Read Ebook: The Symbolism of Churches and Church Ornaments A Translation of the First Book of the Rationale Divinorum Officiorum by Durand Guillaume Neale J M John Mason Translator Webb Benjamin Translator

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Holy Scripture, in mentioning the selection of Bezaleel and Aholiab, as architects of the Tabernacle, expressly asserts them to have been filled 'with the Spirit of God in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver and in brass, and in cutting of stones to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship.' And this indeed is only a part of the blessing of the pure in heart: they see God, the Fountain of Beauty, even in this life; as they shall see Him, the Fountain of Holiness, in the next. From Catholic consent we may learn the same truth. Why else was Ecclesiastical Architecture made a part of the profession of Clerks, than because it was considered that the purity and holiness of that profession fitted them best for so great a work?

Nay, we have remarkable proofs that feeling without knowledge will do more than knowledge without feeling. There are instances of buildings--Lisbon cathedral and S. Peter's College chapel, Cambridge, are cases in point--which, with Debased or Italian details, have nevertheless Christian effect. And we have several similar cases, more particularly in the way of towers.

Now, allowing the respectability, which attaches itself to the profession of a modern architect, and the high character of many in that profession, none would assert that they, as a body, make it a matter of devotion and prayer; that they work for the Church alone regardless of themselves; that they build in faith, and to the glory of God.

In truth, architecture has become too much a profession: it is made the means of gaining a livelihood, and is viewed as a path to honourable distinction, instead of being the study of the devout ecclesiastic, who matures his noble conceptions with the advantage of that profound meditation only attainable in the contemplative life, who, without thought of recompense or fame, has no end in view but the raising a temple, worthy of its high end, and emblematical of the faith which is to be maintained within its walls. It is clear that modern architects are in a very different position from their predecessors, with respect to these advantages. We are not prepared to say that none but monks ought to design churches, or that it is impossible for a professional architect to build with the devotion and faith of an earlier time. But we do protest against the merely business-like spirit of the modern profession, and demand from them a more elevated and directly religious habit of mind. We surely ought to look at least for church-membership from one who ventures to design a church. There cannot be a more painful idea than that a separatist should be allowed to build a House of God, when he himself knows nothing of the ritual and worship of the Church from which he has strayed; to prepare both font and altar, when perchance he knows nothing of either Sacrament but that he has always despised them. Or, again, to think that any churchman should allow himself to build a conventicle, and even sometimes to prostitute the speaking architecture of the Church to the service of Her bitterest enemies! What idea can such a person have formed of the reality of church architecture? Conceive a churchman designing a triple window, admitted emblem of the Most Holy Trinity, for a congregation of Socinians! We wish to vindicate the dignity of this noble science against the treason of its own professors. If architecture is anything more than a mere trade; if it is indeed a liberal, intellectual art, a true branch of poesy, let us prize its reality and meaning and truthfulness, and at least not expose ourselves by giving to two contraries one and the same material expression.

It is objected that architects have a right to the same professional conscience that is claimed, for instance, by a barrister. To which we can only reply, that it must be a strange morality which will justify a pleader in violating truth; and how much worse for an architect to violate truth in things immediately connected with the House and worship of God? It may be asked, Do we mean to imply then that a church architect ought never to undertake any secular building? Perhaps, as things are, we cannot expect so much as this now: but we can never believe that the man who engages to design union-houses, or prisons, or assembly-rooms, and gives the dregs of his time to church-building, is likely to produce a good church, or, in short, can expect to be filled from above with the Spirit of Wisdom. The church architect must, we are persuaded, make very great sacrifices: he must forego all lucrative undertakings, if they may not be carried through upon those principles which he believes necessary for every good building; and particularly if the end to be answered, or the wants to be provided for, are in themselves unjustifiable or mischievous. Even in church-building itself, he must see many an unworthy rival preferred to him, who will condescend to pander to the whims and comfort of a church-committee, will suit his design to any standard of ritualism which may be suggested by his own ignorance, or others' private judgment, who will consent to defile a building meant for God's worship with pews and galleries and prayer-pulpits and commodious vestries. But hard as the trial may be, a church architect must submit to it, rather than recede from the principles which he knows to be the very foundation of his art. We would go further even, and deny the possibility of any architect's success in all the different styles of Pointed architecture, not to mention the orders of Greece and Rome, Vitruvian, Palladian, Cinque Cento, Wrennian, nay even Chinese, Swiss, Hindoo, and Egyptian at once. We have not even now exhausted the list of styles in which a modern architect is supposed to be able to design. It is even more absurd than if every modern painter were expected, and should profess, to paint equally well in the styles of Perugino, Francia, Raphael, Holbein, Claude, the Poussins, Salvator Rosa, Correggio, Van Eyck, Teniers, Rubens, Murillo, Reynolds, West, Gainsborough, Overbeck, and Copley Fielding all at once! An architect ought indeed to be acquainted, and the more the better, with all styles of building: but if architecture, as we said before, is a branch of poesy, if the poet's mind is to have any individuality, he must design in one style, and one style only. For the Anglican architect, it will be necessary to know enough of the earlier styles to be able to restore the deeply interesting churches, which they have left us as precious heirlooms; enough of the Debased styles, to take warning from their decline: but for his own style, he should choose the glorious architecture of the fourteenth century; and, just as no man has more than one hand-writing, so in this one language alone will he express his architectural ideas.

