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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture I understand that the original question really refers to the common situation whereby a medieval western Christian church has (or had) an east/west orientation. But it got me to thinking about Naples, where many of the churches in the Greco-Roman old city (Spaccanapoli) are laid out with their long axis parallel to the roughly north/south running _stenopoi_ or _cardines_ of the old city's Hellenistic street plan. In some of these, and doubtless in churches elsewhere where either the lay of the land or an inherited urban plan has led to a north/south orientation, north doors exist for reasons that have not yet been mentioned in this thread. One example would be San Domenico Maggiore, shown in about the centre of the map presented here: http://www.danpiz.net/napoli/mappe/Mappa4.htm The north door (the original principal entrance) of this fourteenth- century church built on the south side of the city's Dominican convent was designed to provide ingress to the church from within the convent. On the same map, southwest of San Domenico, the very large structure is the monastic complex of Santa Chiara, a royal foundation most of which extended to the south of the convent's early fourteenth-century church. Though the entrance for the nuns was from the south, this church was also designed with an ornamental north entrance providing public access from a major city street. See the two views here: http://spazioinwind.libero.it/orpheo2001/prefazione.htm Best, John Dillon ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html