already existed when it was erected, and to which its plan was made subservient. The Chapels of Mount Calvary, which lie on its eastern side, are those which have principally affected it.

The central portions of the Church are constructed in the usual manner in three stories, namely, pier-arch, triforium, and clerestory. The floor of the triforium is about thirty-three feet above the pavement of the Church. The triforium-gallery runs not only along the east and west walls of the South transept, but also across its southern wall. This south wall of the transept contains a double-arched doorway (55, 56), and is indeed now the only entrance-front of the Church. On the inside, opposite to the middle pier of the door, is placed a double column, which supports the arches and vault that carry the triforium-gallery across the South end of this transept1.

The eastern wall of the transept has three arches between the lantern-pier and the south wall. The most northerly of these arches (46) is as high as the other pierarches of the Church, and opens to the side-aisle or procession-path of the presbytery. But the other two arches are much lower, for behind them an intermediate vault is introduced, carrying a floor only fifteen feet above the pavement of the Church.

This intermediate or mezzanine floor extends considerably to the East; and by comparing the plan of it (Fig. 5) with the ground-plan of that part of the Church which lies below it, this somewhat complex arrangement will be evident2.

In the north transept the triforium gallery runs over the ancient cloister (21). The section in Fig. 10, Plate 3, will explain the manner in which the surface VOL. II.

of the Rock forms part of the floor of the upper chapels, and how this floor is carried on westward by means of the vaults.

15

The mezzanine floor comprises two principal chapels, called the Chapel of the Exaltation of the Cross (72, 73), and the Chapel of the Crucifixion (71), respectively; also a small lateral building (70) or porch, by which a flight of steps (54) descends to the court, so as to give independent access to the chapels from without. On the East side are some buildings occupied by the Greeks, and two small chapels (74), called the Chapels of Abraham and Melchisedech. The whole of this eastern appendage, and part of the Chapel of the Exaltation, rests upon the surface of the rock, which rises so high above the rest of the Church, as to form a pavement on the level of the mezzanine floor. But the remainder of the Chapel of the Exaltation and the entire Chapel of the Crucifixion, together with the porch, have their pavements (the mezzanine floor) supported by the intermediate vault, and beneath them the space is occupied by a Chapel (47) which has received different names, out of which we may select that of the Chapel of Adam; and also by two other apartments (51, 52), and a small chapel (53) under the porch. We may now examine these chapels in detail, and begin with the North chapel of the mezzanine floor.

About nine feet of the eastern end of the floor of this chapel is rock, which rises slightly above the general level, and has its upper surface covered with white marble slabs, which raise it altogether two feet above the pavement. Three feet from the front of this raised part and in the centre, is situated the hole, which is said to be the very hole in which the foot of the Cross was planted. The cavity is about two feet deep and six inches in diameter, but was lined and garnished with silver plates'.

1 Quaresmius gives an engraving and various particulars of this decora

tion: the plates bore date 1560. The chapel is fifteen feet seven inches wide

An altar is placed above it, and the chapel is in the custody of the Greeks.

Two other holes are situated, the one to the right and the other to the left of the central one, and six feet nine inches distant from it, measured from centre to centre. They are set in a line about eighteen inches farther eastward than the middle one.

Notwithstanding their proximity, they are believed to have been made to receive the crosses of the thieves: the good thief to the north, the bad thief to the south2.

This chapel (72, 73) is termed by the Latins the Chapel of the Exaltation of the Cross, to distinguish it from the neighbouring chapel (71) on its south side, which they call the Chapel of the Crucifixion, asserting that the Body was nailed to the Cross in the south

between the piers, and thirty-six feet long. On the north side of the chapel a staircase (45) led down to the side-aisle of the choir, and was the only access to this floor after the original external porch and stairs were blocked up by the Mohammedans. But since the fire of 1808 the space of these chapels has been enlarged by the addition of a gallery in front of the western wall, projecting nine feet into the south transept. This gallery contains two staircases, apparently for the convenience of conducting the crowd of pilgrims up one, and down the other, in order. Also the intermediate floor of Calvary has been extended into the south aisle of the choir, which is now completely covered by it, from its opening in the south transept to the chapel of the Mocking, thus forming a convenient access from the chapel of the Exaltation of the Cross, which belongs to the Greeks, to

