By the Rev. Geo. S. Tyack, B.A.

That first impressions have no small influence in moulding the opinions of most people can scarcely be denied; and therefore in our estimate of the architectural value of a church the door is an element of some importance. A shabby and undignified entrance raises no expectations of a lofty and solemn interior; and that interior must be emphatically fine, if we are not to read into it some of the meanness of its portal. On the other hand, though the church be but plain [p 2] and simple—so that it lack not a measure of the dignity which may well accompany simplicity—our thoughts will be raised and fitted to find in it something worthy of its high purpose, if we have been prepared by passing through a noble porch, and beneath a doorway that speaks itself the entrance to no ordinary dwelling.

In primitive times the approach to a church must have been full of dignity, the worshippers being warned, by successive gates and doors, of the sacredness of the building which they were about to enter. Eusebius gives us a full account of a splendid church built at Tyre by Paulinus, from which we may gather the plan on which such buildings were erected in the primitive ages, when the means were forthcoming, and no opposition from the heathen world prevented.

The whole church at Tyre and its precincts were enclosed within a wall, at the front of which was a stately porch, known as the “great porch,” or the “first entrance.” Passing through this the worshipper entered the courtyard, or atrium, round which ran a covered portico, or cloister, and in the centre of which was a fountain, or cistern, of water. Opposite the “great porch” was the door into the church itself; at Tyre [p 3] there were (as in many of our cathedrals) three such doors, a large one in the centre, flanked by smaller ones at some distance along the wall. These opened into a vestibule, or ante-temple, from which admittance was gained into the nave of the church by yet another door or gate.

Each of the spaces formed by these several barriers had its special use. Within the atrium all the worshippers washed their hands as a preparation, both literal and emblematic, for assisting in the sacred mysteries; here, too, penitents under censure for the most flagrant sins remained during the divine offices, and besought the prayers of their brethren as they passed on to those holier courts, from which for a time they were themselves excluded. Within this open courtyard, also, as in a modern churchyard, burials were sometimes permitted. The portico beyond the second entrance was the place for the “hearers,” that is for those who were not yet sufficiently instructed in the faith to be allowed to be present except at the reading of the Scriptures and the sermons (these were catechumens in their noviciate and the heathens and Jews), and also for those Christians who were degraded temporarily to the same position [p 4] as a penance for some sin. Beyond this portico, the nave was still further divided for the separation of different orders of penitents; so that the faithful in possession of all their privileges had quite a number of doors or gates through which to pass before reaching that place, immediately outside the apse, or chancel, which it was their right to occupy.

In order that the several classes of persons attending church might be kept strictly within those portions of the building which were assigned to them, a special order of door-keepers existed in the Church. The keys of the church were solemnly delivered to these ostiarii, and they were accounted to form the lowest in rank of the minor orders. The simple words of the commission, uttered by the bishop to the ostiarius, were, “Behave thyself as one that must give an account to God of the things that are kept under these keys.” Such was the formula prescribed by the fourth Council of Carthage (398A.D.), and found in the Roman ritual of the eighth century. This order of clergy was almost confined to the west, however; we find traces of its existence at one time at Constantinople, but for the most part the deacons guarded the men’s [p 7] entrance, and sub-deacons or deaconesses the women’s, in the east.

