Part 34

Crypts under parish churches are not very uncommon in England, but they are usually small and not characterized by any architectural beauty. A few of the earlier crypts, however, deserve notice. One of the earliest and most remarkable is that of the church of Lastingham near Pickering in Yorkshire, on the site of the monastery founded in 648 by Cedd, bishop of the East Saxons. The existing crypt, though exceedingly rude in structure, is of considerably later date than Bishop Cedd, forming part of the church erected by Abbot Stephen of Whitby in 1080, when he had been driven inland by the incursions of the northern pirates. This crypt is remarkable from its extending under the nave as well as the chancel of the upper church, the plan of which it accurately reproduces, with the exception of the westernmost bay. It forms a nave with side aisles of three bays, and an apsidal chancel, lighted by narrow deeply splayed slits. The roof of quadripartite vaulting is supported by four very dwarf thick cylindrical columns, the capitals of which and of the responds are clumsy imitations of classical work with rude volutes. Still more curious is the crypt beneath the chancel of the church of Repton in Derbyshire. This also consists of a centre and side aisles, divided by three arches on either side. The architectural character, however, is very different from that at Lastingham, and is in some respects almost unique, the piers being slender, and some of them of a singular spiral form, with a bead running in the sunken part of the spiral. Another very extensive and curious Norman crypt is that beneath the chancel of St Peter's-in-the-East at Oxford. This is five bays in length, the quadripartite vaulting being supported by eight low, somewhat slender, cylindrical columns with capitals bearing grotesque animal and human subjects. Its dimensions are 36 by 20 ft. and 10 ft. in height. This crypt has been commonly attributed to Grymboldt in the 9th century; but it is really not very early Norman. Under the church of St Mary-le-Bow in London there is an interesting Norman crypt not very dissimilar in character to that last described. Of a later date is the remarkably fine Early English crypt groined in stone, beneath the chancel of Hythe in Kent, containing a remarkable collection of skulls and bones, the history of which is quite uncertain. There is also a Decorated crypt beneath the chancel at Wimborne minster, and one of the same date beneath the southern chancel aisle at Grantham.

Among the more remarkable French crypts may be mentioned those of the cathedrals of Auxerre, said to date from the original foundation in 1085; of Bayeux, attributed to Odo, bishop of that see, uterine brother of William the Conqueror, where twelve columns with rude capitals support a vaulted roof; of Chartres, running under the choir and its aisles, frequently assigned to Bishop Fulbert in 1029, but more probably coeval with the superstructure; and of Bourges, where the crypt is in the Pointed style, extending beneath the choir. The church of the Holy Trinity attached to Queen Matilda's foundation--the "Abbaye aux Dames" at Caen--has a Norman crypt where the thirty-four pillars are as closely set as those at Worcester. The church of St Eutropius at Saintes has also a crypt of the 11th century, of very large dimensions, which deserves special notice; the capitals of the columns exhibit very curious carvings. Earlier than any already mentioned is that of St Gervase of Rouen, considered by E. A. Freeman "the oldest ecclesiastical work to be seen north of the Alps." It is apsidal, and in its walls are layers of Roman brick. It is said to contain the remains of two of the earliest apostles of Gaul--St Mello and St Avitian. There are numerous crypts in Germany. One at Gottingen may be mentioned, where cylindrical shafts with capitals of singular design support "vaulting of great elegance and lightness" (Fergusson), the curves being those of a horseshoe arch. The crypts of the cathedrals or churches at Halberstadt, Hildesheim and Naumburg also deserve to be noticed; that of Lubeck may be rather called a lower choir. It is 20 ft. high and vaulted.

