Lectures on the rise and development of medieval architecture; vol. 1

by Sir George Gilbert Scott

A Digression concerning Windows.

In the foregoing Lectures, having only brought the history of our Architecture down to the close of the thirteenth century, I have neglected that of the later styles, and, consequently in great measure, the development and progressive changes in window-tracery. This has, however, been so amply treated of in many books and essays that it is not a matter with me of much regret. I confess I had intended to have supplied the omission in subsequent lectures, but circumstances prevented.

It would have been an agreeable task to have followed up the history of window-tracery and the many details which accompanied it, through the remaining two and a half centuries of the reign of Gothic architecture—to have shown how it grew from the purely geometrical system of Westminster, Newstead, and the “Angel choir” at Lincoln into the sweeter tracery of the “Easter aisle” at St. Albans, and of St. Etheldreda’s Chapel in Holborn; and on again into the yet softer loveliness of the Lady Chapel at Chichester, the halls at Penshurst, Mayfield, the gatehouses of Battle Abbey and of St. Augustine’s at Canterbury, and the Chapel of St. Anselm and De Estria’s work at the cathedral there; and then again into the more flowing tracery of Alan de Walsingham’s work, till it fell into debility by its too sensuous ramifications, and was brought back again to vigour by the stern perpendicular work of Wykeham; and how that, in its turn, became softened down, into such works as Crosby and Eltham Halls, and again into the exuberance of the Tudor style. All this would be very pleasant, but would necessitate the treating of all contemporary variations of detail, and would swell my lectures out into another volume: more than this, I have given no such lectures. It has been my task to show the principles on which Gothic architecture was founded, and on which it attained its leading developments, rather than to follow them out to their ultimate results, on attaining which much which led to them was thrown aside, as scaffolding is taken down when a structure is completed.

I feel it necessary, however, while neglecting the more usual course of chronicling the history of window-tracery, to supplement my lectures at this point with some remarks on the general construction of windows—applicable more or less to all periods of Mediæval architecture.

The most normal form of a window in an arched style is simply an opening straight through the wall covered by a barrel arch. This is, however, obviously defective in its fitness for diffusing light in the interior, a deficiency which, though slight in the case of a large window in a thin wall, becomes serious when the window is narrow and the wall thick. The simplest method of meeting this is to splay the jambs and arch of the window, at, for example, an angle of forty-five degrees, so as to allow for the spreading of the rays of light within.

In English architecture of pre-Norman days, this was most frequently done, both within and without, by placing the glass a long way from the outer face, or perhaps in the mid-thickness of the wall ([Fig. 154]). This had the advantage of splaying the head or arch as well as the jamb, which allowed more high light to enter; an advantage often increased by splaying the exterior of the arch more than the jambs, giving it a bonnet-like shape, and so obtaining still higher light ([Fig. 155]). Windows thus splayed inside and out, may be seen in the Castle Church at Dover—some few of these are not arched but had oak lintels, splaying upwards at about forty-five degrees ([Fig. 156]). The bonnet-headed window may be seen at Holy Trinity Church, Colchester; Clapham Church, Bedfordshire and many other buildings.

Fig. 154.

Fig. 155. Fig. 156.

Fig. 157.

The deeply splayed window may also be seen in part of St. Pantaleon’s Church at Cologne ([Fig. 157]), which is a work of the tenth century, and in the aisles of the Basse-œuvre at Beauvais, a church of at least as early a date, so that it may be viewed as a feature common during these early periods of Romanesque which preceded that from which our Mediæval styles were developed. During the rise of the Norman style, a different system was more usually adopted, the splay of the jambs and arch being mainly internal. A series of humble village churches at the back of Dover Cliffs have windows in which the glass was flush with the exterior, and all the splay put inside; many both in Normandy and in this country differ from this only in having a very small external splay, and even when the exterior is shafted the inner splay often comes close to the face of the recessed order.

Fig. 158.—Chancel, Burgh Church, Norfolk.

This excessive flushness is less frequent as the style advances, and in Early English, though sometimes, as in the beautiful chancel at Burgh in Norfolk, ([Fig. 158]) the glass is sometimes brought extremely close to the outside: it is usual to have at least a few inches of splay around it.

In transitional work, as in Norman, the internal splay, often of very great width, usually runs round the arch concentrically; but in developed Early English,

Fig. 159.

Fig. 160.

Fig. 161.

Fig. 162.

Figs. 163, 164.

and in subsequent styles, a special variety of internal arch is introduced suited to those numerous cases in which the glass-plane is far nearer (as it is in a majority of instances) to the outer than the inner face of the walls. The simplest form of this internal window-arch takes the form of a barrel (pointed) arch, springing so much lower than the spring of the outside arch as to allow it to span the increased internal width without rising unduly higher than the outside arch, as was the case when the splay was continued round the inner arch. This arch of necessity formed an intersection with the inside splays. Its edge was usually in the plainest specimens, relieved by a chamfer ([Fig. 159]), which was often exchanged for a moulding ([Fig. 160]); but a far more agreeable finish was a rib dropping down a little from the arched soffite, its edges being either chamfered or moulded with or without a label over it ([Fig. 161]). This, if the arch were made slightly segmental, would die into the jamb-splay, or it might be carried on a corbel ([Fig. 162]) or a shaft ([Figs. 163], [164]), thus forming a very agreeable and picturesque internal finish to the window.

This rib is usually termed a rere-arch.

Professor Willis, in his paper on the Architectural Nomenclature of the Middle Ages, calls it a “Scoinson Arch,” from a French word “escoinsons.” He also quotes the term “arrière voussure,” probably meaning the arch behind the rib.

Professor Willis’s general description, which I had not referred to when I wrote the above, is as follows:—“An arch is placed so as to carry the inner surface of the wall. In simple examples, like the present, this rib is plain, and dies against the jambs, but in superior buildings is richly moulded, and a shaft, with base and capital and side-mouldings, are added to the edges of the jamb. But this arrangement is mostly distinct from the window-tracery. This arch is of different and larger span from that of the window-head, because the spreading or embrasure of the jambs increases the opening inwards. It is also of a different curvature, and the decoration of the two disconnected and separated by the plain splayed sides of the window-opening, connecting the two, and resting at one end on the tracery, and at the other on the rib, is a narrow vault or voussure, which again is not necessarily of the same curvature as the sustaining arches, but which carries the core of the wall above.”

He says farther on:—“We may therefore call the said vault, rib, and shaft; the rere-vault, rere-rib, and rere-shaft of the window.” He also remarks that, “in the thick walls of Mediæval structure, the tracery and its glazing are commonly placed much nearer to the outer surface of the wall than to the inner.” This last observation calls our attention to a great and important distinction by which nearly all Mediæval windows may be classified—viz., those which have their glass-plane at or near the mid-thickness of the wall, and those which, as the Professor says, have it “much nearer to the outer surface than to the inner.”

This distinction was, as I have shown, of early date; being in its earlier ages rather distinctive of “Saxon” from Norman windows. The class, however, in which the glass was nearer the outer than the inner side had, up to about the year 1200, its inner arch concentric with its outer one; but the invention of the rere-arch and its accompaniments obviated this, and established a hard and obvious distinction between these two great classes of windows.

The custom of sometimes placing the glass at the mid-thickness of the wall was in no degree given up, but, on the contrary, was continued through all styles; but, when adopted, the older system of making the inner concentric with the outer arch was nearly always continued, marking more distinctly the great difference between the two classes of window. The choice between them became a mere matter of taste and of outlay; all styles acknowledging both as equally admissible and correct.

The two systems may be distinguished as rere-arch windows and through-arch windows—i.e., those in which the inner is distinct from the outer arch, and those in which the same arch runs through the wall, showing itself more or less similarly on its outer and inner faces.

Fig. 165.—Broughton Church, Oxfordshire.

Fig. 166.—Christchurch, Hants. North Transept.

In thick walls and rich work there is often another order of through-arch within the tracery order, or rather the outer order re-appears within. The rere-arch is occasionally cusped, as in a window at Broughton, Oxfordshire ([Fig. 165]), and the intervening space is sometimes groined, as in some windows at Salisbury and Christchurch ([Fig. 166]), or richly panelled, as in some at Westminster. In some instances the place of the rere-arch is occupied by distinct tracery, like a second window in advance of the real one. This consists in most instances of perfect bar tracery, while the window itself is of plate tracery; as may be seen in some of the windows at Stone Church, Kent ([Fig. 167]), and as once existed on a much larger scale in the chapter-house at Tintern. I may here mention that the tracery of a window is always viewed as an arch-order; and, though the corresponding order in the jamb is in the solid with the jamb up to the springing, the tracery, like other arch-orders, is severed by a continuous joint from the order above it.

Fig. 167.—Stone Church, Kent.

The most normal type of the through-arch window is that in which the glass is placed in the middle of the thickness of the wall, and the interior of the window is a mere repetition of its exterior. This is not, however, by any means necessary or constant; for the glass is often either less or more recessed, and the inner mouldings, etc., are not always similar to the external ones, so that the existence or non-existence of a separate internal arch is the more clear distinction. Some, however, of an intermediate character, are to be found in which an inner arch, separate in design, is nevertheless concentric with the outer arch. In others the separate existence of the inner arch arises from the existence of a triforium passage, which in clerestory windows leads to some changes of design from the normal type. In others the rere-arch is not only concentric, but is so close upon the outer arch as to be almost one with it. The two classes are, however, for the most part easily distinguished.

Fig. 168.—Chancel, Brecon Priory.

One of the earliest instances which I recollect of the rere-arch is in the eastern part of Tynemouth Priory.[63] This is in the transitional style, and the strongly-marked separation of the inner from the outer arch is largely owing to the vast thickness of the walls. The glass plane is perhaps four times as far from the inside as from the outside.

A fine series of specimens is in the chancel of Brecon Priory ([Fig. 168]), where the separation between the outer and inner arch, and the depth of the glass from the inner face are also very great. Most of the early English windows found in churches of an ordinary type are of this class. Among Early English buildings in which the windows are mostly of the “rere-arch” variety, may be mentioned Salisbury Cathedral, Whitby Abbey, the Temple Church (eastern part), the Chapel of the Nine Altars at Durham,[64] Trumpington’s work at St. Alban’s, the choir of Brecon Priory, the eastern Chapels at Winchester ([Fig. 169]), the chapter-house at Oxford, the choir of Fountains Abbey, etc. Among those of the same style in which the “through-arch” window prevails, may be mentioned the transepts at York, the choir aisles at Carlisle, Rievaulx Abbey, the chapter-house at Furness Abbey ([Fig. 170]), much of the work at Lincoln, Kirkham Abbey, etc.

Fig. 169.—Winchester Cathedral. De Lucy’s work.

Among buildings transitional between Early English and Decorated, or very early Decorated, may be named as having mainly rere-arch windows, Westminster Abbey (excepting the chapter-house), Tintern Abbey, the eastern parts

Fig. 172.—Chapel of St. Etheldreda, Ely Place, Holborn. East window.

Fig. 171.—Chapel of St. Etheldreda, Ely Place, Holborn. West window.

of St. Alban’s Abbey, the beautiful Templars’ Church at Temple Balsal, the Chapel of the Palace of the Bishops of Ely in Holborn (Figs. [171], [172]), the choir of Dorchester Abbey, the Bishops’ Hall at Wells, the choir of Merton Chapel at Oxford, etc.

Fig. 170.—Furness Abbey, one bay of Chapter-House.

Fig. 173.—The Chapter-House, Salisbury Cathedral.

Among those of a like period in which the through-arch window prevails, may be named the chapter-houses at Westminster and Salisbury ([Fig. 173]), the later parts of Lincoln, the choir aisles at Selby and Guisborough, the choir of St. Mary’s Abbey at York, most of the Decorated work at York Minster, Exeter, etc. In later Decorated work the same freedom of choice prevails, as it does also in “Perpendicular” buildings, though, as we come down to later dates, the “through-arch” becomes, on the whole, more prevalent.

Taking all styles together, the rere-arch, or in earlier works the wider internal splay, is greatly more frequent, probably because less costly than the other form; and though, when the “through-arch” is used, the glass is usually set deeper from the external face than when there is a rere-arch, and is frequently near the centre of the wall, such is often not the case, as in the eastern windows at Kirkham, where the internal depth is much the greater, and, in a few instances, where it is less, than the external. On the whole, it may be said that the rere-arch system tells most internally, while the other offers greater freedom for external depth of jamb and arch mouldings. Both are equally at the choice and command of the architect, who can use both, if he pleases, in the same building, and to condemn either would be like blotting out an essential element of architecture.

LECTURE VIII.
On the Practical Study of Gothic Architecture.

Evident ignorance or neglect of those who practise Gothic architecture—Faithfulness of others—The styles should be learned from ancient buildings—Our knowledge to be continually revived and added to—Hints to students—The study of Lincoln Cathedral, Canterbury Cathedral, and examples in London—Libraries and museums in London—Foreign travel—Examples in Paris, and other parts of France—Germany, Italy, Spain, etc. etc.

AS it is six years since I last delivered a lecture in this place, and nine years since the first of the short series which I gave, it is in the highest degree improbable that any one of the students whom I have the pleasure of addressing was present on any of those occasions. Had that series been a complete one, I might possibly have done better by, in some degree, repeating it; but as it was not so, and as there is an inconsistency in offering supplementary lectures to a new audience, I have adopted the expedient of printing my former lectures, and distributing them to the architectural students, and of re-exhibiting the illustrations which accompanied them; so that, knowing that those who have thought it worth while may have read what I have already said, I am free to proceed as if my audience were unchanged.

