THE TOWER, THE PORCH, AND THE CHANCEL
§ 27. In another volume of this series, the development of the ground
plan of the parish church has been treated with some detail. The
importance of the central tower in connexion with the transeptal or
cruciform plan has there been explained; and it has been seen that
English builders generally preferred a tower at the west end of the
nave. In the present chapter, something will be said of the development
and use of the western tower, and of the closely related subject of the
entrances to the church. The nave and its aisles demand, in this space,
little more attention than can be given to them in the discussion
of the ground plan and in what has been said already with regard to
chantry chapels; and of their furniture more will be said in the next
chapter. But some further consideration of the chancel, the enlargement
of which forms so important a part of the history of the medieval
plan, is necessary; and some account of its architectural and ritual
development is given here, following the description of the tower and
porch.
[Illustration: Fig. 6. Norton, Co. Durham: Saxon central tower, with
transept.]
§ 28. There is evidence that, in certain churches of unquestionably
Saxon origin, the western tower was formed, probably at a time
considerably subsequent to their foundation, by the heightening of
the western porch or main entrance to the church. Brixworth and
Monkwearmouth are cases in point. At Brixworth the original western
doorway of the porch was blocked up when the stair-turret of the tower
was built on that side. At Monkwearmouth the line of the gabled roof
of the porch is still visible. Western towers, whether heightened or
built from the ground, were certainly not common until, at any rate,
the epoch of the Danish wars. No existing church can be assigned
positively to that epoch; and those who contend that the church tower
then came into existence as a place of defence and refuge from the
invaders probably argue from analogies of a later period. The thin
walls and undefended ground-floor doorways of Saxon towers forbid us
to entertain this theory seriously. But it is certainly the case that
these towers, primarily intended as bell-towers, were sometimes planned
to afford more accommodation than was necessary for a man whose sole
duty was to ring the bell. The ground-floor area of towers like Earl's
Barton and Barnack in Northants, and Hough-on-the-Hill in Lincolnshire,
which, in their present state, may be assigned tentatively to the
later part of the tenth century, takes its place in the history of
the development of the plan; and, just as at Barton-on-Humber, the
dimensions of the upper part of such towers were conditioned by the
space allotted to the lowest stage. But there are indications that,
in cases where the ground floor of the tower was simply the porch of
the church, one or more of the upper stages had their special use.
A doorway occasionally has been made in the east wall of the tower,
above the arch leading into the nave. This may be explained by the fact
that such towers were small in area, and that their angles contained
no room for staircases. Some access from the interior of the church
to their upper stories was necessary, and would be easily provided by
a ladder from the ground floor to the doorway on the first floor. The
doorway is usually slightly on one side of the centre of the wall,
so that the ladder would not interfere with the archway below. But
the case is different, when, as at Brixworth, a large circular turret
has been built against the west wall of the tower, and from the first
floor chamber there is a large triple window-opening looking out into
the body of the church. At Deerhurst, there is not only a doorway in
the first floor of the tower; but, close by it, near the centre of the
wall, there is a small window-opening or squint; while, on the second
floor, there is a double window-opening of unusual form, and, on the
third floor, another doorway in the centre of the wall, which seems
to have opened into a wooden gallery. More than this, the lower part
of the tower is partitioned by a transverse wall into an eastern and
western porch and upper chamber. It is therefore indisputable that
the tower at Deerhurst was more than a bell-tower. Deerhurst was an
important monastery: the size and plan of the church were exceptional;
and the upper floors of the tower may have been used for special
purposes in connexion with the monastic services. One may hazard the
suggestion that the room on the east side of the first floor was used
by the monk whose turn it was to keep night-watch in the church: the
spy-hole in the east wall seems to afford ground for this. It has been
suggested that the second floor chamber--and, like it, the first floor
chamber at Brixworth--was used as an oratory by the lord of the manor
and protector of the monastery; and this is possible, if the importance
of the lord of the manor in connexion with early parish churches is
taken into account. Almery-like recesses in the wall are found in
this chamber at Deerhurst: such recesses, where they are found by
themselves, as in the tower of Skipwith in Yorkshire, suggest little
and prove nothing, and at Deerhurst no positive reason for their use
can be given. In some medieval churches there are traces of altars on
the upper floors of towers; and it is possible that such altars may
have existed at Deerhurst and Brixworth, and the windows pierced in the
wall behind them may have been given special decorative treatment.
The western stair-turret at Brixworth was probably constructed for the
sake of the important first floor chamber. Three other examples of a
circular stair-turret projecting from the western face of a tower are
found, one in Northamptonshire, two in Lincolnshire; but in none of
these are there any indications of a particular use for the first floor
of the tower. The only example of a spiral stair or vice built in an
angle of a pre-Conquest tower is at Great Hale in Lincolnshire, and is
a rude piece of work. Until the introduction of buttresses, the newel
stair in the angle of the tower was uncommon. A ladder from the floor
of the tower served for access to the upper stages. In rare instances,
as at Kirkburn in the east riding of Yorkshire, a stone stair was built
against the inner walls of the tower as far as the level of the first
floor. Where angle-staircases have been added to early Norman towers,
as at Tansor in Northants or in the central tower at Coln St Denis in
Gloucestershire, the abutments have been seriously weakened.
§ 29. In the eleventh century, the western bell-tower, the ground
floor of which served as the main porch of the church, became common.
