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to Moscow, and tsarish governors were appointed to rule it. | Basil also took advantage of the difficult position of Sigismund of Poland to capture Smolensk, the great eastern fortress of Poland (1512), chiefly through the aid of the rebel Lithuanian, Prince Michael Glinsky, who provided him with artillery and engineers from western Europe. The loss of Smolensk was the first serious injury inflicted by Muscovy on Poland and only the exigencies of Sigismund compelled him to acquiesce in its surrender (1522). Equally successful, on the whole, was Basil against the Tatars. Although in 1519 he was obliged to buy off the khan of the Crimea, Mahommed Girai, under the very walls of Moscow, towards the end of his reign he established the Russian influence on the Volga, and in 1530 placed the pretender Elanyei on the throne of Kazan. Basil was the first grand-duke of Moscow who adopted the title of tsar and the double-headed eagle of the East Roman empire. By his second wife, Helena Glinska, whom he married in 1526, Basil had a son Ivan, who succeeded him as Ivan IV.

See Sigismund Herberstain, Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii (Vienna. 1549); P. A. Byclov, Russian History Previous to the Reforms of Peter the Great (Russ.), (Petersburg, 1895); E. I. Kashprovsky, The War of Basil III. with Sigismund I. (Russ.), (Nyezhin, 1899).

BASIL IV., SHUISKY (d. 1612), tsar of Muscovy, was during the reigns of Theodore I. and Boris Godunov, one of the leading boyars of Muscovy. It was he who, in obedience to the secret orders of Tsar Boris, went to Uglich to inquire into the cause of the death of Demetrius, the infant son of Ivan the Terrible, who had been murdered there by the agents of Boris. Shuisky obsequiously reported that it was a case of suicide; yet, on the death of Boris and the accession of his son Theodore II., the false boyar, in order to gain favour with the first false Demetrius, went back upon his own words and recognized the pretender as the real Demetrius, thus bringing about the assassination of the young Theodore. Shuisky then plotted against the false Demetrius and procured his death (May 1606) also by publicly confessing that the real Demetrius had been indeed slain and that the reigning tsar was an impostor. This was the viler in him as the pseudo-Demetrius had already forgiven him one conspiracy. Shuisky's adherents thereupon proclaimed him tsar (19th of May 1606). He reigned till the 19th of July 1610, but was never generally recognized. Even in Moscow itself he had little or no authority, and was only not deposed by the dominant boyars because they had none to put in his place. Only the popularity of his heroic cousin, Prince Michael Skopin-Shuisky, who led his armies and fought his battles for him, and soldiers from Sweden, whose assistance he purchased by a disgraceful cession of Russian territory, kept him for a time on his unstable throne. In 1610 he was deposed, made a monk, and finally carried off as a trophy by the Polish grand hetman, Stanislaus Zolkiewski. He died at Warsaw in 1612.

See D. I. Ilovaisky, The Troubled Period of the Muscovite Realm (Russ.), (Moscow, 1894); S. I. Platonov, Sketches of the Great Anarchy in the Realm of Moscow (Petersburg, 1899); D. V. Tsvveltev, Tsar Vasily Shuisky (Russ.), (Warsaw, 1901-1903); R. Nisbet Bain, Slavonic Europe, ch. viii. (Cambridge, 1907). (R. N B.)

BASILIAN MONKS, those who follow the rule of Basil the Great. The chief importance of the monastic rule and institute of St Basil lies in the fact that to this day his reconstruction of the monastic life is the basis of the monasticism of the Greek and Slavonic Churches, though the monks do not call themselves Basilians. St Basil's claim to the authorship of the Rules and other ascetical writings that go under his name, has been questioned; but the tendency now is to recognize as his at any rate the two sets of Rules. Probably the truest idea of his monastic system may be derived from a correspondence between him and St Gregory Nazianzen at the beginning of his monastic life, the chief portions whereof are translated by Newman in the Church of the Fathers, "Basil and Gregory," §§ 4, 5. On leaving Athens Basil visited the monasteries of Egypt and Palestine; in the latter country and in Syria the monastic life tended to become more and more eremitical and to run to great extravagances in the matter of bodily austerities (see MONASTICISM). When (c. 360) Basil formed his monastery in the neighbourhood of

