An Anglican in the Attic

I wrote this article for readers who want to learn more about how Anglicans "did church" in the three centuries before the Catholic Revival of the nineteenth century and who are interested in reviving the practices of the reformed Church of England from what was a formative period for classical Anglicanism. A “naked table,” to use Percy Dearmer’s description of a communion table that is bare save for a white fair linen tablecloth was the practice of the Western Church from at least the third century AD to the nineth century AD. This included the papal chapel from the seventh century AD on. In his 1928 edition of The Parson’s Handbook Dearmer notes that it was the practice of the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium and France and the Italian Mission, a Roman Catholic mission, in the United Kingdom in his day.   He also notes that a naked table was a Puritan practice. It was not, however, as we shall see, the mandated practice of the reformed Church of England during sixteenth an...