Mr. Poole, the author of the 'Appropriate Character of Church Architecture,' would appear to believe the symbolism of details rather than any general principle. He was the first, we think, to reassert that the octagonal form of fonts was figurative of Regeneration. In the latter edition of his Book he has adopted several of the symbolical interpretations advanced by the writers of the Cambridge Camden Society.

But besides the above objection to Mr. Lewis's theory we may mention the arbitrary way in which he determines on things which are to be symbolised, and then violently endeavours to find their expected types. This is quite at variance with the practice of any sober symbolist; and more especially with that of Durandus. This forced sort of symbolism naturally leads to a disregard of precedent and authority: and accordingly we remember to have heard of a design by this gentleman for the arrangement of a chancel which professed to symbolise certain facts and doctrines; but which, whatever might be the ingenuity of the symbolism, was no less opposed to the constant rule of arrangement in ancient churches, than it was practically absurd and inconvenient for the purpose which it was meant to answer. Indeed, while Mr. Lewis insists strongly on the symbolising of facts, he does not succeed in grasping any general principle, any more than he sees the difficulty there is in the way of our receiving his supposition of an intention to symbolise from the first. No architect ever sat down with an analysed scheme of doctrines which he resolved to embody in his future building: in this, as in any other department of poesy, the result is harmonious, significant, and complete, and may be resolved into its elements, though these elements might never have been laid by the poet as the foundation upon which to raise his superstructure. That were like De La Harpe's theory that an epic poet should first determine on his moral, and then draw out such a plan for his poem as may enable him to illustrate that moral.

The Oxford Architectural Society have never recognised any given principles: and in consequence Littlemore is proposed by them as a model--a church either without, or else all, chancel; and either way a solecism.

As might have been expected from a separatist, Rickman, in his treatise, gives not a single line to the principle for which we contend. Mr. Bloxam, in his excellent little work, though often referring to it--more especially in the later editions which have appeared since the labours of the Cambridge Camden Society--yet hardly gives it that prominence which we might have expected from one who possesses so just an idea of mediaeval arrangements and art.

THE ARGUMENT A PRIORI

Again, types and emblems without number were seen in the language of the Psalmist, occurring so continuously in the services of the Church. 'His faithfulness shall be thy buckler,' gives rise to a fine allegory of S. Bernard's, drawn from the triangular shape of the buckler used at the time when that Father wrote; even as we still see it, in the effigies of early knights. It protects the upper part of the body completely: the feet are less completely shielded. And so, remarks the saint, does God's providence guard His people from spiritual dangers, imaged by those weapons which attack the upper, or more vital parts of the body: but from temporal adversities He hath neither promised, nor will give so complete protection.

To mention the symbolism which attached itself to the worship of the early Church, would be to go through all its rites. Confirmation and Matrimony, and, above all, Baptism, were attended by ceremonies in the highest degree symbolical. But it is needless to dwell on them; enough has been said to prove the attachment which the Catholic Church has ever evinced to symbolism.

