Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/109

 9 th S. II. AUG. 6, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

101

LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 1893.

CONTENTS. -No. 32.

NOTES s-The Church (?) at Silchester, 101 -Smith's ' Cyclo- paedia of Names,' 102 Wild Horses, 103 St. Fursey Temperate Latitudes, 104 Morning Syntax of a Preface Cousin Reinterment of Sir N. Crispe, 105 Epitaph X Bays Bertolini's Hotel, 106.

QUERIES: Odin Laws concerning Names Habakkuk Sweating-pits Chief Justice Kelly' The Pilgrim's Pro- gress,' 107 Birch Mrs. Norton's ' The Dream ' The Ploughing of the Emperor of China Wild Forest Bulls- Signature as Mark of Ownership Use of Low Latin British Colonial Registers, 108 A Noble Card-sharper, 109.

HBPLIES : " Sumer is y-cumen in," 109 -Tobacco in Eng- land' Three Jovial Huntsmen 'Coins, 110-Port Arthur Sir Thomas Lynch, 111 Cardinal Wolsey's Leaden Water-pipes ' The Causidicade ' " Horse-Marine." 112 Shakspeare and the Sea, 113 Wild Geese, 114 Rhymes for Book - Borrowers Lochwinnoch " Hop-picker " "-halgh" St. Werner, 115 Frobisher John Loudoun Rev. Mr. Marriot "Dewy-feathered," 118 Dictionary of English Proverbs " Harrow," 117 "Whose curtain never outward swings "Emerson Quotation" Drangut " Hamlake- Crucifixion in Yorkshire Stonyhurst Cricket " Tit-tat-to "Sheridan and Dundas, 118 Book-Borrow- ing Andre, 119.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Gross's 'Bibliography of British Municipal History ' Furneaux's ' Agricola of Tacitus ' Harrison's 'Place -Names of the Liverpool District' Holmes's ' Sir Benjamin Brodie.'

Notices to Correspondents.

THE CHURCH (?) AT SILCHESTER.

IT was welcome news to me to be given some time ago to understand that the inter- esting and most estimable work being carried on so ably at Silchester had laid bare a building, or rather the ground plan of a build- ing, which presented evidences so strong as to convince certain of its accomplished excavators that it represents a British Chris- tian church of the fourth century. This, if satisfactorily verified, is a most extraordinary and illuminative discovery. When we reflect that our up-to-date information concerning the major Christian basilicas of Rome herself brings us only to somewhat vague concep- tions of their original designs in the fourth and fifth centuries, it is easily to be under- stood that to find such a design of the same date in a provincial town 01 England, a remote and second-rate colony of the Empire, is a piece of historical good for- tune deserving unstinted felicitation. It is, if true, of the profoundest importance with regard to the advent of Christianity and its settled establishment in this island. For, recollect, if this is proved to be what its eloquent advocates (of which I am not one) declare it to be, it is a Christian

church, say of the time of Julian the Apos- tate, or, at latest, Theodosius, and therefore two centuries before the coming of the Benedictine Christianize!' of Kent. *

With your permission I shall, however, venture to record some, of my reasons for at least gravely doubting the conclusions arrived at by my superiors.

The position occupied by this building was in the most important central insula of the city, even adjoining the Forum, only a few paces dividing them one from the other. That area perforce must have been always a position of especial significance in civic life, and must have held a building closely con- nected therewith. Such a building in such a town would be municipal or else sacerdotal. The form of it, however, happens to have been that of a basilica with aisles, apse, and vestibule - portico. The most natural conclusion, therefore, is that it was simply the Court of Justice. But the director of excavations, who was in charge when I saw the model at the Reading Museum and visited Silchester, observed to me : " But it has a narthex. Where can you find a basilica with a narthex?" My first inclination was to answer with another ques- tion, such as, " Do you, sir, venture to believe that the narthex was a Christian invention ? For if so, you might as well try to make me believe that the use of incense, sprinklers, wax tapers, vestments, and music in churches, is attributable to Christian originality." But I did no such thing. I merely asked, "Has there been discovered any carven or incised ' monogram,' or a dove, an anchor, a fish, or any other well-known and unmis- takable token of Christian worship about the building or its neighbourhood 1 Does the fragment of its mosaic pavement, which contains distinct designs, present anything which can so be construed* Above all, have any remains been found resembling those of a baptistery?" To these queries I re- ceived but a single negation. I therefore felt myself to be in a position of a very definite kind. There is, as yet, no evidence whatever that the basilica at Silchester has any right to be called a church, though those who choose to do so may entertain great hope that such evidence will one day be forthcoming.

If such evidence does come to light my natural inclination will be to pronounce that the building was not erected in the fourth century for a church, but that at some period, probably later, it might have been converted into a church from a basilica. Those of us who have spent time in Rome, Ravenna,