NAVE, ecclesiastically considered, that part of a church appropriated to the laity as distinguished from the chancel, the choir or the presbytery, reserved for the clergy. In a 14th century letter (quoted in Gasquet's Parish Life in Medieval England, 1906, p. 45) from a bishop of Coventry and Lichfield to one of his clergy, the reason for this appropriation is given. "Not only the decrees of the holy fathers but the approved existing customs of the Church order that the place in which the clerks sing and serve God according to their offices be divided by screens from that in which the laity devoutly pray. In this way the nave of the church . . . is alone to be open to lay people, in order that, in the time of divine service, clerics be not mixed up with lay people, and more especially with women, nor have communication with them, for in this way devotion may be easily diminished." The word "nave" has been generally derived from Lat. navis, ship. Salmasius in his commentary on Solinus (1629) finds the origin in the resemblance of the vaulted roof to the keel of a ship. The use of the word
navis may, however, be due to the early adoption of the "ship" as a symbol of the church (see Skeat's note on Piers Plowman, xl. 32). The Greek vans, Attic ved)s (vaiEtv, to dwell), the inner shrine of a Greek temple, the cella, has also been suggested as the real origin of the word. This derivative must presume a latinized corruption into navis, for the early application of the word for ship to this part of a church building is undoubted.
Architecturally considered the nave is the central and principal part of a church, extending from the main front to the transepts, or to the choir or chancel in the absence of transepts. When the nave is flanked by aisles light is admitted to the church through clerestory windows. (See BYZANTINE AND ROMANESQUE ARCHI TECTURE.) At times, however, a gallery was carried above the side aisles.