What is a crypt? This is a basement or underground chamber, usually located under the church floor. In church architecture it was used as a chapel or a place of storage of relics.
In Latin, the original meaning of the word "crypt" denoted any vaulted building, standing partially or completely below ground level. These are horse stalls, sewers, farm storages. Scientists believe that it was the early Christians who would call their catacombs crypts and that such churches would begin to erect over the graves of saints and martyrs.
Design History
During the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great (306-337), a crypt (from Greek - a cache, a covered underground passage) was considered a familiar part of church architecture. In 813, the Mainz council officially approved the burial of worthy bishops, priors, priests, or faithful laity within the church walls in crypts. What such a decision contributed to the construction of many new churches, it is understandable without accurate statistics.
Later, the crypt was enlarged to capture the space under the floor of the church choir and altar (St. Ambrose Basilica in Milan). Monumental flights of stairs were constructed, starting from both sides of the choir and converging in the center of the crypt below (Basilica of San Zeno Maggiore, Verona, Italy).
Many medieval buildings were built over vaulted structures, the remains of such crypts can be found throughout Europe. The German town hall has preserved many beautiful and richly decorated rooms, for example, the famous basement in the Bremen Town Hall. There are modern crypts. This is a crypt in St. John the Evangelist Cathedral, New York.
Types of crypts
There are many different crypt configurations. The most popular are:
- Solitary crypts. This is the most common type, they place the remains of one person in a coffin;
- Double crypts. Coffins are located horizontally to each other and can have both two separate and a common gravestone.
- Joint burial. Designed for two people, but taking the place of a solitary crypt and with a common tombstone.
- Wesminster family crypts. This is the place to bury a large number of people with single or joint crypts.
Secrets hidden under the universities of the world
At a time when scholars are studying the library in search of knowledge and sitting in lecture halls, a gloomy story from the past is hiding under their feet. It is unlikely that you thought that the secret rooms hidden in universities around the world are crypts, tombs and graves. The explanation is quite simple: some ancient chapels were absorbed in the majestic buildings of colleges.
Under the hall of St. Edmund is just such a room. This is a crypt that is located directly below the library in a former church secularized (seized by the state) in the late 1960s.
The Catholic University of Notre Dame, Indiana, has the Sacred Heart Basilica. What is a crypt at this university? This place of pilgrimage, annually it is visited by about 50,000 thousand visitors.
Above Duke University, North Carolina, stands a 210-meter neo-Gothic chapel. However, few people know that under its base there is a crypt - a place for burial of the remains of the duke's family and prominent people devoted to the university.