OLD FURNITURE
i6
many
from Gothic times to the spacious ones of Elizabeth are to be found of the fine early coffers
in the churches.
It
may be supposed
that in
no other situation would they have survived the humidity of the English climate. The church coffers in the early thirteenth century were, by order of the Pope, alms chests into which the people placed their offerings in aid of the Crusade.
The
tilting chests,
with carved panels of knights
and tournament, belong to the fourteenth century, but these first oak chests are scarcely to be neither are the beautiful Gothic discovered now traceried coffers of the fourteenth and fifteenth They are beyond the dreams or means centuries. ;
of the small collector.
Fig.
i
represents a quite
exceptional Gothic coffer which will be found in the
Church
—
of the
Holy Cross
—the
parish
some years this chest had been in the old Manor House of Trobridge, the home of the Yarde family. In 1 90 1 it was restored to Crediton Church by Mr. John Yarde. It measures 5 ft. 6 in. in length, 2 ft. I in. in depth and 3 ft. 2 in. in height, and rests on a plinth which has every appearance of being of somewhat later date than the chest, which probably belongs to the sixteenth century. The carved work is in the design of a traceried window, with ogee arches church
at
Crediton,
Devonshire.
For