Glossary

GLOSSARY OF THE MEANING ATTACHED TO THE TECHNICAL TERMS USED IN THE INVENTORY

Abacus—The uppermost member of a capital.

Acanthus—A plant represented in Classical and Renaissance ornament, used particularly in the Corinthian and Composite Orders.

Accessory Vessel—A miniature urn accompanying a cinerary urn and often of similar shape.

Achievement—In heraldry, the shield accompanied by the helm, crest, mantling, supporters, etc. In the plural the term is also applied to the insignia of honour carried at the funerals and suspended over the monuments of important persons, comprising helmet and crest, shield, tabard, sword, gauntlets and spurs, banners and pennons.

Acroteria—In Classical architecture, blocks on the apex and lower ends of a pediment, often carved with honeysuckle or palmette ornament.

Aedicule—A small temple or similar shrine, or a miniature representation of the same. A surround to a doorway, niche or window having a pediment or canopy resting on pillars and suggestive of a small and exquisite building.

Agger—In Roman engineering, the bank formed by spoil thrown up in digging the fossa; in particular, the earthen ridge (agger viae or dorsum) of a road.

Altar-tomb—A modern term for a tomb of stone or marble resembling, but not used as, an altar.

Amphora-ae—A large two-handled jar with narrow neck and pointed or rounded base, used for the transport and storage of wines, oils etc.

Anta-ae—In Classical architecture, a pilaster terminating a range of columns in the manner of a respond, with base and capital differing from those of the columns. In antis—Placed in a line between paired anta-responds.

Antefix—In Classical architecture, an ornamental plaque for roofdecoration, usually made of clay and attached before firing to a length of imbrex (q.v.) for use at the eaves.

Anthemion—Honeysuckle or palmette ornament in Classical architecture.

'Antique' Work—Renaissance ornament evoking particular compositions in the Classical decorative repertory.

Antonine—Of the reigns of Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, A.D. 138–92.

Antoninianus-I—A Roman base silver or silver-washed coin tariffed probably at 2 denarii, first issued by Caracalla (M. Aurelius Antoninus) in A.D. 214–5, and portraying the emperor with a radiate crown. The claim to this name is uncertain.

Apron—A panel, plain or decorative, below an architectural feature, usually a window, or composition, such as a funeral monument.

Apse—A projection from the wall of a church, hall or other building, semicircular or polygonal on plan, usually covered with a semidome or vault.

Arabesque—A kind of highly stylised fret-ornament in low relief, common in Moorish architecture, and found in 16th and 17th-century work in England.

Arcade—A range of arches carried on piers or columns. Blind arcade, a series of arches, frequently interlaced, carried on shafts or pilasters against a solid wall.

Arch—The following are some of the more usual forms:-

Equilateral—A pointed arch struck with radii equal to the span.

Flat or straight—Having the soffit horizontal.

Four-centred, depressed, Tudor—A pointed arch of four arcs, the two outer and lower arcs struck from centres on the springing line and the two inner and upper arcs from centres below the springing line. Sometimes the two upper arcs are replaced by straight lines.

Lancet—A pointed arch struck with radii greater than the span.

Nodding—An ogee arch curving also forward from the plane of the wall-face.

Ogee—A pointed arch of four or more arcs, the two uppermost being reversed, i.e., convex instead of concave to the base line.

Pointed or two-centred—Two arcs struck from centres on the springing line, and meeting at the apex with a point.

Relieving—An arch, generally of rough construction, placed in the wall above the true arch or head of an opening to relieve it of most of the superincumbent weight.

Segmental—A single arc struck from a centre below the springing line.

Segmental-pointed—A pointed arch, struck from two centres below the springing line.

Skew—Spanning between responds not diametrically opposite.

Squinch—See Squinch.

Stilted—An arch with its springing line raised above the level of the imposts.

Three-centred, elliptical—Formed with three arcs, the middle or uppermost struck from a centre below the springing line.

Architrave—The lowest member of an entablature (q.v.); often adapted as a moulded enrichment of the jambs and head of a doorway or window-opening.

Archivolt—In Classical architecture, the moulding round an arch.

Armet—A close-helmet. Restricted in modern usage to the type in use in the 15th century with hinged cheek-pieces overlapping on the chin.

Armorica—The ancient region of N.W. Gaul now called Brittany.

Arris—The sharp edge formed by the meeting of two surfaces. On arris—Set diagonally.

As-asses—The ancient unit of Roman base metal currency; in Imperial times a copper or bronze coin rather less than half the size of a sestertius.

Ashlar—Masonry wrought to an even face and square edges.

Aumbry—Cupboard in a church for housing the sacred vessels.

Aventail or Camail—A tippet of mail attached to the bascinet to protect the throat and neck, and falling to the shoulders.

Badge—In heraldry, a device used as a cognisance, as distinct from a coat-of-arms or a charge.

Bailey—The enclosure of a castle.

Ball-flower—In architecture, a decoration, peculiar to the first quarter of the 14th century, consisting of a globular flower of three petals enclosing a small ball.

Ballista-ae—A large spring-operated weapon with half-tubular barrel, propelling balls or bolts.

Baluster—A vertical support to a rail.

Barge-board—A board, often carved, fixed to the edge of a gabled roof, a short distance from the face of the wall.

Baronet's Badge—In heraldry, an escutcheon argent with the Red Hand of Ulster, borne upon a baronet's shield.

Baroque—A style of architecture and decoration emerging in the 17th century which uses the repertory of classical forms with great freedom to emphasize the unity and pictorial character of its effects. The term is also applied to sculpture and painting of a comparable character.

Barrel-vaulting—See Vaulting.

Barrow—A burial mound.

Bank—A long barrow of exceptional length, uniform in height and with parallel sides.

Chambered—A type of prehistoric barrow, more often long than round, containing a chamber or series of chambers, usually of stone, in which burials were deposited, often at intervals of time.

Long—An elongated burial mound of the Neolithic period.

Round—A circular burial mound, usually of the Bronze Age. For explanation of different types of round barrow, see S. E. Dorset, Part 3, p. 422.

Bascinet—Steel headpiece, egg-shaped with pointed apex, usually worn with an aventail, and fitted with a vizor.

Bastion—A projection from the general outline of a fortress or work from which the garrison is able so see, and defend by a flanking fire, the ground before the ramparts.

Bastion-trace Fort—A 17th-century type of fort with projecting angles or bastions.

Battlemented—See Embattled.

Bay or Bow-window—Window in an angular or curved projection.

Bays—The main vertical divisions of a building or feature. The divisions of a roof, marked by its main trusses.

Beading—A small round moulding.

Beaker—A large drinking vessel, usually further defined by shape and fabric; butt beaker, shaped like a butt or barrel. In particular, a pottery jar characteristic of a culture introduced into Britain towards the end of the Neolithic period, hence Beaker culture or Beaker people.

Bell or 'B'—The type which most closely resembles widespread Continental prototypes and which first appears here soon after 2000 B.C.

Long-necked or 'A'—An insular development first appearing c. 1800 B.C.

Beaver—A defence for the lower part of the face.

Belgic—Of the Belgae, i.e. of people from N.E. Gaul first settled in southern Britain before Caesar's invasions and already politically dominant in much of the region before the Roman conquest.

Benefactor's Table—Tablet or panel recording a benefaction.

Berm—A ledge between a mound or bank and its associated ditch.

Billet—In architecture, an ornament used in the 11th and 12th centuries consisting of short attached cylinders or rectangles with spaces between.

Bollection-moulding—A bold moulding of double curvature raised above the general plane of its setting.

Bond, English or Flemish—See Brick-work.

Boss—A projecting square or round ornament, covering the intersections of the ribs in a vault, panelled ceiling or roof, etc.

