneath plain or enriched arched canopies, often supported by slender piers which serve to divide the seats. In most instances these seats are three in number, but they vary from one to five, and are the _sedilia_ or seats formerly appropriated during high mass to the use of the officiating priest and his attendant ministers, the deacon and sub-deacon, who retired thither during the chanting of the _Gloria in excelsis_, and some other parts of the service[183-*]. The sedilia sometimes preserve the same level, but generally they graduate or rise one above another, and that nearest the altar, being the highest, was occupied by the priest; the other two by the deacon and sub-deacon in succession[183-†]. We do not often meet with sedilia of so early an era as the twelfth century; there are, however, instances of such, as in the church of St. Mary, at Leicester, where is a fine Norman triple sedile, divided into graduating seats by double cylindrical piers with sculptured capitals, and the recessed arches they support are enriched on the face with a profusion of the zigzag moulding. In the south wall of the choir of Broadwater Church, Sussex, is a stone bench beneath a large semicircular Norman arch, the face of which is enriched with the chevron or zigzag moulding. In Avington Church, Berkshire, is a stone beneath a plain segmental arch. Norman sedilia also occur in the churches of Earls Barton, Northamptonshire, and of Wellingore, Lincolnshire. From the commencement of the thirteenth century up to the Reformation sedilia became a common appendage to a church, and the styles are easily distinguished by their peculiar architectonic features. Some are without canopies, and are excessively plain. On the south side of the chancel of Minster Lovel Church, Oxfordshire, is a stone bench without a canopy or division, and plain stone benches thus disposed are found in the chancel of Bloxham Church, Oxfordshire, and of Rowington Church, Warwickshire. In Sedgeberrow Church, Gloucestershire, are two sedilia without canopies; and in Standlake Church, Oxfordshire, the sedilia, three in number, are without canopies or ornament. In Spratten Church, Northamptonshire, is a stone bench for three persons under a plain recessed pointed arch. In Priors Hardwick Church, Warwickshire, is a sedile for the priest, and below that one double the size for the deacon and sub-deacon; both are under recessed arched canopies. Quadruple sedilia occur in the churches of Turvey and Luton, Bedfordshire; in the Mayor’s Chapel, Bristol; in Gloucester Cathedral; in the church of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire; and in Rothwell Church, Northamptonshire: these are beneath canopies, and most of them are highly enriched. Quintuple sedilia sometimes occur, but are very rare; in the conventual church of Southwell, Nottinghamshire, are, however, five sedilia beneath ogee-headed canopies richly ornamented. A single sedile for one person only is occasionally met with, but not often.

Eastward of the sedilia, in the same wall, is a _fenestella_ or niche, sometimes plain, but often enriched with a crocketed ogee or pedimental hood moulding in front, over the arch, which is trefoiled or cinquefoiled in the head. This niche contains a hollow perforated basin or stone drain, called the _piscina_ or _lavacrum_[186-*], into which it appears that after the priest had washed his hands, which he was accustomed to do before the consecration of the elements and again after the communion, the water was poured, as also that with which the chalice was rinsed. The usage of washing the hands before the communion is one of very high antiquity, and is expressly noticed in the Clementine Liturgy, and by St. Cyril in his mystical Catechesis[187-*]; we do not, however, find the piscina in our churches of an era earlier than the twelfth century, and even then it was of uncommon occurrence; but in the thirteenth century the general introduction is observable. In Romsey Church, Hampshire, is the shaft and basin (the latter cushion-shaped) of a curious Norman piscina: this is now lying loose, in a dilapidated state. In the south apsis of the same church is another Norman piscina, consisting of a quadrangular-shaped basin projecting from the south wall; and on the south side of the chancel of Avington Church, Berkshire, is a plain Norman piscina within a simple semicircular arched recess. The churches of Kilpeck, Herefordshire, Keelby, Lincolnshire, and Bapchild, Kent, also contain Norman piscinæ. Those of all the various styles of later date are common; they exhibit, however, an interesting variety in design and ornamental detail. The drain of the piscina communicated with a perforated stone shaft, commonly enclosed in the wall, through which the water was lost in the earth; as in the case of the piscina with its shaft taken out of the south wall of the chancel of the now destroyed church of Newnham Regis, Warwickshire. Sometimes a piscina was a subsequent addition to a structure of early date, as in the old and now demolished church of Stretton-upon-Dunsmore, Warwickshire, in the south wall of the Norman chancel of which a piscina of the latter part of the thirteenth century had been inserted.

