Arch. Also 5 clerstory, clarestory, 6 clerestorey, (7 clarester), 8 cleer story, 5–9 clear story, 9 clearstory. [Commonly believed to be f. clere, CLEAR + STORY stage of a building, ‘floor’ of a house. (Clere must here have meant ‘light, lighted,’ since the sense ‘free, unobstructed’ did not yet exist: see CLEAR a.)
This assumed derivation is strengthened by the parallel blind-story (see BLIND a. 16), although this may have been a later formation in imitation of clere-story. The great difficulty is the non-appearance of story in the sense required before c. 1600, and the absence of all trace of it in any sense in 14th, 15th, and chief part of 16th c. At the same time there is a solitary instance of storys in R. Glouc. (1724), 181, which may mean ‘elevated structure’ or ‘fortified place.’ The sb. estorie in OF. had no such sense, but the pa. pple. estoré meant ‘built, constructed, founded, established, instituted, fortified, furnished, fitted out,’ whence a sb. with the sense ‘erection, fortification’ might perhaps arise.]
1. The upper part of the nave, choir and transepts of a cathedral or other large church, lying above the triforium (or, if there is no triforium, immediately over the arches of the nave, etc.), and containing a series of windows, clear of the roofs of the aisles, admitting light to the central parts of the building.
1412. Contract Catterick Ch., 10. The pilers with the arches and the clerestory of the hight of sax and twenty fote abouen erth.
1454. Black-bk. Swaffham, in Blomefield, Norfolk, III. 512. Thomas Hyx … did glasen a Window in the Clarestory.
c. 1460. Henry VI.’s Will, in Nichols, Royal Wills (1780), 303. Cloistre … in height 20 feete to the corbill table, with cleare stories and buttrace, with finialls.
1851. Ruskin, Stones Ven. (1874), I. i. 18. The upper part of the nave, now called the clerestory.
1870. F. Wilson, Ch. Lindisf., 95. The roof of the nave was removed … and a clerestory added.
1875. Dict. Chr. Antiq., 396. The clerestory was a common feature in the old civil basilica; it was probably soon adopted in buildings of the same type used for ecclesiastical purposes.
b. A similar feature in other buildings.
1523. Skelton, Garl. Laurel, 479. Englasid glittering with many a clere story.
[1525. Reparacions Tower Lond., in Bailey, Hist. Tower, App. I. 20. Item made a new clerestory in the west ende of the greate chambre … the bredeth of the house, with a pent hous over the hed of it for the wether. Ibid., 21. A particion made in the forebreste of the same jaques with a clere storey therein to give light.
1601. Shaks., Twel. N., IV. ii. 41. Sayst thou that house is darke?… Why it hath bay Windowes transparant as baricadoes, and the cleere stores toward the South north, are as lustrous as Ebony.
1659. T. Willsford, Architectonice, 30. Clear story, Bay windows … and sundry other things in Architecture.
1889. G. Rawlinson, Anc. Egypt (ed. 4), 245. The lighting being, as in the far smaller hall of Thothmes III., by means of a clerestory.
2. attrib.
a. 1502. Arnolde, Chron. (1811), 41. A meruelous howse was bylded at Gynes … so statly, and all with clere story lyghtys, lyk a lantorne.
1879. Sir G. Scott, Lect. Archit., I. 54. The want of light in the nave from the absence of clerestory windows.
b. esp. Clere-story window: see quots.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 109/2. Clear Story Window, are such Windows that have no transum or cross piece in the middle of them to break the same into two Lights. Ibid., 473/2. A Clarester window hath no Cross barrs in.
1703. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., 159.
1823. P. Nicholson, Pract. Build., 221.
Hence Clerestoried pple. and ppl. a.
1449. in Nichols, Churchw. Acc. St. George, Stamford (1797), 133. Y ordeyne and bequethe that 11 chapelles … withyn the seyd chirch … be closid wyth ostrich boarde and clere storied after such quantity as the closure of pleyn borde there now conteyneth.
1848. B. Webb, Continental Ecclesiol., 72. A … church, with clerestoried triforia to the chancel.
