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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
above the chancel arch at Llanbedr-ystrad-yw in Breconshire, which
served as a background to a rood and figures of St Mary and St
John.

Fig. 15. Patrington, Yorks: interior, looking across nave from south
transept.

[Enlarge]

§ 48. Mural painting, however, was little more than a complement to

the stained or painted windows, which were the most gorgeous note
of colour in the medieval fabric. There is no more familiar feature of
medieval architecture than the gradual increase in the size of
windows, due to that constant progress in the science of
architectural construction, in which the timber-roofed parish church
followed the vaulted cathedral. The low round-headed windows of
the twelfth century were followed by the long lancets of the early
thirteenth century. Lancets gradually drew closer and closer
together, and were united with spherical openings above, until the
mullioned window with its geometrical tracery was formed. The
restless spirit of the medieval craftsman was not satisfied with
tracery imprisoned within geometrical limits: the enclosing circles
and triangles were removed, and the tracery twined in naturalistic
curves in the head of the window. Then, at the middle of the
fourteenth century, the limit of the imitation of nature was reached.
The Black Death formed a sudden division between the work of the
old school and the new age, and that formalism in window tracery
began, which lasted for years, and left its mark on our architecture
as late as the days of the Stewarts. It was long the fashion among
those who saw merely the decline in architectural detail, distinctive
of the ‘Perpendicular’ style, to speak of the magnificent
achievements of the fifteenth century masons with an overbearing
contempt. As a matter of fact, fifteenth century builders were gifted
with a power of design, and an ability to plan a parish church as a
whole, unequalled in the previous history of medieval art. They lost
their interest in sculptured detail, because their main concern was
with the broad contrasts of light, shade, and colour, which their large
windows and high walls afforded—contrasts in which there was no
use for minute detail, and the deep under-cutting and delicate
carving of the earlier styles became mere waste of time. The great
sheets of coloured glass, in which, as time went on, painting became
of more and more importance, and large figures beneath tall
canopies of white glass took the place of the smaller subjects and
more deeply coloured canopies and grounds of an earlier time,
supplied an effect fully as beautiful as that once given by the
contrasts of bold projections and deep hollows in moulded arches
and carved foliage. The mason in no small degree sacrificed his skill
to the glazier; but, in the service of the glazier, his power of noble
design on a large scale increased. No effect of colour can well
surpass that which is still to be seen in some of our late medieval
churches—the grisaille windows of the chancel at Norbury in
Derbyshire, the late fourteenth century figure glass of the north aisle
at Lowick in Northamptonshire, the fifteenth century east window of
the south aisle at St Winnow in Cornwall, the fourteenth century
Jesse tree, once in St Chad’s, and now in St Mary’s at Shrewsbury, or
the fifteenth century Jesse tree at Llanrhaiadr-yn-Cynmerch, near
Denbigh. Some of the parish churches of York are almost as rich in
glass as the cathedral itself. But, in those churches which are still so
fortunate as to retain nearly all their medieval glass, like All Saints,
North Street, at York, St Neot in Cornwall, and Fairford, the lack of
the connecting link which the mural paintings between the windows
formed in the colour-scheme is sadly felt. At Fairford, in particular,
where the wall-painting which remains is not near the windows, the
glass, in its frame of cold plastered wall, gives the effect of isolated
masses of almost violent colour, which need to be reduced to their
proper key by the painting of the intermediate wall surfaces. On the
other hand, at Pickering or Raunds, where we have the mural
paintings, the glass is wanting. Often, where painting and stained
glass have both disappeared, as in the chapel at South Skirlaugh,
their necessity to the building forces itself on the attention. Probably,
the full value of stained and painted glass in architectural design,
and the relations which prevailed at the close of the middle ages
between the mason and glazier, can be judged nowhere in Europe
better than in King’s college chapel at Cambridge.
