PART IV.-OLD WAYS AND NEW FASHIONS. (Continued.) CHAPTER III. THE CHANCEL AND THE NAVE-FURNITURE AND DECORATIONS. HE reader, however, would be guilty of a great error, who should imagine that our feudal ancestors were altogether devoid of the sentiment which in modern England jealously preserves our churches from profanation. The cathedrals and other important churches were usually provided with private chapels, in which masses were continually offered for the souls of departed benefactors. Each of these sacella contained an altar and the sacred adornments usual in places of worship; and whilst pride and affection inspired the founder's descendants to protect it from decay, and to renew from time to time its artistic decorations, the ordinary frequenters of the church to which it was attached cherished for its altar the same reverence which they displayed for the high altar in the church.* Whatever the stir and uproar in the nave on wakes and minor feasts, there was quiet in these subsidiary chapels which the * In allusion to the worldly pride often displayed in the decorations of these private sacella, the satirists of feudal times were wont to remark that Satan always had a chapel hard by the Lord's house. This sentiment became proverbial, and Foxe the Martyrologist preserves it in one of the marginal notes to his fullest edition of the Acts and Monuments.' 'God,' he says, • never builded a church, but the devil hath his chapel by.' Truth so aptly and pungently expressed is not likely to disappear from popular opinion; and Defoe, who is erroneously supposed to have originated the sentiment, reproduced it in the couplet,— 'Wherever God erects a House of Prayer VOL. II. B pious visitor of the temple might enter at any hour of the day for prayer and edifying reflection. Again, the vigilance with which we guard the entire church and its precincts from violation falls short of the heed which our forefathers took to maintain the sacredness of the chancel. The medieval nave by turns or simultaneously was a publichall, a theatre, a warehouse, a market, a court of justice, and a place of worship; but the chancel was rigidly reserved for the mysterious and sublime offices of priestly service. It was the holy place set apart for the priests and clerks in sacred orders. At its eastern end, built into the wall, stood the high altar; and for the accommodation of persons qualified to enter this mysterious chamber of the Lord's House, it was provided with furniture costlier in material and richer in art than the furniture of the chief rooms in the castles of the wealthiest nobles. During the celebration of divine rites, the devout laity, standing reverentially and kneeling meekly in the nave, caught the solemn intonations of the officiating priests and the rich melody of the choir, that came to them through the open door beneath the rood-loft; but no layman ventured to pass under the elevated rood and put his foot on the hallowed ground of the inner court, save at the special invitation of officiating clergy, and then only to prostrate himself in adoration at the foot of the altar. And no sooner had the service terminated, than the gates of lattice were closed upon the uninitiated crowd. Divided from the other parts of the church, by iron or wooden trellises, through which the interior was imperfectly visible, this peculiar court was termed the chancel-a name derived from the cancelli, or crossed bars of the fence. Though from a very early date of our church history, the lay patrons of churches were provided with seats within the trellises of the clerical court, and though in later times lay persons of high importance were sometimes permitted, by the special favour of their clergy, to occupy places in the chancel during service, the general congregation of the laity continued after the Reformation to refrain from intruding themselves into so peculiarly sacred a part of their temple. In short, it was the clerical quarter of the building,-dedicated from the foundation |