THE ORIGIN OF THE CHURCH PLAN IN ENGLAND
§ 1. Side by side with the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the Roman empire, there appeared a fully developed plan for places of Christian worship. The normal Christian church of the fourth century of our era was an aisled building with the entrance at one end, and a semi-circular projection known as the apse at the other. The body of the building, the nave with its aisles, was used by the congregation, the quire of singers occupying a space, enclosed within low walls, at the end nearest the apse. In the apse, raised above the level of the nave, was the altar, behind which, ranged round the wall, were the seats for the bishop and assistant clergy. This type of church, of which the aisled nave and the apse are the essential parts, is known as the basilica. The name, employed to designate a "royal" or magnificent building, had long been applied to large buildings, whether open to the sky or roofed, which were used, partly as commercial exchanges, partly as halls of justice. It is still often said that the Christian basilicas were merely adaptations of such buildings to sacred purposes. Some of the features of the Christian plan are akin to those of the secular basilica. The apse with its semi-circular range of seats and its altar reproduces the judicial tribune, with its seats for the praetor and his assistant judges, and its altar on which oaths were taken. The open galleries, which in some of the earliest Christian basilicas at Rome form an upper story to the aisles, recall the galleries above the colonnades which surrounded the central hall of some of the larger secular basilicas. Again, the atrium or forecourt through which the Christian basilica was often approached has been supposed to be derived from the forum in connexion with which the secular basilica was frequently built.
§ 2. However, while the atrium of the Christian basilica is merely an outer court, the secular basilica, when planned, like the Basilica Ulpia at Rome, with direct relation to a forum, was a principal building in connexion with the forum, but not a building of which the forum was a mere annexe. Further, when we begin to seek for a complete identification of the Christian with the secular basilica, we are met by the obstacle that the secular basilica had no fixed plan. If we try to trace any principle of development in its plan, we find that this development is directly inverse to that of the Christian basilica. The secular basilica, in earlier examples a colonnaded building with its central space open to the sky, became at a later time a roofed hall, either, as in the case of the basilica at Trier, without aisles, or, like the basilica of Maxentius or Constantine in the Roman forum, with a series of deep recesses at the side, the vaulted roofs of which served to counteract the outward pressure of the main vault. The Christian basilica, if it were a mere imitation of this type of building, would follow the same line of development; but, as a matter of fact, the highest type of Christian church is always a colonnaded or aisled building. And, even if the Christian apse derived its arrangement from the apse or apses which projected from the ends or sides of the secular basilicas, there is again a difference. The apse with its altar was the main feature of the interior of the Christian church: it was the place in which the chief rite of Christian worship was performed before the eyes of all. In the secular basilica the apse was devoted to special purposes which set it apart from the main business of the body of the building: it was an appendage to the central hall, not necessarily within view of every part of it. In fact, the relation of the apse to the main building was totally different in the two cases.
§ 3. It seems probable, then, that the identity between the two buildings is mainly an identity of name, and that Christian builders, in seeking for suitable arrangements for public worship, may have borrowed some details from the arrangements of the secular basilica. It is natural, however, to look for the origin of a religious plan in buildings devoted to religious purposes. The Roman temple supplied no help for the plan of buildings which were required for public worship. Of recent years, it has been customary to assume that the Christian basilica took its form from the inner halls of the private houses of those wealthy citizens who embraced Christianity in its early days. Such halls may have been used for Christian services; and if their plan was adopted for the Christian basilica, the mature state of the basilican plan at its first appearance can be explained. The atrium or entrance hall of the house is represented on this hypothesis by the forecourt of the basilica; the peristyle, or colonnade round the inner room, becomes the aisles and the space screened off at the entrance for those not entitled to take full part in the service; the colonnade at the further end survives in the arcaded screen which existed, for example, in old St Peter's at Rome; the apse takes the place of the tablinum, where the most sacred relics of family life were preserved; and the transept, which is found in some of the early Roman basilican plans, represents the alae, or transverse space, which existed between the tablinum and the main body of the hall. But these close analogies are the result of an assumption by no means certain. It is always probable that the basilican plan had its origin in a plan originally aisleless. Some, intent on its religious source, explain it as a development of the plan of the Jewish synagogue. Others, regarding assemblies of Christians for public worship as, in their essence, meetings of persons associated in common brotherhood, have derived the basilica directly from the aisleless scholae which were the meeting-places of the various confraternities or collegia of ancient Rome. In these there is an apse at one end of the building; and, if we imagine aisles added by the piercing of the walls with rows of arches and columns, we have at once the essential features of the basilican plan. Each theory has its attractions and its difficulties; and to none is it possible to give unqualified adherence. It may be stated, as a tentative conclusion, that the basilican plan probably had its origin in an aisleless form of building, and thus pursued a course directly opposite to the development of the secular basilica. But it seems clear that, in many details of the plan, especially as we see it in Rome, the peristyled hall was kept in mind; while in two features, the arrangement of the apse and the occasional appearance of galleries above the aisles, the secular basilica was taken into consideration. The policy of the early Christian Church, when its services were sanctioned by the state, was to adapt existing and familiar forms where they could be suitably reproduced.