their kitchen behind, and to their other dwelling apartments, which are above the kitchen, and also, by means of stairs, to their choir. A small gangway appears always to have existed between the small door near the foot-hole of the Cross and the Greek kitchen. This is seen in the section, Plate 3. The fire broke out in the Armenian Church, which is in the western triforium of the south transept (over 68), opposite to the Chapels of Calvary; and consequently so damaged those Chapels and the whole transept as to necessitate much rebuilding, restoration, and change, by which their venerable and ancient character has been wholly destroyed.

2 In all probability, the three holes were originally made to receive a representation of the Crucifixion. The south chapel is narrower than the other, (thirteen feet three inches wide,) but about the same length.

chapel, and the Cross afterwards raised up and fixed in the hole of the northern chapel.

The south chapel (71) is, nevertheless, an upper floor, raised upon a vault, and the apartment below it is used for a vestry, and appears to be held in no veneration whatever. This anomaly is alluded to by Quaresmius', and he suggests that the earth beneath the pavement has been removed for the convenience of the structure, or because St Helena conveyed it to Rome, so that the spot above, upon which he would have us believe the crucifixion to have taken place, is yet in the true position in space, although the ground has been taken from under it. But, in fact, this especial tradition is not mentioned by any of the pilgrim-writers, until long after the expulsion of the Crusaders; and the probable explanation of its history is, that when the Latins, upon their return to the Church in 1257, found the Greeks in possession of the hole in the rock and its chapel, they set up a claim in the side-chapel to a spot of similar sanctity in connexion with the events that took place on this locality. And the same may be said of the absurd tradition mentioned below, that places the witnesses of the Crucifixion upon the upper landing of the porch which was built by the Crusaders.

The two chapels, as well as the porch, were elaborately decorated with mosaic-work and pavements of marble. These chapels, especially the northern one, suffered exceeding damage from the fire of 1808; for immediately to the East, on the spot marked (75) as

1 Notandum, locum istum subtus excavatum esse, et non ob id negandum, verè locum esse crucifixionis ; nam id ita accidit, tum quia terra

sacri montis ab Helena Romam asportata fuit, tum quia alia adhibita pro templi structura. (Quar. 444.)

the Greek kitchen, there stood a wooden building in the form of a tower, in six or seven stories, which served as a dwelling for the Greeks in charge of the Church, and of course fell an immediate prey to the flames 2. The porch (70) on the right hand of the entrance-doors in the court, is in the form of an elegant turret, in two stories, surmounted by a cupola. It is in the same style as the front of the Church, and evidently the work of the Crusaders. The upper story has rich pointed arches, which were apparently open in the original design. This story, the floor of which is on a level with that of the chapels of the Exaltation of the Cross and of the Crucifixion, was intended for a vestibule to them, and the external staircase (54) still remains which led to this upper floor. The vestibule itself, not ten feet square, has had an altar placed in it at some modern period, and is dignified as the place or station where the Virgin and St John stood during the Crucifixion; and hence is called the Chapel of the Virgin and St John the Evangelist. The first mention, however, of such a station, is by Sawulf and the anonymous chronicler of the Crusaders 3. They fix its position at the altar of Sta Maria Latina-a Church known to have stood on the south side of the street that bounds the front court of the Church of the Sepulchre. The location of this station in the porch at the stair-head, occurs in the later pilgrim-writers only; and it may be supposed, that when the Christians lost Jerusalem, and the Church of Sta Maria Latina was ruined and abandoned, the station was removed to the porch. It is mentioned very doubtfully by most of these writers, and there

* Account of the fire by the Latin monks in Turner's Levant.

3 Recueil de Voyages. Tom. IV. p. 842. Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 573.