Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages: Third EditionCutts, Edward Lewes
History
Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages: Third Edition
Cutts, Edward Lewes
Civilization, Medieval; Middle Ages -- Social life and customs
The chamber which is so frequently found over the porch of our churches,
often with a fireplace, and sometimes with a closet within it, may
probably have sometimes been inhabited by a recluse. Chambers are also
sometimes found in the towers of churches.[152] Mr. Bloxam mentions a
room, with a fire-place, in the tower of Upton Church, Nottinghamshire.
Again, at Boyton Church, Wiltshire, the tower is on the north side of the
church, "and adjoining the tower on the west side, and communicating with
it, is a room which appears to have been once permanently inhabited, and
in the north-east angle of this room is a fire-place." At Newport, Salop,
the first floor of the tower seems to have been a habitable chamber, and
has a little inner chamber corbelled out at the north-west angle of the
tower.
We have already hinted that it is not improbable that timber anchorholds
were sometimes erected inside our churches. Or perhaps the recluse lived
in the church itself, or, more definitely, in a par-closed chantry chapel,
without any chamber being purposely built for him. The indications which
lead us to this supposition are these: there is sometimes an ordinary
domestic fire-place to be found inside the church. For instance, in the
north aisle of Layer Marney Church, Essex, the western part of the aisle
is screened off for the chantry of Lord Marney, whose tomb has the chantry
altar still remaining, set crosswise at the west end of the tomb; in the
eastern division of the aisle there is an ordinary domestic fire-place in
the north wall. There is a similar fire-place, of about the same date, in
Sir Thomas Bullen's church of Hever, in Kent.
Again, we sometimes find beside the low side-windows already spoken of, an
arrangement which shows that it was intended for some one habitually to
sit there. Thus, at Somerton, Oxfordshire, on the north side of the
chancel, is a long and narrow window, with decorated tracery in the head;
the lower part is divided by a thick transom, and does not appear to have
been glazed. In the interior the wall is recessed beside the window, with
a sort of shoulder, exactly adapted to give room for a seat, in such a
position that its occupant would get the full benefit of the light through
the glazed upper part of the little window, and would be in a convenient
position for conversing through the unglazed lower portion of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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