User:Jfhutson/Decalogue boards

Decalogue boards are displays listing the Ten Commandments in Reformed churches. During the Protestant Reformation, many churches replaced art now considered idolatrous with religious texts, often the Ten Commandments. The Commandments were sometimes accompanied by the Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer.

England
In the English Reformation, Decalogue boards emphasized the power of the state over the church. Queen Elizabeth I issued a proclamation in 1560 which had the crucifix and statues of Mary and John removed from the chancel screens of churches, to be replaced by decalogue boards. In the seventeenth century, Puritans painted over some of them, as they considered even them inappropriate visual displays. Some were reinstalled by Evangelicals in the eighteenth century, but many were removed again in the ninteenth century by Anglo-Catholics associated with the Oxford Movement.

France
Most Huguenot temples had decalogue boards.