I will here mention that I only come before you at all owing to my friend Mr. Smirke (who for five years has so ably and indefatigably fulfilled the duties of Professor of Architecture), having felt it necessary, for this year at least, to retire from those duties, and to my having been asked to do something—be it ever so little—to prevent the class of architecture from falling into abeyance for the year. I have, therefore, undertaken two lectures, as a mere apology during the interregnum for the more onerous duties of a professor, and I must beg to be excused if the manner in which I perform this temporary duty is of the same dubious kind with the duty itself.

In my former lectures I endeavoured, first, to state the claims of Gothic architecture upon our special study and attention; I next, in a series of four lectures, traced out with some minuteness the history of its development from the earlier and ruder forms of Romanesque—through the various processes of refinement which brought that style to its highest state of perfection—and, through the great process of transition by which it became gradually and systematically changed into the Pointed style: not, as I showed, from a mere change of taste or fashion, but from strictly logical and practical causes, accompanied by an ardent unresting determination to raise the art to the highest perfection which the circumstances of the age would permit; and I then showed how the Pointed style—when once generated—developed itself into the perfected and glorious architecture of the middle of the thirteenth century.

I did not follow out the history of Gothic architecture in its succeeding stages, as my object was rather moral than merely historical, and I desired rather to exhibit the glorious earnestness of a people, who, while developing a new civilisation, pressed ardently forward, side by side with it, the generation of a new style of architecture, than to give a history of the successive changes through which that architecture passed. When, therefore, I had traced out the style to its culminating point, I quitted mere history, and closed with two lectures on the rationale of the style, showing how every form which characterised it in its best days was dictated, not by fashion or caprice, but by reason.

Being now, after a lengthened interval, called upon to add two lectures to my series, I take for my subjects the practical study of Gothic architecture, and its actual practice and adaptation to the requirements of our own day.

Commencing, then, with the study of the style, nothing seems at first sight so obvious as how to gain knowledge of such a subject; indeed, you may feel puzzled to think what there is to say on so simple a matter. “Surely,” you might say, “if a person wants to obtain a knowledge of a subject so thoroughly investigated, so popular, and brought so prominently before the public as for many years past has been the case with Gothic architecture, there is no difficulty in the world about it, nor is it worth while to waste an hour in listening to a lecture on so patent a question.” How is it, then, we may ask in return, that such a multitude of architects erect Gothic buildings, one glance at which is sufficient to show that they are ignorant of the style in which they are pretending to work?—that we see at every turn attempts at advanced development of the style which betray an utter innocence of all acquaintance with its A B C?—and that worst of all, we find the precious remnants of Mediæval art restored—Oh, shame on the misnomer!—by men who have never given thought enough to the subject to enable them to appreciate, even in the faintest degree, the value of the treasures committed in such false confidence to their keeping, or to form the most distant idea of their own ignorance? Surely, this is enough to prove that the study of Gothic architecture is not understood, or is grievously neglected by those who assume a knowledge of and presume to practise it.

And the converse is equally true: that the success, more or less perfect, of many others proves that the true road is known, and by a certain number is faithfully followed. My object in what I have to say is more, perhaps, to urge upon each of you to be of that number than to make any but what will appear most trite and self-evident suggestions as to what the true road is in which I ask you to walk.

In the first place, it is self-evident that Gothic architecture is only to be learned from the old examples. I notice, absurd as it may seem, that many young architects appear to think that it may be learned from books and by looking at modern buildings, and really pay little attention to the original sources of all our information. True, it is the part of every student to make use of all the resources within his reach, and it would be absurd to undervalue the aid of books; it is also wise to look at the works of such modern architects as are worthy of confidence; but there is no source from which the style can be really learned but the ancient examples, and to these it is impossible to devote too great an amount of study.

I would next observe that this study of old examples must be continuous. It is not a course of study to be followed up for a certain time and then brought to a close, but must be continued indefinitely throughout your whole course, so as to be ever reviving and ever adding to your knowledge. In the study of Classic architecture, though it is from the original examples that knowledge and inspiration are drawn, these examples are so far removed from us, in this country at least, that it is as a rule only possible to study from them once or twice during a whole life. The case is, happily, very different with the examples of Mediæval art: we are surrounded by them wherever we go;—they are the early monuments of our own country, the works of our forefathers, and our study of them is not the work of one strong effort at a single period of our lives, but a constantly renewing study, a fountain to which we may return again and again whenever we feel to need its refreshing influences. This, though an inestimable advantage, may prove a temptation to negligence, as we are apt to let go opportunities which are ever at hand, so that we must not trust to these desultory sippings for our main supply, but must drink deep and long when we have the opportunity; and more especially I would urge upon you to do so now—in the days of your youth, while yet unencumbered by the cares of business, while your feelings are fresh and your thoughts unshackled. This is the time for laying in the great stores of knowledge which must be the main supply of your future lives, and without which the scant and hasty draughts obtained on chance opportunities will be of no avail, but after which they will be the means of constantly refreshing and adding ever new life to the knowledge already possessed. We may say of this as of other branches of study,

“A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.”

The conditions under which the study has to be pursued seem in some degree to preclude its being followed in a strictly systematic manner. We are obliged to study buildings, of whatever date, as they may come in our way; and every building we visit is likely to be of many periods and to have undergone alterations more or less radical; so that we are almost forbidden to systematise our studies on any principle, chronological or otherwise. We must, in fact, take our examples pretty much as we happen to find them; and the best method when we set out on a sketching tour is, probably, to devote our attention to a particular district, and to follow it up, town by town and village by village, as convenience or previous information may suggest, visiting and thoroughly studying all objects worthy of it which come in our way.

Nothing can be more delightful than these excursions. If you know beforehand what you are likely to meet with, the very anticipation of what each day will bring before you will add zest to your appetite for architectural enjoyment; while if you do not know what objects of interest may lie in your course, the very speculation will give relish to the search.

Here, perhaps, you come to the site of some famous monastery, less happy in its days of ruin and desertion than some which have become the favourite haunts of the artist. It has, perhaps, been for ages the stone-quarry of the district, and now only some one gable-end with its lofty lancets shows the noble scale of the ancient church. Here, it may be, nothing stands aboveground but the bases of the pillars; farther on the wall rises to the height of the window-jambs, and shows the arcading of the walls; and there the aisle wall retains the doorways leading through into the cloister—now a farm-yard—on the eastern side of which you find the three beautiful arches, the central one of which formed the approach to the chapter-house, and round this cloister you still trace the plan of the refectory and other monastic buildings. But, scanty and now humble as are the ruins, you find the details to be of the highest order of artistic refinement. The bases of the lost columns are profiled with the most studied delicacy, the few remaining doorways are perfect models of rich though unostentatious detail, the archways, perhaps, of the chapter-house entrances are of the most elegant and studied beauty. On tracing out and measuring the plan, you find its arrangement and proportions to be of the most perfect kind; and, though so little comparatively stands in situ, the ground is strewn here and there with masses from the superstructure, from which you may trace out the design of much which has fallen down, while the fences and agricultural buildings around are perfect storehouses of mouldings, capitals, and fragments of tracery or of groining, from which you can study the detail almost as profitably as from a perfect building.

In the next village you find, perhaps, a church of the humblest dimensions and of the most unambitious architecture, yet you trace in its simple details the proofs of its having been erected by the monks of the neighbouring convent, and you feel that, plain and unpretending as they are, they were designed by as masterly a hand as the abbey church itself, and deserve to be as carefully studied and as minutely sketched and measured. Again, farther on, you find a church of noble scale, in which you trace the work of many periods. The internal pillars and arcades show a period just emerging from the Romanesque, though its rudeness has been quite cast aside, and its mouldings are, on the contrary, of the greatest refinement. The chancel, perhaps, is of more advanced Early Pointed, the aisles, the clerestory, and the tower of later periods; and the screens and the few remaining old seats are specimens of the oak-work of the fifteenth century. Here and there in corners you find encaustic tiles, in some of which you recognise patterns you had observed in the site of the ruined abbey. In the upper parts of the window-lights and scattered among the plain glazing you find fragments of glass which would do honour to any age, and such as our glass painters would do well to study, instead of turning them out with scorn to make way for a memorial to some recently departed squire.[65] The sedilia in the chancel, and the piscinæ both there and in the aisles, are any of them alone objects worthy of the most careful study, and every doorway and every window possesses more or less claim upon your attention.

In another place you find less, perhaps, to interest you in the church, for it has passed through the hands of some architect famed in the county for his successful destructiveness, but you find other objects of interest. There is an old manor-house which, though mostly of Jacobean date, retains traces of early and scarce periods of domestic architecture. Nor are its later portions unworthy of your study: its brick chimneys have a beauty about them which modern architects have striven in vain to emulate; the half-timber gable fronts are models of timber construction; within there are remnants of oak panelled ceilings, of wall linings, of doors perhaps with moulded oak door-cases, of simple but well-designed chimney-piers, and all sorts of little odds and ends, all worthy of being carefully and minutely noted, whatever may be their age; for our old house architecture is often most valuably suggestive, even down to very late periods. The cottages around, too, seem to do homage to the more dignified residence, by showing here a good timbered gable-end, there a well proportioned brick chimney; indeed, I would advise the architectural tourist never to despise the cottage architecture of our villages, but to note as they pass every fragment which has escaped the hand of time, for they are most useful and instructive, and, you may depend upon it, they will not much longer exist.[66]

In another village you will, perhaps, find that the church has been the burial-place of some famous family of olden times. Under low arches in the aisles, and now almost hidden by the high pewing, you find the cross-legged effigies of the earlier members of the house, perhaps of oak, and hollowed out beneath, to prevent their warping out of shape; and if you examine these effigies, you will find them far from being the rude specimens of sculpture which our modern critics may suppose. You find in their attitude a dignity and stern nobility which our sculptors would find it not so very easy to emulate, while the chain armour, with its rigid lines, and the linen surcoat, with its more delicate foldings, are executed with a truthfulness and feeling which show that the man who worked them possessed both the soul and the hand of an artist. These are worthy of being carefully drawn, though to do this well demands much time. I have heard of Stoddart giving a week to one such figure! There are, perhaps, in the same church, one or two female effigies whose drapery and pose remind you of that of Queen Eleanor at Westminster, and one or two brasses well worthy of being copied, rather than rubbed off; for the object of these tours is not only to obtain possession of representations of the objects of art which you meet with, but to practise and tutor your hand and eye by practically studying from them.

Then, again, as you pass through the county, you find other objects equally worthy of note; as, for instance, the old bridges which here and there the county magistrates have permitted to remain, and which travellers but rarely see because they pass over them. The village or churchyard cross, the lych-gate, sometimes even the dovecote—all have claims upon your attention; and where a church is generally humble, and perhaps denuded by the mutilations of older ignorance or of modern conceit, there may yet remain a doorway, a pillar, a window or two worthy of attention. In one place it will be the tower which most excites your interest; in another the timber roofs; in a third you may luxuriate in carved screen-work, in chancel stalls, and rich nave seating; and in a fourth the great attraction may be the painted glass. In one tour you may take a homely series of churches like those of Essex, which, under an unpretending exterior often contain some of the most useful and valuable work; or going on farther in the eastern counties, you may visit the fine churches of Suffolk and Norfolk, with their noble timber roofs, their beautiful seating, and in many cases their richly and artistically coloured and embossed screens; or, taking another direction, you may follow the noble course of churches of Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire, with their charming towers and spires. Indeed, in whatever direction you go, some new and differing characteristics will reward your labour; and in every one I would urge upon you to sketch everything which strikes you as worthy of notice, whether in the church, the castle, or the cottage, not omitting the humble brick chimney-shaft, or the brick or stone or timber gable, or even the stamped plaster of the eastern counties.

In all this course of study you will be much facilitated by the remembrance of your practical office work. You will remember puzzling questions which have occurred to you while making working details, and watch to find them solved in original work. How is the gable of an aisle connected with the eaves? and how with the parapet? How are timber overhanging eaves brought in contact with a stone gable? and how is the same done with stone eaves, or where the eaves are wood, and the roof timbers show through the gable?[67] All sorts of little questions such as these will have occurred to you in practice, and rested as doubtful points on your minds, but may be solved in many natural and pleasant ways while travelling among old examples—except, indeed, where the modern “restorer,” innocent as a babe of all such doubts, has levelled everything to his own office tariff. In such tours, be most careful accurately to sketch all the scarcer classes of examples you meet with, such as remnants of thirteenth and fourteenth century roofs and other wood-work, fragments of painted glass, specimens of iron-work, early screens and stalls, choice specimens of carved foliage or figure sculpture, traces of wall decorations, illuminations of screens, etc., and colouring on roofs. The unsparing hand of the so-called restorer has devastated and is still eagerly devastating whole districts, and clearing them of these invaluable records of ancient art; and this alone, independently of their high intrinsic value, renders it doubly important that the few remaining relics should be carefully represented. And be it ever remembered that such representations, to be really valuable, should not be mere hasty memoranda, but, if possible, careful measured drawings.

I have hitherto supposed your sketching expedition to be one of a purely rural kind, and the examples from which you study to be mainly on the scale which we find in villages. I will now transfer the imaginary tourist to the opposite extreme, and suppose him to be devoting himself to one of our greatest cathedrals, as, for example, Lincoln. Here the case is greatly changed, for he will get no great good unless he seats himself down, determinedly and long, and goes through a lengthened course of careful and minute study, not necessarily of the entire cathedral, but at least of the parts selected for special attention. It is best at once, on your arrival, to take lodgings near at hand, and to enter into some arrangement with the verger for your admission at all reasonable hours, obtaining, if needful, a carte blanche from the authorities to go where you like, and at proper times to do what you like.