The piscina is very common in churches even where the sedilia or stone seats are wanting, and not only in the chancel, but also in the south walls at the east end of the north and south aisles, and in mortuary chapels, as will be presently noticed; it appears, in short, to have been an indispensable appendage to an altar.

Sometimes the piscina is double, and contains two basins with drains, the one for receiving the water in which the hands had been washed, the other for the reception of the water with which the chalice was rinsed after the communion[189-*]. In Rothwell Church, Northamptonshire, on the south side of the chancel, are the vestiges of a triple piscina; the fenestella has been destroyed, but the three basins with their drains remain.

Across the _fenestella_, or niche which contains the piscina, a shelf of stone or wood may be frequently found: this was the _credence_[190-*], or table on which the chalice, paten, ampullæ, and other things necessary for the celebration of mass were, before consecration, placed in a state of readiness on a clean linen cloth; and this originated from the πρόθεσις, or side table of preparation, used in the early church; a recurrence to which ancient and primitive custom by some of the divines of the Anglican church, after the Reformation, occasioned great offence to be taken by the Puritan seceders. In some instances a side table of stone or wood was used for this purpose; and a fine credence table of stone, the sides of which are covered with panelled compartments, is still remaining on the south side of the choir, St. Cross Church, near Winchester[190-†].

The credence table, or shelf above the piscina, must not be confounded with the _ambrie_ or _locker_, a small square and plain recess usually contained in the east or north wall, near the altar. In this the chalice, paten, and other articles pertaining to the altar were kept when not in use. The wooden doors formerly affixed to these ambries have for the most part either fallen into decay or been removed, but traces of the hinges may be frequently perceived; and a locker in the north wall of the chancel of Aston Church, Northamptonshire, still retains the two-leaved wooden door. Sometimes shelves are set across the lockers. In the east wall of Earls Barton Church, Northamptonshire, is a large locker divided into two unequal parts by a stone shelf inserted in it; and in the north aisle of Salisbury Cathedral are two large triangular-headed lockers or ambries, each which[TN-6] contains two shelves.

Within the north wall of the chancel, near the altar, a large arch, like that of a tomb, may often be perceived; within this the _holy sepulchre_, generally a wooden and movable structure, was set up at Easter, when certain rites commemorative of the burial and resurrection of our Lord were anciently performed with great solemnity; for on Good Friday the crucifix and host were here deposited, and watched the following day and nights; and early on Easter morning they were removed from thence with great ceremony, and replaced on the altar by the priest. In the accounts of churchwardens of the fifteenth and early part of the sixteenth century we meet with frequent notices of payments made for watching the sepulchre at Easter[192-*]. Sometimes the sepulchre was altogether of stone, and a fixture, and enriched with architectural and sculptured detail, as in the well-known specimen at Heckington, Lincolnshire, and the fine specimen of tabernacle-work in Stanton Harcourt Church, Oxfordshire.

At the back of the high altar was affixed a reredos, or screen of tabernacle-work, costly specimens of which contained small images set on brackets under projecting canopies; an alabaster table or sculptured bas relief, placed just over the altar, was also common. The high altar reredos is still remaining, though in a mutilated condition, in the Abbey Church, St. Alban’s; it was erected A. D. 1480, and is perhaps the most splendid specimen we have; and in Bristol Cathedral a portion of the high altar reredos is also left. The chantry altar reredos is more frequently remaining, even where the altar and alabaster table[193-*] above have been destroyed; rarely, however, in a perfect state. In the seventeenth century the rich tabernacle-work was sometimes plastered over, probably to preserve it from iconoclastic violence. In many of our cathedrals, as at Gloucester, Bristol, Wells, and Worcester, and in some of the chantries attached to Henry the Seventh’s Chapel, Westminster, specimens of the chantry reredos screen, which appear to have abounded more or less with sculptured and architectural detail, are to be met with; and remains of the painting and gilding with which they were anciently covered may in some instances be traced. In a Survey of the Priory Church, Bridlington, taken at the suppression, we find noticed, “The Reredose at the highe alter representyng Criste at the assumpcyon of our Lady and the XII. appostells, w^t. dyvers other great imagys, beyng of a great heyght, ys excellently well wrought, and as well gylted.” Five small chapels are also mentioned, “w^t. fyve alters and small tables of alleblaster and imag’s.” Sometimes, however, the space behind the altar was occupied by a painted altar-piece, on wood or panel; a curious but mutilated specimen of which, of the latter part of the fifteenth century, is still preserved in the conventual church, Romsey.