But the Sign of the Cross is that which gave the greatest scope to symbolism.--Our readers will probably remember the passage of Tertullian in which he says, 'we cross ourselves when we go out, and when we come in; when we lie down, and when we rise up,' etc. Indeed, as in everything they used, so in everything they saw, the Sign of the Cross. The following lines from Donne are much to the purpose:

Since Christ embraced the Cross itself, dare I His Image, th' Image of His Cross, deny? Would I have profit by the Sacrifice, And dare the chosen Altar to despise? It bore all other sins, but is it fit That it should bear the sin of scorning it? Who from the picture would avert his eye, How should he fly His pains, Who there did die? From me no pulpit, nor misgrounded law. Nor scandal taken, shall this Cross withdraw: It shall not--nor it cannot--for the loss Of this Cross were to me another Cross: Better were worse: for no affliction. No cross were so extreme, as to have none. Who can blot out the Cross, which th' instrument Of God dewed on him in the Sacrament? Who can deny me power and liberty 'To stretch mine arms, and mine own Cross to be? Swim--and at every stroke thou art thy Cross: The mast and yard are theirs whom seas do toss. Look down, thou seest our crosses in small things, Look up, thou seest birds fly on crossed wings.

THE ARGUMENT FROM ANALOGY

And if in the Old Testament we find authority for the principle of symbolism, much more do we in the New. We shall presently have occasion to allude to the rise and progress of the sacramentality of Baptism: we may now refer more particularly to the frequency with which S. Paul symbolises the enactments of the law; as in the case of the ox forbidden, while treading out the corn, to be muzzled. So again, the Revelation is nothing but one continued symbolical poem. The parabolic teaching of our Lord we shall presently notice.

But not only is Christianity symbolical: every development of religion is, and must necessarily be so. On the Grecian mythology, we shall have occasion to say something more presently. The symbolism of Plato, and still further development by Proclus and the later philosophers of his school, will occur to every one. If it be asserted that the more it was touched and acted on by Christianity, the more symbolical did it become,--we only reply, So much the more to the purpose of our argument. But not only in Roman and Grecian Paganism is this the case. The Hindoo religion has much of symbolism; and some of its most striking fables, derived from whatever source--whether from unwritten tradition, or from contact with the Jews--possess this character wonderfully. Take, for instance, the example of Krishna suffering, and Krishna triumphant; represented, in the one case, by the figure of a man enveloped in the coils of a serpent, which fastens its teeth in his heel; in the other, by the same man setting his foot on, and crushing the head of the monster. Now here, it is true, the doctrine symbolised has long been forgotten among those with whom the legend is sacred: we, on the contrary, have a very plain reference to the promise concerning the Seed of the Woman and the serpent's head. This is an instance of the fact, that Truth will live in a symbolical, long after it has perished in every other form: and doubtless, when the time for the conversion of India shall have arrived, thousands will receive the truth the more willingly, in that they have had a representation of it, distorted it is true, but not destroyed, set, for so many centuries, before their eyes. Some truths, accidentally impressed on a symbolical observance, may still live, that otherwise must have perished: just as the only memory of some of the beings that existed before the flood, is to be found in the petrified clay on which they accidentally happened to set their feet.

The Mahometan religion has also, though in an inferior degree, its symbolism; and the reason of its inferiority in this respect is plain--because, namely, it is a religion of sense. Now Catholicity, which teaches men constantly to live above their senses, to mortify their passions, and to deny themselves;--nay even Hindooism, which, so far as it approximates to the truth, preaches the same doctrine, must constantly lead men by the seen to look on to the unseen. If everything material were not made sacramental of that which is immaterial, so, as it were, bearing its own corrective with its own temptation, man could hardly fail of walking by sight, rather than by faith. But now, the Church, not content with warning us that we are in an enemy's country, boldly seizes on the enemy's goods, converting them to her own use. Symbolism is thus the true Sign of the Cross, hallowing the unholy, and making safe the dangerous: the true salt which, being cast in, purified the unhealthy spring: the true meal which removed death from the Prophet's provision. Others may amuse themselves by asserting that the Church in all that she does and enacts, is not symbolical:--we bless God for the knowledge that she is.

We need not dwell on the symbolism of heretics, insomuch as we shall have occasion to refer to it in other parts of this essay. We will rather notice, that those to whom we have been but now referring, heathens and Mahomedans, have a way of discovering a subtle symbolism in things which in themselves were not intended to have any deeper meaning. We may mention the odes of Hafiz--the Anacreon, or rather perhaps, the Stesichorus, of Persia. These poems, speaking to the casual reader of nothing but love, and wine, and garlands, and rosebuds, are seriously affirmed, by Persian critics, to contain a deep esoteric reference to the communion of the soul with God; just as it has been wildly supposed, that under the name of Laura, Petrarch in fact only expressed that Immortal Beauty after which the soul of the Christian is constantly striving, and to which it is constantly advancing. So in Dante, Beatrice is not only the poet's earthly love, but, as it has been well shown by M. Ozanam, the representative of Catholic theology.