Should you set yourselves the task of tracing out and studying, step by step, the course of architectural change from the Norman Conquest to the close of the Mediæval periods, there are few places more suited than Lincoln for the purpose: indeed, I only remember a single link up to the middle of the fourteenth century which is missing from the chain, and that not wholly so.

In the towers of two churches in the lower city you have specimens of what may be fairly called Saxon, though of the date of the Conqueror; for when he drove out the old inhabitants from the upper city, to make way for his cathedral and castle, they erected for themselves churches in their own old architecture below the hill, while his people were at work in “the new manner of building” above. Of that “new manner” you will find specimens looking anything but new (excepting for the endeavours of the present chapter to impart that look to them[68]) in the west front; and if their surface shakes your faith in their authenticity, you will find within some parts, once external, but for six centuries enclosed in an early English appendage, which you will not doubt to be the work of old Remigius.

In the central doorway you have Norman of later date, and in the side ones truly exquisite specimens of the latest and most refined period of Romanesque, just before its transition into the Pointed style; and you will find the same work extending upward through the lower stages of the towers.

Here occurs, so far as I recollect, the only hiâtus. I do not remember any of that early variety of the Early Pointed of which the special characteristic is the square abacus, and on which I have dwelt so much at length in former lectures, such as that which prevails in Byland Abbey, and is seen in such high perfection in the entrance to the chapter-house of St. Mary’s Abbey at York.[69] The two late Norman doorways I have just mentioned tread close upon it, and the work which I shall next mention follows so closely after it as to differ only in the shape of the abacus, but the exact style is absent, its place being supplied by an almost unique variety of Early Pointed, which I would advise you specially to study. I refer to the work of Bishop Hugh, which forms the staple of the eastern transept with its appendages, the choir, and half of the east side of the great transept. At first sight this work looks like the fully-developed Early Pointed, and its date, which closes in 1200, seems an anachronism; but on closer inspection it will be found that this antedate quality is limited to the abaci of the shafts, which are nearly all circular. In every other particular the details agree with their date, and belong clearly to the early variety of the style. The mouldings are of that peculiarly beautiful and studied profile which we find at no other period, and are worthy of your most careful study; indeed, I know of no work which will better repay the laborious and accurately measured drawing of its details.

I had intended to have gone carefully into a description of the varied beauties of Lincoln. I recollect, however, that in one of my early lectures I dwelt long on this cathedral, and I must not repeat myself; but having spent lately nearly a week in the careful study of its details, I wish, from personal and recent experience, to urge its claims upon you. As I said in the lecture referred to, you will find in the nave one of the finest examples we have of the fully developed and typical Early English, and in its eastern parts perhaps the very finest of its latest form. The Easter Sepulchre is a fine specimen of Early decorated of about the period of the Eleanor Crosses, and the sleeping soldiers beneath it are charming pieces of sculpture; the choir screen is an excellent specimen of later Decorated, and the stall-work of fine early Perpendicular work.

In studying these various authorities, each among the highest of its class, I would suggest that they, particularly the productions of the three great periods

Fig. 174.—Easter Sepulchre, Lincoln Cathedral.

of Early Pointed architecture, should be followed out systematically and relatively; comparing them part by part, by means of drawings not only carefully measured, but plotted down accurately on the spot. Thus, I would compare bay with bay of each period both within and without, and then follow up this more general comparison by comparing the details, as, for example, pillar with pillar, base with base, capital with capital, string-course with string-course, and so on through the arch-moulds, the triforium, the windows, the vaulting, the wall arcading, and other features. By such a comparison you would obtain a very accurate knowledge of the whole course of thirteenth century architecture, as exemplified by one of the finest series of works that this or any other country can boast.

Fig. 175.—Capitals, north side of Choir Lincoln Cathedral.

You must not, however, rest here: you must draw artistically and carefully from the more decorative portions of the several works. There is a perfect study of carved foliage in each of the divisions of the work. There are noble portals,[70] one of which, in particular, is itself worthy of a special visit to Lincoln, and of the devotion to it of a considerable amount of time. There is also a great amount of very fine figure sculpture, not only in the triforium of the “angel choir,” but in the portal just mentioned, and on a few of the buttresses around it. These merit your most careful drawing, as they are some of the finest examples in this country. There is also a good deal of beautiful figure carving of a rather later date in the wooden bosses in the cloister, and some of a still later age in the stall work of the choir. I have already mentioned the sleeping soldiers under the Easter Sepulchre.

There are also a few remains of early wall painting. The largest amount is to be found in a chapel at the south-western angle of the nave, where a wall, the result of an alteration almost contemporary with the Early English chapel, has been richly decorated with bands of foliage, etc. These are now oddly intermixed with some decorations of the seventeenth century, but are readily distinguishable, and are a very useful series. Traces of decoration may also be found in the vaulting of the church itself and elsewhere. The stained glass in the circular window of the north transept is very fine, and merits close study, as also do the remains of that which once filled windows of the eastern part of the church, as well as remnants in other parts. All these, and a hundred other features, should be most carefully and studiously drawn from; indeed, there are few cities in Europe from which so vast an amount of information and instruction can be drawn—lessons not limited to the cathedral, but extending throughout the town, and consisting of domestic as well as ecclesiastical buildings.

I have only taken Lincoln as a specimen. The same course applies cæteris paribus, to all of our cathedrals. Look, for instance, at Canterbury.[71] What a magnificent and instructive series of objects of study does it offer! The Early Norman of Lanfranc and his immediate successors; the gorgeous later Norman of Conrad, including, probably, the beautifully ornamented shafts in the north-eastern part of the older crypt, and in the cloister-like building lying to the north of the same; the work of William of Sens (without studying which no one can thoroughly understand the English transition), and that of his English successor and pupil, which carries on the change a little farther. The charming developed Early English in the walls of the cloister; the early Decorated of Peckham’s tomb and the later Decorated of the lower stage of the chapter-house, of the enclosure of the choir and of St. Anselm’s Chapel; followed up as they are by fine works of later styles and accompanied by collateral work of the greatest value, both around the cathedral itself, in the remains of St. Augustine’s Abbey, and in other buildings in the city; form of themselves the groundwork for a course of study which would, if earnestly pursued, give the student a complete foundation on which all his future knowledge might well be based.

A comparison of William the Englishman’s work with that in the Castle Chapel and Castle Church at Dover would be interesting, as probably showing the works of the same hand; and a comparison of these, on another occasion, with the more thoroughly English work of the same period at St. Cross, and other buildings in which the English and French transition seem to work hand in hand, as Glastonbury and the rather later work at Chichester, followed up, again, by a study of the Northern transitional examples, would give a pretty perfect knowledge of this most instructive, perhaps, of all periods of English architecture.

I will not, however, weary you with barren bills of fare and outline tours, but will content myself with saying that the same course of close all-gathering study must be followed up wherever you go, whether making a tour of village churches or of the great northern abbeys, or seating yourselves down before a majestic cathedral.

Architecture properly so called, wood-work, metal-work, decorations, stained glass, and every form of art and workmanship, must be studied as if you had to perform like work for yourselves; and you must make yourselves perfect masters of it in every way; and, moreover, you must study the object and meaning of everything so as in every way perfectly to understand its motive, whether ritual, constructive, iconographic, artistic, or simply utilitarian.

I will make one other suggestion as to your English studies. You cannot be always making tours, but you need to be always studying. Do not, then, neglect those objects which surround you while at home. You have at your doors, if you live in London, abundant objects to occupy such incidental hours as you may have at your command.

To begin with, you have Westminster Abbey, the study of which may supply your leisure moments for life. What an inexhaustible fund of material of all kinds we have here! Of the earlier periods we have objects which—if not artistically important—possess at least a deep antiquarian interest; for we retain extensive remnants of that work of Edward the Confessor which a contemporary writer tells us was the very first erected in England in the “new manner of building;” meaning the Norman Romanesque as distinguished from the Saxon, which latter, curiously enough, had been viewed by those who practised it as being Roman. Then, we have the Late Norman of St. Catherine’s or the Infirmary Chapel. These are but incidental objects of interest, but how different is the case with the abbey church itself!

We have there the foremost work of its period in this country—a work distinctly intended to surpass all others, and in which the most advanced developments of its period were introduced. True, the exterior has been pared down and renewed in the last century till little is left but its mass and proportions which invites your study; but what an interior! I know of none more beautiful. Its uniformity may at first sight make it seem unprolific in variety of detail; but I would only say, try it, by commencing a systematic series of sketches, carefully measuring every part, making accurate sections of the mouldings and studied drawings from the foliage and the remains of the figure sculpture; and you will soon find that it is a mine of the most valuable examples of every kind of detail. Its workmanship, too, is of a very superior kind, and suggests lessons to those who carefully examine into it of the utmost importance. The chapter-house is as valuable an example as the church and its vestibule, and the early portions of the cloisters offer studies of the utmost value always open to the student.

The comparison between the works of Henry III. and of Edward I. form an interesting study, as showing the one step onward in the second stage of the work.

Of the age of this second work, you have several gorgeous specimens in the monuments of Queen Eleanor, of Crouchback, and of his Countess Aveline. The two latter are invaluable studies of coloured decoration in its most sumptuous form, and I specially commend them to your attention.

Fig. 176.—Westminster Abbey.

Fig. 177.—Westminster Abbey.

Of foliated carving you have admirable specimens, both of the most refined form of the conventional kind, and of the earliest form in which natural foliage was made use of ([Figs. 176], [177]). You have, in the tombs of Eleanor, Crouchback, and Aveline, and in the bosses of Edward I.’s work, the same carried on into a more systematic form; and I may here mention that generally the bosses in the vaulting are worthy of most careful study. Then, again, you have noble examples of figure sculpture in the earlier monuments, especially those of Henry III., Queen Eleanor, Crouchback, Aveline, and Aymer de Valence. Also some admirable relics of it in connection with the architecture; as, for example, in the angles of the triforium of the transepts ([Figs. 178], [179]), in the bosses of the western aisle of the north transept, and over the doorway of the chapter-house. Of later figure-sculpture there is an endless catalogue, winding up nobly with Torrigiano’s works in Henry VII.’s Chapel.

Fig. 178.—Angel Triforium of the South Transept, Westminster Abbey.

Fig. 179.—Angel Triforium of the South Transept, Westminster Abbey.

Of enamel-work you have splendid relics in the monument of William de Valence and in the shields on Edward III.’s. Of mosaic-work, whether of porphyry or enamel, you will find abundant examples, as you so well know: of the finer forms of painting you will find most exquisite relics in the wonderful retabulum of the altar[72] (now preserved in the ambulatory of the choir) and in the chapter-house; of iron-work you have a splendid example over the tomb of Queen Eleanor; and of bronze-work (though late in date) in the exquisite gates of Henry VII.’s Chapel and in his tomb, with its surrounding screen, also in the accompaniments of the bronze effigies already alluded to; while of later styles of architecture you have as splendid a series as this country can produce, ranging from the very earliest perpendicular in the cloisters, dating not much after the middle of the fourteenth century, to the gorgeous chapel of Henry VII.

Fig. 180.—Mosaic from the Tomb of the Children of Henry III. and Edward I., Westminster Abbey.

With such a storehouse of art at your doors, you need never want work. You have, however, in London many minor works of great value. To place them in chronological order: you have the chapel of the Tower, a work dating back almost to the Conquest;[73] St. Bartholomew’s Priory Church in Smithfield, a beautiful specimen of the later Norman;[74] the Temple Church, consisting of one of the finest

Fig. 181.—Temple Church, London. Capitals, West Door.

examples of the transitional[75] united with one of the finest of the fully-developed Early Pointed style; the remains which the modern Vandals have left us of St. Saviour’s Church, a noble Early Pointed work; the chapel of Lambeth Palace, in the same style; Ely Place Chapel, a work contemporary with the Eleanor Crosses;[76] the crypt of St. Stephen’s, Westminster; the hall of Lambeth Palace; Westminster Hall, and many an interesting object of minor importance. You have, if you want a day’s or a week’s trip, St. Alban’s Abbey, a never-failing and inexhaustible treasury; Waltham Abbey, with what remains unspoiled of the Cross; Stone Church, Hampton Court, Eltham Palace, Croydon Palace, Beddington Hall, Eastbury House, the ruins of Nether Hall, the Rye House, and many old churches now brought within an hour’s ride of London; not to mention the rapidly failing relics of the old churches of Middlesex, now the mere sport of destructive and ignorant committees, and—with shame I say it—sometimes of equally destructive but more culpable, because only wilfully ignorant, clergymen.

But London supplies other facilities for the study of Mediæval art in addition to its ancient buildings. In the first place, I may mention its libraries, in which the student may devote his spare hours in studying every work which has ever been published bearing upon the subject. The library of the British Museum (including the print-room and the manuscript-room) contains everything of that kind which the student could desire, and I strongly recommend you to gain the privilege of admittance and to make full use of that privilege. Your own library, too, at the Royal Academy, and those of the Institute of British Architects and of the Department of Art at South Kensington, offer every facility for study. I would especially mention that last named as being open in the evenings, and as being one of the most complete libraries of works on art in existence. The Architectural Museum[77] and the South Kensington Museum are absolutely invaluable as aids to the student; so that you have ample employment for the dead season of the year in which sketching tours are impossible, and it is your own fault if you do not make full and ample use of the privileges you possess; for, believe me, they are such as in former times it was impossible to obtain. I need hardly mention the British Museum, which, though not rich in Mediæval works, is the repository of those wondrous stores of Greek and other art which the Mediæval artist knows as well how to value as those who devote to them their more exclusive study.

