Monuments of the early church . drawn; for even inthe Gothic the perpendicular lines, strongly as they are marked,remain subordinate to the horizontal. In the round churches,and in domed churches of every description, there was a verydifferent architectural principle at work; for there the princi-pal axis was central and vertical. It seems hardly just to say THE BASILICA—Plan 105 that the Christian cult could uot accommodate itself to this typeof church by transferring the liturgical centre to the principalaxis of the building — that is, by placing the altar in the mid-dle of the room. But it
Monuments of the early church . drawn; for even inthe Gothic the perpendicular lines, strongly as they are marked,remain subordinate to the horizontal. In the round churches,and in domed churches of every description, there was a verydifferent architectural principle at work; for there the princi-pal axis was central and vertical. It seems hardly just to say THE BASILICA—Plan 105 that the Christian cult could uot accommodate itself to this typeof church by transferring the liturgical centre to the principalaxis of the building — that is, by placing the altar in the mid-dle of the room. But it certainly did not do so; and as longas the altar was kept near the periphery of the building therewas a discord between the perpendicular axis of the architec-ture and the horizontal liturgical axis. We see from this whyit is that the scheme of the basilica has remained a normal andregulative factor in church architecture, and why it must remainso just so long as the altar retains its traditional position in the 17^ T\ r--t. 1. J of Basilicas. «, Xenodochium of Pammachius, Porto. /, S. Maria Maggiore, Eome. g, Basilicain Kalb-Luseh, Sj-ria. building, and the Eucharist its same high dignity in the most successful solution of domed architecture as appliedto the church adapted itself to this exigency by adopting sub-stantially the ground plan of the basilica. In plan, the basilica was marked by two principal divisions:the great rectangular hall, which was the room of the laity, andthe apse, which was the place of the clergy. To this must beadded a vestibule, which in the East appears as a definitearchitectural feature of the building (the narthex), while thesame purpose was served in the West by the adjoining porticoof the atrium (see p. 178). The vestibule was the place for 106 ARCHITECTURE the penitents, of whom, as is well, known, there were manygrades. There were many grades and kinds also within thechurch, each to be distinguished from the other, if not actual
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