Chapter III: Part 3

Later, in England, the more elaborate earlier window tracery was abandoned, and the simpler rectilinear tracery was generally adopted, and a new style of Gothic, known as the “Perpendicular,” became the vogue in our Island.

* * * * *

On reading over the above brief notes on Gothic Architecture, the writer, while conscious that the few details above given were, as far as they went, strictly accurate--felt that something more was wanting--if only a few words--which might suggest that there was a deep inner meaning in Gothic architecture. To express this, some reference must be made to France and the great French church builders; for France--especially the “Domaine Royale”--l’Ile de France--was the native country, the original home of the Gothic school.

The early French Gothic masters in the craft looked upon the building of churches as the most serious of arts, and, as it has been well expressed, the churches they planned were to be “the centre of the life of men, and compared with them, man himself and all his worldly affairs was counted as nothing; their purpose was to provide a place of worship, when worship was held to be the highest function of men, and the problem they set themselves to solve was to make a place worthy of the God to be worshipped.”

The same lofty purpose without doubt inspired the Gothic masters in England and other western countries, though their designs somewhat differed from the great French architects on whose methods and planning we are just now dwelling, as presenting in some respects a marked contrast with the methods and planning of the English Gothic architects.

Now, a most prominent characteristic feature of the grand Gothic cathedrals of France was their exceeding height; to attain this no sacrifice was too great. It has been accurately remarked that the matchless sublimity of the interior of a noble French Cathedral was purchased at the sacrifice of the exterior. And the architects, as time went on, made their churches higher and ever higher.

Again, to quote another’s words:[18] “The interior sublimity of a French cathedral seems to be a triumphant defiance of the attraction of gravity. We know that the slender shafts that soar so straight and high, could not support the vault; but _outside_ there is no concealment of the manner in which it is upheld. Indeed the outside, for all its beauty, is _the wrong side_ of a French cathedral, and is, as it were, a mass of permanent scaffolding to keep all the stones of the interior in their places ... and it is, and it looks a complex mass of straining effort, as the interior looks an effortless miracle.” The innumerable flying buttresses carrying the thrust of the lofty vault to the huge buttresses of the aisles, and so to the ground, have been somewhat quaintly termed “walls standing in slices at right angles to the building which they support but do not enclose, seeming to push and thrust with all their power to keep up the enormous height; all this is very wonderful and beautiful, but it leaves a sense of constant effort to overcome difficulties.”

“What a difference is there in the peace of the long low English cathedral with its insignificant buttresses and unambitious lines ... and, except for the upward pointing of its central tower or spire, seemingly content to remain on earth.”[19]

One of the chief beauties of the Choir of Gloucester is its exceptional “soaring” height, which in common with Westminster Abbey and York, follows the example of the great French cathedrals, though at a great distance, it must be confessed, from the lofty height aimed at and attained in such churches as the Cathedrals of Bourges and Chartres, Amiens, Notre Dame of Paris and Beauvais.

Again, each of the sublime interiors of the Gothic cathedrals of France were, as a rule, the design of one mind--and that of a master-mind. They have been roughly but not inaccurately described as “all of a piece,” as the result of one great effort. “These glorious interiors, each possessing a wonderful unity or harmony, the result of a great and original idea conceived and carried out throughout by one individual genius. For most of the mighty cathedrals in France show a closely reasoned design, and the result presents a marvellous temple for worship.

“Very different indeed are the English Gothic cathedrals; we see here no continuous design, no single idea; we are sensible of no one mighty impulse which in France, sweeping ruthlessly away all that had gone before, planned to raise a building complete and harmonious all through.”

For the English builders, on the other hand, preserved all that had gone before, however imperfect in their eyes, and added here, and changed there, content to suffice for the needs and ideas of the present, “with no sign of anxious ambition for the future; incapable of perfection, because began and ended incessantly, and always without continuous design, yet breathing out an indescribable charm of sympathy almost human in its loving reverence for the results of all past human effort.” Gloucester Cathedral is an admirable example of this loving conservative spirit; with its massive _Romanesque_ Nave, its “_decorated_” South Aisle, its superb aery _Perpendicular_ Choir, partly veiling, it is true, but not destroying the work of bygone Norman builders; its graceful and exquisite Perpendicular Lady Chapel--the last addition to this great pile--being perfectly different to any other part of the cathedral.

* * * * *

The Gothic builders of France believed, that in raising the interior of their cathedrals to that wonderful height on which successive generations have gazed with awe and admiration, they had found something of the secret of inspiring the worshippers with the feeling that they were indeed worshipping in a Holy House almost worthy of the God they sought; nor were they content with their earlier noble efforts, but kept making their soaring churches, as they built them, higher and ever higher.

The climax of this strain and restless striving was reached in the middle of the thirteenth century, when Eudes de Montreuil, the architect of S. Louis, designed the “splendid folly,” as men love to style it, of Beauvais; there a choir was built higher than any in the world, and with the slenderest support that had ever yet been seen.

It was finished in about thirty years, and twelve years later the vault fell, making a ruin of the whole church, _circa_ A.D. 1284. This superb choir--for the nave was never built--can still be seen and wondered at; the ruin has been skilfully and cleverly repaired, and new supports have been devised, and though the original design is sadly marred and altered, it tells us of that master-mind “who, greatly daring, had planned the mighty structure complete and harmonious, the absolute expression of an ideal of future perfection, but forced to remain incomplete at the last, for the architect longed for the impossible.”

