10 - Churches

Summary

AT the heart of each friary was the church, whose east end framed the two spiritual nodes, the high altar and the choir stalls. The friary churches were not, however, static: priors and lay sponsors added to the buildings over the three centuries of mendicant life in the capital. The most important distinction is between the friars’ early churches of the thirteenth century and those they began to build in the following century; this distinction must surely correspond to a change in emphasis about the role and function of the friars and their priories.

Thirteenth-century churches

We lack precise evidence for the dimensions, layout and architectural detail of the seven thirteenth-century churches but, in nearly every case, there is some indication of size and shape – whether from archaeological excavation, documentary measurements or from cartographic information on adjacent streets and buildings. The early priors of the thirteenth century must have had in mind a model for the friary church: in nearly every case they built a relatively small, single-aisled chapel of three to six bays (Figure 64). These churches were never more than about a hundred feet long, often less, and in the case of Sack Friars, half that length. They would have had plain timber roofs, three to six windows on the long sides (presumably simple lancets or pairs of lights in an Early English style), a door at the west end and a grander window (perhaps three lancets?) at the east end. The eastern bay may have been vaulted above the high altar to mark its higher status, like the surviving mid-thirteenth-century Franciscan church in Cortona (Italy). Unfortunately, no architectural fragments of these early London churches have so far been identified in archaeological excavations, although the surviving window arch of the late thirteenthcentury chapter house undercroft at the (second) Black Friars gives an indication of the plain architectural taste of the early mendicants (Figure 65). Documentary evidence gives us occasional glimpses of the early chapels of the London friaries; for example, Edward I spent over 10 marks on Purbeck marble to finish off the Carmelites’ church in 1273, for use in the high altar.