The Italian crypts, when found, as a rule reproduce the "confessio" of the primitive churches. That beneath the chancel of S. Michele at Pavia is an excellent typical example, probably dating from the 10th century. It is apsidal and vaulted, and is seven bays in length. That at S. Zeno at Verona (c. 1138) is still more remarkable; its vaulted roof is upborne by forty columns, with curiously carved capitals. It is approached from the west by a double flight of steps and contains many ancient monuments. S. Miniato at Florence, begun in 1013, has a very spacious crypt at the east end, forming virtually a second choir. It is seven bays in length and vaulted. The most remarkable crypt in Italy, however, is perhaps that of St Mark's, Venice. The plan of this is almost a Greek cross. Four rows of nine columns each run from end to end, and two rows of three each occupy the arms of the cross, supporting low stunted arches on which rests the pavement of the church above. This also constitutes a lower church, containing a _chorus cantorum_ formed by a low stone screen, not unlike that of S. Clemente at Rome (see BASILICA), enclosing a massive stone altar with four low columns. This crypt is reasonably supposed to belong to the church founded by the doge P. Orseolo in 977. There are also crypts deserving notice at the cathedrals of Brescia, Fiesole and Modena, and the churches of S. Ambrogio and S. Eustorgio at Milan. The former was unfortunately modernized by St Charles Borromeo. The crypt at Assisi is really a second church at a lower level, and being built on the steep side of a hill is well lighted. The whole fabric is a beautiful specimen of Italian Gothic, and both the lower and upper churches are covered with rich frescoes.

Domestic crypts are of frequent occurrence. Medieval houses had as a rule their chief rooms raised above the level of the ground upon vaulted substructures, which were used as cellars and storerooms. These were sometimes partially underground, sometimes entirely above it. The underground vaults often remain when all the superstructure has been swept away, and from their Gothic character are frequently mistaken for ecclesiastical buildings. The older English towns are full of crypts of this character, now used as cellars. They occur in Oxford and Rochester, are very abundant in the older parts of Bristol, and, according to J. H. Parker, "nearly the whole city of Chester is built upon a series of them with the Rows or passages made on the top of the vaults" (_Domestic Architecture_, iii. 91). The crypt of Gerard's Hall in London, destroyed in the construction of New Cannon Street, figured by Parker (_Dom. Arch._ ii. 185), was a beautiful example of the lower storey of the residence of a wealthy merchant of the time of Edward I. It was divided down the middle by a row of four slender cylindrical columns supporting a very graceful vault. The finest example of a secular crypt now remaining in England is that beneath the Guildhall of London. The date of this is early in the 15th century--1411. It is a large and lofty apartment, divided into four alleys by two rows of clustered shafts supporting a rich lierne vault with ribs of considerable intricacy. There is a fine vaulted crypt of the same date and of similar character beneath St Mary's Hall, the Guildhall of the city of Coventry. (E. V.)

CRYPTEIA (Gr. [Greek: kryptein], to hide), a kind of secret police in ancient Sparta, founded, according to Aristotle, by Lycurgus; there is, however, no real evidence as to the date of its origin. The institution was under the supervision of the ephors, who, on entering office, annually proclaimed war against the helots (serf-class) and thus absolved from the guilt of murder any Spartan who should slay a helot. It was instituted primarily as a precaution against the ever-present danger of a helot revolt, and secondarily perhaps as a training for young Spartans, who were sent out by the ephors to keep watch on the helots and assassinate any who might appear dangerous. Plato (_Laws_, i. p. 633) emphasizes the former aspect, but there can be little doubt that, at all events after the revolt of 464 (see Cimon), its more sinister purpose was predominant, as we may gather from the secret massacre of 2000 helots who, on the invitation of the ephors, claimed to have rendered distinguished service (Thuc. iv. 80).

See HELOTS; EPHOR; also A. H. J. Greenidge, _Handbook of Gk. Const. Hist._ (London, 1896); G. Gilbert, _Gk. Const. Antiq._ (Eng. trans., London, 1895).

CRYPTOBRANCHUS, a genus of thoroughly aquatic, but lung-breathing tailed Batrachia, of the family _Amphiumidae_, characterized by a heavy, flattened build, a very porous tubercular skin, with a frilled fold along each side, short stout limbs with four very short fingers and five very short toes, and minute eyes without lids. The vertebrae are biconcave, and although the gills are lost in the adult, ossified gill-arches, two to four in number, persist. A strong series of vomerine teeth extends across the palate. Three species of this genus are known. One is the well-known fossil of Oeningen first described as _Homo diluvii testis_ and shown by Cuvier to be nearly related to the gigantic salamander of Japan, _Cryptobranchus maximus_, which has since been found to inhabit China also; the third is the hellbender, mud-puppy or water-dog of North America, _C. alleghaniensis_, also known under the name of _Menopoma_. Both the fossil _C. scheuchzeri_ and _C. maximus_ grow to a length of over 5 ft. and are by far the largest Urodeles known, whilst _C. alleghaniensis_ reaches the respectable length of 18 in.

The eggs are laid in rosary-like strings. They have been found, in Japan, deposited in deep holes in the water, where they form large clumps (70 to 80 eggs) round which the female coils herself. The gigantic salamander has also bred in the Amsterdam zoological gardens, the eggs numbering upwards of 500; the male, it is stated, took charge of the eggs, and for the ten weeks which elapsed before the release of the last larva, he kept close to them, at times crawling among the coiled mass of egg-strings or lifting them up, evidently for the purpose of aeration. The larva on leaving the egg is about an inch long, provided with three branched external gills on each side, and showing mere rudiments of the four limbs.

CRYPTOGRAPHY (from Gr. [Greek: kryptos], hidden, and [Greek: graphein], to write), or writing in cipher, called also steganography (from Gr. [Greek: stegane], a covering), the art of writing in such a way as to be incomprehensible except to those who possess the key to the system employed. The unravelling of the writing is called deciphering. Cryptography having become a distinct art, Bacon (Lord Verulam) classed it (under the name _ciphers_) as a part of grammar. Secret modes of communication have been in use from the earliest times. The Lacedemonians had a method called the _scytale_, from the staff ([Greek: skytale]) employed in constructing and deciphering the message. When the Spartan ephors wished to forward their orders to their commanders abroad, they wound slantwise a narrow strip of parchment upon the [Greek: skytale] so that the edges met close together, and the message was then added in such a way that the centre of the line of writing was on the edges of the parchment. When unwound the scroll consisted of broken letters; and in that condition it was despatched to its destination, the general to whose hands it came deciphering it by means of a [Greek: skytale] exactly corresponding to that used by the ephors. Polybius has enumerated other methods of cryptography.

The art was in use also amongst the Romans. Upon the revival of letters methods of secret correspondence were introduced into private business, diplomacy, plots, &c.; and as the study of this art has always presented attractions to the ingenious, a curious body of literature has been the result.

John Trithemius (d. 1516), the abbot of Spanheim, was the first important writer on cryptography. His _Polygraphia_, published in 1518, has passed through many editions, and has supplied the basis upon which subsequent writers have worked. It was begun at the desire of the duke of Bavaria; but Trithemius did not at first intend to publish it, on the ground that it would be injurious to public interests. A _Steganographia_ published at Lyons (? 1551) and later at Frankfort (1606), is also attributed to him. The next treatises of importance were those of Giovanni Battista della Porta, the Neapolitan mathematician, who wrote _De furtivis litterarum notis_, 1563; and of Blaise de Vigenere, whose _Traite des chiffres_ appeared in Paris, 1587. Bacon proposed an ingenious system of cryptography on the plan of what is called the double cipher; but while thus lending to the art the influence of his great name, he gave an intimation as to the general opinion formed of it and as to the classes of men who used it. For when prosecuting the earl of Somerset in the matter of the poisoning of Overbury, he urged it as an aggravation of the crime that the earl and Overbury "had cyphers and jargons for the king and queen and all the great men,--things seldom used but either by princes and their ambassadors and ministers, or by such as work or practise against or, at least, upon princes."

Other eminent Englishmen were afterwards connected with the art. John Wilkins, subsequently bishop of Chester, published in 1641 an anonymous treatise entitled _Mercury, or The Secret and Swift Messenger_,--a small but comprehensive work on the subject, and a timely gift to the diplomatists and leaders of the Civil War. The deciphering of many of the royalist papers of that period, such as the letters that fell into the hands of the parliament at the battle of Naseby, has by Henry Stubbe been charged on the celebrated mathematician Dr John Wallis (_Athen. Oxon._ iii. 1072), whose connexion with the subject of cipher-writing is referred to by himself in the Oxford edition of his mathematical works, 1689, p. 659; as also by John Davys. Dr Wallis elsewhere states that this art, formerly scarcely known to any but the secretaries of princes, &c., had grown very common and familiar during the civil commotions, "so that now there is scarce a person of quality but is more or less acquainted with it, and doth, as there is occasion, make use of it." Subsequent writers on the subject are John Falconer (_Cryptomenysis patefacta_), 1685; John Davys (_An Essay on the Art of Decyphering: in which is inserted a Discourse of Dr Wallis_), 1737; Philip Thicknesse (_A Treatise on the Art of Decyphering and of Writing in Cypher_), 1772; William Blair (the writer of the comprehensive article "Cipher" in Rees's _Cyclopaedia_), 1819; and G. von Marten (Cours _diplomatique_), 1801 (a fourth edition of which appeared in 1851). Perhaps the best modern work on this subject is the _Kryptographik_ of J. L. Kluber (Tubingen, 1809), who was drawn into the investigation by inclination and official circumstances. In this work the different methods of cryptography are classified. Amongst others of lesser merit who have treated of this art may be named Gustavus Selenus (i.e. Augustus, duke of Brunswick), 1624; Cospi, translated by Niceron in 1641; the marquis of Worchester, 1659; Kircher, 1663; Schott, 1665; Ludwig Heinrich Hiller, 1682; Comiers; 1690; Baring, 1737; Conrad, 1739, &c. See also a paper on _Elizabethan Cipher-books_ by A. J. Butler in the Bibliographical Society's _Transactions_, London, 1901.

Schemes of cryptography are endless in their variety. Bacon lays down the following as the "virtues" to be looked for in them:--"that they be not laborious to write and read; that they be impossible to decipher; and, in some cases, that they be without suspicion." These principles are more or less disregarded by all the modes that have been advanced, including that of Bacon himself, which has been unduly extolled by his admirers as "one of the most ingenious methods of writing in cypher, and the most difficult to be decyphered, of any yet contrived" (Thicknesse, p. 13).

The simplest and commonest of all the ciphers is that in which the writer selects in place of the proper letters certain other letters in regular advance. This method of transposition was used by Julius Caesar. He, "per quartam elementorum literam," wrote _d_ for _a_, _e_ for _b_, and so on. There are instances of this arrangement in the Jewish rabbis, and even in the sacred writers. An illustration of it occurs in Jeremiah (xxv. 26), where the prophet, to conceal the meaning of his prediction from all but the initiated, writes _Sheshak_ instead of Babel (Babylon), the place meant; i.e. in place of using the second and twelfth letters of the Hebrew alphabet (_b_, _b_, _l_) from the beginning, he wrote the second and twelfth (_sh_, _sh_, _k_) from the end. To this kind of cipher-writing Buxtorf gives the name Athbash (from _a_ the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and _th_ the last; _b_ the second from the beginning, and _h_ the second from the end). Another Jewish cabalism of like nature was called Albam; of which an example is in Isaiah vii. 6, where Tabeal is written for Remaliah. In its adaptation to English this method of transposition, of which there are many modifications, is comparatively easy to decipher. A rough key may be derived from an examination of the respective quantities of letters in a type-founder's bill, or a printer's "case." The decipherer's first business is to classify the letters of the secret message in the order of their frequency. The letter that occurs oftenest is _e_; and the next in order of frequency is _t_. The following groups come after these, separated from each other by degrees of decreasing recurrence:--_a_, _o_, _n_, _i_; _r_, _s_, _h_; _d_, _l_; _c_, _w_, _u_, _m_; _f_, _y_, _g_, _p_, _b_; _v_, _k_; _x_, _q_, _j_, _z_. All the single letters must be _a_, _I_ or _O_. Letters occurring together are _ee_, _oo_, _ff_, _ll_, _ss_, &c. The commonest words of two letters are (roughly arranged in the order of their frequency) _of_, _to_, _in_, _it_, _is_, _be_, _he_, _by_, _or_, _as_, _at_, _an_, _so_, &c. The commonest words of three letters are _the_ and _and_ (in great excess), _for_, _are_, _but_, _all_, _not_, &c.; and of four letters--_that_, _with_, _from_, _have_, _this_, _they_, &c. Familiarity with the composition of the language will suggest numerous other points that are of value to the decipherer. He may obtain other hints from Poe's tale called _The Gold Bug_. As to messages in the continental languages constructed upon this system of transposition, rules for deciphering may be derived from Breithaupt's _Ars decifratoria_ (1737), and other treatises.

