Año Dni MCCX Liftud altare dedicat:in honore Aplor Petret Pauli et fai Augustini v Kal.Nov Año Dni MCCCXXV iftud al tare dedicat:in honore Apoft: Pet: et Pauli Sci Auguftini Anglox Apli et Sei Athelberti Regis. Kal.Marti á Petro Epo Corbanienfi,

(From an MS Illumination at Trinity Hall Cambridge)

(See Dugdale's Monafticon, Canterbury.)

Page 13.

provided and placed for the celebration of the Holy Communion fhall from time to time be kept and repaired in fufficient and feemly manner, and covered in time of Divine Service with a carpet of filk or other decent stuff thought meet by the Ordinary of the place, if any question be made of it; and with a fair linen cloth, at the time of the Miniftration, as becometh that Table, and fo ftand, faving when the faid Holy Communion is to be administered, at which time the fame fhall be placed in fo good fort within the Church or Chancel, as thereby the Minister may be more conveniently heard of the communicants in his prayer and miniftration, and the communicants alfo more conveniently and in more number may communicate with the faid Minister."

The Altar table should not be placed immediately against the further wall nor even close to the reredos or retable. At Salisbury there was a space of several feet, one half of a Bay, between it and the fcreen or retable at the back; and thus it remained till the deformations perpetrated by Wyatt, circa 1788. Such an interval is requifite and convenient for allowing the Priest, if he wish it, to officiate according to ancient custom (and as is now practised in fome of the ancient Bafilicas at Rome and elsewhere), with his face fronting the Choir and people, and for enabling the Servers and Officials to arrange easily the Candelabra and other ornaments above, upon, or around the Altar.

Beyond and above the Altar fhould run across the Church a broad elevated beam, shelf, or narrow platform, separate altogether from the Altar, whereon should be placed a Cross or Crucifix, incifed or in relief, of gold, filver, precious wood or ivory, or of cryftal; it may be chafed and jewelled, with SS. Mary and John on either fide; it may be with the figure or figures of the patron faints or faint, fupported by two Angels with outfpread wings. On or about this "eminentia" (fo called by Gervafe of Canterbury, Twyfden, ii. 1295), "infuper Altare," "ultra Altare" at Sarum and Wells, "ultra magnum Altare" at Aberdeen, "circa magnum Altare" at Lichfield) may stand, as in the twelfth century at Canterbury, any rich ornaments, fuch as Reliquaries or Candelabra with Lights. This beam and its furroundings was adorned and jewelled, and refted on two pillars, one on each side the Altar, richly gilt. The façade or entablature below this beam or platform, and facing the fpectator when looking over the Altar, may be fculpture or painting, or fretwork of gold or filver, or marble, or in lack thereof a curtain or doffal of filk or other ftuff; but not the ugly cupboard with doors, now used in some places as a receptacle for the referved Sacrament.

Material of Altar Table.

The material of the Altar may be of stone or wood, or any other fubftance. It is doubtful of what that was made on which our Lord

inftituted the Eucharist. That of S. Peter, in the Lateran Church at Rome, is of fir wood (fee Ciampini, Sacr. Edif. c. 22, 15). There are the remains of one fuch alfo at S. Pudentiana. S. Optatius Milevitanus (lib. v. adv. Parmen) fpeaks of the "linen which covered the wood of the Altar." The tombs in the Catacombs gave the first idea of the ftone or marble material. Altars were probably of wood in the time of S. Augustine, in the fifth century, in Africa and Egypt (Augustine, Epift. ad Bonif.). But in Egypt, according to S. Gregory of Nyffa, S. Simeon of Theffalonica, and Can. xxiii. of the Council of Epaona (A. D. 517), they were generally of ftone in the fourth and fifth centuries. In the fifth the precious metals were employed in their conftruction, as in that of S. Ambrofe at Milan; and Sozomen (lib. iv. c. 1), tells us that that of S. Sophia was enriched with jewels; others were of filver. By the eleventh century the Tabula or upper furface was usually of stone or marble, and the forms for Benediction of the "Tabula Altaris," both in Anglo-Saxon and Norman and subsequent epochs, fpeak of it as fuch. The portable Altars may be of metal. The Advertisements of 1564 order that "the Parish provide a decent Table, standing on a frame, for the Communion Table." The Canons of 1603 fay nothing about the material.

It would be better, therefore, that the fupports fhould be wooden, with a stone flab, inscribed with five Croffes, for the furface.

Size and Form of Altar.

The Size of the Altar fhould be in a degree proportioned to that of the Church, but never less than 6 feet long by 2 feet broad, and its height 3 feet to 3 feet; but it should be of fufficient magnitude and splendour as to render it the most beautiful and confpicuous object in the Church. The usual length in the greater Churches feems to have been about 10 ft.; originally, as remarked below, it was much fmaller.