Neocaesarea in Pontus, he deliberately set himself against these tendencies. He declared that the cenobitical life is superior to the eremitical; that fasting and austerities should not interfere with prayer or work; that work should form an integral part of the monastic life, not merely as an occupation, but for its own sake and in order to do good to others; and therefore that monasteries should be near towns. All this was a new departure in monachism. The life St Basil established was strictly cenobitical, with common prayer seven times a day, common work, common meals. It was, in spite of the new ideas, an austere life, of the kind called contemplative, given up to prayer, the reading of the Scriptures and heavy field-work. The so-called Rules (the Longer and the Shorter) are catechisms of the spiritual life rather than a body of regulations for the corporate working of a community, such as is now understood by a monastic rule. Apparently no vows were taken, but obedience, personal poverty, chastity, self-denial, and the other monastic virtues were strongly enforced, and a monk was not free to abandon the monastic life. A novitiate had to be passed, and young boys were to be educated in the monastery, but were not expected to become monks.

St Basil's influence, and the greater suitability of his institute to European ideas, ensured the propagation of Basilian monachism; and Sozomen says that in Cappadocia and the neighbouring provinces there were no hermits but only cenobites. However, the castern hankering after the cremitical life long survived, and it was only by dint of legislation, both ecclesiastical (council of Chalcedon) and civil (Justinian Code), that the Basilian cenobitic form of monasticism came to prevail throughout the Greek-speaking lands, though the eremitical forms have always maintained themselves.

Greek monachism underwent no development or change for four centuries, except the vicissitudes inevitable in all things human, which in monasticism assume the form of alternations of relaxation and revival. The second half of the 8th century seems to have been a time of very general decadence; but about the year 800 Theodore, destined to be the only other creative name in Greek monachism, became abbot of the monastery of the Studium in Constantinople. He set himself to reform his monastery and restore St Basil's spirit in its primitive vigour. But to effect this, and to give permanence to the reformation, he saw that there was need of a more practical code of laws to regulate the details of the daily life, as a supplement to St Basil's Rules. He therefore drew up constitutions, afterwards codified (see Migne, Patrol. Graec. xcix., 1704-1757), which became the norm of the life at the Studium monastery, and gradually spread thence to the monasteries of the rest of the Greek empire. Thus to this day the Rules of Basil and the Constitutions of Theodore the Studite, along with the canons of the Councils, constitute the chief part of Greek and Russian monastic law.

The spirit of Greek monachism, as regenerated by Theodore, may best be gathered from his Letters, Discourses and Testament Under the abbot were several officials to superintend the various departments; the liturgical services in the church took up a considerable portion of the day, but Theodore seems to have made no attempt to revive the early practice of the Studium in this matter (see ACOEMETI); the rest of the time was divided between reading and work; the latter included the chief handicrafts, for the monks, only ten in number, when Theodore became abbot, increased under his rule to over a thousand. One kind of work practised with great zeal and success by the Studite monks, was the copying of manuscripts, so that to them and to the schools that went forth from them we owe a great number of existing Greek MSS. and the preservation of many works of classical and ecclesiastical antiquity. In addition to this, literary and theological studies were pursued, and the mysticism of pseudoDionysius was cultivated. The life, though simple and selfdenying and hard, was not of extreme austerity. There was a division of the monks into two classes, similar to the division in vogue in later time in the West into choir-monks and lay-brothers. The life of the choir-monks was predominantly contemplative, 1 Specimen passages, and also a general picture of the life, will be found in Miss Alice Gardner's Theodore of Studium, ch. v.

being taken up with the church services and private prayer and study; the lay-brothers carried on the various trades and external works. There is little or no evidence of works of charity outside the monastery being undertaken by Studite monks. Strict personal poverty was enforced, and all were encouraged to approach confession and communion frequently. Vows had been imposed on monks by the council of Chalcedon (451). The picture of Studite life is the picture of normal Greek and Slavonic monachism to this day.

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the bishops are all recruited from the monks. But besides this they have been a strong spiritual and religious influence, as is recognized even by those who have scant sympathy with monastic ideals (see Harnack, What is Christianity? Lect. xiii., end). Outside the Orthodox Church are some small congregations of Uniat Basilians. Besides Grottaferrata, there are Catholic Basilian monasteries in Poland, Hungary, Galicia, Rumania, and among the Melchites or Uniat Syrians.