Over the high altar was the great east window of the church, glazed with painted glass; other windows in the church were also thus filled. The subjects pourtrayed on the glass were sometimes scriptural, sometimes legendary. Single figures of saints, distinguished by their peculiar symbols, are common; figures of crowned heads, prelates, and warriors also frequently occur; and on some windows are depicted the arms and sometimes even the portraits of different benefactors to the church, with scrolls bearing inscriptions. We have, perhaps, few remains of ancient stained glass in our churches of a period antecedent to the thirteenth century: of this era, probably, are those curious circular designs which fill the greater portion of the lights at the back of the sedilia in Dorchester Church, Oxfordshire: one representing St. Augustine and St. Birinus, the first bishop of that ancient see; another, a priest and deacon, the former with the host, the latter bearing the ampullæ. Of this period also is some ancient stained glass in Chetwood Church, Bucks, the ground of which is covered with a kind of mosaic pattern, a usual feature in the more ancient stained glass, and the borders partake of a tendril foliage; whilst in pointed oval-shaped compartments, forming the well-known symbol _vesica piscis_, are single figures of saints and crowned heads, each clad in a vest and mantle of two different colours. In the fourteenth century single figures under rich canopies are common, but we begin to lose sight of the mosaic pattern as a back-ground. The stained glass in the windows of the choir of Merton College Chapel, Oxford, is either very early in this, or of a late period in the preceding century, and exhibits single figures under rich canopies: over the head of one of these, (the kneeling figure of a monk in his cowl,) is a scroll inscribed “_Magister Henricus de Mammesfeld me fecit_.” In the windows of Tewkesbury Abbey Church are several single figures of this period, some of knights in armour. In the chancel of Stanford Church, Northamptonshire, are single figures of the apostles in painted glass, each appearing within an ogee-headed canopy, cinquefoiled within the head and crocketed externally, and the sides of the canopy are flanked by pinnacled buttresses in stages. Specimens of stained glass of the fifteenth century are numerous in comparison with those of an earlier period; we find such in the east window of Langport Church, Somersetshire, where single figures occur of St. Clemens, St. Catherine, St. Elizabeth, and of many other saints. Some splendid remains of painted glass of the fifteenth century are likewise preserved in the windows of the choir of Ludlow Church, Salop, mostly in single figures; amongst them is the representation of St. George in armour, of the reign of Henry the Seventh; the figures of the Virgin and infant Christ may also be noticed. Towards the close of this century kneeling figures, not merely disposed single, but also in groups, formally arranged, may be observed. As a composition, wherein a better display of grouping and aerial perspective is evinced, the splendid window in St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster, of the crucifixion between the two thieves, and numerous figures in the foreground, not grouped formally but with artistical feeling, with the figures of St. George and St. Catherine on each side of the principal design, and the portraits of Henry the Seventh and his consort Elizabeth in separate compartments beneath, each kneeling before a faldstool, may be noticed. This window, which in some of the details exhibits an approach to the renaissance style, was presented to Henry the Seventh by the magistrates of Dort in Holland, to adorn his chapel at Westminster. The era of the various specimens of ancient stained glass we meet with in our churches may generally be ascertained by the costume and disposition of the figures, the form of the shields, the mosaic pattern or other back-ground, and architectural designs of the canopies.

