Yeovil's Virtual Museum

An Ecclesiastical glossary

including ecclesiastical architectural terms

 

Acolyte - a clerk in minor orders whose particular duty was the service of the altar.

Advowson - the right of nominating or presenting a clergyman to a vacant living.

Agistment - a Church rate, or tithe, charged on pasture land.

Aisle - lateral division of the nave or chancel of a church.

Arcade - row of arches, usually supported on columns.

Archdeacon - subordinate of a bishop with responsibility for supervising the diocesan clergy and holding ecclesiastical courts within his archdeaconry.

Aubrey - a locker or cupboard of some kind, usually placed in the north chancel wall, for the safe-keeping of service-books and sacramental vessels.

Bay - division of a building, usually by piers, buttresses, fenestration, or vaulting.

Benefice - an ecclesiastical living; an office held in return for duties and to which an income attaches. A grant of land given to a member of the aristocracy, a bishop, or a monastery, for limited or hereditary use in exchange for services. In ecclesiastical terms, a benefice is a church office that returns revenue.

Benefit of Clergy - a privilege enjoyed by members of the clergy, including tonsured clerks, placing them beyond the jurisdiction of secular courts.

Boss - decorative knob, usually covering the intersection of vaulting ribs.

Buttress - projecting mass of masonry, giving additional support to a wall.

Canon - a lawyer trained in canon law (the law of the Church).

Capitals - head of a column.

Chancel - part of a church to the east of the crossing, containing the main altar and choir.

Chantry Chapel - chapel attached to a church, endowed for the saying of masses for the soul of the founder or another person (i.e., a wife or husband) nominated by the founder.

Chevron - Norman zigzag decoration.

Corbel - stone projection from a wall, supporting a weight.

Crocket - leaf-shaped decoration added to pinnacles, gables, capitals, etc.

Crossing - part of a church between the transepts.

Crypt - chamber underneath a church, usually at the east end.

Decorated - term applied to the style of Gothic architecture which flourished in England from about 1280 to 1340.

Demesne - that part of an estate that a landlord retains in his own hands and exploits directly, as opposed to portions of the estate that are leased to tenants.

Early English - term applied to the style of Gothic architecture which flourished in England from about 1220 to 1280.

Easter Sepulcher - a recess, or structure, on the north side of a chancel, used at Easter in the setting up of a representation of the burial of Christ; but often merely a temporary wooden erection.

Eucharist - the Communion, or Sacrament of the Lord's Supper: the central ceremony of the mass.

Foil - leaf-like ornamentation in windows, etc.: trefoil, quatrefoil, cinquefoil, sexfoil, etc., represent the number of leaves.

Gallery - intermediate story in the elevation of a church wall, between the arcade and the clerestory.

Glebe - land attaching to a church and intended to supplement the incumbent's income.

Gothic - general term used to describe the style of architecture which flourished in western Europe from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries.

Interdict - a sentence laid upon a territory or an establishment, ordering the administration of the sacraments and all liturgical rites to cease until such time as the sentence has been lifted. An exception was normally made for the baptism of infants and the absolution of the dying.

Lancet - slender window with pointed arch.

Lenten veil - covering pictures and crucifixes during Lent.

Lintel - horizontal beam or stone bridging a fireplace, doorway, etc.

Liturgical Colors - blue for Advent; white for Christmas and the octave of the Epiphany; blue or white for St. John's Day; red for the Feast of the Innocents; red or white for Circumcision. From the octave of the Epiphany to Septuagesima red was worn. From Septuagesima to Passion Sunday probably blue was used. Red was worn from Passion Sunday and Advent, except on Low Sunday and the octave of the Ascension, when white was worn. Color for the Apostles and Martyrs was red, for the Virgins who were not Martyrs, white; for the Confessors blue or green. Funerals were to be in black.

Michaelmass - Feast of St. Michael on September 29.

Mullion - vertical bar dividing a window into lights.

Nave - part of a church to the west of the crossing.

Nimbus -a bright or golden disk, surrounding the head of a divine or canonized person.

Norman - term applied to the style of architecture which flourished in England from about 1050 to about 1200.

Obit - a memorial mass celebrated annually on the mind-day of a deceased person, usually the anniversary of his death.

Oblation - an offering to Church funds.

Ogee - arch with a steep projection at the apex.

Order - series of concentric stages (e.g. shafts).

Ossuary - a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce - as in St John's case where the crypt functioned as an ossuary for a while. Typically, a body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the skeletal remains are removed and placed in an ossuary.

Perpendicular - term applied to the style of Gothic architecture which flourished in England between about 1340 and about 1530.

Pier - strong, upright support or pillar for arches, etc.

Pilaster - shallow pier attached to a wall.

Piscina - basin, usually set in the south chancel wall, for washing the chalice and paten at mass.

Porticus - the side-chapels common at Anglo-Saxon minster churches, frequently used for the more important burials.

Quatrefoil - a very common Gothic architectural ornament in which four arcs are divided by cusps, rather in the form of a four.

Quinquagesima - the last Sunday before the beginning of Lent.

Quire - the part of a church where services were sung, containing the choir-stalls.

Rector - in medieval canon law the incumbent of a parish who is entitled to receive the great tithe.

Reredos - a screen, usually carved and painted, behind and above the altar.

Retable - an altar-piece; a painting, or frame holding sculptures, fixed to the back of an altar.

Romanesque - term applied to the style of architecture which flourished in Europe from the early tenth to the late twelfth century; also called Norman in England.

Rood - a great cross, or crucifix, placed on the rood-beam in the chancel arch.

Rood-screen - screen below a crucifix, usually at the west end of a church, so called because it was normally surmounted by a rood or crucifix.

Sacristy - a small building, usually attached to the chancel or transept of a church, in which vestments and sacred vessels were kept.

Sanctuary - right of protection to fugitives within a church.

Sedilia - seats for priests officiating at services, usually built into the wall on the south side of the chancel.

Segmental - in the form of a segment, or divided into segments.

Shaft - small or subordinate pillar.

Simony - the offence of offering or receiving money to influence an appointment to ecclesiastical office.

Soul-scot - a mortuary, or offering made to the priest on behalf of a deceased parishioner.

Spandrel - triangular surface area between the apexes of two arches.

Springer - the point at which an arch unites with its pier, wall.

String-course - projecting horizontal band of masonry set along a wall.

Synod - a council, or assembly, of the clergy.

Tithe (praedial) - a tax, payable to the rector, of the tenth part of all agrarian produce.

Tracery - decorative openwork on the upper parts of a Gothic window. Bar-tracery and Geometric-tracery: both typical of the second half of the thirteenth century, consisting chiefly of foils within circles. Panel-tracery: typical of the period 1340-1530, consisting of straight-edge vertical panels.

Transepts - transverse portions, north and south, of a cross-shaped church.

Transitional - term applied to the architecture of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, during the transition from Norman or Romanesque to Gothic.

Transom - horizontal bar across the lights of a window.

Tympanum - space between the lintel of a doorway and the arch above it.

Vault - an arched stone roof.

Vestry - small chamber attached to the chancel or transept of a church, in which the ecclesiastical vestments were kept and put on.

Vicar - the incumbent of a parish church which has been appointed to a monastery or some other ecclesiastical body which receives the great tithe. The vicar receives a fixed portion of the endowments of the parish and offerings.