You will perhaps wonder that I have said nothing as yet of foreign travel. I have delayed this intentionally, and for this reason: the facilities for travelling abroad are now so abundant, and so great a stress has of late years been laid on the study of foreign examples, that there is great danger of the student rushing headlong into foreign travel before he has made himself acquainted, in any but the most superficial manner, with the architecture of his own country.

You may possibly be disposed, after reading my former lectures, to say that, as most of the developments of our art seem to have originated abroad, it would be more systematic to study them in the first instance where they originated, and then to trace their ramifications in other countries. I would reply that, though when writing on a subject one is obliged to be systematic, it is by no means necessary that we should be rigorously so in our studies. Effects have in all sciences to be examined into before their causes are discovered, and it is often better that each student should for himself go through the process of tracing back familiar developments of art through the long course of circumstances which led to them, rather than, beginning at the original germ (which he must learn from others), to proceed—in a course not his own—till he arrives at the result with which he is familiar from its being at his own door.

However this may be, I hold it to be most unnatural for the English student of Gothic architecture to plunge into the study of its productions in other lands before he has made himself perfectly acquainted with those of his own. Our language is mainly derived from German and French, but who would wish his children to be taught those languages before they could speak correctly their mother tongue? We love Gothic architecture in the first instance, not because of the buildings we have heard of or seen pictures of as existing in foreign countries, but from those which we see around us—our own village churches, our own cathedrals, and a hundred objects which we have known from our childhood. From these we learn the native language of the art, and it behoves us to pursue the study of that language, and to perfect ourselves in it, before we turn our attention to foreign dialects, even though they may be of older date than our own.

When, however, you are well grounded in our own architecture, nothing can be more delightful or more instructive than to follow up your studies in foreign countries; though here, again, you must ever keep a watch over yourselves—a guard to your patriotism—lest you should be tempted to forget or to undervalue your mother tongue.[78]

The first country to visit is unquestionably France. A question may occur whether it is best to begin with the old royal domain—the great central province of the Pointed style, the fountain-head of our art—or with Normandy as the connecting link between ourselves and that fountain-head. On this question I would not offer any very strong opinion, though I incline towards the former. I do not think that, after the Romanesque period, the developments of the French came to us in any very great, or at least any very exclusive, degree through Normandy; and we know that very shortly afterwards that link of communication was cut off by our loss of that province, and that immediately after this the architecture of Normandy became more distinctly French, and that of England more exclusively English. I think, therefore, that you would be better prepared to understand the architecture of Normandy by having first studied that of the central province of France.

This, however, is a secondary question. The great matter is, wherever you go, thoroughly to study, thoroughly to sketch; not to hasten over the ground to get through an extensive programme, but to seat yourselves down where you find good material, and work on patiently at it. Where you begin is comparatively of little matter, excepting that it is undesirable to take the abnormal before the normal—the mere dialect before the language.

If you begin at Paris, as the great centre, you will find, amidst the Napoleonic modernisms of that centre of fashion, a very perfect series of typical Mediæval remains, over-restored and otherwise often sadly damaged, but nevertheless of the utmost value. I have mentioned most of them in my former lectures, but I will just enumerate them to refresh your memory, and roughly in chronological order.

I know little of purely Romanesque date unless it be the eastern part of the abbey church of St. Martin. This is curious and worthy of attention. The earliest object, however, of paramount importance is the older part of the church of St. Denis. I have said a good deal about it before, and will now content myself with pressing its importance as the grand typical example of transition. The Byzantine foliage here displays itself in a most marked form. You will find it in the string-courses and other parts of the west end very finely developed.[79] The great portal of the north transept is a noble specimen of this early style. The foliated carving on it is of very high merit. The eastern chapels, both of the church and crypt, are well worthy of the closest study, and there are many fine remains both stowed away in the churchyard and preserved in a temporary museum close by. These, however, do not all belong to this church, some having been brought here, under what circumstances I do not know, from St. Germain des Près. I will just mention that you must get permission to sketch (so long as the works of restoration are going on) from M. Viollet le Duc, and, having obtained, pray use it to the utmost.

Fig. 182.—Capitals, Montmartre.

Next in date, so far as I know, comes St. Germain des Près. Here you will find, especially in the choir and its aisles, a most noble series of studies of the Byzantinesque foliage. The architecture, too, is very excellent; but you will perceive that the present form of the triforium is altered from the original.

Perhaps about the same age is the church of Montmartre. Here the Byzantinesque foliage is nearly all of the plain unraffled form, and is very curious and worthy of study.

Fig. 183.—St. Julien le Pauvre, Paris. Plan of Choir.

In the same class may be placed the little church of St. Julien le Pauvre, now the chapel of the Hôtel Dieu. The choir and its aisles form a perfect work on a very small scale in the transitional style, with Byzantinesque foliage. The church is but little known, but is well worthy of attention. It shows how mistaken is the idea that the Early French style is not suited to small buildings. The clear width of the side bays is actually under four feet, and the other dimensions in proportion, yet the whole not only has not a miniature, but has a decidedly dignified air, while its details offer considerable varieties, even the two apsidal chapels being wholly different in their design and plan. What remains of the nave and the fragments of the fine western portal are good specimens of the succeeding style.

Fig. 184.—St. Julien le Pauvre, Paris. Choir.

We now come to the church of Nôtre Dame, which offers an almost perfect series of objects of study from the same period on into the fourteenth century. In the eastern parts is transitional work with Byzantine foliage, showing some very curious varieties. One of the western portals, too, contains two exquisite corbels belonging to its predecessor of the transitional period ([Figs. 187], [188]). The nave with its truly glorious portals is a most noble illustration of two immediately succeeding periods; as fine, indeed, in its details as anything can be. The iron-work of one of the west doors is unequalled. The upper portions of the façade go off into later yet still noble work. The transepts, now sadly over-restored, belong to the latter half of the thirteenth century, and have been fine though somewhat attenuated works.

Fig. 185.—St. Julien le Pauvre, Paris. South Aisle of Choir.

The porte rouge is a model of a small and elegant doorway, while the eastern chapels, which nevertheless possess great elegance, show how the massive and masculine Early French style had become thinned down before the close of the first quarter of the fourteenth century.

Fig. 186.—St. Julien le Pauvre, Paris. Chapel, south side of Choir.

The refectory of the abbey of St. Martin aux Champs is a most noble apartment of the first half of the thirteenth century, and some of the foliated carving is among the finest of its period ([Figs. 189], [190], [191]) while the

Figs. 187, 188.—Corbels, Western Portals, Nôtre Dame, Paris.

Sainte Chapelle, said to be the work of the same architect, carries on the style a little farther, and is too well known to need any remark from me.[80] Of later architecture there are also many specimens, though my tastes and leisure have not allowed me to go much into them. There are also several minor works of the early styles, of most of which I do not remember the names. The Hôtel Cluny, itself a charming specimen of the domestic architecture of the fifteenth century, contains, besides its invaluable collection of movables, a most interesting mass of fragments of architectural detail well worthy of several days’ careful devotion.

Fig. 189.—Capital, St. Martin aux Champs.

Figs. 190, 191.—Capitals, St. Martin aux Champs.

Quitting Paris, no city in France has, perhaps, stronger claims on your attention than Chartres. I will not go into any description of what you will find there, further than to say that it contains some of the very finest and richest examples both of the transitional and of the fully-developed Early Pointed styles. You might seat yourselves down there for a month and work hard every day, and be glad to go again and again and do the same, and yet find ample scope for study. In all these works the figure sculpture claims equal attention with the architecture, and no place offers a nobler field for this study than Chartres. A short run farther brings you to Le Mans, where the same two styles are again gloriously displayed, the one in the nave and the other in the choir, etc.; but this takes us out of the regions of the old royal domain and trenches on the Angevine district.

Between Paris and Amiens, and both near to and wide of the road to the right and left, you will find an admirable series of village churches worthy of being made the object of an entire tour, while among them are many more gorgeous monuments, as the abbey church of St. Luc d’Esserent with its exquisite series of capitals, and the cathedral and other churches of Senlis. Amiens and Beauvais need no recommendation from me, nor need I call your attention to that glorious group consisting of Noyen, Soissons, Laon, and Rheims, with the Château de Coucy, the monastery of Ourscamp, etc. This group should be the subject of a distinct tour, though too extensive to be thoroughly studied in one of short duration.

I should have mentioned that at Creil, which you pass in going to almost any of these places, are the ruins of the exquisite transitional church of St. Evremont, another instance of the way in which the early French builders fitted their architecture to works of small size. I know few more valuable examples of its period than this.

In another direction you reach Sens—a church so closely allied with the English transition—and Auxerre—a mine of fine detail, and farther on the venerable abbey of Vezelay, and several others less in scale but of great interest; but here again we get out of our province: only let me beg you, if you go to Vezelay, to give plenty of time to the chapter-house, a truly exquisite work of the transitional period.

Each district of France, however, has its own special objects, all interesting and instructive, and all claiming your careful study, though the central district bears most directly upon ourselves, excepting only Normandy, with its Romanesque identical with our own, and its host of charming village churches, which remind one so much of those of England. Wherever you go, be particular to give attention to the rarer objects, such as timber roofs of early date, chancel stalls, wall decorations, with those relating to groining, etc., to metal-work, jewellery, shrines, illuminated manuscripts, and more especially to stained glass; and, perhaps, almost more than all, to figure sculpture. I would also suggest that you should generally give preference to objects which are really beautiful rather than to those which are odd and extravagant. I confess I have not myself seen much of the latter class in France; but some of my friends who have a keener eye have, if one may judge of causes by effects, come home loaded with eccentricities such as I have failed to meet with.

Germany is almost as delightful to the architectural tourist as France itself, and is much more so in one respect. I mean the general retention of the movables of churches, even to the jewellery.

The architecture in Germany which is, perhaps, the most valuable is that of the transition, which, as I have before pointed out, took here a line of its own. After this, the most valuable is, perhaps, the brick architecture of the North. The timber buildings, however, are almost equally important, were it not that it is a material not much in use for external architecture in our own day.

The movables, however, are the richest inheritance of the German churches, and to these I would recommend your devoted attention. They form a special and most important subject of study, and one for which no country offers such facilities. Besides the more ordinary objects, such as chancel fittings, reredoses, bronze gates, metal and other screens, lamps, coronæ, fonts (whether of stone or of brass), tabernacles for the reservation of the host, ancient organs, paintings, and a hundred others of parallel classes, almost every great church has its Schatzzimmer, or treasury, and these usually contain valuables of the highest interest and of the most splendid art. These are not always easy of access, and it is difficult to obtain permission to sketch in them; but it is worth every exertion to do so. The treasuries at Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne are known to every traveller, and their claims upon the student are apt to be passed over from very familiarity; but a few days devoted to each would be invaluable. I know no ancient work more glorious or more exquisite, so far as it remains intact, than the shrine of the Three Kings at Cologne. I have on two occasions obtained permission for a brief period to draw from it, and have been filled with wonder at the exquisite art which a close examination unfolds. At Hildesheim are numberless objects of early art of the same class. At Brunswick, again, are a few; while the treasury of the cathedral at Halberstadt is a complete museum of Mediæval art. Sacred vessels, reliquaries containing the finest early workmanship, books with glorious jewelled covers, mitres of all degrees of richness, tapestries from the earliest periods, altar coverings both of embroidery and linen of early periods, and exquisite works of every class we can imagine are to be found in that charmed enclosure.[81] At Marburg there are also many such objects, and among them the shields of the old Teutonic knights and the perfectly wonderful shrine of St. Elizabeth. I do not refer to the beautiful stone structure which contained it, and which is figured by Moller, but to the gorgeous jewelled shrine which it contained. All through Germany, however, the case is the same: wherever you go you find the great churches replete with the movable works of Mediæval art. It is for you to study them with the care which they deserve.

I have in a previous lecture said a good deal about the study of Italian architecture, and I will not now repeat it. Suffice it to say that Italy is the land in which to study the use of rich materials, of mosaic-work, and of architectural decoration in its highest forms. It is the land in which to give the finishing touch to your architectural training, to learn the last and loftiest lessons—those which show us how to link architecture with the sister arts in their highest perfection. If you are artists when you go there, you may be much more advanced artists when you return. We learn, too, there much that is most useful in respect of the domestic architecture of towns. It is, however, a seductive country, and we have to keep on our guard there, and not to forget that we are members of a Northern nation.

Mr. Street has told us a great deal that is deeply interesting about Spanish architecture, so I will not (as I have never seen it) enter upon that subject; and will close what I have to say on foreign travel by urging you to the diligent use of it, but urging you also when you return home, not to forget that you are Englishmen, and that English is your proper language. I would also advise that your foreign tours should be followed up or alternated with English ones, so that your own native architecture may always be kept prominently before your mind.

I have offered to you in this lecture what may appear to you but the dry bones of the subject. In my next I hope to follow it up by suggestions, both as to the spirit in which this course of study should be undertaken, and the personal training both of the mind, the eye, and the hand necessary to fit you for such studies; and as to the practical uses which you should subsequently make of the lessons you will have thus learned.

LECTURE IX.
On the Study and Practice of Gothic Architecture.

