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ancel: this was so called from the screen or lattice-work (cancelli) of stone or wood by which it was separated from the nave, and which succeeded the curtain or veil which anciently formed this division of the church[173-*]. [Illustration: Stalls and Desk, St. Margaret's Church, Leicester.] We often perceive in the choirs of conventual churches, as in our cathedrals, on either side of the entrance, facing the east, and also on the north and south sides, a range of wooden stalls divided into single seats, peculiarly constructed, the _formulae_ or forms of which were movable, and carved on the _subselliae_ or under-sides with grotesque, satirical, and often irreverend devices: these were appropriated to the monks or canons of the monastery or college to which the church was attached. The form of each stall, when turned up so as to exhibit the carved work on the under-part, furnished a small kind of seat or ledge, constructed for the purpose of inclining against rather than sitting on; and this was called the _misericorde_ or _miserere_. The _formulae_ or forms when down, and the misericordes when the forms were turned up, were used as the season required for penitential inclinations[174-*]. In front of these stalls was a desk, ornamented on the exterior with panelled tracery; and over the stalls, especially of those of cathedral churches, canopies of tabernacle work richly carved were sometimes disposed. In Winchester Cathedral we have perhaps the most early, chaste, and beautiful example of the canons' stalls, with canopies over, that are to be met with, although a greater excess of minute carved ornament may be found in the canopies which overhang the stalls in other cathedrals. In old conventual churches, now no longer used as such, the stalls have been often removed from their original position to other parts of the church, and they appear to have varied in number according to that of the fraternity. [Illustration: Misericorde, All Souls' College, Oxford.] [Illustration: Brass Reading Desk, Merton College Chapel, Oxford.] In the choirs of cathedral and conventual churches, and in the chancels of some other churches, a movable desk, at which the epistle and gospel were read, was placed: this was often called the eagle desk, from its being frequently sustained on a brazen eagle with expanded wings, elevated on a stand, emblematic of St. John the evangelist. Eagle desks are generally found either of the fifteen
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