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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Why transepts?
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ldjjd
Shipmate
# 17390
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Posted
Why were transepts architecturally developed? Was the primary motivation symbolic, i.e. to make the structure cruciform, or were there practical/liturgical considerations?
In any case, why on earth were choir transepts occasionally built? They woulld seem to vitiate the symbolism, and I can't think of any practical need for two more transepts especially in such an odd area.
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Sarum Sleuth
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# 162
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Posted
One can overdo the importance of symbolism in church building. Transepts look impressive, and had an important function in providing extra space for side altars. Double transepts are something of an English peculiarity and again provided for more chapels in a country where correct orientation of altars was considered important.
SS
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The Parson's Handbook contains much excellent advice, which, if it were more generally followed, would bring some order and reasonableness into the amazing vagaries of Anglican Ritualism. Adrian Fortescue
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Gee D
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# 13815
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Posted
I think the symbolism of the cross was important to the builders of the great Gothic cathedrals. As well as providing space of side altar, a transept has the advantage of providing support for a tower and high windows to allow light to enter in front of the chancel.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Quam Dilecta
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# 12541
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Posted
As has been mentioned, transepts are a near-necessity if a church is to have a central dome or tower. Norman Shaw did design a parish church with a sturdy central tower over the easternmost bay of the nave, using extra buttresses in lieu of transepts. The site did not lend itself to a west tower, and the church is only of middling size. Thus he probably thought that transepts would look pretentious.
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Blessd are they that dwell in thy house
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stonespring
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# 15530
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Posted
One church building where the lack of completed transepts really draws from my appreciation of worshipping there (especially since major services are in the crossing which is the least finished area and is dark and gloomy with temporary brick/concrete walls and dome) is the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. ![[Frown]](frown.gif) They had the beginnings of a north transept but it burned down.
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stonespring
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# 15530
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Posted
The cathedral that David Nivens decides not to build (and that seems to represent a church that has not set its priorities correctly) in the film The Bishop's Wife appeared to have no transepts in the painting of it.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ldjjd:
In any case, why on earth were choir transepts occasionally built?
This seems to me depressingly functionalist. Why is the male blackbird black when other thrushes get along being brown? Can't we have variety and style in life without having to have a practical reason? That seems to be how God has arranged creation in the first place.
If you really want a functionalist answer, SS is probably right in saying East transepts provided more altars for private masses. And nowadays it provides more space of memorials (I'm thinking of the St Anselm chapel at Canterbury.)
But they just make the building more interesting.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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ldjjd
Shipmate
# 17390
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Posted
Thanks for the replies so far.
Am I correct in thinking that transepts were originally developed to provide support for central towers? Then, perhaps quite serendipitously, it was noted that the transepts formed a cross with the rest of the body of the church?
Perhaps a bit further along, transepts began to serve practical functions as they still do today.
I now agree that the choir transepts may be less useful than crossing transepts, but that need not detract from their contribution to the overasll majesty of the building, and I suppose their existence doesn't significantly violate the overall major cruciform pattern.
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Gee D
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# 13815
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Posted
I'd be surprised if transepts had not developed well before the need for support for towers/lanterns and so forth. It was their utility in providing support which led to their much wider adoption.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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BroJames
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# 9636
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Posted
Here is Britannica's take on it: quote:
There is disagreement over the origin of the transept. It may have developed from the bema, or platform, of Christian basilican churches, such as the original St. Peter’s, Rome. Or it may have developed from the cruciform plan of tombs in the time of the Roman emperor Constantine.
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Adeodatus
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# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
I'd be surprised if transepts had not developed well before the need for support for towers/lanterns and so forth. It was their utility in providing support which led to their much wider adoption.
I think the question of transepts and central towers might be a chicken-end-egg thing. If memory serves, I think there were central towers from at least the Carolingian period (9th century, roughly). There were transept-like structures earlier (as BroJames says, some Roman basilicas were more or less T-shaped). There are extant transept without central towers (e.g. Westminster Abbey, 12th century, whose central "stump" can hardly be called a tower), and there are extant "central" towers - between nave and chancel - without transepts.
