Q. In what other respect were these doors sometimes ornamented?
A. The semicircular-shaped stone, which we often find in the tympanum at
the back of the head of the arch, is generally covered with rude sculpture
in basso relievo, sometimes representing a scriptural subject, as the
temptation of our first parents on the tympanum of a Norman doorway at
Thurley Church, Bedfordshire; sometimes a legend, as a curious and very
early sculpture over the south door of Fordington Church, Dorsetshire,
representing a scene in the story of St. George; and sometimes symbolical,
as the representation of fish, serpents, and chimerae on the north doorway
of Stoneleigh Church, Warwickshire. The figure of our Saviour in a sitting
attitude, holding in his left hand a book, and with his right arm and hand
upheld, in allusion to the saying, _I am the way, and the truth, and the
life_, and circumscribed by that mystical figure the _Vesica piscis_,
appears over Norman doorways at Ely Cathedral; Rochester Cathedral;
Malmesbury Abbey Church; Elstow Church, Bedfordshire; Water Stratford
Church, Buckinghamshire; and Barfreston Church, Kent; and is not
uncommon.
Q. Are there many Norman porches?
A. Norman porches occur at Durham Cathedral; Malmesbury Abbey Church;
Sherbourne Abbey Church; and Witney Church, Oxfordshire; but they are not
very common.
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