§ 49. The third source of colour to the church, apart from the
stonework and the stained glass, was the woodwork of roofs,
screens, and other pieces of furniture. With this must be reckoned
also the colour of the stone furniture of the church, the sedilia,
canopied tombs, stone reredoses, pulpits, and so on. As a rule, the
colouring of the stone, here as upon the walls, has faded away or
has been obscured by later coats of plaster or whitewash. Here and
there, as at Higham Ferrers, a tomb-canopy keeps not a little of its
original brilliance. There is a gorgeous coloured frame, probably
much restored, for a reredos in the north chapel at Worstead in
Norfolk. The panels of the reredos in the south aisle at Northleach
contain certain figures of saints, in faded green, red, and blue. The
fine reredoses in the side chapels of St Cuthbert’s at Wells have
brilliant remains of gilding. But coloured woodwork, which has lost
little of its brightness, is fairly common, and, though it has often
been subjected to drastic restoration, is sometimes almost
untouched by time. This type of art reached its highest point in the
churches of East Anglia, in the great roofs, with their figures of
angels at the end of the hammerbeams or at the foot of the principal
rafters, extending from end to end of the building, in the canopies of
the fonts, like that at Ufford St Mary, near Woodbridge, and in the
rood screens, like that at Ranworth, its openings fringed with
cusping of gilded plaster, and its panels painted with figures of saints
and archangels, which sometimes, as at Southwold, were set within
a raised frame of gilded gesso work.
§ 50. This setting of colour, towards which stone, wood, and glass all
contributed their share, constituted the great beauty of the internal
effect of a medieval parish church; and naturally, the more the
various craftsmen who worked there advanced in skill—their skill
growing in proportion to their opportunity—the more gorgeous was
the effect of the assemblage of brilliant windows, screens, and
pictured walls. The usual entrance would be through the south
porch. Near the entrance, or, at any rate, near the west end of the
church, stood the font, beneath its canopy. No piece of church
furniture was subject to so much variety of design as the font; and
the types vary from perfectly unadorned examples to structures of
the utmost richness. The canopy was sometimes a simple cover,
which could be moved by hand: often it was a towering structure,
suspended by pulleys from the ceiling: sometimes it formed a roofed
enclosure on carved uprights, within which the font stood, of stone
at Luton in Bedfordshire, of wood at Trunch in Norfolk. Some fonts,
like the famous one at Little Walsingham in Norfolk, perhaps the
most beautiful of those on which the seven Sacraments are
represented, stand on high stepped platforms: others are on a low
plinth, which is occasionally continued from the base of a
neighbouring column. In fact, the arrangement of fonts is as various
as their shape. The rest of the furniture of the nave would vary.
Some of the East Anglian churches, such as Irstead in Norfolk, or
Dennington and Fressingfield in Suffolk, keep many of the medieval
benches, with narrow seats, backs with carved lines of open-work,
and projecting ledges which to-day are used for book-rests, but were
originally intended as kneelers. Worshippers would kneel on these
ledges, with their feet on the seats behind: the age of hassocks had
not come, and the floor was hardly an ideal kneeling place. Many
English churches were seated with benches of this kind during the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Few parts of England are without
their examples of bench-ends. Many fine examples remain in
Cornwall, as at Launcells, and in Somerset, as at Trull; and in some
churches, as Down St Mary and Lapford in Devon, the early
sixteenth century bench-ends are almost complete. Wooden
benches, however, do not seem to have become general till a
comparatively late date, and there was probably little seating
accommodation in the earlier churches. The plinths of columns were
sometimes made of some size, as at Coddington in Notts, to afford
seats; and in some churches, as Belaugh and Tunstead in Norfolk,
and Cotterstock, Tansor, and Warmington in Northamptonshire, there
are stone benches round the inner walls of various parts of the
church, apparently for the same purpose.
 Fig. 16. Well, Yorkshire: font cover.

[Enlarge]

§ 51. At the east end of each aisle, as has been shewn, there was
very frequently an altar. This was enclosed within screens, shutting
off, as a rule, the eastern part of the aisle. The screens remain at
Dennington, where the loft above the rood screen was continued
round them, with fine effect. At Wolborough in south Devon, the
side screens also project from the main screen; and, in many cases
where the screens themselves have disappeared, holes in the
adjacent columns, vertical grooves in the bases, and other similar
signs, bear witness to their former existence. All the side altars of a
church would be fenced in by screens. In large churches, such as
Grantham, there was often more than one chapel in an aisle: the
north and south aisles of the nave at Grantham contained at least
two chapels each. There were four chapels in the south aisle at
Ludlow, three in the north: the transepts each contained two
chapels; and, in addition to these, five of the arches of the nave had
chapels beneath them, while the altar of the Cross stood at the east
end of the nave in front of the tower.