I tend to go for the multiple-altars theory. Having multiple altars could be a very ultilitarian matter in a community with many priests, a practice of priests saying a daily Mass, and a rule that said you can't use the same altar more than once a day.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
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John Holding
Coffee and Cognac
# 158
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Posted
The whole cruciform reminds us of a cross strikes me as one of those ex post facto things dreamed up by church theorists with too much time on their hands, THIngs like -- the two candles on the altar remind us of the old and new testaments or, separately, the two candles on the altar remind us of the two natures of Christ.
The thing about symbolism is that you read in a new ir additional significance to something already existing. You don't create a symbol wholly new that doesn't have an existing referent.
In the case of transepts, you can look at baslilicas, or at the design of some of the vry early eastern churches that have domes and four equal arms, so not cruciform in the sense most western europeans mean.
As for "eastern quire transepts" -- I'm not sure what is being meant here. The eastern extension of a cruciform church is by definition not a transept, and in cases earlier than the mid-19th century was probably not designed to hold a singing choir in any case.
JOhn
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Pre-cambrian
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# 2055
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by John Holding:
As for "eastern quire transepts" -- I'm not sure what is being meant here. The eastern extension of a cruciform church is by definition not a transept, and in cases earlier than the mid-19th century was probably not designed to hold a singing choir in any case.
There are North-east and South-east, or choir, transepts in several English cathedrals. The most prominent are probably at Salisbury (see plan ) and Lincoln (see aerial picture ). In both cases they mark the boundary between the choir and the sanctuary.
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"We cannot leave the appointment of Bishops to the Holy Ghost, because no one is confident that the Holy Ghost would understand what makes a good Church of England bishop."
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John Holding
Coffee and Cognac
# 158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
quote:
Originally posted by John Holding:
As for "eastern quire transepts" -- I'm not sure what is being meant here. The eastern extension of a cruciform church is by definition not a transept, and in cases earlier than the mid-19th century was probably not designed to hold a singing choir in any case.
There are North-east and South-east, or choir, transepts in several English cathedrals. The most prominent are probably at Salisbury (see plan ) and Lincoln (see aerial picture ). In both cases they mark the boundary between the choir and the sanctuary.
In both cases you cite, these transepts are at right angles to the direction of the nave and its eastward extension which normally houses the quire/choir for sung offices and is commonly called the choir/quire or chancel. Of course, choir stalls sometimes extend into the crossing or even into the nave itself (as at Westminster Abbey), but not into transepts, not even the eastern pair in a building with two sets.
John
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Pre-cambrian
Shipmate
# 2055
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Posted
Sorry, I don't see what point you're trying to make. They are called choir transepts because they are at the choir end of the church. Why should the use of the word "choir" imply that there are stalls in them? Similarly the aisles north and south of the choir are called the north choir aisle and the south choir aisle, but there's no suggestion that there are choir stalls in them as a result.
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"We cannot leave the appointment of Bishops to the Holy Ghost, because no one is confident that the Holy Ghost would understand what makes a good Church of England bishop."
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
When I was small my Observer's Book of Churches taught me that there was a chancel with two sections: the choir for the singers with stalls and the sanctuary with altar inside rails. As I understand, P C is making the point that eastern transepts mark the boundary between them.
I'm not sure those distinctions apply universally. "Choir aisles" are at the sides of the entire chancel, including any part to the east of any eastern transepts.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
Notre-Dame-de-Paris
Although I agree with Adeodatus as to the rationale often being multiple altars, the effect of transepts on the floor plan of an aisled building is not necessarily substantial. In this case, although the three-dimensional view may be striking, the transepts cause an extension to the east and west of only one bay. There may be cases in which it is even less.
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
From my schoolboy history of buildings I learned that when St Paul's cathedral in London was being rebuilt, Sir Christopher Wren produced a design which would have had 4 equal arms but the cathedral authorities demanded a long aisle so they could have processions.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
From my schoolboy history of buildings I learned that when St Paul's cathedral in London was being rebuilt, Sir Christopher Wren produced a design which would have had 4 equal arms but the cathedral authorities demanded a long aisle so they could have processions.
I thought it was because they didn't want something that looked too, ahem, "Eastern".
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