To dwell on the symbolism of Nature would lead us too far from our point. But we must constantly bear in mind that Nature and the Church answer to each other as implicit and explicit revelations of God. Therefore, whatever system is seen to run through the one, in all probability runs through the other. Now, that the teaching of Nature is symbolical, none, we think, can deny. Shall we then wonder that the Catholic Church is in all her art and splendour sacramental of the Blessed Trinity, when Nature herself is so? Shall God have denied this symbolism to the latter, while He has bestowed it on the former? Shall there be a trinity of effect in every picture, a trinity of tone in every note, a trinity of power in every mind, a trinity of essence in every substance,--and shall not there be a trinity in the arrangements and details of church art? It were strange if the servant could teach what the mistress must be silent upon: that Natural Religion should be endued with capabilities not granted to Revealed Truth.

Music, however, has the strongest claims to our notice. We know, for example, that each instrument symbolises some particular colour. So, according to Haydn, the trombone is deep red--the trumpet, scarlet--the clarionet, orange--the oboe, yellow--the bassoon, deep yellow--the flute, sky blue--the diapason, deep blue--the double diapason, purple--the horn, violet:--while the violin is pink--the viola, rose--the violoncello, red--and the double-bass, crimson. This by many would be called fanciful:--therefore let us turn to a passage of Haydn's works, and see if it will hold. Let us examine the sun-rise in the 'Creation.' At the commencement, as it has been well observed, our attention is attracted by a soft-streaming sound from the violins, scarcely audible, till the pink rays of the second violin diverge into the chord of the second, to which is gradually imparted a greater fulness of colour, as the rose violas and red violoncellos steal in with expanding beauty, while the azure of the flute tempers the mounting rays of the violin: as the notes continue ascending to the highest point of brightness, the orange of the clarionet, the scarlet of the trumpet, the purple of the double diapason, unite in increasing splendour--till the sun appears at length in all the refulgence of harmony.

This may serve as a specimen of the manner in which the expressions of one art may be translated into that of another, because they each and all symbolise the same abstraction.

Again, the holy Sacraments of the Church are examples, in the highest degree, of this principle of figurative or symbolical teaching. They, indeed, are not only signs of unseen things, but the channels and instruments of grace. The latter quality we do not claim for the speaking symbolism of a material church: but architecture is an emblem of the invisible abstract, no less than Holy Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Besides the two Sacraments our Church recognises other offices, such as Marriage, Confirmation, and the like, as Sacramentals. In short the whole Church system is figurative from first to last: not indeed therefore the less real, actual, visible, and practical; but rather the more real and practical, because its teaching and discipline are not merely material and temporary, but anticipative of the heavenly and eternal. This quality then of symbolism cannot be denied to one, and a most important, expression of the teaching of the Church, namely its architecture. The cathedral is not the less material, the less solid, the less real, because we see in it the figurative exhibition of the peculiarities of our religion and the articles of our creed.

PHILOSOPHICAL REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN SYMBOLISM

We now propose to offer a few remarks on the philosophical reasons there seem to be for concluding that Ecclesiastical Architecture has some esoteric meaning, some figurative adaptation, more than can be appreciated, or even discerned, by the casual observer, to the uses which produced it, and which have always regulated it. We venture to approach this consideration, however, rather from a feeling that our Essay would be incomplete without some reference to this kind of argument, than from any idea of our own ability to treat on subjects so abstract and infinite; and fearing that we may not be able clearly to express or dissect those thoughts which, nevertheless, appear to our own minds both true and very important.

But if it be granted that there is this mutual connection between the abstract and its material exhibition in every case, it will be readily admitted that a principle of sacramentality must be especially a condition of all religious acts. If we were merely spirits, without bodies or any necessary connection with matter, it would be possible perhaps for us to worship the Great Spirit in an abstract way by a sort of volition of devotion; but not being so, our souls cannot engage in adoration without the company of their material home. Hence every effort of devotion is attended by some bodily act. Whether we lift our eyes or hands to heaven, or kneel in prayer, we show forth this necessity of our being: our body has sinned, has been redeemed, will be punished or glorified, no less than the soul: it must therefore worship with the soul. Now the symbolism of the bodily acts of devotion is understood by all. We have even personated Prayer by a prostrate figure with uplifted hands.

