chœur accosté de deux chapelles

19:34 Feb 11, 2013 

comme fonds est mal écrit, je pense qu'avec chevet ouest on a voulu traduire Westwerk (massif occidental) - peut-être - où se trouvaient parfois les fonts baptismaux. Dans le lien ci-dessous, on l'appelle antéglise et on fait le lien avec Pâques (ici, dans ma ville, il n'y a que peu d'occasions où l'on ouvre le portail du Westwerk, l'une étant Pâques. http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/rbph_...
p. 1043 // Le massif occidental représente le lieu symbolique du pouvoir temporel carolingien, dans la même enceinte que le pouvoir céleste. Le massif occidental peut abriter un deuxième chœur, l'église devenant un sanctuaire à deux chœurs. Le massif occidental devient ainsi une sorte d'église à lui seul. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massif_occidental

18:40 Feb 11, 2013 

at least in my dim understand of them, Phil --of course, it's hard to believe that any terms in French would be "vague."

"chevet: eastern end of a church"

normally, only one "eastern end" of anything, last time i looked.

the Britannica reference is, of course, wrong --churches with two "working ends" (my technical, precise term) are not uncommon, in Ottonian Germany and regions of France which were influenced by that architectural tradition (like Verdun)

http://www.abelard.org/france/culture/lorraine/plan_cathedra...

seems to me that what we may be dealing with here is something with a rather unusual ("non-standard") design, like at Metz

http://www.abelard.org/france/culture/lorraine/metz_plan.png

where "les fonds [sic] baptismaux" might be seen in one of those "chevets Ouest" --*if* we allow for the misuse of the term "chevet" in place of what those western thingies are, which is simply chapels off of the southwestern side aisle of the nave.

to my sensibility, a "chevet" cannot be applied to just any structure which terminates in an "apse."

but, that's why i would love to see a plan of this building, to determine how imprecise the author's nomenclature is.

18:05 Feb 11, 2013 

Agree that chevet/apse or apses would not be at the west end of a church. Agree also that this is not the question asked, but still, "chevet ouest", given its proximity in the sentence to the font, sounds somewhat weird. However, have found a "chevet ouest" for the cathedral of Nevers... which appears to be at the east end (ie normal end) of the building....

17:55 Feb 11, 2013 

I take "chevet" to mean "apse" rather than "chevet". A church can have two apses. Either way, that's not what the asker was querying.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/109871/chevet

17:48 Feb 11, 2013 

Phil is probably right, but it's hard to tell without seeing a ground plan.

I'm particularly puzzled by the reference to this "chevet Ouest."

Normally, there would only be one "chevet" and it wouldn't be in the "ouest" of the building.