There have been Basilian nuns from the beginning, St Macrina, St Basil's sister, having established a nunnery which was under his direction. The nuns are devoted to a purely contemplative

During the middle ages the centre of Greek monachism shifted from Constantinople to Mount Athos. The first monastery to be founded here was that of St Athanasius (c. 960), and in the course of the next three or four centuries monasteries in great numbers-life, and in Russia, where there are about a hundred nunneries, Greek, Slavonic and one Latin-were established on Mount Athos, some twenty of which still survive.

Basilian monachism spread from Greece to Italy and Russia. Rufinus had translated St Basil's Rules into Latin (c. 400) and they became the rule of life in certain Italian monasteries. They were known to St Benedict, who refers his monks to "the Rule of our holy Father Basil,"-indeed St Benedict owed more of the ground-ideas of his Rule to St Basil than to any other monastic legislator. In the 6th and 7th centuries there appear to have been Greek monasteries in Rome and south Italy and especially in Sicily. But during the course of the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries crowds of fugitives poured into southern Italy from Greece and Sicily, under stress of the Saracenic, Arab and other invasions; and from the middle of the 9th century Basilian monasteries, peopled by Greek-speaking monks, were established in great numbers in Calabria and spread northwards as far as Rome. Some of them existed on into the 18th century, but the only survivor now is the monastery founded by St Nilus (c. 1000) at Grottaferrata in the Alban Hills. Professor Kirsopp Lake has (1903) written four valuable articles (Journal of Theological Studies, iv., v.) on "The Greek monasteries of South Italy"; he deals in detail with their scriptoria and the dispersal of their libraries, a matter of much interest, in that some of the chief collections of Greek MSS. in western Europe-as the Bessarion at Venice and a great number at the Vatican-come from the spoils of these Italian Basilian houses.

Of much greater importance was the importation of Basilian monachism into Russia, for it thereby became the norm of monachism for all the Slavonic lands. Greek monks played a considerable part in the evangelization of the Slavs, and the first Russian monastery was founded at Kiev (c. 1050) by a monk from Mount Athos. The monastic institute had a great development in Russia, and at the present day there are in the Russian empire some 400 monasteries of men and 100 of women, many of which support hospitals, almshouses and schools. In the other Slavonic lands there are a considerable number of monasteries, as also in Greece itself, while in the Turkish dominions there are no fewer than 100 Greek monasteries. The monasteries are of three kinds: cenobia proper, wherein full monastic common life, with personal poverty, is observed; others called idiorrhythmic, wherein the monks are allowed the use of their private means and lead a generally mitigated and free kind of monastic life; and the lauras, wherein the life is semi-eremitical. Greek and Slavonic monks wear a black habit. The visits of Western scholars in modern times to Greek monasteries in search of MSS.-notably to St Catherine's on Mount Sinai, and to Mount Athos-has directed much attention to contemporary Greek monachism, and the accounts of these expeditions commonly contain descriptions, more or less sympathetic and intelligent, of the present-day life of Greek monks. The first such account was Robert Curzon's in parts iii. (1834) and iv. (1837) of the Monasteries of the Levant; the most recent in English is Athelstan Riley's Athos (1887). The life is mainly given up to devotional contemplative exercises; the church services are of extreme length; intellectual study is little cultivated; manual labour has almost disappeared; there are many hermits on Athos (q.v.).

The ecclesiastical importance of the monks in the various branches of the Orthodox Church lies in this, that as bishops must be celibate, whereas the parochial clergy must be married,

they are not allowed to take final vows until the age of sixty. They are very numerous throughout the East.

AUTHORITIES.-In addition to the authorities for different portions of the subject-matter named in the course of this article, may be mentioned, on St Basil and his Rules, Montalembert, Monks of the Hannay's Spirit and Origin of Christian Monasticism (1903). On the West, second part of bk. ii., and the chapter on St Basil in James (). history and spirit of Basilian Monachism, Helyot, Hist. des Ordres Religieux, i. (1714); Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen (1907), ., § 11; Abbé Marin, Les Moines de Constantinople (1897); Karl Holl, Enthusiasmus und Bussgewalt beim griechischen Monchtim (1898); Otto Zöckler, Askese und Mönchtum, pp. 285-309 (1897) For general information see Wetzer und Welte, Kirchenlexicon (ed. ii.), art. Basilianer," and Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie (ed. iii.), in articles" Mönchtum," "Orientalische Kirche," and " Athos(E. C. B.) berg," where copious references will be found.