Box-tile—See Flue-tile.

Boxed Rampart—A type of defence, often found in early Iron Age hill-forts, comprising a wall of rubble and earth retained within vertical timber frames and backed by a sloping ramp. The wall was separated from its ditch by a narrow platform or berm and was probably surmounted by a protected walk.

Brace—In roof construction, a subsidiary timber inserted to strengthen the framing of a truss. Wind brace, a subsidiary timber inserted between the purlins and principals of a roof to increase resistance to wind-pressure. Sling brace, in barn roofs, a timber framed between wall-post and principal-rafter and supporting the end of a short horizontal member suggestive of a truncated tie-beam.

Brattishing—Ornamental cresting on the top of a screen, cornice, etc.

Bressummer—A spanning beam forming the direct support of an upper wall or timber-framing.

Brick-work—English Bond—A method of laying bricks so that alternate courses on the face of the wall are composed of headers or stretchers only.

English Garden Wall Bond—Bricks laid with three courses of stretchers to one of headers.

Flemish Bond—A method of laying bricks so that alternate headers and stretchers appear in each course on the face of the wall; successively with more than one stretcher, open Flemish bond.

Header—A brick laid so that the end only appears on the face of the wall.

Stretcher—A brick laid so that one side only appears on the face of the wall.

Tumbled—In a gable, triangular areas of brickwork laid at right angles to the pitch.

Briquetage—Fragments of coarse brick-like fired clay containers and props used in the manufacture of common salt in prehistoric and Roman times.

Broach—See Spire.

Broach-stop—A half-pyramidal stop against a chamfer to effect the change from chamfer to right angle.

Bronze Age—The period when bronze was used for weapons and tools, in Britain dated roughly as follows: Early Bronze Age, 1650 to 1350 B.C.; Middle Bronze Age, 1350 to 800 B.C.; Late Bronze Age, 800 to 500 B.C.

Buttress-es—A mass of masonry or brickwork projecting from or built against a wall to give additional strength.

Angle—Two meeting, or nearly meeting, at an angle of 90° at the corner of a building.

Clasping—One that clasps or encases an angle.

Diagonal—One placed against the right angle formed by two walls, and more or less equiangular with both.

Flying—An arch or half-arch transmitting the thrust of a vault or roof from the upper part of a wall to an outer support.

Cable-moulding—A moulding carved in the form of a rope or cable.

Camail—See Aventail.

Cambered—Curved so that the middle is higher than the ends or sides.

Canons (of a bell)—The metal loops by which a bell is hung.

Canopy—A projection or hood over a door, window, etc., or the covering over a tomb or niche.

Cantharus-I—A wide-bellied drinking vessel with two handles.

Capstone—A large slab of stone forming the roof of a chamber within a chambered tomb.

Cardo-ines—In Roman land division, the boundary line drawn from N. to S., at right angles to the decumanus; cardo maximus, the principal cardo of a series. The terms cardo and decumanus are commonly applied, with some ancient authority, to the elements of a grid street plan.

Carstone—A dark brown ferruginous gritstone from the Bagshot Bed heathland or from near Swanage.

Cartouche—In Renaissance ornament, a tablet imitating a scroll with ends rolled up, used ornamentally or bearing an inscription or arms.

Caryatid—Sculptured female form used as column or support.

Casement—A wide hollow moulding in window-jambs etc. The hinged part of a window.

Castor Ware—See Nene Valley Ware.

Causewayed Camp—A Neolithic enclosure bounded by a bank or banks each with external ditch interrupted at intervals by 'causeways' or lengths of undisturbed ground.

Cella—The part of a Roman temple where the image of a god stood.

'Celtic' Fields—Small, rectangular fields, usually bounded by lynchets, originating in the Bronze Age but widespread in Romano-British times, especially in the south of England.

Chalcolithic—A cultural phase marked by the first use of copper tools in a predominantly stone age society, in Britain dating roughly from 1800 to 1650 B.C.

Chalice—The name used in the Inventory to distinguish the pre-Reformation type of Communion cup with a shallow bowl from the post-Reformation cup with a deeper bowl.

Chamfer—The small plane formed when the sharp edge or arris of stone or wood is cut away, usually at an angle of 45°; when the plane is concave it is termed a hollow chamfer, and when the plane is sunk a sunk chamfer.

Chantry Chapel—A chapel built for the purposes of a chantry (a foundation, usually supporting a priest, for the celebration of masses for the souls of the founder and such others as he may direct).

Chape—The metal plate or mounting which covers the point of a scabbard or sheath.

Charge—In heraldry, the representation of an object or device upon the field.

Chequer or Chessboard Pattern—In mosaic, an arrangement of alternately coloured squares.

Chevaux-de-frise—Iron spikes, originally set in timber to repel cavalry, now usually along the tops of walls to protect property.

Chevron—In architecture, a decorative form resembling a V and often used in a consecutive series.

Chevron pattern—In mosaic, a series of triangles arranged like teeth.

Chip-carving—Architectural enrichment of sunk triangular form resembling chip-carved woodwork.

Cinquefoil—A heraldic flower of five petals. See also Foil.

Cist—A cavity, normally a grave, lined with slabs of stone or other material, or cut into rock.

Civitas-ates—A self-governing municipal community in the Roman world; strictly civitas peregrina, a self-governing community of provincials without Roman or Latin citizenship, centred on a town and ranking below the chartered coloniae and municipia.

Claudian—Of the period from the Roman conquest to the death of Claudius, A.D. 43–54.

Clearstorey—An upper storey, pierced by windows, in the main walls of a church. The same term is applicable in a domestic building.

Close—Enclosure. In earthworks, an area enclosed by banks.

Close-helmet—A helmet fitted with vizor etc., completely enclosing the head and face.

Clunch—Hard stratum of the Lower Chalk used as a material for building and sculpture.

Coal Money—An antiquarian term, derived from local usage, for the waste discs resulting from the turning of armlets of Kimmeridge shale in ancient times.

Coarse Ware—Roman pottery other than lead-glazed wares and samian or allied varieties of terra sigillata.

Cob—A building material consisting of clay mixed with fine gravel and straw.

Coffers—Sunk panels in ceilings, vaults, domes and arch-soffits.

Coif—Small close hood, covering head only.

Collar-beam—In a roof, a horizontal beam framed to and serving to tie together a pair of rafters some distance above the wall-plate level.

Colonia-ae—Originally a chartered land settlement of Roman citizens, especially discharged legionaries, usually associated with a newly-founded town. Later a title signifying the grant of colonial status, the highest grade of civic dignity, to an existing town.

Colour-coated Ware—See Slip-coated Ware.

Console—A bracket with a compound-curved outline.

Constantinian—Of the reign of Constantine I, A.D. 306–37; the term may be used in a wider sense for the dynasty or House of Constantine from his accession in 306 to the death of Constantius II in 361.

Contracted or Crouched Posture—Descriptive of a skeleton with knees drawn up towards the chest, as a foetus.

Cope—A processional and choir vestment shaped like a cloak, and fastened across the chest by a band or brooch; worn by clerks of most grades.

Coped Slab—A slab of which the upper face is ridged down the middle, sometimes hipped at each end.

Cops, Elbow—A modern term for elbow defences of leather or plate, see Couter. Knee-cops—In modern usage applied to the leather or plate defences of the knees at all dates, see Poleyn.

Corbel—A projecting stone or piece of timber for the support of a superincumbent weight. Corbel-table—A row of corbels, usually carved, and supporting a projection.

Cornice—A crowning projection. In Classical architecture, the crowning or upper portion of the entablature; block cornice, with shaped blocks regularly spaced beneath the projection, closer than modillions, wider than dentils.

Corona—The square projection in the upper part of a Classical cornice with vertical face and wide soffit.

