watching-chamber

views updated

watching-chamber or -loft.
1. Elevated gallery in a church from which the monks could watch over a holy shrine, e.g. the beautiful surviving timber example in St Alban's Cathedral, Herts. (early C15).

2. Place from which monks could be summoned to the services, appropriately called excubitorium.

Bibliography

F. Bond (1908a);
B&C (1909)

More From encyclopedia.com