able in Godshill
Church, Isle of Wight, is supported on four carved bulging pillar-legs;
and round the frieze, below the ledge of the table, is the following
inscription:

"Lancelot Coleman & Edward Britwel, Churchwardens, Anno Dom. 1631."

In Whitwell Church, Isle of Wight, the communion table stands on plain
bulging pillar-legs; and on the frieze round the ledge is carved in relief
an arm holding a chalice, with the following inscription:

"I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the
Lord. Psa. 116. v. 53. Anno Dom. 1632."

As the rubric of the church enjoined that at the communion the priest
should himself place the elements upon the holy table, the custom of
having a side table, called the credence table, for the elements to be set
on previous to their removal by the priest to the communion table for
consecration, was observed in some churches in the latter part of the
sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth century. Such table appears
to have been introduced in the reign of Elizabeth, by Andrews, bishop of
Norwich, whose model Archbishop Laud is said to have followed[242-*]; and
it originated from the prothesis, or side table of preparation, used in
the early church; it was likewise, as we have seen, used at the
sacramentals of the church of Rome, and on that account was strongly
objected to by the Puritans.

[Illustration: Table, (temp. Charles I.,) Chipping-Warden Church,
Northamptonshire.]

In the chancel of Chipping-Warden Church, Northamptonshire, on the north
side of the communion table, is a semicircular oak table, apparently of
the reign of Charles the First, standing on a frame supported by three
plain pillar-legs, like those of the communion tables of the same period,
and enriched with carved arched frieze-work similar to the arched
panel-work on pulpits of the same period.

A plain credence table of black oak, which from the style and make was
evidently set up after the Restoration, still continues to be used as such
in St. Michael's Church, Oxford, being placed on the north side of the
communion table.

The objections of the Puritans against many of the usages of the Anglican
church, and their refusal to conform to such under the pretence of their
being superstitious, had no slight effect in altering the internal
appearance of our churches in the middle of the seventeenth century, and
during the period their party had obtained the ascendancy, and had
succ