Talk:Nave

Uses
I have removed the disgraceful canards "and on weekdays the large open area often served for the town marketplace, political meetings, places of various trades including, on some occasions, even that of prostitution. Often smelling of animal dung and human urine, naves were not very clean places. Hence, rood screens aka jubes were designed to separate the more sacred areas of the cathedral and keep out the unwashed and unholy." Ignorant fantasy, with protestant evangelical "moneychangers in the temple" overtones, an embarrassment, no better in its way than the equally foolish "built by willing hands from the pious citizenry" line one sometimes has to listen to. With all the NPOV talk at Wikipedia, more history, less attitude, please. Wetman 21:34, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes, but it is fairly well documented. Many Operas and Plays refer to naves and side chapels being used to conduct all kinds of clandestine business, flirting, socialising, etc. For example the first lines in "The Changeling" are 'Twas in the temple where i first beheld her, and now again the same; what omen yet follows of that?" The matters then move to a discussion of business affairs Excalibur (talk) 00:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Removed image
I hope no one will be upset that this nice image is removed. It has no visual information that was not better presented in the very similar illustration that is kept. The article does still need a good image showing the emphasis within a nave of a crossing. A Renaissance nave that shows all these nave features but in Classical detailing is needed too. A nave from the exterior showing flying buttresses could tie in. An illustration that shows changes of level between nave and chancel would surely provoke some good added text. Images looking the other way, showing the effects of a rose window or of a choirloft on the nave would elicit more Nave Chat. --Wetman 12:47, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Tallest nave
I added the 'dubious' tag to the claim that St. John the Divine is the tallest nave. Though it is a lovely church, it's nave is decidedly shorter than that of Amiens Cathedral or several others, if I remember right. I'd like to find an actual tallest nave for the title but I'm not sure what that is--might be the Cathedral of La Palma, maybe Florence Cathedral. 63.167.237.65 21:18, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

nave in Hamlet
In additon to "bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven," Hamlet contains a wheel motif which includes a triple pun on knave/nave: "There's nary a villain dwelling [= place where villains live = hamlet] in all Denmark but he's an arrant knave"... "without more circumstance...for my own part... I'll go pray" [nave of church] "the cease of majesty...is a massy wheel...to whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things " [The Hamlet line of kings are like naves with their subjects as spokes. Hamlet wants to breach that custom and be more like the nave of a church.] ... "These are but whirling words" For more details, see http://academia.wikia.com/wiki/Motifs_in_Hamlet#Fine_Revoluton --Ray Eston Smith Jr 00:05, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

S.Pietro
You might consider correcting the record section, since S.Pietro isn't in Rome, nor in Italy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.78.145.119 (talk • contribs) 26 April 2010

longest nave in the united states
According to wikipedia's own page for Duke Chapel it's a good 60 feet longer than the listed record holder

what's up with that? are any of these records cited? I suck at wikipedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.136.136.101 (talk) 19:02, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Longest Nave?
Is it St Albans or Winchester?

To my untrained eye, the pages seem to contradict:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Albans_Cathedral "its nave is the longest of any cathedral in England" "the second longest cathedral in the United Kingdom (after Winchester)"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Cathedral "It is one of the largest cathedrals in England, with the longest nave and greatest overall length of any Gothic cathedral in Europe"

The article may well be correct, but can someone double-check this is all self consistent? I'm guessing it's some quirk to do with architectural style norman vs gothic?

Mike S — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.78.120.108 (talk) 13:46, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Winchester Nave is only 242 feet (73 metres) long. The length given in this article is actually the length of the whole church. St Albans at 83m is I believe the longest in England.

