A Treatise on Chancel Screens and Rood Lofts: Their Antiquity, Use, and Symbolic SignificationPugin, Augustus Welby Northmore
History
A Treatise on Chancel Screens and Rood Lofts: Their Antiquity, Use, and Symbolic Signification
Pugin, Augustus Welby Northmore
Screens (Church decoration)
The next important point is the arrangement of the chancels, that they
may be perfectly adapted for the easy access and egress of large bodies
of communicants which have greatly increased since the middle ages. The
chancels of all large town churches should be continued either like
apsidal choirs, or taken out of the body of the church with the aisles
continuing eastward on either side, and terminating in chapels, thus
permitting the free egress of those who have communicated without
returning through the holy doors. This arrangement is not of any
importance in country parishes where the number of communicants is
necessarily limited, and where the elongated chancels may be retained,
but in great towns it is almost indispensable. And this leads us to
another matter of considerable importance. Almost all the pointed
churches that have been erected in towns, have been taken from examples
in the country villages, and although low churches built of rubble walls
with broach spires look most beautiful and appropriate amid cottages,
elm trees, and rural scenery, they appear quite out of place when
transplanted among the lofty mansions and scenery of a great city. A
church has recently been erected in London the design of which _per se_
is exceedingly pleasing, but instead of the sky line of the gable roofs
we have the attic story and Roman cement balustrades and hideous
chimney-pots of an adjoining terrace rising above them.
In all ancient cities where the houses were lofty, _the churches were
the same_, as at Antwerp, Bruges, Ghent, Lubeck, Ratisbonne, Nuremberg.
There are houses in the old towns whose gables are much higher than are
our first-rate houses, but the churches rise very far above them, so
that when seen from a considerable distance, the temples of God appear
over all surrounding objects. Moreover, internal grandeur can only be
produced by great height; it is a most important feature, and one which
cannot be exaggerated, therefore I hope and trust that in future
erections, no false economy, will interfere with this important and
symbolic principle. Another point to be considered in the erection of
town churches is the approach or entrance, which, if it be possible,
should be contrived through a cloister or porch, answering to the
ancient atrium. This would not only prevent noise and break currents of
air, but it would serve to prepare the mind of the worshipper before
entering the church itself, as a most devotional effect might be
imparted to the cloister by sculptures and paintings, of which there are
examples in several churches of Cologne and other cities in Germany. I
believe these would be found most advantageous, not only for these
religious reasons, but as completely shutting off the ingress of
external cold air,[24] and the church itself might be free from drafts
and yet properly ventilated from above. And it is a great point for the
revival of true church architecture, that it should be practically
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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