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.

John Britton

Date:: 1838

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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$architecture, the cross at the apex of a gable may be called the acroterium. Adit. Aditus, Lat., from ad and eo, to go; passage, or entree, Fr.; zugang, Ger. The approach, or entrance to any place, as the adit of a house, circus, &c.; but more particularly applied to the horizontal shaft, or sough, of a mine. The aditus of a theatre, in Roman architecture, was the doorway whereby people entered from the outer portico, or corridors, to their seats. Adytum. Lat.; advrov, Gr.; aditOj It. Formerly this word applied to the whole interior of a temple, but it is now understood to denote that part only whence the oracles were pronounced, and to which none but the priests were per- mitted to enter. The sanctum-sanctorum of the Hebrew temples was of a similar nature. In Christian architecture it is the chancel, or altar end of a church. — [Binghands Works, vol. I. p. 298 ; where is an essay on the canons ordering the adytum to be kept sacred from the intrusion of the people. The Emperor Theodosius was not permitted to remain in the adytum after his oblation at the altar.] The only well-defined adytum of the ancients is considered to be that of the little temple at Pompeii, in which a statue of Isis was found. {See Chancel, and Sanctum-Sancto- rum.) jEcclesiola. Dim. of cecclesia, Lat., a church. A term of frequent use in Domesday Book, and generally understood to signify a chapel subordinate to the mother church. After naming the church of Tarentefort (Darent) in Kent, (tom. i. fo. 2, b.) it is said, extra hanc sunt adhuc iii cecclesiolczd^ At Postinges, in the same county, [ib. fo. 13], two cecclesiolue occur, without any notice of a church. At Wallope, in Hampshire, \j.b. fo. 38, b.] the cecclesiola appears to have been also independent of the mother church.— \^Rep. Com. Pub. Rec. 1800—1819, vol. i. p. 458.] At Street, in the county of Sussex, two (Ecclesiolae are also named in the same record ; yet the population of the manor would scarcely require two distinct places of worship, and it is not un- likely that it meant two chantries, or altars, in the church at Street.$