388 



Old Church Plate in Wilts. 



Sundry other items of expense bring the cost to the sum above- 

 mentioned, as is expressed at the bottom of the page : — 

 " The whole paid aboute the new bell v 1 . ij 8 ." 



A curious instance of the retention of an old custom of pre- 

 Reformation times, and still in use in all Roman Catholic Churches, 

 will be found in the diocese of Salisbury. At Wimborne Minster 

 it is still the practice to use the long strips of white linen which 

 were spread along the altar rail when the communion was adminis- 

 tered to the congregation. These are still called, as in old times, 

 houseling 1 cloths. There being no altar rails at Wimborne Minster 

 it has always been the custom there to lay the houseling linen on 

 three or more benches, which are arranged across the chancel, and 

 which form, in fact, a sort of altar rail, the communicants coming 

 up from the body of the Church to kneel at them. This practice, 

 as far as the writer is aware, is not retained in any other Anglican 

 Church. 



In the seventeenth century there are numerous instances of the 

 consecration of Church plate. The chalice belonging to the parish 

 Church of Streatham bears an inscription to this effect, A.D. 1686. 

 It was one of the charges against Archbishop Laud that in his 

 chapel he was seen to "consecrate some plate/' Laud justifies 

 himself by saying that " in all ages of the Church there have been 

 consecrations of sacred vessels as well as of Churches themselves/' 

 and that the form he used was not according to the Missale Parvo, 

 but the " Form " provided by Bishop Andrews. 



From the Church books preserved in the parish of St. Saviour's, 

 Southwark, it appears that from about 1530 to the middle of the 

 seventeenth century it was customary to issue certain metal tokens 

 to all parishioners who had partaken of the holy communion. In 

 1556 occurs an entry of an order of vestry that the wardens shall 

 cast tokens and keep lists in token books. Apparently a house-to- 

 house visitation was made, with a view of compelling every person 



1 To housele, in old English, meant, to administer the sacrament. The ghost 

 of Hamlet's father exclaims : — 



" Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, 

 Unhousell'd, disappointed, unanel'd." 