BASILICA, a word of Greck origin (see below), frequently used in Latin literature and inscriptions to denote a large covered building that could accommodate a considerable number of people. Strictly speaking, a basilica was a building of this kind situated near the business centre of a city and arranged for the convenience of merchants, litigants and persons engaged on the public service; but in a derived sense the word might be used for any large structure wherever situated, such as a hall of audience (Vitruv. vi. 5. 2) or a covered promenade (St Jerome, Ep. 46) in a private palace; a riding school (basilica equestris exercitatoria, C.I.L. vii. 965); a market or store for flowers (basilica floscellaria [Notitia]), or other kinds of goods (basilica vestiaria, C.I.L. viii. 20156), or a hall of meeting for a religious body. In this derived sense the word came naturally to be applied to the extensive buildings used for Christian worship in the age of Constantine and his successors.

The question whether this word conveyed to the ancients any special architectural significance is a difficult one, and some writers hold that the name betokened only the use of the building, others that it suggested also a certain form. Our knowledge of the ancient basilica as a civil structure is derived primarily from Vitruvius, and we learn about it also from existing remains and from incidental notices in classical writers and in inscriptions. If we review all the evidence we are led to the conclusion that there did exist a normal form of the building, though many examples deviated therefrom. This normal form we shall understand if we consider the essential character of the building in the light of what Vitruvius tells us of it.

Vitruvius treats the basilica in close connexion with the forum, to which in his view it is an adjunct. In the earlier classical times, both in Greece and Italy, business of every kind, political, commercial and legal, was transacted in the open forum, and there also were presented shows and pageants. When business increased and the numbers of the population were multiplied, it was found convenient to provide additional accommodation for these purposes. Theatres and amphitheatres took the performances and games. Markets provided for those that bought and sold, while for business of more important kinds accommodation could be secured by laying out new agorae or fora in the immediate vicinity of the old. At Rome this was done by mears of the so-called imperial fora, the latest and most splendid of which was that of Trajan. These fora corresponded to the later Greek or Hellenistic agora, which, as Vitruvius tells us, was of regular form and surrounded by colonnades in two stories, and they had the practical use of relieving the pressure on the

original forum (Cic., ad Att. iv. 16). The basilica was a structure | erected in the later Greek cities, is hard to say. We should intended for the same purposes. It was to all intents and purposes a covered forum, and in its normal form was constituted by an arrangement of colonnades in two stories round a rectangular space, that was not, like the Greek agora, open, but covered with a roof. Vitruvius writes of it as frequented by merchants, who would find in it shelter and quiet for the transaction of their business. Legal tribunals were also set up in it, though it is a mistake to suppose the basilica a mere law court. The magistrates who presided over these tribunals had sometimes platforms, curved or rectangular in plan, provided as part of the permanent fittings of the edifice.

According to Vitruvius (v. 1. 4, cf. also vi. 3. 9) the building is to be in plan a rectangle, not more than three times nor less than twice as long as it is broad. If the site oblige the length to be greater, the surplus is to be cut off to form what he calls chalcidica, by which must be meant open vestibules. The interior is divided into a central space and side aisles one-third the width of this. The ground plan of the basilica at Pompeii (fig. 1) illustrates this description, though the superstructure did not correspond to the Vitruvian scheme The columns between nave and aisles, Vitruvius proceeds, are the same height as the width of the latter, and the aisle is covered with a flat roof forming a terrace (contignatio) on which people can walk. Surrounding this on the inner side is a breastwork or parapet (pluteum), which would conceal these promenaders from the view of the merchants in the basilica below. On the top of this parapet stood the upper row of columns, three-quarters as high as the lower ones. The spaces between these columns, above the

naturally look in that direction for the prototypes of the Roman basilicas, but as a fact we are not informed of any very early basilicas in these cities. The earliest we know of is the existing basilica at Pompeii, that may date back into the 2nd century B.C., whereas basilicas made their appearance at Rome nearly at the beginning of that century. The first was erected by M. Porcius Cato, the censor, in 184 B.C., and was called after his name Basilica Porcia. Cato had recently visited Athens and had been struck by the beauty of the city, so that it is quite possible that the importation was direct.

