Crypt

Crypt (Gk. kruptein, to hide) originally denoted a den or other secret place. The name then came to be applied, especially in an ecclesiastical sense, to the vaulted part beneath a church or cathedral, especially below the choir, where sometimes the body or relics of a saint were preserved, a custom which seems to have arisen from the practice of building churches above the graves of martyrs and saints. The crypt beneath Canterbury Cathedral is famous and extensive, and that beneath St. Paul's Cathedral is well known. There is a notable crypt beneath the choir of St. Hubert's Abbey at the town of that name in Belgium. The name is also used in anatomy.