It may not be clear to some how in any sense architecture can be called symbolical, or the outward sign of something invisible: or rather what the process is by which a given arrangement, suggested perhaps by some necessity, becomes in turn suggestive and figurative of the very purpose for which it was planned. But let us take the case of a theatre. Here it is clearly necessary that there shall be a stage or orchestra, accommodation for spectators, and means of easy exit. Accordingly every theatre displays all these requisites. And does not the building then in turn emblem the purpose for which it was planned? The ruins of Roman theatres are not uncommon: do we fail to be recalled by them to the idea of the Roman stage? are not the several parts of the material building highly figurative and suggestive of the rules and orders of the abstract drama?

THE ANALYTICAL ARGUMENT

We must arrive at the same conclusion, if we consider the subject in an analytical way. For example: suppose a person, hitherto unacquainted not only with the general peculiarities of Christian churches, but also with Christianity itself, were to enter a cathedral; or were to visit a Catholic country, and examine its churches as a whole, would he not, if possessed of only ordinary intelligence, observe that the cross form, for example, was of most common occurrence, and, in the case of the larger buildings, was perhaps the only plan adopted? And would he not then naturally inquire why there should be this marked preference for a form, in itself inconvenient for purposes of hearing or seeing, and open to great mechanical objections, such as the almost resistless pressure of the four arms on the piers which stand at the angles of intersection?

Again, it has not been left merely to the meditative ecclesiologist to observe that Christian architecture has as decided a characteristic of verticality, as Pagan architecture had of horizontalism. A mere artist could not fail of marking the contrast between Beauvais and the temples of Paestum. The contrast must then be admitted: but how must we explain it? Surely no accident could have developed the grovelling Pagan into the aspiring Gothic. What mechanical reasons could produce Westminster from even the Parthenon? But is not the phenomenon explained when we see in towering pier, spire, and pinnacle, the symbolical exhibition of that religion which alone aspires to things above, nay more, the figurative commemoration of that Resurrection itself, which alone originates, and only justifies, the same heavenward tendency. But if this be true; if these acknowledged peculiarities in Christian architecture be utterly unintelligible on any other supposition than this of a symbolical meaning, surely it is not unreasonable to receive so ready a solution of the difficulty: and, the principle admitted, why may not reasons of the same figurative nature be assigned for other arrangements, in themselves on any other interpretation not only meaningless but obviously useless or absurd?

THE INDUCTIVE ARGUMENT

We have next to show, by a process of induction, that some principles of symbolism have always been observed in designing churches: that is to say, that without any actual acquaintance with the plan, details or arrangement of existing churches, we might gather from other sources, not only the probability, but the fact, that there was some reason for the selection and universal observation of particular forms and ornaments, and peculiar rules of distribution.

First, we shall refer to the celebrated passage of S. Clement of Rome, about performing the Divine Offices decently and in order, as to time, and place, and circumstance. 'Where and by whom God willeth these to be performed He hath Himself defined by His most supreme will.' 'But where,' says Mede, 'hath the Lord defined these things, unless He hath left us to the analogy of the Old Testament?'

The Apostolical Constitution in its other directions about the position of the bishop, priests, and deacons, and the separate stations for the sexes, shows that there was even then a marked distinction between the clergy and laity though the method of division is not described. At any rate, what has been here adduced--compiled from notes taken some time since for another object, and without access to a library--seems enough to show that in the earliest notices of Christian churches there is distinct intimation of at least three particulars of intended symbolism.

There is mention also of octagonal churches, as at Antioch and Nazianzum: but these seem to have been mere exceptions; and perhaps from being coupled with fonts in the inscription quoted by Mr. Poole from Gruter, may have been intended to symbolise Regeneration. The first two lines are as follows:--

Octachorum sanctos templum surrexit in usus: Octagonus fons est munere dignus eo.

Bingham mentions that the oblong form was sometimes called which he explains as intimating that they had void spaces for deambulation. It seems however more likely that the name was derived from the resemblance between this form of church and a stadium; the apsidal end answering to the curve round the goal.

