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The Position of the Altar in Early Anglo-Saxon Churches

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

H. M. Taylor
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Summary

A survey of the structural and contemporary literary evidence for the position of the altar in Anglo-Saxon churches before the Viking invasions of the ninth century indicates that it was not at the east end of the church but in a more central position. This was sometimes near the east end of the nave and sometimes in the eastern compartment. As an indication of how this practice may have arisen in England, references are given to evidence for similar treatment of the altar in Continental and North African churches at somewhat earlier dates.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , March 1973 , pp. 52 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1973

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References

page 53 note 1 Peers, C. R., ‘Reculver: its Saxon Church and Cross’, Archaeologia, LXXVII (1927), 241–56, particularly fig. 4.Google Scholar

page 53 note 2 Taylor, H. M., ‘Reculver Reconsidered’, Arch. Journ. CXXV (1968), 291–6, particularly 296.Google Scholar

page 53 note 3 Biddle, M., The Old Minster: Excavations near Winchester Cathedral, 1961–69 (Winchester, 1970), p. 83.Google Scholar Also ‘Excavations at Winchester, 1969’, Antiq. Journ. 1 (1970), figs. 12 and 13.Google Scholar

page 54 note 1 ‘Sepultus est autem Benedictus in porticu beati Petri, ad orientem altaris, ubi postmodum etiam reverentissimorum abbatum Easterwini et Sigfridi sunt ossa translata.’ For the Latin text see Plummer, C., Venerabilis Bedae Opera Historica, I (Oxford, 1896), p. 394.Google Scholar For a translation of the Life, see Whitelock, D., English Historical Documents, I (London, 1955), pp. 697–708.Google Scholar

page 55 note 1 ‘Quievit in Domino confessor … sepultus in aecclesia beati apostoli Petri; ut … ab reliquiis et altari post mortem nec corpore longius abesset.’ Plummer, op. cit., pp. 378–9.

page 55 note 2 Arch. Aeliana, 4th ser., XXVIII (1950), 1–6.Google Scholar

page 55 note 3 For the full Latin text and translation see Taylor, H. M., ‘The Anglo-Saxon Cathedral Church at Canterbury’, Arch. Journ. CXXVI (1969), 101–30, particularly 105 and 128–9.Google Scholar

page 55 note 4 Aethelwulf: De Abbatibus, ed. and tr. A., Campbell (Oxford, 1967).Google Scholar

page 55 note 5 Anglo-Saxon England, forthcoming.

page 55 note 6 De Abbatibus, xxiii and 71.

page 55 note 7 Ibid, xxix and 12–14.

page 56 note 1 De Abbatibus, 12.

page 56 note 2 Ibid. 14–15. The Latin in lines 146–8 reads: ‘medio sub aggere mensam … statuit.’

page 56 note 3 Ibid. xxix.

page 57 note 1 Perkins, J. B. Ward and Goodchild, R. G., ‘The Christian Antiquities of Tripolitania’, Archaeologia, XCV (1953), 1–84, particularly 64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 57 note 2 Oswald, F., Schaefer, L., and Sennhauser, H. R., Vorromanische Kirchenbauten, II (1968), 168.Google Scholar

page 57 note 3 Ibid., pp. 172–3.

page 57 note 4 C. J. A. C. Peeters, De liturgische dispositie van het vroegchristelijk kerkgebouw (1969). For Greece see pp. 115–17 and figs. 13 and 20. For Rome see pp. 163–4; fig. 31 shows S. Clemente in 1128, but much of that arrangement seems to have stemmed from the earlier S. Clemente. For North Italy see fig. 37, and for North Africa see figs. 45–7. In a summary on p. 318 the normal place for the altar from the fourth to the sixth century is recorded as being before the raised apse, and the only exception is mentioned as being North Syria where the altar had its place in the apse from the fourth century onwards.