The triforium and clerestory of Carlisle are singular symbols of the doctrine of the Trinity. The former has in each bay three adjacent equal lancets. The latter is a series of triplets; the central window in each being composed of three lights. We may observe, by the way, that three adjacent equal lancets are hardly ever found, whatever the reason may be. We know but of three examples: in the churches of Bosham, Sussex, Godalming, Surrey, and S. Mary-le-Crypt, Gloucester: and in all these cases they occupy the same position, the south east end of the chancel, or chancel aisle.
Dorchester church, Oxfordshire, has for one of its windows an equilateral spherical triangle with three heads, or knops, one at each angle.
We are now in a purely decorated age. And as one of its earliest windows we may mention that in the Bishop of Winchester's Palace at Southwark. It was a wheel, and contained two intersecting equilateral tri-angles: around them were six sex-foiled triangles the hexagon in the centre containing a star of six greater and six smaller rays. Here, of course, the Blessed Trinity and the divine and human natures were set forth. [Footnote 59]
[Footnote 59: We may perhaps be allowed to say a few words here on the subject of those singular windows which the Cambridge Camden Society has called Lychnoscopes.
It appears, that in Early English churches, the westernmost window on the south side of the chancel is both lower than, and in other ways (particularly by a transom) distinguished from the rest. It is sometimes merely a square aperture, as in some churches in the Weald of Sussex: sometimes a small ogee-headed light, as in old Shoreham: sometimes, where the south side of the chancel is lighted by a series of lancets, the westernmost, as in Chiddingfold, Sussex, is transomed, where the others end, and carried down lower; sometimes the lower part appears to have been originally blocked, as in Kemerton, Gloucestershire, and Kingstone next Lewes, Sussex: sometimes there are remains of clamps, as at Buckland, Kent, sometimes of shutters. Again, sometimes there are two, one north, the other south of the chancel: sometimes the same arrangement is found S.E. of the nave. On the other hand, it is never found in any but a parish church: never in late work: seldom is it ornamented. We will give a few remarkable instances. I. Dinder, Somersetshire. Here there is a double lychnoscope, north and south: the date is late Early English, and the specimen is unique from there being a rude moulding in the window arch. 2. Othery, Somersetshire. The lychnoscope itself is here blocked: it is square-headed, and of two lights: date probably Early Decorated. The church is cruciform, and a central perpendicular tower was subsequently erected. One of the diagonal buttresses is thrown out at a distance of some three feet from the window, so as to hide it: and an oblique square hole has been cut through the masonry of the buttress. This is the more remarkable, because there are stalls in the chancel, of perpendicular work, which would seem to render any window in that position useless. 3. Christon, Somersetshire. Here, almost close to the ground, is a horizontal slit which appears never to have been glazed. This is an early Norman church. So at Albury, Surrey, at the S.E. end of the south aisle. 4. S. Appolline, Guernsey. This church is of the same date as, or may be earlier than, the last. The windows are rude and square-headed slits: the lychnoscope is transomed. 5. Preston, Sussex. There are three windows in the south of the chancel, which rise one above the other, like sedilia, to the east. 6. Loxton, Somersetshire. This is an Early English church with a south western tower serving as porch. From the eastern side of this a long slit is carried through the nave wall, a distance of some twenty feet, and exactly commanding a view of the altar. It is grated at the west end, not glazed: the eastern end has long been blocked up. Way is made for it by a bulge of the wall in the angle formed towards the east by the tower and nave. This seems to form a kind of connecting link between the hagioscope and the lychnoscope.
With these windows we will venture to connect those extremely rare ones, three adjacent, unconnected, equal, lancets, as occurring of the same date at the same position. There is again another kind of lychnoscope only found where the chancel has aisles. A panel of the parclose, or wooden screen, behind the longitudinal stalls, is sometimes found pierced with a small quatrefoil, at the S.W. part of the chancel. This is vulgarly called a confessional. It seems, however, clearly connected with the lychnoscope. Examples are found at Erith, Kent, and Sundridge in the same county. Perhaps also the curious slit in the south wall of the chancel of S. Michael's church, Cambridge, communicating with a south chantry chapel is another variety.
From the above facts we deduce the following remarks: 1. That the necessity for a lychnoscope must in some cases have been very urgent: as may be proved by the example, at Othery, where a buttress is much injured to form one. 2. But yet this need was not universal, because there are many churches in which the arrangement does not occur. 3. That it appears, strictly speaking, a parochial arrangement, not being found in cathedral or collegiate churches. 4. That smaller buildings rather than larger are marked with it: it seldom occurs where there are aisles to the chancel. 5. That, where employed, lychnoscopes were only used occasionally; else the shutters which have evidently sometimes existed, would have been useless. 6. That they are very seldom ornamented, and never have stained glass. 7. That in the Perpendicular era they generally, though not universally, ceased to be used. 8. That, a large sill seems to have been a requisite to them. 9. That, where the upper part is glazed, the lower part often was not, as in the Decorated lychnoscope at Beckford, Gloucestershire. The principal hypotheses to explain the use of this arrangement are: 1. Dr. Rock's. That it was a contrivance by which lepers might see the Elevation of the Host. But the structure of the greater part of these windows forbids this idea: many instances occur in which it is splayed away from the Altar, none (except that at Loxton, and a doubtful case at Winscombe, Somersetshire, where a perpendicular addition has been made) in which it is splayed towards it. 2. That of the Cambridge Camden Society, that it was for watching the Paschal light. But this, besides being à priori improbable is refuted by that at Othery. Here the eye has to look through two apertures at some distance from each other, and therefore can command only a very small field on exactly the opposite side of the chancel. 3. It has been imagined by some that it was for confession. The idea of confession near an altar sufficiently refutes itself; but furthermore, some of these openings are so very low down that the thing would be impossible. Two solitary facts more, though they throw no light on the subject, may yet be mentioned. 1. In the church of S. Amaro, near Funchal, in Madeira, is a grating at the west-end like that at Loxton. Its use is now said to be to cool the church, though in that case one should have expected to meet it elsewhere. 2. In Sennen church by the Land's End, there is said to have been a lychnoscope (now no longer existing) used to take in the tithe-milk. We may gather on the whole, 1. that lychnoscopes could not have been used to look into a church 2. Nor to hand anything in or out. Both these are sufficiently disproved by Othery, 3. Nor to speak through. But one can hardly imagine any other use, except it were to look out of the church. We are inclined to think that it was in some way connected with the ringing of the bells, or of the sancte bell. Where the tower is central, we very often find it: as at Old Shoreham and Alfriston, Sussex: at Loxton it is evidently for some purpose connected with the tower. So in Beckford, which has a central tower; and Uffington, Berks, a cross church. And the place where the sancte bell was rung is exactly between a double lychnoscope. But what the particular use might have been we will not pretend to guess. We will conclude this long note by a question as to the authority for calling the small chancel door, the Priest's Door. It is never (originally) furnished with a lock, but always with an interior bar, thus showing that it could only have been used from the inside. So the priest could never have entered the church by this way, unless the door were previously opened for him.]
[End footnote]
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The symbolism of the more complicated decorated windows it is next to impossible to explain. Carlisle and York have doubtless their appropriate meaning; but who will now pretend to expound it?
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One exception we may make:—the east window of Bristol cathedral. It is of seven lights, but so much prominence is given to the three central ones, as strongly to set forth the Most Holy Trinity: over them is a crown of six leaves and by the numerous winged foliations around them, the Heavenly Hierarchy may, very probably, be understood.
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