Every day business and practical work to go on hand in hand with the study of ancient buildings—How best to be accomplished—The study from books—Artistic and archæological portions cannot be wholly disconnected—Heraldry—A knowledge of the history of art absolutely necessary for the study of Mediæval architecture—Greek art the parent of Gothic sculpture—Ruined cities of Central Syria—Mahometan styles—Our own form of church the direct inheritance from the earliest Christian temples—Training as artists—Choice among specimens of different Mediæval periods and styles—Examples especially recommended—Practical studies of ancient buildings in connection with their structural and mechanical qualities—Vaulting—Timber-work—Stone-work, etc., etc.—The actual practice of Mediæval architecture—The repairs and restoration of ancient buildings.

IN my last lecture I gave you an outline of the course of study requisite to obtaining a knowledge of Mediæval architecture, so far as this is to be done by the studying and sketching from ancient buildings. I purpose, in this, to carry on the same subject into other particulars, and also to offer some suggestions as to the actual practice of the revived style.

I might have appeared, in what I have said, almost to presuppose—what is improbable, if not impossible—that those whom I have been advising as to their studies have the entire command of their time, and are comparatively free from the demands of every-day business. I not only do not suppose, but should be as far as possible from desiring, this; for I am convinced that those whose usual occupations are not such as to familiarise them with the demands and the difficulties of practical work, and with the questions which are ever being suggested by actually working out the details of architecture for practical use, are not prepared to profit in the fullest degree from the study of old examples. This study, and the practical work to which it is the only key, must go on hand in hand. There are numberless intricacies and niceties; problems long since solved; difficulties ingeniously met; clever ways of making accidents, which in their own nature would cause a blemish, the means of adding beauty; numberless instances in which decorative or other treatment was the result of some practical reason which would at first sight appear to be merely a matter of taste; and a thousand other instructive and important matters which would be entirely passed over or fail of approving themselves to the understanding of the student who is not prepared to appreciate them by the suggestion to themselves of the same problems, the same difficulties, the same little knots to be untied, the same little intricacies to be unravelled, and the same calls for clever contrivance to meet accidental circumstances arising in their own daily practical work.

The man, on the other hand, who is always at practical work, without studying much from old examples, becomes dull and normal, or flighty and crotchety, according to the bent of his own mind; while, if he constantly supplies and revivifies his practical work by study from original examples, and fits his mind to receive these lessons by his practical work, he is prevented from becoming dull and lifeless by the constant suggestions of brightness and life which he receives, or from becoming crotchety and over fanciful by the reasonableness which he finds to pervade the objects which he studies, and the evident aim which they evince rather to chasten and conceal—to subject to the doctrine of reserve—their clever contrivances than to flaunt them obviously to public gaze.

To carry out this mutual co-operation of practical work and the study of old examples, I would recommend you always to note down any puzzle you fall into in your work, and any doubt as to how a perplexity is to be met or difficulty to be got over, and any uncertainty which may occur to you as to the best mode of treating a particular feature; so that, when you next go out sketching, you may have a list of questions for which you have to seek for practical answers from the old architects themselves, still speaking to us and instructing us through their works; and in the same way you may have, ever and anon, answers suggested by the old men to questions which you have not yet thought of asking, but which in your practical work you will soon find to arise. This playing of practice and study into each other’s hands will add vastly to the pleasure and profit of both, and will keep up a zealous and lively interest in your minds which will make your return to business only second in enjoyment to your setting out on a sketching tour; the one keeping alive by practical use the pleasure and interest of the lessons learned by the other.

I must now say a word, which perhaps ought to have come at the beginning of my last lecture, about preparation of another kind for this class of study.

I need hardly dwell upon the obvious necessity for having acquired at the outset, and for constantly continuing to acquire, a knowledge from books of the subject you are studying.

At the beginning of this century it was wholly unknown; since that time it has gradually become better and better understood; and it is clear that, to carry on this cumulative process, each generation of students must take as their basis the full amount of knowledge yet attained, and—riding as it were on the crest of the wave—must add their own progress to that attained by their predecessors. I will not attempt to enumerate books. If you are anxious to follow up the subject, you will already have found them out or will soon do so. I will mention, however, that you must not limit your reading to English works, for the French have done, I think, even more than our own countrymen to elucidate the subject; and among English writers let Professor Willis take a leading place as your instructor.

But what you have to learn from books is not architecture alone. I will not stop to insist on the necessity of general reading, just as every one should follow up: some of the usual classes of general reading are, however (if it were possible) even more directly important in their minute details to architects than to others: I would more especially instance historical knowledge, and all that tends to illustrate the changes which have influenced civilisation, and through it have borne more or less directly upon art.

Though antiquarianism is very distinct from art, and though the architectural student should be always on his guard against the danger of reversing the relative positions of the artistic and the archæological portions of his studies, it is nevertheless manifest that the two can never be wholly disconnected. You must, therefore, follow up antiquarian studies so far as they have a direct or a real bearing upon your main pursuit.

I would mention, in passing, that there is one antiquarian science which is a special link of connection between the present and the past: I refer to Heraldry, a branch of study which we too much neglect, but which has very strong claims upon our attention.

Then, again, you must always study the meaning and object of every ancient building which you are examining, that you may know how far its practical characteristics bear upon or are alien to such as belong to our own day. In ecclesiastical works this becomes a practical and necessary study; for, though the ritual uses and customs have greatly changed, many of them hold good in our own day, either directly or in some modified or parallel form, which connects the study of the ritual arrangements of ancient churches more or less directly with our own. The study, then, of ecclesiastical and ritual history and antiquities is one of those directly necessary to the church architect; though, as in the case of antiquarianism, he must avoid the danger of making it in any degree take the place, instead of assisting and guiding his study, of architecture itself.

I would here take the opportunity of urging upon those who purpose devoting themselves especially to Mediæval architecture the necessity of making themselves acquainted, in some reasonable degree at least, and the more thoroughly the better, with the whole range of the history of art. It is only by means of such knowledge that we are able to comprehend the true position which Mediæval architecture takes in the long stream of art history.

The classic styles are the parents of the Mediæval styles, and without a good knowledge of them the Gothic architect is unable to understand his own architecture. More than this, however: Greek art—properly so called—is the parent of Gothic sculpture, whether foliated or relating to the human figure; and in respect of the latter it is (next to nature) the best corrective of its faults. I urge upon you, therefore, the study of Greek sculpture of the best early schools, as a direct means of perfecting that of your own works.

Then again, with Roman architecture, and the course of its decadence: how replete is its history with anticipatory suggestions as to the rise of the new architecture which after a long period of darkness sprang up from its decayed roots! And equally instructive is the study of Byzantine architecture—that “light in a dark place” which was destined to shed its rays so beneficently on the rising, but yet embryo, arts of the Middle Ages.

A most interesting addition has recently been made to our knowledge of this style by the researches of the Count de Vogüé among the ruined cities recently discovered in the mountains of Central Syria.

Fig. 192.—El Barah, Central Syria.

These cities seem to have been in prosperity up to the moment of the Mahometan conquest of Syria, but to have been suddenly deserted, as in one day, on the approach of the Arabian armies, and since then to have remained untouched but by the elements and earthquakes; so that they hand down to us the earlier Byzantine architecture (as practised in Syria) in the most perfect and instructive manner. In these wonderful cities we have not only the churches, but nearly every description of Byzantine building, either nearly perfect, or—when thrown down by earthquakes, as is often the case—with the parts still lying as they fell, so that the entire design can be perfectly understood.

These remains supply the connecting link between the Byzantine and the old Classic styles; but it is the later buildings, such as St. Mark’s at Venice, which give the link at the opposite end of the chain, connecting it with the churches of Aquitaine, and through them with our own Romanesque and transitional works; while the various productions of Byzantine art of the same period, with which Western Europe was so liberally supplied, became the germs from which much of the ornamentation of our own earlier works originated. All this it behoves the Gothic architect to study; nor should he neglect the parallel supplies of suggestions from the Mahometan styles—themselves the offspring of the Byzantine. But still more incumbent is it on him to follow out that direct catena by which, in Western Europe, the Roman style passed through the Early Basilican phase in Southern Italy, the Lombardic in Northern Italy,[82] and the various derivative forms of Romanesque in Southern France and Rhineland, as well as in the less familiar European countries.

In all these varied courses of gradual change it is yet more interesting, and far more profitable, to trace out—as distinct from all questions of architectural style—the ritual and practical changes through which the basilica, so early adopted as the great type of the Christian Church, became the parent of the typical form made use of to our own day and for our own churches, and those by which the later-introduced Greek cross was perfected into the form of the Byzantine churches, and the less usual circular type into that of a series of exceptional churches both in the East and West. The first of these catenæ, in particular, is most interesting to ourselves, as showing that our own form of church is our direct inheritance from the earliest Christian temple: and, though we may do well to consider how far the series of changes through which it has reached us may be advantageously followed up by any additional modification to meet the true demands of our own day, yet God forbid that we should so far forget the claims of our long descent as to let go this precious inheritance of our fathers![83]

There is, however, another more direct kind of preparation, on which I desire most urgently to insist. I mean your personal training as artists. True it is that your sketching tours will be a great means of promoting this; but this will not do alone: you must constantly strive to train your eye and your hand to artistic perception and skill. You should take lessons from first-rate teachers both in drawing and in colouring; you should take some means of training yourselves in drawing the human figure and in animal drawing, and even in modelling if opportunity permits. These means ought unquestionably to be afforded to the architectural students by this Academy as a special and most important and essential part of their training. That such is not the case at present is, I believe, the result of the cramped and insufficient housing which has been allowed us, and I do trust that this hindrance will soon be removed.[84]

You should further practise yourselves in drawing and modelling from natural leaves and flowers, and, side by side with this, in drawing from fine examples of sculptured foliage, whether natural or conventional, for which last-named object you have great facilities offered by the Architectural Museum; and all this, I would suggest, can be going on during the winter months when you cannot sketch from actual buildings. Without this training you will find yourselves at a great disadvantage in studying for original works; your attempts at drawing sculpture, whether figures or foliage, will disgust and dishearten you, and even your sketches from purely architectural objects will be both dispiriting to yourselves at the time, will fail to express the true feeling of the works themselves, and will convey no agreeable impressions when you revert to them in after years.

You will have gathered from incidental remarks as I have proceeded that I have not supposed you to limit your attention and study to architecture properly so called. Time does not allow me to go farther into the subject of collateral arts; but let me say that, as architecture unites all arts in one, so you must gather into her garner the spoils to be collected from the study of every art by which architecture may be ennobled and enriched.

I have said nothing in the course of the foregoing remarks as to the choice or preference you would have to exercise among specimens of different Mediæval periods and styles, but I have said enough to show that I do not suppose your studies of the old buildings in our own and neighbouring countries to be limited to one selected period, nor even to what can be strictly called Mediæval works, as much that is useful can be gathered (particularly in domestic work) from buildings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is absolutely necessary, too, that you should understand and be familiar with all the varieties of our old architecture, because, though you may not follow them in your own works, you may be frequently called upon to restore them, though this reason is hardly necessary to lead you to master the whole range of Mediæval art.

Still, however, you cannot choose but follow more lovingly the works of the periods which most approve themselves to your minds as the days when art was the most vigorous, noble, and full of deep and true sentiment. For my own part, though I am less exclusive than many of my friends, I must confess that I find a difficulty in sketching, unless with a directly practical object, from works either so early as to be rude or so late as to be enervated. And while I beg you to make yourselves masters of the whole range, I am far from asking you to check the genial current of the soul by endeavouring to love all varieties alike, or to give equal attention to those which are and those which are not in harmony with your inner feelings.

I have dwelt much, in my earlier lectures, on the study of the vigorous and onward-striving works of the transition: and I confess that to me this is the most captivating period. I have already sufficiently indicated the leading examples of it, though you will find it interspersed with other styles all over the country. I think myself that no style is more calculated to excite a grandeur of sentiment, but none seems to me to have been so little studied from English examples, or rather, I should have said, from British examples, for it is as finely developed in Wales and in Scotland as it is in England. I have said a good deal about studying it as a historical phase of the style, but this, though necessary, is in point of fact a very secondary matter. You must much rather study it artistically, with reference to its intrinsic merits and its noble beauty, and morally, as illustrating the elevated sentiment and noble earnestness of those who, while pressing forward a new style of art, generated at every step such glorious productions.

I have said less, perhaps, and spoken with less enthusiasm of the fully-developed Early Pointed style, not from a lower appreciation of its merits, but because it seems rather a breathing-place—a point of attainment—in the march, than especially a point of noble pressing onward. Nor need I enumerate the special objects of study belonging to the period. They are sown broadcast over our own and neighbouring lands, and form the staple of our most magnificent, and a large proportion of our humble, Mediæval remains. No tour, however, is more prolific of instruction in this style than that of the northern abbeys, and this tour may be repeated again and again with ever fresh delight, and extended with great profit over the borders and far away into Scotland.

After this we come to another transition, and—the period of rest being at an end—we find again much of the same earnest striving as during the earlier transition. I would recommend a very special amount of study to be devoted to this style—for it is not reasonable to suppose that traceried windows are to be banished from our revival; and loving, as most of us do, the vigour of the earlier periods, this second transition—the connecting link between the earlier and the middle periods—offers most valuable material for our own developments: indeed, I cannot conceive of a more promising course of corrective training for those among us who have followed early and foreign work till it has grown into an actual mania, than to set themselves the task of following up, nolens volens, the minute study in all its details of a carefully selected series of work of this second English transition.

