Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/97

 XIT. EOMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE. Although we have turned aside for a time to notice the Byzantine style, which developed itself in the East, the present chapter must be looked upon as a continuation of that on Early Christian Architecture. The form assumed by Christian architecture in the Western Empire, after it freed itself from pagan influ- ence, was that known as the Romanesque, or debased Roman. This was to be met with in almost, if not quite, every country of Europe, and may be considered as a transition style leading up to the great Gothic development of Christian architecture, which we shall shortly reach. In this respect Western art differed from Byzantine, which has perpetuated the same forms almost to our own day without passing into any new phase. To render the basilica more suitable for Christian worship, when the early republican form of religion was replaced by the division of the priests and laity into totally distinct classes, the apse was first appropriated to the use of the clergy, and then the whole dais, or raised part in front of the apse, on which the altar stood, was separated for them by railings called cancelli, — hence the modern term chancel. A further change was the introduction of a choir or enclosed space, attached to the presbytery or apse, outside which the congregation assembled to hear the gospel and epistle read from a kind of pulpit called an ambo. Another feature early introduced was the bury- ing of the body of the saint to whom the building was F 2