Bacon remarks that though ciphers were commonly in letters and alphabets yet they might be in words. Upon this basis codes have been constructed, classified words taken from dictionaries being made to represent complete ideas. In recent years such codes have been adapted by merchants and others to communications by telegraph, and have served the purpose not only of keeping business affairs private, but also of reducing the excessive cost of telegraphic messages to distant markets. Obviously this class of ciphers presents greater difficulties to the skill of the decipherer.

Figures and other characters have been also used as letters; and with them ranges of numerals have been combined as the representatives of syllables, parts of words, words themselves, and complete phrases. Under this head must be placed the despatches of Giovanni Michael, the Venetian ambassador to England in the reign of Queen Mary, documents which have only of late years been deciphered. Many of the private letters and papers from the pen of Charles I. and his queen, who were adepts in the use of ciphers, are of the same description. One of that monarch's letters, a document of considerable interest, consisting entirely of numerals purposely complicated, was in 1858 deciphered by Professor Wheatstone, the inventor of the ingenious crypto-machine, and printed by the Philobiblon Society. Other letters of the like character have been published in the _First Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts_ (1870). In the second and subsequent reports of the same commission several keys to ciphers have been catalogued, which seem to refer themselves to the methods of cryptography under notice. In this connexion also should be mentioned the "characters," which the diarist Pepys drew up when clerk to Sir George Downing and secretary to the earl of Sandwich and to the admiralty, and which are frequently mentioned in his journal. Pepys describes one of them as "a great large character," over which he spent much time, but which was at length finished, 25th April 1660; "it being," says he, "very handsomely done and a very good one in itself, but that not truly alphabetical."

Shorthand marks and other arbitrary characters have also been largely imported into cryptographic systems to represent both letters and words, but more commonly the latter. This plan is said to have been first put into use by the old Roman poet Ennius. It formed the basis of the method of Cicero's freedman, Tiro, who seems to have systematized the labours of his predecessors. A large quantity of these characters have been engraved in Gruter's _Inscriptiones_. The correspondence of Charlemagne was in part made up of marks of this nature. In Rees's _Cyclopaedia_ specimens were engraved of the cipher used by Cardinal Wolsey at the court of Vienna in 1524, of that used by Sir Thomas Smith at Paris in 1563, and of that of Sir Edward Stafford in 1586; in all of which arbitrary marks are introduced. The first English system of shorthand--Bright's _Characterie_, 1588--almost belongs to the same category of ciphers. A favourite system of Charles I., used by him during the year 1646, was one made up of an alphabet of twenty-four letters, which were represented by four simple strokes varied in length, slope and position. This alphabet is engraved in Clive's _Linear System of Shorthand_ (1830), having been found amongst the royal manuscripts in the British Museum. An interest attaches to this cipher from the fact that it was employed in the well-known letter addressed by the king to the earl of Glamorgan, in which the former made concessions to the Roman Catholics of Ireland.

Complications have been introduced into ciphers by the employment of "dummy" letters,--"nulls and insignificants," as Bacon terms them. Other devices have been introduced to perplex the decipherer, such as spelling words backwards, making false divisions between words, &c. The greatest security against the decipherer has been found in the use of elaborate tables of letters, arranged in the form of the multiplication table, the message being constructed by the aid of preconcerted key-words. Details of the working of these ciphers may be found in the treatises named in this article. The deciphering of them is one of the most difficult of tasks. A method of this kind is explained in the Latin and English lives of Dr John Barwick, whose correspondence with Hyde, afterwards earl of Clarendon, was carried on in cryptography. In a letter dated 20th February 1659/60, Hyde, alluding to the skill of his political opponents in deciphering, says that "nobody needs to fear them, if they write carefully in good cyphers." In his next he allays his correspondent's apprehensiveness as to the deciphering of their letters.