Wooden porches occur at all dates, and of these also fine examples remain. At Chevington, Suffolk, is a wooden porch of Early English date, but much impaired by modern work. In the Decorated style wooden porches are not unfrequently found; they are of one story only in height, sometimes entirely enclosed at the sides, and sometimes with about the upper half of their height formed of open screen-work ; the gables have barge-boards, which are almost always feathered, and more or less ornamented: good specimens remain at Warblington, Hampshire ; Horsemonden and Brookland, Kent; Aldham, Essex; Hascombe, Surrey; Northrield, Worcestershire, etc. Stone porches of this date have, not unusually, a room over them, as they have also in the Perpendicular style. Of this last-mentioned style there are many wooden porches, which differ but little from those of the preceding, except that the upper half of the sides is almost always formed of open screen- work : examples remain at Halden, Kent; Albury, Sur- rey, etc.
Bicester, Oxfordshire, c. 1420.
It is common to find porches of all ages consider- ably ornamented ; those of the Norman style, and per- haps also the Early English, have the decorations prin- cipally on the inside and about the doorway; those of later date are often as much enriched externally as in- ternally, and sometimes more so : the room over the porch frequently contains a piscina, which shows that it once contained an altar, and was used as a chapel, and is sometimes provided with a fireplace, as if it had served for a dwelling-room. There are large porches at Tours, Pol, St. Leon, and Ulrichsk, and smaller speci- mens in several churches at Cologne. English cathe- drals and minsters are remarkable for the homeliness of their doorways, resembling those of parish churches on an enlarged scale. The cathedral, in distinction to a minster, in the 12th century, was built with many porches and western doors opening directly on the close, as if inviting the entrance of crowds. Noyon, at the end of the 13th or beginning of the 14th century, is a solitary exception to this rule in possessing large porches in advance of its principal front.
LTp to the 6th century children were exposed in the porch, and the Council of Aries required those who adopted them to place in the priest's hand a letter of contestation with regard to the sex and age of the child ; and the Council of Vaison, complaining that the children were exposed to dogs, for fear of scandal re- quired the priest at the altar to announce on Sundays the name of the adopter. Kings and princes were per- mitted to be buried in porches by the Council of Nantes (658), and interments were forbidden within church walls till the 12th century. At Ely, as in many ascer- tained examples in France, probably the recesses above the arcading were used as charnels, fenced in with an iron screen; and at Chichester there are still lateral
418
PORDAGE
:"^E
Great AddiDgton, c. 11S0.
tombs. Gradually incense was used and litanies were chanted in porches. Fonts and basins for the ablutions of the faithful before entering the church were erected, and exhibitions of relics and sacred images were made. Markets were permitted, just as objects of piety are still sold in foreign porches on festival days. Feudal and other courts were held. At Sandwich a school was
taught and I ks6old, and even, in 1519, pedlers hawked
their wares at Riccald. Chapters and religious bodies appealed in the eivil power to put an end to such irreg- ularities, and the greal abbeys of Gugny, Maulbronn, and < iteaux, about the beginning of the 12th century, began to ereel large enclosed porches in front of their churches. The Clugniacs built large ante-churches of two stories, as at Lewes; al Tournus, near the close of the l Ith century. At the latter place they consisted of a nave and aisles of thirteen hays, with an upper chapel of St. Michael, in which the altar was used for a mass attended by penitents. At Clugny in the r.ih centurj an altar and pulpit adjoined the church door. Their influence is perceptible in the large upper chapel over the porch ai Puy-en-Velay and Autun, and the tribune for an altar at Chatel Montagne, Monreale, and Dijon, which are said to have been used by women and minstrels. In many instances the view into the nave was unimpeded.
The Cistercians built western porches deep and longi- tudinal, in imitation of the narthex. according to the desire of Si. Bernard, at Toury, Moutier, Charite-sur- Loire, Fountains, and Beaulieu. At Vezelay, in the 131 h century, the porch, of two hays in length, forms a nave with aisles, lateral galleries, and a tribune for an altar over the minster door. In many French parish churches this plan was followed in order to accommo- date mourners al funerals. In England an upper cham-
r*s^
her sometimes occurs over porches, as ai Southwell, naticisi
It is possible that these outer buildings served the same purpose of a place of pre- vious assembly, just as the great western transept of Ely or Lincoln may have been also occupii d on occasions when large mul- titudes flocked to the church. In some monastic churches it served as the foren- sic parlor for com ersal ion with persons in- admissible « ithin the inner portions. The children of the abbey serfs were baptized and the office ai which their domestic ser- vants anil laborer- attended was said. In fmrchi - the proct Bsionswere ar- range,! in the porch on Palm-Sunday, on Holy-cross Daj . and in Rogations. Some- times ii formed a sanctuary, containing a ring in the door to which tin- fugitive clung, as at Durham, and ai Cologne there wa- an inscription to this effi Ct, " lb re stood the great criminal." Walcott, Sa- cred Archaeology, s. v.; Parker, Glossary of A rckitecture, s. v.