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 noted that the apse is flanked by two chambers, of the nature of sacristies, cut off from the rest of the church, and known in ecclesiastical terminology as prothesis and diaconicon. These features, rare in Italy, are almost universal in the churches of North Africa and Syria. Another existing English basilica of early date is that of Brixworth in Northamptonshire, probably erected by Saxulphus, abbot of Peterborough, c. A.D. 680. It consisted of a nave divided from its aisles by quadrangular piers supporting arches turned in Roman brick, with clerestory windows above, and a short chancel terminating in an apse, outside which, as at St Peter’s at Rome, ran a circumscribing crypt entered by steps from the chancel. At the west end was a square porch, the walls of which were carried up later in the form of a tower. The first church built in England under Roman influence was the original Saxon cathedral of Canterbury. From the annexed ground-plan (fig. 22), as conjecturally restored from Eadmer’s description, we see that it was an aisled basilica, with an apse at either end, containing altars standing on raised platforms approached by steps. Beneath the eastern platform was a crypt, or confessio, containing relics, “fabricated in the likeness of the confessionary of St Peter at Rome” (Eadmer). The western apse, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, contained the bishop’s throne. From this and other indications Willis thinks that this was the original altar end, the eastern apse being a subsequent addition of Archbishop Odo, c. 950, the church having been thus turned from west to east, as at the already-described basilica of S. Lorenzo at Rome. The choir, as at S. Clemente’s, occupied the eastern part of the nave, and like it was probably enclosed by breast-high partitions. There were attached porches to the north and south of the nave. The main entrance of the church was through that to the south. At this suthdure, according to Eadmer, “all disputes from the whole kingdom, which could not legally be referred to the king’s court, or to the hundreds and counties, received judgment.” The northern porch contained a school for the younger clergy.

 BASILICA, a code of law, drawn up in the Greek language, with a view to putting an end to the uncertainty which prevailed throughout the East Roman empire in the 9th century as to the authorized sources of law. This uncertainty had been brought about by the conflicting opinions of the jurists of the 6th century as to the proper interpretation to be given to the legislation of the emperor Justinian, from which had resulted a system of teaching which had deprived that legislation of all authority, and the imperial judges at last were at a loss to know by what rules of law they were to regulate their decisions. An endeavour had been made by the emperor Leo the Isaurian to remedy this evil, but his attempted reform of the law had been rather calculated to increase its uncertainty; and it was reserved for Basil the Macedonian to show himself worthy of the throne, which he had usurped, by purifying the administration of justice and once more reducing the law into an intelligible code. There has been considerable controversy as to the part which the emperor Basil took in framing the new code. There is, however, no doubt that he abrogated in a formal manner the ancient laws, which had fallen into desuetude, and the more probable opinion would seem to be, that he caused a revision to be made of the ancient laws which were to continue in force, and divided them into forty books, and that this code of laws was subsequently enlarged and distributed into sixty books by his son Leo the Philosopher. A further revision of this code is stated to have been made by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the son and successor of Leo, but this statement rests only on the authority of Theodorus Balsamon, a very learned canonist of the 12th century, who, in his preface to the Nomocanon of Patriarch Photius, cites passages from the Basilica which differ from the text of the code as revised by the emperor Leo. The weight of authority, however, is against any further revision of the code having been made after the formal revision which it underwent in the reign of the emperor Leo, who appointed a commission of jurists under the presidency of Sympathius, the captain of the body-guard, to revise the work of his father, to which he makes allusion in the first of his Novellae. This latter conclusion is the more probable from the circumstance, that the text of the code, as revised by the emperor Leo, agrees with the citations from the Basilica which occur in the works of Michael Psellus and Michael Attaliates, both of them high dignitaries of the court of Constantinople, who lived a century before Balsamon, and who are silent as to any second revision of the code having taken place in the reign of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, as well as with other citations from the Basilica, which are found in the writings of Mathaeus Blastares and of Constantine Harmenopulus, both of whom wrote shortly after Balsamon, and the latter of whom was far too learned a jurist and too accurate a lawyer to cite any but the official text of the code.

Authors are not agreed as to the origin of the term Basilica, by which the code of the emperor Leo is now distinguished. The code itself appears to have been originally entitled The Revision of the Ancient Laws ( ); next there came into use the title , derived from the division of the work into sixty books; and finally, before the conclusion of the 10th century, the code came to be designated  , or  , being elliptical forms of  and  , namely the Imperial Law or the Imperial Constitutions. This explanation of the term “Basilica” is more probable than the derivation of it from the name of the father of the emperor Leo, inasmuch as the Byzantine jurists of the 11th and 12th centuries ignored altogether the part which the emperor Basil had taken in initiating the legal reforms, which were completed by his son; besides the name of the father of the emperor Leo was written , from which substantive, according to the genius of 