The Significance of Doorway Positions in English Medieval Parochial Churches and Chapels

The Significance of Doorway Positions in English Medieval Parochial Churches and Chapels analyses the positions of external church doorways in England to investigate the significance that positioning had for the function and design of these buildings.

Until the eleventh century, churches tended to have a single external western nave doorway. This design changed in the next two centuries. New churches tended to have north and south, laterally opposing, nave doorways. From the thirteenth century to the end of the Middle Ages, new churches continued the two-doorway trend but typically added western towers and doorways as well. The book also examines chapels, which differed from churches as they had a different function and status. Non-parochial chapels usually had a single southern doorway whilst parochial chapels often had two opposing nave doorways.

This book proposes that liturgical reasons lay behind the changes both at the turn of the eleventh century and again in the later thirteenth. Gender and clerical segregation are considered in relation to the provision of a second nave doorway in churches and parochial chapels. It is also shown that the widespread idea of the ‘Devil’s Door’ was only developed in the nineteenth century though it had roots in late medieval liturgy. The author concludes that there is a link between the design and function of parochial churches and chapels with the number and attributes of their doorways.