§ 52. A nave like this would be broken up by a great variety of
screen-work; for the clear vista from end to end and side to side of a
building, so dear to the restorer of the middle of the nineteenth
century, formed no part of the medieval ideal. A space, however,
would be kept clear near the pulpit, which, at Ludlow, stood west of
the first pier from the east of the north arcade. The stone pulpit at
Cirencester is in much the same position; at Wolverhampton, it is on
the south side of the nave; at Nantwich it is against the north-east
pier; at Holy Trinity, Coventry, against the south-east pier of the
central tower. The medieval pulpits of Devonshire stand just west of
the rood screen; some, like Kenton, on the north; others, like
Dartmouth, on the south side of the entrance. The sermon was
hardly so prominent a feature in the services of the medieval church
as it became at a later date; but many medieval pulpits remain, and
those at Wolverhampton and Coventry, in particular, are imposing
structures. The regular furniture of the nave was completed by the
pulpit. However, there are some other features to notice. Each altar,
or, at any rate, each of the more important altars, would have its
own piscina: the chantries at the ends of the aisles sometimes had
their own sedile or sedilia. On a bracket near, or in a niche behind
each altar, would be a figure, carved and painted, of the saint to
whom it was dedicated; and before certain altars where a light or
lights were maintained there would be hanging lamps or stands for
candles according to the endowment. Thomas Sibthorpe, when he
founded his chapels at Beckingham, provided for lights before each
altar: in the chantry certificates made under the chantry act of
Edward VI, many notices are found of stocks of money by which
lights were maintained to burn before specified altars. There would
be a holy water stoup in the wall, on the right hand as one entered
the church: often the stoup is found in the porch. In some of the
Norfolk churches—Sall, Cawston, Aylsham, and Worstead are the
best instances—the lower part of the tower is screened off from the
nave, the screen supporting a floor which forms a ringers’ gallery. In
the ringers’ gallery at Sall there is a kind of crane, by which the
cover of the font, which stands close to the west end, is lifted. In a
few churches, as at Weston-in-Gordano in Somerset, there are
remains of a small gallery above the main doorway of the church.
This is sometimes explained as a gallery used on Palm Sunday by
the semi-chorus who joined in chanting the processional hymn. Such
a gallery might be used by singers or minstrels on special occasions.
§ 53. The transepts, where they occur, were, as has already been
said, used as chapels, or divided off into more than one chapel. Little
need be said of the chapels on either side of the chancel, as the
general arrangement of their altars and furniture was not very
different from that of the chancel itself. The quire and chancel were
divided from the nave by the rood screen. This important piece of
furniture, usually of wood, but sometimes of stone, crossed the
chancel arch from side to side; and was often continued, in churches
where the chancel arch was omitted, across the west end of the
chancel aisles. Where there was a chancel arch, the chancel chapels
had their own screens. The rood screen was elaborately carved, and
its lower panels were painted with figures of angels, saints,
prophets, apostles, and other designs. The uprights dividing the
panels were continued upwards on either side of open panels,
sometimes treated as tall arched openings, at other times imitating
the form of mullioned windows, and were framed into a plinth at the
bottom, and a horizontal beam at the top. The central division of the
screen was closed by folding doors: on either side of this entrance
was sometimes, against the west side of the screen, an altar. At
Ranworth in Norfolk the screen altars are enclosed by panels
returned from the face of the screen: there are distinct traces of this
arrangement at Weston-in-Gordano and other places; and, at
Lapford and Swymbridge in Devon, there are large rectangular
openings in the traceried panels of the upper part of the screens,
across which painted cloths seem to have been stretched at the back
of the side altars. Above the screen, with its floor-beams laid across
the top, and attached to either face by a series of trusses which
formed a deep coved and ribbed cornice to the screen, was the loft,
gallery, or, as it was often called, the ‘solar.’ Sometimes, as at
Montgomery and Llanwnog, the screen was double, the floor of the
loft forming a roof to the space between. This upper story had a
projecting parapet on either side, the front of which was divided into
panels and painted. It was approached by a staircase, the position of
