Note 89 — Chapter XVIII · LITURGICAL PLAYS

Hardy and Gee, op. cit. 428. Art. xxiii forbids ‘monuments of ... idolatry and superstition.’ The Elizabethan Visitation Articles collected in the Second Report of the Ritual Commission make no mention of sepulchres. They generally follow pretty closely the wording of the Injunctions. But the Articles of Bentham, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry (1565), specify ‘monuments of idolatry and superstition’ as including ‘Sepulchres which were used on Good Friday’ (Heales, 307). Notices of the destruction of sepulchres become numerous, being found, for instance, in the case of 50 out of 153 Lincolnshire churches (Feasey, 142), and pious legacies begin to direct tombs ‘whereas the sepulchre was wonte to stande.’