Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them Part 11

PENDANT Ornaments which hang or _depend_ from a ceiling or roof.

PENTHOUSE A covering projecting over a door, window, etc., as a protection from the weather.

PIER The ma.s.ses or cl.u.s.ters of masonry between doors, windows, etc.; the supports from which arches spring.

PILLAR A term frequently confounded with column, but differing from it in not being subservient to the rules of cla.s.sical architecture, and in not of necessity consisting of a single circular shaft.

PINNACLE A small turreted ornament tapering towards the top, and used as a termination to many parts of Gothic architecture.

PISCINA The stone basin or sink in the chancel used for cleansing the communion vessels.

PLINTH The lower division of the base of a column, pier or wall.

POPPY-HEAD An ornament boldly carved on the tops of bench ends, etc.

PRESBYTERY A term sometimes used to include the whole of the choir, but more often meant to refer to the eastern end of the choir from which it is generally raised by several steps.

QUARRIES or QUARRELS The small diamond, square or other the shaped panes used in plain glazing.

QUATREFOIL The shape resembling four leaves formed in tracery or panels by cusps.

QUOIN The external angle of a building, generally of ashlar.

REREDOS The wall or screen at the back of an altar, often enriched with carving, niches, statues, etc.

ROOD-BEAM or ROOD-LOFT The loft or beam which, previous to the Reformation, supported the Great Rood, or Crucifix.

ROSE WINDOW A term often used to denote a circular window of several lights.

ROTUNDA A term used to describe a church or other building which is of circular formation both within and without.

SACRISTRY A room used in churches for storing the plate and valuables.

SANCTUARY See Presbytery.

SEDILIA A seat or seats, generally canopied and situated on the south side of the chancel and used in pre-Reformation days by the officiating clergy during the pauses in the ma.s.s.

SHAFT The part of a column or pillar between the capital and the base.

SHRINE Often called the feretory. The place where relics were deposited.

SOFFIT The word means literally a ceiling, but is generally used to describe the flat under-surface of arches, cornices, stairways, etc.

SPANDRELS The s.p.a.ces between the arch of a doorway or window and the rectangular mouldings over it. Early tracery originated from the piercing of the spandrels of windows.

SPIRE The acutely pointed termination of towers, etc., originating by the elongation of the early pyramidal roofs.

SPLAY The slanting or sloped surface of a window opening in the thickness of the wall, also of doorways, etc.; the term is also applied to bevels and other sloped surfaces.

SPRINGER See Voussoir.

SQUINT An oblique opening or slit in the wall of a church, for the purpose of enabling persons in the aisles or transepts to see the elevation of the Host at the High Altar. They are mostly found on the sides of the chancel arch, and are frequently called _hagioscopes_.

STOUP A vessel for consecrated water, at or near the entrance to a church.

STRING or STRING COURSE. A horizontal projecting band of stone in the wall of a building.

STRUT See Brace.

TOOTH ORNAMENT An ornament used almost exclusively in the E.E. style, resembling a square four-leaved flower, and thought to be based on the dog-tooth violet.

TRANSOM A horizontal cross-bar in a panel or window.

TRACERY The ornamental stonework in the upper part of a window; when formed by the mullions it is called bar tracery and when the spandrel is pierced, plate tracery. Also used largely on tombs, screens, doorways, etc.

TRANSEPTS The projecting arms of a cruciform church, often wrongly called "cross-aisles."

TRANSITION A term used to describe the process of change from one style of architecture to another. The three great periods of transition are from the Romanesque and Norman to the Early English; the Early English to the Decorated, and the Decorated to the Perpendicular.

TREFOIL An ornamental foliation in the heads of windows, panels, etc., in which the s.p.a.ces formed by the cusps resemble three leaves.

TRIFORIUM or Blind-Storey. An open gallery or arcade without windows immediately above the pier arcade and under the roof of the aisle.

TYMPANUM The s.p.a.ce between the top of a square-headed door and the arch above it; frequently sculptured.

VAULT Roofing of stone constructed on the principle of the arch, the intersections of which are termed groins and are in the pointed styles usually ribbed.

VAULTING SHAFTS Small shafts sometimes rising from the floor, sometimes from the capital of a pillar and sometimes from a corbel, and intended as supports for the ribs of a vault.

VESICA PISCIS An oval shape or figure formed by two equal circles cutting each other in their centres. Very commonly found on episcopal and monastic seals.

VOUSSOIR The wedge-shaped stones forming an arch, the centre one of which is the _keystone_ and those at the impost or starting point of the curve are the _springers_.

ZIG-ZAG See Chevron.

A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ENGLISH ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE.

Adeline, J. Art Dictionary of Terms.

Bland, W. Arches, Piers, b.u.t.tresses, etc.

Blomfield, R. Short History of Renaissance Architecture.

Bond, Francis English Cathedrals Ill.u.s.trated.

Bond, Francis Gothic Architecture in England.

Bonney, T. G. Cathedrals, Abbeys, and Churches of England and Wales.

Carter, J. The Ancient Architecture of England.

Colling, J. K. Details of Gothic Architecture.