which varied greatly. In churches with an aisleless chancel, the stair
was contained in a turret to the north or south of the chancel arch,
which was, if there was little room for it, sometimes built out into
the adjacent chapel. At Dennington, however, where the loft was
continued round the screens at the end of the nave aisles, the
staircase is in the south wall of the south aisle. At Ropsley, near
Grantham, the stair is in the outer wall of the north aisle, near the
north-east corner; and the loft was approached by a bridge thrown
across the end of the north aisle. In the aisleless church of Little
Hereford, near Tenbury, where there is a very narrow chancel arch,
the loft was approached by a straight stair in the thickness of the
south half of the east wall: a right-angled turn at the top led straight
into the loft. In churches with aisled chancels, the stair was
commonly contained in a turret projecting from the outer side of the
north or south wall, and there were lofts continued across all the
screens of the chancel and its chapels. At Llywel in Breconshire,
there is a fairly broad straight staircase at right angles to the loft,
contained in a broad projection from the north wall of the aisleless
nave: this was a favourite arrangement in Wales, and occurs at
Patricio, and, in the more primitive form of a wooden stair within a
projecting window, at Llanwnog in Montgomeryshire. Wooden stairs
and even ladders to lofts were probably not unusual. At Totnes the
chief approach to the loft of the stone screen was a stairway in a
half-octagon, projecting into the north part of the chancel, from the
head of which the way lay along the loft of the adjoining parclose
screen. Few lofts, however, remain. The Totnes loft, which was of
wood, is gone. Several Welsh lofts, owing, no doubt, to their remote
position, escaped destruction when the general dismantling of rood
lofts was carried out in the reign of Elizabeth. The most magnificent
of these are at Patricio in Breconshire, Llanegryn in Merionethshire,
Montgomery and Llanwnog in Montgomeryshire, and Llananno in
Radnorshire. Less beautiful, but remarkable for the very perfect
state of its painted back-board, is the loft at Llanelieu in Breconshire.
But in remote English places, such as Blackawton, near Dartmouth,
Cotes-by-Stow in Lincolnshire, and Hubberholm in west Yorkshire,
lofts are left in a fair state of perfection.

Fig. 17. Banwell, Somerset: rood screen.

[Enlarge]

§ 54. The use of the loft was, it has often been said, for the deacon
to sing the gospel from at high mass on great festivals. This was
certainly the case with the stone pulpita above the quire screens of
collegiate and monastic churches. But, in most parish churches the
stair was so narrow and inconvenient that certainly the vestments
and probably the temper of the deacon who attempted to climb it
would be easily spoiled. In many lofts, it is true, there was an altar.
The piscina of one remains in a few churches, as at Little Hereford:
there was a chantry founded in 1349 at one in Grantham church,
where the screen was a large one of stone. But the habitual use of
the loft was as an organ gallery; and the fine screen at Newark-on-
Trent still has at its east side the rectangular projection which was
occupied by a ‘pair of organs.’ The rood itself, the great cross
bearing the figure of our Lord with statues of St Mary and St John
upon either side, stood upon a beam which crossed the chancel arch
above the loft. The beam was, of course, painted, and, in addition to
the statues which it carried, bore sockets for candles, which were
lighted on festival occasions. The corbels which supported rood
beams are sometimes seen: beams themselves, however, do not
often remain. There is a finely painted example of one at Tunstead
in Norfolk; and another remains at Cullompton in Devon. Here and
there, where the beam was fixed in the wall, and had to be sawn
away, the end may still be seen. Some screens had no loft: in these
cases the rood frequently stood upon the top of the screen. In some
cases, as at Llanelieu in Breconshire and Wenhaston in Suffolk, the
rood and its attendant figures were fixed upon a painted board
which formed a back to the loft, and filled the upper part of the
chancel arch. In other places, as at Hickleton, near Doncaster, and
Llanbedr-ystrad-yw, they were fixed against the wall above the
chancel arch. This would be the case where, as at Hickleton, the
arch was low and narrow, and there was no room for a separate
beam beneath it. No piece of church furniture is more interesting
than the rood screen and its accompaniments: the variety of local
design and of its arrangements, and the great beauty of the finished
work, make it, of all special topics of ecclesiology, perhaps the most
attractive.