Fig. 1. Plan of old St Peter's: (1) atrium or fore-court; (2) nave with double aisles; (3) site of screen-colonnade; (4, 4) transepts; (5) apse with crypt below.
§ 4. The plan of the old basilica of St Peter at Rome, founded by Constantine the Great, and destroyed early in the sixteenth century to make way for the present church, explains the principal features of the basilican plan in its developed state. (1) In common with other early basilicas in Rome, and in other parts of western Europe, the entrance was at the east, and the altar at the west end, so that the celebrant faced the congregation during the divine office. (2) The church was approached through a cloistered atrium or fore-court, in the middle of which was a fountain, the place of purification for those intending to enter the church. (3) At the west end of the cloister three doorways opened into the nave of the church, and one on either side into the side aisles. (4) The nave communicated with the aisles by a row of columns beneath an entablature: there were also outer aisles, communicating with the inner by columns bearing rounded arches. (5) The side walls of the nave, above the entablature, were not pierced for galleries, but were covered by two rows of mosaic pictures, one above the other, on each side, the upper row corresponding to the height of the space between the outer and inner roofs of the aisle. Above this, the walls rose into a clerestory, pierced with round-headed windows at regular intervals; and a high entablature supported the great tie-beams of the wooden roof. (6) The quire of singers, divided from the rest of the church by low screen walls, probably occupied the centre of the western portion of the nave. (7) A tall open arch divided the nave from the transept, which was of equal height with the nave, and projected south and north as far as the walls of the outer aisles. Here probably were places reserved for distinguished persons, near the platform of the altar. (8) West of the transept, entered by a tall and wide arch, was the apse. Beneath the arch was a screen, formed by a row of columns, under an entablature which bore statues of our Lord and the apostles: this crossed the arch at the foot of the steps leading to the altar and seats of the clergy. (9) Beneath the altar platform, and entered by doorways on each side of the flight of steps, was the crypt or confessio, the traditional place of martyrdom of St Peter, and the resort of pilgrims to the tomb of the apostles. The hallowed place was immediately beneath the altar.
§ 5. The sixth century basilicas of Ravenna, Sant' Apollinare in Classe and Sant' Apollinare Nuovo, differ in plan from the Roman basilicas (1) in the fact that they have always had the altar at the east, and the entrance at the west end; (2) by substituting, for a colonnaded atrium, a closed porch or narthex in front of the entrance of the building. In process of time, two of the greater Roman basilicas, San Paolo and San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, were enlarged in a westward direction, so that the positions of the altar and entrance were reversed; and, in several of the early basilicas at Rome, a space near the entrance of the nave was screened off, from which penitents and catechumens might watch the service. But, in the first instance, the eastern chancel and the structural narthex appear to have been introduced from the eastern empire. Neither at Ravenna nor at Rome did bell-towers originally form part of the plan of the basilica: the round campanili of both churches at Ravenna are certainly later additions. It may also be noted (1) that ordinarily the aisles were single, not double as at old St Peter's. (2) The columned screen of the apse at old St Peter's appears to have been exceptional. The ordinary screen or cancelli, from which is derived our word "chancel" for the space thus enclosed, was a low wall. This is the arrangement at the basilica of San Clemente, in which the enclosed quire also remains. (3) The transept, even in Rome, was an exceptional arrangement, and does not appear in the basilicas of Ravenna.