The tower of the so-called 'Lincolnshire' type, with its stages
separated by off-sets, and its double belfry window openings divided
by a 'mid-wall' shaft, is found not infrequently in other parts of
England, and survived, with some change in proportion and detail, for
some time after the Norman Conquest. Some sixty western towers of the
ordinary late Saxon type remain in England, exclusive of heightened
porches, and of a few round towers in the eastern counties, where the
absence of stone suitable for quoins made this shape desirable. It is
probable that portions of many more exist beneath later additions. We
have seen that in the tower at Branston, built more than a quarter
of a century at earliest after the Conquest, the old type was
retained--the slender tower, lofty in proportion to its area. The tower
of Weaverthorpe in the east riding of Yorkshire, obviously Norman in
its details, keeps the old proportions. Many towers, on the contrary,
which, at first sight, might be associated with the Saxon group, shew
Norman influence in the thickness of their walls and stoutness of their
proportions. While the normal thickness of wall in the late Saxon
towers of Lincolnshire is about three and a half feet, the thickness
at Caistor is increased to nearly six feet. The normal area is from
ten to twelve feet square: the area at Caistor is 15½ feet east to
west by 17½ north to south. The normal width of the arch between
tower and nave is about 5¾ feet: at Caistor it is nearly four feet
more. At Tugby, between Leicester and Uppingham, there is a remarkable
tower, built in a primitive fashion which shews distinct traces of
Saxon kinship, but with proportions and with the introduction of
detail which as clearly bear witness to its post-Conquest date. Hooton
Pagnell, near Doncaster, has a large western tower which follows the
Saxon tradition of the simple rubble tower with small stone quoins and
without buttresses; but the character of the arch leading into the
nave is distinctly Norman, and the tower is not merely of unusually
large area, but is the full breadth of the spacious nave beyond it.
While the western tower increases in area, it does not at first acquire
buttresses at the angles: these, in their flat pilaster-like form,
begin to appear in the course of the twelfth century.
[Illustration: Fig. 7. Carlton-in-Lindrick, Notts.: west tower, of late
Saxon type, with later additions.]
§ 30. The magnificent architectural development of the tower and spire,
in which, as in perhaps no other part of the church, the individual
characteristics of local schools of masoncraft can be traced, becomes
noticeable in the thirteenth century, at a time when the use of the
ground floor of the tower as the principal porch of the church had
been discontinued. In the fen country round Wisbech and Spalding, a
series of thirteenth century towers, covering the period from 1200 to
1280, bears witness to the work of a school of tower builders, hardly
less distinguished than the great Somerset masons of later days, which
probably derived its inspiration from the arcaded western tower of Ely
cathedral. Elm, Leverington, Walsoken, West Walton, Tilney All Saints,
Long Sutton, Gedney, and Whaplode, are the principal evidence of
their work. Not all these towers are western, and four of the number,
including Gedney, the belfry stage of which belongs to a later date,
are without the spires which their builders doubtless intended; but
all are instances of the treatment of the bell-tower as an independent
architectural composition, quite irrespective of its part in the plan
of the church. In the twelfth century, however, when the side doorway
was superseding the tower porch, the western tower was by no means
so handsome or invariable a feature as it became in later days. Many
smaller churches were content with a bell-cot over the western gable.
There are several excellent examples of stone bell-cots in Rutland.
In Essex and other districts where good building timber was easily
procured, it is not uncommon to find square towers of timber, with
conical caps or even spires, above the western gable, often supported
on an elaborate framework within the west end of the church. A few
timber towers, like Margaretting in Essex, are built up against the old
west end of the church.
§ 31. There can be no doubt that, in the earlier part of the middle
ages, while the high pitched roof prevailed in the main body of the
building, the spire was considered the proper termination of a tower.
Its chief development naturally took place in districts where good
roofing stone was plentiful; and the finest English spires, with a few
exceptions, are to be found in south Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire,
Leicestershire, and Rutland. In less favoured districts, timber spires,
covered with lead or shingles, were placed upon towers. Many of these
remain in Surrey and Sussex. The spire may be regarded as the natural
development of the conical roofs with which the towers of the eleventh
and early twelfth centuries were usually crowned--an invaluable, if
exceptional, example of which remains at Sompting, near Worthing. These
must generally have been of wood with leaden coverings. The earliest
general development of the stone spire is probably to be traced to
south Lincolnshire, where the low broach spires of Sleaford, Rauceby,
Frampton, and a few other churches, appear to belong to the last years
of the twelfth, or earliest years of the thirteenth century. The spire
continued to be fashionable in this and the neighbouring districts,
long after it had become unusual in other parts of England. Grantham
spire exercised an enduring influence upon its neighbourhood. It was
the model upon which the builders of the spire of Oakham endeavoured to
improve, with less striving after height and more coherence of design.
From Oakham was closely derived the tower of Exton in Rutland, where
the builders raised their spire upon an octagonal base. The octagon
at Exton was probably the parent of those octagons which, rising on
the summit of towers, reach their climax in the lantern at Boston, and
in the octagonal frame which surrounds the lower part of the spire at
Patrington. Other details at Exton bore fruit in the spires of Oundle
and Kettering. At the very end of the middle ages, the feeling for the
spire in Lincolnshire was still so strong that the tower of Louth was
designed for a spire in the middle of the fifteenth century, and the
spire itself was brought to completion in 1515.
§ 32. While, in the districts to which allusion has just been made,
towers were designed, as a rule, with a view to the spires which were
to cover them, the tower, in other parts of England, was designed
simply as a tower, and the spire was regarded merely as a roof for
it. In the chalk country north of the Thames, towers are often found
crowned by small timber spirelets with a leaden covering, which are
merely insignificant additions. Towards the middle of the fourteenth
century, an important development in the elevation of the main fabric
led to a general disuse of the spire, especially in districts where
stone spires had formed no part of architectural design. Clerestories
with broad windows were built above the arcades of the nave. With
this increase of height the old high pitched roofs were abandoned
in favour of roofs of a flatter pitch. Very often, this was due to
the rotting of the old roof-timber at the ends next the wall-plates.
