Porticus

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]

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Citations

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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