vestments prescribed until 1552 by the Book of Common Prayer, and that quite a majority still had a cross, candlesticks and censers. Amongst those which were richest may be named the parish churches of Buck- ingham, High Wycombe, Chalfont St. Peter, Chesham, Horton, Upton, Langley, Cheddington, Drayton Beauchamp, Whitchurch, Wing, Linslade, Great Missenden ; whilst Mursley, Great Horwood, Hog- geston, Ivinghoe, Bradenham and Drayton Parslow were among the poorest. Some few relics there were of earlier daysLenten veils, canopy cloths for the pyx, candlesticks with many branches or a stand for the rood light ; but it is astonishing to see how rapid had been the disappearance of ornaments only recently laid aside the pyx, the pax, the holy water stoup.[1] Some sales are noticed, as at Buckingham, North Marston and Hambleden ; but it is to be feared that some of the dis- used church ornaments had passed into the hands of those who had no legal right to them.
No general conclusions can be safely drawn from these lists as to the common custom of the two or three years preceding. The impres- sion produced by reading them is that there had been great diversity of use, and a state of things not unlike the time when there were no judges in Israel. At the two extremes may be placed the churches of Hitcham and Edlesborough : both of these have well-preserved inventories, and the order of the items is worth noting in both. At Hitcham the list is severely simple :
<poem>Imprimis, two Bibles Item, one chalice of silver with the paten Item, two surplices. </poem
There is absolutely nothing else. At Edlesborough the first item is 'Imprimis a pyx of latten that the sacrament lieth in'; and then follows a complete list of all such things as had once been thought necessary in every church for the reverent celebration of the holy mysteries, including ' a canopy with three crosses of latten that hangeth on the sacrament.' It is clear then that in one case at least the Blessed Sacrament was suspended above the altar as in former days, and, we may surely assume, surrounded by a stately and appropriate ceremonial ; while there were also churches (certainly two, Hoggeston and Hitcham) where the use of vestments had been abandoned even before the publi- cation of the Second Prayer Book they had in fact got rid of their vestments altogether, and had none to use[2]
- ↑ There had been no actual order for the disuse of the pyx or pax, as there had been for the disuse of holy water (Gairdner, History of the English Church, iv. 254, 268) ; but the request of the rebels of Devonshire ' that the sacrament might be hung up as heretofore ' in 1549, and the rarity of these ornaments in the inventories, show how generally they had been discarded.
- ↑ If we except clear cases like these, very little indeed can be certainly proved. It may be useful to point out that the inventories are merely lists of church goods still remaining in the custody of the church-wardens, with no indication except in a very few cases to show whether they were in use or not ; and that therefore they do not help us much to discover how far the standard of ritual suggested by the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. found favour in the county. The only thing quite clear is that before 1552 there was a notable absence of uniformity, and considerable exercise of private judgment in the inter-
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