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.
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