AISLE, sometimes written Isle, Yle, and Alley (Lat. and Ital. Ala, a wing; Fr. Aile, Bas coté; Ger. Seitenschiff, Seitenchor), in its primary sense, the wing of a house, but generally used to describe the alleys or passages at the sides of the naves and choirs of churches. In reckoning their number, the nave is usually counted. Thus a nave with an aisle on each side is generally called a three-aisled church; if with two aisles on each side, a five-aisled church. In England there are many churches with one side-aisle only; but there is only one cathedral with five aisles, that at Chichester. There are, however, very many such on the Continent, the most celebrated of which are at Milan and Amiens. Others have three aisles on each side, or seven aisles in all, as the cathedrals at Antwerp and Paris. The most extraordinary, however, is that at Cordova, originally erected for a mosque. It was first built with a nave and five aisles on each side, and eight others afterwards were added, making nineteen aisles in all. Old English writers frequently call the transepts “the cross isle, or yle,” and the nave the “middle ile.”