“Not only the decrees of the holy fathers,” he says, “but the approved existing customs of the Church order that the place in which the clerks sing and serve God according to their offices be divided by screens from that in which the laity devoutly pray. In this way the nave of the church, which is called the _Sancta Sanctorum_, is alone to be open to lay people, in order that, in the time of divine service, clerics be not mixed up with lay people, and more especially with women, nor have communication with them, for in this way devotion may easily be diminished. “Nevertheless,” the bishop continues in this letter, written to a rector, “in your church report says that some laymen have taken the seats of the clergy in your chancel and still obstinately refuse to give them up. If this be so, the names are to be published from the pulpit, and if after that they still persist, the delinquents are to be punished according to the statutes.” [Illustration: ST. MARTIN’S MASS, SHOWING DISPOSITION OF ALTAR FURNITURE--FOURTEENTH CENTURY] _The Altar._--The most prominent feature of the chancel, and indeed of the whole church, as being the very purpose for which the entire building was erected, and the centre round which all the services were performed, was the high altar (_summum_, or _majus altare_). “It is that,” says the gloss upon a constitution of Archbishop Winchelsea, “to honour which the church is dedicated,” and it is placed in the choir as in the most solemn part of the building. Originally, if we may judge from existing illuminations, the altar in English churches stood a little away from the eastern wall of the church, and had over it a canopy supported on pillars, between which curtains were suspended on rods, and drawn during the celebration of the sacred mysteries. Sometimes, as at West Grinstead, for example, behind the altar in the wall of the church was an ambry, or cupboard, to contain the consecrated vessels and the missal, etc., for Mass. Over the altar was generally suspended some covering or canopy as a manifestation of the reverence due to the place of Sacrifice, and the churchwardens’ accounts contain frequent mention of expenses to repair and renew this _cælatura_; for by custom, if not by law, this was done at the cost of the parish. Under this canopy was suspended a vessel of ivory or silver, covered by a cone-like tabernacle or by a silken veil, hanging frequently from a crown of metal, in which was the reserved Blessed Sacrament. To this ancient practice Becon, in _The Displaying of the Popish Mass_, alludes, when he says, “Ye go unto the midst of the altar, and looking up to the pyx, where ye think your God to be, and making solemn courtesy, like womanly Joan, ye say the _Gloria in Excelsis_.” And again, “Ye make solemn courtesy to your little idol that hangeth over the altar.” This was one of the practices which were done away by the changes under Edward VI., and which the insurgents in