124 On the Church of St. Peter, Manning ford Bruce, Wiltshire. 



Presbytery is an expressive word, but not much used except in 

 our English Cathedrals to denote the space between the sanctuary, 

 or altar-place, and the choir proper. 1 



Chancel, as I have shewn in a paper which I had the honour of 

 reading* before the Society of Antiquaries, 15th January, 1880, 2 

 though popularly used to denote the part of a Church eastward o£ 

 the nave, is a Greek word which was originally the name of the 

 screen, called in later times iconostasis, which has always stood at 

 the top of the three steps on the western side of the bema. There- 

 fore historically, the apse might be reasonably called the chancel or 

 place screened off for liturgical rites. In this paper desiring to 

 speak with exactness, without being pedantically archaic, I will 

 either use the Greek names, bema, choros and naos; or the English 

 words apse, chancel and nave. One of the most striking peculiarities 

 of this Church which may be considered under the head of ground- 

 plan is that there is no east window. Of course there is an outcry 

 among some Church restorers that " a good east window of suitable 

 character " ought to be inserted. I am glad to think that there is 

 no intention of such an alteration being here made. To my mind 

 the absence of an east window is a very persuasive argument for the 

 early date of this Church. 



About the year 1845 I was permitted, in company with Mr. 

 Joseph Clarke, now a much-valued Fellow of the Society of Anti- 

 quaries, to examine archseologically the little apsidal Church of 

 Swyncumbe in Oxfordshire. The apse in that case had no east 

 window apparent. We set to work to shell off carefully with thin 

 old table knives the whitewash, and we made the curious discovery 

 of a large archaic painting of a figure of Our Lord between two 

 angels, with a liberal supply on their wings of eyes like those on a 



1 The name presbytery, like basilica, to be mentioned below, though of Greek 

 derivation, did not prevail in the East, but in the West. The usual name for 

 the seats for Bishop and clergy round the inside of the apse of an Eastern Church 

 is Synthronon. Dr. J. M. Neale makes the word masculine, apparently through 

 inadvertence, or for the sake of uniformity with the uncompounded word. Cf. 

 Bulgari, Catechesis Hiera, p. 56 ; Corfu, 1852. Eompotes, Liturg. p. 43 ; Athens, 

 1869. Also Ducange, Greek Glossary. 



2 An abstract is published in the Proceedings, vol. viii., No. iii., Second Series, 

 pp. 233—7. Cf above, p. 111. 



