Altars Restored: The Changing Face of English Religious Worship, 1547-c.1700 (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Altars Restored: The Changing Face of English Religious Worship, 1547-c.1700 Marcus Harmes Fincham, Kenneth, and Nicholas Tyacke, Altars Restored: The Changing Face of English Religious Worship, 1547-c.1700, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008; cloth; pp. xviii, 396; 24 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. US$150.00; ISBN 9780198207009. Altars Restored examines altar policy in England over approximately one hundred and fifty years. Kenneth Fincham and Nicholas Tyacke offer a study of a highly specific topic, the chancel furnishings of English churches, cathedrals and college chapels, but one with a wide chronological scope, extending from the reign of Edward VI until the very end of the Stuart period. Fincham and Tyacke stress the primacy of the artistic and architectural evidence of English altar policies for their analysis. While focussing so sharply on altars and communion rails, they also examine a range of issues involving the beautification of churches, the celebration of communion and Eucharistic theology. In studying both the creation and the destruction of the liturgical furnishings of parish churches and the practices carried out in these churches, Fincham and Tyacke interpret the responses of English parishioners to the varying emphases given to art and worship in their churches. The precise starting date of this text is 1547, the year of Edward VI's accession, following which the furnishings of England's parish churches were rapidly dismantled and discarded. The survey extends from this point up until the very late Restoration, the period when the City of London's churches were being rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of London. The authors establish that during this time official attitudes to altars and their attendant rituals and associated furnishings such as communion rails varied widely, with drastic and destructive implications for the religious art in English churches. By taking their analysis up to the turn of the eighteenth century, Fincham and Tyacke's work ends with the restoration of altars to London's churches, if not English churches in general. The scholarly inspiration provided by Eamon Duffy's text The Stripping of the Altars is here acknowledged as the earlier text gives its title to the first chapter. More generally, the title Altars Restored inevitably reads as a response to Duffy's work. In particular, Fincham and Tyacke ground much of their evidence at the parochial level and use evidence from the churches themselves to contradict Duffy's argument that reform was unpopularly imposed from above. They reconstruct the evidence taken by wardens, curates and parishioners during [End Page 211] Edward VI's reign and indicate local participation in the removal of altars. In their study of the Laudian period, they consolidate this impression of local participation and leadership in setting altar policy, as locals seized opportunities to beautify their churches. This text is underpinned by exceptionally rich archival sources, which is characteristic of Fincham's work in particular, as similar research in diocesan and county archives and among churchwardens' accounts informed his 1990 text Prelate as Pastor. This text is also richly illustrated, as the visual sources stand alongside the documentary and printed documents as forming a significant source base for their analysis. Among other items, Fincham and Tyacke draw conclusions from altars and communion tables, communion rails and plate, fonts and stained glass windows. The analysis of visual images is especially significant, as events in parish churches and local reactions to different means of celebrating communion are not well documented in literary sources. Within this time frame, Fincham and Tyacke chart in particular the controversy caused by orienting altars or holy tables north-south, rather than east-west, railing them in and the equally contentious issues of the position or posture in which communicants received communion, whether seated, kneeling or standing. These are well-plotted areas of Early Modern English history, although the text offers fresh insights to the causes and progression of these controversies. Their text is especially noteworthy for its original treatment of Archbishop William Laud and the altar policies of Laudianism for two reasons. Firstly they identify significant alternatives to Laud in inspiring and carrying out the beautification of church interiors. While they acknowledge Laud's close involvement...