§ 6. Another type of plan, however, was used in Rome for churches devoted to the special purposes of burial and baptism. In this case the buildings were planned round a central point, and at Rome were uniformly circular. Recesses round the walls of the mausoleum-church contained sarcophagi: in the centre of the baptistery was the great font. The church of Santa Costanza, outside the north-eastern walls of Rome, circular in plan, with a vaulted aisle surrounding the central space, was built by Constantine the Great as a tomb-church for his family, and was also used as a baptistery. Both these uses were direct adaptations of pagan customs. The baptistery, with its central font for total immersion, was simply a large bath-room, like the great rotunda of the baths of Caracalla. The mausoleum preserved the form of which the finest example is the tomb of Hadrian, now known as the castle of Sant' Angelo. In the course of the middle ages, certain tomb-churches in Rome, with a centralised plan, were turned into places of public worship. But, for the plan of the ordinary church, the basilica, with its longitudinal axis, was general. In the eastern empire, on the other hand, the centralised plan was employed from an early date for large churches; and in this way was evolved the magnificent style of architecture which culminated in Santa Sophia at Constantinople. Here the centralised plan was triumphantly adapted to the internal arrangements of the basilica.
§ 7. The city of Ravenna, closely connected historically both with Rome and Constantinople, contains a series of monuments which is of unequalled interest in the history of the centralised plan. (1) The mausoleum of the empress Galla Placidia, sister of the emperor Honorius, who died in 450 A.D., is a building of cruciform shape, consisting of a square central space covered by a dome, with rectangular projections on all four sides. The projection through which the building is entered is longer than the others, and the plan thus forms the Latin cross so common in the churches of the middle ages. (2) To the same period belongs the octagonal baptistery, known as San Giovanni in Fonte. (3) In 493 A.D. Theodoric the Ostrogoth obtained possession of Ravenna. To the period of his rule belongs the Arian baptistery, also octagonal, known as Santa Maria in Cosmedin. (4) Theodoric died in 526 A.D. His mausoleum is formed by a polygon of ten equal sides, with a smaller decagonal upper stage, a circular attic above which bears the great monolithic dome. In the lower story was the tomb: the internal plan is a Greek cross, i.e. there is a central space with recesses of equal depth on all four sides. (5) In the year of the death of Theodoric, the octagonal church of San Vitale was begun. It was consecrated in 547, when Ravenna had become the capital of the Italian province of Justinian's empire. Its somewhat complicated plan was clearly derived from an eastern source, but not from Santa Sophia, which was not begun till 532 A.D. The central space is almost circular. Between each of the piers which support the octagonal clerestory at the base of the cupola is an apsidal recess, with three arches on the ground floor opening into the encircling aisle, and three upper arches opening into the gallery above the aisle. On the east side of the central space this arrangement is broken, and one tall arch opens into the chancel, which ends in a projecting apse, semi-circular inside, but a half octagon outside. The aisle with the gallery above thus occupies seven sides of the outer octagon, the eighth side being occupied by the western part of the chancel.
Fig. 2. Plan of San Vitale, Ravenna: (1) narthex with flanking turrets, as originally arranged; (2) central nave; (3) chancel and altar.
§ 8. Of the two types of plan, which can be studied so satisfactorily at Ravenna, the ordinary basilican type is the more convenient. The long nave provides the necessary accommodation for worshippers, the raised apse gives a theatre for the performance of service within view of everybody, the aisles facilitate the going and coming of the congregation, and prevent over-crowding. The centralised plan provides, it is true, a large central area conveniently near the altar; but the provision of a chancel or altar-space necessitates the grafting on the plan of a feature borrowed from the ordinary basilica, which, as at San Vitale, breaks the symmetry of the design. At Santa Sophia, the basilican chancel forms an indissoluble part of a centralised plan; but this feat is beyond the reach of an ordinary architect. Even at San Vitale the planning is highly complicated, and must be due to an architect of some genius. In addition to complications of design, the centralised plan raised questions of roofing which did not trouble the builders of the long wooden-roofed basilicas. The vaulted half-dome of the basilican apse was a simple matter, compared with the mighty dome of Santa Sophia and its cluster of abutting half-domes. It was in the centralised churches, with their domed vaults and the groined vaults of their aisles, that the history of medieval vaulting began. But, even when medieval masons had learned to regard the vaulting of their churches as the controlling principle of their art, they left the centralised plan almost entirely alone, and applied what it had taught them to the work of roofing basilicas with vaults of stone. We shall trace the influence of the centralised church as we proceed; but the influence of the basilica will be found to predominate in the history of medieval planning.
