Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/99

Rh side of the chancel—it will be observed that the dwellings, as in a very large majority of the towns and villages of England, are to the south of the churches—that in the exceptional cases, the openings correspond, being on the north or on both sides, and that one is generally of later style, as if provided for a spreading population; that when, as usually, placed low, the more convenient for the sacristan in that when higher, as in the rare cases of Prior Crawden's chapel at Ely, and La Sainte Chapelle in Paris, they were so on account of the neighbourhood of perhaps monastic buildings, which would else have impeded the sound.

"I. H. P. has referred to the old directions above quoted, in another interesting paper by him on squints, in which he observes that those of small size were probably to enable the sacristan only to see the elevation of the host, and to ring the bell at the proper moment. I would add that so many squints are in company with and so closely adjoining to the low side windows, it is difficult to avoid the belief in their relationship, and their having reference to the same ceremony. And when we consider that no casements were made in the windows of a church, except this one kind which puzzles us, it is not easy to understand how, in the absence of a bell-cot, or other means of ringing in the open air, the bell could be heard by people 'seu in agris, scu in domibus.' I therefore imagine that it was a frequent practice, when neither low-side window nor bell-cot existed, to use the porch doorway for the purpose; and that those remarkable examples of squints at Bridgewater, at Charlton, and elsewhere, made from the chancel across one or more chapels direct to the porch, were to comply with the injunction to ring 'in uno latere,' and so as to be heard. And that the squints made into rooms over porches were, not for recluses, but that the sacristan might ring the bell at a casement there. The examples are numerous of squints commanding not the high altar from a chapel or transept, but a chantry altar from the chancel; and in some cases remaining and observed there is, as in Norman work at North Hinksey, a small squint through the jamb of the chancel arch pointing towards a chantry altar, and in the corner close next to it is a low side window of the same age. For what purpose? during the celebration of mass in a chapel there would be no clergy in the chancel, and of course no laity, to use the squint; but if the low side window was, as I suggest, to enrich the sound of the sanctus bell, then whether mass were performed at the high or at the chantry altar, the sacristan there stationed could directly or through the squint see the elevation of the host. In places where a squint could not be made, we find a low side window attached to each altar, as at Bucknell. The example from Othery, near Bridgewater, adduced as the most remarkable and unaccountable, owing to the awkward projection of a buttress across the window, is however yet stronger in favour of my theory. It is unfit for use by any one inside or outside for purposes conjectured in other cases, or for the exhibition of a light. But the old shutter remains, the opening through the buttress is sufficient for sound, and there is a squint made at such an angle as to prevent seeing the high altar from the transept, but so as to enable a person close to the chancel end