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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$Ara-dtgnitatis. Lat. An altar at which none but ecclesias- tics of high rank, or priests specially appointed, were allowed to perform religious rites. Pope Leo IX. ordained that no one except the Archbishop of Rheims, the abbot, and seven presbyters, chosen by the abbot, should officiate at the great altar in the church of St. Remigius, at Rheims.— Du Cange. Ara^ostylos. Areostyle, Fr.; areostilo. It.; from Gr. a^aiog, rare or few, and c>ruXogj a column. Buildings in which the columns are distant four, and sometimes five, diameters from each other.—'Gwilfs Hud. p. 180. Aralosystylos. Areosystyle, Fr.; areosistilo, It. That style of building in which four columns are used in the space of eight diameters and a half; the central intercolumniation being three diameters and a half, and the others, on each side, being only half a diameter, an arrangement by which coupled columns are introduced. — \_Givilfs Hud. p. 180.] This intercolumniation was invented by Perrault, and used by him in the front of the Louvre at Paris. Arahum, or Harahum. Low Lat. A place consecrated, or set apart, for religious purposes.— Syelmaids Gloss.; Du Cange. Arbalestina, or Arbalisteria. Low Lat., from ay^halista, a cross-bow. Loop-holes in castle walls, having transverse apertures through which arrows were discharged. — Du Cange. Arbores. From Lat. arbor, a tree. Brass branches for lights, suspended from ceilings.—[Owen and Blakeway’s Shrewsbury, vol. ii. p. 53.] According to Du Cange, they rose from the D:round. Ar CA. Lat. and It. Du Cange employs the word area to signify a prison, or any place of confinement under an arch; but it properly denotes a chest placed in a crypt or cemetery, to contain the bones of the dead. — [Gough’s Sepulch. Mori. Introd. vol. ii. p. cxciv. cci.] The Italians use the word to designate a sepulchral vault. Some ancient stone coffins, with lids, found near York, and supposed to be Roman, are preserved in the cathedral of that city.—[See Cath. Antiq. York. p. 66, pi. xxix.J The word area is used$