§ 55. It has been said before that the hooks by which the Lenten veil
was suspended across the chancel arch are still to be seen in several
churches. The western part of the chancel was occupied by the
quire, whose stalls were returned along the back of the screen, the
rector’s stall being the end return stall on the south side. Quire stalls
in parish churches were often carved with great refinement and
beauty: the stalls at Walpole St Peter have each a stone canopy,
formed by recessing panels in the chancel wall. The finest stalls,
with their hinged seats, rightly called misericords, and wrongly
misereres, are usually to be found in collegiate or chantry churches,
like Higham Ferrers or Ludlow, where the chantry priests of the
Palmers’ guild said their offices together in the high chancel. The
stalls of the chantry college at Fotheringhay are now in the churches
of Tansor and Benefield; the quire stalls of St Mary’s at Nottingham
are in the suburban church of Sneinton. An excellent instance of the
combination of stalls and rood screen is found in the village church
of Ashby St Ledgers, near Daventry, which contains a large amount
of old woodwork. In the centre of the quire or, as a gospel-desk, on
the north side of the altar would stand the lectern. The number of
medieval lecterns remaining in England is not great, the finest being
the great brass lectern given by provost Hacomblen to King’s college,
Cambridge. Lecterns in which the desk takes the form of a bird are
sometimes found, as in Norwich cathedral and at Ottery St Mary.

§ 56. When interest was first revived in ecclesiology, the fashion of

raising the quire and chancel above the rest of the church, by a
number of steps intended to be symbolical, became very prevalent.
This, however, was not in keeping with medieval practice. It is true
that occasionally chancels were raised high above the rest of the
church. At Walpole St Peter the chancel, rebuilt in the fifteenth
century, was brought up to the churchyard boundary, and apparently
interfered with a right of way which led round the back of the old
chancel. It was therefore built with a floor raised high above the
nave, and the right of way was preserved by piercing an arch below.
St Leonard’s at Exeter has a chancel built over an archway which
affords access to a narrow street. A church built on a slope, like
Tansor, ascends noticeably from west to east. But the ascent is
contrived, not by means of flights of steps, but by an inclined plane.
As a rule, floors of churches sloped slightly upwards towards the
altar. A perfectly level floor gives the false effect in perspective of a
downward slope: a floor, on the other hand, with a gradual upward
slope has a level effect. The floor of the quire was sometimes
elevated by a single shallow step above the floor of the nave: very
generally, it was on the same level: at St Michael’s, Cambridge, the
level was slightly lower. The chancel, again, was a step higher than
the quire, and the altar stood slightly raised upon its own oblong
altar pace. The levels at Geddington in Northamptonshire remain
much as they were. The quire is on a level with the nave: the
chancel is a pace higher, and the altar stands upon its own pace. An
inscription round the foot of the chancel wall records the making of
the pavement (now renewed) and the scabella, by which the foot-
paces are almost certainly implied, of the altar in 1369. Round the
lower foot-pace of the south chapel is another inscription, apparently
of the same date. In no respect have modern restorations been so
disastrous as in the altering of original levels, in order to give the
altar the elevation which was supposed by the restorers to be
necessary.
§ 57. The altar itself, as can be seen from the many altar-slabs which
remain, was a long and fairly broad stone table: it was usually less
than three feet high, and was covered by a cloth and frontal. It is
probable that the frontal, like the vestments of the clergy, followed,
in the ordinary parish church, no very strict sequence of colour
according to the seasons. For festivals the handsomest and newest
frontal and vestments would probably be used. The altar was kept
fairly low, to make room for the reredos, which extended across the
east wall above the altar, and below the sill of the east window. It
will be found that modern restorers, in nine cases out of ten, have
disregarded old English uses, by raising an altar until its upper
surface is close to the sill of the window, and then by blocking up
part, or even the whole of the window, by reredoses or altar screens
of stone or wood. High reredoses and altar screens were not
unknown, of course, in England; but the ordinary reredos was a
single or double band of carving below the east window, as at
Geddington or Ludlow. At Stanion in Northants, the string-courses of
the east walls of the chancel and north chapel are raised, below the
east windows, to form frames for mural paintings or carved retables
above the altar. Sculptured tablets were not rare, and indications of
their presence may be traced: in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, the alabaster, dug out of the Chellaston ‘plaster-pits,’ and
worked by the ‘plasterers’ of Nottingham, was used, among other
purposes, for such tablets. On the north and south sides of the
reredos the altar was enclosed by curtains hung on brass rods
projecting from the wall or from upright standards. These curtains,
known as riddels, had sockets for candles at the ends of the rods.
