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The Degrees: Seating for the Courtiers
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To seat the numerous people of the court, Inigo Jones constructed degrees, what we today would think of as grandstands, or bleachers.
The figure below illustrates the relationship between the degrees and the architecture of the Hall. This solution permitted courtiers to enter the hall and procede to the lower seats via the vomitorium (2), the passageway from the entrance doorway to the center of the Hall. Courtiers going to the upper part of the degrees turned to their right and walked along the passageway under the degrees (1). Here they encountered stairs, shown in orange on the drawing above, which gave access to the upper part of the degrees. As drawn, these stairs present a problem, for they entirely block access to the stairway and degrees in the lower left hand corner of the plan. Jones' solution was to provide access beneath the stairs.
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