True artist, in spite of his failure, for he aimed at expressing a something higher than himself, which should draw up in sympathy with him all that was best and noblest in those around him. “But Beauvais was a structural impossibility, and the ideal of Beauvais was beyond his reach, and the mighty remains of its solitary choir tells a story of mistaken enterprise and wasted heroism.” It is truly a dream of heaven--but alas! it is only a dream.

THE TRIFORIUM

The question is often asked by a stranger, as he wanders through an English cathedral, wondering at the size and striking appearance of the great Triforium or Gallery--for instance, the immense Triforium in the Choir of Gloucester. What is the meaning and use of this vast gallery? Has it any story or tradition attached to it?

The derivation of the word Triforium is uncertain. The date of the word is unknown, it is not of great antiquity, but probably belongs to the mediæval period. That the Triforium of the great Anglo-Norman piles was used in pre-Reformation times in the ritual of the Church apparently for processions and the like, is clear from the several chapels which lead out of it, and from the easy access to it by fairly broad staircases on either side.

But such an occasional use is not by any means sufficient to account for the presence of so important an adjunct in the planning of the church.

Now what is the true story of its existence in so many of our great churches?

And first, as to the derivation and meaning of the word “Triforium.” Some scholars think it can be traced to the post-classical term “transforare,” to pierce through. Here, for instance, it is said to have pierced through the wall. “Opus triforiatum” was applied to perforated work of various kinds, such as in lock plates, etc.

It is, however, something more than a passage in the thickness of the wall which the above derivation, if it be adopted, would seem to suggest. But it has a history which is very generally unknown.

The true secret of the Triforium is as follows: Far back in the annals of Christianity we know that generally in the churches built by Justinian in the sixth century in Constantinople, Thessalonica, and in other populous centres, a large and separate place was arranged for the women worshippers. In important churches such as the Church of the Holy Apostles and the Basilica of S. Sophia at Constantinople, a great gallery was constructed, exclusively for women; this gallery was reached by stairs leading from the narthex (the narthex was a long porch or ante-church, extending all across the west front). Where there was no narthex, or gallery, the women were still separated; they then sat on one side of the nave and the men on the other. The women’s gallery was usually known as the gynæconitis or matronium. It can be seen still, a very prominent object in the desecrated Mosque of S. Sophia. This women’s gallery, so universal and so important a feature in the greater churches of the East, became in time the Triforium, so marked an arrangement in the Norman-Romanesque churches of England.[20]

The women’s gallery in its original purpose belonged exclusively to the East, where the sexes were separated.

In the West, no such custom prevailed. In the West, as a rule, there was no separation of the sexes. The custom of the Latin Church adopted no such separation.

This fact is curiously confirmed in the planning of the churches of the West; no women’s gallery, or Triforium (to use the later coined word), save perhaps occasionally in a very diminutive form, appears in the abbeys and churches of Aquitaine, Provence, or Auvergne. The same may be said generally of the churches in all the southern and central provinces of Gaul (France).

Of these Western churches, where as a rule we rarely find an important “Triforium,” a notable exception may be quoted in the celebrated Palace-chapel of Aix-la-Chapelle, now the cathedral. But this was erected by Charlemagne and largely designed after S. Vitale at Ravenna, a church in great part modelled under Byzantine influences.

A still more notable exception is the vast Cathedral of Tournai with its Romanesque Nave. It has the very large Triforium of the Norman-Romanesque churches; and above it, again, there is a little gallery.

The same absence of the Triforium feature is observable in Italy, save where the building was erected under Byzantine or Eastern influences--as S. Mark’s, Venice, which is to some extent a copy of S. Vitale at Ravenna. S. Vitale largely followed the plan of SS. Sergius and Bacchus built at Constantinople by Justinian before the erection of S. Sophia. There is another striking tradition connected with S. Mark’s at Venice, which relates how this magnificent church was a copy of the Emperor Justinian’s vanished Church of the Holy Apostles, which was designed to act as the Mausoleum of the Byzantine Emperors.

This Constantinopolitan Basilica of “the Apostles” certainly contained great galleries for women worshippers, probably similar to those still existing in S. Sophia.

* * * * *

But among the important Western churches, strangely enough, when we come to the Anglo-Norman Romanesque abbeys and cathedrals of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Triforium gallery, so exclusively an Eastern feature, reappears; indeed a great Triforium is positively a characteristic feature in Norman-Romanesque work in England--the Cathedrals of Ely, Peterborough, Norwich, Southwell, Winchester, Durham, and the Triforium of the famous Choir of Gloucester, may be cited as conspicuous examples.

It is hard to explain this striking reappearance of a great Triforium gallery. It is absolutely, as far as we can see, of no possible use, for, different to the East, as we have observed, in the West the sexes are not separated in divine worship; and a gallery for women, therefore, was never required.

What was in the mind here of the great Anglo-Norman builders of the eleventh and twelfth centuries when they arranged a Triforium gallery in their churches is really unknown to us. Was is simply a graceful and striking ornamental architectural device, to enhance the beauty of the interior of these great churches? This it undoubtedly does. Was it any way connected with the visits of pilgrims, so notable a practice in these centuries? Was it in some way intended to multiply the interest of their visit, by providing them with a larger and far more extended procession round and about the church? Something of this kind possibly may account for the strange reappearance of a great Triforium gallery in buildings, for the most part resorted to by great crowds of pilgrims, when the original purpose of a Triforium no longer existed.