These ends were sawn off, and the roof re-laid at a lower pitch. At the
same time, the clerestory dwarfed the western tower. At Oadby, near
Leicester, where there is a beautiful tower and spire, designed in
perfect harmony with a fourteenth century nave, the fifteenth century
clerestory actually raises the height of the nave to that of the tower,
with incongruous effect. During the fifteenth century, therefore, it is
common to find that towers were rebuilt, or an upper story was added
to them, in proportion to the increase of height in the nave. Thus, at
Immingham in north Lincolnshire, the clerestory and upper part of the
tower are of one date, and were built as part of one connected work.
The roof of the clerestory being, in most cases, nearly flat, the roof
of the tower followed suit; and although, where traditions of spire
design had a hardy existence, spires were still built, towers without
spires, surmounted by parapets like the parapets which hid the roof
of the clerestories, became the order of the day. In certain parts of
England, and especially in Somerset, where the art of designing towers
was pursued with extraordinary success, towers were rebuilt from the
ground. But the proportion of towers, with or without spires, which
have been heightened to meet the requirements of a clerestory, is
probably in excess of the proportion of towers entirely rebuilt. In the
case of heightened towers, the pitch of the older roof of the nave can
generally be made out by the retention of its housing slot or weather
course in the east wall of the tower. At Gedney, in south Lincolnshire,
where the lower part of the tower is of the thirteenth century, the
line of the contemporary roof may be traced above the tower arch.
Above this is another line, marking the pitch of a new roof, made when
the arcades were rebuilt in the fourteenth century. The clerestory
and the upper story of the tower belong to the fifteenth century. In
many instances, however, the flattening of the roof has followed the
rebuilding of the tower; and in these the old weather course will be
found on the east face of the tower, above the present roof, as in
the south aisle at St Mary's, Leicester. Here the roof was probably
flattened in the fifteenth century, when the tower and spire were
completed.
[Illustration: Fig. 8. Tickhill, Yorkshire: general view from S.E.,
showing clerestory, western tower and projecting eastern chapel.]
§ 33. West doorways are frequently found in towers; and often, as at
Grantham and Newark, they are of some importance in the design. They
are a general feature of the larger towers, although sometimes, as
at St Michael's, Coventry, where the nave has a west porch north of
the tower, they are insignificant, and were probably intended to be
little more than a convenient entrance for building materials. In
Northamptonshire, some of the towers of the churches of the Nene valley
have doorways covered by shallow porches. The beautiful porch at Higham
Ferrers and that at Raunds are the earliest: later porches occur at
Oundle, Rushden, and Keyston, the last place being just across the
border of Huntingdonshire. These western doorways were sometimes used
as principal entrances to the church, and were provided with holy-water
stoups. But habitually they were kept closed, and used only on special
occasions for ritual purposes, as in the Palm Sunday procession,
when the clergy and choir entered the church by the west door. Such
entrances would be a natural feature of large churches, like Kettering,
and are found in the west walls of churches like Stratford-on-Avon,
St Mary Redcliffe's at Bristol, or Ketton in Rutland, where the tower
is central or in a situation not at the west end of the nave. Where
the west doorway is covered by a projecting porch, as mentioned
above, the design possibly recalls the western porches or Galilees,
found in some of our larger churches, and on an imposing scale, in
certain districts of France. The word Galilee arises from the fact
that the west porch was the last stage in the Sunday procession, and
the celebrant, entering it first, symbolised our Lord preceding His
disciples into Galilee after the Resurrection, of which Sunday was
the festival. A regular western building of the Galilee type is a
somewhat rare feature in an English parish church; but there is one at
Melton Mowbray, and at Snettisham in Norfolk there is an open porch,
projecting beyond the west wall of the church. In both cases the church
has a central tower. At King's Sutton in Northamptonshire, there is a
vaulted porch in front of the western tower.
§ 34. It has been said that there are churches of the twelfth century
in which the tower was omitted, and a bell-cot above the western gable
took its place. Quenington in Gloucestershire, and Barton-le-Street
in the north riding of Yorkshire, are good examples. In both cases, a
north as well as a south doorway were provided to the aisleless nave,
although, at Barton-le-Street, this circumstance has been obscured
by a modern restoration. In neither case was there a western door;
and in both the north doorway, which stands on the side nearest the
village, has probably been always the main entrance. The reason of the
two doorways may have been the exigencies of processions, in which
the litany was sung, and the altars of the church sprinkled with
holy water. Such processions took place, at any rate in the greater
churches, every Sunday, and in monastic churches were partly external,
to include the buildings of the cloister. In smaller churches,
however, external processions would be of rare occurrence, and two
doorways would hardly be provided for this reason alone. As a rule,
the ordinary entrance would lie on the side of the church nearest the
approach from the village, which was generally on the south. But this
is not invariable; and the favourite entrance, even where a village lay
to the north of the church, was on the south side. There are sometimes
signs that one of the doorways may have been appropriated traditionally
to the use of the tenants of one of the manors in a parish, or to
the parishioners of a chapelry who were bound to attend the mother
church on certain feasts in the year. Thus at Barton-le-Street, the
south doorway, lying on the side of the church towards the hamlet
of Coneysthorpe, is called the Coneysthorpe doorway. At Easingwold,
in Yorkshire, the north doorway is called the Raskelf door, and was
doubtless used by the inhabitants of the chapelry of Raskelf on these
special occasions. At Hungerton, near Leicester, the tenants of each
of the four manors in the parish still occupy their own quarter of the
nave; and at Churchdown, near Gloucester, the names of the various
chapelries of the medieval parish are still applied to divisions of
the churchyard. In cases like this, the doorway nearest to the part
of the church appropriated to one or more of these separate bodies of
parishioners would naturally be used as well as the main doorway.
