eaver, who
states that the vicar and churchwardens pulled down a tomb to make room
for the rail.

In Bishop Wren's diocesan directions it was ordered that the communion
table in every church should always stand close under the east wall of the
chancel, the ends thereof north and south, and that the rail should be
made before it, reaching up from the north wall to the south wall, near
one yard in height, so thick with pillars that dogs might not get in.

But we find the situation of the altar or communion table, and the reason
of its severance by means of rails, more particularly noticed in the
canons entertained by the convocation held in 1640. In these (after an
allusion to the fact that many had been misled against the rites and
ceremonies of the church of England, and had taken offence at the same
upon an unjust supposal that they were introductive unto popish
superstitions, whereas they had been duly and ordinarily practised by the
whole church during a great part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and that
though since that time they had by subtle practices begun to fall into
disuse, and in place thereof other foreign and unfitting usages by little
and little to creep in, yet in the royal chapels and many other churches
most of them had been ever constantly used and observed) it was declared
that the standing of the communion table sideway under the east window of
every chancel was in its own nature indifferent[235-*]; yet as it had
been ordered by the injunctions of Queen Elizabeth that the holy tables
should stand in the places where the altars stood, it was judged fit and
convenient that all churches should conform themselves in this particular
to the example of the cathedral and mother churches; and it was declared
that this situation of the holy table did not imply that it was or ought
to be esteemed a true and proper altar, whereon Christ was again really
sacrificed; but that it was and might be called an altar, in that sense in
which the primitive church called it an altar, and in no other. And
because experience had shewn how irreverent the behaviour of many people
was in many places, (some leaning, others casting their hats, and some
sitting upon, some standing, and others sitting under the communion table,
in time of divine service,) for the avoiding of which and like abuses it
was thought meet and convenient that the communion tables in all churches
should be decently severed with rails, to preserve them f