That the growing passion for pilgrimage was considered in the planning of these vast Anglo-Norman abbeys and minsters is indisputable, for we find in the design of important abbeys such as Gloucester a large ambulatory or processional aisle, introduced as a prominent feature in these great churches. Such an aisle was doubtless designed for the convenience of pilgrims who frequently thronged these piles. The Triforium gallery possibly, then, was introduced in view of these crowds of pilgrims. We cannot, however, at all pronounce for a certainty that this was the main reason for its introduction in the North and West--quite an unaccustomed feature, but which at once strikes the eye in the Anglo-Norman minsters.

It is an unexplained difficulty, and must be left with these interesting but scarcely satisfactory suggestions.

* * * * *

To sum up: When the great Triforium of an Anglo-Norman cathedral is wondered at, and the question is asked, When was this striking portion of the church first designed, and what was the original purpose which it was intended to serve; and to what uses was it ever put? the inquirer must be told at once to carry his thoughts back to the age of the Emperor Justinian, perhaps somewhat earlier, when the great churches of Constantinople and Salonica were planned and built, when in the planning of these churches a great gallery was designed for the _exclusive use_ of the women worshippers. It was in such a gallery, at S. Sophia, where the Empress Theodora sat and listened when Chrysostom preached, and denounced with his fiery eloquence the vices of the court and society of his age.

This was undoubtedly the origin of the Triforium in Eastern churches which now excites the wonder of the inquirer as to what purpose it was designed and used for. Then the inquirer must be reminded that in the West and North--in Gaul and Italy, indeed throughout the Latin Church--where, different to the Eastern Church, no separation of the sexes was contemplated--no Triforium gallery was, as a rule, planned. It is true that in the important Anglo-Norman cathedrals and abbeys this ancient oriental feature again made its appearance.

But for what special purpose that great school of Norman-Romanesque builders again brought back this striking feature when they planned their mighty piles, will probably for ever remain an undiscovered secret.

* * * * *

On the unexplained secret of the reappearance of the Triforium gallery in certain of the great mediæval churches of the West, notably in the Anglo-Norman Romanesque piles of the eleventh and twelfth centuries--a very remarkable suggestion appears in Mr. Edward Hutton’s eloquent work on Ravenna.

He is describing the great Romanesque Basilica of S. Apollinare Nuovo, the work of Theodoric, the Ostro-Gothic king.

The Mosaics, probably in large part the work of the artists of Justinian, are of an extraordinary and exceptional beauty. They represent upon both sides, through the whole length of the nave, as it were, two long processions of saints--on the one side a procession of Martyrs--some twenty-five figures (men), SS. Clement, Sixtus, Laurence, Cyprian, etc.; on the other side a procession of Virgin Martyrs--Pelagia, Agatha, Eulalia, Cecilia, etc., some twenty-one figures. Mr. Edward Hutton writes here “that there is nothing in Christendom to compare with these Mosaics; they are unique, and, as I like to think, in their wonderful significance are the key to a mystery which has for long remained unsolved.

“For these long processions of saints, representing that great crowd of witnesses, of which S. Paul speaks, stand there above the arcade and under the clerestory where in a Gothic church the triforium is set. But the triforium is the one inexplicable and seemingly useless feature of a Gothic building. It seems to us, in our ignorance of the mind of the Middle Age, of what it took for granted, to be there simply for the sake of beauty, to have no use at all.

“But what if this church in Ravenna, the work indeed of a very different school and time, but springing out of the same spiritual tradition, should hold the key?

“What if the triforium of a Gothic church should have been built as it were for a great crowd of witnesses--the invisible witnesses of the Everlasting Sacrifice, the Sacrifice of Calvary, the Sacrifice of the Mass?

“It is not only in the presence of the living, devout or half indifferent, that that great Sacrifice is offered through the world, yesterday, to-day and for ever, but be sure in the midst of the chivalry of heaven, a multitude that no man can number, none the less real because invisible, among whom one day we too are to be numbered--not for the living only, but for the whole Church men offer that Sacrifice, _pro redemptione animarum suarum, pro spe salutis et incolumitatis suæ--Memento etiam Domine, famulorum famularumque tuarum qui nos præcesserunt cum signo fidei et dormiunt in somno pacis_.... Here in S. Apollinare, at any rate, for ever they await the renewal of that moment.

“Those marvellous figures that appear in ghostly procession upon the walls of S. Apollinare in Ravenna are really indescribable; they must be seen, if the lovely significance of their beauty is to be understood. What can one say of them?”

* * * * *

Mr. Hutton alludes to the Triforium of a _Gothic_ church, but this unexplained and strange feature of the Triforium in the West reappeared in the great early Anglo-Norman Romanesque piles--in the Choir of Gloucester and in many others.

The _Gothic_ churches, where such a Triforium exists, have simply copied their Anglo-Norman predecessors.

The author of this work by no means must be thought to endorse the above singular explanation of the “secret” of the Triforium which so strangely reappeared in certain of the churches of the West. But he judged it fitting to quote here the striking and remarkable words of the author of _Ravenna_. He cannot, however, recall any quotation from a mediæval writer in support of the theory in question. It is to him a perfectly novel thought--a thought at once strange and haunting--and here as an interesting and novel suggestion he must leave it.

Circa A.D. 519.]

THE LADY CHAPEL

The date of the first appearance in the Eastern Church of the mediæval estimate of the Virgin Mother is uncertain. In the Latin or Western Church the development of Mariolatry, as it has been termed, was somewhat slower than in Eastern Christianity, but, as we shall see, it became eventually even more accentuated in the West than in the East.