§ 9. In England, as in other portions of the Roman empire, we might naturally expect to find the basilican plan applied to the earliest Christian churches. The foundations of a small Romano-British basilican church have been discovered at Silchester in Hampshire. The apse, as in the Roman basilicas, was at the west end. The nave had aisles, which, at the end nearest the apse, broadened out into two transept-like projections. The entrance front of the church was covered by a narthex, the whole width of nave and aisles. This feature, as has been shown, is of eastern rather than of Roman origin; while the projections at the end of the aisles appear to have been, not transepts like those at old St Peter's, but separate chambers corresponding to those which, in eastern churches, flank the chancel, and are used for special ritual purposes. In fact, the basilica at Silchester recalls the plans of the early basilicas of north Africa more closely than those of the basilicas of Rome; while it has, unlike them, the Roman feature of the western apse. This, however, gives rise to questions which, in our present state of knowledge, are beyond solution.
§ 10. Of the seven churches which are usually connected with the missionary activity of St Augustine and his companions, five, of which we have ruins or foundations, certainly ended in apses; and the apse in each case was divided from the nave, not by a single arch, but by an arcade with three openings, which recalls the screen-colonnade at old St Peter's. But only one church in the group, the ruined church of Reculver, followed the plan of the aisled nave of the basilica. From the description which remains of the early cathedral of Canterbury, destroyed by fire in 1067, we can see that it, too, was an aisled basilica, with its original apse at the west end. But the first cathedral of Rochester, the plan and extent of which may be gathered from existing foundations, was an aisleless building with an eastern apse. The church of St Pancras at Canterbury, the lower courses of the walls of which in great part remain, had an aisleless nave, divided from an apsidal chancel by a screen-wall with three openings, that in the middle being wider than the others. The foundations of two of the four columns which flanked these openings can still be traced. The walls of the chancel, which was slightly narrower than the nave, were continued straight for a little way beyond the screen-wall; and then the curve of the apse began. St Pancras also possessed a square entrance porch, much narrower than the nave, at its west end, and two chapels projecting from the nave on either side, half-way up its length. The church is thus cruciform in plan. The western porch and the chapels seem to have been added as the work proceeded, and not to have been contemplated in the original design. The material of the building is Roman brick, and buttress projections occur at the western angles of the nave and porch, in the fragment which remains of the south wall of the chancel, and at the outer angles of the side chapels. Small buttresses are also found at the angles and on the sides of St Peter's on the Wall in Essex.
§ 11. In one respect the plan of St Pancras at Canterbury is allied to that of the church at Bradford-on-Avon in Wiltshire. At Bradford there remains one of the two porches, which also were probably side chapels, projecting from the sides of the nave. But at Bradford the remaining porch is larger in proportion to the nave than is the case at St Pancras. There is no entrance porch on the west side. Further, the chancel at Bradford is rectangular, not apsidal. Instead of a screen-wall with a central opening nine feet wide, the wall dividing nave from chancel is pierced by a small arch only 3 ft. 6 in. wide. The date of this little church is a matter of great difficulty; and the character of its masonry seems to demand for it a later date than the early one popularly claimed for it. The contrast with St Pancras is accentuated further by the fact that the internal measurements of the nave show a different scheme of proportion. The nave of St Pancras is some three feet broader in proportion to its length than the much shorter nave at Bradford.
§ 12. A closer parallel to Bradford-on-Avon is found in the little church of Escomb, near Bishop Auckland. No record of the early history of this building is known; but its masonry is almost entirely composed of re-used Roman dressed stone-work. In this respect it presents a contrast to Bradford. In another respect the two churches are unlike. Both have their entrances in the side walls; but at Escomb there were no original porches covering the doorways, while there are traces of what may have been an entrance porch, like that of St Pancras, at the west end. But they have these points in common: (1) the nave at Escomb is long in proportion to its width; (2) the chancel is a rectangular eastern projection, narrower and much shorter than the nave; (3) there is a solid wall of division between nave and chancel, pierced by a narrow arch, broader than that of Bradford, but very much higher in proportion to its width. It may be added that the walls of both churches are high in proportion to their length and breadth, and that at Escomb the original windows are small openings with rounded and flat lintel-heads, and with internal splays.
Fig. 3. Plan of Escomb—typical Saxon church.
