Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them

by Sidney Heath

EARLY CHURCH ARCHITECTURE.

In the early years of the Christian Church, when its members became sufficiently free from persecution to erect buildings for the purpose of worship, they were naturally anxious to avoid any of the forms peculiar to either heathen or Jewish temples. Some model, however, was necessary, and their choice being limited, they appear to have adopted the simple style of the Roman basilica, or court of justice. There was an adaptability about the general plan of such a building which rendered its selection natural and not inappropriate, while the dignified simplicity of its construction and the object for which it was primarily founded—the dispensation of justice—commended it no doubt in the first instance as a model for the primitive Christian church. These basilicæ were usually enclosures surrounded by a colonnade, sometimes roofed, but more often open to the air, and designedly built for the purpose of being accessible to all members of the community at all times of the day. They appear occasionally to have been used for the transaction of ordinary business in which they would closely resemble our exchanges. Be this as it may, this form of architecture has left its impress on many Christian buildings, and the name of basilica, for a church, is still used in many parts of Italy.

The Roman basilica was usually in the form of a parallelogram, with a seat for the judges at one end, and in their adaptation of this form of building, the early Christians devoted this place to the purposes of an altar. This, by an easy and natural transition, is thought to have given rise to the formation of the semi-circular recess at one end of the building, known as the apse (from the Latin apsis, a bow or arch), which is still to be found in some of our older churches.

Being thus Roman in the nature of their ground plan, it is not surprising to find that other portions of the early Christian buildings show decided characteristics of a Roman style. On the destruction of the Pagan temples by order of the Emperor Constantine about the year 330, much of their material was built into the earliest Christian churches, and the Roman character of their design being prevalent, they formed a style of architecture which has been designated Romanesque, of which the later styles, known here as Saxon and Norman were largely modifications. There is no reason to doubt that the earliest Christian churches were very unpretentious in form and that some time elapsed before there was anything which could be called a definite church architecture, beyond that to which we have alluded. Nevertheless, as the Church strengthened her position and grew in security, more attention was devoted to the subject of its edifices, and the departure in time from the original ground plan furnished an opportunity for the introduction of a more symbolical and appropriate design. The plan of the old basilica was abandoned for one in the form of the cross, the accepted symbol of the Christian religion, which departure, however, did not involve any very great alteration from the old ground plan.

We come then to the time when one or other of the forms known as the Latin or the Greek cross—whichever was most convenient—was usually employed in a building designed for Christian worship, and these forms are universally found in the most elaborate structures of which the Christian Church can boast.

As time passed, these cruciform churches were surmounted with a dome, steeple, or tower at the point where the members of the cross intersected each other. At first the most prominent of these external adornments was the dome; a characteristic of the architecture of Eastern Europe, which acquired the name Byzantine, from its having been carried to great perfection in Byzantium (Constantinople), the capital of the Eastern Empire.

The church of S. Sophia, which was built, much as it now exists, early in the sixth century, and was afterwards converted into a mosque, is an almost perfect example of the Byzantine style. In this building we find the Roman arch used in a variety of ways, while the dome itself is formed entirely of this arch used as the crowning work of the edifice. Eastern churches in this style usually took the form of the Greek cross, this form being better calculated to support the weight of the cupola. In Western Europe, however, where the flat squat tower afterwards developed into the steeple, as we shall see in a later chapter, the Latin cross was mostly used, and this, with a few notable exceptions, is the plan of most western churches.

With writers of about fifty years ago, it was a favourite theory that the Christians converted the old basilicæ into churches, and that the "Halls of Justice" erected by the Romans in this country were also converted into Christian churches, and some authorities point to the walls and arches of Brixworth church in confirmation of this theory. The late Mr. J. W. Brewer, however, stated that unfortunately for this theory, no single example of a basilica being converted into a church has been found in this country and he himself held the theory that the word basilica was used by the Romans to describe any building which was supported by internal columns, and in that way the name came to be applied to Christian churches.

As we have seen, the early Christians, after a short time, became dissatisfied with these buildings adapted from Pagan types, and the Byzantine form of church arose, the first people who practised this style of building being the Greeks. The style spread with rapidity all over the East, the great church of S. Sophia being its largest example and the smaller, but more perfect, church of S. Mark at Venice giving us the best idea of this form of church architecture. Largely modelled on this style, also, are the circular baptisteries of Italy and the round churches of England, France and Germany, the modern Russian churches and all the Mohammedan mosques. The Latin churches did not greatly favour this style and their use of it was confined, with few exceptions, to baptisteries, monumental chapels and the like, but for parochial, cathedral and monastic churches, the oblong plan was retained and ultimately developed into the Gothic church with its nave, transepts and chancel.

The changes which the Christian basilica at first underwent were simple, viz., the use of the arch instead of the straight lintel, or the placing of an entablature between the columns; a little later, about the tenth century, the old wooden roof of the basilica gave place to the arched roof or vaulting, so called from its being composed of a series of vaults. The styles called Romanesque and Lombardic are but geographical varieties of the same architecture and from these the Saxon and Norman styles were soon to be developed. The vaulted basilica church soon became common over the north of Europe, the two most important and practically unaltered examples being the cathedrals of Speyer and Worms, in Germany, although our Anglo-Saxon cathedrals of Peterborough, Ely and Norwich may, so far as regards their naves, be justly regarded as the offspring of the vaulted basilica style of building.