All signs of this exalted estimate of the Virgin Mary are notoriously absent in the New Testament books, and when a new feeling as to the position of the blessed Virgin appeared in the oldest liturgies of the Church, it was of a nature widely different from the mediæval estimate of Mary. To take a well-known example. In the very ancient liturgy of S. John Chrysostom, still in use in the Eastern Church, the Virgin Mary is prayed for. In this venerable liturgy we read: “We offer unto Thee (God the Father) this reasonable service for the faithful dead, our forefathers, patriarchs, prophets, apostles ... martyrs and confessors, but especially for our most holy, immaculate and blessed Lady the Mother of God and ever Virgin, Mary.”

This most ancient liturgy, in the form we now find it, has without doubt been altered and added to since the days of Chrysostom in the latter years of the fourth century, but certainly not in the direction of lowering the position of the Virgin, a position which in the teaching of the Eastern Church grew more and more definitely exalted as the ages passed, till such a place of eminence was ascribed to her, that no loftier one, _outside the blessed Trinity_, is conceivable. Similar testimony is given in the ancient liturgies of SS. Basil, Gregory Nazianzus, and Cyril.

Very exalted indeed was the estimation in which the Virgin Mary was held in the Eastern Church as early as in the first half of the sixth century, when in the great building age of the Emperor Justinian many noble churches arose, dedicated to the “Mother of God.” In the seventh century the Emperor Heraclius blazoned the Virgin Mary on his banner of war. To the tutelar protection of the Virgin, Constantinople looked against the Saracens.

In the Western or Latin Church, as we have said, the development of Mariolatry was somewhat slower, still as early as the time of Gregory the Great, early in the seventh century, the honour paid to the Virgin Mother in Christian worship became more and more accentuated.

The state and influence of the blessed dead, at a comparatively early period, occupied the minds of Christian teachers. Such glorified human beings after a time began to be looked upon as powerful intercessors at the Throne of Grace for those still on earth. As S. Bernard of Clairvaux expresses it, “They who have come out of great tribulation, shall they not recognise those who still continue in it?”

Gradually the numbers of these glorified Saints became multiplied and even well-nigh deified. These blessed ones having been human, were conceived as still endowed with human sympathies, and were looked upon as more accessible to human prayer and supplication than the three co-eternal Persons of the Trinity in their unapproachable solitude and awful majesty. In a way, these glorified Saints intercepted the worship of the ever blessed Trinity, and to them, rather than _through_ them, in time prayer was addressed.

High above this host of Saints was seated the Queen of Heaven, for to this strange position, dating certainly from the days of Gregory the Great in the West, the Virgin was gradually raised.

Still it was not until the eve of the wonderful awakening of Church life in the West, toward the close of the eleventh century, that the cult of the Virgin attained the strange prominence which it maintained all through the later Middle Ages. Very lofty indeed was the place ascribed to the Virgin Mother, but something yet was needed, however, in the form of a great popular movement to introduce into the every-day life of the people this strange cult which so powerfully influenced the Christianity of the Middle Ages.

This great impulse was given by the Crusades, those marvellous religious wars which took so mighty a hold of the popular imagination in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It came about in this fashion.

Chivalry, at least the religious aspect which chivalry assumed in all its acts, language and ceremonies, may be said to have been the result of the Crusades, for before the Crusades, chivalry, if it existed at all, appears to have had no special reference to religion. But war was now sanctified by religion, and men were taught that the noblest end to which they could dedicate their lives was the rescue of the Redeemer’s sepulchre at Jerusalem from the hands of the infidel conquerors, the disciples of the false prophet Mahommed.

The inescapable duty of a Christian knight was self-devotion for others, especially for the defenceless and weak; thus courtesy to and protection of the weaker sex became the imperative duty, as well as the privilege of knighthood. “The love of God and the ladies was enjoined as the paramount duties in the teaching of chivalry. Thus was formed that strange amalgam of religious and military feeling which was formed around women in the age of chivalry which was, in fact, the age of the Crusades, and which no succeeding change of habit or belief has wholly destroyed.”[21]

“There was one Lady of whom, high above and beyond all, every knight was the vowed servant, the Virgin Mother of that blessed Saviour,” the rescue of whose sacred sepulchre was the primary object of the Crusades.

Thus the adoration of the Virgin, long inculcated by theologians, became popularised among the Crusaders of varied ranks and orders, and through them, among all Western peoples who, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, supplied the vast armies of the Cross; and this popular devotion to the Virgin continued to grow through the Middle Ages, till it influenced and coloured Christian worship in all the countries of Western Christendom.

“And so it came to pass that religious chivalry, that strange outcome of the Crusades, seemed to array the Christian world as the Church militant of the Virgin, and it was to her that the knight looked especially for success in battle. From the soldier to the people was but a little step, and very soon this sentiment of adoration became universal. The Redeemer passed gradually into a more remote and awful Godhead; the Virgin Mary seemed a nearer, a more familiar and sympathetic object of adoration.”