Counterscarp—See Scarp.

Couter—Elbow defence of leather or plate.

Cove—A concave under-surface of the nature of a hollow moulding but on a larger scale.

Cover-paten—A cover to a communion cup, used as a paten.

Crenelles—The openings in an embattled parapet.

Crest, Cresting—A device worn upon the helm or helmet. An ornamental finish along the top of a screen etc.

Crockets—Carvings projecting at regular intervals from the vertical or sloping sides of parts of a building, such as spires, canopies, pinnacles, hood-moulds, etc.

Cromlech—A Welsh word, once widely used, for dolmen.

Crop-marks—Marks, best seen from the air, caused by differences in the growth of crops overlying archaeological features and so revealing the presence of such features.

Crosier or Pastoral Staff—A tall staff ending in an ornamental crook carried as a mark of authority by archbishops, bishops, and heads of monastic houses, including abbesses and prioresses.

Cross—In its simplest form in heraldry, a pale combined with a fesse, as the St. George's Cross; of many other varieties the following are the most common:-

Crosslet—With a smaller arm crossing each main arm.

Saltire (or St. Andrew's)—An X-shaped cross.

Tau (or Anthony)—In the form of a T.

Trefly—With the arms terminating in trefoils.

Crossing—In a cruciform building, the space about the intersection of the axes of the main range and the transepts.

Cross-ridge Dyke—A bank and ditch, sometimes a ditch between two banks, crossing a ridge or spur; often Iron Age.

Cross Wing—In a house, a range at the end of, and at right angles to, the main range.

Crown Post—In a roof truss, the central post between tie beam and collar.

Cruck Truss—See under Roofs.

Culture—In archaeology, an aggregation of associated traits exemplified by material remains (of implements, dwellings, etc.) and believed to indicate a people with a distinctive tradition.

Cursus—A Neolithic ritual monument comprising a pair of parallel banks with external ditches, rarely more than 300 ft. apart, from 500 ft. to as much as 6 miles in length; the banks and ditches are usually returned at right angles to enclose the ends.

Curtain—The connecting wall between the towers or bastions of a castle.

Cushion-capital—A capital cut from a cube with its lower angles rounded off to adapt it to a circular shaft.

Cusps (cusping, sub-cusps)—The projecting points forming the foils in Gothic windows, arches, panels, etc.; they were frequently ornamented at the ends (cusp-points) with leaves, flowers, berries, etc.

Cyma—A moulding with a wave-like outline consisting of two contrary curves.

Dado—The separate protective or decorative treatment applied to the lower parts of wall-surfaces to a height, normally, of 3 ft. to 4 ft. Dado-rail, the moulding or capping at the top of the dado.

Decumanus-i—In Roman land division, the boundary line drawn from E. to W.; decumanus maximus, the principal decumanus of a series. See Cardo.

Decurion—A member of the senate (ordo) of a civitas.

Denarius-II—The standard Roman silver or base silver coin until the 3rd century A.D., worth 16 asses or 4 sestertii.

Dentils—The small rectangular tooth-like blocks used decoratively in Classical cornices. In mosaic, an analogous ornament forming a simple type of fret.

Detent (of Crossbow)—The small knotched nut of bone which detains the string when the bow is spanned.

Deverel-Rimbury—The name given to a Middle Bronze Age culture flourishing in southern England between c. 1250 and 1000 B.C. and characterised by barrel, bucket and globular urns. It takes its name from two sites in Dorset, the Deverel Barrow, Milborne St. Andrew (30) (Dorset III), and the Rimbury Urnfield, Weymouth (435).

Dexter—In heraldry, the right-hand side of a shield as held.

Diaper—All-over decoration of surfaces with squares, diamonds, and other patterns.

Die—The part of a pedestal between the base and the cornice.

Disc-brooch—A class of plate-brooch with a disc-shaped front, often ornamented or enamelled.

Dog-legged Staircase—See Staircases.

Dog-tooth Ornament—A typical 13th-century carved ornament consisting of a series of pyramidal flowers of four petals; used to enrich hollow mouldings.

Dolmen—A group of large stones representing the chamber, either intact or collapsed, of a prehistoric chambered tomb from which the mound or cairn has been removed.

Donkey-mill or Slave-mill—A mill consisting of a large pair of stones and requiring animals or slaves as motive power. The conical lower stone (meta) carried a spindle supporting the upper stone (catillus), which consisted of a hollow double or single cone.

Dormer—A sleeping recess contrived as a projection from the slope of a roof and having a roof of its own, usually unfenestrated but occasionally with small lights in the cheeks.

Dormer-window—A vertical window on the slope of a roof and having a roof of its own.

Dorsum—See Agger.

Dorter—A monastic dormitory.

Double Lynchet Track—A trackway running through fields on a slope and bounded and defined by lynchets, one rising from the uphill side and the other falling from the downhill side; often associated with 'Celtic' fields.

Double-ogee—See Ogee.

Dovetail—A carpenter's joint for two boards, one with a series of projecting pieces resembling doves' tails fitting into the other with similar hollows.

Drawbar—A wooden or metal bar for securing a door, being drawn from a tunnel-like housing in one jamb to engage in a socket in the opposite jamb.

Dressings—The stone or brickwork used about an angle, window or other feature when worked to a finished face, whether smooth, tooled or rubbed, moulded or sculptured.

Embattled—In architecture, a parapet with merlons separated by embrasures or crenelles.

Embrasures—The opening or sinkings in embattled parapets, or the recesses for windows, doorways, etc.

Emmer—A species of wheat, Triticum dicoccum.

End Scraper—A type of flint artifact used widely during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages probably for domestic purposes, e.g. the dressing of skins.

Entablature—In Classical or Renaissance architecture, the moulded horizontal superstructure of a wall, colonnade or opening. A full entablature consists of an architrave, frieze, and cornice.

Entasis—The convexity or swell designed to correct the optical illusion of concavity in the sides of a column or spire effecting straight profiles.

Escutcheon—See Scutcheon.

Extended Posture—Descriptive of a skeleton, usually on its back, with legs straight or almost straight.

Faience (Ancient)—A composition consisting mainly of powdered quartz covered with an opaque blue or, more rarely, green vitreous glaze. It first appears in Britain about 1400 B.C. in the form of small beads of Egyptian origin.

Fan-vaulting—See Vaulting.

Fascia—A plain or moulded facing board.

Fibula-ae—A brooch, especially one of safety-pin form with sprung or hinged pin and catch.

Finial—A formal bunch of foliage or similar ornament at the top of a pinnacle, gable, canopy, etc.

Flavian—Of the reigns of Vespasian and his sons, Titus and Domitian, A.D. 69–96.

Flexed Posture—Descriptive of a skeleton, usually lying on its side, with legs drawn up to a right angle, or less, with the spine.

Flint Core, Flake, Blade—A core represents the remains of a block of flint from which flakes, for the manufacture of artifacts, have been removed by striking. In the process numerous waste flakes too were produced. Cores were sometimes fashioned into implements. A blade is a long narrow piece of flint struck from a core.

Flue-tile—A tile shaped like a box open at both ends, used in hypocaust flues.

Foil (trefoil, quatrefoil, cinquefoil, multifoil, etc.)—A leaf-shaped space defined by the curves formed by the cusping in an opening or panel.

Foliated (of a capital, corbel, etc.)—Carved with leaf ornament.

Food-vessel—A pottery vessel of the Early and Middle Bronze Age, developed in the main from Beaker pottery and frequently found in association with burials. Its name contrasts with 'drinking vessel', a term once commonly applied to Beaker pottery.

Fossa-ae—A ditch or trench.

Four-centred Arch—See Arch.

Frater—The refectory or dining-hall of a monastery.

