136 On the Clmrch of SL Peter, Manningford Bruce, Wiltsliire. 



The twenty-fifth vokime of the Archseologia, already referred to 

 contains in a letter from Sidney Smirke, Esq., F.S.A., to Sir Henry 

 Ellis, secretary^ as an appendage to Mr. Gage's dissertation, au 

 illustration from the Church of St. John, Syracuse, giving an 

 engraving of the interior of this ancient Church, showing conse- 

 cration crosses sculptured on the walls. In a note to this letter 

 Mr. Smirke says : — 



" Since the above was written Mr. Gage has done me the favour to refer me 

 to a Pontifical printed at Rome in 1595, and now preserved in the British 

 Museum, where the ceremony of consecrating a Chui'ch is set forth at length : 

 the Bishop is enjoined to mark with his thumb dipped in the chrism, twelve 

 crosses on the walls of the Church, and others on the door, altar, etc., etc. The 

 prints embellishing this Pontifical show the Bishop so engaged, mounted on a 

 moveable stage six steps high, the rubric requiring that the said crosses shall be 

 ten palms (7ft. Sin. English measure) above the floor." * 



It is curious that this is the height of the consecration crosses at 

 Manningford Bruce above the floor. 



From the following words of Mr. Gage, and the text of the rubric 

 on which he comments, it seems clear that the chancel veil, either 

 instead of a screen, as apparently in the Church of St. Mellon, or 

 with a screen, as in the Greek Church, was used ordinarily in the 

 Anglosaxon Church, and not only in Lent. " During the time the 

 Bishop was depositing the relics in the altar, the veil, out of reverence, 

 was drawn, exienso velo inter eos et populum. The veil here spoken 

 of was the curtain that anciently hung on the cancelli, or lattice of 

 the choir, and was drawn during the more solemn parts of the 

 service.'''' ^ 



8. Over the north door are some tantalising remains of an archaic 

 painting, apparently similar in style to some in the Utrecht Psalter. 

 Besides the wear and tear of time it has been ruthlessly pecked and 

 indented in some former generation to receive a coat of plaster. 



• Archoeologia, vol. xsv., p. 277, 

 '^ Ibid, pp. 243, 272. See also Pontifical of Egbert, p. 45, Surtees Society. 

 Compare on veils, paper by Eev. J. Baron, D.D., F.S.A., on some early features 

 of Stockton Church, Wilts, Proceedings of Soc. Antiq., Lond., Second Series, 

 vol. viii., No. iii., p. 236. Also above, p. 114, and p. 129, note ^ 