Soon every cathedral and abbey, every important church had its “Mary” Chapel. Hymns were written and everywhere sang in her honour. Liturgies in which her name was the principal feature were introduced. Manuals of private and of public devotion, in which the name of Mary the Mother of the Lord was conspicuous above every name, were copied and recopied in every monastic Scriptorium or Cloister. A new and startling theological adoration was thus generally added to all popular Christian teaching. “The incommunicable attributes of the Godhead were even assigned to Mary. She was positively represented as sitting between the Cherubim and Seraphim, as commanding by her maternal influence, if not by her authority, her Eternal Son. The idea of the ‘Queen of Heaven’ became a familiar one in popular theology.” This new devotion was largely called into being, as we have shown, by the influence of the Crusades, and showed the mighty hold it had obtained over the popular mind in the erection and lavish adornment of those often splendid and costly shrines known as the Lady Chapels, of which the splendid annexe at the east end of Gloucester Cathedral is a conspicuous and well-known example. This Lady Chapel may even be cited as the crowning instance of this outward and visible sign of the strange novel cult, as we might venture to term it. The Lady Chapel of Gloucester was one of the _last_ great examples of these new additions to the great churches of the mediæval period, for the years which witnessed its completion were the years which historians consider closed the long and many-coloured story of the Middle Ages.

* * * * *

We resume our sketch of the progress of the Cult of the Virgin.

In the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Mariolatry received another vast impulse through the teaching of the great and popular mendicant orders of S. Francis and S. Dominic. One of the most interesting chapters in mediæval Church history is filled with the story of the “coming” of the new orders of mendicant Friars, among whom the Franciscan and Dominican were by far the most numerous and influential. Widespread was the influence exercised by these Friars over the masses of the people.

And in the teaching of both these great communities the Virgin Mary occupied a peculiar and lofty position. Exalted as was the position claimed by the Franciscans for Mary; if possible the Dominicans professed a yet greater devotion to the blessed Virgin, whom the disciples of Dominic even were pleased to regard as the special protectress of their famous Order. According to a well-loved tradition of their schools, it was Mary herself who revealed to S. Dominic that form of prayer known as the “Rosary” which from the years 1212-1215 became alike among rich and poor the popular badge of Catholic devotion--“The ‘Rosary,’ that curious and novel form of prayer, with the refrain ‘Ave Maria’ (Hail, Mary) repeated again and again. A prayer which has maintained in Roman Catholic countries its wonderful popularity down to our own days and times, and which perhaps has done more to perpetuate the popular cult of her whom Roman Catholic teachers, with an insistence pathetic as it is historically baseless, love to term the ‘Queen of Heaven’ than all the rhapsodies of mystics, or learned treatises of doctors or authoritative pronouncements of the See of Rome.”

But this novel form of Christian dogma, with its ever-multiplying developments, it must be confessed, excited even in the hearts of some of the most ardent devotees of the New Cult, now and again qualms and hesitations--for instance, Bernard of Clairvaux in the middle of the twelfth century--the glory of the Cistercian Order, one of the most influential and loved monks that ever lived, whilst professing the deepest tenderness towards, and affection and admiration for the Mother of his Lord, wrote in a spirit of indignant remonstrance against the doctrine of the “Immaculate conception of the Virgin” which in the twelfth century had already been suggested for acceptation. “Are we more instructed,” wrote S. Bernard, “or more devout than the fathers?... It is perilous presumption in us, when their prudence in such things is exceeded. The Royal Virgin needs no fictitious honours.” Aquinas, Peter Lombard, Albertus Magnus, Bonaventura, denied this doctrine, or at least hesitated before adopting it.[22]

* * * * *

The testimony of _Art_ to this strange development in Christian doctrine is striking and instructive. Art, it must be remembered, is ever the expression of popular opinion. Outside the Catacomb pictures which here are indeed few in number and very simple, and give no support whatever to the lofty mediæval conceptions of Mary;[23] the earliest representations of the Virgin are found in ancient Christian sarcophaguses; there the Virgin, when she is represented at all, occupies a place less prominent than that given to the Apostles. A conspicuous position is only accorded to her in the Western Church, towards the eighth and ninth centuries, when the Crucifixion began to be a popular subject in the design of ornamentation. The Virgin is depicted in these scenes at the foot of the Cross on the right side, S. John occupying a similar place on the left.

But in the twelfth century, a marked change in Art appears in the presentment of the Virgin. Dating from about the year 1140, Mary becomes a prominent figure in sculpture and in painted glass; she now appears commonly seated on a throne and wearing a crown, but ever holding on her knees the infant Saviour. In her right hand she often holds a sceptre. An aureole of glory surrounds her head and the head of the Child Christ. No doubt this new fashion of representing Mary was borrowed from the Greek and Byzantine pictures and sculptures, of which a large number were brought from the East by returning Crusaders. Still in these early representations, the Child Christ remains the principal figure, and He is depicted on His mother’s knees in the attitude of blessing with an outstretched little hand.

But a change even here is soon observable. In the thirteenth century, save in a scene picturing the adoration of the Magi, the Virgin is rarely depicted in a sitting posture with the Child Christ in her arms. She now generally appears standing, crowned and triumphant; if she holds the Child in her arms, it is simply to mark the source and origin of the power and authority which she is evidently portrayed as exercising. But emphatically in these thirteenth century and later statues and glass pictures, she is the central figure, and to her, not to the Divine Child, is adoration unmistakably offered and prayer addressed. Very different indeed from the humble and grief-stricken Mary of the seventh and eighth centuries kneeling with S. John at the foot of the Cross, is the crowned and sceptred Queen of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; her head encircled with an aureole of glory, accepting the devout homage of Christian worshippers, and listening to their supplications addressed to her.

It is thus during the thirteenth and two following centuries, she appears in unnumbered instances, alike in jewelled window as on the carved porch of the house of God, unmistakably, as the popular hymns and liturgies were everywhere teaching, “the Queen of Heaven.”