The pavement beneath the high altar was frequently composed of small square encaustic bricks or tiles, whereon the arms of founders and benefactors, interspersed with figures, flowers, and emblematic devices, were impressed, painted, and glazed; other parts of the church were also paved with these tiles.

The walls of the church were covered with fresco paintings of the day of judgment, legendary stories, portraits of saints, and scriptural, allegorical, and historical subjects, in the conventional styles of the different ages in which such were executed, the costume and details being according to the fashion then prevailing. These paintings have in most churches been obliterated by repeated coats of whitewash, so that few perfect specimens now remain; traces of such are, however, occasionally brought to light in the alteration and reparation of our ancient churches. The subject of the judgment-day was commonly represented on the west wall of the nave, or over the chancel arch; and in the contract for the erection of the Lady Chapel, St. Mary’s Church, Warwick, A. D. 1454, is a covenant “to paint fine and curiously, to make on the west wall the dome of our Lord God Jesus, and all manner of devises and imagery thereto belonging.” The west front of the wall over the chancel arch, Trinity Chapel, Stratford-upon-Avon, was some years back found to be thus covered; but this painting, with others in the same chapel, was afterwards again obliterated[199-*]. A curious fresco painting of the last judgment, discovered a few years ago on the west face of the wall over the chancel arch, Trinity Church, Coventry, has, however, been very carefully preserved, and the coat of whitewash which tended to conceal it probably ever since the Reformation has been judiciously removed. The legend of St. Christopher, represented by a colossal figure with a beam-like walking-staff, carrying the infant Christ on his shoulders through the water, was generally painted on the north wall of the nave or body of the church. A fresco painting of this subject, half obliterated, is still apparent on the north wall of the nave of Burford Church, Oxfordshire; and other instances might be adduced. The murder of Archbishop Becket was also a very favourite subject: an early pictorial representation of the thirteenth century, of this event, is still visible on one of the walls of Preston Church, Sussex; it formed, likewise, one of the subjects represented on the walls of Trinity Chapel, Stratford-upon-Avon; and a painting of the same subject on panel, executed in the middle of the fifteenth century, was formerly suspended over or near the tomb of Henry the Fourth in Canterbury Cathedral[200-*]. Several vestiges of ancient fresco wall-paintings, more or less obliterated, are still preserved in Winchester Cathedral. The walls of our churches were even in the Anglo-Saxon era embellished with paintings; and such are described as decorating the walls of the church of Hexham in the seventh century. By the synod of Calcuith, held A. D. 816, a representation of the saint to whom a church was dedicated was required to be painted either on the wall of the church or on a tablet suspended in the church.

In most of the large conventual churches, and also in some of the smaller parochial churches, shrines containing relics of the patron or other saints were exhibited; these were either fixed and immovable, of tabernacle-work, of stone or wood, or partly of both, or were small movable feretories, which could be carried on festivals in procession. Of the fixed shrines, that in Hereford Cathedral of Bishop Cantelupe, of the date A. D. 1287, is a fine and early specimen, in very fair preservation. In the north aisle of the abbey church, Shrewsbury, are some remains of a stone shrine, which from the workmanship may be considered as a production of the early part of the fifteenth century: this is much mutilated: but the shrine of St. Frideswide, in Oxford Cathedral, the lower part of which is composed of a stone tomb, the upper part of rich tabernacle-work of wood, is still tolerably perfect: this is also of the fifteenth century. Of the small movable feretories, one apparently of the workmanship of the twelfth century, seven inches long and six high, formed of wood, enamelled and gilt, with figures on the sides representing the crucifixion, is still preserved in Shipley Church, Sussex; and a small stone reliquary or shrine of the fourteenth century was discovered a few years ago, and is now preserved in the church of Brixworth, Northamptonshire.

The organ, as a solemn musical instrument, may claim a very early origin, and has been in use in our churches from the Anglo-Saxon era. The ancient organs were small, and all the pipes were exposed. The phrase “_a pair of organs_,” so frequently met with in old inventories and church accounts, may probably have answered to the great and choir organ of a subsequent period--one instrument in two divisions. The mechanism of the old organs was rude and simple, compared with the improvements of modern times, and the cost was small; they were generally placed in the rood-loft.