§ 35. In its simplest form, the porch is simply a protection to the
doorway which it covers. The timber porches, often beautiful works
of art, which are common in Essex and other timber-growing parts
of England and Wales, can hardly have served any very practical
use, although, like stone porches, they have side-benches, on which
worshippers could rest. But, from the days when the south porch of
Canterbury cathedral was resorted to by litigants from every part of
the kingdom, the church porch was a common place for the transaction
of much secular business. Hence, no doubt, it became a permanent stone
structure, usually roofed with wood, but sometimes vaulted, as at
Barnack, or covered, as in some of the churches round Doncaster, by a
high pitched roof of stone slabs. In many later medieval churches, the
size of the porch increased, and it was vaulted with elaborate ribbed
ceilings, or, as at Lavenham in Suffolk, with fan vaulting. There
may sometimes have been, as there was at Canterbury and possibly at
Bradford on Avon, an altar in the porch. At South Pool in Devon, the
bench which runs along the east wall is raised in the middle, and forms
an altar table. A broad south aisle was built in the fifteenth century,
but was stopped at the east wall of the porch. A small window, now
filled in, directly above the altar, commanded a view of the aisle and
the south altar of the chancel from the porch, and was closed on the
side of the aisle by an iron grille. Such altars, however, must have
been very rare. One may suggest that the altar at South Pool contained
relics, on which oaths were taken by those who came to the porch
to settle business or disputes which might be terminated by mutual
agreement, without being brought before the regular courts.
[Illustration: Fig. 9. St Mary's, Beverley: south porch.]
§ 36. From the fourteenth century onwards, porches with an upper story
became common, and it is certain that much miscellaneous business may
have been transacted in the chamber on the upper floor. This chamber,
so frequently called a 'priest's room,' was used for several purposes.
It was sometimes a chapel of the church. The north porch at Grantham
was either rebuilt or extended northward in the fourteenth century: the
lower story was vaulted, and the long upper chamber became the chapel
in which the principal relics belonging to the church were preserved.
Stairways were provided in each of the outer corner-turrets, one for
those ascending to venerate the relics, the other for those descending,
so that a free circulation was assured for devotees who visited the
chapel on feast days. In addition, a window was made in the wall
above the north door, through which the relics could be exhibited to
worshippers inside the church. The vaulting was broken down at a later
period, and the two stages combined into one. The south porch also has
an upper chamber, which in later days, like so many similar chambers,
contained the library of the church. It was probably appropriated to
the church-watcher, sometimes the deacon attached to the church, who
slept there, and, from a small inner window which projects slightly
from the wall, could gain a view of most of the interior of the
building. In such a case the watcher's room would probably also be
used as the treasury of the church. The magnificent south porch at
Cirencester, in three stages, has fan vaulting in the ground story: the
upper rooms were used by the trade guilds of the town, and still form
the Guildhall. The close connexion of the guilds with the religious
life of the place made the church their natural meeting-place;
and their annual meetings were very generally held in the chapels
where they maintained services in their parish church. The porch at
Cirencester is called the Vice, a corruption of the word parvise (the
Latin _parvisus_ = _paradisus_) which is commonly, though inaccurately,
applied to these storied porches. Among the splendid storied porches
of the later middle ages may be mentioned those at Thaxted in Essex,
Beccles in Suffolk, and Sall in Norfolk. The upper story of one of the
porches at Sall contains a piscina, and was probably a chapel.
[Illustration: Fig. 10. Cirencester: south porch.]
§ 37. It has been noted that there was occasionally an altar on the
first floor of a tower. One still remains in place at St Michael
Penkivel, near Truro, where the church was appropriated to a college
of four chantry priests, and was rebuilt early in the fourteenth
century. Certain indications have lately been found of another at
Tansor, near Oundle: the conversion of this tower chamber into a
chapel explains the otherwise pointless addition of a stair at the
south-east angle of the tower, which seriously weakened the fabric.
While the term 'priest's chamber,' as applied to the room over the
porch, is by no means accurate, it is probable that such a room may
sometimes have been used by a chantry priest, or as has been said, by
the deacon who occasionally assisted the incumbent of a church. The
most curious instance of a habitation in connexion with a church is
at Terrington St John's, in the Norfolk marshland, where the tower
stands at some distance west of the south aisle, and is connected
with it by a two-storied building, divided into chambers. There seems
little reason to doubt that this dark and uncomfortable, but moderately
roomy structure, with the first floor of the adjoining tower, was
occupied by the curate who served the church. It is well, however, to
look askance on the usual traditions which have led, for example, to
the confident statement that the porch chambers at Grantham were the
vicarages of the two rectorial portions of the church. Statements,
also, with regard to the defensive use of church towers must carefully
be guarded against, with the proviso that, in certain districts, there
are indications that such an use was made of them. In some of the
churches of north-west Yorkshire, from the end of the twelfth century
onwards, towers were built with a strength which indicates that they
might become strongholds in time of warfare; and there is positive
evidence that the tower of Bedale church, in a district much exposed to
the inroads of Scottish invaders, was intended to receive on occasion
a body of defenders. The same thing is true of fortified towers, like
that at Newton Nottage, on the coast of South Wales. In towers, again,
like those of Llywel and Llanfihangel-Cwm-Du in Breconshire, and
Llanfair-ar-y-Bryn in Carmarthenshire, the external construction speaks
clearly of the uses to which such towers might be put in time of war,
while the strong barrel vaults of the ground floors, the ample planning
of the turret stairs, and the presence in one case, till recent times,
of a fire-place on the first floor, are further indications which
support the idea.
§ 38. It should not be forgotten that a porch was occasionally used as
the foundation of a tower. There is a good example of a northern porch
tower at Cromhall in Gloucestershire and of a southern porch tower at
Norbury in Derbyshire; but the finest instance is probably the south
tower and spire of Donington in south Lincolnshire. The south tower at
Fowey in Cornwall is another striking example. It was merely custom and
tradition which made the west tower a nearly invariable feature in most
districts of England during the greater part of the middle ages. It is
obvious that the position of the tower in the plan is elastic, and we
find it, not merely over the crossing of the transepts, or over a side
porch, or at the extremity of a transept, or as an upward extension of
a transeptal chapel, but also in a position detached from the church.