They appear to be derived from the curtains which hung round the
altar canopies of basilican churches, and were drawn at the
consecration of the elements. Probably the reredos, in most
churches, was formed by a painted cloth—that is, a piece of
embroidered tapestry—hung behind the altar, or stretched from the
upright of the one to the upright of the other riddel. It may be
added that the arrangement of cross, candles and flower vases on a
shelf, or even on several shelves, at the back of the altar, with which
we are so familiar, was not frequent in the middle ages. The cross
was usually the central carved or embroidered feature of the
reredos: one or two lighted candles were placed upon the altar at
mass; and flowers and sweet smelling herbs would be strewn at
certain seasons on the chancel floor. Richness of colour and
simplicity of furniture were the distinguishing features of the
medieval altar. There is a curious ledge upon the back part of the
upper surface of the crypt altar at Grantham: it actually lies upon the
altar, and its height, as contrasted with that of the modern gradine
or shelf, affords the same contrast that there is between the low
foot-paces of the medieval, and the flights of steps of the modern
chancel.
§ 58. The statue of the patron saint stood near the altar, on a corbel
in the wall, in a canopied recess, or, as at Abbots Kerswell in Devon,
where there is a very large figure of the Virgin, in the jamb of a
window. In front of the altar, the pyx, or receptacle for the reserved
Sacrament, hung by chains from the roof: it was covered by an
embroidered veil, which was drawn aside when the pyx was opened.
The rest of the ordinary furniture of the chancel was of a more
permanent description. The piscina and sedilia, which are frequently
of one date and form part of one design, were on the south side of
the chancel, forming arched recesses in the wall. The number of
sedilia varied from one to three: more than three are seldom found
in a parish church. Permanent stone sedilia were usually regarded as
part of the regular furniture of the chancel. Occasionally their place
was supplied by the lowering of a window sill; but there were also
instances, no doubt, in which the sedile or sedilia were simply
wooden chairs placed near the south wall of the chancel. The piscina
was frequently supplied with an upper ledge for cruets. In the
piscina of the south aisle at Hawton, near Newark, there is an inner
recess for this purpose on the east side; at Tansor a shallow niche is
provided in the head of the arch of the piscina. The drain of the
piscina was usually within the wall; but there are a number of
twelfth century, and a few later, examples, in which the bowl forms a
projection from the wall, and the drain was contained in a detached
column, the base of which is frequently united to the foot of the
wall. Projecting bowls are common, with drain-holes which slant
downwards into the wall. A piscina is sometimes found in the sill of a
window: one at Grantham is fitted with a removable drain, and there
are other such examples. A drain in the chancel floor is sometimes
found, usually of a rather early period. In addition to the piscina,
most churches contain plain almeries or cupboards, rectangular
recesses with rebates for wooden doors: these are generally in the
north or east wall of the chancel.
