§ 62. At a later date, Wren built parish churches with an extraordinary elasticity of style and plan. But the study of Wren’s plans is simply the study of the plans of an individual architect: they are the outcome of his relation to the fashions of his day, and his unrivalled capacity for dealing with them. He established firmly the use of a modified Palladian style in church architecture, which his successors imitated until nothing further could be done with it. But, when we look at his churches, we never can forget the architect behind them. St Martin’s-in-the-Fields and St Mary-le-Strand, by Gibbs; St Philip’s at Birmingham, by Archer, fine churches though they are, fall short of his designs; and we instinctively compare and contrast their plan and elevation with the models supplied by Wren. In the medieval parish church, on the other hand, the individual architect had no place; the whole artistic activity of an age was represented; the builder was an original artist, and a member of a nation of artists; and the development of the parish church was the work of a national interest, not merely confined to one highly specialised profession. When the Gothic revival came in the early nineteenth century, it was thought that medieval art was once more re-born. But, when we look to-day at the scholarly and often extremely beautiful work of artists like Pugin, Sir Gilbert Scott, Street, Pearson, Butterfield, Bodley, or the younger Gilbert Scott, we still feel the force of individual design and style rather than the force of a great collective movement. All these, like Wren, have added individual contributions to church planning and decoration; but their art is a by-path of national life, and is merely the result of a purely individual type of thought.
§ 63. At the same time, to say this is not to belittle post-Reformation church architecture. It is simply to point out the contrast between the work of the architect and the work of the medieval mason, between a sporadic development of art, and a development which was general in every part of the country.
But, while the work of later generations differs in quality and spirit from that of the medieval craftsman, while it is necessarily more sophisticated and less spontaneous than his, no greater mistake can be made than to drive it out of our churches. The Reformation and Cromwell have been made responsible for much destruction: yet no one has destroyed so light-heartedly as the modern restorer, in his efforts to bring back churches to what is called their ‘original state.’ To-day, people are waking up to the value of post-Reformation masonry and furniture. They realise that when an eighteenth century church is swept away, and a handsome building, in an eclectic Gothic style, decked with the best products of modern arts and crafts, rises in its place, the advantage is questionable. Not merely does much good furniture inevitably perish, but a link with the past is destroyed. Eighteenth century pews may not be altogether suited to a fifteenth century church; but they remind us at any rate that the fabric in which they stand has a continuous history. The age which produced them followed its own taste and worked on its own lines, and did not merely strive after an ideal of harmonious imitation. Not only the work of recent centuries has been touched, but medieval work has been altered: screens have been mutilated and removed, old glass has been destroyed, even whole fabrics have been rebuilt with very slight regard to their earlier plan. It can never be impressed too strongly upon the average Englishman that, quite apart from their religious associations, the parish churches of this country form, as a body, one of the most remarkable historical monuments which any European nation possesses. We may regret, perhaps, that past generations have tampered with them; but for that very reason we should hesitate to tamper with them ourselves, or to replace incongruous work of the past by imitative work of our own. We may well use our individual energy and our new ideas in adding to their number; but our treatment of the older work, where it positively calls for renewal, should be tender, conservative, and self-effacing. The excellence of the medieval mason’s work consists largely in his avoidance of self-consciousness, in its perfectly natural and spontaneous feeling: if we attempt to impose our individuality upon his work, we are in danger of supplying to future and, it may be hoped, wiser generations a contrast from which they will not fail to draw a melancholy profit.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Books exclusively devoted to the subject of the English parish church are few in number, and generally are in the form of descriptions of the churches of special districts, or of monographs on individual churches.
1. Among the older books in which special attention is paid to parish churches, the following may be mentioned:
- Bloxam, M. H., Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, 11th ed., 2 vols., London, 1882.
- Brandon, J. R. and J. A., Parish Churches, London, 1888. [Perspective views, ground plans, and short descriptions.]
- Ecclesiological [Cambridge Camden] Society, A Hand-Book of English Ecclesiology, London, 1847.
- Neale, J. P., and Le Keux, J., Views of the most interesting collegiate and parochial churches in Great Britain, 2 vols., London, 1824–5.
- Parker, J. H., Introduction to the study of Gothic Architecture, 12th ed., Oxford and London, 1898.
- Rickman, T., An attempt to discriminate the styles of English Architecture, 7th ed., Oxford and London, 1881.
- Wickes, C., The spires and towers of the mediaeval churches of England, London, 1859.
2. More modern works, in which the development of the ground plan is treated as part of the general subject, are: