Magnum Sedile

Can any of your correspondents throw light on the singular arched recesses, sometimes (though rarely) to be found on the south side of chancels, west of the sedilia. The name of *magnum sedile* has been given to them, I know not on what authority; but if they were intended to be used as stalls of dignity for special occasions, they would hardly have been made so wide and low as they are generally found. A good example occurs at Fulbourn, Cambridgeshire,—certainly not monumental; and another (but more like a tomb) at Merton, near Oxford, engraved in the *Glossary of Architecture*. Why should th…