§ 59. More exceptional—indeed, very uncommon—as a piece of
furniture, was the permanent Easter sepulchre, which usually was on
the north, but sometimes on the south of the chancel. This was the
place to which the Host was carried on the evening of Holy
Thursday, and left until Easter eve: it was symbolical of the
sepulchre of our Lord, and the services which took place in
connexion with it were sometimes of a somewhat dramatic
character. A permanent Easter sepulchre, like those at Hawton and
Heckington, was a luxury. These, and the sepulchre at Navenby,
have carvings referring to the story of the Resurrection, and in the
lower panels are represented the guards at the tomb. The recess at
Hawton, forming a triple opening, has an inner recess at the back,
which could be shut and locked. At Heckington and Navenby the
recesses are merely single cupboards, surrounded by elaborate
carving. Frequently, an almery was used for the purpose; and where,
as at Frating in Essex, Claypole in Lincolnshire, or Sefton in
Lancashire, an almery is treated with special care, as, for example,
with a floral hood-mould, this special use is indicated. There may
also have been removable sepulchres of wood: a piece of furniture
which remains at Cowthorpe in Yorkshire, is said to be one. Another
was made for St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, in 1440. Certainly, the
sepulchre was often a temporary arrangement, like the reposoir in a
French church to-day. Thomas Meyring of Newark directed his burial
to take place ‘where the sepulchre of our Lord was wont to be set up
at Easter.’ A founder’s tomb near an altar was also used for the
sepulchre, the receptacle for the Host being probably placed inside
the tomb-recess or against it. At Sibthorpe near Newark, the small
sepulchre is immediately above the founder’s tomb: this was
probably the case at Fledborough. At Owston, near Doncaster, a
tomb-recess in the north chancel wall is often called the Easter
sepulchre, and a projecting stone at one side of it is pointed out as a
stone for the watcher who kept guard over the tomb at Easter. The
majority of Easter sepulchres which are left belong to the fourteenth
century. The imposing structure at Northwold in Norfolk, which is on
the south of the chancel, is of the fifteenth century, and, in at least
one example, at Wymondham in Norfolk, also on the south side,
there are details which approach the Renaissance period. The
frequent identity of the founder’s tomb with the Easter sepulchre, for
which there is documentary evidence, is proved further by the tombs
of the rector and vicar, under whose auspices, in the second quarter
of the sixteenth century, the chancels of South Pool and Woodleigh
churches in south Devon were restored. These are vaulted recesses
north of the altar, containing table tombs with effigies, and a large
amount of florid carving, which shews signs of Renaissance
influence. On the wall at the back of either tomb are sculptures
dealing with the burial and resurrection of our Lord, which clearly
point to the use of the tombs at Easter, and justify the name of
Easter sepulchre, frequently applied to them. A third tomb of rather
later date is at West Alvington, in the same neighbourhood: its
details were suggested by South Pool and Woodleigh, but the
brasses of the back wall are gone, and its inclusion in the list of
Easter sepulchres is doubtful. There is a curious late thirteenth
century piece of work, projecting inwards from the north wall of the
chancel at Twywell, near Kettering. A tomb-recess forms the lowest
stage; above this is a double almery, which may have been an Easter
sepulchre, and above this, again, is a sloping stone desk with a
book-rest for the reader of the gospel. Stone gospel-desks are found
in a few Derbyshire churches, like Crich, Spondon, and Etwall; and in
a few other rare instances. A founder’s tomb is, of course, by no
means an invariable feature of a chancel. The natural place for the
burial of the founder of a chantry would be close to the altar where
his chantry was celebrated; and often, as at Grantham, the presence
of a tomb in an aisle wall indicates the existence of a chantry altar
near that spot.
 Fig. 18. Hawton, Notts: Easter sepulchre.

[Enlarge]

§ 60. The sacristy has been referred to in the previous chapter; and
with this description of the furniture of the chancel, our account of
the English parish church is nearly come to an end. Few persons
who are in the habit of visiting parish churches will fail to meet with
exceptional or unique features. For example, in the north wall of the
chancel at Scawton in north Yorkshire, there is a long oblong trough,
with a drain in the wall behind it, the use of which is difficult to
conjecture. At Tunstead in Norfolk, there is a narrow platform behind
the altar, the whole width of the east wall. At its south end is a stair
from the floor of the chancel; and near the stair is a door leading
into a chamber below the platform. This narrow room, far too small
for a sacristy, is lighted by a grating in the floor of the platform. It is
supposed that this was an arrangement for the exhibition of relics.
At Tanfield, near Ripon, there is a little cell-like recess in the wall
between the chancel and north chapel, with a window commanding
the altar. The problems which are set by these details bring us by
degrees into relation with the whole of medieval life; and the history
of the parish church becomes an important part of the social history
of the parish. The magnificent tombs of the Marmions at Tanfield
also recall to us an artistic feature of the parish church which opens
out a wide field, and can be dealt with here only so far as the tombs
themselves afford evidence as to the date of the part of the church
in which they occur.
§ 61. The actual development of the parish church comes to an end
with the Reformation. The building of great churches, cathedral and
monastic, ceased with the suppression of the monasteries. The
suppression of the chantries, and the new doctrines which it
symbolised, did away with one object which had been a powerful
consideration with the lay benefactor of parish churches.
