§ 36. From the fourteenth century onwards, porches with an upper story became common, and it is certain that much miscellaneous business may have been transacted in the chamber on the upper floor. This chamber, so frequently called a ‘priest’s room,’ was used for several purposes. It was sometimes a chapel of the church. The north porch at Grantham was either rebuilt or extended northward in the fourteenth century: the lower story was vaulted, and the long upper chamber became the chapel in which the principal relics belonging to the church were preserved. Stairways were provided in each of the outer corner-turrets, one for those ascending to venerate the relics, the other for those descending, so that a free circulation was assured for devotees who visited the chapel on feast days. In addition, a window was made in the wall above the north door, through which the relics could be exhibited to worshippers inside the church. The vaulting was broken down at a later period, and the two stages combined into one. The south porch also has an upper chamber, which in later days, like so many similar chambers, contained the library of the church. It was probably appropriated to the church-watcher, sometimes the deacon attached to the church, who slept there, and, from a small inner window which projects slightly from the wall, could gain a view of most of the interior of the building. In such a case the watcher’s room would probably also be used as the treasury of the church. The magnificent south porch at Cirencester, in three stages, has fan vaulting in the ground story: the upper rooms were used by the trade guilds of the town, and still form the Guildhall. The close connexion of the guilds with the religious life of the place made the church their natural meeting-place; and their annual meetings were very generally held in the chapels where they maintained services in their parish church. The porch at Cirencester is called the Vice, a corruption of the word parvise (the Latin parvisus=paradisus) which is commonly, though inaccurately, applied to these storied porches. Among the splendid storied porches of the later middle ages may be mentioned those at Thaxted in Essex, Beccles in Suffolk, and Sall in Norfolk. The upper story of one of the porches at Sall contains a piscina, and was probably a chapel.

Fig. 10. Cirencester: south porch.

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§ 37. It has been noted that there was occasionally an altar on the first floor of a tower. One still remains in place at St Michael Penkivel, near Truro, where the church was appropriated to a college of four chantry priests, and was rebuilt early in the fourteenth century. Certain indications have lately been found of another at Tansor, near Oundle: the conversion of this tower chamber into a chapel explains the otherwise pointless addition of a stair at the south-east angle of the tower, which seriously weakened the fabric. While the term ‘priest’s chamber,’ as applied to the room over the porch, is by no means accurate, it is probable that such a room may sometimes have been used by a chantry priest, or as has been said, by the deacon who occasionally assisted the incumbent of a church. The most curious instance of a habitation in connexion with a church is at Terrington St John’s, in the Norfolk marshland, where the tower stands at some distance west of the south aisle, and is connected with it by a two-storied building, divided into chambers. There seems little reason to doubt that this dark and uncomfortable, but moderately roomy structure, with the first floor of the adjoining tower, was occupied by the curate who served the church. It is well, however, to look askance on the usual traditions which have led, for example, to the confident statement that the porch chambers at Grantham were the vicarages of the two rectorial portions of the church. Statements, also, with regard to the defensive use of church towers must carefully be guarded against, with the proviso that, in certain districts, there are indications that such an use was made of them. In some of the churches of north-west Yorkshire, from the end of the twelfth century onwards, towers were built with a strength which indicates that they might become strongholds in time of warfare; and there is positive evidence that the tower of Bedale church, in a district much exposed to the inroads of Scottish invaders, was intended to receive on occasion a body of defenders. The same thing is true of fortified towers, like that at Newton Nottage, on the coast of South Wales. In towers, again, like those of Llywel and Llanfihangel-Cwm-Du in Breconshire, and Llanfair-ar-y-Bryn in Carmarthenshire, the external construction speaks clearly of the uses to which such towers might be put in time of war, while the strong barrel vaults of the ground floors, the ample planning of the turret stairs, and the presence in one case, till recent times, of a fire-place on the first floor, are further indications which support the idea.