Fret—In heraldry, a charge formed of a voided lozenge interlaced with two narrow pieces in saltire. Fretty—Three or more narrow bends and as many bends sinister interlaced in a lattice pattern. In mosaic, a pattern of lines, usually straight, joined at right angles.

Frieze—The middle division in an entablature, between the architrave and the cornice; generally any band of ornament or colour immediately below a cornice.

Funeral-armour—See under Achievements.

Furlong—Area of the common field containing a number of adjacent strips running in the same direction.

Gable—The wall at the end of a ridged roof, generally triangular, sometimes semicircular, and sometimes with an outline of various curves, then called curvilinear or Dutch. A stepped gable has an outline suggestive of a flight of steps.

Gadrooned—Enriched with a series of convex ridges, the converse of fluting, and forming an ornamental edge or band.

Galleting—The technique of facing wide mortar joints with small pebbles, stone chips or flint flakes.

Gallo-belgic—Of the region, N. and E. of the Seine and Marne, incorporated in the Roman province of Gallia Belgica.

Garderobe—Wardrobe. Antiquarian usage applies it to a latrine or privy chamber.

Gargoyle—A carved projecting figure pierced or channelled to carry off the rain-water from the roof of a building.

Gauging—In brickwork, bringing every brick exactly to a certain form by cutting and rubbing. Specially made soft bricks are used for the purpose.

Glacis—In military engineering, a natural or artificial slope beyond an outer defensive ditch, concealing the latter without affording a covered approach to an attacker. The term is also used by archaeologists for an unbroken slope from the top of a rampart to the bottom of its ditch, in contrast to boxed rampart and berm construction.

Glastonbury Ware—Hand-made pottery incised or tooled with curvilinear, hatched, and sometimes rectilinear decoration, characteristic of the later phases of the Iron Age in the S.W. of Britain, especially at the settlements of Glastonbury and Meare.

Glevum Ware—A wheel-thrown, largely hand-burnished, buff or orange-red pottery made at or near Gloucester (Glevum) in the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D., probably at first in legionary kilns.

Gnomon—The rod of a sundial, showing the time by its shadow.

Gorget—The plate-armour protecting the neck.

Gorgoneion—A representation of the head of a Gorgon.

Graffito-I—A scratched or scrawled inscription or design.

'Graphite'-coated Ware—Pottery with a grey lustrous surface resembling shading with a 'lead' pencil; in particular a ware (Hengistbury class H) found in a late Iron Age context at coastal sites in southern Britain and comparable with pottery found in Brittany.

Grisaille—Painting, decorative or on glass, in greyish tints.

Groining, Groined Vault—See Vaulting.

Guige—Suspension strap of a shield.

Guilloche Pattern—A geometrical ornament consisting of two or more intertwining wavy bands. In mosaic, three or four-strand guilloche is alternatively called plait.

Guttae—Small stud-like projections under the triglyphs and mutules of the Doric entablature.

Haematite Ware—A type of highly burnished pottery produced mainly during the earlier phases of the Iron Age and characterised by an iron-rich slip-coating turned red or reddish-brown in firing.

Hall—The principal room of a mediaeval house, often open to the roof.

Hammer-beams—Horizontal brackets of a roof projecting at wall-plate level, and resembling the two ends of a tie-beam with its middle part cut away; they are supported by braces, and help to diminish lateral pressure by reducing the span. Sometimes there is a second and even a third upper series of these brackets.

Hatchment—Now used for the square or lozenge-shaped tablet displaying the armorial bearings, usually painted, of a deceased person, first hung outside his house and then laid up in the church.

Hauberk—Shirt of mail.

Heathstone—See Carstone.

Helm—Complete barrel or dome-shaped head-defence of plate. No longer used in warfare after the middle of the 14th century; it continued in use in the tilt-yard into the 16th century.

Helmet—A light head-piece. See Armet, Close-helmet, Pot, Sallet.

Henge or Henge Monument—A ceremonial circle formed by a bank with a ditch, usually internal, and with one or two, opposed, entrances; the interior often contained circular or other arrangements of stones or posts. Originated in the late Neolithic period.

Hengistbury Class B Ware—Pottery ornamented with raised bands, or cordons, and with a form of base often including a raised boss, or omphalos; found especially at Hengistbury Head, Hampshire, and comparable with pottery of the mid 1st century B.C. at the hill-fort of Le Petit Celland, Normandy; Class H Ware, see 'Graphite'-coated Ware.

Hexastyle—A portico having six columns.

Hill-fort—A defensive enclosure fortified with rampart and ditch, single or multiple, and usually placed on more or less dominant ground; datable to some phase of the Iron Age.

Hipped Roof—A roof with sloped instead of vertical ends. Half-hipped, a roof the ends of which are partly vertical and partly sloped.

Hollow Way—A sunk track caused by wear or by earth building up on either side.

Hood-mould (label, drip-stone)—A projecting moulding on the face of a wall above an arch, doorway or window; it may follow the form of the arch or be square in outline.

Hornwork—A short curving bank, or bank and ditch, thrown out to protect an approach or entrance to a defensive earthwork such as a hill-fort.

Houses—See S.E. Dorset, Part 1, pp. lxi-lxiv.

Hut Circle—Footings or other remains of the walls of a circular dwelling, usually prehistoric.

Hypocaust—In Roman buildings, a low basement over which a fireproof floor is supported on small pillars (pilae) or walls, constructed for the circulation of hot air to warm the room above.

Imbrex-ices—A long half-tubular Roman tile, normally of fired clay, used to cover the flanges of adjacent rectangular roof-tiles (tegulae), or to cap a roof-ridge.

Impaled—In heraldry, applied to the marshalling side by side on one shield of the arms of a husband and wife, or of a dignity and its holder.

Impost—The projection, often moulded, at the springing of an arch, upon which the arch appears to rest.

Incense Cup—A tiny ritual or symbolic vessel often found in association with urn burials of the Early Bronze Age, and particularly of the Wessex culture.

Indent—The sinking in a slab for a monumental brass.

Infulae—The tasseled labels or strings of a mitre.

Insula-ae—A term used by archaeologists for the areas, usually rectangular or approximately so, enclosed by the street system of a Roman town; in Roman town-planning, strictly a unified block of buildings with a central courtyard reached through entrances from the streets.

Intaglio—A design cut into any substance, resulting in the pattern being sunk below the surface of the material.

Intervallum—In a Roman camp or fort, the perimeter space between the rampart and internal buildings, usually containing the intervallum road.

Iron Age—The prehistoric period in which iron was used for weapons and tools, dating in Britain from before 500 B.C. to the Roman Conquest, A.D. 43.

Jambs—The sides of an archway, doorway, window, or other opening In armour, (greaves) plate-defences for the legs below the knees.

Jetty—The projection of the upper storey of a building beyond the plane of a lower storey.

Joggling—The method of cutting the adjoining faces of the voussoirs of an arch with rebated, zigzagged or wavy surfaces to provide a better key.

Jupon—Close-fitting surcoat, worn over armour c. 1350 to c. 1410; sometimes called a gipon or coat armour.

Keystone—The middle stone of an arch.

Kimmeridge Shale—A form of bituminous oil-shale outcropping in the sea cliffs of the Isle of Purbeck and prized in prehistoric and, more particularly, Romano-British times, when it was used for furniture, armlets, etc.

King-post—The middle vertical post rising to the ridge in a roof-truss. See under Roofs.

Kneeler—The stone at the foot of a gable.

Knot—In mosaic, a simple device consisting of two oblong links intertwined at right angles; endless knot or interlace, a development of the device, resembling matting or basket-work.

Label—See Hood-mould.

Lancet—A long, narrow window with a pointed head, typical of the 13th century.

