Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 11.djvu/167

Rh variety as an architectural form. Both of these are just as applicable in the nineteenth century as in the twelfth; but another still stronger reason weighed with the mediæval builders, which does not apply to the ritual of the Church of England.

As the use of many altars in the same church became prevalent, the east ends of transepts afforded some of the best positions for the purpose. Next to the high altar itself, and to positions like the east end of a Lady chapel, the altar could nowhere occupy a position of greater dignity. It gained a distinct portion of the church to itself, and the ecclesiastical arrangement might, better than elsewhere, be marked in the architecture of the building. I feel no doubt that whenever transepts projected, as they generally did, beyond the level of the choir aisles, and again, in the numerous cases where no choir aisles existed, they were primarily and essentially, designed as receptacles for altars. The merely symbolical and æsthetical requirements are fully met by transepts not projecting beyond the aisles; St. John's church, at Coventry, is as thoroughly cruciform as if its transepts were as long as the nave. And this church I should recommend to the study of all who wish to apply to modern uses the noblest form which an ecclesiastical building can assume.

At first probably a single altar only was placed in each transept, and to effect the appropriate combination of ritual architecture, an apse was attached to the east face of the transept to receive it. These apses still exist in many great Romanesque churches, both in England and on the continent; and, in our own country at least, it is still more common to find traces of their having existed, than to find them actually standing. In many cases they have been removed in later enlargements of the church; in many they have been destroyed without any such cause, and that, apparently, not always in recent times. Generally of course, we must look for features of this kind only in cathedral or other great churches; in Sussex, however, it struck me as a local peculiarity, that this and other kindred arrangements are applied to buildings of a humbler type than I had been accustomed to find them in elsewhere. It was in fact this circumstance which immediately led me to the present inquiry, and I shall therefore make an especial reference throughout to these Sussex examples.