A dictionary of the architecture and archaeology of the middle ages: including words used by ancient and modern authors in treating of architectural and other antiquities ... also, biographical notices of ancient architects / By John Britton ... Illustrated by numerous engravings by J. Le Keux.

  • Britton, John, 1771-1857.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A dictionary of the architecture and archaeology of the middle ages: including words used by ancient and modern authors in treating of architectural and other antiquities ... also, biographical notices of ancient architects / By John Britton ... Illustrated by numerous engravings by J. Le Keux. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    columns, zig-zag mouldings, &c. may be said to belong to, and characterise, the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman ages; whilst the pointed arch, with clustered columns and other variations, distinguished the Christian architecture of a later period. Agger. Lat., from aggero, to heap. Earthen banks, or mounds, thrown up either for defence, as in encampments; or as boundaries, by the British, Roman, and Saxon occupants of Britain. Aguilla. Low Lat.; aguglia or guglia, It.; aiguille, Fr., a needle. An obelisk; or a spire of a church tower.—[Car- jyentier, Glos. Nov.'] The two porphyritic obelisks of Alexandria are termed ‘‘ Cleopatra^s Needles’^ Aile, or Aisle. Ala, Lat., It., Sp.; aile, Fr. A wing, or any part of a building flanking another; hence the French, ailes de batiment, ’’ the wings of a house. The term is usually applied to the side passages, or lateral division of a church, which are partially separated from the nave and choir by columns or piers, — ad bases pilariorum murus erat tabulis marmoreis compositus, qui chorum cingens et presbyterium, corpus ecclesim a suis lateribus, quae alcv vocantur, dividebat.”—\^Dii Cange.] The nave itself, or central part of a church, is sometimes, though improperly, denominated the middle aile. In the abbey church of Westminster, Redcliffe Church at Bristol, and the cathedrals of York and Ely, the ailes are continued on each side of the transept; and in Salisbury, and some other cathedrals, on one side only. The naves of the ecclesias- tical edifices of Great Britain have, with but one or two exceptions, only two ailes, while those on the Continent frequently have several, as in the cathedrals at Amiens, Milan, and Notre Dame at Paris, each of which has four; and it is recorded that old St. Peter’s, at Rome, had the same number. Whittington, referring to the division of Notre Dame into four ailes and the nave, which he calls 'Jive ailessays, it is a species of grandeur which never crossed the Channel.”—Hist. Surv. p. 151. Aitre. Aistre, astre, aiister, Nor. Fr.; atre, Fr., from ater, Lat., black. A hearth, or chimney. “ Trcstour les astres.^’—