Rome soon obtained other basilicas, of which the important Basilica Fulvia-Aemilia came next in point of time, till by the age of Augustus there were at least five in the immediate neighbourhood of the forum, the latest and most extensive being the Basilica Julia, which ran parallel to its southern side, and is shown in plan in fig. 2. The great Basilica Ulpia was built

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FIG. 2.-Plan of Basilica Julia, Rome. (From Baedeker's Central Italy, by permission of Karl Baedeker.) by Trajan in connexion with his forum about A.D. 112, and a fragment of the Capitoline plan of Rome gives the scheme of it (fig. 3), while an attempted restoration of the interior by Canina is shown in fig. 4. The vaulted basilica of Maxentius or Constantine on the Via Sacra dates from the beginning

FIG. 1.-Basilica at Pompeii. 1, Portico (Chalcidicum): 2, hall of of the 4th century, and fig. 5 gives the section of it. The

basilica: 3. aisles: 4, altar; 5. tribunal; 6, offices.

top of the pluteum, would be left free for the admission of light to the central space, which was covered by a roof called by Vitruvius (v. 1. 6) mediana testudo. Nothing is said about a permanent tribunal or about an apse.

How far existing remains agree with the Vitruvian scheme will be seen as we proceed. We have now to consider the derivation of the word "basilica," the history of the form of building, and its architectural scheme as represented in actual relics.

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The word "basilica "is a Latinized form of the Greek adjective Basin, "royal," and some feminine substantive, such as domus, or stoa, must be understood with it. A certain building at Athens, wherein the apxwv Baoiλeus transacted business and the court of the Areopagus sometimes assembled, was called Baoiλeos oroȧ, and it is an accredited theory, though it is by no means proved, that we have here the origin of the later basilica. It is difficult to see why this was called royal except for some special but accidental reason such as can in this case be divined. There are other instances in which a term that becomes specific has been derived from some one specimen accidentally named. "Labyrinth" is one case in point, and "basilica may be another. It is true that we do not know what was the shape of the King Archon's portico, but the same name (Baσideos σTOά) was given to the grand structure erected by Herod the Great along the southern edge of the Temple platform at Jerusalem, and this corresponded to the Vitruvian scheme of a columned fabric, with nave and aisles and clerestory lighting.

Whether the Roman basilicas, with which we are chiefly concerned, were derived directly from the Athenian example, or mediately from this through structures of the same kind

number of public basilicas we read of at Rome alone amounts to about a score, while many private basilicas, for business or recreation, must also have existed, that in the palace of Domitian on the Palatine being the best known. In provincial cities in Italy, and indeed all over the empire, basilicas were almost universal, and in the case of Italy we have proof of this as early as the date of the death of Augustus, for Suetonius (Aug. 100) tells us that the body of that emperor, when it was brought from Nola in Campania to Rome, rested" in basilica cujusque oppidi." As regards existing examples, neither in the peninsula nor the provinces can it be said that these give any adequate idea of

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FIG. 3.-Plan of Basilica Ulpia, from Capitoline plan of Rome. the former abundance and wide distribution of basilicas Northern Africa contributes one or two examples, and a plan is given of that at Timgad (fig. 6). The Gallic basilicas, which must have been very numerous, are represented only by the noble structure at Trier (Trèves), which is now a single vast hall 180 ft. long, 90 ft. wide and 100 ft. high, commanded at one end by a spacious apse. There is reason to conjecture that this is the basilica erected by Constantine, and some authorities believe that originally it had internal colonnades. In England basilicas remain in part at Silchester (fig. 7), Uriconium (Wroxeter),

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FIG. 4.-Interior view of Trajan's Basilica (Basilica Ulpia), as restored by Canina. Chester (?) and Lincoln, while three others are mentioned in inscriptions (C.I.L. vii. 287, 445, 965).

A comparison of the plans of existing basilicas shows considerable variety in form. Some basilicas (Julia, Ulpia, Pompeii) have the central space surrounded by galleries supported on columns or piers, according to the normal scheme, and the newly excavated Basilica Aemilia, north of the Roman forum, agrees with these. In some North African examples, in the palace basilica of Domitian, and at Silchester, there are colonnades down the long sides but not across the ends. Others (Trier [?], Timgad) have no interior divisions. One (Maxentius) is entirely a vaulted structure and in form resembles the great halls of the Roman Thermae. At Pompeii, Timgad and Silchester, there are fixed tribunals, while vaulted apses that may

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FIG. 5.-Section of the Basilica of Maxentius or Constantine (Temple of Peace).

have contained tribunals occur in the basilica of Maxentius. In the Basilica Julia there was no tribunal at all, though we know that the building was regularly used for the centumviral court (Quint. xii. 5. 6), and the same was the case in the Ulpia, for the semicircular projection at the end shown on the Capitolineplan, was not a vaulted apse and was evidently distinct from the basilica.

