Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/679

Rh ALTAR 641 Btone on the top large enough for the sacred vessels to stand upon ; the upper face of the altar must have five crosses incised in the stone ; before being used, it must have been consecrated by the bishop with the chrism, according to the ritual prescribed in the pontificals, which by degrees grew more elaborate; and at first a plain cross, and afterwards a crucifix, was placed erect upon it. At the Keformation the altars in churches were looked upon as symbols of the old Catholic doctrine, in those countries where the struggle lay between the Catholics and the &quot; Reformed &quot; or Calvinists, who on this point went much further than the Lutherans. In England the name &quot; altar&quot; was retained in the Communion Office in English, printed in 1548, and in the complete English Prayer-book of the following year, known to students as the First Book of Edward. But orders were given soon after that the altars should be destroyed, and replaced by movable wooden tables; while from the revised Prayer-book of 1552 the word &quot;altar&quot; was carefully expunged. The short reign of Mary reversed all this, but the work was resumed on the accession of Elizabeth, and has been carried out so thoroughly that the industry of recent antiquaries has only been able to find about thirty cases in all England where the old stone altar-slabs still exist, and of these that at Arundel is almost the only one which is still used. The name &quot; altar&quot; has been all along retained in the Coronation Office of the kings of England, where it occurs frequently. It was also recognised in the canons of 1640, and an important change was then made in the posi tion of the communion tables, which has become universal throughout the Church of England. In primitive times the position of the Christian altar seems to have been such that, like the Jewish and patriarchal altars, they could be surrounded on all sides by the worshippers. The chair of the bishop or celebrant was on their west side, and the assistant clergy were ranged on each side of him. But in the Middle Ages the altars were placed against the east Avail of the churches, or else a screen, called a reredos (generally much decorated with carving), was erected close to the east of the altar, so as to cut off any one on that side from joining in the worship, and the celebrant was brought round to the west side, to stand between the people and the altar ; while there were often curtains on the north and south sides. When tables were substituted for altars in the English churches, these were not merely movable, but at the administration of the Lord s Supper were actually moved into the body of the church, and placed table-wise as it was called that is, with the long sides turned to the north and south, and the narrow ends to the east and west the officiating clergyman standing at the north side. In the time of Archbishop Laud, however, the present practice of the Church of England was introduced. The communion table, though still of wood and movable, is, as a matter of fact, never moved; it is placed altar-wise that is, with its longer axis running north and south, and close against the east wall, with for the most part a reredos behind it ; it is also fenced in by rails, within which the laity do not enter. When, under the superintendence and partly at the charge of the Camden Society, the church of Saint Sepul chre at Cambridge, founded 1101, was restored, a stone altar, consisting of a flat slab resting upon three other upright slabs, was presented to the parish, and set up in the church at the east wall of the chancel. This circum stance was brought before the Court of Arches in 1845, and Sir H. Jenner Fust (Faulkner v. Lichfield and Steam) ordered it to be removed, on the ground that a stone struc ture so weighty that it could not be moved, and seeming to be a mass of solid masonry, was not a communion-table within the meaning of the Church of England. No attempt has been made to obtain a reversal of this judgment ; but from other decisions some infer that only such altars as cannot also be considered as tables are forbidden. Few particulars have come down to us regarding the construction of the wooden altars used by the Christian Church in early times, except that several circumstances indicate that they were hollow. Gregory of Tours applies the word &quot;area&quot; or &quot;chest&quot; to them; and in other cases they must have been simply like ordinary tables supported by legs, since we read of persons taking refuge beneath them. There is nothing, therefore, either in the matter or the form of the ordinary English communion-tables, to prevent them serving as altars. The stone altars at first were probably only one or more blocks of rough hewn stone ; but by degrees they were ornamented, and this produced two different types. Either the altar remained a solid mass of masonry, but had its front richly panelled (in later times it had figures in bas-relief), or the upper slab was supported by from one to five columns, often of highly-polished stone. It was in the 16th century that a new fashion was introduced in France, according to which the altar was regarded as being itself a tomb or sarcophagus, and to which are due the unsightly altars which now dis figure the wonderfully beautiful mediaeval churches of that country. So complete was the change, that now, perhaps, there are not more ancient altars in France than there are in England. In c^rly times, before the altars were placed close to the east wall or to a large reredos, they were often surmounted by a canopy or baldacchino, supported by four pillars rising from the ground just beyond the corners of the altar. At first there was but one altar in a church; but for many centuries this rule has been disregarded in the Latin churches, and almost every large church contains several altars dedicated in honour of different saints, and sometimes appropriated to the use of particular guilds, or endowed for a series of masses for the repose of the founder. These, however, must not be confounded with the priiuipal altar, called the high altar or maitre autcl, situated towards the east end of the choir or chancel. A few cases occur where there are two high altars, the second being placed near the west end of the church. Altars are &quot; vested &quot; during service ; that is, covered with cloths of various kinds. There is often a frontal, richly embroidered, whose colour depends upon the ecclesi astical season or the particular festival ; but in all cases the uppermost cloth on the top is of linen, to represent that in which the body of the Lord was wrapped in the sepulchre. Since the age of Bede, portable altars have been used in the Latin Church ; but the East has never adopted them, and they quite put out of sight the symbolism of the form of an altar. They consist simply of a small slab of stone, large enough to support the chalice and paten. This must bear the incised crosses and must have been consecrated by the bishop. They may be carried about on a journey by a bishop or priest in a heathen or heretical country, as now it is not allowed to say mass except on a duly conse crated altar, and they are also used in oratories attached to private houses. Those who wish to investigate the matter further may be referred to the standard works on church ritual and ecclesiastical architecture. For the altars of the Israelites, much information will be found in Lightfoot s two treatises on the Temple Service, and in Carpzov s notes to his trans lation of Godwin s Moses and Aaron. Christian altars are described by Bona, Martene, and Bingham ; but the stand ard work on the subject is probably that by the Lutheran Voigt, published after his death by J. A. Fabricius. Nearly twenty years ago an Essay on Christian Altars, by Laib I. 81