PARISH CHURCHES OF THE LATER SAXON PERIOD
§ 18. In later Saxon churches the aisleless plan and the rectangular chancel were normal. Instances of an aisled plan after the seventh century have been noted already: it has been seen that there are only two definite examples, and, although there may be indications of others, these are few and far between and uncertain. The apsidal chancel again is exceedingly rare. We have noted it in combination with other basilican features at Wing: the instances in which it occurs again are very few, and in these, as in the important monastic church of Deerhurst, there are other variations from the aisleless plan. In by far the largest number of examples, the plan adhered to was that simple one of which we have a complete prototype at Escomb. Late Saxon fabrics which remain free of later additions are few; but there is a considerable number of churches which still keep the quoins of an aisleless Saxon nave in situ, although aisles have been added during the twelfth or thirteenth centuries. Such are St Mary-le-Wigford and St Peter-at-Gowts at Lincoln, Bracebridge in the western suburb of Lincoln, St Benet's at Cambridge, and Wittering, near Stamford. At Winterton in Lincolnshire large pieces of the western part of both walls of the nave were kept as an abutment to the tower, when aisles were added. Sometimes, as at Geddington and Brigstock in Northamptonshire, the whole wall above the nave arcades is the upper part of the wall of the aisleless building; and instances in which blocked window openings, of a not improbably pre-Conquest date, remain in walls that have subsequently been pierced with arcades, are exceedingly common. If an untouched Saxon nave is a rare thing, an unaltered Saxon chancel is obviously rarer. The small rectangular chancel of the large medieval church at Repton, in Derbyshire, is practically unique; it was probably preserved for the sake of the crypt beneath, which, at first a plain rectangular chamber, was subsequently, but still in pre-Conquest times, vaulted in compartments supported by columns. But at Sidbury in Devon, where there is a small rectangular crypt, the chancel above was rebuilt in the twelfth, and lengthened in the thirteenth century, without any reference to the line of the walls of the crypt below it. A good example of an unaltered late Saxon fabric is the church of Coln Rogers in Gloucestershire. Here the western tower, built up inside the nave, is a later addition, but the nave, rectangular chancel, and arch between them, are still intact. The chancel arch, though by no means broad, is yet much wider than those at Escomb and Bradford-on-Avon; and its width probably represents the normal width of a chancel arch of this period.
§ 19. An addition occurs in most of these late Saxon plans, which had a great influence on the subsequent, and even on the contemporary, development of the church plan. We have noted that at Rome and Ravenna towers formed no part of the original basilican plan, but were added later as campanili. In England it appears that the tower formed no part of the plan until, at any rate, the epoch of the Danish wars.
Western bell-towers were very general by the beginning of the eleventh century. In most of these towers, the ground floor forms an entrance porch; but it does not follow that the western tower in England was generated by the heightening of the western porch. The porches of Brixworth and Monkwearmouth were probably not heightened until the western tower had come into existence elsewhere. An origin for the western tower has been sought in the fore-buildings which occur in some of the early German churches, and contain separate upper chambers. It may be that, derived from this source, the western tower superseded the porch, and, where porches existed, they were adapted to the new fashion.
