Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/734

Rh 660

AQUARIANS

a Northern antiquary to mistake it for a pagan temple. The plan of the church at Planes deserves to be quoted, if not for its merit, at least for its singularity; it is a triangle with an apse attached to eacTi side, and supporting a circular part terminating in a plain roof. As a constructive puzzle it is curious, but it is doubtful liow far any utility was subserved by such a freak. The church of Ste-Croix at Mont Majour near Aries is a triapsidal church, sup- po.sed to be the only one of its kind. Built as a sepulchral chapel, it is a singularly gloomy but appro- priate erection. In the Byzantine style the apse was retained, as in St. Sophia at Constantinople, in the old Byzantine churches at Ravenna, and in several churches on the Rliine.

The apse is almost universally adopted in Germany, and is very common in France and Italy. In differ- ent parts "of England there are many churches with semicircular apses at the east end, chiefly in the Norman style, and some in which this form has evidently been altered at a subsequent period. In several cases the crypts beneath have retained the form wlien the superstructure has been altered. The apse is virtually a continental feature and con- trasts with the square termination of English Gothic work. The traditional semicircular apse, greatly enlarged and, in the perfected style, changed to a polygonal plan, is the most characteristic eastern termination of the larger French churches. The low Romanesque apse, covered with the primitive semi- dome and enclosed with its simple wall, presented no constructive difficulties and produced no imposing effect. But the soaring French chevet, with its many- celled vault, its arcaded stories, its circling aisles, and its radial chapels, taxed inventive powers to the utmost and entranced the eye of the beholder. The apse of St. Germain-des-Pr6s (second quarter of the twelfth century) may reasonably be regarded as the first great Gothic apse ever constructed. Norwicli cathedral is perhaps the finest example of the round apse in England. The cathedral of Durham, of which the nave and choir were finished much as they are now seen about the beginning of the twelfth century, had originally an apse; but on account of a defect; in the masonry this was taken down and the present magnificent chapel of the Nine Altars substituted in the thirteenth century. The apsidal form is occasionally met with in England, as at Lichfield and Westminster. There is an apse in each arm of the transept in the churches at Mel- bourne, Gloucester, Ramsay, Chichester, Chester, Nor- wich, Lindisfarne, Christ Church in Hants, Tewkes- bury, Castle Acre, Evesham. If the transept was long, there would sometimes be two apses on each arm, as at Cluny, Canterbury, St. Augustine's, and St. Albans.

Fergussox, a History of Architecture in all Countries (Lon- don. 1893); GwrLT, Encyclopedia of Architecture (London, 1881); Ki.KTCiiER, A History of Architecture (London, New York. 189<)); Weale, Diet, of Terms in Rudimentary Series (London, 1859-93); Moore, Development and Character of Gothic Architecture (London, New York, 1899); Longfellow (ed.), A Cyclopedia of Works of Architecture in Italy, Greece, and the Levant (New York, 1895).

Thom.vs H. Poole.

Apse Ohapel, a chapel radiating tangent ially from one of the bays or divisions of the apse, and reached generally by a semicircular passageway, or ambula- tory, exteriorly to the walls or ])iers" of the apse. In plan, the normal type of the tangential chapel is semicircular; some, howe\-er, are iientagonal, and some composed of a small circle, serving as clioir, and part of a large circle, as nave; some are oblong with eastern apses. In England, sometimes an ambula- tory connects the north and south aisles of the choir, and from the ambulatorj' projects an eastern cliapcl or chapels. The eastern chevet of Westminster Abbey, surrounded by five apsidal chapels, is the

only complete example of this feature in England. The common source of the ambulatory and radiating chai>els seems to have been the church of St. Martin of Tours, where originally there w-as a choir of two bays, and an apse of five bays, surrounded by a single ambulatory and fi\'e radiating chapels. Altars, which had before cumbered the nave, could now be placed in the new radiating chapels of the ambulatory, which afforded the necessary access to them. Each apsidal chapel could be treated as a sanctuary, to be entered only by the officiating priest and his attendants, and the ambulatory served as the necessary nave for the worshippers. The usual number of these radiating chapels is three. Apse chapels are often found in the cathedrals of the Benedictine foundations, and occasionally in those of the Cluniac reform. St. Martin of Tours, St. Savin, and Cluny have five-choir chapels; Amiens, Beauvais Cologne, and I^e Mans ha\e seven apsidal chapels. No ambulatory with tangential chapels is older than about a. d. 900. The peri-apsidal plan of Westminster Abbey, commenced in 10.50 by Ed- ward the Confessor, anticipated Cluny by thirty- nine years, a plan which was reproduced at Gloucester in 1089 and at Norwich in 1096. Radiating chapels are almost entirely a continental plan and most frequently found in French and Gothic structures. In England the apse chapel is very rare, owing to the generally square termination of the nave. Traces of an early apsidal treatment are fovmd in Canter- bury Cathedral. In continental churches the central apse chapel was often the Lady-chapel. In England the Lady-chapel was generally placed at the side. Moore, Gothic architecture (London, 1890): Bloxam, Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture (11th ed., Lon- don, 1882): Bond, Gothic Architecture in England, (London, 1906).

Thomas H. Poole.

Apsidiole (also written Absidiale), a small or secontlary apse, one of the ap.ses on either side of the main apse in a triap.sidal church, or one of the apse-chapels when they project on the exterior of the churcli, particularly if the projection resembles an apse in shape. Bond (Gothic Architecture in Eng- land, 16.3) says that the Norman plan of eastern limb which the Norman builders brought over to lOngland at the Conquest, contained a central apse flanked by apsidioles.

Thomas H. Poole.

Apt, Council of, held 14 May, 1365, in the cathedral of that city by the archbishops and bishops of the provinces of Aries, Embrun, and Aix, in the south of France. Twenty-eight decrees were pub- lished and eleven days of indulgence were granted to those who wouUl visit with pious sentiments the church of the Blessed Virgin in the Diocese of Apt, on the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and venerate there certain relics of the .same.

Mansi, Coll. Cone, XXVI, 445; Martene, Thes. nov. anecd, (1717), IV, 331-342; Boze, Hist, de Viglise d.ipt (Apt. 1820). Thoalvs J. Shahan.

Aquarians (Gr., 'TSpoTapd<rTaTai,; Lat., Aqunrii), a name given to several sects in the early Church. The Ebionites, as St. Epijihanius tells us, had an idolatrous veneration for water (aqua), which they regarded as the source of life. The Manicha-an sects rejected the use of wine as something evil. The name, however, seems to have been given chiefly to the followers of Tatian, of w-honi Thcodoret speaks as follows: "Tatian, after the death of his master, Justin the Martyr, .set himself up as the author of a heresy. Among the things he rejected were mar- riage, and the use of animal food and wine. Tati:m is the father of the .\quarians. and of the Encnilitcs. They are called Hydroparastata", because they olTor water iiiste;id of wine [in tlic Eucharist]; and En-