Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/438

406 admitted through the clerestory, which could easily be done; and altogether as a fortified and mysterious abode, and place of worship of ascetics, it would be difficult to find a more appropriate example.

The age of this church is not very well ascertained; popularly it is, like so many others, ascribed to Sta. Helena, and the double aisles and triapsal arrangements are so like her church at Bethlehem, that there is no à priori improbability in the assumption. The plan, however, is more complicated and complete, and its external form bespeaks of troublous times, so that altogether it is probably a century or two (the monks say 140 years) more modern. Like other churches of its class, ancient materials have been so used up with those prepared at the time, that it is extremely difficult to ascertain the dates of such buildings. If, however, any one with sufficient knowledge would make a special study of these Egyptian churches, he would add one of the most interesting chapters to our history of early Christian Architecture, and explain many ritual arrangements whose origin is now involved in mystery; but for this we must wait. The materials are not at present available, all travellers in Egypt being so attracted by the surpassing interest of the Pagan remains of that country, as hardly to find time for a glance at the Christian antiquities.

272. White Convent near Siout. (From a plan by the Hon. Sir Arthur Gordon.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

It was probably in a great measure owing to the influence of these provincial examples that the arrangements of the metropolitan basilicas were not long allowed to retain the form above described, though more was probably due to the change which was gradually taking place in the constitution of the governing body of the Church. The early arrangements of the Christian basilica, as copied from the secular forms of the Pagan places of assembly, soon became unsuited to the more exclusively religious purposes to which they were to be appropriated. The now dominant hierarchy of Rome soon began to repudiate the republicanism of the early days of the Church, and to adopt from the East the convenient doctrine of the absolute separation of the congregation into clergy and laity. To accommodate the basilica to this new state of things, first the apse was railed oft" and appropriated wholly to the use of the clergy: then the whole of the dais, or raised part in front of the apse on which the altar stood, was separated pillars, called cancelli, and in like manner given up wholly to the