La Tene—A continental Iron Age culture named after a Swiss lake site; elements of it first appear in Britain about 400 B.C.

Lattice Pattern—A pattern of cross lines, set square or diagonally.

Lenten Veil—A hanging suspended before the altar during Lent and taken down on the Wednesday or Thursday before Easter.

Lierne-vaulting—See Vaulting.

Ligula—A spoon with diminutive bowl for extracting and dropping aromatic essences; a special type has a curved prong at the other end of the stem.

Linen-fold Panelling—Panelling ornamented with a conventional representation of folded linen.

Linked-triangle Pattern—In mosaic, a series of triangles arranged apex to base.

Lintel—The horizontal beam or stone bridging an opening.

Locker—A small cupboard formed in a wall. See also Aumbry.

Loop—A small narrow light, often unglazed.

Louvre—A lantern-like structure surmounting the roof of a hall or other building, with openings, for ventilation or the escape of smoke, usually crossed by sloping slats (called louvre-boards) to exclude rain. Louvre-boards are also used in church belfries, instead of glazing, to allow the bells to be heard.

Lynchet—A cultivation scarp, usually produced by ploughing, in which the positive element represents the accumulation of ploughsoil from uphill, and the negative element the portion cut away by the plough and moved downhill. See 'Celtic' Fields and Strip Lynchets.

Mandorla—A glory in the form of an oval surround. See also Vesica Piscis.

Mannerist—A use of the repertory of revived antique forms in an arbitrary way.

Mansard—See under Roofs.

Mantle or Mantling—In heraldry, a cloth hung over the hinder part of the helm; the edges were often fantastically dagged and slit.

Marginal Panes—Narrow borders in the glazing of a window.

'Mathematical' Tiles—Special-purpose tiles hung vertically on battens to simulate brickwork.

Medallion—In mosaic, a small circular panel, sometimes within an octagonal frame, used repetitively, or singly as a centre piece.

Menhir—An obsolete term for a single standing stone.

Merlon—The solid part of an embattled parapet between the embrasures.

Mesolithic—Middle Stone Age; a phase extending in Britain from about 12000 B.C. to 3400 B.C.

Metopes—The panels, often carved, filling the spaces between the triglyphs of the Doric entablature.

Microliths—Very small flint artifacts characteristic of the Mesolithic phase.

Mill-rind—The iron socket in the centre of a mill-stone.

Minim—An unofficial Roman coin of very small size.

Misericorde—A bracket, often elaborately carved, on the underside of the hinged seat of a choir-stall. When the seat is turned up the bracket comes into position to support the occupant during long periods of standing. In monastic planning, a small hall, generally attached to the Infirmary, in which meat and better food than normal were provided.

Modillions—Brackets under the cornice in Classical architecture.

Mortarium-a—In Roman pottery, a stout bowl with heavy rim and spout, internally grit-studded (or, in some early types, grooved) to assist the grating or trituration of food; perhaps also for curdling and cheese-making.

Mosaic Pavement—A patterned floor made of differently coloured pieces of stone, tile, glass etc., most commonly in opus tessellatum (see Tessellated Pavement).

Motte—In earthworks, a steep mound, flat-topped, forming the main feature of an 11th or 12th-century castle; originally often surmounted by a timber tower; associated with a Bailey (q.v.).

Mullion—A vertical post, standard, or upright dividing an opening into lights.

Multivallate—With multiple banks and ditches.

Municipium-a—A self-governing town with a charter of Roman type, the free inhabitants possessing Latin or, less commonly, Roman cit zenship.

Muntin—In panelling, an intermediate upright, butting into or stopping against the rails.

Mutules—Shallow blocks under the corona of the cornice in Classical architecture.

Nail-head—Architectural enrichment of small pyramidal form used extensively in 12th-century work.

Narrow Rig—A form of ridge-and-furrow with ridges up to 5 yds. across, dated mostly to the 18th and 19th centuries.

Necking or Neck-moulding—The narrow moulding at the lower edge of a capital.

Nene Valley or Castor Ware—Pottery manufactured in the Nene Valley near Peterborough, widely distributed in Roman Britain from c. A.D. 175 to the late 4th century; in particular, brown, red, or black glossy slip-coated table wares, early examples of which include 'hunt-cups', with trailed decoration 'en barbotine', best distinguishable from similar products of Colchester kilns by their white or cream body.

Neolithic—New, or later, Stone Age, at present taken to date in Britain from about 3400 B.C. to 1800 B.C.

Neronian—Of the reign of Nero, A.D. 54–68.

New Forest Ware—Pottery made in New Forest kilns in the 3rd and 4th centuries A.D.; in particular the more widely distributed and distinctive varieties: (i) 'imitation samian' red slip-coated soft ware, (ii) cream or 'parchment'-coloured gritty ware with painted decoration, (iii) purple metallic-lustred hard grey ware, often with white painted decoration.

Newel—The central post in a circular or winding staircase; also the principal posts at the foot and the angles of a dog-legged or well-staircase.

Nodding Arch—See under Arch.

Octastyle—Of a portico, having eight columns.

Ogee—A compound curve of two parts, one convex, the other concave; a double-ogee moulding is formed by two ogees meeting at their convex ends.

Ogival Dagger—A type of Early Bronze Age dagger, characteristic of the Wessex culture, with a blade of ogival outline and with a raised midrib; attachment to the grip is by rivets.

Open Fields—Large, unenclosed fields of mediaeval and later date, usually held in common and cultivated on a strip system.

Opus Sectile—A form of mosaic employing thin slabs cut into patterns.

Orders of Arches—Receding concentric rings of voussoirs.

Orders of Architecture—In Classical or Renaissance architecture, the five systems of columnar architecture, known as Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite. Colossal Order, one in which the columns or pilasters embrace more than one storey of the building.

Oriel-window—A projecting bay-window carried upon corbels or brackets. In great houses a special usage is for the large projecting windows generally lighting the Hall dais.

Orthostat—A standing stone.

Oversailing Course—A brick or stone course projecting beyond the one below it.

Ovolo Moulding—A Classical moulding forming a quarter round or semi-ellipse in section.

Palimpsest—Of a brass, reused by engraving the back of an older engraved plate. Of a wall-painting, superimposed on an earlier painting.

Pall—In ecclesiastical vestments, a narrow strip of lambswool, having an open loop in the middle, and weighted ends; it is ornamented with a number of crosses and forms the distinctive mark of an archbishop; it is worn round the neck, above the other vestments.

Palladian Window—A three-light window with a tall round-headed middle light and shorter lights on either side, the side lights with flanking pilasters and small entablatures forming the imposts to the arch over the centre light.

Park Pale—A fence round a park; mediaeval park pales usually survive as banks with inner ditches.

Parlour—In a monastery, a passage-way, usually though the east range of the cloister; the talking place. The principal private room in 15th-century and later houses.

Pastoral Staff—See Crosier.

Paten—A plate for holding the Bread at the celebration of the Holy Communion.

Patera-ae—A broad flat dish or saucer. A flat ornament applied to a frieze, moulding, or cornice; in Gothic work it commonly takes the form of a four-lobed leaf or flower.

Pediment—A low-pitched gable used in Classical and Renaissance architecture above a portico, at the end of a building, or above doors, windows, niches, etc.; sometimes the gable angle is omitted, forming a broken pediment, or the horizontal members are omitted, forming an open pediment. A curved gable-form is sometimes used in this way.

Pegging—In timber-framing, dowelling with headless wooden pegs; hence pegs and pegholes.

Pelican in Piety—A pelican shown, according to the mediaeval legend, feeding her young upon the drops of blood she pecks from her breast.

Pelta-ae—A device, common in mosaic, based on the crescentic Amazonian shield of this name. Running pelta, a repetitive pattern made up of opposed peltae. Voluted or spiral pelta, one with attached scrolls or spiral tendrils.