For such a course I would especially recommend the following examples:—

The greater part of Netley Abbey; all the eastern portions of Westminster Abbey; the eastern arm of Lincoln Cathedral;[85] the chapter-house[86] and cloisters at Salisbury; all that remains of Newstead Abbey; and the nave of Lichfield Cathedral. Of a period a shade later I would recommend the nave of St. Mary’s Abbey at York; the whole of Tintern Abbey; the chapter-houses at Southwell and at York, and the eastern parts at St. Albans. The two latter are, however, productions of the completed style rather than of the transition, and to give a list of objects of study in that style would be almost hopeless, for the country is filled with them. Nor do I admire so exclusively the earlier work as to exclude from the better half of our Mediæval range yet later specimens of the Middle Pointed. I cannot but think the gateways of St. Augustine’s at Canterbury, of Battle Abbey, and of that of Bury St. Edmund’s; the halls of Mayfield, Penshurst, and the lost hall at Worcester; the lost chapel and the still existing crypt of St. Stephen’s; the choir at Winchelsea; the Lady Chapel at Chichester; and a long list of other buildings of the earlier part of the fourteenth century, to be works claiming our high regard and admiration, and I consequently recommend them also to your careful study.

The very latest phase of the Decorated style is often weak, but I will not suppose you to be so much so as to be unable to sever its beauties from its faults, or to be in danger of condemning or admiring good and bad alike; and a yet more vigorous discretion is needed in studying from the works of the succeeding ages, though, all through, you will find not only objects of high intrinsic merit, but constant suggestions capable of being advantageously translated into a more vigorous style.[87]

A still more important subject I have as yet but incidentally touched upon. I refer to the practical character of your studies of ancient examples, as viewed in connection with the actual structural and mechanical qualities of the examples themselves, and the learning from ancient examples the principles of Mediæval construction and practical art, and their bearings upon our own constructive and practical operations. Thus, for example, you must give special and systematic study to the principles of vaulting as exemplified by Mediæval buildings. I have, in one of my lectures, recommended, as a prelude to such study, your reading Professor Willis’s paper on the subject in the Transactions of the Institute of British Architects and M. Viollet le Duc’s in his Dictionary. You will be the better prepared after this to work the subjects out for yourselves. It is a particularly difficult matter to study, both in its own nature and because the work is usually out of reach. You should watch for opportunities offered by scaffoldings being raised under vaultings, and make accurate measurements. You must study not only the lines and their setting out, but the stone cutting and jointing, and all kinds of practical questions, the very existence of which you cannot understand till you have given much attention to the subject. Then, when you have obtained a perfect insight into these questions, you will do well to consider whether there are or are not practical faults in the old work which we should do well to remedy. So in timber-work we should master the old system of construction, and then think how far it is perfect and where open to improvement, and also how far the old system as applied to oak is suited to our own constructions in fir, and what are the practical variations suggested by the material. And so on through stone-work, iron-work, brass-work (whether cast or wrought), lead-work, silver-work, and jewellery. You must not content yourselves with studying and sketching from the work as an architectural or decorative design, but must dissect and investigate it, and find out its construction, and how far that construction has modified or suggested its design, or how far this may result from not only the construction, but the nature of the material.

In respect of the metal-work and other kinds of decorative art, you will find great advantage from carefully reading Mr. Burges’s lectures, given some time back before the Society of Arts.

By thus following up your studies from all points of view, whether antiquarian, historical, artistic, ritual, utilitarian, or practical and mechanical, you will obtain that perfect understanding of Mediæval art which is necessary to enable you to carry on its revival and practice both with knowledge and intelligence.

I now come to the actual practice of the lessons learned by such a course of study as I have been endeavouring to shadow forth.

As I said on a former occasion, I will not go into the general question of the revival of Gothic architecture, but will assume it as a fait accompli, and proceed to consider some questions as to the practical carrying of it out.

One point which has given rise to much difference of opinion is the question of what period and variety of Mediæval architecture we should best take as the groundwork of our own developments.

When, during the long interval between the cessation of Mediæval architecture and our own day, it was temporarily returned to in any special instance, it seems to have been viewed rather as a dormant than an extinct art, and the style chosen was always its latest phase; as if it had only to be re-awakened at the point at which it had fallen asleep. And in the same manner, in our own day, nearly all the earlier works of the revival were in the latest form of the style, as if the revival was the mere prolongation of a chain, and to be attached to its last link.

This was the traditional phase in the revival. The interval had, however, been too lengthened to allow this imagined connection with the old but disused chain to hold good. People began to investigate and to philosophise and to write books about the style. All phases soon began to be equally known, and people could not help entertaining preferences. Rickman had awarded the palm to the Decorated; others preferred the Early English; and after a time all agreed that the latest link was the worst, and must not be adopted as the starting-point. Some tried Norman, some Early English, some Decorated. The Cambridge Camden Society seemed at first to favour Early English; but soon they laid their ban upon it, and preached a crusade against all but the sacred “Middle Pointed,” and even defined with minute accuracy the precise period of that style which they would stamp with their approval. It was to be the earliest phase of the later form of Middle Pointed; or, as a friend of mine jokingly defined it for them, the “Early late Middle Pointed.” Some, however, preferred the “late Early,” some the earliest Middle Pointed; and though a few still strayed into the heterodoxy of “First Pointed,” or even into deadlier errors, it came, after a time, to be a generally received opinion that the Middle style was the best groundwork for us to go upon, and that it might fairly be viewed that this had been so completely revived and re-adopted as to become the style of our Gothic Renaissance.

Though there was a good deal of nonsense current about it at the time, as if it were almost an article of religious faith, an “Articulus stantis aut cadentis Ecclesiæ,” there was, I must say, a great deal of common sense in the choice.

The early transitional style, though gloriously noble and vigorous, could not reasonably be re-adopted as a groundwork inasmuch as it was a transition, and that from a state of things with which we have a little or nothing in common. The developed Early Pointed had very strong claims, but failed of being what Dr. Whewell calls “complete Gothic.” Its fault was that there were certain features which, once known, could not be rejected, but which the Early Pointed had not. Its merits were positive and of the highest order; its defects were purely negative. The later Pointed had been pretty generally voted to be the production of the decline of the style, and the later half of the Middle Pointed showed unquestionable evidences that during its period the way for that decline had been preparing. The Early Middle Pointed was thus come to by an exhaustive process, as being at once “complete” and not on the decline, though some felt (and I confess to being of the number) that it might with advantage be invigorated by importing into it a good deal of the detail, and, even, perhaps, some whole features of the earlier style.

This general conclusion having been tacitly consented to, people naturally came to think that we ought to adhere to it as closely as might be, and for this reason: that the principle of a revival was only defensible in an extreme case, and nothing could defend it from the charge of frivolity if the revivers went on the principle of now reviving one style and now another; but that if all by general consent should determine on reviving one and the same style, as the groundwork for the future development of a style of our own, the revival would become invested with reality, reason, and vigour. The choice, then, of one style, and the adherence to it as a groundwork, seems to me to have been right, and I am very much disposed to believe that the choice come to, though its enforcement at that time bordered on fanaticism, was right also; at least in the main.

This promising theory, not to mention occasional tokens of rebellion at the somewhat tyrannical way in which it was attempted to be pressed, received a rude shock some ten years back through the competition for the erection of the cathedral at Lille. We had been in the habit in this country of speaking rather pityingly of the error of the French revivalists in selecting an earlier type for their groundwork than we had adopted; but the programme of this great European competition prescribed this early style, and our talented countrymen who won the palm leaped over the traces to such an extent, as absolutely to luxuriate in the till now forbidden art, even beyond what was demanded by the conditions, and beat the French out of the field in the intensity of their following out of the Early French style.

This was received with unlooked-for indulgence by those whose laws it set at nought; but so marked a condonation seemed to have been viewed as an act of emancipation, for, from that time forward, every one began to do that which was right in his own eyes.

There was at once a violent revulsion of feeling in favour of the earliest periods; and at the same time the long pent-up feelings of favour to the continental styles, excited by Mr. Ruskin and by foreign travel, were given their full swing, and for a time nothing could be early enough—nothing foreign enough—to satisfy the emancipated cravings. We all felt this, and acted on it in a greater or a less degree, and those who chose the less degree were heartily despised by those who chose the greater.[88] As time, however, rolled on, and cool reflection began to assert her sway, we again remembered that we were Englishmen, and that there was an English language in architecture, and we began again also to recollect that the course of Gothic architecture did not cease to create noble productions in the very period of its coming into existence. Some, on awakening to this consciousness, ran at once into the opposite extreme—condemning every lesson they had learned abroad, eschewing the early styles to which they had so recently sworn exclusive allegiance, and despising (according to prescribed custom) all who did not go so far in their new direction as they did themselves; but, on the whole, people now seem likely to settle down into a via media, in which I trust that common sense will be found to reside.

I would not have gone through this list of peccadilloes but for the purpose of warning you against their repetition. We have, I hope, “sown our wild oats.” Let us now take a steady and sensible course.

During the state of chaos which I have alluded to, our revival has suffered seriously from the follies, not so much of its own champions, as of a number of pretenders who had never studied the subject at all, but who, taking advantage of a period of disorder, palmed off upon the public designs, especially in domestic architecture, which—really the offspring of ignorance—were put forward as that of the prevailing taste—as original developments founded on something very early and very foreign; so early, indeed, and so foreign as to have never and nowhere existed. These productions have disfigured our streets and done more than anything to bring discredit on our revival.

Let us now consider what is the course which it becomes us to take in the selection of our groundwork.

I think that our experience of the last few years has suggested to us: first, the expediency of returning in some modified degree to the rule from which we had departed, of adopting as our normal type the architecture of one period, and that not the very earliest though still an early period; but, secondly, the desirableness of not making our self-imposed rule too strait; of, thirdly, making our revival distinctly English; though, fourthly, not refusing to enrich and amplify our English revival with the spoils of our foreign study.

I would, then, suggest that, while your basis should be the earliest form of what has been called “complete Gothic” (such, for example, as that of Westminster Abbey, the eastern part of Lincoln, Newstead Abbey, and the nave of Lichfield), this should be taken rather in a representative than in a literal sense; that your revived style and its developments should, in short, be based on the earlier and more vigorous half of Mediæval architecture, which earlier half should be represented by its central point, as a nucleus round which it rallies, and into which the beauties of the whole may be collected; that the point chosen should be inclusive of much which preceded and followed it, and exclusive of nothing with which it will consistently amalgamate. Nor would I condemn as latitudinarian an occasional departure, either forward or backward, from this point de départ; only asking that the early styles may be, in a certain degree, viewed as one in our revival, rather then split up into many, and their details, with proper judgment and self-restraint, be considered capable of being united, when occasion seems really and distinctly to call for it, in one work, or the earlier and less early forms be used, as may be preferred, for buildings intended to express more of vigour or of delicacy. I would not, however, advocate too free a use of this liberty, and would therefore propose that the early “completed” style, of which Westminster Abbey is our great type, should be always viewed as our central and normal type and rallying-point.[89]

Then, again, I would recommend a return, loyally and unreservedly, to English types. That is to say, that when there is nothing to call for a deviation from it, we should design as a matter of course in English. In doing this, however, I would act as a well-instructed and sensible English writer would act. He would (except under extraordinary circumstances) write in his own language, but would never be so suicidal as to refuse to enrich his mind, and through it his writings, by the study of foreign literature. He would, however, express thoughts thus learned in English; any passage adopted from foreign writers he would probably translate into English, excepting only where its ipsissima verba were of the essence of the quotation. So with the English architect. The architecture of his own country should be his normal type, but it would be madness for him to refuse the lessons he can learn abroad. The results of these lessons should, however, for the most part be translated into English, unless such translation would destroy their vigour and their meaning. He should, as I have often observed, do—not necessarily what, but—as the old architects did. It is patent that our Norman, our transitional Pointed, our traceried windows, and many of our minor details partake more or less of a foreign origin. True, they were not really imported from abroad, but our architects and those of France were working hand in hand and mutually aiding in the development of their common architecture; but our old builders never scrupled, nay, earnestly sought, to gather ideas wherever they went; and yet their productions, replete as they were with the riches gathered in foreign travel, were so unquestionably English that we detect any departure from them at once as a foreign interpolation. Let us endeavour in the same manner so to work in our foreign gatherings as not to disturb the homogeneous character of the whole, much less to suggest the idea that we are designing in a foreign dialect. We then need not fear even to learn and make use of the rich arts of Italian decoration, and still less the more kindred lessons taught us in France by the men who worked side by side with our own old architects.

We are all too apt to run into extremes. We run wildly into early or late, foreign or English work, according to the rage of the moment; and perhaps hate that which we last doted on, and despise in their turn all who hold opinions we once held ourselves or shall soon entertain. I do not condemn in toto a little of this tendency to mania, as it keeps up our zeal, but I would wish to restrain it and bring it within the range of reason; and I think that such a broad and liberal rule as I have suggested will tend to this end, without imposing a galling restraint or narrowing either our range of study or the wholesome variety of our practice.

In our own earliest style, and in the French examples down to a far later date, there is one feature which I confess I have a great love for—I mean the square and angular abacus. I think it is probably the feeling for this feature which has, more than any other, led to our tendency to follow French types. I would mention, however, that it is not necessarily a foreign feature, as it is found in our own earlier style, and sometimes (as in the side chapels of the nave at Chichester) is continued later; nor is it necessarily a very early form, as it was in France continued to a comparatively late date. I do not, therefore, see that we need deny ourselves its use. I would only moderate it, and use it and our own more typical round abacus, and our own moulded capital, as frequently as, and on at least equal terms with, the other.