In view of the above it might be questioned whether it is safe to speak of a normal form of the basilica, but when we consider the vast number of basilicas that have perished compared to the few that have survived, and the fact that the origins and traditions of the building show it to have been, as Vitruvius describes it, essentially a columned structure, there is ample justification for the view expressed earlier in this article. There can be little doubt that the earlier basilicas, and the majority of basilicas taken as a whole, had a central space with galleries, generally

in two stories, round it, and some arrangement for clerestory lighting. Later basilicas might vary in architectural scheme, while affording the same sort of accommodation as the older ones.

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The relation of the civil basilica of the Romans to the Christian church has been extensively discussed, and the reader will find the controversy ably summarized in Kraus's Geschichte der christlichen Kunst, bk. 5. There is nothing remarkable in the fact that a large church was called a basilica, for the term was applied, as we have seen, to structures of many kinds, and we even find "basilica " used for the meeting-place of a pagan religious association (Rom. Mill. 1891, p. 109). The similarity in some respects of the early Christian churches to the normal form of the columned basilica is so striking, that we can understand how the theory was once held that Christian churches were the actual civil basilicas turned over from secular to religious uses. There is no evidence for this in the case of public basilicas, and it stands to reason that the demands on these for secular purposes would remain the same whether Christianity were the religion of the empire or not. Moreover, though there are one or two civil basilicas that resemble churches, the latter differ in some most important respects from the form of the basilica that we have recognized as normal. The early Christian basilicas, at any rate in the west, had very seldom, if ever, galleries over the side aisles, and their interior is always dominated by the semidome of an apse that terminates the central nave, whereas, with the doubtful exception of Silchester (Archacologia, liii. 549), there is no instance known of a vaulted apse in a columned civil basilica of the normal kind.

FIG. 6.-Plan of Basilica adjoining the Forum of the Roman city of Timgad. in North Africa.

(From Gsell's Monuments antiques de l'Algir, by permission of A. Fontemoing)

When buildings were first expressly erected for Christian worship, in the 3rd or perhaps already in the 2nd century A.D. (Leclercq, Manuel, ch iii. "Les édifices chrétiens avant la paix de l'église "), they probably took the form of an oblong interior

terminated by an apse. After the time of Constantine, when the numbers of the faithful were enormously increased, side aisles were added, and in this way the structure came to assume an appearance similar to that of the civil basilica. A striking confirmation of this view has recently come to light at S. Saba on the Aventine at Rome, where a small and very carly church, without aisles, has been discovered beneath the floor of the present basilica.

There are, on the other hand, instances in which private basilicas in palaces and mansions were handed over to the Christians for sacred uses. We know that to have been the case with the basilicas of S. Croce in Gerusalemme and S. Maria Maggiore at Rome, which originated in the halls of the Sessorian and Liberian places respectively, granted by Constantine to the Christians. We may adduce also as evidence of the same practice a passage in bk. x. ch. 71 of the theological romance known as The Recognitions of Clement, probably dating from the early half of the 3rd century, in which we are told that Theophilus of Antioch, on his conversion by St Peter, made over "the basilica of his house" for a church. But however this may have been, with, perhaps, the single exception of S. Croce, the existing Christian basilicas were erected from the ground for their sacred purpose. At Rome the columns, friezes and other materials of the desecrated temples and public buildings furnished abundant materials for their construction. The decadence of art is plainly shown by the absence of rudimentary architectural knowledge in these

