crypt

views updated Jun 27 2018

crypt.
1. Large vaulted chamber (croft, croud, croude, crowd, crowde, shroud, or undercroft) beneath a church, wholly or partly underground, usually under the chancel, often divided into nave, aisles, and chapels, equipped with altars, and used for religious services and burials beneath the floor. They often had some degree of natural light, and were generally bigger than a confessio, though very small crypts, such as the Anglo-Saxon example at Hexham (C7) were little more than Relic-chambers. Ring-crypts were semicircular crypts inside and below an apse, originating with the basilica of San Pietro, Rome, in c.590: outer ring-crypts (called ambulatories) were characteristic of the Carolingian and Ottonian periods, but a very early example, pre-dating those on the Continent, existed at All Saints Church, Brixworth, Northants. (c. C8 or later).

2. Burial-chamber.

crypt

views updated May 21 2018

crypt / kript/ • n. 1. an underground room or vault beneath a church, used as a chapel or burial place.2. Anat. a small tubular gland, pit, or recess.

crypt

views updated May 17 2018

crypt XVIII. — L. crypta — Gr. krúptē vault, sb. use of fem. of kruptós hidden. Cf. GROT.

crypt

views updated May 29 2018

crypt (kript) n. a small sac, follicle, or cavity; for example, the crypts of Lieberkühn (see Lieberkühn's glands).