By the Rev. J. Baron, E.D., F.S.A. 



121 



practice of the Western Church of the present day : — i. a fuller and 

 more frequent use of incense ; ii. the distribution of blessed-bread 

 at the close of the liturgy. 



In the parish books of St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, exhibited by 

 Edwin Freshfield, Esq., F.S.A.,at an ordinary meeting of the Society 

 of Antiquaries, Burlington House, London, in 1879, one item of 

 some accounts, A.D. 1382, was, " Salt and cutting the Holy Loaf." 

 This was certainly not bread for the sacrament — which was always 

 in this country, before the Reformation, of wafer form, and needed 

 no cutting — but Blessed Bread, a tradition of the avrlScoqop, still 

 distributed in the Greek Church, and identical with the Fain, Beni 

 distributed at the end of mass in the Churches of France. 1 



There is one other early feature. It is a beautiful but sadly- 

 mutilated effigy, in the south aisle, of a lady, supposed to be a 

 benefactress. It reminds me in its costume and elegance of the 

 effigy of Eleanor, Queen of King Edward I., in Westminster Abbey, 

 but possibly it may be much later. The peculiarity is that the lady 

 is represented recumbent on the left side, and in the attitude of 

 prayer, apparently respecting the altar in the same south aisle. 

 Tradition says that it formerly occupied a position about the middle 

 of the south wall of the same aisle, under a recess which was des- 

 troyed to make way for a glaring monument, and that being found 

 out of place in the restoration of 1840, a new recess was made for 

 it where it now lies. 



I trust I have now fairly illustrated these points, which appear to 

 me as facts : — 



1. That the chancel and nave arrangement of our Churches has 

 arisen from an amalgamation of Eastern and Western types. 



2. That our English word chancel is derived from TLdytceXa, the 

 original name of the Greek screen, through Latin. 



3. That some of our smallest chancels were not intended to ac- 

 commodate a choir, much less an organ. 



1 Cf . Laws of K. Ethelred, as quoted below, p. 132, in a paper on the Church 

 of St. Peter, Manningford. 



