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A Lady chapel is a traditional English term for a chapel inside a cathedral or large church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Most large medieval churches had such a chapel, as Roman Catholic ones still do, and middle-sized churches often had a side-altar dedicated to Mary.
Traditionally, a Lady chapel is the largest chapel of the cathedral. Generally the chapel was built eastward of the high altar and formed a projection from the main building, as in Winchester, Salisbury, Exeter, Wells, St Albans, Chichester, Peterborough and Norwich cathedrals, in the two latter cases now destroyed.
The earliest English Lady chapel built was that in the Saxon cathedral of Canterbury; this was transferred in the rebuilding by Archbishop Lanfranc to the west end of the nave, and again shifted in 1450 to the chapel on the east side of the north transept. The Lady chapel at Ely Cathedral is a distinct building attached to the north transept, that was built before 1016.1 At Rochester the Lady-chapel is west of the south transept.
Probably the largest Lady-chapel was that built by Henry III in 1220 at Westminster Abbey, which was 30 feet (9.1 m) wide, much in excess of any foreign example, and extended to the end of the site now occupied by Henry VII's Lady Chapel.
Among other notable English examples of Lady-chapels are those at Ottery-St-Mary, Thetford, Bury St Edmund's, Wimborne, Christ church, Hampshire; in Compton Church, Surrey, and Compton Martin, Somersetshire, and Darenth, Kent, it was built over the chancel. At Croyland Abbey there were two Lady-chapels.
Lady-chapels exist in most of the French cathedrals and churches where they form part of the chevet; in Belgium they were not introduced before the 14th century; in some cases they are of the same size as the other chapels of the chevet, but in others probably rebuilt at a later period, they became much more important features, and in Italy and Spain during the Renaissance period constitute some of its best examples.
See also
Roman Catholic Marian churches
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