In the earliest English churches the entrance was of a very simple nature; for the artistic skill of the people was small, and their ideals were unambitious. The buildings consisted of a nave without clerestory, and a chancel; the door being placed in the centre of the western wall. A curious example of such a door meets us at Holy Trinity, Colchester, although in this case it gives admittance not into the nave directly, but through the ancient tower. This tower, the oldest part of the church, has been constructed of the fragments of buildings older still; the Roman bricks of the ruined city of Camulodunum having been used to form it. In the western side is a narrow doorway, contained by two square shafts with very simple capitals, and having a triangular head with an equally simple moulding by way of drip-stone. The date is supposed to be between 800 and 1000A.D. A church perhaps yet older is that of S.Lawrence at Bradford-on-Avon, which has a good claim to be the veritable structure reared by S.Aldhelm in the first years of the eighth century. Here there is a northern porch of unusual size in proportion to the rest of [p 8] the building; the entrance to which is by means of an arched doorway, tall and narrow. The narrowness of some of these ancient doorways is remarkable. At Sowerford-Keynes is one, now built up, which, though nearly nine feet high, is but 1foot 9inches wide at the springing of the arch, widening towards the base to 2feet 5½ inches. The jambs are of “short and long” work, and the abacus has a very simple zig-zag moulding. The arch itself is not built up, but carved out of one stone, which is cut square on the upper side and scooped into a parabolic curve on the lower. A double row of cable moulding decorates it. This, which has been called “one of the most characteristic specimens of Saxon architecture in England,” was the northern entrance to the church. Another instance of a western door of simple design is supplied by Crowle, or Croule, in north Lincolnshire. Here we meet with a rectangular doorway, the top of which is formed of one long stone, on which is some antique carving and a fragment of a runic inscription.¹ Above this is a tympanum filled with diamond-shaped stones of small size.[p 9]
With the rise of the so-called Norman style of architecture the doors of our churches took a handsomer form; and as the churches themselves were now formed on a larger and nobler plan, more than one entrance was often required. The usual door for the people was now commonly placed at the south side, except in churches connected (as were so many of our cathedrals) with monastic foundations. In this latter case the south side was generally occupied by the cloisters and other conventual buildings, and the people’s door was therefore placed upon the north side. At this period, too, the church-porch begins its development; for, although porches in a strict sense were at any rate not usual, the door-way deeply sunk in the massive wall and protected by three, four, or even more concentric arches, suggests the more fully developed shelter of the porch. Of doors of this kind any of our older abbey-churches will supply adequate, and often splendid, examples. The great north door of Durham Cathedral, and the smaller, but not less beautiful doors into the cloisters there, are fine instances. The west and north doors of the little cathedral of Llandaff supply examples in another class of building; and even small and [p 10] obscure parish churches are sometimes dignified with the possession of an entrance full of the massive solemnity of this Norman work. The village church of Heysham, on Morecambe Bay, has a south door well worthy of mention in this connection; and the Lincolnshire church already cited, Crowle, has an interesting doorway of this kind.

As art progressed in Christendom, and exhibited its growing force especially in the churches, the entrances thereto shared in the increasing splendour of the whole. The mouldings of the arches and the pillars, the elaboration of capitals and bases, all showed the evidence of devotion guided by taste and skill. And often something more than mere decoration was attempted; the opportunity was seized to add instruction, and figures of saints and angels, or complete scenes from scriptural or ecclesiastical story, filled the expanse of the tympanum or the niches of the columns. About the twelfth century, also, it became customary to divide the main entrance into two by means of a pillar, or a group of pillars; the two-leaved door being thus made symbolical of the two natures of Christ, of Whom, as Durandus tells us, it is itself [p 11] the emblem, “according to that saying in the Gospel, ‘I am the Door!’”

The Continent presents some splendid examples of these decorated porticoes. The cathedral of Strasburg, preserved as by a series of miracles in spite of every danger that can assail a building, fire, lightning, earthquake, and cannonade, has a very grand west entrance; its tall doors set within a number of receding arches, and the sharply-pointed gable which crowns them flanked and crested with tapering pinnacles. The French artists of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were unrivalled in the beauty and wealth of statuary with which they adorned their churches, and not least their doors. “The glory and the beauty” of the great porch at Amiens has been set forth fully by Ruskin, who has woven into one wonderful whole the meaning of the statues, which, like “a cloud of witnesses,” throng the western front. But Amiens is not alone; S.Denis, Paris, Sens, AngoulÉme, Poictiers, Autun, Chartres, Laon, Rheims, Vezelay, Auxerre, and other cathedrals are all magnificent in this respect. The principal entrance to Seville cathedral is flanked by columns upholding niches filled with figures of [p 12] saints and angels, while the tympanum contains a carving of the entrance of the Saviour into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday. In the island of Majorca, the south door-way of the cathedral of Palma is exceptionally beautiful. The statue of the Blessed Virgin crowns the centre column, and above is the Last Supper. A record of the architect of this splendid piece of work is preserved in an old account book of the cathedral: “On January 29th, 1394, Master Pedro Morey, sculptor, master artificer of the south door, which was begun by him, passed from this life. Anima ejus requiescat in pace. Amen.” The entrance in the west front is also a fine one, and is inscribed, “Non est factum tale opus in universis regnis.”

