Durandus has given us a clue to the symbolical meaning which these generally present, by directing our attention to that saying of our Lord's, _I am the door_. And this, uttered as tradition reports it to have been, in reference to the Gate of the Temple, on which the Saviour's eyes were then fixed, gives additional force to the allusion. In small churches, doors are seldom the subject of much symbolical ornament, except in the Norman style; but in cathedrals, some of the most strikingly figurative arrangements are often thrown into them. The Person, the Miracles, or the Doctrines of our Lord are here frequently set forth. He is sometimes, especially in the tympanum of Norman doors, as at Egleton in Rutland, represented as described in the Apocalyptic vision; with a sword in His mouth. More frequently, however, with His Blessed Mother; in order, perhaps, to connect His _entrance_ into the world with ours into the Church, which He thereby gathered together. This in the south entrance of Lincoln minster, is enclosed in a quatre-foil: because the birth of Christ is announced by the four evangelists; and angels are represented around it in attitudes of adoration. A singular, and indeed irreverent symbol, is to be seen in a door of Lisieux church: the Holy Ghost descending on the Blessed Virgin, and the infant Saviour following Him. In the entrance to the cloisters of Norwich cathedral, the door arch is filled by nine niches, the central one being occupied by the Saviour, the others by saints. But this arrangement is much more common in French churches: where two, or even three rows of saints in the architrave are not uncommon: witness the south and west doors of S. Germain, at Amiens, and a west door of S. Etienne, at Beauvais. {xcix} This is sometimes, in late Flamboyant work, carried to an absurd extent: in a south door of Gisors, two niches actually hang down out of the soffit. Early English doors are generally double, thereby representing the Two Natures of our Saviour: but embraced by one arch, to set forth His One Person. So the celebrated door in Southwell minster: the west door in the Galilee of Ely cathedral: the entrance to the chapter House, at Salisbury; the west door of the same: so the decorated west door of York; so the door to the Chapter House there, of which the inscription truly says: _Ut Rosa Phlos phlorum, sic est domus ista Domorum:_so the west door and entrance to the Chapter House of Wells. The west door of Higham Ferrars has the Saviour's triumphal entrance into Jerusalem, over the double western doors. And this is the case in one of the doors of Seville cathedral. Both these connect the ideas of His entrance into the temporal, with that of ours into the spiritual, Jerusalem. In these symbolical doorways, we have one proof of the immeasurable superiority of English over French architecture: compare any of the above named with the celebrated west door of Amiens, with its twenty-two sovereigns in its soffit. Again,