Lady Chapel
A Lady Chapel, in German Marienkapelle , is a crown chapel consecrated to Mary and clearly protruding outward - and therefore clearly recognizable in the floor plan - at the east end of a British cathedral . Traditionally, a Lady Chapel is the largest chapel in a cathedral. It was usually erected east of the main altar.
England
Famous examples stand or stood in the cathedrals of Winchester , Salisbury , Exeter , Wells , St Albans , Chichester , Peterborough and Norwich (the latter two were destroyed). In Durham , however, it is located as a narthex in the west.
The earliest Lady Chapel can be found in the Anglo-Saxon Cathedral of Canterbury . Their position within the church has changed several times. Archbishop Lanfranc moved them first to the west end of the ship; in 1450 it was moved to the east side of the north transept. In Ely it was also attached to the north transept; in Rochester on the other hand to the west of the southern arm of the transept.
Around 1220, Heinrich III. At 30 feet long, the largest Lady Chapel ever built in Westminster Abbey . Today it borders the chapel of Henry VII.
Other lady chapels of note are in Ottery St Mary , Thetford , Bury St Edmunds , Wimborne , Highfield, Hampshire , Compton Church (Surrey), Compton Martin (Somerset) and Darenth (Kent). In the Croyland Abbey there were two chapels Marie.
Northern France
The cathedrals of Bayeux and Évreux (Normandy) also have a Lady Chapel protruding from the rest of the choir wreaths; the same applies to the former abbey churches of Saint-Riquier and Saint-Germer-de-Fly, which are only a little outside of Normandy .
Germany
An equivalent to the Marienkapelle in the church building of the north German brick Gothic are the Marientidenkapellen .