Although in England we cannot match the gorgeousness of detail exhibited by the flamboyant architecture of some of the examples above noticed, yet we too have instances of which we may well be proud. The western front of Peterborough cathedral, over the partial renovation of which there has recently been so much controversy between architects and antiquaries, has been pronounced to be “the grandest portico in Europe;” but this has reference to the whole [p 13] faÇade rather than to the door-way in itself. If our subject allowed of our taking so wide a view, the splendid west fronts of Exeter, York, and others of our minsters, would demand a place of honour in the list. Gloucester cathedral has a dignified porch over the south door, in which are the figures of a number of saints. The west door [p 14] of Rochester is also interesting; its decorated Norman arches are richly carved, and enclose a tympanum covered with characteristic sculpture. Of a different type is the graceful west door at Ely, whose pointed arches are upheld by delicately cut shafts, the tympanum over the twin doorways being pierced by a double trefoil within a vesica. The parish church of Higham Ferrers has double western doors, separated by a bold shaft, above which is a niche (now unoccupied) for a statue. The tympanum, anciently divided by this figure, has five medallions on each side filled with sculptured scenes from the New Testament, round which runs a scroll of conventional foliage. The neighbouring churches of Rushden and Raunds have also good double-leaved doors. To take one instance from the Northern Kingdom, S.Giles’s, Edinburgh, has a dignified west entrance. Many of the better examples of our modern churches have admirable porticoes, of which one example must suffice. All Saints’ Church, Cheltenham, has double doors within receding arches; the tympanum has the figure of Our Lord enthroned in glory surrounded by the saints, and the central shaft and the side pillars contain other statues.[p 15]
There is occasionally found in a cathedral, or other large church, a porch of unusual depth, known as a Galilee. Here, during Lent, those assembled who were bidden to do public penance; the coming of Maundy Thursday being the signal for their admission once more into the church itself. Ely has a western Galilee entered by an arch, divided by a central pillar, and filled in the upper part with tracery. Lincoln has a Galilee, deep and dignified in plan, with a vaulted roof. Another English cathedral so provided is that of Chichester; and among parish churches the Galilee is found at Boxley, Llantwit, Chertsey, and S.Woolos.

Of door-ways which, independently of considerations of date, size, or form, are noteworthy for their sculpture, there are many that ought to be mentioned. At Lincoln, for instance, we have a south door carved with a Doom, or Last Judgment, wherein we see the effigy of the Divine Judge surrounded by the dead rising from their opening graves. The north door at Ely, the whole of the surrounding stone-work of which is elaborately carved, is surmounted by the figure of the Lord enthroned within a vesica, while adoring angels kneel before Him. At [p 16] Rougham, in Norfolk, the west door is surmounted by a crucifix, round which runs the emblematic vine. Founhope church, Hereford, has in the tympanum of the arch the Madonna and the Holy Child, a grotesque with birds and beasts surrounding the figures. At Elkstone, Gloucestershire, the south door-way, a specimen (like the one at Founhope) of Norman work, has some interesting sculptures. In the centre of the tympanum is Christ enthroned, with the apocalyptic symbols of the evangelists around Him; beyond these on the right hand of Christ is the Agnus Dei with the flag, an emblem of the Resurrection, while on the left is a wide open pair of jaws, known as a Hell-mouth: above all the Father’s Hand is seen in the attitude of benediction. Elstow church has sculptured figures above the north door; not within the containing arch, but within a separate arched space divided from the door-way by a string-course. Haltham church, in Lincolnshire, has some exceedingly curious designs on the tympanum of the south door; they are mostly cruciform figures within circles, and are arranged with strange irregularity. The north door of Lutterworth church has over it a fresco painting.

[p 17]
Several of the churches in Brussels have door-ways which, though otherwise not remarkable, are noteworthy from the beauty of the carving of the central post dividing the two leaves of the door. The church of Notre Dame de Bon-Secours has the effigy of its patron saint crowned and robed, bearing the Infant Saviour; below are the emblems of pilgrimage, wallets, gourds, and cockle-shells. The church of La Madeleine has a crucifix with a weeping Magdalene at its foot. The old church of S.Catharine has its patroness on the door-post, and the Chapelle Sainte-Anne similarly has S.Anne holding the Blessed Virgin by the hand. Foliage or scrolls in each case fill up the rest of the column, which is of wood, and in some instances has been painted.

So far, the doorways have occupied our [p 18] attention; something must, however, be said of the doors themselves. The usual form of the old church door is familiar enough to all of us; the massive time-stained oak, the heavy iron nails that stud it, and the long broad hinges that reach almost across its full breadth. There is dignity in the very simplicity of all this; but not seldom far more ornate examples may be found.

