Page:The Saxon Cathedral at Canterbury and The Saxon Saints Buried Therein.djvu/111

ST. DUNSTAN covered with gold and silver and filled with the relics of saints) placed on a beam which went across the sanctuary above the High Altar, the ends of which rested on the capitals of the columns on either side, and was also supported by two wooden columns ornamented with gold and silver which were placed just behind the altar at either end of it.

On the fourth and fifth folios of John Stone's Chronicle 1457, but written in a different hand from that of the Christ Church monk, occur some interesting details concerning the furnishing of these three most important altars in the Cathedral:

a frontal for each of the 3 altars in the Choir of blue velvet embroidered with gold Archangels (to the number of 33) at a cost of 10 marks.

a set of frontals for the 3 Altars of green satin and velvet with red fringe, embroidered with gold and lined with green and red buckram.

a carpet of green with swans.

a set of curtains of green silk cloth painted with gold swans and fringed with red.

a carpet of blue with an eagle in the midst. the green and blue frontals were in use down to the Dissolution, being mentioned in the 1540 Inventory.

The Sacrist's accounts for the year 1432-1433 include a payment of "xxvj s. viii d. pro quatuor candelabris circa feretra sanctorum Dunstani et Elphegi." These were probably what we should now call standard candlesticks to stand upon the floor.

Amongst the Chartae Antiquæ of the Cathedral MSS. is a miscellaneous Roll of the thirteenth century containing, amongst other things, the Psalms and Collects for Saints' Days use, from which is extracted:

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