Highest Vaulted Nave?
If St. Peter's (at 46 meters) has the tallest completed nave at 46 meters, there's no way Milan (at 45 meters) can have the tallest completed vaulted nave--the nave of St. Peter's is indeed vaulted, with a barrel vault. Perhaps Milan has the tallest completed rib-vaulted nave? But that's getting dangerously trivial. Perhaps we should just delete the reference to Milan? 206.208.105.129 (talk) 14:57, 30 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Two years, and no comments one way or another. I'm going ahead and deleting Milan from the list. Feel free to add it back with appropriate citation if it does merit superlative mention. 206.208.105.129 (talk) 17:45, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Who can fix the "schematical illustration"?
The "schematical illustration" misleadingly includes (pink colouring) the aisles into the nave. The eso- or internal narthex/vestibule is in that case part of the nave, but the aisles are not. Who knows how to re-hash the plan accordingly? Thanks, Arminden (talk) 11:57, 12 July 2018 (UTC)


 * sorry, but you've missed the point: that sketch is the core of the DEFINITION of the topic at hand. In illustrated encyclopedias, many (most?) hurried users look for the illustration to see what the term means; and our illustration is WRONG, it shows more than it should. The point is to fix that - by re-hashing in pink ONLY THE NAVE. Until that is done, at least the caption should attempt to fix the mistake, and make clear that:

Please keep this in mind if you wish to re-edit. Thanks! Arminden (talk) 04:38, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
 * the esonarthex DOES in this case BELONG to the nave (this narthex is of the vestibule or esonarthex type, an exonarthex wouldn't belong to the nave either)
 * the aisles (not side-aisles), DON'T BELONG.


 * Now I figured out where the mistake came from: it's a confusion of terms between German and English. In German, both the nave and aisles are called "Schiff", with an addition (Hauptschiff - Seitenschiff); in English it's two different terms altogether, nave and aisles (not side-aisles). So here we're dealing with the nave = Mittelschiff. BTH changed the better image, set in by Afernand74 ("Mittelschiff") and replaced it with the one for "Langhaus, Hauptschiff", which is not suitable, since it includes far too much, namely the aisles, which are clearly distinct from the nave.


 * The only issue remains - the esonarthex. The sketch/plan should help the user, not confuse him. A narthex can be of several types; some are counted as part of the nave, some aren't. Here, at least for the lead, I think we should find a sketch that doesn't create such issues. This particular esonarthex stretches over the entire width of both aisles and nave, seems to have no E-W separation elements - so does it belong to the nave, or not? And this is an academic question, we should keep things simple and give an clearer example for the lead/definition. So a church with a separate exonarthex (so: not part of the nave), or with one split between aisles and nave (so: only the central part belonging to the nave), or without one at all. Or smb. who really knows his way around this terminology gives an authoritative definition including this narthex/vestibule issue, in an elegant manner that doesn't confuse the user. Who can take it from here? Cheers, Arminden (talk) 05:21, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Hello, My level of English and my knowledge concerning cathedral footplan is certainly not sufficient to help you significantly. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the French litteral translation for "nave", that is "nef", means a different architectural concept. The French article Plan type d'église shows precisely that "nef" (in French) corresponds to "nave"+"aisle"+"narthex" (in English). And what you call restrictively "nave" in English could be translated by "vaisseau central" in French. Have a good day (enjoy the football match against Belgium on July 14th BTH (talk) 09:05, 13 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Don't be sorry, ; I did not miss any point. I clarified the awkward wording you introduced into the caption. I know what a nave is, and I realize the shading in the current image does not reflect the strict definition. Note: As for "keeping things in mind", you might want to keep in mind that you are on an encyclopedia discussion page here, not an internet chat forum, and so can dispense with the all-caps emphasis. Eric talk 12:28, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Let's drop the ego. It's about inaccuracies, and more often than not, they are caused by the editor missing the point. Sorry if it wasn't the case. Emphasis helps, you can't imagine how often editors insist on obvious misunderstandings. True, maybe I'm "damaged goods" after too much editing on conflict-ridden Middle Eastern topics, where POV rules supreme.

Now I fixed it as good as I could, after getting inspiration from the Chancel article. Still didn't figure out if the esonarthex does or doesn't belong, if one applies the narrower definition, but the darn vestibule stretches undivided across both nave and aisles. Who has the answer? Or in English things are less strict that, say, in Duden-ruled German, and this is a non-topic to start with? Arminden (talk) 14:36, 13 July 2018 (UTC)