The most elementary form of decoration consists in merely panelling the door, as is the case in numberless instances; occasionally the panels themselves are carved, as on the “Thoresby Door,” at Lynn, or the door of S.Mary’s, Bath; or tracery, as in a window, is introduced, as at Alford, Lincolnshire. These are but a few of the many instances which might be cited. Another striking form of decoration is produced by hammering out the long hinges into a design covering, more or less, the surface of the door. The west door at Higham Ferrers, already noticed, has on each of its leaves three hinges, which are formed into wide spreading scrolls. Sempringham Abbey has very fine beaten ironwork spread over almost the entire face of the door. A more curious example is afforded by Dartmouth church; where a conventional tree [p 19] with spreading branches covers the door, and across this the hinges are laid in the form of two heraldic lions. The date is added in the middle of the work, 1631.

In the decoration of the church door the mediÆval blacksmith proves himself in a thousand instances, at home and abroad, to have been an artist. Free from the hurry of the present age, he could work according to that canon of Chaucer’s,

[p 20]
With him it was not the hand only that wrought, nor even the hand and head; but the soul within him gave life to both. Of the contrast between old ways and new, few examples are more striking than the hinges of the door at S.Mary Key, Ipswich; where we have a simple but graceful scroll of ancient date, and a clumsy iron bar of to-day, lying side by side. For a beautiful design in beaten iron the doors of Worksop Priory may claim to have not many rivals.

[p 21]
The most splendid doors in the world are probably the bronze doors of the Baptistery at Florence. Other bronze doors there are on the Continent, and all of them fine; Aix-la-Chapelle, Mayence, Augsburg, Hildesheim, Novgorod, all have doors of this kind; at Verona, too, in the church of San Zeno, are ancient examples, whereon are set forth in panels a number of subjects from Holy Scripture and from the life of the patron saint. All, however, fall into [p 22] insignificance beside the “Gates of Paradise,” as the Florentines proudly call their doors.

In 1400 the Gild of Cloth Merchants of Florence decided to make a thank-offering for the cessation of the plague; and the form which it took was a pair of bronze doors for the baptistery of the church of S.Giovanni, to correspond with some already there. These earlier ones are the work of Pisana and his son Nino, from designs by Giotto; the creation of the new ones was thrown open to competition. Many competitors appeared, of whom six were asked to submit specimens of designs for the panels; and, finally, when the choice lay between two only, the elder, Brunellesco, himself advised that the commission should be entrusted to Ghiberti, a youth then barely twenty years of age. The doors when completed contained twenty scenes from the Saviour’s life, together with figures of the four Latin Doctors and the four Evangelists, set in a frame of exquisite foliage. This splendid work was surpassed by a second pair of doors subsequently made for the same place. In this there are ten panels setting forth scenes from the Old Testament history; and the frame is adorned with niches and [p 23] medallions in which are placed some fifty allegorical figures and portrait heads. It was of these last doors, which were only completed in Ghiberti’s mature age, that no less a judge than Michael Angelo said, “They might stand as the gates of Paradise itself.”

Aix-en-Provence claims that her doors are as peerless as examples of the wood-carver’s art, as are the Florentine ones as types of the metal-worker’s. They have been preserved, it is said, from the sixth century, and are still wonderfully fresh and delicate. There are on each door six upper panels filled with figures of the twelve Sybils; and below one large panel, occupied, in one case, by effigies of the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, and in the other by Ezekiel and Daniel. The carving is only occasionally exhibited, two masking doors having been cleverly contrived to protect and cover the real ones.

Many of the doors of our cathedrals and great abbey churches have knockers, often of very striking designs. These as a rule indicate that the places in question claimed the right of sanctuary; and the knocker was to summon an attendant, or watcher, to admit the fugitive from justice at night, or at other times when the [p 24] entrance was closed. A curious head holding a ring within its teeth forms the knocker at Durham cathedral; a lion’s head was not an uncommon form for this to take, as at Adel, York (All Saints), and Norwich (S.Gregory’s); a singularly ferocious lion’s head knocker may be seen at Mayence.

