Heretics as we are, we ought not to refrain from respecting the zeal even of a saint of the Catholic calendar, when thus exerted. Besides which, he has another claim upon our attention: our own island gave him birth, and he appeared at Rome as the bearer of the annual tribute of the Britons, at the very time when he was converted to Christianity, whose light he had afterwards the glory of diffusing over Neustria. The existence of these tombs and the antiquity of the crypt, recorded as it is by history and confirmed by the style of its architecture, have given currency to the tradition, which points it out as the only temple where the primitive Christians of Neustria dared to assemble for the performance of divine service. Many stone coffins have also been discovered in the vicinity of the church. These sarcophagi seem to confirm the general tradition: they are of the simplest form, and apparently as ancient as the crypt; and they were so placed in the ground that the heads of the corpses were turned to the east, a position denoting that the dead received Christian burial.
Another opportunity will be afforded me of speaking of the church of St. Ouen; but, as a singular relic of Norman architecture, I must here notice the round tower on the south side of the choir, probably part of the original edifice, finished by the Abbot, William Balot, and dedicated by the Archbishop Géoffroi, in 1126. It consists of two stories, divided by a billetted moulding. Respecting its use it would not now be easy to offer a probable conjecture: the history of the abbey, indeed, mentions it under the title of la Chambre des Clercs, and supposes that it was formerly a chapel[[68]]; but its shape and size do not seem to confirm that opinion.
The chapel of the suppressed lazar-house of St. Julien, situated about three miles from Rouen, on the opposite side of the Seine, is more perfect than either St. Paul or St. Gervais, and, consequently, more valuable to the architect. This building, without spire or tower, and divided into three parts of unequal length and height, the nave, the choir, and the circular apsis, externally resembles one of the meanest of our parish-churches, such as a stranger, judging only from the exterior, would be almost equally likely to consider as a place of worship, or as a barn. It is, however, if I am not mistaken, one of the purest and most perfect specimens of the Norman æra. I know of no building in England, which resembles it so nearly as the chancel of Hales Church, in Norfolk; but the latter has been exposed to material alterations, while the chapel of which I am speaking is externally quite regular in its design, being divided throughout its whole length into small compartments, by a row of shallow buttresses rising from the ground to the eaves of the roof, without any partition into splays. Those on the south side are still in their primæval state; but a buttress of a subsequent, though not recent, date, has been built up against almost every one of the original buttresses on the north side, by way of support to the edifice. Each division contains a single narrow circular-headed window: beneath these is a plain moulding, continued uninterruptedly over the buttresses as well as the wall, thus proving both to be coeval; another plain moulding runs nearly on a level with the tops of the windows, and takes the same circular form; but it is confined to the spaces between the buttresses. There are no others. The entrance was by circular-headed doors at the west end and south side, both of them very plain; but particularly the latter. The few ornaments of the western are as perfect and as sharp as if the whole were the work of yesterday. This part of the church has, however, been exposed to considerable injury, owing to its having joined the conventual buildings, which were destroyed at the revolution. The inside is, like the exterior, almost perfect, but it is very much more rich, uniting to the common ornaments of Norman architecture, capitals, in some instances, of classical beauty. The ceiling is covered with paintings of scriptural subjects, which still remain, notwithstanding that the building is now desecrated, and used as a woodhouse by the neighboring farmer.
The date of the erection of the chapel is well ascertained[[69]]. The hospital was founded in 1183, by Henry Plantagenet, as a priory for the reception of unmarried ladies of noble blood, who were destined for a religious life, and had the misfortune to be afflicted with leprosy. One of their appellations was filles meselles, in which latter word, you will immediately recognize the origin of our term for the disease still prevalent among us, the measles. Johnson strangely derives this word from morbilli; but the true northern roots have been given by Mr. Todd, in his most valuable republication of our national dictionary; a work which now deserves to be named after the editor, rather than the original compiler. It may also be added, that the word was in common use in the old Norman French, and was plainly intended to designate a slight degree of scurvy.
To pursue this subject a few steps farther, Jamieson, who is as excellent in points of etymology as Johnson is deficient, quotes, in his Scottish Dictionary, an instance where the identical expression, meselle-houses, is used in old English;
"...to meselle-houses of that same rond,
Thre thousand mark unto ther spense he fond."