Porticus

Short description: Architectural element

This article concerns the ecclesiastical archetectural term. For other uses, see portico.

In this plan of St Mary's Church, Reculver, in north-east Kent, the porticus of the 7th-century church are represented by the extensions to north and south from the main structure, which is in yellow. Other colours represent later additions.

In church architecture, a porticus (Latin for "portico")[lower-alpha 1] is usually a small room in a church.[2] Commonly, porticuses form extensions to the north and south sides of a church, giving the building a cruciform plan. They may function as chapels, rudimentary transepts or burial-places. For example, Anglo-Saxon kings of Kent were buried in the south porticus at St Augustine's Abbey, with the exception of Eadberht II, who was buried in a similar location in St Mary's Church, Reculver.[3]

This feature of church design originated in the late Roman period and continued to appear in those built on the European continent and, in Anglo-Saxon England, until the 8th century.[4]

## Notes

1. ↑ Most Latin terms ending in -us are masculine and form their nominative plural with -i but porticus is a feminine fourth-declension noun whose plural is also porticus, sometimes differentiated with a macron as porticūs.[1] The English plural form is porticuses, when the term is not simply translated as portico.

## References

### Citations

1. ↑ Lewis, C.T.; Short, C., eds (n.d.). "porticus". A Latin Dictionary. www.perseus.tufts.edu. Archived from the original on 31 January 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160131221317/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=porticus. Retrieved 6 September 2018.
2. ↑ "Glossary of ecclesiastical terms". Archi UK. n.d.. Archived from the original on 29 June 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160629130240/http://www.digital-documents.co.uk/archi/gloschur.htm. Retrieved 28 January 2017.
3. ↑ Kelly 2008, pp. 78–9.
4. ↑ Cherry 1981, p. 168.

### Bibliography

* Cherry, B. (1981) [1976], "Ecclesiastical architecture", in Wilson, D.M., The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England, Cambridge University Press, pp. 151–200, ISBN 0-521-28390-6
* Kelly, S. (2008), "Reculver Minster and its early charters", in Barrow, J.; Wareham, A., Myth, Rulership, Church and Charters Essays in Honour of Nicholas Brooks, Ashgate, pp. 67–82, ISBN 978-0-7546-5120-8, https://books.google.com/books?id=W2spwSjY9YcC&pg=PA67

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