The deep porch which we so frequently see over the principal door of the church was formerly something more than an ornament, or even a protection; it was a recognized portion of the sacred building, and had its appointed place in the services of the Church. Baptism was frequently administered in the church porch, to symbolize that by that Sacrament the infant entered into Holy Church. There are still relics of the existence of fonts in some of our porches, as at East Dereham, Norfolk. When baptism was thus administered in the south porch, it was also customary, so it is alleged, to throw wide open the north door; that the devil, formally renounced in that rite, might by that way flee “to his own place.” The font now usually stands just within the door. In the pre-reformation usage of the Church the thanksgiving of a woman after child-birth was also made in, or [p 25] before, the church porch; and concluded with the priest’s saying, “Enter into the temple of God, that thou mayest have eternal life, and live for ever and ever.” The first prayer-book of EdwardVI. ordered the woman to kneel “nigh unto the quire door:” the next revision altered the words “to nigh unto the place where the table standeth;” and from Elizabeth’s days the rubric has simply said indefinitely “a convenient place.”

The rubric at the commencement of the Order of the Solemnization of Holy Matrimony according to the Sarum use began also in this way: “Let the man and woman be placed before the door of the church, or in the face of the church, before the presence of God, the Priest, and the People”; at the end of the actual marriage, and before the benedictory prayers which follow it, the rubric says, “Here let them go into the church to the step of the altar.” Chaucer alludes to this usage when in his “Canterbury Tales” he says of the wife of Bath—

EdwardI. was united to Margaret at the door of [p 26] Canterbury Cathedral on September 9th, 1299, and other mediÆval notices of the custom occur.

The first prayer-book of EdwardVI. introduced an alteration which has been maintained ever since; the new rubric reading that “The persons to be married shall come into the body of the Church,” just as it does in our modern prayer-books. In France the custom survived as late as the seventeenth century, at least in some instances, for the marriage of CharlesI., who was represented by a proxy, and Henrietta Maria was performed at the door of Notre Dame in Paris. In Herrick’s “Hesperides” is a little poem entitled “The Entertainment, or, A Porch-verse at the marriage of Mr. Henry Northly and the most witty Mrs. Lettice Yard.” It commences:—

This was published in the midst of the great Civil War, and seems to show that the custom of marriage at the church porch was still sufficiently known, even if only by tradition, to make allusions to it “understanded of the people.”

Burials sometimes took place in the church [p 27] porch, in those days when interment within the building was much sought after.

Ecclesiastical Courts were frequently held in church porches, as at the south door of Canterbury Cathedral; schools were occasionally established in them; and here the dower of the bride was formally presented to the bridegroom. This last-named use of the porch is illustrated by a deed of the time of EdwardI., by which Robert Fitz Roger, a gentleman of Northamptonshire, bound himself to marry his son within a given time to Hawisia, daughter of Robert de Tybetot, and “to endow her at the church door” with property equal to a hundred pounds per annum. We still have evidence of the fact that the church door was of old considered the most prominent and public place in the parish in the continued use of it as the official place for posting legal notices of general interest, such as lists of voters, summonses for public meetings, and so forth.

There are often in connection with ancient ecclesiastical foundations doors and gateways which are of great interest, though they can scarcely be called church doors. Of this class are the entrances to the chapter houses of [p 28] cathedrals, many of which are very fine. At York, for example, the chapter-house, which proudly asserts in an inscription near the entrance that, “as the rose is among the flowers, so is it among buildings,” has a doorway not unworthy of the beautiful interior.

The gateway which gave admittance to the sacred enclosure of the abbey—the garth or close round which were ranged the monastic buildings—is in many cases an imposing and elaborate piece of architecture. Bristol has an interesting Norman gateway, and that at Durham is massive and impressive, as are all the conventual remains there. Norwich is specially rich in this respect. The Erpingham Gate was the gift of Sir Thomas Erpingham, who died in 1420, and whom the King, in Shakespere’s play of “King HenryV.” (Activ. sc.I), calls a “good old knight;” S.Ethelbert’s Gate was built at the cost of Bishop Alnwick, who ruled the see from 1426 to 1436.

But to speak of these things is to wander from our present subject, and even that is too wide to be dealt with fully in a paper such as this. The legends and traditions of the church porch might occupy many a page, while we gossiped over the mystic rites of S.John’s Eve or of All Hallow [p 29] E’en; or while we told how Ralph, Bishop of Chichester, barred his cathedral door with thorns in his anger against the King and his friends; or how the skins of marauding Danes have in more than one instance been nailed as leather coverings to the doors of English churches. Enough, however, has probably been said to show the wealth of interest which may often be found to hang about the old church porch, in which the village church may often be as rich as the great cathedral or the stately abbey.