§ 13. It is, however, with the plan that we are concerned. We now have met with three separate forms in England, viz. (1) the rare basilican plan; (2) the "Kentish" plan of aisleless nave with apsidal chancel; (3) the plan of aisleless nave with rectangular chancel. We also have seen that the screen-wall is common to (1) and (2), while the single chancel arch belongs to (3); and that side chapels and western porches are found incidentally in (2) and (3). Now, the early date of Escomb, apart from the evidence supplied by its masonry, can be suspected only by its analogy to the plan of other churches of which the date is practically certain. Two such churches remain in the same county of Durham. One is at Monkwearmouth, now a part of Sunderland. Its nave and the lowest stage of its western tower represent, and in great part actually are, the nave and western porch of an early Saxon church, which is generally identified with the church built here by Benedict Biscop for the monastery which he founded in 672 A.D. The nave was originally aisleless, long, narrow and lofty: the entrance porch had an upper story finished with a gabled roof, and a vaulted ground-floor with entrances on three sides. There was evidently a chancel arch, and probably the chancel was rectangular. The material of the building was not Roman; but, in the decoration applied to it, Roman work was imitated. Only a few miles further north, Benedict founded, in 680 A.D., the sister monastery of Jarrow. The long and narrow chancel of the present church of St Paul was the body of a church somewhat similar to that of Monkwearmouth. Stone-work which may represent the jambs of a broad chancel arch can be traced in the east wall; but this cannot be stated with positive certainty. The lower part of the tower, now between the present chancel and nave, may represent an original western porch; but, in its present state, it is of much later date than the work east of it, and its site must have been broadened when the tower was first planned. At Jarrow there is no Roman stone-work; but one type of Roman masonry has been imitated by the builders in the walls of the chancel, and small decorative shafts, turned in a lathe after the Roman fashion, such as exist at Monkwearmouth, have been found in the building. The inscribed stone, recording the dedication of the church, is preserved in the wall above the western tower-arch: the date given is 23 April, 684 A.D. In this inscription the building, though aisleless, is called a basilica. The word was now probably used to signify a Christian church, irrespective of its plan. A third early church in this district is that of Corbridge, near Hexham. Here, as at Monkwearmouth, the ground story of the tower was originally a western porch; while the lofty arch between tower and nave is, like the chancel arch at Escomb, entirely composed of dressed Roman masonry, and seems to have been removed from one of the buildings of the Roman station of Corstopitum, as the arch at Escomb was probably removed from the not far distant station of Vinovium.
§ 14. The date to which these four northern churches may be assigned is the half century of the activity of St Wilfrid in England (664-709 A.D.). Bede's account of the architectural work of Wilfrid's friend, Benedict Biscop, shows that he procured, for the building of the church at Monkwearmouth, stonemasons and glaziers from Gaul, who were acquainted with "the manner of the Romans." The account which another contemporary, Eddius, gives of Wilfrid's church at Hexham, is clear proof that this important building was a reproduction, in plan and elevation, of the aisled basilicas of the continent—a fact in keeping with Wilfrid's life-long aim of bringing English Christianity into closer touch with the main current of historic Christianity in Rome and Gaul. The foundations of the outer walls of most of Wilfrid's church were uncovered when, lately, the new nave of Hexham priory church was begun; but one of its features has been long known, and is of the highest interest. The crypt for relics below the apse and high altar consists of an oblong chamber, with a western vestibule, approached by a straight stairway from the nave. In addition to the western stair, there are two stairs which communicated with the apse. That on the south side remains perfect, and ends in a passage and vestibule, through which the relic-chamber is entered. The northern stairway leads through a passage to the western vestibule, at the foot of the stair from the nave. The crypt of Wilfrid's contemporary basilica at Ripon also remains: here the arrangement is less complicated; but the arrangement of the main relic-chamber is equally the chief feature of the plan.
§ 15. The foundations of the Saxon church at Peterborough present many difficulties, and may be of a later date than the foundation of the monastery in 655 A.D. But no such difficulties of date or plan exist with regard to the large Saxon church at Brixworth, between Northampton and Market Harborough. Its size and the fact that Roman material has been much re-used in its building have given rise to the tradition that it is a secular basilica applied to the purposes of a Christian church. As a matter of fact, the Roman brick-work has been re-used in obvious ignorance of Roman methods; so that this circumstance alone would make the legend improbable. The date of the building can hardly be earlier than about 680 A.D., when a monastery was founded here by a colony of monks from Peterborough. The plan originally consisted of (1) a western entrance porch, with a lofty western doorway, and smaller doorways on north and south; (2) a broad nave, divided from the aisles by arches, which spring from large square piers of plain brick-work; (3) a rectangular presbytery, divided from the nave by a screen-wall pierced with three arches; (4) an apsidal chancel, entered from the presbytery by a single arch. On each side of the chancel arch, a doorway entered into a narrow vaulted passage below the ground level, which probably formed an aisle round a crypt below the apse. At a later date, probably in the period of quiet following the later Danish invasions, the apse seems to have been rebuilt, polygonal externally, semi-circular on the inside, and the central crypt-chamber was then possibly filled up. The western porch was also used as the foundation for a tower, and the western arch blocked up with a filling containing a lower doorway, through which the circular turret for the tower-stair was entered. The aisles, either then or at a somewhat later date, having probably fallen into ruin, were removed. The clerestory of the nave remains, with unusually broad round-headed windows.