The beautiful tower of West Walton in Norfolk is at the entrance to
the churchyard, its ground story forming the gateway. In examples like
this--Fleet and Tydd St Giles, in the same neighbourhood, stand apart
in their churchyards--the insecure nature of the soil probably made the
building of a bell-tower in direct attachment to the church unsafe,
and therefore undesirable.
§ 39. The Norman chancel in England was rectangular in the majority of
cases. It was also narrower than the nave, from which it was divided
by an arch. Such arches are almost invariably, until the middle of the
twelfth century, round-headed, and are usually low in elevation. Their
character and width, however, vary greatly. At North Witham the archway
is low and narrow, and the arch is unmoulded; decoration is confined
to the impost-blocks from which it springs. A wide space of wall is
left on either side of the opening. When in the thirteenth century
the chancel was enlarged, these spaces were pierced with wide pointed
openings, presumably in order to give a better view of the altar from
the body of the church. In north Yorkshire there are a large number
of similar chancel arches, the narrowness and plainness of which have
sometimes induced antiquaries to class them as Saxon. Saxon in affinity
they may well be; but at Scawton on the Hambleton hills, where one of
them occurs, and the wall on either side is pierced with late Norman
openings, we know that the church was built in 1146. At Bracebridge,
near Lincoln, where there is a fairly lofty and narrow chancel arch
of early character and uncertain date, there are openings, apparently
later than the rest of the work, at the sides. These openings are not
carried down to the ground in any of the cases mentioned; and there
were probably altars against the wall below them, as was certainly the
case at Castle Rising in Norfolk, and Avening in Gloucestershire, where
towers occur between nave and chancel. Were such openings invariable,
or were they even contemporary with the chancel arch, we might see in
them a survival of the triple-arched screen wall of early Saxon times.
But they are quite exceptional; and at North Witham both, and at Castle
Rising one, are much later than the chancel arch. More frequently the
chancel arch is given elaborate architectural treatment, with moulded
orders and jamb-shafts, and occupies most of the width, and practically
the whole height of the chancel behind. Early Saxon chancel arches were
very narrow, as is the case at Escomb and Bradford on Avon--so narrow
as to shut off the chancel from the nave. This may have been a survival
of the primitive practice which kept, by means of curtains drawn round
the canopy of the altar, the consecration of the sacred elements in
the Eucharist from the public eye. All through the middle ages, it
was customary during Lent to hang a curtain or Lenten veil across the
chancel arch; and in many English churches hooks for its support may
still be seen. A narrow chancel arch would be much more serviceable for
this purpose than a wide one; and its persistent continuance through
the twelfth century may perhaps be attributed to this usage.
§ 40. While, in the enlargement of a church, the nave was usually
widened by the addition of aisles, the chancel was in most cases
lengthened, and was often rebuilt entirely, in order to provide more
room for the stalls of the quire. Thus, at Sandiacre in Derbyshire,
the twelfth century nave and chancel arch were left untouched, but
a splendid chancel was built in place of the old one during the
fourteenth century. The screen which divided chancel from nave is gone;
but nowhere can we appreciate better the practical separation between
the parishioners' portion of the church, and that devoted to the clergy
and quire, which, in churches like this, became almost as marked as in
the monastic and larger collegiate churches. The lengthened chancel,
forming a deep aisleless projection to the east of the building, was
often treated with great architectural dignity. Nothing could be more
beautiful, from their very simplicity of design, than the chancels of
Mitford in Northumberland, or Burgh-next-Aylsham in Norfolk, with their
row of lancet windows in the side walls, and the marked projection of
their string-courses and buttresses. Later in the thirteenth century,
the chancel of Houghton-le-Spring church, near Durham, gives us
another example from the north of England of spacious planning, with
light admitted through a row of splayed lancets. The chancel of the
collegiate church of St Andrew, Bishop Auckland, enlarged about 1250
or rather later, underwent further alteration not long after, by the
substitution of broader two-light openings for the narrower lancets,
and of a large mullioned east window for a group of lancets at the east
end. In Yorkshire, the chancel of West Heslerton, a simple aisleless
church, was lengthened and lightened by a row of lancets not unlike
those at Houghton-le-Spring. Further south, the nobility which long
lancet windows in bays divided by projecting buttresses, and marked
by the strong horizontal lines of string-courses, can give to an
architectural composition, is shewn by the chancel of the cruciform
church of Hedon, near Hull. Less elaborate, but even more striking
by virtue of the height, narrowness, and wide internal splay of the
lancet openings, is the chancel of Bottesford in north Lincolnshire.
Cherry Hinton, near Cambridge, possibly reaches the high water mark
of chancel building which depends for its effect on the arrangement
of lancet windows. Acton Burnell in Shropshire, recalls Cherry Hinton
in the piercing of its side walls by rows of lancets, with trefoiled
rere-arches; but its east window is a composition of four lights,
with geometrical tracery, and marks the transition to an even more
imposing type of chancel, in which the side walls are pierced with
large traceried windows, and the outside and inside of the building
alike are marked by architectural treatment of great beauty, and even
splendour. Some of the earliest of these fourteenth century chancels
may be found in the east of England. Great Sampford in Essex stands
on the border-line between the two centuries. Dennington in Suffolk,
a chancel of unequalled beauty, comes within the first quarter of the
fourteenth century. Somewhat later is Stebbing in Essex, and a little
later still is Great Bardfield. In both of these churches, close to one
another, nave and chancel alike were rebuilt, and the arch between them
filled with a screen of open tracery in stone. The chancel of Lawford,
near Colchester, followed about the middle of the fourteenth century:
its chief feature is the licence given to the curvilinear tracery of
its windows. Impulse may have been given to this outbreak of energy
in the east of England by the great building works undertaken at old
St Paul's during the latter part of the thirteenth century: all the
examples cited, with the exception of Dennington, are within the bounds
of the ancient diocese of London. Further examples which give colour
to this view might be cited, such as the chancel which the Cistercians
of Tilty, near Dunmow, added to their church, as the beginning of a
complete rebuilding, about the beginning of the fourteenth century.