§ 20. The towers of Earl's Barton, Barnack, and St Peter's at Barton-on-Humber, are perhaps the most obviously interesting relics of Saxon architecture which we possess. All are much larger in area than the normal western tower of the later Saxon period. Earl's Barton is a western tower, and its ground floor has probably always served as a porch: the rest of the church, however, is a medieval building of various periods. At Barnack, again, the complete plan of the Saxon church has been lost. Here, however, the western tower was something more than a porch. The doorway is not in the west, but in the south wall; and in the west wall, inside the church, is a niche with a triangular head, which was certainly neither doorway nor window, but a seat. Whether this implies that the ground floor of the tower was used for special religious functions, or for some purpose connected with the common life of the parish, is not clear; but it shows, at any rate, that there was some good reason for the unusually roomy planning of the tower. We stand on firmer ground at Barton-on-Humber. Here, again, a large medieval church exists to the east of the tower. But upon its western side is a small rectangular building of contemporary date, which was not a porch in front of the tower, but a westward extension of the body of the church, the main entrances being on either side of the tower. The foundations of a similar projecting building have been discovered to the east of the tower, beneath the floor of the later nave. It is therefore clear that the ground floor of the tower, or rather of a high tower-like building, formed the body of the church, and that the eastern projection was the chancel. There are clear indications at Broughton, also in north Lincolnshire, that this plan was used, at any rate, once again. The tower at Broughton is obviously later than that at Barton: the doorway, whose details are of a post-Conquest character, is in the south wall; and a large circular stair-turret, like that at Brixworth, projects from the west wall. Probably there was only a chancel here, and no western annexe to correspond. A similar stair-turret occurs at Hough-on-the-Hill, between Grantham and Lincoln: the tower, now western, has a doorway in the south wall, and probably stands mid-way in date between Barton and Broughton. It is planned on a very ample scale, with thin walls and a large floor-space. The main fabric of the church is altogether of a later date; and there are no indications, at any rate above ground, of an earlier building east of the tower. The size of the tower, the provision of a stair-turret, as at Broughton, to leave the ground floor clear, suggest that here we may have a third example of the plan in which the tower covered the main body of the church. The arrangement at Barnack gives grounds for a suspicion of something of the same kind there. In all these cases the tower has been a tower from the beginning; but at Barton-on-Humber the uppermost stage was added towards the end of the Saxon period.
Fig. 4. St Peter's, Barton-on-Humber: from S.W.
§ 21. In these buildings we seem to discover the influence of the centralised plan, acting through the channel of German art. It would be absurd to say that the plan of Barton-on-Humber was inspired by the plan of the palace-church at Aachen, which was an adaptation, with some improvement, of the plan of San Vitale at Ravenna. No masterly intellectual effort, such as the Aachen plan shows, was necessary to plan a rectangle with two smaller rectangles at either end. But the church at Aachen had made the centralised plan familiar to the builders of western Europe. In Germany and in France there are traces of its influence; and we may reasonably suppose that the builders of Barton-on-Humber were acquainted with the existence of an alternative to the usual plan of the church with a longitudinal axis, and did not arrive by haphazard at their concentration of the plan upon a central point. One earlier example of the centralised plan is known to have existed in England. In addition to his basilica at Hexham, Wilfrid had built another church there in the shape of a Greek cross. The description of it which we possess shows that the central space was the actual church, that it was tower-like in form, and nearly circular in shape, and that the arms were simply porch-like projections. Probably it was a combination of baptistery with tomb-church. It is not likely that the simple plan of Barton was derived from that at Hexham. Both were probably the result of continental influence; but, while the church at Hexham may have been the work of Gallo-Roman masons in direct communication with the general current of architectural progress, the church at Barton was probably built by Englishmen, who adapted the centralised plan to methods natural to their comparative want of skill.
§ 22. Neither at this time nor later did the centralised plan in England develop along the lines suggested by Barton-on-Humber. No real development on such lines was possible. In Germany, the achievement at Aachen made possible the polygonal nave of St Gereon at Cologne and the centralised plan of the Liebfrauenkirche at Trier, as well as many twelfth and thirteenth century churches whose complicated parts are planned and massed together with relation to a central tower space. In England, however, the habit of dealing with circular or polygonal forms made little progress; and our few "round churches," the plan of the naves of which was a devout imitation of the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and our polygonal chapter houses, are almost all that we have to show in the way of attempts at a definitely centralised plan. Our church plan develops as the result of an effort to combine a series of rectangles effectively; and, while this combination can be attempted in several different ways, it is obvious that the rigid lines of the rectangle do not admit of that free scope in centralised planning which is given by the circle or polygon.
§ 23. We have seen, however, that, even in the earliest days, there was a tendency to admit additions to the simple longitudinal plan, which, in process of time, were bound to give birth, if not to a definitely centralised plan, to something, at any rate, in which a central point counted for much. A feature of the early cathedral and of St Pancras at Canterbury, was the projection of porticus, porches or side chapels, from the nave. These were entered by archways pierced in the centre of the lateral walls. In the cathedral they had outer doorways, and formed the main entrances of the church, on the north from the monastery, on the south from the city. The south porch contained the altar of St Gregory, and, as Eadmer tells us, was used as a court of justice to which litigants, in process of time, resorted from every part of England. In the north porch, dedicated to St Martin, was held the school of the monastery. Upon both porches towers were built at a date which cannot be ascertained, but was probably later than the time of Augustine. Of the use of the porches at St Pancras, which did not contain outer doorways, it is impossible to say anything definitely. Entrance porches, of which one remains, projected from the sides of the church at Bradford-on-Avon: the outer and inner doorways of the north porch are extremely narrow, and are placed west of the centre of its north and south walls. It is possible, therefore, that there was an altar in this porch, so that it served the double purpose of entrance porch and side chapel.
