In church architecture, a porticus (Latin for "portico")[a] is usually a small room in a church.[2] Commonly, porticuses form extensions to the north and south sides of a church, giving the building a cruciform plan. They may function as chapels, rudimentary transepts or burial-places. For example, Anglo-Saxon kings of Kent were buried in the south porticus at St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury, with the exception of Eadberht II, who was buried in a similar location in St Mary's Church, Reculver.[3]
This feature of church design originated in the late Roman period and continued to appear in those built on the European continent and, in Anglo-Saxon England, until the 8th century.[4]
Notes
edit- ^ Most Latin terms ending in -us are masculine and form their nominative plural with -i but porticus is a feminine fourth-declension noun whose plural is also porticus, sometimes differentiated with a macron as porticūs.[1] The English plural form is porticuses, when the term is not simply translated as portico.
References
editCitations
edit- ^ Lewis, C.T.; Short, C., eds. (n.d.). "porticus". A Latin Dictionary. www.perseus.tufts.edu. Archived from the original on 31 January 2016. Retrieved 6 September 2018.
- ^ "Glossary of ecclesiastical terms". Archi UK. n.d. Archived from the original on 29 June 2016. Retrieved 28 January 2017.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link) - ^ Kelly 2008, pp. 78–9.
- ^ Cherry 1981, p. 168.
Bibliography
edit- Cherry, B. (1981) [1976], "Ecclesiastical architecture", in Wilson, D.M. (ed.), The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England, Cambridge University Press, pp. 151–200, ISBN 0-521-28390-6
- Kelly, S. (2008), "Reculver Minster and its early charters", in Barrow, J.; Wareham, A. (eds.), Myth, Rulership, Church and Charters Essays in Honour of Nicholas Brooks, Ashgate, pp. 67–82, ISBN 978-0-7546-5120-8
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