In the accounts
of churchwardens of the fifteenth and early part of the sixteenth century
we meet with frequent notices of payments made for watching the sepulchre
at Easter[192-*]. Sometimes the sepulchre was altogether of stone, and a
fixture, and enriched with architectural and sculptured detail, as in the
well-known specimen at Heckington, Lincolnshire, and the fine specimen of
tabernacle-work in Stanton Harcourt Church, Oxfordshire.
At the back of the high altar was affixed a reredos, or screen of
tabernacle-work, costly specimens of which contained small images set on
brackets under projecting canopies; an alabaster table or sculptured bas
relief, placed just over the altar, was also common. The high altar
reredos is still remaining, though in a mutilated condition, in the Abbey
Church, St. Alban's; it was erected A. D. 1480, and is perhaps the most
splendid specimen we have; and in Bristol Cathedral a portion of the high
altar reredos is also left. The chantry altar reredos is more frequently
remaining, even where the altar and alabaster table[193-*] above have been
destroyed; rarely, however, in a perfect state. In the seventeenth century
the rich tabernacle-work was sometimes plastered over, probably to
preserve it from iconoclastic violence.
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