_An Appendix on two remarkable Architectural Features in the Lady Chapel of Gloucester._

In the Lady Chapel of Gloucester there are two remarkable features which have, I believe, generally escaped attention. The stranger standing on the grass lawn which forms the outside pavement of the cathedral, perhaps notices that the east end of the great Lady Chapel is _square_--rectangular; and looking down the pile perceives two small transepts; then as the eye travels down the great building beyond the Lady Chapel, it is again arrested by two more transepts of far greater size.

There is a special interest in these peculiar features, especially in the _square_ east end; they have a story of their own. The great majority of the great English churches, it is well known, are not apsidal, or circular at the east end, but _square_, and it would seem that some very ancient tradition must be at the root of that striking English feature. Now we have good reason to believe that the majority of ancient British churches were so constructed. In Ireland a few very ancient little churches or oratories are still with us; some of these without doubt date from the fifth century, that is, from the days when Ireland was first Christianised from Britain; they therefore undoubtedly represent the type of church architecture common in Britain before the coming and subsequent havoc of the North-folk invaders, in the fifth and sixth centuries--the Saxon, the Engle and the Jute.

Without exception these very early little Irish churches, or oratories, are _square-ended_, not apsidal or semi-circular ended. They evidently represent an independent Christian tradition, something quite different to the Basilican, especially Italian tradition of an apsidal or semi-circular end. The conclusion then forced upon us is that Christianity came originally to this Island from another centre than Rome or Italy.

This square-ended form for churches, impressed upon Britain by unknown missionaries, is of immemorial antiquity. The teaching has never been forgotten, but has, through all the changing fortunes of the Church in our Island, remained the English favourite form. We will briefly trace its remarkable story.

The first period of the existence of the Church in Britain may be dated roughly from some time in the second century, and may be said to have lasted until the coming of the North-folk in the middle of the fifth century. (The exact date of the first preaching of Christianity in Britain is unknown.) Ireland received the faith from Britain somewhere about A.D. 397, and judging from the invariable square east end form of the early Irish churches, and oratories, we may assume that the British churches (these have all[24] disappeared owing to the sweeping havoc of the Northmen invaders), like their daughter Irish churches, must have been, as a rule, square-ended.

There were, however, it is certain, some rare exceptions to this rule, for when Christianity after A.D. 313 became the recognised religion of the Empire, in some centres in Britain the churches of the Roman colonists and officials were built on the Basilican mode of the great capital of the Roman world, with apsidal or semi-circular sanctuaries. An example of such an exception has been lately discovered in the purely Roman city of Silchester (near Reading), built in the fourth century especially for Roman provincials and officials. The little Silchester church, as might have been expected, has an apsidal or semi-circular end.

The second period of the Church in Britain may be dated from the arrival of Augustine from Italy, A.D. 597, and may be roughly reckoned as lasting until the coming of the Normans in A.D. 1066. Augustine and his companion missionaries, as may have been expected, introduced the Italian or Basilican type, but gradually we find the square end, as the Saxon period wore on, again forcing its way into general use, the old traditional type of church building somehow being deeply rooted in the hearts of the dwellers in our Island.

The Norman conquest once more, after A.D. 1066, gave an artificial and temporary victory to the Italian (Basilican) or apsidal-ended churches. Westminster Abbey, which was a purely Norman church, built under Edward the Confessor’s auspices--Gloucester, and other well-known famous abbeys, were constructed with apsidal and semi-circular east ends. But strangely enough, in spite of the all-powerful Norman influence, nothing could eradicate the old taste for the primitive British type of church, and when once the conquerors and the conquered began to be welded into one people, the square end once more gradually superseded its Roman apsidal rival. By the thirteenth century the victory of the old square-ended type was pretty well complete, and it became par excellence the special English form.

The well-known example of the “restored” Westminster Abbey, which with its apse and striking chevet of chapels at the east end, and which might justly be cited as an important contrary instance, is really exceptional, that glorious abbey owing its Roman and Continental form to the special circumstances under which it was restored and rebuilt. The foreign influences to which Henry III, who mainly carried out the new Westminster work was subjected, are purely responsible here. Durham, on the other hand, where English influences were at work, actually saw its Norman apse destroyed, A.D. 1236-1241, and the beautiful creation known as the Nine Altars commenced. This Chapel of the Nine Altars at the east end of Durham may be cited as the noblest instance existing of a square-ended termination of a great English abbey. A somewhat similar transformation was also effected in the famous Priory Church of Lindisfarne, with its undying memories, hard by Durham.

Among the great churches of England, either through original construction, or through partial transformation or subsequent additions, the following will be found to possess the square, or rectangular east end, that peculiar form derived from the ancient British type, adopted in the Island _before_ the coming of the North-folk: York, Exeter, Worcester, Salisbury, Christ Church (Oxford), Winchester, Hereford, Rochester, Lincoln, Ely, Chichester, Chester, Carlisle, Bangor; and Old Sarum may be added to the list.

But, on the other hand, very few traces of this peculiarly English (British) form, with its striking and interesting tradition handed down from an immemorial antiquity, and bearing its voiceless testimony to some original centre of Christianity, other than Rome or Italy, are found in the great continental churches.

In the vast and populous province of the old Empire known as Gaul, which includes modern France, the Low Countries, etc., among its numerous splendid cathedrals and abbatial churches, only one can be cited with a square-ended east end--the cathedral of Laon. To Laon may be added the important church of Dol. Square-ended churches, comparatively small and unimportant, are, however, not unfrequent in the little country towns of the north of France and in the Burgundian country. Are not these latter exceptions probably referable to an undying memory of the influence of Columba, the great Irish (Celtic) missionary, and his school?

