- C)6 Mr. Wilkins's Defcripilon of
" Beds confident, we muft neceflarily allow, that the royal family " of Ken t, and the firft eight archbifhops of Canterbury, were all " buried in this church ; the former in St. Martins, or the fouth " portico or ilk ; Augiijlm and his five immediate fucceflbrs in the " north portico or ifle ; and Theodore and Berffwald'm the body of fi the church ; for when he fays the two latter were depofited in " ipfa Ecdejia, he certainly means no more by that expreffion than " the nave or body, as diftinguiflied from the fide ifles. It plainly " appears then, that this, which was one of the firft creeled Saxon " churches, confrfted of a nave and two fide-ifles ; but how a " church of that form could have been fupported without pillars p. n. ' In ambabus porticibus Coventriae jacent aedificatores loci praecellentiffimi " ' conjuges' (fcil. Comes Leofricus et Godiva ComitifTa uxor ejus, qui Leofricus "* obiit, A.D. 1057.') Jkid. p. 302. In all the above cited places a more confider-
- ' able part of the church is certainly intended by Portiau, than what is commonly un-
" derftood by the church perch, as it is ufually rendered by our ecclefiaftical writers. " It was frequently diftinguiflied by the name of fome faint; for we read of Porticus " &ti Martini in St. Auguftin's church at Canterbury ; Porticus Sti Gregorn in St. Pe-
- f ter's at York ; Porticus Sti Petri at Beverly ; Porticus Sti Pauli in St. Andrew's at
" Rochefter, and other diftinlions of that kind in many of our ancient churches. The " reafon of which appears to be, that they were dedicated to the honour of thofe " faints. Thus we find by king Edgar's charter to Thorney Abbey, that the church " there was <kdicated A. D. 972, to St. Mary, St. Peter, and St. Benedict : i. e. the " eaft part of the choir, where the altar was placed, to St. Mary ; the weftern part " to St. Peter ; and the north Porticus to St. Benedict. Ibid. p. 243. From all thefe
- ' infhnces, where the word Porticus occurs, it appears that the writers meant by it
" either what is now commonly called he,Jide-i/le of the church, or fometimes it may " be a particular divifion of it, confiding of one arch with its recefs, as in the follow- " ing paflbge in Bede's account of the relicks and ornaments with which the church " of Hexham was furnifhed by Acca, who fucceeded Wilfrid in that bifhoprick,- " A. D. 710. ' Acquifitis undecumque reliquiis B. Apoltolorum et Martyrum " ' Chrifti, in venerationem illorum, Altaria d'iftintth Porticibus in hoc ipfum intra
- ' * muros Ecclefiae pofuit.' " Beds Hift. Lib. v. cap. 20.
6 "and