§ 41. But even more conspicuous than these are the chancels which are
found with some frequency in the ancient and widespread dioceses
of York, Lincoln, and Lichfield. The chief features of these are,
traceried windows of great beauty of proportion and variety of design,
with carefully moulded arches and jambs, boldly projecting buttresses
with gables or pinnacles, strings and base courses carried right round
the building, often with much elaboration. The internal furniture
includes stone piscinae and sedilia, canopied niches on each side of
the east window, founders' tombs, and, in some cases, stone Easter
sepulchres in the north wall. In almost every case, the masonry is
composed of large dressed stones; and the building capacity of the
masons reaches a high level of architectural skill. The probable source
of the development of masonry and sculpture shewn in these structures
is to be found in the architectural work which was going on at York
during the last quarter of the thirteenth and first quarter of the
fourteenth century. It can be shewn that the York school of masoncraft
had some influence at Lincoln. Its influence at Southwell, the southern
_matrix ecclesia_ of the diocese of York, is undoubted. That it had
some influence as far south as the lady chapel of Ely, begun in 1321,
is very probable; and the work done there may have reacted in a
northward direction. Its influence at Lichfield, during the episcopate
of Walter Langton (1296-1321), is more than probable, as Langton was
intimately connected with York from his early years till his death.
In Yorkshire, the rebuilding of the cruciform church at Patrington was
completed, with the chancel, towards 1350. Earlier than this, probably
between 1320 and 1330, the chancels of Patrick Brompton, Kirkby Wiske,
and Ainderby Steeple had been built: Croft, near Darlington, and
Romaldkirk in Teesdale, belong to much the same period and sphere of
influence. Round Southwell and Lincoln, and probably during the same
decade, the greatest triumphs of the period were achieved. The founder
of the chancel of Hawton, near Newark, died in 1330. The rector who
was the founder of the chancel of Heckington, near Sleaford, was
presented by the crown in 1308-9, and had licence to found a chantry
in the church, probably at the high altar of the rebuilt chancel, in
1328. The chancel of Navenby, near Lincoln, belongs to the same period.
At Sibthorpe, near Newark, a college of chantry priests was founded
by stages during the first half of the fourteenth century, and the
present chancel seems to have been built about 1330: the founder, as
already noted, rebuilt the aisles of his church at Beckingham, a few
miles away, before 1347. The architectural likeness between his work
at Beckingham and the chancel of Boothby Pagnell, near Grantham, built
about 1350, cannot be mistaken. The whole church of Fledborough, north
of Newark, was rebuilt, probably about 1343, when a chantry was founded
in the lady chapel.
[Illustration: Fig. 11. Patrington, Yorkshire: north side of chancel
and vestry.]
Other Nottinghamshire chancels, the probable date of which is 1330-40,
are Arnold (much rebuilt), Car Colston, and Woodborough. A certain
number of chancels in Leicestershire, such as that of East Langton,
approximate to the type, without actually reproducing it; but at
Cotterstock, in Northamptonshire, where John Giffard, canon of York,
founded a college of chantry priests in 1337, its familiar features
reappear. It reached the diocese of Lichfield--or, at any rate,
Derbyshire--rather later than the period of its general diffusion in
the dioceses of York and Lincoln. The chancel of Sandiacre belongs to
the decade between 1330 and 1340: Dronfield, which, in proportions
and parapet and pinnacle-work, is closely akin to Sandiacre, is later
than 1340; Norbury and the handsome chancel of Tideswell are later
still, probably 1350-60. The chantry college of Chaddesden, founded in
1355, adds another church, with a smaller and less ambitious chancel,
to the group. In the north-western part of Lichfield diocese, the
fine vaulted chancel of the collegiate church of Nantwich (1327-33)
is probably independent of the general type. There can be no mistake,
however, about Halsall in south Lancashire. Here the date, although the
later window tracery seems to contradict it, appears to be at latest
1340-50; and the likeness of the internal arrangements to those of the
north Yorkshire churches is quite remarkable. In a few instances, the
type persisted till much later. The chancel at Claypole, near Newark,
was rebuilt about 1400: the fourteenth century nave has a noticeable
affinity, in the sculpture of its capitals, to the nave of Patrington.
Between 1380 and 1400, the chancel of Burneston, in north Yorkshire,
shews distinct traces of the influence of Patrick Brompton and the
other neighbouring buildings already mentioned. Burneston, Patrick
Brompton, and Croft, were all connected with St Mary's abbey at York.
The convent, as rector of Burneston, may have been responsible for the
chancel, when the whole church was rebuilt. But it must be repeated
that the spread of architecture in parish churches is due to local
piety rather than to the desire of religious houses to found churches
in places from which they derived their income. The founder of the
chancel of Heckington was not the impropriating abbey of Bardney,
but a well-to-do king's clerk, who was presented to the vicarage by
Edward II during a voidance of the abbey. Further, the spread of this
particular type of chancel cannot be referred to St Mary's abbey or
any other monastery, but to the growth of a school of lay masoncraft
which learned its earliest lessons among the new buildings of St Mary's
abbey and York minster. As we should expect in a period which was so
fruitful in good work, isolated types of almost equal beauty, the
result of original local skill, constantly make their appearance. Such
are the chancels of North Luffenham in Rutland, or of Hodgeston in
Pembrokeshire--the latter, no doubt, one of the fruits of that movement
in the diocese of St David's, to which bishop Henry Gower (1328-47)
gave a powerful impulse.
