Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/335

 12 S. VI. JUNE 5, 1920.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

275

PETLEY FAMILY.- I should be glad to be told of any families of Petley, in Kent or elsewhere, using arms and crest, and to obtain the heraldic descuption of these.

LEONARD C. PRICE.

Essex Lodg?, Ewell.

AUTHOR OF QUOTATION WANTED.

We all pearls scorn Save those the dewy morn Congeals upon the little spires of grass.

H. A. ST. J.-M.

ALTAR TABLES.

(12 S. vi. 251.)

FOR the change in shape and dimensions which the Christian altar has undergone in the course of time, and for the causes which led to the change, the best general descrip- tion is still that of Edmund Bishop con- tributed to The Downside, Review, July, 1905, lately republished in his ' Historica Liturgica' (Clarendon Press, 1918). Very briefly stated from the fourth until, the middle of the ninth century the Christian altar was not, as at the present day, an oblong but a cube, either solid or hollow : it stood free so that one could pass round it. It was small, for only the chalice and paten and the linen cloths necessary for the Sacrifice were placed xipon it. The accessories such as crucifix, lights, crowns, &c., were around or above it, some suspended from the ciborium which, raised on four columns, formed a canopy above the altar and gave it dignity.

In England the cube was the earlier type and is so depicted in early mediaeval MSS. The ' Tract on the English Altar,' prepared by Mr. Hope for the Alcuin Club (London, 1899), contains illustrations from MSS. and shows the cube altar persisting to the fourteenth century. The altars were small, but I have not come across any canon of measurement. From a tractate mentioned ; by Bishop it appears that in the early part of the thirteenth century in the province of Alsace the altars were cubes 3 feet each! way, the mensa projecting about 4 inches i all round, i.e., 3 feet 8 inches square. This j projection was probably a recent innovation, i

At the beginning of the ninth century a ! movement took place which was to have a j lasting effect upon the structure of the altar. This movement was the " transla- tions "- and " elevations " of relics. The | relics of the saints, instead of being kept in

the old system of confessions and tombs beneath an altar, were now placed in portable shrines and raised up, put above on the altar. The relic shrine being placed at the back, in the centre of, and at right angles with the altar, it became a much more imposing structure than the altar itself which often appeared as if it were only the end of the shrine. The ciborium was in the way and was removed altogether or placed over the shrine instead of over the altar, i The loss of the ciborium made it necessary ' to place the lights, crucifix, &c., upon the altar itself. The want of more room and considerations of symmetry led to the lengthening of the mensa of the altar which henceforth became an oblong. This is true of the principal altar in the church, and up to the sixth century, at least, the rule was one church one altar ; but the eighth and ninth centuries saw the multiplication of masses and the institution of the Missa privata, which led to the crowding of churches with a number of small altars most of which must have been only just large enough for their purpose. The in- convenience resulting from this arrange- ment (see plan of St. Gall, ninth century in Bond's ' Gothic Architecture in England ') led to the great era of church rebuilding in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. With the larger churches small altars were na longer ha keeping and their dimensions were increased. In some cases they became very large, for instance, Tewkesbury, 13 ft. 8 in. long. In the small parish churches, however, small side altars still remained, some exceedingly small ; illustrations and measurements may be found in ' The Chancels of English Churches,' by Francis Bond (Oxford University Press, 1916). *

There has not, I think, been any law regulating the size of an altar issued by the Church, but the third Provincial Council of Milan held in April, 1573, under the Arch- bishop, Cardinal Borromeo, directed that the altare majus should be " altitudine cubitorum duorum et unciarum octo vel ad summum decem ; longitudine cubitorum quinque ac plurium, pro ecclesiae magnitudine ; lati- tudine vero cubitorum saltern duorum et unciarum duodeeim." The altare minus 4J cubits long and 2 wide (Gavantus Appendix ad Rub. Missalis pt. v. in ' The- saurus Sacrorum Rituum,' Milan, 1628). This makes the high altar 3 ft. 6 iti. nigh or at most 3 ft. 7 in., 7 ft. long or longer in a large church, and at least 3 ft. 9 in. wide ;.