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aviplying them to the uses of a Christian church ; another reason why they should 

 be so applied being that the early Christians were a poor community, who would 

 be unable to build churches of their own. The seat of the quaestor became the 

 throne of the bishop or presbyter ; the attendant clergy would take the place of 

 the assessors ; such seats are still to be seen in the Church of Torcello near Venice. 

 The space appropriated to pleaders would become the ritual choir, as in the 

 Church of San Clemente at Rome, where one of those early choirs of white 

 marble with its ambones or pulpits still exists. The altar also would be adapted 

 to Christian ritrs. 



The Eomanesque Arcliitecture, of wliich our Norman is a branch, founded 

 its style on the Roman Basilica, not necessarily ponderous and rude as is usually 

 our Norman work, but deriving its inspiration from the later classical architecture 

 which the Romans retained when the use of the arch became common and which 

 gradually grew until at last it developed into the pure Gothic of the thirteenth 

 and fourteenth centuries. Kilpeck then is a building moulded on the earliest type 

 of Christian Chiirch ; at Kilpeck is the apse recalling the tribune of the Basilica, 

 also the thin Early Norman buttress which recalls to us how the column, when the 

 strength of the arch was more fully understood, became only a pilaster ; the pilaster 

 passing through many stages till it became a simple buttress ; the large round 

 arches dividing nave and chancel, recalling the feature which was most important 

 and effective in the Roman classical buildings. It is probable that these early 

 Norman churches were intended to be ceiled, or at least that the internal roof 

 should be flat ; the ancient Basilica of Maxentius at Rome, now called the 

 Temple of Peace, has a vaulted roof, it is true, but in all the best examples of 

 Christian Basilicas the roofs are flat. The open roof crushes and dwarfs that 

 which is the feature of the Church, the round arches dividing the nave from 

 chancel and apse. It may be remarked that, whereas the apse as an eastern 

 termination to our cathedrals is rare, Westminster Abbey is an exception. England 

 is particularly rich in chapter houses, and it may be supposed that the apse, as 

 the place where the bishop sat in council, was superseded by the chapter house, 

 the chancel being therefore specially reserved for the sacred rites of the church ; 

 and conversely it may be supposed that the circular baptisteries common in Italy, 

 a class of building possessing much in common with our chapter houses, as far as 

 being circular detached buildings, were reserved for the administrations of the 

 Sacraments, services for the dead, etc., thus possessing a peculiar sanctity. 

 Whether this idea can be maintained or not, we have in Kilpeck a form of church 

 built about the year 1100, which is designed on the jjlan of the earliest edifices 

 applied to Christian worship, a link between the later classical architecture and 

 the Gothic, interesting because even in this remote spot the types prevalent in 

 Rome were followed, and, although of a style capable of development, as in the 

 majestic Norman of our own cathedral, possessing all the elements of growth, till 

 it culminated in the glorious buildings of the Edwardian period. In such a simple 

 structure we trace the foundation from which all church architecture sprang, and 

 an inherent power foreshadowing the beauty to which architecture as an art was 

 capable of reaching. 



