§ 31.
The eastern arm of a Benedictine church
was normally aisled. In the common plan of a Norman
abbey church the presbytery ended in an apse, which
contained the high altar, standing clear of the eastern
wall, and projected a bay east of the ends of the
aisles, which were internally apsidal but externally
were finished off square. This plan was followed in
Lanfranc's church at Canterbury, at Durham, Peterborough,
Westminster and elsewhere, and was not
confined to monastic churches. In England, however,
a plan was sometimes followed which was unusual in
Normandy, although it is common in Romanesque
churches in other parts of France. The aisles in this
case were continued round the apse, so as to form
a processional path behind the altar; and out of this
path opened three apsidal chapels, as at Gloucester
and Norwich, or five, as in the Cluniac church of
Lewes, where the plan was borrowed from the parent
church of Cluny. This plan was of great convenience
for processions and afforded room for at least one
additional altar. It was adopted in the abbey church
of St Augustine at Canterbury, and in the rebuilding of
the eastern arm of the neighbouring cathedral priory.
Gloucester, Norwich and Tewkesbury are examples of
its use in Benedictine churches; and it occurs in the
Augustinian priory church of St Bartholomew, Smithfield.
In these cases the processional path was retained
through all later alterations, and the original arrangement
is still quite clear; while the alternative and at
one time more common plan has generally disappeared
in England, and Peterborough is the one large church
in which there are substantial remains of it above
the foundations. Although the influence of Cluny
upon foreign Romanesque architecture was considerable,
the English Cluniac churches had no distinct
plan of their own. Castle Acre, for example, followed
the ordinary Norman plan as seen at Durham and
Peterborough; and later developments at Castle
Acre and Wenlock were carried out on models
common to churches of other orders.
