The Rood screen, which was a music gallery, carried a loft and the organ when there was one. The loft contained desks for singers; it was also provided with pricks for candles. The great cross rose above the loft. In the chancel stood the high altar; when there were no aisles two smaller altars stood one on either side. Above the altar was a reredos of carved work; at the ends of which hung curtains. There was generally a super altar. On the high altar stood the cross, with figures, reliquaries, and images to adorn it. Also they laid on the altar the Textus or Book of the Gospels, with the paxbrede or tablet for the kiss of peace. There were generally two lights on the altar.
“It is convenient to mention here the other lights, which were kept in 1548, by the retention of the ceremonies with which they were connected. These were the two tapers carried by boys in processions at High Mass, and at other services when solemnly performed; the herse light, used at Matins or Tenebres on the last three days of Holy Week; the paschal candle, which stood in a tall candlestick, or hung in a bason on the north side of the high altar, and was lighted with much ceremony on Easter Eve, and burned at all the principal services throughout Paschal tide; the torches carried in the procession on Corpus Christi Day; the lantern carried before the Sacrament when it was taken to the sick; the large standing tapers which were placed round a corpse during the funeral service; and the candle used at baptism. Most of the lights, which a little earlier had been common round tombs, were endowed, and as such had been taken away, but the custom of survivors placing lights round the graves of their departed friends would probably be continued still for a few years.”
Chapels were the most usual places for tombs, but they are found in every part of the church. The various forms of them are too familiar to require description, but the use of colour gave them much more decorative importance in an interior than they have now. Many were painted, and others were covered with rich cloths. Flat gravestones had often carpets laid over them, and raised tombs had palls of cloth of gold or other costly stuff. The church of Dunstable still possesses such a pall: it is of crimson velvet, richly embroidered. Tapestries and cloths of various kinds were very much used, especially in chancels, as curtains and carpets, and as coverings for seats and desks and the like. Every church also had special hangings for Lent, when images and pictures were covered up generally with white or blue cloths, marked with crosses and the emblems of the Passion. The Lenten veil between the choir and the high altar seems also to have been retained in 1547, but in 1548 Cranmer and his party had partly succeeded in doing away with it. All parts of the church were more or less adorned with imagery and pictures on walls, in windows, or on furniture. None had been ordered to be taken away except such as had been superstitiously abused, or which were representations of “feigned miracles.”