It must have been an insertion at a date subsequent to that of the chancel and transept. Here then we have something to guide us. The East chancel windows at Mawgan and Wendron are similar, and are so like that of Higham Ferrers, circa A. D. 1350, given in the Oxford Glossary, that we may safely assume them to be of about that date, and they appear to be coæval with the walls.
In the other churches the architecture is of more provincial character, and therefore less worthy of reliance as a proof of date; but at Grade there is an entire cruciform roof, a remarkably fine specimen, if not the very best in Cornwall, of a cradle roof, and dated in two places on the cornice, viz. chancel, 1486; nave, 1487. This has every appearance of being of prior date to the low window; and as heraldic shields of the Edwardian form were often used as late as the XVIth century, it is probable that the windows in question were erected at the close of the XVth, and very shortly before our Reformation. So much for date; now for their use. Upon which of the twelve conjectural uses enumerated in the fourth volume of this Journal, p. 315, do they throw most light, or what new idea do they suggest? Wendron alone excepted, they all agree in one respect, viz. connection with chancel and transept at the point at which the rood-loft rested upon the wall of the former, the window being placed somewhat eastward of the rood, and below the level of the loft. In each example, however, the rood has been removed, and the modern pulpit has been placed on the south side against the angle at which the window occurs, as if it were wished at the Reformation to block out all remembrance of the former arrangement and destroy its use.
What that use may have been, beyond the mere supposition of its connection with the service of the rood-loft, it is difficult to determine. That it was some use common to the churches of the Lizard district, is sufficiently apparent, but I am unable to point to any episcopal or other order for the erection of such windows, or for any such use of them. I shall be glad to hear of such a discovery as may tend to settle this difficult point in Ecclesiology; and, meanwhile, it would be interesting if any similar groups of such windows can be found in other parts of England.
