254 Notes on the Churches i?t the Neighhourhoorl of IFarmlnsfer. 



on each side appears to have been added to the nave, when probably 

 the ancient pitch of the roof was flattened to admit of it. The old 

 fifteenth century roof remains, but it has probaldy undergone some 

 alteration, for on one of the beams is cut the following inscription : 

 " Framed by Mr. Fleming in June, in the year of Our Lord 1757." 

 We now come to the feature which above everything else dis- 

 tinguishes this Church. I refer to the wall dividing the nave from 

 the chancel. So far as there is any evidence to show — viz., that of 

 the openings in it — this wall was erected in the fifteenth century. 

 Instead of the usual chancel arch this wall has a flat four-centred 

 doorway only 4ft. wide and 8ft. 2in. high to the apes, 

 chamfered on the east edge and evidently provided for a door, 

 and on each side of it a smaller opening about 2ft. 5in. wide and 

 2ft. llin. high, the sills being 2ft. Tin. from the floor, with pointed 

 arches chamfered on the side towards the nave. These squints (or 

 hagioscopes) converge towards the altar, of which they were 

 doubtless intended to admit a view from the nave. In the article in 

 the Wilts Mag., before quoted, Mr. Miles refers to two corbels as 

 ejcisting on the west face, and Dr. Baron to one on the north side of 

 the doorway only, but he also states that the one on the north side 

 of the north squint is remembered, but was inadvertently removed 

 during a recent restoration : there is no doubt there were four corbels 

 here, their object being to support a rood-loft. Dr. Baron considers 

 that this example " illustrates, when compared with other examples 

 in England, and with Greek and Latin Churches, the whole history 

 of chancels,, choirs and chancel screens, and. shows the influence of 

 Greek ritual and tradition in the far west at a very early date." 

 He apparently gives an undue antiquity to these features, but this 

 does not lessen the force of his arguments as to their use, and the 

 analogy he draws from the Greek Church of S. Theodore, at Athens, 

 and the early Latin Church of San Clemente, at Rome, is very in- 

 structive as showing " how the Greek idea of a Church was developed 

 and adapted to Italian circumstances and requirements " — the high 

 screen with three openings which shut off the " bema,^^ or sanctuary 

 of the earlier Church, becoming removed farther westward so as to 

 fence off a space from the 7iave (the choros) for clergy and singers 