In the form of arches, though keeping to typical forms as a rule, I would not deny myself the use of the round arch nor the plain segment where there is any practical reason for their introduction, only I would not use the abnormal forms frivolously or without a reason. I would assert the greatest liberty in such matters, yet restrain myself by common sense in the exercise of the liberty I claim.

I would again advise (particularly in the use you make of your foreign studies) the avoiding of queer, odd-looking features, for which there has of late been so eager an appetite. I believe that most of those we see in modern works are pure inventions for the sake of novelty and apparent cleverness. The little stumpy columns with gigantic capitals, and all the thousand-and-one pieces of quirkiness which one sees, are things which, I confess, I have rarely if ever found in old work in any country or of any period. We have really become so French of late, in our own imagination, that no Frenchman would recognise his native style as seen in our exaggerations of it. All this is a vulgar vice, and should be repudiated as a person of taste would all that is loud and vulgar in dress or in anything else.[90]

All this has led to much neglect of our own examples, and, when we use them, to our going too much in the contrary direction; and, from want of familiarity with the endless variety they contain, we have got into the way of confining ourselves to their most typical forms, whereas a careful study of our old examples would supply us with an infinity of varieties of the most charming kind.

It has for years been a question sub judice, whether architectural foliated carving, etc., ought to represent natural or purely conventional forms. I am not going to open up this controversy, but I think it right to urge upon you in your studies to follow up both, and to aid them by careful study of the actual objects of nature which are suggestive either of one or the other. The period I have recommended as our central rallying-point was just that at which the two kinds of foliage were used together and on equal terms. My own opinion is that no art can be a living one which founds its ornamentation wholly upon a bygone conventionalism. This does not, however, prove that we ought directly to copy nature as it comes before us. If we demand conventionalisms, though we may adopt those of our predecessors, we ought to be able to conventionalise for ourselves.

For my own part, as I equally admire several of the forms of foliated ornament I find in the range of works I claim as our types, I am content to use them each in their turn; but I cannot reject nature as the great guide, though the more we are able so far to conventionalise her productions and to “bring into service,” and suit them to the uses to be made of them, the better will our work be.

In sculpture I hold that we ought to be able to follow what is good and noble in the form of that art which belonged to the finest period of our architecture, and yet to unite it with the most perfect art which can be produced. Greek art unites perfectly with Gothic, but both demand the spirit and soul of the true artist, aided by the use of what he sees in actual life. I confess, however, that so little opportunity is allowed us for cultivating this art in connection with architecture, and so small the funds at our disposal, that we have fallen into the sin of putting our sculpture into the hands of men of a very inferior class—extemporised, in fact, from amongst our ordinary carvers; and the only wonder to me is, not that they do so badly, but so well as they do. This is a noble subject on which to follow out a new and higher aim, and the students of the Royal Academy might especially devote themselves to its realisation. I fear that we older architects shall not succeed, but we may claim aid of you who have better opportunities; and I would, as a help, suggest a course of study from the finest and purest Greek side by side with the best Gothic sculpture, endeavouring to unite their qualities, and to add to them what is to be gathered from the study of nature—not only the usual study of the human figure, but rather the importing into sculpture touches of nature and fact as they come before us.

To this also we need to add the study of animal sculpture, a point in which such artists as we are able to employ are usually, though not always, equally behind-hand.

Much the same may be said of figure painting when used in connection with architecture. We ought only to employ those who are really artists, but these should train themselves especially for the subject; and if the architect could fit himself for the work, so much the better, if he really does it well; though this can never become again the general practice.

I have said a little in my last lecture on the study of the old examples and fragments of painted glass which you fall in with; I would wish more formally and urgently to press this upon you.

The foreign fever, from which we are but now recovering, has told most severely upon this class of art; for not only has English stained glass been neglected as our practical guide—not only has the study of it been almost wholly abandoned—but its very conservation has been little cared for; and not only in the churches which contain beautiful fragments have they been contemptuously neglected as guides to the characters of new windows introduced, but they have been constantly and systematically expelled from the windows in which they exist, and for which expressly they were designed, to make way for new glass, designed without any reference to their character. We have long been in the habit of abusing, and justly, the village glaziers who turn out the beautiful fragments of ancient glass which occupy the heads of lights and the openings of tracery, to make way for uniform quarry glazing; but our glass painters are daily doing the same thing without remorse, and are the more inexcusable inasmuch as they cannot plead ignorance, and if they chose could make the design of their new windows a restoration of the old, and retain the old fragments in their proper places. It usually happens, however, that they never see the windows for which they prepare the glass, and are culpably innocent of all knowledge of whether they or others in the church retain remnants of the works of those who are, or ought to be, their masters.[91]

I have, in more than one instance, known that some of our best glass painters, when called on to introduce windows into our finest minsters, have completed their work without any knowledge of the fact that there remained exquisite remnants of the ancient and coeval glass belonging to windows corresponding with those they were supplying, and that of the finest periods of the art; and have consequently failed to assimilate their work to what was intended by the original builders.

The clergy, too, are often greatly to blame in this. Their eagerness for new glass often expels from their minds all care for the old. I have heard of a good-natured[92] archdeacon in one of the southern counties, who is ready to give to any friend specimens of the ancient glass he has supplanted by new in his “restored” church.

All this makes it incumbent on you to note and carefully to draw every fragment of stained glass which you meet with where it is exposed to be lost or neglected; and I would further urge on you the systematic and minute study of the better known examples, so that your knowledge of glass painting, as of architecture, may be based upon English examples. Our glass painters are open to the double charge of adhering to old precedent too religiously in its weakest point, and too lightly in its strongest; for though their works are far from being generally very close followings of the actual decorative designs of old glass, and particularly of English glass, they affect to follow the grotesque drawing of the old glass painters, and often greatly exaggerate it. I would rather reverse this, for the decorative portions of old glass are so perfect that it is impossible to surpass their beauty, while the figure drawing, though often full of deep and noble sentiment, is usually quaint and even grotesque.[93]

In respect, however, of the figure drawing, I am very far indeed from advising the repudiation in toto of the ancient manner. It is only the correction of the drawing that I advocate. I would adhere rigidly to the principle of representing the figures mainly (though not wholly) by means of sharp hard outline. We know from the Greek Vases (if, indeed, any proof were wanting where the fact is so obvious) that an outline may be as absolutely artistic as a finished painting. I would further adhere to the general sentiment and artistic style of the old glass, but I would urge that the sentiment and style should be followed out with as perfect drawing (were it possible) as an old Greek artist would have brought to bear upon it. As an imaginary illustration of what I mean, I would endeavour to realise what the result would be if pencil outline copies of the best thirteenth century figure subjects were placed in the hands of such a man as Flaxman, or any really high-class artist, capable of appreciating their sentiment and well versed in Greek art of the noblest period, for the purpose of simply correcting their drawing without changing their sentiment and motive. It is just such drawing as one may suppose to result from such a process that I would wish to see in our modern church windows. In secular works I would not oppose some departure from the rigidity of such a style, nor a little further addition of shading and high finish, though never to the concealment of the outline; and in both I would avoid all that is grotesque or over-quaint (excepting in subjects or figures which demand it, and where it is of the essence of the motive), as these qualities introduced into serious subjects are, to say the least, contrary to the general spirit of the age, and are, therefore, false and unreal.

In painted decorations on walls, etc., much greater liberty may be allowed. We have not here the material limiting the class of art made use of, and the treatment may therefore suit itself freely to the conditions suggested—first, by the purpose of the building; secondly, by its scale of decorative character and the limits of cost; and thirdly, by the more or less functional nature of the surface occupied. We may, in fact, vary from outline pure and simple to perfectly finished paintings, and from a severe and solemn treatment to any reasonable degree of lightness and freedom, according to the conditions: ever remembering that the more functional the surface, the less must be the apparent relief. A painting in a panel may have any amount of shadow and distance, while that occupying a wall, a pier, or a vault must be kept sufficiently flat as to avoid disturbing the functional character of the object which is the ground of the painting.

A great deal has been said about development in architecture, and a good deal of harm has resulted from it: not that development is to be objected to—far from it; but because true and genuine development will never be the result of direct and deliberate effort.

The true developments we have to look for are such as will be continually forced upon us by the necessities of new materials, new modes of construction, new requirements, and the altered habits and feelings of the age in which we are living; by the different modes of decoration which will from time to time offer themselves to our notice, and the importing into English architecture arts which had previously been peculiar to that of other countries and perhaps to wholly different styles. The conditions also prescribed by works in different climates—as in India, in North America, or in Australia—demand special development.

The frank and natural meeting of these new demands and new facilities will of itself produce developments enough to distinguish the works of our revival from those of old times, without our affecting to alter those elements of our style which are not naturally affected by any such conditions. I have said so much, however, on these subjects elsewhere, that I will not venture to crowd their multitudinous details into this lecture: only suggesting, in passing, that domestic architecture by its absolute demands must of necessity suggest very many new developments; that another wide field for novelty of treatment is offered by the wrought iron construction and fire-proof construction of our day; and that there still remains to us the solution of the noble problem of the introduction and naturalisation of the dome as a feature of our revived style.

I will now say a very few words on another branch of the practice of a Gothic architect: that which relates to the repairs and restoration of ancient buildings.

What I have said on the study of ancient examples as the one and only source of knowledge of architecture, of necessity carries with it the assertion of the value of those examples, whether of a higher or of a humbler class, and the condemnation of those who would deprive us of these monuments of ancient art or tamper with their genuineness or integrity. Yet, strange to say, a large number of the architects who take in hand the so-called restoration of our ancient buildings seem utterly devoid of all feeling for their value as authentic works of olden time. I know no subject connected with architecture more mournful and distressing than the way in which our old churches are but too generally dealt with. Many of our large towns contain one or more architects who systematically prey upon the surrounding churches, more or less ruining everything they touch, and that without remorse, and combating with the utmost energy every remonstrance against their destructive habits. Nor are they alone to blame. The clergy too often love to have it so. If they can get their churches made smart, they often seem to care little about the destruction of their antiquities; and thus, between them and their architects, whole counties are becoming denuded of a great part of the points of interest in their churches. Nay, the man who commits the greatest devastations often earns the greatest amount of commendation; and one who venerates an old building and seeks to preserve its antiquities has to fight for every inch of ground against the opposition of the parties interested in the work. These destructive tendencies are not limited to the minor features of churches, but often involve the whole buildings, or large parts of them, in destruction, and that without a shadow of necessity. One of these destroyers of churches is called in, and at once condemns all he does not fancy or which can be shown to be out of repair; the clergyman appeals to the neighbourhood for funds to meet the sad state of things portrayed by his architect; the whole or part of it is destroyed, and no regard to its former design is paid in its reconstruction. This is going on all over the country, with the applause of local magnates and the laudations of the local papers: the architect and his patrons glory in their success, while the country is robbed, one by one, of its invaluable and irreplaceable antiquities.[94]

Even the societies formed for the study of our antiquities fail to lift up their voices sufficiently against this fearful Vandalism, while many who should be the guardians of our ancient churches use specious arguments in confutation of the protests of those who dare to denounce the atrocities which are perpetrated.

I have expressed myself pretty fully on the subject elsewhere, and have spoken also about the spirit in which we should undertake such additions to old churches as absolute necessity demands; and I am happy to say that the Institute of British Architects have issued most judicious and strongly-worded codes of suggestions as to the treatment of old buildings, so that I trust the public will at some time be awakened to the monstrous course which is being too generally followed. I go over the ground on this occasion because I suppose myself to be addressing many of those to whose keeping our churches and other old buildings will be at a future time committed. I desire to warn you at the outset against following the steps of those whose misdeeds I have been proclaiming; and I close these lectures with an earnest entreaty that you will enter upon practice with a solemn vow to yourselves to be the determined and consistent protectors and conservators of those precious relics of former days, now consecrated by antiquity, and from which alone you learn the art which I am urging you to study.

“It were a pious work, I hear you say,
To prop the falling ruin, and to stay
The work of desolation. It may be
That ye say right: but, oh, work tenderly:
Beware lest one worn feature ye efface;
Seek not to add one touch of modern grace;
Handle with reverence each crumbling stone,
Respect the very lichens o’er it grown;
And bid each ancient monument to stand,
Supported e’en as with a filial hand.
’Mid all the light a happier day has brought
We work not yet as our forefathers wrought.”

END OF VOL. I.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] I fancy Mr. Freeman, who has perhaps more right than any living author to a dogmatic opinion on this question, would think that I have gone too far in this statement; and that the course of architecture was less broken at this period than I imagined when writing the above. In Italy, I have since come to the opinion, the history of architecture was fairly continuous, in spite of Gothic invasions, etc. Although the architecture at Pavia, etc., called by Mr. T. Hope “Lombardic,” has been proved to be of dates far later than he supposed when giving it that name, I feel convinced that truly Lombard architecture does exist, and that of a type naturally succeeding and carrying on the style of the earlier Basilicæ. At Lucca, for instance, though little attention has been paid by writers on its churches, to anything earlier than the Pisan work of the twelfth century, a careful examination will show that many of them have a nucleus (and some far more) of a much earlier date, reaching back to the time of the Lombard kings (G. G. S. 1878).

[2] See note on this subject in the previous lecture. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[3] Ibid.

[4] Mr. Freeman, in vol. v. of his “Norman Conquest,” has treated admirably of the architecture of this period, under the name of “Primitive Romanesque.” (G. G. S. 1878.)

