In the chancel of Chipping-Warden Church, Northamptonshire, on the north side of the communion table, is a semicircular oak table, apparently of the reign of Charles the First, standing on a frame supported by three plain pillar-legs, like those of the communion tables of the same period, and enriched with carved arched frieze-work similar to the arched panel-work on pulpits of the same period. A plain credence table of black oak, which from the style and make was evidently set up after the Restoration, still continues to be used as such in St. Michael’s Church, Oxford, being placed on the north side of the communion table. The objections of the Puritans against many of the usages of the Anglican church, and their refusal to conform to such under the pretence of their being superstitious, had no slight effect in altering the internal appearance of our churches in the middle of the seventeenth century, and during the period their party had obtained the ascendancy, and had succeeded for a while in abolishing in this country episcopal church government; for among the “innovations in discipline,” as they were called by the Puritan committee of the House of Lords in 1641, we find the following usages complained of: the turning of the holy table altarwise, and most commonly calling it an altar; the bowing towards it or towards the east many times; advancing candlesticks in many churches upon the altar, so called; the making of canopies over the altar, so called, with traverses and curtains on each side and before it; the compelling all communicants to come up to the rails, and there to receive; the advancing crucifixes and images upon the parafront or altar cloth, so called; the reading some part of the morning prayer at the holy table, when there was no communion celebrated; the minister’s turning his back to the west, and his face to the east, when he pronounced the Creed or read prayers; the reading the Litany in the midst of the body of the church in many of the parochial churches; the having a _credentia_ or side table, besides the Lord’s table, for divers uses in the Lord’s Supper; and the taking down galleries in churches, or restraining the building of galleries where the parishes were very populous[244-*].