Penannular—Of brooches, armlets, etc., in the form of a ring, but not completely closed.

Peristalith—A setting of standing stones skirting a burial mound.

Peterborough—A type-site of the Neolithic period which gives its name to pottery and a culture dating from c. 2700 B.C. to 1600 B.C. Peterborough pottery may be divided chronologically into Ebbsfleet (earliest), Mortlake and Fengate types.

Phallus-I—The male organ; ancient representations were prized for their supposed talismanic qualities.

Piscina—A basin for washing the sacred vessels and provided with a drain, generally set in or against the wall to the S. of the altar, but sometimes sunk in the pavement.

Plat-band—A flat projecting horizontal band of masonry or brickwork across the face of a building, as distinct from a moulded string.

Plate-brooch—A class of brooch with a flat front instead of a bow, generally enamelled and of varied form (crescentic, zoomorphic, swastika-shaped, etc.).

Plinth—The projecting base of a wall or column, generally chamfered or moulded at the top.

Podium—In Classical architecture, a basis, usually solid, supporting a temple or other superstructure.

Poleyn—Knee defence of leather or plate.

Poppy-head—The ornament at the heads of bench-standards or desks in churches; generally carved with foliage and flowers, somewhat resembling a fleur-de-lis.

Portcullis—A movable gate, rising and falling in vertical grooves in the jambs of a doorway.

Portico—A covered entrance to a building, colonnaded, either constituting the whole front of the building or forming an important feature.

Pot—Colloquial term for an open helmet in the 17th century.

Presbytery—The part of a church in which is placed the high altar, E. of the choir.

Pretence—In heraldry, a scutcheon 'of pretence' or 'in pretence' is a shield bearing the wife's arms placed by the husband of an heiress upon the centre of his own shield.

Primary Burial—The original burial, usually in, or beneath, a barrow.

Principals—The main as opposed to the common rafters of a roof.

Pulpitum—A screen in a monastic church, dividing the monastic choir from the nave.

Pulvinated Frieze—In Classical and Renaissance architecture, a frieze having a convex or bulging section.

Purlin—In roof construction, a horizontal timber carried by the principal rafters of a truss, and forming an intermediate support for the common rafters.

Quarry-ies—In leaded glazing, small panes of glass, generally diamond-shaped or square.

Quarry Ditch—A ditch, usually of irregular shape, formed by coalescent quarry pits often dug behind the inner rampart of a hill-fort to provide material for strengthening the same.

Quartered or Quarterly—In heraldry, applied to a shield divided chequerwise into four or more spaces, or 'quarters'; when there are more than four 'quarters' the number is specified. Usually the arms in the quarters diagonally opposite to each other are alike, but sometimes four or more different coats of arms are marshalled thus chequerwise on one shield.

Queen-posts—See under Roofs.

Quern—Rotary, a hand mill for grinding corn, consisting of two circular stones, the lower socketed or perforated for a pivot, the upper perforated as a hopper.

Saddle, primitive form of hand mill, consisting of a bed-stone, slightly hollowed on its upper surface, and a large oval stone or pebble for a muller.

Wessex or Beehive, a rotary quern of thick beehive shape with steeplysloping milling surfaces, in use from the later Iron Age into Roman times.

Quoins—The dressed stones at the angle of a building, or distinctive brickwork in this position.

Radiate Coin—A Roman base metal coin, often copied locally, exemplifying the decline in weight and quality, after the middle of the 3rd century A.D., of the coin commonly known as the antoninianus.

Rafters—Inclined timbers supporting a roof-covering. See also under Roofs.

Rail—A horizontal member in the framing of a door, screen, or panel.

Rear-arch—The arch on the inside of a wall spanning a doorway or window-opening.

Rebate—A continuous rectangular notch cut on an edge.

Reels—Ornament resembling a line of bobbins, used in Classical architecture.

Reliquary—A small box or other receptacle for relics.

Rere-dorter—A monastic latrine.

Reredos—A screen of stone or wood at the back of an altar, usually enriched.

Responds—The half-columns or piers at the ends of an arcade or abutting a single arch.

Reveal—The internal side surface of a recess, especially of a doorway, or window opening.

Ridge-and-furrow—Remains of former cultivation of mediaeval and later date; initially strips of tilled land, usually 3 to 12 yds. wide, thrown into ridges by the action of ploughing, leaving furrows between them.

Rinyo-Clacton—A type of late Neolithic pottery, taking its name from sites in Orkney and Essex, and characterised by grooved and/or applied decoration.

Riser—The vertical piece connecting two treads in a flight of stairs. Hence, by analogy, the steep unploughed face of a strip lynchet.

Rococo—The latest (18th-century) phase of Baroque, especially in Northern Europe, in which effects of elegance and vivacity are obtained by the use of a decorative repertory further removed from antique architectural forms than that in the earlier phases and often assymmetrically disposed.

Roll-moulding or Bowtell—A continuous prominent convex moulding.

Rood—(Rood beam, Rood screen, Rood loft)—A cross or crucifix. The Rood, generally in carved wood and often accompanied by the figures of Mary the Virgin and St. John, was normally set up at the E. end of the nave of a church upon the loft or bressumer of a Rood screen or on a special Rood beam spanning from wall to wall. Some were painted on the wall over the chancel arch or on a boarded tympanum. Only fragmentary mediaeval Roods survive. More recent Roods are often suspended from the soffit of the chancel arch. Rood screen, the partition across the E. end of the nave, at the entrance to the chancel; sometimes it was contrived right across an aisled church. Mediaeval examples survive with lofts, approached by stairs contrived in the flanking walls, on which were the Rood and perhaps an altar with candlesticks; the lofts could also be used as music galleries.

Roofs—Collar-beam—A principal-rafter roof with horizontal timbers ('collar beams') connecting the principals at a level, or levels, above the wall plates; arch-braced collar beam, with arched stiffening members ('braces') between the principals and collars.

Cruck—Having a truss with principals springing from below the level of the wall plates. The timbers are usually curved, but examples with straight timbers are recorded. Raised crucks, with the principals rising from a level well above ground. Upper crucks, with the principals rising off the cross beams carrying an upper floor.

Hammer-beam—Short cantilever members ('hammer beams') in place of tie beams, braced from a level below the wall plates, form the basis of construction.

King-post—In which posts ('king posts') standing on tie beams or collar beams directly support the ridge.

Mansard—Characterised in exterior appearance by two pitches, the lower steeper than the upper.

Principal-rafter—With sloping timbers ('principal rafters') of greater scantling than the common rafters placed at intervals along the roof and framed to form trusses; normally called by the name of the connecting member used in the truss, tie-beam or collar-beam.

Queen-post—With two vertical or nearly vertical posts ('queen posts') standing on the tie beam of a truss and supporting a collar beam or the principal rafters.

Scissors-truss—As Trussed-rafter, but with crossed braces instead of collars.

Tie-beam—A principal-rafter roof with the truss comprising a simple triangulation of a horizontal beam ('tie beam') linking the lower ends of the pair of principals to prevent their spread.

Trussed-rafter—In which each pair of common rafters (all the timbers in the slopes being common rafters of uniform size) is connected by a collar beam, often braced. At intervals pairs of the rafters may be tenoned into a tie beam.

Roping—Ornament resembling a rope or cable.

Rough-cast—Of pottery, decorated with particles of dried clay or similar material dusted over the surface, generally under a slipcoating.

Roundel—A circular unit of decorative or figure composition.

Rubble—Wall of rough unsquared stones or flints.

Coursed—Rubble walling with the stones or flints very roughly dressed and levelled up in courses some 1 ft. to 1½ ft. in height.

