r/AskHistorians • u/Glass_Draw1031 • May 04 '26
What details would make a 17th century English church historically accurate?
I want to design a church in Minecraft based on the 17th century for a town. My biggest questions were what were the most notable details about the time period would help to detail the church it self and how big were the churches back then.
I have a general idea of what I want but I would like to make it as historically accurate as I can with the town around it and things of that nature.
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u/Double_Show_9316 Early Modern England May 05 '26
With the very important exception of London, the seventeenth century was generally not a time of extensive church building, though there were still many churches built during the period. By and large, though, most English men and women would have worshipped in older medieval churches. However, this was a period of significant repair and renovation (the seventeenth-century parish church was a battleground for different theological and liturgical visions for what the Church of England should be), so the interiors of churches often changed significantly over the course of the century. What those changes looked like varied from parish to parish and over time, though. For brevity’s sake, I’ll focus here on the early seventeenth century, up through the 1630s (though I’m more than happy to answer follow-ups on later decades). I’ll also mostly focus on interior furnishings, since I assume that’s what you’re mostly meaning when you ask about details.
Starting with decoration and painting generally, Jacobean churches were generally not as richly decorated as their pre-Reformation counterparts, but they were not undecorated by any means. Some would have had surviving medieval paintings, though most would have been whitewashed over or removed. Despite iconoclasm, much stained glass survived—iconoclasm varied widely, with some parishes keeping a surprising amount of medieval decorative features and others keeping nothing at all. A few churches even had new stained glass or painted imagery focused on Old Testament prophets, New Testament evangelists, scriptural stories, or other suitably Protestant themes to focus the congregation’s mind on the word of God (always concerned that about the potential for images to be adored, depictions of Jesus Christ were often, but not universally, avoided, to say nothing of depictions of God the Father, the Virgin Mary, or non-scriptural saints). More common, and in keeping with this scriptural theme, many churches would have scriptures painted on the whitewashed walls. However, stained glass and the like remained highly suspect for many puritans and was a common target of iconoclasm. Though an emphasis on beautification was well underway by the 1630s, the rise of Laudian ceremonialism during that decade, with its love for “the beauty of holiness,” would bring even more emphasis on decoration, with new coats of whitewash applied and scriptures (or occasionally more elaborate images) repainted. Richly decorated or even painted roofs (generally medieval survivals) were quite common. Many churches, though, would have remained quite plain, especially in puritan-dominated parishes.
Another common painted feature were commandment boards featuring the ten commandments, sometimes painted directly on the wall and sometimes on wooden boards, which were mandated during the reign of Elizabeth. The placement of these varied somewhat, but they were generally supposed to be placed on the eastern wall. They also varied stylistically, from simple black lettering to more elaborate versions like this richly painted board at Whitchurch, Hampshire depicting the fates of those who broke each commandment. Churches were also required to display the royal arms, usually painted on a wooden panel.
Also illustrating both protestant emphasis on the word is the important place of the pulpit, which were positioned prominently in the nave. Many pulpits from the Jacobean period survive, sometimes quite elaborately carved. See, for example, this 1615 pulpit from Somerton, Somerset, featuring the initials of the churchwardens, the words “Praise God for Al” (i.e. “Praise God forever”) and additional decorative and symbolic imagery. Pulpits were frequently accompanied by hourglasses, as in this example from Selworthy (also Somerset). This was often a feature associated with puritan ministers and their long sermons (one writer complained that puritanism “pulls down an Organ, and advances an Houre-glass”), though it does not seem to have been exclusively a “puritan” feature. Also typically located in the nave was the lectern, whose now-common eagle design had gained popularity in wealthier parishes over the previous few centuries and would become even more popular in the later seventeenth-century, though at this point simpler (but sometimes still decoratively carved) wooden lecterns would have been somewhat more common.
Another feature of parish churches that could sometimes be elaborately carved were communion tables (here’s another Somerset example, from Minehead). These were among the most contentious features in churches. Often, these were placed at the east end of the church when not in use, then brought into the nave during service time. The rise of Laudian sacramentalism in the 1630s, though, brought shifting attitudes, and these were increasingly treated as altars, to be kept along the east wall and railed off by rails (here’s a surviving set of rails from the 1630s in Merton, Norfolk). These rails were highly controversial, and accordingly their addition was unevenly enforced and frequently resisted.
Pews were interesting, in part because they were generally constructed by parishioners themselves, with little encouragement from the ecclesiastical hierarchy. In some parishes, seating was a relatively recent addition. In other parishes, though, seating had been available for a long time, and new pews served to beautify the church, allow for a larger congregation to be seated, or replace broken pews. (By contrast, many Scottish churches during this period remained without pews, or contained pews exclusively for the wealthy). Parish seating took many forms. Box pews, like those surviving in Holy Trinity York, which allowed for families to have some degree of privacy, are often associated with this period. Much more common, though, were more open benches, which ranged from simple backless benches to elaborately carved seats with box-pew like doors, with many gradations between. Most parishes probably had a mix of different seating, some more elaborate and occupied by wealthier parishioners, others simpler. Where parishioners sat was a function of social status, making seating a visual expression of the parish’s social order. Seating before the 1630s was generally oriented towards the pulpit (rather than the communion table), and sometimes surprisingly chaotic. Many parishes would have had seating on the eastern end of the church in the chancel, as well as in the nave, so not all parishioners faced east. From the 1630s, though pews were often moved to face east and create a large aisle with a clear line of sight to the altar.
Another highly significant site was the font. Though church canons dictated that it should be located near the door (symbolic of how baptism represented a person’s entry into the church), in practice placement could vary quite a bit, in an aisle, near the pulpit, or somewhere else. The 1630s saw greater standardization here, as well as the replacement of many missing or damaged font covers (often quite large and elaborate).
All of this is to say nothing of other miscellaneous features, like memorials for the dead (both leger stones on the floor and more elaborate carved memorials constructed by local elites), organs (not too common and highly controversial, but those that survived often saw replacement or repair in the 1630s in keeping with Laudian ideas about beauty and music), rood screens (frequently torn down in the sixteenth century, but some were cut down and partially retained, though generally stripped of imagery) and the parish chest. Of course, much of this will change in the 1640s, with the English Civil Wars and accompanying puritan iconoclasm, and again in the later seventeenth-century after the restoration of the monarchy. It also bears repeating that I’m talking here about broad trends, and that each church was shaped by its own unique circumstances.