Henceforward the best work of those English masons who, in every
county, had for generations shaped the course of medieval art, and,
with it, the best work of the wood-carvers and glaziers, is found in
private houses. In the early part of the seventeenth century, under
the influence of Laud, much restoration and rebuilding was done.
Wood-carvers filled many churches with furniture of great beauty
and historical value. Churches like St John’s at Leeds, or the little
chapel of Carlton Husthwaite in Yorkshire, are, in stone and
woodwork alike, complete examples of the work of this period.
Brancepeth, Sedgefield, and Eaglescliffe in Durham; Burneston in
north Yorkshire; and, above all, Croscombe in Somerset, contain
wooden furniture which one would not willingly exchange for
medieval work. But, in spite of the richness and picturesqueness of
seventeenth century woodwork, the art of the Laudian revival had
no power to strike out new lines for itself. The chancels of Astley
Abbots in Shropshire, Kelmarsh in Northamptonshire, and Barsham
in Suffolk, interest us by their quaint adaptation of Gothic detail:
they tell us nothing new. The art of the mason, as regards the parish
church, is exhausted.
§ 62. At a later date, Wren built parish churches with an
extraordinary elasticity of style and plan. But the study of Wren’s
plans is simply the study of the plans of an individual architect: they
are the outcome of his relation to the fashions of his day, and his
unrivalled capacity for dealing with them. He established firmly the
use of a modified Palladian style in church architecture, which his
successors imitated until nothing further could be done with it. But,
when we look at his churches, we never can forget the architect
behind them. St Martin’s-in-the-Fields and St Mary-le-Strand, by
Gibbs; St Philip’s at Birmingham, by Archer, fine churches though
they are, fall short of his designs; and we instinctively compare and
contrast their plan and elevation with the models supplied by Wren.
In the medieval parish church, on the other hand, the individual
architect had no place; the whole artistic activity of an age was
represented; the builder was an original artist, and a member of a
nation of artists; and the development of the parish church was the
work of a national interest, not merely confined to one highly
specialised profession. When the Gothic revival came in the early
nineteenth century, it was thought that medieval art was once more
re-born. But, when we look to-day at the scholarly and often
extremely beautiful work of artists like Pugin, Sir Gilbert Scott,
Street, Pearson, Butterfield, Bodley, or the younger Gilbert Scott, we
still feel the force of individual design and style rather than the force
of a great collective movement. All these, like Wren, have added
individual contributions to church planning and decoration; but their
art is a by-path of national life, and is merely the result of a purely
individual type of thought.
§ 63. At the same time, to say this is not to belittle post-Reformation
church architecture. It is simply to point out the contrast between
the work of the architect and the work of the medieval mason,
between a sporadic development of art, and a development which
was general in every part of the country.
But, while the work of later generations differs in quality and spirit
from that of the medieval craftsman, while it is necessarily more
sophisticated and less spontaneous than his, no greater mistake can
be made than to drive it out of our churches. The Reformation and
Cromwell have been made responsible for much destruction: yet no
one has destroyed so light-heartedly as the modern restorer, in his
efforts to bring back churches to what is called their ‘original state.’
To-day, people are waking up to the value of post-Reformation
masonry and furniture. They realise that when an eighteenth century
church is swept away, and a handsome building, in an eclectic Gothic
style, decked with the best products of modern arts and crafts, rises
in its place, the advantage is questionable. Not merely does much
good furniture inevitably perish, but a link with the past is destroyed.
Eighteenth century pews may not be altogether suited to a fifteenth
century church; but they remind us at any rate that the fabric in
which they stand has a continuous history. The age which produced
them followed its own taste and worked on its own lines, and did not
merely strive after an ideal of harmonious imitation. Not only the
work of recent centuries has been touched, but medieval work has
been altered: screens have been mutilated and removed, old glass
has been destroyed, even whole fabrics have been rebuilt with very
slight regard to their earlier plan. It can never be impressed too
strongly upon the average Englishman that, quite apart from their
religious associations, the parish churches of this country form, as a
body, one of the most remarkable historical monuments which any
European nation possesses. We may regret, perhaps, that past
generations have tampered with them; but for that very reason we
should hesitate to tamper with them ourselves, or to replace
incongruous work of the past by imitative work of our own. We may
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