APPENDIX
Whichever way the translation of this piece of Latin is taken, it can only mean that a passageway ran round inside the curve of the apse, and turned westwards to the tomb of St. Dunstan which had the matutinal altar at his head.
It is true that Edmer does not mention the existence of a polyandrium at Canterbury. It is possible that as the bodies of the Archbishops were to be buried at the Abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul, St. Austin did not contemplate such an adjunct to his Cathedral; though from the presence of a confessio or crypt chapel it is implied that he intended in due course to have some precious relic deposited there in an altar. In this he was following the plan of the crypt which Edmer tells us was fabricated beneath the old church of St. Peter at Rome, which had not only a polyandrium which was entered by ways north and south within the transept, but it had also a confessionary or crypt chapel, access to which was by means of a flight of steps down in front of the High Altar. In Rome, in the thirteenth century, Innocent III had these steps removed, for he was afraid as the body of St. Peter was buried in the confessio lest some German Emperor or Antipope should be tempted to steal so valuable a relic (Willis), and so he had this opening in the confessio walled up. On the other hand Canterbury had a passageway as described by Edmer (for the use of worshippers), and we know that a crypt chapel occupying the whole of the area of the apse would be extremely unlikely in the seventh century.
103
