Part 11 (2/2)

The walls were covered with mural paintings. The windows, soon to be

”Shorn of their gla.s.s of a thousand colourings, Through which the deepened glories once could enter,”

were then resplendent with stained gla.s.s. Above, the rood looked down on all the wors.h.i.+ppers. Everywhere there was beautifully carved woodwork, gilded and painted, tombs of knights and dames all painted and adorned, altars with rich embroidered hangings. The floor was composed of encaustic tiles, and had many memorial bra.s.ses. Armour, crests, and banners hung upon the walls. Lights burned before numerous images, and the whole appearance of our churches was gorgeous and magnificent.

Many changes have taken place since. Coatings of whitewash hide the mural paintings. Sacrilegious hands ”have broken down all the carved work with axes and hammers.” The stone altars have disappeared, and instead we have ”an honest table decently covered.” Reading-pews for the clergy were set up, and in the last century the hideous ”three decker,”

which hid the altar and utterly disfigured the sacred building. Instead of the low open seats great square high pews filled the nave. Hideous galleries were erected which obstructed the windows and hid the architectural beauties of former days. The old timber roofs were covered, and low flat ceilings subst.i.tuted. Bra.s.ses were torn up and sold by dishonest churchwardens, and old monuments broken and defaced.

The old stained-gla.s.s windows were destroyed. The Communion table was taken from the east end of the chancel, and seats erected round it.

Crosses were defaced everywhere, and crucifixes destroyed. Puritan profanation and wanton destruction devastated our churches to a degree which has never been equalled since the hordes of heathens and barbaric Danish invaders carried fire and sword into the sanctuaries of G.o.d.

[Ill.u.s.tration: READING-PEW, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, LANGLEY CHAPEL, SALOP]

Much harm was done by the Goths and Vandals of the nineteenth century.

Many old churches, replete with a thousand memories of the past, were pulled down entirely, and modern structures of ”Victorian Gothic” style erected in their place, which can have none of the precious a.s.sociations which the old churches had. Much harm was done to the old features of many churches by so-called ”restoration,” carried out by men ignorant of architecture and antiquities. But we are learning better now. The Society of Antiquaries has done much to prevent injudicious restoration and the destruction of our old churches, and if any inc.u.mbent and his paris.h.i.+oners are thinking of restoring their church, they cannot do better than to consult the secretaries of that learned body, who will show how best to preserve the interesting memorials of the past which time has spared.

CHAPTER XV

CHURCH PLATE

Spoliation--Few remains of pre-Reformation plate--Testimony of inventories--Plate found in graves of bishops--Characteristics of chalices in different periods--Inscriptions--Devices on patens-- Censers--Pyx--Monstrance--Chrismatory--Pax--Sacring bell--Elizabethan chalice--Bridal cup--Post-Reformation plate--Hall marks.

We have already mourned over the wanton destruction of much that was of intense interest and value in our churches; but the most systematic robbery and spoliation of our church goods at the time of the Reformation were carried out in the matter of church plate. Henry VIII.

stripped our cathedrals and conventual churches of almost all that was valuable, and the unscrupulous commissioners of Edward VI. performed a like office for our parish churches and chantries. A large number of the old chalices were also melted down and converted into Communion cupsduring the reigns of Edward VI. and Elizabeth. Hence of all the vast store of church plate which our churches possessed before the Reformation, at the present time throughout all England only thirty-four chalices and seventy-three patens remain. It is true that not all the ancient vessels fell into the hands of the commissioners of the king. In the churchwardens' account books of the period we read of sundry sales of church plate. Evidently the paris.h.i.+oners had some presentiment of the coming spoliation; so they sold their valuables, and kept the proceeds of the sale for ”the paving of the streets,” or other parochial necessities.

The ancient inventories of church goods show the deplorable loss of the valuables of the church which has taken place. Thus at the church of St.

Lawrence, Reading, in the year 1517, the inventory tells us of the following: a cross of silver and gilt; a censer of silver gilt; another censer; a s.h.i.+p of silver for holding incense; another s.h.i.+p of silver; two candlesticks of silver; two books bound in silver; two basins of silver; a pyx of silver gilt, with a silver pin; a monstrance of silver gilt; a silver gilt chrismatory for the holy oil; a pax; two cruets; a bell; a chalice, with a crucifix enamelled on the foot and the Trinity on the paten; another chalice, with a crucifix engraved on the foot and a hand on the paten; another chalice similarly described; another similar to first chalice; and two others, with a crucifix on the foot and a vernicle, or _vera icon_ (a representation of our Lord's face miraculously delineated on the napkin of St. Veronica). All these vessels were made of silver or silver gilt. Nor were these all the treasures. There were several reliquaries of silver gilt containing parts of the holy cross; a gridiron, with a bone of St. Lawrence, and other articles contained in silver boxes; and many books bound with silver clasps. The total weight of silver in this church amounted to seven hundred ounces.

Village churches were, of course, less sumptuously furnished than this important town church, which being situated under the shadow of one of the largest and most important abbeys in the kingdom, would receive many costly gifts and benefactors. But the inventories of village churches show that there was no lack of plate, rich altar hangings, copes, and vestments, which helped to swell the goodly heap of spoil. In country churches in Oxfords.h.i.+re there were silver chalices and patens, pyxes, censers, candlesticks, chrismatories, crosses, sanctus bells, and other articles of plate.

It was the practice in mediaeval times to place in the coffin of a bishop a chalice and paten; hence some of the earliest specimens of church plate which we possess have been recovered from episcopal graves.[3] The Rites of Durham enjoin that on the death of a bishop he was to be buried ”with a little chalice of silver, other metal, or wax” aid upon his breast within the coffin.[4] Most of these were made of pewter or lead, but some have been found of silver gilt, latten, and tin. It is perhaps scarcely necessary for our present purposes to describe these early specimens of sacred vessels, as the number of them is so limited; and few of my readers will be able to discover any mediaeval examples amongst the plate of their own church. However, I will point out a few peculiarities of the plate of each period.

The earliest chalice, used in the church of Berwick St. James, Wilts, until a few years ago, and now in the British Museum, dates from the beginning of the thirteenth century. Its bowl is broad and shallow, the stem and knot (by which the vessel was held) and foot being plain and circular. Then the makers (from 1250 to 1275) fas.h.i.+oned the stem and knot separately from the bowl and foot, and shaped them polygonally.

During the remaining years of the century the foot was worked into ornate lobes. Then the bowl is deepened and made more conical. About 1350 the custom arose of laying the chalice on its side on the paten to drain at the ablutions at Ma.s.s; and as the round-footed chalices would have a tendency to roll, the foot was made hexagonal for stability.

Henceforth all the mediaeval chalices were fas.h.i.+oned with a six-sided foot. By degrees the bowl became broader and shallower, and instead of the base having six points, its form is a s.e.xfoil without any points.

Several old chalices are engraved with the inscription--

Calicem salutaris accipiam et nomen Domini inbocabo.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHALICE AND PATEN, SANDFORD, OXFORDs.h.i.+RE _Circa_ A.D. 1301]

In one of the compartments of the base there was a representation of a crucifix, or the Virgin, or ihc, or xpc.

The usual devices on ancient patens were the _Ma.n.u.s Dei_, or hand of G.o.d, in the act of blessing; on later ones the vernicle, or face of our Lord; the Holy Trinity; the Holy Lamb; the sacred monogram. The oldest paten in existence is that found at Chichester Cathedral in a coffin, and its date is about the year 1180. In the centre is a rude engraving of the _Agnus Dei_, and it bears the inscription--

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