the clerestory wall rose to a great height, pierced in its upper part
by a range of plain round-headed windows. The space between
the windows and the colonnade (the later triforium-space) was
usually decorated with a series of mosaic pictures in panels. The
colonnades sometimes extended quite to the end of the church
(the Ravenna basilicas), sometimes ceased some little distance
from the end, thus admitting the formation of a transverse aisle
or transept (St Paul's, Old St Peter's, St John Lateran). Where
this transept occurred it was divided from the nave by a wide arch,
the face and soffit of which were richly decorated with mosaics.
Over the crown of the arch we often find a bust of Christ or the
holy lamb lying upon the altar, and, on either side, the evangel-
istic symbols, the seven candlesticks and the twenty-four elders.
Another arch spanned the semicircular apse, in which the church
always terminated. From Carolingian times this was designated
the arch of triumph, because a cross was suspended from it.
The conch or semi-dome that covered the apse was always
covered with mosaic pictures, usually paintings of our Lord, either
seated or standing, with St Peter and St Paul, and other apostles
and saints, on either hand. The beams of the roof were sometimes
concealed by a flat ceiling, richly carved and gilt. The altar,
standing in the centre of the chord of the apse on a raised platform
reached by flights of steps, was rendered conspicuous by a lofty
canopy supported by marble pillars (ciborium, baldacchino), from
which depended curtains of the richest materials. Beneath the
altar was the confessio, a subterranean chapel, containing the
body of the patron saint, and relics of other holy persons. This
was approached by descending flights of steps from the nave or
aisles. The confessio in some cases reproduced the original place
of interment of the patron saint, either in a catacomb-chapel or in
an ordinary grave, and thus formed the sacred nucleus round
which the church arose. We have good examples of this arrange-
ment at St Peter's and St Paul's at Rome, and S. Apollinare in
Classe, Ravenna. It was copied in the original cathedral of
Canterbury. The bishop or officiating presbyter advanced from
his seat in the centre of the semicircle of the apse to the altar, and
celebrated the Eucharist with his face to the congregation below.
At the foot of the altar steps a raised platform, occupying the
upper portion of the nave, formed a choir for the singers, readers
and other inferior clergy. This oblong space was separated from
the aisles and from the western portion of the nave by low marble
walls or railings (cancelli). From these walls projected ambones
or pulpits with desks, also of marble, ascended by steps.

FIG. 7.-Plan of Basilica adjoining the Forum of the Roman city at Silchester, Hants. (From Archaeologia, vol. Iiii.) reconstructions. Not only are columns of various heights and diameters made to do duty in the same colonnade, but even different orders stand side by side (e.g. Ionic, Corinthian and Composite at S. Maria in Trastevere); while pilasters assume a horizontal position and serve as entablatures, as at S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura. There being no such quarry of ready-workedness. The vast brick walls were unrelieved by ornament, save materials at Ravenna, the noble basilicas of that city are free from these defects, and exhibit greater unity of design and harmony of proportions.

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An early Christian basilica may be thus described in its main features:-A porch supported on pillars (as at S. Clemente) gave admission into an open court or atrium, surrounded by a colonnaded cloister (S. Clemente, Old St Peter's, S. Ambrogio at Milan, Parenzo). In the centre of the court stood a cistern or fountain (cantharus, phiale), for drinking and ablutions. In close contiguity to the atrium, often to the west, was the baptistery, usually octagonal (Parenzo). The church was entered through a long narrow porch (narthex), beyond which penitents, or those under ecclesiastical censure, were forbidden to pass. Three or more lofty doorways, according to the number of the aisles, set in marble cases, gave admission to the church. The doors them-selves were of rich wood, elaborately carved with scriptural subjects (S. Sabina on the Aventine), or of bronze similarly adorned and often gilt. Magnificent curtains, frequently embroidered with sacred figures or scenes, closed the entrance, keeping out the heat of summer and the cold of winter.

The exterior of the basilicas was usually of an extreme plain

occasionally by arcading as at S. Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna, and had no compensating grace of outline or beauty of proportion. An exception was made for the entrance front, which was sometimes covered with plates of marble mosaics or painted stucco (Old St Peter's, S. Lorenzo). But in spite of any decorations the external

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The interior consisted of a long and wide nave, sometimes as much as 80 ft. across, terminating in a semicircular apse, with one or sometimes (St Paul's, Old St Peter's, St John Lateran) two aisles on each side, separated by colonnades of marble pillars supporting horizontal entablatures (Old St Peter's, S. Maria Maggiore, S. Lorenzo) or arches (St Paul's, S. Agnese, S. Clemente, effect of a basilica must always have been heavy and unattractive. the two basilicas of S. Apollinare at Ravenna). Above the pillars S. Apollinare in Classe at Ravenna (fig. 8) affords a typical

FIG. 8.-S. Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna.

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