§ 24. As time went on, the western porch beneath the tower was disused as a public entrance. The principal entrance of most churches is on the south side, west of the centre of the aisle wall, and is usually covered by a porch. There is a Saxon [example] of this at Bishopstone in Sussex, where, as at Bradford, room seems to have been left for an altar on the east side. However, the main entrance of the ordinary Saxon church was at the west end, through the ground floor of the tower. The porch in the lateral wall seems to have been regarded primarily as a side chapel; and in some later Saxon churches the porches were dissociated from lateral doorways, and were planned as closed projections from the eastern part of the north and south walls of the nave. This seems to have happened at Britford, near Salisbury, where archways remain on both sides near the east end of the nave. At Deerhurst square projections were entered from both sides of the nave, immediately west of the chancel arch; and it is probable that there were somewhat similar projections at Repton. At Worth in Sussex, where the north and south doorways of the nave are Saxon, and there is no western entrance or original tower, there are large Saxon chapels projecting from the eastern part of the nave, and entered by wide arches. The cruciform plan is sufficiently marked in the conjectural restorations of Deerhurst and Repton. At Worth it is quite unmistakable.
§ 25. At Worth, however, in spite of the dignity of the lateral arches, the chapels are still porch-like excrescences, larger in scale than usual, but lower in elevation than the nave. In elevation their transept-like appearance is less noticeable than on plan. Moreover, the length of the nave remains unbroken from west wall to chancel arch: no central space is marked off to which these transeptal projections give emphasis. Nevertheless, a suggestion of an intermediate space between nave and chancel is given; and this space is definitely marked in the plans of churches which may be quite as early in date as Worth—i.e. about the first half of the eleventh century—by the admission of a tower between nave and chancel. The eastern part of the walls of the nave at St Mary's in Dover Castle are continued upwards as a tower, with small rectangular chapels projecting from the sides of the ground floor. Externally, no division between the tower and nave is noticeable; but, inside the church, in addition to the chancel arch and the arches into the chapels, a fourth arch is pierced in the western wall of the tower, and so an intermediate space between tower and nave is effectually created. At Breamore in Hants, a further step is taken. The tower space, between nave and chancel, is of the same width as the nave; but, in addition to the necessary internal division, an external division is also marked by the quoins of the tower, which are complete to the ground. Only one chapel remains at Breamore, on the south of the tower, entered by a narrow Saxon archway; but there was originally another on the north.
§ 26. The chapels which project from these early "central" towers are, it is to be noted, not true transepts. They are narrower than the tower, which is built up from the ground, and not upon a system of piers and arches which require lateral abutments in the form of transepts. The western tower is transferred, as it were, to a point near the centre of the church, assumes the width of the nave, and is provided with transeptal excrescences, to communicate with which its side walls are pierced. Such excrescences are not necessary. At Stanton Lacy, in Shropshire, there is only one. At Dunham Magna, in Norfolk, and other places, such as Waith in Lincolnshire, there are, or were originally, none at all. The construction of the "central" tower upon piers connected by arches was beyond the skill of the ordinary Saxon builder; and its natural consequence, the development of the full cruciform plan, with transepts of the height and width of nave and chancel, was thus out of his reach. We know, from contemporary evidence, that one important abbey church, that of Ramsey, had a central tower which was built upon piers and arches as early as 974 A.D.; and perhaps this was the case in other large churches. But, even in the large church of Stow in Lincolnshire, which is commonly taken on trust, without sufficient historical evidence, as the cathedral church of the Saxon diocese of Lindsey, although an advance in transeptal construction was made, the main principle was imperfectly grasped. This church was made the home of a community of clergy about the beginning of the reign of Edward the Confessor, by Leofric, earl of Mercia, and his wife Godiva. It was restored after the Conquest by Rémi, the first Norman bishop of Lincoln. The aisleless nave and chancel are Norman work of two periods: probably the nave was rebuilt upon Saxon foundations. The transepts, however, of considerable length and equal height with nave and chancel, were retained from the pre-Conquest building. The tall jambs of the arches of the central tower also remain on all four sides. The arches which they bear are of early Norman character; and the