chancel is universal. These are typical districts; and, to state a
general rule, we may say that, while the apsidal chancel is foreign to
no part of England, and occurs in unexpected places, as in the chapel of
Old Bewick, Northumberland, it is never general in any single region.
Its rarity is an important fact. Were our parish churches the work of
masons sent out from the larger churches and monasteries, we should
expect to find it a common feature; for in those buildings the apsidal
plan prevailed. But, in the hands of local masons, its sparing
employment is easily explained. To build an apse needs skill, not only
in planning, but in stone-cutting. The question of vaulting the apse
increases the difficulty and the expense. These difficulties would not
trouble masons who had worked at the building of Durham or Ely or
Winchester; nor would expense trouble the monasteries, which, according
to the popular idea, were so ready to lavish money on the fabrics of
parish churches. Many apsidal chancels have disappeared, no doubt; but,
if we take the bulk of those which remain into account, we shall find
that they have a habit of occurring in small groups, as in Berkshire,
where three occur together within a single old rural deanery, and that
the large majority of the churches in which they are found were not
monastic property. A few belonged to preceptories of Knights Templars in
their neighbourhood; and perhaps we may see in their apses a reference
to the circular form of the Holy Sepulchre. But, as a rule, we may say
that a band of masons in certain neighbourhoods developed some skill in
building apses, that money was forthcoming, and that so a few examples
came into existence. In one curious instance, Langford in Essex, which
is within easy distance of four or five other apsed churches, there is
an apse at the west, and there are foundations of another at the east
end of the building. For this church a Saxon origin has been claimed:
the plan, at any rate, indicates a survival of a plan once common in
western Christendom, and especially in the German provinces. In apsed
churches, like Birkin in Yorkshire, the apse does not spring from points
directly east of the chancel arch. The arch is wide and lofty; behind it
is a nearly square rectangular space, which is divided from the apse by
another arch. At Birkin the apse has ribbed vaulting, which allows the
walls to be pierced freely for windows. At Copford in Essex, Old
Bewick,