Skip to content

We ask you, humbly: don't scroll away.

Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you.

Help Now >

Apse Chapel

Free World Class Education
FREE Catholic Classes

A chapel radiating tangentially from one of the bays or divisions of the apse, and reached generally by a semicircular passageway, or ambulatory, exteriorly to the walls or piers of the apse. In plan, the normal type of the tangential chapel is semicircular; some, however, are pentagonal, and some composed of a small circle, serving as choir, and part of a large circle, as nave ; some are oblong with eastern apses. In England, sometimes an ambulatory connects the north and south aisles of the choir and from the ambulatory projects an eastern chapel or chapels. The eastern chevet of Westminster Abbey, surrounded by five apsidal chapels, is the only complete example of this feature in England. The common source of the ambulatory and radiating chapels seems to have been the church of St. Martin of Tours, where originally there was a choir of two bays, and an apse of five bays, surrounded by a single ambulatory and five radiating chapels. Altars, which had before cumbered the nave, could now be placed in the new radiating chapels of the ambulatory, which afforded the necessary access to them. Each apsidal chapel could be treated as a sanctuary, to be entered only by the officiating, priest and his attendants, and the ambulatory served as the necessary nave for the worshippers. The usual number of these radiating chapels is three. Apse chapels are often found in the cathedrals of the Benedictine foundations, and occasionally in those of the Cluniac reform. St. Martin of Tours, St. Savin, and Cluny have five choir chapels ; Amiens, Beauvais, Cologne, and Le Mans have seven apsidal chapels. No ambulatory with tangential chapels is older than about A. D. 900. The peri-apsidal plan of Westminster Abbey , commenced in 1050 by Edward the Confessor, anticipated Cluny by thirty-nine years, a plan which was reproduced at Gloucester in 1089 and at Norwich in 1096. Radiating chapels are almost entirely a continental plan and most frequently found in French and Gothic structures. In England the apse chapel is very rare, owing to the generally square termination of the nave. Traces of an early apsidal treatment are found in Canterbury Cathedral. In continental churches the central apse chapel was often the Lady-chapel. In England the Lady-chapel was generally placed at the side.

Join the Movement
When you sign up below, you don't just join an email list - you're joining an entire movement for Free world class Catholic education.

Prayer of the Day logo
Saint of the Day logo
Deacon Keith Fournier Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you. Help Now >

Catholic Online Logo

Copyright 2024 Catholic Online. All materials contained on this site, whether written, audible or visual are the exclusive property of Catholic Online and are protected under U.S. and International copyright laws, © Copyright 2024 Catholic Online. Any unauthorized use, without prior written consent of Catholic Online is strictly forbidden and prohibited.

Catholic Online is a Project of Your Catholic Voice Foundation, a Not-for-Profit Corporation. Your Catholic Voice Foundation has been granted a recognition of tax exemption under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Federal Tax Identification Number: 81-0596847. Your gift is tax-deductible as allowed by law.