APSE

or APSIS. A semicircular or polygonal termination of the choir, or other portion of a church. The word signifies in Greek a spherical arch. It was called in Latin testudo , or concha , from the same reason that a hemispherical rece in the school-room at Westminster was called the shell . The ancient Basilicas, as may still be seen at Rome, had universally a semicircular apse, round which the superior clergy had their seats; at the upper end was the bishop’s throne; the altar was placed on the chord of the arc; the transept, or gallery, intervened between the apse or the choir. There the inferior clergy, singers, ., were stationed, and there the le ons were read from the ambos. (See Choir and Chaunt .) This form was generally observed, at least in large churches, for many ages, of which Germany affords frequent specimens. And as Mr. Neale has shown in his very valuable remarks on the Eastern churches, ( Hist. of the Holy Greek Church ,) the apse is the almost invariable form even in parish churches in the East. Of this arrangement there are traces in England. Then large Saxon churches, as we collect from history, generally had an eastern apse at least, and often several others. In Norman churches of large size, the apse was very frequent, and it was repeated in several parts of the church. These inferior apses represented the oriental exedræ , which usually terminate their sacristies. Norwich and Peter borough cathedrals convey a good impre ion of the general character of Norman churches in this respect. Traces of the apse are found also at Winchester, Rochester, Ely, Lincoln, Ripon, Gloucester, and Worcester cathedrals, besides St. Alban’s, Tewkesbury, and other conventual churches. So also at Canterbury, where the apse seems to have been disturbed by subsequent arrangements. But it is remarkable that the ancient archiepiscopal chair stood behind the altar in a sort of apse till late in the last century. Traces of the ancient apse at Chester have been discovered of late years. In small churches, as Steetley, Derby shire, and Birkin, Yorkshire, the eastern apse alone is found, nor is this at all a universal feature. See Mr. Hu ey’s Notice of recent discoveries in Chester Cathedral . There are three very interesting English specimens in Here ford shire, viz. as at Kilpech, Moccas, and Peter Church; all small parish churches, and of Norman date; and with regular chancel below the apse. In the early British and Irish churches there is no trace of an apse, even in those which the learned Dr. Petrie, in his e ay on round towers, attributes to the 5th and 6th centuries. With the Norman style the apse was almost wholly discontinued, though an early English apse occurs at Tidmarsh, Berks hire, and a decorated apse at Little Maple stead; the latter is, however, altogether an exceptional case. There seems to have been some tendency to reproduce the apse in the fifteenth century, as at Trinity church, Coventry, and Henry VII.’s chapel, Westminster; but the latter examples entirely mi the breadth and grandeur of the Norman apse. Yet the later styles might have had one great advantage in the treatment of this feature in their flying buttre es spanning the outer aisle of the apse, which is often so striking a feature in foreign churches, and to which the perpendicular clerestory to the Norman apse of Norwich makes some approach. Some writers have confounded the apse with the choir or chancel; and think that, according to primitive usage, the holy table ought to stand between the latter and the nave: whereas in fact it always stood above the choir; so that in churches where there is no apse (and none was required when there were no collegiate or capitular clergy) its proper place is close to the eastern wall of the church. See Cathedral .