AXIALITY OF CHURCHES:
A PRINCIPLE INHERITED FROM EARLY
CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE
The placing of this complex on the axis of the main
church recalls a scheme that was in use in Early Christian
times in the eastern parts of the Roman empire, in such
places as the sanctuary of Menas in Abu Mina, Egypt,
fourth to fifth century,[301]
the cathedral of Gerasa (Jerash,
Palestine, ca. 400), and the church of St. Theodor, in the
same town, 494-96 (fig. 243),[302]
as well as an early Byzantine
complex at Ephesus, in Asia Minor.[303]
In all of these places
several churches were arranged in sequence, one behind
the other, along the same axis. The prototype of this
arrangement may have been the Constantinian Anastasis
Church at Jerusalem.[304]
A striking early medieval parallel
existed at St. Augustine's Abbey at Canterbury (fig. 244).
There, three churches, aligned east to west, were built in
Saxon times (SS. Peter and Paul, 598-616; St. Pancras,
before 613; St. Mary, about 618) and a fourth one at the time
of Abbot Wulfric (d. 1059).[305]
Undoubtedly, there were
others;[306]
the majority of the early medieval twin or cluster
churches, however, were laid out in lateral sequence or in
rather haphazard fashion.