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The Church at Richborough*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

P. D. C. Brown
P. D. C. Brown
Affiliation:
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
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Extract

During the past few years several late Roman churches have been excavated inside the towns and forts along the Rhine-Danube frontier. These churches were built in the fourth and early fifth centuries, and were designed for congregational worship and the celebration of the Eucharist; in this respect, they differ from the churches which developed from memorial chapels in the cemeteries outside the towns. Baptism was one of the functions of these congregational churches, and at several of the excavated sites fonts have been found. These churches and fonts provide a number of parallels to an unexplained structure at Richborough and to various unexplained features of the excavations, suggesting that there was a congregational church of this type with a nearby baptistery inside the fort there.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 2 , November 1971 , pp. 225 - 231
Copyright
Copyright © P. D. C. Brown 1971. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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Footnotes

*

Thanks are due to the Society of Antiquaries, the Department of the Environment, and particularly to Dr. A. J. Taylor, Mr. J. Hopkins and A. W. Rogers for giving me access to their records in London and at Richborough, and for allowing me to copy and publish them. I must also thank Professor Dr. R. Laur-Belart, Dr. O. Doppelfeld and Dr. H. Eiden for answering questions and for sending photographs of their own excavations.

References

1 Radford, C. A. R., ‘The Archaeological Background on the Continent’, in Barley, M. W. and Hanson, R. P. C. (ed.), Christianity in Britain, 300–700, Leicester 1968, 19–36.Google Scholar

2 Richborough i, 19, pls. VII and XXXIII.

3 R. Voigtel and H. Düntzer, Banner Jahrbücher, liii-liv, 1873, 199–228; O. Doppelfeld, Der unterirdische Dom, 1948, 79 and Kölner Domblatt, 12/13, 1957, 49–85Google Scholar; for the latest summary, see Weyres, W., Kölner Domblatt, 26/27, 1967, 7–56.Google Scholar

4 H. Eiden, ‘Zur Siedlungs- und Kulturgeschichte der Frühzeit’, in F. J. Heyen (ed.), Zwischen Rhein und Mosel: Der Kreis St. Goar, 1966, 17–40; Akten des VII. Internationalen Kongresses für Christliche Archäologie, Trier 1965, 485–91; also the exhibition catalogue, Römer am Rhein, 1967, item 64.

5 Laur-Belart, R., Ur-Schweiz, 19, 1955, 65–90.Google Scholar

6 Richborough ii, 1.

7 Richborough ii, pls. 1, II; Richborough iii, pl. 1; Richborough iv, pls. VIB, XVA.

8 Richborough i, 20, 37–41.

9 JRS, lix, 1969, 182, fig. 24 and references.Google Scholar

10 Laur-Belart, R., Ur-Schweiz, xxix, 1965, 21–37; xxx, 1966, 51–59.Google Scholar

11 Richborough iii, 54–60.