The earlieft form of the Altar, which continued in places up to the fixth century, seems to have been square, after the Roman fashion; draped nevertheless from a very early period with precious filks and stuffs, the Christian Sacrifice being unbloody. Examples of this fquare fhape may be seen repeatedly in the Utrecht Pfalter, and in the mofaics at Ravenna in the Baptiftery and elsewhere, and in the work of Ciampini. In the mofaics of the fixth century there reprefented, the entablature had become larger and longer, and rested on one or more, or four or five legs or columns, or other fupports, as may be seen in S. John in Fonte (A.D. 451) at Ravenna, and S. Vitale. One found at Auriol, in South France, and refting on one pillar only, is engraved by the Abbé Martigny (Antiq. Chrétiennes, p. 59). Another, refting on five columns, was found at Avignon fome years fince, and another very small, only eighteen inches long, yet fupported by five columns, is at Tarafcon. Before S. Gregory and Charlemagne, the Altar

had everywhere become very much larger, and an oblong parallelogram in form; the idea having been taken from the Lord's Sepulchre and the tombs of the martyrs; and in S. Ofmund's time it had (except private and peculiar Altars) become of the dimenfions and fhape which it poffeffes at prefent. Viollet le Duc (Architecture) has engraved feveral examples of thirteenth and fourteenth century Altar Tables of this elongated form, and Ciampini several others of the ancient fquare fhape (De Sacr. Edif. pl. xxxiii.).

Curtains of rich material running on rods, which again fhould rest on pillars of confiderable height and fize, of decorative material, at the four corners of the Altar, fhould be drawn along at the two ends of the Altar, to serve for fhelter and feclufion. If there be no reredos or retable behind the Table, a third curtain, by way of doffal, should hang behind it. In the eleventh century a fourth curtain was fometimes kept drawn before the principal Altar when not in use.

The representations given by Viollet le Duc (Architecture), and of the coronation of Charles V. of France (Tib. B. viii. British Museum), fhow this reredos or retable, and these curtains and pillars. On the fummit of the pillars were fometimes figures of Angels, which held Lights; or they were furmounted with fockets, in which flamed large wax candles, and the curtains extended confiderably in advance of the Altar front. At the time of De Moleon (1750, Voyages, Lit. 356), at S. Ouen, and the Cathedral at Rouen (just as in the thirteenth century), the great Altar was fimple and separate from the wall, with a curtain on each fide hanging from pillars furmounted by four Angels, with a retable beyond it, where were images of the patron faints and two or three lights on each fide. Before the great Altar were also three lamps fixed on three large fupports on the floor, whilft the Sacrament was fufpended in a Ciborium above it.

XV.-ALTAR CANOPY. Two ALTARS.

Over the Altar Table should be a protecting Canopy or Umbraculum. This feems to have been a common arrangement from Anglo-Saxon times, and a form of Benediction of the "Umbraculum Altaris" is found in moft Pontificals.

These were originally of filk or stuff; but in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries ftone "Conopia," or canopies, were erected with the fame view, whence depended the Sacrament, reserved in a Cup or Pyx, or a metal Dove for the fick. These Canopies were alfo made of wood. Examples in ftone are remaining in fome of the Churches at Ratisbon. Although architecturally beautiful, these folid Canopies ceased to be erected after the fourteenth century, and they are now nearly confined to Rome.

In the engravings of the Altar and Eaft ends of the Churches, after the Restoration, however, and up to 1730, the Altar is always depicted as fur

mounted by an over-hanging Canopy of rich material with fide curtains, and lighted candles are reprefented placed upon the Altar at Communion time.

At

It may here be remarked, that it is a beautiful and correct form of decoration to place Lights on the pillars fupporting the curtain rods. Rouen, coloffal Angels, standing at each fide of the Altar, carried them. In the fifteenth century, and fubfequently, they ufually appear in the Miffalia as placed upon the Altar at the back. There is no Rubric or ordinance whatever directing this, fo they probably took this place for convenience or in confequence of inadvertence.

There fhould be, at least, two Altars in every Church of confiderable fize; the principal Altar for Sundays and Festivals, and another for Ferial celebrations, which we find denominated " Altare Matutinale." This Altare Matutinale feems in moft Churches to have been below the principal Altar, at or near the entrance into the Prefbyterium, as at St. Alban's, Weftminster, Worcester, &c. In other cafes, before the entrance into the Choir, below the great Crofs; in others, in an aifle or fide Chapel. That at Salisbury feems to have been (according to Sir Gilbert Scott and Dr. Milner's notes to Godwin, 1615) "In the body of the Church under the third arch from the tomb of Bifhop Roger, where the early fervice was privately performed every morning after the Chapter." This, Sir G. Scott thinks, was the firft of the Eastern Chapels of the North East Transept. At Canterbury, in the thirteenth century, the " Altare Matutinale" was over the grave of S. Dunstan, at the East end of the Choir, and was dedicated to our Lord Jefus Christ.

Beyond the principal Altar, to the Eaft, was, in and from Anglo-Saxon times, an Oratory and Altar dedicated to the Bleffed Virgin Mary. When the Priest celebrated there, as it was usually the earliest Mass, he stood on the Eaft fide and turned his face Weftward.

Many other Chapels for private devotion existed in the tenth, eleventh, and following centuries in the Churches of that time. Lanfranc reedified several at Canterbury, fome of which were in the triforia.

The Refervation of the Bleffed Sacrament, with all reverence and fecurity, for the fick, was, as in the earliest times of the Church, both East and Weft, a duty carefully obferved in the medieval Church of England, as it fhould be now. To this end, over or near fome Altar, there should be a TABERNACLE or recefs closed with doors, wherein it may be fafely conserved under lock and key. These receptacles were called by the Greeks " papia," by the Latins "Sacraria," by S. Jerome "Thalamoi." They are spoken of in the Apoftolic Conftitutions, by S. Paulinus as in the Church at Nola; by S. Gregory of Tours. Numerous ancient examples

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