Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from A Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Terms: Being a History and Explanation of Certain Terms Used in Architecture, Ecclesiology, Liturgiology, Music, Ritual, Cathedral Constitution, Etc
Ferrar had them in his church at Little Gidding, and in Peter Smart's sermon at Durham, on 27th July 1628, Dr Cosin, one of the prebend aries, was charged, inter alia, with having tapers upon the altar. Cosin was compelled to explain that in winter time upon the Com munion Table were never set more than two fair candles, with a few small sizes near to them, which they put there of purpose that the people all about might have the better use of them for singing the Psalms and reading the Lessons out of the Bible, but 200 was a greater number than they used in all the church, either upon Candle mas night or any other Works, He did not, how ever, deny the article which charged him with allowing the com pany of boys to come in with lighted torches in their hands at the choir door, bowing towards the altar at their first entrance, bowing thrice before they lighted their tapers, and withdraw, bowing so oft towards the altar, the organs all the time going. Old engravings of ceremonies in the choir of St Paul's early in the eighteenth century show two candles burning on the altar at services known to be held at noon, and they are so represented in the plate Communion des Anglicans a Saint Paul, in Picart's Ceremonies et Coutumes Religieuses de tous les Peuples du Monde (7 vols., 1723 Lord Mornington, of chant and glee fame, father of the Duke of Wellington, had candles upon the retable oi the altar in his private chapel at Dangan Castle, Co. Meath and at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, the gradine of the altar formerly sustained massive silver gilt Candlesticks with wax candles in them, which were always lighted whenever the service was performed at dark. At Durham, at the beginning of the last century, the candles were regularly lighted on the altar on Sunday mornings, as if in anticipation of a Celebration. At St Paul's the candles have been lighted on the high altar for the Celebration on Sundays and Festivals for the past twenty years. Ou the Greater Festivals the two candles in the huge candelabra standing on the gradus presbyterz'z' are also lighted, to gether with those on the altar, during the whole of Matins and Celebration. At the same cathedral it is the rule to have two lights on the altar at Evensong throughout the year. The number of candles adopted as the rule of the English Church appears to have been in this, as in so many other things, a re-enactment of the custom or practice of the very early Church; and we find it still customary in the unchanging East. And the same use may be seen in North Italy, as at Venice and Lucca, for example, where the two altar candlesticks stand on a low step, while the four candles on the altar itself are not always lighted In addition there is often a.
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