§ 42. The aisleless chancel survived as a favourite feature of the
plan all through the middle ages. The aisled nave, with the deep
aisleless chancel beyond, is beautiful in plan and elevation alike;
and hardly any of the great Norfolk churches is so satisfactory in
effect as the fourteenth century church at Tunstead, or the great
fifteenth century church of Walpole St Peter, where the rebuilding of
the chancel followed that of the nave. The wealthy lay folk of East
Anglia naturally took charge of the repair of the nave as their own
part of the church. The rectors, monastic or otherwise, were less
active about the chancel. The result is that the uniform magnificence
of Walpole St Peter is by no means found everywhere. The small vaulted
thirteenth century chancel at Blakeney in north-east Norfolk, is quite
out of proportion to the large fifteenth century nave and west tower.
The magnificent church of Sall, near Aylsham, was entirely rebuilt in
the fifteenth century; but the proportions of the chancel are very
modest compared with the gigantic nave. Lavenham in Suffolk has one of
the most ornate naves of the later part of the fifteenth century, and
a tower of great height. The fourteenth century chancel, however, was
kept, and, although chapels were added to it on the north and south,
the eastern bay is insignificant in proportion and rough in masonry
when contrasted with the nave. A similar disparity, not of style but
of design, exists between the nave and tower of Stoke-by-Nayland and
the less carefully rebuilt chancel. The rebuilding of a chancel may
occasionally indicate that monastic impropriators neglected their
duties, until they were compelled to repair. The hastily rebuilt
chancel at Harringworth in Northamptonshire, where Elstow abbey was
rector, is in striking contrast to the earlier nave, and may perhaps be
explained in this way. Croyland abbey had to attend to its duties at
Wellingborough in 1383, and the present aisled chancel is the result.
At Walpole St Peter the church was evidently lengthened eastwards. The
parishioners were probably allowed to pull down the old chancel when
they built their new nave, and to encroach on its site: they naturally
would contribute towards the new chancel, and this may account for the
unusual splendour of the whole design.
[Illustration: Fig. 12. Walpole St Peter: from N.E.]
§ 43. Medieval sacristies attached to chancels, and especially to
aisleless chancels, are common, and are in most cases on the north
side, with a door in the north wall close to the altar. Good examples
of an ordinary kind are at Islip and Aldwinkle St Peter in Northants.
There is a fourteenth century sacristy at Willingham, near Cambridge,
with a vaulted ceiling. The vaulted vestry at Burford is of the
fifteenth century. Sometimes the sacristy contained an altar, as at
Claypole and Westborough, between Newark and Grantham; and it is
probable that the sacristies of several of the beautiful chancels
already alluded to, as at Hawton, had their altars, which might be
used occasionally for mass, but would in any case be useful for
laying out and folding up vestments before and after service. The
sacristy at Heckington is of two stories, the lower probably intended
to be a bone-hole. At Halsall there is a handsome doorway, west of
the founder's tomb, through which a chantry chapel is entered: this
may have been a sacristy in the first instance. Large sacristies of
two, and even three stories are found. The upper room or solar, as at
Raunds in Northants, Wath, near Ripon, and other places, was sometimes
provided with a window opening into the chancel, and may have served,
like the solar of the south porch at Grantham, as the treasury of the
church and a room for the deacon or church watcher. But that these
upper rooms may have been provided as extra chantry chapels is also
probable. The very interesting vestry building between Peterhouse
and its appropriated church of Little St Mary's at Cambridge seems
to have contained the chantry chapel of John Warkworth, master of
Peterhouse, on its upper floor: there is also a piscina in the small
lower sacristy, which stands above a bone-hole. The originally very
similar building between St Benet's church and Corpus appears to have
had chantry chapels on both floors. Perhaps the best example of a
two-storied sacristy is the semi-octagonal building, vaulted on both
floors, at the east end of the north chancel aisle at Long Sutton,
Lincolnshire. This is an exceptional situation; but there was no fixed
place for the sacristy. Often, as at Darlington or as the vaulted
vestry at Rushton, Northants, it is on the south side of the chancel.
In certain places, as at St Peter Mancroft in Norwich, and Lavenham
in Suffolk, it projects from the east wall of the church, below the
east window, and is entered by a doorway at one or both sides of the
altar. Sometimes, again, as at Sawley and Tideswell in Derbyshire,
the altar was brought forward from the east wall, and provided with
a stone screen wall or reredos, the space between which and the east
wall became the sacristy. A similar screening off of the east end of an
aisle is found, for example, at Rushden and Higham Ferrers in Northants:
in these cases, it has been effected without interfering, as at
Tansor, with the proper spacing of the aisle.
§ 44. Three features which are specially noticeable in the planning
of the aisleless chancel may be mentioned here. The first is the very
usual provision of squints, or oblique piercings, through the backs of
the responds of the chancel arch. One object of these was to enable
the priest, celebrating at the aisle altar, to see what was going on
at the high altar, if his mass happened to coincide with or overlap
another service. They would also be of use to the ringer of the sanctus
bell, when the bell-cote was above the chancel arch, and the rope hung
down at the side, out of sight of the altar. The second point is the
occurrence of a separate door, for the use of the priest, in the south
wall of the chancel: this was provided in a very large number of cases,
and, though usually small, was often treated with some architectural
dignity. At Trunch in Norfolk it is covered by a small porch. The third
point, which has been the cause of much controversy, is the presence of
a window, usually in the south wall of the chancel, and near its west
end, the level of which is generally just above the back of the chancel
stalls. This is known as a 'low side' window. These windows are not
confined to chancels, nor to one side of the chancel only: sometimes,
as at Acaster Malbis, near York, and Burton Lazars in Leicestershire,
they are on both sides of the chancel; here and there, as at Gretton,
Northants, on the north side only. Their design also varies. Not
infrequently separate windows, they are formed quite as often by
lowering the sill of a single-light or two-light window, and cutting
off the lower from the upper part by a transom or cross mullion. Where
this arrangement was adopted, the upper part of the window was glazed,
but the lower portion seems generally to have been closed by shutters.
