ABSTRACT
There is, to start with a statement of the obvious, more than one way of seeking to understand parish churches or parochial chapels, the places in which members of a typical local community in England worshipped before the Reformation, and no single avenue leads to all the answers which may be discoverable. The purpose of this contribution is to suggest that some of the methods and investigative processes associated with the study of vernacular buildings may be appropriate to that of churches, with particular reference to understanding the evolution of plan and form; to indicate also some of the ways in which such processes complement insights from other approaches; and to illustrate the argument with hypotheses concerning the development of chancels and nave aisles in the thirteenth century. The focus is on ‘method’ and process rather than on drawing fi rm conclusions concerning the development of church buildings, and discussion of specifi c phenomena is illustrative rather than exhaustive or defi nitive, leading to suggestions rather than answers. In sketching a case that a ‘vernacularist’ mindset has something to offer the study of local churches, silent use is made of a large body of material collected for a forthcoming detailed study of the development of the parish churches of medieval Northamptonshire.
