lous commissioners of Edward VI. performed a
like office for our parish churches and chantries. A large number of
the old chalices were also melted down and converted into Communion
cupsduring the reigns of Edward VI. and Elizabeth. Hence of all the
vast store of church plate which our churches possessed before the
Reformation, at the present time throughout all England only thirty-four
chalices and seventy-three patens remain. It is true that not all the
ancient vessels fell into the hands of the commissioners of the king. In
the churchwardens' account books of the period we read of sundry sales
of church plate. Evidently the parishioners had some presentiment of the
coming spoliation; so they sold their valuables, and kept the proceeds
of the sale for "the paving of the streets," or other parochial
necessities.

The ancient inventories of church goods show the deplorable loss of the
valuables of the church which has taken place. Thus at the church of St.
Lawrence, Reading, in the year 1517, the inventory tells us of the
following: a cross of silver and gilt; a censer of silver gilt; another
censer; a ship of silver for holding incense; another ship of silver;
two candlesticks of silver; two books bound in silver; two basins of
silver; a pyx of silver gilt, with a silver pin; a monstrance of silver
gilt; a silver gilt chrismatory for the holy oil; a pax; two cruets; a
bell; a chalice, with a crucifix enamelled on the foot and the Trinity
on the paten; another chalice, with a crucifix engraved on the foot
and a hand on the paten; another chalice similarly described; another
similar to first chalice; and two others, with a crucifix on the foot
and a vernicle, or _vera icon_ (a representation of our Lord's face
miraculously delineated on the napkin of St. Veronica). All these
vessels were made of silver or silver gilt. Nor were these all the
treasures. There were several reliquaries of silver gilt containing
parts of the holy cross; a gridiron, with a bone of St. Lawrence, and
other articles contained in silver boxes; and many books bound with
silver clasps. The total weight of silver in this church amounted to
seven hundred ounces.

Village churches were, of course, less sumptuously furnished than this
important town church, which being situated under the shadow of one of
the largest and most important abbeys in the kingdom, would receive many
costly gifts and benefactors. But the inventories of village churches
show t