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Bell's Cathedrals

Note 15 — Chapter II · ToC

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A converse instance of mistaken nomenclature occurs at Westminster Abbey, where the Lady Chapel is commonly called after Henry VII, who began its erection, in place of the earlier chapel, and is buried in it.

In an inventory of 1538 the "Bishop's Chapel" at St. Saviour's is styled "the little Chapel of our Lady," which perhaps indicates that there was an altar to the Virgin in the retro-choir. Two Lady Chapels in one church are not unknown, as, e.g., at Canterbury Cathedral, where there was one in the north-west transept, now called "the Dean's Chapel," and another in the crypt under the high altar.

A case more directly to the point may be quoted from Barnwell Priory, where the Lady Chapel is known to have occupied a similar position to the retro-choir at Southwark, with a "little Lady Chapel" appended to it. (Vide "The Observances in use at the Augustinian Priory of Barnwell," by J. Willis Clark, and the accompanying plans.)

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