Here and there in East Anglia, inscriptions remaining on beautiful pieces of church furniture, bear witness to the generosity of members of the parish in humble positions. The churches of London, Bristol, York, and Norwich, and of countless towns and villages, are memorials of the brightest aspect of medieval religion--the spontaneous devotion which it excited, for motives often mingled with superstition, but never selfish or unworthy, in the most hard-headed and least emotional section, then as now, of English society. CHAPTER III THE TOWER, THE PORCH, AND THE CHANCEL § 27. In another volume of this series, the development of the ground plan of the parish church has been treated with some detail. The importance of the central tower in connexion with the transeptal or cruciform plan has there been explained; and it has been seen that English builders generally preferred a tower at the west end of the nave. In the present chapter, something will be said of the development and use of the western tower, and of the closely related subject of the entrances to the church. The nave and its aisles demand, in this space, little more attention than can be given to them in the discussion of the ground plan and in what has been said already with regard to chantry chapels; and of their furniture more will be said in the next chapter. But some further consideration of the chancel, the enlargement of which forms so important a part of the history of the medieval plan, is necessary; and some account of its architectural and ritual development is given here, following the description of the tower and porch. [Illustration: Fig. 6. Norton, Co. Durham: Saxon central tower, with transept.]