Regular Coursed—In which the stones or flints are laid in distinct courses and kept to a uniform height in each course.

Rupilation—See Rustication.

Rustication—Primarily, masonry in which only the margins of the stones are worked; also used for any masonry where the joints are emphasised by mouldings, grooves, etc.; rusticated columns are those in which the shafts are interrupted by square blocks of stone or broad projecting bands. Rupilation—Masonry faced to resemble a waterworn rock surface.

Sacristy—A room generally in immediate connection with a church, in which the holy vessels and other valuables are kept.

Sallet—A light helmet. The form varied but, in English representations, it is usually characterised by a short tail. Often fitted with a vizor worn in conjunction with a beaver.

Saltire—See under Cross.

Samian Ware—Red-gloss table ware manufactured from the early 1st century to the mid 3rd century A.D., mainly in southern, central and eastern Gaul, but rarely imported into Britain after the end of the 2nd century. The alternative name, terra sigillata, includes other varieties of red-gloss ware occasionally found in Britain, such as Arretine ware.

Scalloped Capital—A development of the cushion-capital in which the single cushion is elaborated into a series of truncated cones.

Scarp—A short, abrupt slope, generally artificial. In fortification, a defensive slope away from the defenders; particularly the inner slope of a defensive ditch, of which the opposite, outer, slope is the counterscarp. Counterscarp bank, a small bank raised immediately beyond the counterscarp (or ultimate counterscarp in multivallation). See also Lynchet.

Sceatta—A coin or denomination of money mentioned in Anglo-Saxon documents.

Screen—In secular buildings, the partition separating the main space of a hall from the service end. Screens passage, the space at the service end of a hall between the screen and the end wall; screens is sometimes used to describe the whole arrangement of screen and screens-passage. See also under Rood.

Scutcheon or Escutcheon—A shield; a charge in heraldry. Also a metal plate pierced for the spindle of a handle or for a keyhole.

Secondary Burial—A burial additional to and later than a primary burial.

Sedilia (sing. sedile)—The seats in a church S. of the altar, used by the ministers during the Mass.

Selion—The land between two furrows in an open field.

Sestertius-ii—A large Roman coin of brass or similar alloy, worth 4 asses.

Sexpartite Vault—See Vaulting.

Shaft—A slender column.

Shafted Jambs—Jambs containing one or more shafts either engaged or detached.

Sherd—A scrap or broken piece of pottery.

Siliqua-ae—A silver coin of the late Roman Empire, probably introduced by Diocletian.

Sill—The lower horizontal member of a window or door-frame; the stone, tile or wood base below a window or door-frame, usually with a weathered surface projecting beyond the wall-face to throw off water. In timber-framed walls, the lower horizontal member into which the studs are tenoned.

Sinister—In heraldry, the left-hand side of a shield as held.

Situlate—Resembling the Italian high-shouldered bronze bucket (situla); a term used of pottery vessels with straight tapering sides, high shoulders and short everted necks, characteristic of the earlier phases of the Iron Age in Britain.

Slave-mill—See Donkey-mill.

Sling-brace—See S.E. Dorset, Part I, p. lxvii.

Slip-coated Ware—Pottery coated with slip (clay wash), applied before firing. The slip was often prepared to produce a glossy or distinctively coloured finish, as in Rhenish imports of Claudian and later date, and Nene Valley and New Forest wares.

Slip-tiles—Tiles moulded with a design in intaglio which was then filled in, before burning, with clay of a different colour.

Snecks—In masonry, small stones filling gaps or making up courses in ashlar or squared rubble walling.

Soffit—The underside of an arch, staircase, lintel, cornice, canopy, etc.

Soffit-cusps—Cusps springing from the flat soffit of an arched head, and not from its chamfered sides or edges.

Soil-marks—Marks on cultivated ground, usually most clearly observed from the air, differing in colour from the surrounding soil and produced by the presence of features such as ploughedout banks, roads and walls, and buried ditches and pits.

Spandrel—The space between the outside curve of an arch and the surrounding rectangular framework or moulding, or the space between the outside curves of two adjoining arches and a moulding above. In mosaic etc., a space between an outside curve or curves and a surrounding rectilinear frame.

Spelt—A species of wheat, Triticum spelta.

Spindle-whorl—A rounded weight, perforated to fit the spindle used with a distaff in spinning wool or flax.

Spire, Broach Spire, Needle Spire—The tall pointed termination forming the roof of a tower or turret. A Broach spire rises from the sides of a tower generally without parapets, the angles of the tower being surmounted by half-pyramids ('broaches') against the facets of the spire to effect the change from the square to the polygon. A Needle spire is small and narrow and rises from the middle of the tower roof well within the parapet.

Splay—A sloping face making an angle of more than a right angle with another face, as in internal window-jambs etc.

Springing Line—The level at which an arch springs from its supports.

Spurs—Prick—in the form of a plain goad, an early type.

Rowel—with spiked wheel, came into general use about 1325.

Squinch—An arch thrown across the angle between two walls to support a superstructure, such as the base of a stone spire.

Squint—A piercing through a wall to allow a view of an altar from places whence it could otherwise not be seen.

Stages—The divisions (e.g. of a tower) marked by horizontal stringcourses externally.

Staircase—Close-string—one having a raking member into which the treads and risers are housed.

Open-string—one having the raking member cut to the shape of the treads and risers.

Dog-legged—having adjoining flights running in opposite directions with a common newel.

Well—having stairs rising round a central opening more or less as wide as it is long.

Stanchion—An upright iron bar in a screen, window, etc.

Stater—A Celtic gold or silver coin based originally on the gold stater of Philip II of Macedon.

Stops—Blocks terminating mouldings or chamfers in stone or wood; stones at the ends of labels, string-courses, etc., against which the mouldings finish, frequently carved to represent shields, foliage, human or grotesque masks; also, plain or decorative, used at the ends of a moulding or a chamfer to form the transition thence to the square.

Storage-pit—A type of pit believed to have been used for storing produce, particularly corn, usually of cylindrical or 'beehive' shape and from about 4 ft. to 8 ft. deep and 3 ft. to 8 ft. across; first known in Britain during the Iron Age, and often found on settlement sites.

Stoup—A receptacle, normally by the doorway of a church, to contain holy water; those remaining are usually in the form of a deeply-dished stone set in a niche or on a pillar.

Straight Joint—An unbonded junction between two structures.

String or String Course—A projecting horizontal band in a wall, usually moulded.

Strip Fields—Cultivations of mediaeval or later date, usually part of the open fields, represented by broad ridge-and-furrow and/or strip lynchets.

Strip Lynchets—Long, narrow cultivation terraces, usually openended, with risers (lynchets) above and below the cultivated treads. They appear to originate in the post-Roman period and represent strip cultivation on a hill side.

Strut—A timber forming a sloping support to a beam etc.

Studs—The common posts or uprights in timber-framed walls.

Style—The vertical members of a frame into which are tenoned the ends of the rails or horizontal pieces.

Stylobate—The podium or architectural base of a temple or other Classical building.

Stylus or Stilus—An implement with a point and flat base for writing and erasure on waxed tablets.

Surcoat—Coat, usually sleeveless, worn over armour.

Surplice—A white linen vestment with wide hanging sleeves.

Swag—An ornament; a festoon suspended from both ends and carved to represent cloth or flowers or fruit.

Tabard—Short loose surcoat, open at the sides, with short tab-like sleeves, sometimes worn with armour, and painted or embroidered with arms; distinctive garment of a herald.

Tas-de-charge—The lower courses of a vault or arch, laid in horizontal courses and bonded into the wall, forming a solid mass; as they project forward they lessen the span.

Tazza-e—A term, proper to Italian Renaissance vessels of open form with stem and foot, applied to Belgic and Roman pottery vessels of similar form.

