170 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES IN FORDIXGTOX CHURCH. 



The plan of this erection may have been based on that of a 

 simple Romanesque or Basilican model, with apsidal or semi- 

 circular end, or it may more probably have had a square east 

 end, with walls of rubble and faced with plaster or brick. The 

 doors and windows were generally spanned by semi-circular 

 arches, the use of the lintel being dispensed with. The windows 

 of the period were small. The roof would be of timber with 

 simple trusses, covered with burnt clay or stone tiles ; and the 

 floor of concrete, stone, or tesserae. 



With respect to the size and dimensions of this erection, 

 which seems to me the essence of the theories to be propounded, 

 I have hunted up some particulars which seem to throw a little 

 light upon the matter, and to my theory seems to apply itself 

 anyhow, I have put it forward for what it is worth. The par- 

 ticulars are these, viz. : 



St. Patrick, the Apostle to the Irish, who was said to have 

 been connected with Glastonbury and to have been buried there, 

 directed the building of certain churches in Ireland. The usual 

 length of the larger churches was sixty feet, and this his rule was 

 followed for many centuries. 



Mr. Petrie suggests that the general adoption of this size 

 originated in reverence either for the original model built by 

 Patrick at Glastonbury, or for some similar one derived from the 

 primitive Christians. 



Also from a mass of curious matter he has collected, he gives 

 the history of the foundation of the Church of St. Patrick, near 

 Feltown in Meath, which is thus related in the tripartite history 

 ascribed to S. Evan : 



" In that very place where his residence was (where he had 

 " received S. Patrick) Conal laid the foundation of a church to 

 " God and S. Patrick, which was in length sixty of his feet, and 

 " he removed his habitation to another spot." 



Now from the close of the Diocletian persecution to the rise 

 of the Arian heresy the British Church had rest, and it is said 

 that churches were rebuilt which had been overthrown, and 

 others founded and erected, so that when Germanus and Lupus 