§ 16. The original plan of Brixworth has points in common with some of the other plans which have been noted. In its triple arched screen-wall it recalls the Kentish type of church; its rectangular presbytery between nave and apse is a development of the chancel space which existed west of the spring of the apse at St Pancras. It shares its western porch with St Pancras and two, if not four, of the northern group of churches. In the north and south doorways of this porch it has kinship with Monkwearmouth, and at Brixworth there are definite signs that these doorways led into passages which may have been connected with other buildings of the monastery, or possibly even with an atrium or fore-court. The aisled nave and the traces of a crypt bring it into relation, not merely with Hexham or Ripon, but with the historical church plan of western Europe generally. At the same time, the plan, regarded as that of an English church, is exceptional. The aisled plan of the parish church was arrived at in spite, not in consequence, of the few early aisled churches which might have supplied it with a model. During the epoch which followed the Danish invasions the aisleless plan was deliberately preferred: the rectangular chancel entirely superseded the apse. No further example of the structural screen-wall occurs. In addition to those mentioned, only three more pre-Conquest examples of crypts are known, and such crypts as occur in parish churches after the Conquest are exceptional, and are usually due to exigencies of site. Only three more aisled churches of unquestionably pre-Conquest date exist above ground. Reculver has been mentioned. The others are Lydd in Kent, where only indications of an arcade remain, and the complete basilican church of Wing, near Leighton Buzzard, which has a polygonal apse with a crypt below. Wing is probably much later in date than most of Brixworth, but one cannot but be struck by a certain resemblance in construction between the two naves, and in plan between the crypt at Wing and the remains of the crypt at Brixworth.
§ 17. These early churches have been treated at some length, because they contain certain essential elements of planning in a state of probation. The basilican plan was doubtless the ideal of English builders during the sixth and early seventh centuries, but an ideal which was hard to compass where good building material was not plentiful. Thus Augustine and his companions contented themselves in most instances with a plan which recalled the aisled basilica, without following out its more elaborate details. It is remarkable that they should have departed from the usual Roman custom, and made their chancels at the east end of their churches: it is also remarkable to find at St Pancras the western porch, the origin of which appears to be the non-Roman narthex. Models existed, no doubt in the ruins of the Romano-British churches, which they repaired; and we have seen that at Silchester there is a regular narthex, while, on the other hand, there is a western apse. These models, however, were probably all of one general type, in which the chancel end was formed by an apsidal projection. When Roman Christianity reached the north, it had to contend with the efforts of Celtic missionaries; and those efforts were not met by it effectively until, in 664, the energetic leadership of Wilfrid secured a triumph for his party at the council of Whitby. Of the Celtic churches of the north we know but little: it seems likely that they were for the most part plain oratories of stone or wood, with or without a separate chancel. The simplest form, obviously, which a church can assume is a plain rectangle with an altar at one end. As the desirability of a special enclosure for the altar is recognised, a smaller rectangle will be added at the altar end of the main building, and so the distinction between nave and chancel will be formed. There are indications of this natural growth of plan in some of the early religious buildings in Ireland. In remote districts, as in Wales, the simple nave and chancel plan is general all through the middle ages; and the smaller country churches often follow the common Celtic plan of a single rectangle with no structural division. The ruined chapel at Heysham in Lancashire, a work of early date, is an undivided rectangle in plan. This is the form which would suggest itself naturally to the unskilled builder: the division of nave and chancel into a larger and smaller rectangle is the next step which would occur to his intelligence in the ordinary course of things. It is possible that Wilfrid and Benedict Biscop found that their aims would be best served by adhering in certain instances to the familiar Celtic plan, and so, while they hired foreign masons and craftsmen to build and furnish their earlier churches, and to set the example of building stone churches after the manner of the Romans, they were careful to avoid the prejudice which insistence on a new plan would have excited. The simplicity, moreover, of a plan like that at Escomb, which requires little architectural skill to work upon, may have been a recommendation; and the fact that the construction of an apse is more difficult than that of a rectangular chancel must have weighed powerfully with English masons, both at this time and later. The fact remains that, in the early age of our church architecture in stone, the aisled basilica was a rare exception, and the rectangular chancel was, in the north, at least as common as the apse.