Temenos—The sacred precinct containing the altar and temple of a god.

Terminal Figure—The upper part of a carved human figure growing out of a column, post, or pilaster diminishing to the base.

Terra Nigra and Terra Rubra—Black-surfaced and red-surfaced Gallo-Belgic pottery of good, close body, inspired by Italian and Romano-Gaulish red-gloss wares, and consisting mainly of cups and plates. It was imported into Britain both before and after A.D. 43.

Terrace-way—A trackway in the form of a terrace, following the side of a slope.

Tessellated Pavement—A floor of small cubes (tessellae or tesserae) of stone, tile, etc., often arranged as a mosaic of coloured patterns.

Tessera-ae—A small cube of stone, tile, glass, etc., used in tessellated paving. In modern usage, although not without ancient precedent, the term replaces the more correct diminutive tessella.

Tetrastyle—Of a portico, having four columns.

Thumb-gauging—Ornamental finish to a ridge-tile, made with the thumb before the tile is baked.

Tie Beam—The horizontal transverse beam in a roof, tying together the feet of pairs of rafters to counteract outward thrust.

Timber-framed Building—A building of which the walls are built of open timbers and the interstices filled in with brickwork or lath and plaster ('wattle and daub'), the whole often covered with plaster or boarding. Boarding may obviate the need for filling.

Tooling—Dressing or finishing a masonry surface with an axe or other tool, usually in parallel lines. (A change from diagonal tooling to vertical has been noted at Wells Cathedral c. 1210 (Arch. Jour. LXXXV).)

Toothing—See Tusking.

Torus—In Classical architecture, a convex moulding, generally a semicircle in section.

Touch—A soft black marble, quarried near Tournai and used in monumental art.

Trabeation—The use of horizontal beams in building construction; descriptive in the Inventory of conspicuous cased ceiling-beams.

Tracery—The ornamental work in the head of window, screen, panel, etc., formed by the curving and interlacing of bars of stone or wood, grouped together, generally over two or more lights or bays.

Trajanic—Of the reign of Trajan, A.D. 97–117.

Transom—An intermediate horizontal bar of stone or wood across a window-opening.

Tread—The horizontal platform of a step or stair. Hence, by analogy, the cultivated part of a strip lynchet above the riser.

Trellis—Lattice-work of light wood or metal bars.

Trepanning—The removal of a circular piece of bone from the skull.

Tribune—See Triforium.

Triforium—In larger churches, an arcaded wall-passage at about mid wall height, between the aisle arcades and the clearstorey. A large gallery the full width of the aisle below is termed a Tribune.

Triglyphs—Blocks with vertical channels, placed at intervals along the frieze of the Doric entablature.

Trompe L'Oeil—In painting, marquetry, etc., deceptively threedimensional effect produced on the flat.

Truss—A number of timbers framed together to bridge a space, to be self-supporting, and to carry other timbers. The trusses of a roof are generally named after a peculiar feature in their construction, such as King-post, Queen-post, Hammer-beam, Cruck, see under Roofs.

Tufa (Calcareous)—Spongy deposit formed by the action of water on limestone and resembling volcanic lava. Often used in vaulting on account of its lightness.

Tusking—Bricks or stones in alternate courses left projecting beyond the wall-face of a building to facilitate the bonding-in of an extension. Also Toothing.

Tympanum—The triangular or semicircular field in the face of a pediment or in the head of an arch.

Univallate—With single bank and ditch.

Urn—Barrel—A pottery vessel of the Middle/Late Bronze Age characterised by a convex body, a more or less concave neck and a flat or internally bevelled rim, often with applied decoration, especially on the shoulders.

Biconical—A pottery vessel of the Middle Bronze Age, in form reminiscent of two truncated cones set vertically base to base; in Dorset apparently derived from Cornish biconical urns of the Early Bronze Age.

Bucket—A pottery vessel of the Middle/Late Bronze Age, with sides tapering like those of a bucket but often incurving at the top.

Cinerary—A pottery vessel containing the remains of human cremation.

Collared or Overhanging-Rim—A type of pottery vessel with a deep rim, frequently found in association with cremation burials. It first appears in the Early Bronze Age (c. 1550 B.C.) and is largely a development of Late Peterborough (Fengate) pottery.

Globular—A type of pottery vessel of the Middle/Late Bronze Age, probably of foreign derivation and regarded as intrusive into southern England. It is characterised by a spherical body with a constriction above leading to a more or less vertical neck.

Vallum-A—In Roman fortification, an earthern wall or rampart usually set with palisades.

Vase Support—A type of small pottery vessel of unknown use, often perforated with triangular slits; it is found in later Neolithic contexts in N. France and the incense cups of the Wessex culture appear to be related to it.

Vaulting—An arched ceiling or roof of stone or brick, sometimes imitated in wood and plaster. Barrel-vaulting is a continuous vault unbroken in its length by cross-vaults. A groined vault (or cross-vaulting) results from the intersection of simple vaulting surfaces. A ribbed vault is a framework of arched ribs carrying the covering over the spaces, or cells, between them. One bay of vaulting, divided into four quarters or compartments, is termed quadripartite; sometimes the bay is divided transversely into two subsidiary bays; the vaulting bay is thus divided into six compartments, and is termed sexpartite. Increased elaboration is given by tiercerons, secondary ribs springing from the wall-supports and rising to a point other than the centre, and liernes, tertiary ribs that do not spring from the wall-supports but cross from main rib to main rib. In fan-vaulting numerous ribs rise from the springing in equal curves, diverging equally in all directions, giving fan-like effects when seen from below.

Venetian Window—See Palladian.

Ventail—See Vizor.

Vesica Piscis—A pointed oval frame generally used in mediaeval art to enclose a figure of Christ enthroned. Also Mandorla (q.v.)

Vexillum—A scarf on a pastoral staff.

Vice—A small circular stair.

Villa—In early context, a relatively highly romanised dwelling in the country, forming the centre of an estate most often concerned principally with farming.

Vizor—A defence for the eyes, sometimes for the whole face. The close-helmet of the 16th century was fitted with a vizor consisting of three separate plates: the vizor proper, the ventail or upper beaver covering the face, and the chin-piece or lower beaver.

Volute—An ornament in the form of a spiral scroll, e.g. in the Ionic capital.

Voussoirs—The stones forming an arch.

Wall Plate—A timber laid lengthwise on the wall to receive the ends of the rafters and joists. In timber-framing, the studs are tenoned into it.

Waster—Of pottery etc., an object spoilt or flawed in manufacture.

Wave-moulding—A compound moulding formed by a convex curve between two concave curves.

Weather-boarding—Horizontal planks nailed to the uprights of timber-framed buildings and made to overlap; the planks are generally wedge-shaped in section, the upper edge being the thinner.

Weathering (to sills, tops of buttresses, etc.)—A sloping surface for casting off water.

Weepers—Small upright figures, generally of relatives of the deceased, placed in niches or panels round the sides of mediaeval tombs; occasionally also represented on brasses.

Well-staircase—See Staircases.

Wessex Culture—An Early Bronze Age culture, largely confined to the Wessex area, known almost entirely from burials in round barrows associated with exotic grave goods of gold, amber, faience, etc.

Wimple—Scarf covering the chin and throat.

Windmill Hill—A causewayed camp in Wiltshire and a type-site of the earlier Neolithic (3400 B.C. to 2500 B.C.) in Britain, giving its name to a culture and to a pottery tradition characterised by several regional types (Hembury, Abingdon, Whitehawk, etc.).

Woodman or Woodhouse—A wild man of the woods, generally represented naked and hairy.

Wreath Pattern—In mosaic, a symmetrical wreath-like arrangement of overlapping loops with central tongues.