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.
[Illustration: Piscina, Newnham Regis, Warwickshire.]
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, ampullae, 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 prothesis,
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.
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