Link to Easter Sepulchre at Long Melford Church, Suffolk
(Dave Postle's site)
Unique account of medieval parish church services
Rather little is known about what happened in a medieval parish church. We have service books, but we do not really know how they were used in practice in a typical village.
This makes Roger Martin's unique account particularly important. He was an important citizen of the town of Long Melford in Suffolk. After the Reformation he remained faithful to the Roman Catholic faith of his youth. Probably in the1580s or 1590s he wrote a description of the church services he remembered, which had long subce disappeared.
Long Melford is a large, rich parish church. So Martin's memories may not be entirely typical. But they help bridge the gap between Cathedral and Abbey services, about which we know quite a lot, and the humble parish church of the rural hamlet and village.
The east end of Long Melford church, Suffolk. Unusually for a parish church, there is a Lady chapel at the very east. The chancel with the Easter Sepulchre is roughly in the middle of the plan. The chancel is labelled 'choir'.
From Dymond & Paine.
Link to Easter Sepulchre at Long Melford Church, Suffolk.
You are in in 'Clopton's little chapel' looking over the top of the tomb
on which the Easter Sepulchre rested, into the chancel.
(Dave Postle's site)
This is what Martin said about the Easter arrangements. Our explanatory notes are in square brackets in red.
And in the quire [ie chancel], there was a fair painted frame of timber set up about Maundy Thursday, with holes for a number of fair tapers to stand in before the sepulchre [so this frame wasn't itself the sepulchre] and to be lighted in service time & sometimes it was set overthwart [across] the quire before the high altar, the sepulchre [that is, the Easter Sepulchre] being always placed, and finely garnished, at the north end of the high altar [so the sepulchre was moveable, presumably of wood, and always placed at the same place]; between that & Mr Clopton's little chapel there, in a vacant place of the wall, I think upon a tomb of one of his ancestors [see plan and photographs - the Clopton tomb(the 'vacant place of the wall') lies between the chances and a chapel, and has a flat top surface - the Easter Sepulchre was placed on this; it cannot have been particularly large], the said frame with the tapers, was set near to the steps going up to the said altar. And lastly, it was used to be set up, all along by Mr Clopton's Ile [north of the chancel], with a doore, made to go out of the roodloft into it [so it was a tall frame; it may have been used for the service of tenebrae (candles being snuffed out) during Holy Week].
(For further details, see the excellent edition of Roger Martin's account
referenced below.)
There are several websites with good pictures of Long Melford church.
David Postle's pictures of Long Melford - good details no text