The magnificent and stately mediæval cathedrals on the Continent of Europe, different from their sister churches in England, are, as a rule, characterised by the feature of a great apse, semi-circular or polygonal, with a chevet of chapels.

In England, Gloucester Cathedral is one of the notable exceptions, in this striking particular, to the general English type of square-ended churches, with its eastern apse almost semi-circular, and its chevet of chapels, of which there are three distinct storeys, one over the other, containing in all nine chapels.

But in the year 1457, when Abbot Hanley was ruling in the important Benedictine House of Gloucester, it was determined that a new and superb Lady Chapel should be built as an “annexe” to the stately abbey of Serlo and Aldred. But in the beautiful design for this new and exquisite eastern annexe, the Benedictine architect determined to give to his historic abbey that peculiar English feature which it had hitherto lacked, viz. a square or rectangular termination.

Hence it came about, that in its last architectural transformation, Gloucester has become square-ended, thus preserving in the mighty abbey of the Severn Lands, the immemorial tradition of the square end, handed down from the third century, and brought originally to this Island by early Christian teachers from the East, _not_ from Italy and Rome.

Nor was the master-architect who designed the present Lady Chapel of Gloucester content with only expressing this peculiar and most ancient British type of church architecture upon his loved abbey. Hitherto S. Peter’s Abbey had possessed but _one_ pair of transepts. The secondary or eastern transepts were another feature peculiarly English. They are found in the great piles of Canterbury, Lincoln, Salisbury, Beverley and York, but _not_ in the great Houses of Prayer in France (Gaul). One solitary Gallic instance can be cited in the vast abbey of Cluny in Burgundy, now, alas, razed to the ground; Cluny, strangely enough, possessed the English feature of the double transepts.

The architect of the new chapel of “our Lady” at Gloucester determined that his abbey should henceforth boast too of this peculiar English feature, and so wove into his beautiful design those two singular and striking projections, usually described simply as Chauntry Chapels, surmounted by minstrel galleries, but which are really _two little transepts_.

A glance at the ground-plan of Gloucester Cathedral, as it now stands, will show the accuracy of this apparently novel, and perhaps to some students, startling deduction. So Gloucester, in its last and final transformation in the fifteenth century, became possessed of _both_ the special English architectural features--the square end, and the double eastern transepts.

_The Churches or Oratories of “S. Gwithian” and “Perranzabuloe” on the north coast of Cornwall._

Since writing the above little historical sketch of the utter destruction of the ancient churches of Britain in the sixth century by the North-folk--the Jute, the Saxon and the Engle--worshippers of Odin and Thor--Mr. Lach Szyrma, the well-known Cornish scholar, has called my attention to the curious but little-known remains of two most ancient churches, or oratories, on the north coast of Cornwall, S. Gwithian and Perranzabuloe; both dating from _circa_ A.D. 450. One of them, “S. Gwithian,” perhaps slightly earlier.

In each of these, the _Sanctuary has a square ending_. These little churches without doubt were the work of the old British community--and apparently are the _only_ survivors of the British churches swept away by the North-folk invaders.

Of these two churches or oratories, S. Gwithian was erected in a very exposed situation, and the sand from the sea-shore is blown upon the site in clouds; as much as a depth of five feet of sand will come up in one night. It was covered up in this way at a very remote date.

This “lost” church was dug out of the sand, _circa_ A.D. 1830-1835. Since then it has several times been partially uncovered, but it has gradually been completely filled up again with sand. It is now completely buried in the sand, and only a few stones of the west wall are visible above ground.

The length of the Church of S. Gwithian is _circa_ fifty feet, and the breadth _circa_ twenty feet. The walls are dry-built.

The building is _rectangular_ (square-ended), with a door on the south side away from the sea.

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The church or oratory of Perranzabuloe (S. Peran in Sabulo; S. Peran in the Sand) was only discovered _circa_ A.D. 1880. Its previous existence was suspected owing to a very faint local tradition, when it suddenly partly reappeared in consequence of a storm uncovering a small portion of it, the sand mound which completely covered it being partly swept away.

It had been buried in the sand at an unknown, but very early date, yet the tradition of its existence lingered on through the centuries. This church or oratory of Perranzabuloe is smaller than the church of S. Gwithian above described. It is only about twenty-five feet long by twelve and a half feet broad. The chancel at the east is _square-ended_. The little building forms a perfect double square.

It is now accessible--and quite recent care has entirely covered the ancient edifice with an enclosing building, leaving a passage all round, between the old walls and the new wall which encircles it. The present Vicar says: “It is a rather ugly arrangement, but it is the best that could be done with the funds collected for the conservation of the precious relic. At any rate,” its guardian says, “the old church is now protected from wind and weather.”

This most ancient church is built of unhewn stones without mortar. Attached to the east wall is a stone altar five feet three inches long by two feet three inches wide. About eight inches above the altar is a niche some twelve inches high by eight inches wide, in which most probably was once placed the shrine of S. Peran.

The church or oratory of Perranzabuloe is in the midst of a stretch of sand-dunes reaching from Perranporth to Newquay, on the north coast of Cornwall, eight miles from Newquay, one and a half miles from Perranporth.

The strange reappearance of these two most ancient British churches, dating certainly from before the sixth century, apparently the solitary survivors of the destroyed churches of the old inhabitants of Britain _before_ the coming of the North-folk, bear out the theory above advanced, that the British churches or oratories erected before the disastrous conquest of the North-folk, like the Irish churches or oratories which faithfully reproduced their peculiar architectural features, were all square-ended churches.

