[ALTAR- 3.] prop. The linen cloth used at the Communion or the Mass; but frequently applied to the silk frontal and super-frontal.
c. 1200. Trin. Coll. Hom., 163. His alter cloð is great and sole.
c. 1440. Lay-Folks Mass-Bk., B. P., iii. (1879), 71. Awterclath or towel, or any other anourment.
a. 1500. Nominale, in Wright, Voc., 231/1. Hoc lurthium, a nawtyr-cloth.
1522. in Bury Wills, 117. I bequethe to Fryers of Babbewell an aughter clothe of diaper.
1641. Milton, Ch. Discip., I. (1851), 47. Rich Coaps, gorgeous Altar-clothes.
1856. R. A. Vaughan, Hours w. Myst. (ed. 2), I. 222. He covers his table with an ‘altar-cloth.’