Many fanciful explanations, which have little foundation in common
sense, have been given for the use of these windows. Most popular has
been the idea that they were used by lepers, who could not take part in
the common services of the church, but could assist at mass and even be
communicated through these windows. This fancy disregards the sanitary
precautions of the middle ages, which were excellent and plentiful.
We may well believe that the people of Burton Lazars would have been
horrified, if they had seen, one Sunday morning at mass, their two
low side windows darkened by sufferers from the dreadful disease, for
whom a hospital with its chapel was carefully provided in their own
village. A very widely accepted theory is that low side windows were
used in connexion with the consecration of the elements at mass: a
small hand-bell may have been rung at the window, so as to be heard
outside the church, especially where the village lay on the south side.
Churches are comparatively few in which, as at March or Walpole St
Peter, a special cot was provided for a sanctus bell above the chancel
arch. At Hawstead in Suffolk a sanctus bell remains in position on the
inner side of the chancel screen. In the aisleless church of Preen in
Shropshire, where the chancel, belonging to a small cell of monks, a
colony from Wenlock, was divided by a screen from the parochial nave,
there is a low side window in the north wall, just west of the place
where the screen originally stood with an altar against it. The window
has a lowered sill, with a stone seat on either side; and its position
suggests that it may have been used for the above purpose. A seat at
the window, as at Morpeth, would have been useful for the server who
rang the bell; but some think that it may have been used by the priest
in hearing confessions. The common explanation of any unfamiliar object
in a church is that it had to do with confession; and one therefore
hesitates to adopt a solution of the difficulty which is so open to
suspicion. But there are certainly windows which are recessed too
deeply to allow of the sanctus bell being audible through them, and
no existing example affords any real convenience for confessions. It
is difficult, moreover, to explain, on the sanctus bell or confession
hypotheses, why, at Othery in Somerset, there should be not merely a
low side window in the south chancel wall, but a corresponding opening
through the south-east buttress of the central tower, evidently planned
in relation to the window. Also why, in some examples, is there a
hook, as though for a hanging lamp, in the soffit of the window-head?
Cases of this kind have been explained, with much learning, by the
possible use of the 'low side' window as a place for a lamp, which was
hung there to frighten evil spirits from the churchyard, and could be
trimmed from the outside by merely opening the shutters. To those who
know anything of medieval thought, this is not unlikely. No explanation
yet advanced is wholly satisfactory. The difference of opinion leads
to the conclusion that the use of the low side window was not one
and invariable, and that it may have been intended for more than
one use, but the sanctus bell hypothesis appears to fit the largest
number of cases. The fact that cots for sanctus bells are, as a rule,
comparatively late additions to buildings, should be taken into account
in considering the use of the low side window. In our own day, it often
serves the very practical purpose of giving additional light to the
west end of a very dark chancel; but this can hardly have been its
original object.
[Illustration: Fig. 13. Wensley, Yorkshire: chancel and S. aisle from
S.E., shewing low side window.]
[Illustration: Fig. 14. St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol: from the
north-east.]
§ 45. The double crypt at Grantham, below the south chapel of the
chancel, is not a very usual feature. The entrance to the Grantham
crypt was originally by two external doors, which still remain. In
process of time, it is not improbable that the relics, which at an
earlier date were in the chapel above the north porch, were translated
to the eastern crypt. A stairway, with a very imposing doorway at its
head, was made to it from the south side of the chancel in the early
part of the fifteenth century. A certain number of crypts of Saxon
date still remain beneath chancels: these, however, are few, and
perhaps the last survival of the _confessio_ in the English parish
church is the aisled crypt at Lastingham, near Pickering. The greater
part of a twelfth century crypt, with ribbed vaulting, remains beneath
the chancel at Newark. Where the church is built on ground with a
steep slope eastward, it is more economical to build the chancel on
an open crypt, which also may have its uses as a bone-house when the
churchyard is cleared, than to build it on a solid lower stage. This
accounts for the crypts at Bedale and Thirsk in Yorkshire, and Madley,
near Hereford, which are really lower stories to the chancel, and not
subterranean chambers. The Lastingham crypt is also built on an abrupt
eastward slope. The site of St Mary Redcliffe at Bristol allowed for
the construction of large crypt-chambers on its south side and beneath
the lady chapel. Sometimes, as at Hythe in Kent, the floor of the
chancel was raised to make room for a crypt below. Such crypts were
used as bone-houses, when the churchyard was disturbed to make room
for new burials. The crypt beneath the south aisle at Rothwell, in
Northamptonshire, contains a collection of bones to which, as to that
at Hythe, ill-founded legends have been attached. Both these large
bone-holes contain altars, at which masses for the dead were said:
there is also an altar in the eastern crypt at Grantham. Sometimes,
as at Oundle and St Mary Magdalene's, Bridgwater, there is a small
crypt or bone-hole beneath one of the transeptal chapels. Bone-holes
also occur beneath the east end of an aisle, as at Higham Ferrers
in Northamptonshire, and Hallaton in Leicestershire. At Burford, St
Thomas' chapel, to the west of the south transept, has its floor
raised to give headway to the vault of the bone-hole below. A similar
bone-hole is entered from the interior of the south aisle at Bosham,
in Sussex: the altar at the end of the aisle is raised on a platform
above it, as the floor of the hole is only a little below the level of
the aisle. The splendid twelfth century crypt at St Mary's, Warwick,
extended beneath the chancel and transepts of the collegiate church,
and is to be classified with the crypts or lower churches of our Norman
cathedrals, rather than with the less ambitious crypts of our parish
churches.