§ 38. It should not be forgotten that a porch was occasionally used as the foundation of a tower. There is a good example of a northern porch tower at Cromhall in Gloucestershire and of a southern porch tower at Norbury in Derbyshire; but the finest instance is probably the south tower and spire of Donington in south Lincolnshire. The south tower at Fowey in Cornwall is another striking example. It was merely custom and tradition which made the west tower a nearly invariable feature in most districts of England during the greater part of the middle ages. It is obvious that the position of the tower in the plan is elastic, and we find it, not merely over the crossing of the transepts, or over a side porch, or at the extremity of a transept, or as an upward extension of a transeptal chapel, but also in a position detached from the church. The beautiful tower of West Walton in Norfolk is at the entrance to the churchyard, its ground story forming the gateway. In examples like this—Fleet and Tydd St Giles, in the same neighbourhood, stand apart in their churchyards—the insecure nature of the soil probably made the building of a bell-tower in direct attachment to the church unsafe, and therefore undesirable.

§ 39. The Norman chancel in England was rectangular in the majority of cases. It was also narrower than the nave, from which it was divided by an arch. Such arches are almost invariably, until the middle of the twelfth century, round-headed, and are usually low in elevation. Their character and width, however, vary greatly. At North Witham the archway is low and narrow, and the arch is unmoulded; decoration is confined to the impost-blocks from which it springs. A wide space of wall is left on either side of the opening. When in the thirteenth century the chancel was enlarged, these spaces were pierced with wide pointed openings, presumably in order to give a better view of the altar from the body of the church. In north Yorkshire there are a large number of similar chancel arches, the narrowness and plainness of which have sometimes induced antiquaries to class them as Saxon. Saxon in affinity they may well be; but at Scawton on the Hambleton hills, where one of them occurs, and the wall on either side is pierced with late Norman openings, we know that the church was built in 1146. At Bracebridge, near Lincoln, where there is a fairly lofty and narrow chancel arch of early character and uncertain date, there are openings, apparently later than the rest of the work, at the sides. These openings are not carried down to the ground in any of the cases mentioned; and there were probably altars against the wall below them, as was certainly the case at Castle Rising in Norfolk, and Avening in Gloucestershire, where towers occur between nave and chancel. Were such openings invariable, or were they even contemporary with the chancel arch, we might see in them a survival of the triple-arched screen wall of early Saxon times. But they are quite exceptional; and at North Witham both, and at Castle Rising one, are much later than the chancel arch. More frequently the chancel arch is given elaborate architectural treatment, with moulded orders and jamb-shafts, and occupies most of the width, and practically the whole height of the chancel behind. Early Saxon chancel arches were very narrow, as is the case at Escomb and Bradford on Avon—so narrow as to shut off the chancel from the nave. This may have been a survival of the primitive practice which kept, by means of curtains drawn round the canopy of the altar, the consecration of the sacred elements in the Eucharist from the public eye. All through the middle ages, it was customary during Lent to hang a curtain or Lenten veil across the chancel arch; and in many English churches hooks for its support may still be seen. A narrow chancel arch would be much more serviceable for this purpose than a wide one; and its persistent continuance through the twelfth century may perhaps be attributed to this usage.