THE CRYPT

_Of the principal terms used in this study on the Crypt._

_Crypt_ is derived from the Greek κρύπτειν to hide, to conceal.

_Confessio_--The Confession. The burial chamber or vault where lay the remains of one who had “confessed” and borne witness to his Faith by his blood. The “Confessio” is sometimes termed “Martyrium.” Sometimes the word is used for the chamber immediately contiguous to the actual vault of the tomb beneath it, as is the case in the Crypt of S. Peter at Rome.

_Memoria._--The chamber or chapel erected over the “Confessio” or burial place of the Martyrs--originally used for the gathering place of the Faithful, pilgrims or others who came to visit and pray over the grave of the Saint buried beneath. The first “Memoria” that we are acquainted with was erected over the vault which held the body of St. Peter. This “Memoria” was built by Anacletus,[25] the successor of Linus; Anacletus is generally reckoned as third Bishop of Rome. It served as a church for the faithful, in which the Eucharist could be celebrated, and a small congregation gathered together. This Memoria of Anacletus was erected shortly after A.D. 70. It is mentioned in the _Liber Pontificalis_ under the record of Pope Anacletus in the following words: “Memoriam beati Petri construit et composuit.”

The “Memoria” of Anacletus was no doubt referred to by the Presbyter Caius in A.D. 210, who calls it the “Tropæum”--the visible monument of the Apostle S. Peter. Tertullian also, as early as the end of the second century, refers to it as an object of pilgrimage from all parts of the world.

_Cubiculum._--This was a little burial chamber leading out of the galleries of the Roman Catacombs. These “Cubicula” were hewn out of the rock, generally at right angles to the gallery in which were cut the countless niches each holding one or more corpses.

The “Cubiculum” was intended for the more conspicuous persons in the Church, and especially for those who had through martyrdom, or through any very distinguished work for the Church, merited this special distinction after death; not a few of these “Cubicula” were occupied by the bodies of the men and women who had witnessed a good confession by shedding their blood for Christ’s sake. Many of these little chapels which held the remains of such illustrious dead, became, as time went on, places highly venerated by the congregation.

_Catacombs._--The modern name of “Catacombs,” now universally applied to ancient underground Crypts where the dead were interred in the early days of Christianity, and especially used for that vast network of subterranean corridors filled by the Christian dead beneath the suburbs of old Rome, was totally unknown to the original Christian communities who hewed out of the solid rock this mighty cemetery of the Roman dead. The term “Catacomb” is derived from the Greek words κατά κύμβη, the latter word signifying “hollow” or valley.

The district on the Appian Way where the little basilica of S. Sebastian now stands, was especially known as “ad catacumbas” or “the Hollows.”

In the earlier part of the ninth century, the bodies of the more prominent Saints and Martyrs were removed for security’s sake from their original resting-places outside the walls of the city, to the safer custody of the Roman churches within the city, and the once famous subterranean cemeteries in the suburbs gradually ceased to be objects of pilgrimage.

But the _one_ suburban cemetery of S. Sebastian, owing to the tradition that the bodies of SS. Peter and Paul had reposed in the Crypt beneath S. Sebastian for some years when persecution had rendered their original resting-places insecure, ever remained an object of devout pilgrimage.

This Crypt was known as “Cemeterium ad Catacumbas,” and on the re-discovery of the great underground City of the Dead at Rome, late in the sixteenth century, the popular name “ad Catacumbas” came to be applied to all subterranean cemeteries, and especially to the great cemeteries beneath the Roman suburbs.

But it must be borne in mind that, after all, this _universally_ used appellation, when given to the subterranean cemeteries in general, is a curious misnomer, and was unknown, in its present universal signification, in ancient times.

* * * * *

Now it may be positively assumed that all Crypts are generally a memory of, are reminiscent of the sacred and venerated burying-places of the Martyrs and Saints of the age of persecution, notably of the Crypt of S. Peter.

Thanks to the industry of a few modern scholars, the details of S. Peter’s tomb on the Vatican Hill are fairly well known. The sacred remains of the great Apostle and Martyr, ever venerated as the founder of the Roman congregation, were originally laid in a little vault or crypt on the Vatican Hill hard by the place of his martyrdom.

From the first, this spot was visited by pilgrims from many lands, an ever-increasing number, but the place of interment was very small and difficult of access. So Anacletus, traditionally the third Bishop of the Church of Rome, in order to accommodate these numerous visitors to the tomb, built directly over the vault where the Apostle’s body rested, the little chapel known in history as the “Memoria” of Anacletus.

Over this humble Chapel or “Memoria,” the first Christian Emperor Constantine erected the lordly basilica generally known in history as “Old S. Peter’s.” In the same age, or a very little later, various other basilicas or churches were built directly over the “Cubicula” or burial chambers leading out of the Catacomb galleries, where lay the remains of the more prominent Saints and Martyrs interred in the Catacombs of Rome.

In those far-back days, the grave of a Martyr was ever regarded with the deepest reverence, and was constantly visited by pilgrim visitors. No more appropriate spot, it was considered, could be chosen for the celebration of divine service than the chamber which held the Martyr’s grave; but these graves were sunk deep in the ground, and the “Cubicula” of the Catacombs were utterly incapable of containing the officiating clergy and the crowd of the faithful who would wish to worship in these hallowed spots. It was generally considered in the early Church that the remains of the Martyrs and Saints ought not to be removed, for such a removal would be deemed an impious act; never--so taught the teachers of the first age--must the sainted relics of the dead Confessors be translated or disturbed.