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(Or LOWER CHURCH).
The word originally meant a hidden place, natural or artificial, suitable for the concealment ofpersons or things. When visits to the burial-places without the walls ofRome fell into disuse there ensued a curious change. TheChurch, no longer able to go out tohonour themartyrs, brought themartyrs within the walls, and instead of building churches above thetombs, dugtombs under the churches in which the preciousrelics were deposited. This was the origin, first of theconfessio of thebasilicas, and, at a later period, of the crypt which answered the same purpose in the churches of the earlyMiddle Ages. In this way the Romanesque crypt is the direct descendant of thehypogoeum or excavation of the earlyChristian catacomb. The termcrypt is sometimes used to signify the lower story of a two-storied building, e.g. the lowerchapel of the Sainte-Chapelle atParis, and, of the church San Francesco atAssisi; and inEngland the overground ground crypt of St. Ethelredra's Chapel inLondon which is all that remains of the great episcopal palace called Ely Place.
The crypt has a long and venerable history. What was done atRome set a precedent forChristendom in general. There is an early example of a crypt atRavenna, at Sant' Apollinare in Classe (534). At first crypts were sometimes as deepsunk as thecubicula of thecatacombs themselves, e.g. in Saint-Germain, at Auxerre, and in the Chartrescathedral. Or they were but partly above ground, and were lighted by small windows windows placed in their side walls, e.g. Ernulph's crypt atCanterbury. Occasionally their floor was but little below the surface of the ground, as in the eastern crypt atCanterbury; or it was on a level with the pavement of thenave, as inSan Miniato, Florence In these latter cases the crypt practically became a second or lower church, e.g. St. Faith's, under old St. Paul's, London. Such a crypt, however, entailed a raised choir; hence it is that one ascends high flights of steps to such choirs as those ofSan Miniato, Rochester,Canterbury, etc. Almost all the crypts now found inEngland were built during the Norman period, or very early, in the pointed style, That atGlasgow, however, belongs to the perfected style of thirteenth century. Here the crypt extends under and beyond the whole choir. Had there been an opening in the centre of the vault (and it is by no means clear that one was not originally intended), it would be more like a German double church than anything found inEngland. The earliest crypts inEngland are those ofHexham and Ripon. In eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries crypts developed into magnificent churches, like those of Gloucester, Rochester,Worcester,Winchester, St. Peter's atOxford,Bayeux,Chartres, Saintes,Bourges, Holy, Trinity atCaen,Padua,Florence,Pavia,Palermo andModena.
GAILHABARD, Ancient and Modern Architecture (London, 1844) II; CARTER, Ancient Architecture of England (London, 18877); BOND, Gothic Architecture in England (New York, 1906); BROWN, From Schola to Cathedral (Edinburgh, 1886); LOWERIE, Monuments of the Early Church (London, 1906); SPENCE, The White Robe of Churches (New York, 1905); BANISTER, A History of Arch. (New York, 1905); PARKER, Glossary of Arch. (London, 1845).
APA citation.Poole, T.(1908).Crypt. InThe Catholic Encyclopedia.New York: Robert Appleton Company.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04558a.htm
MLA citation.Poole, Thomas."Crypt."The Catholic Encyclopedia.Vol. 4.New York: Robert Appleton Company,1908.<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04558a.htm>.
Transcription.This article was transcribed for New Advent by Wm Stuart French, Jr.Dedicated to Most Rev. John J. Russell.
Ecclesiastical approbation.Nihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, Censor.Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.
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