In the comparison between the material temple and the 'living temple' the Spiritual Church, there are several points worthy of observation. The symbolical explanation of the corner stone as our Lord, of the foundation as the Apostles and Prophets, of the stones as the members of the Church, are of course taken directly from Holy Scripture. It is scarcely necessary to remark the great authority for considering the fabric of the church as symbolical which these passages convey. Many of our readers will remember how S. Hermas carries out into considerable detail the same idea. But the Panegyrist in Eusebius distinctly refers to 'the most inward recesses which are unseen of the many, and are essentially holy and holy of holies'; that is, of course, to a Sanctuary; which he goes on to describe as having 'sacred inclosures,' and as being accessible to the priest alone; with a distinct reference to S. Paul's illustration taken from the Jewish Temple. Again he proceeds to compare the Bishop Paulinus with the 'great High Priest,' not only in being permitted to enter the holy of holies, but in doing what Christ has done, just as the Son did what He saw the Father do. 'Thus he, looking with the pure eyes of his mind unto the Great Teacher, whatsoever he seeth Him doing, as if making use of archetypal patterns, has, by building as much like them as possible, wrought out images of them as closely as can be; having in no respect fallen short of Bezaleel, whom God Himself, having filled him with the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge and other skilful and scientific lore, called to be the builder of the material expression of the heavenly types in the symbols of the temple. In this way then Paulinus also, carrying wholly like a graven image in his soul Christ Himself, the Word, the Wisdom the Light . . . has constructed this magnificial temple of the most High God, resembling in its nature the pattern of the better as a visible of that which is invisible.'

It appears then that throughout this description a symbolical meaning is found attached to the material church: and this not far-fetched or now first fancifully imagined; but appealing, as it seems, to what the auditors would be prepared to grant, and admitted by the historian without a comment, as one specimen of a class.

We have attempted to prove then that the earliest Christian churches were designed, or described, symbolically: by showing that there was a reason for their shape, whether oblong, cruciform, or circular; for their main division into choir and nave, and their subdivision for the penitents: for their orientation; and even to some extent for their minor internal arrangements: and that some type or pattern of a church was universally recognised.

S. Isidore, of Seville, incidentally mentions many symbolical arrangements: they will be found in the notes to the text of the Rationale. Many pieces of symbolism are to be found incidentally in the Decretum of Gratian.

The text is either of the tenth or eleventh century; but it will be seen that the words of Durandus, writing at so great a distance of time and place, are nearly the same in some passages.

Now, without being concerned to defend, or the contrary, any or all of these ceremonies, we ask:--Is it possible to conceive that the Church which invented so deeply symbolical a system of worship--should have rested content with an unsymbolical building for its practice? This consideration, perhaps, belongs to the analogical branch of our essay: yet it may also find a place here, as one of the strongest parts of the inductive argument.

EXAMPLES OF SYMBOLISM

In endeavouring shortly to develop the practice of symbolism, according to our view of the subject, we are fully aware that to those who have never yet bestowed a thought upon it, we shall appear mere visionaries or enthusiasts. It has been the fashion of late to smile at the whole theory, as amusing and perhaps beautiful: but quite unpractical and indeed impracticable. We cannot hope to convince by aesthetics those who are deaf to more direct arguments, and who refuse to view everything, as churchmen ought to do, through the medium of the Church. But those who agree with us in the latter duty, will perhaps suffer themselves to think twice on what will be advanced before they condemn it.

We shall consider the practice of symbolism as connected with, 1. The Holy Trinity; 2. Regeneration; 3. The Atonement; 4. The Communion of Saints; and then we shall notice several parts of a church, such as windows, doors, etc., with their specific symbolical meaning.

We know, as a fact, that from the earliest times, baptisteries and fonts were octagonal. We know also that the reason assigned, if not by S. Ambrose himself at least by one of his contemporaries, for this form was, that the number eight was symbolical of Regeneration. For as the old Creation was complete in seven days, so the number next ensuing may well be significative of the new.

Now none can deny that very much the greater number of fonts are in this shape. To prove this we will refer to those selected by the Cambridge Camden Society in the appendix to the second edition of their 'Few Words to Church-Builders.' There we find.

Octagonal. Of all other shapes

In Norman 15 43 Early English 19 30 Decorated 24 1 Perpendicular 57 2 Total 115 76

Now, it is to be remembered, that the superior convenience of a cylindrical or circular form, together with the wont of Norman architects rather to symbolise facts than doctrine, accounts for the comparatively small number of octagonal fonts in that style: in later ages their preponderance is overwhelming.

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