§ 40. While, in the enlargement of a church, the nave was usually widened by the addition of aisles, the chancel was in most cases lengthened, and was often rebuilt entirely, in order to provide more room for the stalls of the quire. Thus, at Sandiacre in Derbyshire, the twelfth century nave and chancel arch were left untouched, but a splendid chancel was built in place of the old one during the fourteenth century. The screen which divided chancel from nave is gone; but nowhere can we appreciate better the practical separation between the parishioners’ portion of the church, and that devoted to the clergy and quire, which, in churches like this, became almost as marked as in the monastic and larger collegiate churches. The lengthened chancel, forming a deep aisleless projection to the east of the building, was often treated with great architectural dignity. Nothing could be more beautiful, from their very simplicity of design, than the chancels of Mitford in Northumberland, or Burgh-next-Aylsham in Norfolk, with their row of lancet windows in the side walls, and the marked projection of their string-courses and buttresses. Later in the thirteenth century, the chancel of Houghton-le-Spring church, near Durham, gives us another example from the north of England of spacious planning, with light admitted through a row of splayed lancets. The chancel of the collegiate church of St Andrew, Bishop Auckland, enlarged about 1250 or rather later, underwent further alteration not long after, by the substitution of broader two-light openings for the narrower lancets, and of a large mullioned east window for a group of lancets at the east end. In Yorkshire, the chancel of West Heslerton, a simple aisleless church, was lengthened and lightened by a row of lancets not unlike those at Houghton-le-Spring. Further south, the nobility which long lancet windows in bays divided by projecting buttresses, and marked by the strong horizontal lines of string-courses, can give to an architectural composition, is shewn by the chancel of the cruciform church of Hedon, near Hull. Less elaborate, but even more striking by virtue of the height, narrowness, and wide internal splay of the lancet openings, is the chancel of Bottesford in north Lincolnshire. Cherry Hinton, near Cambridge, possibly reaches the high water mark of chancel building which depends for its effect on the arrangement of lancet windows. Acton Burnell in Shropshire, recalls Cherry Hinton in the piercing of its side walls by rows of lancets, with trefoiled rere-arches; but its east window is a composition of four lights, with geometrical tracery, and marks the transition to an even more imposing type of chancel, in which the side walls are pierced with large traceried windows, and the outside and inside of the building alike are marked by architectural treatment of great beauty, and even splendour. Some of the earliest of these fourteenth century chancels may be found in the east of England. Great Sampford in Essex stands on the border-line between the two centuries. Dennington in Suffolk, a chancel of unequalled beauty, comes within the first quarter of the fourteenth century. Somewhat later is Stebbing in Essex, and a little later still is Great Bardfield. In both of these churches, close to one another, nave and chancel alike were rebuilt, and the arch between them filled with a screen of open tracery in stone. The chancel of Lawford, near Colchester, followed about the middle of the fourteenth century: its chief feature is the licence given to the curvilinear tracery of its windows. Impulse may have been given to this outbreak of energy in the east of England by the great building works undertaken at old St Paul’s during the latter part of the thirteenth century: all the examples cited, with the exception of Dennington, are within the bounds of the ancient diocese of London. Further examples which give colour to this view might be cited, such as the chancel which the Cistercians of Tilty, near Dunmow, added to their church, as the beginning of a complete rebuilding, about the beginning of the fourteenth century.

§ 41. But even more conspicuous than these are the chancels which are found with some frequency in the ancient and widespread dioceses of York, Lincoln, and Lichfield. The chief features of these are, traceried windows of great beauty of proportion and variety of design, with carefully moulded arches and jambs, boldly projecting buttresses with gables or pinnacles, strings and base courses carried right round the building, often with much elaboration. The internal furniture includes stone piscinae and sedilia, canopied niches on each side of the east window, founders’ tombs, and, in some cases, stone Easter sepulchres in the north wall. In almost every case, the masonry is composed of large dressed stones; and the building capacity of the masons reaches a high level of architectural skill. The probable source of the development of masonry and sculpture shewn in these structures is to be found in the architectural work which was going on at York during the last quarter of the thirteenth and first quarter of the fourteenth century. It can be shewn that the York school of masoncraft had some influence at Lincoln. Its influence at Southwell, the southern matrix ecclesia of the diocese of York, is undoubted. That it had some influence as far south as the lady chapel of Ely, begun in 1321, is very probable; and the work done there may have reacted in a northward direction. Its influence at Lichfield, during the episcopate of Walter Langton (1296–1321), is more than probable, as Langton was intimately connected with York from his early years till his death. In Yorkshire, the rebuilding of the cruciform church at Patrington was completed, with the chancel, towards 1350. Earlier than this, probably between 1320 and 1330, the chancels of Patrick Brompton, Kirkby Wiske, and Ainderby Steeple had been built: Croft, near Darlington, and Romaldkirk in Teesdale, belong to much the same period and sphere of influence. Round Southwell and Lincoln, and probably during the same decade, the greatest triumphs of the period were achieved. The founder of the chancel of Hawton, near Newark, died in 1330. The rector who was the founder of the chancel of Heckington, near Sleaford, was presented by the crown in 1308–9, and had licence to found a chantry in the church, probably at the high altar of the rebuilt chancel, in 1328. The chancel of Navenby, near Lincoln, belongs to the same period. At Sibthorpe, near Newark, a college of chantry priests was founded by stages during the first half of the fourteenth century, and the present chancel seems to have been built about 1330: the founder, as already noted, rebuilt the aisles of his church at Beckingham, a few miles away, before 1347. The architectural likeness between his work at Beckingham and the chancel of Boothby Pagnell, near Grantham, built about 1350, cannot be mistaken. The whole church of Fledborough, north of Newark, was rebuilt, probably about 1343, when a chantry was founded in the lady chapel.