[5] I do not know whether the western bays of the Church of S. Pierre, adjoining the Abbey Church at Jumiéges (which bays seem to have belonged to the original chapter-house), belong to the older building destroyed by the Normans, or to that rebuilt in 930 by Guillaume Longue-Epeé. They are in style not Norman, but refined “Primitive Romanesque.” (G. G. S. 1878.)

[6] There is an exception to this in the vaulting of curved spaces, such as the circular aisle round an apse in which the ribs assume a waved plan. (G. G. S.)

[7] See views of St. Faith’s Chapel, vol. ii. Lecture XIII.

[8] St. Cross, See Lecture III., [p. 320].

[9] Interior View of St. Joseph’s, See Lecture III., [116].

[10] The length to which the Lecture has extended itself has rendered it necessary for the present to pass over the German transition with very slight notice. (G. G. S.)

[11] I ought to couple with the vaulting all wide-spanned arches; but in a vaulted building they naturally go together. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[12] There is some uncertainty as to the building to which these fragments belonged. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[13] A better acquaintance with southern buildings does not wholly remove this difficulty. The Greek and Roman types seem to be a good deal mixed in them. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[14] From a careful examination of the old capitals removed from the church of St. Frond during the “Restoration,” I observe that they are scarcely so distinct in their Byzantine character as those later specimens which I have been speaking of. This makes me suspect that throughout the twelfth century actually Byzantine carvers were employed in France. Without this I cannot account for the continuance of the Byzantine feeling in all its purity for so long a time. (G. G. S.)

Fig. 28.—Capitals from the north-west Portal, Lincoln Cathedral.

[15] We find the Byzantine feeling every here and there strongly developed in our own transitional examples. I will mention as an instance the north-west portal of Lincoln Cathedral, where it is beautifully exhibited. ([Fig. 28]). (G. G. S.)

[16] See page [93], [Fig. 38].

[17] The same construction appears to have also existed both at Tewkesbury and at Pershore. (G. G. S.)

[18] See page [85], [Fig. 27].

[19] 1858.

[20] It is curious to observe precisely the same art as in the eastern part of Nôtre Dame exhibited in the tiny, but exquisite choir, close by, of St. Julien le Pauvre.[21] Another small but highly valuable example is the beautiful ruined church of St. Evremont at Creil. An example of this style, which I have not seen much noticed in books, is the cathedral at Geneva. I am unacquainted with its history, but should suppose that a considerable interval occurred between its lower and upper stages, the latter being of perfected Early Pointed, while the former is as admirable a transitional work as I have anywhere met with. It partakes in some parts of that classic tendency which is displayed in the earlier parts of the cathedral at Lyons.

To follow out the subject through the South of France would not only be useless in illustrating the English transition, but would, compressed into the smallest space, be a subject for an entire lecture. I cannot, however, abstain from just alluding to the noble manner in which the style adapts itself to Domed architecture at Angoulême and throughout its neighbourhood, and to the Quasi-domed architecture at Le Puy. The latter has been illustrated in an excellent paper by Mr. Street, read before the Institute of British Architects. The southern form of the transition must have been nobly exemplified by the church of St. Gilles near Nismes, before that charming church became ruined in the religious wars of the sixteenth century. The entire plan of the church still remains intelligible, as does most of the superstructure; and it is difficult to imagine anything more noble. The three western portals are better known, and are truly magnificent. Parallel to them are the western portal and the cloister of St. Trophimus[22] at Arles. The church at St. Gilles retains the date of its commencement, 1116, which, however, seems too early for its architecture. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[21] See Lecture VIII., [p. 320], Figs. 183, 184, 185, 186.

[22] See Lecture VI., [229].

[23] The carving of the more advanced style here described belongs probably to the beginning of the thirteenth century. M. Viollet le Duc seems to think that the western façade was not begun till about 1218; but I think it must have been earlier, because the corbels and upper jamb-stones of the south-western portal, unlike the rest, are of exquisite Byzantine workmanship. (G. G. S. 1878).

[24] A more careful examination shows that far the larger part of Darlington is of later date, using up, as would appear, details prepared by Pudsey, who died before the church had made any great progress. (G. G. S.)

[25] There is work of the Canterbury type in the double chapel to the keep of Dover Castle, and interpolated work by the same hand in the church hard by, in which Saxon work is re-used as material for transitional work. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[26] The dates are given in Professor Willis’s excellent paper on the Abbey. They are from 1186 onwards. The older Abbey was burnt down in 1186. The Chapel now known as that of St. Joseph, but which was really the Lady Chapel, was first rebuilt, and the church followed immediately afterwards. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[27] The clerestory and triforium of St. Germain des Pres have undergone some alterations from the original forms. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[28] This work at Chichester was executed at the close of the century, after the fire of 1186; but Professor Willis has shown that some early Pointed work of a very marked character, which exists in the western part of the Lady Chapel, must have been erected previously to that event.

[29] This unfoliated capital I have since noticed in the Church at Tulle in Limousin, where simplicity was suggested by the material—granite. (G. G. S.)

[30] I read a paper on the English Transition, especially viewed in reference to its English and French elements, before the Archæological Institution at Canterbury in 1875. See their Journal. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[31] For illustration see Lecture IV., [Fig. 109.]

[32] For illustration see Lecture V., [Fig. 116.]

[33] It is fair to say that Professor Willis doubted the date given to this Galilee. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[34] In the church of St. Francis at Assisi, a German and an Italian architect worked together. The former imported into the work a German version of the French Pointed style, while the latter retained the semi-classic Romanesque of his own country—the two indefinitely commingled. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[35] The last sentence, though expressing a general truth, must not be taken too literally; for, though it is the great principle of Gothic architecture to decorate construction, this may be effected simply or richly, and with or without sculpture or carving, according to the requirements of the case. (G. G. S.)

[36] I remember conducting for the first time M. Reichensperger through Westminster Abbey, being surprised at his objecting to some details as “Bysantinisch.” This arose from his having mentally adopted later styles as his models, in which no trace of Romanesque origin remains. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[37] See Lecture VII. page 248.

[38] See capital from S. Eusèbe, Auxerre, Lecture III., page 101; also capitals from Montmartre, Lecture VIII., page 319.

[39] See capitals from Nôtre Dame, Saint Chapelle, etc., Lecture III. pages 102 and 103.

[40] I have since discovered that the great four and five light windows of the chapter-house at Westminster were finished in 1253. These are of the fullest development, and have cusped heads to their lights. (G. G. S.)

For illustration, see Interior of Chapter-House, Lecture XIV. Vol. ii.

[41] For illustration, see Lecture V., [Fig. 122.]

[42] For illustration, see Lecture V., [Fig. 116.]

[43] I remember, in the report of one of the parish meetings, Mr. Barclay having proposed the restoration of the glorious old nave, an intelligent parishioner exclaiming, “What! keep them great elephants’ foots?” (G. G. S. 1878.)

[44] I am glad to learn that the drawings are preserved, and that they will, D.V., be published by Mr. Dollman. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[45] Or rather, in some respects, of Beauvais. The two were, no doubt, jointly referred to by the Cologne architect. (G. G. S.)

[46] Since writing this I have had the privilege of restoring it, and in these days of ante-restoration I am glad that so clear a record had been kept of its previous condition. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[47] See Lecture VIII., [p. 320], Figs. [178], [179].

[48] See Lecture VIII., [p. 320], [Fig. 180].

[49] Much discussion has taken place as to who this Pietro—“Petrus Romanus Civis”—was. Virtue, as quoted by Walpole, says it was Pietro Cavallini, but he was only a child when this work was done. The ciforium in the Church of St. Paul without the Walls bears this inscription; †HOC OPUS FECIT ARNOLFUS CUM SUO SOCIO PETRO!! Monsegnor Xavier Barbier de Montault, who wrote a chapter for Mr. Parker’s work on Rome, says that this was Pietro Cavallini. If so, he was probably the father of the more celebrated artist. The date of the work last named is 1285, being sixteen years later than that at Westminster.

[50] For east and west windows, see “Digression concerning Windows,” inserted between Lectures VII. and VIII.

[51] For illustration, see Lecture IV., [Fig. 109.]

[52] More recently, on opening out other walled-up arches, etc., the greater part of this substructure has been found. The fragments—about 2000 in number—have been fitted together and built up in their old place. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[53] Since this was written, the church has gained additional interest through the opening out of the wall paintings, which probably formed a sort of reredos over each of the small altars which stood against the Norman piers in the nave. (G. G. S.)

[54] This is really somewhat later. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[55] This notion has since been entirely disproved, and the architect proved to have been a member of an English family. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[56] For illustration, see Lecture IV., [Fig. 87.]

[57] See Lecture III., [p. 320], [Fig. 82].

[58] For a bay of this chapter-house, see “Digression concerning Windows,” inserted between Lectures VII. and VIII.[Fig. 170].

[59] See Lecture XV., vol. ii.

[60] For illustration, see Lecture IV. p. 164.

[61] The practical and universally acknowledged success of the Assize Courts at Manchester, as compared with those at Liverpool, speaks volumes as to the rationale of our style. (G. G. S.)

[62] It is amusing to observe the triumphant tone with which modern writers delight to parade the bits of untruthfulness which they chance to find in ancient Classic and other structures. I wonder whether the old architects would enjoy the compliment if they could see works of our day. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[63] For illustration, see Lecture III., [Fig. 81.]

[64] See Lecture IV., [Fig. 87.]

[65] The manner in which our glass painters turn out these fragments—more precious than gold—to make way for their (often vile) memorial windows is only paralleled by the ruthlessness with which they tear away the iron-work which once sustained the painted glass. (G. G. S. 1878).

[66] There seems to be a perfect crusade going on against these relics which give such a charm to our villages, though nothing shows more painfully the contrast between the tastefulness of former times and the tastelessness of the present than a comparison between these despised remains and the structures by which they are constantly being replaced. (G. G. S.)

[67] Or how were stone gables made to fit themselves to a thatched roof? (G. G. S. 1878).

[68] A practice now happily long discontinued. (G. G. S. 1878).

[69] See Lecture III., pp. 107, 108.

[70] See Lecture V., [Fig. 122.]

[71] To follow up these studies well, it will be desirable to have an introduction to the authorities, which may exempt you from a galling system of espionage for many years prevalent in this cathedral. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[72] See Lecture V., [Fig. 113.]

[73] See Lecture XII., vol. ii.

[74] See Lecture XIV., vol. ii.

[75] See Lecture III., [Fig. 79]; and Lecture V., [Fig. 110].

[76] See Lecture V., [p. 320], [Fig. 115]; also “Digression concerning Windows” inserted between Lectures VII. and VIII.

[77] It is melancholy to think how our privileges are neglected! The Architectural Museum itself is a perfect mine of the finest objects of study; yet how insufficient are the uses made of it. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[78] Since I wrote this—eleven years ago—the tide has turned. We are too apt to follow rages and mere fashions. We were, when I wrote, becoming too French; we have since got to think of French architecture with a self-righteous horror. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[79] For illustrations, see Lecture III., p. 82, Figs. 20, 21.

[80] Many original capitals from the Sainte Chapelle are lying in the open air in the gardens of the Hôtel Cluny. The most precious morsels which can be conceived! (G. G. S. 1878.)

[81] When I wrote this, they were double-locked in the old schatzzimmer, but they are now displayed in the triforium gallery. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[82] I mean the Romanesque architecture of Lombardy: not that of the Lombard Kings, which was probably a mere version of the Basilican. See note on this subject to Lecture I. (G. G. S. 1878).

[83] The small secular Basilica, called the “Basilica Jovis” built, I think, by Domitian on the Palatine Hill, proves more clearly than any other building I know how directly our churches are derived from the old Halls of Justice. The recent excavations have shown both the marble cancelli which parted off the apse, and the altar within it for the administrative oath. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[84] Surely we may claim it now! (G. G. S. 1878.)

[85] For illustrations, see Lecture V. p. 199, [Fig. 121].

[86] For illustration, see “Digression concerning Windows,” inserted between Lectures VII. and VIII.

[87] So rapidly do fashions change that, though when I wrote the above I expected to be found fault with for speaking so well of late styles, I am now far behind the age! Sixteen years earlier I had done the same at the risk, nay, with the certainty, of being pronounced a heretic by some of the very persons who now think the latest Mediæval art the best, and that far later than Mediæval better still. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[88] Those who most despised the less foreign and the less early men, are, in many cases, those who have subsequently rejected all that was foreign, and all that was early; if not yet, all that is Mediæval. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[89] I fear my love of the early styles has led me to be unfaithful to my theory. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[90] The French variety of our style has not only been vulgarised by exaggeration, but still more by ignorance and incapacity. The hideousness of the capitals constantly palmed off as French would surpass belief if we were not used to it! (G. G. S. 1878.)

[91] I must mention, as noble exceptions to this, the restoration, by Mr. Hardman, of the east window of Okeover Church, Derbyshire; and of two windows in the north aisle of Gloucester Cathedral, which are works deserving the highest praise. (G. G. S.)

[92] I fear this term only applies to him in respect of his liberality in this particular. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[93] I cannot but feel that our glass painters fail grievously in real progress. Even those who are really acquainted with their art too frequently so scamper over it as to render their figures and subjects mere caricatures. The majority really know nothing about their art, and these are the favourites with the public! Another section, who really understand what art is, and are able to practise it, proudly set at naught its harmony with the architecture in which it is set. (G. G. S. 1878.)

[94] If the local and other architects who feel themselves to be open to this charge would reconsider their ways, and determine henceforth to devote themselves to the conservation of all the antiquities which pass through their hands, they would earn and receive the hearty support of all who love and value our ancient buildings, as well as securing the gratitude of future generations. (G. G. S.)

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