THE CHURCH BUILDING It is generally held that the Church, when established as part of the organization of the Roman Empire, adopted for its build ings the plan of the secular basilica, and the name basilican has been given to the plan consisting of a long hall or nave with aisles, and with a projecting semicircular apse at the end opposite the main entrance. It should be remembered that the secular basilica followed no stereotyped form of plan, and that other influences may have combined to determine the plan assumed by the Christian church fabric. Further, although the term basilica was very commonly applied to early Christian churches, it was by no means confined to aisled buildings, but was also used of simpler structures. The internal arrangement of the apse, however, closely resembled that of the
the basilican law-court. The altar, on the chord of the apse, took the place of the altar on which oaths were taken by deponents : the seats of the bishop and clergy, ranged behind it, corresponded to those of the secular magistrates. The cancelli or screen, which divided the tribunal from the body of the court, became the barrier between the congregation and the sacred rites, and gave its name to the chancel of the church.
An alternative plan to that of the long aisled nave was the circular or polygonal plan, radiating from a central point, of which the most famous example is the church of San Vitale at Ravenna. This had its origin in the plan of the Christian baptistery, which was symbolically derived from the centralized plans of funeral monuments. The centralized church plan, however, was provided with an encircling aisle or ambula tory, above which was a tribune or gallery, and with a chancel for the altar. Thus the fundamental characteristic of the Chris tian church-plan is its division into the nave for the worshippers and the chancel for the altar and clergy. Covering the main entrance to the nave there was frequently a narthex or vestibule, originally used by catechumens or by penitents excluded from participation in the holy mysteries. In the earliest churches the chancel was at the west end of the building, and the celebrant at the altar faced the congregation, but eventually the custom of placing the chancel at the east end of the church, which first appears in the basilicas of Ravenna prevailed, the celebrant still facing eastward. Beneath the altar there was often a crypt, the martyrium or confessio, so called from its traditional identity with the place of death or burial of the saint to whom the church was dedicated. The choir of singers was accommodated on the altar platform on either side of which were the ainbones or pul pits from which the epistle and gospel were read.
In the larger Romanesque churches of western Europe, the aisled nave was practically universal, and the problem of cover ing these long structures with vaults of stone produced the char acteristic art of the middle ages. Towers rose at the west ends of the aisles, and the erection of a tower on piers and arches between nave and chancel led to the development of the transept or cross-arm for purposes of abutment. It was, however, at the east end of the church that the principal development of plan took place. An aisled presbytery was interposed between the apse and the nave, and the aisles were in many instances con tinued round the apse, forming an ambulatory with a ring of chapels opening eastward from it. This arrangement, dictated by the requirements of processions and by the need of additional altars, became the regular plan of the French Gothic church, producing those magnificent chevets of apse and chapels which are the greatest masterpieces of mediaeval art. The process of enlargement and rebuilding, which attained its height in the thir teenth century, was due to the necessity of a larger ritual space and to the multiplication of endowments for masses. The east arms of churches were reconstructed on a large scale. Behind the altar in many churches rose the shrine of the local saint, the object of pilgrimages which enriched the church and its fabric. A Lady chapel, where the mass of the Blessed Virgin was celebrated daily, was often the most prominent of the chapels at the east end of the church, though its position on the plan varied. The transepts had their eastern aisles of chapels, and the spaces between the buttresses of the nave were utilised for the same purpose.
usually an aisleless structure with nave and chancel, and with western or central tower, also under went enlargement as local needs demanded. The nave was aisled ; the chancel was lengthened; chapels were added at various points in the plan, which sometimes became extremely complex. Such enlargements and additions did not imply growth of population and the consequent need of a larger area for worshippers. Their cause was local anxiety to contribute to the pious work of church building, and, where the means of benefactors allowed, to pro vide altars at which masses, maintained by their endowments, could be celebrated for the health of their souls. In certain dis tricts church-building was encouraged by agricultural or com mercial prosperity, by the existence of gilds which vied with one another in founding chantries, and by abundance of good local material and ease or cheapness of carriage. The architectural history of parish churches was much affected by the division of responsibility for cost between the rector, who met the repairs of the chancel, and the parishioners, who maintained the rest of the building by their contributions to the fabric fund or "works," under the administration of the church wardens, the custodes fabricae or operis.
It is often stated that the church architecture of the middle ages was dictated by an elaborate scheme of religious symbolism. While symbolical ideas entered into the adoption of certain types of plan, as in the transference, already mentioned, of the mauso leum plan to the baptistery, experience shows that the lay masons who usually carried out the work of building were guided by practical considerations, structural and ritual, whose free and natural expression would have been fettered by adherence to artificial rules of symbolism. Anomalies or deviations from regu larity of plan, for which deep significances have been sought, can generally be assigned to errors of setting-out or to imperfect workmanship. The beauty and nobility of mediaeval church architecture is the result of the perfectly natural and unaffected response of the builders to the necessities of construction and to the immediate demands of the religious cult for which they laboured.
In some later mediaeval churches, especially those of friars, wide naves were provided for preaching purposes. Usually the interior of the church was broken up by the screens which enclosed the chapels in the aisles and beneath the arches. Between the nave and chancel was the screen, the western counterpart, with open tracery in its panels, of the closed iconostasis of the Eastern Church : above it was the loft or gallery and the beam on which stood the crucifix. In cathedral and collegiate churches the screen was habitually a solid erec tion of stone, shutting off the choir services from the nave; while in monastic churches, including several of the English cathedrals, there were two transverse screens, the choir-screen with its pulpituin or loft to the east, and the rood-screen a bay or two west of it. As the middle ages advanced, with the growth of specialization in various departments of church fittings, the church became more and more the frame and setting for works of art in stone, marble, alabaster, wood and stained glass. From the beginning colour played a large part in internal effect, as in the mosaic incrustation of early Christian churches. Rough walls were plastered and pictures or patterns painted on the dry sur face or in fresco. The window-openings were filled with stained glass; pigments were lavishly employed on ceilings, on the sur face of piers and vaults, and on furniture. In such prodigality of colour the mediaeval mind found the fullest satisfaction of its religious ideals. By the contemplation of the works of art that filled his church, Suger, the great abbot of Saint-Denis, tells us that he felt himself lifted in spirit from the world to a purer clime; and in Italy and Flanders the art of painting grew to per fection in the decoration of church walls and altars.
In countries which embraced the Reforma tion, the work of church-building was checked. The prime motive which up to that time had prompted the rebuilding or extension of so many churches was gone and existing buildings fully met the requirements of reformed worship. But in any case the Gothic art of the middle ages was already disappearing before the revival of classic art which had its birth in Italy. The ruthlessness which mediaeval artists had shown to the work of their predecessors was pursued by the architects of the Renaissance, who thought nothing of sweeping away great historic monuments like St. Peter's at Rome to make way for buildings in their new style. At the same time, while this implied a change in methods of construction and decoration, those methods were adapted to the traditional Chris tian church plan, and the combination of classical architecture with mediaeval traditions of planning and design is nowhere more clearly seen than in St. Paul's Cathedral and in other churches designed by Wren and the English architects who followed it his foot steps. While the church plan, during the period of Renaissance influence, underwent some simplification, and the idea of the large auditorium or hall of worship superseded the practice of the middle ages and survived in the churches of the Gothic revival, it still retained the fundamental character of the plan which had approved itself as suitable for the needs of the early Church and had reached its highest development in conformity with the requirements of mediaeval ritual. (A. H. T.) See RELIGIOUS AND MEMORIAL ARCHITECTURE.