present tower is a late Gothic structure, the arches and piers of which are built up on the inner side of the older masonry. But the Saxon tower space, including the area of the arch-jambs, is rather wider than the arms of the cross which project from it. The tower formed a separate building, with quoins complete from the ground, and nave, chancel, and transepts, instead of combining to support it, were mere excrescences from it, entered by arches in its walls. Possibly the example of Barton-on-Humber may have had to do with this treatment of the tower as a separate central pavilion, which may have been deliberately preferred to the arch and pier treatment. In other respects the plan is an advance upon the plans of Dover and Breamore. And the necessary advance upon Stow is found in the church of Norton-on-Tees in south Durham. Here the tower, between nave and chancel, rests on piers connected by arches. The arches have been widened; two have been entirely rebuilt at a later date; and the rest of the church has been subjected at different times to enlargement and rebuilding. In spite of this, we have at Norton our earliest surviving example of a plan in which the various portions of the church—nave, chancel, and transepts—are gathered together in one structural connexion. The tower is to the east of the centre of the longitudinal axis of the church; but structurally, it is the central point with regard to which the building is planned, and the unity of the composition depends upon it.
§ 27. We have arrived thus at a centralised plan of cruciform shape, of which the component parts are rectangular, the central space being approximately a square. The examples which have been given cannot be proved to follow one another in chronological order, but they represent successive steps in planning and construction, of which Norton-on-Tees is the highest. The importance of the inclusion of the tower in the plan is obvious. In its early appearances, its position is unsettled, but the natural tendency is to place it above a main entrance; and this is usually at the west end of the building. Where the builders aim at a simple centralised plan, the high central rectangle will form, like the round or octagonal central space of Wilfrid's church of St Mary at Hexham, ecclesia ... in modum turris erecta, and, as at Barton-on-Humber, will possibly be heightened by a later generation into a real tower. The distinction of the side chapel from the entrance porches, becoming more fully recognised, will lead to the building of transeptal chapels at the east end of the nave; and thus an important addition will be made to the ordinary longitudinal plan. The need of some central building, against which these additions may abut, will be felt. The tower will thus be introduced between nave and chancel, either as an independent structure, or as an upward extension of part of the side walls. The transepts thus, as at Stow, can be raised to an equal height with nave and chancel. From this to a plan in which the component parts are recognised as interdependent, and are closely knit together in structural unity, is an obvious step. At this point, architectural skill, as distinct from mere building ingenuity, comes into play.
§ 28. As we proceed, we shall find survivals of old plans, even at an advanced period in the middle ages, which prove that progress in architecture was by no means of an uniform kind. Builders in remote, and especially in hilly, districts, from Saxon times to the present day, have naturally restricted themselves to plans which require as little cost as possible to carry out. Local building material is also an important consideration. In districts where good building stone is to be obtained on the spot, or where money is plentiful and water carriage is possible, the development of plan is naturally rapid, and every fifty years or so, additions to churches will be made in which the old plan will become entirely transformed. In woodland districts, the plan will be controlled to no small extent by the requirements of timber construction. In such regions, Saxon churches were probably built of wood. The only wooden church of Saxon times which remains is that of Greenstead in south Essex, with a rectangular chancel and aisleless nave constructed of vertical logs placed side by side, and framed originally into a timber plinth. However, it may be stated as a general rule, that, whatever may be the helps or hindrances to development provided by local materials, the real starting-point of the parish church plan of the middle ages is in every part of the country an aisleless plan; and that this plan consists either of a nave and chancel with a longitudinal axis, or of a nave and chancel whose longitudinal axis is intersected by a transverse axis across transepts. Variations, no doubt, occur; but these will never carry us far from one or other of these fundamental plans. The aisled basilica of the continent found no scope for itself in Saxon England; and it was through an interval of aisleless building that the aisled plan eventually became acclimatised, and then in a form which bears only a superficial kinship to the basilican plan.